“Don’t you?” He sounded almost accusing. “Never mind,” he said, and gave a short, harsh laugh as he turned from her and restarted the car. “The others will think we’ve broken down if they don’t see our headlights.”
Frustrated, Jade sat back in her seat, watching the leaping shadows of the trees pass by, the shivering ladders of ferns momentarily lit by the glare as the lights swept the curving banks lining the road.
They arrived at the gates of Waititapu only yards behind the others, and at the garage Magnus excused himself to go and help his mother out of Glen’s car.
Inside, Mrs. Gaines reported that the baby was soundly sleeping, and came forward to help Mrs. Riordan to bed. The hallway seemed full, and it wasn’t until she was at the top of the stairs, on her way to her room, that Jade realised Magnus hadn’t followed, although Glen and Danella, their arms about each other, were right behind her.
It was hours before he came up, and then she heard him dimly in the next room, through the mist of exhausted sleep.
* * *
Danella and Glen and the baby left after lunch the following day. Jade, standing on the terrace beside Magnus to wave them goodbye, felt herself relax slightly as the car swept down the drive. She hadn’t realised until then that she’d been so tense during the visit. But things could have been worse.
She said, as she turned to go inside, “Danella’s very lucky.”
“Because of the baby?”
“And because she has a kind and considerate husband.”
“Glen has a capacity for getting people to like him. Especially women.”
“He’s not a womaniser.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Struck by his curt tone, she asked him, “Are you jealous?”
Magnus shook his head. “Envious, perhaps, of his ability to get on with almost anyone. It’s a rare gift.”
“You have other gifts,” Jade said.
He looked startled. “I won’t ask you to name them.”
“I will if you like.”
Magnus laughed and shook his head, standing back to allow her to precede him inside.
“Do you want me?” she asked him as he joined her, the house seeming dim after the brightness outside.
He stared down at her. “Want you?” he repeated softly, his brows lifting.
“If you’re going to work,” she said, “shall I help?”
“Actually, I thought I’d go for a swim.” After the slightest of pauses he added, “Would you care to join me?”
It was a peculiarly formal invitation, but Jade leapt at it. “I’ll go and get changed.”
* * *
She tucked a towel about her waist, over the one-piece swimsuit, and padded barefoot down the stairs. Magnus was waiting for her in the hall, wearing dark briefs and with a towel slung about his neck. He had broad shoulders and long, muscular, tanned legs. She thought that he didn’t look like an accountant. Of course, part of his time was spent on the farm rather than in the office.
He watched her coming down to him, his eyes unreadable. When she reached him he didn’t touch her but asked, “Did you bring sunscreen? It’s quite hot.”
“I’ve already put some on,” she said. “It’s waterproof.”
He put out his hand and touched a finger to her skin, trailing it from the edge of her jaw down the side of her neck to her shoulder, and examining the faint greasy film left on the tip. “Right,” he said, “let’s go.”
Stilling the sudden beating of her pulse, Jade took a quick breath and followed him to the door as he opened it for her.
* * *
When they had reached the sand he asked, “Straight in, or sunbathe first?”
She felt hot and sticky and with a residue of tension from preserving the tentative truce between herself and Danella. “Straight in,” she said, “for me.”
He actually smiled, briefly. “Come on, then.” He held out his hand and she put hers into it and went racing with him into the water’s cool embrace.
Once they reached a swimmable depth, he released her hand but stayed near, watching for breakers and riding over the unbroken crests to deeper, calm water.
Jade turned onto her back, keeping herself afloat with tiny movements of hands and feet. The sky was an intense, throbbing blue, wispy white clouds drifting across it. Nearby, Magnus was treading water, his hair sleeked close to his head. He caught her gaze and then shook his head and dived like a seal, with a swift, economical and almost silent movement.
Jade closed her eyes. After a moment she was aware that Magnus had swum away from her. She was too good a swimmer for him to imagine she’d try to drown herself.
Once he’d taken her out from the hospital, driven her into the city for a visit to the art gallery. It must have been a difficult afternoon for him, because she’d been unable to muster any interest in the exhibition, and the crowds had made her nervous. They’d only stayed for half an hour, and although Magnus had tried to conceal his exasperated disappointment, she’d felt it as they left the crowded gallery and waited to cross the road to where he’d parked. Cars and a large yellow bus streamed downhill, and on a blind impulse, she’d suddenly lunged forward, pulling herself from his surprised grasp, into the path of the bus.
She remembered the hoarse sound of his wordless shout, the high, anguished screech of the brakes as the bus driver slammed them on, the sickening crunch of the car behind crashing into the back of the bus.
Something had thumped into her back and she went sprawling, and then amid the cacophony of hoots and angry obscenities she’d been hauled up and dragged to the footpath by a whitefaced, flint-eyed Magnus whose hands were hard and angry as he held her arms, turning to fling apologies, explanations and promises of compensation at two outraged and badly frightened drivers.
When they’d gone at last, he’d turned to her and his face was still pale, still furious. “What in the name of hell did you think you were doing?” He gave her a fierce little shake.
“You should have let me,” she whispered. “It would be all over, now.”
“It wouldn’t be all over for me!” he rasped. “Or for the poor sod who ran over you! How do you think he’d feel? Try to think of someone else for a change, will you, instead of wallowing in self-pity!”
She’d stared back at him and felt the hopeless tears well in her eyes, hot and heavy.
Then suddenly Magnus changed his grip, his arms coming around her, holding her tightly. “Oh, Jade, Jade,” he murmured. “Please, please get better.”
It had been a long time after that before he’d taken her out again. And then, he’d accepted with something like relief her request that they take Annie, too. She thought that he hadn’t been all that anxious to be alone with her.
* * *
“Jade—Jade!“
She opened her eyes. Magnus’s voice said, “You’re drifting. I think it’s time we went back to shore.”
Jade turned over, her arms moving as she looked towards the beach, further away than she’d realised. “All right,” she said, and began swimming in a leisurely crawl.
When they emerged from the water and flopped onto towels, she found she was panting. Out of condition, she thought, burying her head in her arms and trying to make her breathing slow. The sun was warm on her back. A gull screamed overhead.
Magnus’s hand smoothed the wet hair back from her cheek. “That tired you.”
“Don’t fuss, Magnus.” Her voice was muffled against her arm. “I have to get used to swimming again. Real swimming, in the sea.” She turned and sat up, squeezing water from her hair. “That was good.”
Magnus was reclining on one elbow. Jade lay back on the towel, her knees raised, her breasts still rising and falling rather rapidly. Her skin tingled, pleasantly stimulated by the salty water that was fast drying on her body.
She turned her head and found Magnus examining her, from her sand-dusted feet to the shallow valley between her breasts where droplets of water still lay. His gaz
e seemed to linger there before it travelled slowly to the line of her throat, touched on her mouth and finally met her questioning eyes.
His mouth twisted. “You’re as beautiful as ever,” he said.
Why did that seem to anger him? Jade’s lips parted, and she moistened them with her tongue, tasting salt. “Magnus?” she whispered.
Something leapt in his eyes. “Don’t look like that!” he said harshly.
Jade blinked, and dragged her eyes away from him. How had she looked? Apprehensive? Bewildered? Aroused? She was all of those at this moment. She knew he wanted her, too. But there was a new and disturbing quality in his kisses, in the way he touched her and looked at her, that had never been there before. It was almost as though he didn’t dare to touch her for fear of igniting something within himself that he might not be able to control.
When she looked at him again she found that he was sitting up, his forearms laid across his knees, his frowning gaze on the glittering horizon. The hand she could see was tightly clenched. He had the look of a man fighting some private, internal battle.
She wanted to reach out to him, run her hands over the taut curve of his spine, feel the texture of his skin, the strength of his fingers twining into hers. But his aloof, impenetrable posture was a deliberate attempt, she felt, to shut her out.
“Magnus,” she asked him, “how soon can we go to this cottage on the Hokianga?”
At first she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he briefly turned his head, but without looking at her. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’m not sure it’s such a good idea.”
Her stomach went hollow with disappointment. Then an alien, white-hot emotion took her over, and she sat up abruptly. “Why?” she demanded, her voice hard. “You have something more urgent to do, I suppose! What is it this time?”
He turned to her. “Jade—”
But she was beyond listening. “Whatever it is, obviously it’s more important than me, more important than our marriage. When are you going to have time for that, Magnus? And how long do you think I’ll wait?” She jumped up, scooping the towel into her hands and giving it a vigorous little shake, uncaring if Magnus was showered with sand.
He stood up, too, glaring at her, his voice full of raw impatience. “You don’t understand.”
“Understand?” Jade gave a bitter little laugh. “No, I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me, Magnus?”
“All right,” he said, his eyes glittering. “I will.” He hauled a breath into his chest. “I know that I was partly to blame—if I’d taken more notice of your needs, if I’d not expected so much of you, if I’d given you half the attention that I gave to my family—I can provide excuses till the cows come home. But if the two of us are alone, I can’t promise to behave like a civilised human being.”
At first bewildered, she rapidly sorted out an explanation. Subconsciously he was angry with her for withdrawing from life, from their marriage, into a world of her own. He had enough insight to analyse his own feelings and recognise them for an unfair and unreasonable reaction, but one that he couldn’t entirely control.
But Magnus was no sadist, and he wasn’t a bully, either. “I’m willing to take the risk,” she told him huskily. If they were ever to get their relationship back on track, she didn’t see them doing it easily at Waititapu, with the constant demands made on him by his business and his family, the lack of real privacy, and not least the memories of the past that hung about it. “I’m not made of glass, Magnus,” she said.
His eyes went very dark suddenly, and his cheeks blanched. “What are you saying?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Saying?” Jade took a step backwards, her feet sinking into the warm sand. “I suppose,” she said slowly, “that I’m saying I know you’re angry with me, but I’m strong enough now to take it.”
Her chin lifted. “But I’m angry, too, Magnus. I hadn’t realised it until now.” It was true, she hadn’t recognised her tightly reined-in rage for what it really was. But it was there, smouldering beneath the surface. He was being unfair, and unreasonable, and his self-accusation held more than a grain of truth. She wouldn’t have been human if she’d failed to resent his preoccupation with everything, everyone, except her, in the time they’d spent together. She said, her eyes defiantly holding his, “It’s one of the things we need to...resolve.”
The colour gradually returning to his face, he deliberately looked away for a moment before returning his steady gaze to hers. “I don’t want to be responsible,” he said sombrely, “for making you ill again.”
Jade shook her head. “No chance. We need this...holiday, Magnus. To clear the air between us. So, when do we leave?”
“Tomorrow,” he said, finally. “As early as you wish.”
* * *
The last part of the trip was made on a car ferry from the little town of Rawene. Here the harbour was broad and tranquil, and a faint breeze ruffled Jade’s hair and made Magnus’s shirt cling to his body when they got out of the car to lean over the low side and gaze at the water.
The bushy hills were a soft, shadowed green, and lazy mists lay in some of the hollows. The harbour, a long, fretted waterway from the unseen ocean, reaching deeply inland, had once been a source of timber and spars for the British navy. By the end of the nineteenth century the vast forests of mighty kauri trees had been cut down, and now only remnants were left for tourists to admire.
The ferry glided to a halt, and the metal ramp clanged down. A large, battered truck began revving its engine, and Magnus touched Jade’s arm. “Come on, we’d better not hold everyone up.” They returned to their car.
In Rawene they’d had lunch and bought boxes of groceries that now sat in the back. Slowing at another small settlement, Magnus said, “Any last-minute thing you need?”
Jade shook her head. “No, I’ve brought everything, I think.”
He drove a little further and slowed again at a yellow signpost, then turned off the main road, eventually arriving at a wooden gate barring access to a winding drive.
“I’ll get it.” Jade got out and swung the gate wide, closing it when Magnus had driven through. The drive was cut through rough scrub, and when she got back in beside him, she asked, “Are you sure there really is a house here?”
He slanted her a tight smile. “I’ve been here before, with the owner. You’ll be surprised.”
She was, when they finally arrived at a long, low cottage built on a slope that commanded a breathtaking view of hills graduating in a series of lowering humps to the wide sweep of the Hokianga, now ablaze with the midday sun, a shining sheet of breathing silver.
Magnus unlocked the door and led her into a large open living area furnished with cane loungers and big Indian cushions. “The kitchen’s over there,” he said with a nod. A high counter separated it from the rest, and a round table was set near a bay window overlooking the sea. “The bedroom’s here.”
He shouldered open a door, and Jade saw a large room, with a broad dais on which a king-size mattress had been laid, covered with a heavy cotton quilt. One wall featured a built-in dressing table and a wardrobe with a mirrored door. “And the bathroom’s through here.” Magnus had put down the cases he was carrying and opened another door. “And the spa room, off it. There’s a toilet and shower near the laundry, too.”
“One bedroom?” Jade queried.
“There is a guest room downstairs.”
“I...didn’t realise there were two levels.”
“Being on the slope, there’s room for a basement. You don’t notice it from the drive.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, lounging against the doorway to the bathroom. “Are you having second thoughts about sharing a room with me?”
“We’re married, aren’t we?” She faced him, looking into his eyes. It was silly to be suddenly shy of the idea. She’d been eager enough to resume sharing their room at Waititapu, but so much seemed to have taken place in the last few days, she was nervous at the thought of spending the night
in this king-size bed with Magnus.
He straightened, strolling across the room to stand in front of her, his eyes alert and challenging. “Yes, we are,” he said. “And I don’t intend you’ll ever forget it again.”
Jade winced visibly. There had been times, during her illness, when she scarcely remembered her own name. But she supposed it must have hurt Magnus if he thought she could have forgotten the intimacy that they’d shared. “Magnus—” she said, putting out a hand to place it on his shirt front, her eyes pleading. “I’m so sorry!”
He raised his own hand and held hers in a crushing grip, his eyes glinting down at her. “Yes,” he said, “I believe you are. And so am I. The trouble is, I’m also bloody furious, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to overcome that.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “You can’t help it...I understand.”
“Do you?” He shook his head. “I wish I could say the same.” His eyes went narrow, and he lifted his other hand and traced the line of her lips.
Jade frowned, puzzled. “You can’t?”
“I can’t,” he confirmed. “Believe me, I’m trying. Logic says it was understandable but my heart won’t listen to logic. My heart—feels betrayed.”
As if he felt he’d said too much, he abruptly released her and turned away. “I have to turn on a generator and water pump,” he said, “so that we can have our home comforts. When the water’s heated, which should be in a couple of hours, how about a spa bath?”
“Together?”
“The whole idea of this week is to do things together, isn’t it?”
He sounded grim rather than teasing, but Jade swallowed and said, “Yes, if that’s what you’d like.”
“No,” he said, “if it’s what you’d like.”
“Then—I think I’d prefer it after dinner. I thought I’d cook something special for us.”
“Okay,” he agreed.
She did feel hot and sticky, though. It had been a long journey. “I suppose I could have a cold shower. We’re quite a long way from the harbour, aren’t we?”
“Yes, but there’s a water-hole we could walk to. It’s not like the sea, of course. But refreshing. And very private.”
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