Lee Wilkinson - The Bejewelled Bride

‘Well, surely he’d help if you asked him?’

Michael’s laugh was bitter. ‘You have to be joking! The last time I was forced to ask him for extra cash, he grudgingly paid off my debts. But when I asked him for a bigger allowance, he said it was high time I got a job.

‘I pointed out I hadn’t been trained for anything.’ Miael sighed and went on, ‘He offered me a position in his Los Angeles branch. I’m sure the climate would be great, but who in his right senses wants to be tied to an office five days out of seven?

‘My only hope is that amongst the rest of my grandmother’s antiques there’s something really valuable…I suppose you wouldn’t be prepared to take a quick look and advise me?’

‘Of course. When would you—?’

‘Tonight,’ he broke in eagerly. ‘We can call in there on the way back to your flat…’

Bethany’s heart sank. Tired and headachy, it was the last thing she wanted to do, but feeling she owed it to him, she agreed, ‘All right.’

Having signalled the waiter, he paid the bill, collected their coats and hurried her out to the waiting car.

In spite of the traffic, in a matter of minutes they were drawing up outside his grandmother’s elegant porticoed townhouse in Lanervic Square.

Michael let them in and, closing the door behind them, switched off the alarm.

As he led the way across the spacious hall to a vast and silent living room, Bethany began to realize why he had described the place as a mausoleum.

At first glance all the furniture appeared to be antique, and there were several glass-fronted display cabinets crowded with Chinese pottery and porcelain.

Staggered by the sheer amount of stuff, she stared at it in silence.

After a minute or so, Michael asked eagerly, ‘Do you think there’ll be something I can raise a good amount on?’

‘Almost certainly. How many pieces do you want to part with?’

‘One…Two, at the most. Otherwise it might be—’ He broke off abruptly.

‘Examining even a few pieces is going to take time and care,’ Bethany said, ‘so it would make more sense to come back tomorrow.’

He took her hand. ‘I’ve a much better idea…Why don’t you stay the night?’

Before she could refuse, he had pulled her close and was kissing her with an ardour that just for a second or two swamped her, then she tried to draw away. But his arms were wrapped tightly around her and he was so much stronger than she had imagined.

She was gathering herself to struggle in earnest, when all at once she was free and Michael, his startled face an unbecoming brick-red, was goggling at something behind her.

Turning to follow the direction of his gaze, she saw that there was a tall fair-haired man with wide shoulders lounging in the doorway.

Feeling as if she’d walked slap into a plate glass window, she found herself staring at Joel.

Michael was the first to break the silence with a stammered, ‘H-hell…you startled me.’

‘So I see,’ Joel said smoothly.

With a hint of bravado, Michael asked, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I could ask you the same question.’ A bite to his tone, Joel added, ‘Only the answer seems obvious. Unless I have the wrong end of the stick?’

All the colour draining from his face, Michael stammered, ‘Well I—I just brought Bethany in to…to…see where I used to live.’

Joel glanced at her as if he’d never met her before in his life and, his little smile contemptuous, drawled, ‘Really?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?’ Michael blustered. ‘In any case we were just on the point of leaving.’

‘Then I’ll say goodnight to you both.’

Throughout the little exchange, shocked and stunned, incapable of coherent thought, Bethany had stood there, transfixed, her wide eyes on Joel’s face.

Now she found herself hurried out of the house and across the pavement to the red Porsche as if the hounds of hell were baying at their heels.

‘That’s blown it!’ Michael exclaimed as he slid behind the wheel and started the car. ‘He must have overheard everything. What rotten luck for him to walk in just at that minute.’

While Bethany was still fumbling to fasten her seatbelt, they set off with a whoosh that threw her back in her seat.

‘Was that…?’ Her voice failed. She swallowed hard and tried again. ‘Was that your stepbrother?’

‘Yes, for my sins. And now you see what I mean?’ he went on as he joined the traffic stream. ‘See what a swine he is?

‘He’s always been an arrogant bastard, but now he holds the purse-strings he thinks he rules the world and other places.

‘Well, at the moment he might have the whip hand. But one of these days I’ll be my own master. I won’t have to kowtow to him any longer…’

During the silence that followed, Bethany made an attempt to gather herself and come to terms with the almost unbelievable.

It seemed so strange, so bizarre, that Joel was Michael’s stepbrother. She felt as if fate was playing the jester. Mocking her. Making fun of her. Having a game at her expense.

Meeting him again out of the blue like that had shaken her to the core. But what had disturbed her even more was the way he had looked at her. As if she’d crawled from under a stone. As if he held her in contempt.

Obviously he had heard Michael asking her to stay the night and presumed they were already lovers. After what had happened in the Lakes, he must have thought her immoral. A woman who had no principles, who would sleep with a man she knew nothing about, a man she had only just met.

If he’d respected her at all, he wouldn’t have left the next morning without a single word.

It was the old double standard. Yet somehow it still held sway.

Her unhappy thoughts were interrupted when the car drew up outside her flat.

Michael got out and accompanied her across the pavement. When she paused at the top of the area steps, he asked, ‘Can I come in?’

It was the last thing she wanted. She felt much too churned up. Too agitated.

She was about to make some excuse when he added, ‘God, do I need a brandy!’

As a rule, when he was driving he made a point of not drinking but, glancing at his face in the glow from the street lamp, she could see that he really did need something to steady him.

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