South of Capricorn (13 page)

Subdued yet furious, Gail lowered her eyes, and automatically began fidgeting with the knot again. What must she do? Her pride urged her to adopt a careless attitude, to treat with contempt his threat. But what about Leta? She would feel the wrench were she to be taken from here now. By some miracle she had managed — for the first time in her life - to get along with other children, having made friends with Marion, the five-year-old daughter of one of the stockmen, and Gerald, the son of one of the rouseabouts. Also, she was extremely fond of Kane, despite her tantrums of this evening when he had carried her forcibly to her room, and kept her there by the simple means of locking her door. She liked Dave - and not only because he was teaching her to ride a horse; she got on tolerably well with the three lubras, and Daisybell went so far as to make her biscuits twice a week, cutting them into the shapes of animals and birds.

‘I promised Sandra I’d bring her to you,’ said Gail at last, her voice low and devoid of any hint of anger. ‘I’ve kept the promise, but — but if you send Leta away again...’ Distressed now, she looked up at him, into those hard grey eyes, eyes which seemed to be measuring her darkly as they moved, with a sort of slow precision, to the hands that were occupied with the knotted ribbon.

‘Let me help you.’ The offer came spontaneously, and judging by his expression it surprised Kane as much as it surprised her. ‘You’ve been struggling ever since I came in here.’

‘It - it doesn’t matter...’ Why should she be so close to tears? Could it be for the most absurd reason that he had said something to ease the tension? ‘I c-can manage it.’

‘But I’ll manage it far easier from here.’ And, bending down, he took her hands away and proceeded to unfasten the knot. She watched his bent head, noting the thick and healthy hair, the strength of the neck, the broadness of the shoulders. But what she was profoundly conscious of was the presence of his hands, so close to her that she could feel their warmth. A sense of breathlessness, of inexplicable excitement pervaded her body and she was aware also of a curious constriction of her throat. Her mind, too, seemed to be affected, with thoughts refusing to be marshalled. And when at length Kane straightened up she was blushing adorably, and her eyes were oddly bewildered as they met his half puzzled, half amused stare. ‘There,’ he said, leaving her to tie the bow, ‘it’s done!’

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, her lashes coming down, for his amusement appeared to be growing with every second that passed. It embarrassed her and in a sort of defensive move she mentioned the reason for his coming into her room.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was merely to tell you that your attitude was the correct one. As Leta’s mother you must at times assert your authority.’

She stared at him in surprise.

‘I fully expected you’d resent my interference,’ she told him. ‘After all, I’m not her mother - but you are her father, so it would have been natural if you’d resented it ...’ Slowly her words tapered off to silence, because of the odd expression that had entered his eyes, and because of the inexplicable twitching of his lips and the slight shaking of his head which, she decided, was mechanical, a gesture of which he himself was scar-cely aware. ‘Have I said something to amuse you?’ she asked, totally fascinated by his manner, ‘You’re laughing at me?’ she added accusingly.

Kane shook his head.

‘Not at you, my dear ... at something you said, though. However, do continue with what you were telling me.’

‘Won’t you say what it was that amused you?’

Again he shook his head, this time a little more firmly.

‘Carry on with what you were saying,’ he invited again, and Gail with a shrug of her shoulders went on to say that, having always regarded herself as Leta’s aunt rather than her second cousin, she felt she had a certain right to assert some authority, but repeated that she would have understood had Kane resented her interference.

‘When the time comes for me to take her in hand,’ he said reflectively, ‘I shall not require your help, nor will I be happy if you should interfere. However, the time is not yet; we are acting parts, you and I, and we must remember this - all the time. Had you not asserted your authority it would have looked very strange indeed. My stepmother is no fool; in fact, she’s as astute a woman as I’ve ever met,’ he added with a grim note to his voice.

‘She knows what you’re about, that’s for sure.’

‘And to be expected. As she said, I’m the last one to tolerate a disregard for authority - especially my authority,’ he added, and his expression was such that a slight shudder passed down Gail’s spine.

‘She also predicted that you’d become tired before she would.’

At this his lips curved in a sneer.

‘We shall see about that. I have a great capacity for patience—’

‘You have?’ she broke in without a moment’s thought. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so—’ And then she stopped, aghast at what she had said.

‘Isn’t it a little early for you to make an assessment of my character?’ he inquired dryly. ‘After all, I estimate that we’ve spent no more than three hours a day in one another’s company — that’s an average, of course.’

‘It has never struck me how little time we’ve had on our own,’ she returned, aware only after the words had been uttered that this was perhaps not the right way of putting it. However, he made no sign that she had either amused or surprised him and she continued by adding, as tactfully as she could, that he had not struck her as a very patient man.

‘I don’t suffer fools gladly, if that’s what you mean,’ he said. ‘However, I believe you misunderstood my meaning. When I implied that I had patience I really meant that if it’s to be a waiting game then I’ll have more staying power than Rachel.’

‘I see.’ Gail nodded her head. ‘I did misunderstand you. But in any case,’ she went on with a sudden smile, ‘I spoke impulsively, didn’t I?’

He made no answer to this, appearing to have become rather more than a little interested in her expression. Her lips were still parted slightly, her eyes still bright from the tears that had come so close to falling. Her lovely hair, gleaming from the brushing it had just received, shone in the shaded light from the bedside lamp; her slender body was swaying very slightly, so that the neglige, its tie forgotten, swung open to reveal alluring curves tantalizingly veiled by the folds of a diaphanous white nylon nightdress.

His eyes gave away the fact that he was admiring the picture she made and with a swift movement she snatched together the edges of the neglige, her colour rising in the most enchanting way, and her long thick eyelashes fluttering down as, in her embarrassment, she avoided his gaze. Kane laughed softly and unexpectedly and she glanced up. His mouth was now lifting at the comers, portraying his amusement. She caught her breath, in a curious manner which produced an access of suffocation ... and a feeling of expectancy. A little dazed by these sensations, she could only wonder vaguely at them, the only explanation emerging being that when he smiled like that the attraction was such that she was unable to ignore it.

Gail continued to stare; Kane remained motionless in the centre of the room, his back to the window. It was a moment of profound tension with the very air vibrating around them. Behind Kane the moon was visible through the uncurtained window, an enormous moon, full, and shining like polished silver. It had risen behind the mountains, but now its light fell upon the foothills leaving the high hollows bathed in shadow. The night was soft in its gentle beams; the plains drowsed lazily in their splendid solitude. Vast land! - immense, lonely and withdrawn as some mighty god on his golden throne.

Yet there was magic in the aspect of moonlit plains, in the optical illusion of a tilted sky, in the stars of the southern hemisphere, in the secrecy that lay tantalizingly beyond the range of vision.

‘I th-think you’d better go,’ she stammered at last, quite unable to think of anything else to say. ‘It’s getting l-late.’

He glanced at his watch and said,

‘You’re quite right, Gail, it’s getting late. Good night ... my dear.’

Why the hesitation? She thought about it and suddenly she knew that he had almost left out the ‘my’, saying only, ‘dear’.

Dear ... She swallowed hard. His manner thrilled her in some delicious kind of way; it seemed to tempt, to beckon, to entice ...

What madness was this? With determination she gave herself a mental shake, but at that moment Kane smiled..

‘You must go,’ she repeated, and this time there was an urgency in her tone of which she was oddly ashamed. It should not be there simply because there should be no need for it! Need ... She swallowed again and turned her face away from him, afraid of what he might see there. She did not know herself, but she was still afraid, for every nerve in her body was tingling, affected by her desire to draw closer to him. Her heart throbbed wildly so that she felt an almost physical discomfort within her.

‘It’s almost midnight,’ she told him in a high-pitched tone of voice. ‘I’m tired - and - and I’m s-sure you are too!’

A twitching of his lips; a glance that took in the bright eyes, the quivering mouth, the little clenched fists and the slight heaving of her breasts.

‘Yes, Gail,’ he returned softly, ‘I am rather tired.’ He said good night again and then he was gone, and she was staring with a fascinated gaze at the closed door, half expecting it to open again and for Kane to come back into her room.

There was no lock. Up till now this had not troubled her, but suddenly it was a thing of importance ... it was a danger. Tomorrow she would see him about having the door locked. It was just that the key was missing — or perhaps it was on his side.

‘It must be on my side! I shall insist! In any case, an unlocked door between us isn’t the thing at all, and I should have done something about it right at the beginning.’

Even after she got into bed she was staring at the door, afraid to put out the light. But inevitably sleep claimed her and, drowsy and on the very borders of slumber, she extinguished the light.

The following morning she missed him and as the first opportunity was in the evening after she had washed and changed, she knocked on his door, after hearing him moving about in his room.

‘Come in,’ he called, but she merely opened the door and stood looking in at him. ‘Something I can do for you?’ He seemed flippant, she thought, eyeing him with some suspicion. All day she had been thinking about what he had done to Sandra; all day she had been admitting that there was something so incredibly attractive about him that there was every excuse for her cousin. And in between these thoughts and conclusions had intruded the fact that she herself might be in danger. Never had she dreamed that a man could affect her in the way Kane had affected her last night, but it was there and she was honest enough to admit that it was there. Temptation ... and a man who had already let one girl down,

‘Yes, Kane, there is something you can do for me.’ She hoped she sounded brisk and unemotional. ‘I’ve been thinking; it isn’t the thing for this door to be unlocked. So I’m asking you to let me have the key. I see that the lock is quite old — you don’t find brass ones nowadays - so if the key is lost perhaps you’ll have a new lock fitted?’

The grey eyes flickered over her, a veiled expression in their depths. Was he amused again? she wondered.

‘What has caused you to think of this?’ he queried. ‘You’ve been here over three weeks and you’ve never bothered about it before.’

She swallowed hard.

‘It’s just that it occurred to me today that it isn’t quite right—’

‘Today?’ with a hint of satire. ‘Or ... could it have been last night?’

Gail coloured vividly. So he knew! She stepped back instinctively, desiring only to escape from this man’s all-seeing eyes.

‘The lock,’ she stammered, ‘I w-want it - and at once!’

Kane had been brushing his hair when she opened the door and he now tapped the back of the brush on his hand in a thoughtful gesture.

‘I’m afraid a locked door is impossible,’ was his cool rejoinder. ‘We are married, remember?’

‘Supposed to be married!’

‘That’s what I meant. And so we can scarcely have a locked door between us, especially as we’ve just become reconciled after a long and distant separation,’

‘I want it locked!’

‘I’ve said it’s impossible.’

‘I insist! No one will know—’

‘The lubras will know!’

‘Do they matter?’

‘Not particularly. But my stepmother is bound to find out, and then—’ He spread a hand expressively. ‘I’ve warned you, Gail, that we have to be careful.’

‘I can’t see that Mrs. Farrell can find out!’ Gail glared at him defiantly. ‘I intend having this door locked, so you can have it seen to tomorrow!’

Only then did Kane’s manner change. Gone was the humour, the hint of understanding that had underlain his words up till now. His eyes took on a steely look; his whole attitude was one of arrogance and implacability.

‘The door will not be locked,’ he told her. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish what I was doing.’ Icy the tone and dark his expression. She stood there, defiant still and yet hesitant about continuing the argument. But if she allowed him to have the last say then she would live in perpetual fear.

‘I must have it locked -I must!’

‘Gail,’ he said, very softly, ‘I’ve told you several times that it remains unlocked - No, don’t interrupt me! My word is law in this house and you, like everyone else, will respect it. Do I now make myself clear?’

‘What you’re telling me is that you, as supreme master of this establishment - of this vast estate - have the right to give me orders — and that I must obey them!’ Possessed now of a burning vapour of fury, she did make some endeavour to guard her tongue a little, but she failed and, speaking without sufficient consideration, she looked at him directly and said,