'You fool!' she cried, now having strangely lost any desire to die. 'What on earth were you trying to do?'
'I told you,' he muttered sullenly, 'I wanted revenge. But not that way, though. I didn't see the damned thing until it was nearly on top of us!'
'You might have had your revenge, but you wouldn't have known about it,' she pointed out wryly.
'You don't have to rub it in,' Freddy snarled, taking the wheel again and to her relief turning to make for the harbour. 'I've had about enough,' he grumbled, ignoring Reece, who had come alongside. 'At least,' he added querulously, 'I've managed to teach your husband something of a lesson. He looks as if he's received a bit of a shock. He might think twice about attacking me in future!'
Zoe tried to look at Reece, but couldn't. She was aware of his boat staying dangerously close but felt too shaken to raise her eyes. She was conscious that she and Freddy must appear to have acted outrageously and that Reece might well be justified in thinking the blow on the head she had got was no more than she deserved. There was little doubt in her mind that once he had her back home, she'd be smarting in other places as well.
The bump on her face was bleeding. She could feel the blood on her skin and raised her fingers to rub it away. A cut above her eye, she guessed, where she hadcaught herself on a cleat as the boat rolled over out the way of the ferry. Her face felt a mess, but it probably looked worse than it was. It didn't worry her half as much as her apparent inability to stop shaking. Try as she might, she seemed to have no control over her limbs.
Freddy, with a daring boldness which amazed her, swung the boat straight into the boatyard, ignoring the harbour farther on. As he almost crashed into the jetty, Reece was there beside him, with Ian dropping a line over a piling. Even then she didn't dare look at him, not wanting to see the fury in his face, but she felt it in his hands as he reached over and hauled her bodily out of Freddy's boat.
After a swift, teeth-snapping glance at her, which appeared to do nothing to lessen his fury, he lifted her in his arms, passing her up to Donald, whose face was almost as pale as his own. 'Hold her for me, Donald,' he said, his voice like steel as he leapt up behind her and turned to confront Freddy Vintis on the wooden jetty.
'Whatever made you go with him?' Donald held Zoe anxiously, but his voice reproached her. 'The boss nearly went out of his mind!'
On Freddy's face was the smug smile of a man enjoying a joke very much in his favour. 'I brought your wife back, Macadam,' he leered. 'I'm sorry she doesn't look so pretty, but I thought you wouldn't want half the town to see, so I brought her back here.'
He got no farther. Zoe, unable to bear his expression of insolent triumph, closed her eyes. He had infuriated Reece and was making no pretence that he hadn't got a lot of pleasure out of it. It was her fault and she felt she could have died with misery. With a hopeless sob she shrank closer to the comfort of Donald's fatherly arms.
Then she heard a loud crack, a fist contacting a jawbone, followed by a huge splash. Startled, her eyes shotopen. Freddy was floundering in the water, coming to the surface spluttering and holding a bleeding chin, while Reece stood watching, so obviously in the grip of a livid anger that no one dared speak.
'If anyone helps that bastard out of there,' he snapped to the men behind him, 'he'll suffer the same fate!' Then, as Freddy dragged himself upright, on to the jetty, muttering obscene threats, Reece hit him, again and again.
The terrible tension gripping Zoe's limbs was suddenly released. Fiercely she tried to free herself from Donald's arms. 'Stop it, Reece!' she screamed, and when he didn't she turned wildly to the unmoving circle of men. 'You have to do something!' she cried desperately. 'Don't encourage him. He'll murder him!'
'I'd like to,' Reece snarled, 'I'd like to very much, but I think he's had enough.' As Freddy slumped to his knees, then collapsed on his face, Reece added, with what Zoe thought was brutal satisfaction, 'That's something you shouldn't forget in a hurry.'
Marvelling dazedly at the fundamental savagery of men, Zoe felt her knees begin to give again and the day begin to darken. She felt so terrible she couldn't speak, despite the way in which the men turned contemptuously from Freddy Vintis and began fussing tenderly over her.
'Come on, Zoe.' Reece shouldered his way through them to take her from Donald and pick her up. His face was still hard and set, but his voice was much more gentle. 'I think it's time I took you home.'
Clinging to him weakly, she hid her face against broad chest as with a brief word of thanks to his men he carried her to the car. As they left the yard she brushed her hair from her sore face and made an effort to pull herself together. 'I'm sorry, Reece,' she whispered, 'I wish this had never happened. What can everyone be thinking? You shouldn't have hit him.'
Reece listened to her disjointed sentences, his mouth tightened grimly. 'He deserved all he got, but don't talk now. You've had a shock and you're suffering. We both are,' he surprised her by adding tersely.
Zoe was near to tears, but found she couldn't stop talking. 'The trouble you went to settle—is it all over? Shouldn't you have stayed?'
'It was over long before you went out with Vintis,' he said repressively. 'If I'd followed my inclinations and gone straight to your grandparents' house, you might never have seen him.'
'How did you know where to find me?' she asked. 'You were right behind us.'
'Ursula rang from the harbour, or thereabouts, I believe. She told me where you'd gone. I'd actually seen Vintis pass before I answered the phone, but didn't realise you were with him.'
'The ferry was awful . . .' terror returned to her eyes as she remembered it. 'I don't know how we missed it.'
'Don't talk about it,’ Reece commanded curtly, his face whitening as he drove up to the house and stopped in front of the door.
Going around to her side, he helped her out and as she swayed, picked her up again, carrying her straight upstairs to his room. Putting her carefully down on the edge of the bed, he said formidably, 'Don't move. You're shocked and hurt and I'm going to run you a bath. Then we'll talk, but not before.'
'Your hands, Reece!' for the first time Zoe saw his bleeding knuckles and was horrified.
'Don't worry,' he shrugged, 'I'm sure Vintis will be hurting much more.' He crossed the passage to the bathroom and turned on the taps. Then he came back for her and helped her undress. As she slid thankfully under the warm, soothing water, her mind was still in such a turmoil she scarcely realised what he was doing.
'I'm going down to make you a hot drink,' Reece frowned, watching her closely and anxiously, 'then I'll see to your face. I shan't be long.'
While the warmth of the water relaxed her, Zoe found it almost impossible to stay there. There was too much on her mind and it made her restless. Reece was obviously concerned, but that didn't mean he loved her. More than likely, he was merely trying to strengthen her, to give her enough courage to hear what he had to tell her without breaking down. Men became embarrassed by tears if they thought they were the cause of them.
She was out of the bath, and wrapped completely in a huge, thick towel by the time he returned.
'That was too quick,' was all he said, but there seemed to be disapproval in his eyes as he took her arm and gently guided her back to his room again. After making her resume her seat on the edge of the bed, he poured her a cup of tea, liberally laced with brandy.
'It's not the right time of day for a bath,' she stammered, as his ensuing silence seemed to reproach her.
She must have been wrong in thinking he was annoyed that she hadn't stayed longer in her bath, for his dark brows merely rose indifferently. 'You were soaked and the sea is still cold, but as long as you feel better that's all that matters. The time of day is surely immaterial?'
Drinking the tea he gave her slowly, Zoe glanced at him uncertainly under lowered lashes. 'Where's yours?' she asked, wishing she knew exactly what he was thinking. 'Or are you having something stronger?'
'I've already had a drink,'
he admitted, 'while I was waiting for the kettle to boil. Before I have anything more I want a look at you. That cut on your face looks as if it could do with some attention.'
'It's nothing,' she protested, 'merely a slight cut, a scratch on my brow.'
'I'm going to see to it, anyway,' Reece insisted grimly, sitting down beside her. 'You made a big enough fuss when I got a bang on the head. Now it's my turn.'
Zoe sat meekly enduring as he made a thorough examination before applying a soothing ointment to the broken skin. Why, she wondered, with a kind of quiet desperation, were they sitting here talking to each other like two strangers? His face was devoid of expression and her throat felt dried up.
'It's only superficial,' the lines on his face eased with relief, 'but I expect you're feeling sore?'
'A bit, not much. I think the tea's helping.'
He finished the dressing, then suddenly surprised her by placing his hands on her shoulders, as though his restraint had abruptly ended. Closely he gazed at her tear-stained face. 'You were crying in your bath, Zoe. I looked in, but you didn't see me. Was it just shock, reaction, or was there something else?'
Acutely miserable, she shook her head without replying. He must have come so quietly to the bathroom' she hadn't heard him. She would have made more effort to stem her tears if she had known he was there.
He continued to watch her narrowly. 'What did Ursula say to make you go off as you did with a greenhorn like Vintis? It must have been something pretty drastic'
'It was nothing,' she murmured evasively, every bit of her crying out against the discussion which must inevitably follow if she told him.
'Zoe!'
His voice warned her he wouldn't be put off, and she glanced at him despairingly. There seemed no escape. Licking dry lips, she said dully, 'She didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, so you don't haveto be angry with her. She said you were going to divorce me and marry her, and that she knew you'd been—obliged, I think she said, to marry me in the first place. I felt so dreadful that when Freddy more or less whistled from his boat and asked me out, it didn't seem to matter what I did.'
'And you believed her?'
'What else could I do?' She raised eyes dark with anguish. 'We both know the truth. You never wanted to marry me. You felt you had to, but at least you never pretended to love me.'
'Oh, Zoe, my darling girl!' Suddenly, with hands that shook, Reece drew her closer, holding her glossy head fast against his shoulder. 'Had you no idea? Didn't you know I've loved you for years?'
She couldn't believe she was hearing properly. 'No,' she cried brokenly, the tension in her so great it became unbearable, 'I can't believe it.'
'I think you might be the only one who can't,' he mocked with self-derision, lifting her chin until her eyes locked with his, and amazingly, miraculously she was forced to. His eyes were yearningly alive, expressing a passion that threatened to overwhelm her. The blue of his pupils was almost black and tiny flames flickered in the depth of them. She had a heady sensation of looking into his very soul and seeing her image impinged there for all time. In his eyes she read a promise of everlasting devotion.
'Why didn't you tell me?' she exclaimed at last, feeling utterly shaken. 'I love you so much I didn't know if I wanted to live when I thought I'd lost you.'
Her eyes were now as frankly revealing as his, and as if suddenly as overcome by emotion as she was he bent his head and kissed her. As his mouth covered hers, her arms went round him in a frenzy of longing and her body pressed closer. The exploration of his mouth deepened and pleasure invaded her so convulsively it began an urgent quivering inside her.
He was muttering thickly against her lips, his tone indicative that his control on his own passion was extremely limited. 'I love you,' he said, 'I want you. You don't know how much.'
The way she was responding, Zoe realised, must be an open invitation, driving him to the brink of madness. Reece's voice deepened while his hands visibly shook with the effort it took to put her a little way from him. 'We must talk first, Zoe. Let me speak, I have to explain.'
'Nothing seems to matter except that you love me,' she protested, her dazed eyes fixed on him entreatingly.
'Yes, it does.' His voice held a remembered sternness, even if it was only fleeting. 'Listen to me,' he drew a deep breath. 'I think you were about seventeen when I first realised the casual affection I'd always felt for you was changing. I wanted to know you better. I wanted you to get to know me. It was then that I went to your grandfather and told him frankly how I felt and asked his permission to take you out occasionally.'
'You did?' Her green eyes widened in bewilderment as he paused. 'I never guessed . . .'
'Yes,' his mouth tightened, 'but when I told your grandfather I had marriage very much in mind, he said you were too young and asked me to wait until you were twenty. He considered the difference in our ages too great and insisted I might easily sweep you off your feet, if I persisted, without giving you a chance to get to know boys of your own age.'
'And you agreed?' Zoe frowned.
'I know I like my own way,' he smiled slightly at her widening eyes, 'but I did see his point of view. It wasn't going to be easy, though, if you were around all the time. That was why I refused to have you as my secretary, and when I did give in why I went out nowand again with other women. It was a kind of self-protection, as once you were back I realised I loved you as much as ever.'
'Yet you still never said anything?' she whispered incredulously.
'No, because your grandfather was still begging me to wait, but after you were nineteen I'm afraid I refused to listen. I only promised not to rush you, but afterwards I considered that a huge joke. You were so prickly I couldn't get near you. I seemed to be getting precisely nowhere.'
'I thought you were only amusing yourself with me.' Stunned by such revelations, Zoe paled. 'And I didn't realise I loved you until the night of the storm. Even then I fought it.'
'And me!' Reece kissed her briefly, a blissful kind of punishment. 'I nearly made you mine on Sam Colter's island. The irony of it was, I didn't want to do anything that might make you feel you had to marry me, and you'll never know what it cost me to take my hands off you. You were out of control and so was I—almost, my love.'
'Then we returned and my grandfather made you . . .'
'No, he didn't,' Reece interrupted dryly. 'He was convinced I'd deliberately flouted his wishes. Remember I'd already done so by telling him I would wait no longer. He thought I'd deliberately seduced you so he would have no other option but to give his permission for our marriage, while I, to my shame, thought it too good an opportunity to miss. You see, darling, on the island I recognised that we had something between us not given to everyone. You've no idea how you tempted me that night, but I was more than glad, when we returned, that I hadn't possessed you, or you would have felt doubly trapped.'
'I believed it was you who was trapped,' she exclaimed, 'and I didn't know what to think when you rushed off next day to Edinburgh.'
'I had to make sure of you,' he trailed gentle fingers down her cheek, 'and seeing my parents and making a public announcement seemed the best way of doing it. I'm sorry, darling,' he added thickly.
'You don't look it particularly,' Zoe commented, her mouth quivering unhappily as she recalled the heartache she had suffered.
'All the same I shouldn't have acted so highhandedly,' he insisted.
'I couldn't understand why you were in such a hurry.' Pain crept into her voice. 'I thought you loved Ursula.'
'Never,' he replied grimly. 'I've never loved another woman but you, or pretended to. What she said about a divorce was pure fabrication and I'm sure no one else will listen to her vindictive tales. I took her out mostly because she asked me to and I was trying to make you jealous. As I was jealous of Ian Graham and Freddy Vintis, I'm afraid,' he added ruefully.
'I'm sorry about Freddy Vintis,' Zoe said carefully, 'but I still think you were a little
hard on him.'
'That's because you don't know the whole story, my child, but even if he had only been guilty of running off with you, as he did, it would have been enough.'
Zoe felt and looked and looked puzzled. 'What is the whole story, then?'
Reece sighed, finding no pleasure in relating it. 'He was the cause of all the trouble at the yard. While I've been away he's been there every day raging at the men over the boats we were building for him until they were ready to walk out. I'd just got them calmed down when he arrived this morning, and I put up with as much sheer insolence as I could stand before asking him politely—more politely than I felt, I can tell you, to remove himself and his order elsewhere. I got intouch with his father and apparently they're going back to London; coming here hasn't worked out. He apologised for his son and I was just beginning to feel slightly better when Ursula rang and said where you were. To say I was mad would be putting it mildly, but oh, God, darling,' he crushed her to him, his eyes completely black, 'when I saw that ferry bearing down on you if I could have got my hands on Vintis then I would have killed him!'
Storm Cycle Page 18