The Object of His Desire (erotic romance suspense) Read online

  “Without you, we cannot please you,” said the minister. “Without your love, our deeds are worth nothing.”

  The chapel was quite simple inside, the walls roughly plastered and whitewashed, the stained glass windows plain and almost childish in design, the blocks of color naive and bold. It reminded me of a children’s book I’d just been helping out with at Ellison and Coles. On the wall nearby there was a large stone plaque inscribed with the names of Henry Willem Bentinck and, in much smaller lettering, his wife Elizabeth, both of whom had died in the mid 18th century. A family with history, indeed, assuming the Bentincks had, at some stage, become the Bentinck-Stanleys.

  “Send your Holy Spirit, and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love, that we may worship you now with thankful hearts...”

  “So how long’s it been?”

  I was tempted to stamp on his instep, but decided against it. It was the first outing for these Jimmy Choos; I didn’t want to damage them. Instead, I smiled at him, which caught him off guard. He’d been expecting to wind me up – I’d always been an easy target.

  “How long it is since I’ve had sex is none of your business.” I spoke just loud enough for a few of the people nearby to hear, but not loud enough to interrupt the prayer. Charlie’s mouth fell open and his eyes widened, then he gave a quiet laugh and returned his attention to Ethan and Eleanor.

  “...and serve you always with willing minds; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  Again, as one, the congregation responded, this time with “Amen.”

  The organ started up then, with a wheezy, reedy introduction to the first hymn.

  “So what have you been up to, then? Seeing anyone? Or not? Is that why you’re so grumpy?”

  I pretended to sing, although I didn’t know the hymn, and I couldn’t tell which was the tune and which the harmony – the voices around the church seemed to be all over the place.

  Why hadn’t my brother gotten married on a beach somewhere? Why this draughty, damp chapel in the middle of nowhere? A Long Island beach wedding would have been perfect; somewhere out in the Hamptons. We’d had family holidays there when we were kids: every August in a little cabin with steps down to a white sandy beach just outside Montauk. That would have been perfect.

  And why was it that Charlie could pick up on my moods so easily? I didn’t think I’d been particularly grumpy, but he’d spotted it, and I was definitely out of sorts, as he would put it.

  “I’m not grumpy,” I hissed. And if you argue with me, Charlie, I really will embed the rather high heel of one of my Jimmy Choos in your instep. I think he saw that in my eyes, because he fell silent for the rest of that hymn.

  As the last notes of the organ faded away, I followed the lead of those around me and sat. Across the aisle, Will was the last to sit, as if he’d actually fallen asleep on his feet.

  “In the presence of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we have come together to witness the marriage of Eleanor Eugenie Lydia and Ethan Luke, to pray for God’s blessing on them, to share their joy and to celebrate their love.”

  I watched Ethan. I’m an unashamed romantic, when it comes down to it. Every time my brother turned his head to glance at his bride I felt a surge of emotion. I wanted to cry already, which wasn’t a good sign. Little Miss Waterworks.

  Eleanor stood with her head half-turned, her eyes switching between Ethan and the minister as he recited his very long litany.

  She was beautiful, his English rose.

  “I miss you.” Charlie’s voice was soft, almost too quiet to hear.

  Bastard.

  He was toying with me. I was just a source of amusement for now. I knew what Charlie was like.

  But even after living with Charlie for a year, I still found it difficult to read him sometimes. For an apparently superficial man, he had a character of many layers, his serious depths obscured by a glib humor and that very English middle class veneer. Private schooling and generations of in-breeding had a lot to answer for.

  I tried to ignore what he’d just said. He misses me. No, saying something like that was just a natural progression from him prying into my admittedly sparse sex life. He was toying with me. Bastard seemed a suitable response. It usually was with Charlie.

  Instead, I tried to concentrate on the minister, and on Ethan and Eleanor. After a time, Charlie’s words were all but forgotten.

  I hadn’t realized quite how nervous I’d been about this day, but seeing my brother and his bride, the two of them so damned happy... well, all of my anxiety just vanished. Ethan had found his rose, and the day was set to be perfect.

  “The gift of marriage brings husband and wife together in the delight and tenderness of sexual union and joyful commitment to the end of their lives. It is given as the foundation of family life...”

  I looked at Charlie. He seemed nervous. As if perhaps he realized he’d exposed too much.

  I miss you.

  Okay. His words weren’t really forgotten. How could they be?

  Go on. Follow his lead. See if he really meant it. Those inner voices again, pointing the way.

  “Really?”

  There had been such a long interval since his words, I wondered for a moment if he understood what I was referring to.

  He glanced at me, then looked away, and I knew then that he knew exactly what I was asking.

  Did he really miss me? And if he did, what did I feel about that? Did I want him to miss me? Was there still some kind of unfinished business between Charlie and me?

  No. Really, there wasn’t. There couldn’t be. Too much had passed between us, too much had been said and done, too much time had gone by.

  But a girl can feel flattered, at least.

  I smiled at him, unsure if he would see out of the corner of his eye. Then I took his hand and squeezed.

  “First, I am required to ask anyone present who knows a reason why these persons may not lawfully marry, to declare it now.”

  This was when Charlie met my look, grinned, and tugged sharply at my hand.

  I struggled not to stagger forward, and I opened my mouth, just stifling a gasp. The minister looked at me, an eyebrow raised. I wasn’t sure if he was amused by Charlie’s prank, or exasperated at me.

  “The vows you are about to take are to be made in the presence of God,” continued the minister, “who is judge of all and knows all the secrets of our hearts; therefore if either of you knows a reason why you may not lawfully marry, you must declare it now.”

  Silence, all eyes on Ethan and Eleanor. All except for Charlie, who was looking at me, that cheeky, irritating, schoolboy smile on his face.

  “Bastard,” I hissed. “Just... Bastard.”

  §

  “I, Eleanor Eugenie Lydia, take you, Ethan Luke, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward.”

  She looked so pretty, so delicate. Her skin was almost as pale as the ivory dress, her eyes wide and dark. I was impressed that Eleanor had memorized her vows. I wondered if Ethan would do the same; he’d always had the memory of a goldfish.

  “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

  Okay, so a wedding in a tiny English country chapel had its charms, I’d admit that. Suddenly I felt close to tears again, moved by the atmosphere, and by the fact that it was my big brother up there, holding that English beauty’s hands, gazing into her eyes. Happy.

  I swallowed, determined not to let Charlie see how this whole thing had got to me.

  “To love, cherish, and obey, till death us do part.”

  Oh my word. I hadn’t anticipated that. So not only had Ethan found his English rose, one whose family seemed to own half of Norfolk – but she’d just promised to obey him! I hadn’t thought they still did that.

  Across the way, I saw Will again, something strange on his face. I wondered again whether he was an ex of Eleanor’s, and what must be going on inside his head right now. Was it all over between them? Was it recent?
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  Suddenly I felt very protective of my brother. But then I remembered that Eleanor had just promised to obey him... Where had that come from? I’d never had Ethan down as the dominant, controlling kind. He was a pussycat.

  “According to God’s holy law,” concluded Eleanor. “In the presence of God I make this vow.”

  3.

  Do English weddings go on forever, or does it just feel that way?

  By the time Charlie stepped forward with the rings, I’d already studied every inch of stained glass, marveled again at the display of hats, feathers and garish colors on the bride’s side of the church, and read enough inscriptions and dedications to be left in no doubt as to the worthiness and long history of Eleanor’s family.

  Another prayer, then Ethan – his hands shaking so much! – placed the ring on Eleanor’s finger and spoke. “Eleanor Eugenie Lydia, I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage.”

  I couldn’t see my brother’s face, as he stood turned to face Eleanor with his back to me. I so longed to see his face.

  “With my body I honor you, all that I am I give to you.” Eleanor’s eyes were wide, unblinking. She hung on his every word.

  And in the background, Will watched them closely. Were those a predator’s eyes? A jealous ex-lover’s? Or were they just hung-over eyes, glazed over, waiting for this all to be done with so he could either find a darkened room or start drinking again?

  He saw me studying him.

  Dark eyes, fixed on mine. A hint of a smile. Something arrogant in that smile, something I couldn’t quite place. Then I remembered Charlie’s words from earlier: this was a man who was accustomed to getting what he wanted.

  I looked away.

  Seconds later, I glanced across again, my look swinging up from the floor, along the front row, past Will, to the array of gaudy hats beyond. I wasn’t really looking at him at all.

  But he was still looking at me.

  Since when had I blushed so easily?

  “And all that I have I share with you, within the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

  God I was such a rush of emotions. No wonder my responses were all over the place. I realized I was holding Charlie's hand again, his touch reassuring. I leaned in towards him, the press of his arm something solid, reliable.

  It was Eleanor’s turn now. She took the ring, held it to Ethan’s finger, then slipped it on. “Ethan Luke, I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage.”

  Just then, Charlie leaned closer, and spoke softly in my ear. “It’s okay,” he said. “I get it. You’re doing good, you hear? I’ll stick with you, okay?”

  I looked back into his eyes, and he squeezed my hand. I didn’t understand then what it was that he got, but suddenly I was really grateful for his presence. Good old unreadable Charlie. Crass and schoolboyish at all the wrong moments and then confounding you with god-damned sensitivity, of all things, just when you least expected it.

  “With my body I honor you, all that I am I give to you–”

  Ethan was still grinning like a mad thing. Even with his back to me, I could see the way the muscles tensed in his jaw and neck, his whole face pulled back in that stupid grin of his, that Dunkin’ Donuts grin.

  “–and all that I have I share with you, within the love of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”

  I felt proud, I felt happy, I felt a great big surge of emotions bursting out. I don’t know what I felt, watching my brother like that, listening to him.

  “In the presence of God, and before this congregation,” said the minister, “Eleanor Eugenie Lydia and Ethan Luke have given their consent and made their marriage vows to each other. They have declared their marriage by the joining of hands and by the giving and receiving of rings. I therefore proclaim that they are husband and wife.”

  Now would be okay, I figured.

  I’d lasted this long, but now would be an okay point to let the tears flow, and so I did.

  §

  Wedding photos in that sweet little churchyard was when it really got to me, and when Charlie revealed his sensitive side all over again. I couldn’t work out if this was a genuinely new side to him, or if he just reserved it for that very rare special occasion – so rare that he’d only ever hinted at it in passing in the year we’d been together.

  The church was ancient, maybe five or six hundred years old. The walls were built from split flint in that incredibly picturesque and distinctive Norfolk way, each wall a mosaic of broken, polished stone. Not long after moving to England, I’d spent a long weekend up here on the coast, and my abiding memories were of hoppy English ale and dressed crab and samphire for lunch outside flinty pubs, in flinty villages.

  Completing the picture of rural bliss, delicate white roses scrambled up the walls and around the church’s entrance, and a scattering of floppy white petals formed drifts on the ground like the confetti that was yet to be thrown. The whole setting was chocolate box and beautiful, and it reminded me of falling in love with England back when I first came to visit Ethan in Cambridge.

  As we gathered outside, the sun breaking through from behind a few fluffy white clouds, Charlie stuck close to me. That whole sensitive thing, like a new trick he’d learned.

  Around us, higgledy-piggledy headstones crusted with lichen and moss were crammed into the churchyard, and I was sure that if I looked closely there would be more Bentincks and Stanleys and Bentinck-Stanleys here, too, just as there had been inside the chapel.

  “So what’s with you, Ethan and Will?” I asked Charlie. The undercurrents between the three: there was clearly something there, some story from their past. A Cambridge thing, I guessed.

  Charlie shrugged, and smiled his easy smile. Classic deflection, Charlie, my inner voice said.

  “Nothing much,” he said. “We were friends at All Hallows.” All Hallows... that had been their college in Cambridge. “You know how it is. Friendships come and go. We were kids back then, wet behind the ears, and all that.”

  “So that’s why you’ll barely look at each other now?”

  A shift of the eyes, a hand in the small of my back again, and he was steering me towards the graveled area in front of the rose-decked chapel doorway, the subject changed, or at least diverted.

  “Okay, okay, if you’d all gather here around the doorway,” boomed the photographer, his rough Cockney accent at odds with the refined tones of most of the guests. “Make room for the happy couple. Better put them in the middle now, hadn’t we?”

  Ethan and Eleanor emerged then, pausing in the church doorway as if suddenly dazzled by the sunlight and attention.

  I was refined, I was dignified.

  For a second or two at least. Then I gave a girlish squeal, tossed my little clutch bag into Charlie’s hands and ran into my big brother’s arms.

  “You did it, E! You really really did it!”

  He hugged me back, he pulled away, and he gave that Dunkin’ Donuts grin, and then he said, “Trudy. Hey, Trudy. Meet my wife, Eleanor. Eleanor: Trudy.”

  I turned, smiling, still in Ethan’s long arms. “Eleanor. Ethan’s told me so much.”

  She blanked me. She totally blanked me.

  Her eyes flitted from Ethan to me, and her expression was unreadable, and then her eyes jumped back to my brother.

  I felt like a fly, a sweet wrapper blowing in the wind... something that momentarily snags your attention and then... gone... irrelevant.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said, plunging on. She was my brother’s new wife, this was her big day. Of course she’s distracted. She has so much to deal with – she might not even realize who you are, Trudy.

  I looked up at Ethan again, but he had eyes only for Eleanor.

  I extracted myself from his embrace, stepped back, and then they were talking to someone else, a woman in a hat that was all feathers and lace, a man who looked like he was wearing a suit that might have fitted him twenty years ago, before he’d discovered Ben and Jerry’s.

  Charlie’s hand in t
he crook of my elbow, guiding me away. “Hey there,” he said, pushing my clutch back into my hands. “It’s tough, I know. Big bro’ has a new family. I get it, Trudy. I get it.”

  §

  That was what Charlie got, way before I got it myself.

  When our parents had died a year and a half ago, that had only left me and Ethan. I was his family; he was mine. We’d both settled in England already, by then, so at least we were on the same continent.

  But now...

  Now, Ethan had a new family. A family with history and breeding. A family that owned a large chunk of rural Norfolk and probably lots else besides. A ready-made family, taking him to their heart.

  I didn’t begrudge him that at all.

  I was happy for him. Genuinely thrilled.

  But that was the thing. I’d only ever seen it from his perspective: everything was working out for him, everything was swell. I hadn’t seen it from my own viewpoint: while Ethan might be gaining a family, was I in the process of losing what remained of my own? Had I already lost it, in that time when we’d drifted apart and Ethan had started to move in new circles?

  I hadn’t seen it at all, but Charlie had.

  Good old hard to read, frequently annoying and impossible to live with Charlie.

  4.

  The photos took longer than the wedding service, or at least that’s how it felt. Long intervals between shots while Will and a couple of other ushers I half-recognized conferred with the photographer and then scurried around organizing people.

  There were only about fifty guests – Ethan had said he and Eleanor wanted a low-key event, and I wondered now if this was to avoid paparazzi. Do the gutter press bother about weddings like this, families like Eleanor’s? Maybe.

  But even with only fifty guests, there were lots of different group shots to take: everyone together; bride’s family, groom’s family – well, me and Ethan, at least. That was a poignant moment, but a sweet one, too.