Dangerous Obsession

by Patricia Wilson

  'You're going to eat!' he said determinedly. 'I'm going to sit by you and see that you eat enough to keep you going. You can keel over when we get back home.'

  He had her in a fix. It wasn't so easy to be angry with someone who smiled into your eyes, not when it was Dan, and she made a great effort to be natural, willing herself to relax as he led her back into the main room and guided her through it to the buffet.

  'How long has the boyfriend got?' he asked idly as they ate.

  'Only now, really. He'll have to go back tonight. He works hard, I hardly see him nowadays.' It was difficult to sound like a lovesick girl about Bryan, but she tried it.

  Instinct alone warned her that Dan must be kept firmly in his place, and his place was no longer close to her heart; all that had ended long ago. The smiling eyes were back to derision.

  'It's going to be quite tricky when you go overseas or enter government,' he said mockingly. 'What will he do? Tag along behind?'

  'He's not the tagging kind!' Anna said sharply.

  'He looks devoted enough. Maybe he'll simply hitch his wagon to your star!'

  'You make him sound like a wimp! He's not!'

  'Everything about you swamps him,' Dan murmured in a taunting voice. 'You're too beautiful, too alive for any mere mortal, somehow. You don't look right together.'

  Anna stood abruptly and put her plate down, the food only picked at.

  'I'm full!' she asserted determinedly.

  'And angry,' he added with a wry look at her flashing eyes. 'I'd rather have you angry than utterly self-controlled,' he said softly. 'It assures me that you're still alive, and as your guardian I need to know that.'

  'You offered to forget the whole thing!'

  'Except to watch over you,' he reminded her quietly.

  She whirled around, her rose-colored dress swinging, and walked off to find Bryan. What was Dan trying to do? She had given him no reason to suspect that she felt anything at all! She didn't! It was four years ago and it had only been a moment, a quick burst of passionate madness. Surely he remembered it like that, if he remembered it at all?

  She went back to doing exactly what she had been doing before, wearing herself out, and a few minutes later Dan came back, leaning elegantly in the doorway, his eyes sardonic as she clung to Bryan and avoided him all over again.

  It was terrible in the house without Elaine, but Anna was left well alone. She really did have some work to do for her finals and most of her time was now spent quite legitimately in her room. Also, she had a dreadful cold that wouldn't go. Dan had started another book and seemed quite content to work at Langford Hall in the study.

  He hardly spoke to her at dinner times, and he apologized, saying that when he had a book running he hardly ever spoke. It suited her fine! The time was passing quickly. She worked all the time now, her mind only half on her revision, the knowledge that he was there making it all that much harder.

  She was walking in the woods after a hard morning of work when she met Dan, and it was clear he had come out to find her. It was awkward. They hardly spoke to each other now.

  'You can't go on like this, Anna,' he insisted, falling into step beside her. 'Finals or not, this strain that you're forcing on yourself will break you up. You're going to be ill.'

  'There's no reason to worry about me!' she managed through tight lips. She had thought of taking to her heels when she saw him, but it would have done little good. He was determined to talk to her, and she was well aware that he could have caught her.

  'There's every reason to worry about you! That cold isn't clearing up. You hardly leave your room. You eat very little. This occasional walk is the only concession you make to health. You've always been brilliantly alive. You're fading almost before my eyes!'

  'It's only for this week,' Anna assured him tautly, a brainwave suddenly striking her. 'Almost everyone will be going back now, gearing themselves up for the finals. I'm going back on Friday.'

  'You don't look fit to go back yet!'

  'I'm going, though. I'm quite used to making my own decisions. In any case, it will give me time to be with Bryan before the exams swallow me up!'

  He was silent, suddenly tense and brooding.

  'Are you really going to marry him?' he asked unexpectedly. 'Is Elaine right when she hears wedding bells?'

  'At the moment we're both too busy. Eventually, I suppose,' Anna said in a stiff voice.

  The thought of marriage made her tighten up inside. The finality of it. It was final for Dan! She had never asked him if he was going to marry. He had told her in no uncertain terms about his plans four years ago!

  'Do you live with him?'

  The question took her breath away and she had to swallow hard before she answered. 'I live in hall!' It came out angrily, and her face was flushed and embarrassed, but he never even seemed to notice.

  'I'm aware of that. That's not what I meant and you know it!'

  There was a raw sound to his voice that astonished her. She supposed that he was protecting his new-found ward, trying it out for size. It filled her with fury. She didn't need Dan poking into her life. He seemed reasonably content not to have his wife with him! He could get on with his writing!

  'You mean do I sleep with him? It's none of your damned business!' She whirled round and glared at him. 'I don't ask you personal questions. What Bryan and I do is our affair. We love each other,' she added in a choking voice.

  They didn't. They were fond of each other. She supposed that he could loosely be called a boyfriend, whatever that really meant, but they were both too occupied with the world of learning to be too much together. It was just a comfortable arrangement. They went out with each other, had done so for two years, they went about together, usually with other people too. She would never let Dan find that out. There was no way he was going to imagine that she still clung to the memory of four years ago.

  'Love each other? Do you?' He grasped her shoulders and swung her back to face him when she was just about to march off. 'He doesn't look capable of controlling you!'

  No. She realized that Dan thought Bryan a mere boy.

  It had been written all over his face at the wedding. 'Yes, we love each other,' she said heatedly, 'and that being the case, I don't need controlling.'

  'You always did, apparently,' he said quietly, 'and yet, never when I was there.'

  'I was scared of you,' Anna murmured in a strained voice. 'I thought of you as a-a rather alarming big brother.'

  'All the time?' he asked derisively, his hands tightening.

  'I grew up and realized that you weren't a giant!' The long fingers were probing the delicate bones around her neck, and she felt almost unable to breathe. 'I don't really know you now at all. People grow apart.'

  'Yes. Nothing stays the same. Lives change, and not always for the better. I went away to make a fortune and succeeded. In doing so, I lost a whole life.'

  He dropped his hands and turned to the path, and she felt again the great rush of protectiveness. He had lost his father. She knew what it had done to her; it was even worse for Dan. She was suddenly torn apart with remorse, and her hand went out to touch his arm.

  'Oh, Dan!'

  He looked at her for a long moment and then smiled, his hand covering her fingers.

  'Oh, what the hell!' he said briskly. 'There's no future in wishing.'

  He put his arm around her shoulders and turned her to the path, walking with her back to the house, never noticing the look on her face. Frighteningly, she had been back in the past for a second. She wasn't going back there! She didn't feel the same now.

  'When are you going back to the Bahamas and your little island?' she asked after a minute, wanting to make some ground for normal conversation and wanting rather desperately to get Dan as far away as possible.

  'When things have settled down,' he answered quietly. 'I can work at Langford Hall quite easily. I only need a typewriter and it never leaves my side. I want everything settled, and Elaine back from her hone
ymoon. I'll stay until you've done your finals.'

  'No! There's no need. You mustn't come down to Oxford to see me!'

  There was an unnatural urgency in her voice and he stiffened, his arm dropping away from her.

  'I have no such intention,' he said coolly. 'I realize that you'll be busy and that every spare minute is Bryan's. I'll be quite content to be at the other end of a telephone in case you need-in case either of you needs me.'

  'I would have thought that your wife needed you,' she said tartly. 'The longer you stay here, the longer you're going to be apart. We have, after all, managed without you for four years, and three years before that!'

  'I'm aware of my shortcomings!' he grated. 'If I'd been here over the last four years I would have seen more of Dad. I confess to neglect. I am not, however, neglecting my wife. I don't have one!'

  His tone warned her to say no more, but she stopped, almost open-mouthed, and he stopped too, turning to look at her coldly.

  'You-you said you were going to marry Daphne!' she said in a stunned voice, her mind racing to contain this. 'She had a great big ring and ....'

  'In the end, we didn't fancy it,' he informed her impatiently.

  He just stood there, his hands in his pockets, his tawny eyes sardonic, and her color mounted as she understood why he was so scathing. Daphne had been pregnant and yet ... She could never have imagined that Dan would let anyone down.

  Did he know when he was here four years ago that he was not going to marry that poor woman? How many more were there? Was this what living in the world of best sellers and films did to a person, or had she been too young before to notice what Dan was really like?

  He must think her very young and foolish that she still had illusions of love. Or maybe he thought her head was too filled with academic thoughts, ambitious desires to be in banking or government.

  'Then, as you're footloose and fancy free, you can do as you like, can't you?' she managed coldly. 'It will be nice to know that there's someone at the hall besides Edna.'

  'Why should you care?' he jeered. 'As I understand, you're not coming back!'

  'There's nothing to come back to,' Anna countered. 'People make a home, not a collection of old stones.'

  'I've been called many things, but never an old stone,' he said ironically. 'Not that I'm surprised. I suppose the island is my home now, if I have one. When Elaine left, the last warmth went from Langford Hall. Why are we bothering to keep it, Anna? I'm not welcome, and you don't want to be!'

  He turned back towards the house as the words tore into her heart. Dan-unwelcome? She had loved him. He had toppled from his position as idol, and his latest revelation had confirmed that he was not what she had imagined, but there were memories, all of Dan.

  'Dan!' Her voice was soft and he glanced round at her, seeing everything on her face.

  'Sympathy?' he taunted. 'I don't really need that. I don't need a collection of old stones, either!'

  'Then sell it,' she said bitterly, his mockery stifling any further gentleness.

  'Oh, no,' he said softly. 'It's had a Toren there for generations, and one day there'll be another. I haven't married so far, but I will. Besides, you begged me not to sell only two weeks ago. If your heart changes so rapidly, it's likely to change back again. As Elaine is married there's only you and I. We'll leave it until you know your own mind and then discuss it.'

  'When I marry, I'll also have a house,' Anna said tightly.

  'Let me know when the time comes,' Dan said smoothly. 'Of course, a doctor couldn't afford it, but you'll have your inheritance. And if you're in government, who knows? I might sell it to you!'

  He wanted to drive her back to Oxford, but she refused. She had her own car, in any case, and she didn't think she could face a drive so far with a totally silent Dan beside her. He shrugged and left her to her own affairs, and she went off feeling bleak, miserable and somehow giving the decided impression that she had been joining in much too heartily with the merry-making.

  The drive back to Oxford seemed to be never-ending, and on the way she acquired a cough, her cold going one miserable stage further. It was good to be back with ordinary people, although at the moment there was little about them that was ordinary. They were strained, and showed it in very different ways.

  In her own little group of friends there were a few very outgoing people, and she joined them during the evenings of the last week before the finals in a little revelry, very minor, nothing more than a few pizzas and a glass of wine at the very noisy wine-bar in town, a well-known haunt of students in term-time. She absolutely willed her cold away, but it stayed there and refused to go, getting tighter by the day. Nobody noticed much. They were too busy making merry and worrying.

  On the last weekend she decided that the Friday night was her very last time out. If she had been sensible she would have spent these evenings in bed, but she didn't feel like being sensible. Her time with Dan had shaken her more than she was willing to admit, and every moment spent alone was a moment that allowed him to steal into her thoughts. She couldn't afford to allow him to be there ever again.

  Things were noisier than usual on Friday night, as nerves soared to a crescendo, and although Anna didn't feel much like making merry she tried. The noise rang through her head, the smoke made her eyes run and she began to feel that she would need help to get back to her room. It was useless to call Bryan. He was on duty as usual, and he would only give her a lecture on the subject of a neglected cold.

  She never saw Dan until he was right in front of her, towering over her grimly, and she gaped at him stupidly, anyone, and she still hadn't recovered from the shock of his sudden arrival.

  She didn't quite believe that it was Dan. He had to be a mirage, but when she closed her eyes and opened them again he was still there, looking angrier than ever.

  'Come along!'

  He reached for her and took her arm, pulling her to her feet, and several forms of hazy protest rang out that darkened his already furious face.

  'Hey, Anna! Who's the Superman?'

  'Unhand her, sir!'

  Everyone collapsed into laughter and there was no attempt to stop him. It was all light-hearted, and she realized that if she was being abducted there was nobody in a fit state to assist. She was being abducted! Dan propelled her to the door and out into the open air, where she began to cough almost uncontrollably.

  His sympathy was entirely absent. He waited with mounting impatience and then marched her off along the street to his car, the one he had brought with him when he'd first arrived at Langford Hall.

  'What are you doing? Why are you here? I don't want to....'

  'Get in!'

  The words were not really needed. He bundled her into the car and it seemed that only seconds later they were pulling into the car park of one of the very best hotels.

  Getting out was not difficult either; he hauled her out unceremoniously and her feet hardly touched the ground as she was taken through the rather forbidding doors past an equally forbidding doorman into an opulent foyer. Dan was more forbidding than anything or guilty.

  Recovery came when she found herself in his room and heard him ordering black coffee for one immediately. 'What are you doing?' she demanded, standing on decidedly shaky legs and looking at him furiously.

  His looks were the more furious.

  'I'll speak to you when you've got some coffee inside you and when you can see straight!'

  It all dawned on her with astonishing speed. 'You think I'm drunk!'

  'I know it!' he bit out.

  'And for once in your life, you're wrong! I've had one lemonade with ice and nothing more! And you can change that coffee order if it's for me. I don't like black coffee!'

  He looked at her very hard, and then lifted the phone and changed the order to a tray of tea. Anna sat down, her legs finally giving out.

  'What the hell were you doing with all that rowdy lot?' he grated, coming to tower over her again.

  'That rowdy lot
were students letting off steam before the dreaded finals! You were a student once-I suppose you never did anything like that?'

  'Was Bryan there?' he enquired with great suspicion still on his face, her remarks ignored.

  'He was not! He's working, as usual. What are you doing here, Dan? If you think I'm going to put up with this guardian nonsense, then....'

  'I came to say goodbye. I'm going back to the Bahamas, back to the island.'

  He turned away and her face fell, a wave of something that might well have been dismay racing over her.

  'Oh!'

  'Oh?' He turned back and looked at her, narrow-eyed. 'I did wonder for a moment if you'd had prior warning of my departure and were celebrating the fact!'

  'I told you what we were doing,' she muttered vaguely.

  Her head came up and she looked at him with tired, dark eyes. 'I thought you were staying until my finals were over?'

  'For what reason?' he asked coolly. 'You don't need a guardian. We're not friends, not relatives, so what the hell are we? The moment we meet we begin a battle. There's no reason for me to stay.'

  'I suppose not.' She looked away, and after a moment

  He came and tilted her face. 'Have you eaten?'

  'No-no. I-I didn't much fancy a pizza and... .'

  He wasn't listening. He was at the phone, ordering sandwiches with the tea.

  'You'll not be popular. The tea will be already on the way.'

  'Just so long as they don't make the mistake of expressing displeasure, they'll be all right,' he assured her grimly, and she didn't think they would express displeasure when they saw Dan's face like that, tight and angrily frustrated.

  'How did you find me?' She was watching him in an almost drugged fashion, and he glanced at her irritably.

  'I asked where the students gathered and then I followed the noise.'

  'Why did you bother? You could have sent me a card from the Bahamas!'

  His irritation hurt, and the fact that it did made her speak coldly, through tight lips. 'I thought you'd want to be good and sure that I'd left. You can actually come and see me on to the plane if you want; that way you'll be certain that you're free!'