The Bridesmaid's Wedding Read online

  Rafe tried to deal with a stab of pity. He wanted to stretch out a hand to her. Stroke her sumptuous wild hair. Wind it around his hand like he used to. Just the slightest breeze and it ruffled into a million curls.

  “You haven’t lost him, Ally!” he managed.

  “I know.” Ally felt the same old powerful tug towards him. “But Rebecca is the number one woman in his life now.”

  “And rightly so.” Rafe’s tone was crisp. “You want it that way, don’t you?” He looked across the throng of guests to the radiant bride and groom happily receiving kisses and congratulations and a little bit of warm teasing.

  “Of course I do!” She lifted her face to him in her spirited way. “I’m thrilled. I love Rebecca already. It’s just that…”

  Of course he knew. He was just trying to stir her up a little. “The family has regrouped,” he relented. As a Cameron, Brod’s best friend, and Ally’s once-taken-for-granted future husband, he knew just how dysfunctional the Kinross family had been. The late Stewart Kinross had been a hard, complex man, barely hiding his resentment of his charismatic son, subtly making Ally suffer. Brod and Ally had had to look to one another for understanding and support all their young lives. “Brod is married now,” he continued, “life goes on. But you haven’t lost your brother, Ally. Just gained a sister.”

  “Of course.” She gave her beautiful smile. “It’s just that weddings are serious times, aren’t they? Full of happiness, but a little sadness, too. Days when none of us seem to be able to tuck our emotions safely out of sight.” She allowed herself to look into his eyes. They were so beautiful. Gold-flecked, neither grey nor. green but an iridescent mix of both.

  “Is that a shot at me?” he challenged.

  At least they were talking, she thought gratefully.

  “Will we ever be friends again, Rafe?” she asked, avoiding an answer.

  He chose to ignore the traitorous twist of his heart. Friends? he thought grimly. Was that what we were? He wasn’t going to permit this blatant appeal to his senses, either. “Why, Ally, darling,” he drawled “I can’t remember a time when we weren’t.”

  She didn’t have to touch her cheeks to know they were on fire. She supposed she deserved this. His distinctive strong-boned face with the Cameron cleft chin, looked forged in gilt. He was a splendid creature full of power and energy. beautiful really with that mane of gold hair, another Cameron hallmark. There was an enormous guardedness in his expression, yet a glimmer of something even he couldn’t control, the powerful physical attraction that had once dictated their lives.

  Oh, God. I need you, Ally thought. I want you. I love you. I bitterly regret running away from you and bringing about my own destruction. She realised with hidden grief the strength of her feelings far from abating over time had become more desperate. Only Rafe was a proud man like all the Camerons. A man. who placed an immense value on loyalty and she had betrayed him. One of those false steps in life when she had placed self-fulfilment or how she had thought of it then, above a love so strong and deep it had all but taken possession of her. Love isn’t always safe. At twenty years old the force of it had panicked her. Against everyone’s wishes, she had fled. Now this. Lifelong estrangement from Rafe. It made her want to weep.

  “Why look so heartbroken?” He cocked a golden brown eyebrow.

  “You forget how well I know you.” Though she smiled, Ally kept her telltale eyes veiled. “You’re even more remote since the last time I saw you. I’m fearful you’ve totally shut me out.”

  “For good, darling,” he assured her without apparent regret. A dark wing of her hair with its decorated little braid fell forward onto her cheek and despite himself he found he was tucking it back.

  Fool! Only Ally always had been too much to handle. When he spoke it seemed imperative he make his position perfectly clear. Now his eyes were trapped by the wide beautiful shape of her mouth. The eager, ardent mouth he had kissed a thousand times. And never enough. “I’ve got my life together,” he said by way of explanation. “I’d like to keep it that way. But don’t think I’m not grateful for what we had. The bond between us will last. It’s just I’m not your willing captive any more.”

  She gave a low sceptical laugh. “Captive? I could as easily capture an eagle. In my memory it was the other way round.”

  “You were always one-eyed,” he said in his deep seductive voice. “Who was the girl who at age fourteen told me she adored me. That she wanted to live with me all her life. You were going to marry me the day you turned eighteen. Remember, Ally? You the born seductress. Remember how you told me you belonged to me? Remember how you drove me crazy with desire when I’d made a sacred vow I wouldn’t touch you until you were old enough to handle our relationship. Poor me,” he mocked, “it was my duty to protect your vulnerable innocence.”

  Her eyes flickered, moved away. “You were always very gallant, Rafe. A gentleman in the grand manner.”

  She gave a passing guest that incandescent smile that somehow flooded him with anger. “But you changed all that, didn’t you?” He looked down into her face. “And maybe that was the big mistake. When it came right down to it, the fire you thought consumed you couldn’t match the fire in me. You were the candle to the inferno, or something like that. A reckless child to the man. Is that what frightened you away?”

  Because there was a hard kernel of truth in it, Ally tossed back her head, causing her long hair to bounce along her back. “You didn’t find fault with me when I was in your arms.” she retaliated, her heart swelling with emotion. She had an vivid flash of the way it was, an experience so momentous, like nothing else that had ever happened to her, their bodies bonding passionately in the great front bedroom at Opal. A bedroom not slept in since Sarah and Douglas Cameron, Rafe’s and Grant’s parents had been killed in a light aircraft crash returning home to the station. But Rafe had wanted it that way. Wanted their first mating in the immense ancestral bed. A night without sleep. Delirious making love.

  Rafe. Her first love. Only love. There had been other relationships since, a very few; the ones she had settled for a second best, none with that tremendous, significance. None who could make her soar. Mind, body, spirit. No one. Rafe was her past, her present. Life without him in the future was unimaginable. He was the missing piece of the jigsaw of her life without which the whole design could never be resolved.

  She should have married Rafe years ago when she’d had the chance, instead of fleeing his powerful aura. Rafe, like her brother Brod, had inherited wealth, power, responsibility. A life of service to the land. She understood it, bred to the same heritage, but she couldn’t pretend she had the same dedication. Now years later she would give that dedication gladly; Her career had brought her public admiration, the respect of her peers, but it hadn’t brought her either happiness or fulfilment. It had brought her a good deal of hard work, terrible hours, and increasingly a level of anxiety she had never remotely anticipated. There was a high price to pay for fame.

  “Ah well, it’s all in the past,” Rafe was saying gently without sounding remotely friendly. “I propose we leave it there instead of raking over the dying embers. You know that. So do I. Although it seems a pity your great career isn’t as, fulfilling, as you thought?”

  With an abrupt movement she took a little step back from raising her chin. “Who told you that?”

  He wagged a finger at her. “Ally, Ally, because I can match you step for step, beat for beat, word for word, I know you as well as you know me. You’re not happy in your make-believe world. You used to say you couldn’t breathe in the city. And because l liked you the way you were,” his gaze moved down over her, deceptively silky, “I have to tell you you’re way too thin.”

  “Great! I look awful?” she mocked. She knew without vanity how good she looked even if stress was taking its toll.

  He considered the question briefly, golden head, metallic in the sunlight, to one side, “Well, put it this way.” You’re not quite as much woman as you used
to be. There’s not an awful lot on top.” He glanced meaningfully at her fitted strapless bodice. “But you look beautiful. The sort of woman one can’t take one’s eyes off. Totally desirable. Which makes me wonder why there’s never any of yours splashed over the cover of the women’s magazines?”

  “Somehow I still believe my private life is my own. Anyway, since when have women’s magazines appealed to you?” She spoke sweetly, aware as Rafe must be, they were the focus of many eyes. A splendid affair gone wrong like Scarlett and Rhett.

  “Ever heard of women friends?” His dry tone glittered. “I was over at Victoria Springs only the other day, submerging myself in old issues with Lainie. The two of us went through them together, Lainie has always been one of your greatest admirers. Four pages of Ally Kinross wears seductive separates, that was in Vogue. Mercifully you put them together. I figured you could have worn a bra with the see—through number, Lainie predictably thought you looked fabulous. There was Ally Kinross acting up a storm; Ally Kinross tells us about her working life. No wonder you’ve lost weight, but no mention of your love life, though. I say that’s odd. Neither of us is getting any younger.”

  Which was true. “Perhaps you’ll show me the way,” she retorted with a spark of anger. “You and Lainie share the same tastes. Very establishment, very conventional and so forth.” Was she so jealous? Of Lainie, their friend?

  He made a soft, jeering sound. “To hell with that! You’re talking nonsense.”

  “Am I? It seemed to me the relationship has flourished,” she commented, believing it to be true, “so don’t look down your ridiculously straight nose at me. Though at five-seven, allow a couple more inches for heels, not a lot of people do. But you can.” Rafe, like her brother Brod, stood an impressive six foot three.

  “I expect being a tall woman has its problems?” he said, a lazy smile to his so sexy mouth.

  “You found your way around them.” Despite herself she sparked again. “You’ve changed Rafe. You never used to be sarcastic.”

  “Forgive me. I’m so sorry.” He seemed to find that amusing. “Anyway, that’s the least of your problems.” He saluted a passing guest who didn’t make the mistake of butting in. Rafe’s and Ally’s unique relationship was known to all of them.

  “I didn’t say I had any problems,” Ally began to realise she and Rafe had, stood a little too long talking. Everyone was moving off to the huge white marquee erected in the grounds, among the guests an attractive young woman in an exceptionally pretty flower-printed chiffon dress with a sparkling ornament securing her cascade of long, thick, fair hair. Lainie Rhodes from Victoria Springs Station. Lainie, although a couple of years younger than Ally, had been part of everything from childhood. “So you’re not admitting you’ve turned up the heat on your friendship with Lainie?” Lainie wished it was otherwise but she couldn’t control her need to know. Her eyes followed Lainie’s high spirited progress, arm in arm with Mark Farrell, the groomsman.

  “It sounds like you don’t care for that?” Rafe countered very dryly, trying to blanket out his own warring emotions. Lainie was a nice girl. He was fond of her, but he hadn’t gotten around to seeing her as more than “the girl next door.”

  Yet. The hard fact was he had a responsibility to get married. Produce an heir for Opal. It was imperative he find a solution to Ally. A good woman to combat her.

  Knowing him so intimately Ally picked, up on his wavelength. “Lainie is one of us,” she said almost in quiet resignation. “We used to compete in the show ring. She’s fun and very loyal.”

  “Totally different from you.” It was cruel. A bitter accusation he couldn’t prevent from rushing out.

  Cut to the heart, Ally, the accomplished actress, turned her response into provocative banter. “You mean, I don’t remind you of a friendly puppy?”

  But Rafe, too, had recovered his equilibrium. “I meant that in the nicest way possibly.” He wasn’t at all fazed by Ally’s reminding him of a chance remark he had once made about Lainie. There was a time she had practically leapt into his lap every time she saw him, which was the way her teenage crush seemed to take her.

  “Obviously.” Ally nodded in agreement. “May we expect an announcement?” Though she continued to speak breezily it was taking all her training. She felt she couldn’t bear an answer that suggested a growing involvement.

  “Ally, darling, let me set you straight.” Rafe reverted to a sardonic drawl. “My private life no longer has a great deal to do with you. No offence. Just a simple statement of fact. What we had I’ll remember all my life, but it’s over. Something that happened at another time. To different A people. Ah, here’s Grant and Francesca coming our way,” he exclaimed like a man granted a reprieve. “I’m sure you’ve noticed they get on amazingly well, though don’t read anything into that. The Lady Francesca has her own brilliant life in London.”

  “She might like to change it.” Ally, too, watched her cousin Francesca and Rafe’s brother Grant walking arm in arm towards them. Francesca of the glorious titian hair looked ravishingly pretty in her jacaranda blue bridesmaid’s dress, not even reaching to ,Grant’s broad shoulder. Grant, like Rafe, was outrageously handsome. He and Fran looked wonderful together, their laughter spinning out to reach them. Happy, carefree laughter. The sort of laughter one wants to hear at a wedding. Ally was enormously fond of her cousin, Lady Francesca de Lyle. The idea of having Francesca around all the time had immense appeal.

  Not apparently to Rafe.

  “Don’t say that!” he murmured, half amused, half alarmed. “I don’t want to see my brother’s heart broken, as well.”

  Her breath seemed to leave her. As well? “Are you admitting you still have some feeling left for me?” She held his eyes, eyes that had once been infinitely loving. Eyes that still had such power over her.

  “I’m saying I did, until you got bored and ran away.” His marvellous body relaxed. “Sometimes it seems a pity your spell lost its potency, Ally. I might never feel that kind of heat again. Ah, the feverishness of youth!” His voice was light with nostalgia. “Such a dangerous time.”

  “At least it gave you a good excuse to hate me.”

  “Hate you?” He stared at her in mock shock. “I can’t get stuck with that one. Ally. A I’d never dream of hating you. What do they say about one’s first love? Never mind.” He extended a courteous arm to her. “Why don’t we join up with brother Grant and your Francesca? Most people have made their way to the marquee. I want to see all the delectable things to eat. I let lunch go so I’d have plenty of space. I just love weddings. Don’t you?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE reception had been arranged as a buffet with long tables, covered in White linen cloths that had been given a deep lace edging, laden with,delicious food: glazed ham and turkeys, great platters of bay oysters on beds of crushed ice, luscious seafood of all kinds—crab, prawns, lobsters, crayfish, scallops, silver trays of whole smoked salmon and capers ringed by the old favourite, quartered boiled eggs. There were fish dishes done in mouth-watering pastry, succulent slices of roast beef and lamb, pasta dishes, chicken dishes, mountains of piping hot rice and as variety of garden salads to refresh the palate. But the greatest fanfare was the dessert table. Guests stood looking at it transfixed. Some of the younger ones even started to applaud.

  There were cheesecakes, shortcakes, splendid gateaux, tortes, mousses, trifles, the much loved meringues, their snowy peaks running passion fruit, or for the more sophisticated the meringues were filled with hazelnut cream and drizzled with chocolate, the delectable whole dominatedby a four-foot-high fruit and chocolate brandy wedding cake, like some Wondrous sculpture. The Corinthian pillars were perfect in every detail as were the garlands of handmade flowers and lace work. As the

  guests continued to exclaim at the ravishing effect of decor and food, waiters in black trousers and short white jackets began to circulate, offering the finest champagne.

  The moving ceremony.over, the festivities began.

/>   The idea was for the guests, all known to one another, to mingle freely, moving from table to table as the mood took them, the whole atmosphere wonderfully relaxed. Only the bridal party had defined seating at the top table.

  Stage one was the feasting that everyone enjoyed tremendously, then came the speeches. The next stage was the dancing, balloon and glitter-throwing. Someone even threw two or three plates before they were reminded it wasn’t actually as Greek wedding.

  Later on, after the bride and groom had left for their flight to Sydney where. they would spend a night in a luxurious hotel before embarking on the first leg of their trip to Europe, the rest of the bridal party and some of the younger guests were going on to the theatre with supper after if anyone possibly had room for it, and there was talk of continuing on to Infinity, the “in” nightclub. No one wanted such a glorious day to end.

  When it was time for the bride to change into her going-away clothes, Ally went up to her room s to. help her.

  “This has been the most wonderful day of my life!” Rebecca announced, smiling emotionally through her tears. “Brod to share my life. I adore him. You’ve been

  wonderful to me, too, Ally. I’mi so grateful for your friendship and support. You played a big part in bringing us back together. You’re such a generous spirit.”

  “As I should be.” Ally took charge of Rebecca’s beautiful wedding gown. “I’ve taken over the role of sister.“t

  “That’s true!” Rebecca laughed shakily, stepping into the skirt of her fuchsia bouclé wool going-away suit. “I know you’re going to be the best sister I could have.”

  It sounded so heartfelt, so full of gratitude, Ally stopped smiling; She went forward to kiss Rebecca’s cheek. “Thank you for that, Rebecca,” she said gravely.

  “Thank you for becoming part of my family. You’re going to change Brod’s life in the most wonderful way. Give him such love. Family. That’s what he needs.”