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‘Well, seeing that I have no desire of engaging in an affair with you until after we’re married, Miss Harper, what shall we talk about?’ His blue eyes were mocking as they went over her. ‘Although I could make love to you here and now, make no mistake about that.’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, in a stiff little voice. ‘Somehow we’ve become strangers—so what about people being hijacked in planes, or handsome, kidnapped diplomats? That would always do to start.’

‘You know what they say,’ he went on looking at her.

‘No. What do they say?’

‘They say that strangers become friends and in turn, friends become lovers.’

‘Really? Well, I always try not to expect too much.’

‘Does that mean that you want me to love you? Tonight?’ He went on studying her.

‘I’m not sure what I want,’ Tirza replied in a small voice. ‘Certainly not tonight.’ She began to shake.

‘Why are you shaking?’ Hugo asked.

‘I’m not.’ She swallowed her drink in one gulp. ‘I’d love another drink. May I?’ she tried to make her voice sound light. ‘I
do
know what I want, though. All I ask for is a settled and controlled way of life.’

He came for her glass. ‘And you think you’re going to get that with me?’ There was interest in his voice.

‘I’m not sure.’ Her face was slightly hostile.

A city view glittered in the distance and when she remarked on it he offered to show her the rest of the house. ‘I love the house,’ she told him, afterwards.

‘If you have anything besides clothes you’d like to have sent over, go ahead,’ he told her. ‘In fact, just let me know and I’ll make arrangements about transport.’

Tirza laughed suddenly. ‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew just what I do have! I’ve never lived in a house this old,’ she went on, ‘and yet it looks so—
new.
Just imagine, it’s a house steeped in history we don’t know about. It’s not haunted, is it?’ She turned to look at him and, for a seemingly endless moment, their eyes remained locked and she thought Hugo was going to kiss her.

‘No, you can set your mind at rest on that score. It used to be a farm and this house was a labourer’s cottage.’ She watched him as he went to pour himself another drink.

‘History always seems older in Cape Town. Do you know, Hugo,’ she added, ‘I know practically nothing about you.’

‘What is it you want to know?’ He glanced at her.

‘Your parents? Where are they?’

‘My father is dead. My mother is in Scotland, right now. I think you’ll like her.’ Suddenly he smiled. ‘What’s more, I think your father is going to like her. Somehow,’ he shrugged, ‘I can imagine them together.’

‘Really?’ Tirza sounded excited.

‘We’ll have to wait and see. She’s flying back for the wedding.’

‘Oh, Hugo! How marvellous!’ Suddenly she felt like crying. ‘I’m so glad,’ she said, very softly.

The forthcoming days, for her, were busy and hectic. While she was at home she found herself missing Hugo acutely. Wedding invitations were sent out and then Hugo’s mother arrived. Tirza, realising that she was going to be under inspection, felt herself becoming tense, but she need not have worried, because Sheila Harrington soon put her at ease and she realised, immediately, that the look of both sincerity and gaiety that shone from those smiling blue eyes, so much like Hugo’s, would prove a common meeting-point for them both. What was also so marvellous that it had been ‘Sheila’ and ‘Douglas’, from the start, and Tirza watched her father with tender amusement.

‘I see what you meant about my father and your mother,’ she said once.

Everything built up to that moment when she was married to Hugo in a stone church which had been sheltered by oak trees for a hundred years.

There was thinly-veiled curiosity from many of Hugo’s friends, not to mention her own. Between them, they had caused quite a stir.

Before leaving for the church her father had caused her to cry a little when he said, ‘I never got over loving your mother. In fact, I’ve always blamed myself for her death, merely for having taken her to India. I’m not trying to make excuses for my behaviour, but I felt driven to do something—and I did. I made money and I went on making money. It should have reached a limit, once I’d reached my goal, but it didn’t. I’m not asking you to understand, and I don’t expect you to, it’s too late for that, but I want you to know that, in my own clumsy way, I’ve always loved you. I hope you’re going to be very happy with Hugo. I like his mother, by the way.’

Smiling, she had said, through her tears, ‘You do?’

‘Yes. Something makes me think you’ve brought more than just a son-in-law into my life, Tirza.’

Outwardly, it seemed a perfect wedding and, wearing a free-falling Quiana chiffon creation in a pale coppery apricot shade, which suited her colouring, Tirza went from table to table with Hugo at her side, talking to her friends and meeting his.

They were leaving for the Seychelle Islands the following day. Their cases were packed.

While they were dancing Hugo said, over the noise of conversation and music, ‘Well, and what shall we talk about, Mrs Harrington?’ They could have been quite alone and he looked into her eyes. There was a kind of animal magnetism about him, Tirza thought, even in his conservative dark suit, which did little to disguise the dangerous, compelling quality about him.

After a moment she said, ‘It’s unfair to put the onus on me. You tell me what we should talk about.’

He held her closer and said against her ear, ‘What about people being hijacked in planes? Or, better still, handsome kidnapped diplomats. Or ... what about us? Do you see yourself being married to me?’ His voice was touched with humour.

‘I
am
married to you now,’ she replied, on a shaken note.

‘You’re very beautiful and you’re married to me. You can’t expect this to be a casual marriage, Tirza.’

It was after midnight when they drove to his cottage, in a world removed from the confusion of the city. It was a brisk night, clear and glittering with stars. Table Mountain looked vast and haunting, somehow. Lights sprinkled the distant shoreline, like fireflies.

‘A setting for a seduction,’ said Hugo, helping her from the car.

When they were in the lounge she took off her shoes and flopped down on one of the sofas. ‘My eyelids feel as if they’re working on two hinges! After almost two hours of participating in my own wedding festivities and making polite conversation and manipulating the kind of smiles to go along with it, I feel utterly drained.’ She knew that she was shivering slightly and she knew why.

‘Is this your way of trying to delay the inevitable?’ He sounded annoyed.

Moodily she watched him. He was superbly tailored but, nevertheless, bore the stamp of arrogance she had grown to know so well. The combination was one of dynamic masculinity. His face was a mask, but his eyes were searching.

‘By the way,’ the shivering was growing worse, ‘I usually have the peacock in the jungle dream when I’m overwrought, or overtired—or run down, even ...’

He listened impatiently and then cut her short, ‘And I take it that this is your way of reminding me that your dream has been shared with Nigel Wright and, no doubt, countless others. You can tell me now. After all, shared intimacies, one way and another, are an integral part of married life.’

Her green eyes reflected the insult. ‘I merely want you to know that Nigel Wright was purposely misleading you when he spoke about it. Nigel is a rotter. I merely
told
him about this dream. At one stage, I didn’t care what you thought, but now we’re married I want to get this straight.’

She watched him as he went in the direction of the drinks cupboard, where he poured a measure of Scotch into a glass, added a splash of soda and ice-cubes from the portable refrigerator which was built into the unit. He glanced up. ‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘Why are you shaking?’

‘I’m shaking because I happen to be upset and nervous,’ she told him. ‘Is it so very unreasonable for me to want to convince you that I’m not what you believe me to be?’

‘I’m not what you believe me to be, for that matter,’ Hugo snapped. ‘For instance, you haven’t exactly married a poor man. Your father’s money means damn all to me. I married you because I want
you.
Nothing else.’

He brought two glasses over to where she was sitting and placed them on the low coffee table.

‘You don’t have to say these things,’ she said quickly.

‘I’ve said it because I mean it. I say this with savaged pride,’ he said seriously, ‘I haven’t
treated
you kindly and I’m sorry. I love you.’ He reached for her hands and pulled her up to him.

‘When did you decide that?’ She made no attempt to hide the bitterness in her voice.
'Now?
Because you
—want
me?’

‘I’ve waited for you,’ he told her, ‘the girl I wanted for my own, and yet when you came into my life, I didn’t recognise you. From the beginning, almost, I realised that you were an heiress, and so far as I was concerned, I was not going to contribute to any of your many “irons in the fire”. I couldn’t make out what was inside Tirza Theron Harper before I realised I loved her, and then I wanted you on any terms.’

‘Oh, Hugo, what kept you silent?’ she asked, in a small distressed voice.

‘Pride.’ His lashes dropped, as his eyes went to her mouth.

‘Do you honestly believe I agreed to marry you for business reasons? So that I could gain the knowhow to start a weaving industry?’ She drew away from him and made an impatient gesture, as if it was all too much for her. ‘Do you think any girl would do that?’

‘Why did you agree to marry me, then?’

‘Oh, can’t you
see?
I love you, so I swallowed all my pride, Hugo. You’re such a fool...’

‘Not such a fool.’ Tanned and vital, in his dark suit, he reached for her, and she came to him with the abandon of a goddess. Response surged through her, cancelling out everything but their wedding night. With closed eyes she felt him draw away from her and slip out of his jacket which he tossed across the back of the sofa. The way in which he did it was dynamically masculine, and then she was in his arms again and she felt herself being lifted up and carried from the room.

‘Don’t take my love lightly, Hugo,’ she whispered.

‘I love you too much for that,’ he answered.

Two glasses stood, forgotten, on the low table with the Mexican antique base.

Harlequin
Plus

A WORD ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wynne May was born in South Africa, ten miles from Johannesburg. Shortly after graduation from college, she began working for the South African Broadcasting Corporation, and it was while on holiday from the S.A.B.C. that she met her husband.

How did it happen? Let Wynne tell it. It’s pure Harlequin Romance:

“I had gone to the home of my mother’s parents—in Ardeer, on the south coast of Natal. This was
the
place for surfing and swimming. Claude, recently wounded in the Battle of El Alamein, was on leave.

“The scene was set: a blustery day with the sea bounding in and the sand whipping up to sting the face and limbs. Apart from Claude, the beach was utterly deserted. Claude was lounging near the shallow end of a pool.

“Taking the greatest care not to pass in front of the handsome stranger, I took the long way around the pool... and promptly slipped on the cement and splashed into the water. It is not surprising, therefore, that the young man with the mocking green eyes spoke to me;”

Three months later, Claude slipped a diamond ring onto Wynne’s finger as they stood under the stars in an exotic garden.

When their son Gregory was eight and Wynne was pregnant with Julian, she decided to write. She completed her first novel just before she went into the hospital.

Before long, Wynne May was looking after two sons, running a home—and writing romances.