by Daphne Clair
She knew that she wasn't going to say no.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They lay on the beach after a swim, Elise with her hand on Shard's shoulder while his fingers played with her hair.
'You've sand in it,' he said.
'I'll have to shower it out,' she answered drowsily. Overhead the sky was an intense blue. It was all she could see, and all she wanted was to keep looking at it while Shard's arm was about her and his hands touched her skin and her hair.
'I've always wanted to see you like this,' he told her.
'Like what?'
'Tousled and undressed.'
'A bikini is not undress,' she informed him, turning her cheek against his bare skin.
'It wouldn't take much --' he said, his hands moving insinuatingly.
'Shard—no!' she protested, trying to wriggle away from him. 'Not here!'
'There's no one about.'
'Someone might come along.'
'So?' He had turned so that she lay in his arms, his head shadowing her face.
'We can't—I can't!' she hastily amended, as she saw his eyebrows lift, and his hand moved to the fastening at her back. 'Please, Shard!'
He moved, and stood up, his shadow falling across her as she stared up at him, her breathing still unsteady.
'Get up,' he said. 'We'll go back to the house.'
These sheets will have to be changed now,' she said later. They're full of sand.'
'We could have stayed on the beach. Don't pull the sheet up—I like looking at you.'
'Am I "tousled and undressed" enough for you now?'
He leaned over and she felt his lips on her shoulder. 'You're beautiful,' he said. 'You always were.'
'Even when I was being bitchy to you?'
Shard laughed softly against her skin. 'Especially then.'
'You always laughed. It was as though you enjoyed it.'
He raised his head and looked at her, his eyes alight. 'Of course I did—it proved that you weren't indifferent, no matter how desperately you tried to pretend.'
'I had to pretend. I was engaged to Peter.'
His eyes hardened. They had been married for three days, and this was the first time Peter's name had been mentioned.
He said, his voice harsh, 'Engagements have been broken.'
'You don't understand.' She hesitated, wondering if she could explain to him the doubts and bewilderment she had felt when she was only eighteen years old.
But he didn't give her a chance. His mouth had an ugly twist to it, and he rolled off the bed and stood up, not looking at her. 'I understand all right,' he said, and turned his back on her, walking off to the bathroom.
Elise was careful not to mention Peter again during the days of their honeymoon. One day, she hoped, Shard might be willing to tolerate listening to her reasons for rushing into that impetuous marriage with Peter. But she supposed no man would relish a discussion of his predecessor on his honeymoon. Besides, she wasn't sure just how much she could reveal. Peter, after all, must be entitled to some reticence on her part, some loyalty to his memory.
If it imposed some strain on their relationship, Shard appeared not to notice. He made love to her with the same intense concentration and frank enjoyment as before, and with the same sensual satisfaction in watching her abandon herself to the pleasure he gave her. She knew that she was finding heights with him that with Peter she had never attained, and was bothered by a nagging guilt about it that she did her best to curb. Common sense said that it was futile and unconstructive to dwell on the past when the future was so full of promise.
But just how they lived from day to day with a completeness that Elise realised was almost abnormal, so consciously did they enter into it. They seldom spoke of anything but each other and their present surroundings, they bought no newspapers and ignored the colour television set in the lounge of the house. There was no mail. Once she asked Shard if anyone in Cortland Construction knew where they were. He said, They can find me if the end of the world comes. They've instructions not to, otherwise.' It was as though they had a tacit pact by which, for them, the past and the world had ceased to exist.
'How did you find this place?' she asked him one evening as they sat on the terrace, watching the dying sun colour the water with a shimmer of gold.
'I stayed here once, with the owner. He designed the place.'
'An architect?'
'Yes. You like it, don't you?'
'Very much.'
'Shall I buy it?'
She turned to look at him, seeing he was serious. 'Would he sell?'
Shard shrugged. 'Most people will sell anything if the price is right.'
I've never heard you cynical before,' she commented.
'It comes with experience.' His face looked remote and hard.
'Perhaps ‑' she hesitated.
'Yes?'
'Would he design a house for us?'
'It's his job. Is that what you'd like?'
'Wouldn't you?' But she knew she shouldn't have asked him that. Whenever she expressed a preference, a wish, he would go along with it. But he seldom committed himself to a preference of his own. It was as though he wanted nothing but whatever would make her happy.
He said, 'I'll see him when we get back.'
On their last night they swam in the darkness and made love afterwards on the cool sand, and even though its grittiness clung to their damp limbs their pleasure in each other seemed intensified by the salt-tangled night that enfolded them and the near, insistent, steady booming of the waves.
Late into the night they stood on the terrace, with Shard's arms holding her back against him and his cheek against her hair, looking at the scattered stars beyond high wind-borne clouds and saying nothing.
After a long time Shard lifted the hair that lay still damp from swimming and the shower, against her nape, and put his lips to the warm skin beneath. Elise dipped her head, smiling, and his hands tightened against her waist, then moved lightly over her body. When his mouth left her, she tipped back her head against his shoulder and gave her mouth to his, until he turned her into his arms, and then lifted her to carry her inside to the bed.
Shard's flat was a little bigger than hers, the living room large enough for entertaining, and the spare bedroom which she took over for her studio, roomier too than the small one she had used before. The place was modern and expensively furnished, but there was something starkly masculine about it, excepting for the double bed in the main bedroom which was covered in an old-gold satin spread. Elise didn't ask if it was new.
'Make what changes you like,' Shard told her. 'I can pay for them.'
She made few, only adding a few softening touches in the way of cushions and bowls of flowers, and a couple of less angular-looking chairs.
She asked him, 'Do you want me to be a stay-at-home wife? I've had the offer of another commission—this one is for a textbook.'
'Do what you want,' he said. 'Would you prefer a job that takes you away from the house?'
'No. I like working on my own. You don't mind if I take the commission?'
Looking slightly impatient, he said, 'I don't mind.'
Faintly chilled, Elise wondered if he would be glad she had something to occupy her. Shard didn't bring home business colleagues often, as Peter had, expecting his wife to be on hand to entertain them. And when they went out it was usually on their own, not to some business dinner or the kind of semi-business social function that she had been used to.
She told him she would like to invite her parents for dinner and he said, 'Of course.' She mentioned a date and he glanced at the calendar and said, 'Yes, okay.'
When they came he was suavely polite, parrying Katherine's one or two barbs easily, and to add insult to injury, almost absentmindedly; and treated Howard's queries about Cortland Construction and his remarks on world affairs and business with courteous attention. It struck Elise that he was like a man playing a part on stage, saying lines that he had learnt by heart.
As she went to the bedroom with her mother to fetch the coat and bag Kate had left .there, the older woman said, 'Well, marriage appears to have mellowed him. Congratulations, Elise. I do think you might have waited a little longer, for decency's sake, but ‑''
'Shard wouldn't wait. Mother.'
Katherine laughed. 'My dear, of course he would have waited, if you'd insisted. Don't you realise you have him on a string? He agrees with every slightest suggestion you make.'
Elise knew that he did, but—'No one ever had Shard on a string, Mother,' she said with conviction.
'Of course, it can't last,' her mother said with hard practicality. 'If you're wise you'll make the best of it while it does. Men are perfect fools when they're in love, but they're also inclined to fall for the superficial qualities a girl has. You're young and pretty now, but it takes more than that to hold a man after the first year or two. It's a pity you can't have children.'
Elise paled. 'It isn't certain,' she said.
'No, but ‑' Katherine's face was easy to read. After five years it seemed unlikely. She shrugged and picked up her bag. 'Well, there are other ways,' she said as they moved .out again into the hall. 'You were a credit to Peter, and I'm sure Shard will find you an asset to him, as well, once you begin entertaining. Of course, it's wise for you to continue to live rather quietly for a few more months ‑'
Shard and Howard Were coming out of the lounge, Howard turning to speak to the other man. Elise didn't know if Shard had heard what her mother was saying. He glanced up at them, but his expression didn't alter as he saw the guests out.
He followed Elise into the lounge later, and watched as she collected coffee cups and glasses and straightened the new cushions. Her mother had said, 'Shard will find you an asset to him ‑' But she was sure that he wasn't interested in her capabilities as a hostess, and her attempts to show an interest in the business had been deflected with unmistakable firmness. Sometimes she felt that she was somehow wandering, without guidelines. Marriage to Peter had been comparatively easy. She had been young and inexperienced, but Peter had been clear about what was expected of her, and with her mother as a model she had managed to live up to that. What Shard expected of her she wasn't sure. He didn't seem to have any need of her help, understanding or advice. And her mother had with devastating frankness put into words her own unease about Shard's attitude. That he found her sexually exciting, she knew; he was and always, had been very candid about that. If she ceased to attract him in that way, could she hold him? She could not forget that even in their most intimate moments she had never heard him say that he loved her.
She picked up the small tray on which she had piled the cups and glasses, and Shard stood aside to let her pass and take them to the kitchen.
'Shall I help?' he asked as she passed him. Elise shook her head. She just left the things on the draining board and seeing that Shard had switched off the lounge lights, went into their bedroom.
He was standing in the middle of the room, apparently doing nothing, and there was a wry twist to his mouth.
He looked up as Elise came in, and began undoing his shirt.
She walked over to him and hooked her arms about his neck, and his hands left the buttons and lightly clasped her waist. Elise nuzzled her head under his chin and put her lips briefly to his skin where the collar of his shirt opened. She leaned back against his hands and said, looking into his face, 'Shard, let's have a party.'
His eyes held amusement and something else that she couldn't define, and she was suddenly certain that he had heard her mother's parting remark.
'Sure,' he said. 'Who do you want to invite?'
'All our friends,' she said. 'Yours and mine. I haven't met any of your friends.'
She suddenly thought that the other thing in his eyes was wariness. 'You may not like them,' he told her.
'Why not?'
'Some of them are not the kind of people who get invited to your mother's parties.'
Elise flushed and moved away from him. 'This isn't my mother's party,' she said stiffly. 'It's ours.'
'Okay,' he shrugged. 'I'll give you a list.' He was looking at her intently, and she asked:
'What's the matter?'
'Just one thing,' he said. 'I won't have my friends invited to my home and then patronised or put down. So don't do it, honey.'
A bright flame of anger seemed to shoot through her. Almost choking with it, she managed a muffled, 'Thanks a lot!' and turned to go into the bathroom, shutting the door decisively.
When she got into bed and put out the light, he touched her turned shoulder and she hunched away from him, muttering, 'I'm tired.'
'You're sulking,' he said, and turned her to face him, pressing her head into the pillow with his kiss.
She tried to push him away, and he caught her hands and held them while he went on kissing her. When he stopped, she said, 'You told me I could say no.'
'Sure you can.' But his mouth was on hers again, persuading, probing, until her body lost its stiffness and her lips opened to his passion.
Then he lifted his head and said, 'Goodnight, Elise,' and moved away to his own side of the bed.
Elise lay rigid, biting her lip hard, burning with humiliation and anger. Shard had done it deliberately to punish her. He would fall in with her every suggestion, give her anything she asked for. But nobody had Shard on a string.
The party was not a big one. The list Shard had given her wasn't long, and she tried to match the number of her own friends to it. That wasn't difficult because in the man she invited people who had known her before she met Peter. Most of the friends she had made since, she realised, had been more Peter's than hers.
Looking around the room half-way through the evening, she thought it was relatively easy to distinguish her friends from Shard's. Hers tended to be of the same mould, pretty, well-groomed young women accompanied by nice men with 'young executive' stamped invisibly on their confident features and their impeccable clothes. Shard's friends included an elderly man who told her he was a retired engineer, a middle-aged couple who said Shard had boarded with them years before, and an enormous Maori man with a paralysing handshake and a fruity deep Voice which announced to anyone interested, 'I'm Matt. Yeah I work for this joker --' jerking his head In Shard's direction with a cheerful grin. His wife was a beautiful, delicate-looking young woman who stayed quietly in her husband's considerable shadow.
'Who is he?' Elise whispered to Shard when she got the chance. 'He looks like a bulldozer driver.'
Shard grinned down at her, his eyes gleaming and narrow. 'Right first time,' he told her. 'And one of the best in the business.'
He introduced her to a smiling, fair man and said, 'This is Cole Finlay, Elise. He's agreed to design a house for us.'
She had almost thought that was a part of their honeymoon that belonged to the dream world they had inhabited then, but apparently Shard had not forgotten.
'I hear you like my beach house, Mrs Cortland,' the architect said. 'We'll all have to get together sometime and I'll find out just what you want. Shard tells me it's entirely up to you, but I'd like to have him in on the planning.'
'So would I,' she agreed. 'And please call me Elise. Perhaps you might come and have dinner with us next week, and we. could discuss it then? And Mrs Finlay?'
'There's no Mrs Finlay,' he told her. 'I'll be on my own, if that's okay.'
Couples had been dancing in a small cleared space in one comer of the room, but the record player suddenly gave a despairing whine and stopped in the middle of a disc. The dancers gathered round the player in mock-dismay, and someone called, 'Is there an electrician in the house?'
Apparently there was, for there were laughing cries of 'Where's Gabe?' and a lanky young man ambled over to the group, parked a half-full glass on a nearby table and stooped to inspect the apparatus, encouraged by . helpful comments from the concerned watchers, who included Shard, leaning on the wall and looking more relaxed than Elise had ever seen him as he grinned back at
some joking advice not to let Gabe touch his expensive stereo gear.
'Mrs Cortland --' said a voice at her elbow. She turned to a tall dark-haired man with a long face which was given an elfish air by his triangular smile.
'Yes, Mr --?' she hesitated, trying to fit his name to the face.
'Call me Don,' he said. 'The bar is deserted. Let me get you a drink while the crisis develops.'
She laughed and followed him to the table near the kitchen that held the drinks. 'My name's Elise,' she said, as he poured her gin and lime for her. 'Do you work with Shard?'
'No, I manage a factory. Shard did some construction work for us recently when we put up a building to house some new plant. But we met some years ago when we both received our management diplomas in the same year.'
She hadn't known Shard had one. 'It's a correspondence course, isn't it?' she asked.
'Correspondence or night school. Shard was a tiger for punishment. I think he was studying for engineering qualifications at the same time. And working in the daytime, of course. Not pushing a pen, either. He knows the construction business inside and out.'
'So it wasn't just money --' she murmured.
'Lord, no! Money and know-how and the ability to find good men and keep them. I've talked to some of the guys who work for him, and they reckon he's all right. He's tough and not chummy, but they know where they are, and if they do the job right he'll give them a fair deal. Otherwise, if s out on their ear.'
Elise smiled a little wistfully. 'You know, I've learned a lot about my husband tonight.'
Shard came up to them then, slipping his arm about her waist, saying, 'The record player's fixed. Dance with me.'
She went into his arms on the improvised dance floor, and relaxed against him. 'It's a good party,' she said.
'Yes. Thank you, Elise.'
She lifted her head and said, 'I like your friends.'
His answering glance was enigmatic, and she said, rather hurt, 'You didn't expect me to, did you?'
'I didn't know,' he said. Then he smiled. 'They like you, too. I've been receiving compliments on my choice all night.'