A quick glance around the stately old building told her what she needed to know before she deliberately met Gregor’s gaze, then flicked her eyes towards the heavy wooden door beside the Lady Chapel at the side of the church for several seconds.
She saw him glance across then back again to meet her eyes. A single nod confirmed that he had understood, and a briefly raised hand showing all five fingers told her that he would meet her at the side exit in five minutes. Only then did she turn her attention to Ashley.
‘Ash, can I borrow the car?’ she asked softly, careful not to let either of the mothers overhear.
‘Borrow it?’ He smiled down at her indulgently, effortlessly putting on the appearance of the besotted husband-to-be, the way he had throughout the months of preparation that had led up to this day. ‘Parker’s at our disposal for the whole of the day, remember? Where do you want to go? Not back to your mother’s, I bet, not with the reception set up in the Great Hall. Nor my parents’ pile,’ he continued with a grimace before adding, softly, ‘I know…I could take you to the penthouse flat. I doubt anyone would look for us there.’
The penthouse flat was bigger than most four-bedroom houses and took up the whole top floor of the city building that housed the top-flight investment business the Grayson-Smythes had been running for the past century or more. Of course, as the sole heir, Ash was welcome to use the apartment whenever he wanted to spend some time in London.
‘Going to the penthouse would be a good idea, Ash. The building has state-of-the-art security, in case the press try to follow you. But what I wanted was to borrow the car for myself. It’s probably going to be the only vehicle immediately available that Gregor’s wheelchair will fit into, and we’ll need to get going quickly if we don’t want the paparazzi hounding us.’
For a moment Ashley was as speechless as if she’d winded him, his hazel eyes wide with disbelief.
‘You’re going to…to go off with him?’ he demanded hoarsely, and she was certain that only rigorous training from childhood kept him from shouting the question.
‘Of course I am,’ she said steadily, determined to sound calm. ‘I was told he was dead when he obviously isn’t, so I need to talk to Gregor…preferably without several dozen people hanging around us. I need to find out where he’s been…and also whether we’re still legally married. Until I know those answers I won’t be able to decide what happens next. I certainly have no desire to be a bigamist. Neither of our families would ever forgive me for that sort of impropriety.’
Ashley did his best to dissuade her, becoming quite heated as the last of the congregation was ushered firmly out of the church, but Olivia stuck to her guns. It wasn’t difficult, as part of her attention was taken up with trying to keep sight of Gregor as he made his way around the far side of the church.
After two years without seeing him…of believing that she would never see him again…it was impossible not to give in to the temptation to feast her eyes on him.
She was fascinated to see that he somehow seemed to be able to keep to the shadows and move unobtrusively, in spite of the fact he was using something as noticeable as a wheelchair.
‘Ash, please,’ Olivia said, and the determined tone of her voice finally stopped her handsome would-be-groom in mid-argument so that she could continue more discreetly. ‘We both know the reason why we were getting married, so there’s no need for you to play the broken-hearted lover — especially not with me.’
He sighed heavily then capitulated with almost juvenile bad grace, just as she’d known he would.
‘So, what do you want me to do? Escort the two of you out to the car and wave you off with my blessings?’
‘Hardly!’ She shuddered at the thought. The photographers inevitable at any sort of society wedding would go into the sort of feeding frenzy that would plaster their pictures across every tabloid newspaper in the country and take weeks to subside. ‘Can you get the car sent around to the side exit?’ She gestured discreetly to the dark solid wood door at the other side of the church and was surprised that Gregor seemed to have completely disappeared.
Panic made her heart give an extra hollow thump.
Had he grown tired of waiting? He never had been a particularly patient person. If something needed doing, he’d always been the one to dive straight in and get the job done as quickly and as efficiently as possible. Had she missed her chance to ask him where he’d been and why?
‘You just want me to send it round to pick the two of you up?’
‘If you’re feeling particularly brave, you could do your best to stop my mother setting off in pursuit,’ she suggested, and he shook his head with an expression of horror.
‘No way! And whatever happens, Olivia, don’t tell me where you’re going, then she can’t torture it out of me,’ he begged, teasingly, then grew serious again. ‘Keep in touch, please…at least to let me know you’re all right.’
‘I will, Ash, and…well, I’m sorry things turned out this way for you.’ She put her hand on the expensive fabric of his sleeve and gave his arm a squeeze. ‘If I’d had any idea that Gregor was still alive, I’d never have let my mother bully me into…’
‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ he said as an unholy gleam lit his hazel eyes. ‘Just think what a wonderfully tragic figure I’ll make as I struggle on bravely in spite of my broken heart.’
‘Idiot!’ She slapped his arm and pushed him away. ‘You’d better go and organise that car or I’ll break something other than your heart,’ she warned, then set off across the nave without a backward glance, hurrying towards the shadowy recess where Gregor had disappeared.
By the time Olivia finally joined him by the side door, Gregor had decided that he hated the scent of lilies.
The church was absolutely filled with fabulous arrangements of them, each creamy blossom nearly the size of a dinner plate with burgundy freckles shading the throat, but they had been the thing on which he’d deliberately focused his attention while Olivia talked to the floppy-haired clothes horse she’d been about to marry.
He reached out to open the side door a crack in an attempt to dispel the heavy perfume, only to have it replaced by the familiar cinnamon scent of the woman who was suddenly standing close beside him.
‘So, where are we going?’ he growled as his back complained that it had been far too long since his last lot of analgesics. But, then, he’d been far too busy worrying that he wouldn’t arrive at the church in time to realise that he’d missed a dose. It seemed as if he’d been living in his own private version of hell for ever, and it obviously wasn’t over, yet.
‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ she admitted, then added pointedly, ‘After all, until a few minutes ago, I had no idea you were still alive, let alone that you were going to turn up in the middle of my wedding.’
For the first time in a very long time, Gregor actually found himself struggling not to grin. So, his feisty Livvy was still in there, ready and willing to fight back. Her mother hadn’t completely managed to get her daughter under her upper-crust thumb once he was out of the picture.
‘Is there a hotel nearby, where we could talk?’ he suggested, all too aware that he needed to get his next set of tablets inside him as soon as possible. The last thing he wanted was to collapse into a gibbering wreck before he’d had a chance to explain what had happened over the last two years.
‘Several, but nowhere that I could guarantee the staff and guests wouldn’t take the chance of earning some easy money by alerting the news-hounds,’ she warned. ‘All three of the better ones in the immediate area have wedding guests staying there, so there’s no chance we would be anonymous.’
A gleaming black limousine purred to a halt the other side of the neatly clipped holly hedge and when the chauffeur lost no time in hurrying round to open the back door wide, Gregor rolled his eyes that he hadn’t anticipated that their transport was likely to be something as over-the-top as this.
It was almost comical to see the way the sma
rtly dressed driver’s face fell when he first caught sight of the wheelchair and realised that there was no way that they were going to be able to get it into the vehicle, spacious as it was.
Gregor took pity on him. ‘If you open up the front passenger door, I can transfer out of this,’ he said, tapping the rim of one wheel. ‘The chair will then fold flat,’ he added, as ever having to tamp down his impatience that he was so dependent on other people for such simple things.
Then there was the fact that he hadn’t wanted Livvy to see him in such a pathetic state; to see him having to laboriously heave himself out of the chair when all he could rely on was his upper-body strength.
He hardly dared to look at her for fear he would see dismay…even revulsion at his weakness. He’d never been obsessed with the way his body looked — couldn’t be bothered wasting precious time pumping iron in a gym — but at least, before, he’d been strong enough to intermittently indulge in the romantic gesture of sweeping Livvy off her feet. At this precise moment he was so shaky with the combination of pain and overwrought emotion that he could barely sit upright to look her in the eye.
As soon as he’d settled himself into the butter-soft leather seat, the chauffeur whisked the chair away towards the back of the vehicle, stowing it away as swiftly as though it was something he did on a daily basis.
‘Can you help me?’ Livvy asked, startling him by speaking almost in his ear from inside the back of the car. ‘I can’t reach the zip.’
He nearly whiplashed his neck turning to see what she was doing, for one mind-boggling second imagining that she intended stripping off in broad daylight.
No such luck, he mourned when he saw that she’d pulled a sweater on over her head and was trying to loosen the tightly fitted top to her dress — was it called a basque, or something similar? — so that she could remove it. She’d already pulled on a pair of indigo jeans under the skirt, the casual outfit obviously retrieved from the suitcases that must have been stowed in the car in readiness for the newly married couple’s departure on their honeymoon.
He cursed silently when he realised that his fingers were visibly trembling as he gripped the tiny tab. He tried to tell himself that it was simply because this was the closest he’d been to a woman since…well, who knew how long? He honestly couldn’t remember when he’d last helped a woman to take her clothes off. Unfortunately, the tremor was rather more likely to be a result of the frustrating weakness that plagued him, exacerbated by the battery of tests he’d undergone over the last couple of days. Until the specialist was able to give him some sort of reassurance that there was a surgical solution to his problem, he’d decided to delay letting Olivia know of his return…only to have his decision reversed, his hand forced this morning by the sight of that heart-stopping photo.
‘Thank you.’ The unexpectedly husky sound of her voice suddenly made him realise that he was still gripping the edge of the fabric even though the fastener was open, with his eyes fixed blindly on the sensuous curve of silky skin that he’d revealed.
It was pale creamy skin with the slightest natural olive tint that always made it look as if it carried a lingering hint of summer sun even in the depths of winter; skin that felt even softer to the touch of his fingertips than the secret silken fabrics she loved to wear against it.
Just the thought of touching…of exploring to see if her body still felt the same when he ran his hands over it, had his own body reacting in a purely masculine way for the first time since…
‘Gregor?’ The tone of her voice told him it wasn’t the first time she’d called his name, but when his eyes flicked up to meet hers and he saw how darkly dilated the pupils were, he was too elated by the evidence that she was equally affected by their proximity to care.
‘So, where are we going, then?’ asked the chauffeur as he opened the door and slid into his seat and the thread of awareness that had been spinning out between the two of them, reestablishing the connection that had been severed in a split second nearly two years ago, was snapped in an instant.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WE CERTAINLY can’t turn up at my mother’s,’ Olivia said with feeling. ‘Not with the reception set up there.’
She couldn’t help a wry grin when both the men in the front of the vehicle laughed. Gregor had never needed very long to get on the same wavelength with other men when he wanted to, and ‘just-call-me-Parker’ the chauffeur was no different.
‘And I can’t see you being very welcome at the Grayson-Smythes’ elegant abode,’ Parker offered, sounding more than a little tongue-in-cheek.
‘Nor their son’s penthouse,’ Gregor added, and, along with her shock at discovering that he must have been lip-reading her conversation with Ash, Olivia found herself half-hoping that there was a hint of jealousy in his tone. Then she gave herself a mental slap for the thought because there was absolutely no reason for him to feel any jealousy.
Not that he would. After all, the fact that he was alive today must mean that he’d intended disappearing out of her life two years ago, and added to that, there was the detail that he’d done it without a word of warning…
‘I expect you sold our place,’ he said, and the fact that it obviously wasn’t voiced as a question nettled her for some reason.
‘Why would I have?’ she retorted sharply. ‘It’s my home.’
It was also the place that was filled with the echoes of all the happy memories of the two of them; memories formed in the days when she’d naïvely believed that they’d be together for ever.
She was almost certain that she’d heard him mutter ‘our home’ under his breath, but it wasn’t worth a fight to argue the matter, especially in front of an audience.
Anyway, Gregor wouldn’t be staying in what had once been their home for any longer than it took for him to tell her where he’d been for the last two years. Once she knew why he’d just disappeared out of her life like that, she could instruct the family’s solicitor to sort out the confusion about his death then draw up the necessary papers to end their marriage…properly and legally this time.
Although whether she’d ever have the strength to go through all the interminable preparations for a rescheduled wedding with Ash was another matter, considering that she hadn’t really wanted to marry him in the first place.
She was vaguely aware that Gregor was giving Parker directions to the flat in the renovated Edwardian town house, but her thoughts were definitely elsewhere.
Now that she had time to take stock of her reaction to the events of the last hour, she would have to admit that her overwhelming feeling was one of relief.
She’d never felt anything beyond a slightly detached friendship towards Ashley, heir to the stately pile and its countless acres of beautiful countryside that was almost within sight of her own childhood home. But when her mother’s campaign for Olivia to do her duty for the continuation of the Mannington-Forbes into the next generation had become totally unbearable, she’d enlisted her one-time neighbour to concoct their little scheme.
The fact that he’d been under very similar pressure from his own family — and had been equally averse to the idea of any sort of romantic attachment — had been the only reasons why she’d allowed herself to be distracted from her determination to concentrate her energies totally on her career.
So, what was going to happen now?
Obviously, she and Gregor were going to have to talk, but what then?
Once he’d told her where he’d been for the last two years and why he hadn’t told her he was going to leave her like that — without a word — would she be calmly making an appointment with the Mannington-Forbes’ family solicitor to draw up the papers necessary to set a divorce in — ?
‘Are you going to need a hand?’ asked Parker, and Olivia suddenly realised that he’d stopped the limousine right outside the front of the elegant Edwardian building that housed her…their…flat.
‘Yes, please — ’ she began, only to be interrupted by Gregor.
‘Not necessary, thanks,’ he said gruffly. ‘If you get the chair, I can manage the rest.’
Olivia pressed her lips together to stop the denial that wanted to emerge, knowing that the stubborn man she’d married wouldn’t welcome her interference. If he said he could manage…
But it must have been obvious, even to the chauffeur’s untrained eye, that Gregor was in a bad way. His skin was quite grey, and there was a sheen of sweat over it that told her he was definitely in a great deal of pain. Not that he would ever willingly admit to any weakness. That had been one of the first things she’d learned about him, long before she’d discovered what had made him that way.
She slid across the buttery-soft leather of the back seat and stepped out into the nip of the overcast day, glad she’d changed into something more suitable than the one-of-a-kind designer wedding dress now lying on the back seat, abandoned without a single qualm.
Trying to concentrate on getting the rest of her own belongings out of the back of the vehicle, she found herself deliberately positioning herself where she could keep an eye on what Gregor was doing without him being able to see that she was watching over him.
‘Miss? Are you sure he can manage? There must be dozens of stairs inside that place,’ Parker muttered out of the side of his mouth when he hurried back to help her with the set of perfectly matched luggage her mother had insisted on supplying for the honeymoon.
‘He’ll manage,’ she reassured the man. Even if it kills him, she added silently, knowing that, in spite of the fact that he was in a wheelchair, there was little chance that the intervening two years would have done anything to lessen Gregor’s fiercely independent streak. ‘When the house was converted into flats they installed a beautiful old Edwardian lift, rescued from another building that was being demolished. So, neither of us will have to struggle with stairs.’
‘Well, if you’re sure…’ He cast a worried glance to where Gregor had doggedly manoeuvred the chair across the pavement and up the beautifully restored Minton tiling of the front path towards the access ramp that had been installed not long after they’d bought their flat.
Her Long-Lost Husband Page 2