As they stumbled towards the bed, she found herself tugging at his top. Clothes were a barrier. He took hold of her wrists and unpeeled them from him and stepped back. ‘No,’ he said, breathing hard. ‘No. Stop.’
His voice was throaty. She was barely tuned in to it when she wanted him so badly. Naomi reached out and found him. ‘We’re married now.’
He pulled free and moved back. ‘Listen to what you’re saying.’
The tone of his voice shocked her, but Naomi still stumbled after him in the dark. The rain was easing into a more steady patter. The thunder was moving on. As she found him, he took hold of her arms and held them firmly.
‘You’re confusing me, Nathan.’
‘That wasn’t the intention.’
‘Don’t you want me?’ she asked.
As the rain reduced further, there was an uneasy stretch of quiet. ‘Not while you think I’m someone else.’
Naomi stood, feeling the strength of his arms holding her. She couldn’t clear her head. She felt no fear, just a deep sense of pain that weighed her down until she couldn’t stand. He supported her as she fell onto him and broke down.
‘You told me you were Nathan.’
‘You knew I wasn’t him.’
‘No,’ she yelled, sobbing. ‘No. I saw you.’ Naomi started pounding his chest with her fists. He allowed it and stood firm, not moving or defending himself. Naomi felt her knees buckle and she collapsed onto the floor.
He reached down and gathered her up and set her down on the bed. She curled into a tight ball. She assumed he was still standing there, waiting behind his veil of silence. Light flooded the room from the landing. Power returned in a burst that left Naomi squinting. She was lying on a double bed facing a window with closed blue curtains. An alarm started up somewhere.
It was like returning to the real world from a land of dreams. She heard him fly from the room and down the stairs to quieten it. Naomi sat up, frantically wiping her eyes, forcing herself to think. There was no time to regret things or think about the consequences. She was free.
She leapt from the bed and ran out onto the landing. He was already striding up the stairs, two at a time. She froze as she looked at the top of his head, her senses sharp and alert, heart pounding. He raised his head and looked at her. He stopped too. She could only stare. He was young with clear skin, defined cheek bones and a strong jaw line. He had Nathan’s eyes, though his mouth and nose were set differently. His hair was darker, longer and had more movement, but he was as tall and as well-built. She couldn’t stop looking at him.
‘Dan?’
He gripped hold of the stair rail. His eyes closed for a long moment, then opened. They were bluer than Nathan’s and striking against his darker hair and eyebrows. His voice finally made sense. She’d heard it occasionally in the background when she’d been on the phone to Nathan, that deep voice of Dan’s. Why hadn’t she realised the obvious? Even his movements mirrored Nathan’s now she thought about it, and the shape and size of his hands, which she’d watched every day.
‘Why?’ Naomi whispered. ‘After everything Nathan’s done for you.’
‘He betrayed me,’ Dan said, jaw clenching.
‘Do you know who I am?’
‘Of course I do,’ Dan said.
‘Did Nathan tell you we were getting married?’
Dan puffed out an aggravated breath. ‘Evidently.’
Naomi struggled to find words. ‘How could you do this?’ she said slowly. ‘He loves you and this is what –’
‘Don’t talk to me about love. No one loves Nathan like I do. That includes you.’ Dan fixed his eyes on her now and set a serious expression that jabbed her with anxiety. Naomi didn’t dare disagree. ‘Some things are unforgiveable. This time, he’s gone too far.’
‘He’s gone too far?’ Naomi felt herself filling with fear now. ‘Have you been taking your medication, Dan?’
Dan was breathing hard through his nose. A storm crossed his face, but his tone of voice defied it. ‘Of course I’ve been taking my medication,’ he said, quietly.
‘Dan, this is wrong. We shouldn’t be here like this. Look, this is not your fault –’
‘Damn right it’s not,’ he said, starting to move towards her in measured steps.
Naomi crossed her arms and stiffened. ‘Listen to me,’ she began, keeping her voice as reasonable as possible, ‘you have to take me back to Nathan, OK? Tonight. You have to let me go.’
Dan continued towards her, eyes tormented. He stopped right in front of her. In bare feet, she felt so short. Her instinct was to run, but there was nowhere to go. He searched her eyes. Dan’s eyes looked wild and dangerous the way Nathan had described them. He shook his head. His eyes glazed with tears. A pool formed at the bottom.
‘It’s too late.’ He paused. ‘Too late.’
Naomi’s heart was rattling inside her ribcage. The rain was still lightly falling. The wind still whistled through the trees. ‘Dan, what have you done?’
The pool overflowed and tears rolled down his cheeks. ‘The only thing I could do,’ he yelled in an eruption of temper. ‘He left me no choice.’
Naomi, shocked, stepped backwards. Dan pulled at his hair and his face creased in agony. He wiped his eyes and looked at her again. Their eyes locked.
Gathering her courage, Naomi moved to him and took his hands. ‘Dan, calmly, we’re going to sit down and talk about this, OK?’
‘Stop treating me like a freaking retard,’ he shouted, jerking his hands away. ‘I’m not going to hurt you, OK?’
‘I know you’re not,’ she said with no certainty, trying not to turn away from his terrifying eyes.
‘What happened in the bedroom just now wasn’t an accident,’ he said, waving one arm around wildly. ‘We both wanted it to happen. Don’t you see this is impossible for me too? Damn it, I have feelings for you. Get it? I. Have. Feelings.’ He was clutching both fists to his chest and pounding in time to his words. ‘You think I’m on some sick pleasure trip while you’re up in that room, but I’m trying to work things out, OK? And I don’t know what to do.’
He wasn’t making sense, which made perfect sense when she reminded herself this was Dan. Naomi thought of Lucy, Nathan’s ex-fiancée. Naomi had been sure over the past week that the monster had a very clear plan and that she featured in it strongly. To discover that there was no plan at all except to detain her and feed her and spy on her and watch her shower, stunned her. Dan had taken on more than he could manage. He was panicking. He turned his back on her and stamped towards a small window on the landing where droplets of rain were trickling. A silk flower arrangement stood on the sill in a green vase. Eventually, Dan turned and walked towards her. He stopped a safe distance away and didn’t speak.
‘Dan, I need to know what’s happened to Nathan.’
Dan brushed past her into the bedroom like he couldn’t look her in the eye anymore. She’d fantasised about a moment like this where he was vulnerable, where she could spring a surprise attack. That time had now come and had also gone. Unbelievably, Dan was family. Naomi tried to pluck that thought from her mind and throw it away.
‘You really do not want to know what’s happened to Nathan, trust me on that,’ he said in his rich deep voice that reminded her he wasn’t Nathan. He was calmer now at least.
Naomi didn’t trust him. At all. Dan frantically wiped his eyes and Naomi tried to inject some gentleness into her tone. ‘I’ve got to know, Dan. And you need to own up to the truth. I admit I’m terrified of what you might tell me.’
Dan turned sharply and directed his eyes at her again. He slowly shook his head while the tears kept pouring. For a week, Naomi had thought he was incapable of emotion. So far, she’d been wrong about everything. Dan was inconsolable. His lips were quivering as he fought to hold himself together.
‘You should be,’ he managed.
LIBERTY
It was late afternoon. The house was a hive of frantic activity. Annabel was packing for Japan.
Everyone except Henry was feeling the heat. Guests were due to arrive at seven. Six courses had been carefully selected by Camilla with Lorie’s help. The Italian chef who was providing his services for the evening, had turned up with a teenage assistant, his son. They dragged in three ugly foldable tables that Lorie had the job of disguising.
One of the many things stressing Camilla was that, with sixteen sitting down for dinner, they were being forced to use the only two sets of dining chairs they had. They didn’t match. They weren’t even the same wood. Lorie had a generous budget to mask the problem any way she could. She’d assured Camilla that by the time she’d finished, there wouldn’t be a problem with the tables or the chairs. Camilla was unconvinced, which meant she was flustered.
Camilla had left Lorie to sort out the table and chair problem alone and busied herself with a list of other jobs. When she returned to the dining room at five-fifteen, Lorie wasn’t there but the room was transformed. Camilla stood in the doorway, transfixed. A few helium-filled balloons had been tastefully placed. The eight-seater dining table that normally occupied the room had been removed to make way for the three tables that now lay in a row in the centre of the room and looked incredible.
Camilla inched forward for a closer inspection. The tables were covered in deep red tablecloths to match the main colour in the curtains. At the centre of each of the outer tables was a tall thin vase, holding two carnations, one dark red, one cream. At the centre of the middle table was an exotic flower arrangement. Cream petals were scattered around the three vases. The table was fully set with their best dinnerware. There was a tiny box beside each of the plates. Camilla was curious enough to lift a lid. She found two sugared almonds, one white, one pink.
Camilla touched the serviettes, artistically arranged inside the wine glasses, the same thick linen as the tablecloths, the same deep red. The back of the chairs had been covered in pieces of cream satin and were gathered into a kind of rosette at the back and secured with red ribbon which hung down. Lorie had even bought padded seat cushions which were tied to the backs of the chairs and masked the difference in the wood. Small candles dotted the room. One thing was still missing: the name labels. Camilla had collected them from Lorie. This job she’d do herself. Not trusting Annabel not to rearrange them, Camilla kept them inside her pocket and decided to leave it until the last minute.
Camilla could hear Annabel thudding around upstairs and wondered when Naomi would be arriving with . . . him. She glanced at her watch and her expression tightened. It was almost five-thirty. Time to get changed and drag Henry away from the football league tables to do the same. Marriage often felt like having an extra child, especially since Henry had retired. He’d regressed into a lost little boy who enjoyed dawdling time away and playing before his afternoon nap. Pathetic really, for a man so capable. The outfit Camilla had selected for him was waiting patiently on the bed.
Camilla took one last look behind her, glancing at the end chair where she’d be sitting beside the man who’d strode into Naomi’s life and assumed pole position. There are things about him you don’t know. Well, whatever secrets Nathan Stone was hiding, Camilla thought at she left the room, she was going to dig them up.
<><><>
There was a crisis from the outset, a very unexpected one. At twenty to seven with everything on track – though not a single guest had arrived, including Naomi – Camilla dragged herself from her seating plan and the placing of the table tags, to investigate a commotion in the hall. Unusually, Lorie was agitated with somebody, which drew Camilla from the dining room. The musicians had arrived. One of the four was Tom Butterworth.
After observing for a moment and taking in the details, Camilla said, softly, ‘I’ll deal with this, Loretta.’ Camilla, dressed and ready for the evening, felt it only appropriate that her speaking voice should reflect her appearance.
Lorie turned. ‘Camilla, I’m so sorry. I had no idea Tom was part of the group. I can show him the door.’
‘Which may be a dreadful mistake,’ Camilla said, as she weighed up two boys, two girls, who were standing looking sheepish and embarrassed, clutching their instruments and their music stands to their bodies as if they weren’t sure there was a point putting them down.
‘But Tom – ’
‘I know all about Tom,’ Camilla said, eyeing him, letting him know that whatever tricks he’d performed in her home in the past, had not been forgotten. When Tom shifted his stare, Camilla turned her attention to Lorie. ‘You have to understand that viola players are an essential part of a string quartet and don’t grow on trees. It isn’t going to be possible to replace him at this stage.’
Lorie’s cheeks were slightly flushed. Her hair, normally up during the day, was long and full and she was beautifully dressed in a fitted knee-length low-cut dress that was tangerine-red, like her lip colour.
‘I’ll check on the chef,’ Lorie said, heading for the kitchen. Camilla returned her eyes to Tom Butterworth. He couldn’t stand it and flicked concentrated glances to the floor. The other three stood still, utterly confused.
‘Look, Mrs Hamilton,’ Tom began, trying to align a steady gaze. ‘I only knew we had a booking for tonight. Until I got in the car, I didn’t even know where it was. I’m sorry – ’
‘Please,’ Camilla cut in, one hand raised. ‘Naomi will be here at any moment with her . . .’ Camilla tried to smile, then gave up . . . ‘young man, and I don’t want a scene. As you’ll realise, my daughters turn nineteen today and tomorrow and you are here to create an atmosphere conducive to a pleasant evening. Please don’t try to speak to either of them. If that’s agreed, I see no reason why we can’t proceed as planned. Can you do your job without distraction?’
He nodded uncertainly. ‘Yes.’
Camilla indicated that they should follow her. ‘Very well, then. I’ll show you to the dining room so you can set up. Music to begin promptly at six fifty-five please. I hope you haven’t brought that dreadful Cannon in D by Pachelbel.’
Nobody responded. Camilla pictured the exchanges of glances behind her. ‘I suspected as much,’ she said, looking behind to check they were still following. They were. Plus, they were looking very worried. ‘It isn’t a favourite of Naomi’s, or mine,’ she said, stopping at the door, allowing them to pass into the dining room. ‘If you’ll set up in that corner,’ she said, indicating the area furthest from where Naomi would be sitting opposite Nathan. ‘I’ll leave you to tune up. Back to the tables if you would, Tim.’
<><><>
It was the first time Naomi had been home in weeks. Nervous for obvious reasons, she directed Nathan through the open gates and down the drive at quarter to seven. Bridget, Megan and Madeline would be travelling together in a taxi, and had grudgingly agreed that Siobhan could share the ride. Naomi didn’t know who was at the house, but having already done her hair and makeup, she planned to sneak in through the back door and change into one of three evening dresses. Having cut her shopping trip short, she hadn’t bought a new one.
It amazed her that Nathan, looking divine in a black suit and plain grey tie, showed no evidence of nerves. Imagining things the other way round and Naomi approaching Nathan’s house under the same circumstances, she knew she wouldn’t be coping half as well.
Nathan reached for her hand and squeezed gently. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said with a reassuring smile and sideways glance. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘I’ll be glad when it’s over,’ Naomi blurted out.
Nathan said nothing until he’d pulled up in front of the house and killed the engine.
‘The mansion,’ he muttered.
‘Is it what you imagined?’
‘Exactly.’ Nathan turned his body and his attention to Naomi, and his back to the house. ‘Listen to me. This is your birthday. You won’t see Annie for a while after tonight. The whole thing will be costing a small fortune. I’m sure your mum will put her own feelings to one side tonight to make it special for you two. There’s nothing to worry about,
OK?’
Naomi looked at him and some calm returned. She still hadn’t told Annie about Nathan. There was something else bothering her more.
‘You OK?’ Nathan asked. Naomi realised she’d been quiet for a while.
‘I need to tell you something.’
Nathan took her hand again and held it. ‘Sure, what is it? You look upset.’
‘Well it’s really freaking me out. Nothing’s happened. Not yet.’ Naomi paused. Nathan waited. ‘Someone’s following me.’
‘What?’ Nathan swallowed. ‘Who? When?’
‘You remember the guy who was eyeing us when we came out of the college that time?’
Nathan’s eyes searched the roof of the car. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘Him. Yesterday, I saw him while I was out shopping. He followed me until I noticed him, then he took off and I followed him. I lost him, then next thing he had hold of my arm. He said he had a message for me, but didn’t give me one, he just left. It scared me half to death. It was a relief to get away from Manchester today.’
Nathan’s face had hardened. ‘Is he a student? Anyone you know?’
‘No. I have no idea what he wants. He turned up at college with a knife not long ago. Huge guy.’
Either Side of Midnight Page 20