Forgotten Passion

by Penny Jordan

  She found him in his study, and although he paled a little when she told him what had happened he was quickly reassured.

  She knew she ought to tell Leigh what she was planning, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to do so. Perhaps if she were to write him a letter explaining? She had no wish to cause him any pain—far from it, but she was determined that she wasn’t going to lose Robbie. As she left her eye was caught by half a dozen familiar dust jackets on the shelves with the other books—her own illustrations! How had they come to be there? Following her glance Leigh turned—‘Rorke bought them,’ he told her quietly. ‘They were all he had of you.’

  * * *

  ‘You not putting on a pretty dress to visit Rorke?’ Mama Case questioned disapprovingly as she watched Lisa comb her hair and add a coating of soft pink gloss to her lips.

  ‘I doubt if he’ll care what I’m wearing,’ Lisa told her wryly, checking her appearance in the full-length mirror, while Mama Case shook her head disapprovingly.

  This time Lisa drove to the hospital alone. Dr James assured her that Robbie was doing fine. ‘He’ll be able to come home in a day or two—if just to give my nurses a rest, although Rorke has been with him this morning. He’s been asking when you were coming.’ Dr James didn’t add anything, but Lisa could tell that he was a little surprised that she hadn’t mentioned Rorke or asked after him. She had been too busy feverishly working out when to order the plane for. No one apart from herself need know. She could telephone from the house and then make some excuse to get Robbie and herself out of the house at the requisite time. They would just have to leave their luggage behind—it was better to do that than risk someone guessing what she was doing.

  Realising that Dr James was still watching her, Lisa said hurriedly, ‘Oh yes, of course, I’ll go and see him now. I wasn’t sure if he was allowed visitors yet.’

  ‘He tends to have a mind of his own,’ Dr James told her dryly, ‘and he doesn’t like being confined to bed. Although I must say I’ve found him a far more docile patient than I expected. He seems to have a great deal of interest in the subject of concussion and its after-effects. He told me that he hadn’t realised that it could cause lapses of memory.’

  Lisa refused to be drawn. She was sure Dr James suspected something, but she wasn’t going to enlighten him.

  ‘I’ll just go and see Rorke. Where is he?’

  ‘We’ve put him in a private room just down the corridor. First on your left.’

  The door was open and as Lisa approached she could hear raised voices—Rorke’s and Helen’s. She hesitated, not wanting to intrude and yet wondering what they were discussing.

  ‘You know my views on the subject,’ she heard Rorke saying tersely. ‘I’ve told you often enough before, Helen…’

  Lisa didn’t stay to hear Helen’s reply. She wasn’t sure what they were discussing, but suddenly it was more than her frail self-control could bear to stand there listening to her husband talking to his mistress. They sounded as though they were quarrelling, but she could vividly imagine how the quarrel would end—with Helen in Rorke’s arms, and his mouth silencing her protests. She remembered Leigh telling her quietly that Rorke had bought the books she had illustrated—Why? To feed his resentment of her?

  When she left the hospital Lisa didn’t go straight back to the house. She needed time to think—to plan, and she parked the car on a lonely stretch of road, leaving it while she walked along the sand, listening to the breeze stirring the palms. She must have walked miles, she realised later as she climbed back into the car. Her thigh muscles were aching and she felt very tired. It was growing dark too—she tended to forget how swiftly dusk fell out here, and she paused before starting the engine, watching the crimson and orange glory of the dying sun, acknowledging that there would be few opportunities to do so again.

  She loved St Martins, she loved the peace and solitude; London had never really held any allure for her, it was simply a place where she could work and earn enough money to keep herself and Robbie. Robbie! Her heart thudded guiltily. Did she have the right to take him away from all this? Of course she did, she assured herself firmly, squashing all her doubts. She was his mother!

  It was dark when she drove up to the house. She knew that Leigh had gone to visit his friend across the other side of the island and that they would be playing chess together. It was also the evening that Mama Case visited her family in the village. Lisa knew she ought to go and have something to eat—she had barely touched her lunch, but she had no appetite. Instead she decided to go upstairs and have a bath. She could read in bed for a couple of hours, it might help her unwind. Her nerves felt like over-wound springs, her shoulder muscles tense and sensitive to every movement around her.

  As she opened the bedroom door she sensed that all was not as it should be, but she was inside before she realised what was wrong—inside and confronting her was a furiously angry Rorke who was sitting up in their bed, his face contorted into a mask of rage.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he breathed softly. His body was bare to the waist, and in spite of her resolution Lisa was powerless to stop the frisson of awareness coursing through her as she looked at the smooth tanned skin, roughened by the dark body hair covering his chest and arrowing down past his navel.

  ‘Rorke! What are you doing here?’ The words jerked out past grimly compressed lips, and she could tell from the look in his eyes that Rorke had caught the note of hysterical despair underlying them.

  ‘Dr James said I could come home.’ As he spoke he was flinging back the bedclothes, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was completely naked, and Lisa averted her eyes hurriedly, looking round for his robe and saying huskily, ‘Rorke, I don’t think you should be out of bed.’

  ‘Then don’t make it so damned difficult for me to talk to you! Ever since I learned the truth you’ve been so bloody elusive. Why, Lisa? I should have thought you’d have enjoyed the opportunity to gloat, to fling it all back in my face—well, here’s something else you can gloat about,’ he told her savagely. ‘When I was hit by that car, everything came back to me—don’t ask me to explain how or why, it just did; a small series of haunting but very real pictures. I remembered everything,’ he said flatly, breathing heavily, ‘Every damn thing.’

  There was no way she could avoid looking at him. He seemed to will her into doing so, and her breath caught as she saw the anguish in the over-bright eyes, the pain that the locked muscles and tensed jaw couldn’t quite control. All at once, for no good reason at all she was overwhelmed by compassion and love. She ought to be gloating, she recognised; she ought at the very least to use this moment of weakness to force Rorke to give up all claim to Robbie, but somehow she found herself saying gently, as though he were in fact Robbie in pain and needing her comfort, ‘Rorke, it’s not your fault. Mike explained it to me at the time.’ She went towards him, terrified when she saw him sway slightly, her arms going out to support him as she urged him back towards the bed. Only somehow he wasn’t moving. In fact his arms were going round her, his mouth, hot and shaking slightly, burning into her skin as he buried his face in the curve of her shoulder.

  ‘I remember this, Lisa,’ he muttered thickly, pushing aside the neck of her tee-shirt and caressing the skin he had bared with undisguised passion, ‘and this…’ His hands were under her tee-shirt, cupping the burgeoning fullness of her breasts, his groan of mingled anguish and need melting the barriers she had raised against him.

  Somehow they were both on the bed, Rorke trembling and shivering as he pulled her against him, tugging impatiently at her tee-shirt, releasing the zip on her jeans, huskily muttering his need as he wrenched aside her tee-shirt and unclipped her bra, his touch burning into her skin as he caressed her exposed breasts with a hunger that seemed to take her backwards in time.

  His body seemed to burn to her touch as though he had a fever, his eyes brilliant and over-bright in the darkness, closing briefly as she touched him, tentatively as first and
then more surely as he murmured his pleasure and need before burying his hot face between her breasts, then caressing them with his lips until she was aroused as he was himself; touching his body as urgently as he touched hers, the night air full of their incoherent murmurs.

  He raised his head and Lisa could feel him watching her through the darkness. Her heart pounded unsteadily, everything forgotten but the fact that this was the man she loved; and she did love him, with her heart and her mind as well as her body.

  ‘I remember this,’ Rorke whispered softly, touching his lips to one tautly aroused nipple, ‘and this…’ He caressed the other in the same fashion, his hands stroking down to her hips. ‘I remember exactly how much I wanted you, and how sweetly you gave yourself to me. I hurt you, Lisa, and you cried, and I hated myself for breaking all the vows I’d made to myself and my father. You were seventeen…’ He was breathing heavily, his eyes glittering in a face suddenly stripped of every defence. ‘God, how I wanted you… and God, how I hated myself afterwards! Perhaps I didn’t want to remember, Lisa, but that gives me no excuse, and to accuse you of taking Peters as your lover…’ He moved restlessly. ‘If you want the truth, I was always jealous of him. You seemed to enjoy his company; I’d seen the two of you together, found you together in his bungalow…’

  ‘He knew I wasn’t well,’ Lisa told him. ‘He suspected I might be pregnant. He was just checking. He warned me to tell you, Rorke. I had to tell him about what had happened—how you couldn’t remember. He warned me to tell you, but the opportunity never came…’

  ‘And I rejected you when you did try to tell me. I couldn’t let myself believe it, but I paid a heavy price for my pride, Lisa!

  His voice was filled with self-hatred, and once again Lisa felt compassion fill her. What was it about loving someone that made you able to accept all their faults? Perhaps he was right, perhaps then she had put him on a pedestal. Now she loved him as an equal, but he didn’t love her, no matter how much he might desire her.

  ‘Lisa!’ She heard him sigh against her skin. ‘I can’t even ask you to forgive me, to do so would be an outrageous arrogance, how could anyone forgive such a crime?’ Lisa felt him tremble against her and was overwhelmed by a longing to comfort him. She took him in her arms, instinctively holding him as though he were Robbie, trying to find the words, to take the pain out of his eyes. His skin seemed to burn against her, and she realised that he wasn’t Robbie and that she wanted him—badly. She felt him move restlessly in her embrace, his voice thick and husky as he muttered, ‘Lisa, for God’s sake, I’m not made of stone…’

  Neither was she, and when she left she wanted to take with her the memory of this night together; the pleasure of being in his arms, of being part of him, and so instead of releasing him, she let her lips wander over the smooth skin of his shoulder, her fingers trailing provocatively along the length of his body. She felt his tense withdrawal almost immediately, wincing at the expletive he muttered jerkily, his eyes almost black in the moonlight as he realised she was deliberately tormenting him and that she wasn’t going to stop. For one brief moment Lisa thought he was going to recover his self-control. She could almost feel his tension—and then with a smothered groan he slid his fingers into her hair, tilting her head back, his eyes hot, hectic colour burning up under his skin as he looked at her.

  She wasn’t seventeen any longer. She loved him and she wanted him, and suddenly it was easy to let the seductive curves of her body, silvered by the moonlight, whisper their own message to him. Her heart was thumping as he lowered his mouth to hers, and she could feel his own pounding heavily against her. He kissed her lightly, his mouth merely brushing hers, but Lisa could feel the hard arousal of his body against her, and laced her fingers behind his neck, letting her lips part invitingly beneath his, a fierce surge of pleasure lancing through her as she felt the sweat break out across his chest, his body trembling violently against hers as his control slid away and his mouth moved urgent and demanding over hers, depriving her of breath, depriving her of everything but the need to respond to, and match, the fierce tumult of desire that possessed him.

  Now it was too late to turn back, and she had no desire to do so, Lisa admitted as her body responded passionately to Rorke’s touch. Now it was her turn to protest as his hands stroked over her skin, caressing and arousing, inciting her body to arch wantonly beneath his, welcoming the hard pressure of his thighs as they parted hers, her fingers tensing into the hard muscles of his back as his mouth closed over hers in a kiss that echoed his fiercely hungry possession of her body.

  It was only later, when the glow of satisfaction had faded and the memory of what he intended to do returned, that Lisa regretted what she had done—not for herself, but for Robbie. For Robbie’s sake she ought to have been strong.

  Rorke, strangely enough, seemed reluctant to release her, keeping her within the circle of his arms, his body still tangled with hers, as though he couldn’t bear to let her go. She tried to move away and his grip tightened.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he murmured throatily, his lips brushing the exposed skin of her shoulder. ‘I never want you out of touching distance again, Lisa.’

  ‘I should think Helen will have something to say about that,’ she reminded him bitterly. ‘Oh, it’s all right, Rorke,’ she added before he could speak, ‘I know the truth. I know you intend to divorce me and fight to get custody of Robbie so that you can inherit all your father’s estate, but I’m not going to let you do it. You can divorce me if you wish, but…’

  ‘Divorce you?’ He raised himself up on one elbow and stared down at her, his voice bitterly incredulous. ‘Just what the hell are you talking about, Lisa? You know damn well I’d never divorce you. God, I wrote to you often enough telling you that, begging you to come back to me, Robbie or no Robbie. Five long years I’ve been without you, Lisa. Five long years when you’ve haunted me to the point of madness. I found your books in a shop on St Lucia, a woman was buying one and when she opened it I saw your name inside. I bought the lot. I even tried to discover your address from the publishers, but they weren’t having any. I was like a man possessed, Lisa, wanting you, hating you, hating myself, convinced that you had lied. I’ve had a long talk with Dr James,’ he said suddenly changing the subject, ‘about my loss of memory. He ascribes it to guilt, and I suspect he’s right. I couldn’t remember because I didn’t want to remember how I had broken my vow to myself, so instead I accused you.’ His voice thickened unsteadily. ‘God, when I think…’

  ‘Then don’t,’ Lisa advised him softly, remembering how he had claimed in London that it would destroy him to believe that she had told the truth.

  ‘I never stopped wanting you, Lisa,’ he told her huskily, ‘and when my father became ill and wanted to see you it gave me another chance to come and look for you. The ideal excuse to get you back here; back into my life, in my home, in my bed, and in my arms, Lisa, and now that you’re here, there’s no way I’m ever going to let you go. Why did you never even answer my letters? Did you hate me so much?’

  ‘I never got them,’ Lisa told him simply. ‘I never even went to the bank where you opened an account for me. How did you find me, Rorke?’ she questioned.

  ‘I used a private detective. I showed him your books, told him your name, and he did the rest.’

  ‘And you still wanted me, even though you…’

  ‘Even though I thought you had another lover?’ He pushed irate fingers through his hair. ‘God, Lisa, you know by now how I feel about you, surely? Yes, I was as bitter and as hurt as hell when I thought you’d given yourself to someone else. For a time I think I went right out of my mind. But I loved you. I loved you and I couldn’t let you go…’

  ‘You loved me?’ Her eyes were huge in her pale face.

  ‘You doubt it? After tonight’s performance?’ he asked with dry incredulity. ‘Lisa my love, you can’t be that innocent. You must have learned something about men in the years we’ve been apart.’

  ‘The
only things I know about the male sex are those I’ve learned from you and Robbie,’ Lisa told him wryly, too shaken by his admissions to pretend. A kind of fierce excitement was burning through her body, a tension that threatened to tear her in two, but she refused to give way to it. ‘I thought you merely desired me. I was too young to talk properly to you, Rorke, and when Helen told me you merely desired me… She told me you wanted a divorce,’ she added, recalling her most recent conversation with the other woman, and pain darkened her eyes momentarily.

  ‘Helen’s been pushing for that ever since you left me, but she knows exactly where she stands,’ Rorke remarked dryly, ‘and it isn’t next to me—not now, not ever.’

  ‘It was partially because of her that I left,’ Lisa admitted weakly. ‘She told me you wanted me, but she said if it wasn’t for Leigh and my position in the family, you’d have simply had an affair with me. She said you would get tired of me, and then there was Robbie…’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for Leigh I’d have smuggled you on board Lady and sailed off with you a long time before I did,’ Rorke admitted. ‘But I’d still have married you, Lisa, don’t make any mistake about that. Any doubts I had concerned your feelings for me, not mine for you. You’re forgetting I was an adult male, you were still a child, I couldn’t help feeling guilty about trapping you into a relationship you weren’t ready for. Oh, I knew I could arouse you…’ he laughed when he saw her expression, ‘and you’ll never know how tempted I was to do so at times… but I wanted you to love me as an adult woman.’

  ‘And now?’ Lisa asked hesitantly.

  ‘And now,’ Rorke retorted lazily, smiling at her, ‘you are a grown woman, and I still love you and want you very much.’ His expression changed suddenly, becoming almost tortured. ‘I can still arouse you, Lisa.’ He glanced down at her body and his expression made her pulses leap. ‘But I want more than that,’ he told her huskily. ‘I want your love too.’

  She looked at him, wondering if she was actually hearing correctly. He had said he still loved her, but… She heard him give a muffled imprecation and then she was in his arms, his lips against her skin. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘God knows you’ve every reason to doubt and mistrust me…’