The English Aristocrat's Bride Read online

  She paled, looking suddenly older than her years. “I’m not going to stand here and be insulted by you any longer. I’m only sorry for Fiona—her father’s a bully, and you wouldn’t recognize the truth if it was right under your nose. I never want to see either one of you again.”

  In a swirl of skirts she stumbled through the long grass, crushing wildflowers underfoot. After glancing both ways, she ran across the road, opened the door of her car and got in. Although her fingers were shaking, she finally got the key in the ignition. Dirt grinding from her tires, she drove away; and the whole time was aware of Rafe Holden standing like a statue by the wall. Making no move to stop her.

  Rafe watched her go, his blood pounding in his ears. Years ago, Celine had been unfaithful to him, destroying his passion, his trust and his love as carelessly as if he’d meant nothing to her. Less than nothing. Today Karyn Marshall had accused him of infidelity toward Fiona. And wasn’t it true? He was pulled toward Karyn as inexorably as the moon pulled the tides.

  He had to find out if she’d been lying to him from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, or if she’d been telling him the truth. He had to.

  He’d go out of his mind if he didn’t.

  CHAPTER THREE

  WHEN Karyn reached the inn, she parked her car, tied a headscarf over her hair and jammed on dark glasses. Then she hurried inside. The landlord was standing behind the counter in a wrinkled green shirt. He said, not bothering to hide his sneer, “Ah, Miss Marshall. I’m glad you’re back. I will, unfortunately, be needing your room tonight for other guests. Would you settle up now?”

  “That would give me great pleasure,” she said, snapping her credit card on the counter. When he handed her the slip, it also gave her pleasure to put a long slash through the space for the tip. Then she looked up. “You can phone Mr. Talbot now and tell him I’ve left,” she said sweetly. “Goodbye.”

  Ten minutes later she was driving out of the quadrangle behind the inn. She had no idea where she was going. Nor, at the moment, did she care.

  For the last time she wound along the narrow road through Droverton, past the little shops and the stone cottages with their beautiful gardens. A few minutes later she passed the driveway to Willowbend.

  Her throat tight, her eyes aching with unshed tears, Karyn drove on. It was early evening, the golden light a mockery to all her hopes, her sister receding with every turn in the road. Although, deep in her heart, she knew she was doing the right thing, that she couldn’t have lived with herself had she done otherwise, she only wished it didn’t hurt so abominably.

  Then she saw, to her right, a layby tucked under the trees. Quickly she pulled over and got out. Her eyes sharpened. A little path led down the slope. After changing from sandals to walking shoes, Karyn locked the car and set off down the path.

  If she walked for an hour or so, she’d feel better.

  She took off her dark glasses and thrust her headscarf in the pocket of her dress. No more need for disguises. No need to hide. Just the distant chuckle of a woodland stream and her own thoughts.

  Ten minutes later, the woods opened out in one of the vistas characteristic of this northern countryside: gentle hills blending into granite crags that faded blue into the distance. Always, somewhere, there was the glitter of water.

  The landscape called to her, beckoning, almost as though she belonged here.

  Not a train of thought she wanted to follow.

  Karyn started climbing, feeling the pull on her leg muscles. When she came to the crest of the hill with its screen of gold-starred gorse and piled boulders, she stood still, her eyes widening in shock. Below her, edged by a tumble of rocks and the lazy curve of a river, were the battlements of a castle. Even from here she could see the formal gardens that surrounded the castle, the bright turquoise of a large rectangular pool, and lawns so green they made her eyes ache.

  Holden Castle, she thought. Ancestral home of Rafe Holden.

  As though she couldn’t help herself, her gaze was dragged farther westward. Nestled in open fields edged with trees was a huge two-story stone house with south-facing wings, a glassed solarium and, again, the gleam of an outdoor pool. Its slate roofs were dark as shadows, its out-buildings surrounded by white-painted fencing. For all its civilized accoutrements, the house faced the fells and tarns, the rocky crags of the moor, and was perfectly suited to the wildness of its surroundings.

  She squinted into the dying sun. Wasn’t that a dark green sports car parked in the courtyard?

  Rafe’s car. The house must be his, too. A house so beautiful it made Karyn’s heart ache. A house Fiona must know inside and out; she’d be mistress of it when she and Rafe married.

  Into Karyn’s mind came an image of the little clapboard house her mother had left her, where Karyn had grown up. The comparison was laughable.

  Except she didn’t feel like laughing.

  Abruptly Karyn tensed. From her left, approaching fast, she heard the clump of hooves on the grass. Instinctively she ducked behind the line of boulders and gorse. The hooves slowed. A woman’s voice said softly, “Well done, Sasha. What a glorious sunset.”

  With painstaking care Karyn peered between the stiff green branches. Horse and rider were perhaps thirty feet below her; the Arabian mare was tossing her head so the bridle jingled as the woman looked out over the peaceful valley. She was slim, clad in well-fitting jodphurs, a white shirt and a black hard hat. A thick coil of blond hair was pinned at her nape.

  When she turned her head to the east, toward Willowbend, Karyn saw, as though in a mirror, her own profile with its straight nose and high cheekbones.

  Hadn’t she known, from the moment she first heard the sound of hooves, that the rider would be Fiona?

  Her heart was thumping so hard in her breast that she was afraid Fiona would hear it. She sank lower behind the bushes, knees trembling from the strain. So near and yet so far. So unutterably far.

  Fiona said cheerfully, “We’d better get going, Sash. Mother’s invited that dreadful old snob, Emily Fairweather, in for drinks and I’m expected to put in an appearance. Let’s go down the hill and have a good gallop through Fenton’s field—we’ll jump the wall, how about it?”

  Sasha blew through her nostrils, and as Karyn risked another glance, Fiona squeezed her knees and the horse trotted down the hillside. Within a couple of minutes horse and rider were out of sight. To her dismay Karyn realized she was weeping, a flood of silent tears streaming down her cheeks. She’d seen her sister, her twin. That one glimpse had to be enough for the rest of her life.

  She cried for a long time, until she had no tears left. Then, blowing her nose and wiping her wet cheeks, she stood up. As though she couldn’t help herself, her eyes were drawn once more to the stone house on Rafe’s estate. In its mixture of the sophisticated and the untamed, wasn’t it just like the man himself?

  A man she’d never see again.

  She started tramping back the way she’d come. Fiona, she could only assume, had been visiting Rafe…and why not?

  They’d probably been in bed together.

  She’d been very quick to accuse Rafe of infidelity toward Fiona. But hadn’t she, Karyn, betrayed her sister as well, first in that incendiary kiss by the gardens of Willowbend, and then again this afternoon in that wild leap of her blood when she’d stumbled into Rafe’s arms by the wall? How could she have responded with such passionate intensity to a man who was her sister’s lover?

  It was unforgivable. The only way for her to make amends was to vanish from both their lives.

  Her steps quickened. At least she’d seen Fiona, Karyn thought stoutly. Once only, and all too briefly, but she’d been granted that much. In time, she was sure, she would be grateful for that small crumb of comfort.

  The trees welcomed her into their embrace, and her vehicle was exactly where she’d left it. She climbed in, checked for other cars and pulled out onto the road.

  By eight o’clock the next morning, Rafe was on the phone t
o one of his assistants in the London head office. “Vic? I want you to do something for me. Fast. Ready?”

  Vic was from Manhattan and knew all about fast. “Right on,” he said agreeably, focusing so he wouldn’t miss the smallest detail. He liked working for Rafe Holden. Sure, the man was both demanding and exacting. But he was also fair, he didn’t stand on ceremony and he paid extraordinarily well.

  “This is confidential,” Rafe added in a clipped voice.

  “Understood.”

  “I want a thorough investigation on the following person, and I want results by the end of the day. Pay for the top people. Got that?”

  “Yep. Go ahead.”

  “Karyn Marshall.” Quickly Rafe gave the particulars of her rented car. “Find out where she’s spending the night tonight and have her followed. I also want you to investigate a possible adoption twenty-six years ago of identical twins…” Speaking with crisp precision, Rafe gave every detail he’d learned from Karyn, along with the relevant information about the Talbots. He finished with the name of Karyn’s hometown in Prince Edward Island. “Check how she earns her living, her marital status, anything at all.”

  Vic said imperturbably, “I’ll set it in motion right away, and e-mail you as soon as anything turns up.”

  “Thanks, Vic.”

  Rafe put the phone down. He’d done it. Rightly or wrongly, he was going to find out whether Karyn had been telling him the truth, a partial truth, or a pack of lies. Maybe then he could put her out of his mind and get on with his life.

  Running upstairs, he showered and shaved; he didn’t look that great, he thought dispassionately, staring at himself in the mirror. Two sleepless nights in a row were taking their toll.

  Had a chance meeting with a blond, blue-eyed woman made any thoughts of proposing to Fiona an utter impossibility?

  Out of control, he thought savagely. That’s how he felt. As though the course he’d been mapping for his life had been totally derailed. Was he wrong to want a peaceful domestic life? To opt for a well-marked track rather than the crags and peaks of passion?

  Passion, betrayed, had ripped him apart.

  Marriage to Fiona would never do that.

  It was Douglas who’d put the idea of marriage in his head, five days ago in the oak-paneled study at Stoneriggs. Douglas wanted Rafe to rescue him from some ill-considered investments, that information had come out right away. But he also wanted Rafe to marry Fiona. How had he put it?

  “You owe me, old man. Nothing Clarissa and I would like better than to welcome you into the family.”

  “Owe you?” Rafe repeated sharply.

  “Remember when you turned twenty? Your mother gave you enough money that you could buy your first three properties. Get your start. She told you the money was left to her, an old great-uncle who’d died in the highlands of Scotland.” Douglas gave a hearty laugh. “Balderdash! I loaned her the money. I had you taped as someone who’d rise to the top, and I was right. So now I’m calling in the loan, Rafe. I want you to marry Fiona.”

  “I can’t believe the money came from you!”

  “Just ask your mother,” Douglas said smugly.

  “You can be sure I will.”

  “So what’s your answer, Rafe?”

  “You’re not getting one right now,” Rafe said, steel in his voice. “I’ll need a month to think about it. In the meantime, you’re not to say a word to anyone—least of all Fiona—or I won’t touch your debts. Is that clear?”

  With bad grace Douglas agreed, and took his leave. Rafe then drove as fast as he could to the castle. “Darling, your father and I would have done anything to get you away from here,” Joan Holden said. “Don’t you remember what it was like the whole time you were growing up? Death duties to the eyeballs and the walls falling down around us.”

  Rafe remembered all too well. In a twisted way he did owe Douglas a debt of gratitude: those first three properties had started him on the road to fortune. But Douglas hadn’t loaned the money all those years ago out of the goodness of his heart. Oh, no. Douglas desperately wanted an alliance with Holden blue blood, and had gambled on Rafe as the means to achieve this.

  Rafe loathed the prospect of being manipulated like a chess piece by a player as crass as Douglas. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized how ready he was to settle down, and how deeply he wanted to avoid the intensity of emotion Celine had evoked in him. He’d known Fiona all his life, and would have trusted her with his life. Besides, Fiona would be all too happy to settle at Stoneriggs, for, like himself, she loved the hills and dales of his estate.

  He’d been rather pleased with these conclusions. But then he’d met Karyn, and had discovered that the passion he’d thought he’d outgrown was very much alive.

  One kiss was all it had taken.

  The phone rang at five past eleven that night in Rafe’s study. He barked his name into the receiver.

  Picking up on his boss’s tone immediately, Vic said, “I’ve sent you an e-mail filling in the details. The rundown’s like this. Karyn Marshall left Droverton late yesterday and booked into the Warm Hearts Bed and Breakfast in Hart’s Run for two nights. She and Fiona Talbot are identical twins, adopted at age two weeks by the Marshalls and the Talbots respectively. Karyn’s employed as a veterinarian at the Heddingley Clinic near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Her husband, Steven Patterson, died a year ago. No children from the marriage.” Vic paused. “You hadn’t authorized investigation of peripheral people, so we didn’t follow up on the husband.”

  Husband… his head reeling, Rafe said, “That’s fine. I’ll check the e-mail and get back to you if I have any questions. Good job, Vic, thanks.”

  The e-mail described Karyn’s childhood, schooling, university degrees, marriage and career. Facts, facts and more facts. One of particular interest was that twenty-seven years ago Douglas had taken his wife to Italy for a year; when they returned to Droverton via London, they’d brought a baby with them. So that, thought Rafe, was how they’d avoided village gossip.

  He got up from his chair and walked over to the windows that overlooked the crags he’d climbed as a boy. The main points in Vic’s report he’d already known, because Karyn had told them to him. She hadn’t lied. She’d told the truth from beginning to end.

  Although not the whole truth. She hadn’t said anything about being widowed. As clearly as if she were standing in front of him, he could remember her slim, ringless fingers.

  Either way, he’d accused her of social climbing, avarice and deceit. Well done, Rafe. You’re going to have to work damn hard to jam your foot any further down your throat.

  What are you planning for an encore?

  Wasn’t that the issue? What was he going to do for an encore? He had two choices. Delete the e-mail, pay the bill for the investigators and forget Karyn Marshall existed. Or get in touch with her and bring her and Fiona together.

  He started pacing up and down the room, his emotions roiling. The easy course was to do nothing. Let the secrets of many years remain secrets. Karyn had already left Droverton and would—he knew in his heart—stay away. She wouldn’t risk hurting Fiona as she had been hurt by her own parents’ deception. She’d told him that, her blue eyes meeting his unflinchingly. And hadn’t he just been given proof that every word she’d spoken had been trustworthy?

  If he took the easy way out, he’d never have to see Karyn again. The fierce attraction she’d exerted on him simply by existing would fade from his memory and from his body, becoming part of the past, a temporary madness.

  Eclipsed by his marriage to her sister?

  Fiona. Even as a boy, Rafe had understood that the heart of Fiona’s rich and comfortable life harbored an acute loneliness. She had no brothers and sisters, and her parents, while they loved her, were controlling and manipulative in ways sweet-natured Fiona was only rarely aware of. Was it fair to keep her in ignorance of her sister’s existence?

  Karyn, although she was Fiona’s identical twin, had
been differently molded. She wasn’t rich: when she’d sold the house that had been in her dead husband’s name, she’d used the money to pay off a substantial student loan. Which brought Rafe back to the fact he’d been trying to avoid. Karyn had loved a man enough to marry him, and had suffered from his death. When she’d been standing by the wall in the sunlight, Rafe had been achingly aware of the character in her face, her features honed by experiences he’d chosen to disparage. Now he had some idea of what those experiences had been.

  Fiona might learn what she herself was capable of from the woman who was her identical twin. Who better as a teacher? And was it up to him to prevent this from happening?

  He had that power of prevention. He was a man used to wielding power. He could, single-handedly, keep the two sisters apart for the rest of their days.

  Abruptly Rafe grabbed a jacket from the cupboard and opened the French doors to the stone patio. Hands thrust in his pockets, he set off through the garden toward the woods. He always thought better outdoors.

  Temporary madness. That’s what he’d called it and that’s all it was, that kiss in the woods at dusk, that streak of lust when Karyn had fallen into his arms by the wall. He’d get over it.

  From his left, deep in the trees, an owl hooted, a wild, plaintive cry that shivered along his nerves. Be honest, Rafe, he told himself caustically. The attraction went deeper than that. She’d felt it, too. Unarguably. Blood to blood and bone to bone.

  Flesh to flesh.

  How could he marry Fiona when he felt this overwhelming attraction toward a woman he hadn’t known existed two days ago?

  One thing at a time. His primary decision right now was whether he should bring the two sisters together. Because Karyn, he suspected, wouldn’t hang around the area very long.

  What was he going to do?

  At seven the following evening, Rafe was navigating the narrow streets of Hart’s Run, forty miles from Droverton. Fiona was sitting beside him in his adored green Ferrari. She said lightly, “You’re being very mysterious, Rafe.”