by Daphne Clair
'You didn't tell me,' she said, almost drowsily, 'that you were Cortland Construction.'
'Tell you? I thought you knew.'
She shook her head. 'Not until last night. My mother mentioned it.' She smiled. 'She thinks now,' she told him solemnly, 'that you might make a suitable son-in-law.'
She had expected that would amuse him, but when he began to laugh aloud, she sat away from him, staring. Because the laughter held a note of recklessness, a harsh undertone that went beyond bitterness and yet held that, too.
When he stopped, his lips still curved, but taut, his eyes glittering with an emotion she couldn't fathom, she looked at him uncertainly.
Shard leaned back, his eyes still holding that disturbing glitter as they slipped over the low-necked bodice of her flimsy dress, and she was reminded of the time years ago when he had come out of the house and watched her as she dived into the pool.
In protest, she turned away from him, but he caught her shoulder and hauled her back into his arms, taking no notice of her short, futile resistance as his mouth found hers with devastating precision and passion, pushing her head back into the curve of his shoulder and arm, insistently opening her lips to an implacable sensual invasion.
This time there was no tenderness and no compassion in the way he held her, his arms imprisoned her inescapably. His kiss was not a comforting caress but an arrogant demand, and when she stopped struggling against him he wasn't satisfied with mere passivity. She held out as long as she could against the dizzying waves of excitement that seemed to wash over her, some part of her still resisting his power over her emotions, wanting to deny him the victory. But her response, when at last he drew it from her, was complete and perfect. The fiercely independent satisfaction of denying him was replaced by the knowledge of the pleasure she could give him, that was equal to the pleasure that he gave her. And also by the knowledge that for neither of them was it enough.
When at last he let her go he did it suddenly and with an effort, standing abruptly and going to the window, pulling aside the curtain and standing with his hand clenched on the fabric, his shoulders hunched a little forward as the thumb of the other hand hooked into his belt.
Her fingers trying to cool the fire in her cheeks, Elise felt a quick singe of triumph. Shard was not quite in control, for once, and she was very glad because it was she who had done that to him.
She touched her hair, amazed that the pinned-up style seemed still in place, and arranged her legs neatly, ankles to one side and tucked together in a pose of conscious grace. She stopped her fingers trembling by clasping them together on her lap, at first tightly and then carefully loosened. And she moistened her stinging mouth with her tongue and put her lips firmly and precisely together.
Still with his back to her. Shard said, 'We can be married next week.'
She felt as though something had been thrown at her very hard. Then a strange mixture of emotions, longing, despair, fear and anger shot through her. She knew that she wanted desperately to marry Shard, but was acutely aware that he had never spoken a word of love to her, and his calm assumption that she would submit to his unconventional haste both frightened and infuriated her.
'No,' she protested. 'I can't ‑'
He turned then, his eyes and mouth hard.
She said, 'Not so soon, Shard—I couldn't.'
His slight smile was cruel. 'On the contrary, you've just proved rather conclusively that you could.'
Her face flamed. 'I didn't mean that! It just wouldn't be decent for me to rush into marriage less than six months after my husband's death ‑'
'You mean it isn't socially acceptable,' he said. 'Supposing I agreed to wait—I take it six months is the proper minimum for mourning—would you marry me then?'
'Yes.'
He looked at her almost with curiosity, the coldness in his eyes chilling her. 'If you had a good reason ‑' he said. 'But you haven't. You've taken six years from us, Elise. I won't let you have any more just to satisfy the so-called decent feelings of a lot of people who have nothing to do with us. Next week—or never.'
Her lips parted in dismay. She couldn't believe that he meant it—and she saw that he did. She saw that if she refused Shard would write her out of his life as someone who had not, after all, been worth the feeling he had had for her. Someone who thought more of conventional social mores than she did of him.
And she also saw that he knew what a refusal would mean to her, how much she wanted him, and that his ultimatum was calculated to make her tacitly admit it.
Hating him for that, but loving him too much to accept a life without him, she moved her hands in a little gesture of pleading. 'Shard, couldn't you ‑'
'No. Next week, Elise.'
She looked at the hard jut of his jaw, the uncompromising set of his mouth, and the almost imperceptible movement of a small muscle on his jawline. He was not certain of her capitulation, and for a moment she relished that tiny hint of uncertainty, her only small revenge.
Then she said, 'Very well. Shard. Next week.'
The muscle in his jaw relaxed, although his eyes contained no warmth. 'I'll make the arrangements,' he said.
She stood up as he walked to the door, following him. With his hand on the latch he turned to look at her, and she stopped, three feet away. His gaze went to her hair, and he asked, 'Is that pinned?'
'Yes.'
'I've a good mind to unpin it and let it down.'
'Don't you like it?'
He almost smiled, a brief warmth showing in his eyes. 'I like it very much—because it makes me want to take it down. Wear it like that for our wedding.'
Elise had expected a brief, businesslike register office ceremony, but they were married in a church. She had not been consulted, but as the day unfolded she realised that Shard had arranged everything just as she would have wanted it. The church was small and there were flowers, but not too many. She knew the minister, but he was not the one who had officiated when she married Peter. There were no guests, only her parents and grandfather and Gary, who had flown up from Wellington to be present. His wife had elected to stay home with their children.
Her hand felt strange when she removed Peter's rings that morning, and she was a little strung-up until she felt Shard slip his own gold band on in their place, his fingers warm and sure as they held her hand. She looked fleetingly up into his face then, and found it remote and darkly shuttered. But when he met her eyes, his seemed to soften a little, and his hand tightened on hers for a brief moment.
Afterwards they were all taken to a restaurant for a meal with champagne but no wedding cake, for which Elise was thankful. And when her father cleared his throat and began to push back his chair, Shard put a hand on his arm and said quietly, 'No speeches, please, Howard. We'll accept a quiet toast, if you care to propose it.'
As they drove northward to the quiet little beach where Shard had taken a house for the next ten days, she said, 'You had no friends there.'
'Gary and your grandfather are friends of mine.'
'It was—nice,' she said. Thank you.'
Shard glanced at her and said nothing, his face Unreadable.
'I've never met any of your friends,' she reminded him.
'Do you want to?'
'Of course I do. I'm your wife ‑'
He said, 'Yes.'
The sudden panic that gripped her then was ridiculous, she told herself; merely, surely, a belated case of bridal nerves. Shard was driving steadily, his eyes fixed on the road ahead as it wound away from the harbour and into the hills of the North Shore with its panoramic suburbia of houses and trees. There was nothing in that single flat affirmative to make her feel trapped—threatened and as though she had run into a blind alley that held no possibility of escape, while some dark pursuer stalked her.
The road wound into the cool serenity of native bush, and out again through Albany with its pseudo-Tudor hotel building, and she was still gripped by a paralysing sense of unreasoning fear. Her nails dug in
to clammy palms in her lap, her eyes stared unseeing at the green undulations of the passing countryside until they ached. And Shard drove on in calm silence.
When he stopped at Orewa, drawing up on smooth grass overlooking the long sweep of sand and said, 'Like to stretch your legs and have a drink?' she almost gulped with relief at the mundane suggestion. Seeming not to notice her tension, he bought them orange juice in paper cups, and then they strolled for half an hour along the firm, damp sand, watching the wide waves ripple gently to the shore.
They walked two feet apart, and when another couple passed them, hand in hand as their bare feet kicked up little splashes in the edges of the waves, she glanced at Shard with a question in her eyes.
His mouth moved in a grim little smile, and he took a hand from his pocket and thrust it out, reading her mind, waiting for her to take it.
But as she did, his fingers closed on her wrist, and though they walked back to the car side by side, her shoulder touching his arm, it was as though she was his prisoner, his hard fingers on her wrist like a shackle.
The small house stood on a shallow rise overlooking the sea as it rushed impetuously into a pretty little cove. Coarse grasses tried to push their way through the sand to form a rough lawn, and in one comer of the fenced section two trees of an indeterminate genus were battling the sea breezes that had bent them out of shape. The house was low and built of weathered wood, with long windows to the sea and a wide terrace linking the bedroom and the living room with the outdoors. At first, inside and out, it seemed plain and almost starkly functional, but the chairs were deep and comfortable, the rugs of natural-wool contrasted pleasantly with the satiny texture of stained floorboards, and the small kitchen had every amenity, while the bathroom was discreetly luxurious.
In the bedroom, while Shard was fetching their cases from the car, Elise put down her bag and the smart makeup case that her mother had given her on the built-in dressing table, took in the view of the sea through the ranch-sliders to the terrace, and glanced quickly away from the wide, deep-mattressed bed with its hand-woven cover. The mirror showed her green eyes looking huge and darker than usual, a face slightly pale but composed, her hair still prettily in place. She still wore the new dress she had bought for the wedding, a narrow-waisted, almost plain dress that was without frills or ornament, but of a soft and silky material that clung where it touched and flowed where it didn't. The colour was a muted green that softened the colour of her eyes, giving them a misty and mysterious look.
She heard Shard coming back into the house, and before she could return to the living room he was in the doorway.
She couldn't look at him, fumbling in her bag for a comb, pretending that she needed it and was too preoccupied to notice him. But she knew that he had put down the cases and had moved to stand behind her. Then she felt his hands on her shoulders, and his lips touched the nape of her neck, where the swept-up hair-style exposed it. She had the comb in her hand, and her fingers tightened, the teeth digging into the flesh of her palm.
His mouth moved over her skin seductively, then lifted. And his hands moved, slowly pulling the pins from her hair until it tumbled round her shoulders.
Elise stood perfectly still, her head still bent, until his arms came round her and he took her wrist in one hand and prised the comb away with the other. Her hand came open and there was a row of tiny marks across the centre of her palm, and two pinprick drops of blood.
Shard pulled her round to face him, his eyes fixed on her hand, then raised to stare into hers. His voice rough, he said, 'You little fool! What are you afraid of?'
Of you, she thought, but it wasn't in her to admit it.
His hand tightened on her wrist, and she knew that he didn't know it. Almost savagely he said, 'I told you, you have any rights you care to claim. That includes the right to say no.'
Her lips parted in sheer astonishment, and he stepped back, releasing her wrist to pivot on his heel and leave the room. Elise heard him locking up the car, and wondered if it was necessary in this remote spot, or if he had made it an excuse to leave her alone for a few minutes.
The right to say no—of course she had that right, but it was a right a strong man could easily disregard, and that in law was not even recognised between husband and wife. But Shard had told her he would respect it— and any other rights she claimed. Deliberately he had placed himself in her power, unafraid. Shard was strong enough to do that. She didn't know if she was strong enough to cope with it.
She went into the kitchen and began opening cupboards, finding frozen supplies in the refrigerator, deliberately setting her mind to working out a menu for their first meal.
She refused his help, and he leaned against the door jamb and watched her as she prepared a meal of chops and frozen vegetables and a bean salad. She didn't mind him watching her, she felt her own movements as though she could see herself through his eyes, deft and quick, and was conscious of enjoying his lazily appreciative surveillance.
They didn't talk as they ate, the breakers hurling into the cove outside providing a background that was both exciting and hypnotic, broken occasionally by the soft thud of a moth or huhu beetle flinging itself against the lighted windows.
Elise made coffee and then Shard pushed her into an armchair and said, 'Rest. I'll wash up.'
She let him, but after a few minutes she slid back the glass doors and went out, enjoying the sharp salty scent of the sea and the clear roll and swish of the waves, dimly glimpsed in the darkness as brief flashes of moving white.
Shard finished his task and joined her, leaning against the low wooden railing beside her.
'Would you like to walk?' he asked.
'Yes.' She went back into the house, peeled off her tights and dropped them into a drawer, found a soft wool wrap for her shoulders and, leaving her shoes where she had kicked them off, rejoined Shard.
'You have a gypsy look,' he said softly as she paused beside him. 'Out of character, but intriguing.'
She thought she caught a note of mockery, and without speaking she stepped lightly down from the terrace to the springy grass, and through the gap in the fence where no one had bothered to erect a gate, until her bare feet trod on cool loose sand.
Shard had followed swiftly and strode beside her on to firmer sand near the waterline, the evening breeze lifting his hair and tugging at the opened collar of his white shirt. Elise lifted her face to feel the wind, putting up her hand to brush a strand of her hair away from her eyes. The woollen shawl about her shoulders slipped without her restraining hand, and Shard caught it and readjusted it for her. Then he took his hand away and they walked side by side in the darkness until they reached the great outcropping rock that marked the end of the cove.
Surefooted even in darkness, Elise clambered up on to the smooth shelf of rock that jutted into the water, dropping the shawl carelessly on the bare ground, and sank on to it, hugging her knees, her eyes looking wide into the dark sea.
Shard stood beside her, his legs braced slightly apart. Her shoulder almost touched his knee, but he didn't move closer or sit down beside her.
'I love the sea,' she said.
'I know.'
That's why you brought me here, isn't it?' she said softly. 'Because you knew.'
'Yes.'
This whole day, he had been laying his gifts to her at her feet. It should have been a triumph. But instead she found herself afraid. Afraid—but excited, like someone engaging in an exhilarating but dangerous sport, using potentially lethal weapons. It was tempting to use the weapon he had given her, to test her power over him.
She stood up and stepped back, leaving the white triangle of her wrap spread on the rock, the breeze lifting the corners. Shard turned his head to look at her, and she looked straight back.
The shawl lifted completely at one comer and folded over itself. And Shard stooped and picked it up.
Without a word she turned, scooping her hair forward with her hand, and waited for him. She felt the lightn
ess of the wool about her shoulders, and then he was ahead of her, jumping lithely down on to the sand, standing there to wait for her.
He didn't offer his hand and she didn't ask for it, but when she landed on a half-buried, unseen rock and painfully turned her ankle, he swooped forward instantly, catching her up against his body and holding her for a long moment.
When she stirred he let her go at once, keeping only a consciously light hold on her arm. 'Are you all right?' he asked her.
'Yes.' Her ankle throbbed, but she could walk on it. The pain would soon recede. She took his arm and leaned on it a little as they walked back across the sand to where the lights still gleamed at them out of the darkness. Elise suddenly felt very confident and elated. Shard had scared her with his apparent aloofness and icy control, his enigmatic expression and his harshness even as he promised her immunity from any threat of violence. But when he had held her for that short space of time in his arms, she had felt the way his fingers closed tightly on her shoulder, his swiftly drawn breath against her temple, the unmistakable stirring of his desire. Shard was, after all, very much a man.
She showered off the gritty sand that clung to her feet and legs, and pulled on a new nylon silk wrap, simple and clinging like her wedding dress, but more revealing. Shard was in the living room as she came out, but as she stood in the bedroom taking out the pins that had held her hair while she showered, he came in and took some things from his bag and went into the bathroom.
She brushed out her hair and went to stand by the window, a small phial of perfume in her hand. She dabbed some on her finger, looking out through a narrow gap in the curtains at the distant occasional flashes of white that was all she could see of the ocean. She ran a perfume-moistened finger down the line of her throat to the hollow between her breasts, and slowly replaced the cap. The bathroom door opened, and she put down the perfume on the window ledge.
Shard walked quietly, but she knew when he came to stand in the doorway and, still with her back to him, she reached up and closed the curtain.