A Multitude of Sins

by Margaret Pemberton

  Dusk was falling rapidly as their rickshaw-boy drew up with a flourish in front of the traveller’s palms. ‘You go ahead for a shower, Beth,’ Adam said as they walked into the hotel. ‘I’m going to slip into the bar for five minutes and have a cooling stengah. My throat is parched.’

  She was only too happy to go straight up to their room. A brief glance into the barnlike lounge had shown no sign of Raefe, but he would be nearby somewhere, she was sure of it. Her hand trembled slightly on the banister as she walked quickly up the wide stairs. She was filled with such a mixture of dread and longing that she felt as though she were being torn inwardly apart. Once in the comparative safety of her room she dosed the door and leaned against it, her eyes closed.

  Would he have the temerity to join them for dinner? Was he even now sharing a drink with Adam? His determined pursuit sent waves of aching pleasure licking through her. He could have any woman he wanted for the asking. And he wanted her. She opened her eyes and moved across the room, switching on lamps, closing the blinds against the moths and the night-time sounds of crickets and bullfrogs. When she listened to people talking about him, even people who liked him, such as Julienne and Helena, she felt as if they were talking about a stranger. They weren’t talking about the Raefe that she knew. The Raefe who was as oddly vulnerable and as inwardly lonely as she herself was. The Raefe with whom she identified so completely.

  She unbuckled the narrow belt of her dress and stepped out of her shoes. There had been an almost instant fusion between them, not only physically but also mentally. She felt as if she had known him all her life. She laid her dress on the end of the bed and walked into the bathroom, turning on the shower, unfastening her bra and letting it fall to the cool tiled floor, removing her panties.

  The water gushed hot and strong, and she stepped beneath it, turning her face upwards. She wanted to be with him more than she had ever wanted anything, ever, in her life. Even more than she wanted success as a pianist. She wanted his face to be the last thing she saw at night when she closed her eyes. She wanted him to be the first thing she saw when she woke. She wanted to eat with him, sleep with him, laugh with him, cry with him. She wanted to sit across the breakfast-table from him, she wanted to watch him shave, she wanted to share his dreams and hopes. She wanted to be part of his life. Tears mingled with the hot rush of water. If only they had met years ago. If only she hadn’t married Adam. If only.…If only.…

  ‘There’s quite a good bunch down in the bar,’ Adam called out to her as he entered the bedroom. ‘Tin-miners out on the town. What they don’t know about the Japs isn’t worth knowing. You don’t mind if I have another chat with them later, after dinner, do you, Beth?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Beneath the roar of the shower her voice was unsteady. She wiped the futile tears away from her face, deeply ashamed. How could she ever wish that the last few years with Adam had never taken place? It wasn’t possible. Adam had always been a part of her life. His strong compassionate nature had been her support and her sustenance ever since she had been a child, and she could not wish herself free of it now, simply because the deeply sexual side of her nature had, at last, been unleashed.

  She stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself. ‘Was there anyone else in the bar?’ she asked, forcing her voice to sound uninterested. ‘Anyone we know?’

  ‘No,’ he said, his brows pulling together slightly. ‘It would be hardly likely, would it? The only person we know who’s in Singapore is Elliot.’

  She crossed to the dressing-table, sitting down before it and reaching for her make-up. He had told her all she wanted to know. Raefe wasn’t in the bar. And he hadn’t approached Adam suggesting that they all dine together. She felt a surge of relief that was immediately followed by fierce excruciating disappointment.

  Adam gave her a long puzzled look, and then walked into the bathroom to shower. Had she been referring to Elliot? Was she expecting him to be in the Long Bar this evening? Had she perhaps known all along that he would be in Singapore? He unbuttoned his sweat-soaked shirt and tossed it to the floor. The Singapore heat was getting to him, and he was being ridiculous. Elliot being at the docks when they had disembarked had been nothing but coincidence. And there was nothing remotely odd about him being in Singapore. His business interests must demand that he visit the city often.

  The water gushed hotly over his head, and as he reached for the soap he began to whistle. The idea of Beth indulging in an adulterous affair with Raefe Elliot was as ridiculous now as it had been when Alastair had first hinted at it. He grinned to himself, thinking how outraged she would be if she knew he had even considered such a thing a possibility.

  ‘Put your silver dance-shoes on,’ he called out to her as he soaped his chest and shoulders. ‘We’ll have another spin on the floor and a bottle of champagne to celebrate our first night here!’

  All through dinner she tried to relax and failed miserably. While Adam talked about the differences between Singapore and Hong Kong, her eyes flicked nervously away from his animated face and around the crowded dining-room. There was no sign of Raefe. She felt her throat tighten, torn by conflicting emotions.

  ‘One of the chaps I was drinking with earlier used to be a stockbroker, travelling up to town from Brighton every day on the eight-fifteen. He threw it all in five years ago and came out here. He says he hasn’t regretted a day of it.’

  Elizabeth smiled and toyed with her satay, wondering if, concealed by one of the many giant potted ferns, Raefe was watching them as they ate and talked.

  Later, in the Long Bar, she did her best to listen attentively as Adam and his new-found friends discussed the Japanese and their empire-building intentions.

  ‘I’m sorry … I didn’t quite hear,’ she said apologetically as one of the planters waited, his eyes appreciative, for her to respond to the last remark he had made to her.

  ‘I said that the war in Europe has been no bad thing for Malaya,’ he repeated obligingly, wishing to God that her husband wasn’t there and that he could let his eyes rove below the enticing neckline of her dress. ‘America is panicking like mad and demanding more rubber than she has been doing for an age. We have over three million acres of it under cultivation, you know, and half the world’s tin.’ His Australian accent was full of pride, as if he were personally responsible for the country’s natural richness.

  She managed a smile. ‘Then, it’s no wonder the Japanese have an unhealthy interest in Malaya.’

  The Australian laughed. She was intelligent as well as stunning to look at. ‘Have another drink,’ he said expansively, turning round and banging his fist on the bar to attract the barman’s attention.

  Elizabeth suppressed a shudder and touched Adam’s arm lightly, saying; ‘I really don’t want any more to drink, darling. Or any more of this conversation. Do you mind if I slip away? It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he said, his eyes darkening with concern as they always did at the least indication that she was uncomfortable or unhappy. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  She shook her head, knowing that he was enjoying his conversation about Japanese intentions and Britain’s ability to deal with them. ‘No, of course not. I’m going to go for a short walk in the grounds and then have a long bath before I go to bed.‘ She gave his arm a loving squeeze, said goodnight to the disappointed Australian, and walked quickly through the lounge and along the arcade that skirted the ballroom and led to the gardens.

  Raefe hadn’t been in the dining-room, and he hadn’t been in the bar. She had been wrong in her assumption that he would be. As she stepped out into the hot sultry darkness she knew that if only she could persuade Adam to change his mind and leave Singapore in the morning for Kuala Lumpur or Johore, then the confrontation she so dreaded would be avoided.

  The narrow gravel path she had taken wound down between soaring traveller’s palms and high banks of ghostly blossomed hibiscus and sweet-smelling juniper. Th
ousands of stars spangled the night sky, burning with breathtaking brightness, and she paused, looking up at them, recognizing the Pleiades and Orion and the familiar curve of the Hyades.

  From somewhere behind her, in the scented darkness, there came a soft footfall and the sound of a match spurting into flame. She spun round, her heart leaping into her throat, knowing who it was even before he rounded the curve of the path. A second later the hibiscus blossoms trembled, milk-white petals fluttering to the ground.

  ‘I thought you were never going to have the sense to come out here,’ he said, and the match and the cigarette he had just lit both went fizzing down among the dry juniper needles as he covered the distance between them in an easy stride, taking her in his arms.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She tried to push herself free of him, tried to cry out. in protest, but the touch of his hand on her flesh, the hard muscular strength of his body, the feel of his heart slamming close against hers were too much for her. With a groan she swayed against him, brought almost to insensibility by the pleasure of his touch.

  ‘No…,’ she whispered desperately as he raised her face to his. ‘Oh, please, Raefe, no.…’

  In the moonlight his lean high-cheekboned face was merciless. ‘Yes,’ he breathed harshly, lowering his head to hers, holding her with brutal strength.

  Vainly she tried to wrest her mouth from his, but her need of him, her raging urgent desire confounded her and left her helpless. For one brief brave moment she struggled and then his hair was coarse beneath her fingers, his hands hard upon her body, and his mouth was dry as her tongue slipped past his lips.

  Her capitulation was total, irrevocable. When his hands slid up beneath the soft silk of her dress, she made no protest, pressing herself closer to him with shameless hunger.

  ‘I want you, Lizzie.… Want you …,’ he uttered hoarsely, and though beyond his shoulder she could see the lights of the ballroom gleaming between the trees and the painted Chinese lanterns that decked the terrace she said only in a wanton raw voice that she no longer recognized; ‘Yes! Here! Now! Oh, please! Quickly, Quickly!’

  There were no preliminaries; he didn’t even lower her to the ground. Like a stag on heat that cannot wait another moment for copulation, he slammed her against a tree and took her where she stood.

  Afterwards, as they clung together in the hot moist darkness, reverberations of their shattering climax still shuddering through them, he said: ‘You will, of course, tell Adam what has happened? And return to Hong Kong with me.’

  She moved away from him slightly, and her hair, which had fallen free of its pins, shimmered in wild disarray about her shoulders. ‘No,’ she said quietly, her voice brooking no argument. ‘I shall not tell Adam. It would break his heart. And I shall not return to Hong Kong with you.’

  His brows flew together. ‘This isn’t a repeat of what you said to me at Shek O, is it?’ he asked fiercely. ‘You can’t possibly imagine that you can walk away from me again! That I would even allow you to.’

  She shook her head, and her hair gleamed in the moonlight, pale as ivory. ‘No,’ she said softly, her arms tightly around his waist, her head against his chest. ‘I shall never walk away from you again, but if you want me, Raefe, it must be on my own terms.’

  ‘And those are?’ he demanded harshly, tilting her face to his, his eyes burning hers.

  ‘That I remain with Adam.’ He made a savage sound of protest, and she continued, her voice almost as fierce as his had been: ‘I owe Adam my loyalty, Raefe. He has loved me and cared for me all my life, and I care for him. Very much.’ His frown deepened, and she said more gently; ‘Don’t confuse my loyalty with my love, Raefe. I can only give one to Adam. You have both. Surely it is enough?’

  He said, his voice still tight: ‘It isn’t what I want.’

  ‘It’s all I can give.’

  All around them crickets rattled their legs in continuous whirring. From the terrace there came the sound of subdued laughter and the clink of glasses. There was a stayed in the Army and become a general. Good night, darling. God bless.’

  He blew her a kiss across the narrow divide of their beds and turned off the bedside light, happy that he wasn’t travelling to Kuala Lumpur the next morning, and happy that Beth was no longer consumed by the restlessness that had seriously begun to worry him.

  She didn’t see Raefe for three days. Unspoken, but understood between them, was their mutual desire that Adam should be treated with as much respect as was possible. There would be no apparently ‘innocent’meetings when Adam was present.

  She was no longer torn apart by inner turmoil. She had reached her Rubicon and crossed it, and there could be no going back. The knowledge brought with it a peace of mind that she had thought she would never regain. The next morning they hired a car and explored the island at their leisure. It was rich and verdant, the city sprawling out till it merged into an exotic jungle of casuarina trees, and flame trees and bushes with thick juicy leaves, infested by screeching monkeys and vividly coloured birds. They drove across to the north coast, looking out over the narrow strait that separated the island from the Malay Peninsula.

  ‘The Japanese couldn’t possibly attack Singapore in the same way that they could Hong Kong,’ Elizabeth said, standing on the palm-fringed beach and shielding her eyes against the sun as she looked towards Johore. ‘They would have to fight their way down the entire peninsula. It simply couldn’t be done. The ground is too mountainous and the vegetation too thick, even for tanks.’

  She was wearing a pair of white slacks and a cornflower-blue blouse, open at the throat. He looked across at her and grinned. ‘You sound even more knowledgeable than Denholm Gresby.’

  She laughed and then said, a small frown puckering her brow: ‘I don’t think Sir Denholm is knowledgeable at all. At least, not where Hong Kong is concerned.’

  Adam raised his binoculars, sweeping them round in an attempt to locate strategically placed pillboxes. There was none to be seen. He was not unduly surprised. There was no urgent necessity for them. Singapore, unlike Hong Kong, was a fortress that was impregnable, and he had been wrong in thinking there would be anything to learn in the way of coastal defence.

  ‘Well, where Singapore is concerned, there’s not too much to worry about,’ he said, lowering his binoculars. ‘Though where the Japs are concerned anything could happen. They’re just crazy enough to believe an attack could succeed.’ He wiped a bead of perspiration from the back of his neck with his handkerchief. ‘Where to now? What about the Sea View Hotel for a nice curry tiffin? The fellows in the bar highly recommended it.’

  ‘Fine,’ she said agreeably as they turned away from the sea and began to walk back towards their car. ‘Where is it? Back in the city?’

  ‘No, it’s on the east-coast road. Apparently the Britishers here treat it as a kind of English village pub. You know, drinks before lunch on a Sunday and a good old sing-song into the bargain.’

  She slipped her arm through his. ‘You’re making me feel homesick. I haven’t thought of Four Seasons for ages. Do you think Sundays at home are still the same, or do you think the war will have altered everything?’

  ‘For the moment, I suspect they will still be the same,’ Adam said as he opened the door of their hired Mercedes tourer. ‘The newspapers are calling it the phoney war. Nothing seems to be happening at the moment. Let’s hope nothing does.’

  It was on the Wednesday that Adam asked her if she would like to spend an afternoon, free of his company, shopping. She knew immediately that it was because he had plans of his own that he wanted to follow.

  ‘Where is it that you want to go?’ she asked teasingly. ‘On a binge with your drinking chums of the other night?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said good-humouredly, filling the bowl of his pipe with tobacco. ‘There’s a card game on, and I wouldn’t mind chancing my luck. That is, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course I don’t mind. Just make sure you don’t lose your shirt,
that’s all. I imagine that those rubber-planters are pretty sharp card-players!’

  She had telephoned Raefe at the number he had given her, and told him that she was free for the whole afternoon. ‘But I’m supposed to be shopping. Could you pick me up at Robinsons? I’ll call in there first and buy a dress.’

  ‘You have ten minutes,’ he threatened, his voice thickening with desire. ‘If you’re not at Robinsons’front entrance by ten past one, I shall come into the dress department and carry you bodily out of it!’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ she said, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushed as she put the receiver back on its rest, grabbing hold of her handbag and running from the room.

  Robinsons was a huge store in Raffles Place, only a stone’s throw from the hotel. She hurried up to the dress department, taking the first dress she saw and waltzing it over to be wrapped and boxed without even trying it on.

  ‘But, madam, surely it would be wisest to see if it fits…,’ the shop assistant protested in dazed bewilderment.

  ‘It will fit perfectly,’ Elizabeth said, feeling as euphoric as if she were drunk. ‘Please wrap it for me quickly; I’m in a terrible hurry!’

  He was waiting for her as she emerged five minutes later. ‘You only just made it,’ he said, laughing down at her as she hurtled into his arms. ‘I was on my way in to retrieve you.’

  In the strong sunlight his black hair had a blue sheen and the lean sunbronzed planes of his face looked almost Arabic. Uncaring of the shoppers thronging around them, her arms slid up and around his neck, her lips parting eagerly as he lowered his head to hers.