Kissed by Moonlight, page 6
Justine’s scarlet mouth thinned in menace. “That was your biggest mistake to date. You’ll rue saying that, Mrs. Palmer. It isn’t even as though your statement is correct.”
“You mean you’re not despicable?” Petrina challenged in as steady a tone as her fury would allow.
“Oh, I’m despicable. That’s not the inaccuracy. I’m not a miss. There’s a Mr. Hyland, and Geoffrey is a very vindictive man. I shouldn’t complain, because I certainly have my faults. My worst failing is my indiscretion. David has been asking me for a long time to apply more caution in the matter of our friendship. He said if I didn’t mend my ways, in view of my husband’s power and wealth, he would have to take positive action to protect himself. Would you say the sudden acquisition of a wife comes under that heading?”
The belief that Justine wasn’t a guest but was involved in the hotel in some way still held firm in Petrina’s mind, but not as an employee. Her husband was a man of power and wealth. David had felt the need to protect himself. Did this add up to anything? Could Justine’s husband, this Geoffrey Hyland, be the opportunist who bought her father out? Was he David’s boss? And, worse, had David only married her to shield his affair with Justine and protect them from Geoffrey Hyland’s wrath?
“Incidentally,” Justine purred, “I couldn’t help but notice your interest in the lingerie stand. If you want any help with choosing what David finds exciting, I’ll be happy to oblige.”
Not averse to showing her own claws, now that the battle lines were drawn, and feeling that this was the moment to begin to fight back, Petrina said, “I’m sure you’re always happy to oblige.”
Almost as if Petrina had made no comment, Justine said with silky smoothness, at the same time fingering a confection of a nightgown in a delicate moonbeam shade of oyster-pink that coincided with Petrina’s own taste, “For example, he would find you irresistible in this.”
“Too bad,” Petrina said, goaded beyond either reason or inclination, “because this is the one I’m buying.” She pointed haphazardly, and almost died when she saw which nightgown she’d picked out. It was a whisper of erotic black lace. It took a lot of defiance and courage to stick to her unhappy choice and motion the assistant to wrap it for her.
With her sun hat pressed firmly down on her head, and the incredible purchase in her hand, she swept past Justine and out of the shop.
She had never for a moment thought the bedroom act was a complete bluff on Justine’s part, but she’d consoled herself with the thought that David had married her and not Justine. Now, it seemed, she knew the reason for that.
David had married her to protect his job and his affair. What husband was going to be jealously watchful of a newly married man? David had really excelled himself in deviousness this time. And it all fit together too well not to be true.
She had intended to buy sunglasses and some very necessary sun creams and lotions to pamper her skin after its exposure to the sun, but she didn’t feel composed enough to choose with care, and so she swung around again, back to the hotel, and went straight up to the suite.
In the privacy of the bedroom she tore the dainty wrapping off her parcel, held the vampish whisper of lace in her hands for an agonized second, and tossed it in disgust down on her bed. The only reason she didn’t toss herself after it was because a weeping session would serve no useful purpose.
A maid had apparently come by to collect the dirty laundry. David, of course, knew the routine and had left his things in a neat pile. Also scooped up had been several discarded items of Petrina’s. Had her permission been asked she would have said no, preferring to do her own small things. As she looked helplessly around her, she resolved that next time she would beat the chambermaid to it.
She felt so useless. She didn’t like to think that other people were working while she had nothing to do. Looking over the balcony rail down to the swimming pool below, she saw that the gaily colored loungers were still occupied by the sun worshippers. Such inactivity wasn’t in her line at all. She looked at her watch. Although it was still on the early side to think about getting dressed for dinner, the day was too far advanced to consider doing something that would take any length of time. David would be coming up soon, though heaven alone knew in what kind of mood. It would be an open act of defiance not to be there when he came.
That thought was all she needed to jam her sun hat on her head and give the brim a jaunty twist before making her way down and leaving the hotel again.
This time she circled around the back of the hotel and walked past several other hotels, which, although not quite as large, were almost identical to the Hotel Leon with their sea-facing balconies, huge swimming pools, attractively laid out sun terraces, children’s playgrounds, and sports areas. As the brochures said, something for everybody – everybody but Petrina.
She located a road that wound interestingly up into the mountains. It crossed her mind that if she reached higher ground she might be able to see the piece of land that flicked around in the shape of a serpent’s tail. But distances are deceptive, as she was to find out. Although she climbed to a fair height and had a panoramic view of the hotel complex in the lion’s head and the stretch of sand that was, in her mind, at least, the goat’s body, the peculiar twist of the coastline still concealed the serpent’s tail from her.
It was tantalizing to have come so far without reward. It was becoming an obsession with her to probe this secret place. She sat on a rock, getting her breath back and fanning her burning cheeks with her sun hat. She felt sick and dizzy. She would have blamed this on the steep climb but for the fact that this feeling had been coming and going since lunchtime.
Although the secret of the serpent’s tail was not revealed to her, her toil did not go unrewarded. The sun slid into the sea. It was so dramatically sudden that she felt she should have heard the plop.
She had seen sunsets before, but never one of this splendor. It was an unexpected manifestation of shot-silk colors spinning across the sky in bolts of gaudy orange, imperial purple, and rich dragon’s blood red. The beauty of it held her in silent homage. Even when it was over, and the twilight stillness fell, she sat a while longer before reluctantly beginning the downhill journey.
Stones and ruts, easily spotted in the daytime, assaulted the soles of her feet and jarred her spine. The need to tread warily slowed her pace and she knew she was going to be disgracefully late getting back.
She opened the door of their suite to find that David had already showered and changed and was fuming in that predominantly male fashion. A woman waiting on a man’s inclination to put in an appearance is a much more patient and tranquil creature, Petrina told herself.
She pelted in, hoping to slip past him, but his hand came out to bar her progress just a few steps short of the sanctuary of the bathroom.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Walking,” she snapped back in defiance.
“In the dark?” His voice was ominously icy and had a chilling effect on her nerves.
With less fervor, she said, “That sort of fell on me.” She was immediately sorry that she had allowed herself to be intimidated and stoked up the heat again to say, “Obviously it wasn’t dark when I set off.” Her mouth curved in the pretense of a smile that was more like a sneer as she added in empty apology, “I’m sorry.”
“The devil you are.”
“The dining room is open until eleven. I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
“Don’t you?” His breath sucked in harshly. “Didn’t it occur to you that I might be worried?”
She gave him a long, keen look that traced the hard set of his dark face, trying to determine something that gave credence to his concern in the unwavering straightness of his mouth, striving to penetrate the harshness in his eyes. She could find nothing to cheer her; she could not see one flicker of solicitude anywhere on his face. His caring wasn’t for her, but for his own creature comforts.
She spat at him in contemptuous and rash disregard, “If you were in such a hurry for your meal, I’m surprised you didn’t follow your usual custom of leaving me to find my own way down. That certainly worked well enough at lunch.”
“You don’t have to rub it in. I’m aware that I’ve neglected you. Things – tentative ideas and explorations into new ventures that have been gently simmering for months – have suddenly come to the boil. I haven’t chosen to leave you to your own devices, it’s not up to me, and it goes especially against the grain to ignore you this way while you’re feeling raw. I know you’re grieving over the loss of your father. I wish I could see some evidence of the pace slackening, but I can’t.” His hand stroked upward through his hair in a weary gesture that was at odds with his usual positive assurance. It was such a human thing to do that she almost followed it up by allowing her hand to imitate his actions and lose her fingers in the bouncing virility of his dark hair. She didn’t dare, because his reference to the recent loss of her father made her feel too emotional. She couldn’t make a tender move toward David without dissolving into tears, and that weakness was definitely not permitted. She’d already made up her mind that there must be no childish tears in this woman’s game.
So she said, somehow managing to appear to be calm and in complete control of herself, “I don’t mind so much now that you’ve explained. Why don’t you go a step further? Instead of shutting me out, why don’t you tell me about these new ideas and ventures?”
Perhaps her cover was too good and her seeming calm infuriated him and he was goaded into making the attack. Perhaps it had nothing to do with her manner at all, but that he was furious with himself for letting her penetrate his steely indifference. Or perhaps, the painful thought intruded, it was because he wanted as little to do with her as possible and resented every minute that her presence kept him away from Justine Hyland.
“Don’t you think the situation between us is explosive enough as it is? There are things you aren’t fit to know. If I told you just the half of what the future holds for your precious Chimera, you’d hate me forever, if you don’t already. You call it commercialism, as if it’s a dirty word, and you treat me as though I’m committing murder on mankind. Yet the changes are inevitable. Nothing stands still, neither people nor places. In this unspoiled world of yours no one should be permitted to grow older than six or seven, and then the beautiful illusion could be preserved. We could all maintain implicit belief in fairy tales and live in a land where you break off a piece of the gingerbread house when you’re hungry, and the prince lives happily ever after on a kiss from his fair princess.”
At some time during the tirade he had grabbed her by the shoulders. His blue eyes burned into hers in a bitter attack on her nerves. Instead of flinching away, she held steady under the violence of his stare. She was not being brave; she was held mesmerised in his grip. Even in anger, his eyes lusted for her and his spell was frightening, forcing her, as it did, to respond.
Her head tilted back; her hands moved up to wind around his neck, and her fingers linked to make a ring. She heard his agonized groan. His hands followed the course hers had taken, finding her tightly clasped fingers. His hands briefly covered hers, then separated, and a finger trailed down the length of each uplifted arm, scalding her senses, trailing fire down her skin with their light touch.
“You put your arms up around my neck like this once before,” he said. His voice was throaty with emotion. “Do you remember?”
“I remember,” she said.
She remembered all too vividly. She had been only eighteen and she had not yet had a chance to learn the wiles of womanhood, and in her youth and ignorance she had declared her love for him. It had broken her heart when he rejected her because she was a child. It was three years ago, but it might have been yesterday. She had tried to forget, but twice within a week the memory had been forced back upon her, and still it hurt. The tangy fresh smell of his after-shave, that distinctive blend of sage, laurel, and oak moss, was still in her nose.
She said shakily, “I think you’re wearing the same after-shave.”
He slanted her an odd look. His voice was grave and rueful. “I probably am. I’m faithful that way. When I find something I like, I stick to it. Do you remember what I called it when you made a ring of your arms round my neck?”
“You called it the ring of seduction,” she said huskily.
“I resisted it then because you were too young. You’re not a child any longer; furthermore, you’re my wife. I’m not about to resist it now.”
His fingers had stilled on her shoulderblades; now they separated again to continue their journey. One hand traveled down her back to hold her close; the other curved around to anchor her chin. “Be warned – you’re not going to make rings around me now and get away with it.”
“I don’t want to get away with anything,” she said hoarsely. “Were you really worried about me because I was late in returning to the hotel?”
“Of course I was worried, you little fool.”
“What could have happened to me?” she scoffed, delighting in his caring, the preliminary love play of words, and the disturbing nearness of his body.
His eyes were dark with meaning. “Do you want it in lurid detail? There are places on this island where it isn’t safe for a woman to be alone after dark.”
“You’re saying that I could have slipped on the rough ground and hurt my ankle? Or I could have fallen down a ravine and not been able to get up again and I would have had to wait until you came to find me?” she teased pertly.
“I should have found you, wherever you were. But don’t treat it as a joke because such a thing is possible. You could have been lying in a gully somewhere, seriously injured and in great pain, and it might have been hours – or days – before I discovered you. But you know perfectly well that’s not what I meant.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort.” She looked at him from under her lashes. “Do you mean someone, a man, might have come across me while I was wandering in the dark, helpless and alone, and taken advantage of me? Tell me, I’m curious to know.”
“I know you’re curious. And if I’d been that man and found you wandering in some dark and lonely place, you’d be curious no more.” He smiled slowly and his eyes turned smoky blue. “I can promise you that more than your curiosity would have been satisfied.”
She frowned. “You want to satisfy my curiosity, don’t you, David?” Her mood had shifted. It wasn’t a lighthearted game any longer. It was a deep emotional issue.
“What do you think? I’m a man, aren’t I? And you are a very desirable woman.”
His words made her feel cheap. Not any woman, surely? The woman you love. Why didn’t he say it? Why didn’t he tell her that he loved her? Why didn’t he make it right and drive all thoughts of Justine from her mind?
“Why did you marry me?” she asked in a desperate bid to make him own to it.
“Hey, what is this?” he inquired, regarding her with a look of perplexity. “You’re not blowing cold on me, are you?”
She flared back at him, “Oh, no. You can have your rights. It’s what you married me for, isn’t it?”
His brow furrowed in anger. “I don’t know what gets into you. You can switch moods with the speed of light. But yes, if you insist, one of the reasons I married you was because I wanted you and I knew I couldn’t have you any other way.”
It was what she already knew, so why did she feel as though she was supporting an intolerable burden? Even keeping her eyes open was an effort, as though the desolation of her thoughts had weighted her eyelids. Her chin would have drooped too but for the cruelly tight hold of his fingers. The bite in them was reflected in his voice as an unpleasant and mocking bitterness.
“Oddly enough, I thought I was paying you a compliment in finding you desirable. I didn’t know you would find it so disgusting.”
Disgusting? He must know that was the last thing she found it. His other hand was on the small of her back, holding her close in its iron caress. There was nothing disgusting in the smoldering torment that teased her emotions raw, an ecstasy of feeling that was almost too painful to sustain.
“Oh, Pet, I want you, but ...” He swallowed and his face contorted, then his expression quickly became guarded. Once again his features were cut from stone. “I will not take you against your will. Why are you holding me off?” he demanded curtly. “For heaven’s sake, Petrina, why?”
She didn’t want to hold him off. She wanted to be consumed by the fire. Could she help it if it would not flame for her without that vital spark? It wasn’t her fault that it would not ignite for her without love. And yet she knew that if he chose to take her without love she wouldn’t be able to find the will to resist. Her reasoning powers had gone. She was not even answer- able to pride anymore – only desire.
“You said one of the reasons you married me,” she said, holding tenaciously on to that. “And the other?”
His mouth closed around a callous laugh. “Oh, no, Pet. I’m not telling that.”
“But there was another reason?” she persisted.
“Yes. And it’s lucky for me there was. If I’d married you to have sex with you, and for no other reason, that would be my bad luck, because I haven’t had it.”
She faced up to his jeering look, his cruel humor, and said slowly, “You’re not going to tell me?”
“You’ve finally got the message. If ever there comes a time when I feel inclined to tell you, it will be unnecessary, because it will mean you know.”
She did know. Justine had already told her. He’d married her to throw Justine’s husband off the scent so that he could keep both his job and his mistress. How could she have let David mesmerize her to the extent of forgetting that, even for a moment?
“What’s it to be, Pet? Do I take you to bed or down to dinner?”
“Down to dinner,” she replied haughtily, forcing back the tears that would have completed her humiliation. “I don’t think I’ll be able to eat anything, but I can stomach you even less.”
