Mishap Marriage (13 page)

They had arrived late, hoping to avoid the early influx of guests, but there was still a crush of an elegantly dressed assembly on the stairs. The smell was that unique mixture of powder, perfume and sweat that always heralded a society event. Music and flowers filled the rooms. Around Shona the din of voices melted into laughter. Stony-faced footmen made their way through the throng, balancing platters of food that vanished as fast as it was placed on tables. On one of the sideboards rose an elaborate creation made entirely of pastries and fruit. Shona picked out a pitted plum and slipped it into her mouth, casually taking a glass of wine from the tray of a passing waiter. In the cut-crystal goblet, French wine shimmered ruby-red as she drank to her forthcoming success.

Glancing through the open French doors on to the wide terrace where the bidding was to take place later, a flock of peacocks passed by, stately and indifferent, their folded tails trailing on the damp grass. She smiled thinly. Their arrogance reminded her of her husband. Beside her aunt, who acknowledged guests she knew as they passed through the rooms connected through carved and gilded portals, floating in her luscious gown, her raised heels sliding on the polished floors, Shona took note of the velvet midnight-blue curtains drawn over the windows, the opulence of the soft carpets and gilded chairs. On a marble mantel an ornate gold clock chimed ten.

With her head held high, only her lips, chin and eyes visible behind the black mask that covered her face, filled with confidence Shona carried on walking down a long gallery, portraits of the earl’s and countess’s ancestors gazing down on her. Suddenly, the splendid gallery, the fashionable throng, even the music seemed to melt away and Shona was as cold as if she had been miraculously transported to a cold climate. Of their own volition her eyes were drawn to a sombre figure in a plain but perfectly cut black coat. He was alone and walking towards her, full of vigour and briskness. Like everyone else, a mask covered his features. Shona felt an iron band tighten suddenly around her forehead and there was a taste of ashes in her mouth. Her fingers tightened on her fan.

The man was Zachariah Fitzgerald, otherwise known as Lord Harcourt. Her husband. He was there, his presence a certainty beyond the proof of sight.

Shona’s first instinct was to turn on her heels and run but, in a moment and remembering all he was guilty of where she was concerned, she carried on walking, her eyes never leaving his tall figure for a second as he came closer. He appeared to be preoccupied. On impulse, when he was almost directly in front of her, she let the fan slip from her hands. She stopped and looked down. So did he.

‘Allow me,’ he said, his deeply resonant voice, so well remembered by Shona, vibrating along her nerves. He retrieved her fan, a vague smile hovering on his lips. His silver-grey eyes behind his mask gleamed with sudden interest as they met hers. He handed her the fan.

Taking it from him, she forced a somewhat absent-minded smile and answered automatically. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, lowering her eyes so she did not see the puzzlement enter his eyes as she went on her way. Shona felt his eyes burning holes into her back, her heart pounding in her chest. Much as she wanted to turn her head and look back at him, she straightened her spine, lifted her head and carried on walking. She wondered what she hated him more for—the turns her life had taken from that day she had first laid eyes on him, or the need, the obsession, she had allowed to creep into her heart.

The noise and faces about her became a blur as she recalled those last moments with Zack in her room at Melrose Hill. She discovered to her astonishment that, even after all this time, she could still taste the sweet violence of it, strange and overpowering in spite of the anger which had filled her at the time. It was not easily forgotten.

Feeling she was under inspection, she went through the motions of allowing her aunt to introduce her to her friends. A crowd of young gallants formed about her and she collected her thoughts sufficiently to respond politely to the compliments and to look as if she was enjoying the ball, allowing one or two of them to lead her on to the dance floor.

‘Well?’ Augusta said when she caught up with her niece. ‘Is Lord Harcourt here?’

Shona nodded and turned to meet her gaze. ‘Yes. We came close. He didn’t recognise me.’ She smiled assuredly, her eyes cold. ‘But he will—before this night is done.’

Chapter Seven

S
hona’s eyes followed Zack as he walked towards the woman standing on the edge of the dance floor. She had dark brown hair. Of course! The same lustrous dark brown hair inside the locket Zack had left in her bedchamber. Shona was unprepared for the fierce stab of jealousy. The woman wasn’t voluptuous, precisely, but her breasts were full and her features strikingly beautiful.

Shona took a step back, into the shadows. From behind her mask she watched Zack bow in front of the woman and lead her to the dance floor. Zack’s turns and steps showed the mastery of practice and a delight in his own dexterity. Each time he bent his head and murmured to his partner, a warm smile softened the fine lines of his handsome face. There was not a sign of his arrogance, she decided. Just the worldly ease of someone who feels at home everywhere.

Shona would have been surprised to learn that Zack was not oblivious to the golden-haired woman with a commanding presence. He was intrigued. She seemed to prefer to observe the dance from a distance, because whenever she drew near, people paused to look at her, especially the gentlemen. It was understandable since she cut a striking figure. Perfectly proportioned, she was not a woman whom it was easy to ignore.

Later, Shona saw Zack and the woman she now knew to be called Lady Caroline Donnington standing by the refreshment table. Zack was smiling at something she had just said before lowering his head and whispering something into her shapely little ear.

Around midnight the rooms began to empty, shifting the party’s centre of gravity, like iron filings unable to resist a magnetic field, on to the terrace, the guests clustering around the source of the attraction. There was general excitement among the younger members of the party as the bidding for the charity event was about to begin, while some of the older generation muttered that this kind of thing was a vulgar practice, but they stayed to watch and pass comment as each lady placed her bid to tumultuous laughter and applause. When there were no more bids the laughing gentlemen took their bows and went off with the ladies who had won their favour.

Submerged in a sea of silks and laces, Shona was pleased that she had found a spot where she could observe the proceedings without being overlooked herself. Zack was standing a little apart by the balustrade, illuminated by a soft pearly light. His shoulder was propped negligently against the door frame, his arms folded across his chest, watching the proceedings through narrowed eyes.

Until then Shona had thought she remembered exactly what he looked like, but she hadn’t. His jacket clung to wide shoulders that were broader than she’d remembered. Beneath the mask that covered his eyes, there was still the masterful face—one of leashed sensuality and arrogant handsomeness with its sculpted mouth and striking eyes—but now she noticed the cynicism in those silver-grey eyes and the ruthless set of his jaw, things she’d been too naïve to see before. Everything about him exuded brute strength, and that in turn knocked her confidence as she searched his features for some sign that this aloof, forbidding man had actually held her and kissed her with seductive tenderness.

She gazed at him wonderingly, his strength and vitality incredibly appealing to her heightened senses, forgetting in an instant all he had made her suffer, but she quickly recollected herself. She must strengthen her resolve and not allow herself to lust after her husband when she knew that, for her own sake, she would have to hold him at arm’s length, for he would
never
commit himself to their marriage.

With this thought in mind she watched and waited and bided her time. Eventually Zack climbed on to the stand. She was aware that his blatant masculinity appealed to the other females present. More than one favoured him with indiscreet glances, fluttering lashes and blushing prettily while wafting fans. He returned their interest with a roguish grin. Indeed, Shona realised he accorded the elderly matrons the same treatment as the young ladies—he treated both simply as women.

Yet she couldn’t help experiencing an ungovernable jealousy at all the attention he was attracting, especially when she observed the brown-haired Lady Donnington securing her place for the bidding. A hush fell over the crowd as the bidding began. It started slow and with much hilarity, with one or two ladies offering a few guineas. Lady Donnington, her face flushed with laughter and expectancy, offered a hundred guineas, and, when there were no more bids, before the auctioneer’s hammer could hit the block, in a loud, clear, confident voice, Shona said, ‘Five hundred guineas.’

There was a silence, which was soon followed by a communal gasp. As people turned, craning their necks to see who had made the bid, there was a bobbing of all manner of elaborate and colourful hair adornments.

‘Five hundred! Five hundred guineas for Lord Harcourt. Come, ladies, before it’s too late. I beg you to consider the prize. Do I hear six hundred? Are there any more bids for Lord Harcourt?’ the auctioneer called. Five hundred guineas was a sum that could not readily be challenged by the young, unattached ladies. ‘Five hundred guineas it is, then!’ the auctioneer declared cheerily. ‘Five hundred! I say it once. Your last chance, ladies. Five hundred twice!’ He glanced about, but found no takers. ‘Five hundred guineas it is, then! To the lady at the back.’ He grinned broadly in Shona’s direction. ‘You’ve purchased a rare prize for yourself, madam.’

Everyone was curious as to the identity of the unknown beautiful woman—especially Zack, who, as the throng parted to let her through, was intrigued. Not even when she moved towards him, pausing a moment to speak quietly to the auctioneer, did he know who she was. He recognised her as the woman whose fan he had retrieved, and again as she had kept to the shadows to watch the dancing.

Supremely confident, Shona smiled and turned to Caroline Donnington, who was bemused and clearly disappointed that she had come second in the bidding.

‘Have you been keeping my husband company while I’ve been away?’ Shona said calmly before fixing her gaze and a sublime smile on an astounded Zack, who recognised her at last and could not believe his eyes.

A world of feelings flashed for an instant across his face. The knowledge of her presence stunned him. He heard not a word that was being said around him for all sound was blocked out by a sudden roaring noise in his head.

Shona! She was here, incontrovertibly here, and his eyes were drawn to her automatically, his muscles taut by some unconscious force. For the first time in his life he was totally surprised. She was heartbreakingly beautiful. More beautiful than he remembered. A radiant sunburst in a city choked with darkness.

He should have been prepared for this. He had been so sure that he had seen the last of Shona McKenzie. It had never occurred to him that she would follow him to England. He was neither prepared for the sight of her nor what it did to him. He stood quite still and looked at her, his face drawn, his eyes wide, fixed and unbelieving. In the silence, a hundred questions and emotions swept through his head. Then he was moving forward, very coolly, to stand before her.

All eyes were on Zack. It was as if everyone was waiting for him to laugh. But laughter was the last thing on his mind. He chose his next words carefully.

‘Shona! I had hoped to have the pleasure of seeing you again, but I did not think to find you here.’

‘No, of course you didn’t. For myself,
your
presence did not take me entirely by surprise.’ She laid the faintest of stresses on the ‘your’ and coolly handed him a card. ‘This is where I am staying,’ she told him haughtily. ‘Don’t be long in calling on me, will you, Zack? You’ve just cost me five hundred guineas.’

For a moment her glittering eyes swept the sea of faces that surrounded her, all with the same expectant and bemused expression, then, with her head held proudly erect, she left the terrace as the first rocket sent a gigantic spray of rose-and-white-coloured sparks rushing across the dark sky to fall back softly towards the gardens and the terrace, where the women’s jewels rivalled the splendour. Her head on fire, her hands like ice, she walked stiffly on, the long train of her dress sweeping in her wake, ignoring the storm which broke out behind her. She would leave and wait for what was bound to follow—Zack’s wrath. But for the moment, nothing mattered to her.

Zack’s voice called after her. ‘Shona! Wait!’

She went on down the grand staircase as if nothing had happened. Not until he caught up with her at the bottom did she finally stop and turn with an expression of complete indifference to face her husband, who, having torn off his mask, was clearly furious.

Taking her arm none too gently, he led her to an empty room and slammed the door shut. The room seemed to shrink around him. He was so tall that Shona thought he must surely have grown since she had last seen him.

‘Take that damned thing off your face. I like to see who I am talking to.’

Calmly she did as he asked.

Zack stared at her. She had been lovely before. But then it had been a beauty without art. London had changed her. And, because she was one of those women so basically perfect that even fine clothes and diamonds heightened her, she had become something more than lovely. Now, Zack thought, she was glorious.

‘So it is you. Good God, Shona! What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’

For a moment Shona studied this man who had made such a big impact on her life. On their wedding day she had sworn happily to love, honour and obey him. It was the first time that she had been alone with him since that dreadful wedding night. Then she had been coldly sacrificed, a helpless victim in the hands of two heartless and unscrupulous men—her own brother and Zack.

‘I am not
playing
at anything, Zack. You did not know me.’

‘Not immediately. When I picked up your fan and watched you walk away, I had a vague feeling of familiarity which I was unable to place, a resemblance I failed to grasp. When you stepped forward to confront me and Lady Donnington, then I knew who you really were.’

Smiling thinly, she stepped away from him, casually running her fingers along the back of a chair. ‘I see I failed to make an impression on you. Have you forgotten the charming circumstances attending our marriage? Do I have to remind you that while you swore to God to love and cherish me and forsake all others you were already planning to leave me? You had the audacity to destroy my life as if it were merely another of those delightful escapades you men discuss over your brandy. How stupid you must have thought me and how foolish of me to have believed you.’

‘The ceremony was a sham, Shona, you know that. It was never made to last. How else was I to leave the island?’

‘It does not alter the fact that what you did to me was despicable.’

‘You are right. You see, when your brother impounded my ship, I think I somehow lost my reason. I had only one idea—to get her back and take her off the island. I felt as if I were trapped in a terrible swamp. The only way out as I saw it was to pretend to marry you.’

‘Was there no limit to what you would do?’

‘At the time, no. No limit whatsoever. I acted on an impulse stronger than myself and a similar impulse would probably have taken me back to look for you.’

‘Ha!’ she scoffed, throwing her head back haughtily. ‘And I am expected to believe that.’

He shrugged. ‘Believe what you like. I have regretted ever setting foot on that wretched island.’ Turning his back on her, he went to the window and stood looking out. ‘Why have you come here? I thought you would still be on Santamaria.’

‘Hoped, more like, I’m sure,’ she snapped. ‘No doubt you would rather have me working on a treadmill for some fat slave owner.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Why are you here?’

The tone was harsh, clearly calculated to overwhelm her, but having learned her lesson in the creek on Santamaria, Shona now possessed the faculty of rising quickly to defend herself. He had been prepared to find her agitated and nervous. The confident woman who looked at him so calmly could not fail to rouse him to annoyance—and more than a little admiration, if she did but know.

Ignoring the ominous set of his shoulders, Shona risked a smile. ‘To see you. We have some unfinished business to take care of. I am happy to see you are well, Zack, and none the worse for your time spent on Santamaria.’

There was no response. He continued to stare out of the window in silence, his hands clasped behind his back for what seemed to Shona an eternity. Realising that he was deliberately seeking to weaken her resolve, she gathered her courage for what she had to say, knowing that it was bound to be unpleasant.

‘I came all this way because I am your wife. It is a situation that cannot be ignored.’

‘Wife? I don’t think so. Did you not read my note?’

‘Yes. Every word.’

Abruptly, without turning, Zack spoke. ‘I await your explanation, if you have one to offer, of your astounding conduct here tonight. Your explanation and your apologies—although it is to Lady Donnington you should apologise. It would appear that you were suddenly bereft of your senses, and of the most elementary notions of respect and the correct behaviour.’

‘Apologies?’ she said derisively. ‘It so happens that I have done nothing,
nothing,
for which I require your forgiveness or for which I owe you explanations, for that matter. However,’ she amended tightly, ‘I will be happy to give any explanations you wish once you’ve made
yours
to me.’

He did turn round at this, his eyes alight with anger. ‘What did you say?’

‘That if anyone here has been insulted, it is me! What I did was within my rights and for my own dignity.’

‘Within your rights? What rights?’

‘As your
wife.
Not only did I come all this way to see you, I could no longer stay on the island—nor did I wish to. My position had become untenable. The capacity for warmth and gaiety and happiness that was present on Santamaria before you sailed into its harbour was cut off like the flowers in winter and the island society found me unfit company. On Santamaria reputation is everything. Once lost, it is impossible to regain.’