'Come and join me, this is an experience that shouldn't be missed!'
'I didn't bring a bathing suit, as you very well know!' she snapped, brushing caked sand from bared shoulders.
'Neither did I!' was his shocking reply. 'But you needn't let that stop you from swimming—I promise not to look!'
Doubtfully, she watched as he began swimming, powerful as a seal, towards the open sea, yearning to follow his advice yet suspicious of his motives. His head was a mere speck upon the ocean when aggravation and envy overruled her doubts and she amazed herself by flinging off her sunsuit and running with panic-stricken haste to cover her immodesty in a strip of cool blue sea.
The glorious freedom of swimming in the nude was a revelation to her. Never would she have believed that a skimpy bathing suit could, by comparison, feel like constricting armour. She swam around in circles, enjoying the sensual caress of the sea rippling, massaging, cooling her body, all the time keeping a wary eye open for the sight of a seal-lithe body veering shorewards. But after a while it became easy to imagine that she was the only creature left in an isolated world. In an excess of enjoyment, she kicked out, then rolled over on to her back to float blissfully, like a figurehead relinquished by the sea, a curved statuette carved out of ivory with, streaming from a shapely head, a mass of rippling golden hair.
It was only when she felt her hair tugged that she realised she was no longer alone. Twisting his fingers among the strands, Rolf tugged so that she was submerged, then allowed her to surface, spluttering.
'Liar! Cheat…!' she choked, her eyes afire with a fury her father would not have recognised. 'I ought to have guessed you had no intention of keeping your word!'
Tossing back his brown spray-splashed face, he shouted with laughter that terrified her, the confident, exultant laughter of a hunter bearing down on his prey. There was no way of escape, for to have fled naked on to the beach would only have served to inflame him more. She was treading water, glaring disgust at his duplicity, when his legs snaked around hers, tightly as the tentacles of an octopus. Wildly she threshed water, but her hair was caught in a determined hand that drew her inexorably forward until their bodies were close, intimate as a hand inside a glove.
He was holding her head above water, yet she felt the panicky sensation of drowning as a rushing sound deafened her ears and a red mist swam before her eyes while she endured caresses so tender, so sensual, it was impossible to guess where his touch ended and the sea's began.
She was afire, yet shivering, when he lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the water. She kept her eyes closed, but felt the warmth of sand against her back when he dropped to his knees and lowered her gently on to the beach. The pressure of his body, seal-smooth and supple, his urgent, desirous mouth, aroused in her a force of exquisite, almost unendurable feeling.
'Give in, mon ange,' he husked, his voice brine-hoarsened, 'lower the barriers of pride and admit, my divinely lovely virgin bride, that you are aching to be made a wife.'
He could not have known how near she came to succumbing to temptation. Only the reminder that he had resorted to marriage simply as a means of obtaining something he coveted held her on the brink of sanity. 'I always get what I want!' he had said. But after the honeymoon, what then? Neglect, indifference, even downright resentment?
Years of strictly enforced discipline enabled her to subdue some of the fire in her veins, helped her to control the trembling of her body until she lay like a statue beneath him, cold and still as marble.
Her voice was a mere thread of sound, but run through with such contempt that a tight band of pain formed around his mouth. 'I despise you, Rolf Ramsey, for breaking your word. Only two nights ago you promised never to force me to become your wife!'
Slowly he released her, and in that poignant moment it hardly seemed to matter that both her body and her emotions were laid bare. Eyeing her with a grimness that seemed at the same time sad, he tersely contradicted, 'I have not broken my word, and as for my promise never to force you physically to carry out the duties of a wife, I have not changed my mind—I did not promise, however, never to try to make you change yours!'
CHAPTER TEN
By the end of the week Margot had become a firm friend and seemed anxious to show her appreciation of Claire's regular attendance by increasing her supply of milk little by little each day.
On her way to minister to the goat, Claire rounded the corner of an outhouse, bucket in one hand, stool in the other, and stopped dead at the sight of a small brown furry bundle that was struggling ineffectually to rise to its feet and follow its mother, a Loghtan ewe, and its twin sister who were ambling slowly out of sight. She had named the twins Pete and Polly, and immediately she dropped to her knees beside the lamb she recognised that it was Pete who was in trouble. The attitude of the ewe who, seemingly deaf to her son's plaintive baas, continued ambling away, struck Claire as extremely callous.
Flushed with indignation, she consoled the lamb and supported his hindquarters to help him upright. For a moment he maintained a drunken sort of balance, then to her dismay he flopped weakly to the ground and resumed his pitiful bleating.
'Oh, Pete, what's wrong…?' Anxiously she stroked his downcast head and ran her fingers through fleece so brown and thick she was reminded of a cuddly bear cub. Frustrated by her inability to help the stricken animal, she looked around for Rolf, then, hearing the sound of metal upon metal, she abandoned the pail and milking stool and ran towards the smithy.
She discovered him stripped to the waist bending over an anvil set into a massive tree-trunk block in the centre of the earth floor. He turned without noticing her to grasp the handle of an ancient pair of bellows placed next to the forge and as he directed a draught of air on to the white-hot fire sparks flew out and the fireglow intensified, highlighting rivulets of sweat trickling down his brown torso.
He could be the devil stoking the fires of hell! Claire thought, then immediately felt ashamed. Since the day of their outing to the island he had treated her with extreme kindness, ministering to her comfort, anticipating her every wish, being careful not to display any word, look or action that might disrupt the tenor of their precarious, newly-established truce. She glanced around, taking in the cooling tank in its rough setting of stones, at walls covered by horseshoes, tools and miscellaneous gear, at a massive nail-studded bench with tools scattered over its surface, and wondered what it was that necessitated his spending hours inside the smithy, hammering at the anvil like a man demented, returning to the cottage only when it grew too dark to work looking spent and at times even exhausted.
'Rolf…!' She found it quite easy now to address him by name.
Though she had spoken quietly his head jerked erect as if his keen ears were attuned to react immediately to the sound of her voice.
'I'm worried about Pete,' she appealed, 'I'm certain he's not well, have you time to come and look at him?'
'Pete being one of your four-footed friends, I presume?' He spared her one of the grave smiles that caused her heart to somersault. 'How many times have I warned you, Claire, that it's a mistake to make pets of farm animals? There's always a percentage of loss among young stock, to treat them like babies is to lay up for yourself unnecessary heartbreak.' Nevertheless, he abandoned the anvil and reached for a shirt hung upon a nail, slinging it scarfwise around his neck.
'Shouldn't you put it on?' she cautioned impulsively, then conscious that she had sounded full of wifely concern she rushed on, embarrassed, 'I'm sorry, I was forgetting that you almost make a virtue of self-denial.'
Rolf drew in a knife-sharp breath and for a moment seemed on the verge of verbal retaliation, but to her relief his stoked-up heat subsided. Coolly laconic, he reproved, 'you make me sound like a masochist—perhaps you have a point, because I doubt whether my worst enemy could have designed for me a situation worse than the one I've inflicted upon myself. It must be far easier for a man to become a monk in his old age.'
There
was no trace of tension in his fingers as he ran them over the lamb they discovered lying on the exact spot where she had left him. Claire tried to help him to his feet, but Rolf frowned his objection.
'Leave him—I suspect his lameness may be due to bone weakness, therefore the slightest exertion could result in his breaking a limb. Even so, he must be separated from the rest of the flock and fed. He's plump enough, too plump in fact, yet I suspect he's undernourished. Do you know if his twin is in a similar condition?'
'Indeed she is not!' she replied indignantly, 'Polly is bursting with health!'
'Polly…?' he queried weakly.
'That's what I call his sister,' she replied defensively, determined to ignore his ridicule. 'And as for his mother, I can't even begin to understand her cruel indifference!'
'You might find it easier,' he was obviously striving for patience, 'if you stop crediting animals with human attributes. Animals can feel pain and discomfort, but not emotions of joy, sorrow and least of all of guilt!'
'I'm not convinced,' she flashed, stubborn chin outthrust. 'Only the animals themselves can tell us for sure, so until a method of communication has been devised I prefer to act upon my own belief.'
As she glared at him across the prostrate lamb Rolf shrugged impatiently, yet his voice sounded gentle as he reminded. 'So be it, but please bear in mind that nature has her own way of reducing the size of the animal kingdom. The weak seldom survive—the ewe knows and accepts this fact, which is why she has abandoned this little one to its fate and is concentrating all her attention upon the stronger twin.'
'You mean,' Claire gulped, grey eyes enormous, 'that Pete is going to die?'
'He very well might,' he replied, his steady eyes daring her to become emotional, 'but if he does, it will only be after we've done everything possible to save time. Our first priority is to put him somewhere warm, once that's been done we'll try to tempt him to eat. The poor mite is partially weaned, but we'll try him with a little warm, sweet milk laced with a half teaspoon of whisky.'
'Let's take him into the cottage,' she gasped, choked with pity.
He frowned. 'I'm not sure that's advisable— animals thrive best in their own environment. I was thinking more along the lines of building a small covered pen in a well-sheltered part of the farm.'
'Oh, but…' she swallowed back fierce, argumentative words and decided instead to plead, 'he may need attention during the night, it would be much more convenient to have him near at hand, don't you think?'
To her relief Rolf seemed inclined to be swayed. 'All right, we'll try him inside for just one night, then if there are signs of improvement we can move him outside in the morning.'
When he lifted the lamb gently into his arms she ran on ahead to feed peat on to the fire and by the time he entered the cottage she was kneeling on an outspread blanket waiting to cosset the ailing lamb. Anxiously she waited, soothing the lamb by stroking his coat and whispering soft words of comfort while Rolf prepared a stimulant of whisky, sugar and diluted milk, then poured it warm into a teacup. By this time the lamb had ceased baaing and was curled, a shivering crescent of misery, with eyes closed and one hoof tucked in a beguiling pose beneath its vulnerable chin.
Claire would have been loath to disturb him, but predictably Rolf seemed to suffer no such qualms. Kneeling on the right side of Pete, he spanned the lamb's nose with a finger and thumb, placed a finger in his mouth, then tilted the cup so that the doctored milk began trickling slowly down his throat. The lamb began to cough, discharging most of the medicine which ran in a milky stream out of the side of his mouth.
'We'll try feeding with a teaspoon,' Rolf decided. 'Fetch one from the dresser, will you?'
But this method was equally unsuccessful. The lamb appeared to be too weak even to swallow.
'Let me try!' Claire pushed him aside, dipped a finger into the milk and transferred it to Pete's mouth. For a second there was no response, but just as she was about to give up she felt the beginnings of a tentative suck. With a cry of delight she again dipped her finger into the milk and this time was rewarded by a weak but definite suck. 'It's working !' she cried, turning shining eyes upon Rolf. 'Does that mean he's going to get better?'
He seemed undecided how to reply and to her ears sounded over-cautious when he hedged, 'To keep up that sort of feeding would take up twenty-four hours of each day and even if you should do so there is no guarantee that he'll recover, though I'm certain you're determined to tire yourself out in the attempt. Try to be sensible, Claire, let me experiment with the orthodox method before you commit yourself to unnecessary effort.'
'No!' her voice rang true as steel. 'Your way upsets him, and anyway I don't think the effort is unnecessary—look how strongly he's sucking! I'm convinced that by this time tomorrow we'll see a noticeable improvement—and if nursing can help we certainly will!'
It was a slow and arduous task that she had set herself. After an hour her back began to ache as she maintained her crouched position over the lamb and the finger she was using as a dipper began to feel numb. Nevertheless, without thought for her own discomfort she continued feeding, determined not to become disheartened even though the level of milk in the cup showed little evidence of sinking.
Rolf hovered in the background but made no attempt to interfere, seemingly sensitive to her desire to cope alone, to prove herself capable of carrying out to its conclusion the job she had undertaken. 'It's not simply a case of wanting to prove myself right,' she assured herself as solemn-faced she bent over her patient, 'but it would be nice to be able to convince Rolf that I'm not as useless as he must imagine me to be. Everyone has some special talent—my sourdough is unexceptional; more often than not I burn the meat, and I'm so clumsy with the cooking pots that he's practically taken over the whole of the cooking himself, but I'm convinced that I can make Pete well again, and if I manage it there'll be the extra bonus of having earned a little of his respect'. Yet it went without saying that her care of the lamb would have been no less tender, no less conscientious even without an extra incentive.
When Rolf lit the lamp she looked up, bemused, her cheeks fire-flushed, finding it incredible that so many hours should have passed unnoticed when each second had marked only the weak beating of Pete's heart and the almost imperceptible panting of his breath.
Rolf's shadow loomed. 'Leave him now.' He bent to help her to her feet. 'He needs sleep—the greatest healer of all.'
Accepting the truth of his argument, Claire obeyed without question and was glad of his help to stand erect and stretch her aching limbs. He was still lightly supporting her when she looked up into his eyes and smiled.
'Dooiney Mooar.' Lapsing without thought into her native tongue, she managed, quite unintentionally, to disconcert him. He looked dazzled, unable to tear his eyes away from rose-flushed cheeks, eyes grey and glowing as mist wreathing dawning sunrise, and a mouth, soft, tremulous, uncertain, directing for the very first time a smile especially for his benefit. A muscle leapt to life in his jaw; his voice, though mild, sounded leashed when steadily he tilted:
'Are you swearing at me?'
Her involuntary gurgle of laughter did not disturb the lamb but had a peculiar effect upon Rolf, who could not have been more transfixed if the legendary 'lil folk' themselves—local fairies dressed in green and red who danced in the valleys and glens and swam in the waterfalls—had trooped into the cottage. They too, it was said, could wither with a glance anyone who displeased them but, conversely, those upon whom they smiled became their slaves for life.
Unaware that the impact of her smile had set his senses reeling, she explained a trifle shyly, 'Dooiney Mooar is Manx for "big man". The words sprang to mind when I saw your shadow looming upon the wall,' she faltered lamely.
With a lightness of touch that betrayed his anxiety that the newly-spun thread of intimacy should not be broken, Rolf guided her towards the table and encouraged cautiously, 'There must be many gaps in my knowledge of the island and its people, gaps
that you seem more than qualified to fill. The loghtan sheep, for instance, can you tell me anything about the breed?'
The faint implication that whatever she could remember might help to influence Pete's recovery was enough to set her mind searching. She washed her hands, then sat down, brow wrinkled, and waited until he had dished out their meal.
'All I know is that the loghtan is an ancient breed that has dwindled over the years and now exists only in very small numbers in the island. They are noted for their extreme agility and also, of course, for the distinctive warm brown colour of their fleece which has been compared with the colour of unbleached bitter almonds and Spanish snuff. Loghtan is a Manx word derived from lugh (mouse) and dhoan (brown) and is generally used to describe anything that's tawny brown. Even historians are undecided about the origins and history of the breed, which is supposed to be very similar to sheep native to Iceland, the Faroes, the Shetlands and the Outer Hebrides. Some reckon they might have been brought to the island by Vikings as early as the ninth century and others argue that they may be descended from the flocks of the native Celts. So now you can understand our determination not to allow the breed to die out.'
A shadow darkened Rolf's face as he slewed a look towards the sleeping lamb. 'So that's the explanation,' he expelled a slow breath. 'I should have guessed!'
'Guessed what?' Her voice sharpened. 'Pete's ailment, d'you mean? Do you think you know what's wrong with him?'
'You've given me a clue,' he admitted, causing her heart to sink as she read an emotion akin to pity in his expression. 'He shows all the symptoms of rickets, a disease caused through feeding off land that has a deficiency of particular elements necessary to to produce a perfect offspring. Food grown on light, moor tillage land dressed with lime is said to aggravate the condition—that, together with constant in-and-in breeding.'
Marriage by Capture Page 10
