Читать книгу Forsaking All Others - SUSANNE MCCARTHY - Страница 7

“WHAT…was it you wanted to discuss, Leo?” Maddy enquired, relieved to find that her voice was now completely under control again.

With a wave of his hand he indicated the piles of bills and documents on the desk and on the floor around it, stuffed into shoe-boxes and old brown envelopes—Jeremy had never had much patience with paperwork. “This. I’ve been trying to go through Jeremy’s papers and see if there’s anything that needs my immediate attention, but it’s the biggest mess I’ve ever seen.”

The note of censure in his voice stung her into sharp annoyance. “I’m sure there’s nothing that can’t wait another few days,” she retorted. “Why are you going through it anyway? Shouldn’t that be left to the executors of the estate?”

“I am one of the executors,” he responded evenly. “You’re the other. We’ve also been named as joint trustees. Everything’s been left to Jamie, naturally—although you’re to have a lifetime annuity—and there are a few small gifts to the staff.”

“Oh…” A lump had risen to her throat, and her eyes filled up with tears; it was so sad to think of Jeremy drawing up his will, cheerfully expecting that it would be many years before it would be needed. And it was typical of his generosity to have remembered the staff—but why on earth had he had to make Leo her co-trustee?

The housekeeper’s arrival with the coffee gave her a few moments to regain her composure. She should have guessed, of course, that Jeremy would have wanted Leo to administer his estate; he had always looked up to his older cousin—maybe even been slightly in awe of him. And he hadn’t been aware that Maddy would have preferred not to have too much to do with him.

Leo brought over a small table, set it down beside her chair and put her coffee-cup on it before seating himself on the opposite side of the fireplace. “How has Jamie taken it?” he enquired.

“Oh…He seems OK. Well, you saw him. He’s old enough to understand, but not old enough to really take it in properly. He knows it means he won’t be seeing his daddy again, but I suppose it’ll be a while before the realisation sinks in.”

“Yes.” Leo’s voice had thickened. “It will be for me, too.”

“For all of us,” she mused sadly.

Leo’s cold laughter startled her. “Oh, come on,” he protested, on a note of cynical mockery. “Don’t start playing the broken-hearted widow. All it’s done for you is save you the bother of getting a divorce.”

“I beg your pardon?” Her eyes flashed with frosty indignation. “For your information, I was still very fond of Jeremy. And if I’d wanted a divorce, I could have had one years ago.”

“Not without Jeremy’s consent,” he countered. “You walked out on him, remember? As the guilty party, you could only sit it out for the full five years.”

She stared at him, struggling to regain sufficient control over her voice to answer him. “Don’t you think I may perhaps have had good reason?” she queried with fine understatement.

Those agate eyes were hard and unforgiving. “You knew what he was like when you married him,” he asserted disparagingly. “It didn’t seem to matter to you then. You just wanted the sort of lifestyle you thought he could give you—the chance to mix with the county set, go to all the country house parties. But marriage vows are for better or worse, you know—not to turn your back on just because things don’t turn out to be quite the bed of roses you were expecting.”

Maddy felt her cheeks go from white to deep scarlet. He didn’t know—Jeremy had never told him about Saskia. Of course not, she reflected wryly; even though that hopelessly misconceived engagement had ended inside of three months, Jeremy would have been reluctant to let his cousin know that he was having an affair with his ex-fiancée.

And she could hardly tell him now, she realised in the next instant; he probably wouldn’t believe her, and it would just seem to him that she was trying to off-load the blame on to Jeremy when he could no longer defend himself. Besides, what did it matter to her what he thought of her? Once, maybe—but that was a long time ago. Now she only had to think about what was best for Jamie. She had to work with Leo over the administration of the estate—it would be best if personal feelings didn’t come into it at all.

“What happened between Jeremy and I is none of your business,” she informed him, her voice stiff with dignity. “But neither of us particularly wanted a divorce—it wasn’t as if either of us was in any hurry to marry again. And besides, it was better for Jamie to leave things as they were. It was a perfectly amicable arrangement.”

He lifted one dark eyebrow in frank scepticism, but shrugged the discussion aside with a lift of his wide shoulders. “Well, I suppose it’s all somewhat academic now, anyway,” he remarked coldly. “It’s the future that we have to think about. I’ve made a list of the people who will need to be notified about the funeral arrangements…”

“Oh, have you?” she retorted in sharp annoyance. “Don’t you think perhaps you should have consulted me? I am the next of kin, you know.”

Anger, barely restrained, flared in his eyes. “Don’t get competitive about it,” he warned, his voice quiet with menace. “There’s only one person who’ll suffer if we make enemies of each other, and that’s your son.”

She drew in a sharp breath; was that merely a reminder, or a warning? But he was right, of course—they were going to have to co-operate with each other in order to ensure that Jamie’s inheritance would be worthwhile. And, more than that, it wouldn’t be good for him to have them arguing over his head; like his father, he seemed to have an inordinate regard for his “Uncle Leo”—most times after his monthly visits to Hadley Park he had had as much to say about Leo as about Jeremy. And the fact that Leo was the creator of his beloved EcoWarrior, as well as a number of other cult computergame figures, was enough to elevate him to the status almost of a demi-god.

Drawing in a long, steadying breath, she inclined her head in acknowledgement. “All right,” she conceded evenly. “May I see the list?”

He walked over to the desk and brought her back a sheet of paper, with a long list of names neatly written out in his handsome script—another way in which he had differed from Jeremy, she reflected, recalling her husband’s lazy scrawl.

“That seems OK,” she murmured; she knew most of the names on the list, and none of them were unexpected. She had known Saskia’s name would be on it, of course—she was family, her brother being married to Jeremy’s older sister Julia. Yes, Saskia would be there, weeping touchingly for her childhood friend—and Maddy would be the only one who would know that she was in truth an adulterous little bitch who had wrecked her best friend’s marriage.

“You’re sure?” Those deep-set agate eyes had noted the tautness of her jaw. “Is there anyone you think I—we—should add?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she responded coolly. “You’re suggesting that the funeral should be next week?”

“Yes. I would have gone for Friday, but it may be better to delay it, just in case there are any difficulties arising out of the inquest.”

“Why should there be?” she queried, surprised. “I thought it was a quite straightforward skiing accident.”

He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Almost certainly—but, nevertheless, the authorities will have to be sure that there was no question of…anything else. Like whether he was drunk.”

“Drunk? Don’t be ridiculous! Jeremy could be a little wild at times, but he never drank too much.”

“How do you know?” Leo countered, a hard edge in his voice. “What would you know of his state of mind these past five years—what would you care? You saw him once a month when he came to fetch Jamie for his visit and brought him back.”

She stared at him, her hands shaking slightly. “Are you saying that he’d become an alcoholic?”

He shook his head impatiently. “No, I’m not. But I do know he was unhappy. He was still in love with you—maybe if you’d still been around…”

“Yes?” Maddy’s jaw was clenched tightly in anger. “Maybe if I’d still been around, what? He might not have had the accident—is that what you were going to say? That’s it’s all my fault?”

“No, of course not,” he rapped back. “It just…might have steadied him down a little…”

“I already had one child to think about,” she retorted hotly. “I couldn’t cope with two.” Fulminating grey eyes clashed with agate; Maddy could feel herself trembling—it was rare for her to be so close to losing her temper, and it was a feeling she didn’t like.

She was the first to look away. Leo was right, to some extent—she had married Jeremy for all the wrong reasons. Oh, she had been deeply fond of him—but she had never been in love with him. She had let him spin her into a whirlwind romance, dazzled by his good looks and his charm, and by the aching need inside her to fill the loneliness of her life. And because the man she had fallen instantly in love with had already been spoken for.

But she had kept that last fact a secret for almost nine years. It had been a painful irony to learn, on returning from their crazy honeymoon jaunt around Africa, that Leo and Saskia had ended their engagement just two weeks after her own wedding.

Not that it would really have made any difference, she acknowledged. Leo had made it abundantly clear from the beginning that, like the rest of the family, he disapproved of his cousin’s marriage. She did have some sympathy with their view that at twenty-one he had been far too young, but nothing could have been further from their belief that she had married him in order to claw her way a few rungs up the social ladder.

Leo sighed, and shrugged his wide shoulders in weary impatience. “Perhaps this isn’t the best time to discuss it,” he conceded. “I understand you’ll be staying for a few days—Julia has arranged for you to have the Yellow Room. Jamie can go in the nursery, of course, as usual.”

“Thank you.” So Jeremy’s sister was here already, organising everything in her usual high-handed fashion. Maddy was surprised that they had even bothered to suggest she came down—between the two of them, they seemed to be making all the decisions. But then what else had she expected? They were, after all, Ratcliffes; everyone else was supposed to fall into step with them.

A tap at the door heralded the housekeeper’s return, to announce that lunch was ready. “Shall I bring it up to the morning-room?” she suggested. “You won’t want the big dining-room.”

Maddy was tempted to say that she would prefer to come down to the warm kitchen, but Leo had already agreed that the morning-room would be the most suitable, so she kept her mouth shut. But if he and his cousin Julia thought she was still the diffident young girl who had come into their family all those years ago, they could be in for a surprise. She had no intention of letting herself be pushed around—and no intention of letting them interfere in her son’s inheritance.

It was strange to be back, Maddy mused as she stood at the window of her bedroom, gazing out over the woodfringed parkland of the estate. The house was much as she remembered it—though she couldn’t help noticing that there were even more minor repairs that needed to be done, a few of them now becoming quite urgent if the fabric of the building was to be preserved.

It was a pity Jeremy hadn’t taken his responsibility to the family seat more seriously. She had tried to persuade him often enough, but it had usually led to an argument—he preferred to spend his money on cars and parties and having a good time. The income from the land that went with the estate—farm tenancies, mostly—had barely been enough to support such an extravagant lifestyle even then. His own father’s death, a couple of years before she had met him, had already taken quite a toll in death duties—a second charge now, not much more than ten years later, could well prove to be the last straw.

Which could mean that there was no alternative but to sell the house, or hand it over to the National Trust—if they would take it. But she didn’t want to do that—coming back here had reminded her of how important Hadley Park was to her. It was more than just a house—much more…

Unconsciously she lifted her hand to touch the tiny gold locket she always wore at her throat. It was the only thing that had come out of the fire that had destroyed her own home and killed her parents. She had been just twelve years old, and had survived only because of the odd irony that she had been in hospital having her tonsils out.

In that one night her whole childhood—all her memories, every photograph, every toy she had had since she was a baby—had disappeared. Without a history, she had always felt a strange, lingering sense of detachment, as if she was somehow a loose thread in the fabric of the human race—left dangling, not properly woven in.

It was a feeling that had to some extent gone away with the birth of her son, but she had never forgotten it. And now that she was back here, in the house that had belonged to his Ratcliffe ancestors for so many generations, she remembered how determined she had been that he should know that he had a history—it was here, in these old stone walls and the deep, solid earth that they stood upon. This was his birthright, and she was going to hold on to it for him—no matter what it took.

But she was going to have to think of a way to generate sufficient income to keep it going, she mused wryly. And that would be no easy task. It was rather too small, and lacked the kudos of real aristocratic connections, to attract many visitors if it were opened to the public. And she had no desire to fill the gardens with wild animals or fairground attractions.

As she stood there, gazing absently out at the garden as it waited for the touch of spring to ripen the green buds of the daffodils that grew in wild profusion in all the flowerbeds, her mind slipped back to that encounter with Leo. Seeing him again had brought back so many memories. She had thought she had put all that behind her, but, like lumber in the attic, she had never sorted it out properly, and now that the door had been opened again it had all come tumbling out…

It had all happened so quickly that she had barely had time to think. Jeremy had proposed to her just three days after Saskia’s party, and now, less than two months later, here she was, walking up the aisle in a romantic dress of white lace, on the arm of Saskia’s father who had stood in for her own to give her away.

She had tried to persuade Jeremy to wait a little—after all, she was only nineteen, and he was barely twenty-one. But he had brushed all her protests aside, sweeping her along on the tide of his own impetuousness—it was hard to believe that all this was really happening.

And then she glanced up towards the altar, and saw the two men standing there—so very much alike to look at, so different in every other way…Her heart gave a sudden thud, almost taking her breath away. She hadn’t seen Leo since the night of the party—he had been away on business—but she knew that Jeremy had written to him and begged him to come home in time to be his best man.

She hadn’t been unduly worried about his return—had managed to convince herself that it had been no more than her imagination, that reaction she had felt the first time she had seen him. But here it was again—a thousand times stronger. Those deep-set, agate-coloured eyes met hers, and she felt as if her bones were melting.

But it was wrong—it shouldn’t be happening. She was in love with Jeremy…wasn’t she? Confusion swirled in her brain as she stared at the two of them: Jeremy, so boyishly handsome, his eyes alight with happiness as he waited for his bride—and Leo, a faintly cynical smile curving that firm, sensuous mouth, the arrogant set of his wide shoulders reminding her that the downside of all that magnetic male charisma was a personality that expected to have everything its own way.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly a good moment to pause for a little calm reflection—her slight hesitation had been noticed, and everyone was looking at her with avid curiosity. She could hardly request a postponement of the wedding on the grounds that she wasn’t sure if she was marrying the right man. And besides, Leo was engaged to the girl who was today her own bridesmaid—an engagement sealed with an enormous diamond that must have cost a fortune.

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, she forced herself to go on. As she drew to Jeremy’s side he smiled down at her, taking her hand warmly in his, and she told herself it would be all right—it was just a last-minute attack of nerves. But she was glad to be able to hide behind the heavy lace fall of her veil as the vicar began to welcome the congregation, all too acutely aware of the man at the very edge of her vision…as he had been at the edge of her mind for the past two months.

Perhaps it was just that Jeremy had spoken about him so much—he was obviously very fond of his older cousin, maybe even a little in awe of him. It had been Leo, the captain of the most successful rugby team in the history of the school, Leo who had got a First at Oxford, Leo who knew everything there was to know about computers…

And, after all, there had been nothing in his behaviour that first night to suggest that he had been struck in the same way she had—he had shown nothing beyond a mere friendly politeness towards his fiancee’s best friend. And though she knew that her slender height and long blonde hair attracted a lot of male attention—not always the kind of attention she liked—she was certainly not vain enough to suppose that the effect would be universal. She was just being stupid.

The vicar was reciting the vows, and she repeated them in a whisper. Jeremy squeezed her hand encouragingly, smiling down at her, and she realised with a small stab of guilt that he had completely misinterpreted the reason for her nervousness. But she meant what she was saying—she really did. “Forsaking all others…”

And then Leo stepped forward to hand Jeremy the ring, and though she tried with all the strength of her will to resist, she couldn’t help but lift her eyes to his—to find him watching her, his dark gaze seeming to see right into her soul. He knew—even behind the thick lace of her veil she couldn’t hide from him. He had never even touched her, and yet she belonged to him…

At last the ceremony was over, and they all crowded into the tiny vestry to sign the register. As soon as they were inside, Jeremy caught her round the waist and swung her around in a wild polka, bumping heedlessly into the table and the walls, culminating in a deep, steaming kiss.

“Hello, Mrs Ratcliffe!” he proclaimed as at last he let her go.

She laughed, breathless, her cheeks faintly tinged with pink; at least everyone would assume her blush was one of bridal modesty—except, perhaps, for Leo. But she couldn’t risk letting herself glance in his direction—better to try to pretend that he wasn’t there.

Saskia, pretty as a picture in her pink bridesmaid dress, hurried over to help her straighten her veil. “Oh, isn’t it wonderful!” she declared, her sapphire-blue eyes dancing as she kissed her cheek. “Now you’re really almost my sister, instead of just my best friend.”

Maddy smiled; that was what she had always wanted—to be part of a family, to belong. And, though she knew that Jeremy’s family hadn’t approved of the speed with which it had all happened, now that they were married and they saw how happy Jeremy was they would surely come round to accepting her.

They were all gathering around her—Saskia’s parents, and her brother Nigel, who was married to Jeremy’s elder sister Julia—kissing her and wishing her well. Even Julia managed some sort of smile, and a dry peck on her cheek, though it seemed to cost her dear; Maddy responded to her as warmly as she could—that was a relationship she was going to have to work very hard at.

And then Leo was there, slanting his cousin a teasing glance. “Do you mind if I kiss the bride?” he asked, an inflection of something Maddy couldn’t quite interpret in his voice.

“Of course,” Jeremy responded cheerfully. “Best man’s privilege.”

Maddy stiffened, every nerve-fibre in her body stretched taut as Leo turned to her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders as he drew her towards him. A faintly mocking smile glinted in those agate eyes. “Jeremy’s a very lucky man to have such a beautiful bride,” he murmured. “No wonder he was in such a hurry to tie the knot.”

“Th—thank you,” she stammered, hoping he wouldn’t detect the agitated racing of her heartbeat.

He bent his head and his mouth brushed over hers, warm and firm, just as she had known it would be. Her heart creased in pain; she wasn’t supposed to feel like this—she wasn’t allowed to. Longing to have him hold her close, she drew back quickly, her cheeks deeply tinged with pink, her eyes unable to meet his.

Fortunately no one seemed to have noticed anything untoward—Julia’s small son Aubrey, frustrated at not being the centre of attention, had chosen that moment to throw a minor tantrum, and Jeremy was enjoying a bridegroom’s liberties with the chief bridesmaid, who was giggling as he kissed her.

With a supreme effort of will, she pulled herself together. It was just the excitement of the day, the crazy rush of it all, she told herself firmly—it really wasn’t surprising that she hardly knew if she was on her head or her heels. But she would be very careful from now on not to let Leo get too close—she wasn’t sure quite what it was about him that had such a disturbing effect on her, but she wanted no repetition of it.

Even so, it was a strain to get through the rest of the day—smiling for endless photographs, standing beside Jeremy at the entrance to the huge marquee that had been erected in the garden of his house, greeting an endless line of guests, most of whom she had never even seen before. She sensed that they were all looking down their noses at her, convinced that Jeremy had married beneath him; she was grateful to Saskia for being there, conspicuously loyal, telling everyone that they had been at school together.

Then there was the lavish wedding-breakfast, and the speeches, and then everything was swiftly cleared away so that the guests could dance to the music of a local band. As the afternoon wore on into evening Maddy began to develop a splitting headache; the marquee was hot and stuffy, and she was desperate for a breath of fresh air. Jeremy was dancing with one of his aunts, and no one noticed as she slipped quietly away.

The gardens of Hadley Park were beautiful—a little neglected in places, with trails of bright blue periwinkle growing wild among the flowerbeds, and honeysuckle scrambling all along the broken stone parapet that ran around the terrace at the back of the house, its sweet fragrance filling the air. The sky had turned a soft dark blue, streaked with high magenta clouds as the sun sank below the horizon.

Wandering into a secluded corner, she found a wooden pergola, covered with climbing roses. There was a rustic seat inside and she sat down wearily, closing her eyes. Her mind was a turmoil of confusion; had she been wrong to marry Jeremy? She had genuinely believed she was in love with him, and yet…Maybe she had let herself be swept up by his ebullient personality, feeling for the first time in her life that she was on the inside of one of those charmed circles she had always envied—and maybe she had mistaken gratitude for love…

A sound close by brought her eyes sharply open—as Leo stepped into the pergola. Startled, she jumped to her feet—and gave a little cry of horror as the puffed sleeve of her dress caught on a stray rose-thorn. “Oh…damn and blast it!” she muttered fiercely under her breath, twisting around as she tried to free herself.

“Hold still,” he advised in that dry, sardonic tone. “If you keep pulling at it like that you’ll rip it.”

Her heart gave an uncomfortable thud and began to race rapidly as he leaned close to her and carefully disentangled the delicate silk from the thorn. “Th—thank you,” she managed, hoping he wouldn’t notice the slight tremor in her voice. “I…just came out for a few minutes—I couldn’t breathe in there.”

“I wondered what you were doing out here all by yourself,” he remarked. “Beginning to pall already, is it?”

She glanced up at him in surprise, taken aback by the hard glint in those agate eyes. “I’m sorry?” she queried, frowning.

“I wonder if you will be?” he mused, deliberately misunderstanding. “Unfortunately I’m inclined to think it’s my impetuous young cousin who’ll be the one to be sorry. You know what they say—’Marry in haste, repent at leisure’. And you certainly married in haste.”

She glared up at him in indignant fury. “Yes, we did,” she retorted defensively. “But so what? Jeremy loves me.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt of that,” Leo drawled, an inflexion of mocking cynicism in his voice. “He’s written to me more in the past two months than he ever has in his life—every letter singing your praises. But I’m left in some doubt about you.” His eyes flickered down over her in icy contempt. “Some of my more naive relatives seem to think you’ve trapped him into matrimony by getting pregnant, but I think they’ve underestimated your subtlety.”

“I…I don’t know what you mean,” she protested, bewildered.

“Don’t you?” His smile was hard, not reaching his eyes. “Strange—I’m sure you’re a very clever girl. Clever enough to know that getting pregnant would have been exceedingly risky—besotted as he is, there’d be no guarantee that Jeremy would do the decent thing. So you played an even more old-fashioned trick; and very effectively, too—particularly with someone like Jeremy, who is regrettably not very good at being patient when he wants something. I just hope you feel the prize is worth the effort.”

“Of course I do!” Anger lent her voice a note of conviction it might otherwise have lacked. “I…love Jeremy—very much.”

He lifted one dark eyebrow a fraction of an inch—but it spoke volumes. “Well, there’s some reassurance in that, I suppose,” he conceded coolly. “Though whether it will stand the test of time—and harsh reality—remains to be seen.”

“Why shouldn’t it?” she demanded, her voice ragged.

He lifted his wide shoulders in a cynical shrug. “Well, for one thing there’s the matter of Jerry’s income. No doubt he’s given you the impression that there are money-trees growing here in the garden, but I’m afraid you’ll find that the true picture isn’t quite so rosy. Oh, there’ll be more than enough to keep you in a reasonable degree of comfort, given a little practical economy. Unfortunately he’s far too young to have any sense of responsibility.”

“Maybe that’s the way you see it,” she countered caustically. “But you could be wrong, you know—maybe he’s got more sense than you give him credit for.”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “But I wouldn’t put it to the test too quickly, if I were you.” Those hard eyes slid down quite deliberately over the beaded bodice of her dress to note the slenderness of her waist, his meaning insolently plain. “Let him have his fun for a few years first.”

Maddy glared up at him, her hand positively itching to slap that arrogant face. “That’s none of your business!” she protested hotly.

“Perhaps not,” he acknowledged, an unmistakable note of warning in his voice. “But I’m strangely fond of my young cousin—I wouldn’t like to see him hurt.”

She felt her cheeks flame scarlet. “What makes you think I’d hurt him?” she demanded, her voice taut with agitation. “I told you—I love him.”

“Do you?” The chill in his eyes made her shiver. “I wonder? I can’t help feeling that if you were really that much in love with him, you wouldn’t have been able to hold out quite so easily—you’d have gone to bed with him.”

This time she really did slap him—or at least she tried. But he was too quick for her, catching her wrist in a vice-like grip. Her eyes filled with tears of pain as his steely fingers dug into her dedicate skin. “Let me go,” she pleaded, all too acutely aware of the quivering response that was generating inside her; being so close to him, breathing the subtle musky scent of his skin, was affecting her in a way that she didn’t know how to control.

Those agate eyes were gazing down into hers, the amber lights in their depths seeming to mesmerise her. “Because you’re not quite the ice-princess you pretend to be, are you?” he taunted. “On the surface it’s all frosty dignity, but underneath the fires are burning—I can feel their heat.”

“No,” she protested, desperately trying to twist free of him. “You’re wrong…”

“Am I?” he challenged, drawing her closer against him, his arm sliding around her slender waist. “Then you won’t let me kiss you, will you?”

She caught her breath on a small gasp of shock, putting up her hand against his chest—but any intention she might have had to push him away melted as she felt the warmth of hard muscle beneath his white silk shirt. He laughed in mocking contempt as he recognised her lack of resistance.

“Now you’re showing yourself in your true colours,” he taunted, his head bending over hers.

His mouth was firm and sensuous, inciting her to respond, and her lips parted tremblingly as with unhurried ease his languorous tongue sought the soft inner sweetness, plundering in a deliberately flagrant exploration of all the deep, secret corners within. She closed her eyes, her head tipping back into the crook of his arm, melting in a honeyed tide of submissiveness, drugged by the musky male scent of his skin. She had been aching for this from the moment she had first set eyes on him—it had been an instantaneous reaction, far beyond the reach of reason…

But she shouldn’t be allowing it to happen…With a sudden rush of shame, she tried to pull back, but his hold on her hardened, his kiss becoming an insolent assault that she knew was intended to punish and humiliate. In a panic to get away from him, to deny the frightening power of her own desire, she deliberately sank her teeth into his lip.

“Bitch!” He let her go, anger flaring in his eyes. A small trickle of blood had appeared at the corner of his mouth, and she stared at it in horror.

“I…I’m…sorry. I didn’t mean…to hurt you,” she stammered, pain twisting in her heart. “But you…shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” he conceded on a harsh note of anger. “You’re the woman who stood at the altar with my cousin not more than a few hours ago, vowing to forsake all others. You didn’t manage to keep it up for very long, did you?”

She drew in a long, deep breath, struggling to control the ragged beat of her heart. “Please don’t ever touch me again,” she insisted with fierce dignity. “I’m Jeremy’s wife, and I intend to do everything I can to make him happy. I don’t care whether you believe me or not—time will prove that I mean what I say.”

And, turning him an aloof shoulder, she gathered up the rustling silk folds of her wedding-dress and hurried away, back through the quiet shadows of the garden to the safety of the bright, crowded marquee.