BOOKS BY ANNE MATHER 7 страница

Helen's mouth felt dry "And-and Dominic?"

Bolt half smiled. "Oh, no, Dominic wasn't interested in her. And besides, she was his brother's wife."

"So-what happened?"

Bolt sighed heavily. "It was the night before the race at Nurburgring. We had all gone to Germany several days before, and we were staying at the same hotel near the track. That night Francis and Christina had a row. They were always having rows. Christina wanted Francis to take her out, but he wanted to rest. Motor racing is a gruelling sport at best, and it calls for complete physical fitness. Anyway, she eventually went out on her own and when it got late and she hadn't come back, both Dominic and Francis went to look for her. Dominic found her in some sleazy beer-garden, fighting off the attentions of a couple of sailors. She wasn't sober, of course, and Dominic had to get rid of her admirers before he could get her away. Christina put the wrong interpretation on his behaviour. He'd have done the same for any woman, but Christina didn't see it that way. When Francis came back she told him that she didn't love him, that it was Dominic she wanted. She said that Dominic felt the same, and no matter how he denied it, Francis wouldn't believe him."

"Oh, Bolt!"

"Not very pleasant, is it?"

"So what happened?"

"You know the rest. Francis skidded on the track, his vehicle went out of control, and both Dominic and Johann Barras went into him. Francis and Johann were killed -Dominic was seriously injured."

Helen digested this. Then she looked up at him. "And - and afterwards ? What happened to - to Christina?"

Bolt turned away. "Oh, she came back. She still wanted Dominic, but he'd never wanted her, and then he couldn't stand the sight of her."

"She must have loved him then."

"In her own way, perhaps." Bolt began to slice the meat. "But Mr. Lyall hasn't had much time for women since the accident." He shook his head. "The tragedy had repercussions none of us could have guessed at. Colonel Lyall had a stroke when he heard of his sons' accident;, and he never fully recovered. Mrs. Lyall died only a few months after her husband."

Helen gasped, "How terrible!"

Bolt turned to look at her shocked face. "So now you can appreciate why this story must not be publicised."

"Of course." Helen clasped her hands together. "But Dominic wasn't to blame for the crash, was he?"

"Of course not." Bolt's face was grim. "The track was wet, Francis's wasn't the only car to skid. It was an accident." He sighed. "But when something like that happens - when your relationship with the person concerned is at fault - it's human nature to blame yourself if something goes wrong. Mr. Lyall was too close to see it in perspective. And then the aftermath..." He turned back to his task. "I think he just warned to opt out of society."

"And now?"

"Well, now he has his work to occupy him. He wrote an earlier book about his father, you know. It was filmed."

"He didn't tell me that." Helen was intrigued. "Was the film successful?"

"Very successful. It made a lot of money. But it didn't change Mr. Lyall's attitude."

"Do you think - anything ever will?"

Bolt set down the meat on the table. "I doubt it," he replied heavily. "That's why - well, why I felt I had to say something."

Helen looked down at her hands. "I'm not a child, you know."

"I know that. But don't build your dreams on shifting sands. Don't expect anything, and you won't be disappointed."

"That's a very cynical thing to say."

"Mr. Lyall is a cynical man, Helen. Like I said - I don't want you to get him."

CHAPTER SEVEN

During the afternoon it snowed again and Helen, standing by the kitchen window looking out on that wintry scenes wondered how long weather like this could last in this area. It seemed to have been snowing for ever and the realisation that it was only a week since she had come here seemed totally unbelievable. So much had happened to her in that short space of time that her life in London had assumed almost an unreal quality.

She turned from the window and hugging herself closely surveyed the empty kitchen. Bolt was outside attending to the animals, but he had insisted that she remained indoors. She had not objected. She felt curiously drained and lacking in energy, and while she told herself that the time she had spent in bed was responsible for this weakness, she knew it was not so. In spite of what Bolt had said, her mind revolved continually round that scene in the sauna room, and now that the telephone had proved useless there seemed no escape from the inevitability of her thoughts. She supposed she had behaved foolishly, irresponsibly, allowing physical desires to rule sanity and reason. She should be appalled that she, who had always imagined herself in control of every situation, could have exhibited such a complete lack of control in her response to Dominic Lyall's undoubtedly experienced lovemaking.

She drew an unsteady breath and paced restlessly about the room. It had been all her doing. She had taken the initiative, she had been the one to touch his smooth skin, to use the massage in the form of a caress. But it had been an irresistible impulse and what had followed could still bring the warmth to her cheeks and turn her limbs to water. She ran her fingers round the back of her neck, under the weight of her hair, feeling muscles still tender from the pressure of his fingers. She slid a questing hand beneath her sweater and touched the spot between her breasts where he had laid his lips. She quivered. She had never felt like this before, and the deep depression she was feeling stemmed from the frustration of desires unfulfilled. She now knew what it was to want a man -but not just any man: Dominic Lyall.

She left the kitchen. She was afraid Bolt might come back and find her in this fanciful mood. Quite honestly, her feelings frightened her a little and she was ashamed of the weakness he had aroused in her. She went up the stairs to her room and flung herself on her bed, staring at the flakes of white falling beyond her window panes. She was beginning to realise that the longer she stayed here the harder it was going to be to leave when that time came. What had begun as an enforced confinement had become a bittersweet confiscation of freedom of a much more subtle kind. She was reaching the point where she did not want to leave and this knowledge brought her upright on the bed, hugging her knees, a worried frown marring her smooth forehead. What was she going to do? What could she do? And what did she want to do?

She slid off the bed and walked across to the window. She went over in her mind the things Bolt had told her before lunch, the lunch she had found so hard to eat. He knew Dominic so well, better than anyone else, she supposed, and yet even he could not know everything that had passed between them. She crossed her arms across her breasts and rubbed her palms against her shoulders. Sooner or later she would have to see Dominic again and then she would decide whether or not Bolt was speaking the truth.

She remained in her room until early evening and then bathed and dressed in a long black crepe jersey gown that complemented the whiteness of her skin. It was a simply designed dress, but its dinging lines drew attention to every curve of her body. She left her hair loose about her shoulders and when she surveyed her appearance in the dressing table mirror before going downstairs, she was satisfied that she looked her best.

When she entered the living room a few minutes later, however, it was to find it deserted and her lips tightened. Was he to abandon her to Bolt's company once more? Was this his way of showing her that what had happened between them was not to be repeated? She stood in the centre of the floor, drawing her lower lip between her teeth, and swung round impatiently when the door opened. But it was not Bolt who stood there as she had expected, but Dominic Lyall.

This evening he was wearing a navy silk shift and navy suede trousers, a cream fringed waistcoat hanging loosely from his shoulders. His gaze travelled almost insolently over Helen's expectant features, but she could not sustain that appraisal and when his eyes dropped lower she looked down uncomfortably at her fingernails.

His interest seemed to wane and he limped into the room closing the door behind him. He passed her, his suede-booted foot brushing the hem of her skirt as he did so. He went to stand with his back to the fire and then said: "For God's sake, stop looking at me as if you were afraid I was about to jump on you or something!"

"I'm not -" Helen spoke involuntarily, and then sighed. "How - how are you this evening? "

Dominic's eyes narrowed. "After your expert massage, you mean?"

Helen's cheeks flamed. "Don't bait me."

"So? What am I supposed to do with you?"

"You could ask how - how I was."

His lips curled. "Could I? Do you think that's necessary when you're obviously fully recovered?"

"You didn't care to come and see how I was when I was in bed!"

"Did you want me to?"

Helen bent her head. "It would have been - polite to do so."

"But you don't expect polite behaviour from me, do you? As I recall it, you find me perverted - distorted; in mind as well as body."

Helen stared at him tremulously. "That - that was in the beginning, before - before I knew you."

"You don't know me, Miss James."

Helen made an appealing gesture. "Oh, please. Can't we behave civilly to one another? "

"If you mean by that, can't we hold an impersonal conversation, then I suppose we can. What do you want to talk about?"

Frustration made Helen clench her fists. "You're deliberately misunderstanding me."

"On the contrary, Miss James," he said, "I understand you very well."

It was perhaps fortunate that Bolt chose that moment to join them, bringing with him the delicious aroma from the supper he had prepared. Helen was half expecting Dominic to invite the manservant to join them again as he had done before, but he didn't, and she didn't know who was the most surprised - herself or Bolt.

Throughout the meal that followed, Dominic seemed to make an effort to do as she had asked and talked desultorily about books he had read, the social scene, places he had visited, encouraging her to speak about her own life with her father and stepmother. Helen found herself telling him the things she had told Bolt, listening to the construction he placed upon her father's behaviour, beginning to understand through his eyes the inevitable loneliness her father had suffered after her mother's death which had driven him to his desire to succeed in business as a kind of palliative for her loss. No doubt he was using his own experiences to help her to understand her father's feelings and she appreciated his deeper understanding. The only thing she didn't discuss was her involvement with Michael Framley, but somehow that was taboo.

Gaining courage from his apparent softening, she said: "I suppose everyone needs an objective opinion to understand their own particular problems. I mean, in your case, for example, you were too involved to get a clear perspective of your brother's accident -"

Dominic's eyes hardened instantly. "Who told you about my brother's accident? Oh, don't bother to answer. I can guess. It was Bolt. I might have known he wouldn't be able to keep his bloody mouth shut!"

Helen felt terrible. "Oh, please," she began, "don't blame Bolt. It was me. I asked questions. He - he answered me, that's all."

"He had no right to discuss my affairs with anybody."

"We didn't - discuss your affairs. Bolt merely - told me the facts."

Dominic got to his feet, wincing as the sudden movement jarred his hip. He stood for a moment looking down at her bent head and then limped slowly across the room, his whole attitude one of suppressed violence. Helen looked up as he moved away and on impulse got off her chair to kneel on the couch, looking at his broad back appealingly, willing him to rid himself of this unnecessary bitterness.

"Dominic -" she began again, and he turned to survey her with cold eyes. "Dominic, what does it matter what Bolt told me? It was all a long time ago. Why can't we talk about it?"

He stood leaning more heavily on his uninjured leg. "What gives you the right to think that I might want to talk about the accident to you?"

Helen refused to be intimidated. "I - I want to help you-"

"Really?" He limped back to the couch. "In what way can you help me?"

Helen despised herself for the feeling of coercion he was arousing in her in spite of herself. "By - by helping you to see the facts as they really are. By showing you that people are not as uncharitable as you seem to think. You have to learn to live with the world again -"

"And what if I tell you that I prefer my life as it is now? That I no longer have any desire to live in the kind of world you're talking about?"

Helen sat back on her heels, defeated. "How can you know that? You haven't tried it. I think you're afraid to do so."

She had spoken quietly, almost to herself, and she was totally unprepared for the violence it provoked. He came round the couch in one lithe movement, grasping a handful of her hair, twisting it round his ringers so that her head jerked painfully.

"What do you know about it?" he demanded cruelly. "You talk of objectivity - of understanding. What do you know of these things? What do you know of lying for months in a hospital bed, more dead than alive, wishing you had been the victim! Could you be objective about that? Could you understand the force that destroys one man and leaves another twisted for life -"

"You could have - had - an operation," she protested, raising a hand to her burning scalp.

"I prefer to remember," he muttered. "Besides, I don't want any filthy artificial device inside me. This hip may be distorted, but at least it's all me - not some sophisticated facsimile."

"Dominic, you're hurting me -"

"So? Be objective about it," he sneered, and her eyes widened in hurt disbelief.

"You don't mean that," she exclaimed huskily, and with a darkening of his expression he uttered a groan of self-reproach. Shaking his head, he came down on the couch beside her, close beside her, his hands capturing hers and raising their palms to his lips.

"Dear heaven," he muttered thickly, "don't look at me like that. I don't want to hurt you. But I can't help it."

Helen looked down at Ms bent head. The pressure of his mouth against her palm was an insistent seducement. She trembled and he looked up into her eyes, his own dark with emotion. He put his hand against her neck, his thumb moving rhythmically against the sensitive skin below her ear, and then he slid the neckline of her dress from one smooth shoulder, exposing the soft flesh to his touch.

Helen could not have moved; even if she had wanted to. His power over her was such that she would have denied him nothing. When he drew her hands to his body she fumbled so much with the fastening of his shirt that he undid the buttons for her and then gathered her close against his hard, muscular frame.

"Oh, God, Helen," he groaned against her nape. "You don't know what you're doling -"

But then his mouth was on hers, hard and firm and hungrily demanding, and she didn't much care any more. She wound her arms around his neck and somehow they were side by side on the couch, lying in each other's arms, their mouths and bodies close together, but not close enough. The kisses they were exchanging were becoming longer, more languorous, and infinitely more disturbing. An appealing lethargy was entering Helen's limbs brought on by this dangerous situation, and having the freedom to much him at will, to caress his injured hip without rousing any response except an encouraging pressure against her fingers, brought its own weakening influence to her already inflamed senses. She could think of nothing more desirable than spending the rest of the night here, in this warm lamplit room, making love...

"I love you, Dominic," she whispered, beneath his mouth, but immediately he stiffened, rolling away from her on to his back, staring up at the ceiling with hardening features.

"Dominic?" she said again, propping herself up on her elbow and looking down at him. "What's wrong? I said -I love you. I do. I love you."

"Don't say such things to me," he snapped violently, swinging his legs to the floor and getting to his feet. "You don't know what you're talking about.”

Helen's lips parted. "I do. I do! Dominic, what is it? What's wrong?"

He looked down at her coldly, thrusting his shirt back into his pants, reaching for his waistcoat and pulling it on. "I don't love you," he said distinctly. "With me, love doesn't come into it,"

Helen couldn't entirely suppress the gasp that escaped her. "But - but just now -"

"I wanted to make love to you," he stated brutally. "I thought you wanted the same."

"I - I did," she breathed unsteadily.

"I wonder?" His lips twisted. "And. would you have been prepared to forget all about it once this interlude is over?"

"Forget - about - it?" Helen struggled into a sitting position, dragging together the neckline of her dress. "Dominic, I - I don't believe you're - indifferent to me!"

He stared grimly down at her for a moment and then limped abruptly to his chair. Sitting down, he reached for the bottle of Scotch and a glass. "I wonder Why it is that women can never appreciate that men can be aroused without feeling anything more than a purely animal desire to mate," he said.

Helen's face mirrored her distaste at the crudity of his words. "I - I think that's a disgusting thing to say!" she declared.

"What else would you expect from someone as perverted and distorted as me?"

"Oh, Dominic-"

"Shut up!" he muttered, raising his full glass to his lips. "I don't want to talk about it any more. I don't want to talk to you any more. You make me sick!"

Helen caught her breath on a sob. "Stop it!" she cried. "Stop saying such things! You don't mean them. I don't believe you."

His eyes narrowed. "Why not? Do you have such a high opinion of yourself? I assure you the intimacies we have just shared, I have shared with other women, and with greater satisfaction."

Helen had heard enough. She scrambled to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster and stood looking down at him with tortured eyes. "I - I think you're vile!" she got out unsteadily, "vile! I don't know how I could have imagined you were a decent man - let you touch me! I - I despise you. I despise you utterly!"

"Good." He lay back in Ms chair with apparent unconcern. "That's the way I like it. Now, as this is my house, do you mind getting out of this room? I intend getting stoned out of my mind!"

Helen dragged herself up the stairs to her room. She dreaded the possibility that Bolt might appear and ask her if everything was all right and she knew if he had she would have broken down in front of him. As it was, once she was safely in her room, she collapsed on the bed in an agony of weeping that did not abate for several minutes. But when at last the storm was over, she lay feeling quite bereft of all emotion.

Then she got to her feet and tore off the crepe jersey dress. She felt she never wanted to see it again as long as she lived and she rolled it up in a ball and thrust it in the bottom of the wardrobe.

After that she stood in her long slip wondering how on earth she was going to survive another day in Dominic Lyall's house. It was useless telling herself the things she had blurted at him, that he was vile and despicable. It was useless telling herself she hated him. Because she knew it was not so. She loved him. She really loved him. And that was something harder to bear than the anger and frustration she had suffered in those first few days.

So Bolt had been right and it was up to her to do something about it. Of course, she couldn't go to Bolt for help, but there still remained the possibility of the Range Rover, and the more she thought about it, the more imperative it seemed that she should get away from here before something even more disastrous happened.

She sighed. What could happen that hadn't happened already? she asked herself, and supplied the answer. Living here with Dominic Lyall was doing strange things to her, and she was afraid that one day she would find the desire to know the forbidden fruit of sexual experience with him irresistible. And it could happen. Whatever he said, she knew he found her attractive, but his motivations lacked the sincerity of hers.

With a shake of her head she took off the long slip and searching in her drawers brought out jeans and a sweater. Once dressed again, she considered her position. It was already after ten o'clock. Bolt, she knew, would be coming to bed shortly, and if Dominic did as he said and got drunk, she would have no problems with him. That only left Sheba. Bolt had said she slept in the kitchen, so that meant she would have to leave the house by the main front door. It was unfortunate trial the front door was so near to the living room, but that couldn't be helped. It was now or never, she thought fatalistically.

By eleven-thirty the house was as silent as the grave. A peep through her curtains had shown her that it was still snowing, and she stifled a sigh. What did it matter? With the amount of snow about her tracks were bound to be visible for days. She went quietly down the stairs and extracted her coat from the hall cloakroom. Apart from her handbag, she was taking nothing with her. As far as she was concerned the rest of her belongings could stay here.

There was a bolt as well as a lock on the front door, but fortunately the brilliance of the snow outside provided an illumination she was thankful for. The bolt slid back smoothly, the lock turned, and the door was open.

Outside, she looked about her. The night air was cold, but not frosty, and the flakes of snow fell softly on to her upturned face. With a stiffening of resolve, she moved away from the front door and walked round the side of the building. She knew all the outhouses were at the back, and somehow she had to discover which was the garage.

It was easier than she had thought possible. The tyre tracks of days ago still marked the yard and she went confidently towards a barn-like building beyond the cowsheds. The double doors were not locked, merely closed and secured by a plank of wood. Panic nearly caused her to drop the plank as she lifted it out of its shafts when a sleek black body fled across the yard., but she realised in a moment that it was only one of the half-wild cats that made their home in the outbuildings.

Nevertheless; the small incident had served to unnerve her a little and she winced as the doors squeaked on their hinges. She peered inside, blinking to adjust her eyes to the darkness and then gasping as she saw that the vehicle in the barn was not the Range Rover as she had supposed but her small sports car. Until that moment she had scarcely thought about it, and if she had vaguely imagined it still buried in the snow. But now she remembered that Dominic had asked Bolt to see about shifting it, and obviously he had succeeded. She sighed. If only she had her keys! If only she knew how to connect the points to make contact possible.

Oh, well! She closed the barn doors again. It was useless anyway. The car might still be out of commission, and she could just imagine the noise she would make trying to get that useless engine started.

She looked round the yard again. There were lots of tracks now she came to study them, and they all seemed to criss-cross one another. But there was only one other building large enough to house a Range Rover and she approached it with caution.

This time she was lucky. The Range Rover stood just inside the doors, and wonder of wonders, the keys were hanging in the ignition. She could hardly believe it. Her hands trembled as she climbed inside and closed the door silently behind her. The controls looked much the same as she was used to and hunching her shoulders against the sound that igniting the engine would bring, she turned the key slowly. There was a moment when she thought it was going to fail, but then, with a touch of the accelerator, it roared to life and she knew that now she had only minutes to make her getaway.

She found a gear and the vehicle rolled forward out of the garage and onto the yard. She swung right, round the side of the house, remembering to put on her headlights in time to avoid a rain barrel, and careered across the cobbled yard at the front of the building. What was it Bolt had said about a four-wheeled drive vehicle being harder to drive? Heavens, it was easier, and the crushed wedges of snow held no fears for her. Her car would have been bogged down by now, but the Range Rover handled magnificently. She was following the tracks that Bolt must have made going to the post office and her excitement was sufficient to allay the feelings of betrayal that were rising in her. She would not think about the shock Dominic Lyall was going to get when he discovered that she was gone, or Bolt's reproachful disappointment that after everything that had happened they could still not trust her. She was escaping - that was all she was going to think about She had achieved the impossible.

A bank of snow lay ahead of her and automatically her foot weighed heavier on the accelerator to scale it. The Range Rover bounced forward at speed, taking the bank in its stride, and picking up speed on the slope beyond Helen felt the first twinges of alarm as she released the accelerator at once. She was going much too fast and she must slow down or she wouldn't make the next corner. She tentatively touched her foot to the brake even though she knew it was a hairy thing to do. The vehicle slewed sideways in a semi-circle and trying not to panic she drove into the skid. But the road was so narrow with its heavy drifts of snow that the rear end of the Range Rover hit a frozen mass and swung back across the road again. Her tongue protruding from her lips in her concentration not to panic, Helen again steered into the skid. The Range Rover's wheels slipped sideways and again she hit the opposite bank of snow. It was a terrifying experience, particularly as she was still moving at speed down the lane, rocking from side to side. She saw the corner up ahead of her and tried to swing the wheel, but she was out of control and the Range Rover ploughed into the mass ahead, throwing her forward to hit her head hard against the steering wheel...

When she opened her eyes she was lying on the road and a voice she had thought never to hear again was saying: "Helen! Helen, for God's sake, are you all right?"

Her eyes focussed on the man kneeling beside her, on the thick swathe of silvery fair hair falling across his forehead, the dark, deeply engraved features, the strange tawny eyes., curiously concerned now as he looked down at her.

"Dominic," she murmured faintly. "Oh, Dominic, I crashed!"

"I know." There were harsh lines of strain beside his mouth. "Little fool I You could have been killed!"

"Would you have cared?" she whispered, bunking rapidly.

"Yes, I would have cared," he muttered, and rose abruptly to his feet.

As he stood looking impatiently up the road, Helen gingerly lifted her head. But apart from a thumping headache there didn't appear to be anything wrong with her, and she sat upright, brushing the snow from her shoulders.

Dominic turned to look at her. "Stay where you are!" he ordered. "Bolt will be along presently with, the tractor. He can pull the Rover out of the ditch."

Ignoring his command, Helen got unsteadily to her feet and Dominic turned to her irritably. "I told you to stay where you were," he muttered, and her shoulders straightened in an attempt at defiance.

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