Free Mishap Marriage by Helen Dickson

earth.
    ‘No,’ she cried, stricken that he should think that. His expression was as murderous as his feelings.
    Zack gave her in icy look, unable to disprove her contention that she had deliberately set out to deceive him.
    Shona sensed his desire to disbelieve anything she said. She was daunted by his glacial manner in the midst of his rampaging emotions.
    ‘You’re a liar and an ambitious schemer, a woman who doesn’t set too high a price on her charms. You lured me down here. You had me believing you were not upset by my rejection to your proposal, when all the time you were colluding with your sister-in-law to compromise me. You scheming, manipulative little... Well, whatever you cooked up between you, it won’t work.’
    He spat the words at her and Shona felt an agonising pain stab through her as sharp as a blow from a dagger. The blood left her face and rushed tumultuously to her heart, which seemed to have stopped beating. At this cruel attack she stepped back as if he had hit her. Her courage seemed to have abandoned her. The whole gentle interlude of a moment earlier had turned into a grotesque and humiliating farce. It was no use arguing, she realised, because he was blinded and deafened by fury. She now clearly saw the scene had been deliberately rigged by her sister-in-law, knowing Carmelita’s devious mind had worked to manipulate the situation towards her own gain.
    Desperately she sought something to cling to, some sort of help in her present plight. She felt Carmelita’s sharp eyes watching her, no doubt reassured by the reaction of the people she had assembled for this scene, and Shona had to make superhuman efforts to hide her distress. There was a strange look in Carmelita’s eyes. At first Shona could not read the expression—then, after a moment, she understood...and she was frightened.
    It was a look of triumph.
    Zack turned to Antony, hoping to appeal to his common sense. Instinct told him that he had gone too far and was near to making a deadly enemy of a man who had welcomed him to the island and shown him the hospitality of his house. ‘I think you’re in danger of letting this get out of proportion. All I did was kiss your sister—not an unusual occurrence, considering.’
    Antony bristled. ‘Explain what you mean by that.’
    ‘Considering Miss McKenzie—as you see,’ Zack said, indicating Shona’s absence of apparel with an insolent sweep of his cold eyes, ‘has removed her clothes. I am a hot-blooded male, Mr McKenzie, after all, and she certainly raised no objection to my attentions.’
    ‘That is not good enough.’
    ‘Then what do you want from me?’
    ‘Allow me to tell you what we want,’ Carmelita said, stepping forward, more assertive than her husband. Shona watched her and Captain Fitzgerald try to face each other down—the captain hard and cold and Carmelita aggressive, her eyes bright. Antony looked faintly alarmed and uncomfortable at the way things were going, but he was unable to stop his wife when she argued a matter of principle. ‘We welcomed you to Santamaria and into our home, and in return you have ruined my sister-in-law’s reputation.’
    Zack sounded ready to explode. ‘I did what? ’ he grated ominously.
    ‘You followed a respectable young woman down here and tried to seduce her, leaving her open to ridicule and insult.’
    ‘I think you will find she will survive,’ Zack ground out.
    ‘Heaven knows how far it would have gone had we not arrived when we did.’
    ‘You seem to forget, Mrs McKenzie, that you were the one who suggested I follow your sister-in-law down here. I am a man of passion. I allowed my admiration for a pretty girl to carry me away and for that I am regretful.’
    ‘We may be far removed from London, Captain, but the people who live on Santamaria have a moral code, just like everybody else, and you publicly breached that code. Mr Frobisher and Mr Carpenter are two of the most important men on the island. Now their wives