‘That is absolutely out of the question, Mr Rivera,’ Percy announced with crushing contempt as he ignored Ruy’s extended hand. ‘Suzy and I are getting married the day after tomorrow. She’ll be far too busy!’
‘You could have been nicer to him. He didn’t mean any offence,’ Suzy whispered in sheer embarrassment as Percy herded her domineeringly towards the exit, affecting not to hear the sallies aimed at her from other people.
Angry fingers bit into her upper arm. ‘Don’t tell me how to behave!’ her fiancé snapped in her ear as he thrust her bodily in the direction of his car. ‘And that’ll be the end of all this dance nonsense now. I’m not having my wife up on a stage showing herself off to all and sundry like some stripper!’ he practically spat at her.
Pale and shivering in the cold air, shaken by his anger, Suzy stepped away from him in the direction of the street while rubbing at her arm. ‘You hurt me,’ she muttered unevenly. ‘I haven’t done anything. Why are you so annoyed?’
‘Stop making a fuss, Suzy. Get in the car,’ Percy told her impatiently. ‘You’ll come home with me and get some supper.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m really tired after all that...er...dancing,’ Suzy lied, screening a fake yawn with a slender hand, her wary gaze pinned to the older man’s flushed and still furious face. Supper was merely a euphemism for groping in Percy’s parlance and he had agreed months ago to her demand that theirs would be a marriage in name only. Whether or not he had believed he could change her mind on that score, she had no idea, but she had no plans to engage in an additional war of words and resentment on his sofa after the roughness with which he had handled her. ‘As you said, I have a lot to do for the wedding, so I’ll just head home now. Thanks,’ she completed stiffly, wondering what she was thanking him for but dismayed by the rage in his bloodshot blue eyes and knowing that she was trying to placate him.
‘Suzy!’ Her father’s wonderfully familiar voice hailed her, and she turned in relief to greet him.
Percy took a step back, a forced smile settling on his florid face. ‘Roger,’ he said quietly, all hint of the rage wiped from his expression.
‘Where did you come from?’
‘I ran over to see your dance and stood at the exit watching,’ her father confided. ‘I wouldn’t miss you for the world.’
‘But who’s been watching the bar?’ she asked.
‘Old Man Morgan was left in charge,’ he said with a smile as he named an elderly local who was practically a fixture in the bar and guided her across the road to the pub. ‘Everything all right between you and Percy?’
Suzy stiffened. ‘Yes...why are you asking?’
‘From a distance it looked like you were having a quarrel,’ the older man admitted, looking anxious. ‘I reckon I’m being ridiculous but, for an instant there, I honestly thought he was about to hit you!’
Suzy was pale as milk as she stepped into the familiar heat of the pub where a log fire burned in the stone fireplace and where only one customer propped up the bar. ‘Yes, that is ridiculous,’ she told him firmly. ‘Percy wouldn’t do anything like that.’
‘He looked like he’d been drinking as well and he must be drinking at home or at his hotel because he doesn’t do any drinking here,’ he pointed out worriedly. ‘Are you sure about this marriage?’
‘Yes... I can’t wait to see Barbados!’ she teased, hoping to take him off the subject.
Roger Madderton groaned and brushed a straying strand of red hair off her pale brow. ‘It doesn’t feel right to me...me owing him money, you marrying him, him saying I don’t need to repay it now, like it’s nothing, when he’s known to be as tight as a drum with his cash!’
‘Well, Percy’s right that you shouldn’t have money owing between family members, and after the wedding it will feel more normal,’ she assured her father confidently.
‘I still feel that he’s too old for you,’ Roger admitted. ‘He’s almost as old as I am, for goodness’ sake, no spring chicken, and you wouldn’t catch me chasing a woman half my age!’
‘Everyone’s different and Percy will give me a good life.’
Roger grimaced. ‘If I taught you that a good life had to encompass a big house and foreign holidays, I failed somewhere along the line.’
‘Dad...’ Reluctant to tell him any more cover-up lies, Suzy hugged the older man. ‘Stop being silly. You are the very best father any woman could ever want.’
‘I’m sorry. All I want is to see you happy and I’m not convinced Percy can give you that.’
‘You’ll be convinced eventually!’ Suzy quipped as she headed for the rear door that led into the apartment where they lived, not entirely convinced that Old Man Morgan was as deaf as he seemed. At the end of the day all that she cared about was her father’s happiness and security and marrying Percy would ensure that.
Suzy went upstairs to bed, thinking about all the sacrifices her father had made to raise her alone. There hadn’t ever been any other woman in his life because he had been afraid that he might give her one of those wicked stepmothers straight out of fiction. He had always worked very long hours striving to make the bar a success and it genuinely wasn’t his fault that he was deep in debt.
His problems had begun years ago, after he had borrowed from the bank to renovate the pub in the forlorn hope that it would encourage more customers. When the loan payments had become too much, and he had fallen behind, the bank had threatened to foreclose on him. That was when Percy had come in, softly, softly like a thief in the night, she reflected with a faint shudder of recollection. Back then she had only been eighteen, incapable of seeing that Percy had undoubtedly always intended to take her father’s business from him and that it was possible that she had only been an afterthought. Percy had been Roger’s hero then, taking on the debt and offering lower repayments.
And then one day six months ago, just before her twenty-first birthday, Percy had stopped to give her a lift in the village and he had laid out the facts for her without an ounce of shame. He had threatened to repossess the pub and evict them unless Suzy agreed to marry him. When she had accused him of blackmail, he had made much of the fact that he was offering her the respectability of matrimony and an infinitely more comfortable life than she currently enjoyed, working all hours in the pub as she did, cleaning, cooking and tending the bar. To balance the scales, Suzy had agreed to marry him but she had also insisted that, while she would act as a wife in every other field, she wanted her own bedroom and their union would not include sex. At the time, Percy had agreed, but more recently she had begun to suspect that he regretted that pact and resented her for her refusal to share a bed with him.