Moth to the Flame (20 page)

But Jared had noticed her instinctive withdrawal. Had noticed the strange play of emotions cross her face. And he felt a deep rock of dread build in his stomach. What the hell was going on? What had happened at this damned Ball? What had she wanted to tell him?

‘Rupert,' Alicia said, as brightly as she could manage. ‘I'm glad you're here. We need to talk . . .' She wanted to get him out of there. Away from those watching, curious eyes. She reached for his arm, trying to tug him in the direction of the exit.

But Rupert wasn't budging. ‘Of course, darling,' he agreed, then patted her hand and turned her to face the stage. ‘Have you told them all our news yet?'

Alicia jerked under his arm. ‘No! Rupert, I think . . .' she babbled quickly, ‘that we should wait . . .'

‘Oh, don't be shy darling,' he admonished her tenderly. ‘I want the whole world to know. Listen, you lot,' he called cheerfully across the stage, as the cast began to shuffle forward, sensing something of interest. ‘I've got great news. This weekend I asked Alicia to marry me. And she's agreed.'

There was a dead silence for the merest
heartbeat.

Alicia felt the world move away from her for an instant, and then come rushing back in a wave of sound and commotion.

The cast on the stage, after an initial surprised second, began to jump down and surround them, slapping Rupert on the back and congratulating them. Only Emily stayed on the stage, staring at her friend, dumbstruck.

Alicia blinked, trying to smile at the women who were gathered around her, chattering excitedly. The girl who was to play the victim's mother suddenly spotted her engagement ring, and shrieked. ‘Hell's bells! Look at that!' She grabbed Alicia's hand to display the impressive rainbow Warrington Ring to everyone.

Alicia's hand had gone numb. Like the rest of her. Over Rupert's blond head, her eyes searched for Jared. He was standing just where she'd left him.

Looking at her as if she'd just shot him with a revolver.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Alicia turned in to the gate where Rupert, living out in his second year, had his flat. She pushed the door open timidly and found, beside the staircase, a list of names and addresses which told her that Rupert Greyling-
Simms
had one of the more spacious flatlets on the second floor.

After Rupert's stark announcement at rehearsals that morning, she'd found it impossible to talk to Jared alone, and Rupert had never left her side. It was only after they broke for the morning that she was able to persuade Rupert to leave, and only then by agreeing to have a late lunch with him.

But Jared had been so busy with last-minute hitches, that, with the time ticking on, Alicia had had to leave herself, without speaking to him.

Rupert, who'd been standing by his window for the last half hour keeping a look out for her, quickly opened the door. She followed him into a pleasant bed-sitting-room, where a small round table beneath the big bay window had been set with plates of glamorous food, and an open bottle of champagne. It was French—a vintage year.

She took her seat nervously, as he served her. At last he sat down opposite her, raising his glass. ‘To us,' he said.

And Alicia suddenly knew it was now or never. ‘Rupert,' she said softly, her gentle heart already breaking for him, ‘there is no us. I tried to tell you so at Warrington but . . .'

Rupert shook his head. ‘Don't be silly, Alicia,' his voice was just a touch sharp. ‘We were made for each other. Everyone thinks so. My father. Your brother. It's perfect.'

Alicia
slowly lowered her glass on to the table and sighed. ‘Rupert, I don't think we make a perfect match,' she emphasized the word ‘I' just enough so that he couldn't possibly misunderstand. ‘I hardly know you, after all! And, if you're honest,' she added, choosing her words very carefully now, ‘you must admit to yourself that you don't love me . . .'

‘But I do!'

‘We've hardly talked . . .'

‘But all that time spent at theatre . . .'

‘All that time at the theatre we talked about the play, Rupert,' she said softly.

Rupert flushed. He could feel an awful yawning gap opening up around him. She was going to leave him! He was going to be alone, with his father's scorn and his mother's disappointment, and Camilla sneering at him . . . He went so pale Alicia almost cried out loud. She was hurting him!

She, who wouldn't even voluntarily swat a wasp. ‘Rupert!' she cried, reaching for his hand, pulling it into her own. ‘Rupert, I want you to agree to come and see someone with me,' she began, and then stopped, as she saw his eyes flicker.

‘See someone?' he almost whispered. Images from his childhood flashed hideously across his mind. Hadn't his nanny said something just like that to his mother, once. When he'd been seven. Or was it eight? See
someone.

‘You mean a psychiatrist, don't you?' Rupert said flatly. He shook his head. ‘No,' he said firmly. ‘No, never again.'

Alicia felt a jolt of alarm shoot through her. ‘Again? You mean . . . Rupert, have you seen a therapist before?'

He turned his face away, but he was remembering being driven to Quiet Acres, the small, residential mental home in the lake district. His father had told everyone he was going away to school. No one was to know that the Earl of Warrington's son was just a bit touched. Oh no. No one must ever even suspect that . . . Rupert's face twisted as he fought back the desire to cry. His hands clenched around his champagne glass. ‘No,' he said again, his voice high and wavering, almost falsetto in its cadence now. He shook his head. ‘No, I'm not going back there . . .' He was on the verge of hysteria.

Alicia had no idea what he was talking about. She was only aware of a growing sense of horror as the young and handsome man, who seemed to have it all, began to disintegrate in front of her eyes.

‘Rupert,' she whispered, appalled, ashamed, afraid for him. ‘Rupert, it's all right . . .'

‘I need you Alicia. You're the only one who can save me,' he said flatly. ‘I have to marry you. I have to!' The delicate glass stem of the glass he was holding snapped in half, nicking
his
finger. A slow, red trickle of blood began to seep down his hand.

Alicia got to her feet, a cold river snaking down her back as she wondered if there was anyone in the house besides themselves. Wondered if anyone would hear her if she screamed. She took a deep breath. ‘All right Rupert,' she said softly, as soothingly as she could. It was not easy when her voice was shaking as badly as the rest of her. ‘We'll talk about this again after the play.'

Rupert smiled suddenly. ‘It's a wonderful play, Alicia. I'll be good in it, I promise.' His voice was almost child-like now in its heartrending desire to please. ‘I'll be good—just for you.'

Alicia blinked, stunned by the sudden change in his face. In his voice. In his character. She licked her dry lips. ‘I know you will. I have to get back now to see that everything is all right. It's the opening night tomorrow, remember . . . ?' she began edging towards the door, and he moved suddenly, his face beaming.

‘Of course,' he walked up to her and hugged her exuberantly. ‘Once all that's over, we can concentrate on us, right?'

Alicia, who'd frozen in terror as he'd swept her into his arms, managed to nod. She pulled out of his arms, moved to the door, stuttered goodbye and all but ran into the street. Her heart was racing.

One
thing was now sure. She would have to talk to the Earl of Warrington. He must be told about Rupert's . . . relapse.

When she got back to her room in St Bede's, she attacked the ring on her finger with ferocious force. Even if she had to break her finger, she was going to remove the ring before the night was over . . .

*          *          *

Davina climbed out of the seat of the self-drive removal van Gareth had hired and jumped lithely on to the rain-washed path. For the next few hours they worked together with quiet concentration as they got the furniture settled into the cottage.

‘Let's break for tea, shall we?' he said, as the clock he'd hung carefully on the wall five minutes ago showed him it was nearing four o'clock.

‘Where ever I may roam, all of civilised England still stops at four o'clock for tea and crumpets,' she mocked.

‘Don't knock it,' Gareth growled at her, leaning his dusty arms across the top of one of the shelves as he got his breath back. ‘I've got a thermos in the van.' He retrieved it and set up the tea things. Something about the sight of him, sitting at the table in the middle of the cosy kitchen, made her heart contract. Perhaps it was because she'd never thought of any man,
complete
with hearth and home, as being her destiny. Or perhaps it was because she knew she would never see him like this again. Relaxed. Happy. Innocent. Whole.

Gareth raised his steaming beaker. ‘To “Spindlewood”, and all who live in 'er,' he toasted.

Forcing back a wave of guilt that seemed to rock her, she accepted the mug. ‘Why Spindlewood?' she asked, looking around her.

‘Because of all the Spindlewood bushes that are growing wild in the jungle out there,' he nodded to the wild, overgrown garden outside the kitchen window.

Solemnly she clinked her beaker against his. He was calling their cottage ‘Spindlewood'. The thought was like the pang of an abscessed tooth. Because she knew she would never live here. The dream that had led him to buy and name this cottage was a dream that was as far beyond her reach as . . . as . . . living on the moon.

‘It'll get dark early, the weather being so bad today,' she forced herself to change the subject, and glanced out at the dark lowering clouds that skulked across the sky. She simply couldn't tell him that she'd be leaving. Soon.

She'd woken that morning knowing that, for the first time in her life, there was something that she couldn't face. And that was being with him, as a trusted lover, when his world fell apart. And watching his face as he realised
who
had engineered it all . . .

Coward. A word she'd never thought would ever be applied to her. But his love had turned her into a coward. Ironic to think that, before he was even aware they were at war, he should win such a major victory and never even know it.

But then, perhaps, after all, it was only poetic justice. Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, had an even-handed way of doling out her punishments. She would have to write a poem dedicated to her by way of a ‘thank you for the lesson', Davina mused sadly.

Davina sighed deeply and rubbed the back of her neck. She heard him get up and knew exactly what he was going to do. If she had any sense at all, she'd stop him. ‘Hmmm . . .' she murmured blissfully, as his fingers pushed her own aside and began to knead with surprising firmness and accuracy.

If only . . . If only she didn't love him.

If only she didn't hate him.

‘Life gets complicated,' she said quietly.

She felt the fingers on her neck pause, then once again begin their firm, caressing, circular movements. ‘Oh?'

‘I'm not moving in here,' Davina said flatly.

The fingers didn't hesitate.

‘Why not?' Gareth said mildly.

‘Because it's not a good idea. Believe me.'

Still, Gareth said nothing. He looked down at the top of her spiky blonde head, feeling the
smoothness
of her flesh beneath his. Warm. Melting now, under the ministrations of his fingers. ‘All right,' he said quietly. But he was not giving up.

Davina felt a trickle of something run down her spine. Not unease, exactly. But something . . . perhaps a warning. Something that told her never to underestimate this man. For all his gentleness, his sensitivity, his sophistication, she sensed a male power that, for all her experience of men, she'd never encountered before. She leaned back and looked up at him, her green eyes flashing like fire. ‘You're up to something,' she said, more as a statement of fact, than an accusation.

Gareth looked down at her. ‘No,' he responded softly. ‘Unless you call patience being up to something.'

Patience. Davina shivered. Yes. He had a lot of patience. And for all her own ferocity, for all her own passion, for all her own ruthlessness, she had the sudden premonition that, in the end, it was going to be Gareth's patience that undid her.

Jared glanced up as a knock sounded on his door.

‘Come in,' he called, and shot to his feet as Alicia stepped inside and, with a curiously harassed look over her shoulder, quickly shut the door behind her.

*          *          *

Jared,
who'd been puzzling over his bank statement, felt himself go hot, then cold. ‘Alicia,' he said, trying to sound casual when all he really wanted to do was walk across the space between them and shake her. Demand to know what the hell she thought she was doing, breaking his heart as carelessly as she had.

He shook his head, knowing that he couldn't demand any such thing. He had no right to.

‘Well, they say every cloud has a silver lining,' he forced himself to talk about something normal. ‘The damned bank has made some mistake with my account. I dare say it's a computer blip. Either that, or somebody somewhere must be wondering where their ten grand has gone. I suppose I'll have to go down to the bank tomorrow and get it sorted.'

Alicia slowly began to smile. Of course, she understood at once what Neville had been playing at. ‘Oh Jared!' she cried, flinging herself across the room. All the strain of the last few days, plus the sheer relief of knowing that he hadn't been bought off, came tumbling out of her.

Jared just had time to turn, catch her, then stumble back against the edge of his bed as she launched herself into his arms. He felt himself falling backwards. The bedsprings creaked like
an
animal in pain as they landed, in a tangle of limbs, on the narrow mattress. He found himself flat on his back, Alicia on top of him. Crying. And laughing. And kissing him.