Fairwinds

by Rebecca Stratton

  It was obvious to Tara that Clifford was already regretting his adamant announcement, and wishing he

  had left it to some more opportune moment to argue with his brother, but it was too late to go back now. Philip would be relentless in his opposition and Clifford's compliance was only a matter of time, she thought.

  'I have my own money from Father,' Clifford declared. He sounded pettish and he was using his hands far more than usual to emphasize his words. 'I don't want the fii-m's money!'

  Philip laughed shortly. 'Your inheritance from Father comes from the same source as everything else,' he told him bluntly. 'It isn't manna from heaven, Clifford!'

  Clifford put down his knife and fork, frowning his dislike of the situation he found himself in, but seeing no way out of it. 'Then I don't want the damned money!' he said angrily. 'I'll do without it!'

  'And Tara?' Philip prompted, deceptively soft-voiced.

  Tara felt the colour flood her cheeks as she came under the scioitiny of those black eyes again. 'Tara undei-stands,' ClifTord told him.

  'Perhaps she does,' Philip allowed, still infuriatingly quiet and calm, 'but is she prepared to live the way you'll have to with only your earnings as an artist to live on?'

  'Oh, for heaven's sake!' Clifford said, exasperated. 'I'm not a pauper I Even without the Hautain money, I'll get by!'

  Tara had expected the argument to be interminable, and she could see it ending only one way, but then,

  suddenly, Philip shrugged and gave his attention again to his meal, leaving a strange feeling of uncertainty in the air. For the rest of the meal nothing more was said about the subject, but Tara was aware of those disturbing black eyes looking at her from time to time, and making her nervously uneasy.

  Surprising too was Madame Hautain's silence during the exchange, but then Tara realized that she was probably content to leave her elder grandson to deal with his brother, knowing he was perfectly capable of doing so. She had noticed the gleam in the old lady's eyes, however, during the discussion, and wondered if she really despised Clifford as much as he always said she did.

  They were leaving the dinner table when Madame Hautain called Clifford over to her, having exchanged a few words with his brother, and asked if he would accompany her into the garden for a while. The manoeuvre was obvious to Tara and she instinctively looked at Philip, catching his eye unccisily.

  Clifford departed reluctantly into the garden with his grandmother, and Philip's slow smile recognized Tara's hesitancy, as he made a sign for her to sit in one of the chairs. 'I - Td rather like to go for a walk too,' she told him, resisting the persuasion to sit down.

  Her pulses were racing wildly as she faced that unrelenting gaze and she would have followed Clifford and his grandmother out through the open french windows, but one of Philip's hands stayed her, the long fingers curled around her upper arm and digging hard into the soft flesh. It was a grip that was impossible to

  resist, and he turned her round to face him.

  'I want to talk to you,' he told her quietly.

  She gave him a swift, anxious glance through her thick lashes and tried in vain to ease the relentless grip on her arm. 'I'm - I'm not sure I want to talk to you,' she told him, and Philip smiled.

  'You disappoint me,' he said softly.

  Tara took another surreptitious look at hun through her lashes and wished fervently that she did not find him so dangerously attractive. It was not as if he was good-looking, as Clifford was; ClifTord's kind of attraction was more obvious and easier to cope with, but Philip's more mature, darkly masculine appeal was much more subtle and much more diflEicult to resist.

  He wore a Ught suit with a pale blue shirt and tie, but somehow even in that formal and very civilized dress there was a strange suggestion of hidden power in his voice and a disturbingly primitive look about his lithe, easy movements, that made him much more dangerous than any man she had ever met.

  'I think I can guess what it is you want to talk to me about,' Tara said, and was appalled to find how unsteady her voice sounded. 'But I don't think you should discuss it with me, not after getting rid of Cliff so obviously.'

  He smiled and his eyes mocked her fear of being alone with him. 'So you spotted it?' he said. 'Well, I won't deny it. I wanted to talk to you alone, and Clifford would only have made objections if he'd known.'

  'As he has every right to do,' Tara argued. 'You

  want to talk about him behind his back!'

  His rather full lower hp hinted at scorn as he looked at her steadily. 'That sounds rather naive,' he accused in a soft voice, and Tara flushed.

  *I won't talk about ClifT or his plans unless he's here to hear it,' she insisted. 'It doesn't concern me!'

  They stood just inside the open doorway, and the warm summer wind lifted her hair from her neck and wisped it softly about her face; it was quiet and peaceful and rather beautiful and she should have felt quite differently than she did - uneasy and rather apprehensive.

  Philip still held her arm, although his grip was less fierce and his thumb moved slowly back and forth on her soft skin, the movement almost sensual in its persuasiveness. His dark eyes looked at her steadily for several moments before he spoke again, a half smile just touching his mouth.

  'Did you put him up to it?' he asked softly, and Tara turned on him indignantly.

  'No, I did not!' she denied firmly.

  'I wondered.' He shrugged, releasing his hold on her at last, and taking a cigarette-case from his jacket pocket. He helped himself to one and lit it, but did not offer her one, an omission she had noticed before.

  A haze of blue smoke drifted up before his face, and she felt a sudden inexplicable shiver trickle along her spine as the dark eyes watched her steadily through the smoke screen. He could say so much with those black, expressive eyes and she felt her femininity respond to it, despite her efforts to resist.

  'Cliff has every right to paint if that's what he wants to do,' she said, her eyes downcast, desperate to break the silence between them,

  'Oh, I have no doubt at all that Clifford wants to have his cake and eat it too,' Philip said quietly. He leaned casually against the frame of the french window, tall and lean and looking like some great, dangerous cat ready to pounce, a suggestion that further alarmed Tara. 'He knows he can't keep himself, let alone a pretty and expensive wife, on what he'd make as an artist,' he told her. 'But it doesn't suit my book to wait until he finds out for himself. I want him in the firm now, and I want you to make sure he comes in.'

  Tara stared at him, seeing the reason for this secret conversation at last. 'You seriously expect me to talk Cliff out of doing what he wants to do, just to suit your plans?' she asked, and he smiled slowly.

  'Yours too,' he told her softly. 'You're much too beautiful to starve in a garret, and I'm quite sure you don't really want to.'

  'It won't come to that!' Tara retorted, and curled her hands tightly to resist the persuasion of that voice. 'Cliff has money of his own, he can do as he likes with it!'

  'As long as it lasts,' he agreed, still smiling. His dark gaze swept over her slowly and expressively, from head to foot. 'What happens when it runs out, Tara? No money, no girl?'

  'You've no right to say that!' Tara objected. 'I'd never leave him simply because he - he hadn't any

  money!'

  'Till death us do part!' he taunted, in his quiet, beautiful voice, and Tara's eyes flashed defiance.

  'If you like!'

  For a moment he said nothing, but simply stood there and looked at her, those dark, heavy-lidded eyes suggesting all sorts of things she would rather not recognize, then he smiled suddenly, that slow meaningful smile that stirred her pulse into rapid response, and eased himself away from the door frame. 'So,' he said softly. 'You won't co-operate?'

  Tara felt herself trembKng, and instinctively took a step back, away from him. 'I won't try and talk Cliff out of something he wants to do,' she told him. 'I haven't the right.'

  'Haven't you?' One
dark brow expressed surprise. 'I'd have thought you had the right to some say in your combined futures!'

  'Well - perhaps,' Tara allowed. 'But if he really wants to paint, then I don't think I have the right to try and stop him, at least until he's had the chance to prove what he can do. Also I don't see why he should be expected to spend his life in some stuffy old office, just because you think he ought to!'

  'For heaven's sake, I'm not simply trying to sabotage his plans for the sheer hell of it!' he said shortly. 'You must realize that.'

  'I don't,' Tara said, and saw the way his mouth tightened ominously. Philip Hautain, she thought, would be formidable if he ever lost his temper, and he looked near to it now.

  'I've no objection to his painting as much as he likes in his spare time,' he said quietly. 'But I need him at the works now, and it's something he's more or less obligated to do.'

  'Who says so?' Tar a demanded, making a last stand.

  'He knows it as well as I do,' PhiUp retorted, and it gave her a brief thrill of satisfaction to realize that she had at last managed to get under his skin. But his discomfiture was short-lived, and he was smiling again as he looked down at her steadily. 'I wish you'd try and see this from my f)oint of view, Tara. Won't you try, hmm?'

  It took her a moment or two to realize that she was being blatantly and undeniably persuaded into his way of thinking by that hypnotically beautiful voice, and she shook her head, adamantly refusing to be influenced. 'No!' she said. 'No, no, no! I won make Cliff do anything against his wishes I'

  The gleam in his black eyes at once admired her determination and condemned her lack of co-oper-, ation, and she felt herself shiver at the sight of it. 'Then you'll both be sorry,' he said softly.

  'I -1 don't think so.'

  He stood for a moment, just looking at her again, and again her fingers curled into her palms, her heart tapping urgently at her ribs as she sought to meet his eyes but was at last forced to look away. 'I wish you wouldn't fight me on this, Tara,' he said, so softly that she only just caught the words, and he moved closer to her so that she was more than ever aware of that irre-

  sistible aura of strength he radiated.

  There was a deep, unfathomable look in his black eyes and the lithe body looked poised for some action she could only uneasily guess at. 'You'll be sorry,' he promised in a whisper, and reached out his arms for her.

  Tara had only time to catch a deep, startled breath before she was pulled hard against him, his arms cruelly tight about her while he forced her head back against his fingers, his mouth hard and hurtful, and stifling the cry she would have made.

  It was minutes before she gathered her senses together sufficiently to push away from him, her own dark eyes wide and blank with disbelief, then she shook herself free of those encircling arms and fled out into the garden, her heart racing wildly, uncertain just what emotion was uppermost in the chaos that churned away inside her.

  'I suppose he got rid of me so that he could try and get you to talk me round?' Clifford guessed, as they walked in the garden later that evening, and Tara nodded, reluctant to admit, even to herself, how easily she could have been persuaded by Philip Hautain's very unfair methods of persuasion.

  'He tried,' she said, 'but he didn't succeed.'

  Clifford kissed her lightly on her mouth. 'I knew he wouldn't,' he told her confidently. 'But he'd have to try - I know Philip!'

  'Do you?'

  ClifTord looked down at her curiously. 'I think so,'

  he said. 'What are you hinting at, darling?'

  Tara shrugged, wishing she found it as easy to laugh off Philip's efforts at persuasion as easily as Clifford did. 'Oh - nothing really,' she said. 'But I don't think you know your brother as well as you think you do.'

  'And what does that mean?'

  Tara laughed shortly, unwilling to be too explicit on the subject of Philip's efforts. 'Oh, just that I don't think you realize to just what lengths he'll go to have you in the firm, that's all!'

  He hugged her close for a moment, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. 'Well, I'm not easily moved once I've made up my mind,' he told her. 'And I'm sure Philip won't resort to anything too drastic once he knows I've firmly made up my mind.'

  'Maybe not.'

  Her voice betrayed her disbelief, and Clifford looked down at her with a frown. 'You're not taking a dislike to Philip, are you?' he asked, anxiously, she knew. 'He's all the famUy I've got, darling, and I'm very fond of him, even if he is trying to wave the big stick over me.'

  'I don't dislike him,' Tara said truthfully enough, for whatever he might do, she felt sure she could never merely dislike Philip Hautain, 'But he's a determined and ruthless man, Clifford, unless I'm very much mistaken.'

  Clifford laughed. 'That,' he said lightly, 'I believe.'

  The gardens at the rear of the house were just coming

  into summer bloom, and Tara loved walking in them, although she seldom had the opportunity for a solitary stroll as now, because Clifford disliked being apart from her for very long.

  He had suggested to Tara that perhaps it would achieve something if he were to do some painting while he was at Fairwinds, and then perhaps Philip would get used to the idea of his being an artist. He had talent, that was undeniable, although Tara faced the fact that he was probably rather less gifted than he liked to imagine. Not that she would dream of telling him so.

  She walked the whole length of the garden and was now in the border of trees that clustered along the banks of a narrow but swift-flowing river, whose name she could not yet pronounce. It was cool in the shade of the trees, almost chill, so that she shivered involuntarily and rubbed her hands over the tops of her arms to warm them.

  The sound of the swiftly running water drew her irresistibly, as it always did, and she had no intention of turning back simply because of a little chill in the air. Shafts of sunlight beamed through some of the less thickly massed branches and dazzled her when she looked up, and she smiled. It was rather like being spotlighted on stage as she stood there for several moments, her eyes closed against the dazzle, her hands moving slowly on her arms as she lifted her face to the welcome warmth.

  'Are you a priestess of the sun?'

  Tara hastily opened her eyes and blinked for a moment in the bright concentrations of light, then

  moved a few inches into the shadows. There was no mistaking that voice, and she coped for a moment with a wildly fluttering pulse as she looked across at him, standing on the edge of the river bank.

  One hand was in a pocket and the other held a cigarette, his eyes narrowed against the rising smoke. He wore dark blue trousers that fitted snugly over his lean hips and emphasized his long, muscular legs, while a white crew-necked sweater gave his features an almost primitive darkness that aroused an involuntary shiver in her. It was quite absurd the varied emotions he could stir in her, and she could never resist the almost frightening fascination he held for her.

  'Hello, Philip.' She shivered again, missing the warmth of the shafting sun through the trees. 'I didn't see you.'

  'I thought not!' he said, and came towards her, in long easy strides. 'I almost mistook you for an Aztec sun-priestess, disturbed at her devotions.'

  'The sun was in my eyes,' Tara explained, unnecessarily.

  'And that accounted for the look of sheer ecstasy?' He was teasing her, and his taunts made her feel small and rather childish, a sensation she resented and which she sought to counteract by remaining outwardly cool and composed.

  'I wasn't aware of anything as dramatic as that,' she told him. 'But the sun was warm on my face after the cooler air under the trees.'

  He looked past her, one brow raised, a taunt in the slow smile he gave her. 'What have you done with

  CUfford?'

  'He's busy.'

  Again an expressive brow passed comment. 'Busy?'

  Tara nodded. 'He's in the rose garden - painting.'

  That slow meaningful smile made her flush even before he spoke, a
nd she showed her dislike of it by walking past him to stand on the riverbank, giving him a wide berth as she passed him. She stood looking down at the swift-flowing water, only a couple of feet away, her hands held together tightly to stop them from trembling.

  'I'm very disappointed in Clifford,' he said, and laughed softly, looking at her through the haze of blue smoke, his dark eyes narrowed. 'I would have given him credit for more spirit than to be sitting in the garden vdth a box of paints and an easel for company, when there's a beautiful girl to be had for the asking. He's a bigger fool than I took him for.'

  'He's not !' Tara denied fiercely, trying to ignore the way her senses were reacting to that rather earthy compliment. 'He wants you to see that he's serious about his painting!'

  Philip stood there with his back leaned against one of the trees, his feet crossed and a faint, half mocking smile recognizing her defence of his brother as rather amusing. 'Oh, I see,' he said softly. 'It's done with the idea of impressing me, is it?'

  'Oh, you're so unfair!' Tara cried. She was battling with a chaos of emotions and trying to defend Clifford at the same time. She resented the way he was trying to

  organize Clifford into going his way, and more than that she resented the way he was trying to make her act for him, but Philip Hautain was a disturbing and dangerously attractive man, and she wished she could better cope with the effect he always seemed to have on her. 'Why do you always have to be so - so high and mighty about what Clifford wants?' she said.

  'High and mighty?' He repeated the words with relish, his black eyes glittering and that hint of a smile still touching his mouth. 'Is that what you think I am, Tara?' he asked softly.

  'It's what you think you are!' Tara retorted swiftly, and wondered, in a flutter of panic, if she had gone too far.

  'I can see why Clifford brought you here,' Philip said softly, and with a dangerous cakn. 'He needed your firebrand support when he defied me over going into the business.'

  'He's a grown man!' Tara was pushed into recklessness by her determination not to be overawed. 'He's chosen what he wants to do and there's nothing you can do to stop him!'