Newlyweds of Convenience

‘I thought you wanted to go back to Ellsborough,’ he said at last.

‘I thought I did too,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t until you said that I could go that I realised I didn’t want that at all.’

She turned to look out at the islands in the distance. ‘It’s true that there are lots of things I’ve missed about Ellsborough, and I may go on missing them, but if I go back there I will miss Kincaillie more. There’ll be no garden in Ellsborough, no sea, no mountains.’ She paused. ‘No you.’

There was a shattering silence.

‘Mallory-’ Torr began hoarsely, but she held up a hand to stop him.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she said.

‘Do you?’

‘Of course. We’ve talked about this before, and you’ve always been straight with me. You’re going to remind me that our deal was never about love. I know that. I know you’re in love with someone else, and because you’re the kind of man you are I know that you won’t stop loving her.’

‘No,’ said Torr with a strange, twisted smile. ‘I won’t.’

Mallory’s heart dipped, but she kept her chin up. ‘I’m not asking you to love me back, Torr. I just want to stay here with you and take whatever you have to give. I know it won’t be everything, but don’t make me go away. I couldn’t bear it.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I can’t bear the thought of being without you now.’

‘Isn’t that what you thought about Steve?’ He broke off as a spasm crossed her face. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t fair.’

‘No, it was fair,’ Mallory insisted. ‘You’ve seen me utterly wretched about Steve, and I’m not going to pretend I didn’t love him. I did, I loved him terribly, and when he left me I didn’t think I’d survive. But I did, and I’ve learnt that it is possible to love again. I don’t love you the way I loved Steve,’ she told him. ‘I was dazzled by Steve, swept off my feet by him. When I was with him it was like being in a perfect dream…and I learnt the hard way that a dream was all it was. It wasn’t real at all. But with you…’

Mallory gazed out to sea, trying to find the words to explain. ‘With you it’s different. Maybe you won’t believe me, but the way I love you is stronger, truer. I don’t think you’re perfect, the way I thought Steve was perfect.’

‘Thanks!’ Torr interjected a little wryly.

‘Well, you’re not easy,’ she pointed out. ‘But when I’m with you I feel safe and…and complete in a way I can’t explain.’ She paused. ‘Kincaillie isn’t perfect either. It isn’t romantic. It isn’t a dream. It’s cold and uncomfortable and isolated, and living here is hard work, and for a long time I thought I hated it, but when I went to pack just now I realised that I don’t hate it here all. I love it.’

She turned back to face him. ‘I don’t know how or when it happened, but Kincaillie is a part of me now-just as you’re a part of me, Torr.’

His expression was indecipherable, and apprehension tickled the base of her spine. What if he insisted that he wanted her to leave? She swallowed and straightened her shoulders.

‘I can accept that you don’t love me,’ she told him. ‘I’m just asking you to let me stay so that we can go on as we have been doing. I know I’m not the one you really want, but if you’re never going to be in a position to marry her…?’ She trailed off hopefully.

‘The thing is, she’s already married,’ Torr confided.

‘I see…and there’s no question of divorce?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then…why not have me as second best?’ asked Mallory, a hint of desperation in her voice.

Torr only shook his head slowly. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not a man who settles for second best.’

‘Oh.’ Mallory turned back to stare blindly at the sea, her throat tight with disappointment and her eyes blurry with tears. She blinked them furiously away. ‘Oh. I see.’

‘Mallory…’ Torr took her hands and pulled her back round towards him, but she kept her face averted, not wanting him to see the humiliating tears that were trickling out of the corner of her eyes in spite of her best efforts to hold them back. ‘Mallory, look at me.’

Forcing her reluctant gaze to his at last, he looked down at her. ‘Don’t you want to know about the woman I love?’

As if she would want her nose rubbed in it! ‘I’d rather not,’ said Mallory stiffly.

‘Even if I tell you that she’s married to me?’

‘To you?’ She stared back into his eyes, confused. Surely he wasn’t trying to tell her that their marriage was bigamous? ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It’s very simple,’ said Torr. ‘I’m in love with my wife, and have been ever since I laid eyes on her.’

‘But I’m-’ Mallory began, still puzzled, then stopped abruptly, as if finding herself teetering on the edge of a precipice.

Torr smiled down at her, a smile that made her heart crack, and his fingers tightened around hers. ‘You’re my wife,’ he agreed.

Deep inside her something unlocked, and a terrifying hope crept through her. ‘Me?’ she almost whispered.

‘Of course it’s you,’ he said. ‘It’s only ever been you. How could you ever be second best?’

‘You’re in love with me?’ Mallory couldn’t quite take it in. Or perhaps she didn’t dare to believe what she was hearing-didn’t dare to trust that this wasn’t a cruel joke when Torr’s laugh would be all it took to send her toppling into the abyss.

‘Yes,’ said Torr, and took her firmly in his arms to convince her, with a kiss that sent her tumbling over the edge anyway-but instead of plummeting into despair, her heart took wings and soared into dazzling light.

Mallory clung to him, terrified of discovering that this was just a wonderful dream, kissing him while she could, before she woke to cold reality.

But his mouth tasted like Torr’s, and his lips were as slow and sure and wickedly exciting as Torr’s, and when she pressed into him he was so warm and solid and he felt so right that she knew that it really was Torr, kissing her because he loved her. And, oh, it was so wonderful to be able to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him again, to feel his arms closing hard around her, holding her so tight she was giddy with the joy of it.

When they broke for breath at last, she buried her face in his throat, and Torr laid his cheek against her hair and told her he loved her again, and Mallory finally let herself believe that it was real. She was in Torr’s arms, and there she could stay.

She pulled back slightly to look up into his face. ‘I love you,’ she told him shakily, and this time the tears that trembled on the end of her lashes were tears of happiness.

‘And I love you,’ he said. ‘I’ve always loved you, Mallory. I always will.’

Mallory’s eyes were shining as she smiled and kissed him again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked as they sat down on the shingle, careless of the stones and the cool breeze.

‘Because I knew that you were in love with Steve.’ Torr settled himself more comfortably and pulled her close into his side. ‘I’ll never forget when I first met you.’

‘I came to the house to talk to you about a design scheme for your interior,’ she remembered, snuggling into him. ‘I thought you were very stern!’

‘I was. I wasn’t the kind of man who fell hopelessly in love at all. My first marriage was a disaster, and none of the other women I’d known had made me think that anything more than a brief, physical relationship was worth the hassle. I had money, I had sex. Why would I need love?

‘And then you walked into the house that day,’ said Torr, ‘and everything changed. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. You were throwing open fabric books and showing me wallpaper samples, and your face was alight with enthusiasm. You were so vivid, so beautiful,’ he remembered, stroking the breeze-blown hair from her face, his voice deeper and warmer than Mallory had ever heard it.

‘You made the house come alive, and when you left everything seemed cold and flat. I wanted you the way I’d never wanted anyone before.’

‘I had no idea.’ She put her hand on his thigh, and the realisation that now she could touch him wherever and whenever she wanted made her shiver with delicious anticipation.

‘Why should you? You were too wrapped up in Steve to notice me. It was obvious that I was just another client to you, and I told myself there was no point in pursuing you. You weren’t available, so I tried to put you out of my mind, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I only invested in Steve’s wretched company because it gave me an