She came out with his help and was wrapped in a towel.
‘Get dry, get into your supermarket pyjamas or whatever you normally wear, get into bed and listen to the rain. I’ll sleep out here.’ He dropped a light kiss on her curls and put her away from him.
‘Will you be comfortable?’
He pointed to a divan in the main section of the lounge. ‘That’s also a bed; I’ll be fine. And so will you, Mel,’ he said firmly. But a sudden smile twisted his lips. ‘Tomorrow is another day, OK?’
‘OK,’ she echoed and hesitated. ‘Thanks. For everything.’
‘My pleasure.’
She thought he said it with an undertone of dryness and flinched inwardly but out of nowhere an uncontrollable yawn overtook her.
He laughed softly, patted her on the bottom and turned away.
Feeling rather foolish but definitely exhausted, Mel was more than happy to seek the solace of the bedroom. She changed into her pyjamas and climbed into the huge bed almost too tired to switch off the bedside lamp. Then she paused with her hand on the switch, and her last thought of the day, as rain hammered on the windows, was that whatever happened from now on, somehow she would make him understand that her reservations were neither childish nor foolish…
She didn’t wake up until about eight-thirty—most unusual for her. At first she had no idea where she was, even thought she might be dreaming. Maybe a…concubine, she mused, and stretched luxuriously, in some sultan’s palace, awaiting her lord who was tall and dark with curly hair and the absolute master of her body…
She sat up abruptly as the thatched roof and four-poster bed with its turquoise and silver hangings fell into place. So did her cotton nightshirt with a zebra on the front—some concubine, she thought drily.
She lay back and hugged her pillow while she experienced a little pang at the memory of her wedding day, a day she may not have handled that well.
All she could hear was the wind and the surf as her thoughts drifted on and it came to her that she was in deep trouble.
Something was holding her back from surrendering to Etienne. Something ridiculous? she pondered. Since he’d taken to invading her daydreams in the most embarrassing way, many might agree, she conceded. However, the fact remained that, while he might want her, he didn’t love her and she just didn’t seem able to get over that hurdle.
Then she tossed away the bedclothes and went to take a shower.
When she came back into the bedroom, the blue roller suitcase seemed to leap up and shout at her but she gave it a long, thoughtful look and turned away to get her newest jeans and a favourite blouse out of her old case.
‘Is this continuing as you mean to go on?’
She asked the question of herself as she sat down in front of the mirror to rub some moisturiser into her face and brush her hair.
‘I have no idea,’ she replied to her image. ‘Something—something keeps holding me back from those clothes as well as the rest of it and perhaps all I can do is try to explain it to him?’
She put her brush down and regarded herself more thoroughly than she was accustomed to. No problem with her hair, it did its own thing, which seemed to be quite acceptable. So were her blouse and jeans. She got up then paused to contemplate her figure. But that brought back memories of Etienne in his board shorts for some reason, so she tossed her head, bit one of her nails briefly and ventured beyond the bedroom.
To find that breakfast was waiting for her.
‘Not a good day,’ Etienne said after greeting her casually.
‘No,’ she agreed, unfurling her napkin. ‘Not that I heard it but it looks as if a solid storm came this way last night.’
She glanced outside to see that the palm trees in the garden were still bending and waving their fronds around beneath a grey sky, although it wasn’t raining.
‘Several storms.’ Etienne served himself up bacon and eggs while she selected fresh fruit and yoghurt to start. ‘Let’s hope it clears up. I gather you slept well?’
She received his probing glance with all the serenity she could muster. ‘Like a log. How about you?’
‘I woke up a couple of times.’ He poured some coffee.
Mel closed her eyes and breathed in. ‘That smells divine!’
He poured her a cup and pushed it over to her. ‘What would you like to do today?’
Mel glanced across at him. In jeans and a grey T-shirt he looked big, vital and somewhat impatient, as if he couldn’t wait to get out and about and doing things.
‘I have no idea what we can do in this weather,’ she said slowly, ‘unless they have a gym here?’
For a moment, he went quite still with a piece of toast poised halfway to his mouth. Then he started to laugh.
‘Have I said something funny?’ But threaded through her puzzlement was a trace of alarm.
‘Yes and no,’ he responded, still grinning.
‘Well, tell me!’ A spark of indignation lit her eyes.
‘You won’t like it,’ he warned.
‘How can you know?’
He shrugged. ‘The thing is, I never suspected that I would have to spend the first day of my married life—letting off steam in a gym, Mel.’
She blushed scarlet. ‘I…just…that just came out,’ she tried to explain.
‘Things that “just come out”,’ he drawled, ‘are often indicative of a state of mind.’
She took a sip of her coffee and tried to regroup as he finished his bacon and eggs.
‘I guess I haven’t thought much about your side of things, I’m sorry. Other,’ she confessed with honesty as well as seeing an opening to explain her feelings to him, ‘than to wonder what you see in me as opposed to all the women who have been gossiped about in connection with you.’
‘Ah, gossip.’ He sat back and pushed away his plate. ‘I would have thought you of all people would understand the pitfalls of gossip.’
‘Why?’
He got up and roamed about a bit then propped himself against the door frame and folded his arms. ‘Take this scenario. According to gossip, you, Mel Ethridge, are a loose cannon at times. You go about creating all sorts of drama, some people see you as seriously nutty, others see you as even lacking a gene.’
Mel slammed her napkin down on the table then forced herself to take a steadying breath and achieve calm reasonableness at the same time.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I seem to have made my point.’
‘No, you have not!’ Calm reasonableness flew out of the window. ‘I don’t know where you got them from but its common knowledge you’ve had any number of elegant, sophisticated, gorgeous lovers, none of whom were impoverished, nutty, nineteen-year-olds!’
‘Then I’m obviously due for a change,’ he drawled and shot out a hand to field the, fortunately closed, little bottle of marmalade she flung at him. ‘Now, now, Mel,’ he warned softly but dangerously. ‘What do you want me to believe, that the gossip about you is wrong or all too accurate?’
‘I don’t care what you believe.’ She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin at him.
‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he murmured with what appeared to be a lightning change of mood.
She blinked at him.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He shrugged. ‘Do you play golf?’
‘I… What’s that got to do with it?’
‘As a way of defusing this situation, I thought we might have a game of golf. They have a nine-hole course here. I brought my clubs; we could hire some for you so long as you don’t mind a bit of wind.’
‘I was only trying to explain…’ She hesitated.
‘Your reservations about me?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe you should have done that before we got married.’
‘Maybe I should,’ she retorted then bit her lip. ‘Yes, I used to play golf with my father, as a matter of fact.’
‘Then let’s get to it.’
She stood up and eyed him, sincerely regretting this impasse and her part in it, but
really, she thought, he had offered the first insult.
‘I’ll get a jacket.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE event, they were able to make up a four-ball game with another couple staying at the resort.
At first, Mel thought this would be a good idea in light of the less than amiable vibes between her and Etienne but she was soon to change her mind.
‘Ah, the honeymooners!’ Brad Littleby greeted them on being introduced. ‘This is my wife, Paula.’
‘How do you do?’ Mel murmured.
Paula, in her middle twenties, was a ravishing redhead, expensively kitted out in all the right attire down to her tan and white golf shoes and matching glove. Paula, as it turned out, was also a person who spoke her mind.
‘Thought you might be taking it easy this morning,’ she said to Mel with a knowing little look that grated on her. ‘Wedding night and all that!’
‘Mel has a lot of energy,’ Etienne murmured. ‘Don’t you, sweetheart?’
Mel debated briefly on how to respond and found herself still feeling that she’d been misunderstood over breakfast and not only that but also on edge, so she settled for ‘in kind’.
‘It would take a lot more than getting married to sink me,’ she said coolly, and walked towards the first tee swinging her driver.
The course ran alongside the beach in places, fringed with casuarina trees that sighed in the breeze. As it was, not too arduous and well-kept, the worst that could happen to a ball was to bury itself in a sand dune if it was hooked or sliced. This happened to Paula, who was swooped upon by a pair of anxious plovers guarding a nest.
Etienne happened to be closest to her at the time and got called in to defend her from the birds.
Mel watched this little bit of byplay and decided that if she was any judge, Paula Littleby was the kind of woman who would respond to any attractive man despite the presence of her husband and his wife. She guessed that Brad Littleby, who was short and portly but rather nice, would be close to forty and she gained the impression that he and Paula hadn’t been married that long themselves.
Whatever else she might find difficult to cope with—such as a so-far fake marriage in front of strangers and a woman on the prowl, she thought drily—her game of golf hadn’t deserted her, she was happy to discover, however.
‘You’re pretty good,’ Etienne said at one stage when she’d sunk a three-metre putt. He himself played off a four handicap.
‘Thank you!’ Her cheeks were glowing despite her mental turmoil. ‘Mind you,’ she confided, ‘I’m seriously on my mettle.’ She looked across at Paula.
Etienne followed her gaze. ‘Surely—you wouldn’t be jealous, Mel?’
‘Not at all!’ Mel denied but kicking herself at the same time for falling into such an obvious trap. ‘I…I—’ she shrugged and plucked a reason for what she’d said out of thin air ‘—I just don’t appreciate wedding-night cracks.’
He grinned. ‘You might—one day.’
‘When I do, if I do, I’ll let you know, Etienne,’ she responded, now thoroughly annoyed with him as well as disliking Paula Littleby.
‘So you’re prim and proper as well as being a right little “do-gooder”,’ he drawled.
If only you knew about the concubine, the wood nymph and the strange girl with the cheetah cub, she thought, but said instead, ‘Possibly.’ She shrugged. ‘They’re waiting for you,’ she pointed out.
For some reason Etienne, who had been brilliant on the greens until then, three-putted the hole.
If Paula detected her disapproval she gave no sign of it, and Mel had no choice but to fall in with the suggestion, made after the game, that they have dinner together that night.
‘And what would you like to do now?’ Etienne asked her courteously, after they’d had lunch.
‘Be a million miles away from here,’ Mel muttered not quite beneath her breath, as she thought of the disaster of the morning and the evening ahead.
He stared at her then simply got up and walked away.
Nor did he return to their bure until half-past five in the afternoon, by which time, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he had the keys to her new car on him, she was in such a state of tension she would have driven herself home.
She stood up apprehensively as he let himself in. Despite her going for a long walk then having a swim from the beach—the weather had cleared—the afternoon had been interminable for her.
‘So.’ He put the diamond-studded keyring on the table. ‘Still caught up with all the evils of your situation, not to mention being a right little prig, Mel?’
She was immediately tempted to explain that she was no such thing, that things simply had got out of hand, but she cleared her throat instead. ‘I didn’t mean to be but perhaps,’ she conceded, ‘having to act out a part in front of strangers was…a bit much.’
‘We have a week to get through in front of strangers,’ he pointed out.
‘It mightn’t be so bad,’ she said cautiously, ‘if everyone didn’t know we were on our honeymoon.’
‘On the contrary, we could solve the whole problem if we cancelled this honeymoon and went home,’ he said harshly.
Mel swallowed painfully. ‘But that would…I mean, the boys and everyone at home would…’ She broke off and flinched as he softly but fluently consigned the whole population of Raspberry Hill to hell.
She began to shake inwardly because it was all so difficult—more than she’d dreamt possible. Well, she amended the thought, she’d been unable to dwell on the problems of her honeymoon; there’d been a wall in her thoughts, hadn’t there? All the same, it had come as a shock to discover there was also a wall in her heart that refused to allow her to take the final step towards becoming Etienne’s wife…
‘Look,’ he picked up the keyring and threw it up in the air a couple of times, ‘can we just establish one thing, Mel? Do you ever intend to go to bed with me—or not?’
Her throat worked.
‘Because there’s no point in going on otherwise. There’s no point in wading our way through a sham honeymoon then still having the difficulty of going back to Raspberry Hill. Where you’re obviously worried about what the boys are going to think.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ she asked hoarsely.
‘An annulment,’ he said flatly. ‘Then you could go your own way, Mel.’
From somewhere she dragged up the composure to deal with this.
‘You have all the cards in your hands, Etienne. I don’t have any. For what it’s worth, I assumed I would be able to do this but I just can’t seem to—’ she rubbed her face wearily ‘—at the moment I just can’t seem to square it with…I don’t know…maybe just the person I am. I’m sorry. But if you could give me a little leeway, I’d like to keep trying.’
He didn’t respond, at least not verbally. Instead, he looked her up and down with so much cynicism she felt herself shrivel beneath it.
Then he spoke at last. ‘How about tonight? Shall I cancel dinner with Brad and Paula?’
‘No. I mean—no. I’ll—be fine.’
He looked at his watch. ‘Then you have an hour to get ready. I’m going for a swim.’
‘Where…where have you been?’ she asked.
‘To see a man about a dog,’ he replied briefly and stripped off his shirt. Then he gathered a towel and his board shorts, and walked out.
Once again, as she walked into the bedroom, the blue roller suitcase seemed to jump up and shout at her.
She walked over to it and gave it serious consideration. Then she sat down on the bed with her hands in her lap and gave the whole situation serious consideration.
Had she awakened a sleeping tiger in Etienne Hurst?
Certainly a formidable opponent, she thought with a tremor of nerves. On the other hand, he was the one who’d given her no option but to marry him.
Her shoulders sagged because, of course, that wasn’t quite true. In essence, she’d made a bargain and was not holding up
her side of it. Then, out of nowhere, it occurred to her that part of her problem today had been the proximity of just the kind of glamorous, sophisticated woman she imagined Etienne should have married.
And she came to a sudden decision.
She was ready when Etienne came back from his swim, sitting, seemingly peacefully, on the veranda watching the sun set.
But she took an unexpected breath as he loomed up on the other side of the railing, almost terrifyingly attractive as well as looking damp and brisk and not to be trifled with.
She stood up.
He paused on the step. He was rubbing his hair with the towel then he slung it over his shoulder. ‘Your clothes? Or mine?’ he queried.
Mel looked down. She wore a shimmering pale aqua top with a smoky-grey silk skirt that billowed to mid-calf and a pair of high, barely there silver sandals. Her heavy hair was drawn back into a loose knot, with long tendrils framing her face. She’d also experimented with the cosmetics Mary Lees had provided.
‘Yours,’ she said.
‘What brought about this change of heart?’
‘I told you I’d like to keep trying.’ She moved her slim shoulders and examined her wedding ring. Then her eyes met his again. ‘It seemed a good way to start.’
‘Well, between them, Mary Lees and Mrs Bedwell, they seem to have got the fit right.’
His dark gaze ran down her figure and Mel felt all the fine hairs on her arms stand up at the same time as she hid a spark of disappointment in her eyes by lowering her lashes. How really…wet, she marvelled, to be set on fire by a man who made that kind of mundane comment on her appearance. Come to that, how…insane to be bothered by the thought of going to bed with this man when he could set her alight just by looking her up and down. All the same, she was, she reminded herself.
‘That would be Mrs Bedwell’s part in the operation, I imagine,’ she said drily. ‘I now remember that certain items of my clothing—and a pair of shoes—seemed to disappear for a while then they mysteriously reappeared.’
‘With no explanation?’ He raised an eyebrow.
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