ALMOST A BRIDE. Maura McGiveny. CHAPTER ONE

ALMOST A BRIDE

Maura McGiveny

First came trust, then love, then betrayal...

A year ago Caroline had almost been a bride--would have been if Philip hadn't left her standing alone at the back of a small Cornish church waiting for a groom who never showed up.

"When you love someone," Caro later decided, "you give them power over you. " And she never intended to give another man the power to break her heart--until David came along with his quiet strength and conviction.

"You're not alone anymore, " he promised her. But Caro was afraid to weave a dream around him and run the risk of being never a bride, never a wife, never a mother ....

CHAPTER ONE

Caroline tucked the blanket around her brother and gently kissed him good night. He yawned sleepily, curling his arm around a bedraggled teddy bear.

"Night, Caro,' he murmured.

"Night, darling. Sleep tight.' Smoothing back his dark hair, she turned towards the door, leaving it open a crack in case he should wake again and call out for her.

She slipped her hands in the pockets of her flannel dressing gown and tiptoed down the dim hallway. She wasn't worried about disturbing her father or her two other brothers sleeping in the big upstairs bedrooms of their rambling farmhouse. They were the least of her problems. One irascible old grandfather caused her more trouble than all the others. If she could only get past his door without waking him .. .

'Caroline? Is that you wandering round at this hour?' her grandfather called.

She froze for a moment then sighed before pushing open his door and sticking her head inside. 'Sorry. I had to settle Tim,' she said lightly. 'He had a nightmare again. I'm just going downstairs to make sure all the doors are locked then I'll turn in.'

He sat up in bed and flicked on the bedside lamp, his dark eyes peering at the clock on his nightstand before looking back at her. Bushy white eyebrows rose in mock surprise. 'And what's Sharon supposed to do when she finally gets home? Crawl in the pantry window?'

With a small sound of exasperation, her shoulders slumped and she came to the side of his bed. 'How did you know she'd gone out?'

'You have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool me. Besides, I heard her on the 'phone to the Pengelly girl this afternoon.'

She sat down on the edge of his bed and smiled gently, taking one of his gnarled hands in both of hers. 'It's not really that late. Don't worry about her.'

'How can a man not worry about his grandchildren? I may be old but I'm not dead.'

'Sharon said she wouldn't be late,' she soothed. 'I'm not worried. You shouldn't be either.'

'Where that girl's concerned, I'm always worried. Look at the time. Midnight already. She may be the oldest of all of you but when it comes to brains, she missed out on her share.'

'Now, Grandy, you know Daddy always said twenty-five's too old for a curfew.'

'I don't care what your father said. For all the notice he takes of things around here now, he might as well have died along with your mother.' His eyes clouded and he looked at his tall slender granddaughter with her dark brown hair braided and draped over her shoulder. 'Sharon's irresponsible, that's what she is. She knows you have to get up at the crack of dawn to get things going and see that the boys get off to school all right but does she care that she's interfering with your rest? It isn't right and I'm not going to put up with it.'

'Grandy, please,' she cut in, squeezing his hand gently, knowing once he got started he'd work himself into a fine rage and never get back to sleep. Her voice was deliberately low and soothing. 'I don't mind missing a little sleep. And Sharon asked before she left. I told her to go.'

'That doesn't make it right.' His face twisted morosely. 'Things have got to change around here. This family's hanging together by a thread. What if something happens to me? Who'll take card of things then? If you'd got yourself married like you were supposed to last year, we'd have a man around here and I could rest easy.'

A cold hand squeezed her heart, aggravating the wound that had never completely healed. She got to her feet and kept her face expressionless with an effort. 'But Philip didn't marry me so we just have to make the best of it,' she said flatly, not wanting to hear any more.

He refused to let it go. 'How can we make the best of something like that?'

'Grandy ‑'

'Look at you, Caroline. I know you're putting on a good front but I remember the girl you used to be: sweet, outgoing, smiling all the time. Now you're little more than a shadow round here. How long since you laughed? You've cut yourself off from everything outside this' family. You never go out. You have no friends.'

'I do have friends ‑'

'I'm not talking about that idiot, Morwenna Polzion. I'm talking about men friends.'

'I've got you and Daddy and the boys. You're all the men I need.'

'That's what I mean. You won't even look at any man outside this family. You need someone and I need him too. If only your mother were still alive. She'd know how to reach you.' His eyes took on a sad, faraway look. 'If only Philip hadn't left you standing at the altar.'

Her breath left her in an exasperated rush and her chin shot up instinctively. He was always trying to get her to talk about it. He couldn't understand how she could go on like nothing happened after that blow to her pride. Anyone else would have gone away where no one knew her to start over. But she was made of sterner stuff. For more than a year now, gossip made her a pariah, a social outcast, but she was determined to ignore it. At first Grandy was protective but then, as time went on and he saw she wouldn't tolerate his sympathy, he tried other, sometimes cruel, tactics to bring it out in the open. She wouldn't talk to him about it even though she knew he was waiting for her to' come to him. She had been hurt but she chose to keep it to herself.

Her voice was even. 'There are some things we can't change. We simply have to learn to accept them. Mum died and I didn't get married and Daddy's retreated into his own little world. Let's just leave it at that, shall we? I'll go check and see if Sharon's home yet and bring you some warm milk to help you sleep.'

'Warm milk.' His lip curled before he slid back down beneath his blanket. 'I can do without that, thank you.'

'Oh, Grandy.' She sighed again and impulsively bent her head and kissed him on the cheek, trying not to flinch , when he roughly pulled away from her. Her voice was husky. 'I know you're concerned and I love you for it but I can handle things. I'm a big girl now.'

'Twenty-one and you think you know everything,' he muttered.

Trying to contain her exasperation, she switched off his light and left him. There was no getting through to him in this mood so the best thing to do was ignore it and hope he'd be more amenable in the morning.

Everything was quiet and still when she went down to the cosy kitchen with its big scrubbed table and old-fashioned woodburning stove. The fire was out and she wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill. But the coldness was from inside and she knew it. If only Grandy knew, he didn't have to keep reminding her about being left at the altar. It was never very far from her thoughts and this was the time of the day it always came rushing back, full force, to haunt her.

She could still see Philip Tregenna when she closed her eyes. He had been so handsome, tall and dark with black hair and almost equally black eyes. He was kind and generous. His smile could charm the birds out of the trees and her father loved him like a son. Everybody loved him. No one could know him and not love him. But with Caroline, it had been to quick and too consuming to be real. She met him and was swept off her feet, dazzled by the sheer force and power of his personality. She didn't know what love was all about then.

'Beware the dark stranger,' her best friend, Morwenna Polzion, said, frowning strangely at the tea leaves in the bottom of Caroline's cup only the day before her wedding. 'He's going to break your heart.'

Little did she know twenty-four hours later she'd be standing at the back of the little village church, waiting for the tall dark groom who never showed up.

'But he wasn't a .stranger!' she told Morwenna, her only bridesmaid, the only one who shared all her secrets.

Morwenna just rolled her eyes and said quite softly: 'Yes he was. You thought you loved him but you didn't really know anything about him. You loved the dream not the man.'

She wanted to die at the time but nothing could be that easy. The guests awkwardly left the church with confused and sympathetic murmurings and with the long white skirts of her wedding gown trailing limply in the dust, Caroline made her way alone to the cemetery and threw herself on the gently blowing grass covering her mother's grave.

'Why, Mum, why?' Bitter scalding tears blinded her and her heart shattered. There was no comforting presence she had always felt before. There were no answers this time.

She never knew how long she stayed there but the sun was slanting long shadows on the gravestones when her father finally found her and lifted her to her feet and stumblingly took her home. He didn't say anything. His face was deathly pale and fixed.

A long time after that, Morwenna told her that her father had gone to Philip's home that day and talked to him. He never told anyone what they said to each other. He never told Caroline why Philip failed to show up at the church or why he left the country two days later. News filtered back from America that he died there six weeks later. The only thing her father said to her was: 'He wasn't the man for you, my love. He would have ended up breaking your heart.'

So Caroline was left, if not with a broken heart, with one that was bruised beyond repair. Philip Tregenna hurt not only her but also her father. Whatever Philip told him that day, he had never been the same after hearing it. Little by little he withdrew. Now he sat and stared vacantly into space and Caroline cared for him as if he was one of her brothers.

Standing now at the kitchen window, so tall and still and straight, she listened to the rising wind sending the waves to break against the huge granite boulders at the bottom of the cliffs in the distance and was comforted by the sound. She loved this majestic open stretch of Cornish coastline where she lived. Her life here might not be the easiest, trying to care for three young boys and two men with her older sister on this tiny farm outside Penzance, but she refused to take the easy way out and leave them. The humiliation wasn't hers alone. She stayed and faced it with her family. She knew her brothers were still fending off the pitying looks and unkind remarks from gossipy neighbours who wouldn't let it die. She didn't complain. This, was her cross to bear. She wouldn't let herself dwell on how heavy it was.

A small sound at the doorway had her turning and she looked at her sister coming in before her eyes widened disbelievingly in the stunned silence.

Sharon smoothed her hands nervously over the limp black curls hanging on her shoulders and huge tears welled up in her eyes. 'Oh, Caroline! Look at me! What am I going to do?' She threw herself into her arms. 'I look so awful with black hair!'

It took Caroline a full minute to gather her scattered wits before she patted her on the back and held her away, trying not to wince at the offending greenish black dye job. Sharon was always so beautiful. More often than not Caroline felt gawky and graceless in comparison. 'Whatever possessed you to dye it?'

'I wanted to look like Judith,' Sharon wailed.

'Judith!' She was flabbergasted. 'Judith who?'

'Tremain,' she hiccupped. 'Remember how beautiful she was? And how much David loved her?'

Bewildered, Caroline stared at her with wide eyes and spread her hands helplessly. 'But Judith Tremain is dead! She had been for . . . what, two years now?'

'Three,' Sharon said, scrubbing at her eyes.

'Then what on earth's made you suddenly want to look like her?'

'David's back. Kathy Pengelly saw him yesterday in the cemetery visiting Judith's grave. He told her his travels were over. He's home to stay now.'

Caroline closed her eyes and let out a long slow breath. David Tremain. The answer to every woman's dream. At least he was six years ago before he went to America. He was handsome enough, she supposed, remembering him through a fifteen year old's eyes. He was twenty-five then and all the older girls were crazy about him—especially Sharon. He had dated her a few times but that was before he married Judith and took her to America.

Judith had everything: looks, personality, wealth, that indefinable elusive something that brought out a man's protective instincts. She should have had all the other girls green with envy but they weren't. Everyone loved her. So small and fragile, even now the remembrance of her tinkling laugh made Caroline think of a hushed wind sighing through a hundred bell towers.

She blinked open her eyes again and looked at Sharon and shook her head. 'You thought if you made yourself look like Judith, David would notice you and come calling again?'

She nodded miserably. 'Well, wouldn't he?'

Caroline bit back an unkind retort. Aside from the fact that Sharon was a foot taller than Judith and a good twenty-five pounds heavier, it would take more than long black hair to remind David of his dead wife when he looked at her. 'No, I don't think so,' she said gently. 'You're altogether different. You don't look anything like her. Besides, don't you realise you'd only be putting more obstacles in your way? When he looked at you, you'd never know if he was seeing you or pretending you were Judith. You have to be yourself, Sharon. That's the only way.'

'Oh, Caro.' Her face crumpled and she dragged her hands through her hair. 'I knew I should have asked what you thought first. You're always so level headed. But it seemed so simple at Kathy's house. Her mother's hair dye was there on the shelf and we got to talking and somehow it was the perfect thing to do. Now it looks so awful. Grandy'll kill me!'

Caroline made a sympathetic sound and wondered how she was going to salvage this one. 'No he won't,' she soothed. 'He may roar a bit but he won't kill you.'

'You know how he's always telling me I don't have both oars in the water? Well, I think he's right. I shouldn't have been so stupid. What am I going to do?'

She smothered a small laugh, glad she wasn't going to be the recipient of Grandy's cutting wit this time. 'Let's put the kettle on, shall we? Between us, we ought to think of something . . .'

When Grandy finished the milking and came in for breakfast the next morning, he pulled out his chair with a preoccupied frown not looking at anyone. Everyone else was already seated at the long kitchen table and it was only after he noticed the unnatural silence all around him that he looked up, his eyes going from eight-year-old Tim on his left, to fourteen-year-old Rob next to him, to sixteen-year-old Michael. Their eyes were glued to their plates as he glared balefully at their innocent faces. Then he focused his attention on Caroline sitting at the foot of the table calmly sipping her coffee. His eyebrows descended in a thunderous frown when he searched her carefully blank expression. Next to her was her father, Grandy's son, Alexander Pentreath. A tall slender man, he sat staring straight ahead with vacant eyes, seeing, hearing nothing. Sharon sat on the other side of her father and when Grandy finally got to her, his jaw sagged open and his eyes widened so much they nearly popped out of his head.

Her shoulder length hair had been cut in a short bob and it really didn't look too bad curling about her face in fine feathery wisps. Caroline was no hairdresser but, given the lateness of the hour and the anxiety she was feeling, she had done her best. At any rate, Sharon seemed pleased with the result and the horrible black dye didn't look quite so green this morning.

'Sharon Pentreath.' Grandy's voice was too controlled, too quiet. His fork clattered on to his plate and his napkin was practically hurled on to the table beside it. 'Come with me!'

'But Grandy, she's going to drive the boys to school ‑' Caroline began, only to be silenced by one impaling look from him.

Sharon gulped and got to her feet, throwing her sister a drowning look when she followed him out of the kitchen.

'What's he going to do to her?' Tim said fearfully, his eyes as big as saucers.

'He's going to tell her how stupid she is.' Michael leaned back in his chair and expelled his breath, putting his hands flat on the table. 'Her hair was pretty until she messed it up with that black dye.' He looked at Caroline who was stirring sugar into her father's coffee. 'You never did tell us why she did it. Wasn't plain old ordinary Pentreath brown good enough for her?'

'Of course it was,' she said quietly, throwing a reassuring smile at Tim. Of all her brothers, he was the only one who didn't understand Grandy. Yet. 'She just wanted a change, that's all. She feels as bad as we do that it didn't turn out beautiful but maybe with it cut short, it'll grow out fast. Now finish your breakfast,' she said briskly, 'or you'll be late for school'

Tim looked startled. 'You mean Sharon's still going to drive us?'

'Of course she is. Grandy's just giving her a piece of his mind, that's all. She'll be back in a minute.'

Rob's eyes danced with mischief and an irrepressible grin spread across his face as he started to get up from his chair.

She knew what was coming. 'Don't say it, Rob,' she admonished.

But he couldn't resist the temptation. 'If he keeps on giving people a piece of his mind, he's not going to have any left for himself,' he gurgled.

Michael laughed out loud and Tim giggled. A smile tugged at the sides of Caroline's mouth but she kept it firmly under control. She was supposed to be the adult in charge here and it wouldn't do for them to see her enjoying the joke at her grandfather's expense. 'That's enough, Rob.'

'Sorry,' he laughed, not one bit contrite.

'Go on, all of you. It's getting late.' Her voice was brisk when she rose to her feet and began clearing the table. 'Mike, will you. take Daddy out to the garden before you go?' She looked at her father staring vacantly into space and pain came and went in her eyes. When she shaved him this morning, she had missed a place on his upper lip. 'It's sunny and the fresh air will do him good. Oh, and make sure his sweater's buttoned, will you? The calendar says almost May but it's still chilly.'

When they had gone and the dishes were done, Grandy came back and roughly pulled out a chair at the table. Caroline carefully put a cup of coffee in front of him and started to tiptoe away when he stopped her.

'What's Morwenna Polzion's 'phone number?' he said through his teeth.

Her eyes opened wide and she spun around. That was the last thing she expected him to say. 'Morwenna's?'

'You heard me,' he glared at her. 'I've got to get someone over here to care for you children—and someone to help me run this farm as well.'

'But I thought you didn't like her!' She sank into a chair beside him at a loss.

'Try using your head for once,' he breathed harshly. 'I don't expect her to keep house for us. It's just that she's the biggest gossip I know. If I tell her I'm looking for someone, it'll spread all over the world like wildfire.'

He was exaggerating, she knew, but he never would admit he had a soft spot for her best friend. Morwenna did talk a lot but being a forty-five year old widow who lived alone in a small cottage at the edge of the cliffs, she must have her lonely moments. No one could blame her for being friendly.

'You're not being very kind, Grandy.'

'I'm not in the mood to be kind.' He ran a hand over his face and through his hair, making it stand up in stiff white spikes. 'Why did that nitwit have to dye her hair? And why did you cut it? That only made it worse. You both ought to have your heads examined.'

She squirmed in her chair. 'Sharon didn't explain?'

All of a sudden he became very still and his eyes narrowed, searching her guarded expression. 'No. All she did was cry. She must have told you, though. She did, didn't she? All right, out with it. Why?'

She lifted her shoulders helplessly. How could she betray Sharon's confidence like that? It would only make her sister look that much more stupid. 'Who knows why she does anything?' she said with false brightness. 'She said the dye was handy and it seemed a good thing to do at the time but when she got home, she realised it was a mistake. We cut it because we thought it wouldn't look quite so green and maybe it would grow out faster that way.'

He shook his head and let out a savage breath knowing she was covering up the real reason and he'd never get it out of her. 'It can't grow out fast enough for me. She looks like a plucked chicken now. And that only proves my point. You're not old enough to look after yourself, let alone the rest of us. You need someone here to keep you in line.'

'Grandy, I'm doing the best I can.' Her voice was very small.

'Your best isn't good enough.' At her barely hidden look of hurt, he breathed in deeply. 'I know you're trying hard to take your mother's place but it's no good. My mind's made up. I'm .getting a housekeeper for you and a hired hand for myself. That will leave you and Sharon free ...' his lips twisted, '... to look for husbands.'

'Oh please! Don't say that!'

His mouth shook with sudden compunction but he kept his voice gruff with an effort. 'Your life isn't over, Caroline, so don't pretend it is. You've been hurt but you're young and you'll bounce back. And never mind that nonsense you're always quoting about "If you never say hello, you won't have to say goodbye",' he jeered.

'There's a man out there just waiting for you. You'll never find him if I don't make you start looking.'

She buried her face in her hands and shook her head. Didn't he understand anything?

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