by Sara Craven
Once he was unconscious, she found it was easier to go round to the passenger side and drag him from behind the steering wheel. By the time she had finished she was dripping with perspiration, and her dress had caught on the door handle and ripped quite badly, and she felt like bursting into tears or alternatively vomiting herself.
She climbed in, slamming the door, and tried to start the engine. After a lot of prevarication and a fair amount of choke, it complied sullenly with her modest demands and submitted to being backed cautiously out from under the tree. The clutch, she discovered, was fierce, and the accelerator sluggish, and between the two of them, she hiccuped her way out of the car park while David's recumbent form slid about like a rag doll beside her.
Between her anxiety for him and the problems of driving the van after months of never having been behind the wheel of a vehicle, coupled with the unfamiliarity of the road, the journey back to Ravensmere was a nightmare. Fortunately they encountered little other traffic, so her inability to find out how the headlights dipped proved of minor importance. But every garment she was wearing was sticking clammily to her body, and she felt stiff and aching with tension by the time she had rounded the final bend into the village street, and taken the turning for the pottery. She drew the van to a halt, switched off the engine, and slumped forward over the wheel, trying to calm herself and steady her erratic breathing for the next stage of the onslaught--getting David out of the van and into the house without waking or worrying Grace and Clive.
She moved wearily at last, fumbling without looking for the catch on the driver's door, when it gave way apparently of its own accord, and she nearly fell out. She gave a startled cry and clutched at the dashboard, and a hand came to steady her.
Carne's voice demanded icily, 'What the bloody hell are you supposed to be doing?'
Rowan found herself dragged without ceremony from the van. In the light of a street lamp, they regarded each other. In an oddly detached way she thought she had never seen him look so angry.
'I'd like an answer,' he said at last grimly. 'I realised a while ago that you shouldn't be judged by normal people's standards, but I never dreamed you'd go as far as breaking, the law and risking killing yourself. What was David thinking of to let you do this crazy thing?'
'Not very much at all.' She wanted to sink down on to the cold and dusty road at his feet and weep. She gestured towards the van. 'See for yourself.'
It seemed a long time before he came back, but when he did he was molten with rage.
'You-let him get into that state?'
'Yes, it's my hobby, pouring booze into minors. Didn't you know?' she retorted, her voice getting perilously high. In some mad way the wheel had come full circle, she thought, remembering the first time she had seen Carne bending over Antonia's recumbent form, and her own anger and suspicion.
'Don't try to be clever. This is too damn serious,' he rapped. How much has he had?'
She shook her head. 'I've honestly no idea. I wasn't there when it happened. You could try asking at the village shop.'
'I could also try giving you a damned good hiding!' His hands gripped her shoulders, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh. She stifled a little cry, and he smiled grimly. 'Hurts, does it? Believe me, it's the very least I'd like to do to you. You could have been killed, you stupid, irresponsible little bitch, don't you see that? And what would have happened if the police had stopped you?'
'Very little.' She was stiff with rage now. 'I've had nothing to drink all evening except Coca-cola. I have a valid driving licence, and I imagine the van is insured for other drivers. David I would have to lie about, but I'd have done that for Grace and Clive's sake. Now for God's sake will you stop going on and endlessly on at me and help me! He needs to be indoors.'
Carne's hand fell away from her; and without another word he walked over to the van. Rowan took a long shuddering breath, then followed him. David was semi-conscious, muttering to himself and breathing stertorously, and no sooner had they lugged him out of the van into the air than he was sick again.
'God damn it, we'll have to wake his parents,' Carne said savagely. 'We can't risk him choking in his sleep.'
It seemed a long time, waiting in the living room for Grace to come down. Carne had deposited David on the sofa, and Rowan stood by the hearth watching him. He still looked ill, she thought judiciously, but he was a slightly better colour.
Grace came in, hastily tying the sash of her dressing gown. 'David!' She bent over him anxiously. 'What on earth . . . ?' Her voice died away, and slowly she straightened, looking at Rowan. Her eyes slowly assimilated Rowan's dishevelled appearance, her white face, the torn dress, and a look of unutterable contempt stole over her pleasant face.
'I don't know what part you played in all this,' she said quietly. 'But I never want to see you again, Rowan. Please leave my house, and don't come back.'
Sinking her teeth into her lower lip until she could taste blood, Rowan went to the door. She could have protested, she supposed, as she went out into the night. She might "even have got Grace to listen to her eventually, but David's mother had more pressing matters on her mind. She stumbled slightly, and realised that silent tears were pouring down her face.
From behind her Carne said, 'Where are you going?'
'Back to the house.' Her voice was muffled as she pressed her hand almost convulsively to her lips. She kept her head turned away because she didn't want him to see her distress.
'The car's round the corner.'
'I'd rather walk.'
'Don't be a fool,' he said wearily. 'You'll ride back with me. And don't take Grace's parting words too seriously. She's very upset. Clive will make her see reason. He was calling the doctor when I left.'
She made no reply, and after a moment he said, 'Rowan, we have to talk. You must see that.'
'I think enough has been said already.' She brushed the tears away angrily with her fist.
'On the contrary, we haven't even begun yet.' That grim note was back in his voice, and he took her arm, urging her forward. 'I infer from a previous remark of yours that the Wainwrights were responsible for tonight's disaster. What makes you think so?'
'David told me so. He'd been missing for over an hour and when I went to look for him, Jeff was there. He seems to have a sense of grievance over the fact that David no longer goes out with his sister, and earlier today he wanted me to break my date and go to the disco with him so that David could go with Beth. I-refused. I imagine this is his not very subtle revenge.'
They were at the car now, and he unlocked the door and put her into it, before going round and getting into the driving seat.
He said too gently, 'Unless, of course, you'd like to drive.'
There was a long silence, then Rowan shrank back in her seat and closed her eyes.
'Of course,' he said at last, 'I won't ask to see the valid driving licence. I'm sure it exists and was legally obtained-but that unfortunately invalidates a number of other points. And number one on the list is-exactly how old are you, Rowan?'
Her voice shook. 'I'm-nineteen. I shall be twenty in October. Does that satisfy you?'
'Not in the slightest;' His voice was still pleasant, but there was a note in it that made her shiver. 'The next question is, naturally, why did you feel it necessary to perpetrate this elaborate charade that you were a mere child, barely above the age of consent? Is it some kind of long-term practical joke? because if so someone should have warned you, I'm not amused by such things.'
'It wasn't a joke,' she said at last.
'Then why?'
Rowan was in an agony of indecision. To tell the whole truth would implicate Antonia. She shrugged in the darkness inside the car. 'It-just seemed safer. Your reputation is pretty notorious, after all, and Antonia was worried about me. We--we thought if pretended to be younger you'd leave me alone, but how mistaken can you be?'
Carne said very quietly, 'I think that should be my line.' Then he switched o
n the engine, and the headlights lit up the quiet street like a pair of blazing eyes.
When they stopped outside the house Rowan almost fell out of the car and ran for the steps, treading on her skirt and almost falling as ·she did so. Almost at the same moment as she heard his car door slam, he was beside her.
'Oh, no, sweetheart,' he said mockingly, 'you don't get away that easily, and you know it.'
His arm went round her, scooping her up, and he carried her into the house, pinned to his side like an unwieldy parcel. Rowan gasped, her fingers catching in the fine wool of the sweater he was wearing to try and maintain some sort of balance. She tried vainly to kick him, and one of her shoes fell off.
'Put me down!' she raged.
'When I'm good and ready.' Be carried her into the sitting room and dropped her almost casually on one of the sofas, where she lay staring up at him in a welter of Indian cotton, her eyes enormous.
'You've torn your dress.' His voice was conversational. 'And as it's ruined already . . .' He leaned over her, his fingers parting her neckline, then wrenching at it so that the flimsy material ripped like paper down to her waist and beyond.
She said, 'No-please . . .'
'Why not?' She had been trying to shield her bared breasts with her hands, but he took her wrists and forced them away, his silver eyes beginning a long slow scrutiny which had her writhing in impotent shame. 'There's nothing to stop me now, darling. No moral or ethical considerations about your youth and innocence to give me pause. I've held you before-remember? I've had a taste of the way your mouth and your body can respond, and it's made me hungry for more-for the whole banquet in fact.'
She said desperately, 'Carne-no-I'm sorry I lied to you, but it seemed the best thing to do at the time.'
'Sorry?' He shook his head. 'You don't even know the meaning of the word, sweetheart, but you will by the morning.'
His kiss was hard and insolent, draining her of the strength to resist, even if the will was there, As her mouth parted helplessly under the pressure of his, and a long uncontrollable shiver of delight ran through her, something in her mind screamed, 'Not like this. Not when he's angry,' and she began to struggle again, to try and thrust him away.
'Don't fight.' He lifted his head and looked down at her. 'The battle's over anyway, and you know if, so why not enjoy the victory together?'
'Because I'm not your conquest,' she whispered. The world had gone dizzily, crazily awry, and she saw him through a haze of tears.
Carne shook his head. 'Don't cry.' He bent forward, licking the tears from her cheeks with swift, sensual movements of his tongue. 'Tears aren't a ploy that work with me, so you're wasting your time-and mine. Time that could be better spent.'
His hands moved restlessly, freeing her from the ruins of her dress, dragging it ruthlessly down from her shoulders and tossing it aside to lie in a crumpled heap of green and gold on the carpet.
'Dryad colours,' Carne said mockingly. 'But I think when I start my picture, I'll paint you as you are now.' His hand slid the length of her body, teasing, cajoling, arousing, and he smiled as her breath escaped on a little tormented sigh.
'I could damn your cheating little soul, only dryads don't have souls, do they, my love, only bodies. So I'll have to make do with that.' His mouth caressed the pulse in her throat, then slipped down to the hollow between her neck and shoulder, lingering there, while his fingers moved on her, exploring, discovering, making all her secrets his own. Rowan moaned helplessly, twisting her head from side to side on the softness of the cushions beneath her. His touch was magic, it was torment, it was madness.
She whispered in a voice she hardly recognised as her own, 'You must let me go.'
'Like hell I must,' he grated. 'But make your nominal protest if that's what you want. You don't sound as if you've even convinced yourself.'
She began, 'Antonia . . .'
'Is asleep,' he said briefly. 'So she won't come to your rescue this time. Not that you want to be rescued, do you, sweetheart, any more than you did last time. You want all this and more.' He bent and kissed her breasts, gentling their rosy peaks with his tongue until she felt she would dissolve into pure sensation. Her fingers tangled in his hair, drawing him nearer to her, while deep within her a slow, sweet ache welcomed the unaccustomed weight of his body above hers and beckoned him closer still.
This, she thought, had been inevitable since the first time she saw him. This was why, if she was honest with herself, she had yielded to Antonia's dubious persuasions and come to Raven's Crag, because she wanted him more than anything she had ever wanted in her life, and now he was going to be hers, so why suddenly was there this bitterness welling up inside her, this sense of loss and hopelessness?
She said aloud, 'You don't love me.'
He raised his head and looked at her, his mouth twisting cynically:
'I wasn't aware it was a prerequisite.' His voice slowed to a drawl. 'Accept the fact that I want you quite badly, Rowan, and keep your sentiment for your home-made fairy stories upstairs.'
For a moment she was stunned, then she began to push at his shoulders.
'Wanting isn't enough,' she flashed. ,
'Then I'll have to make it enough.' His tone hardened. 'Don't be naive, Rowan. Don't start dressing up your needs with irrelevant emotions.'
'Emotion is never irrelevant,' she said in a low voice. 'And I can't help being naive. This isn't a situation I'm used to.'
'And what's your next line--"I'm still a virgin?'" he asked sardonically. 'I thought I'd made it clear that the charade was over, and that it was time for more grown-up games.'
It's no game, Rowan thought desperately. It's all deadly serious, because if you take me, then I'll belong to you for ever, and that's the last thing you want. At the moment I'm a novelty with my straight hair and my small breasts, but soon I'll be an embarrassment because after tonight there's no way I'm going to be able to hide what I feel for you-if you become my lover.
She shrugged a shoulder. 'I didn't say I wasn't going to play,' she said a little petulantly. 'But surely there must be a market price on virginity. After all, it's a rare commodity these days.'
'Very rare,' he said evenly, after a pause. He was very still, poised above her like a hawk, the 'silver eyes hooded and a little blank as they looked into hers. 'But if we're bargaining, how about exchanging your most priceless gift for a painting-a Carne Maitland original, signed by the artist. Subject-a dryad, naturally.'
Rowan shook her head, flicking a strand of brown hair back from her face.
'I think I'd prefer cash. It takes a long time to paint a picture, and I don't intend to spend one hour longer in this house than I can help.' She saw a muscle flicker in his tanned cheek, and pressed on recklessly. 'Well, Mr Maitland, how much are you prepared to pay for your banquet? Enough, I hope, to take me back to London and keep me for a while until I find a job.'
'Oddly enough, I seem to have lost my appetite. I've never had to buy a woman yet, and I don't intend to start with you, you mercenary little bitch.' The contempt in his tone stung her, but she made herself smile at him.
'Then may I please have what's left of my dress?'
'With pleasure.' He reached down and tossed it to her.
Watching her struggle into it, he added coldly, 'I hope you don't expect me to pay for a new one.'
'I don't expect anything from you,' she muttered, her hands shaking as she tugged ineffectually at the torn material. She felt sick and degraded, and close to tears again.
'That's very wise,' he said harshly. 'Tell me this--do you plan to peddle your dubious wares to anyone else?'
'I shouldn't think so.' She dared not meet his gaze. 'You're the only person I know who could afford to pay the price I want. I won't settle for anything less.'
'You'll settle for nothing at all, Rowan, because that's what you'll get from me. If you want out of here then you'll have to work and earn your way back south.'
'I'll work,' she said. 'My God,
I'll work. I'll do anything I have to-anything at all to get out of this place and away from you. Do I make myself clear?'
'As daylight and crystal.' He sounded very weary. 'Now, get out.'
By the time Rowan reached the spiral staircase, she was trembling so much she could hardly move, and she had to haul herself up it painfully, step by step. She was afraid Carne would come after her, but from the half-open door of the sitting room she 'could hear the chink of a bottle on a glass, and as she completed her long, solitary ascent; she found herself wishing that she too could seek the oblivion of alcohol.
When she awoke the next morning, the sun was pouring through the window, and for those few confused moments between sleeping and waking she thought in exasperation that she had overslept, that she was going to be late for work--and then, as she sat up, she began to remember and the brightness of the day slipped away from her.
She put her hands over her eyes and sat very still, trying to shut the whole disastrous day and night of her consciousness; but that, of course, was impossible, and somehow she had to get out of this bed, and take hold of the ravelled threads of her life and try and force them back into some kind of cohesive pattern.
She put on her dressing gown and went into the bathroom to wash and clean her teeth. There was no sound from Antonia's room, and after a moment's hesitation she opened the door and went in. The sheets on the bed were turned back, but at the same time it had a curiously unruffled appearance--not at all as if someone had slept the night there. Rowan looked at it for a long moment, then 'she backed into the bathroom and closed the door quietly again.
She dressed herself quickly in jeans and sweater and went out on to the landing. The whole house was quiet. Outside the sun danced on the leaves, and turned the azaleas in the driveway to flame, and there was movement and colour and birdsong, but inside there was silence.
Rowan walked towards the stairs, and paused as she heard the creak of an opening door. Antonia came into view. She was fastening the sash of her peignoir, and her face was closed, with a small tight smile playing about her lips. She glanced tip and saw Rowan watching her, and the smile widened into triumph.
