The Right Bride? (20 page)

While he didn’t look remotely like an ally, neither did he look at all like Douglas Talbot. Wasn’t Rafe Holden her last chance to reach Fiona? Maybe Douglas had been lying and Fiona did know she was adopted; as Fiona’s lover, Rafe was in a position to know the truth.

What did she have to lose? Nothing.

“My name is Karyn Marshall,” she said. “I’m from eastern Canada, a place called Heddingley in Prince Edward Island.”

“That explains the accent…you’re a long way from home. What brought you here? And take your time, I’m in no rush.”

Trying to ignore the sarcasm in his voice, Karyn looked out over the peaceful valley. “This all began when my mother died six months ago. Unexpectedly. It was a huge shock to me.”

Rafe stood still, watching every change of expression on her face. Her profile was Fiona’s. But her hair clung like a gold helmet to her head, emphasizing the elegance of her cheekbones and the slender line of her throat. Her eyes were bluer than Fiona’s. Or was it just that they were more direct?

She was slimmer than Fiona, he saw, as the breeze molded her flowered dress to her body; fiercely he quelled a flame of desire, and, almost hidden beneath it, a flicker of fear. He’d assumed, in the middle of the night, that daylight would bring with it a return to sanity, burying passion where it belonged. “What happened to your mother?” he asked brusquely.

“An aneurysm. She died instantly.” Unconsciously Karyn was smoothing the rock beneath her fingers. “It took several months before I could bring myself to sort through her belongings. My father died ten years ago, and I have no brothers or sisters. So there was only me.”

Her fingers were slender and ringless; delicate shadows lay in the hollows under her collarbone, while her face was thin, as though she had indeed been through some hard experiences. Hating himself for feasting on her like a starving man, Rafe forced himself to listen. “Four weeks ago,” she was saying, “I found some papers in her jewelry box. Among them was a letter to be opened by me only in the event of her death.” She bent her head, picking at a clump of moss with her nails, fighting the tightness in her chest. Then she looked full at him, all the blue of the sky shimmering in her eyes. “I have that letter with me now. I’d hoped to show it to the Talbots.”

“What does the letter say?” Rafe asked noncommittally.

“My parents were both English. They met in Sheffield and married there—they loved each other very much, that much I’ve always known, and they wanted children. But
after my mother had three miscarriages, they decided to adopt. I was only two weeks old when they were notified about me. My birth mother, so the letter said, was a single woman who’d refused to divulge my father’s name and who later moved to Australia. She died in an accident in Sydney when I was just a year old.”

Again Karyn bent her head, wishing she didn’t find this recital so painful. “You can imagine how I felt,” she said in a low voice. “But there was more. The letter went on to say that I had a twin sister. Although my father had done his best to adopt both of us, another couple had put in a prior claim on my twin. Through a bureaucratic foul-up, my father was sent the adoption certificate for Fiona by mistake. Douglas and Clarissa Talbot, from Droverton in Cumbria—my mother had written down every detail she knew.” She glanced up, noticing for the first time that Rafe’s eyes weren’t black, as she’d thought last night, but the darkest of blues. Like a lake at dusk, she thought, full of secrets. “That’s why I’m here, Mr. Holden. I came to meet my twin sister, Fiona.”

“So until a month ago, you knew none of this?”

There was an edge to his voice. Karyn flushed. “That’s right. The letter ended by describing my parents’ mutual decision to keep the truth from me about the adoption.”
We only wanted to spare you pain, darling, and we couldn’t have loved you more had you been born to us,
her mother had written.
In all the ways that count, you are indeed our dearly beloved daughter.

The words were inscribed on Karyn’s memory; she’d remember them, she was sure, for the rest of her life. But they were too intimate to share with Rafe Holden. Clearing her throat, she went on, “At first I was paralyzed by shock. I felt ungrounded, as though the world had rocked on its foundations and everything I’d taken for granted had been
a lie. Then I got really angry that they’d never told me.” She bit her lip. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I haven’t told anyone. I couldn’t at the time, it was too painful.”

The fragility of her wrists, the strain in her voice: Rafe was almost overwhelmed by the urge to take her in his arms and comfort her. Or was he fooling himself? Maybe all he really wanted to do was kiss her senseless.

Passion. He’d sworn off it years ago. So what was it about Karyn Marshall that drew him like an eagle to its mate?

Whatever it was, he resented it deeply.

He said with brutal honesty, “I grew up in Droverton, and I’ve known Fiona all my life. If she’d been adopted, I’d have known.”

“You’d only have been a child at the time.”

“Seven years old. Old enough to know about village gossip. In all the years I’ve lived here there’s never been a whisper of anything you’ve so touchingly described.”

“So you think I’ve made it all up,” Karyn said, feeling cold creep into her bones.

“What else can I think?”

“And why would I bother spending money I can ill afford to cross the Atlantic on a fool’s errand?”

“How would I know? Although if you’re that strapped for cash, Willowbend would look pretty good.”

She wouldn’t lose her temper. She wouldn’t. Karyn said tightly, “So, according to you, even the resemblance is coincidence.”

“What else can it be? Douglas might be a thoroughly unpleasant man at times, but one thing I know—he worships the ground Clarissa walks on and he’d never have been unfaithful to her. Nor she to him. So, yes, it’s coincidence.”

“You’re so logical, so cold-blooded,” she cried. “Don’t you have any room for emotion? I don’t give a damn about money! All I want is to meet Fiona. My sister.”

“When I kissed you last night,” Rafe grated, “I wouldn’t have called either one of us cold-blooded. Why didn’t you tell me then who you were? You had the chance. Instead you played me like a fish on the hook, trying to insinuate yourself into Willowbend in any way you could. I hate being made a fool of. Particularly by a woman.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose! It just…happened.”

Something in her pinched face infuriated him. “You expect me to believe that?” he rasped. “Let me tell you something else. Fiona and I have been friends for years. I’m a very rich man, Karyn Marshall, and you’ve just admitted your circumstances are straitened. So quit trying to convince me of the purity of your motives.”

“You’re despicable,” Karyn seethed. “No better than Douglas, with whom I had a delightful interview this morning. Stay away or I’ll put the legal sharks on you—that was the gist of his little speech.”

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “Douglas came to see you? I didn’t know that.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said rudely.

How dare she compare him with Douglas? “I’m telling you the truth,” Rafe said in a staccato voice.

“What do I care? For the last ten minutes you could have saved your breath—I’ve already decided to leave Droverton and stay away from Fiona, because she doesn’t know she’s adopted and it’s not my job to tell her. To hurt her. But of course you’re not going to believe me—I’m just a lying bitch who’s after your bucks. You can keep them, Rafe Holden! I don’t want them.”

She looked so furious, so utterly convincing. But Fiona hadn’t been adopted; he’d have known if she was. So Karyn
Marshall’s whole story was fabrication from beginning to end. “You belong on the stage,” Rafe said coldly, “you could make a fortune. Much as I hate to ally myself with Douglas, I’m going to repeat him. Leave here today and don’t come back. Or you’ll be sorry.”

“I can’t get out of here soon enough.”

Karyn pushed herself away from the wall. But some rocks that had fallen from the wall were hidden under the grass; her sandal skidded on one of them. As she lurched sideways, Rafe automatically reached out to save her, one arm around her waist, the other steadying her shoulder.

For a moment that was frozen in time, Karyn sagged against him. The hard wall of his chest, the latent strength of his fingers, their burning heat through her dress: she was pierced by a knife of desire so sharp that she almost cried out. As though she couldn’t help herself, she looked up, plunging into the dark depths of his eyes where she saw desire reflected, meeting her own, magnifying it. Briefly his arms tightened, so briefly that she wondered afterward if she’d imagined it. Then he thrust her away so hard that she staggered.

Trembling in every limb, Karyn fought for balance, all her distress and confusion rushing to the surface. “Last night you could be forgiven, because you thought I was Fiona. But today you know I’m not. You wanted to kiss me a moment ago, didn’t you? I know you did! How dare you kiss Fiona one day and me the next? As though we’re interchangeable.”

Rafe stood still, her accusation throbbing in his brain. Karyn’s body, so suddenly and unexpectedly in his arms, had struck him to the core. How could he deny it? How could he have prevented it? It had been elemental, instinctive, utterly beyond his control.

If he was going to marry Fiona, it was also totally against his principles.

He took refuge in anger. “Was that another of your clever little ploys—let’s see if I can get him to kiss me again? What’s next on the list?”

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.

W
HEN
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 outbuildings 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 to 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?