HELEN BROOKS - The Bride's Secret

She couldn’t remember much now about the first few months, although she had survived somehow—living in a tiny bedsit and working as a waitress, her mind on automatic most of the time. Later she’d realised she had had some sort of mini-breakdown, but at the time she had just got through each day as it came, the blackness in her soul absolute.

The thing that had shocked her out of the stupor was seeing an old friend from her home village purely by chance, and learning in the middle of a crowded café that her mother and Michael were dead, killed in a car crash the day after they had returned to Scotland. It had been like a blow straight between the eyes.

She had grieved desperately for her mother, hated Michael with a vengeance that had shocked her, longed for Hudson with renewed intensity. But gradually, over the following weeks, she had come to the realisation that she was thinking and feeling and living again—even if the main element to it all was suffering. Agonising suffering.

‘Would you like me to hold your hand while you face the music?’

‘What?’ The dark, silky voice had intruded into the nightmare world with all the softness of cold steel, but as she came out of her reverie she saw her hotel looming up in the distance and a new sort of panic rose. ‘Oh, no, I don’t; of course I don’t,’ she snapped testily—hating him, loving him, feeling as though she couldn’t take much more without howling like a baby.

‘He might wonder why you didn’t phone him to tell him where you were,’ Hudson suggested quietly. ‘I wondered that myself. Why didn’t you?’ The grey eyes flashed her way for one vital second.

Because it simply hadn’t occurred to her, she thought helplessly. She hadn’t thought of Keith once, not once, through the evening; all her thoughts and emotions had been tied up with the tall, ruthless man at her side. ‘It wasn’t necessary,’ she said stiffly. ‘I don’t answer to Keith or anyone else.’

‘Hmm. independent, eh?’ he drawled easily. ‘Funny, I don’t remember you as quite so militant when you were with me.’

She wasn’t militant, she was melted jelly inside, Marianne thought with painful self-awareness; but the time had long since passed when she could have explained her actions to him. Perhaps if she had known about Michael’s death when it had happened—had gone to Hudson then and told him everything—things might have been different now. But then again Michael’s untimely death hadn’t negated any of her reasons for leaving Hudson. The contact with her would still have been there; the people Michael had been involved with could still have tried to discredit Hudson through her. Whichever way she had looked there had still been no solution.

When she had found out about the car crash she had contacted the family solicitor, and had been amazed to find Michael and her mother had left everything to her in a will they’d made when they had married. Michael’s wealth had been considerable, and she would never forget the absolute shock and amazement on the solicitor’s face when she had insisted on giving everything she had inherited to charity. But to her it had been blood money—tainted, unclean—and she had only been able to breathe freely again when every last penny had gone, even though part of it had been from her mother’s estate.

‘Here we are. And look who’s waiting like an anxious mother hen,’ Hudson said softly, and nastily, as the sports car growled to a stop outside the hotel and Hudson cut the powerful engine.

Marianne looked, and then felt a pang of deep and mortifying guilt as she saw Keith’s worried face—which was made all the worse by the knowledge that Hudson’s cruel analogy wasn’t far off beam.

‘I suppose a goodnight kiss is out of the question?’ Hudson drawled with mocking amusement, his good humour apparently restored at the sight of Keith practically dancing in agitation as he raced down the steps towards them.

‘You’re a rotten swine,’ she hissed furiously.

‘I know...’ His voice carried a wealth of satisfaction.

As Keith reached them and opened the passenger door Hudson left the driver’s seat to stand just outside the car, his brawny arms leaning on the top of the vehicle as he watched Marianne alight.

‘Where have you been?’ Keith’s voice was several octaves higher than normal, his round, boyish face flushed and perspiring. ‘I expected you to be here when I got back this afternoon, and then I thought you’d at least be back for dinner.’

‘I’m sorry—’ Marianne began quickly, but the tirade continued.

‘I’ve been worried to death, and none of the others knew where you were.’ He was ignoring Hudson as though the big figure watching them with such obvious satisfaction didn’t exist. ‘Couldn’t you have phoned or something? Just a few words to say where you were?’

‘It was my fault, I’m afraid.’ Hudson’s voice was like smooth cream, and even a babe in arms would have been able to tell he was enjoying every minute. ‘We... had dinner with some friends.’

How could he make the truth sound so much like a lie? Marianne thought savagely. He’d done that on purpose—that brief pause which had made what followed sound even more unlikely. Oh, she hated him!

‘Isn’t that so, Annie?’ He made the pet name take on soft and unbelievable connotations as he shifted his big body lazily, his eyes glittering in the muted light from the hotel.

‘Yes, yes, it is.’ Well, it was. “They...these friends of Hudson’s had prepared us a meal,‘ she continued helplessly as Keith drew back slightly, disbelief written all over his face. ‘It—it would have been rude...I—I couldn’t really leave,’ she stammered.

‘And they didn’t have a phone?’ Keith asked tightly.

Oh, she wished he’d leave this until they were alone and she could explain properly, Marianne thought desperately, vitally aware of the entertainment value the little tableau was affording Hudson. Couldn’t Keith see he was playing right into the other man’s hands? Apparently he could’t

‘Well? Did they have a phone?’ Keith repeated snappily.

‘I...I don’t know.’ She stared at him unhappily. ‘Can’t we discuss this inside?’ she suggested quietly. ‘Please. Keith?’

‘Yes, they have a phone.’ The deep voice spoke again from the other side of the car. ‘We just didn’t think of it, I’m afraid. Enjoying ourselves too much, I guess,’ Hudson added smoothly.

She’d hit him. She would—she’d hit him. Marianne took a deep breath and prayed for calm. ‘Keith, I really can explain—’

‘We are shooting at five tomorrow morning, Marianne, and I would appreciate you being in the lobby at half past four.’ Keith had drawn himself up to his full five feet nine inches, quivering hot outrage in every line of his pink face. ‘It is important we catch the dawn light, so don’t be late,’ he added sharply.

‘No, of course I won’t, but if I could just explain—’

‘Goodnight, Marianne.’ He strode back into the hotel without looking back, his back stiff and his head upright.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ She rounded on Hudson like a small virago. ‘I’ve never seen him like that. How could you?’

‘Easily; the man’s a fool,’ Hudson said drily. ‘Hasn’t he heard of the concept of fighting for what he wants? Or has everything dropped into his lap so readily he’s nothing more than spoonfed? Faint heart never won fair lady, and all that.’

‘You know nothing about Keith.’ She was angry, furiously angry, at his arrogance. ‘He’s a lovely man—gentle, good-natured—’

‘So is the average cocker spaniel,’ he returned coolly, and in her rage she didn’t notice how his mouth had thinned with her championship of the other man. ‘But the attributes that make a pet dog so worthy would soon pall in a lover, believe me.’