The Virgin s Wedding Night Read online

  ‘I suppose I should feel guilty for knocking Flinty’s baby on the head,’ he was saying. ‘Especially as it’s the only time hell’s spinster is ever likely to give birth—to anything. Not even all Grandpa’s money would be enough to tempt a sane man to take her on. But, try as I may, I can’t manage one single regret. I truly feel she’d be happier in a back office, working the photocopier.’

  ‘You mean you’d be happier if that’s where she was,’ Anthea, his assistant, said over another sycophantic ripple of amusement. It sounded as if quite a crowd had gathered.

  ‘Infinitely,’ Jonathan drawled. ‘Maybe we should try it. Offer her a title—vice-president in charge of paperclips—and see what happens. After all, she’s only playing at a career. Old Gregory made that clear from the first,’ he added with a snap. ‘I bet he can’t believe she’s still here. And I can tell you that Tony’s well and truly sick of being saddled with her.’

  Harriet stood where she was, lips parted in shock. This was more than the idle malice of the nicknames, she realised numbly. There was genuine entrenched resentment here. Jonathan Audley wanted her out, and it seemed he was not alone in that.

  So, today wasn’t just a skirmish. It was the opening salvo in a war she hadn’t realised had been declared. And it had clearly hit the target.

  Her hand tightened on the handle of her briefcase. She lifted her chin, then walked forward, halting at the half-open door. Standing there as the amusement faded into embarrassed silence. Glancing round as if she was taking note of who was there—collating names and faces—before walking on down the corridor, her head high.

  But her hand was shaking as she pressed the button to summon the lift. Behind her, she heard a burst of nervous giggling, and Jon Audley’s voice saying, ‘Oops.’ A sixth sense told her that someone had come out into the corridor and was watching her, waiting, probably, for some other reaction, so she made herself lean a casual shoulder against the wall, glancing idly at her watch while she waited.

  Thankfully, the lift was empty, and as the door closed she sank down on to her haunches, trying to steady her uneven breathing, fighting off the astonishing threat of tears, because she never cried.

  By the time the ground floor was reached, she’d got herself back under control, and she’d at least be able to leave the building in good order.

  Home, she thought longingly. My own space. My own things. A chance to regroup.

  As she crossed the reception area, Les called to her. ‘That artist bloke has gone, Miss Flint, like you wanted.’

  She swung round, confronting him almost dazedly, wondering what he was talking about. When she finally remembered, it was as if the incident had occurred in another lifetime.

  She said curtly, ‘Good. I hope he didn’t give you any trouble.’

  ‘Not a bit, miss.’ He hesitated. ‘In fact he seemed a bit amused when I approached him. As if he’d been expecting it.’ He paused again. ‘And later, when I went out to check that he’d gone, I found this, fastened to the railings outside.’

  He reached into a drawer, and with clear embarrassment handed her a sheet of cartridge paper, folded in half.

  Harriet opened it out, and found herself looking at what seemed to be a mass of black shading. For a brief instant, she thought it must be a drawing of a bat—or a bird of prey. A carrion crow, perhaps, with wings spread wide, about to swoop.

  And then she saw the face emerging from those dark flying draperies. A woman’s face—sullen—angry—driven. A caricature, perhaps, portrayed without subtlety, but, she realised, unmistakably—unforgivably—her face.

  A deliberate and calculated insult—signed ‘Roan’ across one corner with such force that it had almost torn the paper.

  For a long moment, she stared down at the drawing in silence. Then she forced a smile.

  ‘Quite a work of art.’ Somehow, she managed to keep her voice light. ‘Everything but the broomstick. And—fastened to the railings, you say? For all the world to see?’

  Les nodded unhappily, his ruddy face deepening in colour.

  ‘Afraid so, miss, but it can’t have been there long. And no one from here will have spotted it.’ he added, as if this was some kind of consolation.

  ‘I think you mean no one else,’ she said quietly. She folded the paper, and put it carefully in her briefcase.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do that, miss?’ His voice was uncertain. ‘You wouldn’t like me to put it through the shredder?’

  I’d like you to put him—this Roan—through the shredder, Harriet wanted to scream. Followed by Tony, and bloody, bloody Jonathan. And every other man who dares to judge me. Or force me into some mould of their making like Grandfather.

  Instead, she shrugged a shoulder, feigning insouciance, although pain and anger were twisting inside her. ‘I intend to treasure it. Who knows? It might be worth a lot of money some day. He may turn out to be a future Hogarth. Besides, isn’t it supposed to be salutary to see ourselves as others do?’

  Les’s face was dubious. ‘If you say so, Miss Flint.’

  ‘However,’ she added, ‘if I send you out to shift any more vagabonds, I give you full permission to ignore my instructions.’

  She flashed a last bright, meaningless smile at him, and went out into the street, signalling to a passing taxi.

  She gave her home address automatically, and sank back in the corner of the seat, staring unseeingly out of the window, feeling her heart pounding against her ribcage as her anger grew. As the whole day emptied its bitterness into her mind. Culminating in this—this last piece of ignominy perpetrated by a total stranger.

  What the hell am I? she asked herself. Punch-bag of the week?

  Mouth tightening ominously, she took out her mobile phone and punched in a number.

  ‘Luigi? Harriet Flint.’ She spoke evenly. ‘The painter. Do you know where he lives? If he has a studio?’

  ‘Of course. One moment.’

  He sounded so pleased that Harriet felt almost sorry. Almost, but not quite.

  She wrote the directions on the back of the card he’d given her earlier. When I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, she thought, as she tapped on the glass and told the cabdriver about the change of plan.

  She would deal with Jonathan and co in her own good time, she thought as she sat back. But this so-called artist would answer now for his attempt to denigrate her.

  Because, but for Les, this drawing would have been seen by the entire company on their way out of the building.

  And she knew that it would not have been an easy thing to live down. That it was something that would have lingered on in the corporate memory to be sniggered over as long as she was associated with Flint Audley—which basically meant the rest of her working life.

  Just as if she didn’t have enough problems already.

  She took one last look at the drawing, then closed her fist around it, scrunching it into a ball.

  Meanwhile, the cab was slowing. ‘This is it, miss,’ the driver threw over his shoulder. ‘Hildon Yard.’

  And home, it seemed, to a flourishing road haulage company, and a row of storage units. Not exactly an artistic environment, she thought, her mouth twisting.

  ‘Will you wait, please?’ she requested as she paid the driver. ‘I shouldn’t be longer than ten minutes,’ she added quickly, seeing his reluctant expression.

  He nodded resignedly. ‘Ten minutes it is,’ he said, reaching for his newspaper. ‘But that’s it.’

  Harriet glanced around her, then, after a moment’s hesitation, approached a man in brown overalls moving around the trucks with a clipboard, and a preoccupied expression.

  She said, ‘Can you help me, please? I’m looking for number 6a.’

  He pointed unsmilingly to an iron staircase in one corner. ‘Up at the top there. That green door.’

  Her heels rang on the metal steps as she climbed. Like the clash of armour before battle, she thought, and found she was unexpectedly fighting a very real
temptation to forget the whole thing, return to the waiting cab, and go home.

  But that was the coward’s way out, she told herself. And that arrogant bastard wasn’t getting away with what he’d tried to do to her.

  As she reached the narrow platform at the top, the door opened suddenly, and Harriet took an involuntary step backwards, pressing herself against the guard rail.

  A girl’s voice with a smile in it said, ‘See you later,’ and she found herself confronting a pretty girl, immaculate in pastel cut-offs and a white tee shirt, her blonde hair in a long braid, carrying a large canvas bag slung over one shoulder. She checked, with a gasp, when she spotted Harriet.

  ‘Heavens, you startled me.’ Blue eyes looked her over enquiringly. ‘Was there something you wanted?’

  Harriet saw that the hand holding the strap of the canvas bag wore a wedding ring. The possibility that this Roan might be married had not, frankly, occurred to her.

  But, even if he was, there was no way someone so irredeemably scruffy could possibly be paired with a such a clearly high-maintenance woman.

  Unless the attraction of opposites had come into play, and he was her bit of rough, she thought with distaste.

  The girl said more insistently, ‘Can I help you?’

  Discovering that she seemed to have momentarily lost the power of speech, Harriet mutely held out the business card that she was still clutching.

  ‘Oh.’ The girl sounded surprised. ‘Oh—right.’ She turned and called over her shoulder, ‘Darling, you have a visitor.’ She gave Harriet a smile that was friendly and puzzled in equal measures, then clattered her way down the staircase.

  Darling…

  My God, Harriet thought, wincing. Lady, you have all my sympathy.

  At the same time, she was glad the other girl had departed, because what she wanted to say, possibly at the top of her voice, didn’t need an audience. Especially when the evidence suggested she could not count on its support.

  She drew a deep, steadying breath, took the screwed-up drawing from her pocket, and walked through the doorway.

  Because of its immediate environment, she’d expected the place to be dark inside, and probably dingy. Instead she found herself in a large loft room, brimming with the sunlight that poured through the vast window occupying the greater part of an entire wall, and down from the additional skylights in the roof.

  The smell of oil paint was thick and heavy in the air, and on the edge of her half-dazzled vision, stacked round the walls, were canvases—great splashes of vibrant, singing colour.

  But she couldn’t allow them to distract her, even for a moment, because he was there—a tall, dark figure, standing motionless, hands on hips, in the middle of all this brilliance.

  As if he was waiting for her, hard and unbending as a granite pillar, the black brows drawn together in a frown, his mouth harsh and unsmiling.

  He said, ‘What are you doing here? What do you want?’

  His voice was low-pitched and cool. Educated too, she recognised with faint surprise, but slightly accented. Spanish—Italian? She couldn’t be sure.

  Of course that deep tan should have given away his Mediterranean origins, as she now had every opportunity to notice, because the tee shirt he’d been wearing earlier had been discarded. His feet were bare too, and the waistband of his jeans, worn low on his hips, was unfastened.

  As it would be, she thought, if he’d simply dragged them on for decency’s sake as he said goodbye to his lover.

  And, while there wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on him, effete he certainly wasn’t, she realised, swallowing. His naked shoulders and arms were powerfully sculpted, and his bronzed chest was darkly shadowed by the hair that arrowed down over his stomach until hidden by the barrier of faded denim that covered his long legs.

  Penniless artist he might be, but at the same time he looked tough and uncompromising, and it occurred to her suddenly that perhaps it might have been better if the blonde had remained after all.

  Or if I’d stayed away…

  The thoughts seemed to be chasing each other through her skull.

  ‘I asked why you were here,’ he said. ‘And I am waiting for your answer.’

  That jolted her back to the here and now. Needled her into response too.

  She lifted her chin. ‘Can’t you guess the reason?’ She took the crumpled ball of paper from her pocket, and threw it at him. It didn’t reach its target, dropping harmlessly to the floor between them, and he didn’t waste a glance on it.

  ‘You were so impressed with the likeness that you came to commission a portrait, perhaps?’ His tone was silky. ‘If so, I must refuse. I doubt if I could summon up sufficient inspiration a second time.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Her own voice grated. ‘I have no plans to feature as a subject for you ever again. I came for an apology.’

  His brows lifted. ‘An apology for what?’

  ‘For that.’ She pointed at the ball of paper. ‘That—thing you left for me.’ She drew a swift, sharp breath. ‘Do you know how many people work in that building—and use that entrance? And you had the damned nerve to put that—insulting, libellous daub where everyone would see it. Make me into a laughing stock. And you did it quite deliberately. Don’t try to deny it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘And don’t pretend it was only a joke, either. Because, if so, it was in bloody poor taste.’

  ‘It was no joke,’ he said, and there was a note in his voice that gave her the odd sensation that her skin had been laid open by a whip. ‘And nor was your attempt to have me moved on by your security guard, as if I was guilty of some crime. And in front of a crowd of people, too.

  ‘Humiliation does not appeal to me either,’ he added grimly. ‘Although I must tell you that your plan misfired, because no one laughed. They were all embarrassed for me, including your guard. And several of them sprang to my defence.’

  He paused. ‘It is interesting that you did not expect your colleagues to be equally supportive,’ he went on bitingly. ‘But, at the same time, it is hardly surprising if this is a sample of the tactics you use in your workplace. Perhaps they would have recognised my portrait of you only too well.’

  She felt as if she’d been punched in the guts, and, for a moment, she could only stare at him in silence. Then, she forced herself to rally. To fight back. ‘You had no right to be there, opposite our offices.’

  ‘I have been sketching there all week,’ he said. ‘No one from your company or any other has complained before.’

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘is because I never saw you there before.’

  ‘Then I can be thankful for that, at least.’

  She bit her lip. ‘Anyway, beggars deserve to be moved on. You were causing an obstruction.’

  ‘I was not begging,’ he said stonily. ‘I was earning honest money, giving pleasure by my sketching. But I guess that pleasure is not something you would readily understand, Miss Harriet Flint.’

  She gasped. ‘How do you know my name?’

  He shrugged. ‘In the same way that you learned where I live. I was told by Luigi Carossa. He telephoned to say you were planning to pay me a visit.’ His mouth curled. ‘He even thought it might be to my advantage. I did not disillusion him.’

  He paused. ‘Now, if there is nothing further, perhaps you would leave.’

  It was difficult to breathe. ‘Is that—is that all you have to say?’

  ‘Why, no.’ The dark eyes swept over her contemptuously. ‘There is also this. Go back to your fortress, Miss Flint, and practise giving more ridiculous and high-handed orders. If you cannot make yourself liked, you can at least attempt to feel important. I hope it is some consolation.’

  He kicked the ball of paper towards her. ‘And take this with you as a reminder not to over-reach yourself again. This time you escaped lightly, but next time you may indeed find yourself the office joke.’

  The world seemed to slip away from her. ‘Lightly?’ she repeated
dazedly. Then, her voice rising, ‘You said—lightly?’

  She didn’t lose her temper as a rule. She had too many bad memories from early childhood of voices shouting, the sound of things being thrown, even occasional blows, and her mother’s loud, hysterical weeping as yet another relationship bit the dust.

  She’d always prided herself on being able to control her anger. To hide any negative emotions and deal with them calmly and sensibly.

  But for most of today she’d been on the edge and she knew it.

  And now she felt as if something deep inside her had cracked open at his words, and all the pain, the anxiety and disappointment of the last weeks had come welling to the surface in one violent, cataclysmic surge that she was unable to repress.

  A voice she didn’t recognise as her own screamed, ‘You utter bastard…’ And she flung forward, launching herself wildly at him, hands curled into claws, striking at his face. Wanting to hurt him in return.

  As she made contact, she heard him swear, then her wrists were seized in a punishing grip, and she was forced away from him, held at arm’s length as the dark eyes raked her mercilessly.

  His voice was harsh and breathless. ‘You do not hit me—understand? You will never do so again, or I shall retaliate in a way you won’t like.’

  She tried to stare back defiantly, to twist free of his grasp, but his hold was relentless. And then she saw the smear of blood on his cheekbone and suddenly the enormity of what she’d done overwhelmed her.

  She attempted to speak, but the only sound that escaped her was a choking sob, and the next instant she was crying in a way she’d never done before—loudly and gustily, all control abandoned, as the scalding tears stormed down her face.

  He said icily, ‘And now the usual woman’s trick—weeping to get out of trouble. You disappoint me.’

  He took her over to the sagging sofa at one side of the room, and pushed her down on to the elderly velvet cushions, tossing a handkerchief into her lap.

  She was aware of him moving away, as another paroxysm shook her, and she buried her wet face in the soft square of linen. She could hear him moving about, followed by the chink of a bottle on glass, and then he was back, seating himself beside her, closing her fingers round a tumbler.