The Descent (3 page)

She cut me off so sharply that I almost didn’t get the last word out. “Is he expecting you?” She spoke with a working-class British accent. Over her shoulder, a second woman stepped into view at the other end of the hall, a full-figured woman with long dark-brown hair. Her skirt came down to her ankles and she wore embroidered Turkish slippers on her feet. Aside from their shared displeasure at seeing me, the pair of young women was physically as dissimilar as two women could be.

“No, he doesn’t know I was coming, but we’re old friends and—”

The two of them crowded the doorway now, shoulder
to shoulder, a barricade of crossed arms and frowns set on lipsticked mouths. Up close like this, I could see that they were very pretty. The blonde was like a model, thin and boyish, while the brunette was lush and womanly, and a picture of them in bed with Adair came to my mind unbidden, the three in a tangle of bare arms and legs, heavy breasts and silken flanks. Their lips on his chest and groin, and his head thrown back in pleasure. A wave of hurt passed over me, tinged with that particular sense of belittlement rarely felt out of adolescence. I fought the urge to turn around and flee.

Had I been wrong to come here? No, knowing Adair hadn’t changed and had returned to his sybaritic ways made my task easier. There would be no strings, no possibility of reconciliation. I could forget about everything except asking for Adair’s help.

“Look, girls,” I started, shifting the weight of the knapsack in my hands. “Would you mind if I came inside to get out of this wind before I’m blown off a cliff? And if one of you would be so kind as to let Adair know that he has a visitor? My name is—”

“Lanore.” His voice rang in my ear, rushing to fill a space left empty. And then he appeared at the end of the hall, a shadowy figure backlit by the sun. My heart raced, being in his presence once again. Adair, the man who’d hurt and deceived me, loved and exalted me, brought a man back from the dead for me, given me all of time in the hope I would share it with him. Did he still love me enough to help me?

As I stood in Adair’s magnetic presence, everything that had happened between us rushed back to me in a tumult, all
that passion and anger and hurt. The chaos of the strange world I had known when I’d lived with him tugged at me. I stood at his door ready to ask him to take a journey with me—a journey that wasn’t without risk. The bond between us might be ruined forever. Still, I had no choice. No one else could help me.

A new chapter in our history was about to begin.

TWO

T
he girls stepped aside without a word, making room for Adair as he approached the front door. I could see him better as he moved out of the sunlight. I knew, of course, that physically, he would be unchanged from the last time I’d seen him. He was the same height and weight. His face was the same, with those arresting, wolfish eyes of green and gold. He wore his beard a little thicker, and had grown his curly dark hair to his shoulders, though at the moment it was held back in a loose plait. The only change—and it was striking—was in his manner.

Adair was one of those people who came off from the first as aggressive and intimidating, the kind of man who naturally set other alpha males bristling. Menace always seemed to crackle just under the surface, and once you got to know him, it only got worse. His moods were changeable and you were
never quite sure where you stood with him. Remarkably, that tension was now nearly gone. His natural aggression was nearly undetectable. He was subdued, though I suppose it might’ve been from the shock of seeing me.

“I can’t believe you came back—” Adair began, his voice full of emotion, but then stopped himself. He reached for my hand and drew me over the threshold, continuing in a more restrained fashion. “Come in, don’t stand outside. A person could be killed by the wind out there.”

“I hope I’m not intruding,” I said as I squeezed past the two women, who stared down on me coldly.

“Not at all. We don’t often get visitors—as you can imagine, given the isolation—so your arrival is a surprise, that’s all.” Adair closed the door, and the four of us looked at one another awkwardly. “Well, I should introduce everyone. Robin, Terry, this is Lanore McIlvrae, an old friend of mine. And, Lanore, this is—”

“Robin and Terry, yes.” Terry was the brunette, Robin the blonde. They took turns shaking my hand limply, as though the last thing they wanted to do was to let me into their house.

“How long has it been since you last saw each other?” Terry asked, arching an eyebrow at Adair, her arms folded over her ample chest.

“Four years,” I answered.

“It seems—longer,” Adair offered.

The women made no attempt to mask their hostility, and I started to feel that I’d made a bad mistake by coming without warning. They both oozed sexuality—you could tell by their dress and body language—and I could only speculate as to what I might’ve interrupted. Before I could sputter another
apology for the intrusion, however, Adair asked, “Will you be staying?” and gestured to the knapsack I was holding before adding, “Oh, of course you will. I shouldn’t even bother to ask: unless you have a boat at the dock or someone coming back for you soon, you’ll need to stay overnight, at least. Though you’re welcome to stay as long as you wish.”

“I realize this is terribly inconvenient of me, showing up unannounced,” I said, looking gratefully at the girls before turning back to Adair. “This isn’t purely a social call. There’s a reason why I’m here, Adair. I need to talk to you.”

His expression darkened immediately. “It must be important for you to have made this journey. Shall we do that now? We can go to my study—”

Robin sighed irritably, shaking her head as she reached for my knapsack. “For pity’s sake, did someone die or something? Surely that can wait till later. We should get you settled, find you a room first.” She then started up the stairs without waiting for anyone to agree. He gave me a nod, indicating I should follow. I was sorry to leave him so soon but followed the blonde, the soles of her sandals scraping on the treads.

I glanced into the rooms we passed as we walked down the hall, mildly curious about the interior of this odd domicile. Adair was a rich man, after all, and could live in luxury and comfort anywhere in the world, so why had he chosen to hide away on this rock in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea with these two women? The fortress was built in a rustic Moorish style and seemed as unimproved on the inside as it was on the outside. There were no clues in the bedrooms, as each was plainly decorated and obviously unoccupied. Wooden beams spanned the low ceilings, and the walls were white-washed
stone. The furniture was all rough-hewn and probably had been made on Sardegna or Corsica a century ago. Simple woven blankets covered the beds.

Of all the rooms we passed on the second floor, only one appeared to be in use. In it, a huge feather mattress lay directly on the floor, the tangle of white sheets hinting of wanton abandon. Old Moroccan lanterns fitted with candles circled the bed, which faced a high, wide window dressed in gauzy curtains, through which you could see a panoramic view of the sea. Discarded clothing lay all over the floor, including a pale pink brassiere—Terry’s, by the size of it. Two more Turkish slippers sat at odd angles to each other, as though they’d been kicked off in a burst of bad temper. Adair’s unmade bed stirred something near my heart, but the casually tawdry display of the women’s clothing extinguished that stirring as easily as one might squeeze out the flame on a match head.

“Looking for something?” Robin asked, suddenly beside me, catching me gawking outside their bedroom. “You can’t have this room. It’s already taken,” she said in her sharp way.

“I didn’t mean to pry, but the door was open,” I said apologetically.

She had a funny way about her, guileless, like a child. She stared at me flatly, as though she was trying to tell what was going on in my head. “You came here hoping to get back together with him—that’s why you want to see if we’re sleeping with him, isn’t it?”

Heat rose up my neck and across my cheeks. “Not at all. He’s a friend. I’ve come to see for myself that he’s happy.”

“You’ve come an awfully long way just for that.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “That’s not the only reason you came.”

“No,” I murmured. I saw no reason not to tell her the truth. “I need a favor from him.”

“Must be some favor,” she said, then stuck a lock of hair in her mouth and began sucking on it, as though she was simpleminded. It was an unnerving gesture.

“It is.” The same anxiety I’d felt when I’d made up my mind to find Adair rose up in my chest, beating frantically like a bird was trapped inside me.

“And after you get what you want from him, will you leave us alone?” She practically spat the words at me. I didn’t know what to say, but before I could gather my wits to answer, she spun on her heel and started down the hall again, my knapsack banging against her shins.

Before Adair and I could speak in private, there was dinner with the girls to endure. The meal was set at a dining table that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a castle. The chairs were as ornately carved as thrones, the windows covered with long, heavy drapes of burgundy and gold. The walls were still fitted with iron brackets meant to hold flaming torches, now made obsolete by a huge crystal chandelier. It was too grand a setting for our small party, and made for a strange, off-kilter meal.

For dinner, Terry had roasted squabs and fresh greens tossed with olive oil. I assumed all the food came from their larder as the island appeared to have neither a chicken coop nor a garden. Adair and the girls ate with their fingers like hedonists, and their mouths were soon slick with squab fat and oil. The girls kept Adair merry, joking and flirting, and something
was going on under the table, too, no doubt, a bare foot nestled in his lap or an eager hand stroking his thigh. They did their best to make me feel like an intruder, but I would be damned if I would let them intimidate me.

“How did you two meet Adair?” I asked as I picked at my salad with a fork.

Robin and Terry exchanged looks before the blonde answered. “It happened here on the island, actually. We were staying on Corsica, on holiday. Terry and I always go on holiday together, ever since we were kids. We go anywhere there’s sun and heat . . .”

“And pretty men,” Terry added, winking at Adair.

Robin poked tentatively at a piece of arugula. “Anyway, by the middle of the second week, it was getting sort of boring—”

“Too many German tourists,” Terry interrupted, rolling her eyes. “Hans and Franz with their wives and their little Hanslings in tow. And the men all squeezed into Speedos. Too much white, middle-aged flesh on display for my taste. And, besides, it’s not a proper holiday unless you find a complete stranger to shag. . . .” Terry watched to see if she’d managed to shock me, but I betrayed nothing.

“We hired a boat to take us out on an excursion, you know, to explore the little baby islands off the coast,” Robin continued, fishing a segment of tangerine out of her salad between thumb and index finger, “and we came upon the black beach below. We’d never seen nothing like it, so we talked the captain into dropping us off for an afternoon of sunbathing.”

“Oh, but it was too bloody cold for sunbathing,” Terry said.

“We thought the place was deserted. So there we were, lying topless in the sun,” Robin went on as though she hadn’t
been interrupted, “when we see
him
wandering toward us, head down, all lost in thought. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first. I mean, we thought this place was deserted. Who’d have thought someone was living here on this rock all alone?”

“He invited us in for a drink, and one thing led to another . . .” Terry grinned wickedly at me, to make sure I understood what “the other thing” had been.

“. . . and we’ve been here ever since,” Robin finished.

“How long has it been now? Three months? Four?” Terry touched Adair’s arm lightly to get his attention. There was something possessive about her gesture and he didn’t seem to care for it, but he didn’t say anything to her. He was a gentleman—up to a point.