Second Best Wife (4 page)

'That'll be the day!' she scoffed.

'Indeed it will!' he retorted.

William would do nothing to put his mother's mind at rest.

'Don't hide behind her skirts,' he advised Georgina. 'It won't do you any good.'

'But, William, I
like
your mother. Why do you have to hurt her too?' 'She'll get over it. She'll forget
why
we got married once the deed is safely done. By the time we present her with her first grandchild she'll be convinced that the whole idea was her own. She's always preferred you to Jennifer.'

Georgina tried not to allow the barb to hurt her. 'Is that so odd?' 'To me it is. You have none of Jennifer's gentle and appealing ways. Mother doesn't usually approve of violent people.'

'How she must dislike you!' Georgina exclaimed.

He cast her an angry look. 'If I am violent with you it's no more than you deserve,' he bit out. 'You'll find me quite reasonable as long as you behave yourself. I think I know how to handle you so that neither of us gets hurt too badly. It's more than time that someone took you in hand!'

Georgina set her mouth in a stubborn line. 'I'm not going to marry you. I plan to marry someone else, as a matter of fact. I may have my faults, William dear, but your kind of arrogance is not part of my make-up. How will your pride enjoy having a wife who's in love with somebody else?'

'With whom?' He laughed without humour. 'Are you trying to tell me you have a boy-friend?'

'Why not?' she countered in commendably cool tones.

'Who is he?'

She opened her eyes wide, beginning to enjoy herself. 'Peter Anthony. I don't think you know him. Jennifer and I met him at a dance —'

'And you took him away from her, I suppose?'

Georgina sighed. 'I didn't have to. Impossible as you find it to believe, there are a few men in the world who don't give Jennifer a second glance. Not many, I grant you, but there are one or two.'

William frowned at her. 'And how far has this romance gone?' he demanded.

'That,' said Georgina, 'is none of your business.'

'It is now! Marry me you're going to, Georgina Perry, and although I don't relish the prospect of second-hand goods, it isn't going to put me off, if that's what you're hoping?'

Georgina's face flamed. 'Think what you like! I don't care!'

William raised his brows thoughtfully. 'I wonder why you do?' he murmured. 'You've always cared what I think. Why not admit it?'

Georgina shrugged. 'You flatter yourself—as always!' She flicked her fingers as close to his face as she could get. 'I don't care that much for what you think! And you won't find Peter as easy to bully

as you do me. He's more of a man than you'll ever be!'

William threw back his head and laughed. 'Tell me that when you've been married to me for a week or more,' he said nastily. 'I've never had any complaints before.'

'I daresay nobody dared voice any,' Georgina retorted. 'Like Jennifer, they probably told their troubles to someone else. You're not a very sympathetic listener, William Ayres. In fact I don't find you sympathetic at all!'

'You don't have to, though, do you? Bullies in my experience always complain of being bullied when anyone dares put a stop to their activities. If you want me to be kind to you, the remedy is in your own hands. I'll be as kind to you as I think you deserve, no more, no less.'

Georgina rose to her feet. 'Thanks very much,' she said, the bitterness she was feeling rising like a geyser to the surface. 'I don't want you to be kind or not kind, or anything else! I just want you to leave me alone! I'm going home!'

He took her hands in his, pulling her into the circle of his arms. 'You're not going anywhere, my sweet — '

She stamped her foot at him, trying vainly to free her wrists from his clasp. 'Really, William, don't you think this joke has gone far enough? All right, you've given me a fine fright, which is presumably what you wanted to do, but I'm not frightened now. I've had it, and I've had you too!'

'Not yet you haven't, but you're going to.' He smiled at her with a gentleness that belied the pressure of his hands in the small of her back. 'You won't hanker after your Peter for long, Georgie Porgie, I promise you. If you'll let me, and by that I mean if you don't fight me every inch of the way, I'll make you very happy. It's a long time since I took a good look at you, but you're not as bad looking as I thought. Jennifer is so delicate-boned and fragile that she makes you look too solid and robust by comparison—'

Georgina achieved her ambition of stamping hard on his toe, followed by a fierce kick on the shins. She might just as well have saved herself the trouble, for William's only reaction was to laugh.

'Don't you want me to kiss you?' he teased her.

'I don't want to have anything to do with you!'

But she was very much aware of his hands on her back. They were warm and competent, holding her with an ease she had never come across before. Struggle as she would, she could not gain her freedom from him, and yet it was no effort to him to bring her closer still against him. Her heart beat increased its rhythm in a sudden excitement that she found quite inexplicable.

'You see,' he said in her ear, 'it isn't quite as you thought, is it? How do you like being on the receiving end for a change?'

It was a kiss such as she had never experienced before. His mouth commanded hers, parting her lips, and ignoring her spluttered protest. And then she didn't want to protest any more, nor did she want to escape from the pressure of his hands, or from the earthy, male smell of him at close quarters. It was as if she had no will of her own, but that her whole being had merged with his to give them both the greater satisfaction.

When he let her go, the reality of her position came rushing back to her and the tears came brimming into her eyes and down her cheeks. She wiped them away impatiently, hating herself for the feeling of acute loss that afflicted her.

'I told you it wouldn't be I who cried,' William's mocking voice reminded her.

'But you didn't say you wouldn't be able to resist saying I told you so!' she flared up at him. 'Nobody has ever kissed me against my will before, if you want to know. Are you surprised I'm upset?'

A crease appeared between his eyes, which were more green than gold at that moment. 'Peter can't be much of a man if he lets you make all the running. A woman has to be wooed, not left to take the initiative herself. Is he afraid of you too, Georgie Porgie?'

'Peter isn't afraid of anyone!'

He was silent for a long moment and Georgina eyed him covertly, wondering what he was thinking.

'In the same way that you're not afraid of me?' he questioned her at last. 'You can't make up your mind, can you? You're more attracted by my handling of you than you'll admit, Georgie. I don't believe anyone has assailed your heart and come close to bringing your defences tumbling down, my innocent. Tell me more about this Peter of yours.'

'There's nothing to tell.' Georgina gave him a mutinous look, recovering herself sufficiently to whip up her anger to boiling point again. 'I love him and I mean to marry him. That's all you need to know.' She hoped she didn't sound as guilty as she felt, for she could well imagine the unfortunate Peter's consternation if he could hear her. She thought it unlikely that he wanted their easy-going relationship to turn into anything more than the unemotional friendship it had been so far. He wouldn't like her using him as a defence against William, but, once she had explained things to him, she thought he would back her up until the danger was over. Peter was the most reliable person she knew and one of the best friends she had. It was true that sometimes she suspected he had got to know her in order to get closer to Jennifer, but she had never held this against him. He had seen through Jennifer with the greatest of ease and had pronounced her both shallow and wilful. Georgina hadn't wholly agreed with him, but she had been grateful that for once she had been found to be the greater attraction for one of the more personable young men of their mutual acquaintance.

'You must introduce him to me,' William suggested. 'I don't suppose you want to break it to him yourself that you aren't going to marry him after all?'

'But I am!' she protested.

'Oh no, my dear, you're not. It wouldn't
be
him for long, would it? You'd soon be casting an envious eye over Duncan, and we'd all be back where we started, making the best of things after you've broken them into little pieces. No, Jennifer won't be safe from you until I have you firmly shackled to my side. I may not be able to give her anything else, but at least I mean to give her that!'

Georgina felt obliged to argue the point with him just one more time. 'What did I do to spoil things between you two?' she demanded. 'It wasn't I who forced Jennifer into Duncan's arms!'

'No, it was my arms you pushed her into, not Duncan's, but it all comes to the same thing. You've pushed Jennifer around for far too long. I'm going to give her her freedom. What she does with it is her own affair. I shall be occupied with controlling my own wife.' He smiled slowly, looking surprised. 'I even think I may enjoy it, young Georgie. Whatever else it is, it certainly won't be dull!'

‘But, William, I don't want to marry you!' Georgina wailed.

‘You will when you get used to the idea,' he returned calmly. ‘My dear girl, susceptible to your own passions you've always been, but I don't believe anyone else has ever stormed your selfish little heart before today. Take care you don't lose it to me entirely if it amuses me to turn you into a loving wife after all.'

‘William, I
hate you!'

‘Of course you do,' he answered in soothing tones. ‘But hasn't anyone ever told you, Georgina dear, that hatred is the other side of the coin of love? Now, calm down and listen for a change. I have to be in Sri Lanka in three weeks' time. Can you be ready by then?'

Georgina seethed with frustrated fury. ‘Am I supposed to answer that? How can I make it any clearer to you? I'm
not
going to marry you!'

‘We can be married that same day in the morning,' he went on unperturbed. ‘That'll give you the flight to get over the shock of finding that for once you haven't got your own way about something. Cheer up, Georgie, I won't hurry you into the responsibilities of married life once we're safely away from here. You'll have all the time you need before we come back to England and Jennifer. By that time you'll have forgotten that you were ever a reluctant bride and wife.'

‘And what about Peter?'

William had the audacity to grin at her. ‘I think I'll see Peter myself. If he's really set on marrying you, he'll probably take it better from me that you've changed your mind about him. I have an idea that you wouldn't throw your heart into the chore of telling him you're about to jilt him for another.'

‘You're right! Nor am I going to jilt him! I refuse to allow you to take my life over in any way. This is the twentieth century, William Ayres, and you'll soon find out you can't do it!'

For an instant he looked almost sorry for her. ‘But I can, Georgie, that's the whole point. I can do it because you're the kind of girl who has been brought up to believe that she ought to marry her lover.' His eyes narrowed, giving him a wicked look that made her tremble inside. ‘Would you prefer me to take you without marriage?' His eyes never left her face which he had forced up at an uncomfortable angle to make his point the more brutally. 'No, I thought not,' he said at last. 'At least you don't pretend that I couldn't do that too if I had a mind to! You're a poor loser, but you have a proud spirit. When I've finished with you, my sweet, you're going to be quite a woman!'

A lump formed in her throat and dissolved into a ball of hot wretchedness that robbed her of speech. All she could do was to thump her closed fists against his chest. She would have given anything to have poked him in the other eye at that moment, but her tears defeated her. Boxers wouldn't be boxers if they ever cried, she thought. Nor were they ever overwhelmed by a sense of desolation that occasionally afflicted all her sex. Life was so unfair! 'William, please let me go,' she whispered.

'I'm sorry, Georgie, but I can't do it. You won't find it so bad once you're used to the idea. And you'll enjoy living in Ceylon for a few months, if you'll allow yourself to. It's a beautiful island and a beautiful people to go with it. You'll love it!'

At any other time, under any other circumstances, that might have been true, but he must be mad if he thought she would enjoy anything in his company when she had thoroughly disliked him ever since she could remember. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but somehow the words didn't come out as she had intended. Instead a quite different question came tumbling out.

'What do you do when you go abroad for months together?'

He gave her a startled look. 'Don't you know? I'm an engineer. This time I'm going to Sri Lanka on a Commonwealth project to do with irrigation. It's one of the most interesting jobs I've ever tackled. I like having Commonwealth backing too. It's the sort of thing we ought to be doing to help the poorer members in the Third World, not making the gap ever wider between us. One day we'll pay for our greed and stupidity in the West if we don't do a great deal more of this sort of thing.' His golden eyes mocked her. 'One way or another, the selfish always pay in the end, or hadn't you noticed?'