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‘Dominic, let’s get inside, it’s freezing out here.’ Slipping her hand through his arm, Amanda swept past Christy’s motionless figure with a triumphant smile.
Once they were inside the house, Christy put Dominic out of her mind and tried to concentrate on her role as note-taker. She had brought her notebook with her, and listened attentively as Dominic explained his plans for the two buildings.
‘It would be impossible for us to do everything we wanted to do all at once, but the scope is here. There is over half an acre of land with these houses, enough for a car park and extensions.’
They toured both houses from top to bottom while Christy made notes. Dominic knew exactly what he wanted and had the knack of putting it across in a way that the layman could easily understand, and almost against her will Christy found herself being fired with some of his enthusiasm for his project. There was no doubt that it was a worthwhile one, and the others evidently thought so too.
Busy with her notes, Christy didn’t realise that she and Dominic were alone in one of the rooms until she glanced up and saw him watching her with a curiously pensive, almost brooding expression.
‘He must know you very well to have chosen this for you.’ His fingers reached out and touched the soft fur of her jacket. ‘I’d never thought you’d grow up to be the sort of woman who would be content playing second fiddle, Christy. I thought you’d have too much pride.’
Her teeth ached from the strain of stopping herself from telling him that he was wrong and that she and David weren’t lovers. But he was right about one thing: she did have too much pride—far too much to make any explanations to any man—and especially to him.
‘Ah, there you are, Nicky darling. My god-mother is ready to leave. You must stay and dine with us. I’m simply fascinated by what you’re planning to do here, although really you’re wasted in a small place like this. You should be practising in Harley Street.’
Chattering animatedly, Amanda led him away. Despite her fur jacket she was feeling intensely cold—too cold, Christy thought, shivering with a mixture of shock and outrage. Her fur embraced her body like a shroud—like a prison!—condemning her, and suddenly she felt as though she loathed it.
In point of fact Dominic had been wrong about one thing. Meryl had chosen the colour, not David. He had told her later that he had wanted to buy her a lynx dyed jacket, all white with spots of gold, but Meryl had protested that with her vivid colouring Christy should have the red.
Tiredly she followed the others outside. The temperature seemed to have dropped even further, and already it was dark. She unlocked the car door and slid inside starting the engine. Dominic’s car had already gone.
She drove home slowly, wound up with a nervous tension that affected her ability to give all her attention to what she was doing. She turned into the lane and sighed with relief, only to feel the breath lock in her throat as the car wheel spun savagely out of control and, as though it had been wrenched from her hands by an unseen grip, the steering wheel seemed to develop a mind of its own and the car careered off the road and plunged down into a ditch.
It took her several minutes to realise what had happened, and then what seemed like another lifetime to struggle with the seat belt in a vain attempt to free herself. Horrible images of cars bursting into flames tormented her mind, and then, shockingly, the door was wrenched open and hard hands were reaching for her, unlocking the tangled seat belt and dragging her out of the car.
She looked up at her rescuer hazily, unable to differentiate between hallucinations and reality, his name leaving her lips on a husky whisper.
‘Dominic, what…?’
‘Don’t try to talk, not just now.’ His hands moved expertly over her body, clinically exact in their movements, and only when he had assured himself that nothing was damaged did some of his tension seem to relax.
‘The car skidded…I…’
‘I know what happened.’ His voice sounded terse. ‘I was right behind you. My God… You haven’t broken anything, at least. Did you hit your head at all?’
‘No…No, I don’t think so.’
‘I’ll take you back to my place, and check you over properly…’
‘No, I want to go home,’
‘Looking like that?’ His voice was scathing. ‘What do you think it’s going to do to your mother if you walk in looking the way you do right now?’
She glanced down at herself in bewilderment and then lifted her eyes to meet his.
‘Don’t argue with me, Christy.’
‘But the car…’
‘I’ll arrange for the garage to come and collect it. Now come on, let’s get out of this damned wind.’
She made to walk, her breathing suspended as he swore under his breath and lunged forward, picking her up as easily as though she weighed next to nothing.
‘Dominic…’
‘Save it,’ he advised her tersely.
His car was parked only yards away from her own, slewed across the road as though he had stopped abruptly. He opened the rear door and bundled her on to the back seat. She looked over his shoulder and saw that it had begun to snow.
‘It’s snowing.’ Her mind seemed to be clogged with cotton wool, making it impossible for her to do more than utter the merest banalities.
‘So it is.’
She could understand why he sounded so sarcastic, but that didn’t stop the tears burning against the back of her throat. She was suffering from shock, she told herself, but the information didn’t seem to penetrate past the barrier of pain lodged round her heart, and she shrank back from him as he leaned over her, much as she might have shrunk from a would-be attacker.
She heard him swear again and then the car door slammed.
She closed her eyes, willing herself not to burst into tears. The driver’s door opened, the car rocking slightly as he got in. The engine purred into life, and she felt herself tensing as Dominic slipped it into gear. He was a far more able driver than she was herself, she acknowledged as the big car moved steadily over the icy lane.
She saw her father’s car parked outside the house as they drove past, but Dominic made no attempt to stop and she felt too weak to protest. She could hear the gravel drive to the Vicarage crunching beneath the car wheels as they drove up it, and then the car stopped. She sat up and reached for the door handle.
‘Leave it,’ Dominic snapped, turning in his seat to frown bleakly at her. ‘I don’t want you putting any weight on your legs until I’ve checked you over properly. I’ll carry you inside.’
Eight years ago Christy would have been delirious with delight at the thought of being in his arms. Now all she felt was apprehension, and a fine spear of pain that seemed to have no logical reason for springing into being. ‘I thought you were supposed to be having supper at the Manor.’
As he bent to lift her out of the car she was overwhelmed by her own awareness of his proximity. A feeling of acute panic raced through her body and she had to force herself to breathe normally.
‘Then you thought wrong, didn’t you.’ His abrupt tone warned her not to pursue the subject.
She could feel icy cold flakes of snow stinging her exposed skin as he carried her to the house. He paused to unlock the door, shifting her in his arms so that briefly her face rested against his neck. She could smell the warm male scent of his skin. Her body tensed instantly against her awareness of him, her face drawn into lines of rejection which he obviously mistook for pain, as he pushed open the door and switched the light on.
His ‘What’s wrong?’ fanned a warm breath of air against her skin, making her shiver wildly.
It wasn’t possible for her to speak, only to shake her head, denying that anything was the matter. Dominic strode through into the library, and set her down on the leather settee.
‘Don’t move from there, I’m going to go and ring your father and explain what’s happened. Then I’ll come back and check you over.’
Before he left, he knelt down and applie
d a lighted match to the fire set in the grate. Christy watched the flames spread and leap through the sticks and coal like someone drugged as she waited for him to come back. She was still suffering from shock, she told herself, unwilling to admit that most of her shock was caused not by the accident, but the proximity of Dominic, and the realisation of what that proximity was doing to her.
