Where have you been? 2 страница

"Dominic -" she began again. "Please don't be angry-"

"Angry? Angry? Lord, how do you expect me to be?" He looked down at his injured hip and a spasm of pain crossed his face. "Helen, get out of here! Now! Before I change my mind."

Helen had made no move when the door opened and Bolt came into the room as he had that evening three days ago. This time, however, his reaction was more acute.

"Helen!" he exclaimed. "You're soaked to the skin!" Hecame close to her and put a hand on her forehead. "You're on fire! What in heaven's name have you been doing?" His gaze flickered to Dominic and a strange look crossed his face. "Do you want to be ill again? "

Helen dragged her gaze from Dominic's. "I'm -all right, Bolt. Really. I - er - I'm hot because of the heat in here, that's all. And I'm wet because I've been sweating."

Bolt clicked his tongue impatiently. "I suggest you go into the shower room and make use of it," he stated dryly. "If you can tell me where a change of clothes is, I'll go and get them for you."

"Really, that's not necessary-"

"On the contrary, I think it's very necessary," returned Bolt, putting down the bottle of oil he had been carrying. "You don't mind waiting a few moments longer, do you, sir?"

Dominic shook his head and turned away. Bolt took Helen's arm and drew her determinedly out of the sauna room and into the changing area. "That's the shower," he indicated, closing the sauna room door with a firmness that belied his real feelings. "Now where are your clothes?"

Helen flushed, but she could see that there was no point in trying to evade the issue. "You'll find - underclothes in the dressing table drawer. And the corduroy jeans and sweater I was wearing a few days ago are hung together in the wardrobe."

"Good." Bolt was pleased. "Now, you get that shower. I'll be back before you're finished."

It was good to take a shower again, and Helen revelled in the warm stimulating spray, but her thoughts were still with Dominic Lyall in the sauna room. She re-lived the past few minutes in intimate detail, finding a vicarious thrill in recalling the pressure of his firm mouth on hers, and the sensual hardness of his lean muscular body. She closed her eyes and felt again the surge of urgent need he aroused within her and wondered how she could ever have imagined that she was without emotion. But no man had aroused her as he had done, aroused her and yet left her with a hunger that only complete surrender to him could assuage.

Her cheeks flamed anew. Here she was, actually contemplating making love to a man who was keeping her here against her will! She must be mad! Crazy! Insane, as he had said.

She sobered. The shower was cooling and so was she. She had done it again, hadn't she? She had allowed him to catch her off guard. Or was that entirely fair? Hadn't it been wholly her fault that he had touched her? Hadn't she been the one to arouse him by the silent supplication he had felt beneath her hands?

Someone was rapping on the door, and she called: "Who is it?" rather tremulously.

"Me - Bolt! Your clothes are outside the door. I'm going to give Mr. Lyall his treatment. Can you manage alone?"

Helen answered that she could and when she emerged into the gymnasium carrying her dirty things she felt infinitely cleaner. She wondered what she ought to do with her soiled clothes. She had no washing powder, but perhaps Bolt had, and maybe she could attend to them herself. She decided to leave them in the kitchen and mention them at lunch, but when she reached the ground floor a staggering thought struck her. If Dominic was in the sauna room and Bolt was massaging his hip, the study was empty...

With a thumping heart she dropped her clothes in a heap in the corner and hurried out into the hall. Fortunately there was no sign of Sheba either, although she opened the study door with extra caution just in case. But the room was deserted, as she had hoped, and closing the door quietly behind her she hurried across to the window ledge where she had first seen the telephone. She dragged the curtain aside. The phone was still there and her fingers shook as she reached for it. Who should she phone? Her father in London, or the local police? No, not the police, she decided quickly. She didn't want to involve the police in this.

She put the receiver to her ear and then, with her brows drawing together in perplexity, saw the thing she had not noticed before. The cord that was attached to the base of the telephone was hanging loosely against the wall. It was not attached to anything. It had been disconnected.

She dropped the receiver as if it had burnt her and stood back aghast. She felt a tremendous sense of betrayal, out of all proportion to what had occurred. After all, Dominic had told her he did not have the use of a telephone. It was her fault that she had seen the receiver and imagined it must needs be connected. It merely proved that he had not been lying to her after all.

With hunched shoulders, she tugged the curtain back into position, biding the cream telephone from view, and left the study. She was glad that no one had come upon her there and found toa: making a fool of herself. She went slowly up the stairs to her room. So the telephone was out. That particular escape route was to be denied to her. That only left the Range Rover, and she didn't even know where that was.

She couldn't bring herself to go downstairs again before lunch. She told herself it was because she was sick and dejected, but truthfully it was because she didn't feel she could face Dominic again. Not yet...

When she eventually did go down, it was to find Bolt in the kitchen, setting the table for two. He looked up cheerfully as she came in and said: "So there you are! I was beginning to think I would be having lunch on my own. Did you go back to bed?"

Helen shook her head. "No. I - I was resting."

"Good idea."

Bolt went on about his business and Helen fidgeted with the cutlery at her side of the table. "Is - er - is Mr. Lyall not having any lunch?"

"He's having a sandwich in his study,” said Bolt, straining potatoes over the sink.

"Oh, I see," Helen felt contrarily disappointed now that she knew she would not be seeing him after all.

Bolt turned back to her. "Helen -" He paused. "Helen, don't get involved here. I'm telling you for your own good."

Helen concentrated on the scrubbed surface of the table. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do. Look, it's nothing to do with me and you can tell me to mind my own business, if you like, but I'm not blind, you know. I can guess what happened this morning."

Helen sat down rather suddenly. "Can you? Why? Has it happened before?"

Bolt gave her an impatient look. "No, it hasn't happened before. But I know Dominic pretty well by now, and - well, I just hope you had the sense to -" He broke off, obviously finding it difficult to express himself.

"He didn't seduce me, if that's what you're trying to say," said Helen flatly.

Bolt's broad features turned slightly pink. "I just don't want you to get hurt, Helen."

"You keep saying that. How am I going to get hurt?"

"By getting involved with Mr. Lyall."

"Isn't that rather disloyal?"

Bolt sighed, sinking down into the seat opposite. "Helen, let me tell you something, something very few people know. Dominic blames himself for the accident -the accident that killed his brother."

Helen's eyes widened in dismay. "Why?"

Bolt hesitated. "I can't tell you. Besides, it's a long story."

"But you must tell me!" Helen rested her elbows on the table, staring at him. "Bolt, please! I want to know."

The manservant shook his head rather doubtfully. "Mr. Lyall wouldn't like it."

"Need he know?"

"And what happens when you leave here? When you return to your family? Who else will learn the truth then?"

"No one. I swear it"

Bolt made a negative gesture. "I find that hard to believe."

Helen held up her head. "I don't tell lies."

"I'm not suggesting you do. Just that you might -well, inadvertently say something at some time..."

"Oh, Bolt!" Helen cupped her face in her hands. He studied her dejected features for several seconds and then said perceptively: "It's too late, isn't it? You're already involved."

Helen's fingers moved over her cheeks "I don't know." She shrugged helplessly. "I don't want to be. I keep telling myself that I should hate him for Keeping me here -but I don't." She grimaced. "To think when I left London I was running away from men! "

Bolt frowned. "Are you sure you're not confusing sympathy with - something else?"

Helen gave a mirthless laugh. "I don't know. I don't know what to think. I only know that when he comes near me..." She halted abruptly. "Is - is his limp a permanent thing?"

"Oh, yes," Bolt nodded. "Part of his hip was shattered in the crash. The surgeons had to remove the splinters of bone."

"I see."

"At the time, when he recovered from the initial injuries, they wanted to operate again, to insert an artificial piece of bone to take the place of that which had been shattered, but Mr. Lyall wouldn't allow them to do it."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Everyone tried to persuade him, but he wouldn't have it. It was as though he wanted a permanent reminder..." Bolt sighed. "Naturally it aches when he stands too long, and his spine becomes painful. That's when massage can help."

"I understand." Helen listened intently. "I know a little about such things. My mother suffered from terrible headaches and she used to like me to massage her temples and the back of her neck." She hesitated. "Oh, Bolt, won't you tell me why Dominic blames himself for the crash?"

Bolt got to his feet. "He believes his brother tried to kill himself because he'd discovered that his wife was in love with Dominic."

"What?"

Bolt made an involuntary gesture. "Francis followed in his father's footsteps and joined the Army. He met Christina when he was out in Cyprus. He got married without telling anyone and brought his wife home. She was a bitch. As soon as she met Dominic - well, that's better left unsaid. Sufficient to say she persuaded Francis to leave the Army and take up motor racing as his brother had done. Francis wasn'tcut out to be a driver, but that didn't matter to her, and he was infatuated enough to try anything. He 'had a few laces, did averagely well, but that wasn't enough, of course. Dominic was winning his races, and Christina liked a winner."

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 -"

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