the road, wincing as she made the tyres squeal on the tarmac in her panic to get away. Whimpering quietly, she cast an anxious glance in the mirror, half expecting to see Carlos run out onto the drive of The Old Rectory, or her mother appear at the roadside, a bright flash of peacock-blue in the February gloom.
The main entrance to the church where all the guests had gathered was around the other side, but still the road seemed horribly exposed, and almost without thinking she found herself taking the narrow turning alongside the church, down which she’d watched Orlando Winterton drive that morning.
It was a single-track road, overhung with high hedges and spiked, naked branches of hawthorn that made it almost like driving through a tunnel. She leaned forward over the steering wheel, gripping it so hard that sharp arrows of pain vibrated along the taut tendons of her hands and down her wrists.
Behind her, the peal of bells echoed eerily through the leaden air, and the sound made her press her foot harder on the accelerator, trying to put as much distance between her and the church as quickly as possible. Ahead of her the lane twisted around blind bends, making it impossible to get any idea of where she was going.
She hadn’t even thought of that. Where was she going?
In fact, where was she? Panic pumped through her in icy bursts. Looking around her wildly, she wondered whether anyone had realised she was gone yet. Would the verger have found her missing by now? Maybe it wasn’t too late to go back. No one would have to know. All she had to do was find somewhere to turn round in this godforsaken lane. She could slip in as quietly as she’d left, replace the veil, and let the rest of her life continue as planned.
Carlos and her mother were right. She couldn’t possibly cut it on her own. She couldn’t even run away without getting lost.
It had started to rain, a thin mist of drops that beaded the windscreen and blurred the world beyond to a watery grey. Frantically trying to remember how to work the windscreen wipers, Rachel eventually located the right lever, only to discover that the blur was caused not by rain but by tears.
The road was bumpy and potholed, and there was nowhere to turn. She pressed her foot harder to the accelerator, trying to make the noise of the engine drown out the sound of the church bells in the distance. They were fainter now, drifting eerily over the dank, drab fields with a ghostly melancholy that was horribly funereal. The hairs rose on the back of her neck. Suddenly everything seemed sinister—loaded with menace. Her heart thudded madly as she glanced again and again in the rearview mirror, expecting to see the headlamps of Carlos’s huge black car getting closer, dazzling, hypnotising, until they engulfed her.
Someone must have seen her go. Someone must have heard. He would have guessed that she had gone with that terrifying instinct he had for sensing her fear and exploiting it until she was helpless to do anything but submit to him…
She could almost feel his hot breath on her neck, and, letting out a whimper of terror, had to look quickly over her shoulder to reassure herself she was imagining it.
Twisting her head back again, she saw that the road in front had narrowed suddenly into a low-sided bridge. She swerved, but did so too sharply, cringing at the sickening sound of metal against stone as the nearside wing glanced off the wall. Numb with horror, she kept going, accelerating off the bridge with a screech of tyres and swinging out onto a straight stretch of road. She should stop, check the damage to the car, but darkness crouched menacingly in the hedges and fields beyond, harbouring all manner of nameless horrors—all of which paled into insignificance at the thought of Carlos gaining on her. She imagined him pulling up alongside her as she stood in the deserted, darkling lane, getting out of the car and coming towards her with that look in his eyes that she would never be able to forget…
A sob tore through her, and she felt herself buckle, as if she’d been punched in the stomach, as the memories bubbled up through the thin crust that had sealed them in, like a mental scab. Her lungs screamed for air. It was all she could do to keep her hands on the wheel and not fall into the yawning chasm of panic that had opened up beneath her.
What you lack, Rachel, is courage.
Orlando’s voice cut through the fog—calm, steady, reassuringly blank. And then suddenly up ahead she saw the shape of a large building, dark against the pewter sky, and twin gateposts reared up on either side of the road. Weeping with relief, she sped towards them as a dim memory of a story she’d read as a child came back to her—where someone had had to race across a bridge to safety before a headless horseman caught them and all was lost.
She screeched through the gates and slewed the car round on the gravel in front of the huge, dark house, praying there was someone home. Someone who could help her—hide her—in case Carlos was making his way through the dark, dripping lanes towards her.
Turning off the ignition, she sank down in the driver’s seat, waiting for her heartbeat to stop reverberating through her entire body and for enough strength to return to her trembling legs to allow her to walk up to that imposing front door. What if there was no answer? She pictured herself knocking, hammering with all her strength as the sound echoed through vast, empty rooms, and all the time the headlights in the distance were growing closer…
And then, as she watched, a soft light spilled out across the gravel as the door opened and a figure appeared. Scrabbling at the door handle with shaking, bloodless fingers, she threw herself out and had to lean against the car for a moment as relief cascaded through her.
A second later relief had turned to anguished recognition.
There in the doorway, like a dark negative image of the angel in the churchyard, stood Orlando Winterton.
Orlando flung open the door and frowned into the gathering darkness. He had heard the sound of tyres skidding on gravel but it took a few seconds for him to bring into focus the very expensive, very damaged silver sports car which looked as if it had been abandoned in front of the house.
Arabella.
She’d phoned last night and announced in that cold, efficient way of hers that she wanted to see him. He couldn’t imagine why: everything in Arabella’s life was glamorous and high-functioning. She had no room for weakness—a fact which she had made perfectly plain at the time of Orlando’s diagnosis. Maybe she’d developed a conscience? he’d thought cynically as he’d slammed the phone down, having told her exactly what she could do.
But she always had liked to have the last word. Orlando’s face was like stone as he stood in the doorway, waiting for her to get out of the car. He wondered what tack she would take this time—mockery or seductiveness? Either way, he was immune. That was one thing he could be grateful for: when you lived in hell already, no one could make it any worse.
The car door opened and a slender figure sprang out, ghostly white in the winter gloom. Orlando felt his head jerk upwards slightly as he desperately sought to bring her into his field of vision.
Not Arabella.
She stood against the car, and even with his failing sight, even in the gathering February dusk, he could see that she was trembling. She was wearing a thin white dress that blew against her long legs, and her bright hair was like a beacon in the blurred centre of his vision. It lit up the darkness. Red for danger.
Red for passion.
The girl from the graveyard.
Slowly he walked down the steps towards her. Frozen by the icy wind that stung her bare arms and whipped her hair across her numb cheeks, Rachel watched him helplessly, suddenly finding
