Bachelor's Wife (4 page)

'Drink your tea,' he instructed automatically. 'If you don't hurry you're going to be late.'

Unable to tell him she was having a day off from her holiday quota, Perry swallowed a hasty cup of tea and left the house at her normal time, knowing she had a couple of hours to kill before going to see if Nash Devereux had been as sincere as he had seemed to be.

She was on her fourth cup of coffee in her third cafe when, glancing once more at her watch, she saw it showed the same time as it had ten minutes ago. In a flash she was on her feet. Not having wanted to look like a bride who had been left stranded if Nash didn't turn up, though anyone less bride-like in her old baggy jacket and trousers she couldn't imagine, she had calculated on finishing her coffee and leaving a sedate two-minute stroll to the register office. As it was, having run all the way she was red-faced, breathless and three minutes late when she got there, relief mixing with apprehensive butterflies that Nash Devereux had turned up. And from the way he was angrily pacing up and down, a none too sweet Nash Devereux.

'I'm sorry I'm late,' she apologised quickly, seeing he looked ready to blast her, and all too well aware of how shabbily turned out she must appear dressed as she was when he was in a faultlessly tailored suit. 'I'm sorry I couldn't dress up—I didn't want Ralph to know.'

At her reminder that she too, or so he thought, had a step-relative she didn't get on with, some of the impatience left him.

'You're here,' he said tautly, 'that's all that matters.' And without waiting another moment he was hurrying her to where the registrar, his assistant and a couple of roped-in witnesses were standing.

Perry supposed the registrar must be used to nervous, stammering brides, as her responses were uttered with none of the firm, confident tone she heard coming from the man beside her, for the registrar smiled encouragingly at her from time to time. And then it was all over. She had a wedding ring on one hand, while her other hand was being shaken, and, confused, she heard the registrar refer to her as Mrs Devereux. Nash then led her out into an ante-room, and they were alone.

She thought she ought to say something, but she hadn't a clue what one was supposed to say in the circumstances. He didn't appear to have anything to say either. But when she would have gone through the door that led to the street, his hand on her arm stayed her.

'We'll keep this matter private, I think,' he said coolly, and dipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bulky envelope. 'You've kept your part of the bargain— here's mine,' he said. And so there would be no argument, he opened the envelope, showed her the contents, new crisp notes, and handed it to her.

Still speechless, her insides not a scrap settled, Perry took the envelope from him, embarrassment threatening to swamp her as she hastily pushed the envelope and its contents in her bag out of sight. Then just as though he had satisfactorily completed a business deal, which afterwards she began to realise was all it was to him, Nash extended his hand.

'I'll escort you to the pavement, but we'll say goodbye here.'

Perry found her hand in his firm, cool clasp. 'Er—thank you,' she said, feeling idiotic as she said it.

'Goodbye,' he answered, and it was final.

Afterwards, another unwanted coffee in front of her, but a much-needed chair beneath her, she could hardly credit that she had actually married him. She took a surreptitious look in her bag, half expecting the envelope Nash had given her to be a figment of her imagination. But no, there it was. Hastily she closed her bag.

For a further half hour she sat there. And gradually, as thoughts of Ralph began to filter through, she started to feel better, even a little pleased with herself.

Leaving the cafe, unable to go home yet, she walked and walked, the feel of the ring new on her finger reminding her that she had better get rid of it before she got home. All saleable jewellery in the house had gone; she didn't want Ralph asking questions about this expensive piece of platinum. As she neared the river, without a second thought, though giving a careful look round to see if she was being observed, the ring was off her finger, meeting its watery end with barely a plop.

Only then, her small confidence back with her, did it dawn on her that with so much else on her mind, she hadn't given thought to question Nash as to what they should do about a divorce. It came to her then for the first

time that with the way he felt about women, the question of divorce obviously hadn't bothered him. The Equator would freeze over before he would want to remarry.

By the time she arrived home, to find Ralph still slumped on a kitchen chair just as though he hadn't moved all day, Perry had her story ready to tell him.

'I told you not to worry,' she said gaily, and while Ralph tried to dredge up a smile that something good must have happened for her that she would look so pleased, Perry rushed on, 'I've got the five thousand for you.'

Maybe because he wanted to believe it, Ralph had taken without question that she had gone to see his sister Sylvia earlier in the week and today Sylvia had rung through to say she had sold some shares and could let her have the money.

That Ralph was overjoyed and immediately dropped ten years was an understatement. 'I never for a moment thought she'd help. She swore she wouldn't after the last time,' he said, having danced Perry round the kitchen. 'I must ring and thank her straight away.'

'No!' The word left her sharply. Fear was uppermost she would have to tell him what she'd done, the burden of guilt he would carry to know she had done it for him. 'I—well—-well, to tell you the truth,' she said, seeing at once that some explanation had to be made, 'Sylvia was-—er—a little cross about it.'

Ralph knew his sister very well, it seemed, for all they had never been all that close. 'She neither wants to see or hear from me ever again, is that it?'

She hated having to lie to him, but knowing Ralph couldn't have loved her more if she had been his own daughter, she thought she knew best what he could live with better—that his sister didn't want to know him or that his stepdaughter had married a stranger to settle his gambling debt.

'Well, not until some of the money has been paid back,' she invented on the spur of the moment, not wanting to be the cause of a permanent rift between the blood relatives, for all they rarely met. 'I've arranged for us to pay the money back by monthly instalments.' Perhaps she and Ralph could use it to have that holiday abroad he was hankering after, her mind went on.

But the holiday abroad never came to fruition, she thought sadly. Nor had there been time for Ralph to make even the first payment. For before she had been married to Nash for a month, Ralph had died as a result of being injured when the driver of the bus he had been on had suffered heart failure, and the bus went out of control and crashed into a brick wall.

The sound of Mrs Foster below riddling her fire, something she did every night last thing, had Perry coming back to the present with a start. Her eyes fell to her writing paper, nothing else written after her 'Dear Nash'.

She gripped her pen once more, realising that if she didn't keep her concentration on the job in hand she would never get to bed. That letter had to be written tonight ready to post in the morning.

Several direct and to the point phrases presented themselves in her head, but she hesitated. The trouble was, for all she was married to him, she barely knew Nash Devereux. It would look well if her direct approach made his hackles rise and he dug his heels in. Though why he should, she couldn't think, and anyway, he was pretty direct himself, wasn't he? Or had been in all his dealing with her.

Yet still she hesitated. If Nash
wanted
to be free he would somehow have found where she had moved to after Ralph's death. Fear gripped her that he could well refuse to arrange for them to be quietly divorced somewhere. And another half an hour went by and many ripped up sheets of paper before she finally settled for, 'Dear Nash, If it's all right with you I should like to be free. Would you let me know as soon as possible if you are agreeable to a divorce. Yours sincerely, Perry Grainger. P.S. I've put my landlady's phone number and am known as Miss Grainger.'

Quickly she folded the single sheet of paper and slipped it into its 'Strictly Private and Confidential' envelope, knowing if she stopped to re-read what she had written that too would be torn up, another attempt to be made.

She went to bed, aware that she would know little rest until her letter had been posted.

CHAPTER THREE

PERRY overslept the next morning, which was just as well, she thought, as hurrying to work she slipped her letter to Nash in the post box. Had there been time she knew very well she would have been tempted to scrap what she had written and start again. She continued on her way musing, well, at least now she had actually done something in an attempt to get the ball rolling. All she had to do now was to wait for Nash to come back from the States. He would contact her then, she felt sure. And then she and Trevor...

A week later she was still waiting. Anxious, racing home each night hoping for a letter, afraid to go out in case Nash rang and she missed him, when no word came she fell back on the thought that he must still be abroad.

She had gone out on Saturday. Not only did she not want to put Trevor off in case Nash did ring, but since her last conversation with Trevor, over the telephone, had not been all that satisfactory, she was eager to see him to make up. Trevor had been equally eager to see her, and she felt a glow inside that he wasn't holding a grudge because she had put him off last Wednesday. So happy had she been, in fact, that any thought of cooling the situation between them until her annulment came through went right out of her head, and she dated him on Sunday and Monday as well.

But by the time Wednesday came around and still no word from Nash Devereux, her anxieties were beginning to show through.

'Something worrying you?' Trevor enquired. They were sitting outside her flat in his car after an evening spent at the cinema.

'No, nothing, nothing at all", she denied, half of her ready to panic that after several hours spent in her company he must have realised she wasn't her usual self, while the other half of her was wondering if this wasn't just the opportunity to tell him everything.

'Is it something I've said?' he insisted, plainly not believing her when she said nothing was wrong.

She looked at him, the light from a street lamp making his fair hair seem darker, softening the sharp lines of his features. 'I...' she began, and didn't get any further.

'Perhaps it's something I've not said,' he interrupted.

She heard the smile in his voice and the moment was lost when she might have gathered all her courage and told him. She knew then that he was referring to the fact that he hadn't followed up from his intimation over a week ago that he was considering asking her to marry him.

'Bear with me, darling,' he said, his voice still smiling, confident he knew her answer once he had everything sorted out in his mind. 'Only last night Mother was saying exactly what I've already told you, that I need to be very sure before I commit myself.'

 A mixture of emotions beset Perry. She wasn't sure she liked the way Trevor was taking a long detached looked at the prospect of them being married. The way he was not allowing anything of impetuous love to rule his head. Any more than she liked the fact that he had obviously been discussing her—and discussing marrying her—with his mother.

Then all the guilt of her secret flooded in and she felt further guilt heaped on her head that she should for a moment take exception to anything he did. With his parents' marriage as an example, the constant record Mrs Coleman played on divorce, no wonder he was taking his time in making up his mind. And anyway, hadn't she already decided she didn't want him to ask her to marry him until she was free?

But ready as she was to forgive him any slight, real or imaginary, she found there was something in her, some sore pride, which had her sharper with him when he pulled her into his arms and showed every sign that if mentally he wasn't yet ready to commit himself to marriage, then his physical being had no objection to trying to anticipate that state of affairs.

'No!' she said, more sharply than she would otherwise have done had not her pride been ruffled.

'Oh, come on, Perry,' he tried to coax, 'we know each other well enough by now—we love each other, don't we?'

Perry was firm then as she had been on other occasions, though she hardly knew why. True, she owned, Trevor had succeeded in niggling her, but she had enjoyed his kisses before.

'I think I'll go in,' she said, struggling out of his arms, amazed at the thought that had just popped into her head; the thought that maybe she couldn't let herself go with Trevor, or any of the boy-friends she had had before him, because for all her paper marriage was just that and no more, deep, deep down her subconscious recognised she was still married!

Reluctantly, with bad grace, he let her go. 'I'll ring you,' he said, and didn't wait until she was in the house before he had driven away.

She sighed, her thoughts a jumble as she went upstairs to her flat. She wanted peace of mind, but what chance of that was there with on one hand Trevor on the brink of proposing, her wanting to say yes with her dreadful secret yet to be revealed, and Nash Devereux taking his time in contacting her?

A kind of desperation gripped her, and she knew if she didn't hear from him soon she would, regardless of that all-knowing voice on the Devereux Corporation switchboard, be ringing them and demanding to know his telephone number in the States. She couldn't go on like this much longer.

The next morning found her feeling a little brighter, and with Madge's unfailing good humour she was a good deal lifted by the time it came to go home. Trevor hadn't rung, but then he didn't every day. Hope was with her as her feet sped homewards, only one thought in her mind— to hurry indoors and see if a letter had come for her from Nash.