SUSANNE MCCARTHY - Forsaking All Others

Maddy smiled; that was what she had always wanted—to be part of a family, to belong. And, though she knew that Jeremy’s family hadn’t approved of the speed with which it had all happened, now that they were married and they saw how happy Jeremy was they would surely come round to accepting her.

They were all gathering around her—Saskia’s parents, and her brother Nigel, who was married to Jeremy’s elder sister Julia—kissing her and wishing her well. Even Julia managed some sort of smile, and a dry peck on her cheek, though it seemed to cost her dear; Maddy responded to her as warmly as she could—that was a relationship she was going to have to work very hard at.

And then Leo was there, slanting his cousin a teasing glance. “Do you mind if I kiss the bride?” he asked, an inflection of something Maddy couldn’t quite interpret in his voice.

“Of course,” Jeremy responded cheerfully. “Best man’s privilege.”

Maddy stiffened, every nerve-fibre in her body stretched taut as Leo turned to her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders as he drew her towards him. A faintly mocking smile glinted in those agate eyes. “Jeremy’s a very lucky man to have such a beautiful bride,” he murmured. “No wonder he was in such a hurry to tie the knot.”

“Th—thank you,” she stammered, hoping he wouldn’t detect the agitated racing of her heartbeat.

He bent his head and his mouth brushed over hers, warm and firm, just as she had known it would be. Her heart creased in pain; she wasn’t supposed to feel like this—she wasn’t allowed to. Longing to have him hold her close, she drew back quickly, her cheeks deeply tinged with pink, her eyes unable to meet his.

Fortunately no one seemed to have noticed anything untoward—Julia’s small son Aubrey, frustrated at not being the centre of attention, had chosen that moment to throw a minor tantrum, and Jeremy was enjoying a bridegroom’s liberties with the chief bridesmaid, who was giggling as he kissed her.

With a supreme effort of will, she pulled herself together. It was just the excitement of the day, the crazy rush of it all, she told herself firmly—it really wasn’t surprising that she hardly knew if she was on her head or her heels. But she would be very careful from now on not to let Leo get too close—she wasn’t sure quite what it was about him that had such a disturbing effect on her, but she wanted no repetition of it.

Even so, it was a strain to get through the rest of the day—smiling for endless photographs, standing beside Jeremy at the entrance to the huge marquee that had been erected in the garden of his house, greeting an endless line of guests, most of whom she had never even seen before. She sensed that they were all looking down their noses at her, convinced that Jeremy had married beneath him; she was grateful to Saskia for being there, conspicuously loyal, telling everyone that they had been at school together.

Then there was the lavish wedding-breakfast, and the speeches, and then everything was swiftly cleared away so that the guests could dance to the music of a local band. As the afternoon wore on into evening Maddy began to develop a splitting headache; the marquee was hot and stuffy, and she was desperate for a breath of fresh air. Jeremy was dancing with one of his aunts, and no one noticed as she slipped quietly away.

The gardens of Hadley Park were beautiful—a little neglected in places, with trails of bright blue periwinkle growing wild among the flowerbeds, and honeysuckle scrambling all along the broken stone parapet that ran around the terrace at the back of the house, its sweet fragrance filling the air. The sky had turned a soft dark blue, streaked with high magenta clouds as the sun sank below the horizon.

Wandering into a secluded corner, she found a wooden pergola, covered with climbing roses. There was a rustic seat inside and she sat down wearily, closing her eyes. Her mind was a turmoil of confusion; had she been wrong to marry Jeremy? She had genuinely believed she was in love with him, and yet…Maybe she had let herself be swept up by his ebullient personality, feeling for the first time in her life that she was on the inside of one of those charmed circles she had always envied—and maybe she had mistaken gratitude for love…

A sound close by brought her eyes sharply open—as Leo stepped into the pergola. Startled, she jumped to her feet—and gave a little cry of horror as the puffed sleeve of her dress caught on a stray rose-thorn. “Oh…damn and blast it!” she muttered fiercely under her breath, twisting around as she tried to free herself.

“Hold still,” he advised in that dry, sardonic tone. “If you keep pulling at it like that you’ll rip it.”

Her heart gave an uncomfortable thud and began to race rapidly as he leaned close to her and carefully disentangled the delicate silk from the thorn. “Th—thank you,” she managed, hoping he wouldn’t notice the slight tremor in her voice. “I…just came out for a few minutes—I couldn’t breathe in there.”

“I wondered what you were doing out here all by yourself,” he remarked. “Beginning to pall already, is it?”

She glanced up at him in surprise, taken aback by the hard glint in those agate eyes. “I’m sorry?” she queried, frowning.

“I wonder if you will be?” he mused, deliberately misunderstanding. “Unfortunately I’m inclined to think it’s my impetuous young cousin who’ll be the one to be sorry. You know what they say—’Marry in haste, repent at leisure’. And you certainly married in haste.”

She glared up at him in indignant fury. “Yes, we did,” she retorted defensively. “But so what? Jeremy loves me.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt of that,” Leo drawled, an inflexion of mocking cynicism in his voice. “He’s written to me more in the past two months than he ever has in his life—every letter singing your praises. But I’m left in some doubt about you.” His eyes flickered down over her in icy contempt. “Some of my more naive relatives seem to think you’ve trapped him into matrimony by getting pregnant, but I think they’ve underestimated your subtlety.”

“I…I don’t know what you mean,” she protested, bewildered.

“Don’t you?” His smile was hard, not reaching his eyes. “Strange—I’m sure you’re a very clever girl. Clever enough to know that getting pregnant would have been exceedingly risky—besotted as he is, there’d be no guarantee that Jeremy would do the decent thing. So you played an even more old-fashioned trick; and very effectively, too—particularly with someone like Jeremy, who is regrettably not very good at being patient when he wants something. I just hope you feel the prize is worth the effort.”

“Of course I do!” Anger lent her voice a note of conviction it might otherwise have lacked. “I…love Jeremy—very much.”

He lifted one dark eyebrow a fraction of an inch—but it spoke volumes. “Well, there’s some reassurance in that, I suppose,” he conceded coolly. “Though whether it will stand the test of time—and harsh reality—remains to be seen.”

“Why shouldn’t it?” she demanded, her voice ragged.

He lifted his wide shoulders in a cynical shrug. “Well, for one thing there’s the matter of Jerry’s income. No doubt he’s given you the impression that there are money-trees growing here in the garden, but I’m afraid you’ll find that the true picture isn’t quite so rosy. Oh, there’ll be more than enough to keep you in a reasonable degree of comfort, given a little practical economy. Unfortunately he’s far too young to have any sense of responsibility.”

“Maybe that’s the way you see it,” she countered caustically. “But you could be wrong, you know—maybe he’s got more sense than you give him credit for.”