The Eden Inheritance

by Janet Tanner

  She straightened, tidying her hair with her hands and checking again that her dress was buttoned properly. Then she went along the passage to her own room and opened the door.

  ‘Well,’ said a voice from within. ‘You have decided to come back then.’

  She jumped as if she had been shot. Charles was standing in the doorway to his dressing room. He was wearing the lightweight tweed suit he used for work but had removed the jacket. His hair was untidy as if he had been running his fingers through it and an expression of barely controlled fury contorted his features.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. She had begun to tremble again.

  ‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Katrine. You’ve been with him, haven’t you – Paul Curtis – in his room. Has he been making love to you?’

  The proximity of the truth made her cheeks flame.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘No – he hasn’t!’

  ‘Liar!’ His voice was like a whiplash. ‘ It’s written all oyer you. How long have you been cuckolding me with him, Katrine? How long, eh?’

  ‘I haven’t, I tell you!’

  ‘And I don’t believe you. Perhaps he was your lover in Switzerland, before we met. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why he’s here. You couldn’t stay away from one another.’

  ‘No!’ But in the midst of her dismay and fear of this new, violent Charles, was a nugget of relief. Better that he should think that of her than suspect the truth.

  ‘No wonder you won’t let me touch you!’ he said bitterly. ‘As far as I’m concerned you act like a bloody vestal virgin and all the time your lover is just along the passage. What a fool I’ve been! Going off to the distillery, leaving you alone with him … that was just what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

  ‘For the last time, Charles, he is not my lover!’

  ‘Huh!’ he snorted furiously.

  ‘Well if you won’t believe me, you won’t,’ she said, trying to gain some control over the situation. ‘ I suppose you’ll throw him out now.’

  ‘And have the rest of the family know what a fool he has made of me? Not likely! No, he can stay. But a few things are going to be different round here.’

  ‘Oh really?’ She felt a flash of scorn. How like Charles to be more concerned about his father’s opinion than about making sure she never had another opportunity to – as he thought – make love with Paul. Any other man, thinking his wife was conducting an affair, would give her lover a bloody nose and the hell with who knew about it. Not Charles. Appearances were all-important to him, saving face was his prime consideration. Any other man would have kicked Paul out of the house and thrown his belongings after him. But Charles was not any other man. In fact, Kathryn was beginning to wonder if he was a real man at all.

  ‘So – what is going to change?’ she asked. ‘Do tell me.’

  He heard the derision in her voice and understood – stupidity was not one of his failings. His brows lowered, his mouth set in a hard line.

  ‘All right, Katrine, I will tell you. Firstly, ma chérie, you are going to begin being a wife to me again – a proper wife, if you understand my meaning.’

  Her palms were damp; she made fists of her hands so that the nails pressed into them.

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘You won’t refuse, Katrine. I shall not allow you to.’

  ‘You’ll look a pretty fool if I start screaming.’

  ‘On the contrary, you are the one who will look a fool. Whoever heard of a wife refusing to allow her husband his marital rights? And besides, you would only frighten Guy. You wouldn’t want to do that, I’m sure.’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare force me!’ she said with more bravado than she was feeling; she did not care for the look on Charles’ face.

  ‘Why not, Katrine?’ He smiled, but it was not a nice smile, simply a humourless movement of his mouth which did not reach his cheeks, let alone his eyes. ‘I have been very patient for a long time – too long. I don’t feel like being patient any longer. In fact I think it is time we had a little practice.’

  ‘Now! Surely you can’t mean now?’ Involuntarily she took a step away from him.

  He ripped off his shirt. She saw that his chest was heaving.

  ‘Why not? There’s no time like the present. Oh, I don’t suppose you feel like it, having so recently been with your lover, but I do feel like it. Knowing you were with him woke me up, if you like. Yes, it woke me up.’

  He advanced towards her, grabbing her by the shoulders and tearing open the buttons of her dress.

  ‘Don’t!’ She tried to pull it together, sickened by the thought of Charles’ hands touching her where such a short time ago Paul had caressed her with such tenderness, and at the same time afraid that the evidence would somehow be there for him to see.

  ‘Take it off!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘If you won’t then I shall do it for you.’ He caught at her dress, ripping it as he yanked it down over her shoulders, then threw her bodily on to the bed.

  ‘Charles, please …!’ She was struggling to sit but he held her down with a strength she had not known he possessed, one hand on her throat whilst with the other he tore at her clothes and his own.

  ‘You’re my wife, Katrine!’ he rasped. ‘Just remember that!’

  She was sobbing now but no sound came, and though she wanted to scream she dared not. She was remembering what he had said about frightening Guy and afraid too that if she cried out Paul might hear and come to investigate. If he found Charles forcing himself on her it could mean disaster for all of them. But she fought him all the way all the same, clawing at his back, kicking out and twisting her head violently from side to side on the pillow.

  Useless. He was too strong for her. He caught her flailing arms, twisting them above her head and parting her legs with his knee. Anger had given him a more satisfactory erection than tenderness had ever done and he drove into her protesting body with a savagery that made her cry out in spite of her determination to keep silent. But his mourn stifled the cry; he bit at her lips, pumping for what seemed to Kathryn to be hours but was in reality only a few brief minutes.

  When it was over he rolled off her, panting.

  She lay too shocked even to weep, scarcely able to believe that he could have done this to her. But the evidence was unmistakable enough – the burning in her throat where he had restrained her, the throbbing pain in the deepest part of her where his violence had bruised her, and the sticky wetness on her thighs.

  He sat up now, this Charles she did not know any more, glancing at her with an expression midway between triumph and hatred.

  ‘Not bad for a practice run,’ he said unpleasantly, fastening his trousers.

  Kathryn sat up too, trying to cover herself with the tattered remnants of her clothes.

  ‘I hope you’re satisfied.’ Her voice was bitter.

  ‘For the time being. But you may as well realise that that is the way it’s going to be from now on if you continue to refuse me my rights.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said determinedly. ‘That is the first and last time you will ever use me like that. You just killed any love I had left for you, Charles. I have been faithful to you, whether you choose to believe it or not. The fact that I am your wife still meant something to me. Not any more.’

  He stared at her, shocked by her tone and the depth of feeling it conveyed, experiencing for the first time a shard of something close to fear.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘If ever … ever … you lay a finger on me again I’ll leave you and take Guy with me. And I won’t go quietly, either. I’ll tell your father exactly what sort of a man you are and why I can no longer live with you. I mean it, Charles – one finger! Believe me, I mean it!’

  And quite suddenly he was in no doubt. She did indeed mean it. The balance of power had shifted. Charles felt the shard of fear pierce him again, so sharp he could scarcely breathe, and a wash of scalding shame bathed his whole body.

&nb
sp; In that moment he became a small boy again, hauled up before his father for some misdemeanour, seeing the accusation in the wise old eyes, and worse, the disappointment. He had always disappointed his father, he knew, and the knowledge caused him deep-rooted insecurity. But if Guillaume should find out about this it would be more than disappointment he felt, it would be disgust Charles’ failings as a man and a husband would be exposed totally to anyone to whom Kathryn cared to tell her story. They would all despise him. But it was the fact that Guillaume would despise him that mattered most of all.

  ‘For God’s sake get dressed, woman,’ he said angrily.

  But as he turned on his heel and left her there it felt to him that he was the one who was naked.

  ‘What’s wrong, Kathryn?’ Paul asked softly.

  It was the next evening and she had taken her coffee outside, feeling that she could not bear the claustrophobic conversation of the family a moment longer. She was sitting on the wrought-iron bench at the edge of the lawn, looking out over the moonlit parkland, and she had not heard him come up behind her until he spoke.

  She looked up. In the moonlight his face was very strong, all planes and angles. Her heart reached out to him.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘You’re very quiet. In fact you’ve hardly said a word all day and it was the same last evening. It’s not because of what happened between us, is it?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. It was just that I wanted you so much.’

  ‘I know. And I wanted you too. I do want you, more than anything …’

  And that was the essence of it. Soaking herself in her bath, trying to wash the last traces of Charles from her body after his brutal attack on her, she had found herself questioning the loyalty that had made her refuse to consummate her love for Paul. Perhaps she had been something less than a good wife to Charles, but she had tried, God alone knew, and at least she had been faithful to him. But tor what? So that he could use and abuse her like a common whore, demanding his rights and forcing himself on her in a way that made a total mockery of loving and caring?

  The resentment had grown, eating like corrosive acid into her intention not to betray him. In her own way she had fought to cling, to what she had believed to be right, even when love and respect had gone. Now she wondered bitterly what that sacrifice had been worth.

  She had told him he had destroyed the last of her feelings for him but it was more than that. He had also destroyed her loyalty. She owed him nothing now, for he had demanded and taken what she had been unable to give.

  He thinks Paul is my lover – then why shouldn’t he be? Kathryn had thought angrily, and the very passage of the words through her mind had both excited and comforted her.

  Why shouldn’t she make love with Paul? It would be the one sure way to erase the humiliation of Charles’ attack from her mind and her body, superimposing passion on degradation. She loved Paul and wanted him. In three days he would be leaving, going into God alone knew what danger, from which he might never return. And the thought of never having known him physically was more than she could bear.

  But in spite of her change of heart the self-imposed constraints were still strong. How could she simply go to him and say: ‘ Paul, I’ve changed my min’’? It wasn’t so easy. Kathryn stood on the edge of a precipice and knew it. One step over che edge and there could be no going back – ever.

  On one point only had she totally made up her mind. Paul must not know what Charles had done to her. There were some things which must be between a husband and wife and no one else, not even a man for whom she felt as deeply as she felt for Paul, and this, too, made her hesitate. Wouldn’t Charles’ assault be there, written all over her body? When she lay in Paul’s arms, how could she hide it from him?

  Now, however, sitting beside him in the moonlight, every such consideration seemed suddenly quite unimportant. She wanted him. He wanted her. And in two days’ time he would be leaving, perhaps forever. She laid her fingers on his thigh, feeling the hard muscle beneath the rough cotton.

  ‘I’m very afraid for you, Paul,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be. I’m only doing what I came here to do.’

  ‘I know. They should be thanking you for it. One day perhaps they will. In fact I’m sure they will. But I was thinking, Paul, if you don’t come back …’

  ‘Don’t say that, I will.’

  ‘But if you didn’t … you and I … we’d never …’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ he said with grim humour. ‘You’re a deep thinker, I see, Kathryn.’

  ‘Don’t joke!’ she said sharply. ‘What I’m trying to say is …’

  Footsteps on the gravel; Christian coming towards them.

  ‘Wait for me tonight,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll come to your room.’

  She saw his look of surprise. But there was no time to say anything else before Christian joined them.

  As on the previous night Kathryn was half afraid that there might be an argument with Charles trying to insist on his conjugal rights, but once again it had not happened. Charles was being almost conciliatory, a little like a child who has misbehaved and wishes to curry favour, but she had continued to treat him with all the coldness she felt for him and very soon he had been snoring with the intensity of a man who has consumed too much wine and brandy. He was, she thought, unlikely to stir for hours.

  She opened the door softly and looked back. He had not moved. She slipped out into the passage. The night was soft and warm, the scents of evening carrying in through the open windows and mingling with the faint garlicky smell left over from dinner. She went along the passage, her bare feet making no sound, and tried the door of Paul’s room. It was unlocked. She pushed it open and went outside.

  ‘So – you came.’

  He was standing by the window, still fully dressed though he had removed his jacket.

  ‘Yes,’ she said in a whisper.

  He crossed the room, taking her in his arms, kissing her hair, her face, her lips. She buried her face in his chest, feeling the hair at the open neck of his shirt tickle her face, and smelling the maleness of him mingled with the clean scent of soap.

  ‘What made you change your mind?’ he asked softly.

  She suppressed the urge to tell him.

  ‘Does it matter? I’m here.’

  ‘And this time you won’t tell me no?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, you won’t tell me no?’

  ‘Yes – no – I want you to make love to me, Paul.’

  ‘Come to bed then.’

  He unfastened the tie of her kimono and slid it from her shoulders. In the moonlight her body gleamed white and smooth. He held her away, looking at her, drinking her in.

  ‘You are beautiful, Kathryn.’

  He ran his hands slowly over her breasts, her hips, the curve of her thighs. She stood quivering slightly, her hands on his shoulders, loving the taut feel of his muscles beneath the smooth cotton. She did not speak. She did not want to break the spell of the moment. After a while she slipped her hands down to the buttons of his shirt, unfastening them and running her fingers oyer his bare chest, then pressed herself lightly to him, glorying in the touch of flesh on flesh, warm and slightly sticky. Unhurriedly, she found the fastening of his trousers and undid that too. As they pressed together, completely nude, and she felt the hardness of his body against her, the quiver deep within her began to become urgent desire, but still they held back. So long had they waited for this that to rush it now would be to spoil the perfection. There could only be one first time for them, perhaps only one time ever. Let it last until forever, it would still be over too soon.

  Only when the anticipation became too much to bear did they move. He lifted her gently with one arm behind her knees and carried her to the bed, laying her down and covering her with kisses. She arched her neck luxuriously against the pillow, feeling every bit of her body come alive beneath his lips, as if silken cords
joined each secret place he touched to the very core of her. Her breasts tingled now with sensitised awareness, her thighs were peppered with a million nerve endings, all fine-tuned to a pitch of sensual delight. Only when his mouth moved to the soft tuft between her legs did she moan softly, moving with the rhythm of his lips.

  She wanted him now so desperately that the wanting was a fever. She reached out for him, pulling, him down on top of her, winding her arms around his neck, loving the feel of this body, hot and hard, where his lips had been. He thrust his tongue into her mouth as he thrust his body into hers and the delight was so complete that for a moment it seemed to her as though the world stood still. Then they were moving in unison, slowly at first like the waves lapping the beach, then more urgently. Those waves took her over now; she rode them, floating, swirling, higher and higher until she thought she would drown in the glory of it. No more, no more! she wanted to cry. It is too beautiful to bear; I’ll die with the beauty of it! But at the same time she wanted it to go on forever, bearing her up, sweeping her away, making her forget everything but two bodies, close as human bodies can ever be, two hearts beating as one, two souls reaching out to touch one another and cling because they knew, without question, that they were meant for one another.

  At the last she cried out, a sob deep in her throat, a sob for the unbearable bittersweet ecstasy of it, and also a sob because it was slipping away from her, going, perhaps, for ever.

  They lay then in one another’s arms, their moist bodies clinging, their heads side by side on the pillow. For a long while they did not speak. Then at last he said: ‘Are you glad you came to see me, then?’

  She laughed softly.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re glad. I certainly am.’

  ‘Mm.’ She was beginning to be drowsy now. She wanted to throw caution to the winds and fall asleep here beside him but she knew she must not. ‘I want to stay with you,’ she whispered, ‘but I can’t. I have to go.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you do. But I will tell you something, Kathryn de Savigny. When this is all over I shall come back for you. I shall come back for you and nothing and nobody will make me leave you ever again.’