Angel of Darkness

‘I hope you like Hedley Court.’

Angelo owned an Elizabethan manor. She had never seen it. All that had struck her about her future home was that it lay almost a hundred miles from London where Angelo necessarily spent the greater part of his time. He had an apartment in town. It would be very convenient for him, wouldn’t it? A wife and a child a safe hundred miles away? Well if Angelo fondly imagined that he was going to turn her into a country weekend wife, who never saw him between Monday and Friday, he was in for a surprise.

She scrutinised the fine platinum band encircling her ring finger. Put there by Angelo, sealed by a cold kiss on her brow, the sort of a salute you gave to a child. You’ve been behaving like one all day, a little voice said drily. Insecurity made her nervous and abrasive.

Hedley Court looked spectacular in the crisp winter sunlight. Although it was late afternoon, the temperature had stayed below freezing all day and a white frost still iced the lawns and gilded the clipped yews. As Angelo assisted her out of the car, a cold wind made her shiver. He whipped off his jacket like a cavalier and draped it round her slight shoulders.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she hissed. ‘A puff of wind isn’t likely to blow me away.’

‘I wish we could have gone somewhere warmer for a few weeks.’ Angelo pressed her across the gravel towards the front door.

Kelda stared blindly at the beautiful frontage of the Court with its mullioned windows. A trip abroad had been quite out of the question so late in her pregnancy. Her emerald eyes were overbright. She was mentally enumerating all the frills that had been shorn from her wedding day. A gown would have looked ridiculous and she was supposed to be taking things very easy, so a lot of guests and a reception had been ruled out on that count as well. Frankly, she suspected that Angelo had been grateful for an excuse to avoid a standard society wedding adorned by an enormously pregnant bride.

Without warning, Angelo bent and swept her off her feet.

‘Put me down!’ she shrieked in mortification, aware that she was no lightweight, waiting to hear him grunt with surprised effort.

‘This is one tradition we can fulfil,’ Angelo told her, carrying her across the threshold into a giant reception hall walled with linenfold panelling.

‘It’s beautiful!’ Kelda craned her head back for a better view of the minstrels’ gallery. ‘When did you buy it?’

‘My great-great-grandmother married into the original Hedley family—’

Kelda reddened. She was reminded that, unlike her, Angelo had a blue-blooded family tree. Angelo didn’t have to buy his historic house in the country. He had probably inherited it.

‘I remember coming here as a child.’ He set her down gently at the top of the stone stairs. ‘The Court eventually came to my mother. A great-uncle of mine lived here until his death a couple of years ago.’ He showed her into a beautifully furnished bedroom. ‘You should lie down for a while before dinner. You can meet the staff then. They appear to have beat a tactful retreat for our arrival.’

And then he was gone. It was a very feminine bedroom. Through a door she discovered a dressing-room that led into a marvellously sybaritic bathroom. She was checking through the empty wardrobes when her cases arrived and, with them, the housekeeper, Mrs Moss, who had clearly had no intention of waiting until dinner to meet Angelo’s new bride.

When Kelda eventually lay down it was almost six. She was desperately tired but all she could think about was the absence of any male clothing in the wardrobes. This was not a room which Angelo intended to share with her.

Angelo made polite pleasant conversation over dinner until she wanted to scream. It was as if a glass wall divided him from her. She needed to smash it. Fingering her glass of mineral water, she cast him a glance from beneath her long feathery lashes.

‘Which one were you going to settle on?’ she asked softly.

Angelo elevated an ebony brow. ‘Which what?’

‘Adele or Felicity or Caroline or Fiona,’ Kelda specified. ‘Which one made the highest score?’

Lashes as long and thicker than her own dropped low over gleaming dark eyes. ‘I find that rather a loaded question.’

‘But a natural one to ask. After all,’ Kelda breathed sweetly, ‘you’ve spent the past six months auditioning potential brides, and I was never on the list even to begin with. Naturally I’m curious.’

Angelo leant back in his chair, his strikingly handsome features dispassionate and infuriatingly uninformative. The silence gathered strength and Kelda refused to be intimidated by it.

‘Adele had the best pedigree—’

‘Only animals have pedigree.’

Kelda smiled with scorn. ‘You were clearly shopping for a pedigree, Angelo. Every one of them was upper class and rich. None of them had had previous marriages. One worked in a museum. One worked in an art gallery. And one helped Mummy with her favourite children’s charity—’

‘Kelda—’ he murmured warningly.

‘Fiona was the only one with third-level education and a real career. Presumably she would have been too bright and too independent for the role. On the other hand, she was the most stunning-looking,’ Kelda continued in the same chatty tone, ignoring the hardening line of his expressive mouth. ‘Did you make love to all of them or none of them? And how does it feel to have decided exactly what you want in a wife and then have to come down to real basics and settle on one from a council estate?’

‘Without your assistance tonight, I don’t think I ever would have realised how desperately insecure you are,’ Angelo drawled.

She froze as though he had slapped her.