Husbands Of The Outback: Genni's Dilemma / Charlotte's Choice

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Certainly not Garrett, though loaded with money and a certain easy charm, he was short on substance. The more he had tried to tighten his hold on her, the more Genni had flown into little wild rages, claiming where he had once loved her now she was always in high disfavour. It wasn’t true. He was hungry in spirit for the old easy relationship, but over the past few years an odd constraint had grown between them neither of them seemed to know how to break. Genni no longer ran to him for advice and comfort. Or did she? What was she doing at the hotel last night? Hilary had told him Genni had paid the visit to her. He should have known better about his stepsister’s wiles. The unfortunate truth was Hilary had a deep-seated jealousy of Genevieve. Everyone in the family knew it, just as they knew Hilary had grown into her own worst enemy.

While Blaine brooded, his eyes like jewels, Angel was saying quite merrily, “Genni looks perfectly happy to me, darling. A touch of bridal jitters, no more.” She reached up to pat Blaine’s lean tanned cheek. “You’re worrying about nothing,” she said softly. “You always did have a powerful urge to keep Genni to yourself.” Angel smiled as she watched Bernard straighten Genni’s long beautiful veil. “Isn’t her bouquet fabulous?” She smiled proudly. “You can’t beat Hughie Rickman for flowers.”

Blaine answered with such terseness it could easily have been interpreted as profound disapproval. “She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but no one, not even Genni herself, can convince me she’s in love with this guy. I can’t have her marrying a man she doesn’t love.”

At the sweep-all-before it note in his voice, Angel put a trembling hand to her breast. Only for her deep concern for her makeup she would have been in tears. “Blaine, maybe you’ve got a problem,” she suggested. “Genni hasn’t.” She lifted her face to him, despite herself pierced through with his wondrous blue-blooded aura. “You can’t always run her life. You’re here to give her away, my dear. In under a half hour you and Genni are going to do the grand march down to the altar. I know both your lives will change, but look on the bright side. You won’t have to worry about her any more. You won’t have to pick up all the bills.” She said it totally without embarrassment, but Blaine answered with the merest lick of contempt.

“We’re not talking about money. Everything would be fine if only I could believe Genni is marrying the man she loves.”

His radar was working too well. “Blaine, darling,” Angel tried her most convincing voice, tilting back her head so she could look him directly in the eye. “My daughter told me only last night never in her life has she been so happy.” Telling fibs was one of Angel’s lifelong specialities. “And she’ll never want for anything, isn’t that wonderful?”

Apparently that didn’t thrill Blaine at all. “Who the hell cares about that?” he retorted in a low burned-up voice. “She couldn’t be stupid enough to marry just for money?”

Angel was amazed by such a view. “That’s all very well for people who have tons of it,” she responded. “Money is way too good to pass up.”

Blaine gave a weary sigh. “I just hope your outlook hasn’t rubbed off on Genni,” Blaine responded tautly. “There’s much too much to her for the likes of Garrett. I liked him well enough when Genni first brought him to Jubilee but I never thought for one minute he was the man she was seriously considering marrying.”

It was hard indeed to sound nonchalant. “Go on, darling,” Angel teased. “I’m sure Genni tried to tell you. I know you really care about her but you don’t show her much tenderness. The truth is your father’s daunting manner spilled over on you. Genni fell head over heels in love with Colin. The only person who didn’t know about it was you.” Angel gave her tinkling laugh that held quite an edge.

It was Bernard the society photographer who halted Blaine’s searing retort. “Pardon me?” Bernard called, struggling with his own radar. “It’s your turn now, mother of the bride.” He bowed gracefully in Angel’s direction, though he hadn’t taken to her one bit, “and the bride’s very distinguished cousin, the well-known cattle baron, Mr. Blaine Courtland. I can’t let you get away.”

“God!” Blaine muttered beneath his breath, feeling Angel’s small hand sneak into his as though he was too, too dear to her. In a few minutes he would have Genni alone in the car. He would be as gentle as he knew how with her. Angel’s reference to his “lack of tenderness” had really stung. It was deserved. He was desperate now to get Genni to reveal her heart. He knew precisely how he felt. Every atom of his being was steeled against giving her away. If his instincts were correct beneath that exquisite bridal exterior Genni was screaming for help.

Inside the stretch limousine Genni sat very quietly in all her wedding finery, the billowing silk skirt stretched out over the seat, her veil arranged to one side lying in a foaming cloud atop it, looking determinedly out the window. If she dared to chance a look at Blaine sitting opposite her, he would recognise her despair. Even now she was fighting hard to keep the tears from welling into her eyes.

“Blaine,” she said soundlessly over and over, trying to draw strength from just his name “I love you. I’ll always love you.” The knowledge was like a physical blow to the heart. Without food—she hadn’t been able to eat a bite of breakfast—she felt dizzy and disoriented, caught up in a scenario Angel might well have written. I can’t do this to myself. I can’t do this to Colin, Genni agonised. He mightn’t adore the ground I walk on but he deserves better than a wife who doesn’t love him.

She started violently when Blaine suddenly reached over and caught her hand. “God, Genni. You’d think you were a winter bride. Your hands are freezing.” He began to rub them, warming them in no time because her blood caught fire. “Angel took me to task back at the house. She told me a truth about myself I had to hear. I haven’t been terribly kind to you of late, have I? As your mother put it, I haven’t shown you much tenderness.”

The admission nearly annihilated her. There was such a sparkle of tears behind her eyelids. “I haven’t been very nice, either,” she whispered. “The strange thing is, I don’t have a temper with anyone else but you. You make me fly apart.”

“That much, cherub, is obvious,” he said dryly. “I know I’m too high-handed, too dismissive of what seems to me frivolous stuff. You have to make allowances for me. The thing is, Genni, I’m committed to something really important. Your happiness. No, don’t shrink away from me,” he begged as she leaned back and shut her eyes so aware of him she felt he was invading her. Body and soul. “I know you, Genni. I used to know you, anyway,” he added wryly, with that irresistible sparkle in his beautiful eyes she so loved. “Just tell me once more—the last time, I promise—tell me you love Colin. That your dearest wish is to marry him?”

Such was her emotional state Genni had difficulty remembering Colin’s face. “Please, Blaine, can you stop asking me?”

“No.” He shook his dark head. “If you’re frightened you must go through with this, just tell me. I’ll take care of everything,” he told her with that hard masculine authority. “It’ll be a nine-day wonder but there will be life after.”

Will there? Genni’s thoughts went back to Sally Fenwick. “Hilary told me you and Sally are coming around to setting your own wedding date?” Once more she averted her head, looking sightlessly out the window.

Blaine turned her head back to him, loving and hating the sight of her in her glorious wedding dress. “Is that what Hilary said to you last night?” he demanded, his tanned skin lit by anger.

“She might have.” Genni, too, was flushed; upset enough to jump out of the car. “Please, Blaine, don’t torment me. It would mean everything to me if you could respect how I feel.”

“When your heart is racing? When I can gauge what you feel through my palm?” His laugh was low and savage. “If it weren’t so goddam lunatic I’d believe you’re trying to get back at me for kissing you. There’s no one, but no one like you for doing that.”

“Then why did you?” Her breath trembled in her throat. “It shocked me so much I nearly fainted.”

“I remember,” he reminded her bitterly. “I was there.”

“Why, Blaine?” She stared at him with her violet eyes, the urge to know consuming her. “You changed everything in a few moments.” The power and the cruelty of the man!

“Did I?” He put his hands to either side of her, making her a prisoner. “You think about that, Genni. With my mouth on yours it didn’t feel like you didn’t want it.”

Overwhelmed, she looked down. “And you betrayed Sally!”

He made a sound of complete exasperation. “Don’t be so damned silly. Sally is a friend. A good friend, but she’s not a woman I’d dream about. I’ve never cared about anyone like I care about you.”

“Yes, as your little pet. Not a grown-up woman.”

“We’re not back to that again, are we?”

He drew away from her, his luminous eyes pure silver.

“Not ever. You’ve got some idea I can’t live without you. But I’ve got news for you.” Her words shrilled and trembled so, she was grateful for the glass panel that separated them from the chauffeur. “I’m going to marry Colin.” Even as she said it she despised herself.

“And make a mess of your life?”

“You’re so nasty, so…caustic…”

“Sad to say I am, just as you’re so provocative. You know the dark depths in me, Genevieve. You’re as used to my outbursts as I am to yours. I don’t know about the chauffeur, if he can hear us. I haven’t handled you particularly well of recent times. For that I genuinely apologise. It has all come out so badly because I couldn’t seem to reach you. You were dead set on defying me at every turn. In fact you gave me hell.”

There was truth at the heart of it. She could see it clearly now. “Don’t. I love you,” she admitted passionately. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Am I making any sense at all?”

“I’m afraid not.” His answer was crisp. “You’re not happy. That’s obvious. You need a man who can set you alight. Do you think I haven’t seen you incandescent? Women are such strange creatures. I’ll never understand them.” He said it like it might have been a curse.

Forlornly, Genevieve touched the exquisitely decorated bodice of her wedding gown. “Why did you never tell me you were paying for all this?”

He closed his eyes against the surge of hot anger. “I wish to God your mother could keep her mouth shut.”

“I feel seared by shame.”

“How ridiculous!” He sounded thoroughly stirred up. “You’re family.” God, that’s wrong. For a moment he couldn’t speak. Then as he glanced out the window he was shocked to see they had arrived at the church. Media photographers were in attendance, standing slightly apart from the crowd of onlookers that had gathered to see a bride well known to them through the social pages.

The bronze-polished skin on Blaine’s face was stretched taut. “I’m not the kindest person in the world, Genni, but I’m here for you.” His expression suggested only one word. Action. “Unless you’re going happily into this, it would be better, far better, to stop it now.”

For a moment hope glimmered, then she heard the oohs and aahs of the crowd. “For God’s sake, Blaine, I’d be a social outcast. Help me to go through with it.”

“Are you crazy?” He could crush her to him with one arm. Drag her away.

“Yes.” She was finished and she knew it. Her mind reeled as the chauffeur came round to open her door. She could see her old life slide by. People were moving closer, waving and smiling, the photographers already shooting their pictures.

Please God help me, she prayed devoutly. Help me out before it’s too late. I know I deserve this but I truly didn’t understand my own heart.

That same heart bursting, Genevieve found herself standing out on the footpath to much applause while the designer of her gown fussed around her, settling her billowing silk skirt, adjusting her long froth of a veil.

“Isn’t she beautiful!” came time and again from the crowd, but Genni didn’t register the compliments. She felt she had the weight of the world on her shoulders instead of her wedding veil.

“Well?” Blaine gave her his arm, hovering over her inches over six feet, devastatingly handsome, the man who was to give her away, but the expression in his shimmering eyes was anything but family.

I’ll love you always. Had she spoken it or thought it?

Only she had not known, had not understood that love at all.

What was going on here? Warren Maitland, the dress designer, thought in amazement. He simply couldn’t imagine but his gown, his creation was gorgeous. So was the bride who looked like she mistook the cousin, the man who was to give her away, for the bridegroom. Maitland didn’t believe any girl could look at a man like that and not be madly in love with him. In that moment, a trained observer, he sensed major scandal looming.

As if under a spell Genni found herself walking into the wonderfully picturesque old church, leaning into Blaine and on his arm. Where their flesh touched, it burned. It all had the quality of a dream to her. She could hear the music, the emotive swell of the organ; she could see her bridesmaids just inside the church. The elegantly dressed guests seated in the pews, so many of them, some had jetted in from overseas. Oh, God, for what? The pews were decorated with white satin ribbons. The altar luminous with white roses. Colin was waiting up there. Colin and his friends. She breathed and breathed, but she couldn’t get enough air. She was going away…fainting…in front of her eyes a field of stars. The last thing she heard was Blaine saying her name…