And then, as she watched, a soft light spilled out across the gravel as the door opened and a figure appeared. Scrabbling at the door handle with shaking, bloodless fingers, she threw herself out and had to lean against the car for a moment as relief cascaded through her.
A second later relief had turned to anguished recognition.
There in the doorway, like a dark negative image of the angel in the churchyard, stood Orlando Winterton.
Orlando flung open the door and frowned into the gathering darkness. He had heard the sound of tyres skidding on gravel but it took a few seconds for him to bring into focus the very expensive, very damaged silver sports car which looked as if it had been abandoned in front of the house.
Arabella.
She’d phoned last night and announced in that cold, efficient way of hers that she wanted to see him. He couldn’t imagine why: everything in Arabella’s life was glamorous and high-functioning. She had no room for weakness—a fact which she had made perfectly plain at the time of Orlando’s diagnosis. Maybe she’d developed a conscience? he’d thought cynically as he’d slammed the phone down, having told her exactly what she could do.
But she always had liked to have the last word. Orlando’s face was like stone as he stood in the doorway, waiting for her to get out of the car. He wondered what tack she would take this time—mockery or seductiveness? Either way, he was immune. That was one thing he could be grateful for: when you lived in hell already, no one could make it any worse.
The car door opened and a slender figure sprang out, ghostly white in the winter gloom. Orlando felt his head jerk upwards slightly as he desperately sought to bring her into his field of vision.
Not Arabella.
She stood against the car, and even with his failing sight, even in the gathering February dusk, he could see that she was trembling. She was wearing a thin white dress that blew against her long legs, and her bright hair was like a beacon in the blurred centre of his vision. It lit up the darkness. Red for danger.
Red for passion.
The girl from the graveyard.
Slowly he walked down the steps towards her. Frozen by the icy wind that stung her bare arms and whipped her hair across her numb cheeks, Rachel watched him helplessly, suddenly finding that her brain was as frozen as the rest of her, but that something, somewhere deep inside of her just wanted to fling herself into this man’s arms.
In the distance she could still hear the discordant peal of the church bells, and she gave her head a little shake, trying to regain a rational hold on the situation. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure there was one.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in a voice that was little more than a hoarse croak. ‘I didn’t mean to come here. I didn’t know… The road—I didn’t know where it went—I was just…driving…’
He looked down on her from his great height. His massive shoulders were rigid with tension, but his face gave nothing away. ‘Driving away from your wedding, I take it?’
‘Yes. I couldn’t…do it.’ She spoke very carefully, breathing slowly and deliberately to keep herself together. ‘I waited until the last possible minute to see if something would happen to stop it, but it didn’t…and then…I knew I couldn’t do it. I ran away…because you were right, I…’
She took another steadying breath, but at that moment the church bells stopped abruptly. Silence seemed to fold around them like fog. Rachel felt her hands fly to her mouth, her eyes widening in horror as the implications of that silence sank in.
They knew. They’d found she was missing. And Carlos… Carlos would be…
Frantically she pushed her fingers through her hair, looking wildly about her as terror gripped her once again. Without knowing what she was doing, she wrenched open the car door.
Orlando was beside her in a flash, his arms closing around her waist, pinning her own arms to her sides and stopping her escape. She struggled against him, twisting her shoulders frantically, but his strength was enormous. Effortlessly he held her against him.
‘Let me go! I have to go now! They’ll come after me and—’
‘No!’ His voice was like sandpaper. He swung her round to face him, his hands holding her upper arms again, as they had this morning in the churchyard. ‘You’re not going anywhere in this state. You’re staying here.’
He felt the fight go out of her. She slumped into his hands, so that he was holding her up. Over her head his eyes were fixed on an unseen point in the distance as he gritted his teeth and fought to control the emotions that warred within him—impatience, hostility, exasperation, resentment.
And the prickle of arousal that had fuelled at least some of those.
He felt his mind shut like a steel trap against it. Those feelings had no place in his life now. But it was the scent of her hair that had done it, the weight and warmth of it as she thrashed in his arms that had made him feel momentarily as if he had been punched in the solar plexus.
She raised her head, so he could make out the milk-white curve of her cheek. ‘I couldn’t stay…’ she said dully. ‘It’s too much to ask…I can’t…’
He let her go and took a step away, slamming the car door with unnecessary force. ‘Do you have anywhere else to go?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then,’ he said with biting sarcasm, ‘let’s skip the part where you put up some token resistance, shall we? I think this is one instance where you really don’t have a choice, and it’s not as if I don’t have room.’
Rachel looked up at the house, noticing it properly for the first time. Built of red brick, with a central grey stone porch, its blank windows stretched away from her on both sides, and she could make out a steeply pitched roofline and vast elaborate chimneys against the heavy sky. It was beautiful, but huge and dark and utterly forbidding. Just like its owner.
He had started back towards it, and now looked impatiently over his shoulder.
‘What are you waiting for?’
The acid in his tone stung her raw emotions. ‘I can’t leave the car here…someone might see it… And my things…’ she wailed, aware that she sounded like a hysterical child, but too distressed to care.
He stopped and came wearily back towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘Give me the keys and I’ll get someone to move the car.’
She handed them to him and watched numbly as he went round to the boot and took out her large designer case.
‘You planned your escape well,’ he said wryly.
‘No…I didn’t plan it at all. This was packed yesterday. For tonight…’ Her voice trailed off and he gave her a wintry smile.
‘Your wedding night. Of course.’
He had to consciously turn his thoughts away from imagining what was in there, selected in anticipation of a very different night from the one that now awaited her. Whatever it was, whatever expensive, seductive confections of silk and lace lay folded carefully inside, she’d have no need of them here. The wing where he intended to put her hadn’t been used in a year at least. It was freezing.
It was also as far away from his room as possible.
Following him up a flight of steps and through a hugely high door, Rachel shivered. She felt like Beauty entering the castle of the Beast.
And then she caught sight of her dim reflection in an ornate gilt mirror in the hallway and let out a breath of ironic