Guilty Passion (17 page)

“I stand corrected,” he said gravely. She looked at him with suspicion but could see no sarcasm in his expression.

In the restaurant he ordered a whisky for himself and a rum cocktail for her, which they drank in a small lounge before going to their table. Ethan eyed her over his glass and said, “You're different. Again.”

“Again?” Trying for a measure of sophistication, she raised her brows to him.

He leaned forward a little, appraising her. “Whenever I've seen you after a long time, you've changed.”

The first time she had been a bride, young and glowing with happiness. The second time he had needed to remind himself that she was his brother's wife, stunningly attractive, obviously intelligent, almost transparent in the way her green eyes and her lusciously tender mouth reflected her emotions, and apparently capable of enjoying to the full everything she undertook—from cooking a delicious meal to walking for hours up and down hills in a near gale—and yet with an underlying uncertainty, an occasional bewildered poignancy in her expression that he had caught once or twice when she thought she was alone, and that seemed to indicate a secret vulnerability.

And the third time, she had been a widow, apparently crushed by grief and depression—but mostly, Ethan had been convinced, by guilt.

Now another woman had replaced all of them. A poised, utterly beautiful young woman with an air of mature, hard-won serenity, whom he found both irresistibly fascinating and totally enigmatic. He wondered if she was deliberately withholding from him any hint of what she was feeling. That would not be surprising. He suppressed a strong desire to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. It might break through the barrier, but he doubted it would get him what he really wanted. Softly, softly, he told himself sternly. You blew it before, you fool—don't force her into retreat again.

She said, “I've always been the same woman, Ethan. I'm me.”

He nodded, and toasted her with his eyes.

“Another?” he asked, when she had finished her drink.

Celeste refused. She needed to keep a clear head.

“Then shall we go through to the dining room?”

She stood with alacrity, going ahead of him as he lightly laid his hand on her arm.

“Why are you in Auckland?” she asked him when they had ordered.

“To see you.”

She had been toying with a spoon, but now she looked up at him. “That's not why you came!”

“Why not?”

“It's seven months since—” She stopped abruptly.

“Since you left Sheerwind,” he finished for her. “Leaving me a polite thank-you-and-farewell letter.” Suddenly intense, he said, “Couldn't you have waited until I got back?”

“No,” she said. “No, I couldn't.” Because when he was with her, the frightening but necessary clarity of thought that she had mercifully been capable of that morning, might have evaporated again in a seething mass of emotion. While he was away, she could see what had happened to her, and analyse it and try to salvage something from it—her self-esteem, if nothing else. Perhaps even her very life. Once he came back, she knew that a touch, a kiss, even a look, would be enough to chain her to him forever. And that, she had told herself then, and again many times in the months that followed, was something she must not allow to happen.

“So you ran away, after all,” Ethan was saying.

Celeste said, “I left. There's a difference.”

“Is there? Forgive me if I don't see it.”

The wine that he had ordered arrived, and then their meal. Ethan said, “And you haven't heard from Steven.”

Carefully, Celeste put down her fork and took a sip of crisp white wine. She had seen Steven before she left Sydney, a fact she had no intention of relaying to Ethan now. “I didn't say that. I had a letter from him a while ago.”

“Saying what?”

She could have told him to mind his own business. She looked at him, thinking about it, and he said, “A nosy question. I apologise. Can I guess?” “I don't think that would serve any—”

“He's not publishing Alec's study,” Ethan interrupted. “Is that what he said? Not taking the project any further.”

She admitted, “Yes. That's more or less what he said.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Not exactly. I. . . gathered that he had an offer to take part in something else, and that as there was so much work to be done still on Alec's project, he thought it was best to leave it, at least for a while.” Rather defensively, she added, “I didn't see that there was anything I could do about it. If he isn't willing to continue, I don't think there's anyone who could have completed the work for Alec.”

“He sent me a similar letter. But I didn't let it rest there.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to see him. Asked him point-blank exactly why he was giving up on the project. In the end I made him tell me.”

“You bullied him.”

“Maybe. Oh, don't worry, I never laid a finger on him. Not my style, Celeste.”

No, it wasn't. She dropped her accusing stare, and pushed away her plate. She waited in silence while he took a sip of wine. He put down the glass and looked over at her and said, “Do you know what he said?”

Celeste silently shook her head.

“He said,” Ethan told her with deliberation, “that when he had transcribed what was on those disks, including the secret parts that had been protected by Alec's password, he found nothing. Nothing, that is, that would lead the scientific world to any new conclusions about the Asian-Pacific ethnic connections through the New Guinea islands, which was what Alec's project was supposed to be about. He said that whatever Alec had been doing for the past several years, and particularly that last year of his life, the results were not worth publishing.”

A waitress came and cleared away their plates, asking if they would like to see a dessert menu. Celeste refused the offer, and Ethan said, “Just coffee.”

When the girl had gone, Celeste said, “Not worth publishing? But Alec—and Steven—had spent months on that research!”

“Steven claimed that he was mostly just supplying already published references. He assumed that Alec had assembled them and was going to use them to support some grand, original theory that he could back up with hard evidence.”

“And now he's saying it's not so?”

“Correct.”

“But you. . . you didn't believe him?”

“How well you know me,” Ethan said, his mouth wry. “No, I didn't. I came very close then to hitting him. I seem to recall making some fairly dire threats. Like, if I found he'd used Alec's notes to publish something under his own name, taking the credit for my brother's work, I'd sue him, kill him, or both, in that order. I had printouts of it all, remember.”

“Poor Steven!” Celeste murmured. It must have been a terrifying experience for him. Ethan in a rare temper was a formidable sight.

Ethan slanted her a speculative look and said, “He took it remarkably calmly. Well, perhaps he'd expected something of the sort. He suggested I contact the university, ask for an independent assessment by an expert. I took part of the advice. Got someone from another university to do it.”

“And?”

Their coffee came, and he didn't go on until he was stirring sugar into his. His eyes on the swirling liquid, he said, “It took a while, but in the end. . . I had to go back and apologise to Steven. I must say,” Ethan added wryly, “he was astonishingly understanding.”

Celeste lifted her cup with a trembling hand, then replaced it unsteadily in the saucer. “Oh, Ethan!” she whispered. “What a waste. Poor Alec.”

“Yes,” he said very quietly. “The secrecy, the password. . .”

All, she thought, not to protect some great new theory, some breakthrough research, from being read by prying eyes and perhaps even stolen, but to hide the shattering truth—that there had been in fact, nothing worth hiding.

All of a sudden the warm air of the restaurant, the hum of conversation, the clatter of glasses and plates were too much. “I want to go,” she said.

“Sure.” He put down his half-empty cup immediately, and signalled the waitress. Within a few minutes they were outside, where the air was cooler and Celeste felt she could breathe again.

“I'll take you home,” Ethan said.

“No, please, I'd like to be alone, if you don't mind. I. . . have to think about this.”

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “It took a bit of thinking through for me, when I first learnt of it. Do you have a car?”

Celeste shook her head. “I usually take a bus, but I'll get a cab tonight.”

He secured one for her and saw her into it. Before he shut the door on her, he asked, “May I call you tomorrow?”

She nodded. Ethan asking permission! she thought, half-hysterically. What was the world coming to? She gave the driver the address, and he swung away from the curb. She glimpsed Ethan standing on the footpath with his hands thrust into his pockets.

She lay awake almost all night, sometimes weeping a little, and trying to think through all the ramifications of this news. For Alec, it had obviously been a tragedy. She could only imagine the black moments he must have endured, trying to shape the material he had gathered to fit his ideas, and finding that he had after all not something new and exciting, but only a useless lot of already known information.

For Ethan it must have been almost as painful to discover that there was to be no posthumous glory for his beloved brother. Steven, too, would have been disappointed, feeling that he had been wasting his time for over a year on a worthless project.

And for her? She stared into the darkness, trying to analyse and make sense of conflicting emotions. What did this mean for her?

Nothing, she tried to say. Her life with Alec was over. She had made herself a new life, a good one. It was sad that Alec's memory would not now be honoured in the way she and Steven and Ethan had all hoped, but she could put that behind her.

And would Ethan? How was he reacting to this revelation? She tried to remember exactly how he had looked, how he had spoken, what he had said. But instead, she kept thinking of the little crease by the side of his mouth, the deep, unfathomable blue of his eyes when they met hers, how she had wanted to reach out and touch his hair when he had leaned forward to place his glass on the table in the lounge.

She had given him no chance, she realised, to explain why he was here.

Common sense said that was irrelevant. All the reasons she had left the island still remained. Ethan had not had a change of heart or a change of character. Nothing he had said indicated that had happened. Except that he had seemed. . . restrained. Diffident was too strong a word. He had, she was afraid, come to see her only to gauge her reaction to this latest news.

Suddenly she sat bolt upright in the bed. He couldn't be blaming her for that, too, could he? She closed her eyes. “
No, please!
” she breathed. “
Oh, no!
”

But as she lay back again on the pillow, the last thought she had before sleep claimed her was a clear memory of the angry, black-pencilled words that Ethan had scrawled across his brother's final letter.
She'll pay
.

So when Ethan phoned her the next morning, he found her manner cool and crisp and offhand. “Can I see you tonight?” he demanded.

She asked, “What for?”

His silence had a nonplussed quality. “To talk,” he said.

“Actually,” she informed him, “I have a date tonight.” It was true in a sense. Sandra had casually invited her to dinner. It would be an informal meal, after the children had been put to bed. She knew very well that if she asked to bring Ethan, or told Sandra she had another invitation, it would not be a problem. In fact, she suspected that her old friend considered it high time she began seriously dating again.

Ethan said, “Okay. When can I see you, then?”

It was Friday. “How long are you in Auckland for?”

“As long as it takes,” he answered.

As long as what takes? she wondered, with a sense of panic. Aloud, she said, “I'm minding the shop tomorrow morning. Will the afternoon do?”

“At your place?”

The panic grew and she fought it down. He probably knew her address already. There was no reason why he shouldn't come to her place. She swallowed. “Okay.”

“Tell me how to find you,” he said.

She had a busy morning in the shop. Coming home, she flew around tidying up the small house, then made herself some lunch. After hastily washing up, she went to the bedroom, flung open the door of her wardrobe and stood surveying the contents. There wasn't a great deal there because she had thrown out all her old clothes as soon as she could afford to. Instead of cream and brown, fawn and black, she now bought dresses in scarlet and green, blouses in jewel colours, even coloured shoes with high, slim heels, not black or brown low-heeled pumps and brogues.

In the end, she decided there was nothing wrong with the slim black skirt she had worn to the shop, teamed with a red blouse and sheer black stockings patterned with tiny dots that added a fun fashion touch. Under the collar of the blouse she tucked a scarf that matched the stockings, tying it casually just below the lapels; and her favourite jet earrings completed the outfit. Smoothing lipstick over her mouth, she realised that she bore no resemblance to the pale, lifeless creature who had first flown to Sheerwind with Ethan after her husband's funeral.

When he rang the doorbell, she took her time going to answer it, determined not to greet him flushed and breathless.

“You look very. . . smart,” he said as she stepped back to let him in. His eyes held the same puzzled expression that she had noticed last night. She guessed that he couldn't get over the difference in her appearance.

“Thank you.” She led him into the sitting room. The house was old but had been remodelled, the kauri boards of the floor stripped and polished, the walls covered with sprigged wallpaper, the paintwork palest green. She had put rugs on the floor and gone for natural wood and light-coloured leather-look upholstery.

“Nice,” Ethan commented.

She gestured to him to sit down, assailed by a feeling that allowing him to come here had been a dreadful mistake. Once he had gone, how would she ever erase his vital presence from the room? From her life? She shivered, and covered it by asking, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Not unless you do. I just had lunch.”

“Me, too.” She hesitated as he paused. He was waiting for her to be seated. She chose one of the chairs, arranged at right angles to the sofa on which he sat leaning against one of the ends, his arm resting along the back so that he could face her.

He said, “Did you think about what I told you?”

“Yes. But it doesn't make any difference, really, does it?” she said warily. “Nothing's changed.”

He looked down for a moment, almost as if she had disappointed him. Then he returned his eyes to her and said, “Why did you leave the island?”

“I. . . couldn't stay there forever.”

Ethan moved irritably. “You know what I mean. Why
then?
”

Evasively, she said, “It was as good a time as any.” She was not—not—going to tell him that she had been mortally afraid that if she didn't leave then, she would never be able to leave him, ever, of her own free will. And if, when he had wrung from her everything that he wanted, he cast her off, she didn't know how she could bear it.

“After what I said to you,” Ethan muttered, “after what we
did. . .
”

“I'd rather not think about it,” she said sharply.

“Why? Do you know, I've thought of nothing else for weeks. Months.”

“That's. . . your privilege,” she whispered. “But you know perfectly well, Ethan, there's no future for us.”

“Is that your assessment?”

She nodded. “Isn't it yours?”

He said, as though feeling his way, “Not actually, no.”

When she remained silent, he added, “Would you mind explaining?”

“Is there any point?” She gestured hopelessly.

He stood up, so suddenly that she was startled. He looked ready to yell at her, but seemed to steady himself, and in deliberately moderate tones said, “I think so, yes.”

“Alec. . .” she said.

He took a deep breath, gazing at the ceiling. “Okay,” he said evenly, “let's talk about Alec. I guess it's time.”

He was interrupted by the shrill burr of the telephone. He threw an impatient glance at the instrument where it sat on a side table in the corner. Celeste got up to answer it.

“Oh, Grant!” she said, an odd relief making her voice extra welcoming. “Hello. . . . No it isn't a bad time to call. Not at all. Yes, I like dancing, but lately. . . It sounds terribly posh!” She hesitated, then turned her back to Ethan, who was staring at her openly, and said, “Thank you, I'd like to come with you. Is it very formal? I may have to buy a new dress!. . . Yes, that's an idea. Perhaps I could, if Sandra will make it for me.” She laughed softly. “Yes, I suppose so. I haven't had a ball gown for years. You did say the eighteenth? Thank you. I'll look forward to it.”

She faced Ethan with a hint of defiance. He was staring at her as though he had never seen her before.

“Grant?” he said.

“Grant Morrison. You've met him.”

“Yes.” The word came out as though someone had cut it off with a knife. “You've been dating him?”

“I. . . You could say that. I've been out with him quite often.”

“I see.”

She doubted it, but she also doubted it was any use trying to explain. “I've been widowed for almost a year now.” And why, she asked herself angrily, did she need to justify herself?

Ethan nodded.

Now that they were both standing, Celeste felt more able to hold her own. “What did you want to say?” she asked him. “About Alec?”

He shook his head as if to clear it. “Never mind,” he said curtly. “I'm not sure it's relevant, any more.”

She gave him a pale smile. “Very likely not.” If it was a repetition of what he had said before on Sheerwind, then nothing would be gained by raking over the ashes.

Ethan looked around the room again, as if searching for inspiration. “I like what you've done here,” he said. “Do you have a fancy for old houses?”

She said, “I didn't particularly go hunting for one. But this was reasonably priced, and although it's small, it had a huge kitchen that I've converted into a workroom, and a scullery that makes a perfectly adequate kitchen, big enough for my needs.”

“Workroom?”

“I do a lot of work at home. Fabric painting and tie-dyeing. Janice started me off, and I've done a sixteen-week full-time course in fabric art since coming to Auckland.”

“So some of the stuff in the shop is yours?”

“Most of the clothing is made from my fabrics. But the sewing is done by a team of three women who work out of their homes.”

“May I see the workroom?”

“Sure.” She would never, she thought sadly, be able to shake off the ghost of his presence. But it was already too late. She took him through to the former kitchen and showed him the bolts of material, large pots for dying, and jars of powdered colour. A long table held frames in different sizes on which she tautened silk for painting. Inspecting a shelf holding paint, brushes and fixatives, Ethan peered at a large jar of white crystals.

“Salt,” Celeste said, at his enquiring look. “Sprinkled on the wet paint, it gives some lovely marbled effects. And that,” she added, as he picked up the bottle next to it, “is alcohol. It repulses colour and makes light spots surrounded by deeper pigment.”

“Interesting,” he murmured. “You've come a long way in a short time.”

“It's a very small business,” she admitted. “But it's thriving, and I was lucky to find an outlet in the shop. Eventually I should do quite well.”

“Aunt Ellie says you're a part-owner of the shop.”

“Yes. I sold the house.”

“If you need money any time, Celeste. . .”

“Not from you!”

His mouth went tight. “It's Alec's money. He would have expected—”

“I don't want Alec's money,” she said tensely. “He left it to you.” “Celeste—”

“I said,
keep it
!” She pushed past him and led him back to the other room, where she turned to face him. “For the first time in my life I'm independent,” she said. “It's a good feeling. I want to stay that way.”

Ethan thrust his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched. “Okay. Just remember that it's there if you need it.”

“You're very kind,” she said formally. “Thank you.”

He looked rather fed up, she thought. He said, “I think it's time I left. I'll contact you again.”

Slightly surprised, she saw him to the door. As she opened it and he made to step past her, he swung around, and before she could gauge his intention, he had a hand behind her head and was bringing his mouth down on hers.

It was a brief kiss, but hard. When he stepped back he looked down into her shocked eyes and said, “We're relatives, after all. I'll see you.” And then he was gone.

And that was that, she thought blankly as she closed the door after him and leaned back against it. Nothing resolved, nothing said, really. She got the definite impression that he had come ready for some sort of showdown, and then. . .

The phone call had thrown him off his stroke. Not just the interruption, but the nature of the call. He had asked if she was dating, and seemed put out by her answer.

Well, that only confirmed how right she had been to leave Sheerwind—and Ethan—when she had.

“I'm going to the Legal Society ball,” Celeste told Sandra. “Grant suggested I could wear something that I've done myself, make a sort of walking advertisement of it. Do you think you could do the sewing? It has to be ready by the eighteenth.”

Sandra entered into the project with enthusiasm. She was, Celeste had discovered, talented at drafting original patterns, and together they worked out a design that had both simplicity and flair, an almost ethereal dress with a tiny draped bodice and flowing handkerchief skirt, made in finest silk chiffon, the colours so subtly changing from flame red to palest pink to a hint of the softest of greens, that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began.

Celeste tried not to think about Ethan, but when he came into the shop again exactly a week after the first time, she felt a mixture of relief, gladness and trepidation.

“I come with an invitation,” he informed her. “Aunt Ellie wants us both to have dinner with her one evening.”

She knew that Aunt Ellie avoided the telephone because her hearing problem made using it something of an ordeal, so it wasn't surprising that the invitation had come through Ethan. She said cautiously, “When?”

“Any night that suits you,” Ethan answered. “I'm easy, and she says she'll fit in with whatever we decide.”

So there was no question of pleading another engagement. And she wouldn't like to hurt the older woman by refusing. “All right,” she said. “What about Thursday?”

“Fine. I'll tell her. And I'll pick you up with a taxi at about six, okay?”

“I can find my own way.”

“It's no trouble,” he assured her. “I have to pass by your place.”

She didn't know where he was staying. “Are you at a hotel?”

“With a friend.”

It crossed her mind to wonder if the friend was female. The thought gave her a strange sensation.

Someone came into the shop, and Ethan said, “Six o'clock, Thursday,” and sauntered out.

“You've put on weight, girl!” Aunt Ellie beamed. “About time, too. Doesn't she look better for it?” she demanded of Ethan.

“Definitely.” Celeste was wearing a plum-coloured skirt with matching shoes, and a sage-green blouse that she had painted herself, using both salt and alcohol techniques to give it a striking pattern. Over it she had a striped jacket that picked up both colours and also featured purple and red. The eye-catching outfit showed up her pale, shining hair, and she wore it with casual elegance. “She looks gorgeous.” Ethan grinned.

“What?” Aunt Ellie glared at him.

“I said, she looks gorgeous!” he told her loudly.

“Hmmph. Well, get her a sherry or something while I fix things in the kitchen,” Aunt Ellie instructed.

“Can't I help?” Celeste asked her, remembering to pitch her voice to a decibel level the older woman could hear.

“No, you stay and entertain Ethan,” Aunt Ellie ordered her, and marched out of the room.

Ethan poured sherry from a bottle in a corner cabinet into two glasses and handed one to Celeste.

“Well?” he said. “Entertain me, then.”

“What would you like?” she enquired sarcastically, sinking onto a fat, floral-covered sofa. “A song-and-dance act?”

He laughed, and seated himself half facing her. “I can think of better things,” he said, still smiling, and raised his glass to her.