by Robyn Donald
A slight noise at the door lifted her heavy lashes, but it was Kathy, bearing a tray with more food.
Her appetite having fled, Oriel opened her mouth, but before she could object the older woman ordered briskly, ‘Eat as much as you can, even if you don't feel like it. You've had an exhausting time and your body needs replenishment.’
Of course she was right. Obediently Oriel ate almost all of the roast chicken and tiny new potatoes and beans, even peeling a fresh peach with a sigh of pleasure. The tangy juice was still sweet in her mouth as she leaned over and placed the tray on the table beside the bed.
Like the rest of the house, her bedroom was beautiful. Buff and cream batik cotton glowed from the windows and the bedspread; in keeping, the bedhead was cane and the pale apricot tiles of the floor were covered in part by a splendid modern rug. A rimu ceiling soared above the room, emphasising the wall of windows. On one wall hung a splendid painting, vivid yet sparely executed, electrifying in its uncompromising evocation of the harsh northern landscape.
Beautiful, but definitely not the sort of bedroom you’d expect to find on a farm, however large and prosperous.
The rain had eased into drizzle, and the wind had died completely, leaving behind a heavy, humid atmosphere that was sticky and unpleasant. Oriel pushed the blankets down past her feet. By hitching herself up a little higher on the pillows she could just see a drenched garden that was still colourful in spite of the wind-drifts of broken petals on the lawn, sad reminders of the wind’s ferocity. Through a screen she caught a glimpse of water; frowning, she tried to orientate herself. This room was at the back of the house, so it couldn’t be the sea. Besides, it was the wrong colour.
Well, of course, she thought with a slight, disdainful smile. The sea, unpolluted and warm, was at his door, but Blaize Stephenson had a swimming-pool!
It was nearly dark, so it had to be almost nine o’clock, and now that there was relief from the torrential drumming of the rain and screaming of the wind, waves could be heard crashing dramatically on to the beach. Thank God Dave was now safe and marginally comfortable in hospital.
Suddenly drained of her last reserves of strength, she yawned and slipped down on to the pillow. Great surges of weariness rolled over her, and she almost cracked her jaw with another yawn, her tired brain enjoying the simple pleasure and relief of clean sheets and a resilient mattress. As she stretched her long body luxuriously, someone knocked on the door.
‘Come in,’ she called.
But it was not Kathy who entered, it was Blaize, carrying a water jug and a glass. Oriel’s eyes rounded in surprise mixed with alarm. She had dragged the top sheet up to her waist, but even so it revealed too much; the pyjamas were of very thin cotton, and beneath the pale material could be seen her small breasts. With movements that were jerky and clumsy she pulled the sheet up to her chin.
Stupidly, she blushed, and blushed even more when she realised that Blaize was watching her hurried attempt to cover herself with a sardonic smile.
‘You look much better,’ he said smoothly. ‘How’s the foot?’
‘It’s stopped throbbing, thank you.’ Her tongue suddenly seemed too big for her mouth; she might be unsophisticated enough to blush, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of realising just how humiliating that impersonal survey had been.
After he had set the jug and glass down on the bedside table he dropped a lurid yellow and pink capsule on to the tray. ‘Lemonade. And here’s a painkiller, in case your foot starts to hurt during the night. Do you want to read for a while?’
She struggled to lift eyelids made heavy by exhaustion. ‘No, thank you. I’d like to go to sleep now.’
He was watching her with a narrowed gaze, a tiny muscle flicking in the arrogant line of his jaw. In spite of her fatigue, in spite of the ten hard miles she had walked that day, something in her responded to that intent, compelling regard. Beneath her heavy eyelids with their drooping corners her eyes went smoky blue. Self-protection lowered her lashes until they rested, quivering, on her cheeks.
In a voice that fairly crackled with authority, he said,
‘Right, I’ll leave you to it. Goodnight, Oriel.’
‘’Night.’
The central light died; struggling up on to an elbow, she switched off the lamp, then sank into the oblivion of sleep.
Sun across her eyelids dazzled her into wakening, just as Kathy came in and with her a savoury smell of bacon. Oriel yawned and stretched and wriggled her foot, grimacing a little at the resultant pain, then sat up.
‘It’s a beautiful morning, and it looks as though the next cyclone has decided to miss us after all. How are you?’, the older woman asked cheerfully, setting a tray down on the table. ‘Foot still hurting?’
‘A little, thank you.’ Oriel gave her wide, slightly diffident smile.
‘I’ll help you into the bathroom and we’ll have a look at it.’
Once there Oriel stared horrified at her reflection in the mirror. Oh, the cut on her face was healing, but the bruise on her cheek now encompassed her eye and she looked as though she had gone three rounds with a heavyweight. Just, she thought grimly, like something no self-respecting cat would dream of dragging in!
Shrugging, she washed herself and cleaned her teeth, before wrenching the brush and comb through her hair. In spite of the swollen and bruised state of her foot, she insisted on seeing if she could bear any weight on it, but when she went pale at the pain Kathy bullied her back into bed. There she ate her breakfast, enjoying the homemade muesli and fruit even as she wondered morosely just how long she was going to be imprisoned in Blaize Stephenson’s house.
Not long, if the weather was any indication. The heavy easterly swell stirred up by the cyclone still crashed on to the shore, but somehow the sun’s warmth robbed the sound of any threat. Oriel’s spirits rose, and a smile curved her wide, soft mouth.
How was Dave this morning? Furious, of course, but he was always furious when something spoiled his plans. No doubt he would blame her for it. Oriel frowned, then shrugged. She no longer lived in fear of Dave’s frowns, or rather, the family’s reactions to them. He had always been the golden boy, the only grandson, the son her mother had wanted, instead of the daughter who was so different from them all.
The adulation hadn’t been good for his character. He was so damned difficult, refusing to fit in with the rest of the university tramping party. At the first indication of the storm they had decided to go back, but no, Dave wanted to tramp to the lighthouse, and that was what he was going to do! If Oriel hadn’t gone with him he would have pressed on alone, and would quite possibly still be lying out in the hills with his broken leg and concussion. She would never have forgiven herself. And neither, she thought with grim humour, would anyone else in the family, even though the predicament was entirely his own fault.
Her Christmas holidays so far had been an unmitigated disaster, ending with the walk through the hills, a strained foot for herself and a broken leg for her cousin. She only hoped it wasn’t any sort of omen for the just-born New Year!
The morning passed fairly quickly. Kathy came up to remake the bed and take away the breakfast tray, and left her with a pile of magazines. Some were fashion glossies, some very house and garden, and Oriel was staring thunderstruck at a room in a house in California, furnished entirely in black leather, when there was another knock on the door.
This time it was Blaize. He smiled at her with lazy appreciation, and she spontaneously showed him the pages. ‘Isn't it awful?’
‘A troglodyte’s paradise,’ he said, his eyes amused.
She grinned. ‘A cave-dweller? Yes, but why not go and live in a cave, instead of ruining a perfectly good room?’
‘You think it’s ruined, and so do I, but clearly we're in a minority. Otherwise it wouldn't be in this magazine for hoi polloi to admire and copy.’
She chuckled. ‘In vinyl?’
‘The mind boggles. You look a lot better this morning.’
>
The mischief in her eyes faded quickly. ‘I feel a lot better too, thanks to everyone’s kindness. Mr Stephenson, have you heard how David is today?’
Nodding, he pulled up a chair to sit down beside the bed. Even sitting he seemed huge. ‘He had a good night. Unfortunately, the X-rays showed a compound fracture, so they decided to take him to Whangarei and reset the leg, and that’s where he is now.’
‘Do his parents know?’
‘Yes, the hospital contacted them last night, an they're driving up from Auckland today. From what the almoner at the hospital said, they seemed determined to arrange his transfer to a hospital closer to home. I believe your mother is on holiday in Australia?’
‘Yes.’
He leaned back. ‘As there’s no real need for her to come back I didn’t try to get in touch with her. Is that all right?’
Stifling the suspicion that the question was a mere formality, she didn’t tell him that her mother would not be pleased to have her holiday interrupted. Although she would like Blaize-her mother had a connoisseur’s eye for men. ‘That's perfectly all right,’ she said fervently.
He lifted a brow at her in a way she ‘had only ever read about before. It was devastating, conveying a mild surprise and irony at the same time.
‘Kathy tells me you can’t put any weight on your foot yet. If you feel up to it, I’ll take’ you downstairs,’ he drawled.
She gave a quick, involuntary glance downwards at the thin pyjama top. Unbidden colour flaked across her cheekbones. ‘I haven’t got any clothes to wear,’ she said.
‘I'm afraid you'll have to use what Kathy can supply,’ he said calmly. ‘There was no sign of your pack or anything else when I rode up this morning.’
There was nothing of any great worth in her pack, just very basic clothes, shorts, T -shirts and underwear, as well as toiletries she no longer needed. The elegant bathroom next door had soap and toothbrushes and shampoo, creams and lotions and gels, enough for the most fastidious of women.
But she couldn’t spend a week or so sitting around this house in borrowed pyjamas. Her thin black brows drew together.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said comfortingly. ‘We’ll cope.’
She didn’t want him to cope. It seemed as though her hard-won independence was being leached away by this dominating, altogether too autocratic man. She didn’t want to be carried downstairs in Blaize Stephenson’s arms, she didn’t want him to look at her as though she were something unusual and more than a little odd, but while she was making up her mind to tell him she’d rather stay in her room he got to his feet with the unforced grace that was so unnerving in such a big man and unhooked a white towelling bathrobe from behind the bathroom door, proffering it on a lean index finger.
‘Put it on,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘You must be bored out of your mind up here.’
It was no request. In spite of the amusement, he was giving her a direct order. She looked up, met eyes as remote as splinters of crystal, and the defiance that had tasted so good a moment ago flickered and died.
As he walked across to open the door she hauled the robe around her, stuffing her arms into the sleeves and dragging the belt around her narrow waist so that she was covered when he turned.
He lifted her with smooth control, great muscles flowing fluidly as he eased her through the doorway so that her foot was protected from any contact with the walls. As he carried her without effort down the stairs, she realised with a strange inward tremor that he managed to make her feel both weak and small. Not easy to do, she thought with a desperate attempt at her normal pragmatic humour, but of course it was just that he was so big!
She was so busy trying to banish the unusual sensation that she missed her arrival in a room looking out across a lawn, with a view of the sea, now blue and brilliant, through the great branches of the guardian pohutukawa trees.
It was a conservatory with a glass roof; beneath it, protecting the room from the ferocity of the summer sun, were canvas blinds and a creeper that twined luxuriantly across the beams. The floor was made of the same apricot tiles as those in her bedroom; there were palms and plants in pots, and wicker chairs around a circular glass table, and wicker sofas with plump cushions of an artfully faded green and white material. Bifold glass doors were pushed back as far as they could go, letting in the breeze off the sea, fragrant with the scents of this summer coast.
Oriel looked around, concentrating on the scenery-anything to take her mind off the fact that her heart was thumping with unnatural loudness. Outside was a garden, more battered man the one through her window, with drifts of leaves up against flower borders and a transient pool in a dip in the lawn that gleamed silver-green as the sun drained it.
Blaize put her on to a sofa, then, eyes sardonic as though he recognised her instinctive, mindless awareness of him, lifted her legs and arranged their long golden length on it, his fingers lingering a little on the white bandage around her foot. Mesmerised, she tore her eyes away from their lean darkness against the fragile bones of her ankle.
‘Is it sore?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She had to clear her throat to say even that. He filled her vision, looming over her. Her imagination running stupidly riot, she likened his stance to that of a hunter, at last within sight of long-sought prey. ‘No, it’s not at all painful, providing 1 don’t stand on it.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘This morning.’
‘Well, don’t do it again.’ Straightening, he moved across to a chair, sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of him. ‘The doctor at the hospital said it would probably be safe to hobble around on it tomorrow, but that you must rest it as much as you can. It will be at least a week before you’re able to walk on it with any degree of comfort, and probably a fortnight before the swelling goes.’
‘A fortnight!’
Her expression of blank dismay made him smile ironically. ‘Afraid so. Why the despair?’
‘I can’t possibly stay here for a fortnight!’
‘I’m sorry we’ve given you such a distaste for our hospitality.’
Oriel flushed scarlet, stammering, ‘Oh-oh, no, it isn’t that! But I can’t impose on you for a fortnight, or even a week! You have been very kind and hospitable. She hesitated, meeting his opaque eyes with determination before finishing, ‘But it’s not you who has to do the extra work, is it?’
His autocratic face was impassive as he looked at her. ‘I don’t believe that Kathy has complained about extra work.’
Mockery always reduced Oriel to speechlessness. An inferiority complex, David’s mother had diagnosed years ago, and pitied her because she was so tall and gawky, so lacking in poise, so unlike her mother and aunt who were pretty and dainty and charming.
This time, however, she willed herself to relax, meeting the unkind glint in Blaize’s smile with unusual resolution. ‘No, she hasn’t, but having to look after a temporary cripple must make things harder for her.’
‘Your consideration for my housekeeper is very touching,’ he said blandly, ‘but I doubt if it would be well received by her. She’s very efficient, and enjoys a chance to display her skills. As the road is still impassable, and likely to stay that way for a few days, I suggest you reconcile yourself to being my guest for at least that length of time.’
She chewed on the inside of her check, her shoulders held stiffly as she stared down at her hands. From the corners of her eyes she saw him lean back in his chair and survey her mutinous face with sardonic appreciation.
‘Where,’ he asked smoothly, ‘will you go when you leave here?’
‘Home, of course.’
‘And home is where?’
‘Well, my mother’s flat in Auckland.’ She actually boarded at the hostel near the school in a small country district in the Waikato, but it was closed over the holidays. Her mother’s flat was the closest place to a home for her now.
In a rather more gentle tone he said, ‘But your mother is in Australia. Whe
n is she coming back?’
‘What does it matter when she’s coming back? I don’t see that it’s any of your business-’
He interrupted the angry words with crisp authority. ‘On the contrary. If she’s coming back to look after you I’ll have you conveyed to Auckland, but I’m not sending you back to an empty flat until you’re able to look after yourself.’
‘Why?’ she asked baldly.
He lifted a black brow. ‘Even my enemies stop short of accusing me of cruelty to children.’
Antagonism at the mocking indulgence in his voice joined with the familiar feeling of uselessness to form an explosive combination. However, over the years she had learned to control her temper. ‘I am not a child,’ she said tightly.
He looked bored. ‘Then let’s say that I couldn’t reconcile it with my conscience if I sent you crippled out into the world. When is your mother coming back?’
She had had enough of this. ‘I don’t really need you to organise my life,’ she said in a stifled voice, low but openly hostile. ‘I’m grateful for your hospitality, but after the road is opened I’ll make my own arrangements, thank you.’
Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, turning cool pewter to molten silver, but his smile was a masterpiece of aloof, uninvolved irony. However, he made no reply to her rude statement, and she felt relief seep sweetly through her tense body.
The quick upward glance she cast at him through the tangled curls of her lashes-her only claim to beauty, as her mother had told all and sundry since her childhood-took in the stark lines of his face. Hard, radiating a tough arrogance, he should have terrified the life out of her, but it was strangely exhilarating to cross swords with him.
