by Anne Mather
He, too, had showered, judging by the dampness of his hair, but he had dressed again-in the navy corded pants he had worn to travel in and a clean silk shirt. He looked tired and slightly drawn, as if he had worked too hard on the journey, but the dark eyes were as alert as ever.
‘Of course,’ Emma said now, standing back to allow him admittance, but she cast a swift look up and down the corridor outside before closing the door again.
‘It’s all right,’ he said dryly. ‘I wasn’t observed. What are you afraid of? Your reputation or mine?’
‘Neither,’ she denied quickly, tucking her hands into the wide sleeves of her robe, wishing she was wearing something a little more inspiring and a little less revealing. ‘I thought perhaps—Miss Albert might be with you.’
‘Call her Stacey,’ advised Jordan flatly. ‘Everyone does.’ Then he crossed the room and closed the french doors before a whole army of moths could launch their attack on her lamp.
‘Wh-where is she?’ Emma asked, as much for something to say as anything, and remembering her damp hair, she lifted her hand to twist it into a coil on the nape of her neck.
‘Don’t…’ he said, almost involuntarily, and then, as her hand dropped, he added: ‘I see you got your salad.’
‘Oh—yes, thank you,’ Emma nodded. ‘I’m not hungry right now, but I might have it later.’
‘I expect you’re tired,’ Jordan agreed. ‘I am, too. But I—I had to talk to you.’
‘Yes—’ Emma tried to sound casual, but it was difficult when her heart was thumping in her ears, and every sense in her body was supremely aware of the warm smell of his.
‘Yes.’ He ran his hand down the opened neck of his shirt. He was not an excessively hairy man, but there was a light covering of fine hair just below his collarbone, and his fingers curled against the sun-brown skin. Covering the space between them, he halted before her, and as once before, his free hand stroked her cheek. ‘Emma, why did Ingram do this to you? Was it something I said? I have to know. It’s driving me off my head!’
Emma’s eyes were mesmerised by the restless curling of his nails against his chest, but she managed to say jerkily: ‘No—no, it was nothing you said. It—it was something I said actually. He—he doesn’t like me to be—independent.’
‘Independent!’ Jordan stared down at her, his dark eyes probing hers with increasing intensity. ‘Surely it’s he who’s the dependent one. Emma, are you sure that’s all it was?’
‘What else could it be?’ Emma took a step back from him so that he was forced to drop the hand that was touching her cheek. ‘Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t important. Except—except that your father’s going to wonder what’s happened.’
Jordan’s nostrils flared, but the words of protest she saw in his face were never uttered. Instead he inclined his head as if acknowledging his dismissal. But when he moved towards the door she found she didn’t want him to go, and almost recklessly she stepped into his path. His brows drew together into a frown, but before he could say anything she burst out:
‘Can I ask you something, Jordan?’ And as he narrowed his eyes, she hastened on: ‘You’ve asked me a question. Now let me ask you one: why—why did you walk out on me? Was it because it was no longer necessary to keep up the pretence, or because Daddy committed suicide? Or was there something else? Did I do something—something so terrible that—that—’
‘It was none of those things!’ he declared harshly, and she stared up at him through bewildered eyes.
‘No?’
‘No.’ He moved his head slowly from side to side.
‘Then what—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does matter.’ She swallowed with difficulty. ‘Look, I’ve realised you didn’t love me. You don’t have to pretend about that. But did it have to end so abruptly? So coldly?’
‘I did love you!’ he groaned suddenly, grasping her by her shoulders with hands that cut through the frail barrier of her robe. ‘I did love you. I still do. I expect I always will, although I know you’ll find that hard to believe.’ But, as she swayed towards him, he shook her with a violence that sent her hair tumbling wildly about her shoulders and left her neck almost too weak to support it. ‘But that love has changed. What I feel for you now is the love I would feel for—for a sister! Now do you understand?’
Her mouth was dry. ‘And you don’t make love to a sister.’
‘No.’ His jaw muscles worked tautly. ‘It—it was different before. You got under my skin. And God help me. I didn’t want—I didn’t try to resist you!’
Emma couldn’t take this in. What was he saying? That when her father died he had realised that what he felt for her was only the love of a sister! She couldn’t believe it. It didn’t make sense. Why, only the night before her father died, they had talked of marriage…
He was staring down at her now, and there was anguish as well as a curious kind of anger in his face. Lips parted, she gazed back at him, trying to read his expression, the bewilderment in her face giving it a pure and sensitive vulnerability. Wide-eyed, she was entreating his sympathy and understanding, unaware of the delicate appeal of those parted lips, of the limpid beauty of eyes drowned with emotion, of the provocative sensuality of the swelling peaks of her breasts, clearly outlined against the thin material of her robe.
‘Emma!’ He spoke her name, although it was a strangled sound, and as if he was unable to keep her at arm’s length any longer, he pulled her close to him, ‘Emma, I don’t want you to look at me like that—as if you hated me! I want us to be—to be friends.’
‘Friends!’ With her face pressed against the opened neck of his shirt, when she spoke the hair on his chest invaded her lips. ‘Jordan, I don’t hate you. You don’t hate someone just because you don’t understand them…’
‘What do you do, Emma?’ he demanded hoarsely, tipping her face up to his. ‘What do you do when all your senses—all your instincts—compel you to do something that you know is wrong?’
‘You mean—because I’m married,’ she began painfully, but he broke in on her forcefully,
‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘That doesn’t signify. I know you only married Ingram in an effort to get even with me!’
‘To—get even with you?’ she echoed faintly, and his hands moved restlessly in the small of her back, loosening the cord of her robe so that only the pressure of his body against hers kept it in place.
‘All right then,’ he amended. ‘To make me jealous. To show me you could easily put another man in my place!’
‘Is that what you think?’ She shook her head helplessly. ‘Jordan, why should I think I could make you jealous? You didn’t even care that I was alive!’
‘That’s not true. I always cared. Only—’ He broke off abruptly, the lines beside his mouth more deeply etched than before. ‘You don’t understand,’ he muttered grimly. ‘But soon…’
Her hands against his chest curled anxiously. She knew they were no barrier to the nervous energy she could feel inside him, the tension that was coiled like a spring, just waiting to be released. And still he held her, not kissing her or caressing her, just holding her in his arms until they both knew it was too late to draw back.
‘How long has it been, Emma?’ he was asking now, his voice low and urgent. ‘How long—since I held you like this? Do you remember that summer? Those nights on the river? Do you remember the houseboat? Those parties—when all I could think about was getting you alone, letting you do what you’re doing to me right now?’ His hands on her hips created an intimacy between them she remembered too well, and he added thickly: ‘You know what you’re doing, don’t you? You can feel it. And God help me, I want more—much more than this—’
Her protest, and it was a feeble thing at best, went for nothing beneath the demanding pressure of his mouth. His hand at the nape of her neck compelled her forward, and the unspoken words opened her lips to his. The urgent reasons why he should not be holding her like this, pillaging h
er mouth with the sensuous expertise of his, were briefly forgotten, and she lost all sense of time beneath the probing caress of his hands.
If he had been rough or violent, assaulting her savagely and taking what he wanted without sensitivity, she might have stood some chance against him. As it was, the pressure increased gradually, hardening into the hungry passion she had once been eager to assuage. He moulded her body to the throbbing contours of his, making no attempt to disguise how she had aroused him, and slowly, inevitably, her whole being came alive to the demands he was making upon it.
‘I need you.’ His words were delivered with curious desperation, and opening her eyes Emma could see the expression of torment that was twisting his face. ‘I do, I do,’ he repeated, but he was drawing back from her as he said it. ‘I want you. I want to love you,’ but his hands pressing her away from him belied his words. Then he spoke again, and Emma’s world crumbled at his bitterness. ‘I should have known this would happen. Married or otherwise, I should never have let the old man persuade me to bring you out here!’
Emma’s breath came out in a trembling gasp, but she subdued the impulse to scream her frustration at him. ‘Thank—thank goodness one of us has some sense, then,’ she managed to say chokingly. ‘At least you remembered I was married. I—I had almost—forgotten.’
‘Emma!’
As she would have jerked away from him, he caught the lapels of her robe and the careless gesture sent the cord rippling free. At once the wrapper parted, exposing the lissom length of her body, the full breasts and curving hips, the long shapely legs, and the sight of her robbed Jordan of his last vestiges of control.
‘Emma,’ he groaned hoarsely, ‘oh, Emma, come here—’ and compulsively his hands slid beneath the robe to draw her towards him.
The sight of his head bent to caress her breast with his lips filled her with a destructive kind of satisfaction. Destructive, because his reminder of her married state had chilled the blood in her veins and left her cold. Yet it was gratifying to know that Jordan still found her desirable, so desirable he was prepared to abandon the girl he had brought with him for her bed.
‘Do you want to stay here, Jordan?’ she asked, in a low husky voice. ‘Do you want to sleep with me?’
He lifted his head, his eyes drowsy with emotion, and for a moment she was almost tempted to forget everything but his obvious need of her. It would be so easy to tumble into bed with him, to let him have his way with her, and experience the rapturous satisfaction only his possession could bring.
But there was too much between them, too many bitter nights and days when she had prayed for even the sound of his voice on the telephone or the glimpse of his lean face through windows clouded by her tears. And as he had pointed out, she was married, married, and what he wanted from her had nothing to do with love.
‘Emma,’ he breathed, and his eyes were narrowed and sensual. ‘Will you let me stay? Is that what you’re saying? Dear God, don’t tease me!’
And suddenly she was afraid of what might happen, of what she might not be able to control.
‘No,’ she said now, and pushing his unresisting hands aside, she wrapped the robe closely about her once more. ‘I was curious, that’s all. A woman’s prerogative.’
There was an ominous silence, when the air between them fairly crackled with antagonism, and then Jordan’s features hardened into the polite mask he habitually wore. Almost visibly he withdrew from her, and the slight bow of his head he gave her was inexplicably insolent.
‘I think you’d better go,’ she declared, avoiding looking at him at all. ‘I—I’m tired. I’d like to get some sleep.’
‘And will you?’ he enquired coldly, moving past her towards the door. ‘Will you sleep—or will you remember that it was I who chose not to take you when you were hot and willing, Mrs Ingram?’
* * *
From the air, the island of Valentia was a mount of green rising from an encircling border of white lace. Lower, it was possible to see the terraced hillside, and how one side of the island was flatter than the other. It was here that the Cessna came down on a baked earth runway that gave a far from comfortable landing.
The airport buildings consisted of a utility-type building, and a hangar, which Jordan explained to Stacey was used to house the aircraft. It seemed that the Cessna belonged to Andrew Kyle, and its pilot divided his time between flying the plane and chauffeuring his employer about the island.
Emma observed her surroundings without enthusiasm. She had not slept well at all after Jordan’s abrupt departure, and his cruel words had bitten deep into the shell of indifference she was trying to assume. It was useless trying to pretend to herself that she had hurt him and that his words had been a kind of defiance. All she knew was that once again she had allowed him to make a fool of her.
The morning had brought no miraculous cure for her depression. She awakened with the sense of something unpleasant hanging over her head, and not even the thought of seeing the man she had always called ‘Uncle’ Andrew again could dispel her feelings of despondency.
She had breakfast in her room, and by the time she made her way downstairs, Stacey and Jordan were already awaiting her in the foyer. The other girl looked radiant this morning, and Emma couldn’t help thinking that no doubt Jordan had released all his pent-up frustration with her. Imagining him with Stacey was pure torment, and she was sure her bitterness was visible in her face for all to see.
At least the swelling around her eye had almost disappeared, and careful make-up had disguised most of the bruising. She left her hair loose for once and it spilled forward over the sides of her face, a dark curtain to hide the dark thoughts she was plagued by.
Stacey had chosen to wear a scarlet jump suit for the trip to Valentia, a clinging garment that exposed most of her smooth white shoulders. Emma guessed the other girl would not tan easily with that fair skin, but no doubt she knew all the best lotions and ointments to use. Emma herself was wearing a plain cream smock with only a narrow band of embroidery around the elbow-length sleeves and the hem, but the loose style suited her, and her olive skin was not so sensitive to the glare of the sun.
Jordan had scarcely spoken to her this morning. In truth, he hadn’t spoken a lot to Stacey either, but she was not a girl one could ignore, and her inconsequent chatter made up for Jordan’s taciturnity. He, for his part, helped the porter to carry the cases out to the car which was to take them to the airport, and then absorbed himself in the contents of his briefcase as soon as they were airborne. This morning he had shed his formal suit for denims and a body shirt, the close-fitting clothes accentuating his lean masculinity. His bare forearm with its liberal covering of fine hair rested on the arm of his seat only two feet from Emma’s own, and time and again her reluctant gaze was drawn to that brown skin and the muscles that moved beneath.
Standing on the airstrip, waiting while Jordan spoke to the pilot and arranged their transport to his father’s house, Emma had her first real glimpse of the ocean at close quarters. Beyond the belt of palms that separated them from the curving arc of a cove, the shifting turquoise waters of the Caribbean spread fingers of creaming surf upon the sand, glistening with translucent brilliance. It was an unbelievable scene after the rain-wet coldness of England, and Emma felt an unwilling feeling of excitement stirring inside her. Then Jordan’s voice bidding her to follow them broke into her reverie, and its coldness achieved what he had intended. She was not here to dream about warmth and beauty. She was here because he had been compelled to bring her.
The car which was to take them to Andrew Kyle’s house awaited them on the road. It was a vintage convertible, with sleek cream lines, and genuine brass headlamps. Smiling, Jordan took the wheel with an admiring Stacey beside him, while Emma got into the back with the black-skinned chauffeur who had been introduced as William. The pilot, who himself acted as chauffeur when the occasion demanded it, was left behind to look after the Cessna and Jordan drove them the three miles or so to his
father’s villa.
The road was narrow and overhung with vines and creepers in places where the clumps of trees grew close to the track. It rose quickly to several hundred feet above sea level, and then, rounding a bluff with the whole of the west side of the island spread out below them, it descended again towards a building that sprawled over a narrow plateau above a natural cove. There was a yacht lying at anchor in the cove, and the scene was so much like a film set that Emma had to stifle her involuntary exclamation of delight.
As they drew nearer, Emma could see the marble-smooth lawns that surrounded the house, the tumbling riot of colour in the flower beds, and before the shaded verandah, a stone fountain that spouted water into a round basin. The sound of the car’s engine disturbed the peace of the morning, and the birds chattered noisily, startled by the unwelcome intrusion.
A man rose from his seat on the verandah as the convertible came up the curving drive towards the house, and came down the shallow steps to meet them. Even after all this time, Emma would have known Andrew Kyle anywhere, despite the fact that he was much thinner than she remembered him, and his tall frame stooped a little from the shoulders. His hair, so like Jordan’s still, was grey now, but his eyes were as alert as ever, glittering in his face that was uncannily like his son’s. His cotton trousers hung on his hips as he walked towards the car, and the open neck of his shirt displayed the angular hollows between the hones of his throat. Emma’s throat felt unaccountably tight as she looked at him, and although he greeted his son and his girl-friend first, his eyes went straight to her.
‘Emma!’ he exclaimed at last, when politeness had been satisfied. ‘Emma, my child! How good it is to see you.’
Emma allowed him to help her down from the convertible’s rear seat, and then was embraced with evident warmth and enthusiasm. His emotionalism was unexpected somehow, but her response to it was not.
‘It’s good to see you—Andrew,’ she said, suddenly unable to call him by the childish appellation which had annoyed Jordan so much, and was aware of his eyes upon her, watching their exchange.
