by India Grey
She held out the bottle to him. He took it, but didn’t drink, instead setting it down on top of the Winterton tomb. ‘So, Rachel, what’s so bad that you’re reduced to sitting out here in the freezing cold drinking with the dead?’
She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘You do not want to know.’
She was right. He didn’t. His own suffering was enough to occupy him on a full-time basis. So why did he find himself saying, ‘I usually decide for myself what I want and what I don’t want.’
Rachel looked up at him. He was staring straight ahead, and there was something in the dark stillness of his face that made her want very much to confide in him.
‘I’m getting married,’ she said desolately. ‘Today.’
She saw one dark brow shoot up before his face regained its habitual blankness. ‘Is that all? Congratulations.’
‘Uh-uh. It’s not a “congratulations” situation. It’s…’
Her voice trailed off as she tried to convey the awfulness of what lay ahead. This afternoon, standing in church before people she mostly neither knew nor cared about making vows she didn’t mean…And worse, much worse, knowing that tonight she and Carlos would be man and wife, with all the expectations that carried.
Orlando Winterton shrugged his broad, dark shoulders, his gaze fixed straight ahead. He looked so distant, so controlled, so very, very strong that she felt her chest lurch. How could he understand? She couldn’t imagine that this man had ever bowed to the will of anyone else in his life.
‘Weddings don’t generally happen by accident or without warning. Presumably you had some say in it?’ He levered himself up from the gravestone and, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, began to move away.
‘No,’ she said in a low voice.
There was something in the way that she said it that made Orlando stop, turn, and walk back towards her. His deep-set slanting eyes were the most extraordinary clear green, she noticed, and he had a strange, intense way of looking at her, his head tilted backwards slightly in an attitude of distant hauteur.
‘You’re being forced into this?’
Rachel sighed heavily. ‘Well, there’s no gun against my head…But, yes. Forced pretty much covers it.’
The last thing he wanted to do was get involved, but his sense of duty, dormant for a year beneath self-pity and bitterness, had seemingly chosen this moment to rouse itself. Wearily he rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘In what way?’
‘There’s no way out,’ she said slowly. ‘No Plan B. No choice. This wedding is the culmination of a lifetime of work by my mother.’ She laughed. ‘If I don’t go through with it she’ll probably kill me.’
But that was almost preferable to what Carlos would do to her if she stayed and married him. She knew, because he’d done it to her already.
‘You can’t get married to please your mother.’
The words were laced with scorn, and Rachel felt her head snap back as if she’d just had an ice cube dropped down her spine.
‘You don’t know my mother. She’s…’
She hesitated, shaking her head, trying to find a word for Elizabeth Campion’s single-minded obsession with her daughter’s musical career; the combination of guile and icy manipulation that would have made Machiavelli green with envy, which had enabled her to bring about the ultimate coup in the form of Rachel’s engagement to Carlos Vincente, one of the industry’s most influential conductors.
‘What? A convicted killer?’ Orlando’s voice was hard and mocking. ‘A cold-blooded psychopath? Head of a crack team of hired assassins?’
His cruelty made her gasp. ‘No, of course not. But—’ It was impossible to keep the desperation out of her voice. She so badly wanted to make him see what she was up against, but the words darted around in her head, refusing to be pinned down, while all the time he held her in that cool, detached gaze. ‘Oh, what’s the point? Just forget it. I can’t make you understand, so there’s no point in trying. Please, just leave me alone!’
‘To drink yourself into a stupor? If that’s what you want…’
He turned away, and Rachel felt a surge of panic. She had to grip the stony folds of the angel’s robes to stop herself from reaching out to hold him back. It was ridiculous, of course; he was nothing more than a passing stranger. But something about the intensity in his face, the bleak self-control in his voice, the immense strength in his shoulders, had made her believe for a moment that he could help her.
Rescue her.
‘It’s not what I want, but I have no choice!’
He stopped and slowly faced her again. He seemed to look right past her face and into her soul.
‘Of course you do. You’re young. You’re alive,’ he said with ironic emphasis, gesturing with one elegant hand towards his brother’s grave. ‘I’d say you have a choice. What you really lack, Rachel, is courage.’
Rachel felt her mouth open in shock and outrage as she watched him walk away. He moved slowly, almost wearily, in spite of his endlessly long legs and athletic build.
He knew nothing—nothing about her. How dared he say she lacked courage?
He was way off the mark. Wasn’t he?
Courage. Mentally she examined the word. It wasn’t a quality she’d ever been taught to value or develop. Obedience, yes. Discipline, perseverance, patience, selflessness—yes, yes, yes, yes…
Not courage. Courage had always seemed like just another word for selfishness.
Orlando Winterton disappeared from view through the gate to the road, and a moment later she heard the roar of a car engine starting up. Straining forwards, she saw a low dark sports car speed past in a shower of gravel and take the unmarked turning to the left of the churchyard. In the silence following its disappearance she was suddenly aware that she was gripping the carved robes of the angel so hard her short fingernails ached.
She felt bereft.
Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to remember the feeling of his hands on her arms, and the moment when she had been held against his chest. She felt again the roughness of his thick woollen sweater against her cheek, smelled the warm, faint tang of expensive aftershave that had clung to the collar of his long, exquisitely tailored black coat.
In that moment she’d felt as if she was safe. As if she’d come home. As if she’d finally found the shadowy figure she’d spent her childhood yearning for—the one man who would protect her from—
‘Rachel!’
Her eyes flew open as she recognised her mother’s voice, and without thinking she darted back into the cover of the yew tree, hiding behind the vast slab of stone beside her. For a moment all was silent as she crouched there, her heart pounding inside her chest, her cheek resting against the chilly stone where Felix Winterton’s name was carved.
‘Rachel!’
The voice was closer now, and Rachel knew only too well its shrill note of exasperation. I’m twenty-three years old and here I am, hiding from my mother like a naughty child. She squeezed her eyes shut and suddenly the face of Orlando Winterton swam into focus in the darkness, with that hard, bleak smile of his.
What you really lack is courage.
She hesitated, then stood up slowly.
Dressed in a figure-hugging pink velour tracksuit and last night’s high-heeled mules, Elizabeth Campion was making her way in Rachel’s direction with unerring accuracy, and the expression on her well-maintained face was murderous.
‘I’m here.’
For a wonderful moment Elizabeth was lost for words as she watched her daughter emerge from the shadow of the monument, then the full force of her fury was unleashed.
‘What in heaven’s name are you doing?’
Rachel steeled herself against Elizabeth’s indignant screech, letting her mind return to the last person who had asked her that. Except that Orlando Winterton hadn’t said ‘heaven’. She pictured his dark, tormented expression, concentrated on reproducing in her mind the exact gritty rasp of his voice as he had said ‘hell’.
‘Well? I’m waiting!’
With huge effort Rachel dragged herself back to her mother. ‘I went for a walk.’
‘You went for a walk?’ repeated Elizabeth, like an apoplectic parrot. ‘Saints preserve us! Why do you have to be so selfish, Rachel? Today of all days? Haven’t I got enough to do with all the wedding arrangements, without having to chase around after you as well because you’re just too selfish and immature to get yourself organised? Hmm?’
Reaching the path, Rachel opened her mouth to reply, but her mother had only paused for breath and wasn’t actually expecting an answer.
‘Carlos phoned. I had to tell him you were in the bath. Lord only knows what he’d say if he knew that you’d gone for a walk.’ She made it sound as if Rachel had been skateboarding down the motorway.
‘I thought it was bad luck for the groom to speak to the bride before the wedding?’ said Rachel sarcastically. ‘I’d hate anything to spoil our chances of a wonderful happy-ever-after.’
Her mother threw her a venomous glance. ‘Don’t you dare start all that now, young lady,’ she hissed. ‘You’ll do well to remember how lucky you are to be marrying Carlos.’
Rachel stopped and swung round to face her mother. ‘Rubbish! He couldn’t give a damn about me! He doesn’t love—’
‘Shut up! Just shut up!’ Elizabeth’s face was contorted with rage. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you? Well, let me tell you something, Rachel. Love is nothing but a silly fantasy. It means nothing. Nothing! Your father told me he loved me, and where did that get me? I nearly died giving him a baby he didn’t even stay around to watch grow up. Love doesn’t bring you security.’
Rachel felt a jolt as the word lodged in her brain like a bullet hitting the bullseye. For a moment she felt dazed and disorientated as conflicting images and sensations raced through her head. Orlando’s hands on her arms, holding her up. Carlos’s fingers digging into her thighs, hard and insistent, on that awful night in Vienna when he—
She had survived by ruthlessly separating herself from the person who had endured all that. That was Rachel Campion, disciplined pianist, obedient fiancée, dutiful daughter. Not the real her. But the trouble was it was getting increasingly difficult to remember who the real Rachel was.
She’d caught a glimpse of her back there in the graveyard. She was someone who wanted to be courageous. And secure.
She went back into the house and closed the door very quietly behind her.
CHAPTER TWO
AS HE passed the gatehouse into the long straight drive up to Easton Hall, Orlando put his foot down and felt the world fall away in a dizzying rush. The frustration and fury that had needled him on the short drive home was temporarily anaesthetised in the blissful blur of speed.
This was the place where he and Felix had raced—first on their bikes as small boys, then later on horseback and motorbikes. It was here that, returning home for his twenty-first, Felix’s brand-new Alpha Romeo had been written off as Orlando had overtaken him and forced him into the moat.
Their rivalry had been as strong as their love for each other.
Protected by birth and privilege, made arrogant by wealth and good looks, they had thought they were invincible. But all it had meant in the end was that they’d had further to fall. All the money in the world, an unblemished bloodline and the looks of an angel hadn’t protected Felix from a rocket attack in his Typhoon, and the lottery of genes that had made up Orlando’s perfect face was now destroying his sight.
There was a certain biblical morality to it.
All too soon Orlando reached the bridge across the old moat and had to slow down. The drive narrowed as it passed through the high gateposts to Easton Hall, and he drove more carefully round the house to the garages at the back. Bringing the car to a standstill in the brick-paved courtyard that had once housed grand carriages, he let his head fall forward to rest on the steering wheel. His hands still held it, as if he couldn’t bear to let go, to take the keys out of the ignition for the last time.
He was giving up his independence.
He felt his mouth jerk into an ironic smile as he thought of the girl in the graveyard. He’d been harsh with her, but her helpless distress had been like acid in his own open wounds. She could take control of her situation. For him, control was inexorably slipping from him, with the inevitability of day sliding into night; there was nothing, nothing he could do. And this was the first measure of his failure. Slowly he opened the door and got stiffly out, blinking in the thin grey light.
‘Will you be needing the car again today, sir?’
Orlando hadn’t seen the man emerge from the doorway of one of the outbuildings, but he recognised his voice easily enough. George had worked for Lord Ashbroke since Orlando and Felix were children.
‘No.’ Not today. Not ever.
Soon, Orlando supposed, he would have to tell George. Ask him to take on the duties of a chauffeur.
‘Shall I put her away for you?’
‘Thanks.’ Orlando took the keys from the ignition and let his fingers close around them tightly for a moment. Then he tossed them in George’s direction and walked across the yard into the house.
‘There. You look lovely, darling.’ Elizabeth Campion’s hands fluttered around Rachel’s face like tiny birds, smoothing a wayward curl here, teasing a fold of frothy lace there. The church bells seemed horribly loud, pealing out their tumbling scales with a threatening leer, but at least it made conversation unnecessary.
Beneath the shroud of her veil Rachel stood impassive.
She was glad of the veil. It separated her from the rest of the world in a way that seemed particularly appropriate, filtering out the unwelcome ministrations of her mother, screening her own increasingly desperate thoughts and emotions from view. In the mirror her reflection was smooth and expressionless, with its pure, blanked-out face.
‘Right, then. I’d better go over to church,’ Elizabeth said brightly, as she checked her watch and gave Rachel’s dress a last little tweak. Chosen by Carlos, it was cut in the Empire style of a regency heroine—which, Carlos had said, would charm the Americans when she sat at the piano later. Elizabeth handed her a bouquet of waxy white flowers. ‘Here, don’t forget these. Now, wait until the verger comes across to get you. And then it’s your big moment! For God’s sake see if you can manage a smile, darling, please…’
The shrouded figure in the mirror nodded almost imperceptibly. Elizabeth bustled around, adjusting her large peacock-blue hat, spritzing on another cloud of perfume, picking up a pair of black gloves and thrusting her hands into them like a surgeon preparing to cut, before finally reaching the door.
She stopped, and Rachel felt herself go very still, waiting for a sign or a word that would mean all this could be stopped. Elizabeth’s face was thoughtful.
‘Such a shame your father didn’t have the decency to stay around for this. It’s the one day of his life when he could have made himself useful. Oh, well, darling. The verger’s a very nice man. He’ll be about ten minutes, I should think.’
Then she was gone.
A gust of air from the door rippled Rachel’s veil.
Beneath it, Rachel felt as if she was choking. Fury and despair swelled inside her, and without thinking what she was doing she found herself tearing off the veil as a series of shuddering sobs ripped through her.
She had to get away.
Glancing wildly around her, she picked up the keys to the car Carlos had bought her as an engagement present. She had always felt the gesture had been akin to putting a caged bird beside an open window, but suddenly it was as if the door to her cage had been left open and she had one fleeting chance to fly.
She ran down the stairs, her wedding shoes clattering on the polished wood, her breath coming in shaky gasps. Fumbling with the catch on the front door, she peered out for a second, before throwing it open and rushing across the gravel to the car.
Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly turn the key i
n the ignition, and then, when she did manage to start the engine, she shot forward with a sickeningly loud shower of gravel. She didn’t dare look up at the house as she accelerated out of the drive and onto the road, wincing as she made the tyres squeal on the tarmac in her panic to get away. Whimpering quietly, she cast an anxious glance in the mirror, half expecting to see Carlos run out onto the drive of The Old Rectory, or her mother appear at the roadside, a bright flash of peacock-blue in the February gloom.
The main entrance to the church where all the guests had gathered was around the other side, but still the road seemed horribly exposed, and almost without thinking she found herself taking the narrow turning alongside the church, down which she’d watched Orlando Winterton drive that morning.
It was a single-track road, overhung with high hedges and spiked, naked branches of hawthorn that made it almost like driving through a tunnel. She leaned forward over the steering wheel, gripping it so hard that sharp arrows of pain vibrated along the taut tendons of her hands and down her wrists.
Behind her, the peal of bells echoed eerily through the leaden air, and the sound made her press her foot harder on the accelerator, trying to put as much distance between her and the church as quickly as possible. Ahead of her the lane twisted around blind bends, making it impossible to get any idea of where she was going. She hadn’t even thought of that. Where was she going?
In fact, where was she? Panic pumped through her in icy bursts. Looking around her wildly, she wondered whether anyone had realised she was gone yet. Would the verger have found her missing by now? Maybe it wasn’t too late to go back. No one would have to know. All she had to do was find somewhere to turn round in this godforsaken lane. She could slip in as quietly as she’d left, replace the veil, and let the rest of her life continue as planned.
