His Forbidden Bride

Zoe flushed. “I don’t think that’s any of your damned business. And I thought the point of this lunch was for me to find out about you.”

“Ask what you want,” he said. “I am ready to answer.”

“Well, your second name might be a start.” She tried to sound casual, not easy when her nerves seemed to be stretched on wires. Oh, what’s the matter with me? she wondered savagely. Any other single girl on holiday would relish being chatted up by someone with half his attraction and sheer charisma. Why can’t I just…go with the flow?

“My second name is Stephanos,” he said. “Andreas Stephanos.”

His Forbidden Bride

Sara Craven

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Endpage

CHAPTER ONE

‘I’VE been giving matters a lot of thought,’ said George. ‘And I feel very strongly that you and I should get married.’

Zoe Lambert, who had just taken a mouthful of Chardonnay, managed by a superhuman effort not to choke to death.

If anyone else had made a similarly preposterous suggestion, she would have laughed them to scorn. But she couldn’t do that to George, sitting across from her at the table in the wine bar, with his untidy brown hair, and crooked tie.

George was her friend, one of the few she had at Bishop Cross Sixth Form College, where he was a member of the maths department, and after the weekly staff meeting they usually went for a drink together, but they’d never had a date as such. Nor was there the slightest spark of attraction between them. And even if she’d ever been marginally tempted to fall in love with George, the thought of his mother would have stopped her dead in her tracks.

George’s mother was a frail widow with a tungsten core, and she took no prisoners in her bid to keep her son safely at home with her, an obedient and enslaved bachelor. None of George’s sporadic romantic interests had ever thrived under the frost of her pale blue gaze, and she planned that none of them ever would. And those steely eyes would narrow to slits if she found out that her only son was in the town’s one and only wine bar with Zoe Lambert of all people, let alone proposing marriage.

She took a deep breath. ‘George,’ she said gently. ‘I don’t think…’

‘After all,’ George went on, unheedingly, warming to his theme. ‘You’re going to find things difficult now that you’re—alone. You were so brave all the time your mother was—ill. Now I’d like to look after you. I don’t want you to worry any more about anything.’

Except your mother poisoning my food, thought Zoe. Urged on, no doubt, by her best friend, my aunt Megan.

She winced inwardly as she recalled her aunt’s chilling demeanour at the funeral two weeks earlier. Megan Arnold had curtly accepted the commiserations from her late sister’s friends and neighbours, but had barely addressed a word to the niece who was now her only living relative.

Back at the cottage, after the service, she had refused all offers of food and drink, staring instead, in silent and narrow-eyed appraisal, at her surroundings.

‘Never mind, dearie,’ Mrs Gibb, who’d cleaned the cottage each week for Gina Lambert over the past ten years, whispered consolingly as she went past a mute and bewildered Zoe with a plate of sandwiches. ‘Grief takes some people in funny ways.’

But Zoe could see no evidence of grieving in her aunt’s stony face. Megan Arnold had stayed aloof during her younger sister’s months of illness. And if she was mourning now, she kept it well hidden. And there’d been no sign of her since the funeral either.

Zoe shook away these unpleasant and uneasy reflections, pushed a strand of dark blonde hair back from her face, and looked steadily at her unexpected suitor with clear grey eyes.

‘Are you saying that you’ve fallen in love with me, George?’ she asked mildly.

‘Well—I’m very fond of you, Zoe.’ He played with the stem of his glass, looking embarrassed. ‘And I have the most tremendous respect for you. You must know that. But I don’t think I’m the type for this head-over-heels stuff,’ he added awkwardly. ‘And I suspect you aren’t either. I really think it’s more important for people to be—friends.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can understand that. And you could be right.’ But not about me, she thought. Oh, please God, not about me.

She swallowed. ‘George, you’re terribly kind, and I do appreciate everything you’ve said, but I’m not going to make any immediate decisions about the future.’ She paused. ‘Losing my mother is still too raw, and I’m not seeing things altogether clearly yet.’

‘Well, I realise that, naturally.’ He reached across the table and patted her hand, swiftly and nervously. ‘And I won’t put any pressure on you, I swear. I’d just like you to—think about what I’ve said. Will you do that?’

‘Yes,’ Zoe told him, mentally crossing her fingers. ‘Of course I will.’

My first marriage proposal, she thought. How utterly bizarre.

He was silent for a moment. ‘If you did think you could marry me at some point,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I wouldn’t want to—rush you into anything, afterwards. I’d be prepared to wait—as long as you wanted.’

Zoe bit her lip as she looked back at the kind, anxious face. ‘George,’ she said. ‘I truly do not deserve you.’ And meant it.

It was hard to think about anything else as the local bus jolted its way through the lanes half an hour later, but she knew she had to try. Because George’s extraordinary proposal was only one of her current problems. And possibly the least pressing, bless him.

She had come to Astencombe to share her mother’s cottage three years ago when she had left university, and not long before Gina Lambert’s condition had first been diagnosed. But the property was only rented. It had belonged to Aunt Megan’s late husband, Peter Arnold, and he had agreed the original lease with his sister-in-law.

Zoe suspected this had always been a bone of contention with his wife, and, since his death, Aunt Megan had raised the rent slowly and steadily each year, although as a wealthy and childless widow she could not possibly need the money. She had also insisted that maintenance and repairs were the responsibility of her tenant.

Gina, also a widow, had eked out her husband’s meagre company pension with her skill as a landscape artist, but it had been a precarious living, and Zoe’s salary as an English teacher had been a welcome addition to the household budget. Particularly when the time had come when her mother had no longer been able to paint.

Finding a local job and living at home was not what she’d planned to do originally, of course. At university she’d met Mick, who’d intended, after graduation, to travel round the world for a year, taking what work he could find to earn his living on the way. He’d wanted her to go with him, and she’d been sorely tempted.

In fact, she’d gone home for the weekend to tell her mother what she meant to do, but had arrived to find Gina oddly quiet, and frail-looking. She had stoutly denied there was anything the matter, but Zoe had soon learned through the village grapevine that Aunt Megan had made one of her periodic descents the day before, and, as Adele who lived next door had put it, ‘There’d been words.’

Zoe had spent the whole weekend trying to tell her mother about her plans, and failing. Instead, obeying an instinct she barely understood, she had found herself informing Mick that she’d changed her mind about the trip. She’d hoped against hope that he loved her enough not to want to go without her, but she’d been rudely disappointed.

Mick, she realised with shocked hurt, was not about to change his mind—just his choice of travelling companion. And the love she’d blithely thought was hers for ever had proved a very transient affair instead. Within days she’d been comprehensively replaced in his bed and affections.

But it had taught her a valuable lesson about men, she thought wryly, and maybe it was better to be dumped in England than the middle of the Hindu Kush. Since Mick, she’d had no serious involvement with anyone. And now she’d been proposed to by George, who did not love her either. History, it seemed, was repeating itself.

If I’m not careful, I shall get a complex, she told herself.

Looking back, however, she had no regrets about sacrificing her independence. The job and the village might have their limitations, but she was so thankful that she’d been there for her mother through the initial tests, the hospital treatments, and subsequent brief remission. And through her mercifully short final illness. Even at the last Gina’s warmth and optimism had not deserted her, and Zoe had many memories to treasure in spite of her sadness.

But the fact remained that she’d reached the end of a chapter in her life. And she didn’t see the rest of her life being devoted to Bishops Cross college. She had the contents of the cottage, and a little money to come from her mother’s will as soon as it was proved. Maybe this was her chance to move on, and make a new life for herself.

One thing was certain. Aunt Megan would not be sorry to see the back of her.

How could two sisters be so totally unalike? she wondered sadly. True, her aunt was the elder by twelve years, but there had never seemed to be any sibling feeling between them.

‘I think Megan liked being an only child,’ Gina had explained ruefully when Zoe had questioned her once on the subject. ‘And my arrival was a total embarrassment to her.’

‘Did she never want a baby of her own?’ Zoe asked.

Gina looked past her, her face oddly frozen. ‘At one time, perhaps,’ she said. ‘But it just—didn’t happen for her.’ She sighed briefly. ‘Poor Megan.’

Megan was taller, too, thinner and darker than her younger sister, with a face that seemed permanently set in lines of resentment. There was no glimpse in her of the underlying joy in living that had characterised Gina, underpinning the occasional moments when she’d seemed to withdraw into herself, trapped in some private and painful world. Her ‘quiet times’ as she’d called them wryly.

Zoe had wondered sometimes what could possibly prompt them. She could only assume it was memories of her father. Maybe their quiet, apparently uneventful marriage had concealed an intense passion that her mother still mourned.

Her aunt was a very different matter. On the face of it Mrs Arnold seemed to have so much to content her. She’d never had to worry about money in her life, and her husband had been a kind, ebullient man, immensely popular in the locality. The attraction of opposites, Zoe had often thought. There could be no other explanation for such an ill-assorted pairing.

In addition, her aunt had a lovely Georgian house, enclosed behind a high brick wall, from which she emerged mainly to preside over most of the organisations in the area, in a one-woman reign of terror. But not even that seemed to have the power to make her happy.

And her dislike of her younger sister seemed to have passed seamlessly to her only niece. Even the fact that Megan Arnold had once taught English herself had failed to provide a common meeting ground. Zoe couldn’t pretend to be happy about her aunt’s determined hostility, but she’d learned to offer politeness when they met, and expect nothing in return.

She got off the bus at the crossroads, and began to walk down the lane. It was still a warm, windy day, bringing wafts of hedgerow scents, and Zoe gave a brief sigh of satisfaction as she breathed the fragrant air. Public examinations always made this a difficult term at college, and she might unwind by doing a little work in the garden tonight, she thought as she turned the slight corner that led to home. She’d always found weeding and dead-heading therapeutic, so while she worked she could consider the future as well. Review her options.

And stopped dead, her brows snapping together, as she saw that the front garden of the cottage had acquired a new and unexpected addition. A ‘For Sale’ board, she registered with a kind of helpless disbelief, with the logo of a local estate agency, had been erected just inside the white picket fence.

It must be a mistake, she thought, covering the last few yards at a run. I’ll have to call them.

As she reached the gate, Adele appeared in the neighbouring doorway, her youngest child, limpet-like, on her hip.

‘Did you know about that?’ she inquired, nodding at the sign. And as Zoe speechlessly shook her head she sighed. ‘I thought not. When they came this morning, I queried it, but they said they were acting on the owner’s instructions.’ She jerked her head towards the cottage. ‘She’s there now, waiting for you. Just opened the door with her own key and marched in.’

‘Oh, hell,’ Zoe muttered. ‘That’s all I need.’

She pulled a ferocious face as she lifted the latch and let herself into the cottage.

She found Megan Arnold in the sitting room, standing in front of the empty fireplace, staring fixedly at the picture that hung above the mantelpiece.

Zoe hesitated in the doorway, watching her, puzzled. It was an unusual painting, quite unlike Gina Lambert’s usual choice of subject. It seemed to be a Mediterranean scene—a short flight of white marble steps, scattered with the faded petals of some pink flower, flanked on one side by a plain white wall, and leading up to a terrace with a balustrade. And on the edge of the balustrade, against a background of vivid blue sky and azure sea, a large ornamental urn bright with pelargoniums in pink, crimson and white.

What made it all the more curious was that the Lamberts had always taken their holidays at home, usually in Cornwall, or the Yorkshire Dales. As far as Zoe was aware, the Mediterranean was an unknown quantity to her mother. And it was the only time she’d ever attempted such a subject.

Her aunt suddenly seemed to sense Zoe’s scrutiny, and turned, her face hard and oddly set.

‘So here you are.’ Her greeting was abrupt. ‘You’re very late.’

‘There was a staff meeting,’ Zoe returned with equal brevity. ‘You should have let me know you were coming, Aunt Megan.’ She paused. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘No, this isn’t a social call.’ The older woman seated herself in the high-backed armchair beside the empty fireplace.

My mother’s chair, Zoe thought with a pang, trying not to feel resentful. It was, after all, her aunt’s house, but it was small wonder there’d been friction in the past if she made a habit of walking in whenever the whim took her.

Megan Arnold was dressed as usual in a pleated navy skirt with a matching hand-knitted jacket over a tailored pale blue blouse, and her greying hair was drawn back from her thin face in a severe knot.

‘As you can see I’ve placed the house on the market,’ she went on. ‘I’ve instructed the agents to commence showing the property at once, so you’ll have to remove all this clutter.’ She waved a hand at the books and ornaments that filled the shelves on either side of the fireplace. Then paused. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d remove yourself, too, by the end of the month.’

Zoe gasped helplessly. ‘Just like that?’

‘What did you expect?’ Megan Arnold’s mouth was a hard line. ‘My husband allowed your mother to have this property for her lifetime only. The arrangement did not mention you. You surely weren’t expecting to stay on here,’ she added sharply.

‘I wasn’t expecting anything,’ Zoe said, with equal crispness. ‘But I did think I’d be allowed some kind of breathing space.’

‘I feel you’ve had plenty of time.’ The other woman was unmoved. ‘And in the eyes of the law, you’re merely squatting here.’ She paused. ‘You should have no difficulty in finding a bedsitting room in Bishops Cross itself. Somewhere convenient for your work.’

‘A bedsit would hardly be adequate,’ Zoe said, keeping tight hold on her control. George must have known about this, she thought with shock. His mother must have told him what her aunt was planning. Or he heard them talking one day at the house. And that’s why he asked me to marry him. Because he knew I was going to be virtually homeless almost at once.

She shivered. Oh, George, why didn’t you warn me instead of trying to play Sir Galahad? she thought desperately.

She drew a deep, steadying breath. Did her best to speak normally. ‘Not all the furniture came with the cottage. Some of it belonged to Mother, and I’ll want to take it with me, as well as her books and pictures.’

She saw Megan Arnold’s gaze go back to the painting above the mantelpiece, and decided, however belatedly, to try an overture. To heal a breach that had never been of her making. ‘Maybe you’d like to have one of them yourself, as a keepsake,’ she suggested. ‘That one, perhaps.’

Her aunt almost recoiled. ‘Wretched daub.’ Her voice shook. ‘I wouldn’t have it in the house.’

Zoe stared at her, appalled at the anger, the bitterness in her tone. She said slowly, ‘Aunt Megan—why—why do you hate her so much?’

‘What are you talking about? I—hate Gina—the perfect sister?’ Her sudden laugh was shrill. ‘What nonsense. No one was allowed to hate her. Not ever. Whatever she did, however great the sin, she was loved and forgiven always. By everyone.’

‘She’s dead, Aunt Megan.’ Against her will, Zoe’s voice broke. ‘If she ever hurt you, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. And, anyway, she can’t do so again.’

‘You’re wrong.’ Mrs Arnold lifted her chin coldly. ‘She never had the power to affect me in any way. Because I always saw her for what she was. That innocent, butter-wouldn’t-melt façade never fooled me for a minute. And how right I was.’

She stopped abruptly. ‘But that’s all in the past, and the future is what matters. Selling this cottage for a start.’ She stood up. ‘I suggest you hire a skip for all this rubbish—or take it to a car-boot sale. Whatever you decide, I want it cleared before the first viewers arrive. Starting with this.’

She reached up and lugged the Mediterranean painting off its hook, tossing it contemptuously down onto the rug in front of the hearth. There was an ominous cracking sound.

‘The frame,’ Zoe whispered. She went down on one knee, almost protectively. ‘You’ve broken it.’ She looked up, shaking her head. ‘How could you?’

Her aunt shrugged, a touch defensively. ‘It was loose anyway. Cheap wood, and poorly made.’

‘Whatever.’ Zoe was almost choking. ‘You had no right—no right to touch it.’

‘This is my property. I shall do what I wish.’ Her aunt reached for her bag. ‘And I want the rest removed, and all the holes in the plaster made good,’ she added. ‘I shall be back at the end of the week to make sure my instructions are being followed. Or I shall arrange a house clearance myself.’

She swept out, and a moment later Zoe, still kneeling on the rug, heard the front door slam.

To be followed almost immediately by the back door opening, and Adele calling to her.

‘Jeff’s looking after the kids,’ she announced as she came in. ‘I saw Madam leaving, and came to make sure you’re all right.’

Zoe shook her head. ‘I feel as if I’ve been hit by a train,’ she admitted. She swallowed. ‘God, she was vile. I—I can’t believe it.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Adele. She paused. ‘What happened to the picture?’

‘She threw it on the floor. It was completely crazy. I mean, I don’t think it’s necessarily the best thing my mother ever did, and it spent most of its life up in the attic until she moved here, but…’ She paused, lost for words.

‘Well, I’ve always liked it,’ Adele said. ‘Greece, isn’t it? My sister gets concessionary rates, so we went to Crete last year, and Corfu the year before.’

Zoe shrugged. ‘It’s somewhere in that region, I guess.’ She gave it a doubtful look, then got to her feet, holding the damaged frame carefully, and placed the picture on the sofa. ‘Only we’ve never been there. My father didn’t like very hot weather.’

‘Well, perhaps she copied a postcard or something that someone sent her,’ Adele suggested as she filled the kettle in the kitchen.

‘Maybe.’ Zoe frowned. ‘It was one of those things I always meant to ask about, but never did.’

‘So, when are you being evicted?’ Adele asked as they sat at the kitchen table, drinking their tea.

‘I have to be out by the end of the month,’ Zoe admitted. ‘And she means it.’

‘Hmm.’ Adele was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Do you think she really is crazy?’

‘Not certifiably,’ Zoe said wryly. ‘Just totally irrational where my mother is concerned.’

‘Well, maybe that’s not entirely her fault,’ Adele said meditatively. ‘My gran remembers her as a child, and she said she was a nice-looking kid, and the apple of her parents’ eye. Then your sister came along, as an afterthought, and immediately she was the favourite. And “the pretty one”, too.’

She shrugged. ‘That can’t have been very nice. And not easy for any kid to handle. So, maybe it’s just common or garden jealousy.’

‘From Queen of the Castle to the Queen in Snow White?’ Zoe pondered. ‘Well, you could be right, but I have the feeling there’s more to it than that.’

‘And it won’t help that you’re the image of your mum at the same age.’ Adele poured more tea into her mug. ‘Though they weren’t always bad friends—according to Gran, anyway,’ she added thoughtfully. ‘There was a time when they did things together—even went away on holiday. Although even then your aunt behaved more as if she was her mother than her sister by all accounts.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Maybe that’s what caused the trouble.’

She paused. ‘So what are you going to do? How are you going to manage, if she’s turning you out?’

Zoe grimaced. ‘I’m going to have to find a flat—unfurnished.’

‘Or even a small house. You’ll miss the garden.’

‘Yes.’ Zoe’s lip quivered suddenly. ‘Among so many other things.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘Maybe Aunt Megan’s doing me a favour. I’d just been thinking that my life could do with a whole new direction. This could be exactly the impetus I need. I might even move right away from here.’

‘Some place where the wicked Queen can’t barge in, using her own key,’ Adele agreed. ‘Although I’d miss you.’

‘Well, I won’t be going immediately.’ Zoe wrinkled her nose. ‘My contract stipulates one full term’s notice. But I can be looking—and planning.’

‘You don’t think some prince on a white horse is going to gallop up and rescue you?’ Adele asked, deadpan.

One already tried, thought Zoe, but he drives a Metro, and always stays inside the speed limit. And, anyway, I’m not sure who’d be rescuing whom…

‘Not in Bishops Cross,’ she returned, also straight-faced. ‘White horses can’t cope with the one-way traffic system.’

She finished her tea, and put the mug in the sink. ‘I’d better arrange to have my mother’s things taken out and stored in the short term,’ she mused aloud. ‘Aunt Megan mentioned a skip,’ she added with a touch of grimness. ‘And I’d put nothing past her.’

‘Not after that picture,’ said Adele. ‘Pity about that. Nice and bright, I always thought.’

‘It’s not terminally damaged—just needs a new frame. I’ll take it in with me tomorrow.’

‘It’ll be awkward on the bus. And there’s a framing shop a couple of doors from where Jeff works. Why don’t I ask him to drop it off for you on his way to work? Then you can pop round in your lunch break and choose another frame. Just tie a bit of paper and string round it, and I’ll take it with me now.’