Copper never knew how she got through the ceremony, but somehow she must have made the right responses in the right places, for Mal was sliding the ring onto her finger. She looked down at the gold band that linked her to him: they were married. Wonderingly, Copper lifted her eyes to his.
Mal's smile was oddly twisted as he looked down at her for a moment before cradling her face in his hands and bending his head very gently to kiss her. The touch of his mouth was enough to drench Copper in a golden, honeyed enchantment that spilled through her like a rush of light. The terms of the contract they had agreed, the watching crowd, the knowledge that Mal would never love her as she loved him, none of these mattered as their lips caught and clung and sweetness spun an invisible web around them, enclosing them in their own private world where time lost its meaning and a kiss could stretch into infinity and yet end much, much too soon.
A sentimental sigh gusted through the guests as Mal lifted his head and let Copper drift gently back to earth. Her eyes were still dark and dazed, but she managed a tremulous smile which seemed to be the signal for the garden to erupt into laughter and cheers.
Megan was clutching her flowers, wide-eyed and a little bewildered by the sudden noise. Copper crouched down to hug her and then lifted her up so that Mal could take her and hold her high and safe in his arms. Reassured that she was included in the magic that she had sensed between the two of them, Megan's face cleared, and she released her vice-like grip on her father's neck, smiling and ready to be let down so that she could run off and boast to her little friend about her part in the ceremony.
Copper's mother was weeping, and her father looked as if he had something hard and tight stuck in his throat. Copper just had time to kiss them both before she and Mal were surrounded and swamped in a tide of congratulations and kisses. At first Mal kept a tight, reassuring grip on her hand, but it wasn't long before they were separated and Copper was borne apart by friends who were meeting him for the first time and wanted to tell her how lucky she was.
'He's gorgeous!' they sighed enviously. 'And just right for you, Copper. It's all so romantic!' Then they would pause and add casually, 'His brother seems nice too. Is he married?'
Romantic was the one thing her marriage wasn't, Copper thought wistfully as she nodded and smiled and agreed that everything had worked out perfectly. Even seeing Glyn again wasn't enough to distract her from the gleam of gold on her finger that kept catching at the corner of her vision. I'm married, she kept telling herself disbelievingly. I'm Mal's wife.
Mal's housekeeper, she corrected herself sadly. 'To our deal,' Mal had toasted her, and the last, lingering enchantment of his kiss seeped away at the memory. A few kisses wouldn't change anything for Mal.
Unaware of the wistful look on her face as she hugged Glyn and turned away, Copper suddenly found Mal beside her. 'Come and dance,' he said, taking a possessive hold of her waist and drawing her over to the paved area under the pergola before anyone had a chance to intercept them with more congratulations.
It had grown dark as the party wore on and someone had lit the candle lanterns that were hung around the garden. They cast a flickering glow over Mal's face as he swung Copper into his arms. It was obvious that everyone had been waiting for them to start the dancing, for a suitably romantic song was playing and others soon joined them in the soft candlelight.
Mal's hand was warm and strong in the small of her back as he held her close, and Copper was overwhelmingly aware of him as she rested her head against his shoulder. To anyone else they must look as if they were madly in love, she thought. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the pulse beating in his throat, tantalisingly close. If she was a real bride, dancing with her new husband, she could turn her head and touch it with her lips. She could lift her face up to his and know that he would kiss her. She could whisper that she wished they were alone and let her pulse leap at the thought of the night to come.
But she wasn't a real bride, and she couldn't do any of the things she wanted to do. She could only lean a little closer and pretend that she was just acting, and wish that it could be true.
They were married. Copper succumbed to temptation and rested her face against Mal's throat, breathing in the clean, male scent of his skin. She felt boneless, weak with desire. Some time tonight they would say goodbye to everybody and drive up into the hills to the hotel and the door would shut behind them and they would be alone in their room. And what then? Would Mal really wait for her to ask before he touched her? Or would he take her hand and draw her down onto the bed and let the excitement that leapt between them whenever they kissed take its course? Copper's skin clenched at the thought and she shivered as anticipation beat a wild tattoo down her spine.
They danced in silence, holding each other like lovers. Copper was so absorbed in her dreams that it was a shock when Mal spoke at last. 'Who was that you were kissing?' he asked, as if the words had been wrenched out of him.
'Kissing?' Copper pulled slightly away, disorientated by the contrast between his cool voice and the intimacy of his hold. 'When?' she asked vaguely. Surely she had kissed everybody that evening?
'Just now.'
'Oh…' She made an effort to remember who she had been talking to before Mal had appeared at her side. 'That was Glyn.'
Mal's grip on her tightened almost painfully. 'Glyn?' he echoed. 'Wasn't he the one who walked out on you? Who asked him to the wedding?'
'I did,' she said. 'Glyn was always a good friend. I couldn't not invite him.'
'I don't see why not,' said Mal disagreeably. 'I wouldn't have thought you'd have wanted to see him at all.'
'I don't hold any grudge against Glyn,' said Copper, a little puzzled by his attitude. If she hadn't known better, she might have thought Mal was jealous. 'If anything, we get on better now than we did before.'
It was true. The news of her engagement to Mal had dissolved the last vestiges of constraint between them and she had been able to talk to Glyn quite naturally as an old friend. And seeing him here tonight had made her realise just how differently she felt about Mal. Her re-lationship with Glyn had been warm and comfortable, but a tame thing compared to what she felt for the man who was holding her in his arms right now.
'You mean you've seen him before this evening?' Mal asked incredulously.
'A couple of times, yes.'
'And what about the so-called friend he left you for?' he went on in a harsh voice. 'Was she at those cosy reunions?'
Copper's face saddened, remembering how upset Glyn had been. 'No, Ellie's husband came back a couple of weeks ago, and Ellie feels that she owes it to him to give the marriage one last chance. So she and Glyn have agreed that they won't see each other for a while.'
'So he's free now,' Mal goaded her. 'You must be sorry you didn't wait for him a bit longer!'
He swung her round as he spoke. His arms were close around her, his head bent down to hers, for all the world a doting bridegroom. Sudden bitterness at the falsity of the picture sharpened Copper's tongue. 'I wouldn't have been able to set up business at Birraminda then, would I?' she said in a brief spurt of exasperation at his blindness. Couldn't he see how she felt? Wasn't it obvious whenever he kissed her?
She regretted the words as soon as they were spoken. The mention of business had been enough to harden Mal's expression, and it didn't take much to guess that he was thinking of his first wife who had also put business first.
'Reminding me of why you married me?' he asked, and Copper turned her face away into his shoulder.
'I don't think I need to do that,' she said in a low voice. Mal never forgot the real reasons for their marriage, and neither should she.
And yet, much later, when they finally managed to slip away from the party, Copper could think of nothing but the night to come. The tension of their exchange about Glyn had faded as the evening wore on, to be replaced by a new and very different kind of tension as the moment when they would be alone at last drew nearer.
The silence jangled between them as they drove through the wide, tree-lined streets and up into the hills, and Copper was gripped by such a strait-jacket of shyness that she would even have welcomed another argument to take her mind off the terrible, nameless longing that was drumming through her.
Mal was an overwhelming figure beside her in the darkness. Copper tried not to look at him, but her eyes kept flickering back to his profile, to the unyielding line of his jaw and the way the faint greenish light from the dashboard glanced over his lips. Every time her gaze fell on his mouth the knot of nerves would twist painfully inside her, and she would jerk her eyes away with a suppressed gasp, only to find herself staring at the strong, competent hands on the steering wheel and remembering how they had once felt against her body instead. It was all too easy to
