Sweet Bondage

by Dorothy Vernon

  ‘I honestly don’t know where Glenda is,’ she replied truthfully.

  ‘I’m still not satisfied. It sounds decidedly fishy to me, your going off like that and not letting on to me. I didn’t know you had any close family. I think you’ve been pretty secretive all the way round.’

  ‘I’m sorry you’re taking this attitude, Barry, and I’m sorry that you feel I’m being secretive. If I am it can’t be helped. I can’t say more now. This is a long-distance call and I’m using someone else’s phone.’

  ‘If it belongs to the lunatic who cut me off, to hell with him. Let him pay.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I must go.’

  ‘Give me your number, then, and I’ll ring you back. I think you know more than you’re saying. There could be rich pickings here, you know.’

  ‘I’m not interested in that angle. I don’t know anything that would help anyone to find Glenda. I can’t talk anymore just now.’

  ‘When you do want to talk I might not want to listen,’ he said pettishly. ‘What kind of a future are we going to have if there’s no trust between us?’

  ‘Oh, Barry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone, but we have no future together.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Of course we have! Have you been stringing me along?’

  ‘Barry, no! But I haven’t been taking anything for granted, either.’

  ‘Well I have. I took it for granted that one day we’d get married.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Barry, but it’s no good.’

  ‘Gemma . . . don’t ring off.’

  ‘Goodbye, Barry,’ she said, gently setting the receiver back in its cradle.

  * * *

  The day of Ian’s funeral dawned. There was sleet in the wind and a terrible forlornness, a bitter desolation in her heart. She had never known Ian, but as she stood by Maxwell’s side on that bleak Scottish hillside hot tears fell down her cold cheeks.

  Long after they’d left the graveyard she could still hear the mournful music that had piped Ian to his last resting place. The melancholy of the occasion was especially poignant because Ian was so young. People kept approaching Maxwell to express sympathy, curiosity in their eyes as they glanced at the pale-faced girl standing by his side in the dark dress and coat which she had hastily purchased for the event. Among the throng of mourners were a number of relatives, aunts, uncles, and several cousins, as well as many friends. One person was noticeably absent.

  ‘Glenda should have been here,’ Maxwell said, voicing the thought that had been spinning through Gemma’s mind.

  She couldn’t believe her own ears. ‘Did I hear you right?’

  His hand lifted to touch her cheek. ‘Yes . . . Gemma.’

  He had called her Gemma. It couldn’t be left there, they both knew that, but now wasn’t the moment for a personal discussion. Some of the mourners had traveled long distances and needed to be put up for the night. Morag required help to prepare the rooms and feed the sudden influx of guests. Even Fiona buckled in and the three of them, aided by Jeanie, the little maid who had shown Gemma to her room when she first came to Glenross, worked industriously to ensure everyone’s comfort. Gemma knew that it was an uneasy truce between her and Fiona. They were both rivals for Maxwell’s affections and there could never be room for them under the same roof on a permanent basis.

  The house seemed all the quieter when the guests departed. As soon as the door closed on the last straggler, Maxwell asked Gemma to come with him to his study . . . for a word.

  But once there he took her hands in his and looked at her for a long time without speaking. Then all he said was, ‘Gemma.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just Gemma.’

  Tears blurred her vision. She brushed them impatiently away, marveling at the tenderness that came to his eyes as he spoke her name, her real name at last. She had begun to think she must have dreamed that, he’d commented on Glenda’s absence and called her Gemma as they’d stood by Ian’s grave.

  ‘I’ve explained the situation to Fiona and Morag.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘Morag was bemused, but very delighted. Now Fiona—’ he looked puzzled—‘I thought she’d stay on t o help you settle in . . . kind of ease you into the running of the house . . . but she thinks it’s better if she goes. She’s packing now. She said that you’d understand.’

  Yes, she understood. ‘What finally convinced you that I’m not Glenda?’

  ‘I’d like to say that I came to my senses, but that would be a lie. I don’t think I’ll ever come to my senses where you’re concerned. I went through hell imagining that you had belonged to someone else, that the evidence of the love you had given was in the child you bore. Ian had raved about you and I expected a looker, but when I saw you it was as if the whole world had suddenly shattered beneath my feet. I was that badly hit.’

  ‘Ian told you about Glenda, not about me,’ she corrected gently. ‘I never knew your brother.’

  ‘I realize that now. You would have been good for him as she never was, but I’m not unselfish enough to wish it had been you. I want you for myself. Even driven half crazy by all the things I thought about you, I still wanted you.’ His mouth contorted in self-derision. ‘Heaven knows I’m no saint, and you weren’t putting up very strong “keep off” signals. In fact, you seemed to be offering yourself to me with every look and I don’t know how I managed to stop myself from taking you up on it and ravishing you. I was sick with disgust that I could feel that way about you. I tried to tell myself that you were bad all the way through and knew every possible way to excite a man. I waited for the badness to show through. It always does. It isn’t something that can be concealed for any length of time. But the reverse of what I expected happened. Every day you grew more angelic-looking and lovelier before my eyes, as if reflecting an inner purity. It just about drove me out of my mind. I was half-crazed with jealousy and eaten up with desire for you.’ He groaned. ‘What do I mean was? I still am.’

  ‘Jealous?’ she said, no longer feeling the need to chain her hands at her sides and letting her fingers trespass freely over the agony furrowing his brow and tightening his cheek in bitterness. ‘There’s no one to be jealous of,’ she said in some amazement, still bemused by his caring and not properly taking it in.

  ‘No? What about Barry?’ he said thickly. ‘I came into this room and heard you talking to him on the phone, beseeching him to come for you.’ His hand crushed hers, bringing it from his cheek to his lips.

  With his kiss searing her palm, she said brokenly, ‘You forbade me ever to speak to him again. I have a confession to make. I disobeyed you and phoned him back. Not because I cared anything for him, but because it would have been too cruel to leave him wondering what was happening after the way you slammed the phone down on him. If you’d heard that conversation you would have known that you had no cause to be jealous. I assured him that I was all right and then I said goodbye. I’m sure he got the message that it was a final goodbye. I only wanted him to come up to Scotland to help convince you who I was. You still haven’t told me what did.’

  ‘I received a letter from Glenda,’ he said grimly. ‘You can read it, but the gist of it is that she apologizes for the trouble she’s caused you. She asks me to forgive her and hopes you’ll understand she was so desperate that when she saw the opportunity to involve you she didn’t hesitate. It was much as we’ve already worked out—she wanted to get away to make up her own mind about whether to have the child or not. Have you any idea where she went?’

  ‘Yes,’ Gemma said in a bright flash of inspiration. ‘I didn’t know until this moment and yet it’s so obvious that I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before. Who else would a girl go to if she was in trouble? Her parents are separated. Her mother lives in the south of France. That’s where she went, wasn’t it? To her mother.’

  ‘Yes. Reading between the lines, I gather that her parents didn’t part amicably and that there’s sti
ll a lot of bad feeling between them. All the time her father has been tearing his hair out and increasing the reward he offered for information and appealing for her to come home her mother had her in hiding.’

  ‘I presume her mother didn’t try to influence her decision.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So?’ But even as she was biting back her impatience to know she felt that she already knew the answer just by looking at his face.

  ‘She lost the baby.’

  ‘Oh, no! How could she? I was so sure it would go the other way once she got away from her father. How could she not want her own baby?’

  ‘Don’t upset yourself, darling,’ he said, looking deep into her troubled eyes, concerned, but pleased by her distress because it showed a depth of feeling that matched his own. She knew this by the tender little smile that eased the grimness of his mouth. ‘If the tone of her letter is anything to go by, I think you’ll find Glenda a changed person. She decided to keep the baby. It wasn’t to be.’

  ‘You mean she lost it naturally?’

  ‘Yes, she miscarried.’

  ‘How dreadful for her. Poor Glenda. Does she know about Ian?’

  ‘Not yet. Her letter arrived on the day of Ian’s funeral. I shall have to go to France and see her. It’s not something that can be put in a letter. I feel that I owe it to Ian’s memory to break the news to her as gently as possible.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘She also had a change of heart about Ian. In her letter she says that as soon as she’s well enough to travel she’s coming back, to be with him.’

  ‘It’s so distressing. It’s a double loss for her.’

  ‘Second chances don’t come often in this life. That’s why I’m so grateful for mine. I’m not taking too much for granted, am I? You will give me another chance, won’t you, my darling? My Gemma. Undeserving as I am, I beg you to let me prove my love for you.’

  ‘Your . . . ?’ Had he said love?

  ‘How I love you and want you!’ he said with such burning passion and sincerity that her eyes flooded with tears again.

  She couldn’t believe it. It was so wonderful. She gazed up at him, making a gift of her devotion in the look of incredible joy on her face. ‘Say that again, please, Maxwell,’ she implored.

  ‘I want you.’

  Her heart raced; her blood turned to fire and her body was like melting wax, desiring nothing more than to mold to his until their mutual hunger was satisfied. It was agonizing to hold herself in restraint and say huskily, ‘That’s been obvious all along. I mean the other thing you said.’

  The tender smile played about his mouth again to tug at her heart. ‘Gemma, my sweet and lovely, adorable Gemma, I love you.’ The gentle truth in his eyes made it an act of reverence. ‘Don’t make me wait too long, darling.’

  ‘I love you, Maxwell. I won’t make you wait at all.’

  ‘Wanton,’ he reproved. ‘I see that I shall have to be strong-willed enough for both of us. Having managed to curb myself this far I’m sure I can hold on a while longer and take you pure to the altar.’

  ‘Spoilsport,’ she chided in mischievous retaliation.

  He immediately made a grab for her and the love-talk temporarily ceased, save for the occasional groan and gasp of ecstasy as he proceeded to test his strong will to the limit She didn’t help matters by living up to the name he had called her. She was wanton in her love for him, wanton in her trust. She couldn’t give her heart and keep her head. She shared greedily in the physical delights, but the moral aspect was all his, a responsibility that weighed heavily. She could tell this by the raggedness of his breathing, the devouring hunger of his kisses, which set her mouth on fire.

  They kissed and touched, delighted and excited one another, murmuring incoherent endearments in between times. When her mouth was sated his lips moved downward, following the course his hands had taken, cherishing her breasts, tingling them and firing her imagination. If this was just the preliminary, what would the total act of lovemaking do to her? Her body was an explosion of feeling and her heart contained more love than she had thought possible.

  ‘Darling,’ she whispered, her eyes worshiping the dear, rugged contours of his face. ‘I can hardly believe this is happening. I thought that once you found out that I wasn’t Glenda you wouldn’t want me anywhere near you and that you would send me away.’

  ‘Send you away?’ Anguish momentarily shadowed his adoring eyes. ‘Don’t torture me by even suggesting such a thing.’

  ‘I didn’t want to go. I dreaded it. Don’t laugh at me, will you? I was even crazy enough to wish that I was carrying a child that should rightfully bear the name of Ross just so you would have to marry me.’

  ‘Now you’re tormenting me. Don’t push your luck. I’d need very little persuasion to grant that wish.’

  ‘I hope you do . . . one day.’

  They looked at one another, each savoring the thought of his child growing in her body.

  ‘On the subject of sending you away,’ he said at length, ‘I think I will have to . . . send you home. But only until we can organize a wedding and you can return as mistress of Glenross.’

  ‘Mistress of Glenross!’ she said in awe. ‘That sounds very grand.’ Her eyes grew thoughtful for a moment, then danced with mischief again. ‘Until I am, couldn’t I stay and be your mistress?’

  He groaned. ‘Have you no pity? First torture, then torment, now temptation.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’ she said, serious once more. ‘What will tomorrow bring?’

  Into the hushed moment Maxwell’s voice fell as sincerely as a vow. ‘More happiness than I deserve or ever thought possible. A lifetime of happiness, my love.’

  His love, enslaving her heart. A lifetime of sweet bondage. She rested her cheek against his broad chest, supremely content

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