The Forced Bride (18 page)

be asleep when he arrived or, probably, for hours afterwards, but she could pretend. And he’d said he wouldn’t disturb

her.

And from now on she would keep strictly to her own side of the bed.

It seemed an eternity before she heard him come upstairs and walk past on his way to the bathroom. She burrowed

further under the covers, closing her eyes so tightly that tiny stars danced behind her lids, and waited for his return. For

the moment when her door would open.

Then, softly but very definitely, Emily heard a very different sound—the subdued click of the spare room door closing just

across the passage.

And realised with a sense of shock that, tonight, she would be sleeping entirely alone.

CHAPTER NINE

‘IUNDERSTOOD there was going to be a thaw,’ Emily muttered to herself, staring defeatedly through the kitchen

window.

After three more days there still didn’t seem much sign of it. There were flurries of snow most days, and at night the

temperature dropped below freezing.

From now on, Emily decided, she would go nowhere without first checking the long-range weather forecast. As well as

making sure her destination was entirely her own choice and no one else’s, she added wryly.

Today the skies seemed marginally clearer and there was even a wan sun shining intermittently. But if the environment

outside the cottage remained bleak, the interior was positively glacial.

She could hardly complain. She’d come to Tullabrae in search of total isolation and for most of the time now she had her

wish.

Yet that first night apart from Rafaele had been long and strangely uncomfortable, even though she’d told herself over and

over again that this was her greatest victory to date and that, for a few hours at least, she could completely relax.

But it hadn’t turned out like that. She’d slept only intermittently and so restlessly that, more than once, she’d woken to

find herself on the other side of the bed, lying where his lithe, strong body should have been. Or should not have been,

depending on one’s point of view.

The scathing words she’d flung at him were still at the forefront of her mind and she’d come downstairs the following

morning, determined, if not to apologise, then at least to build some kind of rudimentary bridge between them, only to find

the house empty, although the washing-up from the previous evening had been done, the living room fire lit and the log

basket filled.

Giving her, she’d realised, biting her lip, something else to feel guilty about.

It had been over two hours before Raf returned and when she’d queried his absence he’d looked at her with faint

hauteur.

‘I have decided it is time to reconnect with the real world and for that I shall need to use the telephone at the village store.

To make calls and wait for answers to them.’ He paused. ‘Is there a problem’

‘No,’ she denied swiftly. ‘Of course not. I simply—wondered.’

His mouth curled. ‘I should have thought you would simply be relieved.’

In the afternoon he went out again and this time she was careful to ask no questions, least of all when he expected to

come back.

And this had become the pattern of their days, with each of his visits to the village seeming to take longer. Or was this

because she was becoming increasingly restive on her own

Yet when he came back the cottage seemed to close in, making her so acutely aware of his presence that she sometimes

felt she could hear him breathing. Could sense him near her, their bodies almost brushing.

Although nothing could be further from the truth. Not any more. Because he was scrupulous about maintaining a strict

distance between them, especially during the nights, which he continued to spend in the other room. Leaving her in an

isolation that suddenly seemed less than splendid.

They still ate together, but any conversation was stilted and his appreciation of the food was coolly and formally

expressed. The companionship they’d so briefly discovered had vanished as if it had never existed. And she missed it, she

realised in bewilderment. She almost missed the teasing and the tensions his presence engendered. Because the silences

were so very much worse.

For her own part, Emily tried to pass as much time as possible in the seclusion of her own room in an attempt to give the

impression that her days were full and his absence from them immaterial.

Sometimes she read, at others she worked on one of the jigsaws from the living room cupboard, using an ancient folding

table she’d discovered in the cellar and manhandled up the two flights of stairs.

And, quite often, she simply lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to plan some way of surviving within the

present context of the marriage.

At times she slept a little and this had to be a bonus, because her nights were still troubled and feverish. She could not rest

until she heard Raf come upstairs, telling herself she needed the reassurance of knowing he still intended to sleep apart

from her.

But, long after his door had safely closed, she found herself wide awake, all too aware that he was lying in the darkness

only a few yards away.

There was little doubt that the situation between them was making her increasingly edgy. This morning, the sight of him

putting on coat and boots had suddenly needled her.

‘Getting ready for your assignation’ she’d asked waspishly.

Raf had looked back at her, brows raised. ‘What are you talking about’

She’d shrugged defensively. ‘These endless daily trips. I thought you might have met some bonny Scots lass with a gleam

in her eye.’

He’d said coldly, ‘Do not talk like a child.’ And had gone.

Well, she thought, it hadn’t been a wise remark, and she had no excuse for it.

She glanced at her watch. And—no, she wasn’t checking on him either, she told herself firmly. Not trying to estimate

when he might return. She’d done some washing earlier and put a load into the tumble dryer in the cellar. The cycle was

probably over by now and she should empty the drum. All her warm trousers were in there and she was reduced that

morning to wearing a cinammon tweed skirt with a black turtleneck and black wool tights that made her slim legs look

longer than ever. Reduced—because looking even remotely female was not part of the plan.

However, female she was, and Raf’s casual remark about the possibility of rats in the cellar still lingered unpleasantly in

her memory and she always had to steel herself to go down there.

As she turned reluctantly away from the sink to do precisely that she heard a slither and a loud thud and nearly jumped

out of her skin.

My God, she thought. Have we lost a chimney’

She put on her fleece and the frayed wellingtons she’d once sniffed at and went outside to have a look. But there’d been

no structural disaster. Instead, a large pile of snow had fallen off the roof and was lying heaped up a few yards away.

And suddenly, nostalgically, she found herself remembering the last time there’d been really heavy snow at the Manor.

She’d been eleven, she thought, and she’d run out on to the lawn and built a snowman taller than herself, adorning him in

an old beret and a scarf that she’d begged from Penny.

She’d enjoyed looking out of her window each morning to see him standing there like a lopsided sentinel and felt a real

sense of loss when the snow melted.

Now she looked at the new drift and grinned.

Raf had called her a child earlier, she thought defiantly. Well, she would totally justify his low opinion. Because it was

entirely safer than having him think of her as a woman. If he ever did again…

She began heaping up the snow, grabbing up big handfuls and building them into a substantial column. At first her fingers

felt frozen but, as she worked briskly, contact with the snow soon warmed them.

She would never make a sculptor, she decided, as she created broad but unequal shoulders for her figure. Her notion of

physique hadn’t really improved since she was eleven. But for the first time in days she was actually enjoying herself,

humming as she worked.

A large snowball became the head and she fetched small lumps of coal from the bunker for her snowman’s eyes and

mouth and to make a row of buttons down his front because there were no hats or scarves going spare this time, and,

naturally, she didn’t wish him to feel undressed.

And she finally completed the effect by fetching a large carrot from the kitchen for his nose, before standing back to

regard her handiwork with a critical eye.

‘You’re a fine figure of a man,’ she addressed him aloud and giggled naughtily. ‘Or, at least, you could be…’

She removed the carrot from the snowman’s head and carefully inserted it in the body instead, placing it at a deliberately

jaunty angle down below the row of buttons.

From behind her, Raf said acidly, ‘Most artistic.’

She started because she hadn’t been aware of his approach, then turned defensively, lifting her chin. He was standing a

few feet away, giving the snowman an unsmiling inspection, his dark brows raised. For a moment his coldly sardonic

glance brushed her too, then, with a faint shrug, he turned away towards the cottage without another word.

As she watched him go, sudden anger rose within her. She’d been having some harmless fun and he’d spoiled it.

‘Humourless bastard,’ she hissed under her breath, before snatching up another handful of snow, shaping it into a rough

ball and letting him have it, right between the shoulder blades.

Raf stopped dead, then swung back to face her, his face blank with disbelief, while she stared back at him, her eyes

glinting with defiance as she realised she’d been wanting to throw things for days.

‘Lost for words,signore ’ she challenged and saw his expression change—slide reluctantly into faint amusement as he

looked her up and down, and also something more…

‘But certainly not for action,signora ,’ he returned silkily, grabbing up his own handful of snow and advancing on her with

obvious purpose.

Being hit by a snowball was one thing, but having it stuffed down her neck as he clearly intended was a totally different

matter. And it wasn’t going to happen.

She gasped, ‘No,’ and turned to run, only to find her progress impeded by those clumping boots. Caught completely off

balance, she tripped and fell forward into another drift. She wasn’t hurt, she wasn’t even winded, but she couldn’t leap up

either and, while she was still struggling, Raf reached her.

‘Let go of me.’ Her voice was a breathless squeak as he grabbed her, turning her on to her back with almost insulting

ease. ‘Oh, God, don’t you dare…’

‘A challenge’ His voice was mocking and that handful of snow was getting dangerously closer, approaching the collar of

her sweater as she lay helpless, her dishevelled hair in her eyes and her skirt rucked up to the point of indecency. ‘You

should know better,bella mia .’

She lifted her hands, trying to brace them against his chest, wanting to push him away. Desperate for escape. But found

herself instead staring up into his eyes, the breath catching in her throat at what she saw in their depths. Realising that she

could not look away.

That, somehow, between one heartbeat and the next, it had become much, much too late.

The handful of snow was discarded and the world shrank, so that there was only the weight of his body against hers,

pressing her down into the softness of the drift. And the question in his eyes, demanding an answer.

So that she was no longer trying to free herself. Damp and discomfort were forgotten as her hands slid from his chest to

his shoulders and held him, making her own mute demand. Until at last, he bent his head and his mouth took hers with

sighing, passionate hunger.

And she was returning his kiss, her lips moving under his, shyly at first, then warmly—eagerly, until, for the first time, they

parted in surrender to allow the fierce heat of his tongue to invade the inner sweetness of her mouth.

He gathered her closer in his arms as his kiss deepened endlessly, fiercely, robbing her of breath—of sanity. Of

everything but the need to be with him. To know, at last, all that he wanted from her. And to take…

His hand slid under her sweater, seeking the roundness of her breast and brushing aside its covering of lace so that his

fingers could caress her nipple into quivering excitement.

Even through the layers of sodden clothing, Emily could feel the hardness of his arousal pressing against her and the swift,

scalding flood of her own desire, no longer to be ignored or denied.

When he lifted himself away from her, getting to his feet, she could have moaned with disappointment, but he bent and

picked her up in his arms, setting off with her towards the cottage, the oversized boots slipping from her feet to lie

forgotten in the snow.

He shouldered his way in, kicking the door shut behind him, then set her down in front of him in her stockinged feet. Near

but not touching, he threw off his coat, then began to shed the rest of his clothing, his eyes never leaving hers.

And she was stripping too, her hands clumsy with haste as she dragged wet wool over her head, wrenched at a

recalcitrant zip, dealt with the damp cling of tights and underwear.

Naked now, Raf leaned back against the door, holding out his arms, and she ran to him, half-stumbling. He lifted her on

to his loins as if she was a leaf on the wind and she sank down on him, gasping, her body on fire with greed as he filled