Home > The Ring The Spaniard Gave Her(6)

The Ring The Spaniard Gave Her(6)
Author: Lynne Graham

   In the mirror she saw that she had had a nosebleed. She was in shock, trembling and staring at her drained and distraught face. She cleaned herself up in the bathroom, noting that her face was swollen while wondering how much make-up it would take to hide what might well be a bruise by morning. In her bra and pants she inspected her body and recognised the purple bruising already becoming visible on her arms and shoulders. She hugged herself and shuddered.

   Percy had been married before and nobody local was aware of that fact. He was violent and territorial and had seen flirtation where none existed. But she still had to marry him, didn’t she? She had to have that debt cleared for her dad and, once that was achieved, if Percy laid his hands on her again she would go to the police. On that decision she went to bed.

   In the morning she went by rote through her bridal preparations. Her gown was all lace, ribbons and glittering crystals because Percy had instructed her to buy ‘something fancy’ and the ultra-feminine frills were the sort of thing that Percy deemed fancy. Fortunately, the long sleeves hid her bruises and cosmetics took care of her bruised cheekbone. But as she finally looked at herself in the mirror it was as if she were only then emerging from a waking nightmare: suddenly she knew she couldn’t go through with the wedding—not for her dad, not for any reason could she face marrying a man who clearly believed that it was his right to beat her up.

   ‘Hey, love, I’m just off down to the off-licence for later... OK? I’ll only be half an hour,’ her father told her from outside the door. ‘We’ve got plenty of time.’

   She yanked open the door and gave him a hug. ‘I love you,’ she told him, but she didn’t have the courage to tell him that she was about to leave Percy at the altar. She would write a note but there could be no explanation because her father would kill Percy if he knew what he had done to his daughter and she didn’t want to cause a fight in which her much smaller father might get hurt.

   She was going to run. She had no car, not even a bike and very little money, her brain reminded her. Where was she planning to go? What she was hoping to do? But just at that moment the practicalities honestly didn’t matter to her. All that mattered to her was that she had finally made a decision and that there would be less dangerous fallout all round if she simply vanished. In haste she wrote a note to her father, telling him that she was sorry, but she simply couldn’t go through with the wedding and that she’d phone him as soon as she was able. No note necessary for Percy. When she failed to show he would know that he had shown his true colours too clearly to her the night before. She kicked off her bridal heels and reached for her biker boots.

   As she was bending over, tightening the multicoloured laces, her attention fell on the window and the view across to the church. She saw Percy climbing out of his car in a dark suit and then turning to stare across at the pub. Why was he arriving so early for the ceremony? Did he already suspect that she might not turn up?

   Sheer dread grabbed Suzy as she wondered if he would try to see her, check on her. Her stomach heaved with nausea, her brow banged with stress. The bag she had been planning to pack, the clothing she had been meaning to change into...it all totally fled her mind and panic took over instead, washing away every other consideration, including common sense. Grabbing her bag, she pulled out her purse and extracted what cash she had within it. Thrusting the banknotes she had down the front of her dress into her bra, she simply ran down the stairs and out into the beer garden, which was surrounded by the dense woods that ringed the village. She had run wild in those woods as a child and, even in the cold air with actual snowflakes starting to fall, they had never looked more enticing to her than they did at that moment.

   Hoisting her full skirts high round her legs, Suzy ran for the cover of the trees. Behind her she heard the echo of the doorbell seemingly thundering through the flat and she felt sick, grateful that she had run rather than taking the risk of hanging back to face Percy again. She didn’t owe him that courtesy. If he had felt violent the night before he would feel even more violent when she told him she wasn’t coming to the church. And no man was ever going to hit her again!

 

   ‘Something’s set off one of the motion sensors on the fence,’ Ruy’s security phoned to inform him. ‘It’s probably an animal but it would be safest if you stayed indoors, sir, and let us handle this.’

   Reflecting on the state-of-the-art security he had originally set up to ensure his privacy rather than his personal security, Ruy almost rolled his eyes. He had not wanted security of any kind with him, but so successful had he become in his role at Valiente Capital that his insurers now wanted him protected everywhere he went. He had been forced to build the necessary accommodation for bodyguards even though in his opinion the chances of a kidnapping deep in the wilds of Norfolk, where he was entirely unknown, were extremely low.

   ‘It’s fine. I’ll handle it myself,’ he imparted before dealing with the polite attempt to argue that inevitably followed.

   He slung on a thick coat and scarf because the temperature had dropped radically once it began snowing. Snow and it was almost May, he reflected in wonderment; what a barbarous climate that could go from spring one day back to winter the next! He had bought hundreds of acres of woodland with the house and had surrounded it with an impenetrable security fence. Reflecting on the peaceful beauty of his surroundings with satisfaction, he jumped into his four-wheel drive and drove down the track into the woods, parking a few minutes later to get out and stride through the trees to head for the west sector of the fence, which lay nearest the village.

   Trapped in the dilapidated tree house, Suzy shivered violently. She didn’t know where her wits had been when she had run off into the trees. She could have done with the knowledge in advance that someone had mysteriously cut the woods in half with a giant metal fence, which meant that it was no longer possible to reach the main road on the other side of them. Getting over the fence had entailed climbing a tree and jumping and, in that mad panic that had gripped her where only adrenalin ruled, she had managed those actions fine even if the dress was the worse for wear as a result. The snow coming on had persuaded her to head for the old tree house to take shelter for a while.

   And then everything else that could go wrong had gone wrong. The tree house she remembered from childhood had lost its roof long ago and offered no shelter whatsoever. She had only just managed to make it up onto the platform when the ladder, which had cracked under her weight, fell and smashed to pieces. Now she was stuck until she had gathered the energy to climb back down the tree, but she was horribly cold and she no longer trusted her arms and legs to keep her safe. Worse still, it hadn’t even occurred to her to snatch up her phone when she ran and, dazed with physical misery and aches and pains, she was feeling very sorry for herself even while she wondered vaguely why she wasn’t more actively concerned about her predicament.

   Ruy walked along the fence and found the obstruction. It was a branch, he assumed until he reached it and saw that it was the remains of a very roughly put-together ladder. He tossed it away from the fence.

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