Chapter Thirty

Despite the snow, Tyler drove fast down the mountain road. Far from being scared, Rosalie silently urged him to go faster as desperate thoughts churned inside her, filling her with almost unbearable pain. Marc was dead. He had been beaten up and had been left alone in the freezing night.

After what felt like an eternity, they reached Raventhorn at last.

‘That must be Petersen’s car.’ Tyler slowed down as they drove past a Range Rover parked at the side of the lane just after the old bridge.

He drove into the courtyard and slammed on the brakes. The vehicle skidded and came to a bumpy halt. ‘I can’t see him. Where the bloody hell is he?’ He stopped the car, flung the door open, and got out.

Rosalie hurried out after him, not daring to hope just yet. Marc was nowhere to be seen. In fact the only traces of his presence was an area of compacted snow stained with patches of bright red blood where the struggle with Joe had taken place, and where Marc had been hit on the head by Rupert and collapsed.

Relief surged inside her. Rupert and the others had got it wrong. Marc had survived the blow, and since his car was still parked on the lane, he must be in Raventhorn. Perhaps he had phoned the police or an ambulance and they were on their way.

That was what Tyler must be thinking too, judging by the determined look on his face when he kicked the kitchen door open and marched in. The kitchen was a mess, with papers, broken pots and plates littering the floor, cupboard doors swinging open and drawers pulled out. Tyler looked around, pulled a large kitchen knife from a drawer and strode towards her. Before she could slip away, he yanked her to him, and pressed the tip of the knife against her throat.

‘All right, princess, now let’s see how much your boyfriend loves you,’ he whispered into her ear, manoeuvring her so that she faced the door leading to the staircase and he could use her as a shield.

‘There’s no way I’m going to let him blab to the cops about what happened here tonight, and let him implicate me. I need to finish the job Rupert botched. Call him.’

A cold, calm feeling descended upon her. She wasn’t afraid of Tyler. It meant nothing to him that they shared the same blood, and she knew that he would hurt her without a moment’s hesitation if it helped his cause, but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t put Marc in any more danger.

‘Call him yourself,’ she said through clenched teeth.

Tyler kneed her in the back and pulled on her arm. Tears sprung from her eyes, she cried out but immediately bit her lip, hard.

‘I said to call him,’ he snarled between clenched teeth.

‘And I say you can go to hell,’ she replied, almost choking with pain and loathing.

He spun her around so that she now faced him, slipped one hand around her throat like a vice, and pushed her against one of the kitchen cabinets. Tilting her face up, he glared straight into her eyes.

‘Let’s get something clear. I give the orders, you obey. Got that? Now, if you don’t want me to start knocking you about, I suggest you do as I say.’

A shadow moved near the kitchen doorway. Rosalie blinked, and suddenly Marc was standing just behind Tyler, holding Lorna’s copper pan. He brought it down on Tyler’s head with a loud bang. Tyler’s eyes widened in shock. His hold on her slackened. He crumpled in on himself, and the knife he’d been holding slid onto the tiles.

Rosalie stared down at his unconscious form at her feet.

‘Is he dead?’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t care,’ Marc answered in a harsh voice, still holding the copper pan. ‘The scumbag was hurting you.’

She couldn’t stop staring at Tyler. His face had turned deadly white, and he didn’t appear to be breathing.

‘Rosalie, please talk to me. Look at me.’ Marc’s voice became urgent.

She lifted her gaze up slowly and met his worried eyes. His face was bruised and smeared with blood. There was dried blood in his hair too, and his jacket was ripped at the armhole. He’d been hurt, but he was alive. It was as if all the trauma and the emotions of the past few hours were finally catching up with her.

‘They said you were dead. I thought …’ Tears welled in her eyes, and she started shaking.

Marc put the pan on the kitchen table, stepped over Tyler’s body and wrapped her into his arms. ‘Shh … it’s all right. It’s over.’ She buried her face against his chest, breathed in his scent, and listened to the thunder of his heartbeat.

‘I was so worried about you.’ He stroked her back, kissed her hair, her forehead, her tear-stained cheeks. She moulded herself to his body and for a short moment nothing else mattered but the sheer joy and relief of being in his arms.

His hand moved up to her shoulder and she couldn’t repress a whimper of pain. He released her straight away. ‘You’re hurt.’

‘It’s my shoulder.’ She smiled. ‘You’re going to have to fix it again.’

‘This time, I think I’ll let the doctors do it.’ He let go of her, knelt down next to Tyler and felt the pulse at the side of his throat.

Tyler groaned but didn’t wake up. Marc patted the pocket of his jacket and extracted a mobile. ‘The lines are down and I lost my phone,’ he explained. ‘We’ll use his mobile to call the police and an ambulance.’ He gestured towards the unconscious man at his feet. ‘Tyler needs seeing to.’

The blood drained from her face and she took a step back. ‘You know his name?’

Marc nodded. His eyes softened, he took a deep breath and rose to his feet. ‘Actually, it’s not the only thing I know. Rosalie, there is something I must tell you … about him, and your mother. I’m sorry.’

So Marc knew everything! Shame burnt like acid inside her, and she feared she might be sick. ‘I don’t want to talk about it – about him,’ she mumbled, stepping towards the door. ‘I need to go … to the bathroom.’

‘Rosalie—’

‘Tell the police about the others, too – his two associates, and Rupert and Cheryl,’ she added. ‘They are all at the holiday lodge where they were staying the night of the accident.’

At the mention of Geoff’s cousin, Marc’s face hardened. He touched the wound on the side of his head. ‘Rupert tried to kill me.’

‘He also sabotaged the Porsche’s brakes, because he was so desperate to inherit Raventhorn.’

‘I suppose he was under the influence of his girlfriend, who by the way is also Jake Tyler’s niece.’

She nodded. ‘I know.’ It was true that she was related to Cheryl too.

Upstairs in the bathroom, she splashed water on her face, and tried to calm her nerves. When she no longer felt like she was going to be sick, she went back downstairs to the kitchen.

She heard Tyler’s raspy voice as soon as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ he was saying. ‘I know you’re loaded but I have contacts that could prove interesting for you.’

‘Shut up,’ Marc answered. ‘Don’t make things worse for yourself. The police are on their way.’

‘I hope they lock him away forever,’ Rosalie said as she walked into the kitchen. Tyler was sitting against the wall, with Marc standing in front of him.

‘Tut, tut … that’s not a very nice thing to say about your daddy, is it, princess?’ Tyler looked at Marc. ‘Now you know about me, son, perhaps I should tell you about Rosalie’s mummy too so that you get the full family picture.’

‘Stop it!’ Rosalie hissed.

‘Come on, princess,’ he sniggered, ‘you have to be honest in a relationship. You should tell your rich boyfriend that your mummy was a glamour model. A bloody good one, I must say, although I often had to give her something to loosen her up at first. She was quite partial to a few shots of vodka before a session. It made her more … compliant.’

‘Enough,’ Marc snapped. The man must have heard the steel in his voice because he snorted but didn’t utter another word.

Marc cast a worried glance towards Rosalie. If only he could take her in his arms again, shelter her from the ugliness and the pain, and kiss away the shame and the hurt he could see in her eyes. But there was nothing he could do or say right now, not with Tyler watching and goading them.

‘You should go back upstairs and have a rest while we wait for the police,’ he told Rosalie.

She nodded, and went out of the kitchen again. As soon as he was sure she couldn’t hear him, he stared hard at Tyler and said, ‘Now listen, you scumbag. I’ll make sure you are put away for the rest of your miserable life. It shouldn’t be hard to prove that you were involved in Rosalie’s accident in the forest, and that you asked your associates to make hoax calls to Rosalie’s taxi company and wreck Duncan’s cab.’

Tyler snorted. ‘Not guilty on those accounts, mate. I wasn’t involved in any prank calls, car chase or taxi vandalising.’

The man was lying, of course. ‘There won’t be any parole this time,’ Marc carried on. ‘And don’t even think about getting in touch with Rosalie or sending one of your mates to make trouble for her when you’re back inside, because from now on I’ll be watching over her like a hawk.’

Muscles twitched at the side of Tyler’s mouth.

‘I won’t let you hurt her ever again,’ Marc added. ‘You’re finished.’

‘We’ll see about that, mate.’ Tyler leaned up against the wall and closed his eyes. He looked deflated, vanquished, as if all his bravado had left him.

Turning his back on him, Marc walked to the window to look out for the police. His head wound pounded and made him feel dizzy. He turned the cold tap on, bent down and splashed water on his face. The cool water numbed the pain and revived him, so he splashed some more.

A bird crowed on the other side of the window. He opened his eyes, just in time to see Tyler’s reflection as he stood behind him. The man was going to knock him out.

Instinct took over. Marc swung round, stepped aside to avoid Tyler’s fist then lunged forward to grab hold of his collar.

‘Haven’t you had enough?’ he growled as anger surged inside him, swamping any rational thought. He lifted Tyler off the floor and slammed him hard against the kitchen cupboard. Tyler went limp and slid to the floor, as floppy as a rag doll. He looked too weak to even blink. Marc glanced out of the window again. The raven had flown away. It had warned him just in time to dodge Tyler’s blow.

It took another half an hour for a police car and an ambulance to pull up into the courtyard, sirens flashing and blazing in the night.

Tyler was checked by paramedics and interviewed by the police then bundled into an ambulance. Rosalie and Marc each gave a brief statement. Rosalie gave one of the police officers a blue metal box and a key, said something about a diary and a list of dates and names inside. Then they climbed in the back of the police car and were driven to the hospital in Inverness. During the journey Rosalie kept her eyes closed. She wasn’t asleep because when he touched her hand, she snatched it away. Even though all he wanted was to take her in his arms and comfort her, he didn’t insist, didn’t even talk.

Once at the hospital, they were taken to two different treatment rooms. Marc’s wound was cleaned and dressed, and he was told he needed to stay the night to make sure he wasn’t suffering from concussion. When he enquired about Rosalie, he was told that she too would be spending the night at the hospital.

He was given a private room and a couple of painkillers, and just about managed to take his shoes off before collapsing on the bed, and falling asleep.