The Loving Slave

by Margaret Pargeter

  Her father still slept and she sighed over him as she ran outside. From long experience she knew he would sleep until morning. With a flicker of hope she wondered if Quentin might be able to do something for him. He might know exactly what should be done. But, if he did come up with something, would John co-operate? Gina feared he wouldn't, not when she counted the number of times she herself had tried to get him to see a doctor.

  'I've forgotten more than the majority of them will ever know,' he would snap, which had never made sense to her until she had discovered from Mr Hurst that her father had once been a famous surgeon. Even then, it hadn't made proper sense, not when John hadn't prac­tised for years. But none of Gina's persuasions could move him. 'I don't want to get well,' he' would snarl. 'What does it matter if I die?'

  Gina knew the woods so well she could find her way through them quickly. The lake was barely a mile away, the pale water gleamed invitingly, its coolness irresistible to her heated flesh. Quickly she slipped out of her sticky clothing, loving the softness of the air on her skin after the roughness of her shirt.

  Leaving her clothes carelessly where she dropped them, she waded into the lake. From this point it was im­possible to dive as the bottom of the lake hadn't been cleaned out for years and the edges were choked with weeds. Once clear of them she swam for about a hundred yards towards the small island in the middle. It was then, as she paused for a brief rest, that she noticed the atmo­sphere was growing strangely oppressive.

  She was used to the darkness, the inky green shadows in the depth of the lake, but this evening the silence seemed suddenly eerie. It weighed down on her, making her unusually nervous. In all the time she had been coming here she had seen no one, but she had always delighted in the isolation of the lake, considering it, after a while, as her own private domain. Never, until now, could she remember feeling apprehensive. The water was cool, she usually found it invigorating, but tonight it ap­peared to be having quite the opposite effect. Admitting she was a coward but unable to help it, she turned back towards the shore. A moment later she knew she had done the right thing in following her instincts when the skies were suddenly split open by a vivid flash of light­ning.

  A storm! She had never been here during a storm before. At the cottage when a storm came it was frighten­ing, with the huge trees outside making a great din and the old roof rattling. Yet here in the middle of the lake it was much worse. Fear lending strength to her slender limbs she swam quickly, while about her the flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder increased as the centre of the storm drew nearer. The sky was lit up and forks of electricity seemed to dance over the water, reflecting in and emphasising the dark depth below her, making her conscious of her own danger.

  She was near the edge of the lake when the tree was struck. It was one of the massive oaks which had pro­bably stood there for hundreds of years, and it came down with a crash and painful creaking of protesting timber which almost deafened her. It was terrifying, she saw it coming but was unable to escape. Dazed, she heard herself screaming while trying to dive out of its path, con­vinced her last moment had arrived. Losing control for a moment, she screamed again, half blinded with terror, and didn't see the man cutting through the water with swift, powerful strokes towards her.

  Miraculously neither the trunk of the tree nor any of its branches touched her, but the waves from it completely engulfed her, almost drowning her as they swept her under. Spluttering wildly, she tried to fight the black, churning waters, but they were too much for her. Then, as though the nightmare was continuing, she felt arms going round her, arms which her fevered mind assured her must belong to the spirit of this devilish night as they tightened ruthlessly about her and refused to let her go.

  It took her some seconds to realise that the voice she heard shouting in her ear was Quentin's. The Devil, sur­prisingly, was nowhere to be seen, unless it was in the black glitter of Quentin's eyes.

  'Stop struggling, Gina, or I'll hit you!'

  His voice was harsh, almost as harsh as his breathing and instinctively she obeyed him. Somehow she knew if she didn't she would drown. She was trembling, unable to stand, as he swam with her to the shore and lifted her bodily from the water. Clinging to him, she choked help­lessly against the hard wetness of his chest as he strode up the bank away from the lake and laid her on the grass.

  'Have you swallowed much water, Gina?'

  She was quite conscious, if she couldn't yet find the strength to sit up. 'No, I don't think so,' she managed to answer after clearing her throat a little. She felt more drowned outside than in, and strangely exhausted.

  He brushed back her streaming hair with angry fingers. 'You little fool! What made you come here at this time of night, and in such weather?'

  'It was quite fine when I set out,' she gasped. 'I always come for a swim.'

  'You can thank God I remembered,' he said savagely, reaching for his discarded sweater to dry some of the water from her.

  Not understanding, she asked weakly, 'What do you mean by that?'

  Briefly he replied, 'It came back to me suddenly, what you said about having a bath, night and morning. It seemed crazy to think of the lake, but I decided to take a look. You could have been drowned, you little fool! Couldn't you see the storm coming?'

  He sounded as savage as his hands were, bringing life back to her numbed body. It was the second time he had called her a fool, but she certainly deserved it. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered humbly, straining to see his face through the darkness, 'I won't do it again.'

  'You'd better not!' His voice roughened, as he recalled moments of horror he would rather forget. 'When I saw that tree coming down and your head in the water…!'

  'I'm sorry,' she repeated abjectedly, as another flash of lightning lit the scene brightly. It was only for a second, but enough to remind her that she was naked, and that Quentin wore merely a pair of briefs. Obviously he must have ripped off his clothes before diving into the lake, and now he was using his sweater to dry her.

  'My jeans?' she spluttered, going hot all over. She felt terribly embarrassed and Quentin must be despising her—even more than usual. Apprehensive and shocked, she huddled away from him.

  'Stop it, Gina!' He jerked her back, as if frightened of losing her again in the darkness. Indifferently taunting, he informed her, 'You aren't the first woman I've seen without her clothes, and it's not always an improvement, but in your case I think it might be. In fact I'm sure of it'

  This only confirmed her suspicions that he was viewing her with his usual contempt, and she shivered, confused by the sudden heat in her body.

  'You're shaking, Gina. Have you any idea where your clothes are?'

  'Where they always are,' she frowned, 'but I don't seem to know where I am.'

  'That's understandable.' His crisp dark head was thrown up and he sounded terse. 'My sweater's damp now, but you'd better wear it. It's better than nothing.'

  He was concerned for her and she was filled with re­morse. He must have risked his life to save her and she hadn't even said thank you! She would hate him to think she didn't care.

  'Quentin—' As he lifted his sweater to slip it over her head, she reached up simultaneously to press a brief, grateful kiss on his cheek. It was an impulsive gesture, prompted partly by a mind too disturbed by the experi­ence she had just been through to fully realise what she was doing. As she reached up, with her chaste, ap­preciative kiss, their arms collided in mid-air, and, as his head jerked down, instead of finding his cheek, her lips touched his mouth.

  Startled by this, she would have drawn back. If she hadn't there was no doubt Quentin would, for she heard his breath rasp impatiently. But suddenly it was there be­tween them again—the swift, melting sweetness, the sear of fire, a surge of desire that made the senses spin. Swiftly it rendered her helpless to move, for she didn't know how to combat it.

  Quentin must have known, but, as if he chose not to, his breathing changed as her mouth moved convulsively under his, and
the sweater fell from his hands as he slid them down her back to pull her closer.

  'Gina?' he muttered thickly.

  'I was trying to thank you,' she murmured, her voice scarcely audible. She felt drugged, in no way alarmed by the tightening pressure of his arms. She felt, in some peculiar way, part of him.

  If she had tried to fight him he might have let her go, but her clinging arms appeared to urge him on. Quentin Hurst was thirty-five and while unmarried had never been particularly celibate, but when he was with a woman, in similar circumstances, it was always by mutual agreement. This evening there was no sophis­ticated, unemotional arrangement, but, as though sud­denly possessed of the devil Gina had suspected in the lake, he pushed her back against the bank and began kissing her.

  The weight of his body was heavy on hers, his mouth urgent, demanding her response, impatiently seeking that which she was apparently so eager to give. If she had been drowning in the lake it was worse now, with Quen­tin sweeping aside all her token resistance, as though he meant wholly to possess her. Between them reared a pri­mitive, almost frightening sensuality, a wild flaring of the senses, born perhaps of the wildness of the night, but all the more devastating for that. The feeling between them seemed to mount amazingly. They might have been twin souls, succoured by the fierceness of the elements, well able to destroy each other, although neither was yet aware of it.

  Their vivid, unexpected response to each other, heat­ing as it did the coldness of their bodies, seemed in step with the crashing fury of the storm. It might, at any other time, have seemed exaggerated, but not now. Quentin's hands became searching as his mouth crushed hers, touching every trembling part of her, then beginning again, until helplessly responding, like someone drunk on passion, Gina began exploring with her own hands the hard, powerful muscles of his chest and back.

  Murmuring his name under the pressure of his mouth, she put her hands to his face, feeling the dominant male contours of it. For her it was like a voyage of discovery over a foreign land. Until now she had never touched a man's face. That Quentin, whom she had known since she was a child, could make her feel like this seemed a miracle. Beneath his mounting passion she felt herself coming completely alive. Never again would she be able to look at him with a veil of innocence over her eyes. Her skin was burning and a wild fever swept through her blood. It was incredible the things she was becoming aware of, simply because Quentin was kissing her.

  Slowly he raised his head. He might have been as stunned as she was by the feeling which raced between them, because he didn't move. He stared down at her, his eyes glazed, half hidden by thick lashes, as if for the first time in his life he scarcely knew what he was doing.

  'God!' he muttered thickly, his breathing quickening, as though he had been running, 'I want you, Gina. There's something about you—' Hoarsely his voice trailed off, his mouth closing over hers again, forcing her lips ruthlessly apart. His hands slid down to the curve of her hips, thrusting himself against her as he felt her help­less surrender. Then he was bending over her, his hands determined on her slender limbs.

  Somehow, Gina didn't feel alarmed. She trusted him, so she didn't even struggle. All she wanted was to please him. He was so dear to her—hadn't she always loved him? Who was she to refuse anything he asked? Never could she remember feeling so vulnerable yet so strangely acquiescent and excited.

  Unconsciously careless of passion already moving to­wards the point of no return, she tightened her slender arms around his neck. A little murmuring sound escaped her, an instinctively feminine effort to placate his raging masculinity. Lovingly, with a natural seductiveness she wasn't aware of, she curved herself closer, giving herself up to the sureness of his expertise, his increasing demands.

  It took a terrific crash of thunder, after which the hea­vens appeared to open, to bring Quentin to his senses, that and Gina's first whimper of pain. Gasping, he lifted his head. 'What the hell…?' he exclaimed, in livid self-disgust, pushing her harshly away from him.

  As he did so, she was conscious of his thundering heart, the heat of his skin which might outrival her own, and was vaguely aware he was disturbed as well as angry. But while he had experience, she had nothing to guide her—nothing but instinct, which immediately let her down.

  While she wanted to cling to him, the gap between them was suddenly unbridgeable. As he rose swiftly to his feet he was a stranger again, a man she might never have known. Her own emotions she ignored, being unable to accept she had just emerged from a child into a woman. If not in the fullest sense of the word, at least with a clearer understanding of what it was all about. In the darkness, in the arms of a man to whom she feared she mattered little, it seemed the last remnants of her child­hood had disappeared for ever.

  'Let's get back, Gina.' Quentin's face was a set mask.

  He frightened her. 'Quentin?' she began haltingly.

  'Be quiet!' His command might have been more accep­table if his voice hadn't been so curt. There's no real harm done, but we won't go into that. Just forget it.' The rain poured down as he slipped his sweater over her head, this time without deviation. It reached Gina's knees, pro­viding adequate if slightly ludicrous protection.

  'What will you do?' she whispered hoarsely, when she could breathe again.

  'I'll manage,' he replied, keeping his eyes grimly averted from her small figure. 'Perhaps you can re­member where it was you left your clothes? If you can't— well, it must be early morning. I doubt if there'll be anyone around when we get home.'

  He sounded sarcastic about her clothes, as if he was deliberately trying to hurt her. His voice was hard edged, faintly explosive, and she swallowed weakly. 'I'm trying to remember . ..'

  'You usually have a good memory.'

  Now his voice contained a smooth insolence, his eyes a cruel glitter, but at least it helped her to pull herself together. For a moment she stood quite still, getting her bearings, then, after steadying her still trembling limbs, she was able to find, without much difficulty, the place where she had got undressed.

  Obligingly, Quentin turned his back, though it was too dark to see and seemed slightly absurd after what had just taken place, while she scrambled into her jeans and shirt. Somehow she found his taut silence more hurtful and unnerving than the night.

  As she returned his sweater with a brief murmur of thanks, both the wind and the rain increased in fury. 'Let's get out of here,' he urged again, adding with loaded cynicism, 'before anything else comes to stop us!'

  The next morning being Sunday, Quentin didn't go to London. Often he spent his weekends away from home, either on business or pleasure, but there was some evidence that this weekend he intended to remain at Briarly. He was down at the stables early, and for once Gina found herself wishing he had had engagements elsewhere. It wasn't so much the kisses they had exchanged, although they had been enough to prevent her from sleeping, it was the fear that he might be about to turn her and her father out of their cottage that made her less than pleased to see him.

  He came to stand beside her as she stood looking at Hector, his arm just touching hers along the top of the door, but otherwise detached. 'Any signs of improvement this morning?' he asked curtly.

  'Yes, I think so.' Why, when Quentin's voice was so steady, did hers have to tremble like a leaf? Taking a firmer grip of herself, she added, 'Richard's a good vet— I'll say that for him.'

  'Sometimes, Gina, you say far too much!' Quentin's sharpness startled her, almost as much as the hard glance he flung at her pale young face. 'It's not only what you say,' he continued, she thought unfairly, 'it's the things you get up to. The whole situation is becoming quite ridi­culous.'

  'I suppose you're referring to last night?' It took a lot of courage to look at him, but she managed it. Quentin, this morning, might look slightly haggard, but he still exuded a disturbing vitality which nothing appeared able to dim. Her heart reacted violently, beating over-rapidly as her anxious eyes fixed on his rigid mouth. Completely con­fused for a mo
ment, she blurted out before he could answer, 'I'm sorry I made such a nuisance of myself in the storm, but if I seemed stupid it was because I'd never been kissed before. It was different from how I thought it would be.'

  A glint of derision narrowed his eyes. 'You see what I mean when I say you talk too much?' he drawled tersely. 'You didn't have to bring that up again. Such incidents, my child, are better forgotten. And, while I refuse to be­lieve it was your first kiss, how was it different?'

  His tone had changed, becoming wary yet curious. Frowning slightly, she stared at him, colour staining her pale cheeks, her eyes mutely appealing. 'I'm not sure.'

  'You aren't suggesting we try again?' The sneer in his voice told her just how much co-operation she could expect from him. 'It's not on, Gina. You don't have what I want, and never will,' his gaze swept contemptuously over her thin body. 'I would advise you not to start ex­perimenting with other men, either. You might easily get more than you bargained for.'

  She continued to stare at him, far too used to Quentin's arrogance to question it now. Painfully, at last, she asked, 'What if I'd fallen in love?'

  'You're too young to be talking of love, Gina, and you certainly don't love me.'

  Bleakly she retorted, 'I know you don't love me!'

  He seemed gratified that she realised there wasn't the slightest possibility. His glance was harshly unkind. 'Would you expect me to, Gina? Even if you were pro­perly dressed, you'd still be plain, and when I spare the time to take a girl out I like her to be decorative.'

  It was rumoured that he was popular with women, that they spoiled him by running after him, leaving him to pick and choose. This must be true, and was perhaps why he spoke of them so carelessly. Gina gazed at him helplessly, in spite of his cruelly castigating words, loving him fervently.

  When she didn't reply, he went on grimly, 'I imagine you thought the offer of a little love, last night, might prevent me from throwing you out of the cottage?'

  'No, I didn't.' Surprise dilated her eyes to a lovely translucent green. 'I have more sense than to think that!' she assured him sharply.