Ivory Innocence (10 page)

She kept to her room the following day, telling Mrs. Barnes and Janey that she felt unwell. It was true enough; her head felt like concrete and her stomach was in revolt. Her appearance was convincing, too: a face paler than usual, with dark shadows under haunted gray eyes that stared at her from the mirror, asking questions that were impossible to answer.

Matthew sent Mrs. Barnes up with some vile concoction in a tumbler, and a message that it would do her good.

"Overdid it last night, did you?" the housekeeper said with a laugh. "Well, we're all entitled to kick over the traces once in a while. You'll be all right. Just take it easy today."

Ivory drank the brew, which didn't taste as bad as it looked. She thought bleakly that if it had been poison she wouldn't have cared. Thank heaven Mrs. Barnes didn't know how very much she had "overdone" everything last night. She rested all day and didn't get up until Janey was in bed.

Downstairs in the sitting room she found Matthew brooding over a glass of scotch and scribbling something on a pad. He glanced up in surprise, laid the pad aside and got to his feet, frowning.

"You look like a ghost. I didn't expect you down. Will you have a drink?"

"I think I've signed the pledge," Ivory said with a tight, humorless smile. "I don't want anything to drink, or any dinner. But I've got to talk to you."

"Of course. Come and sit down."

"I'd rather stand, if you don't mind. Mr. Kendrake, I want to give you my notice."

"Oh, yes?" he said calmly, that maddening eyebrow quirking. "Why?"

"You know why! After last night—"

He dismissed last night with a negligent wave of the hand. "That was an aberration. You were drunk and I… I wasn't too sober myself. Let's forget it."

Ivory did not believe her ears. Forget it? Pretend that nothing had happened, when she was shamed to her soul?

"You can't possibly leave us," he said reasonably. "What about Janey? She's just beginning to find her feet. She needs you. Do you seriously intend to desert her?"

"She—she can go to school, proper school, after the summer holidays. She'll soon catch up."

"She's not ready for that yet."

Clenching her hands, Ivory said desperately, "We did agree to a three-month trial. Obviously it isn't going to work. Besides, I—I'm going to get married."

He seemed to wince, and momentarily a frown creased his brow. Or did she imagine it? Quite casually, he said, "Yes, I think you should."

"Then you agree?" she said breathlessly, wondering if she had understood him. "But you said—"

"I said you couldn't leave us. And you can't. I won't allow it. But when you're my wife you won't want to leave, will you? There'll be no reason for it."

Blood rushed to Ivory's head and drained away, leaving her swaying. Marry him? Marry Matthew Ken-drake? No, never! To be his wife… But she couldn't. She wouldn't! And yet…

"Your wife?" she managed. "
Your
wife?"

He reached to set his drink on a table and came slowly toward her, taking her cold hands in his warm ones, so that her mind became even less coherent.

"After last night, you can't tell me you wouldn't like that, Ivory," he said quietly. "You must be aware that I find you extremely attractive, too. Consider: you'd be mistress of Hedley Hall, wife to a wealthy man, mother to a little girl who loves and needs you."

"And what about Carla?" she asked hoarsely.

"Carla is a little too mercenary and demanding for my taste. You're more careful. I like a thrifty woman, though I'd make sure you had everything you could possibly need in the way of clothes and jewelry to suit your position."

It sounded like heaven, she thought dazedly—not the clothes and jewelry, but to be Matthew's wife. But the dregs of her common sense made her say, "You can't be serious. Marriages aren't made like that."

"I assure you a lot of them are, though usually the real reasons are covered up under a lot of nonsense about love." He released her hands and stepped away, returning to the table to sip from the glass of scotch. Then he said in a hard-edged voice, "I suppose you would have been happier if I had said I love you, but whatever else I may be I'm not a liar. I'm incapable of feeling love. You may as well know that."

He sounded as though he meant it. His voice and the cold expression on his face made him seem like a man of granite, impervious to softer feelings. But of course, Ivory thought, it was barely seven months since he had lost his first wife. He was still grieving, that was all. And perhaps he meant that no one would ever replace Janey's mother in his heart.

"On the other hand," he added, "I'm a normal man with normal desires. I happen to feel that a clear understanding is preferable to a lot of romantic nonsense, an understanding entered into while both parties are in full command of their mental faculties, not floundering in pink clouds of emotion. Or would you have me believe you're desperately in love with your worthy farmer?"

"Rob's a good man!" Ivory said, bridling in defense of her old friend. "He's kind, and honest—"

"And industrious, reliable, and dull," he finished for her. "The sort of man you could twist round your little finger. Is that really what you want?"

"He loves me!"

His lips twisted cynically. "That word again. How original! And you? Do you love him? No, don't bother to answer that. I know the answer. You gave it to me last night. You would never have thrown yourself at me if you had felt any deep devotion for your estimable Rob Garth."

She felt her face flame. Did he have to keep reminding her about that? "I wasn't myself."

"Well, that's a euphemism I could argue with. A nice way of saying you were plain old-fashioned sozzled. If you weren't yourself, Ivory, then who were you? Drink loosens the inhibitions; it doesn't alter the basic personality. You were just begging me to take you, and if you'd been sober I'd have been happy to oblige. Which is how I know we'd be better off married to each other. Why don't you go to bed and think about it? I'll have Mrs. Barnes bring up a tray. You look as though you need an early night."

Late into the night Ivory lay awake turning over the proposal in her mind. She couldn't do it, she told herself. It was impossible.

But she couldn't marry Rob, either. She was too fond of him to accept everything he offered without being able to give something in return. Matthew— damn him!—had been right: she couldn't live with a man as compliant as Rob.

Nor could she simply leave Hedley Magna and abandon Janey, who had learned to trust her. To Janey she had become one of the few stable things in a bewildering world.

Tossing restlessly in the darkness, she thought about Matthew, that complex, dangerous man whose mere glance could make her feel vibrantly alive. Of course he wanted her, physically. She had known that for a long time. But he couldn't be as cold and hard as he pretended. No human being could, not even a Ken-drake. She recalled the underlying bitterness she sensed in him at times, and it puzzled her. He was an enigma, a dark, brooding mystery with a devil behind forget-me-not eyes, but he could make her ache inside.

A phrase he had used kept repeating insidiously in her mind: "mistress of Hedley Hall." How ironic it would be if she, a Meldrum, were to return to her ancestral home as the wife of a Kendrake. It would be a victory of sorts, a reclamation of Meldrum rights. But somehow her quest had lost its urgency, and she doubted that she could submit to marriage simply in the cause of justice.

Eventually, as dawn grayed the sky, she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep. But later she was dragged out of troubled dreams as a small body flung itself onto her bed and thin arms fastened round her neck.

"Oh, Ivory! Ivory, wake up! Isn't it wonderful!"

"Janey!" Blinking away layers of sleep, Ivory untangled the arms that threatened to strangle her and sat up, staring at the child. "What time is it?"

"Late. I had my breakfast ages ago. Mrs. Barnes told me to stay away, but I just had to see you." Brown eyes danced with joy as she bounced on the bed. "I'm so happy. Are you?"

"About what?"

"That you're going to be my stepmother!" Janey cried, flinging herself into Ivory's arms. "Daddy told me. It's super news, isn't it?"

Stunned, Ivory held the child close to her, pleased that Janey couldn't see her face. Matthew had told his daughter? Without waiting for an answer?

"I'm going to tell Mrs. Barnes," Janey said, leaping from the bed. "And then I'm going to find Mr. Barnes and tell him. Can I be a bridesmaid and have a pink dress? I've always wanted to be a bridesmaid in a pink dress." She skipped out of the room, humming to herself.

Ivory hastily took a shower, threw on a shirt and jeans and went in search of Matthew. He was in the blue and gold sitting room, occupied again in scribbling on a pad. How he could sit there calmly making notes at a time like this was beyond her. She slammed the door, making him look up.

"You're wearing those damn jeans again," he said with a sigh.

"I shall wear what I please!" Ivory stormed. "Why did you tell Janey we were going to be married? She's over the moon! It's nothing short of emotional blackmail."

"I thought you might need a push in the right direction," he said, laying the pad face down on the coffee table.

"So you did tell her on purpose? Oh, you—you're impossible! I suppose you've forgotten telling me that if you planned to marry again you wouldn't consult Janey first?"

He eased himself out of the chair. Even that simple movement reminded her of the lithe muscles hidden beneath skin that felt like warm silk. "I didn't consult her first," he pointed out. "I consulted her second, after you."

"Now you're splitting hairs! What are you going to tell her if I turn you down?"

"Nothing, because it won't happen," he said with the utmost confidence.

"What makes you so sure of that?"

"I've seen you with Janey. You care about her. So you won't destroy her dreams. Are we going to continue this shouting match, or shall we discuss it like civilized adults?"

It was really too funny for words, Ivory thought angrily. He had completely turned the tables.
He
was blackmailing
her
into something which she had half planned to do anyway. Since he was so cold-blooded about it, it made her decision easier.

"Let's be civilized by all means," she said flatly. "Let's discuss this 'clear understanding,' as you call it. Understand that if I marry you, it will be for Janey's sake. I'll be her stepmother, and mistress of this house, and if you wish I'll keep Carla Forsythe at bay. But that's all, Matthew. A marriage of convenience. A wife in name only. Is that clear enough?"

As he strolled toward her she stiffened, her chin high and her hands clenched so he couldn't see that she was trembling. She felt impaled by his blue gaze, mesmerized by the wicked demon that lurked there taunting her. And all the time some treacherous part of her was straining to be close to him, preventing her from running away.

His hands lifted to cup her face as if it were a fragile flower. He bent to kiss her softly, expertly, gauging the exact pressure needed to draw a response from depths over which she had no control. A trembling started deep inside her; she heard herself sigh; her hands stole up the front of his shirt. His arms came round her, arching her in against him while his fingers ran lightly up her spine, making her moan and shiver.