Читать книгу The Spaniard's Blackmailed Bride - Trish Morey - Страница 7

‘WHAT’S taking you so long?’ asked Carolyn Davenport, bustling with excitement as she swept into Briar’s room, holding her turquoise gown’s ample skirts up high and trailing a silky layered train in her wake. ‘It’s just fabulous downstairs,’ she announced. ‘Everyone’s here. Even with the short notice, I think the whole of Sydney society has turned out.’

Only out of morbid curiosity, thought Briar cynically as she applied the finishing touches to her make-up. No matter what story Diablo’s spin doctors had concocted to release to the press, there wasn’t a chance anyone believed theirs was a love match.

Anyone, that was, apart from her mother.

Carolyn Davenport had taken the news of the impending nuptials like the true society doyenne she was, swinging into mother-of-the-bride mode as if she was born to it. Any hint that she’d known about a link between her daughter’s rushed marriage and the fact that now suddenly they had servants again, with the funds to pay for them and much more besides, like her brand new Lisa Ho gown, for example, seemed to have been conveniently deleted from her memory. Her mother seemed all too ready to believe in the whole sorry fairy tale.

‘Fairy tale romance’, my eye, Briar thought, reflecting on the latest headline as she snapped the blusher compact closed. But even the business pages hadn’t been immune to the press bombardment.

‘Marriage Merger’ had been their angle—‘a blending of new money with old, the brash success of the young entrepreneur merged with the proven track record of the establishment’.

How the papers would lap it up if she came clean with her own version of the headline—‘Blackmail Bride—sold to save her family from financial ruin’. But that story would never come out, no matter how true.

‘You could do with more colour than that,’ her mother protested, as Briar dropped the blusher back into a drawer. ‘You look so pale tonight—I knew we should have got your make-up done professionally. Are you feeling nervous?’

‘Not really.’ Feeling sick, more like it. Briar looked briefly back in the mirror to check—even against the white silk of her simple toga-inspired gown she looked pale—but then, what make-up was going to be a match for her mood? There was only so much you could do with powder and paint.

‘Never mind,’ her mother said, when it was clear her daughter was going to make no attempt to redress the issue. ‘I’m sure a glass of champagne will soon put some colour in your cheeks.’

Briar’s stomach clamped down in rebellion. Champagne was the last thing she needed. After all, tonight was hardly a celebration.

‘Come on, then,’ her mother urged. ‘Diablo’s waiting for you downstairs. Just wait till you see him; he looks so dashing tonight.’

‘That’s nice,’ she responded absently, slipping her feet into heels. Who cared what he looked like? He could be the most handsome man in the world, but it would still be the devil in disguise waiting for her. And frankly, he could just keep on waiting. Just because she’d agreed to marry him didn’t mean that she’d be dancing to his tune any time soon.

She’d done a lot of thinking over the last two weeks and she’d worked out her own musical score for this marriage. Diablo craved respectability and an entrée to Sydney society. He didn’t care about her and he almost certainly didn’t even like her. Given that the feeling was mutual, it shouldn’t take much to convince him that the best way to make this marriage work was for them both to lead separate lives. At least until he tired of her and agreed to a divorce. That way life might be bearable. She could put up with a year or two of inconvenience if she knew that at the other side of it she’d be free.

‘Oh, hasn’t Carlos done such a wonderful job with your hair?’ her mother exclaimed with delight. ‘It suits that gown perfectly. Although I still don’t understand why you wanted to wear that old thing. It is a special occasion, after all.’

Not that special. And this ‘old thing’ was barely twelve months old and only worn once as it was. But still, she turned and smiled at her mother’s never-ending enthusiasm. Someone had to be enthusiastic about this wedding and who better than her mother? Already she looked so much better than she had just two short weeks ago when this crazy marriage plan had been unleashed, her features less drawn, her frown vanquished. It wasn’t just that their financial situation had taken a turn for the better, she knew, but because her mother genuinely seemed to want this marriage to work out.

‘I’m just saving my splurge for the big event,’ she told her, with a passion she didn’t feel, taking her mother’s arm and pulling her in close. ‘Come on, let’s go meet these guests.’

The champagne flowed so freely it seemed the huge ballroom was awash with it. Champagne, old money and the celebrity A-List blended together in the Blaxlea ballroom, which fairly gleamed since the team of cleaners Diablo had organised to go over the place had done their bit. Huge arrangements of flowers were doubled in the enormous mirrors, their colours reflected in the crystal chandeliers, while a full wall of feature windows welcomed in the diamond lights of Sydney Harbour at night.

It was some place all right and it could have been his outright—indeed it had been, for just one night. But he was happy with his deal—they could keep the title to the house. Tonight he would gain himself something much more important than just bricks and mortar and a few hundred feet of prime Sydney Harbour frontage. Tonight he’d cement his place and his future with the society that had resisted him for so long.

Already he could sense the change in the way he was perceived, by the constant string of congratulations he’d received from people who would have crossed the street to avoid him in the past, as he stood alongside Cameron Davenport waiting for the ladies to appear. In marrying Briar there was no way they could ignore his hold on the Sydney property industry any more. Now he had the Davenport seal of approval. Now there would be no stopping him.

How fortunate that a man so unskilled in the ways of his business should have had such a suitable daughter. For there was no one he’d rather cement his future with than Briar Davenport. She would make the perfect wife. The bonus was she would also make a pleasant bed-warmer. Siring children with her would be no hardship.

There was a stir amongst the crowd before everyone hushed and his eyes drifted upwards to where the two women stood at the top of the stairs, the older woman in plumage peacock-bold, the daughter so deathly pale as to render any other mere mortal invisible.

But not Briar. Her skin might be pale but her eyes shone like dream stones, amber and intense. And the dress might be colourless but it could not disguise the exquisitely feminine form beneath. A tiny waist that only accentuated the lushness of her breasts and hips, and legs that went forever and then some.

Briar. Like the rose that grew wild, spreading branches rambling, soon she would be clambering all over him. Already he could feel those long limbs wrapped around him, clinging to him, supported by him. Already he could hear her crying out, begging him for release. His body stirred in anticipation as the women slowly descended the wide staircase.

Oh, no, siring children with her would be no hardship at all.

The women reached the foot of the stairs. Carolyn took her husband’s arm. Diablo held out his hand for Briar and for the first time she looked at him.

Something jolted through her as their eyes connected, a prelude for the bolt of electricity that was unleashed when their hands touched. His dark eyes narrowed and regarded her strangely.

‘You look beautiful,’ he said. ‘Like a virgin sacrifice about to be tossed to the lions.’

How appropriate, she thought, though hardly willing to buy into that particular discussion. ‘And you,’ she replied, ‘look like the proverbial cat that got the cream.’

He drew her hand closer, pressing his mouth, warm and moist, to her skin while his eyes held hers. ‘Not yet; so far I only have the unopened package. But, I must confess, I’m looking forward to opening it up and then—’ his eyes narrowed and focused like dark torchlight ‘—and then sampling the treasure within.’

She dragged in air and turned her head away, suddenly too uncomfortable, too giddy, too hot. She didn’t need a mirror to tell her that there was plenty of colour in her cheeks now. Diablo’s words had achieved in an instant what the finest cosmetics in the world had failed to do.

Yet it wasn’t just his words heating her body. Her mother hadn’t been exaggerating. Tonight he looked magnificent in clothes that would have made a lesser man look ridiculous and yet on Diablo merely accentuated his masculine power. A snow-white shirt contrasted with his smooth olive skin and black fitted trousers that finished above hand-stitched leather boots. Over it all he wore a long black jacket with a Nehru collar that emphasized his long, lean length. With his hair tied back, all he needed was a gold hoop in his earlobe and he could have been a pirate out on the town celebrating his latest conquest.

And, if that wasn’t enough, just breathing the same air, laced with the heady tang of his aftershave, was like getting a shot of testosterone.

And damn him but somehow that scent was like a lure, snagging on her defences, tangling with her resistance. Purposefully she stiffened her spine. She would not be attracted to such a man. It couldn’t happen.

Someone—her father—made a toast and the room erupted into applause and congratulations. Briar made out not a word of it as she scanned the crowded ballroom without taking in a thing. She was too busy working out what to do next. They would have to talk—privately—and soon. Diablo had to be made to see under what terms she was prepared to marry him and that those terms in no way included him sampling anything!

‘Darling? Briar?’

It was hearing her name that brought her back and she turned to him, ready to protest that she was hardly his darling, but something in his eyes stopped her in her tracks.

‘Didn’t you hear the guests? They’re waiting for us to seal our betrothal with a kiss.’

And, before she could protest this latest indignity, that there was no way she would kiss him, least of all in front of two hundred people, his mouth was on hers and any protest was muffled, melted, by the sheer impact of his lips.

They were soft, she realised with surprise—soft but sure. He looked so powerful dressed as he was all in black, hard and unyielding, and yet his lips moved over hers with an elegance of movement and a grace that was as surprising as it was intoxicating.

Heat rolled through her in waves, a surging tide of warmth that crashed and foamed into her extremities and set her flesh to tingling and her protests all but forgotten. The room shrank around them until there was just this kiss, these sensations, this mouth, weaving magic on hers.

And then he lifted his mouth from hers and sounds and colour and people invaded her numbed senses once more. She blinked as the crowd cheered; she blinked as her state of daze sloughed away; she blinked as Diablo smiled back at her, success lining that passionate slash of mouth, as she realised what she’d done.

Dear God! She’d let Diablo Barrentes kiss her, in public. And his expression told her he was gloating about it. She lifted one hand, touched the back of it to lips that still hummed from his touch, but he stilled the movement, pulling her hand down within his.

‘You don’t wipe me away that easily.’

She didn’t doubt it, her mouth still full of the taste of him.

‘We have to talk,’ she croaked as her parents were absorbed into a circle of guests and a buzz of conversation went up all around them. ‘Tonight. In private.’

The spark in his eyes flared, one dark eyebrow lifted in surprise. ‘I did not expect you to be so accommodating quite so readily.’

Already rattled by his kiss, she was in no mood for his easy confidence.

‘We have to talk! We need to set down some ground rules for this arrangement.’

He took two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray, handing her one. ‘Oh? That sounds very important.’ He took a bored sip of his wine that told her he thought it sounded anything but. ‘In that case we will talk. But later.’ He took her free hand, surrounding it in his warmth, and headed into the ballroom. ‘First the happy couple must mingle with our guests seeing they’ve come especially to wish us well.’

‘You mean they’ve come to knit at my execution. They’re nothing but ghouls, wanting to witness the ultimate degradation of one of their own.’

He stopped dead and lowered his head to hers, his body close, his voice a clipped whisper in her ear. ‘You had a choice. You did not have to agree to this.’

‘I had no choice, and you know it. You left me without any choice at all.’

‘Wrong,’ he hit back. ‘You could have walked away from me and—’ he swept his champagne-bearing hand around the room ‘—and all of this.’

‘I couldn’t—’

‘No! You could have, but you didn’t—for whatever reasons you had, you chose not to! And, having made your decision, I expect you to live with it. Now, I suggest we meet some of our guests.’

It was many hours and many more cases of champagne later that the party wound down, leaving only a few of Cameron’s colleagues, who seemed all too content to settle in for brandy and cigars in the library. Carolyn had excused herself an hour ago, pleading too much excitement, and Briar sympathised.

It had seemed an endless night, moving on from one group of people to the next, filling the time with the same small talk, trying to instil the right measure of excitement into her voice. She could see the doubts, she could see the cynical way half the attendees accepted the marriage, the questions they asked, aimed to find any chink in the story, seeking out the truth they knew was there if they just dug in the right place.

She could even see the looks of envy that were fired her way from women who obviously thought Diablo was some kind of catch. Just because he hadn’t been embraced by Sydney society didn’t mean there wasn’t a queue of women lining up to be photographed on his arm.

Diablo had carried himself through the night like a consummate professional, letting his answers trip from his tongue—their attraction had surprised them both but now they couldn’t wait to be married, and the icing on the cake was his father-in-law-to-be’s sudden change in fortunes.

And all the while he’d bluffed his way through the potential minefield of the evening, he’d never let her stray more than inches away, his arm proprietorialy looped over her shoulders or around her waist, or just reaching out to stroke her arm, or tuck a strand of hair away from her face. Briar, on the other hand, had smiled through gritted teeth at the pointed questions and gentle caresses and wished the whole evening over. After what felt like an eternity, thankfully, it nearly was.

‘Now, you wanted to talk.’

They had just bid farewell to the last of the departing guests at the front door. She shook her head, revelling in being able to put some distance between them at last. At last the pretence was over. But the strain of deflecting their barbed queries coupled with Diablo’s constant presence at her side had left her with such a thundering tension headache that all she wanted to do now was to go to bed. The last thing she wanted to face was an all too revealing statement of how she saw their marriage working.

‘It can wait,’ she conceded, rubbing her temples. ‘I’m just glad this farce of an evening is over.’

But Diablo was talking to a passing waiter and she didn’t think he’d heard her.

‘Why do you call it that?’ he said, turning back to her a moment later and proving her assumption wrong. ‘Our engagement is no farce, nor will our marriage be.’

‘You know it’s a farce! And having to pretend that this relationship is anything other than the business transaction it is, it’s just impossible.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You think this marriage is merely a business transaction?’

‘Isn’t it? It’s hardly a love match.’

He ushered her into a small sitting room opposite the ballroom just as the waiter returned, bearing a tray with two glasses, one a tumbler of what looked like Scotch, the other a tall frosty glass, its contents sparkling. He lifted them both from the tray and held out the tall glass as the waiter exited, closing the door behind them.

‘What is it?’ she said, not taking it.

‘Drink it. It’s an old Spanish headache remedy. It will make you feel better.’

Briar eyed the glass suspiciously. There was no telling what ingredients might go into making an ‘old Spanish headache remedy’. ‘And you care how I feel? I don’t think so.’

He shrugged, still holding the glass even as he took a sip from his own. ‘You would rather keep your headache?’

She murmured her thanks as she took the glass, aware she was being churlish, wondering at his ability to rub her up the wrong way. She sniffed tentatively at the glass, took a sip and, with surprise, instantly recognised the slightly bitter taste of paracetamol. ‘Old Spanish headache remedy’ indeed. She lifted her eyes to meet his and found them creased at the edges, a smirk tugging at his mouth.

He was laughing at her.

‘Now,’ he continued, ‘let’s stop wasting time. Tell me about these “ground rules” you’re so keen on implementing.’

‘Do we have to do this now?’ she protested, after finishing the contents of her glass. She wasn’t up to going ten rounds with anyone right now—let alone with Diablo. ‘It’s late. Can’t it wait?’

‘No. We will be married in two weeks and for much of that time I have business overseas. If you want anything incorporated into our pre-nuptial agreement, then you best tell me now.’

His cold words broke over her like a rogue wave, catching her unawares, tumbling her into the sandy depths. ‘What pre-nuptial agreement?’

‘Oh, come, come.’ He swept away her protest with one potent hand. ‘Surely you didn’t expect we would be married without one? As you say, ours is hardly a love match.’

For a moment she bristled at his ready agreement with her summation. Only then common sense prevailed. If his terms for this marriage could be in writing, so too could hers. Two could play at that game.

‘Of course, you’re right,’ she conceded, feeling a surge of confidence. ‘A pre-nuptial agreement would be for the best. Then we both know where we stand.’

He downed the rest of his drink in one mouthful and she watched as he swirled the smooth liquor around his mouth and kick back his jaw as he sent it southwards. And through it all his eyes smouldered, never shifting from her, as if weighing her up, evaluating her.

‘Sí, exactly. So tell me, Briar, where do you stand? What terms would you like included in the arrangement that outlines our future life together?’

‘You mean our marriage together,’ she corrected.

He smiled in a way that made her shiver. ‘I said what I meant. Now it’s your turn.’

She swung around and laced her fingers together, taking a couple of breaths before she was ready to face that bottomless dark gaze once more. She could feel her colour rising again and gave thanks for the low lighting. What she had to say was difficult enough without one hundred watts to illuminate it. ‘It’s really quite simple,’ she began, turning. ‘As you agreed, this marriage is hardly a love match. And, in that case, I think it’s sensible that we understand what we bring to the marriage—in your case, it’s money. In mine, it’s my family connections.’

She hesitated. Diablo’s body language as he sprawled into one of the wing-chairs and looked up at her was not giving anything away.

‘You think all you have to offer is your family connections?’

‘Isn’t that the reason you came up with this plan?’

He said nothing. Just surveyed her some more. In apparently excruciating detail. Her skin bristled with irritation under his deep-seated gaze, her senses fusing.

‘Go on,’ he urged at last, without bothering to answer her question.

‘So I’ve come up with a plan as to how we’re going to work this out. Clearly, we have no choice now but to go ahead with this marriage but, equally clearly, it’s obvious that neither of us is completely happy about the arrangement.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says both of us! We’re both doing this out of necessity, nothing more. And, like the performance I put on tonight, I want you to know that I’m prepared to put on a public face after we’re married that says we’re man and wife.’

‘How accommodating of you.’

‘Well, I understand how important this is to you—and to me and my family. I’ll do my best to make it work, to give a convincing performance as your wife.’

‘And in private?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You talked about how things would be in public. I’m wondering what you have in mind for our private life, when nobody else is watching.’

The heat continued to build under her skin. Of course, he wasn’t about to make this easy for her. She stiffened her back, kicking up her chin resolutely. ‘Then we live our lives separately, just as we have until entering this sham of a marriage. In public I agree to play your wife, even your adoring wife on the occasions that demand it. Out of the public eye we will lead separate lives. If you want this marriage of convenience to satisfy your need for connections, then so you shall have it, but you can’t expect anything more.’

His only response was a blink of his eyes, slow and loaded. Then he leaned forward.

‘And just how separate a life do you expect to lead while you occupy my bed?’

She snorted, outraged at the idea. ‘That’s just it. I won’t be. Given your track record, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding yourself someone who is more willing in that department. All that I ask is that you be discreet about it.’

He brushed aside her slur with a shake of his head. ‘You haven’t thought this through.’

‘Of course I have…’

‘No. Clearly you have missed something. For how are you to bear my children if you won’t at least share my bed? Or are you merely suggesting a much kinkier way of getting pregnant?’

The heat under her skin flared into a sizzle, spreading its warming tentacles out to her furthest regions. He wanted her pregnant? He wanted her to bear his children? But that would mean making love with him!

Making love with Diablo. What would that be like? All olive skin and lean muscled limbs, control and power and heat. She shivered.

‘In your dreams!’

Because there must be no children to complicate this marriage, no fallout for when they divorced, as she’d already decided they would.

His smile started and ended at his lips, his eyes refusing to get involved. ‘So you know about my dreams? How convenient. Because soon I won’t just have you in my dreams. Soon I will have you underneath me, in my bed—or out of it, as you clearly seem to be advocating.’

She battled with shredded senses to regain some kind of foothold in this argument. But she was slipping, losing grip. She was supposed to be stating her terms. When had this become a discussion about where the act of sex itself would take place?

‘Why do you try to twist everything I say? I’m trying to be reasonable here.’

‘And you think it’s not reasonable for a wife to bear her husband his child?’

‘In normal circumstances, certainly. But this marriage is in no way normal. You know as well as I do that this arrangement is no more than a contrivance, to pay off my father’s debts and to make you look better in the world.’

He paused, his eyes narrowing. ‘If you say so. But think how much better I will look with a wife and a clutch of children. They will be half Davenports after all, socially acceptable, born into the same society that tried to keep me out for so long. Because I’m not operating under any misapprehensions—tonight I was accepted because you were on my arm. But people don’t change their colours so quickly. If anything were to happen between you and me, if our marriage was to end acrimoniously without children, I have no doubt the door to Sydney high society would soon be slammed in my face once again. And I have no intention of that happening. Children are what I want and children are what you will give me.’

‘So that’s why you want me—as some kind of brood mare, to bear your devil’s spawn.’

The corners of his mouth curved up. ‘Are you so disappointed it’s not for your sweet nature?’

She fumed with irritation. ‘You can’t make me sleep with you.’

He was out of his chair and before her in an instant, his stance dangerous, confronting. He reached out to her and his attitude suddenly softened. He touched fingertips to her cheek, trailing down below her chin and raising it closer. His other hand slipped around her neck.

‘No,’ he whispered, so close to her face she was sure he must hear the slam of her blood in her veins. ‘But maybe I can convince you.’

She could hardly breathe, let alone respond, as his fingers stirred into a slow caress at her neck that left her dizzy and swaying on her heels, her headache all but forgotten under his searing touch on her bare skin. She gasped in air, his face so close that the taste of him filled her senses, and memories of those lips and a stolen kiss resurfaced into a solid, shocking need for a replay.

‘You’re trembling,’ he said.

‘I…I’m cold,’ she lied.

He drew her closer, pressing his lips first to one cheek and then the other before drawing back.

‘I think,’ he whispered, ‘it could be fun warming you up, convincing you that making love would not be such a bad thing between us.’

She pressed her eyes shut, but behind closed lids she could still see him, larger than life, supremely confident, could still feel the sensual dance of his fingers against the bare flesh of her back.

‘And if you’re not enough for me?’ she gasped breathlessly, looking up in challenge, desperate for any kind of defence against this slow, sensual onslaught. He answered by gathering her full length against him and shock rendered her speechless. Through their clothes, she could feel his power pulsing, straining, waiting to be unleashed.

Unleashed inside her!

It wasn’t just shock that kept her from protesting. It was fascination she felt, a desire to explore more of these new sensations, a yearning for something forbidden, something carnal that this man promised, that held her mute.

‘Oh,’ he murmured, tugging on one diamond stud in her ear with his teeth, ‘I will be more than enough.’

And then he let her go so swiftly she almost collapsed to the ground. She spun away, panting and dizzy, not doubting him, the throb of her pulse echoing in newly awakened flesh, already aching and ready and lush.

‘So,’ he said so calmly that it was as if the last few minutes had never happened. ‘Now that we’ve settled that, if you have no further suggestions for inclusions into our pre-nuptial agreement…?’ He hesitated a moment or two. ‘No? Then I’ll see you at the wedding.’

She was still catching her breath, her heart still thudding, as he turned and swept from the room, his long coat swinging in his wake like a cape. Her skin still tingled from his touch, her senses still humming.

So much for her resolve to keep separate lives. How long would it take him to ‘convince’ her that her place was in his bed? She clutched her arms about her as she remembered the feel of his lean body pressed against hers and the way her own body had responded. Probably no more than five minutes based on what had just transpired.

Damn the man! But it didn’t have to be the end. So it wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped—she’d just have to change her plans accordingly.

He might think he’d won that round, but there was still one hell of a battle to come.

It wasn’t over yet!