‘You can’t know what a relief it is to know that they’ll be staying on at Aysgarth,’ Lillian told her almost chattily as they got into the car. ‘I’ve felt so guilty about the way we’re imposing on Frazer, but it’s impossible to have them with us in Hong Kong.’
She leaned across Rebecca to give Frazer directions for the hotel.
‘It’s only quite small,’ she told them as they pulled off the road and into a well-kept gravel drive. ‘Ten bedrooms, that’s all, but the chef-cum-owner was trained by the Roux brothers and the restaurant is virtually booked solid every night.’
The hotel was lovely, but Rebecca was in no mood to appreciate its beauty fully. A tension headache pounded in her temples, and as they stepped forward to the reception desk she was disconcerted to hear the receptionist saying to Rory, ‘Ah yes Mr Aysgarth—two double rooms, wasn’t it? You were very lucky, sir. Our last two rooms. We’ve got a party of Japanese visitors booked into all the other rooms.’
Rebecca turned instinctively towards Frazer, her pale face betraying her consternation.
At her side Lillian was saying casually, ‘Rory told me that you’d specifically said that you and Frazer wanted to share. I suppose it’s very difficult for you—Maud is so old-fashioned.’ She pulled a wry face, and Rebecca raised her head to find she was staring blindly into Rory’s amused and triumphant eyes.
She tried to speak, to say something, anything, but it was too late. Frazer had signed in for both of them, and a porter was wheeling away their luggage.
‘Why don’t we all meet down here in the bar in, say, an hour?’ Rory was suggesting smoothly, looking at his watch, then he looked at her and added suggestively, ‘But maybe the two of you would prefer rather longer?’
* * *
REBECCA WAS SHAKING with a mixture of anger and shock as she followed a grimly silent Frazer to the room they had been allocated.
As he unlocked the door, she saw that it was really a very pleasant room; attractively furnished and a good size, but the double bed…She could barely draw her attention away from the double bed, and her anger and shock had coalesced into a sensation of miserable humiliation.
It was only after the porter had brought their overnight cases that Frazer spoke to her, his face hard with temper, his voice savagely icy.
‘I didn’t want to embarrass you downstairs by demanding an explanation of why you saw fit to tell Rory we wanted a double room. I suppose you were motivated by some idiotic desire to make him jealous. And to think that for a moment this afternoon, I actually believed…’
‘I didn’t ask him to book us this room,’ Rebecca interrupted him huskily, but she could see that Frazer didn’t believe her. Despair swept over her as she met the coldness in his eyes.
‘Oh, can’t you see?’ she protested. ‘He must have guessed that this engagement of ours is just a charade. That’s why he did this. He must know that…’
‘That what? That you love him?’
‘I don’t love him,’ Rebecca told him jerkily. She felt sick and very weak. A familiar tightness gripped her chest. She started to cough, fighting to draw breath, and saw Frazer frown.
‘Well, it’s too late to do anything about it now. You heard what the receptionist said—they’re fully booked.’
He looked curtly at the double bed, waiting for her to get her breath back.
‘You said you think Rory knows the truth. How could he know, unless you’ve told him?’
Rebecca felt too miserable to argue.
‘I’ll get changed in the bathroom and then go downstairs and wait for you,’ Frazer told her curtly. His frown deepened. ‘I haven’t thanked you yet for what you said this afternoon.’
She looked uncertainly at him.
‘The twins,’ he explained grimly. ‘Without your timely intervention I suspect Rory would have had them installed in that damned school.’
‘He hates you,’ Rebecca told him bleakly, and was surprised to receive a startled look of surprise in response followed by an equally surprising, ‘Yes, I know. And that’s my fault. I should have realised far sooner than I did how much he resented the fact that I inherited Aysgarth. Not because he wants the estate…’ His mouth compressed and Rebecca saw that he felt he had already said too much. ‘Naturally the fact that I’m supposedly engaged to you doesn’t help to endear me to him,’ he added.
Rebecca wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that Rory felt nothing for her and never had done, but the moment was gone. Frazer was already picking up his case and heading for the small bathroom. In less than half an hour he emerged dressed in a formal dark suit, his white shirt-front broken by a deep maroon silk tie.
She loved him so much, she acknowledged achingly, as he told her he would wait for her downstairs. If only things were different!
Different! She suppressed a small, bitter laugh. What she needed w
as a miracle!
When Frazer had gone, she removed the clothes she had travelled in, had a brief shower, then, wrapped in the towelling robe provided by the hotel, sat down to renew her make-up.
When the bedroom door opened, she was surprised, but not alarmed. She had, after all, nothing to fear from Frazer.
Only it wasn’t Frazer who had walked into their room; it was Rory.
Rebecca stared at him in concerned surprise, then said uncertainly, ‘Rory, what are you doing here?’
He ignored her question and said silkily, ‘Aren’t you going to thank me, Becca? After all, I’ve made it possible for you and Frazer to spend the night together. You always did dote on him, didn’t you?’ He gave her a cynical smile. ‘Rushing to throw yourself so nobly into the breach!’
He had brought a glass of whisky with him and now he took a deep swallow from it, draining it.
A frisson of alarm shivered through Rebecca when he walked over to the dressing-table and stood beside her, putting the glass down and studying their reflections in the mirror. When his hand came out and his finger traced the deep V of her robe, she froze.
‘I wonder what my dear brother would say if he came in here and saw us together like this now? Do you suppose he would stay engaged to you, Becca, if he thought that you and I had arranged this night away so that we could be together?’
Her whole body had gone numb, only her mind remaining alert and sharp.
Rory had come up here deliberately, had planned that somehow or other Frazer would find them together! Hysteria bubbled up inside her. If only he knew it, his scheming was all so unnecessary. Frazer didn’t love her, and the anger he would feel on finding them together would be because of the threat that she posed to Rory’s marriage, not because he was jealous, but she couldn’t tell Rory that.
Rory was standing behind her now, his hands on her shoulders in a pose of pseudoloverlike adoration.