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