Borrowed Wife (18 page)

The club was glittering
with lights, music swirling out through the warm night air. It was a place for
the very rich and that was only too obvious. Once again it was set in the club,
the high gates they had passed through were opened and closed behind them with
the smooth movement of well-oiled mechanisms. Through the lighted doorway,
Abigail could see the glitter of chandeliers and the brilliant colours of many
expensive gowns. She was quite relieved to know that her own gown would not be
at all out of place in this atmosphere, more greatly, relieved still when she
saw Fenella.

They were standing waiting
for them—Grant and his son, Pete Cassidy and Fenella—and as Logan paid off the
taxi, Grant came down the steps to greet her. ‘You make me glad to be still
alive,’ he told her as he took her arm gently. I’m not even sure I can stand
it.’ Abigail laughed, looking up to see Ivy Cassidy looking at her and she
carefully avoided looking at the other two, Ivy’s hair was blonde tonight and
Grant looked at Abigail’s stare of astonishment. A wig, a wig,’ he muttered
soothingly, patting her arms as it lay against his arm. ‘It’s her hobby. She’s
done this sort of thing all her life. I think it’s supposed to keep me
interested. Mostly it brings me close to a fainting spell.’

He was still laughing and
Ivy heard most of it. She grinned at Abigail, as irrepressible as her husband.

‘Well I decided I just
couldn’t compete with that hair,’ ivy explained, nodding in the direction of
Abigail’s shining head. I’ll go off black, I think. It’s too easy to see that
it’s a fake.

‘You like, though?’ Pete
Cassidy murmured, coming to place himself close to Abigail. ‘I can’t believe
what I’m seeing. When I met you the other day I was stunned. Now I’m not even
sure if you’re real.’

‘She’s
only real for me,’ Logan assured him tightly coming up and taking Abigail’s
wrist in a possessive grip. ‘To anyone else she’s merely an illusion.’

The Cassidy’s
were talking to Fenella by now and missed this little exchange and their
absence seemed to make Pete Cassidy more bold. He lost his coolly in silent
expression.

‘In other
words, hands off,’ he said grimly, glaring at Logan.

‘In plain
words,’ Logan corrected him menacingly, ‘this is my wife.’

‘Sure,’
Pete Cassidy replied, his usual expression back in place at Logan’s tone. ‘Did
I doubt it? Complementing a beautiful woman comes naturally to me, I guess.
They usually like it.’    

‘Perhaps
their husbands don’t,’ Logan suggested acidly. ‘I seem to think that Miss
Mitchell is your part on this evening.’

Pete
Cassidy looked across at Fenella with a wry grin

‘That
lady is tough,’ he commented, and Logan led Abigail away, his hand firm and
warm against her back.

‘I
thought you’d notice,’ he murmured drily.

Fenella
had noticed too. She was too far away to have heard this icy little clash but
her eyes were taking in each expression, from Abigail’s flushed embarrassment
and Pete Cassidy’s speculative glances to Logan’s grim annoyance. She came drifting
forward and attached herself to Logan, clinging to his arm.

‘I
thought you’d never get here,’ she said in a low, sultry voice. ‘What odd
people. Let’s get this deal over with and get back to London.’

Abigail stiffened; she
couldn’t help it even though she knew that Logan felt her reaction. Oh, yes,
Fenella would be anxious to get back to London. She wondered if that sultry
voice was ever used in the boardroom or if she reserved it merely for Logan.

After
that, Grant took over and the evening became more relaxed. The club was huge,
rivaling anything that London could offer, and even Fenella seemed impressed.
Abigail looked at her secretly. She had never had a good look at this woman
before and she had to admit that Fenella Mitchell was beautiful. Her hair was
smoothly straight, with none of the swirling curls that had been Abigail’s
problem all her life. The smooth, honey-blonde hair gave Fenella that air of
sophistication that Abigail felt she never seemed to achieve. Her clothes were
beautiful too—her dress a sheath of dark blue silk that clung to a slim figure.
She didn’t look like a lawyer, Abigail concluded. She could have been a model
or an actress. It was only her eyes that gave her away. They were an icy blue,
watchful, intelligent and hard.

They were
hard as they glanced at Abigail and the smile she sent in Abigail’s direction
was frosty and plowing. Fenella hadn’t lost as far as Logan was concerned; her
expression said as much and she wanted Abigail to know it.

After
dinner the party went on. There was dancing but Abigail found herself captured
by Grant and Ivy. They seemed to be delighted with her and took her off meet
other people. It made her more at ease but she was painfully aware all the time
that this was playing right into Fenella’s hands. Each time she looked round, Logan seemed to be in deep conversation with Fenella, and he only moved away from her when
Pete Cassidy came back from greeting friends and took up his obvious duty as
escort to Logan’s lawyer.

She
couldn’t escape dancing with Logan but he hardly spoke and all the time
Abigail’s eyes strayed to the other woman. She was quite surprised to find that
Fenella seemed to be enjoying her talk with Pete Cassidy. Each time she noticed
them they were deep in conversation and her heart skipped a beat when from time
to time they looked across at her.

She told
herself that Fenella would, in fact, be watching Logan but even so she knew it
wasn’t true. The coldly blue eyes fastened on her with too much attention for
her to be mistaken. There was something going on there that she could not
fathom and it worried her. If Fenella Mitchell was talking to Pete Cassidy in
any pleasant way then it was to gain some advantage for herself.

After a
while she found herself back with Grant and Ivy, and Logan danced with Fenella.
She tried not to notice how the other woman’s hand moved possessively on Logan’s sleeve but she couldn’t stop looking and she was quite unprepared when Pete
Cassidy appeared and demanded a dance.

He didn’t
ask. His tone was not at all quietly persuasive but, with his parents there,
Abigail felt unable to refuse. She steeled herself for the ordeal and managed a
brittle smile that quite clearly amused him in the worst possible manner.

‘So,’ he
probed as soon as they had danced away from the others, ‘you and Logan are
separated.’

‘Of
course we’re not separated,’ Abigail managed quickly. ‘Does it look like it?’

Now she
knew what Fenella had been whispering to this odious creature. Could it be that
Miss Mitchell did not know the whole story about Grant’s insistence on a
happily married man to buy his business? She was utterly in the dark, thrown in
alone without Logan to help and she could only play it by ear.

It
doesn’t look like it,’ he agreed sarcastically. ‘It looks just too good to be
true in fact. I’ve never met such a jealous husband before.’

‘Well,
I’m sure you must be an expert on husbands,’ Abigail murmured with a sarcasm of
her own. ‘In this case, however, you’ve been misinformed.’

‘I don’t
think so, babe,’ he sneered. ‘Separate rooms means separated and, according to
my information, you’ve got the best rooms in the hotel, next door to each
other.’

‘How dare
you speak to me like this?’ Abigail stormed, more angry than worried by now.
‘Our affairs do not even remotely concern you.’

‘They
would concern my father,’ he murmured slyly, dancing her into a corner away
from prying eyes. ‘I could be persuaded not to tell him, though.’

Abigail
pulled violently to get free but he merely laughed and tightened his hold on
her and she was struggling so much that neither of them saw Logan. The first
thing that Abigail knew was that Pete Cassidy’s face went into a spasm of pain
as Logan’s hand gripped his neck from behind like a vice.

‘Didn’t I
tell you to keep away from my wife?’ Logan linked through clenched teeth. ‘I
can see that words alone do not impress you.’

His hand
moved to Pete Cassidy’s shoulder and Abigail watched with wide, shocked eyes as
Logan’s grip burdened and the other man began to sink slowly to his knees.  

It was
impossible that this should go unnoticed and Abigail tried to stop it.

‘Logan! Please!’ she said urgently. She had never seen him like this before. His anger made
her tremble and, she was almost relieved when Grant appeared, his face a
picture of astonishment and annoyance.

‘What the
hell is this?’ he wanted to know, and his voice seemed to penetrate to Logan. He relaxed his hold and Grant saw his son stagger and slowly stand upright, his
hand clasping his shoulder. His face was completely white and he just pushed
past everyone and walked out of the club.

Logan
reached for Abigail and pulled her to him before
turning blazing eyes on Grant.

‘When I
see somebody manhandling my wife, I see red at the same time,’ he said coldly.
‘What it was about. I’ll find out; meanwhile, we’re leaving. If this deal is on,
Grant, we sign tomorrow morning, otherwise forget it. We’re going home tomorrow
with or without the deal’

Ivy came
up and went to Abigail at once, her eyes on the slender arms that were already
bruising.

‘Oh,
honey, look!’ she said to Grant in a shocked whisper, and the anger died from
Grant’s face at this proof.

‘I’ll
take this up with him at home,’ he promised. Don’t worry about the deal, Logan. That young man has a lot of explaining to do.’

Logan
was in no mood to be placated and began to take
Abigail away, his arm tightly around her shoulders.

‘I’m not
worrying about the deal,’ he ground out, not one bit mollified. ‘I can take it
or leave it. Let me know tomorrow—early.’

Abigail found herself being
led to the door and by now almost every eye in the club was on them.

Don’t let it embarrass
you,’ Logan muttered, his face still filled with fury, and she felt like
laughing hysterically. I'm not embarrassed,’ she whispered, fighting to keep a
grip on her swaying emotions. ‘I’m just wondering what that little creep will
tell Grant when he gets home. He announced that he knew we were separated.’

‘Did be?’ Logan muttered,
as if he was only vaguely interested.

‘You’re not taking this
seriously enough,’ she pointed out, almost trotting to keep up with him. ‘When
Grant finds out, the deal will be off.’

Logan swore under his
breath but it was more a comment on his own annoyed feelings than any concern
about the deal and Abigail sighed as she sank, still shaking, into a taxi with
Logan beside her.

The whole
thing had come apart. All this trauma, all this distress had been for nothing.
She had been forced close to Logan again, forced to acknowledge her love all
over again and the whole thing had been useless. She couldn’t tell him what she
suspected—that Fenella had lured Pete Cassidy into that nasty little scene—and
when they got back to the hotel he would want to know everything that had
happened.

She rested back against the
seat, tired and utterly depressed. Whatever she thought, she had to keep it to
herself because Logan would suspect that she was simply jealous and trying to
get Fenella into trouble.

He took her straight to her
room, closed the door and turning on her, nothing about his expression leading
her to believe that he would be put off by excuses. ‘Word for word!’ he ordered
sharply, fixing her with that grey-eyed stare.

 ‘There were few words. He
asked me to dance—no, he told me to dance and then he came straight out with
it. He announced that you and I are separated. He even knew about the separate
rooms.’

‘Why
didn’t you just walk off?’ Logan grated, and she turned annoyed eyes on him.

‘You saw
the results of my attempt at that. I could have hit him, of course, but I
decided to leave the big scene for you.’

‘What did
you expect me to do—laugh it off?’ Logan snarled, and Abigail sighed and turned
away.

‘No. I
was glad to see you but this makes it awkward. When he faces Grant tonight he’s
going to tell everything he knows or thinks he knows and that’s the end of this
deal.’

‘Damn the
deal!’ Logan muttered. He went to the phone and spoke sharply. ‘A tray of tea
for my wife,’ he ordered. ‘Make it fast.’

When he
turned round, some of the temper had died on his face but he looked
suspiciously thoughtful.

‘Get into
your dressing gown,’ he suggested moodily.

 ‘You’ll
be more comfortable.’

It
sounded like a good idea and there was always tin chance that when she came out
of the bathroom he would be gone. For one thing, he had abandoned Fenella at
the club, and even though that lady was capable of fighting off a hoard of
barbarians leaving a guest alone was not quite Logan’s style.

She
disappeared into the bathroom and took off the lovely dress, quite glum that
she had not been able to wear it in better circumstances. She lingered, cleaning
her face and brushing her hair out, but when she came back Logan was still
there. He had flung himself into a chair and she could tell by the signs on
that clever face, that he was doing some fast thinking.