Authors: Sara Craven
had caused all her doubts and uncertainties in the first place. All the
weeks before the wedding, she had turned them aside, armoured in
her love for Gethyn, resolutely closing her ears to every barbed
remark. But in the end, like water wearing away a stone, her
mother's words had got to her, and just when she was at her most
vulnerable.
Davina gave a shaky sigh as she walked slowly down the path to
the garden gate and stood for a moment leaning on it. But would
she have been so vulnerable if her feeling for Gethyn had not been
based on a transient physical attraction? As it was, her mother had
been right in one thing at least. She had known pitifully little of the
demands he would make of her. She had been totally misled by the
iron control of his wooing, had assumed he would be willing to
impose the same sort of restraint on himself once she belonged to
him. She could not have been more mistaken, she thought bitterly.
Gethyn's treatment of her on their wedding night had revealed him
as the barbarian her mother had always declared he was.
The sound of a vehicle making its way down the steep track
towards the house roused her from her reverie and looking up, she
saw a Landrover swing round the final bend with Huw grinning at
her from the driving seat. He jumped down and walked across to
her. He was wearing a light grey suit and his shirt and tie were
immaculate, and Davina was conscious of a sudden misgiving. He
looked older somehow and infinitely more sure of himself, and she
hoped fervently that he wasn't labouring under any mistaken
impressions where this evening was concerned. She had agreed to
go with him, largely through a sense of mischief. The fact that he
was an undeniably attractive young man had seemed unimportant at
the time. Now she was not so sure. Then just as she was about to
make some hurried excuse, the memory of the papers and
magazines a friend of her mother's had sent from New York flashed
back into her mind. Gethyn, sitting in a night club with a girl
dressed solely in what appeared to be some gauze veiling with a
sparse sprinkling of sequinned discs literally draped across him, and
the insinuative paragraph that had accompanied it, and later the
other pictures and stories about him and Lise Adair, the star of his
film. They had been 'constant companions' in the gossip column
phrase, although Alec, his agent, had told her that it was all a
publicity stunt. But then wouldn't he have been almost bound to say
that?
'What's the matter,
bach
? You're looking a bit down.' Huw had
reached her and was swinging the gate open. He jerked a thumb at
the house. 'Been having a spot of bother?'
'You could say that.' She tried to smile. 'Shall we go?'
'Hang on a minute!' He put his hand on her arm. His eyes studied
her. 'You look as if you've been having second thoughts. Would you
rather give the disco a miss? We can just go for a drive and have a
drink if you'd rather.'
'Oh, no,' she said hastily. 'The—the disco 'should be fun. I haven't
been to such a thing for ages.'
And in many ways it was fun. It was a fund-raising event held in a
village hall in a neighbouring hamlet, and there were young people
there from all over the area. The music was loud and strident with
an irresistible beat, and she danced with an energy she had not
dreamed she possessed. Huw was not her only partner. After what
Mrs Parry had said, Davina had felt slightly awkward as he
introduced her to his friends, but apart from their evident surprise
that Rhiannon was not with him, they accepted her unquestioningly.
But there was a slightly different reaction from some of the older
women at' the back of the hall who were preparing and serving the
refreshments. Davina supposed it was only natural that a strange
face at what was a purely local gathering should cause comment,
but she found their veiled scrutiny and the remarks in Welsh that
she could not follow an embarrassment.
Although she could not deny that she had enjoyed herself and that
the evening had helped put her personal problems which had
threatened to become obsessive to the back of her mind for a while,
at the same time it was quite a relief when it all came to an end and
Huw was driving her home along the quiet dark roads. He
negotiated the track down to Plas Gwyn with care and brought the
Land-rover to a halt at the front of the house which was all in
darkness.
'I hope I haven't been locked out,' Davina murmured, staring up at
the blank windows with faint apprehension.
'No chance of that,' Huw said briskly, as he helped her out. 'And if
you were, I know where the spare key is kept. Don't worry so
much.' He smiled at her. 'At least you don't look so much as if you
were strung up on wires as you did when I came for you.'
'Was it that bad?' she asked lightly. The front door gave slightly
under her hand and she gave a little sigh of relief. 'Well, thank you
for a pleasant evening.' She held out her hand. Huw took it
solemnly, but his eyes were dancing.
'I can take a hint,' he told her. 'But I don't need one. You belong to
Gethyn,
bach,
and I belong to Rhiannon, even if it's a hard job
convincing her sometimes. That's why I'm so glad you've come.
She'll have to get some of her daft notions about Gethyn out of her
head—and they are only daft notions. You don't have to worry.'
'No,' she said, 'I don't have to worry at all.'
'Right, then.' He leaned down and dropped a light kiss on her cheek.
'I'll tell you one thing—Gethyn's a lucky devil.' He gave her fingers
a parting squeeze and walked back to the Landrover. Davina
watched him climb in and start the engine and returned his brief
wave as he drove away. Then she turned and went into the still
house.
She stood in the hall for a moment, pressing her fingers against her
temples. They were throbbing slightly—and no wonder, she thought
wryly, after the strains and tensions of the day followed by the
music and flashing lights of the disco. But she knew that unless she
took prompt action, her head would soon be splitting. She felt in her
handbag and extracted the tiny box of painkillers she kept there,
then, walked down the passage to the kitchen to get a glass of
water.
She paused in the warm darkness, feeling on the wall for the light
switch, but she couldn't find it, and after a moment she decided she
could get her bearings well enough to find her way across the room
to the scullery. She set off cautiously, stumbling slightly against one
of the chairs which had been left out from the table. She was at the
scullery door, her fingers already grasping the knob, when the room
behind her was suddenly flooded with light. For a dazed moment,
she thought that she had inadvertently pressed some delayed action
time switch, and then she knew, as a cold fist turned in the pit of
her stomach, that she was not alone. She turned slowly.
Gethyn was standing in the doorway, his hand still on the light
switch.
'Good evening,
cariad.'
His tone made a mockery of the
endearment. 'So we meet again.'
For a long moment, Davina could not speak. The utter shock of
seeing him when she had imagined that he was miles away was
almost more than she could take. When at last she found her voice,
her words were tense and stumbling.
'But I thought ... they said ... I mean, I wasn't expecting ...'
He lifted an eyebrow and his mouth curled sardonically. 'You
weren't expecting to see me? Is that what you're trying to say? I
can't imagine why not. I do live here, after all.'
She flushed vividly. 'Yes, of course,' she said almost inaudibly. 'I'm
sorry—I've been a fool.'
His smile was humourless. 'What an admission—from a lady I
remember as a paragon of chilly perfection— Mummy's little girl to
her fingertips.' His eyes went over her. 'You've lost weight, Davina.
It doesn't suit you.'
She made a weary little gesture. 'It's been two years. Probably
we've both changed.'
He had, as she could see when she at last dared to take a good look
at him. The harsh lines of his dark face seemed even more
pronounced and there was a faint sprinkling of silver at his temples.
But his attraction was undiminished, she realised with a startled
pang. At once she was on her guard. So the confrontation she had
feared had come to pass, and her second thoughts had come just
twenty-four hours too late. But she had invited this by her foolhardy
decision to come here, and now she had to face the consequences.
Her head was aching now in real earnest, and she lifted her chin as
she looked at him.
'I came to fetch a glass of water,' she said. 'May I get it before we
talk?'
'Always assuming we have anything to talk about.' There was a note
in his voice which made her flinch. She walked into the scullery and
turned on the cold tap, reaching for a tumbler which stood in the
drying rack. She filled the glass, then opened the tiny gold pillbox
and took her tablets.
She had not heard him follow her and she cried out in alarm as his
hand came from behind and closed over hers and the box it held.
'Tranquillisers or sleeping pills?' he asked grimly.
'Neither.' She tried to control her heavily thudding heartbeats.
'Although I do have some sleeping pills—upstairs.'
Upstairs, she thought suddenly. My God, upstairs in his room. He
was standing so close behind her that she could feel the actual
warmth of his body. With a feeling of desperation, she hastily
rinsed out the glass and turned away. She wanted to get away into
the kitchen where there was more room—where she could put more
space between them. And heard, as if he guessed what was going
through her mind, his soft laugh, deep in his throat.
She walked round to the other side of the big table, pulled out one
of the chairs and subsided thankfully on to it. Gethyn did not follow
her example but propped himself lazily in the scullery doorway.
'Well,' he said, 'start talking. It's been a long day, and I wasn't
expecting to have to drive back here tonight.' Her startled eyes met
his and he nodded sardonically. 'You're quite right—a little bird did
tip me off that you were here and advised me to waste no time
getting back.'
Davina dug her nails into the palms of her hands. She knew who
was responsible for that—and why. She wondered precisely what
the message had been from Mrs Parry. To hurry home because his
estranged wife could be finding herself a new boy-friend?
'It's not what you think,' she began hurriedly, 'Rhiannon provoked
me, I'm afraid, otherwise I would never have accepted Huw's
invitation.'
His green eyes widened, catlike. He lifted one shoulder in an idle
shrug. 'I wasn't aware I'd asked for an explanation. You established
a long time ago that you're your own— mistress, and I don't
imagine that chaste embrace I saw in the doorway just now will
have changed the situation very radically.'
'Oh,' she said rather lamely, aware that her colour had deepened
again. So he'd seen that, had he? she thought furiously. Wasn't it
typical that he should be lurking in the shadows just at that
moment? And she wished vindictively and paradoxically that she
had responded to Huw's almost brotherly salute and given him
something to spy on.
She deliberately choked back her resentment and tried for a
businesslike tone. 'It must have come as a surprise to you to learn
that I was here, but I do have a reason.'
'I don't doubt that. The only thing we might differ on is our versions
of your reason. But go on
, cariad,
you have my undivided
attention.'
'For once,' she muttered unwisely, and saw the green eyes flame
suddenly, but his relaxed position leaning against the door jamb did
not alter.
'Now you do surprise me,' he drawled. 'I had the strongest
impression that my attentions to you were totally unwelcome.'
She stared down at the scrubbed table top, refusing to meet his
gaze.
'I should be glad if we could remove this conversation from the
personal level,' she said stiltedly. 'I don't see that any purpose will
be served by harping back over old grievances.' That was true at