A Convenient Wedding

He hated being cornered. He hated the way she’d rescued him by flaunting her wealth. He almost hated her.

“I’ve had more ardent proposals,” she observed wryly.

“You offered me a business deal and that’s what I’m accepting. After our wedding you’ll take possession of your inheritance, and my estate will get your dowry. And then you’ll go back to your real life in New York.”

“Eventually. It wouldn’t do your dignity much good if I rushed away next morning, would it? Besides I’ll need to be here to oversee the final paperwork.”

“And then you’ll leave?”

“If you still want me to. You might have changed your mind….”

It’s the countdown to the Big Day: the guests are invited, the flowers are arranged, the dress is ready and the sparks between the lucky couple are sizzling hot…. Only, our blushing bride and groom-to-be have yet to become “engaged” in the bedroom!

Is it choice or circumstance keeping their passions in check? Read our brand-new miniseries WHITE WEDDINGS to find out why a very modern bride wears white on her wedding day!

A Convenient Wedding

Lucy Gordon

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

MERYL WINTERS had driven cheerfully and confidently in many of the world’s great cities, but New York was her home town, and something in its air gave her driving an extra edge.

As soon as the banks were open she swung her cheeky red sports car out of Broadway, into Wall Street, screeched to a halt, ignoring a ‘No Parking’ sign, and jumped out. Tossing the keys to the doorman, she swept on into the head office of the Lomax Grierson Bank. The doorman had just scrambled into the car when a traffic cop approached with an expression of doom. ‘You can’t book this car,’ the doorman protested, aghast. ‘It belongs to Miss Winters.’

The traffic cop hastily backed off.

Inside the bank Meryl strode on through the marble halls, knowing that all eyes were on her. She’d been an object of curiosity since she was fifteen and her father’s death had left her fabulously wealthy. Since growing up she’d also attracted attention because she was five feet ten inches in stockings, with a pencil-slim frame that any model would have killed for, racehorse legs, huge green eyes and long black hair. Heads turned. Male heads. That was fine by her. Masculine admiration was one of the great pleasures of her life.

But right now nothing was further from her thoughts. She was in a scorching temper and someone was going to die. Looking neither to the right or the left, she continued on up as far as the Chairman’s office.

The secretary was new, and didn’t recognise her, but she was instinctively in awe of this blazingly self-confident young woman. ‘Er—Mr Rivers is very busy,’ she ventured. ‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘Why should I need an appointment?’ Meryl asked in surprise. ‘He’s my godfather, as well as my trustee. Besides—I have something to say to him.’

‘Yes, but you can’t—’ She found herself talking to empty air. Meryl didn’t recognise the word ‘can’t’.

She flung the door open and stopped on the threshold, surveying the man inside. ‘So there you are,’ she purred.

Lawrence Rivers, a large, greying man with a jowly face, rose from behind his desk and smiled with implacable geniality. ‘Meryl, my dear—what a delightful surprise.’

Meryl raised one elegant black eyebrow. ‘You’re surprised that your outrageous letter brought me here? I don’t think so. Larry, how often do I have to tell you not to interfere in my private affairs?’

‘And how often do I have to tell you that the disposal of a large sum of money isn’t your private affair?’ he retorted.

‘I’m twenty-four years old and—’

‘And until you’re twenty-seven I can prevent you tossing money away as though it was going out of fashion. Your father knew what he was doing when he made that will.’

‘Dad was under your influence or he wouldn’t have thought of it,’ she flung back.

‘True. Craddock Winters knew everything about oil wells and machinery, and nothing about anything else, including his daughter. You were headstrong at fifteen and you haven’t grown any better. When you tell me you want to waste ten million dollars on a man of no account like Benedict Steen I know I was right to protect you.’

‘Benedict is not a man of no account—’

‘Well, I know what I think of a man who spends his life making frocks,’ Larry Rivers declared complacently.

‘He does not “make frocks”,’ Meryl said indignantly. ‘He designs high fashion, and he needs a backer to put him at the very top of the tree. It wouldn’t be a waste of money; it would be an astute business investment.’

‘Ten million dollars on a dress shop?’ Larry demanded. ‘You call that an astute business investment?’

‘It’s not a dress shop. Benedict needs proper premises—’

‘Surely he already has somewhere?’

‘Yes, a back room down a side street,’ she replied. ‘I want to see him in a decent place, in central Manhattan, where he can show a big collection and attract international clients.’

‘Ten million dollars,’ Larry repeated slowly, trying to get through to her.

‘He needs to take the collection to Paris, Milan, London and New York,’ Meryl explained. ‘He needs staff. He needs to advertise in the top fashion magazines. It all costs money.’

‘Ten million dollars!’

Meryl shrugged. ‘I like doing things properly.’

‘And when would you get it back?’

‘Who cares about getting it back?’ Meryl asked expansively.

‘Aha! Now we have the truth. So much for an astute business investment!’

‘OK, it’ll be fun. What’s wrong with that? I can afford it, can’t I?’

‘You wouldn’t be able to afford it for long if I let you be manipulated by a plausible charmer like Benedict Steen. I can see why you’re crazy about him. He’s handsome—if you like those kind of flashy looks—’

Meryl breathed fire. ‘Larry, I’ve told you till I’m blue in the face—I am not in love with Benedict. And may I remind you that he has a wife?’

‘A wife he’s in the process of divorcing. I dread to awaken one morning and find your engagement announced in the New York Times.’

‘Well, if I married him—not that I want to—at least you’d have to hand over my money,’ Meryl pointed out. ‘In fact, you’ll have to do that whoever I marry.’

‘Do you have a bridegroom in mind?’

‘No, but anyone will do. Larry, I’m warning you, I want my money freed from your shackles. And if I don’t get it I swear I’ll marry the next bachelor I see. Do I make myself plain?’

‘Certainly my dear. Now let me make myself plain. You will not—repeat not get me to release ten million dollars for this harebrained scheme. And that’s my final word on the subject.’

Meryl looked at him with smouldering eyes for a long moment, but, reading no relenting in his face, snapped, ‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ before storming from the room.

If Larry had seen Meryl an hour later, standing half-dressed in Benedict’s work-room in a basement off Seventh Avenue, while he fitted a dress on her, addressing her occasionally as ‘darling’, he would have felt his worst fears confirmed. But Larry wasn’t a perceptive man, and he wouldn’t have noticed that Benedict touched her with the impersonal hands of a doctor, and his endearments were mechanical. He called every woman ‘darling’, especially the two devoted, elderly seam-stresses who made up his garments.

Meryl had been his goddess and benefactor since they were both fourteen, and had met at her expensive boarding school, where he’d been the gardener’s son, and she’d saved him from bullies. Thereafter she’d protected him and he’d run her forbidden errands into the nearby village.

‘You might as well talk to a brick wall,’ she sighed now. ‘I keep telling Larry that I’m not in love with you, so why won’t he believe me?’

‘Perhaps he’s heard of my lady-killing charm?’ Benedict suggested, turning her slightly. ‘Lift your arm, darling, I want to pin you just here.’

Meryl did so, smiling as she watched him work and saw the beautiful creation coming to life. She’d calmed down by now and her sense of fun, never far in abeyance, had returned.

Her mother had died when she was six, after which she’d been raised by her father, a self-made oilman, who’d prized her and showered her with indulgences while seldom having much time to spend with her. His death had left her fabulously rich but alone in every way that counted.

She knew the value of her looks and her wealth, but she might have grown up ignorant of all other values but for a naturally warm heart. She had a temper, but an impish sense of the absurd was constantly undermining it, and if she possessed one charm greater than her beauty it was her ability to laugh at herself. Nobody knew where that gift came from for her mother had been a gentle melancholy lady, and her father had been too busy making money to laugh. It had grown out of her own nature, and it occurred to nobody that it might be a defence. Why should the beautiful, privileged Meryl Winters need defences?

After her explosion at the bank she’d stormed off to see Benedict and they’d been wrathful together, until she’d repeated Larry’s remark about ‘making frocks’. Then Benedict had produced an explosion of his own, which had reduced Meryl to laughter.

Now she was asking teasingly, ‘How’s your lady-killing charm working on Amanda these days?’

‘Don’t mention that woman,’ Benedict snapped. ‘The worst mistake of my life was to marry her, and my best decision was to leave her.’

‘Says who? She threw you out. I heard your neighbours were kept awake by you banging on the door pleading to be let in.’

‘Lies. All lies.’

‘And don’t forget you called her from my apartment with your speech of reconciliation all worked out, and she slammed the phone down as soon as she heard your voice.’

‘Don’t upset me when I’m pinning,’ he begged. ‘There could be an accident.’

‘Not if you want my ten million dollars.’

‘Well, I’m not going to get it, am I?’ he reminded her peevishly. ‘Not until you’re twenty-seven. And not even then if Larry Rivers has anything to do with it.’

‘He won’t. Absolute control passes to me on my twenty-seventh birthday—unless I marry first. Then I get it on my wedding day. But I’m blowed if I’m waiting another three years. I’m fed up with Larry controlling my life.’

‘He hardly controls it. You’ve got that apartment on Central Park, another one in Los Angeles, you spend a fortune on clothes and cars, and he pays the bills without question.’

‘But if I want a lump sum he can block me. I’m going to change that, even if I have to do as I said and haul someone in off the street to marry them.’

‘You’ve got men pursuing you by the dozen. Won’t one of them do?’

‘No, it should be someone right outside my normal life, who’ll serve his purpose and then vanish.’

Benedict laughed. ‘Then why not advertise?’

The next moment he wished he’d held his tongue, for Meryl whirled around on him, her eyes shining. ‘Benedict, you’re a genius. That’s exactly what I’ll do.’

‘There’s something wrong with this whisky of yours,’ Ferdy Ashton observed, studying the bottom of his tumbler.

Jarvis, Lord Larne, raised his head from the desk where he was working. ‘Something wrong with it?’ he asked, frowning.

‘It keeps disappearing,’ Ferdy complained. ‘I could swear this glass was full a moment ago. So was the bottle. And look at them now.’

Jarvis’s rather stern face softened into a grin. ‘You’ve got my special vanishing whisky,’ he said. ‘It always seems to be around when you’re here.’

‘Well, it’s certainly vanished now.’

‘You know where it’s kept.’

Ferdy looked around him at the library of Larne Castle as though expecting a fresh bottle to present itself for inspection. Behind the thick brocade curtains a window rattled slightly in the night wind. It was tightly shut, or at least as tightly as could be managed, but there wasn’t a window in the building that didn’t let in a draught. The place was eight hundred years old and urgently in need of repairs to help it withstand the gales. Its inhabitants protected themselves as best they could with heavy drapes and roaring fires. There was one in the grate this minute, casting a red glow over the two Alsatians stretched out on a shabby rug before it.

Nearby sat their master, also shabby despite his ancient, aristocratic title. From his appearance Lord Larne might have been one of his own tenants. His dark brown hair looked as if it needed a cut, and its shaggy disarray somehow typified him. His corduroy trousers were old and darned, as though in continual use for hard country work, which, in fact, they were. The sweater Jarvis wore over them had started life in an expensive shop, but it too had come down in the world.

He was a tall, powerfully built man, massive about the shoulders but lean in the face, with dark eyes that easily grew fierce over a nose with a faint hook. That nose told the story of the awesome Larne temper that he let rip only occasionally, often at the stupidity of the world, especially when it threatened his ancient heritage.

But with anyone who had his affection the fierceness vanished, replaced by an all-forgiving tolerance. With Ferdy Ashton tolerance was often tinged with exasperation, but the fondness never wavered, which baffled observers.

Just what the serious, puritanical Jarvis saw in the irresponsible Ferdy nobody could fathom. He was as willowy slender as Jarvis was bull massive, his voice as light and reedy as Jarvis’s was deep and resonant. Their friendship had started at school and they were the same age, but Ferdy’s boyish looks and manner made him seem younger.

He was an artist, when he bothered to be anything. He had talent, which he was too lazy to use, treated life as a joke, never troubled about tomorrow, and would probably be shot by an enraged husband before he was fifty. No worries troubled his brain, and perhaps that was the secret of his attraction for the permanently troubled Jarvis.

‘Not a drop of whisky in the place,’ he mourned now. ‘You’re a hard man, Jarvis Larne.’

‘I’m a poor one; I know that.’

A young woman with handsome features and an air of disapproval spoke from the library steps. ‘You’d be less poor if you didn’t let spongers soak up your whisky and live rent-free in your cottages.’

Ferdy surveyed her cynically. ‘If that’s meant for me, sister dear, I’ll thank you to keep your observations to yourself. Jarvis and I settled the rent of my cottage long ago.’

‘I know you settled it, but when did you last actually pay it?’

‘Don’t split hairs. I pay for my cottage and my drink, not in cash, but in the pleasure of my company.’

Sarah Ashton made a noise that was perilously close to a snort. ‘I’d like to see Jarvis pay his bills with the pleasure of your company—such as it is,’ she remarked acidly.

‘Leave him alone, Sarah,’ Jarvis advised amiably. ‘You know he’s incorrigible.’

‘He wouldn’t be if you didn’t encourage him.’

‘Yes, I would,’ Ferdy said at once. ‘I was born incorrigible.’ He went to the drinks cabinet, considered its sparse contents, and returned to his seat empty-handed. On his way he caught his heel in the shabby carpet and almost fell into the chair. He grasped the arms to steady himself, and heard a dismal wrenching sound as the threadbare material tore. ‘I’ve made a hole in your chair,’ he announced with an air of discovery.

Jarvis shrugged. ‘I doubt I’ll notice it among the others.’

‘You know what you could do with, Jarvis lad?’

‘A new chair, probably.’

‘A rich wife.’

Jarvis’s grin returned. ‘To be sure, they’re going begging, aren’t they?’

‘As a matter of fact they are.’ Ferdy picked up the newspaper which he’d been reading a moment earlier. ‘See here,’ he said, jabbing with his finger at an advertisement.

Jarvis took the paper and read, “‘Wanted—one fortune-hunter to marry heiress: Millionairess seeks nominal husband in order to gain control of her own fortune. Generous terms to the right man”.’

He tossed the paper back to Ferdy. ‘Someone’s idea of a practical joke,’ he growled. ‘Either that or a journalist. If you think I’m going to offer myself up to ridicule you’ve taken leave of your senses.’

‘But suppose it’s for real? Why pass up the chance?’

‘Because for one thing I’ve nothing to offer a millionairess—’

‘Nonsense,’ Ferdy ribbed him. ‘You’re a fine upstanding fellow and the answer to any maiden’s prayer.’

‘And you’re incurably vulgar,’ Jarvis said without rancour.

‘I agree,’ Sarah added acidly.

‘And for another,’ Jarvis continued, ‘the last thing I’d ever do would be to offer myself to a rich woman in a meaningless marriage simply to get my hands on her money.’

‘Quite right,’ Sarah announced. She descended from the steps and pointed to a large portrait over the fire. It showed an elderly man with a belligerent face that bore a notable resemblance to Jarvis’s own, standing very upright, in the splendour of a general’s dress uniform. ‘What would your grandfather have said?’ she demanded. ‘I’ll tell you. He’d have reminded you of the Larne family motto—“Let invaders tremble”. Then he’d have shown this woman the door.’

‘But he’d have tumbled her in the hay first,’ her brother said wickedly.

‘Ferdy!’ she snapped.

‘Well, it’s true. He was a terrible man for the women. Father told me there was hardly a family in these parts that didn’t have a little Larne bast—’

‘That’s enough. You’re shocking Sarah.’ Jarvis grinned.

She took up the paper. ‘If this isn’t a journalist but a real woman she must be lacking in all sense of decency.’

‘She’s certainly not a woman I’d ever care to meet,’ Jarvis agreed.

‘You’re a puritan,’ Ferdy rebuked him.

Jarvis nodded. ‘I’m afraid you’re right. Don’t worry. I’ll save the estate, but I’ll do it on my own.’

‘How?’ Ferdy demanded.

Jarvis sighed.

A few minutes later Sarah requested a private conversation with Jarvis, who courteously left the room with her. Ferdy could heard the hum of their voices through the door. ‘So what’s this little chat about, eh, Sarah?’ he murmured. ‘Some earnest advice about nothing? Whatever excuse you’ve found, you’re wasting your time. You’ve given Jarvis a hundred chances to propose to you, and he’s taken none of them. You’re like a sister to him, I’m glad to say. It wouldn’t suit me at all to have you the mistress here.’

He surveyed his empty glass with a sigh. Then a wicked smile spread over his face. He crossed over to the desk, quickly purloined a couple of sheets of estate notepaper, and was sitting by the fire again when the other two returned.

‘Where exactly is Yorkshire?’ Meryl asked Benedict as they shared a bottle of champagne.

‘In England. That’s all I know. Why?’

She chuckled. ‘It’s where my prospective husband lives.’

‘You actually had a reply?’

‘It came this morning.’ She yawned and leaned back against the leather arm of Benedict’s huge sofa. She was lying lengthways on it while he sat sprawled at the other end.

‘No kidding!’ he said. ‘Who?’

‘Jarvis Larne. A lord, no less. He lives in Larne Castle in Yorkshire.’

Benedict took the letter from her and scanned it hilariously. ‘He’s very upfront about his poverty,’ he noted. ‘Castle falling down, cracks everywhere, whisky running out—heiress urgently required.’

‘It’s a joke. I bet he doesn’t exist at all.’

‘He does,’ Benedict said unexpectedly. ‘I’ve seen the name in a book of English peerages I bought in case I ever get any titled customers. It’s on that table.’ She gave it to him and he began flicking through the pages. ‘Here we are. Viscount Larne of Larne Castle. Hmm! Quite a pedigree.’

He began to read aloud, “‘Jarvis, Lord Larne, twenty-second viscount, age thirty-three, inherited the title when he was twenty-one.” Hey, fancy being a lord at twenty-one. All that droit de seigneur.’

‘What?’

‘The ancient feudal right of the lord to have any virgin on the estate.’

‘You made that up!’

‘No way. It’s the tradition. It goes back centuries. That’s why half the estate workers look alike. When you give him a son you won’t be able to tell him from the others.’

‘Don’t be silly. Of course I’m not going to marry him. I put that advertisement in because I was mad at Larry, but I’ve cooled down now.’

‘Goodbye ten million dollars,’ Benedict sighed.

‘Nope, I’ve sorted that,’ Meryl announced triumphantly. ‘I’m getting a bank loan. The Lomax Grierson isn’t the only bank in New York. Any one of the others will be glad of my business. I’d have done it before but it seemed so silly when I didn’t need to.’

‘Bless you. Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?’

‘I was waiting for the call to confirm it, but that’s just a formality. When the phone rings—you’ve got it!’

Right on cue her mobile shrilled and she seized it up, giving Benedict a delighted wink. But then he saw her smile fade, replaced with a look of outrage. When she spoke it was through tight lips.

‘You said there’d be no problem—what’s Larry Rivers got to do with anything? He doesn’t run your bank—yes, I know he’s my trustee but—legal action?’

By the time she hung up Benedict had a tolerably exact idea of what had happened. ‘I guess Larry’s tentacles spread further than we thought,’ he sighed.

‘He actually dared warn them off—’ Meryl seethed. ‘Well, there are other banks—’

‘Which he will also have warned off,’ Benedict pointed out.

‘He threatened them with law suits,’ Meryl fumed. ‘Oh, I could—’

The mobile rang again. Benedict got quickly out of the way.

‘Larry,’ Meryl said sulphurously, ‘I’m warning you—’

‘Warn away if it amuses you, my dear,’ came her godfather’s complacent voice down the line. ‘Try your wiles elsewhere if you like wasting your time. Then tell Benedict Steen that he won’t get a cent out of you for the next three years. Bye.’

He hung up.

‘Oh, won’t he?’ Meryl breathed. ‘Right! That’s it! Benedict, how do I get to Yorkshire?’

He stared. ‘You mean tomorrow?’

‘I mean today!’

What on earth was she doing?

And why hadn’t her guardian angel made sure there wasn’t a flight until next morning, thus giving her a night to see sense?

But the angel must have been off duty, because there had been a flight at nine that very evening to Manchester. Before she knew it she was on her way.

A belated attack of conscience had made Benedict try to argue her out of it.

‘You don’t know anything about this place. It’s isolated up there and you’ll be on the edge of the North Sea—gales and—and things.’

‘Stop fussing like an old hen and find me a hotel at Manchester Airport. I’ll need a room if we land at three-thirty in the morning.’

‘England is five hours ahead of us. It’ll be eight-thirty.’

‘Not in here,’ she said, pointing to herself. ‘For me it’ll be the early hours.’