Guilty Passion

by Bright, Laurey;

  “Yes,” she said. “Were you there?”

  “At the back,” he answered. “You left too fast for me to speak to you.”

  “There was a reporter,” she explained.

  “Oh. Well, the verdict should put paid to any gossip. I mean. . .” He paused, embarrassed.

  “It’s all right. I know there was some. . . speculation that Alec might have committed suicide.”

  Steven looked down at his coffee, frowning. “You never had reason to think so, did you?”

  Ethan’s glance sharpened, flicking from the young man to Celeste as Steven raised his head and looked full at her.

  “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

  Steven nodded, and Ethan said, “What are you getting at, exactly?”

  Steven turned to him. “Nothing,” he said—a shade too quickly, Ethan thought. “There’ve been rumours, and it must be a relief to Celeste to have them laid to rest. I’d have said Alec would be the last person. . .” He paused. “Anyway, I’m sure you both would rather drop the subject. I just wanted to say that I’m glad about the coroner’s decision. I know it must have been an ordeal for Celeste.”

  He sipped his coffee, and Ethan banged his empty cup into a saucer and said, “Was there anything else?”

  “Well, yes, as a matter of fact.” He spoke to Celeste. “I’m sorry to bring this up now, but I wondered if you’d found some of Alec’s notes about the project we were working on. And. . . I wanted to ask you if you’d mind if I finished it on my own. It would be a sort of memorial to him, and. . . well, frankly, I’ve put so much work into it myself that I’d hate to see it all wasted.”

  “You’re welcome to anything you can use,” she said immediately. “I’m afraid I don’t recall. . . Ethan?”

  He had helped her clear the small study; in fact he’d done most of the packing of Alec’s books and papers. “I figured it was probably all at the university,” he said.

  Steven said disappointedly, “There’s very little there. He used to bring a lot of work home. I thought. . .”

  “Sorry,” Ethan said curtly.

  “It could be on computer disks, not paper. He had a computer here. It’s still in his study?” he asked Celeste.

  “Yes,” Celeste said. “It was on loan from the university. There was a box of disks, wasn’t there, Ethan?”

  “Blank,” Ethan said.

  “Blank?” Steven was dismayed.

  “Unused,” Ethan told him. “I checked them all.” “Are you sure? I mean, if you’re not accustomed—”

  “I do know about computers. I design software for a living,” Ethan told him. “There was nothing on any of the data disks.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that I don’t understand. He must have left some notes somewhere!”

  “The car,” Celeste said.

  Both men looked at her, and she said, “The police found. . . there were some disks among the things in the car. I’d forgotten. The police still have them, I think.”

  Steven groaned. “Immersed in sea water. They’ll be ruined, won’t they?”

  “Very likely,” Ethan said unemotionally. After a moment, he added, “I could try to recover the data from them.”

  “I’d be awfully grateful!” Steven said, his face lighting up.

  “For my brother’s sake,” Ethan said crushingly. “It would be a pity to see the last year of his life go for nothing.”

  Steven flushed. “Yes, of course. We’d all like to see his study published.”

  “And yours,” Ethan said dryly.

  “Look,” Steven said. “I did do a lot of work on it. It’s important to me. I’m sorry if I seem selfish—”

  “I understand,” Ethan said. “Leave it with me. I’ll get in touch. Through the university?”

  “Yes, or at home. Celeste knows the number, don’t you?”

  “I have it,” she said as he turned to her.

  “Right,” Ethan said crisply. “If that’s all. . .?”

  Steven put down his half-finished coffee and said, “Will you give me an address? I may need to contact you, if anything turns up at the university after all, for instance.”

  “’Ethan Ryland, Sheerwind’ will find me. The post office at Conneston, which is the only real town on the island, keeps my mail for me to pick up. There is a phone, too.” He gave Steven a card.

  When Steven had gone, Celeste said, “You didn’t need to hurry him off like that.”

  “Did you want him to stay? Hold your hand, perhaps, like he did at the funeral?”

  She stared at him, and then said quietly, “That’s offensive, Ethan. He did nothing of the kind.”

  “I apologise. Although I take issue with your definition of ‘nothing of the kind.”’

  A faint frown appeared between her perfect brows. “Perhaps you could explain that.”

  “Stroking your arm, kissing you. . .”

  She blinked. “It didn’t mean anything.” With a slight flaring of anger, she said, “Lots of people kissed me at the funeral. Some of them I barely knew.”

  “How well do you know Steven Craig?” he rapped out.

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again, swallowing. “I refuse to answer that,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I can only guess that grief is affecting your judgement—and your manners. Perhaps you’d like to go now.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “I think it is. And I’m not sure that going to Sheerwind with you is such a good idea after all.”

  “Don’t be stupid. The tickets are bought. You’ve got to be out of this flat by tomorrow anyway. Where else could you go?” “A hotel, until—”

  “Until what? Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face because of a moment’s anger with me, Celeste. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He should have been more careful, he told himself as he reached the street outside. Antagonising her at this stage would do him no good. He didn’t want her backing out of the arrangement before they got to the island. He had been reluctant at first to suggest she should stay with him, but on second thought the idea had several very cogent merits. He wanted her where he could watch her and analyse her reactions, and eventually, he hoped, remove the huge question in his mind over his stepbrother’s death.

  Ethan had booked them on the evening flight. When he arrived at her flat in plenty of time to pick her up, Celeste looked at him warily and made a halfhearted attempt to cry off the idea of going with him.

  He ignored her muted demur and simply marched into her bedroom, closing the last of her cases himself. And almost before she knew it she was whisked off to the airport. There, too, Ethan took charge. Celeste couldn’t help feeling numbly grateful for that. Her pitiful attempt to assert herself having failed, she was dimly thankful that she didn’t have to be responsible for presenting tickets and checking baggage and finding the correct departure gate and searching for seat numbers.

  She spent most of the flight gazing unseeingly out of the window while the water below them turned from green to blue to inky, reminding her of Ethan’s eyes, dark and fathomless. And cold. When he touched her arm, she shivered, and he said, “Do you want a blanket?”

  He was handing her a glass, and she took it from his hand and said, “No, I’m fine.”

  “Drink up,” he said. “It’ll do you good.”

  “Alcohol?”

  “Drink it.”

  Once she would have challenged an order as peremptory as that. She tried to muster a spark of annoyance, but it was too much trouble to argue. Instead, she simply obeyed, and when a warm, fuzzy sensation spread through her, she handed the glass back and closed her eyes with a sigh.

  Minutes later, it seemed, he was urging her to eat the light meal provided by the airline, and then coffee with a sweet biscuit. He was, she told herself, being nothing but kind
and thoughtful, and the flutter of panic she felt as they circled the island, lying like a tear-shaped emerald in a darkening sea, was nothing to do with the fact that she was probably going to be virtually alone with him for an indefinite length of time.

  With a feeling of unreality, she sat beside him in the car he had collected at the airport. They passed through Conneston, a pretty town with unpretentious buildings softened by palms and rubber trees and hibiscus. Then the lights that were beginning to wink on were left behind and the car took a narrow road uphill, later descending to skim by the sea, before climbing again.

  “How far is it?” Celeste asked when Ethan had been driving for twenty minutes.

  “Nearly there,” he replied. A few minutes later he turned into a steep driveway winding downhill among the trees, to draw up before a house that seemed built into the hillside.

  “I’ll let you in, and then fetch the bags,” Ethan said.

  He opened the door with a key, fumbling inside for the light switch. She blinked as the light met her eyes, and he said, “Go straight ahead, there’s another switch on your left inside the room at the end of the passage.”

  She went down the passageway and stopped in the doorway. Facing her was a wall of glass, giving a breathtaking view of a starry sky and moonlit ocean. She turned on the light and walked across the room on thick natural wool rugs to the spectacular windows, gazing out. She saw Ethan’s reflection as he paused in the doorway behind her.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, turning to face him.

  “Great in daylight, too,” he said. “Follow me and I’ll show you your room.”

  The main room occupied the whole side of the house facing the sea. At one end was a staircase of natural timber, and he led her up it, turning at the top to shoulder open the door to a bedroom that, like the big room downstairs, looked out on the sea. There was a double bed covered with an apricot-coloured spread, matched by the cushion on a peacock chair standing in one corner. The rest of the furniture and a pair of louvred wardrobe doors were painted white. On the polished wood floor lay an Indian rug, and the whole effect was one of lightness, coolness and comfort.

  “I’m next door.” Ethan deposited her bags on the floor. “And the bathroom is just across the way. Do you want one of these cases lifted onto the bed?”

  Celeste shook her head. “No, thank you. It’s very nice. Do you. . . live alone?”

  He looked at her with a faint quirk of his lips. “Is that a problem?”

  “I just wondered if there was a housekeeper or. . .”

  “Or a live-in lover?” he queried. “No, to both. There is a lady who comes twice a week to clean the house and do the laundry and ironing. She lives not far from here, and the arrangement suits us both. I can cook—and do the rest, for that matter, but I prefer to pay someone else to do the boring bits.” He paused. “Are you concerned about the proprieties? I can assure you no one on the island will be bothered.”

  She said, “Neither am I. It isn’t important.”

  “But then you’re not bothered by much these days, are you?” he said. “I wonder what it would take to get a real reaction from you.”

  She blinked. A flicker of apprehension shadowed her eyes. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Never mind,” he said abruptly. “The bed will be made up. I phoned and asked Mrs. Jackson to prepare the room. And you’ll no doubt find she’s put clean towels in the bathroom for you. She’ll have left milk for us, too. Would you like a drink of something?”

  “I know it’s early, but I’d rather like to have a bath and go to bed,” Celeste said. “If that’s all right.” The bed looked very comfortable and inviting, and it held no bitter memories.

  “Fine.” Ethan shrugged. “If you need anything, just yell down the stairs.”

  “Thank you. You’re very kind, Ethan.”

  He turned on his way out, his eyes slightly narrowed. “Don’t count on it,” he said briefly.

  She refused to examine the implications of that, as she unpacked a nightdress and light cotton wrap. In the bathroom, attractive and functional in pale green and apricot, she found fluffy apricot-pink towels folded over a rail with a discreet bronze plaque above it inscribed, “Guests.” The green ones on another rail were for Ethan, she supposed.

  A small basket on the counter held sachets of shampoo and conditioner, some bath salts and a shower cap. It seemed that Ethan was prepared for female guests. She wondered how often he entertained a woman, and quelled the thought as she ran hot water into the pale green bath.

  After a luxurious soak in the tub, she returned to the other room feeling pleasantly relaxed. The bed was as comfortable as she had expected, and it faced the windows. Outside the room a wide balcony ran the length of the house. She had left the curtains undrawn, so that the last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the starry sky outside. The sound of the waves washing an unseen beach lulled her to sleep.

  When she woke the sun was streaming in on the bed. Except for the night that Aunt Ellie had pressed a sleeping pill on her, she hadn’t slept so well for ages.

  She lay for a few minutes just watching the restless blue water outside and the tips of the trees that she could see. Then she threw aside the covers and went barefoot to push open the sliding glass door and step out onto the balcony.

  The house was about halfway up a steep slope that was covered in a thick press of green trees and bushes broken by splashes of colour—purple bougainvillea, scarlet hibiscus, and yellow ginger plants with red stamens and large, floppy green leaves. There was oleander and sweet-scented frangipani, too. Leaning over the railing, she could see that outside the living area was a large terrace, on which stood a wrought iron table and chairs and a sun lounger. Steps led from the terrace to a path that disappeared into the trees. The beach was not visible from here, but no doubt the path would end there. There must be a beach. She could hear the murmur and swish of water, but the waves didn’t thunder as they had at the spot where Alec. . .

  Shutting out the thought, she stepped back into the bedroom. There was no sign of Ethan as she used the bathroom, although the door of the room next to hers was ajar. At the end of a short passageway, another door was firmly closed. Perhaps he was working. A glance at her watch had showed her that it was near ten o’clock.

  She dressed in a white shirt, blue denim skirt and sandals, and tied back her hair with an elastic band. The air was warm and very pleasant. She went down the stairs and found a covered tray and a note placed in a prominent position on the long, low table in the living room.

  Help yourself, said the note. And make yourself at home. Coffee in the kitchen. I’ve gone to get supplies and collect mail. Back before twelve.

  Under the cover was a glass of fresh orange juice, a bowl of wheat flake cereal, with a small jug of milk, some sugar in a matching bowl, and a dish on which reposed a fresh yellow papaya and a lemon.

  She took the tray outside to the little table, and sliced open the papaya, eating it sprinkled with lemon juice. She made a halfhearted effort at the cereal, but in the end most of it went into a garbage pail she found in the kitchen that opened off the main room, toward the back of the house. After washing up her dishes, she strolled outside again. When Ethan returned she was sitting on the lounger, her legs stretched out, eyes closed, her hair loose because when she leaned back it had been uncomfortable, so she had pulled off the elastic and pushed it into her pocket.

  She heard him say, “Hello,” and she opened her eyes and made to get up.

  “Stay there,” he ordered. “I see you found your breakfast.”

  “Yes, thank you. It was very thoughtful of you.”

  “No problem.” He shrugged. “Sleep okay?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  He had a bundle of letters in his hand, confined by a rubber band. “Mind if I open my mail?”

 
“Of course not. Please go ahead.”

  He slipped off the rubber band and began riffling through the envelopes. When he stopped with a smothered exclamation, Celeste said, “Something wrong?”

  He looked at her strangely, as though he could see right through her, and drew one envelope out of the stack, tossing the rest onto the nearby table. “It’s from Alec,” he said tightly. “Postmarked the day after he died.”

  Celeste gasped. “That’s impossible!”

  “Not impossible,” Ethan answered curtly. “He must have posted it just before. . .”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” She swallowed. She had phoned Ethan almost as soon as she herself had been told of Alec’s death. The letter might have been posted that night, before he drove the car off the cliff. It would have taken a couple of days to arrive at the island, and Ethan had probably left for the funeral without picking up his mail. She felt sick, her temples cold.

  Ethan turned away from her and paced to the edge of the terrace. He stood there with his back to her for several seconds, before bending his head and ripping open the envelope. She watched him put it into his pocket before unfolding the sheets of paper he had taken from it. Celeste closed her eyes.

  A few minutes later she opened them again as Ethan bent over the chair, his hands on the armrests.

  He said roughly, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, her cheeks warming as she saw the hard, glittery look in the eyes that suddenly swept over her.

  Her own eyes widened, and her heart pounded uncomfortably. “What is it?” she asked. “Ethan, what are you doing?”

  “Doing?” he repeated, holding her eyes with an implacable gaze. “Just looking, Celeste, taking a long, hard look at the woman who caused my brother to commit suicide.”

  Chapter Four

  “Suicide?” Celeste whispered. Her gaze locked with his. “It was an accident! The coroner said—”

  “The coroner was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt to spare Alec’s family and friends. But you know what was going on in his mind before he drove off that cliff, don’t you, Celeste? You know he did it deliberately.”