For The Sake Of His Child Page 10

  Then he felt her arms creeping around him, as though she found a kind of comfort in the warmth of his body. He stroked her hair, feeling how slight she was against his powerful frame. It was her spirit that was strong.

  Tough, she’d said, only a short time ago. But it was the wrong word. She had the strength of finely spun tensile steel, but she could be hurt and broken with a word.

  ‘I guess you’ve got a good deal to cry about,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t cry any more-well, not really. I got all that over years ago.’

  He lifted her chin and brushed a tear from her cheek. ‘Is that so? Now you just dry other people’s tears.’

  She managed a tremulous smile, and Carson drew a sharp breath at the sight.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said softly. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’ He didn’t know what the words meant, only that he had to say something.

  Gina heard him, not just in her ears but in her bones. Every part of her seemed to respond to that assurance of comfort and safety. She wanted to remain enfolded in his arms like this for ever, enjoying the sweet warmth creeping through her, until there was nothing else.

  Carson stayed looking down into her face, feeling as though he was held in a dream. It was the night of her engagement to another man, and he had no right to kiss her. But while his conscience was arguing his lips were pressing themselves against hers.

  Her mouth was wide and curved, generous to match her heart, and somehow just the right shape for his own mouth. It had been winter in his life for so long that the coming of spring was a shock, making his blood sing and his rational mind take a holiday.

  For Gina, with only Dan for comparison, Carson’s kiss came as a revelation. She hadn’t known that a man’s lips could be so subtle, so skilful, or that it was possible to be so completely lost in sensation. His mouth was gentle, teasing her from one caress to another, so that she responded without thinking.

  She’d yearned for this since the night he fell asleep on the sofa and she’d looked longingly at his mouth. It was forbidden fruit, and all the sweeter for it. This was why she couldn’t let Dan kiss her again.

  She no longer had any power of thought, or even any desire to think. She wanted this, and every passing moment, every movement of his lips, made her want it more. She wanted other things, too, things to do with the feeling of danger at the thinness of her nightdress and her nakedness beneath.

  She was trembling with the awakening of new life. His lips were thrilling but they weren’t enough. She desired his hands too, and his whole body pressed against hers, uniting with hers.

  She slipped her arm about his neck and drew him closer, inviting him to explore her more intimately. Somehow his tongue was in her mouth, setting off sensations that were intense and glorious. She gave herself up to them joyfully, aching for the intimacy of his touch, her heart beating wildly. She felt his arms tighten about her and the power flowing from his body to hers.

  Wherever his tongue flicked against the inside of her mouth, it set off new flares of feeling. She hadn’t known that a man’s touch could make a woman feel like that, as though she would do anything-break any rule-to make him hers.

  She melted against him, letting his arms support her while her hands discovered the strong column of his neck, the breadth of his chest. She felt giddy, lying there in the darkness, barely able to see him, but feeling him with every part of her.

  It was like the time she’d knelt beside him on the sofa, and his breath had brushed her mouth. She was so alive to Carson that he had only to touch her in one place to touch her everywhere. The electric sensation of his mouth against hers was reflected over her skin, her breasts, her loins.

  Carson was too experienced a lover not to sense that Gina was on the verge of total surrender. His pulses leapt and his kisses grew deeper, more urgent and intense. In a moment he would carry her to bed, and she would let him because his skilled caresses had overcome her will.

  To hell with Dan! A man had no right to a woman if he couldn’t keep her.

  But the thought of Dan was fatal. To Carson he might seem an oaf, but to Gina he was the man she’d chosen-heaven alone knew why!

  The struggle with himself was terrible, but he won. Gina had brought him priceless gifts, and he couldn’t repay her by overcoming her when she was at her most vulnerable.

  Gina could feel his breath coming harshly, sense his heart beating strongly. His arms were relaxing their hold; he was drawing away. Now she was eager to see his face and find in it some reflection of her own joy.

  But when she saw it her heart sank. It was full of caution and dismay, like that of a man who was asking himself how he could have been so stupid. A chill ran through her.

  ‘Perhaps that wasn’t a good idea,’ he said unsteadily. ‘I wouldn’t like you to think-I wanted to make you feel better, but I guess I chose the wrong way.’

  Gina tried to collect her scattered thoughts. Through the singing in her blood she was vaguely aware that Carson was uttering words that denied what had just happened between them. But he couldn’t be. It was too beautiful and poignant to be denied.

  He was disengaging himself. ‘Please don’t worry, Gina. I know you’re very vulnerable in this house, and I won’t be forcing myself on you.’

  ‘Carson, I don’t-’

  ‘After all, I understand how things are between you and Dan-I just don’t want you to be worried.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said in a colourless voice. ‘You were just trying to make me feel better.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quickly. ‘That was it. I went a little too far. Don’t hold it against me, for Joey’s sake.’

  ‘Of course not.’ To her own surprise her voice came out sounding normal. ‘I-I think I’d better go to bed now.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said hastily. ‘Me too.’

  How anxious he was to get away from her! she thought sadly. How stupid the dreams of a moment ago seemed now! She bid him a hasty goodnight and fled to her room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A T BREAKFAST next morning Carson said, without looking at her, ‘I’ll be home early tonight to let you go out.’

  ‘Go out? I’m not going anywhere,’ Gina said, puzzled.

  ‘Aren’t you meeting Dan to buy the engagement ring?’

  ‘Enga-?’ She rose from the table, full of wrath. ‘What has Dan been saying to you?’

  ‘Last night he said-well, he implied-’ The glint in her eyes was thrilling, if a little unnerving, and her hair glowed redder than ever. ‘He implied he’d asked you to marry him and-’

  ‘Yes, he asked me, but I didn’t answer because I couldn’t get his attention away from the race. You mean he just took it for granted, and he told you-?’ She took a long breath. ‘If Dan was here this minute I’d-well, it’s lucky for him that he isn’t.’

  ‘You’re not going to marry him?’

  ‘Not in a million years,’ she said emphatically. ‘I’d have told you-how could you think? Oh-h-h I could-’

  A lock of fiery hair fell over her brow. She pushed it back. Carson watched her with delight. The sun had come out again.

  As he went to the front door Joey joined him, anxiously signing. Are you and Gina cross?

  ‘No,’ Carson told him. ‘In fact, things couldn’t be better.’

  When her temper had calmed, Gina called Dan.

  ‘I blame myself,’ she said. ‘I should have told you last night that I couldn’t marry you, but there was so much going on.’

  ‘But we had it all settled.’

  ‘Dan, we didn’t settle anything. We barely mentioned marriage between races. That’s no way to decide something so important.’

  ‘Gina, we’ve known for ages that we were going to get married. We haven’t made a fuss about it, but it’s been taken for granted.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why we shouldn’t. We’ve been good friends. Let’s keep it that way.’

  He argued for a while, but she knew there was no going back. When Dan
hung up he sounded bewildered rather than heartbroken. He would find someone else, she thought, someone who would appreciate the qualities he had and not worry about the ones he hadn’t. Once, that girl might have been herself, but now it was as though she’d been overtaken by a kind of divine discontent.

  Carson seemed to be there with her, touching her face with gentle fingers, regarding her mouth with pleasure, kissing it so tenderly and lovingly that her heart almost stopped from the beauty of it. And then drawing back. Why? Because he thought she was engaged to Dan? Yes, she thought excitedly, because of that.

  Only that? Was she fooling herself with what she longed to believe?

  Dan had said, ‘You’d never even think of him in that way.’ But the thought had been lurking there since the first day, when Carson had sat in Bob’s Café and made the surroundings look drab against his vivid life. He’d disturbed her, but she’d thought that was because of the car incident. The truth was that he disturbed her because he disturbed her. There was no other reason.

  She became aware that Joey was trying to get her attention, puzzled, because it was the first time she’d ever been oblivious to his needs.

  Why are you smiling like that?

  She hadn’t known she was smiling. ‘Because I’m happy.’

  Why?

  ‘It would take too long to tell you. Let’s go out for a drive.’

  In the peanut?

  ‘If you like.’

  Carson had placed a smart, expensive car at her disposal, but Joey’s preferred method of transport was the peanut, and the other car stood, ignored and unloved, in the garage.

  They went to a nearby aquadrome, and spent the day boating.

  Arriving home in the evening, Gina found a message on the answering machine to say that Carson would be late after all. On the whole he kept his promise to be early, but sometimes a delay couldn’t be helped.

  Joey was worn out from his day, and almost fell asleep over his tea, so Gina didn’t anticipate trouble at bedtime.

  She was wrong.

  Joey wanted to stay up to see his father. There followed an argument conducted with furiously flashing fingers, in which Gina tried to convince Joey that ‘bedtime’ meant ‘bedtime’. He could fight his corner as stubbornly as any other child, and after a while he gave up on fingers and settled for shaking his head. Whereupon Gina also gave up on fingers, tossed him over her shoulder and marched upstairs.

  She came down half an hour later, worn out but smiling. She poured herself a glass of wine and settled down for an evening with the television. But none of the programmes appealed to her, and she began to rummage among Carson’s collection of videos.

  Some were shop-bought, many were business programmes taped from television. At last Gina came to one which had no label or anything to indicate what it might be. Intrigued, she put it on.

  She found herself looking at a churchyard on a bright summer’s day. The church was a beautiful old ivy-clad building made of grey stone, with a tower and a steeple. And there, coming through the porch, was a bride and groom.

  The bride was dazzlingly lovely in a flowing white dress and veil. Everything about her was perfect-her face, her figure, her hair, the gaze she turned on the young man beside her. And his eyes never left her. For him she was the only woman on earth.

  Then Gina realised she was looking at Carson.

  This was the wedding of the young Carson Page and Brenda, the girl who’d gone on to become Angelica Duvaine. Barely conscious of her own actions, Gina sat up and leaned forward, alert to every nuance as the young bride and groom came more clearly into view.

  Here was Carson as she had never dreamed he could look: a young man with all the hope and joy of life before him, brilliantly, whole-heartedly in love.

  It was there in his eyes as he gazed down adoringly at his bride-surely the loveliest bride any groom had been blessed with. They walked out of the church into the sunlight, sure that the sunlight would last for ever.

  The cameraman tracked them as they came down the path, laughing and ducking confetti. Then they got into the black limousine, where his arm immediately went around her, drawing her close for a kiss that threatened the ruin of her veil. As they drove off they were oblivious of the crowds. They needed only each other.

  A curious little pain had started in Gina’s breast. She wanted to turn the video off and wipe out those glorious young people whose love excluded everyone else. She longed to obliterate that handsome young man who’d thought he had all he could ever want, and nothing could hurt him. Above all, she didn’t want to see the adoration with which he looked at the woman.

  She wanted to switch off, but she couldn’t move. She had to watch as the scene moved to the reception. How proudly he escorted his bride to the top table, how tenderly he pulled out a chair for her, and bestowed a quick kiss on her before standing up, then leaned down for another. He kissed her whenever he could.

  Now the speeches. ‘On behalf of my wife and myself…’ Cheers and laughter. Carson looked self-conscious and very young. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, so confident and happy, so different from the bitter, tense man he’d become.

  The pictures flickered out, then started up again, a few months later. There was Brenda, heavily pregnant, still managing to look glamorous. They were in a garden and Carson was leading her towards a seat, adjusting the cushions, holding her hand, regarding her tenderly, bursting with pride. The pictures faded again.

  More pictures. Brenda sitting up in bed, her newborn baby in her arms, a doting expression on her face, yet still managing to pose so that she was seen to best advantage. Even in hospital she was perfectly made up and there was calculation in her every movement. Gina could see it clearly now. She wondered how long it had been before Carson saw it.

  There was Carson with his little son in his arms. The boy had grown; he might be a year old. Carson was holding him high in the air, smiling into his eyes, the picture of fatherly pride. The child too looked happy, his face covered in a fat, gleeful baby grin as he gazed down fearlessly at the man whose big hands held him high and safe.

  Gently the father lowered his child, settling him on his arm so that they could look at each other. Gina watched, transfixed. The picture was enchanting in itself, but full of heartache to anyone who knew what had come after.

  A noise made her turn her head. Joey was standing there, his eyes fixed on the screen. Gina reached out and touched him, drawing him to the sofa to sit beside her.

  Have you ever seen this before? she signed.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Do you know who that is?’

  Daddy-a long pause-and me.

  Now a close-up, showing the pride and joy in Carson’s face as he regarded his son. Joey never moved. His eyes were fixed on his father with a yearning expression that brought tears to Gina’s eyes. What was the child thinking? That he never saw such a look from his father these days?

  The screen went dark.

  ‘That’s it, darling.’ She gave him a hug. ‘Bedtime.’

  But Joey shook his head. Again.

  Gina hesitated, wondering if this was good for him. But he turned beseeching eyes on her, and she knew she couldn’t refuse him. She rewound to the start of the scene. Joey watched, riveted, a little smile on his face.

  Again.

  ‘Just once more,’ she told him. ‘Then bed.’

  Joey took the handset and, to her dismay, wound the tape right back to the start so that the wedding came up again. Gina wished time itself could be rewound, so that she could go back to the point where she was rummaging through the videos. Then she would put that one aside, and never have to see Carson’s face as he looked at the love of his life.

  She didn’t doubt that was what Brenda was, because no man ever looked like that at more than one woman. Besides, he’d told her on the night he’d confided about his marriage, ‘I had some very naive notions in those days-true love conquers all… If ever a man and woman loved each other, we
did. And it all fell apart like a shoddy toy.’

  Brenda had used up all his capacity to love, leaving behind only a husk. Now she knew why he’d drawn back from the kiss that meant so much to her. It wasn’t because of Dan. It was because he was a fair man, and wouldn’t risk making her love him when he had no heart to give. Why, he’d practically warned her!

  She closed her eyes, longing to escape the racking jealousy that would overwhelm her if she had to see him gaze at his bride. But it was no use; he was there behind her eyelids. And so was Brenda, her lovely face seeming to say that what was hers was hers for ever, even when she no longer wanted it.

  Carson was a prickly, difficult man who went at life like a bull at a gate, and hurt himself more often than anyone else. He expected everything to be as straightforward as a business deal and, when it wasn’t, he was lost. But beneath the rough exterior he was sensitive and easily hurt. He’d reached out to her in his awkward way, and gained a hold on her heart that was painful and unbreakable.

  He needed her, at least for the moment. Perhaps, for Joey’s sake, he might even come to feel a kind of affection for her. But he wouldn’t gaze at her with the passionate adoration he’d offered Brenda.

  And that was what she wanted, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her whole life. In the years when she’d longed to hear again, she’d thought that was wanting. But it had been nothing like the yearning that possessed her now, for something she could never have.

  As the wedding scenes began again she heard Carson’s key in the lock and went to meet him with relief.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, seeing her anxious face.

  ‘I was watching some of your tapes and I found one that seems to be home movies,’ she said, speaking quickly. ‘There are some pictures of you with Joey when he was a baby, and he came in while I was playing them. Carson, please go carefully. It makes him so happy to see them-I don’t want anything to spoil it for him.’ She saw him frown and added quickly, ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have been looking at your private video-’

  ‘Never mind. I should have put it away, but I forgot it was there.’