Stranger in the Night

by Charlotte Lamb

  She didn't answer.

  'Ted, play the Charleston,' Luke Murry said. He got a grin from Ted and then the music passed into that horribly familiar tune. Luke turned his dark head and looked into Clare's wide, stricken green eyes. 'Very nostalgic, isn't it?' he asked softly.

  Her stomach was churning. He remembered.

  'Lunch tomorrow? I'll pick you up at noon,' he said.

  Macey came back into the room with Rowena, and Clare felt his eyes flick at once towards her and Luke Murry. Rowena was saying goodnight to everyone. She gave Clare a brief smile. 'Lovely of you to come,' she said before drifting out.

  Clare stood up, fighting to control her face. Luke Murry rose with her, but she did not look at him again.

  She smiled round the room, murmuring a farewell. Macey's hand took her elbow. His fingers hurt. Clare was almost glad of that; the needle-like pain helped her to shake free of the misery engulfing her. She walked out into the night with him, wishing she had not accepted Rowena's invitation. If she hadn't been there tonight she would never have met Luke Murry again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Driving home, Macey glanced at her and asked quietly: 'Okay, like to tell me?'

  'Tell you what?' She raised her head with a defensive start and looked at him in wary questioning.

  His mouth tightened. 'Don't fence.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'The moment he walked in, you went white,' Macey said.

  She curled her hands together in her lap and he shot his eyes down sideways to look at them. Clare hurriedly uncurled them, but Macey's glance came back to her face with dry emphasis.

  'You're imagining things,' she lied huskily, trying to smile at him and only managing a pale imitation which did not convince him.

  'Like hell!' Macey put his foot down and the car shot forward with a fierce roar. Clare glanced down the steep sides of the narrow, bending road, shuddering.

  'Don't go so fast!'

  His hands tightened on the wheel and he dropped the speed, staring ahead with an unsmiling face, the moonlight flickering over his features and leaving them taut and strange. 'He didn't bat an eyelid,' he said quietly. 'He's good. If I hadn't known you so well, I'd never have noticed a thing.'

  Clare shivered. He was right: Luke Murry was good—as deceptive as a coiled cobra masquerading as part of the desert sands only to rear up and strike like a whiplash. He had had her fooled all evening; hoping, believing he had forgotten her, lulled into deceptive ease. He had been playing with her, amusing himself. Oh, God, I hate him, she thought in sick misery. What am I going to do?

  She tried to pull her remnants of self-respect and brains together. What could Luke Murry do to harm her? Okay, he knew, he remembered. He wasn't going to go around boasting, for heaven's sake, and if he did, so what? This wasn't the Victorian age. Who would care?

  I would, she thought, shivering. I'd care like hell. I don't want people knowing, staring, smiling.

  And most of all, I don't want him knowing, staring, smiling. That was what she hated—the thought of being written down in Luke Murry's memory as an easy conquest, a cheap little tramp.

  That was unbearable.

  'Tell me,' Macey said huskily, and she looked round to find him watching her intently.

  'There's no mystery,' she said in pretended lightness.

  'Isn't there? I trust my instincts,' said Macey. 'And they picked up something from the moment he walked into the room.'

  'Don't harp, Macey,' she said irritably.

  He shrugged, frowning. 'If you won't tell me, you won't. But if you do ever decide you need a friendly ear, don't forget me.'

  He couldn't possibly guess. His play had been an emotional stab at the truth, but the sordid nature of it hadn't entered his head. Macey was the last person in the world she could tell—she didn't want him knowing what had happened that night. He would look at her quite differently; she knew that. Macey had an image of her, and she didn't want that image shattered.

  She looked at the sky and saw the moon hanging over the sea below them, wreathed in pale white mist, looking like a battered silver plate, the indentations and markings a grey blur of lines. The mysterious dark arms of palms wafted to and fro in the faint sea breeze. Somewhere a dog howled. Lights were going out in the little houses and villas, but along the coastal strip they stayed bright and constant, the hotels lit from roof to ground.

  'Well, at least Rowena is biting,' Macey said drily. 'I can ring Phil and tell him the play has two possible stars.'

  'One,' Clare corrected.

  'What?' He slowed, staring at her. 'You aren't pulling out?'

  'No, but with Rowena up front, there's only going to be one star,' Clare said with a smile.

  He relaxed. 'I thought for one horrible moment that you were going to tell me you were changing your mind.'

  'Why on earth should I?'

  He threw her a piercing look. 'I don't know. I wish I did.'

  She avoided his gaze. 'Well, you're stuck with me,' she said.

  'I've known that for a long time,' said Macey, and Clare was surprised and taken aback, although his tone was wry and unemphatic.

  They reached the villa a moment later and Macey garaged the car while Clare went inside and went at once to bed. Macey's last remark went on repeating inside her head. What had he meant? She stripped and showered, turning with closed eyes, trying to think and feeling so tired she couldn't manage to concentrate for long enough to get one coherent idea through her head.

  It took her some time to get to sleep, and when she did sleep it was to dream and wake up sweating, crying out. The room was filled with perilous moonlight and a dark shape which moved as she sat up looking towards it.

  She choked out a scream and the shape came over to the bed and she saw Macey's frowning face in the pale, mysterious light.

  'Darling, what on earth is it? You've been screaming blue murder.'

  Trembling, ice-cold, she leaned her face on his shoulder. He wasn't wearing a pyjama jacket and his body was warm. She laid her cheek on his skin, shivering.

  'I'm sorry I woke you,' she whispered.

  His hand stroked her tumbled hair, his arm around her tightly. 'Clare, tell me,' he whispered, and it was an entreaty; gentle, pleading.

  She almost did and then couldn't, shaking her head.

  'I must have eaten too much, or maybe that shellfish cocktail was off at dinner tonight.'

  Macey's hands lifted her face and framed it while he stared at her. 'If you say so,' he said curtly.

  She couldn't meet his eyes. 'I'm sorry I woke you. It must have been a shock to hear me yelling my head off.'

  'I wasn't asleep.' She couldn't see his face. The moonlight touched his hair to silver, but his features were hidden.

  'Oh,' she said, looking down, suddenly realising that neither of them was more than half-naked and that Macey's hand was moving up and down her spine in a convulsive way which made her grow tense.

  'I expect I shall sleep better now,' she said shakily, not quite knowing how to move away from him.

  Macey was breathing quickly, the sound raw and hoarse. 'Clare,' he muttered. His hand propelled her closer and his head came down. Many times in the past he had kissed her, lightly, gently, so that Clare had grown accustomed to the touch of his lips.

  It was different this time. Before his mouth captured hers, she knew it would be different. Macey's tension had communicated itself to her own senses and the searching, hungry touch of his mouth reinforced what her intuition had told her.

  She had a moment to think, to reject or accept, as he began to try to open her lips to his exploration.

  Had he kissed her like that in the past she would have pushed him away in shocked surprise, but tonight she had been shaken to her roots by seeing Luke again. Closing her eyes, she blindly clung to Macey and her mouth parted. He gave a stifled moan and kissed her deeply, his arms tight around her.

  It was comfort, security, a shared human contact which Clare fe
lt she needed at that instant, and then it was something else, so suddenly that she was broken out of her compliant mood and made painfully aware that something had been unleashed in Macey which alarmed her.

  He was breathing with a rough, irregular sound, his hand sliding over her bare shoulders, shaping her flesh, his fingertips tracing the hollow along her collarbone, pushing down the thin ribbon straps from which her nightgown fell, and the warm tenderness of his mouth had become hard and demanding, sending a quiver running through her.

  She pulled back, averting her face, gasping out a protest. 'Don't, Macey!'

  He didn't even seem to hear. He pressed his face into her neck, kissing her throat fiercely, his cheek hot against her cool skin. A strange, disturbed fluttering began in Clare's stomach as his body began pressing her back against her tumbled pillows. She felt the straps of her nightie snap and then Macey's lips slid down her white breast and panic leapt along her veins.

  The raging insistence of his caresses made her go wild with fear. She struggled violently, thrusting him away, hitting him with clenched fists.

  'Let me go, stop it!' she moaned in a high, unfamiliar voice.

  Breathing thickly, Macey lifted his head to stare at her. She did not know him. He was a stranger in the dangerous moonlight, all the familiar casual warmth stripped from his face.

  He sat up away from her, his lean hard body taut. For a moment he didn't speak or move, that heavy breathing gradually slowing, his eyes hidden by shielding lids.

  'I'm sorry,' he said at last, his voice harsh. 'I went a little mad.'

  She should have left it there. She should have let him apologise and go, but years of affection for him made her stammer, 'Macey, I'm sorry.'

  'Sorry?' He almost spat the word at her. 'Don't insult my intelligence, Clare! If I wanted your pity I'd have asked for it years ago.'

  Clare hated the coldness in his face, the hardness in his tone. Their long friendship mattered more to her than anything in the world. She could not bear to lose Macey. She had been blind and stupid not to realise that the way she felt towards him was not the way he felt towards her. Macey had shown her something of this in the beginning and she had carefully made it clear she did not want him. She had believed that he had accepted the facts, but obviously she had been very wrong.

  She had often wondered why Macey's affairs always broke up so soon. He was a normal male, but his relationships had seemed doomed before they began. Now she looked at him in dismay and realisation. She had become so used to Macey that she hardly saw him as a man any more, and that was a dangerous way to think of any man.

  On impulse she sat up to touch his face, looking at him with a deep tenderness. 'Macey,' she began, but he wasn't listening. His blue eyes were fixed on her body. She had forgotten her broken nightgown straps. The gown had slipped again, exposing the high warm swell of her breasts.

  Her heart missed a beat at the look in Macey's face. The blue eyes were burning. Clare couldn't move, transfixed by that look.

  Macey's features looked stark and powerful in the moonlight, stripped of all thought, all feeling, but one. Clare's throat closed painfully as she recognised it. She froze where she sat, a strange tremor running over her, afraid to move or speak.

  Macey half-closed his eyes and a long, hoarse sigh came from him, his lean body shivering as though with cold. Clare stared fixedly at him, trying to speak but almost hypnotised by that look in his face.

  When he did move she gave a frightened gasp, but it was too late. His hand trembled as it touched her breast. He stared, the taut hard face openly filled with intent hunger. His head slowly bent forward.

  Clare moaned, 'No,' her voice husky, but as his mouth touched her she was seized by a dizzy sense of pleasure. Macey gently pushed her back against the pillows, his head at her breast, his hands shaking as they stroked down her body.

  Her heart beat deep inside her body, the rhythm dominating her. Long needles of sexual excitement pierced her. She remembered the sensation and her mind blurred, time shifted, carrying her backwards.

  Shock and pain tore through her and she went wild, screaming, and Macey stiffened on her. He looked at her white face, the trembling of her mouth, and his own face hardened and whitened.

  'Get your hands off me,' she groaned. 'Don't touch me like that! Oh, God, I feel sick!' She was shaking violently, that terrible panic in her face, and Macey read it with a dark bitterness, his mouth taut.

  'My God, what do you think I am?' he bit out harshly. 'Do you think I'd try to force you?' He stopped dead, staring. 'Good God, you do, Clare!'

  'Let me alone,' she whispered, covering her face with her hands.

  'Clare!' he said again in a low, hoarse voice. 'What the hell put that idea into your head? All right, I went crazy, but surely you know me well enough by now to know I wouldn't do a thing like that to you? I'd rather cut my throat than hurt you.'

  She trembled, her fingers pressing against her eyes, and Macey picked up the light continental quilt which lay across the foot of the bed and wrapped it round her quivering shoulders. She huddled in it, shocked and tense, not looking at him.

  There was a few moments' silence, then Macey said quite coolly: 'O.K., tell me, Clare. I think I've a shrewd idea now, but wouldn't you like to tell me?'

  She was filled with doubt and apprehension. She ached to tell him the truth, pour it all out to him, but she could not bear the idea of seeing his blue eyes fill with contempt as she spoke. He was bound to despise her when he knew how she had let Luke Murry take her that night. Clare knew Macey well enough to know how he looked at the sort of girl who got drunk at parties and went to bed with strangers. Macey might shrug indifferently when he saw a stranger behaving like that—she knew he wouldn't shrug when it was her.

  Macey waited, then said curtly: 'It's something to do with Murry, isn't it?'

  She kept her hands over her face, shaking her head violently. She couldn't tell him.

  He pulled her hands down and his blue eyes were icy. 'Don't lie to me, Clare. My antennae work too well where you're concerned. What did he do to you? Or have I guessed?'

  'Nothing,' she said fiercely. 'Nothing.'

  'There's something,' Macey retorted, staring at her. 'I know damned well that whatever made you the way you are is bound up with Murry.' He drew a rough breath. 'I could take it when there wasn't anyone else within a million miles of you—but I'm not standing aside while someone like Luke Murry walks off with you.'

  'I told you, I can't stand the sight of him,' she denied.

  'Do you think I didn't notice the way he looked at you? Either you fancied each other on sight or there's been something between you in the past. One or the other, Clare. Don't tell me I was wrong.'

  'Please, Macey, leave it,' she groaned.

  'What else have I done for years? I can't take much more of it. I'm warning you, Clare, there's too much between us for me to believe I'm wasting my time.' He swallowed, his voice deepening. 'You care something for me, Clare. I wouldn't have been hanging around all these years if I hadn't hoped that one day I'd find the key to whatever was keeping you packed in ice.'

  She softened, her face gentle. 'I'm very fond of you, Macey.'

  'Fond!' He threw the word back at her as though it had been a deadly insult. His face darkened with angry blood. 'My God, you try my patience sometimes, Clare. If I thought that was all I had to hope for I'd cut my throat!'

  He released her and stood up. 'We're both tired,' he said after a moment, his back to her. 'Go to sleep again, Clare, and no more nightmares. If I come in here again I doubt if I'd have the strength to walk out again.'

  He was gone before she had a chance to answer. The quiet closing of the door made her wince.

  Tears leapt into her eyes. Macey was the one strong rock in her life and she couldn't bear the thought of losing him. It hurt to face the fact that the warm, platonic relationship she had come to rely on so much had all been a figment of her own imagination. She would never again be able to
think of Macey as a brother—because that was not how Macey wanted her to think of him and now she knew it.

  How could she have been so blind? Macey had occasionally made one of his ambiguous, dry remarks and she had noted them without ever sitting down to consider what they revealed of his feelings.

  Macey had given her hints in the past. Why hadn't she taken them? Had her blindness been deliberate?

  Had her subconscious been refusing to face the real truth about how Macey felt?

  Just now when she lay there with Macey's dark head moving against her body she had been trembling with a desire she had never thought she would feel again. It shocked and confused her even to remember how she had felt. The traumatic events of that night when she was eighteen had killed all her sexual impulses for so long that she had forgotten she was capable of them. They had flared out of her just now, fierce and sharp and piercingly pleasurable.

  The idea flashed through her—was she sexually attracted to Macey after all?

  It was so new, so blindingly incredible, that she felt her pulses thud in shock.

  She couldn't sleep again. She lay watching the moonlight sliding silently around the room, listening to the whisper of the sea, trying to untangle the confusion of her mind.

  When she did fall asleep, she was so tired that she slept well into the morning, untroubled by the brilliant sunshine when it filled the room. She only woke when a plane flew low overhead, startling her out of sleep with a painful jerk.

  When she sat up she couldn't imagine for a moment how her nightgown straps had come to break, then hot colour flooded her face as it dawned on her.

  She swung out of bed, biting her lip, and took a leisurely shower. There was no sound from Macey. Was he still in bed? Had he managed to sleep last night? Clare was not looking forward to seeing him again. She had never felt shy and nervous of Macey in her life, but this morning she knew she was both.

  She found Macey in the garden by the pool, wearing brief shorts and a T-shirt, sleeping in the sun like a lizard.

  Clare looked down at him uneasily. His long, lean body had grace even when he slept and the mouth which had crushed and coaxed hers last night was tranquil in repose.