A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  He stared broodingly out over the harbour. His own behaviour had not been blameless. After she had lost his son he had had as many women as he chose to reach out for. Sophisticated, clever, decorative women. Women whose husbands and fathers were the backbone of Hong Kong society. And there had been other women, too. Women like Alute. Practised women of great grace and beauty. And not one of them had touched his heart or his emotions. Until he had met Elizabeth Harland.

  He swung away from the window, his frown deepening. What the devil was it about her that so intrigued him? He was accustomed to beauty in the women who graced his arm. It wasn’t only her pale blonde beauty that intrigued him. It was something else. Some quality he had felt instantly in accord with. Beneath her smiles and her husky laughter she was as desperately lonely as he was, as out of touch with those around her, as untouchable, as unreachable. But not with him. She had felt the same instant recognition as he had done. He had seen it in her eyes, heard it in her voice. And she thought that by refusing to speak to him or to meet him she could escape the consequences of that recognition.

  A smile quirked the comers of his mouth. She was wrong. There were some things in life that were inescapable As she would very soon discover.

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Mrs Harland is not at home,’ Mei Lin said nervously as Elizabeth stood three feet away from her, every line of her body taut with tension.

  Raefe gave a disbelieving chuckle. ‘You make a bad liar, Mei Lin. Tell Mrs Harland that if she won’t speak to me I’m coming round. I’ll be there within ten minutes.’

  Elizabeth’s hand shot out for the telephone. ‘No!’ she gasped, appalled at her physical reaction to his voice, knowing that the last thing on earth she wanted was to confront him beneath her own roof.

  The tone of his voice changed. ‘I’ll meet you at the foot of Peak Road,’ he said gently.

  She opened her mouth to protest, but no sound came, and then she heard him replace his telephone receiver and she knew that she didn’t want to protest. She wanted to see him more than she had ever wanted to see anyone in her life.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said unsteadily to Mei Lin. ‘When Mr Harland returns from his game of golf, please tell him that I’ve gone for a drive and that I’ll be back in time for dinner.’

  ‘Yes, missy,’ Mei Lin said, but her eyes were worried, her voice unhappy. She liked Mr Elliot, but he had a bad reputation where women were concerned, and she knew that Mr Harland would not like it if he knew that his wife was surreptitiously meeting him.

  Elizabeth ran upstairs to her bedroom, taking a white linen jacket from her wardrobe, picking up her leather clutch-bag with the ivory clasp from her dressing-table. She paused for a moment looking at her reflection in the glass. Her hair was glossy and sleek, coiled low in the nape of her neck; her face was pale, almost ashen; her eyes enormous, the pupils large and dilated. It was the face of a woman on the edge of some dreadful abyss. And all she was doing was meeting Raefe Elliot at the bottom of Peak Road.

  She took a deep steadying breath. She was being a fool. He wasn’t interested in her. He was more than happy with his petite fragile-boned Malay girlfriend. And, if he were interested in her, it would make no difference. She was happily married to Adam. She was doing what women and men did in Hong Kong every day of the week. She was meeting an acquaintance of the opposite sex for a chat and possibly lunch, It was all perfectly harmless, and she was revealing a pathetic lack of sophistication by behaving as if it were an event of earth-shattering importance.

  Having suitably scolded herself, her hands were steadier as she reversed her Buick out of the large double garage. She would talk to him about Roman Rakowski. She had read in a London newspaper that he had been instrumental in helping the Polish violinist, Bronislaw Huberman, establish a first-class orchestra in Palestine, composed entirely of Jewish musicians who had fled Nazi persecution. It would be interesting to find out more about it Toscanini had conducted the inaugural concert, and she remembered Professor Hurok saying that the programme had been a large and demanding one, including works by Brahms, Rossini, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Weber.

  Her hands tightened on the wheel. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been able to talk intelligently about music with anyone. Adam listened to her politely when the London papers arrived and she was able to read the latest concert reviews. But he only listened to her, he didn’t enter into any discussion, and she knew that he was always relieved when the conversation turned to other subjects.

  The road twisted down between forests of bamboo and fern and stunted Chinese pines. Raefe Elliot wasn’t a musician. Why did she feel that she could talk to him about music? Why did she feel that she could talk to him about any subject under the sun? She sped past a traditional four-storey Chinese house that had been built by a rich merchant in age-old Chinese chauvinistic style, with one storey apportioned to each of his wives. Why did she feel so alive when she was with him? So aware of all her senses? She had looked at his hands on the wheel of his car when he had driven her to Sham Tseng and she had physically ached with the need to have them on her naked flesh. A wave of guilt surged up to wards her throat. Why had she never felt like that with Adam? Why, oh, why could she not yearn for Adam in the shameless way that she did for this man she barely knew? This man she was not in love with, never would be in love with, but who by the mere tone of his voice awakened a sensuality in her that had previously lain dormant.

  She sped round the last bend and saw his Lagonda parked beneath the trees. For a split second that she was to remember all her life she was tempted to speed past him. Her foot hovered over the accelerator, and then he opened his car door and stepped out on to the side of the road, tall and broad-shouldered in an open-neck silk shirt and white flannels, and her foot came down hard on the brake.

  She squealed to a halt in a cloud of dust, and he walked across to her and grinned. ‘That was quite an entrance. I could hear you coming for the last two miles.’

  She stepped out of the Buick feeling foolish, wondering if he thought she had driven at high speed out of burning impatience to be with him again, and then she saw the dark tilt of his brows and the line of his jaw, and the curve of his mouth, and she didn’t care what he thought.

  ‘It’s the car,’ she said with an answering grin, ‘It was made for America and wide open spaces. It doesn’t like cautious driving.’

  He took her arm lightly, proprietorially, and every sexual nerve-ending in her body screamed into life. ‘We’ll drive the rest of the way in the Lagonda,’ he said in amusement, ‘It’s British and much better behaved.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked as he opened the Lagonda’s door for her.

  ‘Somewhere quiet. Shek-O or Big Wave Bay.’

  ‘I haven’t brought a bathing-suit with me.’

  He walked round the car and slid into the seat next to her, punching the engine into life. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, and there was a wicked gleam in his eyes. ‘Neither have I.’

  He drove with swift expertise to Wong Nai Chung Gap and then, instead of plunging down the steep road to wards the south side of the island and the golden sands of Repulse Bay, he turned left on to a narrow road she had never travelled on before; it curved through densely wooded country, past a magnificent reservoir, and then it skirted the foot of Mount Collinson and wound down through giant banks of purple daphne and oleander, to the tiny village of Shek-O.

  The sea was azure, and beyond the headland two small islands lay, bathed in a heat haze, insubstantial as mist He drove on another mile or so, until the rough and unmade road petered out into the hills. They were at Big Wave Bay. The mountains soared up behind them, the bay was tiny and secluded, and there wasn’t another human being within sight.

  As she stepped out of the car, happiness struck through her like an arrow. It was a shock of joy so physical, so precisely marked, that she was to know, ever afterwards, the exact moment at which her world changed.

  ‘L
et’s swim.’ He was already pulling off his shirt, kicking off his shoes.

  She hesitated only for a second and then she shrugged herself free of her jacket, unzipping her skirt and letting it fall to the sand.

  Naked, he was even more hard-muscled and magnificent than she had imagined. His broad chest was covered with a light mat of crisply curling dark hair, his hips were narrow and he was as assured, as unself-conscious naked as he was when dressed in a white dinner-jacket summoning the waiter at the Peninsula or the Hong Kong Club.

  She unbuttoned her blouse, letting it fall at her feet, and then he reached out his hand for hers and, dressed only in her bra and panties and lace-edged underslip, she ran with him over the silver sand and plunged into the azure waves.

  The first shock of the water made her gasp aloud. A wave broke over her head, and then she struck out strongly, shaking the salt from her eyes, laughing with pleasure. He trod water for a second, white teeth flashing in his sun-bronzed face as he grinned across at her, making sure that she was at home in the water before he struck out in a smooth crawl.

  After the heat of the sand the water was blissfully cool and silky, the waves lifting her buoyantly, filling her with exhilaration. There was a faint breeze blowing off the land, its heady mixture of oleander and pine, sweet and sharp, coming in warm puffs through the salt smell of the sea.

  ‘Happy?’ he shouted across to her as they breasted the curve of the bay.

  An avalanche of foam crashed down on her, the next wave lifting her high and clear. ‘I feel as if I’ve died and gone to heaven!’ she shouted back exuberantly, twisting over to float and letting the waves lift and carry her, closing her eyes against the brilliance of the sky.

  He trod water, watching her, knowing that the whole course of his life had changed. He had thought himself in love once before and he had been grievously mistaken. He was not mistaken this time. At thirty-two, when he had thought himself too hardened ever to feel love for a woman again, he was experiencing the coup de foudre, the thunderclap of unreasoning instant infatuation. An infatuation he knew would endure. He swam across to her, his strong hands gently circling her waist.

  Her eyes shot open, a moment’s panic flared through them, and then she was treading water, facing him, her body pressed close against his, and as the heavy swell of the sea continued to lift them and let them fall he said harshly: ‘I want you! I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you.’

  Spray fell over them in a glittering sheet.

  ‘You’re crazy!’ she gasped, shaking her face free of water, her hands hard against his chest, excitement spiralling through her.

  ‘I know!’ White teeth flashed in a sudden grin. ‘But it’s true. And this is one place where you can’t run away from me!’

  She could feel his heart hammering beneath the palm of her hand, their legs were intertwined as they trod the green-blue water, spray cascaded from his hair, running in rivulets down his sun-tanned neck and on to his powerful shoulders. She felt herself groan, a deep agonized groan almost of pain, and then her arms slid up and around his neck, and as his mouth came down on hers in swift unfumbled contact her lips parted, her tongue slipping feverishly past his.

  A wave broke over them, forcing them apart. Water drummed in her ears, spray streamed down her face, and then she was above the surface once more and in the circle of his arms and his hands were on her breasts and her thighs as they swam and twisted and turned and touched like two sea-creatures, without restraint or inhibition.

  When they made for the shore she swam there on her back, her arms rising and falling with supple grace, her nipples dark and erect and taut against the saturated silk of her lingerie. He swam easily and strongly at her side, his dark eyes afire with what had previously only smouldered, constantly reaching out to her, sliding his hand along the satin smoothness of her leg, skimming her breasts, twisting on to his back and enjoying the touch of her body next to his as they effortlessly neared the shore.

  She felt the soft sand beneath her feet and stood, the waves foaming around her waist. She no longer felt sober or sane or remotely the person she had always believed herself to be. He stood naked at her side, like a magnificent animal, water pouring from the blue-black sheen of his hair, the lean tanned contours of his body rippling with strength and virility.

  As their eyes met and he seized hold of her hand, running with her up the sand, she felt a moment’s blind panic. What if her body betrayed her – denying her, as it had always done, the pleasure she had merely glimpsed?

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, his brows flying together in concern as he pulled her down beside him.

  ‘Nothing…,’ she gasped as he rolled his weight on top of her, imprisoning her beneath him. She couldn’t continue. She couldn’t tell him that she was terrified. That love-making had never been more than warmth and comfort and gentleness. That the fury and splendour of it had always been beyond her grasp.

  ‘You taste of salt,’ he said, and then, as his hands circled her wrists, holding her fast, he lowered his head to her breasts, taking a nipple into his mouth, and every sexual nerve-ending in her body screamed into life.

  There was no hesitancy about his movements, none of the near-apologetic reverence with which Adam approached her. He was utterly sure, dominantly masterful, and her response to him was instant.

  ‘Quickly! Quickly! Please!’ she moaned, spreading her legs wide, consumed by sexual passion, strung on exquisite chords that reached deep within her vagina, demanding satisfaction.

  He released her wrists, his hands like fire on her flesh as they ran down the flatness of her belly, the curve of her inner thighs, skimming the sea-wet golden curls of her pubis, the engorged lips pink and moist, craving for his touch.

  ‘Not yet, Lizzie,’ he whispered hoarsely as her hands tightened in his hair and her hips thrust upwards towards him ‘Not yet my darling.…’

  His mouth ground on hers, his tongue plunging deep as his hands ran down to her knees, back up the smoothness of her thighs, until at last when she thought she could bear no more his fingers slipped inside her and a low animal cry choked her throat She could feel herself slippery and wet as the heel of his hand moved with devilish expertise over her clitoris and then, as her nails gouged his back, as she pleaded with him to take her, his hands were once more on her breasts and he thrust deep inside her, filling her until she thought she would die with the pleasure of it.

  It was like nothing she had ever known. They moved together in a frenzy of passion, ascending together towards an unbearable summit. A summit she had never climbed before, never even imagined existed. Her hands tightened convulsively around him, her voice cried his name again and again and again as the ecstatic point of physical and emotional explosion was reached.

  Afterwards she lay gasping beneath him, wondering if, in the last few seconds, she had lost consciousness. The reverberations were still beating through her body, singing along her blood as though they would never end.

  He was panting harshly, looking down at her with almost ferocious triumph. He had known she had been scared. He had sensed, too, that despite being married she was almost virginly inexperienced. There had been a moment, right at the beginning, when he had felt her panic, her resistance, and he had overcome it as he would have done a filly that needed breaking. A smile touched the corners of his mouth, and then, with utmost tenderness, he lowered his head and kissed her gently on the mouth.

  ‘You’re very special, Lizzie,’ he said huskily, tracing the line of her cheekbone and jaw with the tip of his finger. ‘So special that I’m never going to let you go.’

  She gazed up into his dark gold-flecked eyes, so languorous from his lovemaking that she could hardly move. Slowly she shook her head against the sand.

  ‘No,’ she said, and there was the regret of a lifetime in her voice. ‘I’m not yours to keep or to let go, Raefe. I’m Adam’s, and what happened today.…’ Her voice thickened, as if it were full of smoke. ‘What happene
d today can never happen again.’

  She saw disbelief flash through his eyes, and then he rolled away from her, sitting up and grasping hold of her upper arms, pulling her towards him. ‘Don’t start being consumed by guilt!’ he said savagely. ‘I’m not wanting a couple of one-night encounters – a shallow little affair conducted at the Hong Kong Club and the Peninsula and interminable lunch-time cocktail-parties! When I say you’re going to be my lady, that’s exactly what I mean! Mine! For good. For keeps. Christ!’ His fingers tightened on her arms so that she cried out in pain. ‘I’m old enough to know that this sort of thing doesn’t happen twice in a lifetime! At my age there’s no such thing as infatuation, It’s love, and I’m damned well not going to squander it on a furtive cheap affair!’

  Through the depth of her pain she was aware of a deep all-pervading joy. He wasn’t a man who used words lightly. The cataclysm of passion which had overwhelmed her had overwhelmed him also. He believed himself to be in love with her, and she knew with a shock that left her almost senseless that against all reason she was deeply, irrevocably in love with him. But she would not see him again. Her loyalty lay elsewhere. Adam had given her his love for as long as she could remember. Together, slowly and with care, they had built something of value. She wasn’t going to jettison it because she had, at last, discovered the depths of her own sensuality.

  ‘I don’t want a furtive cheap affair, either, Raefe,’ she said gently, ‘and there is no alternative.’

  ‘There is!’ His eyes blazed as he sprang to his feet, pulling her up against him. ‘I want you to come and live with me! I want you to be divorced and I want to marry you!’

  She shook her head again, and the last remaining pin fell free. Her hair tumbled wetly to her shoulders, the sun burnishing it to silver.

  ‘No,’ she said again, and though her voice was low there was no equivocation in it. ‘My marriage is not like yours, Raefe. I’m not tied to a person I no longer love or respect. Adam has never done anything to harm or hurt me. All he has ever done is to give me his love, and I would never, ever hurt him.’