The Virgin Bride (The Australians) (2 page)

‘The girl he was seeing before Emma?'

‘Oh, no, that was Lizzie Talbot. Anyway, he didn't deny sleeping with the Martin girl, but refused to acknowledge the child, saying the girl was a slut and he wasn't the only bloke who'd been having sex with her. Emma and he had this very public row, right outside Ivy's shop. I heard some of it. Heck, the whole
town
heard some of it!'

Muriel lent on her elbows on the counter, enjoying herself relaying the gossip. ‘Dean had the hide to still ask her to marry him, you see. Emma refused and he lost his temper, claimed that everything was her fault, though how he figured that I'd like to know. I remember him yellin' at her that if she didn't marry him as planned, then they were finished. She yelled
back that they were finished anyway. She threw his ring back in his face and said she'd marry the first decent man who asked her.'

‘Really?'
Jason said, unable to hide his elation at this last piece of news.

‘Don't go countin' your chickens, Doc,' Muriel said drily. ‘She was only spoutin' off, like women do. Pride and all. Her actions since then have been much louder than her words. It's been a year and she hasn't gone out on one date, despite being asked many times. No man'll ask her to marry him when she doesn't let them get to first base, will he? We all know she's just waitin' for Dean to show up on her doorstep again. If and when he does…' Muriel shrugged resignedly, as though it was a foregone conclusion that Emma would fall readily into the arms of her long-lost lover.

And he
had
been her lover. Jason didn't doubt that. Women in love were rarely sustained by old-fashioned standards.

Still, the thought of Emma falling victim to such a conscienceless stud churned his stomach. She was such a soft, sweet creature, warm and caring and loving. She deserved better.

She deserves
me
, Jason decided. Modesty had never been one of his virtues.

‘What happened to the girl?' he asked. ‘The one Ratchitt got into trouble.'

‘Oh, she moved away to the city. Rumour has it she got rid of the baby.'

‘Do you think it
was
his?'

‘Who knows? The girl
was
on the loose side. If it was Dean's child, it's the first time he slipped up that
way. Odd, since over the years he'd made out with just about every female under forty in town, married
and
single.'

Jason's eyebrows lifted. ‘That's some record. What's he got going for him? Or dare I ask?'

Muriel laughed. ‘Can't give a personal report, Doc, since I'm headin' for sixty myself. But he's a right good-lookin' lad, is our Dean.'

‘How old is he?'

‘Oh, a few years younger than you, I would say, but a few years older than Emma.'

‘And how old's Emma?'

Muriel straightened, her expression reproachful. ‘Doc, Doc…what have you been doin' these past few months during your home visits? You should know these things already, if you're serious about the girl. She's twenty-two.'

Jason frowned. He'd thought she was older. There was a maturity and serenity in her manner which suggested a few more years' experience in life. Hell, at twenty-two she was barely more than a girl. A girl who'd lived all her life in a country town. An inexperienced and innocent young girl.

Emma's brief engagement to Dean Ratchitt came to mind, and Jason amended that last thought. Not so innocent, perhaps. Nor quite so inexperienced. Men like Ratchitt didn't hang around girls who didn't give them what they wanted.

‘Do you think Ratchitt will come back?'

‘Who knows? If he hears about Ivy passin' on and Emma inheritin' the shop and all, he might.'

Jason didn't think Emma inheriting that particular
establishment would inspire even the most hard-up scoundrel to race back home. The small shop had provided the two women with a living, he supposed, but only because they didn't have to pay rent. The shop occupied the converted front rooms of an old weatherboard house, as did most of the shops in Tindley. But it was smaller and more run-down than most. As real estate went, it wasn't worth much.

Jason couldn't imagine Ratchitt returning for such a poor prize. But who knew? Those who had nothing…

‘If he did come back, do you think she'd take up with him again?' Jason asked.

Muriel pulled a face. ‘Love makes fools of the best of us.'

Jason had to agree. Just as well
he
wasn't in love with the girl. He wanted to make his decisions about her with his head, not his heart.

‘See you tomorrow, Muriel,' he said, and gathered up his lunch. He'd already tarried far too long in Tindley's bakery. Muriel was going to have a field-day gossiping about what she'd gleaned.

Not that it would matter. Jason had made up his mind, and he would make his move this evening, after afternoon surgery. He had no intention of waiting till the dastardly Dean showed up. He had no intention of wasting time asking Emma for a date, either. He was going to go straight to the heart of the matter…with a proposal of marriage.

J
ASON
was beginning to feel a bit nervous, a most unusual state for him.

But understandable, he decided as he opened the side gate which led round to the back of Emma's house. It wasn't every day you asked a woman to marry you, certainly not a woman you didn't love, whom you'd never even been out with, let alone slept with. Most people would say he was mad. Adele certainly would.

Thinking of Adele's opinion had a motivating effect on him. Anything Adele thought was insane was probably the most sensible thing in the world.

Determined not to change his mind, Jason closed the gate behind him and strode down the side path to Emma's back door. A light was shining through the lace curtains at the back window, he noted with relief. Some music was on somewhere. She was definitely home.

There were three steps leading up to the back door, the cement worn into dips in the middle. Jason put one foot on the first step, then stopped to straighten his tie and his jacket.

Not that any straightening was strictly necessary. He was wearing one of his suavest and most expensive Italian suits, a silk blend in a dark grey which
never creased and always made him feel like a million dollars. His tie was silk too, a matching grey with diagonal stripes of blue and yellow. It was smart and modern without being too loud. He'd even sprayed himself with some of the cologne he was partial to, but kept for special occasions.

Jason knew his mission tonight was a difficult one and he was leaving nothing to chance, using everything in his available armoury to present an attractive and desirable image to Emma. He wanted to be everything he was sure Dean Ratchitt wasn't. He wanted to offer her everything Dean Ratchitt hadn't. A solid, secure marriage to a man who would never be unfaithful to her, and whom she could be proud of.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, he stepped up, lifted his hand and knocked. In the several seconds it took for her to come to the door, a resurgence of nerves set his empty stomach churning. He should have eaten first, he thought irritably. But he hadn't been able to settle to a meal before hearing Emma's answer.

That
she
might think him mad as well suddenly occurred to him, and he was besieged by a most uncustomary lack of confidence.

She'll turn you down, man,
came the voice of reason.
She's a romantic and she doesn't love you.

The door handle slowly turned and the door swung back, sending a rectangle of light right into his face. Emma stood, silhouetted in the doorway, her face in shadow.

‘Jason?' came her soft and puzzled enquiry. It had
taken him weeks of visiting Ivy to get her to call him Jason, he recalled. Even then, she still called him Dr Steel occasionally. He was glad she hadn't tonight.

‘Hello, Emma,' he returned, amazed at his cool delivery. His heart might be jumping and his stomach doing cartwheels, but he sounded his usual assured self. ‘May I come in for a few minutes?'

‘Come in?' she repeated, as though she could not make sense of his request. He hadn't been to visit since her aunt's death. He'd attended the funeral, but not the wake, an emergency having called him back to the surgery. She probably thought that their friendship—such as it was—had died with her aunt's death.

‘There's something I want to ask you,' he added.

‘Oh…oh, all right.' She stepped back and turned into the light.

Jason followed, frowning. She looked more composed than she had the day of the funeral, but still very pale, and far too thin. Her cheeks were sunken in, making her green eyes seem huge. Her dress hung on her, and her hair looked dull, not at all like the shining cap of golden curls which usually framed her delicately pretty face.

It came to him as he glanced around the spotless but bare kitchen that she probably hadn't been eating properly since her aunt's death. The fruit bowl in the centre of the kitchen table was empty, and so was the biscuit jar. Maybe she didn't have much money to spend on food. Funerals and wakes did not come cheap. Had it taken all her spare cash to bury Ivy?

Damn, but he wished he'd thought of that before.
He should not have stayed away. He should have offered some assistance, seen to it she was looking after herself. What kind of doctor was he? What kind of friend? What kind of man?

The kind who thought he could bowl up here out of the blue and ask this grief-stricken young woman to marry him, simply because it suited his needs. He hadn't stopped to really consider
her
needs, had he? He'd arrogantly thought he could fill them, whatever they were.

God, he hadn't changed at all, he realised disgustedly. He was still as greedy and selfish as ever. When would he learn? Would he ever really change? Hell, he hoped so. He really did.

But knowing what he was didn't change his mind about his mission here tonight. He decided he was still a good catch for a girl whose circumstances weren't exactly top drawer.

‘I'll get us some coffee, shall I?' she said dully, and without waiting for an answer moved off to fill the electric kettle and plug it in.

It wasn't the first time she'd made him coffee. She'd done the honours every time he'd come to visit Ivy. She already knew he liked his coffee in a mug, white with one sugar, so she didn't have to ask.

Jason closed the back door behind him and sat down at the old Formica-topped table, silently watching her move about the kitchen, seeing again what he'd seen that first time. The unconscious grace of her movements. The elegance of her long neck. The daintiness of her figure.

Once again, he felt the urge to touch her, to stroke that tempting neck, to somehow seduce her to his suddenly quite strong desire, a desire as strong and almost as compelling as he'd once felt for Adele.

Yet she was nothing like Adele, whose dark and very striking beauty had a sophisticated and hard-edged glamour. Adele's long legs and gym-honed body had looked incredibly sexy in those wicked little black suits she wore to work. And what she did for a red lace teddy had to be seen to be believed.

Somehow Jason couldn't see Emma dressed in either red or black, or having the body to carry off the kind of sexy lingerie Adele had been addicted to.

But, for all that, he found the delicacy of her shape incredibly sensual, as he did the feminine free flowing dresses she favoured. He imagined she probably donned long frilly-necked nighties for bed. But he wouldn't mind that. There was something perversely alluring in a woman covering up her body. It gave her a sense of mystery, a touch-me-not quality that was challenging and arousing.

Jason realised he had no idea what Emma might look like naked, other than slender. Her breasts looked adequate in clothing, but who could say what was bra and what was not? Not that he found small breasts a turn-off. He liked tiny, exquisitely formed things.

She was petite in height as well, head and shoulders shorter than his own six feet two, unlike Adele, who in heels matched him inch for inch. To be honest, he rather liked Emma having to tip back her head to look up at him. He liked everything about her. And, whilst
he had no doubt now that he was still a selfish man, Jason vowed never to do anything to deliberately hurt her, anything at all.

‘Sorry I haven't got any biscuits or cake to offer you,' she apologised as she carried the two mugs over to the table and sat down opposite him. ‘I haven't felt like shopping. Or cooking. Or eating, for that matter.'

‘But you should eat, Emma,' he couldn't help advising. ‘You don't want to get sick, do you?'

A wan smile flitted across her face, as though she didn't think her getting sick was a matter which would overly trouble her at that moment. Jason frowned at the awful thought she might do something silly. She had to be very down and depressed after her aunt's death.

Yet he could not think of the right thing to say. It seemed his newly acquired bedside manner had suddenly deserted him.

They both sat for a few moments, silently sipping their coffee, till Emma put hers down and looked over at him.

‘What did you want to ask me?' she said in that same flat, bleak voice. ‘Was it something about Aunt Ivy?'

She wasn't really looking at him, he noted. He might have been wearing anything, for all she cared. Her lack of interest in his swanky suit and spruced-up appearance didn't do much for his already waning confidence.

‘No,' he replied. ‘No, it wasn't about Ivy. It was about you, Emma.'

‘Me?'

The soft surprise in her voice and eyes showed she was taken aback by his displaying any personal interest in her at all. But he'd gone too far in his mind to back down now. ‘What are you going to do, Emma,' he asked gently, ‘now that Ivy's gone?'

She sighed heavily. ‘I have no idea.'

‘Do you have any other relatives?'

‘Some cousins in Queensland. But I don't know them very well. In fact, I haven't seen them for years.'

‘You wouldn't want to move away from Tindley, anyway,' he argued. ‘All your friends are here.'

And
me
.

‘Yes,' she said, and sighed another deep and very weary sigh. ‘I suppose I'll open the shop next week, and just…go on as before.'

Go on as before…

Did that mean waste her life waiting for Dean bloody Ratchitt to return? Didn't she know any relationship with him was a dead loss, even if he did come back?

‘I see,' Jason said. ‘And what about the future, Emma? A pretty girl like you must be planning on marrying one day.'

‘Marrying?'

He saw the pain in her face and wanted to kill that bastard. ‘You would make some man a wonderful wife, Emma,' he said sincerely.

She flushed and looked down into her coffee. ‘I doubt that,' she muttered.

‘Then don't. I think any man you agreed to marry would have to be very lucky indeed.'

His words sent her head jerking up, and Jason saw the dawning of understanding over his visit. Shock filled her eyes.

‘Yes,' he said before his courage failed him. ‘Yes, Emma, I'm asking you to marry me.'

Gradually, her shock gave way to confusion and curiosity. Her eyes searched his face, looking for God knew what.

‘But why?' she said at last.

He should have expected such a question, but it threw him for a moment.
Don't lie,
his conscience insisted.

‘Why?' he stalled.

‘Yes, why?' she insisted. ‘And please don't say you're in love with me, because we both know you're not.'

Jason was tempted to lie. He knew he could be very convincing if he tried. He could say he'd hidden his feelings because Ivy had warned him off. He could say a whole load of conning garbage. But that was not what he wanted. If and when he married Emma, he wanted no lies. No pretence. From either of them.

‘No,' Jason replied with a degree of regret in his voice. ‘No, I'm not in love with you, Emma. But believe me when I say I find you very pretty and very desirable. I have right from the first time I saw you.'

He took some comfort from the colour which zoomed into her cheeks. Had she been aware of his admiration all along? If she had, she'd never given
him any indication, although, to be fair, she'd always been prepared to spend time with him after he'd visited her aunt, always offered him coffee and conversation.

‘A man like you could have any girl he wanted,' she countered. ‘Ones far prettier and more desirable than me. There's not a single girl in the district who wouldn't throw herself at your feet, if you turned your eye her way.'

But not you, it seems, Jason thought. Damn, but this was not going to be one of his greatest moments. Failure was always a bitter taste in his mouth. In the past, there hadn't been a girl he'd fancied whom he hadn't been successful with.

Keeping his voice steady and calm, and his eyes firmly on hers, he went on. ‘I don't want any other girl in the district, Emma. I want you.'

Now she flushed fiercely, and his confidence began to return.

‘As I've already said, Emma, I think you'd make a wonderful wife. And a wonderful mother. I watched you with your aunt. You're so kind and caring. So patient and gentle. In the weeks I've known you, I've come to like you very very much. I thought you liked me in return. Was I mistaken?'

‘No,' she returned, although warily. ‘I
do
like you. But just liking someone is not enough for marriage. Neither is finding them attractive.'

So she found him attractive, did she? That was good. That was very good.

‘You think you have to be in love?' he probed softly.

‘Well, yes, I do.'

‘Six months ago I might have agreed with you,' he said ruefully, and her eyes narrowed on him.

‘What do you mean? What happened six months ago?'

Jason hesitated, then gambled on telling her the complete truth. There was a bond in revealing one's soul to another. And one's secrets. He wanted no secrets between them, not if they were to be man and wife. And, by God, they would be, if he had anything to do about it.

‘Six months ago I was working with and living with a woman in Sydney. A doctor. I was madly in love with her and we were planning to be married this year. One day, one of her patients died. A little boy. Of bacterial meningitis.'

‘Oh, how sad! She must have been very upset.'

‘One might reasonably have thought so,' he said bitterly. ‘I have no doubt you would have been devastated in her position. But not Adele. Oh, no. The child's death meant nothing to her, other than a slight blow to her ego. She was briefly annoyed she hadn't matched the child's symptoms with the cause, but then how could she, in a mere five minutes' consultation?'

‘Five minutes?' She was shocked, he could see.

‘That was the average length of a consultation in our surgery. Get 'em in and get 'em out as quickly as possible. Turn-over meant money, you see, and
money was the name of the game. Not people. Or lives. Just money.'