The Mirror Bride

“And who,” Drake asked softly, “is Simon?” About the Author Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE Copyright

“And who,” Drake asked softly, “is Simon?”

Olivia damped down incipient hysteria. “Simon is your son.”

Astonishment glittered in the cold eyes before being banished so completely that Olivia wondered whether she had seen alright. Oh, he was a brilliant actor! If she didn’t know better, she thought bitterly, she’d believe he hadn’t known of the child he’d fathered the year she was seventeen.

Olivia Nicholls and the two half sisters, Anet and Jan Carruthers, are all born survivors—but, so far, unlucky in love. Things change, however, when an eighteenth-century miniature portrait of a beautiful and mysterious young woman passes into each of their hands. It may be coincidence, it may not! The portrait is meant to be a charm to bring love to the lives of those who possess it—but there is one condition:

I found Love as you’ll find yours,

and trust it will be true,

This Portrait is a fated charm

To speed your Love to you.

But if you be not Fortune’s Fool

Once your heart’s Desire is nigh,

Pass on my likeness as Cupid’s Tool

Or your Love will fade and die.

The Mirror Bride is Olivia’s story and the first title in Robyn Donald’s captivating new trilogy, THE MARRIAGE MAKER. Look out next month for Anet’s story in Meant to Marry, and in April look for Jan’s story, The Final Proposal, which concludes the trilogy and solves the mystery of the haunting image in the portrait.

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The Mirror Bride

Robin Donald

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Frances Whitehead. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

SHE was very young.

Olivia didn’t know her, but the beautiful face was familiar. Something, she thought hazily, about the surprisingly square jaw and the determined mouth—a mouth now set in a straight line.

‘Write to him,’ the unknown woman directed, the ribbons and feathers in her headdress swaying as she gave a swift, decisive nod of her elaborately styled head. Bright blue eyes commanded Olivia’s attention. ‘It is the only thing you can do now. You must write.’

‘I can’t!’

The sound of her own voice woke her. Blearily she lifted her head to gaze with slowly clearing vision around the small, shabby room. Of course no lovely young woman stood there, dressed in the frills and lace and silk of the middle of the eighteenth century. This room was definitely twentieth-century, from the faded, bargain-basement vinyl on the floor to the garishly painted wooden cupboards above and below the sink bench.

While sitting at the battered Formica table and poring over calculations that had kept her awake for nights, Olivia had gone to sleep and dreamed—a remarkably vivid dream, but in reality just a dramatisation of the decision she had already made, a decision she didn’t want to face.

So her subconscious had made her acknowledge it.

Yawning, she pushed a lock of honey-blonde hair back from her face. Her capable, long-fingered hand came down abruptly on the sheet of paper she had covered with figures, then curled, strangely vulnerable. Head bowed, she joined her hands loosely, looking at nothing in particular with great, lacklustre topaz eyes. Almost immediately she firmed her soft mouth, pulled a cheap, thin writing pad towards her and began to write, only to stop after two sentences.

‘Oh, that won’t do; it’s too stupid,’ she muttered, glowering at the stamp she’d already stuck onto the envelope—a tiny rock wren delicately depicted in shades of buff and black and gold.

Her eyes lingered on the words along the bottom: ‘New Zealand’, it said. ‘45c’.

Forty-five cents she couldn’t really afford.

Seed money, she thought, grimacing before she returned to writing the most difficult letter of her life.

Several times she stopped to frown more deeply, chewing on the end of the ballpoint pen and staring blindly through the window. On the other side of the busy street a row of run-down shops was topped by flats like the one she lived in, their windows reflecting blankly back at her.

There was no inspiration to be gained there. Or anywhere. After almost an hour spent crossing out and rewriting, she at last decided on the bare minimum.

Dear Drake,

I need to see you. There is something you should know.

And she signed it his faithfully, Olivia Nicholls.

It sounded faintly sinister, but that couldn’t be helped. Explicitness was impossible because there was always the chance of someone else—a wife, for example—seeing the letter.

Quickly, because although she’d spent days agonising over this she still wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing, Olivia sealed the envelope, then ran with it down the rickety outside stairs to the grimy street below. She’d give him a fortnight—no more and no less. If he hadn’t answered by then, she’d have to step up her campaign.

Auckland at the fag-end of autumn was depressing. Autumn meant that winter was not far behind, and winter meant earache and the dreaded Auckland cough, which in Simon invariably turned to bronchitis. Winter meant nightmares about trying to dry and air clothes. It meant expensive vegetables and the pain of seeing Simon go off to school in inadequate clothing.

For the last three years she and Simon had lived in Auckland, and this third winter was promising to be worse than the two previous ones. Only five days ago she’d lost her job as an outworker sewing tracksuits for a factory. It hadn’t brought in much, but the small amount had supplemented the unemployment benefit which was now all they had to live on. Saving money would be impossible. And there was the crushing debt she owed Brett, her next-door neighbour...

And, to cap off the series of disasters, she’d developed a rotten head cold.

She stopped outside the letterbox, looking down at the address on the envelope. You don’t have to send it, a voice reminded her—a cautious, cowardly voice. You can struggle on—nobody dies of starvation in New Zealand.

Her eyes lingered on her hands. Once they had been pampered and smooth, the fingernails polished; now the fingernails were cut straight across and the skin was slightly chapped, marred by calluses from the constant use of scissors. Had she seen them, her mother would have had a fit. Elizabeth Harley had considered it part of her purpose in life to be elegant and well-groomed. She would have thought that Olivia was letting down the side.

But then, Elizabeth had been the indulged only daughter of a rich man, whereas Olivia had no money at all.

A shiver ran down her spine. What she was doing was dangerous, but there was no alternative. Defiantly she pushed the letter into the slot.

Trying to banish the matter to the back of her mind-it was done, she had made the decision and now she’d just have to wait—she set off to pick Simon up from school.

As she came down the street he burst through the gateway like a prisoner released from long incarceration, a too-thin six-year-old in the throes of a growing spurt. Olivia’s eyes lingered on his bony wrists. He’d already outgrown the clothes she’d made for him at the beginning of summer, and although she had shopped carefully the year before at the winter sales, making sure that the two jerseys and the jacket were a size larger than she’d thought necessary, she suspected he was almost too big for them too.

If that letter worked, she thought wearily, she’d no longer need to worry about money to buy the shoes they both needed. If it didn’t work—well, she’d go without, and his would be bought from the op-shop.

The letter had to work.

Banishing the odd little clutch of fear in her stomach, she smiled down at Simon.

‘Hello, Liv,’ he said, incandescently delighted at being freed from school.

‘Hello, young Simon,’ she said, speaking clearly. ‘Have you had a good day?’

A year ago he used to hold her hand down the street, but she knew better than to hold it out now.

‘Mrs Adams sent a note home.’ Although belligerence darkened eyes the same colour and shape as hers, she caught a glimmer of wistfulness before he looked away.

‘Oh, Simon!’

‘I haven’t been naughty,’ he shouted, kicking a stone. ‘It’s about a trip to the beach. I said I couldn’t go but she said I had to take it home anyway.’

Both of them hated those notes—Olivia because it was so rarely that she could afford the promised trip, and Simon because his absence made him an outcast amongst his peers. Even in this poor area most families were better off then they were.

Until she’d begun saving for his ear operation she had always managed to find the money to send him away with the rest of his class. She had explained why he could no longer go, but when you weren’t much over six, and all your friends teased you about staying behind, it was difficult to comprehend the need to save money. Especially as he didn’t really understand that he was going deaf.

‘Hand it over,’ she said.

He did, but before she had a chance to read it asked, ‘Liv, why do we speak different?’

‘Differently,’ she said automatically. ‘From whom?’

‘Well, everyone. I had a fight with Sean Singleton today ’cause he said I was up myself, talking like the Poms. Are we Poms?’

‘No, we’re not English. You speak the way you do because that’s how I talk.’ She didn’t really know what to say. Although New Zealand believed itself to be a classless society, it was untrue. End up with no money and you were automatically relegated to the bottom of the heap. And if you lived on a benefit with a child and no husband you became a solo mother, the subject of smug, middle-class disdain.

Not looking at her, he mumbled, ‘Sean said I was a dummy.’

‘You know that’s not true. As soon as we get your ears fixed you’ll show Sean Singleton that you’re every bit as clever as he is. Until then, darling, try not to fight.’ A glance at his mutinous expression made her ask with a sinking heart, ‘What else happened?’

Children could be so cruel—little animals picking mercilessly on anyone who was the slightest bit different. A sunny-tempered child, Simon had adored school when he first started, but it was an effort to get him there now. His teacher did what she could, but she had a big class and the school was under-resourced.

‘Nothing,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t care about Sean Singleton. I can beat him any time. Aren’t you going to read the note?’

The school was planning an overnight trip to the marine reserve at Leigh, sixty miles up the coast. Unless Drake accepted the responsibility he’d avoided these last seven years there was no way she could take money out of her bank account for a school trip. Not now, when she had no job and little hope of getting one.

Unfortunately she couldn’t tell Simon that; if Drake refused to acknowledge his obligations Simon would be all the more shattered for having had the prospect held out to him.

Olivia slipped the note into her pocket.

Simon’s eyes followed her hand. Angrily he said, ‘I knew it would cost too much.’ He hid his disappointment too well for a child of six. ‘We better go home and fold some papers.’

They spent some hours each week folding a variety of advertising pamphlets which he and Olivia delivered around the district. The money it earned used to pay for the meagre luxuries they couldn’t have afforded otherwise, but from now on it would all go towards necessities.

Olivia’s whole being rose up in hot resentment. It simply wasn’t fair that Simon should be denied most of the things his classmates took for granted, that he should live in a grotty first-floor flat with no garden except an unmown stretch of grass cluttered by a clothesline, three car bodies and a lemon tree that struggled to survive from year to year. It wasn’t fair that he had to wear clothes she made from cheap remnants or hunted for in opportunity shops and end-of-season sales. It wasn’t fair that his life should be so circumscribed, that he should be unable to take advantage of the many things New Zealand’s biggest city offered.

But then, she’d learned that nothing in this life was fair. However, she thought, firming her mouth, she had taken the first steps to redress the balance for Simon.

Back home, she sent him to put his bag away while she drew a cup of hot water from the tap and squeezed a lemon into it. Sitting down to drink it, she watched him make a sandwich, and winced at the amount of peanut butter he spread on it. She bit back the unguarded protest. Simon wasn’t greedy.

She wanted to take him places, to buy him books and toys to keep his active mind stretched—she yearned to give him some sort of future. Instead, he took their poverty for granted. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she’d been able to claim the child benefits the country provided, but she didn’t dare.

For Simon she would do anything, even sink her pride, because he was all she had.

Olivia pulled a sheet of newspaper across the table. It was about six weeks old, and she’d been lucky to get it. Brett always handed on his newspapers to her, but he very rarely bought them, preferring to get the news from the radio.

Her eyes were drawn to a photograph. Although she had spent too much of the last three days looking at it, her vision wavered, a sudden rush of blood to her head making her close her eyes.

Drake Arundell. A man she had known all her life, yet this man was a stranger.

Blinking swiftly, she forced her eyes open. Her gaze lingered on the hard face, its blunt contours set in an expression of assured authority. The seven years since she had seen him had added an air of maturity to his strong features. Power radiated from him, a power different from the untrammelled sexuality that had cut such a swathe through Springs Flat while he was growing up. Whatever had happened in those seven years had modified and strengthened the young man’s arrogance into a disciplined self-reliance.

The boldly cut mouth was now controlled into a straight, uncompromising line, while level, enigmatic eyes surveyed the world from beneath black brows that winged up at the outer corners to give a saturnine expression to his face.

Those eyes were grey-green; when he was angry the green predominated, so that they became piercing slivers of crystal. Heavy-lidded, with thick, curly black lashes that didn’t mitigate their inherent aloofness, they were astonishing eyes.

A formidable man, Drake Arundell, infinitely tougher and much more dangerous than the reckless, charismatic young man so vividly delineated in her memory. Just over six feet tall, he was in perfect proportion to his height, with a well-made smoothness of movement that satisfied the eye. He’d be—she made some quick calculations—about thirty-two, eight years older than she was.

Of course he’d be married by now. Men with his particular brand of virile masculine magnetism didn’t stay single. And when they flashed across the motor racing scene like a singularly blatant comet, attracting the attention of film stars and models and any number of beautiful women, marriage usually followed. There were probably children too.

At seventeen, Olivia had responded to his heady, aggressive confidence as helplessly as most other women. More fool her, she thought sardonically.

‘Have you got a headache?’ Simon enquired around his peanut butter sandwich. ‘You look funny.’

‘Darling, swallow everything in your mouth before you talk. No, I’m fine.’

He came over to stand beside her. ‘Who’s that?’

‘A man I used to know.’ Had known all her life. ‘He owns hotels and boats and things.’ Her voice sounded quite normal.

Drake Arundell, the news item said, had announced the opening of the Tero ski-field. Three years ago Arundell had returned to New Zealand to buy the almost moribund FunNZ empire, and with a combination of shrewd, resourceful financial ability and an intuitive understanding of the tourism business had not only brought it back to life but expanded, without setting the powerful conservation movement at his throat.

The item went on to mention his spectacular reign as a Formula One driver, when he had been prevented from winning the Drivers’ Championship only by injury. Drake Arundell had dropped out for five years before emerging to carve out an equally fast-moving career in the business world, being one of the first far-sighted enough to see the opportunity for the now world-famous eco-tours.

An unsteady wind blustered against the windows, streaking them with rain. A truck took its time about going by, changing gear with a jarring thump that rattled through Olivia’s head. Shivering, she rubbed her arms to stir the circulation.

Her eyes returned to the photograph. The last time she’d seen him Drake Arundell had been furious, his striking face cold and unyielding, his eyes narrowed and savage beneath their half-closed lids.

It had happened so abruptly; they’d spent the summer playing a game of flirtation and retreat, and she’d loved it—enjoying the power of her burgeoning femininity enormously, discovering that life could be a fascinating, exhilarating feast of the senses.

Not once had he touched her, but she’d known that he watched her, that there was a different gleam in his eyes when he looked at her, an exciting intensity that wasn’t there when he spoke to the other girls who had spent the summer trying to attract his attention.

And then one night after a barbecue at her parents’ place he’d kissed her. Lost in the wonder of his kiss, she’d pressed against him. In three days’ time he was going back to the Formula One circuits of the world, so this would be her only chance to see what it was like in his arms.

The gentle kiss had suddenly turned feral; she had gasped at the quick violence of his mouth, the way he’d held her against his hard, taut body, but she hadn’t struggled. Although it frightened her she’d wanted that fierce, heated tension—had wanted it all summer.

But the kiss had ended abruptly. Strong hands pushed her away by the shoulders, leaving her aching with frustration.

‘Don’t offer more than you want to give,’ he’d said in a thick, harsh voice. ‘You’ve had your fun teasing me, but that’s because I’ve let you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that another man would be so easily kept at bay.’

And he had looked at her as though he’d despised her.

It had happened a long time ago, but a long-forgotten fear sent a chill slithering the length of her backbone. Drake Arundell was not a man to be threatened or intimidated.

Unconsciously she angled her chin at the photograph. Why should he have his photograph in the newspapers as an example to other New Zealanders when she and Simon struggled for every cent they had?

Swallowing the last remnant of his sandwich, Simon washed his knife and plate and dried them carefully. ‘I’ve got a new book,’ he prompted as he put the dishes away.

Olivia screwed up the sheet of newspaper and fired it into the rubbish bin. ‘We’d better fold these papers first,’ she said. ‘Then you can read to me.’ Reading time was the one part of the evening that was sacrosanct.

He glanced out of the window and pulled a face. ‘We’ll get wet.’

The rain had settled in now, and was beating with miserable determination against the panes.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I don’t have to do any more sewing, remember, so I can deliver them tomorrow morning.’

A fortnight later she’d almost accepted that Drake was going to ignore her letter, but after tidying the flat and exorcising some of her anger and frustration by viciously scrubbing the floor, she groaned when she looked at the battered alarm clock on the windowsill above the sink. Still another hour until the mail arrived.

‘I’ll go to the supermarket now, before it rains. And if a letter isn’t waiting for me when I get back,’ she said, baring her teeth at her reflection in the crazed mirror in the bathroom, ‘somehow I’ll come up with a way of making Drake Arundell’s life an absolute hell!’

An hour later she arrived back home feeling completely wretched. Instead of hanging off until the afternoon as it was supposed to do, the rain had dumped icy gallons on her. By the time she made it back to the flat she was coughing, and although she’d fought her head cold with most of the lemons from the spindly tree in the communal back yard she had a horrible suspicion that the infection was sinking to her chest.

Money for cough syrup would be at the expense of food, but, she decided as she hung her drenched umbrella and skirt above the bath, she would deal with that worry when it arrived—if it did. After rubbing her hair reasonably dry with a threadbare towel, she changed into a pair of old pink sweatsuit trousers and sat down with a mug of hot lemon juice and water, listening to her breath rattle in her chest.

If something happened to her, Simon would be completely alone.

‘The mail!’ she said, suddenly leaping to her feet. A hectic dash down to the letterbox through the rain revealed two circulars and the power bill.

‘Right,’ she said through gritted teeth as she pounded back up the unprotected steps, the first cold southerly of the year tearing at her clothes and hair. ‘Tonight I’m going to write you another letter, Drake Arundell, and it’s going to be a lot harder to ignore. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll—I’ll camp in your office until you agree to see me.’

Sudden, shameful tears clogged her throat; she swallowed and stubbornly set her mind to working out ways to apply pressure to a man who was determined to ignore her.

On her way to collect Simon from school she went into the corner dairy and again looked up under the As in the telephone directory. There was only one Arundell there—a D. Unless he was unlisted, it had to be Drake. When she had first seen his address she had been filled with a bitter, unpleasant resentment, because Judge’s Bay was a very up-market suburb on the other side of Auckland.

Surreptitiously she compared the address with the copy she had made before. No, she hadn’t made a mistake. Her mouth compressed into a straight line as she flipped through the pages to the Fs.

Drake Arundell wasn’t going to get away with it. This time she’d write to him at both his address and the FunNZ one.

On her way out she stopped at the rack of brightly coloured magazines by the counter. TV STAR’S LOVE CHILD REVEALED, the headlines on one screamed. ‘I AM DEVASTATED BY HIS INFIDELITY,’ WEEPS MODEL bellowed another, beneath a picture of a woman who looked as though she wouldn’t be able to pronounce any word of more than two syllables.

‘Do you want one, miss?’ the sari-clad owner said, stopping in her task of ripping the covers off several magazines.

Olivia smiled and shook her head, her eyes lingering on the gaudy covers. ‘Are they very popular?’

‘Oh, yes. These two—’ she indicated the biggest headlines ‘—are running neck and neck.’

‘You’d wonder at people who’d discuss their most intimate concerns with a journalist.’

The owner shrugged. ‘I believe they pay well.’

And if you were desperate—as desperate, say, as she was, Olivia thought—then that money might be a good reason for baring your soul to the public of New Zealand.

Impulsively she asked, ‘Could I have a cover?’