Season of Shadows (9 page)

'Good,' he retaliated harshly. 'Hate from you is
preferable to indifference, and I don't ever want my intelligence
insulted by the use of the word "love" between us.'

'Love is a word you'll never hear from me, Anton DeVere,
have no fear of that!'

'I'm glad we understand each other,' he said abruptly and,
turning over on to his side, he promptly went to sleep.

She drew the sheets closer about her, and stared at his
broad back while she tried to unravel her puzzling thoughts. They had
just made the word 'love' taboo between them, and although she felt
certain that she could never love him, it left her with a feeling of
inexplicable sadness. What had happened, she wondered, that he should
have turned his back so completely on love? Was it a defensive attitude
against being hurt again, or did he simply have no love to give?

The latter seemed the most probable, but she did not dwell
on the thought for long, for the sound of the surf lulled her into a
deep but troubled sleep, and she became enmeshed in dreams fraught with
sinister encounters. She finally sought refuge in the shelter of
protective arms; arms that offered unquestionable safety and security
and, sighing contentedly, she slept on dreamlessly until the first
light of dawn stretched rosy fingers across the sky.

She stirred, opening her eyes lazily and, to her dismay,
discovered that she had been lying in Anton's arm with her head
pillowed on his shoulder. For one paralysing moment she could not
recall what she was doing there, then the memory of her pain and
disillusionment returned, and with it came the humiliating realisation
that it had been
his
arms in which she had sought
refuge from her dreams.

She had to get away, she thought frantically. She could
not face him so soon after what had happened last night, but as she
shifted her position carefully, trying not to wake him, a heavy arm was
flung about her waist, and a mocking voice demanded in her ear, 'What's
the rush?'

Her heart leapt wildly into her throat, almost choking off
the sound of her voice as she said, 'I want to get dressed.'

His lips brushed against her ear, sending a little shiver
through her that was intensified when his hand came up to clasp her
breast possessively. 'I think I like you better as you are.'

'Go to hell!' she cried angrily, fighting off his lips and
hands, and the unfamiliar sensations they aroused.

'It's heaven I shall be going to, Laura,' he laughed
softly against her lips as he pinned her flailing arms at her sides,
'and this time I intend taking you there with me.'

'No… don't!' she begged frantically, her body
taut at the suggestion of renewed pain, then her lips were parted
beneath the bruising pressure of his hard mouth.

A blanket of fear enveloped her mind, and it was some time
before she made the startling discovery that his caressing hands were
having a soothing effect on her, and, as the tension eased from her
body, her skin began to tingle as if a thousand little nerves had
suddenly come alive to his touch. He continued to caress her, taking
his time until his experience must have told him of her receptiveness,
then his lips and hands sought intimacies she no longer had the
strength or the desire to refuse. He was arousing emotions within her
which she had never imagined existed, and this time, when he took
possession of her, she found it so intensely pleasurable that she clung
to him in unashamed and rapturous delight, giving of herself freely
until she was plummeted into a vortex of ecstatic fulfilment.

Spent, they lay beside each other, and for a time Laura
was conscious of nothing except the thudding of her heart and an
exquisite feeling of well-feeing, then Anton spoiled it all by raising
himself up on one elbow to say tauntingly, 'I promised you a glimpse of
heaven, didn't I?'

His mocking reference to the intimacy they had shared
seemed to belittle an experience which she had considered almost
sacred, and as she came down to earth with a thud, she heard herself
ask coldly, 'Do you usually gloat over your triumphs in this manner?'

His faintly cynical smile deepened. 'If I'm gloating, then
it's because I've made an intriguing discovery about you.'

'Have you?' she asked warily, drawing the sheets up higher
in order to hide her nakedness from his invading eyes, but her action
merely evoked his mocking laughter, and made her cheeks flare hotly
with embarrassment.

'I've discovered that beneath that cool exterior of yours
there lurks a passionate woman,' he told her, lowering his lips to her
exposed throat where a pulse leapt in response to his touch. 'I think
I'm going to enjoy being married to you, and teaching you all there is
to know about the art of making love.'

Her body stiffened with distaste. 'Your experience is
vast, no doubt?'

'I'm thirty-nine, Laura,' he stated calmly as he raised
his head, and his mocking glance seared through her like a heated blade
as he added, 'Had I been an inexperienced youth you wouldn't have found
my lovemaking so enjoyable.'

Her cheeks grew hot with renewed humiliation and anger.
'Last night you—'

'Last night was different. You were tense and frightened,
and hurting you was unavoidable.'

Laura stared up at him contemplatively. His dark hair, so
liberally flecked with grey, lay in an unruly fashion across his broad
forehead, the deep-set grey eyes were razor-sharp and intent, and the
lips which had kissed her with such practised sensuality were now drawn
into a familiar hard line. She was seeing again the stranger she had
married, instead of the man who had, moments ago, advanced beyond the
barriers of her natural restraint to initiate her into a new and
exciting world. Which was the real man? she wondered confusedly. The
passionate lover, or this ruthless, mocking stranger?

She stirred eventually and sighed. 'I think I'd like to
get up and get dressed, if you don't mind.'

'Certainly.'

He removed his arm from about her waist and leaned back
against the pillows with his hands locked behind his head. Laura sat
up, realised to her horror that she had nothing on, and realised, too,
that she had to cross almost the entire length of the room to reach her
nightdress where it had fallen on the floor the night before.

A quick glance over her shoulder told her that Anton was
observing her with amused interest, and her anger erupted. 'You could
at least have the decency to look the other way!'

'Why?' he demanded with an infuriating smile that fanned
her anger. 'You're my wife, and after what we shared last night and
this morning there's no part of your body that's not known to me.'

'You're detestable!' she flung at him across her shoulder.

'And you're beautiful when aroused in anger… or
passion.'

A choked cry escaped her as she darted across the room to
retrieve her nightgown, but her mortification increased as she fled to
the bathroom with the sound of his mocking laughter ringing in her ears.

He was a devil! she decided furiously as she ran her
bathwater. A devil with no thought and no consideration for anyone but
himself.

When she returned to the bedroom Anton had gone, but she
found a note propped up against the mirror of the dresser, and it was
addressed to her in his firm handwriting.

'When your temper has cooled sufficiently, join
me on the beach for a swim before breakfast.'

'When my temper has cooled, indeed!' Laura muttered to
herself indignantly and, with an agitated movement, she pulled the band
from her hair to let it fall to her shoulders.

Typically, his note had been an order, not a request, and
she would have been tempted to ignore it if she had not glanced through
the open window to see the ocean sparkling so invitingly in the rays of
the rising sun.

She went down to the beach a few minutes later wearing a
short towelling robe over her swimsuit. Anton sat smoking a cigarette
with his back resting against a rock, but when she approached he pushed
his cigarette into the sand, and rose to his feet.

'I suggest we have our swim while we still have the beach
to ourselves,' he said, unintentionally making it easier for her to
face him by addressing a spot somewhere above her head.

Without a word she dropped her towel on the sand beside
his and slipped out of her robe. She followed him at a running pace
into the sea with her hair flying loose about her shoulders, and when
the frothy breakers about her legs made her lose her balance, she
gasped as her body struck the icy water. After a few moments she found
the water exhilarating and swam about lazily, her body rising and
falling in the swell of the sea. Anton swam a little distance from her,
seemingly oblivious of her presence, and she felt quite startled when
she found herself trying to decide whether or not she liked his
inattentive attitude.

Laura had a vague suspicion that she disliked the idea of
being ignored by him and, after a reasonable period had elapsed, she
swam towards the beach and walked across the sand to where she had left
her towel. She dried herself and rubbed her hair vigorously before
spreading out her towel and seating herself comfortably with her back
against the large rock. Taking her sun-glasses from the pocket of her
robe, she pushed it on to her nose, and tried to forget for a time her
disturbing thoughts concerning Anton's behaviour.

Gordon's Bay lay in a natural cove at the foot of the
Hottentots Holland mountains, and although the sundrenched beach was
inclined to be rocky, it was apparently a fisherman's paradise, she
realised as she watched two men reeling in their catch from the rocks
some distance away.

A movement to her left drew her attention and, turning her
head, her pulse leapt a little wildly. Tall and tanned, and with his
wet hair plastered to his head, Anton was emerging from the sea. The
water glistened on his muscled body, and a curious weakness invaded her
limbs at the memory of the physical closeness they had shared.

She observed him covertly from behind the darkened lenses
as he picked up his towel and dried himself, but she found herself
staring at a remote stranger; a man who possessed her body, but not her
soul.
Never
her soul! she decided grimly. She
would make certain of that!

Anton lit a cigarette and sat down beside her, but once
again she had that feeling that he could not care less whether she was
there or not. She could not imagine why she should feel hurt about it,
but she did, and, gathering up her things, she muttered some excuse for
returning to the cottage, arriving there a few minutes later in a blind
fury which was directed mainly at herself.

Anton continued to treat her in the same manner he had
always done, and if, during that day, she succeeded in ridding her
memory of the intimacy they had shared, then she could very easily
imagine that they were not married at all. His customary cool
politeness had never troubled her before, but now it stung painfully to
be treated like a stranger, and that evening, when she joined him on
the verandah after dinner, she could no longer deny the inexplicable
yearning she felt for his touch. She despised her-self for it, but she
felt powerless to do anything about it.

She sat beside him on the bench, aware of him with every
fibre of her treacherous being as they watched the incandescent moon
climb higher in the starlit sky. The sound of the surf mingled with the
chirping of the insects in the undergrowth as she and Anton talked
quietly, but their conversation remained impersonal and dissatisfying,
and she was finally driven to excuse herself for fear of making a
complete fool of herself by displaying her feelings.

She went to bed, hoping to be asleep when Anton came in,
but instead she found herself waiting, almost willing him to come to
her.

'Damn!' she muttered angrily, thumping the pillow and
turning on to her side so that she faced the window instead of the door.

How could she ever hope to understand him if she was all
at once so incapable of understanding herself? She was behaving like a
wanton, she told herself fiercely, and, burying her hot cheeks in the
pillow, she finally went to sleep.

Laura awoke some time later to the discovery that the room
was in darkness, and that she was being caressed with a freedom that
made her blush.

'Anton?' she questioned unsteadily.

'Who else?' he demanded mockingly, and then her lips were
parted with a deliberate sensuality that made her senses whirl.

She tried to resist this onslaught on her emotions, but
her languorous body had a will of its own and responded to his touch
with an eagerness she would no doubt be ashamed of later. Anton's lips
left hers to seek the rounded softness of her breast, and at this point
she became a slave to the desire that raced like fire through her
veins. No longer aware of what she was doing, she locked her hands
behind his head, and her body arched towards his in rapturous surrender.

'You've wanted this all day, haven't you?' he mocked her,
but she had progressed beyond the stage where any-thing mattered except
the passionate intensity of her emotions.

Later, as she lay awake beside him, his words rushed back
at her with the force of the unrelenting ocean, and she was overcome
with an acute sense of shame that made her feel as though she were
blushing from the roots of her hair right down to her toes.

It was the truth; she
had
wanted
him, and she could not have denied it even if she had been sufficiently
coherent to do so at the time, but no one except Anton would have
chosen a moment when she was at her most vulnerable to taunt her with
the emotions he had so cleverly aroused in her. He was a heartless,
ruthless devil, this man she had married, and heaven only knew how she
was going to survive a lifetime of living with him.