Читать книгу Marriage on the Rebound - Michelle Reid - Страница 4

THE room had fallen into a terrible silence. No one moved, no one spoke, the horror that was every young woman’s worst nightmare jamming the very air that surrounded them.

Shaan had dropped into the nearest chair, her face turned chalk-white with shock. Pressed between her knees and half-buried in the soft folds of pure white silk and delicate lace were her hands. Ice-cold and numb, they were crushing the single sheet of notepaper Rafe had just grimly handed to her.

‘Dear Shaan,’ it said. Dear Shaan…

‘How could he do it?’ Her uncle’s harsh cry broke into the terrible silence, sounding hoarse and stricken and grievously bewildered.

Nobody answered him. Shaan couldn’t, and Rafe obviously wasn’t prepared to.

He stood by the window, effectively disconnected from it all now his part in the dirty deed was done, while out there, only a few short miles away, was a church packed full of guests, all dressed in their best wedding finery, waiting for a bride and groom who would not be turning up.

By now they would have begun to suspect that something terrible had gone wrong, the fact that Piers and Rafe were not in their places by the altar enough to arouse suspicion alone. Her aunt would be jumping all over the place with worry and Jemma, her only bridesmaid, looking foolish in her pretty pink dress, would be waiting just outside the church for a bride who was no longer wanted.

‘My God! He couldn’t have cut it any finer, could he?’ her uncle raked out angrily.

‘No,’ Rafe decided to answer that one, though his voice sounded deeply constricted, as though he’d only just got the single syllable past his tensely locked throat.

Shaan didn’t so much as move, her eyes—dark, dark brown under normal circumstances—looking so black in her pale face that they seemed utterly bottomless. They were not seeing much. They looked inwards, staring into the cold, dark recesses of her mind where horror, hurt and humiliation were waiting to grab hold of her once the all-encompassing numbness of shock had worn off.

Was Rafe in shock too? she found herself wondering. She supposed he must be. He certainly looked pale beneath that warm, golden tan his skin always wore. And he was dressed for a wedding in a formal grey morning suit. He could not have suspected Piers was going to do anything quite so crass as this.

Piers…

Her gaze dropped to her hands, where her fingers curled tightly around the single sheet of notepaper.

‘I’m so sorry to have to do this…’

Her lips quivered, but not the rest of her—that was held in a kind of frozen stillness that barely allowed her enough room to breathe. Her mouth felt dry, so dry that everything had cleaved to everything else. And her heart was pumping oddly—not in her breast but in her stomach, huge, great, throbbing pulses which were making her feel dizzy and sick and—

‘God—’ Her uncle broke into sudden movement. ‘I have to go and warn all those poor people waiting at the—’

‘There’s no need,’ Rafe put in grimly. ‘I’ve already seen to it. I thought it—best,’ he finished inadequately, hating the situation Piers had thrust upon him so much that the words came out terse and clipped.

Sure enough, and as if on cue, the sound of a car pulling up outside the smart London town house alerted them to the first horrified arrivals back from the church.

Too soon, Shaan thought numbly. I’m not ready for them. I can’t face—

‘Shaan!’

It was Rafe’s voice, sounding raw with concern, and a moment later she felt herself being caught just before she toppled sickeningly forward.

‘I don’t want to see anyone,’ she whispered threadily—not actually unconscious, but dizzyingly close to it.

‘Of course not.’ Rafe was squatting in front of her, holding her slumped upper torso against him, the fine tulle veil covering her thick mane of jet-black hair rustling against his face. He was trembling, she noted vaguely, his heart thundering beneath her resting brow.

‘It’s Sheila…’ Her uncle Thomas had moved to peer out of the window. ‘It’s your aunt, Shaan,’ he murmured soothingly. ‘She—’

At that moment the front door burst open, and Shaan began to shake—shake violently. Rafe uttered a soft curse and shifted his big frame so he could gather her deeper into the protective cocoon of his arms as the sitting room door flew open.

‘Shaan!’ a high-pitched, near hysterical voice cried out. ‘Oh, you poor baby!’

‘No,’ she whimpered against Rafe’s shoulder. ‘No…’ She didn’t want this, couldn’t cope with it. Not her aunt’s grief, not her uncle’s—not even her own!

Rafe must have sensed it, because he stood up suddenly, pulling her upright with him, and in the next second she was being lifted into his arms, her ice-cold face pressed into his warm, tense throat.

‘She’s fainted,’ he lied. God alone knew why, but Shaan was grateful to him. ‘Her room, Mrs Lester—show me where her room is.’

‘Oh, Shaan!’ Aunt Sheila—her quiet, soft, super, gentle aunt Sheila who rarely let anything ripple the calm waters surrounding her life—went completely to pieces, dropping down into one of the chairs to sob uncontrollably. Uncle Thomas went to her while Rafe muttered something beneath his breath and strode out of the room without waiting for direction.

The hall was packed with people. Shaan could sense their horrified presence even while Rafe kept her face hidden in his throat. Ignoring them all, he took the stairs like a mountain climber, the angry adrenaline pumping in his blood powerful enough to send him up there without him so much as taking a breath.

She heard several horrified gasps, and Jemma’s voice, questioning and sharp with concern. Rafe answered tightly, but she didn’t know what he said. She was hovering somewhere between this world and another, riding on a fluffy grey cloud just above pained reality.

‘Which room?’ His voice was terse, rasping enough to score through the cloud.

But although she tried to concentrate on the question she couldn’t. She was barely aware of where she was. On another muttered curse Rafe began opening doors, throwing them wide and glancing inside before moving on to the next one, until he came to the one which could only be the bride’s room, because of the mad scatter of wedding paraphernalia all over the place. Once inside, he sat her down on the end of the bed and then turned to slam the bedroom door shut.

Then silence hit, the same hard, drumming silence which had closed them all in downstairs, after Rafe had delivered his letter.

Rafe just stood there, glaring at her downbent head for a few moments, then suddenly strode over to grasp the short tulle veil she still wore. Careless of the amount of pins holding it in place, he ripped it from her head and threw it aside.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered tensely. ‘But I couldn’t…’ Swallowing, he spun away, thrusting clenched fists into his pockets.

Her scalp began to tingle from his rough handling, but Shaan didn’t mind. If anything she was glad of the feeling because it told her that she was at least partly still alive. And she even understood why he’d done it. She must look pathetic, really pathetic, sitting here in all her bridal finery while her groom made off in the opposite direction.

Then it really hit—self-revulsion surging up from nowhere to bring her staggering to her feet, the letter, still crumpled in one hand, falling forgotten to the floor as she began a mad clawing at the tiny pearl buttons holding the front of her lacy bodice together.

‘Help me!’ she pleaded in choking desperation, fingers trembling, body shaking, her expression until now uncannily still breaking into a war of tortured loathing.

The silk ripped as she tugged, but she didn’t care—suddenly it was the most essential thing in her life to get out of this dress, remove everything even remotely connected with Piers or her ruined wedding day from her body! ‘Help me, for God’s sake!’

‘Shaan, I can’t!’ Rafe sounded actually shocked, which brought her eyes jerking up to his face.

‘Why not?’ she demanded in tight, thick condemnation. ‘You’ve done everything else you could possibly do to ruin today for me. Why can’t you help me ruin this dress, too!’

Her sudden attack sent him back a step, set a nerve ticking at the side of his rigidly held jaw. His usually implacable grey eyes going dark with emotion as he opened his mouth to say something—and Shaan’s chin came up, dark eyes daring him to deny what she’d said. He couldn’t, and his mouth closed again into a hard, tight line of self-contempt.

On a fresh wave of inner violence, Shaan gave a vicious yank at the bodice so that the two pieces of fine fabric sheared apart to send tiny buttons flying everywhere, dropping on the bed, on the floor, one flying across the room to land on the soft mauve carpet at Rafe’s feet.

Rafe stared down at it, his dark head lowered so she couldn’t see the expression on his grim face. She turned away on a rustle of silk to finish the complete destruction of the dress as, without a single care for its cost, she took malicious pleasure in ripping it from her body until she stood, trembling and cold, in the lovely white lace basque and silk stockings, which was all she wore beneath.

‘This feels worse than rape,’ she whispered, her arms wrapping tightly around herself.

‘God, Shaan. Don’t…’ he muttered, taking a half-step towards her with his hand outstretched in a kind of distressed appeal.

Then it fell heavily to his side because he knew there was nothing he could say—nothing that could ease the pain and degradation she was suffering right now.

Instead, he turned for the door, his broad shoulders stiff beneath the smooth grey cloth of his formal morning jacket. ‘I’ll—go and get someone to—’

‘No!’ The protest rasped from somewhere deep down inside her. And she turned to look at him as he stopped dead one step from the door. ‘No,’ she repeated huskily. ‘You can go if you want,’ she allowed. ‘But I don’t want anyone else coming anywhere near this room.’

It was one thing having Rafe witness her complete downfall, since it was he who had effectively brought it about, but it was quite another having all those others witness it too. She wanted nobody here. Nobody. Not her best friend, Jemma, nor even her aunt.

She didn’t care about Rafe, or the fact that she was wearing next to nothing in his presence. Rafe had openly held her in contempt from the very first moment Piers had introduced her as his—

‘No.’ Thoughts of Piers brought the sickness back, churning around in her stomach, so that she had to heave in some deep, controlling breaths to stop it overwhelming her altogether. Her nails bit into the soft flesh of her upper arms with enough cruelty to draw blood.

Then she felt something cold press against her skin, and remembered. Her long lashes flickered upwards as she unclipped her left hand from her arm and spread the cold and trembling fingers out in front of her.

A huge diamond winked tauntingly back at her, and with an angry tug she wrenched it from her finger and spun to face Rafe again, her black eyes spearing bitterness into his tensely guarded grey ones.

‘Here,’ she said, and threw the ring at his feet. ‘You can give that back to him when you see him next. I don’t want it; I don’t ever want to see it again.’

Turning away from the image of Rafe slowly bending to pick up the ring, she walked quickly into her small bathroom, where she wilted shakily against the closed door. Her insides felt thick and heavy, as though every functioning organ had collapsed in a throbbing heap deep in the pit of her stomach.

Nausea enveloped her, followed by a black dizziness, followed by a raking sense of self-disgust which had her body folding right in on itself. Then, with the sudden jerky movements of one whose mind was not functioning with any intelligence at all, she was stiffening upright and lurching drunkenly away from the door.

She needed a shower! Her cold and trembling skin was crawling with revulsion and she desperately needed to wash it away.

It was only as she wrenched the fragile white silk basque from her body that she saw the pale blue satin-and lace-trimmed garter still clinging lovingly to her thigh, just above one white silk stocking, and a smile twisted her bloodless mouth when she realised just how ridiculous she must have looked to Rafe, making her grand exit with this piece of frivolity on show.

Tears blinded her eyes, the first of many, she supposed, and she wretchedly wiped them away with the back of an icy hand and stepped into the shower cubicle. Trembling fingers found the tap and turned it until the burning-hot hiss of water gushed down on her. Then she stood, not moving, just letting the stinging heat wash all over her, eyes closed, face lifted up to it, not caring if she scalded herself so long as she scoured every last hint of the bride from her body.

How long she stood there like that, she had no idea, because she refused to allow herself to think, or even to feel much. But through the tunnel-dark recesses of her consciousness she was vaguely aware of intermittent knocks sounding on her bedroom door, of voices—one her aunt’s, sounding high-pitched and shrill, another one, crisp and clear was Jemma, sounding demanding.

Rafe’s darkly resonant murmurs intermingled with them, saying God knew what. She didn’t know nor care, so long as he kept them all away from her. Then, eventually, the silence fell again, a solid kind of silence which soothed her flurried heart and helped keep her face turned up to the hot, hissing spray.

There would be time enough to endure all those pitying glances and murmured platitudes which were bound to come her way. These few minutes were for herself, herself alone, to try to come to terms with what she now was.

A jilted bride.

A nerve jerked at the corner of her mouth. Humiliation sat in the empty hollow where her heart used to be. A fool, more like, she corrected herself ruthlessly, a fool for ever believing that Rafe Danvers would let her marry his brother.

She had known from the first time she stood there in front of him, with her hand caught possessively in Piers’ hand, that Rafe was going to do anything in his power to break them up.

Piers…

Oh, God, she thought wretchedly as his handsome, smiling face loomed up to torment her. How could he? How could he do this?

‘Shaan…’ The loud knock sounding on the bathroom door made her jump, her feet almost slipping on the wet tiles at the deep, husky sound of that voice.

So, Rafe hadn’t given in to all those other concerned voices and made good his escape like his brother had, she noted grimly. He was still here, standing just on the other side of her bathroom door, as always ready to see his responsibilities through to the bitter end. She had told him she didn’t want anyone else near her and he had taken her at her word—which therefore meant he could not desert her himself until he was satisfied he had seen this responsibility through to its conclusion.

Which was—what? she asked herself.

Rafe. The older brother. The more successful one. The head of the great Danvers empire. A man with shoulders more than broad enough to take whatever was thrust upon them.

And Piers had certainly thrust her upon Rafe today, she thought with a bitter little smile.

‘Shaan…’

The voice came from much closer and she opened her eyes, turning her head to stare blankly through the thick bank of steam permeating all around her—to find Rafe’s grim figure standing with a towel at the ready just outside the open shower cubicle door.

‘Who said you could come in here?’ she said, too numb to care about her own nakedness—both inside and out. The water was still gushing over her.

He didn’t move his gaze from her face—not even to make a sweeping inspection of her naked body.

‘Come on,’ he said quietly, the towel held outstretched between his hands. ‘You’ve been in there long enough.’

She laughed—why, she didn’t know—but it was a sound that fell a long way short of humour and probably sounded more bleak and helpless than anything else. Long enough for what? she wondered. After all, I’m not going anywhere, am I?

Closing her eyes, she lifted her face back to the spray, effectively dismissing him.

‘Hiding in here isn’t going to make it all go away, you know,’ he said quietly.

‘Leave me alone, Rafe,’ she threw back flatly. ‘You’ve achieved what you set out to do; just leave me alone now.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’ One hand dropped a corner of the towel so he could reach into the cubicle and turn off the water.

The new silence was engulfed in steam, emanating up from the wet tiles at her feet, and she glanced down to watch it swirl around her body, coiling up her long, slender legs and over the rounded contours of her hips, caressing as it wound around the firm swell of her breasts.

‘He didn’t want me,’ she murmured dully. ‘After all he said. He didn’t really want me.’

The towel came softly about her shoulders, Rafe’s hands holding it there as he gently urged her out of the cubicle and turned her into his arms. ‘He wanted you, Shaan,’ he told her huskily. ‘But he loved Madeleine. In all fairness, he had no right to promise any other woman anything while he still loved her.’

Yes, Madeleine, she thought emptily. Piers’ first and only love…‘And you had to bring her back into his life,’ she whispered accusingly.

‘Yes,’ he sighed, his hand moving gently on her back. ‘You won’t believe this, Shaan, but I’m sorry. I really am sorry…’

For some reason his apology cut so deeply into her that she reared back from him and, with all the bright, burning, bitter condemnation bubbling hotly inside, she threw her hand hard against the side of his face.

He took it, took it all, without even flinching. He didn’t even release the hold he had on her, but just stood looking back at her with those cool grey eyes opalescent in his graven face, his mouth a thin, grim line.

She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She wanted to kick and scream and hit out at him again and again and again, in an effort to release all the hurt and anger culminating inside her, but she couldn’t. That one brief flash of violence seemed to have taken what bit of energy she had left from her. All she could do now was stand there in the circle of Rafe’s arms and stare up at him through huge black haunted eyes, wondering if that grim look he was wearing hid satisfaction or any guilt at all for what he had done.

Rafe had warned her—as long as six weeks ago, he had warned her he wouldn’t just stand aside and let her marry his brother. From the first moment their eyes had met across the elegant width of Rafe’s luxurious home, his contempt for her had been there, vibrating on defences she hadn’t even known she possessed, until she clashed with that look.

Until that moment she had just been Shaan Saketa, loving daughter of the late and much missed Tariq and Mary Saketa, proud of her mixed blood because she had never been made to feel otherwise—until those silver ice eyes had gone sliding over her.

Then, for the first time in her life, she’d experienced what real prejudice felt like, and the rare combination of thick, straight jet-black hair, dark brown eyes and skin as smooth and pale as milk, which had been turning people’s heads in admiration all her life, suddenly became something to be sensitive about. She’d had to steel herself to actually take the hand Rafe had held out to her in formal greeting, knowing by sheer instinct that he had no wish to touch her or even be in the same room as her.

Yet, oddly, not only had he taken the hand but he had held onto it—and clung to the new, very defensive look in her liquid brown eyes—the dark, dire expression in his had managed to chill the blood in her veins in appalled acknowledgement of what his grim expression was telling her.

It had been the moment when Rafe Danvers had made sure she was rawly aware of her complete unsuitability to become one of the great Danvers family.

Well, today he had won his battle. And now he could afford to be a little charitable, she supposed. Lend comfort to the defeated.

She moved out of his arms, clutching the huge bath sheet around her trembling figure as she went back into her bedroom.

Miraculously, there wasn’t a single sign of bridal attire about the place. The whole room had been completely swept clean of everything while she’d been hiding in the bathroom. The dress, the mad scatter of bits and pieces were all gone, leaving only her rose-pink bathrobe folded on the end of the bed, and her suitcases—so carefully packed the night before—still stacked neatly beside the bedroom door.

She dropped the towel and picked up the robe, uncaring that Rafe had followed her back into the room and that she was once again exposing her nakedness to him. It didn’t seem to matter, not when the sight of her body held no interest for the man in question.

She turned to glance at him, though, as she cinched the robe belt around her narrow waist. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, not leaning, but tense, his hard eyes hooded.

‘Your suit is wet,’ she told him, sending a flickering glance along his big, hard frame where the pale grey showed dark patches where she had leant against him.

He shrugged with indifference and moved at last, walking across the now neat bedroom to her dressing table. ‘Here,’ he said, turning back to her and holding out a glass half-full of what could only be brandy.

She smiled wryly at it. ‘Medicinal?’ she mocked, taking it from him and lowering herself carefully onto the end of the bed. From being rubber-limbed with shock, she was now stiff with it—so stiff, in fact, that even the simple act of sitting down was a painful effort.

‘Whatever you want to call it,’ he replied. ‘As it is…’ He turned again, lifting another glass in rueful acknowledgement to her. ‘I’m in need of the same.’ And he came to sit down beside her. ‘Drink it,’ he advised. ‘I can assure you, it will help.’

She swirled the dark amber liquid around the glass for a moment before lifting it to her bloodless lips. He did the same, sitting close to her, his arm brushing against hers as he moved it up and down.

It was strange, really, but, having spent the last six weeks avoiding touching her at all costs—except for that one brief contamination when they had been formally introduced—Rafe now seemed quite happy to be as close to her as he could get.

She glanced at him from beneath her thick black lashes, seeing the rigid tension in his square jaw, in the harsh line of his strong profile. He was nothing like Piers to look at. The two brothers were as different in every way as two men could possibly be. Where Rafe was dark, Piers was fair—so fair, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to her to find out later that they were only half-brothers. Which also answered the question as to the ten-year gap in their ages. Piers was the handsome one of the brothers, the one with the uncomplicated smile which went with his uncomplicated character.

Or so she had believed, she amended grimly as she took another sip at the brandy. It burned as it went down, and the taste was gross, but it did at least put some warmth back inside her.

‘What happened to everything in here?’

Rafe glanced around the pristine, tidy room. ‘Your aunt and your friend cleared it all out while you were busy in the bathroom,’ he explained. ‘They—needed to feel useful.’

‘I’m surprised Jemma didn’t throw you out,’ she murmured.

‘Not your aunt?’ he queried curiously.

‘No.’ Shaan shook the thick, wet pelt of black hair. ‘My aunt has never been rude to anyone in her home in her life.’

‘Unlike me.’

‘Unlike you,’ she agreed, not even trying to work out why they were sitting here having this stupid conversation in her bedroom of all places—he being who he was and she…

‘Jemma tried throwing me out,’ he admitted, taking a quick sip at his drink. ‘But I— convinced her that you would handle all this better with me here rather than anyone else.’

‘Because you don’t care.’ She nodded understandingly. She knew exactly why she had clung to Rafe rather than anyone else.

‘That isn’t entirely true, Shaan.’ He sounded gruff all of a sudden. ‘I know you won’t believe this, but I knew from the beginning that Piers was not the man for you. All right,’ he conceded at her deriding glance, ‘I’m relieved he came to his senses before it was too late. But I am not proud of the time he took to do it. Nor will I forgive him easily for the way he’s hurt you today. No one,’ he finished roughly, ‘has the right to wound another human being like he has done…If it gives you any satisfaction at all to know it, I can tell you that he and Madeleine are not proud of themselves for—’

‘It doesn’t,’ she cut in, rising abruptly to her feet. ‘And I really don’t want to hear it.’

Lifting the glass to her mouth, she tossed the full contents to the back of her throat, then stood, back arched, eyes closed, breath held, while she absorbed the lick of liquid heat and waited for it to begin numbing her again.

She didn’t want to feel anything yet. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t even want to think—not about herself, not about Rafe, and especially not about Piers and Madeleine.

‘All right, Rafe.’ Putting down the glass, she turned suddenly on him. Her eyes were still too big in her pale face, but her mouth was steadier, the colour beginning to ease back into her shock-whitened lips. ‘I know this has all been an ordeal for you, and I thank you for the bother you’ve taken with me, but I’m going to be all right, and I would like you to leave now.’ Now, before it all came hurtling on top of her, before the real hurting began, before…

But he gave a grim shake of his dark head, not even attempting to get up, and Shaan jumped in alarm when his hand snaked out to close around her wrist, the sudden tingle of her defences warning her that she wasn’t completely numb as he pulled her back down to sit beside him.

‘I’m not going yet,’ he informed her bluntly. ‘I have a proposition to put to you first. And I want you to hear me out before you say anything. I know you’re in shock, and I know you can’t possibly be capable of making decisions of any kind. But I’m going to force this one on you for the simple reason that I think, if you agree, we can at least save your pride if nothing else from this mess.’

He paused, then turned to look directly at her, those grey eyes of his very guarded but unwavering as they caught and held onto her own gaze.

‘Will you marry me instead of my brother, Shaan?’ he requested gravely.