by India Grey
He straightened up and slammed the door, then waited until the car had pulled slowly away before he turned and went slowly up the steps to the hospital.
His head ached. Away from the familiarity of Easton, his reduced sight made every small thing a grinding challenge, so that just finding his way down the labyrinth of corridors towards the ward he was directed to triggered the same adrenaline surge he’d used to get during dangerous night-time search patterns over the North Sea.
He came to the end of a corridor, where it opened out into another high, elegant hallway. At the end was a desk. The nurse greeted him by name as he approached.
‘Ah…Monsieur Winterton? It’s good that you’re here. Mademoiselle de Ferrers has been asking for you.’
‘How is she?’
‘Well, physically she is improving, there is no reason why we shouldn’t discharge her in the next day or so, though mentally we are…concerned.’ Orlando detected a distinct edge of frosty disapproval in her tone. ‘She is finding it very difficult to come to terms with the fact that she will be scarred.’
Orlando felt as though an icy hand had closed around his throat. ‘Was it a car accident? Was she driving?’
The nurse had picked up a clipboard and was examining it. ‘No, monsieur. She had cosmetic surgery,’ she said tonelessly. ‘A breast-lift at an unregistered clinic in Switzerland. The surgeon was not aware that she had so recently had a child. It was too soon to do any kind of procedure, and unsurprisingly she suffered severe infection. She checked in here two days ago, and our doctors have done their best, but the scars may never disappear.’
The icy sensation dissolved, and was replaced by the much more familiar one of slow, burning anger. He managed a stiff smile.
‘Thank you for your help. Now—may I see her?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE car door was opened and Rachel got out stiffly. The hotel in front of her looked a lot like Buckingham Palace, she thought dimly. Or how Buckingham Palace would look if it had been made over by Parisian designers: authentically period, but at the same time outrageously cutting-edge and chic.
Perhaps to ensure she didn’t create a bad impression in the highly polished reception hall, in her faded jeans and ancient cashmere sweater, she was ushered straight to a room by a porter who looked as if he’d just stepped out of an advert for Armani suits in French Vogue. He carried the car seat as if it were an unexploded bomb, while in it Felix grizzled, and Rachel followed wordlessly, her mind so taken up with questions and suspicions that she hardly noticed the splendour of the halls and corridors they passed through.
What was Carlos up to?
Having delivered her to a suite the size of the average family home, the Armani porter dissolved away again. Rachel picked up Felix and looked slowly around her. The room in which she was standing was straight from a film set. Four tall sets of French windows opened out onto a wrought-iron balcony, each set framed by excessive amounts of sumptuous swagged silk. The walls were painted pale gold and inlaid with silk-damask panels, and the furniture was upholstered in the same shades of gold and ivory. The overall effect was swanky interior design magazine meets Madame Pompadour. Rachel wasn’t sure if she ought to be wearing a crinoline and a powdered wig, or designer hotpants and a feather boa.
The air was heavy with the scent of the hot-house flowers which were placed in fleshy arrangements on every polished surface. Opening a door at the far end of the room, she found herself facing an enormous bed, over which a cascade of grey and gold striped silk spilled down from an antique corona of twisted gilt leaves.
Miserably she surveyed it. It was almost indecently romantic—a bed for making joyous, decadent love in, she thought dully, for spending lazy, lust-drenched afternoons in and drinking vintage champagne…preferably from each other’s navels.
She turned away sharply as her mind veered straight back to last night, and her body obligingly provided an instant sensory replay. Darts of remembered bliss fizzed along her nerve endings as she recalled how he’d held her, running his brilliant, beautiful hands over her body, unleashing a storm of desire in her that had been almost violent in its intensity.
And the worst bit was, she couldn’t be sorry. Even knowing what she knew now, even being here, on her own in the most romantic city in the world, while he went to the bedside of the woman he loved, she couldn’t regret what they’d done.
Jiggling Felix absent-mindedly, she found herself standing in front of another closed door. She pushed it open, expecting perhaps a bathroom, and felt tears of self-pity spring to her eyes as she took in what it was.
Another bedroom, small and narrow this time, with a single bed covered in sensible blue and white check.
He’d booked a two-room suite. This must be her room.
The short, grey day was already giving way to night. Rachel had carefully measured out the afternoon by playing with Felix and giving him an early and much drawn out bath in the exquisite temple-like atmosphere of the en-suite bathroom, grateful for the sound of his squeals and gurgles in the oppressive atmosphere of such luxury. All the time her confused brain had ricocheted between tormenting thoughts of Orlando, sitting at Arabella’s bedside holding her hand, and needling thoughts of Carlos.
Eventually, driven to distraction by the incessant questions hurtling around her brain like leaves caught in a whirlwind, she seized the telephone and dialled Reception, nervously stammering out an enquiry about the concert that was being advertised and the possibility of obtaining tickets. There was a pause, during which she could only just hear the concierge tapping details into a computer over the hectic hammering of her heart, before he came back to say he was very sorry, but the concert was all sold out.
‘It is still going ahead, then?’ she confirmed weakly.
The voice at the other end sounded surprised. ‘Oui, mademoiselle.’
Rachel had only just replaced the receiver when the phone rang again. Thinking it was the concierge, telling her he’d enquired further and had discovered he was mistaken, she grabbed it eagerly. But this time he was telling her that a car was waiting for her downstairs.
The first thing she saw, before she’d even set foot in Arabella’s room in the hospital, was Orlando. He was asleep, stretched out on a square and uncomfortable-looking sofa opposite the doorway, with one arm falling to the floor like in the pre-Raphaelite painting of The Death of Chatterton.
Rachel stopped on the threshold as her heart jolted painfully against her ribs. Seeing him there gave her an extraordinary, powerful feeling of homesickness as well as longing. After the lonely hours in the gilded splendour of the hotel, the unfriendly city streets, in the strangeness of the hospital he looked achingly familiar. His head was thrown back, his dark hair falling away from a forehead that, in sleep, was smoothed of all its anger and its anguish. His beautiful lips were slightly parted, and one hand rested on his chest, his palm upturned, his fingers slightly curled.
Without thinking she crossed the room and, setting down Felix in his car seat, let her gaze travel over Orlando. There was a bone-deep ache inside her as she watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, the languid, almost imperceptible pulse in his neck. On the hand which lay across his chest she could see the still-raw scars on his fingers, and she was instantly transported back to the kitchen, to the breathless moment when she’d held him and his blood had run into her own hands and she’d felt his pain. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch him…
The next moment she almost jumped out of her skin as an amused, mocking voice came from the direction of the bed.
‘Darling, forgive me for intruding on this private act of worship, but I don’t believe we’ve met properly.’
Rachel whirled round. ‘Oh! Sorry! I was just…I mean, I didn’t…’ She was blushing furiously, aware that whatever she said was just going to make the situation worse. ‘Sorry. I’m Rachel.’
Arabella was sitting up against a mountain of snowy pillows, wearing a silk wrap bene
ath which Rachel could just see bandages covering her chest. Aside from that, she didn’t look ill at all. The eyes that were regarding Rachel so shrewdly were subtly made up with mascara and shadow. Through the fog of her humiliation Rachel noticed that they didn’t even flicker in Felix’s direction.
Arabella’s immaculately glossed mouth spread into a slow, incredulous smile. It was as if she had suddenly come across a winning lottery ticket in an old handbag. ‘Rachel,’ she said wonderingly. ‘Yes, of course. How amazing.’
‘Amazing? I’m sorry…I don’t know what you mean?’
Arabella gave a soft laugh, but her narrowed eyes never left Rachel’s face. ‘You’re too modest, Rachel. Far too modest. Here was I, thinking you were some sweet local girl Orlando had unearthed at Easton, but you’re not, are you? Far from it—you’re Rachel Campion, concert pianist and, according to those in the know, the Next Big Thing.’
Rachel shook her head emphatically, unaware that she was edging towards the door. ‘No,’ she protested. ‘Uh-uh. Not any more.’
‘What do you mean? You’re the toast of Paris, darling. Your face is on every street corner in the city advertising this spectacular concert. Soon, isn’t it?’
‘No. I mean, yes, the concert’s tomorrow. But…’ Rachel shook her head, struggling to maintain her grip on this conversation. ‘I’m not doing it. I…left my management. The concert should have been cancelled—I’m sure it has been, in fact…They just haven’t taken down the posters…’
Arabella cut through her stuttering resistance. ‘I don’t think so, angel. Some friends of mine have tickets. And surely you’re under contractual obligation to go through with it, anyway?’ Her pretty, pointed face still wore an expression of avid fascination which Rachel found sinister. She wanted to cover her ears with her hands and close her eyes to block out what Arabella was saying. Contractual obligation? she thought wildly. What did that mean?
‘Darling, do sit down so we can talk properly.’ Arabella patted the bed beside her and gave a throaty laugh. ‘I’d hate to wake Sleeping Beauty over there—and, Lord, what a beauty he is. Of course that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve turned your back on your fabulous but no doubt very demanding career? You’ve fallen in love with him, haven’t you? Don’t bother denying it, sweetie, because it’s absolutely pointless, I’m afraid. It’s written all over you.’
Rachel turned her head away. Her eyes were drawn back to Orlando’s lean, elegant form on the sofa. She was suddenly too tired and too confused to think or argue any more, and she felt the denial that had sprung to her lips wither and die there.
‘I’m so sorry…’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘Oh, darling, don’t be silly!’ Arabella’s voice was full of concern. ‘It’s I who should be saying that to you. Love’s never easy at the best of times, and loving Orlando Winterton…Well, let’s just say you’re not the first to get your fingers burned in that particular fire.’ She paused, then added abruptly, ‘I suppose you’ve slept with him?’
Looking down into her lap, Rachel nodded miserably, so missed the glint of malice in Arabella’s eyes.
‘Oh, dear. And that must have given you hope that your feelings were reciprocated?’ Arabella reached out a hand and tucked a strand of hair behind Rachel’s ear. ‘Well, there’s no easy way to say this, angel—but I hate to see such a lovely and talented girl throw her life away on a lost cause, so I’m going to be utterly straight with you. I want Orlando and I to give things another go. For Felix’s sake.’
Rachel closed her eyes and felt her whole body tense as Arabella’s words penetrated the fog of confusion in her head.
‘Now, don’t get me wrong,’ she continued. ‘I really don’t believe in couples staying together just for the sake of the children—especially if one of them is in love with someone else. But the thing is, Rachel darling…I don’t think that’s the case here. Has Orlando told you that he loves you?
Rachel shook her head dumbly as hot, stinging tears gathered in her eyes and began to overspill.
‘No.’ Arabella held her hands up apologetically. ‘Stupid question. You’ve hardly known each other any time, and Orlando’s hardly the type to use the word freely. I think it took him a good year to finally say it to me.’ She eyed Rachel thoughtfully, an expression of extreme solicitousness on her face. ‘There’s one thing, of course, with Orlando. One thing that’s absolutely key to understanding him. He’s intensely proud, as you may have guessed, and intensely private. But he will take down those barriers for people that he cares about. People he really cares about.’
This whole encounter had taken on a nightmarish dimension. Rachel half expected Carlos to appear in a puff of smoke, like a pantomime villain. Only the persistent throbbing in her head and the dull ache in her chest told her that this was real. That she couldn’t just open her eyes and make the sound of Arabella’s husky, insistent voice fade back into the shadows.
‘There’s something you should know about him, Rachel—something I think that, if he had any plans at all to include you in his future, he would have told you…’ She paused dramatically, fixing her piercing blue eyes on Rachel, watching her intently. ‘He’s going blind.’
‘I know.’ Rachel lifted her gaze to Arabella’s and for a moment saw a flash of surprise there. ‘I found out by accident. I borrowed his car…there was a leaflet in the glove compartment about it and it all fell into place…’
‘Ah. So he hasn’t told you himself?’
‘No,’ Rachel whispered.
‘Well, maybe he hasn’t had the chance?’
Rachel thoughts flew back, for the millionth time, to last night. He could have told her then. All the time they were having dinner, or upstairs in Felix’s room, he could have told her. She shook her head slowly. Arabella’s hand came out and covered hers.
‘Of course, it doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t love you,’ she said carefully. ‘It’s just that it is a fairly major thing to keep from someone if you intend to be around them for any length of time, isn’t it? It’s so awful for him—we’ve had a long talk about it this evening…He says it’s got worse lately. It’s a degenerative condition—maybe you know that from the leaflet? It affects only the central part of the eye, which is why he can still maintain such a damned good impression of normality, but he can’t see anything in the middle of his vision.’ She gave a little regretful pout. ‘Which means, my darling, that he’s never seen your pretty face. I’m sure if he had he would have fallen in love with you on the spot.’
Sorrow and hurt were bunching up inside Rachel, making it difficult to breathe. She wanted desperately to snatch her hand away from its imprisonment in Arabella’s cool grip, but felt oddly powerless. Events just kept coming at her, like a succession of waves battering an exhausted swimmer who wasn’t sure she had the will to stay afloat any more.
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ she said through dry lips. ‘It’s you he loves, Arabella. I’ve known it all along.’
Arabella’s mouth quirked into a smile of satisfaction as she leaned back on her bank of pillows. ‘I don’t know about that,’ she said girlishly, twisting a lock of her streaky blonde hair round a finger. ‘But, yes, in his own way I think he does. Anyway, I think we can make it work. For Felix. It’s so important for him to grow up in a family environment, I think—which is why, if Orlando hadn’t come back, I would have taken Felix to Brazil.’
‘Brazil?’ Rachel echoed faintly, her heart thudding.
‘Yes. My family all live there, and he would be surrounded by cousins and aunts and uncles…which of course are no substitute for a father.’
Her blue eyes bored into Rachel’s with meaningful intensity, and with a shiver of disgust Rachel recognised the veiled threat behind the words. If Orlando didn’t go back to Arabella, she would take his son to the other side of the world.
Pulling her hand away, Rachel stood up. She found herself instinctively drawn back to Orlando. She couldn’t help i
t. Right from the moment she’d first seen him she’d felt somehow that he represented home for her. Without him she felt utterly directionless.
Right on cue, Arabella spoke. ‘So, what about you, darling? What will you do now? I think, in a way, all of this has worked out rather well. Your concert—your big break—is tomorrow. There’s still time to go back, sweetie, isn’t there?’
‘But I can’t. I still have Felix to look after—’
‘Oh, don’t be silly! You don’t think I’d be cruel enough to make you stay on as nanny now, darling? Of course not—Orlando and I will manage. Together.’
‘Oh.’ Humiliatingly, Rachel felt her face crumple as sobs shook her body. ‘In that case…I don’t know. I can’t think…’
‘Well,’ said Arabella firmly, ‘I think you should go to the hotel now and get a good night’s sleep. And then in the morning you can come back here and we’ll talk about it. All right?’
Mute with misery, Rachel nodded.
Deliberately, wanting to imprint the moment on her memory for ever, she reached out a hand and touched Orlando’s face. In sleep, the torment had left it, and he looked simply remote and heroic—one of King Arthur’s knights, awaiting the call to greatness again. Raising her fingers to her lips, she kissed them, and gently brushed her fingertips across his exquisite mouth.
Behind her, she heard Arabella give a little hiss of disapproval. When she spoke her voice was sharp. ‘Don’t wake him, sweetie. There’s a good girl. He’s obviously exhausted, and I just want him to have a chance to rest. I think that’s reasonable, don’t you, darling?’
A spark of anger glowed in the darkness of Rachel’s heart. Suddenly she wanted to turn round and shout at Arabella that it was her fault Orlando was tired, her fault for bringing him all this way when there wasn’t even anything much wrong with her. For a dizzying moment she closed her eyes and imagined the terrible relief of standing there and unleashing all her rage and resentment and bitterness and grief onto the smug figure in the bed, but then it passed, and she was left feeling just unbearably sad.
