Rooted in Dishonour Page 12

Beth refused to meet his eyes. 'Look, it's getting late. I—I have to go.'

  'Before Willie gets up from his nap? Oh, yes...' at her surprised expression, 'I know the routine.'

  'I suppose Marya told you,' Beth flared, resentful of the black girl's gossiping. 'You have spies everywhere, don't you, Mr Valerian? Is she another of the women yvho seem to hang on your every word?'

  His eyes mocked her. 'Now you sound jealous.'

  'Who—me?' She gave a scornful laugh.

  'Yes, you.' His eyes roved over her. 'I like your dress. It may come in useful after you're married. Plenty of room for two!'

  Her face flamed. 'Is that something else you're an expert in?'

  Expecting a mocking retort, she was disturbed by the sudden anger in his eyes. 'So far as I know, I have never fathered a child!' he told her harshly, and she took an involuntary backward step.

  Immediately, a violent pain shot through her foot, and she let out a cry of protest. Raoul's anger gave way to bewilderment which almost at once brought dawning understanding.

  'What is it?' he demanded. 'What have you done?' and as she lifted her pained foot from the sand, he squatted down beside her.

  His hard fingers were amazingly gentle as they tipped the foot sideways so he could see what had happened. His lips tightened as he saw the sliver of coral wedged beneath her toes, and then he looked up into her anxious face.

  'You've stood on a coral spine,' he said without preamble. 'Will you let me take it out?'

  Beth bit hard on her lower lip. 'Yes, yes. Will it hurt?'

  'Not much more than it's hurting right now. But I think you'd better sit down.'

  'Must I?' His expression gave her an answer, and with a sound of exasperation, she flopped down on to the sand. The initial pain of the injury had died away now, and only a stinging sensation remained. Perhaps she could have made it back to the house and asked Clarrie to deal with it for her. But then she would have had to have provided a reason for being down on the beach and Willard would have had to be told ... No, she reasoned, it was better this way, although the touch of Raoul's hands on her foot aroused sensations of a different kind.

  Pushing her skirt down between her legs, she allowed him to lift her foot higher. He examined the splinter minutely, and then carefully gripped the end to draw it out. The moving spine sent another shaft of pain up her leg, and her foot automatically jerked back. With the knuckles of one fist pressed to her lips* she realised she should have exercised more control, and the broken spine in his fingers confirmed her worst fears.

  'I'm sorry,' she cried, 'but I couldn't help it. It was agonising!'

  Raoul said nothing, but retrieved her foot again, and examined the damage. 'The end of the splinter is still wedged in the flesh,' he said. 'I'm going to have to bite it out.'

  Beth winced. 'Shouldn't I—I mean, couldn't I go to the hospital?'

  'You could. But coral is poisonous, and the sooner this is out the better.' He looked at her again. 'Don't you want me to do it?'

  'Won't you poison yourself?' she asked evasively.

  'No.' He shook his head. 'You know I won't. Well?'

  'Oh, go on,' she exclaimed tensely, and closed her eyes so that she would not see him bare his teeth to her foot.

  Resting back on her hands, Beth curled hfer fingers tightly into the sand, but she was determined not to draw back this time. Instead, she implanted a picture of Willard in her mind, and tried to imagine the kind of dress she would wear for her wedding. But Willard's image kept being overlaid by another, darker profile, and green eyes kept taking the place of grey. She was concentrating so hard that it was almost a shock to see Raoul spitting shreds of spine into the water, although when he turned back to her foot to scour the cut with his tongue, she realised she was not as immune as she thought.

  'It's clean,' he announced, joining her on the sand. 'Put some antiseptic on it when you get back and it'll be fine. But of course, you'd know that—being a nurse and all.'

  'Yes.' Under his intent gaze she wriggled her skirt down again, conscious that it had ridden up over her knees while he worked. 'You've been very kind.'

  'Haven't I?' he agreed, and his eyes darkened. 'Salt water wouldn't do your foot any harm. Let's go for a swim!'

  'A swim?' Beth stared at him blankly. 'But I—I don't have a bathing suit.'

  'The bra and pants you girls wear are as adequate as a bikini,' he replied softly. 'Don't worry, I promise I won't stare.'

  Beth's lips were dry. 'I—I—I'm not wearing a bra, as—as it happens.'

  'No?' His eyes lowered to the rounded swell of her breasts before returning to her eyes again. 'No, I don't believe you are.'

  'I—I don't tell lies,' she said, her breath coming in short uneven gasps, and his lips parted sensually.

  'Well, not about that anyway,' he amended huskily. 'Beth...'

  She knew that he was going to touch her, and panic erupted. 'No!' she exclaimed, lifting her weight on her arms and levering herself away from him, but he was not hampered by a full skirt or the necessity to keep her foot out of the sand until she could put on her sandals again. He shifted after her, and one hand on either side of her prevented any further movement. The bronze medallion he invariably wore suspended from its leather cord swung before her hypnotically, and as he lowered his head its coldness brushed the warm skin rising above the rounded neckline of her smock.

  'It—it's awfully late...' she got out tautly. 'Willard will be wondering where I am.'

  'Where does he think you are?' asked Raoul unevenly, loosening the pins which held her hair in place so that it began to tumble in silvery confusion about her shoulders.

  'He—he doesn't,' she stammered, trying to shake away the paralysing numbness that was gripping her. 'Raoul, someone might see..

  'Do you care?'

  'Of course. Don't you?'

  'Not right now, no,' he replied thickly, his fingertips probing the taut nipple that swelled against her gown.

  Beth put out a hand to stop him then, but her fingers lingered against his moist skin as he leant forward to bestow a trail of burning kisses across her shoulder and along the neckline of her dress. She touched the fine hair that grew across his chest almost tentatively, and Raoul looked down at her hand on him and then back at her again.

  'You don't really want me to stop,' he muttered hoarsely, and she knew the whole responsibility for what happened next rested with her.

  'Yes—yes, I do,' she choked at last, her balled fist drawing away from him, and she saw the angry frustration that filled his face. He stared at her savagely for long devastating moments, then, just when she thought he had himself in control again, his hands gripped her shoulders, jerking her towards him. Her breasts were crushed against the unyielding muscles of his chest and his mouth was hard and violent seeking hers. Her lips were parted in protest and there was no way she could clamp them together and thwart his attack. Instead, his mouth devoured hers, draining all the strength out of her.

  She fought with him to begin with, clawing at him with her nails, drawing up her knees between them and trying to kick him. But his superior strength overcame her protests. He propelled her back against the sand, imprisoning her beneath his heavy body, and prompting an intimacy between them that destroyed her defences entirely. Her whole body yielded to admit his, and she heard his groan of torment before he dragged himself away from her.

  Beth lay there panting, drawing her hands up to her breast and then pressing them away again in horror when she saw the line of red beneath her nails. It was blood, Raoul's blood, and as he got to his feet she saw the raking weals across his back.

  'Oh, God!' she whispered tremulously, scrambling up too. 'Your—your back!'

  With contemptuous disregard for her anxiety, he; stretched round to touch the scratches, looking at the blood on his fingers without dismay. Then he looked at her.

  'You've really done it this time, haven't you?' he taunted coldly. 'Try talking yourself out of this!'

 
Beth swallowed convulsively. 'Wh-what do you mean?'

  'Lots of women are like you—violent when they're aroused.'

  'A-aroused!' Beth stared at him. 'I—I was fighting you.'

  'Were you? All the time?'

  Beth's face burned. 'A-All the time,' she insisted.

  'You said you didn't tell lies,' he reminded her grimly, unbuttoning the waistband of his jeans, and her eyes shifted from his face to gaze in horror at the activity of his hands.

  'Wh-what do you think you—'

  'Don't panic!' he retorted harshly, unzipping the jeans and revealing navy blue underpants. When Beth turned her eyes away in dry-mouthed silence, he added: 'Can you think of a better way to salve these scratches—and thin the blood?'

  As he moved towards the water, Beth had to look after him. 'Raoul...' she began unsteadily. 'Raoul, what will you—what will you do?'

  'Go back to your fiance!' he shouted scornfully over his shoulder, and plunged into deeper water.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WILLARD came to Beth's room as she was dressing for dinner. He looked different in a dinner jacket, somehow—older, more formal, but perhaps that was just because she was so used to seeing him in casual clothes. He was carrying a small box when she opened the door to him, but he did not immediately open it, preferring instead to admire the picture she made.

  'You should wear black more often,' he told her huskily, and Beth had to admit that the floating clouds of chiffon did complement the creamy quality of her skin, and accentuate the intense lightness of her hair.

  It was important that she should look good tonight, and she had taken especial pains with her hair, drawing it up in two loops at either side of her head, and securing the remainder in a pearl-trimmed filet at the nape of her neck. It was a deliberately formal style designed to give her a more mature appearance, and Willard's approval confirmed her own opinion. His guests, those who had arrived already for this their first dinner party, were all his contemporaries, and she did not want to let him down, in any way. Besides, by appearing mature she could hold her own more easily with Barbara, who would doubtless appear accompanied by her own cronies.

  There were seventeen guests invited, an enormous number to someone unused to entertaining on the grand scale, but she knew that Raoul Valerian's presence was more likely to disrupt her precarious composure than any of the others. She had been appalled when Willard had told her of his invitation. Somehow she had never expected the overseer would be invited to an affair of this kind.

  It was ten days since she had seen him, ten days since she had left him swimming in the ocean, using the salt water like a scourge to the raw weals she had torn across his back. Ten days, during which time she had lived in constant fear of him coming to the house and denouncing her, showing his scars to Willard and arousing his jealous fury and contempt.

  But Raoul had not come. Indeed, she knew he could have said nothing to her fiance, because Willard had now been down to the plantation several times, and on each occasion his only comments had concerned the coming sugar harvest.

  Since that morning when she had shown her feelings so blatantly Barbara seemed to have decided her tactics were not working, and while she was never affable to her father's fiancee, she had maintained a certain civility, in his presence at least. It made for an easier way of living, although Beth still found time hanging heavily on her hands. It would be different once she and Willard were married, she told herself, not discounting the possibility of their having children. But somehow that possibility seemed remote, and she avoided long consideration of its inevitable forerunner.

  Nevertheless, it was impossible to evade the realisation that as Willard regained his strength, he was also regaining an interest in the physical side of their relationship. His hands when he gripped her now had a definite feeling of possession, and his kisses were becoming more passionate and more frequent. She knew it was only a matter of time before a firm date was set for their wedding, and then he would expect everything ...

  Now, Willard offered her the box he was carrying, standing close to her as she lifted the lid and uttered a gasp of admiration for the solitaire diamond ring within.

  'Do you like it?' he asked urgently, and she could only stare at it and nod her head. 'It's yours,' he added, stretching over her shoulder to pull it out of its setting. He took her left hand. 'So long as you haven't changed your mind.'

  Beth looked up at him, lips parted, unable to say anything as he took hold of her third finger and slid the solitaire into place. His words had not been intended to be taken seriously. He didn't really have any doubts about her acceptance. It was his way of underlining his possession.

  She sought for words. 'You—got this for me! When?'

  'That's my affair,' he replied reprovingly. 'It fits. I knew it would. Yes, it suits you.'

  Beth swallowed hard and held out her hand doubtfully. 'It—everyone will notice it.'

  'That's the idea,' retorted Willard half impatiently. 'So,' his forefinger teased her lips, 'don't I deserve a little gratitude?'

  'What? Oh—oh, yes.' She stretched up and pressed a warm kiss to his cheek. 'Thank you. Thank you, darling.'

  'What a paltry effort!' he exclaimed, grasping her round the waist and holding her close to his angular frame. 'You can do better than that!' and a moment later his lips had fastened themselves to hers.

  Beth knew the most ridiculous impulse to resist him, but luckily she managed to overcome it. Even so, his assault was so uncharacteristic she found it impossible to respond to him, and the callous pressure of his teeth against her lips caused her actual discomfort. When he released her mouth to nuzzle the curve of her throat, she smelled the alcohol on his breath and realised he had been drinking. But even that did not excuse the way his hands violated her body, disarranging her clothes so that eventually she tore herself away from him.

  Immediately he was contrite. 'God, I'm sorry, Beth,' he muttered, as she endeavoured to straighten the neckline of her gown, sounds of dismay escaping her as she saw the disordered tangle of her hair. 'I don't know what came over me. I'm sorry.'

  'It's all right.' Beth was pulling out hairpins with unsteady fingers. But it wasn't, and they both knew it. 'I—can you go down without me? I—well, I'll have to fix this...'

  'And you looked so beautiful!' he exclaimed, coming behind her and putting apologetic hands on her shoulders.

  She had to steel herself not to flinch away from his touch, and as if sensing he had done enough, he stepped away from her.

  'Yes,' he said now as if coming to a decision. 'I'll go down. Will you—will you be long?'

  'Just as long as it takes,' she said, through taut lips, permitting a faint smile to reassure him.

  'Fine,' he nodded, and then as if needing something more, he added: 'You are—all right, aren't you?'

  'Of course.' Her response was too eager, but it couldn't be helped. She wanted him to go.

  When the door closed, behind him, she pulled off the ornate ring and tackled her hair once more. But her hands shook so much it was difficult to restore it to its former style, and after struggling for a while, she sank down in tearful frustration on to the stool in front of the mirror. The trouble was, her mind wasn't on what she was doing. Instead, she kept thinking about WiUard's

  untypical behaviour, and her skin prickled at the remembrance of his hands upon her. Yet was it untypical? she kept asking herself. How well did she really know that side of his nature? Had she been mistaken in thinking he was really any different from any other man? Was this—mauling—she had just suffered an example of what she might expect after they were married?

  She shuddered. No. He had been drinking. Men often behaved completely out of character with several measures of alcohol inside them. As a nurse who had worked in the emergency department of the hospital she should know that. So why did she keep thinking of the things Raoul had said, and remembering that even when he lost his temper with her, he had not abused her as Willard had done...


  Ten minutes later she had given up attempting to restore the filet and was contenting herself with securing the coil of hair at her nape with pins when someone tapped at her door. At once, her fingers sought the ring and slid it into place before she called uncertainly: 'Who is it?'

  It was Marya, delivering a message from her fiance to the effect that her guests were awaiting her. Beth thanked the girl, reassured by the maid's evidently envious stare, and schooling her features, she followed her out of the room.

  Six people were to spend the night at the house. They were Wiliard's friends from St Lucia and Martinique, and Beth had already met four of them. They were the de Vries and the Templetons, Gilbert de Vries being Wiliard's Dutch agent on the nearby island and Charles Templeton his lawyer from Fort de France. Both Gilbert and his wife were in their fifties, while the Templetons were even older, easily sixty, Beth guessed. The other couple, the Hammonds, were from St Lucia too, but they had not arrived before Beth went to change and consequently they still had to be introduced.

  Of the others, Beth knew only four—the Marins, Jac- ques and Susie, Diane Fawcett, and Raoul, of course. In addition she had yet to meet a French couple from the neighbouring island of Passereau, Arnold Dupois and his wife, and they were to be accompanied by their son, and their married daughter and her husband. Finally, there were George and Albertine Druon. George Druon was a Creole who ran the largest emporium in Ste Germaine, while his wife was an expert seamstress and employed several girls in her small workroom, making clothes for the more fashion-conscious females on the island.

  When Beth came downstairs, she found Willard entertaining a group of people who had just arrived in the hall, while from the drawing room came the sound of laughter and music, and ice chinking into glasses. Her fiance saw her at once. He must have been watching for her out of the corner of his eye, because he turned to greet her right away, drawing all attention to her nervous descent.

  'As beautiful as ever,' he murmured in her ear as he drew her forward to meet the others, and she could hear the note of entreaty in his voice.

  Everyone was very kind, Beth decided later from her corner of the drawing room, as she sipped champagne from her glass, and accepted the good wishes of Wiliard's friends. Although she had sensed a certain initial antipathy in the attitudes of his older colleagues, her determined efforts to appear diffident and sincere had dispelled much of their hostility, and once they realised she was not the dumb blonde they had suspected, they soon came round. Marta de Vries had even gone so far as to invite her to stay with them any time she felt like a break from the island, and Esther Templeton had seconded this by suggesting both she and Willard should stay with them in Fort de France.