Читать книгу Forbidden Pleasure - Robyn Donald - Страница 9

AFTER a restless, dream-hounded night, Ianthe drank two cups of tea and forced herself to eat a slice of toast before driving down to the nearest town, the sleepy little port of Dargaville on the wide reaches of the Northern Wairoa River.

When she’d stocked up on the groceries that weren’t available in the small shop at the motor camp, she bought a couple of magazines and tried hard to resist several new paperbacks. Succumbing, she appeased her conscience by buying another four from the reject rack at the library.

About halfway home she saw a Range Rover pushed sideways into the ditch. A familiar figure stood beside it, surveying the damage.

She almost put her foot down and accelerated past Mark the frogmarcher, but in some odd way his behaviour had formed a tenuous bond between them, so she drew in behind and got out. ‘Hello,’ she said coolly. ‘Are you all right?’

Mark stood unsmiling. ‘I’m fine.’

Wondering why she’d bothered, Ianthe persevered, ‘Do you want me to call in at the Kaihu garage for you?’

‘Everything’s under control,’ he told her, ‘but you could do me a favour—I’ve got frozen goods, and although they’re well-wrapped they aren’t going to last. Would you drop them off at the house?’

He must have decided she was relatively harmless. Fighting down an odd sense of darkening destiny, Ianthe said crisply, ‘Yes, I’ll do that. Will you need a ride back after the Rover’s been towed to the garage?’

‘No.’

‘All right,’ she said, still feeling that she was burning unknown bridges behind her. ‘Hand over the frozen stuff and I’ll deliver it.’

Five minutes later she was on her way, with a large plastic bag in the boot of her car and a frown pulling at the smooth skin above her brows. If she’d had any common sense at all she’d have driven on past, but she was too imbued with the New Zealand instinct to help.

And now she had to beard the lion in his den—no, the hawk in his nest.

Perhaps hawks had eyries, like eagles, she thought with a faint smile, flicking down the visor as the sun shimmered like a mirage on the tarseal in front of her. A hawk in a summer sky, proud and fierce and lethal…

And handsome. That disturbing familiarity tugging at her mind was probably instinctive female homage to an ideal of masculine beauty. The arrangement of his features pleased some integral pattern set up by the human brain so she recognised him as good-looking.

Logical, when you thought it through.

A too-fast swerve around the next corner banished the enigma of her unwilling host of the previous day. From then on she concentrated, driving past the other three lakes and the locked gate that separated the reserve from the fourth lake in its nest of pines, along a road with farms on one side and the sombre green of the plantation on the other, until she made a right-angle turn over a cattlestop onto a very ordinary drive. It didn’t look as though a man of mystery lived at the end of it.

As she drew up under that splendid porte-cochère every cell in Ianthe’s body thrummed with a hidden excitement, heating her skin and sharpening her senses.

She got out and rang the doorbell to the accompaniment of the busy, high-pitched chattering of a fantail fluttering amongst the gold-spotted aurelia leaves. Instead of the rich golden brown of the common variety, this one was sooty, with a breast of dark chocolate, the comical white brow and collar missing. Ianthe wasn’t a bird person, but she knew enough about the small, cheerful birds to be aware that black fantails were unusual in the North Island.

Its complete lack of fear and its sombre colouring shouldn’t have lifted the hair on the back of her neck. Although she was aware of the bird’s Maori reputation as a harbinger of death, she was a scientist, for heaven’s sake. Yet, as she stood before the big wooden door, the fantail seemed like a magic messenger, the emissary from another world who summons the hero to a quest.

How’s that for logical, professional thinking? she mocked. Darwin would be proud of you.

With a shrug she turned to ring the bell again, but before her finger touched it the door opened silently and the man who had haunted her sleep looked at her.

Something flared in the light eyes, a response she couldn’t read; it was instantly replaced by an aloof withdrawal.

Stung, she summoned a glib professional smile. ‘I have some frozen groceries that your—chauffeur asked me to deliver.’

The frown remained, albeit reduced to a pleat of the black brows. His eyes revealed nothing but shimmering silver depths, cold and lucent. ‘Thank you.’

He walked beside her to the car. ‘Which are the frozen goods? I’ll get them.’ Straightening with the plastic bag, he told her, ‘Mark got pushed into the ditch by a truck that was avoiding a dog. Thank you for being a good samaritan.’

So he’d known she was on her way. She said lightly, ‘You can’t compare delivering a parcel of frozen peas to rescuing a man who fell among thieves. I’d better be off. I hope all goes well with the Rover.’

Ianthe couldn’t read any emotion in his expression or his tone. Silence stretched between them, taut, obscurely equivocal.

Evenly, without emphasis, he said, ‘Come and have something to drink. You look hot and tired and thirsty.’

A flicker of movement from the little fantail caught Ianthe’s eye. Perched on the topmost twig of the leafy plant, the bird spread its tail feathers, black plumage a startling contrast to green and gold leaves. Round, bright eyes seemed to fix onto Ianthe, insistent, commanding.

It was stupid to give any significance to such a tiny creature, seen almost every day in New Zealand. It would be even more stupid to accept this invitation.

Yet some impulse, a heartbeat away from refusal, changed her mind. Slowly she said, ‘That sounds wonderful. I am hot and tired and thirsty.’

He smiled, and her heart flipped. ‘But perhaps we should be introduced first,’ he said, and held out his free hand. ‘I’m Alex Considine.’

She knew that name! She just couldn’t place it. On a subtly exhaled breath she said, ‘I’m Ianthe Brown,’ and with a kind of resignation put her hand into his.

The moment it closed over hers a wildfire response stormed through her, drowning out common sense and caution. Dizzily she thought that the handshake was a claiming, a symbolic gesture of possession taken and granted.

Ridiculous, she thought, panicking. Utterly ridiculous!

Possibly she jerked her hand away, but he let it go as though women who shivered when he touched them weren’t uncommon in his life.

It probably happened all the time, she thought, and said inanely, ‘How do you do?’

‘How do you do, Miss Brown?’ he said, amusement deepening his voice. ‘Come in. Is there anything you want to bring with you? Some frozen goods, perhaps, to add to mine in the freezer?’

Damn! She should have dropped her meat off on the way here. But, no, she’d been so excited at the prospect of seeing him again she’d driven mindlessly past the turn-off. ‘Actually, yes, there is,’ she admitted, grateful to be able to stoop and lift her parcel from the car.

Adding it to his, he motioned her to go ahead. Chin tilted, she obeyed, saying with a casual smile, ‘Miss Brown sounds incredibly formal. I answer better to Ianthe.’

His lashes drooped for a micro-second. ‘Then you must call me Alex,’ he said, and showed her into the sitting room with its wonderful view of the beach and the lake. ‘If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll put these in the freezer.’

He was not, Ianthe thought as she walked across to the open doors and squinted at the violent contrast of white sand against the bold blue of the water, the sort of man you offered to help.

Cicadas played their tiny penetrating zithers in the branches of the trees behind the house. The familiar noise set Ianthe’s nerves jumping; trying to centre herself, she took a few deep breaths, but her skin tightened. She turned a little clumsily, and there was Alex coming in through the door with a tray that held bottles of various sorts.

‘I can make tea or coffee if you’d prefer either,’ he said when she glanced at the tray.

Ianthe shook her head. ‘No, something cold would be wonderful,’ she said gratefully.

‘Come outside; it’s marginally cooler.’

A terrace stretched along the front of the house, and there, shaded by the roof, was a sitting-out area—comfortable white squabs and cushions on long benches. Above, a pergola draped with vines shaded eyes from the vibrating intensity of the sun. It was completely private. You could, Ianthe thought enviously, lie naked on those squabs and let the sun soak bone deep.

Unfortunately she couldn’t risk it with skin as pale as hers. Not so Alex Considine, whose darker skin would only deepen in colour under the sun’s caress. However, his aura of leashed energy made it difficult to imagine him lying around with no aim but to polish up his tan.

Her stomach contracting at the images that flashed across her far too co-operative brain, she asked swiftly, ‘Why did you decide to come here for your holidays, Alex?’

He answered readily enough. ‘I wanted somewhere peaceful where I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. What would you like—orange juice, lime, or something else?’

His explanation was, Ianthe thought shrewdly, the truth, but not the whole truth. ‘Lime, thank you.’

Accepting the glass he handed her, she observed, ‘I bet before you go home you’ll have tripped over someone you know. New Zealand’s notorious for coincidences.’

Long black lashes hid his eyes for a second. ‘I hope not,’ he said neutrally. ‘But if it’s inevitable, I certainly hope I see them before they see me. Have you come here for peace and solitude too?’

Ianthe turned her head to stare at the lake. Even through the thin cotton of her trousers she could feel the canvas squabs radiate the heat they’d trapped from the sun.

‘Yes,’ she said simply, for some reason no longer unwilling to talk about it. ‘I got bitten by a shark, and when the whole media circus ended and I came out of hospital for the third time I just wanted to crawl away to heal by myself.’

If he’d shown any sign of pity she’d have set her glass down and made some excuse and left, but he said in a judicial voice, ‘That must be the most terrifying thing that can happen to anyone.’

‘Oddly enough, I don’t think it was. I was half out of the water when it happened, climbing the ladder into the boat. I can’t remember much, but I do recall thinking that I was in the shark’s hunting grounds. And being surprised that there was no pain, although when it grabbed my leg I was shocked enough to punch it on the nose! I was lucky. It wasn’t a big one, and apparently it didn’t like being hit fair and square on its most sensitive spot.’

‘What sort of shark?’ he asked.

Surprised into laughter, because that was what her professor at university had asked when he’d come to see her in hospital, she told him, ‘A Tiger Shark.’

‘And did they catch it?’

She shook her head. ‘No, they didn’t try. Why kill something that’s only doing what it was born to do? As far as we know—and in spite of Jaws—sharks don’t turn into man-eaters, the way leopards or lions can. They just eat whatever comes to hand, and that day I was it.’

‘You’re remarkably tolerant,’ he said, his tone oblique, almost cryptic. ‘I’d be inclined to kill something that tried to eat me.’

After flicking him a glance, she became absorbed in the pattern of leaves on the ground. She believed him.

‘They’re an endangered species,’ she said. ‘I was in its element, and whenever you swim you risk bumping into something large and carnivorous or small and poisonous.’

‘And you enjoy swimming.’

Ianthe drank some of the liquid, relishing the refreshing tartness. ‘I always have,’ she said at last.

His gaze sharpened, but after a moment he nodded. Feeling as a possum must when the spotlight swings away from its tree, Ianthe allowed herself to relax.

‘You spoke of a media circus,’ he said. ‘Was that because you’re a television celebrity?’

Mark, of course. It was unlikely he’d seen the documentary series—as far as she knew, it had only just sold to England and America. Wishing Mark had kept his mouth shut, Ianthe said lightly, ‘Shark attacks are always newsworthy. I was only a very minor celebrity.’ The scar on her leg itched. She ignored it, as she wished she could ignore Alex’s speculative glance.

‘And how did you get into such a career?’ he asked.

He didn’t sound avid, merely interested. Pleased at his restraint, Ianthe said, ‘I’m a marine biologist, and I was working with dolphins in the Bay of Islands when a film crew thought I’d make a nice little clip on a reel they were making for Air New Zealand. About six months later someone rang up and asked if I’d front a documentary series about New Zealand’s marine life.’

‘And, dazzled by the glamour, you agreed.’ His voice missed mockery by a whisker; although he was teasing her, there was understanding and amusement there.

She laughed. ‘If that was the reason I’d have been very disappointed! We lived in pretty spartan conditions on a glorious schooner that was built for freight, not passengers. No, I decided to do it because I’d just had the plug pulled on my research funding and the film company offered good money—enough to keep me from going cap in hand to sponsors for quite a while if I lived economically.’

‘And will you be going back to your dolphins?’

‘As soon as I can.’ She willed her face to reveal nothing, her eyes to remain cool and composed, willed him not to notice the guarded nature of her response.

She didn’t know whether she’d succeeded.

Alex Considine didn’t have a poker face, but she suspected he revealed only what he wanted to. At the moment he looked mildly interested.

‘Did you enjoy the film work?’

‘After a few initial hassles, yes.’

When he lifted his brows she explained drily, ‘I didn’t realise that all they expected was someone to look reasonable in a high-cut swimsuit, someone to frolic in the water. They wanted me to grow my hair so that I could flick it around for the camera, and they expected me to coo over lobsters and shells and pretty fish. After we’d sorted that out I liked it very much.’

‘And how did you sort it out?’ he asked, a smile tucking the corners of his controlled mouth.

‘Got stroppy and waved my contract around a lot,’ she said, ‘until they realised that I actually did know what I was talking about and wasn’t just some lightweight mermaid who was kinky enough to prefer dolphins to men.’

Enough bitterness seeped into her words for him to give another of those laser glances. A shiver ran the length of her spine but she met his hooded eyes squarely.

‘And do you prefer dolphins to men?’ he asked, a lazy smile robbing the question of impertinence.

Ianthe laughed. ‘You know where you are with dolphins,’ she said, ‘but, no, I don’t.’

‘Where are you with dolphins?’

‘You’re in their country, and you’re a curiosity,’ she said readily. She’d been talking far too much about herself, so she said, ‘You’ve spent some time in England, I imagine, from your accent.’

He looked amused. ‘My mother is the source of my accent. She has very strong opinions on the proper way to speak, and the ruthlessness to enforce them.’

‘Persuading your children not to sound like some refugee from a cartoon is a never-ending business, I’m told.’ Ianthe smiled as she thought of Tricia’s battles with her five-year-old.

‘I have no children,’ he told her, his voice smooth and impersonal, ‘but my friends certainly say so. I’m not married.’

He’d thought she was fishing. Fighting back her indignation, Ianthe tried to ignore the way her heart fluttered and soared.

He asked, ‘Will you go back to working in television?’

‘They don’t want a front-person with a scar down her leg. It doesn’t look good, and the limp is ungraceful.’ Because it didn’t matter, her voice was as pragmatic as her words.

She didn’t quite hear what he said under his breath, but judging from the glitter in his eyes the succinct phrase was probably rude. Astonished, she looked up into a hard face and scornful, searing eyes.

‘Did they tell you that?’ he asked, on a note that sent a shiver up her spine.

‘No, but it’s the truth. Viewers don’t like their programmes spoiled by ugly reminders that the real world has carnivores prowling it. People complain bitterly if they see insects eating each other on screen! Probably because most of us live in cities now we want to believe that the natural world is one of beauty and meaning and harmony.’

The harshness faded from his expression as he leaned back into his chair. ‘But you don’t believe that?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s extraordinarily beautiful, but it’s also unsentimental. Animals kill and eat to survive. They’re not pretty different-shaped humans with human attitudes. Even pack animals, which we can understand best, have a rigid hierarchy with crushing rules that would drive most of us insane.’

‘But we’re animals too.’

‘Of course we are.’ Made uneasy by the focused intentness of his gaze, Ianthe resisted the impulse to wriggle. ‘Our problem is that we know what we’re doing. Most animals live by instinct.’

‘So it’s not cruel for animals to drive an ill or wounded member from the pack, but humans shouldn’t?’

For a moment she didn’t realise what he meant. When she did she gave him a startled, angry glance. ‘Animals drive their sick away or abandon them because their presence attracts predators. If you’re using me as an instance, I’m not ill, but my wound could well have put an end to the series’ existence if people had stopped watching. Besides, I was in hospital while they were filming the last programmes so they had to get someone to take my place. I have no hard feelings.’

‘As I said before, you’re astonishingly tolerant,’ he said, his smile hard and humourless.

Oh, she could be enormously tolerant. The loss of her job was the least of her problems.

He said, ‘Will you always have that limp?’ He glanced at her trouser-clad leg.

For the first time Ianthe realised that most people when confronted with her scar did one of two things—the rude stared and commented while the polite kept their eyes fixed on her face. Both responses irritated her because they seemed to imply that she was less than perfect, less than human. Alex, however, looked at her leg without aversion.

‘Always,’ she said, steadying her voice so that her self-pity didn’t show.

‘You seem very relaxed about it.’

Although her unusual frankness had given him the opportunity to probe, she’d told him enough about herself. ‘I try not to worry about things I can’t control,’ she said coolly. ‘It doesn’t always work, but fretting over the past is just a waste of time.’

‘Fretting over anything is a waste of time.’

Nodding, she let the sun soak into her, acutely aware of the strumming of the cicadas, now reaching for a crescendo. However, balancing the shrill stridulation were other sounds—the soft rustling of reeds swaying against each other, the lazy cry of a gull that had drifted inland from the coast a few miles away, and the sound of a speedboat on the one lake that was open for powerboats, its intrusive roar muted by intervening hills to a pleasant hum.

And a fantail—the same one, perhaps?—black and cheeky as it darted around collecting insects from under the vine over the pergola.

Accepting her tacit refusal to discuss her leg any further, Alex Considine said, ‘Do you know anything about the way dune lakes are formed? Why are there lakes in this valley, but not in the valleys on either side?’

‘Because under this one there’s an impermeable ironstone pan. Rainwater collects above it and forms the lakes. The sand is silica, which is why it’s so white.’

‘So this is a rare formation?’

‘No, there are similar lakes wherever there are sand-hills—on this coast they go right up to North Cape.’

He asked, ‘Did you do geology at university also?’

‘I’m just an interested amateur,’ she said, getting up. ‘I must go now. Thank you so much for the drink, and I hope your Range Rover is driveable soon.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Alex said calmly, rising to tower over her. ‘Mark isn’t hurt and neither was anyone else; that’s the important thing.’

Ianthe wanted to convince herself she was grateful that he didn’t try to persuade her to stay. For all his exotic façade he was far too easy to talk to, and she’d revealed more about herself than she’d intended to. Much more than he’d told her about himself.

As they were going towards the front door Ianthe’s leg failed her again. It was only a slight stumble, but Alex’s hand shot out instantly, closing with hard strength onto her arm and supporting her. Ianthe had been stung by jellyfish; that was how she felt now—shock, and then a sensation like the thrust of a spear tempered on the edge of ice and fire.

Did he feel it too? She looked up, saw the beautiful mouth compress, harden.

‘All right?’ he asked abruptly, releasing her when he was sure she had regained her balance.

She managed to smile. ‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Do you need to rest?’

‘No,’ she said, adding with hasty firmness, ‘And I don’t need to be carried, either.’

He was frowning, the brilliant eyes resting on her leg. ‘Will it always be likely to let you down?’

‘No, they tell me it’s going to be a lot better as soon as the muscles strengthen.’

Her surgeon had suggested she walk to build up the muscles, but she hadn’t because she’d cringed at the idea of people pitying her as she limped by. Well, that very evening she’d begin exercising, and ignore the stares and whispered comments.

The decision buoyed her spirits. With erect back and shoulders she said goodbye and drove carefully down the drive, concentrating fiercely to stop the odd desolation that roiled inside her.

At the bach she pushed all the windows open before going out onto the verandah overlooking the lake and collapsing into one of the elderly chairs to read the newspaper.

After ten minutes or so, she dropped it on the floor, feeling oddly detached, as though somehow she’d slipped through a transparent door and into another world.

The two men shaking hands on the front page weren’t statesmen signing an important treaty; they were smirking actors chosen to fill empty space on the page. The people marching in the streets of the capital city in a tiny state somewhere on the Adriatic Sea were extras from an old movie, selected for their lined, worn faces and dressed by Wardrobe in thick, drab peasants’ clothing.

Only the photograph of children playing in the sea meant anything; yes, she thought, looking at them with her heart compressed into a painful knot, they were real, they were complete and oh, they were lucky.

To break the soggy spell of self-pity, she strode over the thick, springy kikuyu grass to the edge of the busy beach. Small children ran around happily, yelling and laughing, many swam in the milky band of water that denoted the shallows.

Ianthe closed her eyes but immediately forced her lashes back up. Beneath her breath she muttered, ‘I’m not going to stand here like a wimp,’ and walked across the blinding white sand.

Nausea clutched her before she’d gone halfway. Breathing shallowly, fighting back the panic that turned her clammy and shaking, she forced herself to stand there for long, chilling moments before turning and stumbling back.

A couple of youths were passing; through the roaring in her ears she heard one jeer, ‘Hey, blondie, need some help?’

Intent only on reaching sanctuary, she blundered past. His companion said something and followed it up by catching her arm.

A voice cracked out across the beach. ‘Let her go.’

They swivelled around, both assuming the swaggering, aggressive posture of a male whose territory has been violated. Heart thudding painfully in her throat, Ianthe froze.

Alex Considine was taller than they were, but they were stocky, tight-skinned and muscular, with necks wider than their heads, their macho strut a violent contrast to his athletic grace. Yet such was the dark power of Alex’s personality that after one glance the man who held Ianthe dropped her arm as though her skin burned his fingers, and the other said uneasily, ‘She’s OK, mate. We thought she was going to fall over,’ before stepping back and decamping.

Alex didn’t even watch them go. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded as he closed the gap between them with a couple of long strides. His hands fastened onto her, holding her up by her shoulders, and for a paralysing moment she was exposed to the full intensity of his gaze.

Ianthe knew she had skin the colour of cottage cheese and dark blotches under her eyes. She swallowed to ease her dry mouth, but could only croak, ‘Yes.’

Alex’s quiet, ‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ made her stomach leap.

She dragged in a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stupidly, trying to overcome the empty sickness of fear.

He said, ‘Come on,’ and turned her towards the bach. A steel-hard arm buttressed her, giving her the strength to climb the low bank. ‘We’ll go inside,’ he said, his voice oddly distant.

Numbly she obeyed the crisp command and crossed the wide back verandah, where chairs sat in shabby communion. As they passed the low table he picked up a plastic bag.

‘What are you doing here?’ Ianthe asked woodenly after he’d pushed the door open and let her go through.

‘You forgot your frozen goods.’ Without asking permission he put the bag into her small freezer compartment. ‘You need some stimulant. I’ll make coffee.’

She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. ‘I don’t want anything, thanks. I’m fine now.’

Ignoring her, he opened the door into the fridge and removed a jug of orange juice. ‘This will do,’ he said, pouring a glass and bringing it across to her. ‘Sit down,’ he ordered, his unwavering gaze commanding her obedience.

It was too much trouble to protest, so she collapsed ungracefully into a chair. He waited until she’d pushed the heavy, clinging hair back from her face, then offered the glass. Accepting it, Ianthe watched with outrage and dismay as it wobbled in her hand.

‘I’ll do it,’ Alex Considine said abruptly, and took it back, holding it to her mouth so that she could sip the sweetly tart liquid.

It helped. Soon she felt secure enough to take the glass and gulp down more of the juice.

He waited until she’d almost finished before asking evenly, ‘What happened? What did they say to you?’

‘It wasn’t them.’ She dismissed the two men.

‘Then what?’

His level voice didn’t fool her; she wasn’t going to be able to fob him off. Ianthe bent her head so that she couldn’t see the narrow masculine hips, the long muscular legs. The silence hummed, strident with the confusion in her head, in her heart.

Eventually she said, ‘I had a dizzy turn.’

Although he said nothing, his disbelief was patent.

Slowly she finished the juice. ‘Thank you,’ she said, her throat thick.

‘Look at me,’ he ordered.

Lifting her chin was a mistake, and staring him full in the eyes, daring him to take the issue any further, was an even bigger one. Alex’s pale gaze drilled through her meagre defences.

‘Have you got sunstroke?’ he asked.

It would have been a pat answer, but she shook her head. Lies didn’t come easily to her. ‘No. I just felt a bit—over-whelmed.’ She couldn’t breathe in the hot room and her skin was too sensitive, too tight. ‘I think I’d rather be outside,’ she said, forcing her voice into something like normality. ‘It’s cooler on the verandah.’

‘All right. Do you need help?’

‘No!’ She tried to soften the blunt refusal. ‘I feel much better now.’

But once outside she realised she needed activity to burn off the adrenalin that still pumped through her body. Looking towards the motor camp, she asked aggressively, ‘Would you like to go for a walk and see how the other half spend their holidays?’

With a keen look he answered crisply, ‘Why not?’

Nothing had changed. Children, hatted and slick with sunscreen, still laughed and called in clear, high voices, still splashed in the chalky water that stretched out to where the lake bed dropped away.

The edge was still as sharp and sudden against the fierce, glinting blue of the deeper water.

Ianthe averted her eyes and concentrated hard on walking through the holidaymakers without giving away how aware she was of the man who strode beside her. Sand crunched beneath their feet. Alex looked around, the fan of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes slightly indented. How old was he? Thirty-three or four, she guessed.

He said, ‘This place reminds me of the village I lived in until I was ten.’

Intrigued, Ianthe was stopped from asking questions by an indefinable reserve in his tone, in the angular, aristocratic line of his profile.

They walked around families, past groups of teenagers indulging in their noisy, unsophisticated courtship rituals, and as they went by Ianthe felt the eyes, some on her, some on Alex. She was accustomed to being watched; it interested her that Alex too had developed a way to deal with onlookers. He didn’t make eye contact, he walked steadily—not fast, not slow—and although he swivelled when a child shrieked behind them he turned away again immediately he realised it was under supervision.

Who was he? She recognised his name, so possibly he had turned up in a newspaper. However, she had a strongly visual memory; if she’d seen a photograph of him she’d have remembered his startling good looks and pale eyes instead of merely being haunted by a vague familiarity.

Yet would any photograph capture the magnetism of his personality, or the aura of uncompromising authority?

Probably not, and she wasn’t going to think about it any more. That way lay danger.

Although she’d snatched up a straw hat as they left the bach, the sun beat down on her shoulders and summoned a rare blue sheen from Alex’s bare head. She should tell him he needed some protection, but it seemed an oddly personal and intimate thing to talk about.

‘You obviously know this place very well,’ Alex commented.

Nodding, she kept her eyes on the low bushes—a mixture of sedges, rushes and sprawling teatree—that scrambled from the pine plantation to the water, effectively marking the limit of the beach. ‘For years I spent every school holiday here with my best friend. Her parents own the bach.’

Once she’d known every inch of the shoreline. In those long, golden, distant summers she and Tricia had spent every day on or in the lake. And now Tricia was a wife and mother, and Ianthe was trying to reassemble her life.

‘We’d better go back,’ she said evenly. ‘It’s swampy in there.’ She glanced down at his feet and added with a spark of malice, ‘You won’t want to get those shoes wet.’

He laughed softly. ‘I’d noticed that I was overdressed,’ he said, turning the tables neatly on her.

Biting her lip, she swivelled, and of course her wretched leg chose just that moment to let her down again. Gasping, she jerked back, but too late. Her sideways lurch had thrown her into the tangle of bushes, and her foot sank into the lake so that water rose halfway up her calf.

Panic, sickening and immediate, clawed at her. For a horrifying second she couldn’t move, until the clamouring terror forced her free of the water. Whimpering, she pushed past Alex, blundering across the hot sand in a desperate rush to reach the safety of solid ground.