Of course it would take time for Angel to adapt to the idea of marriage and a family of his own and Merry appreciated that reality. He wasn’t going to be perfect from the word go, but the imperfect that warned her that he was trying hard was enough to satisfy her...admittedly somewhat low...expectations. She couldn’t set the bar too high for him at the start, she told herself urgently. She had to compromise and concentrate on what was truly important.
And what could be more important than Elyssa and seizing the opportunity to provide her daughter with a father? Merry knew what it was like to live with a yawning space in her paternal background. She had never known her father and, unpleasant though it was to acknowledge, her father hadn’t cared enough to seek her out to get to know her. But Angel was making that effort, right down to having interviewed nannies with Merry to find the one he thought would be most suitable. Entirely raised by nannies before boarding school, Angel had contrived to ask questions that wouldn’t even have occurred to Merry and she had been impressed by his concern on their daughter’s behalf and his determination to choose the most caring candidate.
So what if his input on the actual wedding and their future relationship had been virtually non-existent? He had hired a wedding organiser to take care of the arrangements and hadn’t seemed to care in the slightest about the details that had unexpectedly consumed Merry. Was that just Angel being a man or a dangerous sign that he couldn’t care less about the woman he was about to marry? Merry stifled a shiver, rammed down the fear that had flared and contemplated her manicured fingernails with rampant nervous tension. She had made her choice and she had to live with it when the alternative was so much worse and so much emptier. Surely it was better to give marriage a chance?
It had been embarrassing to tell Fergus that she was marrying Angel but he had taken the news in good part, possibly having already worked out that she was still far from indifferent to her daughter’s father.
The first shock of Merry’s wedding day was the unexpected sight of Sybil waiting on the church steps, a tall, slender figure attired in a very elegant blue dress and brimmed hat. Eyes wide with astonishment, Merry emerged from the limousine that had ferried her to the church from the hotel where she had stayed the night before and exclaimed in shaken disbelief, ‘Sybil?’
‘Obviously I couldn’t miss your big day, darling. I got back in the early hours,’ Sybil breathed with a revealing shimmer in her eyes as she reached for Merry’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry about the things I said. I overstepped, interfered—’
‘No, I was too touchy!’ Merry slotted in, stretching up on tiptoe to press a forgiving kiss to the older woman’s cheek. ‘You were shocked, of course you were.’
‘Yes, especially as you’re contriving to do what I never managed...you’re getting married,’ Sybil murmured fondly. ‘And you didn’t do too badly at all picking that dress without my advice. It’s a stunner.’
Her heartache subsiding in the balm of her aunt’s reassuring presence, Merry grinned. ‘Your voice was in my head when I was choosing. Tailored, structured,’ she teased, stepping into the church porch. ‘Where’s Angel’s father? He offered to walk me down the aisle, which I thought was very kind of him.’
‘Yes, quite the charmer, that man,’ Sybil pronounced a shade tartly, evidently having already met Charles Russell. ‘But I told him he could sit back down because I’m here now and I’ll do the long walk.’
‘I think you’d rather take a long walk off a plank,’ Merry warned the older woman gently.
Sybil squeezed the hand she was gripping and smiled warmly down at the young woman who had been more her daughter than her niece, only to stiffen nervously at the prospect of the confession that she knew she had to make some time soon. Natalie had asked her to tell Merry the truth and Sybil was now duty-bound to reveal that family secret. Sadly, telling that same truth had shattered her relationship with Natalie when Natalie was eighteen years old and she could only hope that it would not have the same devastating effect on her bond with Merry and her child.
Gloriously ignorant of that approaching emotional storm, Merry smoothed down her dress, which effortlessly delineated the high curve of her breasts and her neat waist before falling softly to her feet, lending her a shapely silhouette. Straightening her slight shoulders, she lifted her head high, her short flirty veil dancing round her flushed face, accentuating the light blue of her eyes.
Even before she went down the aisle, she heard Elyssa chuckling. Her daughter was in the care of her new nanny, a lovely down-to-earth young woman from Yorkshire called Sally, who had impressed both Merry and Angel with her genuine warmth and interest in children. Merry’s eyes skimmed from her daughter’s curly head and waving arms as she danced on Sally’s knee and settled on Angel, poised at the altar with an equally tall dark male, Vitale, whose resemblance to Angel echoed his obvious family relationship to his brother. But Angel had the edge in Merry’s biased opinion, the lean, beautiful precision of his bronzed features highlighting the shimmering brilliance of his dark eyes and his undeniable hold on her attention.
Her breath caught in her dry throat and butterflies ran amok in her tummy, her chest stretched so tightly that her lungs felt compressed. Her hand slid off Sybil’s arm, suddenly nerveless as she reached the altar to be greeted by the Greek Orthodox priest. Angel gripped her cold fingers, startling her, and she glanced up at him, noticing the tension stamped in his strong cheekbones and the compressed line of his wide, sensual mouth. Yes, getting wed had to be a sheer endurance test for a wayward playboy like Angel Valtinos, Merry reflected with rueful amusement, but it was an unfortunate thought because she started wondering then whether he would find the tedious domestic aspects of family life and the unchanging nature of a wife a trial and a bore. The service marched on regardless of her teeming anxiety. The vows were exchanged, an ornately plaited gold wedding ring that she savoured for its distinctiveness and his selection of it slid onto her finger and then a matching one onto his.
And then, jolting her out of the powerful spell that Angel cast, Charles Russell surged up to her to kiss her warmly on both cheeks, closely followed by Sybil, who strove to conceal her shotgun attitude to Angel with bright, determined positivity. Elyssa, seated in a nearby pew on Sally’s lap, held out her arms and wailed pathetically for her mother.
‘That little chancer knows how to pick her moment,’ Sybil remarked wryly as Merry bent to accept her daughter and hoisted her up, only to be intercepted by Angel, who snagged his daughter mid-manoeuvre, saying that the bride could scarcely cart a child down the aisle.
‘Says who?’ Merry teased, watching Elyssa pluck at his curls and his tie with nosy little hands, watching Angel suddenly slant a grin at his lack of control over the situation. Once again she found herself suppressing her surprise at his flexibility when at the mercy of a wilful baby.
Angel maintained a grip on his daughter for the handful of photos taken on the church steps. Merry watched paparazzi wield cameras behind a barrier warded by security guards, their interest visibly sharpened by her daughter’s first public appearance. Her eyes widened in dismay when she finally recognised how much her life and Elyssa’s were about to change. For years, Angel’s every move had been fodder for the tabloid press. He had his own jet, his own yacht and the glitzy lifestyle of great wealth and privilege. His very marked degree of good looks and predilection for scantily dressed blonde beauties only added to his media appeal. Naturally his sudden marriage and the apparent existence of a young child were worthy of even closer scrutiny. Merry wondered gloomily if she would be denounced as a fertile scheming former Valtinos employee.
As they were moving towards the limousine to depart for the hotel another limo drew up ahead of them and a tiny brunette on skyrocketing heels leapt out in a flurry of colourful draperies and a feathered hat. She was as exquisite as a highly sophisticated and perfectly groomed doll. ‘Oh, Charles, have I missed it?’ she exclaimed very loudly while all around her cameras began to flash.
Angel murmured something very terse in Greek while his father moved off to perform the welcome that his son clearly wasn’t in the mood to offer to the late-arriving guest. Angel relocated Elyssa with Sally and swept Merry into their vehicle without further ado.
‘Who