The Virgin Bride (The Australians) Read Free Page A

proposal of marriage.

CHAPTER TWO
    J ASON was beginning to feel a bit nervous, a most unusual state for him.
    But understandable, he decided as he opened the side gate which led round to the back of Emma’s house. It wasn’t every day you asked a woman to marry you, certainly not a woman you didn’t love, whom you’d never even been out with, let alone slept with. Most people would say he was mad. Adele certainly would.
    Thinking of Adele’s opinion had a motivating effect on him. Anything Adele thought was insane was probably the most sensible thing in the world.
    Determined not to change his mind, Jason closed the gate behind him and strode down the side path to Emma’s back door. A light was shining through the lace curtains at the back window, he noted with relief. Some music was on somewhere. She was definitely home.
    There were three steps leading up to the back door, the cement worn into dips in the middle. Jason put one foot on the first step, then stopped to straighten his tie and his jacket.
    Not that any straightening was strictly necessary. He was wearing one of his suavest and most expensive Italian suits, a silk blend in a dark grey whichnever creased and always made him feel like a million dollars. His tie was silk too, a matching grey with diagonal stripes of blue and yellow. It was smart and modern without being too loud. He’d even sprayed himself with some of the cologne he was partial to, but kept for special occasions.
    Jason knew his mission tonight was a difficult one and he was leaving nothing to chance, using everything in his available armoury to present an attractive and desirable image to Emma. He wanted to be everything he was sure Dean Ratchitt wasn’t. He wanted to offer her everything Dean Ratchitt hadn’t. A solid, secure marriage to a man who would never be unfaithful to her, and whom she could be proud of.
    Taking a deep, steadying breath, he stepped up, lifted his hand and knocked. In the several seconds it took for her to come to the door, a resurgence of nerves set his empty stomach churning. He should have eaten first, he thought irritably. But he hadn’t been able to settle to a meal before hearing Emma’s answer.
    That she might think him mad as well suddenly occurred to him, and he was besieged by a most uncustomary lack of confidence.
    She’ll turn you down, man, came the voice of reason. She’s a romantic and she doesn’t love you.
    The door handle slowly turned and the door swung back, sending a rectangle of light right into his face. Emma stood, silhouetted in the doorway, her face in shadow.
    â€˜Jason?’ came her soft and puzzled enquiry. It hadtaken him weeks of visiting Ivy to get her to call him Jason, he recalled. Even then, she still called him Dr Steel occasionally. He was glad she hadn’t tonight.
    â€˜Hello, Emma,’ he returned, amazed at his cool delivery. His heart might be jumping and his stomach doing cartwheels, but he sounded his usual assured self. ‘May I come in for a few minutes?’
    â€˜Come in?’ she repeated, as though she could not make sense of his request. He hadn’t been to visit since her aunt’s death. He’d attended the funeral, but not the wake, an emergency having called him back to the surgery. She probably thought that their friendship—such as it was—had died with her aunt’s death.
    â€˜There’s something I want to ask you,’ he added.
    â€˜Oh…oh, all right.’ She stepped back and turned into the light.
    Jason followed, frowning. She looked more composed than she had the day of the funeral, but still very pale, and far too thin. Her cheeks were sunken in, making her green eyes seem huge. Her dress hung on her, and her hair looked dull, not at all like the shining cap of golden curls which usually framed her delicately pretty face.
    It came to him as he glanced around the spotless but bare kitchen that she probably