Time of the Temptress

by Violet Winspear

  "Oh, Wade--!" Eve raised a hand and pushed the damp rumpled hair back from his brow. "You are merciless, aren't you? Y-you won't let me thank you for all you've done for me."

  "I'll have thanks enough when I see you safely on that plane to England." Taking forcible hold of her wrists he held her away from him, and Eve felt the coldness where the warmth had been. Oh God, where else was she going to find a man so exciting, so sure in his strength, so self-reliant? All around them the countless fireflies danced in the air, spots of green fire, and Eve could feel the love inside her, burning away discretion and pride like flame through steel. She trembled and knew that she could dissolve Wade's inflexibility even yet; her wrist tensed in his hand, and her eyes were [136-137] sheerest gold, sensuous as a cat's as they dwelt on his face.

  "Your grip is hurting me," she said softly.

  He let go at once and her hand was free . . . time seemed to stand still and she knew he was reading her eyes, waiting for her to make her move. Emotion throbbed between them as the jungle throbbed all around them, the air filled with the moist, overpowering incense of forest foliage and milky vines.

  He was watching her, daring her to go ahead with what her topaz eyes threatened. He knew, just as she did, that she could tempt him and make him weak as water, and at the same time awesomely strong. The devil whispered in her ear and wild, sweet heaven was only inches from her grasp.

  She turned away from him, shudderingly. She couldn't have her heaven and risk him hating her afterwards . . . he had his son to consider, and even if his wife didn't possess his heart, she did have legal rights that he would abide by. That was the kind of man he was. Tenacious and loyal and strong-willed. For these qualities Eve loved him . . . it wasn't just physical, what she felt for the mercenary Major.

  Eve suffered a moment, silent and intense, then she walked away to where she had left her clothes, and there behind the silk-cotton tree she rubbed her body with the towel and dressed herself. The magic had ebbed away and now she felt rather tired, and aware of meshes of thorny growth around her, and immense night-hung webs knobbed with hairy black spiders some of them hideously huge and tinged with red on their crooked legs. She shivered and no longer did the jungle seem romantic to her . . . her heart was cold and [137-138] she wanted the final few miles to Tanga to be covered as soon as possible.

  She reached for her towel, which she had flung aside on a bush, and as she took hold of it felt a sharp stab of pain as a thorn ripped her thumb, tearing the flesh where it was latched to the nail. The pain was so acute that tears came into her eyes and she felt a salty taste in her mouth.

  "You dressed, Eve?" Wade came to her side, dressed himself with his hair slicked back, and forcing herself to ignore the pain of her torn thumbnail, she nodded and walked with him through the moonlight tangled in the trees to where their campfire burned beneath the humming kettle.

  "Fancy some more coffee?" he asked. "Or will it keep you awake?"

  "I am rather thirsty," she replied, and felt certain her thoughts of him were going to keep her from sleeping. It was unbearable that they were soon to part, and abstractedly she placed her thumb between her lips and sucked the sore place where the thorn had jabbed and torn. She tasted blood, but wouldn't examine the small wound in case Wade noticed. He had warned her more than once that the slightest scratch in the jungle could become infectious if it wasn't treated right away. But she couldn't have borne his concern, his doctoring of her thumb . . . his hands upon her.

  She sat down on her plaid bundle and gazed into the fire. Better that they stay polite with each other, thrusting away all personal contact. She wasn't ashamed that she had wanted him to make love to her; she didn't care that she had thrown aside her pride and revealed how she felt about him, but somehow, from somewhere, [138-139] she had to find the courage to walk away from him when the time came, and right now her courage was at such low ebb that the smallest show of sympathy would have reduced her to a weeping heap that would have exasperated him. Men so hated tears, and she didnt want Wade's last memory of her to be a maudlin one.

  He made the coffee and they shared the mug, and they were sitting there quietly when both of them caught the sound of something rustling in the bush.

  Eve tensed and she saw Wade sit up, turn his head and stare intently into those wicked green shadows. Her heartbeats quickened and her nostrils pulled into them the bitter, nutty tang of the wood fire. She saw Wade's hand grip the Breda and she knew that he was alert in every nerve, making hardly any sound as he climbed to his feet. He moved the shotgun into a firing position and with a tread as wary as a cat's he moved towards the bush, and Eve wanted to cry out to him not to go in there where a black tracery of fronds and branches made it so dark and menacing.

  But she couldn't cry out, she could only watch in silence and fear for him. He was gone and there was darkness where he had been, and Eve gazed at the emptiness with stricken eyes, every fibre of her body straining forward, ready to leap and join him should it be a human who had made those stealthy sounds of movement.

  The movements passed and the silence was filled in by the low harsh purring of the cicadas, and the trilling and croaking of tree-frogs. So intensely concentrated was Eve's attitude that she could feel herself trembling, and she could feel pain jabbing the nerves of her left hand, where the thick sharp thorn had stabbed her.

  [139-140] "It's all right." Wade came back to her, moving without stealth this time. "I couldn't smell cat, so I think it must have been a wild pig roaming about, grubbing for roots, I expect."

  Eve couldn't answer him, her teeth were clenched and her body was in the grip of a tension that wouldn't relax. Wade leaned over her and laid his hand on her shoulder, a touch she felt to the bottom of her spine. "Come on," he chided her, "don't get the jitters over a funny old pig--"

  "W-what if it had been a human one?" she demanded, and she flung back her head and looked up at him wildly. "How can you be sure? W-we could be surrounded by them!"

  "I'd know, Eve." He haunched down, cradled his Breda in one arm, and slung the other about her slim shaking figure. "Little lady, it isn't like you to let go like this--come on, snap out of it."

  "Easy for you, Wade," she said chokingly. "You thrive on danger and don't care about anything else, but those savages use knives as well, and I--and I--"

  "Here, you stop that!" He drew her against his shoulder and pressed his hard cheek down against her hair, rocking her a little, like an infant in his cradling arm. "I'd smell them as well, don't you realise that? They aren't so fond of bathing as you and I, and there's nothing so penetrating as acrid human sweat. I'm a soldier, honey. I'm trained like the damned tiger to whiff the air, and there was nothing in the bush that wore pants. Only a hungry trotter--"

  "Oh, Wade!" Eve flung her arms about his neck and buried her face in his warm skin. "Y-you'll be glad to [140-141] be rid of me, won't you? You'll say goodbye with a great sigh of relief."

  "Sure, I'll be relieved when I get you on that plane to London Airport. I made that promise to myself when you had to be parted from the nuns--little lady, haven't I told you before, we're just two people who got mixed up in a revolt and got thrown together for a while. It's like that film, with Bogart and Bergman, we have to say goodbye because that's how the script is written, honey. But don't think I won't miss you--the way you look in the mornings, all ruffled up and warm, like a kid almost, wanting salt and water to brush your teeth, and being so good about eating dried fish instead of scrambled egg and bacon. Drinking that coffee brew of mine as if it were the best Brazilian blend. Believe me, honey, if my Larry ever finds himself a girl like you, then I'll--"

  "Don't!" Her arms hugged him fiercely. "Don't talk to me as if I'm a schoolgirl waiting to grow up. If I wasn't grown up properly before I met you, I am now, and it hurts, Wade. It hurts!"

  Later, lying with her back to him on the blanket, upper body netted, and her legs wrapped in the plaid robe, Eve let the tears roll silently down her face, heavy and salty a
cross her lips . . . her lips that hungered and must be denied.

  Would the hurting get any easier once she was back in England? Would his features and the sound of his voice gradually fade from her memory? This was how the script was written, he had said, but this time he was the married one, and she must fly away from him knowing that he must stay tied to a woman he didn't love.

  [141-142] Eve was sure of that . . . it was her only consolation.

  All that night she dozed fitfully and kept starting awake, brought out of her sleep just after dawn by the persistent throbbing in her hand. She sat up carefully and took a look at Wade . . . he lay on his back, the Breda by his right hand, his lashes shadowing his cheeks as he slept, so that very briefly he looked vulnerable. Eve studied him for a long moment . . . this was the last time she would awake in the morning to find Wade beside her. The man she had slept with, the tough mercenary soldier, who had treated her with a gallantry she would remember and cherish all her life.

  "I love you," she whispered. "I love you, Wade O'Mara, with every scrap of my heart and every bit of my body."

  Then, taking care not to disturb him, she drew herself out of her cocoon and taking her dried towel made her way to the river, using it to flip away the big webs that were so heavy with dew that the spiders had vacated them.

  A mist lay over the water and over the sun, and everything seemed remote and mysterious. As Eve knelt to wash her face she saw a harmless pepper-and-salt snake glide out from a dark-green bush and slip across the big tree roots. On the far side of the river she could glimpse the brown hadidas flapping on the water, and soon they would be joined by water-fowl and spotted deer and even a tawny lion or two, who this early in the day only wanted to drink cool water before the pink sky turned into a hot golden one.

  Eve examined her left hand and caught her lip hard between her teeth when she touched the yellowing sore spot. It had festered, and Wade would be angry with her [142-143] if she showed it to him like this. Taking a corner of her towel, she dipped it in the water and bathed her thumb, flinching as she squeezed out the gathering, feeling a dew of sweat break out on her face.

  She wouldn't tell him, for he had enough on his mind. Today they began the last lap of their journey and she knew he would be anxious to get to Tanga before nightfall, in order to get her off his hands, and to report to his senior officer. They'd have held Tanga from the insurgents if possible, and she couldn't selfishly pray that a whole town had fallen just to make it possible for her to remain with the man she loved.

  As she walked back to their camp site a speckled dragonfly danced ahead of her on huge gauzy wings, a glorious thing, like a flying jewel. And when she paused a moment to collect her composure, she saw, utterly still on a twig, a praying-mantis like a small green ghoul, waiting on its victim with a patience as terrible as its awful little face. The dragonfly and the mantis seemed to typify for Eve what she had found in the jungle . . . unexpected moments of beauty . . . nerve-wrenching moments of suspense.

  Wade had shaved and was pouring coffee when she joined him. He flicked his eyes over her face as he handed her the steaming mug. "You didn't sleep too well, did you?" he said. "I felt you tossing and even heard you muttering when you did drift off to sleep. Worrying about the situation at Tanga?"

  She nodded and sipped the coffee, whose sweet smokiness made it palatable. They both knew what was really troubling her, but today they must keep everything impersonal.

  "I'll dish up the fish," he said.

  [143-144] "Not for me, thanks." Eve couldn't have eaten a bite, for even the hot coffee couldn't dispel that sickish feeling at the pit of her stomach. "I'm not hungry--"

  "You should eat something, for once we get on the river I'm going to

  keep at it and we shan't be camping again today."

  "I--I can eat something in the boat later on." She handed him the mug so he could pour his own coffee. "Don't force me, Wade. I just haven't any appetite at present."

  He nodded, but was frowning to himself as he ate his own piece of fish and washed it down with the last of the brew. They packed everything and loaded the canoe, and Eve settled on to the seat, pulling down over her eyes the coolie hat he had made for her from plaited straw and leaves; it was rough and ready, but it shaded her eyes and the lining of leaves kept her head cool. Today it also had the advantage of partly concealing her eyes, which being the servants of her emotions kept straying to Wade as he wielded the paddle. His much-washed shirt was in a faded, torn state by now, and as the sun grew more fierce the khaki began to darken with moisture and his black hair clung in damp strands on his forehead.

  Today he wouldn't offer to let her paddle for a while, nor would she ask, for her left hand was hurting badly and the pain seemed to be in her wrist as well. She could feel the pressure of heat like a weight on her shoulders, and it must have been around noon when her head began to feel light, and the occasional sound of Wade's voice seemed to be across the river instead of a few feet across the boat. Her throat was dry as a bone and when she reached for the water-bottle it slipped [144-145] out of her grasp and she fumbled about in a listless way before retrieving it. Her lips shook against the rim when she tilted it to swallow the cooled boiled water, and dry as her throat was, the rest of her body felt sticky with perspiration. Her heart thudded and a feeling of acute dismay swept over her . . . oh God, she couldn't be feverish, could she? Not today, when Wade had made up his mind to reach Tanga and be rid of the responsibility of her.

  She had to hold on and not be any more of a burden to him than she had been.

  "You okay, Eve?" he asked, and again his voice seemed hollow and far away.

  She nodded. "I--I'll have a little nap to make up for last night." She slid down into a small heap, feeling as if her bones were dissolving.

  "You do that, honey," she heard him say. "When you wake up, we'll be home and dry."

  Those were the last words Eve was conscious of, for when her heavy eyelids sank down over her eyes she fell into the depths of a fever from which she awoke a long time later . . . home and dry, indeed . . . in the cool, ivory-walled bedroom of her guardian's house in Essex, where she had slept as a child and during the school holidays.

  She awoke thinking she was home from school; her face was hollowed and her foxfire hair was cut close to her head and the red gleam of it was dimmed.

  Eve had no recollection of Major Wade O'Mara, and was not to have any for a long time to come . . . jungle fever, trauma, exhaustion, had taken their toll, and she lay languidly in her fourposter bed at Lakeside and [145-146] believed herself to be recovering from a schoolgirl illness. The nurse who came and went in the lovely, high-ceilinged room didn't make any attempt to put her wise . . . that she had been like this for five weeks, ever since they had carried her off the last plane from Tanga, before the town had been overrun by the rebel army.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Eve leapt to meet the ball with her racket, swinging a graceful, slicing stroke that sent the ball whizzing past her opponent's shoulder. He laughed even as he lost the game to her, and ran towards the tennis net that divided them, the sun agleam on his rumpled dark hair and alight in his grey eyes. A very attractive young man in his white shirt and slacks, who gazed across at Eve with an appreciative smile as she spun her racket in the air and caught it, clad herself in a white tennis dress that revealed her slim tanned legs.

  "Come up to the house, Larry," she invited, "and have some tea with me."

  "With pleasure!"

  He joined her outside the hard court and they strolled together across the lawn towards Lakeside, considered one of the most gracious houses in this part of Essex. At the rear of the rambling, mullioned, red-tiled house was a lake and a gazebo, and sunken gardens aflame with wall-roses at this time of the year.

  Midsummer, and one of the warmest England had enjoyed for many a year, so that tennis was frequent and there was usually a friend or two for Eve to play with.

  They entered the lounge through ope
n glass doors, a long cool room whose walls were silver-grey, the perfect background for the fine suite of Regency furniture and the few fine paintings. Eve watched as Larry Mitchell looked around him, an appreciative gleam in his [147-148] eyes . . . Eve liked his eyes, and whenever she looked into them she felt a vague stirring of recollection, as though he reminded her of someone she had seen and forgotten.

  "You live in a nice house," he told her. "It suits you, Eve, to have gracious surroundings, and yet at the same time I suspect you have a streak of wildness in you somewhere--it comes out when you play against a chap, or ride that creamy-coated mare of yours. You seem to have two sides to you."

  "Hasn't everyone?" She pressed a finger to a bell attached to the wall. "We've all a sunny side and a shadowy one, haven't we? You as a budding doctor should know about the complexes and traumas that make people what they are. Are you still enjoying it at St. Saviour's, training under Clavering? It was he who operated on my arm that time I nearly lost it."

  Larry winced when Eve said that, and half-shyly he reached out and took hold of her slim left arm, running his fingers down to the inner part of the thumb where all that was left of that intricate operation was a white scar.

  "It's hard to believe, Eve, the way you can slam a tennis ball across the net, that you ever had blood-poisoning so bad that you almost lost your arm--such nice arms!"

  "Are you flirting with me?" She smiled a little, and found him very attractive and easy to tease. Larry never lost his temper, and yet she suspected that he, too, had a certain amount of temperament in his make-up. He had very definite views about certain things and once or twice had fallen into arguments with her guardian about the way the country was being run.

  "Rebellion is hard to put down once it flares," he had [148-149] said the other evening. "It could happen in England just as it's happened elsewhere."