Caprice (7 page)

looked ridiculous, with his mouth hanging open, and Roxanne had

finally come out of the sulks, laughing until she had to hold her sides.

Astonished and rather furious, Jeffrey pulled together quite nicely,

but he had been thrown off stride from the beginning, and she never

let him regain control, making him run for every one of his returns.

She couldn't blame him for being amazed at her ferocious playing.

She was rather pleasantly surprised herself. But the running,

pivoting, sheer hot work of it felt good to her. It was as if she were

exorcising her own private devil, instead of plastering Jeffrey all over

the court, which she granted was probably the case.

At the end, she laughingly told her chagrined opponent, 'You ate too

much for breakfast! The same thing happened to me last week after

lunch. Don't feel bad, you probably could have creamed me.'

Jeffrey mopped his sweaty brow and glanced, askance, at the now

empty court behind them while the others hooted at him in good-

natured derision. 'Somehow,' he replied, with a quick heaved breath,

'I don't think so.'

Caprice was hot and breathless herself, but still feisty, so she rounded

on Emory with a predatory leer, remarking conversationally, 'As I

recall, at breakfast you laughed at me.' He began to protest volubly as

she took Jeffrey's racquet and tossed it to him, handle upright.

'Come on, Emory!' Petra coaxed.

'Put your money where your mouth is!' Roxanne taunted.

Amidst his excuses, Caprice smiled dangerously. 'That's all right,' she

said gently. 'You don't have to play if you're afraid to.'

That did it. Emory marched to the court with his jaw squared, while

Jeffrey threw himself on to the grass to watch with glee. This time

first serve ♦ was determined by a flip of a coin, and Caprice lost. As

she took her standard receiving position at one end, half crouched for

a sprint in an unpredictable direction, out of the corner of, her eye she

saw a dark, elegant, strolling masculine figure coming their way.

His first serve, she sent into the net. His second, she returned

decently enough, but lost the volley, and soon the game. All the

while, she was terribly, totally, tensely aware of that aloof, watching

shadow under the pines.

Sunshine beating down on her head, lungs working hard, feeling the

muscles in her thighs tremble, she held the ball for a moment,

bending over at the waist while she took a breather. Silence, from the

sides and the other end of the court.
Go away.
The ball thrown, her

body arched into sleek motion, coming down to the asphalt with both

feet planted, feeling the jar of it all through her body. Emory lost the

volley.

Quit looking at me, damn you.
They switched sides. Her side hurt

her, and she pressed her hand deep into the flesh under her ribs. And

she was mad. This time, however, it was mostly directed at her own

stupid reaction to someone she barely knew, but it had the same

vitalising effect as it had on her first match, and she proceeded to

send Emory into agony with a diabolic finesse. He was too fleshy,

too heavy to be really quick at short, intense spurts, and he, too, had

eaten a hearty breakfast, so it was really to no one's surprise that she

carried that match, too.

Afterwards, Emory was ribbed as much as Jeffrey had been, while

Caprice stood in silence and held her hands up to her forehead,

panting. 'You OK?' Roxanne asked quietly, and she nodded without

expending energy to speak back.

She could suddenly feel Pierce's approach with every part of her

blood-pounding, hot body. Jeffrey turned to her, then, and said, 'Hey,

you know who you really need to play is Pierce, here. He'd be a good

challenge for you.'

She pressed her hand to her side, feeling soreness where she'd had the

stitch. 'No.'

Pierce had been saying something to Gwynne, his head bent to her,

black hair and dark eyes, and white, white smile. Jeffrey, with a

typical obtuseness, ignored or didn't hear her short reply, and turned

to his older brother. 'Wouldn't you like to play Caprice? I'll bet she

just might be able ta beat even you. What do you say, want to make a

date of it tomorrow morning?'

'I won't play with him,' she said, quiet and still. Was it her

imagination, or was there more significance to that statement than

she'd meant to give it? Pierce looked at her. Their eyes met. An

awkward silence fell over the group. . That still expression, that

mature, mobile body, those liquid sparkling eyes, that proudly held,

proudly moulded head. She felt the blood leave her face, going quite

pale under her tan, which left her eyes peculiarly large. He had

expected no different, she could see. She made herself grin weakly,

as she offered a tension smoother. 'After all, I came here to vacation,

not to train.'

A few smiled back, while Jeffrey, ever ignorant of deeper

undercurrents, laughed. Pierce didn't say a thing, nor did he react in

any discernible way. Just those eyes, in dispassionate, clinical

observation of her heat-streaked, taut face. .

She whirled away, feeling, for no clear reason, hunted, and she threw

over her shoulder, 'I'm going to shower! Tickets for sale at the box

office!'

She left them laughing, every time.

After supper, Caprice lounged on a window seat, effectively taking

up enough of the space so that no one offered to join her. The group

was in the family room, and behind her, Jeffrey and Roxanne were

playing a disjointed, ill-ruled billiard game while Petra and Emory

made themselves scarce outside, and Lane, Ralph, and Gwynne

played records and drank wine as they sprawled on couch and

armchairs.

The afternoon had been idled away. Caprice, who had pleaded

exhaustion after the tennis from that morning, had lounged in a

garden recliner while the males, with Roxanne and Petra, played

touch football. Gwynne kept her company and they had talked while

watching the others frolic laughingly on the green, smooth lawn. For

touch football, they ended in tackles a surprisingly large amount of

the time, though the young men took care not to hurt either of the

girls.

Pierce had disappeared, and had not been present at the evening

meal, which had been more formal than Friday's. She told herself she

was glad and very nearly believed it. Certainly she did not feel

herself to be under any tension, but the evening had a flat quality to it

that she could not quite explain to herself.

Ah, well. Tomorrow evening, and it was home again, home again,

jigitty jog. The childhood phrase made her smile.

She roused herself and whipped the rest into a game of charades,

which somehow became imbued with a hilarity that made the rest of

the downstairs echo from their laughter. Towards the end of the

evening, she wandered out of the family room and into another,

shadowed room, and she searched the wall for a light switch, curious

to find what the room contained. It was a library, amazingly well

stocked, she found, and she wandered through it, lightly browsing.

As she reached a section almost wholly consisting of philosophy,

both modern and classic? Jeffrey spoke from behind. 'Those are

Pierce's. What's more, he's read them all, if you can believe it.'

She turned, with a smile. 'Didn't you read philosophy in college?'

'I'm still waiting for the movie,' he said drily. He took a step forward,

and became serious, too serious. 'Caprice -'

At the same moment, she whirled away, and broke through to say

animatedly, 'This is such a lovely place! I must remember to thank

your parents for so graciously hosting this weekend party. They're

nice, I like them.'

'Caprice- -' he began again, more strongly.

'And do you happen to know if Roxanne has gone upstairs, yet?' she

asked lightly, with a quick, neat turn of her head to meet his eyes. He

wasn't that obtuse, and his smooth skin darkened.

'No. She's in the family room with the others,' he replied shortly.

Her eyes ungentle, her voice soft, she suggested, 'Then I think we'd

better join them, don't you? Petra and Emory were so boringly

obvious.'

For a moment she thought he would balk, but good breeding and

manners won, and he backed from the door to let her precede him

into the hall.

But in the family room, she bid them all a light and lilting good

night, for she'd had quite enough. All she wanted was the privacy of

her strange bed upstairs and to wake in the morning, knowing that

she was leaving that day.

Mr and Mrs Langston had left for the evening, and the upstairs hall

was shadowed and dark. Her lavender dress slid cool and smooth

against her legs as she strode for her door, already envisaging herself

slipping between bed sheets, lying her head down on soft pillow.

A noise behind her, and a bare split second later Pierce said quietly,

'And good evening to you.'

She froze dead still and wished him gone. But then a neat pivot on

her high heel told that he was still there, coming down the hall,

shadowed like he'd been last night. She replied, with finality, 'Good

night.'

He came too close. She felt a thrill of recognition at the faint whiff of

aftershave. 'What?' he said, even lower. 'So soon? It's early yet.'

'But then I was up early, and played strenuous tennis,' she pointed

out, longing to back up a step but refusing to make that revealing

move.

'Oh, yes. This morning. What an energetic performance you gave.'

His lifted hand, moving to touch at the hair of her temple, was feather

light. She couldn't think why it shuddered through her. She used all

manner of light caresses, especially with the opposite sex, as in

straightening a tie, touching the cheek, that sort of thing. They didn't

mean a thing, and yet seemed to help ensnare the man's attention, and

she could now well understand why. 'You were angry this morning,

for some reason,' Pierce said, his voice a mere rumble in his chest. 'I

haven't figured out why.'

'Angry?' she whispered. 'Nonsense! You've a terrific imagination.

Don't look for hidden motives that simply aren't there. You will be

disappointed.'

'I don't know why you bother,' he said then, tapping her chin gently

with his forefinger, rhythmically. 'I don't know why you play the

charade. I don't understand, and I don't have to, but I will tell you

this. Jeffrey, the others, I can see through like glass. You and your

anger, and what goads you to your actions, I cannot fathom. That

tells me louder than anything how different you are.'

Now he was lightly rubbing the backs of his fingers up and down the

side of her neck, and she pulled back with a jerk. Then she bent her

head, and ran her fingers through her hair, furious at how they shook.

She snapped, 'You don't know what you're talking about! For God's

sake, this is a ridiculous conversation.'

'You're angry again. What an intriguing emotion to be wasting on

such a ridiculous conversation. I might almost think I've hit too close

to home.'

'Damn you,' she said, barely audible, abandoning all social light-

heartedness.

'No, really,' Pierce insisted, and now she could clearly hear the smile

in his voice as he shifted closer. 'If not that, tell me. Is it that you're

angry at how you shivered when I did this against the side of your

neck?' His hand, touching warm and soft at her pulse point.

She turned and confronted him, as an animal at bay will, and, with a

light tinkling laugh which almost convinced even her, she fitted her

hand to the back of his head, feeling silken hair and bone structure,

and then she gently propelled him down to press a kiss to his lips,

hers softly open. For a moment, he held perfectly, even rigidly still.

She had a fleeting impression of his body pressed along hers, and

then she stepped back and cocked her head to one side.

'I don't know,' she told him, consideringly, devastatingly. 'Not

anything to shiver or get angry about that I can see. Good night.'

She turned to go.

But he wasn't devastated, as many younger men had been by her

almost contemptuous dismissal from time to time. It had always been

a good weapon held in reserve: crush them when they became too