by Неизвестный
Then she saw the faunish face of Lon leaning over her, the firelight giving his features a smiling, demon look. ‘It is the tradition, mem. This way long ago the eunuchs carried the favoured slave girl to the master’s bed. The girls and the young men won’t hurt you, but now they are going to carry you to the tuan’s bed—hear him laugh, mem? How often can a blind man forget like that his blindness?’
For Paul? Yes, anything on earth for Paul, and with a laugh that was half a sob Merlin submitted to the rite and felt herself carried swiftly away from the bonfires, along the lane of coffee trees, in the direction of the Tiger House. Laughing among themselves, they carried her up the stairs and along the gallery to Paul’s room, where they laid her on the thick silk coverlet of his big teakwood bed ... a princely bed carved all up and down its posts with leaping leopards and twining serpents.
Again for a moment she saw the dark face of Lon leaning over; his eyes were leaping with devilish, silent laughter. Then he was gone and she was left helplessly bound in silk, a gift-wrapped package for Paul to come and unwrap. Suddenly she gave an irrepressible laugh; it was an absurd game and yet at the same time an erotic one, and she tried to imagine it happening in England, where marriage was treated so matter-of-factly.
The laughter was still on her lips when Paul came to her, when he leaned down and found her silk binding with his strong, sure hands. ‘They really had a game with you, meisje, eh? You didn’t mind too much?’
‘No, but can you get me out of this cocoon?’
‘Let me see—ah, I keep asking for that, don’t I? Here we go, you are coming free of the wrapping—like a present for the tiger, eh? A nice little bone for him to get his teeth into.’ Paul tossed aside the length of silk and suddenly his hands were upon the kain and the little jacket of lace. ‘These next, I think.’
Merlin looked up into his face and saw that physical hunger was taking possession of him, but she was unafraid ... there was too much love in her heart and her body f her to be able to resist his touch, which became relentless as he tossed aside the kebaya and with urgent fingers tore the silver silk that enclosed her. The fragile straps of her slip were pushed from her shoulders so he could reach her soft warm skin. Softly vibrating, he laid her back on the bed, and unaware in his blindness that the lamps were alight he stripped swiftly to his skin, and Merlin ran her gaze over his golden torso, his strong frame that had a sort of ruthless magnificence as he stood over her a moment, and then reached for her.
She gasped with sheer joy as she felt the strength in his shoulders and sun-burnished arms, so tanned that the crisp hairs on them felt like tiny gold spears.
Her skin was milky in contrast to his, and her lips smouldered beneath his. ‘You are lovely, liefje, put together with the perfection of a young cat,’ he whispered. ‘Do you mind very much that I cannot see what I can only feel?’
‘There is nothing to mind, Paul, not if you are pleased with me.’
‘Ja, I am pleased.’ He put his lips to her throat. ‘Can’t you hear me purring? Come close, close, little one. Let me feel your heart, for tonight this is where you belong.’
Close, so fused to him that she felt the movement of his heart ... the heart made lonely by months of celibate darkness now breaking into flame as Merlin clung to him, giving of herself with an abandon from her very soul. She melted into him, and her little moan of surrender was primal music, prelude to the sweet pain and rapture, his beautiful name on her lips ... Paul ... Paul ... oh, Paul.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Merlin awoke to find herself in Paul’s arms, entwined and part of him. He moved and her lips pressed his shoulder, his name a breathless whisper. They had seemed to share the same heartbeat, the same life spring, the same moment of shattering response.
‘I could die in you,’ he whispered. ‘You make me see— for the space of moments I seem to break free of this pall of darkness. You are my little white witch—you cast a spell over me and all I want is the feel of you and the pleasure. You make a sybarite of me. I might very well say to the devil with everything and settle for this.’
‘Some time we have to eat, Paul.’ She moved her hand along the smooth skin of his shoulder, feeling the muscle and bone under her fingers. ‘We can’t live on—love.’
‘But what a way to die!’ He buried his lips in her neck. ‘I have you at my mercy, you realise that, liefje? If I don’t let you out of my arms, how will you get away?’
‘Being a witch I shall mutter an incantation and in a puff of smoke I shall be free to eat scrambled eggs and toast.’
He laughed against her throat. ‘Did I really imagine that being blind made me less of a man?’
‘You?’ She moved her hand against the muscles of his back. ‘You’re a marvellous lover—heavenly—I feel so good! I thought—well, you know how some women talk, as if it were the most agonising experience of their lives. It wasn’t like that for me. I—I loved my wedding night— and morning.’ Merlin felt no shame in confessing the pleasure he had given her—she wanted him to feel ten feet tall, not only because she loved him but because with him the transition from girl to woman had been sheerest bliss and she felt as if her body was made of gold and gossamer; she floated and yet was alive to the very core of her. If for the briefest moment there had been a stab of pain, it had swiftly vanished in the thrilling, sensual, sweet-mad joy of giving herself and being part of him.
She was filled with the breathless miracle of love-making; of being at the side of this man she had loved from a distance, across a chasm there had seemed no way of bridging. Destiny had made this moment; had spun it from gold threads interwoven with black ones. Merlin lived for this alone, of having Paul’s arms around her, of feeling his vibrant body a part of hers, his face somehow made younger because last night there had been someone to share the darkness with him, and the rapture that still hummed in their limbs, her smooth slim legs intertwined with his powerful ones.
The dear feel of him was beyond words, and with an incoherent murmur she kissed his throat, his cheek, his beloved eyes ... oh, it might be merciful if she died right now of what she felt. Like other girls she had listened to the marital talk of other people, but it had never been like this whe’n they had spoken so cynically of feeling nothing; that men had the best of it and women merely reaped all the pain and none of the pleasure. Paul had not just taken her, he had made certain that she reached with him the very heights of sensation and wonder ... Merlin hadn’t dreamed that her body could feel not just pleasure but an ecstasy of every nerve, every portion of being, so the thrill of it was still there in her body and her bones. She could have died in Paul, and she had to close her mind to what might be lurking in the shadows when the intoxicant of making love to her wore off for him.
It was too terribly true what she had said to him, they couldn’t live on love and had to leave each other’s arms before very long.
With a sensuous hunger she was cradled to his body and he kissed her lips, lingering over their curves, moving his mouth against their softness until her hands were gripping him with the gratification of it. ‘My moon girl, my fire,’ he murmured. ‘Lovely soft-skinned little devil. Long silky hair of a witch. Mijne vrouw, zoet, zoet!’
He pressed his brow to her and it was suddenly hot and restless, as if the torment had come back that he couldn’t see her. She held him and yielded herself completely, totally, letting him feel the love she didn’t dare speak of in case he flung at her that she had been the one who had made him blind. She was his and had no existence apart from him ... he’d sworn he would have no children because he couldn’t see to guide them, but Merlin had a feeling this was too intense and beyond Paul’s control for a child not to happen ... she hoped for it, wildly. When she was the mother of his baby he might forgive her, just a little, if he had evidence that she was the nurse around whose neck the noose had been flung and which in her despair she had made no real attempt to remove. She had let them throttle the protest in her aching throat and had walked from tha
t hospital with all the blame on her young head.
The crying out against it now rose in her throat and suddenly the scream was there. ‘Paul... oh, God, I didn’t —I didn’t!’
He lay very still, his face buried where her heart wildly vibrated under her soft skin.
’You did,’ he murmured. ‘Darling, you did!’
Her head spun ... the world fell apart ... her face was pale with tension against her unbound hair as he raised himself and she met the unendurable gaze of his blind eyes. There in her side like a knife she felt the passionate pain, and then he gave a laugh that held the shadow of a sigh. ‘ “Since first the Devil threw dice with God”,’ he murmured. ‘You have read Swinburne?’
‘Yes.’
‘He had a way of putting it into words, eh? Ironic, is it not, that I burn with desire for you? My body aches with it. I want to kill you, and at the same time I am maddened by you and I actually want to love you I damn you to hell for coming here! Why did you come? To try and make reparation? You always looked a witch, moving about that surgery with those sensuous eyes of yours on all the men—‘
‘Oh, God, Paul, what are you saying?’ She began to twist about in his arms, suddenly desperate to get away from what she longed to be part of—but not like this, the hatred suddenly let loose in him.
‘Damned little hedonist!’ The words were brutal, scorching, and his face had closed to her, as if the muscles were of iron. She lay there in terrified silence, unable to understand what he was saying—hedonist? She? He had her all wrong—totally wrong!
‘It isn’t true, Paul.’
‘It’s true, all right! I had other things to think about in those days, but now it’s different, I’ve nothing else but this to think about. Well, you have me for what it’s worth, you scheming little bitch! And it will serve while I want you, and you certainly know how to make a man want you! Ja, I had heard from my fellow doctors what a treat you were in the car park, but I never dreamed you were this good—that any woman could be this maddening. And if you are wondering, mijn vrouw, why I bothered to marry you, it’s because I didn’t receive Hendrik’s wire about you until almost the moment of our marriage, and the priest was there, waiting to perform the service in the salon. Call it my Jesuit upbringing. Call it total cynicism that I should take for my wife the woman who made me blind.’
Merlin gazed at the ravaged bitterness of her husband’s face, and when he lifted on to his elbow and she saw the thick hair matted against his moist golden skin, she wanted to reach out to him, and yet dreaded to do so.
She flinched as his hand gripped her by the hair and the hate-tinged desire blazed in his eyes, setting them afire. ‘The most astounding surprise was finding you still a virgin. I fully expected you to have lied about that as you have lied about everything else, but on that score it came as quite a—jolt. So you teased men, did you, holding out for a ring on your hand? You have a ring, haven’t you, witch? A moonstone with all the fickle fire of your cruel little heart—God, I should put my hands around your throat and choke the breath out of you, here and now—but that would be cutting off my nose to match my useless eyes, would it not? Why do that when it gives me such a degree of pleasure to stroke your slim neck; to make a bit of heaven for myself out of the black hell you made for me. I hate the very thought of the person that you are, but with my hands and my body I crave every silken curve of you, every soft hair and beating vein—I want you, and while I go on wanting you, I shall keep you, but the moment you pall, my sweet, out you go with not a trinket or a stitch I ever put on your body.’
His eyes glittered down at her, like stones set on fire. ‘Do I make myself perfectly understood, you teasing bitch?’
Merlin shuddered at the word. ‘Paul, you must listen to me.’ She choked on the words, swallowed and tried again. ‘Please—it wasn’t the way you think.’
‘I know exactly how it was, so spare me your tear-jerking explanations. I was there, right there, when they got that muck out of my eyes and I couldn’t see any more! You damned hellcat, you didn’t just blind a man, you blinded someone who was able to be of some use to people who had suffered in fires and road accidents, or who, poor devils, were born with deformed features. Now what am I? A beachcomber on an island, and to live on an island is to be an exile. You will share that with me, every hour of every day and night. You’ll pay, my silk-skinned toy! With every nerve in this pretty body of yours, you’ll pay me back, if I kill you in the process!’
Merlin lay there and felt as if fingers of iron were digging into her throat and paralysing the muscles. Now she felt as she had done at the inquiry ... now she knew that it was happening again. He had her irrevocably mixed up with that other nurse, and there was no way she was going to make him reverse his opinion of her. What he had suffered had been too traumatic... he had to blame someone, and here she lay in his arms, utterly at his mercy ... and he was a man without mercy.
The hollows of Merlin’s cheeks held tiny shadows of grief ... for just a night she had paid a visit to heaven, and no matter what kind of torment he put her through, there would be no forgetting that during the night he had been carried away as much as she and there had been moments of such shattering tenderness that she couldn’t endure to recall them without giving a shaken sob.
‘Now you’re frightened, aren’t you?’ he taunted. ‘You know now that what was civilized in me has been cut away and all I need from a woman are the basic responses to my touch, and they had better be as warm as they were last night—my God, what a consummate little actress you are!’
‘I—I wasn’t acting,’ she protested. ‘I wouldn’t know how.’
‘Then all the better if I get under your skin, meisje. It will hurt all the more when I lash out at you, and it will gratify me that I have the power to hurt you. How the Inquisitors knew their business The gradual turning of the screw until the victim shrieked for death rather than suffer a moment more of the living agony.’
His words made Merlin wince, and as he rolled over on his back and rested his tousled head on his own pillows, she studied him and wondered how far beneath the surface of his trained and cultured mind lay instincts of a much darker nature. He had been taught by the Jesuits and they were men with beliefs rooted in the inquisitorial past. They believed that suffering saved the soul, and if Paul harboured that same belief, then he would make her suffer for being, as he firmly believed, his tormentress. The woman who like Delilah took his sight and then made him desire her until his hard body was alive with passion and the physical joy was running molten in his veins.
At that very moment when she had felt as if she reached the heights of heaven he had sprung upon her like a tiger ... her nerves gave a wild flutter as his hand lilted and he drew it across his eyes. He frowned, then said quietly, ‘I can feel the sun—the morning must be well advanced.’
‘The sun is shining right into the room, Paul.’ She leaned over and switched off the Han jade lamp on its base that was iridescent as honey.
He heard the click and his lips gave a sardonic twist. ‘Has the lamp been on all night?’ he asked.
‘Yes—I forgot to switch it off—last night.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t come as too much of a shock for you to see a naked man,’ he drawled.
‘You—you’re my husband.’ Colour stormed her cheeks; he made her feel guilty about using the word when she really had every right to use it.
‘Are you telling me I am the first man you ever saw—like that?’
‘Of course you are.’
‘There is no “of course” about it, my dear.’
‘Y-you know full well I was a—virgin.’
‘Ah, yes, a virgin, but there are ways of making love without a little schemer like you allowing the treasure trove to be plundered. I wonder how rich you imagine I am?’
‘I—I’ve never thought about your money!’
‘I’m not a rich man, mijn vrouw, but I am quite well off, as they say in England. I was left money by my grandfathe
r; enough, my dear, but hardly a fortune. Are you very disappointed?’
‘I couldn’t care less if you haven’t a bean to your name,’ she said tensely.
‘Don’t tell me you married me for love?’ he mocked. ‘That would be too much to swallow—I’d choke on it! No, you came here to finish what you started, and all because I was the only man who didn’t turn his head each time you swished by in your uniform, which always seemed to fit a little closer to your shape than the uniforms of the other nurses. I had better things to do than to come hither at your beckoning, but these days, and nights, I no longer keep so busy. I now have all the time in the world to give you and you can bank on it, you little she-devil, that I shall not be stinting with my attentions. You really are a young Venus. In fact, my dear, you are sexquisite.’
Merlin flung a hand to her mouth and bit back a cry of protest ... she wanted to deny passionately that she was that petite creature with silky brown hair and matching eyes, who had seduced everyone into believing that she had played no part in the malicious injuring of Paul van Setan. But she had injured him, perhaps more than she had intended, and the incredible part was that Paul now believed she was here on the island, married to him, and in bed beside him!
It was wholly incredible, but it was true. Merlin had been but a shadow to him, and in his total blindness it would be impossible for him to imagine her as a reality. He had clad her in the shape of that other girl, and despite his denial that he had felt attracted to that shapely, seductive nurse, Merlin no longer believed in the truth of his denial.
Paul had noticed the girl but had been too involved in his work to do anything about it, added to which there had been his important position at the hospital which he would never have endangered by having an affair with a member of the staff. His sense of discipline would hae enabled him to ignore the girl, and unused to such cool treatment, she had retaliated in an unforgivably spiteful way.
Merlin lay there at his side, torn in two ... the desire he felt was aroused by her ... a desire she needed desperately to share and gratify, and which she might snuff like a candle flame if she tried to make him see that she wasn’t the girl he believed her to be. Despite all the cruel pain that girl meant something to him ... the cruellest thing of all was that Merlin meant absolutely nothing. She was a cipher who had to accept everything or nothing ... to let him call her every bitch in the book, or see him retreat as from a faceless shadow he had never noticed as he went about his work.