The Passionate Sinner (25 page)

‘What do you think he’ll do about it when you tell him? I bet you haven’t told him, eh?’

‘I—I was waiting for the right moment, as most women do,’ she said defensively.

‘I lied to him about you.’ Hendrik said suddenly. ‘I was green with envy when I got here and saw the girl he’d got for himself, even though he couldn’t see one little bit of you. One evening in his den he asked me to describe you to him, and as I had the impression that he took you for that other nurse involved in his case, I described her to him just as I’d seen her in a newspaper picture—pretty, I said, but a trifle on the common side; the sort who would be out to grab a well-off surgeon for herself. Paul then pointed out that he was blind and no longer much of a catch. I said that was nonsense. He was still Paul van Setan and his reputation as a surgeon wasn’t impaired. He was still a good catch for a girl who wanted to get on socially—anyway, to cut a long story short, I had him believing you were a little climber with a meretricious sort of attraction, and I could tell he didn’t like it.’

Hendrik frowned and studied his sleeping cousin, his arm bound and held in a shoulder sling, gold hair darkened with sweat,
the
stains of blood all over his shirt. Hendrik swallowed audibly. ‘I’ve always envied him, do you know that? He was the one with the brains and the brilliance, and even when it came to getting a girl, he got you. It said in the newspaper that a girl named Jane Bridges had been found responsible for the damage to Paul’s eyes—were you Jane Bridges?’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘In those days. Bridges was my stepfather’s name and I used it to please my mother. Jane is my second name and I thought it more suitable for me than Merlin.’

‘More suitable?’Hendrik took her up. ‘You don’t imagine you are a plain Jane, do you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sweeter face than yours in all my life—to hell with it, will Paul be all right?’

‘He has to be, if there’s any justice.’ Her face twisted with pain and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Things might have worked for Paul and me, if you hadn’t lied to him. I hope you pay for that!’

‘I shall,’ Hendrik growled. ‘All my life I shall never be fortunate enough to meet someone like you—you truly are a splendid girl, Merlin. Even the way he is, Paul has the best of it—he has you, and a baby to go with you. He’s had quite a bit of heaven when you come to think of it!’

They heard the chugging of the helicopter coming up from the beach to the compound, and Merlin felt her nerves tighten. Lon was risking his life landing in moonlight in a somewhat restricted area, but they couldn’t take Paul down those rock stairs to the beach, weakened by loss of blood already, with his system deeply shocked.

‘Tell me,’ Hendrik had risen and now he stood over her, his eyes probing her anxious face, ‘were you responsible for making Paul blind?’

She shook her head. ‘Can’t you guess who was?’ she asked quietly.

‘The other one, eh? And Paul knew this?’

‘He suspected it.’

‘And I let him believe that’s who you are?’

‘Yes, Hendrik.’

‘God, you must want to see me dead at his feet!’

‘It would give me a certain satisfaction,’ she agreed. ‘But cruel people are their own worst enemies. They have to live inside themselves with what they are. It’s the kind of company I wouldn’t want.’

Hendrik drew a ragged breath, then went to the cabinet for another drink. Merlin no longer bothered with him, but leaned over Paul and carefully checked his pulsebeat. It was jumpy and his skin was cool under the moisture, extra cold about his lips. She wiped his face, and listened as the helicopter came in lower and lower, holding her
breath until it had settled without mishap on the hard surface of the compound. Thank God! A landing was always more hazardous than a lift off, and they could now hope for a speedy flight to the mainland, which Lon would already have radioed to have standing by an ambulance and a doctor.

Carefully, so very lovingly and carefully was Paul handed into the helicopter and a blanket rucked around him, his head at rest on Merlin’s shoulder. His breathing was shallow and she didn’t dare to contemplate just how much shock he had suffered, nor how much damage had been done to his arm. She hoped for a miracle ... prayed there would be someone skilful enough at the mainland hospital to save his arm.

Dear God, he had lost enough for one life!

But for Paul she would have had her head crushed in. He had saved her life, this man who swore he hated her!

They chugged through the moonlit sky, above the glimmering ocean, and though Paul stirred out of his lethargy once or twice, for most of the journey he slept with his head against Merlin.

‘How is the
tuan?’
Lon asked, as they came in over the glittering lights of the harbour and he made for the airfield where all those months ago Merlin had stood and longed with apprehension to see Paul... whom she hadn’t dreamed she would end by marrying.

‘He’s in shock,’ she replied. ‘The opium has helped the pain, but he’s lost such a lot of blood.’

‘The ambulance will be waiting,’ he assured her. ‘The doctors are good ones—they will do their best for him.
Mem,
a tiger doesn’t die so very easily.’

‘My dearest
Sang Harimau,’
she murmured. ‘If he dies, then I think I shall—I have that container of opium in my bag. There’s enough!’

‘You have a baby in your body,’ Lon said sternly. ‘The
tuan’s
baby, who deserves to live. When we land you will give back the opium to me, or I shall tell the authorities you have it.’

‘You wouldn’t.’ She gave Lon a pained look.

‘The
tuan
got cut down for you,
mem,
and you will have his baby if I have to lock you in a room and keep guard on you.’

‘Lon!’

‘Be one fine baby,’ Lon smiled faintly, with an affectionate glance at Paul. ‘Real tiger cub, if a boy. Did you think you could keep that from the island people, eh?’

‘Not really—has the
tuan
—has he mentioned the baby to you, Lon?’

Lon shook his head. ‘Why do you try to keep it a secret?’

‘Because he—he doesn’t care for me,’ she said huskily. ‘You know as well as I that love doesn’t always make babies.’

‘Love made yours,
mem.
You loved that man the day I met you fly this very airfield, and I never believed you ever hurt him.’

‘You seem to know a lot of things, Lon.’

He gave her a faintly wicked wink, and then concentrated on landing the scarlet and white bubble that had flown her to a strange heaven, and was now bringing her to face despair or a possible miracle. As the rotors ceased to spin, they heard the ambulance wailing up the airstrip, and at that moment Paul stirred against Merlin and opened his eyes. He seemed to look right up at her, long and silently. ‘How do you feel, my dear?’ she asked softly. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘It’s bearable,’ he said, and his eyes went on staring at her. Lon slid open the doors of the helicopter and the ambulance halted only a few yards away. They took charge, these other people who would now help Paul, and Merlin stood on the airfield, shivering intermittently with nervous fears as Paul was carried from the helicopter into the ambulance. She clutched the big cloak around her and lifted her face to that great ivory moon and wondered if she would ever see it shining again over Pulau-Indah.

‘Madame van Setan,’ it was the doctor calling to her, ‘your husband requests that you come with us to the hospital.’

‘I’m coming,’ she made quickly for the open doors and was assisted inside. Only then did she realise that Lon had quietly removed her bag from her hand ... there was to be no easy escape from the trauma that awaited her. Paul was desperately hurt and he might not fight to live if he knew he was going to lose his arm as well as his sight. He had her... but did he love her enough to live for her?

The ambulance siren started up again and Merlin felt Paul’s baby move inside her as they sped off into the night, making swiftly for the hospital. Merlin informed the Indonesian doctor that her husband had been given opium for the pain, and he merely quirked an eyebrow and seemed quite unshocked. ‘It will do no harm,’ he said. ‘This once!’

Merlin had prayed for a miracle, but in the early hours of the next morning it seemed there wasn’t going to be one. There was no saving Paul’s arm below the elbow; he had known himself that it was almost cut through by that mad blow from the
parang.
Merlin gave a stricken cry and covered her face when they told her ... and then the surgeon who had worked on Paul sat down beside her and took her hands down from her ashen face.

‘Madame van Setan, would you like me tell you what your good husband has in place of that lost arm?’ He quietly smiled at her. ‘It’s a most amazing thing, and we have been in touch with the ophthalmic people in England who were in charge of him at the time of the accident to his eyes ... were you aware that there was no drastic damage to the eyes themselves; that his blindness was caused entirely by a shock reaction so bad that the optic nerves literally curled up and refused to function? Do you understand what I am saying, madame? Your husband is no longer blind. What he suffered last night acted as a traumatic release for him and he started to see again —not clearly, for that will take time—but he could make out the lights in the operating room, and he told me that he had seen your face for blurred moments in the ambulance coming here.

‘Madame,’ the surgeon reached out and took firm hold of Merlin’s trembling hands, ‘you must believe what I am telling you and not look at me in that terribly stunned way. Mynheer van Setan is regaining his sight again, and each day it will become a little clearer ... he has lost most of his left arm, but he has what is far more precious to all of us, he can see again.’

It was unbelievable ... it was wonderful ... and the young nurse who looked after Merlin said she cried for a solid hour before they could get her to slowly turn off those streaming, thankful tears. After that she drank four cups of hot sweet tea, and they put her to bed in a hospital cot, carefully removing the torn dress from her slim pregnant body and pulling the covers to her chin. Her great eyes were like brown violas that had been drenched in a storm, and then she slept... they told her she slept for twenty-four hours.

It was Lon, that good friend of hers who seemed capable of anything he set his mind to, who went out shopping for her and brought back new lingerie and tights, a cream linen dress with eyelet embroidery in the collar, and a pair of T-strapped cream linen sandals. He returned her handbag to her, so she was able to hide some of her pallor behind a dash of make-up.

‘I’m scared, Lon,’ she said shakily. ‘What’s Paul going to say to me—I shall seem like a stranger to him.’

‘But a very lovely-looking one,’ Lon told her. He took her hands and kissed them, and he was watching her as she walked alone into the room where Paul was propped up in bed, waiting for her. For long moments they just looked at each other, then he held out his hand and she went to him, a quiver going all through her as his strong fingers closed on hers.

‘They told me my wife was coming to see me,’ he drawled. ‘Do I know you? Who are you?’

‘Me?’ She lifted his hand to her face. ‘Close your eyes and braille me.’

He did so, moving his beloved fingers over her features to her throat. ‘Ah yes, now I seem to have some recollection of this madly pretty creature who walks into my sickroom and gives me such a shock.’ He slowly opened his grey eyes and slowly smiled at her. He let his eyes travel every inch of her face, and then her figure, his gaze coming to rest on her waistline. ‘Mine as well?’ he murmured.

‘Do you really have to ask,
tuanku?’
Merlin’s confidence was coming back to her, for never had Paul smiled like that... even with that heavily bandaged arm stump, he was looking ... wonderful. The nurse had combed his hair into that smooth weight across his strong brow, and his eyes ... his eyes looked as if they loved her

‘No, I don’t need to ask.’ His smile grew a shade wicked. ‘But I have to get used to having a lovely stranger for a wife, someone I know better in the dark than in the daylight. Ah, my senses told me you were like this, but I kept masking your face with someone else’s, didn’t I?’

‘Yes, Paul, but can’t we forget?’

‘No, we have to speak of it, for I’ve hurt you more than once in my blindness, and I don’t quite know how to repay you.’

‘My darling,’ she pressed his hand to her cheek, ‘I’m repaid a thousand times over. You can see again, and you saved my life. If you want me, what more could I want?’

‘To be made surpremely happy, and I intend to set about it as soon as they discharge me from this place. Ah, but it’s incredible to see your lovely face like a distant dream come true. You were the one they said hurt me— everything is clearer now—you never hurt me, of course, it was that other creature. Why did you never try to explain to me who you were?’

‘Would you have listened, Paul?’ She gave him a shaky smile. ‘You needed someone to whip, and you always kissed me afterwards. I understood and I loved you enough to take it. It would have been all right if you had killed me.’

‘That much?’ he groaned.

‘All the way, Paul, to heaven and hell.’

‘The hell of it is over, my sweet child, from now on it’s heaven all the way, I promise you. Won’t you kiss me? At the present time, dammit, I am having a bit of bother with this stump, but they tell me they are going to make me a new arm, and it had better be the sort I can put around you!’

Merlin leaned over and
laid her
lips to his; she saw him close his eyes as she kissed
him
and she knew he was recalling every detail of
their life
together on the island. His mouth clung to hers
and
his good arm locked itself about her waist ... about the baby they had made with love ... it had been love, as she had always hoped and known in the depths of her heart. He had loved her enough to live for her.

‘You are truly named Merlin,’ he breathed. ‘You have made magic for me—I have love, I have my sight, and soon, eh, I shall have a son or a daughter. How do I thank you,
meisje?’