Bride Required. Alison Fraser

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СКАЧАТЬ there’s not much point in hiring me for a respectable front if my appearance is going to result in the opposite.’

      ‘For ten thousand pounds, I expect you could modify your appearance,’ he suggested, without going into details.

      He didn’t have to. His gaze went from her earrings in triplicate to her close-cropped haircut.

      Dee knew how she looked, with her hair and her combat jacket and her laced up Doc Martens—like a tough neopunk who could take care of herself. It was exactly how she wanted to look. When her hair had been longer and her clothes more feminine, she’d had to fend off the pimps and perverts who preyed on girls in her situation.

      ‘I expect I could,’ Dee echoed, ‘if I was mad enough to go along with you. But let’s get real. You think anybody—your family or friends—is going to believe we’re each other’s types?’

      Not in a million years, Baxter had to agree. His sister might have spent the last decade trying to marry him off, but even she would balk at this girl. Colleagues would imagine he was having a mid-life crisis. And male friends, unable to see any other virtue, would assume she was great in bed. Still, none of that really mattered.

      ‘Attraction of opposites?’ he suggested, with a smile of pure irony. ‘Don’t worry about it. It won’t be a problem… Just try and tone down a little before you come north of the border. I can give you an advance for clothes if necessary.’

      ‘Tweed skirts and twinsets?’ she commented dryly, but did wonder what image she was meant to cultivate.

      ‘Up to you.’ He shrugged, as if it was a small issue.

      And Dee, realising he was being serious about the rest, finally found herself considering it. What did she have to lose?

      ‘Well, how about it?’ He was hardly pressurising her into it.

      ‘I don’t know.’ She was clearly wavering.

      ‘Look, if you’re concerned about being able to marry someone else in the future,’ he added, ‘then don’t be. I’ll finance the divorce, too.’

      ‘That isn’t an issue. I won’t be getting married. Not for real, anyway,’ she amended.

      ‘Ever?’ He raised a brow.

      ‘Ever,’ she echoed with utter conviction.

      ‘Don’t tell me—you’re off men for life.’ He clearly didn’t take her seriously.

      ‘Not all men—and just marriage.’

      ‘A woman who doesn’t automatically hear wedding bells. Where have you been all my life?’

      He was joking. She realised that. But still it seemed an odd thing for him to say.

      She stared at him hard. ‘I didn’t think you were interested in women.’

      Baxter stared back briefly, before deciding to come clean.

      ‘Time to set the record straight, I think—straight being the appropriate word.’

      Dee took a moment to catch on. ‘You’re not gay?’

      ‘’Fraid not,’ he confided in ironic tones.

      Something about his manner made Dee believe him. She should have been angry—and she was—but, behind that, she also felt an odd sense of relief.

      She didn’t let it show as she demanded, ‘So why did you say you were?’

      ‘Technically I didn’t,’ he corrected. ‘What I said was, “I’m not interested in young girls”. Which I’m not, preferring a more mature kind of woman… So, you’re still safe.’

      Safe, but confused. ‘Then why the arranged marriage?’

      ‘That’s harder to explain.’ He was obviously in no hurry to do so.

      Dee, impatient as ever, jumped to another conclusion. ‘I bet it’s a legacy. You have to get married by your thirty-fifth birthday or you’ll be disinherited by some great-aunt. Am I right?’

      Baxter raised a mental eyebrow. She certainly had imagination. He just wasn’t sure yet if he could trust her with the truth.

      ‘It’s connected with a legacy, yes,’ he finally confirmed.

      ‘I knew it!’ She looked pleased with herself for guessing.

      ‘Anyway, I can’t go into details at the moment,’ he asserted. ‘I can only stress once more that it will just be a marriage of convenience.’

      He didn’t have to stress it. Dee had got the message. He didn’t fancy her. Did he have to keep labouring the point?

      ‘Well?’ he added, raising a brow.

      Decision time. ‘I’d have to take Henry.’

      ‘Of course.’ He glanced down at the dog stretched at their feet. ‘He seems a fairly well-behaved animal. Does he like trains?’

      ‘Is that how we’d be travelling…assuming I agreed?’

      He nodded. ‘I haven’t been back long from Kirundi, and am currently carless.’

      ‘You were in Kirundi?’ Dee read newspapers and magazines dumped in the underground by commuters. She knew something of the civil war that had raged in the African country.

      He nodded. ‘For the last couple of years.’

      He sounded emotionless about it, but how could he be? It must have been a scene from hell.

      ‘Are you going back?’ she asked.

      He shook his head. ‘I have no plans to do so.’

      Dee met his eyes briefly and imagined she saw in them some of the shadows of that hell. It was just a fleeting impression before he looked away, but she knew without being told; she mustn’t ask any more.

      ‘My contract with the aid agency has just run out,’ he continued. ‘I’ll be taking up a research post at Edinburgh University in the autumn.’

      Dee absorbed this information, then said, ‘Okay, give me the time of the train and we can meet at the station.’

      It was a moment before he realised quite what she’d said.

      ‘You’ll do it?’ Her capitulation had caught him by surprise.

      Dee wondered if she really was mad, even as she nodded, ‘Yeah, why not?’

      ‘Great.’ Baxter suppressed any doubts and allowed himself some satisfaction.

      Dee decided it was time to go before she changed her mind. ‘If you don’t know times and things, you can phone Rick in the café. He’ll pass on a message.’

      He glanced towards Rick, who was now leaning on the counter, perusing the racing pages. СКАЧАТЬ