"I'll stay here," she shook free of his hand. "The hut does need a sweep out if we're going to be using it for the next few days."
"Are you sure now?" He handed her the Breda. "If it gives you the willies to be here alone, then you say so."
"It's something I've got to get used to." Eve tilted her chin and gripped the gun. "I can't be at your elbow all the time you're working on the boat--men don't like that, do they? They like to get on with the job."
"What would you know about men, apart from that [112-113] honourable stick you're pledged to marry?" He suddenly smiled, a quirk of the lip and eyebrow. "Keep your pecker up and next time shoot straight at the body and
don't hesitate for a second. In this game, honey, it's them or us. Bye for now."
He marched off leaving her alone, but for several minutes she was unable to relax and just stood there, letting her eyes search every ruined mound where a hut had stood, every tree that cast a shadow in the sun. She listened to the monkeys chattering away, and to the birds calling and flying in the treetops. While there were animal sounds she could be fairly certain that nothing on two legs was creeping through the bush, but all the same it would be a long time before she banished from her mind that incident by the river.
She set to work on the hut, clearing out everything so she could give the floor and walls a thorough brush-down with the big leaves Wade had cut for her. They had thick stems and made quite serviceable brooms, and by the time she was finished quite a bit of the dirt had been swept outside and she had slaughtered several large insects.
During the course of her housework she would pause every so often and listen for those reassuring squeals and thrashings among the trees, and in a while she was actually laughing as one of the monkeys began to hurl big squashy bananas at her, red-skinned things that she didn't much like the look of. However, she decided to try one and found it eatable, if a trifle on the syrupy side.
The sun was really high now and she wiped a sleeve across her moist face. She longed for that bathe Wade had promised her, but she knew she must abide by his [113-114] decision that it would be best when the sun began to decline and the benefits of a bathe would be all the sweeter. To take a plunge while the sun was high would only mean that within a short while they'd both be sweating again.
He was an exasperating man, but he knew his way about in this tough, menacing world, and Eve smiled to herself as she sat on the bundle and chewed sweet banana. Sunshine splashed across the compound like hot rain, and she would have loved a drink of water, but knew it had to be boiled first and their fire was dead.
What would have been her reaction to him had they met in normal circumstances? At a party, say, where he strolled in looking dark and distinctive in a dinner-suit, immaculate poplin shirt and cummerbund, casting casual grey eyes around the room and letting them fasten upon her in a dress all frilled and floaty. Would he have noticed her? Would he have liked the Eve of those days, bandbox-fresh and not unattractive with her gay young mouth, and her skin looking creamy against the Titian glint of her hair?
But even had they met like that, there was still his wife in the background . . . the woman he was bound to, whom he seemed to avoid talking about. Had their marriage gone all wrong from the start, as forced marriages so often did? Was he resentful that she had caught him with the oldest trick in the book, inducing him to lose his head over her, letting herself fall for his child so he'd feel obliged to marry her?
Eve decided that Wade would resent being forced into a corner, but all the same he had stood by the woman he had married, and he obviously cared a great deal for his son. Did he carry a picture of Larry? Eve [114-115] longed to know. She longed to find out for herself if Wade's son resembled him.
She found herself staring at his knapsack, which she had propped against a tree. Had she time to take a look in his crocodile-skin wallet which he kept attached to his pouch of medications and other handy items by means of an elastic band? It seemed a sly thing to do, yet she was driven by a need not only to see a photograph of his son, but possibly one of his wife as well. With a quick-beating pulse she bent over the battered knapsack and undid the straps. Her hand went inside and rapidly located the oilskin pouch and wallet; she detached the wallet and opened the flap, searching inside with fingers that trembled. Her fingertips felt the edge of a snapshot and she drew it out . . . oh yes, this was Larry, and he was good-looking, with a shock of untidy black hair, keen, well-set eyes gazing directly ahead, and the lean, rather serious face of the student.
Wade's son . . . but much as she searched Eve couldn't find a snapshot of Wade's wife.
"What an inquisitive young lady you are, foraging about in a man's belongings when his back is turned! I'm sure you were brought up to be better-mannered than that."
Eve crouched by the knapsack and felt the hot embarrassment sweep over her. She was caught out and no mistake, and as she felt Wade take a stride and halt beside her, her nerves fluttered madly. "Did you find what you were looking for?" he drawled. He leaned down and plucked the photograph of Larry from her nerveless fingers. "Curious to find out if he was as good-looking as I said?"
[115-116] "He's a fine young man," Eve said huskily. "You must be very proud of him."
"He's the best part of me--what else were you searching for, lady? A portrait of my wife?"
Eve quivered as if the tip of a lash had flicked her skin, and involuntarily she glanced up at Wade. His teeth were bared for a moment in a half-savage smile, and as her face grew hot and pink the devil was agitated in his eyes.
"May I have my wallet?" he requested.
Silently she handed it to him and he replaced the snapshot of his son. "I'd have shown it to you had you asked," he said. "Fathers get a kick out of showing off their offspring to people."
"I--it was wrong of me to pry into your wallet," Eve said humbly. "I don't know what came over me."
"I think I know." He tucked the wallet away, and the next instant had hold of Eve by the wrist. "It had something to do with this." As he spoke he dragged her against him and she could feel his other hand gripping her so that her shirt was drawn up to expose her tingling spine. He plucked her close to him and took her shaking lips in a long punishing kiss . . . a kiss like no other she had ever experienced, so unrelenting that she felt her lips going molten under his mouth . . . felt a tumult of her senses that quickened into an excitement that made her clutch at him.
Hard and hungry grew the lips that searched her face, her neck, the strong hand cupping her head while he moved his mouth over her flushed skin, his other hand roaming her shoulders and moving down her back to where her body was bare.
He clasped her slenderness to every hard line of him [116-117] and seemed careless of all danger now he had her in his arms. Eve was shaken to the core by what she felt, and what she had aroused in him. He suddenly lifted her and seemed to be seeking a place to lay her down--coming to his senses the very next instant, his breath raking hot across her face.
"Get away from me!" He thrust her away from him, not roughly or cruelly, but firmly.
"Oh, Wade--" She just managed his name, and found herself leaning against a tree, while he stood dragging a hand across his face.
The static was still alive in her veins. She had felt a deep falling-through-time into a lush, heady sweetness she had wanted with all her body, every inch of her skin, every throb of her heart. Her lips were still burning as she drew her tongue around them.
"You live up to your name, don't you?" he growled. "You had to let yourself be tempted, and couldn't wait to let loose the devil in me. D'you think I'll let it happen a second time? Not on your sweet life I won't! If I get you to Tanga, I'll get you there intact and still innocent enough to fool your bridegroom."
"Y--you kissed me--" she said weakly.
"You were asking for it, and I'm not made of ironwood. Well, now you know what could happen to you, so from now on lay off being curious about my love life."
Eve lowered her eyes from his
face and couldn't stop her gaze from dwelling on his hands clenched at his thighs. She had been held to the tempered steel of that lithe, jungle-toughened body . . . her heart was longing for more of him and he was thrusting her away and telling her to keep her distance.
[117-118] The ebbs and flows of passion had swept over her and she felt strangely weak and unlike herself. Her pulses leapt so unsteadily and her heart pounded so furiously, not even when the rebel had crept up on her had she felt this degree of agitation . . . this loss of self-possession, so that she hardly knew what to do with herself.
"What would it matter to anyone," she heard herself say, "if we made love?"
"It would matter, little one, if in your ineffable innocence you fell for a baby. Grow up, Eve!" His voice hardened. "If I made love to you, I'd go every inch of the way--I couldn't stop myself, with you!"
His eyes swept her up and down. "You're made for a youngster, all shining ideals and no dark shadows in his life. A boy you can have fun with, and grow up with eye to eye, without having to wonder about his past. Don't ask me to rob that boy by taking the frosting off his angel cake--I could do it, Eve, and then you'd learn all about the hell of regret."
"I'd regret nothing--with you," she said, her arms flung out at either side of her, her hands gripping the tree, something defenceless and yet enticing in the attitude she had taken, the neck of her green shirt pulled to one side to reveal the whiteness of her skin.
"You don't know what you're saying--you're talking like a foolish, romantic kid on her first date," he said, taking a deep hard breath and thrusting the black hair from his moist brow. "I saved your neck, so you feel you owe me something--you don't owe me a thing, Eve, least of all that sweet, innocent body of yours. Stop flaunting it! We've got other fish to fry--or should I say bake?"
[118-119] He turned away from her and began taking fish from the basket, which he had already cleaned and gutted down by the river. "Will you collect some dry wood so we can start the fire?" he said casually.
But she couldn't move, all she could do was say dreamily: "I don't care about anyone but you."
"What about my wife?" Wade asked, and it was as if he drove a knife into Eve. "What of my son? Don't they count when the pretty deb wants a new kind of toy to amuse herself with?"
"Oh, don't be cruel to me!" She flung out a hand in a gesture of defence against the way he wounded her.
"I'm being realistic. You're just giving way to a romantic urge. It's nothing more than that, but it's dangerous. Were you an experienced woman of the world, I'd probably take you and not care a tinker's curse, but you're half my age and you're in my charge. Sister Mercy knows it. That good nun left you in my keeping and I won't commit a blasphemy by breaking faith with her. Now collect that wood and stop mooning about. I'm darned hungry!"
Aching, desolate, Eve moved about on the edge of the compound collecting small branches of wood. It couldn't be true, could it, that she was never going to know again the passionate delight of finding herself in Wade's fierce embrace?
She wanted it, that sweet shuddering she couldn't control . . . that swooning into such an acute aliveness. She wanted to give herself to him, for there was no shining youth awaiting her in England, only marriage to James because her guardian wanted it. Why couldn't she have Wade for this little time that was left, and know at least what it felt like to belong to a real man?
[119-120] But she had come up against something inexorable in that hard, warrior's nature of his . . . his strange reverence for that big silver cross worn by Sister Mercy.
He'd crucify the pair of them rather than destroy the good nun's faith in him.
He had admitted that he was a Catholic, part of a faith that didn't recognise divorce. Eve was certain he didn't love his wife, but that wouldn't stop him from remaining her husband, no matter what he might feel for someone else.
Eve thought of the way he had kissed her. Passionately . . . madly. But such passion didn't have to be meaningful for a man who probably hadn't been alone with an Englishwoman for some time. She had to face that and couldn't let herself be carried away by a few mad kisses into the realms of fantasy. Wade was very much a man and the touch of a woman would fire him . . . that was all it had been. That was the bleak truth of the matter and she had to accept it.
"Will this be enough?" She dumped the wood on the ground beside him.
"Fine, thanks." He shot a glance at her, then slowly lowered his left eyelid in a wink. "Here's looking at you, kid," he murmured.
Eve turned away from him, her own eyes flooding with the silly emotional tears. Why did he have to be bound to some other woman, this tough and tantalising man who made James seem like a languid, bloodless shadow?
Eve gave a sorrowful, angry shake of her head so that the tears flew off her cheeks. She was a woman and she knew she could make him lose his head if she tried, but that wouldn't solve anything ... it might make him [120-121] despise her, and she would sooner be his jungle pal and have him wink at her in that matey way than have him regard her as no better than those loose women in garrison towns to whom soldiers turned for brief consolation.
Brushing quickly at her cheek, Eve turned back to him. "Can I do anything to help?" she asked.
"Sure, you can go and get the yams. In just a little while, lady, you're going to have a tasty meal inside you. How's that strike you?"
"It couldn't be better at the Ritz," she replied, watching a moment as he laid the fish on the fire stones. "All we need is the wine list."
"You're forgetting the coconut," he said. "We'll open that and make believe it's a vintage wine--a fine white one."
She smiled and knew the game had to be played this way . . . the other way was too dangerous, even though it could have been rather heavenly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
On the river earlier it had been cool, but now the sun was like a molten flame about them, and the sweat had plastered Wade's shirt to his body, clinging darkly to his chest and shoulders as he thrust the paddle in and out of the water that glistened like thick oil in the sunlight.
Wade had worked with vandalistic zeal on the boat, spending tireless hours shaping and carving the storm-felled tree which he had dragged to the riverbank by means of a long rope woven from plaited vines.
With each passing day Eve's admiration for his industry, guts and skill had increased until she began to feel an almost frightening idolatry for the man. She had never known anyone like him in her life . . . a life which until now had been filled with ease and comfort provided by well-paid servants. She had never seen her guardian lift a log on to the fire, let alone create a boat from the trunk of a tree.
She had watched Wade at work with a feeling of akin to awe, and on the morning they loaded the canoe and the craft glided out on to the surface of the river, the certainty was strong in her that she could never be persuaded to marry James. She would never marry at all, least of all an effete young stockbroker who could do nothing except sit behind a desk and buy and sell shares for his clients. As his wife she would be no more than an adornment gracing his Maida Vale house, [122-123] there to entertain the wives of his business associates, and to spend the evenings dining with James' relatives, with the occasional weekend in the country for some golf, riding or shooting, according to the season.
The prospect wasn't to be borne, and if she must inevitably say goodbye to Wade, how could she ever forget being with him in the jungle? Sometimes she reflected back on her very first sight of him, when he had seemed so hard and unmerciful in the way he drove the nuns and herself through the bush to the airfield bungalow. She had thought him without sympathy or feeling, but she had learned since that he was rather like an iceberg, with depths to his character she would have loved to explore.
Oh God, sometimes it seemed as if she were thinking and loving like some heroine in a romantic story. She had never believed in that kind of love, but now discovered that it did exist. But she guarded it and was careful not to let it show in her eyes. For her sake and
his she acted the boy, never complaining of the enervating heat, ever ready to do his bidding, keeping as bright and perky as his cabin-boy. It amused him, but sometimes there seemed a shadow of concern in his eyes when they played over her, for she had grown thinner, even more fine-boned on their diet of fish, fruit, and the constant tension of what might be lurking around each bend of the river.
They had no way of knowing if Tanga had fallen to rebel hands, and each mile was bringing them closer to their destination.
Now and again on a smooth stretch he allowed her to paddle for a while, so that she kept supple and didn't grow stiff crouched all the time on the low seat which he [123-124] had fashioned, with a bar across so that she could hold on when they ran into the rapids caused by the sudden cascades of water raining down like liquid silver from great escarpments of rock. Some of the river scenery was breathlessly beautiful, where the most exotic flowers grew against the curtains of green foliage; and never had Eve imagined such colourful birds, some of them sheer blue, darting on the water and emerging with big fish flapping in their beaks. It seemed incredible at times that they were two people hurrying towards a refuge . . . or a town already occupied by savage, undisciplined rebels.
"What shall we do," Eve asked Wade, "if Tanga has fallen to the rebels?"
"Cut and run," he had replied. "Get the hell out and head for some place that might still be in Government hands."
It both frightened and excited her, the thought that she and Wade might be alone like this for an indefinite period. She might act the boy, and it might amuse him to let her, but there were underlying currents to the situation that couldn't be ignored. When they camped in the evenings and bathed in the river, it was impossible to pretend that he didn't see her, nude and pale-honey, pulling herself from the water, her limbs dripping in the light of the moon that had risen a few nights ago, to hang in the sky like a globe of witchfire.
It was equally impossible to pretend that she didn't see him, like some weathered figure of bronze, some pagan deity emerging from the river.
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