Season of Shadows

by Yvonne Whittal

  Her cheeks grew hot with renewed humiliation and anger. 'Last night you—'

  'Last night was different. You were tense and frightened, and hurting you was unavoidable.'

  Laura stared up at him contemplatively. His dark hair, so liberally flecked with grey, lay in an unruly fashion across his broad forehead, the deep-set grey eyes were razor-sharp and intent, and the lips which had kissed her with such practised sensuality were now drawn into a familiar hard line. She was seeing again the stranger she had married, instead of the man who had, moments ago, advanced beyond the barriers of her natural restraint to initiate her into a new and exciting world. Which was the real man? she wondered confusedly. The passionate lover, or this ruthless, mocking stranger?

  She stirred eventually and sighed. 'I think I'd like to get up and get dressed, if you don't mind.'

  'Certainly.'

  He removed his arm from about her waist and leaned back against the pillows with his hands locked behind his head. Laura sat up, realised to her horror that she had nothing on, and realised, too, that she had to cross almost the entire length of the room to reach her nightdress where it had fallen on the floor the night before.

  A quick glance over her shoulder told her that Anton was observing her with amused interest, and her anger erupted. 'You could at least have the decency to look the other way!'

  'Why?' he demanded with an infuriating smile that fanned her anger. 'You're my wife, and after what we shared last night and this morning there's no part of your body that's not known to me.'

  'You're detestable!' she flung at him across her shoulder.

  'And you're beautiful when aroused in anger… or passion.'

  A choked cry escaped her as she darted across the room to retrieve her nightgown, but her mortification increased as she fled to the bathroom with the sound of his mocking laughter ringing in her ears.

  He was a devil! she decided furiously as she ran her bathwater. A devil with no thought and no consideration for anyone but himself.

  When she returned to the bedroom Anton had gone, but she found a note propped up against the mirror of the dresser, and it was addressed to her in his firm handwriting.

  'When your temper has cooled sufficiently, join me on the beach for a swim before breakfast.'

  'When my temper has cooled, indeed!' Laura muttered to herself indignantly and, with an agitated movement, she pulled the band from her hair to let it fall to her shoulders.

  Typically, his note had been an order, not a request, and she would have been tempted to ignore it if she had not glanced through the open window to see the ocean sparkling so invitingly in the rays of the rising sun.

  She went down to the beach a few minutes later wearing a short towelling robe over her swimsuit. Anton sat smoking a cigarette with his back resting against a rock, but when she approached he pushed his cigarette into the sand, and rose to his feet.

  'I suggest we have our swim while we still have the beach to ourselves,' he said, unintentionally making it easier for her to face him by addressing a spot somewhere above her head.

  Without a word she dropped her towel on the sand beside his and slipped out of her robe. She followed him at a running pace into the sea with her hair flying loose about her shoulders, and when the frothy breakers about her legs made her lose her balance, she gasped as her body struck the icy water. After a few moments she found the water exhilarating and swam about lazily, her body rising and falling in the swell of the sea. Anton swam a little distance from her, seemingly oblivious of her presence, and she felt quite startled when she found herself trying to decide whether or not she liked his inattentive attitude.

  Laura had a vague suspicion that she disliked the idea of being ignored by him and, after a reasonable period had elapsed, she swam towards the beach and walked across the sand to where she had left her towel. She dried herself and rubbed her hair vigorously before spreading out her towel and seating herself comfortably with her back against the large rock. Taking her sun-glasses from the pocket of her robe, she pushed it on to her nose, and tried to forget for a time her disturbing thoughts concerning Anton's behaviour.

  Gordon's Bay lay in a natural cove at the foot of the Hottentots Holland mountains, and although the sundrenched beach was inclined to be rocky, it was apparently a fisherman's paradise, she realised as she watched two men reeling in their catch from the rocks some distance away.

  A movement to her left drew her attention and, turning her head, her pulse leapt a little wildly. Tall and tanned, and with his wet hair plastered to his head, Anton was emerging from the sea. The water glistened on his muscled body, and a curious weakness invaded her limbs at the memory of the physical closeness they had shared.

  She observed him covertly from behind the darkened lenses as he picked up his towel and dried himself, but she found herself staring at a remote stranger; a man who possessed her body, but not her soul. Never her soul! she decided grimly. She would make certain of that!

  Anton lit a cigarette and sat down beside her, but once again she had that feeling that he could not care less whether she was there or not. She could not imagine why she should feel hurt about it, but she did, and, gathering up her things, she muttered some excuse for returning to the cottage, arriving there a few minutes later in a blind fury which was directed mainly at herself.

  Anton continued to treat her in the same manner he had always done, and if, during that day, she succeeded in ridding her memory of the intimacy they had shared, then she could very easily imagine that they were not married at all. His customary cool politeness had never troubled her before, but now it stung painfully to be treated like a stranger, and that evening, when she joined him on the verandah after dinner, she could no longer deny the inexplicable yearning she felt for his touch. She despised her-self for it, but she felt powerless to do anything about it.

  She sat beside him on the bench, aware of him with every fibre of her treacherous being as they watched the incandescent moon climb higher in the starlit sky. The sound of the surf mingled with the chirping of the insects in the undergrowth as she and Anton talked quietly, but their conversation remained impersonal and dissatisfying, and she was finally driven to excuse herself for fear of making a complete fool of herself by displaying her feelings.

  She went to bed, hoping to be asleep when Anton came in, but instead she found herself waiting, almost willing him to come to her.

  'Damn!' she muttered angrily, thumping the pillow and turning on to her side so that she faced the window instead of the door.

  How could she ever hope to understand him if she was all at once so incapable of understanding herself? She was behaving like a wanton, she told herself fiercely, and, burying her hot cheeks in the pillow, she finally went to sleep.

  Laura awoke some time later to the discovery that the room was in darkness, and that she was being caressed with a freedom that made her blush.

  'Anton?' she questioned unsteadily.

  'Who else?' he demanded mockingly, and then her lips were parted with a deliberate sensuality that made her senses whirl.

  She tried to resist this onslaught on her emotions, but her languorous body had a will of its own and responded to his touch with an eagerness she would no doubt be ashamed of later. Anton's lips left hers to seek the rounded softness of her breast, and at this point she became a slave to the desire that raced like fire through her veins. No longer aware of what she was doing, she locked her hands behind his head, and her body arched towards his in rapturous surrender.

  'You've wanted this all day, haven't you?' he mocked her, but she had progressed beyond the stage where any-thing mattered except the passionate intensity of her emotions.

  Later, as she lay awake beside him, his words rushed back at her with the force of the unrelenting ocean, and she was overcome with an acute sense of shame that made her feel as though she were blushing from the roots of her hair right down to her toes.

  It was the truth; she had wanted him, and she could not
have denied it even if she had been sufficiently coherent to do so at the time, but no one except Anton would have chosen a moment when she was at her most vulnerable to taunt her with the emotions he had so cleverly aroused in her. He was a heartless, ruthless devil, this man she had married, and heaven only knew how she was going to survive a lifetime of living with him.

  They left Gordon's Bay the following afternoon to return to Bellavista, to Sally, and to the full realisation of what Laura would have to endure as Anton's wife. Their marriage had become the subject of tremendous interest, and often unkind speculation, and although they shared the same bed, she came no closer to understanding the enigmatic man she had married. During the first month of her marriage she discovered that she had been added to the long list of his many possessions to become something he could amuse himself with when he was not jetting across the country or. business, and she resented this fact bitterly.

  She discovered, too, that she was pestered by reporters wherever she went, and was subjected to a barrage of personal questions ranging from her marriage to Anton, to the death of her sister and brother-in-law. Her silence merely encouraged further speculation, and she eventually became petrified to the point where she seldom went anywhere without Anton for adequate protection.

  The only one who seemed to be entirely happy with the situation was Sally. She adapted to life at Bellavista like a fish to water, totally content in the knowledge that Laura would always be there even if Anton was so often away on business.

  On Anton's instructions, and despite the excellent bus service to and from Constantia, Eddie acted as chauffeur-cum-bodyguard to the unsuspecting child, and he not only drove her to school in the mornings but fetched her there in the afternoons as well.

  Laura found herself left with plenty of time on her hands, and very little else to do except brood about what had become of her life and the dreams she had once nurtured of falling in love. She could not think of Bellavista as home, and neither could she adapt to the fact that she had taken up permanent residence in this magnificent city which was steeped in history from the time Van Riebeeck and his party had set foot on its shores. Perhaps, if things had been different, she would have settled more swiftly, but the unusual circumstances of her marriage had made it impossible for her to feel anything but an intruder. She blamed Anton's attitude for this, and although she did not want to think of him too often, she could not forget that he somehow had the power to arouse her to a degree of passion she had never imagined possible. But she could not love him. Never! He was ruthless and cynical, and seemed to take a diabolical pleasure in humiliating her when she lay in his arms, aflame with desire, and utterly vulnerable. She despised him for it, but she despised herself more for her own inability to resist him at such moments.

  There was nothing strange in sitting down to an evening meal in the small dining-room with only Sally for company, and that evening was no exception. She listened to what Sally had to say about her school projects, and questioned her about her studies, and later, when Sally had gone up to bed, Laura indulged in her favourite pastime of weaving stories around Anton's piratical ancestor whose portrait hung against the wall facing her.

  'You're always staring at old Friedrich DeVere's portrait, Miss Laura,' Jemima remarked humorously when she came in to clear the table.

  Friedrich DeVere! So that was his name, Laura thought excitedly and, pouring herself a second cup of coffee from the silver coffee pot, she said: 'Tell me about him, Jemima.'

  'Friedrich DeVere was the first owner of Bellavista, but when he died his brother, Mr Anton's great-grandfather, took over the place,' Jemima informed her while she busily transferred the things from the table to the trolley.

  'Is that all there is to tell about him?' Laura asked with curious disappointment.

  'No, Miss Laura, but'—Jemima cast a nervous glance over her shoulder and added hurriedly—'Mr Anton won't like it if I talk about it.'

  'Now you've really made me curious,' Laura laughed, adding milk and sugar to her coffee and stirring it quickly before she took a sip. 'Mr Anton isn't expected back until tomorrow, so tell me, please?'

  Jemima hesitated, her nervousness quite apparent, but then she shrugged and launched into the lengthy explanation Laura had requested. 'Friedrich was a wild one, a fighter and a gambler. Some people called him the devil himself, but then he met a Miss Dora Goodchild soon after her arrival in South Africa, and fell in love with her. They say she was a refined and gentle lady, and Friedrich was like a lamb worshipping at her feet. The day before they were to be married she went for a walk up into the mountain. The mist came down unexpectedly, and she just disappeared.' Jemima shook her head sadly. 'Some people say she was buried under a rock-fall, and others say she was killed by a mountain lion.'

  'And some people say that Friedrich still walks the mist at night searching the mountain slopes for the woman he loved,' a deep-throated voice spoke with unexpected sharpness behind them, making them jump guiltily.

  'Mr Anton!' Jemima exclaimed, her dark eyes wide and filled with a nervous apprehension that matched Laura's as they both swung round to face the man who had entered the room so silently.

  'You may go, Jemima,' he ordered abruptly, and the dishes rattled noisily as she hurriedly pushed the trolley from the room.

  Laura had remained seated, however, a trickle of fear finding its way along her veins as Anton pulled out a chair and sat down close to her, but when she met his coldly penetrating glance she felt a renewed shiver of apprehension course its way up her spine.

  'Don't blame Jemima,' she said in the Coloured woman's defence. 'It was I who pestered her for information.'

  His mouth twisted into a cynical smile that did nothing to allay her fears. 'You're interested in my villainous ancestor?'

  Laura swallowed down the nervous lump in her throat, and explained lamely, 'It's the likeness, I suppose, between Friedrich and yourself.'

  'My grandfather always maintained that I'd inherited many of his villainous characteristics along with his looks.' His eyes mocked her ruthlessly. 'Do you agree?'

  'I wouldn't know,' she said, making an effort to hide her discomfiture while she poured him a cup of coffee, but she felt his eyes, intense and hard, observing her, and her hand shook noticeably when she passed the cup to him across the table. 'What happened to him?' she asked hurriedly. 'To Friedrich, I mean?'

  'When all attempts to find Dora failed, he shot himself,' came the harsh reply, and a derisive smile curved his lips at her shocked expression. He stirred his coffee and drank it down thirstily while she tried to digest this information, then he added savagely, 'The story of Friedrich and Dora has been romanticised out of all proportion over the years. If you ask me, she was stringing him along solely for the reason that she felt flattered to think that she could twist him round her little finger. It's quite likely that on the day she disappeared he discovered that she'd had a lover elsewhere. They quarrelled, and she walked out on him, it's as simple as that. Friedrich, like a fool, couldn't face the humiliation, and shot himself.'

  'That's your version,' Laura concluded distastefully.

  'That's my version,' he nodded with a distinct sneer about his hard mouth. 'And you must admit it's a damn sight more credible than the others you've heard.'

  'I don't believe she walked out on him,' she argued for some unknown reason. 'I think something happened to her; something that prevented her from returning.'

  'Such as a mountain lion dragging her up to its lair and devouring her?' Anton questioned, then he laughed disparagingly. 'That story is just as unlikely as the nonsense about Friedrich haunting the mountain on misty nights.'

  'You're only saying that because you—' Laura bit back the rest of her sentence, horrified at how close she had come to revealing the information Gina had passed on to her on her wedding day.

  'Go on,' he prompted, his eyes narrowed to angry slits. 'Because I what?'

  Under the close scrutiny of his piercing glance she recovered her
self swiftly and said the first probable thing that came to mind. 'Because, for some obscure reason, you prefer to have the worst possible opinion of all women.'

  'My opinions were forced upon me by women such as Dora Goodchild,' he replied with a savagery that made her recoil from him inwardly. 'Prove to me that she didn't walk out on poor old Friedrich there, and you'll restore a great deal of my faith in women.'

  Her anger flared suddenly. 'You know very well that I don't stand a chance of proving anything of the kind.'

  'Exactly,' he stated harshly, rising to his feet. 'Now, I'm going up to shower and change, and then, I'm afraid, I have to go out again.' He leaned over her, the masculine scent of his body in her nostrils and, against her will, her senses were stirred. Strong fingers gripped her chin, and she found herself staring up into those hard, glittering eyes for interminable seconds, before his mouth came down to crush hers in a ruthless kiss that left her lips bruised, yet tingling responsively. 'The subject of Friedrich will not be discussed again,' he stated decisively. 'Is that understood?'

  Laura nodded silently, unable to speak even if he had demanded it, and then she was released to sit staring after him as he strode purposefully from the room. Her nerves settled back into their rightful order, but her eyes filled with tears when she glanced up to meet Friedrich's leering appraisal, and, for no apparent reason, she felt like weeping hysterically.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Laura had been asleep when Anton returned home late that evening, and when she awoke the following morning he had gone. Only the crumpled sheets, and the indentation left by his head on the pillows, indicated that he had slept beside her that night in that large bed with the intricate carvings in the heavy stinkwood headboard. She felt vaguely cheated by the knowledge that she had been unaware of his presence beside her in Bellavista's master bedroom, but she had no time to linger on the subject, and she washed and dressed hurriedly in order to see to it that Sally would have her breakfast and not be late for school.