The Ring The Spaniard Gave Her - Lynne Graham Page 0,8

Barb did!’ he thundered down at her, unimpressed.

‘Who’s Barb?’ Suzy whispered, her spine and her head still stinging from that first rough meeting with the wall.

‘My first wife and I’m not having another one like her, running after all the men, making a mockery of me round the neighbourhood!’ he spat down at her, his eyes locked on her with what looked very like hatred to her frightened gaze.

‘Please let me go, Percy,’ Suzy whispered because, while Percy might not be a very tall man, he was built like an ox, square and stocky and strong. ‘This has got out of hand.’

‘Shut up...you don’t tell me what to do...ever!’ he launched down at her, slapping her across the face in a glancing blow that caused her head to strike the wall behind her again and extracted a gasp of pain from her pale lips. ‘Not so cheeky now, are you? I’ve been too soft with you.’

‘Let me go,’ Suzy urged between clenched teeth. ‘This is assault, Percy, and I won’t stand for it!’

And he laughed as though she had said the funniest thing he had ever heard.

‘What are you planning to do about it? Report me to the police when I can throw you and your dad out of this village any time I like? I own you just as I own all the businesses round here and don’t you forget it!’ Percy lifted his hands off her with an exaggerated flourish. ‘I’ve gone easy on you this time. Don’t let me see you flirting like that again!’

Suzy was so dizzy, she staggered as she slid back down the wall onto her own feet again. He was a frighteningly strong man because he had held her suspended all that time, but then she was a small and slender woman. As Percy slammed noisily into the car he had left parked across the street, she lifted her bag from where it had fallen and headed back home, praying her father would already be in bed. She massaged her aching head as she crept upstairs to her room. All of her ached from being thrown against the wall and her face was still stinging from that blow.

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