Mari caught his arm and felt the hard muscle under her fingers tense before he swung back his feet, kicking up a shower of gravel that hit her bare shins.
‘You don’t think a lot of him, do you?’
His response was not ambiguous. ‘No.’
‘Because he’s not been born with your advantages?’ she charged contemptuously. ‘Well, my brother has got pride, too, even if he doesn’t have the required patrician blood to meet your standards!’ She glared up at the shadowy outline of his face.
‘I thought pride was a bad and wicked thing. Or is that only when it comes attached to me?’
She was attached to him.
Mari’s dark-fringed eyelids fluttered in recognition of the contact; she pulled in a tense breath and felt her insides quiver. At some point her left hand had joined her right on his biceps; she was holding on as though her life depended on it. There was no give at all beneath her fingers. He was hard and lean, strong like steel but warm. She could feel the heat through her fingertips, sending pulses of a dark warmth thrumming through her body.
‘Your sort of pride comes from an arrogant belief that you are better simply because you are you. Well, he’ll prove you wrong.’ Forcing a drop of blood from a stone could not have required more strength than peeling back her strangely reluctant fingers; no matter how hard she tried they wouldn’t budge. In the darkness with the wind rustling through the trees her heart began to thud in slow, heavy, hard anticipation.
Of what, Mari?
Time seemed to stop. She struggled, feeling things inside her that had built up begin to dissolve like sand. Control was slipping through her fingers... Shaking her head in rejection, she managed to break the contact and the spell. Holding her hands across her chest in a protective gesture, Mari took a lurching step back onto an uneven cobble and in the process triggered a powerful security light.
Without warning, the area was lit up, revealing that they had entered a courtyard. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes. The scent she had been conscious of was more pronounced, and she saw it emanated from the wild thyme growing in the cracks of the cobbles. The illumination after the anonymity of darkness made her feel exposed and horribly vulnerable.
This was her first real glimpse of the building. Its ecclesiastical origins were obvious in the architecture but the severity was softened by ivy on the walls and massive stone troughs beneath enormous mullioned windows that spilled out their impressive floral displays.
But it was not the geraniums that caught her attention, it was the expression in his eyes. Then the first raindrop hit her face, then another and another. The moment gone, she lifted her face to the heavens with a sigh. If ever a cold shower had been providential, this one was.
‘This way,’ he said, gesturing for Mari to go ahead of him into a wide, open porch made of oak that had silvered with age. ‘Not a creaking door in sight.’ He lifted the heavy latch on a massive door just to his right.
‘What about bats?’
‘Creatures with sharp teeth that launch themselves into the unknown with only instinct to protect them. I would have thought that you would feel something in common with them.’
Stepping under his arm and through the huge door that swung inwards as he lifted the latch, she found herself standing in a kitchen. She had barely taken in the room’s massive proportions or the latest in kitchen design sitting cheek by steam oven with the original stone flags and heavy oak aged beams, when the niggle in her head solidified into a thought.
‘How can this be a standing arrangement? You’re meant to be on your honeymoon,’ she blurted before she had considered the wisdom of reminding him where he might have been and with whom.
If the reminder had caused him pain, he was hiding it well. His inscrutable expression told her little, but that could be due to the fact that the dark shadow on his jaw and chin upped the dark, dangerous, moody stakes considerably.
‘The plan had been for Elise to fly out to Maldives immediately. I intended to join her at the weekend.’
Her eyes went round. ‘She was going on honeymoon alone?’ Wasn’t that taking independence a bit far?
‘You have a comment to—’ He broke off as two small dogs burst into the room, yapping loudly.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
