The Ivory Cane

by Janet Dailey

  Not concentrating on where she was going, she bumped into a small table sitting against the wall of the hallway. Instinctively her hand reached out to prevent whatever was on the table from falling to the floor. A vase had started to tip, but she set it upright again. As she started to withdraw her hand, her fingers encountered a familiarly smooth object — the receiver of a telephone.

  There was the answer! Not caring who might be observing her action, Sabrina picked up the receiver, her fingers quickly dialing Information and requesting the number of a taxi company. Without allowing any time for second thoughts, she dialed the number given her.

  When the phone was answered on the other end, Sabrina said quietly, ‘Would you please send a cab to — ’ She stopped. She didn’t know where she was. Footsteps were approaching. ‘Just a moment,’ she requested the man on the other end of the line to wait. Taking a deep breath, she turned to the person coming nearer. She had to take a chance. ‘Excuse me, please, but would you tell me what the address is here?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ a courteous female voice replied, and gave her the address.

  The studied politeness of the woman’s voice prompted Sabrina to ask, ‘Are — are you the maid?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the woman answered in a voice that said she had noticed the white cane in Sabrina’s hand.

  ‘Would you bring me my jacket? It’s a black rabbit fur,’ Sabrina requested.

  ‘Right away, ma’am.’

  At the departing footsteps, Sabrina removed her hand from the mouthpiece and gave the address to the man patiently waiting on the other end. He promised only a few minutes’ wait. With the receiver safely in its cradle, Sabrina turned away from the table. The smell of success was intoxicatingly near.

  Footsteps approached again from the direction the maid had taken. Sabrina could not tell if it was the maid and she held her breath, fearful that at any second she would be discovered by Bay or Mrs. Thyssen.

  ‘Here you are, ma’am,’ the maid spoke. ‘Shall I help you on with it?’

  ‘Please,’ Sabrina agreed nervously.

  The maid deftly helped her into the fur jacket. ‘Shall I let Mrs. Thyssen know you’re leaving?’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary. I’ve already spoken to her,’ she lied hurriedly. ‘The cab will be here any minute. I’ll wait outside. The front door, is it straight ahead down this hall?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the maid acknowledged. ‘But the fog is rather thick tonight. It would be best to wait inside.’

  ‘I’d prefer the fresh air. The smoke has got a bit thick in here.’ She didn’t want to risk being discovered when she was so near her goal.

  ‘Very well, ma’am,’ the maid submitted, and silently withdrew.

  As quickly as her searching cane would permit, Sabrina traveled the length of the hallway to the front door. Her palms were perspiring with excitement as she opened the front door and stepped into the night.

  The cool air was a soothing balm to her taut nerve ends. She moved away from the door, seeking the shadows she knew would be at the side of the entrance. The damp fog was heavy against her face. The thick walls of the house shut out the noise within. The sleeping night was profoundly still.

  A smile turned up the corners of her wide mouth as she imagined Bay’s confusion when he discovered she was gone. His overworked sense of pity would have him concerned for her safety, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before the maid would be questioned. She would tell him that Sabrina had taken a taxi. He would be angry, but at this point Sabrina didn’t care. Whatever debt she might have thought she owed him for his assistance and supposed friendship had been paid in full tonight.

  Time went by slowly, but it always seemed to double its length when she was waiting anxiously for something. Sabrina remained in the shadows, hopefully concealed from anyone who might decide to leave the party early. Finally the steady growl of a car motor sounded down the street. She waited to see if it stopped at this house or continued past. It halted at the curb and a car door slammed.

  As she stepped from the shadows, a man’s voice asked curtly, ’did you call for a cab, lady?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ She walked as swiftly as she could toward him, victory lightening her step. A car door opened. She used the sound to judge the distance. The man’s hand took her elbow to help her into the rear of the cab. ‘I want you to take me to — ’

  Sabrina never got the address of her home out. The front door of the house opened and the hairs on the back of her neck stood out, freezing her muscles into immobility. She had nearly made it.

  Maybe she still could. There wasn’t much time. Bay’s long strides were already eating up the distance from the front door to the taxi.

  As she tried to slip into the rear seat, an arm circled her waist, a hand spreading across the flat of her stomach and drawing her back to the sidewalk.

  ‘Let me go!’ She struggled against the steel band that held her mercilessly.

  ‘Be still, Sabrina,’ Bay ordered, only tightening his hold. There was the crisp sound of money being removed from his pocket. ‘I’m sorry you were called out unnecessarily,’ he was talking to the cab driver. ‘I’ll see her home.’

  ‘I don’t want to go with you,’ she protested vigorously. The driver had not moved, and there was a chance he could be an ally. ‘Please, tell this man to leave me alone.’

  ‘Will you stop involving others in our quarrels?’ Bay demanded curtly. The implication of his demand was that they were having a little spat, a ruse on Bay’s part to assure the driver that his assistance was not really needed.

  There was a crisp exchange of money before the man wished Bay good luck and Sabrina knew her means of escape was lost. For a deflated moment she stopped struggling to free herself from Bay’s pinning grip while the cab driver closed the rear door and walked around to the other side.

  Turning her at right angles, his hand shifted to the side of her waist as he forced her to walk away from the departing taxi. Bay did not lead her back to the house but toward his car parked at the curb some distance down the street.

  ‘Would you like to explain to me what’s going on?’ he requested grimly in a voice that was not at all amused.

  ‘Surely it’s obvious. I was going home,’ Sabrina retorted.

  ‘If you wanted to leave, why didn’t you look for me? I never said we had to stay at the party until the last minute.’ His fingers were biting into the soft flesh of her waist.

  ‘I didn’t want you to take me home, that’s why!’ she snapped.

  ‘Then you should have left your cane behind. Maybe no one would have noticed you leaving if it hadn’t been for that little white stick!’ He was angry. It vibrated through his tautly controlled voice.

  ‘If I’d given it a thought, I would have.’ She refused to be intimidated by his tightly held temper.

  ‘And why, after all this time, would you suddenly not want me to take you home?’ Bay demanded.

  ‘I don’t need a reason,’ Sabrina answered haughtily.

  ‘Yes, you do, and before this night is out, I’m going to hear it,’ he informed her with unrelenting arrogance.

  Sabrina stopped short and Bay did likewise. ‘Maybe I’m tired of your pity and your patronizing attitude!’ she challenged boldly, tilting her head so he could see the dislike in her expression. ‘I don’t need you or anybody else to feel sorry for me!’

  ‘What?’ She could sense his frowning alertness.

  ‘Go and join the Boy Scouts!’ Her voice grew shrill. ‘I’m tired of your good deeds!’ There was a traitorous quiver of her chin.

  ‘Pity! Is that what you think I feel?’ The accusation exploded around her.

  Sabrina opened her mouth to retaliate, and in the next instant she was jerked against him. The violence of his action sent her cane clattering on to the sidewalk. An arm curved punishingly between her shoulder blades. His hand gripped the back of her neck, forcing her head back while he drew her on to tiptoes.

  Her
startled cry was smothered by his hard mouth. Roughly, almost savagely he kissed her, not allowing her to draw a breath as he ground her lips against her teeth.

  An elemental tension crackled in the air when he raised his head. His hands moved, closing over the slender bones of her shoulders, keeping Sabrina in front of him.

  ‘You’re a brute and a bully, Bay Cameron!’ The hissing accusation was offered between gasps for air.

  ‘Then I might as well be hanged for a sinner as a saint!’ The harsh words carried the steel edge of sarcasm.

  Again he gathered her to his chest, pinning her against the rock wall while the muscles in his arms rippled around her. Sabrina had not recovered from the brutal pressure of his first kiss when she was punished by the second. She strained against him weakly, her strength ebbing from the riptide of his embrace.

  As her resistance faded, an angry passion was transmitted to her by his demanding lips. A feverish warmth enveloped her and unwillingly her flesh began to respond to the hard commanding mouth that possessed hers.

  Mindlessly her hands stopped pushing against him and her fingers curled into the lapels of his jacket. Through the rainbow explosion of her senses, Sabrina realized she was falling victim to the very virility she had warned herself against.

  As suddenly as it all began, it ended with Bay firmly holding her an arm’s length away. Her equilibrium was completely gone. Up was down and down was up. It was a topsy-turvy world, this midnight velvet blackness she lived in. And it was because of Bay and his punishing embrace.

  ‘Get in the car!’ The harsh command was like a physical slap in the face.

  But even the abrupt jolt to reality couldn’t prod Sabrina into movement. Finally Bay dragged, carried, and shoved her into the passenger seat. Her voice didn’t return until he was behind the wheel and driving the car away from the curb.

  ‘Bay — ’ Her weak voice was barely above a whisper.

  ‘Shut up, Sabrina.’ The terse, grating tone of his voice indicated that the words were drawn through clenched jaws. ‘Maybe when I can think clearly, I’ll be able to offer an apology. Right now all I want to do is wring your bloody neck!’

  Eight

  * * *

  Obeying his command, Sabrina had not spoken during that tense ride to her home. She had been too frightened to speak — not because she had thought he would carry out his threat or that he would subject her again to the punishment of his kisses. Sabrina had been frightened by herself. For a few fleeting moments in his arms, she had not been a blind woman, only a woman.

  Her bruised mouth had retained the burning fire of his hard, demanding kiss. The racing of her heart had kept pounding in her ears as if she was on a runaway locomotive that she couldn’t jump off. The impression of those muscled arms that had locked her in his embrace had still been felt.

  Her breast and hips had remembered the solid rock pressure of his chest and thighs, implanting the hard male outline of his body so firmly in her mind that Sabrina thought she would never be able to uproot it. The scent of his maleness and spicy cologne had clung to her skin. Nothing had seemed to remove it.

  What was worse, she didn’t want to erase anything. That was why she was still frightened two days after the fact. Over and over again she had asked herself why he had kissed her that way.

  Had the brutally volatile embrace been prompted by anger that she had found out his true motive? Could he have used her as an outlet for frustration because his plan to make the girl Roni jealous had failed? In view of the conversation she had overheard, it was the most likely explanation. Probably it was a combination of several things.

  Sabrina would not consider the possibility that Bay had been prompted by any physical desire for her. Not that she believed that there would not be a time when she would meet some man who truly loved and wanted her. But visualizing Bay Cameron as that man was something she could not do. He had position, wealth, charm, and looks. There were too many other women he could have at his side in an intimate sense.

  Her blindness had touched him. It didn’t matter which noun was used to identify the emotion he felt — pity, compassion, sympathy. They were all one and the same thing.

  Pain gnawed at her heart. Pride said that she couldn’t regard Bay as a friend any longer. A true friend might commiserate, but he would never seek her company because he felt sorry for her. But Sabrina’s heart honestly acknowledged the main reason why she must reject him. She was the one who had stopped regarding him as a friend and had started thinking of him as a man. For her, that was dangerously foolish.

  A sob rasped her throat, choking her with its futility. Sabrina buried her face in her hands, letting the misery wash over her. For a little time in the solitude of this afternoon, she would feel sorry for herself and not regret it. She had earned the right.

  Before the first tears slipped from her brown eyes, the telephone rang. ‘No!’ Sabrina denied its call softly. But it persisted.

  The urge was there to ignore it, to let it ring until the person on the other end gave up. Grimacing at the possibility that it was her father, she knew she had no right to cause him unnecessary concern. Reluctantly she rose to her feet and walked to the telephone.

  ‘Lane residence,’ she answered in a pseudo-calm voice.

  ‘Sabrina.’

  The sound of Bay’s low husky voice nearly made her drop the telephone. It was as if a bolt of lightning had struck her. A weakness quaked her knees and she quickly sought the support of a chair.

  ‘Are you there, Sabrina?’ his frowning voice asked when she failed to reply immediately.

  ‘Yes, hello, Bay.’ Her reply was strained and unnatural, but it didn’t matter any more.

  ‘How are you?’ It was not a casual question. There was too much guarded alertness in his tone.

  ‘Fine. And you?’ She was purposely distant and polite.

  Bay ignored her aloof inquiry. ‘You know why I’ve called, don’t you?’

  ‘How could I possibly know that?’ Sabrina asked with cutting disinterest.

  ‘Would you have dinner with me Saturday night?’ A grimness changed the invitation into a challenge.

  But Sabrina had guessed that if Bay did make any conciliatory gesture as he had indicated he might, it would be wrapped in a suggestion for a Saturday night date. She realized now that he always chose Saturday night because that was the evening her father devoted exclusively to Deborah and Sabrina spent it alone — at least, she had for the most part before she met Bay. Yesterday she had invited an old friend, Sally Goodwin, over on Saturday night.

  ‘I’ve already made other plans,’ she answered truthfully and a shade triumphantly.

  ‘You have?’ The mocking inflection doubted her statement.

  ‘I do know other people besides you, Bay,’ she retorted.

  A tired yet angry sigh came over the wire. ‘May I take a guess that you arranged to be busy on Saturday night?’

  ‘You may guess if you want,’ she shrugged, neither affirming or denying.

  ‘May I also guess that because of my — indiscretion the other night, you’ve decided not to see me again?’ He didn’t let her reply. ‘You didn’t make any allowances for the possibility that I might have had the right to lose my temper because you walked out without even having the courtesy to leave a message that you were leaving? I probably should have turned you over my knee, but the other seemed more appropriate at the time.’

  There was some validity to his argument, but Sabrina was not going to allow herself to be swayed. ‘It’s done. There isn’t any point in discussing it.’

  ‘Then that’s your decision. You aren’t going to see me again,’ Bay stated with almost arrogant blandness. ‘Those few moments of my anger wiped out all the memories of the hours, enjoyable hours I thought, that we spent together before. Is that right? They mean nothing to you?’

  His challenge had to be answered. ‘Yes, they did,’ Sabrina admitted coldly, ‘until they were tarnished by the discovery that you felt
sorry for me. I told you once I don’t need anyone’s pity.’

  ‘Who in their right mind would feel sorry for a pigheaded, spoiled brat like you?’ he snapped. He drew a deep, calming breath. ‘There are times, Sabrina, when you test a man’s patience. How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t feel sorry for you before you’ll believe me?’

  ‘Then explain to me why you see me,’ she demanded defiantly.

  ‘There has to be an ulterior motive, is that it?’ Bay answered grimly. ‘It can’t be because I might — ’ he paused an instant, choosing his words ‘ — admire you, your courage when you aren’t being unreasonably stubborn. Let me put the question to you. Why do you go out with me? Am I a convenient means to get out of the house? Do you simply tolerate me because I take you places you want to go? What’s your ulterior motive, Sabrina?’

  ‘I . . . I have none,’ she answered, taken aback by his counterattack.

  ‘Come now. Surely you must,’ he mocked derisively. ‘You had to have a reason for going out with me.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Sabrina insisted in helpless confusion, ‘I simply enjoyed it. I had — ’

  Bay interrupted. ‘Yet it’s inconceivable that I might have simply enjoyed your company, too?’

  ‘How could you?’ she protested, seeking to regain the offensive. ‘I’m pigheaded and spoiled. You said so yourself.’

  ‘So? I’m arrogant and a bully. You said so yourself.’ He deflected her argument with mocking humor. ‘That makes us equal with two flaws apiece.’

  The corners of her mouth twitched in reluctant amusement. Her stand against him was weakening. She could feel the firm resolve crumbling under his persuasive charm and logic.

  ‘You’re smiling, aren’t you, Sabrina?’ he accused softly. ’don’t bother to answer,’ Bay chuckled. ‘I know you’ll deny it. I won’t ask you to cancel your well-laid plans for Saturday night, but come sailing with me Sunday.’

  ‘Sailing?’ she echoed weakly. Of all the invitations Bay could have extended, her own love of the sport made this one she wanted least to refuse.