A Durable Fire

by Robyn Donald

  ‘Shall we swim now or on the way back?’

  ‘Why not both ways?’ Garth, the actor, was the hottest of them all. ‘Speaking as a poor refugee from the northern hemisphere, I’m not sure that I can remain unmelted if there’s much farther to go.’

  Felice’s demand for a drink decided them. ‘My pony is hot, too,’ she said pathetically. ‘Can I give him a drink?’

  ‘We’ll do that first, shall we?’ Kyle’s tone made it quite clear that as far as he was concerned the horses always came first.

  Arminel wondered if she was the only one who felt rebuked, but as she followed him down he was explaining to Felice that she was not to allow her mount to drink too deeply.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because horses have funny stomachs. If they get too hot and then drink a lot they get a terrible pain in their bellies. It’s called colic and it hurts them very much.’

  He would make a good father, she mused, then hastily banished the thought. It was too painful. Too stimulating, too.

  Ten minutes later they were all swimming in the cool water. Felice crowing with laughter as she was given a vigorous ride on their Fijian guide’s shoulders. As they frolicked Arminel lay quietly on her back, staring at the sky. In spite of a particularly bloodthirsty heritage the Fijians were the kindest, most charming people she had ever known, gentle, laughing giants with their magnificently strong faces and mops of bushy hair and their profound love for children, their own and everyone else’s.

  And their homeland must be one of the most beautiful spots in the world. Or three hundred of the most beautiful spots, for there are over three hundred islands—or five hundred depending on how big an island is considered to be—and of these a hundred are occupied.

  Yet as she lay in the midst of jungle beneath a blazing tropical sky she remembered other hills, high and steep and grass-covered, sweeping down to a sea which was sometimes grey and turbulent, sometimes rivalled the turquoise waters about the island. And she knew a pang of homesickness that made her turn over on to her face in case anyone should surprise that anguish in her expression. Would she never forget it, the ecstasy of the skylarks above the paddocks, sheep bleating as they were crowded towards a gate by barking, fussing dogs, the uncompromising hard lines of the land.

  The uncompromising, hard man who owned it and loved it and worked for it.

  She swam, arms working fiercely, until someone stopped her and said something, laughing at the collision.

  ‘Sorry, Garth,’ she apologised, pushing her wet hair back from her face as she stood up.

  ‘Oh, my pleasure. It’s not often that such a beautiful woman sets off after me with complete determination.’

  She laughed, wrinkling her nose at him. ‘Then I won’t tell you that I didn’t even know that you were there.’

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ he said comfortably. ‘Do you think we’d better follow the others out, or shall we let them go on without us and make ourselves our own idyll here?’

  ‘Better go, I suppose.’ Because Kyle was watching them she made it sound lightly regretful, a little flirtatious, but certainly not enough to be considered a come-on.

  As she walked up on to the bank the water streamed from her in a silver sheet, from the wide golden shoulders to the curving provocative line of hips and thighs. She shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair, secure in the knowledge that beneath her swimsuit her body was as firm as a young girl’s, glowing with health and vigour.

  Kyle tossed her a towel, the line of his jaw particularly pronounced.

  The rest of the trip was through more rain-forest, interspersed with moments of sheer beauty and some mild panic, as when Tai made them listen to a distant crashing and said succinctly, ‘Pigs.’

  ‘I’ve always intended to have a go at one,’ said Tim. ‘How good are you at pig-hunting, Kyle?’

  The broad shoulders lifted. ‘I used to go after them when I was young and foolish.’

  ‘Well, let’s see what we can organise. Like to have a go, Garth?’

  ‘I’m always ready for a new experience. How exactly would we go about dispatching the beast?’

  ‘Kill it with a knife,’ Tai told him, and grinned at his expression. ‘Take the dogs and follow them on foot. Before sunrise.”

  Garth joined in the laugh at his expense with good humour and a spoken determination not to back down.

  ‘But what do we do with it once we’ve caught our pig?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, we usually give it to the villagers and they make us a meke,’ Arminel told him. ‘A party with the food cooked in a lovo. That’s an earth oven.’ She looked at Felice, who was already smiling in anticipation. ‘Felice eats so much that you’d think she was a little pig herself!’

  ‘You eat a lot too,’ Felice defended herself with her usual determination. ‘Last time you said you’d put on some weight and you had black coffee for three days!’

  She was exaggerating, her mobile face asking that they join in her joke, which they did. Arminel grinned at her, her eyes very soft and warm as they rested on the flushed little face. Felice returned her look, her love and dependence written in her expression.

  Oh, I love you, Arminel thought. I love you so.

  And she knew she could never regret that bitter-sweet marriage to Dan.

  At the top, where there was a cleared grassy space that looked out over the forested cliffs below and the slower slopes they had just climbed, Arminel caught her daughter’s hand in hers and squeezed it.

  It was the kind of scene to give rise to daydreams of the South Pacific, the sea so intensely hued that it robbed the sky of colour, yet in the blue there was a tapestry of other shades, jade and amethyst and emerald, a jewelled, glittering panorama scattered with other jewels, islands like their own. To the south was the large bulk of Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu; by turning around they could see the second largest, Vanua Levu. And there were so many others; Tai pointed them out, gave their names and told them the old legend which explained why no swimmer in Fijian water need fear shark attacks.

  ‘But you have to wear shoes on the reef,’ Felice said importantly, her face dwarfed by the binoculars she was holding to her eyes.

  ‘Can she actually see through them?’ Helen asked beneath her breath.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Arminel laughed softly. ‘But she likes to pretend.’

  Helen smiled, looking complacently at her Martin, who was busy insisting that he could see a canoe about a hundred miles away.

  Arminel turned, met the cold irony of Kyle’s glance and remembered with a shock another occasion when she had stood on a hill and looked out over a land as beautiful as this, a sea as wide. Te Nawe was higher, but there had been the same sensation of being on top of the world. Only this was a drowsy, sensuous world, and that other had been exhilarating, crisp and stimulating.

  For a long moment they looked at each other, then Kyle smiled, a cold, contemptuous movement of his lips.

  I will not let him destroy my pleasure, she thought defiantly, but will power was no defence against his hard antagonism and in spite of her determination much of the shining delight of the day had gone.

  In a way she was glad when at last they arrived back at the house. Felice had had to give in to her tiredness in the more taxing downhill stint and she had finished the trip up before Kyle, obviously enjoying herself immensely. Fiercely repressing jealousy—oh, to be jealous of her own child!—Arminel was glad when their little cavalcade came to a stop.

  And when Felice was bade to thank Kyle she lifted her face and gave him an enthusiastic kiss, arms clinging tightly until he separated them with a disarming gentleness to hand her down to Arminel. His expression was remote, almost as though he was startled at his own reaction.

  CHAPTER NINE

  At least the activities of the day summoned instant sleep. Unfortunately it was not enough to keep Arminel unconscious all night. She woke in the early hours and after a drink of water and half an hour’s reading wa
s forced to admit that she wasn’t going to back to sleep.

  If she lay here she would spend the time in totally unproductive and fruitless yearning.

  A glance at the clock revealed that she had another three hours until dawn. Three hours spent longing hopelessly for a man “she could never have was too much.

  With sudden determination she got out of bed, tied the long deep rectangle of cotton that made a sulu above her breasts and slid her feet into leather thongs.

  Outside it was quiet and still, the only sound the roar of the waves on the reef. No breeze separated the feathery fronds of the palms. The air was warm and dry, like a caress on her skin. In the sky an old moon gave enough light to make it easy to see where she was going. Through the darkness the greenish-yellow ylang-ylang flowers glimmered, powerfully scented. Sometimes it seemed that the whole island was bathed in that erotic perfume, for the Fijians scented coconut oil with it and used it to protect their skins from the sun. Arminel picked a flower and walked on down towards the beach. After a moment she made a motion to throw it away; the scent teased her nostrils unbearably, setting fire to numerous nerve-endings.

  She knew what she wanted, of course. It was not the first time this intolerable restlessness had haunted her, driving her to excesses of work so that she could find sleep and with it oblivion from the urgent needs of her body. Five years ago Kyle had shown her just how responsive she was, awakening needs and desires which had never died. Mostly her sexuality slumbered, sublimated by her enthusiasm for her studies, her busy daily life, but on occasions it awoke and she was miserably forced to admit that she craved for him. Several times she had thought quite seriously of taking a lover, but it had been forcibly made clear to her that when she kissed it was Kyle she kissed, Kyle she wanted, Kyle her body needed.

  To all intents and purposes she was fixated on him, and there was no way she was going to cold-bloodedly make love to another man so that she could close her eyes and pretend that he was Kyle.

  Usually vigorous exercise helped; she had even used the classic cold shower to good effect. But tonight he was not twelve hundred miles from her, he lay sleeping only a few score yards away. Her stomach tightened as she thought of him sprawled across a bed, just as it had clenched whenever her eyes rested on him during the long, unbearable day.

  ‘I love you,’ she whispered, afraid even here of being overheard. Clutched in her hand was the blossom she had been going to throw away. ‘Oh, what the hell,’ she said aloud, and reached down to tuck it between her breasts.

  The heavy sensuous perfume clung to her fingers. With a swift motion she rubbed her hand down the side of her sulu before setting off along the soft, heavy sand of the beach. After a few minutes she stooped and took off her thongs, dangling them from a forefinger.

  Half way along the beach a rock made a convenient marker; it had a flat top and was easy to climb, and once she got up there she decided to stay, sitting with her chin on her upraised knees, hands clasping her ankles as she stared out across the bay.

  The reef was a thin line of ghostly paleness against the dark sea. Very faintly she could hear a distant noise; her eyes searched the skies until she picked up the big jet, its lights a garish intrusion in the night sky. Half-past three, she thought. Poor travellers! Even poorer staff at Nandi Airport!

  ‘En route to Hawaii,’ Kyle’s voice said from behind her, and she gave a choked little cry and scrambled to her feet, her skin cold with shock.

  ‘Frighten you, darling?’ he asked unpleasantly. ‘No, don’t run away. You looked lonely sitting on your rock. Were you emulating a mermaid, waiting for some gullible sailor to come along?’

  ‘If I was it seems I got one,’ she returned in a shaky voice, hardly aware of what she said.

  He smiled. ‘Oh, not gullible. Never gullible, Arminel. Not even when I first knew you, before I really understood just how treacherous a woman could be.’

  ‘Why did you dislike me so?’ she asked, accepting the hand he held out. It was strong and warm, and when she was down on the sand again he refused to let her go as they walked slowly back along the beach. As if they were lovers, she thought achingly.

  ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I can understand your mother’s dislike. She already had Davina picked out for Rhys and after I’d been there a few days she must have realised that I wasn’t the right one for him. Even if I’d had the right background, which you all made clear to me I hadn’t.’

  ‘You were a fish out of water, and you knew it.’

  ‘None of you gave me credit for being a quick learner,’ she snapped.

  ‘No, although the fact that your husband could make—or break—most men probably helped no end in your acceptance in the world he inhabited,’ he returned with smooth callousness.

  Arminel shrugged off the hurt. Originally that might have been so, but she had made good friends since then and she was no longer the under-educated gauche girl who had thought that love could conquer all.

  ‘Why were you so set against me?’ she persisted. ‘I know you thought I was after Rhys’s money, but I refuse to believe that every girl who fell for him was only interested in his bank balance. You weren’t even prepared to give me the benefit of the doubt, were you? One look at me and you loathed me. Purely to satisfy my curiosity, I’d like to know why.’

  ‘Most of that glossy sophistication you wear is only a veneer, isn’t it?’ He hesitated before continuing on a strong note of self-mockery. ‘One look was all it took, Arminel. One look and I wanted you. I’m sure that I don’t need to tell you that an accident of birth gave you a rare, thoroughly disturbing beauty. My heart sank when I saw you come towards me. I thought, Oh God, here’s trouble, and trouble you certainly were.’

  ‘And do you normally loathe and despise any woman who attracts you?’ she asked with an entirely spurious air of interest. ‘Is that why you’re not married?’

  His laughter angered her. She stiffened, jerking her hand to free it, but as if he had expected such a reaction his fingers tightened cruelly until she made a soft, muffled sound. Then he said blandly,

  ‘I like holding hands with you, darling. And I wasn’t just attracted to you, or by you. I lusted after you. My brother was in love with you, or thought he was, and it took me exactly five seconds to realise two things.’

  ‘Which were?’

  ‘That you weren’t in love with him. And that whatever leapt into life when I first looked at you was mutual. We both knew it, and knew it for what it was. I learned to hate you because you wouldn’t let Rhys off that silken leash you’d spun for him until you were sure of me. But I wasn’t so much at the mercy of my passions as you hoped, so you had to play us both against each other, didn’t you?’

  ‘No!’ she choked, appalled. ‘Kyle, that’s not—how could you believe that of me?’

  He pulled her to a stop, turning her with a quick painful movement, his hands on either side of her head holding it still so that he could look down into her face.

  ‘What else could I believe?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Why didn’t you tell Rhys immediately that you didn’t want him?’

  ‘Because he asked me not to. He wanted us to pretend. He felt he was being forced into a direction he didn’t want to go.’ She closed her eyes at the disbelief in his, then opened them again, desperate to convince him. The faint light emphasised the autocratic cast of his features, the hard, sensual line of his mouth and the pale fire of his eyes.

  ‘You knew,’ he said coldly. ‘You flinched every time I came near you, you gave yourself away whenever I touched you. I tried you out in a hundred different ways and found you wanting. And all the time you kept Rhys dangling in case you didn’t get me as far as the promise of a wedding ring.’ He smiled as his hands tightened around her face. ‘Did you really think I was fooled, darling? I’d been chased before, you know. Plenty of women like you want a man to take care of them all their lives so much that they’re prepared to fall in love with his
bank balance.’

  ‘Oh, you fool!’ Her voice throbbed with pain. ‘Do you really believe that was all I wanted?’

  ‘No, darling, the fact that you wanted me was a nice little piece of icing on a big, expensive cake, wasn’t it? Tell me, did you want your husband as much?’

  Whenever he said the words ‘your husband’ he made them an insult, and she reacted with passion and anger.

  ‘I find you ugly,’ she cried, her voice shaking. ‘Ugly and prejudiced and hateful! Dan was ten times better than you could ever be!’

  ‘Richer too,’ Kyle agreed, then his hands slid to the nape of her neck and his head blocked out the light.

  Her first mistake was trying to fight him. It took him no time to use his great strength to subdue her, his hands cruel as they held her still so that his mouth could take pleasure in hers. Then she stood motionless, fighting herself, so angry that the sudden uprush of desire took her by surprise. She went up like dry tinder, opening her mouth under his as she swayed towards him, her hands sliding up his arms to clasp his shoulders.

  He lifted up his head and kissed her eyes closed, his hand tracing the line of her spine through the thin cotton sulu, discovering that beneath it she wore nothing. He whispered something and his hands on her hips pulled her close in to him and he was as aroused as she, the kiss they were exchanging was one of possession for both of them.

  He is mine, she thought, amazed and afraid, and he knows it, and that, that is why he hates me. And the knowledge was so astonishing that she made no further pretence of resisting him as the rapture he made for her shook the stars.

  Even as her body trembled, melted, became suffused with an aching, driving need, she knew she could not permit this. Last time Kyle had hated her, and things were no different now. Trapped in a relationship like flies in amber, they belonged to each other, but his bitter resentment lay between them, a gulf too wide to ford.