The Second Bride (23 page)

Rufus frowned. 'Surely you knew!'

'How could I?' She glared at him. 'You forgot to mention it.'

'I was waiting for the right time to present itself— but to hell with that. Life's too short.' Rufus bent his head and kissed her fiercely and Jo responded with such
fervour
that it was some time before he raised his head, breathing hard. 'The scar, far from disgusting me, brought me to my senses, warned me not to put you in any such danger again.'

'Danger?' she said huskily, and wriggled closer.

Rufus breathed in sharply, and crushed her close, his face a hair's breadth away from hers. 'In our particular circumstances it was unlikely you were doing anything about contraception, Jocasta Grierson.'

Jo nodded. 'Very true.'

'Unfortunately at that stage neither was I. And no way was I going to get you pregnant again,' he said against her mouth.

'Oh.'

'Yes. Oh.'

They kissed each other with mounting passion, until something made Jo pull away a little to look up at him searchingly.

'Do you really love me, Rufus?'

To her dismay he drew away and thrust a hand through his crisp, silvered hair, eyeing her in a way which gave Jo deep misgivings. 'Look, I think it's time we brought everything out in the open, but let's do it in comfort, in front of the fire.'

'What about dinner?' she asked half-heartedly.

'Switch it off or throw it away,' he said sweepingly. 'I'll get something sent in later.'

Jo smiled crookedly.
'I
'd only got as far as making some
hollandaise
sauce.
I
hadn't even defrosted the salmon fillets.'

'Ah. You intended softening me up by serving my
favourite
dinner! ' he accused, and took her hand.
'I
'll tell you a secret, Jocasta Grierson. There's a far easier way to do it. Remind me to show you how—later.'

Jo smiled radiantly, and let him take her hand to lead her into the sitting room, where the fire was now glowing in welcome.

Rufus closed the curtains while Jo switched on lamps, then he drew her down beside him on the sofa.
'I
know you think of the sofa as your private domain, but not tonight. I need to hold you while I confess.'

Jo pushed her hair back behind her ears, and settled into the crook of his arm. 'Confess? What crime did you commit?'

Rufus breathed in very deeply, and tightened his arm around her.
'I
think it's time you knew I fell in love with you the day
I
married Claire.'

Jo stiffened.
'What?'
she demanded, twisting round to look up at him. 'Are you serious?'

'Totally.' Rufus nodded gravely, smoothing a hand down her cheek. 'Fate played a hellish trick on me, didn't it? You know
I
met Claire at a hunt ball. She was beautiful and sweet, and we were soon seeing a lot of each other. But she wouldn't move in with me because her parents wouldn't have liked it. Nor,
Ï
suspect, would she. She was very conventional in some ways, and desperately keen to get married. I'd grown fond of her, and she made it plain she loved me. She wanted children and I found I liked the idea of a family a lot, so within months—the time it took for
Gloria Beaumont to
organise
the wedding of the year—we were married. But up to that point, for one reason and another, I had never actually met her wonderful friend Jo.'

'No,' said Jo, feeling as though her world had turned upside down. 'I heard you were gorgeous and successful and the most wonderful man in the universe, of course. But I was on holiday when the Beaumonts threw a party for your engagement, and you were working in London in those days. Claire went up there a lot to meet you, so somehow I never did. We almost met for lunch one day, when I went up to London with her for a fitting for my bridesmaid's dress.'

'But I was held up and by the time I got to the restaurant you'd gone,' he said wryly. 'I began to wonder if you really existed.'

'Unlike Claire I worked for a living.
I
had to catch a train to get back to the
Gazette,'
Jo looked down at the rings on her third finger. 'So we saw each other for the first time on the wedding day because I even missed the rehearsal. My boss sent me off to interview a local celebrity for the star feature spot.'

'I didn't see you at first when you came down the aisle,' said Rufus very quietly. 'Claire looked even taller than usual in all her bridal glory. You were hidden behind her.'

'I saw
you,'
whispered Jo.

'We came face to face for the first time in the vestry, during all the kissing.'

'You didn't kiss me.'

'Too damn right I didn't. I was afraid to touch you! ' said Rufus with sudden violence. 'I couldn't believe it. Minutes before I'd made promises to Claire I could never break. Then I saw this little dark thing with flowers in her hair and fell head over heels in love for the first time in my life. But it was too late. I could hardly tell Claire I'd changed my mind.' He sighed heavily. 'Then or any time.'

'No,' agreed Jo sadly.

'Of course you made it easy for me, because you avoided me like the plague.' Rufus put a hand under her chin and raised her face to his. 'Why, darling? I assumed you took an instant dislike to me—so did Claire, because she stopped trying to bring us together after a while.'

Jo gave him a crooked little smile. 'Your wedding day was one of the worst of my entire life up to that point. Claire and I used to laugh over the book her mother bought on wedding etiquette. But it lacked a chapter on what the chief bridesmaid should do if she fell hopelessly in love with the bridegroom. Which I did. And to cover it I pretended to dislike him.' Her smile wavered. 'I thought that if I pretended hard enough it might become reality. But it didn't. I tried so hard, I even got engaged to someone else.'

Rufus stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, then he hauled her onto his lap and kissed her with such passionate thanksgiving that Jo's eyelashes were spangled with tears when she opened them at last to a look she'd never seen in his dark eyes. They blazed with love. And, miraculously, it was all for her.

He rubbed his cheek against hers. 'Jo, I did my best to be a good husband to Claire.'

'I know you did. You made her very happy.' Jo shivered. 'I tried to be a good friend, too, but sometimes it was so
hard.
She talked about you all the time.'

'She talked about
you
all the time to me.' Rufus smiled crookedly. 'She even forced us to dance together once. At that party we gave for New Year's Eve.'

Jo shuddered. 'I remember. The music was slow and
smoochy
, and you held me away from you as if I had some infectious disease!'

He grinned. 'I was afraid to pull you close in case you blacked my eye when you found what you were doing to me.'

'Oh!' She giggled, burying her face against him. 'I thought you couldn't bear the sight of me. I think Claire thought that too.'

'It seemed the easiest way to deal with the situation.' Rufus sobered. 'Then she died and I felt so bloody guilty because everyone—including you— thought I was devastated. Which I was. But part of it was guilt because I hadn't been able to love Claire as she should have been loved.' He sat Jo upright, holding her by the shoulders. 'So then I was free. But by that stage, of course, you'd got yourself engaged to someone else. I didn't know you'd broken it off until just before that night.'

'The night of your anniversary.'

'The night I first made love to you.'

They looked at each other for a moment.

'Are you hungry?' asked Rufus casually.

'Not particularly.'

'Good.' He stood her on her feet, and got up to take her by the hand. 'I'm a lawyer, remember. You say you love me but I need proof. The physical kind.'

'I
thought you were against that kind of thing in case I got pregnant again,' said Jo breathlessly as he made for the door, pulling her with him.

'You won't,' he assured her. 'After what happened at Christmas I'm now prepared against just such a contingency.'

'But I
want
another baby, Rufus,' she protested as he raced with her up the stairs to her room.

He picked her up and carried her to the beautiful bed. 'So do I. But not yet. I've only just discovered that the woman I love actually loves me. I want you to myself for a while, darling. Let's enjoy being married to each other before we get to be parents.' He stretched out beside her and drew her into his arms. 'I still can't believe this is all true.'

'Neither can I,' said Jo, and abandoned herself to the joy of kisses and caresses made all the more rapturous by the knowledge that they were the natural result of mutual love instead of mere physical chemistry.

Rufus undressed her slowly,
savouring
the task, kissing the places he uncovered. When he came to the scar, he pressed delicate kisses all along its length, until Jo could bear it no longer and instigated some caresses of her own which quickly brought about the inevitable, long desired result as they found rapturous
fulfilment
together after the long, cold weeks of estrangement.

'I dreamed about this, Rufus,' said Jo afterwards, when she could speak. 'I never believed it would really happen. When you insisted on marrying me I thought you were just doing the
honourable
thing.'

'Getting you pregnant was an unexpected short cut to being your husband,' said Rufus lazily, running a hand over her hip. 'If I hadn't I'd have wooed you until you gave in.'

' "Wooed"?' Jo chuckled. 'I like that word almost as much as "cosset".' She sobered. 'Poor Claire. I hope she never had an inkling of how we felt.'

'If neither of us suspected the other's feelings I'm certain Claire didn't. I did everything within my power to make her happy—and so did you.' Rufus rubbed his chin over her hair. 'We did our best in our separate ways to make sure she never knew. It wasn't her fault she was the wrong bride.'

'I thought
I
was,' said Jo. 'Mrs Beaumont certainly thought so. She told me only recently you'd never get over Claire and how nice it was that you had me to comfort you.'

Rufus scowled. 'She was the one who misled me about your engagement.'

Jo sat up to look down at him, pushing her hair back behind her ears. 'You don't think
she
knew how we felt?'

'No.' Rufus pulled her down to him. 'She just can't cope with the idea of Claire's husband happily married to someone else.'

'When did you find out I'd broken it off with Edward, then?'

'That night at the Mitre. I saw you behind the bar, and asked Phil Dexter if you were married.'

'He never said a word!'

'I asked him not to.'

Jo wriggled closer. 'Mrs Beaumont wasn't a bit interested when I told her about the book.'

'I am.
Deeply
interested,' he assured her, grinning. 'I remember what you said about being a kept man. The idea appeals—strongly!'