The Lion Rock

by Sally Wenteorth

  Cordelia laughed harshly. 'That's ridiculous! You saw how he was. He never once made any— any offers of reconciliation, if you like. Quite the opposite. He was almost always brusque and short with me.'

  'Maybe he didn't know how. He was a proud man, Cordelia. Maybe he could have used some help from you.'

  Cordelia stiffened and put down her glass. 'You seem to have got to know him extremely well,' she remarked sarcastically.

  'Yes, I did—after you ran away. We spent a lot of time together—when I wasn't scouring every hotel in every town I could think of, trying to find you,' Marcus said grimly.

  Cordelia's face paled. She stood up, a little unsteadily. Marcus put a hand under her elbow, but she jerked her arm away. 'Don't, touch me! she flared angrily.

  His face darkened and for a moment she thought he was going to force the issue, but then he stepped back. 'You're tired,' he said curtly. 'You'd better go, to bed. We'll talk tomorrow.'

  She glared at him for a moment, then suddenly all defiance left her, so she just nodded, and Went to her room. But just walking into it brought back so many memories; memories of the most ecstatic lovemaking, of words said, of caresses exchanged. In a semi-automatic state, she washed and changed into pyjamas, but it took a sheer effort of will to get into bed and turn off the light. And then she lay there, in the bed they had shared so often, knowing that Marcus was only a few feet away, her body crying out for him, and the memories came and engulfed her so that she lay awake far, far into the night.

  To Cordelia's surprise there were quite a lot of people at the funeral. Many of them introduced themselves as friends of her father from his tea plantation days, and she guessed that these were the people he had contacted to help him find his other family. All of them said they remembered her as a child, so that she was touched and grateful to them. They all came back to the bungalow to lunch afterwards, and as several of them knew who Marcus was, he was kept busy answering questions about his work.

  It was gone three before the last one left. Cordelia politely shook hands with them and watched their car until it turned out of the gate, then gave a sigh of relief and immediately turned and hurried inside the house.

  'Cordelia!'

  Marcus called after her, but she took no notice, going straight to her room and locking the door. Quickly she changed out of the black and white dress which was the only suitable thing she had had to wear, and put on a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans. The rest of her things she packed and closed the cases. Then she went to the door, her hands trembling, and turned the key.

  He was waiting for her, of course. She had known that there was no way he was going to let her leave without facing him. He took one look at her clothes and the cases and anger flamed in his eyes.

  'And just where the hell do you think you're going?'

  'Home. Back to England,' Cordelia replied steadily.

  'You're not going anywhere. You and I have some talking to do,' he told her grimly.

  'No, there's nothing to say. May I use your phone to call for a taxi, please?'

  'No, you damn well may not!'

  'All right, then I'll walk.'

  She bent to pick up her cases, but Marcus swore and wrenched them out of her hands, then he grabbed her wrist and pulled her after him as he strode through the house and out into the garden, almost making her fall down the steps as he dragged her along.

  'Stop! Let me go!' Cordelia tried to pull away, but he hauled her along until they were well away from the house. Then he swung her round to face him.

  'Now perhaps you'll tell me why you ran away without even bothering to leave a note?' he demanded with scarcely controlled violence.

  'You know darn well why.' Cordelia tried to get her wrist free but he kept a tight grip on it. 'Because you're married!'

  'You mean because Sugin told you I was married.'

  Cordelia stopped struggling and stared at him. 'What do you mean? She showed me a photograph of you and your wife.'

  Marcus's mouth drew into a thin line, 'Of my ex-wife. We were divorced over a year ago,'

  'Divorced?'

  'Yes.'

  Cordelia gazed at him, her head whirling. She moved her hand and this time he released it. Then she turned on her heel and began to hurry back towards the house.

  'Where are you going?'

  'I told you, back to England.'

  In two strides he caught her up and placed himself in front of her. 'But why? After what I've told you?'

  'Because it doesn't make any difference. You weren't honest with me.' Her voice broke. 'I thought that everything between us was open and wonderful. That we had no secrets from one another. You—you taught me not to be shy or inhibited, and I held nothing back from you. While all the time you were…'

  'Listen, Cordelia.' Marcus took hold of her shoulders and spoke urgently. 'What we had was so perfect that I didn't want to spoil it. I wanted it to go on that way for as long as possible. Okay, maybe it was selfish of me, but I'd been through such hell, and we were so perfect together that..

  'Stop it!' Tears running down her face, Cordelia tried to hit out at him. 'I don't want to hear any more. I don't believe a word of it. I bet all the time we were making love you were comparing me to her.' She sobbed and struggled futilely against his imprisoning hands. 'Is she better in bed than I am—is she?'

  'Oh, my love. My sweet, darling idiot!' Marcus tried to take her in his arms, but she wouldn't let him.

  'Don't call me that. You don't love me. You've never said you love me.'

  'That isn't true. I've told you many times.'

  Cordelia stopped struggling and glared at him. 'Only—only when we were having sex. And that doesn't count.'

  An amused look came into his grey-blue eyes. 'Is that what you think? You couldn't be more wrong.' Putting a hand on either side of her tear-stained face, he said steadily and firmly, 'I love - you, Cordelia, with all my heart. I want to marry you and have from the first night we spent together. I admit that at first I wasn't sure that I wanted to marry again, because you were so young, and because having failed once there's always the fear that you might fail again. But I loved and wanted you so much that I had to take you, and then I found that we had something very special going for us, something I didn't want to spoil. Which is why I held back telling you.'

  'Oh, Marcus!' He felt her body tremble, and then she walked into his arms. 'You big fool! If you don't kiss me this minute I'll just go crazy!'

  So he did, with a passion that left her in no doubt of his feelings.

  Some time later, when he had kissed away her tears and brought a flush to her cheeks again, Marcus sat on the grass with his back against the trunk of a tree and pulled her down on to his lap.

  'Tell me about your wife,' Cordelia said softly. 'Just this once, and I'll never ask again.'

  He shrugged. 'It's the usual story. We got married when we were far too young and grew apart. I'd just left university and was working in the kind of job that had good career prospects and a strong social life. But then I gave it up to write and she didn't like that, or the loss in money. There were rows. She wouldn't go out to work and made it difficult for me to work at home. We parted and then had a reconciliation after I had a couple of best-sellers. But she wouldn't come abroad with me when I wanted to do research and was always accepting invitations for me to give lectures or attend literary parties when all I wanted to do was write. So we split again and lived apart for two years so that we could qualify for a divorce—which is one of the reasons I came here.' A dark, brooding look came into his eyes and his arms tightened around her. 'The break-up of a marriage is a kind of hell of its own. You come out of it feeling old and battered and that nothing will ever be really good again. But then,' he added softly, his hand in her curls, 'a girl comes along with the sun in her smile and in her hair, and suddenly you come alive again.'

  Cordelia put up a finger to smooth the lines around his mouth and saw the shadows of remembered pain in his eyes. 'I'm so
rry I ran away,' she said softly. 'But when you're very much in love you don't always think rationally and you're—you're very vulnerable.'

  'Do you think I don't know?'

  'Oh, Marcus!' Her arms went round his neck and they kissed lingeringly. Something brushed against her arm and Cordelia glanced up, then she gave a laugh of pure happiness. Hey, do you see which tree we're sitting under?' following her gaze, Marcus looked upwards and saw the white blossoms of the frangipani glowing like milk-white pearls in the sun. He grinned. 'And do you realise just how long it's been since…'

  'Oh, yes,' Cordelia assured him feelingly. 'I most certainly do!'

  'So what, woman, do you intend to do about it?'

  She smiled at him, her eyes alight with love and happiness. 'What do you suggest?' He pulled her closer and whispered in her ear. Cordelia's eyebrows rose. 'Here? Now?'

  'What's wrong with here and now?'

  'Nothing. Nothing in the world.' And she gave herself happily to his embrace.