A Haunting Compulsion. Anne Mather
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gratitude was evident in the unusual brightness of her eyes, and Robert hesitated a moment. ‘You don’t change, do you, Rachel?’ he said thoughtfully, giving her a rueful smile. ‘You’re still the beautiful enigma, aren’t you? The only girl I ever knew who beat Jaime at his own game. I guess that cool exterior drove him to distraction. I only wish he’d met you before Betsy got her claws into him.’
This was too close to the bone, and as if he knew it, Jaime’s father turned away. ‘See you soon,’ he said, raising a hand as if in apology, and closed the door swiftly, before she could respond.
Left alone, Rachel drew a deep breath before surveying her domain. She still felt weak, and somehow defenceless, and her own reflection in the long wardrobe mirrors didn’t help. It had been a mistake to wear dark colours, she decided. The dark brown silk shirt, and the matching pants that flared at the knee above long suede boots, had looked fashionably businesslike back in London. New they looked drab and unfeminine, robbing her face of all colour, and accentuating the hollows in her cheeks.
Still, she had no time to change now, and carrying her toilet things into the adjoining bathroom, she quickly washed her face. Her skin felt cold, but inside she felt as if she was burning up, and she lifted one of the yellow hand-towels and held it to her face for a few minutes, staring into the haunted green eyes that confronted her. Dear God, how was she going to go through with this? she asked herself silently, then thrust the towel aside before emotion got the better of her.
She had believed she was alone. She had never dreamed that the running water might have provided a screen for someone to enter her room undetected, and when she first glimpsed the dark figure, propped in the open doorway to the bathroom, she started as if she had seen a ghost. But it was no ghost who straightened at her involuntary gesture, who regarded her through narrowed mocking eyes, and she felt as if a sudden blow had just been delivered to her solar plexus.
‘Hello, Rachel,’ he greeted her equably. ‘I thought it would be easier if we got this over in private. I’m sorry if I startled you, but I didn’t like to interrupt your evident absorption in your appearance.’
HIS SARDONIC WORDS had a steadying effect, reminding her as they did of their last interview. He had been mocking then, and scathing too, and violently angry, although he had tried hard to control it, and a feathering of anticipation ran over Rachel’s skin at the memory of how it had ended.
‘What do you want, Jaime?’ she enquired now, making a display of leaning close to the mirror again, smoothing a delicate finger over the curve of her eyebrow. ‘I should have thought any contact we have to have could be more suitably expressed in the presence of your parents, and I see no reason for us to exchange anything more than the time of day.’
She spoke coolly, controlling the tendency her voice had to quiver a little, and felt quite pleased with her efforts. He should not imagine their previous relationship gave him any prior rights where she was concerned, and it was better to make her position clear, right from the start.
‘You think that, do you?’ Jaime’s voice was low and flat, devoid of expression, concealing his feelings. ‘So we’re to behave like strangers, are we?’
‘We are strangers,’ she retorted, realising she could not go on avoiding looking at him. ‘I told you—I never knew you. Now, if you don’t mind—’
She moved then, as if to go past him, but he was standing squarely in the doorway, and her downcast eyes could not avoid the sight of his booted feet, set slightly apart, with the narrow base of the walking stick that he favoured on his right.
Her eyes moved upward almost involuntarily then, over the cream-coloured corded pants, that enclosed his hips like a second skin, over the dark green shirt he was wearing, the neckline unbuttoned to reveal the brown column of his throat, to the swarthy features of his lean dark face, that she remembered so well. She was a tall girl herself, but he had always been taller, easily six feet, with a lean, muscular body, that owed its hardness more to the tough life he led than to any particular prowess in physical sports. He was not a particularly handsome man. Like his body, his face had a toughness that denied simple good looks. But he was attractive—how attractive, Rachel knew only too well, and the hooded depths of his eyes and the sensual twist of his mouth had an appeal that was purely magnetic. She had felt that magnetism once, she could even feel it at this moment, but now she knew the selfish nature that lay behind that sexy exterior, and despised herself for allowing even a trace of the old charisma to disturb her.
‘Will you let me pass?’ she demanded now, fixing her gaze on the central button of his shirt. ‘I want to put on some make-up and brush my hair, and your mother and father are waiting for their supper.’
Jaime made no move to accommodate her. ‘Aren’t you going to ask how I’m feeling?’ he asked, using his free hand to massage his hip. ‘Don’t you want to know how it happened, and whether they got the bullet out?’
‘I really don’t see that it matters to me, one way or the other,’ Rachel returned callously, hardly aware of what she was saying in her urgency to get away from him—from being alone with him—from this impossible situation. ‘Your mother explained all I needed to know. She told me you got away with it, as usual. You always had the luck of the devil!’
‘Damm you, Rachel!’ His harshly expressed denunciation brought her head up with a jerk, and she stared tautly into his angry brown eyes. ‘Have you any idea how bloody painful it was, dragging myself in here? Just so that you shouldn’t be embarrassed! And you stand there and tell me you don’t care! You—little hypocrite!’ He used a word then that Rachel would never care to repeat.
Rachel quivered, but she refused to be intimidated. She was alarmed to see the sallow cast of his features beneath their swarthy tan. He had not been lying when he said the effort of coming in here had drained him, and in spite of her angry bitterness, compassion stirred.
‘Don’t you think this conversation has gone far enough?’ she suggested quietly. ‘I’m sorry if I sound unfeeling, but I’ve just had a long journey, and I’m tired, and I didn’t know I’d have you to face at the end of it—’
‘You’re tired!’ he grated, bearing his weight on the stick as he moved nearer to her. ‘You’re sorry if you sound unfeeling!’ His mouth tightened ominously. ‘My God, do you think that’s sufficient recompense for the way you’re treating me?’
‘Jaime, listen—’
‘No, you listen! To me!’ He jerked her towards him as he spoke, bringing her close enough to be touching him, her thigh brushing his uninjured leg. ‘I didn’t come in here to quarrel with you, or to beg your sympathy. I came because I knew it was going to be difficult for you, for both of us, and I wanted to—smooth the passage.’ He made a sound of derision. ‘But you don’t want it that way, do you? You want to keep me at bay, to erect all those old grievances you’ve managed to perpetuate against me, to create a situation where it’s impossible for us to behave normally with one another.’ His eyes blazed angrily. ‘Oh, I know you refused to answer my calls, and you didn’t acknowledge any of my letters, but I thought—I really thought—we might be able to talk to one another here—’
‘Well, you were wrong.’ Rachel could not let that go unchallenged. For the first time, she tried to get away from him, but in spite of his injury he was still a lot stronger than she was, and by struggling with him she was only making the situation more volatile. ‘Jaime, we have nothing to say to one another,’ she exclaimed, then froze into immobility when he dragged her arm across his body and pressed her hand deliberately against his right leg.
‘Feel it!’ he commanded thickly. ‘I want you to feel it,’ and she averted her eyes quickly from the disturbing violence in his. But rather than promote another outburst, she flexed her fingers tentatively against the corded cloth. Beneath the dark material of his trousers she could detect the taut ribbing