That Would Be a Fairy Tale - By Amanda Grange Page 0,45

of her tears glinting on her lashes in the moonlight.

‘Something’s upset you.’

‘No. I assure you it hasn’t.’ She spoke sharply, not feeling equal to having a conversation with him until she was in control of herself once more.

‘Yes, it has,’ he said, matching her sharp tone with one equally harsh, ‘and I’m not letting you go until I know what it is.’

‘You have no right to keep me here,’ she said, shaking her arm free and picking up the hem of her gown once more.

‘To hell with rights,’ he said, his eyes locking onto her own. Such was the intensity of his gaze that she was held motionless. ‘I want to know what made you go pale back on the terrace just now, and you are going to tell me.’

‘I am . . . ’ she began, intending to say I am not, but suddenly her feelings got the better of her. ‘How can you do it?’ she suddenly burst out, no longer able to contain herself.

He looked taken aback. ‘How can I do what?’ he asked.

She dropped the hem of her gown. ‘Cut down the chestnut tree.’

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. ‘You’re upset about a tree?’

‘It isn’t just a tree,’ she said rashly. ‘It’s the tree my great-great-great-grandmother planted when she was a little girl of three years old. My family have played in it and sheltered under it for over two hundred years, generation upon generation of them. My mother and I hid in it when we played with my father. She lifted me into the branches and then climbed up beside me, whilst my father searched for us high and low, and in the end we had to call to him or he would never have found us. It was summer, and the leaves were thick,’ she said defiantly. Then her face paled again. ‘But you wouldn’t understand.’

She turned to go.

‘You’re wrong,’ he said.

She was already walking away from him, but his words halted her. She hesitated. Then turned.

His eyes were burning with a strange intensity. ‘I do understand,’ he said.

She almost believed him. But then she said, with a shuddering sigh, ‘No, you don’t. You are going to cut it down.’

The air was suddenly still. Not a tree rustled. Not a leaf stirred.

‘No.’

‘N . . . no?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘No.’

He shook his head, and the gesture caught the moonlight, which lit the side of his face and painted silver streaks into his hair. ‘I’m not going to cut it down.’

‘But you said . . . ’ she began.

‘That’s before I realized what it meant to you.’

There was a light in his velvety eyes that neither she, nor anyone else, had ever seen there before.

‘You would spare it . . . for me?’

He reached out his hand and pulled her gently into his arms. He stroked a stray tendril away from her face. ‘Yes. I would.’

She relaxed against him, and felt him pressing his lips against her hair, then against her forehead. He lifted her chin, and his eyes roamed over her face. Her hands rose of their own volition against the lapels of his dinner jacket. The fabric was warm and soft to the touch. Beneath it, his muscles were firm.

She shuddered, overcome with his nearness. She was unnaturally aware of him: his hair, with one lock falling across his forehead; his eyes, with their fine lines at the corners; and his chin, with its day’s growth of beard.

And he was unnaturally aware of her. She could tell by the way his eyes trailed over her body, lingering on the whiteness of her shoulders.

He took her face between his hands, and -

‘Thief!’ The cry cut into the night like a knife. ‘Someone has stolen my necklace!’

Cicely’s eyes flew open.

Alex cursed under his breath. His eyes held Cicely’s as though unable to let them go.

Then, ‘Thief!’ The cry came again. It could no longer be ignored. Nor could the hubbub coming from the direction of the house as more voices took up the cry.

‘I have to go. But you’re coming with me,’ he said. He took her by the hand and ran towards the Manor, with Cicely running alongside him.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ he said, playing his part, as, dropping Cicely’s hand at the last moment, he strode into the house.

‘My necklace,’ said Miss Postlethwaite, playing her own part to perfection. ‘My beautiful emerald necklace. Someone has stolen it.’

By now, all the guests had assembled in the ballroom, drawn there from the terrace and the supper