A Summer Storm

by Robyn Donald

  ‘I think the idea was his housekeeper’s,’ Oriel told him levelly. Made uneasy by Blaize’s threats, she said stiffly, ‘I’d better go back inside.’

  ‘Can I help?’ She looked at him in surprise and he gestured at her foot. ‘I notice you’re limping slightly, and the path, though very pretty, is a little uneven.’

  ‘No, I’m all right, it’s almost better now.’

  They paced back through the scented darkness, and Just before they reached the lights and the music and the tension, André said, ‘Tell me, are you Blaize’s lady?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I see. Then I can give in to my masculine instincts and kiss the most intriguing woman I’ve met in a long time.’

  She took a hasty step backwards, and came down heavily on her foot. An epithet was wrenched from her; she flailed around, clutching wildly at him.

  He grabbed her and supported her against the lean elegance of his body, demanding, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘It’s fine-you just surprised me, that’s all.’ Testing the foot, she wriggled it, saying in a relieved voice as she drew away, ‘No harm done.’

  But the incident had given her an idea. She would not go back into that house and be forced to stay beside Blaize. Now that both children were in bed she had fulfilled her duties, and she had a perfectly good excuse for going up to her room.

  ‘You know,’ he said, regarding her thoughtfully, ‘I don’t usually meet with that reaction when I suggest kissing someone. I must be losing my touch.’

  A choke of laughter escaped her. ‘Sorry, I was just surprised.’

  ‘Why? I imagine every time you go out into a garden at night some man wants to kiss you. You have an eminently kissable mouth.’

  He spoke with an air of calm reason that made her retort tartly, ‘If there happens to be a step-ladder about, some men no doubt would.’

  ‘I think you’re just the right height. Would you like me to demonstrate?’

  ‘No,’ she parried, very firmly, although he won a reluctant smile. If this was what a rake was like, she hoped she’d meet some more during her life. She wouldn’t want to fall in love with André Hunter or anyone like him; he was fun and charming, but like Blaize he was wrapped in that aura of danger, aman whose will it wouldn’t pay to cross. However, she knew she was in no peril from him. He was flirting and he was doing it very well, and she was grateful for his easy sang-froid.

  ‘Pity. Still, if you're adamant,’ his voice altered, became brisk and authoritative, ‘we’d better get something done to that foot.’

  ‘No, it’s fine, I haven’t damaged it further, but I think I’ll go up to my room now. The wretched thing swells when it’s had enough.’

  Music surged from the house. ‘And if they’re going to dance,’ he said with complete understanding, ‘it’s not going to be much fun for you.’

  She had the uncomfortable feeling that those wicked green eyes were far too perceptive, but she smiled and said, ‘Exactly. I’ll go in through the back way.’

  She intended him to leave her, but he said promptly, ‘I’ll come with you.’

  In spite of all her urgings and protestations he wouldn’t leave her; furthermore, he insisted on hooking his arm around her waist and taking as much of her weight as was possible. She could have got there quite easily herself, but here, she thought with a hint of irritation, was another protective male. Perhaps the area attracted them!

  At least she was almost sure they got to her room without anyone seeing them. Exasperation, however, came perilously close to annoyance when she realized that he wasn’t going to leave her and go back to the party. No, he insisted she lie down on her bed while unhurriedly he got her face-cloth and wetted it under the cold tap and brought it back into the bedroom to tuck around her foot.

  ‘To stop the swelling,’ he said, eyeing the length of her leg with unhidden appreciation.

  Half angrily, she said, ‘Look. you've been very kind, but I don’t need you any more now.’

  ‘I’m desolated,’ he said with a curious half-smile. ‘Why are you so nervous? I promise you I don’t go in for rape.’

  His frankness startled her. She flushed but said quickly, ‘I didn’t for a moment think you did.’

  ‘But you don’t want me here. Why? Because you were lying before, and you are Blaize’s woman? And because Blaize is not noted for his eagerness to share, especially his-’

  Through gritted teeth she interrupted, ‘I am not-‘

  ‘I don’t think I believe you. However, I’ll go.’ André looked at her with amusement and something like regret. ‘Sleep well, Oriel. I’d ask you to dream of me, but I’m sure there’ll be another man in your mind during the night.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ORIEL felt like speeding André on his way with a well-placed shoe, but he finally left the room, and she col lapsed back on to the pillow with a horrified sigh. A quick glance at her watch showed that he had been in the room for almost twenty minutes; shivering, she recalled Blaize’s face as he had warned her off André.

  By the time she got into her nightgown she was exhausted. Turning the light out, she locked the door and lay back on the sheets, willing the sounds of the party to dull and die, and blessed sleep to claim her.

  She was still awake when the last car lights dwindled and died away behind the hills, when the last note of the last outboard engine faded into the heavy air behind the headland. It was another unbearably sticky night; long ago she had pushed off the bedclothes but found no relief. Now she walked across to the window, leaning out in an effort to get some coolness.

  It was very still, otherwise she probably wouldn’t have heard Kathy’s voice, pitched perhaps a little louder than normal. Of course, she and Ned would be walking back to their flat, and the heavy atmosphere trapped their voices, making them reverberate.

  ‘Well, thank heavens it all went off so well,’ Kathy said. The yawn that followed was obvious. Oriel smiled and began to draw her head back in.

  Her husband made some comment, his voice too indistinct for the words to register.

  ‘Oh, he always thanks me.’ Kathy’s normally pleasant tones were acid. ‘He even kept Madam McLean waiting while he did it; she wanted to be off quickly, before he changed his mind, I think.’

  Another muted reply, but Kathy's sniff was obvious. Oriel knew she should walk away, but a miserable need to know more kept her riveted to the window.

  ‘Of course it was a set-up. She’s been after him for years, and her sister deliberately left her here. Well, even if she gets what she wants, I hope she hasn’t any ideas about it being permanent. Blaize can marry any woman in the world, why would he want a nasty-tempered baggage like her, even if she does look like the Queen of Sheba? He’s too fastidious. No, she’s a flash in the pan, that one.’

  Oriel remembered the McLean woman, a stunning redhead in her early thirties, with a body that should have been voluptuous but was fashionably svelte, kept that way no doubt by rigid dieting. She had been one of the coterie of women who had sent Blaize those flickering, darting little looks of appreciation.

  Oriel’s nails bit into her palms. Carefully she unclenched her fingers. It was nothing to do with her. She had turned him down unequivocally. He could do whatever he wanted, and if that entailed sleeping with a woman who was as obvious as ‘Madam McLean’, then the decision was his.

  She fought and barely controlled the black tide of rage and fury. With a blazing certainty that owed nothing to logic, she realised at last that just as she was his, he was hers. In a moment that was terrifying in its irrevocable nature she claimed him as her man, body, mind and soul, hers for eternity. She would kill him if he spent the rest of the night in anyone else’s bed.

  On a shattered sob she turned and fled down the stairs, oddly surprised to feel no pain in her foot. Impelled by a feverish need for action, she walked out through the unlocked back door, down the path by the night-scented flowers, their fragrances mingling to mock her tormented thoughts
with their sensuous evocation of love and passion.

  The water in the pool beckoned her heated body; she stood a long time staring into it, wondering if it was an optical illusion that made it seem as though the water gave off a haze of steam. Sweat clung to her body, making her feel unclean.

  Without giving herself time to think she tore off her nightgown and lowered herself into the pool, expecting to shiver with coolness, only to find that the water that lapped around her sleek, tanned thighs was as warm as the blood that pounded through her body. The scent of the gardenias rose through her brain, the fumes dazing, almost overpowering. She slid silently in, pushing aside the glowing flowers with her arms, stroking smoothly, her whole being centred on the sensuous swirl of the water across her fevered skin, her body crying for a lover.

  Just when she realised that she wasn’t alone she never knew. The knowledge wasn’t instant, a sudden blow to her solitude. It crept slowly into her consciousness, teasing, tormenting, tantalising, a subtle instinct that should have frightened her.

  But it was as though she was caught in a spell, an enchantment of the brain and the senses, captive to a master’s will. Swimming without sound through the water, she saw the drops as they flicked from her arms like crystals in the pagan, primordial light of the moon, and knew that the man she loved was watching her, desiring her with an intensity that matched her own.

  She didn’t look to where he waited in the darkness beneath the white flowers of the stephanotis twining through the pergola. Not by any sign did she show that she knew of his presence. Later, when the madness was over, she was convinced that she didn’t even think during that timeless, mindless period. She existed; she felt; she wanted. Nothing else penetrated the cocoon of her needs and the dangerous magic of the night, not caution, nor common sense, nor the instinct of self-preservation. For that time out of time she was woman, and he was man, nothing else mattered.

  She swam slowly across to the steps, rose without coyness, without shame, no longer embarrassed by her small breasts and narrow hips, the lack of voluptuous womanliness in her figure. Noiselessly as a creature of the night, Blaize came towards her as she ran her hands through her hair, squeezing the water from the thick curls, pushing her fingers through them to drag the clinging locks back.

  The moon shone full on his face, accenting the angular jaw, the striking planes and lines, and the stark, uncompromisingly masculine force and beauty. His eyes were too shadowed to see what he was thinking, but his stance, the waiting stillness as he watched, told her that she had his total, unblinking attention.

  She walked slowly up the steps, unaware of anything but the potent masculinity in him, the way his clothes clung lovingly to the wide chest and shoulders, hugged the flat stomach and long, lean thighs. Strange sensations moved like needles of fire through her, filling her with an unutterable sense of rightness. This was meant to be. Tomorrow she might well regret what was about to happen, but for now she would take what the night offered, and there would be no holding back, no coy pretence. Regal as a queen, glowing with a ripe, eager sensuality, she went towards him, a small involuntary smile pulling at her mouth.

  He stood with hands clenched at his sides and watched her come all the way up to him, her tall slenderness silvered by the moon, its vagrant light picking out the small, high breasts, the feminine curve of her waist and the sleek length of her legs, the delicate, feminine bones strong yet with a grace that was wholly, unconsciously hers.

  His eyes burned over her body, lighting conflagrations wherever they touched. In a moment of insight she thought that he was bringing her to bloom, ripening deep-seated hungers she had never experienced before. Like a flower at its most perfect moment she was sweetly erotic with the need for satisfaction.

  She stopped just a few inches away and said his name, looking up into the austere, terrible face of a judge, a man without mercy.

  ‘Oriel,’ he said deeply. He touched her mouth, then his hand curved around the back of her neck and he pulled her gently into his body.

  He was hot, and every muscle was tense with restraint; she gave a funny little shudder. Her body, her instincts were telling her that he wanted her, yet some part of her warned of peril beyond imagining. She stared into silver eyes that were glittering with nameless emotions, and then he kissed her mouth, and she was lost to a wild onslaught of desire.

  Her hands fastened on to his shoulders as she surrendered, opening at last her heart as well as her body to his passion, free from the inhibitions that had kept her from offering herself to any other man. She knew that he wanted her; she was no longer ashamed of her body. With a woman’s pride she gave him everything she had.

  And he took. His mouth burned into hers, hard and fierce. This was not the time for tenderness; that would come later. For now there was this hunger that had been repressed all her life to be assuaged in the fires of his need. She shuddered, and he hauled her close, closer, warming her against the heat of his body, his arms like steel bands across her back, imprisoning her in a cage fashioned by desire.

  He touched his mouth to the rapid, painful pulse in her throat, and she felt his heart beating like the time pattern of the universe, beating for her.

  Her breath stopped as his hand found the small globe of her breast; she groaned, and his mouth swooped, and touched the peaking nipple, encompassed it, drew it inside the dark warmth and began a rhythmic suckling that sent sharp arrows of sensation to pierce her, shooting through nerve impulses to conjoin in the apex of her body, a sweet pain, a gathering storm, dark, mindless tides of hunger reducing her to unthinking bliss, a total dependence on his hands, his mouth, the dominating strength of his body.

  She thought dazedly, Now I know why-know how-

  He lifted his head and she opened her eyes in protest, the sleepy droop of her lashes heavy against her cheekbones. His hand slid from her breast, down the narrow waist, and on down.

  In an impeded voice he said, ‘You look like a nixie. Do you know what a nixie was, Oriel? She was a water nymph, beautiful and desirable, and she lay in wait for men. She desired them, and any man would do. But it was dangerous to lie with a nixie, because after a man had made love to one he lost all desire for mortal women. And the nixie was never faithful; once she’d slept with a mortal she no longer wanted him.’

  She made a slow sound of protest as his hand stroked over her hip, found the warm tangle between her legs, and slid home.

  ‘Is this for me?’ he asked harshly. ‘Or is it for André Hunter? Did you make love with him in your room, Oriel, or didn’t you have time, and are you using for me the desire that he roused?’

  Sheer shock robbed her of words. She stared at him, seeing the twist to his mouth, the silver steel of his gaze, feeling at the same time the smooth intrusion of his fingers in her body. Shame, more intense than any other emotion, spread like a black flood through her. She pushed at him with all her might, but he was. as solid and immovable as eternity.

  Then she tried to pull away, but his hands came up to fasten on to her upper arms. There was no cruelty in his grip, but she felt the dark impulse to it beating against her.

  He was smiling, coldly, without mercy or respect. ‘I’m quite prepared to indulge this-itch,’ he said offensively, ‘but I want you to realise that I am not so easily manipulated as perhaps you thought.’

  ‘She welcomed the anger. It at least gave her some pride, held the darkness at bay for a little while. ‘You are foul,’ she said, her voice cold as the moonlight, all colour fled.

  ‘Realistic. He was, after all, in your bedroom.’

  ‘For a few minutes.’

  His brows lifted, but his voice was even, almost reflective as he said, ‘Quite a while, I believe. At least two people attested to that. Ah, didn’t you realise that there had been eyes watching your little idyll out here? Not unkind eyes, merely a little concerned, because André is rather notorious. He found you very attractive, he was making no bones about it. With Andre’, to think is to act. He’s a f
ast worker.’

  In a voice sweet and limpid and cold as a mountain stream she said, ‘He and I talked out here for a short time, and on the way back in I wrenched my ankle again.

  He helped me up to my room, got a cold cloth for it, then left. He was kind and helpful and not at all amorous.’

  ‘Yet I stood, in the best traditions of high farce, like a jealous lover and watched him walk down the stairs with the satisfied smile of a man who has achieved what he wants. And when you walked across to me a few minutes ago, there was no sign of a limp.’

  She looked at him, her heart slowing as she realized that he was not going to listen to her, he had made up his mind and she was convicted by a jury without mercy, without recourse.

  ‘If you believe that,’ she said, ‘why did you kiss me just now?’ I

  His mouth twisted in mockery, in cold, contemptuous irony. ‘I made no overtures,’ he reminded her. ‘You came to me. And I am as weak as André. You are beautiful, and I wanted you. I still want you.’

  He took her hand and dragged it down his body, showing her just how much he did want her. She made a quick gagging sound and wrenched her hand free as if the touch of his hardened flesh had burned her, and stepped back, saying harshly, ‘You’re despicable! I’ll go tomorrow.’

  ‘You signed a contract.’ His voice was icily remote.

  Shivering, she looked around the silver, sweet-scented night, searching for her nightgown, desperate to get away from him. Then the import of his words struck her. A cold wind touched her skin. ‘But-you can’t-’

  ‘I can do anything,’ he said, his voice calm and reflective as he watched her. ‘I think perhaps you don’t realise just how much I can do, Oriel. I can make it impossible for you to ever find another job. I can make your life so uncomfortable in so many ways that you might feel it necessary to flee the country. I can make it impossible for you to get a seat on any airline. I can call in favours and have you declared a prohibited immigrant in almost any country in the world. I can persuade the police to take a stifling interest in your behaviour. And if you try to run away, I can follow you to the ends of the, earth and make your life a misery.’