‘If that’s what it takes.’
‘Takes?’
‘To make you talk to me.’
Bella removed her hands. ‘I’ve been talking to you all the way down here.’
‘No, you haven’t. You’ve been talking at me.’
She was silenced.
‘See what I mean?’ he said drily. ‘One flash of honesty and all the bright chatter dries up, doesn’t it?’
Bella’s chin went up. ‘I’m sorry if I bored you.’
Quite suddenly Gil turned away and slammed his fist into the steering wheel, making her jump. ‘You didn’t bore me,’ he said between clenched teeth.
She watched his fist warily. ‘Then, why are you so angry?’ She sounded breathless, even to her own ears.
He did not answer for a minute. Then he said heavily, ‘You don’t give an inch, do you?’
She did not pretend to misunderstand. ‘Isn’t that my privilege?’
‘But why?’
She shrugged, looking away.
‘Anyone would think I meant to hurt you,’ he said furiously.
Bella did not make a movement. She knew she did not. But he straightened, suddenly alert.
‘That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you won’t let me get close to you.’
Bella tried hard to laugh. ‘Rubbish.’
He ignored that. ‘You think I’ll hurt you,’ he said on a long note of discovery.
‘That’s crazy,’ said Bella sharply.
‘Is it?’
‘Of course it is.’
He shook his head, ignoring that too. ‘What on earth did I do?’ he said almost to himself.
‘Nothing.’ Her voice rose. ‘It’s all in your imagination.’
‘Or maybe—’ He stopped.
‘What?’
‘Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me. Maybe it’s you. Has someone done a number on you, Bella?’
‘No.’ It was almost a scream. She took hold of herself. ‘No.’
Gil looked at her searchingly. ‘Sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘No man has let you down? Deceived you?’
Oh, but he was persistent. Was this how he ran that fantastic business of his? By digging and dissecting, digging and dissecting…
She stayed calm but it was an effort. Her jaw ached with it.
‘No.’
‘Walked out on you?’
She could not take any more of this. Deliberately she tossed back her hair, knowing that its scent would waft around him in the close confines of the car. She saw his eyes flicker and bit back her relief.
‘Do I look the sort of girl that a man would walk out on?’ she said lightly. ‘I don’t mean to be vain—but get real.’
It gave him pause. She seized her chance. Briskly she un-clasped her seat belt before he could start any more of that too shrewd analysis.
‘I must get going. There’ll be plenty of last-minute panics if I know my mother.’
She did not risk another glance at him. Instead she pushed the passenger door open and got out. Gil followed without comment.
As he did so, the front door opened. Gil stopped, startled.
‘How did that happen? Sensors?’
‘The housekeeper being discreet,’ said Bella, torn between fury and reluctant amusement.
‘What?’
‘She was here long before my mother and I arrived on the scene. Tony trained her. He doesn’t like fuss. So she doesn’t do any of that apple-cheeked housekeeper welcome stuff. She just hovers until we start unloading.’
She pushed the door back on its hinges and gathered the self-effacing housekeeper into a comprehensive hug.
‘Hi, Ruth. Oh, it’s so good to be back.’
The housekeeper returned the hug. ‘Bella, my lamb. Let me look at you.’ She held her away. ‘So glamorous.’
‘That’s New York polish for you,’ said Bella grinning. ‘I suppose I’m a jet-setter now.’
She had her cheek patted for her pains. ‘Ah, but you’ve still got eyes like a bush-baby. Just like you always did. I’m so glad that you could make it to the wedding after all.’
Gil, coming up with suitcases, raised an eyebrow.
Bella said hastily, ‘Ruth, do you know Gil de la Court?’
Ruth looked alarmed. ‘I’ve heard Annis speak of you of course. But I didn’t realise you’d be here today—’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I’m delivering, not staying. Just tell me where you want the luggage and I’ll be on my way.’
But when he had unloaded the car, he did not go quite at once. Bella stood in the echoing marble entrance hall willing him to but he did not. He inspected the tapestries, the branched candlesticks, even the portraits, as if he was a casual tourist and she had all the time in the world to show him round.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I hate to seem inhospitable but there’s a lot to do.’
He turned away from a marvellously cuffed cavalier and surveyed her with the same narrow-eyed assessment.
‘Don’t turn the bush-baby look on me,’ he told her, suddenly crisp. ‘I don’t melt. And if I did, you’re no cuddly toy.’
Bella gaped.
He strode over to her. His shoes clipped the marble, staccato in the silence.
He looked down at her for a moment as if he were measuring an opponent.
He said softly, ‘Never forget. I’ve seen the way you dance. Heaven help me, I’ve felt the way you dance. Whatever these people here may think about you, I know you.’
Bella felt her face flame. But she managed to say steadily, ‘That sounds like a threat.’
‘Call it a reminder.’
‘A reminder of what?’ she said unwarily.
His eyes flicked to her mouth and he laughed.
She thought, He’s going to kiss me again.
Suddenly she wanted him to. She wanted him to grab her, as he had on that frozen street in New York. She wanted him to turn her into nothing but sensation, make her body tune out her brain. For a while, at least. She wanted it with an intensity that shocked her.
And he turned away.
He turned away.
‘See you,’ he said casually.
And was gone.
Bella sat down hard on the bottom stair. She felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of her.
She had wanted him to kiss her. He knew she had wanted him to kiss her. And he had walked away.
All that talk about wanting to get close to her and he had walked away!
It had been quite deliberate. Bella knew that. Until last year she had run with a crowd where such tactics were commonplace. She had never expected to find herself on the receiving end of a move like that, though.
Well, she wasn’t going to. She didn’t want it and she didn’t have to put up with it. Gil de la Court wasn’t going to play games with her head. In fact, Gil de la Court was going to be very lucky if she ever spoke to him again.
She did not tell anyone, though. She told herself that she did not want to get into an argument about making a guest feel welcome. But secretly she knew it was more than that.
Her mother had already hinted that he was in love with Annis. Bella did not want to find herself put in charge of distracting the spurned lover during the wedding festivities. But if Lynda had that in mind, then she would want an explanation before she let Bella off the hook.
Bella found that she really, really didn’t want to talk to anyone about her private dealings with Gil de la Court. She did not want to have to admit that she had met him before. That she had not been able to put him out of her mind. That, once, he had touched her and had turned her bones to water. That every time she saw him, she quivered with awareness that he could, just possibly, do it again.
It was sex, she told herself fiercely. That was all it was, that time in New York. Hormones and opportunity and a great big dollop of loneliness.
And since? prompted the uncomfortably honest part of her mind. What was i
t in London when he touched you? And in the hall here, when he didn’t?
‘Games!’ said Bella aloud.
It made her so mad she could have thrown things. But it also made her jumpy. This wedding had promised to be difficult enough, without some sexy circling by Gil de la Court. Who just might be breaking his heart over her sister. She winced at the thought.
It didn’t feel as if he was breaking his heart, Bella thought rebelliously. Not the way he looked at Annis, not the way he looks at me. To say nothing of the way he kisses me.
But, then again, she knew Gil de la Court played games. Hell, she had first-hand experience, didn’t she? Maybe he was deliberately trying to distract himself with someone, anyone, who wasn’t Annis. Bella was just the first woman who came to hand.
No, it was more than that. Even in her wretched muddle, she knew that. She intrigued him. She knew she did. There was no game of pretend about that.
But did she want to intrigue him?
A part of her said no. That was the honest, straightforward part that wanted Annis to be happy. That was the part that wanted to get through the wedding with dignity intact and then head for the hills before anyone could ask, ‘And what is happening in your love life these days, Bella? Still playing the field, ha ha?’
But a darker, more reckless part said yes.
She did not understand it. She did not want it. She did her best to suppress it.
In the process she went very quiet. Among all the wedding preparations, however, no one noticed.
They were all much more worried about Annis, who was not only quiet but much too pale. She arrived later than anyone expected and was uncharacteristically terse when Lynda showed concern.
‘Don’t fuss. I can’t bear fuss.’
‘But we thought you would be here for tea. We were worried.’
‘I would have been here for tea if Gilbert de la Court had been where he ought to have been,’ said Annis, with concentrated fury. ‘Instead of which, you roped him in to play chauffeur and I’ve had a running skirmish with the financial press all afternoon.’
Then she burst into tears and fled to her room.
‘Overtired,’ said Lynda into the uncomfortable silence.
There were ten for dinner that night and, whatever they might politely pretend, every one of the guests must have overheard the spat in the entrance hall. They were all family, or as good as, but even so there was some uncomfortable shuffling of feet.
Lynda sent her daughter a beseeching look. ‘Bella, would you—?’
Bella went.
Annis had the big corner room on the second floor. Bella tapped on the door.
‘Who is it?’ Her voice was muffled but at least she did not sound as if she was crying any longer.
‘Me. Can I come in, Annie?’
There was the sound of the key turning in the lock. Annis sniffed but she stood aside to let Bella pass.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Lost it a bit, back there.’
‘Are you all right?’ said Bella, concerned.
To her dismay, her sister’s eyes filled with tears again. She put her arms round her.
‘Hey there, Brain Box.’
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ wailed Annis.
‘Hush. You’ve just got wedding nerves.’
Annis gulped and muttered something incomprehensible.
‘Everyone does. Part of the ritual,’ Bella assured her, patting one heaving shoulder. She kept talking, giving Annis time to pull herself together. ‘Every time one of our staffers does an “I was the bride’s right-hand man” piece, they come back with copy that’s full of mayhem. Downright war, sometimes.’
Annis straightened and turned away, searching her dressing table for the box of paper tissues.
‘I didn’t know that. Everything I’ve read about weddings has been full of amazing flowers and perfect arrangements. This is going to be a shambles.’
‘No, it’s not.’
Annis blew her nose pugnaciously. ‘Yes, it is. My dress looks ridiculous and my shoes are too wide. I’ll probably lose one going up the aisle.’
‘Then, I’ll field it. That’s what bridesmaids are for.’
Annis glared at her. ‘By then I will have fallen over. Your mother has organised the aisle like an assault course. Great bunches of flowers on tripods. I’m bound to knock one of them over. I’ll probably end up skidding to the altar on my bottom.’
‘Then Kosta will pick you up,’ said Bella, amused.
‘Oh, yes, he’ll pick me up. He’ll be looking wonderful,’ said Annis, lashing out viciously. ‘Every single person in the church will be saying, What on earth does he see in that great clumsy lump of a girl? Oh, damn.’ Her voice broke.
She stuck her tongue out at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror. Her eyes were much too bright and there were two hectic spots of colour in her pale cheeks.
‘He’s so damned fanciable. I hate him.’ Bella realised that this was serious. She took Annis by the shoulders and guided her carefully away from the dressing-table mirror to the window seat.
‘Now look,’ she said, urging Annis onto the cushions, ‘this has got to stop.’
Annis blinked sticky lashes at her. ‘What?’
‘Wedding nerves are fine. Statistically thirty-five per cent of brides have got their cases packed at this stage.’
‘What?’
‘Latest research findings,’ Bella assured her, crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘Nerves—not a problem. But slagging off Kosta because he is drop-dead gorgeous is just stupid. And unkind.’
There was a silence.
‘Oh,’ said Annis at last in a small voice.
‘He’s in love with you. He doesn’t deserve to be blamed for all the things you don’t like about yourself.’
Annis’s tears subsided in simple indignation.
‘When did you get to know everything?’ she said belligerently. ‘You’re supposed to be my baby sister.’
‘I’ve been doing some growing up in New York.’
‘Oh, yeah? What’s his name?’
‘What?’
‘Sounds like you’ve met someone.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Bella said harshly. Much more harshly than she needed to.
Annis pursed her lips. Suddenly she looked a lot more cheerful.
On the point of denying it heatedly, Bella stopped. She had a blinding revelation. Annis suspected!
Not everything, of course. Not the full disaster of what Bella had felt for Kosta. Not how deep. Not how dangerous. And she sure as hell didn’t know what Bella had done about it. But she suspected enough to want Bella to walk down the aisle behind her with all the old shadows blown away. And what better to blow them away than a new man?
This was probably the best wedding present Bella could give her.
Bella’s smile twisted. Then she sighed and bowed to the inevitable. ‘Yes, I’ve met someone,’ she said.
The irony was that it was even true in an oblique sort of way. Gil de la Court had certainly got under her skin. She was not at all sure what she felt about him but she could not deny the attraction.
The admission did what Annis wanted, anyway. She jumped to her feet and hugged Bella.
‘You should have brought him.’
Acutely uncomfortable, Bella muttered, ‘No need.’
She did not know why she said that, exactly. Maybe she meant that she did not need the support of an escort to her sister’s wedding. Or maybe she meant that, as she was only going to be in England for a few days, there was no point in bringing her mythical lover with her on the long journey. Or maybe—She did not know.
But Annis was looking at her oddly. Bella had the feeling that she had somehow betrayed herself. She just did not know how. Or what. It was crazy.
It was reinforced when Annis squeezed her arm and said soberly, ‘It’s OK. I can keep my mouth shut. You tell people when you’re ready.’
‘Thank you,’ said Bella. ‘I think.�
��
Annis was herself again. ‘So show me the dress. I want to see how good my design skills are.’
Conversation fell back into the important things.
Later Bella went downstairs to reassure her mother. The dinner guests had progressed to coffee and liqueurs in the drawing room and there was a general buzz of relaxed conversation. Clearly Annis’s outburst had been swamped by Sole Veronique and Marquise aux Trois Chocolats. To say nothing of Tony’s twenty-year-old brandy. No one even looked up when Bella came in.
She went over to her mother’s seat by the fire.
‘Annis is having an early night,’ she murmured in her ear. ‘I made her an omelette and she’s gone to bed with a mug of cocoa.’
‘Cocoa?’ Lynda was alarmed. ‘She hasn’t had that since she was six. She is all right, isn’t she?’
‘You should see what she’s reading,’ said Bella, grinning. ‘Children of the New Forest. Complete regression. She’s happy as a bug in a rug.’
Lynda still looked worried.
‘Honest, Ma. It’s just what she needs.’
‘Well, if you say so,’ said Lynda, surrendering.
‘I do. She got herself wound up, that’s all. She just needs a bit of cosseting and some space.’
‘Space? She’s not regretting it?’
‘Not for a moment—’
‘I mean, if she has any doubts, any at all, she mustn’t go through with it. She mustn’t feel trapped by the wedding. It’s much easier to stop a wedding than get out of a bad marriage,’ said Lynda with feeling.
‘I know,’ said Bella gently. She could—just—remember her own father. She remembered first hand what a bad marriage was like. ‘But honestly, I don’t think you need to worry, Ma. She’s crazy about Kosta.’
Lynda nodded.
Bella knew her mother very well. ‘Look, Annis is a grown woman and a brain box. She’s not like me. She doesn’t do stupid stuff on the spur of the moment.’ She added lightly, ‘Now, if it were me, you’d be right to be worried.’
Lynda laughed obligingly. But there was still a faint frown between her brows. ‘At least you’d know what you were getting into. Annis isn’t street smart.’
Bella said sharply, ‘Annis is in love.’ She sighed. ‘Look, Ma. If ever a couple was made for each other it’s those two. As you say, I’ve been around. Enough to know love when I see it. They’re ready to commit. Take it from someone who isn’t.’
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