CHAPTER NINE
WHEN Liberty awoke next it was to the realisation that cold white sunlight was flooding the bedroom and she was being shaken gently. She opened her sleepy eyes to see Carter’s head just above hers. ‘Good morning.’ He dropped the lightest of kisses on her lips. ‘Breakfast is served.’
‘Carter?’ And then it all came flooding back.
‘It is—’ he consulted the gold watch on one tanned wrist ‘—exactly eleven o’clock and we have to vacate the room shortly after twelve. I thought you might like breakfast in bed. Are you hungry?’ he asked matter-of-factly as though this was ordinary.
She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, struggling into a sitting position and gazing at him vacantly. He was dressed and shaved and horribly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She glanced at the tray in his hands. ‘Where’s your breakfast?’ she asked weakly. ‘Aren’t you having anything?’
‘I breakfasted with Jen and Adam a couple of hours ago,’ he informed her smoothly. ‘They’ve left now but send their love and Jen says she’ll be in touch later in the week.’
‘But I—’ She glanced at the door and then back at him. Adam must have been in to get his things together; worse, Carter would have been able to observe her while she was asleep. She didn’t count that she had done exactly that with him because it was different. ‘You should have woken me,’ she muttered. ‘Whatever did Adam think?’
‘You were in his bed, not mine,’ Carter pointed out reasonably. ‘So he probably thought I was losing my touch.’
She glared at him. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘You were perfectly decent buried under the covers,’ he drawled lazily. ‘In fact, the only part visible was a little pink nose and a cloud of hair.’
He made her sound like a hamster in its nest. ‘They’ll think I was so rude not saying goodbye.’
‘They haven’t got a leg to stand on in the good manners stakes,’ Carter pointed out dryly, ‘considering Adam crashed out on your bed. Anyway, who the hell cares what they think?’
Obviously not him. She became aware that he was looking her over very thoroughly, and raised a self-conscious hand to her ruffled hair. ‘I look a mess,’ she murmured.
‘You look sensational.’ He grinned at her. ‘I’ve been longing to know what you look like first thing and now I know. Soft, rumpled and as sexy as hell.’
She preferred that to the hamster thing.
Carter stared at her and wondered how he was going to keep his hands off her until she gave in and accepted she was going to become Mrs Blake. He nodded at the tray in his hands. ‘Toast and preserves, orange juice, eggs and bacon and croissants,’ he said lazily. ‘And I’ve ordered a pot of coffee for half past eleven before we leave. I suggest you tuck in unless you’re planning to travel home in that bit of satin?’ His eyes went to her somewhat revealing nightie. ‘Mind, I’ve no objection,’ he added consideringly, ‘although there might be the odd lorry driver that loses control if he looks down on us.’
Her smile was guarded; she wasn’t at all sure where he was coming from. Last night might never have happened from his attitude this morning. Or was this the cheerful, no hard feelings brush-off? Suddenly she wasn’t at all hungry.
Whether something of what she was feeling showed on her face she wasn’t sure, but after placing the tray on her knees and plumping the pillows behind her back, he sat down on the edge of the bed and said softly, ‘Eat, wench, and don’t start all that thinking again. It’s too early in the day.’ He reached for a piece of toast, biting into it as he grinned at her.
He wouldn’t smile at her like that if he was going to dump her. She reached for the orange juice and took a sip. And he wasn’t the kind of man to declare undying love at night and then something else in the morning. She should have known that. There was something probing at the back of her mind but she ignored it and concentrated on the excellent breakfast.
The coffee came when she was in the shower, and after she had dressed and quickly blow-dried her hair she sat and drank a cup, watching Carter who was reading the Sunday paper, his coffee by his side. He was frowning slightly as he read and it really wasn’t the moment to feel such a flood of sexual desire that she could have leapt on him then and there.
The discovery of her own sensuality, which had been awakened over the last weeks, was still surprising to her and she couldn’t say she was easy with it. She didn’t know if her mother was highly sexed or whether she endured rather than enjoyed the desire she awoke so easily in men, but before she met Carter she would have sworn on oath she was rather a cold person sexually. Then again, before she had met him she had been determined to believe she had a very low sex drive, she admitted ruefully. She wanted to be the antithesis of her mother and subconsciously that had been a very clear distinction between them.
She shook her head at herself, reflecting wryly that Carter had hit the nail on the head when he’d called her a nutcase the night before.
‘What?’ said Carter softly. ‘What are you thinking?’
She hadn’t been aware that the grey eyes had lifted from the paper and were now trained on her face. She shrugged. ‘Just that people would have thought I was mad if they’d seen me walk out of here in my dressing gown a little while ago and then return with my suitcase, still in my dressing gown, a minute later,’ she said evasively.
He smiled. ‘It made sense for you to shower and get ready in here. One room cleared for the maids.’ She had a feeling he didn’t give a hoot about the maids, and this was confirmed when he added, ‘I like to see you doing your hair and titivating anyway.’
‘Titivating?’ She glared at him teasingly. ‘I’ll have you know I get ready in double, no, a tenth of the time it takes most women.’
‘I wouldn’t argue with that,’ he said easily. As her face changed, he knew immediately what she was thinking. He put the paper down, walking across to her and pulling her to her feet. ‘Liberty, I’ve never pretended to be a saint,’ he said softly. ‘And if you’re thinking that I’ve done this before, brought a girlfriend to a hotel, then I hold up my hands and plead guilty. What I haven’t done before is to book different rooms.’ And when she would have spoken he put a finger to her mouth as he said, ‘And I would have done that whether Jennifer was along for the trip or not, okay? Trust me.’
It was the one thing she couldn’t do.
As her face spoke out the truth his own changed. ‘My future wife and the mother of my children is as far removed from my bachelor days as chalk to cheese.’ The steel she had heard once or twice before underlined the words. ‘And that’s how I see you. This is different. You’re different. We’re different. If all I wanted was a tumble in the hay, why do you think I stopped last night?’
Liberty averted her face. How could she tell him that the thought of those other women—beautiful, intelligent, successful women—were like a sword thrust straight into her heart. She had never had to cope with the painful effects of jealousy before and she found it overwhelming. He had so many memories, so many stunning women to compare her with…
‘You’re you, Liberty.’ His voice was soft now, tender. ‘I’m not perfect and neither are you. Hell, I couldn’t live with a saint any more than the next man. You might not believe it right now, but no other woman can fit me like you do, and no other man is your perfect match. I want you, your warmth, your sense of humour, your crazy way of thinking, your insecurities, your love. All of it—good, bad and indifferent. Because that’s my woman.’
She wanted to believe him. She wanted it so badly that it was a physical pain in her chest.
‘I want the prim solicitor in the little neat suits, the gorgeous redhead in a dress that looks like it’s been sewn on her, and definitely, definitely the woman who will wake up beside me every morning of my life with rumpled hair and brown eyes like velvet. Think about it, sweetheart. Dream about it until it’s so firmly fixed in there—’ he touched her forehead with a gentle finger ‘—that nothing and no one can take it away.’
‘You make it sound so simple and easy,’ she whispered.
‘Then I’m sorry.’
She stared at him in surprise.
‘Because I know it isn’t, not for you. For me, easy as falling off a log.’ He smiled at her, a confident smile. ‘But you’ll get there.’
She looked at him doubtfully. Leaning forward, Carter kissed her firmly on the mouth. ‘You’ll get there, sweetheart,’ he repeated quietly. ‘Take it on faith. And I’ll know when you’re ready.’
‘How?’ She stared at him in surprise.
‘Because I know you better than you know yourself.’
‘I’m not sure if I like the idea of that,’ she said with some emphasis. ‘In fact, I definitely don’t like it.’
‘Tough.’ The steel was back in his voice. ‘Because it’s a fact and one you’d better start getting used to.’
Now she repeated the words he had said to her the night before. ‘So where do we go from here?’
‘From here?’ He let go of her, walking over to the chair where he had placed his jacket earlier. Picking up his case, he slung the jacket over it before reaching for her things. ‘From here we go to London,’ he said evenly. ‘Okay?’

When Liberty looked back on the next few months with hindsight she viewed them as a kaleidoscope of constantly changing emotions and experiences.
She had introduced Carter to her father and Joan when they had got back from the weekend away and, as she might have expected, the two men got on famously. Almost too well. It made her feel odd that the two men in her life seemed to understand her better than she understood herself.
When her father and Joan had a Christmas wedding Carter had been there to hold her hand and say all the right things to cover any awkward moments when she felt suddenly—and ridiculously, she was the first to admit—bereft.
When she had paid her Christmas visit to her mother she had summoned all her courage and asked Carter if he would like to accompany her. She hadn’t known what she’d expected with that one, but Carter had been charm itself with her mother whilst letting the older woman know exactly what she could get away with and what she couldn’t. When they had left the overheated apartment and the restless, dissatisfied woman who inhabited it, it was the first time in Liberty’s life that she hadn’t felt like throwing herself under a bus after seeing her mother.
She had asked Carter what he thought of Miranda once they were walking along the street away from the apartment, and he had stopped, taking her in his arms. ‘She’s the woman who gave birth to you, so biologically she’s your mother,’ he said quietly. ‘However, I see absolutely nothing of her in you at all.’
He hadn’t needed to say anything more, and on subsequent visits she had watched in awe as he had dealt with the older woman with courtesy but firmness, refusing to let Miranda speak ill of Liberty’s father when she attempted to do so, and making it clear he wouldn’t tolerate any disrespect to Liberty either.
Liberty had been privy to the amazing—and intensely enjoyable—sight of watching her mother bite her tongue and mind her manners, and with the experience came the ability to take a step backwards and shrug off some of the gremlins which had attached themselves to her from childhood.
‘Gerard always used to pander to her,’ she said one day in late January, when Carter had refused to fall in with Miranda’s suggestion that they join her ‘little dinner party’ the next week. ‘In fact, I sometimes used to think he preferred her to me.’
‘Not possible.’ Carter had smiled at her, his voice dry. ‘The man was most certainly a fool but not certifiable, surely?’
The weeks passed at an alarming speed. When she wasn’t at work she was with Carter. He wined and dined her, took her to the theatre, opera and cinema, they ice-skated, visited art galleries and museums, as well as having quiet walks through London’s parks or by the Thames. They talked like Liberty had never talked to anyone before, laughed, even cried when she related a particularly harrowing case involving a little boy of four she had taken on.
Jennifer’s wedding was arranged for the first day of May and, as she had said, it was just for immediate family and a couple of close friends, a party of twelve in all with the bride and groom. Liberty was reconciled to the cream and blue bridesmaid’s dress she was wearing, and she’d had fun going with Jennifer for the dresses. Jennifer had persuaded her to try on the odd bride’s dress herself, which had been a weird experience, especially when one in particular had transformed her into a fairy tale bride and she’d had to fight back the tears.
‘It’ll be you and Carter next,’ Jennifer said brightly, misunderstanding the emotion. ‘You wait and see.’
Liberty forced a smile and passed the moment off, but when she was in bed that night she examined how she felt for the first time in weeks. She loved Carter—she hadn’t believed it possible to care so much, she was consumed by it—but the thought of marriage still scared her to death. It was like the ultimate dare—you did it and it was bound to go wrong.
And he knew. She would catch him sometimes studying her, the grey eyes holding a peculiar light and his face blank, incomprehensible. At those times she knew he was waiting, but if she looked straight at him the strange look would be gone and he would be Carter again. But how long would he continue to wait for that which she couldn’t give? she asked herself bleakly. How long would he wait, frustrated and unfulfilled both sexually as well as emotionally? She had made it clear once or twice since the weekend with his parents that she would live with him if that was what he wanted, sleep with him, be a wife in every respect except going through the final ultimate commitment of a marriage ceremony, but he had ignored her overtures. It was all or nothing as far as he was concerned; he was that sort of guy once he had made up his mind about something.
Their lovemaking frequently brought them both to the brink but Carter always pulled back, even when Liberty was trembling with the sensual vibrations quivering between them, her body on fire and her equilibrium shot to pieces.
She knew the strain the situation was putting on Carter too. She lived in dread that one day he would decide enough was enough and give her an ultimatum, but he never did. He loved her. Strange, a man like Carter who could have any female he set eyes on, but he did seem to love her…
Liberty glanced at him now as they sat in his parents’ lounge drinking coffee after one of Mary’s huge Sunday roasts. She loved coming to their home, aware she was drinking in the warmth and easy banter that characterised their visits like a fine wine. It always left her feeling more positive these days.
‘Ready for that walk?’ He pulled her, protesting, to her feet. The April day was fine and unseasonably warm and they’d promised themselves a walk on the beach before they went back to the city, but that was before she’d eaten to satiety.
It was just as Liberty was walking through to the hall to collect her coat that the back door flew open and the next door neighbour—a young woman whose husband worked away on an oil rig—burst into the house calling for Mary, a screaming toddler wrapped in a blood-sodden blanket in her arms. It appeared the child, a little boy, had been playing in the garden and had sliced his leg open on a piece of slate.
Carter had whisked mum and toddler into the back of his car with Liberty in the front before she could blink. He drove swiftly to the local hospital’s casualty department, keeping up a calming conversation with the young mother, who was as panic-stricken as her offspring. Once they had arrived they were seen within minutes, but then had to wait a while for the wound to be cleaned and stitched. At first the little boy was all tears and whimpers but Carter began to jolly the child along, displaying a patience and understanding which amazed Liberty.
Dusk was falling by the time they drew up outside Carter’s parents’ home again, and now nothing would ******* the little boy but that Carter carry him into his own house and up to bed.
‘You made a hit there.’ It had taken three stories and a promise that Carter would call in next time he was up before the child had gone to sleep, and Liberty’s tone was dry as they left.
‘I like kids,’ he said easily. ‘They’re like animals at that age; they sense if you’re putting on an act or if you really care. And what you see is what you get with them too.’
‘And yet you told me when we first met you’d never planned to get married and have a family,’ she reminded him quietly, stopping just outside his parents’ front door and looking up into his face in the shadowed night. ‘You weren’t looking for that.’
‘I still liked kids.’ He shrugged. ‘I always have, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have been ******* to do the bachelor thing for ever. I guess you could say I was married to the job for the first part of my working life; I needed to be to make the business a success. Then I met you.’ His eyes were grey pools, deep and unfathomable. ‘And everything changed. Suddenly it didn’t seem to be important to be a free agent.’
She thought again of how he had been with the little boy. He was a man who should have a quiverful of children. The thought hit her on the raw, and she didn’t realise her voice was so aggressive as it sounded when she said, ‘What if you’d met me when you were younger? When you were still so determined to put everything into your business and were enjoying playing the field? How would you have looked at us then?’
He stared at her for a moment, and his voice was silky with an underlying coolness when he spoke. ‘What do you want me to say, Liberty? That things would still have been the same between us? That I would have been ready to settle down then? I can’t say that because I don’t know. Time and circumstances make us the people we are today.’
‘So that means no.’ She stared at him, her chin tilted up.
‘It means I don’t know,’ he repeated evenly. ‘I hope I would still have recognised the one diamond amid all the semi-precious stones, but youth is brash. I was desperate to succeed and carve a future for myself where I’d be beholden to no man for a roof over my head or food on the table, that much is for sure, and I’ve never hidden that from you. Neither have I hidden the fact that I was still playing the field, as you put it, when I met you and it palled overnight. I can’t give you any cast-iron guarantees on ifs and maybes from years ago; what I can and do give is a guarantee on how I feel now and will continue to feel.’
She stared at him. ‘I’m sorry for being scratchy,’ she said miserably, putting out a hand and touching his arm.
Then the depth of his understanding amazed her when he said, ‘It was the kid, wasn’t it? Little Joe. Liberty, having a family doesn’t always end in hurt and disillusionment. Millions of parents the world over bring up their children in secure, happy homes without a whiff of divorce.’
‘I know that. I do know that but it’s hard to accept when you haven’t had it mirrored to you personally.’
‘I can buy that.’ He nodded. ‘But sooner or later you have to step out of victim mode and decide what you want.’
‘I’ve never thought of myself as a victim,’ she shot back, stung by the word. ‘Never.’
‘No? Well, you could have fooled me.’ He took no notice of her outrage, continuing, ‘Your reasoning behind not marrying and having a family is at least partly because you don’t want your kids to go through what you did. The answer to that is not denying yourself the chance to be a mother and wife, but to make damn sure you marry the right guy and find out what proper family life really is. And that doesn’t mean you have to give up your career either, while we’re on the subject. You could work as much or as little outside the home as you want once kids came.’
‘And what if I couldn’t have children? What then?’
‘We’d cry a bit and probably rail against the gods and then get on with our life,’ he answered calmly. ‘I don’t want you because I’m looking for you to be some sort of baby machine in the future, Liberty. Let’s get that straight right now. If kids came they’d be a blessing. If they didn’t, they didn’t. What would matter is us. Us. We’d be there before the kids came and when they leave we’d still be there. You just enable them to make what they want of their own lives; you don’t live your life as a couple through them.’
He had an answer for everything. She was still smarting over the victim thing and knew her voice was truculent when she said, ‘It must be wonderful to be so wise.’
‘Unquestionably,’ he agreed complacently, quite unmoved by her antagonism. ‘And rewarding, very rewarding, especially when I can set some poor misguided but very beautiful female on the right road.’
She stuck out her tongue at him and he shook his head sorrowfully. ‘Men of great wisdom are rarely appreciated in their own lifetime.’
She would have said a rude word but as Mary chose that moment to open the front door Liberty *******ed herself with a scathing glance before she marched into the house. In truth she was glad the conversation had ended on a lighter note because it had shaken her more than she would have liked.
Later, after the drive home and once Carter had left after a last kiss goodnight, she poured herself a very large glass of red wine and sat down in her little sitting room. She needed to do some serious thinking and it was such that she definitely needed the glass of wine too.
She had always closed her mind to the prospect of children, always. It wasn’t the thought of having them or loving them or being there for them. She remembered a girl she’d worked with once who had stated categorically that she would never give her body over as an incubating machine to get distorted and fat, and she’d been amazed a woman could view such a miraculous event in that way. She’d always thought pregnant women, with their big bellies and remote serenity, beautiful.
And she liked children—babies, toddlers, argumentative eight- and nine-year-olds—she liked them all, and understood them. Oh yes, she understood them all right; she could still remember what it had felt like to be small and helpless in an adult world. Her childhood had been painful, probably due in part to her. Because she had been so devastated by her mother leaving them and because it had affected her so deeply, the other children had seemed to recognise this peculiarity about her and honed in on it as a weakness.
Of course, with adult eyes she’d recognised it was just the fact that it made her slightly different which had been the problem. Children in glasses or with braces, those with big ears or a big nose or whatever, they were all targets, and there must have been others being teased like she was, but she had been too wrapped up in her own misery to notice.
Because of this and the sensitivity it had engendered, she had always found that the children of friends and relatives seemed to take to her and find it easy to confide in her. She had heard some mothers, fathers too, talk about their offspring’s ‘little’ problems with humorous indulgence, but she knew a friend refusing to play any more or being left out of a party was just as big a tragedy to a child as an adult losing their job or being unable to pay their bills.
She took several sips of the wine before stretching out her legs and sighing loudly.
So she had no problem with being pregnant or knowing she could cope with the child as it grew. It had been the thought that she might be responsible for bringing a little life into the world who would be let down by its father which had been the sting in the tail. She would always be there for her kids, she knew it. But as for a man…At least three of her mother’s lovers had left their children and the family home. It happened all the time.
So she was right in what she had determined. Wasn’t she? She stared round the bright, clean room as though it could provide an answer. And, that being the case, why did she feel so…disturbed after her conversation with Carter? Had she founded her adult life on principles and a mind-set which was wrong? Or if not exactly wrong, had she been guilty of leaving out the one common denominator which made all her reasoning invalid? That of love, real love between a man and a woman. The sort of love that Carter’s parents had, that her father had for Joan, that Carter professed for her.
She finished the glass of wine and poured another, ignoring the fact that this meant two-thirds of the bottle had gone and she had to get up early for work in the morning.
And what of her love for him? She bent forward, running her fingers through her hair before rising to pace the room. Would she ever leave him of her own free will? The possibility was laughable. Could she imagine loving him for the rest of her life? A definite affirmative. Did the thought of making babies with him, of carrying Carter’s child under her heart thrill her? So much so she felt weak-kneed at the thought. Did she trust him when he said he would never stop loving her? She halted abruptly, her stomach churning. Did she? Did she?
‘Do I?’ She wrapped her arms round her waist, clutching her stomach as she bent forward in agony of mind. The sixty-four million dollar question and it was never going to go away.
She was beginning to. Her caution mocked her, telling her to speak out the truth and be done with it. Yes, she did, she thought she did, but it was too scary to contemplate.
She began the pacing again between sips of red wine. Had he brainwashed her? She tried to bring all her training to bear and separate fact from fiction, reality from wishful thinking. It would get her off the hook if she could tell herself he had, but in all honesty he had not. He had challenged her, certainly, been a constant thorn in her flesh in some respects, and hadn’t budged an inch on what he believed, but there had been no brainwashing. He had just been…Carter.
She wasn’t ready for this. She plumped down on the sofa again. She needed time to get her head round it before she suggested to him that anything had changed.
She finished the glass of wine, taking the bottle, the glass and her night things downstairs. Once in the bath she stayed in the warm bubbles far longer than she’d intended, her mind so active it was positively running away with her.
It was one thing to admit to herself that she had come to a point where she believed she could trust Carter, quite another to tell him. Whilst she didn’t say anything her world was still safe. She frowned, swishing the water with irritable hands. She was a coward. She shut her eyes, leaning back with her head resting on the edge of the bath. And she had never realised that about herself but it was true. She was a coward at heart.
How would she ever get the nerve to take this jump out into thin air and say she would marry him? She didn’t think she could. She really, really didn’t think she could. And yet they couldn’t go on as they were. She knew it and he knew it. He wouldn’t wait for ever, no man would, and she couldn’t expect him to. It was totally unfair.
An impossible situation. She sat up in the bath, angry with herself, Carter and the whole wide world. Or perhaps it was that she was an impossible woman. Whatever, in spite of all she’d acknowledged in the last hour or so she didn’t feel any nearer to anything being resolved.
She didn’t deserve him. She stood up, swishing water all over the floor. He needed a beautiful, bright and uncomplicated thing who would worship the ground he walked on and give him a baby every year until he had enough for a football team.
She heaved an unsteady breath. What was she going to do? And Jennifer’s wedding, which was going to be a trial however you looked at it, was just three weeks away.

CHAPTER TEN
THE run-up to Jennifer and Adam’s big day only convinced Liberty more and more that she would never have the nerve to go through with a wedding. Everything that gave Carter’s sister pleasure—choosing the hymns, deciding on what flowers she wanted, telling the hotel where Carter had booked the reception what colour scheme she needed for the small room he had reserved for the wedding party—gave Liberty a churning stomach and a panicky feeling she couldn’t dispel however much she tried. Even the simplest of register office marriages still required a certain amount of planning, and even that, she felt, would make her sick with nerves.
No other women seemed to be like this. Liberty glanced round the small London church where the ceremony would take place the next day. She and Carter, along with Jennifer, Adam, Carter’s parents and Adam’s mother—his father having long since been out of the picture—were attending the dress rehearsal, and even now Jennifer was fairly quivering with excitement. Mary had a positively beatific smile on her face, almost matched by Adam’s mother’s transparent joy, and even the two ladies who were busy fixing posies on the stone pillars of the old building were beaming and nodding as the rehearsal progressed. Everyone seemed beside themselves with happiness! Everyone except her, and perhaps Carter.
Liberty glanced at him under her eyelashes. The last week or so he hadn’t been himself but she couldn’t put a finger on what had changed. He was still as attentive as ever although she thought once or twice he had seemed a little preoccupied before telling herself she was imagining it. But something was different. She felt the sick fear rise up in her throat, the same feeling which had kept her awake until the early hours the night before. She couldn’t lose him. She didn’t know what she would do if he told her they were through.
Her hands were clenched tightly together, and as she felt Carter take the one next to him, smoothing out her fingers in the palm of his hand, she forced herself to smile and say lightly, ‘Bridesmaid nerves. I thought someone ought to have the jitters because Jen is literally gagging to get up that aisle.’
‘Indecently so,’ he agreed softly.
‘She’s going to be a beautiful bride.’ Liberty wanted to snatch her hand away because she knew it was as cold as ice despite all the heaters round the church and the warm temperature. He would think she was even more of a nutcase if just running through someone else’s ceremony affected her so badly.
‘Adam would think so if she turned up in sackcloth and ashes, and that’s all that matters in the long run.’
‘I guess so.’ Her smile was more natural this time. ‘It’s very good of you to give them such a terrific present.’ He had paid for everything to do with the wedding along with sending them somewhere hot for their honeymoon as his gift.
‘She’s my kid sister and he’s my best friend,’ Carter said quietly. ‘His restaurant is only just beginning to get in the black and money’s always burnt a hole in Jen’s pocket. Besides, we’ve all been waiting over ten years for this,’ he added wryly.
‘There is that.’ She grinned at him, but then as the vicar called them to say this was the part where they, as the two witnesses, would accompany the bride and groom to the room at the side of the church for the signing of the register, the smile slid from her face.
Another ten minutes and it was all over, and once outside the church solid sheets of rain greeted them.
‘Oh, no.’ Jennifer’s face was tragic. ‘This wasn’t forecast. It’s supposed to be sunny all weekend.’
‘Never you mind, lovey.’ Adam’s mother patted her future daughter-in-law’s arm. ‘Better tonight than tomorrow morning, eh? It’ll be sunshine and blue skies tomorrow, you mark my words. A perfect May day.’

When Liberty awoke very early the next morning, just as a pink-edged dawn was making way for weak sunlight, she thought Adam’s mother must be prophetic. Within an hour the sky was as blue as cornflowers, fluffy white clouds sailing in harmony with a May sun which was growing steadily warmer with each hour that passed. A perfect May day indeed.
It had been arranged that a cab would pick her up at nine in the morning to take her to Carter’s house where Jennifer was, the wedding being scheduled for midday. When there was a knock at the door at eight, she bounded upstairs from the kitchen reflecting it was just as well she’d been up since the crack of dawn. Still, minor hiccups always occurred at a wedding.
She opened the door expecting to see a cheery-faced cab driver in front of her, and her mouth fell open when Carter said, ‘Good morning, Aphrodite.’
‘Carter?’ Her expression changed to one of alarm. ‘What’s wrong? Is Jen all right? What’s happened?’
‘Nothing’s happened.’ He waved a nonchalant hand, a calm gesture which was too calm and revealed how deliberate his air of relaxation was. ‘Can I come in?’
She waved him through, shutting the door after him and then turning to say, ‘What is it? I thought the cab was coming at nine to pick me up and bring me to your place.’
‘Good. That’s what I wanted you to think.’
She frowned. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Liberty, my own true love.’ He took her hand, going down on one knee as he drew a tiny box out of his pocket. ‘Will you marry me? Now? Today?’
It was a good job the solid front door was behind her because she leant against it, her knees almost buckling. ‘I…I don’t…’
‘Understand?’ His smile was sweet but she saw something else which could have been uncertainty. ‘It’s simple, darling. I want you to marry me and I know that’s what you want too, but I don’t think if we do it the traditional way I’m ever going to get you up the aisle. This way there is no time for you to panic and get knotted up with nerves and run out on me at the last minute. All you have to do is to say yes.’
He opened the little box to reveal the most exquisite antique ring garnished with pearls and rubies. It was the ring of her dreams, exactly what she would have chosen. She stared at him dumbstruck. This was unreal. It couldn’t be happening.
‘Your wedding dress and my suit are in the car outside, along with your veil, shoes, bouquet and everything you need. I’ll help you dress and you can help me with my cravat. It’s not the conventional way of doing things but what the hell, we were never going to be a conventional couple anyway.’
‘But…’ She couldn’t get the words tumbling about in her head in any sort of recognisable form. ‘I don’t…’
‘The dress and veil are the ones you fell in love with that day when you were shopping with Jen,’ he said softly. ‘The shoes and bouquet I chose. If you say yes now we stick together until I put the ring on your finger at midday, and then for the rest of our lives. Will you, Liberty? Will you marry me, love me, have my babies and grow old with me?’
It was suddenly so immensely simple. ‘Yes,’ she said.
The next half an hour was a blur of kissing and murmured words of love, but eventually Liberty surfaced enough to say, ‘But Jen and Adam? This was their day, their marriage.’
‘It still is.’ Carter had acquired a grin which stretched from ear to ear. ‘But later. It’s been put back to later.’
‘Oh, Carter.’ Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Do they mind?’
‘Mind? They’re beside themselves in case you don’t say yes. Jen hasn’t slept a wink all night and she’s told me to tell you if she looks a wreck on her wedding day it’s your fault.’
‘But when, how…?’
He seemed to understand what she had difficulty voicing. ‘When was the day after we’d been to my parents for Sunday lunch. You were different. You looked at me differently. And I knew.’
‘Knew?’ she said, puzzled. ‘Knew what?’
‘It was time,’ he said softly. ‘I also knew I had as much chance of doing the white wedding with all the trimmings as a snowball has in hell. So I had a word with Jen and Adam and then we all went to see the vicar. They get married at one o’clock, we have their spot at midday. A sort of marriage by proxy.’ He grinned at her. ‘But I didn’t see any other way of managing it than getting them to act as substitutes last night. The vicar was all smiles once I agreed to give a hefty donation to the church roof, even though it means he has to miss his lunch because he’s got another wedding at two.’
‘But the paperwork and everything?’
‘Dealt with.’ Carter smiled. ‘It’s no use being rich if you can’t pull strings for your own wedding day, is it?’
‘I…I don’t believe this is happening.’
‘Believe it.’ He pulled her into his arms, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. ‘By this afternoon you will be Mrs Blake.’
‘My dad?’ She pulled away suddenly, eyes anxious.
‘Standing by to give you away. And he’s given me a list of everyone he thought you’d want to be there, so the small wedding reception has swelled somewhat. As soon as Jennifer caught whiff of that she provided another few dozen names too. The hotel is mightily pleased,’ he added wryly. ‘From a small room we now have the ballroom with champagne flowing for over two hundred, and a sit down meal as well as an evening buffet.’
‘A real wedding.’ She gazed at him, nerves hitting for the first time. ‘Oh, Carter.’ She reached out to him blindly.
‘Toast and coffee.’ He took her hand. ‘I’m starving. You make us breakfast and I’ll phone and tell everyone the eagle has landed and it’s go, go, go.’
‘Oh, Carter.’ She fell against him for a moment and he held her tight again. It would be all right. She could do this.
It was as they were sitting eating beans on toast that Liberty asked tentatively, ‘Did you tell my mother about this?’
‘I’d have sooner announced it to the town crier,’ he said dryly. Miranda was holidaying in Monaco with what looked like to be husband number six.
‘She’ll yell blue murder because Dad knows and she didn’t.’
‘That’s fine.’ He smiled calmly. ‘There was no way she was going to be there upsetting you and taking pot shots at your father and Joan. I’ll deal with her. I might point out that if it was a choice of attending your wedding or catching this poor guy she’s netted I thought there was no contest. She’ll see reason.’
Liberty stared at him. With anyone but Carter that would have been ridiculous, but she had a feeling her mother would be like a lamb with him. Amazing man. Amazing man.
‘I never thought I’d be eating beans on toast with my wife-to-be on my wedding day,’ Carter said thoughtfully. ‘But it’s great, isn’t it?’
She smiled back at him, her heart in her eyes. ‘Great,’ she assured him softly. ‘Everyone should do it.’
After breakfast Carter brought all the finery in from the car and soon her small living room was engulfed in swathes of silk, organza and the sweet smell of cream roses and freesias.
Liberty was entranced with her posy, which was tied with cream satin ribbons and lace. ‘It’s beautiful, Carter.’ She held the flowers to her nose, drinking in the perfume. ‘I love roses and freesias. They’re my favourite flowers.’
‘I know.’ And then he took the posy out of her hands, laying it to one side as he drew a narrow oblong box out of his pocket. ‘Will you wear it today?’ he asked softly, opening the lid whereupon the diamond bracelet sparkled up at her.
She flung her arms round his neck. ‘Of course. Thank you, thank you.’ She smiled at him, her face glowing.
‘And this to match?’ he asked gently.
‘Oh, Carter.’ She took the second box he had produced like a magician with a rabbit. Inside was an exquisite diamond pendant with diamond studs.
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was tender as she raised a loving hand to his face. She had come to understand that it meant a lot to him to be able to give and she knew she had to accept it.
‘Not one word of reproach?’ he asked dryly but with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Not even a “you shouldn’t have”?’
‘Not one.’ She dimpled at him. ‘Not on our wedding day.’
They helped each other dress, Liberty in the gossamer-fine wedding gown with an embroidered organza bodice which made her waist look tiny, and Carter in top hat and tails. It was as Carter was fixing her veil in place—no easy job for his large hands—that Liberty suddenly said, ‘It’s unlucky for a groom to see the bride before the ceremony on the wedding day.’
For a moment the old gremlins had reared their ugly heads and Carter immediately pulled her into his arms, careless of the beautiful dress. ‘We’ve done this our way,’ he said softly. ‘Okay? The right way for us. And we aren’t reliant on luck. What we have can’t be affected by anything or anyone if we don’t let it be. And we won’t.’
‘We won’t?’ she said, clinging to him for a moment.
‘You bet we won’t. Trust me, I know about these things.’
‘The wise one?’ She smiled up at him, reassured.
‘You’ve got it.’
He kept talking to her until the car he had ordered pulled up outside, not giving her a minute to dwell on the past.
‘I do love you, you know.’ She looked deep into his eyes as they pulled up outside the church. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘I’ve always known that.’ He managed to sound magnificently humble and typically arrogant, and he looked hard and sexy and tough.
Liberty wanted to eat him alive.
Her father opened the car door, beaming at her but with tears in his eyes as he told her how beautiful, how breathtakingly beautiful, she looked. Joan was standing with him, and the two women hugged before Carter gave Liberty’s hand to the man who had been father and mother to her all her life.
‘You’ll hang on to her until she’s beside me in there?’ It was said half in jest but again Liberty caught something in Carter’s eyes that brought a lump to her throat.
What she’d put this poor man through. And then she looked at the church and the photographer hurrying down the small path leading to the arched door, and she reflected that Carter knew her better than she knew herself as her stomach turned over with blind panic.
‘Never fear.’ Her father had taken her arm in a grip which would have done credit to a ten ton wrestler. ‘You get in there, lad, and we’ll get the show on the road.’
As she watched Carter walk up the path to the church, stopping briefly for the photographer before continuing on in—Joan scampering behind him—she reflected that Carter was absolutely right. This had to be one weird wedding by most people’s standards, but a wonderful one. A smile touched her face and some of the panic receded. Yes, a wonderful one.
‘Ready, love?’ Her father was smiling at her and Liberty’s smile widened. She had the two men she loved beside her on this day.
‘I’m ready,’ she said huskily, wondering how it was you cried when you were sad but also when you were incredibly, fantastically, crazily happy. And she was, she was.
The church was packed when they entered. As the organ struck up the vicar didn’t look at all surprised when cheering and whoops and hollers came from all over his congregation.
Carter must have explained things thoroughly, Liberty thought as she fixed her eyes on him standing tall and proud with his father beside him. He had asked his father to be his best man? But then somehow that was perfect in this family she was being welcomed into. Already Mary was like the mother she had never had and Jennifer like a sister.
As she walked slowly towards Carter, turning her head now and again when someone reached out to her, she saw Mrs Harris sitting with Joan and the two of them were already weeping copiously. There were old friends, some of her work colleagues, relations—she could hardly believe it. All these people had been in on the secret and never once had she guessed a thing.
‘Okay, Pumpkin?’ her father whispered just before they reached Carter, and she nodded, her throat too full to speak as Carter turned round and she saw the love in his face.
He reached out to her, oblivious of the vicar who had just begun his, ‘We are gathered here today in the sight of God…’ and took her into his arms, kissing her long and hard before taking her hand in a firm grip and turning to face the front.
The service passed by in something of a dream, but then when it was time to walk through to the vestry to sign the register, Liberty saw Adam and Jennifer—the latter dressed in all her wedding finery except for her veil—rise to join them. ‘I thought it’d be nice for them to be our witnesses as we’ll be theirs.’ Carter grinned at her, his arm round her waist.
‘Oh, Jen.’ As the other bride reached her, Liberty hugged her sister-in-law tightly. ‘I didn’t think you were here.’
‘We slipped in at the back after you’d arrived,’ Jen whispered. ‘Didn’t want to steal your thunder but I knew I wouldn’t have time to change before we get married.’ She grinned at Liberty, looking extremely like her big brother for a moment. ‘Great this, isn’t it? One to tell all our kids and grandkids!’
There was laughter and happy tears during the signing of the register, and then, once the men had provided handkerchiefs and the women had mopped their eyes, they all marched out of the church to the stirring music Jennifer had chosen.
There was just time for some photographs to be taken and then Mary fixed her daughter’s veil and everyone piled back into the church. Jennifer had insisted she still wanted Liberty to be her bridesmaid, and so when the music began Liberty found herself walking down the aisle for the second time in as many hours. When Carter joined her in the front pew after discharging his best man duties it was clear the irony was not lost on him.
‘You’ve gone from the sublime to the ridiculous, you do realise that, don’t you?’ he murmured out of the side of his mouth as they listened to the ceremony proceeding. ‘From my not being able to get you to agree to one walk down the aisle for months, you’ve now had two.’
She had slipped her arm in his and now she squeezed it, her heart in her eyes as she whispered, ‘Lucky, lucky me.’
The sun was still shining as brightly as ever when they all exited the church again, and after another set of photographs outside the building they all sped off to the hotel where the reception was being held and more photographs—joint ones this time—in its pretty flowered garden.
By now Liberty was feeling this was a dream she never wanted to wake up from, and as the day progressed she found herself enjoying every minute. Everyone seemed tickled pink by the circumstances of what had been a double wedding of sorts, most of the females present confessing it was the most romantic thing they’d ever heard of for a man to go the lengths Carter had, and most of the men—after seeing Liberty—saying they could understand why he had.
Carter was like a dog with two tails and Adam was just as euphoric, the pair of them making everyone howl during their speeches at many of the jokes they directed at themselves regarding their difficulty at getting their respective wives to tie the knot.
All the in-laws seemed to be getting on extremely well—Liberty’s father and Joan promising they would stay with Mary and Paul Blake for a holiday by the sea in the summer when Carter’s parents pressed them, and Joan inviting Adam’s mother to Sunday lunch the next day.
Liberty became aware she was sitting with a silly smile on her face as the sit down meal finished with coffee, and as she glanced at Jennifer on the other side of her she saw the same bliss reflected in her sister-in-law’s face. She reached for Jennifer’s hand, squeezing it as she said, ‘Thanks for being so generous with your big day, Jen.’
‘It’s a pleasure.’ Jennifer beamed back, a gurgle in her voice as she added, ‘It’s certainly different from my first wedding, anyway! That was all pomp and ceremony.’
‘You and Adam will be fine.’
‘I know that.’ Jennifer leant towards her, her voice confiding now. ‘And so will you and Carter. He’s been a different man since he met you. Not that he wasn’t great before,’ she added hurriedly, in case Liberty thought it a criticism. ‘He’s always been the best brother in the world and I mean that. But before he met you his business and everything that went with it consumed him, you know? Now he seems to have it in perspective.’
Liberty smiled. ‘Meeting each other has worked like that for both of us. There was plenty I had to get into perspective, too. Far more than your brother,’ she added ruefully.
‘Good job this hotel had two honeymoon suites, don’t you think?’ Jennifer giggled. ‘Now that’s one thing I wasn’t about to share. Has Carter told you where you’re going on honeymoon yet? He wouldn’t tell any of us.’
Liberty shook her head. ‘Just that we’ll be away six weeks and it’s somewhere where we’ll know no one and no one will know us.’ She sighed happily. It sounded like utter heaven.
‘He absolutely adores you, you know.’
Liberty nodded. ‘Yes, I know,’ she said softly.
After the meal the four of them did their bride and groom duties, conversing with their guests and chatting and laughing with everyone, both brides on their respective husbands’ arms.
When the music began and the two couples emerged on the dance floor for the first dance the clapping and cheering nearly brought the roof down, but Liberty was barely aware of it, wrapped in Carter’s arms as she was.
Carter danced—as he did everything else—expertly, and she felt she was floating in his arms. The scent and feel of him was all around her and every movement of the hard male body against her soft curves caused her to melt into him, until she couldn’t have said where she ended and Carter began. ‘This is agony, holding you, knowing you are mine and yet having to stay here for one more minute,’ he whispered against her cheek, his voice rueful. ‘I have longed for you, dreamed of holding you in my arms like this, with every barrier down and nothing to hinder us, for so long. And now we are surrounded by all these faces. Why don’t they all go home where they belong?’
She giggled, looking up into his face and seeing he was only half-joking. ‘You’ve arranged the band,’ she reminded him softly, ‘not to mention the buffet at ten o’clock. No one is going to go before then.’
He groaned. ‘I must have been mad.’
But eventually, after an evening which everyone professed to be one of the best they’d had, the buffet was served, the last few dances were danced and the guests began to take their leave. Mary and Paul Blake came up to Carter and his bride.
‘I hope you will be as happy as Paul and I have been,’ Carter’s mother whispered in Liberty’s ear as she hugged her new daughter-in-law goodnight. ‘Carter is very like his father and they are both one-woman men. He might not always be the easiest person in the world to live with,’ she added with a little smile, ‘but I do know he will love you with all his heart and soul, and that’s everything really, isn’t it?’
Liberty nodded. ‘Everything.’
They walked into reception with Carter’s parents, and once the older couple had disappeared in the lift to the room which Carter had booked for them, Liberty turned to head back to the ballroom.
‘Hey, where do you think you’re going, Mrs Blake?’ Carter caught hold of her, turning her into him as he said, ‘This is our moment to escape and we’re taking it. Jen and Adam are still in there; they can see the last few off if they want but we’re going to bed.’
She didn’t argue. His grey eyes were devouring her and she wanted so much to be alone with him too.
The honeymoon suite was luxuriously, if a trifle excessively, cream and gold throughout, the massive bathroom boasting a jacuzzi big enough to host a football team in its cavernous depths, but the huge, billowy dream of a bed was the pièce de résistance. Carter eyed it with unconcealed relish.
In spite of their urgency, however, they undressed each other slowly, savouring the moment with little kisses and caresses as they touched and tasted and stroked. A swiftly growing heat had seeped into every nerve and cell of her body, causing her to shudder as he gently peeled the last remaining item of clothing, her brief lace panties, from her, leaving her naked beneath his burning eyes.
Her hands were shaking as she finished undressing him, the strong, hard length of his body with its erect manhood alien but pleasing to her bemused eyes. He was beautiful, magnificent, and she pressed against him, searching for his lips, suddenly shy. She so wanted to please him, so wanted this night to be perfect.
‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life making you happy,’ he said huskily against her lips, his hands caressing the silky swell of her buttocks as he held her against him. And then his mouth closed over hers in a kiss of such hunger she found herself moaning in answer to the need it expressed.
Time lost all meaning as they stood locked together in the middle of the lush room, their hands and mouths urgent and a raging need to become fused as one overriding everything else. When he carried her across to the bed she was already moist for him, but this was to be no quick, lusty coupling. Instead he continued to please her with his mouth and his hands, bringing all his experience to bear as he stroked her burningly sensitised skin to higher and higher heights of ecstasy.
Liberty had long since lost the power of thought when at last his hands lifted her to him, knowing only that the need and fiery ache which was eating her alive needed sating. As his energy possessed her a brief sharp pain caused her breath to catch in her throat and immediately he became still. His body was rigid with restraint as he groaned, ‘Am I hurting you? Do you want me to stop?’
‘No, no.’ Already she could feel her body adjusting to the hard fullness of him and the pain was gone, leaving nothing but a sweet, warm ache in its wake.
His lips breathed her name again as he began to move, slowly at first and then with increasing rhythm as she made no effort to hide the pleasure she was experiencing. Mindful that this was her first time, he tried to be gentle, but her little moans of passion and the way her body had welcomed him was like an explosive trigger he couldn’t control.
By the time they ascended into the heaven he had created he had possessed her to the hilt, taking them from one peak of pleasure to the next in an ever increasing spiral of sensation.
They lay locked together when they came back to the real world, their legs entwined and their heartbeats as one. She found she couldn’t move, her senses still so shattered by this other universe he had introduced her to that she was even beyond speech.
After a while he stirred, moving gently from her before he pulled her into his side, his arm holding her tightly against his animal warmth. ‘Go to sleep, my love,’ he murmured softly, ‘and dream of me.’
She turned her head, gazing at the strong face she had once thought hard and ruthless and the tenderness in his eyes humbled her. ‘I love you,’ she murmured sleepily. And then she slept.

The room was still wrapped in the shadows of night when Liberty awoke, the faint glow from the standard lamp in the adjoining sitting room area which they hadn’t turned off before making love providing just enough light for a dull glow against her closed eyelids.
For a moment her mind was still vague, luxuriating only in the bodily sensations of comfort and warmth and security, and then her drowsiness vanished as she opened her eyes, turning her head on the pillow to see Carter watching her. ‘Good morning, Aphrodite,’ he said very softly, his grey eyes dark and glittering.
Ridiculously after all they had shared—or maybe because of it—her face flooded with colour. ‘What time is it?’ she murmured weakly.
‘Five o’clock.’ He moved slightly to place his mouth on hers in a leisurely kiss which set her toes tingling, his own need apparent as he moulded her against the length of him.
And then his black head lifted again and he settled back on the pillows, one hand continuing to stroke her full, aching breasts and the flat silk of her stomach as he whispered, ‘Any regrets in the cold light of day?’
For a moment Liberty was almost inclined to treat his words lightly, to make a comment along the lines that it was hardly even day yet, let alone cold, but something in the waiting stillness of the dark face stopped her.
Incredible though it seemed, he needed reassurance, she thought wonderingly. Her strong, tough Carter, who ruled his small empire with a rod of iron and had a reputation ruthless enough to guarantee no one would be foolish enough to mess with him, needed reassurance.
‘Only that we didn’t do this sooner,’ she said, her heart in her eyes. She slowly lifted a tender hand to stroke the black stubble on his hard face. ‘I love you, Carter, so much.’ And then she knew it was time for the last shred of self-preservation to be dealt with and it wasn’t hard, the love blazing out of his eyes melting it away. ‘I love you with all my heart and soul and mind and body. I love you so much it scares me to death because I will never be able to do without you, and if anything happened to you I wouldn’t want to live.’
‘Nothing will happen to me.’ He gathered her fiercely to him, raining hot burning kisses on her eyes and brow and cheeks before taking her quivering mouth in a kiss which was a promise in itself.
‘Nothing, okay?’ he whispered after a minute or so. ‘We’re going to grow old together, you and I, Mrs Blake, but not before we live life to the uttermost. We’ll travel, see faraway places and dance by a moonlit sea until dawn. We’ll have babies, lots of fat, healthy babies and we’ll watch them grow secure and strong in a family unit which will provide them with everything they need to be well-balanced, good human beings. There’ll be laughter and tears because that’s part of family life, but we’ll see everything through together, whatever life has in store. And over it all will be the blanket of love, my darling. Love for each other, love for our children, for our grandchildren. Do you believe me?’
She smiled radiantly. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. And as he took her in his arms again she met him kiss for kiss, embrace for embrace, love for love, as she would do for the rest of their lives.

The End
sorry because it took so long

شكرا لهذه الروايه الرائعه

السلام عليكم
شكرا لهذه الروايه الرائعه