The Deception Trap

by Ann Charlton

  Intruder disdained the cat basket. He lay asleep still in front of the drums when they went upstairs. It reminded Teressa of Ashe’s earlier remark about ‘privileges'—sleeping on her bed.

  ‘He settled for much less tonight,’ Ashe said, as if he could read her thoughts. They were nearly to the top of the stairs before he added, ‘But I won’t.’

  ‘What’?’ She veered away from him and teetered on the top step. Ashe took her arm and moved her smoothly forward. ‘What do you mean?’ she insisted as the end of the hallway approached. The end of the hall and his bedroom with the big brass bed and the sound of the sea at the window.

  ‘That tonight. Teressa, I intend to have what you offered before in perfect safety.’ Stopping, he flipped her into his arms to stare into her eyes. ‘Because tonight I know you aren’t a blushing girl of twenty you’re twenty-two and not the innocent I supposed. And,’ he added in soft-voiced menace, ‘you owe me.’

  Downstairs, Teressa had already recognised the unlikelihood of spending the night alone. She had even gone half way to acceptance of the fact that she wanted to sleep with Ashe regardless of the past. But make love because she owed him? Teressa struggled.

  This came as a shock after the warm enjoyment of the evening.

  ‘No, I won’t—’ she resisted. He picked her up and walked inside his bedroom, using his foot to kick the door shut. Then he put her down and turned the key in the lock. There was something faintly melodramatic in his stance as he turned to her, like the villain in a music hall show. But the thought brought no accompanying humour.

  ‘You can’t do this, Ashe—’ She moved back a few paces.

  ‘Can’t I? What’s to stop me?’

  ‘I’ll scream.’

  ‘No one will hear you.’ He made a lunge and caught her. ‘Besides, you won’t scream.’ It was said with smug, silky satisfaction. He sounded like a stage cad.

  If she didn’t know better she would assume he’d had too much to drink. ‘Why don’t we make ourselves comfortable, hmmm?’ She found herself next to the bed. ‘Lie down, Teressa,’ he whispered.

  ‘No–—’ She threw him off and ran to the door. He was there as she touched the key, taking her wrists in a fierce grip.

  ‘My dear Teressa, have you forgotten your friend Thelma? What a pathetic sight she would make in court She’d hate her children to see her like that, but if you just co-operate—’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Ashe.’ She shook him off as he grabbed at her arm. ‘You can’t use that to make me do anything and you know it.’

  ‘But I can, Teressa.’ He pulled her into his arms and her throat blocked over with the powerful touch of him. She put her palms flat against his chest and pushed.

  ‘I made you come here, didn’t I?’ he reminded her. ‘And I’ve by no means finished with you yet, my dear. '

  There was that note of drama in his voice again.

  ‘Don’t act the tough guy with me, Ashe,’ she grunted as she began to lose the battle to separate herself from him. Abruptly she relaxed, then kicked his shin as he loosened his hold. She was free and out of his reach while he grimaced. Bending, he rubbed his shin.

  ‘You might be very sorry you did that, Teressa.’

  ‘Why? Are you going to rush to the phone and tell the police about Thelma’s pathetic forgery? Don’t make me laugh!’

  With narrowed eyes he watched her. He was very still. ‘You think it’s a joke?’

  ‘One that’s gone far enough. You’ve thrown your weight around—forcing me to work for you, weeding out my friends, bringing me here—but it won’t work any more.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘You won’t make a complaint against Thelma. I don’t know why I ever thought you would. So don’t think you can intimidate me.’

  ‘Damn!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Did you think you could fool me forever, Ashe?’ she said scathingly. ‘You must think I’m stupid if you imagine I could work at your house without realising it was all a big bluff.’

  He recovered and came for her, grasping her about the waist. ‘It’s not, you know. Don’t be misled just because I’m nice to Val.’

  ‘Nice to Val? You’re downright soft, that’s what you are. Help for her husband, a job for her son! No wonder she travels an hour every day to work for you.

  She gets paid and has her own private welfare department into the bargain. Even Lara knew you were an absolute pushover with your staff.’

  ‘Ah, but Lara loves me with all my faults. Come, darling—’ Ashe pulled her closer. Teressa fought him in vain.

  ‘Let me go! You’re just not the type to be playing at tough guy, Ashe.’

  ‘You said yourself I don’t look like a louse.’ He seemed amused as he drew her against him. ‘Deep down I’m rotten. Come on, Teressa sweet—lie down where I can…’

  She shoved at him and, with surprising ease, pushed him off balance. Ashe staggered and landed on the carpet, his long legs outspread, his hands behind him to stop his fall.

  ‘Deep down, you’re peppermint cream, Ashe,’ she said scornfully. ‘You just haven’t got what it takes to be a rotter.’

  And she saw it then. It had been a trick. All that soft-voiced menace and Hollywood toughness had been designed to make her see how unfitted he was for the role of villain. He had been expecting her at any time to argue with him about coming to Deception.

  Each time he had insisted he had waited for her reaction, she remembered now–-waited for her to see what she had known all along. The only hold he had over her was her opinion of him. While she believed he was mercenary, ruthless, selfish, she could believe in his threats. But he was none of those. He was a man who cared—a sensitive, sexy man with standards.

  Teressa swallowed hard. She had been deceiving herself, not wanting to admit the truth. For knowing that he did not fit that old image she had of him jumbled the past.

  He could not have been a fortune-hunter. Not him, with his strong upbringing of independence, his need to prove himself, stand on his own two feet. Ashe would never spend his life married to a woman for the money she could provide. It would be intolerable. So how had Cecily thought it was so?

  ‘Maybe you’re right,' he said, and got up from the floor. There was a look of triumph in his eyes as he unlocked the door and saw her to her room. ‘I’m just incurably nice.’

  That was one self-deception unveiled, thought Teressa, lying in her bed hours later. It was love after all—no temporary fascination, no schoolgirl crush.

  Love. All those yearnings from her tower had been tied up with him—she had sought him out again because she had to. If fate hadn’t led her to Thelma Richards, she would have found another way to see him again.

  She tossed for hours, finding no narcotic effect from the hushed rhythm of the sea. It was love with a question mark.

  ‘You tricked me,' she accused at the breakfast table the next morning. It was crazy—she had tossed testimonials to his good character at him as if they were grenades. ‘All that tough guy stuff—that Bogart menace and threats—it was all a big act.’

  Ashe laughed. ‘You aren’t the only one who can act. I rather enjoyed it. Maybe Wendy can get us into the cast of her soapie?’

  They went swimming later and worked on his book or couple of hours. Ashe’s characters pondered the intricacies of the market and the moves of their competitors, and Teressa pondered his feelings for her.

  Why had he gone to so much trouble to patiently let her discover what he was like? And there were other questions. There was Lara Moore. And there was Cecily.

  They left in the afternoon.

  ‘I have a few commitments this weekend,’ said Ashe, and Teressa tried not to think of Lara. After being here with him it just didn’t seem logical that he was still involved with her. But logic didn’t stop the quick flare of jealousy. She resisted asking what his weekend ‘commitments’ were.

  ‘I’ve plenty to do too,’ she said hastily, lest he think she was disappointed.
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  ‘Business or pleasure?’

  ‘I won’t be cruising down the Hawkesbury, if that’s what you want to know,’ she said drily.

  ‘I told you I was jealous,’ he smiled.

  'I'll clean the flat, read the latest Ludlum-business and pleasure,’ she said lightly. ‘What about you?’

  ‘The same. A bit of both.’

  On the journey home, Teressa wrestled with her doubts. ‘There was more to it’ Ashe had said about the break with Cecily. At her flat, he carried her bag upstairs and declined an offer of coffee. In agitation she made several conversational excuses to keep him there at her door, and at last forced out the question.

  ‘Ashe—’ She licked her lips. He was still waiting.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why did you break with Cecily?’

  He looked down at the car keys in his hand and his fingers closed tight over them. ‘You know the reason. Cecily told you.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. She must have misunderstood—or misinterpreted it—remember that she was under a terrible strain at the time. We all were.’

  Someone else might have put that idea in her mind, Teressa thought. Some catty rival in a models’dressing-room, perhaps. There was a blazing light in Ashe’s eyes. He reached out and touched the silver stripe in her hair, running his finger down it until his hand curved lightly about her neck.

  ‘The reasons lie with Cecily and me,’ he said quietly, ‘and no one else. Not even you, Teressa. But the answer, my love, is not as important as the question.’ He kissed her lightly on the lips and left.

  Her question was acknowledgement that he was not the mercenary man she had believed. It was the one he had been waiting for. Ashe’s footsteps clipped on the stairs, then he gained the ground. Teressa went to the railing and watched him walk to his car. He tossed his keys in the air once, then higher, catching them in an overhead grab that had a certain exultation about it.

  She went inside smiling. ‘My love,’ she laughed. But she wished she had an answer to her question all the same. After much thought she wrote to Cecily, ignoring her plea not to mention Ashe’s name.

  ‘I’ve come to know Ashe quite well,’ she wrote. ‘He isn’t at all what I thought he was—’ Perhaps it would prompt Cecily to talk about it. ‘I might be seeing rather a lot of him in the future.’ It looked so bold and confident in black and white.

  The Monday morning view from Ashe’s tower window was rain-misted, the harbour’s activity a blurred, out-of-focus movie. Close to the house foliage drooped under the weight of a million glistening raindrops.

  But the day had sunshine for Teressa.

  There were warm vibrations in the tower room.

  ‘Would you—like to come to dinner tonight?’ she asked Ashe recklessly before lunch.

  ‘At your place?’ His eyes gleamed with pleasure.

  ‘l owe you a dinner or two.’

  ‘I’d like nothing better. But I have to go to the office soon and I’m afraid it will run on into the evening.’

  ‘Oh. Of course. I know how it is,’ she said with an airy wave of her hand. She felt cold, disappointed, suddenly uncertain that the warmth in his eyes meant what she wanted it to mean. It was depressing that her first invitation to him should meet with refusal.

  Before he left for Warlord, Ashe lifted her from her chair and put his arms around her. ‘What were you planning to cook for me tonight’?’ he asked.

  ‘Veal scallopine. With cream.'

  ‘With cream?’ he grinned. ‘A bit risky, perhaps?’

  ‘Only if the guests pinch my bottom.’

  ‘Well—‘he murmured, and slid his hands down over her buttocks. ‘That’s a thought.’

  ‘You’re not the pinching type: she assured him.

  ‘What type am I?’

  She smiled, tilted her head to catch Val’s song—'You Ain’t Nuthin’ but a Hound Dog’. ‘Val has it in a nutshell. '

  ‘Nutshell.' he groaned, ‘I wish you hadn’t said that. Tonight instead of veal scallopine I’ll be stuck with carrot juice and green salad.’

  ‘Sounds like a strict diet.’

  He kissed her. ‘Will the veal scallopine keep until tomorrow night?’

  Teressa nodded, and he took an attache case from his desk and left.

  An hour later his phone rang. The woman’s voice was familiar—a little warmer than she’d heard it before, but unmistakable. Lara Moore.

  ‘—oh, I suppose that’s—what was your name—Teressa ?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Teressa said evenly. She would hardly have forgotten her name this time.

  ‘I have to hand it to you—you’re clever,’ said Lara. ‘But don’t think you came between Ashe and me in any way, will you? Things have turned out exactly the way I wanted.’

  Teressa had the telephone in a death grip. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is he there?’

  ‘I'm afraid not.’

  Lara sighed. ‘Oh—it was about the present—’

  ‘Try his office.’ Present? Too late for Christmas. Birthday?

  ‘It doesn’t matter. 1 wanted a private word, but I’ll be seeing him tonight anyway.’

  But Ashe was all tied up with business tonight, wasn’t he? Commitments, he’d said. Business and pleasure on the weekend. Business tonight with a dieter … Lara Moore was a dieter. And possibly business. Teressa looked out at the rain. Val was still singing. ‘You Ain’t Nuthin’ but a Hound Dawg … ‘

  CHAPTER TEN

  THELMA Richards collared Teressa when she arrived home and talked her into one of her tea rituals.

  Teressa smiled and half-listened to her chatter about her family, her renewed anxiety about Dan, whose Christmas card, if ever sent, had not arrived. Thelma went to change ready for the cleaning at Warlord.

  She continued her conversation indefatigably through the half-closed bedroom door. Snatches of it came to Teressa.

  ‘—the engagement party is next Saturday, I hear. But I daresay Mr. Warwick would have told you. A bit of a surprise, isn’t it? And they’ll be well suited, from what I gather. She’s designed a special outfit for herself, I believe. Nice to be a designer, isn’t it—you can have an original for just everything. I suppose her wedding dress will be something out of the box … why, love, what’s the matter? You’re pale as a ghost, and here I am rambling on …’

  Teressa convinced her she was all right. Thelma went to Warlord and Teressa went home. ‘What type am I?' Ashe had asked her with that warming, promising smile in his eyes. And she still didn’t know.

  She thought it all over again—painful piece by piece, and it didn’t make sense. But it would be another sample of self-deception to ignore all the obvious signs. Ashe and Lara. It was always Ashe and someone else in spite of all her wishful thinking. In her tower. And his.

  Someone knocked at her door. Jane possibly, she thought dully, or the encyclopaedia salesman who was vigorously canvassing the flat tenants. She opened the door and was gathered up in a bear-hug that squeezed the breath from her. Her feet left the floor and her heart plummeted. A waft of Swan beer came her way.

  There was a familiar feel about that strong hug.

  ‘Tony—’ she groaned, ‘what are you doing here?’

  He threw an arm over her shoulder and she staggered. So did he.

  ‘Teressa, you little beauty—’ he laughed, and propelled her indoors. He was very drunk, but not so drunk that he forgot to close the door before he kissed her. It was a fairly slobbery affair-and beery. He flashed his magnificent teeth. ‘Pleased to see me, darling?’

  She sighed and loosened herself from his embrace.

  ‘Yes, of course I’m glad to see you. I’ll make you some coffee.’

  But Tony had other things on his mind. He cornered her in the kitchen and kissed her smackingly on the throat when she managed to turn her head away in time.

  ‘Tony, stop that!’ But Tony was riding high on his transfer offer and celebrations before, during and after the flight fro
m Melbourne with his team mate who had, he informed her between attempted kisses, gone to a hotel.

  ‘Ummmm, you’re delicious.' he declared as he almost devoured her ear.

  ‘Which hotel?’ questioned Teressa, trying to distract him. He laughed and picked her up, carried her around the flat, blundering into the bathroom and the tiny storeroom before he found the bedroom. Teressa was really worried now. When he was sober she could contain Tony’s enthusiastic efforts to make love to her. But not like this. And drunk he might be, but he was still a young and fit football player and more than a physical match for most men let alone a girl. ‘Tony,’ she yelled, ‘put me down! What would your mother say?’