Second-Best Bride. SARA WOOD
her mother the inevitable shock. Claire grimly shut her mind to the memory of her mother’s last angina attack. It had been frightening, terribly harrowing. If anything should happen to the woman who’d devoted her life to her…
‘I’m ready, Jack,’ she said to her father, and was proud of the way her voice remained steady despite her nerves.
‘About time!’ he grumbled, jerking her into motion.
The ‘Bridal March’ began, silencing her giggling bridesmaids. Claire glided into the body of the church in a soft, rich rustle of her huge skirts. At the top of the aisle, she paused, deathly white beneath the softly falling veil, her fingers digging hard into her father’s sleeve.
Curious faces turned towards her. To her left, the lovely, homely faces of many of her Ballymare friends who were chattering excitedly, their affection reaching out and wrapping her in a welcome warmth. Many were from the hotel where she and her mother worked—and where she and Trader had met when he’d come to stay.
But to the right swirled an alien clutch of salon-smooth complexions, exclusive clothes, designer hats and discreetly wafting perfumes that denoted Trader’s few guests. Her solemn eyes swept over them in astonishment because she’d never expected such affluence. But Phoenix had said Trader courted the rich, like her father used to. Did Trader also live beyond his means, toadying to the wealthy? She didn’t know. God help her, she didn’t know.
‘By Jiminy, there’s a few million pounds represented there!’ gloated her father triumphantly in her ear. ‘Clever girl!’
‘Jack!’ Claire’s cheeks burned with mortification. One of Trader’s guests had flinched at her father’s remark.
Miserably she walked at a funeral pace down the long aisle, between the stunning displays of blue and cream flowers that adorned each pew and which drowned her in heavy perfume.
And finally she found the courage to look at Trader. Seeing the heart-stopping spread of his broad back in the beautifully tailored morning coat, she felt the tension in her fingers miraculously ease. Slowly her hand uncurled, longing to touch that neat, dark curve of hair above his tanned neck and to relax the unnatural stiffness of his head.
Oh, God, how she loved him! Her anguished eyes burned into his back. If he’d turn round, she reasoned, everything would be all right. Even at this eleventh hour it would be a joy to find her worries wiped away. She didn’t want to hurt anyone today; not her mother, her father, her friends, Trader…herself.
Turn, Trader! she pleaded. He must know she was there! Her satin-clad feet were tapping on the grating, her many petticoats were rustling. Everyone else was looking! Didn’t he care?
‘Oh, Trader!’ she breathed plaintively.
‘Claire, darling!’ whispered someone close by. With a start, Claire recognised the warm tones of the woman Trader had lived with for most of his life. Phoenix’s beautiful, exotic face swam into focus. ‘You look ill! Should you be here?’
Claire went limp with gratitude. Someone cared. ‘No,’ she husked. Her tongue flickered nervously over pale, dry lips and she gazed at the raven-haired Phoenix, pleading to be saved from her nightmare.
Before that could happen, her father’s strong, expensively tanned hand reached out and patted hers and even he—insensitive to the condition of other people—could see that it was pale and trembling where it lay against the cascades of cream and pastel blue flowers that were appliquéd on to the fabric.
‘Pull yourself together, sweetie!’ he growled.
She was together. That was the trouble. Her rational mind had woken up and it was discovering all the flaws in her dream. Her love had been too unconditional, too trusting. She was an unsophisticated chambermaid. Trader was handsome and desirable.
Like her father! And he’d never been faithful…
Quite suddenly, Trader turned, jerking around with a sharp, impatient movement. She gave a small gasp of hope and her heart quickened its beat. But there was a frown instead of the usual look of adoration on his dark and handsome face; a frown that was replaced by a chilling stare as his eyes swung between her and her tense father. And the hatred between the two men blasted down the aisle with a shockingly tangible force.
‘Oh, no!’ she moaned, panicking.
Blindly, consumed by an unspeakable dismay, Claire tugged her hand from her father’s arm and half-whirled around, hampered by the trailing material and the weight of the long, flower-strewn train. She would run! She’d get into her car, leave Ballymare and never come back!
CLAIRE heard murmurs of consternation from all around her as she gathered her skirts up for the dash to the door. Then her father caught her hand and jerked her roughly back to his side.
‘You want to humiliate both your parents?’ he hissed furiously.
‘I want to be happy!’ she whispered.
She rocked on her feet but managed to hold her ground. The murmurings grew louder while she stared in confusion at Trader, who looked equally alarmed, small beads of sweat glistening on his brow. Hopelessly muddled, she gripped her skirt convulsively, causing some of the petals from the flower swags to float to the floor.
‘He loves me, he loves me not,’ she intoned inaudibly to herself, superstitiously counting each petal as it fell. ‘He loves me, he loves me not…’ Her breath stopped. ‘He loves me!’
Her lashes fluttered up in the unlikely hope that the childish game had some foundation. Incredibly, Trader was smiling gently and the love in his eyes made her give an involuntary sigh of bemused pleasure. She was totally oblivious to the chorus of sentimental sniffs to her left and the amused smiles to her right. Her father tugged in vain. She was transfixed. Immobile.
I love you! Trader mouthed, tenderly, adoringly. And she melted. Stupid she might be to go against every ounce of rational thought in her brain, but with that affirmation, all her worries vanished in a rush of relief and a shy delight.
I love you! she mouthed back in soft, heart-aching delight, seeing his whole body relax as though he’d been tense and uncertain too.
He loved her. She’d put her life on the line that he did. That heart-stopping worship in his soul-searching eyes couldn’t possibly be faked!
Her slender body still trembled but now she glowed and her smile broke out, filling her face with radiance. She sighed in sheer relief at the narrowness of her escape from a life of misery without him. Seeing Trader’s loving face, she knew there was more to the blackmail and Trader’s strange behaviour than her father had let on. There must be another side to the story, and between them they’d work out a solution to living their lives decently.
Courage and confidence lifted her head on its slender neck. Like a graceful swan, released from its ugly duckling stage, she floated towards Trader, the man she loved, an incandescent joy on her face. And to her great delight he came slowly towards her as if he couldn’t bear to wait any longer to be near her, to touch her. That was how she felt. They’d been apart for too long. Hours!
She was aware, briefly, of her mother’s moist eyes and hugely happy smile beneath the ridiculous little hat Trader had helped her choose. It made her look young and beautiful, thought Claire fondly. And saw how quickly her mother transferred her gaze to her father, and ached at the intense longing in her mother’s sweet face. Dear Ma! It took all sorts!
And Claire vowed to forget her father’s jarring behaviour and questionable ethics and to concentrate on the fact that he had the power to make her mother content, after years of unhappiness. If they got together, her mother could give up work at last and her angina would be more manageable and less life-threatening. Claire smiled with joy.
‘I hope she knows what she’s