of explanation, she went on, ‘For the last three weeks I’ve been staying in New York with an old schoolfriend. I’ve only just this minute got back. Nick was coming to the airport to meet me, only the—’ She broke off abruptly, then went on, ‘Only I found I could get home a day earlier than I’d expected, so I decided to surprise him.’
She was pushing back a stray dark curl when Raine noticed the sparkling sapphire on her left hand, and, with a sudden premonition, she remarked through stiff lips, ‘What a beautiful ring.’
Tina’s pretty pale face lit up. ‘Yes, isn’t it? I wanted a diamond solitaire, but Nick said it wasn’t my style and he chose this one.’
Feeling as though she was being shut in an iron maiden, Raine asked, ‘How long have you been engaged?’
‘Nick proposed to me and we went to buy the ring the day before I left for New York.’
Getting to her feet, Tina headed for the door. ‘I’ll go and unpack his present. I bought him a watch from Tiffany’s. I want it to be a surprise, so if he gets back before I do, don’t tell him.’
‘I won’t be seeing him,’ Raine said, and it was a prayer. Her voice controlled, even, she added, ‘Something’s cropped up and I need to go home, so I’ll be off to the airport myself in a minute or two.’
‘Well, so long, then.’ Tina gave her a wide, friendly smile. ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit. Have a good journey home.’
As soon as the door had closed behind the slim figure Raine phoned for a taxi. Then, hurrying upstairs, she threw her belongings into her suitcase with desperate haste, scrawled a note for her father, telling him that she was needed at home because Martha was poorly, and one for her uncle, thanking him for all his kindness, and was outside waiting as the cab drew up.
Luck was with her and she managed to get a seat on a plane that was leaving for London within the hour. Throughout the flight she sat pale and tense, dry-eyed, though her heart wept tears of blood.
Once a concerned stewardess touched her shoulder and asked, ‘Are you feeling ill? Can I get you anything?’
Grateful for the kindness, Raine shook her head and said, ‘No, I’m fine, thank you. Just tired.’
Tired and bitter and disillusioned, and swamped by such pain that, unable to bear it, she struggled to whip up anger to take its place.
What a fool she’d been. What a blind, stupid fool! All he’d wanted was a little light dalliance, some casual sex while his fiancée was away, but she’d given him everything she had to give—her heart as well as her body.
And how eagerly she’d offered that. Responding with a passionate sensuality she hadn’t realised she was capable of. She’d acted like a wanton.
And what if she was pregnant? Pregnant by a man who had only wanted an easy exchange of pleasure with no commitments. A sophisticated man who had no doubt presumed that she had taken precautions.
Horror filled her, causing her entire body to flush with heat. She felt her face and throat burn and a trickle of perspiration run down between her breasts.
A feverish calculation reassured her that her stupidity was unlikely to have dire results.
Aware of just how much the knowledge of her behaviour would upset her father, she felt sick with relief. Now he would never need to know.
Though that was pure luck. She flayed herself with the thought. Nothing could alter the fact that she had behaved like the worst kind of fool. A fool who had given in to passion, presuming that because she loved Nick he must love her, and that marriage and a home and family would automatically follow.
But she’d learnt a painful, mortifying lesson and learnt it well. Never, never again would she allow passion to rule her.
She had scarcely arrived home when a phone call from her father, enquiring how Martha was, threw her into a panic. Unused to lying, she found herself stammering, ‘Sh-she doesn’t seem too bad...’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m not sure... Some kind of flu...’
‘Then you can cope? You don’t need me back?’
‘Of course not.’
‘How did you manage at such short notice?’
Doing her best to sound her normal self, Raine endeavoured to answer her father’s questions and allay his. concern.
‘Well, don’t try to go into work as well as taking care of Martha,’ he said eventually.
‘I’ll see how things are,’ she hedged.
‘And let me know if you need me.’
‘I’m sure I won’t. I’d much rather you stayed with Uncle Harry... Give him my love.’
‘Don’t go,’ Ralph said. ‘Nick’s waiting to speak to you...’
‘Raine...’
She heard the urgency in the deep voice as, trembling in every limb, she put the phone down.
Common sense told her it would have been better to speak to him, to pretend, for her pride’s sake, that the little incident had meant nothing to her. But she knew only too well that she would have been unable to hide her pain and misery, her humiliation and shame.
The next weeks were the worst of her life. Feeling as though she was slowly bleeding to death, Raine somehow struggled through the long days and even longer nights.
Martha, having been told only that Raine had needed an excuse to come home, looked at her with anxious eyes, but, never one to pry, said nothing.
Nick tried several times to ring her, but Raine refused to speak to him, and, recognising his bold scrawl, destroyed the letters he sent unopened.
She went back to the office and tried to lose herself in her work, but the thought of Nick was always at the back of her mind, and a black weight of emptiness lay on her spirit.
She missed him and longed for him constantly, even while she reminded herself that he was hard and callous and uncaring—that he’d not only used her but betrayed his fiancée.
Ralph was reluctant to leave his brother, and it was a month before he came home. Though Raine was still fighting a desolation of spirit so intense that she felt she would never recover, she was able to hide it better by then, and met her father’s shrewd eyes with relative composure.
When, apart from asking how Harry was, she avoided mentioning Boston, Ralph took the bull by the horns. ‘What did you and Nick quarrel about?’
‘What makes you think we quarrelled?’
‘Don’t take me for a fool, girl. I know you’ve been refusing to speak to him, and, though Martha did her best, she’s no better at lying than you are.’
