Crescendo

by Charlotte Lamb

  He glanced at her in that uncertain way. 'I thought he was,' he agreed.

  Marina sensed that he had not heard any gossip in the village about her. The people there might love to gossip, but only among themselves. Faced with a stranger, they closed ranks. Tom would not have picked up any of the truth about her from them.

  They had been splendid during her long am­nesia. She had never got so much as a hint from them that everything was not normal. She looked back over the days of Gideon's visit, though, and picked up a dozen little moments when they had come close to betraying something of the secret. They had all known that Gideon was her husband, of course, they had met him during his visits here in the past. Yet they had carefully avoided giving away their knowledge of him except when their tongues slipped. She had known that there was some­thing odd about Gideon. It had never occurred to her that there was something odd about her.

  Tom moved closer, staring at her averted, serious face. 'Are you engaged to him or something?'

  Marina smiled drily. 'Something,' she said, not wishing to go into all the details.

  The fair young face sobered again. 'Oh, I see,' he muttered with a slight shrug, and it was something of a comfort to see disappointment in his eyes as he half turned to walk away.

  'Seen any good birds lately?' she asked, half- teasingly.

  He laughed, gesturing to the binoculars round his neck. 'A few. I saw a goldfinch as I came along

  through the village, and yesterday I caught a glimpse of a heron over the river.'

  'You wouldn't need binoculars to see that,' she smiled.

  'No,' he agreed. 'Quite unmistakable.'

  'There's a heronry two miles from here,' she told him. 'If you go to Bindley you'll probably see several of them.' .

  'I must remember that,' said Tom, his manner warming. 'I like watching the waders when the tide is out. They look so funny digging in the sand.'

  'Like busy waiters, hurrying about,' she agreed, laughing.

  'You're lucky, living here,' he sighed. 'You must see so much.'

  'I was born here. You get used to seeing the sea and all the birds. You take it for granted. I think people who only come here once a year from the town get a lot more out of it than we do.'

  'I often think I'll try to get a job in the country,' Tom said. 'The pay wouldn't be so good, but I'd get. a lot more out of life than I do now.'

  'If you don't like town life you'd be mad to stay there,' she nodded, turning to go.

  He fell into step beside her. 'Is your friend still here? Does he live here?'

  She glanced at him and away. 'He's still here,' she admitted.

  'Oh.' Tom was silent for a moment, walking be­side her with his head bent. 'Pity,' he muttered, and gave her a quick look to catch her reaction to that.

  Marina smiled at him. 'Thank you.' Her tone did not encourage him to go on, although it was friendly

  and polite, and with someone like Tom one did not have to be brutal in order to get a message home.

  They had reached the cottage and Marina halted in her tracks, turning to smile her goodbye at him. 'I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay,' she said.

  Ruefully Tom smiled back at her. 'It's been nice meeting you again,' he offered, and then they both heard the front door open.

  Gideon walked down the path, a harsh frown drawing his brows together. Tom shot him a quick look and took in the poised menace of that face be­fore he nodded hurriedly at Marina and walked away fast without looking towards Gideon again.

  She turned and the dark eyes searched her face, probing the cool, remote expression she showed him. 'He's still hanging around, is he?'

  Marina faced him coldly. She saw the jealous darkness in his eyes, but she refused to care. He had no business looking at her like that, his glance nar­rowed and hard.

  'Stay away from him,' Gideon broke out.

  'Would you get out of my way, please?' She moved towards the gate, but he still blocked her path, his hands at his sides but his fingers curled into lists.

  'If you're trying to annoy me, take my advice,' he said tersely, through tightened lips. 'Don't.'

  'Why should I want to annoy you?' Marina let her eyes drift over him in icy rejection. 'Who I talk to is my business.'

  'You're my wife, whether you like it or not,' Gideon told her, the hardness increasing in his face.

  'I don't like it, and the sooner it ceases to be true, the better I shall be pleased. I want a divorce and I want it quickly.'

  He brushed that aside, concentrating on the sub­ject engrossing him at the moment. 'Don't try to change the subject. Stay away from that boy. I won't have him looking at you the way he does.'

  'Don't judge everyone by your own standards! Tom's a very nice young man.'

  Gideon's eyes flared. 'And he wouldn't want to do anything but look, I suppose?' Cynicism twisted his mouth. 'I don't buy that. Sooner or later he'd want a lot more than that.'

  'Maybe when I've got rid of you I'll find out,' she told him with acid in her voice.

  A snarl came into his voice. 'Don't push me too far!'

  Her temper rose to meet his and her face flushed darkly. 'Who do you think you are? How dare you come stamping down the path just because I'm pass­ing the time of day with a friendly young man?'

  His .eyes were glittering like black steel. 'Friendly? Is that how you'd describe it? He fancies you and you know it.'

  'What if he does? That's no business of yours.'

  'Like hell it isn't!' He grabbed her arm and she wrenched it out of his grasp, glaring at him.

  'Keep your hands off me!'

  'You're not to see him again, do you hear?' Gideon was in an explosive mood now, his whole body as tense as a violin string.

  Marina saw Grandie hovering at the window, anxiety in the way he peered at them. 'Let me pass,' she insisted.

  He drew a harsh, impeded breath, but at last he moved aside and she walked past him into the cot­tage. Grandie hobbled to meet her. 'What's wrong?' he asked, staring at her.

  Gideon loomed up behind her, his eyes contemp­tuous. 'She's not a child any more, Grandie. Leave it.'

  His arrogance put a match to Grandie's smoulder­ing temper. 'She doesn't want you here and neither do I,' he burst out hoarsely. 'You've done enough to both of us, Gideon. Get out of this house and out of our lives!'

  Gideon's eyes were filled with that impassive oriental blankness which he could assume as a cloak when he was pursuing some course of action which others were trying to impede. He eyed Grandie and said nothing, his face immovable. Grandie stared at him, clenched and shaking, before he turned and stamped up the stairs.

  'Have you ever thought of anything but yourself?' Marina asked Gideon bitterly, walking away from him into the kitchen. The air was filled with the fragrance of freshly prepared salad. A large bowl of it stood on the kitchen table, which was laid for lunch for three.

  Gideon came up behind her as she stared at it. His voice spoke just at her ear, soft, smooth, inti­mate. 'I think of you, all the time. You know that.'

  'Liar,' she said, not turning to look at him, but aware in every fibre of her being of the lean hard body just behind her.

  'It's the truth. Do you know the old legend about a man who went to sleep under an olive tree and a

  scorpion crawled into his ear and ate its way into his brain? That's what you did to me.' He sounded as though he were mocking her, his voice amused.

  'If I were a scorpion I'd sting you to death.'

  He laughed, running a finger down the centre of her spine, making her tingle with nervous elec­tricity. 'Vixen.'

  'Grandie asked you to go. Why don't you?'

  'You know why,' he murmured, kissing her arm.

  Marina tugged it away irritably. Every touch made her head spin and she knew she had a very low resistance to Gideon's insidious lovemaking. She would despise herself if she gave way. She had to hang on to the things she knew about him, his arrogant use of women in the past, his admission that
when he was tired of them he pushed them away with a cold shrug.

  He lounged beside her, arms folded, staring at her, and she refused to look at him, although with­out so much as glancing in his direction she was very well aware of him. Just outside the angle of her vision the dark head moved invitingly, drawing her, but she fought the depth of her own attraction to him.

  'Where did you walk? Where did you meet that boy?'

  Gideon had a note in his voice which she was be­ginning to recognise. He was very aware of the dif­ference in their ages, she realised, and resentful of it. He tried to put contempt and mockery into his voice whenever he used that phrase. He had always referred to Paul as 'that boy', she remembered.

  Deliberately she turned and glanced at him.

  'Tom is hardly a boy. I'd say he was around my own

  age.'

  'He looks about eighteen,' Gideon spat, his face hardening.

  Keeping her eyes on his face, watching him closely, she said softly, 'Don't be absurd. You're just fifteen years older than him, that's all.'

  His skin took on a dark red heat. After a pause during which she could see him fighting with his temper, he said thickly: 'Very funny.'

  'I wasn't being funny.' She opened her eyes wide, all innocence, and he glared at her.

  'No,' he said, 'you weren't.' There was another pause, then he moved closer and said huskily, 'Don't tease me, Marina. Don't you know how much I need you?'

  'Need me?' She looked at him icily. 'Until the day you've had all you want from me and I get kicked out of your life like all the others, Gideon?'

  'No, it isn't like that with you,' he protested. 'With you it was different almost from the start.'

  'Was it?' she asked contemptuously. 'You told me yourself that when we met you wanted me, and we both know you didn't have marriage in mind, don't we?'

  He flinched. 'No,' he admitted harshly. 'No. One look and I was burning for you and it never even entered my head to marry you.' He saw the anger in her face and said unsteadily, 'Darling, I'm being honest. At least do me the favour of listening to the whole thing. I can't deny the way it started and I don't want to hide anything from you, but it soon changed, Marina. Believe me.'

  'Why should I believe a word you say? You've admitted to being a liar and an opportunist.'

  'I'm not lying now,' he insisted. 'I admit I came down here in pursuit of you, meaning to seduce you, but that day changed everything.'

  She shivered, remembering that clear, frosty winter day, her own excitement at seeing him, the way he smiled at her and said: 'Hello, Red Riding Hood, I'm the wolf.' How funny he must have thought that was—a hidden irony which he would have believed she could not glimpse. She had been so blindly innocent, a child walking into danger without even knowing it. Gideon had teased her, stroked her palm with his linger, kissed her lightly. He had been stealing up on her without haste, a stealthy predator whose intentions were hidden from her.

  He felt her anger and moved restlessly, touching her arm. 'But I didn't go on with it, darling. I couldn't. Because while I was here you played to me and while I listened I suddenly saw what you were and I hated myself. You were a creature from a world I'd never known existed. You played with such sensitivity and sweetness, a beautiful tran­quillity. I listened and I hated myself. I walked out of here that day never meaning to see you again. I knew I had no right to touch you, any more than I would have a right to crush a flower.'

  He moved closer to her and she suddenly heard the unsteady beating of his heart just behind her back.

  'When I was back in London I told myself I'd been a fool, but I couldn't forget you. You kept com­ing into my head.'

  She was listening now, intently, her face pale. Gideon sighed and put his cheek on her shoulder.

  'But then I met you again in London and I knew I had to see you. I wanted to find out more about you, discover if you really were as gentle and inno­cent as you seemed. But I never laid a hand on you —you can't say I did, Marina. I was very careful with you. I never saw you alone, never took you to my flat, never said a word to you that couldn't have been heard by anyone else.'

  She had to believe that, remembering how they had always met in public places where they were under observation all the time. Gideon had taken her to restaurants, theatres, parks, but he had never taken her to his flat and he had never made any at­tempt to touch her. It had not occurred to her that he had been deliberately staying out of temptation.

  'I was afraid of being alone with you,' he mut­tered harshly. 'I knew that if I had the chance I'd give in to temptation. The more I got to know you the more it mattered to me that you should stay as sweet and untouched as you were. The life I'd led had made me the wrong man for you. Do you think I didn't know that?'

  'Then why did you go on seeing me?' she asked, angry because he did not seem to realise that he had been wounding her during those months, the months when he had come and gone like the swal­low and she had never known if he cared twopence for her.

  'I couldn't stop,' he admitted on a mutter of pain.

  'While I was going round the world I found myself thinking about you all the time. You were in my head and then in my blood, and then I realised you were necessary to me. I'd sworn that I'd never again let another woman take over my life, but without even knowing what you were doing, you'd absorbed every part of me. When I was away from you, I ached for a sight of you. I couldn't wait to get back to London to see you, hear your voice.'

  She listened intently. So much had been hidden from her, she realised now. Gideon had been keep­ing all this from her. She had wondered why he kept on seeing her when he did not seem to care anything for her. All this had been going on under his cool, deceptive surface, and he had kept it from her.

  'I was going crazy keeping my hands off you,' he said thickly. 'I wanted you so much.'

  She turned her head to eye him with dislike and cold anger. 'You've got a one-track mind.'

  'It wasn't like that,' he protested.

  'No?' She lifted her brows, smiling icily.

  He looked at. her as if she were a stranger; winc­ing. 'I was torn between wanting to touch you, hold you, and wanting to keep you just as you were.' His eyes softened to a deep tenderness, and she thought of him lying on the grass up on the hill from which the grave circle stared down over the green valleys. She had looked at his sleeping face and seen strength and tenderness in it. She had been blind to the self- willed arrogance which formed that strength.

  'Then you suddenly stopped seeing me,' Gideon said through taut white lips. His face had changed; all angles, the bones jutting out from beneath the skin and making him look as though he were suffer­ing acute pain. He stared at her, his dark eyes tense. 'At first I didn't believe it and then when I realised you just didn't want to see me, I went out of my mind. Why did you? Why did you shut me out?'

  Marina couldn't answer. Her voice just would not come. She was staring at him and seeing again the dark frustration he had shown her on the night of that concert when he had looked at her across the hall with leaping eyes and the passionate, hungry concentration of a man at the end of his tether. The mask had come off that night. Gideon had shown her naked pain as he looked at her and she was seeing it now, the black eyes tortured with it.

  'That boy,' he demanded, his taut lips scarcely moving, the words coming out dry and husky. 'What was ,there between you and that boy? I took Diana to the theatre one night and I saw you with him.'

  'I saw you,' she said bitterly. She had seen him with Diana and she had been so jealous she had wanted to die, but Gideon wasn't thinking of that. He was staring at her, but his eyes were blind as if he were seeing it all again.

  'I'd begun to think of you as mine, as belonging to me, without ever realising it. The very fact that I'd never touched you made you so special, put you in a category of your own. Then I saw him put his arm round you and I was almost sick on the spot.'

  He broke off, his voice harsh. 'I couldn't bear to imagine what must be
going on between the two of you. If he touched you in public I thought he had to be doing more than that in private. I thought of him kissing you, holding you, and. I went so pale

  Diana noticed and asked me if I felt ill. I told her I did.'

  'You were still sleeping with her,' Marina accused fiercely, looking at him with contempt.

  She saw from the compression of his mouth, the hardness of his eyes, that he would have lied to her if he dared, but she held his stare and in the end he said grimly: 'Yes, until that night.'

  He saw her face close up and her eyes fill with anger and broke out hoarsely, 'I'd never let myself think of you that way! Don't you understand? After the day I came down here and you played to me, I wouldn't allow myself to put a finger on you. I still slept with Diana because it had never meant a damned thing and it didn't seem to me then to have any connection with how I felt about you.'

  'That's very comforting,' she said icily.

  'Don't, darling,' Gideon muttered.

  'Don't call me darling!' She turned to walk away, her body shaking with anger and pain, and he caught her back and held her, putting his cheek down on her hair, the warmth of his breath drifting across her forehead.

  'It never happened again after that night, Marina.'

  'Don't lie to me,' she said savagely.

  'I'm not! That night was the end. I went back to my flat alone and I sat up all night and tried to think, to work out what was happening to me. I still hadn't realised I loved you. I couldn't think, though. My brain wouldn't operate, my heart kept pound­ing, I was sweating—I felt ill. All I could think of was that I'd lost you, had never had you, that maybe you were somewhere in his arms.' He had perspira­tion glistening on his skin now at the memory and his eyes were haunted.