A Season for Love (11 page)

But that was ridiculous—she was none of those things. And if his haunted body still yearned for her with an alien singleness and treachery, it didn't matter.

He could never touch her again.

She was Von Hurst's wife.

Chapter Four

As Ronnie hurried along the path she heard her name called again. Stopping, she saw that Drake was catching up with her, his long strides bringing him quickly along.

"Don't you think we should make an appearance together?" he suggested mildly, his expression now fathomless. "I was sent to escort you back in."

Ronnie watched him contemplatively for several seconds, then her dark lashes swept over her cheeks. "I suppose," she said indifferently.

He offered her his arm, and she accepted it lightly as they returned to the house. Pieter was already in the salon, where Henri was preparing stout snifters of a fine cognac.

"Ah—there you are!" Pieter greeted them jovially. His gaze alighted upon his wife with mild curiosity. "Are you quite all right, my dear?"

"Yes, fine." Ronnie smiled weakly, accepting her cognac with a nod of thanks to Henri. "I've a bit of a headache, though." She kept her gaze upon Pieter rather than Drake. "If you two will forgive me, I think I'll excuse myself shortly and retire for the night."

Pieter frowned and nodded his acquiescence. "My wife, I'm afraid, Drake, will need her rest. I don't go about much myself these days, so she'll be your escort around the island." His frown deepened and his brooding eyes turned to probe Ronnie. "I hope you didn't acquire sunstroke aboard that ship. Too much time in the sun is not healthy."

Ronnie tensed, sipping on her cognac, She didn't dare look in Drake's direction. "I'm fine, Pieter, just a little tired. I—er—I really wasn't in the sun that much." She winced at the folly of her last statement. If she had ever left an opening for Drake to pounce upon, that was it. But he said nothing. She couldn't see him from the angle of her chair, but she could sense his presence as he casually leaned against the bar.

Pieter turned to him in explanation. "Ronnie just sailed off on one of those Harbor cruises you see advertised." He lifted a gaunt hand in the air. "As I've said, I seldom leave the house myself. Veronica, however, is still young. I insist that she occasionally get out and enjoy herself."

"How nice," Drake replied, his tone betraying nothing. Ronnie could feel his dark eyes turn to her. "And did you enjoy yourself, Mrs. von Hurst? I hear that those cruises can be very pleasant—offering every amenity."

"Thank you, yes," Ronnie replied coolly, rising, still refusing to glance his way. "I did enjoy the cruise. Pieter"—she moved swiftly to her husband to drop a quick kiss on top of his thinning blond head, certain he would not brush her aside with company in the room—"I'm going up, if you don't mind. Mr. O'Hara"— she finally lifted her eyes to Drake's with a daring shade of defiance—"I do hope you'll forgive me. However, I'm sure that you and my husband have a multitude of things to discuss." With the regality of a queen, Ronnie then sailed from the room with her head high.

"I wonder," she heard Pieter murmuring absently as she closed the salon doors behind her, "if I'm fair to Ronnie in many ways. ..."

Ronnie grimaced as she started up the spiral stairway. Pieter couldn't know it, but his statement had probably given his guest quite a laugh.

The headache she had invented was pounding away in her skull as she reached the sanctuary of her room. Rubbing her temple assiduously, she kicked off her shoes and haphazardly began shedding her clothes, heedless for once of where things fell. She lay in her bed, clad only in her lace bra and panties, fighting the waves of nausea that assailed her and simultaneously discarding her idea to drink herself into oblivion.

The highballs, wine, and cognac she had already drunk hadn't done a thing to improve the situation, they had only added physical torture to mental! If she just lay still, very, very still . . .

Somewhere along the line she must have dozed off. She awoke with a start—and the immediate tingling, uncanny perception that she was not alone in the room. A scream rose in her throat, but before she could give vent to the sound a hand clamped tightly over her mouth. She knew instantly the scent and touch of the hand, as she did the deep voice that hissed, "Hush, it's me.

Shivering with both outrage and fear, Ronnie pushed at his hand and struggled into a sitting position, meeting his sinister dark gaze in the light of the moon with her own eyes snapping sapphire glints. "What are you doing in here!" she hissed furiously in return, wishing she had thought to draw down the covers before she had plopped on the bed. Her instinct was to grab something to clutch to herself, but there was nothing available.

"I haven't come to assault your dubious virtue," he commented dryly, his hips perched beside hers on the bed. "I want to know what's wrong with Pieter."

Ronnie's lashes fell, but she was quick with a comeback. "1 think you could have found a better time to discuss Pieter!"

"Oddly enough, my dear Mrs. von Hurst, this seems to be the only time I can guarantee having an audience with you alone."

Ronnie blinked rapidly, highly aware of her state of undress, whether he was or not. Apparently he already knew beyond a doubt that she and Pieter did not share a room.

"Pieter has not been well," she said quickly.

"Obviously," Drake drawled. His arms on either side of her, not touching her, held her as if between bars. His dark face, ruggedly swarthy in the moonlight, moved within inches of her own. "What's wrong with him?" It was a demand, not a question.

Ronnie clenched her teeth, meeting his stare silently as she played for time to think of an appropriate answer. His gaze momentarily left her face to sweep over her form and the cream of her silky skin displayed enticingly by the expensively cut underwear. Chills as vibrant as tiny electrical shocks seemed to prick at Ronnie's flesh, but his gaze returned to hers, cold and disinterested. "Well?"

"Drake," she began haughtily, "I'd appreciate it if you left my room. My husband—"

"Your husband isn't coming anywhere near here, and you and I both know it," Drake cut in coldly. "How long has Pieter been ill?"

"If you're concerned for Pieter, you'll get out," Ronnie retorted.

"I'll be happy to leave," Drake promised sardonically, "as soon as you answer my questions."

Ronnie blinked again, then released an exasperated sigh. She couldn't tell him anything, but she had to get him away from her. Her outrage was fast losing its intensity; the temptation to reach out and touch his harshly squared jaw was seeping through her to obliterate reason.

"I cannot discuss my husband's condition," she said flatly, fixing her vision upon his jacket sleeve. "Yes, as you have so brilliantly observed, Pieter has been ill. If you wish further answers, you'll have to ask him."

"Why?"

"Why?" Ronnie ejaculated, her voice rising with desperate annoyance at his persistence. "Because I have given Pieter my oath not to discuss him with anyone!"

"It would seem you have given him other oaths that you have seen fit to break," Drake grated harshly, pulling from her, his hand trailing a path insinuatingly across her midriff as he did so.

"Please, Drake," Ronnie begged, lowering her voice again with acute misery. "This is Pieter's house."

"I see—the place makes a difference."

"You wouldn't understand."

"I understand too well."

"Drake—"

"Don't fret, Mrs. von Hurst I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole." He stood abruptly, making her feel far worse and even more vulnerable as he towered above her, his broad shoulders rigid. "Is Pieter under a doctor's care?"

"Yes," Ronnie whispered, snatching her pillow from behind her back to clench over her torso. "The best."

Drake spun on his heels and quietly padded across the room to the door. He paused for only a second, his hand on the knob. In the darkness she could still see the burning glitter of his dark eyes. "Don't be a hypocrite, Ronnie. The pillow bit was definitely unnecessary. There isn't an inch of you I don't know better than the back of my own hand." His gaze raked over her one last time, fathomlessly. "See you tomorrow."

Then he was gone, and she was left to lie awake for the rest of the night, alternately feeling as if she were as hot as lava and then as frigidly frozen as a bleak stretch of Antarctic ice.

By morning Ronnie's nerves were sadly on edge. She was grateful when she dressed and cautiously walked downstairs to find herself alone in the dining room. There was no evidence that Drake and Pieter had eaten and left, but then she didn't expect to find any. Henri would have removed an empty coffee cup before the china had time to grow cold.

Intuitively certain that she would have a respite of peace, Ronnie decided she was famished. Making up for the meals she had barely touched, she piled her plate high with the cheese blintzes that were Gretel's specialty, lavishing them with thick mounds of strawberry jam and sour cream. She also prowled through the remaining chafing dishes, adding to her plate crisp slices of bacon, smoked Virginia ham, and a spoonful of the grits that Pieter considered "animal mash" but consistently ordered for the morning buffet. It was one of the small courtesies his continental mind tolerated for his born-and-bred southern wife;

one of the little niceties that tugged at Ronnie's heart. No matter how bitter, withdrawn, and cruel Pieter had been at times, she knew he never intentionally used her as a scapegoat. Remembering the little things, the trivial things like grits, was Pieter's way of apologizing, of telling her that he did appreciate all that she did, the untiring devotion she gave to him.

Because, despite the fact that Pieter seldom allowed her near him, and often exploded against her when she was, she had allowed him to keep the two things a desperately ill man needed most fervantly: his dignity and pride.

Reflecting on Pieter now, Ronnie wondered if she would have actually married him had he not become so sick. With Pieter, she had always responded to respect, ardor, and compassion
with
respect, ardor, and compassion. Her brief, shining love for Jamie had been very different. They had both been young Americans finding the wings of adulthood and romance in the spirited streets of Paris. They were both explorers, adventurers. They fought with a verbal vengeance, and patched up their quarrels with tears and passion.