Deceptive Passion

by Sophie Weston

  history had he withheld from her? She had told him everything and She caught her breath at the wave of desolation that swept over her.

  Still, she thought. It made her angry. She ought to have got over it. She ought to be impervious to revelations about Miles Tabard by now. He was nothing to do with her any more. Was he?

  Hastily, she said goodnight to Dimitri at her bedroom door. She was almost absent about it and his ironic look brought her up short. It had not occurred to her that he might want to kiss her goodnight. His expression told her that he had noticed. She closed her door in some confusion.

  She went to the window. It was absolutely dark. She opened the french windows quietly. At once the honeyed scent of jasmine engulfed her. She stood very still. She could just make out the shapes of formal tubs which would no doubt hold geraniums. In the distance she could make out flashes of phosphorescence from the sea. She leaned her temple against the edge of the door, savouring the scents, the stillness, the distant lulling hush of the bay.

  Why had Miles not told her? She could not believe he was ashamed. He wasn't ashamed of anything. He looked the world in the eye and dared it to criticise him

  Had Anne Tabard sworn him to secrecy? But other people seemed to know. Did he think it was none of Diana's business? Or had he thought it would give her a hold over him he didn't want her to have? The last possibility chilled her.

  She rubbed her face tiredly against the frame. Or wasn't it true after all?

  Dimitri and the Galatas family inhabited a social circle as small in its way as a village. Oh, they jetted all round the world but they met the same few people in each exotic

  stop-over. Like any other small community, they thrived on gossip, not all of it true. Maybe Dimitri's mother, seeing Miles's intimacy with the Galatas grandchildren, had put two and two together to make five.

  And yet ... And yet ...

  There was a sound below her. Diana froze.

  The terrace was a long eighteenth-century affair that swept the length of one façade of the castle. Shallow steps led down not to a formal lawn, but an incongruous olive grove. Diana had seen it briefly earlier. Now she could just make out the trees in the dark. Trees and nothing else. The noise came again.

  Silent-footed, she went outside to the edge of the terrace. Hands braced lightly on the marble balustrade, she scanned the shadows. It could have been some small animal. A lizard, say, although she had the vague idea that they were usually silent. Or—

  She saw the pale gleam of a shirt-front among the trees and drew a sharp breath.

  `Did I disturb you?' said Miles softly.

  When didn't he disturb her? Especially coming at her without warning out of the scented night. He must have eyes like a cat's to make her out in this blackness, thought Diana. She found she was shaking.

  `You gave me the fright of my life,' she spat back, finding her voice. 'I was just trying to convince myself that there were hedgehogs in Greece. Noisy hedgehogs.'

  `I must be losing my touch.' The husky voice was amused.

  He came out of the trees and ran lithely up the steps. His feet made no sound. He stopped in front of her. He didn't touch her.

  `There was a time I could have got into any room off the terrace and not a soul would have heard me,' he told her softly in her ear.

  Diana stepped back. 'Excellent talent for a cat burglar. Surely wasted on a physicist?' she responded tartly.

  Her breathing was hurried. Deliberately she steadied herself. She saw his teeth gleam in the dark.

  `Ah, but in those days physicist wasn't on my list. Too mundane. I was going to be a rock star. Jet pilot. Explorer.'

  She was startled into a little laugh.

  `What, all of them?'

  `All of them,' he assured her solemnly. 'Maybe a brain surgeon in my spare time. Brain surgeons seemed to go down well.'

  `Down well with whom?' Diana began, and found that he had moved imperceptibly so that now he was a good deal closer than she had realised.

  `Use your imagination,' he told her huskily.

  Her mouth was suddenly dry.

  `Are you telling me you planned on being a vile seducer when you grew up?' she said, trying for a tone as cool and amused as his own. She didn't, she thought critically, do too badly either.

  `Not vile,' he demurred.

  He took another step forward. This time she saw it. She moved sideways and came up hard against a jasmine-entwined pillar. She put a hand against the cool marble to steady herself.

  `I'm relieved to hear it,' she said politely.

  `You ought to know without being told.' He was reproachful.

  Diana flinched. She knew she was being teased. It was almost unbelievable. But she knew that provocative tone. She took firmer hold of her supporting pillar.

  `I,' she told him lightly, 'never knew you in your midnight seducer days.'

  `You missed something.' He was still laughing at her. In spite of the blackness of the night, she could feel his eyes on her, as vividly as a touch or the light breeze eddying up from the sea. She moved restively.

  `I'm sure. I '

  `Mind you, getting out of the olive grove on to the terrace, without being caught, was only Phase One,' Miles said thoughtfully. 'And I seem to be out of practice there.' He reached for her. 'Let's see how we go on Phase Two.'

  Phase Two had Diana breathless and shaking in seconds.

  `Ah,' said Miles complacently, raising his head. 'It all comes back. Just like riding a bike.'

  `Take your hands off me,' said Diana. She heard the tremor in her voice and despised herself for it.

  `Keep your voice down. You don't want to wake the household.'

  `I don't care if I wake the dead,' said Diana, really shaken. 'Take your hands off me now:

  Miles complied. His hands, she noticed, showed no disposition to linger. But he wasn't at all put out of countenance either.

  `The trouble with you,' he said mildly, 'is you have no spirit of enquiry.'

  Diana pushed past him She took up a defensive stand behind a basket-weave chair, clutching its scratchy back like a lifebelt, and turned on him.

  `I've plenty of spirit of enquiry,' she said grimly. 'Like what the hell you think you're doing, for a start.'

  He gave a soft laugh. 'Me? I'd have thought I was easy enough to read. Reviving memories. Calling on my wife.'

  `Ex-wife,' she interjected swiftly.

  `Nope; In the dark she could just make out the movement of the dark red hair. 'Not yet.'

  She dismissed that with a gesture.

  `Only because your damned solicitor was so inef—

  ficient he couldn't find you to sign the papers.'

  Miles laughed again, quite kindly. It chilled her blood. `Honey child, why do you think that was? I haven't been on the moon.'

  Her heart gave a great thump like a pile-driver. Instinctively she put her hand to her side.

  `I—don't understand.'

  `He had instructions not to find me,' Miles said coolly, watching her.

  For the second time that day, Diana felt the ground lurch under her.

  But—but why?' she managed at last. 'You were the one who left. You must want a divorce.'

  `Is that why you asked for one?' he said swiftly. Two years alone and the harsh months before them

  had taught Diana how to evade questions like that. `Are you deliberately trying to be bloody-minded,

  Miles?' she demanded.

  Yet again he disconcerted her. He propped himself against the balustrade and said thoughtfully, 'That's part of it, I suppose. The male need to look out for his own.'

  She had a sudden vision of Dimitri's ironic look when she wished him goodnight and had an unwelcome revelation.

  `Did you come here to make sure I was on my own tonight?' she said, furious. She saw his shoulders lift, and said between her teeth, 'I am not your own, Miles Tabard. I never will be.'

  Again. She didn't say it. She didn't have to. It lay between them almost tangi
bly. She couldn't look at that

  casual, lounging body without remembering how completely she had been his own—once.

  He remembered too, it was clear.

  `No?' he said softly.

  Diana felt as if she were in a whirlwind. 'I don't understand you,' she said in despair.

  There was a pause. Then he said, 'I can see that. You don't know me very well, do you, Di?'

  She winced. 'Did you ever let me know you?' she flashed.

  Miles ignored that. 'You thought I'd let it go on forever? All this running around Europe after rich men. This great house. That palace. Do you ever go out with anyone who isn't a threeswimming-pool man, these days?'

  If it hadn't been so hurtful, it would have been funny. Her job took her to the historic houses of Europe and the States; but, if their owners ever showed any personal interest in her, Diana Tabard was known for packing her bags and leaving.

  There hadn't been anyone for her since Miles left. In her heart of hearts she knew there wouldn't be. It had hurt too much to risk again. But she wasn't going to tell Miles that.

  She said in a strangled voice, 'You have no right to criticise the way I live.'

  `You used to want to teach.' His voice was gentle, almost sad. 'Couldn't you have gone back to it?'

  `When you left me, you mean?' Diana gave a hard laugh. 'I had to do something and I'd been out of university too long for a job to come up just like that. You didn't want me to stay on after we married.'

  `So it's my fault?' He sounded resigned. 'I might have guessed.'

  Diana flinched. 'It's nobody's fault,' she said in a voice like ice. 'It just happened. And I had to make the best of a bad job.'

  He moved. 'You really think that is the best?'

  Diana thought of the long hours, the travelling, matching colours till her eyes ached, the arduous processes of reconstructing paint and fabric.

  It's no picnic,' she allowed.

  `Look,' Miles said in his most reasonable tone, 'give me a week of your time. Carry on with your holiday. Unwind. Take stock. If after that you want to carry on the way you are—well, it'll be your business. Only,' his voice grew grim, 'you won't do it on my money.'

  Diana was instantly tense. 'The allowance ...'

  `Stops,' Miles said succinctly.

  Diana thought of her parents' delight in their small house with its purpose-designed kitchen where her father could reach things and his conservatory where he could grow his plants. It was their independence which was at risk. She was building up a reputation as a consultant in her field but it was a slow business. She was almost sure she wouldn't be able to meet the payments on their mortgage out of her present income.

  She said, 'What if I go tomorrow?'

  `Then the allowance stops tomorrow,' Miles said, quite gently.

  It was no choice at all. They both knew it.

  He had always been like that, she thought with a flash of unwelcome memory. He didn't fight. He didn't even seem to care most of the time. But without raising his voice or taking any sort of stance he simply made it impossible for her to do anything except what he wanted.

  He came over to her and took the light basket-weave chair out of her hands. She jumped. He bent and kissed her mouth lightly, almost insultingly. Diana went rigid.

  Miles gave a soft laugh. He patted her cheek. He meant to denigrate her and he succeeded. Diana gave a small sound of protest.

  `Quite right. Not a swimming-pool to my name; you'll have to change the entrance qualification,' he drawled.

  And then his arms were round her like bands of steel. His hands in the small of her back hurt. He was kissing her with a bruising strength that was almost frightening. Her skin felt scorched. She struggled. Miles didn't seem to notice.

  He had never kissed her like this before, not even when they were astonished by love and still exploring. Not when they were married. She had never been kissed like this in her life. It felt as if he was furiously angry, yet more with himself than her. It felt as if his mouth would sear deep into her and change her forever, as if that was what he was determined to do.

  Earlier Diana had felt an electric echo of their old passion for each other. But this was nothing like that. Diana felt herself sinking in a sea of fire, appalled and helpless.

  `No,' she said. She didn't know if she was addressing Miles or herself.

  He let her go as abruptly as he had seized her. Diana fell back. Her mouth throbbed. Her whole body throbbed. Two years of careful independence and painfully cultivated poise cracked wide open in a moment, she thought. Her hands flew to hide her burning cheeks as she backed away from him

  `Don't ever do that again,' she said in a voice she barely recognised as her own.

  He took a hasty step after her. Instinctively her hands went out to ward him off. He stopped dead. She could not look at him. She had the impression that he was

  willing her to do so with every atom of his considerable personality. But she wouldn't give in.

  She heard him draw a careful breath. 'Di,' he said in an undertone.

  Her chin went up. 'You've made your point.'

  He was preserving a careful distance. 'And what point is that?'

  `That you still have—power—over me.' Her voice shook. The admission humiliated her and it was a worse humiliation that Miles would know it.

  `Di,' he said again, softly.

  `Get away from me.' There was real fear in her voice, fear of losing the last of her fragile self-possession.

  He hesitated. She saw him debate and tensed. She saw him take that in, too, and fling up his hands, palms open.

  `Hell,' he said explosively.

  Before she realised, he turned on his heel and was running silently down the marble steps. He disappeared into the aromatic shadows while she was still fighting for composure.

  It was not, Diana acknowledged wryly to her mirror the next morning, the most restful night of her life. In spite of her tiredness and the wine, her mind could not relax. Round and round it went: indignation at Miles's assumption about her life; bewilderment at how he arrived at his conclusions; fear that he would take action which would cost her parents their haven; indignation again that she should be caught in this trap.

  Would he carry out his threat? It wasn't like him to be vindictive. But then two years of marriage had taught her that Miles didn't threaten anything he wasn't prepared to do. She must talk to him. Abandon her pride—and heaven knew there wasn't much of that left after last night—and make him understand the truth about

  her visits to the grand houses, since he seemed to resent them so much. Explain about her job. Then maybe Miles would apologise and they could say goodbye.

  Miles? her wiser self said tartly. Miles, apologise?

  Two years of marriage had taught her that too. Miles had a simple philosophy: never explain, never apologise. He said it kept life uncomplicated. Perhaps it did, for him. For Diana, trying to guess his mood and assess his intentions in those last months, it had turned the marriage into a living nightmare.

  She propped her hand on her chin, studying the too prominent cheekbones in the mirror. She didn't look so bad now. When Miles first walked out she had looked like a ghost.

  She'd looked like a ghost the night of the Comem Ball. For weeks Miles had been coming home late, sleeping in his study, spending his weekends with Steve Gilman and his computer.

  The only person he had seen outside his work was Susie, in London and signalling an emergency. He had run up to her West End hotel the evening of the day she telephoned. But then he always went when Susie summoned him.

  The rest of the time he was so busy that he barely spoke. Diana was astonished when he'd announced that he wanted them to go to his college ball.

  Her mouth twisted at the memory. She had tried so hard. She had even asked Susie to take her to her own exclusive dressmaker in London.

  The dress was a drift of grey-green voile shot through with the faintest thread of gold. It left her shoulders bare and c
lung to the point where the skirt swirled at hip height. She had put her hair up for once, letting it curl on to her long neck in feathery curls. Miles loved

  those curls. Or he had once said he did. She wore the jade drops he had given her as an engagement present.

  Once she would have been delighted with the way she looked. But twenty months into marriage with Miles left her standing in front of him waiting for his verdict. The brown eyes had flicked over her once and come to rest on her naked shoulders.

  `Did you decide against total nudity because of the temperature?' he asked neutrally. There was not the glimmer of a smile in the question.

  Diana was stunned. The hard eyes told her nothing. That was when she sensed dislike for the first time. It was like a blow.

  `I'll go and change,' she said quietly.

  She put the dress and the jade away and never looked at them again. When she left the Oxford house they were still in their boxes in the bedroom that by that time she and Miles had openly ceased to share.

  Yet yesterday—this morning—he had been almost as he was when they first met. He had laughed and teased her. He had made her feel—well, when she walked in on him in that bed and realised who it was, he had made her feel as if the years between were all in her imagination. As if he and she belonged together and had never been seriously apart.

  `Careful,' Diana said to her mirrored image softly. 'Be very careful. You can't afford to be taken in again.'

  There was a perfunctory scratch on the door. She looked up, startled. To her astonishment, Susie Galatas walked in bearing a tray.

  `Maria said you were still asleep when she looked in. I thought you might like breakfast.' There was a constraint there. But it sounded as if she was genuinely trying to be friendly.

  The tray was piled high with rolls. There was yoghurt too and a silver dish of honey as well as a steaming pot of coffee. Two cups. Susie—or someone—was intending to stay.

  Diana swung round on her stool, her eyebrows lifting. `Lavish,' she commented.