Substitute Bride. Angela Devine
feel to have those tough, masculine hands seizing her urgently and that hawk-like face so close to hers that she could see the network of tiny lines around his eyes and the way his white, even teeth gritted together…
She swallowed hard and tried to remember what Sam had told her about his uncle, but it didn’t amount to much. Sam was a naturally taciturn person, and in any case Laura had not had the faintest idea that the information would ever prove important to her.
Vaguely she had the impression that Sam’s family had settled in the colony of Van Diemen’s Land in the very early days and that they had old money derived from the farming of merino sheep and the ownership of a woollen mill in Hobart. But about James himself she knew tantalisingly little. Only that he had taught Sam to ride and fish and had been an unsparing taskmaster when his nephew had worked on his property for two years as a stockman.
She couldn’t remember anything about his private life, except for a faint inkling that there had been an unhappy marriage somewhere. Or was that Sam’s other uncle on his mother’s side? If James had a friendly, sympathetic wife tucked away, it might make it easier for Bea or Laura to make a full confession. Yet for some reason the thought of James having any kind of wife, sympathetic or otherwise, sent a sharp pain like a toothache lancing through her.
Oh, Laura, you fool, she thought despairingly. You don’t even like the man, and that physical magnetism is obviously something he switches on for any woman who comes near him. Didn’t Bea say he had a reputation for seducing anything that moved? So you’re not really stupid enough to fall for him, are you? Think about Ray instead!
Dutifully she summoned up the image of Ray crouched over a computer screen, patting his thinning fair hair fussily into place and complimenting her on her spreadsheets, but it didn’t help. Ray seemed a million miles away, while this disturbing stranger was vibrantly present and impossible to ignore.
A sudden spatter of rain struck the car and she heard the swish of the windscreen wipers starting up. Deliberately she tried to lose herself in the details of the weather—the tug of the wind, the rattle of the raindrops, the hiss of the tyres on the wet road—and she was so successful that soon her pretence of dozing became real. Her eyelids fluttered, she gave a shallow sigh and slept.
She was woken by the movement of the car turning off the tarmac onto a dirt road and lurching up a hill. An involuntary cry of surprise escaped her as she realised where she was. James glanced across and spoke in a polite but distant tone, as if he were talking to a stranger rather than a new member of the family.
‘We’re nearly there now. Do you want to get out and look at the view?’
He stopped the car and she climbed out and joined him on the crest of the hill. She uttered a low gasp of admiration as she looked at the panorama spread out before them. It had stopped raining and the sea was a deep cobalt blue, which throbbed and heaved around the distant peaks of a group of islands. The sky was filled with the slanting radiance of the late afternoon sun and the breeze from the ocean brought the tang of salt, mingled with the scent of eucalyptus trees and fresh, damp earth.
‘That’s my house,’ said James.
Laura followed the line of his pointing finger and saw a substantial honey-coloured Georgian building tucked into the lee of the hillside so that it was sheltered from the fierce westerly winds. Around it a splash of vivid green colour marked the limits of the garden and beyond that were paddocks full of golden grass where sheep stood in peaceful groups. One or two even had early lambs frisking beside them.
‘It’s beautiful!’ she exclaimed.
‘I’m glad you think so,’ he replied, with a sardonic lift of his eyebrows. ‘I imagine you’ll be spending a fair bit of time here if Sam has his way. He loves the land, you know. Even though he has agreed to manage the woollen mill in Hobart for me it’s likely that he’ll be up here every chance he gets, dealing with the sheep himself. Are you sure you won’t get bored?’
There was no mistaking his antagonism now. He doesn’t want me to marry his precious nephew one bit, thought Laura indignantly. Or he doesn’t want Bea to many him, which comes to the same thing. He ought to give her…me…a chance!
‘I’ll manage,’ she said coolly. ‘I can always dress up in some fancy clothes and put on a fashion parade for the sheep if I get bored, can’t I?’
He looked at her sharply, as if he were not sure whether she was joking or not. Then, with a grunt of exasperation, he led the way back to the car. They finished the rest of the journey in silence, but in spite of his unmistakable hostility James couldn’t quite overcome his instincts as a host. He carried Laura’s bag in from the car, held the door open for her as she entered the house and showed her into a bedroom which was filled with all the comforts a guest could possibly want. Fresh flowers, tissues, a carafe of water and a tin of biscuits, folded towels, a supply of brightly coloured paperbacks. Yet his voice was still curt when he spoke to her.
‘I hope you won’t mind fending for yourself for a couple of hours. I’m afraid I’ve still got to go and inspect the prize bull that I intended to look at this morning, but I shouldn’t be gone for very long. Just make yourself at home, take a bath, fix a snackwhatever you want to do. I’ll cook a proper meal when I get back.’
Left alone, Laura immediately rushed to the telephone to ring Bea, in the hope of having another consultation about her difficult position, but infuriatingly, although the phone rang and rang, Bea didn’t answer. Trying Sam’s number didn’t help either. All she got there was the answering machine and she left a very terse message on it, instructing Bea to phone her immediately.
After that, she sat down with a groan and ran her hands through her hair. How long was she going to be stranded here? Sometimes in the past airline strikes to Tasmania had gone on for weeks, although in that case the Air Force usually ran an emergency service to get sick people or desperate cases on and off the island. But however desperate Laura might feel, she didn’t think the Air Force would consider her a case for emergency evacuation! Well, that just left the overnight boat ferry. If all else failed, perhaps she could hire a car, drive to Devonport and sail back to the mainland.
That still left her with the problem of what was going to happen at the wedding. Even if Bea kept her promise and explained the whole masquerade to James, it still left them with the awkward situation of staging a wedding where the bridegroom’s uncle might well murder the bride and the chief bridesmaid. Which Laura couldn’t help feeling would cast a damper over the proceedings.
She pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and shuddered. Why had she ever let Bea talk her into this? Still, there was nothing to be gained by sitting around brooding about it. She might as well accept James’s rather grudging invitation and take a look at the place.
It was certainly the kind of house to appeal to her, she decided after a leisurely tour, even if Bea would probably complain that it looked like a museum. All the rooms were graciously proportioned, with carved wooden mantelpieces, lovingly polished antique furniture and dazzling views over the ocean or the hills to the west. Even so, some discreet remodelling had taken place to supply each of the five bedrooms with its own en suite bathroom and to provide a kitchen and laundry that had a colonial look but that still concealed the most up-to-date appliances.
Realising she was hungry, Laura opened the refrigerator and found a tempting array of goodies. Smoked salmon, paté, cold meat, a variety of cheeses, vegetables, eggs, a chicken, a bowl of unshelled prawns. She was just about to take out the ingredients for a ham sandwich when a sudden thought struck her. Why not start cooking dinner herself?
With James’s disturbing presence temporarily removed, her antagonism was beginning to ebb away and she felt more like her usual self. Calm, sensible, anxious to smooth things over. Even that long, sultry, assessing look he had given her when they first met seemed more and more a product of her own fevered imagination. Probably the truth was that he was simply a conscientious uncle, worried that Sam and Bea were embarking on marriage too soon. And if that was the case, it was up to her to try and placate him.
She must do all that she could to