Cast a tender shadow

by Dix, Isabel

  to write those letters and . .

  `No, Kate—wait !' Charles had got to his feet with one easy move, reaching out a hand to clasp her wrist. There was a lazy smile at his lips, the dark eyes glinted mischievously as they tried to penetrate the smoked glass hiding her eyes. 'You gave me a shock. I jumped to the wrong conclusion, that's all.'

  `You would,' she said with a coldness that belied the torment his touch brought. 'Anyway, Madeau is concerned about the situation. She seems to think you'll give them notice now that she's having a baby, and...'

  `I don't believe Madeau said any such thing.' He seemed amused rather than annoyed at her implication of his intolerance. 'And if it will soften that disapproving expression, be assured that I'm delighted about Madeau and Georges. And their baby.'

  `You didn't seem to be delighted when first I mentioned it.'

  `Ah, but then, Kate, I thought that you...'

  `I know what you thought . . .' Her words had a hint of wildness about them. But why should you care? If it had been my baby why should it have mattered to you?'

  `That I don't know, Kate.' There was a stillness about him, a watchfulness about his dark face as he answered. 'I only know it would have mattered to me—a great deal.' He ignored her hasty, weak attempt to wrest her wrist from his strong grasp, diverting her attention by putting up a hand to take the sunglasses from her eyes. 'You know, Kate,' his tone was reflective as if his interest were professional rather than personal, `you should never hide those eyes behind smoked glass. It's a pity to deprive the rest of us of the pleasure.'

  Kate's swift attempt to snatch at the glasses was

  thwarted as he laughingly held them at arm's length. `Please,' she asked in a tone of thinly veiled anger, `would you give them back to me?'

  `Why, Kate?' Now he was jeering. 'So you can hide behind them again? What are you afraid of? Why do you wear the ugliest clothes you can find and pull back your hair so that you look like some old washerwoman?'

  `How dare you!' she gasped, jerked out of her cool control by his unflattering comparison.

  `Why, Kate?' His voice softened, bringing the treacherous sliding weakness she feared so much. `When you can look as you did lying asleep on that chair? So beautiful, my Kate, that a man could lose himself in you.' As he spoke he reached up his hand, touching her hair, trickling his fingers down over her shoulder, holding her chin firmly so that there was no escape from his searching eyes. 'Why, Kate?' he asked softly.

  Unable to wrench her gaze from his, Kate tried to collect her thoughts, made an effort to resist the longing to relax against that broad chest, to spread her fingers over the warm skin and then at last to raise her mouth to his. 'Why?' she echoed woodenly, trying to ignore the tumult of desire that was threatening to absorb and control her entire body. 'Because,' she closed her eyes, determined to exclude his disturbing masculinity at least from her vision, 'because I thought it would have been clear enough—I think of it as a penance.'

  `A penance?' It was obvious that she had caught him on the raw, and that fact gave her strength enough to open her eyes.

  `Yes, a penance. Which I will give up only when I see Antoine again.'

  `I see.' As he spoke the words reflectively, apparently debating whether or not her answer was a credible one, his hand dropped from her chin and he released her arm. And strangely Kate, who an instant before had been so anxious to escape, lost all inclination to do so. 'I see,' Charles repeated. 'But you must be careful, Kate. For should you overdo it, you might find that if Antoine comes back unexpectedly he won't recognise you as the beautiful girl he fell in love with in London.'

  `I don't think there's any danger.'

  `Of course there isn't.' He smiled at her again, then reached out for her glasses which he had dropped on to the table and perched them on her nose. 'But now I think I'll join you in a swim.' He bent to pick up his shirt from the chair. 'You'll wait till I change?'

  `All right.' Kate had had no intention of being so amenable, but even when Charles turned towards the house she couldn't quite make up her mind to run upstairs and shut herself in her bedroom. Besides, she made the excuse, knowing that she was being dishonest with herself, the water, dazzling blue and limpidly inviting, would have the same effect as a cold shower.

  Charles was as powerful a swimmer as she would have imagined for a man with his physique, but as it was the one sport at which she excelled Kate felt no diffidence about her own performance She knew that he had to slacken his pace to suit hers as they stroked up and down the length of the pool, but when he began to toss about the large ball which had been lying on the surface, she relaxed, forgot about her tensions as she stroked with her powerful overarm crawl in pursuit of it.

  `You're quite a girl,' he grinned at her as, insisting that she was exhausted, she climbed the short flight of steps at the corner of the pool.

  `Yes?' The implied compliment pleased her, and she smiled, breathlessly pushing back from her face the strands of sodden hair.

  `Yes.' The slash of white in his dark face disappeared slowly, his hand came out linking round her neck, pulling her irresistibly against him. 'Kate.' His voice was incredibly low and deep, his eyes dark and sensuous.

  She quivered slightly, unable to move away from him yet wholly aware of the danger implicit in their closeness. A hand moved to her waist, sliding down to where the plunging back of her suit ended. It was strange to shiver when this burning fevered excitement possessed her. With a fluttering little sigh she allowed herself to be pulled against him, felt the pressure of his limbs against hers, at last able to spread her fingers over the cool dampness of his skin.

  `Kate.' Softly spoken, half groan, half triumphant declaration, her name seemed to linger on his lips. `Kate, cherie:

  His hands tightened about her, their bodies longed to merge, and their lips. The dark-fringed lids dropped over the violet eyes, yet she saw his mouth moving towards hers, the teeth gleamed as his mouth parted to enclose hers.

  And then there was the sound of heels tapping sharply on the tiled paving at the side of the house. They heard Madeau speak, followed by another, a lighter, more brittle female voice. Brutally, painfully, Kate found herself thrust away, heard a muttered im-

  precation from Charles before he turned in a sudden dive to resurface at the furthest corner of the pool. Kate stood, feeling the blood drain from her heart. It was as if the world had been unexpectedly offered to her on a plate. And as suddenly snatched away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  BLINDLY Kate reached for the rope handle at the side of the steps and with its support was able to drag herself out of the water to stand, feeling faintly sick, on the side of the pool. At the far end she could see Madeau lean over the water to say something to Charles. Madeau had a slightly worried expression on her face, but Charles was looking beyond her to a figure standing by the table. Kate watched him smile, then with a single lithe move heave himself from the pool and walk casually, arrogantly over to the immaculately dressed woman who leaned forward to kiss his lips.

  Madeau had disappeared before Kate heard her name and came out of the trance into which she had dropped. Numbly she watched the two people walk towards her, the tall dark man dressed only in brief black swimming trunks and the woman whose blonde hair gleamed with a silvery light in the sunshine.

  `Kate,' he was smiling as if the interruption of that intimate moment in the pool had meant nothing to him, `come and meet Francoise.'

  Summoning some courage which she hadn't known she possessed, twisting her lips into what might have passed for a smile, Kate stepped forward. She tried not to shudder as Charles draped an amiable arm about her shoulders, turning her to face the visitor. The woman

  wore fashionably huge sunglasses, but they did not quite conceal the narrowing of her eyes as she noted the gesture.

  `This is Francoise,' Charles drew her closer with a possessive little gesture as he smiled down at the top of her head. 'She and her family have been my friends since I first arrived,
a penniless refugee.' He looked straight—challengingly? Kate wondered—at the fair girl. 'This is Kate. She and I were married just a few days ago.'

  Kate wondered if she had been the only one to hear the swiftly indrawn breath, to see how the bright red lips tightened, the lower one caught briefly, fiercely between small white teeth.

  `Married?' Her tone, her laugh were masterly in their control. There was a short fraught silence. But how wonderfully romantic !' She spoke English well and with a charming accent which made one forget that her voice was high and rather shrill. 'Charles,' with a slender pink-tipped finger she tapped him reprovingly on the chest, 'how could you be so secretive? Why should you hide your bride away?' Her eyes travelled slowly over Kate as if she expected to find an answer to her question there. 'When your friends would be so . . . interested to see her.'

  `I haven't done that.' There was the hint of relief in Charles's manner as if some interview he had been dreading was safely over. But as I said, Kate and I have been married less than a week.' Again he touched the top of her head with his cheek—in case, thought Kate mutinously, Francoise should not get the message. The very idea made her blush, and that too would be seen as significant.

  `Well, if you'll excuse me,' she murmured as she stepped away from the protective arm, 'I think I'd better go and put on some clothes.'

  `Of course,' Francoise waved an understanding hand. `I shall keep all my questions till you come down.'

  `And I'll try to persuade Francoise to stay to lunch, darling.' Kate half turned as she reached the corner, glad that the woman had her back turned so that she could safely glare at her husband.

  `Lovely,' she said sweetly, but made sure that her poisonous look would leave him in no doubt as to her real feelings.

  Kate shook the bottle of suntan oil viciously as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror. She couldn't explain the antipathy she had felt for their visitor. It couldn't have anything to do with the pencil drawings she had seen on Charles's bedroom wall, even though now she had met the subject. Francoise had styled her hair differently since they had been done, of course, and Kate didn't think the cap of curls suited her as well. It made her look older. And since she was at least thirty, surely that wasn't an effect she wanted.

  Anyway, Kate decided with a sour little grin at her reflection as she sprinkled the oil over her still damp hair, when she sees me at lunchtime it will do wonders for her morale ! She searched in her wardrobe for her oldest pair of jeans and wasn't satisfied with a blouse until she had found one that had been too dry when she had run a hasty iron over it just before leaving London.

  The way Charles's eyebrows had drawn together in an angry frown as well as the curving of Francoise's mouth assured her of the wisdom of her choice. She pretended not to notice the first and responded with

  enthusiasm to the second as she put out a hand to take the glass which Charles held out on a tray.

  `Please,' she waved her hand dramatically, ignoring the way the sherry slopped over her jeans, 'please go on talking in French.' She held up the little book she had brought downstairs with her. 'I'll try to follow the conversation. And if there's a word I can't understand then you can wait while I look it up.'

  `I'm afraid, cherie; Charles was a study in loving patience, 'that you're condemning us to a silent lunch. That book will be of no use to you. I think until we have some lessons arranged for you it would be best if we stuck to English. I'm sure Francoise won't mind.'

  `No, but I insist.' Kate lay back in the sofa, stretching out one foot on to the cushion where the grubby sneakers she was wearing would be sure to attract attention. `Go ahead.' And warming to the part she was taking, she took a large noisy gulp from her glass. Francoise's look of satisfied contempt was all Kate could have hoped for, but something, a tiny shiver of fear, made her refrain from checking her husband's reaction.

  There was no doubt about Madeau's disappointment as she announced lunch, nor mistaking the tiny disapproving look she gave the blouse as she placed the slices of chilled melon in front of them as they sat round the large circular table in the dining room. Kate saw her smile faintly at Francoise, a smile that reminded her of a mother's unspoken plea for indulgence when her child was misbehaving. She blushed, and the other woman's self-satisfied smile did nothing to reassure.

  Not that Francoise was wrong to be pleased with her own appearance. The pink linen suit that fitted her

  slender figure so snugly must have cost the earth. Kate, with her inside experience of the fashion trade, knew just how much some women were prepared to spend on clothes, and that first glance confirmed Francoise in the extravagantly well-heeled category. The suit, the matching cream kid handbag and sandals, everything about her, the sunglasses, the perfume, even the tiny lace handkerchief which she put to the tip of her small straight nose, all shrieked money.

  It didn't make her beautiful. Without being particularly bitchy Kate could admit that. Her eyes were too light, a pale almost transparent green which might have been striking with dark hair, but with her almost white fairness they made her face seem insignificant. Although Charles seemed to disagree with her assessment. Enough to do sketches, enough to want to hang them in his bedroom. Kate looked up suddenly, realising that Francoise was expecting an answer to some question she had asked.

  `I'm sorry . . .' Kate coloured and at once felt gauche. How this woman must be laughing at her! 'I'm sorry, Francoise, I didn't quite hear .. .

  `I was asking . . Francoise darted an amused glance at her host, `. . . how you like the idea of being married to a famous photographer. Will you find the fashion world very frightening?'

  `No,' Kate couldn't resist the opportunity to score a faint triumph, 'I don't think so.' She lowered her eyes demurely, seeing her fingers playing with the stem of her glass. 'I'm quite used to it.'

  `Used to it?' Gaped would have been an unkind word, but it was the one Kate thought of when she saw Francoise's expression.

  `Yes.' Kate flicked a glance at Charles, intrigued to see the beginning of a smile on his lips. work in fashion.'

  `You . . Francoise could not stop her eyes from wandering over what was visible of Kate's disreputable clothing 'You're in fashion?' Her tone implied that there were all sorts of ways of being in fashion, but before she could ask any more Kate, suddenly the attentive hostess, leaned forward, offering the salad bowl.

  `No. No, thank you.' There was a faintly bemused expression on her face when she turned to Charles. `Well, now that the secret is out, Charles, when are you going to invite all your friends to meet your wife?' The colourless eyes slid round to look at Kate with satisfaction. 'I'm sure they'd all love to see her.'

  `I've been thinking of that myself, Francoise,' Charles said smoothly with hardly a glance in his wife's direction, 'and I have decided that it isn't fair to keep her to myself any longer. Saturday night will suit us perfectly, so we hope to see you then. Isn't that so, darling?' And the look he turned on Kate was filled with challenge. And amusement.

  `Of course,' Kate bared her teeth in his direction, taking advantage of Francoise's averted head, 'darling.' Her sarcastic drawl had the apparent effect of increasing his amusement and the visitor darted a suspicious, jealous glance at Kate.

  `I've just had an idea.' Charles looked from one to

  the other of them. `If I can persuade Francoise, that is.' `That shouldn't be too difficult,' Kate interrupted

  sweetly, then in response to the sour glance the other

  girl gave, 'You seem so easy-going, Francoise.'

  `We've been talking about French lessons for you, Kate, then perhaps Francoise would agree to take you in hand. It would also have the advantage of helping you two girls to get to know each other.'

  There was a moment's stunned silence which Charles seemed unaware of. Kate felt her mind whirling round in search of a credible excuse and she was fairly certain that Francoise would be undergoing a similar experience. In the event it was the guest who first managed to find the right wo
rds.

  `Oh, that would be fascinating, Charles. But unfortunately I expect to be away from home rather a lot in the next few weeks—and I expect you will be in the same situation.' She smiled insincerely across at Kate. `How does the prospect of going to New York suit you?'

  `New York?' Kate stalled for time, her eyes going to Charles in a silent appeal.

  `Kate doesn't know yet about New York,' he interrupted smoothly. 'I've been keeping it as a surprise. But as you've mentioned it, Francoise,' he shrugged philsophically, 'in ten days I'm flying to the States, cherie, and of course you're coming with me.' He turned to explain to their guest. `Kate's mother is based in New York and we're hoping that she'll be there when we go there. But as soon as possible we want to set off on our delayed honeymoon.' His eyes lingered lovingly on Kate's pink cheeks, but he missed the spots of high colour in the other woman's face. 'Perhaps we may go on to somewhere more glamorous when I've finished. Where would you like to go, cherie?' He leaned one elbow on the table supporting his chin with forefinger and thumb as he searched her face. 'Mexico, Bali?

  Somewhere warm where we can laze on the beach all day and dance all . .

  `And what about Auriol?' Francoise's interruption was smooth, her feelings only betrayed by the tightness of her lips. 'Do you expect to see her this time?'

  `I think that is inevitable. And of course I'm looking forward to seeing her again. She's one of my best friends, after all.'

  Soon they finished lunch and Kate stood with Charles's arm round her shoulders watching while Francoise got into the small red sports car and started the engine. 'I shall see you on Saturday, then.' She adjusted the black and pink silk square about her head, waved a casual arm and shot through the archway, out of the courtyard.

  At once and without further speaking Kate removed herself from her husband's encircling arm, reaching the stairs before his voice speaking her name firmly made her pause, one raised foot on the first step, her hand on the polished banister.