Cordelia stood it for as long as she could, but the touch of his fingers drove her mad. She dug her fingers into his shoulders and said his name on a little moan of need. 'Marcus.' He gave a low chuckle and put his hands down low on her hips, pulling her against him so that she gasped at his hardness. Then his mouth was on hers, fierce and demanding, and she surrendered happily to his blazing passion.
He kissed her again and again, his lips finding her eyes, her throat, setting her blood on fire. His hands went to her shoulders and pulled down the thin straps of her dress so that it hung from the belt at her waist. He tried to push her away a little so that he could look at her, but Cordelia clung to him, wanting to stay close. Firmly, then, he took hold of her hands so that she had to reluctantly move a step backwards. His eyes dwelt on the curve of her breasts, shadowed by the moonlight. 'You're beautiful,' he breathed thickly. 'Perfect. Like the Cloud Maidens.' Lifting his hands, he cupped her breasts, caressed them so that they hardened as she gasped with delight.
'But I'm real. I'm alive,' she managed to say, and impatiently pulled his head down to kiss him. She didn't give a damn about the Cloud Maidens, all she wanted was for Marcus to go on kissing and caressing her and never, ever stop. His lips took hers hungrily and then moved down to her breasts, making her give low, animal moans of pleasure. 'Oh, my darling,' she gasped. 'My love, my love!' His breath seemed to scorch her skin and she pressed herself against him, his hardness driving her crazy with longing. Putting his arms round her, Marcus held her still, her head against the hammering beat of his heart. When she tried to move he wouldn't let her, made her stay still for several long minutes, until his heart had retained a normal beat and her pulses had stopped racing quite so much.
Lifting her head at last, Cordelia looked at him questioningly. 'Marcus?'
He didn't answer, merely kissed her lightly on the forehead, slipped her dress back on her shoulders and then put his arm round her waist and led her back through the garden towards the house. Cordelia went with him willingly, her heart large and unruly in its beat. Her eyes were brilliant in her flushed face, as if lit from within, and she could think of nothing but the present, the here and now of being with Marcus, of feeling his arm around her, of going wherever he wanted to take her. And she fully expected that he was taking her to his bed. Short of him throwing her down on the ground, they had gone about as far as they could out there in the garden. It was natural now that he should take her back to the house, back to nearest bed. The thought filled her with shy, excited anticipation, but no shame. The searing emotion and need he had aroused in her had been too intense for that. She wanted him as much as he seemed to want her. Never before had she experienced such a need for fulfilment, the urgent craving to be taken by a man—no, not any man, just this man, no one else.
She stumbled a little as they went up the steps to the verandah and Marcus's arm tightened round her waist. Cordelia laughed rather raggedly. 'My legs seem to have turned to jelly!'
He paused and looked down at her, a small frown between his dark brows. 'Cordelia, I…' His voice held a slightly troubled note, but he was unable to go on because Cordelia put her arms round his neck and leant her weight against him.
'I'm afraid you'll have to hold me up; my legs have no strength at all. You see what you've done to me?' she added with another excited laugh. Her grip tightened and her voice grew husky with emotion. 'Oh, Marcus. Darling, dearest Marcus! Today has been such a wonderful day. I shall never forget it, not as long as I live.'
Reaching up, he took her hands from round his neck, held them as his face, dark in the shadowed night, looked down into hers. Then he gently bent to kiss her lips, almost, Cordelia thought strangely, as if with regret or sadness. 'You must be tired. You'd better go in.'
'Yes.' She went ahead of him for a few steps, then turned. 'Aren't you—aren't you coming in too?' It was as close as she could get to an invitation, the nearest thing to saying, 'I want you to take me to your bed. I want you to love me.'
He seemed to murmur something under his breath, something she didn't catch, and she hadn't the courage to ask him again. He stood, a tall, dark shadow against the darker shadow of the night, unmoving, waiting for her to go. Quickly Cordelia turned on her heel and almost ran to her room. She prepared for bed eagerly, putting on her newest nightdress, brushing her hair until it shone, her hands trembling, her body aching for him. Turning off the lights, she left only a small lamp burning and opened her door on to the verandah in case he came that way.
But he didn't come. She waited until the house had been quiet for a long time before she turned off the light and got into bed. But even though the physical disappointment was intense, she wasn't unhappy. It had all happened so fast, like a carousel whirling round out of control, perhaps it was better this way. After all, they had plenty of time, all the time in the world. There was tomorrow, and all the tomorrows .after that when they would be together. The future stretched into infinity and Cordelia smiled as she drifted into sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
As usual, Marcus was up before her, even though Cordelia got up as soon as she awoke. He was sitting at the breakfast table, reading the local paper, and looked up when he heard her quick footsteps. She gave him a wonderful smile, her heart on her face, her blue eyes alight with happiness. 'Good morning.'
'Good morning.' He put down the paper and poured her a cup of coffee. 'You look very well this morning.'
'I feel well. I feel terrific.' She smiled again, her eyes warm as they dwelt almost hungrily on his face. 'You know I do.'
A brief frown covered his forehead, but then the houseboy came to bring her breakfast, arid when she looked again the frown had gone. Marcus stood up. 'Would you excuse me? I have some telephoning to do.'
He was gone some time; she'd finished eating and had looked at the paper by the time he came back. She got quickly to her feet. 'I'm ready to start work.'
'Don't you think you ought to go and see how your father is? You hardly saw him yesterday,' Marcus reminded her.
'Oh, yes, of course. I'll be right back.' She laughed up at him and touched his hand. 'Don't start without me.'
James Allingham was seated in a chair by the window, playing a game of patience. For once he seemed quite pleased to see her and even asked her about her trip to Sigiriya, telling her about a visit he had made to it about thirty years ago. Cordelia listened as patiently as she could, while all the time longing to get back to Marcus. At length she cut her father short, explaining that their host was waiting for her to do some typing for him. It was near enough the truth. She hurried from his room without regret; her father had dismissed her enough in the past week for her to feel it.
Marcus was working at his desk, his back towards her as she slipped into the room. Quietly, an impish smile on her lips, Cordelia crept up behind him and put her hands over his eyes. 'Guess who?' she breathed.
He half turned round and lifted up an arm to pull her hands away, but Cordelia slipped on to his lap, leaving one arm round his neck and with the other gently tracing the outline of his lips with her finger. Then she kissed him, lingeringly, reliving all over again the thrill of his mouth on hers.
He didn't respond, but he didn't draw away either; just let her go on kissing him, and when she looked at him with questioning doubt, only gave that crooked grin and said, 'Delightful as that sort of thing can be, young lady, it isn't helping to get this book finished.'
Slowly she stood up. 'You—you mean there's a time and a place for everything?'
'Something like that.' He swung back to his desk and bent his head to his work again.
Cordelia went to her own desk and stared at his bent head. She felt like a teenager who'd tried to do something grown up, only to be told that she was still a child. Didn't he feel the same as she did?
She wanted to be near him, to touch, to see him, and she didn't care where, or what time of the day it was. To confirm all that yesterday, and especially last night, had meant to her. Unless it
had all meant nothing to him. But surely not. He couldn't have kissed her like that without it meaning anything at all. She had to know, had to ask him. 'Marcus…' she began.
But he cut in at once, his voice brusque. 'I've put the next chapter to be typed just by the typewriter.'
After a long pause, Cordelia picked up a piece of paper and put it in the machine, then began to type.
Just before lunch, there was the sound of a car outside and Marcus went out to see who it was. He came back with another man, younger than himself, perhaps in his late twenties; a tall man with brown hair bleached by the sun and a darkly tanned body revealed by his short-sleeved shirt that was open to the waist of his tight-fitting jeans.
'Cordelia, this is Steve Randall. He's working up on the dam they're building up in the hills. You remember, I told you about it.' '
Yes, of course. How do you do, Mr Randall?'
The young man laughed. 'You're very formal! We all call one another by our Christian names out here.'
'Let's go outside and have a drink before lunch.' Marcus led the way out on to the verandah and they sat at the white-painted table while they waited for the houseboy to bring the drinks.
'Marcus told us all about the accident you had,' Steve told her. 'How is your father now?' 'Recovering quite well, thank you.' Cordelia wished the man wasn't there, wished Marcus didn't seem so pleased to see him.
'Must have given you quite a fright. Has the doc said when he'll be well enough to be moved?'
'No, not yet. He had a heart attack, you see; that's what made him crash,' she felt impelled to add. Her eyes kept going to Marcus, but he was looking down at his drink.
Steve started asking her about her life in England and it became apparent that he expected to stay to lunch. From his talk with Marcus she gathered that he was one of his friends from the Expatriates Club and that on the evenings Marcus went there they mostly played poker or some other card game. But he didn't talk to Marcus too much, most of his attention he gave to Cordelia, telling her about the dam he was working on, wth some really funny anecdotes about the differences and misunderstandings that often arose with the native labour force. 'Sometimes, when I shout at them for being too slow or for doing something stupidly dangerous,' he told her, 'they refuse to do any more work. Then we send for my boss, who's another Englishman, and he pretends to shout at me for shouting at them, and that makes them happy again and they all go back to work.'
Marcus grinned and encouraged him to go on. He took little part in the conversation himself, which was unusual; not that Cordelia said very much, she merely smiled and put in suitable remarks and questions at appropriate moments. Every other minute her eyes would go back to Marcus, seeing some sign, some acceptance from him of their closer involvement. A look that was for her alone, a smile, a touch of hands, even a wink would have lifted her back into the clouds.
Once their eyes did meet and he did smile, but it was a casual, impersonal smile, meaning nothing. If he had deliberately looked away, avoided her eyes Cordelia would have known that something was wrong and she could have tried to do something about it, but against apparent indifference she was completely helpless.
When they had finished lunch and were lingering over coffee, Steve said to Marcus, "Where's Sugin? I haven't seen her around today.'
'Her sister is ill. She's gone to look after her for a few days.'
'Her sister doesn't live over at her mother's, place, then?'
'No, her sister's married and lives over in "Nuwara Eliya,' Marcus answered dismissively.
So Steve knew all about Sugin, and presumably that she was Marcus's mistress, Cordelia realised unhappily. Since last night she hadn't given much thought to Sugin, but now she began to wonder if it was because of her that Marcus seemed so offhand. Had he just been amusing himself with her while Sugin wasn't around? And had he now decided that he preferred the other girl? He ought to, she supposed, trying to be realistic; after all, theirs had been a much longer relationship.
'What places have you visited in Sri Lanka, 'Cordelia?' Steve's voice interrupted her thoughts and she was forced to concentrate on answering him.
'Have you been to Colombo yet?' She admitted that she hadn't and he immediately said, 'Hey, why don't we go over there this afternoon? We could see the sights and then we could go over to the Intercontinental to swim and then have dinner there.' He looked at them both eagerly. 'How about it? If we left now we could be in Colombo in a couple of hours. You'd like to go, wouldn't you, Cordelia?'
Cordelia didn't, not in the least. 'I've been helping Marcus with his work,' she temporised. "I know he wants to get on.'
'Nonsense, you're on holiday,' said Marcus. 'And you ought to see Colombo.' He paused for a moment, then glanced at Steve. 'I think it's a great idea. Let's all go.' He got to his feet and looked down at her. 'Cordelia?'
'Yes, okay. Give me ten minutes to get ready.'
She hurried to her room, grateful that Marcus hadn't tried to push her off on to Steve. For a few moments back there she had been certain that that was what he intended to do, that he would make work his excuse to stay behind. But if he had, she wouldn't have gone, she would have insisted on staying to help him. She started to wonder if Steve had been invited over just to take her off Marcus's hands, and the thought chilled her through to her bones.
They went in Marcus's car, it having been chosen as more comfortable for her than the Land Rover Steve had borrowed from the dam workings, which meant that Marcus drove with Cordelia in the front seat beside him and Steve leaning forward in the space between the seats, his arms reaching along their backs. Cordelia hadn't travelled along the road before, so there were plenty of places of interest for Steve to point out to her, including a mountain known as Adam's Peak.
'You'll have to go and see that, Cordelia,' Steve enthused. 'You have to get to the top before dawn because then a bank of clouds blows into the valley below and for a brief moment the sun catches it and somehow casts the shadow of the mountain on to the mass of clouds. It's almost like a—what do you call those things they have in the desert?'
'A mirage,'Marcus supplied.
'Yeah, that's right.'
'Or an illusion,' Cordelia added drily.
Marcus shot her a quick look under hooded lids, but Steve innocently assured her, 'No, you can see it all right, it's really there.'
'Have you seen it?" She made an effort to keep the conversation going—after all, it wasn't Steve's fault that there was this tension building up in her.
'No, but some of the other men have. They say it's well worth making the effort to go there. Why don't we go and see it together?' he suggested.
Cordelia didn't know whether the 'we' included Marcus, but she said lightly anyway, 'Why not?' having no intention of going with him. If she had been alone with Marcus, then yes, oh yes; it would have been a magical experience, but she didn't want to go with anyone else, even somebody as well-intentioned as Steve.
Whenthey reached Colombo, they stopped for a drink and then Marcus drove her round the city so that she could see the reproduction of the giant standing statue of Buddha at Aukana, the imposing monument to Mrs Bandaranaike given to Sri Lanka by the People's Republic of China, and the television station given to the people of Sri Lanka by Japan.
'So that they'd buy Japanese television sets,' Marcus remarked sourly. They drove through streets even more crowded and chaotic than any she'd seen before and honked imperatively at little three-wheeled, two-seater electric taxis with canopies like a pram that you could put up when it rained. They passed the rose-pink buildings, known as the Fort, that covered a whole block and housed Colombo's principal shopping centre, then Marcus drove into the forecourt of the nearby Intercontinental Hotel.
They were all glad to get there and with one accord headed for the bar.
'This country always makes me feel so dry,' Cordelia commented. 'I'm always thirsty.'
'Me too,' Steve agreed, looking with loving anticipation at the huge glass of co
ld beer the bartender was pouring for him. He sat on a bar stool next to her and Marcus moved to her other side. For a while they just sat and drank in grateful silence, then Cordelia's bare arm happened to touch Marcus's elbow and she began to tremble as if she'd been scorched. She couldn't look at him, was afraid to, in case he saw the desolation in her face, so she determinedly turned to Steve and began to talk to him animatedly, although for the life of her afterwards she couldn't think what it was about.
When they had finished their drinks, they changed into swimsuits and walked down to the nearby beach to bathe. There was some tide and rolling waves, but they weren't very rough and it was comfortable to swim there. Cordelia wasn't that good and stayed within her depth, but the two men raced each other far out. She watched them and had visions of sharks and cramp, and breathed a sigh of relief when they came back safely. They all began to play around in the surf, chasing one another and diving down under the waves. Once Steve went under the water and caught hold of her legs, trying to duck her, but Cordelia kicked free and knifed away, but bumped into Marcus who was behind her. His arms went round her to prevent her from going under and for a moment she lay against him, their bodies touching. He looked beautiful stripped nearly naked as he was, not as obviously beefy as Steve perhaps, but tanned and muscular and athletic, with strong legs and a slim waist beneath the breadth of his shoulders. And there was a mat of dark hairs on his chest where the water clung in glistening drops, Cordelia wanted to lick away each drop, to taste the warm saltiness of his skin. She must have made some sound, because his hands tightened, hurting her, and for a moment his face was open and she thought she, read desire in his eyes, but almost instantly it was gone and he laughed and said, 'Let's get him, shall we?' and she found herself being pulled into chasing Steve and trying to duck him.
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