DECEIT OF A PAGAN

by Carole Mortimer

  'He was angry, yes. But that wasn't the reason he— well, that wasn't why it happened.'

  'But the baby, how do you feel about leaving her?'

  'How do you think I feel?' She choked over the words, her tears starting again. Keri had looked so beautiful, tucked up in her cot. It had been a wrench leaving her behind, but she knew that Leon would only come after her if she took Keri away from him. He loved the baby very much even if he didn't love her.

  Neil put a comforting hand over hers. 'I'm sorry. Templar. You must feel like hell.'

  'Yes,' she agreed.

  Neil slowed the car down, pulling it on to the side of the road and turning off the ignition. 'Are you sure you're doing the right thing by leaving?'

  'What else can I do?' she sighed defeatedly.

  ‘You could try staying and fighting for what you want,’ he suggested gently.

  ‘I don't know what I want any more. Not after tonight...' she trailed off miserably.

  Neil put his arm about her shoulders. 'I would have" thought tonight would have told you a lot.'

  'Like what?'

  'Like Leon finds you very attractive, that he desires, you. Isn't that enough to be going on with?'

  She shook her head. 'It isn't enough.'

  'You want him to love you too, hmm?'

  Her head shot up and she looked at him in the dark­ness. 'Why do you say that?' she quavered.

  'Because all these tears aren't just for the baby. You love Leon, don't you?'

  'There's no point in denying it,' she said dully. 'Yes, I love him. But he doesn't love me.'

  'How do you know that?'

  She gave a harsh laugh. 'It's obvious, I would have thought. Doesn't your knowledge of faces tell you that just by looking at him?'

  'Leon's face isn't quite so easily read. He's a very hard man to fathom. But I would say that he's more possessive over you than any other woman he's ever had in his life. You puzzle him. I've seen him looking at you, as if he can't make his mind up about you.'

  'That was before. He knows everything about me now.' Much more than he had bargained for!

  'Mm, perhaps. But I think he's the sort of man who will love only once in his life, and when he does it will be for ever.'

  She sighed. 'Perhaps—but it won't be me he loves.'

  'You could be wrong ' he broke off, turning in his seat to look out of the back window. 'In fact I'm sure you are. A car has just stopped behind us and at a

  guess I would say it was Leon.'

  'Leon! But ' she too turned, just in time to see her door wrenched open and the blazingly angry face of her husband thrust inside the car.

  'It seems that once again I have to ask you to leave my wife alone,’ he snapped contemptuously.

  'Leon, it isn't like that!'

  'Explanations can wait until we return home,' he told her shortly. 'You will please get into our car.'

  'Leon, please let me explain,' she pleaded.

  'You will explain nothing,' he helped her out of Neil's car. 'You will wait for me in the car.'

  Templar looked at Neil, shrugging. 'I'm sorry about this.'

  'Do as Leon wants, Templar,' he advised gently. 'It's for the best.'

  Within a few minutes Leon had joined her in the car, putting her cases in the back, his expression not quite so grim. 'You weren't rude to him?'

  'I have done nothing except tell your friend that in future I will allow you to be alone with no man but me.'

  'I was leaving you, Leon.' She held her head high. 'Taking me back to the villa won't change that. I'll just get another flight tomorrow.'

  'You will not get a flight from me tomorrow or any other time,' he declared calmly. 'I will not allow it.'

  'Don't you think it would have been best to let me go? This way you're just prolonging the agony.'

  'Agony!' he ground out fiercely. 'What do you think I have been suffering for the last hour? And when I came back to find you gone ...'

  Templar frowned. 'I didn't even realise you had gone out.'

  'Yes,' he said shortly. 'I went for a long walk on the beach to try and clear my head. I wanted to think.' He stopped the car outside the villa, coming round to open her door for her.

  Her body came up close against his as she stepped out, making her very much aware of how attractive he

  'I leave for England tomorrow. You can stay on here

  and when you return you will move back into the house

  with the baby. I will be the one to move out—until

  such time as perhaps-‘

  'Perhaps what, Leon?' she prompted desperately.

  He slammed the glass down savagely on the coffee-table and came to stand in front of her. Templar was amazed at the look of uncertainty on his face. 'Until such time as perhaps you can take me back into your life.'

  'But you don't have to leave it.'

  Leon gently cupped either side of her face, his stern mouth curved into a smile. 'I can no longer be satisfied with the sort of relationship we have had. Even to­night, when I knew what I had taken from you, I wanted you again. I had to leave your bedroom before I could no longer control myself.'

  So that was the reason for his abrupt departure from her room! And she had thought it was because she dis­gusted him, that he regretted what had happened be­tween them. The deep look in his eyes seemed to be telling her something she found hard to believe, wanted to believe, but found she just couldn't.

  'I wanted you to stay with me, Leon,' she whispered. 'I tried to ask you to stay, but you wouldn't let me.'

  He looked impatient. 'You were blinded by what had just happened. I was your first lover, you are only natural in feeling a certain softening of feelings to­wards me. But I want more from you. I want your love, Templar.'

  'But you already have it.' She trembled with the

  enormity of her declaration. -

  Leon shook his head sadly, his hands dropping to his sides. 'Not like this, Templar,' he said with a groan. 'I don't want it to be like this. For a long time now I have loved you. I have loved the gentleness of you, the softness of you. I love your body too, I cannot deny that, but it is not all I love. I love you, Templar, all of you.'

  She couldn't believe she was hearing him correctly. Leon, cold, hard, often unfeeling Leon, loved her! Her face began to glow and she felt like crying with happiness. 'Oh, Leon,' she choked, 'I love you too.'

  If anything his face became grimmer. 'You love what I have made you feel,' he contradicted gently.

  'No, oh no!' She ran to stand in front of him, smoothing away the frown from between his eyes. She put her arms about his waist, resting her face on his rapidly rising and falling chest. 'I realised the other night when you came to my room for the first time that I loved you, but it had happened long before that. The time you brought Rachel to the house I was not only-angry, I was jealous. Oh, Leon, I love you!'

  She stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth, moving against him and feeling him suddenly relax against her, his arms clamping about her like steel bands.

  'I hope you mean this, Templar,' he groaned fiercely. 'Because I cannot let you go now. I cannot!' he repeated achingly.

  He was literally shaking against her and she cried with her own happiness. T wouldn't let you send me away now. I wouldn't go even if you attempted to do it.'

  His face softened with love, he bent his head to claim her lips in a kiss that began gently but soon deep­ened into consuming passion. They were hungry for each other, aware of each other's love now, their senses heightened to breaking point.

  Leon pulled back, his breathing ragged with emo­tion. 'Thank God I came back from my walk when I did! I came to your room to see you, to tell you what I had decided, only to find you already gone. You can have no idea how I felt when I found some of your clothing gone,' he shuddered. 'And when I followed you only to find you had left with Neil Adams - I felt like death, my darling.’

  'I didn't leave with Neil,' she said, 'he was just giving me a lift to the a
irport.'

  He rested his forehead against hers, his hands clasped together at the base of her spine, their two bodies moulded together. 'I have suffered agonies the last few days, imagining you to be in love with him. I could not have stood that.'

  'He's been a friend, Leon, nothing more. He guessed the true circumstances of Keri's birth.'

  He sighed. 'I wish to God I had! I could have saved myself so much torment. To imagine other men having made love to you has been absolute hell for me. I should have known, should have guessed. I have never known what it was to be so murderously jealous before. You are my first and only love, Templar.'

  'And you mine,' she smiled shyly.

  He gave a deep shuddering sigh. 'I have so longed to hear you say that, I can hardly believe it.'

  'I feel the same. Leon, are you—will you be sharing my bed tonight?' Delicate colour flooded her cheeks.

  His look was probing. 'Do you want me to?'

  'So much,' she admitted huskily. 'So very much.'

  He swung her up in his arms, bending to kiss her before kicking the door open and marching up the stairs with her still in his arms.

  'Leon,' she giggled, 'someone may see us! What

  will they think?'

  'I could not give a damn!' He gave a triumphant laugh. 'I love you and I do not care who knows it. And I do not care who knows I am about to make passionate love to my wife into the early hours of the morning. I do not care!'

  Templar's eyes glowed her own satisfaction of such an arrangement as she snuggled into his throat, eager to give the rest of her nights and days into Leon's keep­ing.