Kissed by Moonlight (17 page)

As he began to guide her toward the house, she remembered something. “You've forgotten to get our suitcases.”

“The morning will do. They're perfectly safe where they are.”

“But – there are things I need. My nightgown, for instance.”

“What's so essential about that?” The brilliance of the moon highlighted his expression. She didn't need to hear the taunting inflection in his voice to know that he was baiting her.

The moon's luminosity was turned full on this evening, casting its strong beam over the whole bay; in contrast, the shadows around the house plunged them into dramatic darkness. It was a dubious blessing. Walking from the ashen brilliance into the clinging pitchy murk of total obscurity served to conceal her flushed indignation, but it also gave him cause to say, “I'll put my arms around you so you don't stumble. Or perhaps ... I've got a better idea.”

Without telling her what form it took, he put it into effect, and she felt herself being picked up and carried up the steps, heart to heart. The only reason it wasn't also cheek to cheek was because she held her head stiffly averted.

Just short of the door, he said, “Do you want to go in?”

If she assented to that, she knew what she would be saying yes to. At the same time she knew that he wasn't delaying the moment out of consideration for her hurt feelings – at least, the hurt feelings might be an important factor but his motive in considering them was a selfish one. He appreciated everything about her that Geoffrey Hyland had appreciated and had much the same goal in mind, but there was one crowning difference. She was his wife. She was his without the need to go through the preliminary stages, the sweet and potent coaxing, the subtle and tantalizing delights of seduction as he worked on her emotions until her longing for him matched the devouring fire of his own demands. He knew what the fulfullment could be and he was throwing away his rights to win her over as a lover. He had once told her that he never took an unwilling woman to bed, and a wife who merely surrendered to him in docile duty would be little removed from that category.

She too had known the exultation of her blood turning to fire and kisses that were as total a commitment as the act of possession itself. Her blood danced in crazed response just thinking about it – but she would not yield to his desire on her own. It would be forced surrender or nothing. He could not put her through the agony he had put her through this evening and expect passion as well. If necessary, as she feared it would be, she would keep reminding herself, repeating to herself over and over again, that it was the ultimate in sadism and cruelty to make her dine at the same table as his mistress and subject her to the gloating and esteem-stripping debauchery of Geoffrey Hyland's eyes.

She inquired haughtily, “What alternative to going into the house do you have in mind?”

His tone of voice said, “It's like that, is it?” The actual words he used were: “It's much too pretty a night to go indoors.”

It was, but if the atmosphere between them had been right that wouldn't have bothered him. Unless – unless he meant they should sleep out here, like nature children, on the sand?

“Go on,” she said, gritting her voice on new determination.

“Have you ever gone for a swim by moonlight?” “No.”

“Does the idea appeal to you?”

It appealed to her better than the other idea that she thought had been running through his mind.

Her eyes flicked back and down to the car. “My swimsuit is in my suitcase.”

He laughed, just as she knew he would. “What's the matter with the one you were born in? Nothing,” he added before she could reply, “if my memory serves me right.”

“I'm not going to refresh it. I either get my swimsuit or I don't swim.”

“Okay, just this once. So don't let it go to your head.”

“What?”

“Calling the tune,” he said, whistling perfectly in tune himself as he set her down on her feet before moving quietly back down the steps. He returned with the two suitcases and her vanity case. His suitcase, she noticed, was impossibly small and obviously contained the barest essentials. Setting the cases down, he took a key from his pocket and inserted it in the lock. The key slid smoothly home with none of the usual initial awkwardness of fitting a strange key into a strange lock. Geoffrey Hyland was obviously generous with her husband when it came to giving him access to his house. Again without looking, with the ease of familiarity, he reached his hand around the door and flicked on the light switch.

She made a move to enter the house before him, but his fingers clamped around her wrist, deterring her. “We must observe tradition,” he said drily.

“Of course.” She submitted herself to being lifted into his arms and carried over the threshold. All part of the softening-up process, she reminded herself.

This morning, on venturing here, it had been too tantalizing not to be able to peep into the house and appease her curiosity, and now she was actually in the house and too full of being in David's arms to get more than the briefest impression of her surroundings.

Still carrying her, he moved forward, flicking on light switches as his feet trod purposefully across the mosaic-tiled floor, predominantly colored in misty blue and white, of the entrance hall. Her skimming gaze revealed furniture gleaming like dark wine against the white walls, providing the perfect foil for fragrant red flowers in a tall black vase. He made for the bedroom without detour or hesitation.

He set her down and then went back for the suitcases while she surveyed the bed. A very large double bed – not the twin beds that seemed to be the preference in hot countries and that she had expected to see.

She opened her suitcase and found her swimsuit without causing much disorder. Out of the corner of her painfully averted eye she saw that he was stripping off his clothes. With a small inevitable sigh she knew she must do the same, somehow keeping up her reserve. Frosty intentions and undressing at shoulder-to-shoulder proximity were difficult to mesh. Assessing the situation, she thought, This is my husband, the most devastatingly attractive man I've ever met and I'm so much in love with him I'm not seeing straight. Suddenly all her problems seemed insurmountable.

In her inattentiveness, her fingers jammed the long back zip of her dress. “Would you mind, please?” she asked, turning her back on him and lifting her hair clear.

“My pleasure.” His fingers brushed the nape of her neck as he found the small tag. The contact was deliberate and found the reaction it sought. Encouraged by the revealing and treacherous quiver that went through her body, his mouth dropped a kiss on the exact spot his fingers had stirred into warmth with their light but sensuous touch.

She moved away as though she'd been burnt. As she had. Their passion, flaring into active response, was a dancing, tantalizing flame that was painful for her to stand aloof from or to contact. It was so tempting to let its heat consume her, to be as one with her husband, so much more tempting than struggling to escape.

He made it easy for her by not pressing home his advantage and completed the task she'd set him with stoic detachment. “Slowpoke,” he said in gentle reprimand. “Join me when you're ready.” She sensed his hand lifting in lazy farewell.

She looked at him and saw to her relief that he was wearing black swimming trunks. “I won't be long,” she promised.

She let him get out of the house and then on impulse ran out on to the semi-circular balcony. From this vantage point she saw him streaking down to the water's edge, a long, lean, bronzed flash of magnificent manhood.

She smiled, not totally in appreciation of his fine form. If she hadn't been here – with no one to witness his moonlight bathe, he wouldn't have bothered with the swimming trunks. He'd put them on as a sop to her prudery.

Some sop. As she watched he deftly removed the brief garment, flung it down on the moon-blanched sand, and raced into the sea, his powerful legs splashing up a waterfall before he dove, cleaving a path with his broad shoulders and muscular arms.

Her deep sigh was almost a mark of envy. It would be heavenly to do the same – shed her inhibitions with her swimsuit, float on the water, buoyant and free, supple and sinuous, with nothing to restrict her movements – no hampering straps cutting into her flesh, just the exhilarating feel of water against her skin.

Once started, her thoughts ran riot. She gazed up at the moon. It was enormous, languorous, drugging her senses, inveigling its way into her mind. She didn't try to resist. If the ocean in all its vastness was subservient to its dominance, what chance had she? Her eyes appealed to the half-naked marble nymph that had captured her heart this morning on her long walk around the veranda below. “You wouldn't be shocked, would you?”

She ran back into the bedroom, cast off the rest of her clothes, and dropped them on top of her swimsuit.

She was almost out of the house when she saw it, a splash of red and black on the tiled floor. She stopped – looked – struggling to work out the implication of finding it here with a mind that was still moon-drugged. She crouched down, bending over it, delaying the moment of picking it up, even in her moon-drugged state knowing that it would hurt her.

She came out of her stupor and scooped up the length of red-and-black material and held in her fingers the scarf David had worn for the barbecue. It told her conclusively that this was where he had disappeared to on the night of the barbecue when he'd been missing for so long ... when
they
had been missing. This was where he'd brought Justine. He'd brought his mistress here, tainting this perfect place with her presence. How could he do this to her? She had been wrong in thinking that making her dine with his mistress was the worst possible act of cruelty – this was!

The treachery didn't stop there. She remembered with stabbing clarity his familiarity with the house, knowing just where to put out his hand for the light switches, making straight for the bedroom with an unfaltering step. The night of the barbecue wasn't the only time he'd been here with Justine. This was their love nest.

This secret, hidden place where two people could lie side by side, unobserved in sun worship, could swim in the sea by the light of the moon, make love all night in the wide double bed or pillowed on the white sand, drowning in the bliss of this lovers' paradise, delighting in each other. He must have found Justine the ideal playmate. She had no inhibitions to shed. She wouldn't have needed persuading not to wear a swimsuit before going for a moonlight swim.

Oh, heavens ... dear, merciful heavens ... how could he have done this to her?

Not that Justine didn't have a perfect right to come here anytime she wished. It was her husband's house. Petrina's agitated fingers clenched and unclenched. The pain of her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands, savaging the thin material of the scarf, was nothing to the pain in her heart. The depth of her grief scoured bitterness into her soul. Her cheeks flamed, her eyes were wrathful as she vilified David for bringing her on their so-called honeymoon to the house that belonged to the husband of his mistress.

This lovely house in this perfect setting ... spoiled for her.

She rose to her feet with dignity, keeping her head high and a firm grip on the scarf. If she'd missed seeing it she would have gone out to David and afterward, their bodies relaxed and exhilarated by their swim, they would have made love. She looked at the scarf. It was lunacy to wish she hadn't seen it. Lunacy. That was it. She had looked too long at the moon. She was still under its influence. It was lunar madness to think there might be any explanation other than the one she had arrived at.

And yet ... could her instincts have played her so false? This morning, on coming down to the bay, and more recently on entering the house, she'd felt a wonderful sense of belonging – of coming home. How could anything that had connections with Justine – or Geoffrey Hyland, for that matter – enfold her in homey warmth? It was just one more tragedy for her plagued mind to deal with.

She walked back into the bedroom, dragged her nightgown from her suitcase, and put it on. What else could she do? Home was too far away and too inaccessible. She looked at the bedroom door and saw the key in the lock. There was something she could do. She locked the bedroom door, returned and got into bed, but there was only anger in her heart and no sense of triumph.

She heard David come back. He shouted to her through the door, “So you changed your mind? Your loss, it was great. I won't be long; I'm just going to have a quick shower.”

He didn't seem to notice that she hadn't replied. She heard the sound of the bathroom door opening, and the rush of running water. Soon ...

When the door didn't yield, he rattled the knob. “What's the matter with the door?”

“It's locked.”

“I see. Unlock it,” he rapped out in command.

“No.”

“I said ... unlock it.”

“I don't choose to.”

“Please yourself. You open this door, or I smash it in.”

“You wouldn't!”

“You have five seconds to weigh the odds.”

He would!

She fumed at her own stupidity. What had possessed her to put herself in this position? Bad as it was, the consequence of not backing down was worse. She couldn't have Geoffrey Hyland sniggering at the implication of a broken door.

“One – two –”

“Yes, blast you!”

“– three – four –”

“I'm coming!”

“– fi –” Before the fifth second was completely counted out he was looking down at her flushed face, his eyes blazing, his lips bitten together in fury.

He seized her by the arms, which was perhaps as well because the grip that left her no room to maneuver concealed to some extent, but not altogether, the violence of her trembling.