said James grimly.
‘What would you have liked to do if you hadn’t had to be the person that everybody else relied on?’ she asked curiously.
His eyes narrowed and he seemed to be looking at something far away.
‘I would have gone up to the Great Barrier Reef for at least a year and been a beachcomber,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘It would have been great to go surfing or riding horses along those long white beaches and lie around under the palm trees for a year or so. Mind you, I probably would have got sick of it after that. I suspect I’m the hard-working, ambitious type deep down. Still, it would have been fun.’
‘It’s not very different from what I would have done,’ murmured Laura half to herself. ‘I would have loved to go off to Queensland and spend months hiking through the rainforests and collecting wildflowers without ever having to worry about going to work and being responsible.’
James cast her a frowning, baffled look.
‘Then why didn’t you just do it?’ he asked. ‘You studied horticulture, didn’t you, at least for a while? And from what you’ve told me, it doesn’t sound as if there was any strongly developed work ethic standing in your way.’
Laura felt as if a chill had invaded the room. Why did she keep forgetting who she was supposed to be? Of course, James was right. If her sister had wanted to travel around and hike through rainforests, she would simply have done it. Whereas good, old, boring, sensible Laura wouldn’t dream of doing anything so rash. Just as she wouldn’t dream of flinging aside caution and plunging headlong into a torrid affair with James.
A sudden blaze of rebellion ignited inside her. If only I thought it was me personally that he wanted, instead of any woman who comes near him! she thought despairingly. Or if only Bea and I hadn’t deceived him like this and he didn’t think I was a scheming gold-digger! I wish, I wish…Then she caught the implacable glint of hostility in his tawny eyes and she heaved a faint, defeated sigh. What was the point of wishing? It was all useless. The best thing she could do was to avoid him as much as possible and pray for a miracle to get her out of this mess.
‘Well, we’re very different people, aren’t we?’ she said coolly. ‘I don’t suppose I can expect you to understand anything I do. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go to bed now.’
As she moved towards the door he put out his hand to stop her. To her surprise, the antagonism in his voice was suddenly softened by something else. A glimmer of respect, perhaps? Or even a wary friendliness. Laura had the impression that he was struggling to be fair.
‘Listen,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not necessarily opposed to you, Beatrice. You’ve obviously got a lot more character and intelligence than I was led to expect. But there are two things in life I hate. One is deceit, the other is disloyalty. At least you seem to be honest and genuine, but I can’t help worrying about whether you’ll be loyal to Sam in the long run. So I’m warning you, think again about whether you want to go through with this marriage.’
Laura woke the next morning with a feeling of intense misgiving, mingled with a ridiculous fluttery sense of excitement. As she showered and dressed she tried to focus her thoughts. There was no doubt that she had landed herself in serious trouble. In one way she was tempted to phone for a hire car and flee northwards to the ferry, but a few moments’ reflection convinced her that she couldn’t leave without an explanation.
James still believed that she was Bea and he would be expecting her to stay, so it would be the height of rudeness to vanish without telling him why. He might be opposed to Bea’s forthcoming marriage, but he didn’t deserve anything as dreadful as that! Besides, there were practical difficulties—he might call the police and put out a missing person’s report on her if she simply left without a word. Yet she shrank from trying to explain their idiotic masquerade to him. Let Bea do that when she arrived!
The trouble was that with every extra minute she spent in his company, she felt as if she were sinking deeper and deeper into quicksand. Even though they had quarrelled last night, she still couldn’t deny the treacherous attraction she felt towards him. But there could be no future for them. Not when she suspected him of trying to seduce her simply for entertainment. And not when he found out about all the lies she had told him…
Well, he would have to know before the wedding, and her stomach contracted in morbid dread at the thought of the scene that would ensue when he did find out. Had she really been crazy enough to think that it would be quite exciting to have James shouting and storming at her? The truth was likely to be utterly different! She could just picture the cold look of contempt that would come over his face when he discovered how she and Bea had tricked him.
Would he refuse to take part in the wedding? At the moment he was supposed to be giving Bea away, since she didn’t have a father to do it, but who could blame him if he refused to take part? He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would grin and shrug his shoulders if somebody made a fool of him. Laura suspected that a formidable temper smouldered beneath his urbane exterior. He wasn’t in the least bit long-suffering, like Raymond.
Raymond! Oh, heavens, she had forgotten all about Raymond…She’d been supposed to give him an answer to his proposal yesterday, so what on earth would he think of her? She had never failed to keep a promise before! Even as the thought crossed her mind she knew what her answer was going to be and knew that it didn’t matter that she had broken her promise. After the whirlwind emotions which James had roused in her during the last twenty-four hours, there was no possible way that she could marry Raymond. All the same, he deserved an answer.
Feeling as if she were ringing up the dentist to make an appointment for a wisdom tooth extraction, Laura picked up the phone.
‘Ray?’
‘Laura! I was halfway through shaving! What on earth happened? I thought you were supposed to get in touch with me yesterday. You didn’t show up to work and your secretary said you’d taken a day’s leave without any real explanation.’
His tone was faintly querulous and Laura felt a niggling sense of exasperation, followed by an urge to get the ordeal over.
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ she said shortly. ‘There was a sudden hitch to do with Bea’s wedding and I had to fly down to Tasmania unexpectedly. Now that I’m here I’ll be staying for a few days, but never mind that. What I really rang to tell you is that…I can’t marry you.’
‘That’s a bit abrupt,’ protested Ray mildly. She thought she heard a faint scraping sound in the background. Was he continuing to shave while he talked? ‘Can’t you give me some reasons?’
‘There’s only one reason, Ray. I don’t love you.’
He laughed indulgently, the same sort of laugh she had heard once when she had told him the petty cash tin was short of fifteen cents, although even then he had kept going through the books relentlessly until he found the error.
‘Love!’ he snorted. ‘We’re both mature adults, Laura. Do we need to make such a fuss about terminology?’
Laura felt a pang of irrational antagonism so fierce that if Ray had been in the room, she would have picked up the phone and thrown it at him. Terminology, indeed! And if you got rid of love, what did you do? Spend the rest of your life having dry little conversations about a few missing cents in the petty cash tin? No, thanks! There had to be more to the universe than that!
‘Well,
