'I most certainly am of that opinion,' Lilian admitted, her cold, calculating glance sweeping the room from its high, beamed ceiling down to the priceless Persian rugs on the floor. 'And I shall take a personal delight in doing so as soon as your foolish marriage has ended,' she added with venomous relish as she lowered herself gracefully on to an Elizabethan chair.
Stay calm, Gina warned herself, but she felt quiveringly taut as she seated herself in the high-backed chair Evelyn Cain had favoured, oddly drawing comfort and strength from it.
'You sound very sure of yourself,' she said coldly.
'Oh, but I am,' Lilian smiled, but her attractive, violet-blue eyes remained cold and assessing. 'I know a disillusioned and discontented woman when I see one.'
Lilian was clever, and she was quick too, but Gina's face gave nothing away in her desperate fight not to allow her adversary an easy victory. 'You're mistaken. Jarvis and I are perfectly happy together.'
'Darling, I hate to contradict you, but I happen to know him so much better than you do.' Lilian crossed one expensively stockinged leg over the other, and her perfectly arched brows were raised above cold, mocking eyes. 'Jarvis hasn't been himself lately. The bonds of marriage are beginning to chafe uncomfortably, and very soon now he'll want his freedom. I can read the signs so well. You see, Jarvis and I are two of a kind, and I could have told you on your wedding day that you don't have what it takes to hold a man like Jarvis Cain. It's me he wants, my dear, and it's to me he escapes periodically, since I've placed no bars on the cage of our relationship, so don't be surprised if one day soon he spreads his wings and leaves your cage permanently.'
Her confidence and calm conceit succeeded in leaving Gina speechless and strangely numb when Lilian rose elegantly to her feet and opened her handbag to take out a grey and blue striped tie which looked vaguely familiar to Gina.
'The reason I came here this morning was to return this,' she said, a self-satisfied and slightly triumphant smile on her lips as she carefully draped the tie over the back of the chair she had vacated. 'Jarvis left it at my place the other night, and I happen to know it's a favourite of his.'
Gina silently blessed that icy numbness inside her. It gave her the strength to escort Lilian off the premises without making a fool of herself, and an eternity seemed to elapse before the numbness eased away, to be replaced by a leaden pain. It settled suffocatingly in her chest seemingly determined to remain there.
She collected the tie Lilian had left in the living-room, and in her anguished state of mind her fingers tightened about the silky material until her knuckles whitened. Her suspicions had been confirmed. Jarvis was spending his free time with Lilian, but Lilian was still unaware of the fact that Jarvis would not discard the shackles of this unwanted marriage until he could rightfully claim Eldorado as his own.
Dear God! How can he do this to me? What did I do to deserve this humiliation? It is because I dared to love him that he is so intent on destroying me?
What are you going to do about it? The question leapt into her tortured mind and she could find no answer to it. She wanted to leave Jarvis, she wanted to end this marriage which had become a painful imprisonment, but for Jarvis's sake, and Eldorado's, she could not do it.
Jarvis arrived home early that evening for the first time in days, but he barely spoke to her before he went upstairs to shower and change, and later, when they sat down to dinner, Gina made no attempt at conversation. Jarvis was too engrossed in his own thoughts to notice anything amiss, and her mind was filled with the unpleasant memory of what had occurred that morning. His tie lay on her dressing-table where she had left it, but she was still hurting too much to confront him sensibly with the evidence of his infidelity which Lilian had so thoughtfully provided.
You don't have what it takes to hold a man like Jarvis Cain. Lilian's words had been viciously barbed, and they still had the power to inflict a cruel, agonising wound.
Gina studied Jarvis unobtrusively while she toyed with her dessert that evening. He projected an aggressively masculine image which never failed to attract women. He possessed a quality of steely strength which was tempered with an underlying but distinct aura of controlled sensuality, and Gina had not been unaware of the way single and married women alike had stared at him at the many public functions she had attended with him. His lean body had the ability to move with the lithe agility and toned muscles of a primed athlete, and his piercing, analytical grey eyes could disorientate and excite rather than repel a woman.
If there were women who had spent time fantasising about him, then Gina could not blame them. Her own fantasies had died a cruel death on their wedding day. She had dreamed of loving and being loved, and of making Eldorado a home again for the man she loved, but it had been nothing but a fantasy. The reality was cold and harsh, and the fire of her dreams had turned to ashes.
Lilian had known what she was talking about, Gina admitted the galling truth to herself. She did not have the ability to hold a man like Jarvis. Their marriage had been a necessity forced on him by the conditions laid down in his mother's will and, after four months of living together, his interest in her as a woman had waned with considerable help from the new fear that a child might be born into this marriage he had not wanted. What was it Lilian had said? Jarvis hasn't been himself lately. The bonds of marriage are beginning to chafe uncomfortably.
'I'll have my coffee in the study.' Jarvis jolted her back to the present, and she looked up sharply when he rose from the dinner table. 'I have an important case lined up for tomorrow,' he explained.
Had there been a glimmer of an apology in his grey, hooded eyes, or had she imagined it?
'I'll ask Rosie to prepare some coffee for you.'
He nodded and turned away, leaving her with the despairing conviction that she was a glutton for punishment. Jarvis did not love her, he never would, and yet she went on searching and hoping for some small sign that he cared.
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive, a half-forgotten question came to mind. Jarvis had been the first to practise deception, and now she was trying to deceive herself by reaching for something that had as little substance as a shadow.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gina got out of bed with difficulty the following morning. The long, wakeful hours during the night had been filled with painful, humiliating and despairing thoughts, and had culminated in a slow, simmering anger which had lit a smouldering fire in her green eyes.
She was leaving her room to go down to the breakfast-room when she found herself confronted by Jarvis in the passage outside her door. He was wearing a dark blue suit which accentuated his good looks, and his white shirt was open at the throat.
'If you're looking for your grey and blue striped tie, it's lying on the dressing-table,' she forestalled his query instinctively as she brushed past him, and was gratifyingly aware of the surprised look in his eyes before she turned and walked down the passage.
'How did you know I was looking for my tie, and what's it doing on your dressing-table?'
'You are in some ways a creature of habit,' she said coldly, pausing on the top landing to face him. 'You never leave your bedroom unless you're fully dressed for whatever the occasion, so it was natural for me to assume that you were looking for your tie.'
'That doesn't explain why my tie is lying on your dressing-table,' he reminded her curtly, his eyes narrowed and speculative, and Gina lifted her shoulders slightly in a carefully contrived gesture of indifference.
'Lilian delivered it personally yesterday morning,' she explained, her voice calm and controlled despite that fierce desire inside her to strike out savagely in retaliation to the pain he was inflicting on her. 'You apparently left it at her place the other night.'
She turned to go down the carpeted stairs, but Jarvis was beside her in an instant, his fingers biting cruelly through the woollen sleeve of her dress into the soft flesh of her upper arm.
'You may not realise it, but you've made
a veiled accusation which I consider needs clarification.'
She stared down at those lean, strong fingers which could arouse her so skilfully, and the pain of despair deep inside her brought tears to her eyes which she blinked away hastily for fear that he might notice them and mock her.
'I was stating a fact rather than making an accusation, and there's no need for a clarification.' She bit out the words, not daring to look at him until she was convinced she had controlled herself sufficiently.
A muttered oath escaped him when she attempted to free her arm from those punishing fingers, and his mouth was set in a tight, angry line when he marched her unceremoniously down the passage and into the bedroom they no longer shared. He closed the door firmly behind them, and there was a nervous edge to the angry beat of her heart when he turned to face her.
'If you consider clarification unnecessary, then I imagine it must be an explanation you want of me,' he mocked her, and she turned on him in a fury before he could continue.
'I would prefer it if you didn't insult my intelligence by trying to explain away the fact that you've resumed your long-standing relationship with Lilian Ulrich.' Her voice was icy with bitterness and distaste, and the angry fire was clearly visible in her green, shadowed eyes when they met his. 'I have an intense dislike for Lilian and women of her kind. She is, as your mother once said, a hard-faced woman whose only interest in you is for material gain, but if you're too blind to see it, then that's your business entirely. I must, however, credit her with honesty. She made no secret of the fact that you were seeing each other again, and that you would continue to see each other, but there's one small fact which she doesn't have in her possession. She doesn't know that your passion for her is pale beside your passion for Eldorado, but in the end she'll discover the truth in the same painful and humiliating way I did.' She drew a shuddering breath and fought to control herself before she continued. 'I pity her, Jarvis, but I pity you most of all. You don't know what love is, and you will never know the lasting joy of giving, only the brief pleasure of taking. Lilian was right when she said you are two of a kind. You belong together, but you'll both have to wait, since I don't intend to stand accused of robbing you of your home.'
There had been a telltale break in her husky voice before it faded into the tense, explosive silence which prevailed, and an odd chill of fear raced up her spine when she saw Jarvis's features settle into a mask of fury which she had never encountered before.
'Have you quite finished?' he demanded in a quiet, clipped voice, and a nerve was jumping ominously in his cheek while he clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides as if he were having difficulty in controlling the desire to place them about her throat.
'Yes!' she snapped in a defiance born of fear. 'I've said all I intend to say.'
'Well, let me tell you something, Georgina,' he continued in that same dangerously quiet tone of voice that chilled her to the marrow. 'Jealousy and suspicion are the two qualities I despise most in a woman, and you've just shown me that you possess both those qualities. I may not know what love is, but I damn well know when I can trust someone. Trust is a tangible emotion. Try it some time if you have the stomach for it, and you may find it of some benefit to you, but until then I suggest you keep your suspicions and your jealousies to yourself!'
He turned on his heel and snatching up the offending tie, stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him with such savagery that Gina flinched in fearful anticipation that the delicate panes might shatter in the shuddering window frames.
Trust! 'Try it some time if you have the stomach for it,' Jarvis had instructed. Dear God, he surely did not expect her to trust him in the face of all odds! She couldn't do that, could she?
The house seemed ominously silent that morning after Jarvis's stormy departure. He had left the house without having breakfast, and he had also left Gina with a great deal to think about. He had accused her of being jealous and suspicious, and she had to admit to herself that she had harboured both those despicable emotions. She could blame it on extenuating circumstances, and also on Lilian Ulrich's deliberate interference, but she knew that the solution lay within herself.
So what if Jarvis had married her for the sole purpose of inheriting Eldorado! Was she going to relinquish the battle without a fight? Was she going to let him go without making an attempt to win his affection, if not his love?
Gina's mind was reeling with positive and faintly aggressive thoughts, but it took hours of soul-searching that morning before she finally knew what she had to do. She entered Eldorado's magnificent hall and lifted the telephone receiver to dial Jarvis's number at the office before she changed her mind. She wanted to ask him to meet her somewhere for lunch, and this time, perhaps, they might be able to talk without striking out at each other verbally.
'Mr Cain's office, good morning.' His secretary answered almost instantly, and nervous anxiety made Gina's heart beat heavily against her ribs.
'Good morning, Mrs Jackson. I'd like to speak to my husband, please.'
'I'm afraid Mr Cain isn't in at the moment. He's having lunch with Mrs Ulrich, and I don't expect him back before three this afternoon. Could I ask him to give you a call the moment he returns to the office, Mrs Cain?'
'No.' Gina staggered mentally beneath the feeling that she had been dealt a savage blow to a most vulnerable area. 'That won't be necessary, thank you. Goodbye.'
She dropped the receiver on to its cradle and sat down heavily on the chair beside the rosewood table when her legs threatened to cave in beneath her. She was shaking, and she was hurting, and through the mist of pain that surrounded her came Jarvis's accusing voice.
Jealousy and suspicion are the two qualities I despise most in a woman. Trust is a tangible emotion. Try it some time if you have the stomach for it.
Jealousy and suspicion were running rampant in Gina's mind at that moment, and trust came a poor third. She was jealous of the time he was spending with Lilian, and she was suspicious of the reason for it. How could she trust him if he gave her no reason to do so? How could she have faith in a man who had employed the method he had used to trick her into marriage, and who she knew had every intention of casting her aside like a soiled shirt as soon as he had complied with the unfair stipulations in his mother's will?
Oh, God, please give me strength! she prayed silently when she got up and left the house to stroll aimlessly through the sunlit garden where the gardener was raking up the leaves which had fallen on the lawn.
Jarvis arrived home at ten that evening. Gina heard him go into his bedroom across the passage from her own, and some minutes later she heard him in the shower. She tried desperately to shut her mind to his presence in the house, but every nerve and sinew seemed to be on the alert. She tried to convince herself that she hated him, but her hatred melted away like ice in the summer sun when he entered her bedroom unexpectedly half an hour later.
Drops of moisture were still glistening on his dark hair, and she knew from experience that he never wore anything beneath the wine-red towelling robe that left his legs bare from the knees down. This intimate knowledge was having a disastrous effect on her senses, and from deep within the core of her womanhood there rose a trembling, aching need which she tried desperately to quell as he approached the bed and seated himself close enough for her to be aware of the clean, male smell of him. Oh, how she despised herself for being so weak! Did she have no pride? Jarvis had hurt her more than anyone else ever could, but her love for him had somehow survived to make her wonder how much more it would take before her feelings were completely crushed. It had been several weeks since the last time he had made love to her, but she had never felt the deprivation as strongly as she felt it at that moment. She wanted him to touch her, to hold her, and fill that aching void inside her until she was mindless with the ecstasy of their union.
'Mrs Jackson told me you called the office today while I was out.' His glance was piercingly intent, and it unnerved her. 'Was there something of
importance you wanted to discuss with me?'
'Yes—no—oh, it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, really, and I—' Gina halted nervously and lowered her gaze to the magazine she was mutilating between her agitated fingers. 'I was hoping you'd be free for us to have lunch together somewhere in town so we could talk as we used to without all the antagonism and tension between us,' she confessed, choosing the truth in favour of subterfuge.
'It was a nice thought.'
'Yes, well…' She drew a steadying breath and shrugged with an affected casualness. 'It never went beyond a thought since you were out to lunch with Lilian, and you weren't expected back before three.'
'We could talk now, if you want to?' he suggested, making no attempt at an explanation, and his calm, unperturbed manner ignited a spark of anger she had difficulty in controlling.
'The setting isn't right, and neither is the mood.'
'Are you saying we need to have a table between us to conduct a sensible conversation?' he mocked her.
'No,' she corrected, her need of him waning swiftly beneath that surging wave of bitterness. 'I'm saying that the moment is gone, and it can't be recaptured.'
'Just as this moment will never be recaptured if we let it pass.' Jarvis removed the sad-looking magazine from her hands and flung it on to the carpeted floor. 'What did you want to discuss with me, Gina?'
Dear heaven! His towelling robe was open almost to his waist, and even in this moment of disappointment and anger she had to fight against the desire to reach out and slide her hands across his powerful chest where the dark hair curled tightly against his tanned skin. He was much too close for comfort, she had to get away from him if she did not want to humiliate herself, and she slid out of bed, reaching for her silk dressing gown as her feet touched the carpeted floor.
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