Midnight Wedding Read online

  Holly recorded it all as if she were going to paint it. She stared and stared until her eyes ached. It nearly took her mind off the repeating loop in her head…

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’ll regret it…

  Jack, of course, was already there, a tall, commanding figure in the flaring light. He was surrounded but she still saw him at once, the moment that Proteus helped her out of the car. There was a press of people but Jack was still the first—the only—person she registered.

  He stood out like the king in some pagan ritual. Perhaps it was his stillness. Perhaps it was the way he turned and fixed her with his eyes like a spear. In all the shifting crowd, the wind-blown light, the waving palms, he seemed to be the only steady thing at rest on the beach. In the shadows he looked like a rock. A rock that was summoning her.

  A thought flashed into her mind. I could break myself against a rock like that. Holly swallowed and took a couple of careful steps onto the soft sand. It felt as if the whole world was shifting under her feet.

  Every single person on the beach seemed to be Jack’s lifelong friend. They crowded round him, cheering him on, pleased as punch to be at his celebration.

  Holly looked at the carnival crowd and realised she had never felt so lonely in her life. And she was a connoisseur of loneliness.

  ‘Ready?’ said Paula Vincent, brushing the creases out of Holly’s dress.

  She had been wearing the crocheted shawl against the cold but it clearly offended Paula’s sense of fitness that Holly should go to the altar in it. Now Paula twitched it away. Holly felt the chill touch her naked shoulders; it was replaced by the strangeness of her wind-wafted hair, then his eyes.

  Oh, God, those slanting dark eyes: so intent; so unreadable. For a moment, she wanted to pull the shawl back round her shoulders, as if it would hide her from him. She felt her mouth dry and her heart start to patter, light and quick and breathless.

  Jack did not take his eyes off her. But he said something to a tall black man beside him. The man detached himself and took up a book. His dark clothes resolved themselves into a minister’s suit and white collar.

  Holly thought, It’s happening. It’s really happening. Her heartbeat was like a soft skittering roll on the bongo drums. She was the only one who could hear it. But it reverberated through her until she could not hear anything else.

  As if she were in a dream. A long way away—all the way outside her head—the saxophone modified into something sweet and serious. The cheerful crowd fell silent. Her flat sandals were soundless on the damp sand. The crowd gathered, closing in behind her.

  The breeze feathered her hair across her mouth. She pushed it back but it was no good. She could feel Jack watching the wafting tendrils of hair. The fragile finery of her wedding dress stirred ceaselessly. He watched that too. She thought, though she did not know why, He wants to touch me.

  She felt cold and afraid and alone. At the same time she felt as if she were setting out on the biggest adventure of her life. And excited.

  She reached Jack. How tall he was! How tall and broad and warm-blooded in the darkness! She had never felt so physically vulnerable to a man before. He did not touch her, not so much as take her hand. Yet she felt his eyes on her, as sensuous as the most deliberate caress.

  He wants to touch me, she thought again.

  She did not know how she knew it. She just did. With absolute certainty. She began to tremble.

  But when he spoke, his tone was matter-of-fact. ‘Francis, you’ve met Holly, I believe.’

  ‘I have.’ The minister sent a kind but faintly puzzled smile in her direction. ‘Are you ready to make your vows now?’

  And that was it. So simple, she slipped into it and hardly noticed. When Jack slid the ring onto her cold finger, she gave a start.

  This is it.

  She heard herself, Holly Anne, promise her life away to John Charles, whom she had not known a week ago. He kissed her cold cheek.

  The mischievous breeze whipped her hair across his face. He turned his head to avoid it and his open mouth brushed hers.

  For a moment Holly breathed his breath. The pattering drum roll stopped dead.

  Something quickened inside her. Something old and yet utterly, utterly new. It was fierce and not cold at all.

  Jack drew back. Was there a question in the slanting eyes? Or was that a trick of the uncertain light?

  The saxophone’s tune now was one of naked triumph. People were patting Jack on the back, shaking his hand, full of frank teasing. He put an arm round Holly, as if to include her in the congratulations. But it was obvious nobody really knew what to say to her. There was a distinct air of relief in the way the crowd started to dance as a steel band struck up.

  Jack looked down at her, his expression unreadable.

  ‘Are you tired?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was the truth. But would he take that as a sign that she wanted to go back to that luxurious cabin and be alone with him? Holly panicked. ‘No. I mean—a bit, but I can…You don’t have to…’

  He did not comment on that. ‘Do you want to dance at your own wedding?’

  ‘Dance?’

  She saw that he was smiling faintly. ‘That’s why they brought the band, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh. I thought Proteus was exaggerating.’

  ‘Proteus never exaggerates,’ he said, amused.

  He put his arm round her and drew her loosely to him. It was quite impersonal. Under the light cotton jacket his arm felt like fire against her floating flimsy dress, though.

  Holly swallowed hard.

  ‘This isn’t quite the wedding you might have hoped for.’ His tone was dry. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘I didn’t really think much about the form of the wedding,’ Holly said honestly.

  There was a pause. He moved with easy rhythm to the music. So why did it feel as if he had suddenly frozen in his tracks?

  Then, ‘No, I suppose it wasn’t very important,’ he agreed. He suddenly sounded immensely weary. Of course he must have been travelling for twenty-odd hours. He was entitled to be weary. So why did she feel as if a light had been turned off?

  ‘You seem to have a lot of friends here,’ she ventured after a moment.

  ‘Yes. More than I realised. Maybe this island was a mistake,’ he said almost to himself.

  Holly shook her head. ‘I think it’s great that you have so many people who want you to be happy. Even though this isn’t a real—I mean, we may be a bit unusual…’

  ‘You mean, even though this isn’t a real marriage,’ said Jack, suddenly harsh.

  ‘Well, yes.’ Holly was taken aback. ‘But they don’t know that. They still wish you well. I think that’s terrific. I think you ought to appreciate that. And remember it always.’

  His voice was cynical. ‘On the cold dark nights when I’m alone?’

  Holly winced. ‘Don’t.’

  He pulled her closer. It was not affection, she realised. Nor any desire to deceive his partying friends. It was simple anger.

  ‘You know, I never expected to spend my wedding night planning for the lonely times to come.’ She had never heard that note of savagery from super-controlled Jack Armour before.

  To the revellers it must have looked as if he were murmuring full-scale seduction into her ear. Only she, too close and a fellow conspirator, knew different. Her trembling increased.

  She pulled back in his arms and stared up at him.

  ‘But you knew,’ she stammered. ‘You agreed…It was your idea…’

  For a moment his restraining arm felt like steel. Then, as suddenly as the fierce anger had struck, it seemed to dissolve. His arm relaxed. He let her go.

  ‘Of course.’ Once again he was smoothly master of himself and the situation again.

  What was it Mrs Vincent had said? Jack Armour always kept his promises? For the first time it occurred to Holly: which one was he going to keep this time? His undertaking to give her the wedding certificate that would set her free? Or
the promise he had just made in front of forty-odd witnesses to hold and cherish her for the rest of their lives?

  ‘Don’t look like that.’ He sounded amused.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a gazelle that doesn’t know if the tiger has eaten yet.’

  ‘Very funny,’ muttered Holly sourly.

  ‘I take my humour where I find it.’

  She looked around at the crowd. Everyone was dancing now and there was a definite smell of barbecue in the air.

  ‘And you find it here?’ She was unexpectedly hurt.

  ‘I’m trying. Believe me, I’m trying.’

  She did not ask him to explain. She did not want to know. She wanted to keep her head down and get out of the unwelcome party as soon as she decently could.

  She would have managed it, too. If it hadn’t been for Paula Vincent pressing a rum punch into her hand. Holly had forgotten to eat all day and it went straight to her head. Even so she could have got away, pleading tiredness. Jack would have let her go, she was sure. But people had cameras and they wanted to take pictures to remember.

  ‘Kiss the bride,’ someone called out.

  Jack caught her round the waist again. As she whirled towards him, astonished and off balance, she saw his expression in a sudden flare of one of the flambeaux. It was not unreadable at all. It was devilishly challenging.

  And then his mouth closed on hers.

  Fire. It was like fire. Suffocating, terrifying, unstoppable. No concessions and no disguise. They were equals, adults, and their adult bodies wanted each other. Her limbs stopped taking orders from her brain.

  Oh, Lord, was Holly’s last coherent thought. I should have known this would happen. How did I ever get into this? Here I go…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HE LIFTED his head.

  ‘I wondered,’ he murmured.

  Holly had no doubt at all what he had wondered about. Whether she would kiss him back, obviously.

  Well, now he had his answer: and so had she. With enthusiasm. With heart-stopping, terrifying abandon. With—her heart turned over—was it?—love?

  How could I have let this happen?

  He rubbed his thumb across her cheekbone. It was half a caress, half exploration by a new claimant. His hand felt huge. And dangerous somehow. Like a fire she had got too close to without realising.

  ‘Nothing to say?’

  Holly folded her lips together and tried to hide her miserable inexperience.

  ‘I didn’t expect—’ she began, at last.

  ‘Did you think dinosaurs don’t kiss?’ he asked drily.

  It must have rankled, when she’d called him a dinosaur in Paris. That was the second time he had referred to it. Had she been using the image to protect herself from him? Holly she did not know. Now she met his eyes bravely.

  ‘Not like that.’

  His eyes flickered.

  ‘So think about it.’

  He gave her an enigmatic smile. And let her go.

  The party took off after that. Dazed, Holly found herself congratulated, plied with colourful drinks and embraced by people who did not stop dancing to do it. All to a cheerful beat. She saw that even people who were theoretically chatting on the edge of the crowd were keeping time with their feet or their shoulders.

  Jack danced all the time. But—not with her.

  It was unnerving, Holly thought. He was like someone she had never met before suddenly: a bit of a wild man, free and laughing, but with a dangerous edge to his laughter. The men, she saw, admired him. To the women he was quite simply a magnet, effortless and compulsive. Even Paula Vincent, who surely believed it when she said she loved him only like a brother, put a wilder swing into her hips when she gyrated round Jack Armour.

  As for Holly—all she knew was that she was out of her depth. Here he had a physical presence, a sheer sensual impact, that nothing had prepared her for. She had not the slightest idea how to deal with it.

  After that mind-blowing kiss, he had simply let her go. She’d swayed. He’d steadied her, smiled down at her enigmatically and then whirled Paula Vincent away into the dance without a word. And had moved on from woman to laughing woman.

  Just as well, Holly told herself. If Jack put his hands on her again she thought she just might dissolve into a puddle of warm lust at his feet. She ignored her leaping pulses and did her best to enjoy the party. Which was not easy, given that she felt that she might wake up at any moment.

  Somehow she had got to the edge of the dancing crowd. Alone for a moment, she contemplated the darkness. Ahead of her the sea heaved and purred like a sleepy animal. The stars flickered, there and then not there, in the black waves. And then behind her, on the palm-fringed beach, was a challenge she did not think she was ready for.

  ‘Time to go?’ said a voice in her ear.

  Holly froze. She knew that voice. The challenge was no longer behind her, dancing with other people. He was here. And ready or not, she was going to have to make a decision fast.

  Trying to buy time, not taking her eyes off the lazy sea she said, ‘Don’t leave the party on my account.’

  Jack gave a soft laugh. ‘Now there’s a thing to say to a husband on his wedding night.’

  Holly’s voice rose several notches. ‘Please. You don’t have to be polite.’

  ‘What if I want to be—polite?’

  He sounded amused. Also horribly sexy. Inexperienced as she was, Holly still recognised that. She shivered.

  ‘See. You’re cold. It is time to go.’

  They would have to be alone together tonight. She had known they would. She had just not allowed herself to think about it. Now Holly searched about for a reason to defer the inevitable confrontation.

  ‘But won’t everyone mind?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘It is generally expected that the bride and groom will leave together,’ he said mock solemn.

  Holly jumped. That word again. ‘I wish everyone would stop calling me a bride!’ she said between her teeth.

  ‘But you look so very bridal.’

  She looked at him at last, shocked. They were out of the light of the torches here, but in the moonlight she saw the flash of teeth in his lopsided smile. That smile made her feel hot all over, then cool as a rock pool. What did he want?

  Embarrassed, Holly muttered, ‘Mrs Vincent said I had to have a wedding dress. I’m afraid you paid for it.’

  ‘Money well spent,’ he said lazily. He flicked the end of one of the tresses that mantled her bare arm. ‘I didn’t know you had so much hair.’

  His fingers did not even touch her skin. But she felt engulfed by electricity, as if a blue flash had sizzled round her, cutting her out from the night air and delivering her into another dimension where there was only Jack and Holly.

  And a minefield between them.

  Holly sought wretchedly for something to say that would release the tension. There was nothing.

  And the music was suddenly louder.

  ‘Time we were not here,’ Jack said lightly.

  ‘But the party—’

  ‘The party will probably go on till morning.’

  ‘But I thought you hadn’t seen your friends for so long. And they put this party together for you so quickly. They will be shocked if you leave so soon.’

  Jack was suddenly impatient. ‘Believe me, the only thing that would shock them was if you and I were still here at sunrise.’

  ‘Oh.’

  In the darkness she was blushing furiously. Why did Jack always end up making her feel ridiculous? She was strong, independent and she could look after herself, as she had proved round half Europe. So why this clumsiness with him and only him?

  I wish I knew more: more about flirting; more about when men are teasing and when they are serious; more about life.

  He said gently, as if he were reading her thoughts, ‘I won’t push you into anything you don’t want. I promise.’

  Holly believed him. Whic
h was somehow the most terrifying thing of all.

  She went with him.

  She had expected him to take her back through the party, to extract Proteus or one of the other drivers there and summon a taxi to take them back to the hotel. She cringed at the thought of walking through the crowd, though she was too proud to admit it. But once again Jack seemed to read her mind.

  He took her away from the party, down the beach to a small group of trees. There was a beach-buggy parked under them.

  ‘I don’t know whether they were planning any practical jokes,’ Jack said wryly. ‘I just thought: best take no chances.’

  For the first time, it seemed for days, Holly laughed naturally.

  ‘Good thinking, Batman.’

  He handed her up into the compact little vehicle. ‘No, just reasonable contingency planning.’ He swung in beside her and switched on the engine. ‘I like to be prepared.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘And I don’t like surprises.’

  ‘I’ll remember that,’ she said lightly.

  He switched on the headlights, raking the sand and the trees like an enemy’s spotlight.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  He seemed to know the roads incredibly well. Almost at once he turned off the metalled surface onto a path of impacted earth. It rolled like the sea in the headlights. The buggy bumped and lurched but Jack’s hands were like iron, keeping the kicking wheel under control. Holly looked at the muscles in his forearms and the long, strong fingers and felt again how alien he seemed, out here in the Caribbean night.

  They came into the hotel complex by a path she did not know.

  ‘It’s the far cabin,’ she said. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud to her.

  ‘I know.’

  She blinked. ‘How?’

  ‘I asked Paula.’

  ‘Oh.’ She digested that and could make nothing of it. ‘Why?’

  Jack laughed. ‘I thought with all the rum punch you were downing, you might not be in any condition to navigate us home.’