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He straightened. Came away from the door.
Alanna shrank. ‘Keep your distance. Don’t dare to lay a hand on me.’
‘Now you are being absurd.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It is barely an hour until lunch.’ He sent her a crooked smile. ‘Certainly not time for anything I might have in mind. As you may remember.’
‘You,’ she said unevenly, ‘can go to hell.’
He opened the door. Looked back at her. He said quietly, ‘“Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.” I am sure you recognise the quotation.’
And went, closing the door behind him.
For a long moment, Alanna remained exactly where she was, staring at the solid wooden panels. Then she stumbled across the room and—belatedly—turned the key in the lock once again.
Better safe than sorry, she thought, and knew just how ridiculous that was. Because she certainly wouldn’t be safe until she left the abbey behind her for ever. And it was equally certain, she told herself, that her meeting with Zandor Varga was something she’d regret for the rest of her life.
* * *
It was almost time for the midday buffet on the terrace that Gerard had mentioned on the journey down when she eventually went downstairs, casually dressed in a brief khaki cotton skirt and a cream short-sleeved top, her hair brushed back and confined at the nape of her neck with a tortoiseshell clasp.
She had scrutinised herself closely before leaving her room, and was reassured there was nothing in her appearance to suggest she’d spent the last few hours on an emotional roller coaster.
So, outwardly, she was together, and if, inwardly, her composure seemed to be hanging by a thread, that was something else to add to her list of little secrets.
To her surprise, she found Gerard waiting at the foot of the stairs.
He said, ‘I was just coming to find you.’
She shrugged coolly. ‘Whereas I wouldn’t have known where to start looking for you.’ She allowed that to sink in before glancing at her watch. ‘Am I late? Due for an entry in your Aunt Caroline’s bad books?’
‘No, not at all.’ He paused. ‘In fact, I thought we’d give the buffet a miss and drive over to the village. The pub does a pretty good ploughman’s, but there are other places further on in Aldchester if you’d prefer.’ He hesitated again. ‘Or we can stay here.’
He seemed to be making a real effort, so Alanna relented and gave him a smile. ‘A ploughman’s and some cider would be terrific.’
He grinned back. ‘And it’s perfect weather for a convertible, so why don’t I get Zan to loan me his Lamborghini for the afternoon.’
‘No!’ She saw immediately that her instinctive negative had been too quick and far too emphatic. ‘I mean—as you say, it’s a lovely day and he may want to use it himself. Besides, I really like the Mercedes.’
‘Well, there’s no accounting for tastes,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But it’s your decision, so let’s go.’
The pub in Whitestone village was called The Abbot’s Retreat.
‘He can’t have been a very saintly abbot,’ Alanna commented, as they parked the car and walked round to the gardens at the rear. ‘Not if he had to retreat to a pub.’
Gerard grinned. ‘Don’t condemn the poor guy too quickly. Tradition says that there was once a hermitage on this site, somewhere the monks came for solitude and prayer. And traces of a much earlier building have actually been found in the cellars.’
‘We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt,’ Alanna decided as they found a table beside a stream overhung with willows. ‘And I wouldn’t blame him either way.’
The ploughman’s lunches were substantial, with slices of home-cured ham alongside the mature cheese, salad and fresh crusty bread.
To her own surprise, Alanna ate every scrap.
‘Great idea,’ she said as she finished her cider, and put down her empty glass. ‘Congratulations.’
‘I felt something was needed,’ Gerard admitted ruefully. ‘The weekend so far isn’t exactly proceeding as I planned. I seem to be at other people’s beck and call the whole time. But that’s going to stop.’
He smiled with faint awkwardness. ‘From here on, it’s you and me against the world.’
Alanna felt a stirring of alarm.
She said steadily, ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
He reached across and took her hand. ‘Alanna—I know it’s too soon, but I want you to agree to become engaged to me.’
Her lips parted in a gasp of sheer astonishment. She said faintly, ‘But we hardly know each other...’
‘If you’re saying we’ve never been on intimate terms, that’s quite true.’ He hesitated. ‘Alanna, I was in a bad place when you quite literally fell into my life. And as I got to know you, I had the impression that you’d been in a similar situation.
‘I—I’ve never asked you about it, or talked about my own problems because I’d come to see that nothing can be gained by endlessly rehashing past mistakes.’
She swallowed. ‘Well, we can certainly agree about that,’ she said unevenly. ‘But, Gerard...’
‘Please hear me out.’ His fingers tightened round hers. ‘Right now, I’m simply offering an engagement, not pressuring you into marriage—or anything else for that matter. I think—I hope we could be happy together, if we gave each other the chance.’
She gave him a straight look. ‘But there are other people who might not be happy at all.’
‘You mean Grandam.’ His mouth tightened. ‘I love her dearly, Alanna, but she has to realise she can’t control my life. Not any more.’
Alanna wasn’t too sure of that, just as she was totally certain this engagement idea was a path she didn’t want to follow. Because marriage was out of the question.
Even if she’d fallen in love with him, twenty-four hours at the abbey would have warned her to think again and run for her life. For all kinds of reasons.
But to tell him so bluntly would be unkind.
A bad place. Well, as he’d guessed, she knew all about that. And that was another good reason for letting him down lightly.
She said quietly, ‘This has come as such a total surprise. You have to give me some time. Let me think about it.’
‘Take as long as you need. And as I said, I won’t try to change our relationship—push you into something you’re not ready for. So let’s just see how it goes. Shall we?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose.’ She hesitated. ‘But, Gerard, I’m not promising anything. I can’t. Not yet.’
Not ever...
She added, ‘You must understand that.’
She felt dazed as they returned to the car. If he’d stripped naked and jumped into the stream, she couldn’t have been more astonished, although she supposed it explained the unusually proprietorial attitude he’d shown since the start of the weekend.
Which must have also set Niamh Harrington’s alarm bells ringing.
Well, let her worry, she thought with grim determination. At the party tonight, for the first and last time, she’ll be seeing me in full devoted girlfriend mode. And to hell with the consequences.
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