Fairwinds

by Rebecca Stratton

  She hastily turned away from him, but he held on to her hand still and she could not move away. While she

  was inwardly regretting that moment of provocation he slid both his hands round her waist and pulled her close to him, holding her in a grip that was almost cruelly strong. Her head spun as she was brought into contact with the warm, lean hardness of him, and the familiarity of the sensation alarmed her.

  His mouth had a taut, angry look and his black eyes glittered down at her, as she put her hands to his chest, her palms spread wide and trembling. 'Are you deliberately provocative?' he asked softly. 'Or don't you realize the effect you have?'

  'I - I didn't mean to have any effect at all,' she whispered, wondering why it was that he was so ready to blame her when she briefly played his game. 'I just-'

  'You just,' he mocked gently, and laughed softly as he pulled her closer still, until his face with its glowing black eyes completely filled her vision and his breath was warm on her mouth. 'If you tease, my beautiful, you must take the consequences.'

  He kissed her as he had before, on that journey home from the hospital, and she remembered that same disturbing look in his eyes. As he held her so tightly she could feel the steady beat of his heart as if it was in her own body, and his mouth was at once fierce and persuasive, arousing in her all those deep and alarming desires that she never knew with Clifford. Every nerve in her body responded to him until she was uncaring of anything else but the wild and uncontrollable elation he aroused.

  Then, as he had on that previous occasion, he re-

  leased her with such sudden harshness that she stared at him, feeling small and vulnerable and somehow cheated, at his harsh rejection of her. 'Philip!' She looked at him wide-eyed and as yet unaware of any need to feel guilty about CUfTord.

  But Philip was already aware that they were about to be joined by someone else and Tara caught the sounds of someone approaching suddenly, and hastily turned towards them, her heart rapping urgently at her ribs in warning.

  'Oh, there you are!' Clifford said cheerfully as he came into view through the trees. 'We wondered if you'd both forgotten it was lunch time.'

  The mundane words, the matter-of-fact tone had a slightly unreal sound at first and Tara took a moment to adjust to a new situation. Philip's recovery was complete and immediate and Tara v/as forced to recognize that this was quite probably not the first time he had been in such a situation. He smiled at his brother with no sign of unease beyond those taut betraying lines beside his mouth, and he glanced at his watch, pursing his lips.

  'So it is,' he said, and did not even look at Tara as he spoke. 'I'll leave you two to make your own way back, while I go and wash. By the way, Clifford,' he added with such a casual air that Tara felt chilled by its off-handedness, 'I hear there's to be a wedding in the spring.'

  Clifford's smile faded a little and he looked from Tara to his brother with a trapped, wary look that dismayed her. 'Oh, you've heard, have you?'

  'Not from you,' Philip told him, and Clifford frowned.

  'I didn't see the need,' he said. 'It only really concerns me and Tara.'

  'It concerns me if you're thinking of taking a long honeymoon just at the busiest time of the year,' Philip informed him bluntly, and Tara stared at him uncertainly.

  'Then we'll change the time,' Clifford said impatiently. '/ don't care when it is.'

  'Or even if it isn't?' Philip suggested softly, and Clifford looked so undeniably sheepish that Tara wished the ground would open and swallow her.

  They were discussing her marriage to Clifford as if it was just another item to be fitted into the works schedule, and after the incident of a few minutes ago she felt tempted to disappear from Fairwinds for a while and sort out her own feelings regardless of anyone else's. With Clifford being so off-hand Philip could be forgiven for suspecting that his brother was being forced into marrying her, and he was not helping by objecting to the time she had chosen.

  'I didn't say I didn't want it to happen,' Clifford objected.

  'Just as long as you're not thinking of opting out,' Philip warned, and the black eyes looked across at Tara with a smile that stirred those wild, unreasonable longings in her again, so that she hastily lowered her gaze. 'I have a personal stake in this wedding business,' he said in his soft, quiet voice. 'If you don't marry Tara as planned, I've said I will, so watch your step, little

  brother. O.K.?'

  He turned and was gone, through the trees to the house, before Clifford recovered sufficiently to challenge the statement, and Tara felt like running and hiding somewhere. The situation for her was rapidly becoming unbearable.

  Clifford turned at last, and his blue eyes were narrowed and curious, with a hint of hardness that she had never seen before. 'What the hell does he mean by all that?' he demanded, and Tara shook her head. It was unfair of Philip to have left her to explain, but she was rapidly beginning to realize that the men of the Hau-tain family seldom considered her feelings in anything at all.

  She touched one finger to her lips absently and gazed at the gap in the trees where Philip had disappeared a few seconds before. 'Who ever knows what Philip means?' she asked, and wished she knew herself.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tara looked dismayed and made no secret of the fact, when Clifford told her he had every intention of staying on at Fairwinds now that he was with the firm, seemingly for good. Nothing, she thought, was working out as it had been meant to, and she was rapidly being forced to the conclusion that she had not the important position in Clifford's life that she had once thought. He seemed not to need her any more, or at least far less than he had done,

  'I don't see why you're making so much fuss about it,' he told her. 'You know how I feel about it, and you don't dislike it here, do you?'

  'No, no, of course I don't,' she said. 'But—'

  'And there's plenty of room, goodness knows,' he went on, ignoring her half-formed protest. 'So where's the problem?'

  'But there's bound to be a problem, Cliff,' she insisted. 'It - it just wouldn't work out, that's all. We've been through all this before.'

  'I know we have,' Clifford retorted. 'And it doesn't make any more sense now than it did then.'

  'But-'

  She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness, desperately seeking some way of explaining why she could not stay, without having to tell him her real reason. She simply could not go on living in the same

  house with Philip, and the more she saw of him the more certain she became of the fact. Lately she had been thinking of him more and more in Clifford's place, and that was too ridiculous for words.

  'Tara!' Clifford sighed deeply, taking her hands in his and gazing down at her with a sort of puzzled tolerance in his eyes. 'Look, my darling, I don't quite know what your reasons are, but it won't make any difference. I'm crackers about you - you're beautiful and sweet, and I'd go to almost any lengths to please you. If you want to plan a wedding and you see yourself walking down the aisle in ten miles of white lace, then go ahead and dream, my darling. Why not, if it makes you happy? But I'm going to have my way in this one thing, no matter what you say or do. I stay at Fairwinds - O.K.?'

  Tara nodded hopelessly, realizing that any further argument, after such a firm announcement, would only sound unreasonable, not to say suspicious. 'AH right, Cliff.'

  She sounded so quiet and defeated that he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, his mouth as firm and adamant as his words. 'Oh, darling! Don't look so unhappy about it! What can there possibly be at Fair-winds that makes you so unwilling to live here?*

  'Nothing, I suppose.'

  'Of course not!' She did not look at him, and he raised her chin with one finger. 'Is it Grand'mere Hau-tain?' he asked. 'If it is she'll soon be gone, I promise. She never stays more than a couple of months, and it must be getting on for that now.'

  'It's about seven weeks,' Tara said flatly. 'She came the day before I did, remember?'

  'Well, there you are, then,' he
said cheerfully. 'She'll be gone before you know it.'

  'But I like her,' Tara insisted, unthinkingly, for it would surely have been a way out for her if only she had seen it in time.

  'Then if it isn't Grand'mere, who—' He stopped there, his expression changing in mid-sentence. His eyes gleamed wickedly as he looked at her and he planted a kiss on the tip of her nose, laughing and shaking his head. T do believe you've let Philip get under your skin,' he declared gleefully. 'I do believe you've actually got a - a crush on him! Isn't that the schoolgirl phrase for it?'

  Tara's dark eyes reproached him, but he was too carried away with the humour of the situation as he saw it, to care if he was being hurtful or not. 'Please, Cliff,' she begged, 'don't be sUly!'

  'It's not silly,' he argued, one hand under her chin, and still laughing at her. 'Admit it, darling. You really fancy my big brother, don't you?'

  'I'll admit to nothing of the sort!' Tara told him in a taut, angry voice. 'Now please, CUfT, stop being so-so spiteful.'

  'Spiteful?' He grinned maliciously. 'Oh, don't worry, darling, you'll soon grow out of it, but you might just as well admit it. At the moment he curls your pretty little toes. It's that sexy voice of his, of course, I've known girls go weak at the knees about it before. Of course,' he added with another laugh, 'he

  goes weak at the knees when he looks at you too. I've seen the expression m his eyes when he thinks no one's looking.'

  'If that's true,' Tara retorted rashly, 'you should be anxious not to stay here!'

  For a moment he regarded her curiously, then he laughed again and kissed her lightly. 'Oh, don't worry about it, darling, it'll all blow over. You're a very beautiful girl and Philip's very susceptible, but it's no more than that - I know my big brother.'

  'And what about me?'

  He kissed her again, refusing to take any of it seriously. 'You're susceptible too,' he said. 'But you've got me, so we needn't bother about that.' He kissed her determinedly. 'Well, now that little matter's settled,' he announced, 'I think we'd better go and see about some dinner.'

  'I couldn't believe it,' Clifford said, and laughed in a short, nervous way that betrayed his confusion. 'I still can't believe it!'

  He had been with Philip all morning at the office as he usually was, but after lunch Madame Hautain had asked that he walk with her in the garden for a while, and, rather unwillingly, he had complied. Tara had waited for him in the sitting-room, ready for the walk they had planned together.

  As soon as she had seen his face when he came in from the garden she knew that something had happened, and she wondered what on earth the old lady had sprung on him that made him look so dazed and

  wild-eyed. He could scarcely contain the news until they were alone, and walking down the path towards the trees by the river.

  'Do you mean she's actually asked you to go back with her?' Tara asked, and he nodded, his fingers tight round hers.

  'Darling, it's a wonderful chance!'

  'For you,' Tara said gently, hating to break his dream. 'What about Philip?'

  'You mean about me joining the firm?' he asked, casually. 'Oh, Philip won't make too much fuss about it, don't you worry. As a matter of fact he'll probably be glad to see the back of me, I'm not God's gift to big business, as it turns out.'

  'Oh, I thought you were getting on rather well.'

  He grinned unrepentantly. 'Oh, I'm very good at making a show,' he told her. 'But e'en Philip's tolerance is wearing a bit thin. I could have told him that I'd be no use, of course, but he wouldn't have believed me, so I had to prove it to him.'

  'I see.' She saw it all too plainly too, Tara thought wr-ly. He had surrendered to Philip's pressure only for as long as it suited him, to show that he was completely useless in the firm and was therefore just as well doing something he wanted to do. It was not an easy thought to consider if Philip had been the only one who had been fooled by him. 'WTien you were so adamant about staging on at Fairwinds the other day, I thought—'

  'Darling!' He hugged her, smiling and pleased with himself. 'I'd no idea then that anything as fabulous as this offer of Paris was in the offing. Anyway, I do like

  the old place, I wasn't kidding about that.'

  'No, no, I know you weren't.' She was still very

  unsure just how she felt about this newest situation. 'But now you won't be Uving here after all?'

  'Of course not, my darling, this is something different altogether. Just imagine it - Paris and a real chance to do some painting! It's too good to miss!'

  'Yes, of course it is,' Tara agreed, unable at the moment to share too much of his enthusiasm, and wondering where, if anywhere, she fitted into the scheme of things.

  'I really didn't want to do that wretched office routine stuff, you know,' he told her. 'But it seemed the easiest way out when Philip was so insistent, and I had to show him I was no good.'

  'That you had no intention of being any good,' Tara said quietly, and he laughed.

  'Clever girl! Anyway, darling, you have no reason to look so gloomy about it.'

  'I'm not gloomy,' Tara denied. 'I'm very happy for you, naturally. How - how long is it until you go?'

  He shrugged carelessly. 'Oh, I don't know exactly, maybe another four or five weeks yet. Grand'mere says she has things to do before she goes back, though heaven alone knows what slie can be up to over here.'

  'Four or five weeks?' Tara echoed. 'It isn't very long, Cliff.'

  'Darling, the sooner the better for me! I can't wait to settle down to some real painting at last and with no

  financial worries either.'

  'I shall miss you.'

  She made the statement with the deliberate intention of jolting him into realization, and she thought for a moment she had succeeded, but then he pulled her into his arms, laughing again, his lips pressed against her cheek for a moment. 'But what's to prevent you coming too?' he asked.

  'To Paris? Oh no, Cliff, I couldn't!'

  'Why not? I'm sure Grand'mere Hautain wouldn't mind at all, and I know I wouldn't.'

  'I'm sure she would mind,' Tara said, convinced she was right.

  Madame Hautain had her own ideas on which of her grandsons she would like to see married to Tara, as Tara was only too well aware, and she was a very determined old lady. This sudden concern for Clifford's art was no doubt the first move in some devious plan of her own, to make things come out the way she wanted them to. Seemingly too, Clifford was more than ready to let her have her way, even if he did not realize what he was doing.

  'But she likes you. and you said you like her,' he pointed out. 'What's to prevent you coming over with me?'

  'For one thing, because I'm not married to you,' Tara told him. 'I can't just go off to Paris with you, Cliff, for some vaguely indefinite period. And for another thing, I can't afford to live in Paris.'

  'Oh, you're as mercenary as PhiHp,' Clifford declared impatiently. 'Always talking about affording

  things. A girl as beautiful as you has no right to be so practical!'

  'One of us has to be!' Tara retorted, stung to defend herself.

  'As for being married,' Clifford went on, 'I doubt if anyone in the arty quarter of Paris would care one way or the other. They needn't even know.'

  'I'd know and I'd care,' Tara said shortly. 'And I'm not ready to live like that, CUff - not even for you!'

  'Oh, darling!' He hugged her close again, his forehead resting against hers, looking down at her with appealing eyes and a faint teasing smile on his good-looking face - a look she somehow found more resistible than usual. 'Don't spoil my big moment, sweetheart, please,' he begged. 'This is the chance of a lifetime for me.'

  Tara nodded. 'I know, Cliff, and I want you to take it.'

  'Without you?'

  It looked as if it would have to be without her, Tara thought, for he had said nothing about getting married before he went, and she wondered why she felt a sense of relief that he hadn't. 'That's up to you,' she said quietly, and he looked at her for a
moment as if it only now occurred to him that she meant what she said about not coming with him.

  'I was—' he began, but stopped and looked up hastily when a dark shadow fell across them.

  It would have to be PhiUp, of course, Tara thought ruefully, and eased herself from Clifford's arms, her eyes avoiding that look of curiosity in Philip's.

  'Sorry I disturbed you,' Philip said blandly. 'I didn't realize you were here.'

  'Oh, don't worry about it,' Clifford told him resignedly. He got to his feet and pulled Tara up vdth him. 'We'd reached stalemate anyway.'

  Phihp's dark brows arched upwards. 'Oh, I see,' he said softly, and Clifford looked at him as if he suspected some hidden meaning in the remark, then he shrugged, sliding his arm round Tara's waist.

  'Come on, darling, let's go and join Grand'mere. I'm suddenly an affectionate grandson.'

  For the next week or so Tara lived in a kind of limbo, not knowing quite what to do next, or what the e-entual outcome would be. Clifford would go to Paris, but her own future %vas almost surely a return home, for he had said nothing about arranging a \edding before he went and she had no intention of sfoin-s: with him otherwise, as he must knov.

  The main problem %vas when to leave Fairwinds, now or %vhen Clifford left %vith his grandmother for Paris. Maybe he would hae second thoughts in time, but if he did not then she would just hae to put her brief engagement to Clifford down to experience. It would perhaps teach her to be more ^•ar^• in future of good-looking and persuasive )oung men who declared they could not live without her.

  She was thinking along those lines at dinner one eening when she became aware that Madame Hau-tain was speaking to her, her shre%"d black eyes watching her closely. 'You will wear white, of course,' she

  was saying, and Tara looked at her blankly for a moment, then, quite inexplicably, looked across at Philip before she answered.