In Bed With a Stranger (12 page)

‘Oh, God.’ She actually managed a genuine laugh then, albeit a slightly hysterical one. ‘“It’s not you, it’s me.” That’s such an old line, Kit.’

He didn’t smile. Standing in front of the window with another spectacular Alnburgh sunset spreading its glories across the sky behind him, he looked as stern and beautiful as a painted saint in the Sistine Chapel.

‘It’s true. I wish it wasn’t but it is. I’m not the person—the hero …’ his mouth twisted bleakly ‘… you think I am.’

Sophie was distantly aware that she was shivering. She should put some clothes on, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it in front of him now. He was suddenly a stranger to her.

‘You remember the incident that happened out there on the day I came back …’ Kit bowed his head briefly ‘… the one that left a nineteen-year-old boy in Intensive Care with bullets in his head and back? I should have been looking after him, just like you said, but what happened to him was my fault. All. My. Fault.’

His voice dripped ice down her spine. He was standing against the window, his face in shadow, but his eyes burned with a peculiar intensity that made her breath catch and her heart ache with compassion and fear.

‘That can’t be true. Surely in an explosion—’

‘He wasn’t hurt in the explosion,’ he said with exaggerated patience that sounded almost like scorn. ‘He was hurt
before
the bomb went off, by enemy fire.’

‘How can that be your fault?’

‘Because he was one of the infantry team covering my back while I defused the device,’ he said in a low, mocking voice. Turning round, he gripped the window sill and looked out over the beach, though Sophie had a feeling he wasn’t seeing the tranquil sweep of Northumberland sand at all. ‘We’d been called to a bridge over one of the main routes into a town notorious for its insurgent activity. The bomb was underneath it, but the whole situation was a nightmare. The site was visible for miles around, from hundreds of rooftops and windows and balconies. We can clear the area immediately around the device on the ground, but it’s impossible to make a site like that safe. The only thing to do is to go in there and do the job quickly.’

Sophie was transfixed, standing shivering in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around herself because she couldn’t wrap them around him. Everything about him told her to keep away, from his white-knuckled grip on the window sill to the bunched muscles across his shoulders.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ he said bitterly. ‘I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t feel my fingers properly. My hands were shaking. I dropped the wire cutters, and all I could think about was you.’ He paused, letting his head drop for a moment and exhaling a ragged breath. ‘That was when the shooting started and I knew we were screwed. There was nothing to do but get out fast. I was running back to the vehicle when the bomb went off, but Lewis had already been hit.’

‘Oh, Kit …’ Like a sleepwalker, Sophie moved towards him, unable to stop herself from reaching out and touching him. ‘It wasn’t your fault—you have to believe that. It was an impossible situation. It could have happened to anyone.’
Slowly, levering himself away from the window sill, he turned to face her. His mouth was curved into a bleak parody of a smile that made her insides freeze.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Everything made sense when my mother mentioned Leo’s illness.’ The smile twisted. ‘You thought it was bad enough that I inherited Alnburgh from him, but I’m afraid it looks like that might be the least of my problems. At least I could walk away from Alnburgh.’

‘You think you have the same thing he had?’

Sophie’s voice was a cracked whisper. By contrast his was cold, flat, utterly matter-of-fact.

‘I checked with a friend who’s a doctor. The early signs are clumsiness and loss of sensation in the hands. According to Juliet, there’s a hereditary factor in ten per cent of cases. And that’s why I’m glad you’re not pregnant.’

Instinctively Sophie went towards him, wanting only to take him in her arms. A cautious hope was beginning to steal through her combined with relief that at last she understood. He had finally opened up to her, and now she knew what the problem was it was a case of dealing with it, one thing at a time.

‘You have to see someone,’ she said gently, wrapping her arms around him. ‘Find out for sure.’

‘Do I?’

She wasn’t sure which was worse, his laconic drawl or his rigid, unyielding body. She drew sharply away from him.

‘Of course—the sooner we know the better, and then whatever the facts are we can deal with them.’ She swallowed hard, her heart pounding, an icy avalanche of dread smashing away the hope and relief. ‘
Toge ther
. Whatever it is, we’ll—’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

Sophie’s hand flew to her mouth, stopping the sob that
swelled in her throat. Kit sighed, looking at her with an unflinching, silvery gaze.

‘If I have what my f-father had …’ his eyelids flickered as he stumbled over the word ‘father’, but his tone was colder, harder than ever as he continued ‘… I won’t sentence you to that slow death with me. I’d have to let you go.’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘You can’t mean that. You wouldn’t throw away what we have because—’

‘Yes.’ His voice held a terrifying note of finality. ‘I spoke to Juliet. I know what it would mean. If I have this illness, there’s no way I can marry you, Sophie. I’m sorry.’

Sophie stepped backwards, fighting for air. She felt dizzy and disorientated, as if she’d just stepped off some kind of extreme fairground ride.

‘I hope
so much
that you don’t,’ she said in an odd, breathless voice. ‘No one deserves to go through that. But if that’s how you feel … even if you don’t have it, it’s over for us anyway.’

Nausea rolled over her and for a moment she thought she might pass out, but, gripping the edge of the dressing table, she carried on.

‘Marriage is supposed to be for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. It’s supposed to be about facing things together. About trust and sharing and letting each other in, so maybe …’

She faltered again, staring at him across the space that separated them, willing him to cross it and take her in his arms and tell her she was right and he hadn’t been thinking straight. But he didn’t move. Didn’t open his mouth to argue or stop her from saying the words she didn’t want to speak.

‘Maybe we never stood a chance.’

Her voice had dried up to a cracked whisper. He closed his eyes briefly, as if he was in pain.

‘If that’s what you think … I won’t try to change your mind.’
For a moment they just gazed at each other. And then he turned and pulled the door open. His back was rigid with tension as he walked out, as if he was only holding himself in check with the greatest effort.

Sinking down onto the bed, Sophie listened to his footsteps recede as he went down the stairs. From outside the cries of the gulls sounded like maniacal laughter.

CHAPTER TWELVE

K
IT
didn’t come to bed that night.

Sophie measured the long hours by the distant chiming of the clock in the clock tower and the gradual lightening of the sky. For the first time in her life, sleep eluded her and she understood what it was like for Kit to suffer the torment of insomnia.

That, however, was about as far as her understanding of Kit went.

In a few short hours the man she loved, the man whose body she knew intimately, inch by inch, had become a stranger to her. Although maybe that wasn’t quite true, she thought, staring into the ashy light of dawn. Maybe he’d always been a stranger and she’d been fooled into thinking they were close because they had such breathtaking sex. She sat up, her heart racing sickeningly, drenched in sweat as she had a flashback to the hammam in the hotel, when she’d actually convinced herself that the bond they shared went beyond words.

How spectacularly naive that seemed now.

She dropped her head into her hands. She’d looked on getting married like the start of some big adventure. It hadn’t mattered that she knew little about the place she was going to, she’d been looking forward to exploring; to the excitement of the journey, the challenges, the quiet moments of joy.

Now she felt as if she’d arrived to find everywhere locked and barred, and marked ‘Private. Keep Out.’ There was nothing to do but give up and go home.

Move on. Just like you always do
, sneered a malicious little voice inside her head.

Throwing back the twisted covers, she stumbled out of bed, tensing against the fist of pain that tightened in her stomach. She loved him. Too much to just walk away, especially when there was a possibility he could be facing the hardest challenge of his life.

Outside a pale band of gold on the horizon heralded the new day. Sophie hoped it was a good omen. Clumsily she pulled on jeans beneath the shirt she’d slept in and headed for the door. She felt spacey with lack of sleep, although already the hours of restless darkness and the awful events that had preceded them had taken on a kind of nightmarish quality that she was suddenly desperate to banish.

Going along the corridor towards the main staircase, she broke into a half-run. Everything would look different this morning. Now it was all out in the open they just needed to talk it over properly. She wondered where he’d slept last night—if he’d slept at all. The library was as good a place as any to start looking for him …

But in the end she didn’t get that far. As she reached the bottom of the stairs she heard the sound of footsteps in the long gallery and the metallic jingle of car keys. Crossing the portrait hall, she saw him through the archway. He was dressed—properly dressed, unlike her—and carrying his jacket as he headed towards the armoury hall.

‘Kit?’ She went towards him, fear beating through her.

He stopped and was perfectly still for a moment, as if he was steeling himself before turning to face her. When he did his expression was carefully blank.

‘I didn’t want to wake you.’ He held up a pen and a piece
of Alnburgh-headed notepaper he must have brought through from the library. ‘I was going to leave a note.’

Sophie’s teeth were chattering, making it hard to speak. ‘Saying what?’

‘I’m going to see Lewis.’ He tossed the paper and pen down on the side table. ‘It’s a four-hour drive so I need to get an early start if I’m going to get back tonight.’

‘You’re coming back?’

‘Of course,’ he said wearily, going towards the door. ‘What else would I do?’

‘I don’t know. I thought …’ Relief made her shaky and inarticulate as she followed him. ‘I’m sorry about last night. I couldn’t sleep thinking about it and how mad it is to let this come between us. You must have been through hell these last couple of weeks, worrying about it, and I’m so sorry that you went through that alone.’ He slid back the bolts on the door and Sophie blinked as light flooded the gloomy hall, bringing with it a draft of cool autumn air. ‘But you’re not alone any more. Whatever happens now, we’re in it together.’

Kit paused in the doorway. The clear morning light showed up the shadows of exhaustion beneath his eyes and reminded her with sudden poignancy of when he’d first come home, making her wish she could turn the clock back. He sighed, bowing his head.

‘No, Sophie,’ he said with quiet resignation. ‘I meant what I said last night. I won’t do it to you. You’re the most amazing, vibrant person I’ve ever met.’ He reached out and brushed her cheek with his fingertips. ‘I won’t condemn you to a life of watching me die by degrees. It would be like burying you alive.’

Sophie gave a sharp, indrawn breath, as if she’d just had cold water thrown in her face. ‘But I love you,’ she gasped. ‘Whatever happens,
I love you
…’

He went down the steps into the misty morning and, opening the car door, threw his jacket onto the passenger seat. ‘You
say that now—hell, I’m sure you even think you mean it, but for how long, Sophie?’ Slamming the door, he swung round to face her again. ‘If this is what I think it is, it’ll change
everything
between us.’

‘Except how I feel about you.’

‘You can’t say that for sure.’

The stone flags were icy beneath Sophie’s bare feet as she walked over to the car, but it was nothing compared to the chill inside her. ‘I can, but this isn’t about me really, is it? This is about you. You can’t get your head round it because you don’t feel that way in return. Or—’ She came to an abrupt halt as another thought occurred to her. ‘Is it more than that? Is this about your inability to get past the fact that your mother walked out on you all those years ago?’ She saw his eyes narrow, his body tense and gave a slightly wild laugh as she realised she’d hit a nerve. ‘You’re punishing me for what she did, and for Ralph, who stopped loving you as soon as he found out you weren’t his son—’

‘Enough.’

The word was torn from some primitive part of him. He whirled round and Sophie got a fleeting glimpse of the hard, bunched muscles in his arm as he swung his fist. She gave a high, terrified cry, instinctively ducking away from him and putting her hands up to shield her face. There was a sickening crack as his hand smashed down on the wing of the car with such force that the shiny black metal buckled.

And then silence.

Perhaps it was the pain that brought Kit back to his senses, perhaps it was hearing Sophie cry out like that, but the violent impulse passed as quickly as it had gripped him. For a moment he stayed completely still, his arms braced against the bonnet of the car, his head bent. The sound of his laboured breathing seemed to fill the gentle autumn morning.

Then, mustering all his strength, he straightened up and turned to Sophie.

She had shrunk back against the castle wall and was pressed against it, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if in an attempt to contain the violent shudders that convulsed her. But it was her face that shocked him most. It wore the expression he had seen before on people who had witnessed terrible trauma. A waxy-pale mask of abject terror.

Remorse and self-disgust exploded inside his head, rocking him to the core. ‘God, Sophie—I’m sorry, I—’ Instinctively he moved towards her, thinking only of pulling her into his arms and comforting her, but as he reached out she flinched violently away.

‘Please—no,’ she said in a strangled voice he didn’t recognise. Shrinking back from him, she closed her eyes, as if she were wishing him away. ‘Just go. Now.’

For a moment he couldn’t move. But then, because he knew he had forfeited every moral and personal right when he’d lost control, he walked round the car and got in. His hands were shaking so badly it took a long time for him to get the key into the ignition, and when he finally started the engine and looked up she had disappeared inside the castle and shut the door.

He drove too fast, with the same kind of tense, focused clarity he felt in an ambush. He had an acute hyper-awareness of the smallest details—the digital dashboard statistics registering fuel consumption, the change in colour of the spreading bruise on his knuckles from red to purple to blue—but the miles were swallowed up without him being able to say whereabouts he was or for how long he’d been driving.

He stopped only once, but that was while he was still on the narrow Northumbrian roads not far from Alnburgh and the memory of Sophie’s face was still clear and raw and painful. Not for the briefest split second had he been in danger of hitting her, but the way she’d flinched away from him and raised her hands in self-defence was enough to make the bile
rise in the back of his throat. He pulled over, getting out of the car and filling his starved lungs with gulps of air before getting into the driver’s seat again. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror, and his face was the face of a stranger. A stranger he didn’t want to know.

The needle on the speedometer was almost vertical now, the motorway rushing past in an anonymous blur so that he felt a jolt of surprise when he read the name of the town to which he was headed on the exit sign that loomed ahead.

Leaving the motorway forced him out of his trancelike state. He hadn’t bothered to programme the car’s sat-nav, so had to concentrate on following signs to the hospital in which the unit to which Lewis had been transferred was situated. It wasn’t easy. His mind refused to stay focused on the incomprehensible system of roundabouts and dual carriageways and kept being pulled back to what had happened earlier. Each time he replayed the scene in his head the self-loathing he felt increased.

Pulling up in the hospital car park, he took his mobile phone from the pocket of his jacket and dialled Alnburgh. In his head he could hear the phone shrilling through the portrait hall, shattering the thick silence of the library. Seconds ticked by. His bruised and swollen knuckles throbbed as he gripped the phone tightly.

And just when he was about to give up there was a click and a pause, and then Sophie’s low, slightly breathless voice.

‘Hello?’

Kit closed his eyes. Just hearing her say that one word drove back the demons and stilled the panic. He tipped his head back, desperately trying to find his own voice. When he did it was hoarse and cracked.

‘Sophie, it’s me.’

There was a pause. He pictured her face, seeing in his mind the two lines of anguish he knew would have appeared
between her fine brows, the way she would be pressing her lips together to keep her emotions in check.

‘Where are you?’

‘I just got to the hospital.’

‘Already? That was quick.’

Was it? He glanced at the dashboard clock and noticed absently she was right. ‘I had to say sorry.’

‘There’s no need.’ She said it quickly, in a low, miserable voice. ‘It wasn’t you … I … overreacted. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t.’
Hearing her blame herself for his behaviour was more than he could bear. ‘Please. Don’t take responsibility for my failings. You were right …’ He paused, closing his eyes and massaging his forehead with his fingertips, as if he could rub away the memory of what he’d done.

‘About what?’

‘About what you said about my mother, and Ralph. I didn’t want to hear it and I lost control. But I wouldn’t have hit you, Sophie. Whatever else you think, I want you to believe that. I would
never
hurt you.’

There was a long silence.

‘You’ve shut me out of your life, Kit. Nothing could hurt more than that.’

Sophie put the phone down and then stood back, staring at it. Her eyes were dry, but she knew that the tears were there inside her, and that when they came they would flow for a long, long time.

For a moment, when he’d said that she was right she’d thought—
hoped
—he’d rung to tell her he’d changed his mind. That he had to be with her, whatever. That what they had was stronger than anything else life could throw at them. That his love was unconditional.

But it wasn’t.

He felt guilty for frightening her, that was all. He’d rung because he couldn’t know that in the instant when he’d raised
his fist it had triggered a memory, buried so long and so deep that the details had dimmed to an impressionistic blur, but which still brought the sour taste of terror into her mouth.

She picked up the bag at her feet and walked through to the long gallery, looking round at the unsmiling Fitzroys, the stuffed animal heads with their glassy eyes and rictus snarls for the last time. On impulse she put down her bag and opened the door to the dining room and switched on the light. The chrysanthemums stood where she had put them yesterday, when she’d thought that a candlelit dinner was all that was needed to cross the chasm between her and Kit.

She almost wanted to laugh at her own naiveté.

Without thinking, she found herself walking forwards until she was standing beneath the portrait of the woman with the roses in her hair and The Dark Star on her finger—a fellow outsider who had failed to fit in at Alnburgh and ended up paying the price with her life. Sophie raised her hand and looked down at the ring, remembering what Kit had said about refusing to sentence her to a slow death with him. She smoothed her thumb over the iridescent opal. Caring for him when he needed her wouldn’t have killed her, but loving a man who held himself back from her might, in the end.

Very slowly she eased the ring off her finger and held it in her hand for a second. Her finger felt lighter without it. Empty. Then she put it on the mantelpiece, just below the portrait, and went out of the room.

It was time to move on again.

The specialist Army Rehabilitation Centre to which Lewis had been moved when he came out of Intensive Care was newly built and furnished in bright primary colours. Kit followed a pretty, plump nurse down a corridor that smelled of paint, to Lewis’s room. She knocked and opened the door without waiting for an answer.

‘There’s someone here to see you.’

Through the open door Kit could see Lewis sitting in front of a television screen, the control for a games console in his hand. At the nurse’s words his head snapped round, but the hope on his face vanished instantly when Kit walked past her into the room.