The Devil at Archangel (26 page)

Villette. But the boat to Martinique had been cancelled because of the

storm and Theo found me and brought me back.' It was a disjointed

account, but he seemed to have little difficulty in interpeting it.

'And where is Theo now?'

'Back at Archangel, I suppose.' She swallowed. 'He was playing one

of his games with me—like he did in the swimming pool. Testing me

out—seeing if I had enough spirit to be the bride of a Brandon.' She

heard Devlin swear softly and hurried on. 'He was swerving the car

from one side of the road to the other, going much too fast, pretending

that we were going over the cliff. I grabbed the wheel and we crashed

into a tree—not badly, but he was knocked out. I jumped clear and

then I ran away. But he came after me, and I knew if I went across the

plantation he'd see me, so I went over the cliff instead. And it—it just

turned out to be this particular cliff, and I remembered the way the

horse had gone—and came down.'

'Dear God,' he said. 'You must have a very potent guardian angel.

Any other stretch and you'd probably have been killed.'

'I know.' She took another sip. 'And I do have a guardian —the

Archangel himself. How odd that he should help me and not Theo.

After all, he's the Brandon, not me.'

Devlin shook his head. 'No, Christy. Theo's no more a Brandon than

you are. I don't know how much you're aware of in the family history,

but you probably don't know that my uncle and Marcelle were

childless. It was a great grief to him, but almost an obsession with her,

made the more unbearable because her own sister, my mother, had

the son she craved.' He lit a cheroot and drew on it deeply. 'By the

time I was in my teens, Uncle Charles was resigned, I think, and it

was understood that I was to inherit Archangel. I was at school then

and finding out a few things, including the fact that just to be a

Brandon of Archangel didn't necessarily mean you were a lord of

creation. It seemed to me that the whole thing was questionable—

morally and economically. The final straw, if you like, was having to

live with the obscenity that my ancestors, my own flesh and blood,

had actually owned slaves. That really did something to me. When I

came home for the holidays I talked rather wildly about the changes I

would make when Archangel was mine. It was bloody stupid of me,

but I was only a kid. But as soon as I had gone back to school, Tante

started to work on Uncle Charles. He was a Brandon to his fingertips

in some ways and obviously I'd upset him. The next thing my parents

knew she had produced Theo. She always claimed he was the

orphaned son of some distant relatives of hers on Martinique, but it

wasn't a relationship we were ever able to trace. I imagine the only

one who knows the truth, apart from Tante herself, is Adele

Christophe, and she's totally loyal to Tante, of course.'

'But she couldn't just make Theo the heir ...'

'She persuaded Uncle Charles to adopt him. He was a very-young

child then, so they made no pretence of being his parents. The polite

fiction was, that they were his grandparents. I don't think anyone

really blamed them. He was a beautiful-looking kid—quite

irresistible even then. Anyone would have wanted to adopt him. And

there he was, young and malleable, to be trained in the almighty

Brandon tradition. With a suitable marriage to follow as soon as he

was old enough, just to ensure that I never got my evil destructive

hands on the sacred estate.' He stubbed out the cheroot violently in an

ashtray.

'It was then things started to go astray. People might not blame Tante

for wanting a child and taking her own steps to acquire one, but it was

a different matter when it was found out he was the new heir. That

was going too far, dispossessing a real Brandon to put an imitation

one in his place.' He laughed shortly. 'Feudal, isn't it? But the family

have been at Archangel a long time, and compared with some I

suppose it's been a benevolent despotism. I think if Uncle Charles had

lived, he might have altered his will yet again. He was clearly

dissatisfied with the way Theo was turning out. But he died, and my

parents had also been killed by then, so Tante was supreme. And in

her eyes, her darling boy could do not wrong. When the feelers she'd

been putting out about possible marriages were gently but firmly

declined—no one knew what his real background might be—she

decided to look further afield.'

'And she found me.' Christina stared down at her glass. 'Oh God—she

found me!'

'Yes,' he said grimly. 'Someone who had learned to do as she was

told, and be grateful. The ideal candidate, to be spoiled and flattered

and nudged slowly but surely into Theo's arms. Only you weren't like

that. Under that docile exterior, there was an unexpectedly stubborn

streak—and a temper. So Theo started to let you know about his

hidden streak too ...'

Reaction set in suddenly and she began to cry. Devlin's arms were

swiftly about her, drawing her against him. For a moment she

resisted, but the strength of his hands was too compelling, and she lay

against him, sobbing helplessly.

At the same moment, lightning lit up the room, to be succeeded

almost at once by a deafening clap of thunder, and with a roar like an

avalanche the rain began to fall.

It was what Christina first became aware of as she calmed

again—that savage drumming on the roof of the shack, contrasting

with the steady beat of his heart under her cheek and his hand gently

and rhythmically stroking her hair. She sat upright, with a feeling of

constraint, and moistened her lips slightly before she spoke. 'I—I'm

sorry about that. I've made your shirt quite damp.'

His lips twitched slightly. 'It's still comparatively drier indoors than it

would be out,' he said gravely. 'Now I'll see to those scratches of

yours.'

'Oh, no.' Rather helplessly, she tugged his shirt over her knees. 'It's all

right. Please don't bother.' It wasn't that the scratches didn't need

attention. She knew, pitifully, that she could not answer for her

response if he was to touch her again. The fact that another girl had a

far greater claim on him than she did made no difference to the fact

that she yearned to feel his mouth on hers. She was only too

conscious of their isolation, cut off from the world in this shack while

a storm raged outside.

'I—I hope you've got the roof tied on,' she said, striving for a light

touch.

Devlin grinned and she knew he had picked up her reference. 'Oh, it

won't get to that stage,' he said with casual confidence. 'This place has

weathered worse blows than this. By morning it will all be over,

you'll see.'

She started a little nervously. Was he meaning to imply that she

would still be here in the morning? But that was impossible. She said

nervously, 'I hope the rain eases soon. I shall have to be going ...'

He leaned forward, placing a devastating finger on her parted lips.

His silver eyes mocked her. 'You're going nowhere, Christy, my

sweet. Here you are and here you'll stay until it's safe for you to

leave.'

She jerked her head away. 'And is it so safe for me to stay?' she said in

a low voice.

'You mean because there's only one bed?' He laughed, but there was

no amusement in the sound. 'Well, as to that, we'll just have to wait

and see. Unless you're issuing an invitation.'

'Don't—please,' she interrupted in a stifled voice.

'O.K.,' he returned savagely. 'But just don't provoke me, Christina.

Now face the facts. If I allowed you to leave—in this weather,

wearing nothing but one of my shirts—where would you go? To

Archangel? You'd probably get a warm welcome. Everything

forgiven and forgotten, back to square one. But if you stay the night

here with me, you'd get a very different reception. You'd be packed

off back to England, which is presumably what you want, so fast your

feet wouldn't touch the ground. I'm poison to Tante, and if she

thought you'd slept with me, you'd be the same. That's a betrayal she

would never forgive, take my word for it.'

She knew he was right, but her heart quailed at the thought of

spending a whole night with him in such intimate proximity. Did she

have the ability or the strength - to conceal the truth from him—to

hide the longing that consumed her to be in his arms in the ultimate

nearness of passion?

'I—I don't know what to say.' She pushed her hair nervously off her

face, avoiding his glance unless he should read her thoughts in her

eyes.

He swore suddenly and shockingly. 'What the hell doyou take me

for?' he asked with dangerous softness. 'Some kind of sadist on

Theo's lines? You've just been through probably the worst day of

your young life. You're frightened, you're hurt, physically and

mentally, and you're tired, and yet you still have it in your head that in

spite of all this I'm going to force myself on you. Dear God!' He

pushed his hand wearily through his tawny hair.

'I'm sorry --- ' she began awkwardly, but he flung up a hand to silence

her and she saw the mockery was back in his eyes.

'Oh, my motives aren't entirely chivalrous, I assure you. I want you,

and under any other circumstances, I'd take you —and make you

want me too. But it seems that every time we meet, you're either

injured or needing some kind of help. I'm getting a little tired of being

a protector to you, Christina. I have this—fantasy where you're

coming across the beach. The sun's shining, and you're shining too,

all the shadows gone and all wounds healed. And you're coming to

me, not because you need help or comfort, but because you need me

in the way a woman should need a man. And you come up those steps

into my arms, and that's where you stay because that's where you

want to be.'

His voice had dropped huskily, and the colour flamed in her cheeks at

the image his words had produced in her mind.

Somehow she forced herself to shrug, uneasily aware at the same

time that the gesture made the shirt slip revealingly from one bare

shoulder.

'But you said yourself—didn't you—that it was only a fantasy;-You

don't really expect it to come true?'

'You'd be amazed at some of my expectations,' he said softly. 'Now, I

advise you to make yourself scarce into the other room and get some

rest before that—garment you're wearing slips any further and I

decide to forget my good intentions and—er—reclaim my property.

Scat!'

She
obeyed without demur, Climbing into the wide bed and huddling

the covers around her with a shiver as the wind caught the shack

again, worrying it like a terrier before the gust died away. If this was

only the edge of a hurricane, what must it be like when they were

really caught by one? she wondered apprehensively, and hoped she

would never find out.

Her eyes widened as Devlin came through the bead curtain. He was

carrying a bowl of water, some cotton wool and a tube of antiseptic

which he placed beside the bed.

'Here,' he said curtly. 'Under the circumstances, I think you'd better

attend to your scratches yourself. Watch out for that stuff, it stings.'

He was right, she discovered, wincing. She slipped the shirt off

altogether and examined herself ruefully. She would be black and

blue by morning, and there were ugly grazes on her arms and legs.

Her back hurt too, but she could not reach the spot herself no matter

how she squirmed, and she dared not call Devlin.

She replaced the cap on the tube of cream, and lay down again. She

felt very bleak suddenly. Devlin's fantasy had made a potent appeal to

her senses which she now had to exorcise before it was too late. She

must not forget she would not be the first to succumb to his

overwhelming attraction and the blatant temptation he offered.

She wondered what he was doing in the other room. He was certainly

very quiet, she thought, straining her ears for a sound of movement.

Perhaps he had gone back to the work she had interrupted by her

arrival. He had said he was getting ready for an exhibition, and he

must have work to finish—Eulalie's statuette among them. She turned

on to her stomach, burying her face in the pillow. It was unbearable to

think of him touching the figure, she thought, smoothing it down,

rediscovering all the voluptuous curves that were already so familiar

to him in warm, rounded flesh rather than hard wood.

She stirred uneasily, only too aware of the fact that he had probably