Rafael was an attentive and charming escort, but Flame couldn't help but be aware of one or two odd looks being cast in their direction. Puzzling a little, she found the explanation not long in coming. Samantha took her to one side when the meal was over and, under a pretence of showing her where the bathroom was, pushed her inside and dosed the door.
'What do you think you're doing?' she demanded when they were alone.
Flame looked at her in bewilderment.
'You really don't know, do you?' Samantha knew her younger sister well enough to realise that the look of innocent bewilderment on her face was genuine. 'Don't you realise you're on trial, Flame? People know you walked out on Marlow straight after the wedding. Now all they can see is that you've suddenly come back—and straight away you're chatting up another man! The Spanish take that sort of thing seriously. It's seen as a blatant act of infidelity. Marlow must feel about two inches high.'
'Oh, don't be ridiculous, Sam! Infidelity? If you mean with Rafael, I'm only chatting to him as if we were two ordinary human beings. What on earth's wrong with that?'
'Everything. The main thing being that you should be by your husband's side.'
'But he's already got somebody by his side. Or hadn't you noticed?'
'You mean Victoria?'
'Of course I mean Victoria!'
'You're still his wife, Flame. Not that marriage appears to mean much to you.' Samantha's expression was severe. 'Marlow happens to have brought along his personal assistant. It's not unusual. He has to talk business. Marcos's invitations always include the opportunity to make new contacts. You just have to go along with it.'
'Victoria is hardly a new contact,' argued Flame bitterly.
'No, but the group they've been introduced to are. No doubt that's why Marlow brought her along—to meet them.'
'No doubt!' Flame's sarcasm made Samantha frown.
'It's your duty to shelve your differences in public,' she told her. 'This is a small community. You can do immense harm to Marlow's personal reputation if you're seen to be unreliable. Actually, I'm surprised at Rafael. He should know better.'
'Perhaps he doesn't go along with your antiquated views, Sam. I must say I'm flabbergasted to hear you of all people coming out with things like this.' The two sisters glared at each other in the bright strip-light of the luxurious bathroom in which they were standing, then at the same moment they both relented.
'I'm sorry, love --' Samantha took Flame by the arms.
'I didn't realise it mattered a damn what I did,' mumbled Flame.
'I had to warn you. And it's not fair on Rafael either.'
'You mean I'm giving him the wrong impression?' Flame's eyes widened a fraction.
Samantha nodded. 'He knows, as does everybody, that you've both been living apart. The way you've behaved tonight will only have convinced him that your return isn't meant to be a serious reconciliation --'
'Nor is it!' cut in Flame with a clenching of her hands.
Samantha gave her a studying look. 'You know what I think about you and Marlow? I don't believe you really know what you're doing --'
'Why can't you and Mother stand by me? Why do you have to be on his side all the time?' Flame burst out.
'It's not like that, Flame. We are on your side and we both know how head over heels in love you were—both of you. It was a real love match,' Samantha countered gently.
'Sure it was. And he was so cut up when I walked out, wasn't he?'
'Yes, as it happens. More than you probably realise --'
'Don't give me that!' Flame gave a disbelieving scowl.
'He was like a man in a nightmare,' Samantha went on remorselessly. 'Then he seemed to make the decision to throw himself into his work. To begin with it was like a sort of frenzy, as if he was trying to block out the pain.' She frowned. 'He'd hate me for telling you this.'
'I don't believe it anyway,' Flame came back bitterly. 'I obviously know more about Marlow than you. I've seen behind the scenes, thank you.'
'He didn't --' Samantha bit her lip. 'He didn't beat you, did he?'
'What? I should hope not!'
'Then I can't understand why you feel so bitter about him.'
'He married me to get his hands on the land—you must have guessed that! I only realised when I discovered he could deceive on other levels too.' Flame averted her head. 'You're trying to tell me he cared a damn when I left? If he had,' she turned back with a smile of bitter triumph, 'he would have come after me, wouldn't he?'
Samantha slowly shook her head. 'I don't think so. He can be as stiff-necked as you when he wants. The last thing he would do would be to chase after somebody who'd rejected him. That's his childhood coming out, I suppose.'
'His what?' Flame gave her sister a sharp glance.
'His stepfather not wanting him around and all that. He must have told you?'
Flame shook her head, pretending she didn't want to hear, but impatient for Samantha to go on nevertheless.
'He still feels bitter about not being reconciled with his mother before she died. His stepfather had made it plain he didn't want a seventeen-year-old boy around when he married his mother. That's when Marlow ran away to sea.'
'I didn't know he'd done that,' Flame retorted somewhat stiffly.
'Maybe there are other things you don't know.'
'I know enough, thank you!'
'Do you know how good to us he's been?'
'There's a lot in it for him.'
'Don't be cynical,' said Samantha.
'You don't imagine he'd put himself out for the Montrose Clan, as he calls us, for nothing, do you?'
'Maybe we're the family he's never had.'
Flame felt tears like red-hot needles behind her eyes. 'Damn him to hell!' She turned and groped for the handle of the bathroom door.
'Wait, Flame! If you really don't want to attempt a reconciliation, you'll just have to say so. But if that's your decision I think you should be very careful how you tell Mother. She's still very weak.' Samantha sighed and bit her lip. 'I feel torn three ways. I want you to be happy, and Mother—and Marlow as well.'
'And my actions are the key to it all.' Flame bent her head. The floor on which she stood was done in a marble checkerboard pattern. At that moment she felt like one of the pieces in a game. She only had to wait and someone would reach down and place her in another square. She longed to break out of the game, but how could she? Samantha had summed it up clearly enough. It wasn't just her own happiness that was at stake. It was also possibly her mother's life, if the hints she had received from all sides were to be understood correctly.
'I've already told Marlow I agree to a retrial,' she spoke with bitter irony, 'I'll --' she licked her lips, a little nervous at what lay ahead '—I'll go back, give Rafael the cold shoulder, then sit at Marlow's feet for the rest of the evening. Will that be sufficient?' She tried to smile.
'No need to go to extremes. I'll talk to Rafael if you like. We're good friends. In fact, I'd jolly well like to know what he thinks he's up to—compromising my sister in public like this!'
They exchanged smiles, Samantha with a hint of warning in her blue eyes, Flame with a resignation that momentarily masked the deep misery she felt.
Together they went back to join the party.
When Flame found Marlow he was leaving one group and had just greeted some new arrivals. He turned as she approached and his friends went on into the house to find their host and hostess. Victoria was nowhere in sight and they were suddenly alone.
'You should have warned me you were going to be here and it was going to be an exercise in public relations this evening. I thought it was just a friendly get-together,' Flame began somewhat defensively.
Marlow raised his eyebrows. 'Why, what difference would it have made?'
She shrugged and dropped her glance. 'I'd have played the role of supportive wife to better effect,' she mumbled.
'Don't worry. Not everyone knows we're supposed to be together.' Despite h
is words there was an ill-concealed hostility in the finely honed features. It was a shock to discover how massively attractive he looked in formal evening clothes, ambiguously charming in his dinner-jacket, like some jungle animal for the moment pretending to be tame. But the raw masculinity of the predator beneath was blatantly evident.
Under the pretence of reaching for one of her hands he gripped her wrist tightly between finger and thumb, holding it by his side, forcing her to skirt the edge of the pool with him to where a low wall at the far end of the terrace dropped sheer to the main road. Like a prisoner she was marched to a secluded spot further along in the shelter of some trees, and there he swung her round to face him with such force that their bodies met in an unexpected collision. She was made sickeningly aware of his physical power. For a second it made her senses swim, sexual desire flaring uncontrollably, before she recovered sufficiently to step back.
He released her wrist at once, eyes narrowing as he registered the effect of the accidental contact of their bodies, then he gave a derisive chuckle.
'Control yourself, Flame. Or is it the prospect of Rafael's lovemaking that makes you so responsive?'
She felt her hands clench and would have given anything to slap the scathing look from off his face. Instead she turned to look at the view as if that had been the purpose of their escape.
But Marlow had only just started. Moving close behind her, he placed both hands on the wall on either side of her hips and pressed his body suggestively against hers. His mouth quested over the back of her neck beneath the long fall of hair and she was trapped while he forced her to endure the tantalising pressure over her exposed skin. The heat of open sexual desire poured off him, enveloping her in helpless waves of expectation, summoning visions of pleasure she feared to admit.
Holding herself rigid beneath the increasingly intimate movements of his body against her own, she tried to bring a protest to her lips, but his hands were already sliding over her breasts in the strapless sun-dress, expertly unfastening the three buttons that held it in place, hot fingers sliding at once into the opening, searching out the honeyed softness of her breasts, his thumb caressing the give-away hardness of her nipples with movements that brought a feeling of helpless abandon to her love-starved senses.
He showed no sign of recognising any boundaries, and after an initial protest she found herself being carried helplessly along on the crest of his desire. Would it be wrong to give in? drummed the question in her head as his body told her of his need. Would it? Would it...? she thought as her own body succumbed to its natural urge. She wanted him so much, no matter what she had tried to tell herself over the last nightmare months. 'Marlow...?' she breathed, half questing for words to match her feelings, hoping in the wildness of her hunger to hear words from his lips to mirror those she dared not speak aloud.
But instead she only heard him' mutter feverishly against the side of her head with words expressing physical desire, words of a primitive, male, merely sexual hunger.
Then his tongue searched the secret caverns of her mouth, traced a sliding trail down the side of her neck, discovered the route to greater pleasure, coming down the path between her breasts, moistening her nipples, taking her breasts one by one in his mouth as he turned her into his arms, lifting her against him, her body moulded against his own, her own helpless moans mingling with the stertorous sound of his breathing.
'I can always count on this—your weakness, Flame. Your hopeless weakness.' She felt him lift his head and his voice lashed softly, asking, 'Are you like this with everyone?'
Aware that his body was still pulsing against her own with no attempt to conceal his desire, she opened her eyes, shivering when she saw the savage expression on his face, his eyes blue ice-chips, piercing hers as if to winkle the truth from her. With an obvious effort he held himself in check, control checked only with difficulty as she could see. If her own control had not been swamped so completely a feeling of anger at the overt denigration of her morals would have made her fight back, but her longing to experience the climax to the wild frenzy into which he had so rapidly whipped her weakened her anger, and instead she felt tears sting along her eyes because such ecstasy of the senses so plainly lacked the deeper feelings of love.
Miserably she tried to calm her unsatisfied longing, leaning against him for a moment as she tried to restore herself, trying not to respond to the involuntary movements that still betrayed his desire, though she longed for him to take her in his arms and love her totally.
'It's no good if we don't love each other,' she muttered in a fever of despair. 'I thought—I hoped --'
'Lack of feeling can't be helped. Don't blame yourself for this. I'll take the blame. All of it.' He spoke savagely, admitting to her surprise, 'We suffer the same weakness—we're alike in that—wanting and loving aren't the same. At least --' He broke off as if unwilling to go on. Then suddenly his anger heightened. 'This is useless! What the hell are you turning me into?' His eyes glinted and he began to fasten up her bodice with rough fingers, smoothing back her hair ungently until only the flush in her cheeks and the swollen scarlet of her lips told the tale of the last few minutes.
His stern, rather hawklike profile was chiselled against the night sky as he turned. 'I didn't drag you down here for this.' His voice grated. 'Hell, we've got a bed to go to—a marriage bed, no less. We don't have to behave like a couple of teenagers on a date.' He gave a bitter smile as if to disown the self-disgust that seemed to be shaking through him. 'I guess you kind of took me by surprise, Flame. I hope it makes you feel good to know how much power you've got over my baser animal instincts.' His lips twisted. 'You'd better tell Rafael I nearly broke his neck back there. Warn him. I'm a jealous man where my possessions are concerned. I won't be responsible if he tries that on again.'
Still no mention of the word she longed to hear on his lips. It was obviously reserved for Victoria. 'There's no need to be melodramatic!' she retorted. 'I didn't realise I was doing anything that could be misunderstood,' she told him, her voice shaky, the rhythm of her aroused blood beating in ever-receding waves that took her further from the demi-paradise she had yearned to enter.
Feeling hugely cheated, yet relieved too that the situation, becoming totally and rapidly out of hand, had not developed further, she moved out of range, becoming aware of the distant sound of partying still emanating from the terrace. In the shadows at the bottom of the garden they were out of sight of other guests. She smoothed her dress again with shaking hands.
'Hadn't we better go back?' she suggested. 'Victoria will be wondering where you are, won't she?' Unhappiness made her voice acerbic.
'She's left,' Marlow told her shortly.
'Of course.' Her former coldness returned completely. 'Obviously you wouldn't be here with me like this if she were still around.'
'Probably not.' He smiled faintly. 'But I could always plead that I was led astray. It was you who sought me Out, I seem to remember. Remorse, was it? Or did somebody say something that pricked your conscience?'
'Go to hell, Marlow!' Flame was furious with herself now that she was coming to her senses. Furious for falling for him. For allowing him to see how much she desired him.
At least she hadn't uttered the words that had begged to be spoken—the unconscious words dredged from deep within her soul, humiliating words that would have told of her love too. But maybe it wasn't love after all. Perhaps she was simply too inexperienced to tell the difference between this wild obsession for his touch and the steady, long-lasting deeper emotion of love. Violently she wished it were so. Between love and desire, surely desire would fade the sooner?
Her eyes drank in the harsh profile, the familiar slant of his pronounced cheekbones, the tempting hollows when he drew his lips back in one of those remembered smiles, and she longed to see beneath the superficial accident of skin and bone that made him so desirable to her, to see beneath it, to the truth of what he really felt and thought and wanted. He turned, abrupt, harsh, his eyes
two indigo slits, assessing her silence.
Well, she wouldn't allow it to be love, she told herself. And she wouldn't allow him to think it might be.
She lifted the cold oval of her face to his in the darkness. 'You're quite a stud, Marlow. I'd forgotten that,' she lied. 'I'm not surprised Victoria is such a perennial. Why should marriage make her let you go? She must be quite smitten. I suppose that's what you were counting on to keep her sweet when you made your move to marry me? Plus your fabulous wealth, of course, about which no one can be in doubt.'
His head jerked. 'What the hell's our marriage got to do with Victoria?'
'Nothing, apparently!' Flame turned and began to walk rapidly up the garden. He was slow to follow her. She was already walking up the steps to the terrace when she heard him behind her.
'Time to go home?' His voice cracked like a whip.
'I'll go back with Sam and Emilio.'
'You won't. You'll leave with me.'
She gave a dismissive laugh, but when she reached the terrace he was still by her side and Emilio and Samantha had already left. Rosa seemed surprised she should be asking for them. Naturally she would expect Flame to leave with her husband.
As it was, they looked like any other married couple as they said their farewells side by side and went out to the forecourt where Marlow's car was parked.
'Stay at the main house as long as you like, Flame. It would obviously be for the best,' he said as soon as he cut the engine when they reached Santa Margarita.
'What about Mother --?' she began.
'For heaven's sake. I'm not going to bed you to please your mother!'
'I mean, she'll guess we haven't patched things up --'
'So stay in the casita if it keeps everyone happy. There's a spare room. Give me a day or two to get it fixed. I'm not sure I want what you've turned into.' He leaned across to open the passenger door, noting with a hardening of his expression the way she flinched as his arm grazed her breasts, but he didn't say anything beyond a curt goodnight.
Flame swayed on the gravel for a moment, then heard him close the car door. He stayed in the car, sitting inside in the darkness. She wondered if he was waiting to watch her go into the house safely—a longing for some sign of feeling other than mere lust raising expectations—but as soon as she inserted her key in the lock, the engine purred to life again. She saw the car slide off down the lane, back the way they had just come, back, she surmised, towards the town. It wasn't difficult to guess that his destination would be the apartment of his mistress.
Simply Forever Page 8
