And so, for today, to make her father happy, she had smiled and played bridesmaid. But those probing, eagle-sharp eyes hadn’t been fooled. Was that what puzzled him? Did he find it so impossible to believe that anyone would not welcome his dazzling sister as a stepmother?
Her eyes fell upon the laughing bride. She looked so happy, so radiant, so totally in love. But then she was a supremely gifted actress. ‘Does it matter?’ Lizzie asked. She made no further effort to pretend. The man could apparently see straight through her.
‘Not to me. To your father... to Olivia it might,’ he drawled, his voice making her skin tingle as if he were rubbing velvet the wrong way. ‘What do you object to particularly?’
She raised her chin a little. ‘She’s a lot younger than Dad,’ she said. ‘It seems an odd match.’ But if she’d hoped to divert him with the kind of gossip she overheard in the village shop she was mistaken.
‘A lot younger?’ he repeated thoughtfully, but he was unimpressed by this argument. ‘She’s thirty-four, Elizabeth. Hardly a girl.’ His mouth compressed into a thin line. ‘She won’t run off and leave him for a younger man, if that’s what is on that devious little mind of yours.’
Elizabeth. How she hated that. No one but her mother had ever called her that, except when she was in deep trouble. But then she was—in the deepest trouble. ‘My father is nearly fifty,’ she responded frostily.
His eyes creased to betray his wry, exasperated amusement at this remark. ‘Olivia told me that he was a little over forty-five. I wonder which James would agree with?’
Oh, she knew that. Her father was as susceptible to flattery as the next man. But he would still be forty-nine next birthday. And, having nailed her objection so firmly to the mast, she wasn’t about to back down just because Noah Jordan thought it was ridiculous. Besides, it served as well as anything else to cover the anger. That was private. Not for public consumption.
Her public face had smiled and smiled, and no one had suspected her true feelings. Why should they? Olivia was such an accomplished actress; who would ever guess what she was really like? But somehow this man knew the smile that Lizzie had painted on was only a mask.
‘The age difference is still—’ she pressed on, then stopped abruptly at the derision that momentarily twisted his mouth.
‘Too great?’ He completed her objection with the faintest touch of ridicule in his voice. ‘Perhaps you think your father should have settled for some comfortable widow-lady and be content with carpet slippers and cocoa at bedtime?’
Under his taunting eyes she felt the colour rise again to her cheeks. Her father was an attractive man and it had been five years since her mother’s death; he deserved a second chance at happiness. She had been glad for him that Olivia was beautiful, desirable. It was no more than he deserved after all the unhappiness since his first wife had died. That wasn’t the reason for the cold anger that sat like a lump of lead in her stomach. But she was saved from the necessity of answering by the cause of her misery.
‘Noah, darling, what on earth have you said to Lizzie to make the child blush so?’ Olivia chided, with a soft laugh as she turned on her new husband’s arm.
‘This is a wedding, Olivia,’ he responded, with a smile that creased his cheeks—a smile that came all too readily for his beautiful sister. ‘Making the bridesmaid blush is all part of the fun.’
‘Is it, indeed?’ Olivia reached up and tapped his cheek warningly. ‘Well, my dear, just make sure that’s the only tradition involving bridesmaids and fun that you keep alive on this occasion.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Lizzie breathed, with feeling, as Olivia turned away.
‘She has no need.’ Noah Jordan’s voice was as low as hers. ‘My duty was done when I gave away the bride. It’s the best man’s responsibility to see that the bridesmaid...has fun.’
The hateful blush deepened, but Noah was regarding the portly figure of her father’s business manager, who had been conscripted to this duty. And for once genuine amusement unexpectedly lit the depths of those probing eyes as he considered what fun was likely to be had in that direction.
This totally unexpected betrayal of a sense of humour somehow irritated Lizzie even more than his attitude to her. ‘I compliment you on your hearing, Mr Jordan,’ she snapped.
‘All my senses are in perfect working order, Elizabeth,’ he replied gravely. ‘Including the most important.’
‘Which is?’ she enquired, a little archly, then sincerely wished she hadn’t as his brow rose a fraction higher.
The pause before he replied was infinitesimally brief. Yet it was there. ‘Common sense, of course,’ he said abruptly. ‘And, since people will think it a little odd if you continue to refer to me as “Mr Jordan”, you’d better get used to calling me Noah.’
‘Maybe I would, if you’d stop calling me Elizabeth in quite that tone of voice.’
‘And what “tone of voice” is that?’ he asked softly.
Disapproving. As if she had been summoned by the headmistress for breaking a window. But he didn’t need to be told. He knew exactly what tone of voice he was using. He reserved it especially for her.
But the organ had struck up. ‘We’ll resume this discussion on the drive to London, shall we?’ Noah said, and, before she could tell him exactly what he could do with his drive to London, he had taken a firm grip on her arm and was leading her back down the aisle behind the bride and groom.
Toasts had been drunk and speeches made, and the guests were helping themselves from the buffet laid out in the marquee. But Lizzie wasn’t hungry, despite the long hours that had elapsed since breakfast. Peter had not come, and all she wanted was the opportunity to escape the almost unbearable bonhomie. Her unhappiness was private. It had no place at a wedding. She lowered herself onto her favourite seat, half-hidden in an arbour that overlooked the rose garden.
‘Lizzie...’ She heard Olivia’s voice calling from a little way off and stayed very still, hoping to remain unnoticed. But the voice came nearer, and she dashed a tear from her cheek and stood up to reveal herself rather than submit to the ignominy of being found hiding. ‘Lizzie, my dear, there you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I wanted to have a word...just the two of us before—’
‘Are you going now?’ Lizzie asked, a little stiffly.
Olivia’s brow wrinkled slightly at the chill in her voice. ‘No, darling.’ Lizzie almost winced at the theatricality of the endearment. It would be so easy to be fooled, especially when you wanted to be, and for a while she had been... ‘You’d better come and sit down, darling. There’s something I have to tell you. Perhaps you’ve guessed...’ Lizzie made no reply. ‘James should have done it,’ she pressed on. ‘He’s really been very naughty...’
Naughty! Lizzie thought she might just throw up. But whatever it was that Olivia wanted to say would have to wait as, beyond the fragile beauty of the bride, Lizzie at last saw her heart’s desire.
‘Peter!’ Abandoning her new stepmother, she scooped up her long skirts and ran across the lawn towards the tall, slender figure of Peter Hallam. He stopped and turned as he heard her voice, and she flung herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Peter!’ And she was not sure whether to laugh or cry. ‘You came. I knew you would.’
