Angel of Darkness

Later, she promised herself, later when she was feeling better and she could congratulate Angelo on his engagement and hopefully mean it. Right now, she needed time, time to adjust to that new set of circumstances and detach herself from the milling turmoil of her own confused emotions. And there was no doubt that she was desperately confused. She had honestly believed that she had her emotions under control...she had believed that she had come to terms with the complete impossibility of any relationship with Angelo...she had believed in that acceptance right up until the moment she saw that diamond on Isabel Dunning’s hand.

Then her self-deception had been smashed. She had not merely been shocked, she had been agonised by the extent of her own pain and an unexpectedly fierce sense of rejection. And she had to learn how to handle those feelings. Her pregnancy had divided the family circle in two. For the past five months Angelo had smoothly avoided her, and their parents had made that relatively easy for them. But that could not go on for much longer without imposing intolerable strain upon Tomaso and Daisy. Somehow, some way, Kelda knew she had to face up to the situation and finally settle it.

In the middle of the night, the staff allowed her to have a cup of tea and a small piece of toast. When the door on her private room widened, she barely glanced up because the nurses had been in and out constantly throughout the night, checking up on her. She focused on a pair of male trousered legs and slowly angled her head back against the pillow. Her heart jumped into her mouth.

‘I persuaded them to let me in,’ Angelo revealed in a taut, uncharacteristic rush as though he was determined to get in first vocally. ‘I’ve been here all day.’

He was poised just inside the door and, if she stared, it was because she didn’t know Angelo like this. Badly in need of a shave, crumpled, tousled and very pale. Harsh lines of strain were grooved between his nose and mouth. His lustrous dark eyes were curiously unguarded as they rested on her. He released his breath in an audible hiss and his dark gaze wandered slowly and almost carefully over her.

‘I don’t want you here,’ she whispered, and closed her eyes, shutting him out.

‘I needed to see you...’ The admission was rough-edged.

‘Why?’ she sighed.

‘How can you ask me that?’ he demanded in an incredulous undertone, abruptly sounding more like himself. ‘The child you carry is mine—’

Kelda’s lashes lifted. She studied him in sudden sharp distress, her every muscle tensing as though she was under attack. ‘Where did you get that idea?’

‘Well, certainly not from you,’ Angelo responded with fierce emphasis.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said weakly, playing for time, wondering in despair if in the heat of her collapse Tomaso and Daisy had betrayed their knowledge.

‘How could you think you could get away with a lie like that?’ Angelo demanded in a low-pitched growl. ‘Sooner or later, I would have found out. Russ Seadon and Gina Delfont are your two closest friends. You have never been involved with Seadon. Your name has never been linked with his and yesterday you played a starring role in their wedding.’

‘And where did you get all this information?’ she prompted unsteadily.

‘Her bloody dress featured on the lunchtime news!’ Angelo launched at her with sardonic bite. ‘I was already trying to get hold of you yesterday when my father called me to tell me that you were in hospital. Don’t try to tell me that you were sleeping with Seadon five months ago behind your best friend’s back...I wouldn’t believe you!’

‘I never said that Russ was the father of my child,’ Kelda muttered shakily.

‘But you repeatedly denied that I was,’ he reminded her doggedly. ‘And that night at your apartment when he came out of the bedroom, you made no attempt to explain the situation—’

Kelda turned her face to the wall, filled by sudden expected guilt for the scene she had sprung on him. Apparently he had as yet no suspicion that she had deliberately manufactured that scene. That knowledge would have told him just how vulnerable she had felt herself to be all those months ago. But how long would it take for him to recall Russ’s exact behaviour that night? Russ had not acted like a platonic friend.

‘Why should I have tried to explain the situation?’ she enquired, still unable to meet his eyes.

‘If you cannot answer that, I refuse to answer it for you,’ Angelo responded with a dark, driven bitterness that burned. ‘The night I came to the cottage—’

‘You came through the door in a rage!’ Kelda condemned with equal bitterness. ‘And you wanted me to deny that I was pregnant—’

‘I did not behave rationally that night,’ Angelo breathed tautly.

‘Actually I think you were very rational,’ Kelda muttered flatly, unable to look at him although she could feel his enervating presence with every fibre of her body. ‘The very idea of my being pregnant with your child was your worst nightmare come true. You accused me of deliberately trying to set you up—’

‘In the heat of temper,’ Angelo inserted with raw emphasis. ‘Try to put yourself in my position!’

‘No, thank you. I’m more concerned with my own,’ she said honestly. ‘It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if I’d been able to stick to the stranger-at-a-party fiction. I’m afraid I just wasn’t prepared to be faced with the fact that your father knew we had been in Italy together.’

‘The idea of your being pregnant with my child would not have been my worst nightmare come true...’ Angelo stated flatly, unemotionally, as if he had all his feelings under strict lock and key.

The silence stretched. Kelda made

no comment. She didn’t believe him. Now that he knew the truth, he felt that he had to defend himself from such a charge.

‘I find it very hard to accept that all these months everyone but me has known the truth,’ Angelo continued grimly. ‘How did you prevail upon my own father to keep quiet?’

‘He saw you in the conservatory with Fiona and, being slightly more sensitive than you are capable of being, understood why I had no wish for you to know.’ As she spoke, she rolled her head on the pillow, fixing huge shadowed green eyes on him with unhidden scorn.