by Margaret Way
'If you're not going to let me up do you mind if I make myself more comfortable?'
'I'm hoping you will, because you're not going anywhere. I mean it—relax. You'd do anything for me, Jaime, wouldn't you?'
'I never at any time said that!' she half whispered.
'But you mean it, don't you?'
She rested against him, her breathing deep and urgent. 'Do you know what Grandfather once said to me? There's nothing easier than pretending love to a woman.'
'I'd find it equally impossible to pretend I wanted a woman when I didn't. Your grandfather was a wicked old man, God rest his soul!'
'It happens, though, Quinn,' she said gravely.
'Shut up for a while, would you, because I'm quite normal and you're the most desirable creature I'm ever likely to meet.'
'Are you saying that with a thread of self-contempt? You have such a voice for inflections. You can manage to convey anything.'
'I said, let's not talk. Turn your head up, Jaime. I don't want to hurt you.'
'I have a feeling you will soon,' she sighed.
'And that's bad? It seems such a long time, Jaime.'
'Yes.' She spoke so softly her words just melted into the darkness. Maybe she didn't even say them, but felt them. It had seemed an eternity. Her smile had faded and her face was very still.
'Nowhere to go, Jaime?' he murmured with low mockery. His hand that encircled her nape suddenly slipped under her chin, forcing her head up. 'Your skin is as luminous as that string of pearls or the soft summer moonlight. I knew at the beginning where it would lead to!'
She was silent, just staring up at him, seeing the sparkle of his eyes in the scented gloom. Then all at once she was trembling violently, with a desire she couldn't hide. He gathered her right up against him with a hard deliberation, lowering his head on a shattering path to her mouth. Her breath fluttered and she was pervaded with such urgent sensations that it was like some powerful rising storm, a quickening she couldn't control, with only Quinn holding the key to whatever path they were travelling. The very darkness seemed to be burning, crackling with a mounting intensity.
'Jaime!' he said barely audibly, twisting his hand through her hair as his mouth lifted a little, lingering, learning every contour of her face and throat. She was just a slender blur against him, her heart pounding heavily. If he wanted her to believe he loved her, he was succeeding. All she could think of was recapturing his mouth, moving her head blindly, as if the most totally important thing in the world was to seek the source of such exquisite excitement.
They might have been at the very core of a pulsing circle ringed with fire, the breeze cooling her heated skin, but never the echoing wildness in her blood. His mouth was warm and hard, faultless in its task of arousal, his hands positive, insistent, caressing, sure of her, sure of fashioning her into whatever he wanted. If it was folly to be taken over so completely, it was something she wanted too badly to resist. There wasn't a shadow between them but a remorseless passion, Jaime's head thrown back in a beautiful abandon, his hand caught in her hair, while he continued to kiss her in a brilliant devastation.
'Jaime!' He lifted his head slowly, his breath uneven.
'No, don't stop.'
'I'm just tormenting both of us.'
'I don't care!'
'I do. Believe me, I'm going to take very good care of you.'
'Oh, why?' she said, sounding mortally deprived and not in the least thankful.
'In this case, because you're just twenty years old!'
'Does it ever occur to you I'm a woman?'
'What a fool question! That's what's causing all the trouble. Sit up and behave. I want to go on with this quite shockingly, but we've done enough dallying for now. Let's go inside.' He lifted her off his knee with tremendous decision and stood up.
'God, how confusing!' Jaime groaned. 'Here I am maddened with passion and you're as retiring as an inoffensive, sanctimonious parson.'
'I should ravish you for that!' he said, and dropped a violent kiss on her mouth. 'I'm a gentleman by nature, Jaime, just don't keep flinging yourself at me.'
'I never get the chance,' she said derisively.
'I wouldn't care, but first you have to tell me, do you love me?'
She stood looking up at him. He didn't seem serious. 'You might just as well ask me if I trust you!'
'Of course, I forgot. You don't!'
'Quinn?' She drew nearer him and touched his sleeve, dismayed by the hard note in his voice. 'I was only fooling, you know.'
'You fool too much!'
'So do you.'
'Yes, I suppose so. You look like a girl who's practically been kissed senseless.'
'Which was considerably less than I felt like.'
'You are modern, Jaime!' he drawled.
She moved back a step and he followed her. 'I said felt like. Feelings aren't actions.'
'Really? Perhaps we'd better stay here and explore this dazzling new world we've just found.'
'No, we'll go inside and I can see your black scowl!'
In the hallway Jaime turned her head back over her shoulder. 'Do you think you'll be able to make Derry's wedding? He does so want you to come.'
His dark face was very handsome, very seeking and alive. He adjusted the collar of his shirt, a faint smile on his mouth. 'Bless him! And to think I didn't know him all these years!'
'Sometimes I hate you!' she said truthfully, but she smiled, her violet eyes very soft and tender.
'That's good!' He reached out and touched her cheek. 'I don't like you either, from time to time. As for Derry, maybe I can escape for the weekend. I'll certainly try. When are you leaving?'
'Wednesday. I thought I'd have a few days as a sort of pick-me-up.'
'Believe me, you don't need one. I do!'
'Alcohol's not the answer, Quinn,' she said with sweet maliciousness.
'It might be tonight. Get me a drink, you violet-eyed witch. I deserve one!'
CHAPTER NINE
Jaime turned to answer yet another battery of questions. The ceremony was over and the fifty and more guests were revolving around the gallery where the reception was being held. The air was buzzing with conversation, as far as Jaime could make out, mostly about her. Overnight she had become a celebrity, the ornament of the evening, and she had dressed the part with beautiful unaccustomed extravagance in black silk chiffon printed with huge roses and peonies in Persian blue and rose, with gold and silver leaves. She had designed it as a one-shouldered toga and Di and Marike between them had run it up for her. She wore nothing around her neck, but silver pendant earrings set with turquoise and pearls. It was now her enormous responsibility to dress the part if she wished to add lustre to her own label.
Most of the guests were known to her except for Gayle's friends, the artistic community that lived and worked on the beautiful Coast, and a few of her father's best clients. They had been dumbfounded to read her story in the papers, but now they were ready to talk about it. To spring into the national spotlight with Hunter Sterling, one of the biggest enterprises in the country, and Sir Rolf Hunter Jaime's grandfather—it had come as an enormous shock to everyone. Derry had never breathed a word and he was a colossal gossip. That he had kept such a secret to himself seemed unbelievable.
Jaime was besieged from the moment she arrived. What was life like at the top? After a while she began to feel a prisoner of her newly glamorous background, though she tried to sparkle and look interested, assuming what would later become her public face. Gayle was the real surprise. Knowing her father and his prediction for good-looking women, well covered if possible, she had been unprepared for Gayle's tall, thin figure, the soft copper hair and the goodly sprinkling of freckles. Gayle would never entrance the senses, but she was intelligent and articulate and made the most of herself to the extent that she appeared attractive. Somehow her father had had the good sense to see through to the essential Gayle, with her clean, strong mind and her ability to inspire contentment.
/> It had come as a tremendous relief to Jaime to discover that Gayle was very much in love with her father. The marriage ceremony, to Jaime's further surprise, was performed in a church and it was heartening to see her father take it all very seriously when they had had many an argument on religion. His views had been quite straightforward then. In a very short time Gayle appeared to have worked wonders, and from the look of happiness about them tonight, things could only go on improving. Gayle at their first meeting had been very nervous under her nice easy manner, but Jaime found her pretty nearly perfect and said so. Gayle loved her father, and from his attitude he appeared to regard her warmly in return. Jaime could only be happy for them. In her own quiet way, Gayle was also sharpening his ambitions, and had become very involved in the art scene herself since her arrival on the Coast, and Jaime felt almost breathless to see what this new stimulus would lead to.
Derrick Gilmore was a very good artist, the trouble was that his whole life had been drastically upset and altered as a young man, robbing him of any real incentive. Jaime, though he would never have told her and foolishly imagined she didn't know, reminded him unbearably of Rowena. Though she had inspired his best work, her portrait, and he loved her, her presence never eased Rowena from his conscious mind: Rowena and her father, Rolf Hunter, for whom he had always felt such hatred that it swamped him. Gayle, who he feared he hadn't even noticed at the beginning, was steadily changing his attitudes to everything. He was almost tranquil and looked incredibly youthful, as some fair men remained for a large part of their lives.
It gave Jaime great pleasure to see her father looking so well, and if she had to surrender him to another woman, she could feel truly glad about Gayle. Tavia, now, would have been another matter, and Tavia surprisingly had been invited and came to the reception but not the ceremony. It was the unanimous opinion that Derry had been fortunate to win such an attractive and intelligent young wife.
It was a Friday night. It was a party, they were enjoying one another's company enormously, celebrating the marriage of a dear friend. No one seemed in the least inclined to go home any more than Gayle and Derrick wanted to depart. The leading figures of the artistic community were there, the painters, the potters and the craftsmen, so they were content to raid the excellent buffet, grab another drink and return quickly with their own pertinent or controversial comments. Not a soul looking at Jaime, so beautiful and argumentative, could have guessed at her other preoccupations and the bitter disappointment she was feeling. The blazing anticipation with which she had dressed had given way to a becoming loss of confidence in her powers of seduction. It had been an enthralling idea to think Quinn might be slightly in love with her, and the thought had her so buoyant that she was floating, now with every passing minute it seemed she was wrong. He had never left Sydney, though he had sent a handsome present that endeared him to Gayle from a distance. Meantime Jaime was discovering she was leading two lives, stimulating the conversation and mourning Quinn's absence. She couldn't enjoy herself no matter what anyone thought, but she owed it to Derry and Gayle to scintillate.
The gallery was overflowing with people, yet she might have been alone on a desert island. Gayle, catching sight of her momentarily betraying face, excused herself from her group and started towards Jaime, who clearly heard not a word her highly entranced companion was saying to her. Gayle smiled at him and waved him away, taking Jaime's arm.
'You're the sensation of the evening. Our celebrity.'
'Possibly,' agreed Jaime.
'Also you're so extravagantly beautiful I'm frightened to stand beside you. The only thing is, I'm a good reader of faces and I just caught your expression.'
'I'm enjoying myself, Gayle!' Jaime protested smilingly. 'I would never have missed your wedding for the world.'
'I know you really mean that, Jaime, and it means a lot to me. Your friend, Mr Sterling, can't be coming.'
'It doesn't seem likely now,' she agreed.
'I imagine he's an extremely busy man.'
'I can't pretend that's not true.'
'You're pretty badly in love with him?' Gayle suggested, risking getting put in her place.
'Is it showing?' Jaime said wryly.
'Only to me perhaps, being very much in love myself.'
'Ah well,' said Jaime, 'don't let it throw a shadow on us. Derry looks very happy, Gayle. Thank you for that. I think he can do with a new family background. He was never happy with the old.'
'No, and he kept remarkably quiet about it. Odd in Derry. The whole story is fantastic. I expect you can't believe it's happening, Jaime.'
'The money doesn't mean very much to me, Gayle.'
Gayle nodded. 'No, I don't think I'd want too much money myself. Great wealth must be frightening. You up there with everyone resentful and envious trying to pull you down. One would feel so exposed. Tavia's being very friendly, isn't she?'
'Tavia's a deep one.'
'She was very fond of your father.'
'Indeed yes!' Jaime murmured, wondering if Gayle knew exactly how fond. 'You've shown some skill interesting him in marriage.'
'I'm an old-fashioned girl!' Gayle smiled. 'Even Derry had to see that. Anyway, he didn't see it coming until it was too late.'
Derrick, however, saw their smiles and he came towards them, slipping an arm around each one of them. 'How are my girls?'
'Some people have all the luck!'
'Don't they now!' Derrick bent his head sideways and kissed Jaime's cheek. 'You look extremely beautiful tonight. What an exquisite piece of material!' he added with the artist's eye. 'You've handled it just the right way—simply. You seem to have grown up and gone away from me.'
'No, Derry!' Her beautiful eyes were very tender. 'We'll always be just as we are now!'
For a moment her father stared into her face, completely in the grip of the past. Gayle's smile wavered at the strained intensity of his gaze. 'Darling?' she said, but he never even heard her.
Those very words had been said to him twenty years before, and he had never seen her alive again. For a second he was forced to relive the old tearing agony, the blind, hopeless, never-ending alleyways of pain. Straight out of heaven, right into hell, and everyone expected him to shine. He had been left aimless, aimless, for twenty long years. Jaime, familiar with that hard tormented look, wasn't surprised or upset when he dropped his arms abruptly and walked away from them.
'What happened?' Gayle asked in bewilderment, turning slowly towards Jaime, her amber eyes frightened.
'Nothing to worry about, Gayle!' Jaime said kindly.
Gayle stood twisting her wedding ring, and tried to regain the golden glow of the evening. 'Can't you tell me? I've never seen Derry like that before.'
'There's nothing to tell. Derry was seeing a ghost, perhaps. Do you believe in them?'
'If they looked like you, maybe. Your mother was a very beautiful woman, wasn't she?'
'She died when I was born,' said Jaime. 'I have no memories of her, Gayle, only a portrait. It could be me.'
'And Derry never told me. All that part of his life he's kept rigidly bottled up, locked away inside of him.'
'If it's any consolation to you, Gayle, he never told me either. But what are you looking so melancholy about? These isolated little incidents pass. You won't experience them at all when I'm not around.'
'I suppose we're never free of the past,' Gayle said, meditatively.
'I'm sure now that's right,' said Jaime, thinking of her grandfather's last moments. 'The thing to do is subordinate it, and you're just the girl to do it.'
'Eventually!' Gayle said wryly, struck with a problem she hadn't been aware of.
'You love my father, don't you?' asked Jaime.
'Oh yes!'
'Well then. Whoever claimed anything was easy— and just to prove life goes on, here comes Derry again!'
He came back to them smiling, as if nothing at all had happened; no explanations, just a lift of his elegant hands. 'Gayle, my love, you've got to come
right over here and settle a point. Jaime darling, excuse us for a moment. Gayle can talk like a bibliography on any painter you can name in any part of the world.'
For a second Gayle didn't respond, then she wound both her arms around her husband's sleeve. 'Can you give me a clue?'
'Local.'
'That's easy!'
Naturally Jaime's earlier admirer saw the moment to return bearing two glasses of champagne. Jaime accepted a glass gratefully, very nearly on the point of tears. Weddings were emotional events and her father's momentary lapse had assuredly upset Gayle, though she had tried to rally. Her companion was telling her she had the most beautiful eyes in the world; one hand held up the wall behind her, trapping her, bent slightly towards her, viewing her steadily. She couldn't remember what his name was. It could have been Eric or it could have been Ian. It emphatically wasn't Quinn.
Then slowly and painfully Quinn's dark handsome face began to superimpose itself on the tainted pleasant face of the man before her. Jaime found herself staring, the pupils of her eyes distending, in turn disturbing her companion to such a degree that his hand trembled. He had settled on Jaime the moment he had caught a glimpse of her in the church, long before he knew she was a very wealthy girl. Now with her blue-violet eyes intent on him, he almost passed out. What was so astonishing was that a friend had just told him he was wasting his time. A girl like Jaime with money as well was out of this world. Certainly out of his reach. Now her beautiful violet eyes were trained on him, confusing and exciting him. The next second he realised she wasn't even seeing him, for she blinked rapidly.
'That's the strangest thing!' she said uncertainly.
'What?' he asked, baffled and disappointed beyond mere words. This time her eyes went beyond him, widening and the colour swept into her lovely face, like a fire suddenly lit inside of her. 'Oh, excuse me,' she said with a gentle, eager rush. 'A friend of mine has just arrived.'
Ian Gibson turned his head, of course, and his hopes were killed dead, pathetic now as it happened, and he wasn't a bad-looking man. Gayle and her new husband were greeting the smoothest, most sophisticated-looking character Ian had ever seen. Very tall, very lean, a classy dresser, his head tilted towards Gayle, who was blushing and laughing; a careless, handsome, arrogant devil, slightly foreign-looking, with black eyes that now lit on Jaime. The miracle of a girl in her delectable dress, the girl who had seemed so young and eager, was now greeting the stranger with an equally cool, sophisticated poise. Obviously they belonged together and Ian felt desperately envious. Quite a few people had broken off in their conversations to stare and Ian caught the name Sterling.