Laura could no longer ignore the frantic little signs Gina was making in her direction when she thought no one was looking, and she finally excused herself with, 'I must see if Sally's all right.'
'I'm coming with you,' Gina said at once. 'I haven't seen the child in ages.'
They crossed the hall and climbed the stairs, but the moment they were out of earshot, Gina remarked caustically, 'I didn't know Camilla would be here this evening.'
'Neither did I until Anton arrived home and sprang it on me,' Laura confessed with a hint of bitterness in her voice.
'Heavens, the woman is a pain in the neck!' Gina hissed angrily. 'What on earth does Anton think he's doing, encouraging her in this way?'
'I don't know what Anton has in mind, but I'm beginning to see what she's aiming at.'
'So can I,' Gina remarked in a tight-lipped fashion. 'She's doing her level best to make you feel cheap and inferior, and Anton just sits there calmly and lets her get away with it.' An exclamation of disgust passed her lips. 'Really, the man must be insane!'
'Oh, Gina, what am I going to do?' Laura asked when they paused on the landing which led off to Sally's room.
'Fight back, my dear.'
'How? And with what?' Laura asked desperately.
Gina gestured angrily. 'For goodness' sake, Laura, you're his wife!'
'His wife on sufferance, yes,' Laura said softly, a faintly cynical smile twisting her lips as she absently fingered the necklace at her throat which Anton had given her on her birthday.
'You're still his wife, and that gives you a considerable advantage over her,' Gina insisted, gripping Laura's arms and shaking her slightly. 'You can't just sit back and do nothing while that witch claws her way back into his life.'
With Gina's words ringing in Laura's ears, they went to Sally's room and found her poring over a new adventure novel which Laura had bought for her.
'Who's that lady who came in the taxi?' she wanted to know eventually, and when they told her, she pulled a face and said: 'I don't like her.'
'Neither do we,' Laura and Gina chorussed without hesitation, then, glancing at each other, they laughed a little crazily.
'We'd better not leave Graham alone with them much longer,' Laura said at length, and they left a puzzled-looking Sally behind to return to the living-room.
Camilla's personality was overpowering. She dominated the conversation at the dinner table much the same as a bullfighter dominated the attention of the bloodthirsty spectators, but Graham was a patient man, and when the opportunity arose, he leapt into the arena.
'I believe Avron Enterprises are selling out to the highest bidder.'
Graham's remark seemed to cloy the air like an ignited fuse, and Laura waited with bated breath for some sort of explosion when she glanced at Anton's hard, expressionless face, but he merely nodded briefly and said in his usual abrupt manner, 'That's right.'
'I've heard a rumour that you might be interested,' Graham ventured a shot in the dark with a casualness Laura was beginning to admire.
'I am,' Anton stunned them with his reply. 'I've entered into negotiations on Camilla's behalf.'
Never in a thousand years could Laura have explained her feelings at that moment as she stared down the length of the table at the man who faced her with a cynical smile playing about his mouth.
'You want to buy Avron Enterprises?' Graham demanded of Camilla when he had overcome his astonishment.
'Yes, I do,' she smiled, a gleam of satisfaction in those hard eyes. 'Does that surprise you, Graham?'
'Do you intend to compete against Anton's firm?' Gina questioned her directly when Graham seemed at a loss for words.
'Oh, goodness, no! I'm sure Anton and I could work in close harmony together without becoming nasty competitors.' Camilla placed a possessive, bejewelled hand on Anton's arm and smiled at him in her most seductive manner. 'Couldn't we, darling?'
Anton placed his hand over hers and smiled back at her with an undisguised intimacy that stabbed viciously at Laura's heart. 'I see no reason why our two firms couldn't combine in a united effort.'
'Depending, of course, on whether Camilla's bid is successful or not,' Gina cut in, flashing Laura a glance which said: 'If you don't claw the bitch's eyes out, then I'll do it for you!'
Anton released Camilla's hand and placed his table napkin beside his plate as he said calmly, 'Avron Enterprises won't receive a better offer than the one Camilla has made.'
'So it's all settled, then?' Gina asked, her mouth set in a thin line of disapproval.
'Not quite,' Anton smiled indulgently. 'These things take time.'
'And I have all the time in the world, darling,' Camilla added, a suggestive intonation in her low, musical voice which was unmistakable.
Laura could suddenly take no more and, getting to her feet abruptly, she said: 'Shall we have coffee in the living-room?'
'Good idea,' Graham agreed, a look of displeasure on his lean face as he followed her example and pushed back his chair.
The others followed suit, and the agonising evening progressed, punctuated with strained silences, until Graham and Gina announced that it was time they went home. Anton accompanied Laura to the door to see them off, and she was intensely relieved when Camilla draped her fur stole about her shoulders a few minutes later and prepared to leave.
'We'll see each other again, I'm sure, and do thank Jemima for me,' she said, turning to Laura in the hall and delivering her parting shot. 'How fortunate for you to have Jemima to depend on. She knows Bellavista like the back of her hand, and when it comes to the organisation of a home this size, not to mention the planning of the dinners, you would do well to take a few hints from her, because this evening's dinner was superb.'
Laura considered this a deliberate insult when she took into consideration the hours she had spent planning the menu for which Jemima was now receiving the praise. It was also a blatant insinuation that she lacked the intelligence to cope, and Laura's anger flared like a red-hot fire in her breast.
'My car's waiting, Camilla,' Anton forestalled Laura just as she was about to explode, and Camilla turned towards him with a triumphant smile to lay a caressing hand against his cheek.
'Darling, you're an absolute angel to drive me home,' she purred and, nodding briefly in Laura's direction, she swept out of the house.
'I'll be back as soon as I can,' said Anton, and then the door closed behind him, leaving Laura alone in the hall.
She stared at the heavy oak door through a red mist of fury, and it was some time before she managed to control herself sufficiently to put out the lights and climb the stairs up to the bedroom Anton seldom shared with her now. The intimate dinner party, which she had arranged with such care, had turned into a fiasco, and it had also been a painful demonstration of how little consideration she could expect from Anton. Added to this, he had behaved abominably towards Graham and Gina. He had given most of his attention to Camilla, and Laura felt that she could not blame their friends if they never set foot on Bellavista's soil again.
Laura went to bed, but she could not sleep, and she lay there staring up at the white ceiling with its heavy wooden beams, her feelings fluctuating from anger to despair. Anton had been away almost two hours; long enough for him to have driven Camilla home and returned to Bella-vista twice. What were they doing? Were they discussing business, or were they reliving passionate memories in each other's arms?
'Oh, God, please help me! Please, please help me!' she groaned, switching off the light and burying her face in the pillow in an effort to shut out the pain.
Moments later the sound of a car approaching the house made her sit up in bed with a jerk. She recognised the sound of the Jaguar's engine, and lay back against the pillows, her body tense as she listened, and waited. Several minutes passed before she heard Anton's heavy, muted footsteps coming down the carpeted passage, and suddenly she knew she could not bear to see him. She turned over on to her side and closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep,
but her nerves vibrated like a tightly coiled spring when she heard the door being opened and closed. Seconds later the light was switched on beside her, and the bed sagged beneath his hands as he stood leaning over her.
'Don't pretend you're asleep, Laura, because I know you're not,' he accused mockingly, and her eyes flew open at once to find him bending low over her.
'Don't touch me!' she cried out in disgust, shrinking from him mentally and physically as her nostrils were filled with Camilla's heavy, exotic scent. 'You're reeking of that woman's perfume,' she accused sharply.
'Hm…' He sniffed himself appreciatively, and smiled as if he were recalling something pleasant. 'A very exciting perfume. You should ask her for the name, and use it yourself.'
'It would make me sick!'
'Pity,' he shrugged nonchalantly as he moved away from her and took off his jacket and tie. He flung them on to a chair and calmly proceeded to unbutton his shirt.
'Why did you invite her here this evening?' Laura demanded, observing the gradual exposure of his broad, hair-roughened chest with a hypnotic fascination.
'She's an old friend, and I happen to like her company.'
'Well, I don't!' she almost shouted at him. 'She was stifling, to say the least.'
Anton's shirt joined his jacket and tie on the chair, then he calmly unbuckled his belt, his eyes mocking her ruthlessly as he said accusingly, 'You're jealous.'
Laura sat bolt upright in bed. 'Jealous?' she shrieked with angry indignation. 'Of her? You must be mad!'
'She has a damn sight more poise and charm than you're displaying at the moment,' Anton continued calmly and infuriatingly as he dropped his belt on the floor and seated himself at the foot of the bed to remove his shoes and socks.
'Poised she may be, but her charm left much to be desired,' argued Laura, caught up in a passionate fury she had never experienced before. 'Dahling,' she mimicked Camilla's voice to perfection. 'Do you remember that fabulously exciting weekend we spent at that little hotel in the mountains? You were such an absolute angel, dahling.'
'You little vixen,' he laughed, reaching for her, but she shrank from him with an exclamation of disgust.
'Don't you dare touch me!' she spat at him. 'I won't have you coining to me directly from that woman's arms.'
'We shall see about that,' he snapped, ruthless hands dragging her back against the pillows when she tried to escape, and then he was pinning her down with the weight of his body.
'Have you no sense of decency?' she cried, fighting him off like a wildcat with every particle of strength she possessed, but he stripped her effortlessly until nothing stood in the way of his questing hands. 'I hate you!' she screamed at him, her eyes filling with tears. 'I hate you, do you hear?'
'Shut up!' he ordered harshly, his lips like fire against her throat.
'I won't shut up! I hate you, I—'
His mouth silenced hers with effective brutality, but this did not deter her from fighting him every step of the way until, shamed at the way her flesh responded to his touch, she called him every kind of hateful name under the sun. Somehow, she had no idea when, he had divested himself of the rest of his clothes, and when she felt that hard, muscular body against her own, she began to realise the futility of her efforts. Anton's expertise as a lover wore down her resistance until an intolerable surge of excitement forced a cry of pleasure from her lips, and the hands which had clawed and pushed at his shoulders moments before now gripped tightly as desire drugged her mind and ruled her body.
Nothing mattered at that moment, not even the faint suggestion of Camilla's perfume which she felt certain still clung to him, and, grasping a handful of his crisp, dark hair, she drew his head down on to her breast and surrendered herself to the emotions only he could arouse in her.
Anton was dressed and ready to leave for the office when Laura awoke the following morning, and she observed him through lowered lashes when he crossed the room to open the curtains.
'There's a heavy mist on the mountain which is not unusual for this time of the year,' he remarked, turning towards her and trailing his glance over her shape beneath the sheet as if calling to mind every part of her body. 'I'll be home late this evening. I'm dining out with Camilla.'
The mention of Camilla's name, after what had happened the previous evening, was like waving a red flag at a bull, and Laura sat up in bed with a start. 'You're the most disgusting, the most despicable—oh, I hate you!'
She flung a pillow at him, wishing it was something lethal, but Anton caught it smartly and flung it back at her with a force that knocked her back against the pillows.
'It seems as though I married a little spitfire,' he mocked her as he approached the bed, and his mockery added fuel to the fire of her anger.
'How dare you treat me like this! Flaunting your affair with that woman in my face is positively indecent!'
'I'm not answerable to you for anything I might do,' he said gratingly as he leaned over her, and his attitude was all at once so menacing that she clutched the pillow against her breast like a shield.
'I don't deserve to be treated like this, Anton. I'm your wife.'
His mouth hardened into a thin, ominous line. 'A wife is nothing but a glorified mistress, and that's all I require from you, so don't imagine it gives you the right to dictate my actions to me.'
Laura flinched when he slammed the bedroom door behind him moments later, but she lay there dry-eyed and with a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach as she stared up at the ceiling. A wife is nothing but a glorified mistress, he had said. A glorified mistress! The words reverberated through her mind and seared through her soul like a red-hot poker. She threw aside the pillow and sat up, but a wave of nausea sent her rushing through to the bathroom, and later, when she leaned weakly against the basin, she stared at her white face in the mirror, and knew the worst. She was going to have his child!
She went down to breakfast an hour later and caught Sally on her way out. Sally took one look at Laura and exclaimed, 'You look terrible!'
Laura had always found her childish candour amusing, but at that moment she felt very much like bursting into tears as she dropped a light kiss on the little girl's forehead and pushed her towards the door. 'You'll be late for school.'
On the steps Sally paused and glanced back at her with concern. 'I hope you feel better this afternoon.'
With Sally's departure a silence settled about the house which Laura found utterly depressing. The silence had never troubled her before, but she would go mad with, nothing to do until her niece returned home that afternoon, she thought frantically as she helped herself to a cup of coffee.
The shrill ringing of the telephone half an hour later jarred her fragile nerves, but it was almost a relief to be doing something, and she hurried into the hall to answer it.
'Laura DeVere?' a man's voice questioned abruptly.
'Yes,' she replied hesitantly, trying to place him.
'Alex Muir,' he announced, setting her mind at rest. 'Look, I know you told me you'd let me know what you've decided, but for days now I've been staring at that rough sketch I made of you, and I wondered…' There was an embarrassed silence, then he asked, 'What about it, Laura?'
'Alex, I… don't know, I…'
'Please?' he begged. 'I'm fired with inspiration at the moment, and you wouldn't want it all to go to waste, would you?'
Laura hesitated, but already the idea was beginning to appeal to her. It would be an excuse to get out of the house, and it would be something with which to fill the empty hours until Sally returned home in the afternoons.
'How long will it take?' she asked, not quite sure yet what to do.
'A week—maybe two.'
'Why not?' a little voice urged her, and before she could change her mind, she asked, 'When do you want me there?'
'Right now, if you can make it,' Alex replied, unable to hide the excitement in his voice, and Laura smiled faintly when she heard it.
'Give me your address,' she sai
d without further consideration, and scribbled it down hastily before ringing off.
Alex's Sea Point flat had an excellent view of the sea, Laura discovered less than an hour later, and it looked more like a workshop than a place to live in. Paintings ranging from landscapes to portraits were propped up against the walls, and the place reeked of turpentine and oils.
'Lady, I shall always be grateful to you,' Alex smiled at her as he led her across the room towards the largest window. 'Would you like something to drink before we start?'
Laura shook her head nervously. 'No, thank you.'
'Right,' he nodded abruptly, looking extremely businesslike now as he gestured towards a long, low stool. 'Sit there, if you don't mind. Draw your legs up under you a little, and look towards the window. You can see the ocean, can't you?'
'Yes,' she smiled nervously, doing as she was told.
'Now just relax. Be comfortable, and imagine you're sitting on the rocks at Gordon's Bay.' He observed her critically for a moment, then his lean features broke into a smile of approval. 'That's it!'
He picked up his easel and, placing it a little distance from her, began to work with quick, deft strokes.
'May I talk?' Laura asked at length when her thoughts began to dwell on the painful confrontation she had had with Anton that morning. 'Or do you need silence when you work?'
'You may talk as much as you like,' he assured her, his quick smile flashing at her across the easel.
'I couldn't help noticing all those framed paintings leaning against the walls,' she said. 'Are you planning an exhibition of some sort?'
'Yes, I am, and if this portrait turns out to be what I'm hoping for, then it will be the highlight of the exhibition.'
Laura digested this for a moment in silence before she laughed selfconsciously and said: 'I'm not sure whether I should feel flattered or nervous.'
Hazel eyes laughed at her across the easel. 'You have nothing to feel nervous about. That's my department entirely, so just relax.'
Season of Shadows Page 13