to guests was something Andrea had always insisted on and even now she couldn’t go against the rules that had been instilled into her. But it was all she could do not to flinch when the burn of his skin against her own actually scorched her palm, sending stinging sensations shooting along every nerve.
‘Miss Marshall…’
Seen up this close, he was even more imposing, more devastating than he had been in the moment that he had walked into the room. Even in the elegant heels she wore, she was still several inches below him in height, needing to tilt her head back to meet him eye to eye. His tanned olive skin seemed almost impossibly vibrant and alive in contrast to the early spring pallor of the rest of the guests. He was wearing black, like everyone else in the room, but he wore it like no one else in the room.
His clothes were of a far better quality than anything the newly employed stable hand she had known would ever have been able to afford all those years ago. The long black overcoat worn loose over a black shirt and beautifully tailored black suit hung from the width of his powerful shoulders with the dramatic effect of a cloak or a greatcoat worn by some swashbuckling Regency highwayman. The thunderous downpour outside had soaked into the fine material, making it even darker, even sleeker in patches. Raindrops from the same storm were scattered through the black silk of his hair, sparkling like diamonds against the polished jet strands that they clung to, and the moisture had even spiked the impossibly lush, thick lashes that fringed the ebony darkness of his eyes.
‘My sympathy on your loss.’
It sounded like the most polite of responses, at least on the surface, but there was a controlled savagery underlying his tone that caught on the tightness of her nerves and tugged hard, making her stomach muscles clench on a wave of panic. It sounded almost as if he was having to force himself to speak at all. But when she looked into his face all she saw was a calm civility, the smooth veneer of a public mask that hid whatever truth was in his mind.
He couldn’t hide it in his eyes though, and what she saw in their darkness made her shiver inwardly. Her own guilty memories added an extra uneasy layer to the tension that claimed her.
‘I believe that Mr Hilton let you know of my stepfather’s death…’
‘He did. He telephoned me as soon as he knew. I was away on business at the time or I would have been here sooner.’
The dark eyes still clashed with hers as he answered, their total lack of expression giving away nothing at all. He knew what she was doing; the faint half smile that curled the corners of the beautifully shaped mouth told her that. He knew that she was trying to probe into his reasons for being here, hunt out the hidden explanation for his sudden and unexpected appearance. Because there had to be one. He hadn’t just appeared out of the blue to pay his respects at her stepfather’s funeral.
Respect had been the last thing that this man had felt for Marty. A bitter hatred had been the only emotion that had flared between the two men. A hatred that her own foolish behaviour and unthinking actions had fed till breaking-point had been reached and the explosions that had resulted had almost destroyed them all.
No. Hastily she corrected herself. It hadn’t damaged Angelos at all. At least not emotionally, which was how it had devastated her. Emotionally, he had walked out of here scot-free, not even a mark on him. And he had left her to pick up the pieces of the life she had known.
Financially, it had been a very different matter. In that case, he had every reason to hate her as much as he had her stepfather—more—because she was the reason he had lost his job; the reason he had had to leave in the first place.
So now, ‘I don’t understand…’ she began, but at that precise moment Peters stepped forward again, clearing his throat in the way that he always did to draw attention to the fact that he had something to say.
‘The funeral director is ready, Miss Marshall. If you’d like to lead the way…’
‘But I…’
She couldn’t help herself. Her eyes went to Angelos Rousakis, still standing, dark and watchful, in the doorway. She had been thrown completely off balance by his sudden and unexpected arrival and she was unsure of how to proceed. It was as if the ground had suddenly shaken violently beneath her feet so that when it was still again nothing was in quite the same place as before and her sense of equilibrium had vanished with it. Instead, in its place was a terrible sense of unease and apprehension, all of it centred in the man before her.
‘You…’ she tried again but, even as she spoke, he was moving, standing aside with a controlled grace and leaving the doorway open before her.
‘You have things to attend to,’ he said softly, that note of control still keeping his voice low and smooth. The voice of perfect courtesy, perfect concern, if she didn’t look into his face, into the cold burn of his eyes. ‘We will talk later.’
Was she imagining things? Was it her uneasy conscience, her unhappy memories that made her hear his words as a dark promise, almost a threat, instead of a polite reassurance? Could no one else hear that ominous undertone that shaded the words, turned the effect of them into something like the trail of small, icy footprints across her skin, raising every tiny hair in a sense of desperate apprehension? And the cold, assessing glance from those deep set eyes that flashed just once at her face told her he was watching her every move, seeing the play of emotions across her face and understanding the reasons for it.
He knew that she would do anything rather than risk any sort of public scene here and now, in front of the upper class county set who had been Marty’s friends. That her need to make sure that this last thing she could do for her late stepfather was carried out with dignity and restraint would put a control on her tongue that she would rather die than break. And he was playing on that fact, coldly and deliberately.
‘Talk…!’
Just for a moment defiance flared and she flung him an angry glare, her tongue itching to tell him to leave, go now, and never come back again.
But almost immediately the remembrance of the fact that he had been invited—and invited by Marty’s lawyer—stilled the angry words. That control slammed back into place, her teeth snapping closed over what she had been about to say, and instead she gave a cold, disdainful nod, her eyes looking straight past him, out beyond the open door to where the undertaker’s hearse and cars now waited.
‘Later,’ was all she said as she moved forward, head high, her mouth set in a firm, determined line.
‘Later,’ Angelos Rousakis echoed softly as she swept past him, knowing it was a promise as much to himself as to her. His mouth twisted slightly as he watched her walk away from him, the slim back held stiffly straight like her gleaming head. ‘Oh, yes, we’ll talk later, Miss Marshall.’
Let her have her moment of triumph, her belief that she had got the upper hand in the situation—for now. He was quite content to stand back and watch, stand back and let her act out the role of lady of the manor, queen of all she surveyed, for a little while longer. After all, what was that English saying about the harder they fall…? And little Miss Marshall had a very hard fall coming soon.
Not so little, the most masculine part of his nature added in wry acknowledgement. Jessica Marshall had done a lot of growing up in the years since he had last seen her, and she’d done it in all the right ways—physically at least. The delicious promise of a lovely young girl had turned into the fully sensual beauty of a woman. She was taller, slimmer, but her body had rounded in all the right places, adding gentle curves at breasts and hips that raised his pulse to beat stronger, heavier, at the thought of what lay beneath the stark black tailored suit, the neat white blouse that was buttoned right up to the base of her delicate neck, concealing all but the fine skin of her throat.
Her face had lost the faint roundness of youth, the high cheekbones becoming stronger, more sharply defined in the pale oval of her face and the blue-grey of her eyes seemed lighter than ever before in contrast to the rich fall of the burnished chestnut hair and the deep rose tint of the softly curved mouth.
Just for a second the memory of what it had