Crescendo

by Charlotte Lamb

  'You're leaving now, Gideon,' she said quietly and his black head shot up and the dark eyes stared at her.

  Before he could speak she went on in the same even tone, 'I never want to see you again. Go away and don't come back. You can divorce me, or I'll divorce you, I don't mind which, but I want our marriage ended.'

  'Listen to me, Marina,' he broke out huskily, and she shook her head, cutting into the words.

  'There's nothing for either of us to say.'

  'Let me explain,' he began again, and again she interrupted him.

  'There's nothing to explain.'

  'Isn't there?' He stood up now, towering over her, his face hard. 'Why won't you let me tell you, then?'

  'I don't want to listen to any more lies.'

  'I've never lied to you!'

  She lowered her head. 'No?' The sarcasm lin­gered on the air for a moment and Gideon shifted his feet restlessly, his body tense.

  'No,' he flung back thickly, 'never. What you saw that day was my first meeting with Diana since the day I realised I loved you.'

  It was the first time Gideon had ever admitted he loved her, but it gave her no happiness. The moment she had longed for during the months of their marriage, the joy and relief she had imagined she would feel, did not come. She felt nothing but a dead cold misery.

  'It makes no difference how many times it hap­pened.' She looked at him directly, her face "con­temptuous. 'Once was quite enough.'

  'Nothing happened,' he said roughly. 'Nothing that you didn't see. Diana kissed me. I wasn't doing the kissing.'

  'If I hadn't walked in at that moment it wouldn't have stopped at kissing,' she said with a twist of her lips.

  'Listen to me,' Gideon muttered, sinking on to the bed and taking hold of her shoulders. The dark eyes glared into hers. 'You've got to believe me.'

  'I shall never believe you.' She met his stare head on, her eyes icy. 'I never want to see you again. It's over.'

  She read the flicker of calculation in his eyes. 'No,' he said. She could read so many of the expressions on that hard, dark face and she had no difficulty in in­terpreting the thoughts moving in his mind now. He was remembering the way she had responded to him over the last few days and a softness stole over his mouth, his eyes gleamed.

  'That wasn't the impression I got the other night,' he said huskily and as their eyes held she knew she had not dreamt the passionate lovemaking which had taken place in his bedroom. She had gone to him like an addict to a drug and Gideon had taken her although he knew she was not aware of what she was doing.

  She pushed him away violently, turning her head aside to escape the searching movement of the sen- sual mouth. 'You had no right,' her voice accused angrily.

  'I had every right,' Gideon asserted with his face taut and stiff. 'You came because you wanted me as much as I wanted you, will always want you.' He slid his hand along her neck and the strong fingers pushed into her fine silvery hair, playing with it tenderly. 'I've been barely alive this past year, my darling. I've missed you more than I can tell you. That's why I had to come down, although Grandie had asked me to stay away from you while you couldn't remember. I had to see you—even if only from a distance. I've been living on memories.'

  'Then you'll be used to it,' she said tartly, and heard him suck in a deep, bitter breath.

  'No!' he cried in protest, a deep wrenched sound which told her how moved he was and she was glad, glad because now he would suffer as she had suffered and would suffer in the future. Gideon had fought against the clutch of love, but now its claws were sunk deep into his flesh and the sight made her shiver with pleasure.

  'Just go,' she told him. 'I've no further interest in you. It's over.'

  Gideon lifted his head slowly, his face changing. A dangerous stillness came into the black eyes. 'Like hell,' he muttered through his stiff lips. 'Ever since I arrived you've been proving over and over again that you belong to me.'

  She couldn't deny that. He had walked in here as a stranger and from the moment he arrived she had been falling in love with him all over again, and she couldn't hide that from him. She had been safe in her dream world, but from that safety she had loved him exactly as she had before and did now. No in­stinctive blind warning had reached her. She had looked at him and although she sensed that peculiar, troubling familiarity, she had still loved him, moved into his arms without a shadow of doubt.

  'You tricked me,' she accused him furiously. 'You took advantage of the fact that I didn't remember.'

  'If you really hated me you would never have turned to me again,' he contradicted. 'Underneath the hurt you're feeling you still care.' He smiled at her, his mouth crooked. 'You've had a bad time, darling, and it was all over nothing. Diana never meant a thing to me. I enjoyed her company and her body but I never gave a twopenny damn for her.'

  She winced. 'You think that excuses you?'

  'No, of course not,' he said impatiently. 'Before I met you that was all women meant to me—a little pleasure when I was tired and needed relaxation. Diana was the perfect lover for a man who didn't want to get involved. With her it was just the same. We used each other's bodies but had no use for each other's hearts.'

  Marina did not believe that. She remembered the woman's angry, passionate movements when she and Gideon argued in the road the other day. Even safely protected from her knowledge of what they had been to each other, Marina had picked up those emotions from a distance. Diana loved him even if he did not love Diana.

  Gideon bent suddenly and she felt his lips shak­ing as he kissed her throat. 'She kissed me, darling, I swear it. I didn't kiss her. When you walked in I was shattered by the look on your face.' He groaned deeply, shivering as though he were suddenly ice cold. 'When I ran out into the street and saw you in the road, the blood, the way you lay there so still and silent, I thought...' He broke off, gasping, and his arms went round her, held her so tightly she couldn't breath. 'I thought, God help me, yon were dead, and I couldn't move. I stood there and I wanted to die too.' He kissed her hair, her cheek, her ear, trying to reach her mouth and being evaded by the turn of her head, her shake of denial.

  'Marina,' he whispered, 'I love you. I never even knew how much until I saw you lying in the road and I thought you were dead and I could never tell you.'

  'You must go now,' she said coolly, sitting stiffly in the circle of his arms.

  He drew back and his eyes flashed. 'Don't do this. I need you.'

  'Well, I don't need you,' she snapped, hating him for the way he phrased that because whether he knew it or not he still did not know how to love. He was still putting his own needs in front of everything else. 'You're the last thing I need,' she told him. 'I need you like I need a hole in the head.'

  She was totally white, her face clenched in self- control which was going to weaken if he didn't go soon because she wanted to throw herself down on the bed and cry, but if she did, Gideon would take her into his arms and, weakened, she might never have the strength to send him away again.

  Gideon stared at her and stood up. The long, lean body stiffened. She met the black probe of his eyes and fought with every ounce of self-control to keep her own gaze level and cold.

  'I love you,' he said at last.

  'You're too late.' Her lips twisted ironically as she said that. 'Goodbye, Gideon.'

  For a long moment he stared at her. Then he turned and walked out of the room. Marina lay down because she was trembling and her head was pounding violently. She closed her eyes and let the world slip far away from her where it couldn't hurt her for a little while.

  The sunshine slid around the room like a curious ghost until it found the spilled silvery hair and played with it, giving a reflected brightness to the pale still face. She was sleeping but the tears were crawling down her face and her lips were mumbling silently in her sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN she woke up again the room was filled with the reflections of the dying sun and the house was silent. She shivered, as thou
gh she were dying of cold, listening to the emptiness around her. Gideon had gone, she thought, leaving her aching for him, despite her hatred and anger. She slid out of the bed and padded quietly to the window. The gulls floated silently across the sea, streaming behind a returning fishing boat, in a coloured tail of light shed from the setting sun. The fish refuse from the boat would have been thrown over the side, giving the gulls an easy banquet. It was a common sight in the even­ings, a fishing boat with a flock of gulls following it.

  What was she going to do? She leaned her elbows on the windowsill and tried to think, but it was hard to force her mind to function when her stupid emotions clamoured as they were doing, thrusting pain on to her when she had had enough of it and wanted nothing but peace.

  She would have to make a decision about her future. The dreamy romanticism which had shel­tered her during these past months had evaporated in the blinding light of memory and now she knew with a pang that the life of the concert artist was not for her. She did not want to travel around the world, as Gideon did, playing at that pitch all the time, al­ways in the public eye; always walking the tightrope of success with no safety net beneath one to cushion one's fall.

  Her marriage to Gideon had taught her that much. She did not have the stomach for that life. For her, music was a private, personal thing. The harsh glare of the concert hall distracted her from that intense experience which music gave her when she was alone.

  She would have to tell Grandie, but she could not face it yet. She needed a little time in which she could grow some sort of armour before she faced the outside world. It was not going to be easy, but Marina meant to harden herself.

  She went to the bathroom and washed, paused to listen for some sound downstairs and heard nothing. Grandie had perhaps gone for a walk. She dressed and went downstairs, but when she walked into the kitchen she stopped dead, two little coins of red be­ginning to burn in her cheeks.

  Gideon looked at her coolly. 'Coffee?'

  'What are you still doing here?' She was breath­less and angry, her eyes dark.

  He didn't answer that. Pouring some coffee, he pushed the cup across the table. Ruffy came out from a corner and leapt up at her. Absently she patted the dog's rough white coat, her eyes still fixed on Gideon and words churning uselessly around her head.

  'Where's Grandie?'

  'Playing chess with the vicar,' he said in a normal conversational tone. 'You must be hungry. What would you like to eat?'

  'Does Grandie know you're still here?'

  Gideon looked at her without answering, his ex­pression mild and slightly sardonic.

  It had been a stupid question. Of course Grandie must know he was still here! Why had Grandie gone out, leaving him alone in the house with her? Gideon had always been able to make other people do as he wished, turning the magnet of his will­power on them and coercing them without difficulty. She had thought that Grandie hated him as much as she did, that he would fight Gideon's will, but Grandie had gone out and left her undefended.

  Gideon was watching her, reading her thoughts, the black eyes glittering with a mockery which lay along the hard curve of his mouth too, telling her that her rebellious stare was amusing him.

  'Yes,' he said softly, 'Grandie has abandoned you to me. This is one battle you're going to have to fight all by yourself, Marina.'

  'Don't think I can't,' she retorted fiercely, her chin raised in defiance. 'I told you to go and I meant every word of it. I don't want you here.' She took a short sharp breath. 'I don't want you,' she emphasised.

  His dark eyes took on a cool glimmer which did not betray his thoughts. 'What do you want to eat?' he asked again. 'It will have to be something simple. I'm no great cook, but I can do you anything with eggs—boiled, fried or scrambled.'

  'I'm not hungry,' she told him shortly.

  His glance was derisive. He moved to the stove and began to make scrambled eggs while she watched him, seething.

  'Drink your coffee!' He spoke over his shoulder without looking at her.

  Marina sat down at the table and drank the coffee slowly. Gideon turned and placed the scrambled eggs and toast in front of her. 'More coffee?' He did not wait for her to answer but took her cup and poured some coffee for both of them before he sat down opposite her.

  'What are you doing here?' She could barely taste the food; her mind would not adapt to the ordinary functions of life. She was too much on edge, her stomach churning. 'I told you, I don't ever want to see you again.'

  'I know what you told me.' He sounded indif- ferent and that infuriated her. He sat there, totally at ease, those long legs stretched out casually, his body lounging in the chair, a dark green sweater covering his deep chest, the rollneck ruffled where his dark hair brushed against it, his face expression­less beneath the rough tangle of those black curls. He looked as though he had been walking out in the wind, his skin glowing from long struggles with the elements. Marina ran her eyes over him with dis­like.

  'Get out and don't come back!'

  'Eat your eggs.' He was taking no notice of any­thing she said and her hands clenched at her sides. She wanted to pick up her coffee and throw it at him.

  'Go back to Diana!' she flung, and at once wished she had not mentioned that name because the black glitter of his eyes filled with amusement and a sort of satisfaction, and she knew she had betrayed some­thing of her own inner turmoil, her confused emotions. She wanted him to believe that she was certain and clear about what she wanted, and that stupid slip had told him she wasn't.

  She got up, and Ruffy lifted his ears alertly, ob­viously hoping she intended to take a walk. 'Get out!' She stared at Gideon as she shouted the words, but his manner did not change.

  'I'm not going anywhere.' He leaned back in his chair, his hands linked behind that black head, giv­ing an elegant and powerful line to his long body which she wished she did not instinctively catch her­self noticing. She did not want to notice him, to feel the desire he could arouse throbbing away in her own body. 'I'm staying right here,' Gideon ended coolly, smiling faintly.

  'How can you be such a swine?' Her voice shook as she demanded that and he smiled tormentingly.

  'I work at it.'

  He had no sense of shame. He had betrayed her with that woman. She wouldn't be surprised if he had done so throughout their marriage. Now he was forcing her to accept his company and angrily she had to recognise that there was no way in which she could force -him to go. Gideon had always been strong-willed, assertive. She stood there, staring at him with hostility, trembling.

  'Your eggs will get cold,' he said.

  She looked at the food and felt nausea, but if she ran away now she would convince him that she was still vulnerable, still wide open to him. Slowly she sat down again and began to eat, forcing the food into her mouth although she felt sick. How dared he sit there like that, mocking her, laughing at her, those dark eyes filled with wicked amusement? After all he had done to her, he felt he could still charm her back into his arms.

  He had reason for his optimism, of course. Dur­ing her lost months, her desire for him hadn't faded. As soon as he came back into her life Gideon had realised that he still attracted her. That night when he had deliberately caressed her and aroused her, it had been she who had gone to him, not the other way around. Gideon had known very well what he was doing as he held her on his lap and fondled her, kissed her in that coaxing, passionate way. He had reached into her subconscious to re-awaken her de- sire for him and he had succeeded. She had sleep­walked to him because at that hidden level of her mind she had known precisely what she wanted.

  Was it any wonder that now he refused to go? Without knowing what she was doing she had be­trayed that sleeping passion to him. She finished her unwanted food and drank the last of the coffee.

  'I'm going to bed,' she said coldly, and stood up.

  'Goodnight,' Gideon returned with a taunting little smile.

  She eyed him with a deep desire to hit him, her hands taut at her
sides. He grinned as he took in the expression on her face and the long body uncoiled. He stood up and she almost ran to the door, hearing him laughing behind her as she banged out of the room.

  She bolted her bedroom door, but there was no need; Gideon did not follow her. Undressing again, she slipped into the bed. The dolls sat in their ac­customed places and she stared at them, and now they were just dolls. She had been a late developer; a child when she met Gideon, a child when he seduced her, a child when she carried his child in­side her body.

  No wonder she had fled back to her safe, halcyon existence when the problems of adulthood grew too great. She had been too young both in age and in attitude to cope with Gideon. He must have known that.

  Grandie had kept her in this house like a doll in a glass case—like Snow White in her perfect sleep, cherished and petted and eternally a child. Grandie had loved her, but he had been forcing her to accept the role he planned for her, forcing his own ambi­tions on her from her earliest years, shaping her, forming her in his own image. Although she loved music and was happy to work hard at it, she had al­ways lacked Grandie's drive to the peak of achieve­ment. She had accepted the role forced on her at such an early age, but she had never really desired it. She had loved her quiet backwater at Basslea. She had loved her music. But the world into which Grandie had planned to force her had never been the world she wanted.

  It was something she had slowly come to recog­nise at college. She had ability—she did not doubt that. She could work and learn. But she did not have the real drive which carried men like Gideon up­ward. She was not in his class.

  He had said that to her and she had blithely taken it to mean that she was his superior, but all the time Gideon had meant the opposite.