by Isobel Chace
‘The people have a lot to put up with,’ Stephanie sighed.
Idries smiled, his white teeth flashing in the sunlight. ‘Everything is better now. We have oil now and money to do many things. Everybody can learn to do great things now!’
‘Like you, Idries,’ Cas put in. ‘You come from a village like this yourself, don’t you?’
The young Iranian nodded. ‘But soon I go to university and study telecommunications. If I work hard, we will have no need to rely on foreigners any more to do everything for us. This is the Shah’s wish for us.’
Stephanie wondered how it was that Cas knew so much about the young driver. Kindly though he was to those who worked for him, she couldn’t imagine her father taking the trouble to find out where one of his drivers came from, or what his ambitions for the future were. Cas, she thought, was the better employer, and she felt a surge of loving loyalty towards him because she thought he was also the better man—and he was hers! She had taken on his name, casting off her father’s, and she was glad she had made the change. It wasn’t only because she loved him, but she was burningly proud of him as a man and a human being.
‘My husband will help you all he can,’ she said to Idries.
‘Well, well,’ said Cas, ‘you said that as though you meant it!’
She felt as brave as a lion and full of conceit that she should be identified with him. ‘I did,’ she said.
Her courage deserted her as fast as it had come. She saw with relief that they had drawn up outside the Rest House and she leaned forward, impatient to be out of the Range Rover and able to stretch her legs. It was a two-storey building, she noticed, with the restaurant to the right of the main door.
‘Yours is upstairs, honey,’ Cas told her. ‘If you get lost, yell for help, and I’ll come and find you.’
He would too, she thought. It was reassuring to know that he wouldn’t leave her to fight her own battles if she needed him. She mounted the stairs two at a time, feeling the pull of her muscles at the back of her legs and reflecting that the exercise would be good for her. She had almost reached the top when it came to her that he had gained her trust after all. Yesterday, she hadn’t known what she felt about him. It had all been a glorious muddle of physical attraction and a nerve-sapping insecurity that nothing would ever change. Now, she knew it had. She knew she could trust him as much and more than she trusted herself. He might not love her with the abandon that he felt for Amber, but he cared for her, cared more perhaps than even she yet knew. It was like being hit by a thunderbolt. There was so much more to being Mrs. Casimir Ruddock than she could ever have imagined a few hours ago.
Not even the dust that had settled on her face could hide the glow that lit up her features. She was happy she realised. Insanely, blissfully happy—and it showed! She made a face at herself in the mirror. What had she to be so happy about? And if she could see it, Cas would spot it at once. He was not a stupid man.
She put off going downstairs for as long as she felt she could and went into the dining-room, swinging her bag by its strap, and deliberately not looking anywhere in Cas’s direction. She was surprised to find him alone at the table.
‘Where’s Idries?’ she asked. That was a good, safe subject to begin with.
‘He’s found a friend to talk to.’ He watched her through half-shut eyes as she seated herself opposite him, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘Were you hoping he was going to chaperon you?’
‘Of course not,’ she denied.
She could hardly contain her relief, however, when two huge plates, loaded with piles of fluffy white rice, were brought to them. Deeply buried at the bottom of the rice was a nameless piece of meat, which proved to be much more tender than she expected.
Cas was drinking beer. Her eye fixed on his glass and she felt safe enough to smile at him. ‘I’ll never manage to get through all this,’ she said.
He grinned at her. ‘You may not get much more today,’ he warned her.
‘We have plenty of food in the Range Rover. I’m rather looking forward to cooking under the stars. I was never a Girl Guide, or anything like that.’
‘Have you ever slept out in the open before?’ His tone was deliberately idle, as though her answer could only hold the barest interest for him. ‘The ground can seem very hard if you’re not used to it.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’
There was nothing idle about the expression in his eyes. ‘You’re committed now, Mrs. Ruddock. You’ve decided to trust me after all, haven’t you?’
She thought about saying that she didn’t understand what he was talking about, but she couldn’t do it in cold blood. Not when he was looking at her as though he were tuned in on her most intimate thoughts, and sometimes she thought that perhaps he was! ‘Have I?’ she compromised.
‘Why now?’ he persisted.
‘It—it happened.’ She cut off a piece of meat with hands that trembled, and transferred it to her mouth with a care that amused him. ‘You wouldn’t have married me unless you wanted me to be with you.’
‘That was equally true yesterday,’ he drawled.
‘I didn’t know yesterday. I thought—I knew you wanted to make love to me, and that was all I could think about. Any woman would—’ She broke off, embarrassed. ‘Well, a lot of them have, haven’t they? I knew I wasn’t the only one!’
‘If you married me to cut out the competition, why did you imagine I married you?’ he asked with studied interest.
This was worse than she had ever thought it could be. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘You wouldn’t have me in the office and I thought you wanted to keep an eye on me, to see that neither my father or I did any harm while you were in charge. I tried not to think about the future at all—I didn’t think there’d be any—for me!’
‘I see.’ He sounded unbearably sad. ‘What made you change your mind?’
‘You said I’d fit in with your family in West Virginia, and that my home would always be with you,’ she said simply.
She couldn’t interpret the strange light in his eyes and wished hopelessly that she had the same trick of reading his mind as he could hers. He reached out across the table and put his hand on hers. The feel of his skin touching hers made her heart knock painfully against her ribs.
‘I’m glad you believed that at any rate,’ he said. ‘Though what I actually said was that your home would be in my arms—and I meant it too.’ His expression softened. ‘Oh, Stephanie, you little idiot! What did you suppose I was going to do with you after I’d had my way with you, and achieved your father’s conviction? Put you in prison too?’
‘I didn’t know. Americans are always getting married and divorced for no reason at all. How should I know what you might do?’
His laughter brought her indignation to a head and she glowered at him across the table, withdrawing her hand from beneath his with an injured air.
‘You’ve been seeing too many cheap American films, honey,’ he rebuked her. ‘As Amber told you, my people are good, solid Catholics, and we’ve never had a broken marriage in the family yet!’ He put a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘Am I really such a stranger to you?’
‘Yes!’
‘And it’s your nature to be careful? But now you’re not afraid any more? You told Idries I’d do my best for him, so you must have come to the conclusion that I’d do the same by you, and so I will. I promise you that, Stephanie.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘Part of me always knew it, but part of me had to be convinced—’
‘And now it is?’
She knew that nothing but the truth would serve her now. ‘I think so. It doesn’t matter any more.’ She dealt a final death-blow to her pride and found it much less painful than she had expected. ‘I want to be your wife more than anything, you see, and I can’t only be half married to you. It’s all or nothing, and I want it so badly that there isn’t room, for any reservation
s, like laying down conditions about how it has to be. I don’t expect it to be perfect all the time, but I’ll be with you and that’s all that matters.’ She met his eyes and it was as if there was nothing else in the world but the two of them. ‘I’m not just in love with you,’ she added. ‘I love you too.’
He pushed back her fringe from her face. ‘And you still think it’s only a physical thing with me?’
‘Isn’t it?’
His smile was very gentle. ‘It helps, honey. It surely helps, but it isn’t the whole deal. Come on, eat up, love, and we’ll be going. Are you ready?’
Stephanie slept for part of the afternoon. Cas had agreed to Idries driving for a while and had pushed her over into the window seat where she had room to curl up against him in relative comfort. He and Idries talked about the job that was in hand and for a while Stephanie tried to follow what they were saying, but the language was too technical for her to understand, and her mind soon wandered to other things, like the width of the gold band on her finger and how much its plainness pleased her eye against the smooth honey-coloured tan of her hands.
Cas’s hand, shaking her awake, brought an abrupt end to her dream. In it, she had been running like a crazy thing from something that distressed her, though she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was. It could have been the hint of a woman’s scent, or it could have been a chance remark that someone had made in her hearing. Whatever it had been, there was no reason that she could see for it upsetting her. But then dreams were like that. They didn’t mean anything in themselves. They were no more than an outlet for the mind and didn’t have to make sense.
‘Where are we?’ she asked.
‘We’re nearly there. Idries says there’s an abandoned village on ahead where we can camp. One of our teams is quite close by and we can get in touch with the office over the wire.’
‘Oh,’ said Stephanie. She wondered why he should want to. ‘I must have been asleep.’ She moved into an upright position, suddenly aware that she had been making use of his arm as her pillow. ‘You should have woken me before!’
He grinned. ‘No need. I’d have shifted you if I’d wanted my arm back for anything.’ He looked at her curiously. ‘What were you dreaming about?’
‘I can’t remember. That was the trouble, it was something I should have remembered, but I didn’t know what it was. I think it was something I smelt.’
‘The usual excuse is something you ate,’ he chuckled. ‘What kind of thing?’
‘Scent, I think. I can’t remember.’
‘Scent? Somebody’s perfume? Like the kind Amber wears?’
She shook her head. ‘Amber’s is unforgettable,’ she said dryly.
‘Little cat, he said without heat. ‘So is Fatemeh Ma’aruf’s—to me, at least! You don’t wear much, do you?’
‘Sometimes.’ Her mouth relaxed into a smile. ‘I have very expensive tastes in scent. Cheap ones can smell horrid after an hour or so—That’s it! It was cheap scent, all cloying on the top and bitter underneath. It was Gloria!’
Cas didn’t move a muscle. ‘What was Gloria?’
‘In my office. She’d been in there. It was her scent I smelt!’
‘You’re probably right,’ Cas agreed, rather less excited than she was. ‘We’re going to need more evidence than that. I think we’ll get it too!’
‘How?’
He fondled the lobe of her ear. ‘You’ll find out. Good, it looks as though we’re here. Do you still feel like cooking us a meal?’
She nodded. ‘Something for three?’
‘Something for two. Idries can sleep with the other men. I’ll drive him over while you’re settling in. Okay with you?’
She didn’t say anything at all, not even when he shoved all the things she had carefully packed in the back of the Range Rover out on to the ground, heaving the camping cooker after them and opening and shutting boxes with a grand contempt for her efforts to have everything in its own place.
‘There were a couple of comforters in here somewhere. Where did you put them?’
She looked completely blank, not knowing what he was talking about, and found it funny when he triumphantly pounced on a couple of quilts and dropped them on the top of the pile. She began to sort the bedding into two piles, giggling happily.
‘Well?’ he demanded, standing over her and looking at least seven feet tall.
‘You’ll have to teach me to speak your language—’ She gasped as he lifted her bodily to her feet. ‘Cas, I wasn’t laughing at you!’
He touched his lips to her. ‘American isn’t the only language I’m going to teach you, honey. Will you be all right on your own here until I get back?’
She nodded violently. ‘I want to cook something splendid and I can do that better on my own!’ Her eyes misted with a new shyness. ‘Will you drink beer with it?’ She held her breath waiting for his answer. ‘I brought some for you—’
‘I’ll drink wine with you.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’d better get used to it! I can see I’m not going to drink much beer with you around!’
It was lonely when the Range Rover had disappeared in a cloud of dust across the plane. Stephanie spent a lot of time arranging their camp to her complete satisfaction, until everything was in apple-pie order and all she had to do was heat up the meat and vegetable stew she had ready on the gas-ring. There was nothing to do then but wait for his return. He seemed to be a long time away.
She wandered into the deserted village, crossing a rickety bridge that traversed a ravine that must have split the village into two. The spaces between the houses were only wide enough for two people to walk abreast and some of them were rutted and difficult to traverse at all. She turned to her right and came to an abrupt halt as she found herself on the very edge of a cliff which now stood bang in the middle of a row of houses. No wonder the villagers had moved out!
The back of her hands were still pricking with fright as she made her way back to the camp. She put her head down and ran the last few yards, sinking to her knees by the cooker. It was only then she realised the Range Rover was back.
‘Cas, half the village has fallen over the cliff!’
‘Is that all? I thought you’d met a pack of wolves at least!’
She felt better and managed a rather feeble smile. ‘Two-legged ones?’
‘The other kind are dangerous enough in some of these mountain passes in winter. I’ll be glad if we’ve finished putting up all these posts by the time the winter sets in. We’ve had enough delays, without wolves adding to our problems.’
She blinked. ‘Have you re-ordered the equipment?’ she asked him.
‘Not personally. I’ve left instructions for it to be done while we’re away. I laid it on the line that this time the order had to go through without a hitch if we are to fulfil our contract. I don’t intend to let our rivals in if I can help it.’
She presented him with a worried face. ‘Does everyone know? If Gloria knows—Oh, Cas, supposing something goes wrong again! I couldn’t bear it if anyone suspected you of anything!’
He sat back, enjoying the picture she made against the orange sky of the approaching night. ‘I made a point of telling Gloria myself. As she’s the only other English girl there, I didn’t want her to feel that she wasn’t being appreciated. Now, what’s the matter?’
She pointed an accusing finger at him. ‘You think she has something to do with it too!’
‘I’ve thought so all along,’ he said.
Tomorrow, he had said, was another day, but she was very much afraid it would be like the tomorrows of her youth. That was the worst part about tomorrow: tomorrow never came!
She washed the dishes and put them away and filled the kettle ready for the morning. There was nothing else she could do now, but she made a great deal of noise pretending that there were umpteen things that were claiming her attention. She felt rather than saw Cas moving behind her and turned swiftly, as nervous as a young doe.
‘What do you
want?’ she asked him, her eyes enormous.
He reached down for her, lifting her high against his chest, and deposited her on top of the two sleeping-bags he had somehow managed to zip together. He lay down beside her and pulled one of the quilts up round her, smiling down at her.
‘I want you,’ he said.
CHAPTER XI
Stephanie awoke to a sense of well-being and a strong smell of coffee. She opened her eyes reluctantly and found her husband’s head only a few inches from her own. His eyes were bright and full of laughter at her confusion.
‘Well, my love, how did you enjoy your night in the wilderness?’
She turned over on to her back to give herself time to think up a sufficiently quelling answer. ‘Very much,’ she said at last. She made it sound as though politeness was everything.
Cas wasn’t bluffed at all. He reached over and kissed her leisurely and very thoroughly. ‘And Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness,’ he mocked her. ‘My, but what a song the girl can sing!’
Stephanie sat up and strove to restore some kind of order to the disarray around her. ‘It was the wires overhead. The wind gets in them—’ She found herself unable to continue. It was bad enough that he could laugh and joke about it, but she found it much more shocking to remember her own abandonment to his lovemaking. What would he think of her? Especially as she had insisted on going to sleep with her body curved intimately into his. She distinctly recalled her sleepy protest when he had turned away from her because she had wanted the warmth and comfort of the feel of him against her.
‘Honey, I do know about telephone wires.’
She straightened the bedding, not daring to look at him. ‘It was only because we were out in the open, and the deserted village, and the talk of wolves, and—and everything,’ she tried to explain it to herself, at the same time excusing herself to him.
He hooked a lazy arm about her waist and pulled her close, ignoring her tense protest as she tried to push away from him.
‘Stephanie, if you dare to belittle anything that happened last night, I’ll turn you over my knee and give you a hiding you won’t forget as long as you live. Now, how about kissing me good morning?’