by Margaret Way
“I’m saying nothing,” she gritted, though the excited color had risen to her face, making her beauty dazzling.
His tongue was against her teeth, determined to gain entry.
“Really?” His voice was a low growl in his chest.
Now he was kissing her without restraint. Fierce and fiery. As though she had given him permission to do with her whatever he wanted. She could hear her half-stifled moans. Her slip came off, her bra, her panties. Sunlight was filtering into the room through the blinds, turning her skin radiant.
“You’re exquisite!” he muttered. “And, God, how I want you!” His arms closed around her, then helifted her without effort and threw her trembling and wildly aroused onto the bed.
“The quilt is turned back!” she said furiously. She kicked at the thick folds at the end of the bed. “Did you have it all planned?”
“I don’t think there’s a moment that I haven’t had it all planned.” He tumed back to her, stripped naked.
The splendor of his body gave her such enormous illicit pleasure she could do nothing else but reach out to him with hands that were a blend of pleading and intense longing. It was no invitation. Only a painful mime of a woman’s ultimate surrender.
“This is all there is, remember!” She repeated her warning, acknowledging her own surrender, but determined to salvage something of her pride. “No follow-ups, no tomorrow.”
He didn’t answer but his expression was eloquent of high scorn. He swooped onto the bed beside her, half poised above her, drinking her in with dark eyes that sparkled with gold chips. Then he began to make love to her with his masterly hands, neglecting no part of her body, until her heart was fluttering in her throat. .
She could think of nothing. Her mind went blank as every cell in her body sparked into vibrant life. There was only this mind-blowing sensation. Sensation she never wanted to escape. She felt so ecstatic she was impelled to lift an arm to draw his marvelous mouth down to hers. She was thirsting for it as a woman lost in the desert thirsts for flowing water.
At last!
He might take her for his pleasure. He might use it against her, even blackmail her into going to bed with him again. He might do all of those things, but she could never say she hadn’t been party to it. She wanted him, she realized, as much as she wanted life itself.
CHAPTER TWELVE
QUITE UNEXPECTEDLY Cecile had reason for cutting short her holiday with her grandfather and thus putting herself beyond Rolfe’s orbit. She was in pain and unsure of her ability to withstand him. Maybe at some time in the future she could confront the issues between them but for now so volatile were her moods she knew she couldn’t discuss anything with him without swiftly veering into anger. He had deceived her. On the face of it he had used her. She badly needed time away from him to work out where she was going with her life. Her mother’s phone call gave her the excuse to pack up and go home.
Justine rang that very evening, sounding so unlike herself, so nearly hysterical, for a moment Cecile doubted it was Justine on the other end of the line.
“What is it, Mother? Just tell me.” She had immediately jumped to the conclusion that Stuart, out of spite, had gone to Justine with his report. Not that it would do anyone any good; nor did she think it could make her mother sound so out of control.
“I need you, that’s all!” Justine cried. “I can’t go into it now. I want you to come home immediately. You’ve spent enough time with Daddy. I am your mother, after all.”
“Well, of course I’ll come!” Cecile felt panicked fearing her mother might have discovered she was ill. The frightening prospect of breast cancer came to mind. Her mother sounded desperate enough. “I’ll speak to Granddad now. His pilot will fly me back to Melbourne.”
Which was what happened. Her grandfather exacted a promise from Cecile before she left to ring back and let him know what Justine’s problem was. “Such a secretive girl, Justine,” he said, also worried his daughter may have received bad news regarding her health.
When Cecile did finally arrive at her parents’ palatial home, the house where she had grown up, the maid let her in. She found her mother upstairs in the master bedroom frantically pulling her father’s expensive suits off the hangers in the dressing room and flinging them all round the place with furious abandon. Justine’s tall slim body was encased in a satin robe, though it was midafternoon. Her eyes were wild and her luxuriant mane of hair, always so meticulously groomed, was a tangled mess. She wore no makeup either, and Cecile had rarely seen her mother without it, even first thing in the morning.
“Mum, what in the world is happening?” Cecile was so shocked she dropped the more formal “Mother” Justine had long insisted was preferable to plain Mum.
“Your bloody father is leaving me, that’s what!” Justine shouted, her actions growing wilder and wilder by the minute. “Can you believe it? Nearly thirty bloody years together and the bastard is leaving me for another woman.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Cecile sank like a stone onto a pile of her father’s clothes that were scattered all over the bed, too shocked to shift them. Whatever scenario she had imagined on the flight home, it was never this! Her parents’ marriage vows—and she supposed the prenuptial agreement—were set in stone.
“Of course he’s had his women,” Justine said in a voice filled with the greatest contempt and anger. “He’s always had his women—and don’t try to tell me you didn’t know about it,” she rounded on Cecile as though Cecile had long been her father’s coconspirator. “Howard and I had an understanding—as long as he was discreet. I’ve never been a great one for sex. Why is sex so bloody all-consuming?” she ranted. “I always found it bloody messy!” She shuddered fastidiously; “But it was understood we would always remain married. Now he tells me he truly loves some bitch of a woman who has worked for him for years.”
Cecile released a pent-up breath through her nose. Her mother never swore, but she was giving “bloody” a serious beating. Her mind immediately began to range over any number of attractive women who worked for Moreland Mining. It could be any one of them. Married or not. Her father was only in his midfifties, a handsome vigorous, wealthy man. In other words, a prize. Would his job still be secure? She doubted it. He could and would be voted out if her mother had anything to do with it. She had the sick certainty her mother would become extremely vengeful now that she knew herself a wife scorned.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Justine was saying, her body visibly shaking with rage. She picked up a large pair of scissors and hacked through a dozen or more beautiful silk ties.
“Must you do that, Mum?” Cecile implored, upset at such senseless destruction.
“Yes, I must!” Justine started on some long winter scarves. “I bought the bloody things anyway.”
“I’m so sorry, Mum.” Cecile was tempted to go to her mother and hug her, but she knew her mother disliked physical contact. “I know this is very very painful for you.”
“You bet your bloody life it is!” Justine said, slaughtering the sleeves of a dress shiit. “How can I be expected to cope with public humiliation? I have a position in society. Now there’s you and your father and your broken promises. Two of a kind, it seems.”
“How very unfair,” Cecile lamented, unable to bring herself to a more angry response. “You’ve been speaking to Stuart?”
“I gave him a hearing,” Justine said. “I don’t have to justify myself to you or anyone. Stuart mightn’t be perfect, but he would have made you a faithful husband.”
“You don’t know that, Mum.” Cecile felt too miserable to argue. “It was a painful decision breaking my engagement. I should have done it a lot sooner. This woman we’re talking about—she’s young, around my age?” Cecile thought that would be the case. It usually was. Men in a desperate bid to recapture lost youth.
“She’s my bloody age.” Justine gave a gut-churning screech, seemingly more affronted a mature woman could steal her husband rather than s
ome blond bimbo. “He says he loves her. Love?” she cried, tugging a pair of trousers across the carpet. What does that mean?”
“Sorry, I don’t know, either,” Cecile said forlomly.
“Bugger you! You had a good man and you sent him packing. I thought what I did for your bloody father all these long years was love. I’ve fussed over him like he was a bloody teenager. I even laid out his bloody clothes. You know that I keep a marvelous house. I’m a leading hostess in this town. My garden is admired by everyone. I always look impeccable. It didn’t mean a thing! I’m Joel Moreland’s daughter, dammit! That’s why he married me. Don’t stare at me saucer-eyed. He married me because I was Joel Moreland’s daughter. It wasn’t any silly bloody love match. It was for the long haul. Compatibility, companionship, moving in the same circles, having the same goals. Forget this idiotic love at first sight business. That’s over before it’s begun,” she snorted, hacking the trousers above the knee.
“Dad wanted a son, Mum. More children,” Cecile pointed out just for the record. “You Wouldn’t give them to him.”
Justine’s scissors shut with a snap. “What are you talking about?” She stared at Cecile with a stab of near hatred.
“Don’t let’s have any more deceptions, Mum.” Cecile, her own emotions raw, made a stand. “There was no reason why you couldn’t have had more children, You just didn’t want them. You’ve been living a myth all these years. I would have loved a sister or a brother, preferably both. Have you ever thought of that?”
Justine strode over to the bed looking like Lady Macbeth about to plunge in the dagger. “Who told you?” she demanded, attempting to drag more clothes onto the floor. “Don’t bother to answer. It was Bea, wasn’t it? She never could keep her mouth shut, the wicked old bag.”
A small part of Cecile knew her mother could be dangerous, but her face stayed composed. “She’s kept it shut all these years. What does it matter who told me, Mum? You made a very big mistake there. Dad is a virile, handsome man.”
“He’s bloody well past middle age.”
“He doesn’t look it or act it.”
“Good one, good one!” Justine yelled, attacking with relish a Ralph Lauren polo shirt that had obviously never been worn. The price tag was still attached.
“Think about it, Mum.” Cecile had second thoughts about trying to take the tailoring scissors from her mother. “You denied him more children and you denied him a full sex life by your own admission. Didn’t you see that was destructive to your marriage? Didn’t you see it was the reason he went elsewhere?”
“Reason?” Justine spat out the word, tossing back her thick tangled hair. “Whose bloody side are you on, anyway? Anyone would think I was a terrible person, instead of a splendid wife and mother.”
“I’m not on any side, Mum,” Cecile said quietly. “I love you both. But I can’t help seeing things from Dad’s point of view. Is there no possibility of a reconciliation?”
Justine’s face went a life-threatening red. “You can’t think I want the bastard back, can you?” she asked with incredulous outrage. “He’s betrayed me once too often.”
You mean he ’s actually found someone to love, Cecile thought, but didn’t have the courage to say. Not with her mother wielding a lethal pair of scissors. “I’m so terribly sorry, Mum. Sorry for your pain. But you must see you allowed this whole situation to arise.”
Justine’s face went from a hectic red to chalk-white. “I’ll never forgive you for that, Cecile,” she breathed hoarsely.
“Oh Mum, please!” Cecile took her chances. She jumped up from the bed and crossing to her mother, tried to put her arms around her, but Justine, a strong woman at any time, in a manic phase, tossed her off easily. .
“I’ve given you everything you ever wanted, Cecile. The best of everything! You’ve never been exposed for a minute to the harsher aspects of life.”
“That’s not true!” Cecile protested. “In my job I see and hear some of the most reprehensible, most shameful, things in life.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Justine pressed on. “You didn’t have to do. a bloody thing, as I’ve told you many a time. You could have helped me with my charity work. The thing is, Cecile, you’ve been overprotected all your life. I spoilt you terribly.”
It simply wasn’t true. “No, you didn’t, Mother,” Cecile said, shaking her head. “I tried as hard as I knew how to please you. I excelled at everything because I knew there was no other way. Yet you continued to bully me mercilessly. When I think about it, you practically hounded me into getting engaged to Stuart, the rattlesnake.”
“Stop it!” Justine thundered. “It was time you got engaged. You could still finish up an old maid. You’re a frail creature under that beautiful face. A natural-born victim. You might be clever, but you’ve got no common sense at all and no good instincts. Stuart told me all about that bloody impostor you’ve got yourself in deep with.”
“Deep as the Titanic,” Cecile admitted sadly.
“No good will come of it, mark my words!” Scowling darkly, Justine shook the scissors. “And I thought like a fool I had your promise to stay away from him. Ah, well! You’re going to find out the hard way. Stuart was naturally reluctant to come right out with it, but I can read between the lines. You’re no more interested in sex than I am.”
Cecile laughed, though there was no humor in it. “Put it this way—sex with Stuart wasn’t all that interesting,” she said dryly, having experienced the greatest sex of her life but not about to tell her mother.
Justine narrowed her eyes. “So it’s this Raul, Rolfe, whatever the hell his real name is. I just hope you haven’t spread your legs for him.”
Cecile flinched. “That’s my business, Mother,” she said, thinking her mother could be as vulgar as the best of them.
“The only thing that surprises me is he’s not married.”
“God knows how he missed out!” Cecile gave a wry sigh. She looked at her. mother, who she believed, deep in her heart, loved her. “Have you forgotten so quickly how he saved me from certain injury, possibly death?”
Justine’s smile was terrible to see. “Oh, he’s brave enough, I grant you that. A marvelous looking man if you want to be seduced, but from what Stuart tells me, he’s a con man. It’s written all over him. He set the whole thing up. Meeting Daddy, then you. He knew he was bound to get you to fall in love with him. Your head has always been in the clouds. He broke every rule of decency, lying to Daddy—”
“He didn’t actually lie, did he?” Cecile found herself defending Rolfe, even though her heart was broken. “He is who he said he was. Maybe Raul is actually Rolfe, but his stepfather legally adopted him.”
“That much might be true, but the rest is all deception,” Justine said with lofty disdain.
“What about the deception in this family?” Cecile countered sharply. “According to Rolfe, his family suffered terribly and the person who made absolutely sure they suffered was Nan. Even now I can’t believe it.”
Justine looked poleaxed. “What in the world are you talking about?”
Was it possible her mother knew no more than she did? “Didn’t Stuart hand over a copy of his report?” Cecile asked. “It doesn’t tell the whole story, according to Rolfe, but he claims that Nan used all the Moreland clout to ruin Rolfe’s grandfather and drive the family off their land.”
“Whatever for? I read no report.” Justine frowned ferociously, resuming her destruction of a charcoal-gray cardigan. “I don’t want to hear all this. It’s ancient history, anyway. Stuart told me Raul Montalvan is really Rolfe Chandler. His father, from all accounts, was a nobody who got himself killed playing polo over in Argentina where he presumably went to get a job and make-some money. His mother’s brother was the young hoodlum who was responsible for the death of my brother—your uncle I might point out. This Rolfe, this con man, came back to Australia for the grand hustle. He’s in the polo game, isn’t he? He breeds ponies. He thoroughly researched his mark.
Can’t you see that? Once he met you, he counted on your falling into his arms. You have, haven’t you, you little fool You couldn’t possibly handle a man like that.”
“Maybe not,” Cecile admitted, picking up her handbag. “You haven’t had a lot of success, either. I was a fool to come here, Mother, a fool to try to support you. You turn people away. This is a beautiful big house—you have done a great deal for me and Dad—for which I thank you. You are a wonderful hostess, a stunning-looking woman, but you’re cheerless and so is this house. I don’t wonder Dad wants to get out from under. I don’t wonder he wants to know some happiness in the years ahead. And it’s disgusting what you’re doing.” She indicated with a thrust of her chin the piles of ruined clothing that lay on the carpet. “There’s no dignity to it. I think you should stop.”
“Stop!” Justine’s voice rose to glass-breaking point. She rushed forward, robe flying like wings, and before Cecile knew it was coming, struck her daughter across the face. “How dare you!”
Cecile staggered, slowly righted herself, her distress tinged with relief her mother had dropped the scissors. She couldn’t imagine at this point how they would ever make their way back. “But I do dare, Mother,” she said quietly. “I am sorry for you. I’m very sorry for you, but it’s impossible for me to stay any longer. You’re not—what was it?—frail like me. You’re one tough lady. I’ve no doubt you’ll get through this, then make up another cover story. You’re good at that. You don’t love Dad, anyway. At the risk of another smack in the face, I suggest you don’t know how to love, Mother. Now, I don’t think there’s anything more I can do for you, so I may as well be on my way. I’ll see myself out.”
“You do that!” Justine shouted after her daughter. “You and your father, both of you traitors. Ingrates! You might have Daddy wrapped around your little finger, but from this day forth in my book you’re disinherited.”
“Probably a good idea,” Cecile answered coolly from the doorway. “Use some of the money to see a good psychiatrist, Mother. You’ve got lots of problems. It’s about time you confronted them.”