The Devil's Pawn

by Yvonne Whittal

  'That's true.'

  She winced inwardly, but she had to know. 'Did you?'

  Cara felt him come up behind her, and she trembled inwardly even though he did not touch her. 'Would it matter to you if I did?'

  Her throat tightened and tears filled her eyes. It had been foolish of her to question him, and she was amazed now at her own temerity. 'I'm tired,' she explained, and this was the truth. Her limbs felt like lead, and her head was pounding. 'I'm simply too tired to continue with this postmortem.'

  'You haven't answered my question.' His hands on her shoulders turned her relentlessly to face him, and there was no time to hide the stinging moisture in her eyes. He studied her closely for some time before a faint smile touched his mouth. 'I think your tears are giving me the answer I required.'

  Oh, lord! What was he thinking? Has he guessed that she has been stupid enough to fall in love with him?

  'I'm tired, that's all,' she tried to explain away her tears, but she did not sound very convincing to her own ears.

  'I know, Cara, liebchen,' he murmured softly, running his fingers through her hair, and she ached suddenly for him to hold her in his arms, but he did nothing of the kind. He helped her to undress instead, and put her to bed as if she were a child.

  Cara was all at once too tired to care. She had barely slept the night before, and the hours of mental agony were beginning to take their toll. Through heavy-lidded eyes she watched Vince pull his sweater off over his head, and she did not avert her glance when his hands went to the buckle of his belt. The muscles rippled in his arms and across his hair-roughened chest. His stomach was firm and flat, his hips slim, and, for the first time, she found joy in studying his superb physique. His skin was tanned, and the naked maleness of him sent little tremors of awareness racing through her which she tried desperately to still. He knew she was watching him, but he did not turn away from her, and a curious smile was playing about his mouth when he finally got into bed beside her and switched off the bedside light.

  She lay there in the darkness, conscious of Vince's body within touching distance of her own, and aware of a longing so intense that her tiredness evaporated like mist before the sun. If only Vince would touch her. If only he would do something instead of lying there so quietly and uncaringly as if he was totally unaware of her presence. Oh, God, she had never dreamed that she would ever reach the stage where she would actually want him to make love to her. She had never felt so desperate, nor so wanton, and pride suddenly took a back seat.

  'Vince…' Dear heaven, did her voice have to sound so wobbly, so uncertain, and so distinctly pleading? 'I can't sleep.'

  He did not reply at once, and her body grew tense with shame. What was happening to her? Did loving someone strip one so completely of one's pride and self-respect?

  'Neither can I,' Vince admitted when the silence had stretched almost to breaking point, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief.

  Be careful, she warned herself. Don't make your feelings so obvious. 'Would you like something to drink? Warm milk, perhaps?'

  She wanted to laugh out loud at herself, but she controlled the desire swiftly when Vince asked mockingly, 'Do you think a glass of milk would help?'

  He knows! a little voice screamed at the back of her mind. She was shamelessly doing everything except putting into words what she wanted, and Vince knew it. He knew exactly what she wanted, damn him!

  'It might help,' she heard herself saying a little weakly.

  'And then again, it might not,' he laughed throatily.

  Cara felt that she could not stand this slow torture a moment longer, but, before she could say anything, he reached out and drew her close. Their bodies touched, fire meeting fire, and she was so overwhelmed by her feelings that she buried her face against his shoulder.

  'Oh, Vince…' she whispered jerkily, and her lips parted eagerly beneath his when his mouth found hers in the darkness.

  He made love to her that night with an unexpected tenderness, and her tired body felt rejuvenated as he sent her senses spinning towards undreamed of heights. She was giving herself for the first time with her mind as well as her body, and it was an experience that left her with a feeling of awe when they finally went to sleep with their arms still locked about each other.

  Cara slept late the Sunday morning, and when she awoke she found herself alone in bed. Her immediate reaction was that of disappointment, but it swiftly changed to relief when she began to recall her own behaviour the night before. She would have time to pull herself together before having to face Vince, and she would have time to think of a way to eliminate the impression she must have given him.

  She bathed quickly and chose to wear a brown woollen skirt with an amber-coloured knitted sweater. She was in a brown and yellow mood today, and furious with herself. What on earth had possessed her to make her feelings so obvious last night.

  Vince and Chantal were standing out on the sunlit terrace when Cara went down to breakfast. She hesitated, tempted for a moment to hide rather than face them, but she poured herself a cup of coffee and squared her shoulders bravely before she went out to join them. Their conversation ceased abruptly the moment Cara stepped out on to the terrace, and she had an awful suspicion that she had been the topic of Conversation. Vince's eyes smiled into hers with that familiar mockery she was beginning to detest, and she was dismayed when she felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair. If she could have drowned in her cup of coffee she would have done so, and Chantal's tinkling laughter told Cara that those green eyes had not missed a thing.

  'I would never have believed that your wife could still blush after three weeks of being married to you, Vince,' Chantal remarked slyly, linking her arm through his, and looking Cara up and down with a strange brightness in her eyes. 'If I didn't know you so well, Vince, I could almost have believed that last night was your wedding night.'

  Cara had always prided herself on her coolness and rigid composure under any given circumstances, but her armour had slipped dangerously the moment she had stepped out on to the terrace, and now it was completely shattered. Her cheeks were burning, and she was quite incapable of doing anything about it.

  'I find it quite enchanting when Cara blushes,' Vince laughed softly, his compelling glance drawing Cara's against her will, and her heart fluttered like a wild, caged bird against her ribs. 'It is one of the many things I find so attractive about her.'

  Chantal's laughter, mocking and hateful, made Cara's anger rise like a volcano about to erupt, and flames darted from her eyes when she placed her untouched cup of coffee on the cane table and turned to face them.

  'I'm pleased to know that I have been a source of amusement to you,' she spoke sharply. 'Life would be very dull indeed without something to laugh at, but having fun at someone else's expense is never in good taste.'

  Cara turned on her heel and walked away from them, but not before she had seen the tightening of Vince's jaw. She had angered him, but at that precise moment she could not care less. She needed to cool off and regain her composure, she told herself as she strode fiercely into the garden.

  The wooden summer house was shaded and the crimson bougainvillaea ranking over it offered her the privacy she needed. The silence there had a therapeutic effect on her, and she felt herself beginning to relax, but that feeling did not last long. A shadow fell across the sunlit, concrete floor, and she looked up to see Vince's tall frame blocking the entrance. His mouth was tight, and his eyes were cold, and she felt the underlying anger in him like a vibration being transmitted across the space between them.

  'Go away and leave me alone,' she pleaded quietly, but he ignored her near desperate plea for solitude.

  'You were unnecessarily touchy, Cara, and I'd like to know what the hell is the matter with you?' he demanded harshly, and his voice was like the lash of a whip across bare, sensitive flesh. 'Can't you laugh at yourself occasionally, or don't you have a sense of humour?'

  This was not the moment to vent her fru
stration and anger on him, but anger was her only defence at that moment. 'My sense of humour is still intact, thank you, but there has been nothing very amusing about being forced into this marriage, and I can find nothing humorous in being mocked by your mistress—past or otherwise.'

  'Careful, liebchen,' he warned, a flash of derision in his eyes. 'You're beginning to sound like a jealous wife.'

  'Oh, I hate you!'

  She raised her clenched fists, intending to strike at his chest in her fury, but he caught her wrists smartly, and jerked her up against his hard body. Imprisoned and helpless in his arms, his mouth descended on hers to silence her protests, and a fire was kindled deep down inside of her that left her trembling and breathless when at last he released her. She stood swaying in front of him, dizzy with the force of her emotions, and she felt too weak to protest when he placed a steadying arm about her waist.

  'I think we won't talk of hating,' he mocked her and, when she would have pulled away from him, his arm tightened about her. 'Chantal wants to leave and is waiting to say goodbye.'

  That was the best news he could have given Cara, and her antagonism melted away almost at once.

  Chantal was leaning elegantly against the bonnet of her red Porsche when they approached the house, and her chic black-and-white striped outfit gave her an air of sophistication which one seldom found outside a fashion magazine. There was fire in her hair, and a fire of a different nature in her eyes when they met Vince's.

  'Yesterday was a day to remember, Vince, and I thank you for it.' Her smile was provocative and the hand she placed against Vince's cheek was suggesting a familiarity that rankled. 'We have always been good for each other, haven't we?'

  'Always,' Vince smiled, taking her wrist between his strong fingers and kissing her palm while Cara stiffened with displeasure at this display of intimacy. 'Drive carefully,' Vince warned.

  'I shall,' Chantal laughed enchantingly, sliding gracefully behind the wheel of her Porsche and turning the key in the ignition. The engine purred to life, and only then did Chantal acknowledge Cara's existence. 'Take good care of him for me, Cara.'

  The red Porsche swept down the drive, but Cara was now almost blind with a new kind of fury. Take good care of him for me. For how long? Until this senseless marriage was ended and Chantal could take him back? Cara bristled with anger, and then something else Chantal had said came to mind. We have always been good for each other, haven't we?

  Good for each other in what way? Cara wondered. The physical sense? Pain, like the talons of an eagle, clawed at her heart, and Cara wondered how much more she would have to endure before she would have to walk away from this marriage perpetrated for the sake of revenge.

  'Where do you think you're going?'

  A heavy hand stopped Cara when she reached the terrace steps, and she did not miss that hint of anger in Vince's voice, but she was equally angry when she shrugged off his hand and spoke without turning. 'I have brought home a book from the library which I want to read.'

  Vince followed her up the steps, but his fingers snaked about her wrist before she could enter the house and, with that uncanny ability to read her mind, he said: 'I think you misunderstood Chantal's statement.'

  'I don't think I did,' she contradicted, controlling her features before she turned to face him, but she was unprepared for the disconcerting intensity of his gaze. It seemed to penetrate her defences and inject a weakness into her which she could ill afford at that moment.

  'Last night, Cara…'

  'Last night you misunderstood,' she interrupted him hastily, and her voice was surprisingly cool. 'I was tired, and tiredness often plays nasty tricks on one.'

  He smiled twistedly. 'It made you want me so much that you couldn't sleep?'

  'Surely you also have moments when you are vulnerable,' she argued, dragging her wrist free of his grasp. 'Women are irresistibly attracted to you, and I admit that I am no exception. You are also a very experienced lover, and I am not going to deny that I did want you last night, but I was Vulnerable and susceptible.'

  'And it was no more than that?' he demanded mockingly.

  'If part of your desire for revenge entails making me fall in love with you, Vince, than I must ask you to remember what I told you on our wedding night,' she reminded him in a desperate attempt to lead him away from the truth. 'I said then that I could never love you, and I meant it.'

  'If I remember correctly, I then warned you that loving me would never do,' he reminded her in turn of the things they had said to each other on that hateful might, and his narrowed eyes observed her intently while he lit a cigarette. 'What, I wonder, has given you the impression that I have any desire for love to enter into our relationship?'

  She studied him warily, and she was beginning to hurt unbearably. 'What are you hoping for, then?'

  'An honest understanding,' he smiled faintly, blowing smoke from his nostrils and looking more like the devil she knew him to be. 'The kind of understanding where we can say how we feel without the other one thinking we are beginning to harbour thoughts of undying love.'

  'Have you never been in love?'

  Silly question, she chided herself. Vince had a cold slab of concrete where his heart ought to be, and his reply confirmed this.

  'No, I have never been in love, and I don't ever intend to be,' he said in a clipped voice, and it had the power to intensify her agony. 'What about you?'

  Cara lowered her lashes to veil her feelings. 'Loving someone only brings pain.'

  He was silent for a moment and she could not bear to look at him when he asked: 'You have had this experience?'

  'Yes.' There was no harm in admitting the truth, and it need not lead him to discovering that she was speaking about her feelings for him.

  'I take it you are not referring to John Curtis?' he probed cynically, and her heart was beginning to pound uncomfortably.

  'No, I'm not.'

  'Would you like to talk about it?'

  'No!' she cried anxiously.

  'Cara!' His hand gripped her arm when she would have fled from him in fright. 'Do we have an understanding?'

  The wild, frightened beat of her heart subsided. 'An honest, no-holds-barred understanding?'

  'That's it.'

  Her eyes met his; guardedly at first, and then with unwavering and growing confidence. 'Very well.'

  'Good,' he said abruptly and, leaving her out there on the terrace, he walked into the house.

  Cara heard his footsteps disappearing in the direction of the study, and she shook her head as if to rid herself of the confusion in her mind. Vince Steiner was quite the strangest man she had ever known. One minute she imagined that she understood him, and the next he left her feeling totally confused. She sighed audibly as she went inside to fetch the book she had brought from the library, and she told herself that there was no sense in trying to understand the man who would be her husband for a year and no more.

  It was an unusual Sunday; it drifted by in a relaxed fashion which was quite contrary to weekends past, and Vince was surprisingly pleasant company when he had succeeded in coaxing her away from her interesting historical novel. He was not behaving at all to pattern, and she felt bemused and bewildered that evening as she changed for dinner. Was it possible that he had been trying to flirt with her?

  Cara thrust aside this thought and told herself not to be ridiculous. She flung open the cupboard doors and chose a wine-red dress with flaring skirt because she knew she looked good in it and, instead of tying her hair up into its usual knot, she brushed it vigorously and left it loose for a change.

  She felt relaxed, but when she walked into the living-room her body tensed at the sight of Vince standing in front of the fireplace. A cigarette was dangling from his fingers, and his brooding glance settled on her when she walked towards the crackling log fire to warm her hands. She could not decide at that moment which she preferred; his mocking, often cynical remarks, or this silent appraisal that made her intensely aware of that aura of
sensuality which surrounded him. He had the ability to touch her with a glance, and he was doing so now with a determination that made her body tingle. He turned from her to pour a sherry for both of them, and Cara subsided weakly into a chair. She arranged the wide skirt of her dress about her knees, and she did so with unnecessary concentration, but there was a part of her which was still intensely aware of Vince.

  There was confidence in every movement he made, and his clothes were always expensively and impeccably tailored to accommodate his tall, well-proportioned body. She stared at his broad, formidable back in the dark blue jacket, and his gold wristwatch flashed in the light when he returned the bottle of sherry to the cupboard. Cara lowered her eyes hastily before he turned towards her, and she did not raise them again until his suede shoes came into her line of vision. His grey slacks stretched tightly across his muscled thighs, and their fingers touched inevitably when she took the glass from him. It was like fire darts racing up the length of her arm, making her want to snatch her hand away, but she clamped down on her jumpy nerves, and succeeded in bringing the glass to her lips without spilling a drop of sherry.

  'Dinner is served, Master,' Jackson announced, and Cara welcomed his intrusion at that awkward moment.

  'Thank you, Jackson,' Vince nodded, and his hand rested lightly beneath Cara's elbow when they crossed the hall and entered the dining-room.

  Their conversation was oddly stilted throughout dinner, but it was a welcome change from those brooding glances which disturbed her so. The kitchen staff had excelled themselves, but Cara was reminded of her first night in that house. Then, just as now, she had been unaware of what she had eaten, or whether she had eaten at all. On that first occasion she had been terrified at the thought of what lay ahead of her, but this time she was simply too disturbed by Vince's ice-grey eyes that never gave her a moment's peace to enjoy her food.

  Jackson served coffee in the living-room, and then they were left completely alone. Cara sat down, but Vince once again took up his brooding stance in front of the fireplace. She might still have been able to cope with the inexplicable silence between them, but his eyes were now glittering with a sensual fire when his glance trailed over her, and her heart began to pound with a force that threatened to choke off the air to her lungs.