Deceived. Sara CravenЧитать онлайн книгу.
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It was an obsession with her, Lydie thought wearily, holding the dress against herself and turning to study her reflection in the mirror.
Forget the past, she told herself. Think about the dress and the party—and about Hugh, who’s probably going to ask you to marry him. Concentrate on that—and the pain will go away. It always has done—eventually. It must now.
Her eyes felt bruised. The cream silk, with its deep square neckline and filmy bell sleeves, looked incongruous against her workaday blue shirt and jeans.
It was almost like a wedding dress, except for the barbaric splash of embroidery across the front of the full skirt—the band of stylised flowers and trailing leaves in gold thread adding a voluptuous element to the purity of the plain silk. A hint, even, of danger.
The neckline was several centimetres short of bridal demureness too, Lydie thought critically. She wouldn’t be able to wear a bra. But what Austin didn’t know wouldn’t grieve him.
All cream and gold, she thought. ‘Like a madonna lily.’
The words flicked out of the past like the bite of a whip, flaying her senses, making the breath catch in her throat.
Don’t look back, she thought feverishly. Don’t let yourself remember. It isn’t safe. Not now—not ever...
She held the skirt out slightly, watching the effect with detachment.
Hugh, of course, would love it.
She conjured up his image in her mind with determination. Tall and even fairer than she was, with an easy smile, Hugh Wingate had been in the army, serving in the Falklands and latterly in the Gulf War. On his father’s death he’d resigned his commission and come home to look after the family estates. Debra had decided at once that the seventeenth-century Wingate Hall would make a perfect background for Lydie and had spent the previous year trying to bring it about.
Jon, Lydie thought drily, was not the only victim of their mother’s manipulative tactics.
But although Hugh had been more than co-operative Lydie had maintained a certain reserve, even though she enjoyed his company and shared a lot of his interests. Many successful marriages, she knew, had been based on far less.
But she wasn’t in love with Hugh and she knew it. His kisses, while agreeable, left her only faintly stirred, and she’d had not the slightest difficulty in resisting his urging her to carry their relationship to a more intimate level. If and when they became officially engaged, the pressure, she supposed, would increase, and she would have to surrender herself.
But maybe that was what she needed, she thought broodingly. Perhaps the only way to erase the past, and the pain, was to commit herself to another relationship. To begin her life as a woman all over again.
She stared at herself. It could be that she was never to know again the same wild intensity of feeling she’d experienced five years ago; that what she felt for Hugh was as good as it was going to get. Well, so be it. Hugh would never feel short-changed anyway, she vowed inwardly. She would make sure of that.
Security, she thought—that’s what matters above all. She could remember only too clearly the various cheap flats, the uncertainty of school holidays, the terrifying fluctuation of finances which had marked their childhood, could understand why Debra, her career in decline, her spectacular looks beginning to fade, had grabbed with both hands at the florid Edwardian comfort of Greystones and Austin’s unstinting devotion.
If Hugh proposed tonight as her mother was sure he intended, then she’d accept. Turn Austin’s birthday into a double celebration.
She turned away from the mirror and waltzed out into the gallery, the dress held against her.
‘I’ll have my hair up tonight,’ she announced. ‘But you’ll have to imagine the rest of it.’
She checked, her hand flying to her mouth in sudden embarrassment. She hadn’t heard him arrive but there was a last-minute customer just the same.
There was a man’s tall figure standing beside Nell near the cash desk.
God, she thought with vexation, snatching the dress away as if it were stinging her and throwing it over her arm. What an idiot I must look.
Flushing deeply, she said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise anyone else was here.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ The deep voice was husky with amusement. ‘I wouldn’t have missed the performance for the world.’
Poised for retreat, Lydie felt instead as if she’d suddenly been turned to stone. She felt her lips parting in a silent gasp, her green eyes widening endlessly as he moved without haste towards her.
The overhead light shining directly on him showed thick, faintly curling dark hair and a lean, tanned face, against which his grey eyes were as cold and hard as a winter sky.
‘Cream and gold,’ Marius Benedict said softly. ‘Just like a madonna lily.’ And he smiled at her.
All the breath seemed to catch in her throat. Then she moved, swiftly, clumsily, her hand swinging up in front of her as if to ward him off. And a bowl with a vivid blue glaze went smashing to the floor.
‘Oh, no,’ Lydie wailed, and knelt to pick up the pieces.
‘Careful you don’t cut your hand.’ Nell rushed over to her. ‘And keep your dress off the floor. It’ll mark.’
‘I’m afraid I startled her,’ the deep voice said. ‘You must let me pay for the damage.’
‘These things happen.’ Nell was philosophical. She gave Lydie a swift hug. ‘You pop off home. I’ll clear up.’
‘All right,’ Lydie managed. She got stiffly to her feet, not convinced that her legs would support her.
‘Let me help.’ He walked forward, his hand reaching for her arm.
Lydie recoiled. ‘I can manage.’ Her voice sounded breathless—like a stranger’s.
He halted, his brows lifting. ‘Then can I at least offer you a lift?’
She swallowed. ‘Thank you, but I have my own car.’
‘Of course you have,’ he said softly. ‘How stupid of me. Then I’ll just—see you later.’
She could feel his eyes following her as she walked the endless distance back to the studio. She dragged the heavy curtain over the doorway with a rattle of protesting rings, wishing with all her heart that it were a door she could close—and lock. Then she stood, motionless, among the familiar scents of oil paints and turpentine, feeling like an alien in some strange and dangerous country. Her mouth was bone-dry, her heart pounding like a sledgehammer.
Marius, she thought. Marius back in Thornshaugh after five years of silence. It couldn’t be happening.
Only a few minutes ago she’d broken the taboo and said his name. And now here he was, as if she’d conjured him like a spirit from some vast and echoing limbo.
Speak of the devil, they said, and he’s bound to appear.
With feverish hands she bundled the dress back into its tissue wrapping. ‘Madonna lily’. The words throbbed in her head. She could never wear it now. Never even wanted to see it again,
There’d be something else in her wardrobe—the little black number she’d bought to have dinner with Hugh last week. She could dress that up, somehow. Her mind ran in feverish circles, trying to focus on trivialities and shut out the clamour in her brain.
What—what in the name of God could Marius be doing back here? Thornshaugh was barred to him, so what could he possibly hope to gain by simply—turning up like this?
Unless, of course, it wasn’t that simple at all.
Suddenly, it hurt to breathe.
‘See you later,’ he’d said. Not