Captive of Desire

by Alexandra Sellers

  But Laddy couldn’t phone them so late, and couldn’t wait until morning, and besides, if she gave the Digbys advance warning of her intention, they might put her off.

  Helen Digby was an artist, Laddy remembered; it was her husband, Richard, an old friend of her father’s, who was involved with the ICF. Was that why Helen had met Mischa Busnetsky at the airport? Because Richard Digby would have been recognised by the press and it would have been more difficult to keep his destination secret?

  Very possibly, and Laddy’s sixth sense told her that Mischa Busnetsky was at this moment lying asleep in Tymawr House in the village of Trefelin on the beautiful southwest coast of Wales. And that in a few hours—she glanced down at the cushions resting on the seat beside her—she would be handing him the manuscripts that her father had paid for with his life.

  Would he remember her? In the more relaxed environment, when she told him about her father, would he remember that once in Moscow her father had been accompanied by his daughter? Would he remember the woman to whom he had said, “I will remember this as though it were your lips I had touched”? Laddy thought of all the times in those prisons and hospitals when the naked necessity to survive must have driven dreams into oblivion, and the certainty that he would not remember clawed at her.

  “But I always thought that I’d see you, one more time again,” another masculine voice was singing, and with an exasperated rejection of self-indulgence and fear she reached out and snapped the radio off. But the words stayed with her, echoing endlessly in her head: “one more time again.”

  She could not hope that after all this time, Mischa Busnetsky would imagine himself in love with a woman he had spoken to for one hour eight years ago. Or that she herself would, on meeting him, talking to him, find in him the man that she had carried in her memory—almost unconsciously—for all that time.

  She was not in love with Mischa Busnetsky, the man. She was in love with the memory of an incredible, drunken moment that had occurred at a critical time in her life, when she was on the threshold of womanhood. She was in love with the memory of the first promise of sexual fulfilment, which had been irrevocably linked in her mind with a man with whom she could not explore it and who had been destined to remain a dream lover.

  But she had always thought that she’d see him one more time again, and it was of the utmost importance that she do so, Laddy told herself grimly, gripping the steering wheel a little more tightly as she slowed down to pass through a sleeping town. Because she had to be cured of this insane commitment to a dark and unknown stranger; she had to exorcise the ghost of Mischa Busnetsky from her memory so that she could begin to live an ordinary, normal, sexual and romantic life.

  The real, live Mikhail Busnetsky must drive the dream Mischa from her memory. “Hair of the dog!” she said suddenly aloud, then laughed into the shattered silence of the car.

  Her mood lifted as slowly the black of night faded into the early grey of dawn. Laddy reached forward to switch on the radio again; the announcer’s voice was the cheerful voice of morning. There would be no more songs of lost love now. The world was beginning afresh with the new day, and it was time to wake up and shake off the dreams of night.

  * * *

  The village of Trefelin lay on the coast a few miles south of Fishguard, according to the small road map Laddy bought after breakfast in a cheerful cafe in Fishguard Town and was consulting as she drove. It was not long before she had to leave the main south road for a narrow paved side road that meandered back towards the sea through green rolling farmland that looked damp and fertile in the spring sun.

  She was tired. She had driven all night and then had spent a long hour over her breakfast and coffee so that she would arrive at Tymawr House at a civilised hour. But what she felt now was not fatigue but anxiety. And when the road curved down a green hill towards a cluster of houses that spread across a tiny valley and up the side of the far hill, when the small black-and-white sign on the side of the road told her she had reached Trefelin, the fear shifted into a cowardly impulse telling her to turn around and go back to London.

  Shaken by that and a host of other emotions, Laddy pulled the car off the road and got out, then breathed in the scent of the spring air, the ocean, the greenery. There were sheep on the hillsides all around, and off in the distance, on a cliff behind the village that must overlook the sea, a white horse was poised against the horizon. As she watched, the horse was suddenly sparked by joy and the spring wind, and exploded in a gallop along the cliff, long tangled tail streaming out behind.

  Whatever was in the wind reached Laddy in the next moment, lifting her hair from her shoulders and forehead and making her suddenly wish she could sing. She shouted aloud instead, stretched her arms above her head and felt the knot of tension in her stomach easing.

  The through road was met by two smaller streets in the centre of the small village. Laddy stopped in front of a house whose front room had been converted into a shop, and went in.

  Four women, all of them small, thick and dark, stood or sat chatting in the small room, and conversation died as the stranger entered and they turned to stare at her.

  Any old-world flavour was confined to their presence, Laddy saw, for the shop itself had more modern appointments than her corner Co-op in London. A glass-fronted chrome-and-enamel meat cooler sat beside a shiny counter, and a small freezer stood against the wall. The shelves were covered with canned and packaged goods.

  “Good morning,” Laddy said, smiling a little awkwardly around at them. Then she looked towards the woman behind the counter. “I wonder if you could tell me how to find Tymawr House?”

  At this, one of the seated women looked at Laddy more sharply, her black eyes under the sharply inverted V’s of her black eyebrows good-natured but intent.

  “Tymawr you’re wanting, now?” the shopkeeper asked, then exchanged a quick glance with the other woman. “That’s out Aberdraig way.” She moved to the large window that looked over the road, which ran straight out beside the shop and through the village. She pointed down the road. “Follow the road out past the church, and when you’ve passed the Mill Path take the next road on the right.” She turned back to the strong-featured young woman who seemed so interested in the conversation, and said, “Are they here, then, Mairi?”

  Laddy shifted her gaze and smiled expectantly at Mairi. In a place this size it was unlikely that the whole village would not know whether the Digbys were in residence, so Mairi had been brought into this conversation for a reason.

  Mairi Davies said placidly that Mr. and Mrs. Digby and a guest had arrived yesterday evening and, with an open friendliness, mentioned that her sister Brigit “did” for them. In return she managed to elicit from Laddy a good deal of information about who she was and where she was from and even the fact that her own forebears had been Welsh on her father’s side.

  This admission was inspired, Laddy saw, for the atmosphere in the shop became noticeably warmer, and before she got away she had even learned that the Digbys and their guest would be getting their own breakfast this morning. Brigit had been asked not to come until later in the day.

  To break Mischa Busnetsky in to new faces slowly, Laddy wondered as she drove, or to gain time to disguise evidence of his identity in case someone should be interested in notifying the press?

  Whatever the reason, there was no doubt now that in a very short time she would be face to face with Mischa Busnetsky for the third time in her life, and tension knotted Laddy’s stomach so tightly that she could hardly breathe.

  The Mill Path, she noted fleetingly, led down to a stony beach. The next path on the right was a narrow dirt track signposted “Tymawr” and “Coastal Path,” and on higher ground in the near distance she could see the big white house with outbuildings that was her destination.

  Laddy drove more quickly than the rough track deserved, as nervous as if she were driving to her doom, but gritting her teeth and jolting on.

  The white house sat on top of
the cliff, overlooking the sea. And now she did vaguely remember it, its low roof and trellised windows, its two small outbuildings at a distance. The three buildings were well ensconced in the budding green of bushes and trees.

  At some distance from the house, a navy car was parked beside a white barred gate. Laddy pulled up beside the car, collected her handbag and the two brightly patterned cushions, walked up to the white gate, took a deep breath and pushed it open.

  As she walked across the green grass and up the flagstone path, Laddy saw that the house was originally quite old, and not as big as it had seemed from a distance. It had been renovated, and had an idyllic simplicity that nowadays only money could impart.

  As she knocked on the door there was a step on the flagstones behind her, and she glanced around. And before she had time to breathe, Laddy was seeing Mischa Busnetsky one more time again.

  He wore a thick, dark-blue cotton shirt and corduroy trousers and a blue quilted jacket that disguised the gauntness of his broad frame, but nothing disguised the bone structure of his face.

  It was broad and rough, like a clay head sculpted by a fine impatient talent, and it was still lighted from within by the burning intelligence in his dark, square-browed eyes.

  There was recognition in those dark eyes, too, Laddy saw, and washed by sheer joy, she smiled up at him. “It is spiritual murder,” a man had said, but she knew with certainty they had not succeeded in murdering Mischa Busnetsky’s spirit.

  “Hello again,” she said softly, and he pressed his lips together and his eyes blazed with what looked like anger, but that could not be. As he opened his mouth to speak, the door behind Laddy opened, and both of them looked around.

  “Good morning,” said Richard Digby on a startled, questioning note, as he took in the fact that a strange woman was standing on his doorstep; but then his gaze fixed on her and she knew Richard Digby would recognise her in a moment. She had not changed so much in the three years since Richard had come to her father’s funeral.

  “Good morning, Richard,” she said. “How have you been keeping?”

  Before he could answer, Mischa Busnetsky’s harsh voice broke in on them. “Please do not invite her in,” he said to Richard. “She was at the airport yesterday. She is a reporter. I do not want to speak to reporters now.”

  With a gasp, Laddy whirled to face him again, and his last words he directed at her with cold, spaced emphasis.

  That was the recognition she had seen in his eyes! He was remembering the journalist of yesterday, not her father’s daughter of eight years ago. Laddy bit her lip.

  “Yes, I was at the airport, but that’s not...” she began, but he interrupted her even more harshly, staring down at the burden she carried.

  “Why do you carry these things? What is in them?” he demanded, his voice harsh. “Do Western reporters copy the KGB and carry hidden cameras and microphones? Did you hope to place them in the house to spy on us?”

  At that, Richard Digby, looking pale and shocked, stepped out of the house and closed the door firmly behind him.

  “What is this?” he said to Laddy, Mischa Busnetsky’s accusations and the strange fact that she had two cushions in her arms making him forget that he had nearly recognised her.

  “It’s not what you think!” Laddy exclaimed desperately to them both.

  “Do you have surveillance equipment in those cushions?”

  “No!”

  “Your foot! What is that on your foot?” Mischa Busnetsky demanded, his eyes burning her. Stunned by the abrupt change of tack, Laddy gasped and looked down.

  She had time to see that there was nothing on her foot and to belatedly realise that Mischa Busnetsky had spoken in Russian, and then the weight of his body was on her. With a stifled scream, Laddy staggered backward off the flagstone path and, cushions and handbag scattering, went down under him on the soft grass.

  He might be thin, but he was big. Laddy lay winded beneath the length of his body, not resisting as he wrenched her arms up over her head and held them against the grass with thin strong hands.

  “Or maybe you are not a mere blameless reporter, eh?” he said with menace. “Maybe it is not a story you come after, but something else—my life?”

  Eight years ago he had touched her on waist and hip, eight years ago he had kissed her palm—but his body had never lain on hers, though she knew it had been meant to, and his dark face had never been so close to her own as it was now. Laddy had spent eight years wanting to be held by the man who now held her. She licked her lips and looked up at him, and at the look in her eyes his anger shifted and uncertainty crept into his eyes.

  “I...uh...uh....” Laddy could not think, and besides, she was still winded. Then, as if his body had recognized her before his eyes, the grip of his hands changed, softening and turning possessive. His gaze opened, his jaw relaxed.

  “Who are you?” But he knew, he knew.

  Laddy quoted softly, “Everything I know about you—even how you have made me tremble.”

  Recognition and passion together blazed in his eyes, and Laddy’s body sang with joy, and her lips parted as she waited for the inevitability of his kiss.

  “Lady,” said Mischa, and his hands gripped her wrists more tightly in passion than they had in anger, and his chest came down against her breasts as he lowered his mouth towards hers.

  “I don’t think she can be what you think, Mischa,” Richard’s apologetic voice broke through the silence that encircled them. Startled, Laddy turned her head to see Richard crouching over her handbag, its contents on the flagstones and her wallet open in his hand. He was reading her name from her press card. “She is...someone I know quite well. She’s the daughter of an old friend of mine.” He coughed. “Actually, she’s the daughter of the man who published your papers over here. Hello, Laddy,” he said, as Mischa lifted himself away from her. “It’s been a long time. Sorry about all this.”

  Laddy laughed, feeling slightly drunk. “Don’t apologise, Richard,” she said. “I should have known better than to come without warning, especially with two cushions under my arm.”

  “Why did you bring the cushions?” Mischa asked, as with his broad strong hands he helped her to her feet and brushed her down, gently removing bits of grass from her hair. Gazing at her with the look that she had dreamed of.

  “I was bringing you something important, and I thought that would be good camouflage in case—” She broke off and looked around. “The cushions!” she exclaimed. “Where are they?”

  Richard was putting the last of her cosmetics back into her bag. He stood up and gave it to her. “Well, I thought I’d better get them out of the way, just in case they contained something nasty,” he said, smiling. “So I dropped them down the old cold cellar. Best I could think of at a moment’s notice.”

  He moved to pull open the squeaky wooden door of an ancient little stone structure that had been some Welsh housewife’s refrigerator in days gone by. He bent over and reached down deep inside and pulled up the cushions.

  “They are safe, I presume?” Richard said, getting up and dusting his hands. “They really are not going to explode on us?”

  “Well, I must say I’ve no idea how explosive they may be,” Laddy said with a slow smile. “Mischa is the one to tell us that—the cushions contain two of his manuscripts. As far as I know, the last manuscripts my father ever obtained.” She turned to him. “Are they terribly important ones?” she asked, a sudden urgency in her tone.

  “Good God, and I nearly pitched them over the cliff!” exclaimed Richard in horror.

  Mischa Busnetsky was staring at her in amazement. “They might be, depending on what they are. One of the possibilities could certainly upset people,” he said, weighing the word “upset” with a touch of irony. He was watching her face. “Why?” he asked.

  Because I think my father died for them, she thought. And I have to know if he died for something that mattered.

  “The house was searched after my father died. I
wondered if they were looking for those manuscripts,” she said instead.

  Mischa Busnetsky said quietly, “Your father is dead? Dr. Penreith? I am most sorry. How—”

  Richard, who had his own ideas about “how,” glanced from one face to the other and interrupted very firmly, “I think before any more is said we ought to go into the house. Laddy must want a cup of tea, and I know I do. And this is obviously quite a story.”

  He was a man who was used to having his matter-of-fact commands obeyed, and they all three turned towards the door.

  Richard brought up the rear, carrying the cushions, and inside the door he laid them on a small table. “I’m quite sure Helen is working,” he said. “If you two will hang up your coats I’ll put the kettle on.”

  When they were left alone, Mischa turned to her. “When has your father died?” he asked, and she knew by his voice that he had considered her father a special man.

  “Three years ago,” she said, slipping out of her coat, and she told him briefly how he had died, but said nothing of the possible why.

  He led her down the hallway over a floor of red ceramic tile to a large sitting room in one corner of the house. They sat opposite each other in wing chairs by the huge windows that looked out to the edge of the cliff nearly twenty yards away, and to the sea below and beyond. The morning sun glinted on the sea, and the windows were open to its faint roar.

  They sat quietly looking at each other until a clatter of crockery announced Richard with the tea. He set the tray down on a small table near Laddy. “Would you pour for us, Laddy?” he asked, and she nodded, picking up the delicate teapot as though it were an artefact from another world. She felt oddly detached, as though she were seeing everything for the first time.

  Under Richard’s gentle questioning and Mischa Busnetsky’s quiet gaze, she told them what she knew about the manuscripts and her father’s last trip to Moscow.

  At the end Richard turned to Mischa. “Well, I must say this is a most unexpected bonus,” he said. “Shall we have a look and see what we’ve got?” He went out and came back with Laddy’s cushions, and again they sat in silence when alone.