Mistress: Hired for the Billionaire's Pleasure

CHAPTER TWO

AS HE passed the gatehouse into the long straight drive up to Easton Hall, Orlando put his foot down and felt the world fall away in a dizzying rush. The frustration and fury that had needled him on the short drive home was temporarily anaesthetised in the blissful blur of speed.

This was the place where he and Felix had raced—first on their bikes as small boys, then later on horseback and motorbikes. It was here that, returning home for his twenty-first, Felix’s brand-new Alpha Romeo had been written off as Orlando had overtaken him and forced him into the moat.

Their rivalry had been as strong as their love for each other.

Protected by birth and privilege, made arrogant by wealth and good looks, they had thought they were invincible. But all it had meant in the end was that they’d had further to fall. All the money in the world, an unblemished bloodline and the looks of an angel hadn’t protected Felix from a rocket attack in his Typhoon, and the lottery of genes that had made up Orlando’s perfect face was now destroying his sight.

There was a certain biblical morality to it.

All too soon Orlando reached the bridge across the old moat and had to slow down. The drive narrowed as it passed through the high gateposts to Easton Hall, and he drove more carefully round the house to the garages at the back. Bringing the car to a standstill in the brick-paved courtyard that had once housed grand carriages, he let his head fall forward to rest on the steering wheel. His hands still held it, as if he couldn’t bear to let go, to take the keys out of the ignition for the last time.

He was giving up his independence.

He felt his mouth jerk into an ironic smile as he thought of the girl in the graveyard. He’d been harsh with her, but her helpless distress had been like acid in his own open wounds. She could take control of her situation. For him, control was inexorably slipping from him, with the inevitability of day sliding into night; there was nothing, nothing he could do. And this was the first measure of his failure. Slowly he opened the door and got stiffly out, blinking in the thin grey light.

‘Will you be needing the car again today, sir?’

Orlando hadn’t seen the man emerge from the doorway of one of the outbuildings, but he recognised his voice easily enough. George had worked for Lord Ashbroke since Orlando and Felix were children.

‘No.’ Not today. Not ever.

Soon, Orlando supposed, he would have to tell George. Ask him to take on the duties of a chauffeur.

‘Shall I put her away for you?’

‘Thanks.’ Orlando took the keys from the ignition and let his fingers close around them tightly for a moment. Then he tossed them in George’s direction and walked across the yard into the house.

‘There. You look lovely, darling.’ Elizabeth Campion’s hands fluttered around Rachel’s face like tiny birds, smoothing a wayward curl here, teasing a fold of frothy lace there. The church bells seemed horribly loud, pealing out their tumbling scales with a threatening leer, but at least it made conversation unnecessary.

Beneath the shroud of her veil Rachel stood impassive.

She was glad of the veil. It separated her from the rest of the world in a way that seemed particularly appropriate, filtering out the unwelcome ministrations of her mother, screening her own increasingly desperate thoughts and emotions from view. In the mirror her reflection was smooth and expressionless, with its pure, blanked-out face.

‘Right, then. I’d better go over to church,’ Elizabeth said brightly, as she checked her watch and gave Rachel’s dress a last little tweak. Chosen by Carlos, it was cut in the Empire style of a regency heroine—which, Carlos had said, would charm the Americans when she sat at the piano later. Elizabeth handed her a bouquet of waxy white flowers. ‘Here, don’t forget these. Now, wait until the verger comes across to get you. And then it’s your big moment! For God’s sake see if you can manage a smile, darling, please…’

The shrouded figure in the mirror nodded almost imperceptibly. Elizabeth bustled around, adjusting her large peacock-blue hat, spritzing on another cloud of perfume, picking up a pair of black gloves and thrusting her hands into them like a surgeon preparing to cut, before finally reaching the door.

She stopped, and Rachel felt herself go very still, waiting for a sign or a word that would mean all this could be stopped. Elizabeth’s face was thoughtful.

‘Such a shame your father didn’t have the decency to stay around for this. It’s the one day of his life when he could have made himself useful. Oh, well, darling. The verger’s a very nice man. He’ll be about ten minutes, I should think.’

Then she was gone.

A gust of air from the door rippled Rachel’s veil.

Beneath it, Rachel felt as if she was choking. Fury and despair swelled inside her, and without thinking what she was doing she found herself tearing off the veil as a series of shuddering sobs ripped through her.

She had to get away.

Glancing wildly around her, she picked up the keys to the car Carlos had bought her as an engagement present. She had always felt the gesture had been akin to putting a caged bird beside an open window, but suddenly it was as if the door to her cage had been left open and she had one fleeting chance to fly.

She ran down the stairs, her wedding shoes clattering on the polished wood, her breath coming in shaky gasps. Fumbling with the catch on the front door, she peered out for a second, before throwing it open and rushing across the gravel to the car.

Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly turn the key in the ignition, and then, when she did manage to start the engine, she shot forward with a sickeningly loud shower of gravel. She didn’t dare look up at the house as she accelerated out of the drive and onto 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 that her brain was as frozen as the rest of her, but that something, somewhere deep inside of her just wanted to fling herself into this man’s arms.

In the distance she could still hear the discordant peal of the church bells, and she gave her head a little shake, trying to regain a rational hold on the situation. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure there was one.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, in a voice that was little more than a hoarse croak. ‘I didn’t mean to come here. I didn’t know… The road—I didn’t know where it went—I was just…driving…’

He looked down on her from his great height. His massive shoulders were rigid with tension, but his face gave nothing away. ‘Driving away from your wedding, I take it?’

‘Yes. I couldn’t…do it.’ She spoke very carefully, breathing slowly and deliberately to keep herself together. ‘I waited until the last possible minute to see if something would happen to stop it, but it didn’t…and then…I knew I couldn’t do it. I ran away…because you were right, I…’

She took another steadying breath, but at that moment the church bells stopped abruptly. Silence seemed to fold around them like fog. Rachel felt her hands fly to her mouth, her eyes widening in horror as the implications of that silence sank in.

They knew. They’d found she was missing. And Carlos… Carlos would be…

Frantically she pushed her fingers through her hair, looking wildly about her as terror gripped her once again. Without knowing what she was doing, she wrenched open the car door.

Orlando was beside her in a flash, his arms closing around her waist, pinning her own arms to her sides and stopping her escape. She struggled against him, twisting her shoulders frantically, but his strength was enormous. Effortlessly he held her against him.

‘Let me go! I have to go now! They’ll come after me and—’

‘No!’ His voice was like sandpaper. He swung her round to face him, his hands holding her upper arms again, as they had this morning in the churchyard. ‘You’re not going anywhere in this state. You’re staying here.’

He felt the fight go out of her. She slumped into his hands, so that he was holding her up. Over her head his eyes were fixed on an unseen point in the distance as he gritted his teeth and fought to control the emotions that warred within him—impatience, hostility, exasperation, resentment.

And the prickle of arousal that had fuelled at least some of those.

He felt his mind shut like a steel trap against it. Those feelings had no place in his life now. But it was the scent of her hair that had done it, the weight and warmth of it as she thrashed in his arms that had made him feel momentarily as if he had been punched in the solar plexus.

She raised her head, so he could make out the milk-white curve of her cheek. ‘I couldn’t stay…’ she said dully. ‘It’s too much to ask…I can’t…’

He let her go and took a step away, slamming the car door with unnecessary force. ‘Do you have anywhere else to go?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then,’ he said with biting sarcasm, ‘let’s skip the part where you put up some token resistance, shall we? I think this is one instance where you really don’t have a choice, and it’s not as if I don’t have room.’

Rachel looked up at the house, noticing it properly for the first time. Built of red brick, with a central grey stone porch, its blank windows stretched away from her on both sides, and she could make out a steeply pitched roofline and vast elaborate chimneys against the heavy sky. It was beautiful, but huge and dark and utterly forbidding. Just like its owner.

He had started back towards it, and now looked impatiently over his shoulder.

‘What are you waiting for?’

The acid in his tone stung her raw emotions. ‘I can’t leave the car here…someone might see it… And my things…’ she wailed, aware that she sounded like a hysterical child, but too distressed to care.

He stopped and came wearily back towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘Give me the keys and I’ll get someone to move the car.’

She handed them to him and watched numbly as he went round to the boot and took out her large designer case.

‘You planned your escape well,’ he said wryly.

‘No…I didn’t plan it at all. This was packed yesterday. For tonight…’ Her voice trailed off and he gave her a wintry smile.

‘Your wedding night. Of course.’

He had to consciously turn his thoughts away from imagining what was in there, selected in anticipation of a very different night from the one that now awaited her. Whatever it was, whatever expensive, seductive confections of silk and lace lay folded carefully inside, she’d have no need of them here. The wing where he intended to put her hadn’t been used in a year at least. It was freezing.