The Bejewelled Bride. Lee Wilkinson

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СКАЧАТЬ be caught staring at him again, looked resolutely ahead.

      After a while he remarked, ‘Here we are,’ and, turning left into grey nothingness, brought the car to a halt and doused the lights.

      At first all Bethany could see was mist pressing damply against the windscreen, then ahead and to the right she saw a faint glimmer of light.

      He came round to help her out and, an arm at her waist, steered her towards the dark bulk of the hotel and the glow of a lighted window.

      Just that casual touch seemed to burn through her clothing, setting every nerve in her body tingling and robbing her of breath.

      When they reached what seemed to be a small annex, the window lit, Bethany could see now, by an oil lamp standing on the windowsill, he stepped forward and knocked on the door.

      It opened almost immediately, letting out a slanting beam of yellow light, and an elderly man in shirtsleeves and a pullover peered at them, his face startled.

      ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but we need a couple of rooms for the night,’ Joel told him.

      ‘The hotel’s closed,’ the caretaker said shortly. ‘You’ll have to go somewhere else.’

      ‘Unfortunately that’s not possible. The mist is much too thick.’

      ‘The hotel’s closed,’ the man repeated doggedly, and made as if to slam the door.

      Joel stepped forward and held it, saying something quietly but decidedly that Bethany didn’t catch.

      ‘All the rooms are shut up and there’s no heating on in the main part,’ was the surly reply.

      ‘Well, I’m quite sure you can find us something,’ Joel insisted pleasantly. ‘In an old place like this there must surely be a room with a fireplace?’

      ‘The manageress lives on the premises while the hotel’s open, so there’s her room. But the bed’s not made up and the generator’s not working, so there’s no electricity…’

      ‘Perhaps you’ll show us?’

      Grumbling about the cold and damp, and being scarcely able to walk for his rheumatism, the caretaker turned away.

      Bethany noticed that Joel kept his foot in the door until the man returned, wearing a jacket and with a bunch of keys and a torch.

      He closed the door behind him and, limping a little, led the way through the mist to a side entrance which gave on to a small tiled lobby.

      The dank air seemed even colder inside than out.

      At the end of a short corridor he opened a door and flashed the torch around a good-sized room furnished as a bedsitter.

      They glimpsed a divan bed, a basket piled with logs next to a stone fireplace, a wooden table and chairs, a couple of deep armchairs and, through a door that was standing a little ajar, a tiled bathroom.

      ‘This will do fine,’ Joel assured him briskly. ‘A couple of pillows, a few blankets and a candle or two are all we’ll need.’

      ‘There’s bedding and towels in the cupboard and an oil lamp and matches on the chest of drawers,’ the caretaker said grudgingly.

      ‘Thanks.’ Some notes changed hands before Joel suggested, ‘Perhaps you could manage a bite to eat and a hot drink for the lady?’

      The man stuffed the notes in his trouser pocket and, sounding somewhat mollified, said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He went, leaving them in total darkness.

      As Bethany hesitated uncertainly, Joel’s level voice ordered, ‘Stay where you are until I’ve located the matches.’

      A moment later she heard the brush of a footfall as he moved unerringly through the blackness, then the scrape and flare of a match.

      With an ease that seemed to speak of long practice, he lit the oil lamp, adjusted the flame and replaced the glass chimney. In a moment the room was filled with golden light.

      His clothes—smart casuals—looked expensive, his shoes handmade, but, taking no heed of either, he squatted by the hearth and began to set the fire.

      She watched as his long well-shaped hands placed first sticks and then split logs on a bed of flaming kindling.

      Glancing up, he said, ‘You’re shivering. Come and get warm.’

      Needing no further encouragement, though truth to tell the shivering was due as much to excitement as cold, she went and sat in the low armchair he’d pulled closer to the fire.

      Putting her big suede shoulder bag on the floor by the chair, she stretched her numb hands to the leaping flames.

      ‘Feet cold?’ he queried, looking at her suede fashion boots.

      ‘Frozen,’ she admitted.

      Piling more logs on, he suggested, ‘They’ll get warm a lot quicker if you take your boots off.’

      Recognizing the truth of that, she tried to pull them off but they were high and close-fitting and her hands had pins and needles.

      ‘Let me.’ Crouching on his haunches, he eased off first one and then the other, before rubbing each foot between his palms.

      His touch scattered her wits and made her pulses race. At a deeper level it also made her feel cared for, cherished, and at that moment she would have lost her heart to him, if it hadn’t been his already.

      Gazing at his bent head, she noticed that his thick fair hair still had minute droplets of water clinging to it. She wanted to dry it and cradle his head to her breast.

      ‘That better?’ he asked when he’d rubbed some life back into her slim feet.

      ‘Much better, thank you,’ she answered huskily.

      ‘Good.’

      He had an olive-toned skin at odds with his fairness, and a smile that almost stopped her heart. As he looked into her face she saw that his eyes weren’t the pale blue she had imagined, but a light silvery green. Fascinating eyes…

      He rose to his feet just as the door opened and the caretaker returned, a torch in one hand and a plastic carrier bag in the other.

      Plonking the bag down on the kitchen counter, the man said shortly, ‘There’s everything you should need in here. The cooker runs on bottled gas and you’ll find a kettle and crockery in the cupboard.’

      ‘Thanks…And goodnight,’ Joel said.

      With a grunt, the man turned and shambled away.

      The thought of a hot drink was a welcome one and Bethany had started to rise when Joel ordered, ‘Stay where you are and get warm. I’ll rustle up a drink and a sandwich.’

      Devlin, worried about protecting his macho image, would have sat down to be waited on, Bethany thought. But Joel, confident about his masculinity, clearly had no worries on that score.

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