Yesterday's Scars

by Carole Mortimer

  Celia gave her a cool look. ‘You came into it, you and that boy-friend of yours. Now go to sleep, Hazel, you bore me more than being alone does.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes, oh. You couldn’t just quietly spend a week here and then just as quietly leave. Oh no, you had to have the whole house in an uproar. Well just because I’m here with you now it doesn’t mean I dislike you any less, I’m just thinking of the fact that I have to live here with Rafe after you’ve left. And I don’t intend falling out with him over a little slut like you.’

  ‘How dare you!’ Hazel choked.

  ‘Oh, I dare,’ Celia gave a cruel smile. ‘I know all about you, Hazel, all about you and Rafe three years ago.’

  ‘But you— What do you mean?’ Hazel demanded weakly, feeling as if her world were crumbling beneath her.

  ‘I know about the two of you down in the cabin three years ago, on the night of your birthday. I know all about that, Hazel.’

  Hazel was deathly pale. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because Rafe told me,’ Celia announced calmly. ‘He told me how you had wantonly offered yourself to him and how he had lost control.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘I DON’T believe you!’

  Celia smiled again. ‘But it’s the truth, Hazel. I have to admit to feeling a certain amount of shock at the time, but after all, Rafe’s only a man.’

  Only a man, yes, but a man who had the power of life or death where she was concerned. And what Celia was telling her now was slowly killing her. Hazel swallowed hard. ‘What did he tell you?’

  Celia shrugged. ‘He didn’t need to tell me that much, just that it happened. I’d seen it coming for weeks, seen the way you constantly flaunted yourself in front of him, living in the same house as him made that all too easy for you. By the night of your party he didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘I didn’t manage it all on my own, you know,’ Hazel said resentfully. ‘Rafe was there too.’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Hazel,’ Celia snapped. ‘But a man doesn’t usually make that sort of move without a certain amount of encouragement. And you were certainly giving him that. Thank God you weren’t pregnant!’

  It wasn’t what Hazel had been wishing earlier. ‘Yes,’ she agreed quietly.

  ‘You would have had Rafe well and truly trapped then. As it is he’s been filled with feelings of guilt for the last three years. He was your guardian and he felt he’d let you down in the worst possible way. Why do you think he had that accident?—because he just wasn’t thinking, that’s why!’

  ‘But James said there was a leak in the petrol tank.’

  ‘So there was. But you know how careful Rafe always was with regard to things like that, ordinarily he would have spotted the fault. It was pure carelessness on his part—and he’s landed up scarred for life.’

  Hazel licked her dry lips. ‘You should have let me know about it, Celia. I had a right to know if Rafe was ill.’

  Celia’s eye gleamed with fierce dislike in the half-light of the room. ‘As far as I was concerned you had no rights at all,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘You caused his accident and you had no place at his side.’

  Hazel shook her head. ‘I think you’re wrong to blame me. I don’t think what happened between us bothered Rafe to that extent. I don’t think he even thought about me once I left here—he never replied to my letters.’

  ‘What could he say?’ Celia scorned. ‘That he was sorry? He’d already said that. He wanted you to make a new life for yourself in America, to perhaps find yourself a husband out there. But your letters didn’t show any such inclination, which made Rafe feel even guiltier. Now you know why you had to come back here, why I cabled you. You have a week to prove to Rafe that you don’t need him, and so far you aren’t doing too well,’ she added contemptuously.

  ‘He already knows I don’t need him.’

  ‘Don’t talk rubbish!’ Celia snapped. ‘This incident today has proved that. But until he rids himself of this feeling of responsibility towards you Rafe doesn’t feel able to make his own life.’

  Anger burnt within Hazel at Celia knowing so much of her affairs. ‘I’m not stopping him doing anything he wants to do.’

  ‘Oh yes, you are. Until he’s sure about your future he doesn’t feel he can make his own plans.’

  ‘What do you suggest I do?’ Hazel snapped. ‘Marry the first man who comes along?’

  ‘Preferably,’ Celia agreed dryly.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said curtly.

  The bedroom door swung open with a bang. ‘What’s going on in here?’ Rafe demanded impatiently. ‘All I can hear is the murmur of your voices. Doesn’t anyone sleep in this house any more?’

  ‘When we’re allowed to,’ his sister replied tartly.

  Hazel’s eyes were riveted on Rafe’s lean body dressed only in navy blue pyjamas, the deep scars on his chest partly visible. And Celia had said she was to blame for his injuries!

  ‘What are you talking about?’ He ran a tired hand over his eyes.

  Celia shrugged. ‘This and that, just girl talk, really.’ She yawned tiredly.

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘After four.’ He came over to the bed. ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked Hazel.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she mumbled, still too raw from Celia’s accusations.

  He looked over at his sister. ‘Do you want to get some sleep? I’m awake now, so I might as well sit with Hazel.’

  ‘Like that?’ Celia indicated his clothing.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You can’t stay in here like that,’ Celia protested. ‘Sara is already scandalised over something she won’t talk about, something you’ve already done today to shock her.’

  ‘Sara is always scandalised about something,’ Rafe dismissed. ‘You go to bed, I can take over here.’

  ‘You can both go to bed,’ Hazel said ungraciously. ‘I don’t need anyone with me, there’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘I’ll stay here until morning, Celia.’ Rafe ignored Hazel’s outburst and settled himself in the bedside chair. ‘It’s only a couple of hours anyway.’

  ‘I don’t really think—’

  ‘Go to bed, Celia!’ he ordered angrily. ‘Hazel will probably be asleep in a minute if we all stop talking and let her rest.’

  ‘And what about your rest?’ Celia persisted. ‘You have to be at work in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ his sister gave in crossly. ‘You’re old enough to make your own decisions—and your own mistakes.’

  ‘I usually do,’ he agreed dryly.

  ‘Goodnight, Hazel.’ Celia gave her a hard look. ‘I enjoyed our little chat.’

  Hazel turned her head away, knowing Celia’s words were a warning. But she couldn’t show Rafe she didn’t need him, because she did. The last three years she had merely been existing, passing the barrier between girl and womanhood that Rafe still considered she had to go through. If only he knew!

  But he knew of her desire for him, somewhere in the fog of those sedatives she remembered making that obvious. And that had a connection with Sara being scandalised. Oh God, yes, she had told Sara that Rafe had been helping her to undress.

  ‘Did you say something to Sara?’ Rafe asked once Celia had left. ‘About us, I mean. I know you’ve often confided in her in the past, but I would have thought you could have kept this to yourself.’

  ‘Like you did?’ she threw back at him.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  She flicked off the side-light. ‘I’m tired, Rafe, I’d like to sleep.’ She turned her face towards the wall, staring at it sightlessly, sleep the last thing on her mind.

  It appeared to be the last thing on Rafe’s mind too as he wrenched her round to face him, his features clearly visible to her in the gloom as she became accustomed to the darkness. ‘Not until you tell me what you told Sar
a to put her in this mood of disapproval.’

  ‘I didn’t tell her anything. The—I—When the bedclothes fell back she saw—she saw—’

  ‘She saw you half naked and jumped to the conclusion that I’d been trying to seduce you,’ he finished angrily.

  She bit her lip, unable to meet his eyes. ‘Not—not exactly.’

  He pinned her arms to the bed, holding her immovable. ‘What do you mean, not exactly?’

  ‘I—er—I—’

  ‘Yes, you what?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I told her you’d been helping me undress,’ she admitted in a rush.

  ‘You did what?’ he exploded.

  ‘I couldn’t help it, Rafe,’ she said pleadingly. ‘Those tablets made me feel almost drunk. I didn’t know what I was saying.’

  ‘I realise that, from what you were saying to me before she came in.’

  His warm breath was caressing her cheek and she could feel herself falling under his spell once again. ‘But I meant that, Rafe,’ she told him softly. ‘I meant every word.’

  ‘Say it again, say it all again,’ he ordered throatily.

  ‘That I meant it all?’ she asked, puzzled.

  ‘No,’ he said impatiently. ‘Repeat the things that you said to me earlier.’ He moved closer to her, stretching the lean length of his body beside her on the bed. ‘Tell me again that you want me,’ his lips moved feverishly over her throat. ‘Tell me, Hazel!’

  ‘Oh, Rafe, no!’ She remembered all too clearly how Celia had said she was using his desire for her to blind him to what he really wanted, how his guilt was eating him up inside. ‘I shouldn’t—we shouldn’t.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t we?’ he groaned, his fingers rapidly undoing the button-front to her nightdress. ‘I gave you your chance, Hazel. I gave you three years and now your time’s run out. You said earlier that you still want me—well, I want you too, and I’m not going to deny myself any longer. You’re a big girl now, quite old enough to choose who you want to share your bed. And I want to share it.’

  Hazel felt as if she were drowning, as Rafe’s tongue licked flames along the sensitive cord in her throat, his hands freely caressed her breasts, the nipples taut and aroused. ‘No, Rafe,’ she gasped. ‘You can’t do this, to me or yourself.’

  ‘I’m not doing anything we don’t both want,’ he said desperately. ‘Help me undress, Hazel, and then I can get closer to you.’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘You invited me here, Hazel,’ he reminded her. ‘I’ve been lying awake the last few hours telling myself all the reasons I shouldn’t be here, all the reasons why I should say no to your offer. None of them worked.’ He began to undo the buttons to his pyjama jacket, ripping at the material in his haste. ‘Nothing works when I think of making love to you, it’s all that seems important.’

  ‘But, Rafe, you said—’

  ‘To hell with what I said, I was just trying to be noble. But you’re so beautiful, darling.’ He threw the jacket on the floor. ‘When I helped you undress earlier I could hardly keep my hands off you.’

  Anything that Celia had said to her was rapidly becoming unimportant. They wanted each other, surely there was nothing more important than that.

  Her hands reached out to touch his bare skin, feeling the ridging made by the numerous scars on his body. ‘Oh, you poor darling,’ she choked. ‘I can’t bear to think of your magnificent body ripped to pieces like that!’

  She had said the wrong thing again, she could tell that by the way he froze in her arms, his movements now ones of withdrawal. ‘No, you can’t, can you,’ he said bitterly. ‘I keep forgetting that. That’s the reason for the darkness again, isn’t it? Well, prepare yourself for a shock, Hazel, because I’m going to switch on the light.’

  She hastily pulled the sheet over her before the room was illuminated, wincing as she took in the livid scars that ran from cheek to navel on Rafe’s body. ‘Oh God, Rafe!’ she exclaimed. ‘How they must have hurt!’

  ‘Then, and now. They hurt me every day of my life. But there’s more than this,’ he told her scathingly, throwing aside the only garment he wore to reveal his scarred thigh, the white discolouration of skin running down to his knee. ‘Another few inches and I might not even have been able to suffer the agonies of wanting you.’

  ‘Don’t, Rafe,’ she begged. ‘Please don’t!’

  ‘Want you, or show you what’s left of me?’ He gave a harsh laugh and picked up his clothes. ‘The first I can do little about, the second can be solved quite easily. Goodnight, Hazel.’

  ‘Rafe,’ she halted him at the door. ‘Rafe, if I hadn’t come back would you have married Janine Clarke?’ It was a question she must have an answer to.

  ‘What makes you think I still won’t?’

  ‘Rafe!’

  ‘Janine is a separate part of my life, so stay out of it.’

  ‘You wanted to make love to me just now, are you telling me that if you had you could still marry her?’

  He gave her a long hard look before slowly nodding. ‘I could.’

  Hazel swallowed hard. ‘You’re saying that even though we have been lovers in the past, could have become so just now, that you would never have married me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even if we were lovers now?’ she asked with desperation.

  ‘No,’ he said grimly.

  Tears filled her eyes and pain ripped into her like a knife. ‘Oh, Rafe!’ she said chokingly, unable to believe what he was saying to her.

  ‘We want each other, Hazel, but that’s as far as it goes. Besides, I can’t change these scars, and I have no wish to make love in the dark for the rest of my life. You may recoil in revulsion from them, but Janine isn’t bothered by them at all.’

  Her breathing felt restricted at the implication of his words. ‘She’s seen them?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘All of them?’

  He gave a cruel smile. ‘All of them.’

  Hazel shuddered at the thought of Rafe making love to the other woman, of him making love to any woman but her. But she meant nothing to him, nothing! He could take her a hundred, a thousand times, and still not feel anything but desire for her. But he would marry Janine Clarke even though they had shared the same intimacies. There could be no worse insult he could give her.

  ‘I hate you, Rafe!’ She sat up in the bed in her agitation. ‘I hate you, and I’ll make you pay for this if it’s the last thing I do!’

  He laughed at her anger. ‘I’ll enjoy watching you try.’

  ‘I’ll do it, Rafe. Somehow I’ll do it,’ she said fiercely. ‘You’ll pay for this any way I can make you.’

  He opened the door. ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

  ‘You’ll see, Rafe. You’ll see!’

  He was still laughing as he closed the door. Hazel crumpled back against the pillows, her body still on fire for him. She couldn’t stand any more of these letdowns. Rafe raised her to the heights but denied her the ultimate release. The only thing she had to console her was that he must be just as frustrated. But was he? He could always run to Janine Clarke.

  In fact she felt sure that was where he had been when she saw him coming in the front door at eight o’clock as she walked down the stairs. He was clothed in denims and a sweat-shirt and was obviously in need of a shave.

  His eyes narrowed as he saw her. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I would have thought it was obvious, I’m walking down the stairs.’

  ‘Don’t get cheeky with me, little girl,’ he snapped, his eyes running insolently over her slim body dressed in white shorts and a red figure-hugging suntop. ‘You know very well what I meant. And do you have to walk around half naked?’

  ‘I’ll walk around completely naked if I want to,’ she retorted.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he taunted. ‘This is the start of the revenge. Well, I should warn you, I don’t go mad with desire just looking at you. I’ve known plenty of women and it takes more than
a look to make me want them. I trust you know what I mean.’

  She blushed. ‘I’m not acting the whore for you!’

  ‘You could have fooled me. I hope you don’t intend letting anyone else see you dressed like that,’ he added grimly.

  Hazel smoothed her hands down her hips. ‘I always used to dress like this. You never used to object.’

  ‘Well, I’m objecting now. You’ve filled out in certain places since you last wore those clothes. You look indecent.’

  Hazel gave a slow smile. ‘Strange, I feel very comfortable.’

  ‘You can go straight back up to your room and get out of them,’ he ordered.

  She gasped, ‘I’m not changing!’

  ‘No one is asking you to change. You can go back to your room and get into bed.’

  ‘Rafe!’ her eyes mocked him. ‘Not this time of morning, surely?’

  His teeth snapped together angrily. ‘I wasn’t propositioning you, I was telling you to get back to bed. You aren’t supposed to get up until tomorrow.’

  ‘It was silly of me to think you were going to take me to bed now. I shouldn’t think you have the strength left after the night you’ve just had.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning Mrs Clarke has already had the best of you today. I would at least want to be the first woman of the day.’ She brushed past him on her way to the dining-room, the thought of breakfast reminding her of how hungry she was.

  Rafe swung her roughly round to face him. ‘Get to bed, Hazel! Before I lose my temper with you again.’

  She wrenched away from him. ‘Don’t order me about, Rafe! I’ve had enough of lying in bed, I want my breakfast and then I’m going down to the beach.’

  ‘You aren’t doing anything of the sort. The doctor said you were to stay in bed and that’s where you’re staying.’

  She faced him defiantly. ‘He didn’t say any such thing. He said I was to rest and be kept under observation. I can rest down on the beach, and if you’re that worried about me you can come and keep an eye on me yourself.’

  ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re up to it?’ she taunted. ‘You’ve had a very strenuous night.’