Lindsay Armstrong - From Waif To His Wife

‘But surely-I mean, it might be a nine days’ wonder or…people may simply not be interested?’

His grey eyes were supremely cynical. ‘If you had any idea of the lengths I have to go to-normally-to protect my privacy, especially in regard to whom I might marry…’ He gestured with both hands. ‘But there’s something else.’

She looked at him with dread in her eyes.

‘There’s Tim Dixon. When this news filters through to him, I wouldn’t put it past him to muddy the waters considerably by claiming the baby as his.’

Maisie went white. ‘But-but,’ she stammered, ‘he could do that even if we were married.’

‘No.’ He shook his head and his grey eyes were suddenly as cold as steel. ‘Tim would know better than to tangle with me over my wife. An alone-in-the-world, besieged Maisie Wallis he might even feel he has a score to settle with could be another matter.’

Maisie shivered suddenly and felt like fainting.

‘Drink some coffee,’ he murmured.

She did, but the only inspiration it supplied her led her into an unforeseen trap. ‘But we don’t want to marry each other.’

He rubbed his jaw and stared out over the harbour for a long moment then looked back into her eyes. ‘Is that a hundred per cent true, Maisie? For you?’

Her colour came back although it fluctuated delicately.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked with her heart in her mouth.

He simply looked at her.

She got up suddenly and leant her elbows on the veranda railing with her back to him.

He waited, with his hands shoved into his pockets.

She turned at last. ‘I don’t know why but you make me feel safe.’ She swallowed. ‘You’re the only person in the world who seems to have my best interests at heart. You,’ she paused and smiled fleetingly, ‘seem to know and understand when I’m starving and when I could fall asleep on the spot. It-it has affected me.’

She pushed some escaping curls behind her ears. ‘But that’s no reason to fall in love. In fact I have the best reasons in the world to-stay well away from that kind of thing. And I mean that.’

They stared at each other.

‘You think you can turn these things off like a tap?’ he queried then.

‘I know I have to. I know I have to rely on myself now and I will,’ she said with quiet decision and patted her stomach. ‘Plus, I can’t believe any man could want me like this, let alone a man who could have anyone he chose. I really can’t.’ Her eyes were suddenly dark with conviction.

‘What makes you think I could have anyone I chose?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Your wealth, the fact that you can be rather nice when you’re not in dictator mode-you told me yourself women are always throwing themselves in your path.’

He smiled drily. ‘I’ve successfully avoided marrying any of them to date.’

She frowned suddenly. ‘Why? I mean you say that-I don’t know, but with some…hidden meaning.’

‘Perhaps I haven’t been able to sort the wheat from the chaff. Perhaps no wheat has actually presented itself yet.’

‘What do you mean?’ Her frown grew deeper.

‘I mean no one has come up with a good reason not to marry me yet.’ He looked at her ironically. ‘You’re the first, Maisie. The ledger always seems to have been weighted in the wrong direction, you might say. Until now.’

She digested this incredulously. ‘Are you saying-what are you saying?’

‘I’m saying the fact that you don’t want to marry me has,’ he looked out over the harbour again with his eyes narrowed against the sunlight, ‘a curious appeal.’

‘But surely all the other women-surely amongst them some of them must have been, well, nice and…’ She stopped in confusion.

Rafe Sanderson grimaced over the word nice then he found himself thinking of Alicia Hindmarsh. ‘Yes, very nice,’ he said soberly, ‘but still with that one ambition.’

‘I’m-nonplussed,’ she confessed.

A glint of humour lit his eyes. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he advised. ‘We all have our strange little quirks, no doubt. Nor does it alter the fact that you really have no choice, Maisie. Unless you relish the thought of being portrayed as a girl who slept her way around the South Pacific?’

She flinched visibly. ‘But they could still do that even if we married,’ she pointed out.

He shook his head decisively. ‘No. Don’t you see? As a married couple, all the newsworthiness goes out of the story.’

Maisie covered her face with her hands then came back to sit down, and forced herself to think straight. ‘But what kind of a marriage?’

He sat back. ‘A marriage in name only until the baby comes. The advantages of that should be obvious. I have the means to keep you safe and secure throughout what is a vulnerable time for any girl, but for you much more so now. Then,’ he paused and studied her, ‘well, time will tell. We may find it suits us but, if not, a little further down the track we can discreetly dissolve it.’

‘Suits us?’ she echoed.

For a moment he looked amused. ‘As you once remarked, it’s about time I settled down since you clearly believe I have one foot in the grave.’

‘I didn’t say that! I didn’t mean it either!’

‘No, but you did say I wasn’t getting any younger. Look.’ He sat forward. ‘We, each for our own reasons, do not appear to view love and all the trimmings through rose-coloured glasses. That doesn’t mean to say we couldn’t make a marriage work. But of course, only time will tell.’

Bewilderment, shock and confusion chased through her eyes. Then she experienced the strangest sensation, a little flutter within, and her lips parted, her eyes widened and she put her hands on her stomach as she felt it again.

‘What?’ he asked with a frown.

‘It moved,’ she breathed. ‘It-moved. The baby.’

‘First time?’ he queried.

She nodded.

‘Do you know what it is?’

‘A girl.’ Her eyes softened. ‘I’ve just had a scan. I’m going to call her Susannah, after my mother. I’ve already started to call her Susie, for short. I-sometimes talk to her, just nonsense. Does she think she’ll have red hair?’ Her green eyes twinkled and were incredibly tender for a moment, then she sobered abruptly.

‘Perhaps Susie agrees with me,’ he said wryly. Then his face changed. ‘And perhaps, Maisie, that’s what you should think of foremost-your baby.’

An extraordinary clarity of vision suddenly came to Maisie. If she didn’t marry Rafe Sanderson, what future could she offer a child? A lurid past, her reputation in tatters, always looking over her shoulder, finding it hard to get a job unless she moved elsewhere and tried to start a new life…

‘I…’ She took several breaths. ‘You could be right. I don’t seem to have much option. But it is not something I would do under any other circumstances.’

He said nothing.

‘I know that sounds ungracious-’

‘It sounds typically Maisie Wallis,’ he drawled. ‘But perhaps this will ease your conscience or your sensibilities. I feel some responsibility for you, I am after all distantly related to your baby, and I wouldn’t have allowed you to do anything else.’

‘You…you,’ she spluttered but couldn’t go on.

He stood up. ‘Believe me, Maisie. But look, let’s make the best of things. Surely this must lift quite a weight off your shoulders?’

Only to be replaced by another weight? she wondered. The weight of loving you when I know it can’t be returned?

She licked her lips. ‘Yes,’ she said only, though.

TWO weeks later, Maisie read about herself in the paper.

In a surprise statement, Rafael Sanderson, previously one of the country’s most eligible bachelors as the CEO of Sanderson Minerals and the head of the Dixon pastoralist empire, announced that he had married in an entirely private family ceremony. Little is known of his wife, Mairead Sanderson née Wallis, and no details of the wedding were given.

Above the article were two photos, one of Rafe in a dinner suit and one of Maisie, a studio portrait Rafe had organised and supplied to the paper. In it she looked very expensive, wearing a chartreuse linen designer outfit against a floral background and sporting an exquisite engagement ring, a baguette emerald surrounded by diamonds.

But Maisie also thought she looked like a startled deer about to take flight.

The speed with which Rafe had moved had almost taken Maisie’s breath away.

She’d moved into a luxurious apartment two days after his visit, an apartment leased in Jack Huston’s name. She’d been relieved to be able to do so after she’d answered the phone at her home several times but the caller had hung up.

That was when it had really hit-the awful feeling that there were prying eyes out there, possibly even people following her. She found herself looking over her shoulder a lot. That was when she’d really started to feel dreadfully alone and afraid…

Then-she hadn’t been sure if this was a relief or not-Rafe had had to fly to Melbourne for several days on urgent, unexpected business…and his sister, Sonia, had come to stay with Maisie…

‘I have no idea how I’m supposed to feel about this,’ she swept into the apartment saying, ‘but I’m Sonia Sanderson, Rafe tells me he’s marrying you and he needs me to look after you for a few days-Oh!’ She stopped abruptly and regarded Maisie with her hands on her hips and a frown.

Sonia was dark with flashing eyes and an imperious air. She took in Maisie’s stretch tartan tights and loose fleecy-lined green top, her hair gathered in a bunch of curls, her flat ballet-style shoes. ‘You’re not exactly what I expected,’ she added.

‘You don’t have to stay and look after me,’ Maisie said quietly. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘My dear,’ Sonia said caustically, ‘despite the fact that I’m his older sister, like everyone else, when Rafe says jump, I jump.’