by Liz Fielding
‘How old were you?’
‘Just nineteen.’ A very protected, rather naive nineteen, fresh from a college course, with her heart and everything else intact and worlds to conquer. Her father’s sudden wealth had meant that it was a much larger world than anything she had been used to. Without her mother to act as his hostess, she had been pitchforked headlong into it. She plucked at the sand, unwilling to relive her humiliation.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘TELL me, Maddy.’
‘I... I can’t. I’ve never told anyone...’
He took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. ‘You will tell me.’ His voice was gentle, but there was an insistence, a firmness about his mouth that could not be denied.
Maddy discovered that despite the pain of recalling that dreadful awakening from innocence, she did want to tell him. ‘I was young enough to be bowled over by his eagerness to marry me. He’d actually got the licence in his pocket and wanted to whisk me away to the nearest Register Office.’
‘What stopped him?’
‘I was stubbornly dewy-eyed. I wanted a white wedding in church with a dozen bridesmaids and all my family and friends. That needed more than a few days to organise, and my father’s cheque-book to pay for it. Dad raised no objection to our engagement but insisted we wait a year.’ Wise in the ways of the world, he had also suggested that she go on the Pill. ‘In the meantime, I was invited down to Gloucester to meet the family, get to know them.’
‘No doubt they rolled out the red carpet.’
She felt a warmth at the fact that he had so quickly understood. ‘Red carpet, best silver, grandmother’s ring...’ Her voice quavered on that.
‘Rubies?’
‘I didn’t care. I was so happy.’
‘With Grandma’s ring on your finger Andrew decided it was high time to cement the relationship? I’m sure you had conveniently adjoining rooms?’
‘Not adjoining. My bag was in his room. It wasn’t the first time but I was surprised. He pointed out that we were engaged and they would expect it.’
‘I’m sure he was very convincing.’ Griff said abruptly, refusing to allow her to dwell on it. ‘How did you find out that he was after your money?’
‘We’d been out to lunch and afterwards he wanted to go back to his flat. I found his constant desire for me...reassuring. I knew I was inexperienced, wasn’t exactly brilliant in bed—’
Griff swore somewhere deep under his breath. ‘You are breath-taking.’
She shook her head as if she still could not believe him. ‘When we arrived, the light was flashing on the answering machine. He switched it on as he walked past and went across the room to fortify himself with a drink before the coming ordeal.’ She faltered. ‘He was too far away to stop it when the first message was from his father wanting to know how much longer it was going to take his son to get one stupid girl pregnant.’ She stared at the sand. ‘Apparently, they were one step away from the bankruptcy court and my role – my father’s role – was the privilege of bailing them out. I’d never heard such crude language. Although, I discovered very swiftly that it ran in the family. When I told Andrew that I had been taking the Pill, he seemed to take great pleasure in explaining in graphic detail just how tedious I was in bed.’
‘Nasty,’ Griff said tightly.
She couldn’t begin to describe how nasty it had been. ‘It could have been a lot nastier. If I hadn’t found out.’
He lifted her hand to his lips. ‘I’m deeply flattered that you trusted me enough. I still can’t believe it. You’re beautiful, so utterly desirable...’
‘Don’t stop,’ she said, her voice shaking on a tiny hiccup.
He grinned. ‘Provoking, irritating, impetuous...’
She flung herself across him. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much?’
‘You have the cure in your own hands—’ He broke off to moan disjointedly as she took him at his word and began to torment him with delicate caresses. ‘Maddy, please... please...’
‘My hands don’t seem to be doing the job,’ she murmured then gave a little scream as he rolled over and pinned her beneath him.
‘Perhaps you’d better leave it to me.’
‘Please,’ she begged, ‘before the moon goes down. We may be rescued tomorrow.’
‘Don’t you know, my darling, that tomorrow never comes?’
‘If only that were true...’
‘It is. You have my word.’ The reassurance of his lips was all the promise she would ever need.
* * *
They didn’t see the moon set. But as the first rays of dawn blushed the edge of the sea Griff rose, pulling her up with him in one smooth movement from the sand, swinging her into his arms.
She put her arms about his neck and laid her cheek against his chest. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Wait, my darling. Just wait for the magic.’
It was still dark in the forest, but he was sure-footed on the path and helped her up the waterfall, holding her close as they stood above the spray, listening to the songbirds call in the canopy high above them to a rising sun they could not see. Beside him, the milky moon flowers were still open, filling the air with their sweetness.
‘Maddy.’ He breathed her name and kissed her, too briefly. Then he turned her to face the morning as, without warning, the sky blushed, touching the spray from the waterfall, the moonflowers, the surface of the pool, until it seemed to Maddy that the whole world was the most delicate shade of pink. ‘Now,’ he said, and they leapt together off the end of the world.
When they surfaced, it was over. The early-morning light filtering through the trees was mint-fresh and clear. The droplets of water clung to Griff’s hair as his arms slid about her waist and he drew her close.
‘Dear heaven,’ she whispered as her core turned to liquid desire and her arms linked around his neck, drawing him down to her. ‘What have you done to me?’ But as they slid together beneath the water, wrapped in each other’s arms, there was no answer and Maddy no longer cared.
They exploded to the surface and she turned and ducked away from him, but her throaty laugh invited chase and they swam like a pair of young otters, hardly aware whether they were under the water or breathing air, their bodies teasing and touching, together, then apart. When Griff caught her, he held her close, possessing her with his lips, his hands, until they were forced upwards once more for air and once more she slipped away, eluding him as he searched for her in the dark water.
Laughing, she caught him from behind, gripping his shoulders and forcing him under, but it had been far too easy. He rolled and took her down with him and this time when he held her prisoner against him there was no escape, nor did she seek one. They hung suspended in time and space, his lips on hers and his tongue exploring her mouth with an exquisite thoroughness until she thought she must dissolve, become a part of him, and Maddy knew that was what she desired most in the entire world.
Then he lifted her from the water and set her on the smooth ledge below the falls. ‘Good morning, Maddy Rufus.’
‘Good morning, Griff-will-do,’ she said shakily, scarcely able to believe what had happened to her in the space of one night. No. Not in one night. The fuse had been lit the moment they’d first set eyes on one another — a long, slow fuse that last night had finally detonated. He put his arm about her and they walked slowly back to the house.
‘I’d like to have a shower and wash my hair,’ she said as they reached the bedroom door.
‘On your own?’
‘Do you mind?’
His eyes danced at her blush. ‘I think I’m going to hate every moment you’re out of my sight.’ He kissed her briefly, as if to linger would make leaving too hard.
‘Griff...’ He glanced back at her, a question in his eyes. But she held back. She mustn’t say anything stupid, do anything that would spoil the moment. He held out his arms and she went to him, because despite her need to be alone to take out all these ne
w feelings and examine them she was suddenly afraid to let him go. ‘Stay if you want to.’
He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Goose. Go and get under a hot shower; you’re shivering. There’s something I have to do.’ He turned her round, gave her a little slap on the rump and closed the door behind her.
She went into the bathroom and stepped under the shower, but when she reached for the shampoo it was empty. Griff would have some in his bathroom and wrapping the towel around her, she stepped onto the veranda. She could smell coffee brewing in the kitchen and smiled. No need to bother him. She padded swiftly on bare feet to his room a few doors away, but froze as she heard his voice raised against the static of a radio... A radio.
‘Zoë, my darling, I think I can guarantee that she’s got the message.’ There was a pause. ‘We’ll fly out today.’ He laughed softly. ‘I knew you would forgive me; I only hope Maddy will be as generous when she finds out that I faked that emergency landing...’
Zoë? She knew? Was she part of the ‘lesson’? Now he was chatting to her as if nothing had happened beyond a few cold showers, a little discomfort. Her heart screamed out to her godmother, don’t listen to him. He has betrayed you, betrayed us both. But guilt kept her silent.
It wasn’t just Griff who had betrayed Zoë. When she had been wrapped in his arms she hadn’t given her godmother a second thought. He had stopped speaking, clearly interrupted, and his shadow disappeared as he moved away from the shuttered window, and she heard the creak of cane as he sank into a chair and when he spoke again his voice was too low to hear what he was saying. But he had said enough.
‘One day you’ll meet someone who won’t take no for an answer,’ he had said. She had mocked him and he had wreaked his revenge. All he’d had to do was wait and she had fallen like a ripe plum into his lap. It was over. He had won and now he was going to fly her out. Fly her out!
Maddy, her hand still stopping the scream that was clamouring somewhere deep inside her, backed quietly away from the door. She didn’t even bother to turn off the shower but dressed in the first thing that came into her hand, grabbed her handbag and fled.
She wasn’t certain how she made it to the beach. She could never afterwards recall retracing her steps, only that she’d made it somehow.
Her trembling fingers struggled with the knot that fastened the guy-rope to the palm tree. It wouldn’t budge and, terrified that he would discover she was missing and come looking for her, Maddy seized the machete and swung furiously at the rope, slicing it through. The tide was still coming in and she had to wait agonising moments until the seaplane rose on an incoming wave and drifted obligingly out into the bay. She waded after it and climbed on trembling legs into the cockpit. The keys, she knew, were still in the ignition — far the safest place; after all, no one was about to steal a plane that couldn’t fly, were they? Certainly not a tease of a girl who needed a serious lesson in how to behave...
The engine caught first time, the propeller biting the air, spinning eagerly, flashing against the sun until it settled into an even rhythm, and suddenly the trembling stopped. She was back in control. The madness had passed and a blissful numbness was, for the moment, blocking the pain as she concentrated on the controls of a strange aircraft. Maddy turned the machine to face the sea, picking up the radio handset to call the tower at Mustique, doing the fastest pre-flight check in history.
That she had never flown a seaplane before didn’t daunt her in the least. It was a simple machine, the controls, on inspection, proving almost identical to those of the plane on which she had learned to fly. An icy calm settled over her as she taxied out into the bay, waited for her instructions on height and heading, concentrating totally on the machine, impervious to Griff’s frantic calls as he pounded along the beach.
Her hand trembled slightly as he began to splash through the surf towards her, but she tightened her grip, and as clearance rattled through the static she opened the throttle and pulled back on the control stick, sending the little plane rocketing towards the open sea with the total indifference of someone who knew that nothing could ever get worse. Then, as she saw the white line of surf that betrayed the island’s protective coral rim racing towards her, she suddenly realised what he had been shouting.
‘The reef. You won’t make the reef.’
She hung onto the control column for dear life and somehow the plane lifted clear with only barest suggestion of a scrape against the treacherous coral. Perhaps the high tide or the difference in their weight had been enough to give her a chance. She was momentarily swamped in a giddy rush of relief, then the realisation that the sea was rushing by just a few feet below her jerked her back into action, training took over and she began to fly the plane, climbing to the height she had been given and turning onto the heading for Mustique.
As she banked and headed north she saw Griff, still standing in the inlet, his hand shading his eyes as he followed her progress. A victory roll would have been a satisfying touch. Perhaps it was just as well she hadn’t the faintest idea how to accomplish such a thing. Since she had met Hugo Griffin she had taken more than enough risks to last a lifetime and she still had to make her first ever landing on water.
It was perhaps more of a splash-down than a landing, but both Maddy and the aircraft survived the experience. Just. One of the floats had been damaged on take-off and as she taxied to the jetty she had the distinct sensation that they were getting heavier in the water. She climbed out and saw with a lurch of anguish that the little craft was listing. But there was nothing she could do. He would find it there. Or someone would tell him where it was. It no longer concerned her.
She was halfway down the jetty when she remembered the cheque. She retrieved the envelope and stuffed it into her bag and then walked up to the villa. Someone would drive her to the airport.
That afternoon, in Barbados, she spent the afternoon in her hotel defiantly indulging herself in all the things that she had been denied while on Paradise Island. Spoiling herself thoroughly. Taking a grim satisfaction in doing precisely what Griff would most despise her for.
But, despite having her hair and nails done, wallowing in the most expensive scented bath oils she could find and then spending a ridiculous amount of money on a dress to wear on the plane home, there was precious little satisfaction in the looks she attracted as she walked through the hotel lobby. She still had two hours to get through before leaving for the airport, but didn’t want a drink, couldn’t face food — she didn’t think she would ever be hungry again. She wasn’t anything. Just empty.
‘Maddy?’
She swung around at the sound of her name, but it was too late to hide. ‘Rupert,’ she said unenthusiastically.
‘What are you doing here? I thought you were with your aunt.’
‘Godmother,’ she corrected him, shaking her head. ‘A change of plans. I’m going home tonight. In fact, I really should go now and get my things together.’ She made a move, but if she had hoped to be off-putting she had failed.
‘On the BA flight?’ Rupert asked, following her. ‘I’m booked on that. Perhaps we could share a taxi out to the airport.’
‘Rupert—’ she protested helplessly.
‘Maddy, please,’ he begged. ‘I know I behaved like an idiot and I’m sure I’m the last person in the whole world you want to be with, but frankly, if you don’t mind my saying so, you look ghastly.’
‘Thank you, Rupert,’ she said, but with a flash of humour at his total inability to say the right thing.
‘No,’ he muttered, embarrassed. ‘Lovely dress, everything perfect. Just — something about the eyes. Has something happened? Your father’s all right? That isn’t why you’re—?’
‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s nothing like that. Rupert, I know I apologised for the way I spoke to you, but—’
‘Maddy, don’t; you’re making me feel worse than I already do. Oh, look, come and have a drink. You needn’t tell me anything, but you don’t look as if you sh
ould be on your own. If you’ll promise to forget what an idiot I made of myself I’ll promise I won’t embarrass you by proposing again.’
‘Do I look that bad?’ she asked, her sense of humour finally getting the better of her misery.
‘You could never look that bad, Maddy. I made a fool of myself, not that that matters — I’m always doing it — but I upset you and I’m sorry for that. Put it down to these hot tropical nights.’
‘Positively dangerous,’ she agreed, with feeling. ‘I don’t deserve you to be so kind.’
‘You deserve—’ he began urgently, then stopped. ‘Well, to be happier than you look.’
She gave a little sigh. Perhaps it would be better not to be alone. ‘An orange juice, then.’
Rupert grinned like a pleased puppy and Maddy remembered why she had found him so charming the first time she had met him. He wasn’t threatening or demanding, which was why his sudden change in character had taken her so utterly by surprise. He was soon chattering happily about the test match he had just watched — nonsense to take her mind off her troubles. He was so kind that she was forced to make an effort to appear to be diverted.
‘Would you like a drink, madam?’
Maddy forced herself to relax. It was ridiculous, she knew, but until the doors of the great jet had closed, shutting out the soft tropical night and the ripple of a steel band somewhere in the distance, she hadn’t felt quite safe. Why on earth would Griff follow her, for heaven’s sake? This morning he hadn’t been able to wait to be rid of her.
She found a smile for the stewardess. ‘I’d like a mineral water, please.’
‘Would you make that two, Susie?’ Maddy felt her skin contract at the shock of his voice. She couldn’t look, refused to look. It couldn’t possibly be him.
‘Sure thing, Mr Griffin. Nice to have you aboard,’ Susie said and swung smoothly away.