When he had gone Genista sank down into the nearest chair, her legs trembling with fear and reaction.
Marriage to Luke Ferguson! Even now she could not believe it was actually going to happen; that the whole thing wasn’t merely some terrible nightmare. It was all real enough, she told herself soberly, her eyes alighting on the phone. A last desperate hope came to her, and she picked up the receiver, dialling the office number, and asking for Bob.
‘He’s at the hospital,’ Jilly told her. ‘They called him—something about Elaine. Apparently she needs a fairly major operation. I’ve never seen him look so worried. Can I take a message for him?’
After telling Jilly that it wasn’t anything important, Genista hung up slowly. She felt like an animal driven far below the earth, its every avenue of escape slowly blocked off. The chiming of the old grandfather clock which had belonged to her parents reminded her that she had barely forty-five minutes of her hour left. She glanced distastefully at Luke’s cheque, still reluctant to use it, and then she remembered a suit she had bought the previous month. It was still hanging in her wardrobe as yet unworn. She had bought it for the christening of a friend’s baby. It was in a very soft shade of pale green; a three-piece comprising a skirt in silk chiffon, slenderly fitting and finely pleated at the back; a pretty camisole top, and a long-sleeved jacket which gave the outfit a more formal air. Without it the camisole and skirt could easily pass for a dress, and there was even a hat in matching chiffon trimmed with soft pink roses. Genista remembered that when she had been trying it on the salesgirl had commented that it would be ideal for a summer wedding. Genista had agreed, never for one moment dreaming that she would be wearing it for her own. It had been many years since she thought about getting married—since Richard, in fact, but that did not alter the fact that had she so desired she had every right to be married in a misty froth of white with all the traditional trimmings.
The case she had packed earlier was in the living room, and she refused to add anything else to it. This was no true marriage; she had no need of a normal bride’s fripperies. The first thing she saw when she opened the case to pack the silk suit was the Oriental housecoat she had placed on top of her other clothes, and she averted her eyes from the rich jade silk. She had bought it in Hong Kong and loved the feel of the fabric next to her skin. It was designed on the lines of a cheongsam and she knew that it suited the slender lines of her body. No man had ever seen her wearing it, and none would, she told herself fiercely. She would find some way of preventing Luke from consummating this parody of a marriage.
She had just closed the case when Luke returned. He had changed out of the suit he had been wearing earlier and was dressed in hip-hugging jeans and a thin knit shirt which clung to the sleek muscles of his back and chest. The shirt was open at the neck, and Genista felt the familiar fear curl through her stomach as she saw the dark hair shadowing his chest.
‘Ready?’
How could he sound so cool? The man who had told her that it was his desire for her that was forcing him into this marriage seemed to have completely disappeared, to be replaced by this cool, distant, arrogantly male creature, whose presence in her home intimidated and alarmed her.
‘I’ve made all the arrangements. We’ll be married in Cumbria, spend the weekend there and then return to London.’
Not a word about where they were to live; what she was supposed to do about her job or what his family thought about his sudden decision to marry—and to a girl they had never seen, Genista thought incredulously, watching him lift her case as though it weighed no more than a handbag.
‘What are you waiting for?’
His sardonic words jerked her to her feet, and like someone in a dream she followed him out of the apartment.
CHAPTER FOUR
MOTORWAYS provided a fast but very monotonous means of traversing the country, Genista thought, watching the landscape flash past as the Maserati ate up the miles. Lancaster had come and gone; the scenery grew gradually wilder. The empty feeling in the pit of her stomach reminded her that it was past her normal lunchtime. She snatched a brief look at Luke’s remote profile. He had not talked to her at all during their drive, and she had been quite happy to let him concentrate on the motorway, even though her thoughts were not happy ones. He had arranged a special licence, he had told her before they left London, and his uncle had made all the arrangements with the small church where they were to be married.
‘My parents were married there,’ Luke had told her, and the brief comment had aroused her curiosity.
The Maserati slowed down, and Genista glanced at Luke again. ‘I thought we’d stop for lunch. There’s an excellent hotel not far from here. We used to eat there whenever we travelled north.’
‘Do your parents live in Cumbria?’ Genista probed, curious to learn a little more of his background. If they did, it was not inconceivable that she might meet them, and they could prove to be
allies.
‘No,’ Luke said shortly, quenching her hopes. ‘They’re dead—they were killed in a road accident several years ago. Now there’s just my sister and myself. Marina is divorced. She lives in France with her daughter. Her husband left her for his secretary.’ His mouth twisted. ‘A story with which I’m sure you’re quite familiar. Unfortunately Marina was very sheltered by our parents. She’s never really got over the blow, and Lucy is left to run wild when she isn’t at school, while Marina broods.’
‘I’m sorry.’ The trite words were low, but she meant them. She was surprised that Luke had told her so much, but then of course he could hardly keep their marriage a secret, and she would be expected to know something about his background.
‘Your parents are dead too, of course.’ He shot a sideways glance, perceiving her sudden start of surprise. ‘It was on your staff records.’
‘Oh?’ Something in the way his eyes slid over her, assessing the shape of her body beneath her clothes, provoked her into saying bitterly, ‘Did they also tell you that I’m illegitimate? That my mother bore me without benefit of marriage? That my father was married at the time but gave her a child anyway?’
‘It happens.’
His laconic response halted her. She half turned in her seat as they left the motorway, her forehead furrowed. ‘Aren’t you shocked? Aren’t you going to say like mother, like daughter?’
‘Ought I to? I’ve never been able to understand why our society casts the slur of illegitimacy on innocent children. They’re not to blame for their parents’ actions. A true case of the sins of the fathers, I suppose. Is that what made you the way you are?’ he demanded, catching her off guard. ‘A deep-seated desire to get back at all men for the fact that your father caused you to be illegitimate?’
‘No,’ Genista told him shortly. ‘My parents loved one another very deeply. For a time I did resent what had happened, but I didn’t know until I was in my teens, so I was spared a lot of the agony.’
‘And suffered a great deal more when you eventually discovered the truth,’ Luke hazarded shrewdly. ‘Who told you? An interfering gossip?’
‘No. The man I thought loved me,’ Genista heard herself saying to her horror. ‘Only of course he didn’t. How could he love me? I was illegitimate, unworthy. No, all he wanted was to sleep with me.’
She was unaware of the bitterness in her voice; tears forming in her eyes, which she blinked quickly away. It would never do to break down in front of Luke!
‘And did he?’