Marriage And Miracles

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‘I couldn’t agree more. I’m delighted to see you’re determined not to be down-in-the-mouth and dreary. Life’s too short to waste it mooning over bastards like Nathan Whitmore.’

Gemma’s reaction was instant and quite absurd. She wanted to scream at Damian that he had no right to judge Nathan, that he knew nothing about him at all! Just in time, she controlled the quite irrational urge, recognising it as a hangover from what she had so very recently and stupidly believed in her husband and his love for her. ‘Yes, well, I’d rather not talk about Nathan, if you don’t mind,’ she said instead.

‘Your wish is my command.’ Damian took her arm. ‘What would you like to talk about over lunch?’

Gemma felt a reluctant smile pull at her mouth as she was masterfully propelled towards the street. ‘Who said I was having lunch with you?’

‘You don’t want to have lunch with your poor old uncle?’ he replied teasingly.

She laughed at this description of himself. Damian was only twenty-nine. He was also the epitome of ‘tall dark and handsome’, with the added elegance and style that being very wealthy provided. Most men would have looked good in the suit Damian was wearing. He looked fantastic. And he knew it.

‘Lunch is fine,’ she agreed. ‘But as I said, a mutual tongue-lashing of Nathan is out. I also don’t want to hear any sarcasm about Byron and Celeste being my parents.’

‘Hey!’ Damian put up his hands in mock defeat. ‘What do you think I am, an unfeeling monster? All I want is to have lunch with my very beautiful niece who, by the way, looks gorgeous with her hair up. You must wear it that way to the party this Friday night.’

‘P...party? What kind of party?’ Damian’s sweet flattery had been unacceptable. His inviting her to a party made her uncomfortable for some unaccountable reason. Were Nathan’s vile accusations about Damian still lingering at the back of her mind? It seemed the only reasonable explanation for her sudden unease. Or maybe her trust in the male sex in general had received such an incredible blow that it would be a long time before she could trust another man.

‘Just a dance party, Gemma,’ Damian explained with an indulgent smile. ‘They’re very popular with young people. A lot of my friends go to them. I thought it might make you feel better to get out and about, dance a little and meet some new people.’

It did sound innocent enough. And Damian was her uncle. Why was she hesitating?

‘I...I’m not sure.’

‘Hey, no sweat. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do any more. You’re your own boss now, remember? Just think about it and if you decide you need some cheering up come Friday night give me a call.’ Smiling, he linked arms with her again. ‘Now let’s go to lunch before your hour is up and we haven’t had a thing to eat!’

* * *

GEMMA DID NEED cheering up by Friday night. Frankly, she needed cheering up a lot earlier than that.

Work occupied her mind during the day, but come night time, Belleview was hardly a hive of distracting activity and conversation. Byron, quite rightly, was spending a lot of time with Celeste, courting her as he should have courted her all those years ago. And Ava, God love her, either disappeared into her studio with Vince or went out with him. Knowing Ava’s history, Gemma did not have the heart to spoil her fun at this glorious time in her life.

So Gemma pretended to be quite happy staying home alone watching television, saying she was tired after being on her feet all day. Yet all the while she was getting more and more depressed. By the time Damian telephoned her on the Thursday night, it didn’t take much persuasion for her to say yes.

* * *

DAMIAN HUNG UP, not bothering to hide his devilish glee. No one could see him. Celeste had just left with dear old Byron, and Cora was out in the kitchen, clearing up after dinner.

‘At last,’ he muttered, and let his mind run free over how Friday night should pan out.

Sweet little Gemma would have no resistance at all to the drugs he would slip into her drinks. In the end, she would have no resistance to him.

Damian actually trembled with the anticipated pleasure of finally having her in his power. God, but he had waited months for this moment. Never had a woman possessed his brain and his body as much as Gemma had.

From the first moment he’d seen her at that ball he’d wanted her, wanted her with a want that had gradually become an obsession. Her being his niece didn’t change a thing. If anything, it would add a delightfully perverse edge to the experience.

Damian made his way slowly back upstairs while his thoughts raced feverishly on.

He was going to have to be very careful the first time. He would have to seem to give her everything she was looking for, and obviously needing. Tenderness. Comfort. Love...

Later, when she was totally addicted to the mindless ecstasy that the drugs and he could give her, he would introduce her to more refined pleasures. It was amazing the pain a woman could endure—and even welcome—when she was high on the right cocktail.

He would have to video-tape everything, of course, once it got to that stage. Otherwise she might be tempted to tell someone after the drugs wore off. He couldn’t have that.

Damian smiled. He might even make some money out of her. It wouldn’t be the first time. Amazing how much women were prepared to pay rather than have tapes of their sexual exploits posted to their husbands or their families. They never breathed a word, either. Damian considered it was ironic that it was Nathan himself who had first given him the idea of taping sexual encounters to blackmail women. Poor old Irene...

In a way, it was a form of justice that Nathan’s own wife be similarly blackmailed.

Not that justice ever really interested Damian. He had only one aim in life.

Pleasure.

Sheer unadulterated pleasure.

He could hardly wait for tomorrow night to come.

* * *

BYRON DIDN’T COME home for dinner on the Friday night. He’d organised to meet Celeste after work for dinner in town and a night at the theatre. Ava and Vince went out for dinner as well, over to Vince’s family. Which meant Gemma would be alone at Belleview when Damian came to pick her up at nine o’clock. She hadn’t told anyone yet about the dance party, and now that she didn’t have to she was relieved.

Gemma hadn’t been looking forward to facing the frowns of disapproval. All the Whitmores thought very badly of Damian, yet in all honesty she had never seen any evidence to support his reputation as a wild and dissolute playboy. Any concerns she had ever had over the man had come from everyone around Belleview bad-mouthing him, as they had bad-mouthed Celeste. He was probably as innocent of any real wrongdoing as his sister had proved to be.

Nathan had been the chief castigator of both Campbells, yet it was Nathan who had proven to be the wicked one.

Still, it worried Gemma that she hadn’t told Ava some white lie about going out somewhere. What if Ava came home before Gemma and found her bed empty? The poor darling would worry and Gemma didn’t want that.

In the end, she decided to leave a note propped up on her pillow saying a friend from work had rung and she’d gone out to a party, and not to worry if she got home late. Byron had given her a set of keys to the house, as well as a remote control for the gates, so there was no trouble with letting herself in.

With that problem solved, Gemma set about having a relaxing bath, then getting herself ready. She had plenty of time—apparently these parties didn’t start early. Neither were they dressy affairs. Damian had suggested she wear something casual. Jeans or a skirt and top would be fine.

Gemma’s wardrobe was full of mostly classic or tailored garments but she did have a reddish-brown leather skirt which, when teamed with a simple cream silk shirt looked fairly casual. The colour also suited the auburn highlights the hairdresser regularly put into her shoulder-length brown hair. Remembering the compliment Damian had given her earlier in the week, she put it up as she had that day in a loose knot, with lots of wispy bits left around her face and neck. She put gold loops in her ears and a couple of gold chains round her neck. As it was night time, she wore a reasonable amount of make-up, high heels and perfume.

Gemma was ready and waiting, the gates open and her cream clutch bag in hand, when Damian drove in shortly before nine. His low wolf whistle when she opened the door unnerved her slightly, as did his words.

‘God, you look great. I’ll have to beat the men off with broomsticks.’

When Gemma frowned her immediate unease, Damian smiled reassuringly at her. ‘Don’t worry, love, you’re with me. If we don’t tell anyone I’m your uncle, they won’t come anywhere near you. Damian’s bird always has a hands-off sign on her.’

Gemma wasn’t entirely reassured by this idea, and neither did she like others thinking they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but she could see the sense of it if she didn’t want to ward off unwanted advances all night. The thought of dancing with perfectly strange men was suddenly anathema to her. Why had she ever agreed to come? She was not ready for this in any way, shape or form.

‘Even if I went around telling everyone I was your uncle,’ Damian added with an amused gleam in his eye, ‘no one would believe me.’

He was right, Gemma conceded as she looked him over. He looked younger than his twenty-nine years, especially when dressed all in black, as he was tonight. Absolutely everything he had on was black, from his high-necked shirt and casual woollen trousers down to his socks and shoes. There was even an ebony ring flashing on one finger and a black-faced watch on his wrist. At least no one would stare at them together as they had often done at her and Nathan.

A jab of intense dismay made her stiffen for a moment. Why do I keep thinking of him? Why can’t I forget him as he has obviously forgotten me?

You know why, taunted a dark inner voice, and Gemma’s hand instinctively moved across her stomach. God, what if she was pregnant? She didn’t want to be. Not now. Not any more. She wanted to forget Nathan, to put him right out of her mind for the rest of her life.

‘Are you feeling all right, Gemma?’ Damian asked with such a warm concern she felt terribly guilty. Her worry was probably all for nothing anyway. Her period would be along any day, once her cycle got back to normal.

‘I’m fine,’ she said with a quick smile. ‘And you’re quite right, Damian. We make a handsome couple.’

He smiled, radiating that dazzling charm which no doubt sent all the women’s hearts fluttering. But Gemma knew her heart was unlikely to flutter again for a long time. Not that it had ever fluttered for Damian. Nathan’s jealousy had been way off the mark, and quite wasted.

A sharp bitterness shot through Gemma as she thought of all she had suffered at Nathan’s hands because of what his sick mind imagined was going on between her and Damian. In a weird kind of way, she almost wished there had been something between them to justify the treatment she had endured. There was nothing worse than being accused of something you hadn’t done, nothing worse than being punished when you were innocent.

‘Stop thinking about that bastard,’ Damian said abruptly, sending her thoughts scattering when he curled his hand around her empty one and pulled her down the front steps.

Gemma found herself belted into the passenger seat of Damian’s red Ferrari before she could say boo.

‘Wait!’ she cried out when he zoomed through the open gates and would have taken off before she had a chance to close them. He screeched on the brakes, darting her a frustrated look.

‘I have to close the gates,’ she explained patiently, whereupon he gave her a sighing smile.

‘For a second there, I thought you’d changed your mind about coming.’

‘Never,’ she said, determined to dismiss Nathan from her mind for tonight. He didn’t deserve thinking about. ‘Where is this dance party, by the way?’

‘At a pub in North Sydney. You won’t know it. It’s in the back streets and not the newest establishment around, but the music’s great and the drinks are cheap.’

Gemma laughed. ‘I wouldn’t think you’d care much if the drinks were cheap or not.’

Damian flashed her a wicked grin. ‘Watch the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves,’ he quipped. ‘Light me a cigarette, would you? They’re on the dash there, and there’s a lighter in my left trouser pocket. Can’t get it myself. Must concentrate on the road. This traffic’s hell.’

The traffic on the Pacific highway was indeed bad. Every man and his dog seemed to be heading for the city. Nevertheless, Gemma felt very uncomfortable doing something as intimate as fishing around in Damian’s trouser pocket. Luckily, she found the lighter quickly and was soon placing a glowing cigarette between Damian’s lips. Their eyes met briefly as she did so and Gemma quickly looked away. For there had been nothing platonic in the look Damian had just given her. It had been oddly intense.

Either that, or her imagination was getting the better of her. The latter seemed the most likely.

Damian had always been a perfect gentleman in her company. Always. Nathan’s wicked warnings had put the fear of the devil into her, Gemma decided. Listening to scurrilous gossip about people was wrong. And listening to unfounded fears was wrong too. She resolved not to do it any more.

With this in mind Gemma turned a smiling face back towards Damian. ‘It’s really sweet of you to take me out like this. I really needed it. I was feeling awfully down.’

‘I know, honey, I know,’ he said kindly. ‘Leave it to dear old Uncle Damian. He knows exactly what you need to cheer you up...’

CHAPTER FOUR

LUKE wouldn’t normally have been seen dead at a dance party. At thirty, he considered himself too old for such goings-on. He’d briefly gone through a stage for a couple of years after finishing uni where he haunted clubs, pubs and discos every Friday and Saturday night, but those days were long gone. His life was Campbell Jewels now.

He’d only come here tonight as a favour to his mother. Apparently his kid sister, Mandy, had been coming here nearly every Friday night lately and his mother wanted him to check the place out. Luke thought she was being over-protective, since Mandy was twenty and a very sensible girl, but he’d promised to drop in and see for himself if there was anything to worry about.

He stood in a corner of the room, shaking his head at what was before his eyes. How had he ever enjoyed this kind of thing? The screechingly loud music was enough to give anyone an instant migraine. Add to this the garish lights flashing on and off, the heavy pall of smoke and the crush of a hundred sweaty gyrating bodies in an area where possibly fifty might comfortably have fitted, and you had a scene he found quite repulsive.

Still, Luke wasn’t too old that he couldn’t appreciate Mandy would quite like such an atmosphere, but he was perturbed by how open the drug use was. Nobody bothered to hide the pill-popping and marijuana-smoking. Luke had also seen a couple of suspicious-looking packages changing hands and quite a few empty syringes in the bins in the toilet block. He began to worry if Mandy made a habit of coming to this place she might end up not being so sensible.

So Luke stayed in the dimly lit corner and waited, hoping she would show up and he could have a brotherly word in her ear. But after a further half-hour’s peering through the smoke haze Mandy still hadn’t turned up. He was about to leave when his attention was suddenly captured by a man dressed in black, an exceptionally handsome man with slick black hair, wicked black eyes and flashing white teeth.

Luke was not at all surprised to see Damian Campbell in a place like this. Everyone around Campbell’s knew of his reputation for decadent living. He liked to mix with a young fast crowd. He liked his women beautiful, and he didn’t care if they were married.

The girl with Damian was certainly beautiful, and very married.

Luke recognised Gemma Whitmore from the photograph in last Sunday’s paper of her attending the première to Nathan’s Whitmore’s latest play. She’d been snapped alongside Celeste and Nathan’s adoptive father, Byron Whitmore.

Now Luke was an astute man. He’d long known about the feud between the Campbells and the Whitmores. But one didn’t have to be too astute to have noticed that something was afoot between the two families. Celeste Campbell and Byron Whitmore were suddenly as thick as thieves. Yet while that old feud business seemed to have gone out of the window, Luke still didn’t think this extended to Damian draping himself all over Nathan Whitmore’s wife.

Luke smelled a rat. And there wasn’t a bigger rat around Sydney than Damian Campbell.

Luke watched his antics with distaste. The man was a real sleaze-bag. Under the guise of dancing, he was touching Mrs Whitmore wherever he could, finally putting her arms around his neck then curving his hands over her buttocks, pulling her hard against him.

Suddenly, the girl wrenched away from him, swaying violently on her feet. The look on her face was one of total confusion. It was then that Luke realised she was under the influence of some drug or other. Alcohol was unlikely to produce that type of bewilderment. He decided to edge closer and see if he could pick up some of their conversation.

‘I...I don’t think I like it here, Damian,’ the girl was saying in a very slurred voice. Her hand fluttered up to her forehead. ‘I...I feel hot, and sort of funny. You’d better take me home.’

‘I’ll get you a cool drink first,’ Damian offered, and led her over to a wall where he virtually propped her against it. ‘Stay here. I won’t be long.’

Luke didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to tangle with Damian Campbell, especially not after just being given the job as sales and marketing manager at Campbell’s. But Gemma Whitmore’s reactions bothered him. Clearly, she wasn’t sure what was going on. Luke suspected she hadn’t knowingly taken drugs. If she had, she wouldn’t be acting so confused over her condition.

With this thought in mind, Luke followed Damian to the bar and watched while the bastard slipped some powder into the orange juice, mixing it very well while his eyes darted slyly around. Damn, he was right! He was drugging that girl without her knowledge.

Yet it wasn’t any of his business, was it?

For a full ten minutes Luke argued with his conscience, then, with a resigned sigh, went in search of trouble. But Damian and the girl were no longer on the dance-floor or anywhere in the room. Swearing at himself, Luke raced outside to the car park where he spotted Damian leaning Mrs Whitmore against a car and kissing her. The girl’s arms were dangling limply by her sides, like a rag doll.

Luke felt fury well up inside him. He didn’t stop to think any longer, didn’t stop to count the cost of his actions, just charged across the car park, whirled Campbell away from the girl and socked him one right on the jaw.

No one was more surprised than Luke when Damian crumpled immediately, falling blessedly unconscious to the concrete. Luke didn’t think he’d even seen what hit him. Or who.

‘Hey!’ some bloke called out from a few cars away. ‘What’s going on there?’

Luke didn’t stay around for any explanations. He swooped up the girl from where she had slid down to sit blank-eyed on the ground, and virtually carried her over to where his own car was parked. Stuffing her into the passenger seat, he raced around to get in and screeched away before anyone could collar him. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, especially after a glimpse in the rear-view mirror showed Damian Campbell getting groggily to his feet.

It was only after he’d driven several blocks and felt secure that no one was following that he pulled over to the kerb and tried to assess the situation. Mrs Whitmore was slumped down in the passenger seat, moaning softly. Hell, what had the bastard fed her? Clearly too much of something. She was almost out of it.

There was nothing for it, really, but to take her home, to her husband. A glance at his watch showed eleven thirty-five. Would Nathan Whitmore be home? Luke had read about his hit play, the one he’d written and was directing. What time did plays end? And where was home, anyway? Mrs Whitmore was hardly in a position to tell him and she didn’t have any ID on her.

Spying a public telephone box on the next corner Luke decided to try calling him. If his number was in the book, that was. Damn, but this was becoming complicated. Luke almost regretted getting involved in the first place till he took another look at Gemma Whitmore’s sweetly innocent face. How could he have left her with that devil?

Luke had a change of luck. Nathan Whitmore’s number was in the book and he was home, answering quite quickly.

Luke kept his voice crisp and businesslike, hoping like hell that Nathan Whitmore was a sensible and reasonable man. He’d heard he was a cool customer, but men were not always cool when it came to their wives, especially beautiful young ones like his.

‘Mr Whitmore, this is Luke Barton. Sorry to bother you at this hour, but it was an emergency.’

‘Do I know you, Mr Barton?’ came a rather tired query.

‘Not personally. You may have heard of me. I’m an executive at Campbell Jewels. I was recently promoted to sales and marketing manager.’

‘Then haven’t you rung the wrong person? Any emergency at Campbell Jewels is hardly a concern of mine. Though maybe you could try my father,’ he added caustically.