Mistresses: Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds. Sandra Marton

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      Since the mid-afternoon wedding ceremony and evening reception were being held on the grounds there would be a lot of hustle and bustle around the house on the days leading up to the wedding.

      Hazel showed Regan a sketch which positioned an enormous marquee by the lake. The aisle the bride would walk down was the narrow path of crushed shells leading down to the dock, flanked by hundreds of pots of standard roses, with rows of seating for the guests extending on either side. Should the May weather prove inclement, the whole area could be covered by another huge, open-sided marquee. Hazel explained that a string quartet would play the weddingmusic from a covered barge moored a few metres out on the lake, followed later by a disco.

      ‘We’re only inviting a couple of hundred because Carolyn wants to keep it small and reasonably intimate and informal. We did think of having the actual ceremony in the gazebo itself, but we decided that would be too much of a hassle, having to ferry so many people back and forth, especially if it rains. Whereas like this, if the weather forecast isn’t good, we can make other arrangements.’

      ‘It sounds marvellous. Especially since you’ve done it all in only a couple of months.’ Regan picked up a piece of green parchment. ‘This is your invitation list? Have you got a folder of the acceptances?’

      A tiny twitch crimped Hazel’s small mouth. ‘Well…we haven’t actually received any yet—formal ones, that is. There was a horrendous problem at the printers where we had the invitations done, I’m afraid.’

      ‘They were late going out?’

      ‘Actually, we haven’t sent them yet,’ said Hazel weakly. ‘Joshua has taken the whole wretched mess in hand and we hope to have them next week.’

      Regan’s eyes rounded. That was a huge clunker! ‘I thought invitations had to go out a couple of months before the wedding to give everyone time to reply?’

      ‘Yes, but it can’t be helped, and since the guest list is limited to mostly family and very close friends I’ve been able to warn most of the people we’re inviting, particularly those from overseas—Chris’s sisters are coming out from England with their husbands and families, you know…’

      ‘Chris’s sisters?’

      ‘Did I say Chris?’ Hazel patted her ash-blonde hair, looking discomfited. ‘I meant to say Joshua’s…although they are Chris’s too, of course, all of them being from the same family. Did I mention that Ryan is going to be best man?’

      ‘No, you didn’t. I would have thought Joshua might have asked his brother to stand up with him,’ Regan couldn’t resist murmuring and she watched Hazel’s smooth, barely lined cheeks flush a betraying pink. ‘I take it he has got some kind of official duty—as an usher, perhaps?’ she prodded.

      ‘I’m not sure…the groom handles all that side of things.’ Hazel waved a vague hand, her eyes brightening with relief as her granddaughter flitted across the doorway and enquired if Regan was interested in going shopping now, because Joshua was offering them a lift, and to buy them lunch later in the afternoon.

      ‘Of course she is! Off you go, Regan, now, and enjoy yourself.’ Hazel’s enthusiasm made it little short of an order.

      ‘I don’t like to intrude,’ said Regan, frantically trying to think of a polite excuse. ‘Perhaps I could just look around the shops and walk back while you go on to lunch with Joshua—’

      ‘We wouldn’t dream of abandoning you to your own devices,’ purred Joshua, appearing like a dark shadow behind his golden fiancée. ‘If you’re going to be as intimately involved in our affairs as you obviously plan to be, the least we can do is to ensure you’re kept well entertained while you’re here.’

      For ‘well entertained’ Regan mentally substituted ‘well under surveillance’. Joshua Wade was letting it be known that he had no intention of letting her enjoy the freedom of Palm Cove.

      From now on she would have to step extremely carefully if she wanted to escape with her honour intact!

      Chapter Eight

      ‘WHAT are you doing?’

      Regan jumped, her sweaty fingers skittering over the computer keyboard.

      ‘God, Ryan, you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that. You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ she said as he rolled up beside her in one of the secretarial chairs. She quickly closed the file she was working on and opened another.

      Ryan raked his long hair out of his eyes. ‘Sorry, did you think I was Dad?’

      ‘Why should I?’ But Regan couldn’t help a quick glance around the plush, open-plan office, decorated with photographs, sketches and models of the Palm Cove development.

      The sales team operated out of the ground floor of the main condominium block, and with the influx of oceangoing yachts and tourists at the marina from the previous weekend’s regatta, and the continuing sweltering weather, they were working at full stretch showing potential buyers and interested parties around the development. So much so they had welcomed an extra pair of hands to help with the filing and paperwork in the afternoons.

      ‘Because whenever you turn up here, so does he,’ said Ryan. As soon as he had finished his exams, he had wasted no time inventing a job for himself—creating a Palm Cove Internet website, spending hours at the office hunched over a spare terminal, becoming something of a mascot to staff eager to curry favour with the new boss. For Regan that had meant two Wades she had to try to avoid, for Ryan’s insatiable curiosity posed as much of a threat as that of his father.

      The first week of her stay had been every bit as bad as she’d feared, with Joshua so attentive to his fiancée and her family that Carolyn had begun to look more highly-strung than ever. Even Hazel had got a little exasperated when he’d chosen to invade her precious GHQ. While she had welcomed his problem-solving acumen, and the news that he would arrange for the belated invitations to be urgently hand-delivered, Hazel had protested that he was showing more interest than the bride and eventually succeeded in shooing him away.

      But to Regan’s horror she had taken him up on his offer to chauffeur the women around to check the progress of the various local craftspeople who were providing the handmade decorations for marquee and house. Carolyn’s febrile restlessness meant that she had little patience with such petty errands, and usually found something more pressing to attend to in her social calendar, and Regan found that Hazel—insulated by her delight in the million and one details that divided her attention—was little protection against Joshua’s overwhelming presence. Regan had to fight not only a war of words, but also against the insidious attraction that seemed to thrive and grow at every meeting, in spite of their mutual distrust.

      ‘In fact, he seems to know where you are even when nobody else does. Freaky, huh? It’s almost like he has you bugged.’ Ryan jolted her out of her fretting with a grin that reminded her of the way they had first met. ‘Maybe you should check out that watch he gave you.’

      Regan flushed. She had been mortified at dinner the second night, when Joshua had casually produced a beautiful platinum man’s Swiss watch and fastened it on her wrist over her strenuous protests.

      ‘Don’t make such a fuss—it’s not as if I’m trying to seduce you with jewellery,’ he had said, amusing everyone but Regan with his apparent joke. ‘This is a loan, not a gift. It’s СКАЧАТЬ