Kissed by Moonlight (7 page)

Petrina's fingers curled furiously into the palms of her hands. His meaning couldn't have been clearer or more insulting if he'd come right out and said “nobody's plaything but mine.” It would have been more honest to say that because that's what he had meant to imply.

“I'm sorry,” Bob said, a gentle frown on his face. “I meant no offense; I thought Pet was a general nickname. Which alternative are you happiest with?” he asked directly of Petrina.

“Trina,” she replied quite definitely.

That lunch was not an easy meal. Petrina was smoldering. She wondered how long David was going to punish her for last night, and how long she could stand it before she rounded back on him. Ginny came to join them, but even her talkative presence couldn't totally iron out the taut silences. Ginny didn't make any gauche inquiries, and beyond throwing Bob a confused look, which he answered with a slight shrug of his huge shoulders, she rattled on gamely as if nothing was amiss. The only reassuring thing, thought Petrina, was that David seemed no more interested in Ginny than he was in Bob. Perhaps, she hoped, she had been mistaken in that after all.

Later in the day, Petrina was just leaving the reception counter, having changed her English money into the local currency, when Bob ambled up. It was just a thought, but it seemed to her that he'd been waiting for the opportunity to have a word, although he made it seem as if he'd stumbled upon her by chance.

“You want to watch the sun. I'm sure your nose has caught it.”

She didn't say that she feared it was more than her nose that had caught it. Instead she nodded sagely. “I'm on my way to the shops now. I'm going to buy myself the largest sun hat I can find.”

“Sensible girl. The hotel shopping facilities are quite good, although you'll probably get a larger selection if you wander farther afield to the shopping precinct.” He bit on his lip. “Trina?”

“Yes, Bob?” she said, meeting his eyes.

“I'm probably out of line saying this, but that husband of yours isn't the bear he made himself out to be at lunchtime.”

“No?”

“No. All this –” he gestured at the hotel around them – “hasn't just come about. It's been hard work, and he's the only one of us who hasn't taken a holiday for the full three-year stint. Apart from sneaking a couple of days off to fetch you, that is. And then he had to make the time up, although I'm not sure whether that wasn't dedication to idiocy rather than to duty. I'm not just speaking like this about him behind his back; I told him to his face last night. I said I couldn't see the sense of us working ourselves bleary-eyed into the small hours, no matter how snowed under we were. I don't think either of us quite realized what the time was or we'd have quit. And then it was so late that he didn't want to disturb you, so he sacked out on the spare bed in my room.”

“Thank you, Bob. Thank you for putting me in the picture.”

“Don't mention it.”

She had no intention of mentioning it. The last thing she intended to do was let David know that she knew where he'd spent last night.

It was always good to have a friend. No matter how many friends a person has, there's always room for one more, Petrina thought. In her position, uprooted from all the links of childhood, vulnerable in her new surroundings, it was especially comforting to have found a friend in Bob.

She hadn't known, until Bob let it out, that the three of them – David, Ginny, and Bob – had been locked together in this project for the full three years since it was taken over from her father. That was a lot of testing-out-theories, sharing-ideas, and getting-to-know-each-other time.

Even though she could go them one better than that – she had known David all her life – somehow it wasn't the same. She had been the little girl he tolerated because of a long-standing family friendship.

When things had gone wrong, David's father had been her staunch and loving ally, and somehow David had inherited from his father the feeling of responsibility toward her.

She didn't want to be a burden or a responsibility to anyone. Had she been wrong in accepting David's proposal? Despite what he thought, she hadn't married him to get out of a tight corner. She would have made out. She was too much her father's daughter to be out of the running forever. She had married him for that most corny and wonderful of reasons: she loved him. She always would. If only she knew for sure why he had married her. Had it been only to satisfy the attraction he felt, or was there something more ...?

All the time she'd been thinking, she'd been walking. The temporary cessation of her thoughts was marked by an unhappy sigh and the knowledge that she had arrived at the hotel shopping area. It was not just one shop, but a mini-precinct of its own that catered to just about every need. There was a shop that sold film and sunglasses and lipsticks and lotions and a shop that sold trinkets and souvenirs, from baubles for the ears to child-high donkeys. There was a hairdressing shop and a newsstand, and at the very end of the arcade was a ladies' fashion boutique displaying a pile of sun hats.

She went in. After trying on several, she settled for a pale parchment-colored wide-brimmed hat in squashy straw that could be pushed into a beach bag and still come up smiling. Her eyes had been straying toward a charming and artistically arranged collection of lingerie, but they- quickly came back to base when she realized that Justine Hyland had entered the shop. Petrina had been toying with the thought of buying a more attractive nightgown to replace the two functional cotton ones she'd brought with her, but she was certainly not going to choose anything so intimate while that woman was watching.

She managed to make it known to the assistant, a pretty little Spanish girl with laughing, liquid eyes and the sweetest manner, that she was going to wear the sun hat and didn't want it wrapped, but when she opened her purse and tried to pay for it the girl became quite excited in her refusal. Petrina was at a complete loss to know what she was doing wrong. Was she offering insufficient money? She wasn't used to the currency yet. If she'd erred on the generous side, surely the girl could give her the correct change. Unless she was out of change. Was that it?

“I think you need help,” Justine Hyland finally came forward to say.

Petrina nodded helplessly, although she wished the offer to act as interpreter had come from someone else. “I don't know what I'm doing wrong.”

“The assistant has recognized you as David's wife. She doesn't dare take your money because David has instructed her that anything you want must be charged to his account.”

“Oh, I see. Thank you. I didn't know.”

“Didn't you?” Justine's elegant black eyebrows rose in eloquent meaning. “Something else David has been remiss in telling you.”

Petrina chin lifted. “As he was remiss about telling me of your existence? Is that what you mean?”

Justine's smile was sweetly gloating, but she said nothing.

Petrina's eyes glanced across to where the little Spanish assistant stood. “Am I right in thinking she doesn't understand a word of English.”

“Not a word,” Justine confirmed.

“In that case, Miss Hyland, I think you are filthy-minded and despicable.”

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.