'What else?' he said blandly. 'I'll see if I can arrange it. It might be an idea to get away from Bombay for a few days.'
To hide her face, Abby turned quickly and placed her glass on the sideboard. But Giles immediately joined her, placing his own glass beside hers and blocking her escape by standing directly in front of her.
'Why didn't you say hello to me when you saw me in the restaurant this afternoon?' he asked.
If it was his intention to surprise her, he succeeded, for she stared at him speechlessly.
'I know you saw me,' he added.
'I didn't know you saw me.'
'I'm not blind.' His eyes glinted. 'Did you ignore me because you didn't approve of me being with Vicky?'
'It isn't my business to judge you.' 'I've yet to know that to stop a woman!' His head tilted towards her. 'Tell me, is that why you didn't come over?'
'Certainly not. I didn't think you wanted me to.'
He still remained close, but his eyebrows had lowered and the shadow of them darkened his eyes and made their expression difficult to fathom.
'Did you tell my aunt you saw me?' he asked.
'No. I wouldn't want to disappoint her.'
He caught his breath. 'You choose your words well.'
'I wish I could say the same about the way you choose your women.'
She was sorry the instant she had spoken, fearing that her retort had given away her true feelings. But she need not have worried. Giles was too irritated by the face value of her comment to realise it might have any deeper implication.
'You are in no position to judge Vicky,' he said slowly. 'Love isn't the way you read in fairy tales, where everyone does the right thing and lives happily ever after. In real life people make mistakes and pay for them.'
'Are you talking about yourself too?' Abby asked coolly.
'Does the answer matter to you?'
'Not particularly. Your emotions are your own affair.'
'I thought we were friends,' he said quietly, 'and friends don't judge each other without first knowing the facts of the situation.'
'You didn't really believe we're friends,' Abby said, half turning away from him. 'I'm sure that what I think of you and Mrs Laughton can be of no importance to you.'
'You underestimate yourself,' he said drily.
'What are you two whispering about?' Miss Bateman called across the room.
'The political situation,' her nephew replied promptly.
'You'll never be able to solve it,' said Miss Bateman.
'All problems can be solved given the will to do so,' Giles replied.
There was a spark of mischief in the amber eyes, but Abby refused to be appeased by it and, unsmilingly, went to sit on one of the settees. She was surprised that Giles had been curious to know why she had avoided him in the restaurant and decided it had been his way of finding out it she had mentioned it to his aunt. Resolutely she kept her eyes on the carpet, trying to ignore the fact that Giles had come to sit beside her, one leg crossed over the other, his foot swinging idly. She hoped he was not going to accompany them to Aurangabad. The idea of spending several days in his company was too painful to contemplate and she wondered if there was any way she could avoid going if he really had decided to join them.
'What are you thinking?' he asked softly.
'Why you wanted to go to Aurangabad,' she answered promptly. 'I'm sure you've already seen it.'
'I have. But it's worth another look. Besides, I need to get away and I'm sure your busy little mind can come up with any number of sordid reasons.'
'Only one,' she retorted. 'Running from temptation.'
The look he gave her was deliberately insolent. 'How do you know I'm not running into it?'
She felt colour come into her cheeks, and the blush was not lessened by his amused chuckle.
'If you're going to fight me, Abby, don't use words,' he said.
'What else can I use?'
Slowly his eyes moved from the top of her soft, straight hair down her slender body to her small feet neatly crossed at the ankles. 'You have an armoury of far more subtle weapons, Abby West, but you're too innocent to know how to use them.'
'It's an innocence I prefer to retain,' she snapped.
'That's a pity. Ripe fruit is meant to be eaten; it should never be allowed to wither on the bough.'
There was absolutely nothing she could say to this and she acknowledged defeat with a faint sigh. Giles was right when he said she should not cross verbal swords with him. He was a sophisticate who could run rings around her without even trying. And tonight, for reasons best known to himself, he was baiting her and flirting with her. Not for one moment did she believe it was because he genuinely found her attractive. Maybe it was his way of showing her that emotion could make fools of everyone.
A servant came in to say that dinner was served and she jumped to her feet and was at the door before anyone else had risen.
'You must be hungry,' Giles drawled with amusement.
'I could eat a horse,' she retorted.
'That's better than eating a man,' he replied, and blandly gave his aunt his arm to lead her in to dinner.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Giles did not go to his office the following day but spent half the morning arranging their trip to Aurangabad and the other half in a lengthy discussion with his aunt about some of her investments.
Reluctant to listen in to what was obviously a family matter, Abby sat on the other side of the swimming pool. She did not venture into the water, having a strange reluctance to wear her bikini in Giles' presence. Instead she was content to remain in her sun-dress, and when it became too hot, moved beneath the shade of a large parasol.
Miss Bateman had still refused to let her start typing back the cassette into which she was dictating her latest thriller, but Abby had taken one of her employer's copious notebooks and was reading the scrawled longhand with the intention of typing all the notes back in a more readable form. She was engrossed on a particularly indecipherable word when a shadow fell across her head, and she knew without needing to look up that it belonged to Giles.
'Why don't you go in for a swim?' he asked, dropping down on to the deck chair beside her.
She kept her eyes low on the page but nonetheless glimpsed bare, deeply tanned legs.
'Or would you prefer to go to the beach?' he went on. 'Juhu is worth a visit.'
'Why are you being so friendly?' she asked.
'Didn't we declare pax a couple of nights ago? Or would you prefer to go back to being enemies?' He gave an unexpected sigh. 'I'm surprised you're so narrow-minded, Abby.'
'Narrow-minded? Me?'
'Very much so. Seeing me with Vicky has ruffled your fur and you've been decidedly snappy ever since.'
'I'm an old-fashioned girl,' she said evenly, 'and I don't like deceit'
'Vicky and I were once engaged,' he said quietly. 'It would be foolish to pretend we'd never known each other. Besides, it's a good thing to be able to look back on the past without regret.'
'Other people might not find that so easy to believe,' she said. 'Mr Laughton wouldn't feel complacent about the two of you meeting each other. In similar circumstances, I wouldn't.'
'Don't tell me you'd be jealous of your husband?'
'I certainly would if I saw him having a'tête-à-tête with a girl he'd once promised to marry. Particularly if he hadn't been the one to break the engagement in the first place.'
'Well, well,' Giles taunted, 'I'm delighted to hear you're capable of jealousy. At least it shows you have deeper feelings than I realised.'
'You're not in a position to realise anything about my feelings,' she snapped, and was about to jump to her feet when his arms came across her chair and restrained her.
'You're always making innuendoes, and then running away,' he said softly. 'But I won't let you this time.'
Recognising the futility of trying to escape, she leaned back against the canvas. 'Let me go, Giles. I'm sure the depth of my emotion doesn't matter t
o you one way or the other.'
'But it does,' he replied. 'You're such an elusive little thing that I never thought I'd notice if you were here or not. But funnily enough I do. You're not a violent rain storm, Abby—one can see it coming and protect oneself against that. You're a gentle drizzle that soaks you through to the skin before you realise it.'
'How nice.' She tried to keep her voice humorous. 'I love being compared with drizzle!'
'So you should. There's nothing nicer than walking in soft gentle rain.'
'It can give you the death of a cold,' she retorted.
'But what a lovely way to die!'
Before she could thing of a suitable retort, he rose and sauntered over to the deep end of the pool. He stood there for a moment looking at the water, his body bare except for the tight, revealing swimming shorts. As she watched, he dived cleanly into the water and swam steadily beneath the surface, only coming up for air as he reached the opposite end. He paused there briefly and then swam back and heaved himself up on the side.
'Don't be a coward, Abby,' he chided. 'Come in for a swim.'
She knew that if she refused he would see it as a sign of her embarrassment, and she unbuttoned her sun-dress and stepped out of it. Though small, her limbs were beautifully rounded, and conscious of Giles subjecting her to an intensive scrutiny, she went to the opposite end of the pool and jumped feet first into the water. It was not the most glamorous way of getting in, but she could not dive and had no intention of going in inch by trembling inch. Shaking the water out of her eyes, she surfaced and then did a brisk crawl across the pool, to finish up where Giles' feet were dangling into the water.
'It was a lousy way to get in, for an excellent swimmer,' he quipped. 'Have you never been taught how to dive?'
'No.'
'Like me to teach you?'
It was an unexpected offer and she found herself nodding before she had a chance to think about it. Then there was no more chance to think, for he stood up, stretched out his hand and hoisted her out of the water.
'Now then, stand close to the edge and put your feet together. Then bend slightly at the knees and relax your body.'
For the next hour he patiently and carefully took her through the basics of a simple dive, making her repeat it again and again until she started to do it automatically. She had judged him to be a quick-tempered man and was agreeably surprised to find that no matter how frequently she made mistakes, he would gently show her how to cure them. He was tireless, and would have continued his instruction if his aunt had not marched over and ordered him to stop.
'The child is puffing like a whale,' she protested, at which remark he turned and subjected Abby to a close stare.
Immediately she became conscious of her shallow breathing and the quick rise and fall of her breasts, and made an effort to breathe slowly.
'You should have stopped me earlier,' he said apologetically, and put his arms around her shoulders.
She went rigid in his hold and he let her go at once, the friendliness evaporating from his face. Knowing she had been childish and regretting her lack of control, she returned to her chair for her sun-dress, and was picking it up when Giles was beside her again.
'Use this,' he said, draping a short bathrobe around her. 'Keep up your guard, little fruit,' he added quietly, 'or before you know it, you'll be falling from the bough!'
Colour high, she gripped the towelling robe close, caught up her dress and went quickly into the house.
She took her time about changing and coming downstairs again, but she need not have worried, for Giles had gone out and did not return until midway through the afternoon. He was formally dressed in a cream tropical suit, and she could not help a flash of jealousy as she wondered if he had been lunching with Vicky Laughton again. From the gleam in his eyes as they met her own, she knew he had guessed her thoughts, but he merely gave her a mocking smile.
'Our flight has been confirmed for tomorrow,' he informed his aunt, 'but I'm afraid it's an early one. The plane leaves at seven-thirty and it means we must leave here promptly at five-thirty.'
'So early?' Abby questioned.
'It's a long run to the airport and we have to be there a full hour before take-off. If we arrive a minute late we may find there's a good chance that our tickets will have been given to people on stand-by.'
'What sort of clothes should I take?' she asked.
'Cotton dresses and your most comfortable shoes. We're flying south, so it will be pretty hot.'
He ran a finger around his shirt collar, surprising her by the gesture, for he looked extremely cool! Yet a second glance showed a flush of colour on his cheekbones and a faint film of perspiration above his upper hp. She longed to touch it with her hand and to rest her head on the curve of his throat. It was a treacherous feeling that frightened her to her feet and made her murmur that she was going in search of a book.
But even in the library, away from his presence, she was still aware of him. It made her understand the many things her highly susceptible twin sisters used to say, for they fell in and out of love with monotonous regularity; unlike herself who, until now, had never experienced such a feeling. But this did not mean she would never experience it again for another man. Giles was the first one to arouse her sexually but it was foolish to think he would be the last. One day another man would come into her life who would arouse the same feeling but who, unlike this enigmatic one, would respond with love as well as with passion.
Footsteps sounded on the marble floor and she hurriedly turned to the bookcase and took the first book that came to hand. She was holding it against her as Giles came in.
'You'll find it quite safe to rejoin my aunt,' he said. 'I'm going out.'
Her head lifted. 'I wasn't running away from you.'
'Weren't you?'
Before she knew what he intended to do, he strode over and plucked the book from her hand. He glanced at it and his eyebrows rose.
''The Political, Social & Economic Problems of India. That's a nice bit of light reading,' he commented. 'Just the thing for hot afternoons.'
She snatched the book away from him and replaced it on the shelf. She heard him chuckle.
'At least you're being honest, Abby. Choose something else.'
'All right,' she said bluntly. 'I did come in here to get out of your way. But can't you understand why? I'm uncomfortable when you're around. You embarrass me and make me nervous.'
'I don't do it intentionally,' he protested.
'You make fun of me all the time.' She forced herself to face him. 'Stop baiting me, Giles. It's cruel, not clever.'
'Cruel?' he echoed, the smile leaving his face. 'I've never wanted to be cruel—not since I began to understand you. But I'm beginning to see I've been exceptionally stupid.'
'What do you mean?' she asked.
There was a long pause before he spoke. 'I won't answer that question, Abby. I'd prefer to wait until you're able to answer it for yourself.'
She was still trying to work out what this meant when he left the room, moving with ill-concealed impatience.
True to his word, she did not see Giles again that day, and when she came down into the hall promptly at five-thirty the next morning, he was already there, supervising the cases as they were carried to the car.
The skies had not lightened, yet it was almost as warm and sultry as it was during the day, with not a breath of air to stir the leaves.
'My aunt's already in the car,' said Giles, and Abby went outside and climbed in beside Miss Bateman. Giles sat in front beside the chauffeur and they set off.
It was a pleasure to drive through the streets at this hour. There was hardly any traffic, so there was no necessity to constantly hoot on the horn to warn jaywalkers and cyclists. But despite the speed they managed, it was still a lengthy journey to the airport, and when they arrived, hundreds of people were milling round everywhere, with crowds in front of the Air India stand and piles of luggage making progress difficult. While Abby and
Miss Bateman stood to one side, Giles proceeded to get their tickets and luggage cleared with a maximum of efficiency that made him seem an oasis of calm in this hurly-burly. Looking at him, one could not doubt his nationality, for he exuded British phlegm.
Promptly at seven-thirty they boarded the twin-engined turbo-prop for an hour's flight in perfect weather, and landed in what appeared to be the middle of a desert marked only by a single-storied airport building.
Moments later they were speeding along a dirt road, with flat scrubland stretching interminably on either side of them. Looking for the village of Aurangabad, Abby was surprised when she suddenly saw two modern hotels within a hundred yards of one another, standing up starkly in this arid land. They drove past the first, but turned off into the drive of the second, being saluted by an armed guard as they did so.
'Where's the village?' she asked.
'A few miles further down the road,' Miss Bateman answered. 'When I was last here, these hotels weren't even built, and we had to stay in very primitive huts.'
'Now it's all modern conveniences for the tourists,' Giles added, 'with ice water in the dining-room and face tissues in the bathroom.'
'What's wrong with a few comforts?' said Abby, and knew from his smile that he was teasing her again.
Despite the bleakness by which it was surrounded, the hotel was perfectly appointed, with comfortable furniture, excellent decor and willing staff. After a quickly satisfying breakfast, they took a leisurely drive round Aurangabad, seeing the colourful market where the inevitable cows wandered aimlessly, eating the refuse in an effort to keep alive.
They returned to the hotel for lunch and then drove out through cotton fields and gently rolling hills to the starker outcrop of Ellora. It was here, in these higher rocky mountains, that thirty-four temples had been dug, some of them Hindu and the rest Buddhist and Jain.
Some two thousand tons of stones had been removed by hand as masons had carved slowly, inch by inch, deep into the bowels of the hills. Abby found it incredible that these constructions had been worked from the top downwards, and her admiration intensified at the sight of the richly decorated interiors and fa9ades. For some reason best known to themselves, the masons had reproduced the timber roofs of their day, making the stone look amazingly like wood. Over the course of the years the weather had taken its toll and many of the magnificently carved mythological animals and tall columns had crumbled. But their remains were left as a testimony to the passing of time, which increased the feeling of great age and made one even more appreciative of those which remained.
Rachel Lindsay - Man of Ice Page 11