Part Time Marriage (7 page)

`You're numerate; you'd have to be in your job,' he commented. `Should we marry, I'd leave you to contact me when you've calculated your fertile period. The time when you are most likely to conceive,' he endorsed, and turned to leave.

Elexa was still trying to credit that she had actually had this conversation, when Noah Peverelle paused and then turned back to face her. When he stood, just surveying her for a moment or two, she somehow knew she wasn't going to like what was coming, whatever it was.

She was right-he hadn't yet done with matters intimate, it seemed. `Your mother seems to believe that you're a touchun worldly, so I hope you'll forgive me for being a shade indelicate,' he began. `But if you and I are to indulge in unprotected- involvement, I think it's necessary for me to know-have you had many partners?' Heavensabove ! `N-no,' she stammered. ` Er-nothing you need be concerned over.' She was dying a death here. But, in anen( leavour that he shouldn't know it, `How about you?' she asked the tall virile-looking man.

`I've had my moments, naturally,' he answered, not a blush about him. `But you'd be safe with me. I can promise you that.'

`Good,' she said, finding the wool of his sweater of much interest. `Then neither of us has anything to worry about.'

`If there's nothing else?' he enquired, already turning to leave.

She went with him to the door. `Goodbye,' she bade him, and returned to her sitting-room to collapse into a chair. Worry about?Nothing to worry about?

In the following few days, in between working hard and daily telephone conversations with her mother, Elexa did nothing but worry. She spent sleepless nights worrying. Was she really contemplating marrying Noah Peverelle? Had she, in fact, actually made that initial approach to him that had started this whole thing off? Did she want to go through with it? Did she want to make that phone call on Thursday? Her mother's telephone calls said she did. For while it was a tremendous relief that her dear parent had stepped off the `now-here's-a-niceman-I-want- you-to-meet' trail, her telephone calls were just as regular, only now they were full of Noah Peverelle and how Aunt Celia and Aunt Helen were just dying to meet him. So that Elexa now realised she had changed one pressure for another. Though it had to be said, she qualified, the pressure of her mother's relentless phone calls when Noah Peverelle was her theme was a vast improvement from the relentless onslaught she'd had to endure with regard to the `nice' marriage-material males her mother seemed to have an endless supply of.

Elexa made a point of leaving work earlier than was usual on Thursday. She had done nothing but think since Noah had gone from her flat on Sunday. But with every moment getting closer to the time when she should ring him-if she was going to-she knew that she had to think that little bit harder.

She made herself a pot of tea as soon as she arrived home, and sat down to concentrate hard on what it was she wanted. The tea went cold as she tried to think logically, unemotionally, and took everything apart.

What did she want? She wanted her career. She had a super job, worked with super people, and knew she was tipped to be a high-flyer in the large concern she worked for. Her job involved planning; she was good at planning. She didn't think she was particularly maternal, hut, bearing in mind how squashy she'd felt inside when nursing her cousin's baby, it seemed logical if she could plan her career for those plans to include a baby-that way she would not wake up one morning with a sudden urge to have a child only to find that her biological clock was sticking its tongue out.

In truth there was no one she fancied to be the father of her child, but with Noah Peverelle she had the guarantee that he did not want any kind of emotional involvement. Once the deed was done, it would be a race to see which one of them got to the divorce lawyer quicker. A slight snag there in that she had a vague notion that a couple had to be married for a whole year before they could divorce-but that of course didn't mean that they had to wait to set the wheels in motion.

On the other hand, perhaps it wasn't such a snag. Hadn't she thought at the start that a year free of that unremitting pressure from her mother was all she craved?

What it all boiled down to was the fact that, while she loved her family dearly, she was getting more and more worn down bythem. She wanted peace to get on with her life and in her own way. She didn't want her mother, her aunts, colluding with each other on what they thought was right for her. They wanted her married. She could marry-but to a man of her choice.A man who was as keen to divorce as she was.

Noah Peverelle, in the circumstances that prevailed, was the ideal candidate. She panicked a little at the thought of having to sleep with him, but realised she could hardly complain. Recalling his suggestion that he'd leave it to her to contact him at her fertile period, he wasn't exactly champing at the bit to sleep with her either, was he?

Her eyes went to the phone. Do it, urged the logic of her head. She resisted. There was a child to consider here. Though what exactly was there to consider? If Noah Peverelle was so keen to have a son that he was prepared to give up his bachelorhood, albeit briefly, then from what she knew of him, had gleaned of him and his integrity, she had an idea that any child would be much cared for. It wasn't as if she wouldn't have access. Noah might have chief guardianship, but she felt certain, having heard his talk of it being better for the child to know her, that she would have all the access she wanted.

Having thought everything through for a final time, Elexa, though admittedly not without quite some feelings of apprehension, reached for the phone.It barely rang before it was answered.

'Peverelle,' he said firmly.

She wasn't ready. Even then, having thought about everything so much, she wasn't yet ready. `H-hello,' she said huskily-and couldn't even get her name out to tell him who was calling.

But then she found that she did not have to. Noah Peverelle, as tintack-sharp as ever, knew with that one word who was calling. `Does the fact that you've made this call at all mean that I can go ahead and book the registrar?' he enquired evenly.

No, Hello Elexa, how have you been. Just straight down to business, she fumed, and was glad to feel niggled; it put paid to her speechlessness. `The baby,' she said bluntly. `With you being so busy all the time, when are you going to have chance to be a father to him?"

'The earliest I need be around for him is in ten months' time,' Noah answered straight away, making her realise that she wasn't the only one who had thought everything through. `While the child is an infant I'll see him at every available opportunity. I'm already aiming to lessen my workload. All being well, give it a couple of years and I shall be in a position to enjoy both him and that place in the country I spoke of.' He let that sink in,then asked seriously, `Anything else bothering you?"

'Um-wh-where do I tell people I met you?' she asked, realising as the question left her lips that she had more or less agreed that he could book the register office, and that she was just clutching at last minute panicky straws.

`You mean Lois Crosby?' Was he sharp, or was he sharp? `I suppose so,' Elexa answered-her parents already believed they had met when Noah had seen her at one of his offices. 'Lois was the person I rang when I wanted your home number.' Elexa supposed he already knew that, just as he seemed to know that she hadn't told Lois why she wanted his home number.

`You don't feel like telling her you wanted my number because you found me so fascinating you just had to contact me to ask me for a date?'

He was teasing. Wasn't he? Elexa realised she didn't know him well enough to be sure. `Lois doesn't believe in fairy stories,' Elexa answered crisply, and knew the tension she had been under this last few days must have got to her when she actually thought she heard the stern-expressioned man she knew give a smothered laugh. She didn't believe she had amused him for a minute.

And was right not to believe it, she realised a moment later when, quite soberly, he suggested, `Did you perhaps need my home number to try the personal touch when Colman and Fisher were trying a new marketing approach?"

'Oh, I did!' Elexa accepted gratefully, ignoring that that type of work wasn't anything to do with her section. `I don't want to lie to Lois, but I'd prefer no one but just you and I know of our-arrangement.' `Do I take it from that that you and I are engaged?"

'We needn't go overboard!' Elexa, answered sharply.But then had to laugh. `That was a bit crass wasn't it?'

`Accepting to marry me, but not to be engaged?"

'I-urn-have accepted, haven't I?"

'I rather think you have,' Noah replied, going on in a businesslike way, `We might as well do it straight away.Any objections to a special licence? We could be married next week and...'

`Why the rush?'She cut him off. He was going too fast-she needed time, time for it to settle more firmly in her mind that she had just agreed to marry him.

`Why would you want to wait?' he countered. `The sooner we marry, the sooner we can get the divorce underway,' he stated crisply. It wasn't the most romantic proposal she had ever heard. But she brought herself up short. For Heaven's sake, who wanted romance? `I don't care when,' she answered, striving hard to be as businesslike as him, `but my mother might be a touch scandalised if I do her out of the white wedding bit.'

`You have to tell her?"

'You're suggesting we marry first and tell her afterwards?' she questioned astonished. `I couldn't do that to her!'

There was a short silence,then Noah, ever the decision-maker, was informing her, 'I'm fairly tied up the week after next. I could manage Tuesday of the following week.'

'I'd prefer not to lose a day off work. Could you make a Saturday or a Sunday?"

'I'll have to check my office and get back to you,' he answered, and asked, `You don't want me to call on your father or any of that stuff, do you?' To ask for her hand?`Grief, no!' she exclaimed, everything seeming to be going along at too fast a pace all of a sudden. `There's no need for that. It's not as if..." She broke off, suddenly horrified to feel emotional tears catch her throat. Get a grip, for goodness' sake. Hadn't she already tossed romance and all that sort of nonsense in the bin? `Shall I ring and tell my parents?' she asked briskly.

`It will make your mother's day,' he suggested nicely. Swine! `Anything you need to ask? Discuss?' he asked.

`Not a thing,' she replied.

`I' llbe in touch.'

This was her call. `Goodnight,' she bade him, and quickly put down the phone. She'd done it! She had promised to marry a man who was virtually a stranger! Her mouth went dry and she felt all of a tremble inside. She sank back in her chair, musing a shade shakily that it seemed an enormous step to take-and yet, at the same time, it also seemed oddly the right thing to do.

Elexa was still mulling over the peculiarity of that when suddenly her phone rang. She jumped, her thoughts flying to Noah, the man she had just agreed to marry. Was he calling back to discuss something he had overlooked? Her heartbeat crazily seemed to speed up. She made herself calm down. Of course it wouldn't be him! As if Noah Peverelle would forget anything!

It wasn't Noah-it was her mother. `Is it tonight that Noah comes back?' she enquired.

Elexa knew her mother knew full well that Noah was returning from his business trip that day, because her mother had mentioned it on every phone call since Monday. `He's home,' Elexa answered.

`Oh, lovely.You'll be longing to see him, I expect?'

Tell her. The words got stuck. It was as if once she had told her parent that she and Noah were going to be married she was committed. `Actually, Mum...' she began hesitantly.

`What's happened?"

'Nothing.Well, that is.Um... Elexa took a deep breath. `Actually,' she plunged, `Noah and I are getting married.'And quickly pulled the phone away from her ear at her mother's ear-piercing scream of joy.

There followed a few minutes of split sentences, her mother pretending she wasn't in tears, and Elexa having burning coals of guilt raining down on her because she was deceiving her parent so.

'Celia and Helen will be delighted,' Kaye Aston crooned, and Elexa knew that the phone lines from her parents' home would be buzzing the moment she had said goodbye to her. `Have you got your engagement ring yet? Oh, I'm just dying to see it,' her mother rushed on. `Have you decided when the wedding will be? I always think a June wedding is lovely. We'll have to-'

`Noah,' Elexa cut in, `and I,' she added quickly, `werethinking of sooner than that.' June was next year! Hang it, they'd be closer to divorce than to getting married bythen !

`Sooner?How much sooner? They'll be a lot to arrange, Elexa.'

`Actually, we thought we'd marry in about-er-three weeks' time,' Elexa answered- and held the phone away from her ear for a second time. `Three weeks!' her mother shrieked, and Elexa thought she had better let her have the rest of it now rather than later.

`Noah's going to check the date. You know how busy he is. It will probably be a Saturday, if the-um-r-registrar can ...'

Elexa was sitting stunned five minutes later, feeling she had just been pulled well and truly through the wringer. When the phone rang again she felt very much, like not answering it. For certain it was going to be either her mother or one of her aunts.

She stretched out a hand to the instrument, knowing without a question of doubt that should she not answer it, her mother would ring every fifteen minutes until she did. `Hello,' she said, perhaps a shade warily-and discovered it was none of her female relatives.

`Something wrong?'Noah asked.

`Oh, it's you,' Elexa answered in relief. But only for that relief to rapidly subside when she thought of what she had to tell him. `You thought it would be someone else? Your mother?' he guessed.

`I've just been speaking to her. Correction, my mother has just been speaking to me, rather severely.'

`Snap!' he answered.

Elexa's eyes shot wide. `My mother rang you!' she gasped, hardly able to believe it.