Moth to the Flame

by Maxine Barry

  Davina leaned against a wall and regarded him. ‘Tell me, Gavin, what do you think your chances are of passing your finals this summer?’ she asked casually.

  The handsome waster grinned, a shade unconvincingly, at this sudden change in topic. He managed to shrug one shoulder nonchalantly. ‘Piece of cake,’ he boasted.

  ‘Really? I thought your tutors had given you several written warnings that, unless you bucked your ideas up, you were likely to get an Unclassified.’

  Gavin scowled, all sense of intrigue and sexual interest suddenly taking a nosedive. ‘Here, are you a College Trustee or something? Or did my old man send you?’

  Davina laughed. ‘Gavin, I have a proposition for you. You and I both know that you’re about as likely to get your BA as I am likely to sprout wings and fly to Barbados. Right?’ Gavin opened his mouth, about to deny it, then closed it just as quickly again. He sensed she was way out of his league. He’d begun to think of himself as a real ladies’ man—a real man of the world. But just five minutes in the company of this woman, and he felt like a gauche schoolboy. Something about the cat-like gleam in those green eyes warned him that it wouldn’t pay to play games with her.

  ‘Yeah. That’s right, I suppose,’ he mumbled unwillingly.

  Davina nodded. Good. This was going to work. She felt herself relax a little. ‘Gavin, let’s face it. You’re between a rock and a hard place,’ Davina said, her voice hardening now. ‘You’re due to leave here in the summer, just another student flooding the employment market without even a BA to show for it. Right?’

  Gavin looked down at his feet. ‘Yeah. I suppose that’s about the size of it,’ he admitted grudgingly.

  ‘So. Leaving here in June with a couple of thousand pounds to see you through until you can find something will be very handy, won’t it?’

  Gavin looked at her, something gleaming behind those bright eyes of his. He could take off. See the world. Back-pack across America. Get out of the rat-race.

  Davina, recognising the gleam, if not the dream, smiled. ‘Exactly. And that’s what I’m offering you. Two thousand pounds, paid into the bank account of your choice. And all you have to do for it, is do me a little favour.’

  The gleam died. ‘Do I look stupid, lady?’ he said gruffly. ‘I don’t do drugs, or . . .’

  Davina snarled. ‘I’m not talking about drugs,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t do drugs either.’

  Gavin let out a long slow breath of relief. Then tensed again. ‘It ain’t legal though, is it?’ he challenged. ‘Nobody offers you two grand for something legal.’

  Davina leaned back against the wall, and shook her head. ‘It’s not, strictly speaking, a crime,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You won’t go to jail, or anything like that.’

  Gavin grunted. ‘It will be messy though, won’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she sighed wearily. It’ll be messy all right.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  And there it was, Davina thought. The moment of truth. He was hooked. The trap was set. All she had to do was say the word . . . And she didn’t want to. She knew the blankness of her mind might be permanent if she did. She might be destroying herself, by destroying him. By destroying Gareth. She would hurt other people as well. She could simply walk away now, with only her own pain to contend with . . .

  She turned and looked at Gavin Brock. ‘I’m going to send you a copy of some of the papers that are in this year’s finals. I want you to say that you gave Dr. Gareth Lacey a thousand pounds for the copy. And that you know a lot of other students have done the same.’

  * * *

  Gareth lit the single red candle, and stood back, his eyes sweeping over the table with a satisfied smile. He’d taken the delicate champagne flutes from the cabinet, and brought a bottle of Bollinger from the fridge. He’d ordered in from a local restaurant salmon mousse, followed by a fresh seafood platter, with exorbitantly-priced fresh strawberries and cream for dessert. The scouts, bless ’em, had provided him with a stiffly starched pure white linen table cloth, and the candle, and a little posy of primroses and tiny narcissus for a centre piece. He went to the door and dimmed the lights, until the single candle flame flickered in the high-ceilinged, panelled room. He was dressed in black slacks and a pale mint green silk shirt, and when the knock came on the door he felt his heart leap into his throat.

  He walked slowly across the Aubusson carpet, savouring every single heart-beat of anticipation. When he opened the door to her, his breath caught, somewhere between his sternum and his throat. She was wearing a white silk blouse, with no bra beneath. He could clearly see the outline of her breasts, and the dark aureoles of her nipples. He wondered if she’d worn the coat all the way across, or whether she’d taken it off as soon as she’d reached the hall in Walton. And, if she’d taken it off, whether any students had been coming or going.

  With the sheer top, she was wearing a pair of lavender trousers, cut closely against her shapely thighs, but cropped an inch or two below her knees, giving her the look of a young and carefree girl. Long, dangling earrings of beaten gold disks almost touched her shoulders.

  He opened the door further and let her in, still without speaking a word.

  Davina walked into the room and stopped dead. In all the times she’d visited his Rooms, she’d never seen it look like this. The candle, the flowers, the silver, the fire dancing merrily in the grate, the drawn curtains, the scent of narcissus wafting in the warm currents of air . . .

  She kicked off her high-heeled shoes as she walked towards the table, and stood looking down at it. ‘Why all the trouble?’ she asked softly, turning to look back at him. She’d found his dinner invitation waiting for her when she’d returned. And decided she now had no choice but to accept.

  With the plan set, she had to stay close to him and make sure he walked into it.

  Gareth too kicked off his shoes as he moved towards her, the rug feeling soft against his bare feet. ‘It’s a celebration,’ he explained, his voice husky with emotion.

  The candlelight highlighted the soft spikes of her hair, the point of her chin, the gleam of green eyes and the soft contours of her breasts, beneath the silk. She looked like a conquering angel standing there—dangerous, beautiful, beguiling . . . He knew he’d never know another woman like her. Would never feel this depth of pain and pleasure again, this dizzying sensation of love and need and desire and uncertainty.

  Davina was thinking of only hours ago. Of Gavin Brock’s greed, and her own ruthlessness. Of the trap that she’d set, that would destroy this man . . .

  ‘Davina,’ he said, the agony and joy in his voice making her head whip round. He was walking towards her, drawing a small jeweller’s box from his trouser pocket. Her heart lurched, threatened to stall. For one insane moment, she thought she was going to die, right here, right now, like a heroine from one of her poems, stricken down in her moment of betrayal. She swayed a little.

  ‘The candle is for the candle in “The Flame Moth”,’ he whispered. ‘You told me you’d finished it.’

  Davina struggled to come back to reality. Blinked. ‘“The Flame Moth”,’ she whispered. ‘Oh yes. I have.’ She took a shaken breath. Fought for familiar ground. ‘I decided that the metre I’ve chosen for my St Agnes’ verse is too steady, too regular. Have you ever seen a moth in flight in slow motion? It’s all over the place . . . out of control . . . I thought I’d forget the pentameter poetry, and a syllable count . . .’

  It was no good. Not when he was upon her now, the box opening, his ocean-grey eyes bathing her, drowning her . . .

  ‘Davina,’ he said softly, and opened the box, displaying the most beautiful Moth she’d ever seen. It had a lustrous grey pearl for its body, silver filigree wings studded with tiny diamonds, and sapphire eyes. She almost fainted.

  Not a ring! Thank everything in creation, not a ring!

  She swayed as he reached out to pin the exquisite, delicate brooch to the silk above her right breast. His fingers brus
hed the rounded curves beneath as he fastened it, and she gasped as her nipples burgeoned against the touch of his fingers. She swayed further towards him, like her moth had to its flame, falling against him, dragging him down with her on to the rug in front of the blazing fire. His lips clung to hers as he ran his fingers over her prominent cheekbones, learning the curves of her face like a blind man learns Braille.

  She kissed him hungrily, desperately, her mind a blank no more, but filled with him. The sound, the sight, the romanticism of him. He was a man out of his time, she thought dizzily. He belonged in the age of Byron and Shelley.

  ‘Gareth,’ she pulled his mouth from hers, dragging his head to her breast. She felt his tongue flick out, and caress her nipple. Her back arched as she held him against her, her head thrashing from side to side on the rug. She pushed the shirt from his skin, running her hands across his shoulders, loving the smooth warm slide of his flesh against her hands. Her palms travelled over his back, to the indent at the base of his spine, and down, over the curved mounds of his tightly-clenched buttocks. He gasped against her, raised his head to look down into her smokey green eyes.

  ‘“The Flame Moth”,’ he said. ‘It’s for me, isn’t it?’ One part of him told him he was mad to take that for granted; that it was sheer arrogance to suppose that he was the inspiration behind it. Another part of him demanded she prove her love for him.

  Davina thought of that poem she’d just finished—the hypnotic and glorious death that was the candle flame, the heroic, hopeless, singed death of the moth . . . and nodded.

  ‘Yes Gareth,’ she whispered huskily, tears coursing from her eyes now. ‘It’s for you.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Davina leaned back against the Jaguar’s cream leather upholstery as they purred their way up the Woodstock Road.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked curiously, looking across at Gareth, one delicately shaped eyebrow arched in enquiry.

  ‘You’ll see when we get there,’ he murmured mysteriously and Davina smiled, enjoying the game. He was making a big thing of this morning’s adventure, but she was more than content to let him. Last night, after he’d given her the moth, was the first she’d spent sleeping in his arms. His bed had been big and soft and warm, and their skin contact had lulled her to sleep. This morning he’d brought her breakfast in bed, and an invitation to accompany him on a mystery tour.

  His eyes strayed to her profile, and for once she looked relaxed and even slightly sleepy. He drove north-west, towards the Cotswolds, feeling at peace with the whole world.

  He sighed deeply, the echo of last night’s tender passion stirring gently in his bloodstream. He turned on the radio and the car was filled with a Diva singing about love, and the man who was leaving her. Davina gave a small sigh of bliss, as the scenery passed in a froth of white blackthorn blossom.

  Gareth, while driving his fast car along a modern road, was a man with one foot firmly in the past, and knew it. He loved the idea of a time when women and men had been prepared to kill, and die, for love. An age when men fought duels for a woman’s honour, when lovers died tragically young. But he was no idle dreamer.

  His career had been a great success, and he’d written volumes on Donne, Hunt, Keats and Brooke which graced practically every serious library in Britain, and beyond. Meeting, marrying, and losing his wife, all in such a short period of time, had left him feeling burnt out, wary, and emotionally lost. Now, after all his years at St Bede’s, he was wealthy, respected, confident, content. He was, by any criteria, a successful man. But it wasn’t until this woman had come into his life, this wild, wonderful, savage, original creature called Davina Granger, that he realised that being safe was not what he needed. Not what he wanted any more.

  No matter how cleverly he’d linked his passion for poetry with a pragmatic approach to life and career, he could no more back away from this wild, dangerous romance, than he could turn lead into gold. Part of him understood that any kind of life with Davina Granger would be a life fraught with trouble. A roller-coaster ride that would leave him white-knuckled and holding on by his fingertips. But if he didn’t join her on the merry-go-round, there would be no more evenings like last night. No more conversations like that very first one. No more mornings, waking up, wondering what mad, bad, or dangerous thing she was going to do today.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Davina suddenly asked softly, making him glance from the road and look across at her. She’d been watching him for some time now, fascinated by the subtle play of emotions criss-crossing his face.

  She realised she loved his face. Those wings of dark hair, lifting gently in the breeze from the open window. Those deep, grey, mysterious eyes, with their fringe of dark lashes. The sharp nose. The firm lips. He wore tortoiseshell glasses when he read, she’d discovered yesterday. He had a way of being silent, and yet filling a space with his presence. He was all male and yet sensitive to the needs of others.

  Gareth was proving to be . . . everything she’d ever wanted in a man. Which was annoying.

  Although she was loath to admit it, she knew that Gareth Lacey was the one man she’d ever met who wouldn’t try to tame her, like a pet cat. The one man in the world who actually understood that poetry wasn’t just what she wrote, but what she was. The one man who’d understand her mood swings, and wouldn’t get angry or bored with her mercurial temperament. And, now, the one man whose mind was always turning, underneath the calmness of his face, just as her own did.

  ‘I want to know what you were thinking?’ she said again, with just a sharp edge of insistence in her voice now.

  Gareth smiled. ‘Nothing earth-shattering. I was just thinking how out of place I am in this modern world of ours,’ he mused.

  Davina’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you? You seem to have it pretty much licked, as far as I can see. A cushy job. Respect,’ she forced herself to choke the word out. ‘Your choice of women. What more does a modern man want?’

  Gareth frowned, surprised by her sudden venom.

  ‘You sound as if you hate me,’ he said quietly. He indicated left, leaving the dual carriageway, and heading towards the picturesque Cotswold village of Duns Tew.

  ‘I do,’ Davina said simply.

  Gareth caught his breath.

  She was wonderful.

  ‘Good,’ he said softly. ‘Just as long as you’re never indifferent.’

  Davina fought back the urge to launch herself at him. Whether in attack, or to rip the clothes off him and ravish him, she wasn’t quite sure. Any other man in the world would have been appalled by what she’d said. Would have been tongue-tied, or angry, or shell-shocked. But not this one.

  ‘And I think I’m hating you more and more with every minute that passes,’ she whispered.

  Gareth, pulling up into a small, narrow lane, reached out and took her hand. He braked the car to a halt, switched off the engine, then turned in the seat, and looked into her stormy cat-like eyes. ‘Kiss me,’ he commanded. And she did. Hard. Grinding her lips against his, forcing his head back against the leather headrest, their tongues duelling. Gareth felt his body leap as she clambered across the gear stick, her knees on either side of him, pressing herself hard against him. He felt himself grow hard against her. She reached down for his zip, freeing him, dragging her own dress, a long, loose confection of tiny poppies against a cornflower blue sky, high up over her thighs. He groaned.

  A car passed them, the driver giving them an astonished double-take.

  Davina slowly lifted her lips. Her lipstick was smudged, and she impatiently wiped her mouth clean on the back of her hand. Her hand curled around him. He felt so vulnerable in her hand. And yet so full of promising male power.

  She felt his hips lift beneath her, but the car’s bucket seat was too small and low-slung to allow him much room for manoeuvre. She watched his eyes drift closed, heard a low, rumbling moan roll past his lips. She removed her hand and leaned back. His eyes snapped open. She glanced around them, and smiled as a postman’s v
an overtook them. Then she looked back at Gareth and shrugged graphically.

  ‘We’ll be seen,’ she said regretfully.

  ‘You don’t care a damn if we’re seen or not,’ he shot back, his voice husky and dark.

  ‘True.’

  ‘You’re just doing this to torture me,’ he persisted.

  Davina smiled. ‘I know,’ she leaned forward, her eyes only inches from his. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

  ‘No,’ Gareth said softly. He swallowed hard. ‘No. Never stop.’

  Davina felt a sexual punch of desire hit her solidly in the very heat of her femininity. ‘You’re determined to be my soul mate, huh?’ she whispered, eyes glittering.

  ‘I am your soul mate.’

  ‘What? The oh-so-respected, well-established, Oxford don?’

  Gareth leaned back in the seat, his body slowly, reluctantly, letting the clamour for release drain out of him as he realised she was not going to make love to him. He smiled gently. Whimsically. ‘You don’t like St Bede’s?’ he asked softly.

  Davina laughed. ‘Oh, it’s all right. For what it is. But I wouldn’t want to live there for ever.’

  ‘No. Neither would I,’ he said. And took her utterly by surprise, both with his strength of body, and strength of mind, when he shifted her up off his lap in a one-armed lift, and thrust her to one side. He got out, opening his door and then walking around to her side, gallantly opening her own door for her. Bemused, Davina slid out. ‘Which is why,’ Gareth continued, turning around and holding out a hand towards the building opposite them, ‘I’ve bought this place.’

  Davina looked long and hard into his face for one endless moment, then turned and looked at the cottage in question.

  It was on the very edge of the village. A simple, classic, thatched Cotswold cottage, made of pale Cotswold stone, gleaming like clotted cream in the spring sunshine. The thatch had been renewed last year, she could see, and was the indeterminate colour of straw weathered to a tan brown. The windows were low, ancient, and newly-painted white. The door was set straight as an arrow in the very centre of the building. A chimney stood at one end. Surrounded by a dry stone wall, the garden was already frothing with spring colour—from early wallflowers, to blue and pink hyacinths.