Such Sweet Poison/Blind Passion

by Anne Mather

  Catherine nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and, after divesting himself of his boots and trousers, and the shirt, which she had already unbuttoned, Morgan gathered her into his arms and got to his feet.

  ‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said, and she thought those words had never sounded so good.

  Catherine awakened next morning, to find Hector staring at her in cool disdain from the open bedroom doorway. It was obvious he was not pleased, and, remembering how Neil had kicked him the night before, she felt a momentary sense of regret. But only a momentary one. Without Hector’s intervention, she might never have tried to escape Neil, might never have fallen and nearly brained herself, might never have frightened Morgan into—

  Her thoughts broke off at that point, as the realisation of the meaning of the warm body curled, spoonlike, around hers brought its own delicious awareness. Morgan was still asleep, his arm beneath her head, his face buried in her hair, and, remembering how they had spent the last twelve hours, she couldn’t honestly blame him. He must be exhausted, she thought, stretching with a delightful sense of lethargy. She was pretty exhausted herself. But so happy that she wanted to explode.

  Realising it was daylight beyond the drawn curtains, she squinted at the clock on the table beside the bed. It was after ten o’clock, she saw, with some amazement. No wonder Hector was giving her the evil eye. He wanted to be fed.

  Reluctantly, she eased herself away from Morgan, but she hadn’t reached the edge of the bed before he came after her. ‘Where’re you going?’ he protested, stopping her by the simple procedure of sliding a possessive arm and leg across her body, and, feeling the unmistakeable pressure of his arousal against her thigh, her resolution deserted her.

  ‘Hector needs feeding,’ she said, but there was little conviction in the words, and Morgan’s mouth took on a sensual curve.

  ‘So do I,’ he said huskily, rolling on to his back and pulling her on top of him. ‘Do you still love me?’

  ‘Madly,’ she breathed, only half in fun, and then, as his eyes darkened, she lowered her head and covered his mouth with hers.

  His response was instantaneous, and, presently, he rolled her over again, and parting her legs, eased his way into her. The throbbing ache that seemed to know only a temporary satiation was satisfied again, and Catherine thought how amazing it was that she had lived all these years without ever understanding what she had been missing. Neil had never made her feel even a half of what Morgan made her feel, and she realised now how wonderful love could be.

  ‘I can’t get enough of you,’ he muttered, inadvertently voicing what she had been thinking, and she opened her mouth against his chest.

  ‘Me, too,’ she breathed, as filaments of hair invaded her nose and mouth. ‘Oh, Morgan, I’m so glad you came back.’

  ‘So am I,’ he agreed fervently, rolling on to his side, facing her, one leg draped possessively around her. ‘If that—creep—had touched you, I’d have killed him!’

  She thought he would, too. There had been such an expression of hatred in his face when he had seen what Neil was trying to do to her. But he had controlled it, she remembered with some pride. Apart from expunging that one chunk of frustration, he had acted with extreme restraint, and any fears she had had that his years in Vietnam might have eroded his self-control had been dispelled.

  ‘How did you get here anyway?’ she exclaimed. ‘Was it—your father?’

  She hated asking him that. She hated the thought that he might only be here because General Lynch had asked him to come.

  ‘My father!’ Morgan’s mouth twisted. ‘Did you know he’d sent his pet intelligence agent looking for me? Oh, yes. Of course, you did. He told you, didn’t he?’

  Catherine swallowed. ‘Yes.’ She hesitated. ‘Did—did he find you?’

  ‘Who? Dwight?’ Morgan stroked a teasing finger down her breast, enjoying the way her nipple hardened instantly. ‘How could he? He didn’t know where I was.’

  ‘But…’ Catherine caught her breath as he took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and gently tugged. ‘I—thought—your father thought you were in Florida.’

  ‘I know.’ Morgan looked at her through narrowed eyes, watching her helpless arousal. ‘But I wasn’t.’

  Catherine removed his hand from her breast. ‘Please,’ she said, appealingly, ‘I want to know what happened.’

  ‘All right.’ Realising he couldn’t go on holding her and relate what had happened, Morgan turned on to his back. But he turned his head towards her. ‘I did go to the States,’ he admitted softly. ‘A few days after—well, a few days after you’d come to the apartment, I realised I couldn’t go on living in the same town and not see you. I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d come looking for you again, and I thought that wasn’t fair—to either of us.’

  ‘Oh, Morgan!’

  ‘Well. You knew how I felt,’ he reminded her. ‘That was why I knew I had to get away. I told myself I needed some time to myself; time to think about the future, and what I was going to do with my life. But the truth was, I was fighting the need to throw myself on your mercy, and let the future take care of itself.’

  ‘Oh, love!’

  She leaned over and kissed him then, and it was with the utmost reluctance that he let her go again.

  ‘I thought—if I went back home—I might see things in their real perspective,’ he continued huskily.

  Catherine frowned. ‘But—your father said he hadn’t seen you.’

  ‘He hadn’t.’ Morgan grimaced. ‘I didn’t go see him. I knew if I did, I’d have to explain what I was doing there, when I was supposed to be working at the Embassy, and I couldn’t face that.’

  ‘But—he does care about you.’

  ‘Oh, I know that.’ Morgan sighed. ‘I’ve been a great disappointment to the old man, and if he hadn’t cared about me I guess he’d have washed his hands of me by now.’

  ‘That’s not true.’ Catherine propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at him. ‘He’s very proud of you. He said so. He blames himself for your—estrangement. I just don’t think he knows how to tell you.’

  Morgan absorbed this, and then shook his head. ‘Well—maybe,’ he conceded wryly. ‘But nothing can alter the fact that I’m not the son he would have chosen for himself.’

  Catherine hesitated. ‘So—where did you go?’

  ‘Oh…’ With his eyes on her mouth, Morgan had to concentrate to remember what he had been saying. ‘Well, I visited a few of the places that had meant something to me in the past. Los Angeles; I wanted to go to university there, but I guess the old man told you what happened.’ And at her nod, he went on, ‘I went to Arlington. Not to the house, but to the cemetery. My mother’s buried there. Not in the military cemetery, of course, although I visited it, too.’ His eyes darkened briefly. ‘Some guys I knew are buried there.’

  Catherine bent her head. She could imagine how painful that must have been for him.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, more positively, ‘last of all, I went to a place called Lawton Heights. It’s in the Catskill Mountains; they’re in New York State. There’s a clinic there I once knew very well. I should do. I spent two years there.’

  Catherine inclined her head. ‘And?’

  ‘I talked to the doctor who had treated me. I told him—I had met someone, and—that I loved her, and wanted to marry her.’

  ‘Oh, Morgan.’

  ‘He examined me. He said I was in good shape.’ Morgan gave a rueful laugh at this point. ‘Of course, I didn’t believe him. But at least it convinced me I wasn’t going out of my head.’ He hesitated. ‘He also said there was no reason why I should remain—’

  He broke off, and Catherine buried her face in the hollow of his neck. She knew how hard it must be for him to tell her these things, but she also wanted him to know how much it meant to her.

  ‘That was when I knew I had to come back to England,’ he said. ‘Weak, eh?’ He shook his head. ‘Whatever, I couldn’t live wit
hout you.’

  Catherine hugged him closer. ‘You won’t have to.’

  ‘No?’ Morgan’s dark expression softened. ‘Does that mean you’ll have me?’

  ‘Try and get away,’ muttered Catherine, winding herself about him, and for a while there was a satisfying silence in the bedroom.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘AT LEAST I won’t need to take sleeping tablets any more,’ Morgan teased her an hour later, as they shared a belated breakfast in the kitchen. ‘I’m shattered! I’ve never made love in a bath before.’

  Catherine dimpled, only a slight trace of colour appearing beneath the rims of her spectacles. ‘I didn’t hear you complaining,’ she murmured, as Hector offered a satisfied growl at being fed at last.

  ‘I’m not.’ In her peach towelling bathrobe, Morgan was disarmingly sensual. ‘I’m just making an observation. Do you want to come here, and I’ll prove it?’

  ‘I’ve got to get dressed,’ protested Catherine, but she let him pull her on to his knee, her silk kimono parting provocatively to reveal a long, curvaceous thigh. ‘Didn’t you say your father was expecting us at the apartment in half an hour?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Morgan nuzzled her shoulder. ‘But he can wait. I told him not to hold his breath.’

  Catherine gurgled with laughter. Morgan had told her he had been as surprised to find his father at his apartment, the day before, as General Lynch had been to see him. But prolonged explanations had had to wait, after his father had confessed what he and Catherine had been planning to do. Instead, Morgan had come straight round to her house, to tell her he was back. And she knew the rest.

  However, this morning Morgan had stirred himself sufficiently to phone his father, and let the old man know that, contrary to his fears, his son was no longer a victim of his experiences. Catherine could guess how General Lynch must feel, but, even as she considered his delight, a painful realisation struck her.

  Pushing herself off Morgan’s knee, she went to stand at the window, looking out at the bare winter garden. She was like the garden, she thought: barren, and unproductive. With her for a daughter-in-law, General Lynch would never have the grandson he so obviously would want.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  Ever perceptive of Catherine’s feelings, Morgan had come to stand behind her, sliding his arms around her waist and across her stomach, pressing her back against his lean, strong body. Catherine allowed herself the luxury of resting against him for a long, languorous minute, and then she determinedly tried to pull away again.

  ‘I am,’ she said, with difficulty. ‘Have—have you forgotten? I—can’t give you any children.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ declared Morgan huskily. ‘So? What does it matter? We have each other. Isn’t that enough?’

  Catherine twisted round in his arms, and took his face between her palms. ‘It is for me,’ she said painfully. ‘But you—you deserve someone who—who can give you sons and daughters, as beautiful as you are yourself.’

  Morgan shook his head. ‘I deserve you,’ he told her firmly. ‘I’ve convinced myself of that. Don’t tell me you’re going to take it away from me now.’

  ‘Oh, Morgan!’ She slipped her arms around his neck. ‘I love you so much.’

  ‘Do you?’ Morgan’s smile was teasing. ‘I think I’m going to need a lot more proof of that.’

  When Mrs Lambert arrived about three-quarters of an hour later, they were still not dressed, and when Catherine answered the door in her kimono her mother looked at her askance.

  ‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed, when Catherine stepped back to let her into the house. ‘When Agnes told me what you were doing, I didn’t believe her.’

  Catherine’s eyes widened, and she glanced revealingly up the stairs, before leading her mother into the kitchen. ‘Er—what did Aunt Agnes tell you?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ her mother replied shortly, her sharp eyes noting the two sets of breakfast dishes still occupying the table. ‘What’s going on, Catherine? Don’t I have a right to know?’

  ‘Of course you do.’ Catherine caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘As a matter of fact, you’re going to be the first to know: I’m getting married again.’

  ‘Married!’ Mrs Lambert was clearly stunned. ‘But Agnes didn’t say anything about you get ting married. She just gave me some garbled story about her looking after Hector, while you went off to the United States with some old man, who was searching for his son.’ She broke off. ‘You’re not—marrying that old man, are you, Catherine?’

  ‘Judge for yourself,’ remarked Morgan, who had come down the stairs, and along the hall while they were speaking. He had rescued his clothes earlier, and, although the stubble of a night’s growth of beard darkened his jawline, he still looked devastatingly attractive.

  Mrs Lambert turned confusedly to face him, her eyes showing her astonishment when she realised that the man standing behind her was one of the most attractive men she had ever seen. Not only that, he was a man in the prime of his life.

  ‘But, you’re not—you can’t be—’ she began, and Catherine, who had never known her mother at a loss for words, exchanged a humorous look with Morgan.

  ‘No,’ he said, smiling as he came forward to offer her his hand. ‘That was my father. How do you do, Mrs Lambert? I’m Morgan Lynch.’

  Catherine’s mother gulped as her hand was swallowed up in his much larger one, and she turned to look at her daughter again with bewildered eyes. ‘I—don’t understand any of this,’ she told her, not without some vexation. ‘Catherine, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ declared Morgan disarmingly, drawing out a chair from the table, and pressing her mother into it. ‘Cat and I have known one another for some time, but it’s only recently that we’ve realised we can’t live without each other. It’s as simple as that. And, as Cat says, you are the first to know we’re getting married. Even my father doesn’t know that yet.’

  Mrs Lambert shook her head, as Morgan went to slip a possessive arm about her daughter’s waist. For so long, she had hoped that Catherine might find happiness with someone else, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that her quiet, bespectacled daughter would find someone like Morgan Lynch. And yet, watching them together, she had no doubts about the depth of their feelings for one another. The way they looked at one another, the way they touched—she almost felt as if she was intruding. But they were both looking at her with such obvious happiness in their faces that she quickly abandoned any thought of leaving. Besides, there was a wedding to arrange, she thought smugly. And that was one occasion Agnes wouldn’t pre-empt.

  Three months later, Catherine came out on to the balcony of the single-storeyed villa Morgan had bought for them on Mango Key, to find her husband reclining lazily on a striped, cushioned lounger. In dark sunglasses, and swimming shorts that were only barely decent, he looked fit, and tanned, and outrageously handsome, not at all perturbed by the heat or the humidity. That was one thing he had told her about his days in Vietnam: the fact that he, and his fellow prisoners, had had to get used to all extremes of temperature. He seldom felt the cold, but equally he seemed indifferent to the heat. But at least he no longer had those nightmares, she thought with satisfaction. He hadn’t told her everything yet. But he would. Slowly but surely, his mind was healing, too.

  Hector was with him, stretched out on the tiles, watching with a jaundiced eye the nervous tactics of a humming bird. The bird was trying to hover over the pink blossoms of the bougainvillaea, that grew in such profusion over the balcony, while keeping an eye on the cat at the same time. If it only knew, Hector considered hunting for his food far too energetic in this heat, Catherine thought wryly. Besides, with the waters of the gulf giving up a veritable banquet of fish, he had only to wait to be handed the juiciest morsels.

  Hearing her footsteps, both males turned their heads, but it was Morgan who came up off the lounger, and came to meet her. ‘Hey,’ he said softly, turning up her fa
ce for his kiss. ‘I missed you. What did he say?’

  Catherine wondered how to tell him. So much had happened since they became a couple that it wasn’t difficult to understand how she had overlooked it. First, there had been seeing Morgan’s father, and getting his blessing, and then all the excitement of the wedding. It had just been a family affair, with Morgan’s sisters and their families flying over from New England, and her mother and Aunt Agnes, vying with each other in their choice of dress. Morgan’s sisters had been nice, welcoming her into the family with real affection, proving, if any proof were needed, that Morgan’s happiness was all they cared about.

  Morgan’s father had surprised them all, too. When Morgan had mentioned going back to the Embassy in London, General Lynch had declared that in his opinion it would be better if his son made his home in the United States. ‘I’m an old man,’ he said. ‘I can’t fly to London every time I want to see you. Mrs Lambert, now, she’s just a slip of a girl. Crossing the Atlantic won’t prove too arduous for her.’

  Of course, Catherine’s mother had fallen for that, hook, line and sinker. Or perhaps she had only pretended to, Catherine thought now. Whatever, she had made no demur when her daughter and new son-in-law had accepted Morgan’s father’s suggestion. As Catherine knew, her mother had her own life to lead, and she had always enjoyed travelling.

  But the biggest surprise of all had been when General Lynch had disclosed the news that he owned the controlling interest in a condominium complex on Mango Key. As well as the apartments, there was a golf club, and marina, and, if Morgan was prepared to do it, he could go down there and manage the place for him.

  Of course, Catherine knew why he had done it, but that didn’t stop her from giving him a particularly enthusiastic hug when she heard the news. The general was learning, she thought, guessing it would still be some time before he and Morgan became close friends. But they loved one another and that was what really mattered. Catherine believed in love.

  Now, she dropped her clutch bag on to the drinks trolley, and smoothed her palms down the skirt of her loose dress. She had worn the hot pink dress with its flattering spaghetti straps deliberately, because it was light and cool, and it was one of Morgan’s favourites. But now, she wondered if subconsciously she had known the real reason why she was wearing it. It was so apt, and her heart, which had been pounding ever since the doctor had delivered his ultimatum, skipped a couple of beats.