Angela Devine - Substitute Bride

Laura gave a ferocious snarl of laughter.

‘Be serious! You’re four inches taller, twenty pounds lighter and six years younger than I am, and you have an empty space between your ears whereas I have a brain. Or I used to think I had!’

‘I don’t know why you’re telling me to keep my voice down,’ said Bea plaintively. ‘Laura, just keep it going a bit longer. Please, please? Only until the air strike is over. Then I swear I’ll come down and confess it all to him myself. After all, I’m the one to blame, aren’t I? And if you tell him now he’ll shout at you, instead of me. You know how you hate people shouting.’

Laura opened her mouth to argue, then gritted her teeth. Why not do exactly what Bea suggested? Let her get herself out of her hare-brained schemes for once, instead of expecting Laura to rush around setting things right for her! It would serve her right.

But that’s not fair to James, protested a small voice inside her. Defiantly, Laura pushed down the niggling doubt. Let James take care of himself! He looked tough enough to cope if the truth came out. Besides, after the arrogant, unjust prejudice he had shown towards Bea, he deserved whatever he got! And if he had been mentally undressing Laura, he deserved to be taken down a peg or two.

Her next words surprised her just as much as they did her sister. ‘All right. But you’re going to owe me for this, Bea.’

She had little time to regret her rash decision, for as soon as she emerged with the telephone James instructed the real estate agent to lock up the house and hustled Laura into his gleaming silver Mercedes, which was parked outside. As the car purred north he cast her a keen sideways glance.

‘How did you like the house?’ he asked.

‘It’s lovely!’

‘You think you’ll be happy to live there, then?’

She flushed crimson at the unwelcome reminder that she wouldn’t be the one living there in any case. This was going to be a dangerous conversation. She would have to remember that she was supposed to be Bea, with all of Bea’s very different attitudes, although perhaps without quite so much of her sister’s flamboyance.

‘Yes, I’m sure I will,’ she said in a subdued voice.

‘You’re not going to miss the fast-track life in Sydney too much?’

Laura hung her head and paused before answering. Privately she had worried about the same thing herself. Bea was such a pleasure-loving creature, always going out to parties and discos. It had come as a complete shock when she had fallen for the silent, rugged Sam Fraser, who was more at home on the back of a horse than on a dance-floor. But Laura had no doubts about the depths of her sister’s attachment.

‘I’ll have Sam to help me.’

James’s mouth tightened.

‘Where did you meet Sam?’

‘On a country property near Tamworth. He was working as a stockman there and I…I was modelling some country clothes for a photographic shoot.’

Laura held her breath, wondering whether the truth was going to come out this very moment. Surely a single glance would be enough to convince James that she wasn’t tall enough or thin enough or young enough or gorgeous enough to be a fashion model? But James seemed to have no trouble at all in accepting her in that role. Perhaps it was because she had taken the precaution of wearing Bea’s appalling striped cardigan over her own tan knitted trouser suit. She had also left her long dark hair hanging loose around her shoulders and made up her face with far more lipstick and eyeshadow than she normally used. The whole effect made her feel like a different woman—swashbuckling, assertive and decidedly reckless. Was this how Bea felt all the time?

‘How long ago did you meet?’

‘Six months.’

‘Six months? That’s not long to decide that you want to be married.’

Laura’s eyes flashed.

‘It was long enough for me.’ She thought of Sam and tried to immerse herself in the feeling she knew Bea had for him, but it was no use. All Sam could ever be to her was a kind of pleasant younger brother. Perhaps the knowledge showed in her face, for she heard her voice waver unconvincingly. ‘I’m in love with him.’

‘Are you indeed?’ James’s eyebrows rose sceptically. ‘Well, perhaps. But love on its own seems a rather inadequate basis for a marriage.’

There was a definite sneer in his tone now, and Laura’s fighting instincts were roused.

‘I don’t agree with you,’ she snapped. ‘I think it’s the most important basis there is.’

‘And did you get that impression from your own family?’

She could feel her whole body tensing, as if she were a wounded animal readying itself for fight or flight, as the memories of her own unsatisfactory family came crowding back to her. How much had Sam told this hateful man about it? He must have told him something, surely? In vain she struggled to keep her voice steady.

‘No, I didn’t get it from my family. I don’t know how much Sam has told you, but I don’t have any family to speak of. Only a sister. Our parents were migrants and they split up when we were small. My mother died of cancer when I was el…five, and my father never came back. We spent most of our childhood in foster homes.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said curtly.

‘So am I.’

Maybe he was genuinely sorry, but to her defensive ears something in his voice sounded disdainful, as if her background was exactly what he’d expected. Not her fault, perhaps, but nothing to be proud of either. She was shocked by the blaze of rage that filled her. How dared he sit there, making these smug judgements about her…or Bea? Well, it served him right that they were making a fool of him!

Ordinarily she would have felt guilty and embarrassed about taking part in such a brazen deception, but James seemed to bring out the worst in her, revealing a side of her character that she had never dreamed existed. Reckless, defiant and totally deceitful. All the same, the old, familiar Laura was probably lurking somewhere in the background, all ready to give the game away by stammering and contradicting herself. Perhaps it was best to avoid conversation as much as possible?

Not wanting to be interrogated any further, she gave an exaggerated yawn and rubbed her left hand over her eyes.

‘Look, if you don’t mind, I might try and get some sleep; it’s been a long day.’

‘Of course. We still have a three-hour drive ahead of us, so that’s a sensible idea.’

Through the fringe of her half-closed eyelashes, Laura saw James glance at her assessingly from time to time. Yet, in spite of the way a self-conscious flush was mounting to her cheeks, she somehow managed to keep her breathing quiet and regular. Would he discover how she had tricked him? Would he be furious when he did? Somehow the prospect of seeing James Fraser absolutely wild with rage sent a tremor of sensation through her limbs that was closer to excitement than apprehension.

Would he shout and storm around the room, grab her by the shoulders and thrust his face close to hers as he demanded an explanation? She imagined how it would feel to have those tough, masculine hands seizing her urgently and that hawk-like face so close to hers that she could see the network of tiny lines around his eyes and the way his white, even teeth gritted together…

She swallowed hard and tried to remember what Sam had told her about his uncle, but it didn’t amount to much. Sam was a naturally taciturn person, and in any case Laura had not had the faintest idea that the information would ever prove important to her.

Vaguely she had the impression that Sam’s family had settled in the colony of Van Diemen’s Land in the very early days and that they had old money derived from the farming of merino sheep and the ownership of a woollen mill in Hobart. But about James himself she knew tantalisingly little. Only that he had taught Sam to ride and fish and had been an unsparing taskmaster when his nephew had worked on his property for two years as a stockman.