A Summer Storm

by Robyn Donald

  ‘How can you do that? l’ve done nothing.

  He smiled again. ‘You need a few lessons in the realities of life,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m a powerful man, Oriel. You’d probably be surprised at just how powerful I am. I don’t boast, and I don’t make threats I can’t carry out.’

  His voice was cool and dispassionate, but the blade had been unsheathed, swift and clean and deadly, and it was pointed at her heart. She had known he was dangerous, but in her stupidity it had never occurred that this was the sort of danger she had to fear.

  Her eyes dilated in feral pain; she shuddered, her soul accepting defeat. As she turned blindly, her foot slipped and she fell into the water, the shock of its splash cutting off the breath she tried to draw.

  She felt the coping graze her head as she went in. Perhaps she hit the bottom; she remembered very little about the next few minutes, except that she was choking and limp when strong arms hauled her out of the water, and Blaize’s heart beat heavily against her as he carried her on to the lounger and put her down. Her chest hurt; she coughed, and spat out water, and began to shiver, long, slow shudders racking her body.

  ‘I’ll get you a towel,’ he said harshly.

  He rubbed her ‘dry, ignoring her attempts to do it herself, and put her nightgown on her, only then stripping off with unselfconscious ease and drying himself before pulling on a heavy towelling robe.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to carry you in?’

  She flinched away. Something ugly moved in his eyes, then was gone. ‘Right,’ he said unemotionally. ‘Get going.’

  He made her shower, threatening to stand in the bathroom with her until she promised that she would do it, then left to change out of his robe. Numbly, almost successfully shutting off the hideous clamour in her mind, she let the warm water play over her shaking body until he tapped on the door and said something. Her breath caught in ‘a harsh sob, but she turned the water off. If she didn’t get out he was quite likely to come in, and she thought she would die if he saw her naked again.

  With hands that shook she dried herself and pulled on a pair of thin cotton pyjamas. Avoiding her eyes in the mirror, she combed her hair. For a second only her hands clenched on to the side of the vanity bench, the knuckles showing white as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she went into the bedroom, the last remnants of her pride blanking out all expression from her still white face.

  Blaize was standing by the bed, looking down at the rumpled blankets, his profile a knife slash against the soft blues and greys of the curtains. A muscle flicked in the arrogant line of his jaw, and his mouth was a thin, cruel line. He had changed into black trousers and a thin black shirt and was waiting impassively, big and dominating, a lethal prowler in the jungle of the night, his whole stance indicating antagonism.

  ‘Brandy,’ he said, putting a glass in her hand. ‘Drink it.’

  She bit her lip, but tossed the brandy down, welcoming the ferocious bite of the spirit. Bruised and battered by her emotions, her whole being in tormented disarray, she thought that the last incident had reduced everything that had happened that night to farce of the broadest sort. Still, at least it had anaesthetised her feelings.

  ‘Into bed,’ he ordered.

  She looked at her tossed bed, and said without any apprehension of being believed. ‘We didn’t make love, Blaize.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said indifferently. ‘I overreacted. However, it doesn’t alter the basic premise, which is that you have signed a contract, and I have no intention of letting you walk out on it. Your love-affairs take second place to Sarah’s welfare.’

  He was gone the next morning, he and James Weatherall, and Oriel welcomed the three weeks until he came back with gratitude. It gave her time to accept the fact that she loved him, and that he felt nothing so basic for her.

  It gave her time to develop a shell to hide her broken heart from probing eyes.

  It gave her time to settle into the big house against one of Auckland’s volcanic cones, fit into the routine, and establish friendly relations with the housekeeper and the gardener, who was also the chauffeur when one was needed. It gave her time to discover that pain was a constant that took away her appetite and her sleep, that ached from her soul to her heart, colouring her whole world grey.

  It gave her time to learn that she could spend all night awake, and function more or less normally the next day.

  And it gave her time to become accustomed to the fact that her mother had decided to emigrate to the warmer climate and bigger pool of Australia. Offered a new position as head of a famous modelling agency in" Brisbane, she came back only to work out her time and pack up. So excited was she by her new life that she could spare no more than a very cursory interest in Oriel’s, for which her daughter was profoundly grateful.

  She and Jo might never been very close, but it was a wrench to wave her off, knowing she would only come back for holidays.

  No sooner was Jo gone than Blaize returned to enroll Sarah at a private school with an excellent reputation and small classes. It was purgatory to go with him, especially when both the registrar and the headmistress mistook her for his wife and she had to endure his firm correction of them both. But then Oriel discovered that she could endure almost anything, except the signs of tiredness Blaize bore, and the fact that his eyes were hooded and calm when they met hers.

  It was all over. Whatever he had felt for her he had managed to kill. While he was away she had toyed with the idea of forcing him to listen to her, but one glance into those weary, implacable eyes had convinced her that if she tried, she would only be exposing herself to more humiliation. For some reason he had decided that he did not need to want her, and so he had used. his considerable will to kill the emotions she had roused in him.

  She wished it was so easy for her.

  Amazingly, it was possible to live a normal life, to seem perfectly sane and rational, when her whole being ached with an intolerable pain. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was possible.

  Just as it was possible to know that Blaize was with another woman and betray nothing. He rarely spent the evenings at home. Oriel’s pain was almost. physical, a shaft of burning agony, but she concealed it.

  They inhabited the same house, they loved the same children; sometimes when Simon was on leave from school they took them out together, for all the world like a family. They were polite and distant to each other, warm and loving with the children.

  And Oriel told herself that it was worth it. It had to be worth it. Certainly the children bloomed. Sarah lost the worried look that had seemed permanent for her, and with the rapid growth of her teeth, and the equally rapid increase in her reading ability, she became the happy, loving child she had been intended to be.

  And Simon said several times, very casually, that he enjoyed coming home for leave at weekends now.

  About halfway through her period of probation Oriel decided that she was not going to eat her heart out any more. On her deathbed she would remember Blaize, but she was not going to look back on a life blighted by a lost love. If she never loved again, never married, never held her own child to her heart, she would grieve, but she would not let it ruin her life; she was going to live fully and well.

  The decision marked some kind of turning-point. When consulted, Blaize agreed to her plans, with the proviso that the children, especially Sarah, must come first.

  ‘Of course,’ Oriel said simply.

  ‘Does this mean that you aren’t thinking of leaving us when the three months are up?’ he drawled lazily.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, retreating, not yet ready to admit that it was impossible for her to leave Sarah.

  He gave her a mocking smile. For a moment she hesitated. It was the first crack in the meticulous courtesy he had been treating her to. Then she met his eyes, cold, polished pewter, and gave up the idea.

  So she enrolled at university for a degree course in education. At least the t
uition fees were not a burden. She was being paid ridiculously well for a job that involved very little work. The housekeeper did all the housewifely things, and it was very easy to love Sarah.

  And then André Hunter reappeared on the scene. And Oriel found that the weeks of self-restraint had been for nothing, because she wanted nothing more than to tear his eyes out for being the cause of all her wretchedness.

  It was irrational and unfair, because she knew perfectly well that he was not the reason for Blaize’s rejection of her. No doubt, she had decided on too many of her sleepless nights, Blaize had realised that he did not really want a tall, thin, awkward woman, and had merely used his well-known aversion to sharing as an easy excuse for his decision.

  So when André Hunter came strolling up to her as she walked out on to the street from the university one perfect autumn day, she looked at him with the first signs of spirit she had evinced since the night of the party, her eyes far from sleepy.

  A wicked, mocking smile touched the knowing mouth. ‘Ouch!’ he complained. ‘All right, what have I done?’

  She had regained control. ‘Nothing,’ she said calmly. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Oh, the university held a lunch for various people, and invited me. It was dull, but I’m glad now I came. When I woke this morning I looked out’ of the window and told myself that such a day had to have something exceedingly pleasant in wait for me. Come and have a drink.’

  She didn’t want to, but even as she shook her head he took her arm and coaxed, ‘I promise I won’t try to seduce you in the bar. In spite of what you read in the gossip columns, you’re not automatically branded a scarlet woman if you go to a pub with me once or twice.’

  A smile trembled on her mouth. André pressed home his advantage. ‘Besides, I want to know more about you. I like you, which is an odd reaction for me to have. Perhaps it’s because you are head over heels in love with your boss, so I’m in no danger.’

  ‘I don’t-’ To her horror her eyes filled with tears.

  He clicked his fingers and a car rolled up. ‘One of my few extravagances,’ he said as he opened the back door for her. He gave the driver some instructions and then turned back to her as the car rolled regally down the road. ‘Sorry,’ he said, clearly sincere. ‘I’m an idiot.’

  ‘I’m the idiot.’ She blew her nose and sat up straight.

  ‘I don’t usually burst into tears, I promise you.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t. How's the foot?’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine, no problems.’

  His green gaze never left her face. ‘No more swelling in the afternoon?’

  ‘No, it’s completely better.’

  He leaned back against the opulent leather and began to talk, cheerfully, idly, with a stinging wit that amused her and an oddly gentle attitude that surprised her. She of going to a hotel or café they were being driven through one of the leafy suburbs. ‘I don’t-’ she began, frowning.

  ‘Relax,’ André ordered cheerfully, patting her hand in a most avuncular manner. ‘I thought you’d prefer to have your drink in privacy.’

  She eyed him carefully. He was smiling, but she saw nothing but a warm concern that insensibly comforted her. Instinctively she knew she had nothing to fear from him, whatever his reputation with women. And why shouldn’t she go? she thought on a burst of defiance directed at Blaize. Sarah wasn’t due to be picked up for another hour and a half.

  He had been watching her carefully, for he gave a wicked chuckle, green eyes gleaming with mischief. ‘That’s the girl,’ he encouraged softly. ‘I knew that a woman with a smile like yours wasn’t the sort to listen to vulgar gossip. Or allow herself to be intimidated by a man who doesn’t know when he’s hit the jackpot.’

  ‘How-?’ She bit her lip.

  ‘Because,’ he said easily, leaning back and surveying the back of the driver’s head with a calm amusement she found irritating, ‘he was watching you like a hawk the night of the party, and he did not like it when he saw us together. Naturally he would warn you against me. After all, he warned me off in the most threatening way.’ He ignored her gasp, and went on meditatively, ‘Of course I took note. It’s not considered healthy to oppose Blaize Stephenson, and the man is known for his dislike of sharing anything –especially his women. Witness my restraint these past weeks. However, it has become common knowledge among need to know these things that he’s not in the best of humours. Normally he spends a lot of time overseas, but this year everything is being done from home. And very many people have felt the lash of the great man’s tongue. Poor old James Weatherall is looking distinctly harassed. Why? we ask ourselves. It can’t be lack of feminine company, because he has been seen out with other beautiful, accommodating damsels.’

  She flinched and he patted her hand again, a little less avuncularly this time. Carefully she folded both hers in her lap, composing her face into an expressionless mask.

  ‘But dog in the manger has never been Blaize’s way, he mused, smiling, slanting her a very perceptive glance.

  She said nothing, wishing heartily that she hadn’t given in to that most uncharacteristic burst of defiance. In spite of herself she liked André, but he was altogether top sharp, and she had a sinking feeling that he hadn’t brought her here to give her a drink ‘and a little social chit-chat.

  A few minutes later the car turned in through massive gates to a tall apartment building, one of the few allowed some years ago before zoning restrictions became more rigid.

  The driver put them tenderly out and they walked in through the security doors and across the entrance to the lifts. Another couple were there; to her astonishment Oriel recognised the Duncans, Matt and Lora: His hand at her back, André acknowledged their greetings. Oriel felt colour surge into her checks at Lora’s surprised look, and the cool, somewhat assessing glance Matt Duncan gave her.

  They were perfectly affable, however, Lora informing her that they had come down for an exhibition of French Impressionists in the art gallery.

  ‘We must get together,’ she finished with the friendliness Oriel liked so much.

  ‘I’d like that,’ said Oriel.

  ‘It can’t be tonight, we’re going out tonight. Tomorrow?’ Lora directed an enquiring glance at her husband. He nodded. ‘How about lunch tomorrow?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, the children and I are flying up to the Bay this afternoon, to spend Easter there.’

  Lora’s disappointed look vanished. ‘Oh, well, we might see you up there, then.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Oriel said, realising with something of a start that she was.

  ‘Speaking of looking forward,’ André said outrageously, ‘we’d better go, Oriel.’ Nodding to Matt, he bent and kissed Lora’s hand, ignoring the troubled look she gave him, and swept Oriel inexorably towards the lift, barely allowing her time to say her goodbyes.

  Once inside the lift he collapsed against the wall, saying wearily, ‘No, don’t splutter at me, Oriel-’

  ‘Why did you say that? You deliberately made it sound as though-as though-’

  ‘As though we were having an assignation? Of course I did. I have to live up to my reputation, you know.’

  ‘Not at the expense of mine!’

  He had opened his eyes and fixed her with a gleaming glance. ‘Dearest girl, the minute you moved in with Blaize your reputation was shot. Especially when everyone saw how he watched you the night of the party.’

  The lift stopped. She said, ‘I don’t want to come in.’

  ‘Of course you do.’ He took her hand, surprising her with his strength as he urged her out into a hallway. ‘Does it matter, Oriel? You know perfectly well that I’m not going to leap on you, and if what I said was offensive, I apologise. Not that you need to worry, because neither of the Duncans gossip.’

  Unwillingly, nagged by an aching sense that he was up to something, that she was being incredibly foolish, she let him persuade her into his apartment.

  He gave her coffee, made her la
ugh, showed her just how charming he could be and then took her home, delivering her just in time for her to go and pick Sarah up from school.

  So much for her inchoate fears! Admittedly, his eyes gleamed with something close to mockery, but he couldn’t have been more pleasant or less threatening.

  Both children were bubbling with excitement at the prospect of six days spent at the Bay, preceded by the delights of a flight in the small plane that would take them to the airport at Kerikeri. Not at all eager to revisit the scene of her humiliation, Oriel listened with a wry smile as the chauffeur took them out to the airport in time to catch the six o’clock plane.

  It was dusk when they reached Kerikeri, darkness falling properly as Ned drove them around the southern shores of the Bay to the station, on the way pointing out the massive pillars that denoted the entrance to Matt Duncan's station, Kahurangi.

  Allowing herself only a small, wistfully envious thought of the couple, so much in love that they seemed irradiated with it, Oriel wondered whether the function they were attending that night was the same as the one that Blaize was going to.

  She had no idea what it was; she’d never asked, and he’d never said-their conversation was mainly about the children, but he had told her that he wouldn’t be able to come up that night because he had to go out. She thought bleakly of the exquisite creature who had come to the house one Sunday afternoon; was he out with her?

  Not that she had stayed long. Blaize had seen her in the office and she had left within twenty minutes. It was, however, long enough for Oriel to learn to hate her.

  ‘Nearly there,’ she said a few minutes later, as the car turned off the shockingly bad metal road on to the much better surface of the long drive in.

  Sarah hugged herself gleefully. ‘Can we go for a swim?’

  ‘Not tonight, sweetheart.’ Firmly banishing the images that that brought to mind, Oriel looked pensively at the dark shapes of the hills. Somewhere in there she had stumbled and staggered on her way to the beach, and to Blaize.