Lee Wilkinson - Marriage On The Agenda

Turning, Loris found herself looking into a lean, tanned face, with a straight nose, a cleft chin and a mouth that was firm, yet sensitive.

Again she got that illusory feeling of having once known him, a haunting sense of recognition, without being able to place him.

Her breath came faster, and it took a moment or two to steady herself. “I’d love to dance with you,” she answered.

His hold light, but far from tentative, he steered her onto the dance floor. “I’m Jonathan Drummond.” He volunteered no further information.

The name was unfamiliar. Though she was almost convinced they hadn’t, she felt compelled to ask, “Have we ever met before?”

LEE WILKINSON lives with her husband in a three-hundred-year-old stone cottage in a Derbyshire village, which most winters gets cut off by snow. They both enjoy traveling and recently, joining forces with their daughter and son-in-law, spent a year going around the world “on a shoestring” while their son looked after Kelly, their much-loved German shepherd dog. Her hobbies are reading and gardening and holding impromptu barbecues for her long-suffering family and friends.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

THE taxi skirted Hyde Park and dropped Loris Bergman outside the Landseer Hotel. Having paid the driver, she hurried inside and crossed the plush lobby to the Ladies’ Cloakroom.

When she had shaken the raindrops from her hooded cloak she gave that, and the small weekend case she was carrying, to the attendant, before glancing quickly in the mirror to check her image.

It was a bad enough crime to be so late for Bergman Longton’s St Valentine’s party, without her appearance being found wanting.

A small oval face with a pure bone structure, a wide, passionate mouth and almond-shaped eyes the colour of pale sherry, looked back at her. To others, her beauty was startling, but to Loris, with her total lack of vanity, familiarity had made her looks commonplace.

Satisfied that her long black hair and wispy fringe were tidy, and she looked cool and collected, she headed for the chandelier-lit ballroom.

The party was in full swing, with music and laughter and conversation. Some of the guests were dancing to a good-sized band, others milling about or gathered, glass in hand, in little groups.

A fair-haired, slimly built man, just under six feet tall and wearing impeccable evening dress, was standing alone in the background. His very stillness amongst the lively throng drew Loris’s attention. She had a fleeting sense of familiarity, a feeling that a long time ago she might have known him.

A second look convinced her she was mistaken.

If she had ever met this man, with his look of maturity and quiet strength, his unmistakable air of self-assurance, she would have remembered.

His stance was easy, relaxed, back straight, feet a little apart. A slightly cynical expression on his good-looking face, he was watching the other guests.

She was wondering who he was, and what he was doing at the gathering, when his brilliant, heavy-lidded eyes met hers.

Suddenly meeting that cool, ironic regard had the same impact as walking into an invisible plate-glass window. A sense of shock made her stop in her tracks while her heart began to beat in slow, heavy thuds.

As she stood, momentarily held in thrall, her mother’s voice said, ‘So there you are, at last…’

Tearing her gaze away from the stranger’s with an effort, Loris turned to the petite, dark-haired woman, whose still-beautiful face was marred by an irritable expression.

‘We were beginning to wonder where on earth you’d got to. Your father’s certainly not pleased.’

‘I told you I had a six-thirty appointment and would no doubt be late,’ Loris said patiently.

‘It’s utterly ridiculous on a Saturday night! And you didn’t say you’d be this late. The party’s more than half-over.’

Although her parents knew quite well that as an interior designer Loris frequently had to work unsociable hours, they always kicked up the same kind of fuss, treating her like a recalcitrant teenager rather than a confident, talented woman with a blossoming career.

‘Unfortunately Mrs Chedwyne who is a client I can’t afford to lose, wouldn’t be hurried, and when I did manage to get away I still had to go back to the flat to change.’

Refusing to let the subject drop, Isobel Bergman complained, ‘I don’t know why you don’t insist on people consulting you during normal business hours.’

Loris sighed. ‘It doesn’t work like that. I have to visit my clients’ homes at their convenience. Quite a number of them are out during the day. Some only have weekends or evenings free.’

‘Well, don’t be surprised if Mark’s furious. After all, it is a special party to celebrate the Cosby takeover, and it was your place to be by his side. He’s missed you.’

Spotting her fiancé on the dance floor entangled with a tall, vivacious blonde, Loris remarked tartly, ‘He doesn’t appear to be missing me at the moment.’

‘When you’re this late what can you expect? You should have been here to keep an eye on him. If you’re not careful some scheming little gold-digger will steal him from under your nose.’

Though Loris was well aware of Mark Longton’s tendency to be attracted by a pretty face, the notion that she needed to ‘keep an eye’ on him wasn’t a particularly pleasant one.

‘Don’t forget Mark Longton’s quite a catch,’ Isobel persisted. ‘A handsome, sexy man, still in his thirties, who runs a company and has money, isn’t to be sneezed at.’

‘I’m not interested in his money,’ Loris said flatly.

‘Well, you ought to be. Your father’s turned sixty, and if I can’t get him to change his will when he dies your stepbrother will get the lot and you’ll be left out in the cold…’

Simon, extrovert and loaded with charm, had always held pride of place in Peter Bergman’s affections and, knowing what she did know, Loris hadn’t been at all surprised by her father’s decision. But well aware that it had been a bitter blow to Isobel to learn that her husband’s son from his first marriage was to inherit everything, Loris said soothingly, ‘I really don’t mind if Simon does get the lot. I have a career I enjoy and—’

‘It shouldn’t be necessary for you to work. Your father could easily afford to give you an allowance—’

‘I’m twenty-four, not fourteen.’

Ignoring her daughter’s protest, Isobel rushed on, ‘Seriously, I’d never have married him if I’d known he’d turn out to be such an old skinflint.’

It was a familiar complaint, and one that Loris had learned to studiously ignore.

‘He’s even talking about giving up the London flat and semi-retiring to Monkswood.’

‘A lot of people work from home these days, and it would make it a lot easier to run the estate.’

‘Well, I don’t want to be stuck in the country the whole week. I’d go mad. But your father only thinks of himself, never of me. Weekends are bad enough—’ Isobel continued to complain ‘—unless we’re having a house party… By the way, I hope you remembered to bring some things?’

Loris and Mark were joining the weekend house party at Monkswood, the Bergmans’ country estate which bordered on the village of Paddleham.

‘Yes, I remembered.’

As the dance ended and the floor cleared, both women looked for Mark’s tall, thickset figure, but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘There’s still plenty of food on the buffet if you want to eat?’ Isobel suggested.

Loris shook her head. ‘I had a sandwich before I went to keep my appointment.’

‘Well, I could do with something. This latest diet is much too severe…’

At forty-seven, Isobel waged a continuous, and mainly losing, battle against the extra pounds that middle-age had piled onto her once-slim figure.

‘And I’m convinced the pills they gave me with it are making my migraines worse,’ she grumbled, as she disappeared in the direction of the buffet.

A waiter approached with a tray of champagne and, accepting a glass with a word of thanks, Loris sipped the well-chilled wine while her gaze travelled over the assembled company.

As she scanned the crowd, instead of Mark’s heavy, slightly florid face, with its thick black brows and dark eyes, she found herself looking for a stranger’s lean, tanned face, with clear-cut features and light, penetrating eyes.

A sudden fanfare called for the assembled company’s attention, and Loris watched as her father, her fiancé, and a thin, balding man, went up onto the dais in front of the band. Sir Peter Bergman, stocky and tough-looking, with shrewd blue eyes and iron-grey hair, stepped forward and held up his hand for silence.

‘Most of you already know that Bergman Longton and the American giant, Cosby, have been planning to amalgamate. I’m delighted to announce that that has now taken place, and William Grant—’ he drew the thin, balding man forward ‘—one of Cosby’s top executives, is here with us tonight to celebrate the event.’

There was a burst of applause.

‘This merger will make us one of the largest and, we confidently expect, one of the most successful companies in our particular field. We have decided to rename the UK part of our combined companies BLC Electronics.’ He raised his glass. ‘May BLC go from strength to strength.’

There was more enthusiastic applause, and the toast was drunk.

As the three men left the dais they were momentarily swallowed up by a surge of people wanting to shake their hands and offer congratulations.

When the excitement had died down and the crowd began to disperse, Peter Bergman and William Grant walked away together, talking earnestly.

Mark glanced towards where Loris was standing, striking in an aquamarine dress that clung to her slender figure. She smiled and moved in his direction, but his face was cold, and he turned away to join the woman he’d been dancing with earlier.

Stunned by the rebuff, Loris stopped in her tracks. Admittedly she was very late, but she had warned Mark in advance that she might be.

Still, she felt a certain amount of guilt, and if it hadn’t been for the blonde, who was laughing up at him, she would have gone over and apologised.

But uncertain of his reaction—Mark could be very unforgiving when something displeased him—she hesitated, having no wish to be humiliated in front of the other woman.

As she stood wondering how to retrieve the situation, a special St Valentine’s waltz was announced. ‘…at the conclusion of which, gentlemen, you may kiss your partner.’

Surely Mark would come over to her now?

But without hesitation he offered his hand to the blonde.

Biting her lip, Loris was about to walk away, when a low, attractive voice, with just a trace of an American accent, asked, ‘Will you dance with me?’

Turning, she found herself looking into a lean tanned face, with a straight nose, a cleft chin, and a mouth that was firm, yet sensitive. A very masculine mouth that sent tingles through her, a mouth she could only describe as beautiful.

Again she got that illusory feeling of having once known him, a haunting sense of recognition, without being able to place him.

His thickly lashed eyes, she saw at close quarters, were sea-green rather than the silvery-grey she had thought them to be. Their impact was just as devastating, making her pulses start to race and her breath come faster, so that it took a moment or two to steady herself.