Season of Shadows (12 page)

'I've had the distinct feeling lately that, each time I've
been away, you've welcomed my return with a certain eagerness.'

'Only your egotistical mind could think up something so
absurd,' she argued, shutting her eyes in her desperate effort to fight
against the tremors of delight that rippled through her.

'Is it so absurd to think that you miss my lovemaking when
I'm away?'

'It's more than absurd,' she contradicted his taunting
re-mark. 'It's ludicrous! I hate you to touch me!'

He raised his head suddenly and something in his eyes made
her renew her frantic efforts to escape, but he merely laughed that
cruel, harsh laugh while he gripped both her wrists in one large hand,
leaving his other hand free to brush aside the wide collar of her gown
to expose one smooth shoulder.

'Is it hate that makes you tremble when I touch you like
this?' he asked mockingly, the deep timbre of his voice thrilling her
while his warm hand moved in a sensually arousing caress from her
shoulder to her breast, and despite her efforts to keep a tight rein on
her emotions, she could not prevent her limbs from weakening against
him as a shudder of ecstasy shook through her to prove, humiliatingly,
how effortlessly he could arouse her emotions.

'Anton, please!' she begged, but her heart was beating so
fast that it was an effort to speak. 'For God's sake, don't do this to
me!'

'Is it hate that lights the fire of your passion until you
cling to me and beg me to take you?' he demanded ruthlessly, ignoring
her pleas, and fully aware of the sexual excitement he aroused within
her while he undid the sash of her nightdress to gain access to the
rest of her pulsating body.

'I've never yet begged you to maul me the way you do,' she
protested, fighting him with every mental weapon she could find, but
she shrank inwardly from the stinging fury of his glance.

'You don't know what it's like to be mauled by a man, but,
by heaven, if you don't guard your tongue, I'll show you tonight!'

'I despise you!' she hissed frantically, but the next
moment a cry was torn from her lips as, with one sweeping movement, he
stripped her nightdress from her trembling body and raised her high in
his arms. 'Let me go, or I'll—'

'Or you will what?' he interrupted with a harsh laugh, his
razor-sharp eyes raking her from head to foot before he flung her on to
the bed and followed her down to crush her softness with the hard
length of his body. Against her throat he demanded, 'Are you going to
shout for help so that Sally can rush in to witness your inevitable
surrender to my lovemaking?'

She sucked her breath in sharply, a deep flush staining
her cheeks. 'You're detestable!'

'I find nothing more detestable than a liar,' he said
cuttingly, and then his hard mouth was bruising her lips into quivering
submission. Laura fought him off with what little strength she still
had left, but her struggles merely increased his desire for her, and
when he finally raised his head, the brilliant blaze of his eyes
confirmed this. 'You know very well that at this moment you want me so
much that you're aching with the same need that's tearing away at my
guts,' he accused thickly, and the devastating truth of it made her
renew her struggles, but her flailing arms were grasped painfully at
the wrists and raised above her head to render her harmless. 'Deny it,'
his deep voice grated along tender, quivering nerves, 'and I'll have
the satisfaction of proving you a liar.'

She turned her hot cheek into the pillow and a low moan
escaped her as his lips and tongue explored the soft swell of her
breasts. She clung desperately to her sanity, but, when his mouth
finally fastened on to hers with a searing passion that seemed to set
fire to her soul, she melted against him, and her hands, freed from his
restraining clasp, sought the opening of his robe and moved hungrily
across the warm, hair-roughened chest towards the broad shoulders where
the hard muscles rippled beneath her caressing fingers. He groaned
against her lips, his body now hard and tense with desire as he
caressed her with a new urgency, and her flesh responded wildly to the
intimacies of his touch. Desire leapt like a red-hot fire through her
veins and, no longer in control of her actions, she wrapped her arms
about his neck while her body arched towards his with an aching need
for closer contact.

Anton raised his head suddenly, breaking her grip, and the
eyes boring down into hers challenged and mocked simultaneously. 'Can
you still deny that you want me?' Her eyes, dark and stormy with the
extent of her emotions, gave him his answer,. and a smile of triumph
touched his mouth. 'You can't deny it, and you know it.'

'You're a self-opinionated, arrogant swine, and I hate
you!' she accused hoarsely when he released her and stood up to remove
his robe.

He was supremely confident, and in no hurry to return to
her while she lay there staring up at him, her honey-brown hair in
disarray across the pillows, and her breath coming quick and unevenly
across her swollen, parted lips as her hungry glance swept down the
length of his tall, evenly-tanned, muscular body. She had become an
alien to herself, torn between love and hate, despising herself, yet
wanting him with every fibre of her being. She held out her arms to him
impatiently, not caring that her action proved his dominance over her,
and he came to her then, his heated flesh against her own exciting her
beyond reason. He stretched out a hand to switch off the bedside light,
and then, in the velvety darkness, he proceeded to prove his dominance
over her once and for all.

She was tormented with feather-light, unhurried caresses
until the bone-snapping tension of her desire made her do exactly what
she had denied so fiercely before. She clung to him and begged
urgently, 'Take me! Please, take me!'

His hard, thrusting body showed her no mercy after that,
and they made love in a fury of passion that left her limp and
exhausted, but utterly fulfilled.

For the first time since their marriage, Anton did not
thrust her from him with an exclamation of disgust on his lips, and she
lay in his arms, her love for him a pulsating, living thing between
them as he held her gently and caressed her in the tender aftermath of
their lovemaking. He nuzzled her ear and, with a contented sigh, she
turned fully into his arms, burying her lips against his warm throat
where she could feel the throbbing, rhythmic beat of his pulse.

'Won't you change your mind and come with us to Gordon's
Bay on Friday?' she asked innocently a considerable time later, but the
moment the words were spoken she was made to realise her mistake.

Anton's fingers bit into her flesh as he thrust her from
him, and his voice lashed her painfully. 'Women are all the same. They
use their bodies to get what they want, but that strategy won't succeed
with me.' His hands were hard on her body, inflicting pain where
moments before they had given pleasure, and his breath was ragged and
harsh as he moulded her to him. 'What I want from you I will take when
and how I please, and you'll get nothing in return.'

Shocked and startled by the suddenness of his attack,
Laura was forced to submit to the demands he made on her. In the fury
that raged through him he was deaf to her pleas while he violated her
body without the slightest consideration for her feelings, and when it
was over, she lay cold and shivering on her side of the bed, bruised in
body and spirit.

To use her body as a persuasive element had never occurred
to her, but Anton was filled with such bitter hatred and suspicion that
he would never believe anything else of her. What kind of women had he
associated with in the past? she wondered, choking back a sob. What
kind of woman would use her body as a weapon of influence to satisfy a
grasping nature?

Laura lay for hours nursing the ache in her heart,
torturing herself with her thoughts while Anton slept, seemingly
without a care, and it was almost dawn before she herself drifted into
an exhausted sleep.

She awoke with a start some hours later to find Jemima
beside her with a tray of breakfast in her hands.

'What time is it?' she asked, yawning sleepily as she
gathered the sheets closer about her while she shifted up into a
sitting position against the pillows.

'Almost nine o'clock, Miss Laura. Mr Anton said I was not
to wake you earlier.'

Anton
! His name jarred an unpleasant,
best-forgotten memory, and Laura winced inwardly as Jemima placed the
tray on her knees and left the room.

A bulky envelope addressed to her in Anton's bold black
handwriting stared up at her from the tray, and she tore open the flap
with trembling fingers to extract a single sheet of paper which was
accompanied by a bunch of keys.

'Laura,' the letter began bluntly, 'Let last night be a
lesson to you. I was initiated into a woman's treachery at a very early
age, and no woman will ever have the pleasure of using her physical
attributes to bend my will to hers. Try it again, and the consequences
will be far worse than you've already experienced.

'I'm flying to Johannesburg this morning on business, and
don't expect to return before Saturday. Eddie has been instructed to
drive Sally and yourself out to Gordon's Bay on Friday afternoon, and
I'm enclosing the keys to the cottage.'

His name, in firm arrogant strokes, adorned the bottom of
the page, and, typically, there was no apology for his behaviour, only
a warning which, after last night's brutality, she would be well
advised to heed.

She had no appetite, and barely touched the breakfast
which had been prepared with such care. She settled finally for a
strong cup of aromatic coffee before she pushed aside the tray and went
through to the bathroom to run her bathwater. An hour later she was
climbing through a gap in the privet hedge at the side of the house,
and making her way through the garden up to Gina Abbot's house with a
light of determination in her eyes.

If anyone could tell her something about Anton, then Gina
could, and Laura had every intention of finding out all there was to
know about the man she had married, and most especially the reason for
his twisted attitude towards women.

'Am I in time for tea?' she asked with forced bright-ness
when she found Gina coming out on to the terrace with a tray, and saw
her placing it on the cane table with the glass top.

'Laura!' Gina looked up in surprise. 'I must have known
you would come,' she laughed, gesturing towards the extra cup on the
tray. 'Sit down, my dear. It's been some time since your last visit.'

Laura sat down in the cane chair and glanced about her
appreciatively, taking in the scarlet bougainvillaea ranking so
profusely on the pagola beneath which they were seated. Sliding glass
doors led the way into the spacious living-room which possessed a
homely atmosphere despite its elegant furnishings, and Laura found
herself relaxing now that she was away from the austerity she always
encountered within Bellavista's walls.

'You have a lovely home,' she announced sincerely as she
accepted a cup of tea from Gina, and helped herself to a biscuit.

Gina's green eyes sparkled humorously. 'Coming from the
mistress of Bellavista, that's a compliment.'

'I still can't think of Bellavista as my home,' Laura
confessed, admitting to herself silently that there were many occasions
when she still had the distinct feeling that she was there on
sufferance.

'Time will change that,' Gina assured her, then she
diverted the conversation in a different direction. 'I suppose Sally is
looking forward to the school holidays. Have you made any plans?'

'We're going to the cottage at Gordon's Bay,' Laura told
her casually, choosing her words with care as she added, 'Sally and I
tried to persuade Anton last night that he should come with us, but
unfortunately he won't be able to manage it.'

'What a shame,' Gina frowned. 'Sally must be
disappointed.'

'She is.'

'And you, Laura,' Gina prompted with a teasing sincerity.
'Are you disappointed?'

'For Sally's sake, yes,' Laura replied calmly, giving
nothing away as she drank her tea quickly before launching into the
subject which was foremost in her mind. 'On my wedding day, Gina, you
said that Anton had once been hurt badly. Was it a woman?'

'I wondered when you'd ask,' Gina laughed mischievously,
then she sobered. 'Yes, it was a woman— Camilla York her name
was then. They were going to be married, so everyone believed, but
before the engagement could be announced, she married a wealthy German
count and left the country.'

'But why?'

'Why?' Gina smiled a little cynically. 'My dear, this
happened eight years ago. Anton's father had just died leaving DeVere
Enterprises at rock-bottom financially. Anton never mentioned the
subject, but my guess is that Camilla got out quickly when she
discovered that the DeVere fortune had taken a tumble. Karl von Dissel
happened to be on the scene, and he was also extremely wealthy. Added
to that he was titled, and that was obviously just up Camilla's street,
as they say.'

Laura smiled a quick, humourless smile. 'You don't make
her sound very nice.'

'She wasn't,' Gina insisted, her green eyes sparkling with
an inner anger. 'And Anton was well rid of her. If she'd been worth her
salt she would have stood by him during those first few years after his
father's death. He worked like a demon to put the family business on
its feet once again, and today it's one of the largest firms of its
kind in the country. There's no longer any need for him to work so
hard—he has highly qualified people at the helm of each
department—but he goes on and on, driving himself harder than
he drives those who work for him. Heaven only knows what he's trying to
accomplish, but Graham says that Anton will drive himself into an early
grave if he doesn't slow down.' She leaned forward anxiously in her
chair. 'Will you try to reason with him, Laura? Make him realise what
he's doing to himself?'