Marriage On Trial

Neither could she.

Quinn mustn’t see her. He mustn’t. She stifled a panicky urge to push her way through the crowd and bolt.

Richard’s hand at her waist, a hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach, she started to move towards the nearest exit as fast as the slow-moving throng would allow.

A glimpse of a tall, dark-haired man brought her heart into her mouth, but a second look showed he was at least forty, with a beefy face and a paunch.

They had reached the doors when one of Richard’s acquaintances drew level. ‘Hard luck,’ he remarked sympathetically. ‘But what can you do against opposition like that?’

‘Did you see who it was?’

‘Yes, it was Quinn Durville, a multimillionaire banker from the States. I heard a whisper that he came over specially, so he must have intended to get it.’

‘I should have known,’ Richard said morosely as the other man moved away. ‘I’ve come up against Durville before…’

Elizabeth felt as though she’d been kicked in the solar plexus. She had never dreamt that the two men might have met. It was so unlikely. Yet wasn’t there an old saying ‘The most unlikely thing to happen is nearly always the thing that does happen’?

His face set, Richard was going on, ‘When it’s something he wants, the swine doesn’t give any quarter, and he won’t let anything stand in his way.’

It was the simple truth. About six weeks after she’d left him, a man who was obviously a hired detective had tracked her down and started to watch her every move.

Realizing then how utterly ruthless Quinn could be, and knowing she could never go back to him, she had been forced to run, to change her name and find a fresh place to hide.

She shuddered at the memory.

Richard felt the slight movement and, his manner cool and controlled again after that brief, betraying flash of anger, asked, ‘You don’t know Durville, do you?’

Somehow she found her voice and answered, ‘No.’

‘Is there something wrong?’ Richard sounded solicitous. ‘You’re looking distinctly pale.’

‘I’m fine, really. I expect it’s just reaction.’

Coffee was being served in the dining hall. ‘Would you like to sit down and have a cup?’ he suggested.

‘No!’ Then, more moderately, she said, ‘No, thank you.’

His relief was evident. ‘In that case I’ll get your coat.’

Though he returned quite quickly with it over his arm, to Elizabeth it seemed a long time before she’d slipped it on and they were making their way across the foyer.

They were nearing the door when a man with crisp, peat-dark hair, easily topping six feet, and looking even bigger because of the breadth of his shoulders, appeared from behind a pillar.

As if he’d been lying in wait to intercept them, he moved purposefully to block their way.

Elizabeth’s heart lurched and began to race with suffocating speed. Face to face with this man she had hoped never to see again, she tried to stay calm, to convince herself that no matter what happened he could no longer hurt her.

But she was unable to do either. She felt sick with fear and remembered pain.

Sparing her barely a glance, the newcomer held out his hand to Richard. ‘Ah, Beaumont… You put up a good fight.’ The words only just escaped being patronizing.

Hiding his antagonism, Richard shook the proffered hand and remarked, ‘I fancy this makes us even?’

‘I hardly think so,’ Quinn disagreed smoothly.

There was a brief pause. When he showed no sign of moving away, impelled by good manners, Richard began the necessary introduction.

‘Elizabeth, may I present Mr Quinn Durville…?’

A kind of despairing pride kept her head high while she looked into that lean, autocratic face, with its high-bridged nose and chiselled mouth, and waited for Quinn to say they knew each other very well.

Feeling the tension already crackling between the two men, she was well aware that Richard would find the news unwelcome, to say the least.

It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if she’d confessed to knowing Quinn when he’d asked her… But, by denying it, she had effectively involved herself in a deception.

‘Durville, my fiancée, Miss Cavendish.’

Quinn took her hand and said a perfunctory, ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Cavendish.’ His glance was cool and impersonal and, to her amazement, the greeting held nothing but conventional courtesy.

She drew a deep, unsteady breath, hardly daring to believe he hadn’t recognized her.

Of course he wouldn’t know the name Cavendish, and, having been christened Josian Elizabeth, she had been known from childhood as Jo…

Added to that she had altered a great deal in the time they’d been apart. Then, her fine bones had been smudged beneath a layer of puppy fat, her thick, silky eyebrows unshaped, her hair short and curly.

But perhaps the biggest change lay in her manner. Gone was the curvaceous, casually dressed girl, with a smiling mouth and laughing eyes, who had been as naïve and friendly as a Labrador puppy.

In her place was a slender, elegantly dressed woman, poised and sophisticated, her grey eyes guarded, her mouth vulnerable.

Oh, yes, she’d altered. Enough, it seemed, to save the stress and trauma that would surely have followed if Quinn had identified her.

As his warm clasp closed around her cold fingers, she felt her legs start to tremble and every nerve-ending in her body tighten in response to his touch.

He had always possessed a potent physical attraction that had been able to draw her like a magnet and hold her even against her will.

Panic-stricken, she reminded herself that she was a mature woman now, no longer young and susceptible, and no longer on her own. She had Richard. If the need arose, he would be a rock she could cling to.

Though surely it wouldn’t arise? Judging by Quinn’s distant civility, he’d forgotten her entirely, so she was safe, thank God.

Or was she? Could he be playing some deep dark game? Well, if he was, she had little option but to go along with it.

Somehow, she managed a husky, ‘How do you do?’ before withdrawing her hand.

‘Have you been engaged long, Miss Cavendish?’

The question startled her, and as she gaped at him stupidly Quinn added, ‘Only I notice you’re not wearing a ring.’

Turning to a thin-lipped Richard, he smiled a shade tauntingly. ‘It made me wonder if perhaps you had a special reason for wanting the Van Hamel diamond?’