Wild Entrantress Part 13

Jared was recognised, and while a table was being prepared for them in the restaurant, they went for a drink. One wall of the bar had been rolled aside to give access to the lido area beside the pool, and guests walked about in shorts or bikinis, mingling with more formally clad patrons. Jared suggested they seated themselves at the long red counter, on tall stools, luxuriously shaped like small armchairs.

He ordered long chilled drinks, served in gla.s.ses edged with slices of fruit and frosted with ice, and containing a definite tang of alcoholic sharpness. But it was good, and Catherine drank hers thirstily.

'Steady on,' advised Jared dryly, putting a hand on her arm and propelling the gla.s.s back on to the bar. 'It's not lemonade.'

Catherine smiled. 'I never thought it was.'

Jared's fingers lingered against her skin, his thumb ma.s.saging the veins on the inner side of her wrist. 'Would you really have stopped me from making love to you?' he asked softly, his eyes heavy with meaning.

Catherine drew her arm out of his grasp, and gestured futilely towards the pool. 'I can't wait to swim again,' she babbled. 'It seems weeks, not days, since I was in the water. I expect you've swum every day at the beach house, haven't you? And surfed, too. I'd love to be an expert at that-'

'I could teach you,' he said steadily, and chancing a brief look at him, she was devastated by the warmth of his gaze.

'Don't look at me like that, Jared,' she breathed huskily, and he shrugged and turned his stool so that its back was against the bar, surveying the scene around the pool with a slightly jaded contemplation.

A girl in a bikini, who had been stretched out beside a young man on an air bed, got to her feet just then and seeing Jared, waved vigorously. Then, nudging the man at her feet with her toe, she stepped over his bulk and came into the bar towards them.

'Jared!' she exclaimed, bending over him to kiss his cheek and giving him the full benefit of her cleavage. 'Jared Royal! I've only been back in Bridgetown since Sat.u.r.day and what do I hear?

Jared Royal is getting married at last! I couldn't believe it.' Her gaze s.h.i.+fted to Catherine, and then she looked frankly embarra.s.sed. 'Oh, I mean-I thought-where's Laura, Jared?'

'At home, I expect,' returned Jared lazily, getting to his feet.

'Catherine, this is Angela Motson. Angela, I'd like you to meet my-my ward.'

He used the word deliberately, and watching him Catherine encountered the mocking challenge of his stare. Angela, meanwhile, was obviously astonished, and she looked round impatiently for her escort to join them. The young man was slowly getting to his feet, and Catherine recognised Andy David, one of Laura's friends, who had attended the party at Amaryllis.

He and Jared greeted one another, and he smiled at Catherine.

'Feeling better?' he asked. 'Laura told me you'd been smitten by the heat.'

'I'm much better, thank you,' Catherine replied politely, and Angela, having recovered her composure, exclaimed: 'Are you two eating in the hotel?'

'As a matter of fact we are,' Jared agreed, and Catherine's heart sank when Angela suggested they should all have lunch together.

'I've just spent three months in the States,' she explained, for Catherine's benefit, 'and I can't wait to catch up on all the news.

How about it, Jared?'

Jared glanced at Catherine, but she was looking down at her hands, and he gave a casual shrug. 'All right,' he said, as she had known he would. 'So long as we can get away by two. I have to be at Seawell by two-thirty.'

'The airport?'

Angela raised her eyebrows, but as Jared said nothing more, she was forced to let it go. Catherine was curious, too, but she guessed Jared was going to the airport to collect some painting equipment. Maybe that was why he had taken this day off from finis.h.i.+ng the commission. It was a logical a.s.sumption, and it succeeded in destroying her already depleted store of confidence.

The meal was delicious. Prawns with melon, steaks and salad, and a trifle flavoured with brandy. But Catherine ate next to nothing. She felt choked with emotion, aware, as he obviously was not, of their brief time together slipping away.

Only once during that long meal did she look up to find Jared staring at her, but when she tried to communicate her feelings to him, he looked away again, and a moment later was laughing heartily at something Angela had said.

However, when the waiter came to ask them if they had enjoyed the food and to inquire whether they would like coffee, Jared pushed back his chair.

'I think we'l have to skip coffee, if you don't mind, Catherine,' he said abruptly, and Catherine didn't mind at all. She got obediently to her feet, gesturing Andy to re-remain seated when he would have risen, and walked round the table to join Jared.

'Oh, must you go?' Angela was evidently disappointed. 'It's only ten minutes to the hour.'

'I'm sorry.' Jared was adamant. His hand curved round Catherine's upper arm. 'We'll see you some other time.'

'At the party!' exclaimed Angela enthusiastically. 'My invitation was waiting when I got back. I'm looking forward to it.'

Catherine and Jared exchanged glances, and then he gave a slight shake of his head as if to indicate a negative reaction. 'So long!'

he said non-committally, and propelling Catherine before him, walked out of the restaurant.

But once in the car, his actions bespoke his annoyance. 'I expect you think I should have told Angela there's not going to be any party, don't you?' he demanded.

Catherine s.h.i.+fted her shoulders against the soft warm upholstery.

'I can't answer that,' she protested.

'No? Well, I didn't feel like entering into those kind of explanations with her!'

'You don't have to justify yourself to me.'

'Don't I?' He didn't start the engine, but half turned in his seat towards her, one arm along the back of hers. 'Don't I? So why were you giving me the cold shoulder all through lunch?'

'I wasn't doing that,' she cried. 'Besides, you seemed contented enough talking to your old girlfriend.'

'Angela is not an "old girl-friend".'

'Well, a young girl-friend, then,' retorted Catherine tautly.

'Not that either. She's a friend of Laura's. Would you have had me be rude to her?'

'It's nothing to do with me.'

'd.a.m.n you, it's everything to do with you,' he swore violently, and turning, he started the car savagely, releasing the brake, and churning up the drive with spinning tyres.

Catherine clutched the edge of her seat as they approached the gates, convinced Jared would never negotiate them at this speed.

But long before there was any danger, he had slowed, and they turned out on to the coast road again with controlled expertise.

'Jared, why did you ask me out to lunch?' she asked, helplessly staring at him. 'I only seem to make you angry.'

Jared drew a harsh breath. 'Because,' he said, his tone containing traces of self-derision, 'because, fool that I am, I've let you get under my skin. To the extent that I can't seem to think of anything but you!'

'Jared. ..'

'I can't work, I can't sleep! That's rich, isn't it?' he demanded, his lips twisting. I guess you could say that was why I resented what you did to me all those years ago. Maybe even then I knew I was fighting a losing battle.'

'Oh, Jared!' She was incredulous. 'Jared, I don't know what to say.' But her pulses were racing, and it was not just the aftermath of her illness that was making the blood thunder in her head.

'You could say-you're not entirely indifferent to me,' he muttered harshly, and her heart almost stopped beating when his hand slid possessively down her thigh to her knee. She put both her hands over his, and with an uncharacteristic disregard for other drivers, he stood on his brakes and, turning, pulled her into his arms.

She barely had time to say his name before his mouth covered hers, and the probing intimacy of his touch drove all coherent thought from her head.

'Oh, G.o.d!' he muttered at last, lifting his head to the sound of car horns and hooters, the well-meaning laughter of some road-users, and the not-so-well-meaning impatience of others. 'I want you all to myself, and instead we're stuck in this public place, providing free entertainment for the ma.s.ses!'

Catherine smoothed her hair back behind her ears. 'Let's go down to the beach,' she breathed huskily, but with a grim shake of his head, he released the clutch and drove on.

'There's something I have to do first,' he said flatly.

'What?' Catherine bent her head. 'Is-is it Laura? Are we meeting her at the airport?'

He glanced at her strangely. 'I wish to G.o.d it were,' he ground out savagely, and she moved her shoulders in bewilderment.

'What is it? Jared, you're not still thinking-'

'I'm trying not to think,' he told her through clenched teeth. 'I never thought I could do it, but I realise I'll have to.'

'Have to what?' She knelt on the seat beside him. 'Jared- -darling, what is it?'

His eyes darkened at the involuntary endearment, but then they were entering the airport complex and he had to give all his attention to his driving. Catherine swung her legs to the floor again, staring out at the incoming Boeing that was making its final run. No matter what Jared had said, there was an awful feeling of apprehension invading her system, and his determination to get to the airport had a.s.sumed the proportions of an obsession. What did he want here? What was it he had to do? And why should she feel so sure it had something to do with her?

He parked the convertible, and Catherine looked at him doubtfully. 'Do you want me to stay here?'

'No.' Jared got out of the car, and walked round to open her door. 'Come with me.'

'But where are we going?' she exclaimed, as they crossed to the airport buildings. 'Jared, what are we doing here?'

'You'll see.' Jared had become curiously remote, and there was a tautness about his features which had not been there earlier.

'Come on, it looks like the flight's landed.'

Catherine was asking: 'What flight?' as they entered the reception hall, but Jared strode ahead, looking about him, obviously searching for whoever it was they had come to meet. Catherine followed him slowly. She didn't understand what was going on, and the anxiety inside her was strengthening all the time.

Although that was something else she didn't understand either.

'Cat! Cat, old love! Here I am! Turning up again like the veritable bad penny!'

Catherine swung round. Surely she hadn't mistaken that voice?

'Tony!' she gasped, and hearing her involuntary exclamation, Jared turned, too. 'Tony, for heaven's sake,' she cried. 'What are you doing here?'

Jared was walking back towards them, and Catherine could see how pale he was beneath his tan. 'You are Tony Bainbridge?' he said, in a strange uneven voice. Then he looked at Catherine.

'This is-Tony?'

'Didn't he tell you I was coming, old love?' Tony looked at her, too, and Catherine, dry-mouthed, shook her head.

'I wanted to-' Jared broke off, his face so grim it was frightening. 'I didn't realise that-that you-'

'That I was a cripple?' asked Tony cheerfully, from the austerity of his wheelchair. 'Didn't Cat tell you? No, I can see she didn't.

Well, I'm afraid I am. Useless from the waist down, I'm sorry to say.' He winked in his usual good-humoured fas.h.i.+on. 'That's why Manners always goes everywhere with me, don't you, Manners?'

A tall thin man appeared from behind a rack of magazines and approached them. He was a middle-aged man, balding and bespectacled, but with his employer's sense of humour.

He smiled at Catherine and nodded at Jared, 'Good afternoon,' he remarked. 'Nice to see you again, Miss Fulton. Wasn't it kind of-of Mr Royal to invite us out here?'

CHAPTER NINE.

'I appear to have put my foot in it, don't I, old love?

Metaphorically speaking, of course.'

Tony spoke from the bed, but his words didn't stop Catherine's pacing.

'Why did you come out here, Tony?' she exclaimed helplessly, spreading her hands. 'You know you don't like leaving London!'

'That's some line in welcomes,' observed Tony dryly. 'I received an invitation. From your lord and master.'

'He's not my lord and master!'

'Isn't he? He acts like he is.'

'Yes--well, what he acts like and what he is, are two entirely different things.'

'You know him that well, huh?'

'I don't know him well at all.'

Tony shrugged. How was I to know you weren't behind his invitation? Why the h.e.l.l didn't he tell you?'

Catherine sighed, and came to stand at the end of the bed, holding the post with both hands. 'What did he tell you, Tony?

What was his reason for asking you out here?'

Tony grimaced. 'I forget his exact words. Something about you being-ill? Have you been ill?'

'A little. Just a touch of the sun, that's all.'