by Daphne Clair
They talked. Sitting in her car watching some quiet corner of the harbour, or further afield in the high, bushcovered Waitakeres overlooking the city, strolling on the warm sand of quiet beaches, or climbing leaf-strewn paths through the damp silence of the bush.
Shard told her briefly about his childhood in 'homes' for children who had no home, and at more length about the jobs he had worked at since he left school, working on roads, on construction sites, for a time on board a cargo ship, for a year or so in a mining town in Australia. Construction was best, he said. Building excited him.
By contrast her own life seemed uninteresting, but he made her tell him about her childhood, and when she said, 'Why are you looking like that? I told you it wasn't interesting,' he laughed at her and refused to answer.
'Are you good at art?' he asked her once.
'Not very. Not more than competent. I might be able to earn a living as an illustrator or in a commercial art studio. I like it and I didn't want to teach, or go to university.'
She tried to draw him, but couldn't get it right, in the end screwing up the page and throwing it away in disgust. Shard rescued it and straightened it out, looked at it and said, 'You're right.'
Elise laughed, and he looked up enquiringly as his strong fingers crushed the paper again and consigned it back to the wire litterbasket.
'You'll never get on in business,' she told him. 'You're too honest.'
Quietly he asked, 'Does business have to be dishonest?'
'No, of course not—really. Only you're so—uncompromising. Maybe it's a reaction.'
'From what?'
She hesitated. 'From your father's habitual dishonesty?'
His face closed, he said, 'Maybe.' And then, 'Come on, we'll get back.'
When she was with him Elise was totally convinced of his integrity, but sometimes the conviction wavered when she was away from him. Nothing she actually knew of him was reassuring, and she couldn't forget her mother's assertion that he was 'on the make', and her father's worried admission that her mother was a shrewd judge of character. She herself had no experience by which to judge him impartially.
He said one day as they fed the pigeons in the park with the remains of their sandwiches, 'Come out to dinner with me.'
Tonight?'
'If you like.'
Peter was away, it would be nice to have dinner with Shard. Usually their time together was snatched and brief, an hour or so for lunch, or a brief drive before she hurried away to get home or meet Peter. When she said, 'I have to get back now,' to Shard, he never protested or asked why, and she never explained. She never mentioned him at home.
She said, 'All right. Where shall I meet you?'
'I'll call for you.'
'No.'
There was a brief, tense silence. Elise felt his anger, but he said nothing.
'I've got a car,' she said. 'I'll pick you up. It's silly for you to come all the way to fetch me.' She laughed shakily, 'Haven't you heard about the New Woman? We don't have to wait around for men any more—aren't you lucky?'
Shard didn't laugh. He told her where to meet him and then she left. But she knew that he was angry because she hadn't wanted him to call at her home. She hoped he was going to be over it by the time she picked him up for their dinner.
As soon as he got into the car, looking her over in her full-skirted silky dress With an unsmiling assessment, she suspected that he hadn't got over it. And when he told her where they were going, she knew it for sure. She tried to receive the news without showing the sinking of her heart, but the sharp, narrow-eyed grin he gave her as she turned the car immediately and without comment told her that he knew, anyway.
She knew that his preference would have been for somewhere quiet and unusual where the food was good and not necessarily exorbitantly priced, and that he knew very well where to find such a place.
But he had chosen instead to take her to a very well-known, very expensive, very popular restaurant where she was known and was almost certain to meet someone or other that she knew. And he had done it to punish her.
She-hoped savagely that he would feel out of place there, that he would make a fool of himself. But he didn't. He acted with perfect confidence and asked the wine-waiter for his recommendation with an easy savoir-faire that belied simple ignorance, and sipped it with appreciation when it came. He consulted Elise's preference with suave courtesy and made unimpeachably polite conversation that made her want to scream with frustration, as they dined.
Instead she set her teeth, answered with an exquisitely overdone courtesy of her own, and drank a little too much of the very good wine while trying to avoid the curious stares of at least two people who she knew would be telephoning her mother and Peter's first thing in the morning.
The dinner seemed interminable, the wait between courses overlong. There was a tiny dance floor and music, but Shard hadn't suggested they dance, and she hoped when the coffee came he would suggest that they leave when they had drunk it.
Instead he grasped her wrist, and said, 'Let's dance.'
Elise rose obediently but was stiff and unyielding in his arms. He pulled her close, his fingers digging into her skin, and she stumbled. For an instant as his arm tightened to steady her, she felt his hard thighs against hers, and heard his quick intake of breath as desire stirred his body.
Immediately she felt the heat of the answering desire in herself, and she jerked away from him, alarmed. The hard barrier of his arm at her back stopped her movement, not letting her put more than an inch or two between them. His voice low but filled with laughter, he asked, 'What's the matter?'
She said, 'I need some more coffee. I've had too much wine.'
It was true, but what she needed most was to get away from his unbearable nearness and collect herself, put up a barrier of normality between them.
Shard ordered more coffee for her and watched while she drank it. Then they went out into the cool night air, and when he opened the car door for her and she climbed in behind the steering wheel, he said, 'Move over, I'll drive,' and gave her a push along the seat, taking the key from her hand.
She knew it was no use protesting, and after all she had admitted to drinking more than she should. Resentfully she fastened her seat belt and turned her head away from him.
He drove along the harbour to one of the beaches they had visited several times. In the daytime there would have been strolling couples and mothers with young children building castles and dashing in and out of the shallow waves on the shore. Now the white strip of sand was deserted and the lights from the opposite shore dipped raggedly into the dark harbour.
Shard got out and came round and opened Elise's door, pulling her out with a firm hand on her wrist. Her high heels struck into the soft sand and hard hands steadied her. Then he bent and lifted her ankles one by one and slipped off the shoes, tossing them back into the car. Elise knew deep down that she was being uncharacteristically docile, that she should protest, show some opposition to his ruthless, high-handed actions. But for once in her life she felt helpless, swept along by the dark force of a fiercely controlled emotion that she knew was in him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Then Shard straightened and turned to face her, and he suddenly seemed close and menacing. The lethargy that had held her broke, and she instinctively stepped back from him.
He followed, and when she turned in panic he grabbed at her left wrist, pulling her round so that a sudden pain wrenched at her shoulder and she cried out, a gasping little shriek.
His other hand came up and hauled her taut body against his, and like ice brought in contact with heat, Elise melted, her only protest a sobbing little moan as Shard kissed her parted lips with a suddenly unleashed passion that demanded a total surrender.
Her hand clutched at his jacket to steady herself, because his arm moulded her body so tightly to his that her feet lost their balance, and she swayed against him.
He still held her wrist in a vice-like grip, but the pain of
it was forgotten in the other sensations that were washing over her in hot sensual waves. His mouth seemed to be trying to draw her soul from her body, to be swallowed up in his. She hadn't known that a kiss could be like this, a raging, pitiless affirmation of power, a confident assertion of rights, an invasion of senses she hadn't known she possessed. She knew she could not deny him, that all the weeks they had met and talked and laughed and never touched had been only a preparation for this wonderful, terrifying explosion of touch and feeling.
When at last his mouth lifted from hers, she was panting, and his breath Was harsh in his throat. In a drugged whisper, she said, 'Shard --' His mouth touched the curve of her shoulder, and she lifted back her head to give him access to the smooth skin of her throat. He still held her closely and she could feel the warmth and seduction of his masculine hardness against her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. His mouth moved lower over her heated skin, and she trembled, aware of an urgent need to be even closer. She felt his arm tighten and his head lifted. He was holding her left hand against his chest, and he moved his feet, lifting her a little away. She thought he was going to lower her to the sand, and she drew in a quick little breath, of expectation and fear and excitement.
The glitter of her engagement ring in the moonlight must have caught his eye. He lifted her hand and she felt him tug at the ring, and instinctively she curled her fingers. 'What are you doing?'
'Taking it off.' His voice was hard, an edge to it that cut into her bemused state of submission.
'No,' she said, the sound little more than a whimper, but her fingers clenched tightly. She had forgotten for the moment that it was Peter's ring. Only it had become a symbol of something other than her engagement. She was suddenly frightened of the power Shard had over her, of the mindless capitulation he had reduced her to.
Harshly he said, 'I won't make love to you while you wear another man's ring.' She felt her fingernail break as he prised her fingers away from her palm and she cried out as he twisted her wrist. His nails dragged over her skin as he pulled off the ring and flung it into the darkness across the sand.
'No!' she screamed as it arced away into the darkness. 'Shard, it cost an awful lot --'
He threw back his head then and laughed, and she attacked him with her fists, her nails, her bare feet. He backed, fending her off, then catching her wrists, taking her with him down on to the softness of the cool sand while she still fought him until he was holding her down with his legs pinning hers and her arms against the sand with his hands imprisoning her wrists. Exhausted, she lay panting, abusing him in a choked, sobbing whisper. There was a dark trickle of blood on his cheek where she had scratched him, and he had lost two buttons off his shirt. His breathing was not quite even, either, but as Elise stopped her useless struggles and lay inert, he smiled tightly down at her while she called him names that would have shocked her mother.
He muttered, 'Shut up, darling,' and bent his head to kiss her.
Elise shut her teeth and tightly closed her lips against him. He lifted his head and said grimly, 'You had no right to be wearing his ring.'
'I had every right!' she blazed. 'I love Peter and I'm going to marry him!'
She flinched away from the sudden movement of his hand as it left her wrist, turning her face aside. Nothing happened, and she slowly moved her head again to look at him.
He said, 'Yes, I should hit you for that. You little liar! You want me.' His fingers slipped into her dress, finding the proof.
'It—it isn't love,' she gasped. Her hand grasped at his wrist, trying to drag his hand from her breast. 'Stop it!'
He moved his hand upwards to her throat, spread his fingers against her collarbone. 'What's love?' he murmured, his lips against her earlobe. This?' His tongue slid along the little groove below her ear. This?' He moved and found her mouth with his, all the savagery of his previous kisses erased in a sweet, unbearable torment of desire. He raised his head and saw it reflected in the dark pools of her eyes, and with his hands on her again, he whispered, 'Does Peter make you feel like this, Elise?'
She didn't answer, her head going helplessly from side to side as he covered with his lips the swiftly beating pulse at the base of her throat.
Shard stopped her movement of denial with his mouth, and when he raised his head again, said, 'We belong together, you know it. You aren't going to marry Peter. You want me. Say it—tell me you want me, Elise.'
It was true, her body clamoured with the knowledge, but the word he used jarred. A faint coldness invaded the heat of her languorous desire, and from somewhere she summoned the willpower to say, on a hard gasp of protest, 'No!'
Shard kissed her again, his mouth searchingly possessive. 'Say yes!' She shook her head and tried to turn away, but his lips found her again.
She dragged her mouth away and cried out, 'No ‑! No, no, no!'
His hands were on her shoulders, the fingers tightening until they bit into the softness of her flesh. Harshly, he said, 'I could take you, anyway.'
Her own voice hard with the effort she made to stop it trembling, she said, 'It's called rape. Shard.'
She heard the anger, the frustration in his indrawn breath, and then he suddenly rolled away from her, lying back on the sand, once knee raised and his forearm over his eyes.
Elise knew she had won. She lay where he had left her, wondering why she felt nothing but a kind of colourless despair.
With an effort she sat up, adjusting her dress where Shard had pulled it from her shoulders. Then she stood, feeling the gritty sand between her toes, surprised that her legs actually held her. She began to move down the beach and Shard got up and asked, 'Where are you going?'
'To look for my ring,' she said tiredly.
He said, 'Supposing you find it—what are you planning to do with it?'
'Put it back on.'
He caught at her arm. 'You can't many him, Elise. You're going to marry me.'
The thought stopped her breath in her throat. 'I can't,' she protested. 'I can't do that!'
He shifted his grip to her shoulders. 'You can't marry Peter!' he said fiercely.
Confused, panicky, she cried, 'Peter loves me—he needs me! He—he's solid and—and --'
'Safe? Is that what you want, after all? Safety and security and respectability? Is it so important to you?'
'It isn't that!' she cried, despairing of his understanding. 'And what can you offer me that's any better? What I feel for you is nothing but a basic animal instinct—you might be anyone with the right arrangement of genes. We have nothing in common but-some sort of—of biological reaction!'
His hands leaving her, he said coldly, 'Is that what you think?'
'It's the truth,' she answered bleakly. 'I suppose I should be flattered that you offered me marriage,' she added, 'finally.'
Shard's head made a quick movement that she couldn't interpret.
'Finally?' he repeated. Then, his tone changing to a drawling note, he said, 'But of course, it's the classic gambit when a man can't get a girl any other way. Isn't that what you expected?'
'Expected?'
'Held out for. You've played a clever game, little rich girl, and I'm letting you win. Now run along home before I change my mind.'
He took her car key from his pocket and she automatically took it. 'Shard --?' she queried, scarcely believing he really thought she had planned this, that she had been playing him along for fun.
'Shut up and go,' he snapped. 'Or dear Peter won't get the virgin bride he's expecting.'
She stepped back from him, then fled across the sand to the car.
Miraculously, she got her ring back. She drove to the police station nearest to the beach the next morning to report it lost, and it had already been handed in by an early morning swimmer, who had found it before it was irretrievably buried in the sand.
Elise left some money as a reward for the honest swimmer, and when the policeman said, 'Better put it on, hadn't you. Miss Ashley? Don't want to lose it again,' she smiled qu
ickly and did as he suggested.
'Seems quite tight,' he said, gazing thoughtfully at the scratches on her ring finger, and his face assumed a consciously bland look. 'You're lucky to get it back. Better take more care in future.'
She had to endure her mother's puzzled concern when she learned who had been her daughter's escort that evening. Elise explained, 'I met him yesterday and he suggested dinner, and as Peter isn't here, I was at a loose end, and didn't see why not. He really looks quite respectable these days. Mother. He has a job, apparently.'
'I don't think that Peter would --'
'Peter doesn't own me, Mother,' Elise said sharply.
'Elise! You are engaged to him—I should think he's entitled to a certain loyalty.'
'It was only a dinner, Mother! I won't be seeing him again.'
Peter came back from his trip a day early and called round, surprising them. When Elise opened the door to him, he smiled and said, 'Missed me, darling? I couldn't wait to get back to you.'
She met his kiss with her arms about his neck, clinging. Pleased at her reaction, he prolonged the kiss, and when they broke apart, pulled her back into his arms, his own trembling a little as they closed about her. 'I love you so much!' he whispered in her ear. 'I hate having to wait so long.' Her arms tightened about him, and he groaned. 'I need you, Elise,' he muttered. This week has been hell --'
She let him kiss her again, and stroked his hair. His need, his tenderness, were like a balm on her bruised nerves, her sore heart.
'Why should we wait?' she said. 'I'll talk to Dad.' She knew her mother would have no objection to an earlier . wedding. 'Yes,' she said, touching her lips to his again as he started to protest. 'I want to marry you soon, Peter, as soon as possible—please!'