Free Mishap Marriage by Helen Dickson Page A

have been made privy to what has happened, there will be no stopping the gossip.’
    ‘And those two gentlemen and their wives just happened to come here by chance,’ Zack ground out sarcastically. ‘I am not stupid, Mrs McKenzie, and nor will I be manipulated by a woman who, it is clear to me, rigged the whole thing.’
    Antony’s face went white with fury. ‘Captain Fitzgerald! It is my wife you are speaking to. I do not like your tone, sir. Carmelita is not to blame for your irresponsible behaviour.’
    ‘Your wife cannot be absolved from blame. She knew exactly what you would find when she suggested I come here.’ He eyed Carmelita scathingly. ‘By God, you must be desperate to rid yourself of your sister-in-law to go to such lengths.’
    ‘I am concerned, Captain Fitzgerald,’ she said, glancing at her husband for his complicity. ‘There is bound to be a huge scandal over this and Shona’s marriage prospects reduced to nothing since no decent gentleman will marry her after what you have done.’
    ‘What my wife says is correct, Captain,’ Antony seconded. ‘You must surely realise that no decent man is going to look at my sister now.’
    ‘If the self-righteous citizens of the island can make a scandal out of something so paltry, they need their minds examined.’
    ‘That is your opinion, Captain,’ Carmelita uttered brusquely, ‘but the fact remains that from this day forward, wherever she goes, scandal will follow her. For that you must pay, and dearly. Therefore, I am sure my husband will agree there is only one solution. You shall not leave this island until you agree to do the right thing by her.’
    Zack could not have been more astonished if a thunderbolt had struck him. The Spanish woman’s imperious tone appeared to be enough to daunt the most vigorous captain. Carmelita McKenzie was certainly no weak-minded woman who sheltered behind her husband, but Zack was not the man to be easily intimidated.
    ‘And that is?’
    ‘If you have any sense of honour, any sense of responsibility, to save her from disgrace you must wed her.’
    With the look of pure bloody-minded rebellion on his face, a nerve jerking in his cheek, Zack was so consumed with fury over the thought of wedding that scheming, deceitful fair-haired witch that he could hardly utter a word. Everything in him rebelled. When he could finally trust himself to speak, his voice erupted like hissing steam. ‘You ask the impossible. There is nothing I must do, Mrs McKenzie.’ Shifting his gaze to Shona, Zack’s eyes swept over her in the most insulting manner, contemptuous of what he was certain she had done. In cold, frigid silence, for an endless moment their gazes locked as they assessed one another.
    He cursed himself for having touched her, but he had been unable to resist the mad desire which she awoke in him. The first time he had set eyes on her he’d made no attempt to disguise the fact that he was violently attracted to her. And now, he had not stopped to think, but simply because she was beautiful and he wanted her, he had taken her in his arms and would have made her his without the blessing of matrimony. But from that moment when spontaneous attraction had drawn them together, fate had stepped in and taken malicious pleasure in separating them—before forcing his hand into marriage.
    * * *
    Shona was half-clad, but felt entirely naked. Everything about Captain Fitzgerald exuded an unbending will and that in turn made Shona more wretched and helpless as she searched the forbidding countenance for some sign of the man she had seen earlier. But there was none. His face was frozen into a hardened mask of rage and his grey eyes, having turned to an icy, metallic silver, impaled her, accusing her of complicity and treachery. She could imagine how his mind must be recoiling from it, but all she saw were the hard lines of his face, the tautness of his jaw.
    Trembling beneath the blast of his gaze, at the cost of a violent effort