The Marriage Trap Page 10

  ‘I’m marrying Aidan, Daddy.’

  He reached down and lifted her chin with his hands, staring down into her eyes. She swallowed hard, praying that God believed more in free will than her father did, and also that He would forgive her the lie.

  ‘I’m asking you once and for all, do you love him?’ Endicott Perkins demanded in his pulpit voice. And there was no way she could lie to that tone.

  ‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘I do.’

  And, God help her, she did. She loved the insufferable jerk despite his authoritative, overbearing, rude, obnoxious behaviour. She loved him despite his mocking eyes, his sarcastic comments, his sardonic smile.

  ‘And you couldn’t love Robert instead?’ her father asked in a last-ditch hope.

  ‘No I could not.’

  He sighed, hauled himself wearily to his feet. He stood above her and regarded her almost sadly. ‘I tried,’ he said to the treetops where presumably the Almighty was hiding. ‘I’ll tell your mother then,’ he said to Courtney as he started back towards the village. ‘I do hope you know what you’re doing.’

  He wasn’t the only one, Courtney thought as she watched him walk away.

  The one thing Courtney had always admired about her parents was their flexibility. They never knew what was coming next in their lives. Frequently it wasn’t what they had planned—not even her father, who planned better than anyone she knew. But whatever happened, they adjusted.

  And within twenty-four hours after her father’s last attempt to bring her around, her parents had adjusted to her marrying Aidan.

  Her mother stopped her outside the hut the next morning and gave her a warm, maternal hug. ‘I just want you to know I’ve made my peace with it,’ she said. ‘I understand.’

  Momentarily baffled, Courtney frowned. ‘Peace with what?’

  ‘Your marriage. Your loving Aidan. I’ve thought about it a lot, and it is like my love for Chippy. You’re a one-man woman, just like me.’

  Courtney relayed the acceptance, though not its form, to Aidan when they went out on a foraging expedition with Robert and several of the native men.

  ‘Now, if only Daddy would,’ she said.

  Aidan grunted, bending his head to avoid a low-hanging branch as they walked along. He seemed to have regained his slightly mocking outlook on life now, and whatever had been tormenting him the day before didn’t seem to be bothering him at the moment. He was basically polite and essentially uncommunicative. And it suited Courtney fine.

  Now that she had realised she loved him, she didn’t want any more tete-a-tete encounters with him than were necessary. What she needed was to come up with an excuse for them to leave as soon as possible, so that she could leave Aidan and the Amazon behind, returning to California with her heart intact.

  ‘Maybe Daddy will give you his blessing this evening,’ Aidan said.

  ‘I hope so,’ Courtney prayed.

  He was, in fact, waiting for them when they got back. ‘Have a good morning?’ he asked them, smiling.

  ‘Very.’ Courtney put a net full of grapes on the makeshift table. ‘And I don’t think you need to worry about Robert coping with the tribe,’ she added. ‘I think he gets along just fine.’

  ‘I suppose you may be right,’ Endicott agreed.

  ‘And when the right wife comes along, I’m sure he’ll know,’ Courtney tacked on, just to cement her position.

  Her father nodded sagely. ‘I’m sure you’re right about that, too.’ He closed his Bible and smiled at them beneficently. ‘The Lord will provide.’

  ‘Yes,’ Courtney agreed happily. It seemed as if her prayers had been answered.

  ‘In the meantime, I’ve found that He has provided something else.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. A true demonstration of the joy of holy matrimony.’ He rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The entire tribe will simply witness your wedding instead.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Wedding?

  ‘D… did you say wedding, Daddy?’

  Endicott beamed. ‘Yes, of course I did. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Doesn’t matter who you marry. Just need you to marry someone.’

  ‘…Doesn’t… matter?’ Courtney echoed faintly. Her voice wasn’t the only thing about to faint. Her knees felt as if they were about to melt beneath her.

  ‘Not a bit,’ her father assured her cheerfully, giving her a conspiratorial squeeze. ‘Of course, it would be best if you were going to marry Robert, but…’ He sighed as if, were he arranging the world, he would have done a better job of it. ‘It’s more than Robert we’re concerned about here. It’s the affirmation of holy matrimony that’s important. An example of marital commitment. I must be able to have a concrete example to point to. So—’ he gave her a wide smile ‘—a wedding there will be.’

  Courtney stared at him, still dumbfounded, unable even to come up with one word that would contradict everything he had just said and not make life worse in the process.

  Her father’s brows drew together as he seemed to notice from the expression on her face that something was amiss. ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry about it. Your mother and I will make all the plans.’

  ‘Daddy, I—’ she tried.

  But Endicott made shooing motions with his hands. ‘Go on now, both of you. And smile, for goodness’ sake. It’s what you’ve been wanting, isn’t it?’

  Was it?

  Good lord, the idea of actually marrying Aidan Sawyer boggled the mind. Courtney licked her suddenly parched lips and looked at her sham fiancé. Where were Aidan and his ‘save-the-day’ lines now? she wondered irritably. He looked, if possible, more stunned than she did. He had gone quite white around the mouth, and Courtney could see a muscle jumping in his tightly clenched jaw. A thin film of perspiration beaded his forehead.

  ‘Of course, Daddy,’ she said hollowly and, grabbing Aidan’s hand, she hauled him out of the hut before he could pass out on the spot.

  ‘Way to go,’ she hissed at him the moment they were alone in the round.

  He blinked, then stared at her, uncomprehending. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean this is all your fault!’

  ‘Mine?’ His outrage was obvious. ‘Mine?’

  ‘Yours,’ she insisted. ‘You said you were my fiancé!’

  ‘You said you were getting married!’

  She glared at him. ‘I didn’t say to whom.’

  ‘No, your daddy was going to do that for you. And if I hadn’t said it was me, it would have been dear old Robert, and you know it.’

  The trouble was, she did know it, much as she would rather not. Slapping her hands on her hips, she scowled at him. ‘That’s neither here nor there,’ she said gruffly. ‘The question is, what are we going to do now?’

  ‘Are you two arguing, darlings?’ Marguerite appeared suddenly just behind them, putting her arms around them both. ‘You mustn’t, you know.’

  ‘Mustn’t what?’ Aidan growled.

  ‘Argue.’ She shook her head, tisk-tisking reprovingly. ‘Sets a very bad example. And you haven’t a thing to worry about. Chippy and I will take care of everything. I do love weddings. And I’ll especially love yours. My own daughter, married at last. I’m so glad you came to tell us in person. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ She gave them both a squeeze and vanished into the hut saying, ‘Chippy, I have just the hymns picked out.’

  ‘Oh, lord,’ Courtney muttered, but before she could follow her mother and put an end to the nonsense, Aidan grabbed her hand and dragged her away. She let him drag her, even though she imagined he was going to haul her off into the jungle and throttle her. She wouldn’t have blamed him. He certainly hadn’t bargained on this.

  Neither of them had bargained on this.

  ‘He means it, doesn’t he?’ Aidan asked after he had cast about for a suitable refuge and had finally settled on his sleeping hut.

 
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘He means it.’ She looked around the hut nervously, not having been in it before.

  Aidan made an explosive sound and began pacing, his jaw working, his breathing rough. He didn’t speak, just fumed silently. Finally he slammed his fist against one of the uprights and said a very rude word. Then he bent down and riffled through his duffel bag and rooted out the bottle of cachaqa. He sloshed two healthy doses into the tin cups on the table. ‘Here.’ He thrust one of the cups into her hand. ‘Drink this.’

  Courtney looked at it, then at him. His expression had gone from stunned to furious.

  Surprise, she thought glumly. And guess who he was mad at. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled, then took refuge behind the cup, swallowing rapidly, then coughing as the cachaga did its work on her.

  Aidan jerked the cup out of her hand and slapped her on the back, making her cough harder.

  ‘I’m all right!’ she choked, trying to shove him away. But he held her too tightly, his fingers almost bruising her upper arms, his eyes bright with anger as he glared down into hers. ‘I’m all right,’ she repeated slowly, which was a tie. She could never be this close to him and be all right. ‘It was just a shock.’

  Aidan’s hands dropped and he regarded her curiously. ‘It’s a shock all right,’ he muttered and she knew he didn’t mean the liquor.

  ‘Daddy means well,’ she began, trying to defend her father yet again.

  ‘Does he?’ Aidan was obviously sceptical.

  ‘He’s concerned about the mission.’

  He gave her a long, assessing stare, as if he were trying to decide if she should be committed or not. Finally he shook his head. ‘You don’t care?’

  ‘About the mission? Of course, I—’

  ‘Not about the mission! About you!’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘That he sees your wedding as just some religious three-ring circus!’

  Courtney shrugged. There was no way to explain her father. ‘It’s just the way he is.’

  Aidan snorted and slugged back the rest of the cup of cachaga. ‘Whatever you say,’ he said finally. He stretched out on the hammock and shut his eyes.

  Courtney pursed her lips as she twisted the cup round and round in her hands. She wished she had the courage simply to tell her father it was all a mistake.

  She had to. She couldn’t simply marry a man for convenience sake, could she? Of course not.

  Or could she? People used to do it all the time, she told herself. To consolidate properties or to unite families. And then they fell madly in love with each other, and then on page 186 the author got to write ‘The End’, and no one had to worry if it worked out or not.

  But in real life? Hardly.

  And especially not with Aidan Sawyer. A man who had already been trapped into one marriage surely wouldn’t relish another. She wouldn’t have to do anything, she decided glumly. Aidan would do it for her. There was no way he was going to let himself get trapped a second time. No way on earth.

  So how are we going to get out of this one? she wanted to ask him, but just then she heard a trilling, ‘Yoo hoo, Courtney,’ from beyond the wall of the hut, and seconds later her mother poked her head around the corner of the door. ‘Oh good, you are here. Your father and I have sorted out the hymns. Now I want to talk to you about your dress.’

  Courtney groaned. ‘Mother, I—’

  ‘Now don’t tell me that just because we’re in the middle of the jungle that this shouldn’t be a wedding to be proud of. We’re going to do it right, you know. We must. It will be an occasion to remember. Come along. Jacinta is quite a talented seamstress,’ she said, referring to one of the Indian women to whom she had been teaching a variety of Western skills. ‘I think she might have some ideas for us.’

  And before Courtney could do more than give Aidan a backward glance, she was borne off by her mother to discuss wedding plans.

  All day long she expected he would approach her father and tell him the whole thing was a mistake. All day long she sat outside her parents’ hut with Jacinta and her mother and let the half-Portuguese, half-Indian discussion wash over her, ignoring all the plans for her own wedding, waiting for Aidan to come and tell her father and mother that they were all unnecessary: there wasn’t going to be any wedding.

  Aidan didn’t come out of the hut for almost an hour after she and her mother had left him. Probably finishing off the bottle of cachaga, she thought grimly. She would have if she had had access to it. She stiffened, fully expecting him to stride over and demand to talk to her father, but he didn’t even glance her way. He headed directly across the round and disappeared down the path towards the river. She stared after him, half dismayed, half confused.

  He didn’t return by dinner time. She would have liked to ask someone where he was, but as his fiancée, she figured that they would wonder at her not knowing. So she picked at her food and answered her mother’s continuing questions in monosyllables, wishing all the time that she had never begun this whole farce.

  ‘Where is your young man, then?’ her father asked her after they had eaten and Courtney was helping clean up.

  Before she could confess her ignorance, one of the Indian men said something, pointing towards the river, Endicott frowned. Courtney wasn’t sure what the man had said, but she felt a momentary jolt of apprehension.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked her father.

  ‘Paolo says he’s gone. He took the boat.’

  The apprehension turned to a full-blooded panic. Aidan had left her? Without even a word or a backward glance? The panic flared into anger, and she lurched to her feet.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised. She knew Aidan Sawyer wouldn’t like being trapped. But he could have said! He could have just told her to call it off. He didn’t have to run out on her!

  Unthinking, she began to run, ignoring the shouted question from her father and the curious stares of the people she passed. She had to get to the river, had to see for herself that he had really left.

  It had just gone dusk and the jungle path was shadowed and overhung, making it impossible to see more than a foot or two ahead. It was the time for jaguars to begin roaming, for tapirs to go down to the riverbanks. But she didn’t care. She had no thought beyond the fear that Aidan had left her. Keeping her head down, she ploughed on, heedless of the scrambling monkeys overhead and the tree frogs who stopped their shrill noise as she passed. She had to know. Had to check. Had to—

  ‘Oof!’

  Strong, hard arms came around her. ‘Hey!’

  ‘You!’ Oh God, it was. Hot, pulsing relief surged through her, dizzying her. Breathing in the musky, male smell of him, she wilted against the solid warmth of Aidan’s chest.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ The words were softer now, comforting almost, as if he could feel the swift throb of her heart in her chest, as if her trembling had communicated her unspoken fears. ‘What’s wrong?’ Aidan drew her tightly in his arms for a moment, then held her away from him to gaze sternly down into her face. ‘What did he do now?’

  ‘He? Do? Who?’

  He shook his head, apparently as baffled by her reactions as she was by his. ‘Never mind. What’s wrong? What’s up?’

  ‘I—I thought—’ She couldn’t tell him she thought he had left her. Couldn’t betray her fears. He would hate it, feel obliged by it, trapped. ‘I—just needed to get away.’

  He gave a wry half-laugh. ‘Yeah, well, if you’ve been planning the wedding of the century all afternoon, I can understand that.’

  She gave him a weak smile, grateful that he had hit upon his own explanation for her outrageous behaviour. But she was still shivering inside and she didn’t try to step away just yet, afraid that her legs wouldn’t hold her.

  ‘You all right now?’

  She nodded, still unable to speak. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

  ‘You ready to go back? Or do you want to sit awhile?’

  ‘No, I can go back.’ As long as you’re here, she added silently. S
he squared her shoulders and fell into step beside him. ‘Where’d you go?’ she ventured finally. ‘One of the men said you’d… you’d left… in the boat.’ She couldn’t begin to tell him the terror she had felt. It was crazy, insane, all out of proportion to what she knew their relationship was destined to be. He was just the man who was helping her out of a tight situation, wasn’t he? And not a very willing one at that. But she couldn’t stop the shivers that ran through her, and she found herself snuggling more closely beneath the arm that had looped itself over her shoulders.

  That arm over her shoulders tightened just then and gave her a squeeze. ‘I went out for a cruise.’

  ‘You could have taken me with you,’ she said gruffly.

  He gave her a wry look. ‘No, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  But he didn’t answer because just then Robert and two of the Indian men came towards them and Robert said, ‘Oh, you found him, then,’ and Courtney nodded.

  Aidan’s brow lifted. ‘You were looking?’

  She ducked her head, embarrassed to answer, not wanting to give him the idea that she was trapping him any more than she already was.

  ‘Were you?’ he persisted.

  She frowned and said irritably, ‘Well, you’d been gone for hours. Everyone wondered where you were.’

  ‘Of course.’ But the look he gave her was speculative all the same.

  Over the next three days Courtney gained a new appreciation of the theological concept of limbo. She felt as if she were in a state of suspended animation—dragged into discussions of wedding plans for a wedding she was certain would never take place.

  The wedding that was never going to take place, she discovered the following morning, was scheduled for Saturday.

  ‘But it’s Wednesday now!’ she protested in vain to her mother.

  Marguerite was singularly unsympathetic. ‘Well, you’re the one who said you had to hurry back and get this letter to Leander.’

  ‘I do,’ Courtney maintained. She had tried once or twice to use her need to get back to Leander with some proof of her father’s earthly existence as a reason to persuade her parents that there really wasn’t time for a jungle wedding. She and Aidan could easily get married when they were back in the States, she argued.