A Durable Fire

by Robyn Donald

  But not now. Slowly she concentrated, forcing her body to obey her will, the blood to return, bringing with it colour and a vitality which only she knew to be forced.

  Karen had recognised the name, of course, and after one quick, puzzled glance she had shifted attention her way, sparkling, flirting a little too obviously with him, much to Helen’s indignation. But it had given Arminel a much-needed breathing space so that when the conversation came her way again she was ready for it, the social mask firmly in place.

  ‘I saw Felice snorkelling with you this morning,’ Helen said. ‘She’s incredibly good in the water, isn’t she? It’s not often you see children of four who can swim like little eels.’ She turned to Kyle. ‘Felice is Arminel’s daughter. Felice Evans, Dan Evans’ child. You’ll have heard of our poor sweet Dan, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’ The cool grey eyes swept Arminel’s face and body. ‘One of the biggest industrialists in the southern hemisphere. I’m sure everyone must have heard of him.’ The insult was subtle, finding its way beneath Arminel’s armour.

  ‘He was a darling,’ Helen said brightly. ‘And Arminel is a truly devoted widow. Their marriage was such a romance. They met and were married within three weeks.’ She laughed, a tinkling, empty little sound, before she continued, ‘Of course, all his friends thought he’d gone quite dippy.’

  ‘Arminel made him happy,’ Karen interposed, a little fiercely.

  Helen stared at her. ‘Well, that’s what I’m saying, my dear. I’ve never seen a man so thrilled as Dan was when Felice was born. A pity you couldn’t have had a son, Arminel, but I must say no one would ever have known that he was disappointed, if he was.’

  Helen was not particularly clever, but she had given her Tim three sons and perhaps more importantly had kept her figure. In spite of her shallowness she was a likeable soul, so Arminel smiled and said,

  ‘I don’t think he was disappointed.’

  She lifted her glass and swallowed some of her drink, wishing that for once she had allowed Tim to get her something stronger than the lime juice and Perrier which was all that she usually drank. At this moment she could do with the artificial stimulus of alcohol. Her brain felt thick and woolly and she was only too conscious of the whip of Kyle’s glance on her.

  The Goudges had built their holiday home of great logs with an enormous thatched roof and a patio made of rounds of wood sunk into the ground, separated by clumps of low creeping plants. Helen loved gardens and hers was magnificent with hibiscus especially imported from Hawaii and great swathes of bougainvillaea against a dark, lush background of tropical foliage. Pots of amaryllis and mock azalea joined the brilliant stars of ixora and the musk-scented trumpets of datura to form an extravagant, fabulous atmosphere.

  Now, with the sun down the patio was illuminated by flares. One side was shaded by a banyan tree, its leaves an enormous crown of rumpled green silk, but it was the frangipani that perfumed the air so sweetly, combining with gardenias and ginger and ylang-ylang in a sensuous exotic ambience.

  Another couple arrived and then two adolescent sisters from a mile or so away who said they had been walking off restlessness. On any other occasion Arminel would have found amusing the way they took one look at Kyle and reacted like a starving woman before food, but tonight their open admiration tore at her nerves, making her jumpy and fretful until she felt that if she didn’t get out of the place soon she would make a complete fool of herself.

  By then it was turning into a full-scale party. Tim put music on and the beat reverberating through the tall palms attracted the local celebrity, a television personality from Australia who brought with him a film star friend from Hollywood, and a famous Shakespearean actor. The teenage girls were ecstatic, but it was clear that they preferred Kyle’s brand of unforced virility to the somewhat artificial glamour of the other three.

  Arminel was disgusted to find herself watching them as they vied for his attention. An intolerable anguish gripped her in its coils. Why had she never been able to fight free of this dark enchantment he had laid on her? She had taken one look at him and fallen, headlong and for ever, under his spell. At first it had been physical attraction, but she had learned to love him, and in spite of all that had happened between them and the long years of parting that love was as strong as ever.

  And Kyle? Once Dan had said that he had acted like a man in love. Perhaps he had been, but too much had happened to allow him to trust to his emotions. He had thought her a woman who wanted to marry money, trading the beauty of her face and form for the security. Her marriage to Dan could only have reinforced that belief. An ironic smile touched the warm curve of her mouth. Dan had made it possible for her to disabuse his mind of that illusion, but Kyle would have to ask her to marry him before he learned of the proviso in Dan’s will that cut off every source of income from her if she married again.

  And Kyle would never trust her, or his own emotions, enough to ask her to marry him. Even if he still loved her. If he had ever loved her.

  Her eyes took in his physical perfection with wistful awe. How did he do it? Standing there, a half-empty glass in his hand, head slightly bent as he talked to the film star, he dominated this assembly of rich, beautiful people. Hungrily she took in the way his bronze hair gleamed as it covered the beautiful shape of his head, the stark strength of bone structure, austere and perfect beneath fine tanned skin, the thick dark lashes shielding eyes so clear that you would swear they could hide nothing, the arrogant strength of jaw, the mouth which could bruise and caress almost at the same time, severe and yet totally sensuous.

  I love you, she thought, and as if her longing had been shouted aloud he looked up and tension sparked across the warm air like forked lightning, brilliant, deadly. For a long moment their eyes clashed until, trembling, she turned away. After a word with Karen she would slip away quietly, so quietly that no one would notice her absence.

  Unfortunately she was waylaid, first by the television personality, whom she liked, even if he did overdo the amorous innuendo, and then by the actor who showed every sign of being smitten by her. He was also slightly drunk and more than a little conceited, but she was polite, parrying his compliments with a kind of dry amusement that astonished him.

  ‘It’s our strange Antipodean humour,’ came Kyle’s voice from behind her. He slid an arm around Arminel’s waist and pulled her close, ignoring the sudden rigidity of her body as he continued easily, ‘You have to be born in the Pacific if you want to understand it.’

  ‘I see,’ the actor said, and he thought he did see, his eyes shrewd as they went from Arminel to Kyle. ‘Like our English jokes. Well, no doubt we’ll see more of each other, Mrs Evans. I love your island.’

  ‘It’s not my island,’ she said quietly, but he gave her the crooked smile he had used to such effect in several extremely good films and made his departure, setting his sights on one of the young women who had been trying to attract Kyle.

  When he was a few steps away Arminel moved away. Kyle’s arm dropped and he too smiled, not a pleasant smile.

  ‘What it is to be a beautiful, rich widow,’ he jeered softly.

  She lifted her head back. ‘What it is to be a beautiful, rich bachelor,’ she parried harshly, her expression inexpressibly remote. ‘Or are you married now?’

  Again she had succeeded in startling him. His mouth tightened, then relaxed. ‘No. You’ve developed a nasty tongue since last we saw each other, darling. Wasn’t your marriage as idyllic as Helen thinks? Did you sharpen your tongue on your poor fool of a husband?’

  ‘My marriage is no concern of yours,’ she returned icily.

  ‘It didn’t take you long to crawl into someone else’s bed,’ he said with crude directness, finding pleasure in her quick shocked reaction. ‘How old is your daughter?’

  ‘She turned four two months ago,’ she replied, refusing to allow herself to feel the insult.

  ‘So she was conceived a month after you begged to be my mistress, vowing eternal love f
or me,’ he said contemptuously. ‘Eternity didn’t last very long, did it? Tell me, were you as responsive, as wildly uninhibited in his bed as you were in mine?’

  Arminel drew a deep breath, her face shuttered as she matched his contempt with her own. ‘I don’t have to justify my behaviour to you or anyone,’ she said on a ragged note. ‘You may have forgotten that you humiliated me before you threw me out of your life. You tried to destroy my self-respect. You have no right to judge me—you never did. Not,’ she added with icy composure, ‘when your own actions were hardly above reproach.’

  The wide shoulders stiffened. He looked above her head at some distant vision, his expression rigidly remote.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that? I went crazy, I think.’ And in a totally different voice, lazy, almost casual and very much at odds with his watchful glance, ‘Rhys is married.’

  ‘To Davina, of course.’

  ‘Of course. They were always perfectly suited. They married about eighteen months after your—after I became your lover.’ The deep tones had a silky, sneering quality that struck at her poise. ‘Tell me, how did you manage to convince your husband that you were still a virgin? From all that I’ve heard he was too experienced not to know the difference.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she said shortly. ‘He knew.’

  ‘Oh? Did you confess all? Clever girl!’ But beneath the tan he was slightly pale as though her words had shaken him.

  ‘Of course I told him.’ Her swift glance slid away from his face to rest on her hands, trembling slightly.

  ‘And he still wanted you?’

  She wanted to hurt him, shake him from his height of arrogant disdain. Very softly she asked, ‘Why should he not, Kyle? Dan was a mature, sophisticated man with a vast experience of life. He had no rigid, preconceived ideas of how people should behave. And he could certainly see the unfairness in the double standard.’

  ‘Wise Daniel,’ he said disagreeably. ‘Did his tolerance extend to welcoming my child if you’d been pregnant? Or did he make sure that there was no possibility of that before he married you?’

  She was shaken by his question. A warning flicked in her brain. ‘By the time he asked me, I knew . . . that is . . .’ She straightened up, lifting eyes which were deep-shadowed. ‘There was no reason for him to make sure,’ she said coldly. ‘Felice is his.’

  ‘I know that. I must admit I did wonder, but the date of her birth convinced me.’

  Foolishly she snapped, ‘Not that you cared!’

  ‘Not particularly.’ The indifference in his voice made her flinch before he added, ‘Abortions are easy enough to get in Australia.’

  ‘You really are a swine—a barbarian!’

  He laughed and lowered his head so that his breath fanned warmly across her forehead. ‘So you told me often enough at Te Nawe. Why the disappointment? Did you think five years would have changed me?’ As she shook her head he said, ‘Not at all, Arminel. I’m still the same swine you wanted then. Have you changed?’

  For a moment she stood staring up at him, her eyes held by the mesmeric sheen of his. The lights from the flares flickered and shone, picking out the hard bone-structure of his face, the ruthless jaw and strong nose, the mouth which could kiss the heart from a woman or calmly say words to kill her. The physical attraction was as potent as ever.

  Tension tightened its cords between them. Arminel took a deep sobbing breath and dragged her eyes from his, looking over his shoulder to see Helen approaching.

  ‘Tell me about Rhys,’ she said, turning half away.

  He understood, of course. That watchful, waiting attitude left him; he smiled and said, ‘Oh, he’s fine. They live on the stud farm out of Cambridge with their two children—both girls, cute little creatures. Rhys wallows in quite undeserved devotion.’

  Like her he turned so that he could see where Helen had been detained. ‘Your quick marriage to the plutocrat cheered him no end,’ he finished unpleasantly as his smoky eyes searched her face. ‘He thoroughly enjoyed taunting me about your swift change of heart. It helped his ego considerably.’

  ‘Good,’ she said viciously, knowing that she was betraying herself and yet unable to do anything to stop it.

  ‘Careful, darling,’ he mocked. ‘You’ll have me thinking that you still hate me for throwing you out.’

  ‘Hate you?’ She moved away from the danger his lean body represented until the balustrade brought her up short. ‘No, I don’t hate you. I feel nothing for you. Five years is too long a time to hold a grudge.’

  She set her glass down on the balustrade.

  ‘Well, my feelings towards you haven’t changed at all,’ he said softly, watching her. When she said nothing he moved closer, blocking her from the rest of the terrace.

  One hand touched her throat, lingered there, and as she drew in a frightened breath Kyle laughed low in his throat and picked up one of her trembling hands, raising it to his mouth to kiss the inside of her wrist.

  Arminel’s heart pounded in her breast. Without taking his eyes from her he said, ‘We were good together, you and I. It seems a pity to throw that away, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m not looking for a lover,’ she said, each word delivered with brittle, pointed emphasis. ‘When I am I’ll remember you, don’t worry.’

  She stepped past him and he let her go, the golden flare of the torches illuminating his cynical smile.

  ‘Enjoy your holiday,’ she threw over her shoulder as she walked towards her hostess, holding her back so stiffly that her neck ached.

  It was easy enough to slip away through the long grey trunks of the palms. Easy enough to press her fist to her mouth as the tears trickled down her face in the big shadowy bedroom after she had checked Felice; impossible to repress longings she had hoped were buried for ever. She spent all night fighting memories that left her spent and exhausted, lying in the wide empty double bed staring with dry, hot eyes at the ceiling while she wondered miserably if the pain ever ended.

  But self-pity was a despicable emotion, and the dawn brought an end to it. Felice and she ate breakfast together, then set off down to the beach, the child slim and strong in her little yellow bathing suit beneath the enormous straw hat she had to be coaxed to wear. Goggles and snorkels and flippers hung from her arms; she sang a cheerful tune as she skipped ahead and when they came out on to the glittering coarse white coral sand she gave a wordless little cry of pleasure.

  So early in the morning they had the place to themselves except for a takia, a small native sailing canoe out in the bay. One of the Fijians on his way home after a night spent fishing, probably.

  Coconut palms and vai-vai trees lined the beach, the elegant palms leaning towards the water. Although it was so early the sun was warm and the water like silk.

  ‘Come on, Mummy!’ Felice called urgently from the edge of the sand.

  ‘Coming!’ Arminel hadn’t even realised that her eyes had been scanning the beach in quick, suspicious movements. Of course he wouldn’t be up. Karen hadn’t arrived home until about three, but even after that the faint beat of the music had throbbed through the palms. No one at the Goudges’ would be up so early.

  So she relaxed and helped Felice with her flippers, then took her hand as they walked like ducks into a sea so glassy that it was impossible to see where the sand ended and the water began.

  The reef was too far out for them to swim to, but there were coral outcrops in the bay and around them were the reef fish, living jewels with their expressive names, the demoiselles as blue as sapphires, moorish idols and brown tangs, yellow surgeons and black angels. The coral was an exquisite living sculpture, fit playground for the darting brilliant fish.

  After twenty minutes Arminel touched her daughter’s sleek brown shoulder and jerked her head towards the beach. Beneath the goggles Felice’s frown was expressive, but she accompanied her mother in without cavilling. Strong-willed she might be, and prone to the occasional tantrum, but she knew that her daily sojourn in this fairyl
and depended on her obedience.

  Back on the sand they sat in the little curling waves and took off their flippers and goggles, talking quietly—until Felice squinted up and said, ‘There’s a man coming, Mummy.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Even before she turned Arminel knew who it was; every nerve in her body was tensed as he approached, and she wished frantically that she hadn’t chosen to wear a maillot that fitted like a second skin and plunged to an alarming degree both fore and aft. Its turquoise colour made her skin and hair glow, but she should have stuck to something that didn’t reveal so much.

  ‘Hello,’ said Kyle, his expression well under control.

  Felice looked at him doubtfully, but when her mother returned the greeting her little face relaxed into its usual cheerful interest.

  ‘You must be Felice,’ said Kyle, dropping on to his haunches in front of her.

  The sun gleamed on his torso, picking out the flexing muscles beneath the skin. He was wearing nothing more than an old, faded pair of denim shorts. Hastily Arminel averted her eyes as her mouth dried.

  ‘Yes.’ Felice stood up and took a couple of steps towards him, her hands behind her back. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Kyle.’

  The clustering curls glittered as she nodded, gazing at him with her mother’s eyes. ‘Do you know my mummy?’

  His gaze shifted, hardened as it impaled Arminel’s. ‘Yes, very well,’ he answered.

  Felice nodded again, watching him curiously with the open innocent assessment of childhood. ‘Where are you staying?’