Andrew was on the shaded verandah when she came out of the dining-room. He was alone, and she wondered if he had been expecting her. With a smile she sat down at his table. He was happy to hear that she was staying a while longer at Great Peaks, but surprised as well.
'Van Mijden forced your hand?' His tone was light enough, but she saw a perceptive understanding in the brown eyes.
'Nicholas?' Kelly laughed, and hoped he didn't hear the forced note. 'Goodness, no! George is far from well. In the circumstances, it's better for Mary to be with him.'
For a moment he did not answer. He knows, Kelly thought, he knows that Nicholas was behind this and that I found myself unable to refuse.
'I won't say I'm sorry.' Andrew's tone was measured. 'In fact I'm glad. Kelly, the convention ends tomorrow. I have some leave due to me, and I may spend it here.'
Her eyes had been on the mountains. At his words she turned, caught by something in his voice. He was watching her. There was warmth in his eyes, as well as a question.
'How do you feel about it, Kelly?'
It was a loaded question, and it should not have surprised her. Andrew had shown from the start that he liked her. But at this moment Kelly was in no mood for further complications. There was Gary, and an engagement which, despite all her efforts, she was beginning to regret. There was Nicholas, and the power of an attraction which threatened to overwhelm her. And now there was Andrew, a man she liked and respected, but whom she looked on purely as a friend. Please don't spoil our relationship, she pleaded silently. I so badly need a friend.
'Well, Kelly?' he persisted.
'I think it's an excellent idea,' she said steadily. 'You've been working hard. What better place than the mountains for a rest?'
Disappointment came and went in his expression, so quickly that if she had not been watching his reaction she might not have noticed it. In a moment Andrew had himself under control, but Kelly knew that she had hurt him, and she was sorry.
When Kelly had finished the lemonade Andrew had ordered for her she glanced at her watch and stood up. 'Time to get back to my duties, I'm afraid. Thanks for the drink, Andrew.'
'My pleasure.' His eyes were steady, betraying none of the hurt feelings she had glimpsed in them a few minutes earlier. She was about to walk from the table when a hand took hers. 'Watch it with Van Mijden.'
'What!' The breath jerked in her throat.
'He's a tough man, Kelly. And he's as good as engaged.'
She swallowed hard. 'I'm engaged too.' And then, wishing she could do something about the brittle- ness of her manner, she managed a smile. 'Thanks for the warning, Andrew, but there's really no need to worry about me.'
For the rest of the day she managed to stay out of Nicholas's way. She saw him now and then, a tall lean figure, bronzed and purposeful, standing out easily in the gardens or among the guests. But she was able to programme her movements so that she did not run into him. Once in the kitchen, before dinner, she became aware that she was being watched. She did not look up—she did not need to. Only one person could affect her so intensely, as if an invisible wave of feeling sparked the distance between them. A little later, when she could lift her eyes to the door without being observed, she saw that he had gone.
Dinner was a meal which she dreaded, but there was something she dreaded equally—the necessity of a phone-call to Gary. She remembered his initial reaction to the idea of her helping out at Great Peaks Lodge. The fact that she would now stay even longer than she had anticipated would make him very angry; he would feel that she had put the Andersons before himself. She was dialling the number when it came to her that she had made her decision without considering Gary's reaction. And then with a pang she realised that she had hardly given him a thought until this moment.
He was as angry as she had expected. 'What the hell is this?' His voice was strident through the wires.
'I'm helping out, Gary—'
'You said that two days ago. What are you playing at, Kelly?'
'Gary...' She tried hard to keep her tone calm. Please understand.'
'No, Kelly, I don't understand. I don't intend to. This Good Samaritan act is totally out of character.' A little pause. 'That fellow Van Mijden has something to do with this.'
'No!' She was shaken by his perceptiveness. 'I'm not influenced by Nicholas ... Mr Van Mijden...'
'The hell you're not!' An angry explosion.
Kelly drew a breath. Looking down, she saw that the hand that gripped the receiver was white. 'George Anderson needs further treatment.' Her voice was as steady as she could make it.
'You said he was out of danger.' There was an uninterested flatness in Gary's tone. It saddened Kellv that she could visualise a petulance about his mouth, a sulkiness in his eyes. She had never before given conscious thought to these aspects—childish aspects she had to acknowledge—of Gary's nature. Why did she need to think of them now? Gary's resentment was justified in the circumstances.
'He is out of danger,' she admitted. 'But Mary should be with him.'
'I don't agree.' There was no mistaking the petulance now.
'You'd want me with you if you were ill,' Kelly put it to him as gently as she could.
'Are you sure you want to be with me?' A new note had crept into his tone. 'Under any circumstances?'
The question was so unexpected that for a moment Kelly stopped breathing. It was only when her heartbeat had returned to its normal pace that she understood the strangeness of her reaction. It was not the idea of losing Gary which had caused her heart to race. Rather it was the thought of the implications which could follow the break—implications, she realised a moment later, which could have no meaning at all, for their relevance would be entirely one-sided.
'Well, Kelly, are you saying you want to end the engagement?'
There was a brittleness in his tone, reminding her that she had not answered the earlier question. 'Of course not,' she said, and was surprised that she could sound quite so normal. And then, on an impulse which startled her even as she spoke the words, 'But Gary, perhaps we should give ourselves a little more time to think...'She heard the swift intake of breath at the other end of the line. 'Then you do want to end it.'
'I don't know...' She was trembling now. 'It's just... we may have rushed into this. We ... well, we really don't know each other very, well, Gary. And...' a hint of despair, 'all I'm saying is that we should give ourselves a chance to think if we're doing the right thing.'
A hoarse expletive floated through the line. Then Gary said, 'Tell Nicholas Van Mijden to keep out of my way. I might just break his bloody neck for him if he doesn't 1'
Kelly remained silent. Irrelevantly the thought came to her that in any fight it was Gary who would be in danger of being hurt.
When he spoke again her fiance had regained some measure of composure and Kelly was glad. 'All right, then.' His voice was even. 'But we'll both do the thinking, Kelly.'
'That's what I meant.' It was time to end the conversation. After what had been said any small talk would have been absurd. 'I'll speak to you in a day or two, Gary.'
Even before the phone call, the idea of dinner with Nicholas had been disturbing. Now it was an ordeal which she could not got through with. There was more to it than the fact that the tall man with the stern features could send the adrenalin pumping through her veins, or that after her decision today she would find it even harder to meet the sardonic grey eyes. There was more to it than the fact that since the call with Gary she had lost her appetite.
In Kelly's mind she knew that the engagement was as good as ended. She knew too that her attitude stemmed only in part to a new insight into her fiance's character. Apart from the growing knowledge that she and Gary might not be the ideal match she had once hoped, a new factor had entered the situation: Nicholas. It was one thing to tell herself, with a firmness that was having to become increasingly more deliberate, that she did not care for the man, that she actually disliked him. It was quite another to find
herself contending with emotions and sensations she had never experienced before. If she did not love Nicholas Van Mijden—and everything considered that was surely impossible—it was hard to put another name to the very dynamic and positive feelings which he aroused in her.
Somehow she must find a way of coming to terms with the situation. If the forests seemed suddenly greener, the air sweeter, the sky bluer, there was also the new turmoil of indecision, the doubts, the fears. There was the knowledge that what she was beginning to desire more and more—useless to push the appalling truth from her mind—she could never attain.
She could not sit down to a meal with Nicholas. No matter what he might think of her behaviour, eating with him at the candlelit table in the corner of the dining-room was more than she could endure. If there was a valid excuse she could make, she was too overwrought to think of it. When she was finished in the kitchen she slipped out of the hotel without a word to anyone.
It was quiet in the garden. Away from the verandah, .with its sounds of clinking glasses and laughter and talk, there was only the shrilling of the crickets and the occasional croak of a frog. A crescent moon hung in the sky, silvering the trees and the bushes, and revealing the blurred edges of the mountains. The air was warm and sweet with the mingled scents of the shrubs. As Kelly walked through the garden she felt calmer than she had been all day.
'Well, Kelly.' The words vibrated through the darkness, startling her.
She jerked around. 'Nicholas! I ... I didn't hear you...'
'You'd have made yourself invisible if you had.' There was the usual mockery in his tone, but with it there was something else, a quality which Kelly could not quite define.
Kelly licked dry lips. 'What do you mean?'
'You've been avoiding me all day.'
'I've been busy,' she hedged.
'You certainly have.' The sardonic inflection revealed that she had not fooled him. 'For a girl who's supposed to be one of the idle rich you manage to dredge up tasks Mary never thought of.'
'You wanted to show the idle rich what it was like to work. That was the general idea, wasn't it?' Kelly tossed at him saucily.
'You deny that you were avoiding me?' His voice was soft, and all the more dangerous for it.
Kelly swallowed. He was standing very near her. Even in the dark she could see the litheness of the tall figure, could sense the aura of sensualness and virility. It was hard to speak naturally.
'I was busy, Nicholas, and I guess I didn't happen to see you around. I'm sorry if you thought I was avoiding you on purpose.'
'Very prim. And not very convincing, my dear.' She could not see his eyes in the darkness, but his tone was suddenly rough. 'You don't only play games with me, Kelly, you play them with yourself as well.'
'Games?' A brittle laugh. 'Heavens, Nicholas, why should I play games?'
'We both know why.'
He took a step towards her. Instinctively she moved back. Directly behind her was an oak tree; there was no chance to move aside. She was against the wide trunk of the tree, and a long arm on either side of her body blocked her escape.
'We both know, don't we?' he persisted.
It was hard to think. He was so close to her that the smell and the touch of him threatened to swamp her senses. It was only with a supreme effort of will that she managed to say, 'Do we?'
'Why didn't you tell Mary we were sharing the cottage?'
All day she had been expecting the question. She had avoided him for that reason. The question was one which she had tried not to answer even to herself. And now Nicholas was forcing an answer from her.
Hysteria bubbled inside her. 'You made the situation so...' she struggled to find a word, and wondered if she had found the right one '... so inevitable. That being the case there was no sense in letting Mary worry. As you said, she has enough to worry about as it is.'
Laughter sounded in his throat, low and sensuous. In the circle of his arms she tensed, wondering if it was possible that he could be unaware of the thudding of her heart against her ribs. 'Nobility doesn't suit you, Kelly.'
'I merely tried to answer your question.' Damn the man! He had no right to put her in this position. 'I can't help it if you don't like it.'
'It amuses me when you resort to self-righteous- ness to hide the truth.'
Her chest was so tight now that it was an effort to breathe. 'I'm not hiding anything.'
'No? You're a warm-blooded female, Kelly. You might not like me very much, but you certainly are a lot more interested in sex than you'd like people to think.' Very deliberately he stepped even closer. She could feel the long hard length of his body against hers, provocative and intoxicating, and was powerless to prevent the shudder which shot through her slender frame. Another laugh, more seductive this time, revealed that her reaction had not escaped him. 'Need I say any more?' he drawled.
'I hate you!' she muttered through clenched lips.
'A positive emotion at least.' His tone was satisfied. 'Preferable any day to the lukewarm mush you dish up for Andrew Lang and that so-called fiancé of yours.'
Two balled fists managed to insert themselves between his body and hers. 'Leave me alone, Nicholas.'
'If that's what you wanted you'd have told Mary about our sleeping arrangements.'
He gave her no chance to retort. The arms which held her pinned against the tree slid behind her back, pulling her roughly to him. At the same time his mouth closed on hers. For minutes which had no meaning in time there was no rational thought. There were just the lips which probed and tasted and tantalised, the hands which descended to her hips, moulding the soft body against hard masculine lines, the smell of a potent maleness. There was the feel of a muscled chest, rough against the smoothness of bare breasts—with an expertise which Kelly hardly noticed Nicholas had slipped the dress from her shoulders—and there was the coolness of the tree's bark against her back. There was no conscious thought as Kelly's lips parted to receive Nicholas's kiss, as her arms went around his neck, pressing him even closer against her. There was only a desire that was ecstasy and agony at the same time.
After what seemed eternity the lips that probed the hollow at the base of her throat lifted. 'Say it, Kelly.' His voice was husky.
Kelly looked up through a blur. It was too dark to see the expression in the grey eyes, the features of the stern face. But she sensed the rigidity in the line of the jaw, and immediately tension knotted inside her. She could only stare at him wordlessly.
'Say it!' harshly.
'Say what?' Her bewilderment was genuine.
'That this is what you want.'
It was what she wanted. No use denying it—no: to herself. Not to him either. Her abandoned responses would give the lie to any denial.
'Okay,' she said flatly, 'I do want it. You're an expert, Nicholas. You know just how to stir a woman.' She paused a fraction of a moment before adding the face-saver, 'But I meant' what I said about hating you.'
She felt his body stiffen. But the words that came back to her through the darkness were spoken lightly, sardonically. 'You must know that the line which divides hate from love is a fine one.' And before she could draw breath to answer, 'But that isn't what we're talking about, is it, Kelly? We're talking about sex. That's the name of this particular exercise.'
She was glad that it was too dark for him to see the tears that misted her lashes. 'You're a swine!' she threw at him.
'For opening your eyes to the truth? Grow up, little Kelly. Be honest with yourself. Then you'll know why you didn't tell Mary the truth about our sleeping arrangements.'
It was a statement of fact and they both knew it. Kelly had been forced to admit that she was stirred by him. In the circumstances she could hardly have done otherwise. But painful as it had been, she wondered if he knew that the admission she was making in her own mind was doubly painful.
As if to push the pain from her she said, 'I'm not sleeping with you, Nicholas.'
Another laugh, even more sensuous thi
s time. 'What would happen if I tried to persuade you, I wonder? I think you'd give in, Kelly.' A finger lifted to her cheek and trailed slowly, tantalisingly, down her throat and further to the hollow between her breasts. The movement brought a fresh torrent of desire coursing through Kelly's body, so that even while she wanted to push the finger from her she could not move. 'An interesting supposition, wouldn't you say?' he continued in an outrageous drawl.
With uncanny perceptiveness he had struck too near what Kelly suspected was the truth. 'No!' The word was gasped, the denial more a violent shake of the head. 'You wouldn't dare!'
'You don't know me very well if you think that? His voice was very soft now. 'I'd dare most things if I wanted them enough. It just so happens that you're safe tonight.'
'You don't want me?' The words were torn from her. She would have given much to bite them back the moment they had been uttered.
Another laugh, soft and amused and infinitely seductive. 'I won't say I like my women more willing. You're willing enough, though you want to pretend otherwise. Let's just say there are times when I prefer a degree of experience.'
'Like Serena de Jager!' Kelly choked on the name.
'Nobody could call Serena inexperienced.' There was no missing the satisfaction in his tone.
Was there an answer? Kelly did not know. If there was one she could not think of it. For his last words had given her more pain than the devastating kisses which had preceded them. She stood very still, and a tiny hammer began pounding at her temples.
Once more a long finger traced a sinuous line from cheek to throat. Then Nicholas spoke into the darkness. 'Sleep well, Kelly.'
CHAPTER NINE
CONTRARY to Nicholas's injunction she did not sleep well. Sleep was well-nigh impossible when her mind was in a turmoil which resisted all efforts at discipline, and her body ached with a racking desire which was like nothing she had ever experienced. If she slept it was fitfully.
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