memory of another wedding, another setting so very different from this one. Another time, another place…
The need to see her just once more warred savagely with the need to walk away to never see her lying face again. But the real reason he was here, the reason he had travelled thousands of miles just for this, came back in a rush, stiffening his spine and hardening an already coldly savage heart. Almost fiercely his head came up, he flexed his broad shoulders. His dark head held high, he opened the door as little as possible, and slipped quietly inside.
The bride and groom stood at the far end of the long aisle, facing the altar, their backs to him. The groom was the tall, narrow-framed man he was expecting, his thin blond hair already disappearing to display a bald spot near the crown of his head. He wore the formal frock coat as if he was born to the part—at least, as much as Guido could see from his back.
Beside him, she—his bride—was tall too; tall and slender. A blur of white.
White! Something inside him rebelled savagely at the thought. Bile burned in his stomach, lifted to his throat, making him swallow hard in distaste.
‘Amber…’
The name escaped him in a whisper of savage fury.
Luckily the choir was singing some hymn so that no one heard him. Everyone had their attention on the front of the church too, and hadn’t noticed his arrival.
So they didn’t see the way that his face set even harder, his lips twisting in anger and the bitter taste of disgust flooding his mouth with acid.
Amber Wellesley wasn’t entitled to wear white. He had made very sure of that.
But perhaps she had lied to her new fiancé about that. Just as she must have lied to him about something else. Something much more important.
She had lied when she had said she loved him.
His dark bronze eyes focused on the woman in white who stood at the altar steps, totally unaware of his presence.
Now that his gaze had cleared again he could see how the wonderful glory of her chestnut hair was piled high on her head, fixed with ornate silver pins over which the delicate veil tumbled in a waterfall of gauze. He had once known how it felt to unpin those burnished locks, comb them loose, feel them tumble over his hands, his skin…
‘Dio mio…’
Guido’s breath hissed between his teeth as he muttered a curse to himself. Already his heartbeat had lurched, threatening his ability to breathe right. His mind was flooded with burning erotic images that were totally inappropriate to standing in a church, watching the subject of those imaginings preparing to marry another man. He mustn’t think this way. Must not let his mind wander onto paths that would too easily distract him from his purpose.
With a brutal effort he dragged his thoughts back from the direction in which they were heading and clamped down on the wayward imaginings. Cold, calm control was what he needed now. He had to play this just right.
He was a few minutes early anyway. But that didn’t matter. He had planned this for just the right moment. The choir was coming to the end of the hymn.
Folding his arms across his broad chest, he leaned back against the heavy wooden door and prepared to wait.
The church was full of the scent of flowers. The perfume from sprays of roses and lilies that spilled out from the ornate holders on each side of the altar, and from the arrangements of tight little rosebuds and lily of the valley that decorated the end of every pew, flooded the air thickly. Amber’s senses swam with every breath she drew in, making her feel nauseous and faint.
It might have helped if she had been able to sleep the night before, or eat something this morning, but both rest and food had proved impossible for her.
Which was hardly surprising under the circumstances.
‘Every girl has the right to feel nervous on the night before her wedding,’ her mother had assured her. ‘A little blusher will soon improve the look of those pale cheeks.’
And Amber had forced a smile, submitting herself to her mother’s ministrations as Pamela Wellesley wielded the blusher brush, the mascara wand, with enthusiasm, then stepped back to view her handiwork.
‘You still look a little wan,’ she murmured, frowning as she did so. ‘Really Amber, you seem as if you’re about to leave for your execution, not your wedding. Is there something wrong?’
‘No!’It was too fast, too vehement, and it made her mother’s eyes narrow sharply.
‘No second thoughts about Rafe?’
‘No.’
Of that she was sure at least. Rafe was kind and gentle and had been a good friend to her. It was not his fault that there wasn’t any great passion between them. It was not his fault he was not…
No—she wouldn’t let that name into her mind. Not today, of all days.
‘You haven’t had a row—?’
‘Oh, Mum, how could anyone ever have a row with Rafe?’
It would help if she didn’t know only too well what was going through her mother’s mind. It wasn’t the thought that her daughter might actually have rowed with her prospective husband, the man she was supposed to love, that was really troubling her, but the thought of what might happen if the wedding was called off. The uncomfortable scandal that would follow, the embarrassment…
Pamela had lived for months on the prestige she had gained from the fact that her daughter was going to marry one of the St Clair family, and she would hate the way she would lose face if anything happened.
‘No. You’re right, it’s just nerves.’
‘Well, I know something that could help with that—a glass of something…some champagne…’
‘No! Nothing—thank you, Mum.’
Amber forced herself to add the second part of her sentence, knowing that once again she had come so close to giving herself away. The note of near-panic in her voice had sounded so sharply in her own ears that she couldn’t believe that Pamela hadn’t heard it. But her mother could have no idea of just what memories she had stirred up, and if Amber wasn’t careful she would risk raising questions she had no hope of answering.
‘I’m fine, honestly,’ she assured her mother. ‘Or I will be when today is over.’
When today was over and all the memories she had tried to lock away could go back into the secret part of her thoughts where she had hidden them for the past year, until the plans for this very different day had dragged them out into her mind again. When she could put the past behind her for good, she hoped.
The sudden silence around her in the church jolted Amber out of her reverie, dragging her back to the present. The choir had stopped singing, the glorious sound of their voices dying away, and the priest stepped forward to begin the real heart of the ceremony.
‘We are gathered here together to join this man and this woman…’
Amber found that her mouth had dried painfully and
