Deceived (Harlequin Presents)

by Sara Craven

  ‘But not the kind I was expecting.’ Lydie bent her head. ‘I was so frightened for her. I—I didn’t see how Austin could possibly understand, let alone condone what she’d done.’

  ‘He loves her,’ Marius said quietly. ‘For better or worse. Through hell and high water.’

  His mouth twisted slightly. ‘But he also appreciates that my feelings towards her and past events are very different. And that even surface harmony between us is best maintained at a distance.’

  She said quietly, ‘She loves him too, Marius. I’m sure of it.’ She hesitated. ‘Not in the way, perhaps, that either of us would wish—’ her voice faltered a little ‘—but as much as she’s capable of.’

  After another pause she asked, ‘Did she explain—everything?’

  ‘I think so. She certainly exonerated you completely, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth when I first accused you, Lydie? Was it to protect her?’

  She moved restively. ‘Partly, I suppose. I knew something was terribly wrong. And also—I didn’t think you’d believe me. After all, a simple denial wouldn’t have meant a thing against all that evidence.’

  She traced the pattern on her coffee-mug with a fingertip, before adding carefully, ‘Besides, you’d had five years to convince yourself that I was guilty. You can’t undo that kind of mischief in a few minutes.’

  ‘It wasn’t just one-sided, Lydie,’ he said quietly.

  ‘No.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’d had to live with the idea that you’d been unfaithful. That you’d said and done all the same things to some stranger—and that she’d had your baby—’

  She stopped abruptly, afraid that she’d let him see too much. ‘But it’s water under the bridge, isn’t it?’ she went on hurriedly. ‘We—we can’t wipe out the past. Only be sure we won’t make the same mistakes again.’

  ‘I intend to be quite certain of that.’ Marius paused. ‘You didn’t help your cause by dropping a cheque made out to Darrell Corbin in front of me.’

  That evening in the restaurant, she thought, when we seemed so close and then everything suddenly changed.

  She forced a smile. ‘We seem fated to misunderstand each other.’ To hurt and be hurt, she added silently and painfully.

  ‘I don’t think fate had much to do with it.’ His voice was dry. ‘What are you going to do, Lydie, once the gallery is sold?’

  She put her empty beaker in the sink and stood looking down at it. ‘That’s hardly your concern.’

  ‘But I’m asking just the same,’ he said levelly. ‘I don’t plan to spend the next five years wondering about you.’

  ‘Or even five minutes, I hope.’ There was an edge to her voice. ‘Marius, I think you’d better go. I don’t know why you came here...’

  ‘Don’t you? Then I’d better enlighten you. I came to you for the same reason I hoped you went to Greystones tonight. Because I couldn’t stay away.’

  ‘No.’ Her hands were gripping the edge of the sink so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. ‘You can’t say that. You mustn’t...’

  ‘I’ll say what I want.’ His voice was soft, with an undertone of steel. ‘That’s been the problem all along—too many silences. Both of us afraid to speak—to question—in case the answers destroyed us.

  ‘Well, those silences cost me five years in a hell of loneliness and bitterness, and I’m damned if I’ll let that happen again.’

  ‘I’d like you to go...’

  ‘Where?’ he demanded harshly. She hadn’t heard him move but he was suddenly there, standing right behind her, his hands gripping her shoulders. ‘Back to the wilderness of life without you? No chance.’

  ‘You came back for revenge.’ She tried to free herself to no avail. ‘You told me so yourself...’

  ‘And perhaps I even believed it—until I walked in here and saw you dancing towards me in that white and gold dress, like a lily swaying in the wind.’ He laughed shakily. ‘God, I was totally poleaxed. I told myself it was just the first shock of seeing you again—that it couldn’t possibly be anything else—anything deeper.’

  He drew a deep breath and she realised that he was trembling. ‘Not until you were standing in front of all those people, about to become engaged to another man, did I realise...

  ‘I tried to tell myself that he was welcome to you—that I was thankful to have any decision about you taken out of my hands. And all the time I could hear myself calling out to you as if I was drowning. Begging you to turn away from him and back to me. Just as I’m begging you now.

  ‘Because nothing’s made any difference—not the lies, the anger or the wasted years. Because I still love you—still need you as I need air to breathe. And I always will.’

  His hands were gentle but inexorable as he turned her to face him. ‘So, no matter where you go, or what you do, I’ll follow you, Lydie, my love—my dearest love—until I make you admit that it’s the same for you. That without each other there’ll be nothing but emptiness and regret.’

  ‘We can’t,’ she said in a half-whisper, hardly daring to believe—to hope. ‘Too much has happened...’

  ‘But only one thing that matters, Madonna Lily,’ he said softly. ‘That you and I have found each other again.’

  He bent his head and kissed her mouth with yearning and an aching tenderness.

  ‘Say it, Lydie,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘Tell me you love me. Don’t let the lies and the pain destroy us when we’ve been given this second chance.’

  She said with a little sob, ‘I tried so hard to stop loving you. Through all those lonely years, and even this past week. But I never could. Oh, Marius...’

  He swung her off her feet into his arms, his face alight with all the emotions she’d thought she would never see again. And she smiled back at him, her heart and soul in her eyes, as he carried her across the studio to the shadowed alcove and the waiting bed.

  He placed her on the coverlet with exquisite care and sank down beside her, his mouth warm and seeking, his hands deft on the fastenings of her sleeveless shirt and jeans. She helped him in his task, her body pliant and sensuous as he undressed her between kisses before swiftly stripping off his own clothing.

  They came together in a fierce, sweet intensity, with only the fever of their breathing to break the silence. The silence of intimacy instead of isolation.

  Nothing existed in the world but the force of his possession pulsating inside her, carrying her away on a glorious crescendo of sensation. And as she reached the sublime peak Lydie cried out in rapture and release, and heard his voice echo hers.

  A long time later he murmured, his head pillowed on her breasts, ‘Now you’ll have to marry me.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ There was a tremor of laughter in her voice as she tenderly stroked the dark, sweat-dampened hair back from his forehead. ‘Are you sure you don’t prefer Nadine Winton?’ She was, she realised, only half-joking. It was the final reassurance she needed.

  ‘She was a convenient smokescreen,’ Marius admitted unforgivably. ‘But Nadine is still in love with her ex-husband, who’s been making noises about a reconciliation. She asked me to meet her for a drink the other day and poured out the whole story.’

  ‘Will she go back to him?’

  He shrugged. ‘She wants to, but she’s afraid of being hurt all over again. She’s altogether more vulnerable than she appears.’

  ‘She’s not the only one.’ Lydie sighed. ‘There’s Nell and Jon—and Darrell Corbin too. What on earth’s going to happen to them?’

  ‘They have to solve their own problems,’ Marius told her firmly. ‘All that need concern us is our future together.’

  He reached for his discarded shirt and took her engagement ring from its breast pocket. ‘Give me your hand, Madonna Lily.’

  He slid the ring onto her finger and kissed it reverently. ‘From this day forward, darling.’ There was an infinity of tenderness in his voice. ‘Till death us d
o part.’ Lydie’s eyes were luminous as she laced her arms round his neck and drew him down to her.

  ‘Welcome home, my love,’ she whispered, and kissed him.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-6919-4

  DECEIVED

  First North American Publication 1997.

  Copyright © 1996 by Sara Craven.

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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