A cold wet cloth caressed his face and came to rest on his forehead and when he opened his eyes the darkened room blinded him. When his vision cleared he saw a disembodied face hovering over him.
“Angel!” His voice was a hoarse, cracked whisper and he reached out a hand to touch her but she moved away.
He was a mess! One eye was black and swollen shut, the other so bloodshot she could see no white. His lower lip was swelling and a dark stubble covered his jaw. In short he looked as if he was in acute misery. Holding the back of Scott’s head she helped him drink some water and he sank back onto the pillows exhausted.
A frown knit his brow as he watched her. Something was wrong and for the life of him he couldn’t remember. His brain refused to function, too engrossed in its own agony. Angela tended him as if he was a stranger she was nursing in a hospital and there was absolutely no expression on her face or in her usually naked eyes.
“Angel, what happened? What’s the matter?” Speaking was a supreme effort.
But she looked at him dispassionately, with those sensuous lips pressed firmly together and said nothing. Had he done something wrong? He would think about it later.
All during the day he was aware of her moving quietly in the background. When the cloths on his head grew warm they were swiftly replaced with a cool one, when he felt sick she held his head while he vomited into a basin. She made him drink water and a thin broth but when he opened his eyes he always closed them quickly at the look on her face. Or was it that there was no expression on her face that bothered him? In between feeling like he was going to die and wishing he was already dead he slept and in his dreams Angela was smiling or angry but never impassive.
When he awoke in the night his head was much clearer but he was alone in the dark room. Scott stretched out his arm but encountered only a vast empty bed where Angela should be. Clare! In his rage over the child he had driven her away and he couldn’t blame her for not being by his side. Someone had raped her, he remembered, and he knew now that her fright had not been caused totally by him. She was afraid to relive a terrible period of her own past and he had tried to force her to remember.
Getting stiffly from the bed he lit a candle and washed his face. He caught a glimpse of himself in a shadowy mirror and grimaced. The Rocks! His clothes, cleaned and neatly folded, were on the chair and he put on the trousers and went to search for Angela.
She was sleeping, curled in the rocking chair in the children’s room. She looked like a child herself, a lost very tired child dressed in her mother’s nightclothes. What a brute he could be when angry! And after his ill treatment she had nursed him faithfully through the day and night.
Scott picked her up and she stirred but didn’t wake up. She must be exhausted. Soft and warm and light as a feather he cuddled her in his arms on the way back to her room. Putting her beneath the covers he doused the light and removed his clothes. And when he joined her she curled against him as if she belonged nowhere else and he held her, awake for a long time, setting himself impossible goals. She stirred, the palm of her hand moving upward through the crisp hair on Scott’s chest, her body molded warmly against his. Even through her nightgown he could feel the softness of her breasts against his side and then the rising hardness of their peaks rubbing against him. Her long hard thighs were naked against his leg, her nightclothes bunched up around her hips, and in her sleep she looked just like Lorna.
Angela was half-awake, half-dreaming. She was on a tropical island with a phantom-lover and he was everything that she had dreamed a lover should be. Kind and considerate, wooing her with flowers and poetry and then his body. He was the kindest, most considerate of men, never hurting her and they were surrounded by the peaceful tranquillity of distilled happiness. He was holding her so gently, whispering words of love and she smiled opening her eyes.
“Oh!” She thudded back to reality as Scott’s battered face filled her startled eyes. What was she doing in bed with him? His hand was on her shoulder and his thumb rested against the hollow of her throat. Frantically she jerked it away, sure he was meaning to strangle her and he frowned at the panic in her eyes.
“Let me go!” Angela began struggling away from him but he grasped her firmly with a puzzled look on his face.
“Love, what’s wrong?” He turned toward her and she cringed, her breathing rapid and shallow.
“Don’t—don’t hurt me!”
“Hurt you?” he said with a confused half laugh. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then let go of me.”
“All right,” he said releasing her, watching her scramble quickly off the bed.
Without a backward glance she ran from the room and he sat up looking at the door. “What the hell has gotten into her?” he wondered. She was still angry about the argument—what other reason could there be?
Angela was slicing a loaf of bread in the empty kitchen with hurried jerky movements. She had to do something to get her mind off her own problems. The last thing she remembered of last night was being in the children’s room and then she had awakened with him. He could have murdered her while she slept and wondered why he hadn’t. He probably wanted to rape her first and she snorted with disgust at the idea. “Angela.”
With a start she cut her finger, spinning around with the knife in her hand.
“I won’t turn my back on you this time,” Scott reminded her, giving her that crooked boyish smile that never failed to make her heart dance.
She looked from him to her injured finger and back again as if he had personally cut her, and her full bottom lip trembled. It was only a small cut, not worth crying over but her nerves were so jangled she couldn’t seem to control herself.
Scott pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it around her finger kissing it as he would have done for a child. She still clutched the knife between them sniffing back the tears.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” Scott reassured her, reaching out to touch that irresistible cloud of dark hair but she backed skittishly away from him pointing the knife at his chest. “Do you want to finish the job you started at Thornhill?”
“No. Just keep away!”
“What are you afraid of?”
You! You tried to kill me the other night when you were drunk.”
"I can’t believe that!”
"It’s true! You ripped the clothes off me and grabbed me—you were talking about killing. Scott! Don’t come any closer!”
Go ahead,” he told her moving until the point touched his chest. “If I frighten you that much, why don’t you get it over with? Then I’ll never bother you again."
The knife clattered to the stone floor. “I don’t want to kill you. I would rather have you murder me than have another death on my conscience. There are too many already.”
“How many?”
“Keith and Thurston Vaughn—and....”
“You didn’t kill Vaughn.”
“He killed himself because he couldn’t have me.”
“And—” Scott prompted, “there are others?”
“I’ve lost count.”
“What happened after you left Jamaica, Angela?” Somehow he was positive the key to the mystery lay in that direction. “Who raped you, Angela? Who is Clare’s father?”
“The devil!”
“What was his name?”
“I can’t remember.” Her eyes were very large and horrified as if she was staring into an abyss containing every imaginary monster conceived by man to frighten others.
“It’s all right, love. You don’t have to remember.” Scott pulled her into his arms and she was stiff and cold, shaking uncontrollably. She had given him a scare. “We won’t talk about it now.”
“Never!”
“Yes, we will never talk about it. Shh. Let’s go back to our room and get you warm.”
She was like a little girl awakening from a nightmare as he led her to the bedroom and although he burned to ask her more questions he didn’t dare. W
as what had happened that bad? If her reaction to even remembering it was any indication it must have been unbearable.
Scott took Angela back to bed and held her shivering body against his. After some time had passed she relaxed a little but when his hand brushed against her breast she stiffened.
“Don’t,” she gasped and he removed his hand as if he had touched a hot stove. “I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want you to hurt me.”
“I’m not going to do anything to harm you, Angel. I love you.” But although she allowed him to hold her she wouldn’t let him do anything else.
When Angela woke up it was afternoon and Scott was still beside her. She frowned in concentration. Hadn’t it just been morning? She had been frightened, slicing bread.
“What worries are consuming you now?” Scott asked, relieved that she seemed herself again.
“Why are you here? I thought the marriage was over—you were going back to Celeste.”
“I changed my mind. I’m sorry about our fight.”
“You mean you’ve forgiven me?” Her voice quavered in amazement.
“There was nothing to forgive, love.”
“I didn’t tell you about Clare.”
“Yes, you should have told me. I was extremely shocked to say the least and behaved abominably as usual. But will you forgive me for behaving like a beast?”
Angela gave him an incredulous look. Scott—begging her pardon? Impossible! She was dreaming!
“Well?” He smiled at her bewilderment. “Are you going to leave me in suspense? Do you want to torment me to make up for all the pain I’ve caused you?”
“No! I just want us to be happy. Call me that again!”
“What?”
“Love, as if you really mean it.”
“Love, love, love. I really do mean it! My adorable little sweetheart—Angel—enchantress. I love you with all my heart and nothing you do or I do can change it. It’s a fact of life, an indisputable law. We were meant for each other. Star-crossed lovers for all eternity.” His mouth claimed hers with swift desire, tongues flickering and pressing with an insatiable hunger. After their quarrel making up was unbelievably sweet. Her lips moved enticingly but when his hand smoothed the long supple curve of her hip, moving her close so she could feel his reaction, she froze. Jerking her mouth free she tried ineffectually to push Scott away.
“What’s wrong now?” he asked in exasperation which she mistook for anger.
“No, no! Don’t do that—don’t touch me like that. You hurt me!”
“I did not! I was being very gentle. I just—” He demonstrated again but the pressure of his heated loins sent her into an alarming panic. She hit his chest with small clenched fists and then fell back with her eyes wide and staring.
“Angela, stop it!” She was growing cold and trembling again. “Oh, hell! Snap out of it. I won’t touch you again.”
eight
“Ezra! Ezra!” Scott called out in the musty dimness of the stable. The sun was barely up and long shadows played in the dawn spilling in the open doorway.
He had left Angela sleeping, not wanting her to find out about the conversation he was determined to have with Ezra. For the last three days she had been as elusive as the mist and just as untouchable and Scott meant to get to the bottom of it once and for all.
There was a stirring in the loft and a shower of bits of straw descended, golden in the early light. Scott waited impatiently. He was at the end of his rope, not knowing what to do with his wife. Angela was fine as long as he made no advances, but then it was always the same—that withdrawn coldness that she couldn’t seem to help. She was like two different people: herself and some pitiful creature afraid of every shadow.
Ezra came down the ladder and they went into the garden. The Cygnet was a black swan dancing on the dappled waters. The bush stretched gray all the way to the mountains which were a smoky-blue. They paused beneath a tree, far from the house and faced each other.
“Ezra, I need the answers to some questions, for Angela’s sake as well as my own. You were with her in Jamaica and have been ever since. What happened?”
“I don’t think I can tell you unless she gives me leave to.”
“No! I don’t want you to ask her and stir things up again. Every time I bring up the subject she goes silent, almost blank. Since I found out about Clare she has drifted farther and farther away from me.”
“What do you know?” Ezra inquired, not at all sure he even liked the man that was Angela’s husband.
“Nothing—only that Clare’s father raped Angela and she’s terrified to even think about it.”
“What she told you was the truth.”
“I know. I believe that, but I must know more. How can I convince you? Look, I love her. I know you think I’m a liar, a brute that mistreats her and you are partially right. Our relationship has always been stormy but my feelings for Angela remain steadfast. I love her and want to help her past this barrier.
“She hasn’t let me touch her in days. She looks at me as if I’m a monster when I even try to make love to her. Angela wasn’t like that before, she has changed subtly and I think it’s because of my trying to force her to recall a painful incident she wants only to forget.”
“Then why don’t you let her forget it? Be patient and gentle and in a few days or weeks she will be herself again.”
“I don’t think it’s that simple. Whatever happened scarred her emotionally. If only I knew, perhaps I could help her. At least I would understand.” Changing his tactics he asked casually, “When you set sail from Jamaica on the Cygnet were you headed to Sydney?”
“Yes, but on the Dark Lady!” The correction popped from Ezra’s lips before he had a chance to think about it.
“The Dark Lady! My ship! Then where is she? The Cygnet is down there in the bay. You don’t change ships in mid-ocean. Where did you stop? What happened to the Dark Lady!”
“I’ve said too much already,” Ezra said, turning and starting back toward the stable before he gave away anything else.
“The Dark Lady is the key to this whole mystery!” Scott said to himself with soft surprise. “But where is she?”
Had she been damaged in a storm, sunk? Where had they changed ships? That had to be the dangerous interval when Clare was conceived. Somewhere in some ocean lay the answer, but he was no closer to finding out what had happened than before. But at least he had something to think about.
Scott walked back to the house very slowly mulling it over in his mind. If he could get Ezra to unwittingly reveal more pieces of what had happened, he might be able to fit them together into a hazy outline.
Angela was up already and dressed, starting coffee in the kitchen. “Darling,” she smiled going to Scott as he came in, “you’re up early. I didn’t even hear you go.” She brushed a quick fleeting kiss against his lips and then pulled away. “Would you like breakfast now? I’m starving and I couldn’t wait for Maggie.”
He couldn’t help smiling back, encouraged by her bright look and her returned appetite. Could Ezra be right—just let things settle gradually back to normal? She seemed fine today.
They ate a huge breakfast of an omelet, ham, fresh muffins, and coffee. And while they lingered over it Angela reached across the table grasping Scott’s hand tightly in hers. Their eyes caressed each other and hers were beseeching.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately, darling,” she said softly. “Please, don’t stop loving me. I couldn’t bear that. To think that we have just found each other after such a long time is a miracle in itself. But there are adjustments to make. Please be patient. I love you too much to lose you again.”
Come here, Angel,” Scott ordered, his voice husky with emotion and she did, much to his surprise. He pulled her down on his knee and her arms naturally went around his neck. “I have waited four years, love; you would think that would have taught me patience. But I’m an impatient man, especially where you are concerned. I will try, though.
We will work things out. But know this; never will I stop loving you. You must resign yourself to the fact.”
“Oh, yes!” She traced his perfectly formed mouth with her fingers, those liquid aquamarine eyes so close the brilliance of them blinded him. And then her lips took the place of her fingers, soft as a whisper, moving ever so slowly. Her little tongue traced his mouth and then she gently bit his lower lip, lying against his well muscled chest, catching her breath in a half-moan as he kissed her back in earnest.
To say he was shocked was an understatement but he proceeded with infinite caution, one hand caught in her loose curls, the other at her waist. Very slowly he moved his hand to cup the fullness of her breast and she put her hand over his pressing it closer, feeling alive for the first time in days. She loved him with such intensity that she ached inside and today her behavior was finally beginning to make sense, even to her.
“Oh! Sorry!” Kate stood in the doorway, her face as red as her flaming hair.
“That’s all right, Kate,” said Scott. “We were just finishing breakfast. Don’t go. We are going to see the children.” He put Angela on her feet and winked at her wickedly.
She stifled her amusement until they were out of the kitchen and then gave way to laughter. “Did you see her face? Poor girl—we shocked her.”
“I would like to do something much more shocking to you than that. But not now. Let’s see if the children are awake. I’ve been worried about Lorna.”
“So have I,” Angela said hugging his arm against her side. “She isn’t bouncing back the way Robert and Clare have.”
Things slowly went back to normal and then Scott left for Thornhill. Angela almost put the pardon right in his hands on the morning he left but instead she quashed the impulse, kissing him good-bye and promising to join him there as soon as she could. Ezra was right, Scott’s own unpredictable personality was more of a threat to their marriage than Celeste Carew could ever be.
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