Guilty Passion (7 page)

“I know. I've been reading Jeff's book. It's good, isn't it?”

“Some people think he romanticised the story. It was written for the tourist rather than the serious historian. But the facts are as he put them. A dozen men and two women and a child survived the wreck. And it wasn't long before the men came to fighting over who was to be kingpin, and which of them were going to have the women.”

“The women had no choice, I suppose.”

Ethan shrugged. “Who's to say, after all this time? Maybe they enjoyed being sought after.”

“That's a conclusion only a man would jump to.”

His look held surprised scepticism. “Wouldn't you have enjoyed it?”

“Being fought over by a lot of thugs and knowing I was the prize for the winner? No, I wouldn't. And if you think that's what any woman would like, you're more of a male chauvinist than I ever thought.”

He raised his brows at that, but only said mildly, “Before you start trying to reform me, how about some lunch? There's quite a good restaurant near the post office, and I haven't collected the mail yet.”

He fetched it on the way, and as they sat waiting for their order, he riffled through a small pile of letters. “One for you.” He tossed it on the table, and she picked it up and fingered it. It had been posted at the university in Sydney, she saw, but the address was handwritten.

“Aren't you going to open it?” Ethan asked her, stuffing his own letters into a pocket.

“You haven't opened yours,” she pointed out.

“All business,” he said. “Yours looks more interesting.”

“Personal, you mean.”

“Sorry. I wasn't intending to be nosy.” He leaned back in his chair rather ostentatiously and gazed out the open window at the pleasure boats riding at anchor on the water.

She took a knife and slit the envelope open. Glancing at the signature, she said, “It's from Steven. Steven Craig.”

“Ah.”

His face was perfectly bland, so why did she feel that stirring of interest and disapproval? She skimmed the contents and was about to hand the letter over to him, when she changed her mind. Folding the paper, she carefully replaced it in the envelope and slid it into her handbag. “He would like to know if you've recovered anything from the disks Alec. . . left. I'm afraid I'd forgotten about them. Should I write and find out what happened to them?”

“I have them.”

“You do?”

“I collected Alec's briefcase and the other things the police found in the car, the morning before we left.”

“Oh, you didn't tell me.”

“There was nothing personal. Nothing I needed to bother you with, I thought. You can have them if you like.”

Celeste shook her head. “Have you looked at the disks?”

“When I find out what's on them, I'll let your friend know. Just now I have to finish a project that's already overdue. The people paying me for it have been very patient as it is. I can't keep them waiting longer than necessary.”

“I'll write to Steven and tell him that you'll get onto it as soon as possible, then.”

Their food was served, and he politely asked if her shopping had been successful, and whether she had all she wanted or wished to spend more time in town, but there was a tension in the air. He seemed preoccupied, and she was glad when he had paid the bill and they returned to the car.

He drove fast and in silence and on arriving at the house, said he had to work. After putting away the supplies with her help, he disappeared up the stairs.

Trying to shake off an acute feeling of depression, Celeste went for a swim. After that first time Ethan had apparently decided she could cope on her own and had not insisted on accompanying her. The water was warm and clear, and she felt slightly better and fresher, but she stayed in longer than usual, and after returning to the house and showering she lay on her bed clad only in her wrap, and drifted into sleep.

She woke to the sound of tapping on her door. Sitting up, she pushed tousled hair out of her eyes and, pulling the wrap about her, went to open the door.

Ethan's eyes swept over her. “Did I wake you? Are you okay?”

“Yes, and yes. But don't worry about waking me. I didn't mean to sleep at all.” Dusk was falling, and she said, “I'm sorry, is it dinner time?”

“No need to apologise. But it is. I've made a meal. You'd better come and have some.” His eyes dropped again to where the edges of the robe met between her breasts. “Get dressed,” he said. “I'll see you in ten minutes.”

She closed the door after him, and grabbed clean undies, then stood indecisively wondering what to put on. All the clothes hanging in the wardrobe looked drab and uninteresting. On impulse she opened the big bag containing the new flower-printed dress and shook it out. She slipped it on, brushed her hair, and snatched up the lipstick she had bought, swiftly applying it. It was ages since she had worn makeup, but she had not lost her touch. She smoothed on blusher very lightly, and the merest hint of eye shadow. The new sandals slid easily onto her slim feet.

Ethan was coming out of the kitchen as she descended the stairs.

“I was just going to call you,” he told her.

Slightly breathless with hurrying, she said, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

He stood watching as she came down the last few steps. She thought his mouth hardened, and was sure that his eyes had narrowed. In fact there was something about the way he was staring that made her uncomfortable. “Looks like it was worth waiting for,” he drawled.

“I. . . bought a new dress today.”

“So I see. It's very. . . eye-catching.”

She wondered if he thought she should be in mourning. “I felt I needed cheering up,” she said.

“I'm not objecting.” But his comprehensive glance, ending at her face and not missing the lipstick and eye shadow, seemed to her distinctly censorious. He stepped back for her to precede him into the kitchen.

He had opened a bottle of red wine, and after the meal he didn't disappear into his workroom, but lounged in one of the cane chairs facing the windows while they finished off the wine. He put on a tape of soft, romantic ballads, and came back to his chair without switching on the lights. Outside the darkness was deepening.

Celeste cradled her glass in her hands and rested her head against the high back of the chair. Ethan turned to look at her, leaning over with the wine bottle in his hand. “More?”

She shook her head, and he poured the remainder into his glass, raising it to his lips. She felt his eyes on her, and her breathing quickened. She put down her own glass abruptly on a nearby table and got up.

He stood up, too, and she turned swiftly, the full skirt of her dress catching the glass and toppling it, sending it rolling to the edge of the table. She bent to rescue it, and Ethan stepped forward to do the same. His shoulder collided with hers, and as one of his hands righted the glass, the other closed over her arm, steadying her.

When they straightened, they were very close. She could feel his warm breath on her temple, his fingers firm on her skin.

“Celeste. . .” he said.

“Ethan. . .” Willing herself to move out of his grasp, she murmured, “I want to go to bed.”

His grip tightened on her arm. His head bent a little. “Are you inviting me to join you?” he asked.

Shocked, Celeste pulled out of his hold.
“No!”

“Forgive me,” he said, not as though he meant it. “It did sound rather like it.”

“You know it wasn't meant to!” she said, backing away from him. “You can't honestly think that!”

He said, “I don't know what to think about you, Celeste. I spend half my time wondering what's going on inside that beautiful head of yours.”

“Nothing sinister!” she protested.

Ignoring that, he said, “Alec was obsessed with you, right to the end. And you managed to emasculate him. Why could he never satisfy you? What was it you wanted of him?”

Horrified, she stared at him in the gathering dark. The shadows made him look menacing as he loomed over her.

“You don't understand!” she said in despair.

“Damn right I don't,” Ethan said quite softly. “But I'm going to, one day. Because you're going to tell me—you're going to make me understand, Celeste. I want to know exactly why my brother died.”

“I can't tell you that!” she cried. “I don't
know
!”

He gave a short disbelieving laugh. Almost inaudibly, his lips scarcely moving, he said, “The hell you don't!”

“Anyway,” she said, “I thought you'd decided. . . that you knew.”

“But there's more to it,” he said. “For instance, who was the man? The one that finally sent him over the edge of that cliff?”

“Ethan. . .” A shiver ran through her, and she brought her arms across herself, trying to stop it. “Please,” she said. “Please stop it. I can't. . . I can't deal with this now.”

He audibly drew in a long breath. After a long time he said, his voice clipped, “All right, let's leave it for the moment. You'd better go to bed.”

Celeste woke with a feeling of dread, tempted to pull the pillow over her head and pretend the world didn't exist. Remembering the events of the night before, she felt her mouth go dry, and flung a hand over her eyes, blotting out the sun. She could hear the distant hum of a vacuum cleaner and realised this was one of Mrs. Jackson's cleaning days. She should get up and strip her bed because the sheets ought to be washed.

She took them down in her arms and said, “I've made the bed up again.”

“I could have done it,” the woman said, as she switched off the cleaner.

Celeste shook her head. “I have little enough to do. I'll put these in the machine. Would you like a cup of tea? I'm going to boil the kettle.”

“Well, thank you very much. It's just about time for one.”

They sat at the kitchen table, Mrs. Jackson with tea and a sweet biscuit, Celeste with coffee and toast after eating half of a sliced melon.

“You won't put on much weight like that,” Mrs. Jackson said disapprovingly.

Celeste smiled faintly. “Everyone keeps telling me I'm too thin.”

“Well, you are, dear. You're a very nice-looking girl. It's a shame not to make the best of yourself.”

“At the moment I don't care.”

Mrs. Jackson's face softened. She put out a hand and briefly patted Celeste's. “I know, but. . . life goes on, you know. I'm sure everyone says it, and it's hard to believe, but it is true. I lost a daughter about ten years ago. You don't forget, but it will get easier. You've just got to keep yourself going.”

“I'm terribly sorry,” Celeste said. “And I'm sure you're right. I am trying, believe me.”

She went down to the beach, and saw that Jeff was in the water. When he waded out she could see he had been swimming nude, and looked away while he drew a towel about his waist, picked up his jeans he had left lying on the sand, and walked over to her where she sat in the shade of the trees.

“Hope you're not shocked,” he said.

“Not at all,” she assured him. “Ethan warned me when I first came that people didn't always bother with swimsuits on this beach.”

“Tried it yourself yet?” He grinned down at her.

“I'm not quite game,” she confessed. “One day, maybe.”

“Mind if I sit down?”

“Of course not. I could do with someone to talk to.”

“Getting lonely, are you?” he asked. “I gather Ethan's very tied up with work at the moment. He gave me pretty short shrift the other day, in the pleasantest possible way.”

“He said he invited you to lunch.”

Jeff laughed. “I could see he didn't have his heart in the idea.”

“He is busy,” she said. “I gather he's fallen behind in some project, and there's a deadline on it.”

Jeff nodded as he settled himself beside her. “Anything in particular you'd like to talk about?”

Celeste shook her head, then said hesitantly, “How well do you know Ethan? Has he talked to you about. . . about Alec and. . . me?”

“Hardly ever mentioned you,” Jeff said frankly. “But he's talked of his brother all right. Thought the world of him.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Alec was a lot older, wasn't he? I met him once. I remember I was surprised.”

“They weren't really brothers,” Celeste explained. “Not by blood. Alec's mother left his father when Alec was just a little boy. His father adopted Ethan legally and gave him the name of Ryland when he married Ethan's mother.”

“But Ethan wasn't his child?”

“Oh, no. Ethan's mother had been widowed soon after he was born. He didn't remember his own father at all. He would have been only six at the time his mother married Alec's father. Alec was already at university then.”

“Alec must have been a lot older than you, too.”

“Yes. I was a student when I met him. And he had already become well-known around the Pacific as an anthropological archaeologist and explorer.”

“Was that before or after the New Guinea accident?”

“After. Not very long after. He was still using crutches, but he'd taken on a lectureship at the university where I was studying anthropology. I picked him up after he lost one of his crutches on the stairs.”

“This was in New Zealand?”

“Yes, in Auckland. He was furious, and swearing like a trooper. I couldn't help laughing, and then he swore at me, too. Afterwards he apologised, and. . .” She shrugged.

“Love at first swear word?” Jeff suggested lightly.

Celeste shook her head. “It wasn't my first sight of him. I'd admired him from afar. Well, most of the girls did. He was good-looking and intelligent and physically courageous. And famous, of course. He was a very glamorous figure.”

“Even after he was disabled?”

“He refused to let that ruin his life. It was one of the things that I liked about him. And of course, we'd all read about how he'd nearly died in the jungles of New Guinea after he fell, up in the mountains, and his struggle to get out and find medical help.”

“Yeah, I remember. Quite a heroic story. He seems to have been some guy. For a man who'd been so active, it must have been a shock to realise he'd need help just to walk, for the rest of his life.”

“Yes, it was. And to realise that field work, which he had made his speciality, was closed to him. And the kind of TV documentary he used to do, with the film crew following him into some remote location, wasn't possible any more.”

“He did appear on TV a few times quite recently, though, didn't he? I'm sure I've seen him.”

“Oh, yes. But even when he was able to use a cane, he wouldn't let them film him moving about. It was strictly armchair shots or behind a desk. After the accident, he changed to writing and lecturing on his subject and doing research analysis.”

“Ethan was very proud of him. He said Alec had made a success of his second career, just as he had with the first. With your help, I guess?”

Celeste said, “When we were first married. . . he did like to give me some of the credit.”

Jeff cast her a thoughtful glance, and she wondered if she had said a little too much. Changing the subject, she asked, “How is the writing going?”

“At the moment it isn't.” He grimaced. “I had this idea for a great new thriller, and the first two chapters flowed like water, but now I'm stuck. Sometimes a bit of physical activity helps.”

“And has it helped?”

“Don't know yet. The trick is to think of something totally different for a couple of hours, then go and stare at the screen and see what happens. At least, that's my method.” He raised a hand in greeting to someone behind her, making her look around. “Have you met the Palmers?” he asked her.

Celeste shook her head, and he said, “Well, I'll introduce you, then.”

The couple were in their sixties, Henry Palmer erect and white-haired, his wife Janice a head shorter than her husband, with greying curls and an aristocratic nose.

“We retired here,” she told Celeste. “But Henry never retired really. He's still available to people by appointment or in an emergency, although he has no regular clinic. We set up a small surgery at the house, and he has just enough business to keep him from subsiding into senility.” She threw a teasing glance at her husband.

“Well, I had to have something to do while you mucked about with your paints and stuff,” he grumbled affectionately.

“You're an artist?” Celeste asked.

“Only an amateur one,” Janice said. “But I have sold a few paintings to the tourists.”

“She's a very good amateur,” her husband said loyally. “I prefer her landscapes and seascapes to some of those outlandish daubings you see in art galleries, with outrageous prices on them.”

“That's because you know nothing about art, darling,” his wife told him. “But I'm very glad there are people like you who are willing to take my work off my hands and pay me for it into the bargain.”

“I'm surprised you haven't met Celeste before,” Jeff told them. “She's on the beach almost every day.”

“We've been away visiting friends on the mainland,” Henry told him. “We read about your husband's death,” he added to Celeste. “Tragic business. Very sorry to hear about it.”

Janice added her condolences, and then said, “You must all come over for dinner one evening. You and Ethan and Jeff. It's a while since we've got together. I'll phone Ethan about it tonight.”

Celeste half expected that Ethan would plead pressure of work and turn down the invitation, but instead he told her they were invited for Saturday night, and to wear something pretty. Over the next few days he reverted to his usual cool courtesy, and she took her cue from him, with a cowardly reluctance to stir up the emotions that had surfaced the other night.

She met the Palmers again on the beach, and asked Janice what sort of thing she should wear.

“Whatever you're comfortable in,” the older woman replied. “We don't dress up much here.”

She decided to wear the red dress again. She was heartily sick of everything else in her wardrobe, and it was about the only thing she had that would meet Ethan's requirement of “something pretty.” Once she had owned a couple of dozen pretty dresses, but that was before Alec had started making pointed remarks about her clothes and her love of fashion. Before he had begun to tell everyone how his wife liked to look beautiful and sexy, and how much time and money she spent on her appearance. It was all done with a wry, indulgent smile, and at first she had tried not to mind, putting it down to male tactlessness. He would end by hooking an arm about her and declaring it was well worth it, inviting all and sundry to agree with him. And when she did protest in private, later, that he was embarrassing her and sometimes other people as well, he laughed and told her not to be a silly, oversensitive child.

Her clothes had not been particularly expensive, because she had a flair for fashion and an ability to pick out inexpensive garments that could be dressed up and combined to give the casual but trendy look that she liked. Over time, she had replaced them with others that were less noticeable, more conservative—and more suitable, she supposed, for the wife of a respected academic. That was another thing. She was so much younger than most of the people her husband mingled with, and it had seemed a good idea to try to minimise the age gap somehow. She did it partly by dressing older than her years, but the change in image had been so gradual that Alec apparently never noticed. He had been convinced to the end that she had a consuming and youthful frivolous interest in fashion and glamour. The red dress was, of course, the one thing that she had never worn in his company. Somehow she felt lighter when she put it on, as though a host of oppressive memories remained with the other clothing but could not cling to this new garment.

She hesitated with the lipstick in her hand, shrugged, and applied it with a steady hand. Why not? Ethan, she felt, reacted negatively to her donning makeup, but the dress definitely needed it, and anyway, she had not been freed of eight years of trying in vain to please Alec, only to start on the same self-defeating cycle with his brother.

The thought was barely formulated in her mind before she slammed a mental door on it, appalled. But one word echoed in her mind and wouldn't go away. She was free. Free. Try as she would to deny it, she couldn't help a faint lifting of the heart. In spite of the guilt that came crashing over her, so that she bowed her head on her hands and moaned aloud, that tiny spark of defiance would not be quite crushed out of existence.

“We could go by road, if you like,” Ethan said, looking at her sandalled feet.

“What do you usually do?”

“Walk across the beach, and come home by the road. It'll be dark by then, but I've got a good torch.”

“Let's do it that way,” she said. “I can shake the sand out when we get there. I don't suppose Janice and Henry will mind.”

“I'm sure they won't.”

Dusk was falling as they gained the beach, and Celeste removed her sandals and went barefoot. Ethan was wearing an open-necked blue shirt and fawn slacks with matching slip-on shoes and no socks.

The sand was still warm and the water lapped quietly into foam-edged curves along the beach. Celeste stopped to admire the last of the fading sunset on the water, and Ethan, with his hands in his pockets, waited for her.

“Sorry,” she said, as she went to his side. “It's so lovely here. This is very peaceful, isn't it?”

“Don't you miss the social life of Sydney?”

“We didn't have a very active social life, as a matter of fact. About the only times we went out were to university functions, and other things that Alec had to attend because of his work.”

“Over here,” he said, touching her arm and indicating the path to the Palmers' house.

He allowed her to go ahead of him when the path narrowed, and she climbed quickly, very conscious of him just behind her, now and then reaching across her shoulder to lift a wayward, trailing spray of purple bougainvillea or a curling tendril of trumpet vine out of her way.

When he caught her arm, she stiffened, holding her breath.

Ethan said, “Don't go so fast, there's plenty of time. You're panting.”

She hadn't realised it. She nodded without looking at him and, when he released her, proceeded more slowly.

She was glad when they reached the house, a natural wood structure with a broad balcony around three sides. Henry leaned over the railing and called, “Come on up. Jeff's arrived and we're having drinks out here. Janice is doing things in the kitchen.”

There was an outside staircase, and at the top, of course, a view of the bay. Henry poured drinks, and shortly afterwards Janice joined them. Celeste gradually relaxed. The Palmers went out of their way to make their guests feel comfortable, and she wished she could be a little more animated, but she had to mentally shake herself awake a couple of times. Still, she smiled and nodded in the right places, managed to carry on a conversation, and even laughed once or twice. She was, in a mild sort of way, enjoying herself.