Indiscretions

by Robyn Donald

  Unfortunately gentleness had played no part in her dreams, and she awoke with the appalled realization that some hitherto unsuspected part of her had recognized and responded to an elemental savagery in Nicholas Leigh.

  Daylight, of course, brought better counsel. She neither believed that violence was a part of love, nor accepted that love meant forgiving violent tendencies, so her dreams had to be some aberration born of the hazy magic of a South Carolina moon and her vulnerability to Nicholas’s smoldering animal magnetism.

  “Grit your teeth,” she told her reflection, “and tough it out, because once this is over you’re never going to see him again.”

  Her reflection grimaced back, blue eyes slitted, full mouth pursed in a mock pout.

  “Oh, just get on with it,” she said crossly, smoothing an unruly lock of hair behind her ear. “You’re an adult, for heaven’s sake. You’re no shrinking little virgin to be thrilled into a man’s bed. It’s sexual attraction, pure and simple, and it’s not going to do either of you any good because in this day and age people don’t sleep with strangers. Even if they want to. Which I don’t. So stop thinking about the man.”

  It wasn’t much to ask of her willpower, after all.

  “And tell yourself another lie,” she scoffed as she turned away from the mirror. “I wonder what they plan to do today? Play bridge, perhaps.”

  But the ministers went out fishing on a large, white boat. Because the Japanese interpreter was on duty, Mariel intended to spend the day helping Elise, but Mr. McCabe saw her walking through the foyer as the party came down and insisted gallantly that she go with them.

  “That’s very kind of you,” she said, “but I can’t—”

  “Nonsense,” he said cheerfully. “Just what you need. A few hours at sea will blow the cobwebs out.”

  So she acquiesced with a graceful smile, only to be unreasonably cross because Nicholas wasn’t one of the party.

  Conversation that morning was more personal. While the ministers sat side by side watching for strikes, they discussed books and a play both had seen in Geneva. They mentioned their families, a daughter who wished to be a lawyer, a son who had already joined the diplomatic service, another who was at university.

  They talked sports, and here there came a breakthrough. Both men discovered that they shared an interest in swords, the New Zealand minister an aficionado of foils, the Japanese a practitioner—very humble, very poor, he assured his opposite—of the arcane art of samurai swordsmanship.

  Within moments both she and the Japanese interpreter were at full stretch, neither fully at home with such an esoteric subject, helping each other out with words and phrases. Fishing forgotten, the glitter of the sea ignored, both ministers settled down to explore the differing techniques of their respective skills. It was patently obvious that they were enjoying themselves enormously.

  Mariel began to understand the reasoning behind the days spent on the island.

  After lunch she slipped along to the business centre, only to be told by Elise that there was nothing for her to do.

  “Go and rest,” the older woman advised.

  “I spent all morning out at sea on a huge boat.”

  “Interpreting, no doubt. Go for a walk. The pathway around the golf course is just lovely at this time of year, with all the azaleas in flower.”

  It certainly sounded idyllic, so Mariel took her advice. There, for the first time that day, she saw Nicholas—playing in a foursome with both ministers and another aide. Hidden in the shade of a vine-covered trellis, she narrowed her eyes against the sunlight and watched them tee off, trying to pin down as dispassionately as she could exactly what stopped the breath in her throat whenever she saw Nicholas Leigh.

  It wasn’t as though she hadn’t met better-looking men. A French film star came to mind, a man who looked like a god come to earth, but in spite of his interest in her, she hadn’t been able to feel anything more than the respect supreme beauty always demands.

  Whereas, she acknowledged wryly, she’d find it very hard to resist Nicholas’s dark, dominating magnetism.

  If power was as great an aphrodisiac as it was supposed to be, she’d be watching the ministers. However, it was Nicholas who sent the blood racing through her veins in a feverish, consuming disquietude. Although it was humiliating to admit it, his combination of virile masculinity and ice-cold intelligence excited her.

  You’re developing masochistic tendencies, she thought scornfully. And that’s a dangerous way to go.

  Behind her, conversation announced the slow perambulation of people on the pathway that ran beside the golf course. They stopped on the other side of the trellis with its burden of sweetly smelling flowers. Mariel couldn’t see wbo they were and didn’t want to proclaim her presence, but their voices declared their origins to be New Zealand.

  “Just look at the Golden Boy,” one said, his tone an unpleasant mixture of envy and dislike. Peter Sanderson. “Showing off his muscles and his expensive clothes and his superb style.”

  The other man said curiously, “You really hate him, don’t you? What’s he done to you?”

  “He walks in with a Ph.D. no better than mine and gets a job that’s going places, doesn’t work at the coal face like the rest of us. Oh, no, he’s immediately bumped three steps up the latter. It’s bloody unfair.”

  “Come on, now you’re being a bit unfair. He’s got the brains—even you can’t deny that—and he seems to have an instinctive knowledge of how the system works, as well as being damned good at his job. Of course it doesn’t harm his chances that he’s also got so much charisma it’s coming out his ears.”

  “Charisma.” Peter Sanderson made it an obscenity. “All that means is he’s got looks that send stupid women into a flutter, the money to buy clothes and the arrogance that comes with a silver spoon in your mouth and really useful, rich connections. Take those away and what is there?”

  Laughing, the second man stated, “Initiative, determination, decisiveness and a damned good brain, as well as the sort of self-discipline that makes you grit your teeth, subtlety, and a cool, patrician understanding of humanity’s weaknesses.”

  “Stuck-up—!”

  The profanity made Mariel blink.

  Sanderson continued with a passionate intensity that lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. “What really bugs me is that it’s all been so easy for him.”

  His companion said, “It hasn’t always been easy. His family circumstances were irregular, to say the least.”

  “Oh, I know he’s a bastard, but he’s old Philip Leigh’s bastard, and Philip Leigh was the richest man in New Zealand when he was killed in that motorway pileup. I also know that, apart from a trust for his wife, Philip Leigh left everything to Nicholas.”

  “Yeah, well, Rosemary Clifford—Nicholas’s mother— made sure of that.” The second man added reminiscently, “I met her once. She’d have been in her late forties, but I tell you, she made my hormones surge into overdrive! Man, she was everything anyone would want in a woman. It was no wonder she led old Philip around by the nose. Talk about oozing sex from every pore—and yet she wasn’t some cheap bimbo. I thought of geishas—you know, the proper ones— and the courtesans of ancient Greece. Brains, looks, personality and talent, she had it all. And class. Philip Leigh was a hard businessman, a brilliant man, but apart from that he didn’t have much personality. She obviously stuck with him for the money.”

  “She couldn’t persuade him to divorce his wife and legalize her illegitimate son,” Sanderson said maliciously.

  “I wonder if she tried. She struck me as being supremely satisfied with her life. After all, she had the power and she knew it. Nicholas was the only child and, therefore, bastard or not, Philip’s heir.”

  “I wouldn’t mind an upbringing like that.” The acrid note in Sanderson’s voice chilled Mariel. She moved slightly, not wanting to hear any more yet unable to get away without being observed.

  “Okay, so you had it tough, but
look at it this way. You’ve climbed the ladder the hard way, and don’t think you aren’t valued for it.”

  “Like a monkey using a stick for a tool,” Peter Sanderson retorted bitterly. “Everyone says, well, it’s not a great trick, but who’d have thought the stupid thing had the brains to work it out?”

  “That sounds like an inferiority complex to me.”

  “Inferiority complexes tend to be inherent in people born on the wrong side of the tracks,” Sanderson said. “Oh, don’t take any notice of me. I’m just venting my working-class spleen. But I’ll tell you one thing, it would make my life much more satisfying if I could get just one small piece of dirt on Golden Boy out there, something that would wipe the smug look from his aristocratic face. Nobody can be as perfect as he is. Being a bastard should do it—twenty years ago it would’ve been a real black mark, but somehow he’s managed to convince everyone to overlook it. Come on, we’d better go.”

  The second man said as they moved off, “You’re going to have to do something about this irrational dislike you’ve developed, because Nicholas is heading straight for the top, and you don’t want to find yourself unable to work with him.”

  His companion said something, the angry resentment in his voice obvious although his words weren’t. Disturbed, Mariel’s frowning gaze fixed on Nicholas as he walked down the fairway. It wasn’t too surprising that he had an enemy—his brand of potent masculinity and authority was bound to grate on anyone with a fragile ego—but the news that he was the product of an adulterous affair was intriguing.

  There must be scars, although it was impossible to imagine Nicholas allowing anyone to see them. He would hate to know that these two men had been discussing him, she thought shrewdly. He gave the impression of being an intensely private person, hiding his emotions behind an armor so seamless that it would take a bomb to get through.

  And why should she be concerned? Physical attraction was involuntary and couldn’t be helped, but it was risky to begin to wonder about a man. It left you open to fantasies, and indulging in daydreams could be a dangerous, will-sapping business.

  Turning, she brushed past the vine and walked back down the path.

  In the office Elise frowned. “Hardly a walk,” she commented, ostentatiously looking at her watch.

  “It’s getting fairly warm out there now. Haven’t you got some work for me to do?”

  “Well, all right, if you really want to. This pile of typing has just arrived from one of the cottages down toward the lighthouse. Some media mogul can’t let a day go by without working.”

  Between the two of them they finished the pile in an hour.

  “Thanks, Mariel,” Elise said, checking through the last document. “What’s your delegation doing?”

  Mariel stood up and stacked the sheets of paper into a neat pile. “Playing golf again.”

  “Some people have it easy,” the older woman said on a sigh. “I’m supposed to be organizing a birthday party for Caitlin. She’s eight today.”

  “McDonald’s?”

  Elise rolled her eyes. “Bite your tongue! Here? On this sacred ground, this hallowed turf? The Jermains would die rather than allow a franchise operation on the island. If the islanders want to eat fast food, they have to go over to the mainland.”

  Mariel laughed. “Why are you here if it’s Caitlin’s birthday? Where’s Tina?” she asked, referring to the woman who helped when the office was busy and acted as backup in Elise’s absence.

  “She called in sick, and there was no one else so I had to come.” Elise stretched, pushing her hands into the small of her back. “It’s all right, I’ve only got a few last-minute things to do, and Caitlin’s with Saranne. At the moment it seems she’d rather be with anyone but me.”

  The telephone rang; after answering it she handed it over to Mariel, mouthing, “He sounds mad.”

  Apparently the golf game was over, for it was Nicholas Leigh, and although he didn’t sound exactly angry, he was certainly at his most crisp. “Could you come up to my room straight away, please. Bring your computer,” he said, and hung up.

  “Yes, it is a lovely day,” Mariel said sweetly and childishly as she replaced the receiver.

  “Trouble?”

  She shrugged. “It had better not be.”

  He was standing by the window looking down at the smooth sweep of lawns, his brows drawn together. In one lean hand were two sheets of paper.

  When she knocked on the open door he swung around and focused on her, the brilliant eyes glittering. “Ah, Mariel,” he said, a note of sarcasm hardening his tone. “I have a letter here I’d like you to translate.”

  All business. No sign of the man from last night, the man who’d held her hand, moved so quickly to put himself between her and a possible danger.

  She was glad. It was much safer this way. And the sooner she got it done, the quicker she’d be out of here.

  The fax was a reply from the Japanese industrialist. Mariel wondered whether he knew that Nicholas was illegitimate.

  Probably, and it wouldn’t matter. Even the most hidebound and conventional society would take Nicholas Leigh on his own valuation.

  But it was interesting that Nicholas, who was a diplomat and therefore shouldn’t have ties with any commercial enterprise, dealt with business for a trust presumably set up by his father. Surely diplomats were supposed to be totally impartial.

  Peter Sanderson might just find the “dirt” he was looking for. Well, he wouldn’t find it out from her. Swiftly taking the letter from the printer, she handed it to Nicholas.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She looked up, her eyes widening a fraction. “Nothing.”

  “Did you enjoy the conversation you overheard by the golf course?”

  Color roiled up through her skin, heating her cheekbones and throat. Composedly she replied, “Not in the least.”

  “I imagine it was a diatribe against me.”

  “Do all your fellow workers dislike you?” she asked in her most interested tone.

  He showed his teeth in an unimpressed smile. “Sanderson certainly does.”

  “I gather it’s a personality conflict,” she said neutrally. “It happens all the time.”

  “The essence of discretion,” he mocked, his gaze disturbingly direct.

  “It goes with the job,” she returned, lifting her chin a fraction. “As you’re well aware. I’m quite sure you read my dossier carefully before deciding to co-opt me.”

  He acknowledged the hit with a slight smile. “You appear to have led a remarkably blameless life.”

  With far from blameless parents, she thought.

  “I don’t know of anyone with a blameless life,” she said casually, smiling, willing her expression to be calm and clear and candid. “Do you need me anymore?”

  “No, thank you.” He looked down at her translation, and she felt his attention shift as though she no longer registered .’’ Close the door on your way out, will you?’’ he asked absently.

  She did, and came face-to-face with Peter Sanderson on his way down the corridor. He stopped, his gaze intent and astonished. Mariel knew she looked guilty—a combination of her unwitting eavesdropping that morning and the mention of his name a few moments ago—but guilty or not, that was no excuse for the rapid shift in his expression from surprise to knowingness and then to salacious interest.

  “Don’t mind me,” he said, looking from her to the door. “Sorry I came along at an inopportune time.”

  Mariel could feel the colour begin to lick along her cheekbones. She didn’t make the mistake of trying to excuse herself; instead, she smiled, gripped the handles of her computer bag to thrust it forward into his line of sight and said graciously, “I’m sure you could never come along at an inopportune time, sir. Do you want to see Mr. Leigh? He’s in.”

  “No, no,” he said hastily, still looking her over, and laughed.

  The door opened behind her. Nicholas said irritably, “What’s going on here?
”

  “I thought Mr. Sanderson wanted to see you,” Mariel explained, aware of the instant chill in the atmosphere.

  The older man said smoothly, “I just happened to be on my way to the minister’s suite when Miss—ah—”

  “Browning,” she supplied evenly.

  “Yes, well, when Miss Browning came out of your room.”

  Nicholas’s brows lifted. He looked down at Mariel, and something flamed in the green-gold eyes, something that almost made her duck, before he transferred his gaze to the other man. “Do you want to speak to me?”

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “Then perhaps,” Nicholas said with freezing courtesy, “you and Ms. Browning could conduct your conversation somewhere else?”

  Peter Sanderson’s eyes flickered. In spite of everything, Mariel felt sorry for him; she could read his chagrin as clearly as she could feel her own indignation at Nicholas’s cavalier dismissal.

  “I must go,” she said, smiling impartially at both men.

  Nicholas met her smile with a cold austerity that failed entirely to hide his anger. Why was he so furious?

  With an erect back and stiffly held head, she walked past him and set off for the staircase, only to be distracted as the Sanderson man called, “Wait a minute. I’ll come down with you.”

  The last thing she wanted was his company, but she wasn’t going to make it obvious. So she slowed, listening to the soft thunk as Nicholas closed the door into his room, and made herself smile as the shorter man caught up with her near the staircase.

  Gritting her teeth, Mariel produced a pale smile. He was crowding her, his gaze lingering too long on her face.

  “It’s an interesting old house, isn’t it?” she said.

  “I think it’s damn inconvenient. I mean, for a start there’re no lifts. Still, I suppose some people like this sort of thing.”

  “Yes, some of us do. I always enjoy coming to Bride’s Bay Resort,” she said sedately.

  “Do you come here often?”