The Eden Inheritance (26 page)

As for Paul's arm, that was healing nicely now, thanks to the doctor at Périgueux and also to Kathryn, who had changed the dressings frequently enough to ensure that infection did not set in.

Paul knew he had been lucky. At best the wound could have meant he would have had to ask to be lifted out, at worst any part of the disastrous incident could have cost him his life. But luck, he knew, played a vital part in the success or otherwise of any agent. So far it had been on his side. He only hoped he had not used up whatever portion fate had allocated him, for he was going to need it in abundance soon. He was setting up an operation which would, if it worked, cause the Boche a considerable amount of trouble, but which was going to be difficult and dangerous.

One afternoon in May while Guy was out for a walk with Bridget, Kathryn came to his room as he had asked her to in order to talk about it.

‘I have a job planned and I think it would be best if I went away for a while,' he told her.

Kathryn did not ask the reason. She knew that as usual Paul was trying to distance the activities of Mariner from the château; should anything go wrong he did not want her involved. His concern warmed her heart but did nothing to make the prospect any easier. Already she knew how it would be when he was gone – the same worrying, the same waiting that she had to live through every time he went out ‘on business', wondering what he was doing, watching for his return tense with fear that he might, this time, be caught. And if he intended going away for a while it would be a hundred times worse, for the waiting would go on much longer and she would have no way of knowing if the operation had been a success or even if he had fallen into the hands of the Boche. But she knew better than to argue. Kathryn, who disputed every single decision Charles made, had learned that she must accept Paul's judgement as final.

‘Where would I say you'd gone?' she asked.

‘To Bordeaux to visit a colleague I used to teach with. I have everything planned. I'll take the train out in case anyone is watching, then, when I'm sure I'm not being followed, I'll make my way back. Don't worry. I'll be out of sight – or unrecognisable, anyway. All you have to do is cover for me.'

‘When do you leave?'

‘On Monday, so we should tell the others tonight that I am going. I don't want it to appear too sudden a decision.'

She nodded Monday was four days away.

‘You will be careful, won't you?'

‘Of course.' He was standing by the window. The sun, slanting in between the slats of the blind, was throwing stripes of shadow across his face and white shirt, open at the neck, and accentuating the thin covering of dark hairs on his forearms. Her heart lurched as it so often did when she looked at him, and now, more sharply then ever, her longing was tinged with fear for him.

‘I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to you,' she said huskily, and it was no more than the truth.

She saw his face soften, saw the mask of total implacable control slip a little, revealing the man behind the automaton he sometimes appeared to be. There had been other moments such as this in the weeks that had passed, moments of tenderness and mutual understanding, moments when the closeness between them was so real as to be tangible, moments when their very souls seemed to meet, sparking the depth of feeling that they shared more violently even than the light accidental touches or the quick squeeze of a hand. But there had been no more passionate kisses – by mutual agreement they had been postponed for a future they both knew might never come.

‘I mean it,' she said. ‘I really couldn't bear it, Paul.'

‘You would.' His voice was low, detached. Only his eyes were betraying him. ‘If anything happened to me you would have to be doubly strong, to avoid suspicion falling on the rest of the family.'

She wrapped her arms around herself. Through the thin cotton of her dress her fingers encountered her ribs, prominent as a fisherman's creel. She had lost a lot of weight recently and knew it was not only due to the fact that good nourishing food was beginning to be in really short supply. Mostly it was because she was living on the edge of her nerves.

‘I don't know that I could, I really don't. Sometimes, even now, I don't know how to go on. The strain seems to get worse all the time. Instead of getting used to it it's as if each time I'm worried or frightened it goes into a reservoir inside me that's just getting deeper and deeper.'

His brows farrowed slightly.

‘Kathryn – you're not going to crack, are you? Because if it is that bad perhaps I should move out permanently.'

‘No!' she said quickly. ‘ You mustn't do that.'

‘But if it's getting to be too much for you it's the only thing I can do. Everything depends on your keeping up the charade. You know that as well as I do. If your nerves start to show it could be the end – for all of us.'

She breathed deeply, steadying herself. He was right, of course – he always was. But the thought of him going – the certainty of not seeing him any more – was worse even than the constant anxiety.

‘I'll be all right,' she said, ‘ I guess I'm tougher than I think I am. I'm just so terribly afraid of what might happen to you.'

‘Come here,' he said.

She looked at him, starded almost – in spite of the strength of feeling between them, the habit of restraint was so strong it was almost impossible to break.

‘Come here,' he said again.

The longing to feel his arms around her overcame the self-imposed reserve. She went to him.

He held her gently at first, massaging her shoulders until he felt the tension begin to ease, then, as the awareness began to awaken both their bodies, he pulled her closer. Her hair smelled sweet – he buried his face in it and felt its softness against his cheek; the yielding pressure of her breasts against his chest started a fire within him. He moved his hands over her back, tracing the line of shoulder blades and spine, moving down to her waist, so small he felt that to snap her in two would be easy. Yet there was still a softness to her, a supple curve to her hips that was totally feminine, a warmth and a promise of passion that was making him forget all his good resolutions.

She moved a little in his arms, arching her neck and pressing her body close to his. He kissed her forehead beneath the soft fringe of hair, then her nose and lastly her lips. They were moist, trembling slightly with all the pent-up longing of the past weeks and months.

‘Kathryn,' he whispered against them, then parted them with his tongue, thrusting into her mouth.

She pressed herself more closely against him, moulding her body and legs to his. His hand moved to her breast, squeezing, caressing, locating the buttons at the neck of her dress and unfastening them to slip his hand inside. Her flesh was slightly moist from the heat of the afternoon, her nipples firm and erect beneath his touch.

He wanted her now with a ferocity that banished all caution; the fire within him making him forget everything but her nearness and his need of her. Gerie, the wife he had adored, his little daughter Beatrice, his hatred of the Nazis, the work he had come to France to do, the mission, dangerous but worthwhile, which faced him, all were relegated to the periphery of his consciousness. Kathryn was the only reality, his fierce longing for her the only thing of importance.

Her tea dress was not belted; he ran his hand on down over her stomach, softly rounded between the jut of her hip bones. In spite of the warmth of the day she was wearing stockings – not to do so at the château would be unthinkable for a lady – and the wisp of suspender belt cut a slight dent into her stomach. He touched her thighs, brushed the soft tuft of hair between them, and began to ease her gently towards the bed.

And then, with a suddeness that shocked, he felt her tense.

‘No!'

He moved his head slightly, looking at her. Her face bad gone shut-in and she appeared to be on the verge of tears.

‘We want one another, Kathryn,' he said in a low voice.

‘I know, but we mustn't. We agreed. You know we did.' She pulled away from him. ‘We agreed!' she said again, stubbornly repeating herself.

‘OK, so we agreed,' he said harshly. Frustrated desire was making him angry; he simply could not understand how one moment she could be so eager, so yielding, and the next so cold and unassailable, as if someone had simply tripped a switch and a light bad gone off. ‘It didn't seem like that a minute ago.'

‘Paul, don't be like this, please …'

‘I'm not being like anything.'

‘You are. You're angry. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry …'

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, turning away from her.

‘For God's sake –
you
don't, have to be sorry. It was all my doing. I was the one who broke the rules.'

She buttoned her dress, took a step or two towards him. He could feel her there, feel her outstretched hand with every tiny nerve ending, but he continued to stare out of the window, not because he did not want to look at her or touch her, but because he wanted to – too much.

‘I'll go,' she said in a small voice after a moment.

‘Yes – sure. I'll see you at dinner.'

He heard the door close after her and swore. What the hell had got into him? She was right, of course. They had agreed. But he had wanted her so much that agreement – and any other consideration – had ceased to matter. He had thought she felt the same way. Obviously she did not. Well, the heck with it. He would do well to put the episode behind him and get back to concentrating on the job in hand.

But he knew it would not be that easy. For the moment the fire might have been doused but beneath the surface it would continue to smoulder.

He wanted Kathryn, wanted her with a ferocity that denied all reason. Nothing could change that.

Kathryn closed the door and stood for a moment leaning against it. She was trembling violently and close to tears. Dear God, how she loved him! It would have been easy, so easy, to let him make love to her. She had wanted it with every fibre of her being, just as she had wanted it every time she had looked at him these past weeks. Caring so much for him and yet unable to express her – feelings by anything more than a look, being so close yet not daring to touch him in anything but the most platonic way, had driven her crazy, so that the love and the longing had intensified way beyond the bearable. And for a few wonderful, exhilarating minutes there in his room everything – anything – had seemed possible.

But of course it was not. Thinking that it could be, even for a moment, was madness, and not only because it would interfere with the job he had to do. That was only a part of it – a small part. Kathryn, with her innate loyalty and well-developed sense of right and wrong, took her marriage vows very seriously. Whatever she might feel for Paul, however desperately she might want him – love him, even – she was Charles' wife. Perhaps their marriage had become a sham, perhaps Charles was not, and never had been, the man she thought him, but she owed him a duty nonetheless. She had promised faithfulness and it seemed to her that that promise encompassed not only Charles but Guy also. He was her son, Charles was his father. His heritage was here at Savigny; her duty to him by proxy, as it were, of her vows to Charles meant the sanctity of the family unit.

She had, Kathryn thought, already betrayed both of them in her heart over these last weeks and months. She must not do so with her body.

She straightened, tidying her hair with her hands and checking again that her dress was buttoned properly. Then she went along the passage to her own room and opened the door.

‘Well,' said a voice from within. ‘You have decided to come back then.'

She jumped as if she had been shot. Charles was standing in the doorway to his dressing room. He was wearing the lightweight tweed suit he used for work but had removed the jacket. His hair was untidy as if he had been running his fingers through it and an expression of barely controlled fury contorted his features.

‘What do you mean?' she demanded. She had begun to tremble again.

‘Don't play the innocent with me, Katrine. You've been with him, haven't you – Paul Curtis – in his room. Has he been making love to you?'

The proximity of the truth made her cheeks flame.

‘No!' she cried. ‘No – he hasn't!'

‘Liar!' His voice was like a whiplash. ‘ It's written all oyer you. How long have you been cuckolding me with him, Katrine? How long, eh?'

‘I haven't, I tell you!'

‘And I don't believe you. Perhaps he was your lover in Switzerland, before we met. That's it, isn't it? That's why he's here. You couldn't stay away from one another.'

‘No!' But in the midst of her dismay and fear of this new, violent Charles, was a nugget of relief. Better that he should think that of her than suspect the truth.

‘No wonder you won't let me touch you!' he said bitterly. ‘As far as I'm concerned you act like a bloody vestal virgin and all the time your lover is just along the passage. What a fool I've been! Going off to the distillery, leaving you alone with him … that was just what you wanted, wasn't it?'

‘For the last time, Charles, he is not my lover!'

‘Huh!' he snorted furiously.

‘Well if you won't believe me, you won't,' she said, trying to gain some control over the situation. ‘ I suppose you'll throw him out now.'

‘And have the rest of the family know what a fool he has made of me? Not likely! No, he can stay. But a few things are going to be different round here.'

‘Oh really?' She felt a flash of scorn. How like Charles to be more concerned about his father's opinion than about making sure she never had another opportunity to – as he thought – make love with Paul. Any other man, thinking his wife was conducting an affair, would give her lover a bloody nose and the hell with who knew about it. Not Charles. Appearances were all-important to him, saving face was his prime consideration. Any other man would have kicked Paul out of the house and thrown his belongings after him. But Charles was not any other man. In fact, Kathryn was beginning to wonder if he was a real man at all.