HELEN BROOKS - The Bride's Secret

‘You didn’t seriously think I would just say hello and goodbye, did you?’ he asked coldly. ‘You owe me, Marianne McBride-Harding.’

‘I owe you?’ She was scared to death but she was blowed if he was going to bully her like this, and the sarcastic intonation of her name brought a welcome surge of angry adrenalin to melt the chill his intimidation had wrought on her psyche. ‘Think again, Hudson,’ she said tightly. ‘I owe you nothing and you know it.’

‘I’ve thought, Annie, I’ve thought long and hard,’ he grated slowly. ‘I’ve had two years to think, haven’t I? Does the current boy wonder know what a cheating little liar you really are? Or are you stringing him along the way you did me?’

‘Who...?’ And then she realised. ‘Keith? Keith is just my boss—’ Keith? He seriously thought she was interested in Keith?

‘And I’m Father Christmas,’ Hudson said cuttingly.

‘You don’t believe me?’ she asked hotly, aware that he was driving far too fast along the badly lit Moroccan roads but too angry to care. ‘You think I’d lie just for the sake of it?’

‘You find that surprising?’ he rasped scathingly, his lips compressing in one straight, angry line. ‘I believed you once, my faithless siren, but never again. This time the old adage once bitten, twice shy holds fast. Mind you—’ he glanced at her, the movement lightning-fast but savage ‘—I think even you will be hard pressed to explain where you have been all evening.’

She stared at him, too stunned to reply as a hundred and one thoughts chased themselves through the turmoil of her mind. This had been a calculated exercise on his part, she told herself weakly, a cold-blooded, determined effort to make Keith think—Think what? she asked herself painfully as a sickening flood of desolation and despair washed over her. That she had been with Hudson in the biblical sense of the word—slept with him? Surely even Hudson wouldn’t do that...? ‘I shall simply tell him the truth,’ she informed him through lips that were beginning to tremble.

‘A novel experience for you, I’m sure,’ he said mockingly. ‘But you don’t think he will find it a little...farfetched ? You accept a lift from a man you used to know—years ago,’ he emphasised with a bitter twist to his lips, ‘and then, instead of appearing bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as arranged, you are hours late. And the reason? You went to dinner with friends?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Surely even this youthful-looking child will not accept such a story?’ he asked with dark satisfaction.

‘But it’s true,’ she protested angrily. ‘You know it is.’

‘I know it is. Idris and Fatima know it is.’ The hard voice was merciless. ‘But Keith will believe whatever I want him to believe. I met you by chance. I gave you a lift by chance. How could I have set up an evening such as you will describe?’

‘Because...because your friend couldn’t go with you to Idris’s house, and you saw me and asked...’ Her voice trailed away as he shook his black head slowly, his profile without mercy.

‘I came to Tangier alone,’ he said softly, ‘as the hotel will confirm. You have no proof that there is a friend.’

‘But I saw you with people this lunchtime.’ In spite of the dire situation she couldn’t bring herself to mention the redhead specifically. ‘You know you were with—with them.’

‘Pure chance.’ His smile was without humour. ‘Prove otherwise.’

‘But you told Idris and Fatima you were bringing someone,’ she insisted desperately. ‘You arranged it with them.’

‘Yes, I did.’ A brief pause and then, ‘But you do not know their surname, where they live, their telephone number. You will not be able to substantiate your story to the anxious Keith’

‘I shan’t need to give proof.’ She raised her head proudly. ‘Keith will believe me,’ she declared firmly.

‘A man in love is a jealous man, Annie,’ he said coolly. ‘And jealous men are not reasonable at the best of times. And this...this will not be the best of times. Keith imagines he loves you.’

‘You would lie?’ she asked dazedly. ‘You’d really do that?’

‘Without hesitation.’ It was immediate and cold.

‘But I’ve told you, he isn’t my boyfriend.’ She glared at the imperturbable profile, her eyes fiery. ‘It’s all in your imagination.’

‘Then you have no cause to worry that pretty little head, have you?’ he said urbanely. ‘All, as they say, is well.’

But it wasn’t. A picture of Keith’s face as it had been that lunchtime was suddenly there in front of her, and snippets of their conversation echoed in her mind. He had told her she wasn’t over Hudson, at the same time as making it plain he cared about her. The way he had reacted to Hudson—his attitude towards her—it all confirmed her suspicions that Keith wanted more than just a working relationship.

‘Don’t ever try to play poker, Annie.’ The voice was livid. ‘And, as far as I’m concerned. I’m doing the guy a favour. At least he gets a warning, which is far more than I did.’

‘It’s not like that.’ She had never wanted to hit someone so much in her life. ‘I’ve told you, Keith and I are just friends.’

‘Spare me.’

How could she hate someone, really hate them as she did Hudson at this minute, and yet love them so much it was a physical pain in her heart? Marianne asked herself bleakly as she settled back in her seat helplessly. And yet could she blame him for being like this? What would she have been like if the situation had been reversed and it had been Hudson who had walked out on her after that glorious two months they had shared? She would have wanted to kill him. It had been bad enough for her, knowing she had to go. But him...

She stared miserably through the dark windscreen as the car flashed swiftly through the black Moroccan night, her eyes blind.

She had been so happy when Hudson had asked her to marry him that night—ecstatic, wild with joy... She had known, from the first moment of meeting him, that there would never be anyone else for her, but that he’d felt the same had been too wonderful, too glorious to be true. He was an assured, astute man of the world, powerful, commanding, with a reputation that went before him to oil wheels and pave the way in a manner that had left her breathless. People held him in awe—not just for his wealth and formidable influence, but for the razor-sharp, ruthless intelligence that ravaged those foolish enough to try to deceive him.

He was incorruptible and totally honourable—and that in a profession known for its subtle, and at times doubtful, elucidation of the law. He had his own moral code and he stuck to it—whatever pressure was brought to bear by colleagues or criminals. And he had loved her. It had seemed like a fairy tale, a dream, when he could have had any woman he wanted just by lifting his little finger. Beautiful, sophisticated, experienced women who would know all there was to know about pleasing a man.

She had mentioned Hudson in her letters home to her mother in Scotland, unable to hide her happiness, but had been less than pleased when her mother and stepfather had popped up in France the day before Hudson had asked her to marry him. Not that she hadn’t been pleased to see her mother, but her stepfather...

Michael Caxton, an American living and working in Scotland for a big American company, had married her mother after a whirlwind courtship eighteen months before when Marianne had been at university, and from the first moment of meeting him after the marriage she had disliked him. He’d been too handsome, too charming-too much of everything. But her mother had loved him, and, having struggled on her own for five years after the death of Marianne’s father, she had seized the chance of happiness with both hands.

So Marianne had kept her reservations to herself on her visits home, maintaining a surface civility whilst praying that her distrust and misgivings were unfounded. But they hadn’t been, she reflected flatly.

Michael had still been up when she had got home on the night of Hudson’s proposal—her mother, aunt and uncle having long since retired—and she had known somehow, as soon as she’d walked through the door, that his guise of being unable to sleep because of toothache was a lie. His eyes had been too sharp, too cunning.

‘Nice evening?’ It was deliberately casual.

‘Yes, thank you.’ She forced a smile whilst hoping she could escape with the minimum of conversation. He scared her.

‘Getting on well with Hudson, are you?’ he asked smoothly.

‘Very well.’ She looked straight at Michael then to find the pale blue eyes tight on her face. ‘Do you know him?’ she asked quietly as some sixth sense sent cold trickles down her spine. This was all about Hudson somehow; she felt it in her bones.

‘I know of him.‘ Michael smiled but it didn’t reach the unblinking orbs, and she realised then, as a warning bell began to clang stridently in her brain, that his smiles never did. His eyes were the eyes of a shark—empty, cold, dead... ‘Oh. yes, I certainly know of him. He’s a one-man vigilante for law and order in the States, an advocate for the all-American way.’

‘Well, that’s good, surely?’ she replied warily, the fierce joy and excitement that had carried her into the house on wings beginning to die. ‘We need order and laws, don’t we?’

‘Probably... for the masses,’ Michael drawled slowly. ‘Those content to be led all their lives, who want nothing more than a paltry monthly pay cheque that enables them to scrape through to the next month.’ It was clear he didn’t put himself in that category.

‘And you’re not like that?’ She suddenly would have given the world to step back in time an hour and not be there. She was going to hear something she didn’t want to hear; the hairs that were standing up on the back of her neck told her so. ‘You’re different?’

‘How do you think I bought the place in Scotland, Marianne?’

Michael had been living in a hotel when he’d first met her mother, but a few weeks before the wedding he had bought what virtually amounted to a small castle, complete with acres of grounds housing a lake, deer—and had taken great delight in acting the feudal lord.

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’

‘Use your imagination.’ And then as she still stared at him with great, accusing eyes, he snapped, ‘And don’t look at me like that, damn you. You either make it or you don’t in this wodd—there are only two choices—and to make it you take all the help you can get. I’ve...done favours for people, bent the rules a little, oiled wheels,’ he finished softly, his eyes narrowed and hard.

‘But you’re an accountant,’ she murmured naively. ‘How—?’

‘Hudson is going to get offered a case in the next little while, and if he takes it it could prove...uncomfortable for people who have been very good to me. If the dirt starts to fly it’ll come my way too, and a little bit of dirt contaminates everything it comes into contact with—your mother, you—and if you’re with Hudson...’

‘What... what case?’ she asked through numb lips.

‘Things have been hotting up for some time, but eighteen months ago certain people decided I’d better leave the States and lie low—subpoenas have a nasty habit of rearing their heads when you least expect them,’ he continued almost matter-of-factly.

‘Does my mother know?’ She couldn’t believe the conversation was really taking place, not here, in her aunt’s pretty little sitting room. ‘Does she know why you left the States?’