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inite, Miriam thought faintly as she closed her eyes against Reece's blundering. Oh, Reece, you fool, she thought helplessly. You blind, stupid fool.
'You've ruined it all now and it was to be the best day of my life. Craig's going to a hotel and we've got all his relations arriving tomorrow— Oh!' Barbara stamped her feet as she literally ground her teeth at him. 'I really hate you at this moment, Reece; I wish you'd never been born.' And then she was gone, flying up the stairs after Craig as she burst into a storm of weeping that rocked the house.
Miriam waited for a minute or two and then crept tentatively to the open door. Reece was standing with his back to the room, looking out of the huge windows into the cold white world outside, his body stiff and taut and his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets.
'Reece?' As she spoke his name he swung round immediately, his face as black as thunder.
'I suppose you heard all that?' he said bitterly. 'I should think everyone from here to Land's End could hear it.'
'You're wrong, you know,' she said very quietly as she came fully into the room and closed the door behind her. 'Barbara loves him very much and I'm sure he feels the same. Your sister is the type of person who only loves once and then she gives it her all. Craig is the man for her, whatever happens. I should imagine your father was the same from what you've told me.'
'You know nothing about it.' There was a stricken look to his face that pained her. Clearly the bitter quarrel with his twin had hurt him more than he would admit. 'Dammit, you've only met Barbara a couple of times; how can you possibly give a judgement on something like this?'
'Probably because I have only met hear recently,' Miriam said carefully. 'You're too close to it all to recognise what's happened beneath your very nose. You had always imagined she was like you, content with a high-powered career and taking her fun where she found it with no thoughts of settling down. And probably until she met Craig that was how she did think. But not now. And he isn't what you think. That first time you met him fee was ill, suffering from jet lag, not drunk and mauling some girl, although I know it looked like that.'
'It seems as if you know a damn sight too much,' he said bitterly.
'Just listen for a moment.' She walked across the room to stand in front of him, wondering what on earth she could say to make him see the truth. 'I know your parents' marriage wasn't particularly happy, that they shut you and Barbara out—'
'My mother made my father's life a living hell,' he said tightly, his mouth a thin white line in the hard planes of his face. 'He turned cartwheels to make her happy, to give her what she wanted, but nothing was good enough. She couldn't be bothered with Barbara and me so he sent us away on the pretext of giving us a good education. He showered her with jewellery, presents, holidays abroad—anything she wanted—and lived in the dread that one day she would meet someone else she could love and leave him. But he needn't have worried; she was incapable of any deep emotion—a beautiful, empty shell of a human being.'
'Perhaps every generation throws up one or two anomalies.' She desperately wanted to hold him, to kiss away the pain and hurt transparent on his face, but forced herself to continue speaking in a calm, flat tone to try and defuse the crackling tension. 'Unnatural women or men, abnormal and strange and a law unto themselves, but unless they are blessed with either great wealth or great beauty I guess they get unnoticed, in the general rush of life. But they are unnatural. Your mother was unnatural—'
'Perhaps.' The silver eyes fastened on her pale face. 'But with a heritage like that Barbara and Craig have got no chance.'
'That's just plain stupid,' she snapped angrily as his stubbornness hit a nerve. 'You can take what life dishes out and either let it make you bitter or learn from it and go on to the next chapter.'
'Barbara went through the same problems as you did but she has chosen to put it behind her add reach out for the happiness she knows she can have with Craig. Just because you haven't got the courage to accept that, you are in great danger of losing her for ever, Reece. She is too much like you to make empty threats, and if you don't stop this thing now, make amends before the sun goes down and accept Craig simply because she loves him and he is her choice, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.'
'Little Miss Set-the-world-to-rights.'
His mockery was scathing, and the final straw. Her hand shot out as if to slap his face, but dropped to her side at the last moment. She saw his eyes darken with rage before he grabbed her, forcing her head back as he took her lips in a bruising kiss that stopped her breath. She began to fight him, causing them both to lose their balance and fall sprawling onto the big leather settee at their side, Reece's body covering hers as they landed.
And still she fought him, desperately, silently, as waves and waves of hurt and anger and love flooded her mind and body until she was hardly lucid. And then, as he continued the assault on her senses by shifting tempo as he trapped her body with his, she knew that this was a fight she couldn't win. Because she loved him; even in the midst of her pain and anger she loved him. Whereas he was driven by a simple physical need that had no warmth, no real tenderness in the heart of it. He didn't care. The knowledge gave her the strength she needed to speak.
'Please stop.' She opened her eyes that had been shut tight to stare straight into the grey of his, their smokiness hot with desire. 'Please.'
He froze for one second before moving off her in a single, controlled movement that spoke of quiet rage, and she slid quickly to her feet and across the room before he could speak, pulling open the door and running down the hall as though her life depended on it.
Once in the kitchens she leant weakly against the wall, shocked beyond measure by the suddenness of the confrontation. There was a mountain of work to do, but as her eyes focused unseeingly on the Christmas-card scene outside the window all her mind and energy was centred on Reece.
He had to make things all right with Barbara, she thought desperately. It would hurt him more than he knew if he lost his sister. She shook her head blindly at her own stupidity. She shouldn't have argued with him, shouldn't have allowed the conversation to progress as it had. It had only served to make him more mad, and she had gone into the room with the purpose of calming things down!
She groaned out loud and walked unsteadily to the coffee-maker which she had left switched on, pouring herself a large mug of black coffee—something she never drank—and forcing herself to drink it down piping hot as she tried to make her mind a blank. She had too much work to do to brood—although whether the wedding was still on, and whether Barbara would be married from this house, were points suddenly worryingly unclear.
Why did Reece have to be so honest anyway? She rubbed her hand across her face shakily and picked up the list of jobs she had made the night before. Why couldn't he duck and dive a little, like the rest of the human race? But then that was one of the things she loved about him, she thought sadly as she began to check the ingredients for the vol-au-vents she intended to make—that devastatingly scrupulous honesty.
Mitch and the others arrived just after ten as the snow began to lessen into the occasional flake blown haphazardly in the chilly wind, and soon the kitchen was a hive of activity. She didn't mention the earlier scene to Mitch—somehow it would have seemed like a form of disloyalty to Reece and Barbara—and she knew that if the worst happened, and Barbara decided not to come back to the house after she was married, Reece would make sure that the financial arrangements were honoured.
Please don't let that happen, she prayed desperately as her hands worked methodically on. He would be devastated if he lost Barbara; she knew it. In spite of his protestations about love and deep emotion she knew that he cared deeply about his sister; even the fact that he had raised the matter with Barbara and Craig proved that.
It would have been far easier, and safer, to sit back and allow the tiling to happen and then pick up the pieces at a later date if the need arose. But he was so stubborn. The knife she was holding slipped at the thought and she just avoided slicing into her finger. And so was Barbara. This sort of incident was the stuff family feuds were born of.
She shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on the job in hand as the bustle and noise ebbed and flowed around her. It would work out—it had to—and anyway, as Reece had reminded her, none of this was anything to do with her. She set her heart against the hurt and pain that gripped it and began slicing the peppers she was preparing with fierce determination.
'Miriam?' They had been working steadily for over an hour and a half and were just enjoying a midday snack when she heard Reece's voice from the doorway. 'Could I have a word, please?'
'Sure.' She forced a polite smile for the sake of the others and rose quickly. She could read nothing from his face as she followed him into the corridor and shut the kitchen door firmly. His features could have been set in stone for all the emotion they betrayed.
