by Margaret Way
For a moment he was as startled as she was, his heart contracting before expanding, his arms locking around her, capturing her as if she were some wraith of the storm.
“Good God, what have I got here?” he murmured from a husky throat.
Such a question when no one absolutely no one else could have aroused such lavish arousal. She was just barely covered in the finest cotton, dressed up with little bits of ribbon and lace and tiny buttons that pressed into his chest. The nightdress was clinging to her body, scented with the nectar of her and the sharp blood-warm greenness of the rain. She didn’t struggle. Indeed her bones seemed to turn to liquid so she was like silk in his arms. As they stood there, lightning blazed in the lacquer-black night, burning his downward view of her into his retina. Her breasts were barely masked by the feather-light fabric. They gleamed opalescent; the tips bruised a dark rose. He wanted to stoop and cup her breasts in his hands. He wanted to suckle the sweet budding nipples.
Catrina, he thought. My God, my heart!
Desire licked through his flesh; a frantic need for gratification. She was no sacrifice to his disturbed dangerous mood. He was in love with her. He had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Everything leading him to that point in his life like a revelation. But there was danger for both of them in its driving force, the thought he couldn’t stop. She was whispering to him, looking urgently toward the small figure of Reggie curled up sound asleep in her bed.
“I was going to close the shutters.” Her breath came in little exhalations.
“My thought, too.” Abruptly he released her, trying to beat back the desperation that was in him. “Why don’t you move back onto the verandah while I do it? You’ll have to change your nightdress anyway. It’s damp.”
He, on the other hand, was fully clothed. In fact he hadn’t gone to bed, too deeply disturbed by his ex-wife’s visit and its implications for Regina.
Incredibly Sharon hadn’t made an immediate request to see her child as almost any other mother in the world would have, saying she preferred to wait until morning to give Regina “a few early Christmas presents.” She was, however, “absolutely ecstatic” to see him. A woman so ego-driven she couldn’t see it was one of the great turn-offs of his life. Innocent little Reggie’s birth had destroyed any tender feelings he might have had for Sharon though it took him eighteen months to find out for sure Reggie wasn’t his.
Swiftly he closed the timber shutters leaving the French doors open for the heat. The verandahs were deep. Even in the worst of storms the full force of the rain didn’t reach the central core of the house. Reggie was lost in her dreams. He hoped they were good.
His hand stretched out to take hers as he led Catrina back to her room. The spray from the rain, swirling a blue mist as the lightning lashed, enveloping them both, slicking their skin and wetting their clothes, but never cooling the waves of fire in the blood. They had barely reached Carrie’s room before the force of his feelings overcame him. His arm cradled her back as he bent her over his arm.
“God, I want you!” he uttered, the soft moan edged with a trace of violence as passion and a self-imposed restraint warred within him. He lowered his head over hers, took her mouth, found it open and waiting, wet and tasting of rain. Her nightgown was plastered to her and he had the most powerful urge to ease it from her body. To hold her naked in his arms. He couldn’t even hear the thunder that was cracking overhead so great was his own agitation. Just how much was a man supposed to take? To have this young woman under his roof. A young woman so good at communicating with his family, leading a troubled child with the gentlest of reins. To see her day in and day out. Dine with her at night, see her behind his eyelids as he finally closed his eyes for sleep.
As he withdrew his mouth momentarily to give her breath, something flickered on the periphery of his vision. In an instant he was alerted. Someone was moving along the verandah. A woman. He wasted no time. Now wasn’t the moment for some shocking confrontation. With the tall curving fronds of the golden canes screening them he lifted Catrina clear off her feet and carried her back into her room.
“Go to bed!” he clipped off with so much urgency, Carrie found herself obeying. He sounded too remarkably sober for a seduction scene, a feat in itself after the tumultuous passion of his kiss. Even though she was all but soaked to the skin, she lay down on the extreme edge of the bed, watching him make short work of closing the other French door before shooting home the bolt.
It was beyond Carrie’s understanding. A bizarre melodrama but despite that she trusted him with all her heart. Moments later with Royce standing well back in the dark recesses, a woman’s figure appeared ghostlike outside Carrie’s locked doors. It gave Carrie such a fright she uttered a strangled little cry in her throat that mercifully was lost in the turbulence of the night.
Sharon! Carrie had a moment of devastating revulsion.
She turned on her back, half closing her eyes and pretending sleep. The room turned luminous as another bolt of lightning zigzagged down the sky. Sharon stared in. Incredibly the doors rocked back and forth as she attempted to open them, but they held. When Carrie turned to look again, Sharon was gone.
Immediately Carrie dashed up, her body shaking, pulling the sheer curtains out of their loops and across the French doors. This was a first in her life.
“Is it possible your wife thought she was going to find you in my bed?” she demanded of the tall figure who moved out of the shadows to be near her.
“My ex-wife,” he corrected, then inexplicably began to laugh, holding it in before it became a shout. “You have to hand it to that woman for sheer cheek!”
“No way is she normal,” Carrie breathed. “She didn’t even want to see her own daughter. Would you like to try explaining all this?”
“Catrina, I haven’t got the time,” he mocked, “and it would drive me crazy.”
“So we wait until she comes to the other door?”
He shook his head. “I hope you had the sense to lock up.”
“Actually I did on account of her.”
He nodded as if he understood exactly. “The time has passed for any reasonable talk with Sharon. I’m at the point of throwing her out.”
“She’s brought you a lot of misery, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, but it’s Reggie who has suffered the most.” His voice was bleak.
“So what do we do now?” Carrie asked very quietly.
“I know what I’d like to do,” he replied with black humour. “Take that nightgown off you and towel you dry.”
She was mute for a moment, racked by little ripples that multiplied. “I’m not a child.”
“You’re telling me?” His low laugh was a shade harsh. “Failing that, I think I should pour myself a stiff drink.”
“Well, I don’t have one to offer you.” Carrie shrugged helplessly. “Just as well. I might be persuaded to have one myself. But I will get out of this nightgown.” She began to pad across the room, brought to a gasping halt as something pierced her foot. “Oh, no!”
“What is it?” he questioned, in his frustration a little fierce.
“I’ve cut my foot.”
“How the devil could you do that?” He sounded concerned but very restless.
“The curtain knocked over an ornament. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, I’ll take it out of your wages.” Again a low laugh as though humour could reduce the tremendous electric charge between them. “Here, come into the bathroom.” He found her bare shoulder, couldn’t resist palming it.
“I might get blood on the rug,” she warned. The rug was superb. Persian.
“Okay, so I carry you.” He swooped and lifted her, kissing her a little roughly but oh so sweetly on the mouth.
“I’m getting accustomed to this, Royce McQuillan,” she said in a hushed voice. “Be warned.”
“Maybe it’s me who’s thinking you’ll never get away from me,” he answered.
Inside the spacious en suite he c
losed the door first before turning on the light. He deposited her on the marble bench, before gently taking hold of her foot. “This is what comes of running about in bare feet.” He examined the soft area to the side of her instep. “Damn there’s a tiny fragment still in it. You’re not chilled, are you?” He dared a brief glance at her, desire still lashing at him.
“You’re joking. I’m steaming.” She gave a little laugh, reaching out for a hand towel, then patting her face and throat dry. “You’re even wetter than I am.” Her voice shook a little as her own feelings crested. His hair gleamed blue-black in the bright light, curling into damp waves and curls. His skin had the perfect polish of bronze. The soft shirt he had worn at dinner was dyed a deeper blue by the rain. He had undone a couple of buttons and pulled the wet collar back. She could see his muscular chest, the fine whorls of dark hair that lightly matted it. Not only the cut on her foot was throbbing. Her whole body was. The two of them sealed off in this quiet room.
“That’s what comes of making love in the rain,” he answered her as he walked away to the wall cabinet where he found cotton wool, antiseptic and some bandaids. “Your feet are as beautiful as your hands,” he remarked as he went about tending the wound.
“I’ve been hearing that since I was two days old.” She smiled.
“Aren’t you lucky?”
“You can’t really believe that?” She sought his brilliant eyes, her heart beating madly.
“I do.” He answered as though it mattered a great deal to him. “I can see into the future, Catrina, and my vision of you is good.”
“Do you believe in destiny?” she asked, her voice very soft.
“I surely do.” He opened up. “It was my parents’ destiny to die together in a plane crash. It was my destiny to marry Sharon and later divorce her. Gran keeps telling me fate is going to step in again, this time with the right woman. The woman who will put me under her spell from the moment I lay eyes on her.”
Look at me. Look at me, Carrie begged silently. She had given him her heart. She couldn’t take it back.
“Do you know her name?” she asked, her voice so faint she wondered if she had spoken at all.
“Suzanne.” He plucked a name from the top of his head, his smile teasing.
“Really?” She searched his face with her great golden eyes, seeing the sparkle of humour.
“We can’t stay here, Catrina, you know that.” His senses were swimming with her nearness and the sight of her lovely body, much too lightly veiled. Her soft heavy hair was falling loosely, radiantly all around her shoulders, drying fast in the heat, her long legs naked, the skirt of her nightgown rucked up to her fine-boned knees. She looked sexy beyond belief, yet so young and innocent.
“Have you ever had a lover?” he found himself asking, his voice dropping in pitch.
She closed her eyes thinking if she kept them open he couldn’t fail to see she was hopelessly, madly in love with him. “No,” she answered truthfully. I thought I’d been made love to but I’ve since learned I was wrong about that. She opened her eyes again and stared back at him. “You make me sad, Royce McQuillan.”
“I don’t believe that. I can’t.” His fingers pressed gently on the pulse in her throat.
“Then why do you twist my heart?”
The admission made his senses soar. “Do I?” He was barely aware he moved, yet his hand reached out to caress her breast, pushing aside the low neck of her nightgown to find her seductive silky flesh. “Carrie, what am I doing?” he groaned. He was like a man split in two. One part of him wanted to let her go back to her virginal bed, the other thought there was no possible way he could let her.
She was luring him on, her hands reaching out to clutch his shoulders as he stroked her breast, her head tipped back, her back arching at the pleasure his hands were giving her.
“You are so beautiful!” He heard his own voice purr into her ear as his mouth began to track across her face, covering it with kisses…her throat…the upper swell of her breasts. He couldn’t get enough of her.
She gasped when his mouth found her erect nipple, her body for a moment going rigid with that deep inhalation. He lifted his head, trying to contain himself to the point he was sure of her reactions but she cried out softly, “Please don’t stop!” Sensation after sensation was flashing down her spine, the pleasure so intense it was almost a pain too great to bear.
“I can’t do this,” he said after fevered minutes, even as he lifted her, crushing her in his arms. “I can’t do it. Stop me.” It was a cry of anguish torn from his lips. The very air vibrated around them, thrumming with shocked sexual pleasure and his violent arousal. She had to stop him. Before it was too late.
It seemed an eternity before Carrie could respond. Her every desire, her every need, her every want was for him. His hands were gripping her hips as she clung to him, his long fingers splayed toward the apex of her body that was contracting sharply in the throes of intense physical excitement.
“I’m sorry…sorry…” Her knees were almost buckling under her but she somehow managed to fall back against the door.
“God, what have you got to be sorry about,” he muttered through white clenched teeth. “I’m acting like a man possessed.” He raked his hand through his hair.
“I offered myself to you.” Carrie took her share of responsibility for the explosive loss of control.
“And I’m going to take you, Catrina,” he promised harshly, “but it’s going to be the right place and the right time. I couldn’t bear it if you came to hate me.”
Her mind reeled at the very thought. Hate him? She loved him. Nothing to be done about it. “How could you say such a thing? You’ve changed my whole existence.”
“Complicated it, too.” His striking face was sombre. “There are things I haven’t told you, Catrina. Information I’ve denied you. But I’ve felt like a man caged.”
“Then tell me now.” Her face radiated an intense urge to help.
“Not now.” His smile twisted. “I can’t be with you like this. My whole mind and body is focused on making love to you. But I couldn’t bear to trap you. It’s going to be a bad day ahead. I feel it like a black reality—Sharon is a sick unstable woman. For years now my whole experience of her has been either elation or depression. Whatever happens, I don’t want you to leave. Promise me?” He touched her cheek.
“Nothing easier.” She stared up into his brilliant eyes. “I won’t.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” He smiled grimly, then reached past her to open the door.
“Is Mummy going to want to see me this morning?” Reggie asked, wringing Carrie’s heart. She was laying out the child’s clothes. The best outfit she could find. Good quality but dull. Carrie determined on a trip into town in the near future where she could buy the little girl some of the latest gear for children. Bright colours, bright patterns. There were some marvellous labels for kids. She would have Reggie’s hair cut while she was at it. Reggie truly did have great hair but it fell into the fairly unmanageable category being thick and extra crinkly-curly. Both her mother and father had very dark hair, Royce McQuillan’s blue-black, Sharon’s a deep sable. Reggie’s was pretty much nondescript, which was unusual. But she could change that when she was much older with the use of colour. Reggie was clever and funny, often hilarious, and Carrie had grown very fond of her. “Let’s go downstairs and see.” Carrie had come to her decision. “The two of us can’t hide away up here. What do you say?”
Reggie pulled the blouse over her head and grinned. “Suits me. I haven’t seen Mummy in ages.”
“So we’re going to show her what a debonair little girl you can be?”
“What’s debonair?” asked Reggie.
“It means you have very charming manners and you’re cheerful.”
“That’s me.”
After the storm of the night before, it was a brilliant day outside, the sun slanting through the front door into the lobby. Holding Reggie’s hand, Carrie made her way do
wn to the informal dining room where she found Sharon and Lindsey seated together. Both looked up, their faces cold and without welcome.
“Good morning.” Carrie spoke pleasantly, expecting Reggie to let go of her hand and rush toward her mother.
It didn’t happen. Reggie continued to cling to her side and instead of holding out her arms, Sharon McQuillan addressed Carrie.
“So, the new governess, so beautiful and so talented! You never had the guts to admit who you were.”
It was quite a frontal attack but Carrie didn’t waver. “I’m sorry, you confuse me, Mrs. McQuillan. You speak as though I’d committed a crime?”
“Well, haven’t you? Running after Royce. Where the hell was he last night?”
“I suggest you ask him,” Carrie answered calmly. “I’ll go away. I thought you might want to speak to your daughter?”
“No, don’t go away,” Sharon suddenly thundered, not able to hold back her jealousy and anger. “My child doesn’t need a governess. I’m here to take her away.”
“Sharon?” Lindsey flung the other woman a startled glance.
“You keep out of this, Lyn,” Sharon warned. “This is me, remember. I’m awake to you. I just use you when I need information.”
Lindsey stood up. “Really? I don’t have to listen to this.”
“Then clear off.”
So much for mother love. So much for making the decision to come downstairs. “I’ll bring Reggie back at another time,” Carrie volunteered.
“Oooooooh, Reggie! What sort of name is that?” Sharon shouted.
“It’s my name,” Reggie answered with more than a touch of her old belligerence, surveying her mother’s thin, glamorous figure, dressed in a pink silk shirt and matching narrow-legged trousers. “Aren’t you happy to see me at all?”