The Bridesmaid's Wedding. Margaret Way

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      She should have married Rafe years ago when she’d had the chance, instead of fleeing his powerful aura. Rafe, like her brother Brod, had inherited wealth, power, responsibility. A life of service to the land. She understood it, bred to the same heritage, but she couldn’t pretend she had the same dedication. Now years later she would give that dedication gladly. Her career had brought her public admiration, the respect of her peers, but it hadn’t brought her either happiness or fulfilment. It had brought her a good deal of hard work, terrible hours, and increasingly a level of anxiety she had never remotely anticipated. There was a high price to pay for fame.

      “Ah, well, it’s all in the past,” Rafe was saying gently without sounding remotely friendly. “I propose we leave it there instead of raking over the dying embers. You know that. So do I. Although it seems a pity your great career isn’t as fulfilling as you thought?”

      With an abrupt movement she took a little step back from him, raising her chin. “Who told you that?”

      He wagged a finger at her. “Ally, Ally, because I can match you step for step, beat for beat, word for word. I know you as well as you know me. You’re not happy in your make-believe world. You used to say you couldn’t breathe in the city. And because I liked you the way you were,” his gaze moved down over her, deceptively silky, “I have to tell you you’re way too thin.”

      “Great! I look awful?” she mocked. She knew without vanity how good she looked even if stress was taking its toll.

      He considered the question briefly, golden head, metallic in the sunlight, to one side. “Well, put it this way. You’re not quite as much woman as you used to be. There’s not an awful lot on top.” He glanced meaningfully at her fitted strapless bodice. “But you look beautiful. The sort of woman one can’t take one’s eyes off. Totally desirable. Which makes me wonder why there’s never any affair of yours splashed over the cover of the women’s magazines?”

      “Somehow I still believe my private life is my own. Anyway, since when have women’s magazines appealed to you?” She spoke sweetly, aware as Rafe must be, they were the focus of many eyes. A splendid affair gone wrong like Scarlett and Rhett.

      “Ever heard of women friends?” His dry tone glittered. “I was over at Victoria Springs only the other day, submerging myself in old issues with Lainie. The two of us went through them together. Lainie has always been one of your greatest admirers. Four pages of Ally Kinross wears seductive separates, that was in Vogue. Mercifully you put them together. I figured you could have worn a bra with the see-through number, Lainie predictably thought you looked fabulous. There was Ally Kinross acting up a storm; Ally Kinross tells us about her working life. No wonder you’ve lost weight, but no mention of your love life, though. I say that’s odd. Neither of us is getting any younger.”

      Which was true. “Perhaps you’ll show me the way,” she retorted with a spark of anger. “You and Lainie share the same tastes. Very establishment, very conventional and so forth.” Was she so jealous? Of Lainie, their friend?

      He made a soft, jeering sound. “To hell with that! You’re talking nonsense.”

      “Am I? It seemed to me the relationship has flourished,” she commented, believing it to be true, “so don’t look down your ridiculously straight nose at me. Though at five-seven, allow a couple more inches for heels, not a lot of people do. But you can.” Rafe, like her brother Brod, stood an impressive six foot three.

      “I expect being a tall woman has its problems?” he said, a lazy smile to his so sexy mouth.

      “You found your way around them.” Despite herself she sparked again. “You’ve changed, Rafe. You never used to be sarcastic.”

      “Forgive me. I’m so sorry.” He seemed to find that amusing. “Anyway, that’s the least of your problems.” He saluted a passing guest who didn’t make the mistake of butting in. Rafe’s and Ally’s unique relationship was known to all of them.

      “I didn’t say I had any problems,” Ally began to realise she and Rafe had stood a little too long talking. Everyone was moving off to the huge white marquee erected in the grounds, among the guests an attractive young woman in an exceptionally pretty flower-printed chiffon dress with a sparkling ornament securing her cascade of long, thick, fair hair. Lainie Rhodes from Victoria Springs Station. Lainie, although a couple of years younger than Ally, had been part of everything from childhood. “So you’re not admitting you’ve turned up the heat on your friendship with Lainie?” Lainie wished it was otherwise but she couldn’t control her need to know. Her eyes followed Lainie’s high-spirited progress, arm in arm with Mark Farrell, the groomsman.

      “It sounds like you don’t care for that?” Rafe countered very dryly, trying to blanket out his own warring emotions. Lainie was a nice girl. He was fond of her, but he hadn’t gotten around to seeing her as more than “the girl next door.”

      Yet. The hard fact was he had a responsibility to get married. Produce an heir for Opal. It was imperative he find a solution to Ally. A good woman to combat her.

      Knowing him so intimately Ally picked up on his wavelength. “Lainie is one of us,” she said almost in quiet resignation. “We used to compete in the show ring. She’s fun and very loyal.”

      “Totally different from you.” It was cruel. A bitter accusation he couldn’t prevent from rushing out.

      Cut to the heart, Ally, the accomplished actress, turned her response into provocative banter. “You mean, I don’t remind you of a friendly puppy?”

      But Rafe, too, had recovered his equilibrium. “I meant that in the nicest way possibly.” He wasn’t at all fazed by Ally’s reminding him of a chance remark he had once made about Lainie. There was a time she had practically leapt into his lap every time she saw him, which was the way her teenage crush seemed to take her.

      “Obviously.” Ally nodded in agreement. “May we expect an announcement?” Though she continued to speak breezily it was taking all her training. She felt she couldn’t bear an answer that suggested a growing involvement.

      “Ally, darling, let me set you straight.” Rafe reverted to a sardonic drawl. “My private life no longer has a great deal to do with you. No offence. Just a simple statement of fact. What we had I’ll remember all my life, but it’s over. Something that happened at another time. To different people. Ah, here’s Grant and Francesca coming our way,” he exclaimed like a man granted a reprieve. “I’m sure you’ve noticed they get on amazingly well, though don’t read anything into that. The Lady Francesca has her own brilliant life in London.”

      “She might like to change it.” Ally, too, watched her cousin Francesca and Rafe’s brother Grant walking arm in arm towards them. Francesca of the glorious titian hair looked ravishingly pretty in her jacaranda blue bridesmaid’s dress, not even reaching to Grant’s broad shoulder. Grant, like Rafe, was outrageously handsome. He and Fran looked wonderful together, their laughter spinning out to reach them. Happy, carefree laughter. The sort of laughter one wants to hear at a wedding. Ally was enormously fond of her cousin, Lady Francesca de Lyle. The idea of having Francesca around all the time had immense appeal.

      Not apparently to Rafe.

      “Don’t say that!” he murmured, half amused, half alarmed. “I don’t want to see my brother’s heart broken, as well.”

      Her breath seemed to leave her. As well? “Are you admitting you still have some feeling left for me?” She held his eyes, СКАЧАТЬ