The Unexpected Wedding Gift

CHAPTER TWO

BEFORE he could begin to sort through the chaos in his mind, let alone formulate a reply, the door opened. He heard the swish of silk and the sound of footsteps halting on the threshold. As if from a great distance, Julia’s voice came to him, warm with concern and full of love. “Honey? Is everything all right?”

And following right after, in a tone rife with suspicion and censure, her mother’s question, fired across the room like an arrow aimed with mortal intent. “I think you owe us an explanation, Benjamin. Who is this woman and what is so urgent about her business that you felt justified in walking out on your own wedding in order to accommodate her?”

Mutely, he turned and met Julia’s gaze. Tried to tell her with his look that this was not how he’d have had things turn out; that he’d have given his right arm to have spared her the hurt and humiliation about to be heaped on her. But the ability to communicate without words, which been so easy on the dance floor, deserted him when he needed it most.

He saw inquiry on her lovely face. Curiosity. Kindness. And just enough anxiety to dim her radiance to a soft glow.

“We’re waiting, Benjamin,” his mother-in-law reminded him.

“Go away, Stephanie,” he said. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“If it affects my daughter—and from the look on your face, I can only suppose it must—then it most certainly does concern me.”

He felt cold all over. Cold and angry and afraid. In the space of fifteen minutes, everything had changed. All that he thought was his for the rest of time was seeping away, and he was helpless to stem the bleeding. “Julia,” he said tightly, “what I must tell you is for your ears alone and I’m not about to have your mother decide otherwise. Either get her out of here, or I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

“Mother?” She turned, appealing to the woman with upturned palms. “Please leave us alone.”

“With that creature?” Stephanie gestured to where Marian wilted against the back of the sofa. “Not a chance, my dear! If she stays, so do I.”

Ben’s anger turned to rage at that, burning so white hot that his vision blurred and a kind of madness possessed him. He’d never been a violent man but, at that moment, two things came to him: he was capable of murder if that’s what it took to protect those he loved; and he loved Julia more than life itself.

Fortunately, the door opened again to reveal Felicity Montgomery, perhaps the only person on the face of the earth able to stop Stephanie in her tracks with a single glance. “There’s a man with a baby waiting in the foyer,” she said. “He seems to think his wife’s in here and he’d like to know if she’s accomplished what she came to do.”

“I think we’d all like to know the answer to that, but no one’s talking,” Stephanie snapped. “Why don’t you invite him to join the party, Mother Montgomery? Maybe he’ll be more forthcoming.”

But Felicity had learned a thing or two in her seventy-nine years. She didn’t need anyone to spell it out for her to pick up on the hostility and tension muddying the air. “I think not, Stephanie,” she said. “Ben, you look troubled. Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes,” he said. “Get Julia’s mother out of here before I wring her interfering neck!”

“Consider it done, dear boy,” she replied serenely, taking a firm hold of his mother-in-law’s elbow and steering her toward the door. “Come along, Stephanie. You heard the man.”

The silence they left behind was almost worse than the belligerence that had preceded it. It spread over the room like poisonous gas, paralyzing the three remaining occupants. It seemed to Ben that the space separating him from Julia was too vast for him ever to find his way back to her.

Marian was the first to speak. “Do you want me to wait outside, as well, Ben?”

He nodded, too full of pain to trust his voice.

Leaving the bag where she’d dropped it, she made her way to the door, hesitating only when she reached Julia. “I’m very sorry to spoil your wedding,” she said. “I hope you’ll believe me when I say that was never my intention.”

“Leave it, Marian!” he barked, the thought of Julia hearing the news from anyone other than him restoring his powers of speech in a hurry.

Throughout the exchange, Julia remained motionless, her solemn gaze never once wavering from his face. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked, when they were finally alone.

“No,” she said. “I’d like you to tell me who that woman is and why she came here looking for you. And I’d like to know why she thinks she’s ruined our wedding day.”

The seconds ticked by as he searched for a way to soften the blow he had to administer, but no matter how he wished it could have been otherwise, in the end a swift, sharp thrust of the sword was the most merciful. “She claims she’s the mother of my child, Julia.”

The room tilted and, for a moment, she feared she was going to pass out. Too much excitement, she told herself. Too much champagne. I’m imagining all this.

Blindly, she reached behind her, fumbling for something—anything—against which to support herself. Her hand closed over the doorknob and she squeezed it hard, hoping it would disintegrate into thin air and prove she was dreaming.

Instead, it pressed against her palm, cool and smooth and hard as glass. So hard and unforgiving that it pinched her wedding ring against the pad of flesh on her finger. Swallowing painfully, she asked the only question that mattered. “And is she telling the truth?”

“She might very well be, yes.”

“How long have you known?”

“I just found out.”

“I see.”

But she didn’t, not at all. Pressing her lips together, she let go of the doorknob and folded both hands in front of her, knowing he was watching every shift in her expression, knowing he was waiting for her to give him some sort of sign that she understood what he’d said.

She couldn’t do that. Her mind was empty, a great barren void. The pity of it was that her heart didn’t follow suit, because the ache in her chest was crushing the life out of her.

“Julia,” he finally begged, “say something, for God’s sake! Give me hell. Tell me I’m the world’s biggest jerk. Scream at me, if it’ll help. But please don’t just stand there like a wounded deer waiting for another bullet to put an end to your misery! You have to know it’s killing me to do this to you, today of all days.”

“What’s her name?” she said.

He flung up his hand. “What does it matter?”

“I’d like to know.”

“Marian,” he said harshly. “Marian Dawes.”

But he hadn’t always felt like that, spitting out the name as if he couldn’t bear the taste of it…or of her. When he’d made love to her, he’d have murmured the word, called her sweetheart, and honey, darling—all the endearments Julia thought he’d reserved especially for her.

With a little cry, she collapsed on the floor, crippled with the pain of it all. In a flash, he was at her side. She saw his hands, strong and tanned and capable, reaching for her. And in her mind’s eye, she saw them touching another woman, in places he’d never touched her.

“Julia…sweetheart!”

“Don’t,” she cried, when he went to lift her, but he swept her up anyway and carrying her over to the sofa, sat down and cradled her next to his heart.

The ridiculous, overblown skirt of her wedding dress flipped up like a saucer, so that anyone walking into the room would have seen nothing but her white satin pumps and white lace stockings, and the silly blue satin garter he was supposed to throw over his shoulder to all the single men attending the wedding.

“Julia, I love you,” he said. “No matter what else you might be thinking, please believe that.”

She forced her next question past the aching lump in her throat. “Did you love her, too?”

He shook his head and she thought perhaps his mouth trembled a little before he managed to say, “No. Not for a moment. I’ve never loved anyone but you, Julia.”

“But you made a baby with her.” Once again, the images flashed through her mind: the naked intimacy that had to have taken place; the fact that, even if he’d never loved Marian Dawes, he’d still managed to…!

Had it happened in his apartment, in the bed he’d so steadfastly refused to let his fiancée ever lie in? Or in a cheap motel, on some dark country road?

Oh, she couldn’t bear any of it! “Let go of me,” she croaked, struggling to free herself and inching as far away from him as she could get in the tiny room. “I don’t want you touching me—not after you’ve touched her!”

He wiped his hand over his face, and she had to look away because she found the weariness and grief in his eyes too dangerously moving. “What do you want me to say? I’m a man, not a god. I made a mistake. I was a damn fool. It’s all true, Julia, but it doesn’t change the fact that I apparently have a son.” He sighed. “And there’s more. His mother doesn’t want him.”

The heaviness in his voice filled her with foreboding. “What else are you trying to tell me, Ben?”

“She wants me to take him. And if I refuse, she’ll put him up for adoption.”

“I don’t believe you! What kind of mother could do that?”

“The kind whose husband won’t accept the child that resulted from an extramarital affair.”

Extramarital affair? Dear lord, was the horror never going to end? Distraught beyond anything she’d ever experienced before, Julia pressed her fingers to her mouth for a moment to stop herself from crying out loud. “So what did you tell this paragon of feminine virtue?” she asked, resorting to sarcasm when she was able to speak because only by fueling her sense of outrage could she keep herself together, and she’d rather be dead than let him see how he’d devastated her.

“You and your mother showed up before I gave her my answer.”

His reply was so evasive, so unlike him, that her next question was redundant. Still, she had to ask, even though having her suspicions confirmed would merely tighten the strands of misery threatening to choke her. “What would you have said, if we hadn’t been so inconveniently interrupted?”

“You know the answer, Julia. I’ll take him, of course.”

So there it was, the coup de grâce. Less than twenty feet away, over two hundred guests were waiting for the bride and groom to show up and go through the final hoopla associated with wedding receptions. She was expected to radiate happiness. To toss her bouquet blithely over her shoulder. To gaze adoringly at her groom, and ride off with him into the sunset in the certain belief that the happy-ever-after, which surely every bride had the right to expect, was hers for the taking.

And instead, her brand-new husband had smashed her dreams and left her with one of only two choices: she could go along with his proposed actions, or she could leave him and file for a divorce.

A sour aftertaste filled her mouth. No, not a divorce. A marriage had to be consummated before that became necessary. So a quick and easy annulment would do the job, and just like that, the marriage would be over before it had really begun.

“Have you once thought of what this means to us?” she asked him bitterly. “Of how it affects our marriage?”

“It’s all I can think of, Julia.”

“Oh, I doubt that! You’ve managed to think ahead to the point that you’ve decided to assume responsibility for a child without even knowing for sure if you’re his father. You’ve managed to reduce our wedding day to a fiasco. You’ve betrayed me and everything we’ve planned together. But not once have you asked my opinion about what you should do next. The word ‘we’ hasn’t once entered the conversation.”

“All right, I’m asking you now,” he said, his blue eyes so empty and cold that she shivered. “What would you have me do? Tell Marian to take her problems somewhere else?”

“Would you, if I asked you to?”

“No,” he said flatly. “That’s not who I am, Julia. I don’t walk away from trouble, and I don’t turn my back on helpless babies. I thought you knew me better than that.”

“So did I,” she said. “Obviously, I was wrong. I didn’t take you for the kind of man who’d have an affair with a married woman.”

“I didn’t know she was married at the time.”

“But you knew enough to sleep with her. To make a baby with her.”

He rolled his eyes wearily. “Guilty on both counts. Sometimes, a man’s brain lies below his waist—especially when a woman makes a determined play for him.”

At that, the tears she’d fought to repress flooded her eyes. “I made a play for you,” she said brokenly. “I practically got down on my knees and begged you to make love to me. I might not have had your old flame’s experience and expertise to back me up, but I didn’t just fall off the turnip cart, either. I’ve read books. I’ve seen movies where a man and a woman make love. I know the mood has to be right, and I did everything I knew how, to make it right for you. But you somehow managed to keep your brain and—” she glared at his fly “—your…other thing separate. How come you never got them mixed up when I tried to turn up the heat?”

“Because I love you,” he said. “I love you enough to let you go, if what you’ve just learned leaves you too disappointed in me to give our marriage a chance to survive.”

“But not enough to choose me over some other woman’s child!” Oh, she hated herself for saying that, for being so selfish that she’d punish an innocent baby for his father’s crimes! And she hated Ben for bringing out the worst in her. She had not known she could be so small, so mean-spirited.

“Would you still want me, if I did?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t feel as if I know you at all. You aren’t the man I fell in love with.”

“Yes, I am, Julia. I’m just not perfect, and neither is life. And if you thought being married to me was going to be one long bed of roses—”

“I didn’t!” she insisted, furious that he was trying to put her on the defensive. “I’m not a child. Every marriage goes through its rough spots. But I hadn’t expected ours would be fighting for survival within hours of our exchanging wedding vows. When I promised to love you, for better and for worse, I…never thought…!”

The sobs rose up, choking her into silence.

“Neither did I,” he said softly. “And I admit this is about as bad as it can get. I admit what I’m asking of you is unfair. So the next move is up to you. Do you want me to go next door and tell everyone to go home because we’ve decided to call it quits? Or will you stand by me and give us a chance to prove to all those naysayers lined up behind your parents that we’re up to whatever challenge life throws at us?”

He was a dirty fighter, bringing her parents into things like that! He knew her pride would never allow her to prove they’d been right when they’d said that marrying a man she’d known less than six months was rushing headlong into disaster.

But was pride enough to keep their marriage afloat? Because that was about all she had to fall back on. Oh, if she looked honestly into her heart, she knew she loved him still. But what use was love without trust, and how could she ever trust him again?

As if she weren’t beleaguered enough, the door flew open behind her and a man barged into the room. From his opening salvo, she could only suppose he must be Marian Dawes’s husband.

“We’ve hung around long enough, Carreras!” he fairly bellowed. “Make up your mind. Are you taking the kid or not?”

Marian, her face pale and drawn, hovered behind him, a tiny bundle clutched in her arms. Even Julia, drowning though she was in her own misery, couldn’t help feeling sorry for what the woman must be going through. To have to choose between her child and this brute of a man—how could he ask this of her?

“I’ll take him,” Ben said, at which Marian let out a sigh, walked over and handed the child to him.

Julia could hardly bear to watch as Ben looked at the baby. Awkwardly, he reached out a finger and pushed aside the blanket covering its face. She heard his indrawn breath, saw the startled expression in his eyes and knew in an instant that, even if she had been his first love, she was no longer his only love. There was recognition in the gaze he turned on that little face, and wonder, and the primitive determination to protect that only a parent can know—all those things she’d expected he’d never experience until he held their first-born in his arms.

A hand closed over her shoulder, and she turned to find her grandmother at her side. The compassion in Felicity’s eyes undid her. Lips trembling, Julia reached up and clung to her. “Tell me what to do, Amma, please!”

“It’s not my place to say, my angel. You’re facing a hard decision and it’s likely only the first of many. But whatever you decide, Ben is your husband, and I’d ask you not to forget that.”

“This isn’t fair!” she wept.

“No, it’s not.”

“I hurt so much.” She pressed a fist to her chest.

“How could he break my heart like this?”

“His own heart’s breaking, too, Julia. One only has to look at him to see that.”

She slewed a glance his way, hoping he wouldn’t notice, and found her gaze locking with his. The naked pleading in his eyes could have melted stone.

She was only vaguely aware of Marian Dawes and her husband leaving, of the sudden blast of music from the reception as the doors leading to the ballroom swung open, of her grandmother urging her forward. All her attention was fastened on the man she’d married.

The sight of him drew her like a magnet. Even at that late date, she was still hoping for a miracle, for someone to leap out from behind the curtains and shout, “Hey, this is all a big mistake. Some other guy’s the father. Go back to your wedding and the lovely life you planned. This isn’t your problem.”

But when she finally drew abreast of Ben and looked down at the baby he held awkwardly on the palms of his hands as if it were a tray of food, her heart plummeted. Because any hope she’d entertained that he might not be Ben’s son was instantly dispelled. He was a miniature carbon copy of her husband.

Numbly, she stared at the thick dark hair, the olive complexion, the brilliant blue eyes, and accepted the inevitable. Only Ben could have fathered this child.

“Your father is out of patience, Julia,” she heard her mother exclaim from the doorway, “and I am frankly mortified at your behavior.” Then, as Felicity murmured a protest, “No, Mother Montgomery, I won’t be put off again! Surely even you cannot dispute that, as mother of the bride, I have the right to know why Julia and this man she’s married have chosen to abandon the guests who’ve come here today to help them celebrate their wedding.”

“I’m afraid your mother’s right,” Felicity said.

Slowly, Julia raised her eyes and again met Ben’s anguished gaze. “Yes,” she said. “Amma, will you stay with…will you stay here until we come back?”

“Of course. Here, Ben, give the baby to me.”

“Ba…by?” The way her mother’s outraged shriek sank to a horrified whisper would have struck Julia as comical in any other circumstances. As it was, she could only be grateful that, in Stephanie Montgomery’s book of social etiquette, keeping up appearances ranked above all else.

“That’s right, Mother,” she said, hooking her train over her arm and sweeping toward the door with as much dignity as she could muster. “What else would you expect to find wearing a diaper and wrapped in a receiving blanket? A stuffed turkey?”

How he and Julia made it through the next hour, he didn’t know, because even a moron could have cottoned on to the fact that, between the first dance and their final exit in a shower of confetti and rose petals, something had gone terribly wrong between the happy couple.

The bride refused to make eye contact with the groom and tossed her bouquet as if she were heaving a live grenade into enemy lines. The smile stretched over her mother’s mouth more accurately resembled the rictus of a woman in extremis, while the expression on her father’s face would have stopped traffic. But if any of those well-dressed, well-bred, upper-echelon society guests happened to notice, no one was crass enough to remark on it.

Of course, the honeymoon plans had to be scratched. Instead of changing their clothes and heading for the airport, he and Julia climbed into the limousine in all their wedding finery and directed the driver around to the back of the country club where Felicity waited with the baby. The switch took place with furtive, undignified haste. Fortunately, the black-tinted windows in the vehicle hid the infant carrier strapped to one of the rear seats as the car sped down the driveway and headed south to White Rock.