Jared's Love-Child. Sandra Field

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      The romantic Italian, the British aristocrat and the Texas oilman, husbands two, three and four, had all been introduced to Devon in a similar manner; Alicia always wanted her daughter to like the prospective groom. Devon said diplomatically, “I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

      The flowers were clusters of pale orchids and the photographer was waiting for them. Feeling her heart begin to beat uncomfortably fast, Devon picked up the smaller of the two bouquets and smiled obediently into the camera. Then she walked down the stairs at her mother’s side. As they reached the bottom step, Alicia said, “I did ask you to give me away, darling, didn’t I?”

      Devon almost tripped over the faded Ushak runner on the hall floor. “Nope.”

      “Benson’s brother-in-law was to have done it. But he had an operation for varicose veins two weeks ago. The only other choice was Jared. Please say you’ll do it, Devon!”

      Allow that cynical, overbearing creep to escort her mother up the aisle? No way. “Sure I will,” said Devon.

      After they’d emerged into the sunshine on the front step, the photographer took several shots of them gazing in a heartfelt manner into their bouquets. Devon in the meantime was sneaking peaks at the set-up. White awnings stretched between the trees, providing shade from the sun. Baskets of mock-orange, roses and delphiniums flanked the array of wicker chairs where the guests were seated, and the soft ripple of harp music fell over their chatter.

      Finally the photographer was satisfied. As Alicia and Devon approached the chairs, the harpist drew one last chord from her instrument and fell silent. From an organ near the white flower-bedecked altar came the first notes of the wedding processional. It was being played, Devon noticed abstractedly, with very little regard for either rhythm or accuracy.

      Alicia whispered, “That’s Benson’s sister at the organ. She insisted. Benson didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Oh, Devon, I’m so nervous. I should never have agreed to marry him. Why do I keep getting married? I’m not young, like you; I should know better.”

      “Come on, Mother, it’s too late now. So let’s do it in style,” Devon said, took her mother’s hand and drew it through her arm, and then struggled to establish some kind of accord between their steps and the music. It wasn’t easy. But it did take her mind off the array of guests, the waiting clergyman, and the two men standing in front of the altar. Benson, the groom, and Jared, his son. Both had their backs to the two women pacing up the green carpet that had been laid over the grass.

      Benson was shorter than his son and had a well-groomed crop of gray hair. As the organ hit a sharp instead of a flat, he turned, saw Alicia walking toward him and smiled at her. He wasn’t as handsome as Jared and his waist had a comfortable thickness. He looked human, thought Devon. Unlike Jared. And his smile was both loving and kind. Also unlike Jared.

      Kindness was right up there on Devon’s list of virtues. She had long ago decided you couldn’t fake it.

      Well, she thought, how interesting. And not at all what I was expecting. She whispered into her mother’s ear, “I think you picked a good ’un, Mother,” and was rewarded with a watery and grateful smile from Alicia.

      The organ emitted an uncertain twiddle, then managed to land on a chord that was loud, triumphant and startlingly off-key. Devon shuddered. And finally Jared turned his head.

      He didn’t even look at Alicia. His gaze went straight to Alicia’s daughter, and for a most satisfactory moment that she knew she wasn’t imagining Devon saw blank shock rigidify every muscle of his face. She lowered her lids demurely, as befitted a woman with very little experience. A woman whose packaging, to quote him, didn’t warrant a second look. Then she allowed the most innocent of smiles to play on her lips.

      But when she looked up, her smile was directed solely at Benson.

      Right up until the last minute, Jared had thought he’d have to give Alicia away: a duty he would have performed punctiliously and with genuine loathing. But as he and Benson had left the house via the conservatory, his father had said, “Alicia’s going to ask Devon to give her away. So you’re off the hook.”

      Annoyed with himself for having made his distaste for the task so obvious, Jared said shortly, “I met her. The daughter, I mean. She’s not what I’d expected. She’s tall and frumpy with a tongue like a chainsaw.”

      “Really? Alicia showed me a photo—I thought she was very pretty.”

      “A good photographer can make a rose out of a cactus.”

      Benson said abruptly, “Have you got the ring?”

      “Yes, Dad—you’ve asked me that twice already.”

      “There’s Martin, waving at us. Time to take our places.”

      Martin was the butler; his signal meant that Alicia was ready. Jared glanced at his watch. Seven minutes past six. Devon Fraser was remarkably prompt. For a woman.

      He followed his father under the shade of the awning, nodded at the clergyman and studiously avoided looking at the guests. Lise was presumably somewhere in that crush. She’d cajoled him for an invitation, and he’d made the mistake of sending her one. He was going to have to decide what to do about Lise, he thought, and winced as Aunt Bessie attacked the portable organ with her usual gusto and total disregard for the printed score. If he, Jared, were ever foolish enough to get married—a stupid proposition; he had no intention of allowing himself to be tied for life to one woman—he’d get married on his yacht. Aunt Bessie suffered from seasickness. Aunt Bessie wouldn’t set foot on anything remotely resembling the deck of a ship.

      From the corner of his eye he saw his father turn and smile at his prospective bride. He was about to become her fifth husband. Anger coiled tight in Jared’s gut. He’d done his best to talk his father out of this ill-advised wedding, and then he’d tried a little judicious bribery of Alicia. Neither of which had worked. Even though he’d offered Alicia a very considerable sum.

      She could get more from a divorce settlement; that, he was sure, had been her reasoning.

      He was damned if he was going to smile at Alicia. At least the clergyman had insisted the photographer keep his distance during the ceremony. So if he, Jared, didn’t feel like smiling at anyone, he didn’t have to.

      Devon Fraser had claimed he was sulking because he hadn’t gotten his own way. Had he ever known a woman to get so quickly and so thoroughly under his skin?

      Another of Aunt Bessie’s chords screeched along his nerves. Surely Alicia and her daughter were nearly at the altar—they could have walked from Central Park to the Bronx by now. Fighting down his impatience, Jared looked around to check on their progress.

      A tall woman in a shimmer of turquoise was walking toward him, looking straight at him, her head held high.

      Her beauty slammed into his chest as though he’d been punched, hard, on the breastbone.

      Her hair was heaped on her head, and shone like ripe wheat, baring the slim line of her throat. Her shoulders rose from her dress in impossibly elegant curves; the swell of her breasts made his heart thud as though he’d dropped a twenty-kilo weight. Ripe breasts. Full breasts. Voluptuous breasts, their pale sheen like the petals of the orchids she was carrying. In her cleavage a blue stone shot sparks of fire.

      Her hips swayed gracefully СКАЧАТЬ