The Hawk and the Lamb

by Susan Napier

  'You don’t remember?'

  'N—no...' The whole experience had melted together in her mind into one glorious white-hot mass of ex­quisite sensation. Even to think about it sent tiny thrills of delight darting up and down the most sensitive parts of her body.

  He leaned back in the dainty wrought-iron chair. 'Never mind, chérie,' he said caressingly. ‘I am glad that I obviously didn’t break the mood for you. Suffice it to say that I protected you last night as I will tonight and all the nights to come if you wish me to...'

  If she wished? 'Tonight?' she questioned huskily.

  'Yes. I think you will be far more comfortable here than at the hotel. And we shall be more private, too.'

  It took a moment before she realised what he meant. 'You want me to stay here?'

  'Not want,' he corrected her punctiliously, 'we are staying here. I have already asked Grandpère if he would not object, and delegated my responsibilities at the hotel for this evening...'

  'But—I have nothing to wear,' was the most coherent, and prosaic, of the objections screaming in her brain.

  His reaction was a piratical smile and a drawl that turned her to fire. 'What a delicious thought, chérie, but as it happens I have asked for all your things to be brought to us here.'

  'All my things? How long are we going to stay?'

  He didn’t comment on her tacit capitulation and re­sumed enjoying his fruit salad. 'As long as it takes, Eliza-Beth.'

  'As long as what takes?'

  'Why, for you to realise that I am a man who can be trusted.'

  With what? Her body? Her heart? 'You hold my passport, I have to trust you,' she pointed out truculently.

  With the air of a magician producing a rabbit, Jack reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and withdrew a slim dark blue folder and placed it on the table be­tween them. The effect was all he could have wished for. Elizabeth stared at it, round-eyed, and then at him. She made no move to touch it.

  'Do you want to leave, Beth?'

  'You mean here?'

  ‘I mean me. This place, this island,' he added care­lessly as if the latter two were the less important.

  She paled, emphasising the conflict in her dark eyes. ‘I—I don’t know.'

  He was quick to prey on her weakness. 'As usual you evade an answer, so I will give it for you. You don’t want to leave. You cannot because you are here for a reason... and not the one you so prettily confessed last night to soften me up for your clumsy attempt at se­duction. It is something to do with this house and your book-buying uncles and my grandfather. I got side­tracked for a while by your ridiculous detective mission for your other uncle—who I might comment is a little casual about his security. But I was always aware of some deeper game in play, for stakes I suspect are far more serious. You obviously wanted to come here, so I de­cided to bring you. We will stay.'

  ‘If I was so "clumsy" I'm surprised you could bring yourself to succumb to my seduction!' Elizabeth flared, stricken by his unexpectedly brutal volte-face, just when she had been on the verge of being truly honest with him.

  'Do not make me pay for another man's sins, chérie. To succumb means to give way in the face of over­whelming force or desire, does it not?' His precise mastery of English reminded her that it was not his first language. ‘In our case I think the succumbing was very mutual. And I too was clumsy in my eagerness to make you mine.' If that was clumsiness Elizabeth went faint at the prospect of experiencing his idea of finesse!

  'The evening ended precisely as I had always intended it should end. I had waited long enough for you to conquer your shyness. And I was pleased to find out that you are not at all shy in bed. You are earthy and generous. I liked your frank delight in our coupling, the sounds you made when I ripped away your control, the sight of you climaxing so sweetly under me—'

  'Jack!’ Elizabeth's cry was a scandalised whisper. In spite of the fact that the servants had withdrawn she blushed at the thought that his bold voice might carry.

  'What? I am too unsubtle for you, ma chère?’ He pinned her with his challenging grey stare. 'You hide so much from me, but this you cannot hide, thank God. Passion does not belong only in bed. That is for misers and stagnant professors. If you stay, I will teach you that passion belongs in every room of the house and that it is a full-blooded shout of victory rather than a whisper of shame. Whatever else happens between us, we can have this...'

  It sounded utterly wonderful.

  She took a deep breath and picked up her passport. He straightened in his chair and she saw that he was not as confident as he sounded.

  She put the passport in her bag, trying not to look at the three books cushioned in tissue-paper which resided accusingly there.

  ‘I'll stay,' she said defiantly, and then temporised, 'But only for a little while.' She couldn’t bring herself to put a definite date to the end of this reckless enchantment but unlike her last love-affair this time she would not be entering it in a mist of rosy optimism.

  He seemed gravely satisfied with her less than passionate declaration, treating her as tenderly as if she had just laid her heart at his feet. And perhaps she had, she thought glumly.

  They swam and lazed away the afternoon and when evening came Elizabeth changed for dinner in a room that was, surprisingly, some distance away from Jack's.

  He had grinned wickedly at her confusion when she had realised that the adjoining door in her room led only into a thankfully modern bathroom.

  'We must observe the proprieties, ma chère,' he mur­mured, stroking her hot cheek with one finger. 'Grandpère is old-fashioned in his expectations of the behaviour of his guests, even if they happen to be family. We dress for dinner and if we aren’t married we must sneak through the hallways at night to our secret liaisons in the approved romantic fashion.'

  'Does he know—?'

  'That we are lovers?' He rescued her from her em­barrassment. ‘I did not tell him so, but for all his years he is a very shrewd old man. Doubtless the music of your name on my tongue gave him a hint of my feelings.'

  She wished he would give her such a hint. As it was she could only allow herself to assume that his flattering intensity was the result of his highly developed hunting instinct—the excitement of pursuit followed by the tri­umphant climax of capture.

  When he tapped at her door to take her down to dinner and Elizabeth opened it to find him in dark formal wear rather than the tropical white he usually wore at the casino, she was glad that she had chosen the simple bottle-green dress with a high cowl-necked bodice sweeping in an A-line to the hem of a calf-length skirt. Its clever design almost rendered her figure demure. She had also put her hair up, although she knew he preferred it free. Tonight she didn’t want to be blatantly seductive. Tonight she just wanted to be herself.

  He passed the test with flying colours, his approval evident in the sweeping admiration of his glance. 'Quiet and beautiful, you are a woman of class, chérie. Or should I have said "neat, not gaudy"?'

  She frowned at him and he clicked his tongue chidingly. ‘It's a quotation from Charles Lamb, your namesake. I thought you were supposed to be an expert in English literature. You have a degree in it, do you not? And you live among books.'

  ‘If one has it, one doesn’t need to flaunt it,' she said primly. 'Have you been studying hard to impress me with your scholarship?'

  ‘I like to read widely but studying is not my forte so I'm afraid I must decline the opportunity to flatter you with my devotion. I hope to impress you in other ways.' He accompanied his teasing purr with the polite offer of his elbow as they descended the wide staircase to the dining-room. ‘I’m glad that you chose not to flaunt tonight, chérie. If you had worn your Mata Hari dress I would have had difficulty in treating you like the gently bred young lady you are.'

  'Perhaps I don’t want to be treated like a lady,' she flirted.

  ‘In that case you must wait until after dinner,' he promised her in a satiny growl.

  She discovered t
he reason for his unaccustomed re­straint when they entered the dining-room. Already seated at the head of the long, narrow, highly polished table was an upright figure, shrunken with age inside his formal clothes.

  Elizabeth was speechless as Jack introduced her with a stately flourish to Alain St Clair, whose beringed fingers seemed too heavy for his pale hand as he raised hers to his mouth and saluted her with a practised gallantry to match his grandson's.

  The old man's eyes were a darker version of Jack's, slightly rheumy but acutely penetrating for all that, and Elizabeth briefly panicked at the notion that his X-ray vision might perceive his priceless necklace beneath the draping fabric of the cowl. The danger of it being dis­covered in her room by curious servants had outweighed the slight risk that Jack might seek to undress her before she could excuse herself for a few minutes.

  She blushed at her thoughts and Alain St Clair smiled puckishly and murmured something in rapid French to his grandson that made him grin. Elizabeth forgot her small deception about not speaking their language, and bristled with outrage. Why, the sly old fox! Jack had led her to expect a tottering but dignified and elderly autocrat... not this wicked old reprobate.

  ‘If I am an ingénue at my age, monsieur, it is not because I am ingénieux—ingenious—but because I have always previously associated with gentlemen,' she said crisply as she took the seat to his right that he had in­dicated and swept them both with a look of chilly disdain. 'And if I am ripe it's not for the plucking but for delivering the lesson in manners that you both richly deserve!'

  As soon as the words were out she was appalled at her rudeness but Alain St Clair only laughed, a bois­terous sound from such an apparently frail chest that mingled with Jack's smooth, 'Did I not mention, Grandpère, that Eliza-Beth speaks our language fluently? Possibly because she forgot to mention it to me. So chérie, I am pleased that you have understood every­thing that I have said to you in the throes of my most... ungentlemanly conduct.'

  This, too, entertained the old man. As dinner was served Elizabeth noticed a spark of mild antagonism be­tween the two men underlying their obvious affection and wondered whether they had had some prior ar­gument and whether it had been about her. Her dis­comfort was eased when she realised that Jack appeared as suspicious as she of the sudden rally in his grand­father's health. His conversation was peppered with pointed offers to assist in the cutting up of meat, the picking up of the heavy solid silver condiments and pious cautions about the mixing of wine with prescription drugs until his grandfather snapped testily that he was not going to lie down in his grave just because Jack had decided he wanted his inheritance early. For some reason the reply seemed to satisfy Jack and he returned to his former path of subtly flirting with his eyes at Elizabeth across the hot-house roses which bloomed between them in a chased-silver bowl.

  Although Alain St Clair proved to speak English as faultlessly as his grandson, in deference to his years they spoke French during the meal, and after Elizabeth had conquered her embarrassment and firmly thrust her guilt to the back of her mind she actually enjoyed herself. The old man knew more about rare books than anyone she had ever met, including her uncles, and his conver­sation was sharp—witty, arrogant and very opinionated in his beliefs, drawing her out into the kind of furious debate that revealed the fiery emotionalism she usually eschewed.

  Elizabeth had no difficulty at all in imagining him and Uncle Miles and Uncle Seymour in a huddle over their port and brandy, three eccentric old men like witches around a brew, debating books and the sad decline of the world from the standards of their youth, heads filled with over two hundred years of combined life-experience coming to the certain conclusion that the modern gen­eration were leading the world to rack and ruin by ig­noring the shining wisdom of their elders and betters.

  Dinner had begun at an elegantly late hour and it was after eleven when Alain St Clair rose, looking much less robust than he had earlier, and he didn’t demur when Jack firmly suggested that he forgo his usual port and forbidden cigar before bed.

  'No doubt I shall be seeing much of you now that you have finally found your way here,' he murmured ob­scurely to Elizabeth as he bent creakingly over her hand. He addressed himself to his grandson. 'Now, mon petit-fils, you will help me up to my room. I do not wish to disturb Andre this late and, besides, it is necessary for me to have a few words with you before you retire.'

  With a silent gesture that she interpreted as a request for her to wait for his return, Jack assisted his grand­father from the room and Elizabeth was left with only her half-empty coffee-cup and the discreet whispers of the servants removing the debris of the meal. After they had gone she sat in exquisite isolation and listened to the measured tick of the ornate clock on the marble mantelpiece above a fireplace that was surely only or­namental in the sub-tropics.

  She sat for so long that she began to imagine that the shadows in the corners of the chandelier-lit room were moving. She tapped her fingers uneasily on the arm of the chair. She finished her wine and put the wine glass down on the pristine table, rising restlessly to her feet and pacing the room.

  She had come to a decision. Thankfully tonight had proved to her complete satisfaction that Alain St Clair was not the sternly self-righteous ogre conjured up by her guilt-ridden imagination. Her fear that he would im­mediately demand the arrest and prosecution of her uncles was groundless, as was the anxiety that his heart might not be equal to so great a shock. Judging from his cynicism at dinner, Alain St Clair was virtually un-shockable, and he had revealed a mistrust of authority, born in the war, which extended to all representatives of officialdom. If there was punishment or revenge to be administered he would, like Jack, be far more likely to take care of it himself than brook outside interference into his private affairs.

  However, she didn’t think that the Alain St Clair she had met tonight would think in terms of punishment when she handed back his property and questioned the inexplicable mix-up in shipping which Uncle Seymour had sadly taken temporary advantage of. With his depth of human understanding, coupled with a devilishly ironic sense of humour, Monsieur St Clair would probably find the whole sorry episode amusing once he knew that he had suffered no lasting loss.

  And Jack? Her heart was foolishly optimistic.

  He would be relieved, wouldn’t he, that the 'deeper game' she had been playing had been nothing more than an honest desire to right a wrong? And no doubt order a complete inventory of the chateau's contents to make sure that no other careless breaches of security had oc­curred—if that was indeed what had happened.

  That wouldn’t be his first reaction, of course. She knew what that would be. She had already learned how volatile he could be under that ultra-disciplined façade. Coward that she was, she thought she would ask his grandfather to explain everything while she stayed dis­creetly out of the way, until the dust had settled suf­ficiently for him to listen to reason.

  Suddenly the doors to the dining-room burst open, slamming back against the pale walls, and Jack strode in, in the grip of a magnificent fury.

  'So! You beautiful, conniving bitch! You are a thief, nothing but a common thief!'

  He grabbed her, slamming her bottom against the bevelled edge of the table as he arched her back until her expression of wide-eyed horror was starkly illumi­nated by the pool of light cast by the central stem of the chandelier.

  'You do well to look terrified, chérie,' he snarled as his hands wrapped with loving violence around her throat, his eyes silver daggers that slashed her with razor-sharp contempt, 'because I am very close to giving in to my most primitive instincts! You played me well, didn’t you, you—?' He used a French obscenity that made her blanch.

  'To appear so inept at deception when you are really so incredibly skilful,' he sneered, 'so vulnerable when you are as hardened as an old whore. And that is all you are to me, chérie, a lying, cheating whore. In spite of all my suspicions I actually had faith in your non­existent integrity!' He laughed rawly, in sa
vage self-derision . 'How arrogant I was, when all you were doing was using me for access to a bigger bounty—I suppose you would have whored with my grandfather, too, if he had proved himself as gullible as I!

  'But you won’t get away with it, you treacherous bitch, so you may as well tell me what you have done with it—tell me what you have done with La Flèche de St Clair?’

  CHAPTER TEN

  'LA FLÈCHE DE ST CLAIR? The arrow? What arrow?'

  Her strained whisper seemed to fan his white-hot rage. He applied an even greater pressure to her throat, forcing her flat against the table as he loomed over her.

  'The necklace, Beth, as if you didn’t know! And don’t try that dewy-eyed look of bewilderment on me because it won’t work any more. It's a lie—and this is the truth!'

  'This' was a crashing blow against the table beside her head that vibrated her skull against the wood. The hand that encircled her throat closed on her jaw and wrenched her head roughly sideways so that she was forced to con­front the cut-out pages of the shabby book as he fanned them furiously bare inches from her cringing nose.

  'Where is it, Beth?' he demanded savagely.

  ‘If you'll just let me up I'll tell you,' she choked, trying to marshal her shattered courage. ‘I can explain every­thing—'

  ‘I’m sure you can, you little liar!' He jerked her head back again and thrust his grim face close to hers, speaking swiftly and with a lethal softness. 'But there is no explanation that can excuse this—violation! If you knew about La Flèche, then you knew that you were stealing the one prize that my grandfather managed to hide from the Nazis when they tried to wipe the St Clairs from the face of the earth.

  'That necklace was made for my family in the sev­enteenth century— La Flèche is our sole connection with the past... our hope for the future! It means something to this family. The only way you could fence so unique a necklace is to break it up and sell the pieces, but of course that probably wouldn’t bother you! Or were you planning to ransom it back to the insurance company—?'