Egyptian Honeymoon (2 page)

But Hugh had died.

During the service, the words 'till death us do part' had a poignant significance for Noelle. She was not being unfaithful to Hugh, for death had parted them and there are no marriages in heaven. She had mourned for him for a year and a half, and as her parents had pointed out, she must consider her own future. Her pliant, retiring nature was not the stuff of which career women are made. She would never have such a chance again; Steve was rich, handsome and generous. He had offered her marriage which he had never suggested to any other woman as. far as was known. Surely she could, in time, come to love him?

But she did not believe he loved her. Love was an emotion difficult to connect with his aloof, rather intimidating personality. He had, after Hugh's death, tactfully avoided her for six months, when he had reappeared and put on the pressure. He often invited the whole family to spend weekends in his fine house outside Maidenhead, which were a great treat for Mrs Esmond, who loved luxury and could leave her household chores. Simon hero-worshipped him, for he rode and shot and initiated the boy into both these sports. He treated Noelle with respect and consideration, but she knew he was biding his time. He desired her, he betrayed that by the expression she occasionally surprised in his eyes, and her reluctance was a challenge. The weekend invitations were only extended if she were included and she had not the heart to deprive her family of so much pleasure, though she feared she might be giving Steve a wrong impression. In time she began to seriously consider accepting him, if he proposed, which was not yet certain. The material advantages of the match were immense, though they did not greatly appeal to her. She would have gladly given all he had to offer for a life of struggle with Hugh, but Hugh was dead, his memory fading, and she desperately needed something to fill the gap he had left. So when Steve did formally propose, she did not reject him outright.

'I don't love you,' she told him frankly. 'My heart is dead since… since Hugh died, but I'm lonely.'

'So am I,' he returned unexpectedly.

She had gaped at him.

'Lonely—you? With all your rich friends and… and lovely ladies?'

He had smiled sardonically.

'All out to exploit me. But you, I know, are not greedy. You'll make a decorative mistress of this place.' They were in the very beautiful drawing-room of his house, with its long windows looking down to the river, for it was built on a rise in the Cliveden Woods. 'Marry me and I'll make up to you for all you've lost.'

Noelle had shaken her beautiful head.

'Nothing can ever do that.'

Steve had shot her an almost inimical look, knowing she was thinking of Hugh, but he had said suavely:

'Think it over, and consult your family.'

He had made no mention of love. All he appeared to want was a presentable wife to ornament his fine residence.

Her family, she knew, were all for it, especially Simon, who she was determined should benefit, and her mother was not slow to point out all Steve had done and would do for them.

'But I don't love him,' Noelle reiterated.

'Has he asked you for love?' Mrs Esmond had enquired, and Noelle had shaken her head. 'Men of his age have outgrown romantic infatuations, Noelle, and of course he knows you've been bereaved. Don't you want children?'

Noelle did, they would fill her empty heart.

She had been a little at a loss to understand why Steve was so keen to marry her. Then Simon gave her a clue. Steve collected objets d'art. The house contained many cabinets housing his treasures. One morning she and Simon were looking at some bronze figurines, when Simon suddenly opened the door of the cabinet and fished out something from the back of a shelf.

'Look at that, Sis, isn't he a beauty?'

It was a bronze monkey, about eight inches high, perfectly sculpted in every detail. He was standing, with one hand upon a frog, slightly bent, and every hair, every detail of ears, features even the underside of the feet he was standing upon, was perfectly rendered. He was not beautiful, but he was unique.

'Very nice.' Noelle had run her fingers over the smooth metal.

'Steve waited seven years for him,' Simon had told her. 'The owner wouldn't sell. But he got him in the end.' He took the monkey from her and put it back in its place. 'Rum guy, Steve. Once he'd got it, he seems to have forgotten it. It's stuck at the back of the cabinet and I don't think he ever looks at it.'

Noelle had felt suddenly cold. Once Steve had obtained possession of what he desired, did he lose interest in it?

All the same, she accepted Steven Prescott.

He saw no reason for delay, and they were to honeymoon in Egypt. Noelle and Hugh had always wanted to go to that fascinating land, though their chances of doing so seemed remote, but now it was presented to her at the wave of a wand. Steve had told her he would take her anywhere in the world she wished to go, and Simon, who was present, had exclaimed:

'She's always longed to go to Egypt.'

'Then Egypt it shall be,' Steve had promised.

Noelle had wished Simon had held his tongue. The dream of Egypt belonged to her and Hugh, but that was not a reason she could give to Steve for a change of location.

'You're very kind,' she told him later when they were alone. 'And generous. I've so little to give you in return.'

A sudden flame kindled in the usually cold grey eyes.

'I've waited a long time for you, and if you're grateful you can reward me.'

Panic had risen in her, and it was with an effort she resisted the impulse to tear off his ring, the great diamond solitaire he had given her, though it meant going back upon her word.

The flame had died in Steve's eyes, and his gaze was remote and cool as he regarded her.

'You're not a child. You know what marriage is.'

She had nodded her head. To be taken by this man still almost a stranger, to be forced into close intimacy with him… could she go through with it?

'I… I don't really know you,' she had faltered, trying to excuse her recoil.

'You soon will.' His thin mouth curled cynically. 'Too well, perhaps. There's no experience that doesn't become commonplace with repetition.'

Was he thinking of their wedding night? Was that all it would be to him, an experience that would quickly become stale? Once acquired, would she be put away forgotten in this great house like the bronze monkey, while he sought other diversions? A collection piece, was that all she was to him? She thought she would not much care if she were neglected, she would have her assured position, and possibly a child, and might be glad to be relieved of his attentions. She sighed. It would have been so different if they had been in love, like she and Hugh had been, when consummation would have been shared ecstasy. But that sort of love only came once, and it seemed while she had lost it, Steve had missed out on it. It was unlikely they would ever feel it for each other.

She had known Hugh Forbes all her life, he had been dear and familiar, their mutual affinity fostered by their kindred interest in the world of haute couture. She had inspired his most successful creations and worn them with grace and poise. He had not been very strongly sexed and she was unawakened, so they had agreed not to anticipate their marriage in the modern way, but wait for fulfilment on their wedding night, which would be all the sweeter for the delay. When he had died Noelle had regretted that she had not given him everything before it was too late. Now the unrifled treasure of her body was to be bestowed on this cynical man of the world, for the sake of what he could do for her and hers. In a wave of revulsion against herself and him, she had again made a movement to pull off her engagement ring, but his hard fingers had closed over hers, holding them fast.

'It's too late to change your mind now, Noelle, all the arrangements are made, and I will not permit you to make me a laughing stock.'

'Better a little humiliation now than a lifetime of regret.'

'I'll have no regrets, neither will you once you've put that lost lover of yours out of your mind. He's gone, and I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted you to grieve all your life.'

She was surprised he had so much perception, but he was deceiving himself if he imagined he could usurp Hugh's place in her affections. Anxious to be completely honest, she had told him so, but Steve had only laughed and told her to face facts, and not be sentimental. That had incensed her.

'Of course a libertine like you are can't appreciate true love,' she had told him recklessly, but instead of being affronted, he had agreed with her. True love as she termed it belonged to the realms of romantic fiction, but Steve was a realist, and she could not expect an adult man, who was a man, to have reached his middle years and still be without experience. She accepted that what he said was logical, only there had been rather a lot of women in his life.

'Then you ought to be flattered that out of them all I've chosen to marry you.'

She supposed she should be, and refrained from remarking that he had only selected her because she seemed suitable at a time when his mind had turned towards founding a family. But he
had
waited nearly two years for her, though he had waited seven for the monkey. Both had been deemed worthy additions to his collection of curios… and women. Delay sharpened his desire for acquisition. Steve Prescott did not value the easily obtained.

Noelle had not wanted a fashionable wedding; she and Hugh had planned an early morning ceremony in the church in the village where they had spent their childhood, and she would have liked her marriage to Steve to be as quiet as possible. But her parents went behind her back, having different ideas, her mother telling Steve that a white wedding with all the trimmings was her daughter's secret wish, which she had not expressed fearing the expense might be too much of a drain on her father's pocket, while her father told Noelle she could not expect an important man like Steve to agree to a hole-and-corner affair. So she shrugged her shoulders and let them make their arrangements with Steve's connivance, feeling it was more their do than hers. The result of Steve's compliance, and her mother's plotting, was this scene in the vestry, herself in a Paris gown, bridegroom and best man—a business colleague of Steve's—in full regalia, and a bevy of bridesmaids to attend her, mostly connections of Steve's, for all Noelle could produce was a cousin from the country. Her friends at the shop were too bound up with her memories of Hugh to be eligible. The six girls wore dresses of blue and pink, three of each colour, high-waisted with puff sleeves, and lace caps on their heads. They carried small bouquets of rosebuds, and the bridegroom had given them each a gold chain.

'Real gold,' said the cousin, Jeannette, awestruck. She thought Noelle was the luckiest girl alive to be marrying such a rich and handsome man.

'Like the prince in a fairy story,' she confided to her aunt.

Marjorie Esmond, an imposing figure in primrose satin with a turban toque, nodded and smiled.

'Such a happy ending for Noelle,' she said complacently, 'after that tragic business with poor Hugh.'

Privately she considered Hugh's demise had been a fortunate dispensation of providence. She had never thought he was good enough for her daughter, and this wedding was the apex of her ambitions for her, whatever the girl herself might feel. The bride looked lovely in white silk with an Irish lace veil, although she was very pale and there were dark marks under her eyes making them look enormous. Blue eyes and red mouth were the only colour about her, for she had scorned to use a blusher, and with her blonde hair, more silver than gold, she was an ivory bride.

Marjorie Esmond gave a sigh of relief when the ceremony was concluded, for she had feared that at the last moment Noelle might rebel; there had been a faraway look in her eyes all the previous week, and she knew she was living in the past. Now, with the gold band on her finger and the register signed, she was indisputably Mrs Steven Prescott, might even one day be Lady Prescott if Steve was granted the honours that were his due. Mrs Esmond visibly swelled as she considered the pleasure it would give her to refer to her daughter as such.

Her husband was not quite so happy, feeling that a certain amount of coercion had been brought to bear upon Noelle, for they were all indebted to her new husband. She should have looked radiant, instead of which there was a haunted expression in her eyes. She was thinking of Hugh who should have been by her side and not his forceful successor. The good-looking man in his beautifully tailored outfit had no reality for her, though she had just taken his name.

The bridegroom's side of the church was filled with well dressed people, business colleagues and their wives, and among them several fashionable, handsome ladies who had known Steve better than they should have done. Perhaps they had been invited so that he could thus indicate to them their day was done and he was finally committed.

Steve himself had an air of satisfied triumph as if he had pulled off a successful business deal, as in a sense he had. Noelle had not been easy to win, but Steve never accepted defeat. That she had neither birth nor wealth did not trouble him. She had beauty and he could afford to please himself. Steve had come up from the people and won his money and position by sheer dogged perseverance aided by phenomenal luck and an astute brain, for even in these days fortunes can still be made by those who have the know-how. His eyes dwelt upon his bride with possessive pride, a look which caused her to shrink. She did not expect any show of tenderness, that would not have been in character, but he made her feel as if he were a sultan regarding a slave he had purchased in the face of strong competition. He had every right to do so, for that was what she was. In spite of her mother's evasions, she suspected he had paid for most of that day's entertainment.

The couple left the vestry and walked arm in arm down the aisle to the traditional strains of the Wedding March. How primitive it all was, Noelle thought morbidly, the flower-bedecked bride being offered up to a man's lust. Nearly as bad as the last ceremony she had attended—Hugh's funeral. She shuddered as .she recalled the finality of seeing the coffin disappear into the grave. She moved on as if in a dream, the floral decorations, the curious eyes were unreal. What was real was her husband's arm beneath her hand and the growing conviction that she had made an appalling mistake. She could never love this man, he was too hard, too cynical and unsympathetic, her heart was buried in the churchyard with Hugh, and she had bound herself to him with the vows she had just spoken. She must have been crazy!