Kate Walker - The Groom's Revenge

‘You’re surely not claiming that I broke your heart? That I did anything more than cause you some social embarrassment, and perhaps lower your expectations of the future a little?’

‘Broke my heart?’ India repeated, the need for control, to ensure that not even the tiniest suggestion of the truth seeped past her defences, making her tone coldly brittle. ‘No, I’m not claiming that at all.’

If she was to convince him of that fact, she had to do it once and for all.

‘In fact, as I said the other night, I really should be grateful to you. If you hadn’t walked out on me like that, I’d have been trapped in a very unwise and totally unsuitable marriage. Before very long—possibly even by now—we would both have realised our mistake, but would have had to go through the unpleasantness of a divorce in order to get out of it.’

‘Instead of which you find yourself free and available, and perfectly positioned to marry your darling Jim.’

As on the previous occasion, the total lack of any feeling in Aidan’s response brought a flaring pain so violent that she had to bite down hard on her lower lip.

All she could think of was the need to make sure there was no possibility he could doubt her sincerity, and so she pounced on the opening he had offered her. If he wanted to believe she and Jim were a couple, then who was she to stop him?

‘That’s right. Jim has—kept me company...’

She had been about to say ‘comforted me’, but caught herself just in time.

‘Ever since last year. We’ve become very close, and I think our families are expecting an announcement soon.’

‘My congratulations,’ Aidan drawled. ‘I’m sure you’ll be well suited.’

He made the possibility sound like a life sentence rather than a prospect for happiness.

‘Obviously a trainee solicitor is considered a better bet by your father than someone with my background.’

‘Well, Jim’s uncle is an MP, and his grandmother was an earl’s daughter,’ India told him with a terrible sense of hammering nails into an already well-sealed coffin.

‘That’d just about do it,’ Aidan growled. ‘Shall I put this stuff away?’

‘There’s no need.’

It was almost impossible to match the carelessness of his tone with her own, to hide the stab of bitterness his indifference brought.

‘But thanks for carrying them in.’

Automatically she looked towards the door, anticipating that he would take the hint and leave. But Aidan simply shook his head with a calmness that set her teeth on edge.

‘Oh, no, my lovely. I’m not leaving until I’ve had words with your fool of a father.’

To India’s horror, he calmly deposited one of the bags on the table and began to unpack it systematically, putting the various tins and packages in their places with a familiarity that struck at her heart with its bitter memories.

‘You can’t. He’s...out.’

If she had had any hope that her father’s illness might make Aidan hold back, show a little consideration, she would have told him the truth. But this man and Bruce Marchant had always been at daggers drawn. She wouldn’t put it past Aidan to march straight round to the hospital to confront his opponent about whatever matter was on his mind. And, already uneasy about his motives, she quailed inside at the thought of what the result of such a meeting would be on her father’s already frail health.

‘Obviously. So when will he be back?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Can’t or won’t, Princess?’

‘I don’t know when he’ll be back!’

‘Then I’ll wait until he returns. He can’t stay away all day.’

‘Yes, he can!’ Belated inspiration had struck. ‘He’s gone away for the weekend, and...’ India’s voice faded as Aidan shook his head reprovingly.

‘Nice try, sweetheart, but too late. If you wanted to convince me, you should have come up with that one much earlier. And besides, I saw his car in the garage. Wherever he’s gone it isn’t far.’

He didn’t miss a trick, India thought despairingly. Those keen dark eyes observed every little thing about his surroundings, and the shrewd brain that had made his fortune considered the information, assessing the situation and coming to a swift conclusion. She was beginning to feel like some particularly interesting scientific specimen under observation in a controlled laboratory experiment.

‘Think what you like.’ Her tone acknowledged defeat. ‘But don’t call me sweetheart! I am not your anything, and never will be again!’

‘Well, I have to admit that it isn’t exactly apposite,’ Aidan flung back, putting the last tin m a cupboard and folding the carrier bag with firm, precise movements. ‘You’ve been anything but sweet ever since I arrived.’

‘What did you expect?’ India exploded, unable to believe the gall of the man. ‘After the way you treated me, I’d hardly be likely to throw myself into your arms and kiss you senseless! ’

‘I recall many occasions on which you did just that.’ There was a predatory gleam in the depths of those eyes now. ‘And I remember them as being very enjoyable, for both of us. All the more so because they usually led to—’

‘Well, memories are all you’re going to have!’ India broke in sharply, knowing only too well just what those occasions had led to.

Neither did she need any reminder of how those passionate encounters had felt. Simply thinking of them had raised her pulse rate to racing point, making her breathing unnaturally rapid and rawly uneven.

In the past, a simple kiss of greeting from this man had had the effect of a lighted match laid to a tinder-dry bonfire, making desire flare between them, roaring out of control in seconds.

‘That’s all right by me—for now.’

Aidan’s smile was one that might have been on the face of a hunting tiger as it lay in the sun, lazily watching its prey, knowing that when the time was right it would spring. But right now he couldn’t be bothered, that smile said, and his voice was a sensually indolent purr, threaded through with a dark line of threat.

‘But I have a very good memory. A cup of coffee would be nice,’ he added pointedly, startling India with his abrupt change of mood.

‘Don’t you have anything better to do?’

‘Frankly, no.’

The blunt declaration left no room for argument, and India could only shrug her shoulders resignedly as she moved to fill the kettle.

‘Why do you want to see my father anyway?’ She tried to make it sound casual, even if it was the furthest thing from the way she was feeling.

‘He owes me money.’

You and a hundred others. India barely bit back the despondent comment in time, but Aidan had caught something of her change in expression.

‘You don’t seem surprised.’

‘I’m not.’

If there was one thing that made her father’s illness even more difficult to bear, it was the discovery of the mountain of debts he had run up, unknown to anyone else.

It seemed that no sooner had the ambulance taken him to hospital than all sorts of demanding creditors had crawled out of the woodwork. There had also been letters from the bank, demanding that Bruce Marchant paid off some of his excessively large overdraft, not to mention the instalments on a loan he had taken out and on which he was behind with payment.

‘I’m just surprised that he borrowed anything from you.’

The last word was emphasised by the way that she slammed the mug of coffee down onto the table in front of him.

‘Tainted money, hmm?’ Aidan murmured cynically. ‘Not quite the sort of thing that blue-bloods like you want to soil their hands with.’

‘Oh, now you’re being ridiculous! That wasn’t the only thing that worried my father. He was concerned by the stories of your wild youth, run-ins with the police.’

‘The reports in the papers were exaggerated. I admit I was no saint—but then, is anyone when they’re an adolescent?’

‘You haven’t been a teenager for over fifteen years! Or are you claiming that the men and women—particularly the women—you’ve used and discarded on your way to the top are just a figment of the tabloids’ imagination too?’

‘And are you claiming that your parents—your father at least—never believed that their sort of inherited wealth was far superior to money earned by hard work?’

He hadn’t answered the question, India realised. But then, did he really have to? Was she really fool enough to think he might actually care about the beauties with whom his name had been linked, usually so briefly, in the past?

‘In our case, “wealth” is a far from accurate term! For as long as I can remember, and certainly since my grandfather’s death embroiled us in the problems of death duties, we’ve existed in a form of genteel poverty where appearance barely papered over the cracks. If you’d looked underneath, you’d have seen there was nothing of any substance...’

‘Which is where I came in.’

‘You know I never shared my father’s opinions on—’

‘No—you didn’t care where the money came from, so long as there was plenty of it and it took you out of that “genteel poverty” you so hated,’ Aidan inserted in a voice that seemed to freeze the air around them, making it difficult to breathe.

Suddenly it was as if she had slipped back in time, seeing herself little more than a year ago at that party that had started it all.

If it hadn’t been for Rob, she wouldn’t have felt that way in the first place. Rob—the man she had been seeing for the past few months, and with whom she had believed herself more than halfway in love. She had been so convinced of her feelings that only the week before the party she had finally given in to his persistent pressure and slept with him—her own first experience of physical lovemaking.

If the experience hadn’t been everything she had hoped for, and certainly not all that the books she had read had led her to expect, she had told herself that it was only the result of inexperience. Time and commitment could only make things better—or so she’d believed.

And so she had been devastated when only a day or so later Rob had brusquely, and with brutal indifference to her feelings, broken off the relationship.

In an attempt to drown her sorrows, India had downed a couple of glasses of wine with more haste than she was used to. Her feelings of hurt pride and loss had been made even worse by the appearance of Rob himself at the party, with another woman on his arm.

‘His boss’s daughter, no less!’ she complained to her friends, hiding her hurt behind a veil of contempt as she went on, ‘But I mean—just look at her! That hair isn’t natural for a start. And, well, to call her a bimbo would be an insult to all self-respecting airheads. What on earth can he see in her?’

‘Face it,’ Rose said, her tone one of knowing cynicism, ‘What he really sees when he looks at Miss Bannister is a private income of X thousand a year and an easy way into Daddy’s good books—not to mention, if he plays his cards right, the prospect of a very comfortable future. Your family may have a high society name, Indy, and the family tree to go with it—but you haven’t got the disposable income men like Rob look for.’

‘And what income the Marchants do have is taken up by that crumbling old pile my father insists on calling the ancestral home!’ India agreed. ‘It’s going to need a new roof soon, and there’s not enough in the bank to fund it.’

‘Not a problem dear Miss Bannister is likely to have to concern herself with,’ Jane put in with a nod towards the dance floor, where the blonde was draped all over Rob. ‘That little slip of nothing she’s wearing is fresh from the Paris catwalks, and I’ll bet that what Daddy paid for it would go a long way towards your new roof. Our high street couture just can’t compete.’