Perchance to Marry by Celine Conway Read Free Book Online

angry again. He really had gone to England to marry a fiancée; she knew no more than that, but it was enough.
    She said slowly, “If we’d both tried to convince the McCartney man the other night this need never have happened.”
    “Convince him of what?” asked Marcus distinctly. “That you weren’t just emerging from my cabin looking sleepy and tousled and wearing a dressing gown?”
    Sally went white, her eyes were huge. “Is that ... did he...?”
    “I don’t know what he thought, and if you’ll agree to this arrangement I won’t care, either. As gossip, the item becomes rather a damp squib if we’re supposed to be on the verge of getting married.”
    She shook her head despondently. “All this has built up so quickly that I’m far too muddled to work it out. I don’t seem to have any option but to do as you ask.”
    “No, I don’t think you have, so we’ll consider it settled, shall we? And seeing that our hearts are likely to remain more or less intact, we’ll go into it blithely and try to get a private kick out of it.”
    “I’m afraid I’m not that kind.”
    His glance was keen, but he said mockingly, “I’ll make a bargain with you. When we agree to break off the engagement I’ll give you whatever you want most. Got any ideas?”
    She said dispiritedly, “All I’ve ever wanted is to be a good nurse ... and perhaps to marry when I’m about twenty-five.”
    “They’re both attainable. On the day we part company as fiancés I’ll introduce you to every eligible young man in Naval Town.”
    Sally was not called upon to answer this. There came a cry from the distant courtyard and both began to walk quickly towards the steps. One of the servants was leaning over the courtyard wall, smiling and gesticulating.
    “The senora is awake and wishes to see you, Don Marcus. She says she cannot wait!”
    “I’ll come!”
    Sally drew back from the hand he had lifted to her elbow. “I’ll stay out here for a while longer. Please, Marcus.”
    “All right, but don’t start tiring yourself with worry. I’ll arrange that you see Dona Inez during the evening for just two minutes.” He gave her arm a friendly squeeze and strode on. No doubt he mounted the steps at a long lope, but Sally didn’t linger to watch. She followed the paths through the cypress trees until she couldn’t see the house at all, and then she stopped and sank down on to the grass.
    She lay back and closed her eyes, felt coins of warmth from the dappled sunlight and heard the sweet note of a bird near by. Sally ached all over, and wondered why. Perhaps because the worst of the tension was over for a while, leaving her flat and exhausted.
    She thought of the gracious Spanish house, with its courtyard and palms, its roses and magnolias, bougainvillias, oleanders and massed beds of exotic flowers; of the vineyards that spread across the hillsides and the little houses where the grape farmers reared their large, healthy families. They rented their farms, and Marcus bought their grapes and turned them into the sparkling amber wine for which the island was famous. And somewhere beyond Las Vinas there were acres of budding lilacs; in two weeks, Marcus had informed them on the taxi ride, the blossoms would be full enough for picking and pressing; San Palos lilac essence was one of the rarest genuine perfumes in the world.
    And she was engaged to the owner of all this. Engaged for three whole weeks—what do you think of that? Her heart felt like a ball of lead at the end of a plumbline and there was a raw salty feeling in her throat. Now it seemed as if she would not survive one day of the deception, let alone three weeks. It was absurd that she, nineteen-year-old Sally Sheppard, should be the intended bride of Marcus Durant, who was thirty-two, rich and experienced. No doubt Marcus himself had reflected, with wry amusement, that he might have been luckier in the two women he had befriended; a more motherly and serious mother, and a