Married By Christmas Read online

  Patrick threw the bank book and account statement down onto the table, sitting in the chair opposite hers once again. ‘I did some checking during the short time I had before coming here. Brewster’s relationship has apparently foundered, probably because of the pending court case; his lover is apparently the type who doesn’t care to be associated with criminals! So maybe Brewster just decided to try and salvage at least part of his life and try to walk away. I have a feeling your father will let him do that.’

  So did she, once she had spoken to her father. ‘He’s certainly going to be ecstatic at the return of this.’ She touched the statement as if she still couldn’t believe the money was actually there, within her father’s grasp.

  Patrick said, ‘He’s gone back to Gerry’s house, if you want to take it to him.’

  This time Lilli didn’t feel that sickening lurch in her stomach at the mention of the relationship between his sister and her father. Maybe she was getting used to the idea...

  ‘And you?’ Patrick suddenly asked her. ‘How do you feel about it?’

  She gave a glowing smile. ‘Wonderful! Daddy has his money back, and it looks as if all the publicity a court case would have engendered can be avoided as well. It’s—But you don’t look too pleased, Patrick.’ She suddenly realised he looked grimmer than ever. ‘Do you think there’s something wrong with the return of the money?’ She looked down at the bank statement. ‘Is Andy playing some sort of cruel joke on us all? Do you—?’

  ‘Relax,’ Patrick advised. ‘The money is in a bank account in your name. It’s yours. But it means the two of us have some serious talking to do once you’ve seen your father,’ he added firmly.

  Lilli looked startled. ‘We do...?’

  ‘One day, Lilli,’ he bit out. ‘Do you realise that if Brewster had returned that money to you just one day earlier you wouldn’t now be my wife?’ He looked at her intently. ‘Would you?’

  All the colour drained from her face as the force of his words hit her. One day... If Andy had come to see her the day before her marriage to Patrick, then he was right—there would have been no wedding. She wouldn’t now be Patrick’s wife. Never would have been!

  She couldn’t speak as this sickening realisation hit her.

  ‘Exactly,’ he grated, standing up. ‘I really do have some things to do at the moment, Lilli. But we’ll talk about this later at the hotel.’

  Lilli sat and watched him go, her eyes dark green pools. Exactly what were they going to talk about? Not divorce? Did Patrick realise, with the return of this money, that they should never have been married at all? Did none of last night and this morning matter to him? Did he want to end their marriage before it had even begun?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘BUT this is wonderful!’ Her father’s delight was obvious as he smiled broadly. ‘Absolutely marvellous!’

  ‘But is it?’ Gerry said slowly, looking at Lilli. ‘Lilli doesn’t look too happy.’

  Her father turned to her too now, noticing the paleness of her face. ‘Lilli?’ he said warily. ‘Brewster didn’t say or do anything to upset you, did he?’

  ‘No,’ she dismissed with a shaky laugh.

  ‘There aren’t any hidden conditions attached to the return of this money, are there?’

  She had come in a taxi straight to Gerry’s house, knew she had to put her father’s mind at rest as soon as possible. But inside she was still in shock from Patrick’s enigmatic comments before he’d left her, couldn’t actually remember the taxi journey here.

  ‘No hidden conditions,’ she assured her father wryly. ‘I think Andy was quite relieved to get rid of it; a life of crime doesn’t seem to have brought him too much happiness!’

  Then—’

  ‘Where is Patrick, Lilli?’ Gerry interjected. ‘Richard said he came to join you at the hotel...?’

  ‘He did.’ She avoided the other woman’s gaze: Gerry saw far too much! ‘But he had some business to attend to,’ she added brightly.

  ‘Did he?’ Gerry returned sceptically.

  Lilli still didn’t meet her sister-in-law’s eyes. ‘He said he did, yes.’

  ‘But...?’

  ‘Really, Gerry.’ Lilli gave a light laugh, although no humour reached the dull pain in her eyes. ‘You know Patrick—if he says he has something else to do, then he has something else to do.’

  ‘I do know Patrick,’ his sister acknowledged softly. ‘We’ve always been very close. He more or less brought me up, you know.’

  ‘Yes, he told me about that,’ Lilli replied, those moments of intimacy between them seeming a lifetime away.

  ‘Did he?’ Gerry nodded her satisfaction with that. ‘Then you must realise that the two of us know each other rather better than most brothers and sisters, that we’ve always had an emotional closeness?’

  Lilli gave the other woman a puzzled glance. ‘I don’t understand where all this is leading to—’

  ‘It’s leading to the fact that Patrick is in love with you,’ Gerry told her impatiently. ‘And I have a feeling—a terrible feeling!—that because of this—’ she held up the bank book and statement ‘—Patrick is going to do something incredibly stupid!’

  Lilli was quick to protest, ‘Patrick isn’t in love with me, and—’

  ‘Oh, yes, he is,’ the other woman assured her with certainty.

  ‘—he never does anything “incredibly stupid”,’ Lilli finished determinedly. ‘Unless you count marrying me in the first place,’ she added bitterly.

  ‘Lilli, exactly what has Patrick said to you?’ Gerry probed.

  Lilli stood up and turned away from both her father and the other woman. ‘Apart from more or less saying we should start talking about a divorce?’ she said fiercely. ‘Not a lot!’

  ‘A divorce?’ her father echoed incredulously. ‘But you were only married yesterday! He can’t be serious—’

  ‘They were married yesterday, Richard,’ Gerry cut in gently. ‘But today the reason for Lilli marrying Patrick—that money—’ she gestured in the direction of the bank book ‘—was made null and void. That is the reason Patrick believes you married him, isn’t it, Lilli?’

  She was starting to resent Gerry again; this was none of her business, even if she was Patrick’s sister! ‘It is the reason I married him,’ Lilli came back; she didn’t believe either of these two could seriously have ever been fooled into believing otherwise!

  ‘So you’re going to agree to a divorce?’ Gerry watched her shrewdly.

  Lilli felt ill just at the thought of it, knowing she must have once again gone pale. ‘If that’s what Patrick’s wants, yes.’

  ‘And what do you want?’ the other woman persisted.

  ‘You know Patrick; I don’t think I’ll have a lot of say in this one way or the other!’

  ‘Lilli, your father told me Patrick said he hadn’t raised a fool.’ Gerry spoke plainly. ‘But at this moment you’re being extremely foolish!’ she added caustically.

  ‘I don’t think I asked for your opinion!’ Lilli felt deep resentment.

  ‘And now you’re being very rude,’ her father said sternly, moving forward to put his arms about Gerry’s shoulders. ‘Gerry is trying to help you—’

  ‘I don’t need—or want!—her help,’ Lilli told him forcefully, her hands clenched at her sides at this show of solidarity from the couple. The last thing she needed at this moment was to have their relationship pushed in her face. She felt as if her whole world was falling apart already, without that!

  ‘Calm down, Richard.’ Gerry put a soothing hand against his chest as he would have exploded angrily. ‘Lilli is hurt and upset—and God knows we all do stupid things when we feel like that! I think it’s time, Richard,’ she opined slowly, ‘that Lilli heard about some of the stupid things I did in the past—don’t you?’

  He looked down at her uncertainly. ‘I—’

  ‘It’s time, Richard,’ Gerry repeated firmly. ‘Unless you want Lilli to make the same mistake I did? Because, believ
e me, these two are even more stubborn than we are, and at this moment, basically because she’s here and Patrick isn’t, I think Lilli is more open to reason.’

  Lilli’s father glanced across at his daughter uncertainly, Lilli steadily returning his gaze. She had no idea what all this was about, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know either. But she did know that when she got back to the hotel Patrick was going to talk about their future—or lack of it!—and anything that delayed that happening was acceptable!

  ‘Very well.’ Her father finally gave his agreement. ‘But listen carefully, Lilli. And try not to judge,’ he added almost pleadingly.

  ‘Do I need to sit down for this?’

  ‘Yes,’ her father confirmed, going to the drinks tray on the side dresser. ‘You’re also going to need this.’ He handed her a glass of brandy. ‘We all are!’ He handed another glass to Gerry, and kept one for himself.

  Lilli sat, although she made no move to drink the brandy, putting the glass down on the table beside her chair, looking up expectantly at Gerry.

  The other woman looked apprehensive at her sceptical expression. ‘Your father is right, Lilli—you aren’t going to like what you hear,’ she said. ‘But please try to understand; this isn’t being done to hurt; I’m doing this for an altogether different reason.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Lilli conceded dryly.

  ‘Lilli—’

  ‘Leave it, Richard,’ the other woman told him lightly. ‘Lilli makes no pretence of doing anything other than disliking me, and at least it’s honest. It isn’t what I would like, but it’s honest.’ She walked over to the blazing fire, suddenly seeming to need its warmth. ‘Six years ago I met a man I fell very much in love with,’ she began. ‘Unfortunately, the man was married—We haven’t all led neatly packaged lives, Lilli,’ she added at Lilli’s derisive expression. ‘The man was married. Unhappily—I know, aren’t they all?’ she acknowledged self-deprecatingly. ‘But in this case it was true. I had seen the two of them together, knew that the wife was involved with someone else. And I—I fell in love with the husband. And he loved me in return.’

  ‘But your marriage only lasted a couple of months,’ Lilli pointed out. ‘Hardly the love of a lifetime!’ she said scathingly, wondering why she was being told all this.

  ‘Because I didn’t marry the man I loved!’ Gerry returned curtly. ‘There were complications. The man had a child. At fifteen, not a very young child, I’ll admit, but a child the father loved very much. And there were reasons why—why this man couldn’t leave his wife and child.’

  ‘Once again, there always are,’ Lilli returned without interest, this was an all-too-familiar story, surely...?

  Gerry drew in a harsh breath. ‘But in this case the wife threatened to completely alienate the child from the father if he dared to leave her—’

  ‘But I thought you said she was involved in an affair, too?’

  ‘She was,’ Gerry rasped. ‘And if things had been—different she had intended leaving her husband! But the woman became ill, seriously so, and her—lover decided he didn’t want to tie himself to a woman dying of cancer.’

  Lilli had become suddenly still, her eyes wide now as she stared at Gerry. ‘Go on...’

  ‘Your father and I were deeply in love, Lilli,’ Gerry told her emotionally. ‘We had intended being together. But he—he left it too late to agree to giving your mother a divorce. She had been diagnosed as terminally ill, her lover left her, and suddenly all she was left with was a broken marriage. And her daughter.’ Gerry swallowed hard. ‘She was determined to hang onto both of them—at any cost.’

  Lilli could hardly breathe, felt suddenly numb. ‘Your parents’ marriage began to deteriorate after your brother died, Lilli,’ the other woman continued huskily. ‘Your father buried himself in his work—and loving you. And your mother went from one affair to another. And the love they had once felt for each other turned to a tolerant contempt. By the time I met your father four years later they were living completely separate lives, with you as their only common ground.’

  Lilli looked at her father with pained eyes, couldn’t believe she could have been so blind to her parents’ loveless marriage. Or perhaps she hadn’t... She had known they spent little time together, that her mother could be verbally vicious to her father when she chose to be, but she had always put that down to the pain of her illness. Now she could see that perhaps it had been that they simply didn’t love each other any more...

  ‘Daddy...?’ She looked at him emotionally now.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lilli. So sorry.’ He gripped her hands tightly. ‘But it’s all true. In fact, there’s so much more. Your mother had asked me for a divorce before she found out about her illness, was going off with this other man—’

  ‘Richard...!’ Gerry looked at him uncertainly.

  He shook his head, his gaze still on Lilli. ‘It’s time it all came out, Gerry. Your mother was leaving us, Lilli. She had told me she was going, asked me for a divorce—on her terms, of course. She wanted a huge settlement of money, and in return she would leave you with me. The man she was involved with was ten years younger than her, and he didn’t want Caroline’s fifteen-year-old daughter cluttering up their lives.’

  ‘Mummy was leaving me behind,’ Lilli said dazedly.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘And I was happy to give her the money if I could keep you. Then she found out she had cancer...’ His expression darkened. ‘And everything changed!’

  ‘Lilli!’ Gerry came to her side as she swayed where she sat. ‘No more of that, Richard,’ she said briskly. ‘I only wanted to try to explain a little...’

  ‘I’ve misjudged you,’ Lilli realised flatly, reaching out blindly to clasp the other woman’s hand—blindly because her eyes were full of tears. ‘Patrick knows all of this, doesn’t he?’ She realised only too well now what he had meant when he’d said her father had been protective of her to the point of stupidity! She looked up at her father now. ‘You gave up your chance of happiness because you didn’t want to lose me,’ she said brokenly.

  ‘You had already been through so much when we lost Robbie—’

  ‘You gave up the woman you loved—Geny—’ she looked at the other woman as the tears began to fall down her cheeks ‘—so that Mummy wouldn’t destroy all our lives. And you...’ She tightly squeezed Gerry’s hand. ‘You married someone else on the rebound.’ She recalled her father’s words... ‘An angry and upset Gerry is a force to be reckoned with!’

  ‘Oh, Lilli!’ Gerry moved to hug her. ‘Don’t make the same mistake. Please!’

  She pulled back slightly. ‘You mean Patrick?’

  ‘I mean my stubborn, arrogant brother,’ Gerry confirmed. ‘It runs in the family, I’m afraid. Your father went out of my life five years ago because I was too stubborn to listen to him. I married—disastrously—to spite him. I loved him, wanted to be with him, and although I understood what he was doing it was impossible for me to stay in his life. My marriage was a mess, and within a couple of months I had to admit I had made a terrible mistake.’ She grimaced at the memory. ‘Don’t do something stupid like I did, Lilli. I know Patrick; he would never have married you if he didn’t love you.’

  ‘When he asked me to marry him it was because he said I had the qualities he wanted in his wife, in the mother of his children—’

  ‘He probably believed it when he said it too.’ Gerry shook her head with affectionate exasperation. ‘But it’s all nonsense. Patrick is in love with you—Yes, he is, Lilli,’ she insisted firmly even as Lilli opened her mouth to deny it. ‘Do you love him? The truth, Lilli. It’s the day for the truth,’ she went on throatily.

  Lilli took a deep breath. ‘I—Yes!’ The word was virtually forced out of her. It was one thing to admit to herself how she felt, quite another thing to admit it to someone else. Even someone she realised she had completely misjudged... God, Gerry should have been the one resenting her all this time, not the other way around. So many years wasted... And what
Gerry was saying to her now was, did she want to waste as many by giving up on Patrick without a fight? But Gerry had known Richard loved her, whereas Patrick didn’t love Lilli at all...

  ‘Then what do you have to lose by telling him so?’ Gerry sat back, her expression encouraging. ‘Your pride? Oh, Lilli!’ She held her hand out towards the man she loved, straightening to stand at his side. ‘My pride, after I made such a mess of things, cost me years I could have spent with your father. Long, lonely years, when I went out with lots of men who meant nothing to me, men who, because of their own male pride, would never admit to anyone that those relationships were never physical. I’ve been so lonely, for so long, without your father, Lilli; but thank God he came back and claimed me once he was free to do so!’

  ‘And—thank God—she let me!’ Lilli’s father added with feeling.

  Lilli smiled shakily up at the two of them. ‘So when are the two of you getting married?’

  ‘As soon as you and Patrick agree to be our witnesses,’ her father told her.

  Patrick... A shadow passed over her face, her smile, emotional as it was, fading.

  ‘I’m ordering you to stay away from him, Lilli,’ her father told her expectantly.

  Her smile returned, a little wanly, but it did return. ‘That won’t work this time, Daddy. I—’ She broke off as the telephone began to ring, Gerry going to answer it.

  ‘Good afternoon, Patrick,’ she greeted once he had identified himself as the caller. ‘Richard is ecstatic over the news, and—Yes, Lilli is still here.’ She glanced across the room at a now tense Lilli. ‘Well, we’re all just about to sit down and enjoy a celebratory glass of champagne—Yes, I know it’s your honeymoon,’ she answered him smoothly. ‘But it’s Christmas too. And we all have something to celebrate—why don’t you come and join us—?’ Gerry suddenly held the receiver away from her ear, wincing as the loudness of Patrick’s voice down the receiver could now be heard by all of them, although the words themselves were indistinct. ‘Well, it’s your choice, of course. Lilli will be back later.’ Gerry looked down at the receiver, shrugging before placing it back on its cradle. ‘I’ll give him twenty minutes.’ She grinned.