The Unconventional Bride Page 4

  ‘I don’t think I quite understand,’ Etienne murmured, as Mel’s mouth dropped open in disbelief.

  ‘They never stop to think, that gene,’ Mrs Bedwell elucidated. ‘Got it from their mother, they did. With all the best intentions in the world she was never out of trouble! I told Mel people wouldn’t take kindly to her taking her horse to the council, I told her not to hold that party—believe me, there’s a million things I’ve told her not to do, but once she gets a bee in her bonnet there’s no stopping her. Where will she end, I keep wondering, without someone strong like you?’

  ‘I…see,’ Etienne replied cautiously.

  ‘Then,’ Mrs Bedwell placed her hand on Etienne’s arm and stared confidingly into his eyes, ‘there’s the way she’s grown up. Who would have thought such a skinny tomboy with those awful braces on her teeth and forever scratched and grazed would grow into such a looker?’

  Mel ducked her head, grimaced, and awaited Etienne’s reply with bated breath. But he didn’t reply and Mrs Bedwell went on.

  ‘Not that she knows it. You can accuse her of a lot of things but vanity isn’t one of them. Problem is—there are a lot of unscrupulous men out there and once they find out that all they need is some kind of crazy cause to worm their way into her heart, who knows what could happen?’

  ‘Mrs Bedwell, I could strangle you,’ Mel said through her teeth. Unfortunately, this caused her to miss what Mrs Bedwell said next and consequently she had no idea what it was that prompted Etienne to reply that he had become increasingly aware of it and would certainly take it into consideration.

  ‘What?’ Mel muttered, severely frustrated.

  But Mrs Bedwell only said then, ‘Good, well, I can leave it up to you?’

  ‘You may, Mrs Bedwell,’ he answered as he shook her hand then got into his car and drove off.

  It was not in Mel’s nature to bottle things up so she accosted Mrs Bedwell immediately and asked her what she thought she was doing by encouraging a man they barely knew to marry her.

  A short, sharp argument ensued on who had the right to eavesdrop when. Then Mrs Bedwell announced that it so happened her nephew worked for Etienne Hurst so she knew quite a lot about him and all of it good. She also added pithily that if Mel hadn’t so resolutely distanced herself from her stepmama, she’d know a lot more about the man herself.

  ‘He’s made a fortune with his own hands,’ she stated. ‘He’s an excellent employer, a darn good businessman and he’s very highly thought of in the community.’

  ‘He may be,’ Mel shot back, ‘but he’s also extremely arrogant, and what’s that got to do with me marrying him? There’s no love lost between us, I can assure you!’

  ‘Love!’ Mrs Bedwell echoed with consummate scorn. ‘I married Jack Bedwell for love and five years later he walked out on me never to be seen again, leaving me with three kids to rear on my own. Love,’ she repeated bitterly; ‘what good did it do me? Here I am not even in my own home and a slave to a family that’s half-mad!’

  They were in the kitchen during this exchange, and Mel suddenly changed tack.

  ‘Sit down, Mrs B,’ she ordered. She poured her a cup of coffee and took it along with some shortbread over to her.

  Then she sank on her knees in front of her and said softly, ‘You do know this whole place would fall apart without you, don’t you?’

  Mrs Bedwell pursed her lips.

  ‘You do know,’ Mel continued, ‘that we love you and consider you part of the family and we’d be devastated if you left and went to the Calders up the road who are always trying to pinch you from us?’

  Mrs Bedwell’s face softened.

  ‘And who,’ Mel smiled up at her with a teasing glint in her eyes, ‘is the real authority in this house?’

  Mrs Bedwell sighed then smiled herself. ‘You’re a sweetie, Mel. Just promise me one thing—you think seriously about Etienne Hurst. Because I know you well enough to know that losing the boys and Raspberry Hill on top of losing your dad would nearly kill you.’

  So Mel thought about it until she could have screamed.

  So many pros, she had to marvel. Just take the boys. There was no doubting Justin could be a handful at times, and what no one knew, because she’d chosen not to reveal it, was that he had been responsible for the notorious Raspberry Hill rum-rampage.

  He’d got in with a dubious crowd of older boys whom he’d invited to the party with such disastrous results. She was pretty sure the fact that she’d had to front a magistrate had brought home the error of his ways to him. But she couldn’t deny that he might need a strong hand to steer him through his late teens.

  Then there was Ewan. Thin and dark, at twelve, he was a chronic asthmatic with little interest in school and whose sole ambition in life was to paint. And Tosh, who had no redeeming chestnut in his hair—it was plain ginger—and if someone up there had set out to create another Just William, they’d succeeded in Tosh.

  Her father’s favourite saying about his youngest child had been that he got into more trouble than Flash Gordon.

  All the same, she loved them all desperately and couldn’t even begin to think about losing them.

  So why do the cons seem to be overwhelming when there are so many pros? she asked herself as she tossed and turned one night.

  Don’t be thick, Mel, she answered herself, using Mrs Bedwell’s favourite put-down. This is a marriage of convenience you’re being offered, that’s why it’s sticking in your throat! He may have kissed you and he may look at you as if he’d like to sweep you onto his charger and make off with you whether you like it or not, but his reputation is not consistent with Etienne Hurst suddenly falling in love with a girl like you…

  She punched her pillow and tried to get more comfortable. It was well-known in the Gladstone area that for his recreation he’d leased and renovated an abandoned lighthouse keeper’s house on top of a craggy headland and that he spent some of his free time there, fishing and crabbing the waters of a protected lagoon at the base of the headland.

  It was rumoured that there was no more fulfilling an experience for a woman than to be bedded by Etienne Hurst in his lighthouse eyrie then treated to a seafood banquet. It appeared to be a fact that there were plenty of willing women but—here lay the rub—mature, sophisticated, glamorous women who were a very far cry from nineteen-year-old Melinda Ethridge, whom, no one could deny, he often treated like an exasperating kid.

  So, what did he really want from her? Was it only out of a sense of responsibility towards his sister’s stepchildren that he’d proposed marriage? Surely not. But then, despite sounding and acting like the quintessential Australian, had his French mother instilled old-fashioned notions about arranged marriages in him?

  Even if that was so, she reasoned, what had she to contribute to an arranged marriage? As far as she could see, all she would bring with her was a sea of debt and three sometimes-difficult boys.

  Of course, Raspberry Hill was a very desirable property. With an injection of funds it could more than pay its way but Etienne could probably buy six Raspberry Hills, so…

  ‘It just doesn’t make sense,’ she told herself yet again. ‘Unless he does want me in a purely physical way for the time being, does he feel a sense of responsibility for us? And at the same time he’s decided he can mould me into a suitable wife for the long-term business of providing him with heirs whilst he continues his lifestyle much as he always has?’

  She sat up suddenly, feeling cold and a little sick. In the absence of any declarations of love, and how could there be, what else was she to think? On the subject of being moulded into a suitable wife for a man she barely knew, she had plenty to think about and chief amongst her thoughts was the one that scared her to death.

  Yes, she may have been bowled over a bit by Etienne once, but this really opened up a yawning chasm at her feet. The chasm of man-woman relationships, a subject she’d reached the grand old age of nineteen without giving much thought to at all.

  One reaso
n for this was that, being horse, dog, country and farming mad all her life and possessing three brothers, she’d always been ‘one of the boys’.

  And she had been a late developer—Mrs Bedwell was right. No one, and least of all herself, had foreseen that she would ever be other than skinny, active and far more interested in boyish pursuits and all the causes she felt so passionately about, rather than clothes, her appearance and boys for their own sake.

  So it had to have come as a shock to find Etienne Hurst suddenly trapping her in his sights. Nor could she any longer continue in confusion over his intentions. What he’d proposed may have ‘convenience’ and ‘arranged’ written all over it but it certainly wouldn’t be a marriage in name only. She may have been a late developer but she wasn’t that naïve, and certainly not since she’d really thought it through and been so effectively kissed…

  She stopped battling with her bedclothes and got up to cross over to the window to see that dawn was rimming the horizon. And finally she allowed her mind to dwell not on pros and cons as such but the sensations he aroused in her. The sort of dangerous delight he brought to her when he touched her and kissed her.

  She took a quick breath as she thought of the strength of his arms, the sprinkling of black hairs on them and the powerful width of his shoulders. But, at the same time as she felt a rippling of desire run through her just to think of those things, she still had the strange conviction she was playing with fire…

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHEN Melinda Ethridge agreed to marry Etienne Hurst, she made the conscious decision to be an unconventional bride. Not that she mentioned it other than obliquely when she summoned him to Raspberry Hill to discuss his proposal.

  This time she received him in the formal lounge, surrounded by all the evidence of his sister’s exquisite but expensive taste.

  She cleared her throat twice as she stood in front of him. ‘Etienne—oh, please do sit down!’

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured but waited until she’d sat down, straight-backed and on the edge of a gilt-framed, spindly chair before choosing a more substantial one for himself.

  ‘Etienne,’ she began again with her hands clasped in the lap of the denim skirt she wore again with her white blouse, ‘thank you for your offer of marriage. I’m thinking about accepting it.’

  ‘Are you, Mel?’ His lips quirked.

  She suffered a moment of nervous dread that he’d changed his mind and she was making a fool of herself then a spark of wrath lit her eyes. ‘Are you laughing at me? If so, would you like to share the joke?’

  He observed her tense, upright posture and the lines of strain in her face. ‘It struck me that you could well have been thinking about lining up in front of a firing squad, Mel, that’s all,’ he replied gravely.

  She breathed exasperatedly. ‘Of course I’m not but this isn’t easy!’

  ‘Why not?’

  She controlled an urge to throw one of his sister’s beautiful Chinese porcelain bowls at him. ‘Take my word for it, it is not, Etienne,’ she said in a chilly way and shrugged. ‘Perhaps women are different but…well, how to agree to a marriage of convenience in order to save your home and your family doesn’t feature in the etiquette books!’

  ‘Probably not.’ He looked amused.

  ‘Nor is it easy to know what kind of emotions one should be experiencing,’ she continued.

  ‘One could remind oneself that one has been happy to be kissed on occasion, very happy,’ he contributed.

  She regarded him witheringly. ‘If that’s all there is to it, all I can say is, you must be incredibly naïve.’

  He laughed aloud this time. ‘Maybe one of us is—I’m not sure which one.’

  But Mel refused to be amused or sidetracked. ‘Etienne, I may be only nineteen but I’m not that naïve and I’m not stupid—’

  She broke off as a piteous whine came from the doorway into the hall. She turned to see Batman sitting in the doorway literally quivering with the injustice of being expressly forbidden to enter the lounge so he couldn’t get to Etienne.

  ‘Good heavens!’ She looked at the dog in astonishment. ‘That’s the only rule he’s ever obeyed!’

  ‘He’s not allowed in here?’

  ‘He is not!’ Mel shuddered.

  ‘Then maybe we could take this—conference outside. I must admit,’ Etienne glanced around, ‘the formality of this room on top of your formality is a little daunting.’

  Mel swallowed a pithy retort. ‘Oh, all right. We could take a walk in the garden.’

  Batman was ecstatic. He jumped straight into Etienne’s arms as soon as he crossed out of the lounge. ‘My one fan,’ Etienne murmured with a decidedly wicked look at Mel.

  ‘He doesn’t have to marry you,’ she replied.

  ‘True. So. You were saying, Mel?’

  But she waited until they were strolling across the lawn towards the edge of the headland before she spoke again, this time with quiet determination.

  ‘In a nutshell, being neither particularly naïve nor stupid, Etienne, I need to know what I’m letting myself in for.’

  Batman was on the ground by this time, scurrying about investigating delicious scents and intoxicating trails.

  ‘Do you mean, what kind of a wife I have in mind for you to be?’

  She blinked. ‘Yes. As well as what kind of a husband you intend to be.’

  ‘Oh, the usual.’

  ‘What is that?’ she asked frostily.

  ‘Well,’ he stopped as they came to a fence and propped a foot on the bottom bar, ‘the kind that prefers to be with his mates at the pub or the footy for the most part.’

  She eyed him incredulously.

  ‘As for my wife,’ he continued, ‘I’d expect a good cook, although we do have Mrs Bedwell so we could cross that off the list. Uh—good with kids, naturally, and appreciative that her place is very definitely in the home changing nappies, but at the same time able to mow the lawn…as a matter of fact, Mel, you come highly recommended in that area; I wouldn’t have to lift a finger—’

  ‘Stop!’ she commanded. ‘I’m serious!’ But in fact, much against her will but all the same, she was laughing. ‘You’re crazy!’

  ‘No.’ He reached for her hand. ‘But I’m glad you’ve got a sense of humour.’

  She sobered. ‘Did you doubt it?’

  He looked down at her. ‘Perhaps we haven’t had much to laugh about lately. Look, I’m perfectly happy for you just to be yourself.’

  ‘What about—us not being in love?’

  ‘Maybe we can make it happen.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’

  ‘Time will tell.’

  A little chill ran through her.

  ‘But what—’ she looked frustrated ‘—say we’d got married and you’d discovered I didn’t have a sense of humour?’

  He looked out over the view in silence for a long moment then down at her hand in his. ‘Mel, you may not know this but the first time I saw you in over a year, I wanted you immediately.’

  She stared at him wide-eyed and with her lips parted.

  ‘It’s not so inconceivable, you know.’ His lips twisted. ‘It happens. Didn’t you guess?’

  ‘I…I…thought I must be imagining it,’ she said huskily.

  ‘No. Nor has it changed or gone away. I don’t usually,’ he said with irony, ‘go about kissing girls I don’t like.’

  Mel tried desperately to sort through the new emotions this aroused in her. Much as she couldn’t deny that Etienne Hurst fascinated her, neither could she, once again, stifle a little feeling of fear at the same time. To do, she discovered, with the uncertainty of whether she could ever match this worldly, experienced man…

  ‘So…so—’

  ‘So, we have a good basis for putting together a marriage. You need me. I need you.’

  But for how long will you need me? The question was on the tip of her tongue but in the end she was unable to utter it.

  ‘Will…will I be able to go
on as I have been?’ she asked instead.

  ‘More or less.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘I guess we’ll both have to make a few adjustments to our lifestyles but if you’re happy to go on being taken up with Raspberry Hill, that’s fine.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ll have much time for it?’ she said tentatively.

  ‘We’ll see. Can I ask you a question?’

  She nodded after a moment.

  He turned around and leant back against the fence. He wore his blue short-sleeved shirt today with khaki trousers and boots. ‘How do you feel about me?’

  ‘The million-dollar question,’ she said quizzically, and received an appreciative glance in return. ‘The thing is,’ she sighed suddenly, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t mean,’ he said slowly, ‘are-you-prepared-to-go-to-the-ends-of-the-earth-and-back-for-me kind of thing. But might you,’ he paused and turned sideways so he could watch her, ‘might you have got over the supreme suspicion and distaste you—apparently—used to feel?’

  She lowered her lashes. ‘Yes. I might.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start.’ There was a slightly dry note in his voice and her lashes flew up but he was staring at her enigmatically.

  ‘Then how long do you think it will be before you’re able to make up your mind?’ he queried.

  That was when stark reality hit Mel. What choice did she have? It was either do this, or face losing the boys… ‘I have made up my mind,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll do it.’

  ‘Mel,’ he took her chin in his hands, and shook his head, ‘you—’

  ‘No, I’ve decided to go ahead—I don’t have much choice and it was either say yes now and get it over and done with, or go on agonising about it all and I’m tired of that!’

  ‘But you’re still going to hold it against me?’ he said softly, with something she couldn’t identify in his expression.

  ‘Not at all,’ she denied. ‘Well, as far as I can tell at this stage, no. Just one thing—I would rather we didn’t carry on like two lovebirds before the deed is done. I wouldn’t feel too comfortable about that.’