Stormspell (25 page)

'I think you'd better leave.' she got out at last, putting up a shaking hand to the now uncertain coronet of braids. 'I don't think we have anything more to say to one another. It's all been said.'

Dominic's brows drew together. 'Oh, Ruth.' he muttered, in a driven tone. 'All right. I'll go. But at least tell me you won't forget that I'm here if you need me!'

Ruth bent her head. 'And will you tell your fiancee about what happened between us—as you told Daddy?' she asked suddenly, and his lips parted.

'What?'

Ruth repeated what she had said, adding with difficulty: 'You swore you wouldn't tell him. but you did.'

Dominic was totally confused. 'Tell him? Tell him what?'

'About us. About what happened,' she exclaimed tearfully, her emotions getting the better of her in spite of herself. 'If—if you hadn't told him. he might still be alive. Doctor Francis said—'

'Wait a minute.' Dominic could feel the adrenalin flowing inside him. 'What is it I'm supposed to have told your father? That I made love to you? That I took you down to the beach and seduced you?' His lips twisted. 'I didn't. You know I didn't. My god, what kind of a bastard do you think I am?'

Ruth gazed up at him. 'You—didn't? But you must have. How—how else did he find out?'

'I don't know.' Dominic ran a restless hand inside his jacket, over the ruffled silk of his shirt front. Then he shook his head. 'Did you really believe I would do a thing like that? My God, what would have been the point?'

Ruth turned away in confusion. 'I—I don't know. What am I supposed to think? He knew. Somehow, he knew. No one else could have told him.'

'How about Celeste?' suggested Dominic shortly. 'She didn't exactly treat you with kid gloves, did she? Maybe she wanted to stir up trouble. Perhaps she was still aggrieved over the way you'd treated her.'

Ruth shook her head. 'Celeste didn't know—'

'You mean you didn't tell her,' Dominic corrected cynically. 'Oh, Ruth, you're an innocent, but Celeste's not. Do you think she didn't guess what had happened?'

'Was it so obvious?' Ruth's face burned with colour, and Dominic knew an almost overwhelming desire to comfort her. But this time he suppressed the emotions she aroused. He had no right to demand anything more of her. when he had no intention of breaking his engagement. Still, he consoled himself, there was no reason why they should not be friends, and he put out his hand to run the back of his knuckles down her averted cheek.

He felt a moment's irritation when she flinched away from him, but he refused to be deterred. 'You do believe me, don't you?' he asked, determinedly keeping his voice gentle, and she pushed the tips of her fingers across her damp cheeks.

'Does it matter?' she countered, giving a sniff, and his patience wavered.

'Of course it matters.' he said, between his teeth. 'Ruth. I'm sorry—for everything. But isn't it possible for us to—to start again?'

'Start again?' She looked at him blankly. 'What do you mean?'

Dominic sighed. 'We were friends once. I'd like us to be friends again.'

'Oh. no!' A faintly hysterical note had entered her voice now. 'Dominic, you can't be serious!'

'Why not?'

'Why not?' Ruth spread her hands. 'Because we can never be friends. You're going to marry—your fiancee, and I—I shall very probably marry Martin.' She took a deep breath. 'End of explanation.'

Dominic's impatience flared. 'I suggested you take a little more time before deciding you want to marry anyone.' he retorted bleakly. 'Whatever you say. you can't be sure that Pascal, or whatever he calls himself, is the right man for you. Give yourself more time. Go out and meet people. Don't tie yourself down again!'

Ruth shook her head. 'I've met lots of people since I left the island.' she asserted. 'Aunt Davina took me to New York before we came to London. I met people there, young and old.' She paused, before adding, deliberately, he thought, 'None of whom I liked as much as Martin.'

Dominic could feel the anger building up inside him. It was ridiculous. He had no reason to care what she did with her life. But nonetheless he was involved.

'I want you to think very carefully, before you agree to anything.' he averred roughly. 'Don't let gratitude to your aunt blind you to the facts of life. You're still an innocent. Ruth, whatever you think. So. keep your independence. Have some fun!'

'As you do.' She suggested, looking up at him through her lashes, and Dominic felt the hairs lifting along the back of his neck. He couldn't help it. She was infuriating—but as he felt the quickening of desire coursing through his blood again, he knew he still wanted her.

With a feeling of impotence he abruptly turned away from her. walking towards the door, eager to put himself beyond temptation. But now she came after him. moving with a lissom grace, in the high- heeled sandals she had learned to wear, and which complemented the slender curve of her ankles. She came up behind him as he reached the doors, and her hand touched his sleeve.

'Dominic. . .'

He halted, aware of her with every nerve of his being, and then forced himself to face her expressionlessly. 'Yes?'

'I do thank you.' she said softly, and his hands clenched at his sides. 'For coming, I mean. And—and for reassuring me about Daddy. I do believe you, if it means anything.'

Dominic could feel the blood pounding in his ears, and he knew he had to get out of there before he did something he would almost certainly regret. With a curt nod, he bowed his head, and then wrenching open the door, he bounded down the stairs, without even looking back.

Behind the wheel of the Porsche his pulses slowed, and the blood receded from his temples. The recollection of Barbara's dinner party, now surely well into its second course, was a sobering thought, and he inserted the keys in the ignition. He badly needed a drink, but that would have to wait. Right now. he had to think of a reason for his late arrival, and somehow he sensed that whatever he said. Barbara was unlikely to forgive him.

Ruth awakened to the noise of the milk float clattering around Wellington Grove. She was still not accustomed to the normal sounds associated with early morning in London, and she invariably awoke long before the rest of the household.

Even her bed was a source of annoyance at times. She was used to a much harder mattress, and the minimum amount of covering; the linen sheets and soft woollen blankets that her aunt's housekeeper had provided seemed weighty and confining, yet without them she shivered in the early morning chill.

The climate in England was still cold to her, although not as unpleasant as her father had led her to believe. It did not rain every day, as she had expected, and Aunt Davina had told her that they seldom had a lot of snow, even in the depths of winter. Just now, it was spring, and the flowers in the Park delighted her, as too did the ducks on the pond, and the dozens of small children, and their mothers, who flocked to feed them. She liked the mellowed old buildings, and the shops, although the press of people who used them frightened her a little, and as she was learning to drive, she was looking forward to being able to drive out of London and see more of the country where she had been born.It was strange how she had lived so many years without knowing of Aunt Davina's existence. Now, it seemed she had always known her, and the affection the older woman had shown her filled her with warmth and gratitude.
Gratitude!

Her lips clung together in sudden uncertainty. She wished she had not thought of that particular word, and her skin prickled at the images it evoked. Why had Dominic come to see her? Why had he come here, when she had succeeded in convincing herself that she should never see him again? Why had he appeared and destroyed her fragile shell of indifference?

Her breath escaped on a tiny sob, and she turned to bury her face in the pillow. For weeks now, she realised, she had been practising a kind of self- deception . Ever since Aunt Davina had arrived like a fairy godmother, to solve all her problems, she had endeavoured to forget what had happened to her. Her father's sudden death, the awful solemnity of his funeral, her subsequent feelings of raw bereavement—these things had served to keep other thoughts at bay. A kind of numbness had gripped her. and she had welcomed it. If Doctor Francis had suspected anything, he had kept his own counsel. His opinion had been that Professor Jason's death had been a mercy, and there had been nothing left for her father but pain and distress. Ruth had embraced that reassurance, and tried to live with it.

Dominic's reappearance had probed a nerve, alerting her once again to an awareness of her own weaknesses. Although she might regret what had happened between them, she could never forget it, and she was very much afraid that given the same circumstances, it could happen again.

She fumbled for the handkerchief she had taken to bed with her the night before. She had stuffed it under her pillow, before crying herself to sleep, and now she scrubbed its still damp folds across her cheek. Why was she so vulnerable where Dominic was concerned? she asked herself bitterly. Why couldn't she condemn him completely for what he had done? He was unscrupulous. He was quite prepared to conduct an affair with her, and still maintain a facade of respectability with his fiancee, yet when he kissed her as he had kissed her last night she had found it desperately hard to resist him. That she had succeeded was due in no small part to his lack of persistence, and she knew that had he continued his assault on her senses, she would have succumbed.

It was humiliating, and she was overwhelmingly relieved that Aunt Davina had not been there to witness her niece's distress after his departure. That would have been utterly degrading, and she doubted if even Martin would have forgiven her.

Thinking of Martin, Ruth pushed back the covers and got determinedly out of bed. There was no point in lying there, brooding over what might have been. It hadn't happened. She had not given in to him. And somehow she had to make sure it never happened again.

The room heaved as she moved away from the bed. and a feeling of nausea gripped her. She remembered, belatedly, that she had eaten next to nothing of her dinner the previous evening, and MrsRadcliffe had viewed her lack of appetite disapprovingly. Obviously she was hungry, and although the thought of food was not entirely acceptable to her, she determinedly went into the bathroom to wash and clean her teeth.

She dressed in corded pants and a silk shirt, briefly admiring her slender figure as she passed the long cheval mirror. Having a full-length mirror was an unexpected delight, and although she seldom spent long in front of it, being able to see herself from every angle was a novelty.

Her hair she secured as usual in the braids her aunt preferred. Davina. she knew, would have had her hair cut in New York, had Ruth been agreeable, but when the girl demurred, she had compromised by insisting that she keep it confined at least. Ruth complied. but she didn't altogether like the severity it brought to her face, and in bed, and in the privacy of her bedroom, she determinedly left it loose.

It was barely seven-thirty when she descended the stairs from her second-floor bedroom. The house in Wellington Mews was large and sprawling, spreading over the now-unused stables and carriage houses beneath. Aunt Davina kept a Daimler for her own use. and Martin had his Lamborghini, but apart from that the garages were empty.

Ruth had found such a surfeit of space intimidating when she first came here. Used to the bungalow. where all the rooms had a purpose, she found the idea of so much emptiness disturbing, and she was sad that the library and the music room had so little use. and spent most of their days silent, behind slatted blinds. But then everything had been strange to begin with, not least the idea of having relatives she had never met.

Aunt Davina never referred to the reasons why her father had lost contact with her mother's sister. In the beginning, she had explained that distance had separated the two families, but as Ruth began to comprehend what a wealthy woman her aunt was, she couldn't help wondering why she had never taken the trouble to fly out and see them. She suspected it had to do with Professor Jason's blank denial of any other living relative, and because she was loath to appear critical of her father, she had remained silent.

Nevertheless, she had been amazed to discover that she had an inheritance of her own. The income they had lived on which came from her grandmother's estate, had not been the pittance she had always believed. On the contrary, it was quite a considerable allowance, and because of her father's parsimony, it had mounted up in the bank, and accrued interest. In consequence, she could have lived quite comfortably on her own, had Aunt Davina not chosen to offer her a home.

The island, too. was hers. She doubted it was worth much, but in any case, she had no desire to sell it. Somehow, just knowing it was there made her feel more secure, and she had promised Father Andreas that he need not fear for his home again. In return, he had promised to tend her father's grave, a small plot in the shadow of the church Professor Jason had so staunchly opposed in life.

Ruth entered her aunt's morning room to find the elderly housekeeper laying the breakfast table. Mrs Radcliffe, she knew, had been with Aunt Davina for years, and was really too old to continue as housekeeper. But her aunt was fond of the old woman, and Ruth had made friends with her. She was not at all like Celeste, but Ruth could talk to her, and she smiled now, as the girl came through the door, and straightened to put a supporting hand to her spine. 'You're an early bird, and no mistake,' she remarked, by way of a greeting. 'When are you going to learn to sleep till midday, like Mr Martin?'

'Never. I hope,' declared Ruth, with a grimace. 'It's no good. The milkman always wakes me. And besides,' she rubbed her flat stomach vigorously, 'I feel a bit empty.'

'That's no surprise,' observed Mrs Radcliffe dryly.

'You eat like a bird, too. It's time you started tucking in to a good old English breakfast. Ham and eggs, sausages and bacon, topped up with toast and marmalade—'