Ryman, Rebecca (85 page)

"You
had already chosen to tolerate what you call degradation, and chosen
freely."

"Free
choices operate in both selection and rejection!" She could scarcely
believe that even with his nerve
he
could flaunt recriminations.
"And a few kisses here and there hardly constitute a lifetime commitment,
do they?"

His
own words of so very long ago thrown back in his face elicited no overt
reaction. "I left a letter for you. It could not be
delivered. The
man died of cholera. By the time it was relocated, it no longer mattered. Now I
see that it would not have mattered anyway."

A
letter? Olivia stared at him dumbfounded.
A letter...?
And that was all
he had considered necessary to obliterate an act of callous betrayal? To repair
the cavernous breaches in her life, to replace a future he had stolen and
carried away with him? She went rigid with renewed fury.

"And
what was it that you wrote in that conveniently lost letter, Jai? With what
euphemisms did you inform me that as your mistress you had replaced me with an
equally willing cousin?"

She
had the vicious pleasure of seeing him flush, and the taste of first blood was
uncommonly sweet. "By marrying your pet loon you have lost the right to
the contents of that letter. It was not addressed to Lady Birkhurst."

"Ah,
but you see, idle curiosity is still my predominating vice!" she tossed
off with a light laugh. "Surely it deserves to be indulged one last time
for past services rendered so well and so willingly?"

In
her mockery, his flush deepened. "You disgust me, Olivia!" he
breathed, icy with anger.

"I?"
she mocked further, sickened by his fulsome lies, his alibis and excuses.
Anything in that undelivered letter would have been too little, too late. In
any case, she didn't believe that it existed.
"I?
Who have so
devoutly sanctified your insanities and obsessions, treated as holy ground all
those dark areas I once longed to illuminate? Why,
surely
you do me an
injustice!" Filled with aversion, she hid behind the device of another
laugh.

Below
his temple a wayward pulse throbbed. "You also once promised to trust me,
Olivia."

For
a moment she was stunned; even he in his arrogance couldn't mean that! Between
them the words hung in the air as if a phrase of the music inside had somehow
detached itself to float out into the verandah. Then they fell with a crash
into her consciousness and she jolted back to life. She wondered wrathfully if
he toyed with her, taunted her. Yes, she had promised to trust him once. And
she had! She had trusted him totally, with everything, her all—had he
forgotten?
Had he any conception of where she would have been now with the hollow
rewards of that misplaced trust? She almost blurted out the question but then
choked it back; obviously he hadn't, and for that she must remain forever
grateful. For if he knew the answer to that, then he would
also know about
Amos—
and that he must not ever!
In her fragile imbalances she sought
refuge in more flippancy. "Did I? I don't remember. Just as well. In any
case, cast-off mistresses are known to be notoriously fickle."

"So
I have come to learn!" He was tight with leashed rage. "How else
would you have netted that prize buffoon with such admirable dispatch and
celebrated instant motherhood?"

Her
pulse skipped. "Well, maybe better a prize buffoon than a prize
profligate!" she threw back with gathering breathlessness. "You
cannot deny that a bird in the net is a more attractive bargain than some
perverted prospect frolicking out of reach in far-away bushes." With a coy
smile she added, "And you
did
recommend Freddie highly to me once,
remember?"

"And
now that that bird is no longer in the net," he sneered, the cracks in his
composure widening, "no doubt the vacancy in your bed has been filled by
other willing surrogates?"

"Why
not?" Brazening her way further she turned the knife a little more.
"Once a slut, I guess always a slut!" How amusing that both her
husband and her child's father had chosen the same word with which to condemn
her! But the insults no longer stung; she had passed beyond them. Frantic to
steer him away from even a suggestion of Amos, she did not care how rashly she vilified
herself, or allowed him to.

In
the semi-dark of the verandah his eyes smouldered, but before he could spit out
a retort a small group wandered out through a French window amidst much
laughter and gaiety. For a moment they stood chattering within earshot before
moving away into the garden, but that moment was all Raventhorne needed to
repair the damage to his control. "It is considered good etiquette in your
elevated circles," he said then with a return to arctic formality,
"to dance at least once with one's hostess before leaving a party."
Expression once more cemented, he held out a hand.

Olivia
shied back, taken by surprise. Dance? With Jai Raventhorne? Oh no,
no!
"I'm
sorry. I have promised this dance to—"

"Whoever
he is he won't mind."

"But
I
do
mind . . .," she started furiously, only to be sliced off by
his ruthless grasp of her elbow. Ignoring her comment, he propelled her firmly
but subtly back into the ballroom and, aghast, she had no option but to submit.
To protest within earshot of others was, of course, unthinkable. As it was,
their reentry was greeted with looks of unabashed curiosity. A pressure around
her waist informed Olivia that his arm had been
positioned, and that too
securely. Their fingers touched, his breath brushed her ear in a closeness that
to her was intolerable, and then he was guiding her smoothly across the flagged
marble in a catchy waltz. In a breathless daze, Olivia marvelled with
irrelevant surprise—who would have believed that Kala Kanta could be so
competently versed in such palpably European frivolity as dancing? Deprived of
even the will to protest further, Olivia surrendered herself to the inescapable
and briefly closed her eyes. Her head swam. The feet tapping in rhythm to her
madly pulsating temples seemed to have a will of their own. Behind closed lids
she struggled for control and, when she opened her eyes, her breath was again
even. Her gaze was level with the nut brown column of the neck she had kissed
so often that she could almost taste it, but forcibly she concentrated her
attention on his cravat, silken and fringed, and his coat buttons of beaten
gold fashioned into seashells. What she could not ignore, however, was the
deep, evocative muskiness of his skin. It was so intensely familiar that she
thought she would faint. Against him she stumbled.

"My
fault," he murmured, the metallic hardness of his eyes belying the
perfunctory gallantry. "But if you find the music too fast for comfort, I
would be only too relieved to stop—etiquette having been sufficiently satisfied
for the benefit of your guests."

With
supreme courage Olivia tacitly shook her head, loath to allow him even this
minute victory. Everywhere eyes watched, tongues whispered, mouths drooled
waiting for an excuse for salacious comment. In a corner Estelle stood with her
gaze riveted and watchful. The exchanges with Jai Raventhorne, acrid, vitriolic
and so totally fruitless, had eroded Olivia's Dutch courage and left her limp
with revived injury. It seemed obscene to her that they could be dancing, casting
pleasant smiles around, talking against a background of music about something
that had laid so many lives in ruin. And at any moment he might mention that
one subject she dreaded more than any other: her son! Against his shoulder her
fingers clenched. "Why,
why
in the name of heaven," she
whispered fiercely, "have you chosen to come here tonight, Jai . .
.?"

"I
have given you two reasons, I will give you a third." He had conquered his
anger, his tone was conversational. For all it indicated, he might have been
complimenting her on the lush display of her flower arrangements. "In
marrying Freddie you have allowed him to appropriate something that I
considered to be mine." He smiled pleasantly and matched her own
flippancy. "For
that act of stealth the Birkhursts owe me at least a drink in reparation."
The music stopped. He stepped back and bowed.

Amos!
Panic
flared, blinding her to all other interpretations of his flippancy. With his
unerring instincts about her, he had found out about Amos. Any moment now he
would announce his intention to claim him, take him away from her. He had been
to Kirtinagar and of course he had seen him . . . Wild conjectures chased each
other around her mind stupid with terror. White faced, she stood transfixed
before him on the rapidly emptying dance floor.

He
was speaking again, still pleasantly smiling, still impeccably courteous of
tone. "You are a whore, Olivia. I should have recognised that
earlier." Fleetingly he took her hand again to skim icy lips over it.
"We will not meet again. As the wife of an Englishman and the mother of a
Birkhurst brat, you repel me." Throughout his few sentences, his smile
never faltered, nor did the level of his tone.

A
Birkhurst brat!

In
a chest dangerously close to exploding, Olivia's breath gushed back into her
lungs and she gasped. The sudden inhalation made her head whirl and it was with
an effort that she steadied herself. But the relief at what he had just said
brought the colour back into her cheeks and made her eyes sparkle with a vivacity
she no longer needed to simulate. She laughed lightly as they walked side by
side off the dance floor. "Oh, there will be
two
Birkhurst brats
soon," she retorted in a rash whisper loud enough only for him to hear.
"I can then repel you
twice
as much as I do now, and with even
greater justification!"

He
gave her the parting gift of a flinch, and Olivia jubilated. It was a crumb, a
mere crumb, but oh, the satisfaction! "In that case, my
congratulations." His recovery was swift. "Once again I thank you for
your excellent hospitality, Lady Birkhurst. I wish you good night and a safe
journey to your father in Hawaii."

For
the second time in her life, Jai Raventhorne turned to walk out of it.

It
had been an excruciating and demanding charade for Olivia and it had taken its
toll on her. Her throat felt so parched that it pained her to swallow; her
knees, as soft as water, were threatening to buckle under her. She longed to
escape out of the room into some dark corner, but she dared not—she was still
the cynosure of a hundred pairs of eyes. Underneath her exhaustion, however,
lay a soaring sense of triumph, a bounding and un-
ashamed
elation. She had survived the acid test! She had lived through her most
persistent nightmare and emerged on the other side with only minor scratches.
Her will-power had endured; she had not disintegrated. Whereas Jai Raventhorne
had lost forever the capacity to wound her,
she
could still make him
flinch! It was another crumb, poor compensation for a crushed life, for the
humiliating farce of her marriage, for a betrayal too vile to ever forgive, but
it was better than nothing.

And
he had not the whiff of a suspicion about Amos! The rest was worthless,
immaterial, a mere flea bite. She would think about it tomorrow. Or not at all.
The dreaded interlude had come and gone. It was over. She would never have to
see Jai Raventhorne again.

Gaily,
with rejuvenated enthusiasm, Olivia allowed her hostess mind to once again take
over.

Now
the fires did need to be doused; the rooms were turning uncomfortably close. To
chase the smoke haze out of the room she sent instructions to the punkahwallahs
to accelerate their efforts with the swinging overhead cloth fans. Some of the
ladies were dabbing their foreheads with hankies soaked in cooling eau-de-Cologne
and others were vigorously flicking their painted ivory and sandalwood hand
fans across their faces. The musicians had finally gone to eat. As Olivia
crossed the deserted dance floor, she caught the unexpected sight of a
burgundy-clad back still standing erect and motionless next to Ransome. Loath
to encounter him again, she was about to change direction when a corner of her
mind picked up an odd observation. For some reason, everyone had suddenly gone
very still and quiet. The flowing banter, the sound of conversation in the main
salon—loud and lusty only a moment ago—seemed to be fading into untidy
silences. Half-completed sentences dangled in the air; laughter, so boisterous
until now, was petering out and melting into a sporadic murmur. Soon, even the
murmurs were gone. A hush, thick and tangible, was suddenly upon them like a
shroud. Puzzled, Olivia walked through a doorway, craned her neck for a better
view of the room—and then very slowly turned into stone.

In
the entrance now clearly in her vision was Sir Joshua Templewood. Next to him
was her cousin. Across the deathly quiet room Olivia's gaze collided with
Estelle's and held it for a moment. In the depths of Estelle's baby blue eyes
was defiance, a challenging innocence, that seemed to dare Olivia to do her
worst. It was evident that whatever little games her enterprising
cousin had
devised for the evening's entertainment were by no means played out. There were
more yet to come.

Sir
Joshua was in formal evening dress, perhaps still a size too big but worn with
the same casual elegance that had always characterised him in happier times. A
naturally large-boned man, at his peak he had towered over most. Now, once
again his shoulders were squared and thrown back proudly and his head, greyer
than it had been thirteen months ago, was held customarily high. There seemed
to be no sign of the stoop that had so diminished his ramrod spine in recent
months. Only in the oversize of his greatcoat was noticeable the loss of flesh
from his body. For the rest, although his usual ruddiness had paled and the
hollows of his sockets deepened, the sheer force of his personality still
arrested the attention and held it without effort. He was again as he had been
before, and for those who had believed him to be on his deathbed, the vision
was a revelation.