The Wedding Deception. Kay Thorpe
the morning, then.’
‘Do you want me with you?’ asked Jill.
The two brothers clashed glances, with the younger man’s the first to fall.
‘I think it might be best if I told them on my own,’ he said.
‘Of course.’ She was obviously relieved. She added tentatively, ‘I hope everything will be all right.’
‘So,’ said Ross meaningfully, ‘do I.’ He looked down at the untouched portion of pie on his plate, his mouth set ‘I’m afraid my appetite has deserted me.’
Claire was too het up to eat any more herself. She pushed away her own plate and got to her feet again. ‘We’ll have coffee in the sitting-room,’ she said.
This time Ross made no offer of help. She had a feeling that if he hadn’t driven Scott here to start with, he would have forgone coffee altogether. So far he had failed in his aim to call a halt to his brother’s plans, but that didn’t mean he would stop trying.
Whatever he might have in mind, he made no further reference. Scott offered no spoken demur when it was intimated that they would leave soon after the coffee had been drunk, although he was obviously reluctant to do so.
‘I’ll phone you as soon as I’ve got it over with,’ he told Jill. ‘They’ll want to meet you. You too, of course,’ he added to Claire. ‘There’ll be arrangements to make.’
‘Let’s take one step at a time,’ suggested his brother. ‘It’s hardly as if the baby is due next week!’ He gave Claire a brief nod. ‘Thanks again for the hospitality.’
She inclined her head in return. ‘You’re welcome.’
Politeness so often involved telling lies, she reflected when the two of them had departed. They had been anything but welcome. The strain of the last few hours was beginning to tell on her. It was all she could do to keep a sense of proportion. There were worse things which could happen.
‘So, what do you think of him?’ asked Jill anxiously.
Does it matter what I think? Claire felt like asking, but managed a faint smile instead.
‘He seems nice enough.’
‘Nice?’ Jill made it sound as if the word was an insult. ‘He’s just…wonderful!’
‘You’re the one in love with him, not me,’ Claire pointed out. She hesitated before adding softly, ‘I’d have thought the pair of you were sensible enough to at least take precautions.’
Her sister’s colour rose, the expression in her eyes closer to guilt than defiance. ‘You’d have thrown three fits if I’d gone on the pill!’
‘I don’t suppose I’d have known about it. In any case, it was as much Scott’s place to take responsibility. More so, in fact, considering other risks.’
Jill gazed at her with knitted brows for a moment before the penny dropped. ‘If you’re talking about what I think you are, Scott’s hardly in that category!’ she declared indignantly.
‘He doesn’t have to be. You’ve seen all the warnings on TV.’
‘They only apply to those who sleep around a lot. Scott isn’t like that either!’
Claire wished she could be as certain. He didn’t come across as the promiscuous type, but who could really tell these days? Jill almost certainly wasn’t his first sexual experience; according to Ross, she wasn’t even his first love. Not that she had any intention of passing on that piece of information.
She made a small wry gesture. ‘I’m sure he isn’t But neither is he blameless. From what Ross said, you were still in school when this whole thing started. Surely—’
‘It wasn’t Scott who made the running initially, it was me.’ Jill’s chin was jutting, her mouth mutinous. ‘I made sure he noticed me that very first night.’
‘In what way?’
‘I asked him to dance.’
Claire felt her lips twitch involuntarily. ‘That must have taken a lot of courage,’ she commented. ‘What did he say?’
‘That he’d be delighted.’ Jill’s tone had softened into reminiscence. ‘He’s so different from Rob, and Mark, and the others. They’d make some stupid joke if a girl asked any of them to dance.’
Claire could imagine. None of Jill’s former boyfriends was any older than she was herself, and certainly no more mature. Scott’s good looks were only a part of the attraction. He had about him that same air of confidence in himself that his brother possessed—although he lacked the other’s cutting edge.
‘Do all your friends know you’ve been seeing Scott?’ she asked.
Jill shook her head. ‘Just Lucy. I had to tell someone.’
Lucy was, and had been right since junior school, her closest friend. The two of them told each other everything. Claire wondered just how capable the other girl was of keeping mum when it came to news of this magnitude. Everyone who could count would know the truth soon enough once Jill began to show, of course, but by that time she would be married, and not open to quite the same degree of censure from those with nothing better to think about.
Local opinion was hardly the main concern anyway. What mattered most was that Jill should be certain of what she was doing. Claire doubted if she had looked any further ahead than the immediate future.
‘Do you think you’d have thought about marrying Scott if you hadn’t got pregnant?’ she said slowly, feeling for the words. ‘I mean, really thought about it.’
The answer came swift and sure. ‘Of course. He’s everything I ever dreamed about!’
‘I shouldn’t have imagined you dreamt about marriage at all at your age,’ Claire remarked mildly. ‘I know I didn’t.’
‘I’m not you,’ returned her sister with indisputable logic. ‘I never wanted a career in the first place. You were always the ambitious one.’
And ambition was something which she had been forced to put aside to a great extent, Claire acknowledged ruefully. Sales was a long way from design, even if she did have her own business. She still kept her drawingboard set up in her bedroom, and occasionally worked on an idea, but time was too limited to consider it anything but a hobby.
‘I wish you’d told me all this before,’ she said, returning that particular dream to its niche. ‘I honestly never realised how you felt about things.’
‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’ Jill obviously felt she could afford to be magnanimous. ‘I’ve got what I want— or I shall have soon—and you’ll be able to do whatever you want without worrying about me any more.’
That aspect hadn’t occurred to her, Claire had to admit. Nor did she find it any consolation. She got up and went to draw the curtains, standing for a moment gazing out into the dusk. There was so much to be considered, so many details that Jill didn’t appear to have got round to thinking about as yet.
‘Have you discussed where you’re going to live?’ she queried, without turning.
‘Not yet.’ Jill sounded anything but concerned. ‘We’ll probably buy a house.’
Money might not be the main attraction in this relationship but it certainly had some bearing, Claire thought drily.
‘Does Ross still live at the family home too?’ she heard herself asking.
‘No, he has a flat in town.’
Claire finished drawing the curtains and briefly contemplated regaining her seat, but she was too churned up inside to spend any more time going over and over the same ground.
‘I