Margaret Pargeter - SUBSTITUTE BRIDE (1814)

SUBSTITUTE BRIDE




When Rick Conway's fiance Blanche deceived him and let him down, Rick decided to teach her a lessonso he married her colourless little cousin Emma instead. Nobody considered poor Emma's feelings for a momentalthough she had lost no time in falling in love with this husband who didn't want her. And how could she expect Rick to return her feelings, when he didn't trust her any more than he trusted Blanche?

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by

MARGARET PARGETER

COLLISION

After the way Max Heger had treated her, Selena didn't ever want to have anything to do with him again. But that was easier said than done, when he turned up, out of the blue, on her doorstep again. At least, she thought, it might give her an opportunity to be revenged on him! But things didn't work out exactly as Selena had planned.

CAPTIVITY

To escape being married off to a rich manany rich man!by her snobbish and ambitious mother, Alex fled to Melbourne, only to meet someone who was just as determined as her mother had been. Chase Marshall offered her marriage as wellbut Alex was under no illusions as to why: he simply thought she would be suitable. Well, he could keep his offer of marriage!

DARK SURRENDER

Was Brad Hewson interested in Julie or wasn't he? And while Julie was debating that question, it didn't help at all that she discovered that her stepfather was apparently embezzling from Brad and that somehow she would have to put that situation right. Yet more and more she was coming to realise that any woman who was foolish enough to love Brad was doomed to be hurt

DECEPTION

Sick to death of being run after for her money, Thea ran away herselfto Drumlarig in the Scottish Highlands, where she had been happy when she was a child. But she only ran into more trouble, when she took a job as housekeeper to Logan Murray without telling him who she really was. And with Logan, a new set of problems developed

First published 1981

Australian copyright 1981

Philippine copyright 1981

This edition 1981

Margaret Pargeter 1981

ISBN 0 263 73543 5

Emma Davis smiled faintly as she turned to Jim Brown. 'You'd better get off home now, Jim, or Mary will be wondering what's happened to you.'

'If you're sure you can manage, Emma?'

'If I can't I'll send for you,' she promised, 'but it's not the first time I've managed on my own. Unless there are complications, I doubt if Daisy will need much help. After all,' Emma's young face softened wryly, 'this isn't exactly a new experience for her, is it?'

'No,' Jim conceded, as they both stood considering the cow who was expecting her fourth calf that evening, 'but you never know. The older I get the more I realise that even the most straightforward case can go wrong.'

Emma shrugged her slim shoulders, but didn't dismiss Jim's theory out of hand. No one knew better than herself just how wrong things could go on occasion. Very little on a farm ever went completely according to plan. The secret was to try and not worry over-much. 'I'll see you in the morning, Jim,' she said firmly.

After he had gone she sank down wearily on the old wooden stool beside Daisy, trying to ignore how tired she felt. It had been a long day and she couldn't see any immediate end to it. The farm wasn't large, but there was always plenty to do and she had only Jim to help her. A long day was endurable if it began at six and finished twelve hours later, but Emma's days rarely did. Even if all went well outside and she finished early there was usually plenty to do in the house. It was a relief, this evening, to know that both her aunt and cousin Blanche were out and she wouldn't have their dinner to cook. A snack on the end of the kitchen table for herself was all she need bother with.

A little happier because of this, Emma shifted her position on the stool, so she could lean against the wall of the barn and watch Daisy at the same time. Feeling more comfortable, she glanced down at the pair of old jeans she wore. They had been washed so often that they were too tight for real comfort and, like her shirt, were patched and worn. In a moment of raw retrospection, which she didn't usually allow herself, she wondered what her mother would have thought if she could have seen her now. Her mother had died many years ago, but Emma still remembered her delicate fastidiousness. Emma had been developing it herself to a lesser degree when her young life had been rudely shattered for the second time, when a trick of fate had caused her father's business to crash and brought on a heart attack from which he had never recovered.

The shock of this had been bad enough but there had been more to come. At sixteen she had had to leave her expensive boarding school to come and live here. Her uncle, her father's elder brother, had been kind to her, but compared with her lively, vital father he had seemed like an absentminded, tired old man. Never once had he appeared to notice how appallingly his wife and daughter treated Emma.

Immediately Emma arrived, they had persuaded him to dismiss the boy he employed and let Emma take his place. They had also made her do all the rough work in the house and most of the cooking. When her uncle had died a year later they had congratulated themselves that Emma was now quite competent to carry on alone.

That had been two years ago and Emma was still managing the farm alone, .with only Jim to help her. She was quick and intelligent and didn't find this too difficult, especially as she had been so well taught by her uncle, but she hadn't wanted to make a career of it. It was simply because she was constantly reminded by her domineering aunt and cousin that she owed it to them to make the farm pay that she had agreed to stay and worked for nothing. She liked the farm, but she worried when things went wrong as so little money was put aside for emergencies. What there was to spare was usually spent immediately by Hilda and Blanche.

Emma sighed unhappily when she thought of her cousin. Blanche was twenty-five and beautiful, but very hard to please. She worked, on and off, as a model, but while she sometimes stayed in London when she had an assignment, she almost always tried to get home.

Two months ago Blanche had got herself engaged to a man called Richard Conway, who owned sugar plantations on the West Indian island of Barbados. They had met at a party and Richard, or Rick, as Blanche called .him, had proposed the same week. Emma had only met him once, soon afterwards, when he had come to the farm, presumably to visit his future mother-in-law. He hadn't stayed long and Emma had only seen him for a few minutes, but what she had seen had surprised her. She had judged him to be about thirty-five or six and summed him up quickly, but without any real interest, as tall, dark and handsome. She hadn't liked his manner, which seemed as hard and domineering as her cousin's, which had made her decide disparagingly that they were well matched. Yet something about him had caught her attention, so that when her grey eyes had met his blue ones, for a few moments she had been unable to look away.

Later she dismissed the hurtful spark of sensitivity which shot through her as nonsense, guessing wryly that Richard Conway would be well versed in the ways of making women aware of him, even small, insignificant girls like herself. As he had been returning to Barbados almost immediately, she hadn't seen him again, but she had often wondered how a man like him could have fallen for someone as empty-headed as Blanche.