A Durable Fire

by Robyn Donald

  Kyle lifted her brows. ‘Give her time to put her face on,’ he said blandly. ‘Make it half an hour.’

  ‘Make it ten minutes,’ Arminel countered, smiling very sweetly at Rhys. ‘I’ll be ready.’

  She was, too, but only just, for she had no idea what sort of clothes she would be expected to wear to dinner in this sort of household. Not full evening gear, surely, but most certainly not slacks and a blouse.

  In the end she compromised by donning a shirt-dress in flame-coloured jacquard with a small standing collar which emphasised the pale gold sweep of her throat. Long, full sleeves were caught into a cuff at the wrist. A wide gold belt revealed her narrow waist and with it she wore two thick slave bracelets of gilded wood, matching them to gold earrings, long and flamboyant. The’ temptation to colour her mouth flame was bypassed. She did not want to resemble a scarlet woman! So she made up carefully, touching her lips with gloss over a subdued lipstick, using a faint hint of gold eyeshadow while thanking the good fairy who had handed her out lashes that were thick and black and long. They didn’t curl like Rhys’s or his brother’s, both of whom had an even more beneficent good fairy, but she didn’t have to wear mascara.

  Perfume? Her one extravagance. Most of her clothes were of her own making, including the dress she wore now; one thing her foster-mother had insisted on was that all the girls who passed through her care should learn how to sew. Arminel was not exactly enamoured of the occupation, but she was good at it and it enabled her to dress smartly for much less cost than her clothes appeared to be worth. This one tonight was a classic pattern, undating, yet it did things for her hair and skin and body.

  A finger touched the small bottle of her favourite perfume and she smiled dreamily as the exquisite top note of ‘Ivoire’ floated past her nostrils. For tonight she would be exotic, as exotic and flamboyant as this bedroom she had fallen in love with.

  CHAPTER THREE

  She had chosen well. Mrs Beringer was formal in black silk which was saved from severity by its superb cut and the flattering draped neckline. She looked exactly what she was, a matron of undoubted power and character, her white hair not detracting from the youthful face beneath it. In her ears she wore what were almost certainly real diamond studs, and above her wedding ring there glittered a large but by no means ostentatious diamond.

  Courteous but remote, she followed her elder son’s lead, using her good manners as a weapon to emphasise the distance that separated them, the wealthy, cultured mature woman and the girl with no background.

  With a glass of dry white wine in her hand—a glass?—an exquisite goblet—Arminel was unable to respond to Rhys’s attempts to lighten the atmosphere. The air was spiky with tension which neither Mrs Beringer nor Kyle made any attempt to dispel.

  Within minutes Rhys fell silent. His mother stepped into the breach by putting Arminel through an inquisition which was as impertinent as it was politely phrased. More stress on the gap between the girl with nothing and the family who had everything.

  Calling on all the charity in her soul, Arminel decided that given a similar situation she, too, would want to know the background of her son’s girl-friend. So she answered calmly and with precision, ignoring both Rhys’s gathering frustration and his brother’s watchfulness. She managed to slip a reassuring smile at Rhys, willing him not to explode with the sulky resentment that showed so plainly in his face. Once she looked across the room to where Kyle stood, leaning on the mantel. As if in response he lifted his glance from the contemplation of the glass he was holding and measured her with a cold, dispassionate scrutiny that raised the fine body hairs on her skin.

  Fight or flee, she thought ironically. Not for her retreat, the easy way out. Self-respect demanded otherwise. The dark blue of her gaze hardened into defiance. Kyle’s brows lifted, then he smiled with merciless directness, his glance shifting from her face to that of the man beside her.

  Shaken by emotions she didn’t understand, Arminel looked down. Her fingers were pressed so hard against the fragile crystal that the skin was blanched. She felt jumpy and nervous until Mrs Beringer began to speak again, directing the conversation into more general areas.

  Then she relaxed, absorbed by a brilliant performance. Once more her hostess was marking out boundaries, and doing it with skill and subtlety. Names were lightly dropped, events recalled and anticipated, people described to Arminel in throwaway phrases— Mrs Beringer was making it more than clear that she and her sons moved in social circles so far removed from Arminel’s that they might have lived on the moon.

  Again, in spite of the fact that she appreciated exactly what the older woman was doing, Arminel could find it in her heart to sympathise with her. It was clear that she saw in Arminel a threat. Although she was a crashing snob she was fighting for her son’s happiness in the only way she knew.

  I should be flattered, Arminel thought wryly. Especially as she was by no means certain that whatever she had felt for Rhys was still alive.

  Beneath her lashes her glance flicked to him and then, reluctantly, to his brother. Beside Kyle Rhys seemed—very young, very easily read.

  ‘We have very dear friends with an apartment in Surfers.’ Mrs Beringer’s voice was as smooth and bland as cream. ‘I don’t suppose you know them—the Rattrays. It was their daughter Davina who persuaded Rhys to take his holiday there. They even lent him their apartment. Wasn’t it kind of them?’

  ‘Charming,’ Arminel replied. Beside her Rhys shifted position. ‘No, I don’t know them. Surfers is full of people who come for holidays. Quite a few of them are New Zealanders.’

  Somehow her eyes caught Kyle’s. She met their silvery glitter with an equanimity she hoped he didn’t see through. She would not be intimidated by him, or his mother with her prattle of Governor-Generals and millionaires and famous people.

  ‘Davina is a darling,’ Mrs Beringer pursued, worrying at the subject with a surprising lack of finesse. ‘I’m sure you’ll like her, Arminel.’

  Want to bet? Arminel thought drily.

  But Rhys moved again, a sudden sharp jerk, before asking heavily, ‘Is she coming up?’

  ‘Why, yes, darling.’ His mother’s smile was tolerant. ‘I told you, she’s going to spend a month or so with us. Rhys, you must remember! Her letter came—oh, just after you came back from Australia.’

  ‘No, I don’t remember.’ But he covered his tension and the smouldering anger Arminel could feel by draining his glass, then staring moodily into it, his long fingers turning it restlessly so that the crystal sparkled in a series of little rainbows.

  Arminel’s lashes drooped. She had noted the sardonic smile that twisted Kyle’s mouth at his mother’s explanation. She had lied, and he knew it. Clearly Davina Rattray had some part in Rhys’s life. Or his mother wanted her to, and wasn’t above lying to achieve the results she was after. In her way Mrs Beringer was as ruthless as her older son.

  Arminel felt a sudden weariness ache in her bones. More than anything she longed to be back in the flat she shared with three friends. Old and shabby, it cost far too much, but compared to this place with its tangled motives it began to resemble its own sort of Paradise.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Kyle’s bland voice. ‘Can I get you another drink, Miss Lovett?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Half laughing, trying hard for a light-hearted tone, Rhys blustered, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, call her Arminel! Once you’ve said it several times it doesn’t sound so weird.’

  Kyle stared at her, face impassive except for the mockery that gleamed beneath his lashes. Arminel hesitated. Even this frail barrier was better than none, but with Rhys watching her she could do nothing but second his request.

  ‘Then you must call me Kyle,’ he responded, the deep tones revealing nothing but detached courtesy.

  Yet he was taunting her; she could feel it vibrating in the air between them, an antagonism that frightened her but was exhilarating too, making her conscious of every nerve and cell
in her body, quickening the beat of her heart, the tide of sensation across her skin.

  It was a relief when Mrs Caird announced dinner. Such awareness was dangerous, a perilous regression to all that was primitive and untamed in her. Animal magnetism, Arminel thought scornfully as Rhys escorted her into the big shadowy dining room. Both brothers possessed it, that basic unregenerate attraction, but in Rhys it was a muted version of his brother’s. Some time she would try to fathom out exactly what it was which pulled her so strongly that she was acutely conscious of Kyle, seeing him even when she looked elsewhere.

  Above the softly gleaming table a lamp hung, high enough to illuminate the centrepiece of orchids, the crystal and china and silver, low enough to enclose them in its pool of mellow light.

  Mrs Beringer unfolded her napkin, the diamond on her finger flashing as her voice flowed out gently.

  The food was superbly cooked and beautifully presented. Arminel ate it without appetite, sure that she was disappointing her unwilling hostess by using the correct knives and forks.

  What a silly woman, she thought tiredly. Surely she realises that nowadays even little office girls dine in good restaurants! Mrs Beringer’s view of the world, one rigidly divided into classes, went out a century or so ago. If New Zealand was anything like Australia such a system had never really taken root. Oh, there were classes, but passage from one to the other was easy enough. Two generations with money, the right schools and an investment in social life was all that it took, she thought, unaware that the cynical little thought was reflected in her face.

  From behind Mrs Beringer a portrait stared down at them. At first Arminel had thought it was a likeness of Kyle, but several surreptitious glances convinced her otherwise. Every bit as handsome as Kyle, the subject was dressed in Victorian clothes and wore a Victorian expression of stern superiority. He had been painted by someone with skill enough to suggest an imperious character with more than a hint of implacable authority.

  Obviously an ancestor. Her eyes discerned in the background a familiar silhouette with the scar of the landslide faithfully rendered, so whoever he was he had lived here. Curiosity impelled her to ask how long the family had been at Te Nawe.

  She addressed the question to Rhys, but he disclaimed knowledge with a shrug. ‘Ask Kyle, he’s the expert on family history.’

  So Arminel was forced to look across to where his brother sat back in his chair. The lamplight burnished his hair to a glowing hue, bronze with russet highlights, emphasising the harsh symmetry of his features and the breadth of shoulders and chest. His expression gave nothing away and it was difficult to see what emotion, if any, irradiated the pale eyes.

  An odd tug at Arminel’s senses shocked her. With a small sigh of relief she turned her glance to Mrs Beringer, who answered her.

  ‘Over a hundred and fifty years, a long time.’

  ‘It certainly is for such a young country,’ Arminel agreed politely. One of the few things she knew about her father’s family was that it had been located in the same place in Devon for more than three hundred years. They had been country people, their roots deep in the land that supported them.

  The dark lashes of the man opposite her lifted as he sent her a long, considering stare which set hex teeth on edge. Deep in some hidden part of her body a sensation unlike anything she had felt before flamed into life. Almost desperately she lifted her glass to her mouth to hide her uneasiness. Above the rim her eyes held his, a challenge implicit in their dark blue depths. For a moment he met it, his gaze very hard and sure, before his eyes dropped to her mouth.

  A strange heat prickled across her skin. It was not a blush, more a defensive reaction. Subduing the flare of reaction, she forced herself to smile enquiringly at him.

  ‘That must have been quite early in the pioneering days, surely?’

  ‘Early enough,’ said Kyle in his deep voice, still watching the movement of her lips as she spoke.

  Mrs Beringer laughed. ‘Both the Beringers and my family were early settlers,’ she said quite pleasantly. ‘But my side were a stolid, respectable lot who arrived in Christchurch on the first four ships before taking up land in the mountains. Dull. I like the sound of the first Kyle Beringer. He was a pirate.’

  ‘Literally?’

  Kyle answered Arminel’s lifted brows with a thin smile. ‘No, not literally, but definitely black sheep material. He skipped from his father’s manor in England after seducing the daughter of a minor noble. Some time later she disappeared too, eventually turning up here as his wife. In the intervening years he’d spent a while in Australia before sailing across the Tasman to make his home with the tribe who at that time owned Te Nawe and the surrounding area. He was given the nucleus of the station; it took him thirty years and the use of means fortunately unknown to his descendants to acquire the rest.’

  ‘He sounds a fascinating scoundrel,’ said Arminel, her slow smile irradiating her face. Without the tight mask of control which she had worn since first setting eyes on Kyle her beauty came swiftly to provocative life, a fugitive dimple giving her a young, vulnerable air.

  It affected them all in their various ways, although none but Rhys showed it. For the first time he relaxed, lifting his chin to stare at his brother in a mixture of pride and belligerence. Kyle looked at him, revealing nothing.

  ‘He was.’ Mrs Beringer hurried into speech. ‘Hard as nails and laden with charm. But he was a good husband. All the records show how devoted he was to both of his wives.’

  ‘Simultaneous or successive?’ Arminel asked.

  Rhys gave a crack of laughter. ‘Clever darling! Got it one. Simultaneous. One was the granddaughter of the local chief. Her father was an American whaler. Our revered ancestor got the first part of Te Nawe through her.’

  Arminel’s eyes danced in quick response. ‘He sounds fascinating. How did he keep order?’

  ‘With a whip, if family legend is based on truth.’ Kyle looked as though he thoroughly agreed with his ancestor’s methods, his handsome features ironic. ‘Each wife had a child. About two generations later the heir to each side married, uniting the family again.’

  Arminel observed drily, ‘Sensible of them. He must have been a remarkable man. One can only admire his stamina.’

  ‘You must get Kyle to tell you some of the stories about him,’ Mrs Beringer said graciously, adding with a twinkle that made her seem much more human, ‘He was probably the sort of person one wouldn’t allow over one’s threshold now. It’s because we’re safely out of his reach that we enjoy him so.’

  Well, yes. Although Arminel was prepared to bet that while Kyle was alive his ancestor couldn’t really be called dead and gone. Like the man in the portrait, he possessed a disturbing sensuality. It took no imagination at all to see him coping more than adequately with two wives, calming any quarrels with the cold whip of his gaze. Just as feminine instinct told her that his virility would be more than capable of meeting any demands made on it.

  Such thoughts were dangerous. She banished them, glad that dinner was over. With any luck he would go and find some office work to do. Surely rich station owners spent hours poring over figures, totting up the profits from their endeavours?

  But he went with them back into the room where they had gathered before dinner. While Rhys piled driftwood on to the fire and his mother turned the television on Kyle picked up a book and sat down in an armchair some distance away.

  Rhys pulled Arminel down beside him on to the sofa, his possessive hand over hers as he bent his attention to the screen. The comic was clever, the skits amusing and thought-provoking, but from the corner of her eye Arminel caught the quick flick of pages as Kyle read, lean fingers on white paper, long legs stretched casually in front of him. If he was reading, not just skimming, he had an incredible speed.

  Arminel moved restlessly, forcing her gaze back to the screen. Beside her Rhys chuckled; his mother laughed out loud. The fire crackled, spat and then hissed as the flames released a pocket of air. Arminel
’s eyes moved to the incisive profile of the man in the armchair.

  Halfway through her appraisal he glanced up. Something kindled in his face as their eyes met. Whatever it was it was rapidly suppressed, but he held her gaze while a small grim smile gave his face an almost sinister cast.

  Hurriedly Arminel looked away, lashes lowered to hide the dilation of her pupils. Her tongue touched suddenly dry lips. She could feel his eyes on her and wondered if he had felt the impact of her gaze as though it was a branding-iron.

  ‘Relax,’ Rhys whispered, squeezing her tense fingers.

  It was impossible. She was too conscious of the electric tingle across her face and throat which meant that Kyle had not returned to his reading.

  When the last peals of laughter from the television audience had died away Rhys turned to her. ‘I suppose you’re tired. Do you want an early night?’

  In a low voice she said, ‘We’ve got to talk, Rhys.’

  He nodded, unable to hide the wariness her words caused. ‘Yes, sure. Come on.’

  No one said anything as they left the room, although Arminel knew that two pairs of eyes followed them. As the door closed she heard Mrs Beringer break into speech. Suddenly cold, she shivered.

  ‘Poor darling,’ Rhys commiserated, sliding his arm around her waist. ‘Poor cold darling! When I got back from Surfers I thought I was never going to get warm again!’

  ‘There is a difference,’ she agreed, unable to tell him that her fit of shivering had nothing to do with temperature.

  He took her into a room lined with books, furnished with a buttoned leather sofa and armchairs covered in pleasantly mellow material, green and rose and amber.

  ‘Now, how are you?’ he asked in a suddenly thickened voice as he pulled her roughly into his arms. ‘Oh, God, I’ve missed you! It’s been hell. . .’

  His mouth closed over hers, coaxing, pleading for a response which she realised now she could not give him.

  But she kissed him back because she liked his mouth on hers and because he was the only person this side of the Tasman Sea who liked her.