'May I come in, Julia?'
She hesitated nervously. She did not welcome the thought of being alone with him, but common sense warned that he might suspect she was afraid of him, and she pushed open the door, entering the small cottage ahead of him with a cool, 'You may come in, if you wish.'
Julia led the way into her small lounge with its comfortable cane furniture, and she was aware of Nathan glancing about him while she deposited her handbag and her parcels on the chair nearest to her. His glance seemed to take in every detail of the bright floral cushions, the plain cream curtains which were drawn aside at the window to let in the late afternoon sun, and the wall unit which contained her hi-fi and a small television set.
Nathan sauntered towards the stand containing her collection of classical records, and she felt awkwardly tense and uneasy when he lingered there to glance through them. Why was he here? What was he looking for? And what did he hope to find?
'I see you still have the same taste in music,' he smiled twistedly when he turned unexpectedly and caught her in the act of observing him. 'That, at least, is something that hasn't changed.'
The accusation in his remark did not escape her. He was referring to what he considered was the inconstancy of her emotions all those years ago, and she was surprised to discover that it hurt, but she was determined not to let it show.
'Why are you here, Nathan?'
'I came to find out if you perhaps have a husband tucked away somewhere, but you're not wearing any rings, so I presume that you're still single.' His smile deepened with derision. 'What's the matter, Julia? Don't you have the guts to take a relationship through to the final commitment of marriage?'
She lowered her lashes to veil the pain in her eyes. 'Is this going to be an inquisition?'
'I'm merely curious,' he drawled mockingly, raising a hand to straighten the original landscape against the wall which had always hung in her grandmother's house, but his cold blue gaze seemed to pin her helplessly to the floor when he turned abruptly. 'Why did you leave Johannesburg? Was the emotional climate getting too hot for you? Did you leave too many prospective husbands dangling a few days before the wedding to stay on in the city?'
Julia had been prepared for something like this, and she had known that it was not going to be an easy confrontation. His anger was understandable; it was a natural reaction, but she had been unprepared for the near physical pain as each word he uttered stabbed savagely at her heart.
'If you have come here to insult me, then I suggest you leave before I lose my temper,' she said calmly, hiding her feelings with an adroitness which had taken her five years to perfect almost to a fine art.
'I didn't know you had a temper,' he mocked her, increasing her heart-wrenching awareness of the change in him from the man she had once known to the man she was now confronted with. 'Perhaps I ought to congratulate you on your ability to keep that as well as every other part of your character hidden so well,' he added with a biting sarcasm she had not known he possessed and, when she did not answer him, he raised one dark, cynical eyebrow. 'Do you have nothing to say to that?'
What could she say in her own defence? He was searching for whatever whip he could lay his hands on in order to thrash her, and she could not blame him entirely.
'I've had a tough day, Nathan,' she said coolly, her glance unwavering even while her hands clutched at the backrest of the chair in front of her to steady her trembling body. 'Do you think you could explain the reason for this visit?'
He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his denims, and he lessened the distance between them, giving her that half-forgotten feeling that she had shrunk from average height to the size of a dwarf. Her eyes were almost on a level with the deep V of his T-shirt where the dark hair curled against his chest. It evoked haunting memories of leisurely picnics at the Hartebeespoort dam, and of lying in his arms with her cheek resting against his warm skin.
Dear God! She must not think about the past! And, above all, she must not think about what this man had once meant to her!
'I want to know why you left Johannesburg,' he demanded in a quiet, authoritative voice, his compelling glance drawing hers and holding it relentlessly while she tried to control her emotions.
'I didn't want to stay on after my grandmother died, so I sold the house and decided to settle here,' she answered him, relieved that she did not have to lie about that, and she decided to risk a query of her own while she had the opportunity. 'What made you decide to buy a farm in this district?'
'I heard from someone who had heard from someone else that there was a farm for sale in the Doornfield district, and I badly need a place I can escape to when the pressure of work becomes too much.' His eyes narrowed speculatively. 'Why are you working as a doctor's receptionist/nurse when you are better qualified for hospital duty?'
'It was the only job I could get when I came here three years ago, and I have stayed on because I am happy working for Dr de Necker.' Nathan's nearness and the familiar scent of his masculine cologne were attacking her senses, and Julia moved away from him towards the door. 'Would you like a cup of coffee,' she offered politely, 'or are you in a hurry to return to you… er… wife?'
'I'd like a cup of coffee,' he said, his mouth twitching with a suggestion of a smile when she faltered, but his eyes remained cold and assessing. 'Marcia left early this afternoon to return to Johannesburg with our guests, and she isn't my wife.'
'Oh?' Julia did not quite know how she felt about the news that Nathan was not married to Marcia. She would analyse her feelings later, she decided, when she turned in the doorway to look at him, and she noticed, not for the first time, that his hair still had a tendency to curl on to his broad forehead. 'She's your fiancée, then?' she heard herself asking before she could prevent herself.
'We haven't got around to that yet.' The atmosphere was inexplicably tense, while his glance held hers with a steady, probing regard.
Julia felt the shock of his words like a sickening blow to the heart, and it left her pale and momentarily speechless. What did it matter? she asked herself with some annoyance. She had not expected him to remain faithful to her, and neither had she expected him to live the life of a celibate after the way she had practically jilted him on the eve of their wedding. Had she? No, of course not! she answered her own question rationally. But why did it have to hurt so much? She had got over her feelings for him a long time ago, hadn't she?
'I'll switch on the kettle,' she said, her voice sounding as hollow as she was feeling at that moment when she turned from him with a jerky movement and escaped into the kitchen.
Julia drew aside the curtains at the window, and she filled the electric kettle under the tap before she plugged it into the wall and switched it on. She was functioning automatically, taking down two cups and saucers out of the wall cupboard and spooning instant coffee into them. Her thoughts were in a turmoil, and her feelings were in an equally chaotic state. She clenched her hands where they rested on the cupboard, and she clamped her jaw so tightly that the muscles in her cheeks ached. Nathan was free to live his life as he wished, and so was she! What did it matter to her that he and Marcia were lovers?
Her nerves jarred violently at the sound of a step behind her, and she took a moment to control her features before she turned to find Nathan observing her from no more than a pace away. There was a gleam of mockery in his eyes, and it sent an embarrassing warmth rushing into her cheeks.
'Have I shocked your puritanical little mind?' he demanded, the deep timbre of his voice ringing with the mockery she had seen in his eyes, and unaccustomed anger came to her rescue.
'I'm well aware of the fact that promiscuity is no longer frowned upon in our modern society, but I must warn you to tread with care if you wish to gain the respect of the Doornfield locals.' The kettle whistled loudly while she spoke, and she switched it off at the wall, praying that the tremor in her hand would go unnoticed when she poured boiling water into their cups and added milk. 'The people of import
ance in this village are all descendants of pioneers, and they still harbour the old-fashioned notion that a man takes a woman to bed after he has married her.'
'You sound as if you care about my reputation,' he mocked her, his short bark of derisive laughter making her anger rise by several degrees, and her grey glance was stormy when she handed him his cup of coffee and brushed past him to return the carton of milk to the refrigerator.
'The rise and fall of your reputation is your concern, Nathan, and I merely considered it my duty to enlighten you as to the moral code by which most people live here in Doornfield,' she assured him coldly, the limited space in her kitchen forcing her to squeeze past him again to add sugar to her own cup, and she was uncomfortably aware of his razor-sharp eyes following every move she was making. 'Shall we take our coffee through to the lounge?'
Nathan's rugged features were set in a hard, unfathomable mask when he stood aside for her to precede him out of the kitchen, and he followed disturbingly close behind her. She could feel his eyes boring into her back, and she sighed inwardly with a measure of relief when they were seated facing each other to drink their coffee, but her relief was shortlived. The silence between Nathan and herself was uncomfortable, and fraught with a strange tension which seemed to take a painful hold of every muscle in her body. He was studying her intently over the rim of his cup, his glance narrowed and assessing as it trailed from her honey-brown hair coiled into a neat knot in the nape of her neck, down to the sensible, low-heeled shoes on her feet, and a disquieting sensation spiralled through her to restrict her breathing.
'Talking about morals,' he said at length, referring to the conversation they had had in the kitchen and making her heart skip a frightened beat. She watched him down the last of his coffee, and she was unnerved by the cynical smile curving his sensuous mouth when he leaned forward to place his cup on the circular glass coffee-table. 'Isn't there something in your book of moral codes that says a man deserves a reasonable explanation why the woman he was going to marry should suddenly change her mind at the very last minute?'
Julia had expected this, but his query still had the power to shake her, and she had to take a few moments to gather her scattered wits about her. She was painfully aware of the fact that she would have to exercise extreme caution. One carelessly chosen word could set him on the trail of his quest for the truth, but the truth would no longer serve a purpose and, for her own sake, it had to remain hidden from him.
'I believe I said everything there was to say in my letter to you,' she answered him coolly and with a calmness which she was far from experiencing, but she averted her gaze for fear of what he might see in her eyes.
'Ah, yes… your letter.' There was a sneer in his voice when he rose to his feet and crossed the room to stand in front of the window with his broad, formidable back turned towards her. 'Your letter told me everything, and yet it told me nothing!'
Oh, God, how could he know that it was the most agonising letter I have ever had to write in my entire life! How could he know that I had written it with a total disregard for my own happiness, and with only his future in mind!
'Do we have to talk about something which happened five years ago, and which ought to be forgotten?' she asked, feeling wretched as she placed her empty cup on the table beside Nathan's, but she had injected an note of icy disapproval into her voice.
'Forgotten?' His voice was as harsh as his features when he spun round abruptly, and she flinched inwardly at the savage anger in his eyes. 'I assure you, my dear Julia, that I haven't forgotten a thing, and I don't ever intend to. I haven't forgotten how you led me on to believe that you loved me, and neither have I forgotten that cryptic little note you sent me because you were too cowardly to tell me to my face that you had changed your mind about marrying me. Do you know what I did with your engagement ring?' he demanded with that unfamiliar savagery that made her shrink inside. 'I flushed it down the toilet. Good riddance, I said to you as well as the ring, but meeting you again has made me realise that I can't put that episode in my life behind me until I know the reason for your deceit.'
Deceit! The word ricocheted agonisingly through her mind. She supposed that, one way or another, she had deserved his wrath, but he could not have hurt her more if he had launched a physical attack on her with a scalpel.
'I'm afraid that I don't have anything to add to what you already know,' she told him, rising abruptly with the intention of taking their empty cups through to the kitchen, but Nathan bridged the distance between them in a few long strides.
'Dammit, Julia!' he thundered at her, his fingers biting into her arm as he jerked her round to face him, and she paled at the look of intense fury on his ruggedly handsome features. 'I demand an explanation, and I'm not leaving here until I get one! I want to know what made you change your mind at the last minute, or had you planned your deceit from the start in order to derive some sort of macabre pleasure from the act of ditching me almost at the altar?'
Never, not even in her wildest dreams, had she imagined five years ago that her decision would have such savage repercussions, and she could not help wondering what she would have done at the time if she could have seen into the future.
'There is no truth in your hateful accusations,' she argued, trying desperately to remain calm in this moment of extreme distress. 'The reason why I broke off our engagement was that I realised in time that I didn't love you enough, and I knew that our marriage would be a mistake.'
'That's what you said in your letter, and I refuse to believe it now as much as I refused to believe it then!' His eyes were like twin flames searing her, and she felt herself shrinking away from their probing intensity. 'Why, Julia?' he demanded ominously, towering over her as the shadowy fingers of dusk reached into the room. 'What happened to make you change your mind about marrying me? Was it the thought that the chase would end for you with our marriage, and that you wanted to start the exciting ritual all over again with someone else?'
'Stop this ridiculous interrogation!' she pleaded, not sure how much more of this she could take before she cracked, and she was desperately afraid that she might reveal the truth. 'I didn't love you enough to marry you and go away with you, and there's nothing more to it than that!'
'You're lying!' he accused her harshly, taking her shoulders in a crushing grip. 'You're lying to me, Julia!'
For one fraction of a second Julia actually toyed with the idea of telling him what he wanted to know. She hated having to lie to him; she hated having to lie to anyone; but she feared Nathan's reaction to the truth. Would he despise her for what she had done, or would he feel obliged to her? She knew that she could cope with his condemnation, but she found the thought distasteful that he might feel under an obligation to her. And then there was Marcia. It was the thought of the woman he had been seeing for the past year that finally influenced her decision.
'I've told you the truth!' she persisted desperately with the abominable lies she had started five years ago.
'The hell you have!' he contradicted her savagely, jerking her taut body against his, and holding her a prisoner in the hard circle of his arms while his mouth descended on hers with a force that parted her lips.
Julia's hands were flat against his chest, the muscles in her arms straining in an attempt to push him away, and then, to her horror, all those long-buried emotions stirred to life inside her. Her body yielded against his for a fraction of a second before sanity prevailed, and she pushed Nathan away from her with a burst of strength she had not known she possessed.
She was trembling inwardly, and there was an angry accusation in her grey eyes when she looked up at him and croaked, 'You shouldn't have done that.'
'Perhaps not,' he agreed mockingly. 'But it has shown me that you're not as indifferent as you'd like me to believe.'
Julia spun away from him when she felt a rush of embarrassing tears stinging her eyes, but she blinked them away rapidly. She had had enough, she could not tolerate much more of this, and she took
a deep, steadying breath before she said, 'Please leave, Nathan.'
'I'll go, but you might as well accept the fact that you haven't seen the last of me,' he told her with a harshness that jarred her raw nerves and sent tremors of fear racing through her body. 'I deserve an explanation, and I refuse to settle for anything less then the truth.'
'Forget the past! It's over and done with, and there's no sense in raking it up simply to bury it again!' She stood with her back to him, not daring to face him until she had managed to control her quivering features, and she was praying silently that he would not prolong his departure. 'Think about Marcia instead,' she added in a voice which she hoped would sound persuasive. 'Your future lies with her.'
She had put a knife to her own heart, but it was Nathan who drove it in up to the hilt to draw blood. 'I know where I stand with Marcia,' he said cuttingly, 'and I know I can depend on her to be there whenever I need her.'
Julia started to shake like someone in post-operative shock, and her hands clenched spasmodically at her sides until her nails bit savagely into her palms.
'Goodbye, Nathan,' she said through her teeth, and she could not have made it any clearer that she wanted him to go.
'Not goodbye, Julia,' he contradicted her mockingly, coming up behind her and standing so close to her that she could almost feel the heat of his body against her back. 'We shall meet again, but until then I suggest you do some serious thinking. You owe me the truth, and I want nothing less from you.'
There was a threatening note in his voice, and it sent a shiver racing up her spine when he walked out of the cottage and closed the front door firmly behind him. Moments later she heard him drive away, and only then did she relax the rigid hold on herself to collapse on to the cane bench in a shuddering, sobbing heap.
The past and present had collided viciously to expose her as an emotional fraud. Oh, she had been so good at pretending to herself that she no longer cared, and she had actually begun to believe the things she had told herself, but that, too, had been a lie. She had never stopped caring, and it was futile to think that she ever would. Her love for Nathan had been too profound to be swept aside by time, and that was why his anger and his contempt had the power to cut so deep into her soul.
Too Long a Sacrifice Page 3