The Last-Minute Marriage

‘Aunt Hattie and my father owned half our family farm each,’ she told him. ‘My father left us his half when he died ten years back, and the agreement was always that Hattie would do the same. She hasn’t. She’s left her half to Charles. So I need him…’ Her voice faltered then, as if accepting the sheer impossibility of what she was about to suggest. ‘I need him to agree not to sell it. To let me farm it until…until I’m free.’

‘Free?’

She looked up at him and her eyes were blind with a pain he couldn’t begin to understand. ‘The farm is all I have,’ she told him. ‘It can’t mean anything to Charles. It’s just money. He must see that to do anything but let me live there would be desperately unfair.’ She bit her lip and then picked up her soda, trying desperately to move past a pain that seemed well nigh unbearable. ‘But that’s nothing to do with you. Charles is my cousin. My problem. You’ve given me a feed. Now I’ll clean myself as best I can, go back and try to face him one more time—and if I can’t I’ll go home. But at least I’ll have tried.’

He couldn’t bear it. The look of pain. The defiance. David and Goliath, and Goliath was Charles Higgins… She had to let him take the next step with her. ‘You can’t face him alone,’ he told her.

‘Of course I can.’

‘There’s no of course about it,’ he growled. ‘Charles is a slime-ball. Maybe he’s different with family but he’s still a slime-ball. Okay, I might be off the track with my offer of three-thousand-dollar suits but my instincts are right. We’ll get you something neat to wear and I’m coming in with you. I might not get you more than an interview but I can get you that.’

‘How?’

‘For a start, I own the building he rents office space in.’

She stared. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m not. Regrettably. I’ve already decided not to renew his lease when it expires but he doesn’t know that. I can apply pressure.’

‘But…’

‘Finish your soda,’ he told her, aware at the back of his mind of his total amazement that he was doing this. That he was getting more and more involved. ‘We mustn’t keep Charles waiting now, must we?’

They did the dress thing again, but this time Marcus had the sense to keep it simple. They headed to a moderately priced department store and Marcus stood back while Peta chose a neat skirt and blouse and strappy sandals. She looked great, Marcus decided, and then wondered: Why do women wear three-thousand-dollar suits when they can look just as good in far cheaper clothes?

But maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe Peta wasn’t any woman. She’d look great in anything, he thought, as Robert drove them back to Higgins’s office.

The only problem was that she was a bit pale. Her hands were clenched so tightly that he could see the white in her knuckles. But she was still determinedly keeping up conversation as they made their way past Central Park.

‘It’s Central Park I most wanted to see,’ she told him. ‘Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of riding around Central Park.’

‘You’re a country girl?’

‘I told you—we live on a farm. I milk cows for a living.’

We? Who?

It didn’t matter. Did it?

She was expecting a courteous, impersonal reply. He had to fight to find one. Somehow. ‘So…you live on a farm yet you dream of coming to New York to ride a horse?’

‘It’s a different kind of riding.’ She gave a hesitant smile and he saw that her hands were still clenched. He had to fight back the urge to lift them—to forcibly unclench them. ‘John Lennon loved this park,’ she was saying. ‘Jackie Kennedy loved this park. All these people that I’ve only read about.’

‘You admired Jackie O?’

‘The lady had class.’

‘And John Lennon?’

‘Oooh, those glasses were sexy.’

‘Really?’ he said faintly and was rewarded by a chuckle. Her hands, he noticed with satisfaction, were finally starting to relax. ‘So who else do you think of as sexy?’ he asked. ‘Just John? Paul? George? How about Ringo?’

‘Ringo was sexy,’ she agreed. ‘Really sexy. When I see the old clips I think he’s cuteness personified. But now every time I hear him I think of Thomas the Tank Engine. It’s a bit disconcerting.’

‘I imagine it might be.’

She was so different. How had his day been hijacked? he wondered. How had this happened? Instead of making plans and signing million-dollar deals, he was discussing the sexiness of Thomas the Tank Engine.

And enjoying it.

But then they were pulling up outside the offices where Charles presumably lay waiting, and her hands clenched white again.

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Marcus told her and he surprised himself by placing a hand over her much smaller one. The touch surprised them both. It was as if a frisson of electricity ran between them, warm, intimate and somehow immeasurably comforting. ‘I’m right behind you,’ he heard himself saying. ‘Every step of the way.’

Miss Pritchard—alias Attila the Hun, Charles’s secretary—was her normal appalling self. Peta stepped out of the lift and she saw her coming and sighed. She didn’t even pretend to be courteous.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m here for my appointment,’ Peta said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘It was for ten this morning.’

‘Mr Higgins had a moment free at two,’ the woman said, her disdain obvious in her intonation. ‘But you weren’t here. He has no more appointments available until late next week.’

‘Then could you ask Mr Higgins if he’ll make an appointment free for me,’ Marcus said, his lazy drawl making the woman’s face jerk from Peta to the man following behind. The man who, until now, had stood in the background and had not been noticed. Marcus. ‘I believe the lease for this office space is soon up for renegotiation,’ Marcus drawled. ‘As landlord I expect a certain professional standard of my tenants. Peta had an appointment at ten this morning and she’s still waiting. To have disgruntled clients hanging around my office space is not what I wish in my buildings.’

He motioned to a chair. ‘Peta, if you’d like to sit down…’ He gave the secretary a glimmer of a mockery of his smile—the sort of smile that had made many a business opponent come close to bursting a blood vessel in entirely appropriate anxiety. ‘We’ll wait,’ he told the woman. ‘Tell Mr Higgins that we’re here and we’ll wait for as long as it takes.’

Attila’s eyes had been flat and cold before. Now, suddenly, they looked like those of a goldfish. A goldfish that was swimming over an unplugged hole. There were very few people in this city who weren’t aware of Marcus’s power. It was legendary. ‘But…’

‘Just tell him,’ Marcus said wearily. ‘I’d like to get this over quickly. I hope Mr Higgins feels the same.’

It appeared Mr Higgins did. Five minutes later they were ushered apologetically into the great man’s presence.

To say Peta was tense was an understatement. This interview was overwhelmingly important to her, Marcus thought. The look on her face as she walked into Charles’s office said she intended to be calm, practical and efficient.

She obviously hadn’t counted on the store of anger that must have been walled up for so long that the moment she saw her cousin it could do nothing but burst.

Charles was seated behind a vast mahogany desk. Before he could stand, Peta had stalked across and slammed her hands palm downward on the gleaming surface, so hard she made the in-tray jump.

‘You uncaring toad,’ she spat, and Marcus blinked in astonishment. But Peta was obviously past caring.

‘You brought Hattie over here and she came because she thought you loved her. She hoped you loved her. But you didn’t. You abandoned her.’ Peta’s voice was loaded with contempt and with icy rage. ‘She could have died at home. With me. With Harry. With people who loved her. But you told her you wanted her here. You conned her into coming where she knew no one. How could you?’

‘My relationship with my mother has nothing to do with you,’ Charles snapped. The man was in his late thirties, florid, wearing a three-piece suit that was as sleazy as it was expensive, and he was obviously deeply disdainful of the woman before him. ‘I have no idea what you want from me, Peta, or why you’ve bothered with this appointment.’ He cast an uneasy glance at Marcus and then looked back at Peta. It was apparent that Marcus was the only reason he’d agreed to see her—the only reason he didn’t get up now and push her out the door. ‘Or how you’ve dragged Mr Benson into this.’

‘No one drags me anywhere,’ Marcus said softly. He hauled up a chair and sat, with the air of a man who was here for the entertainment.

‘This is family business,’ Charles told him, and Marcus gave him his very nicest smile.

‘Consider me Peta’s family. I’ve just elected myself. Peta, I hate to mention it but I don’t think haranguing Charles on his mistreatment of his mother—justified as it may be—is going to achieve a lot. Let’s just cut to the chase and get out of here. This place makes me nervous.’

Charles flushed. ‘You don’t have to stay.’

‘I’m with the lady. Peta, say what you need to.’

Peta bit her lip. She half turned towards him and Marcus was waiting for her. He met her look and he sent her a silent message.

Settle. Anger’s not going to achieve anything. What’s important?

Peta caught it. She fought for control, taking a deep breath. Moving forward.

‘The will…’ she began.

‘Ah, yes.’ Charles had had time to do a regroup, too. ‘The will.’ With another nervous glance at Marcus, Charles settled deeper into his leather chair. His huge desk was guaranteed to intimidate the most influential of clients, and he clearly had no intention of moving from behind its protective distance. ‘What on earth do you have to say about my mother’s will?’

‘Hattie meant to leave her half of the farm to me.’

‘Not so, cousin.’ Charles even smirked.

Why do I want to hit him? Marcus thought, and he had to force himself to stay still. To stay an uninvolved bystander.

‘Hattie lived at the farm for all her life,’ Peta was saying. ‘We all have. Everyone except you. You left twenty years ago. But the farm paid for your education. For your travel.’ She gazed around the opulent office. ‘I bet it subsidised this. Your costs have already bled us dry. You’ve taken half our profits for ever. It’s crazy that she left her half of the farm to you.’

‘I’m her son.’

‘But we’ve subsidised you with so much already and she knew I can’t afford to buy you out. That it’d force me to sell.’

‘That’s not my problem.’

‘No.’ She took a deep breath, obviously forcing herself to stay calm. ‘No, it’s not. And it shouldn’t be. All I’m asking… All I’m asking is that you’ll hold on to your half of the farm—let me keep farming it—until Harry’s of age.’

‘Harry being…’ He almost sneered but then appeared to remember that Marcus was watching and turned it somehow into a vaguely supercilious smile. ‘Harry being how old?’

‘Twelve.’

Twelve. In the background Marcus frowned, absorbing the information. It didn’t fit—did it? Surely Peta wasn’t old enough to have a twelve-year-old son?

Maybe he should have asked more questions.

‘We need to stay on the farm until Harry’s eighteen,’ Peta was saying, almost pleading. ‘Charles, you know how important the farm is to us all.’

‘It was never important to me.’

‘It paid for your education. It let you be what you wanted and I want Harry to have that choice, too. And it’s a really good investment,’ she told him. ‘I’m more than happy for you to keep taking half the profits, and the land is growing more valuable all the time.’

‘I’ve checked,’ he told her. ‘It’d sell for a fortune now. Because it’s near the sea it can be cut up into hobby farm allotments. You own half. We both stand to make a killing.’

‘We love the farm.’

‘Get over it. I’m selling.’

‘Charles—’

‘Look, if that’s all you have to say…’ He eyed Marcus with disquiet, obviously still wondering how on earth Marcus came to be involved. ‘You’re wasting my time.’

Peta swallowed. Her hands clenched and unclenched. But, looking on, Marcus saw the moment she realised the futility of pleading. He saw her shoulders sag.

He saw her accept defeat.

And it hurt. It hurt him as well as the girl he was watching. Why did he want to hit someone? Not just someone. Charles. The urge was almost overwhelming.

But Peta had moved on. To the next important thing. ‘Will you come to Hattie’s funeral tomorrow?’ she whispered.

‘Funerals aren’t my scene.’

‘Hattie was your mother.’

‘Yeah.’ Another sneer. ‘And she’s dead. I’m over it, just like you should be. And, as soon as the funeral’s over, the farm’s on the market. It’d be on the market today if it wasn’t for that clause.’

‘Clause?’ Marcus queried.

This was the sort of negotiation he was good at. He’d learned from long practice that it was better not to jump in early—to simply sit back, listen and absorb. Focus on essentials. And probe everything.

Charles flashed him an annoyed glance. ‘My mother put a stupid codicil in her will. I left before the lawyer finished, and she did it…’

‘Tell me about it,’ Marcus said gently and Charles glowered.

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘If I’m married then I inherit,’ Peta said, obviously distressed. ‘It makes no sense. Just before Hattie left to come here, I went out with one of the local farmers. Twice. It was enough to make Hattie think about me getting married. As if I could. But she thought… Well, she worried about me, my Auntie Hattie. She thought I’d spend my life caring for the family and not myself. So she must have thought she’d push. By putting in a stupid clause at the end. If I’m married then I’ll inherit. But it’s not an option.’

‘What—never?’

‘In a week?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Hattie… Well, she was terminally ill. She was a bit muddled, even before she left Australia. That was probably how Charles persuaded her to come. She’d have worried about me, but she was here in New York, alone, and Charles would have pushed her hard to leave him the farm. So she wrote a will leaving everything to Charles, but apparently, after Charles left her alone with the lawyer, she added a codicil. The codicil says if I’m married within a week of her dying then the farm reverts to me. But… A week? Maybe she meant a year. Maybe… Well, who knows what she meant, but she said a week. That’s by Wednesday.’ She turned to her cousin again, her eyes dulled with the knowledge of what he would say. She already knew.

‘Charles, please.’

‘Just leave. You’re wasting my time.’ Charles rose, smoothed his already too smooth waistcoat and walked around to the door. He was really overweight, Marcus noticed. Short. Pompous. A slime-ball. It was as much as he could do not to flinch as the little man stalked past him to open the door.

‘I’m sorry she’s wasted your time, Mr Benson,’ Charles told him. ‘I’m sorry she’s wasted mine. Go back to the farm, Peta, where you belong. Enjoy it for the last few weeks before it’s sold. But get used to it. It’s on the market the moment the week is up.’

‘I’m sorry I wasted your time.’

They’d been silent as they rode the lift to ground level. They emerged on to the street to brilliant sunshine and Peta blinked as if she couldn’t believe sun could exist in a place such as this.

‘I assume the farm is worth a lot,’ Marcus said mildly, and she blinked again.

‘What? Oh, yes. You heard what he said. It is.’

‘So you’ll be well off?’

‘Split…no. I won’t be well off.’

‘Do you have any professional training?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Do you have a career?’

‘Yes. I’m a farmer.’

A farmer. He might have known. Of course. ‘Can you get a job somewhere? Farming?’

‘Are you kidding? With four kids? Who’s going to take me on?’

‘Four kids?’ he said cautiously, and she shrugged as if it was none of his business. As indeed it wasn’t.

Or it shouldn’t be.

‘Look, I said I’m sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Enough. You’ve been really nice to me. Much nicer than I possibly could have hoped for. I’ve come over here and I’ve been with Hattie while she died. Thanks to you, I’ve seen Charles and I’ve asked him what I had to ask. I knew it was hopeless but I had to try. For the boys. Now I’m planning to bury my Auntie Hattie with all the love that I can, and then I’ll get on an aeroplane and return to Australia. There’s an end to it.’

‘You have four kids?’ He was stuck in a groove, he thought, but had to know. How old was she? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?

Four kids.

His eyes moved involuntarily to her waistline and he thought, no. No way.

She saw his gaze shift. ‘What are you staring at?’

‘Your figure,’ he admitted with a rueful smile. ‘You’ve held up pretty well for four kids.’

Her eyes widened. She looked stunned. And then her face, which had looked strained to the point of breaking, suddenly creased into laughter. A gorgeous chuckle rang out, making others on the pavement turn and stare.

She had the loveliest smile. The loveliest laugh.

‘You’re thinking I’m a single mum with four kids?’

‘Well…’

‘They’re my brothers,’ she told him. ‘Daniel, Christopher, William and Harry. Twenty, eighteen, fifteen and twelve in that order. All students. The farm supports them all.’ She caught herself. ‘Or, I guess, I support them all. They help. They’re great kids but it’s mostly over to me. Until now. Now I guess the capital will pay for their education but heaven knows where we’ll live. The university vacations are four months long. That’s when we’re a family. And Harry loves the farm so much. It’ll break his heart if we have to leave.’

Silence. Marcus stared at her in disbelief.

Four brothers? She was supporting four brothers?

Good grief! So great a load on such slim shoulders. He winced and she managed a smile. Her laughter had gone again. The burden was back in place.

‘I’ve said it before. It’s my problem. Not yours.’

‘You could always marry.’ His voice was still faint with shock and she gave a rueful smile.

‘By Wednesday? I don’t think so. It was a crazy codicil made by a confused old woman who would have been desperate to make things right for everyone. Which was always going to be impossible.’ She took his hand in hers and shook—a warm, firm handshake that was a shake of dismissal. ‘Thank you very much for helping me, Mr Benson. You’ve done more than enough and I’m really grateful. Goodbye.’

And that was that. She turned and manoeuvred her crutches away from him, limping down the pavement, which was crowded with late afternoon shoppers.

She stood out, he thought, and it wasn’t just her crutches. In truth, it wasn’t her crutches at all. It was her flame hair. Her figure. The lovely curve of her slender neck. And her strength. The way she braced her shoulders, as if expecting to be struck.

It was so like David and Goliath, he thought again, but she had no slingshot. She had no weapon of any kind.

He stood and watched her go. He’d been dismissed. She was asking nothing of him.

She was on her own.

He couldn’t bear it. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing—what he was saying—but he knew only that he had to do it.

‘Peta, stop,’ he called, and she paused and half turned towards him.

‘Yes?’ She had the air of someone who’d already moved on. She looked slight and pale and somehow almost ethereal. As if any moment she’d vanish.

She could, he realised. He had this one moment to prevent it or she’d be gone and he need never see her again.

Which was what he wanted—wasn’t it? He didn’t get involved. He never got involved. He’d made a vow a long time ago and he’d never been tempted to break that vow.

Until now. Until the choice was to break the vow or to watch Peta take the next few steps and take her burden back to Australia.

He didn’t even know what her burden was. He hardly knew her. He had a corporate deal to stitch up; he had a date tonight with a woman most men would kill to be seen with; he had a life in New York…

Peta was watching him, her pixie face questioning. Waiting. Waiting for release so she could disappear.

He couldn’t give her that release. And there was only one way to stop her disappearing.

‘There is a way you can be married by Wednesday,’ he called, and the shoppers around them paused in astonishment.

Peta paused in astonishment.

‘How?’ she called, but maybe she hadn’t called it. Maybe her voice was a whisper. They were twenty yards apart and there were people between. He saw her lips move. He saw the thought in her eyes that he was holding her up for nothing.

But he wasn’t. He knew what he had to say and when he said it, it sounded right. Even inevitable.

‘You can marry me.’

CHAPTER THREE

SHE couldn’t believe what she’d heard. One minute she was looking defeat and despair in the face. This was the end of the world as she knew it. Tomorrow she’d have to bury Aunt Hattie with all the love and honour she deserved, trying to block out the hurt caused by this appalling last will. Then she’d climb on to an aeroplane and go home to face the boys and tell them that she didn’t have a clue what their future held.

As opposed to…what?

As opposed to facing the man twenty yards away from her and trying to make sense of his crazy statement.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said at last and there was general laughter among the passers-by. Marcus’s words hadn’t just shocked Peta. More than one person had stilled to listen—to hear her response to this fascinating question.

‘He’s asking you to marry him, love,’ an elderly woman told her. ‘He looks a good sort of catch. I’d think about it if I were you.’

‘She’s young,’ someone else proffered. ‘Plus she’s pretty. She’s got plenty of time to play the field.’

‘No, but look at that suit,’ the older woman retorted. ‘The guy’s obviously loaded. You do it, love, but don’t go signing one of them pre-nup agreements. You take him for all he’s worth.’

‘Pretty funny proposal, if you ask me,’ someone else said. ‘You think she’s got leprosy or something, that he has to stay two shops away from her to ask her to marry him?’

‘Your girl got leprosy?’ someone else demanded. ‘Is that why the crutches?’

Even Marcus smiled at that.

So did Peta. It’s a joke, she thought. It’s a joke in appalling taste, but it’s a joke for all that.

‘Thanks,’ she called, with what she hoped was a vestige of dignity. ‘It’s a very nice proposal but I have a funeral to go to, and then a trip home to Australia. I can’t fit you in.’

‘I’m serious, Peta.’

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