"You're married," Llona groaned. "Then I'm too late. You really are married?" she asked, as if begging him to tell her he was only fooling.
"I really am married," he said sadly. "Archer," she sobbed, "you sure know how to hurt a fella!"
Chapter Ten
"Alone at last!" Archer's bride glanced contently around their hotel suite. "Archer!" Her voice acquired an injured edge. "Are you yawning?"
"Huh? Oh. Sorry. I guess all the excitement knocked me out. It isn't every day a man gets married."
"Nor a girl. So don't you dare pull that tired bit on me. If you'd been resting up these past few days instead of carousing around doing who knows what with who knows who, you wouldn't be yawning. So wake up. After all, this is our wedding night."
"So it is," Archer agreed. "Still, I figured that in your condition, you wouldn't want to-"
"Well, you figured wrong! Condition or no condition, I expect you to fulfill your obligations as a bridegroom, Archer. And I wish you'd stop making me feel like you looked on it as a chore. There was a time when you enjoyed making love to me."
"Everything's comparative," Archer murmured to himself.
"What? What did you say?"
"Nothing. Nothing at all." Archer sighed.
"I don't like the way you're acting, Archer. You make me feel guilty. You make me feel like the only reason you married me was because we had an accident."
"Well, let's be honest." Archer flared up. "It did have more than a little something to do with it."
"Ohhhhhhhhhh!" She burst into tears. "I'm so miserable. And on my wedding night, too."
"All right. All right." Archer sat down next to her on the bed and patted her shoulder awkwardly. "I'm sorry. Truly I am." Some innate sense of fairness made him try to make amends. It wasn't her fault that the one girl he truly loved had appeared on their wedding day-and right after the ceremony, to boot. "Take it easy, now," he soothed her. "Stop crying. I can't stand to see a woman cry. It reminds me of my mother. That's it. Now take my handkerchief. Dry your eyes. That's right. Now why don't you go into the bathroom and wash your face and get into your nightie while I change in here?"
She did as he suggested. When she reappeared some ten minutes later, Archer was already in his pajamas. He was lying on top of the bed, propped up on the pillows. His eyes widened as he saw her in her bridal nightgown.
It was quite a nightie. Semi-transparent and pasted onto a figure that was a bit too thin but sensual nevertheless. It stretched over her bosom and hips, but hugged her small, flat waist and accentuated it. Her eyes smoldered as she saw the way Archer was looking at her.
"Interested in what you see?" she asked in a husky voice.
"Fascinated."
"Really, darling? I am flattered. After all, you have seen it before. I guess this nightgown must be worth what I paid for it."
"It's not the nightgown that intrigues me."
"Really? Why, thank you, darling."
"No," Archer continued. "It's not the nightgown. It's your figure. You certainly do have a slender figure. Amazingly slim!"
"Aren't you sweet."
"Amazingly slim for a woman who-if I'm counting right-should be in quite an advanced stage of pregnancy by now." He stared at her questioningly.
"Oh."
There was a long moment of silence. Then-
"Archer, there is something I've been meaning to tell you."
"I'll bet there is!" he acknowledged with growing suspicion.
"Yes, darling. It's about my being pregnant. I know how disappointed this will make you feel, but after all, our marriage is just starting out and we've got our whole lives ahead of us to have babies."
"You mean-?"
"Yes." She hung her head and sighed. "I'm afraid it was a false alarm, darling. I'm not really pregnant."
"And when," Archer asked through clenched teeth, "did you find this out?"
"About two weeks ago," she admitted in a very small voice.
"I suppose I should be grateful that you finally got around to mentioning it-after the wedding."
"Well, after all, darling, what good would it have done to tell you about it before. I was only trying to spare you. I knew how disappointed you'd be."
"Nowhere near as disappointed as I am now," Archer understated.
"I mean I knew you wouldn't have wanted to call the wedding off, or anything like that. After all, with the invitations out and gifts already coming in and the catering arrangements made-well, it just would have been impossible. Wouldn't it?"
"Impossible," Archer agreed dully. He continued to stare at her, but his eyes were blank.
Still, his stare made her uncomfortable. "It's awfully warm in here, isn't it?" she remarked, hoping to change the subject.
Archer didn't answer. He just kept staring in that same dull, defeated way.
"I think I'll open a window." It was an opportunity to turn her back on him and get away from the stare.
But his eyes continued to bore holes in her back as she threw open the window and stared out of it.
"My, we certainly are high up," she said. "I've never been on the seventeenth floor of a building before. The traffic looks like ants crawling."
Archer didn't answer.
"Now, look, Archer!" She turned around. "It's done. I'm sorry, but there it is. We're married now. There's no use your sulking about it and making yourself miserable and me miserable, too. Just accept it."
"It was," he pronounced judgment, "a dirty trick."
"Maybe it was." She walked over to the bed, sat down next to him, and took his hand in hers. "But it's done. Now, you're not going to hold a grudge, are you, Archer?
"The hell I'm not!" He flung himself out of the bed, crossed over to the window, and stood there with his back to her.
"Well, if that's the way you feel, then all right!" she said angrily. "Be a dog in the manger! I'm going to bed."
Archer continued to stare out of the window for a moment. His temper began to cool. She was right, after all. They were married. They'd have to live together. There was no point in brooding. He turned around. "What are you doing?" he exclaimed.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head thrown back, her fingers formed into a sort of forceps which seemed bent on plucking her eye out. "I'm taking out my contact lenses," she told him.
"I didn't know you wore contact lenses."
"You weren't supposed to know. I'm sensitive about it. But now that we're married, you might as well know I'm blind as a bat without them." Her fingers moved away from her eye. "Ah! There it is." She put something invisible into a small box she'd placed on the night table. "Both out now. Where are you?"
"By the window," Archer told her.
"Oh. Aren't you coming to bed?" she asked plaintively.
"I'm still getting over your little wedding surprise."
"Don't be like that, Archer." She stood up. "Look at me. Don't I attract you? Wouldn't you like to make love to me?" She held out her arms. "Come to me, my dar-ling."
"No." Archer was still surly.
"Then I'll come to you." Arms stretched out, she started for him. "Where are you, darling? Without my contact lenses, everything's a blur."
"Right here," he said grudgingly. "Still by the window.
"Well, don't move, my darling. I'm coming to you."
"I have to move. I have to go to the bathroom." Archer moved away from the window, along the wall toward the bathroom door.
Before he realized what was happening, she'd rushed past him with outstretched arms. One second she was striding toward the window. The next the sill had caught her just at the knees and she'd toppled out.
"Look out!" Archer called.
Too late. Much too late. Her scream answered him from about six stories below. It was followed by a dull, squishy thud from the pavement a full seventeen stories below.
"Ohmigosh!" Archer stood dazed. It had happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly. "Ohmigosh!" It was a long time before he recovered enough to move. It was a much, much longer time before he got over the trauma of his bride's plunge to death.