Wife To A Stranger. Daphne Clair
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house, and a huge sloping archway outside the room framed the sea.
‘It’s a glorious view,’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He had put down the plastic bag that she thought of as holding all her worldly possessions. ‘Can I get you a drink or something? Make you a coffee?’
‘No, thanks. I think I’ll lie down for a while.’
‘Sure.’ He paused. Evidently sensing her nervous tension, he touched her cheek with his hand, the thumb rubbing gently over her skin, waking a tiny tremor of sensuous response deep within her. ‘It’ll be all right, Capri,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing here to frighten you.’ He dropped his hand. ‘Have a good rest. I’ll be around if you need anything. Just yell.’
‘Thank you.’ She watched him leave, still carrying his bag. He closed the door and she stood feeling lost. Hesitantly she approached the long dressing-table against one wall, touched a rather ornate gold-decorated hand-mirror lying on the white surface, and lifted a cutglass perfume bottle, removing the stopper to sniff it. It was the same scent as the one Rolfe had bought her before they left Australia. Spicy, faintly earthy—a very sexy perfume. ‘Your favourite,’ he’d said.
Turning, she opened a door and found a walk-in wardrobe filled with clothes. She touched some of the garments, moved them along on their hangers. They were all her size, colours that suited her. Most of them looked expensive. Easily thirty pairs of shoes sat neatly in pairs along the floor. It seemed an awful lot.
Fingering a peacock-blue silk dress, she frowned. Rolfe was presumably quite well-off. He had a thriving business, and this house in its exclusive coastal enclave was certainly not cheap real estate.
Perhaps she had come from more modest circumstances? Where had they met? She must ask him later.
Nothing here had triggered her elusive memory, and her shoulders drooped as she left the wardrobe and opened another door into a white and turquoise bathroom.
Here too the floor was carpeted. There was a roomy glass-fronted shower, a marble bathtub almost big enough for two, and all the taps were large and goldplated.
Seeing another door on the opposite side of the bathroom, she tapped on the panels and opened it on a bedroom identical to the one she’d come from, right down to the bedspread, on which Rolfe’s overnight bag sat.
She closed the door quickly, her emotions a mixture of shame and relief. Was he going to sleep there?
Rolfe was her husband and she’d been away for two months. Instinctively she knew that he was a man who appreciated sex—his virility was so much a part of his personality she couldn’t be unaware of it The way he looked at her and touched her made her conscious of her femininity, and even that brief welcome-home kiss in the garage had held a hint of sexuality, of passion.
But although she’d reacted blindly to his masculine attraction since she’d woken to see him waiting for her return to consciousness, what she had told him in the hospital was the truth. So far as she was concerned he might have been a total stranger. And she wasn’t a woman who would—or could—make love with a man she scarcely knew.
How could she know that with such certainty? she wondered, stripping the cover from the bed in the room that was evidently to be hers.
Moving slowly, she removed her shoes and lay down, glad to have her head rest on cool, clean linen. She supposed that although her mind for some reason refused to remember events, places or people, deep down she was still the same Capri she’d always been. Personality remained, even when memory was absent. Her essential self hadn’t altered. It was a comforting thought.
She woke to gathering darkness, the room dimmed and the sea outside grey and sleek with gold highlights.
Momentarily disoriented, she sat up and pushed back her hair. The room, the view were alien to her. Remnants of a dream clung. Familiar voices, a house with tall pale trees around it…
Then she remembered the hospital, Rolfe, the journey home, and the wardrobe full of expensive clothing.
She swung her feet to the thick carpeting and crossed to the dressing-table.
There were three drawers along the top, all holding a variety of makeup and grooming products—bottles, jars, mascara wands. She found a comb and closed the drawer, deciding she needed a shower.
In the bathroom a brass shelf held a stack of thick, clean towels above a heated rail. She hung her clothes from a brass hook and stepped into the shower.
Recessed shelves held scented soap and bottles of shampoo and matching conditioners. The water was hot and forceful. She let it run over her for several minutes, shampooed her hair, and closed her eyes to allow the spray to rinse out the foam.
A sound made her turn her head, and through the steam she saw Rolfe standing in the doorway from her bedroom.
Her immediate reaction was to raise one hand across her breasts and lower the other in the Venus pose.
‘Are you all right?’ Rolfe demanded.
‘Yes. Thank you.’
He nodded and withdrew, closing the door.
Stupid, stupid, she chided herself, turning off the water. She grabbed a towel and rubbed at her hair, then quickly took another, dried her body and wrapped the towel about it, tucking the ends firmly under her arms.
When she entered the bedroom Rolfe was standing at the window, reminding her of the first time she had seen him.
No, not the first time, she corrected herself. The first time she remembered seeing him…
He glanced over his shoulder at her, and then reached to draw the curtains across the window. ‘People walk along the beach.’ He turned to face her. ‘Now and then one of them will climb the bank. You don’t want to entertain peeping Toms.’ The room seemed smaller now, more intimate. ‘I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.’ His slight smile was crooked. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t think…and I was a bit worried. You’re only just out of hospital—’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It was…silly of me to be so—’
‘Shy?’ he suggested as she groped for the right word. ‘It certainly didn’t seem like you, Capri.’ His gaze slid over her, making her conscious of her nakedness under the towel.
She felt her body flush. ‘I…suppose I’d got over any shyness with you, after being married for two years.’
‘Oh, I think quite a while before that.’
‘Does that mean we…?’ She paused. ‘I mean, were we…lovers for a long time before we got married?’
‘Several months.’ His eyes glittered and narrowed, as if her thoughtless query had evoked some erotic memory. ‘You’d better get dressed. You’ll be cold.’
It wasn’t in the least cold—the house was surprisingly warm—but she turned to the wardrobe she’d discovered earlier, then hesitated. ‘What should I wear? Are we…do you have any plans for this evening?’
‘Don’t tempt me.’ Again that disconcerting flare of sexual awareness lit Rolfe’s eyes, and she put a hand on the edge of the towel that covered her breasts, nervously checking it was secure.
His voice changed and became crisp. ‘Wear whatever you’re comfortable in. I assumed you wouldn’t feel like eating out tonight, so I got a few supplies in while you were asleep.’
If he knew she’d slept, then he’d looked in on her before. How long had he watched her while she was oblivious?
Mentally she shook herself. He’d been concerned. ‘Do you want me to cook?’ she asked him.
‘Good lord, no! I can rustle up some kind of meal.’
She couldn’t stand around wearing nothing but a towel. Turning to the walk-in