The Flawed Marriage

‘Could you tell me the time, please?’ she asked quickly. ‘I have a train to catch.’

She saw the glint of gold on a lean male wrist clad in a dark jacket which seemed to be of a leather fabric, although because of his dark clothes, Amber could make out very little of her companion’s appearance apart from the fact that he was tall, with dark hair.

‘Just gone eight,’ he told her laconically.

Eight! She tried to fight down a sense of panic. She only had a few pounds in her purse. If she missed her connection she would have to wait until morning, which meant finding somewhere to stay.

‘Thank you. I must go…’ Without waiting to see his reaction she started to hurry down the road, for once not concerned with what the man watching her might think of her ungainly gait.

She heard the car door slam seconds after she had left him, and knew from the brevity of time which had elapsed that he had not spent much time watching her, and an irrational feeling of resentment filled her. He might at least have offered to run her into the village, even if it was in the opposite direction to that he was taking.

But why should he? Perhaps if she had been the girl she used to be he might have found her attractive enough to have offered her a lift—but then the girl she had been would not have needed one.

She was so intent on hurrying, so deep in her thoughts, that she didn’t hear the soft purr of the car engine untl it drew level with her, and the now familiar hard voice drawled, ‘Get in. I’ll take you to the station.’

The passenger door was thrust open, the interior light coming on to reveal the opulent luxury of cream hide seats and a thick matching carpet. The light which illuminated the car interior also revealed the features of its owner, and Amber caught her breath in mingled awe and uncertainty.

Handsome wasn’t the word it was possible to use in connection with this man, she admitted as she limped awkwardly towards the open door. Striking, sensually compelling; intensely male; these were the words with which to describe the hooded grey eyes which swept her with predatory intentness, assessing and dismissing her feminine appeal, the aquiline profile turned autocratically towards her.

‘You’re limping.’ The words held none of the pity she had grown accustomed to and withdrawn from in the long dark days since her accident, and just as she registered that fact he leaned across the passenger seat, long fingers grasping her wrist as she was pulled effortlessly into the warm interior of the car, and the door firmly closed behind her, rather as though she were an irritating child unable to fend for herself.

‘How did it happen?’

He was watching her intently, the cool grey gaze sending frissons of awareness flickering her body. The old Amber would have described him as a very male and attractive man, but the new embittered Amber saw only the hard purpose in the depths of the grey eyes fixed upon her, white face, and knew a shuddering desire to escape from the too intimate environs of the car and the disturbing proximity of its owner. Only the knowledge that without his offer of a lift she could well miss her train prevented her from quitting the car immediately. As always when her limp was mentioned she stiffened involuntarily, her face closing up, the huge golden eyes shadowed and shuttered.

‘An accident,’ she told him tonelessly. ‘Do you live locally?’

‘Relatively speaking. What sort of accident?’ he asked smoothly, refusing to allow her to change the subject.

‘I was hit by a car—driven too fast.’

‘Which makes your carelessness of a few moments ago all the more foolhardy.’

‘Only if you happen to be a speed-crazed maniac,’ Amber snapped back.

The dark eyebrows rose, reinforcing the almost demonic features of the man opposite her, his mouth curling downwards sardonically as he scrutinised her.

‘Speed-crazed? Oh, I hardly think so,’ he offered. ‘Forty isn’t considered excessive on these roads—not when one knows them.’

Which meant that he must live locally, Amber reflected, even though he hadn’t answered her earlier question.

‘Even in thick fog?’ she demanded, refusing to cede victory.

‘A little mist,’ her companion scoffed, deftly navigating a series of tortuous hairpin bends. ‘You said you were up here for an interview for a job. Why? You aren’t a local.’

‘I wasn’t aware that was another prerequisite,’ Amber began sarcastically, a little dismayed by the alert, ‘Another? Why, what was the other?’ that he fired at her.

Exhaustion and depression forced down her guard, allowing a little of the bitterness she normally kept bottled up inside her to spill over her iron control.

‘Can’t you guess? I should have thought a man of your perception would have realised immediately. As you so sapiently mentioned earlier, I limp.’

‘And because of that you were turned down for the job?’

Although all his concentration was on the road and the powerful car, Amber felt his sideways glance, probing the thin skin barely covering her emotional scars.

‘Although my qualifications were good, as a junior housemistress they wanted something more mobile.’

‘Junior housemistress? That would have been a living-in position, surely, and a time-consuming one.’ She felt him looking at her ringless fingers and guessed the mental assessment he was making. Single, and likely to remain so through circumstances rather than choice: an object of pity and derision.

‘So what will you do now?’

Cold and shaken by her experience both at the interview and afterwards, Amber made an attempt to shrug unconcernedly and failed pitifully.

‘I don’t know. God knows I wish I did,’ she muttered under her breath, not intending the words to be overheard, but his hearing was obviously as acute as a predatory hunter’s, because his head swivelled towards her, and the car slid to a smooth halt in a small layby, across the bridge from the village. Thinking that he had taken her as far as he meant to, Amber reached for the door handle, but he stopped her, reaching across her body to grasp her hand. Amber shrank from him instinctively. She had learned in hospital that although she might be an object of medical interest and curiosity to the young doctors clustering daily around her bed, as a desirable and attractive woman she no longer existed; pity rather than admiration was what she read in their eyes; a pity that she had seen time and time again in the months that had followed. From taking the vibrant beauty which had been a facet of her personality before the accident for granted, she had retreated into a world where her beauty had been dimmed by pain and loss of self-confidence. If Rob could no longer find her attractive how could any man? Unwittingly over the weeks she had adopted the mien and shrinking manners of a girl who knows herself unattractive to men, and so she shrank now; not from any fear that her companion might touch her but from his assumption that she might want him to do so and the humiliation of rejection which must surely follow.

‘What’s the matter?’

There was a fine thread of amusement woven into the conventional words, a smile deepening the attractive grooves either side of a mouth which looked as though it didn’t smile often enough. ‘Having second thoughts about the wisdom of accepting a lift? Too late, fair maiden,’ he mocked. ‘I have you within my toils now, and there’s no one to stop me having my wicked way with you. Tell me about your life before this accident,’ he demanded with an abrupt change of front.

‘What on earth for? Look, I must go, otherwise I’ll miss my train.’ Amber reached again for the door handle, only to find the door immovable beneath her urgent fingers.

‘I’ve locked it.’ He motioned towards the highly technical-looking dashboard. ‘And I won’t unlock it until you’ve answered my questions.’

‘But why? What possible interest could you have in me?’

’The very natural one of a prospective employer,’ came the totally unexpected reply. ‘I need someone to look after my son.’

‘How old is he?’ Ridiculously it was the first question which came into her mind.

‘Six.’

‘But why should you want to employ me? Before this evening we hadn’t even met. I don’t even know your name…’

‘That’s easily remedied. I’m Joel Sinclair. I live about eight miles away from here.’

‘And you need someone to look after your son. Surely a fully trained nanny would be better? And your wife…’

He was shaking his head.

‘I’ve made up my mind that you’ll be ideal. What’s your name?’

Hesitantly, hardly daring to believe that the day might after all have have some benefit for her, Amber told him.

‘Amber? Because of your eyes, of course.’

She blinked at him, surprised that he had noticed. Rob had been going out with her for over a month before he had made the connection.

‘Mr Sinclair, are you sure? About this job, I mean?’ she asked formally. ‘You aren’t just…’ she fumbled for the right words, hating the thought that he might have offered her the job on impulse because of some misguided feeling of pity.