Game Of Love. PENNY JORDAN
for a non-ecclesiastical market. Her travels had produced some marvellous fabrics, so rich, so mouth-wateringly desirable that her eyes grew dreamy as she remembered the pleasure of discovering them, of—
‘Tasha, you must help me. It was all a mistake—I’d only gone to see Jake to tell him that everything was over between us, that I loved Richard. But he was right in the middle of one of the most important parts of his novel. He begged me to stay and type up his notes for him and we worked all night on them. Nothing else happened. But of course Luke would have to be walking down the close just as I opened Jake’s door to leave, and, of course, I would have to be wearing the evening dress I’d had on for our engagement party.’ She pulled a face. ‘I loved that dress…Richard’s mother hated it, of course.’
Natasha brushed aside this incidental chatter and demanded fatalistically, ‘You don’t mean you went straight from your own engagement party to Jake Pendraggon’s house, and were then seen leaving it first thing in the morning by Richard’s cousin?’
‘He’s Richard’s father’s cousin, but in essence…yes.’
‘And you never said a word to Richard…never explained.’ Natasha frowned. ‘But, Emma, if this Luke didn’t say anything to Richard at the time, what on earth makes you think he’s going to do so now?’
‘I heard Richard’s mother talking to him. I’d gone round there to see Sara, and the sittingroom door was open. Neither of them knew I was there. Richard’s mother was saying how much she wished Richard were marrying someone more suitable.’ Emma pulled a face. ‘Well, I already knew she doesn’t approve of me, and I’m not bothered about that, but then I heard him—Luke—saying in a sort of sinister way, “Well, you don’t know—they aren’t married yet. Maybe Richard will have a change of heart,” and I knew instantly…’
She paused dramatically while Natasha wrinkled her forehead and asked patiently, ‘You knew what?’
‘That Luke had been waiting until the last possible minute to tell Richard what I’d done, and I know when he’s going to do it—tonight at the pre-wedding party. The one your parents are giving for us.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’re wrong,’ Natasha tried to comfort her. ‘I haven’t met this Luke, but I’m sure if he had wanted to tell Richard he would have done so months ago—as you should have done yourself,’ she added forthrightly. ‘It’s still not too late,’she continued more gently, knowing her cousin’s stubbornness of old. ‘Why don’t you simply explain to Richard what happened? After all, if it was as innocent as you say—’
‘What do you mean “if”?’ Emma demanded belligerently. ‘Don’t you believe me?’
Natasha sighed faintly. ‘Yes, I do,’ she confirmed. ‘But—’
‘Exactly!’ Emma pounced. ‘And it’s that “but” that stops me from telling Richard. Everyone knows that Jake and I went out together a few times that time when Richard and I broke up.’ She ignored the ironic look Natasha gave her at her deceptive description of the ragingly public and passionate affair Emma had had with the writer while he was supposedly researching his latest blockbuster. ‘But I explained to Richard that if he hadn’t got cold feet about loving me I’d never have even looked at Jake.’ She ignored the look Natasha gave her and added miserably, ‘I know he’d want to believe me, but given my reputation and the fact that Luke saw me leaving Jake’s house…’
‘I can see the difficulties,’ Natasha admitted. ‘You know, you should have explained to Richard right away.’
‘I should have but I didn’t,’ Emma said morosely, ‘and now, because of that, Luke is going to tell Richard, and then Richard will break our engagement, and my life will be ruined, unless…you must help me, Tasha. Please…’
‘I think the best person to help you is yourself, by confiding in Richard,’ Natasha told her severely. ‘He is an adult, Emma, and I’m sure this Luke whoever he is won’t be able to stop Richard from loving and marrying you.’
‘You don’t know him,’ Emma told her starkly. ‘He’s a typical Templecombe, only worse.’
‘Worse?’ Natasha questioned. ‘How?’
‘Well, for a start he’s completely anti-women. Oh, not in that way,’ she hastened to assure her cousin, when she saw Natasha’s expression. ‘According to Richard he’s had women virtually coming out of his ears, since his early teens. And for all that he’s even more strait-laced than Mrs T now. According to Richard there was a time when the family almost disowned him, he was so wild.’
‘Well, then, he should sympathise with you,’ Natasha murmured, picking up another piece of embroidery and examining it lovingly, wondering how it would look hanging on the wall in her own small house, perhaps over the fifteenth-century oak coffer she had been lucky enough to buy at a local auction.
‘Not him,’ Emma assured her bitterly. ‘He’s the original reformed rake. He’s already advised Richard that we’d be far better waiting another year to marry, and he’s told him that he’s not sure that I’m the right wife for him, given his calling. Who says that a vicar’s wife has to be like Mrs T?’ Emma began indignantly.
‘Who indeed?’ Natasha agreed sotto voce, knowing that if she let her cousin run on for long enough she would eventually run out of steam.
‘You will help me, won’t you?’ Emma pleaded, her face suddenly crumpling with real emotion as she said shakily, ‘I couldn’t bear to lose Richard now, Tasha. I really couldn’t. Before…before we were engaged and we had that row, and I got involved with Jake…well, I thought I could live without him, that he was just another man, but it isn’t like that. I really do love him. I know he loves me too, but—’
‘But you don’t think he’ll believe you if you tell him what you were doing with Jake Pendraggon.’
‘He’d want to, but he is only human, and if our situations were reversed…Well, I know how I’d feel if I heard that he’d been seen coming out of an ex-lover’s house at that time in the morning.’
‘What is it you want me to do?’ Natasha asked her. ‘Kidnap this Luke and keep him out of sight until after the wedding?’ she suggested facetiously.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Emma said severely, making Natasha reflect that her cousin had changed a little. Time was when she would very probably have suggested just such an outrageous solution to her present problem. ‘No, all I want you to do is to pretend to be me—that is, I want you to pretend that it was you Luke saw leaving Jake’s house. After all,’ she continued, warming to her theme and ignoring the stunned look in Natasha’s eyes, ‘we do look alike. We’re both blonde and we both have grey eyes; we’re both around the same height—’
‘We’re cousins, not twins,’ Natasha interrupted her drily, ‘and we don’t look anything like that similar. I’m taller than you for one thing, and—’
‘Tasha, please listen. Luke doesn’t know me all that well. He only saw me briefly.’
‘He saw you wearing the same dress you had worn for your engagement party,’ Natasha reminded her very firmly. ‘Emma, love, much as I want to help—’
‘No, you don’t,’ Emma interrupted her bitterly. ‘You want to stay nice and safe in your own cosy little world. I bet you think just like Luke really, that I don’t deserve someone like Richard. Everyone knows that, if Richard had to marry into our family, Mrs T would have much preferred to have you as a daughter-in-law. After all, before you went off to university you and Richard dated for a while.’
‘I like Richard as a person, I’m delighted that the two of you are in love, and as for being like this Luke…’ Natasha began, determined to nip any further emotionalism in the bud. ‘What exactly does he do, by the way?’
‘He’s an artist,’ Emma told her truculently, totally