Robyn Donald – Iceberg (16 page)

It took all her self-control not to fling her plate and its contents at him, but one glance it Sarah's upturned,

interested face prevented her from answering as waspishly as she would have liked.

Calling to her aid her most non-committal tones, she returned, 'I can't really say, never having viewed you in

that light. But there have been happy marriages with a greater difference in age than that.' And driven by the

desire to hurt him, she added, 'And unhappy .ones with little or no difference in age at all.'

Her courage failed completely when it came to looking at him. But from the steel in his tones when he spoke

she knew her shaft had gone home.

'Very true, Linnet.'

The rest of the meal tasted like ashes in her mourn.

After breakfast she tidied up the house, determined that Cherry shouldn't return to more work than was

necessary. Sarah wanted to help, but when her father appeared at the door suggesting a walk along the beach to

see what the storm had brought up, she couldn't help directing a pleading glance at her companion.

'Off you go,' Linnet told her, half laughing, 'If you find anything exciting bring it back, won't you?'

'You come too,' Sarah suggested.

Picking up the hose of the vacuum-cleaner, Linnet shook her head. 'No, love, I'm going to finish this. You head

off, now.'

'Daddy, tell Linnet she-can come with us!'

Without expression he
said,
'Let her be, Sarah. I can't tell her what to do.'

When they had gone Linnet found that her temples were wet with perspiration and the hand that pushed the

cleaner hose across the floor was shaking. If only she could go back in time to breakfast and unsay that last,

below-the-belt jibe! Even though Justin had taunted her it had been unforgivable to retaliate so maliciously. A

man as proud as Justin would hate the fact that the knowledge of his unhappy first marriage was general, even if

his emotions went no deeper than that. But he had loved Alison, at the beginning if not afterwards, so there

must be pain, possibly guilt in his feelings. And she had twitted him with the knowledge, barbing her words to

hurt as much as possible.

Whatever had been the situation after last night's episode, it was infinitely worse now. There could be no

prospect of anything like friendship between them.

Perhaps it was better that way. As she put away the records they had used last night she admitted for the first

time that she had come perilously close to falling in love with him—no, to loving him. She had fallen in love

before, the last time with David, but mixed in with the desire Justin aroused in her was an emotion which

could , Almost be love, if a yearning for his happiness above hers was love. Love for a man who was another

woman's; and that woman her half-sister.

At least she had seen her folly in time. By antagonising Justin she had made certain there would be no further

intimacy like that of the evening before, when his changed attitude had broken down her defences, putting her

in such jeopardy that even now she could not think of it without a twist of desire deep within her. Much more of

that companionable communion of mind and spirit, and she would be fathoms deep in love with him.

Some basic instinct told her that from this love there would be no escape, and freedom won only at the cost of

tears and a desolation of spirit such as she had never -before experienced.

So she could be very, very thankful that she had only fallen a little in love with him, and as soon as they were

back in Auckland and she was working she would
not
have time to even think about what had so neatly

happened. No doubt Justin was even now congratulating himself on not making any move towards her last night

and vowing that he would never again find himself in such a fraught situation.

On which singularly bleak thought she did the bedrooms. A peep through his door showed that he had made his

own bed, which relieved her of the chore of doing it for him.

It was with a sigh of relief that she heard the motor-boat make his way into the bay in the late morning. Cherry

and Rob would act as buffers, and with a little ingenuity there would be no need for her to be alone with Justin

again.

But even they seemed to have suffered a change. Although superficially they seemed the same Linnet sensed

that both were working hard to maintain their placid everyday attitudes.

It made for an odd, tense afternoon. The weather had cleared completely, and towards evening even the sea died

down to its usual calmness, the waves crisping gently across the pale sand as Goori, relieved at the absence of

the turmoil which had kept him firmly tucked away in the back of his kennel for the duration of the storm,

galloped in a puppyish fashion after the cheeky gulls.

Rob had done some rapid tidying up around the garden, muttering to himself as he found another branch

hanging loose, but rather relieved on the whole at the lack of damage. Even the marigolds had come through

almost unscathed, they held up their gold and bronze and brown damascened blooms to the light, each one gay

as a-small sun.

The wind had caused some havoc in the orchard trees, knocking off small peaches and apples, but the tougher

citrus fruit remained almost all intact. So Rob was happy.

So was Cherry. She sang as she prepared dinner; from where Linnet and Sarah pulled weeds in one of the

garden beds they could hear her rich, warm voice drifting from pop songs to ones obviously learned at school,

lingering over some, singing snatches of others.

'It sounds, nice,' doesn't it?' Sarah commented. 'I like it when you sing too, Linnet.'

'Do I sing?'

'Yes, just like Cherry, not really knowing-you're doing it.' She heaved a particularly nasty weed forth,

contemplated it with satisfaction, then flung it into the wheelbarrow, saying somewhat aloofly, 'My mummy

used to sing me to sleep. I wasn't too young to remember.'

Linnet's heart contracted. Sarah had been only two when Alison died, but perhaps she could recall the sweetness

of those moments before sleep.

'Mine too,' she said. 'A story, then a song.'

'Your mother wasn't your sister's mother, was she?'

'Sarah!'

Her father's voice made both of them jump guiltily, so hard with condemnation it was.

Without turning to look at him Linnet said lightly, 'No. Bronwyn is my half-sister.'

Doggedly, ignoring Justin, Sarah asked, 'So if Daddy got married again, I would have half-brothers and sisters?'

'If there were children, yes.' Linnet rubbed a hand across her forehead, leaving, no doubt, a great smudge of dirt

behind. She could feel Justin as he stood behind her; it seemed that her very skin was sensitive to his presence.

The conversation was a normal one for a child, so why was she so embarrassed, and why was Justin so angry?

Sarah lifted her head, looking at her father for the first time since his arrival, her expression tight with control.

'Then why don't you and Linnet get .married, Daddy? I would like some sisters and brothers if Linnet was their

mother.'

There was the oddest pause during which Linnet felt as if someone had hit her in the solar plexus, rendering her

too winded even to feel embarrassment. Unseeingly she gazed at me sow-thistle she had just pulled,' then with

an effort, put it on to the pile beside her. Not for her life could she have got to her feet and confronted Justin.

Then he said, hateful amusement beneath the level tones, 'I've no doubt, honey, but you can't just marry people

off to suit yourself, you know. I'm quite sure Linnet would have something to say about wishing such a fate on

to her. She's got a career in mind.'

Perhaps it was just as well he was so sneeringly amused, for it brought the colour to Linnet's face as nothing

else could have. Crisply he added, 'One of the toughest things about growing up is that you discover that life

isn't like one of your favourite stories, Sarah. All the ends aren't tidied up neatly on the last page.'

Sarah had gone white, then red. Now her eyes filled with tears as she wailed, 'But I want you to get married! I

hate------'

'Sarah!'

The cold ferocity of Justin's voice made the child gulp, knuckling her eyes with a desperation which tore

Linnet's heart.

But regardless of her butter-soft heart, for 'the child's sake she couldn't come over all maternal.

'Here's a hanky," she said quietly, scrambling to her feet.

When Sarah had buried her face into the handkerchief Linnet looked across at Justin, bracing herself for the

condemnation she was certain would be in his glance.

Instead she met the most expressionless of looks. A cool, sweeping scrutiny which left her feeling flayed, as if

be had seen right into her innermost being. Then he jerked his head, banishing her, and as she crunched her way

up the shelly path she could hear his voice, lowered so that the words were indistinguishable.

Just before a large hibiscus bush marked a turn in the path she turned, saw him with his arm around his

daughter, her fair head tucked under his chin as he lifted her. A desolation so intense it took her completely by

surprise swamped her in a merciless wave, leaving her shaken and cold in the sunlight.

Perhaps it was at that moment that she realised that those two people were the dearest in the world to her, dearer

even than her own mother, far dearer than anyone she had ever loved before.

Completely knocked off balance by this knowledge, she, found herself heading for a secluded little nook

beneath an enormous jacaranda tree where someone had had the happy idea of putting a table and two loungers

so that they overlooked a thick swirl of vegetation and between two trees, a glimpse of the sea, now the blue of

a Madonna's robe, so different from its angry viciousness of yesterday. The feathery shade of the tree cooled her

as she sank on to the cushions of the .lounger, but it could not cool the raging fires of the emotions which

swirled within her.

As she always did when confronted by something new she endeavoured to face the thing squarely, but could

only ask herself how she had managed to fall in love with someone like Justin, so cold and withdrawn, so aloof,

the very opposite of any man she had ever loved before. Like David—how far away and futile her love for him

seemed now!—they had all been gentle and considerate, friends rather than lovers, kind rather than passionate.

Perhaps David had been right and she had sought a father when she had thought she wanted a lover. About as

big a contrast to Justin Doyle as anyone could be, she thought drearily. He just wasn't her type! She had never

felt at ease with men who had walked in an aura of blatant sexuality, although her honesty compelled her to

admit she had never before met anyone who had anything like Justin's attraction. She didn't even like handsome

men, normally! And certainly not a creature who resembled nothing so much as flint, hard and cold, with the

ability to strike sparks off any woman he cared to impress.

And yet she loved him, irrevocably, oceans deep, mountains high, loved him with a fervour which made any

other experience she had had like the flickering of a hearth fire before the searing, killing flash of the ligntning.

Ruthlessly she brought her love Into the clear light of the sun, searching to see if it could be just lust, the need

of her young body for passion to slake a hunger she had never appreciated before. To be sure, her need for

Justin was urgent; when Sarah had spoken of her bearing his children she had been overwhelmed by a primitive

surge of passion at the vision she had had, of lying in his arms.

But that was not all. There was more than a hunger of the senses. She wanted so much more than to be his lover,

she wanted to share his life, to talk with him, to make him happy.

Something her mother had said once came into her mind. 'Love is when you want your lover's happiness more

than your own,' Jennifer had murmured, angry at a book she had read. 'This book is about
passion,
not love. It

cheapens everything, makes it a matter of ”I want, I need------" Love is when you're comrades -as well as

lovers, and when you think of the other's happiness before your own.'

Well, it seemed highly unlikely that she and Justin could ever be comrades, but Linnet knew that given the right

conditions it could have happened. Only once or twice had they discussed any thing without animosity; she had

enjoyed the stimulus that his keen brain gave her and knew that she had held her own.

But then Bronwyn could give him that, and passion too.

At the thought of her sister Linnet sprang to her feet impelled by an urge for action, anything to get away, from

the unpalatable fact that there was little or no difference between" her feelings for Justin and Bronwyn's.

The thought was so odious that she could not bear it, and went running up to me house as if hell itself lay

behind her.

'I've been looking for you,' came a reproachful voice from just inside the door. 'Would you like to go for a

swim? Daddy said we're going back tomorrow morning.’

'Are we?' Thank God, her brain said, but her heart wept. 'Yes, I'd like to swim.'

'We've got an hour before tea.'

The nearest thing was a scarlet bikini, but it had to be covered with a wrap before she ran with Sarah down to

the beach. Once there they played a while together, then Linnet left her charge building a castle on the beach