The attorney's expression told her exactly what he was thinking. She should never have allowed herself to be trapped into a position like this, but she had foolishly never given it a thought. She had been too busy falling in love with a man who had nothing but contempt for her. She had never stopped to consider the consequences, and now she would have to harvest what she had sown.
'I'm afraid I can't help you, Kate.' This statement from Hubert Walton came as no surprise to her now. 'This is a problem no, one else can solve for you.'
She was on her own. Common sense should have told her it would be this way and, extricating her hand gently from Hubert's, she got to her feet. 'Thanks for listening anyway,' she said absently, and her smile was tight when she kissed him on his leathery cheek and walked out of his office.
She could never quite recall afterwards show she managed to drive herself back to Solitaire without having an accident along the way, and when Edwina questioned her about her visit to the doctor she made some vague reference to dyspepsia which she hoped would satisfy her aunt.
For the next few days Kate behaved like an automaton; doing what she had to do, and speaking only when she was spoken to. Subconsciously, though, she guarded her secret, and when that peculiar numbness finally deserted her she wondered frantically how long it would be before it became obvious to everyone that she was pregnant.
She dreaded the mornings. She took particular care to hide the fact from Rhyno and Aunt Edwina that nausea often drove her from the breakfast table into her bathroom, but for some obscure reason Rhyno followed her one morning. He walked into the bathroom without knocking, and found her puking lustily into the basin.
'For pity's sake, go away and leave me alone!' she cried frantically when she became aware of his tall, lean presence.
'You're ill, Kate,' he observed unnecessarily.
'It must be something I ate.'
'Don't be ridiculous, you hardly ate anything this morning,' he contradicted sharply.
'Please…' she begged, leaning weakly against the basin. 'Just go away and let me be sick on my own.'
'Dammit, Kate, I want to help you!'
'I don't need your help, I—' She tried to shrug off his hands, but yet another bout of nausea swept over her, and she was forced to endure his humiliating presence there with her.
'You're not pregnant, are you?' he asked at length when her nausea had abated, and he had helped her wipe her face and rinse her mouth.
'No!' she almost screamed at him in her desperation to hide the truth. 'I told you it must be something I ate.'
'You're lying!' he accused harshly, his hands biting into her shoulders as he swung her round to face him.
'I'm not! I'm—' His eyes, searchingly intent on her white face, prevented her from repeating her lie, and she lowered her eyes as she struggled helplessly to escape from those steely fingers. 'Oh, leave me alone, will you?'
'Kate—'
'Damn you, Rhyno, I said leave me alone!' she cried, fear driving her to anger, and she pummelled his chest with her clenched fists in an effort to escape him, but with a muttered oath on his lips he lifted her like a child and carried her into the bedroom.
It was useless trying to fight against the iron-hard strength of those arms imprisoning her. Physically he was her superior, but mentally she would fight him to the bitter end, she decided when he lowered her on to the bed and held her there with the weight of his body.
'I'm not a fool, Kate,' he said, his face dark and threatening above hers. 'I'm well aware of the fact that we've done nothing to prevent you from having a child, and if you're pregnant then I have a right to know.'
'As far as I'm concerned you forfeited all your rights when you forced yourself on me in the first place!'
'Then you are pregnant?' he insisted, his eyes narrowed and intent.
'Yes, damn you, and it's all your fault!' she confessed at last with all the agony of her pent-up fury and despair in her voice.
'Oh, Kate…'
'And I shall never forgive you for doing this to me!' she spat out the words. 'The last thing on earth I ever wanted was to have your child!'
'What do you mean by that?'
'Exactly what I said,' she replied, uncaring and too distraught to see the pain in his eyes. 'I don't want your child.'
Rhyno went strangely white. 'You don't know what you're saying.'
'Oh, I know, all right,' she laughed, but her laughter hid the tears that were so horrifyingly close. 'I can't alter the fact that I'm going to have your child, but nothing on earth will force me to stay married to you because of it.'
He eased himself away from her slightly, but he did not release her, and those dark eyes raking her were like a physical punishment. 'You enjoy hurting me, don't you?'
'Do you think I haven't been hurt too? Do you think I enjoy being married to a man who has only contempt for me? Who considers that I possess none of the qualities he could admire in a woman?'
'Look at me, Kate,' he ordered quietly, and when she refused to obey he caught her chin between his fingers and forced her to meet his dark, disturbing eyes as they probed hers relentlessly. 'We've both said hurtful things in the heat of the moment, but… I love you, Kate.'
What he had said did not sink in at first, and when it did it filled her with nothing but bitterness. He was saying that simply because of the child, and resentment and suspicion flowed like poison through her veins as she cried hoarsely, 'No, you don't!'
'Yes, I do!' he persisted in a rough, unfamiliar voice. 'I've loved you from that first day we met when you looked at me with so much resentment and dislike in your beautiful eyes. I knew then that I had to have you some day, but, God knows, I never wanted it the way your father dreamed it up, with La Reine and Solitaire as bait to urge us into a marriage we weren't ready for.'
'You didn't have to marry me,' she pointed out, deaf to everything except her own misery and pain.
'I could afford to lose La Reine, Kate, but I couldn't let you lose Solitaire.' His expression was grim, and his jaw resolute. 'My mother and I went through that hell once, and I couldn't just sit back and let you suffer.'
Cynicism curved her lovely mouth. 'I suppose I should thank you for that.'
'Is your heart really as hard as flint or stone?' he asked, his words prodding her memory and forcing her to recall those words underlined on those yellowed pages of the book she had found at La Reine. Hard is her heart as flint or stone, she laughs to see me pale. He knew that she had seen it. He knew! But she could not believe that it referred to her. 'Are you never going to look at me without resentment and dislike in your eyes?' he asked quietly.
She felt confused and bewildered, and his nearness was not helping her to think coherently either. She wanted to believe him, but she dared not; not until she was sure, and it was with this thought in mind that she said tiredly, 'I don't resent you, and I don't dislike you. As a matter of fact I don't feel anything at the moment except the need to be left alone.'
She thought, at first, that he would not react to her plea, but a few seconds later she was alone in the room, and she shivered as if he had taken the warmth with him.
She remained there on the bed for a long time, her mind in a frantic turmoil. Rhyno had said that he loved her, that he had loved her from the moment they had met, but had he really meant it, or had he merely said so out of a sense of duty towards her? If only she could be sure!
He did not come home for lunch that day, and neither did he join them for tea in the living-room that afternoon. Kate felt his absence like a lead weight in her chest, and the tears were so close that she constantly had to blink them away, or swallow down the lump in her throat.
'How much longer are you going to keep me in the dark, Kate?' her aunt demanded unexpectedly, her agitated voice intruding into Kate's troubled thoughts. 'Do you think I haven't suspected that something happened between you and Rhyno while I was away, and that you're pregnant?'
'I'm sorry, Aunt Edwina,' Kate gulped, aston
ished and embarrassed.
'Well?' her aunt demanded. 'Are you pregnant, or aren't you?'
'I am,' Kate admitted, biting down hard on her quivering lip.
'Have you told Rhyno?'
'He knows.'
'And?'
'And nothing,' Kate replied bluntly, desperately pretending not to care. 'Instead of an annulment we shall be divorcing each other, that's all.'
'Kate!'
'Don't look so shocked, Aunt Edwina,' Kate laughed, but her laughter sounded hollow to her own ears. 'Everything will go ahead as planned.'
'What about the child?' her aunt demanded fiercely. 'Do you intend to raise it without the help of its father?'
'I don't particularly want to think about that yet,' Kate replied distastefully.
'You'll have to think about it sooner or later.'
'I suppose so.'
'Kate…' Edwina had a way of commanding one's complete attention, and when their eyes met, she asked, 'Are you in love with Rhyno?'
'No!' Kate croaked, averting her eyes.
'Kate? You can tell me the truth, my dear. Are you in love with him?'
Kate's resistance crumbled as always at the note of tenderness in her aunt's voice and, with a little choked cry, she buried her face in her hands and whispered brokenly through her tears, 'Oh, Aunt Edwina… I've never been so...so unhappy in all my... my life!'
Tears never really solved anything, her aunt reminded her when she finally managed to control herself, and when Rhyno also refrained from joining them for dinner that evening, Aunt Edwina said: 'I suggest the two of you thrash out this problem when he comes home this evening.'
Kate finally agreed, but she had no idea just how to go about it. What would she say to him? And how would she know if he were telling her the truth?
She was in bed when Rhyno came in late that night and, shivering with nerves, she pulled the blankets closer about her. 'What am I going to say?' she wondered again. 'How do I begin this probe for the truth?'
She heard him moving about in the dressing-room, but indecision held her captive until she heard the catches of a suitcase being snapped shut. The sound vaulted her out of bed and, pulling on her robe, she ran barefoot across the carpeted door and wrenched open the door.
'What are you doing?' she demanded, her voice a mere croak and her face white and pinched when she saw Rhyno flinging his clothes into the suitcase that stood open on his bed.
'I'm moving back to La Reine, and no one need know that except us.'
'But why?'
He glanced at her only briefly, but long enough for her to recoil inwardly from the cold, hard stab of his eyes. 'Isn't it obvious?'
'I'm afraid not,' she confessed in an agonised whisper.
'You said this morning that you wanted to be left alone, and the only way I can do that is to move back to La Reine.'
'But—but I—' Her voice faltered and she swallowed convulsively. He could think her shameless, he could think what he wished, but she knew now that she could not let him go; not like this, and not without shedding the remnants of her pride in letting him know how she felt about him. 'You—you told me this morning that—that you loved me,' she managed at length.
'Did I?'
'You know you did.'
'I must have been out of my mind!' he snarled, thrusting a pair of socks into the corner of the suitcase and slamming down the lid.
'You didn't mean it?' she questioned unsteadily, biting down hard on her quivering lip, and going a shade paler at the naked fury in his eyes when he swung round to face her.
'If you expect me to grovel at your feet, Kate, then you can forget it. I'm moving back to La Reine, and I'll stay there until our distasteful marriage is at an end.'
They stood facing each other in silence, the tension spiralling between them until it was almost tangible, and Kate no longer felt so sure of herself. A few months ago she would have had no difficulty in finding something to say, but at that moment she could think of nothing which would prevent Rhyno from leaving Solitaire. She knew, irrevocably, that if she let him go he would need to take only one more step to walk right out of her life, and her aching heart warned that she dared not let that happen. It no longer mattered whether he had meant it that morning when he had said that he loved her. She loved him enough to make their marriage work, if only he would give her the opportunity to try.
'Rhyno…' His name was a mere breath on her quivering lips, and she held out her hands in an appealing gesture. 'Don't go… please don't go.'
He ignored her hands, and she clasped them nervously and a little self-consciously in front of her as if she didn't quite know what to do with them. His eyes were stabbingly intent, probing hers as if to sear her very soul, but she did not look away even though she kept the shutters down defensively from force of habit. She dared not let him see too much for fear of being rejected. She could, at least save herself that final humiliation.
'Give me one good reason why I should stay?' he demanded coldly.
Her nerve ends quivered uncomfortably, and her mouth went dry. She knew of only one good reason why he should stay, but she shrank inwardly from voicing it. He was watching her intently, his face an unrelenting mask, and something warned her that this was not the moment to cling to her worthless pride. She ran her tongue across her lips and, taking a careful breath, risked her soul on the table of chance.
'I didn't mean it this morning when I said I didn't want your child. I do want it, but I was afraid, and I went a little crazy, I think.' His expression remained un-altered, and she felt herself shaking. 'I love you,' the words were finally torn from her heart in a husky voice.
'Do you?' he smiled cynically, and it sliced her to the core.
'Oh, God!' she groaned, weak with despair as she leaned shakily against the wall and pressed her hands flat against its hard coolness.
'How do I know you're not saying that because you've suddenly realised the difficulties in bringing up a child on your own?' he demanded harshly, and in that moment of sanity she realised that he was taunting her, and hurting her in much the same way she had done to him that morning.
'Expecting your child makes no difference to the way I feel,' she argued quietly.
'Then prove it.'
Her heart thumped against her ribs. 'How?'
'That's the problem,' he replied at once, with such bitterness and cynicism in his voice that she winced inwardly. 'How do we prove that what we feel for each other is not simply because of the child? Or because of La Reine and Solitaire?'
'Rhyno…?' she questioned breathlessly, her heart suddenly beating so fast that it seemed to choke her as she looked up into eyes that seemed to be burning down into hers with such an intensity of feeling it made her feel strangely dizzy.
'We'll have to trust each other,' he was saying, standing so close to her now that she could feel the disturbing heat of his body against her own, then he framed her face gently with his hands. 'Do you trust me, Kate?'
She began to tremble with an exquisite, aching joy, and tears of happiness brimmed her eyes, distorting her vision of the tender smile she had waited so long to see.
'I've been such a fool,' she whispered brokenly, burying her face against him, and her answer seemed to satisfy him, for he drew her closer to the hard, comforting length of him.
'We've both been fools in one way or another.'
'Will you forgive me?' she pleaded, loving the feel of his fingers moving through her hair.
'I have nothing to forgive.'
'I've said some terrible things in the past, and I've accused you unjustly on so many occasions that I…'
His lips bruised hers into silence with a searing kiss that left her limp and yielding in his arms. She slipped her arms about his waist, pressing closer to him as their kiss deepened with a new hunger as they drank the sweet nectar of so late a harvest. His hands caressed her, moulding her into the hard curve of his body, and she fumbled with his shirt buttons to bring herself closer still to his
warm flesh.
'I love you, Kate. Don't ever doubt that,' he groaned against her soft, eager mouth, then he lifted her in his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
There was still so much to talk about, but it could wait, Kate decided as the flame of passion leapt between them. They made love fiercely, tenderly, holding nothing back, and free at last to give all on the altar of their love.
Later, when they lay quietly in each others arms, Kate could not help murmuring, 'My father was perhaps wiser than both of us.'
'I'm not in the mood to argue with that,' Rhyno replied, and the sound of his soft, throaty laughter thrilled her almost as much as the hand that came up to clasp her breast. There was a renewed hunger in the mouth that found hers without difficulty in the moonlit darkness of the room, and her need rose swiftly once more to meet his.
Six months later, on the anniversary of their wedding, Hubert Walton arrived at Solitaire to carry out Jacques Duval's final instructions. His glance travelled only briefly over Edwina, Naomi, and Rhyno, then it settled on Kate, and he smiled affectionately as he took in her full figure beneath the wide maternity dress.
'Don't keep us in suspense, Uncle Hubert,' she said with only the briefest touch of anxiety in her voice. 'You know very well that we're going to continue with our marriage, so what new twist in my father's will has necessitated this meeting?'
Hubert laughed a little drily and produced an envelope from his briefcase. 'Your father wrote two letters before he died, and it depended on your decision which one was to be opened on this day.'
Kate glanced at Rhyno on the sofa beside her, and her hand sought and found his before she faced the attorney and said: 'You'd better open the letter and read it to us.'
The grey-haired man nodded and slid his thumb beneath the flap of the envelope. Kate recognised her father's bold handwriting even from a distance, and her fingers tightened almost convulsively about Rhyno's when Hubert cleared his throat and read its contents out aloud.
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