And the Bride Wore Red

minds in sleepy content.

Olivia found herself talking about her fractured life as she’d never done before, except with Norah.

‘You said once that I was my mother’s mother, and you were right. My parents are just like a couple of kids. It can seem charming, until you see all the people they’ve let down.’

‘Mostly you,’ Lang said tenderly.

‘Yes, but there’s a queue that stretches behind me-Tony, my mother’s second husband, her step-children by that marriage, her child by Tony-my half-brother. He’s about fourteen now and beginning to realise what she’s like. He calls me sometimes for advice. I do my best, but I’ve never told him the worst she’s capable of.’

She fell silent. At last Lang said, ‘Tell me, if you can.’

‘I was about twelve. It was December and I was getting all excited about Christmas. I was staying with Norah, but Dad and I were going to Paris together. I got ready, everything packed, and waited for him. When he was late I went outside and sat on the wall, looking for his car to appear at the end of the road, but he didn’t come.

‘Norah called him, but all she got was the answer machine. We tried his mobile phone but it was switched off. I suppose I knew in my heart that he wasn’t coming, but I wouldn’t face it. At last, hours later, he called to see if I was having a great time with my mother. I said, “But I’m supposed to be with you.” Then it all came out about Evadne, his new girlfriend. She’d begged him to take her to Paris instead of me, and been very persuasive, so he’d left a message on my mother’s phone to say she’d have to have me. He seemed terribly surprised that she hadn’t turned up.’

Lang swore violently and rolled over away from her, his hands over his face. Then he rolled back and took her in his arms. ‘I will kill him,’ he muttered over and over. ‘Don’t ever let me meet your father or I will kill him. Hold onto me-hold me.’

It felt so good to embrace him, to bury her head against his shoulder and blot out everything else, as though he had it in his power to put the world right.

‘So you had to spend Christmas with your mother?’ he said at last.

‘Oh, no, she didn’t get his message until she’d left to spend Christmas with her new boyfriend-at least, she said she didn’t. So neither of them came for me and I spent Christmas with Norah.’

He seized her again and this time it was he who hid his face in her shoulder, as though her pain was unbearable to him.

‘How did you survive?’ he murmured.

‘Part of me didn’t. I learned not to trust people, especially when they talked about their feelings. I thought Andy was different, but he was just the same.’

‘Was he the only one?’

‘You mean, have I had other boyfriends? Oh, yes. I dipped my toe in the water a few times, but only my toe. I always got cautious before I went too far. It doesn’t take much to turn me back into that little girl sitting on the wall, watching for someone who never appeared. In my heart-’ she shuddered ‘-I always know that’s going to happen.’

‘Never,’ he said violently. ‘Never, do you hear me? I’m yours for life. Or at least for as long as you want me. No, don’t answer.’ He laid a swift hand over her lips. ‘You can’t promise life, not yet. I know that. But I’ll be patient. Just remember that I’m always here.’

‘Always,’ she murmured longingly.

Always? queried the voice in her head. If only.

But held in his arms she could believe in anything, and she clung to him in desperate hope.

CHAPTER NINE

SOMETIMES he teased her about her preference for good sense.

‘If I really believed in good sense I’d never have come anywhere near you,’ she said indignantly.

‘You’re trying to reform me. I realised that ages ago.’

‘I’m not having much luck, am I? Sometimes I doubt myself. You know those marvellous roofs you see on old buildings, the ones that curve up at the corners? I read that it dates back to a Buddhist belief about evil residing in straight lines, so they should be avoided if possible.

‘But another book talked about architecture and rainfall, and how the curve was precisely calculated to give maximum benefit to the building. I hated that. I like the Buddhist interpretation much better.’

Lang’s response was to lift Ming Zhi from beside the bed, and address Olivia severely. ‘You’re slipping. That kind of sentimentality isn’t what I engaged you for.’

They laughed, cocooned in the safe refuge they offered each other. Their laughter ended in passion.

Another time Olivia recalled the night she’d met the Langs, and had seen him in the context of both his families.

‘They say a picture’s worth a thousand words,’ she murmured. ‘You told me how out of place you felt with your English family, but it only became real when I saw the photograph of you all together. You looked exactly like them, but I could still see you were a fish out of water.’

‘That’s putting it mildly,’ he said. ‘But, looking back, I feel sorry for them.’

‘Sorry for them?’

‘I know I was difficult. In some ways I’m not a very nice character. You said I looked like a misfit with them, and that was how I felt. But in my mind it was they who were the misfits, and I was the one who’d got it right, which isn’t very amiable in a fifteen-year-old boy.’

‘No, but it is very typical of fifteen-year-old boys,’ she riposted. ‘So you were a grumpy adolescent-join the club.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ he said with a self-mocking smile. ‘The other way is that I’m stubborn, inflexible and set on my own way. Once I want something I won’t give up. Everyone else becomes the victim.’ He tightened his arms around her. ‘As you have cause to know.’

‘Mmm, I’m not complaining.’

‘Good, because I’ve got you and I’m going to keep you.’

‘Do I get a say about that?’ she teased.

‘Nope, you have nothing to say about it. You belong to me, understand?’

She couldn’t resist saying, ‘You mean, like Jaio belonged to the Emperor Qin?’

‘No way. She escaped. You’ll never escape me.’

‘What, no gallant warrior to ride to my rescue?’

‘The man who could take you away from me hasn’t been born.’

‘What happened to being patient and letting me decide in my own time?’

‘That was then. This is now.’

She chuckled. ‘That’s all right, then. I’ll forgive you if you’re a bit overbearing, or even a lot overbearing. Which you most definitely will be. Anything else you want to warn me about?’

He kissed her, adding thoughtfully, ‘Plenty. Take my career-I want to be the best. I have to be the best, whatever it means.’

‘This job that’s coming up?’

‘Yes. I’ve set my heart on it.’

‘But you’ve only been here three years. Aren’t you rushing it?’

‘I know the other likely candidates and they don’t worry me. Besides, the present incumbent hasn’t retired yet, and probably won’t for another year. I’ll be patient until then.’

The unconscious arrogance of that ‘I’ll be patient’ told her he was speaking the truth about himself. He was still the man who’d won her heart, gentle, charming, humorous. But she was learning that his apparent diffidence masked a confidence and determination so implacable that he himself was made uneasy by it. He flinched from it, tried to disguise it, but it was the unalterable truth.

As long as he was determined to keep her with him, she was happy to live with it.

Life wasn’t entirely smooth. On the night after the talent contest there was a dance for the passengers. Wanting to dazzle him, Olivia did herself up to the nines, including wearing one of the dresses she’d bought at the