She and Burke had been dancing, and all at once, needing to speak, wanting to speak, triumphantly certain she ought to speak, now that he showed Rea this new, significant coldness, she had drawn him out to the terrace and there in the shifting gold and blue and emerald glow of softly swaying lanterns, she had bared her heart to him.
“Oh, Burke, do you really think I’m fooled?” she had said, laughing to think anyone could have been fooled. “I know you don’t love that funny little Rea—how could you? I’ve seen how you’ve looked at her tonight, you despise her, you don’t love her!” Her warm, bronzed hands had crept to his shoulders, the tips of her oval fingernails just touching the sides of his neck “Get rid of her, Burke! We can be together then. We were born to be together, you and I. We’re part of the same soil, the same air, the same wind and rain. I want you, my dear, and we can be together for always, if you’ll only throw that stupid little schoolgirl out of your life.” With abrupt abandon her arms had closed about his neck. “I’m real—real, my dear! I’m not a puling miss!” And knowing her own vital and unashamed beauty in that moment, she had been certain of his answer, his response to all that she offered ...
She had been stunned, horrified, when he had pushed her from him. She could hardly credit his crisp, contemptuous refusal of all she offered. “We’ve always been friends, Iris, and that needn’t alter,” he had said. “But I don’t want your body. I never have.”
“I’m giving you my heart—my heart!” she had cried.
“The two are surely one, to a woman!” he had retorted, and then he had swung on his heel and left her alone. Left her alone, love sinking down, down, joining the hate she knew for Rea ...
She watched Rea, her cat-green glance of hate stealing over the slight figure, small, tense profile framed against the dancing red light of the bonfire. Then Iris’s wary glance shifted to Tab Gresham, standing quiet beside Rea, bending his head to say something to her, presumably about the noisy, galloping Rita Coe, for he pointed to her. Iris was so close now that she heard Rea give a little chuckle in answer to what Tab said to her, but neither were aware of Iris behind them. Neither knew that with a sphinx-like inscrutability she bent to the bovine, igniting the fuse of a small firework. Neither knew that as she straightened it flashed from her hand.
Perhaps she meant merely to frighten Rea—perhaps not, but one thing was certain—as the noise of the exploding firework crashed out behind Rea and she swung round in startled alarm, the dancing skirts of her dress were suddenly snatched into the hungry maw of the bonfire.
The first wild screams came from Rita Coe. She saw the real flame licking up the silken flame and in the nightmare moment her mouth tore open to release its horrified screams, a slender, black-clad figure leapt past her, grabbed hold of Rea and began to beat and tear at the flaming silk of her dress. His bare hands wrung out flame as though it were water, and just before a flooding darkness took hold of Rea and bore her away from nightmare, she looked into the night-black eyes of Jack Larchmont—night-black and agonized, filling Rea with a great wonderment as she fell into the darkness that swamped fear and horror and the tongues of flickering heat that this wild-eyed man took into his hands and snatched, from her arms, her face . . .
A man raced into the card-room, his rough handling of the door and his hasty footsteps breaking into the calm silence of the four men playing poker. “Ryeland! I say, Ryeland, you’d better come!’’ The man hurried to the table. “There’s been an accident, old chap. It’s your wife—her frock caught alight!”
Burke turned in his chair to stare up at the man. “What?”
“Your wife—her frock caught alight ...”
“Her—frock—Dear God!” Burke’s chair, a heavy oaken thing, spun from his hand like matchwood as he leapt to his feet. His poker hand sprayed the table and his card companions had one flashing, cinematic glimpse of his horrified face before he turned and went from the room at a run.
The corridor leading out to the forecourt seemed endless, and as he came out upon the stone flags, his face, in the flaring, writhing, red and gold light of the giant bonfire, showed naked and dark and full of perhaps the first real fear he had ever known in his life. He crossed the forecourt in long strides, and the silent crowd opened to let him through to where Tab Gresham and Rita Coe knelt on the ground beside Rea.
She lay as crumpled and crushed as a misused flower, a man’s jacket covering the scorched remnants of her dress, her head pillowed upon Rita Coe’s arm.
Tab glanced up at Burke. “Thanks to Larchmont here,” he gestured at Jack, who stood to one side, his burned hands thrust out of sight behind his back, “she isn’t badly hurt or marked. He beat out the flames.” “How did it happen?” Burke knelt beside Rea, staring down at her lax, crumpled little body, a nerve pulsing hard in his jaw as he reached out an unsteady hand and gently stroked the tumbled hair back from her forehead. She didn’t stir, her lashes lying very still on her cheeks, and an impotent wildness lit Burke’s eyes as he raised them to Tab. “My God, how did it happen? Doesn’t anyone know?” He turned his head, gazing round at the silent crowd.
Tab did the same, and for a long instant his eyes dwelt on Iris, standing in the circle of her father’s arm. His nerves, his instinct, told something that his heart and his reason shrank from. But he couldn’t forget the look her face had worn in that horrifying instant when Rita Coe’s screams had turned his attention to Rea, a band of flame encircling the skirt of her dress. Iris’s face had flashed out at him from the crowd—and it had worn a dark mask of overriding hate, the green eyes completely empty of the horror and distress so suddenly in the eyes of everyone else.
Hate, intense and passionate, for little Rea—Burke’s wife—who had probably never hurt a soul in all her young life.
"I imagine,” he said quietly, bending again over Rea’s slight figure, “that she moved a little too close to the fire. Ah, she’s coming round—see her lashes, move, Burke?” He took Rea’s hands into his own and gently rubbed them. He spoke carefully, softly to her, as to a frightened child: “It’s all right now, Rea. All right now. There’s no need to be afraid any more. Burke’s here. He’s going to take you home.”
Colonel Mallory heard what he said and leant forward, touching his shoulder. “My house is at Mrs. Ryeland’s disposal, Tab. Let her stay here.”
But Tab shook a quick head, not looking up in case his eyes met the green eyes of Iris. “No. Rea will be better in her own home,” he said. “I’ll borrow some blankets if I may, though. And if you’ve any brandy ...”
“Naturally! Naturally!” The Colonel went at a half-run across the forecourt, only too anxious to relieve some of the distress of this unfortunate occurrence. Poor child— she might have been killed—might have been killed! He mopped at his red face with a big handkerchief as he ran, calling out: “Benyon! Benyon, where the devil are you?
Ah, good fellow, excellent! I’ll take that brandy! Now run back to the house and fetch some bluets—hurry, man.”
The Colonel came hurrying back to Tab with the tray his butler had foresightedly brought out, a decanter of brandy and several glasses upon it.
Tab took one of the glasses and poured a generous finger of brandy into it, then he gently raised Rea’s head and coaxed her to drink the brandy. She shuddered against his arm as the brandy moved down her throat, waking her back to reality, to remembrance of tall flames rising to embrace her. A sob broke from her, then another, and wearied and frightened, almost desperate for the shield and the solace of Burke’s arms, she pulled away from Tab and reached blindly for Burke, tears breaking from her as he gathered her close to him. Then he lifted her and carried her through the watching crowd.
He made straight for his car, and impatient of Benyon and his blankets, carefully wrapped Rea in the heavy folds of the overcoat he had scorned to wear on the drive over. He pulled the big collar well up about her throat, feeling her tears rain warm upon his hands.
Overhead, clouds were marching across th
e face of the moon like an army on the move, portentously casting shadows as they went, darkening Burke’s face and eyes to a remote hardness as he slid into the car beside Rea and carefully backed it out from among the other cars. He swung it to face the curve of the drive and they shot forward with a small roar into the night.
The wheels swished on the silent road and the headlights picked out the tall hedges and the darting rabbits below the hedges. Rea lay dazed and spent beside Burke, glad to the soul of her when the car at last drew in against the stone steps below the front door of King’s Beeches.
Burke left her while he ran up the steps to pull the bell and summon Tolliver. Then he came back for her. He lifted her and carried her up the steps, and Rea, unable to bear his terrifying silence any longer, whispered brokenly: “Please, oh, please, don’t be angry, Burke! Please! I can’t bear it!”
“Angry?” His blue eyes came down to her, blazing out of the stone mask of his face. “I’m not angry, Rea.” “Then why—why do you look at me . . .”
“I’m not angry,” he said again. The door opened and he brushed past Tolliver, carrying Rea into the hall. As Tolliver closed the door and then turned to stare at Burke, with Rea so mute and white-faced in his arms, Burke said curtly: “There’s been a—a slight accident, Tolliver. It’s nothing to make a fuss about, but I want you to bring some hot-water bottles to Mrs. Ryeland’s bedroom. Mix her a hot toddy, too, will you?”
Then he strode across the hall, not giving the manservant a chance to say anything in reply, mounting the stairs two at a time.
Rea could no longer think coherently.
Her head was going round and round as Burke carried her into the darkness of her bedroom and with a catlike assurance found her bed and laid her down upon it. Then he lit the lamps and stirred the logs in the fireplace, sending a shower of red sparks up the wide mouth of the chimney. Rea heard the dull clatter of the poker as Burke laid it back in the fender. Then he came back to her.
With an infinite gentleness, as though he tended a child, he stripped the scorched remains of her dress and her silken petticoats from her and put her into the dressing-gown which lay at the foot of the bed. He smiled down into her immense, tear-smudged eyes as he drew back the covers of the bed and laid her between their soft coolness. “How do you like me as a lady’s maid?” he queried.
“You’re—you’re very good.” She lay curled against her pillows like a spent kitten, aching and bruised from Jack Larchmont’s pummelling hands, her mind still hung with lurid flame pictures. But all the same she attempted to return Burke’s smile, watching him cross the room to answer Tolliver’ s discreet tap upon the door.
When Burke came back to the bedside, he was carrying hot-water bottles and a steaming silver tankard on a little tray that glittered as it caught the fluttering light of the oil-lamps. Burke set the tray down on the bed and carefully inserted the hot-water bottles. “Not too near your feet, are they?” he asked.
She shook her head. Already she was beginning to feel a little better—the raw, shocked ache of nerves and body soothed by the luxury of the big bed and the kindliness of Burke’s ministrations.
“Going to sit up a minute or two for me? I want you to drink this toddy.” He sat down on the side of the bed and drew her into the circle of his arms. He held the tankard while she sipped the hot, spicy contents.
His arm was warmly enveloping, his hand resting lightly over the soft tilt of her left breast. Rea sipped the toddy, knowing now, without surprise, that she loved this man. Loved him, not with the half-grown heart of a child but with the warm, enchanted, aching heart of a woman. Oh that he could be so kind, when he thought that she and Jack Larchmont ... A shudder of distress went through her body, a distress that was all the keener for the new delight she knew in having Burke’s arm about her. She gazed down at his hand, gentle over her heart; saw the strength and beauty blended in that hand—and her heart turned over. She loved him, but she couldn’t tell him, for Jack had saved her from the flames, and that, combined with the embrace Burke had witnessed under the dark cedars of Mallory Court, condemned her irretrievably; made her Jack’s, in Burke’s eyes, though every nerve in her screamed a protest that Jack should ever touch her again.
She loved, but her love was flowering in stony ground, for Burke only asked of her that she be a convincing mother for Peter. He asked no love of anyone for himself, breaking stones in a house of bondage for the girl he had loved too late!
She drew back from tankard. “I—I don’t want anymore,” she whispered.
“Sure?”
She nodded, and he set the tankard on one side. He laid her back against her pillows and was settling them more comfortably behind her head when he saw the wary, frightened tears break again in her eyes, spilling like great shining beads down her pale cheeks. “Why, you mustn’t cry anymore Rea!” He bent over her in distress, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully dabbing at her tears. But still they came, and with something of alarm he gathered her back into his arms and rocked her, murmuring disjointedly: “Rea you’ll make yourself ill. Please stop crying! Please, child!”
But the storm had her in its grip and it was many minutes before her throat ceased to pulse with pitiful sobs. Then she lay very still in his arms, her lashes dark and wet
on her cheeks, her soft hair dishevelled. “I— I’m sorry, Burke,” she whispered at last, “but I had to cry. I couldn’t help myself.”
“Poor baby, I quite understand. You had a hellish fright.” And then, as the full and terrible realization of what Rea had only narrowly escaped swept over Burke, his arms closed convulsively about her slight figure. He held her for a long silent moment, feeling the quick, nervous beat of her heart against him, his eyes darkly troubled. In a while her tear-smudged face drew away from his shoulder and she gave him a slight smile. “Thank you for being so kind, Burke,” she murmured.
His answering smile was strained as he tweaked her fringe. “You do look a poor little scrap. Want to go to sleep now?”
She nodded and once again, very gently, he laid her back in the big bed, pulling the lace quilt to her chin. “Are you nice and warm?” he asked.
“Lovely,” she said, and snuggled her face against her hand, languid now with tiredness as her lashes slowly spilled down upon her cheeks and her soft mouth slowly relaxed, emitting a little murmur—just like Peter, really, Burke thought, when he was drifting into, sleep. Then, as the room grew still and the night sounds were muted beyond the casement, Rea went fast to sleep, her slenderness making almost no outline under the beautiful quilt, falling in rich scoops to the deep violet rugs at either side of the bed.
Burke studied Rea’s small sleeping face with a curiosity abruptly touched with cynicism.
How could she look this innocent—touchingly innocent, with her gold-touched lashes soft upon her cheeks and her young mouth gathering colour back to its curves now that she slept away her trouble, when he had seen her, without innocence, in the arms of Jack Larchmont? Larchmont, an indiscriminate lecher, notorious for his affairs!
Burke drew a sigh that was both harsh and regretful as he rose from the bed. Oh well, Rea’s life was her own. He had no real, lasting claim upon her. If she wanted Larchmont, who was he to say she couldn’t have him?—Larchmont was, after all, the man who had dared the flaring maw of that bonfire for her.
Burke walked to the chest of drawers, turned out one of the lamps and left the other one just glimmering. Rea didn’t like the shadowy loneliness of this room, he recalled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TAB GRESHAM came down the stairs and crossed the hall to Burke’s study. He tapped at the door and went in, his sandy brows lifting at the thick haze of cigarette smoke lying over the room. “Smoking yourself to death, old man?” he queried, closing the door and crossing the room to Burke, who was sprawled out in an armchair, one booted leg thrown over the other and a cigarette at a negligent angle in his mouth.
Burke’s eyes smiled slightly. Then he
said: “Well, how is she, Tab?”
“Tired, old man. And miserable. She says you haven’t been to see her, that you sent Moira in to ask how she might be feeling.” Tab put a finger against the scar upon his cheekbone. “I call that pretty cool of you, Burke, in the circumstances. That little girl came pretty close to death last night.”
“What of our gallant hero, Larchmont?” Burke looked sardonic as he flicked ash into the fire. “How is he this morning?”
“He has some pretty nasty burns.” Tab searched Burke’s face with puzzled eyes. “What’s biting you, may I ask?”
“Nothing!” The well-defined arches of Burke’s eyebrows lifted in a studied surprise. “I’m quite as usual, Tab.”
“Be damned to that!” Tab exploded. “You were acting mighty queer all last night, ignoring Rea, creeping off with Iris . . .”
“Doing what?” Burke’s booted feet came to the floor with a thud.
“Don’t deny it!” Tab’s nondescript face was suddenly flushed with anger. “The two of you disappeared just before the firework display began.”
“You were watching, eh—checking up?” Burke’s eyes were half shut as they watched Tab, the glitter of them showing dangerously under the lowered lids. “But, Tab, I’m a married man now, I don’t play Postman’ s Knock
with other women any more, least of all with Iris.” His
lips curled upon a sarcastic smile. “It might astound you to hear this, Tab, but Iris leaves me quite cold.” “Then why . . .?” Tab stopped, abruptly embarrassed, the flush deepening in his cheeks.
“Why did she carry me off to the terrace?” Burke regarded the glowing end of his cigarette, his lips still wearing their thin smile. “She wanted to show me the Chinese lanterns.”
Tab made a quick, annoyed, half embarrassed gesture with his hand. “I’m-I’m not one to pry, usually, you know that, Burke. It’s just—I’d hate to see anything go wrong with your marriage. Rea—Rea’s a fine girl.” “Is she?” Burke relaxed back into the wings of his big chair, crossing his legs again and watching a stream of wintry sun motes dancing in the haze of his cigarette smoke. “Now that, Tab, is what is called ‘judging a book by its cover.’ I made the same mistake.”
Wife Without Kisses Page 16
