The English Aristocrat's Bride

by Sandra Field

  Karyn leaned back against the nearest wall, her breath escaping in a big whoosh. “You just took ten years off my life.”

  Fiona said slowly, “So you do love him…”

  “I do not!”

  “We’ll see about that. In the meantime, lead me to your kitchen and make me a very strong cup of tea along with two fried eggs and a mountain of toast.”

  Fiona looked, minimally, less unfriendly. Karyn said crisply, “You’d think England was just down the road the way you and Rafe zip back and forth. Without even bothering to phone. You don’t get the tea unless I get a hug first.”

  “Huh,” said Fiona. But she opened her arms, and Karyn fell into them.

  Burying her nose in Fiona’s shoulder, Karyn gulped, “You didn’t answer my e-mails.”

  “I had no intention of answering them. You look awful—shadows under your eyes and you’ve lost five pounds.”

  “Six, actually. You look great…you’ve had your hair cut.”

  Fiona’s hair now fell in soft waves to her shoulders. “I did. Mother’s in a perpetual snit anyway, so what does one more thing matter?”

  “It suits you. You look different somehow.”

  “More grown up, you mean.”

  There was indeed a new maturity in Fiona’s bearing. “Here, sit down at the table,” Karyn said, “and I’ll put the kettle on. Did you sleep on the plane?”

  “Like a baby.” Fiona gave a smug smile. “I only have to think of John, and I forget all about being five miles high over a very large ocean.”

  Karyn took out the tea pot and the frying pan. As she cracked two eggs into the pan, she said, “I’m so happy to see you. But I don’t understand why you’re here.”

  “Breakfast first,” Fiona said with impressive authority, and leaned over to undo her bag. “I brought swatches of the bridesmaid’s fabrics with me, you can choose which color you’d prefer.”

  So as Fiona ate her way steadily through eggs, toast and jam, washed down with liberal quantities of inky tea, they talked fabrics, flowers, cake and the etiquette of a wedding where one set of parents was far from delighted with their child’s choice. Finally, replete, Fiona sat back. “That’s better,” she said. “Now we’ll get down to business. Rafe arrived back at Stoneriggs looking worse than my father the day his investments went belly-up. I poured some brandy into Rafe—well, the best part of a bottle, actually—and got the whole story out of him. He told me about kissing you in the woods, and spending four days in bed with you and—”

  “Fiona…”

  Fiona gave another of those smug smiles. “I’m not nearly as easily shocked as I used to be. Rafe’s in love with you, Karyn. Madly in love. A total goner. Ever since you sent him packing—for reasons best known to yourself—he looks as though someone bashed him on the head with one of Father’s concrete statues. I haven’t seen him like that since that bitch Celine ran circles around him and no, I’m not quite ready to use that word in front of my mother yet.”

  “I didn’t do anything to encourage Rafe.”

  “In the woods at Willowbend you kissed him back. You went to Maine with him and to Greece. Where you had, by all accounts, torrid sex on the floor, on the patio, in the pool and even, occasionally, in bed.” As a hot blush surged up Karyn’s cheeks, Fiona added, “It was very good brandy. It loosened his tongue big time. At least you’re not indifferent to him.”

  “Maybe not. But that doesn’t mean I have to keep on seeing him.”

  “You’re a coward.”

  “When I married Steve, I made a horrendous mistake. I’m trying to learn from it, that’s all.”

  Fiona shoved back her chair, leaning both hands on the table. “How dare you compare Rafe to Steve!”

  Karen stood up too, glaring right back. “How can I not? Two handsome, sexy men who swept me off my feet—I’m damned if I’ll marry Rafe.”

  “Let me tell you something. I’ve known Rafe all my life. We’re neighbors, we’re best friends, I know him through and through. I’ve seen him with his parents, his servants, his crofters, and his horses. He taught me how to climb trees and ride bareback and steal ripe raspberries from under the gardener’s nose. He rescued kittens from being drowned, he set false trails in the fox hunts, he stood up for kids who were being bullied. Yet you dare compare him with a man who by all accounts was a thoroughly nasty piece of work?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You were smart to be afraid of Steve. God knows what he might have done had you tried to leave him. But to equate him with Rafe—don’t you see how stupid that is? Rafe’s solid, he’s decent, I’d trust him with my life. Let me ask you something. Do you think Rafe’s capable of murdering you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Of hitting you?”

  “No.”

  “Threatening you?”

  Karyn said furiously, “He doesn’t let up. He’s relentless, he rides over me like a ten-ton truck.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “He’s never threatened me,” Karyn said sullenly.

  “Then would you mind explaining to me how he’s like Steve—who did hit you and threaten you? Who kept you in line because underneath it all you were terrified for your life?”

  Put like that, it did sound ludicrous to have compared the two men. Karen bit her lip, her face strained and unhappy. “I don’t trust my own judgment any more. Especially with men.”

  “Then rely on mine for a while. I adore Rafe. Do you think I’d adore him if he abused his power? He definitely has power, don’t get me wrong. Huge power. But his staff adore him, too, and that’s because he treats each and every one of them like a human being.” She paused, her head tilted in thought. “Maybe it’s because he grew up poorer than most of the local boys. Blue blood’s all very well, but it doesn’t put food on the table or fix the roof.”

  Karyn said grudgingly, “I guess you’re right, Rafe hasn’t let his power go to his head.”

  “Of course I’m right. Here’s another question. How did your husband treat the waitresses when you went out for dinner?”

  “Badly,” Karyn said in a small voice.

  “There you go.”

  “Rafe was lovely with the staff at the Attica. I noticed.”

  Fiona said more gently, “Look, I’m not belittling what happened to you in your marriage, Karyn. It must have been terrible, and of course you’re afraid to trust your judgment. So I’m asking you to trust mine instead. Rafe’s a good man, I’d take that to the bank—and as for you and me, we’re identical twins. If I trust Rafe—and I’d trust him with my life—then so can you.”

  “I don’t know how! I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Then I’ll tell you something else. I’ve had to fight for my relationship with John, tooth and nail. Now that I’m in love with him, I’m freeing myself from my parents, from a lifetime of being—oh, ever so lovingly—crushed and controlled. I’ve been frightened sometimes, but I knew I couldn’t back down or I’d be lost.”

  Forgetting her own problems for a moment, Karyn ventured, “You were like a sleeping princess, and then John woke you up?”

  Fiona nodded. “And I’m staying awake. If I can defy my parents, you can flush that rotter Steve Patterson straight down the toilet.”

  Gentle, sweet-natured Fiona was scowling so fiercely that quite suddenly Karyn began to laugh. Fiona’s scowl deepened. “Don’t you laugh at me, Karyn Marshall—this has gone beyond a joke! Rafe’s in pain, he’s horribly unhappy. I can’t stand seeing him so lost and all because you’ve locked yourself in the past and you’re afraid of the future…I’ve got one more question, then I’ll shut up.”

  Karyn knew what Fiona was going to ask. Did she, Karyn, love Rafe? How was she going to answer?

  “Do you like Rafe, Karyn?”

  “Like him?” Karyn said, surprised. “Yes…yes, of course I do.”

  “How can you like someone you’re afraid of? You can’t. It’s impossible. I rest my case.”

/>   “You’re wasted in the animal shelter,” Karyn said vigorously. “You should be a high-powered lawyer—you could talk circles around any judge in the land.”

  “I like the animal shelter. I’m its new director and that’s why I’m going home tomorrow, so I can be at work first thing on Monday morning.”

  Karyn bit her lip. “You left John behind on a weekend and came all this way to see me.”

  “To talk some sense into you.”

  Tears sparkling on her lashes, Karyn walked around the table and threw her arms around her sister. “Thank you, Fiona.”

  “Don’t thank me,” Fiona muttered, blinking back her own tears. “Go and see Rafe instead.”

  Karyn stepped back and straightened her spine. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll go and see him.”

  “You will?”

  “I promise.”

  Fiona grabbed her twin and waltzed her around the tiny kitchen. “That’s wonderful, that’s terrific, I’m so glad.”

  “Rafe means an awful lot to you, doesn’t he?”

  Fiona raised expressive eyebrows. “Do horses have four legs?”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “No, he took off to Thailand and won’t be back until the end of next week. Late Friday night.”

  “Then I’ll arrive on Saturday.”

  “I’ll meet you at the Droverton station.”

  “Don’t tell him, will you, Fiona?” Karyn said shakily. “I have to do this my way.”

  “I wouldn’t think of telling him. Everyone in the village, including my parents, thinks I’m in London this weekend shopping for a wedding dress. Except for John, of course.”

  Karyn felt as though a whirlwind had picked her up, swirled her around and dropped her, disconcertingly, in a very different place. One where she wasn’t sure she had her bearings. Fiona’s wedding dress, she thought, surely that’s a safe topic. “What sort of dress are you looking for?”

  “I’ve got pictures.”

  The rest of the day, Fiona talked about John and about some of her youthful escapades with Rafe. Once the clinic had closed for the weekend, Karyn took her sister on a tour of the building, noticing how at ease Fiona was with all the animals. She ended the visit at the kennel of a mongrel called Toby; because Toby had been abused, he was reluctant to leave the safety of the kennel.

  Kneeling beside Karyn, Fiona accepted a dog biscuit and pushed it between the bars. “Come on, boy, you can do it,” she coaxed, then smiled at Karyn. “Don’t you think a nice tasty biscuit’s worth the risk of leaving the cage?”

  “Very funny.”

  “I don’t mean to be funny—it takes a lot of guts to change things that went deep.” She clucked at Toby as he sidled forward. The dog grabbed at the biscuit and retreated to chew on it. Then he came forward more confidently for another one. Within five minutes Toby was standing outside the kennel, with Fiona very gently massaging his shoulders. Karyn said softly, “He trusts you.”

  “Of course he does,” Fiona said with a gamine grin. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  Why indeed? Fifteen minutes later, the mongrel was outdoors in the little field behind the clinic, sniffing at the grass and wagging his tail. Rafe would like to hear about Toby, Karyn thought.

  She could tell him. On Saturday.

  Had she really committed herself to visiting Droverton for the second time?

  On Saturday afternoon Karyn landed at Heathrow. The plane was twenty minutes early; even so, she didn’t have a lot of time to catch her train north. After going through customs in an agony of impatience, she hurried through the exit doors, tugging her wheeled suitcase.

  An elderly couple stepped out of the crowd and approached her. The man was tall with a thatch of salt-and-pepper hair and bright blue eyes; his suit was unexceptional, although the trouser legs were tucked into blindingly red socks. The woman, short, rail-thin, was wearing an Indian cotton skirt and an old T-shirt; her eyes were almost black in a face that blended character and beauty to startling effect.

  The man said bluffly, “You’re not Fiona, so you must be Karyn. Reginald Holden, m’dear, pleased to meet you.”

  As he almost crushed her hand in his, the woman said, narrow-eyed, “Are you here to see Rafe?”

  “I’m on my way to Stoneriggs, yes—I’m in a hurry, I have to catch the train. Are you his mother?”

  “He’s not at Stoneriggs. He’s here in London. Are you going to marry him?”

  “Now, Joanie,” said Reginald, “that’s not your question to ask.”

  “Yes, it is, Reg. She’s making our son miserable.”

  “Irascible, I’d have said.”

  “Same thing. Answer the question, girl.”

  Karyn said coolly, “My name’s Karyn. I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. I don’t know if I’m going to marry Rafe.”

  Reginald gave a bark of laughter. “She’ll do,” he said to his wife. “That’s what Rafe needs, someone to stand up to him.”

  “He needs someone who loves him.”

  “Can’t expect him to be as lucky as you and me, m’dear.”

  Reginald enveloped his wife in a bear hug; when she smiled up at him, Karyn’s breath caught in her throat. She exclaimed, “You’re so lucky to love each other like that!”

  “We’re Rafe’s parents, so we’re scarcely objective,” Joan announced. “But we couldn’t have a better son. If I’m not falling all over you, it’s because you’ve hurt him deeply, and it makes me crazy not to be able to fix it.”

  “My husband wasn’t a nice man,” Karyn said with careful understatement.

  “We’re all entitled to the occasional mistake,” Reginald said breezily. “Jolly good thing the chap’s out of the way.”

  Karyn raised her brows. “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  Joan said fiercely, “You’re breaking Rafe’s heart. You’ve got to choose one thing or the other—waste your life in fear and regret, or get on with it.”

  “Wallow in the mud,” Reginald said cheerfully, “or climb back on the horse that threw you.”

  “I packed my jodphurs,” Karyn said.

  “Then you’re all set,” Reginald replied. “After all, she’s here, isn’t she, Joanie? That’s got to count for something. She doesn’t live in the next county, you know.”

  “Do you love my son?” Joan asked in a voice like a steel blade. A voice that reminded Karyn strongly of Rafe.

  “I don’t know,” she replied, refusing to drop her eyes. “But I’m willing to try and find out. Providing you’ll tell where in London I can find him.”

  Joan passed her a crumpled invitation. “He’s got a gala opening of a new hotel tonight—here’s the address. You could attend. If you wanted to.”

  “I’ll do that,” Karyn said. “You could wish me luck. If you wanted to.”

  Joan nodded, as though Karyn’s answers had pleased her. “Something dies inside us when we don’t take risks,” she remarked. “You probably know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Are you going to the gala?” Karyn asked.

  “We’ve got a sick dog at home, so we have to get back—we commandeered Rafe’s helicopter so we could meet you.”

  Karyn said, smiling for the first time, “I’m honored you left the dog just to see me.”

  Then a blur of movement caught her eye; Fiona, wearing a pretty blue suit, was pushing through the crowd toward her. Karyn said in happy surprise, “Fiona, how lovely to see you.”

  Fiona stopped dead, gaping at Rafe’s parents. “What are you doing here?” she said tactlessly. Her eyes widened. “You were asking about Karyn last night—picking my brains. I just hope you haven’t been giving her a hard time.”

  “Came to check her out,” Reginald said.

  “She’s not a prize filly,” Fiona said crossly and gave Karyn a distracted kiss on the cheek. “So you know Rafe’s in London? I only found out this morning. I was so afraid I’d miss you and you’d be on your way to Droverton… although I wouldn’t hav
e worried if I’d known Reg and Joan were planning to be here,” she finished, frowning at them.

  “We knew you wouldn’t want us interfering,” Joan said briskly. “So we didn’t tell you.”

  “This is getting much too complicated,” Fiona complained. “Karyn, I didn’t bring John with me because I thought you’d be in a tizzy. You can meet him when you come home with Rafe after the gala.”

  “It’s not a tizzy, it’s a funk,” Karyn said, “and you’re making one heck of a big assumption about Rafe and me.” She hugged her sister fiercely. “No matter what happens, I’m so glad to see you, and thanks so much for coming all this way—it’s getting to be a habit, rescuing me like this.”

  “I won’t have to do it any more, because once you see Rafe you won’t need rescuing,” Fiona said triumphantly.

  “How is he, Fiona?” Karyn burst out.

  “I talked to him this morning at the hotel—he didn’t sound in a very gala mood. But he’ll feel a million percent better when he sees you,” Fiona said. “How’s Toby?”

  “He has new owners—a wonderful couple who live in the country and love him to bits. He’s a different dog.”

  “He’s a walking metaphor, that dog,” Fiona said with a sideways grin.

  Karyn hoped so. But even if she herself had changed enough to come in search of Rafe, what if he didn’t want to see her? What if he was so angry with her that he turned his back on her? Wouldn’t that serve her right?

  Worse, what if he’d changed his mind? It was fine for Fiona and Joan to insist Rafe was still in love with her. But what did they know? Maybe all those feelings he’d talked about had been brought on by too much Greek sunshine and an overdose of sex.

  Then there were her own feelings. Was she in love with him? Or would she have to rebuild trust before she’d know?

  All her doubts and fears must have shown in her face. “Karyn, it’ll be fine. With Rafe, I mean,” Fiona said forcefully.

  “Maybe,” said Karyn, “and maybe not. But I have to see him, no matter what. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.” She hesitated. “Fiona, I don’t want to send you away. But I’ve got to do this on my own…do you understand?”