Diana Hamilton - The Bride Wore Scarlet

‘What are you doing?’ She turned to look at him, big, bemused eyes dominating her face, then relaxed back against the leather upholstery, reassured by the flicker of a smile caught in the lights from the dashboard.

‘Moving to where we won’t be disturbed. Fasten your seatbelt.’

Just for a few yards? Annie shrugged and complied. She supposed it did make sense. The ferocity of the rainstorm made visibility almost nil, the wipers barely coping with the sudden deluge. And of course he would want to move his car out of the way of those of the guests who would soon be departing—and it would be a good idea to talk.

Maybe he’d come to his senses and decided his treatment of her had been way over the top. And she would be able to tell him exactly why she’d mistaken him for Rupert at that other party eight months ago.

Clearly there had been some misunderstanding—a misreading of the situation. No man in his right mind could take so decisively and implacably against a woman merely because she’d flung herself at him, kissing him wildly before realising her mistake and taking to her heels! And there was nothing whatsoever wrong with Daniel Faber’s mind!

So this would be a good opportunity to sort it all out, wouldn’t it?

She would dearly love the antagonism between them to be over. But would all the stinging tension that made the air fizz around them whenever they were near each other disappear, too?

With the departure of antagonism would there be nothing left? Or would whatever it was that made the atmosphere sizzle still be there, to be built upon?

Suddenly she wanted to be able to build something with this man. She felt it like a keen ache, deep inside her. Which only went to show what a fool she was.

Daniel Faber could have his pick. And the type of woman he would choose would be elegant, quite certainly beautiful, and more than likely out of the top social drawer.

He wouldn’t choose a nobody like her, not in a thousand years. A nobody with nothing going for her but a bunch of wild hair and a liking for loud clothes.

She sighed and focused her eyes on the rhythmic sweep of the windscreen wipers, then shot him a frowning glance. She’d been so deeply entrenched in her thoughts she hadn’t stopped to wonder why it was taking him so long to find a place to park up.

The car was climbing up a steep, narrow lane, the headlights carving a path through the heavy rain. ‘Where on earth are we going?’ she demanded as he negotiated a sharp bend carefully, then turned the car onto an even narrower, steeper track, where the hedgerows were so high and heavy with water they hung down, scraping the sides of the vehicle with dark, leafy fingers.

‘Relax. Almost there.’

That didn’t answer her question. She slewed round in her seat, trying to read something from his face. He was concentrating, his features very controlled. ‘You said you wanted to talk,’ she pointed out warily. ‘What’s wrong with now? So far you’ve said nothing.’

He stopped the car. The powerful headlights illuminated a small stone cottage in a raggedy patch of garden, separated from the unmade track by a crooked gate. And then he switched off lights and ignition and there was just the darkness and the beating rain and the rapid thud of sudden anxiety as it pulsed chaotically through her veins.

It got worse as he produced a torch from somewhere and flicked it on. ‘Sorry about the weather. We’ll have to make a run for it. I’ll be right behind you with the torch, so you’ll be OK if you watch your step.’

‘Make a run for what?’ Annie folded her arms across her chest. She was going nowhere. She was stopping exactly where she was.

‘For the cottage, of course.’ Impatience tinged his voice. ‘I don’t intend spending the night in the car.’

The night? The whole night?

‘You have to be joking!’ Distrust made her voice sharp and a current of something—fear or manic excitement, she didn’t know which—shot through her veins, making her stomach clench. ‘Either that or I’ve missed the point entirely.’

‘No joke, Annie,’ he drawled, reaching into the rear of the car for a holdall. ‘We’ve fallen madly in lust and have sloped away to spend the night in my private bolt-hole—that’s the point of the exercise.’

‘You can’t mean it!’ Annie wailed in shocked outrage. What type of woman did he think she was? Had he marked her unhidden response to both of the times they’d kissed? Given her ten out of ten for effort and decided he was on a winner?

The whole idea terrified her. To her endless shame she just knew that if he’d decided to seduce her, her reckless body would aid and abet him in any way it could!

She wasn’t into one-night stands!

‘Of course not,’ Daniel stated. ‘It’s the impression that counts. Mark won’t be able to believe we spent the night together making polite conversation.’ He pocketed the ignition keys. ‘Coming? Or do I have to carry you?’

He was out of the car and opening the door at her side before she got her head straight. Mark had persuaded her to be his guest to give the impression they were an item. Daniel had abducted her to give Mark the impression she was anybody’s!

She slid out of the car, into the sluicing rain, her body on automatic pilot. She’d go with him because he wasn’t a threat. He didn’t lust after her, he’d said as much.

‘You can’t make Mark marry Enid,’ she muttered, the rainwater cooling her overheated brain. ‘You can’t abduct every girl he brings home. You can’t run his life for him.’

‘He doesn’t bring his women home; he keeps them discreetly under wraps.’ He unlocked the cottage door and after a moment’s hesitation she walked in, drenched by the downpour, dripping onto the coir matting that covered the floor of the small room revealed as he flicked on the overhead light. ‘The fact that he brought you home indicates that it’s more serious than his usual short-lived affairs. I don’t want to see Mark get romantically involved with someone like you.’

Someone like her! Hateful, snobbish wretch! ‘He isn’t!’ she defended hotly, but he wasn’t listening, had turned his back on her while he pulled a mobile phone from a side pocket and keyed in numbers. His voice was smooth, laid-back when it was eventually answered.

‘It’s me, Ma. Annie and I decided we wanted to get to know each other better. So we’re spending the night at the cottage—tomorrow and Monday, too. I’ll drive her back to town when I go in on Tuesday morning. Let Mark know what’s happening, will you? And Ma? Tell him sorry, will you? Tell him it’s just one of those things; it just happened.’

Annie stared at his wide shoulders, the hard muscle and bone clearly delineated beneath the clinging wet fabric of his shirt. How dared he give those nice people—his parents—such a bad impression of her? She wanted to leap on him, tear the phone away and tell his mother there wasn’t an atom of truth in what the wretch was saying, beg her to ask Mark to come and rescue her!

But, as if reading her intention, he turned, the coldness of his raking glance effectively freezing her to the spot. ‘Really?’ One dark brow slid upwards now, meeting the damp black hair that fell over his brow. He was obviously surprised by what his mother was telling him. ‘Well, it’s about time he opened his eyes, I guess.’

He was grinning as he cut the connection and repocketed the instrument. ‘Mark and Enid were last seen escaping the party, creeping into the privacy of the library, hand in hand. He must have discovered that he prefers quality over quantity.’ His grin was slowly wiped away as his eyes made a slow, insulting inventory of her voluptuous curves. Her wet clothes were cocking a defiant snook at modesty, and his eyes were hooded, his face all hard lines.