The Bride's Secret

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She’d hit him. She would—she’d hit him. Marianne took a deep breath and prayed for calm. ‘Keith, I really can explain—’

‘We are shooting at five tomorrow morning, Marianne, and I would appreciate you being in the lobby at half past four.’ Keith had drawn himself up to his full five feet nine inches, quivering hot outrage in every line of his pink face. ‘It is important we catch the dawn light, so don’t be late,’ he added sharply.

‘No, of course I won’t, but if I could just explain—’

‘Goodnight, Marianne.’ He strode back into the hotel without looking back, his back stiff and his head upright.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ She rounded on Hudson like a small virago. ‘I’ve never seen him like that. How could you?’

‘Easily; the man’s a fool,’ Hudson said drily. ‘Hasn’t he heard of the concept of fighting for what he wants? Or has everything dropped into his lap so readily he’s nothing more than spoonfed? Faint heart never won fair lady, and all that.’

‘You know nothing about Keith.’ She was angry, furiously angry, at his arrogance. ‘He’s a lovely man—gentle, good-natured—’

‘So is the average cocker spaniel,’ he returned coolly, and in her rage she didn’t notice how his mouth had thinned with her championship of the other man. ‘But the attributes that make a pet dog so worthy would soon pall in a lover, believe me.’

‘He is not my lover!’ she spat heatedly. ‘He never has been.’

‘He’d like to be.’ It was straight for the jugular, and so true she was lost for an answer. ‘And you know it,’ he added grimly as her fiery face spoke for itself. ‘So cut the twaddle.’

‘Is that why you behaved like this tonight?’ she asked hotly. ‘Because you know—?’ She could have kicked herself for the slip, and continued quickly, ‘Because you think he loves me?’

‘I think he imagines he’s in love with you,’ Hudson answered cynically. ‘Which is quite a different thing, as we both know. He doesn’t know you any more than I knew you—he loves the fantasy you project, like I did. With me, I guess it provided a kick to the holiday for you to have a little fling before you returned home to your fiancе, yes? With him, no doubt, it’s good to have the boss panting for you—gives you the edge over the rest of the girls.’

‘You’re disgusting,’ she bit out tightly, masking the pain and crucifying hurt his words had caused with superhuman effort.

‘Realistic is the word.’ He surveyed her coldly with dark, narrowed eyes, his black hair and the shadowed planes and angles of his face bleak in the moonlight. ‘Yes, I’m realistic about you now, Annie. I only get taken for a ride once; you’d better understand that.’

‘I didn’t take you for a ride,’ she protested shakily. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ She stared at him helplessly, her mouth tremulous.

‘No? Then what do you call it when you agree to marry one man, knowing there’s already another tucked away back home you’re promised to?’ he spat out menacingly. ‘Tell me; I’d really like to know.’

‘It wasn’t true, what Michael told you.’ She stared at him, her green-gold eyes reflecting a shaft of moonlight that turned her hair silver. ‘He had no right to say what he did.’

‘Wasn’t true?’ He laughed harshly. ‘Oh, come on, Annie, don’t disappoint me now; you can do better than that.’

‘It wasn’t,’ she insisted quietly. ‘I’m telling you the truth.’

Then what was true? That “goodbye, Hudson, thanks for the memories but I’ve decided the life of a lawyer’s wife is not for me” letter you left for me?‘ he asked grimly. ‘You’re telling me that you just got cold feet, that that was the reason you disappeared off the face of the earth for I don’t know how long? Do I look stupid, Annie? Do I?’ he added savagely, his face dark and cold.

How could she tell him? She stared at him as her mind raced. If she told him the truth, the whole truth, he could react one of three ways. It was clear he didn’t love her any more, so he might just acknowledge what she said and walk away.

Or—and here her heart thudded—he might pity her, feel some responsibility towards her, especially if he guessed she still loved him, and ask her to take up where they left off in spite of the fact his feelings had died. If he did that, would the threat to him through her still remain? Probably, she thought grimly. From what she had heard, the sort of people Michael had been involved with had very long memories. And then the last two years would have been for nothing.

Or, thirdly—and she had to admit most likely—he simply wouldn’t believe her anyway; he would think she was making up some fantastic story to cover her deceit. And with Michael’s death all chance of proving what she had to say was gone. Hudson was far more likely to believe her stepfather’s lies—he had had two years to let Michael’s lie work its poison.

There was every reason for saying nothing and none for telling him the truth, except... Except she couldn’t bear him to look at her with such contempt and scorn. She swallowed the lump in her throat. She had missed him so much, so much, and she didn’t know what to do about it...

‘Don’t bother trying to work out what to say.’ He slid back into the car as he spoke, his voice hard. ‘I wouldn’t believe it anyway.’ The driver’s door shut with a savageness that was very final.

Well, that settled her answer. She watched him for a moment with misty eyes as he drove the car over to the small car park surrounded by bushes and flowering vegetation. He despised her, and she really couldn’t blame him. Perhaps if she told him the truth he wouldn’t believe she and her mother had had no knowledge of Michael’s involvement in such heavy crime anyway. He had fought such people all his working life and loathed them and the corruption they represented. Maybe him thinking she had been hiding a fiancе in the background was light in comparison.

She turned quickly as the lights on the car died, walking swiftly into the hotel and picking up the key to her room before Hudson reappeared; knowing she couldn’t face him again that night. But perhaps he was finished with her anyway? He’d made his point, told her exactly what he thought of her and in what contempt he held her; perhaps he would be satisfied with that? She had hurt him, she knew that—the knowledge had sent her half mad at times—but the alternative would have been far worse; it could have destroyed him and his career, she told herself frantically.

She reached her room, entering it quickly and then leaning weakly back against the door in the darkness as the tears began to seep from her closed eyelids. She had done the only thing she could two years ago, and it had been because she loved him, pure and simple. So why couldn’t she gain just the smallest crumb of comfort from the knowledge to help combat the pain that was tearing her apart inside? It wasn’t fair, none of this was fair.

She sank to the floor, her legs finally giving way as the storm of weeping overtook her, her moans like the cries of a wounded animal that had no hope.

She had just been learning to live without him, to accept that her life would never be one of fulfilment in the family sense—as a wife and mother—and now the pain was as raw and lacerating as it ever had been in the early days.

How long she lay there she didn’t know, but when at last she rose, her face sticky and damp, there were no more tears left—only a cold, chilling emptiness in the pit of her stomach as she recalled his last words to her and the look on his face as he had uttered them.

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHAT’S the matter with Keith today?’ Marjorie pulled a face as she bent over Marianne and whispered in her ear, ‘He’s like a bear with a sore head; I’ve never seen him like this. Is it because you were late back last night?’

‘I don’t think that helped,’ Marianne said quietly as the wafer-thin model straightened again, and they both looked to where Keith was bawling at June and Guy, his face turkey-red.

‘He makes my Tony seem like a positive angel,’ Marjorie drawled softly. ‘And that’s hard to do, believe me. Well, we live and learn. I had no idea Keith had it in him.’ She glanced down at Marianne again, who was setting up the equipment, her face pale and sombre. ‘He’s crazy about you, you know,’ she added quietly.

‘Marjorie, please...’ Marianne raised anguished eyes. ‘That doesn’t help. I could never think of Keith in that way.’

‘Sorry.’ There was a pause, and then, ‘Mind you, if I had the choice of Keith or that hunk you went off with yesterday there’d be no contest. He was absolutely gorgeous . Old flame?’

‘Sort of.’ Marianne’s voice was dismissive but it didn’t work.

‘You were careless to let that one escape,’ Marjorie said softly, her beautiful almond-shaped eyes bright with curiosity. ‘Is he married? The best ones usually are,’ she added resignedly.

‘Marjorie, I’ve got to do this.’ Marianne kept her head bent to the task in hand. ‘Okay?’

‘I get the message: mind your own business, Marjorie,’ the other girl said good-naturedly. ‘But if he’s not married and you want to introduce us...?’ she wheedled hopefully.

‘It was a one-off, Marjorie; I probably shan’t be seeing him again,’ Marianne said as calmly as she could through her screaming nerves. Much more of this and she would say something she’d regret.

‘Pity.’ The model sighed deeply. ‘Great, great pity.’

The morning had started badly and got progressively worse, and by lunchtime Keith’s bad temper had affected everyone, making the very air tense and volatile, which made it all the more awkward when, just as they were packing up, Marjorie called across, ‘Marianne, you know that one-off? He’s going for double.’

‘What?’ She straightened and turned as she spoke, and then froze, her heartbeat going haywire, as she saw the tall, dark figure watching them from the road as he leant indolently against the side of his car, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans and sunglasses hiding his eyes. How could one man look so—so gorgeous?

They had been filming on Tangier’s three-mile-long white sandy beach, the atmosphere enhanced by several grazing camels and the two barefoot, curly-haired Moroccan children tending the animals; they had been delighted to pose for the cameras for a few dirhams. Although the May sun had been pleasantly warm at first, for the last two hours it had been blazing down out of a cloudless blue sky with the temperature steadily soaring. Marianne felt hot and dirty and sticky, and the last person—the very last person in all the world—she wanted to see at that moment was Hudson de Sance.