Lee Wilkinson – The Bejewelled Bride (страница 2)

So far she had managed to keep him at arm’s length without too much bad blood, but if he didn’t soon get the message and back off she would have to leave.

It was a depressing thought.

She still liked her job and when she wasn’t actually travelling the shop was within easy walking distance of the flat in Belgravia that she shared with a friend.

Added to that, while she was working she was not only saving hard but buying up small items with a view to one day starting her own business.

Glancing round the still deserted lobby, Tony banged the bell a second time with unnecessary violence. ‘Where the devil is everyone?’

A moment later an elderly woman appeared. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting, but the desk clerk has gone home ill and there’s no one to take his place…You have booked?’

‘Yes, for two nights. The name’s Feldon.’

Opening the register at what appeared to be an almost empty page, she confirmed, ‘Ah, yes, here we are…Mr and Mrs Feldon. A double room on the ground floor. Number five.’

As she handed over the key, Bethany came to life. ‘There’s been some mistake,’ she announced distinctly. ‘I’m not Mrs Feldon, and I need a separate room.’

Catching a glimpse of Tony’s furious face, she knew there had been no mistake. That was why he had made the booking himself, and that was what he had meant when he’d said, ‘It had better be worth it’.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ the woman apologized. ‘Well there’s a single just down the corridor. Number nine, if that’ll do.’

‘That will do fine, thanks,’ Bethany assured her crisply and, taking the key, marched in the direction the woman had indicated.

‘Damn it all, Bethany,’ Tony complained, following her to her door. ‘Why did you have to insist on another room?’

She turned to face him, her clear grey eyes sparkling with anger. ‘Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to you that I don’t want to go to bed with you?’

He was quite taken back. ‘Why not? Plenty of other women do.’

Bethany raised her chin and replied, ‘Then you should have brought one of them.’

‘I wish I had, rather than bringing a prim and proper little Miss like you,’ he snarled angrily.

As she turned away he said more moderately, ‘Look, I’m sorry. Change your mind. God knows we could use some fun in a hole like this.’

Bethany was furious. ‘For the last time, I don’t sleep around, and if you don’t stop pestering me I’ll be forced to hand in my notice.’

She was invaluable to him and, reluctant to lose her, he muttered, ‘There’s no need to go to those lengths.’ Then, petulantly, ‘I don’t know why you can’t loosen up a bit. You’re too old to act like some shrinking virgin. And it’s not as if you’re still engaged to that Devlin bloke…’

It had been some six weeks before their wedding when, returning early from a business trip to Paris, Bethany had dropped in to Devlin’s flat and discovered him in bed with another woman.

Unable to believe his pleas that it had been a spur of the moment thing and would never happen again, she had given him back his ring and walked out.

‘Just because you’re still angry and bitter at the way he treated you,’ Tony went on, ‘it doesn’t mean you have to take it out on all men.’

When she just looked at him coldly, he taunted, ‘If you hadn’t been so frigid he wouldn’t have needed another woman…’ When his cruel jokes elicited no response from her he swung on his heel, and a moment later she heard the slam of his bedroom door.

As she remembered Tony Feldon’s harsh comments her mind wandered back to her broken engagement to Devlin that he had callously mentioned. She had been both angry and bitter at first. But she had soon discovered, or rather realized, that while her pride had been trampled on, her heart was virtually intact. And in retrospect she could see that she had only imagined herself in love with Devlin. In fact she’d only really been drawn to him in the first place because he reminded her a little of the blond stranger she had adored at seventeen…

A sudden savage wrench at the steering wheel and a thumping judder brought her back to the present with a shock.

Her heart in her mouth, she dragged the wheel over and steered to the side of the road away from the steep drop into the valley below.

On shaking legs she climbed out to find—as she had feared—that her nearside front tyre had burst.

Well, she would have to do something about it, and fast. It was rapidly getting dark and the swirls of mist had changed to thick swathes that were now shrouding the peaks and threatening to roll down and engulf the pass.

Shivering in her fine wool suit, she pulled on her short jacket before going round to open the boot. Lifting the inner cover, she took out a jack, the spare wheel, the wheel brace and a foot-pump.

Though so far she had never been forced to change a wheel, when she had bought her first old banger, her father had insisted on her learning how to.

Now she was grateful. Only it didn’t seem to be as easy as she remembered.

She was still struggling to put the jack in place when, miraculously, headlights appeared over the crest of the previous rise. A moment later a big black Range Rover, like the one that had followed her earlier, drew to a halt a few yards away.

As she straightened, a tall well-built man with fair hair got out.

Though she was dazzled by the lights, and with his back to them his face was in shadow, there seemed to be something oddly familiar about him.

‘Need some help?’ he asked.

He had an attractive voice, she noted, low-pitched and cultured with no trace of a local accent.

‘Please,’ she said gratefully.

The air was damp and raw and, clenching her teeth to prevent them chattering, she watched his broad back while he proceeded to change the wheel with a deft efficiency she could only admire.

Then, having tested the tyre pressure he put some air in with the foot-pump, observing, ‘That ought to do it,’ before stowing everything back in the boot and closing it.

‘Thank you very much. I can’t tell you how grateful I am.’

He wiped his hands on a handkerchief he’d taken from the pocket of his leather car-coat and, turning towards his own vehicle, said easily, ‘I’m glad to have been of help.’

As the headlights shone full on him, for the first time she saw his face clearly. It was the face that had haunted her for the past six years.

No, it couldn’t be! It was far too much of a coincidence. But even while she told herself it couldn’t be him, she knew it was. And once again he was going to walk out of her life.

‘I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along,’ she said desperately.

‘I’m quite sure you would have managed…’Then, briskly, ‘I suggest we get going while we can still see the road.’

In the short time it had taken him to change the wheel the mist had begun to close in with ominous speed, rolling down the mountainside and starting to obscure the drop into the valley below.

A combination of cold, desolation and fear made Bethany shiver.

As though sensing that fear and desolation, he paused and asked, ‘Do you know the pass at all?’

‘No,’ she answered in a small voice.

‘In that case I’m going to suggest we team up.’ He waited for her nod of assent before adding, ‘My name’s Joel McAlister.’

Her heart leapt in her chest, making her sound breathless, as she said, ‘Mine’s Bethany Seaton.’

‘Where are you heading for, Miss Seaton?’ His rich, smooth voice melted her heart.

Somewhat nervously, she replied. ‘I’m staying at the Dundale Inn.’

‘I’m heading for the Dundale Valley myself, though judging by how fast the mist’s closing in, it’s my bet we’re not going to get that far.’

‘Oh…’

Perhaps he mistook her little exclamation of excitement for panic, because he added quickly, ‘But don’t worry. If we can make it to the foot of Dunscar, which is about a mile away, there’s a small hotel there. It’s closed for the winter, but I understand the caretaker lives on the premises.’ He went on automatically, ‘Now, let’s get moving. As it’s too narrow here for me to get past, we’ll have to take your car.’

Turning off his own vehicle’s lights, he added, ‘I’d better drive, as I know the road.’

When she made no demur, he opened the passenger door for her, then slid behind the wheel.

Bethany was barely able to see anything except the mist reflecting back the dipped headlights, yet he drove with a careful confidence that was reassuring. Though, truth to tell, rather than worrying about their safety, her thoughts centred on the fact that fate had brought him back into her life.

She was being given a second chance.

The chance.

At seventeen, she would have been too young.

But now, at twenty-three to his twenty-seven—twenty-eight? the timing was perfect.

Unless he was already married?