Yesterday's Scars

by Carole Mortimer

  She knelt in front of him, her hands on his thighs. ‘We can’t get married, Rafe, not like this!’

  He pushed her hands away. ‘You’ve made it impossible for us to do anything else.

  ‘I have?’ She looked up at him as he strolled into the bathroom.

  ‘Well, that was the general idea, wasn’t it? I’d told you that there was no way you would get me to marry you. You came to my room with the intention of reaching exactly this end.’

  Hazel marched angrily into the bathroom, facing him in the mirror. ‘I wasn’t the one who invited you into bed, it was the other way round!’

  ‘But you didn’t still have to be here this morning, you could have gone quietly back to your room before anyone discovered us. But oh no, that wouldn’t have benefited you in any way,’ he said bitterly. ‘Well, don’t think I’m going to make this marriage easy for you—you’ve trapped me into this and I’ll make your life hell.’

  ‘Rafe, please listen to me. I—’

  He turned her roughly and pushed her out of the bathroom. ‘I’m through listening to you, you listen to me for a change. You may not necessarily have planned for this to go as far as marriage, maybe you just wanted me to sweat a little, to disgrace me in front of the staff, but nothing less than marriage would satisfy Sara in the circumstances. But you knew that, you even asked me once how I thought she would react to finding us together. Well, now you know. She’s almost as much a part of this family as you are, and I won’t have her hurt.’

  ‘What about me?’ she demanded.

  ‘You’ve made your bed and now you can lie in it—literally,’ he said coldheartedly. ‘Because you will be in my bed, Hazel, so you’d better rid yourself of this aversion you have to my scars. Once you’re my wife you’ll occupy my bed night and day if I want you to.’

  ‘This is wrong, Rafe,’ she protested. ‘You’re marrying me for all the wrong reasons!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be marrying you at all if I hadn’t been forced into it,’ he told her brutally. ‘Now leave me to get dressed, I have work to do.’

  ‘You can’t work today, you collapsed yesterday.’

  ‘So? That was yesterday, today I’m fine.’

  ‘I’m sure Dr Byne wouldn’t—’

  ‘Let’s leave David out of it,’ he interrupted. ‘And while you’re at it you can forget every other man you ever knew. You’ll be my wife and you’ll be faithful to only me.’

  ‘And you, will you be faithful?’

  ‘As long as you prove entertaining enough.’ Rafe closed the bathroom door in her face.

  Hazel stared dazedly at the closed door, until anger took over. Just who did he think he was? If she proved entertaining enough indeed! She dressed in jerky angry movements, her thoughts not pleasant. If Rafe wanted entertainment from her he would get it, but not in the way he meant.

  He might think marriage was her revenge, but he would soon learn that she hadn’t even started yet. He was expecting this marriage to be a real one and until their wedding night she wouldn’t disillusion him. But then he would learn—oh yes, he would learn!

  With her new resolve she was able to go back to her bedroom to shower and change before going down to breakfast. She could hear the sound of raised voices from the dining-room as she approached the door.

  Sara came hurrying out of the room. ‘I shouldn’t go in there just yet,’ she warned. ‘Miss Celia has just found out about the wedding.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Mm,’ Sara grimaced. ‘And she isn’t too happy about it.’

  Hazel thought that was the understatement of the year. ‘I didn’t think she would be.’ Not after her warning of the other night. She braced herself for the onslaught. ‘Oh well, I have to face her some time.’

  Sara put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘I’m not sure now is the right time. Miss Celia has never been one to mince her words, and right now she’s furious.’

  Hazel made a face, but her determination wasn’t lessened. ‘I have to go in, Sara.’

  The housekeeper shrugged. ‘All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  Hazel took a deep breath and entered the dining-room, standing in the doorway unobserved for several minutes.

  Celia’s face was scarlet with rage. ‘If you had to sleep with the girl couldn’t you at least have made sure the servants didn’t find out?’ she was demanding angrily of Rafe. ‘Taken her to a hotel or something? Or used that cabin of hers, as you did once before,’ she sneered.

  ‘How the—’

  ‘Ah, here she is now,’ Celia scorned, spotting Hazel standing over by the door. ‘Come in, Hazel, you might as well join in the conversation—after all, you’re the main topic.’

  ‘Celia!’ her brother snapped. ‘Just drop the subject. Hazel and I are getting married and that’s all there is to say on the subject.’

  ‘All! All?’ Celia echoed shrilly. ‘That isn’t all by a long way. She’s tricked you, Rafe, made a fool of you with this desire you feel for her. But how long will that last?’ She looked Hazel up and down contemptuously. ‘How long before you realise you’re just another scalp to add to her belt? You don’t think you’re her first lover, do you?’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘You’re just one of many!’

  ‘But I was her first lover, Celia,’ Rafe said quietly. ‘I know that for a fact.’

  ‘And how many do you think she’s had since then? Have you seen that gold and onyx brush and comb set in her bedroom? Well, she told me they were a goodbye present. Like hell they were!’

  ‘But they were,’ Hazel spoke for the first time.

  ‘From a man?’ Celia persisted.

  Hazel blushed, remembering her pleasure when Josh had given her the present. ‘Yes, they were from a man, but I—’

  ‘You see?’ Celia pounced on her admission. ‘She’s nothing but a paid whore!’

  Rafe’s fingermarks stood out lividly on her cheek, the cold anger in his eyes silencing her as nothing else could have done. ‘Don’t ever say anything like that about her again, do you understand?’

  Celia held her throbbing cheek, hatred in her eyes. ‘But she—’

  ‘Do you understand, Celia?’ he softly repeated the question.

  ‘Yes,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I understand that you care more for her skinny body than you do for your self-respect.’

  Rafe gave a cruel smile. ‘I still have my self-respect—and incidentally, her body is not skinny.’

  ‘You’re disgusting, both of you! If you marry her I won’t stay in this house a moment longer,’ Celia threatened.

  He turned away, shrugging. ‘Please yourself. The wedding goes ahead as planned.’

  ‘I mean it, Rafe.’

  ‘So do I.’ He sat down and began drinking his coffee.

  Celia gave him one last furious look before turning on her heel. She stopped with her hand on the door-knob. ‘As I said the first night she came home, you two deserve each other.’

  Hazel took a step towards her. ‘Try to understand, Celia. We—’

  Celia’s eyes spat her hatred. ‘Oh, I understand! You had this planned from the start—you’ve always wanted to be mistress of Savage House.’ She gave a harsh laugh. ‘Well, now you’re going to be. A pity you have to marry a scarred cripple to get it!’

  Hazel shook with a violent rage, her hands trembling at her sides. ‘Get out of here. Get out of here!’

  ‘I intend to, and I never want to come back.’

  ‘You won’t ever be allowed to if I have anything to do with it,’ Hazel told her tightly.

  ‘And you’ll have everything to do with it, won’t you, Hazel? A middle-aged man infatuated with a girl almost half his age! I wonder how long it will last,’ Celia finished spitefully as she left the room.

  Hazel turned quickly to look at Rafe, noting the greyness beneath his tan, the bleak look in his eyes. She rushed to his side, cradling his head to her breasts. ‘Don’t, Rafe, don’t!’ she pleaded. ‘She didn’t mean half what she said.�
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  He pushed her away from him. ‘She meant every word of it,’ he snapped. ‘It’s funny to think that’s the opinion my own sister has of me.’

  She could feel his pain, feel the deep excruciating pain he would never admit to her. ‘No, Rafe, no! She—’

  ‘A scarred cripple,’ he repeated tonelessly.

  ‘Oh, Rafe, please—’

  ‘But that’s what I am, Hazel, we both know that.’ He gave a cruel smile. ‘Is the revenge worth being labelled the wife of a scarred cripple?’

  He kept saying those two words as if he enjoyed torturing himself with them, and her heart bled for him. To be called that by his own sister must be unbearable for him, and yet he hid his hurt behind a cruel mask, behind his sarcasm to her. And she would take it too if it lessened his pain.

  ‘It’s worth it,’ she said quietly. She would suffer anything to marry the man she loved.

  ‘I see. The onyx brush and comb set, who did you get them from?’

  ‘They were a goodbye present—’

  ‘Who from, Hazel?’ the steely inflexibility in his voice demanded an answer.

  ‘Just a man. He—’

  ‘Who?’ he interrupted again.

  ‘Josh,’ she admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Josh Richardson?’

  She nodded miserably. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Throw them away,’ he ordered coldly.

  She looked horrified. ‘Oh no, Rafe! They’re beautiful and I—’

  ‘Get rid of them. And while you’re at it you can throw out any other little baubles your—boy-friends may have given you. I won’t have my wife keeping gifts from her lovers$$ $$ily.

  ‘Oh, Rafe, it wasn’t like that! Josh was a friend.’

  ‘So much of a friend that you admitted he could be the father of your baby if you were pregnant!’

  ‘I only said that to shock you, to find out if you were still attracted to me. You didn’t react at the time.’

  ‘Did you expect me to?’

  ‘I—I thought you might.’

  ‘Why should I react to your admitting the name of one lover? There must have been several.’ He stood up dismissively. ‘But I don’t want to know the names of all of them.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re wrong, Rafe. There’s been no one else.’

  He reacted violently to that. ‘Do you take me for a complete fool?’ he snapped viciously. ‘My body may be far from perfect, but there’s nothing wrong with my brain. I know you, Hazel, I know your appetites. And there’s no way you could go for three years without a physical relationship.’

  ‘Please, don’t do this to us,’ she pleaded, more hurt than he would ever know. She admitted that every time he came near her she was filled with a languorous longing to be in his arms, but she had never reacted like that with any other man.

  His mouth turned back with a sneer. ‘Do what to us? There’s no us to do anything to. You’ll be my wife, Hazel, but as far as I’m concerned there will be only one duty I want you to perform, and we both know what that is.’

  And that was the one duty she had no intention of carrying out; she wouldn’t be used in that way. ‘Yes, we know,’ she agreed quietly.

  ‘And make sure you don’t forget it.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t forget it.’

  Rafe gave a taunting smile. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

  Once $$ night, and it would be a frightening experience.

  As she drained the last of her coffee from the bottom of the cup she heard the front door slam and then the sound of a car engine before it accelerated with a screech out of the driveway.

  Sara came into the dining-room. ‘That was Miss Celia leaving,’ she told her.

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘I knew she wouldn’t accept your marriage to Mr Rafe,’ Sara shook her head sadly. ‘Always headstrong and selfish, was Miss Celia.’

  Hazel rested her chin on her hands. ‘I suppose she had a right to be annoyed.’

  ‘Annoyed, is it?’ Sara scorned. ‘I’ve never seen her in such a temper, and I’ve seen her angry in the past, believe me!’

  Hazel smiled. ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Would you like something to eat? Some nice eggs and bacon, or something like that?’ the housekeeper offered.

  Hazel stood up, repressing a shudder at the thought of food. Too much had happened today for her to be able to eat. ‘No, thank you, Sara. I think I’ll go to the study and finish off the typing I started on Sunday.’

  Sara began to collect up the coffee cups on to a tray. ‘You surely aren’t going to work today?’

  Hazel looked surprised. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you’ve just got engaged, and—and—’

  ‘And Rafe’s gone to work, so I see no other choice left open to me.’

  ‘But you have a lot to arrange, a wedding dress to buy and everything.’

  Hazel smiled sadly. ‘You surely aren’t expecting me to wear the traditional white gown, not after what you witnessed this morning?’

  ‘You may have been a little impetuous, but love does that to people,’ Sara admitted. ‘You’ve as much right to wear white as most girls do nowadays. I think the village people would be disappointed if you wore anything else.’

  ‘The people in the village?’ Hazel echoed.

  Sara looked up from her task. ‘When you get married in the local church on Saturday.’

  ‘But we aren’t—’

  ‘Mr Rafe said you were.’

  ‘He—he did?’ gasped Hazel.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Sara nodded.

  Hazel shrugged. ‘Oh well, if he said we were then I suppose we are. I’ll be in the study if you need me.’

  In fact she was left on her own for the rest of the day. The work finished, she was lounging in the garden when Sara brought Trisha out to her.

  Trisha winced as she looked at her friend’s face. ‘Ooh, I bet that hurts!’

  Hazel patted the lounger next to her for her friend to sit down. ‘It doesn’t, actually. It looks much worse than it feels.’

  ‘I would have come to see you yesterday, but when I telephoned on Sunday evening Rafe told me you had to be kept quiet for a couple of days. I came as soon as school had finished today.’ Trisha sat down.

  ‘I could do with some friendly female company,’ Hazel confessed.

  ‘Celia?’ Trisha asked with a grimace.

  ‘She’s gone,’ Hazel told her flatly, feeling it was no loss. After the things Celia had said to Rafe this morning she ought not to be allowed to stay in his house.

  ‘Gone?’

  Hazel nodded. ‘There was a sort of family argument,’ she told her.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Mm, it was all rather unpleasant.’

  Trisha licked her lips, hesitating as if she were having trouble formulating the words. ‘Does this family argument have anything to do with the rumour going about the village that you and Rafe are getting married?’

  Hazel raised her eyebrows. ‘That didn’t take long to get about!’

  ‘You mean it’s true?’ Trisha looked astounded.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I—I can’t believe it!’

  ‘Believe it, Trisha. Rafe and I are getting married on Saturday.’

  Trisha gave her a hard look. ‘It’s a bit sudden, isn’t it? People will talk.’

  ‘I can’t stop them talking,’ shrugged Hazel. ‘They’d do it anyway, even if we waited another six months or so. But as their suspicions will soon be shown to be unfounded the gossip should soon die down—and they are unfounded, Trisha,’ she added firmly.

  ‘But why the rush?’

  ‘There’s no point in waiting any longer than that. I’ve always loved Rafe, you know that.’

  ‘I knew you did three years ago, but I wasn’t sure if you still felt the same way. I thought on Saturday that you might do when you reacted so strongly against Rafe being at the dance with Mrs Clarke, but I couldn’t be sure. Does he love you?’

  Hazel had been
hoping Trisha wouldn’t ask this question, but had known inevitably that she would. She smiled brightly. ‘That’s a strange question to ask a newly engaged girl,’ she evaded.

  ‘But a pertinent one. Does he, Hazel?’

  Hazel swallowed hard. ‘No.’

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘Why is he marrying me? Because he feels he has to,’ she answered truthfully.

  ‘But you just said …’

  Hazel sighed. ‘And I meant it. It’s a long story and I don’t think either of us comes out of it in a very good light.’ She told Trisha of this morning’s events, the embarrassment, the shame, but most of all the sheer joy of knowing she was going to be Rafe’s wife. ‘I do love him very much, Trisha,’ she added.

  Trisha couldn’t help giggling. ‘I can just imagine Sara’s face when she walked into the bedroom this morning,’ she explained at Hazel’s querying look.

  Unwillingly Hazel smiled too. ‘I didn’t think it was very funny at the time, and Rafe still doesn’t think it’s funny.’

  ‘I can’t believe he doesn’t love you. Why marry you if he doesn’t? Only Sara knew about it, the scandal would have soon died down.’

  ‘Rafe doesn’t think so. And there are other reasons for marrying someone other than love. Good old-fashioned lust for a start.’

  Trisha blushed. ‘I’m sure Rafe wouldn’t …’

  ‘He’s already told me what to expect. He isn’t a knight in shining armour, you know, just a man. But I don’t care what his reasons are for marrying me as long as he does marry me, that’s all I want. I believe that given time I could teach him to love me a little.’

  Hazel wasn’t quite so sure a little later when he didn’t even bother to show up for dinner. The obvious place for him to have gone was Janine Clarke’s, and Hazel ate her meal in stony silence, ever conscious of Sara’s pitying glances.

  By the time she was drinking her coffee in the lounge she was at boiling point. How dared he treat her in this way? How dared he!

  His treatment of her only succeeded in strengthening her resolve that he would suffer for this. She would get him so tied up in knots that he would be utterly confused. He didn’t know what suffering was yet, but he soon would!

  She looked up hopefully as the lounge door opened, but it was only Sara. ‘I’ve finished with the coffee, thank you,’ Hazel told her dully.