Follow Thy Desire Page 13

  At once Morgan turned the force of his anger on her. ‘If you think—’

  But Helen was already passing him, glancing frowningly about her. ‘Shall I help you to your room?’ she asked, with cool efficiency, and she heard his angry intake of breath.

  ‘For God’s sake, Helen, get lost, will you?’ he demanded tiredly, and she was almost tempted to give in to him. ‘All I need is my bed. Can’t you get that through your head?’

  Helen accompanied him to his room. Putting the memory of the morning’s visit firmly out of her mind, she looked around her with guarded interest.

  His room was plain, like hers, with a predominance of brown in the decorations—beige-brown walls, brown printed curtains, a brown and yellow spread across the bed. The bed was bigger than hers, wider and longer, and she guessed he had once shared it with Pamela, his ex-wife.

  Now he sank down heavily on to the side of the bed and stared at her unsmilingly as she hesitated in the doorway. ‘Well?’ he said, and his voice was harsh. ‘Are you going to aress me? Is that why you’re here?’

  Hele couldn’t prevent the flush of colour that stained her cheeks. ‘You know it’s not,’ she replied. Now it was her turn to be on the defensive. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right. And—and I did want to talk to you, although I realise now is neither the time nor the place.’

  ‘So you’re leaving?’

  ‘I—well—’ Helen caught her lower lip between her teeth. ‘The baby,’ she said after a moment. ‘How—how is he?’

  Morgan bent down to unloosen the laces of his suede boots. ‘What is it they say on these occasions?—as well as can be expected!’

  ‘He—he’s going to be all right?’

  Morgan kicked off his boots and looked up. ‘He may live,’ he conceded coldly, getting to his feet, and she could see the lines of pain engraved across his face. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

  ‘Is there nothing I can do?’ She felt so helpless, but his face darkened with anger.

  ‘For whom?’ he demanded bitterly. ‘The baby—or for me?’

  ‘E-either one,’ she breathed, and he uttered a violent oath as he turned his back on her and started to unbutton his shirt.

  ‘Get out of here, Helen,’ he muttered savagely. ‘I’m too weary to fence with you tonight.’

  Helen hesitated a moment longer, then she took the steps that put her right behind him. ‘Morgan…’ she whispered tremulously. ‘Don’t shut me out, Morgan, please!’

  He tipped his head to stare grimly at the ceiling and from her position Helen could see the heavy strands of hair that coiled into the nape of his neck. Below the width of his shoulders, his shirt clung damply, and her hands moved almost involuntarily to touch him. When he didn’t immediately repulse her, her arms slid round his waist until her hands met at the buckle of his belt, bringing her face to the moistened hollow of his spine and her stomach to the taut muscles between his hips.

  ‘Morgan…’ she said again, more huskily this time, and the flatness of his stomach was tensed with sinew.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he groaned, his hands at his sides clenched and restive. ‘I’ve told you, Helen, you’re wasting your time with me. For God’s sake, what do I have to do to convince you?’

  Helen allowed her tongue to wet her lips before replying. Then, resting her chin against his back, she said softly: ‘You can’t deny I disturb you, Morgan.’ Her hands strayed daringly below the heavy buckle. ‘Shall I prove it?’

  His hands moved convulsively to cover hers, pressing them hard against him for a moment. Then, with a muffled imprecation, he turned to face her, and the bare brown expanse of his chest and the bulging muscles of his thighs were so much more intimate than when he had his back to her.

  ‘All right,’ he muttered, his eyes moving hungrily over her face. ‘All right. If that’s what you want, why should I hold back? So long as you’re prepared to accept the consequences.’

  ‘What consequences?’ Helen’s lips trembled. ‘What do you mean? Why are you talking like this? What did I do?’

  ‘Goddamn you, you know what you’re doing!’ he swore angrily. ‘God, I’m beginning to think that Barry is well rid of you!’

  Helen’s face blanched. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’

  ‘Is it? Well, yes, I think perhaps it is. But damn it, Helen, this is madness, and you know it.’

  She drew an unsteady breath. ‘Is it madness to want to kiss me?’

  ‘To kiss you!’ His short laugh was anguished. ‘You know I want to do more than that.’

  ‘Do you, Morgan?’ Her breathing felt constricted. ‘Tell me.’

  He held off for one moment, staring desperately towards the open door, as if willing Kori to return. But then the parted temptation of her lips got the better of him, and his hands at her nape brought her mouth unerringly towards his.

  His lips trembled over the widening contours of hers and his hot breath in her mouth was suffocatingly intense. She felt his hands move from her neck, across her back to her hips, lingering senuously at the tops of her thighs. Then, keeping his mouth on hers, he pressed her backward on to his bed, and when she subsided against the soft coverlet, he allowed the whole weight of his body to descend on top of her.

  ‘Mmm, that feels good,’ he breathed, his mouth seeking the side of her throat with increasing urgency. ‘You know what?’ he added. ‘I feel better already.’

  ‘Do you?’ She was almost incoherent with the eager urgency of her desire to please him. The thought of holding back from him as she had always done with Barry scarcely entered her head, and when his fingers probed the laced fastening of her shirt, she felt her breasts burgeoning against his hands.

  But the laces proved difficult to unfasten with one hand and Morgan swore softly as they resisted all his efforts to loosen them. ‘God, couldn’t you wear buttons like everyone else?’ he demanded, drawing her hand from his hair to the offending fastening.

  Helen quickly untied the laces but a faint smile touched her lips as she felt his impatience. ‘You’ll get used to them,’ she ventured daringly. ‘What you need is practice.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  There was the faintest of suspicions in his tone and she wondered if she dared tell him that she knew about his divorce. But she was afraid she might destroy whatever it was there was between them by precipitating a declaration, so she remained silent. She was sure she would be able to change his mind, and when he discovered that no other man had ever touched her…

  She cupped his face in her hands and drew his mouth to hers once more, exulting in the feel of the hair-coarsened skin of his chest against the softness of her breasts.

  ‘Helen…’ he breathed, drawing back to coax the swollen peaks with his lips, and then suddenly a convulsive shudder shot through him. With a groan, he rolled off her and on to his back, and for a moment his body arched with pain. Then he lay still.

  Immediately, she jack-knifed into a sitting position, leaning over him worriedly, noticing the greying pallor of his skin and the drawn tightness of his features.

  ‘Morgan!’ Her use of his name was agonised. ‘Morgan, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Massa sir…?’

  Kori’s imitation of her tone was at once a shock and a reassurance. Dragging the folds of her shirt about her, she wondered with fleeting distaste how long he had been a willing voyeur to their lovemaking, but close on this thought came the thankfulness of knowing there was someone else she could turn to. Morgan’s eyes were closed and he was making no movement at all, and fumbling the laces into some semblance of a knot, she exclaimed:

  ‘Kori did you see what happened? What can I do?’

  The boy moved to the bed and looked down doubtfully at his master. ‘You hit Massa sir?’ he enquired curiously, and if she hadn’t felt so worried she would have laughed at his expression.

  ‘Hit him?’ she echoed now. ‘No. No, of course I didn’t hit him!’ She lifted a tentative
hand and laid it against Morgan’s forehead. It was damp with sweat, but not fevered, and she withdrew it again to stare helplessly at Kori. ‘He—he sort of—collapsed.’

  Kori assumed what she guessed he considered to be an intelligent frown. Cupping his chin in his hand, he moved his shoulders in a dismissing gesture. ‘Massa overtired,’ he announced at last. ‘We leave him sleep. He all right in morning.’

  Helen shook her head impatiently. ‘We can’t do that—’

  ‘Why not?’ It was Morgan who spoke, pushing himself up on to his elbows. ‘Heavens alive, what is this? A wake? I’m all right. Like Kori says, Helen, I’m overtired. I think you’d better go and leave me to sleep it off.’

  Helen stared at him. ‘But, Morgan—’

  ‘Go, Helen!’ he ordered harshly, and reluctantly aware of Kori’s interested appraisal, she slid off the bed and walked towards the door. She looked back once, but Morgan wasn’t looking at her. He was giving Kori some keys, directing him to go to the surgery and get something for him, as remote from her as he ever had been.

  * * *

  In the morning it was difficult to remember the events of the night before without a sense of unreality. Had Morgan really intended to make love to her? Had his apparent collapse been real or just assumed? Had she any hope of breaching his defences a second time knowing that only his intense weariness had weakened his resistance to her?

  She rose early, aroused by the sound of animals and voices. She had not slept well, only fitfully, but standing by the slatted blinds of the windows, she felt a little of her composure returning as she glimpsed the two small boys driving a herd of goats through the trees beyond the courtyard. It was such an ordinary sight that she was almost grateful to them for disturbing her, although consciousness brought the enormity of her problems into focus. And not least of these was Andrea.

  The previous evening she had had no opportunity to speak to Morgan about his daughter, but this morning she would have to, and that prospect was not an appealing one. What would he say when he discovered her incompetence? It was always possible he might dismiss her, send her back to England, and get someone else. Her only hope was that Nrubi’s remoteness might deter any but the most undaunted female.

  The air that flooded into the room when she opened the shutters was pleasantly cool, and she shivered in her thin nightshirt. A glance at her watch essayed the knowledge that it was barely seven o’clock, but unable to rest until she discovered how Morgan was feeling this morning, she slipped on her pink cotton wrapper and opened her bedroom door.

  There was the reassuring smell of bacon from the kitchen, but she turned in the opposite direction, making her way to Morgan’s room. The ethics of entering his room troubled her a little, particularly after what he had said at the Onebas’, but before she could stretch out her hand to push open the door which was already ajar, Kori’s ubiquitous voice observed:

  ‘Massa not there, missy. He have breakfast half hour ago and he gone.’

  ‘Gone!’ Helen knew she sounded as dismayed as she felt. ‘Gone? Where’s he gone?’

  Kori came a little nearer, wiping his black hands on the spotless white apron he was wearing. Combined with his bare chest and baggy shorts, it was quite an outfit.

  ‘Dushombi, missy.’ Then, seeing her lack of comprehension, enlarged: ‘Dushombi village, missy. Old man sick. Boy came as soon as it daylight.’

  ‘Oh.’ Helen’s spirits sank depressingly. ‘Did—er—did he say when he’d be back?’

  ‘No. But Dushombi not far. Only nine—ten miles, maybe.’

  Helen nodded. That was a relief anyway. It sounded as if Morgan would be back before lunch. ‘Is—is Miss Andrea up yet?’

  ‘No’m.’ Kori shook his head, and now, as his eyes moved with evident appraisal over her thinly-clad figure, she drew the wrapper closer about her. ‘You like breakfast?’

  Helen made a negative gesture. ‘I’ll get dressed,’ she said. ‘Maybe then…’

  ‘You like bacon? Eggs?’

  Realising she was hungry, Helen nodded. ‘One egg,’ she decreed. ‘Poached, if possible. No bacon.’

  Kori looked disappointed, but he went away, and breathing a sigh of relief, Helen went back into her room. Collecting her toilet bag, she made her way with some reluctance to the bathroom. But Kori was engrossed in his cooking, and she was able to slip inside and lock the door without observation.

  Only then did she see the disgusting sight of the hand-basin. Enormous cockroaches were crawling loathsomely around the rim, and her gasp of horror was loud enough to attract the attention of the one person she had hoped to avoid. She heard his fingers beating a tattoo on the panels of the door, and his voice enquiring if anything was wrong.

  Unable to deal with the creatures herself, Helen wrenched open the door. ‘Yes,’ she said, through taut lips. ‘Look! What can I do about them?’

  ‘Ah!’ Kori’s grin was smug. ‘Missy not put plug in hole last night. This what happens.’

  Helen swallowed, remembering she had removed the plug from the wash basin when she had sluiced her face earlier in the day, and the previous evening she had not thought of replacing it.

  ‘But doesn’t anyone else use this bathroom?’ she exclaimed, and Kori shook his head.

  ‘Massa sir, he use bathroom between his room and Miss Andrea’s. I guess Miss Andrea use that, too.’

  ‘I see.’ Helen absorbed this with resignation. She ought to have guessed there would be more than one bathroom in a house of this size. ‘Well, what can I do now?’

  Kori looked at her thoughtfully. ‘You want Kori should squash them?’

  ‘Squash them?’ The thought of so many crushed bodies spilling blood on to the wash-basin made her feel positively sick. ‘I—well, if you must.’

  ‘Leave it to Kori,’ he said, and she did, going out into the kitchen, unable to remain with him while he wielded the heel of his sandal with such devastating detachment.

  ‘All clear,’ he announced, coming back into the room as he stepped back into his sandal. To her relief Helen saw he went at once to wash his hands. ‘You remember now, hmm?’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ she agreed tersely, and went unwillingly into the bathroom again.

  Although the basin was spotlessly clean again, she chose to take a bath instead, welcoming the tepid water against her overheated body. But she ensured that the plug was replaced before leaving the room again, and this time Kori was waiting for her as she emerged.

  ‘Breakfast ready,’ he said, indicating the place set at the kitchen table behind him, but Helen declined to join him yet.

  ‘I must get dressed,’ she insisted firmly, and as she shed her wrapper and stepped into thin blue cotton pants, she hoped he was not going to be a problem, too.

  She was halfway through the deliciously poached egg and lightly buttered toast, when through the open windows she saw several people coming towards the house. They were all from the village, she guessed, in various states of dress, from tightly-bound sari-like garments to little more than a loincloth, some of the children not wearing any clothes at all. They stared at her as she was staring at them, but when she turned to Kori to ask him to answer the door, she saw they were turning away along the side of the building.

  ‘Patients,’ said Kori, in answer to her unspoken question. ‘To see Massa doctor. You understand?’

  ‘Of course.’ Helen chided herself for her stupidity. Of course Morgan would have a surgery, just like any other doctor. ‘But he’s not here.’

  ‘They wait,’ declared Kori indifferently, collecting her dirty plate. ‘You like more coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Helen pushed her cup aside and rose to her feet. ‘I—er—I think I’ll go and get some air. That is permissible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Kori shrugged, and glad to escape his knowing eyes, she walked quickly out of the kitchen, and across the living room to the doors leading on to the verandah.

  She was too restless to sit
still, and leaving the cloistered walkway, she crossed the courtyard to the tangled path which seemed to lead to the water’s edge. But the possibility of meeting more insects like those she had seen in the bathroom, or alternatively some other wild creature of which she had no knowledge, deterred further exploration. Instead, she looked up at the wide arc of blue overhead and wondered at the complex series of events which had led her from the comparative safeness of her life in England to this hilly plateau in East Africa. And yet, in spite of all the difficulties she faced, she knew she would never regret her decision to accompany Morgan, whatever happened.

  The sound of chattering voices drew her round the side of the house, but she stopped aghast at the sight of a dozen or more people squatting in the dust outside the fluted windows of what she guessed to be Morgan’s surgery. Here were the women and children she had seen earlier together with several others, and they all stopped their chattering to stare at her open-mouthed.

  Unused to attracting such obvious attention, Helen would have walked away again, but one of the younger women rose to her feet and approached her. Not quite sure what she ought to do, Helen submitted to the girl’s admiring fingering of her hair. Obviously, she was intrigued that dark hair could be so straight, and she beckoned another of her friends to come and see.

  The girl was quite beautiful, and although her striped skirt and a multitude of coloured necklaces were all she wore, she was quite without self-consciousness. On the contrary, she apparently found Helen’s cotton sweat shirt with its campus motif rather amusing, and feeling embarrassment prickling over her body, Helen was inclined to think the same.

  She was unutterably relieved when she heard the familiar sound of a car approaching, and presently the station wagon swung into the forecourt. The engine died, and Morgan levered himself from behind the wheel, lean and disturbingly attractive in the harsh glare of the sun.

  His gaze flicked briefly over Helen registering her relief, and then moved on to the patients awaiting his return. His native greeting was incomprehensible to Helen, but then he strode towards her and her heart quickened its already hectic beat. However, his intention was merely to unlock the waiting room door, and he disappeared inside followed eagerly by the others.