The Bride's Baby

‘But do bring a brighter light bulb so that we can at least see what we’re doing.’

She had that natural authority that would have had the serfs leaping to her bidding, he thought. Perfect lady of the manor material. And a smile that would have made them happy to leap.

If he wasn’t careful, he’d find himself leaping right along with them.

‘I’ll ask Mr Kennedy to replace it,’ he replied.

Just to make the point, in case she was in danger of forgetting, that this was his house and if anyone was going to issue orders in it it would be him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SYLVIE watched with a certain amount of detachment as Geena and her staff went into raptures over her great-grandmother’s wedding dress.

‘This is so beautiful, Sylvie!’ Geena said, examining the lace. The workmanship. ‘French couturier?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ she said. ‘Great-grandma Clementine started out as she meant to go on. But it’s a dress for a very young bride. She was barely nineteen when she married my great-grandfather.’

She managed a shrug, as if such a thing was unbelievable.

‘I agree. I’ve designed something much more sophisticated for you. Flowing, loose, since it’s a style that suits you so well. No veil, though. I thought a loose-fitting jacket with wide sleeves, turned-back cuffs.’

She proffered her sketches.

Sylvie swallowed. ‘It’s absolutely gorgeous, Geena. Perfect. What’s that in my hair?’

‘A small tiara. Nothing over the top,’ she added with a grin. ‘Since you seem hooked on elegant restraint.’

‘I don’t know about restraint,’ Sylvie said with a wry smile. ‘There are the purple shoes.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘I forgot I was wearing them so I had to buy them.’

‘If you believe that, my darling, who am I to contradict you? I’ll put in an order for the purple waistcoat then, shall I?’

‘Will anything I say stop you?’

‘I don’t know, give it a try.’

She shook her head.

‘Okay, you can leave the tiara to me, if you like. The woman who makes them for me is showing at the Fayre. Can we add a touch of green to the violet? You’re not superstitious?’

‘No.’ She’d done everything by the book the first time and it had still all fallen apart. And this time it was make-believe, so it really didn’t matter. ‘I’ll send you over a colour sample-’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll pick it up when I come over with my final drawings and material swatches for the applique first thing in the morning. Be ready to make a decision.’

‘I’ve got the message, but now I really have to love you and leave you because I have an appointment with the caterer, the florist and the confectioner.’

Followed by an evening cosseted with the devil himself, sorting through the discarded ephemera of generations of the Duchamp family.

Not the brightest of decisions, considering the effect he had upon her. She couldn’t think what had made her volunteer. Or maybe she could, which was truly dumb, even though he hadn’t carried through with this morning’s opportunistic pass. Despite the fact that she hadn’t done a single thing to discourage him.

Somehow they’d managed to move on without sinking into terminal embarrassment, although only she knew how hard it had been to keep it light, make a joke of it.

Only she knew how torn she was between relief and regret that he’d taken a step back, rescuing her from her runaway hormones.

She might have spent the last six months yearning for the phone to ring, for him to make a move, to suggest they continue where they’d left off, but the truth was that some affairs were doomed from the start. And that was all it would ever have been for him-a tit-for-tat affair to throw oil on the fire of gossip and give him back his pride.

A lesser man would have gone for it without a second thought. Used it to bolster his shattered self-esteem. Used her to strike back.

That he hadn’t seemed to prove that Tom McFarlane was made of finer stuff. He didn’t need to hurt someone else to make himself feel good. Not even her, even though he couldn’t have made it plainer that he despised everything that made her who she was. A reaction which only increased her curiosity about the forces that had shaped his character.

She frowned as she wondered about his lack of family memories.

His meteoric rise from teenage entrepreneur to billionaire was the stuff of legend, but where had that teenager risen from? If he had no family, it would go a long way to explaining his inability to confront emotional issues. His coldness in the face of Candy’s desertion. His inability to connect physical love with anything deeper.

Maybe.

But it would have to keep, she told herself with a sigh as she pulled into the caterer’s premises, trying to raise her enthusiasm for the latest twist on poached salmon-never a favourite.

‘Something smells good,’ Sylvie said as she tossed a folder containing menus, photographs of flowers and every style of cake imaginable on to the kitchen table and crossing to the stove where Tom, unbelievably, was beating potato into submission. ‘Mrs Kennedy’s spiced beef casserole?’

‘It’s beef and it’s a casserole, beyond that I’m not prepared to hazard a guess,’ Tom said. ‘I’m only responsible for the vegetables.’

He offered her the pan and Sylvie dipped a finger in the potatoes, licked it and groaned with pleasure. ‘Butter, garlic. Real food.’

‘There’s plenty for two,’ he said, apparently amused at her pleasure.

‘Are you sure? I’d better warn you that I’m starving.’

‘A first. A woman with an appetite,’ he said, his smile fading as quickly as it had come. ‘But then you’re eating for two.’

‘Oh, I’ve never been a fan of lettuce,’ she said, too hungry to worry about his sudden loss of interest, instead reaching up to the warming rack above the stove for a couple of plates. ‘Where’s Mrs Kennedy?’ she asked. ‘Why isn’t she mashing your spuds?’

‘She’s putting her feet up after being run ragged by the hordes of exhibitors and construction people tramping through the house all day, wanting tea, scones and sandwiches. You are aware that they’re eating us out of house and home?’

Us?

Just a figure of speech, no doubt, but it sent a thrill of pleasure rippling through her tired limbs.

‘Send the bill to Celebrity; this is their party,’ she replied and, since emotion was off his radar, doing her best to keep the smile down and the tone chirpy.

‘They’re picking up the tab for everything?’ he asked, glancing at her.

‘Peanuts for them. You missed out, Tom. If you’d let them cover your wedding they’d have been stuck with the bill.’

‘And filled their pages with the story when Candy made her break. No, thanks. It was enough of a circus already.’

Sylvie grinned. ‘You got off lightly, Tom. Last month I organised a wedding where the bride arrived on an elephant-’

‘Stop! Stop right there.’

‘And you escaped the butterflies…’

‘Give me a break,’ he said, but he was grinning too.

‘Okay. But only because you’re being so protective of Mrs Kennedy. Although I bet she had a whale of time with an endless stream of people to fuss over for a change.’

‘A stream of people taking advantage.’

‘Rubbish. She didn’t have to make scones. She didn’t have to offer them anything.