by Anne Mather
‘How have I kept my hands off you?’ he muttered, as she moved beneath him, and her hands brought his mouth back to her eager lips.
‘Did you want to touch me?’ she whispered, against his ear, as his heart pounded in unison with hers, and he uttered a rueful groan.
‘Did I?’ he breathed, tracing the veins at her temple with his tongue. ‘Ah, Tobie, you know what you do to me, what you’ve always done to me …’
‘Do I?’
She tried to analyse what his words might mean, but the crescendo was building inside her, and only his urgent face had any meaning. When the climax came it was greater than anything she had ever known, and his anguished: ‘Oh, God!’ mingled with her own cry of fulfilment. Her nails raked his back, but she couldn’t help it, and then they sank together, down through countless waves of feeling, ebbing and flowing around them in slowly-decreasing intensity. Tobie felt totally submerged, totally complete, for the first time since she and Robert were so violently separated.
Some minutes later Robert, whose face had been buried in the hollow of her neck, lifted his head and let tantalising fingers brush the damp hair back from her forehead.
‘Thank you,’ he said huskily, and when her brows drew uncomprehendingly together, a faint smile touched his lips. ‘I’d not put it to the test,’ he explained, his fingertips finding her lips. ‘I could have been impotent, like you said.’
Tobie gazed up at him. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she protested. ‘And—and in any case, what about Cilla?’
‘What about Cilla?’ He frowned.
Tobie was nervous with him, even now. ‘I thought—I mean, you and she—’
‘Oh, I see.’ Robert’s lips twisted. ‘Well, no. Cilla and I never have.’
Tobie hesitated. ‘And—and was it—good?’
‘Good?’ Much to her regret, he drew away from her then, sitting up and drawing up one leg to rest his chin on his knee. ‘It was better than good, as I’m sure you know.’
Tobie eased herself up on her elbows. ‘Why—why did you say—I would know what I did to you?’ Her lips quivered. ‘What did you mean by that?’
Robert turned his head then and looked at her. ‘What did you think I meant?’
Tobie’s mouth felt dry. ‘I asked you.’
Robert studied her anxious expression for a few moments, and then, without answering her, he got to his feet. ‘I need to cool off,’ he said, his tone curiously flat. ‘You can shower down below, if you want to. I’ll use nature’s way.’
She wanted to delay him, to persist with her questioning until she knew, once and for all, whether he really did know who she was. But she couldn’t. When she opened her mouth to speak, the words wouldn’t come, and he dived into the water again without her saying anything.
CHAPTER NINE
ROBERT was dressed by the time she emerged from the cabin, already hauling up the anchor and making ready to sail. His acknowledgement of her reappearance was brief and expressionless, and Tobie, seating herself in the stem, felt chilled and uncertain. It seemed hardly credible that less than an hour before he had been trembling in her arms. Now he seemed cool and remote, more remote than early this morning, when he first found her in the cabin.
Tobie shook her head. What had gone wrong? What had she said to change his mood from one of lazy indulgence to cold, detached indifference? Why was he treating her this way? Now that he had had his way with her, did he despise her for giving in to him?
He was hauling up the sail, and on impulse she went to join him, offering her assistance in dragging up the canvas.
‘I can manage,’ he replied, refusing her help abruptly. ‘If you want to do something useful, go and make some more coffee. I could certainly use a cup.’
Tobie hesitated, and then with a helpless shrug she complied, swinging down the steps into the galley, and blinking back the stupid tears as she searched for the jar of grains. Why had she imagined their making love would change anything? she demanded of herself tremulously. She was a woman, not a silly schoolgirl, and Robert had certainly known she was no virgin. What had she expected? Some soulful declaration from him, when that was not, and had never been, his way?
She boiled the kettle and made the instant coffee, carrying it up the steps with some difficulty. However, she managed, offering the tray to Robert first before taking a beaker for herself.
Robert was at the helm, sprawled beside the tiller, his brooding expression no encouragement to conversation. But Tobie refused to allow him to see how he was hurting her by adopting this attitude, and seating herself beside him she gave him a bright smile.
‘It’s only eleven o’clock,’ she remarked, ignoring his dark malevolence. ‘We should be back at Emerald Cay before twelve.’
Robert inclined his head in silent acquiescence, but she was determined not to be thwarted by his evident self-absorption. ‘Just imagine,’ she proceeded, desperately trying to hide the tremor in her voice, ‘this time tomorrow we’ll probably be on our way back to England.’
That, at least, evoked some reaction. ‘Tomorrow?’ Robert repeated harshly. ‘You’re leaving tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’ Tobie couldn’t sustain the piercing penetration of his stare, and assumed an interest in the coffee in her cup. ‘Didn’t you know? Mark has to be back in London the day after.’
‘And of course you’re going with him,’ he averred savagely. ‘When are you getting married?’
Tobie caught her breath. ‘You—ask me that?’
Robert said a word she wouldn’t like to repeat. ‘Why not? That’s why you came here, isn’t it? Just because—well, just because I find you very beddable, it doesn’t mean anything, does it? You knew what you were doing when you came.’
Tobie trembled. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know!’ Robert’s lips curled contemptuously. ‘Oh, come on! Let’s stop kidding ourselves, shall we? We both know why you came here. To get even with me. Oh, yes—’ this, as her eyes widened in sudden comprehension, ‘I remember you, Tobie. I remember everything. I may have forgotten for a few days. I can’t honestly recall much of what happened immediately after the crash, but by the end of the first week I was pretty sure of how it happened.’
Tobie couldn’t say anything. She just put down her coffee and stared at him, and with an impatient grimace, he went on: ‘Okay, so now you know. Does that make us even? I would have told you sooner, but I wanted to see how far you would go.’
That hurt. Unable to prevent herself, she slapped him then, slapped him and punched him, and fought him like the wildcat she felt at this cruel betrayal.
‘You—you swine!’ she choked, when he had both her hands imprisoned in one of his, successfully preventing any further liberties on her part. ‘Oh, I—I hate you!’
‘Why?’ He arched his brows interrogatively. ‘What did I do? Only set the record straight, as I’ve been expecting you to do ever since you came here!’
Tobie gasped. ‘But you knew—you knew your mother would tell me you’d lost your memory. She believes it, too, or so she says.’
Robert shrugged. ‘Sometimes I wonder. Perhaps it suits her to believe it. As it suited you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, come on …’ He gave her an old-fashioned look. ‘You knew if I suspected who you were, things might get very—complicated.’
‘But you did know—’
‘You didn’t know that.’
Tobie made a helpless gesture. ‘You hate me that much?’
‘I don’t hate you at all.’ Robert glared at her in a way that contradicted his statement. ‘I wanted to. My God, I wanted to. But you knew you had only to snap your fingers and I’d come running!’
Tobie gulped. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Why do you think I let them go on thinking I couldn’t remember what had happened?’ he snarled violently. ‘Do you think I wanted to be reminded of what you’d done?’
‘What I’d done?’ Tobie faltered. ‘Do
n’t you mean—what you’d done?’
‘What I’d done? What had I done?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Only given you everything I had to give! Been driven half out of my mind every time some other man spoke with you, smiled at you, touched you!’ His mouth tightened. ‘Oh, yes, Tobie, you chose your weapons well. My own brother was the ideal target.’
Tobie endeavoured to free herself, but when she couldn’t, she was forced to plead with him. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know who Mark was when I first got to know him.’
‘No?’
‘No. How could I? You’d never mentioned him. How was I supposed to find out?’
‘And when you did? Find out, I mean. How did you feel then?’
How had she felt? Tobie licked her lips. ‘I don’t remember.’ But she did! She remembered the sensation of disbelief, the sudden pain like a knife in her stomach, the trembling awareness of what was within her grasp.
‘I don’t believe you,’ Robert said now, releasing her so abruptly she almost fell off the seat. ‘You must have felt something. Something so intense, you decided to take your revenge in the savagest way possible.’
‘No!’ Tobie shook her head. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘What was it like, then?’
‘I—I—I couldn’t believe it at first.’
‘That I do believe.’
‘Robert, please. Listen to me.’ She pressed her palms to the sides of her neck. ‘It isn’t like you think. I didn’t come here to—to punish you—’
‘To punish yourself, perhaps?’
‘Why should I want to do that?’
Robert raked back his hair with hands that were not steady. ‘You know why. Why did you do it, Tobie? Why didn’t you tell me? Why couldn’t you have waited? Or was the state I was in too much for you to stand?’
The—state you were in?’ Tobie was confused. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Me! The mess I looked after the crash. You couldn’t even bear to come and see me—Mother told me. I had no visitors. Phone calls, of course, and the press, who were kept away. But no visitors.’
‘That’s not true!’ Tobie caught his arm. ‘I did come.’
Robert’s brows descended. ‘You came to see me? Then why didn’t my mother—’
‘No, no—I came to the hospital, but I didn’t see you.’ Tobie was getting desperate. ‘They—they wouldn’t let me. I—I was told you’d expressly forbidden me to be admitted.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Robert gazed at her disbelievingly. ‘I was in no state to forbid anything.’
‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t even know you’d been badly hurt until I came here. You kept it out of the papers—you just said so.’
‘Even so…’ Robert shook his head, ‘I couldn’t have issued instructions like that. I was unconscious half the time.’
‘Perhaps it was your mother,’ Tobie voiced her own suspicions. ‘Oh, God, it must have been her—’
‘No.’ Robert’s jaw was hard. ‘She wouldn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ Robert made a helpless gesture. ‘Well—because there was no point …’
Tobie hunched her shoulders. ‘Perhaps there was.’ She sighed. ‘Someone stopped me from seeing you.’
Robert expelled his breath heavily. ‘All right. So why didn’t you come back? If I meant that much to you, why didn’t you try again?’
Tobie bent her head. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Oh, of course.’ Robert’s mouth hardened again. ‘You were in the hospital, too, weren’t you? How long was that? Two days? Three? How long did it take to buy your freedom?’
Tobie couldn’t answer him. It was all too much. Much too much. He was never going to understand, and she simply hadn’t the strength to go on fighting with him. Besides, how could she tell him what had happened to her now? How would he feel about it? Dared she risk that last shred of self-respect by confessing everything? She knew she couldn’t, so she said nothing.
‘Well,’ he remarked at last, when it became obvious she was not going to answer him. ‘Perhaps you could explain why you didn’t tell me about the baby? Didn’t I have a right to know? It was my child, wasn’t it?’
Tobie’s breath escaped on a sob. ‘You know it was.’
‘Very well.’ His face was grim. ‘Why didn’t you explain that that was the reason you wanted us to get married?’
Tobie’s lips parted. ‘You—you really think I could have done that? Asked you to marry me because I was pregnant?’
‘It has been done,’ he retorted dryly.
‘Not by me.’
‘Why not?’
Tobie turned her back on him, gripping the side of the boat so tightly it dug painfully into her palms. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more,’ she said, through stiff lips. ‘I don’t ever want to talk to you again.’
Robert’s hand on her shoulder forced her round to look at him. ‘We are going to talk again, Tobie,’ he told her, his eyes offering no compromise. ‘If not now, then later, when I’ve got to the bottom of this.’
‘No—’
‘Yes.’ His determination was frightening. ‘And you needn’t bother to pack your bags. You’re not leaving here tomorrow. I want you where I can find you. God knows, it took long enough for us to get together. I’m not letting you go again, not yet. Not until I’m satisfied.’
Tobie tore herself away from him, putting the width of the deck between them. ‘You can’t make me stay,’ she retorted, panic giving her an unnatural bravado, and his eyes glittered dangerously.
‘Try and leave,’ he challenged her coldly, and as she struggled for a response, she had to acknowledge that here on Emerald Cay he held all the cards.
He didn’t say anything after that, and neither did she, huddled forward by the mast, a prey to her own neuroses. She wondered if it was possible to have a relapse, even after all this time, and shook at the memory of those endless days at Riderbeck. It was incredible that one man could have done that to her, and she closed her eyes against the mental images that persisted in tormenting her. She had thought he had changed, but he hadn’t, and remembering how eagerly she had surrendered to him filled her with a hopeless sense of failure. Laura was right: she should not have come here, and given the chance, she would put as many miles between her and Robert as was humanly possible.
The little quayside on Emerald Cay was buzzing with activity. Robert lowered the sails and used the engine to steer the yacht between the horns of the reef, then dropped anchor in the harbour. Tobie, rousing herself with reluctance, refused the offer of his hand to climb down into the dinghy, and although she twisted her ankle as she made a rather undignified descent into the tiny craft, she said nothing. However, as Robert rowed them back to the shore, her attention was distracted by the men unloading a cargo freighter that had docked in their absence. The swinging crates containing meat and dried goods, fruit and vegetables, and other domestic essentials reminded her painfully of how much she was going to miss the warmth and colour of the island. She had known a curious kind of happiness here, she realised, being near Robert again. And, if that precarious state of mind had been shattered now, she could still regret its passing. She looked at Robert then, wondering if he shared any shred of compassion, and then realised he wasn’t even aware of her at that moment. His attention was fixed on the quay, and when she turned to look where he was looking she saw Henri, standing shading his eyes, evidently watching for them.
Tobie knew an immediate sense of disquiet, and her jumbled thoughts sought for some explanation for his waiting presence. Had something happened? Was Robert’s mother ill? Or had Mark sent Henri on some mission of his?
She looked back at Robert, and saw his lean face, dark now with fatigue. It had been an exhausting morning for him, she realised, unable to prevent her errant pulses from leaping at the memory of his lovemaking. For that was what it had been. Whatever had gone before and whatever came after, Robert had made love t
o her, and that was something she would remember.
Meeting his eyes suddenly, she averted her own, afraid to let him read what she had been thinking. He had taken enough from her as it was. He should not have the satisfaction of knowing that she still loved him, even if she didn’t like him very much.
Henri stretched out to catch the rope that Robert threw to him as they neared the quay. He secured the dinghy as his master shipped the oars, then reached down to help him on to the jetty, his black face creased with excitement.
‘I been looking for you, sir,’ he exclaimed, anxiously waiting while Robert gave Tobie his hand, which this time she accepted. ‘It’s Mr Jennings, sir—Missy Cilla’s father. He been taken ill, sir, and Missy Cilla taking it badly.’
Robert released Tobie as soon as she had gained her balance, his concern apparent as he gripped Henri’s arm. ‘Harvey?’ he exclaimed disbelievingly, shaking his head. ‘Harvey’s sick? What is it? What’s wrong with him? Does anyone know?’
‘Mr Mark, sir, he say it a stroke,’ Henri explained, with some pride in remembering the word. ‘It must have happened during the night. Missy Cilla find him this morning—on the floor. Unconscious!’
Even without Henri’s sense of the dramatic, it was shocking news, and Robert glanced rather absently at Tobie as he tried to marshal his thoughts. ‘I’d better get over there,’ he muttered, thinking rapidly. ‘You take Miss Kennedy back to the villa, Henri, and I’ll take the jeep over to the Jennings’ place.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Henri was eager to comply, but Tobie felt curiously loath to let Robert go. ‘When will you—I mean, is there anything I can do?’ she finished lamely, as his gaze was turned upon her, but Robert was in no mood to be tactful.
‘Go back to the villa,’ he directed tersely, as Henri turned politely away. ‘Do as I told you. And I’ll see you later.’
