Mason’s cries must have alerted another member of the security team patrolling nearby because now a lanky guy in uniform was running directly towards him.
Ben shot off to the right again, which probably wasn’t the best decision because it would take him back around the outside of the courtyard buildings and not into open parkland, but it was the best he’d been able to manage under pressure. As he ran, he could see the Tithe Barn in the corner of his vision. He adjusted his course. Maybe, if he could get to where Alice was, give an explanation—
‘Oof!’
Something heavy hit him with force and attached itself to his lower body, dragging him to the ground. He met it so hard, his shoulder bones jiggled. Nice rugby tackle. A few seconds later, a strong pair of hands gripped his arms, and, between them, the two guards wrestled him to a standing position. He didn’t care. As long as their attention was on him and not on Alice. That was all that mattered. He was prepared to cause a fuss if necessary.
‘Right,’ Mason said, sounding like a rather pissed-off police officer.
‘Listen, I know I shouldn’t be here, but if you’d just let me explain …’ Ben tried to move in the direction of the Tithe Barn. Alice should almost be there by now. ‘I need to get to—’
Mason let out a gruff laugh. ‘Leave it out, mate. The only place you’re going is the security office, where I will be calling the local nick.’
As they started to drag him back towards the courtyard, he looked over his shoulder, straining to keep Alice in view as the two men lumbered him along.Where was she? Had she made it? Had someone caught her too?
And then he saw her, running full speed to the guy standing outside the barn. Ben couldn’t hear what was going on, but the man’s head snapped around as if he’d heard someone call out to him,and then, in the next moment, he launched himself at Alice, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a fierce and possessive hug.
Ben stopped resisting the security guards at that point. They could take him anywhere they wanted – as long as it was away from there.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Now.
ALICE HAD ONLY just reached the man standing in front of the wedding venue when he took one look at her, let out a strange, slightly strangled noise, then threw his arms around her and hugged her so hard she thought she was going to pass out from lack of oxygen.
It was the moment she’d been waiting for, but it was nothing like how she’d imagined it would be. She thought she’d feel a sense of coming home, of slotting in like a missing puzzle piece. In the back of her naive mind, she’d thought that seeing someone she knew and who knew who she was might trigger a cascade of memories, but she felt … nothing. Unless you counted a sore shoulder from where he was crushing her.
He was repeating the same words over and over, ‘Oh, my God … It’s you! You’re back!’ and then, still hugging her and dragging her with him, he started moving towards the barn and began yelling for other people to come and see.
It was only when a crowd of people had gathered around Alice that she got her first really good look at his face, too overwhelmed to process it any earlier.
Nope. Not even a flicker of recognition.
And yet, this was the night of her wedding rehearsal. She was supposed to get married in two days. What on earth was she going to do? He looked like a nice guy – very put together, very smart – but she couldn’t possibly marry him this weekend.
As more people poured out of the building, there were more hugs, more shouting, more questions. Where had she been? Why had she left? Why had she scared them all stupid? She felt like she was being grabbed at by a twenty-armed octopus, and she couldn’t sort one voice from another in all the cacophony. After all the emptiness in her life, the holes and silence where the memories should have been, it was too much. Her ribs drew themselves tight, making it hard to breathe. She clamped a hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut.
One voice rang out over the top of all the others. ‘Back off! Just back off a second!’ It wasn’t the groom but a woman’s voice, and a second later, slender fingers curled around her wrist, gently tugging her in the direction of the now-empty barn. ‘Just give us some space! Can’t you see she’s completely overwhelmed!’
The roar of voices dropped to a murmur, but not of grumbling, of concern. Alice opened her eyes as she was led inside, vaguely aware of a slender figure in a shift dress leading her around a corner and behind a screen. The woman pulled out a chair for Alice to sit on, and she collapsed into it gratefully, heaving in some much-needed oxygen.
Her saviour crouched beside her, waiting patiently for her to regain her composure. ‘Are you okay? Do I need to call a doctor?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Do you … Do you know who I am?’
The woman’s eyes widened. ‘Of course I do! You’re my sister! What’s going on, Lil? You’ve been missing for almost a week, and we’ve all been beside ourselves trying to find you!’ Her voice lowered until it was almost a growl. ‘I thought that bastard had done something to you … I’ve even been to the police …’
Alice’s throat tightened further. ‘Who …? What bastard?’
The other woman stopped talking and frowned hard. Alice knew this must all be very confusing to her … hersister! She was still trying to get her head around it herself. There was something this woman needed to know, something important that would explain everything. But at that very second, Alice couldn’t remember what that was.
They stared at each other for a few moments and Alice realised that she didn’t know this woman’s name, or how old she was, or what she did for a living, but she recognised the arch of her eyebrows, the way a dimplealmostformed in her cheek when she spoke. Because she’d seen the very same things in the mirror. This really was her sister. She threw her arms around her and began to sob.
Her sister hugged her back tightly, allowed the tears to fall until Alice got to a place where could she could speak again. Her thoughts began to gather themselves as she calmed down, arranged themselves into a sensible order. She sniffed, pulled away and looked her sister in the eye. ‘I’ve got amnesia,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember anything, not past last Saturday morning …’ And then the whole garbled story fell out of her mouth, or at least, the main plot points, all the way from Invergarrig to this fairy-tale castle in the Kent countryside.
Her sister listened with a fierce expression, and when Alice had finished speaking,she said, ‘Stuff the rehearsal! We’re getting you to a doctor.’
She began to stand up, but Alice grabbed her arm. ‘I can’t get married on Saturday! Not when I don’t even know who he is!’
