Amber's Wedding

‘I’m relieved.’ Jake gave her a crooked smile. ‘If I’m to have a wife, I’d prefer to be her friend. Friends give one another space. I know you want very little from me, and that suits me fine. I can’t stand women who cling. Our arrangement is ideal.’

‘Because you don’t need to pretend you love me.’

His mouth took on a wry twist. ‘I don’t need to pretend that, no,’ he said huskily.

Amber wondered what had happened to make Jake so detached. He’d hinted of a broken heart—one that would never mend. It explained why he always kept a part of himself back. Hopefully, he’d learn to trust her in time and share some of his past with her. As to the future...

Suddenly she thought of him lying dead somewhere abroad and she went pale. ‘You’ll still risk your life, I suppose,’ she said quietly.

‘It’s my job. My job is my life. I feel a passionate need to tell the world what is happening out there, to report the truth and help to prevent injustice.’ He gave a short laugh and met her eyes again. ‘I’m very hot on injustice, Amber.’

She smiled. ‘I admire that,’ she said earnestly. ‘It colours everything you do. Your parents must be very proud of you.’

‘Less proud of my professional achievements than they are to hear I’m married at last,’ he said ruefully.

She laughed with him. His parents had been obsessed with his bachelor state. Occasionally, after ringing their home in Kenya, he’d met her in the camp mess tent and exasperatedly confided that all they could ask was whether he’d found a nice girl yet.

‘The heat would have been off you if you’d had brothers or sisters,’ she said sympathetically.

He shrugged, a hard line to his mouth. ‘It’s off now.’

‘I’m sorry your parents couldn’t come.’

‘Only malaria could have kept Father away,’ Jake said wryly. ‘Prepare yourself for when we tell them you’re pregnant. My mother will start knitting... and Father will see some purpose to his life again.’ His expression became very serious. ‘Amber, I love them both. They’ve had a rough time. A lot of troubles which I’ll tell you about one day. I’d like them to be happy.’

Amber could see that his affection was genuine. It was something she could relate to. A man who loved his parents and cared so much for their welfare would make a good husband.

A sudden, sharp heat invaded her stomach. Dismayed, she closed her eyes tightly, willing herself not to be sick, here, in front of Jake. On her wedding day! The ghastliness of the situation made her wince.

‘You’re ill?’ He didn’t seem to miss anything. ‘You look very pale.’

She heard him move and felt him come close, knowing that he must have knelt and was inches from her by the sudden pressure of his cool fingers pressing lightly on her temples. Her lids flew open and she met his black-molasses gaze in consternation because he was far too near for comfort.

‘Please don’t touch me! I’ll be OK!’ she lied. ‘Leave me alone for a while!’ she begged, her voice rising a betraying octave.

‘I can hardly abandon you when you look so sick. What’s wrong?’ he asked with a frown, beginning to brush the petals from her bare shoulders.

She stiffened. The light touch of his fingers was strange, almost in the form of a warm caress. ‘Don’t!’ she repeated sharply. The sickness surged up again and she swallowed hastily before saying, ‘Nothing’s wrong. I—’

‘Don’t lie. There is a problem. Tell me,’ he ordered.

‘All right!’ Denying her nausea in the hope that mind could conquer matter, she put aside the fear that Jake wasn’t as indifferent as she’d first imagined and concentrated on her misery at losing Leo. ‘I feel depressed because Leo’s left Castlestowe,’ she mumbled, and he gave a quick intake of breath.

‘Ah.’ He looked annoyed again. ‘We come to Leo.’

Sadly she gazed at Jake’s grim face. ‘He and Ginny are getting married again,’ she explained. ‘They’re going to live in St Lucia!’

With great deliberation, Jake unfolded his long limbs and stood up. ‘Just as well,’ he observed with crisp finality.

‘How can you say that?’ Amber objected, craning her neck upwards. ‘Stuart will be devastated! Leo will be living miles and miles away from his father—’

‘It’s only a nine-hour flight,’ Jake pointed out drily. ‘Besides, you told me they’ve never been close. In fact, I’d say that Stuart Brandon loves you more than he loves his son. Don’t look so shocked! It’s true.’

‘Well, Leo was brought up by nannies and sent to boarding-school,’ she said quickly.

‘Mmm.’ Jake paused and considered her thoughtfully, as if that wasn’t the whole explanation. ‘Whereas you, a godchild, have been loved by Stuart and treated like an honorary daughter ever since you were born. Look at this wedding reception he’s provided for you!’

‘He’s been very good to me,’ she admitted.

‘Surprisingly so.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Amber watched him fold his arms in a disturbingly challenging way. ‘The Brandons treat the people who work for them like family. My father grew up with Stuart. They had a mutual respect for one another. And, as you know, Stuart took a shine to me when I was little.’

‘There’s no denying that. You and Castlestowe are the great loves of Stuart’s life,’ said Jake shrewdly. ‘I’m sure he won’t miss Leo too much—nor will he mind running the estate. I think he’ll enjoy striding over the moors in tweeds and brogues. He’ll prefer that to living in London as a Member of Parliament and wearing city suits and breathing city air. He doesn’t strike me as the sort to enjoy Westminster life.’

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Amber conceded, knowing that her godfather hated London and only stayed to press Scotland’s causes. ‘I’m worried about Leo’s grandfather, though. He won’t be pleased at all.’

She saw Jake’s nod of acknowledgement. They’d visited the bedridden Earl a few times, in his suite at the castle.

‘He’s coped with tragedy before. Odd that he thought you resembled his late wife,’ Jake mused idly.

It was true. The portrait in the old earl’s bedroom bore a remarkable likeness to her: a tall, stately woman with fiery hair and a broad, earthy face. But she was Amber Fraser, the daughter of Angus Fraser, a gillie at Castlestowe like all his ancestors before him. And the Brandons were bred-in-the-bone aristocrats.

‘We’re the same Scottish type,’ she said, dismissing the matter. ‘Well, when the old Earl dies, Stuart will be the next Earl of Castlestowe—and after him Leo will inherit the title. He should stay.’ Her face fell. Without Leo’s friendship, she’d be lost.

Jake frowned. ‘He means a lot to you, doesn’t he?’

‘Yes!’ she replied, her eyes soft with tears.

He began to stride up and down the gallery as if he felt confined, then came to a brief halt in front of her. ‘Now he’s gone, at least I won’t have to worry about leaving you here in the cottage while I go on assignments.’

Amber felt offended at what he was implying. With as much dignity as she could muster, she straightened and rose slowly, graceful in the long, rustling crushed taffeta dress despite her Junoesque stature. With her flame-coloured hair floating around her flawless shoulders and her eyes blazing, she gave the impression of a woman on the warpath. Which she might be, if Jake pursued that line of thinking.

‘Leo and I have been together since childhood. He’s like a brother to me, nothing else! I don’t understand why you’re going on about it.’

‘Because,’ answered Jake tightly, ‘people have been questioning what was going on between you two up here—’

‘On my wedding day?’ she broke in, shocked.

‘You both seemed unusually wrapped up in each other,’ he retorted. ‘My journalist friends thought your behaviour was inappropriate. I have to say I agree with them.’

Amber went scarlet. She’d recognised the journalists, who’d been based in the African camp. They would have known about her passionate relationship with Enzo. Everybody did, because Enzo had made no secret of it. Presumably Leo’s friends now thought that she made a habit of flinging herself at men.

‘I see!’ she muttered bitterly. Would her one mistake brand her for ever? ‘I can’t even hug a friend now! It’s people’s dirty minds, not my behaviour that you have to condemn!’

‘I had to come up and take steps to scotch the rumours. I don’t want any more gossip, Amber,’ he said, his voice so softly laced with anger that it slid into her like a knife. ‘We agreed that not only would you remain faithful to our marriage vows, but you’d be seen to be above suspicion. Keep to that agreement, Amber, or I’ll wash my hands of you!’

She looked at him in dismay. The man she’d known—the caring man who’d brought her out of her nightmare and whom she’d witnessed carrying out so many acts of kindness—had vanished. Was this the real Jake? A suspicious, possessive man who expected her to be grateful to him because he’d given her baby the gift of legitimacy?

Desperately she clung to the memory of how he’d cheered up a group of women in a cellar in Sarajevo with an impromptu party. He’d played the piano, beautifully, meltingly, making them all cry. And then he’d danced with every one of them, while Amber had laughingly picked out one-finger tunes.

She made herself remember the time when he’d waded in, fists flying, to a group of men taking a sack of grain from a helpless woman. But that didn’t help. It only reminded her that he had one hell of a temper when roused.

‘What’s happened to you?’ she asked unhappily. ‘We’ve got on so well together up to now. I thought we could be good friends!’ Suddenly she realised just how important that promise of friendship had been to her. Without it, the marriage would be impossible. ‘Jake,’ she went on in a soft, shaky plea, ‘don’t change! Please don’t start acting like a jealous lover—’

His head snapped up sharply, making the black curls dance. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he demanded. ‘Of course I’m not jealous! But the last thing in the world I want is scurrilous gossip about my wife and Leo Brandon.’

His firm hand caught her chin and tipped her head up. A tongue of flame seemed to leap inside her. Sickness? No... Something different. Then what?

In case something in her eyes betrayed her confusion, she lowered her lashes resentfully. Jake’s warm breath caused the remaining petals on her breast to lift and flutter over her pillowy curves.

And, alarmingly, a small ache centred itself in her loins as if her body briefly retained the memory of what it was like to be close to a man and desire him. Appalled, she repressed that feeling and leaned against the side of the gallery for support.

‘I’m not promiscuous! You’ll have no cause to worry about the future,’ she said, her tone pleading with him to believe her. ‘I behaved out of character with Enzo. I was emotionally vulnerable at the time. You know what it was like out there.’

‘Heartbreaking,’ he said flatly.

‘Oh, yes!’ Men had wept along with the women. ‘In all the years I worked for Unite, that last assignment in Africa was the most painful. I’ve never known so many children to be separated from their parents. It drained me physically and emotionally. She bit her lip. ‘Because my mother had died shortly before I went out, I was in need of comfort and affection too. But that’s all in the past. I’m not likely to behave like that again.’

‘Is that so? Perhaps it’s in your nature to be emotionally impulsive. You’re something of an enigma.’ He studied her doubtfully. ‘Sometimes you seem very innocent. Other times...’

She gulped at the sexual implication. And her skin crawled with fear as she felt herself respond to his powerful masculinity. ‘Don’t condemn me,’ she husked.

‘I don’t. Nature is nature. You can’t hide your needs. Most of the time you shut them away, but one day they’ll surface. You’re uninhibited—’

‘I’m...what?’

‘Forget it,’ he said shortly. ‘I’m sorry I mentioned it.’

A coldness settled around her heart. He’d heard something. ‘Tell me what you mean!’ she demanded hoarsely.

There was a long pause, then, ‘All right. Perhaps then you’ll understand my reservations about you,’ he said grudgingly. ‘At the camp you had quite a reputation: a demure woman with passionate depths. Enzo boasted about you—’

‘Oh, no!’ she groaned.

‘I always walked away when he started talking about you. But once, when I was travelling in a van beside him, in convoy, with hostile gunmen all around, it was difficult to escape his reminiscences. I’m sorry,’ he said shortly, seeing her distress. ‘You did ask.’

Hidden from view in the shadowed corner of the gallery, she covered her face with her hands as her stomach rebelled and she fought valiantly to keep her dignity and not throw up. She was shaking like a leaf, appalled that everyone in the camp had been fed stories about the quality of her performance in bed.

‘Oh-h-h! I feel awful! Go away! Leave me alone!’ she muttered, feeling weak.

‘I can’t. We have a charade to play first.’

‘A charade?’ she echoed morosely.

‘I hurried up here, leaving in mid-conversation,’ he said grimly. ‘They could all see why. I’d been glaring at you and Leo for several minutes, hoping you’d get the message. As far as anyone else is concerned, we’ve had a talk and you’ve explained that there’s nothing between you and Leo. And you’re going to show you’re sorry to have worried me by flinging yourself into my arms and kissing me.’

She froze. Took one look at his sensual mouth and backed away to the shadowy rear of the gallery till her spine hit one of its supporting posts.

‘We—we don’t have to kiss.’ She swallowed as an irrational fear clutched at her vocal cords. ‘Why don’t we just go down into the hall, walk about arm in arm and smile into each other’s eyes?’ she suggested hopefully.

His lifted eyebrow mocked her cowardice. ‘It wouldn’t be enough. It needs to be something passionate and definitive.’

‘P-passionate?’ She stumbled over the word.

‘Come here where you can be seen. And make it look good,’ he insisted sternly. ‘It’s important.’

Fighting the nausea, she tried to fix a smile on her face. ‘Won’t something like that do?’

His eyes flickered with annoyance. ‘If you’re not going to take this matter seriously...’

Her mouth drooped. ‘Oh, it’s serious. That’s why I’m finding it so hard to look carefree. And besides, I hate deception!’ she muttered rebelliously.

‘So do I. But sometimes it’s necessary,’ Jake told her curtly. ‘My body will shield you from view. They’ll see what we’re doing from the angle of my back.’

She hesitated.

‘Do it!’ he ordered.

Too weary, too sick to protest any longer, she stepped forward a pace or two.

‘Wind your arms around my neck, Amber.’

She obeyed and laid her hands on the smooth nape of his neck. Springy black curls did their best to snake around her fingers and she concentrated on them as she stood on tiptoe and he wrapped his arms around her. Her eyes closed tightly.

His cool mouth met hers for what seemed like an eternity. And all she could feel was the nausea, pushing up from her stomach to her throat, threatening her dignity and her pride. So she moaned and tried to draw away, but Jake ruthlessly cupped the back of her head with his palm and drove her mouth deeper into his.

‘Stay with it,’ he muttered harshly against her lips. ‘In my book, passion is supposed to last longer than twenty seconds.’

The kiss went on and on. She held herself tense and unresponsive, willing the nightmare to end. Dimly she became aware of Jake’s hard mouth softening, coaxing her lips more sweetly. And for a dreadful, heart-stopping moment she felt herself responding. Terrified, she pushed at his hard chest and met a wall of steel, which budged not an inch.

It wasn’t a pretend kiss-and-make-up kiss any longer. It had become something else. It was obvious that Jake’s natural sexuality had begun to assert itself. She could feel the melting together of their bodies, the increase of his heartbeat against her crushed breast and the answering clamour of her own pulse.

His hands moved soothingly over her half-naked back and she gave an involuntary shudder of pleasure. Almost instantly, a new and predatory hunger overtook him and his mouth and body drove more confidently into hers.

A spasm of dark despair shot through her. She’d married Jake because he’d said that he’d never touch her. Because of her child, because of the black melancholy she’d felt after her affair and the deep, deep humiliation, she had wanted to stay in limbo, celibate for the rest of her life.

But the unthinkable had happened. Jake wasn’t as indifferent as he had pretended.

Oh, God! she thought helplessly, petrified with horror. Jake had lied to her! He did intend passion to play a part in their relationship—and she was in danger of becoming aroused by him. That was the very last thing on earth that she wanted!

CHAPTER TWO

A BURST of applause sounded in Amber’s ears—laughter too, and murmurs of approval. To her vast relief, Jake broke free, his expression unreadable.

‘Success at last,’ he said huskily. ‘It took long enough to get a response, didn’t it?’ His eyes flickered to hers as if asking a question but she felt too confused to understand what that might be. He gave a wry smile. ‘I thought no one would notice us for a while. I had visions of us locked mouth to mouth for another ten minutes at least.’

Then he turned and laughingly acknowledged their amused guests below as if nothing special had happened between them at all.

Her agitated breathing slowed, though she felt weak, as if he’d stolen all her energy. She licked her softened lips and gave a sigh of thanks. Aware of the tingling of her body, she knew that she had to escape to her room to recover her composure. Now that they’d ‘made up’ publicly, he couldn’t object if she disappeared for a while.

‘Jake,’ she said, her voice still infuriatingly soft with arousal. She looked at him in alarm when he whirled around, smiling.

‘It wasn’t so bad, kissing me, was it?’ His hand lightly touched her hair and she shrank back again into the dark recesses of the gallery, pressing against the rose garlands which hung in swags on the wall. ‘Amber...I think you’re in need of more comfort and affection than you realise,’ he mused, his eyes drowsy and warm.

‘No!’ she managed to say. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘If you say so,’ he murmured, a faint twinkle in his eyes.

How dared he twinkle, when panic was beginning to claw at her stomach? And she had no fight left in her to argue...

‘Don’t patronise me!’ she complained feebly. ‘I didn’t want to be kissed. I didn’t like it. I feel sick. I’m very tired too. That’s why I didn’t stop you when I wanted to.’

‘I see,’ he drawled lazily.

Amber passed a weary hand over her forehead. There had been too many emotional dramas, too many tears, too much for her to cope with. She’d never whined or whimpered before, but right now she felt like doing just that.

‘I’ve had enough,’ she said plaintively, her voice near to breaking. ‘I’m at the end of my tether with everything that’s happened to me recently. I’m falling apart—’

She stopped her muttered litany because Jake strode towards her and caught both of her shoulders in a firm grip. ‘Shape up, Amber!’ he advised sternly. ‘If you’re going to feel sorry for yourself then you’ll never get through the next few hours.’

‘Don’t bully me! Go away!’ she complained, dreading it all.

‘I can’t. We’re married, remember?’

‘But not welded together!’

‘As good as, for the next hour,’ he pointed out.

‘No. I’m quitting now—’

‘You can’t,’ he said patiently. ‘Not yet. First I have to get something clear. And then you must give a convincing performance to all and sundry. I want there to be no doubt about your feelings for me.’

She gulped. No more kissing, though, no more touching, she thought. She didn’t think she could bear it. ‘That—that kiss was enough to convince people, surely? Jake, you can’t ask me to do that again—’

‘It depends on how well you act the loving bride,’ he told her flatly. Amber gave him a puzzled look. He sounded...bitter. ‘In a moment, you’ll come down to the hall with me and you will sparkle like the diamonds on your finger. And dance with me as if you would die for me,’ he added with mocking softness.

Feeling hot and giddy again, she tried to move to the chair but the back of her dress seemed to be caught somewhere at the waist. ‘Oh, Jake—I’m trapped!’ she cried in dismay, twisting to see where and how. And she wanted to cry tears of angry frustration. She could feel them filling her eyes, blurring her gaze as she stared miserably up at him.

He slipped his hand around her to investigate. ‘So you are. Impaled on a rose thorn. Life’s full of them, isn’t it?’

There was a heady perfume in her nostrils, a waft of velvety scent as Jake’s arm brushed against the thickly clustered briars. And something else that she was beginning to identify—sharper, warmer...the scent of Jake himself, the scent of man.

His cheek had moved unnervingly close to hers. Amber’s big eyes slanted sideways. Jake’s skin was like warm brown satin. At least, she presumed it was warm. Heat was coming off his body, filling the space between them.

Her heart seemed to be leaping all over the place but she had no idea why, only knew that he disturbed her and that she didn’t feel safe any more.

‘Jake! Set me free!’ she demanded jerkily.

He gave a wry smile. ‘That was my plan,’ he murmured, both arms now firmly around her still slender waist. The lines of his mouth were butter-soft as his fingers fiddled at the small of her back. He looked at her obliquely, an amused glint in his eyes. ‘Mind you, I don’t think I can achieve that without some damage to—’

‘My dress! Please be careful—’

‘I think,’ he said drily, ‘the condition of your dress is the least of your problems.’

His meaning wasn’t clear at first. And then it was. As he struggled to free her he shifted his weight so that his knee pressed into her skirt, crushing the petticoats against her thigh with a soft whisper of taffeta. A slight movement of his body brought his chest against her heart-shaped bodice again and she drew in a shuddering breath.

That wasn’t deliberate, was it? Please not, she begged silently. She was imagining his interest. She had to be.

‘Hurry up!’ she muttered nervously.

‘Don’t fidget. You’ve got yourself into a right tangle and I’m the only person who can sort you out.’ He smiled faintly as if he’d said something privately amusing. ‘There! It’s free—Stay still!’ he ordered, when she made to knock away his arm. ‘The veil’s caught. Be patient.’

Her liquid brown eyes met his and flashed a hot defiance. ‘Patient be blowed! I’ve had enough of this!’

Crossly she reached back, encountering his strong fingers. For a moment they both seemed to be wrestling with the stubborn sprays of roses and Amber became increasingly heated as she struggled to escape from Jake’s unwelcome nearness.

‘Nearly there,’ he murmured casually.

‘Oh, curse it!’ she raged.

‘Calm down, it’s no big deal. Is it?’ he breathed, in the region of her small, horribly sensitive ear.

Amber gritted her teeth and wrenched at the offending briar. Pain lanced through her hands. Warm blood trickled onto her palms. But she was free and the relief was overwhelming. Quickly she ducked and slipped sideways, beneath his encircling arm. And then to her dismay she felt his hand closing around her elbow, spinning her around.

‘You fool!’ he said gruffly.

And suddenly his warm mouth was pressing into her palm and his tongue was licking the small drops of blood there. Amber found that she couldn’t move. Pale and frightened, she watched as if in a dream while he turned his attention to her other hand, nursing it, repeatedly catching each tiny drop of blood with his tongue.

A wave of despair swept through her. He’d only taken a few seconds over the gesture but his deeply tender and erotic action had made her unsure of his real motive for marrying her. She felt her knees buckle and his hand reached out to steady her.