ANNE WEALE - The Bartered Bride

‘I’ve more or less finished. How are things with you?’

‘Fine, but I’ve just been talking to Mum and she sounds at the end of her tether. You don’t think she might crack up...have a real nervous breakdown, do you?’

‘She wouldn’t dare,’ Fran replied. ‘Imagine Gran’s reaction to anyone in her family going to pieces. She’d consider it letting the side down.’

But despite her cheerful response, intended to soothe Shelley’s anxiety, Fran wasn’t as sanguine as she . sounded. Her mother’s state of mind had been worrying her for some time.

‘Gran’s made of sterner stuff than Mum,’ said her sister. ‘You’re like her and so am I, up to a point. But Mum’s nothing like her. She takes after Grandad’s sister, the one who was jilted and never really recovered.’

‘Maybe...a bit. But Great-Aunt Rose wasn’t strong and Mum is. There’s nothing wrong with her physical health. She’ll be all right, Shelley. Just give her time to get over the shock of it all.’

‘I hope you’re right.’ Her sister didn’t sound convinced.

‘I live with her. I ought to know. In some strange way it may be harder for a woman to come to terms with the end of an unhappy marriage than to lose a husband she loved. Mum can’t look back and say to herself, “Well, I can’t complain because we had thirty great years which is more than lots of people do.” Her marriage was one of the duds.’

‘You could be right. Even though everyone else feels it was all Dad’s fault they didn’t get on, I think she blames herself...and I guess if she had been different, he would have been. Still, that’s all in the past. What worries me is her future. She’s never going to marry again, that’s for sure, and she isn’t equipped to stand on her own feet. Somehow, between us, we’re going to have to look after her... but how?’

This was ground they had already been over several times and Fran didn’t want to rehash it until she had made up her mind whether the solution offered by Reid was feasible.

By the following morning she had come to a decision. She rang Reid and told him.

‘Good,’ he said calmly. ‘We’d better have dinner together. I’ll pick you up at seven.’

It seemed a prosaic response, but then this was a practical down-to-earth union they were setting up.

Not knowing where he would take her, but assuming it would be somewhere fairly sophisticated, she wore a white silk-satin shirt and a narrow black wrap-over skirt. She cinched her waist with a wide belt and fixed large rhinestone stars in her ears.

Reid called for her in a taxi, wearing a Savile Row suit and conventional shirt with an unexpectedly flamboyant tie in wonderful Gauguinesque colours.

When she complimented him on it, he said, ‘Even bankers have to break out sometimes.’

The restaurant he had chosen for the occasion was on the south bank of the Thames but high above the river with a panoramic view of the buildings on the far bank through walls made of sheets of glass. The décor was modern and minimalist, very different from the period elegance of his house in Kensington, although of course she hadn’t seen his own part of it.

‘You’ve been here before, I expect?’ he said, as they sat down in leather tub chairs.

‘No, as it happens I haven’t.’ She hoped the chef wasn’t a minimalist. She had a heartier appetite than many of the people who patronised London’s smart restaurants and tension always made her hungrier.

They had come directly to the restaurant without stopping off in the bar.

‘Something to drink before dinner, sir?’ the wine waiter enquired.

‘Do you like champagne?’ Reid asked her.

Fran nodded. She didn’t like the cheap champagne sometimes served at weddings but she guessed that whatever he ordered would be the best.

‘Let’s make our decisions now, shall we?’

Reid was referring to the menu, but his choice of words reminded her of the momentous decision they were, if not exactly celebrating, at least ratifying. In theory she could back out right up to the moment of official commitment. But she knew she wasn’t going to do that. The die was already cast, her future as his wife settled.

The champagne came, a bottle of vintage Dom Pérignon.

‘Someone called this “psychological magic”,’ said Reid, raising his glass to her.

‘We could do with some,’ she said dryly.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘We don’t have the usual kind of magic.’ She nodded her head in the direction of a couple at another table gazing at each other as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

‘We can easily conjure some up.’ He reached for her free hand and lifted it to his lips, brushing them against the back of it and then turning it over and pressing his mouth to her palm.

Fran felt like snatching it back but managed to control the impulse and remove it from him with a semblance of graciousness. ‘I don’t think we should pretend anything we don’t feel.’ After a slight pause, she added, ‘At the same time I’d rather no one else knew that it’s a...a marriage of convenience. I know it would disturb my family if they realised it wasn’t a love match.’

‘In that case we’re going to have to put on a show of amorous feelings in front of them,’ said Reid, his expression sardonic.

‘Yes... up to a point,’ she acknowledged. ‘When will you make it public?’

‘Unfortunately I’m committed to going overseas, leaving tomorrow. I shan’t be back for ten days. When I am, we can meet each other’s families before putting a notice in The Times to let all our friends know.’

He gave her an unexpectedly charming smile. ‘I would rather not go away just now, but a lot of arrangements are in place and it would cause great inconvenience if I were to cancel the trip. I’m sorry about it.’

‘That’s all right. It will give me more time to get used to the idea.’

‘Or to change your mind.’

‘If I wasn’t certain, I wouldn’t be here,’ she said firmly. ‘Once I make up my mind, that’s it. I’m not a ditherer.’

‘Neither am I.’

She had half expected that he might produce an heirloom ring to seal their bond. But perhaps that rite came after he had presented her to his grandmother and possibly some of the aunts he had mentioned.

‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ she asked. Siblings hadn’t been mentioned in the file on him, although the report on her had referred to her sister and brother-in-law.

‘Unfortunately not,’ he said. ‘Tell me about your sister. Do you get on well with her?’

It wasn’t late when he took her back to the flat. Towards the end of dinner she had begun to wonder if he would expect to make love to her. She wasn’t ready for that. In the taxi, she braced herself for the awkwardness of refusing what he might now consider an entitlement.

But her apprehension proved unnecessary. He asked the driver to drop them off at the entrance to the gardens surrounding the flats, but told him to wait there. Then Reid walked her to her door, unlocked it for her and switched on the hall light.

‘Goodnight, Francesca.’

He kissed the corner of her mouth. For a fleeting moment she felt the hardness of his chin and the masculine texture of his cheek against her smoother skin.

Then he straightened. ‘Don’t forget to put the chain on.’

The day after her return home, when she was still debating how to broach the subject of her impending marriage, two things happened, both unexpected.

First, a large florist’s box arrived. Her mother was there when she opened it. ‘What gorgeous flowers. Who are they from, Fran?’

There was only one person they could be from. Fran read the card enclosed with them. In a clear and distinctive hand which it didn’t take a graphologist to recognise as the writing of a strong, perhaps overbearing personality, Reid had written, no doubt in the expectation that the card would be seen by others, I would rather be talking to you.