Lee Wilkinson - From Mistresses To Wives?

Which was more than her parents were going to do. They’d both of them expressed themselves delighted for her, but each found pressing reasons why they couldn’t possibly attend the wedding. Something of a relief, Jessica had to admit. The two of them together would hardly have enhanced the weekend. She could just imagine Henry Prescott’s reaction to their constant wrangling.

Zac’s mother had returned to her family in Scotland on his father’s death. Jessica had spoken to her on the phone, and found her pleasant enough on the surface, though there had been more than a hint of underlying doubt concerning the marriage itself. Hardly surprising, considering the suddenness of it. She would be travelling down today too by train.

As Zac hadn’t mentioned anyone else, it seemed safe to assume it would be just the five of them at church. With no one of her own attending, Jessica was glad about that. Less stressful for Henry Prescott too.

‘Do you think your grandmother was being quite truthful last night when she said your grandfather was just the same?’ she ventured.

‘Probably not,’ Zac admitted. ‘She sounded evasive. No reason to let the blues take over though. He wouldn’t appreciate it.’

Recalling the old man’s attitude, Jessica could only agree. The way to treat him was as though nothing at all was wrong.

They reached the house just after six. Esther came out to greet them, her manner subdued.

‘Your mother’s been delayed. She’ll be coming down overnight,’ she said. ‘But Brady and Sarah will be here for dinner. I’m sorry your parents weren’t able to make it,’ she added to Jessica.

Jessica murmured something appropriate, aware that as Zac had expressed no surprise over the news that his cousin and wife were expected, he must have known they were coming. He could at least have warned her!

Henry Prescott looked no different physically from when they had last seen him. He greeted the two of them benevolently.

‘You’ll be wanting to get yourselves settled,’ he said. ‘We can talk later.’

They were to occupy the same rooms as before. Jessica confronted Zac in his.

‘Why didn’t you tell me the whole family was going to be here?’ she demanded.

‘It didn’t occur to me,’ he returned mildly. ‘What’s the problem, anyway? You had to meet them sometime.’

He had a point, Jessica had to admit. And she probably should have anticipated it. She spread her hands in a rueful gesture. ‘I know that. It’s just…’

‘Just that you’ve no one of your own coming,’ he finished for her as she paused. ‘Those parents of yours should be ashamed of themselves. Your mother, at least, might have stirred herself!’

Jessica kept her tone matter-of-fact. ‘She had something else already arranged. Anyway, it isn’t really that. More the thought of facing your family en masse .’

‘Five people hardly constitute a mass. Anyway, you’ll cope. You handled Grandfather pretty well.’ He put out a hand, his smile an invitation. ‘Come here a minute.’

She went willingly, meeting the kiss with an ardour she couldn’t withhold. Zac ran his hands down her back to bring her up closer against him, his arousal as instant as hers. He made a rueful gesture of his own when he reluctantly let her go.

‘Not the time, and definitely not the place, I’m afraid.’ Grey eyes looked deep into green, expression soft. ‘You never fail me.’

‘Tell me that after next weekend,’ she answered huskily.

They went downstairs again after changing for the evening, to find the others already arrived. Zac performed introductions with easy assurance. With only a few months between them, the cousins were close enough in looks to be taken for brothers. It was only around the mouth that they differed to any degree. Brady’s lacked any sign of humour in its set.

Blonde and pretty, Sarah Prescott was quite a bit younger than Jessica had somehow anticipated. No more than twenty-two, she guessed. Judging from the bulge swelling her slender form, the pregnancy was already well advanced.

‘You’re certainly not wasting any time!’ remarked Brady with what Jessica considered a dire lack of sensitivity in his grandfather’s hearing. ‘I understand the two of you have only known one another a few weeks?’

‘That’s right,’ Zac confirmed. ‘I saw and was conquered! The best thing that ever happened to me!’

‘We’re not married yet,’ Jessica quipped, responding to the hint of tongue-in-cheek. ‘I may turn out to be a real termagant once I have that ring on my finger!’

‘Up to Zac to put you in your place if you do,’ declared the patriarch of the family. ‘No Prescott worthy of the name allows his womenfolk to rule the roost!’

Not about to cause him any upset, Jessica adopted a meeker tone. ‘I’ll certainly bear that in mind.’

Sarah made a sound suspiciously like a giggle, turning it into a cough as Brady looked her way with a frown. ‘Bit of a tickle,’ she claimed.

Not quite the mild little thing she’d appeared to be on first sight, Jessica suspected, catching the hint of laughter in the blue eyes.

The lack of rapport between the cousins became more than evident as the evening progressed. Apart from the physical similarities, they had little in common. If Henry noted the discord, he paid it no attention. He seemed distracted, Jessica thought, glancing his way from time to time. She hoped it wasn’t a sign of strain.

By tacit consent, they none of them lingered beyond his hour of retirement at ten.

‘Thank goodness that’s over!’ Jessica exclaimed softly on the way upstairs.

‘There’s my mother to meet, and the wedding to get through before we’re done,’ Zac rejoined.

‘You make it sound like a trial!’ she said with an attempt at humour.

Zac laughed. ‘With a life sentence at the end of it!’

‘Hardly compulsory in this day and age.’

They had reached her bedroom door. He paused, looking at her with quizzical expression. ‘You don’t see the marriage lasting?’

Jessica kept her tone light. ‘Who can ever tell?’ She pressed a kiss to his lips before he could form an answer, and left him standing there.

Inside the room with the door closed against him, she stood for a moment to collect her thoughts. So Zac saw the wedding as something to be got through: a lot of men probably felt the same about the actual ceremony. The difference being the reason for having the ceremony at all. Without some depth of emotion behind it, from both sides, what real chance was there of the marriage lasting?

There was a little comfort in retiring to bed alone after the past two nights of unrestricted love-making. No way was Zac going to risk upsetting his grandmother by coming to her room, of course, but she hoped he was suffering the same degree of frustration.

It wasn’t just the sex she was missing though, she acknowledged. She’d grown used to his being there when she woke in the night: to feeling the weight of his arm about her waist, hearing his steady breathing. Paul had never held her like that, even at the start. If she were honest with herself, the disillusionment had begun long before she found him in bed with Sally that night.

If she were honest with herself, came the rider, she would also admit that her feelings for Zac already went a piece deeper than she tried making out. Deeper than his for her at present, almost certainly. At least as his wife she would be batting from an inside position, so to speak.

WITH the wedding set for three in the afternoon, it wasn’t deemed necessary to bring breakfast forward from its usual nine o’clock slot. It was supposedly bad luck for the bridegroom to see the bride prior to the ceremony on the day, Jessica recalled, but there wasn’t really much choice when they were both staying in the same place.