Outback bride - Hart Jessica - Страница 23

Or he might get out his contract and check for the relevant clause, Copper amended with a bitter smile as she got dressed for the party that night. She was dreading the evening ahead. All the uncles and aunts and cousins and close family friends had been invited to meet Mal and Brett before the wedding, and she knew that she would have to spend the night being bright and cheerful and deliriously happy at the prospect of marrying a man who would expect her to put in a formal request before he would lay a finger on her!

The party was even worse than Copper had feared. Tense and jaded and headachy from too much champagne in the’ middle of the day, she had to endure endless teasing about her unsuitability for the outback. People kept kissing her and telling her what a lucky girl she was.

Copper’s smile grew more and more brittle. Everyone seemed to be having a good time except her. Mal was relaxed and charming, unbothered by the fact that he was the centre of attention, while Brett had wasted no time at all in cornering her prettiest cousin and was meeting with plenty of encouragement. Her parents were delighted with their prospective son-in-law and all the relatives were entering into the party spirit with gusto.

That left Copper, inwardly cursing the day she had ever acquired a reputation for being good fun at any party. Why couldn’t she have been so quiet and shy that nobody would notice if she sat in a corner by herself all evening? Better still, why couldn’t she have been born without any family at all?

The party wore on and Copper’s smile grew more desperate. She was listening to an elderly aunt tell her how fortunate she was to have found such a husband when she looked up to find Mal watching her from across the room. He was a still, steady focus in the hubbub, and all at once the thought of Birraminda hit Copper with the force of a blow.

The creek, the trees, the white blur of cockatoos wheeling in the sky and Mal, strong and sure beside her as the evening hush settled slowly around them

The longing to be there was so acute that Copper almost reeled. When someone stepped away and blocked Mal from sight, and she found herself back in the middle of the hot, noisy party, she felt almost sick with disappointment.

With disappointment and the heart-stopping realisation that she at least had no need to pretend. It was no use denying it any longer. She had fallen in love with him all over again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Why had it taken her so long to accept that she loved him? This time she couldn’t tell herself that it was just a holiday romance, a passing passion for a stranger. This time it was for real.

Copper looked at her reflection in the long mirror. It was her wedding day. She was wearing a simple Twenties-style dress in ecru silk, with a drop waist, slender satin straps and a gossamer-fine top which whispered over her bare shoulders and floated ethereally with her slightest movement. Pearl drops trembled in her ears and there was frangipani in her hair. Her eyes were wide and dark and very green.

She ought to be happy. In a few minutes’ time she would walk into the garden and marry the man she loved, surrounded by family and friends. She would be Mal’s wife and he would take her back to Birraminda where she would have the challenge of setting up a project that would ensure her father’s future and keep her busy and stimulated. What more could she want?

She wanted Mal to love her too. She wanted him to need her the way she needed him, to ache for her when she wasn’t there, to feel that the world would stop turning without her.

But that hadn’t been in the agreement, had it? Copper turned sadly away from the mirror and pulled the ribbon from her bouquet through her fingers as she remembered his words. ‘I’ve had one wife who said that she loved me, and I don’t want another.’ Mal didn’t want his life cluttered up with messy emotions. He wanted a practical wife, a business-like wife who would stick to the terms of the contract they had signed, and that was the kind of wife she would have to be.

‘Dad’s here!’ Megan rushed in, trembling with excitement and still thrilled with the way the hairdresser had tied up her dusky curls with the palest pink ribbon to match her dress. ‘Do you think he’ll like my dress?’

‘He’ll think you’re the prettiest little girl in the world,’ Copper assured her, although her heart had started to do crazy somersaults and it was suddenly hard to breathe.

She hadn’t been alone with Mal since that dreadful party. He had taken Megan out the next day while she had been swept into a whirl of activity by friends determined to celebrate her romantic marriage, and she had spent that evening quietly with her parents.

The knowledge of how much she loved him had held Copper in thrall for two days. She felt as if she were trapped in a strange dream-like state where she could walk and talk but everyone else was vaguely blurred. Nothing seemed real except her feelings for Mal, and now it was five o’clock and he was here and they were going to be married. Copper swallowed.

‘You look beautiful.’ Her father appeared behind her, turning her to hold her at arm’s length so that he could admire her properly. ‘This is the proudest day of my life,’ he told her, his smile crooked with emotion. ‘You’re marrying a fine man, Caroline. We’re going to miss you, but I know you’ll be very happy together.’

Would they? Copper blinked back sudden tears. ‘Thank you, Dad,’ she said huskily, and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Thank you for everything.’

Dan held her tightly for a moment, and then smiled almost fiercely as he offered her his arm. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Are we ready, Megan?’

Megan nodded vigorously. She had been ready all day.

Copper drew a deep breath and took her father’s arm. ‘We’re ready,’ she said.

Together they walked through the house where Copper had grown up and out under the pergola at the back. The garden was decorated with white and gold balloons, and there were vases of yellow and white flowers on every table beneath wide white sunshades. Frangipani flowers floated in the pool and the air was sweet with their scent.

When Copper appeared, a hush fell over the guests grouped in a semi-circle around the celebrant, who stood with Mal and Brett, and they all turned to watch her walk across the grass. Copper noticed none of them. There was only Mal, waiting for her in a white dinner jacket that emphasised the darkness of his hair and the tanned, angular planes of his face, but which did nothing to detract from his distinctive air of quiet, tough assurance.

He turned too, as she approached, and as their eyes met Copper’s world steadied miraculously. The dreamy haze that had enveloped her for the last two days snapped into focus and she was suddenly acutely aware of every detail: the gossamer touch of silk against her skin, the heady scent of the flowers in her hand, the feel of her father’s arm and the concentration on Megan’s face as she tried to remember her part.

And Mal, watching her with a smile that made her heart turn over.

Suddenly she was beside him. Her father squeezed her hand, lifted it and kissed it before he stepped away, and Copper remembered to hand her flowers down to Megan, who peeped a smile at her as she took them very carefully. Then Mal was holding out his hand. She put hers into it and felt his fingers close around hers in a warm, strong clasp. Everything else ceased to exist.

Copper never knew how she got through the ceremony, but somehow she must have made the right responses in the right places, for Mal was sliding the ring onto her finger. She looked down at the gold band that linked her to him: they were married. Wonderingly, Copper lifted her eyes to his.

Mal’s smile was oddly twisted as he looked down at her for a moment before cradling her face in his hands and bending his head very gently to kiss her. The touch of his mouth was enough to drench Copper in a golden, honeyed enchantment that spilled through her like a rush of light. The terms of the contract they had agreed, the watching crowd, the knowledge that Mal would never love her as she loved him, none of these mattered as their lips caught and clung and sweetness spun an invisible web around them, enclosing them in their own private world where time lost its meaning and a kiss could stretch into infinity and yet end much, much too soon.