"Oh!" She made a few strangled sounds under her breath. "I just called as a matter of fact..." at last, inspiration! "...to tell you that I've wasted hundreds of valuable man hours tramping through the nearest towns in search of a wretched bed that can be deliv¬ered by tomorrow and..." She allowed a few seconds to elapse, thoroughly, and childishly enjoying the an¬ticipation of satisfaction about to come. The earliest any double bed can be delivered is in four weeks' time."
"No problem. Leave it with me."
"Leave it with you? And what can you do that I can't?" Her moment of triumph had lasted the length of time it took for her to blink.
"You'd be pleasantly surprised. I'll make sure it's delivered by tomorrow afternoon." His voice dropped a couple of notches. "Aren't you excited, darling? We'll be able to sleep together! The way we should...seeing that we're married now..." He gave a throaty chuckle, and she slammed the receiver down.
She'd worked it out. At long last, she'd worked it out, and it amazed her that she hadn't slotted the pieces of the jigsaw together before now.
Yes, he wanted to take responsibility in the matter of the baby, but Franco Leoni was a charming, sexy, self-confident predator when it carne to the opposite sex, and he intended to stick around and take full ad¬vantage of the situation in which he found himself, to continue sleeping with her. He still wanted her and he intended to have her, until he grew tired and bored with his conquest, at which point, and not a minute before, he would do his convenient vanishing act, only reappearing at intervals to do his fatherly duties.
There was nothing she could do about it. In public, he had license to do whatever he pleased. He could touch her, stand as close to her as he liked, allow his hands to wander wherever they wanted, within reason, and she had unwittingly handed him this freedom.
And in private...
Ruth shivered and began heading up the stairs to the bedroom and the short-lived comfort of her single bed.
He knew that she was still attracted to him. Her body and face revealed as much even if her mouth insisted on paying lip service to politeness.
What if a bed did arrive tomorrow?
She pushed open the door to her bedroom and stared forlornly at her conveniently sized bed for one. She had visions of the two of them, back to sharing a bed, their bodies touching even if she tried to edge to the furthest part of the bed as possible. He knew how to touch her; he could break her in a matter of seconds....
"How wonderful!"
Those were her mother's words as the lorry backed up the drive to deliver the bed.
"I can think of plenty more wonderful things," Ruth muttered under her breath.
"What's that, dear? How did he manage to get this all sorted out in a matter of a few hours?" Her mother had taken charge of the situation and was crisply giv¬ing instructions and leading the way up the stairs to the bedroom. "And such a marvelous bed, as well! I've always longed for a wrought-iron bed." She sighed dreamily and Ruth was sorely tempted to tell her mother that she could have the thing, no charge. "There's something terribly romantic about a wrought¬-Iron bed, wouldn't you agree, darling?"
"No. I prefer wood myself."
Her mother peered back over her shoulder to give her a chiding look. "I hope you won't be indiscreet enough to tell that to your husband!" she scolded. "He must have spent hours choosing this and arranging the whole thing."
"Mum, he probably spent five minutes on the phone!"
"He must be awfully persuasive in that case." They watched in silence for a few minutes as the delivery men wrestled with the base of the bed through the door of the bedroom. The single bed had been ignomini¬ously put in one of the outbuildings a couple of hours before by her father and three of the parishioners, who had needed quite some cups of tea to recover from the exertion.
"It's called rich, I think."
"Now, Ruth, it's not like you to be cynical. Franco is a delightful man and he clearly adores you. Super! Could you just shift it a tiny bit more towards the center? Yes, just right! Ruth! Come and have a peek!"
"It's very nice," Ruth admitted grudgingly. She didn't dare step too far into the room. It was bad enough seeing the vast expanse of double bed that seemed to be mocking her crumbling sensibilities from halfway behind her mother's back outside the bed¬room.
"Are you excited?" Her mother turned to her and giggled.
"No, I am not!" Ruth said severely. "I mean ...I mean..."
"Yes, I know it won't be the first time, but there's something so precious about my baby girl, married and sharing a bed with her husband. I can still remem¬ber when you hated boys, for goodness' sake!"
Ruth belatedly wished that she had continued to pursue that path.
"Oh, Mum. Please!"
Claire affectionately gave her daughter a hug and they watched the delivery men depart with wildly dif¬ferent thoughts going through their heads.
The so-called divorce, Ruth was fast realizing, com¬ing after the so-called marriage, would hit her parents hard. Much harder now that they had met the so-called
husband and had had a chance to like him. She sighed with a mixture of frustration and sheer worry.
"I know." Her mother patted her arm and ushered her back into the house. "You feel a bit misty-eyed as well, don't you?" They strolled into the kitchen while Claire continued to prattle on with whimsy about childhood and getting older.
"You wait until you have your own," she said know¬ingly, as she filled the kettle and spooned coffee into two mugs. "I only wish, you know, that your dad and I could have had a big wedding for you. Or at least had something.
This niggling, guilt-inducing line of conversation had reared its head soon after Ruth had arrived back with her news weeks previously, and she was discon¬certed that it was surfacing once again.
"I mean, darling, I do understand. Franco had to dash away without any notice at all and you simply had to leap at the chance or risk missing it altogether, but still..."
"I know, Mum. If things could have been a bit dif¬ferent, then, well, you know I would have loved to have had a white wedding. A very small white wed¬ding... But, you know, sometimes things just don't work out the way we expect them to..."
She relieved her mother of the mug of coffee and took a couple of sips, then headed for the larder and the biscuit tin. Disappointingly, the chocolate bour¬bons had all been eaten. She would have to have a word with her dad about that. Hadn't he promised to stay away from the biscuits?
She returned to the kitchen to find her mother wait¬ing for her with an unnerving glint in her eye.
"Darling, I've had a wonderful idea."
"Yes?" Ruth asked warily, edging back into her chair and making do with the custard creams.
"You know we were talking about how disappointed we both were that there was no white wedding...?" Ruth hadn't realised that she had ever mentioned any such thing, but she nodded obligingly anyway. "Well..." The smile on her mother's face made her look like a girl of sixteen. "What about a blessing? Just something right here, in the vicarage. Something terribly informal. We could ask a few of the parish¬ioners. You know how fond they all are of you...and now that Franco is going to be around for a little while...well, I'm sure he'd be delighted with the idea...!"
"Delighted with what idea?"
Both women swung around at the sound of Franco's voice from the kitchen doorway.
"No idea," Ruth burst out. "Mum was just..." She caught her mother's eye and lapsed into sulky silence. "Come in here, Franco. You look exhausted. I'll make you a cup of coffee and tell you all about my wonderful idea!"
CHAPTER NINE