Lindsay Armstrong: A Bride For His Convenience

All she’d done was paper over it in the most flimsy way because one glimpse of him had sent her reeling.

He turned towards their table with two glasses but someone tapped him on the arm, a man in his fifties. Rob put the glasses back on the bar to shake his hand and greet him. They chatted for a few moments and the other man said something to make Rob laugh—and Caiti caught her breath.

There were times when you couldn’t doubt Rob Leicester was a tough, complicated man. There were other times, if you knew him well enough or thought you did, when he had a laid-back side to him that had enchanted her. Seeing him laugh, even only briefly, brought that side of him back to her in the most treacherous manner.

Her pulses started to hammer as her memories of him making love to her came flooding back in the most disturbing and intimate way. A tide of heat ran through her and the barren months were swept away as if he were actually kissing and caressing her body and she was writhing beneath the sweet torment of it.

He put two glasses of brandy on the table and pulled out his chair.

‘W-who was that?’ she asked disjointedly, anything to cover her disarray.

‘A friend of my father’s. Here,’ he pushed a glass towards her, ‘you certainly look as if you could do with it.’

She sipped some brandy gratefully, and coughed—it was neat, and made her eyes water but it helped.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I guess it was a bit of a shock, running into you like that.’ She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

He sat back and studied her. ‘I would have thought this part of the world would be a place to avoid if you didn’t want to run into me, Caiti.’

‘I’m only here for Marion’s wedding.’ She paused and thought back swiftly. ‘I don’t know if I told you about my cousin, Marion? She was overseas with her boyfriend on an extended working holiday when we…when we—’

‘You mentioned her in passing, that’s all.’

‘Oh. Well.’ She flicked him a brief glance. ‘We used to be very close—she actually came to live with us when her parents died—but she’s been overseas for ages. Now they’re back, she and Derek, and they’re getting married in a fortnight. I’m going to be a bridesmaid.’

‘I know.’

Caiti blinked. ‘What? I mean, how could you—?’

‘I know you’re going to be her bridesmaid.’

‘How on earth…?’ She broke off and stared at him.

His lips twisted. ‘I, for my sins, am the best man.’

‘You…know…Derek Handy?’ Her eyes were huge. ‘You know my cousin Marion?’

‘I have yet to meet Marion but I was at boarding-school with Derek for years.’

Caiti reached for her glass and took a solid sip of brandy. It went down like firewater again but this time it paralysed her vocal cords and she could only open and shut her mouth several times.

Rob Leicester looked amused. ‘You don’t feel I make good best-man material?’

‘No,’ she got out at last. ‘Well, I have no idea.’

‘Or,’ he gazed at her narrowly and continued softly but lethally, ‘you’re wondering how the hell this could have happened to you?’

Caiti breathed raggedly and could only be honest. ‘Yes.’

As he watched her, Rob Leicester was presented with a vivid mental picture of the last time he’d had her in his arms. Even in the short space of their relationship he’d discovered that you never knew quite what to expect from her, but one thing had never changed. Her slim, golden body, and all that gorgeous black hair. But it was her stunning lavender eyes, whether they were laughing at him or dreamy and content, that had tantalised him almost unbearably.

‘So you didn’t come back to Cairns to look me up at the same time?’ he suggested with an undertone of harshness.

‘Rob,’ she gestured, ‘perhaps, but only after the wedding.’

‘How thoughtful of you,’ he drawled.

She closed her eyes then her lashes flew up. ‘You said—for your sins, you were Derek’s best man. What did you mean?’

He shrugged. ‘As it happens, I don’t particularly see myself as good best-man material and I would have found some way of dodging it if it hadn’t been for Derek mentioning who the chief bridesmaid was—you.’

If only Marion had told me, she thought anguishedly. If only I’d thought to ask who the best man was! But how would that have helped? I could never have refused to be Marion’s bridesmaid…

‘As a matter of interest, where have you been over the last eighteen months, Caiti?’ he queried. ‘I spent a small fortune trying to find you, even going so far as to make enquiries in New Caledonia.’

Caiti flinched. Her French mother came from New Caledonia and, not long before she’d met Rob, her parents had separated unexpectedly, her mother returning to her home country. She’d been deeply disturbed by their separation; she adored both her parents. It had often occurred to her that because of it, she’d been much more vulnerable to being swept off her feet by Rob…

‘Uh—my mother reverted to her maiden name,’ she said, and avoided the rest of the question. ‘How is your brother, Steve?’

‘He’s fine now but it was a long convalescence.’

‘So…so you’re back at Camp Ondine?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve just flown in from Cooktown.’

‘Rob—’

‘Caiti,’ he interrupted, ‘let’s not beat about the bush or indulge in any further mindless pleasantries.’ The look he tossed her was laced with pitiless irony. ‘You married me then ran away two days later. Shouldn’t we be discussing that?’

She put a hand to her mouth. ‘You know why.’

‘I—’ But he broke off as a call came over the loudspeaker system for Miss Caitlin Galloway to proceed to the information desk.

‘That must be a message from Marion,’ Caiti said. ‘She must have been held up.’

He got up. ‘I’ll go.’

Two minutes later he was back and he handed her a slip of paper. On it was printed the news that Marion had been involved in a minor traffic accident—she was not hurt, but couldn’t leave the scene until the police arrived; and would Caiti please take a taxi from the airport to Marion’s home…the key was in the same place.

‘Look,’ she let the paper flutter to the table, ‘Marion has no idea, I haven’t seen her in two years…’ She broke off abruptly, then, ‘Does Derek know?’

‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I thought I’d await your wisdom on the subject.’

Her throat worked. ‘I can’t just spring it on Marion,’ she said urgently. ‘She’ll be horrified.’

‘Possibly,’ he agreed sardonically.

‘You should have dodged it,’ she accused.

He linked his long, strong fingers. ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

‘No,’ Caiti denied, ‘it’s not! Anyone could see that it has to cast a shadow over their wedding. Not only that but you’re not related to Derek as I am to Marion and you just said you don’t see yourself as—’

‘By the same token,’ he broke in impatiently, ‘anyone could see there is unfinished business between us, Caiti, so—’

‘There needn’t be,’ she said intensely. ‘You could have instituted divorce proceedings through my solicitor, as I wrote and told you just after I left.’

‘Your solicitor,’ he repeated drily. ‘Did you honestly think I would be happy only to communicate with you through your solicitor?’

She swallowed. ‘Be that as it may, I don’t know what to think now.’ She put her hands delicately to her temples.

Rob Leicester watched her closely again. If the truth were known, her Gallic gestures, passed on by her French mother no doubt, had always fascinated him. She used her hands a lot. And he’d always been able to tell when she was disturbed, not only from her hands but also by the way a pulse disturbed the deliciously smooth skin at the base of her slender throat. It was beating rapidly now…