by India Grey
‘Don’t worry. I’ll go out and get some. The table arrangements are all done, so I’ve got nothing else to do.’
Lucinda turned to face her. She was deathly pale, but spots of bright colour burned high up on her cheeks.
‘Would you?’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘That would be fantastic.’
Rachel drew her away from the caterer, lowering her voice. ‘Lucinda, you look dreadful.’
‘I feel dreadful,’ she said through chattering teeth. Two fat tears slid down her cheeks. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Go to bed,’ said Rachel resolutely. ‘You have to. You’re obviously awfully unwell.’
‘But I can’t!’ There’s still so much to do!’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Rachel put her arm around her. Lucinda was burning hot and, crying in earnest now, virtually unrecognisable from the sleek, capable-looking girl who had so intimidated Rachel earlier. ‘The caterers can sort out the drinks, and I’m going to buy candles right now. But you can’t drive back to London like this.’
‘No, I know…’ She sighed, looking up at Rachel with puffy eyes. ‘My godmother lives about ten miles from here, just beyond the next village. I’m sure she’d put me up.’
‘Phone her,’ ordered Rachel. ‘I’ll drop you off on my way into town.’
‘Hadn’t you better check with Lord Ashbroke?’
Rachel was about to say yes, but then she remembered the contemptuous look he had given her earlier, and his attitude of terrifying remoteness. ‘I’m sure he’s far too busy to be disturbed.’
‘You’re wonderful,’ said Lucinda gratefully, giving her a weak hug.
Rachel smiled sadly.
That, unfortunately, was a matter of opinion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE snow had transformed the lanes along which she had hurtled so desperately only the day before. The black, glowering landscape was now hidden in a soft white blanket, which sparkled in the beam of her headlamps as if it had been sprinkled with glitter in preparation for tonight’s party.
Driving carefully back to Easton, Rachel raised her hand, tentatively brushing it up the back of her neck.
She felt strange; oddly light-headed, and the sensation of the close-cropped hair at her nape brought an involuntary smile to her face in the warm fug of the car. She had gone into the hair-dresser’s completely on impulse as she’d hurried by on her search for candles, and had found herself seated in front of the mirror before she’d had time to think about what she was doing.
The face that had looked back at her had been pale and childlike. Her eyes had always been her best feature—large, as clear and warm as amber, and inherited from her father, her mother had once told her in disgust—but they gave her face a frightened look.
And as she’d sat there the words she had said to Orlando last night came back to her. I’m tired of being afraid. I want to be brave…
She’d taken a deep breath and heard herself saying ‘Take it all off, please.’
Now, she glanced into the driving mirror, angling her head for a better view of herself. The hairdresser, horrified at the sacrilege of butchering such luxuriant hair, had flatly refused to give her a short crop, persuading her instead into the idea of a choppy, layered bob, cut closely into the curve of her skull at the back and angling sharply downwards, following the line of her jaw to finish in longer, spiky layers at the front.
It felt glorious. She slid her hand into the front, pushing it backwards, loving the way it stayed put now the weight of it had gone.
Only now did she appreciate what a weight it had been. Described by the PR people as being ‘integral to the brand’, her heavy hair had been entangled with the weight of expectation and responsibility. It had oppressed her and, while defining her image, it had stopped her from being herself.
She was free of all that now—in every way. It was as if Orlando Winterton had broken all the chains that had anchored her to her past with the same casual ruthlessness with which he and his fellow pilots torched pianos.
It was only natural that she should feel drawn to him, she thought sadly. It was inevitable, stemming from the same psychological imperative that made newly hatched ducklings bond with the first creature they saw when they emerged from the egg. He was the first person who had listened to her, the first person she felt had ever really seen her—seen through the image and past her porcelain-pretty face.
It was just such a damned shame he was in love with someone else. Suddenly she gave a gasp as the road ahead narrowed. She slammed her foot on the brakes, but too late, too sharply, and she felt the car glide across the icy road, completely out of her control. For a moment everything was suspended as in slow motion she watched the low wall ahead getting closer, brighter in the beam of the headlights…
And then there was a crunch, a jolt, a shattering of glass, and semi-darkness as the headlight on one side went out.
In the sudden thick silence Rachel let out a shaky laugh.
That bloody bridge again.
Which just went to show that knowing where the dangers lay didn’t stop you falling right into them.
The house was completely quiet as she pushed open the front door and stood for a moment in the hallway with her bags of shopping. Cold, intimidating, dark—just as it had been when she’d stood here for the first time yesterday, almost deranged with terror.
The team of caterers must have finished here and be getting themselves organised in the kitchen. Apart from a glimpse of long, white-clothed tables through the open door of the dining room beyond the hallway, there was no evidence at all that in a little under two hours this would be the scene of a party.
For a moment Rachel felt an icy fist of doubt bunch inside her stomach. She had been the one who had insisted Lucinda went home, so the responsibility for making things happen now rested firmly on her shoulders.
How had Lucinda put it?
Oh, knickers.
She set the supermarket bags down and looked inside them. Having her hair cut had taken up more time than she’d thought, and by the time she’d left the hairdressers all the small shops on the high street had been shut. Suppressing her panic, she’d remembered passing a huge supermarket on the way in, and there she had found boxes of thick ivory-coloured church candles and filled her basket with as many as she could carry.
Hurrying to the checkout, she had spotted, on a shelf of reduced post-Christmas stock, some fairy lights. Shaped like snowflakes, they’d reminded her of watching the snow fall last night, standing naked at the window of the firelit drawing room, with Orlando at her side…
For a second she had seen, more vividly than the boxes on the shelves in front of her, his deep-set, slanting eyes. Pale green, ringed with darkness. Tropical waters overlaid with ice.
It had come as a surprise to discover, as she’d paid for her shopping at the checkout, that as well as the candles she also seemed to have bought five boxes of the snowflake-shaped fairy lights.
Now, with trembling hands, she set to work.
Orlando stood in front of the mirror.
If he looked straight ahead, straight to where his face should be, technically he should just about be able to bring into the lower edge of his vision the buttonholes down the front of his dress shirt. But for the thousandth time the tiny mother-of-pearl shirt stud slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor.
He swore expressively, and was just about to get down and try to locate the stud with his hands when there was a soft knock on the door.
‘Yes?’
God, he sounded like an ogre. He felt like a bloody ogre. He was losing his humanity along with his sight. Wrestling with self-loathing, he deliberately didn’t turn his head as he heard the door open.
‘Orlando?’
That voice. Soft. Like the cashmere she wore. But with a slight edge…a texture too…like…
‘What?’
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you.’ She was crossing the room. In the mirror he caught a glimpse of m
ovement behind him, a glimmer of her brilliant hair. ‘I can’t fasten this dress. I wondered if you could possibly do it?’
That again. He turned round slowly to face her. ‘How does it fasten?’ he said dully, holding up his bandaged fingers. ‘Because I’m struggling too.’
‘Zip. You should manage with one hand. And then I’ll help you.’
He felt the usual, automatic kick of bone-deep, visceral resentment at the word, but gritted his teeth and said, ‘Fine. Turn round.’
Did he imagine the small, sad sigh as she presented her back to him?
Instinctively he reached up with his injured hand to sweep the hair from her neck, but found nothing there. Of course—she must have fastened it up. Imagined visions of her bare nape rose tormentingly in his mind, but determinedly he kept his head lowered, his gaze fixed straight ahead, deliberately not trying to get it within his field of vision. His fingers sought the base of the zip.
It began low down, in the small of her back. His fingers skimmed across the luxuriously soft fabric to where it met the satin warmth of her skin and he almost snatched his hand away.
‘Can you manage?’
That was what her voice reminded him of, he thought, brushing his thumb downwards, smoothing her dress. Velvet. Dark, luxurious, sexy velvet.
‘Of course,’ he snapped, tugging the zip upwards. ‘Done.’
‘Thank you.’ She turned to face him again. ‘Now you.’
Downstairs, the house was finally ready, and she hoped it was almost up to Lucinda’s standard. But the time had sped by, and she had left barely half an hour to wreak the same magic on herself as she had on the vast, chilly rooms. Rushing upstairs, she had showered in record time and, with shaking hands, had brushed the lightest smudge of charcoal-grey glittering shadow over her eyelids, adding a slick of shimmering gloss to lips that already felt swollen and red. Finally she had slipped into the dress she was to have worn at her big recital in Paris, at the end of her honeymoon. A narrow, figure hugging column of dark green crushed velvet, it had come to no harm from being squashed into her suitcase for two days.
For five long minutes she’d struggled with the zip, before giving in and coming to find him. But from the moment she’d walked in here and seen him, his shirt open to the waist, the long cuffs hanging down over his beautiful hands, she had felt sick with desire. And now this was almost more than she could bear.
It was like some sophisticated form of torture. Picking up one of the antique shirt studs, Rachel tried to slot it into the lowest buttonhole, just above the place where his stomach swept down in a muscular arc beneath his ribs. Only centimetres from his bare skin, her hand trembled violently with the need to touch it. She gripped the stud between her fingers, focusing intently on the gold-hinged stem and waiting for the dizzying wave of longing to pass before she could fit it through the hole.
It was so stupid, so very, very stupid, to feel like this when he belonged to someone else. There was no point going back over what had happened last night—that had been before she’d known about Arabella, and had come with no promises, only pure, heat-of-the moment passion…
She shuddered, biting back a moan as the stud slipped through her fingers.
‘Sorry—I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
She dropped to her knees and swept a hand over the rough sisal floor covering, groping for the stud. Suddenly the symbolism of her position struck her—she was literally on the floor at his feet. She had to get a grip of herself. Standing up, she took a deep breath.
‘Sorry. Try again.’
He had promised her nothing. She slid the stud into place and reached for another. He had given her no reason to think he had any feelings for her whatsoever. Another stud. He hadn’t even seemed to notice her hair. What had she expected? That he’d take one look at her and decide Arabella wasn’t the one for him after all? God, how ridiculous. Angrily, she picked up another stud.
And made the mistake of glancing up at him.
He was staring straight past her, over her head, his clear green eyes empty and bleak, his jaw tense, as if he was enduring some terrible private torment. She looked quickly away, sliding the stud into the buttonhole in the middle of his chest. Over his heart.
Arabella. He was wishing she was Arabella.
Misery fought with compassion. In that brief moment when she’d looked at him she had seen on his face an expression that exactly mirrored her own feelings. The difference was that she had the ability to ease his suffering a little. Arabella had told her not to say anything, but would it be so wrong to comfort him with the news that she was coming back?
He lifted his chin so she could put the last stud into the collar of his shirt, revealing the strong column of his throat. For a second she couldn’t move, mesmerised by the pulse that jumped faintly beneath the smooth skin. In an instant all thoughts of Arabella fled her mind—along with everything else but the desperate urge to press her lips against it. Aware that her own heart was beating in perfect time, she almost bit through her lip in anguish as she snapped the stud into place and immediately backed away.
‘Thanks.’ His tone was utterly offhand.
She swallowed. If he had noticed her lack of composure, he was doing a very good job of not showing it. Probably because it embarrassed the hell out of him.
Or maybe he just didn’t notice her at all.
‘No problem. If that’s all, I’ll go…’
Gathering up a handful of floor-skimming green crushed velvet, she almost ran to the door, choking back the ridiculous urge to cry. The dress, the haircut, the eyeshadow and lipgloss had been wasted. He hadn’t even glanced twice at her.
She couldn’t get away fast enough, Orlando thought bitterly. He had sensed her awkwardness, and from it could deduce only one thing.
His suspicions were correct.
Arabella had told her.
Blackness flooded his heart as he turned to her with an icy smile. Let her squirm with embarrassment at his helplessness. Let her see exactly how big a mistake she’d made last night.
‘Sorry,’ he drawled, in a voice of molten steel. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to do the cufflinks too.’
She hesitated, then came slowly back towards him. He could see that her hair half covered her face, giving him the agonising impression that she’d just stumbled out of bed—sleepy and tousled. As she bent her head over his outstretched hands he felt one silken strand brush the inside of his wrist.
Fire licked through him, searing his scarred emotions with fresh agony.
Her long, strong fingers worked quickly at the stiff cuffs of his shirt, folding them back, slipping the flat disc of century-old gold with its worn Ashbroke crest through the holes. He could hear her breathing, fast and shallow, smell the scent of crushed rose petals, with its whispers of summer and happiness, its memories of last night.
All things that he had lost for ever.
She straightened up and rubbed the palms of her hands down the narrow column of her fitted dress. Against the dark velvet the skin of her bare shoulders gleamed like mother-of-pearl.
‘I can manage the rest,’ he snarled, turning away.
‘You’re sure? Your tie?’
‘I’ve done it often enough.’
‘With one hand?’ There was a break in her voice that sounded like anguish. Or pity.
He swung round and felt his fists clench, the throbbing in his fingers reminding him afresh of the ostensible reason for needing her help. Picking up the silk bow tie, he hesitated for a moment as his mind filled with dense, dark fog. Then, trying to keep the hostility from his face, he turned back to her and tossed the tie at her.
‘No.’
She caught it, and for a second just stood—not daring to look at him, unable to bear his obvious distaste at having her so close. She threaded the band of silk through her fingers, twisting and pleating the expensive material, numbly watching as a tear fell onto it and slowly melted into the darkness.
‘Do I have
to beg?’
The ice in his tone made her gasp. Her head jerked up, and she gazed at him through a haze of humiliated tears. He gazed back, his green eyes glittering with cruelty.
‘I’m sorry.’
Even in high heels, she had to stand on tiptoe to slip the tie around his neck. The proximity was almost unbearable. Staring fixedly at his lean jaw, she made a clumsy attempt to tie a neat, flat bow, but the pounding blood in her ears and the echoing drumbeat in her wrists, her heart, the top of her thighs, made her fingers flutter ineffectually at the heavy silk. She could feel the whisper of his breath fanning her brow and heard her own whimper of anguish.
‘I can’t—’
He swore abruptly as his hands closed over hers. His face was like granite. She was aware of nothing beyond his skin on hers as he wrenched her hands from him. ‘Leave it. I’ll do it.’
‘How can you?’ she cried, disgusted at her own inadequacy, her own emotional stupidity. ‘I can do it—please, just let me try again…’
And then his hands were on her face, holding it, his thumbs brushing her cheeks as the tears soaked into the bandage on his fingers before he pulled away sharply and thrust his hands through his dark, dishevelled hair. He half turned from her, but she heard his exasperated sigh and felt herself die inside a little more. ‘You’re crying. Why?’
‘Nothing. I’m being stupid. Take no notice…’ She gave a sudden, bitter laugh. ‘Not that you would anyway…’
He whipped back to face her. His eyes blazed with sudden searing, unidentifiable passion, but his voice was terrifyingly calm.
‘What did Arabella say, exactly?’
Rachel felt her hands fly to her mouth. ‘She…she told me not to tell you.’
Orlando went very still. Standing there with his head thrown back, the silk tie hanging loosely around his neck, he looked like a tortured Adonis, and she felt the breath being squeezed from her lungs by the sheer charisma of his presence as she waited for him to speak.
‘I can guess.’ He gave her a heart breaking twisted smile, and his tone softened so that the steel edge to it was almost imperceptible. Which only made it more dangerous. ‘Discretion was never really Arabella’s strong point.’