'—there was some doubt up to the last minute about whether I could be spared.' His voice reached her through the open doorway. 'That's why I didn't mention it to you until I was sure. But Giles Blunt says he'll carry on on his own for a day or two. He's a good bloke, Giles is, one of my best friends. You'll like him when you have time to get to know him.'
Lucie walked over and stood in the doorway of his bedroom. 'Shall I like his wife, too?' she asked evenly.
Guy was stuffing things into a travel-bag. His head jerked round and he was frowning. 'Cynthia? Well, Cynthia might not appeal to you all that much. She's something of an acquired taste.'
A taste you've managed to acquire, she thought cynically. In the sophisticated world that Guy Devereux and his kind inhabited your best friend's wife would be fair game. She had personal experience of that world and she knew it wasn't for her. For her, a marriage without loyalty and trust was no marriage at all. All the more reason, she thought, to end this ridiculous marriage with Guy Devereux as quickly as possible. But how?
'Come on, Lucie, get packing or we'll miss our flight.' There was an edge to his voice now. 'Don't start being difficult. We need a little time to be alone and get to know each other. What's wrong with that?'
'Everything,' she snapped. 'I know all I want to know about you. I've already told you that I hate your kind of life.'
'And what is my kind of life? You haven't lived with me—yet—so you must be guessing.'
She was silent, her mouth set in a mutinous line.
He came over to her, where she stood in the doorway, and put his hands on both her shoulders. As if he were taking her prisoner, she thought a little wildly. She tried to wriggle away, but he held her fast.
'Pack it in, Lucie,' he said sharply. 'You've chosen to marry me, so at least give it a try. Without prejudice,' he added. 'Now go and get out of that stylish outfit, you won't need anything like that where we're going.'
He was so close and he seemed to tower above her, large and muscular and threatening. For a long moment they stared into each other's eyes, and the impact of that dazzling deep blue made Lucie's toes curl up inside her sandals. It was she who looked away first. 'I'll go and get packed,' she muttered, and went into her bedroom.
It would have suited Lucie's mood to hate anywhere that Guy chose to take her to, but from the moment that the tiny plane put down on a golf-course-green runway and two egrets spread their wings and flapped up into the cloudless sky, she knew that there was no way she could hate this place.
A rather ancient Land Rover met them. Guy greeted the driver as an old friend. 'Hello, Sam, great to see you again.'
The driver grinned down at them, teeth shining white against his leathery-brown skin. 'Great to see you Mr Devereux. I got your phone message. You goin' out to Mr Hatt's shack? He was here for some fishing a couple of weeks ago.' He glanced at Lucie and then away again, and she had the impression that he was being tactful and wondered briefly if Guy was in the habit of bringing his girl-friends here.
Sam piled their bags in the back and they climbed up into the wide seat beside him, Guy in the middle. 'Yes, I know,' said Guy, settling back and looking around with a sigh of pleasure as they rattled away along the dusty road. 'I'm hoping he left us plenty of tins. I didn't want to waste time coming over from the Brac by boat, so we haven't brought any stores with us. We're only here for a day or two. Meet my wife, Sam.'
'Glad to know you, Mrs Devereux.' Sam glanced at her with a wide grin, and she thought he looked relieved. 'You call on us if you run out of coffee or eggs.'
'We'll do that, Sam,' Guy said. 'And how's your wife keeping? And the boys?'
Lucie looked about her as Sam's low voice, with its vaguely Welsh lilt, droned on. Guy was right, this island was very different from Grand Cayman. The road looked as if it had been carved out by hand from the bushes and low trees that fringed it. There wasn't another car or another person in sight on the ten minutes' drive. She wondered where they were going. Mr Hatt's shack, Sam had said. That sounded pretty primitive. Guy had certainly planned to get her to himself, away from the world. She shivered.
When the Land Rover pulled up no building was visible. Sam and Guy got out and Sam lifted their bags on to the road verge. Guy held out his arms to Lucie. 'Come on, jump,' he urged and she stepped down awkwardly, trying as far as she could to avoid his outstretched arms. But he grabbed her and gave her a tight hug, and Sam favoured them with a wide, understanding grin as he climbed back behind the wheel, and drove away with a cheery salute.
Guy picked up their bags. 'Welcome to the honeymoon hotel,' he said, mocking her obvious surprise. He held back a heavy branch that overhung the road. 'Old Derek believes in privacy when he's here.'
Behind the branch a narrow earth-track led between densely-growing bushes. 'You need your machete when you come here,' Guy laughed. 'The landscape has a habit of closing in on you.'
Lucie stumbled along. The pebbles hurt her feet through the thin soles of her sandals and the bushes scratched her bare legs as she pushed her way between them. Guy transferred both the bags to one hand and held out the other to her. 'Not much further,' he encouraged. And then, 'Here we are, this is it. Super, isn't it?'
'Shack' was right, Lucie thought, puzzled. She saw a low wooden building, like something out of a Western movie. The bushes grew right up to the steps that led to the door. Trailing plants dipped across the two windows, which were bare of curtains. Was this where Guy had brought her for their 'honeymoon'? It seemed out of character, not at all what she had expected. But not for the world was she going to admit to him that this place seemed far more her kind of place than some sophisticated hotel or dive-club.
'Come on in.' He ran up the steps. 'Derek doesn't ever lock the door—there's no need here. Not that there's anything inside to pinch.'
She followed him inside the cabin. The door opened into a long, almost-bare room. Venetian blinds covered the far windows and it was difficult to see clearly. There seemed to be a table with an oil lamp on it, a couple of chairs, a writing-desk. At one end was a kitchen dresser that had a Victorian look about it, furnished with various large bottles and tins. All this she took in vaguely before Guy came from behind and closed his arms around her, his hands covering her breasts under the thin stuff of her sun-dress. His mouth buried itself in her neck, under its curtain of dark hair, and she was angrily aware of the way her stomach tightened at his touch. Why did her stupid body have to respond like this? Why couldn't she be cool and self-assured like—well, like Cynthia Blunt, for instance? A woman like that would know how to handle a man.
'Come and see,' he said. 'This is the big surprise.' He released her and walked across to pull up the blinds, one by one.
It was like seeing a brilliantly-lit stage when the house-lights go down. Straight ahead was a strip of white sand and then—as far as the eye could see to both sides—blue, dazzling blue sea. Lucie couldn't restrain a gasp of pleasure.
'Marvellous, don't you think?' Guy drew her out on to the covered balcony. 'Some day I'll persuade Derek to sell this place to me, but he won't part with it yet, the wretch.' He was like a schoolboy showing some new treasure. 'But for now it's a super spot for our honeymoon. Come inside and I'll show you the bedroom.'
The bedroom! Lucie began to tremble. She leaned on the balcony rail, staring blindly out to the fine, dark line of the horizon.
'Come along, girl, I'll need your help, the mattress will have to be blown up. It's one of those air-beds— very comfortable when you get used to it.'
She drew in a deep breath. This was idiotic, she was twenty-two—well, nearly twenty-two—and she was behaving like a kid of fourteen. She thought wryly that these days some girls of fourteen knew more about sex than she did. Bracing herself, she followed Guy into the only other room of the cabin, where he pulled a tyre-pump out from a corner and attached it to a valve in a limp blue mattress.
'You hang on to that end and hold it straight,' he ordered. 'No, straight,' as she
picked up one corner of the mattress with nerveless fingers.
'I'm not a Girl Guide,' she snapped. 'And I don't take orders!'
He stopped pumping. 'Please, Lucie, will you hold the damned thing straight, and stop being childish,' he said with exaggerated patience.
Pursing her lips mutinously, she did as he asked and a couple of minutes later the job was done and the blue mattress lay plumply on the floor. Lucie couldn't bring herself to look at it.
Guy dropped down on to it and rolled about luxuriously. 'It's very comfy.' He held up a hand in invitation. 'Come and try.'
'No,' she muttered. She walked out of the room and out on to the verandah. She was shaking so much that she had to hold on to the rail to steady herself.
He came after her, took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. 'Lucie, what is this? You married me, remember? You're not thinking of cheating on me, are you?' His tone was restrained, but she quailed as she saw the frozen, dangerous look on his face. How could she ever have imagined she could defy him?
She shook her head speechlessly.
He sighed like a man at the end of his tether. 'Oh well, let it go for now. We'd better go out and watch the sunset.'
'Oh, yes,' Lucie breathed. 'That would be lovely.' Anything to put off the moment when she would have to share that bed with him.
'Lovely!' he echoed drily, leading the way down the steps to the beach.
There wasn't another soul in sight. They walked along the edge of the tide, not talking, and gradually Lucie's tension began to relax. The afternoon heat had gone; the sea was smooth; the sea-birds that swooped lazily around were silent. The only sounds came from the cawing of rooks in the distance and the soft whisper of little waves that creamed at their feet. As they walked the sun went down in a haze of silver-grey and the sky before them was streaked with apricot and pale green.
Lucie drew in a breath of pure pleasure, the artist in her revelling in the exquisite colours. 'It's beautiful,' she said breathlessly. Guy didn't reply, but when his arm closed round her waist, drawing her close against him, she didn't pull away.
'I promised you a paradise island, didn't I?' he murmured. 'Or perhaps a Garden of Eden for just the two of us.'
He stopped and turned her round to face him. 'You're a very beautiful Eve.' His voice was suddenly husky. His fingers slid into her dark hair, pushing it away from her face. He gazed down at her steadily and what she saw in his eyes sent a throb all through her body.
'Lucie!' he muttered. And then, 'I don't think I can wait any longer.'
He lifted her in his arms and carried her up to where the low-growing trees overhung the beach, dense and thick. When he laid her down on the sun-warmed sand and lowered himself beside her a languor came over her and she stared hazily at the lean brown face above her own. A pulse began to beat insistently low inside her, and she groaned with an urgency that was new and strange and painfully intense. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she reached up and pulled his head down to hers, moving her lips recklessly against his until their mouths seemed to fuse together. All her shyness, all her resistance to him had gone. Her mind wasn't working; her body's needs had taken over as she clung desperately to him, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his shoulders.
For a moment he was very still and she had a terrible fear that he was going to reject her. Perhaps she shouldn't have let him know what he was doing to her. Perhaps she should have waited for him to make the first move.
'Guy—' she pleaded. 'Oh, Guy—please—'
Then she felt his weight on her and she seemed to melt into the sand as his hands explored the soft warmth of her, pushing aside the straps of her sundress, closing over the swell of her breasts, moulding them until she moaned with pleasure. She hardly knew what he was doing as the last flimsy garments were removed. Then his own shirt and jeans followed and they were together, naked as Adam and Eve in that first mythical story.
She heard the heavy beating of her heart—or was it his, or both?—and every fear she had ever had dissolved in the sheer magic of this moment. His hands stroked and teased, rousing her to a peak of excitement until she cried aloud for fulfilment.
'Don't be afraid, my darling, I'll try not to hurt you,' he whispered thickly, but Lucie felt nothing but a wild rapture as the whole of her body was taken over by a primitive need until she was burning up in the heat of it. Oh God, she had never known it would be like this. Wave upon wave of pleasure shook her as they moved together more and more urgently, until suddenly she cried out as one last great wave of pure physical ecstasy engulfed her. Guy's face was pressed hard into her shoulder and he shuddered violently and moaned her name aloud. She felt his weight relax on her and wrapped her arms round his moist body before he rolled away and lay still beside her.
Slowly they came back to reality. Guy levered himself up on one elbow and looked down at her, but the sub-tropical darkness had almost fallen and she couldn't see whether there was tenderness in his face.
'You must get some clothes on, you'll get cold,' he said matter-of-factly. He reached over and tossed her sundress to her and pulled on his own jeans and sweat-shirt. Lucie sat up, shivering a little, but she couldn't tell whether it was from cold or something else. Awkwardly she got into her clothes and pulled the cotton jacket round her.
Guy stood up and pushed aside the overhanging branches of sea-grape tree that had formed their private bower. They walked back in silence, arms round each other, the way they had come, and now the sky was black velvet, thick with stars. 'Incredible!' Lucie murmured, looking up at them.
Everything was incredible. She supposed that soon ordinary life would begin again, but it wouldn't be the same life as the one that had seemed to stop back there under the sea-grape trees.
Guy spoke then. 'Lucie—' He paused uncertainly. That was incredible too. Guy, who always had complete command of himself, seemed for once to be at a loss for words.
'Mm?' She looked dreamily up at him. Perhaps he was going to say he loved her. She waited. Oh, please, please let him say he loves me and then it won't matter about anything else.
He said, 'Not getting cold, are you? We'd better get a move on, it gets chilly at night sometimes.' He quickened his stride and she had to follow him.
The magic spell had broken. Guy had got what he had wanted for so long. Had he been disappointed? Now that he had had her would he lose interest? Misery took her by the throat.
'There's one thing I'm going to insist on,' Guy said, when they got back to the shack. 'This is our honeymoon and this little island is about as far from the intrusions of the outside world as is possible. So I'm going to insist that we keep it that way. We shall live the present moment as if there were no past— not even any future, just taking every moment as it happens.'
He looked deep into her eyes with an expression that answered her questions and made her shudder with anticipation. 'Beginning now, Lucie,' he said, very low, leading her into the bedroom.
Their honeymoon lasted three days, three days literally out of this world, Lucie thought. Her doubts melted away, the future could look after itself so long as she had Guy. Never in her life had she known happiness like this—how crazy she had been to believe that her art could ever replace the bliss of loving!
The days were filled with sunshine and sand and sea and the multitude of wild birds, fascinating fish, sea-shells. Guy hired a boat and they took a picnic to Owen Island, a tiny uninhabited cay paradise just off the coast.
They swam in the warm shallow sea near the shore where the water was crystal-clear and the tiny fish darted about like streaks of coloured light. They drowsed lazily on the soft pinkish-white sand where the only sounds were of the dried leaves of the sea-grapes rustling in the soft breeze, and the buzzing of bees, and now and again the plopping of a large fish offshore.
They wandered up the sandy trails from the beach which led to nothing but the wildness of nature. One evening they walked along the beach to a landlocked lake teeming with tarpon�
�huge silvery glistening fish that rose so thick when the light was failing that the lake looked almost solid with them.
One evening they tidied themselves up and dined at the Southern Cross Club, where Guy seemed to know almost all the staff and some of the visitors, but most of the time they were delightfully alone.
And all the time they revelled more and more in each other's bodies. Guy's expert, sensitive lovemaking was rapture such as Lucie had never imagined. The touch of his hands on her—when they swam in the warm sea or lay in the shade of the trees, or turned out the lamp and made love on the air-bed with the moon lighting up the wooden walls and the big wash-bowl decorated with blue roses—made her senses shiver with delight. All her shyness forgotten, she learned intuitively, and gloried in her ability to please him.
'I'm shameless, aren't I?' she challenged him, laughing and winding her arms round his smooth brown back, twining her legs with his.
'You're adorable, you little witch. I told you, didn't I,' Guy exulted, 'that we should be good together?'
Lucie was deliriously happy, and she tried to thrust away the one tiny doubt that arose when she woke alone in the bed to find that Guy wasn't there—had gone out for an early swim. Never once had he actually said he loved her. She should have more faith, she told herself; hadn't he shown, over and over again, that he loved her? He just wasn't the romantic type, that was all, and she mustn't expect something that he couldn't give.
After four days they went back to Grand Cayman, to Derek Hatt's apartment. As soon as they got back Guy telephoned to Derek, in New York, to thank him for the loan of the apartment, and the shack in Little Cayman.
'We found it perfect for a honeymoon,' he said casually, with a double-take towards Lucie who was standing beside him; from the explosion at the other end of the line she knew that Guy hadn't told his friend anything about his marriage. 'Yes,' he went on, grinning broadly. 'Last week. Sorry there wasn't time to invite you, chum. Once I managed to get Lucie to agree, I made it legal at the first possible moment. But we must meet up soon with you and Beth. Have a word with my new wife.' He handed the receiver to Lucie.
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