The Last-Minute Marriage

CHAPTER THREE

SHE couldn’t believe what she’d heard. One minute she was looking defeat and despair in the face. This was the end of the world as she knew it. Tomorrow she’d have to bury Aunt Hattie with all the love and honour she deserved, trying to block out the hurt caused by this appalling last will. Then she’d climb on to an aeroplane and go home to face the boys and tell them that she didn’t have a clue what their future held.

As opposed to…what?

As opposed to facing the man twenty yards away from her and trying to make sense of his crazy statement.

‘I beg your pardon?’ she said at last and there was general laughter among the passers-by. Marcus’s words hadn’t just shocked Peta. More than one person had stilled to listen-to hear her response to this fascinating question.

‘He’s asking you to marry him, love,’ an elderly woman told her. ‘He looks a good sort of catch. I’d think about it if I were you.’

‘She’s young,’ someone else proffered. ‘Plus she’s pretty. She’s got plenty of time to play the field.’

‘No, but look at that suit,’ the older woman retorted. ‘The guy’s obviously loaded. You do it, love, but don’t go signing one of them pre-nup agreements. You take him for all he’s worth.’

‘Pretty funny proposal, if you ask me,’ someone else said. ‘You think she’s got leprosy or something, that he has to stay two shops away from her to ask her to marry him?’

‘Your girl got leprosy?’ someone else demanded. ‘Is that why the crutches?’

Even Marcus smiled at that.

So did Peta. It’s a joke, she thought. It’s a joke in appalling taste, but it’s a joke for all that.

‘Thanks,’ she called, with what she hoped was a vestige of dignity. ‘It’s a very nice proposal but I have a funeral to go to, and then a trip home to Australia. I can’t fit you in.’

‘I’m serious, Peta.’

She flinched. Stop it, she thought. She’d been through enough. It was time for the sick jokes to subside. It was time for everything to subside. For now, all she wanted to do was to crawl away into a dark cupboard somewhere and mourn her aunt as she deserved.

But Marcus was striding towards her through the throng of entranced passers-by. She felt an almost overwhelming urge to turn and run-fast-but of course she couldn’t. Her ankle wouldn’t let her. She had to stand and be polite. It was the only thing she could think of to do.

But she wanted to run.

Or did she?

‘Marcus…’

‘I’m serious.’ He reached her and his hands came out and caught hers. They were much bigger than her hands-much stronger. She could feel their strength and she could feel the urgency behind the strength.

She’d been holding her crutches. As he caught her hands, the crutches fell away-which made her feel even more helpless than ever.

‘Peta, we can do this.’

‘What…what?’ She could scarcely muster a whisper.

‘We can marry. As you turned away just now I saw it. Your aunt’s will has an out. You need to marry before Wednesday and you can. You can marry me.’

‘But…you don’t want to marry me.’

‘Of course I don’t. I don’t want to marry anyone. But that’s just it. Because I don’t want to marry anyone then I can marry you.’

‘That’s stupid.’

‘No. It’s sensible.’

‘Why is it sensible? How can it be sensible?’ She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. Or simply to run. This big man with the smiling eyes was looking down at her with an expression that said he had all the answers to her problems right here. She just had to trust him.

Trust him? She didn’t know him. She pulled on her hands but his hold tightened.

‘Peta, it can work.’

‘How can it work? How can it possibly work?’

But fifteen minutes later, when he’d calmed her down sufficiently to listen, she was starting to concede that it just might.

‘I’ll have my lawyers sift the will this afternoon,’ Marcus told her. ‘But if that’s all you need-to be married-then I’m happy to oblige.’

She sat across the table from him. They’d found the first coffee shop they could; they’d sank into two deep armchairs and they hadn’t moved. Peta felt as if she’d been hit by a sledgehammer.

‘But…you only spilled my lunch,’ she managed. She felt as if all the wind had been sucked out of her. ‘You hardly ravished me. You hardly destroyed my honour or my marriage prospects. And here you are offering to marry me. Why?’

‘I don’t like Charles Higgins.’

‘Then kick him out of your building. Put salt in his water cooler. Cut off his supplies of waistcoats. Whatever. But not this. You’re offering to get involved up to your neck.’

But he was shaking his head, smiling. ‘No, I’m not. I’m simply offering to get married. That’s all. A simple ceremony. We do the deed. Despite what the lady on the street says, we draw up a pre-nuptial agreement saying we have no recourse to each other’s property after divorce, and then we go our separate ways. After your estate has been settled, we’ll divorce. My lawyers can take care of that. Apart from the one simple ceremony, we need never have anything to do with each other.’

‘But-I still don’t understand.’ She looked up from the mug of coffee she was cradling and met his look head-on. His smile just deepened her sense of confusion. ‘Okay, you don’t like Charles Higgins,’ she said. ‘That’s not a reason for doing this. Not for you. It’d solve my problems, and that’s so important to me that I’m almost tempted to fall in with your crazy plan. But there has to be a catch. There must be. What do you want in return?’

He hesitated.

She watched his face. It was a good face, she thought, somehow forcing herself to be dispassionate. It held strength and warmth and humour. A girl could do a lot worse than marry a man like this. Especially as the marriage would last a whole five minutes.

But it was crazy. It was!

It seemed, though, that it hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment offer. He was really thinking.

‘It’d be something good to do,’ he said at last. ‘I don’t know whether you can understand that, but it’s important to me.’

‘No. I don’t understand. Explain it to me.’

‘I’d like to help.’

‘By playing King Cophetua to my beggar maid?’ She flushed and stared down into her coffee dregs. ‘I’m sorry. That was ungracious of me.’

‘But it’s how my proposition makes you feel?’

Her chin jerked up at that and she met his gaze, startled. ‘Yes. It does. You understand.’

‘That it’s a lot harder to take than to give? Yes. I know that.’

‘And I know nothing about you.’

‘Peta, I come from a background where there was nothing to do but take,’ he told her. His eyes held hers, steady and strong. Telling her he was speaking a truth that was important to him. ‘We had no choice. My mother was a welfare recipient and I had to fight anyone and everyone to get where I was-and accept help from all sorts of people I’d rather not be indebted to. So… I’ve spent a lifetime getting to the other side of that divide and now I’m in a position to give. It doesn’t mean, though, that I’ll expect gratitude or undying devotion. Just a simple thank you and then we’ll get on with our lives. And one day when you’re on the other side of the divide you might be able to do the same for someone else.’

‘Like…take a good deed and pass it on?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘It’s some good deed!’ She was sounding a bit hysterical, she decided, but then she thought, why shouldn’t she sound hysterical? Maybe she was hysterical.

‘Peta…’

‘Mmm?’

‘Let’s just marry and move on.’

‘How on earth can I marry you?’

‘Easy. We get ourselves a licence and we marry. There are formalities we need to go through but I’d imagine if I throw a bit of money and power at those formalities they’ll disappear. I don’t have the best legal team in New York for nothing. You said we have until Wednesday.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘That’s the day after tomorrow. No sweat. We can do the thing easily.’

‘You sound like you do it once a week.’

‘I haven’t. I’ve never married.’

‘And if you meet the bride of your dreams next week?’

‘That won’t happen.’

‘Why ever not? Are you gay?’

That stopped him in his tracks. He very nearly dropped his coffee and, when he recovered, his mouth quirked upward in a grin.

‘No, Peta, I’m not gay.’

‘You needn’t sound so patronising,’ she told him crossly. ‘I can’t tell. You hardly wear a sign or something. What other reason can you have for not marrying?’

He hesitated. Considering. He was about to indulge in confidences, Peta thought, and she also thought: that’s something this man seldom does. What was it about him that made her know that he kept himself to himself? Entirely.

But he was breaking his rules now and his voice, when he spoke, had a reluctance that told her he didn’t have a clue why he was doing it.

‘My mother married four times,’ he told her. ‘Four times! And for every ceremony she was your traditional bride. She dressed me up as a pageboy, she glowed with excitement and she told me it’d be a happy-ever-after ending. But she chose losers. Every wedding threw us deeper into trouble. So I stood at the last of those ceremonies and I told myself it would never happen to me. I’d never take those vows. Some things are ingrained, Peta. I’m not about to change my mind now.’

She thought about that but it didn’t make sense. ‘So your mother wasn’t very good at getting married,’ she said gently. ‘I’m sorry. But there’s still a whole bunch of people in the world who think marriage is a very good idea.’

‘There were other things. Getting attached… I learned early that independence is better.’

‘Easier?’

‘Probably easier,’ he admitted, and she stared into his face and saw he really meant what he said.

Maybe it was the truth. Independence had a lot going for it. She’d heard. She’d never, ever had it.

But now wasn’t the time to be thinking regretfully about an independence she’d never had and was hardly likely to have. Now she had a man sitting in front of her offering her a possible way out of the difficulties that were threatening to overwhelm her.

She didn’t know anything about this man. His offer was ludicrous.

Marry him?

He was watching, waiting for an answer. Where on earth was an answer when you needed one?

‘I don’t even know you.’

‘You don’t need to know me.’

‘You might be a con artist.’

‘Yeah. About to scam you out of half your farm. That gives you a choice. It seems that you either trust me and risk losing half your farm or you definitely lose half your farm to Charles.’

‘You can’t be serious?’

‘I am serious.’

‘But… I can’t.’

‘Why not? Is there anyone else that you want to marry?’

She thought about that for a whole two seconds. The concept was crazy. ‘No, but-’

‘But there you are. Take it or leave it. I’m offering. I’m not really sure why I’m offering but it seems sensible. Will you marry me, Peta? For better or worse. Until distance does us part? Until at least Friday?’

She looked blankly at him-stunned.

‘You really are serious.’

‘I really am serious.’

Her mind was going in a thousand different directions. A million. But overriding all… Overriding all was the thought that maybe somehow she could keep the farm.

Her head was spinning. Her ankle was throbbing. She felt so near the edge that any minute now she’d topple over. To make such a momentous decision…

‘Peta.’ His hand gripped hers and held, hard. ‘Peta, you don’t need to understand. You can’t, because I hardly understand myself. All you have to do is trust. Just say yes.’

Just say yes…

Easy to say. Will you marry me?

Maybe it wasn’t momentous at all, she thought wildly. People were divorced every day. What was the marriage? A simple document that could be annulled at any time. And the boys would be safe.

She bit her lip. She stared into Marcus’s calm grey eyes and he stared back. Still Marcus held her hand. Still Marcus watched her, waiting.

And in the end it was easy. There was nothing else to say.

‘Okay,’ she whispered. ‘Okay, Marcus. Thank you very much. I have no idea why you’re wanting to do this but I’m very grateful. So yes, I’ll marry you. As soon as possible.’

Marcus Benson, in organisational mode, was a man to be reckoned with. Peta was put into Robert’s care and taken back to her hotel with instructions to rest her ankle. Marcus moved on to the wedding.

He’d told Peta he could organise this by Wednesday. In truth it was a guess. He had no idea if it was possible.

A man with no idea turned naturally to his assistant. In crisis, find Ruby. Fast.

Ruby was summoned peremptorily from the boardroom where she’d been putting things on hold because of Marcus’s absence. The unflappable Ruby was already feeling under pressure. By the time she reached his office she was almost ruffled, and when Marcus told her he wanted her to organise his wedding she was surprised into the unthinkable response of choking.

It took a glass of water before she could make herself understood.

‘You? Married?’

‘What’s wrong with me getting married?’

She thought about it. Marcus was behind his desk. He watched her with patience, seeing her eyes grow round in response to this extraordinary request. Seeing her think it through.

‘To the waif?’ she asked cautiously and he nodded.

‘To Peta. That’s right.’

And Ruby-who had never in Marcus’s lifetime been known to show surprise at anything-proceeded to drop her jaw almost to her ankles.

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not,’ he told her, annoyed. ‘Just tell me what I need to do it.’

She thought some more. She sipped water and took a visible grip. ‘Um… Weddings. I’ve never done weddings. But… Okay. I can do this.’ A bit more thinking. Then, ‘Do you have any preferences?’

‘Preferences?’

‘Like church, civil, white, rose petals, bridesmaids…’

‘No preferences. Just a fast wedding.’

‘How fast?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow!’ Ruby’s voice came out practically a squeak. She regrouped-sort of. ‘Uh, did you say tomorrow?’

‘That’s right. Wednesday at the latest.’

‘There are things like licences. I’m sure there are. Formalities. Queues.’

‘Throw as much money as you need at the problem. Just fix it.’

‘Gee, how romantic.’

‘Ruby,’ he said warningly and her eyebrows hiked.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Just fix it.’

‘Certainly, Mr Benson. Very good, Mr Benson.’ She took a deep breath and he could see she was fighting laughter. ‘Do we know the bride’s name?’

‘Peta.’

The eyebrows hiked again. ‘I know her first name’s Peta,’ she said with exaggerated patience. ‘We’re going to need a bit more information. Just a bit.’

‘Right.’ He handed a sheet of paper across the desk. ‘I had her write down her details. I’m not stupid.’

‘So.’ Ruby looked down at the sheet. ‘Peta O’Shannassy. Aged twenty-six. Australian.’

‘That’s right.’ He hadn’t known. He frowned suddenly. Hell, what was he getting himself into? Peta O’Shannassy. She’d written down her name but this was the first time he’d heard it.

‘She needs me to do this,’ he told Ruby, and she paused from reading the sheet and looked at him. Really looked at him.

‘She’s in trouble?’

‘Yes.’

‘You want to tell me?’

He sighed. But Ruby on side was a force to be reckoned with and he’d learned a long time ago it was better just to give in and tell. Briefly he outlined what was happening and, when he had finished, her face had changed. The laughter had gone. The determination he felt was strangely mirrored in his assistant’s eyes.

Ruby had met Peta. She knew Charles. Marcus’s dislike wasn’t purely personal.

But Ruby was moving on again, on to business. Her speciality. ‘You’ll need a decent pre-nuptial agreement. One that will hold water.’

‘Can you get that underway?’

‘Sure.’ She hesitated. ‘You know, Charles won’t take this lying down. Not if there’s money involved.’

‘I suppose he won’t.’

‘Let me run this past our lawyers,’ she told him. ‘I’ll organise a copy of the will to be faxed here this afternoon. You don’t want to go into this blind. Or…’ She paused and a glimmer of laughter appeared again behind her eyes. ‘Or any more blind than you appear to be.’

‘Right.’

Then she hesitated. ‘Marcus…’

‘Yes.’

‘You know… Peta has her contact address here.’

‘I told her to put it down in case you need her to fill in forms.’

‘Mmm.’ She looked again at the piece of paper and cast a cautious glance at him. ‘Do you know where she’s staying?’

‘It doesn’t matter. This wedding is a formality. Where she lives is her business.’

‘Right.’ There was another thoughtful glance. ‘It’s just… I know this hotel. A neighbour had a friend from Canada who stayed there one night. It’s the cheapest place in town. But he came out of it robbed blind.’

Silence.

It was entirely Peta’s business where she stayed, he told himself.

But of course it was no such thing. Marcus took the written sheet from Ruby and stared down at the address. His…his bride?

‘Can you fix it?’ he asked Ruby.

‘What-turn up there and tell her Marcus says move?’

‘I guess not.’ He’d seen enough of Peta to figure that wasn’t the best way to go about things. But… He didn’t get involved. He didn’t!

He was involved. He was involved up to his neck. ‘I need to go,’ he said finally, and Ruby nodded.

‘Of course you do,’ she agreed. ‘Marcus Benson to the rescue. Good grief!’

But Marcus was no longer listening.

Marcus had already gone.

By the time Robert dropped her at the door of her hotel Peta was past exhaustion. She lay back on the hard mattress and tried for sleep. She’d hardly slept since she’d arrived in this country. The doctors had given her pain-killers and warned her they’d make her sleep. She should be out for the count.

But sleep was nowhere.

It wasn’t the noise that prevented her from sleeping. She’d stayed in this place for over a week and she’d learned to turn off from the drunken cacophony that surrounded her.

Nor was she disturbed about her own security. There was something distinctly comforting about having nothing left to steal. Her passport and her airline ticket were in a money-belt next to her skin and there was nothing else.

The throb in her ankle had even eased.

She should sleep.

But how could she? Marcus was with her. Every time she closed her eyes he was right there, filling her head, his gentle eyes probing…

He was marrying her?

The thought was unbelievable. The concept was unbelievable. Marcus Benson was marrying Peta O’Shannassy.

Who was Marcus Benson? She didn’t know. But what could she do about it?

The sensible thing would be to hire a private detective and find out at least a little of the man she intended to marry. She didn’t have enough funds to consider it.

But… Her hand rested on her money belt and the same comforting thought arose.

She had nothing worth stealing. He could hardly cheat her. What did she have? Half a farm, split five ways. She had so many encumbrances she felt weighed down with concrete.

If Marcus was marrying her for anything other than altruism then he had a big surprise coming, she decided.

He could have Harry.

The thought came out of left field and, surprisingly, it was good. Marcus would like Harry. Harry might even like Marcus. Harry was the smallest of her responsibilities but sometimes he felt the heaviest.

Yep. She might love Harry to bits but if Marcus wanted him… She was definitely ready to share.

Sharing. It was a good concept. A great concept. Even if it was pure fantasy.

But it was enough to distract her. Her mind stopped spinning just a little. Exhaustion took its toll.

Finally she slept.

She woke to shouting.

So what was new? People shouted in this place all the time. Half the inhabitants of this boarding house were drunk or stoned or both. But this time it was closer than usual.

Her dormitory held eight beds and the last four beds in the row were covered with fighting bodies. Someone was yelling; there were people punching, clawing, rolling.

There was the sound of broken glass and a woman screamed.

She opened her eyes and someone was grabbing her. Lifting.

‘Put me down!’ It was an instinctive scream of terror.

‘Don’t draw attention to yourself,’ her intended husband told her. ‘Is this your bag? Shut up and let me get you out of here.’

Marcus took her back to his apartment. He brooked no argument, hardly speaking until Robert had deposited them at the entrance to his apartment building, until they’d ridden the lift to the penthouse and he had her behind his closed door.

Even then he wouldn’t listen to protests.

‘I’m marrying you. That involves keeping you alive until at least tomorrow. So have the sense to obey orders.’

She was still dazed, doped with the pain-killers the doctors had given her. Three quarters asleep. But not so far gone that she couldn’t protest. She was balanced precariously on crutches. He’d carried her out of the seedy backpackers’ but that had been the end of his carrying role. She’d emerged to face the doorman of this luxury apartment block on her own two feet-just. ‘I’m not good at following orders,’ she managed.

‘How did I guess that?’ His severe mouth quirked upward into a wry smile. They were standing in the entrance to his apartment and all she could see was black marble and mirrors. If she wasn’t so dopey she’d panic, she thought. She should at least try.

‘I can’t stay here with you.’

‘I guessed you’d say that, too,’ he told her. He pointed to three doors. ‘Bathroom, bedroom, kitchen. I’m staying at my club. I’ll see you in the morning.’

‘But…’

She gazed at him, confused beyond belief. This day had got away from her. All she knew was that somehow a day that had started as a disaster had somehow been salvaged, and it had been salvaged because of this man in his lovely suit, with his lovely eyes, with his lovely smile.

Yeah, she was getting maudlin, but he made her feel… He made her feel…

Not maudlin. Something very different from maudlin.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

‘It’s okay.’

‘I mean it.’ She reached forward and took his hand. Then, before he could guess what she intended, she raised her face and kissed him softly on the lips. It was a token kiss-a touch-a kiss of gratitude and weariness and need for human comfort. It shouldn’t have caused confusion but, as she stepped back, confusion was what she saw in his eyes.

‘Marcus…’

‘I’d better leave.’ His voice was strange. Husky. Unsure.

‘You don’t need to.’ She could sleep on the settee, she meant to say. She meant to add…something. But tiredness and the drugs she’d been given had the better of her and she couldn’t think of anything more to add.

What had she said? He didn’t need to leave? No. She was right. More than that; she very much wanted him to stay. She was so alone.

What a wimp. She caught herself, fighting for her dignity. Fighting through the haze of pain-killers for any sort of sense at all.

‘I meant…’

‘I know what you meant,’ he told her and he smiled. It was his smile that was her undoing, she thought desperately. It was a smile that twisted, distorted, changed her world.

‘But I still think I’d better go,’ he told her. He touched her, a feather-light fingertip tracing of her cheek. Was she imagining things-or was there reluctance to leave?

She couldn’t tell. She was in no fit state to tell anything at all.

He knew it. He swore softly. ‘Lock the door after me,’ he told her. ‘And stay safe until morning. No arguments.’

And that was that. He walked out and slammed the door behind him.

No arguments? She stared at the closed door. How could she argue when he was gone?

She was so befuddled she was past thinking. She gathered her crutches and limped forward, stunned. The first door led to the bedroom. To the bed. It was vast, piled high with a mountain of white pillows.

It looked wonderful.

There was silence all around her. There was silence for the first time since she’d reached this city.

No argument?

She had no argument at all. She hobbled to the bed, let her crutches fall-and let herself fall.

Wise or not, five minutes later she was asleep. But as she slept her fingers rested on her cheek-where Marcus’s fingers had touched.

And Marcus?

He lay in his bed at his club and he swore into the night. One ceremony and he was finished with her, he thought. One ceremony.

But when he’d walked into that place-had seen the louts fighting-men in a women’s dorm-crazy with drink-broken glass…

And Peta, sleeping as if she was so exhausted she couldn’t face waking, even to protect herself.

And then she’d kissed him. Her kiss… It had been so defenceless. So-

So he didn’t know what. All he knew was that when she’d asked that he stay it had taken all his self-possession not to gather her into his arms and sweep her into his bed.

I’ll look after her until she leaves New York, he told himself. That’s all I’ll do. And then I’ll forget her.

Yeah, right.

When Peta had arrived all she’d seen was the bed. And Marcus. When she woke she finally took in her surroundings and they weren’t to her taste at all.

She stretched in the vast, luxurious bed and gazed around her. And winced.

Lat night she’d been stunned, exhausted and doped with pain-killers. This morning…

This place might be comfortable, silent and safe but it was also sterile.

It was like something out of Vogue, she thought, and then thought, Nope. Not ordinary Vogue. Maybe a Gentleman’s Hygienic Vogue, if such a magazine existed.

At a guess it had been decorated by a professional whose brief was clinical, modern and masculine. The place was cool grey and black. Lots of glass and chrome. Nothing out of place.

Ultra expensive.

She tossed back the covers and hobbled the few steps to the window. Not everything met with her disapproval. Below was Central Park. There were horse-drawn carriages driving right by.

The view was lovely.

She turned around to the apartment and winced again. This wasn’t lovely. Not a photograph. Not a personal thing. The place looked as sterile as a hotel.

More so.

Who on earth was this man she was marrying? What was she doing in his apartment?

She didn’t have time for questions. She glanced at her watch and practically yelped.

The only time the funeral director had been able to fit Hattie’s funeral in was really early.

Like…in half an hour?

She had to go. Marcus had grabbed her meagre bag of possessions and it was still in the hall. She’d wear the suit Marcus had given her yesterday and feel grateful for it. She pressed out the worst of the creases with her hands, showered and dressed in minutes and then she paused at the door, ready to go.

She glanced around the apartment and thought that she wasn’t really sorry to leave. The backpacker hotel was awful but if this was home… She’d hate it almost as much.

It was Marcus’s home.

So what? Marcus was nothing to her. Nothing at all.