Tender the Storm (46 page)

Before he could stop her, she jerked out of his grasp. Her eyes were flashing fire as she quickly belted her robe. In a voice vibrating with scorn she said, "Our account was settled in full last night. I have no wish to be thought ungrateful, however. If you still think that I am in your debt, I shall be delighted to give you my banker's name and direction. He will pay you off."

Rolfe smiled unpleasantly. "That's not the kind of payment I had in mind, kitten."

"Possibly not, but that's all you are going to get. And you may believe that no price is too great not to have to endure your attentions ever again."

While she was speaking, she had moved to the door, only to discover that it was locked and that there was no sign of the key. She wasn't frightened, she told herself as she slowly turned to face Rolfe.

This man was not an abuser of women. This man had never so much as lifted a hand against his nieces when the provocation was intolerable. She swallowed convulsively.

This man had the face and form of the Rolfe she once knew, but that was where the resemblance ended. This watchful stranger in her father's robe had an aura of power, a look of leashed violence which aroused feelings of acute helplessness. So must the doe feel, she thought, before the hounds closed in for the kill.

"Come here, kitten," he said softly.

Her posture was proud, defiant, as she stared at him without blinking.

Laughing softly, as if amused by her show of resistance, he crossed to the door. Zoë
held
her ground, nor did she flinch when his hands cupped her shoulders. The laughter gradually faded from Rolfe's eyes.

"Zoë," he murmured, "you are no longer a child." He kissed her softly, and then with rising hunger, stifling her protests. "You are a beautiful desirable woman. Don't you see? It was only a matter of time before some man claimed you. Ah Cod, Zoë, tell me you are not sorry that it was I." And abruptly swinging her into his arms, he carried her to the bed.

Zoë was a prisoner in her own house and she still could not believe it. It was very late of the same afternoon. Rolfe had departed for the Swedish Embassy, advising her that he would return in a short while. Before leaving he had conferred with her servants. Zoë did not know what hold he had over them, but it was evident that her wishes did not have
the weight of his.

She was bathed, fed, and cosseted by Salome. There was nothing new in this. But when Salome let slip that she was following Rolfe's orders, Zoë was livid.

"I am mistress here," she fumed. "I say when I shall be bathed, and when and what I shall eat."

"Did Salome do wrong by drawing your bath and preparing a nice
dejeuner
to tempt your appetite?" asked Salome innocently.

"No, of course not!" allowed Zoë with sorely strained patience. She glanced at her empty plate. Not a crumb remained of the chicken
vol
-au-vent with
bechamel
sauce and the tiny fried potatoes. Knowing that Rolfe was responsible for ordering one of her favorite dishes almost persuaded her to forgo the next course. She reached for the dish of cream custard and changed tactics.

"Was it kind of you, Salome, to leave me alone with him last night? You must have known--"

"He is in your cards," said Salome doggedly, as if that were sufficient reason for her betrayal. "He loves you. You wait and see. He will yet marry my little flower."

At Salome's words, something leapt to life inside Zoë. After a moment's reflection, she shook her head. "It's not possible," she said. "I can never marry him." She wasn't thinking of Rolfe's past transgressions. She was thinking of her brother and her resolve that they would start a new life in America as soon as it could be arranged.

Salome cast a glowering frown upon her mistress. "You will marry him," she said. "It is the only way to make everything right."

For a moment, Zoë was tempted to confess that she had formerly been married to the man and had never been more miserable in her life. She still could not think of his mother without experiencing a mixture of humiliation and anger —humiliation for what she had suffered at the woman's hands and anger that Rolfe had been so callous as to permit it. And then there
was his infidelities
.

Though her look spoke volumes, Zoë said nothing, knowing that Salome would never sanction divorce. When a man and woman married, the bond was indissoluble. It was one of the tenets by which Zoë had been raised. She tried to console herself with the thought that neither Salome nor her mother could have foreseen the circumstances in which she found herself. One thought led to another, and before long Zoë began to wonder if she still knew right from wrong.

She had taken a lover. It was the most memorable, the most pleasurable experience of her life. And it was so wrong. One lapse from grace she was willing to forgive herself. She was only human after all. And she loved Rolfe above anything. But how could she explain that, having resolved that there could be no repetition of the night before, she had gone against her own scruples?

That very morning, when Rolfe had gathered her into his arms, she had meant to fight him like a wildcat. Oh, she had put up a token resistance. But there had been no way to stop him. And somehow her words of rejection had changed to soft, throbbing gasps of appeal.

There swept over her a tide of burning shame when she remembered how she had permitted him to do whatever he wished with her, and when it was over, his words to her.

"I knew I could make you purr for me," he had said with a smile so smug that Zoë wanted to hit him. Instead, she had burst into tears.

And then the smile was gone, and he was lavishing her with tenderness, stroking her as if she were some cherished pet that had come to hand.

"It's all right," he soothed. "Don't take on so! Zoë! Zoë! Don't look at me like that! Everything will be fine. It's all right. It's all right."

But it wasn't all right. He intended the whole world to know that she had accepted his
carte blanche.
People would point at her, and behind their hands, they would refer to her as a "fallen woman," "a
Phyrene
," "a harlot," or worse. How was it to be borne?

She could not bear it. Nor could she fight him. He would always come out the victor in any contest between them. Hadn't he already proved it? No. There was only one course open to her. She must arrange for false passports for herself and her brother so that they could make for America with all speed. She must transfer funds from her bank. And finally, when all was in place, she must send word to Leon.

Claire. She was not forgetting Claire. But for Leon's sake as much as her own, she must not delay overlong. When they were settled in America, she would write to a few, chosen friends so that, should Claire ever come looking for her, they could give Claire her direction. Under the circumstances, it was the best she could do.

She decided that her first call that afternoon should be on Charles Lagrange. Though Zoë found him a bit of a bore, he had proved a true friend in the past.

She genuinely liked him. And Charles was so placed as to be in a position to secure false passports if he wished. To travel under
their own
names was not to be thought of—not if the secret society of which Leon was a member was as far-reaching as he had indicated.

Zoë got as far as her front door. She was turned back by Samson.

"What's this?" she demanded.

Sorrowfully, unable to meet her eyes, he referred her to Salome.

"You are to stay until he returns. Those were his very words," was all the satisfaction Zoë got from that quarter, and no appeal of Zoë's could shake her maid.

Nothing daunted, Zoë stomped to the back door. It was locked. Short of climbing through a window and making an undignified exit, she was a virtual prisoner in her own house. Zoë was fit to be tied.

She repaired to the yellow
salle
and proceeded to take out her frustrations on the piano. When she heard the front door open, she fairly slammed out of the room intent on tearing a strip off the man who had so mistreated her.

In the foyer, she came face-to-face with Paul Varlet and Jean Tresier. It looked to Zoë as if Samson, no doubt following Rolfe's orders had turned them away, and they were on the point of departing. Nothing could be more calculated to make Zoë go against her own natural inclinations.

She greeted them effusively and, turning a steely eye upon her footman, ordered him to bring chocolate and sweets to the yellow
salle.

When the amenities had been dealt with, Tresier

broached
the subject which was on all their minds.

"Zoë, how came you to leave the masquerade last night without my escort? I was never more surprised when Paul told me you had left with that . . . what's his name
?—
ah, yes, Ronsard, the Swedish diplomat."

Paul Varlet's voice smoothly cut in, "As I told you, Jean, Zoë could not be persuaded to show herself where gentlemen were gaming. And who can blame her?"

Shamefaced, Tresier asked, "Zoë, can you ever forgive me?"

Zoë looked from one to the other and the seed of doubt was planted in her mind. Rolfe had warned
her what
manner of men they were. Her own instincts, at least with respect to Varlet, confirmed Rolfe's opinion. And yet, their manners were so gracious; their appearance was so gentlemanly; and they had been frequent guests in her home when her parents were alive. In her comfortable yellow
salle
the forebodings of the night before at Madame Montansier's seemed distant and far-fetched.

"Of course I forgive you, Jean," she said. "You meant no harm."

At her words, Tresier's eyes dropped away. Zoë wondered at it, but Samson entered at that precise moment with a tray of chocolate and sweets, and her attention was distracted.

When Samson stationed himself at the door, it was no less than Zoë expected. Truth to tell, she felt more secure with the presence of the huge black man. No. She could not believe that Tresier and Varlet were as depraved as Rolfe had painted them, and, at the same time, she knew that she never wanted to be alone with either of them again.

The glasses of chocolate were hardly handed round, when a footman announced the Lagranges. Zoë could not believe her luck. She determined to ask Charles Lagrange to stay behind so that she could put the matter of the false passports to him.

As it happened, she scarcely exchanged two words with Lagrange. He and Varlet had found something outside the long window which held their interest. And even when they turned back into the room, they were in no hurry to conclude their private tête-à-tête.