Substitute Bride (3 page)

'Anything you like,' he agreed lazily, as she slipped a loving hand through his arm, 'but we do have a lot to discuss.'

Blanche frowned. 'Surely nothing that can't wait?'

'We have a wedding to arrange,' he replied lightly. 'Ours.'

He took no notice of the others.

'Wedding?' Blanche looked startled, almost shocked.

'We are engaged, remember?' Rick reminded her, very dryly.

'Yes, of course.' Blanche's smile, Emma saw, was very pleasant, if a trifle forced. As she watched, Blanche's mouth drooped petulantly. 'I hadn't forgotten, Rick, but you might have let me know you were coming. I can't just drop everything at a moment's notice. I have my modeling contracts to fulfil.'

Rick's eyes narrowed, then he shrugged. 'We can't talk about this here,' he flicked an enigmatic glance at Rex which again betrayed no immediate liking for what he saw. 'Perhaps later.'

There was dislike on Rick Conway's face but no real suspicion. With an air of lazy amusement the arm Rex had placed around Emma tightened. She could sense the almost bizarre pleasure he was deriving from her discomfort, felt it increase when he urged her softly to hurry up and change. 'If you're feeling exhausted, darling, I can always come and help,' he grinned, adding outrageously, 'It wouldn't be the first time.'

'I can manage,' she murmured, restraining an urgent desire to slap his leering face. Meeting the brief anger in Rick Conway's, she felt sickened. It wasn't hard to guess what he was thinking. Blanche had a lot to answer for, but for once she might have bitten off more than she could chew. She would need brains as well as her normal cunning to find her way successfuly through this little lot! Surely she didn't expect her to actualy go dancing with them? She couldn't have forgotten Emma hadn't a thing to wear.

Yet for all she felt she despised her, it was for Blanche's sake that Emma found herself nodding stiffly at Rex. 'Just give me a few minutes. I'm afraid I've—' pausing, she cast an apologetic glance towards Rick, 'I mean, we've been busy, and I forgot about everything else.' Trying to control a note of sheer fright in her voice, she turned to Blanche. 'You'll be coming up to change, too, won't you, before we go?'

'After I take Rex and Rick into the lounge and find them something decent to drink.' She tossed a distasteful glance at the now cold coffee. 'You go ahead.'

When Blanche folowed her a little later, Emma was sitting on the edge of her bed. She stared at Blanche, who was looking unbelievably pleased with herself.

'What do we do now?' she asked, her own face white.

'Do?' Blanche smiled, a gleeful little smile as she threw off her coat, as if the two men downstairs presented no great problem. 'Hope for the best, I suppose,' she replied, with a coolness Emma found it difficult to emulate.

'I think you're acting deplorably, going out with one man while you're engaged to another!' she suddenly found the courage to say furiously.

'Now don't go getting all steamed up!' Blanche advised nastily. 'How was I to know Rick would arrive? If you'd had any sense, you would have contrived to get me word he was here and all this might have been avoided.' Her pale blues eyes cold with dislike, she snapped at Emma spitefuly,

'You're so bloody self-righteous I expect you prayed the worst might happen so you could say I told you so!'

In the quiet of the bedroom nothing could be heard but the sound of Blanche's viciously drawn breath. Emma, taking a quick glance at her, swalowed nervously. Blanche's language didn't frighten her so much as the hatred in her voice. Blanche was making no attempt to disguise the fact that she despised her.

Biting her lip on an unhappy sigh, Emma managed a rather muddled dignity. 'I did try to ring, but no one seemed to know where I could find you. And if Rick did break off the engagement you would only have yourself to blame, and I certainly wouldn't waste my time saying I told you so.'

It was the nearest Emma had come to defying the other girl, and the effort proved almost too much for her. Twin patches of colour tinted her pale cheeks and her voice trembled.

Blanche, apparently fearing she was going to have a case of hysteria on her hands, said quickly, 'I'm sorry. I agree you have a point, but you can't let me down now. You've got to help me!'

Emma could almost see the way her mind was working.

Blanche wouldn't have spared her another word, at least not a civil one, if it hadn't been for the two men downstairs. 'If helping you means going out tonight, I'm afraid I can't.'

'It's not much to ask, darling,' Blanche was shamelessly wheedling now. 'We'll go somewhere quiet, where Rex and I aren't known, and only stay an hour or two.'

'What it boils down to,' said Emma, recovering some of her poise, 'is that you're asking me to help deceive Rick.

That's what I don't like, for a start.'

'What can it mean to you?' Blanche's face was almost ugly as her temper rose again. 'Don't tell me,' she sneered,

'that you've falen for him!'

'Hardly.' Emma's soft mouth twisted ironicaly. 'What chance do you think I would stand with a man like that? But,'

she attacked her cousin fiercely, 'if I had falen for him and felt like encouraging him, I hope I'd have had the decency to remember there are such things as principles and loyalty. If Rick knew what was going on I'm sure he wouldn't want anything more to do with you.'

'How do you know?' Blanche retaliated contemptuously.

'Do you imagine he's any saint himself? I don't see why, if I have to overlook his affairs, he shouldn't do the same where I'm concerned. Why should different rules apply for men and women?'

'Just as long as you realise what you're doing,' Emma sighed tersely, suddenly realising it was a waste of time trying to make Blanche see sense.

'We've been through all this before, Emma,' Blanche pleaded, after an uneasy pause during which she made an almost visible attempt to control her angry impatience. Her voice harsh with effort, she begged, 'Please, just put on a dress and stop arguing.'

'I don't have a dress.'

'What?' Emma might have dropped a bomb without its effect being so shattering. Blanche's fury increased as she believed Emma was being deliberately obstructive. 'When you came here you had several,' she exclaimed. 'Any one of them will do.'

Scornfuly Emma lifted her chin. 'Your mother took them.

I didn't ask what she did with them. I only have one, which she didn't think was worth bothering about. It was one I had at school for some event, if I remember, when I was fourteen.'

Blanche had the grace to colour, but there was no apology in her voice as she snapped, 'They were ridiculously expensive models from Paris—what good would they have been to you here? The moths would only have got into them, and you cost us quite a lot of money, one way and another. It was the only way we could get any of it back.'

'It doesn't matter now,' Emma assured her briefly, indeed finding it almost impossible to believe she had once owned quite a few evening gowns, each worth many hundreds of pounds. In some things her father had always spoiled her, perhaps because he had liked showing her off. All his possessions had had to measure up to a certain standard, his daughter included, young though she had been.

As no amount of retrospection would solve tonight's problem, Emma sighed and pushed it to the back of her mind. 'You could let me borrow one of your dresses,' she suggested to an angry, frowning Blanche.

'Mine wouldn't be much good,' Blanche glared at her,

'except for a laugh. I'm much taler than you, you'd only look sily, and you look bad enough as it is. No, you'd better wear your old one, if you can find it.'

'Won't you mind if I look even worse than usual?' Emma asked dryly.

'Who's going to notice you when I'm around?' Blanche snapped derisively.

It wasn't until later that Emma realised how true this was.

No one had noticed. Swalowing to relieve a surprising tightness in her throat, she tried to relax in Rex Oliver's arms as they circled the dance floor of the night club they had found. As she had walked downstairs, covered from chin to toe in prim grey sateen, to join the others in the hal, if there had been anything in Rick Conway's eyes it had only been a faint amusement. It had been painfuly obvious that outdated styles and a profusion of fair hair tied hastily back from an even more hastily powdered face left him quite indifferent.

As it was the first opportunity she had had of speaking to Rex alone, she was determined to make the most of it. 'Why do you keep on seeing Blanche, Rex? You know she's engaged.'

Rex groaned lightly, glancing down into her indignant eyes with a hint of disappointment on his good-looking but rather weak face. 'Don't spoil it, Emma!'

'Spoil what?'

'Wel,' he grinned suddenly, 'you may be a plain little thing, but you dance like an angel. For your dancing alone I could love you.'

'Stop being so sily and evasive, Rex!' She could have stamped her small foot that he wasn't apparently inclined to take her seriously.

Again his mouth twitched, then he sobered, his eyes narrowing as he studied her upturned features. 'Do you know,' he frowned, 'I do believe you have distinct possibilities.'

'Oh, for goodness' sake, Rex, we're not discussing me!

Besides, what you suggest is ridiculous. I expect,' she stared at him almost beligerently, 'you're just trying to put me off.'

'No,' adamantly he shook his head as he went on studying her, 'I'm too used to assessing raw material, if you'll forgive the pun, to dismiss you out of hand. I'm suddenly convinced I could turn you into something outstanding. If you ever need a job, Emma…'

'I don't,' she cut through what looked like becoming a definite offer, abruptly, wondering why men liked to tease when something important was at stake. 'We're talking about Blanche.'

'You are,' he corrected smoothly. 'You've implied that I'm corrupting an innocent young girl. Wel, let's get one thing straight. True, Blanche is engaged, but she is neither innocent or a young girl like, you any more. She stopped being either years ago.'

'But all that's behind her now,' Emma insisted holowly.

'She's going to settle down, I'm sure of it. And she'll have Rick to help her.'

'Oh, Conway doesn't mind her the way she is. I'm not saying she isn't delectable, but in another year or two, when the glamour wears off, what will he be left with?'

Emma shivered as she recognised the truth of this. In the mornings, Blanche with a hangover and without make-up could easily pass for a woman years older. 'That's not the point, though, is it?' She wasn't sure whether she was arguing with herself or Rex, but there had to be some way out of what she sensed was impending disaster.

'Never mind about the point, child,' Rex's arms tightened irritably. 'Blanche is quite capable of sorting out her own problems, and I never interfere unless I'm asked.'

That was part of the trouble! Everyone, including Blanche, thought she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but was she? Wasn't there such a thing as having too much faith in one's own infalibility? No one appeared to realise Blanche could need help, and here was Rex, who Emma was certain Blanche might listen to, refusing to even consider giving it!

Unhappily Emma's eyes wandered to where Blanche was dancing with Rick Conway. She appeared to have made an extra effort this evening and her appearance was scintilating.

So was her dress—what there was of it! As she watched broodingly, Emma's eyes widened as she saw Rick's hand caressing Blanche's waist, which the low back of her dress left bare, then, to her disgust, he drew Blanche even closer and his hand slid upwards into the brief bodice, where Emma considered no man's hand had a right to be.

Suddenly, as if he sensed an audience, Rick's eyes lifted from the sophisticated girl in his arms to meet the open scorn in Emma's directly. As she flushed but was unable to look away, his mouth curled contemptuously. 'Yes, take a good look,' his mocking expression seemed to say, 'No man's going to admire you enough to want to possess you.'

Feeling utterly humiliated by a message she received only too clearly, Emma almost refused to dance with him when he asked her later. And though she sensed his surprised pleasure in the perfect unison of their limbs she hated him too much to forgive him. He didn't talk much, but he did ask if she had known Rex Oliver long.

'Quite a long time,' she replied cautiously, trying in vain to remember when it was that Blanche had first brought Rex to the house.

'Are you sure's he's your type?' Rick continued bluntly.

'Now wait a minute!' he threw up a quick hand as Emma started and stared at him resentfuly. 'So far as I can make out you've no one to advise you. Or perhaps I should forget about trying to be diplomatic? Blanche was just saying how you won't listen to advice.'

'Why, of al—all the…'

'You wouldn't be prepared to listen to me either, I suppose?' he asked coldly, ignoring her outburst which had petered out in such a way as seemed to proclaim her guilt.

'Why should I listen to you, or anyone?' Emma drew a deep breath, her voice icy. 'Give me one good reason!'

'Why, indeed?' Suddenly his mouth relaxed in faint irony.

'Apart from giving you a hand with Daisy, I haven't done much to endear myself to you, have I? I waded in with a heavy hand regarding your appearance, putting your back up immediately. I guess I forgot I wasn't talking to my young sister.'

'I don't think you did.' Emma felt a tremor run through her as his arms tightened unpredictably at that.

'Astute, as well as a good cook and an astonishingly good dancer,' he quirked, 'to say nothing of being a competent farmer. Perhaps if you were to advertise your talents more, a man wouldn't notice—other things?'

'Strangers don't usualy wade in with insults,' she retorted coldly, refusing to be impressed by a few flattering words—if that was what they had been.

'That's not how I'd have described a few straight remarks,' he drawled. 'And I can hardly be classed as a stranger.'

'We'd only met once,' she exclaimed.

'Perhaps that was where I made my first mistake. I should have made more of that opportunity, but you didn't give me much encouragement. You just stood and stared at me out of those great condemning eyes and disliked me on sight.'

'How could I do that?' Was she asking him or herself? 'I didn't even know you. I do recall wondering why you'd chosen Blanche—I mean, after all the other girls you must have met nearer home.'

'Maybe none of them would have me.'

'We both know that couldn't be true.'

His eyebrows rose so sardonicaly she flushed. 'Don't tell me you think me handsome enough to attract any number of women?' he teased, with a sober insolence which somehow got under her skin.

'Perhaps it's your bank balance more than you,' she replied stiffly, but felt a flicker of triumphant malice as she saw his mouth tighten. When it came down to it, Rick Conway would enjoy being married for what he had no more than the next man.

He was about to speak when the music stopped, and Emma was relieved, as she guessed the nature of the few terse words he had been about to deliver. She was glad he wasn't given another chance to reprimand her as Blanche and Rex happened to be beside them.

Rex claimed Emma for nearly every dance after that, and for all she disliked him she began to enjoy herself.

Never having danced since she left school, she hadn't realised how much she had missed it.

Rex, strangely enough, was enjoying himself, too, and as he and Emma sparred lightly the habitual boredom seemed to leave his face. Once, when Emma said something which amused him greatly, he laughed aloud and hugged her appreciatively to him. She was aware that Rick had noticed and, as before, didn't conceal his contempt. Blanche frowned, as she and Rick danced past, not bothering to hide hers, either, as she saw Rex's amusement.

Later, when she and Blanche were in the cloakroom together, Blanche insisted that there was no need for Emma to overdo things.

The grey dress was so cumbersome and hot, Emma was having to hold her thin wrists under the cold tap to try and cool down. When Blanche spoke she stared at her blankly. 'I thought you wanted me to pretend Rex is my boy-friend?'

'All right, so I did,' Blanche snapped, 'but I didn't ask you to go as far as you're going!'

Soon afterwards they left to return to the farm, where both Rex and Rick departed within minutes of each other. To Emma's surprise Rick went first, but he did arrange to return the folowing evening to finalise plans with Blanche.

The whole of the next day went with unusual slowness for Emma. Everything dragged, and whereas before there had never seemed to be enough time, now there was too much. It maddened her, too, that she couldn't stop thinking of Rick Conway. Why was it, when she had danced with him, she had experienced those strange sensations again? It must have something to do with the antagonism they felt towards each other. It could be nothing else. A girl might be well advised not to trust him, though. Emma shivered when she recaled the dark look in his eyes when she had defied him and the curious cruelty around his sensuous mouth as his glance had flickered over hers.

As Rick was taking Blanche out to dinner and Aunt Hilda was dining out again with friends, Emma decided she would wait until they had all gone and enjoy the luxury of a bath instead of making do with a shower. For once she had managed to finish early and was busy washing the dishes which were still in the sink from lunch, when she heard the doorbel ring. Fancying that no one had answered it, she hastily removed the last of the dishes from the soapy water and quickly dried her wet hands.