by Неизвестный
Merlin lay racked as if by an exquisite sort of torture dreamed up by the Inquisitors ... soul pain had nothing in common with bodily pain, which always seemed to pass. But this hurled her into the shadowy heart of love, where she groped for a way to be herself in Paul’s mind without being suddenly undesired as a woman.
‘How quiet you have gone.’ He flung out a hand and found her. ‘Do you know those lines of Kipling? “A fool there was who made a prayer, To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair”?’
‘Yes, I’ve heard them,’ she said, her gaze upon his tanned hand against her creamy skin, the nerves tightening deep inside her as his fingertips moved caressingly across her body.
‘They seem appropriate until a man actually touches the object of his prayer. Who made woman, I wonder, God or the devil?’
‘Paul,’ She quivered and her fingernails dug into the bed. ‘Is there no way—no way at all we can forget the past?’
‘Forget?’ His hands gripped her, bruisingly. ‘I don’t want to forget. I want to remember every charming detail of our courtship, for I am a firm believer in the demon mythology. You are the most consummate she-devil who ever pretended to be an angel!’
His hand found her chin and he brought his face down to hers. When his lips touched her mouth her response was uncontrollable as flame and all that mattered was the immolation beyond thought and fear. He made her ache from the vigour of his arms, the fleecing of golden hair against her skin. She trembled, and heard him laugh softly. ‘You are a very shapely bone and a hank of hair, so there’s no need to shake in my arms. While I feel this cheap craving for your trumpery little body, then you are safe enough from any real harm.’
With these words he pushed her away from him and swung carelessly out of bed, the rays of sunlight full on his powerful, tawny body. He reached lazily for a tanzan of dark silk, the masculine house kimono, and Merlin felt her senses swim as she watched him put it on. She loved every inch of him with a melting, unashamed, yet hopeless love, and despite everything it was still a breathless miracle that she, whom men had never noticed, could arouse that hard body to a pitch of sensual excitement so intense that it felt as if they flew off the rim of the earth together.
She couldn’t throw it away ... deny herself what she had with him, even if it meant being despised by him. Curled into the embroidered sheets she watched him go into the bathroom that adjoined his room, walking in that deliberate way that could almost fool the stranger into thinking he could see where he was going. But all the furniture was arranged so he wouldn’t bump into it, and when the bathroom door had closed behind him, Merlin allowed herself to look around this room she wanted with all her heart and body to go on sharing with him.
She saw a suite of magnificent furniture carved from jungle timbers, with smooth tigerish markings in the wood and a look of iron firmness. The floor was of natural teakwood, rubbed but unpolished and without a rug to trip Paul’s unwary foot. The bed she lay in was kingly, with the leopards and serpents carved deep in the colossal posts that reared to the ceiling. And on the panelled wall facing the bed there was a painting on silk of an oriental warlord in armour, holding a fierce-looking sword in his hand.
The fierce eyes seemed to look directly at Merlin as she sat up in bed and curled her arms about her up-drawn legs. She brooded there for a few moments, the accusations and the caresses spilling hot and bitter-sweet through her mind. She loved and wanted so desperately to be loved in return ... how wonderful if she could see Paul come through that door with a long adoring smile on his face; a man who wanted her with his heart as much as he wanted her with his body.
A sigh slipped from her half-parted lips and she pushed the tousled silky hair back from her brow. She didn’t doubt that she looked as if she had been madly loved ... she gave a little shiver of delight as she remembered the way he had touched her and moved his lips over her skin, moulding her to him as if she were a woman he created for himself out of the darkness and made his own in a way that wasn’t possible when the night was over and daylight chilled the warmth into hatred again.
‘Paul. ..’ She breathed his name like a prayer. Was it possible to live with him under the terms he dictated, knowing he would get pleasure out of calling her a she-devil who had only one thing he wanted. When her body began to lose its charm for him, what then could she expect? Insult without the savage-tender night to heal the hurts? A broken neck ... or just being cast off the island like the cheap goods he had called her?
Could she endure the insults? Could she take the mud he would sling at her for the sake of that high tide of passion his hands and lips and hard body could sweep over her, until she gasped and tingled and clung to him in that swirling cascade of pure emotion?
It was so unutterably sweet and savage ... oh, worth anything!
He came back into the bedroom, his hair damp against his scalp, his golden torso in contrast to dark slub silk trousers. ‘I’ve ordered breakfast,’ he said. ‘Hot coffee, scrambled eggs beaten with butter, toast, and nectarines. Suit you?’
‘Lovely’ she breathed, and watched him go to the big dressing-table where he picked up a comb and attempted to tidy his hair.
‘M-may I do that?’ she asked. ‘I know your houseboy usually does it for you, but I suppose …’
‘You suppose correctly,’ he said, ‘with you like that in my bed.’ He came over, sat down beside her on the bed and handed her the comb. She knelt there like his longhaired slave and very carefully combed his shower-damp hair, loving the feel of it, heavy and smooth across his finely shaped head. ‘There, I think that’s how you like it. Are all Dutchmen as fair as you are, mynheer?’
‘A good proportion of them.’ He seemed to stare at her with his zircon eyes, like grey crystal in his brown face. ‘You’re a complex bit of goods, aren’t you? Having you isn’t possessing you, is it? You elude my understanding— you put on such an act of being sweet and good. I could shake you until you rattle, do you know that?’
‘Yes, I know it,’ she said, as she slipped back under the bedcovers. ‘Why did you get your cousin to make inquiries about—me?’
‘Being blind,’ he snapped, ‘doesn’t turn me into a complete log. You had been a nurse, and after the typhoon I began to wonder—well, it’s done now. All the damage is done and we live together until it’s no longer possible for me to tolerate your sweet-voiced lies and the touch of your hand that could put a rice-knife in my throat any time you felt like causing me a bit more agony.’
‘Oh, Paul—what a shocking thing to say!’
‘For heaven’s sake,’ he surged to his feet, ‘stop damn well pretending that you care for me! What we have in common is a mutual lust.’
‘No.’
‘Lust, my dear,’ he repeated, incising the word as if on metal. ‘It’s a sound Anglo-Saxon word, explicit and to the point. I could take you every time I touch you, and you know it. You bring out the animal in me, and I despise the feeling except that it’s such hellfire pleasure having you in my arms. You are my demon, meisje, that is why I put the bells on your wrist.’
‘Not because.’ She glanced down at the bracelet, remembering what he said about wanting to always know that she was close to him in the night.
‘No, not for any romantic notion,’ he said cuttingly. ‘There is no romance attached to what we have in this marriage of ours. None!’
‘You say it so forcibly, Paul.’
‘I feel it forcibly, my dear.’
‘May I see the wire your cousin sent you?’
‘Why not?’ He went to a great carved bureau and opened a drawer; he returned to her side and dropped the folded telegram slip on the bed. Merlin’s fingers shook as she unfolded the paper and read the telegraph. Your nurse not known under that name. Altered for obvious reasons. Five feet five, trimly built, brown hair and eyes. Must be same girl! Advise instant dismissal!
Her fingers clenched the wire until the paper crackled. She wanted to deny emphatically that she was the same girl—and yet
if she made a denial, then she must add that the hospital committee had accused her and found her guilty. Would he fall instantly in love with her if he was told such a thing?
Oh God, it was an appalling mix-up of identity and motive. Better to let things stay as they were, for there was nothing to be gained from confession, only everything to be lost.
‘Merlin Lakeside always struck me as an impossibly fancy name,’ Paul remarked. ‘Right out of one of those sugary magazines for the lovelorn. What is your real name—I can’t recall it?’
‘I’m just—Merlin,’ she said. ‘Can’t we leave it at that?’
‘As you wish.’ He shrugged his shoulders and went to open the bedroom door as there came the sound of cups and cutlery jingling on a tray. He accepted the tray, murmured his thanks, and brought it across to the bed. ‘We will share the food here, if you don’t mind?’
‘No—but I would like to put on a wrap. I’ll fetch one from my own room.’
‘You can’t go like that! Here, take the tray and I’ll fetch your kimono. Can you recall where you laid it down in your room?’
‘It will be on the foot of the bed—Paul, do mind the rug. Last time you—‘
‘Yes,’ he cut in, ‘last time I went head over heels. I’ll be careful, and you can pour the coffee while I’m gone.’
He made his way out of the bedroom and Merlin stared at the door he left ajar. Paul was conditioned to accept her as the seductive nurse he had been aware of at the hospital, and if Hendrik was fond of a good time he wouldn’t have wasted too much of it in making the inquiries Paul had asked of him. On paper that description of the other nurse also seemed to apply to Merlin, and the real truth could only be proved a truth in Paul’s own heart.
Paul had to discover for himself that Merlin was sincere ... until then there was nothing to be done. She was trapped like a fly in a web, and there were aspects to that web that she didn’t really want to escape ... not yet... not while Paul found her so disturbing to be with.
He returned from along the gallery with her silk kimono and he held it while she enclosed herself in it, watching his face as she tied the sash. The lids of his eyes had that heavy, sensuous look, and she knew what he was remembering as he listened to the rustic of silk about her slim body. ‘I think you are much lovelier than I recollect,’ he said. ‘Like the white oleander with venom in your veins. May I have my coffee, meisje?’’
Merlin poured out for him and carefully placed the cup and saucer in his hand, then she served him with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, and as they ate together the intensity of what she felt for him was all the more precious because there was no assurance that it could last.
‘I think we shall go to the beach today,’ he said. ‘Ah, and by the way, one of the boys will be transferring all your belongings to this apartment, and you will use the other bedroom to sit and read in. I trust you won’t mind?’
‘No, not at all.’ She had sliced a nectarine and shook sugar on to the fruit. ‘What are you going to do about your book, Paul? I can still go on being your secretary.’
‘Yes, but not just yet.’ He casually lit a cheroot and allowed the smoke to drift lazily from his nostrils. ‘I want you just as my wife for the present—you understand me?’
‘Of course.’ A flush that was almost nectarine came into her cheeks. ‘I wouldn’t want you to abandon the book. It’s coming along awfully well.’
‘It’s nothing compared to what I could be doing.’ He rose to his feet and began to pace up and down like a caged animal. ‘The book is just a remedy for what ails me—I want to do what I was trained for, what I do best— oh, God, you bitch, why did you take it all away from me? Why? Just because I wouldn’t take you to bed? By God, I’ll take you to bed from now on! You will have more of me than you bargained for!’
‘Paul,’ The fruit seemed to stick in her throat. ‘My dear, what can I say?’
‘For a start you can stop calling me your dear,’ he snarled. ‘There is nothing very dear in what I feel for you!’
‘I know, but won’t you believe it was an accident?’
‘It was no accident,’ he said decisively. ‘You know it and I know it, so let us not sweep that under the carpet. I am going to my dressing-room and will be ready to go to the beach in about an hour. The boy will be bringing your things in a short while. Tot ziens spoedig, beste.’
He called her his dear so sarcastically, making her wince as the door to his dressing-room closed behind his broad shoulders. Merlin ate her nectarine and it might have been made of wax for all the pleasure it gave her.
So for a while it would appear to everyone on the island that like a normally happy couple they were intent on enjoying a honeymoon. Swimming together, lazing in the sun, taking walks in the forest and maybe collecting velvety wild orchids. It could have been idyllic, Merlin sighed, except for the fact that the bridegroom was not in love with the bride.
The days that came and went could have been heavenly, but at every opportunity that offered Paul found a way to cut her down, to answer curtly any question she might ask him, to say sardonically that she didn’t have to describe the scenery to him as if he were a tourist.
Merlin tried desperately not to be hurt; she fought to accept the bitter with the sweet ... and there were times when as if out of sheer devilment he was incredibly nice to her, only to turn into a snarling enemy at some unexpected moment.
Down in the kampong in front of the islanders he was courtesy itself to her, visiting people he knew, or going in and out of the quaint little shops in the bazaar to look at silks, to sniff the scents, and to handle the brass and copperware all fashioned from hand.
Oh yes, it could have been the happiest time of Merlin’s life, but when they were alone she could never be sure of his mood. It was like being in the company of a tiger, for one minute he would be purring, and the next he would be looking in her direction with that blaze in his eyes that warned her to stop what she was saying, to rise quietly and go swiftly out of the room before he lanced into her the barbed words that left her feeling torn open inside.
At no time did she feel truly relaxed. Even when he made love to her, it was never as wonderful as that first night with him. He merely gave in to a passionate hunger of the body, and when he kissed her it was never with tenderness He took and saw to it that she gave him everything of herself, and then he would push her away from him, making her feel like a bought woman. As she lay there on her side the tears would creep down her face and she had to let them seep damply into the pillow because she didn’t dare raise her hand to wipe her eyes and so set tinkling the little bells on her wrist. He probably suspected that she wept, but he never remarked on it, and if her eyes were often pink-rimmed at breakfast he couldn’t see them.
As the weeks passed he seemed to have given up any idea of going on with his book, and Merlin didn’t dare to mention it. Gradually, oh, very gradually, like climbing the side of a steep cliff, she became attuned to his moods. She knew when he would go swimming at dawn, when the sharks were about, hungry and on the lookout for food. On bare feet she would follow him down to the beach, warning Tutup with a finger at her lips not to let on that she was shadowing her husband. Then she would watch him while he swam, the lethal little gun that Lon had given her ever ready in her hand. Lon had given her secret lessons on how to use it; he had told her that it would be enough to aim at a shark if she saw one, that the impact of the bullet hitting the water would distract the beast and give Paul time to swim inshore.
Paul did it on purpose, she knew that. He didn’t care a straw if a shark took him, but Merlin did care, with all her heart and soul she cared. He often managed to hurt her feelings, but it made not the slightest dent in her love for him. Maybe love was meant to make some people happy, but in her case it made life a constant hazard, but the strange part was that it had a wondrous effect on her looks.
Hendrik van Setan, whom she didn’t much like, had got into the habit of dropping in at the Tiger House for
mid-morning coffee, or an after-dinner drink, and he would stand and stare at her, knowing all too well that Paul couldn’t see him. Hendrik would run his eyes over her and let the naked admiration show in them. Shallow blue eyes in contrast to Paul’s deep grey ones.
One day Hendrik accosted her and suggested that she might enjoy his company for once in preference to that of a man who couldn’t tell her just how attractive she was; how softly tanned, and how unusual with her amber and honey-streaked hair and eyeYou need to be admired,’ he informed her. ‘Paul doesn’t know what he’s making love to.’
Merlin had been standing there lost in her thoughts, her fingers entwined around the golden offshoot of a wild orchid. A lovely blue and black butterfly flitted by as these ugly words struck at her. She gave Hendrik a look of open dislike. ‘Go to hell,’ she said clearly. ‘If I told Paul you’d propositioned me, he’d break your neck.’
‘He would have to find me first, wouldn’t he?’ Hendrik mocked, his eyes moving up and down her figure in a cool white dress with a scarlet neck-bow and a matching ribbon tying her hair at the nape of her neck. ‘What a fetching creature you are, so outwardly cool and pure-looking, but I know all about you! Paul only married you because no other woman would have him the way he is. For him it’s a case of all cats feeling alike in the dark. Tortoiseshell kitten, why the bells?’ He caught at her wrist and set her bracelet tinkling. ‘Do you bite and scratch when a man strokes you?’
‘If you don’t let go of me I shall kick!’ Merlin had on painted sandals with wedged heels and a kick in the ankle from one of them would be painful.