by Anne Mather
‘It looks as if our missing guest is here,’ she told Peters, whose attention had been caught as well. ‘I suggest you go and let them in now and we can get on our way to the church.’
And she could find out who the missing person was, she told herself as she smoothed back a wayward lock of her gleaming hair that had fallen loosely around her face once more, tucking it behind her ear in an attempt to secure it. She’d fastened most of it back for today, but it seemed that one bright lock was determined to escape.
The new arrival must be someone important, she reflected. Important enough for Simeon to have told Peters not to start without them. But if that was the case, then why hadn’t he mentioned this expected arrival to her when they had been going over the details of Marty’s funeral? She’d asked him to let her know if there was anyone she ought to take particular notice of.
Out in the hall she heard the big, heavy oak door creak open and the murmur of voices.
Male voices. So the mysterious arrival was a he after all. One small part of the problem solved.
There was something about the tone of the voice that responded to Peters’s greeting that grated on her, searing over nerves that were suddenly and unexpectedly drawn tight. Something unnervingly familiar that tugged on her senses and reminded her of …
Of what?
Of something just out of reach that she couldn’t focus on or grasp at. The thundering sound of the driving rain out beyond the open door had blurred the words and made them totally incomprehensible so that, try as she might, she couldn’t make them out. But they had stirred a memory she had thought was hidden deep. One that set her heart racing, brought her breath into her lungs in a sudden gasp, as she struggled with the clenching of her stomach in irrational response.
There was no way this visitor could be him, she reproved herself. And there was no reason to panic over nothing. The strain of the past week was getting to her. The shock of Marty’s sudden, devastating heart attack. The long, anxious night while he had lain in a coma. At least he hadn’t suffered, and he hadn’t lived long after that first attack, but all the same it had been a distressing, exhausting time. She wasn’t surprised that it was starting to catch up on her. But it had to be just that which was playing tricks on her mind.
Peters was coming back. As so many times before this afternoon, he paused in the doorway, clearing his throat slightly.
‘Mr Angelos Rousakis …’ he announced formally and the sound of the name she hadn’t even allowed herself to think of hit home like a blow to Jessica’s face, making her mind reel in shock.
Angelos Rousakis.
No!
It couldn’t be—it just couldn’t! She really had to be dreaming. Either that or the confusion of her thoughts had scrambled her brain so that she had got it wrong, hearing the name that was in her mind instead of …
The sight of the man who stepped into the doorway, taking Peters’s place as the older man moved aside, froze the thoughts in her head, wiping away her ability to think. She could only stand and stare, struggling to reject what she was seeing.
There was no reason at all why he should be here. No reason why he should return to the estate that he had left under such a cloud almost seven years before, just about shaking the dirt of the land from his feet as he’d vowed that he would never ever return.
But there was no denying the evidence of her eyes. The tall, powerful frame was too strong, too solid to be a figment of her imagination, the black-haired head held arrogantly high, the burning black eyes that swept round the room as if he was looking for something.
Or someone.
The sting of guilt and anxiety was so sharp that instinctively she shrank away a little, not daring to take a step back in case the movement drew attention to her, but unable still to control the instinctive response. But it seemed that the tiny movement was enough to catch his eye and that searching gaze focused sharply, his dark head turning in her direction as he took in her shaken face, the sudden loss of the colour that she could feel draining from her cheeks.
In that moment she felt like nothing so much as a small, cowering field mouse that had been spotted by a circling hawk and was now frozen to the spot, simply waiting for it to pounce.
It was as if the seven years since she had last seen him had been stripped away. She was eighteen all over again, burning with the deepest, hottest embarrassment of her life, and hearing a sneering, thickly accented voice saying, cold and clear, ‘Don’t delude yourself, child. I have no interest in you in that way at all. I don’t play with little girls.’
After that appalling last night, she had been so glad to know that he had gone, and she’d hoped never to see him again. So what sort of malign fate had brought the man she had once named the Black Angel back into her life at this terrible moment?
But there was no way she could ignore the new arrival. He was looking straight at her, that arrogant dark head slightly tilted to one side as if he was waiting for her to make the first move. As was everyone else in the room, she realised, suddenly becoming conscious of the eyes that were turned in her direction. Of course, as Marty’s only surviving family member, even if only by marriage, she was the one who had to greet every new arrival, as she had been doing for the past hour or so.
Somehow she made herself move forward, stiffening her back, her neck, so that the threatening weakness in her legs didn’t show. She was sure that the result was to make her look as if she was marching stiffly like a wooden toy as she crossed the worn gold- and burgundy-coloured carpet, the gathered crowd of friends and neighbours parting like the Red Sea as she moved towards the man in the doorway.
And all the way across the room he watched her come. Those dark, dangerous eyes were fixed on her face as she walked towards him, the burning gaze never flickering, the dark concentration so fierce that she almost felt it sear her skin where it landed.
What was he doing here? And why would he turn up now—at the worst possible moment?
‘Don’t come back!’ In the darkness of her mind she heard her own voice in an echo of the words that she had flung at him. ‘Don’t ever come back! I never ever want to see you again.’
And, ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ he’d said, the tone of the words turning the endearment into the exact opposite. ‘One taste of hell is enough for any man in his lifetime. I will not be fool enough to risk that again.’
And yet now here he was, big and dark and large as life. Larger than life when compared with the younger man he had been when she had last seen him. Those years had filled out his lean, rangy frame, giving him an image of solid power that seemed to fill the doorway in which he stood, blocking out the light from the hallway behind him.
For one sudden, terrifying moment she had a sense that he was blocking her way out too. Closing off her way of escape, making sure that she stayed trapped in the room. Her heart seemed to rise up into her throat, beating frantically so that she found it difficult to breathe, and for a moment the sight of his hard-boned, strongly carved face blurred before her eyes, fading into a hissing, whirling mist.
Not for the first time that morning she ardently wished that Chris had been able to be with her today. But her fiancé had an important business meeting in London, one that couldn’t be cancelled for anything, and so she had been denied the comfort and support of having him at her side through today’s ordeal. If she had known—or even dreamed—that Angelos Rousakis was going to reappear from whatever dark place he had crawled into seven years ago then she would have begged Chris to stay, no matter what. But then how could she ever have imagined that her shameful past would come back to haunt her in this way, in the form of this man?
What had he come for? Why was he here? She had always feared that one day he would turn up, dark and dangerous, seeking vengeance for the way he believed she’d treated him. The image of those gleaming black jet eyes, the expression in them promising burning retribution as he’d flung one last viciously contemptuous look in her direction had haunted her d
reams for months afterwards. It had been a long time before the memory had faded and even now it could still come back to haunt her when she was tired or feeling low.
But then reality surfaced and she shook her head slightly, feeling the haze clear, the panic ebb away. Peters had announced Angelos Rousakis as he had every other person who was attending the funeral. The butler had been expecting him because Simeon Hilton had said that he was coming—even if he was the last person on earth that she had been thinking to meet. And that meant that he should be treated as any other guest today. Surely she could manage that even if she would not truly be able to breathe easily until he left the house—left England—and she knew he was out of her life again.
So—’Mr Rousakis …’ She made herself say it, forced her voice to sound at least calm and indifferent so that if one hadn’t known that they had met in the past and the savage hostility that now burned between them, at least it couldn’t be guessed from her tone. ‘Thank you for coming.’
She forced herself to put out her hand too. Every last bit of training that her mother had instilled into her made her do it. Courtesy to guests was something Andrea had always insisted on and even now she couldn’t go against the rules that had been instilled into her. But it was all she could do not to flinch when the burn of his skin against her own actually scorched her palm, sending stinging sensations shooting along every nerve.
‘Miss Marshall …’
Seen up this close, he was even more imposing, more devastating than he had been in the moment that he had walked into the room. Even in the elegant heels she wore, she was still several inches below him in height, needing to tilt her head back to meet him eye to eye. His tanned olive skin seemed almost impossibly vibrant and alive in contrast to the early spring pallor of the rest of the guests. He was wearing black, like everyone else in the room, but he wore it like no one else in the room.
His clothes were of a far better quality than anything the newly employed stable hand she had known would ever have been able to afford all those years ago. The long black overcoat worn loose over a black shirt and beautifully tailored black suit hung from the width of his powerful shoulders with the dramatic effect of a cloak or a greatcoat worn by some swashbuckling Regency highwayman. The thunderous downpour outside had soaked into the fine material, making it even darker, even sleeker in patches. Raindrops from the same storm were scattered through the black silk of his hair, sparkling like diamonds against the polished jet strands that they clung to, and the moisture had even spiked the impossibly lush, thick lashes that fringed the ebony darkness of his eyes.
‘My sympathy on your loss.’
It sounded like the most polite of responses, at least on the surface, but there was a controlled savagery underlying his tone that caught on the tightness of her nerves and tugged hard, making her stomach muscles clench on a wave of panic. It sounded almost as if he was having to force himself to speak at all. But when she looked into his face all she saw was a calm civility, the smooth veneer of a public mask that hid whatever truth was in his mind.
He couldn’t hide it in his eyes though, and what she saw in their darkness made her shiver inwardly. Her own guilty memories added an extra uneasy layer to the tension that claimed her.
‘I believe that Mr Hilton let you know of my stepfather’s death …’
‘He did. He telephoned me as soon as he knew. I was away on business at the time or I would have been here sooner.’
The dark eyes still clashed with hers as he answered, their total lack of expression giving away nothing at all. He knew what she was doing; the faint half smile that curled the corners of the beautifully shaped mouth told her that. He knew that she was trying to probe into his reasons for being here, hunt out the hidden explanation for his sudden and unexpected appearance. Because there had to be one. He hadn’t just appeared out of the blue to pay his respects at her stepfather’s funeral.
Respect had been the last thing that this man had felt for Marty. A bitter hatred had been the only emotion that had flared between the two men. A hatred that her own foolish behaviour and unthinking actions had fed till breaking-point had been reached and the explosions that had resulted had almost destroyed them all.
No. Hastily she corrected herself. It hadn’t damaged Angelos at all. At least not emotionally, which was how it had devastated her. Emotionally, he had walked out of here scot-free, not even a mark on him. And he had left her to pick up the pieces of the life she had known.
Financially, it had been a very different matter. In that case, he had every reason to hate her as much as he had her stepfather—more—because she was the reason he had lost his job; the reason he had had to leave in the first place.
So now, ‘I don’t understand …’ she began, but at that precise moment Peters stepped forward again, clearing his throat in the way that he always did to draw attention to the fact that he had something to say.
‘The funeral director is ready, Miss Marshall. If you’d like to lead the way …’
‘But I …’
She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes went to Angelos Rousakis, still standing, dark and watchful, in the doorway. She had been thrown completely off balance by his sudden and unexpected arrival and she was unsure of how to proceed. It was as if the ground had suddenly shaken violently beneath her feet so that when it was still again nothing was in quite the same place as before and her sense of equilibrium had vanished with it. Instead, in its place was a terrible sense of unease and apprehension, all of it centred in the man before her.
‘You …’ she tried again but, even as she spoke, he was moving, standing aside with a controlled grace and leaving the doorway open before her.
‘You have things to attend to,’ he said softly, that note of control still keeping his voice low and smooth. The voice of perfect courtesy, perfect concern, if she didn’t look into his face, into the cold burn of his eyes. ‘We will talk later.’
Was she imagining things? Was it her uneasy conscience, her unhappy memories that made her hear his words as a dark promise, almost a threat, instead of a polite reassurance? Could no one else hear that ominous undertone that shaded the words, turned the effect of them into something like the trail of small, icy footprints across her skin, raising every tiny hair in a sense of desperate apprehension? And the cold, assessing glance from those deep set eyes that flashed just once at her face told her he was watching her every move, seeing the play of emotions across her face and understanding the reasons for it.
He knew that she would do anything rather than risk any sort of public scene here and now, in front of the upper class county set who had been Marty’s friends. That her need to make sure that this last thing she could do for her late stepfather was carried out with dignity and restraint would put a control on her tongue that she would rather die than break. And he was playing on that fact, coldly and deliberately.
‘Talk …!’
Just for a moment defiance flared and she flung him an angry glare, her tongue itching to tell him to leave, go now, and never come back again.
But almost immediately the remembrance of the fact that he had been invited—and invited by Marty’s lawyer—stilled the angry words. That control slammed back into place, her teeth snapping closed over what she had been about to say, and instead she gave a cold, disdainful nod, her eyes looking straight past him, out beyond the open door to where the undertaker’s hearse and cars now waited.
‘Later,’ was all she said as she moved forward, head high, her mouth set in a firm, determined line.
‘Later,’ Angelos Rousakis echoed softly as she swept past him, knowing it was a promise as much to himself as to her. His mouth twisted slightly as he watched her walk away from him, the slim back held stiffly straight like her gleaming head. ‘Oh, yes, we’ll talk later, Miss Marshall.’
Let her have her moment of triumph, her belief that she had got the upper hand in the situation—for now. He was quite content to stand back and watch, stand back and let
her act out the role of lady of the manor, queen of all she surveyed, for a little while longer. After all, what was that English saying about the harder they fall …? And little Miss Marshall had a very hard fall coming soon.
Not so little, the most masculine part of his nature added in wry acknowledgement. Jessica Marshall had done a lot of growing up in the years since he had last seen her, and she’d done it in all the right ways—physically at least. The delicious promise of a lovely young girl had turned into the fully sensual beauty of a woman. She was taller, slimmer, but her body had rounded in all the right places, adding gentle curves at breasts and hips that raised his pulse to beat stronger, heavier, at the thought of what lay beneath the stark black tailored suit, the neat white blouse that was buttoned right up to the base of her delicate neck, concealing all but the fine skin of her throat.
Her face had lost the faint roundness of youth, the high cheekbones becoming stronger, more sharply defined in the pale oval of her face and the blue-grey of her eyes seemed lighter than ever before in contrast to the rich fall of the burnished chestnut hair and the deep rose tint of the softly curved mouth.
Just for a second the memory of what it had felt like to know the taste of that mouth, have those lips open under his, stabbed at him with erotic sharpness. But the recollection of what had happened afterwards was enough to throw the mental equivalent of a bucket of icy water over any suggestion of the flames that might have flared in his mind, hardening his resolve before it had a second’s chance to waver.
One thing that hadn’t changed about Jessica Marshall was the cold-eyed, disdainful, totally dismissive look she could turn on anyone she considered beneath her contempt. The ‘what is this piece of dirt under my feet?’ expression that she had just used on him was exactly as it had been before, only this time given extra power as a result of seven years’ more maturity, seven years more of having everything her own way.