Season of Shadows (14 page)

'You
are
shy,' Sally accused with a
giggle when she noticed Laura's reddened cheeks. 'Mummy and Daddy were
never shy. They were always kissing each other, and making love.'

Laura groaned inwardly and placed her cool hands against
her hot cheeks while she searched for something to say, but it was
Anton who brought the conversation to an end by saying abruptly, 'I
think it's time we stopped chattering and went inside as your aunt
suggested. There's a chill in the air, so come on.'

Laura showered and washed the sand out of her hair, and
dried it thoroughly with her small electric drier before slipping into
slacks and a warm cashmere sweater. Anton, too, had changed into
something more comfortable, she noticed when she entered their bedroom.
Green suede pants hugged his narrow hips tightly and accentuated the
long length of his muscular thighs, while the cream-coloured knitted
sweater clung to his broad shoulders and complimented his tanned
complexion. His presence in the room unnerved her considerably, but she
tried not to show it as she sat down in front of the mirror to brush
her hair vigorously.

'Leave your hair down,' he said unexpectedly when she was
about to twist it up into its customary knot, and when it fell down to
her shoulders once more in a thick silky curtain, he came up behind her
and pushed his fingers through it lightly. 'I like it this way,' he
added, a faint smile hovering about his hard mouth.

Their eyes met in the mirror, and she trembled when she
felt his warm fingers brushing against her skin at the nape of her
neck. The last time those hands had touched her, they had inflicted
pain, she recalled, but it was a memory she did not want to dwell on.

'What made you change your mind about coming, here?' she
risked questioning him.

He smiled again that cold, cynical smile she hated so
much. 'I managed to get things done sooner than I expected.'

In the harsh light above the mirror his face looked drawn,
and she saw for the first time the lines of fatigue beneath his eyes,
and the deeper lines running from nose to jaw.

Compassion stirred within her breast, filling her with a
tenderness she had never expected to feel for this hard, often cruel
man, and she said with impulsive concern, 'You look tired.'

His hands left her hair, and his expression hardened,
making her realise her mistake as he demanded, 'Is that another way of
telling me I'm old?'

'Don't be silly,' she retorted angrily, rising to her feet
and swinging round to face him. 'Don't always search for hidden
meanings in everything I say.'

'A woman seldom says exactly what she means.'

'Don't judge me by the standards of the women you've
known, Anton,' she snapped back at him.

A brief, stormy silence followed, then his lips curled in
a sneer that made her wince inwardly. 'Do you consider yourself to be
unique?'

'No,' she shook her head and swallowed nervously. 'Not
unique, just… different.'

'Different?' Those hard eyes raked her mercilessly from
head to foot. 'No, Laura, you're no different from any other woman I've
known. You're all liars and cheats, and a man who places his trust in a
woman is a fool.'

'I'm not a liar, and I'm not a cheat, and I—'
Indignation choked her. 'I consider your remarks insulting!'

'I wasn't insulting you, I was merely stating the bare
facts,' he insisted, but she had heard enough and made for the door. He
was there before she could reach it, kicking it shut with his foot and
leaning his weight against it. 'Where do you think you're going?'

'Anywhere where I don't have to see you, or speak to you,'
she retorted, her eyes blazing up at him in hurt and anger.

'Do you find the truth unpalatable?'

'Does it give you pleasure to make me pay for all the
times you have had your faith destroyed in a woman?' she
counter-questioned furiously, wishing she could strike him, but knowing
that she would be the one to suffer afterwards.

'Did you know that your eyes are a deep sapphire blue when
you're angry?'

Momentarily floored as she was by his remark, .her
reflexes were sluggish, and his hands were biting into her waist,
drawing her against him before she could do anything to prevent it. Her
palms were flat against his hard chest as she leaned away from him and
hissed, 'Let me go, do you hear?'

'Not until you've welcomed me as a dutiful wife should,'
he announced, unperturbed by her efforts to escape.

With one arm like a steel band about her waist, his free
hand grasped a handful of her hair, and her head was forced back so
that her neck was arched painfully. For a brief moment their glances
were locked in silent battle, then his mouth descended on her with an
unexpected yet familiar sensuality against which she had no defence
prepared. Her resistance took a tumble, and she gave herself up to the
soaring tide of emotion that swept through her as she felt his warm
hands against her skin beneath her sweater. His fingers explored her
breasts through the fine lace of her bra, and the sweet ecstasy of his
touch made her senses swim in surrender. She had the satisfaction of
feeling his heartbeat quicken beneath her hand, and then she was
released to stand swaying with the force of her emotions.

'Just as well we waited till now,' he mocked her without
mercy as he stepped away from the door. 'That was not the sort of
welcome a child should witness, was it?'

Laura drew a shuddering breath as she fought to control
herself, then she spat out angrily, 'You're insufferable!'

She wrenched open the door and stormed down the passage
into the kitchen. She hated him with every breath in her body, she told
herself fiercely, mentally strangling that persistent little voice
which dared to contradict her at that moment.

Laura's anger had subsided considerably by the time they
sat down to dinner that evening, but she was quite content for Sally to
dominate the conversation, for it gave Laura the opportunity to observe
Anton without him noticing.

That air of masculine virility which always surrounded him
seldom made her notice the increasing number of silver threads in his
dark hair, but she saw them now, and her throat ached suddenly. He
did
look tired, she thought, and silently she echoed Gina's sentiments that
he drove himself too hard. Physically he must be one of the fittest men
she had ever known, but the demands he made upon himself were sometimes
frightening to observe.

He looked up unexpectedly and, caught in the act of
staring, her face became suffused with colour. For several disturbing
seconds she could not look away, but when he raised his eyebrows
enquiringly, she hastily lowered her lashes and stacked their plates
into the sink.

'When are you going to have a baby, Aunty Laura?' Sally
demanded some minutes later, and Laura almost choked on a mouthful of
hot coffee.

'Yes, Laura,' Anton added fuel to the fire, 'when
are
you going to have a baby?'

'I haven't given it a thought,' she admitted with a
calmness she was far from experiencing as a hot wave of colour swept
upwards from her throat into her face.

'Is it important that we have a baby?' Anton wanted to
know, his amused attention directed at Sally.

'Most people have babies when they get married,' Sally
announced, her eyes alight with excitement. 'Just think how much fun it
will be! I could take it for walks in the garden, and I could help look
after it when you go out.' She glanced anxiously at Laura. 'You will
let me help you with the baby, won't you?'

'Of course she will,' Anton answered for Laura, clearly
enjoying her discomfiture.

'You're both forgetting something,' Laura began tritely.
'I'm not going to have a baby.' She crossed her fingers under the table
and looked everywhere but at Anton as she added decisively, 'Not yet,
anyway.'

Anton observed her intently, but said nothing, and Sally
looked positively crestfallen for a time until her agile mind leapt to
a different topic of conversation. Laura breathed an inward sigh of
relief, but the incident had unnerved her considerably.

Her marriage to Anton had not come about for the usual
reasons, and although they were married in every sense of the word, the
possibility of having a child had somehow never occurred to her. For a
woman of her age she should have had more sense, she admonished
herself, but then she could not blame only herself for their
thoughtless behaviour.

Later that evening, when Sally was tucked up in bed, Laura
went out for a breath of fresh air and found Anton leaning against the
wooden rail on the verandah. He looked peculiarly lonely standing there
in the darkness, and she experienced an inexplicable desire to rush out
and fling her arms about him in a comforting, protective manner. The
feeling was so strong that she hesitated on the doorstep, giving
herself time to control herself, and to suppress her feelings before
she joined him.

She almost laughed out loud at her naiveté a few minutes
later when she sat quietly beside him on the wooden bench, smoking the
cigarette he had offered her. Anton would never need to turn to anyone, least of all
herself, for comfort or protection of any kind. He was a self-contained
man, she thought a little cynically, and he was fully capable of
shaping his own destiny, as well as that of others.

She had found it peaceful on other occasions to sit there
in the darkness with only the sound of the surf to disturb the silence,
but tonight was different. She was conscious of Anton there beside her;
conscious of a muscular thigh almost touching her own, and conscious,
too, of his brooding surveillance.

He brought the silence to an end abruptly, and shattered
her fragile composure by asking, 'Does the thought that you might have
my child disgust you?'

'No, of course it doesn't,' she said at once, surprised
and faintly irritated that he should wish to continue the discussion on
this particularly disturbing subject. 'It's just that I'd never given
it a thought before.'

'You should have,' he mocked her. 'We haven't
exactly been doing anything to prevent it, have we?'

'N-no, I suppose not,' Laura was forced to admit, her
cheeks stinging with embarrassment as she put out her cigarette and
clenched her hands tightly in her lap. 'Do you particularly want
children?'

'Not particularly, but I think it might be nice to have a
son; someone who could take over from me when I'm no longer there.' He
leaned towards her, his arm along the backrest behind her, and his
thigh warm and hard against her own as he brought his lips close to her
ear. 'Will you have a son for me, Laura?'

Laura felt curiously winded, and it was several seconds
before she could speak. 'Children are supposed to be born out of two
people's love for each other.'

'Love!' Anton snorted in disgust, the controlled violence
in his voice making her flinch noticeably. 'My God, that word has been
used so often it stinks of deceit!'

He had risen to his feet to stand with his hands
clenching the wooden rail, and she followed him there with the
overwhelming desire to shake sense into him. 'Anton, you
can't—'

'Replace the word "love" with "sex", then you'll be nearer
the truth,' he interrupted ruthlessly.

'No!'

At her cry of denial he swung round to face her, and even
in the darkness she could feel his eyes boring into her. 'Define love
for me.'

'It isn't possible to define it.'

'Because it doesn't exist!'

'Oh, Anton, how can you say that?' she sighed helplessly.

'I'm not blind to the truth,' he argued harshly, sweeping
her into his arms with a swiftness that took her by surprise. 'This is
the only thing that makes any real sense— holding a woman in
my arms, and knowing the desire to possess her body.'

'And when that desire is no longer there?' Laura asked
weakly when his hard mouth had left hers. 'What then?'

He released her abruptly and turned away to light a
cigarette, the flame of his lighter illuminating his harsh features
briefly before he spoke. 'When that desire is no longer there. I shall
seek my pleasures elsewhere.'

He could not have hurt her more at that moment if he had
struck her, but now, at least, she knew exactly where she
stood—on unstable ground which could cave in beneath her at
any time.

It was some time before she was capable of speech, and
even then she was shaking so much that she had to clutch at the railing
for support as she said coldly, 'One day, Anton, you'll know what it is
to love someone, and I hope I'm around when that happens, because I
shall then have the pleasure of laughing at your downfall.'

'You will never hear me confess to loving anyone,' Anton
stated icily with his back turned rigidly towards her.

'I hope, for your sake, I don't,' she retorted stiffly,
walking blindly into the cottage.

Anton followed her inside a few minutes later. She heard
him in the shower, and she was brushing her hair with angry, vigorous
strokes when he finally entered the room. She put down the brush with a
jerky movement and, conscious of the transparency of her night attire,
she turned her back on the intense scrutiny of his eyes. She felt too
raw, too hurt to feel anything but contempt for him at that moment.

If he came near her she would scream, she told herself,
but Anton came up behind her with the silent swiftness of a panther
descending on its prey, and when his hands gripped her bare shoulders
her quivering lips refused to utter a sound.

She remained rigid, determined not to give in to him, but
already that warm sensuous mouth against her throat and shoulder was
doing something to her she would have given anything to deny. The tip
of his tongue flicked into her ear, and a. shiver of unwanted delight
swept through her, while the tantalising scent of his aftershave lotion
filled her nostrils and stirred her senses. She tried to move away, to
break the spell he was weaving about her, but his hands merely
tightened on her shoulders, and moments later she was trapped in the
web of her own devastating emotions.