Brittle Bondage (10 page)

Obviously, Natalie was Blake’s sort of woman. In any case, what grounds had she, Venetia, for being certain that he was not a man in love? Couldn’t his aloofness and cynicism be explained by the bitterness of being tied to Venetia and having to coerce his more passionate feelings into the narrow channel of fondness for her? Why, oh why hadn’t he married Natalie a year ago?

CHAPTER
TEN

THE bungalow servant, finished her clearing up at ten on Thursday morning. As usual, she asked, in her flat, disinterested voice, if there were any other jobs to do and when Venetia gave her permission to go she slapped out in her big felt slippers and pulled the door shut.

Venetia had no plans for passing the hours. Thea had suggested a morning with the off-duty nurses at the swimming-pool or a tour of the public library and town gardens, but neither diversion appealed very strongly.

This time tomorrow she would be packing her bag in readiness to be carried back to Bondolo, where Blake would resume his duties of protecting and providing for her. It had been bad enough before; now it promised to be stark anguish. She didn’t want to be protected and provided for. During their parting she had realized that she wanted to be loved, to thrill to the exciting strains of life’s music, to exist in an enchanted realm, if but for awhile. Yet Neil’s revelation had thrust her farther than ever from such a realization.

She was kneeling at the bookshelves when the doorbell let out its insistent, high-pitched summons. The unusualness of the sound held her paralysed for a moment, head turned towards the door. No one ever came here for the nurses, and messages were brought by the servant, who always used the back door. That was invariably left unlocked. Who could it be? Surely Neil wouldn’t have the nerve
...

It came again, so peremptorily that she sprang upright and crossed the room to release the catch on the main door. Blake stood there. Blake in one of his light suits with a maroon silk shirt and matching tie, his dark hair gleaming and his lean features set in a smile. And, mercifully, there was not the vestige of cynicism about him.

T
h
e blue eyes went huge, the grey ones looked into them, and there followed a pause in which questions floated and disintegrated, unanswered.

“Whom did you expect?” he said. “Santa Claus?”

Venetia glowed. There was singing in the air and the hot, windless day had gone tender and lovely. Involuntarily she fingered his cuff and raised her mouth. He bent and kissed her cheek, but not far from her lips. Sh
y
ness stooped her from moving her head so that their mouths might meet.

“Am I allowed in?” he asked.

“Officially, no. But there’s no one else here.” Her elation was already dimming. She picked up the book she had been perusing and wedged it back where it belonged. “Did you come into town on business?”

“I wouldn’t call it that.” He leaned lightly against the scarred table and flicked an insect from the posy bowl. “As a matter of fact, over breakfast this morning I remembered that Paul Rivers attends the native clinic every Thursday afternoon, and it occurred to me that this week he might take you with him. Paul wouldn’t see any harm in it and nor would Thea, but I’d hate to think of your being plunged into an experience of that sort, quite apart from the risk of infection.”

“So you came here to
...
forbid me to go?”

“I came to save you from it,” he corrected her quietly.

She picked at a scratch on the varnished back of a chair. “I’d rather have gone. I suppose one of these days you’ll let me grow up, Blake.”

“That’s up to you,” he returned evenly, and added, “Is this the way you’ve been killing time—mooning around alone in this antiseptic-den?”

“I’ve been out most days.”

“Had fun?” If he felt curiosity he kept it from his voice.

“Lots, and Thea has been splendid.”

He moved nearer, to examine a cheap print on the wall above the bookshelves. Carelessly he said, “How long will it take you to get packed?”

“Now?” she asked, startled.

“It will save me the journey into town tomorrow.” A pause. “Perhaps you’d rather stay?”

“Of course not!” She was eager and alive once more. She laughed. “I had a horrid foreboding that you were on the point of telling me to stretch my holiday a further week.”

“Would that be so unpleasant?”

“Frightful,” she said, sobering. “I’ve missed Bondolo.”

His mouth twitched. “Bondolo has missed you, too. Even the houseboys have been difficult as hell. Get your
belongings, then. Shall I help you?”

“You’re too big—the bedroom’s tiny. I’ll hurry.”

Ten minutes later they had delivered a note for Thea at the lodge and were started for Bondolo.

Soon they were rolling between the terraced acres of sugar. In a clearing some women squatted, weaving baskets and mats from sisal and osiers, while their babies crawled in the shade of a marula.

They swung through the drive and stopped below the porch. She got out and ran up the steps, was brought to a halt in the hall before the largest, pinkest and most gloriously exotic mass of proteas she had ever seen.

“Oh, Blake!” she breathed. “Where did you get them?”

His arm lay across her shoulders. “I reached them down from behind a pink cloud this morning.” His nonsense both delighted and hurt, like the arm at her back. “You’ll find some gardenias in your room.”

Seconds passed before she could murmur. “You meant me to come home today.”

“How did you guess?” he returned mockingly.

She turned within his arm and looked up at him. “Is ... everything all right?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Her smile quivered. “Blake, will you kiss me
...
properly?”

There was a longish silence. Then with a sharp smile he said: “Sure you can take it? I’m not sure I can.”

She thought he was joking, but as her shoulders were gripped she knew that he wasn’t. He kissed her lips, but she hardly felt it because of the bite of his fingers into her flesh. All his intensity seemed concentrated upon keeping at least six inches between them.

Then his hands dropped. He spoke in level tones.

“Cut along and get your swim-suit. There’s time for a bathe before lunch.”

Later, when she was res
t
ing in the early afternoon, Venetia wondered how much had been accomplished by her absence from Blake. The gardenias blowing gently in the breeze from the window were evidence of his pleasure in her return, but he had not said very much, and had changed into breeches and gone back to work straight after lunch.

Had she been a fool to beg for the kiss? Wasn’t such a plea likely to make him think her still girlish and seeking after the sweet ideal? His kiss had conveyed that he didn’t want her that way; he had no tender and ardent love to offer.

Dimly Venetia thought she understood how he had felt. A man can make love to a woman without being in love with her. Blake could have made love to Venetia had she not been the wife he had sworn to cherish.

Would thi
s
day ever come when there would be no reservations, no subterfuge between them—when he would walk into the room where she was lying, like this, and sit on the side of the bed to talk easily and naturally about lovely, intimate things?

What was he waiting for? Had he set a time-limit to this strange, nerve-wearing relationship of theirs? Only the future could answer her flood of questions.

Margery Clarke arrived for tea. Complacent and neighbourly, she brought a pot of freshly made apricot jam, the latest news of her son, and gossip of the farm. Her hoarse, amusing voice rambled on till Blake came in when she pulled her thin, tough body upright and cheerfully rattled away in the tourer.

“She’s a nice woman,” Blake commented. “A reed wra
pp
ed in washed-out linen, but definitely sound.” He sat down. “Let’s have some fresh tea, shall we? Seems a year since we last had tea together.”

Venetia drew a deep hut inaudible breath. The past week was a dream, the present, reality. And Natalie Benham—well, maybe she was part of a bad dream, too.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THEY were stretched all four of them, in various positions of ease against a grass-clad dune overhung by weeping trees. Below them the beach lay in a long, white curve, which ended to the right where the river mouth began. The rollers foamed lazily over the sand and sank, leaving it scalloped for a minute with glittering gold.

Thea, in deep yellow silk, her hair gathered into a careless but very effective knot in her nape, smiled down upon the more recumbent Venetia and raised her head to include the two men in her glance.

“It’s years since I spent such an idle Sunday. I thought I’d got out of the way of enjoying them, but I haven’t. Been good hasn’t it?”

“Heavenly,” agreed Venetia. “Much better than a party. I hadn’t the least idea, till Blake suggested it, that Bondolo is only sixty miles from the coast.”

“This place is dead east from Bondolo,” he put in. “Our river runs into this one. Few people tackle the bad road—they’d rather travel on tarmac and have a week-end in Durban.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Venetia firmly. “Uncivilized Africa is much more beautiful.”

She had on a blue-and-white striped dress and lay with her fingers locked loosely in her gold-tipped hair. Thea could glimpse the ring which Blake had given her yesterday, on her birthday: a square sapphire with a diamond bar at each side. A costly piece of jewellery, which Venetia had protested against wearing on a picnic. Blake, in teasing humour had insisted that it was time she looked her age. Stretched there, she did look just about nineteen. Her slim waist and the soft curves of breast and thigh were young and lovely.

Paul took a peep at his watch, and Venetia said quickly: “That’s wicked, Paul. We’re not leaving till six.”

Blake got up and dusted off his shorts. “It’s five-thirty. What about a walk before we leave?” He pulled Venetia to her feet and stood regarding the other two. “Coming, you sluggards?”

“I don’t think so, Blake,” said Paul. And Thea said nothing.

She looked after her brother and Venetia as they leapt down to the beach and plodded away in the yielding sand. “You were wrong about them,” Paul said quietly.

“I hope so, but I’m still uncertain. It’s strange; my feelings seem to be all with Venetia, not with Blake.”

“Hardly strange. You’re a Garrard, and Blake’s imperviousness is a harder, more masculine version of your own—you’re naturally antagonized by it. Pity us poor mortals who strive to pierce it.”

Thea stared steadily out at the blue sea. “I’ve been intending to apologize for my abruptness the night you asked Venetia and me to your house. It was rotten of me to turn you down like that. I didn’t realize, till the damage was done, that you’d be
...
injured.”

“Not injured, Thea.” He spoke in the same quiet, level tones. “That savours too much of the vanity and I’m not a conceited man. I admit I was hurt, which was the effect you aimed for
...
wasn’t it?”

She was silent. Paul, lounging a yard away, was so placed that he could watch her clear, regular profile while she searched the horizon and pondered.

“If you’d care to atone,” he said, “you can do so any time. The house hasn’t decamped.”

“I will come, Paul.” Her head became a fraction more averted from him. “This evening, if you like—I’m free till ten o’clock. I won’t go to Bondolo for dinner. Have you any calls to make?”

“Two, which I can fit in on the way back, if you won’t mind waiting in the car. Dennis has taken over for me today.” More shaken by her capitulation than he would have admitted, he went on: “I gave the houseboy the day off, so it will be pot-luck in the pantry. Do you mind?”

“I’m a nurse,” she said.

To Paul the roar of the sea came suddenly loud. He would have liked to lean over and make her meet his eyes, to say something which would bring a flush to the creamy skin, a tremor to that controlled mouth. But the time for testing had not quite arrived.

“How are you finding Ward Three?” he asked.

An instant’s pause while she switched her thoughts. Then, “It’s a change from Seven—greater responsibility and the work is more varied.”

Contrary to her habit, she ran on, describing a couple of cases and a minor fracas with one of the staff, and soon she was smiling easily and perhaps with a shade of gratitude for his understanding.

“In Three you have more contact with Dr. Dennis,” he said. “A pleasant chap.”

“He’s easy to get along with. He saves his best jokes for me, I believe.”

“So I’ve noticed,” he remarked drily. “Does it quicken your pulse to know that he admires you?”

“I’ll time it and make out a report,” she told him lightly. “If we’re going to get away at six we really must move. Give me a cigarette, Paul, and help me to stow the basket and rugs in the back of Blake’s car.”

When Venetia and Blake returned, Paul had already reversed his own car.

“Is it all right with you if Thea and I go full speed ahead?” he said.

“Are you abducting Thea,” enquired Venetia, “or is she going with you of her own free will?”

“Did you ever hear of Thea doing anything she’d a mind not to?” replied Paul. “Good-bye, Venetia. It’s been a marvellous day. Invite me along next year.”

Next year! She felt a twinge of exhilaration and fear. It didn’t do to peer beyond the present.

“You’re invited,” she assured him gaily. “When shall we see you both again?”

Thea said, “I’m still hung up for my long week-end, but I’ll drive over on my next half-day.”

The car bumped away. Venetia waved till it was out of sight, and turned to encounter Blake’s eyes fixed quizzically upon her.

“Not a bad idea,” he said.

She coloured slightly. “What isn’t?”

“Paul and Thea—I hadn’t thought of it myself. I see you in a new role, Venetia.”

She jerked open the car door and slid into her seat. “You’re getting at me again.”

“God forbid. I’m merely congratulating you on yet another wifely instinct—the pairing off of one’s friends and
relations. Don’t slam the door like that,” he added severely, through the window. “You’ll snap the lock.”

“
Well, you make me feel like breaking something when you mock. As if I’d go in for match-making! Thea knew Paul before I’d met either of them.”

He edged in behind the wheel. “Sister Garrard was professionally acquainted with Dr. Rivers,” he half agreed. “I doubt if it went far beyond that.”

“They won’t marry,” said Venetia
un
thinking
ly.
“She doesn’t care enough.”

His mouth was sardonic. “Both are a few years ahead of you. She’s thirty and he’s a couple of years older. Who are you to judge?”

“
Thea’s cold,” she said, more cautiously. “One should really have sympathy for Paul. She’s determined not to unbend.”

He shifted in his seat and pressed the starter. “Pure defensive tactics, through that other affair. She’s terrified of laying herself open to a repetition of it.” In a rather altered tone, he asked, “What makes you so certain that Paul is in love with her?”

“I didn’t say so.”

“You implied it. Paul can be as poker-faced as the rest of us. I’m interested to find out how he’s revealed himself to be a man in the throes of unrequited passion.”

“He hasn’t.” Her attention was trained on the passing wattle trees. “But
it’s
obvious to anyone that he likes and admires Thea. I’d rather not talk any more about it.” Thereafter they covered a couple of miles in silence. Then Blake commented on the failing light and said she must be tired after the day in the sun.

After she had completed her household duties next morning she set out for her ride alone. Ginger had gone lame, and Blake was expecting two new horses to arrive from the stud farm during the morning. He put her up on a bay mare, lengthened the straps a few inches, and repe
a
ted an injunction that she take it easy and go no further than the river.

Venetia liked the breeze shivering through her shirt and whipping her collar against her neck though the mare at
cantering speed was as unsettling as a raft in heavy seas.
Lazing
in
the veld she had lost rhythm and condition. What a relief to come within sight of the fenced-in pasture which adjoined the garden.

Blake was there with a couple of boys and two strange horses, one a dainty silver gelding and the other a big, mahogany-sheened stallion. A beauty, the stallion with flaring nostrils tossing mane and high-stepping legs; it was all the boy could do to hold him.

As she approached the group at a lope, Venetia concentrated all her attention on the new horses. Apparently they weren’t yet broken in. She saw the stallion jerk away from the groom and career madly across the field, felt a shudder run through the bay and knew the weird
sensation
of clinging with all her strength to a rearing, frightened beast.

For minutes she could not think.

She heard Blake shout: “Dig in! Pull left! You hear me, Venetia? Dig in!”

But the bay was not the fine-boned Ginger to which she was accustomed. She did dig in and pull left, but the mare responded on hind legs and tore round in a circle, so that the world spun sickeningly across Venetia’s vision. All she could do was close her eyes, steel every sinew against the shattering bumps, and wait.

The boys were yelling, dogs barking and the horses bellowing their own sounds of fear and excitement. She never knew just how it ended. Blake had somehow snatched the reins from her, shoved an arm about her, flung his whole weight over the mare’s neck and brought it to a quivering standstill.

Venetia sat slumped, lungs bursting. He lifted her down and held her while her breathing evened and strength came back into her legs.

“Brave girl,” he murmured into her hair. “You were splendid. Easy, my dear
...
easy. It’s all over.”

Gradually her trembling ceased. The universe had righted itself and she was clamped by one of Blake’s arms, his other hand hard on the back of her head so that her
face pressed into him. She was in his arms at last. She wished that this could go on for ever.

“The bay was never much of a horse,” he was saying soothingly, “but I haven’t known her to lose her wits before or I wouldn’t have let you ride her. I thought she was too fat and placid to give trouble—in fact I expected you to come back grumbling that I mi
gh
t as well have put you on a rocking-horse.”

“I almost did,” came the muffled reply.

“It was bad luck that the big brown scared her. Are you all right now?”

With her cheek against the breast-pocket of his shirt she was painfully, ecstatically all right. “Yes,” she said.

“Let me look at your hands.”

It was over. A foot of space between them and both palms raised for his scrutiny.

“Poor scraps
,
” he said gently. “They’re red, but the skin isn’t grazed, thank heaven. Gripping so hard with them probably saved you from something worse.”