Sara Craven - Summer of the Raven

by Summer of the Raven (lit)

  'Is that how you look on Raven's Crag? As somewhere to be buried?' he asked rather harshly, and she flushed.

  'No-but from the point of view of someone like you . . .'

  'And what in the world does a child of your age know

  about the point of view of someone like me?' The silver eyes were as cold as winter as they stared down at her, and she shivered a little as her own gaze encountered them.

  'I'm--sorry. Perhaps I was being presumptuous, but . . .'

  'There's no perhaps about it,' he said crisply. 'I'm here at Raven's Crag and I intend to stay here until someone can show me an excellent reason for leaving, even temporarily. This is my home, remember.'

  'Yet you haven't spent a great deal of your time here up to now.'

  'That's something I intend to remedy. I'm sorry if that interferes with your own plans,' he added sardonically.

  'I haven't any plans.' Rowan picked up her trowel

  ,1~:.lIn.

  'And that's something else I intend to remedy,' Carne remarked rather too pleasantly. 'I'm not altogether taken with Antonia's theory that you're still too weighed down by the past to have much interest in the future. It simply sounds like an excuse for inaction.'

  She couldn't deny it. She had no idea what Antonia could have been thinking to suggest such a thing. No one in their right mind would believe that a young girl however devoted to her father's memory would be still too crushed by grief two years after his death to make any plans for her own life. But then, she thought ironically, Carne hadn't been expected to believe it. Antonia had intended it to sound just as it did-a specious excuse for her stepdaughter's shortcomings. She dug viciously at the roots of a persistent dandelion with her trowel.

  'And what's your excuse?' she asked coolly after a moment. She did not have to look up to, know he was frowning.

  'For what?'

  'For your inaction. You've just told me you're giving up your career.'

  'That isn't true. Portrait painting has never been my whole life, whatever you may have been led to think.'

  'No, of course not. You're--something in the City as well.'

  'You make it sound like a black mark against me,' he said wryly. 'I suppose I can hardly blame you for that. For some years I held similar feelings.'

  'But not any more?'

  'Let's just say that I've become increasingly aware lately that I have responsibilities beyond those to myself,' he said flatly. 'There's been pressure on me for some time to do more than occupy a nominal seat on the Board.' He gave a slight shrug. 'Perhaps the time has come for me to yield to that pressure. Once, I'd have thought it was a sacrifice.'

  'You don't feel that now?'

  'I'm not sure what I feel. I know I've been growing increasingly disenchanted with my portrait work. This last commission was pretty much the final straw. An acquaintance with more money than sense wanted a portrait of his wife. I was halfway through the sittings when I realised I was thinking what a farce it all was, and not for the first time either. I've always painted because I enjoyed it, and not simply because I could. But the enjoyment has been growing less and less lately, and Marcella was the final

  straw.'

  'Was she beautiful?' asked Rowan.

  'On the surface, I suppose. But when you looked deeper, which you must do if the finished work is to have any kind of relevance, the bone structure was wrong, and there was a mean little soul behind that too.'

  'Did you finish the portrait?'

  'Oh, yes,' his lip curled, emphasising the scar. 'She had some exquisite jewellery, presented by the doting lack, so I painted that instead. Fortunately neither they nor any of their friends had the wit to realise. They thought it was a wonderful likeness, when all it was was a vast emptiness.'

  He smiled faintly. 'It was a salutary experience, and it helped me crystallise some of the thoughts I'd been having for several months.'

  'But you don't intend to give up altogether?' Rowan said quickly. ,

  'I shall paint for my own amusement. Living in surroundings like this I could hardly do otherwise.'

  'But-surely-you'll want to paint Antonia?'

  Carne lifted an eyebrow. 'I wasn't aware Antonia wished to be painted. And I don't think she could afford my fee,' he added drily.

  He was being deliberately obtuse, Rowan thought angrily. It stood to reasonthat when he married Antonia, he would paint her. She could even visualise the spot where the portrait would hang in that big sunlit sitting room. Then she remembered that it was Antonia's declared intention to get Carne to leave Raven's Crag.

  Carne said abruptly, 'You seem to be fighting a losing battle with that dandelion. Suppose you go and make us some coffee, and I'll deal with it. When you come back we'll have an in-depth probe on your motivation--or lack of it.'

  She scrambled to her feet, dusting off the legs of her jeans.

  'There's nothing to discuss,' she said defensively. 'I've left school, and I haven't got a job. There are thousands like me.’

  'I'm not convinced of that. From what I can gather, you've made no attempt to find work, and yet you don't appear to be without ability.'

  'Thank you, kind sir, she said.' Rowan's voice was bitter.

  He sighed impatiently. 'Your attitude doesn't help. Do you intend to sponge off Antonia for the rest of your life?'

  The unfairness of it-the deliberate cruelty-made her gasp for a moment, and there was a dazed look in the eyes she turned on him.

  'I'll leave,' she said in a voice she didn't recognise. 'I'll go . . .'

  'Where? To the dole queue? I think not,' he said grimly. 'I'm not trying to get rid of you, Rowan. I'm not even Haying the situation is wholly of your making-although I never reckoned Antonia for the clinging type. What I'm trying to get you to face is the fact that you have a future for which you should be planning. If you need a breathing space--advice--help, then we'll try to give them to you.'

  'Don't patronise me,' she said rather wildly. 'Isn't there a saying that there's no one as virtuous as a reformed rake? No one ever told you what you were going to do with your life. And you've left it pretty late to discover this sudden sense of responsibility, haven't you? And probably you wouldn't have done anything about it if your last sitter had been different-if she'd been beautiful and you'd fancied her-wanted to make love to her,' she finished breathlessly.

  There was a silence. Then he said, 'You have a tongue like a wasp, darling, and a temperament to match. Wasps seem to spend most of their time living off the fat of the land in summer and being neither use nor ornament. And they often come to a sticky end at the end of it, as you will, if you venture any more wild speculations on my private life or morals. My relationships with any of my sitters, past, present or future, are no bloody business of yours, and you'd better remember that.'

  'Yes, sir.' She threw her head back defiantly, her small breasts rising and falling under the urgency of her breathing. 'Will there be anything else?'

  'Don't tempt me,' he tossed back at her contemptuously. 'For your health's sake I advise you to get out of my sight, and keep out of it.'

  'I only wish I could do so permanently!' Tears of anger tasted bitter in her throat.

  'Unfortunately for us both, you have a measure of growing up to do before that happy day.' Carne gave her a long look before turning away and reaching for his discarded spade. When he spoke again, he sounded weary. 'Run away, Rowan, and play-if that's all you have a taste for.'

  Her anger, her sense of outrage seemed to drain out of her as she stood there. It was good advice he was giving her-better, in fact, than he knew. For her own sake, she should keep well out of his way. It was safer. At least she

  wouldn't be tempted to enjoy the sense of companionship that this brief time working beside him had given her. For a few moments, he even seemed to have forgotten that she was an irresponsible sixteen-year-old. He'd talked to her as if she was a woman. Of course it hadn't lasted, and if she was honest, she should be glad that it hadn't. Any relationship
with Carne would be like one of those ancient maps bounded by uncharted seas and the warning legend

  'Here be dragons.'

  But it wasn't going to be easy playing this part which Antonia had so carelessly assigned to her. Especially as no definite limit had been set to their stay at Raven's Crag. She'd thought it would be weeks, but now it seemed as if it could be months. Months of living under the same roof, of sharing, even in a small part, his life--rather like a Victorian waif with her nose pressed against a baker's shop window.

  The ache in her throat seemed to increase, and her mouth felt dry as 'She looked at him, all his attention concentrated on the spade he was thrusting into the dark earth. She could seethe play of muscles in his back and arms, and knew instinctively that he was a man who relished physical

  activity, whether it was manual work, or sport, or making love--a thought which made her catch her breath.

  'Whether it was the tiny sound she had made which alerted him, she didn't know. But he turned abruptly and their eyes met, before she could school her features or wipe the hunger from her eyes. The sudden heat she felt in her body had nothing to do with the sun, and her eyes left his to move over the harsh planes of his face down to his mouth, where the little scar was vividly white against his tan. Her tongue crept out to moisten the dryness of her lips, and Carne moved with savage abruptness, or perhaps she was already moving, on her way to him. His skin was warm and imbued with the scent of fresh sweat, and she breathed him through her open mouth, through the tips of her fingers as they spread across his chest. Then his own hand came up, tangling in her hair, dragging her head back so that her face was lifted, rapt with longing, for his kiss.

  He made no concessions. There was still anger flaring between them, and his kiss was in many ways a punishment. The world seemed to darken around her as she clung to him, something wild and untried within her leaping to meet the roughness of his passion as she tasted her own blood on her mouth. She was afraid--of course she was. The dragons she had sensed were here, all around her, as much a part of her as they were of Carne.

  From the moment she had seen him, standing in Antonia's sitting room, she had been drawn by some barely understood compulsion, and nothing in her strictly limited experience to date had prepared her for the bruising demand of his hands and mouth. Yet with some barely coherent corner of her mind she knew she was glad that no one had ever kissed her with the same harsh, dizzying intensity, that no one's hands had ever begun the same heart-racing journey of discovery.

  And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Carne put her away from him so abruptly and completely that she stumbled and almost fell to her knees. She threw out a hand to steady herself, and he stepped back, away from her, out of reach. His face was taut, and he whispered an obscenity half under his breath as he looked at her, the scar giving his mouth a satanic twist.

  Rowan tried to control her breathing, to drag together the remnants of her shattered poise, to say something to dispel the tension between them, but all the things she wanted to say were those that could never be uttered-

  those that he wouldn't want to hear anyway. She had already betrayed too much in that unguarded moment when he had looked into her eyes, and later by her naive response to his brutality.

  When he spoke, his voice was soft, but there was a note in it which grated along her nerve-endings. 'If you're waiting for me to apologise, Rowan, then you'll wait for ever. When I told you to run and play, I didn't have games like that in mind. But you--' he laughed harshly-'you're nothing but trouble through and through, are you? I won't ask where you learned your sex kitten's tricks. I don't think I want to know. But I warn you-you won't catch me off guard again.'

  Wincing, she knew she had to make some kind of protest-find some justification for the way she had behaved.

  She said in a low voice, 'Carne, I'm not a child . . .' The silver eyes blazed at her, and she took an involuntary step backwards.

  'Why? Because you've reached the age of consent? God, what do they teach girls in boarding schools these days? There are light years between us, baby doll, and don't you forget it, because I shan't.' He paused, his gaze raking her. 'So--get out of the garden, Eve,' he added savagely. 'I've had all the temptation I can stomach. And to think that I imagined our encounter in my shower was an accident!'

  'It was-it was!' She bit her lip. 'Oh, Carne, please listen. I . . .'

  'I've heard too much already,' he said coldly. 'What a pity that demure exterior was only skin deep. Now, get out of here, Rowan, if you know what's good for you-and from now on keep out of my way.'

  'Oh, I shall.' She had to salvage some dregs of pride from somewhere. 'You can't imagine I want to risk a repetition of that-nauseating performance?'

  'There's no risk,' he said. 'And you're fooling only yourself with your claim of nausea. If I hadn't called a halt, we'd be doing more than just kissing, and you know it.'

  'You're a savage,' she said huskily.

  'I'm a man-but you're far from being a woman, so spare me your sexual experiments from now on. It's a brand of curiosity I've no interest in satisfying.'

  His words fell like a lash across her heated skin. Mortification seemed uppermost in the jumble of emotions which assailed her, and impulsively she lifted her hand and struck him hard across the face. He hadn't been expecting such a retaliation because he made no effort to intercept the blow, and with a kind of horror Rowan saw the marks of her fingers across his cheek. With a little gasp she turned and fled, heedless of the branches and twigs that dragged at her, impeding her headlong progress. And even as she ran, she knew that her flight was futile, and much, much too late.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SAFE in her room, Rowan managed to regain a measure of her self-control. She flung herself across her bed and lay there, too stunned by the swift passage of events and her own emotional turmoil even to cry.

  So much, she thought ironically, when she could think, for all her good intentions. Carne had spoken bitterly of temptation, of being caught off his guard, but the failure had been-hers. And she had known, she had gauged almost perfectly what his reaction would be if she ever let him see how she felt. But the knowledge of how right she had been was no balm to her wounded spirit.

  But at least it was an end to all her foolish dreams and fantasies. There was nothing for her to hope for now-as if there had ever been, she thought, burying her flushed face in the pillow. She had behaved like a fool, and the fact that her provocation had been innocent was no excuse. Innocent, or deliberate as Carne had contemptuously believed, the result had been the same, and she writhed inwardly as she remembered it.

  In some strange way it might make life a little easier, in

  time, she told herself, because at least from now on their

  avoidance would be mutual. There would be no resumption of the companionship she had glimpsed earlier, no tete-a-tete meals when Antonia wasn't around, and she had already been forbidden to clean his rooms so there would be few occasions when they would meet, and even fewer when they would be alone together.

  She rolled on to her back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. And if Carne had not unexpectedly decided to take a rest from portrait painting, life would be easier still. It had been a shock to know that he intended to spend the whole summer at Raven's Crag, and she wondered if Antonia fully realised his· intentions. Knowing her stepmother, Rowan knew that Antonia would much prefer Carne was a visitor to the house to be dazzled on not-too-frequent occasions by her charm and apparent efficiency. With him living permanently in the same house, there would be little opportunity for her to relapse into the easy-going regime she had enjoyed before his arrival. Easy for her, that was, Rowan thought, her lips twisting ironically.

  As if the thought of Antonia had conjured her up, footsteps came along the passage outside, and Rowan's door handle rattled imperatively. She was glad she had had the forethought to turn the key in the lock.

  'Rowan, are you there? What about lunch?' Antonia deman
ded.

  Rowan lifted herself up on one elbow, staring across at the door. 'I'm not hungry, thanks,' she called. 'I-I have a headache.'

  She knew quite well that her stepmother had not come upstairs to ask after her appetite, but in the hope she would offer to prepare the meal, but nothing was going to get her down to the kitchen. There was plenty of bread and cheese, and several cartons of home-made soup she had made the week before in the freezer. A simple snack along those lines wasn't beyond even Antonia's capabilities.

  'A headache?' Antonia sounded baffled. 'But you don't get headaches.'

  'Well, I've got one now,' Rowan returned mendaciously.

  'Well, you will be better this evening, won't you?' Her stepmother's voice was anxious. 'I can't be expected to cope with everything, you know.'

  By everything, Rowan supposed she meant dinner. 'Won't you be eating out again?' she asked. 'Nothing's been said,' Antonia said petulantly. 'Carne came in for coffee in a hell of a mood. If he hates gardening that much, why doesn't he hire someone to do it for him?'

  Rowan bit back the reply that Carne had found outside help unsatisfactory. Obviously Antonia knew nothing about the confrontation in the garden, and it was better that way, otherwise she was quite capable of adding Carne's foul mood to Rowan's headache and arriving at all kinds of totals. Rowan found herself hoping that her fingermarks had faded from Carne's face before he came into the house, or she might still have some explaining to do.

  She said placatingly, 'Look-I'll make sure there's food on the table this evening, even if! don't want any myself.'

  'Bless you, sweetie!' There was real relief in Antonia's voice, and after a moment Rowan heard her move away. Her mouth twisted ruefully. While domestic problems remained paramount in Antonia's mind, emotional undercurrents might escape her notice at least for the time being. Until her wounds had a chance to heal, or at least form scar tissue, she thought mordantly.

  Ultimately, of course, she would have Carne to face, and she turned cold and sick inside at the thought. Her only comfort was that he would probably be as reluctant to give Antonia any hint of what had passed between them as she was. All she could do was rely on whatever scraps of dignity she had left, and take her lead from him, hoping that her slap on the face hadn't made him vindictive. Somehow she couldn't imagine it, but then what did she really know about him-about his character. Her response to him from that earliest meeting had been purely emotional. It had contained neither reason nor rationality, and although she wasn't the child in years that he thought, she certainly hadn't enough maturity or experience to handle the situation as she'd made so blatantly obvious.