Marion Lennox - His Miracle Bride

‘I groaned in my sleep. If you’re going to listen in on every groan…’

‘You groan in your sleep?’

‘I must do. I don’t know. I was asleep.’

‘You sound wide awake now.’

‘I was asleep.’

‘The sound travels really well through these fireplaces.’

‘It must do,’ she said acidly. ‘If you heard me groaning.’

There was a moment’s pause, then a cautious, ‘You really were asleep?’

‘You want a statutory declaration in front of witnesses?’

‘When I phoned…Did you hear…?’

‘I’m going back to sleep.’

‘But…’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Shanni…’

‘Now.’

She lay flat on her back and tugged her pillow back over her face.

Sleep. Right.

What had he said on the phone? He couldn’t remember. Had she heard?

She’d said she was asleep.

He didn’t believe her.

‘Da…’ Bessy said, and Pierce stared down at the infant in confusion.

‘The name’s Pierce,’ he said.

‘Da,’ said Bessy.

‘Pierce,’ said Pierce.

‘Some of us are trying to sleep,’ Shanni said.

‘Da…’

‘Fine,’ Pierce said bitterly, giving up. ‘Call me what you want. Bessy, you talk to Shanni. Shanni, you talk to Bessy.’

‘She’s your daughter,’ Shanni called.

‘Da,’ said Bessy, and grinned.

Help.

Things were closing around him, things he didn’t have a name for. He felt trapped.

Sleep.

Bessy was holding her arms out, pleading to be picked up. The empty fireplace loomed, almost ominously. Shanni was just through there, listening to every sound he made.

‘Okay, Bess,’ he said wearily. ‘Have it your own way. I’ll change your nappy and we’ll both get some sleep, even if it’s in the same bed.’

‘Do paediatricians advise babies should sleep in the same beds as their parents?’ Shanni asked.

‘If you’re the expert, Bessy can sleep with you.’

‘Oh, I’m not an expert,’ she said blithely. ‘I’m an independent spirit. I walk alone. Just like you did before you adopted five kids.’

‘Shanni…’

‘And I’m out of here, just as soon as I’ve taken Wendy shopping,’ she continued. ‘You won’t see me for dust. So you never have to worry about me kissing you again. Irresponsible nuisance…Huh!’

PLANS for the kids within the castle walls seemed flexible to say the least.

‘We have no fixed schedule,’ Susie said as they sat around the vast kitchen table the next morning. She was making pancakes. The earl was making toast. Taffy, the dachshund-cum-cocker spaniel, was cruising back and forth under the table waiting for crumbs. ‘Every kid who comes here is different and carers have different needs as well.’ She glanced at Pierce and then at Shanni. ‘You guys both look like you need a good sleep.’

‘We don’t,’ they said in unison, and Susie grinned.

‘There’s really no need to man the battlements at night,’ she said. ‘The barbarians were seen off long since.’

‘The only thing we need to guard against is pumpkin snatchers,’ Hamish said smiling at his wife. ‘How big is ours now?’

‘Three feet seven inches in diameter on the old scale,’ Susie said, with pride. ‘We grow competition pumpkins,’ she added for the benefit of the confused assemblage. ‘You want to see my pumpkin patch after breakfast?’

‘I want to go back to the beach,’ said Abby. They’d already had a pre-breakfast paddle.

‘And so you will,’ Susie declared. ‘Straight after pancakes.’

‘Shanni and I are going shopping,’ Wendy said, almost whispering, and Shanni hauled herself out of her own misery to pay attention to the kid over the table. Wendy had ceased to believe in promises, Shanni thought. This kid who’d guarded her family for so long.

She turned and caught Pierce watching Wendy. He was feeling exactly the way she was feeling.

Don’t look. Do not think you know what this man is feeling. He doesn’t want anything to do with you.

She gulped, turned her attention to the just-arrived pancakes and didn’t look up again. But he was watching her now. She knew he was watching her. She could feel it.

She was going nuts.

‘Yep, we’re going shopping,’ she muttered, mouth full. ‘Anyone else want to come?’

‘I have the plastic,’ Pierce said.

She swallowed her pancake. There was a lump that wasn’t pancake that refused to be swallowed.

She didn’t want to be dependent on Pierce’s money. Not this morning. Not ever.

‘Hey, shopping’s a girl thing,’ Susie said, breaking a silence that was suddenly uncomfortable. ‘Pierce, accept that you’ll be in the way. Shanni, we have accounts with every business in Dolphin Bay. Put it on our tab and Pierce can fix us up later.’

‘That’s fine,’ Pierce said.

He doesn’t want to come with us, Shanni thought. Great.

‘What’s the limit?’ she asked him, biting her lip. If she’d been financially independent again she’d say hang the expense.

‘Hang the expense,’ Pierce said. ‘Spend what you need to make my daughter happy.’

It was such a huge statement that they all blinked. Wendy most of all.

‘Your daughter…’ she whispered.

‘That means you, honey,’ he said, and rose and ruffled her ragged curls. ‘Okay, you and Shanni go and do your girl thing. The rest of us will go to the beach. Okay?’

‘Yay!’ the boys yelled.

‘I’m a girl,’ Abby said anxiously.

‘So you are,’ Pierce said. ‘My second daughter. So the choice is yours. Do you want to go to the hairdresser and shop for clothes with Wendy and Shanni, or do you want to help us build sand castles and learn how to ride a boogie board?’

‘A boogie board?’

‘It’s what surfers learn on,’ Bryce breathed. ‘Cool.’

‘Can Taffy come to the beach?’ Abby asked.

‘Of course,’ said Susie.

‘Then I’m going to the beach,’ said Abby.

‘Me, too,’ said Bryce.

‘Me, too,’ said Donald.

‘Then that’s settled,’ Susie said in satisfaction. ‘We’ll all go to the beach except Wendy and Shanni. Pierce, you drive them into town and then collect them when they’re finished. We’ll take care of Bessy.’

‘Great,’ said Pierce, and looked warily at Shanni.

‘I can drive my own car,’ Shanni said.

‘If yours is the Toyota then, no, you can’t,’ Hamish said.

‘Why not?’

‘You left the window open last night,’ he said apologetically. ‘Did you and Donald stop for fish and chips on the way here?’

‘We might have,’ she said cautiously.

‘And left the remains on the back seat?’ He grinned. ‘Every gull from here to Sydney has been exploring your car. There’s enough bird dung on the backseat to fertilize a whole pumpkin patch.’

‘Just lucky we have the pumpkin patch to accommodate it,’ Susie said cheerfully. ‘Don’t fret,’ she told Shanni. ‘We’ll have it clean in no time. But meanwhile you need Pierce to drive you.’

‘Can’t we walk?’

‘Not if you want to be back by dinner time.’

‘I can drive Pierce’s car.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ Pierce growled, and Susie grinned and looked from Shanni to Pierce and back again-and grinned some more.

‘I thought you two were friends.’

‘He’s my employer,’ she said tightly.

‘Is he, now?’ Susie said cordially. ‘And here I was thinking…’ She broke off. ‘But, hey, it’s not my job to think. My job’s pancakes. But Pierce will be driving you and coming straight back, cos otherwise I’ll have to wait at least three hours for my dill pickles and some needs can’t be ignored. I’m sure my baby is growing stunted as we speak, owing to a severe deficiency in the dill pickle department.’

They drove into town in silence. Wendy seemed overawed. Pierce seemed almost grim. Shanni was just plain confused.

‘You’re happy we’re doing this?’ she demanded as he pulled up in the Dolphin Bay main street. A dozen little shops fronted the harbour. The shops seemed quiet at this hour of the morning-all the action looked as if it was down at the boats.

‘I want you to do this,’ he said.

‘But…You don’t want to shop for her yourself?’As if in reply, Wendy’s hand came out and gripped Shanni’s. Pierce glanced down. He didn’t say anything but Shanni knew he’d seen the gesture and it had hurt.

‘Girl’s stuff,’ Wendy whispered.

‘But Pierce is paying,’ Shanni said to Wendy. ‘If he really wants to, maybe he could watch.’

The grip on Shanni’s hand tightened still further.

‘I won’t watch,’ Pierce said. Flatly. ‘Okay, I’m off to find dill pickles. You want me to pick you up in three hours?’

‘At lunch time,’ Wendy whispered. And there was an unspoken invitation in her words.

‘I’ll meet you for lunch, then, shall I?’ Pierce asked.

‘Great. Here at twelve.’ But Shanni felt odd. There was seemingly nothing she could say without tension. She didn’t understand it. ‘Bye,’ she said, because she couldn’t think of anything more erudite.

‘Bye,’ said Wendy and tugged her forward towards the hairdresser.

They walked towards the shops. But Shanni was aware that Pierce was watching them until they disappeared from sight.

They had a brilliant morning. Pure fun. First the Dolphin Bay hairdresser gave Wendy a fantastic elfin haircut and then, inspired, suggested streaks. An hour later Wendy emerged, her copper red hair beautifully streaked with lighter blonde highlights. It might have been over the top for an eleven-year-old, but Wendy had watched in the mirror as her new hairstyle was blow-dryed and her expression made it supremely worthwhile.

‘I’m pretty,’ Wendy whispered, and the hairdresser beamed.

‘I’ve had to cancel two clients this morning,’ she confided to Shanni. ‘But the minute I see one of the castle kids come through this door, I drop everything. The whole town understands and nothing’s ever given me such pleasure.’

Then they hit the shops, and here the attitude was the same. Wendy was a castle kid, therefore she’d be treated as a princess. Clothes were magically discounted. Extras were added. The lady in the dress shop sent her daughter running to the haberdashery to find matching ribbons for Wendy’s new haircut. The youth in the shoe shop was serving someone else when they came in. He barely spared them a glance, but the customer he was serving, an old fisherman, lumbered to his feet, gave the kid a clout across his ears and beamed across at them.