The Lion Rock

by Sally Wenteorth

  It was almost one in the morning before they left and Steve drove her back to the bungalow. 'How about coming sightseeing with me?' he asked her as they drew up outside. 'Will you be able to make it some time?'

  'Yes, I can come tomorrow, if you like?' Steve looked surprised and pleased. 'You mean tyter today tomorrow?'

  Cordelia laughed. 'Yes. If you can get the time off from the dam.'

  'That's no problem. I told you, they owe me some leave. Where would you like to go?'

  'You choose.' She stifled a yawn. 'You know the places I've seen, so I'll leave it to you.'

  'Okay. What time shall I pick you up? Would eight-thirty be too early?'

  'No, that will be fine.' She put a hand on the door handle. 'I'd better say goodnight, then, so that you can get back and get some sleep.'

  'In a minute.' Steve reached out and put a hand on either side of her shoulders, drew her back towards him. 'It's been great tonight, Cordelia. You're a wonderful girl.'

  'Thanks, Steve, but I…'

  Her words were cut off as he kissed her. She didn't stop him, and discovered that he'd been around quite a bit as far as that was concerned too. After five minutes or so, when he became more passionate and his hands started to wander, Cordelia drew back and said firmly, 'I'm going in now. I'll see you in the morning.' And she got out of the car at once, leaving him no chance of stopping her.

  The house was very quiet as she turned the lights off behind her and went to her room. She undressed quickly, then remembered that she was meeting Steve at eight-thirty and that she hadn't got an alarm clock. The best thing to do, she decided, was to write a note asking to be called at seven-thirty and for breakfast at eight, and leave it where the houseboy would find it in the morning. Quickly she wrote the note, and then, confident that everyone in the house was asleep, walked out as she was, in pale blue shortie pyjamas, her face unmade-up, her hair brushed loose and swinging free about her head, to prop the note up in a prominent place where it was sure to be seen.

  Not bothering to turn on the lights, she stuck her note on the handle of the kitchen door, but as she was coming back through the sitting-room, the door of the study suddenly opened and Marcus stood framed in the light shining through the doorway. 'Who's there?' he demanded sharply.

  For a moment, Cordelia had a childish desire to bolt back to her room, but managed to overcome it and stay where she was, although her heart had immediately begun to race. 'It—it's me,' she managed. 'I'm sorry if I disturbed you.'

  Marcus moved further into the room but didn't bother to switch on the light. 'Is something the matter?'

  'No. I was just leaving a note for your houseboy to give me an early call in the morning.'

  'You're going out with Steve again tomorrow?' 'Yes.'

  'So you had a good time tonight?'

  'It was all right.' It felt odd to be talking together like this in semi-darkness, the house silent around them. And the conversation was quite meaningless, just words; Cordelia was hardly aware of them. Her eyes were fixed on Marcus, standing tall and shadowed, his shirt open to reveal the long column of his throat, his sleeves rolled up above his elbows. Moving a little nearer, he said, 'Where did you go?'

  'The Hill Club at Nuwara Eliya.'

  Silence fell between them, a silence loud with the Sparks of electricity that their physical need for each other generated. Then Marcus broke the silence by saying thickly, 'You look about fourteen years old, like that.'

  'Do I? But I'm not.' Deliberately she moved a few steps so that the light from the study outlined her body through the thin material of her pyjamas. 'Am I?' she whispered.

  'No.' The word seemed to be dragged out of him and he thrust his hands into his pockets as if he couldn't control them.

  'Aren't you going to kiss me goodnight?' Cordelia asked huskily.

  He stared at her for a long moment, then answered by saying, 'I don't think that would be a very good idea.'

  'Why not? You were willing enough to kiss me the other night in the garden,' she reminded him, an edge of hurt in her voice.

  'Yes, I know. But maybe that wasn't such a good idea, either.'

  Cordelia's eyes grew wide in her suddenly set face. 'What are you saying?' she demanded harshly. 'That you didn't enjoy what we did?'

  'Oh, yes, I enjoyed it,' Marcus muttered, half to himself. 'Maybe I enjoyed it too much.' Seeing her distress, he moved closer and at last took his hands from his pockets and put them on her bare arms. Immediately a kind of electric shock ran through her and she quivered with emotion. 'That night—I think we both got more than we bargained for.'

  'Is that—so wrong?' Cordelia gazed up at him, wanting to touch him, but afraid.

  'For us—yes,' he told her, his voice suddenly becoming harsh.

  Cordelia winced as if he'd struck her. 'But why? I don't understand. Don't you—don't you want me?' she asked desperately, her voice breaking.

  'Want you?' His hands tightened and he said something under his breath, something that sounded like a curse. 'That has nothing to do with it,' he told her shortly.

  'Doesn't it? I should have thought it had everything to do with it.' Throwing pride to the winds, she said, 'I know that I want you, Marcus. Want you very much.'

  'Don't say that,' He took a step away from her. 'You're too young to…'

  'Oh, for heaven's sake! I'm nearly twenty-one years old. How old do you think one has to be to fall in love?'

  He grew suddenly still and stared at her. 'Are you saying that you're in love with me?'

  Slowly, her voice choking with emotion, Cordelia answered, 'Yes. Yes, I rather think I am.'

  For a long moment he didn't move, didn't speak, while she waited in agony to see what he would do. Then, his voice harsh, grating, he said, 'Really? Or is it my job that you're in love with? The fact that there's, some glamour and fame attached to me? Do you really think you'd have fallen for me so quickly if I hadn't been a writer?'

  Cordelia gaped at him in stunned astonishment. 'But—but your job has nothing to do with the way I feel. It wouldn't matter what you did for a living, I'd still…'

  'No? Have you even bothered to think about it?'

  He swung away from her, took a few paces across the room and gripped the back of a chair, his knuckles showing white. 'Okay, maybe you really believe that what you feel is love. But this isn't the first time this has happened to me, Cordelia. Young girls tend to fall for men in what they think are glamour jobs: actors, writers, racing drivers, pilots.' He smiled rather sardonically at bracketing himself with the last two. 'Then either the glamour wears off or else the man goes on to another girl. It's very nice for the men who take advantage of it, of course,' he added cynically.

  'And have you—taken advantage of it?' Cordelia couldn't help asking. 'On occasion,' he admitted. 'But you don't feel like doing so on this— occasion?'

  He turned abruptly. 'You're a guest in my house.'

  She stared at him, anger mounting inside. 'So why didn't you think of that before you started— flirting with me?'

  'Because I didn't expect things to get out of hand—or so quickly. I forgot that you were too young to know how to play that kind of game.'

  'A game? Is that all it is to you? Oh, for God's sake!' She threw her arms wide in exasperation. 'What do you think I am—some infatuated teenager? I'm not, Marcus. I swear I'm not. What I feel for you is very real. Please believe me.'

  His mouth thinned into a skeptical, mirthless smile. 'Isn't it time you got some sleep? You don't want to keep Steve waiting in the morning, do you?'

  Cordelia gazed at him, her vision gradually blurred by tears, then she gave a helpless sob and ran to her room.

  She was on time to meet Steve, for the simple reason that she had hardly slept all night. When he drove up she was already waiting by the front porch, a picnic hamper at her feet and sunglasses hiding the dark shadows around her eyes.

  'Hi!' she greeted him brightly. 'I talked the cook into giving us a picnic lunch. Don't bo
ther to get out. Here.' She handed him the hamper to stow in the back and climbed in beside him. 'How are you this morning?'

  ''Fine. And you?'

  'Oh, great, just great. And raring to go. Where are we going, by the way?' she added as he reversed and then drove back down the driveway.

  'I thought we'd go to Polonnaruwa. It's the other big ancient city. That's if it's okay with you,' he added anxiously.

  'Sounds fine. Have you been there before?' 'No, it will be the first time for me too.'

  Cordelia kept up an animated conversation nearly all the way so that she wouldn't have time to remember last night. She never wanted to think about the humiliation she had felt then as long as she lived.

  The city with the unpronounceable name was nearer than the one she had visited with Marcus driving as a guide, so they had more time to spend there, but although Cordelia kept up the act of being interested in everything she saw, she soon came to the conclusion that one ancient city was very much like another. By midday they were both flagging and Steve suggested having their picnic under a tree, but this reminded Cordelia too vividly of a similar occasion with Marcus, so she firmly insisted that they go to a hotel where they ate their picnic sitting decorously at a table near the swimming pool while drinking cold beer from the hotel's bar.

  Steve had a pair of trunks in the car, so he swam first to cool off while Cordelia leant back in a lounger and watched him. He stripped off very well, - his body muscular and rock-hard, without an ounce of superfluous flesh. He showed off because she was watching him, diving in and then doing several lengths in a fast crawl, his arms cutting through the water and sending up a fine spray that glistened with the iridescence of cut crystal in the sun, each drop a prism of rainbow colours. As Cordelia sat and watched him, she wondered dispassionately whether or not to let him make love to her. That he would ask her some day soon she was quite sure; his kiss last night had told her that. All she had to decide was whether to say yes or no.

  She wasn't in love with him, of course, that was for sure, and if she had sex with him that was all it would be—just sex, pure and simple. She might not even get any satisfaction out of it. Except the satisfaction of knowing that at least one man wanted her and found her attractive. And the intense, perverted sense of satisfaction at getting her own back on Marcus; because somehow letting Steve make love to her would be like aiming a blow at Marcus, even if she had to hurt herself to do it. I might even enjoy it, Cordelia mused as she watched Steve climb out of the other end of the pool and stand in the sunlight, legs apart, his hands on his hips. He waved to her and she lifted a lazy hand in return. He's obviously quite experienced and will probably be good in bed. He might even rid me of this frustration that's driving me crazy; make me able to live with myself again. Or even with him, she thought cynically. Maybe I'll like it so much I'll marry him and follow him from construction site to construction site all over the world.

  Tears pricked at her eyes and she angrily wiped them away. Damn Marcus! I've done crying for him. But Steve wasn't Marcus and would never take his place. How could she possibly settle for anything less than love now that she had glimpsed it?'

  After lunch they dozed, then finished exploring the old city. On the way home they stopped at a seafood restaurant for dinner, Cordelia deliberately taking her time over the meal so that it was late before she got back. The next day Steve took her to the game reserve in the Yala National Park and the day after that to Galle on the south coast where they swam and sunbathed, wandered round the town and had a very English tea on the verandah of the New Oriental Hotel which, contrary to its name, was the oldest hotel in the whole of Sri Lanka.

  Cordelia didn't even see Marcus during those three days, making sure that she left before he was around and going straight to her room when she got home in the evening, only slipping, in to visit her father when she was quite sure he was alone. But as she was leaving the house the next day Cordelia heard Marcus call her name. She hesitated for a fraction of a second and then kept on going, pretending that she hadn't heard him and hoping to get outside to where Steve was waiting before she had to face him. But the front door hadn't yet been opened for the day and she fumbled with the catches in her haste to get out. 'Cordelia.'

  He was right behind her, there was no escape. Slowly she turned to face him. His appearance gave her a momentary shock of surprise; his eyes looked tired and there was a bleak, pinched look about his mouth. A great surge of emotion filled her heart, completely choked her so that she couldn't speak. She wanted to take him in her arms, kiss away the lines around his mouth, make him smile again. But then a small, cynical part of her mind told her that he was only tired through having sat up late, working on his book—or even working on Sugin, it added masochistically. Her face tightened as Cordelia answered coldly, 'Yes?'

  'You're going out for the day again?' Marcus's eyes went over her, lingering on her defiant mouth.

  'Yes. Steve's waiting for me outside.' She turned and reached up to fumble with the top catch of the door again.

  'Here, let me.' Marcus reached past her and slid the catch back easily, but in doing so his hand covered hers.

  Cordelia trembled convulsively and jerked her hand away as if his had been red-hot. She couldn't move away because she was trapped between Marcus and the angle of the doorway, but she swung round to face him defensively, her blue eyes large and vulnerable in her pale face.

  He gazed down at her for a moment, then said abruptly, 'I have an invitation for you. Sugin is appearing in an exhibition of Sri Lankan dancing in Kandy tomorrow night. She's given me a ticket for you; she thinks you'll be interested to see what traditional Sri Lankan dancing is like.'

  'Does she, indeed?' Cordelia remarked sarcastically, knowing full well that the other girl merely wanted to show off her gracefulness and beauty, and in so doing make Cordelia feel gauche in comparison. 'Sorry, I have a date with Steve tomorrow.'

  'He's invited, too, of course.'

  'I really don't think it's his scene. Now, if you'll excuse me…'

  She turned to open the door, but Marcus put out a hand and held it shut. 'Don't you think you owe it to Sugin to go? You were damn rude about her dancing when we were all up at the Expatriates Club last week. The least you could do is to go and watch her and see for yourself whether what she said was justified.'

  'I'm really not interested. I….’

  'Coward!' Marcus put in derisively.

  Cordelia glared at him. 'I'm no coward.'

  'Aren't you? Then why are you afraid of going to watch her dance?'

  No good telling him the truth, of course; that all Sugin wanted was to show herself off and that Cordelia didn't see why she should waste her time and pander to the other girl's vanity by doing what she wanted. He'd never believe her anyway, she ought resignedly. This time when she pulled at door she took him by surprise and got it open, hurrying outside, her high-heeled sandals clattering on the smooth stone of the porch.

  Steve was waiting at the wheel of his car and looked surprised when Marcus followed her outside.

  'Sugin wants us to go to Kandy to watch her dance tomorrow night,' Cordelia told him abruptly. 'Do you want to go or not?'

  His surprised look deepened as Steve got out of the car to join them. 'I don't mind.' He looked at Marcus. 'Are you going?'

  'Yes. I'll be driving the girls there.'

  'Okay, then I'll come along.'

  Cordelia shot a malevolent glance at Marcus; the way he'd worded it had made it sound as if she had already accepted. 'We don't have to go if you don't want to,' she said pointedly.

  But Steve didn't pick up the signal. 'No, it suits me. There are plenty of places in Kandy where we can go afterwards, if you'd like to eat there.'

  Disgusted with them both and wanting to get away from Marcus, Cordelia got into the car and sat waiting, but the two men stood talking for several minutes before Steve finally strolled round and got in beside her. They spent the day in Colombo, but for Cordelia it was alrea
dy spoilt. She sat silently in her seat and when Steve tried to talk she snapped at him, so that he gave her a wary, concerned look and left her alone. After an hour or so she managed to pull herself together a little and by lunch time was outwardly back to normal, but the thought of the coming outing to Kandy hung over her like a black cloud the whole day. They spent some time wandering around the big, colourful market in Colombo, then went to the Intercontinental Hotel again to swim and have lunch. It was Sunday and there was a whole crowd of Sri Lankan's round the pool, obviously richer, better class people, from the clothes and jewels that they wore. They were mostly in family groups, but there were a few girls there, wearing Western one-piece bathing suits, all of them slim and graceful, with large dark eyes and smooth olive skin.

  Cordelia watched them playing around in the water, laughing as they splashed each other. 'Steve, have you ever been out with any Sri Lankan girls?' she asked him.

  He was lying on his stomach on the next lounger but raised himself on one elbow so that he could look at her. 'A couple of times. But the respectable girls are well chaperoned and the other kind just try and get as much money out of you as they can.'

  'They're all very beautiful.'

  Steve turned over and sat up so that he could see who she was looking at. 'Sure, when they're that age. They must be among the loveliest girls in the world. But then they get married pretty young, have to work hard and have a kid every year, so that they're old by the time they're thirty. Have you ever seen any of them who're still beautiful over the age of about twenty-five?'