The Last-Minute Marriage

CHAPTER FIVE

MARCUS was running late. Once he’d got back to his office there were a thousand things that needed to be sorted. To leave for Australia at this short notice seemed impossible.

But Ruby had been there before him, making the impossible somehow inevitable. Every one of his staff seemed intent on pushing him out of the place!

So somehow he’d done it. He’d pushed himself to the limit, but even Robert’s skilled driving hadn’t been able to get him across town right on time.

He was ten minutes late…

‘I hope your bride hasn’t beaten you,’ Robert said, and when Marcus glanced at his chauffeur’s face in the rear-view mirror he found he was grinning.

‘Just how many people know I’m getting married this afternoon?’ he demanded, and Robert chuckled.

‘I’m thinking just about the whole world. The phone in the outer office has been running hot. I gather you haven’t been exactly quiet with your wedding plans.’

No. No, he hadn’t.

What would happen if there were photographers there? he thought suddenly. What if the press had heard about it? He hoped to heaven that Ruby had been able to persuade Peta to buy a dress.

Something pretty.

Peta stood in the outer office of the Justice’s offices and felt absurd. But strangely…good. Light. Free.

Ruby had been right. It had been the best fun. They’d gone to the biggest bridal emporium in New York and when Ruby had explained that it was a rush job, that the wedding was this afternoon, that Peta was marrying Marcus Benson and that money was no object, they’d fallen over themselves to help.

And Peta, who’d lived in a nightmare for so long, had simply acquiesced. Or more than acquiesced, she admitted. She’d tried on one exquisite creation after another. The dress they chose was, in the end, comparatively simple-deceptively so. Of magnificent ivory silk, it had tiny shoestring shoulder-straps and a scooped sweetheart neckline. It looked as if it had been made for her. It clung like a second skin to her tiny waist and then floated out in diaphanous folds, falling softly to her ankles.

She’d stood before the mirror and Ruby had gazed at her, her eyes had misted and she’d breathed, ‘Yes!’

The thing had been decided.

They’d found her strappy white sandals, and an urgently called beautician had threaded white ribbons through her auburn hair and applied make-up. Just a little. ‘With that tan and that complexion you need to cover nothing. Oh, my dear, you look so beautiful.’

And she did. The Peta who stared back at herself from the long mirror in the bridal parlour seemed unrecognisable.

Then, at Peta’s insistence, the bridal team had turned their attention to Ruby because, ‘If I’m doing this, then so are you!’ Protesting but laughing, Ruby had allowed herself to be talked into a pale blue suit of the finest shantung. The sales-girls had found the dearest little hat and matching shoes; the beautician had decided there was time to give Ruby’s curls the most modish of cuts, and Ruby had ended up almost as dazed as Peta.

The team in the bridal parlour had arranged a car to bring them here-a white limousine!-they’d organised white orchids, and at the last minute they’d thrust champagne glasses into their hands and they’d poured champagne for themselves as the limousine departed towards their date with Marcus.

‘And I bet they put that on Marcus’s bill,’ Ruby whispered. They sipped their champagne; they looked at themselves in stunned awe-and then they did what any sane, mature women would have done in the same position.

They giggled.

On arrival, they’d learned that Marcus wasn’t there yet but Darrell was-Marcus’s sergeant. He’d done them proud as well, dressed in full military regalia, looking so gorgeous that Peta hardly noticed the scars on his burned face.

‘I’m real happy for you,’ Darrell told her. ‘Marcus deserves someone to make him happy. He was so damned good to me…’

He broke off, choked, and Peta knew how he felt.

She was pretty choked herself.

‘You’re sure he’ll come?’ she whispered to Ruby and Ruby gave a smile that said she was as nervous as Peta. The giggles had disappeared.

‘I surely hope so. Or you’re just going to have to marry Darrell.’

Great. Peta glanced nervously out the window at the street. There were a cluster of photographers in the doorway-obviously waiting for someone important. They’d been here when she arrived. They’d ignored Peta-there’d been three brides arrive since Peta had-but they were obviously intent on someone else.

‘This is crazy,’ Peta whispered. She looked down at her beautiful bouquet of white orchids and she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. ‘The whole thing… It’s a crazy dream. I can’t…’

But then she paused. A car she recognised pulled up out the front. Robert emerged, and then Marcus.

Marcus, looking impossibly handsome. Marcus in a dark suit with, for heaven’s sake, a tiny white orchid twisted in his lapel.

Her…husband?

It was all she could do not to turn and run. Run for her life. But Ruby was taking her arm and beaming as if she’d won the lottery, and Darrell was between Peta and the door and there was nothing to do but wait. Wait until he’d run the gamut of photographers.

Wait until he reached his bride.

The door opened and he saw her.

For a moment he thought he must be in the wrong place. He’d been expecting a bureaucrat’s office. An official behind the desk. Peta in some sort of more respectable outfit that Ruby had persuaded her to buy.

Instead…

Instead he had a bride.

He froze. For one awful moment he was transported back to the nightmare of his childhood. To the glitz and glitter of his mother’s dreadful weddings.

But the momentary impression was just that. Momentary. This was no nightmare. This was Peta. She’d been speaking to Ruby but she turned as he entered and she looked up at him.

She smiled.

Until this minute he’d thought that all white weddings were a nightmare. All his life he’d remembered the gaudy, tinselly creations his mother had worn and he’d felt ill.

But this was different. It had to be. Peta’s dress was simple but breathtakingly beautiful.

Peta was beautiful. Her smile widened. Her eyes locked with his.

And in that instant something inside Marcus that he’d hardly known existed shattered and evaporated as if it had never been. The thought that nothing or no one could ever move him.

He’d never thought any woman could be so lovely.

Maybe she wasn’t lovely in the way that the tabloids described loveliness, he thought, dazed. Her hair was still a mop of tousled curls-no amount of brushing could hide that. Her nose was snub and she had freckles from a lifetime in the sun. But her dress… Her dress clung to her perfect figure in a soft cloud of white silk. The white ribbons through her beautiful hair were more beautiful than any veil.

No. It wasn’t her dress. It wasn’t the bride thing. It was her eyes…her smile…the way she looked at him, half apologetic, half daring, wanting him to share this moment, wanting him to laugh, to smile, to simply share her pleasure.

She was smiling and smiling, and it was enough to make his heart lurch. Marcus Benson’s heart. Immutable. Untouchable.

She’d ditched her crutches and she looked…perfect.

No. How could she be perfect? Perfection was an illusion. It was crazy. Concentrate on something other than that smile.

Peta’s wasn’t the only smile. Ruby was there as well-a Ruby he hardly recognised, in a soft blue suit that made her look…well, softer somehow. As if that awful shell she’d built around her had somehow cracked.

Ruby had spoken of a man and a child in her past, but Ruby had worked for him for years and had said nothing before about her private life. How on earth had the advent of Peta into their lives allowed her to lift herself out of her past?

Because that was what had happened. Ruby was smiling from Marcus and back to Peta and the look she directed at Peta was one of pure pride.

And then there was Darrell. How had Darrell got to know about this? Darrell was normally a dour, middle-aged man to whom life had not been kind. His wife had left him during the agonies of skin grafts; he was still deeply traumatised by the events in the Gulf and the ex-serviceman had little to smile about. But now… Now Darrell was dressed in full military regalia and he, too, was smiling, as if this was a true wedding-a true happy ever after.

Which it wasn’t. The idea was ridiculous.

Totally ridiculous.

But Peta was still smiling at him and, as he walked towards her, she slipped her hand in his arm and held it as if he was already hers. It was a purely proprietorial gesture.

It should have made him run a mile.

But there were three people smiling at him-four, if you counted the man behind the desk. And outside was the press. The world was waiting to see if he could make this commitment.

It wasn’t a commitment, he told himself, and there was more than a trace of desperation in his inner monologue. It was a piece of paper. Nothing more.

He should hold himself stiffly. He shouldn’t smile. He should get this over with fast and move on.

But not to smile would be stupid. Maybe it’d even be cruel when everyone else was waiting.

He stared at Peta once more and it was too much. The corners of his mouth curved. His eyes lit. He smiled…

He smiled just for her.

He took her hand in his-firmly, with no hesitation in the world. And they turned to the man who was waiting to marry them. They made their vows.

Man and wife.

‘I now pronounce you man and wife…’

For two weeks?

They’d forgotten Charles.

Ruby had organised his invitation but no one had thought of him again. But as the official words faded and Marcus stared down at his bride, stunned by the enormity of what had just happened, the door burst open and in walked Peta’s cousin.

To say he was angry would be an understatement. The man was nearly apoplectic. Charles stood in the doorway, his eyes almost starting from their sockets. His expensive three-piece suit denoted him as an executive, but the uncontrolled fury on his face was more that of a petty criminal. A thug. When Peta turned to see who it was, he lunged straight at her.

He would have hit her. He’d hit her before. Marcus saw that at a glance. He saw Peta flinch and he saw her body brace.

This man had lived with Peta, he thought grimly. There’d been enough violence in Marcus’s past for him to recognise the pattern.

There’d also been enough violence in Marcus’s past for him to react, and to react fast. In one swift movement, Peta was thrust behind him, and his body was protecting her from her cousin’s angry rush.

‘You little…’ Charles moved sideways as if to grab her but Marcus was faster. He had him by the shoulders, holding him in a grip of steel.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

‘That…slut!’ Charles was beyond logic. He’d come here at a run; he was out of breath and he was out of control. He shoved against Marcus’s hold but he was going nowhere.

Foiled, he was forced to explain. To try to voice his fury.

‘I got to the office after lunch to receive this.’ He hauled back from Marcus’s grasp and pulled the invitation from his top pocket. ‘This! I don’t know how she conned you-’

‘No one conned me.’ Marcus’s voice was flint-hard, cold as ice.

‘She must have. That slut, that-’

‘Stop. Right now. You’re talking about my wife!’

Wife.

The word acted like a wall of ice water. Charles flinched. And stared.

‘It’s not possible. Peta… Your wife? Why would you want to marry her?’

Somehow Marcus managed to hold himself in check. Just. ‘You’re being offensive.’

‘It’s she who’s being offensive,’ Charles spat. ‘She’s just doing this to rob me of what rightfully belongs to me. The farm’s mine. I went to all the trouble to drag the old lady back here-’

Enough.

‘Get out.’ Marcus turned to the official who was standing, mouth agape, staring in stunned amazement. ‘Do you have security guards in the building?’

‘I was invited,’ Charles hissed.

‘The invitation is rescinded.’

‘So’s your marriage. Marriage? This marriage is a mockery. It’s illegal. You can’t just marry her and walk away with my property. I’ll have it annulled.’

‘I have no intention of marrying Peta and walking away,’ Marcus said, deliberately misunderstanding him. ‘I’m taking Peta back to Australia.’ Then, as Peta pushed her way out from behind him, Marcus put his arm around her and pulled her in to him. They stood arm in arm. Man and wife.

‘I’m taking Peta home,’ he said gently, his eyes on Charles’s face. ‘In all honour.’

‘You’ve never… You’ll never…’

‘I am. Get used to it.’ He looked across at Darrell. ‘Darrell, if there aren’t security guards to deal with this…’-he said the word this as if it referred to some lower form of pond scum-‘then could you help me evict him?’

‘With pleasure,’ Darrell told him.

‘I’ll help,’ Ruby added.

‘Hey, me, too,’ Peta put in. ‘He’s my cousin. I should get to slug him.’

‘Brides don’t slug,’ Marcus told her and she managed a smile. Albeit a shaky one.

‘Not?’

‘Definitely not.’

‘Rats.’

‘You have something else to do,’ Ruby reminded her. ‘Something important.’ Marcus’s assistant glanced at Charles as if he was of no significance at all. ‘If you’ve quite finished?’

‘I haven’t.’ Charles backed to the door as Darrell took a measured step towards him. ‘You’ll hear from my lawyers.’

‘I hope they have better party manners than you do,’ Marcus told him. Then he deliberately turned away from the man and faced Ruby. ‘What has my bride forgotten to do?’

My bride… It sounded strange. It was a declaration of intention-a declaration that, come what may, Charles’s lawyers couldn’t hurt her.

It was a gesture of pure protection and, as he made it, Marcus thought, whoa, where am I going? But he couldn’t unsay it. He couldn’t unfeel it.

He looked down into her face and, as Darrell slammed the door behind her obnoxious cousin, he could see that she was as confused as he was. He was offering protection, but to Peta protection seemed an unknown sensation. She’d fought her own battles, he thought, and somehow, he knew her battles had been just as hard as his own.

The knowledge intensified the sensation. It made him feel even more at sea. More…helpless?

This was an illusion, he told himself. The way he felt about her. The way he held her, pulling her in to his body. It was a façade put on to convince Charles that here was a real marriage.

But Charles had gone now. There was no one here they had to fool, yet Marcus was still holding her and there was no way he was releasing her. No way!

‘What’s she forgotten to do?’ Marcus asked again, and it was Ruby who pulled them all together, Ruby who collected herself. She looked to the official who was still standing in astonishment that the wedding could be so rudely interrupted. But this was a senior official who’d obviously overseen some very strange marriages in his time. He rose to the occasion as a good official should.

‘Can we continue?’ Ruby prodded, and the man stopped staring at the closed door and managed a smile.

‘Right. Where was I? Goodness me. I know. I now pronounce you man and wife.’ He took a deep breath and beamed at the pair of them, from Marcus to Peta and back again. The interruption might have been strange and unsettling, but standing before him were a couple whose body language said they belonged. Someone else may have tried to ruin this occasion but Henry Richard Waterhouse, officiating for the City of New York, was here to marry these people and marry them he would.

‘That’s it, folks,’ he said. He closed his book. ‘Except for the last bit. The best bit. My favourite part of the day. And here it comes.’ His beam widened. ‘You may now kiss the bride.’

No.

The word rose unbidden. No. But he didn’t say it. Somehow he managed to cut it off. Somehow…

Marcus stared down at Peta and, for heaven’s sake, he saw panic there. It was the same panic he felt himself.

They were staring at each other, stunned, as if neither could believe it had come to this. That this wild planning had suddenly landed them in this place, where there was nothing to do but for Marcus to lift his hand, to tilt her chin, for his eyes to lock with hers.

And for his mouth to lower on to hers.

He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t…

He lied. He wanted to do it more than anything in the world.

And it was only a kiss, he told himself fiercely. It meant no more than their signatures on a piece of paper.

It was only a kiss.

But then his lips touched hers and it was much, much more.

His world changed, right there.

It was as if some sort of short circuit had shut down his brain. Cool, calm Marcus Benson who did nothing without thinking it out, whose world was a series of well planned, carefully orchestrated moves, who never let himself be shifted outside his zone of complete control…

Suddenly he was no longer in control. No. He hadn’t been in control since he’d met her, he thought desperately, but he was much more out of control now. His lips met his bride’s, and the electricity surging between them felt as if it could slam him into the far wall.

But only if she came, too, he thought, stunned, because there was no way he was letting her go.

He’d put his hands on her waist to draw her close to him-just a little-not to pull him hard in against her. But the warmth of her body was suddenly a fierce, molten link. The fire that surged in that link between them was unbelievable. His hands felt as though they belonged exactly where they were. They were forged into position. As if they’d found their home.

And her mouth… His mouth…

She tasted…

She tasted of Peta, he thought, with the tiny part of his brain that was left available to do any analysis at all. She tasted of nothing he had ever experienced before. She was so soft and yielding, and yet there was such strength.

He could taste the woman of her. He could feel the part of her that yielded to him and yet did not. That found her home in him and yet… And yet… And yet stayed her own sweet self.

She was curving in to him and he knew she was as bewildered as he was at this feeling. This feeling he could hardly begin to analyse. He had nothing to compare it to.

Peta…

It was too much. He was past thinking. He was oblivious to the small group of onlookers-to Ruby and Darrell and the city official, all looking on with bemusement. All he knew was how her lips tasted. How his heart lurched.

How the barren wasteland of his heart suddenly seemed a far-off memory.

Peta…

‘I’m sure you’ll be very, very happy.’

The official’s words broke in to the moment. Somehow. The man was beaming and waiting to grip Marcus’s hand, to claim the privilege of kissing the bride, of moving on to the next ceremony…

He didn’t hurry them. But this kiss had lasted a long time.

Marcus moved back. A little. Not much. His hands remained on Peta’s waist. He stared at her, dazed. She gazed back and his confusion was mirrored in her eyes.

‘I didn’t…’

‘I’m sorry…’ They spoke over each other and the moment somehow broke.

‘There’s no need to apologise to each other.’ The official was still beaming, his hand out to take Marcus’s and there was nothing for it but to release Peta. To let the moment go. ‘A man need never apologise for kissing his wife, and vice versa, and you have a lifetime ahead to do just that.’ He gripped Marcus’s hand and shook while Marcus fought desperately for normality. For sanity. Then the official turned and kissed Peta, breaking the contact even more. Giving Marcus room.

Letting reality in.

Then, the formalities over, the official stepped back and smiled some more. ‘There. All done. I’m sorry for the interruption to the ceremony but it doesn’t seem to have spoiled the moment. Congratulations.’ He glanced at his watch-surreptitiously, but it was a message for all that. ‘There’s some papers for you both to sign in the outer office, but that’s it. Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Benson. Welcome to your new life.’

The world took over. Of course it did.

Over the next hour Marcus moved on automatic pilot. He signed the register. He accepted congratulations. He faced the press. He shielded his bride as best he could and he smiled. He ate a meal-heaven knew what it was-in the restaurant Ruby had booked to celebrate the occasion. He listened to Darrell’s shy speech and he smiled.

He smiled.

By his side, Peta smiled as well, and her smile seemed just as forced as his.

Finally the formalities were over. ‘Darrell and I will take a cab home,’ Ruby told her boss. She reached into her handbag and hauled out a pouch. ‘These are your air tickets, your passport and all the documentation you’ll need for the next few weeks. Your plane leaves tomorrow morning at nine a.m.’

‘Mine goes tomorrow night.’ Peta had chatted during the meal but she’d sounded strained and the strain was still evident in her voice.

‘We took the liberty of changing your flights,’ Ruby told her. ‘You had a small taste of publicity today. With the short notice, the press contingent was limited. But Marcus’s wedding is going to hit the headlines tomorrow morning, and you’ll hardly want to be around for the fuss. The society tabloids have been trying to matchmake for Marcus since he made his first million.’

‘And now he’s hooked.’ Darrell’s smile matched Ruby’s. ‘That’s great.’

But it wasn’t great. ‘I didn’t hook anyone.’ Peta glowered. ‘He climbed on the line all by himself.’

‘And he can climb off again in two weeks,’ Ruby told her. She gathered her handbag and looked to Darrell. ‘Shall we leave these two-fishermen?-together?’

‘Sounds good to me.’ Darrell grinned. He took Marcus’s hand and shook-hard-and then he grasped Peta’s hands and pulled her in for a kiss to both cheeks.

‘You keep wiggling that hook,’ he said gently. ‘Marcus is the best mate in the world and he needs you more than he knows. So wiggle until he’s firmly caught. All the love in the world to you both.’

Then they were alone. The restaurant had alcoves that were separate rooms, giving absolute privacy. Ruby and Darrell had disappeared and Marcus was left with his bride.

The sensation was…unbelievable.

If only she wasn’t so lovely, he thought, a little bit desperately. Or a lot desperately. If only she wasn’t so vulnerable. So helpless. So-

‘I need to get this gear off. I feel like something that’s climbed off the top of a cake.’

Maybe vulnerable wasn’t the right word. Maybe vulnerable was a façade that went with the dress.

And she was right. This was silly. They needed to get back to normal. Remove the traces of bridal. But Marcus was aware of a faint tinge of regret in her voice-maybe because it struck an exact chord with what he was feeling. They were moving back into the real world and it hurt.

Maybe he could delay things.

‘Even Cinderella had until midnight,’ he told her. ‘Would you like to extend the fairytale?’

She stilled. ‘To do what?’

‘You’re leaving New York tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘You haven’t ridden around Central Park. Would you like to?’

She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. Then she grinned and gestured to her dress. ‘In this?’

‘The best fairytales end in full glamour,’ he said cautiously, still unsure of what he was doing. ‘Do you trust me?’

‘I don’t trust anyone offering fairytales,’ she told him but the smile that went with her words was suddenly almost cheeky. ‘Prince Charming always seemed a bit of a pansy to me.’

And suddenly he found he could smile, too. Properly. He could drop the mask of indifference. She was asking nothing of him in the long term. She wouldn’t cling. He could stay with her and then walk away, his good deed done for life.

‘If I promise not to be a pansy…’

‘I doubt if you could be a pansy if you tried.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘So what about it? Do you want to have fun?’

Fun. The word hung between them. He stared down at her and he knew instinctively that the word was as foreign to Peta as it was to him.

Fun. Ha! But she was looking up at him and her head was cocked as if listening to an echo that was so far away she could hardly hear.

‘You want us to have fun?’

Did he? What was he getting himself into? he wondered wildly. If only she wasn’t wearing that dress.

But she was and there was no choice.

‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘Yes, I do. I want us to forget all about the Benson financial empire and the O’Shannassy farm and the likes of cousin Charles. For this afternoon you’re wearing a fairytale dress and I’ve never been married in my life. Can we wave our wand and make it last a bit longer?’

And then a decision-and that smile that could heat places in a man’s heart that he hadn’t known existed.

‘Okay.’ His beautiful bride tucked her hand confidingly in his arm and held. Claiming the proprietorship that he’d claimed when he’d given her his name.

‘Okay, Mr Benson,’ she told him. ‘For this afternoon I’ll stick with the fairytale. Me and my non-pansy Prince Charming. You and your lopsided Cinderella with the fat foot. Imperfect but game. Let’s take ourselves out into New York and have fun.’