The Right Bride? (17 page)

‘I kept telling myself—She will not go through with this. She cannot. At any moment, she will stop. But you did not. And then—I—could not…’

‘But you were so cold,’ Allie whispered. ‘So—businesslike.’

‘I wanted you too badly,’ he said frankly. ‘I was near the edge—scared of what I might do. I told myself I could not afford to lose control in case I hurt you.’ He looked at her remorsefully. ‘And I did hurt you,
mon amour,
but in a different way.’

‘Did you?’ Her eyes were shining, her face transfigured by love. ‘I—really can’t remember.’ She paused. ‘But I did try and tell you I was pregnant. Truly.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So you said, and so my father confirmed that night. I had to confide in someone about Thomas or go mad, and we have always been close. But when he heard me speaking so bitterly he said that perhaps I was unjust. That you had once telephoned here, begging to talk to me, and maybe that was what you had wanted to say. Only he had refused to listen, or help. And that if he had been more understanding our lives could have been so different.’

‘He was trying to protect you,’ she said gently. ‘Just as I knew you would always protect your son. And why I could trust you with the rest of his life.’

‘And will you trust me with yours?’ he asked quietly.
‘Mon ange
—
mon coeur.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If you still want me. Oh, Remy—
Remy
.’

Then she was in his arms and his lips were on hers, and they were murmuring brokenly to each other between kisses.

Allie wanted the consummation of their love. She wanted to sink down with him to the rug and offer the surrender of her body for his adoration. But Remy was drawing back with a faint groan.

‘We cannot,
mon amour
,’ he told her breathlessly. ‘Thomas may be getting fretful after all this time. Also, I promised Liliane that I would get my old cot from the attic so that she
can clean it for him to sleep in. And my grandfather thinks it would not be
convenable
for Madame Madelon to sleep over at the house before they are married, so she must stay here, and her room needs to be prepared.’ He looked at her, his mouth rueful, his eyes brimming with sudden laughter. ‘Welcome to family life,
ma belle
.’

‘It has a nice ring about it,’ Allie said, her own lips twitching. ‘So we shall just have to wait until tonight, my darling.’

He took her hand. Kissed it. ‘Last time, to my eternal shame,’ he said quietly, ‘I took and gave nothing. Tonight it will be very different. So, will you forgive me, Alys, and lie with me in our bed?’

‘Yes,’ she told him huskily. ‘Oh, yes.’ She looked at him from under her lashes, a world of promise shining in her eyes. ‘Although poor Tom is teething, remember?’ she murmured. ‘We could be—disturbed.’

Remy kissed her again, his lips lingering on hers. ‘He is my son,
chérie
,’ he told her softly. ‘And no Frenchman would ever do that to another.’ His smile caressed her. ‘We shall have our night, I promise you.’

And so, with joy, tenderness and a sweet and soaring passion, they did.

By

H
ER
sister lived in this house. The sister she had never met, whose existence she’d discovered a scant four weeks ago.

Karyn Marshall stepped deeper into the shadows of the trees. Should anyone glance out of one of the tall windows set in mellow, rose-pink brick, she was safely hidden from view. Skulking like a common thief, she thought with a shiver. Watching and waiting.

It wasn’t just a house. It was a mansion. Wisteria drooped its delicate blooms all the way up to the second story; there were stables to one side and a four-car garage with a cobbled driveway. Every detail was perfect, yet served only to increase her unease.

She was afraid. Far too afraid to announce her presence.

Her twin sister and only sibling, Fiona Talbot, lived in this house, whose name was Willowbend. For Fiona, Willowbend was home, along with a luxury beyond Karyn’s imagining. Karyn glanced down at her plain linen slacks and tailored shirt, clothes she’d thought would be entirely adequate for this meeting. An evening dress would have been more appropriate; not that she owned one.

She’d given away all her dresses after Steve had died.

Karyn shrank back against the tree trunk as a woman in a glowing red gown suddenly appeared in one of the windows. An older woman; even at this distance, Karyn could discern the twinkle of diamonds encircling her throat. Was this Clarissa Talbot, Fiona’s adoptive mother? The woman turned her head to speak to someone in the room, then
disappeared. A moment later, a uniformed butler drew long curtains across the window.

A butler. Karyn bit back a quiver of hysterical laughter. This was an English country mansion. Of course they’d have a butler.

Why, oh, why, hadn’t she written first, to tell the family of her existence? That way, she’d have been an expected guest who could have walked confidently up the driveway and knocked on the front door.

She hadn’t written because she’d worried that the Talbots would tell her to stay away. To leave the past where it belonged, buried and forgotten.

If only she wasn’t so desperate to meet her unknown twin, to assuage some of the terrible loneliness of the last few months…

Behind Karyn, something rustled in the undergrowth. She whirled, her heart leaping like a startled rabbit’s, every nerve on edge. A twig snapped. She strained her eyes, trying to penetrate the dense tangle of shrubs and trees, and to her dismay saw a darker shadow climbing the little slope that led up to the garden. Coming her way.

A man. Whistling softly under his breath, finding his way through the gloomy woods with the ease of familiarity.

Her eyes flicked around her. She could have tried to hide, ducking behind the nearest oak tree and hoping for the best. But her raincoat was light beige, as were her trousers, and the odds of remaining unseen far too small. So she stood her ground, lifting her chin. She might look like a thief. But there was no need to behave like one.

The man was only a few feet away from her. He was tall, with hair black as night; dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, he moved with a feline grace that added one more layer to her fear. She’d read about poachers who prowled the woods after dark. Was he one of them? A
lawbreaker? She should have hidden. Or run. While she had the chance.

Then, suddenly, the man saw her. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes, dark as his hair, trained on her face. “Fiona,” he said softly, “what are you doing out here?”

Karyn’s breath had lodged in her throat; she couldn’t have said a word to save her soul. At the inn where she was staying in the village of Droverton, the landlord on his first sight of her had called her “Miss Fiona,” and his initial disbelief had been all too obvious when she’d said she was Karyn Marshall, a tourist from eastern Canada. He’d looked, she remembered quite clearly, downright suspicious; and hadn’t behaved with any of the friendliness she’d expected to find in a little village inn.

Now the man who’d appeared out of the woods was confirming what the landlord’s behavior had suggested: she and Fiona must be identical twins. Must look so very much alike that one of them could be mistaken for the other.

The man had stepped a little closer. He was well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and long-legged, making Karyn feel both feminine and fragile in a way she didn’t care for. Although his face was shadowed, she could see that it was strongly hewn, handsome and full of character. Character? Much too wishywashy a word, she thought breathlessly. How about ruthlessness? Power? Charisma? Cemented together with a compellingly male dose of sexiness. It took all her pride not to step back, and all her willpower to keep her eyes from fastening on the carved sensuality of his mouth.

Think, Karyn. Think.

Her throat might have closed as though a hand was clamped tight around it. But she didn’t have to shut her brain off as well. The man had called her Fiona, not Miss
Fiona. So he knew her sister well. Perhaps, just perhaps, he’d be her way into Willowbend.

She might succeed, after all, in meeting her twin this very evening; and if she had to use this black-haired man to do so, she would.

Rafe Holden had been thinking about Fiona as he wended his way through the trees. He’d hoped to make it to Willowbend in time for dinner that evening; but his flight from Athens had been delayed, and he’d phoned Clarissa to tell her not to expect him.

Then, breaking into his thoughts as he climbed the slope, something had alerted him to another presence in the woods. When he glanced up, he saw Fiona immediately; she was standing against the oak tree that the pair of them had often climbed as children. He, seven years older and always the leader; and always protective of his little blond, blue-eyed neighbor.

“Fiona,” he said, “what are you doing out here?”

As he waited for her to answer, his feet sank gently into the rich humus of last autumn’s leaves, new ferns brushing his knees. His gaze sharpened and he stepped a little closer. She looked frightened. More than frightened, as though something had knocked her right off balance, striking her dumb. If Clarissa had been at her again, there’d be hell to pay. He’d see to that.

He closed the distance between them in three swift strides and took her in his arms. Her body was taut. Her scent was new, more complex and more sensuous than he was used to. He liked it. Liked it very much. Her hair was different, too. Astonishingly different. For as long as he could remember, Fiona had obeyed her mother’s strictures to let her hair grow all the way down her back; she often wore it pulled away from her face in a long braid. Virginal,
he’d occasionally thought. Untouched. Just as Clarissa wanted Fiona to be.

But now her hair was cut short, feathered to her face in soft curls that made her look like another woman. A more sophisticated woman; and again that word sensuous came to Rafe’s mind. Her decision to lop off her braid intrigued him, and he was certainly into encouraging any rebellions on her part. He said, bending his head to kiss her cheek, “I like the haircut—what made you do it? I bet that got your mother’s goat.”

He liked holding Fiona. It was like coming home to all that was familiar, to the friendship they’d shared for years, their bonds of a shared history and a deep love of the landscape where they’d both grown up. He rubbed his cheek gently against the softness of her hair, wanting only to soothe her. Clarissa Talbot on the warpath was a force to be reckoned with.

Then, to his astonishment, her head shifted and almost inadvertently his mouth found hers. Her lips were cool, their touch tentative; her slender frame, in a raincoat he’d never seen before, felt as rigid as the ghastly Greek nymphs Douglas Talbot had stationed throughout the azalea garden. Against her mouth, he whispered, “It’s okay…you can relax now. I’m here, and I’m on your side.”

One of his hands was cupping her nape. Wisps of blond hair, soft and silky, teased his fingers. She made a tiny sound in her throat, and almost insensibly her mouth softened under his. There were layers upon layers to her scent, each of them encouraging him to explore further.

Which was something he’d never thought of doing before. Certainly never felt driven to do. For wasn’t Fiona his oldest friend? Only once in his life had he known the fire and recklessness of a passion that had swept him off his feet, and the results had devastated him in a way he’d never
forgotten, and had no wish to repeat. For him, Fiona’s strongest attraction was how she represented all the comforts of familiarity: the ease, the lack of demand and the total trust.

He could live without passion. Once burned, twice shy. Or, more accurately in his case, once burned, permanently shy.

By now her body had softened, too, her shoulder under his palm fractionally less tight. Still with infinite care, Rafe drew her closer, sliding his hand under her coat to find her shoulder and knead it gently through the folds of her shirt. She even felt different, he thought in an unquenchable shaft of excitement. All of a sudden he didn’t want the feel of fabric; he wanted her skin to his. Heat to heat.

His kiss deepened, the pressure of his mouth seeking more from her. In a sunburst of shocked delight he realized she was giving him exactly what he was asking, opening to him, yielding. Her hands were pressed to his chest, their warmth penetrating his pores. Slowly, as though she were savoring every moment, her palms slid upward to encircle the back of his neck, where her fingers buried themselves in his hair. He was the one who should have got a haircut, Rafe thought dimly. He’d planned to, but the meetings at his new hotel had taken longer than he’d expected.

Then he stopped thinking altogether as he felt the first, swift dart of her tongue to his. Instantly he met her, feeding on the wet, slick heat of her mouth, enticed by its sweetness. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her toward him, her pliancy like a flame in his arms, her startled gasp of pleasure potent as the roar of a waterfall on the fells. How could he possibly have guessed that so much ardor was hidden under her delicacy, beneath that air she wore of remoteness and untouchability?

She’d never shown it to him before.

His groin had hardened with fierce intent; he shifted away from her, afraid she would withdraw from fear or shyness. However, in a fierce mingling of gratitude and sheer lust, he felt her press her hips into his, as though she, too, craved to do away with the barriers of clothing and civilized restraint. Yearned to belong to him in the most primitive of ways.

Desperate to touch her, Rafe tugged her shirt from her waistband and thrust his hand under it. Her skin was like the finest silk, her ribs impossibly fragile. When he found the swell of her breast, firm and warm under the sheerest of lace, its tip was hard as a small stone. She moaned again as he teased her nipple; all the while his tongue played with hers, their lips locked together in a searing commitment to give each other pleasure.

From a long way away, he was aware of her tearing at his shirt; then felt the dizzying heat of her fingers flat against his chest, tangled in his body hair. His heart was pounding like a farrier’s hammer; his own nipples hardened to her touch. He nibbled at her lower lip, his teeth scraping her tongue, his emotions churning as she trembled in his embrace in mute and total surrender. Could he die of such ecstasy?

He wanted her here. Now. On the ground, against the tree, he didn’t care. Had he ever felt such explosive desire, such hot, fierce hunger?

But he couldn’t take her here. Not Fiona. Not in sight of Willowbend. His breath sobbing in his chest, Rafe said urgently, “Come home with me now, to Stoneriggs. I want to make love to you, Fiona.” His voice warmed with laughter. “In a bed. Not on the ground under the oak trees—you deserve better than that.”

Make love to you.
As though the shaft of an arrow had pierced her to the heart, Karyn went utterly still in the
man’s arms. Although, she thought distantly, nothing could have stopped the air heaving in her lungs, the pulse throbbing in her ears. Or the pangs of desire, unrelieved, that ached in her belly.

In a kiss that seemed to have gone on forever, she’d traveled to a place she’d never been before. She, Karyn Marshall.

Not Fiona Talbot.

“I know you want me,” the man whispered, running his fingers down her cheek and tracing the soft curve of her lips until she gave another of those unquenchable shudders of response. “You want me as much as I want you.”

Distraught, horrified, Karyn struggled to get her breath under control, to find her voice amid the turmoil in her body. What had happened to her? How could she have let a simple kiss go this far without blurting out who she was?

But before she could even find the words, let alone speak them, a chorus of excited barking split the silence of the woods. From the undergrowth a pack of dogs burst into the open and hurled themselves joyously on the man who was still clasping her in his arms. Their weight threw him sideways. Seeing her chance, Karyn yanked herself free. Obeying instinct, she whirled and raced for the woods.

“Get down, Sandy! Randall, down! For God’s sake, when are my parents ever going to teach you any manners? Charlotte, off!”

If Karyn had learned one thing during that devastating kiss, it was that this man took what he wanted: he wouldn’t be delayed for long. She ran for her life, tumbling down the slope and leaping over a stream that roiled between rocks slippery with moss. The woods were thicker now, and the sun had set. Seeking the shadows, jumping over fallen trunks, she ran on, deeper and deeper into the trees.
She was headed in the general direction of the village, that much she knew, and for which she was pitifully grateful.

“Fiona! Fiona, come back.”

His voice was fainter, masked by the leaves, the rattle of the stream and the barking dogs. Desperately Karyn increased her pace, until her ribs hurt and her chest was starved for air. Branches lashed her coat, her hands warding them from her face. Would the dogs follow her? Lead him to her?

Then what?

It was her nightmare all over again, she thought with sudden, sickening clarity: the nightmare that had recurred with ominous regularity ever since her husband Steve’s death. In it she was running for her life through the darkness…