Valley of the Devil

by Yvonne Whittal

  It was Jo's turn to explain, and it took courage to sustain his probing glance while she delved back mentally into the past to recount the circumstances which had caused that final rift between them.

  'I didn't want to cause friction between you and your mother,' she confessed in a voice that was not as steady as she would have wished it to be. 'You're your mother's only child, and I believed that with time and patience the problem would eventually resolve itself, but I was wrong. It got worse instead of better. When I wanted to confide in you I found that you'd drifted so far away from me that you'd become an unapproachable stranger. And then I simply lost heart.'

  Her voice broke on that last sentence. It hurt to talk about that time, but she had to, and she willed herself to continue.

  'I began to believe that the things your mother had said were true. Life in the city hadn't prepared me for the unfamiliar rigours of life on a sheep farm, and I didn't belong. I also agreed that Lorin, with her knowledge of the land, would have been a much better wife to you.'

  Rafe was silent for what seemed like an eternity while he assimilated everything she had told him. A tiny vein was pulsing against his temple, and then he was gesturing angrily with the hand that held the pipe. 'I have never— never, understand?—had the slightest desire to marry Lorin. She grew up before my eyes, and even though you're both about the same age I've never thought of her as anything other than an amusing child who also happened to have a good knowledge of farming.'

  'I believe you.' There had never been any real doubt in Jo's mind that Rafe's feelings for Lorin had been purely platonic, but it was balm to her battered soul to hear him say it. 'What happened after you had that row with your mother?' she asked, steering the conversation back on to a more important track. T left here in a rage the following morning and drove down to Cape Town.' He walked towards her and seated himself on the corner of the desk close to her chair. T wanted to see you again, to explain, and I was determined that I'd succeed in persuading you to return to Satanslaagte with me.'

  So Rafe had gone to Cape Town during that week away from the farm, Jo was thinking as she recalled the information Elsie had passed on to her. 'I was never aware of the fact that you'd been in Cape Town, so I can only assume that something must have happened to make you change your mind about contacting me.'

  'I visited your home, but you were doing a stint of night duty at the hospital, so I spent an enlightening evening with your mother and Danny.' He disposed of his pipe and combed his fingers through his hair again so that it fell untidily across his broad forehead, and accentuated the haggard look on his face. 'I told them everything, and we talked for a long time, but in the end they didn't hold out much hope for me where you were concerned. They said you'd been adamant about never wanting to see or hear from me again, and that you'd forbidden the use of my name in your presence.' His tired eyes burned into hers for a moment, then he sighed audibly and looked away. 'I knew then exactly how much I'd hurt you, and in those circumstances I felt I didn't have the right to force my way back into your life.'

  Rafe was sitting so close to her that she barely had to lift her hand to be able to touch his hard thigh, and she wanted to, but... not yet. There was still too much that had to be said between them.

  'But you did eventually force your way back into my life,' she responded with a forced calmness to his statement.

  'Yes, I did.' His expression had darkened, and he got up to stand in front of the window again with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his trousers. 'Danny phoned me unexpectedly about a month before we were married, and he told me something to make me believe that you might still care.'

  Jo stared at those broad shoulders, and they suddenly seemed to be sagging with something more than just ordinary fatigue. 'If you believed that I might still care, then why didn't you approach me in the usual way instead of inventing that monstrous lie to force me back into your life?'

  'Danny told me something else as well.' He turned abruptly and pinned her to the chair with those dark, piercing eyes. 'He said you'd sworn never to set foot on Andersen soil again even if I should come to you on bended knees. Do you remember?'

  So that was it!

  'Yes, I remember.' How could she forget her reply to Danny's query whether she would marry Rafe again if he should ask her? Jo lowered her glance guiltily, but then her latent anger flared up again. She leapt to her feet and crossed the room to lean with her hands against the ornately carved top of the oak cabinet, but in her present state of mind she was blind to the academic trophies behind the glass doors. Damn!' she muttered furiously to herself rather than to Rafe. 'What a fool I was not to have seen through it all, but Danny was so confoundedly convincing when he pleaded with me to approach you for a loan to save the company.'

  'My success depended on Danny's acting abilities, and he told me afterwards that he sweated like a pig at the thought that he might say or do something to make you suspect the truth.'

  The nightmare of the past few months was beginning to evolve into something a great deal more palatable, but Jo was not yet ready to forgive anyone, least of all her brother for his treacherous behaviour. He had known her loyalty was of such a nature that she would do almost anything to prevent them from losing the company and their home, and she had fallen for his ruse like a novice. CHAPTER TEN

  A COOL breeze drifted into the study through the open window, bringing with it the sweet scent of gardenias and the sound of the insects chirping in the undergrowth. A jackal howled in the distance and from somewhere in the garden the Alsatian responded with a warning bark. It disturbed the tranquillity of the night outside, but neither was there anything tranquil about the way Jo was feeling at that moment as she let her hands fall away from the trophy cabinet.

  She was simmering inside with an anger which was directed solely at herself. If she had sorted out the problem years ago between Averil and herself, then none of this would have happened. She would have felt safe and secure in her marriage instead of having to wonder if her husband still loved her, or whether he had wanted her back purely for the sake of revenge.

  She turned slowly. Rafe was still standing at the window, watching her with shuttered eyes and waiting. Waiting for what? She wondered uneasily.

  'Did my mother know?' she asked, breaking the strained silence between them. Rafe shook his head. 'Danny and I decided it might be safer not to let her in on the secret until after you and I were married.'

  This explained why her mother had not answered her letters during those first weeks after their marriage. It also explained why her mother had sounded anxious and decidedly odd on the telephone. Lavinia Harris would have put a stop to Rafe's and Danny's plans had she known, and Jo could imagine that her mother must have felt guilty about the part she had inadvertently played in this deception. A wave of overwhelming tiredness washed through her mind and over her body. It drove her towards the chair she had vacated, and she sat down heavily. 'Why did you do it, Rafe?' she asked. She was tired of this uncertainty and of having to feed her hungry heart on the crumbs of supposition. It was time she knew the truth, and was told exactly where she stood, she was thinking while she tried to probe beneath the surface of that grim mask Rafe was wearing.

  'Why did you force me into this marriage under such hateful circumstances?' she asked, rephrasing her query when he remained silent.

  Rafe still appeared in no hurry to answer her. His chin had sagged down on to his chest, and the thumb and forefinger of one hand were pressed against his closed eyelids as if to ease a burning behind them, then his hand fell limply to his side.

  Two years of misery and regret can eat away at a man's soul,' he said, the rawness of emotion adding a biting harshness to his low, throaty voice. 'But I believe the final destruction was caused by the disillusionment and anger I've had to live with since discovering my mother's treachery.'

  Jo waited in silence for him to continue, but there was something indefinable in his dark, compelling gaze that made her
hopeful heart quicken its pace.

  'I was in a fury because of what my mother had done, and I was angry knowing that you allowed our marriage to be destroyed by not confiding in me, but most of all I was furious with myself for having been so blind to the things which had happened right under my very nose.' His smile was twisted with self-derision as he pushed himself away from the window to seat himself on the corner of the desk nearest to Jo. 'I wanted you back, and I think I became more than just a little deranged in my determination to succeed.'

  'So you got me back. Between you and my brother I was cleverly tricked into marrying you again, but it still wasn't enough for you, was it?' Jo was at last beginning to understand, and with understanding there came a curious sense of release. 'I had to be punished for the part I played in causing your misery. You wanted to see me hurting as you had hurt, and if you could cause me pain and mental anguish, then it would ease some of the pain and anguish you've had to endure. That was what you thought, wasn't it?'

  'Yes.' His mouth tightened. 'Dastardly as it may seem, that's how I felt about it.'

  'You succeeded very well in your objective, but...' she drew a painful breath '... didn't it ever occur to you that I might have suffered as well?'

  'The thought did cross my mind, but when one is hurting badly one tends to think selfishly only of oneself.' He reached out as if he wished to stroke some colour into her pale cheeks with his fingers, but he halted the action and withdrew his hand with a touching uncertainty. 'I had so much anger buried deep down inside me. It was like a volcano that threatened periodically to erupt, and there was nothing I could do to stop it,' he went on, remorse deepening the grooves that tiredness had already etched on his ruggedly handsome features. 'I'm aware that I behaved like a savage beast at times and, if it's of any consolation to you, I've done nothing but despise myself these past months for the way I've been treating you.'

  Jo knew an intense desire to reach out and touch him. She wanted to comfort him and be comforted in return, but her own uncertainty held her immobile in the chair. 'When were you actually planning on telling me the truth?' she queried.

  'I'm not sure.' He moved his shoulders beneath his tailored shirt as if the cotton had suddenly shrunk to cause an uncomfortable tautness across his broad back. 'There were so many times when I came close to confessing everything, to explaining that the loan was a hoax, but something always held me back—my confounded pride again, I guess—and afterwards I would hate myself for being such a damned coward.'

  'I don't believe you're a coward.'

  'Don't you? Well, I call it cowardly when I think of how I shied away from telling you the truth because I feared the contempt I fell so certain you would have for me, but the other morning, when I realised you were pregnant, I no longer had a choice. I'd never seen you cry so bitterly before, and it just cut me up inside. I knew then that I couldn't leave it there. I had to tell you the truth even though the timing was rotten.' Rafe leaned towards her, and her sensitive nostrils quivered with the not unpleasant mixture of masculine cologne and pipe tobacco which clung to his clothes, but her mind was registering an unfamiliar look of anxiety in his eyes. 'Where do we go from here, Jo?'

  Jo stared up at him solemnly. Where did they go from here? She was not sure. Everything Rafe had said seemed to suggest that he still cared, and she had no doubt at all about her own feelings, but she was still too wary to bare her soul to him.

  She looked away as her thoughts shifted to Averil Andersen, and she found herself recalling with clarity that look of disappointment she had seen on the older woman's face earlier that evening. Averil had paid dearly for her mistakes, just as they had all paid for their mistakes in one way or the other over the years, but Jo knew she could never make a serious bid for her own happiness while knowing she was the cause of the ill feeling that still existed between Rafe and his mother.

  'Your mother and I had a long and revealing talk last night,' she told him. 'Or perhaps I should say that your mother did most of the talking and I listened.'

  She glimpsed a tiny nerve pulsing in Rafe's jaw in response to her statement. This was a touchy subject, and she knew he might not approve of her interference, but she had to go on.

  'We've made our peace, Rafe. There are no longer any feelings of animosity between us, but now it's your turn to go and make your peace with her. Your mother regrets her actions of the past, and even more so because it's driven this wedge between you. She loves you, Rafe. You're her only child. Can't you find it in your heart to forgive her?'

  The tautness about his stern mouth relaxed a fraction. 'It still hurts when I think of what she did to me, but she is my mother, and I've naturally forgiven her a long time ago.'

  'Your mother isn't aware of this, and how will she know it if you don't tell her?'

  'Very well, you've made your point. I'll go in and see her first thing in the morning,' he promised gravely, but then he brushed the matter aside with an impatient and rather imperious wave of his hand. 'I want to know about us, Jo,' he demanded with an urgency which was laced with that unfamiliar anxiety she had noticed earlier. 'You'd better accept the fact that I'm never going to let you go again, so where do we go from here?'

  'We've both made so many mistakes in the past,' she replied, her voice unsteady as that flame of hope inside her was suddenly kindled into a roaring fire. 'Let's not make any more if we can help it.'

  'Tell me, Jo...and I want the truth.' He leaned towards her, his compelling glance holding hers and stabbing relentlessly at those barriers which she was still too wary to dismantle entirely. 'If I'd come to you during those weeks before our divorce was finalised... would you have given our marriage a second chance?'

  Jo considered this seriously for a moment, then she shook her head. 'Probably not,' she answered him with a faintly cynical smile curving her soft mouth. 'I would have said that you didn't know your own mind, that your feelings for me were inconsistent and not to be trusted, and I would have been too afraid to take a chance on being hurt again.'

  His eyelids flickered briefly as if she had touched him on the raw. 'What about last year in April, Jo?

  What if I'd come to you then? Would you have given me an earful and sent me packing, or would you have allowed me to talk to you—to explain?'

  'I don't know. I'm not sure what I would have done.' Her features settled into a thoughtful repose, but her glance did not waver from his while she tried to answer him truthfully. 'So much has happened in between then and now. You forced me to marry you, I've been sharing your bed again for almost two and a half months, and now I'm in the initial stages of pregnancy. In the present circumstances I find it difficult to imagine how I might have reacted more than a year ago, but that's not important any more. Is it?'

  'No, that isn't important any more.' The grooves running from his nose to his mouth had deepened, making him look gaunt and much older than his thirty-six years. 'I've been a real brute to you, Jo. Have I made you hate me very much?'

  She was not deaf to the underlying urgency in that casual query, but she could not stop herself from smiling a little wryly. 'If my brother was acting as your spy, and I think I have every reason to believe that he was, then there ought to be no need for me to answer that question.'

  'I never asked Danny to spy on you, but, when I asked him, he told me that he believed your feelings for me hadn't altered, and it was on the strength of that assumption that I based my actions.'

  Jo was still digesting this information when his hands reached out, and their rough warmth enveloped hers in an almost punishing grip.

  'Physically we still knock sparks off each other, but I want much more than that from you, Jo,' he continued with some urgency. 'I want the entire packaging, and I want to be a part of every little thing that goes into making up the whole. So, if Danny's information was correct—and I'm still not absolutely convinced that it was—would you consider this new deal I'm offering you?'

  'If this is a roundabout way of asking me whether I
still care, then the answer is "yes".' There was no sense in continuing to hide what lay in her heart, and she lifted the veil on her heart's secret as her clear green gaze held his. 'No matter what's gone before, and no matter what may happen in the future, my feelings for you will always remain the same. I love you, Rafe.'

  'Thank God for that!'

  He was on his feet in one lithe movement, the tension and anxiety easing out of his face, but relief did not lend itself to gentleness when he pulled her up out of the chair and into his arms. Jo was shaking, but so was Rafe. She could feel the tremors racking his body while they stood locked in that fierce embrace. There was no need to speak, it was as if their minds had suddenly switched into the same wavelength, and several soul-restoring moments elapsed before Rafe relaxed the crushing pressure of his arms around her to prise her face out into the open with strong but gentle fingers.

  'I love you, Jo.' There was a tender warmth in the eyes that traced every rise and hollow of her delicate features, and her heart filled with a joy so intense that it brought a lump to her throat. 'I love you,' he said again as if to make sure she had heard him.

  'You've never said that to me before,' she whispered, her voice choked with emotion and her eyes filling with tears of happiness.

  'What haven't I said before, my darling?' he demanded softly against her quivering mouth.

  'That you love me.'

  'Didn't I?' His head went up, and his expression registered a certain incredulity, but the burning intensity of his eyes had long ago told her much more than words ever could. 'Didn't I ever tell you that I love you?'

  She shook her head at him, and smiled tremulously through her tears as she leaned back against the circle of his arms.

  'No, you didn't. You said, "I want you," plenty of times, but you never said, "I love you." '