won’t marry you, Rafe,’ she said, leaning heavily against the wash basin. ‘Not to save your face or my own face. I won’t degrade myself any further by pandering to just another Danvers method of exploitation.’
‘I’m not trying to exploit you,’ he denied gruffly.
‘Yes you are.’ She lifted her head to stare bleakly at his grim, hard face in the bathroom mirror, then just stood there, staring instead at the empty void which was her own unrecognisable face.
The tears began to burn at the backs of her eyes, and she covered them with her hands, her body beginning to shudder in another bout of weak self-pity.
Rafe’s hands were firm on her shoulders as he turned her into his arms. And she felt his heavy sigh as she struggled against the onset of tears once again.
‘I have nothing left…’ she whispered bleakly. ‘Nothing…’
‘But you will again soon,’ he murmured reassuringly, and suddenly his arms were tightly crushing bands around her. ‘Come away with me now, Shaan,’ he urged her huskily. ‘At the moment, only you, me and Piers know what he actually said in his letter. Only we three know the real reason why there was no wedding today. Even your uncle didn’t really understand—only that Piers had decided not to marry you.
‘We can tell them he found out about us, that you and I had fallen in love. Piers won’t try to deny it. He’ll just be relieved that we’ve found some way of making him come through it smelling cleaner. They’re already speculating down there as to why you wanted me with you rather than anyone else. Let’s go and tell them that you and I are going away together to marry quietly somewhere. Let’s give them something to cling onto, Shaan—a bit of hope!’
‘Everything has been packed,’ she whispered into his shoulder. ‘I h-haven’t got anything to wear.’
‘We can soon remedy that,’ he said, the tension seeping out of him when he recognised her words as a statement of defeat.
His arms tightened on her in a short moment of encouragement, then he was taking her back into the bedroom and over to the stack of suitcases waiting by the door. ‘Which one shall I open?’ he prompted huskily.
Shaan stared down at them. Her trousseau, she thought emptily. The clothes she’d spent weeks gathering together for the express purpose of pleasing Piers.
Pointing to one of the cases, she turned abruptly away, shuddering, because the very idea of wearing anything she had packed in those cases filled her with horror now.
Rafe glanced sharply at her, but didn’t say anything, his face tightening with a new aggression as he picked up the small weekend case and laid it on the bed so he could flick open the catches.
Shaan came to stand beside him, looking into the case with him. Inside lay a variety of female fripperies, from the expected toiletries to a neat pile of brand-new silky underwear, and the tension lying between them began to pulse with a new knowledge.
This was the case she would have used for her wedding night. It contained only the kinds of things a new bride would want to have around her on such an important occasion. Soft, delicate, sexy things, to tantalise her new husband with.
Without a word, her lips sucked back hard against her tightly clenched teeth, she reached down and selected a pair of white silky briefs and matching bra. Then she took out the uncrushable silk Jacquard suit in a bold apple-green colour that she had packed to wear after their stop-over in Paris. After that they had been supposed to go on to the Seychelles for a month-long honeymoon. Then she turned, walking away towards the bathroom, her dark head held high.
The door closed behind her and Rafe stood, staring at the closed door for a long time, before turning slowly back to the case. Then, on an act of violence which would have startled Shaan if she’d been there to witness it, he sent the small case flying to the floor with a single, vicious swipe of his hand, glaring down at the tumbled array of feminine items scattered at his feet.
When she came back, though, dressed, her hair contained in a simple knot at her nape, she found the room neat and tidy.
Rafe was standing by the window, looking big and dark and forbidding, with that black scowl on his face. But the moment he saw her he smiled, albeit grimly, and came over to her side.
‘OK?’ he asked.
She nodded, knowing she shouldn’t be allowing this to happen, but somehow unable to find the strength to put up any more opposition.
Rafe was right about one thing—he was the only person she felt she could share the torment with because he had been the one to instigate it in the first place.
‘Leave the talking to me,’ he advised as he turned her towards the bedroom door.
She didn’t answer—couldn’t have if she’d tried—but she nodded. She had to trust in him to be the sane one. It was the only way she could cope right now.
They went to the sitting room.
Her aunt, her face red and swollen with crying, looked nothing like the bright, happy, if over-excited woman Shaan had watched leave for the church earlier today. Gone was the hyacinth-blue dress she had been wearing, and the huge, frivolous hat Shaan and her uncle had teased her about the day she had brought it home and showed them.
She came to her feet as they entered, still so shaken that she needed her husband’s help to do so. And suddenly they looked old and frail, so utterly unable to cope with the horror and emotion of it all.
For nine years of her life these two people had loved and cared for her, taken up the responsibility of Tariq and Mary Saketa’s child after she’d been left orphaned by a dreadful accident. Even though they had been well into their fifties then, and unused to having children around them, they had been good and loving towards her, had given her everything it was in their power to give her, put their own lives on hold for her sake, and been happy to do it.
Seeing Shaan safely married to Piers had meant the end of their commitment to her. And while she had been busy planning her wedding day, these two wonderful people had been just as excitedly planning their dream world cruise like two teenagers set free from parental control at last.
And Rafe was right, she couldn’t spoil that for them as well.
‘Shaan…’ Her aunt’s hoarse and trembling voice brought fresh tears to Shaan’s eyes as she hurried forward to gather her into her arms.
‘I’m all right,’ she assured her, closing her eyes because she couldn’t bear all this. Couldn’t bear their pain along with her own pain. ‘Really I am.’ Over the top over her aunt’s soft grey head, Shaan looked at her uncle. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered, unable to stop herself from saying it.
Rafe moved up beside her, his hand slipping around her waist in an act of grim support. ‘Mr Lester…’
‘I hope your brother has it in him to feel shame for what he’s done today,’ Shaan’s uncle said tightly.
‘With all respect, sir,’ Rafe came back politely, ‘my brother was at liberty to change his mind right until the last moment—just as Shaan was at liberty to change hers also,’ he added succinctly.
‘Oh, my poor
