Stand-in Bride Read online

  A few seconds later she saw Adrian down by the court with Elaine. She decided to walk inside the lounge to avoid the brisk wind that whipped tendrils of escaped hair across her face.

  Her heart flip-flopped crazily as she turned and walked toward the glass door of the lounge. There, standing just inside the glass partition to the right of the door, was Louis, whose inscrutable eyes registered her surprise and confusion. How long had he been there? Had he seen her grab Adrian's arm several times and bury her face against his shoulder in the height of nervousness over a hard-fought point?

  He made no move to come to her, instead beckoning for her to come inside. "Yes, I've been here the whole time," he said, answering her unspoken question as he took both her hands in his and squeezed them hard for a brief second. His gaze explored her face with the lingering impact of a physical caress and then lowered disconcertingly to the dull gold of her long-sleeved knit blouse with its high turtleneck and then down to the trim tailored slacks in the same gold color.

  "You're looking good." Abruptly he released her hands and thrust his own into the pockets of the tailored gray business suit. A curtain swung across the vibrant welcome in his dark blue eyes as he explained impersonally, "I got here in the middle of the first game and decided not to risk upsetting Elaine by joining you and Adrian. Now I don't dare show myself for fear of breaking her concentration."

  "Isn't she playing like a real little champion?" Nicole said huskily, the glow in her dark eyes more a result of the incredible closeness of the tall man in front of her than her very real pride in Elaine.

  "I would settle for a more lopsided score in this last set," he said wryly.

  "Me, too," she agreed heartfully.

  "I'm surprised Carol's not here. Didn't you mention you were staying with her?" His voice was guarded.

  "This is the first match she's missed so far, but she had some kind of prior commitment she couldn't get out of."

  "Looks like they're about to start. Uh-oh, you've just lost your seat."

  News had evidently spread of the exciting match on Court Two, and the upstairs lounge and porch had suddenly become very crowded. Adrian hadn't returned.

  "I'm too nervous to sit, anyway," she protested, finding herself being jostled by interested spectators crowding nearer the glass panel.

  "Here, stand in front of me." He guided her with authority directly in front of him where she had an unobstructed view, but her nerve ends tingled at the pervasively male scent that assaulted her senses.

  As the third set progressed, she could hardly bear the agonizing tension as each girl held serve until the score was 5-5. Several times Louis's hands crushed her shoulders in the middle of a particularly nerve-racking point. Her senses screamed into life when he bent to speak close to her ear in that low, resonant voice.

  Finally, Elaine wavered under the terrible pressure of playing the number-two seed in the semifinals of her first big tournament. She lost her serve. Then the other girl won her own serve to take the final set 7-5.

  "Oh, no," Nicole murmured disconsolately, her body limp with nervous release and disappointment. She turned and relaxed instinctively against Louis as his arms closed around her, drawing her close against the muscular wall of his chest.

  "She has nothing to apologize for," he comforted, rubbing his cheek tenderly against her smooth, dark hair.

  "She's going to be heartbroken," she mumbled into that muscular warmth, loving the unbelievable closeness.

  "Let's go cheer her up." He shielded her from the good-natured crowd with an arm thrown protectively around her shoulders.

  "Louis! You came to watch me play!" Elaine's drooping features lighted at the sight of her brother, and she hurled herself at him.

  "I wouldn't have missed it for the world. You weren't half bad, either!" He tousled her dark hair.

  To Nicole's amazement, Elaine took the defeat in stride, assured by the two men she loved most that she had done extremely well in her first tournament.

  "You know what she said?" she marveled proudly. "She said the finals tomorrow couldn't possibly be any tougher!"

  Suddenly she was bored with any further discussion of the tournament, shifting her interest to the fascinating possibilities of entertainment now that Louis was in New Orleans.

  "Hey, can we all stay at the apartment tonight? Please! I'm just dying to see Bourbon Street. I'm the only girl in my whole class who's never seen it!"

  Nicole silently applauded Elaine's suggestion. She had been too shy to broach the subject of staying overnight in the city. How wonderful to be young and armed with sledgehammer tactics.

  The four of them ate lunch together before Adrian insisted he must drive back to Iberville that afternoon. He left then! to pick up his suitcase at the apartment.

  Nicole surrendered herself willingly to the flow of activities, grateful that so little was required of her except smiling acquiescence. Louis took over the wheel of the convertible. In a short time they had returned to Carol's, packed their suitcases, and left a note of explanation for Carol. Louis shook his head unhesitatingly when Nicole asked if she should suggest meeting Carol and Ed later in the evening.

  The rest of the afternoon entailed transferring luggage to the apartment and walking along Royal Street to peer into the quaint specialty shops. Later, as they climbed the stairs of the apartment, Louis queried, "Where would you girls like to eat?"

  "The Fatted Calf," Elaine answered promptly, giggling at the shocked echoes her choice elicited from Louis and Nicole alike. After much good-natured objection on their part, she got her wish to eat in the French Quarter restaurant that served at least thirty varieties of hamburger. Its fame among teenagers extended as far away as Iberville.

  Afterward Louis consented to a very rapid stroll down Bourbon Street, obviously amused at the girl's open-mouthed amazement. The hawkers stood on the sidewalks urging the tourists thronging the street to come inside the striptease clubs and enjoy the spectacle of bare female flesh. They held the entrance doors open for glimpses of the nude dancers gyrating to loud music.

  "Oh, my gosh!" Elaine kept murmuring, her neck working overtime in the effort to swivel her head fast enough to see everything.

  She made no protest when they arrived back at the apartment and Louis announced it was high time she got to bed. It had been a long, excitement-filled, day, and she was yawning as they climbed the stairs.

  Finally, Louis and Nicole were alone, with no talkative teenager to fill in the silences. She accepted a glass of white wine and kicked off her high-heeled shoes with a sigh of relief. A swift search of her mind for some topic of conversation brought recall of the Tour of Homes. She told him of the arrangements she had discussed with Mary Peltier.

  Then she added impulsively, "Angela's in New York."

  "Yes. I saw her there recently."

  The revelation jolted her like an electric shock.

  "Oh! Her mother's very worried about her. It seems she's convinced she pushed me overboard."

  "She's under the care of an excellent psychiatrist who happens to be an old classmate of mine." Then he changed the subject to his pleasure at the outcome of the tournament and his gratitude toward Nicole for convincing him to allow Elaine to play in it.

  Her hopes ebbed with dismaying swiftness as they talked compatibly about a range of safe topics. He had been friendly and attentive all afternoon, but there was precious little evidence he cared for her the way she cared for him.

  "You look tired," he said suddenly. "Why don't we follow Elaine's example?"

  There was no denying her fatigue, but that didn't mean she could sleep. She stood in the darkness of her bedroom, reflecting with bitterness how nothing had changed after all, even though Louis had returned and there had been those wonderful hours in his company. How she had hoped for some sign, some movement from him to close the huge gulf separating them! But here she was in her own bedroom while he was across the hallway in the solitude of his own bedroom.

  A fain
t sound brought prickles of alertness to her sensitive flesh. Louis must be opening the narrow French doors connecting his room to the small balcony outside. At least he wasn't able to sleep, either. There was some small comfort in that knowledge.

  Well, she just couldn't stand the indecision about her future life with him another second. She had to know if there was any possibility that this empty pretense of a marriage could become real and meaningful. If he rejected the proposal she was about to make, she didn't know what her next move would be, but at least she would know where she stood with him.

  With one fluid movement she was across the room and standing in the narrow hallway. No sound followed her soft tap, and after a moment of tense uncertainty, she turned the old-fashioned brass doorknob and pushed open the door. It swung open into semidarkness. The streetlights outside shed a faint illumination, silhouetting the tall, still frame of her husband in the rectangle formed by the open French doors.

  She closed the door behind her softly and leaned on it for support, facing him across a silence that crackled with the unanswered questions separating them. Surely he was able to hear the jangling thud of her heart, which threatened to dash itself fatally against the wall of her chest.

  "Louis, I just can't stand this anymore," she said huskily, noting with sinking despair the perceptible stiffening of his body as he faced her across the darkness.

  "I wondered what was behind the telephone call," he answered coldly.

  "It isn't easy for me to come to you like this, but I want a real marriage," she said, urging the words through a painfully constricted throat.

  "I see." His voice was bitter, the tone making her feel that her fragile hopes were doomed before she even explained them. "Surely you realize there's no possibility of an annulment now?" he rasped impatiently.

  "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked in genuine puzzlement. His comment didn't make any sense to her at all.

  The silence lengthened between them. She was tempted to flee to her room and nurse her wounded pride, but she couldn't face the bleakness of total defeat just yet. As much as it would hurt, she wanted him to spell out his feelings in words. She didn't want to continue to live with a tenuous hope that might never be realized. It would be better to know the worst now.

  "I don't want an annulment," she whispered desperately. "I want to be your wife."

  One moment he was a forbidding presence in the lighted rectangle of the open French doors. The next thing she knew he was across the room and gripping her arms in a viselike hold that sent pains shooting up to her shoulders.

  "What are you saying?" he demanded fiercely.

  "Even though you don't care for me, lots of marriages are based on a one-sided love," she quavered, refusing to succumb to the cowardice that was causing her legs to tremble uncontrollably.

  "Nicole, are you trying to say—" His voice throbbed with emotion.

  "I love you, Louis," she confessed in an abject little voice.

  The brutal hands softened their hold and went up to frame her face with a gentleness that awoke the tiniest ray of hope. "God, I'd given up all hope of hearing you say that," he said in a strangled voice. His lips came down to caress hers with a deep tenderness that brought tears to her eyes.

  Her hands found their way up to his strong neck, while his own hands began to work their magic on her responsive flesh, shaping the curve of her slender neck and then sliding across her shoulders and crushing her against him. The tender kiss grew urgent with awakened passion.

  She was breathless when he suddenly tore his mouth from hers and asked huskily, "Are you sure, my darling?" The little note of fear caused an odd constriction in her chest, and she answered by pulling his head down to hers. When he carried her over to the bed, there wasn't a trace of her former resistance to his passionate lovemaking. His wonderful hands raised her to new heights of arousal as he whispered assurances of his love, removing her last remaining doubts.

  Afterward she snuggled close beside him in a contented glow, unable to restrain her wonder at the miracle of his love. "I was so sure you loved Angela."

  "I never loved Angela, not from the very beginning, but marrying her was an idea I accepted. Since I didn't love anyone else…" She felt his shrug. "Then I became aware of you those last days before the wedding, and you were everything Angela wasn't. Warm and kind and sensitive."

  His words amazed her and at the same time awoke a whole new wave of happiness. But there were still unanswered questions between them.

  "Why did you leave so suddenly when I was in the hospital? I kept waiting for you to appear—I was so disappointed…" Her voice reflected the hurt and loneliness she had experienced after her close encounter with death.

  He sighed and nuzzled the soft darkness of her hair with his lean cheek. "I was there in your hospital room when you woke up for the first time and asked for Adrian. I'd been so worried about you and had already decided to tell you the way I felt—it was almost more than I could stand to know you wanted him and not me. But the thought of giving you up was intolerable. So I ran away to lick my wounds."

  Her hand went up to caress the sculptured jawline, tense now with remembrance. "I just vaguely remember worrying about letting Adrian know I wouldn't be able to play in the tournament." She expelled a little sigh. "Oh, Louis, we've wasted so much time, but finally our feelings are out in the open. Everything's worked out wonderfully. Who'd ever have given a marriage like ours a chance of succeeding!"

  His arms tightened around her. "I have a terrible confession to make, darling. Greg Benton isn't the cad he was made out to be at the time. He came to me that night before the wedding and told me Angela was having a severe case of nerves. I pressed him not to dissuade her from running away."

  "But why?" Nicole was dumbfounded at this revelation.

  "I'd realized by that time that marrying Angela would be a terrible mistake for everyone concerned. And having become aware of you already, it didn't take me long to arrive at an alternative to canceling the wedding arrangements at the last minute. I hoped with Angela out of the way I could talk you into taking her place. My big ace in the hole was your concern for Andrew." His voice was underlined with apology. "In my defense, I have to say that the marriage seemed a solution to a number of problems—mine, yours, Andrew's, and Elaine's."

  "I just can't believe it!" Nicole exclaimed softly. "You certainly had me fooled. I was convinced you were brokenhearted, especially when you left right after the wedding and didn't come back for four months."

  He chuckled happily. "Your marriage condition set me back and definitely damaged my male ego. I decided to give you ample time to recover from your father's death and adapt to Elaine and Mimosa House. Then I came home all prepared to woo you—and found you in Adrian's arms."

  "No!" she objected.

  "Literally," he insisted. "That day on the tennis court—remember? I came close to firing him on the spot."

  "Then Angela came home, and I thought—"

  "What a mess," he murmured, hugging her so tight against him she could hardly breathe. Then, gradually, the pressure of his muscular length awoke a faint stirring, kindled almost immediately into a flaming need at the skilled exploration of his demanding lips and hands.

  Later, as she lay drowsily against him, delighting in the solid warmth of his body, he murmured, "Goodnight, my darling. I have a surprise for you when you get home."

  She insisted she would never fall asleep if he didn't tell her. "Okay," he surrendered indulgently, half asleep. "I managed to track down your grandmother's secretary and the armoire you refinished. You'll have to decide where you want to put them!"

  "Oh, Louis, that's the best surprise you could ever have given me!" she whispered, overwhelmed with a renewed wave of love for his thoughtfulness. Somehow, having those dear reminders of the past made everything perfect, intensifying her optimism for the future as Louis's real wife. She'd put the secretary somewhere so that she could see it and touch it every day… In the middle
of that absorbing decision, she sighed happily and fell asleep.