by Anne Mather
CHAPTER FIVE
THE sun had already disappeared far below the horizon when Jessica finally arrived back home …
…Back to the Manor House. She forced herself to amend the thought with a painful twist of her heart. This house was no longer her home and it never would be home to her again.
So where would she be able to call home? she wondered as she crossed the polished wooden floor of the hall, letting the big oak door slam to behind her with a resounding bang. She didn’t care if it disturbed Angelos, or dragged him away from whatever plans he was making to run the estate in the future. The heavy, echoing, almost sepulchral sound suited her gloomy mood and the depths of her new despair.
She hadn’t thought that today could get any worse, but she had been proved wrong. In fact it had gone downhill further and further with every moment that passed until now she had no idea which way to turn or where she might possibly end up. The future stretched ahead of her like a long, dark, dismal tunnel with no hint at all of any light at the end.
‘You’ve been out a long time.’
Angelos’s voice she had expected—she had fully anticipated that he would complain about the noise—but she hadn’t expected him to appear in the doorway of the library, a powerful dark form silhouetted against the light, and comment on her late return in a voice that sounded as critical and reproving as that of any parent. More than any parent, she reflected. Marty had never been like that.
‘I’ve been out all day, to be precise,’ she flung at him in a tone that made it plain she considered it no business of his. ‘Not that that has anything to do with you.’
If she expected to rile him, then she failed. She couldn’t see the expression on his shadowed face but his voice was quite calm and even when he replied.
‘I wasn’t sure if you planned to be home for dinner or not, so I asked Mrs Henderson to save something for you. Have you eaten?’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
She forced herself to say it though the truth was that she hadn’t touched a thing since—since the night before, she realised on a wave of shock. She’d left the house without breakfast and, after the way things had developed, she hadn’t been able to even think of putting food in her mouth. She would probably have choked trying to get it down—or brought it straight back up again as soon as she’d swallowed.
Angelos had changed his clothes, she realised. No longer dressed as casually as he had been earlier in the day, he was now wearing a fine white shirt and black trousers, a tailored jacket fitting his broad frame perfectly. The more formal clothing took her by surprise, making her pause to wonder if he had been expecting someone—and if so, who?
‘The boyfriend not with you?’
Angelos leaned one powerful shoulder against the door frame as he spoke, obviously relaxing in order to have a chat—and equally obviously determined not to take the broad hint in her tone and leave her alone as she wanted.
‘Fiancé,’ Jessica corrected automatically, fighting back the gasp that almost escaped her at the twist of pain deep inside as she did so. The terrible sense of betrayal was too new, too raw to allow her even to probe it herself, let alone reveal anything about it to the Black Angel.
‘And no, he’s not here. I didn’t think it would be exactly—proper to bring him back here without your permission. This is your house, after all.’
‘You don’t need my permission. And I would have been intrigued to meet him.’
The deliberate emphasis on that ‘intrigued’ caught on something raw in Jessica’s thoughts, but when she turned sharply to stare at Angelos his expression was bland and unrevealing, giving nothing away.
‘I don’t think that will happen for a long time. I won’t be inviting him back here …’
And not for any reason that Angelos might possibly expect.
‘And you’re getting married very soon—how long is it till the wedding?’
‘A month.’
Jessica had to force the words out, flat and low. The wedding day was supposed to be exactly a month from today. She had been so excited, so happy when she’d planned it. The future had seemed so bright, so full of promise. Now it simply seemed as if she had been stacking up her dominoes ready for fate to come along and knock them down.
First Marty, then Manorfield and now …
‘Mr Atkinson wasn’t what I expected.’
‘You were spying on me!’
It was a splutter of indignation—at least that was how she prayed that he heard it. The truth was that she hated the thought of those black, knowing eyes watching her awkward greeting of Chris, the struggle she had had to regain any degree of composure after the kiss that had sent her brain into meltdown. She could only imagine the grim satisfaction he had gained from seeing her stumbling behaviour, her awkward words.
And, even worse, she could imagine just what he would be thinking, the interpretation he would put on her flustered behaviour.
‘But are you engaged here …?’ he had said, touching her heart. And that was even before he’d kissed her. So what had he read in her face, in her eyes, that had told him something different?
‘Hardly spying,’ Angelos drawled and the faint touch of laughter in his voice stung with deliberate mockery. ‘The side windows of the conservatory look out over the courtyard. I could not miss seeing you.’
‘So what did you expect?’
‘Not some middle-aged father figure, that’s for sure!’
‘He’s not a father figure! And he’s not middle-aged! He’s—he’s …’
But she couldn’t go any further. The memory of Chris’s face, the bitter sting of his words destroyed her ability to think, to speak.
‘He’s what?’ Angelos challenged, leaving her in no doubt that he had caught the hesitation in her voice and was aiming right for the chink in her emotional armour that he believed he had found.
If only he knew. If only he realised that he had no need to attack.
‘He’s not like you!’ she snapped, not caring if she avoided the truth or even out and out lied. She only knew that she’d had enough of Angelos and his questions, of the cynically mocking tone, the sardonically raised eyebrow.
She’d had enough of today altogether and all she wanted was to head upstairs and retreat to the sanctuary of her bedroom.
Except that her bedroom was no longer the refuge she thought it. It wasn’t even hers any more; it belonged to Angelos and, in spite of his offer that morning, she really didn’t think that he would be prepared to let her stay for anything other than the bare minimum of time it took her to find somewhere else to live.
And, after today, that was going to be much harder than she had ever imagined.
But Angelos had moved on that last question, coming out into the hallway so that he was now between her and the big curving staircase that led up to the first floor. To escape, she would have to get past him and right now that felt as attractive a prospect as edging her way past a hungry tiger, one that was just waiting for its prey to come close enough to pounce.
‘In fact he’s the exact opposite—he’s …’
She couldn’t get any more words out, finding instead that anything she might have wanted to say had tangled up in a knot at the base of her throat and was threatening to choke her.
He’s kind and honest and totally straight were the things she would have said—she should have been able to say! They were the things she would have flung at Angelos even that morning, and she would have known—would have believed that they were true.
But this afternoon had shown her that they too would have been a lie. That the love she had believed Chris had for her was nothing but a pretence, a cynically calculated ploy to get what he wanted, using her along the way.
‘I need a drink.’
Head down, bitter tears stinging her eyes, she blundered past Angelos’s watchful figure, heading into the unlit sitting room and crossing to where the cabinet was still filled with a selection of Marty’s favourite wines. For a m
oment she thought that the corkscrew would be beyond her but there was already a bottle of red wine opened and she splashed some of it into a glass, lifting the drink to her lips as Angelos appeared in the doorway.
Immediately reality gave her another hard slap in the face with a reminder of just what her position was here now.
‘Oh—I’m sorry—’ The sarcasm of her tone took any real apology out of the words. ‘I suppose I should have asked …’
A lift of Angelos’s broad shoulders shrugged off her defiant statement.
‘Be my guest. It was your stepfather’s wine in the first place.’
Which, as another pointed reminder of just how things had changed since yesterday—was it really only twenty-four hours?—couldn’t have been more calculated to stick the knife in yet again. It was certainly more than enough to close Jessica’s throat against the reviving swig of wine she needed and let only a small sip trickle through.
‘I could pay you for it, if you like.’
‘Oh, now you’re being ridiculous! As I told you this morning, you can stay here as long as you need—until you get settled. Which I suppose will be when you become Mrs Christopher Atkinson.’
Jessica managed an inarticulate sound that he could interpret as agreement with what he’d said if he wanted. But another thought drove the discomfort from her mind.
‘How did you know his name?’
‘I made it my business to know. Besides, do you think that Peters—or Mrs Henderson hasn’t filled me in on all the details of your soon-to-be husband? I am given to understand that he’s considered a very good catch.’
Which was a remark guaranteed to drive Jessica to snatch another unwary gulp of wine.
The whole of the Manorfield estate and the villages beyond had been looking forward to the wedding, and Marty had invited as many people as he could to the event, even though she was now forced to consider just how he had planned to pay for it. Perhaps he had thought that the money Angelos had provided would be enough. Or perhaps he had expected that there would be more where that had come from.
Marty, it seemed, had gambled on more than just the horses.
‘That isn’t why I …’
She couldn’t complete the sentence—why I’m marrying him. To do so would be to lie outright. And neither could she admit that her wedding was now never going to go ahead. That all her plans had been built on a lie. And so she clamped her lips tight around her glass, pretending to drink some more wine.
‘That isn’t why you’re marrying him,’ Angelos finished for her. ‘No, you’re marrying him because he’s the opposite of me.’
Hearing it thrown back at her like that, laced with black cynicism, made Jessica shiver inwardly. Suddenly those words, declared in anger, simply to shut him up, seemed to come back at her with a new and sharper ring to them. Recalling everything she had liked so much about Chris, she couldn’t help but compare him with Angelos and wonder …
No—it was impossible—it was ridiculous. It was just not true.
She wasn’t going to give it another moment’s thought.
‘Well, you wouldn’t want me to say I fell for him because he was so like you, now, would you?’
‘I might find it easier to believe.’
The outrageous arrogance of the calm statement took her breath away.
‘Oh, you egotistical pig! Do you really think that every woman you meet must think the sun shines out of you? Can’t you believe that there might be one woman somewhere who doesn’t think you’re sex on legs?’
‘You?’
‘Yes, me! Can’t you understand that I …? What?’ she demanded when he shook his head in adamant rejection of what she was saying, his face hidden in the growing shadows.
‘I’ll never believe you when you claim there’s nothing between us. Not after the way you threw yourself at me …’
‘I was young! And pretty damn stupid …’
‘And then there was what happened earlier.’
‘What happened earlier …’
Jessica’s fingers clenched tight around the stem of her wineglass as she struggled with the impulse to throw its contents right into Angelos’s darkly triumphant face.
‘Was a mistake—a great big mistake. It meant nothing …’
‘Nothing?’ Angelos queried, the derisive gleam in his dark eyes mocking her desperate assertion. ‘Forgive me if I do not believe you—but nothing is not what it felt like to me.’
‘There was nothing—nothing. How could there be anything when I detest you, when you make my skin crawl when you touch me?’
‘What is this, Jessica? All this anger, all this rage, just because you didn’t get the house—or Manorfield. All this because you didn’t get what you thought was coming to you.’
‘It isn’t like that at all.’
He made her sound so horrible—so greedy and mercenary, as if the money, the house was all that mattered to her.
‘I’m sure you won’t understand this, but I thought that in Marty I’d found a family, somewhere I belonged, someone I belonged with.’
‘Oh, I understand that far more than you’ll ever know.’
‘Then you should understand that it isn’t just because you have the house—it’s because you have everything—everything. And I’m left with nothing! Less than nothing.’
‘You have your fiancé—the life you plan to live with him—the life you claim you want—that’s still there. You still have that. I can’t imagine that Mr Opposite-of-me Atkinson would be too happy to hear himself described as less than nothing.’
‘He won’t give a damn!’
Beside herself with anger and hurt, needing desperately to lash out, Jessica didn’t care what she was saying. She didn’t even really know what the words were until they left her lips and she heard them out loud, seeming to crackle and spark in the darkness between them.
‘He won’t give a damn! He won’t even be here from tomorrow! Instead, he’ll be … He’ll be …’
Suddenly hearing what she was revealing, seeing how much she was giving away to this man, the Black Angel, who had already taken so much—too much—from her she choked to a halt and froze, unable to go on.
‘He’ll what, Jessica?’ Angelos asked when the silence stretched out around them, growing deeper with each second. ‘He’ll be what?’
But Jessica couldn’t answer him. Her vocal cords seemed to have seized up; she couldn’t open her mouth or swallow or manage a single sound. All she could do was stand there in silence and shake her head desperately, unable to go any further.
‘Jessica …’
Angelos’s voice had a low warning note in it and then, when she still stood there tongue-tied, suddenly he moved, crossing to a switch and flicking on the light, revealing her standing still and pale in the middle of the room, blinking painfully in the suddenly harsh brilliance.
‘Tell me.’
‘No.’
Once again Jessica shook her head, keeping her eyes stubbornly averted, fixed on the pattern on the carpet in front of her.
‘Tell me …’
It was a command, totally autocratic, totally sure that he would be obeyed. Well, he could command her all he liked. Everyone else might jump to obey his orders, provide whatever he wanted, but she wasn’t one of them. And not with this. Never, ever with this. He had too much already. She was not going to let him know that he had taken this away from her too.
‘Jessica …’
To her horror, his voice came from close by. Too close by.
He had moved so quietly that she hadn’t heard him come and now he was standing right beside her, big and dark and, oh, so powerful. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the fine black silk of his jacket, the immaculate white cotton of his shirt, the leather belt cinched around his narrow waist.
After she had left Chris she had walked for miles, not caring where she was going, not even following any path. She had tramped for hours across the hills, through the woods, only coming back whe
n she was just too tired, too worn in body and heart to continue any more. And her clothes showed unmistakable signs of every hour she had been away. Her shoes were muddied, her shirt crumpled, her trousers flecked with spots of damp and stains. Beside his crisp, clean elegance she felt scruffy and worn, distinctly grubby and she tried to withdraw into herself, like a small, miserable rabbit retreating into the darkness of its burrow. But it didn’t work. She couldn’t hide away from the reality that oppressed her.
‘Your fiancé will be what tomorrow—or where?’
Angelos’s voice was almost shockingly soft in a way that she had never heard before. He sounded like a completely different person, someone she didn’t know.
‘What has happened? What has upset you?’
And, as he spoke, he reached out and touched her. He curled one hand around the top of her arm, just above her elbow, and held her. Very lightly, very gentle; his touch was so soft that she could barely feel it and if it hadn’t been for the warmth of his palm reaching her through the sleeve of her shirt she wouldn’t have known it was there.
‘Tell me—you have to tell someone.’
If he hadn’t touched her she might have been all right. She might have held it all together and fought back her feelings, keeping her emotions firmly in check. And then she could have turned and told him that there was nothing she wanted to say—nothing that was any of his business. She might even have been able to walk from the room, keeping her head high, her dignity intact.
But he had touched her. And the gentleness of it, together with the softness in his voice destroyed her control.
‘Chris … Chris is not my fiancé any more,’ she managed with her voice only trembling a little as she forced the words out.
As she spoke she lifted her head, looked up into his face, into the deep dark pools of his eyes where she felt she could almost see herself reflected, ridiculously small and lost in a world that was no longer the one she knew or recognised.
‘He broke off the engagement.’
She didn’t know what she had expected from his reaction, only that she had expected some response, not just the strangely controlled inclination of his head, the almost distant look in his eyes.
