Hidden Love

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘And who opened your cage?’ she returned sweetly.

  ‘Why, you little—’

  ‘Please stop,’ Rachel sighed wearily, ‘both of you. Let’s go, Hilary,’ and she stood up.

  Danny looked up with a sneer. ‘Didn’t last very long, did you?’ he mocked.

  ‘Drop dead!’ Hilary snapped.

  His mocking laughter followed them from the room. Rachel had no idea how she was going to get through the rest of the day, wishing she could just crawl into bed and sleep until this mess was over, one way or the other. The next couple of months were really going to drag.

  ‘Cheer up,’ Hilary encouraged gently. ‘I’m sure it can’t be that bad.’

  ‘It’s worse!’ Rachel’s shoulders drooped dejectedly.

  ‘Want to tell me?’

  ‘Not really,’ she shook her head regretfully. ‘But thanks, anyway, Hilary.’

  Her friend shrugged. ‘Any time you need a shoulder to cry on…’

  ‘I’ll come to you.’ She gave a wan smile.

  That time could come all too soon! She had been so naïve, so trusting, that it hadn’t occurred to her that when Nick said he needed her, that he wanted to be with her last night, that he had meant all night.

  And if her worst fears should be realised, if there should be a baby, she would have the terrible job of telling her parents. Not that she had any doubts about their support, but she would still have to tell them.

  Somehow she got through the day, although if the next few weeks continued as badly as today she was going to fail her end-of-year exams in a couple of weeks.

  ‘This ought to cheer you up,’ Hilary whispered as they left the college that evening.

  ‘Mm?’ Rachel answered her friend vaguely.

  ‘Look over there!’ Hilary said excitedly.

  She followed her friend’s line of vision, stiffening as she recognised Nick leaning against the red Jaguar. He seemed to see her at about the same time, and straightened away from the car to come towards her, his expression grim.

  Her first instinct was to turn and run, but pride took over and she stood her ground, eyeing him defiantly. If he was here for a fight then she was ready for him!

  ‘Hilary,’ he spoke to her friend first.

  ‘Mr St Clare,’ she answered excitedly.

  Now he turned to Rachel, his eyes narrowed to blue slits. ‘Are you ready to leave?’ he asked her coldly.

  ‘I—’

  ‘Perhaps we can give you a lift today, Hilary?’ Once again he ignored Rachel.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she accepted eagerly.

  ‘Rachel?’ His voice cooled.

  He had put her in a position where she couldn’t refuse—and he knew it! ‘Ready,’ she accepted distantly. ‘Hilary and I have some work to go through together, so if you could just drop us both off at her house?’ She ignored her friend’s gaping look, meeting Nick’s gaze unflinchingly.

  He opened the car door for her and Hilary to get in. ‘Your parents are expecting us,’ he returned smoothly, slamming the door after her before going round to get in behind the wheel.

  Rachel suddenly felt breathless, turning to him anxiously as he started the engine with a roar. ‘My parents?’ she demanded worriedly.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered abruptly, shooting a warning look in Hilary’s direction.

  She bit her lip, realising the need for caution. ‘You’ve seen my parents?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve just left them.’

  Heavens, if he had said anything to them…! But he wouldn’t have done. He must have just gone to see her and as before they had told him she was at college.

  Nevertheless, she waited impatiently for the time when they were alone, wanting to know exactly what had been said when he met her parents earlier.

  ‘See you on Monday,’ she told Hilary absently as her friend got out out of the car.

  Nick’s expression was forbidding as they drove on to her home, the easy charm with which he had spoken to Hilary a few minutes earlier completely disappearing.

  ‘Mr St Clare—’ Rachel began.

  ‘Your formality is going to sound rather stupid when we get to your home,’ he mocked harshly.

  ‘I—Why?’ she asked warily.

  He shot her a look of indifference. ‘Because your parents are eagerly awaiting our return so that they can begin organising the wedding.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘WHAT do you mean?’ she gasped, her hands beginning to shake, her face taking on a sickly pallor.

  Nick shrugged. ‘You didn’t seem to have told your parents we were getting married, so I took it upon myself to inform them.’

  ‘No…’ she gave a weak cry of protest, the nightmare of yesterday now taking on terrifying proportions. ‘You had no right! I told you I wouldn’t marry you—’

  ‘And I told you that you would,’ he said grimly.

  She swallowed hard. ‘My parents—what did they say?’ Her eyes were huge in her pale face.

  ‘They were surprised—’

  ‘Surprised!’ she choked. ‘I’m sure they were more than that.’

  ‘A little disappointed too,’ Nick nodded. ‘That you hadn’t told them yourself.’

  ‘It isn’t the sort of thing one discusses over a cup of coffee,’ she said bitterly, looking down at her hands, tears in her eyes.

  His mouth tightened. ‘Just what do you think I’ve told your parents?’ he snapped.

  Two bright spots of colour appeared in her cheeks. ‘I—You—’

  ‘I haven’t told them I made love to you, if that’s what you think,’ he rasped.

  Hope shone in her smoky-grey eyes. ‘You haven’t?’

  ‘Of course I damn well haven’t,’ he said angrily, his jaw rigid. ‘The fewer people who know about that the better.’

  Rachel licked her lips, becoming more and more confused by the minute. ‘Then what did you tell them?’ she frowned.

  His mouth twisted. ‘That you and I are in love, that we want to be married before my tournament in Boston.’

  ‘But that isn’t true!’

  He shot her a contemptuous glance. ‘Your parents are very nice people, I think they would be a little shocked by the truth.’

  ‘No more shocked than they would be by that lie!’ Rachel’s eyes flashed.

  ‘No?’ he quirked one dark blond eyebrow. ‘Your parents think of you as their sweet innocent little girl,’ he taunted. ‘It wouldn’t even occur to them that you could have slept with a complete stranger.’

  ‘I—It just happened.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to marry you.’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ he laughed without humour. ‘But as I told you last night, you have no choice. A lot of men in my position might be prepared to take the risk, to pay up if necessary, but not me. I won’t have that for my child! I want this baby. You would have known my reaction if you’d known me better.’

  ‘I think you’re mad,’ she told him angrily. ‘What happened last night—happened. We don’t have to get married because of it.’

  ‘Don’t think I want you for my wife—’

  ‘Thank you!’ she snapped.

  ‘Because I don’t,’ he continued harshly.

  ‘And I don’t want you!’

  ‘No,’ he acknowledged hardly. ‘But it’s too late now. Much too late,’ he added softly.

  Rachel could see there was no arguing with him. Nothing she said would convince him not to marry her. He was a determined man, and that determination had something to do with the parents he kept referring to so bitterly.

  ‘My parents won’t believe we’ve fallen in love with each other,’ she mumbled.

  ‘They’d better,’ Nick said grimly.

  ‘But they won’t,’ she sighed. ‘Love doesn’t happen this way. We met four days ago—’

  ‘And your parents were married a week after their first meeting,’ he told her calmly.

  ‘They weren’t!’ she gasped.

  Nick eyed her frowningly, a
glint of humour in his deep blue eyes. ‘Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘No…’

  ‘Well, they were. Of course they were a little concerned about the fact that you’re only eighteen—your mother was in her twenties when they fell in love so suddenly—but I soon convinced them that we’re so deeply in love that we just can’t wait to get married, that I want to marry you before I leave for Boston next week.’

  ‘Next week?’ she squeaked.

  ‘Yes,’ he confirmed tersely.

  ‘But I can’t marry you next week!’

  ‘You will marry me next week,’ Nick said arrogantly, stopping the car outside her home before turning in his seat to look at her. ‘I’m not going to argue with you about this, Rachel, especially not in front of your parents. It would only upset them to know the truth, I’m sure you realise that?’

  She was trapped, Nick knew it, and so did she. But next week! She couldn’t become this man’s wife next week or any other time.

  ‘They would understand—’

  ‘No!’ Nick’s voice was harsh. ‘Not when I tell them I love you and want to marry you. This is the way it has to be, Rachel. And maybe you won’t find it so bad.’ He was suddenly dangerously, seductively close.

  Rachel fought the magnetism of that seduction. She had fallen for it once, but not again.

  Nick’s hand gently touched her parted lips, his thumb-tip moving erotically against their softness. ‘After all,’ he murmured throatily, ‘marriage does have its compensations.’

  Her breathing was suddenly ragged. ‘It does?’ Her voice was husky.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he nodded, his head lowering as his mouth took possession of hers.

  For all her resolved not to respond to him, for all her certainty that she hated him, she melted against him at the first touch of his lips, and heard a faint groan in his throat before he pulled her fiercely against him, devouring her mouth with a savagery that took both their breaths away.

  They were both breathing deeply by the time they broke apart. ‘Yes,’ Nick murmured, ‘it has its compensations.’

  Rachel was fast trying to gather her scattered wits. ‘And if I’m not pregnant?’

  His face became a harsh mask, deep lines etched beside his nose and mouth, as he thrust her away from him. ‘Then you get the hell back out of my life!’ he rasped.

  She flinched as if he had hit her, feeling sick at the vehemence in his face. Nick hated her, really hated her.

  ‘You look surprised,’ he scorned. ‘What did you expect, a declaration to love you no matter what?’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Maybe that’s as well,’ he swung out of the car, coming round to open her door for her, ‘because you’ll never get one from me.’ He kept a tight grip on her elbow as they went down the pathway to the house. ‘Your parents believe us to be in love, I hope you don’t do anything to make them doubt that.’

  The words were a warning, not that she needed them; she was too numb to do anything but accept her mother and father’s warm hugs of congratulations.

  ‘Although we tried to persuade Mr St Clare—Nick,’ her father amended at the other man’s look of displeasure, ‘we tried to persuade him to wait a while, give you both time to see if this is really what you want.’

  ‘I—’

  Nick’s arm came possessively about her shoulders. ‘We already know what we want. We want to belong to each other, don’t we, sweetheart?’ he looked down at Rachel.

  ‘Er—yes,’ she agreed huskily.

  ‘But it’s such short notice, dear,’ her mother fussed. ‘And you have your exams in two weeks’ time.’

  Rachel had forgotten all about the end-of-the-year exams!

  ‘I trust you aren’t one of these young men who disapprove of women having a career?’ Her father looked sternly at Nick.

  ‘Rachel must do whatever she thinks best,’ he answered stiffly.

  She knew what answer she was supposed to make, knew what Nick was silently willing her to say, and yet she couldn’t say it. Here was a way for her to get out of being with Nick, and she intended taking it.

  ‘I think I’d like to do the exams,’ she said clearly. ‘Of course it means we’ll have to delay the wedding—’

  ‘No!’ Nick cut in firmly.

  ‘No?’ She looked at him uncertainly.

  He shook his head, a warning glitter to his eyes. ‘Stay here and take your exams by all means, I’ll be pretty busy in Boston anyway. But the wedding will take place before I leave.’

  ‘Oh, but—’

  ‘Surely—’

  ‘It’s what we both want, isn’t it, honey?’ he prompted hardly, his fingers biting into her flesh.

  ‘I—Yes.’ The pressure eased on her shoulder.

  Her father frowned at her hesitation. ‘If you aren’t sure, Rachel, now is the time to say so—not after the wedding,’ he added lightly at Nick’s dark scowl. ‘You haven’t known each other long—’

  ‘Nick says you and Mummy only knew each other a week before you were married.’ Rachel still found this hard to believe. Her parents had always seemed so staid to her, every move, every decision, methodically thought out, that it seemed totally out of character to her that they should have acted so impetuously.

  Her father looked abashed. ‘We had no doubts, and your grandparents were emigrating to Australia. We didn’t have a lot of time to think about it.’

  ‘We feel the same way,’ Nick told him.

  ‘Ah, but you’re coming back—’

  ‘We want to be together now,’ Nick said firmly. ‘I hope you understand, Mr James,’ his voice softened, became persuasive rather than demanding. ‘We want to do what’s right, don’t want to act impetuously, that’s why the wedding has to be straight away.’

  Her father flushed at the clear meaning behind Nick’s words. ‘Rachel is very young,’ he said sternly. ‘But you’re a man of the world, surely able to control the situation.’

  Rachel was feeling very uncomfortable by this time, very embarrassed by the intimate turn of the conversation in front of her parents. How much more embarrassed she would have been if they had to be told she and Nick had already made love!

  The look Nick shot down at her was openly mocking, the expression quickly masked as once again he spoke to her father. ‘It’s purely because I am a man of the world that I know how dangerous this situation could be.’

  ‘I see,’ her father pursed his lips. ‘Rachel?’

  ‘I—’ Once again Nick’s fingers dug warningly into her flesh. ‘Nick and I want to get married,’ she said softly, looking down at her hands.

  ‘If you’re sure…?’

  She met her father’s gaze steadily. ‘I am.’

  He visibly relaxed. ‘Then we’d better start arranging the wedding,’ he smiled.

  Nick was triumphant as he looked down at her, and as the arrangements began to be discussed it became obvious that he already had most of it organised.

  ‘I never had a choice, did I?’ Rachel said bitterly as she walked him to his car a short time later, Nick having refused to stay to dinner, claiming a previous appointment with his coach.

  ‘No,’ he acknowledged grimly. ‘I’ll pick you-up at seven o’clock and we’ll go and see Kay, tell her the happy news.’

  She flinched at his contemptuous tone. ‘All right.’

  Nick’s eyes narrowed on her pale face. ‘You don’t look well.’

  ‘I don’t feel well.’

  His mouth twisted derisively. ‘It’s too early for morning sickness!’

  ‘I doubt I’ll have it,’ she flashed. ‘I doubt I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Then you’ll be able to divorce me, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll get an annulment.’

  ‘No way, Rachel,’ he scorned. ‘I may have to marry you, but I’m certainly not forgoing all the—pleasures of married life.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘You would expect a normal marriage?’

  ‘Of course. And you’re a fool if you ex
pected anything else.’

  She hadn’t even thought about it, that side of the marriage had not even occurred to her. ‘I don’t think—’

  ‘You won’t have to,’ Nick taunted.

  Rachel flushed. ‘God, I hope I’m not pregnant!’ she told him vehemently.

  ‘So do I,’ he said bitterly. ‘Believe me, so do I. Now maybe you’d better kiss me goodbye. And before you refuse I think you should know that your parents are standing at the window watching us. No, don’t look,’ he commanded at her involuntary movement. ‘The kiss, Rachel,’ he reminded her. ‘For your brand-new fiancé.’

  She had no choice, but she hated Nick’s manipulation of her as she stood on tiptoe to kiss him briefly on the lips.

  ‘Not very convincing,’ he taunted as she moved away.

  ‘It will have to do,’ she snapped moodily. ‘I would hardly go into a passionate clinch in the middle of the street!’

  ‘No, you save your passion for the bedroom, don’t you?’ He gave a humourless smile as she paled. ‘I’ll see you at seven o’clock.’

  Rachel walked slowly back into the house, dreading the next few minutes with her parents. But she needn’t have worried, they seemed convinced of the fact that she and Nick were deeply in love.

  His sister seemed convinced of it too when they visited her later that evening, she was very excited at the thought of her brother getting married.

  ‘I didn’t think he would ever take the plunge,’ she confided teasingly.

  ‘I doubt I would have done if I hadn’t met Rachel,’ Nick drawled.

  ‘I never thought my big brother would admit to love at first sight!’

  Rachel knew he was far from admitting that. Nick despised her for this enforced marriage, and he lost no opportunity to let her know that, taking digs at her whenever he got the chance.

  ‘Rachel is an original,’ he told his sister. ‘I’ve never met anyone quite like her before.’

  ‘And to think Eve and I brought you together!’ Kay smiled.

  ‘Oh, I think Rachel and I would have met anyway,’ he said dryly.

  ‘Fate, you mean?’

  ‘Something like that,’ he mocked.

  Rachel flushed uncomfortably. Nick might be bitter, but if he thought she wanted this marriage any more than he did then he was mistaken!