The Passionate Sinner (16 page)

Merlin’s eyes stung and she was moved by the simple honest words, and relieved that Paul had let his household staff know that she was to become their mistress. She hadn’t known how they would take it, and was happy that she wasn’t going to be resented. But the basic truth was that Paul did need her and these people realised it. They probably thought he was legalising their relationship, but she no longer minded being taken for his
nyai.
The status of wife was different and she could let it show that she cared for
tuan
Paul and wanted his happiness beyond anything.

‘I’m going to do my best,’ she said, ‘to take away the hurting. I’m glad none of you mind that he’s going to marry me.’

‘Why mind?’ The cook gave her a somewhat puzzled look. ‘You plenty nice girl, though liking to be called old woman.That English type joke? Or maybe wool over eyes of island people.’

Merlin couldn’t help a shamefaced smile. ‘A sort of joke,’ she said.

‘Very strange. Often older woman like to be thought younger, but not the other way round. You having
makan pagi
now? Nice bit of fish, eh?’

‘I think I could eat a horse—oh, sorry, Sengit, another idiotic bit of English humour.’

‘No, more sensible,’ he argued. ‘You eat and get pretty fat like my wife.
Tuan
like that. Plenty more to cuddle.’

Merlin smiled and sat down at the table to eat her breakfast. She was thrilled that Paul was going to the mainland today to set in motion the machinery of their marriage ... dared she believe that his eagerness had a little love in it?

There was no doubt in her own heart about her tremendous love for him, and she would use it with everything she had to make his darkness a little brighter. It would, it must, for it was like something molten running through her veins and tingling in her very bones; she had never felt so aware of being alive and expectant.

Was she just a little shameless? The smile deepened on her mouth. Perhaps she was, for she could hardly wait for the blissful certainty of belonging body and soul to Paul. It was a love that intensified the sheer excitement of what lay ahead of her, and she was going to hug it to her heart and pray that the past could be buried.

‘The fish get cold if
nonya
sit there dreaming about wedding,’ Sengit remarked, watching her with a knowing smile.

‘Sengit, is it tempting fate to be so—happy? Don’t your people say that it’s better to cast down the eyes in case the devil sees the joy in them?’

‘Maybe so,’ he nodded. ‘But you want happiness enough you get it, you want sorrow it comes.’

‘Who could want sorrow, Sengit?’

‘Tuan
very much blind because of what a woman do to him—you afraid of that, mees. Sengit see you looking at him sometimes like young doe with tiger.’

‘I love him,’ she said quietly. ‘Even if he meant to kill me, I think I would still go on loving him.’

‘Doe with tiger, like I say. Now you eat
makanpagi
and not worry, just be happy like girl meant to be. You go to temple and see holy Buddha, that make peace in your heart.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, but in the hours that followed it helped her more to go round the house tidying up after the upheaval of the storm. Paul had wished her a brief goodbye and said he would be back in the morning ... there had been a touch of constraint between them and he had gone to see about their marriage without kissing her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE priest who was to perform the marriage was flown from the mainland in the helicopter, and the simple ceremony took place in the salon of the Tiger House. Afterwards the priest asked if he could have a few private words with the bride, and Paul left them alone together.

Somewhat nervously Merlin fingered the rings on her hand, a gold chiselled wedding band and a companion ring set with a glorious moonstone. Moon fire, the old gem-setter had called the stone, because it was such a flawless one that it reflected many shades of opalescent light when it was on the move on a woman’s hand.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I wished to have a few minutes alone with you?’ Father Lukas Adrian was not a lot older than Paul, but in his dark cassock and ivory-white reversed collar he seemed just a little severe.

‘Not at all, Father. I think I expected it.’

‘Ah, so we understand one another. You are a very young woman to be wedded to a blind man. You are not of his faith?’

Merlin shook her head. ‘I am Church of England, Father.’

‘You do realise, child, that the ceremony I have performed is a totally committed one? Until death.’

‘I suspected it.’ Much of the Dutch she had not understood and had been too nervous to be anything but automatic in her English responses to the vows.

‘Then you must love this young man very much indeed?’ Father Lukas spoke in a deep, rather beautiful voice that matched his appearance.

‘I love him with my life,’ she replied simply.

‘Let us hope so, young woman, for it isn’t going to be easy for you, being the wife of a vital, highly intelligent man who resents bitterly what fate has done to him and his brilliant career.’

‘A woman did it, Father.’

‘So you know about that?’ His eyes were fixed intently upon her face, a pale cameo set in the high collar of her dress. ‘Mynheer van Setan told you of this himself?’

Merlin hesitated. ‘Yes, he told me.’

‘But I think you knew of this in advance, before you came to Pulau-Indah? It may even have been your reason for coming, eh?’ Father Lukas’s eyes were too penetrating; he was far too wise and shrewd to accept a- fabrication, and Merlin had to confess that she had known certain things about Paul’s blindness before she came to the island.

‘You loved him then?’

‘I greatly admired him as a surgeon,’ she replied, ‘but it wasn’t until I grew to know him as a man that I fell deeply in love with him.’

‘Despite his—handicap? I am obliged to call it that, my child, because total blindness cannot be ignored by the person closest to the afflicted person. Your love will need to be a strong one because it will be tested many times. Are you prepared for that?’

‘I—I hope so.’

He frowned a little, allowing his eyes to assess her youth and obvious lack of worldliness. ‘If at any time you need counsel, then come and see me. The young islander, Lon, will bring you, and you can make the excuse of wishing to go shopping on the mainland.’ Abruptly his lean dark face relaxed into a smile. ‘A white lie never did too much harm, eh?’

‘I hope not, Father.’ Merlin returned his smile.

‘It is the deliberate lie that causes harm and sometimes a great deal of damage. Now I will go to your bridegroom and inform him that you eagerly await him.’

‘Thank you, Father Lukas, for your kindness.’

‘It isn’t too difficult to be kind to a girl who obviously cares that her blind husband find some ray of hope and joy in his darkness. Mynheer van Setan was an important man in his field, and now he has to search for a new way of life. You must help him find it. God bless you, child, and may your marriage bring you joy.’

The tall priest walked from the room, and Merlin’s legs felt so unsteady that she was glad to sink down on the couch, where she rested her cheek against the cool leather. She felt the pressure of her rings against her face, both of them a solid reassurance that she was now the wife of Paul van Setan, and hopefully prepared to face the future with him. It was the past that wouldn’t stop haunting her, though she felt certain Father Lukas would keep to himself any of the facts he might have discovered about her—that she had worked at the same hospital as Paul, using the surname of her stepfather but reverting to her baptismal name when she came to work for Paul. If the priest had read details of the tragedy he would assume like everyone else that she was the culprit and not the scapegoat. But he would also regard her marriage as sacrosanct and consider that in loving Paul she had found a way to make recompense in some small measure. Her marriage, he had warned, would not be an easy one; she had to face the fact that Paul was an embittered man.

Dear God, she had not expected it to be easy, she had only hoped that it might be a little loving. But Paul had been reserved and aloof throughout the wedding. service, and after sliding the gold ring on to her finger he had not bent his head to kiss her, and there she had stood with her face raised for his kiss and had felt as if icy fingers brushed her skin in place of those warm lips. He had gazed at the sunlight he couldn’t distinguish from darkness, while Father Lukas had concluded the words of the ceremony that bound her to this tall, grim, unresponsive bridegroom.

Merlin sighed and wondered if his manner had anything to do with the wire he had received from his cousin Hendrik. Paul hadn’t asked her to read it to him. Instead he and Lon had gone into the den while she waited in the hall in her simple wedding dress, feeling as if she had a rope around her neck instead of a string of large milky pearls.

When they emerged from the den Paul had said briefly that his cousin was delayed by the tea-brokers and would not be back in time to attend their wedding. He had not added that Hendrik sent his congratulations, which seemed to indicate that his cousin was outraged that in the weeks he had been on leave Paul had met, and arranged to marry, the woman hired to do his secretarial work. Hendrik must have assumed that she was a fast worker ... or did his omission of good wishes hold a darker motive?

On this day of days Merlin had so hoped for everything to be ... if not perfect, at least quietly happy. But even as she found herself a bride, she felt lost in shadows of doubt and fear. The past wouldn’t stay buried ... like a cruel spectre it touched her wedding day ... touched her shoulder. She turned her head sharply and saw Paul standing over her!

‘I hope Father Lukas didn’t say anything to upset you,
meisje?
He no doubt considers it a perilous step in the dark for you to be taking in marrying me.’

‘He was extremely kind and understanding, Paul.’ Merlin sat up and smoothed her ruffled hair. ‘He wished us sincere happiness together.’

‘He’s a Jesuit, and those fellows are deep as the sea.’ Paul gripped her shoulder as he sat down beside her. ‘That service is a rather solemn one, so I hope it didn’t unnerve you?’

‘Not too much. Being mainly Dutch it wasn’t entirely comprehensible to me, but I thought there was something rather beautiful about it.’

‘Something in the nature of those shadows in a Rembrandt painting, eh? If they weren’t there—and I speak from memory, of course—the picture would not be complete nor half so haunting.’

Her eyes wildly searched his face, for it seemed to her that he was using words with a subtle meaning to them. She wanted to ask him what had been in Hendrik’s wire, and yet she couldn’t face the anger she might release in him, if there had been some hint that Paul was marrying the girl who had been blamed for blinding him. She belonged to him now, and preferably in the deep silence of unspoken accusation, paying with herself in the way he asked of her.

‘Has Father Lukas left?’ Merlin dropped her gaze to the moonstone on her hand, holding in the centre of it a trembling radiance that her heart longed to feel. Paul was only inches away from her and with every nerve she was aware of him in his impeccable dark-blue suit, sheer white shirt and blue-grey tie, with oval, dark-stoned links gleaming as his cuffs. His grey eyes were like zircons, so steely and brilliant it was incredible that he couldn’t really see her. She felt the soft thunder of her pulses and wanted to be drawn to his chest, his arms painfully hard around her, letting her feel the desire as she had felt it on the night of the typhoon.

‘Ja,
the good priest has flown away to his flock, and now you and I are irrevocably joined in wedlock.’ He took her ringed hand and his fingers played over the moonstone. ‘Is this as lovely as the old man told me it was?’

‘It’s like moonlight, Paul, gleaming with a soft radiance.’

‘Like you,
kindje!’
he murmured. ‘Are you softly radiant, with those large eyes of yours all starry with wonder? After all, you are now the bride of the
tuanbesar,
the big boss, who will protect and keep you in darkness and doubt.’

‘Paul—for mercy’s sake!’ His grip was grinding her rings into the flesh and bone of her finger until she had to give way to a gasp of pain. ‘What’s the matter with you— why are you behaving like this?’

‘You are mine to protect, are you not? To worship, set ting aside all those other women who are clamouring to belong to a man who cannot give voice to those magical words—how lovely you are looking tonight, my dear, and how those pearls match the creamy texture of your skin.’

‘Please—Paul—you’ll break my finger in a moment!’

But lost in dark thought, he took no notice of her plea.

‘I—I don’t know if y-you realise it, Paul, but you’re crushing my finger—oh, please!’ Tears started to her eyes, for it wasn’t only the pain that was unbearable, it was the mood he was in. She might have thought he’d been drinking except that there wasn’t a hint of alcohol on his breath and the whites of his grey eyes were periectly clear—no, it was something else which had caused this cruel, cynical mood, and Merlin’s distress was both physical and mental. Oh God, why didn’t he get it over with, say outright that she was the careless—no, he didn’t believe that carelessness had caused his blindness, he believed something far more terrible.

‘Paul, I didn’t.’

‘What?’ He frowned. ‘Your finger—holy hell, have I been grinding it to a jelly?’ The blaze died down in his eyes and the ridged jaw muscle slowly relaxed, and the next instant her fingers were at his mouth and he was kissing them, taking that third finger into his lips until the ebbing pain was mingled in Merlin with a rising tide of sensation that took her breath away. It was holy hell and heaven the way he could play with her feelings,. her crazy, lovelorn emotions that allowed him to torment her one minute, and the next make her melt with longing as his wide shoulders loomed over her and his breath stirred her hair.