Fire Under Snow

by Dorothy Vernon

She was angry now. There seemed to be no way to break it gently to him. She might as well blurt it out and get it over with. “What I’m saying is that I’m married.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Say that again,” he demanded.

  The look on his face made her quail. “I didn’t mean to break it to you as starkly as that, but you goaded me into it.” She bit hard on her lower lip. “I’m sorry, Noel. It’s true; I am married. I know I should have told you before.”

  “Too right you should. My God, what a laugh! I’ve been tying myself in knots not to touch you, and if I’d known from the beginning that you were another man’s leftovers I might not have wanted to.” His equanimity was frightening. There was a tensile quality about it. Any moment it would snap. “It’s so incredible that I’m tempted to say I don’t believe you. But why would you lie about such a thing? You’ve nothing to gain – and much to lose. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  “Perhaps because deep down I was afraid to. I knew you’d react this way. Whether you like it or not, I had a life before we met. I haven’t been preserved in ice waiting for you to find me.”

  “Where is your –” He swallowed, obviously choking on the word – “husband?”

  “He – Jamie – left me.”

  “Jamie?”

  “Jamie Gray.”

  That was the snapping point. Without a word he seized her by the arms in a powerful grip and shook her until her jaw locked and a swirling whorl of red mist floated before her eyes. “There couldn’t be two Jamie Grays. You do mean the one I’ve been with these past few days? It is that Jamie Gray?”

  “Yes,” she said, wondering at his insistence in making that point clear.

  One hand released its cruel hold, but only to transfer itself to her chin, forcing her head back, making her see the contempt expressed on his face. Only then did he speak. “So you’re the cause of all this trouble. You are Jamie’s scheming little wife.”

  “I’m married to Jamie, yes. That doesn’t give you call to abuse me.” The interruption went unheeded. Had she spoken? Or if she had, was the only voice at her command too low for him to hear?

  “You’ve slipped up badly this time. You should have stuck to barter – it would have been more profitable. Dallied me on a while longer and set about getting a nice quiet divorce from Jamie. I was so desperate for your body that I would have considered a wedding ring a fair exchange. But no, you were too greedy. You had to go in for blackmail as well.”

  “Blackmail? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t act the innocent. You’ve played that role out. Jamie and I have done a lot of talking these past few days. He’s told me everything.”

  “Jamie has?” she inquired hoarsely.

  “That’s what I said. He told me it was a whirlwind romance and that you went into marriage without really knowing one another, and all the sordid details of how you couldn’t stand the penny-pinching struggling days and the inevitable separations while he established himself in his career. And how you only got in touch with him when you realized he’d made it and you decided you wanted a share of the big time.”

  “It’s not true, not all of it. The whirlwind romance bit is true. We did go into marriage without knowing one another. But as for the rest – no!”

  He ignored her. She might not have spoken. “I don’t blame my secretary for giving you his address. It wouldn’t have needed a lot of detective work on your part to find it out for yourself. I wondered how you knew her name that time you waited for me in my suite at the club. ‘I thought that was Miss Brown’s office,’ you said. Bad slip of the tongue that. Incriminating. You’re not going to deny contacting my secretary to find out Jamie’s whereabouts?”

  “No. It’s true that I phoned the club and spoke to Miss Brown in the hope of getting Jamie’s address. But it was too late. He’d already left for the States.”

  “That’s rich. It was not too late. You saw Jamie before he went. It was the biggest break he’s ever likely to get, and you fouled it up for him.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. He blames his current fall from grace on the worry you caused him just when he could least deal with it.”

  “This is unbelievable. What am I supposed to have done?”

  “Threatened to expose him. Don’t tell me your memory’s that bad. You told him that if he didn’t come over handsomely with a slice of the earnings, you intended to give – correction, sell; your sort gives nothing – to the press the intimate and highly personal details of your marriage. It goes without saying that you would add a few unsavory frills of your own for titillation, to command a higher fee.”

  “It’s simply not ... true,” she said, but she was wavering.

  “You don’t sound very positive. Decided to stop lying?”

  “I am not lying. If I sounded unsure for a moment, it’s because all this ties in with a recent conversation I had with Sir William. He thinks Jamie should be made to pay. Just for a moment I wondered if he’d approached Jamie without consulting me, but it isn’t possible. You say this happened before Jamie went to the States? I didn’t meet up with Sir William again until after that, so it couldn’t have been him.”

  “Nice try, but why don’t you admit that the game’s up? Or –” His eyes flicked over her – “perhaps it’s just starting.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Guess. You were right, you know, I did put you on a pedestal. I worshipped at your feet. Not right at the beginning. I admit that at first I thought you were the same as the rest. Then – you really fooled me. I went for all that virtue and innocence in a big way. You practically emasculated me. I had no inclination to look at another woman. I couldn’t tear myself away from that legendary playground, Las Vegas, fast enough to come back to you. I was going to ask you to marry me. Kindly note the tense; I said was.”

  “I know you were. I don’t know what’s gone wrong. I don’t understand any of this. The best thing I can do now is to go home. Later, when we’ve both reasoned things out, perhaps we can talk about it more coolly.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere.” His hold on her arm increased; his eyes flashed their menacing message. “You initiated the game. Go away, come closer, yes, no. You’ve had my emotions on a swivel. Promising, withdrawing, overtaking me and then slamming on the brakes. You’ve had your fun. Now I’m going to have mine.”

  “What – are you going to do?”

  “Make your intimate acquaintance. I could put it a coarser way.”

  “No!”

  The blood drained from her face. She felt weak and defenseless against his strength as in one fluid, effortless movement he held her against him, her feet treading air, and carried her into his bedroom.

  “I’ve revered you,” he said thickly. “Now I’m going to ravish you.”

  “Please don’t, Noel. There’s something I mus–” His mouth came down on hers, suppressing the words.

  She tried to keep her lips in a tight compressed line to shut him out. But the fierce pressure of his sensual mouth made her gasp with dizziness. He made the most of the opportunity, kissing her as if he could never get enough of her, holding her in total domination so that not one single part of her was immune. The fire on her lips spread through her veins until she thought her body would melt under the intense heat.

  “Oh ... no,” she moaned.

  His hands deftly changed position and she found herself sliding down the length of his body and stopping, held close, her feet still several inches from the ground. She felt the heat of his angry passion through the thin material of her dress. She slithered the rest of the way until her feet touched the ground. He was in too much of a rage to undress her in a civilized fashion. Her beautiful peach dress was ripped from her shoulders, leaving her breasts exposed in dainty cups of peach satin and lace. Her arms were imprisoned so that she couldn’t put up even a token resistance to beat him off.

  “No,” she moaned again, but her plea fell on deaf e
ars. She still had two legs to kick with. She brought her heel down hard against his shin; he just grinned at her. The more she kicked, the fiercer she struggled, the wider his grin.

  He let her get the fury out of her system and then, when she was trembling and spent, his mouth came down to repeat the torrid assault on lips submissive to his will, forcing her head back and making her spine arch to such a degree that she would have fallen over if he hadn’t been holding her.

  It would have been so easy – desirable, even – to let the burning impact of his lips defeat her and give in. But she must tell him that she was a virgin. It took all her effort and every scrap of her concentration to drag her mouth from the silencing persuasive insistence of his and gasp, “You mustn’t do this, Noel. If you do you’ll regret it because I’m –”

  “Unwilling? That’s a debatable point. But in any case I’m taking you whether you’re unwilling or not, and I won’t regret a thing. You’ve been asking for this for weeks. Taunting, drawing back. Full marks, my little temptress, for knowing what turns a man on and makes him keener. I thought it was all new to you, that I’d awakened emotions in you that you had been unaware of, that you didn’t know your own power. I thought you were in conflict with your conscience when you backed away. I didn’t know you were playing a very clever, if dangerous, game. Something’s just occurred to me. You demanded money for silence from Jamie before you met me.” Laughing down at her in angry contempt, he said, “My poor little pet, you didn’t know you were going to hook a bigger fish or you would never have tried to blackmail Jamie. I’m afraid, because of that, that your worth has gone down. I won’t pay the price of a wedding ring for you now. I’m not like Jamie. No mercenary little baggage is going to take me in, buy you won’t go away empty-handed. I’ll not be unappreciative. ”

  “Don’t, Noel. Please don’t talk like this. You’re speaking in anger. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Don’t I? You’ve played with my feelings, tried to make a fool of me. You have made a fool of me. Don’t quibble now, it’s pay-up time.”

  “I’m not quibbling. I don’t know the answer to this yet, but I know I’ve brought a lot of it on myself. I should have taken the necessary steps to get my freedom when Jamie left me. I should have been honest with you from the beginning. I can see your side of it. Will you believe that I can’t let you do this for your sake, not mine? If you do, if you go through with this, you will never forgive your –” His mouth brushed across the fast-beating pulse in her throat, changing her voice to a whisper. His fingers were doing sensuous things to her body, stroking along her collarbone, discovering all the fragile little hollows, slowly exploring the curve of her breast, finding a way under the delicate peach satin of her bra. She couldn’t concentrate on what she was trying to say. “You’ll hate yourself if ... when ...” she amended, recognizing the futility, yet instinctively backing away, hampered by the length of her dress, finding each foothold with increasing difficulty. Her heel caught, the bed came up against the backs of her legs and the next moment her head was touching the softness of the quilt.

  The bed gave as he added his weight to it. There was a ripping sound and then she was no longer hampered by her dress. It lay on the carpet where he had flung it, to reproach her eyes. Somehow or other he had divested himself of his robe and her of her bra, and for the first time ever her unclothed breasts molded themselves to the muscular strength of a man’s naked chest.

  Just for a moment she caught the look in his eyes, a bitter mingling of anger and hostility because of the deception he’d discovered in her, and self-disgust because he still wanted her. The tormented pain of his desire made his breath ragged, as if every gasp was torn tortuously from his lungs.

  “You might as well give in,” he said thickly. “There’s no escape for you now. Your devious little mind can’t come up with anything to get you out of this.”

  His mouth came down on hers in an explosive mixture of anger and passion, demanding a response that she refused to give, even though the effort of holding aloof made her jaw ache at being held in such a fierce clamp.

  A grotesque apology for a laugh escaped his throat. “Like that, is it? Perhaps the challenge makes it all the more exciting. By the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be like a liquid flame in my arms. You’ll have a taste of what it’s like to be consumed by a driving hunger that leaves you half crazed. You won’t want to hold me off; you’ll beg for it.”

  His mouth plundered hers again. It was hard and punishing and it bruised and humiliated not just her lips, but her whole being. And yet she knew that she had brought it upon herself. It was true what Noel had said. He had revered her. The change had come about during their stay with Aunt Leonora at Kittiwake Bay. The difference in him had been little short of miraculous. He’d shrugged off his world-weary, hardened and cynical being and all the complications that went with the type of life he led and had emerged a much nicer person. She had no way of knowing whether it was the relaxing atmosphere of the place or Aunt Leonora’s soothing influence, but he had shown a marked softening toward her. Even the anger she had anticipated when she refused to accept the gift of the diamond bracelet from him hadn’t materialized. He had been stiff and taken aback, and he hadn’t properly understood, but he hadn’t lost his temper with her and she had thought perhaps it might even have worked as a point in her favor.

  Right from the beginning she had been fighting his deep-rooted conviction that all women were out to take him for as much as they could get – one of the penalties he had to pay for being rich and influential. She felt sorry for him. It couldn’t make for happiness to go through life with such a jaded and suspicious outlook. All women weren’t like that. He had been unlucky in attracting too many of that type. She wasn’t mercenary. It wouldn’t have mattered to her if he didn’t have a cent to his name. She had never craved for high living. Furs and jewels left her unimpressed; as far as she was concerned, a warm and loving man was worth any number of cold diamonds. All she had ever wanted was Noel’s love, and she would swear that she had been almost on the brink of receiving it. Now, because she hadn’t been honest with him from the start, she had destroyed her chances of ever getting that most precious of all gifts.

  The sob that rose to her throat was not caused by the cruel abrasions of his hands on her body going through the motions of lovemaking without love or tenderness. That pain she could endure. She was sobbing for the way it should have been, a cherishing of kisses, caresses, shivering flesh and awe in her heart at the beauty of it.

  “Don’t, Noel, don’t,” she pleaded, finding it unbearable mental torture.

  “Yes, Lorraine, yes!” he said. She could tell that the smoldering anger in him had risen above his passion; its evil was eating into his mind. “You’re an exquisite little actress. Anyone would think it was your first time.”

  His face twisted in anguish and she knew that it bothered him to think that it wasn’t. He couldn’t bear the thought that someone else had known her body before him. It was an erosive and unremitting torment grinding away at his peace of mind. It gave him no rest, no respite, and his eyes burned as though his soul was barely clinging to sanity.

  “Perhaps it will be the first time at that,” he sneered. “Jamie is an impatient puppy. I’ll show you what it’s like to be made love to by a real man.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat was so dry the words wouldn’t come. She turned her head away in misery, recoiling at the bitterness of his mockery.

  “I know,” he gritted, “it’s not your fault. As you correctly pointed out, you had a life before we met. You’re not a teenager.”

  At last she could bear no more. “I’m twenty- three. The same age my mother was when she married my father.”

  Why she drew that parallel she had no idea, unless her subconscious knew it would hurt him and was seeking revenge for the pain and humiliation he was causing her.

  His head flicked back as though she’d taken a whip
to his cheek. “I remember what you said about your parents. Your mother was worthy of being put on a pedestal. Your father was a lucky man – the first, the only one to discover the fire under the snow. I envy him. Oh, how I envy him.”

  You don’t have to. It could be the same for you. Only her heart cried out; her brain was spinning home the message that it would serve him right to go on believing what he did. Let him suffer as he was making her suffer. But she knew she didn’t mean it. She loved him too much for that.

  “If I’d known from the beginning, it would have been different,” he flung at her as the color drained from his face in white fury, causing her to cringe in fear. She must make him listen to her. She must tell him that if it happened now it would be the first time for her.

  “Noel, I –”

  “I built you up in my mind as being apart from the others,” he said, drowning her out. “I wouldn’t have thought you capable of keeping something so important from me. That’s what makes it so hard to bear.”

  “What if I told you there was nothing to bear? What if I told you I’d never been with Jamie, or with any man?” She looked directly at him, hoping the truth in her eyes would give credibility to her words.

  His mouth narrowed in scathing deprecation.

  “I’d say that you were lying through your teeth and put it down as another of your tricks. I may have dismissed Jamie as a young pup, but his masculinity is in no doubt.”

  “As you know it all, I might as well save my breath,” she said, pride coming to her rescue and with it a revival of her anger, because she’d tried to tell him over and over again and he wouldn’t listen.

  She felt like a criminal who had been convicted and sentenced without being allowed to make a plea in her own defense. There wasn’t the tiniest shred of justice in his entire system.

  His mouth came down on hers again, taking her by storm. It was fixed firmly in his mind that she was soiled goods, and she had thought that self-disgust had won over desire and that he’d decided not to have anything more to do with her. She had thought he was so sickened by what he thought she was that he could no longer bear to touch her.