Any happiness and relief Ivy had felt when Godfrey had finally contacted his family had been superseded by her devastation at his illness and subsequent death. Sophia took some comfort from the fact that in five months’ time she would be able to put Godfrey’s child in Ivy’s arms. Maybe then the woman would come really alive again.
An elbow jabbing into her ribs jolted Sophia back to reality.
‘Say “I will,”’ Jonathon hissed into her ear.
‘I…I w-will,’ Sophia stammered, to her mortification.
‘God,’ came the low mutter from beside her.
Jonathon bit out his ‘I will’ as if he were giving a guilty verdict for murder. When the celebrant pronounced them ‘as one’ in a flowery way, followed by a sickening smirk and a ‘you may kiss your bride’, Sophia darted Jonathon an anxious look.
She didn’t want him to kiss her but she couldn’t really see how they could avoid it. Everyone else knew their marriage was a sham, but the celebrant didn’t. Jonathon looked just as reluctant to oblige, but, seeing perhaps that he had no alternative, he took Sophia firmly by the shoulders, turned her his way and bent his head.
Sophia steeled herself for the cold imprint of his mouth on hers, so she was somewhat startled to find that the firm lips pressing down on hers were quite warm. Her eyelashes fluttered nervously, her mouth quivering tremulously beneath his. His mouth lifted, and for a second he stared down into her surprised face. Something glittered in that cold blue gaze.
Then he did something that really shocked her.
He kissed her again.
SOPHIA’S first response was a bitter resentment. Who did he think he was, forcing another kiss on her when he knew she hadn’t wanted him to kiss her at all?
But as those determined lips moved over hers a second time, Sophia’s resentment was shattered by an astonishing discovery. Jonathon’s mouth on hers was not an entirely unpleasant experience.
Of course, I’m not really enjoying it, she kept telling herself for several totally bewildering seconds.
When Jonathon made no move to end the kiss, the pressure of his mouth increasing, if anything, Sophia began to panic. What must the others be thinking? The grip on her shoulders increased as well, his fingers digging into her flesh. When Sophia felt his tongue demanding entry between her lips, she gasped and reefed her head backwards.
Her eyes, which had closed at some stage, flew open, flashing outrage. But Jonathon was already turning away to shake the celebrant’s hand.
‘I never tire of seeing couples genuinely in love,’ the man said, pumping Jonathon’s hand. ‘But if you don’t mind, Mr Parnell, could we sign the appropriate documents straight away? I really must dash.’
Jonathon turned back to Sophia then, his eyes and demeanour as unflappable as ever, while her face was burning up, her heart still beating madly in her chest. How dared he presume to kiss her like that?
Not that she didn’t know what lay behind it. Frustration. He was frustrated with the situation his deathbed promise to Godfrey had put him in. A kiss, Sophia imagined, could be an expression of anger as well as love—both emotions capable of evoking a fiery passion.
It just showed what kind of man Jonathon was. Nothing like Godfrey at all! Godfrey would never have kissed her out of anger or frustration. Why, Godfrey hadn’t even kissed her at all till that fateful night. Even then, she’d been the one to initiate the first kiss. Not that he hadn’t kissed her back quickly enough, cupping her cheeks and covering her face with beautiful, gentle kisses.
Her eyes misted with the memory of the sweet pleasure they had evoked, of how they had fulfilled all those wonderfully romantic dreams she’d been harbouring about Godfrey for such a long time.
‘Sophia.’
The impatient calling of her name snapped her out of her daydreaming, as did those harsh blue eyes glowering at her blurred vision.
‘W-what?’
‘Good God,’ Jonathon muttered darkly.
‘You have to sign the marriage certificate, Mrs Parnell,’ said a gentler male voice beside her. ‘It’s all set up in Jonathon’s study.’
She glanced over her shoulder up at Harvey Taylor’s smoothly urbane face. In his mid-thirties, Harvey was as fair as Jonathon was dark. Apparently, he had inherited control of Taylor and Sons—Solicitors, around the same time Jonathon took charge of Parnell Properties. He and Jonathon had gone to school together, both of them excelling in their studies. But he possessed none of Jonathon’s hard-edged strength, either in his face or his nature. He was a charming man, but a little weak, Sophia suspected.
Still, it was good to feel a kind hand on her arm for a change, and she liked the way he was looking at her. With admiration and respect. Not like her pretend husband. His eyes carried nothing but an illconcealed exasperation.
‘Best you bring her along, Harvey,’ Jonathon said with a sardonic twist to his mouth. ‘You seem to have the right touch. Mother, you can help Maud with the refreshments while we get the paperwork out of the way. Wilma! You have to come with us, being one of the witnesses. This way, Mr Weston. The study is just across the hall…’ And he was striding away from them without a backwards glance.
‘Yes, commandant,’ Wilma saluted to Jonathon’s rapidly disappearing back, and marched off after him.
Sophia couldn’t stop a giggle from escaping her lips.
‘You should take a leaf out of Wilma’s book,’ Harvey whispered as he ushered Sophia in the secretary’s wake. ‘Jonathon can’t hurt you if you don’t let him, Sophia.’
She lifted startled eyes. ‘Why should you think he can hurt me at all? You better than anyone know this isn’t a real marriage. Jonathon and I will be divorced as soon as the baby is born.’
‘That is your intention now, I’m sure, but Jonathon is a very attractive man. What if you fall in love with him? What if he decides having a wife who looks like you is just what the doctor ordered?’
She ground to a halt in the doorway of the study and stared at Harvey, his last remark not even registering after his first ridiculous suggestion. ‘I will never fall in love with Jonathon. Never!’
When Harvey suddenly frowned, his eyes darting to a spot behind her left shoulder, she spun round to find a stony-faced Jonathon standing there. ‘Do you think we might get on with signing these papers?’ he rapped out.
‘Sure thing,’ Harvey agreed smoothly, and waved Sophia into the room.
She hesitated, her emotions seesawing between embarrassment and guilt. Yet why should she feel guilty at Jonathon’s overhearing her assertion? He already knew her feelings about falling in love again, and while she could concede she might love another man at some point in the far distant future, that man would never be someone like him. She could only love a man who made her feel good about herself, who made her feel special, not gauche and stupid.
‘Sophia,’ Harvey murmured, and urged her into the room.
But as she made her way across the polished parquet flooring on to the richly patterned rug that lay in front of the huge oak desk, flashes of the first time she’d stood in front of this desk jumped into her mind.
It had been the day after Godfrey’s funeral, a cold, wet, windy August morning on which she hadn’t been able to drag herself out of bed. She’d been lying there, watching the rain slap against the window, when Maud had come in