The Passionate Sinner (21 page)

‘Yes, I know it,’ she said, as she slipped back under the bedcovers. ‘Why did you get your cousin to make inquiries about—me?’

‘Being blind,’ he snapped, ‘doesn’t turn me into a complete log. You had been a nurse, and after the typhoon I began to wonder—well, it’s done now. All the damage is done and we live together until it’s no longer possible for me to tolerate your sweet-voiced lies and the touch of your hand that could put a rice-knife in my throat any time you felt like causing me a bit more agony.’

‘Oh, Paul—what a shocking thing to say!’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ he surged to his feet, ‘stop damn well pretending that you care for me! What we have in common is a mutual lust.’

‘No.’

‘Lust, my dear,’ he repeated, incising the
word as if on
metal. ‘It’s a sound Anglo-Saxon word, explicit and to the point. I could take you every time I touch you, and you know it. You bring out the animal in me, and I despise the feeling except that it’s such hellfire pleasure having you in my arms. You are my demon,
meisje,
that is why I put the bells on your wrist.’

‘Not because.’ She glanced down at the bracelet, remembering what he said about wanting to always know that she was close to him in the night.

‘No, not for any romantic notion,’ he said cuttingly. ‘There is no romance attached to what we have in this marriage of ours. None!’

‘You say it so forcibly, Paul.’

‘I feel it forcibly, my dear.’

‘May I see the wire your cousin sent you?’

‘Why not?’ He went to a great carved bureau and opened a drawer; he returned to her side and dropped the folded telegram slip on the bed. Merlin’s fingers shook as she unfolded the paper and read the telegraph.
Your nurse not known under that name.Altered for obvious reasons. Five feet five, trimly built, brown hair and eyes. Must be same girl! Advise instant dismissal!

Her fingers clenched the wire until the paper crackled. She wanted to deny emphatically that she was the same girl—and yet if she made a denial, then she must add that the hospital committee had accused her and found her guilty. Would he fall instantly in love with her if he was told such a thing?

Oh God, it was an appalling mix-up of identity and motive. Better to let things stay as they were, for there was nothing to be gained from confession, only everything to be lost.

‘Merlin Lakeside always struck me as an impossibly fancy name,’ Paul remarked. ‘Right out of one of those sugary magazines for the lovelorn. What is your real name—I can’t recall it?’

‘I’m just—Merlin,’ she said. ‘Can’t we leave it at that?’

‘As you wish.’ He shrugged his shoulders and went to open the bedroom door as there came the sound of cups and cutlery jingling on a tray. He accepted the tray, murmured his thanks, and brought it across to the bed. ‘We will share the food here, if you don’t mind?’

‘No—but I would like to put on a wrap. I’ll fetch one from my own room.’

‘You can’t go like that! Here, take the tray and I’ll fetch your kimono. Can you recall where you laid it down in your room?’

‘It will be on the foot of the bed—Paul, do mind the rug. Last time you—‘

‘Yes,’ he cut in, ‘last time I went head over heels. I’ll be careful, and you can pour the coffee while I’m gone.’

He made his way out of the bedroom and Merlin stared at the door he left ajar. Paul was conditioned to accept her as the seductive nurse he had been aware of at the hospital, and if Hendrik was fond of a good time he wouldn’t have wasted too much of it in making the inquiries Paul had asked of him. On paper that description of the other nurse also seemed to apply to Merlin, and the real truth could only be proved a truth in Paul’s own heart.

Paul had to discover for himself that Merlin was sincere ... until then there was nothing to be done. She was trapped like a fly in a web, and there were aspects to that web that she didn’t really want to escape ... not yet... not while Paul found her so disturbing to be with.

He returned from along the gallery with her silk kimono and he held it while she enclosed herself in it, watching his face as she tied the sash. The lids of his eyes had that heavy, sensuous look, and she knew what he was remembering as he listened to the rustic of silk about her slim body. ‘I think you are much lovelier than I recollect,’ he said. ‘Like the white oleander with venom in your veins. May I have my coffee,
meisje?’’

Merlin poured out for him and carefully placed the cup and saucer in his hand, then she served him with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, and as they ate together the intensity of what she felt for him was all the more precious because there was no assurance that it could last.

‘I think we shall go to the beach today,’ he said. ‘Ah, and by the way, one of the boys will be transferring all your belongings to this apartment, and you will use the other bedroom to sit and read in. I trust you won’t mind?’

‘No, not at all.’ She had sliced a nectarine and shook sugar on to the fruit. ‘What are you going to do about your book, Paul? I can still go on being your secretary.’

‘Yes, but not just yet.’ He casually lit a cheroot and allowed the smoke to drift lazily from his nostrils. ‘I want you just as my wife for the present—you understand me?’

‘Of course.’ A flush that was almost nectarine came into her cheeks. ‘I wouldn’t want you to abandon the book. It’s coming along awfully well.’

‘It’s nothing compared to what I could be doing.’ He rose to his feet and began to pace up and down like a caged animal. ‘The book is just a remedy for what ails me—I want to do what I was trained for, what I do best— oh, God, you bitch, why did you take it all away from me? Why? Just because I wouldn’t take you to bed? By God, I’ll take you to bed from now on! You will have more of me than you bargained for!’

‘Paul,’ The fruit seemed to stick in her throat. ‘My dear, what can I say?’

‘For a start you can stop calling me your
dear,’
he snarled. ‘There is nothing very
dear
in what I feel for you!’

‘I know, but won’t you believe it was an accident?’

‘It was no accident,’ he said decisively. ‘You know it and I know it, so let us not sweep that under the carpet. I am going to my dressing-room and will be ready to go to the beach in about an hour. The boy will be bringing your things in a short while.
Tot ziens spoedig, beste.’

He called her his dear so sarcastically, making her wince as the door to his dressing-room closed behind his broad shoulders. Merlin ate her nectarine and it might have been made of wax for all the pleasure it gave her.

So for a while it would appear to everyone on the island that like a normally happy couple they were intent on enjoying a honeymoon. Swimming together, lazing in the sun, taking walks in the forest and maybe collecting velvety wild orchids. It could have been idyllic, Merlin sighed, except for the fact that the bridegroom was not in love with the bride.

THE days that came and went could have been heavenly, but at every opportunity that offered Paul found a way to cut her down, to answer curtly any question she might ask him, to say sardonically that she didn’t have to describe the scenery to him as if he were a tourist.

Merlin tried desperately not to be hurt; she fought to accept the bitter with the sweet ... and there were times when as if out of sheer devilment he was incredibly nice to her, only to turn into a snarling enemy at some unexpected moment.

Down in the
kampong
in front of the islanders he was courtesy itself to her, visiting people he knew, or going in and out of the quaint little shops in the bazaar to look at silks, to sniff the scents, and to handle the brass and copperware all fashioned from hand.

Oh yes, it could have been the happiest time of Merlin’s life, but when they were alone she could never be sure of his mood. It was like being in the company of a tiger, for one minute he would be purring, and the next he would be looking in her direction with that blaze in his eyes that warned her to stop what she was saying, to rise quietly and go swiftly out of the room before he lanced into her the barbed words that left her feeling torn open inside.

At no time did she feel truly relaxed. Even when he made love to her, it was never as wonderful as that first night with him. He merely gave in to a passionate hunger of the body, and when he kissed her it was never with tenderness He took and saw to it that she gave him everything of herself, and then he would push her away from him, making her feel like a bought woman. As she lay there on her side the tears would creep down her face and she had to let them seep damply into the pillow because she didn’t dare raise her hand to wipe her eyes and so set tinkling the little bells on her wrist. He probably suspected that she wept, but he never remarked on it, and if her eyes were often pink-rimmed at breakfast he couldn’t see them.

As the weeks passed he seemed to have given up any idea of going on with his book, and Merlin didn’t dare to mention it. Gradually, oh, very gradually, like climbing the side of a steep cliff, she became attuned to his moods. She knew when he would go swimming at dawn, when the sharks were about, hungry and on the lookout for food. On bare feet she would follow him down to the beach, warning Tutup with a finger at her lips not to let on that she was shadowing her husband. Then she would watch him while he swam, the lethal little gun that Lon had given her ever ready in her hand. Lon had given her secret lessons on how to use it; he had told her that it would be enough to aim at a shark if she saw one, that the impact of the bullet hitting the water would distract the beast and give Paul time to swim inshore.

Paul did it on purpose, she knew that. He didn’t care a straw if a shark took him, but Merlin did care, with all her heart and soul she cared. He often managed to hurt her feelings, but it made not the slightest dent in her love for him. Maybe love was meant to make some people happy, but in her case it made life a constant hazard, but the strange part was that it had a wondrous effect on her looks.

Hendrik van Setan, whom she didn’t much like, had got into the habit of dropping in at the Tiger House for mid-morning coffee, or an after-dinner drink, and he would stand and stare at her, knowing all too well that Paul couldn’t see him. Hendrik would run his eyes over her and let the naked admiration show in them. Shallow blue eyes in contrast to Paul’s deep grey ones.

One day Hendrik accosted her and suggested that she might enjoy his company for once in preference to that of a man who couldn’t tell her just how attractive she was; how softly tanned, and how unusual with her amber and honey-streaked hair and eyeYou need to be admired,’ he informed her. ‘Paul doesn’t know what he’s making love to.’

Merlin had been standing there lost in her thoughts, her fingers entwined around the golden offshoot of a wild orchid. A lovely blue and black butterfly flitted by as these ugly words struck at her. She gave Hendrik a look of open dislike. ‘Go to hell,’ she said clearly. ‘If I told Paul you’d propositioned me, he’d break your neck.’

‘He would have to find me first, wouldn’t he?’ Hendrik mocked, his eyes moving up and down her figure in a cool white dress with a scarlet neck-bow and a matching ribbon tying her hair at the nape of her neck. ‘What a fetching creature you are, so outwardly cool and pure-looking, but I know all about you! Paul only married you because no other woman would have him the way he is. For him it’s a case of all cats feeling alike in the dark. Tortoiseshell kitten, why the bells?’ He caught at her wrist and set her bracelet tinkling. ‘Do you bite and scratch when a man strokes you?’

‘If you don’t let go of me I shall kick!’ Merlin had on painted sandals with wedged heels and a kick in the ankle from one of them would be painful.

‘I would much prefer a kiss,’ he drawled. ‘Come, don’t put on such a show of outraged chastity. You lost that long before Paul acted the perfect gentleman and legalised your embraces. Tell me, don’t you often long to be in the arms of a man who can tell you how beautiful your eyes are? How your hair is fired with streaks of amber in the sunlight? How perfectly smooth your lovely skin is? To poor old Paul you are just a body in the dark—is that why he belled you, so he would know who he was kissing?’

‘You beastly man,’ Merlin said, a cutting contempt in her voice. ‘I would rather have Paul’s curses than your kisses.’

‘Does he curse you often, my lovely? He knows what you did to him, doesn’t he? Hendrik saw to it that he lives under no illusions about you.’

‘Yes, you made sure he wouldn’t be happy, didn’t you? Are you envious of a blind man?’

‘I envy him only one thing and that’s you, my girl.’ As he spoke he jerked her to him. ‘Come, let’s see how you react when you give your lips to a man to whom you don’t owe the price of a pair of eyes.’

Dreadful words, and made worse by her utter distaste for the thick mouth descending to lay claim to lips only Paul had ever known. Merlin swung her right foot and drove her sandal as hard as possible against Hendrik’s left ankle. He yelped and let go of her, and was hopping about on the pathway as Merlin fled away from him.

She ran until she was out of breath, and upon reaching the veranda of the Tiger House she suddenly had to clutch at one of the palm supports as her head swam and the floor seemed to heave under her feet. She felt a sick, faint feeling sweeping over her and put it down to reaction from her encounter with Hendrik. It was several minutes before the waves of faintness ebbed away, and when Paul came out to join her in a sundowner Merlin had almost regained her composure.

She sat in a rattan long-chair with her drink, while Paul lounged upon the steps with his glass of rum and lime. The clink of ice in the tall glasses was refreshing, and a cool, tangy breeze wafted across the compound.

‘There’s going to be a huge moon tonight,’ she remarked. ‘The sun is going down in streaks of pure flame and the moon is already waiting to take over the sky.’

‘A moonlight swim would be rather enticing,’ Paul said, and there was a seducing quality to his voice that alerted Merlin rather than made her responsive. When Paul was like this, that suggestion of a purr deep in his throat, she didn’t dare let down her defences in case he was playing one of his tiger and doe games with her.