Melting Fire

by Anne Mather

  ‘But not only that!’ cried Olivia shrilly. ‘Not only sitting around here, waiting for Richard to appear with some foreign guest or other, choosing menus, arranging flowers, making myself attractive for some fat old European, whose wife flaps her skinny breasts at Richard, while I keep her husband entertained!’

  ‘Olivia!’

  ‘Well, it’s true.’ Olivia was unrepentant. ‘Do you think I don’t know what goes on? Do you think I don’t know why Kuriakis is always inviting him aboard his yacht? It’s not Aristotle who wants to see him, it’s Madame Kuriakis! I saw the way she was looking at him the last time they were here. I felt sick, physically sick, and if that’s what Richard expects me to——’

  ‘Olivia, be quiet!’ Bella was impatient now. ‘I will not listen to any more of this! It seems to me that all you’ve developed in France is your imagination, and I’m ashamed to hear a child I’ve looked after and cared for using such language!’ She turned towards the door, and when her hand closed on the handle, she looked back at her. ‘Perhaps you’d better stay in your room,’ she declared coldly. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy feeling sorry for yourself much more here, without any distractions.’

  Contrarily, as soon as the door had closed behind her, Olivia wished she had detained her. Of all the people she knew, Bella was the one she could always turn to, the person who was always there when she needed her. Even yesterday, returning from Paris to find Richard away, she had known the old nursemaid would not have deserted her, and it was painful to think that she was creating the rift between them. But Bella was intensely loyal, not only to her, but to Richard, who had after all claimed her affections first. In her eyes he could do no wrong, and in this instance she was no ally. Nevertheless, she was the nearest thing to a mother Olivia had known during the last fifteen years, and as such she deserved her respect. If only she would try and understand how Olivia was feeling, instead of looking blithely ahead, uncaring of the pitfalls along the way.

  Catching sight of herself in the mirror of her vanity unit, Olivia was appalled at her reflection. Her arms, and the length of leg visible beneath the hem of her denim skirt, blazed with unseemly colour, while her face, unnaturally pale and hollow-cheeked, showed puffy red patches around her eyes and nose. Her hair, rumpled from her sojourn on the bed, stuck out in tufts all over her head, dampened by her sweating scalp, and her hunched shoulders and air of despondency added to her general attitude of dejection. If Jules could see me now, she thought in horror, but at the recollection of the Frenchman misery swamped her anew. She had planned to see Jules in London. Working in the capital, they would have had plenty of occasions to be together. He had told her he hoped to do some of his recording work in England, and she had looked forward excitedly to informing him of her new independence. How forlorn those hopes now seemed, enmeshed as she was in the chains of obligation. How unlikely it would be that Richard would even countenance her friendship with a man like Jules, a man who might threaten his unwilling possession.

  With a feeling of despair almost overpowering her, she peeled off her sticky clothes and went into the bathroom. Perhaps if she had a shower, she thought, washed her hair and changed into something more flattering, she would feel better. At least she would be able to face herself without actual disgust at her appearance, and once Richard and Alex had gone to change for dinner, she would walk in the garden. The freshness of the evening air sounded very appealing, and her mind would be clearer if it was cooler.

  She washed her hair first, and then showered the heat of the day from her body. Some of the redness subsided beneath the cooling spray, and by the time she emerged, she was feeling human again. Covering her limbs with a cotton caftan, she plugged in her hairdryer and perched on the end of the bed, threading her fingers through her hair to help it to dry. Already the shadows were lengthening on the tennis court, the tall cypresses that hid the stable yard casting their shade in elongated fingers. It was going to be another pleasant evening, and Olivia couldn’t help remembering other evenings when Richard had taken her down to the river, and they had sailed the small dinghy he used to own. Nowadays he kept a yacht, permanently moored on the Thames, and he seldom had time for sailing.

  Pushing the disruptive thoughts of her stepbrother aside, she thought instead of Jules, and wondered when he would get in touch with her. He had her address, and her telephone number, she recalled with some dismay, imagining Richard’s reactions if some strange man rang and asked to speak to her. Still, she defended herself, determining not to sink back into melancholy, Richard was not her keeper, and if she chose to have friends of her own, he couldn’t stop her.

  ‘Olivia!’

  Richard’s voice accompanying a sharp rap at her door almost scared her half to death, indulging as she had been in recollections of Jules’s farewell at the airport. It was almost as if her subconscious dread of her stepbrother’s censure had summoned him out of the air, and she was unprepared when the door opened to admit him. Not for him the polite delay while he waited for her response, she thought angrily. She could have been stark naked, and he would still have walked in, probably showing no more surprise than he was showing now.

  Although her impulse was to get up from the bed, she forced herself to remain where she was, confronting him defensively, summoning all her reserves of composure. She said nothing, allowing him to make the first overtures, and he closed the door behind him and leaned back against it.

  ‘Hi,’ he said at last, and it was so unexpected, she could only stare at him. ‘Bella said you didn’t want any tea. You’re not sick, are you?’

  Olivia’s lips trembled, and she pressed them together to hide the small betrayal. ‘I wasn’t hungry,’ she got out shortly, and he straightened away from the door, his eyes surveying her thoughtfully.

  ‘You’ve been crying,’ he stated, approaching her with some deliberation. He came round the bed towards her corner, and although her eyes measured the distance to the safety of the bathroom, she knew she would never make it. Besides, as Bella had said, she knew the uncertainty of his temper, and she wouldn’t put it past him to smash the lock if she tried to turn it against him.

  He halted in front of her, hands pushed into the hip pockets of his pants, feet slightly apart on the curly tumble-twist of her carpet. He was so sure of himself, she thought resentfully, darting a look up at him, and then continued drying her hair as if she was supremely indifferent to his presence.

  Richard watched her for a few more minutes, minutes when Olivia ran the whole gamut of her emotions, then he bent and disconnected her dryer, and the silence that followed was almost deafening.

  ‘I said—you’ve been crying,’ he repeated, stretching out a hand and stroking her cheekbone with a lazy finger. ‘I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?’

  Olivia almost gasped, but she flinched away from his touch with a revulsion that was evident in every line of her slim body. He was apologising! After the terrible afternoon she had spent, closeted in the heat of her bedroom, he thought he could just come and apologise and that would be the end of it. And what was he apologising for? Not what he had said, that much she was sure, and anything else was pure diplomacy.

  ‘I’m trying to dry my hair,’ she managed to say now, fidgeting with the temperature control. ‘If—if that’s all you have to say, will you plug it in again before you leave. I’d like to get my hair dry before dinner.’

  It was tantamount to throwing down the gauntlet, she knew, but for some reason Richard chose not to pick it up. Instead, he bent and reconnected the dryer, plucking it out of her hand before she could stop him, and continuing the drying himself.

  She wanted to protest, to snatch the appliance out of his hand, and order him out of her room. But his movements were sure and rhythmical, his fingers massaging her scalp, releasing all the tension in her neck. She found herself yielding to his touch, moving with him, and when he came behind her to lift the length of hair from her nape, she allowed herself to rest against his thighs, as if they were
there for just that purpose.

  ‘Is that good?’ he asked, bending his head so she could hear him, and she nodded drowsily. She was bemused by the sensations he was arousing, so much so that when he switched off the dryer again she was loath to dispel the mood he had created.

  ‘It’s dry,’ he said, his voice breaking in on her reverie, and immediately she straightened away from him half ashamed of her weakness. But when he came round to face her, his expression was warm and gentle, and she forced herself to offer reluctant thanks.

  ‘It was a pleasure,’ he assured her firmly, a wry smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and she wondered what he was thinking. ‘Now, if you get dressed, I’ll take you out for dinner. As a kind of compensation-cum-homecoming outing, designed to heal the breach between us.’

  Olivia gazed up at him mutinously, not trusting his persuasive smile for a moment. ‘I don’t want to go out for dinner,’ she stated tremulously. ‘Not with you, or anyone, and in fact I might have dinner here, in my room.’ She paused, waiting for the axe to fall, and when it didn’t, she added: ‘You weren’t concerned about my homecoming yesterday evening, so why pretend today is any different?’

  ‘Oh, Olivia …’ There was tenderness as well as impatience in his hands that gripped her shoulders and drew her resisting body up to face him. He could feel her trembling, she knew that, but it was hard enough trying to control her emotions without using what little strength she retained to school her traitorous limbs. ‘I didn’t mean to be so harsh,’ he muttered, as the scent of the perfumed body lotion she was wearing rose from the hollow between her breasts and filled his nostrils. ‘But when you lie to me, I just see red!’

  ‘I—I didn’t lie to you,’ she whispered, unwillingly aroused by his conciliatory tone. ‘I would have told you, but—but in my own time.’

  ‘I know,’ he conceded softly. ‘Bella was annoyed with you, and used the first weapon that came to her hands to defend herself. I should have realised that, instead of blowing my top as I did.’

  ‘Oh, Rich …’

  Despite all her efforts, the tears began to fall again, overspilling her lashes and trickling down her checks. One splashed on to his wrist as his hands caressed her shoulders in the hollow below her ear, and with an exclamation he bent his head and licked the salty drops along her jawline.

  It was an intimate thing for him to do, and not at all unpleasurable, but the feeling of his tongue against her skin was too reminiscent of his professed possession. Did he really believe she belonged to him, body and soul? she wondered wildly. Was his drinking of her tears a kind of ritual demonstration of his ownership?

  ‘Don’t. Please,’ she said, pulling away from him, and with a shrug he let her go, adding to her uncertainty. She didn’t understand him in this mood, and she had no way of anticipating his behaviour from one minute to the next.

  ‘So,’ he probed softly, ‘you won’t make friends?’

  Olivia turned helplessly away, one hand raised to her hair, the other pressed nervously to her stomach. She didn’t know how to answer him, for although she still resented the way he had spoken to her earlier, it was impossible not to respond to his gentleness. She was all kinds of a fool, she supposed, and had she had a mother to turn to, someone with whom to share her doubts and uncertainties, she might well have told him to go to hell. But she hadn’t, and the temptation to give in to him was almost overpowering. For so long he had been the focal point in her life, the sun around which her planet revolved, and when he was being kind to her, it seemed churlish to reject him.

  ‘I want to be friends, Rich,’ she began in a low voice, but as soon as the words were uttered she despised herself anew. Was she so weak? she wondered angrily. Had he only to play the gallant knight for her to be won over, to forget the cruel words he had used to her at lunchtime, and invite him to be callous to her all over again? For it would come, she suspected, unless she was prepared to give in to him in everything.

  ‘Then you’ll join me for dinner,’ he was saying now, making no further attempts to touch her, and she glanced at him over her shoulder.

  He was so clever, she thought irritably. He knew exactly how to appeal to her unsophisticated emotions; when to advance and when to retreat, and when to maintain the position he held.

  ‘And if I refuse?’ she ventured. ‘Will you tell me I’m obliged to join you? That as you’re paying for the meal, you have the right to choose where I eat it?’

  A flicker of impatience appeared in his eyes, and as quickly disappeared. ‘What do you want me to say, Olivia?’ he asked softly. ‘I’ve apologised. I know I have a filthy temper, and I’m not proud of it, but more than that I can’t say.’

  ‘I want you to reassure me!’ she declared, the tremor appearing in her voice again. ‘I want you to tell me that you take back what you said, that I’m free to do as I like, and if that means leaving Copley, you’ll let me go! Or were you only apologising for the manner of your speech, not its content?’

  ‘Do you want to leave me?’ he enquired quietly, and she could not help but be disturbed by the change in his expression. Where before he had appeared confident, arrogant even, now his face showed a defeated weariness, the deep-set eyes hollow in their sockets, the lines beside his nose and mouth more deeply engraved. He had always looked younger than his age, but now he showed every one of his thirty-five years, and maybe more besides.

  ‘Richard!’ Olivia was alarmed, stretching out her hands towards him, gripping his forearms with her fingers, gazing up into his sallow face. ‘Richard, what is it? Are you ill? Why are you looking like that?’

  He sighed, not immediately responding to her, withdrawing a hand to push back the thick dark hair with raking fingers. ‘I guess I’m just tired,’ he said at last, as she fretted for his answer. ‘It’s been one hell of a year so far, and I’m getting older all the time.’

  ‘You’re not old!’ she exclaimed, her fingers tightening on his wrist to impress her point. ‘Heavens, you’ve always had more energy than me, and this morning in the pool you only let me win because you knew I wanted to.’

  A faint smile touched his lips. ‘This morning in the pool, yes,’ he murmured reminiscently. ‘It was fun, wasn’t it? What a long time ago that seems!’

  Olivia’s lips compressed. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘we will have dinner together, if that’s what you want …’

  ‘Is it what you want?’ he demanded harshly, and looking up at him, she knew it was. It was crazy after the way he had behaved, but she still couldn’t bear to see him so disturbed.

  ‘Yes, it’s what I want,’ she agreed, and he twisted his wrist so that his hand was gripping hers, instead of the other way about, and used it to pull her closer. Aroused by his unexpected weakness, Olivia was conscious of every taut muscle of his flat stomach, and of the male smell about him accentuated by the heat of the room. It was not an unpleasant smell, compounded as it was of the shaving lotion he used, the scent of the narrow black cheroots he occasionally smoked, and the sweat of his body, but it had the curious effect of reminding her of that kiss they had shared by the pool, and that was not so pleasant. That was when everything had started to go wrong, she thought fatalistically, remembering her aversion to it even then. She had wanted things to remain the same, for Richard to treat her as he had always done, and for her to feel the safety and security she had always known at Copley. She knew it was the child inside her, not wanting to grow up, not wanting to face responsibilities, not really wanting to accept what her body already knew had happened—that she was a child no longer. Her response to Jules’s kiss should have convinced her of that, and certainly it had been an enjoyable experience. But did that explain her reactions to Richard? Did that explain this awareness she had never experienced before?

  ‘Olivia …’ He was looking down at her now, his eyes narrowed and gentle. ‘Are we friends again? Can I take it that you’ve forgiven me for my clumsy words?’

  Olivia’s nod was jerky. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes
, of course,’ but it was as much a plea for him to leave her alone as an acknowledgement of his forgiveness.

  ‘Good.’ His hands fell away from hers, and he turned towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you to get ready, then.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her smile was shaky as his fingers reached for the handle, and he hesitated a moment, allowing his eyes to appraise the quivering length of her slender body. She realised, belatedly, that she was standing with her back to the long windows, and the thin robe was scant protection in such a light. Even so, Richard could see no more of her than he had that morning in the pool, and besides, she saw no point in indulging in a display of false modesty.

  ‘Be ready in fifteen minutes,’ he told her as he swung open the door, but the softness of his voice belied the command in his words.

  It was not until the door had closed behind him that the realisation that he had got his own way once again really struck her. Until that point, she had had other things to think about, not least her own emotions, but recalling her initial resentment when he had come into her bedroom, she marvelled at the way he had levelled her defences. It had been a subtle process of transferring responsibility for what had happened from him to her, and in so doing creating a conflict of loyalties within herself. He had made her feel guilty, never a comfortable sensation, and she was left to wonder how much of Richard’s weakness had been real and how much devised.

  Shrugging off her robe and rummaging in her drawer for clean underwear, she tried to drum up the same sense of outrage she had felt before his attempt at conciliation, but it simply wasn’t possible to sustain such indignation, not in the face of Richard’s present attitude. Instead, she found herself wondering where he would take her for dinner, and whether she should wear the brown chiffon or the blended blues and greens that made the culottes so attractive.