A Woman of Passion

by Anne Mather

  Through a belt of palms, he could just glimpse the painted roofs of the cabanas, and beyond that the swimming-pool was a smooth slash of aquamarine, glinting in the sun. The way he felt right now, he would have liked to have plunged his sweating body into the cool water. But the thought that Fleur might choose to join him had him opting for a shower.

  Dammit, he thought, crossing the patio, where hanging baskets spilling scarlet geraniums provided a startling splash of colour, he couldn’t even do what he liked in his own home. Stepping beneath a shadowed balcony, woven with bougainvillaea, he entered a marbled hallway and mounted grimly to his suite of rooms. He’d always enjoyed his morning walks before, but today he felt decidedly out of tune with himself.

  He ran the shower hot, then cold, soaping his limbs aggressively as he endeavoured to lighten his mood. Fleur couldn’t stay here forever, he thought, deliberately turning his thoughts from the woman on the beach. She’d soon get bored without the social life she’d enjoyed as Chase’s wife. Besides, although there were plenty of stores in Bridgetown to suit her needs, Fleur was an avid shopper. She’d spent a small fortune in beauty parlours alone, and she’d had a new wardrobe of clothes every season.

  He wondered in passing where she was planning to live, now that Chase was no longer a factor. He doubted she’d stay on at the ranch, even if his father was willing. She’d always been more at home in the capital cities of the world. He couldn’t see her vegetating at Ryan’s Bend.

  He was shaving when his assistant knocked at his door. At his shout, Lucas came into his bedroom, and Matthew paused in the doorway to his bathroom, his razor still in his hand.

  ‘Problems?’ he asked, and Lucas pulled a face.

  ‘Your sister-in-law has already asked where you are, if that’s what you mean,’ he remarked, propping his stocky frame against a chest of drawers. ‘She’s having breakfast in the dining-room, would you believe? I thought you said she rarely got up before midday.’

  ‘She doesn’t—usually,’ Matthew replied flatly, turning back to the mirror and expelling a weary breath. He cursed as the razor nicked his jaw. ‘Damn, I guess that means she wants something, doesn’t it? You may be right. This is not just a social visit.’

  Lucas shrugged. ‘Has it occurred to you that she may be short of money?’

  ‘Of course it has.’ Matthew rinsed his jaw with fresh water and turned back again, drying his face with a towel. ‘But I don’t see how. Chase always had insurance. And his horses were worth a small fortune, you know that.’

  Lucas considered. ‘Could he have been in debt?’

  ‘I guess he could.’ Matthew frowned. ‘But if he was, he never said a word to me. And wouldn’t he have discussed it with my father?’ He grimaced. ‘Perhaps he did. The old man always was as close-mouthed as a shrew.’

  A shrew…

  Matthew tossed the towel aside, annoyed to find that the connotations of that particular word were not to his liking. It reminded him again of the young woman he had encountered on the beach. The truth was, for all his irritation with her, she had disrupted his morning walk and his equilibrium. And where that disturbance was rooted, he didn’t care to consider.

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’ Lucas watched as Matthew tossed the towel aside and pulled on a pair of frayed denim shorts and a loose black T-shirt. ‘Ask her right out? Or let her make the first move?’

  ‘That depends.’ Matthew forced his thoughts back to Fleur, and scanned the bedroom with narrowed eyes. Then, observing that his watch was lying on the cabinet where he had left it, he went to pick it up. ‘I don’t intend to allow her to stay here indefinitely.’

  ‘So you’ll play it by ear,’ remarked Lucas, straightening. ‘D’you want to look over the manuscript this morning, or shall I concentrate on the accounts?’

  Matthew gave him a resigned look. ‘What do you think?’

  Lucas grinned, his fair features crinkling humorously. ‘Accounts it is,’ he said. ‘And I’ll eat breakfast in the kitchen. I’m not sure I’m in the mood for Fleur’s particular kind of chat.’

  ‘And I am?’ queried Matthew drily, buckling the slim gold Ebel on to his wrist. ‘Remind me to thank you for your support some time, won’t you? I don’t know what I’d do without you in circumstances like this.’

  Leaving the spacious, if slightly austere surroundings of Matthew’s bedroom behind, both men walked along the wide gallery that connected all the rooms on the upper floor. Open on one side at present, with sculptured arches giving an uninterrupted view of the ocean, there were tight-fitting shutters which could be closed if a tropical storm blew in from the Gulf. In the latter months of the year there was the risk of hurricanes, too, but thankfully they were few and far between. In the main, the weather was fairly temperate, with humidity being the biggest source of complaint.

  They descended the shallow staircase Matthew had climbed earlier, where a glistening chandelier hung from a central bracket. The dining-room, where Fleur was having breakfast, opened on to the inner courtyard, and Matthew left Lucas to his own devices while he trod along the cloistered veranda.

  The dining-room was far too big for one person. Matthew had always thought so, although its cream and green décor always gave him pleasure. It was spacious and airy, but on lamplit evenings it could be warmly intimate as well. Like every other apartment in the villa, it was aesthetically appealing as well as functional, and those guests who had been invited here had been agreeably impressed.

  Even so, Fleur looked mildly intimidated, sitting at the long oak table. Ruth, his housekeeper, had laid two places at the end of its dark polished surface, and his sister-in-law’s expression was reflected in the glaze of fragile china and silver tableware. She was picking rather desultorily at the dry toast set in front of her, a cup of black coffee at her elbow indicating that she was still far too anxious about her weight.

  But her features warmed considerably when Matthew appeared in the doorway. Her eyes, already carefully outlined with mascara, lit up, and she patted the chair beside her, as if there were anywhere else he was likely to sit.

  ‘Good morning, darling,’ she greeted him affectionately. ‘I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to eat alone.’

  ‘Eat?’ remarked Matthew drily, indicating the dry toast on her plate. ‘Didn’t Ruth offer you a croissant? She makes them herself, and they’re delicious.’

  ‘They’re also about five thousand calories,’ exclaimed Fleur, exaggerating as usual. She shuddered theatrically. ‘They’re full of fat, Matt. You really shouldn’t eat them. You may not realise it now, but they can shorten your life.’

  ‘So can smoking,’ replied Matthew pointedly, and Fleur dropped her handbag back on to the floor. ‘So—did you sleep well?’

  Fleur grimaced. ‘I never sleep well,’ she declared. ‘Ever since Chase died, I’ve lain awake for hours, wishing he was there. I’m a physical person, Matt. I need someone to hold me. But there hasn’t been anyone to do that for such a long, long time.’

  Matthew’s lips compressed. ‘Chase has only been dead a couple of months.’

  ‘I know that.’ Fleur gave him a defensive stare.

  ‘But—Well, you might as well know, Chase and I had been having problems. It’s—almost a year since we—we slept together.’ She gave Matthew an appealing look. ‘You don’t know what it was like. He was such a jealous man!’

  Matthew’s stomach muscles tightened. ‘What you mean is, you were screwing him around,’ he stated, and she gave a protesting cry.

  ‘No. No, I wasn’t,’ she exclaimed bitterly. ‘I’m not that sort of woman.’ And then, as Matthew gave her a scorching look, she added swiftly, ‘You—you were the exception. I was lonely. And you always were such a—such an attractive boy—man.

  Ruth appeared at that moment, and Matthew was relieved. He doubted he could have responded to Fleur without rancour. His gut was telling him he’d been a fool to invite her here, but with his conscience eating at him there’d seemed nothin
g else he could do.

  ‘You like some more coffee, Mrs Aitken?’ Ruth asked, after taking Matthew’s order for scrambled eggs. A Czechoslovakian immigrant, Ruth had first worked for her employer in New York, but she’d been more than happy to accompany him when he relocated to the Caribbean.

  ‘What?’ Fleur seemed distracted, and she regarded the plump housekeeper with some impatience. ‘Oh—no. No. Nothing else at the moment. And be sure you cook the eggs with sunflower oil. It’s better for the digestion.’

  ‘Just do as you normally do,’ Matthew put in evenly, as Ruth looked dismayed. He helped himself to some freshly squeezed orange juice and regarded his sister-in-law with some dislike. ‘After almost ten years, Ruth knows how I like my eggs. And add a couple of bacon rashers,’ he appended, giving the woman a smile.

  Ruth departed, looking slightly reassured, and Fleur met Matthew’s eyes without remorse. ‘All that cholesterol,’ she declared. ‘You’ll regret it when you’re older.’

  ‘Like you, you mean?’ he suggested, in no mood to be charitable. ‘Just give it a rest, will you? I don’t need you to run my life.’

  Fleur looked longingly at her bag, but something—a desire to placate him, perhaps, Matthew thought wryly-kept her from reaching for her cigarettes. Instead, she pushed her plate aside and folded her arms on the table, giving him an innocent smile, as if butter wouldn’t melt.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do today?’

  ‘We?’ Matthew regarded her over the top of his glass. ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do, but I’ve got a book to write.’ He paused. ‘You can swim, or sunbathe, or go shopping if you’d rather. There’s a car at your disposal, and Bridgetown has plenty of shops for you to try.’

  Fleur wrinkled her nose. ‘I know what Bridgetown has,’ she said shortly. ‘It’s not that long since I’ve been here.’ She hesitated. ‘I was hoping you might take me sightseeing. When we were here before, Chase hardly left the house.’

  Remembering how tired his brother had looked the last time he saw him did not endear his widow to Matthew at this moment. ‘You don’t really expect me to believe you want to go sightseeing, do you?’ he asked harshly. ‘When was the last time you visited a museum, or a cathedral, or watched cruise ships unloading at the quay?’ He set down his empty glass with careful precision. ‘I may be gullible, but I’m not still wet behind the ears, Fleur. Do what you like, with pleasure, but don’t include me.’

  Fleur gave him a wounded look. ‘You’ll never forget that one mistake, will you? I let you see how frustrated I was, God knows how many years ago, and you can’t accept that I’ve changed. I loved Chase, Matt, you’ve got to believe me.’ She waited a beat. ‘And I don’t think he’d appreciate your treating me like a leper.’

  Matthew forced himself to calm down. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you’d like, I’ll have Lucas show you around. There are some flower caves in Saint Lucy that are well worth a visit, and several old plantation houses on your way.’

  Fleur looked sulky. ‘You’re just being unpleasant,’ she said. ‘You know I don’t want Lucas to take me anywhere. When you invited me here, I assumed it was because you wanted my company. I didn’t think I was to be given the brush-off because you want to work.’

  Matthew expelled a heavy breath. ‘You know why I invited you here, Fleur.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You should.’ He looked at her with less than sympathetic eyes. ‘You want the truth? I felt sorry for you. Good God, you practically begged me to let you come here. You said you couldn’t stand being at the ranch another day.’

  Fleur sniffed. ‘So? What’s changed?’

  ‘Nothing’s changed. That’s what I’m saying.’ Matthew struggled to be patient. ‘You’re welcome to spend a couple of weeks here. I can guess things were pretty grim for you at Ryan’s Bend. As you say, my father has the horses to keep him busy. Until you decide what you’re going to do—where you’re going to live-it isn’t going to be easy.’

  Fleur heaved a sigh. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said, running her fingernail round the rim of a spoon. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do—how I’m going to manage. Chase left so little money, and I don’t have any of my own.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Matthew felt the first glimmerings of apprehension. ‘What do you mean? Chase was broke?’

  ‘Near enough,’ she conceded, her fingers curling into her palms. ‘I didn’t know until—until afterwards. After all those years of competing and winning prizes, I assumed-’ She pressed her lips together. ‘But your father put me straight on that account. Did you know he even owned all the horses Chase rode?’

  Matthew frowned. ‘What about the insurance?’ He paused. ‘I know Chase was insured. He was very particular about that sort of thing.’

  Fleur shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘Well—they wouldn’t pay out.’

  ‘What?’

  Matthew was appalled, and Fleur shifted rather discomfitedly in her seat. ‘Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t my fault,’ she protested. ‘He—he’d been drinking before the—before the game when—it happened.’

  ‘Chase?’

  ‘Yes, Chase.’ Fleur tilted her head. ‘That’s why they wouldn’t pay. They said he was to blame.’

  Matthew pushed back his chair and got up from the table, unable to sit still as the import of what she was saying assaulted his senses. He’d assumed until then that Chase’s death had been a terrible accident. Now Fleur was telling him that Chase had broken the rules.

  ‘Why?’ he said now, turning to face her, and Fleur gazed at him with uncomprehending eyes.

  ‘Why, what?’

  ‘Why had he been drinking?’ snarled Matthew. ‘As I recall, Chase didn’t even like the stuff. Why would he swallow alcohol when he knew he had to play?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Fleur gave him an indignant look. ‘I wasn’t his keeper. Besides, perhaps you didn’t know him as well as you thought you did. In recent months, he’d been drinking quite a lot.’

  Matthew pushed his hands into the pockets of his shorts, aware of an overwhelming urge to shake Fleur until he got the truth. Oh, he didn’t doubt there was some truth in what she was saying. But the reasons for Chase’s behaviour had not been explained.

  A feeling of regret assailed him. It was true that in recent months he hadn’t seen as much of either Chase or his father as he should have. And the ironic thing was, it had been because of Fleur that he’d stayed away from his home. He’d always been conscious of what had happened, however much he’d tried to ignore it. And it had been easier for him to avoid the ranch, and the unpleasant memories it evoked.

  ‘I think—’ Fleur started, and even though Matthew gave her a warning look, she pressed on anyway. ‘I think he knew his game was failing,’ she declared firmly. ‘His average was falling, and I know he was worried about staying in the team. You know what polo-players are like: they have this macho image. I think Chase was afraid he was losing it. He was the oldest man on the field.’

  Matthew’s eyes narrowed. ‘How would you know?’

  Fleur held his gaze for a defensive moment, and then looked down at her plate. ‘I hope you’re not implying what I think you’re implying,’ she said, her voice constricted. ‘I told you: I loved your brother, Matt. Whatever you think, I miss him every day.’

  Matthew turned away, staring bleakly towards the glistening ocean. He missed Chase, too. More than he could ever have imagined. Dammit, that was why he’d invited Fleur here. To try and assuage the guilt that he still felt.

  ‘If you want me to leave, I will,’ Fleur offered in an unsteady voice, and Matthew squashed the uncharitable thought that her words were calculated. But there was no denying her ability to take advantage of a situation, and she must be pretty sure he wouldn’t take her up on it, or she’d never have taken the risk.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said now, but when Ruth brought his breakfast it was an effort to attack the food. He felt sick e
ven thinking about what Chase might have suffered during the last months of his life. If he had been worrying about his future, why the hell couldn’t he have said?

  An hour later he was sitting at his desk, wondering if he should call his father, when Lucas buzzed his private line. Lucas monitored all incoming calls from his office, and Matthew seldom took unsolicited calls, unless they were from people he knew.

  ‘You’ve got a call,’ Lucas announced ruefully. ‘From Andrew Sheridan. I can tell him that you’re out, if you like—or busy. But I thought I’d better clear it with you first.’

  Matthew frowned. To say he knew Andrew Sheridan was certainly an exaggeration. And, as Lucas knew nothing about his encounter with Helen on the beach, he knew he thought it was just a formality. But, in spite of himself, Matthew was intrigued. And there were other considerations here that made him say, quite uncharacteristically, ‘I’ll speak to him.’

  ‘You will?’

  Lucas couldn’t hide his surprise, and Matthew guessed his assistant thought he was being rather foolish. But, ‘Why not?’ he said, wondering what else the day could throw at him. ‘We can’t live like hermits while Fleur’s here.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Lucas sounded off-hand, but he connected the call at once and rang off. It was just curiosity, Matthew told himself, determining to be civil. He was curious about Andrew Sheridan’s relationship with Helen. It had occurred to him that it might not be as innocent as it seemed.

  ‘Aitken?’

  Andrew Sheridan’s voice was one of those upper middle class English voices, and it grated on Matthew’s nerves this morning. It seemed to imply that he should be glad to hear from him, that as a commonplace colonial he was being honoured.

  ‘Sheridan,’ he offered in response, wishing he’d taken Lucas’s advice after all and avoided the call. It wasn’t as if he was finding it easy to concentrate in any case, and the idea that Helen might be having an affair with her employer was already assuming far too much importance.