by Penny Jordan
‘Couples who have staff to wait on them at home, sometimes prefer to cook for themselves on holiday. Each suite has its own small kitchen. So far mine is the only one to be completed and furnished. Of course, if you want to make any changes to it…’
‘Who chose the décor?’ Jenna asked him curiously, reluctantly turning her back on the patio to study the sitting-room once more. It was a very attractive room. Cool and yet welcoming, with attention paid to detail, right down to the prints of scenes of the island set against the same dusky pink background found in the upholstery fabric, and framed in matt white.
‘I did,’ James told her, surprising her. Of course a lot of the top interior designers were men, but somehow she had never imagined that James might possess this talent.
‘The room’s perfect,’ she told him generously.
A strange expression crossed his face, but before Jenna had had time to evaluate it, he said drily, ‘Anything can be had at a price—even good taste!’
‘You’re wrong,’ Jenna corrected him, ‘believe me.’ She shuddered to think of the things she had been asked to do, and the tact she had sometimes had to exercise to prevent some of her clients from giving in to their more bizarre impulses.
‘Come and see the rest of it.’
Beyond the sitting-room was a small dining-room which also opened out on to the patio. The furniture was constructed of the same wood as that in the sitting-room. He had seen it used a good deal in Spain and the Canary Islands, James told her, and had liked the effect of its dark richness against the pastel backgrounds. Both the sitting-room and dining-room walls were painted a soft pinky-beige, which was both warm and relaxing.
The kitchen was small but well equipped, making use of the same dark wood.
‘With air-conditioning we don’t need to worry about the wood rotting or warping in the moist heat, which is one blessing. ‘The bedrooms are this way.’
A door led out of the kitchen into a corridor with two doors off it.
‘Two double bedrooms,’ James told her, each with its own bathroom. The first bedroom was plainly decorated in the same shades as the sitting-room. Two single beds with dark wood headboards, and cream, pink and green cotton covers were the room’s only furniture other than a traditional rocking chair, but Jenna realised why when she walked further into the room and saw the long wall of mirrored wardrobes with a well-designed dressing-table in between. At the end of the wall was a door, which she discovered opened into the bathroom. Here, again, marble had been used, but this time it was pink rather than beige, the pink exactly matching the colour of the sanitaryware.
‘And this is the master bedroom,’ James continued when Jenna rejoined him in the corridor.
It was larger than the previous room and possessed a double bed. It was also, and this surprised Jenna, distinctly feminine. Above the top of the bed set into the ceiling was a pale, bluey-green, marbled corona embellished with carved shells, a pearl set between each one. Jenna recognised it instantly as the work of Catherine Palmer and acknowledged that it was beautiful. Gauzy silk-fine cotton muslin curtains in the same shade of bluey-green fell from the corner to drape the top of the bed caught by shell clasps attached to the wall before falling to the floor.
The headboard itself was also shaped like a shell, and had been painted and veined in the most delicate colours so that it shimmered in a stunning mother-of-pearl effect.
The valance, and what she could see of the sheets and pillowcases, was the same soft bluey-green as the cotton curtains, and the bedspread was a work of art in itself; pale cream heavy satin appliquéd with self-coloured satin shells the edges of each one worked in a combination of delicate peach and bluey-green.
Here, too, the floor was marble tiled, not cream or pink, but deep turquoise so that it was like walking on water. Even the walls repeated the colour motif although in a much paler tone, and they, too, had been marbled.
A cornice in a soft cream shell design, which Jenna knew must have been specially designed, separated the walls from the ceiling, which in turn picked up the colour of the floor.
‘I…I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she told James truthfully. ‘It’s stunning.’
‘I’m glad you like it. It was designed with you in mind.’ He saw her face and explained lightly, ‘The colour is a perfect foil for your hair.’
It was, but Jenna could scarcely credit that James had specifically designed this room because of that. ‘But…but you couldn’t have had time to organise all this?’
Everything in the room had been done by someone who was an expert in his or her field. Catherine Palmer alone had a four-month order book, Jenna knew that much for a fact.
‘But I did,’ James told her gently.
It seemed almost too fantastic to believe. And why should he have had this room designed for her in any case? He was an extremely rich man she reminded herself and rich men could afford to indulge their whims, no matter how fantastic. It was an uncharitable thought and Jenna knew it, but it made her feel slightly uncomfortable and uneasy in some way to think of this room being designed especially for her. It was a beautiful woman’s room, and not just that it was a room that whispered a sensuous message, that suggested a woman who was proud of and enjoyed her own sexuality—a woman as different from her as it would be possible to be.
Shaking the thought out of her mind she went across to study the wall of wardrobes. These were not mirrored but had been painted with the same marble finish as the walls and blended perfectly with them.
She opened the only other door in the room and stepped into the bathroom stunned by what she saw. She had expected something similar to the bedroom, but it was anything but…The bathroom possessed an opulence and extravagance fit for the most free-spending of Arab princes. Everything in it…the walls, floor, sanitaryware, everything, was constructed from a dark green-gold veined substance, which Jenna recognised as malachite, even though she had never seen it in such vast quantities before. In the mirrors lining one wall she caught sight of her own reflection and thought how out of place she looked in her creased cotton skirt and thin blouse amid all this opulence. She touched a gold tap wonderingly. It ought to have looked overpowering and out of place but instead it conveyed a sensuous richness that she could almost feel like heat against her skin.
She backed out and closed the door and then turned to James. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,’ she told him truthfully.
His mouth twitched and he smiled at her. ‘It is somewhat startling, isn’t it?’ he agreed. ‘But what sold me on it was the artist’s impression of it the designer showed me. He had sketched a woman standing in the shower. He had only drawn the back view but what caught my eye was her hair. It was exactly the same colour as yours.’
A frisson of sensation ran shockingly down Jenna’s spine. She wanted to speak but found she couldn’t, and then before either of them could say anything the intercom crackled and a sing-song voice announced that their cases had arrived.
James went to let her porter in, and before Jenna could say anything the man had wheeled both sets of luggage through into the master bedroom. She shrugged mentally as James tipped the man. They could sort it all out later. Right now she was feeling very tired. She wondered how long their dinner would be. She would probably feel better if she at least showered and changed, she decided, but when she went to open the cases she discovered that apart from her cosmetics case, hers seemed to be missing. She studied the tag on one unfamiliar navy case, and frowned over it, checking one of the Gucci bags she knew belonged to James. The handwriting was the same in both cases, but the blue bags were definitely not hers.
‘Having problems?’ James stood by the open doorway watching her.
‘These cases…’ Jenna waved a hand towards them. ‘You seem to have written the labels for them but they aren’t mine.’
‘They are now. Here are the keys.’ He threw a small set of keys towards her which she caught with a clumsy reflex action, her forehead pleated in a
small frown as she struggled to understand.
‘Remember what I said to you about your clothes?’ James told her. ‘I decided to take steps to make sure that you didn’t ignore me.’
Enlightenment dawned. Jenna’s eyes widened, first in shock and then in anger. Grasping the keys she unlocked the first case and threw back the lid.
It was full of filmy silk and cotton underwear. Colouring hotly she slammed down the lid again, inwardly fuming. How dare James do this? The very thought of his high-handedness in arbitrarily deciding and planning his course of action brought her anger to seething, bubbling, boiling point.
She opened another case and discovered that it seemed to be full of cotton beach and casual wear, most of it in either pink or the soft greeny-turquoise colour he seemed to like so much. The label on a pair of shorts caught her eye and her mouth hardened. She recognised it, having seen it when she had been shopping for clothes to bring away with her, and though the American designed resort clothes had appealed to her immensely she had dismissed them as being far too expensive and had gone for chain-store clothes instead.
Gritting her teeth she opened the third and final case. This one was packed with evening and more formal wear, and shoes. She pulled out one dress of finely pleated multi-shaded pink silk. The dress itself was no more than a tube of the delicate material with what appeared to be a dangerously low back.
Closing the case she turned to James. She wanted to scream and rage at him, to take the cases and dump the entire contents in the hotel pool, but even as the longing to do so possessed her, she knew it would be sheer folly. The very last thing she wanted was to be marooned in their suite with nothing but what she was standing up in.
‘I did warn you,’ James told her mildly.
Anger seethed through Jenna. ‘I bought new clothes,’ she told him through gritted teeth.
‘Yes. Chain-store beachwear that Lucy told me was dull and boring, and a couple of cotton dresses from last season’s range that had been marked down.’
‘So why should that bother you?’ Jenna stormed at him. ‘Just because I’m your wife, it doesn’t give you the right to tell me how to dress!’
‘But you are my wife and others will judge you accordingly. It would start an immediate panic in the City if you were seen on honeymoon wearing sale-bought clothes,’ he told her mockingly. ‘I couldn’t let you do it. I have my financial reputation to think of.’
Jenna knew he was mocking her. ‘Like hell,’ she flung at him bitterly.
James ignored her comment and glanced at his watch. ‘You’ve got half an hour to shower and dress in before dinner. If you’re not ready when it is then, I warn you, Jenna, I’ll shower and dress you myself!’ He saw her expression and laughed shortly. ‘Hardly a flattering reaction, but still if it accomplishes what I require…’ He paused in the doorway before striding over to the bed and picking up one of his own cases. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he told her as he left. ‘And remember, Jenna, you’ve got half an hour. No more.’
* * *
‘More wine?’
Recklessly, Jenna nodded her head and then immediately wished she had not done so when the room started to whirl round her. She had already drunk far more than she was used to. James had ordered a bottle of champagne which they had drunk before their meal and this was her third glass of wine. The meal had been delicious—the hotel employed a nouvelle cuisine chef, James told her, and their meal had been produced by him.
Jenna had enjoyed every mouthful but now she felt exhausted. It was almost one o’clock in the morning British time, and the effects of the long flight were beginning to catch up with her.
‘Would you prefer to have your coffee in the sitting-room?’
This time she didn’t nod her head, but she noticed rather absently that it was difficult for her to frame the word yes, but somehow that didn’t have the power to concern her greatly.
James stood up and went to the back of her chair, pulling it away from the table for her. Forewarned by her woozy head Jenna stood up slowly and carefully. She wasn’t sure, but as she turned round she thought she caught sight of an amused grin just disappearing from James’s mouth.
Unlike her he must have a hard head, she thought muzzily, he certainly wasn’t exhibiting any of the unsteadiness she herself was experiencing.
She made it to the sitting-room by walking with exaggerated caution. James followed on behind carrying a tray with the coffee things on it and their glasses.
Jenna notice as he put them down that hers had been topped up.
‘I’ll never finish all that,’ she protested, but James merely smiled. ‘Drink it up,’ he told her, ‘it will help you sleep—the first few nights out here can be disturbed by trying to get accustomed to the time difference.’
For once Jenna was not inclined to argue with him. She drank her wine slowly, alternating it with sips of the deliciously hot, fragrant coffee James had poured for her.
James had opened the glass doors to the patio area and Jenna watched as he walked out on to it. Unfamiliar night sounds filled the air. She wanted to get up and join him, a heady excitement suddenly gripping her as she realised she was actually here in the Caribbean. Unsteadily she got to her feet, following him outside. She was still carrying her wine glass and he took it from her, laughing soundlessly as he looked at her.
‘Why are you laughing at me?’ Her forehead wrinkled, her voice huskily uncertain.
‘Not at you.’ He reached out and slid his arms round her waist pulling her gently against his body, and steadying her there as she swayed slightly. Jenna knew that she ought to object, but somehow it hardly seemed worthwhile. To tell the truth, it was much pleasanter to lean against James than to try to stand upright.
‘What were you laughing at then?’ She sounded petulant and she knew it, but she didn’t like the thought of his laughing at her.
‘Your attempts to walk in a straight line. I had no idea you had such a low tolerance of alcohol!’
Later, Jenna would remember those words, but now she merely frowned again, and pronounced slowly, ‘I thought I told you…’
‘If you did, you certainly did not volunteer the information.’ His voice was very dry—so much so that she leaned back against his supporting arm to look up at him and see what caused it.
Dizzily she managed to focus her eyes on his. ‘I’ve never seen anyone with such blue eyes.’ Jenna frowned. Had she really said that? Another smile curled James’s mouth. ‘Except of course the portrait…on the stairs at the old Hall.’
‘Ah, yes, my disreputable ancestor. Do you realise how little I know about you?’ he murmured quietly. ‘About the real you, I mean. You keep yourself guarded and hidden away like a miser with his gold, Jenna.’
She wasn’t sure she liked the simile: it made her sound more mean than cautious which was what she had always thought she was. She didn’t like the thought of being considered mean.
‘What do you want to know?’ she asked him gravely.
‘Oh, all sorts of things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like why you’re so afraid of sex?’
Jenna stiffened, the softly spoken words penetrating the tipsy mist clouding her brain. She started to struggle, but James refused to let her go. ‘You are frightened of it, aren’t you, Jenna?’
‘Of course not. Why should I be? I just don’t care very much for it, that’s all…’
She stopped trying to fight him and his grip slackened enough for her to put a little more distance between their bodies. All her enjoyment of the night air and their surroundings had gone. She still felt distinctly dizzy and woozy, but now fear had chased away her earlier euphoria.
‘I’m tired,’ she announced childishly. ‘I want to go to bed.’
‘Mmm. It is rather late. Can you walk, or do you need help?’
‘I can walk, of course.’
His arms fell away and she took a few tottering steps.
She heard James move, and then she
was being lifted in his arms as he said wyrly against her ear. ‘So you can—after a fashion, but I think this will be much quicker, and safer, too, don’t you?’
Quicker maybe, but safer…Never. There was no way she could ever feel safe in any man’s arms, never mind this man’s.
‘Put me down,’ she commanded breathlessly, but he refused to listen to her, carrying her through the suite and into her bedroom. She had left one of the lamps on when she got changed for dinner. Her suitcases were still open and unpacked because James had told her to leave them. The maid would attend to them in the morning, he had said.
The dress she was wearing was a soft, fragile confection in silk; a swirling skirt comprising several layers of differing shades of pink silk with a ‘twenties-style top in slanting stripes of pink and grey on a white background, with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons all the way up the back and a sash that tied in a bow on one hip. She had fallen in love with it the minute she saw it, even though she had resented the fact that James had bought it for her. As he dumped her on the bed, one of her high-heeled, pink satin evening slippers fell off. She made a faint protest in the back of her throat, but it went unheeded, as James merely glanced down at her bare foot, and then deliberately tugged off the other shoe letting it fall on to the floor to join its mate.
Underneath the evening two-piece, she was wearing a matching bra and panty set in palest grey silk satin, sheer hold-up stockings in cobwebby grey adorning her legs.
‘How do you get out of this thing? Ah yes, I see.’ James’s fingers were investigating the buttons on her top as he pushed her over on to her front slightly.
Jenna let out a yelp of protest as she felt him undoing the top button. ‘I can manage by myself…’ she exclaimed icily, spoiling the effect of her cool rejection of his assistance by trying to glare over her shoulder at him and immediately losing her balance.
By the time James reached the final button she was becoming seriously afraid. She was still under the effect of the alcohol she had consumed, still unable to co-ordinate her body properly, but mentally she was completely aware of what was happening.