‘Clever of me, wasn’t it?’ he murmured, bending as though to kiss her neck. ‘Arranging all this.’
Rebecca tried to pull away and found to her terror that she was anchored to her chair by the hard grip of his hands; hands that were already beginning to hurt her.
‘Rory, don’t be ridiculous,’she protested, trying to appear calm and unconcerned. ‘I doubt that Frazer will come up here. I arranged to meet him in the bar—and besides,’she added with apparent carelessness, suddenly receiving inspiration, ‘he knows the truth. I’ve told him everything.’
‘And he believed you?’ Rory mocked her, his face suddenly ugly. ‘Nice try, my dear, but it won’t work—I know my brother too well. Oh, no, it doesn’t matter what you say to him now, he’ll remain convinced to the day he dies that I was your first lover, even though you and I both know it isn’t true.’ He gave a self-satisfied laugh. ‘How easily you let me manipulate you! You were almost desperate to let me make use of you.’
‘I did it for Frazer,’ Rebecca told him rawly, her throat dry and sore. ‘You know that. I did it to stop him finding out that you were having an affair with Michelle.’
‘I know that, and you know it, my sweet,’ Rory agreed, ‘but Frazer will never believe it. The pure virginal child-woman he’d posted keep-off fences around for himself, giving herself to me!’ Rory shook with laughter. ‘And you let me do it! You let me lie to him and tell him that you were my lover!’
‘Because I didn’t want him to be hurt by the truth,’ Rebecca told him wildly. ‘You asked me to help you. You said you were sorry about what had happened…that you wanted to keep the truth from him because he loved Michelle.’
‘And so you stepped nobly into her place. Why, I wonder?’
Rebecca gave him a scornful glance through the mirror.
‘You know why,’ she said coolly. ‘I love him.’
‘Ah, yes, so you did—all that repressed, intense teenage passion that you were so careful to hide from him. But now you don’t have to hide it from him any more, do you, my lovely? What a pity the happy ending is going to be spoiled—and it will be spoiled, Rebecca. He won’t marry you now.’
She had been lulled into a state of false security by his casualness, so that when he bent quickly, tugging her to her feet and dragging her into his arms, her frantic struggles were not enough to free herself from the imprisoning grip of his hands. She felt his breath graze her ear and heard him saying triumphantly, ‘Aha…right on cue!’ as Frazer walked in through the half-open bedroom door, his face grimly set.
Rory was a consummate actor, Rebecca acknowledged sickly, watching as her captor managed to look both guilty and defiant.
She couldn’t think of a word to say, she was all too miserably conscious of how they must look to Frazer, but to her astonishment, instead of berating her, Frazer looked only at Rory and ordered icily, ‘Let her go this instant, Rory.’
He made no threats, said nothing violent, and yet as he looked at him Rory went pale, stepping back from her almost nervously.
‘It was her idea, Frazer,’ he said quickly. ‘She planned it all. She was the one…’
‘Get out,’ Frazer interrupted him softly. ‘Just get out.’
Alone in the now silent room with Frazer, Rebecca waited for him to speak.
When he did, what he said was so mundane that it should have released her tension.
‘Are your clothes still in the bathroom?’ he asked her, and when she nodded, he told her calmly, ‘Perhaps you’d better go and get dressed, then.’
Mutely she did so. When she emerged from the bathroom, Frazer was just replacing the telephone receiver.
‘I’ve cancelled our booking,’he told her quietly. ‘Can you manage to pack yourself or shall I?’
Could she manage? She gave him a brief look, wondering if she was merely too shocked to hear the cynicism in his voice, if she was imagining the way he was looking at her with something approaching grave concern, and she shook her head, too confused by everything that was happening to find the energy to ask any questions.
‘I can manage,’ she told him.
Half an hour later they were both in Frazer’s car, heading north. Rebecca was exhausted and yet at the same time too keyed up to sleep.
She had no idea if he had told Rory and Lillian that they were leaving, no idea why he had not yet mentioned finding Rory with her. She was too heartsick to raise the subject herself. She knew quite well what conclusions he must have drawn from the scene he walked into. And what did it matter? Knowing the truth, knowing that there had never been any relationship with anyone, never mind Rory, wasn’t going to alter the way Frazer felt about her…or rather didn’t feel.
She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat, giving a small exhausted sigh that drew Frazer’s attention to her face, his mouth setting grimly, and at some point, although she herself had not expected it, she must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew was that she was being woken up by Frazer and that it was dark outside.
‘Oh, are we home?’ she asked in sleepy surprise.
‘No, not yet,’ he told her. ‘I’ve booked us into a small hotel the receptionist recommended to me. It’s in the same group, although apparently not as luxurious. I didn’t think either of us was in any condition for the long drive to Cumbria.’
Tiredly Rebecca let him help her out of the car. She swayed slightly on her feet, her body numb with exhaustion, then tensed as she felt the warm bulk of his body supporting her.
The hotel was small and comfortable. The receptionist produced a key, and offered to have a meal served to them in their room since the dining-room had closed.
Frazer looked enquiringly at Rebecca, but she shook her head. Food was the last thing she felt like. She heard Frazer saying something about sandwiches, and then she was being propelled firmly down a corridor and up a flight of stairs.
She was not quite sure why Frazer kept his arm around her as he unlocked the door, unless it was to prevent her from escaping.
Why had he brought her here? she wondered feverishly, as he ushered her inside. So that he could tell her what he thought of her somewhere where there would be no one familiar for her to turn to? So that he…but the look in his eyes as he closed the door and turned to study her was anything but threatening.
‘Just tell me one thing,’ he said quietly, watching her. ‘Is it true that you love me?’
Rebecca swallowed and then gulped, frantically trying to summon up a denial, but her expression had already given her away, and besides, Frazer was far too astute for her to deceive in her present vulnerable state, so she lifted her head proudly and said unsteadily, ‘Yes.’
‘Oh, Rebecca, you wretch!’ The words were something between a groan and a protest, and as she blinked at the intensity of them, Frazer came over to her and pulled her into his arms. She was too exhausted to resist.
Against her ear, he demanded thickly, ‘Why? Why did you let me think you loved Rory?’
‘I didn’t,’ she protested. ‘I told you I didn’t.’
‘But you let me go on thinking that you and he had been lovers. You didn’t tell me…’ He felt the restless movement she made in his arms and tilted her face up to his so that she couldn’t avoid looking at him. ‘If I hadn’t eavesdropped on your argument with Rory this evening, you’d never have told me, would you?’
‘I didn’t think you’d believe me,’she protested, dizzy with confusion and bewilderment.
‘Liar,’ he said softly. ‘You didn’t tell me because you knew once you had I’d want to know what prompted you to make that kind of sacrifice. They say listeners never hear any good of themselves. Well, that was true for me tonight. I stood outside that door and learned how much I’d maligned you and misjudged you. And then I heard you saying that you love me,’ he ended huskily.
Suddenly Rebecca’s self-control snapped and she heard herself saying in a high-pitched, unfamiliar voice, ‘Why have you brought me here? Why are you doing t
his?’ and to her consternation her eyes filled with hot tears that spilled on to her skin.
‘Rebecca! Rebecca, you little idiot. Hasn’t it dawned on you yet that I’m “doing all this”, as you call it, because I’m crazily in love with you? That I loved you eight years ago and that I’ve never stopped loving you? That was why I was so savage with you then. That’s why Rory has been so determined to break us up. You see, Rory knows how I feel about you. He’s always known.’
Her tears had stopped. She stared at him in disbelief.
‘You love me? But Rory said…’
‘Rory lied,’ Frazer told her firmly. ‘Eight years ago I thought you were too young to be burdened with an adult man’s love, but I promise you Rory knew exactly how I felt about you. He lied to both of us, Becca. He let me believe you’d had an affair with him, knowing what it would do to me, and he let you believe I loved someone else.’
Rebecca gave a tight shudder.
‘It all seems so unreal. This morning we were enemies. You hated me, and now…’
‘No, I never hated you, and we certainly weren’t enemies,’ Frazer told her softly. ‘Why do you think I pushed you into this fake engagement? Why do you think I made sure that as many people as possible knew about it? Think, Rebecca,’ he told her, shaking her gently. ‘I was hoping that somehow or other I’d be able to make you see that I could give you something Rory couldn’t.’