‘Oh, can I?’ Cathy said with a little glint of anger in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry to keep repeating myself, Tom, but you and I are married.’
He turned back to the window. ‘That was a mistake, my mistake, and a bad one, my dear,’ he said evenly. ‘I hope you’ll let me retrieve it as best I can.’
‘Because you did marry me to get back at Bronwen or something like that?’ she whispered.
He didn’t turn. ‘Something like that.’
Cathy took a deep breath and knew she had to take the plunge. ‘And you don’t think discovering you never loved Bronwen might have had something to do with… me?’
He turned slowly at last and his eyes were bleak.
‘Cathy, I care very much about you, but——’
She smiled sketchily. ‘I’d understand, of course. I’ve worked a few things out about myself lately. I’m really very naive—I might always be a bit. That has to be why I didn’t know Charlie was falling in love with me, for example. And why I sailed through those first weeks in Queensland trying to like Bronwen when everyone must have been wondering—why is she doing this? Or at least—how can she be so unaffected? How can you work with a man who’s your husband so unaffectedly, especially with an old mistress around getting thinner and paler by the day?’ She grimaced. ‘And they didn’t know half of it! But how can you? Only if you’re like me, more of a Cinderella than I ever dreamt, and even though I first used the comparison, until——’ her voice faltered ‘—something happens to shake you out of it.’
‘What?’ he asked in a different voice.
Cathy lifted her shoulders. ‘The thought of losing you. The frustration of waking up out of my frozen time warp and not being able to get through to you, of not having the right interpretation put on it—of you thinking I was longing to spread my wings and be free—but afraid to do it.’
Tom walked back to the table and leant on his chair. ‘Was it the wrong interpretation? Cathy,’ he said gently, ‘don’t feel guilty. It was quite a normal thing to happen even without the abyss of my affair with Bronwen that I’d opened at your feet and dragged you down into.’
‘Do you know something, Tom? I’m glad you did, now, because it’s made me understand how you’d protected me for so long, because you knew what an emotional virgin I still was——’ Cathy stopped as he made a restless movement, then stilled it. ‘And I can’t blame you for misunderstanding later. But I’m no longer that way.’
Their gazes held for a long, breathless moment, then she said barely audibly, ‘Tell me honestly— why didn’t you want me to have a baby? Surely you can do that for a wife of two years even if she’s on her way out? At least tell me the truth before I go. Was it so you wouldn’t be tied to me irrevocably?’
Tom closed his eyes suddenly. ‘No. It was the opposite. It was,’ he hesitated, then said bleakly, ‘like closing the trap on you.’
‘What trap?’ she whispered.
‘The trap I opened by marrying you when you were too young to know what you were doing,’ he said harshly.
‘That’s what I wondered, and that’s what I want to tell you, Tom. I’m not too young now to know that I love you, to know that things have gone far beyond my “orphan” days when I didn’t know any better than to fall in love with you. So any guilt you feel is unnecessary—do you still feel guilty?’ she asked directly.
He stared at her with a nerve flickering in his jaw. ‘Yes…’
‘Then let’s deal with it for once and for all—I’d hate you to have me on your conscience when I’m gone.’
‘Cathy!’ he said brutally.
She slipped out of her chair but didn’t attempt to approach him. ‘I love you, Tom, in every way it’s possible for a woman to love. When you’re making love to me, when your body is on mine, inside me, I feel,’ she said softly, ‘so wonderful it’s hard to describe. And it hurts me to think it might not be the same for you. That’s why I got desperate and angry sometimes. That was my way of telling you how much I loved you, that was me waking up at last.’
‘Cathy,’ he straightened, ‘all right, I concede——’
‘Tom,’ she overrode him, ‘if you made love to me one more time, now, would you be able to send me away?’
She saw the tightening of all his muscles, the tension about his mouth and in his eyes, but he said quite steadily, ‘It’s not going to happen, Cat. It would be insane.’
‘Because you don’t love me the way I love you?’ she queried, barely audibly but with a little pulse of hope beating in her heart. ‘Or because you don’t believe in me? You don’t believe I’ve matured sufficiently towards having your children and making it work. You think that, if fame and fortune comes my way, I’m going to be lured away by it—is that what you think?’
He sighed and rubbed his face wearily. ‘It’s myself I don’t believe in,’ he said at last, his eyes capturing hers. ‘I’m still the same kind of egotist I always was, I’m possessive and jealous, and if I protected you from anything, it wasn’t without an ulterior motive.’ He looked past her. ‘I did want to keep you the way you were—you accused me of it, and you were right.’
‘Why?’ she whispered.
Tom said nothing.
She tried again. ‘But then you tried to give me away. Was it easy to give me to Charlie, Tom?’
‘It was the hardest…’ He stopped and said grimly, ‘I wasn’t giving you to Charlie, Cat, so much as letting you have the opportunity to make up your own mind. It was also obvious he worshipped you and wouldn’t willingly hurt you.’
Cathy took a careful breath. ‘You mentioned just now that you and Bronwen had cared more for yourselves than each other—if it was that hard to give me to Charlie but you still did it, mightn’t that mean you loved me enough to want what you thought was best for me, Tom?’
‘Hell,’ he muttered through his teeth, ‘you should have been a lawyer. Yes, and it’s still best that you should get away from me, Cathy. One day you’ll understand.’
She moved at last, one step closer. ‘No, I won’t. I’ll never understand why you’re sending me away if you love me, Tom. Do you?’
‘Love you!’ he burst out on a suddenly tortured breath. ‘I think I fell in love with you when I first kissed you and you looked up at me out of those blue, stunned eyes. Why do you think I went on seeing you when I knew I shouldn’t, when I knew you deserved a few years to find your feet, to test your powers of dazzling young men, to spread your wings—instead of being shackled to a world-weary cynic like myself? Why do you think I tried to go away and didn’t succeed—why do you think I wouldn’t admit it to myself? Admit that your mixture of wisdom and innocence, your home-making skills, your wifely skills—just the way you move and look and are… meant more to me than anything in the world,’ he said softly but with a suddenly blazing glance. ‘I wouldn’t admit it,’ he went on, and she could see the greeny depths of his eyes and that he was breathing heavily, ‘so that when the time came to let you go, I’d be able to do it. But at the same time, another part of me went out of the way to keep you as you were to guard against ever having… to lose you,’ he said deliberately. ‘Now do you understand why I’m no good for you, Cat?’
She took another step and there was a shimmer of tears in her eyes, tears of relief, but she knew the battle was still not won and she had to choose her words with care. ‘If you send me away, I’ll be like lost property for the rest of my life.’
His teeth shut hard. ‘That’s not all of it. It wasn’t only my conscience that stepped in and wouldn’t let me foist a family on you—it was a disinclination to share you with anyone—even a baby.’
Cathy put out a hand and laid it on his sleeve. ‘Perhaps you also knew I wasn’t ready for a baby. Looking back, I don’t think I was. It was more a guard against being lonely, against sensing there could be so much more between us but not being able to find the right key to make it happen. But now I can. Do you think I could understand all this—and still be the way I was, Tom?’
‘There’s no better use for me, Tom.’ She slid her fingers down his sleeve and took his hand. ‘It will all be wasted.’
His fingers closed harshly around hers, then relaxed, but he didn’t look at her or say anything.
‘And you’re wrong about something else, Tom. I always did love you, even when I should have known better, even when I didn’t know how to express it properly, and through all these awful weeks I never stopped.’ She withdrew her hand. ‘But now it’s up to you. If you still want me to go, I will.’ She smiled tremulously up at him. ‘But I’ll always believe I could have made it work if only you’d trusted me.’
‘Cat,’ he said roughly, ‘how do you know I can change?’
‘What’s to change?’ she whispered. ‘Sometimes you’re quite a perfect husband.’ The tears were sparkling on her lashes now.
He said beneath his breath, ‘Oh, hell…’
‘And you did change. Tell me one last thing, Tom. When did you admit to yourself that you loved me and not Bronwen?’
He was gripping the back of the chair so hard his knuckles were white, she saw, and he said eventually, ‘I don’t know. It kept… it was a series of times, and none of them to do with Bronwen really. It was times such as the day you lay in the grass at Mount Macedon and decided to go on with me; it was the relief I felt. It was the time you yourself said you’d never had the opportunity to spread your wings and I knew you were wondering about yourself, and us, and Charlie. That boat trip,’ he told her unevenly, ‘was supposed to switch your focus back to me, but do you know what happened?’
‘Your conscience?’
‘Yes—plus the fact,’ he said grimly, ‘that I was suddenly afraid to make love to you because more and more I wanted to do it in a way that would leave you incapable of even thinking about the likes of Charlie Westfield. Or anyone but me. That’s when I even thought of giving you the baby you thought you wanted just to keep you.’
Cathy’s eyes widened. ‘You were afraid to make love to me? Oh,’ she said softly, ‘that’s the best news I’ve ever had, Tom.’
‘You couldn’t have had much good news to compare with it, then,’ he said ironically.
‘You could make love to me any way you liked now,’ she said huskily.
‘Cat…’ He stopped abruptly and she saw the turmoil in his eyes.
‘You could do anything you wanted, bind me in chains, give me babies galore, although it’s not really necessary, because I’ve changed my mind and I’m just not going to go away, you see. I did warn you once how stubborn a Kerris could be, didn’t I?’ Her lips curved into a smile. ‘Sorry.’
He stared down at her, into her radiant eyes, and closed his briefly, then he took her hand and seemed about to say something, but at last his control broke and he was holding her so hard she could barely breathe, saying her name over and over.
* * *
The bedroom was quiet and peaceful in the last of the afternoon sunlight despite the clothes strewn everywhere and despite the fact that their loving had at last achieved an equality and there had been no holds barred in the way Tom had lost himself in her and his desire neither had had to be reined nor could have been reined. And for once, it was he who slept in her arms, and she who watched over him lovingly.
But he didn’t sleep long. He stirred and his lashes lifted. Cathy brought her fingers up to stroke his face and to still the faint wariness in his eyes before they focused on her properly. He stared into her eyes for a long moment before he buried his head in her shoulder and murmured, ‘Welcome home, my love. It was the most barren place on earth without you.’
‘So was where I was,’ she whispered with a shudder she couldn’t control.
‘Oh, Cat, it’s over, I’ll never let you go again.’ And he spent the next minutes holding her and speaking the words of love she’d longed to hear until she was soft and reassured in his arms. Then he said, ‘You’ve no idea how many times I nearly came and got you.’
A minute went by, then she tilted her face up again and her eyes were wide and uncomprehending. ‘You knew where I was?’
He nodded.
‘But how?’
‘Charlie rang me from Brisbane Airport.’
This time only a moment elapsed before she freed herself and sat up. ‘Charlie…he didn’t!’
‘He did, an hour or so after you drove off with him and while you were in the shop buying some-thing to read. That’s how 1 know young Charlie Westfield is more of a gentleman than I gave him credit for and why I… decided to let you be.’
‘What did he say?’ Cathy was still incredulous.
Tom fingered the sheet that was caught about her waist, then took his hand away. ‘He explained how it had come about—that he’d discovered you walking down the road with your bag and how he’d thought that if you were running away from me you’d be safe with him. He said,’ he went on quietly, ‘that I could rest assured that, as much as he loved you, he wouldn’t take advantage of you and the state you were in—although he added,’ Tom smiled slightly, ‘quite belligerently, that I deserved to be shot for treating you the way I had and that no one in their right minds could blame him for trying to court you himself if you really decided to leave me.’
‘Well!’ Cathy exclaimed, filled with some indignant confusion.
‘Well what, my love?’ Tom said gently, his gaze resting on her breasts, her shoulders, her mouth and finally her eyes.
‘I…don’t know!’
‘Perhaps you were enjoying thinking of me suffering the torments of the damned and this has taken the edge off it? I was, Cat,’ he said differently. ‘But because I knew then, or thought I knew, that Charlie could be… the right one for you after all as opposed to just someone who wouldn’t hurt you.’
Cathy stared down at him, then the corners of her mouth trembled into a smile and she lay back. ‘Perhaps I was,’ she conceded ruefully. ‘I do hope he finds someone,’ she added anxiously.
‘He will,’ murmured Tom, drawing her back into his arms. ‘I’m afraid this is going to be something that will happen with monotonous regularity—we should have a name for it. How about “the Charlie Westfield syndrome”?’
Cathy blushed, which he studied through halfclosed lids, and she felt her skin, where his fingers lay on it, shiver expectantly. But he went on, ‘As for your career, are you really not interested in it?’
She considered. ‘I still find it hard to believe in, Tom. I…’
He waited, then said as she looked confused, ‘It has worked, you know—rarely, I grant you, but husbands and wives can achieve it. In fact we had no trouble at all working with each other.’
She opened her eyes wide in surprise, then lowered her lashes to hide from him the fact that she knew her career, if ever it existed, would always be difficult for him to cope with, and that it would take tact, time and patience to overcome his fears. So she said softly, ‘We’ll see,’ and kissed his shoulder.
But Tom saw more than she realised. He said with a wry little smile, ‘Am I being humoured?’ She opened her mouth, closed it, then said gravely, ‘That’s for me to know and you to wonder about, Tom.’
‘Oh, Cathy——’ he buried his head against her breasts ‘—just don’t ever forget how much I love you.’
She stroked his hair and the back of his neck. ‘Or I you,’ she whispered.
His hands started to move on her urgently, but suddenly a strange shuffling sound made itself heard on the gravel of the driveway outside the bedroom window and they both stilled.
‘What the hell was that?’ Tom raised his head.
‘I don’t know, but…’ Cathy started to say when the doorbell rang.
Tom swore and raked his hair out of his eyes. ‘We won’t answer it.’ But it rang again and was accompanied by a thin knocking this time.
‘All right,’ he said savagely, and got out of bed to stride over to the window. But with his hand on the curtain, the taut long lines of his back relaxed and he turned to her ruefully. ‘Come and have a look.’
Cathy wrapped the sheet around her and stumbled over to the window which looked across the drive towards the front door. And there, with his hand raised to knock again and his back to them, stood William.
But there was more. A large suitcase lay beside him, half open and disgorging a jumble of clothes, his pillow, his football and a battered teddy bear. He also, as they watched, looked anxiously over his shoulder as if expecting his grandmother to arrive in hot pursuit.
‘Oh, Tom,’ Cathy breathed. ‘He’s come to stay with you so you won’t be lonely!’
‘Oh, William,’ Tom said, his eyes suspiciously bright for a moment, ‘you’re a mate among mates. And have I got a surprise for you!’
‘Let’s ring up his grandmother and ask her if he can stay the night,’ Cathy begged. ‘I’ll make him his favourite dessert.’
Tom turned to her and took her into his arms. ‘Done,’ he said seriously, ‘provided we can come back here once he’s in bed and I can have my favourite… dessert.’
‘Of course,’ she smiled, ‘anything you like. Oh, I really feel as if I’m home now——’ She stopped and blushed. ‘I mean…’ She stopped again and for a long time he simply watched the colour in her cheeks enigmatically.
Then finally he took her face in his hands and kissed her lingeringly. ‘Don’t look like that—home will never, ever be the same without you. I love you, I always will.’
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
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