Wife Without Kisses

by Violet Winspear

  VIOLET WINSPEAR

  Wife Without Kisses

  Rea Glyn went to the coast for a quiet visit with no thought of marriage in her mind, but soon she found herself married to a man she had never met before and pledged to play her part in a fantastic game of "let's pretend.”

  Burke bent over the baby Rea held so carefully. He touched the damp, dark hair with a gentle finger. "You said you thought him beautiful -and he is. I want to take him to King's Beeches, where he belongs. Help me to take him, Rea.”

  He caressed the baby's head, and Peter awoke with a tiny gurgle, waved his plump fists and stretched in Rea's arms. And Rea's heart jumped into her throat, for his eyes were as blue, and as darkly fringed, as the eyes of Burke Ryeland -- this man who asked her to become the wife he would never kiss.

  "Next -- Friday, did you say?" She spoke almost upon a whisper.

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT was one of those self-consciously smart seaside hotels, with doors that swung with a flourish, spotless napery and cutlery on the dining-room tables and a wasp-waisted clerk at the reception desk.

  Rea, as she shifted Mrs. Damien’s jewel-case from her right hand to her left, rather tiredly reflected that these hotels all looked and felt and smelled alike. How much more interesting life would be if Mrs. Damien chose, just once, to stay in a crofter’s cottage, or on a boathouse, or at some quaint old in, with dormer windows under thatch!

  Imagination Laura Damien might have—was she not the incredible producer of twenty-nine romantic best-sellers?—but Rea was continually astounded that such a fertile and romantic imagination had its being in such a gross and comfort-greedy body.

  With a buccaneer flourish of her wrist Laura signed the register and then stared boldly into the pettish face of the clerk. “Anybody important stopping here?” she demanded, pushing the register towards Rea, who took up the pen and bent to sign her name, one eye marking the clerk’s goggleeyed reaction not only to Laura’s effrontery, but to the heavy make-up adorning her face, the enormous fur collar enclosing her throat, the absolute self-assurance of the absolutely self-satisfied that stared out of her eyes.

  But before he had time to reply to her question, she had swung round from the reception desk and was staring at a man who had just entered the hotel and was sauntering towards the lift, a cigarette between his lips and a raincoat thrown over his shoulder.

  “My God!” Rea heard her say, then she was plunging towards the lift in the patent leather shoes that always seemed too small for her, calling out: “Burke! Burke Ryeland!”

  He heard her and turned from the lift, taking his cigarette from his mouth. Rea, following somewhat tentatively in Laura’s wake, saw his very black brows pull together in a quick frown as he contemplated the stout exuberance of the advancing Laura Damien, her large, scarlet-tipped hands outstretched towards, him, her eyes, the crude blue that amateur artists always seem to paint their skies and their seas, raking him from head to foot as she exclaimed: “My dear boy, I thought you were dead!” She clutched his arms and shook him. “We all thought you were dead. Dead and buried in that awful Peruvian jungle you went to explore.”

  He stared at her, patently trying to place her. She saw this and burst out laughing. “Maybe I’ve put on some weight, dear boy, but surely you remember Laura Damien? I was always at those house-parties of Shaw Lacey’s, at Richmond. Those crazy house-parties! With Shaw, the funny boy, spouting D. H. Lawrence, and his wife, Letty, dancing in a scarlet shawl on the grand piano. Remember?” Again she shook his arms. "You must remember!”

  “Of course—Shaw Lacey—and Letty!” Amazed recollection had jumped into his eyes. “Unabridged Lawrence for supper and tired turkey sandwiches for breakfast!” His dark, rather aloof face broke into a slight smile. “We were all a bit batty in those days, weren’t we?”

  Laura nodded, a sudden look of nostalgia wiping some of the bold worldliness from her face. “Six—seven years ago, it must be,” she said. She stared up into Burke Ryeland’s face, her glance sharpening to curiosity. “I’m sure I read somewhere that you were lost in Peru.” “I was.” He spoke crisply. Then his glance swung away from Laura and settled on the hesitant Rea, a red leather jewel-case clutched in one hand, a plaid travelling rug over her arm, her very obvious youth and her thin, coltish legs, thrown into sharp relief by the buxom hardness of Laura. Burke Ryeland’s frown returned and he pinned Rea’s wavering glance with his own, held it forcibly, until

  Laura drawled: “This is my little Rea Glyn, dear boy. She pounds my terrible typewriter for me. I couldn’t possibly do it. The thing would jam and slip and do all sorts of unbearable things and drive me quite crazy.” She won Burke’s glance back to her and gaily showed him two perfect rows of very white teeth. “Are you still writing those incredibly clever travel books of yours, Burke?”

  He shook his head and she pulled a mouth of exaggerated dismay. “Look,” she patted his sleeve, “let’s have dinner together. I must hear about Peru. I’m sure you had some very exciting adventures—and I want to hear how you came to get lost.”

  But the suggestion wasn’t received with enthusiasm. He withdrew his arm from the clutch of her scarlet nails and rang for the lift. “Sorry,” he said, “but I’m dining out tonight.”

  “Tomorrow, then?” A coquettish pleading sat oddly on her large-featured face. “For old times’ sake, dear boy?”

  He stared back at her, moodily. “I’m not particularly interested in old times, Mrs. Damien. They hold no charm for me.” He turned, then, hearing the heavy whirr of the lift, and as it settled to a standstill and the doors slid open, he stepped into the lighted interior of it without a backward glance.

  Laura Damien watched its swift ascent and Rea saw the quick irritated blood flow under the paint upon her cheeks. “He had no need to be that rude!” she exclaimed, jerking at the fur collar of her coat. “But then he was always an insolent, take-me-or-leave-me sort of animal.” Her eyes met Rea’s. “Get the keys,” she snapped. “I want to have a lie-down before dinner, my head is simply splitting after that train journey.”

  Laura had booked a suite for herself and a single room for Rea, and as Rea unpacked her suitcase, her eyes kept stealing to the window, which overlooked the Hastings promenade. Though a slight rain had arrived, throwing a mist along the sea front and over the pier, Rea knew a sudden longing to be out in it, to be free of this hothouse of an hotel and the depressing thought of yet another evening spent eating with Laura, of playing cards with Laura, of being submerged in the incessant conversation of Laura.

  She drew a fierce little sigh. To be independent of employment! To have money enough to go anywhere one wished; to go as far as China or Siam. Or maybe Peru.

  Rea drew a finger down the steamy glass of the window, wondering a little to herself. Then her reflections were abruptly cut short, for the door of her room flew open and Laura marched in, an orange negligee swinging back from her thick, bare legs and an expression of exaggerated suffering on her face.

  “Darling,” she burst out, “have you any aspirin? My head is killing me and I haven’t a thing to take.”

  Rea went to the dressing-table and searched her handbag, but the only thing medicinal it contained was a small tin of adhesive tape.

  “Shall I go out and get you some aspirin?” she asked. Laura nodded, too absorbed in a self-pitying fondling of her aching brows to remember that Rea could have bought aspirin at the reception desk downstairs. “If you will, darling. I can’t possibly stand this damned pounding much longer.” She drifted away and Rea quickly snatched up her coat, took her purse from her handbag and sped along the corridor to the stairs. She raced down them like a boy, her long legs flashing under her flared skirt, her fair fringe dancing above her
hazel eyes. She looked more like sixteen than nineteen in her excitement at having escaped the hotel for a few precious minutes.

  She met the cold sting of the rain with a smile. It smelled good. It smelled of the sea. She strode along, her hands thrust into the pockets of her coat, glad of this chance to stretch her legs, cramped after the train journey from London.

  Laura was funny. They had been in the middle of Autumn Affair when she had suddenly announced that the story was dull, that she felt dull, and that a short spell at the seaside might refresh her brain. “We’ll take the portable, in case I get a few new ideas,” she had said. “We’ll go to Hastings. It used to be quite a haunt of mine when I was younger. So quaint, darling.”

  Rea located a chemist’s shop and bought a large bottle of aspirin tablets. Then she made her way back to the hotel, noticing the long, silver-grey racer that stood in the kerb, sleek and dangerous-looking and gaily upholstered in red leather. She was so busy looking at it, wondering what it would be like to ride in such a car, tearing into the face of the wind, that she walked straight into a man emerging from the hotel. As she gasped and almost fell, he reached out a large hand, steadying her. “Watch yourself, Rea Glyn,” he murmured, and for a speeding second Rea looked into eyes of that startling, electric blue seen only at the edge of a fierce flame. Then his hand released her and he was striding to the kerb and climbing behind the wheel of that gleaming grey car.

  Rea’s eyes were large as she watched it dart out from the kerb and rapidly disappear into the rain and gloom of fast-approaching evening.

  The aspirins did the trick, and Laura’s headache had quite abated by the time she and Rea went down to dinner.

  She swept into the crowded dining-room, resplendent in moss-green silk, a great knot of pearls bouncing on her bosom and an opal the size of a penny glistening on her right index finger. As she followed the waiter to a table, she cast bold eyes over the assembled diners, aware of causing a mild sensation and frankly revelling in the fact. She took up the menu with a flourish and remarked to Rea: “I feel a little abandoned tonight, darling, in a sportive mood—and that calls for champagne.”

  She then proceeded to order champagne, while Rea marked the interested way a moustached and immaculate diner at the next table was studying Laura, chewing his dinner in a reflective manner and obviously trying to decide whether she was someone’s wealthy widow or an actress from the local repertory theatre. Rea smiled to herself, and Laura, catching the smile, queried a trifle sarcastically: “Are you sitting on a feather?”

  Rea’s smile deepened. “I just feel rather happy,” she said “I think I like Hastings.”

  Laura looked blase. —Quaint child, aren’t you?” she drawled, and her blue eyes travelled slowly round the dining-room, obviously searching for someone. “I suppose he did go out,” she murmured at last. “I wonder why he’s playing hard to know?”

  “Burke Ryeland?” Rea asked, knowing full well that Laura meant the mysterious Burke Ryeland.

  “Who else?” Laura snorted. Then a rather inquisitive gleam stole into her eyes. “What did you make of him?” Rea floundered for an answer. She didn’t really know what she had made of the man, except that he had a nice car and a rather nice speaking voice. “Did you think him attractive?” Laura demanded.

  “More forceful than merely attractive, I think,” Rea replied.

  “Forceful, eh?” Laura’s painted eyebrows arched in an impudent fashion. “Attractive, too, dear, take it from me. He was always that Letty Lacey, in the good old bad days, was crazy about him. It was a good job that silly boy of a husband of hers never knew—he’d have put a bullet through Burke. Not that I believe anything really risque went on between Letty and Burke. There was at that time, if I remember rightly, a bit of a wild young ballet-dancer in his life.” Laura’s brows, drew together. “I wonder what came of that affair? And I wonder what the devil he’s doing here in Hastings? It’s hardly his sort of stamping ground, when you come to think of some of the out-of-the-way places he’s visited. Peru, now!” She tapped a reflective scarlet finger-nail against her chin. “Something mighty funny happened there, you could tell that from the way he didn’t want to talk about the place.”

  “To tell you the truth,” Rea admitted, “I thought Burke Ryeland a rather supercilious sort of person.” “Why shouldn’t he be?” Laura smiled as she refilled her wine glass. “His family is one of the richest and oldest in England. His grandfather’s house in Somerset is a showpiece. Have you never heard of King’s Beeches?”

  Rea shook her head.

  “King’s Beeches, my dear,” Laura said, a hint of reverence creeping into her voice, “is considered one of the landmarks of Somerset—on a par with the Cheddar Gorge, almost. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it, or seen a photograph of it.”

  “Well, I haven’t.” Rea spoke diffidently, rather annoyed by Laura’s cool assumption that she had been impressed by the very self-assured Burke Ryeland. Just because Laura had such an intense interest in men— and they were always very much younger than herself, Rea had noticed—she seemed to think it unnatural to the point of sheer freakishness in Rea that she found them quite unexciting. Several times Laura had conspired to throw her alone with one of her youthful literary friends, and Rea had not enjoyed the experience. She had nothing to say to these smart, cynical young men, and she knew they laughed about her behind her back. She had overheard herself described by one of them as “that funny little elf with the nun-complex.”

  Her lips were tremulous against the rim of her wine glass and a little flare of temper shot up inside her. Let Laura and her friends think her funny! Let them! Her father had once said to her: “The most important thing in life, my dear, is to be always true unto yourself. Be that rigorously, my darling. Don’t join all the other sheep, doing this and doing that because it is the fashion, or because they laugh at you for being outside the fashion. Snap your fingers and tread your own path, always.”

  Rea, remembering those quiet words, was reassured. She glanced across the table at Laura, bold in her green silk, loungingly at ease as she lit a cigarette. So sure of herself! And it wasn’t success alone made her that way. It was something inherent in her. She could never have been pretty, not even as a girl, yet she was undeniably popular with the many young men she gathered around her. It was a kind of power, Rea decided; something that went beyond the face, the body—even age. . .

  “Stop staring at me,” Laura suddenly growled, cigarette smoke jetting from her nostrils. “Those great big nun’s eyes of yours give me the willies. What are you trying to find with them—my soul?” Then she laughed. “I have too big a bank balance to possess a soul, my sweet.”

  “You’re very cynical, aren’t you?” Rea remarked. “One has to be,” Laura replied, looking amused. “It’s modern armour, my dear. This is a big, cruel world and one has to be born tough, or learn to be tough, in order to come out on top of it. Take Burke Ryeland!” She waved cigarette smoke away from her face. “That laddie is as hard as slate. Attractive, enormously rich, and very charming when he’s in the mood to be—but I don’t imagine he’s ever cared a damn for anyone in his entire life. Even the little ballet girl he used to run around with was, I strongly suspect, a mere piece of pretty distraction for in between his bouts of equatorial wandering. I never heard that anything permanent came of the affair. She was crazy about him, of course, but he had a sort of—of arrogant coolness in his attitude towards her—and to all women, come to that. An “Fll-notice- you-when-it-suits-me-to” sort of attitude. But when a man is as attractive as he is, and as well off, women accept the arrogance; they even seem to revel in it.” Laura’s laugh came softly, while her eyes grew mocking as they watched Rea. “But you wouldn’t understand that, would you, my dear?” she said.

  Rea shook an emphatic head. “I think they must be crazy,” she exclaimed. “Picked up and petted, just like kittens, and then carelessly dropped back on the floor!” Laura laughed lazily. “How quaint you are,
darling,” she drawled. “Wouldn’t you like to be picked up and petted by Burke Ryeland?” Her eyes, through the wreathing cigarette smoke, were openly malicious. “Or would you scratch him? Tear that lean, brown cheek with your naughty little nails?”

  “Oh, really, Mrs. Damien!” Rea looked confused and exasperated together.

  “Oh, really, Miss Glyn!” Then Laura shrugged. “But Burke isn’t very likely to want to pick you up and pet you, baby face, so you can stop looking apprehensive.

  You’re hardly his type, unless those steaming Peruvian forests have thinned his blood.”

  Laura’s eyes swept the untouched, unawakened face of the girl opposite, and she knew an impatient contempt. “No, he wouldn’t be very likely to look at you —you’ve never been kissed, have you?”

  Rea flushed hotly. She hated, despised these conversations, Laura’s ever-present curiosity about her. “No, I don’t go in for promiscuous kissing,” she shot back.

  “Saving yourself for the right man, huh?” Laura laughed huskily. “Looking at a man won’t tell you he’s the right one, honey. You’ve got to get a lot closer than that before you’ll know.”

  C H A P T E R T W O

  THE following morning, as though put upon her mettle by the remarkable amount of champagne she had consumed the evening before, Laura informed Rea at breakfast that she had decided to scrap six whole chapters of Autumn Affair and to write them afresh.

  She tossed a bundle of scribbling across the table, saying with a complacent smile: “I’ve been at work since five-thirty and my wrist is just about killing me. You can start typing that little lot out as soon as you’ve finished breakfast.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Damien.” Rea glanced at the bundle of notes and her heart, never too full of hope, dismissed its plans for an exploration of Hastings. If Laura’s dull mood had evaporated to this extent, that she took her fountain pen to paper at half-past five in the morning, the green portable, with its rows of white keys, would be all the scenery she, Rea, would see for quite a few days to come.