by Anne Mather
Robert’s eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to imply?’
Tobie moved her slim shoulders in a careless gesture. ‘I imagine she may have—plans of her own.’
‘To marry me?’ asked Robert arrogantly, his dark eyes vaguely amused. ‘So what if she has? I’m flattered.’
It was not the response she had expected. In spite of Mark’s insinuations, she had not really believed him when he spoke of the relationship between Robert and Cilla. She had anticipated anger or indignation, not complacence, and Robert’s somewhat smug self-satisfaction made her want to hurt him as he was unknowingly hurting her.
‘I imagine you would be. Flattered, I mean,’ she countered, adding unforgivably: ‘As you said, there aren’t many girls who would want to get involved with someone who couldn’t lead a—normal married life!’
His sudden intake of breath was evidence of the effect her words had had upon him. ‘I’m not impotent, you know,’ he muttered, his face mirroring his repugnance, and Tobie got abruptly to her feet as Cilla’s Mini came into the courtyard below them.
It was as well that the lights spilling out from the house cast pools of shadow. Tobie’s burning face might have evoked some curious glances. As it was, she sheltered in the concealing darkness, watching with detachment as Cilla and her father mounted the steps to the patio.
‘Hello, you two!’ In spite of the darkness of Tobie’s dress, Cilla had seen her, and after squeezing Robert’s outstretched hand in greeting, the other girl turned to her father.
‘This is Mark’s fiancée, Daddy,’ she said, making the necessary introductions. ‘My father’s an antiquarian, Tobie. He’s filled our house with old books and bric-à-brac, and now he spends his time studying them.’
Remembering what Mark had said about Harvey Jennings being a sponger, Tobie was pleasantly surprised to meet the older man. Her first impressions were of a slightly-stooped individual, in his early sixties, whose somewhat lugubrious expression was relieved by the humorous glint of eyes half concealed behind horn-rimmed spectacles.
‘How do you do, Miss Kennedy,’ he said, shaking her hand firmly. ‘I’m delighted to meet you at last. Having heard your praises sung from every quarter, I was eager to see the original for myself.’
Tobie’s blush was quite natural in the circumstances, and the reasons for her heated colouring easily explained. ‘You’re very kind,’ she smiled, not daring to look in Robert’s direction. ‘I only hope I won’t disappoint you.’
‘Daddy appreciates beautiful things,’ observed Cilla, without any trace of envy. ‘You must come and see his collection some time.’
‘Yes, do,’ invited her father, releasing her hand with reluctance. ‘I’d be happy to show it to you.’
‘Thank you.’
Tobie managed a tight smile, but she was relieved when Robert offered them a drink and she had a few moments to gather her shredded composure. She had never felt more contemptible in her life, and if the ground had opened up beneath her and swallowed her into its murky depths, she felt it would have been nothing more than she deserved. It was all very well blaming Robert for destroying her innocence. He had, and somehow she had to live with that. What was unforgivable was that she had accused a man without defences of being nothing more than a useless shell.
Hands descending on her bare shoulders alerted her to Mark’s arrival, and she turned to him almost desperately. ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded, clutching his arm. ‘I’ve been waiting for you!’
‘If I’d known you’d be this pleased to see me, I’d have come sooner,’ Mark observed huskily, bending to bestow a kiss on her temple. ‘Hmm, you smell delicious. What is it? Something French?’
‘It’s Rive Gauche, actually,’ replied Tobie, aware that they had attracted the attention of the other members of the party. ‘Look, Cilla and her father are here.’
Mark’s smile became a trifle forced as he shook hands with the older man, though his affection for Cilla was real enough. However, after he had helped himself to a drink he returned to Tobie, slipping his arm possessively about her waist and saying softly:
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came down, but I’ve been talking to Mother. She’s not too happy about Rob taking Cilla to Miami.’
Tobie thought rather hysterically that she and Mrs Newman were agreed on something at last, but she couldn’t say so.
‘Not that there’s a lot she can do about it,’ admitted Mark dispassionately. ‘Cilla’s old enough to know what she’s doing, and Rob’s not likely to be persuaded to change his mind.’
Tobie drew a steadying breath. ‘Your mother likes Cilla. Why should she object?’
Mark quirked an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yes, she likes Cilla, because she’s biddable. But not as Rob’s wife.’
‘Why?’ Tobie was perplexed, and at least the question diverted her mind from more disturbing thoughts.
‘Oh—’ Mark bent his head, and now she realised he was half embarrassed by her persistence, ‘I don’t think she feels Rob is—up to the strain of such an undertaking as marriage.’
Tobie’s brow furrowed. ‘But he’s all right—’
‘He’s not a whole man, Tobie,’ Mark interrupted her in a low voice. He sighed. ‘Look, I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but—well, Rob would be no use to a woman.’
‘No—’
‘Yes.’ Mark was adamant. ‘I should know. I’ve spoken to his physician.’
Tobie could hardly hide her horror at his announcement. It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true, she told herself without conviction. But the fact remained, Mark was a doctor, and he was unlikely to be mistaken. It was doubly shocking after the way she had taunted Robert earlier, and her stomach heaved at the realisation that his harsh denial had been merely a pitiful defence.
Mrs Newman’s appearance precluded any further discussion of the subject, and Tobie was glad. She didn’t want to talk about it, she didn’t even want to think about it, and she wished with all her heart that she had never had that conversation.
She didn’t remember much of the meal that followed. The food was excellent, as usual—a seafood salad followed by barbecued steaks, and a mouthwatering strawberry gateau, that was one of Monique’s specialities. Tobie hoped her lack of appetite would go unnoticed, and came out in a cold sweat once when she looked up to find Robert’s brooding gaze upon her. But he didn’t say anything to upset her digestion, and she concentrated on her plate after that, avoiding another encounter.
Yet, although she kept her eyes averted, she could still see Robert sitting at the head of the table. No matter how she tried, she could not dislodge his image, and she felt an unbearable weight of depression at the things Mark had confided. It made her own feelings earlier that evening seem paltry by comparison, and her head began to ache with the turmoil of her thoughts.
When dinner was over they assembled in the drawing room. Monique’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Thérèse, served coffee, and Mark put some records on the turntable. Tobie was alone, sitting on the end of a tapestry-covered sofa, her eyes irresistibly drawn to the man in the dark green velvet suit, with the froth of a lace jabot below his dark tie, his wheelchair drawn close to Cilla’s side. The other girl was talking to him, making him smile, and Tobie looked up, almost angrily, when someone blocked her view.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
It was Harvey Jennings, carrying a bottle of Napoleon brandy in one hand and a glass in the other, and Tobie had no reason to object. ‘Please—sit down,’ she invited, steadying her coffee cup, and with an ungraceful bow he complied.
‘Will you have some?’ he suggested, waving the bottle of brandy, but Tobie demurred.
‘I like my coffee straight,’ she said, forcing a smile, and he nodded as he filled his glass.
She thought he had had several samples already from the way his hand shook as he poured the liquid, but it was nothing to do with her if he chose to over-imbibe. Perhaps that was why Cilla felt obliged to stay with hi
m, she mused, and then shunned the connotations of that particular train of thought.
‘Tell me,’ said Harvey, drawing his greying brows together above the rims of his spectacles, ‘are you a model, Miss Kennedy?’ He seemed to find difficulty in focussing, but he evidently succeeded before adding: ‘I seem to know your face from somewhere. You know how it is. Could I have seen it in a magazine? One of those glossy periodicals Cilla has mailed every month?’
‘No!’ Tobie’s negation was swift and anxious, and accompanied by a somewhat apprehensive appraisal of their surroundings. ‘I—my face is not unique, Mr Jennings. You’re probably confusing me with someone else.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Harvey shook his head, raising his glass to his lips and watching her through thoughtful eyes. ‘No, sir, I know that face, Miss Kennedy. Now how could I have seen it before?’
‘How about the photograph I showed you a few days ago?’ enquired Mark’s welcome voice from right behind them, and Harvey turned to him perplexedly.
‘Did you show me a photograph, Mark?’ he asked, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Why, so you did! So that’s how I know you, Miss Kennedy!’
Tobie inclined her head and smiled, but her mouth was parched, in spite of the coffee. For one awful moment she thought Harvey must have known of her relationship with Robert, or conceivably seen some painting of his that bore her some resemblance.
As if realising he was intruding, Harvey got to his feet then and ambled away, and Mark came round the sofa to take his place. ‘Old soak!’ he muttered, as he came down beside her. ‘Half the time he doesn’t even know his own name.’
Tobie endeavoured to act normally. ‘He—he seems harmless enough,’ she ventured, but Mark only scowled.
‘Like I said, he lives on other people. Where would he be without Rob to buy him his life-giving elixir?’
‘You mean Robert—subsidises the Jennings?’
‘He calls it payment for Cilla’s services. Myself, I’d call it something else.’
Tobie shook her head. ‘Why are you so bitter? He doesn’t live off you.’
‘He does—indirectly,’ Mark muttered, almost inaudibly, but at her startled glance he had to elucidate. ‘Well, look,’ he continued, in an undertone, ‘it stands to reason, doesn’t it? I mean, we—that is, Mother and I—we’re Rob’s only family. If anything happened to him, naturally we’re his next of kin—’
‘Mark!’
Tobie’s protest was louder than she had intended, and her face coloured as she attracted curious eyes.
Mark, meanwhile, covered her hand with his where it lay on the sofa between them, and added softly: ‘We have to be realistic, honey. Unless Rob gets married, I stand to inherit everything, and believe me, I’d have Harvey Jennings off this island so quickly his feet wouldn’t even touch the ground!’
Cilla and her father departed around midnight, and Tobie took the opportunity to make good her own escape. Her head was aching quite abominably now, and she badly wanted to be alone. She needed time to assimilate what had been said, and how it affected her, and she wished quite desperately that it was they, and not Robert, who was leaving in the morning.
She said her goodnights and climbed the stairs tiredly, holding on to the balustrade. She felt drained of the confidence that had gripped her earlier in the evening, and even her limbs felt heavy. In her room, she closed the door and leant back against it wearily.
With the windows ajar, moonlight streamed into the apartment. In its ghostly illumination, the long silk curtains moved like wraiths in the draught, and the rails of the balcony cast a shadow like prison bars across the rug-strewn floor. Was that how she saw the island now—a prison? she wondered despairingly, and felt the unwilling knowledge of her recklessness stir the guilty pain inside her. No matter where she turned, nothing could alter the fact that Robert had paid more heavily than she for his indifference, and the memory of her anger against him lingered only as a dying ember.
Disturbing, too, was Mark’s opinion of the future. Did he really expect to outlive Robert, and was that why there had been a reconciliation in the family? It was a harsh assessment, and one she would have discounted before this evening. Could it be conceivable that that was why Mrs Newman was throwing Mark and Cilla together? Because Cilla was the only threat to her otherwise secure existence?
With impatient fingers she took off her gown, tearing the fragile fasteners in her haste. But she wanted to be free of anything associated with the evening’s events, and she breathed more easily when the night air eddied coolly about her slim body.
She decided to take a shower, to cleanse her skin of any impurities, and in its icy stream she felt a sense of invigoration. It was no use purging herself for something that was irretrievable. The words had been said; their cruelty could not be withdrawn. And at least Robert could have no idea of the torment they had brought her.
In bed, however, without any other recourse, she could not prevent her thoughts from returning to the essence of what she had learned. Robert—who had taught her everything she knew about the needs of her body, and his—could never make love again, could never hold a girl in his arms and reduce her to a clinging, yielding, eager supplicant. He had been an expert at getting what he wanted, and in her innocence she had had no will to resist him. She loved him, and the miracle had been that he had seemed to love her, too. Certainly their affair had lasted longer than any of his other affairs. For six months he had seen no other woman, and she had learned, through the angry phone calls that had come to the apartment, that this was not usual for him.
Even so, she had been naïve. She had dared to hope that he intended to marry her. He had known he had been the first man with her, and when she became pregnant she hadn’t worried too much. It never occurred to her that Robert might think that she would handle that side of things, or that that was why he had never held back. Besides, she defended herself now, in their most passionate moments she doubted he could have done so. He had been too aroused to care about anything but satisfying their mutual needs, filling her with his strength and collapsing exhaustedly beside her …
The memories were becoming too painful, and she rolled over on to her stomach, resting her face on her folded arms. If only she had never come here, she thought helplessly, if only she could have gone on hating him and blaming him, and feeling the resentment which had sustained her for so long now. If only…
CHAPTER SIX
IN spite of her anxieties she must have slept, however, for when she opened her eyes again she realised something—or someone—had awakened her. She lay there in the semi-darkness, her heart pounding heavily in her ears, with the uneasy feeling that she was no longer alone in the room. She couldn’t see anything, she couldn’t hear anything above the uneven intake of her own breathing, but she was convinced that she was not mistaken. The shadows seemed darker somehow, as if some denser mass was deflecting the moon’s silvery light, and she propped herself up on one elbow, reaching for the switch on the lamp beside the bed.
But before she was able to turn the lamp on, the solid shape of a body came between her and the light streaming through the half-open shutters. As a scream rose automatically into her throat, a firm hand covered her mouth, pressing her back against the pillows, as a human weight depressed the springs of the bed beside her.
Panic almost choked her. She fought desperately to free herself from that suffocating mask, threshing about upon the bed like a wild thing, struggling frantically to get herself free. In those first few seconds she gave little thought to the incongruity of her actions, or recognised the impossibility of her intruder being anyone she didn’t know. It simply didn’t occur to her. She acted completely on impulse, and when her teeth plunged recklessly into the palm that covered her mouth, she was astounded when a familiar voice swore violently before withdrawing the offending member.
Instantly Tobie’s aggression sagged, and her limbs went weak. She was so shocked, she could only lie there, gazing up at his shadowy pr
ofile, hardly believing what her ears and eyes were telling her was true. He massaged his wounded palm, sitting on the side of the bed, returning her stare with what she felt sure was grim malevolence.
‘Robert?’ she said at last, when he made no attempt to speak to her. ‘Robert, what are you doing here?’
He made no immediate response, and as her eyes accustomed themselves to the shadow she saw he was still wearing the lace-frilled shirt he had worn earlier in the evening, and the closefitting velvet pants. He had shed his jacket however, and unbuttoned the shirt, and in the aftermath of their battle she could see his chest rising and falling with the quickened pace of his breathing.
Yet, even as her brain acknowledged these things, common sense was returning to her. What was he doing here? she wondered, with a returning sense of panic. Why had he come? And what was she doing, letting him stay here, as if he had that right?
‘Please—I think you should go—’ she got out urgently, before his next move caught her off balance.
He turned then, putting one hand on either side of her, imprisoning her within the arc of his arms, looking down at her with an intensity that communicated itself even in the darkness. ‘Why should I go?’ he demanded huskily. ‘I don’t want to go, and I don’t believe you really want me to.’
‘You’re mad!’ Tobie knew she had to keep her head whatever happened. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I can assure you—’
‘Yes, I’m sure you can,’ he interrupted her roughly, one hand moving slightly so that the pad of his thumb brushed the sun-kissed skin of her upper arm. ‘Assure me, I mean. Assure me that I’m neither insensitive nor impotent. Merely patient, that’s all.’
‘Robert, stop this!’ She shifted to avoid his caressing thumb. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get here?’ This as the remembrance of his disability returned to torture her.
