by Robyn Donald
‘You’ll get there one day.’ He held out his hand and automatically she accepted it; it was strong and warm, not the hand of a man who spent all day indoors. He swam, she knew, but from the calluses on his hands he also did some heavy work.
She stepped away and he relinquished his grip, but not before she caught a glimpse of some fugitive emotion beneath the dark lashes, a coldly calculating gleam that chilled her.
‘Tell me,’ he said as they started along the beach, ‘how you got to know Gerard well enough to accept his offer of help.’
Choosing her words carefully, she said, ‘He’d been my tutor since the beginning of the year, so we knew each other. He found me sound asleep in the library one night.’
‘Sleeping in the library isn’t uncommon,’ Paul said, ‘especially just before exams.’
‘No.’
‘So Gerard invited you to live with him.’ His voice was amused, almost bland, yet an uneasy little shiver tightened her skin.
‘Hardly,’ she said dryly. ‘He bought me a cup of coffee.’
‘And then he asked you to live with him?’
A seagull ran to within a few feet of them, surveying them with greedy, bright eyes. Keeping her eyes on it, Jacinta said, ‘Of course he didn’t. He offered to drive me home.’
Another silence, heavy with unspoken thoughts, a silence that compelled her to add, ‘I refused, so he insisted on getting me a taxi.’
That was when she’d choked back tears, too exhausted to exert her usual control over her emotions and well aware that Mark was probably waiting for her, ready for another scene like that of the previous evening, when he’d raged at her almost all night. She’d found a temporary place to stay with a friend, but she wasn’t able to move until the following week; she had been dreading the intervening days.
‘I believe you were having trouble with a relationship,’ Paul observed.
‘I—how do you know?’
‘Gerard,’ he said laconically.
‘I didn’t tell him anything about—about that.’
He paused, then said judicially, ‘Presumably he guessed.’
Jacinta bit her lip. ‘Yes.’
‘And Gerard suggested you move into his spare bedroom.’
Irritation spurred her into a snappy answer. ‘Only because his cleaning service had let him down in a big way again. He told me that if I kept house and cooked his meals I could have the spare bedroom for free, but I...’ The words trailed away.
One of Paul’s greatest assets in his career had to be that warm, almost sympathetic voice; it was too easy to be lulled into confiding things you regretted later.
He said, ‘So then he found a flat for you.’
‘That was a piece of luck! And as it’s not too far from the apartment he was living in I could take up his offer of a job.’
He sent her a heavy-lidded glance. ‘Very fortunate,’ he said non-committally ‘Gerard seems to be satisfied with the bargain.’
‘I hope so. He’s been very kind.’
‘Not by his reckoning,’ he said, his aloof tone unsettling her. ‘Tell me, is this arrangement going to continue at his new house?’
‘Yes, but there’s a small flat at the back. I’m going to be like Fran and live on the job.’ And if there was a hint of defiance in her tone she hoped he noticed it. She objected to being cross-examined as though she was a hostile witness.
‘And will you enjoy that?’
‘It’ll be wonderful to have a place to call my own, even if it isn’t.’
‘Of course, you’re helping Gerard too,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘Well, of course.’ Gerard had been a rock at a very stressful time, and she’d always be grateful to him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PAUL said abruptly, ‘It sounds the ideal arrangement.’ And waited a second too long before adding, ‘Except for one where you wouldn’t need to worry about money at all.’
Jacinta stopped herself from shrugging. ‘That would be perfect, but it’s difficult to arrange nowadays.’
He didn’t frown but she felt as though he did. Ridiculous, she thought despairingly.
When he spoke his voice was cool. ‘If you don’t know what you’re going to do with this degree, why did you do it?’
‘It seemed the logical thing to do when I left school. I loved history—it was my best subject—and I didn’t have the foggiest idea of any sort of career. My mother wanted me to go to university.’ She flushed but went on steadily, ‘She’d started a degree but wasn’t able to finish it, and she blamed herself because she couldn’t manage without me after my first two years. It was her ambition to have me capped and gowned, even if it had to be after her death. And—in a way going back to university was convenient; I’d spent years at home and I was—afraid, I suppose—of trying to find a job.’
And that was something she hadn’t admitted, even to herself, before.
‘Forgive me if this is intrusive, but do you not have a father to call on?’
She said steadily, ‘He was killed in a boating accident before I was born, but I have no idea who he was. My mother would never tell me.’ It was probably his silence, and the understanding she thought she sensed in him, that emboldened her to continue, ‘She just said that he wasn’t free.’ She’d also said she’d fallen wholly and embarrassingly in love. ‘I’ve always assumed he was married.’
‘It certainly sounds like it,’ he murmured. ‘It must have been tough growing up without a father.’
‘It was tougher on her. She brought me up, and worked damned hard to do it.’ Startled by the unexpected note of fierceness in her voice, she added lamely, ‘She had a difficult life, and it doesn’t seem fair that she should die so wretchedly. And don’t tell me that life isn’t fair.’
‘I don’t deal in platitudes,’ he said, ‘especially with someone like you, who’s had to face that particular injustice for too many years.’
‘I’d like to have been able to repay her for some of her sacrifices. Almost the only pleasure she got out of those last years was thinking of the things I’d be able to do when she died, and quite frankly it stinks!’
She knew she sounded childish, but she couldn’t control the sudden, furious outburst. As angry tears started to her eyes she groped in her pocket for a handkerchief.
‘It does,’ he said gently, holding out a beautifully pressed white one.
Jacinta took it and blew her nose defiantly. ‘The worst thing,’ she muttered, unable to stop herself from divulging this, ‘was that when she died I was relieved.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, and to her astonishment pulled her into his arms, effortlessly subduing her first resistance until in the end she gave in and leaned against him, desperate to absorb a measure of his calm, quiet strength.
Sheltered in the powerful cage of his embrace, she relaxed, her head coming to rest naturally on his shoulder. His faint, potent scent and the warmth of his skin, the solid bulwark of his body, combined to work an elemental magic. Although Jacinta knew this unspoken compassion was just as dangerous as the wildfire need that consumed her night and day, she couldn’t wrest herself away from the hazardous lure of his unfaltering steadiness. Boneless, without volition, she was unable to follow the commands of that tiny part of her brain that could still think.
Eventually common sense returned, and she muttered, ‘I’m sorry,’ as she steeled herself to pull away.
A lean hand stroked the strands of hair back from her hot cheek and neck. ‘Have you really cried for her?’ he asked, his voice deep and soothing.
‘I—I—’
He couldn’t have asked anything more likely to break down the floodgates. How long he supported her while she wept into his cotton shirt she didn’t know, but she’d never felt so safe.
Eventually it finished, and this time he let her go. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled again, refusing to look at him as she tried to tidy away the signs of her grief.
‘Why?’ He took her arm and turned he
r around. ‘What you need,’ he said with cool assurance, ‘is a cup of tea. And probably something for a headache.’
‘You’ve done this before,’ she said, trying to smile.
‘Occasionally. But every Kiwi—even our coffee generation—turns to tea in an emergency.’
He made it for her, drank a cup with her, and followed her lead when she asked him his opinion of the newly announced team for the Commonwealth Games.
That was when she realised that her initial fierce, hopeless attraction, that first violent fervour, was now buttressed by the love growing deep inside her, a love that joined with her sexual awakening, reinforcing it.
Because Paul had to catch an early flight the next morning he left as the stars began to prick holes in the sky; he’d spend the night in his flat. Jacinta wished him luck and waved goodbye, and then trailed into the huge, empty house.
The next week was oddly busy, yet serene and peaceful. The aftermath of her bout of tears was a calm acceptance she’d been lacking before. Her mother was dead; she’d done whatever it was she’d been put on earth to do, and now had left it all behind her.
That recognition renewed a forgotten energy. Jacinta began to plan a future, a future that didn’t include Paul. Although she missed him with every cell in her body, longing for him through the endless night hours until shadows darkened the fine skin beneath her eyes, the stark pragmatism she’d inherited from her mother told her that in spite of his kindness he wasn’t in love with her.
He’d almost certainly made love to Meriam Anderson the night of the party; if he’d felt anything at all for Jacinta he wouldn’t have done that.
No, he was not for her.
That being so, she’d have to organise her life.
What she wanted to do, she admitted, was stay at Waitapu and write. A pretty pipe-dream, but she could write anywhere.
If she gave up university and used the rest of her mother’s inheritance, she could rent a small flat in a small town somewhere and buy what furniture she needed as well as a second-hand computer and printer. She couldn’t expect Gerard to continue lending her his, and, although the arrangement she had with him would be ideal, he might not want to continue it when she told him she was giving up her MA.
Of course he might, and that would be great.
But if he didn’t she’d have to get a job so that she didn’t starve, and jobs were notoriously difficult to get in small towns. Especially for people with no commercial qualifications.
Perhaps she should use the money to go to a polytech and qualify in some field that would pay her a living wage. That would be sensible.
Unfortunately, all possible careers filled her with dismay. In spite of the frustrations and moments of utter despair and the unlikeliness of ever making it to publication, she loved sitting down in front of the computer and losing herself in her world.
She wandered out into the soft limpid air of early morning and looked around the garden and the sea, her eyes filling with tears that held something of delight, something of sorrow.
Leaving the man who owned all this beauty would tear her heart to shreds, yet she couldn’t wish that things were different; however painful the loss, she could only be grateful that she’d met Paul.
That week, as summer dreamed its way towards Christmas, Jacinta wrote and dreamed with it. She was even cautiously pleased with what she’d written, although by now she was beginning to realise that this book might never be published. This one was her primer; it was teaching her how to weave together all the threads that eventually linked tightly into a novel.
She read and reread the book Paul had bought her, finding something new and useful every time. And each time she picked it up it was with secret delight because he’d been thoughtful enough to think of her. It was a pathetic little flame of pleasure to warm herself at, but she hugged it to her.
The week he’d planned to be away dragged into ten days. Jacinta tried not to think of him. She was reasonably successful while she was awake, but when she slept her unconscious took over, and she was plagued by dreams that ranged perilously close to nightmares, dreams where he turned away from her, dreams where Meriam Anderson threw mud at her sari, and tore the veil...
Dreams that were pitifully simple to understand.
‘He’s coming back on the weekend,’ Fran said one evening. ‘His office in Auckland rang—he’s on his way back from Europe, but he’s decided to stay a couple of days over in Los Angeles.’
Where Meriam Anderson lived.
Jealousy, Jacinta thought, trying hard to be objective, was a strange thing. She had no right to be jealous; Paul had given her no reason to hope. He’d been kind—but then, he was that sort of man. He was kind to Fran, to Dean, he’d been kind to her mother.
And she despised jealousy. Yet there it was, hot and sullen as embers, casting its lurid glow over her life.
‘Use it as raw material for Mage in the book,’ she told herself, half seriously. It certainly gave her a much better idea of the agony she was putting her hero through, but it made her feel a parasite on her own emotions.
Walking it off with long treks around the coast and across the hills, often accompanied by one of the farm dogs that had grown too old for hard work, did help; she enjoyed Floss’s company, and that too was new to her. Her mother had always had cats.
The evening before Paul was due home Fran went out to dinner, so Jacinta made a salad of crisp, frilly red and green lettuce with avocado, cooked some tiny, white-skinned potatoes and the first of the beans, and poached a new-laid egg. She ate it all, but it could just as well have been seaweed for any enjoyment she got from it.
The evenings were drawing out, and in spite of showers that had freshened the garden it was still unseasonably hot. During the afternoon Jacinta had printed out her whole manuscript, and when she’d eaten she took the pages onto the verandah to read.
But after a while she sat motionless as the dusk drifted down around her, appreciating the silent, lush beauty of the garden and the patient, soft murmur of the sea. The light grew thicker, more golden, distilling pure colour from each flower and summoning a loitering sweetness so that the garden glowed with a fragrant, beckoning glamour.
An unknown hunger ached through her bones, filling her with a seeking, rapturous discontent. Anchoring the manuscript with a smooth stone she’d picked up from the beach, she got to her feet and walked out into the radiance; she hadn’t bothered to do up her hair after her swim, and she shook it around her shoulders, at once oppressed by its weight and yet enjoying the freedom.
She reached to pull down a rose whose petals blended shades of apricot and gold and pink, burying her nose in the heart to wallow in perfume. Sinful, she thought, breathing it deeply; that scent was both an invitation and a satisfaction, tantalising yet not complete, because it lured another response from deep inside her, a primitive yearning that consumed her.
A movement on the edge of her vision brought her head around; in the pool of darkness beneath the verandah roof stood a darker figure, a figure she’d invoked from the furthest reaches of desire.
And then he walked down the steps, and the last of the sun caught his fair head, turning it suddenly into gold. Jacinta’s hand clenched on the stem beneath the rose, and a thorn caught beside her nail, tearing the sensitive flesh. An involuntary whimper broke from her lips.
‘What is it?’ Paul asked, his stride lengthening.
Mutely she held out her hand.
He took it gently. ‘Old Abraham Darby has some fierce thorns,’ he said, and lifted her hand and took her finger into his mouth.
Sensation, fierce as wildfire, robbed Jacinta of volition. She felt her eyes dilate as he sucked the little wound before examining it with frowning absorption, and she prayed that he wouldn’t notice her quiver when he ran his thumb across her suddenly sensitive palm.
‘It should be all right,’ he said. ‘You smell of the flower.’ He leaned across her to snap off the heavy bloom and gave it to her. ‘So
me small recompense.’
‘I didn’t think you were coming back until tomorrow,’ she said. Her voice was a little thin, but without any noticeable tremors.
‘I was, but things changed.’
‘Fran’s having dinner with friends.’
Dusk was falling swiftly, the dampness of the air intensifying the mingled scents around them—the clean fresh perfume of the grass, the salty tang of the sea, and the erotic perfume of rose and gardenia and bouvardia.
‘Is she?’ He sounded slightly tense.
Get a grip on yourself, Jacinta commanded. She took what she hoped seemed a casual step away from his suffocating presence and asked, ‘Have you had dinner? There’s salad—’
‘I’m not hungry; they practically force-feed you on planes.’ He wasn’t curt but she could hear impatience behind the words.
Turned away from the painful pleasure of looking at him, she began to walk back towards the house. He went with her, saying, ‘I’m going to make myself a drink. Would you like one?’
Perhaps a cup of tea would calm her down. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some stuff out on the verandah that might get damp so I’ll put it away first.’
She was shivering when she got back to the lounger. After staring at the rose in her hand, she thrust it into the buttonhole of her shirt and gathered up the sheaf of paper with no regard for tidiness or order. Her mind drummed with one thought.
Get out of here before it’s too late.
But her heart whispered that it was already too late. Out in the sumptuous beauty of the garden, she had taken a step through a forbidden door and into a different world.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and then another, but neither that nor concentration quenched the slow burn of desire. In fact her head spun slightly, and she thought, You’re hyperventilating, for heaven’s sake
Cold water would remove that hectic flush from her skin, and might just shock her system back into normality. But when she went out into the hall Paul said from the far end, ‘Your drink’s ready.’
Oddly intimidated by the way he watched her, by his stillness, she walked towards him. He hadn’t made tea; the tray he carried held a decanter and bottles.