Bride By Blackmail

‘You would have found an excuse not to be here!’ Jed finished for her, laughing softly as he saw more guilty colour enter her cheeks. ‘Don’t try to deny it, Georgie, I know you too well to be fooled by the lie. Or did you think I didn’t know exactly how you would react if you had known I was to be a guest at the Lawson home this evening?’

Her eyes widened. ‘So you did know I was going to be here?’ she said slowly. She hadn’t been wrong, then, in her feeling earlier that Jed had been in no way as surprised to see her this evening as she had to see him?

Jed seemed unconcerned. ‘You’re a very difficult woman to track down.’

Georgie was taken aback. His words had been ‘track her down’. But why? What possible reason could he have for—?

‘My grandfather sent you, didn’t he?’ she realised quickly, her spine stiffening in instinctive defence.

Jed eyed her coldly. ‘Nobody sent me, Georgie,’ he rasped harshly.

Of course not; Jed wouldn’t allow himself to be anyone’s errand boy!

‘Asked you to find me, then,’ she corrected impatiently. ‘But it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?’

Jed’s eyes were narrowed to icy slits. ‘Your grandfather has no idea that I intended seeing you this weekend,’ he bit out coldly.

That didn’t exactly answer her accusation, did it…?

She shrugged, turning away to toy absently with a china shepherdess that adorned the dressing table. ‘In what way was I difficult to track down?’ she asked.

But she already knew the answer to that. She lived in a secure apartment building, where the doorman had firm instructions not to allow any of the Lord or Jones family admittance; her telephone number was ex-directory, and as she worked from home there was no office where she could be contacted either. But she had arranged her life in that way for a purpose.

A purpose that had been rendered completely null and void by Jed’s unexpected presence at the Lawson home this weekend!

‘I’m sure you already know the answer to that, Georgie,’ Jed replied. ‘It was only the announcement of your engagement last month in The Times newspaper that gave us any idea of your present whereabouts,’ he explained grimly.

An announcement that had been put in the newspaper by Annabelle Lawson, the other woman having firmly assured Georgie that it was social etiquette for her son’s engagement to be publicly announced in this way.

‘You didn’t waste much time after the divorce, did you?’ Jed accused.

Georgie looked at him sharply. ‘I don’t think my personal life is any of your business, Jed—’

‘Until six months ago your personal life was completely my business!’ he came back angrily, that nerve once again pulsating in his jaw.

‘And now it isn’t,’ Georgie reminded him. ‘Just say what you want to say, Jed, and then leave, hmm?’ she prompted bluntly. ‘It’s been a long week.’ And an even longer evening! ‘I would like to get some sleep now.’

He stepped back from the bed. ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he said.

She sighed her impatience. ‘You and I both know that I have no intention of getting into bed until you are out of my bedroom!’

‘Why not?’ he queried softly.

Her cheeks coloured hotly at his deliberate probing. ‘You know why not!’

‘Because you and I once shared a bed as husband and wife?’ Jed’s face had hardened angrily. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, Georgie, perhaps even more so now than you were a year ago. But I’m really not so desperate for a female to share my bed that I need to force my attentions on a woman who has claimed—more than once!—to hate me!’

‘Especially when there’s one just down the hallway who so obviously doesn’t feel the same way!’ she came back heatedly.

Jed became very still, his expression unreadable now. ‘You’re referring to Sukie Lawson?’ he said slowly.

‘Of course,’ Georgie snapped. ‘Although Annabelle doesn’t seem impervious to your charms either,’ she commented scathingly as she remembered the way the older woman had lightly flirted with Jed during dinner.

He shook his head. ‘That’s your future mother-in-law you’re talking about.’

‘She’s still a woman, isn’t she?’ Georgie scorned. ‘And you—’ She broke off, completely dazed as she realised she was resorting to the sort of arguments that had peppered their three year marriage.

‘Georgie—’

‘Forget I said that, Jed,’ she cut in quickly, disgusted with herself—and Jed!—for allowing the conversation to deteriorate in this way. ‘As I said, it’s been a shock seeing you here this evening,’ she said in a calmer voice. ‘But that’s no reason for me to be insulting.’

‘My, my, you have grown up,’ he mocked.

Georgie ignored the taunt. ‘You said earlier, or implied—’ she corrected ruefully ‘—that you’ve been trying to contact me… I’ve had the final decree through for our divorce, so it can’t be anything to do with that.’ And those papers, signed, sealed, and legally verified, were very securely locked away in the safe at her apartment.

‘No, it’s nothing to do with the divorce,’ Jed conceded. ‘As you say, that is definitely final. But there is a problem. A family problem,’ he went on.

Georgie froze, her hands clenching into fists at her sides as she tensed. ‘My grandfather—?’

‘No, not your grandfather,’ Jed interrupted her harshly. ‘I have no idea what the rift that exists between the two of you is about, but he, it seems, knows better than to ask you for anything!’ he concluded disgustedly.

Georgie was well aware that his disgust was levelled at her…

And maybe on the face of it that feeling was justified. Her grandfather had brought her up after her parents, his only son and his daughter-in-law, had both been killed in a skiing accident when Georgie was only five.

At sixty years of age, George might have been thought to be well past the age of wanting to be bothered by such a responsibility, and might quite easily have paid for a full-time nanny for the little girl, followed by boarding-school when she was old enough. But George had done neither of those things. He had taken Georgie into his home, becoming father as well as mother to her, and taking her with him on his business travels whenever she didn’t have to be at school.

As a young child Georgie had absolutely adored him, knowing that behind the forbidding façade he presented to the world in general there was a softer, more caring man. Whatever love he’d had, he’d generously given to her.

She could have had no idea then that she was just part of a grand plan…!

She scowled. ‘Then what makes you think you could possibly succeed where my grandfather wouldn’t even try?’ she challenged Jed.

‘Because, no matter what your differences were with your grandfather, I know you have always loved my grandmother,’ he answered.

Georgie frowned. ‘Grandie? What does she have to do with this?’ Whatever ‘this’ was!

‘Everything,’ Jed answered flatly, his expression grim. ‘She had a heart attack three weeks ago—’

‘Grandie did?’ Georgie echoed sharply, feeling a sinking feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with her loss of appetite earlier. ‘Why didn’t anyone let me know? What—?’

‘You’ve refused to see any of us except in the presence of a lawyer, remember?’ Jed replied bitterly.

Her cheeks coloured at the rebuke. ‘Yes, but—’

‘No buts, Georgie,’ Jed rasped harshly. ‘You can’t have it all your own way, you know. You’ve made it more than obvious that you want nothing more to do with the family. More to the point that you want them to have nothing more to do with you.’

Georgie couldn’t quite meet that icily accusing grey gaze, knowing that what he said was true. But she had her own reasons for making that decision. Reasons that hadn’t allowed for the illness of the one person in the family that she still adored…

‘How is Grandie now? Is she all right?’ Georgie asked agitatedly.

‘Do you care?’ Jed scoffed.

Her eyes flashed deeply green. ‘Of course I care!’ she responded angrily.

Jed gave a brief nod of his head. ‘That’s something, I suppose,’ he allowed. ‘Grandie is— She’s—changed,’ he finally said reluctantly. ‘She wants to see you.’

Again this was typical Jed. No ‘will you?’, no ‘could you?’, no ‘would you?’. Just that single bald statement.

Georgie moistened dry lips. ‘When?’

‘Well, not tonight, obviously,’ he drawled with a sweepingly appraising glance over her night attire.

‘Obviously,’ she echoed, hoping that none of her inner panic at the mere thought of what was being asked of her was apparent on her face.

Her break with the family two years ago had been irrevocable, final; the thought of walking back—voluntarily!—into that lions’ den made her feel weak inside!

Jed nodded abruptly. ‘Tomorrow will do.’

‘Tomorrow…?’ Her eyes widened. ‘But—is Grandie that ill?’

‘Your concern is a little late in coming, but no doubt Grandie will be too pleased to see you to care too much about that!’ It was obvious from his own tone that he didn’t share the sentiment!

Georgie’s hands clenched so tightly into fists that she could feel her fingernails biting into her palms. ‘Is she?’ she persisted tautly.

Jed shrugged. ‘I think I’ll leave you to be the judge of that for yourself.’ He straightened. ‘I’ve said all I wanted to say—’

‘And that’s it, is it?’ Georgie attacked incredulously. ‘You come here completely unexpectedly, take advantage of your host’s hospitality by invading the bedroom of one of his guests. Then you tell me that Grandie is ill and wants to see me, and refuse to say anything else?’ She was breathing hard by the end of her outburst, her eyes blazing, her cheeks fiery in her outrage.

‘That’s it exactly,’ Jed answered with complete calm.

Yes, that was it, wasn’t it? Jed had always said exactly what he wanted to say, and no more. And, as she knew from the past, no amount of questioning, wheedling, asking, would make him say any more if he chose not to do so.

As he chose not to now…

‘Tomorrow could be a little—difficult,’ she said slowly.

‘What’s difficult about it?’ Jed replied. ‘I’m sure that if you explained to the Lawsons that you have to leave in order to deal with a family problem they would understand. Or is it Andrew Lawson you’re worried about?’ he added shrewdly. ‘Tell me, Georgie, how can you be engaged to marry a man, and yet that same man knows absolutely nothing about you that matters?’ he demanded.

‘All Andrew needs to know about me is that I love him!’ she returned, her cheeks flushed red with anger.

‘I thought I knew that you loved me once, too,’ Jed shot back harshly. ‘For all the good it did me!’

Georgie drew in a deeply controlling breath, knowing that to allow this conversation to—once again!—deteriorate into a slanging match would achieve nothing.

‘I’ll see what I can do about going to see Grandie tomorrow,’ she told him evenly.

Jed’s mouth thinned. ‘I should try to do more than see what you can do, if I were you,’ he advised.

Georgie stiffened at his tone of voice. ‘Or what…?’ she prompted warily.

‘I wasn’t aware that I had said there was an “or what”,’ he denied, moving towards the bedroom door.

Her chin rose defensively. ‘I know from experience that there usually is where you’re concerned!’

Jed turned before opening the door. ‘Isn’t it time you got over this childish belief that I’m some sort of monster?’

She had thought she had! Until faced with Jed once again…

She sighed, giving a self-disgusted shake of her head. ‘What time is best for visiting Grandie?’ That’s it, Georgie, stick to the point. That way there was less chance for this verbal fencing she and Jed seemed to fall into whenever they did happen to meet—by chance or design!

‘What you really mean is what time would be best not to find your grandfather at home?’ Jed derided knowingly. ‘Tomorrow is Saturday, Georgie; even your grandfather doesn’t work at the weekend!’

‘There was a time when he did,’ she defended.

‘He’s seventy-eight years old, for goodness’ sake,’ Jed responded. ‘Even he recognises that it’s time he slowed down. Besides,’ he added heavily, ‘Grandie’s heart attack has been a shock to him.’

Georgie could understand that. Estelle Lord, Jed’s grandmother, and George Jones, Georgie’s grandfather, had met and fallen in love fifteen years ago, marrying only months later. Both of them were aware that they had found this second-time-around love rather late in their lives and had been determined to enjoy together the years they had left.

Georgie knew that her grandfather would be devastated now by his wife’s sudden illness.

‘So, to answer your question, Georgie,’ Jed continued firmly, ‘in view of the fact that neither my grandmother nor your grandfather has set eyes on you in two years—any time is probably a good time to go and see them! In fact, I would say it’s past time!’

Georgie’s mouth tightened at the rebuke. ‘You—’

‘You know, Georgie, I still can’t believe you did that,’ Jed opined. ‘You decided you no longer wanted to be married to me—fine. But to include your grandfather and Grandie in your desertion—’

‘I didn’t desert anyone,’ she defended heatedly.

‘No?’ Jed raised dark brows. ‘That’s not the way I remember it.’

She shook her head, knowing she couldn’t stand much more of this. ‘Think what you like, Jed,’ she said wearily. ‘You usually do anyway— Forget I said that!’ She winced as she instantly realised she was lapsing into childishness once again.

‘Thank you for letting me know about Grandie. I’ll go and see her some time tomorrow.’ When she had built up her courage for the inevitable meeting with her grandfather such a visit would incur.

‘Very politely put,’ Jed said. ‘Make sure that you do.’

‘I—’

‘You know, Georgie, I was wrong earlier. When I claimed that my wife divorced me because she understood me,’ he explained huskily at her puzzled expression. ‘You don’t understand me at all, do you? I don’t think you ever did,’ he added heavily. ‘For instance,’ he continued softly as Georgie would have spoken, ‘what do you think I would like to do at this precise moment?’

‘You should have made it something more difficult than that, Jed! Strangulation comes to mind,’ she suggested ruefully.

He shook his head slowly. ‘What I would most like to do at this moment is lie down on that bed with you and make love to you all night. But as I know that is never going to happen…’

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