‘I couldn’t bear to be alone tonight,’ she said starkly. ‘That’s the only thing I know. And it wouldn’t be fair to tell you any different. I’m sorry.’
He was silent for so long, she felt a trembling begin within her, a desire to take back her words, to shape them differently, to explain better, but how could she explain better what she didn’t understand herself? How could she tell him she was vulnerable as much to the moonlight, the scent of roses, the place, her senses, as to him? Tell him that she didn’t understand how this could have happened to her, that it was shaming, but out of nowhere, a pit of loneliness so deep yawned at her feet that she was in real, dire fear.
She moved, went to get up awkwardly, horrified suddenly as well as afraid, horrified at the insult she had offered him in the name of honesty and her preoccupation with herself.
‘Where are you going, Evonne?’
She sank back and forced herself to look at him at last, but so afraid of what she might see. ‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ she stammered, and flinched visibly at his shuttered, carved expression. ‘It was unforgivable…’ Her agitated words sank into a pool of silence and her heart started to beat heavily as Rick’s lips twisted into a dry little smile.
‘All the same, it’s just as well I’m available, isn’t it?’ he drawled.
‘Rick,’ she whispered, ‘I…’
But his eyes were alive suddenly, she saw, alive and green and supremely mocking—then, in a lightning change, frighteningly inscrutable and like a tiger’s, she thought chaotically, delaying, playing… oh, what have I done?
In a purely reflex action she glanced around wildly, but that only brought another absent little smile to his lips. ‘You’re quite free to run away, my dear,’ he said softly, ‘but I’m going back to our room.’ He stood up and stared down at her, and the implication that she was a coward was quite plain, as was the challenge.
She bent her head, her hair fell forward and her shoulders sagged. Then she stood up herself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
RICKk unlocked the door of their room, put a hand in to switch on the light, then stood aside for her.
Evonne went in and he closed the door behind them—she watched him close it and lock it by pressing the knob in on the round brass handle. She watched him lay the key on the writing-table, flick on a lamp beside the bed and turn off the overhead light, then go to each of the sash windows, lowering them as far as they would go.
Then he turned his attention to her.
She was standing across the room from him, her hands at her sides, her foolish tears dried up, her eyes bleak.
He said, barely audibly, ‘Come here, Evonne.’
‘Rick, I…’
‘Damn you,’ he said, so softly but with an edge of violence that made her shiver, ‘don’t make me come and get you. But that’s what you want, isn’t it? So that then you can curse me in your most colourful language, and fight…and be subdued. That’s how you like it, don’t you? Rough. How could I have forgotten?’ he mocked.
‘Oh…no, no, I don’t,’ she whispered, shivering uncontrollably now.
‘Then you like putting the responsibility for wanting it everywhere but on yourself.’
‘You don’t understand…’ She stopped and her eyes widened suddenly as at last she did begin to slowly see through to her inner self.
‘Tell me what I don’t understand, then,’ he said with irony and insolent patience. ‘Just don’t give me that old line about loneliness again,’ he warned savagely.
Evonne swallowed and licked her lips, then her eyes lit with a spark of anger that she should have brought herself to this, that he should have. ‘I’m scared stiff, if you must know,’ she said, and thought her voice sounded curiously hollow. ‘It’s been years, for one thing,’ she turned away convulsively but went on with her hand to her mouth, ‘and I’ve only ever been a failure anyway. There must be…secret sophistications I’ve never learnt, rough——’ her voice broke, but she went on hoarsely ‘—talking about that—edges, things I don’t know how to control—myself, for example… I warned you once before, but you wouldn’t listen.’ And she covered her face with her hands and ground her teeth in despair.
‘Evonne…’ Rick said her name from across the room.
‘If only you’d stuck to Patterson!’
He was beside her in a couple of strides, swinging her around to face him, his hands hard on her upper arms. ‘Don’t! You’re wrong…’
‘No, I’m not wrong, Sir Richard.’ New tears streamed down her face and she wrested a wrist free and scrubbed at her eyes, but that wrecked her mascara and when she saw it on her fingers, she laughed as well as cried. Laughed as she said. ‘Of all people, you know about the tough, brash side of me.’
He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Stop it,’ he commanded softly.
But she couldn’t. ‘Perhaps you don’t know… how I heard myself talked about once, but I’ll tell you… “A piece of hot stuff, but she’d wear you out before you’re forty”… that’s what someone I barely knew said, and he went on to say he’d got it by word of mouth from a man— a man I did know and thought I’d loved. Do you know how I felt? Like a tart, as if that’s how I’d been.’
‘Oh, Evonne!’ Rick muttered beneath his breath, and drew her, sobbing uncontrollably now against him, and cupped the back of her head in his hand and laid his cheek on her hair.
They stayed like that for a long time until her storm of weeping subsided into the odd ragged, hiccupy breath, and she mumbled, ‘Sorry… I’m all right now. I did tell you this might not be a good idea.’
She heard him sigh, then he said, ‘Come,’ and released her but took her hand and led her to the bed. ‘Lie down,’ he ordered, and when she sat down, he pulled up the pillows and bent down to take off her shoes. Then he disappeared into the bathroom and when he came back with a glass of water and some tissues she’d curled up against the pillows.
But she sat up and sipped the water gratefully, then blew her nose and wiped her eyes, grimacing at the streaks on the tissues, black combined with her silvery blue eye-shadow and pink blusher. ‘I must look awful,’ she sighed with a sketchy attempt at a smile. ‘This make-up obviously isn’t as waterproof as it claims!’ She laid her head back and fought some more weak tears.
‘Evonne,’ Rick took the glass out of her fingers and set it down, then he lay down beside her, not touching but facing her, his head propped on his arm.
She sniffed, then lowered her gaze from the ceiling to look into his eyes. ‘I really am sorry to… to have burdened you with the mess I am. You’d think, at twenty-eight, one would have sorted oneself out a bit better. Fancy,’ she marvelled, and plucked at the pink voile of her dress, ‘even trying to be the girl I probably never was!’
He caught her fingers in a firm grip. ‘Will you let me show you the real Evonne Patterson? The person I know she is. The one who’s made her mistakes—but then we all do that, don’t ever for one minute think you’re the only one.’
‘Why is it different for me, then?’
‘Because you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, Evonne,’ he said honestly. ‘You’re also bright, brighter than most, more alive until you decided to die in a way, and you’ve fought against enormous odds. But there’s one thing you should never regret… if you’re loving and passionate, and if when you love, even mistakenly, you give it your all, don’t regret it. There also has to be someone to match you, someone who’ll love the sheer magnificence of you.’
She closed her eyes and her lashes were wet on her cheeks.
‘Did you ever stop to think that what you felt for Rob Randall might have grown out of proportion because he didn’t want you?’
‘Reverse psychology?’ she said twistedly.
‘It might have put him, in your mind, a cut above the ones who did.’
She sighed a shuddering little sigh. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Then,’ his green eyes glinted suddenly, ‘what are we going to do about this bloke lyi
‘In that context,’ his eyes were wry, ‘may I kiss you?’
‘Well…’
But she got no further, because that was when he suited words to action.
‘Oh, help me…’
Rick lifted his head from her breasts. ‘I’ll do anything you want me to. I’m in need of some help myself.’
‘Tell me,’ Evonne whispered.
He transferred his lips to her throat and she felt him laugh softly. ‘It’s just that I can’t wait much longer.’
‘Don’t, then.’
‘Are you sure?’
Her answer was a low husky sound of desire. ‘If I’m hurting you, tell me…’
‘I don’t think anything has hurt me less—for someone with a left-handed syndrome, you’re remarkably deft.’
‘If I am it’s because you’re incredibly beautiful,’ he said with an effort, and eased his weight on to her. ‘I’m sorry—I meant to take much longer about this.’
‘Any longer and I might die—we seem to be talking a lot,’ Evonne whispered innocently.
‘I always talk a lot, hadn’t you noticed? But I shall desist if…’
‘No,’ she slipped her arms around his back and stroked the strong length of it, ‘keep talking to me, please… oh…’ She stopped as he eased her legs apart with his.
And from somewhere he found the control to keep talking to her in between kissing her again and simply holding her and touching her until her reflex shrinking had subsided, because he had known better than she that the long, lonely years needed time to bridge. And at last she was truly ready to welcome him with a pleading little gasp. ‘Oh, please, yes!’
At last he gave way to the hard, driving force he had controlled, and she moaned and clung to him, arched her body to his to meet it, to match it, to be possessed by the thrusting rhythm, to be suddenly slippery with sweat but uncaring, to give herself to him totally, her legs twined around his. her hands in his hair, to be strong and proud of it. Until that wave upon wave of sensation caught her in its grip and she was no longer strong but supremely vulnerable, completely at his mercy, saying his name over and over in her throat.
Rick held her in silence for a long time after he had rolled away from her, held her as she wept quietly from pure reaction, and his own heavy breathing subsided. Then at last he smoothed her hair away from her face and kissed her brow. ‘Evonne?’
‘Mmm …’ It was all she could manage.
‘Words fail me… I just thought I ought to tell you that.’
‘Me too,’ she whispered shakily. ‘No, they don’t. Thank you,’ she said simply.
He gathered her close. ‘Can you sleep if I hold you like this? I don’t seem to be willing or able to let you go—that’s the problem.’
‘I don’t think I can sleep any other way.’ She smiled tremulously at him, their faces only inches apart on the pillow.
‘Good, because…’ But she stopped him with a finger to his lips, then moved slightly to kiss his lips.
‘If you’re going to talk to me all night, though…’
He laughed, and she caught her breath and felt something like a hand squeezing her heart with :he foreknowledge that she could only banter like this because the alternative was to tell him what she really felt. The love growing in her heart… No, no, she thought with a little flare of panic, don’t make that mistake again even with Rick, perhaps especially with Rick. Go on teasing him, anything, but not that…
Because it was dark with only the moonlight to see by, Rick couldn’t see what was in her eyes, she hoped, and anyway, it was as if they had suddenly both run out of small talk, because he pulled her even closer so her head rested on his shoulder, and he stroked her hair gently until, unknowingly, she fell asleep.
What she didn’t know, either, was that it was some time before he followed suit.
She woke before he did and blinked at the sunlight flooding the room. Her watch told her it was eight-thirty, but her body told her something else—that she had no desire to leave the rumpled bed, although she drew the sheet modestly up around her, and turned to lie with her cheek on her hand and drink her fill of Rick Emerson as he slept.
Once she even put her hand out to touch his long, golden body, but she stopped herself. And her heart beat a little tattoo as he stirred, groaned and sat up, pushing a hand through his hair and staring around as if he had not the slightest idea where he was. Then his eyes rested on her and widened with relief, and he lay back with another groan and pulled her into his arms. ‘I thought I’d dreamt it,’ he mumbled, burying his face in her hair.
‘Oh, Rick,’ she whispered, a smile trembling on her lips.
Then, about five minutes later, he said, ‘What’s the time?’
‘About a quarter to nine.’
‘Bloody hell!’ He released her and sat up again, rubbing his face distractedly.
‘What?’ she queried.
‘I’m supposed to be delivering the opening address at this bloody conference at half past nine… I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m going to say, I’m supposed to talk for an hour—how do I get myself into these bl..
‘Shh!’ Evonne sat up and picked up his hand. ‘No more swearing, it’s bad first thing in the morning. I’ll help you.’
‘How?’ he demanded.
‘Well,’ she considered, ‘while you get ready and have breakfast, I’ll make the rough outline of a speech for you. I’m good at that, it even used to be my job—and,’ she went on serenely as he shot her a glance, ‘what about something to do with the trials and tribulations of Pidgin? Of which, since typing up your book, I have some knowledge now. I can even think of a good title— something like, say… Belong what name you fight ’im dis fellow police boy? At least with an outline—well, especially for you, you’d have no trouble filling in the rest.’
Rick stared at her, at her bare shoulders, at the sheet she was still wearing modestly, then he lifted a hand and pulled it away and her breasts were exposed, satiny and threaded with pale blue veins beneath the gloss of her white skin, fuller than it appeared when she was dressed, tipped with velvet. And he said something beneath his breath, and once again lay down, taking her with him. ‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘Yes, you can. You have to—they might come looking for you.’
He started to swear even more comprehensively until he realised she was laughing silently. Then he grinned too, at last, and relaxed.
But after a minute or so he said, ‘I’ll go, if I can ask you a question—and get an honest answer.’ He took her chin in one hand.
Her lashes fluttered, but she said, ‘Go ahead.’
‘Belong what name you really feel dis morning?’
Evonne thought, then said gravely, ‘Pretty damn good! Belong dis name.’
Years of long practice, she guessed, saw Rick shower, shave and dress in no time at all, as she sat in bed with a pen and pad, thinking briefly, then, from the top of her head, which she was good at, starting to write swiftly.
He went to breakfast and returned at twenty-five past nine with a tray, by which time she had covered several pages with her smooth, flowing script.
She looked up. ‘What’s this?’
‘Breakfast for you. It finishes at nine-thirty, so I told them you weren’t feeling well.’
Evonne looked at the tray, which bore fruit, a selection of cold meat and cheese, a croissant and coffee, and one raggedly plucked, perfect pink rosebud. ‘Thanks,’ she said huskily, and handed him the pad. ‘See what you make of that.’
Rick scanned the pages swiftly, then looked at her with genuine admiration in his eyes. ‘This is perfect—better than anything I could have come up with.’
‘I doubt that, and you’ll still have to ad-lib a bit—something you excel at,’ she told him with a twinkle in her eye.
He grinned. ‘If only I had you to organise my work on a permanent basis! I’m gone,’ he added, and kissed her briefly, ‘but like you and General MacArthur, I too shall return.’
During the morning, Evonne made a conscious effort to analyse her state of mind. She also took Rick’s manuscript to the lawn outside the poolroom with the intention of doing some editing, but found she couldn’t concentrate—on anything. So she had a spa bath and found the buffeting of the water on her body soothing, then a swim which was bracing. Now I’ll really be able to think, she thought as she climbed out of the pool—and proved herself correct as, through the glass doors, she saw Rick approaching across the grass.
He had changed into shorts and a T-shirt, he had his old straw hat tilted low over his eyes, and he stopped at the table where his manuscript lay, studied it for a moment, then looked around for her.
Evonne stood transfixed with memories of their lovemaking flooding her mind—and discovered, in that instant, the exact state of her mind. All that had lain dormant within her rose to the surface and she found herself trembling like a girl, thinking—oh, what shall I do with myself?—conscious only of Rick, his hands and mouth, the way his hair grew, remembering the strength of his legs, drowning in his nearness…
Then he turned and saw her and she moved jerkily to pick up her towel, and used it not only to dry herself but hide her emotions.
‘There you are,’ he said, sliding the screen door back. ‘I’ve escaped.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Oh, I slayed ’em!’
‘You’re incurably modest,’ Evonne remarked.
‘Thanks to you—I was about to add, but I got sidetracked.’ He stared at her.
‘I didn’t notice… Rick, not… someone will see us.’
‘No, they won’t,’ he said softly, and drew her cool, fresh body into his arms.
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