“I like the smile,” Ross said, sitting down at the other side of the table. “It dimples your mouth at one side, and I was beginning to fear you were losing it out here.”
“I’m happy tonight,” she said gaily. “I baked a cake and it didn’t drop.”
“My, the high peaks and the low troughs of being a woman,” he said, half mockingly. “If your cake had dropped, what then?”
“I shouldn’t be able to give you a slice with your coffee—oh, I want that!” As the champagne cork popped loudly under the pressure of his thumb, Clare caught it neatly and dabbed its winey dampness behind her ears. “For luck,” she laughed. “I wanted to do that at our wedding lunch, but I was more shy of you then.”
“And now you’ve bearded the wolf in his den you’re more able to be yourself, eh?” The wine bubbled into the stemmed glasses, and a cleft of amusement was slashing his hard brown cheek. “Here you are, Mrs. Brennan.”
“Thank you, Ross.” She took her wine glass and held it by the stem in slender fingers.
“Bottoms up, honey,” he smiled. “May all your cakes be successful ones.”
“Mmmm, delicious!” The wine was cool and bubbly and sent a sparkle through her veins. She felt, as they ate their pate on toast, the intoxication of the wine, and Ross in a charming mood.
“This is good,” he approved the crunchy, sectioned chicken, and the yams which she had stuffed with a mixture of herbs and chicken meat. “Clare, you’re an angel in the kitchen.”
Only in the kitchen? she wondered wistfully. “You need a spot of fussing now and again to keep you civilised, boss-man,” she said, accepting more of the golden wine. “Wait till you see my orange baskets.” They were almost too toothsome to eat, he agreed, his grey eyes on Clare as he spoke, and spooned the jellied oranges. “I haven’t seen that frock before, have I?” he queried. “The colour almost matches your eyes. By candlelight you’re very fragile-looking, Clare, and I begin to get pangs at having brought you out here. Has it all been worth while for you?”
“I’ve learned how to make the most of loneliness, and how to make yams almost taste like potatoes,” she replied lightly, her dark head bent over her champagne glass. “I hope you feel that bringing me here has been worthwhile?”
“I was a tough nut for you to try your teeth on, little one,” he spoke with a sudden trace of harshness. “No wonder your aunt was so against our marriage. She saw clear through me. She recognised me for an egoist who wanted the tropics at the possible price of her niece’s health ... I’ve been damned selfish!”
“No—” Clare glanced up, shaking her fair head so that the primitive scent of his orchid was released between them. “I knew what I was taking on when I agreed to your plan that we marry. Life in Ridgley had no bite to it and I wanted with a—a kind of hunger .to try my teeth on life in the raw.” She gave a short laugh. “I may not look leathery and tough like Mrs. Pryce, but I’m pretty tenacious. These bugs have bitten deeply only once since I’ve been here—”
“You mean you’ve had fever?” He stared across the table, his eyes narrowing to silvery slits. “When was this?”
“Oh,” she gave a shrug, “when you went to take a look at your rubber trees. I—I didn’t tell you that morning because I knew you would fuss, probably stay behind, and then not be able to make the trip because of the rains—”
“You little fool!” He spoke sharply. “How long did the bout last?”
“About four days. It wasn’t too severe. I took plenty of quinine and it soon abated.”
“It could have developed into something really nasty.” His face across the candles was so carved that the pulse beating angrily beside his mouth showed plainly. “God, I wish I hadn’t brought you out here!”
“Don’t say that,” she pleaded, her heart in her throat at the way the skin seemed stretched a shade more tightly over the strong framework of his face. She could tell that he cared about her getting ill, but was the caring in his heart or his head? That she couldn’t tell. But she did know that a sick woman on his hands would be a complication; one he wouldn’t welcome.
“You little muggins,” he growled. “You really should have said you felt ill that morning. I wouldn’t have snarled.”
“Your snarling is worse than your bite—shall we have coffee now?”
They had it seated in chairs, black and strong, with cream poured from her little Revere cream pitcher in silver. It had been Simon Longworth’s wedding gift, but she had never told Ross that. He invariably admired it. He did so right now, caressing the silver body with a large, rough thumb. “Delicate things always make a man feel clumsy,” he remarked. “He’s afraid of denting them, I guess.”
“Silver is pretty strong,” she laughed huskily. “Like women it’s capable of quite a bit of rough handling.”
She felt the razory skim of Ross’s eyes. “I don’t like Smart Alice talk from you, Clare,” he said.
“It’s only a form of defence,” she rejoined. “If you think me girlish and soft-shelled, you’ll pack me home to England.”
“I might at that.” He spoke quite seriously, scattering Clare’s hopes like spray against a rock. A parting now would close the way to his heart ... like the jungle that overgrows in weeks the spadework of months. No, oh no! She rose in a flurry of lavender chiffon and went to the piano. I won’t go, she thought wildly. I’ll defy him ... seduce him, do anything rather than leave here!
Her hands moved over the keys of the piano, then slipped into the rhythm of a popular tune. She remembered the foolish words and began to croon them in a soft, husky voice.
She heard Ross laugh as he went to the veranda door and opened it. “It has stopped raining,” he said. “The clouds have rolled away and you can see the moon.” Her song grew softer. Was he inviting her to share the moonlight with him? Well, she would! She’d adopt some of Patsy Harriman’s tactics ... he need not know that love compelled her. He could be persuaded to believe that hunger of the body made her want him.
She rose and went over to stand beside him. Feeling the brush of his arm as he raised his cigarette to his lips caused her the most exquisite rush of awareness.
His warmth of body was communicated, his indifference something she must turn to need ... a need that would keep her here even against his will.
The moonlight cut a path through the wetness of the compound; and the rain-washed, primitive beauty of the jungle was all around them. Suddenly they heard the low thudding of drums from the village. “For you, Clare,” Ross spoke deeply beside her. “To celebrate your birthday I gave our people three fat pigs and they’re having a roast-up.”
“That was good of you, Ross.” Her fingers curled like pale orchid tendrils about his arm, pressing into the starched material. “They would miss such concessions if you sent me away...”
She glanced up at him, knowing that the moonlight touched her throat and revealed its curves and its shadows. His cigarette winged out into the night, then his hands were pressing warm against her sides and she was letting herself go close and fragile against his chest. His breath fanned warm across her face. For a taut moment they stared into each other’s eyes, then: “You sweet fool,” he growled. Then his lips were on hers, hard and warm, and forcing a gasp from her as her own lips opened under his. The thud of heartbeats and jungle drums mingled for interminable seconds, then his lips were parting from hers and she was gazing up at the queer, flickering smile in his eyes.
“That was unexpected,” he drawled.
“Yes,” she whispered, and wondered how he would feel if she told him what had happened to her during the course of that kiss, that her heart had been drawn up into her throat, and the strength drained from her knees.
“We’ll have to blame it on the romantic surroundings,” he added.
She held on tight to her smile and nodded. She never knew what might have followed the turbulent promise of that kiss, for in that moment, loud and menacing, there rang through the jungle the cry of a large, night
-stalking cat. Ross stiffened. His arms dropped away from Clare and he went out on to the veranda steps and listened tensely. “God, he’s close—I’m going out after him with a gun!”
“Ross, no!” Clare caught sharply at a post of the veranda. “You can’t go out there—it’s dangerous—”
“Now don’t get panicky, honey.” His face in the moonlight had a determined look, his eyes were flashing silver. “We can’t have a leo prowling close to the house, or the village. With the moon up, I should be able to track him down.”
“Alone?” Her heart was hammering. She wanted to clutch him by the arms, beg him not to go. She was scared, not of the big cat, but of Ross being alone out there with the beast.
“Of course I shan’t go alone.” He laughed at her as he pushed past her into the bungalow and made for the locked cabinet in which he kept his guns. He seemed to be shimmering with electricity. The hunting instinct was aroused in him, and Clare knew there was nothing she could say or do that would stop him from going after the leopard.
“I’ll take some boys’ from the village,” he said, taking out a box of cartridges and loading a rifle. “Not to worry, Clare. The cat’s a big one from the sound of him, but I’ve been after the brutes quite a few times before. They’re dangerous, on the prowl near women and kids. The last time I was here a piccan from the village got snatched by a cat ... we don’t want that to happen again.”
“No,” she whispered. He strode into his room, and she was still standing where he had left her when he came out wearing khaki drill and heavy laced boots. “There’ll be plenty of mud to plough through, but the moon has cleared the clouds from the sky and we shouldn’t have too much' trouble picking up the cat’s tracks. Clare, stop looking so worried and female.” He gave a heartless laugh. “I’ll probably be back by sun-up.”
He strode from the bungalow as though they didn’t matter a fig to each other, gripping his gun with one hand and thrusting cartridges into his pocket with the other one.
Clare heard again the cry of the big cat after Ross had splashed his way across the compound and taken the muddy track to the village, where he would round up boys for a hunting party. Ice seemed to trickle down her spine. For the first time she was really alone in the jungle, for when Ross had gone off to take a look at the rubber plantation, he had left orders for Johnny and Mark to sleep out on the veranda. But tonight Clare would be all alone. Her only company would be her fears for Ross.
She went to her room and changed out of her party dress into a housecoat. She had no intention of going to bed. It would be impossible to lie under her netting listening to every little sound in the jungle all around. She returned to the living-room, lit two of the lamps and doused the candles that still flickered in their holders on the table. She brought a tray from the kitchen and cleared the table in a dull, automatic way. Her birthday party was over, and whatever hopes she had entertained had been swept to nothing when that big cat had cried through the night and called to something in Ross which she had been powerless to combat.
The night passed slowly.
About midnight Clare heard a sound on the veranda that brought her heart into her throat. She could now handle a gun and, uncurling out of a chair, she snatched up the pearl-handled revolver which Ross had given her and went over to the veranda door. She listened, tense with nerves, visualising a sleek, gliding body out there.
“Missus, that you?” came a voice.
She snatched open the door and there was Johnny the houseboy, curled up near the steps on a grass mat. She saw the flash of his teeth in the darkness. “Boss man say come,” he said Cheerfully. “I come—others go after cat.”
When the pink feathers of dawn began to appear in the sky, Clare unwound achingly out of the chair in which she had spent the night, and went to the kitchen and made a pot of strong coffee. She drank two cups black, then made her way to her room and after a wash in water sickeningly redolent of disinfectant she changed into a shirt and slacks. Anything could have happened in the night, she thought painfully. The sun was getting up and still there was no sign of Ross.
She went and questioned Johnny. Did he think the men had killed the big cat? Was there any chance that Mr. Brennan had been hurt in the hunt?
The boy shook his head fiercely. The big boss-man too good a shot to get hurt. Little missus not to worry about her husband, him plenty fine, happy to go hunting. Have skin of big leo for carpet in a week or so.
Another hour dragged by. The other two boys had gone with Ross, and Clare determinedly kneaded dough in the kitchen and made a batch of rolls and a couple of loaves ... she was taking the trays from the oven, the smell of cooked bread pervading the kitchen, when she heard a sudden commotion in the compound. She slammed a hot tray recklessly on the wooden table and went running along the passage to the living-room. There was a cluster of people out in the compound, with Ross’s tall figure towering in the centre of them. Through the windows Clare saw the smile slashing lines down his tanned cheeks. He was splashed with mud, his bush hat pushed to the back of his dark head. The coloured boys were clacking away nineteen to the dozen, and women and children had followed the hunting party to the bungalow ... relief at seeing Ross safe and sound was a choking lump in Clare’s throat. She wanted to run outside to him, and had to dig sharp spurs into the impulse. As he took the steps in a couple of strides and entered the room, she said in a calm voice that sounded horribly cold: “Well, did you get your cat?”
“I’ll say!” He ran a hand that rasped over his unshaven chin and jaws. “A brute, tall as me stretched out dead.”
The words hit her over the heart. She turned in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll make you some coffee and get you something to eat,” she threw back over her shoulder.
“Bring it to my room, Clare,” he spoke through a hearty yawn. “I’m whacked to the wide—say, did Johnny come up to keep you company.”
“Yes—thanks,” she said shortly, and left him.
In the kitchen she made a big omelette, sliced cold chicken, and buttered several hot rolls. She placed the coffee pot on the bamboo tray, added a bowl of sugar and a large cup, then she carried the tray to his room and set it down on the table beside his bed. He was sprawled out on the clean linen in his muddy clothes, inhaling luxuriously the smoke of a cigarette.
“I’ll run you a bath.” Clare turned to go.
“What’s up?” he demanded. “You look squeezed out —been worrying yourself all night long?”
“I’m only a woman,” she said sharply. She wouldn’t look round at him. There were sudden tears in her eyes that would tell him how much misery she had gone through.
“Clare.”
“Yes?” She stood stiffly, a hand on the doorknob.
“You didn’t have to worry about this tough nut, sweetie.” He spoke half-jeeringly behind her. “Were you scared I’d get gobbled up and you’d have to make that trek back to Ridgley?”
“Credit me with a bit more unselfishness than that!’’ She was suffering the aftermath of anxiety, and his casualness was almost unendurable. “The leopard had to be shot, I know that, but you went after the beast as though you were going to a ball.”
“I’m only a man,” he said lazily. “I warned you long ago that the finer feelings are missing from my make-up, and I might add that to take everything too seriously is the way to get hurt.”
Having said this, he gave a careless laugh that whipped her heart. Her tears dried to flashes of fury as she whirled to face him. “Go on, laugh!” she flared. “It’s a great big joke that I was fool enough to feel anxious about you!”
“I’m not laughing at your anxiety,” he denied, bending sideways to pour coffee. “It’s just that to get into a stew in this climate is bad for the system. Simmer down, honey. All I did was go out and bag us a new carpet for the living-room. Think how pretty it will look.”
She banged his door behind her, cutting off the sound of his lazy laughter. Those moments in his arms last night seemed
a dream from which she had awoken too sharply to reality. Moved by the moonlight and the wine, he had kissed her. This morning, the excitement of that cat chase was all that was on his mind, and Clare realised more forcibly than ever that she had to accept Ross on his terms. He just wasn’t prepared to accept a situation in which feeling would dominate over reason.
It’s a pity we’re not brother and sister, Clare thought acidly. To be his little sister was plainly all he wanted of her. A companionship pleasant and undemanding. All right, she would see that he got it!
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE rains got into their stride again, bringing with them a pervasive smell of mud and water, and that damp, enervating atmosphere which sapped energy and set tempers on edge. Clare would wade out in oilskins on visits to the cow pasture and chicken field, or to watch the swelling cocoyams and pods, and return to the house drenched.
The piano lost tune and many notes blanked out completely. Her clothes began to rot, and at times her bones felt they were melting in the damp heat.
Ross had a bad dose of fever. He took to his bed, and though he ordered her to stay away from him in case he had something infectious, Clare heard him moaning on the second night and she went in, finding him drenched in sweat and delirious. She spent the night sponging him down and wetting his parched lips with water; towards dawn he grew easier, less restless, and she left him. He didn’t seem to remember, when the bout was over, that she had cared for him at its height, and she never mentioned the fact. And though she tried, she couldn’t stop remembering that in his delirium he had mentioned a name ... Pat.
He had also mumbled several times something about being tough enough to come through ‘all this business,’ whereas Pat would go and do something hysterical that would mess up things completely....
And No Regrets Page 8
