Man of Stone

by Frances Roding

  His calm sureness checked her. What did he mean? If she wasn’t willing to consummate the marriage, then it must be rape.

  ‘It will be rape,’ she repeated huskily, as though, by saying the words, she would somehow banish the powerful effect he seemed to be having on her will-power. He was looking at her in such a way that suddenly nothing seemed to have any reality any more other than the dark glitter of his eyes. Her heart jumped nervously in her chest, a tension unlike anything she had experienced before seizing her.

  She looked wildly into his face, and her breath caught in her throat.

  A curious feeling that she had somehow walked out of reality and into some unfamiliar topsy-turvy sphere engulfed her.

  ‘It will not be rape,’ Luke repeated softly, and before she could divine his intentions he crossed the small distance that separated them and picked her up.

  The immediacy of his determination held her in frozen thrall until they were in the bedroom, and then the sight of the hand-painted, half tester bed with its luxurious hangings shocked her out of her trance and she started to struggle, pummelling frantically at Luke’s chest, knowing that there was no way she was going to be able to escape and yet driven relentlessly to waste her fragile strength in trying to defy him.

  Evening sunlight gilded the room as Luke undressed her with humiliating ease. In the end she stopped fighting him and lay instead, still and cold, fixing her gaze on a point beyond him.

  The other guests would be preparing for dinner, but they were honeymooners and no one would be so indiscreet as to disturb them; round and round went her thoughts spinning her out of control as she fought to deny the fear running through her.

  Luke undressed. She could have got up then and escaped from him but to where and for how long?

  He was right, she could not go back to her grandmother and tell her that the marriage was over almost before it had begun.

  He had planned to inflict this—this humiliation on her all along. Perhaps that was even part of why he had married her. So that he would have the right to torment her as he chose.

  Dark thoughts whirled chaotically through her mind, images she fought to deny torturing her. From a long time ago, she remembered a family friend’s favourite maxim: ‘What can’t be cured must be endured.’ But from where did one get the strength to endure? How could she endure the punishment Luke had in store for her?

  That he intended to exact full payment for what he considered to be her crime against him, she no longer doubted.

  The burgeoning love she had felt for him, the delicate, unexpected frisson of sexual desire, these had gone, to be replaced by a cold, hard lump of sick dread. It was enough to drive her from her cool, withdrawn sanctuary, to protest huskily, ‘Luke, please don’t do this…’

  His response was to silence her plea with the hard pressure of his mouth.

  She wanted to cry out with fear and denial, and then suddenly, as though he had heard that silent cry and was responding to it, his mouth softened, the hard grasp of his fingers turning to a caressing stroke, his mouth wickedly persuasive as it moved on hers.

  A tiny trickle of response warmed her, a faint, unsuspected vein of sensuality recognising the skill of his touch and answering it.

  The transition from aggression to seduction was so swift, so total, that she had no time to martial her defences against it; it was like being given the pain-killer after a shocking insight into the pain; the relief so tremendous that one did not question the advisability of taking the drug until it was too late.

  Neither of them spoke; there seemed no need. She clung voluptuously to him as he held her against his body, letting her feel its fierce message of arousal.

  How odd that she had ever feared this delirium of pleasure, she thought hazily as she moved instinctively to accommodate the heat and weight of him, her body quickening from anticipation to urgency.

  Instinctively, she accommodated him, gasping sharply when she felt a brief flare of pain, so quick and sharp that it was dying away before she registered it.

  She heard Luke cry out something, a tortured, driven sound that fixed her gaze on his face. Contorted in the rictus mask of unbearable pleasure, it was oddly vulnerable; so vulnerable, that her throat ached sharply with emotion. She wanted to gather him to her and protect him from whatever it was that tormented him, and then, dizzyingly, she was caught up in the first climactic burst of her own pleasure, stunned and awed by the immensity of it, lost in the fevered storm that rose and fell within her.

  Luke cried out sharply, his eyes wide and blank, his breathing harshly erratic. The intense desire had weakened him more than it weakened her, Sara recognised, lost for a moment in the marvel of this discovery, of knowing, however briefly, that she held this powerful man in thrall. It was a moment to be stored and savoured, as was the pleasure he had given her, and the discovery that her fear had been a child’s fear, she recognised sleepily. And the fact that she did, after all, love him. But now a dazed lethargy possessed her, an unstoppable desire to close her eyes and sleep.

  As she did, she felt Luke move the comforting warmth of his body away from her; she reached for him instinctively, but she was already falling asleep.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SARA WOKE UP sharply, as though someone had spoken right next to her ear, but she was in actual fact alone in the four-poster bed. Outside, it was daylight. She moved unguardedly, wincing at the unfamiliar areas of tension in her body.

  Unwanted, worrying snatches of memory tormented her: words whispered and moaned in the blanketing darkness of the night, hands reaching urgently for her, and her own equally urgent response; a male body, a male voice, male hands and, worst of all, a name torn from that same male throat, as though drawn from a soul in torment. And that name had not been her own.

  Soberly, she sat up, shivering in the realisation that she was naked. The pillow next to her own was smooth, but she knew that Luke had slept there.

  How could she otherwise have had those elusive, haunting memories of him making love to her, not once but twice; and on neither occasion, as he had promised her, had it been rape. Far from it.

  She shivered again, dismally admitting that Luke had known her weaknesses better than she had herself. He had not subdued her by force or coercion, but rather had used the needs of her own body against her.

  From a purely physical point of view, she knew she ought to give thanks at having been granted such an accomplished and patient lover, but it was her emotions that tormented her this morning. Emotions she had thought had died beneath the cold cynicism of Luke’s treatment of her, but which had surfaced last night, with a stronger, more dangerous depth.

  When he had cried out his dead wife’s name in her arms, it had been like being cut with a thousand sharp, aloe-tipped knives. Even this morning, the memory could still bring stinging tears of pain to the back of her throat.

  He had loved her that second time with a fierce intensity, with a need that had shaken her to the very depths of her soul. She had looked into his naked face and had thought the need she had seen there had been for her—for her body, her flesh, her femininity—but she had barely been able to do more than take a small sip from the heady wine of power before the cup had been dashed from her lips.

  Her love for him had welled up inside her, a generous gift from the victim to her foe. She had reached out to touch him, driven to find an unspoken way of conveying her feelings, and in that moment he had cried out her cousin’s name.

  She had known, of course, that he must have loved her, but he was such a contained, cynical man where she was concerned that, somehow, she had imagined that that love was now locked away in the past. She had never dreamed he would ever reveal himself or his pain so vulnerably to her; had never imagined that consummating their marriage would take him back to a time when the woman he had held in his arms had been a woman whom he loved.

  She heard someone knock on the outer door of the suite, and hastily grabbed her robe from the bottom of t
he bed.

  ‘Your breakfast, madam,’ a slightly hesitant voice called out from the sitting-room.

  Tying the wrap around her, Sara opened the door.

  A young girl in a maid’s uniform was standing beside the table she had just wheeled in.

  From the silver coffee-pot came the aromatic scent of freshly brewed coffee. Golden-brown toast peeped from an immaculately starched napkin, a small disk of chunky marmalade stood beside fresh rolls of butter. There was cream and sugar, milk, fresh fruit and even a small, single portion of muesli beside a full glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

  Sara was bemused. She hadn’t ordered any breakfast.

  ‘Your husband said you wanted to have breakfast in your room,’ the maid told her. ‘If there’s anything else you want…’

  ‘No, no… that will be fine.’ Sara smiled absently at her, and then rushed to get her bag to give her a tip.

  The girl was obviously as unused to the luxury of the hotel as she was herself, Sara suspected, because she flushed deep pink when Sara gave her the coins.

  Where was Luke? Implicit in his order for her breakfast was his own lack of desire to be with her. No doubt he had been more than pleased to let her sleep on. He was a proud man, her husband; and she had only come to recognise that rather late in the day. He wouldn’t relish having betrayed himself to her so intimately.

  She had challenged that pride, and he had punished her for it with his slow ravishment of her senses. Did he know exactly what he had done? How could he not? she acknowledged with wry self-awareness. Her body had responded to him too well, too thoroughly for him not to know that he had given her a pleasure she had never experienced before. He probably even knew that she had been a virgin.

  Did he also know that she was dangerously, fatally in love with him?

  She stopped her frantic pacing and walked over to the window. Several couples were strolling round the gardens. If this was a real honeymoon, if Luke shared her love…

  Impatient with herself, she turned away. She would dress and then have her breakfast; there was no point in rushing to meet problems.

  Sooner or later, she would have to face Luke. What would he do? Would he make any reference to last night? would he…

  She showered and dressed quickly. Her body was marked in several places with tell-tale bruises—not caused by pain, she acknowledged, her skin flushing a brilliant pink, but by pleasure. She even felt different physically, glowing with a deep-rooted sense of completeness.

  When she moved, her body had a feminine grace, an assurance that, to her own eyes, was new. Would others notice it? She was not naïve enough to imagine that all women felt like this the first time they made love. She had been fortunate, and yet a part of her would willingly have exchanged all of Luke’s skill, all of his finesse and ability to give her pleasure, for the fumbling caresses of a man who really loved her.

  Maybe in time he would come to change his mind about her, to… Warningly, the words of an old proverb slid into her mind. ‘Hope too long deferred maketh the heart grow sick.’

  Yes, she could see how that might be, how one might wither and die, for ever thirsting after an impossible goal. She must not let that happen to her.

  She had begun a new life now. She had new responsibility. Her grandmother, Tom and even, to some lesser extent, Luke.

  She had no idea how he envisaged their lives would mesh. He was away a good deal, of course, but when he was home… Would he expect them to share a room? She was angry with herself for the small jolt of pleasure that thought brought. No wonder he had smiled so cynically when she had thrown that accusation of rape at him.

  She drank the orange juice and poured herself some coffee. She was too wound up to eat. Where was Luke?

  Almost on cue, the sitting-room door opened and he walked in. He was dressed casually in impeccably cut sports clothes, every inch the English country gentleman, despite his Australian background. Why was it that tweeds could look so good on some men, and so disastrous on others? He was frowning, she noticed, subduing a shocking impulse to run across to him and embrace him. To hide the look in her eyes, she turned away from him, nibbling at a piece of toast she didn’t want.

  ‘We’ll be leaving in half an hour.’

  His announcement startled her. She dropped the toast and met the hardness of his eyes face on. A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed it, acknowledging painfully that there was going to be no acknowledgement of last night, no softening of his attitude towards her. What had she expected? Promises of undying love?

  ‘I rang Alice this morning. Apparently, Tom has had an asthma attack. He’s been asking for you…’

  She started to shake. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before? We must—I must get to him…’

  ‘I’ve only just found out.’ The flat, even tone calmed her. ‘It isn’t too serious. Apparently, he and Cressy had words.’

  ‘Cressy?’

  ‘She rang to speak to you apparently, and Alice told her that we were married.’

  Without saying so, implicit in his words was their shared knowledge of exactly why Cressy might have found that news hard to believe.

  ‘You… you didn’t tell her, then?’

  It was hard to speak through the pain in her throat. Guilt, awful and all-encompassing, had her in its grip. Tom was ill. Tom, whom she had sworn to care for and protect…

  ‘There was no necessity.’

  Why? Sara wondered. Because Cressy wasn’t important to him, or because his relationship with her stepsister, whatever it was, would not be impeded by their marriage? Obviously, he had no idea that Cressy had intended to marry him herself.

  ‘And I might ask the same question of you.’

  ‘I tried to, but I couldn’t reach her.’ And she hadn’t tried all that hard, either, relieved not to have to tell her stepsister.

  Within half an hour they were on the road. Sara knew that Luke was driving as fast as safety allowed, but even so she was willing them to go faster, to get there sooner.

  When they did, she hardly waited for the car to stop before yanking off her seat-belt and running into the house.

  Alice met her in the hall.

  ‘My dear, he’s fine. A few days in bed, the doctor says—’

  ‘So, the bridal couple return.’

  Cressy was standing at the top of the stairs. To Sara’s eyes, she had never looked more alluring, nor more dangerous. Sara wondered what on earth she had said to Tom, but she couldn’t linger, not even to appease her stepsister, and so, ignoring her commanding pose, she rushed upstairs and past her, leaving her to wait for Luke.

  Alice went with her, trying to reassure her as she opened the door to Tom’s room.

  The little boy was asleep, his skin waxen pale. As always after an attack, he seemed to have shrunk somehow. Or was it just that these attacks always brought home to her how vulnerable the human body was?

  It was almost as terrifying to witness an asthma attack as it was to endure it. Over the years, she had forced herself to adopt a calmness she could not feel, and she was not surprised now to discover that her heart was racing at what felt like three times its normal rate.

  ‘Sara, he’s all right.’

  The firmness in her grandmother’s voice reached her.

  ‘I promise you, it was only a very mild attack. I told Luke there was no need for him to bring you home. No need for him to tell you, really.’

  She frowned, and as her tension relaxed Sara realised that her grandmother was telling the truth. Tom looked nowhere near as ill as he did after a severe attack.

  It crossed her mind that Luke had told her deliberately, knowing that she would insist on coming home, knowing that their time alone together would necessarily be cut short. Wanting their time together to be cut short? It was a humiliating thought.

  ‘Come downstairs and have a cup of tea. I feel so guilty about dragging you home. This should be a happy time for you… You’ve borne the burden of responsibility for To
m for too long, and now I know you have the added burden of me. No, don’t deny it, we both know that I’m speaking the truth. But you have a very strong shoulder to lean on in Luke, Sara. I’m so glad you’ve found one another. Both of you deserve to have happiness. Luke is more like an son to me than a grand-son-in-law. His marriage…’

  ‘Gran, I don’t think we should talk about the past.’

  She didn’t want to hear about Luke’s relationship with her cousin; she didn’t want to know how much it had hurt him when he had lost her.

  She let her grandmother persuade her to go downstairs. Anna fussed over them both, insisting that both of them were far too thin, and frowning when Sara protested that she had barely digested her breakfast.

  There was no sign of Cressy—nor of Luke, and jealousy, a sharp, searing knife of agony, turned inside her.

  She didn’t know how long it was before Cressy and Luke came back. She only knew that the pain inside her was so great that she couldn’t bring herself to look at either of them. Instead, she chattered aimlessly and breathlessly, filling the silence that otherwise would have been tormented by the deliberate way Luke was also avoiding looking at her.

  Now that they were back here, it seemed impossible that they could be married. The man who had made love to her last night, the man who had skilfully drawn out the deeply buried feminine heart of her didn’t exist; he couldn’t exist behind that cold, austere barrier of Luke’s withdrawal from her, surely.

  When she could stand it no more, she went upstairs, supposedly to check on Tom.

  He was still asleep, but it was a relaxed, natural sleep. She went from his bedroom into her own and sat down on the bed. Could it really only have been this morning that she had viewed marriage to Luke if not with pleasure, then at least with equanimity? Where was that equanimity now? She was a bundle of too-tender nerve-endings, poised on the brink of a jealousy so deep and destructive that she drew back from it in horror.

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  She jumped as Cressy walked into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.