ANNE WEALE - The Bartered Bride

‘I told her I’d met someone interesting...someone I might be seeing more of. Thank you for all the flowers and cards.’

‘My pleasure...but isn’t a verbal thank-you rather formal from a wife-to-be to her future husband? Wouldn’t a kiss be more appropriate?’

She was wearing an old pair of deck shoes. Rising on her toes, with her palms on his chest for balance, she lifted her lips to his cheek.

‘Still too formal,’ said Reid. An arm went round her, drawing her firmly against him in a light but close chest-to-breast, thigh-to-thigh contact. His other hand circled her neck, the pad of his thumb tilting the base of her chin.

Just being in his arms was enough to make her heart pound. There could be no glancing away from his searching gaze. The only way not to meet his eyes was to close her own, and she didn’t want to do that. It might convey the wrong message.

‘Why are you nervous?’ he asked. ‘I’m not going to bite you. Not yet. That’s for later, when we know each other much better...and even then they’ll be very gentle bites. You’ll like them...and so shall I.’

He had lowered his voice to a deeper, more intimate tone and the look in his eyes was so different from the coldness of his first appraisal the day she had gone to the bank that she found it hard to believe this was the same man.

He was making love to her, she realised. Using his voice to caress her and make her respond. He was obviously very experienced. How would he react when he found out that she wasn’t? That kissing was as far as she had gone, because everything else she had been willing to wait for until she could share it with Julian.

Julian. Somehow her memory of him wasn’t as sharp as it had been. Once every detail of his face had been as clear in her mind’s eye as the features of the man looking down at her. But that was beginning to change. She still felt pain when she thought of him. But not as intensely, and not while Reid was holding her and sending little shivers through her.

‘I didn’t think you’d be back till the weekend,’ she murmured, postponing the moment when he would bend his head.

‘The original plan was to spend it with an American banker and his family. When I explained the circumstances they let me take a rain check.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That’d I’d just become engaged and wanted to get back to you.’

‘But now you say you can’t even stay the night.’

‘My grandmother’s expecting me to meet her at the airport. She’s been staying in the south of France with my senior aunt. They’re both coming over to meet you. Why don’t you come down by train some time tomorrow? Then the following day I’ll bring you back in the car. We might call on your sister en route...get all the introductions over and done with.’

‘How did your grandmother take it? Wasn’t she very surprised?’

‘She was delighted. She’s been urging me to marry for years.’

Before Fran could ask another question, he swooped like a hawk and kissed her, not, this time, on the corner of her mouth but full on the lips.

Compared with some of the slobbery, tongue-thrusting goodnight kisses she had experienced at parties and on several first-and-last dates, Reid’s kiss was restrained and gentle. Yet it had more effect than any of the hungry, heavy-breathing kisses.

There had been a few times when men had kissed her nicely, but never as nicely as this. It was actually a succession of mini-kisses, each one a soft momentary pressure in a fractionally different place, sometimes more on her upper lip and sometimes more on her lower. The effect was startlingly enjoyable.

By the time he stopped, instinct was urging her to slide her arms round his neck. As she opened her eyes, Fran saw that he was smiling.

For a few seconds she thought he was going to kiss her again, this time with less restraint. Instead he released her and stepped back, causing a twinge of disappointment and making her wonder if he hadn’t found the experience as pleasant as she had.

‘You’ve been out with the dogs, I hear. What sort of dogs?’

‘A Labrador and a whippet. They were my sister’s until she got married. She and John were living in a minuscule cottage, both working flat out to raise money to set up the nursery, so the dogs were an encumbrance. It was better for them to stay here. It’s where they’ve always lived. When I go, Janie will walk them. She likes them and they like her.’

‘Janie?’

‘Our “treasure”’—wiggling her forefingers. ‘The person who opened the door to you.’

‘Does she live in?’

‘Yes, she’s been with us for years.’

‘How will your mother cope with life on her own when you leave home?’

‘It won’t bother her. She’s a naturally solitary person. It was having to leave the garden that was wrecking her. Her plants are her closest companions. She talks to them.’

‘My other grandmother does that. It sounds as if she and your mother have a lot in common,’ said Reid. He looked at his watch. ‘I must go if I’m going to be at the airport on time.’

‘It was a long way to come for such a short stay... especially when you must be tired from your trip.’

But he didn’t look jet-lagged, she thought. He had the air of someone who has just come back from a holiday on a high of energy and vitality.

Fran went with him to the car where, having unlocked it, he took off the coat of his suit and tossed it in the back. Then he took off his tie, a more conservative choice than the one he had worn when they dined together.

‘I thought I’d better look respectable when I came to ask for your hand,’ he said, rolling the tie round his fingers, his mouth straight but his eyes amused.

‘How ought I to dress to make a good impression on your family?’ Fran asked.

He looked at the sweatshirt, jeans and deck shoes she had put on to walk the dogs.

‘From what I’ve seen so far, you have an impeccable dress sense. Wear whatever seems appropriate.’

He put the tie in the car and unbuttoned the neckband of what, from the way it fitted the extra-broad span of his shoulders, had to be a made-to-measure shirt. With the collar open, exposing the base of his throat, he looked younger and less formidable.

‘By the way, I hope you don’t want an elaborate wedding. They take too long to organise. Also it seems to be one of Murphy’s laws that the more elaborate the wedding, the less chance there is of the couple making a go of it. I’m thinking of most of the weddings I’ve been to over the last ten years...and I’ve been to a lot.’

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.