‘I fainted?’ Her lips seemed wooden she reflected dazedly. ‘I’ve never done that before.’
‘No.’ He seemed about to speak and then the words were stilled as he surveyed her through veiled eyes in which all emotion was suddenly blanked. ‘Have you got something to tell me, Amy?’
‘Tell you?’ She tried to move away but his arms were rigid. ‘I don’t understand.’
He swore, softly but with deadly intensity, before lifting her up into his arms as he stood upright. ‘Let me put it like this,’ he said grimly as he stood for a moment before striding down the lane in the direction of the lights in the distance. ‘It is not unusual, in certain circumstances, for a woman to pass out round about the time of three months. Do I have to go on?’
‘What?’ She twisted so sharply in his hold that he almost dropped her. ‘You think I’m—you do, don’t you?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time that a woman has left her husband for another man and in the first flush of unbridled passion got a little more than she had bargained for,’ he said, with a terrible lack of expression in his voice and face.
‘Put me down, Blade.’ Her voice was faint, more from the intoxicating sensation of being held in his arms again than the import of his words. Her head was muzzy and her legs felt like jelly but she knew she had to stand on her own two feet again before she disgraced herself a second time. The temptation to wind her arms tightly round his neck and kiss his face and throat was fast becoming too strong to resist, and she could just imagine his reaction. It was clear from what he had said that he had intended the kiss as a punishment and lesson in obedience; he hadn’t expected her either to enjoy or tolerate it. He was probably very disappointed his chastisement hadn’t worked as he’d envisaged, she thought miserably.
‘Can you walk?’ Even as he spoke he had placed her on terra firma again, moving back a pace swiftly as though the contact with her body had repelled him.
He loathed her, she thought painfully. Loathed and hated her. ‘I’m not expecting a baby, Blade.’ How she kept her voice steady she would never know. ‘There is no possibility of that at all.’
‘I see.’ He surveyed her coldly, eyes narrowed and hands thrust deep in the pockets of his jacket. ‘Well, at least you kept enough sanity to take care of that side of things.’
‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ As she went to walk he stepped forward abruptly to block her path, his eyes icy.
‘Don’t you indeed?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘You know, your sheer effrontery amazes me. What happened to the happy innocent girl I married, Amy?’
‘She’s dead.’ The words passed her lips before she had even thought about them, coming straight from the heart, and something in her tone of voice must have set the antennae buzzing again because his eyes searched her face slowly and consideringly, their inky depths thoughtful, before he took her arm and indicated that they continue walking.
‘Now what makes me think that the course of true love is not running as smoothly as you would have liked?’ he asked coldly, with bitterly raw cynicism. ‘What’s the problem, Amy? Did lover-boy prefer having you as an extra little titbit now and again rather than you camping on his doorstep?’
She glared at him without answering as Mrs Cox’s small detached cottage drew nearer.
‘Or maybe the appeal of being a working girl again in the big bad world is less than attractive?’ He looked down at her steadily, his eyes veiled.
‘Can’t you just leave things alone?’ she asked tightly. ‘Accept—’
‘By “things” I take it you mean you?’ He smiled coldly. ‘You would like that, wouldn’t you: to be able to finish my chapter in your life as though this were all an abstract exercise? But it isn’t and we aren’t. You are still my wife—my wife, Amy.’ The emphasis and intonation of his words were exactly as spoken in the dream, and as a slow shiver crept down her spine she gazed up at him with naked fear in her eyes.
‘Do I frighten you?’ They had reached the cottage now and he leant back against the post of the garden gate as he swung it open for her, his stance lazy and laconic and his face cruel. ‘You’d be wise to fear me, Amy. People have feared me for far less than you have done.’
‘You don’t scare me,’ she lied bravely as she lifted her chin a fraction. ‘And I don’t like threats.’
‘Then take it as a warning,’ he drawled smoothly as his gaze held her eyes, their blueness dark and velvety in the moonlight. ‘One that you can pass on to interested parties. I understand John is due home tomorrow.’ The last sentence had been arctic cold, his voice chilling.
He had turned and walked off down the lane before she could react and she felt a moment’s deep thankfulness that he hadn’t seen the relief on her face. He still thought this was something to do with poor John, then? If she could just get through the next few days without betraying herself he would have to leave soon. His empire needed him at the helm and he couldn’t afford to be away for long, besides which this place would drive him mad. She would have smiled to herself if her heart hadn’t been so raw and bleeding. The swelling moorlands, deep wooded valleys, rolling hills with their trickling pure streams and crystal-clear waterfalls that spelt peace and sanctuary to her would be an enigma to the man she had married. His place was in the cut and thrust of the razor-sharp business world he inhabited. The hectic lifestyle and cynical, sceptical people he dealt with every day were what he knew. Her quiet backwater with its stolid, unexcitable Yorkshire folk who were the salt of the earth couldn’t be more different. He’d soon tire of all this and then—
‘One more thing, Amy.’ She started violently as he reappeared at her side, dark eyes glittering hotly. ‘I’ve got all the time it takes.’ It was as though he had read her mind and she stared at him, with the garden gate a small wooden barrier between them, as he smiled sardonically. ‘I’m in no rush to get back to London, and this is a beautiful part of the world. Now go in and rest; you look as though you’re going to pass out again.’ He was mocking, taunting her! She kept her thoughts hidden as the black gaze raked her face.
‘The last three months have been a little—troublesome. I could do with a nice relaxing holiday about now. What do you think?’ he finished silkily.
‘I think you’re lying through your back teeth,’ she said angrily. ‘In all the time I’ve known you you have never, ever, had a “nice relaxing holiday” of any description. It would kill you—’
‘Ah, but then that’s the crux of the matter, my sweet.’ There was no mockery in the deep cold voice now. ‘You haven’t really “known” me at all, have you? A whirlwind courtship and within months you were a blushing bride. You have no idea really of what makes me tick. If you had, you would never have had the temerity to walk out on me with another man.’ The icy threat in his words was unmistakable. ‘And don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m staying here because I care in any way. I’ve told you before, I don’t.’ He eyed her cuttingly. ‘But you are my property as far as I see it and no one, no one steals what is mine.’
‘Your property?’ For the first time since he had come back in her life undiluted burning rage swept all the darkness out of her mind. ‘How dare you say that?’
As she raised her hand to strike him he moved swiftly, grasping her upraised hand in an iron hold at the same time as pushing her backwards
