Born Out Of Love. Anne Mather

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СКАЧАТЬ show you the rest of the bungalow,’ he said, in a curiously flat voice, but Charlotte declined.

      Drawing herself up to her full height, which in cork-soled sandals was a couple of inches more, she said: ‘We can manage, thank you. We shan’t need your assistance.’

      Logan inclined his head wearily. ‘As you wish.’ He turned towards the door, and she wondered why her victory suddenly felt so much like defeat. ‘There are provisions in the kitchen, and the meal my man, Carlos, prepared for you earlier is in the refrigerator. The sanitary arrangements are, I think, self-explanatory.’ He paused, one hand on the lintel. ‘Carlos will fetch your cases from the car, and I will see you both in the morning.’

      Charlotte nodded, but Robert muttered: ‘Not if we see you first!’ in a distinctly audible undertone.

      Logan’s look narrowed. ‘If you need—anything else, my house is just a dozen yards away along the beach,’ he added quietly, and stepped through the door. ‘Goodnight.’

      Robert turned his back and said nothing, but Charlotte acknowledged his farewell with a quick nod, going to the door as he crossed the verandah, and closing it securely behind him. There was a key and she turned it, uncaring whether or not he heard her.

CHAPTER THREE

      IT was the sea that awakened her, the persistent sound of the surf breaking on the jaws of the reef a hundred yards away. It was not an unpleasing sound, but it was sufficiently unusual to someone used to the sounds of traffic to disturb the light slumber she had fallen into just before dawn. She lifted her wrist reluctantly, and the broad square face of the masculine watch she wore swam into focus. Six-thirty, she read resignedly. Still too early to get up really, and besides, was she in such a hurry to start the day?

      Sun was filtering through the window shutters, dust motes floating in the shafts of light it created. They settled on the square oak dressing table and matching chest of drawers, and on the heavy carved doors of the wardrobe. Apart from these items, and the amply proportioned bed, there wasn’t much else in the room, and the night before she had done no more than unpack Robert’s pyjamas and her nightgown after Carlos had delivered their cases. Not that sleeping attire was absolutely essential, she thought wryly. She had spent the night on the top of the covers, but without her cotton nightgown she might well have found some use for the quilt beneath her.

      With a sigh, she sat up and swung her feet to the floor, her toes curling into the woolly rug beside the bed. Immediately her reflection was thrown back at her from the long, if somewhat pitted, mirrors on the wardrobe doors, and she pulled a face at herself as she rose to her feet. The streaked honey-brown hair, which during the day she wore either in a chignon or coiled on top of her head, tumbled about her shoulders from its centre parting. Matthew used to tell her the styles she wore gave her features a Madonna-like innocence, but she wondered what Logan would say to that. She had worn her hair loose in the days when she had known him, and although she was unaware of the fact, with her hair loose about her shoulders, she looked very little older now than she had done then. Life had left her curiously untouched by experience, and her brief affair with Logan had been overshadowed until now by the presence of the child.

      Charlotte sighed again, lifting her arms and holding the heavy hair up from her neck. The action lifted her breasts, too, and their pointed fullness was outlined against the thin cotton of her nightgown. For a moment she had a sensuous, wanton beauty, and then she dropped her arms again and turned abruptly away, embarrassed by the intimate trend of her thoughts. Throughout her marriage to Matthew, she had avoided any reminder of what the relationship between a man and a woman could be, but it was impossible to consider the events of the day before without remembering her relationship with Logan, and speculating on what might have been.

      She padded across to the window, and thrusting open the shutters gazed out on the vista of sea and sand that awaited her. The sky was translucent, feathered with clouds that had the opacity of mother-of-pearl, the horizon misty gold and indistinct. Nearer at hand, sand crabs scuttled sideways towards the water, and overhead a hawk hung motionless before dropping like a stone to trap its prey. It was a familiar yet an alien world, possessing so much that she understood, and so much that she did not.

      She thought unhappily about the previous evening. It had not been a comfortable few hours. After Logan’s departure, Robert had become silent and morose, and she had known he naturally resented the possibility that there might be something else going on about which he knew nothing. It awakened all her fears about him asking about his real father, and her facile explanation that Logan and Matthew had disliked one another had sounded feeble even to her ears. Robert was nobody’s fool, and in consequence he had shown little interest in the rest of the bungalow, and eaten sparingly of the delicious chicken salad she had found in the refrigerator.

      But how could she explain her relationship to Logan Kennedy without either telling the truth, which was unthinkable, or involving herself in a tissue of lies and evasions? And why did Logan despise her so for marrying Matthew? What was it to him, after all? Surely she was the one who had most to feel resentful about. Her fingers probed the still tender skin of her cheek, where his hand had connected, and she shivered. The Logan she remembered had not been so ruthless. On the contrary, the strength he had possessed had been tempered with gentleness, a quality of which Charlotte had known little in her lifetime.

      Which brought her to another point: if Logan had known who she was before she came to San Cristobal, why hadn’t he stopped her from coming? It didn’t make sense, and the knowledge that she was obliged to spend four weeks on the island before terminating her contract filled her with alarm. Her relationship with Robert had always been so good. Yet now she was in a position to put that relationship in jeopardy—in more ways than one …

      Heaving a sigh, she turned away from the window, surveying the room behind her with troubled eyes. There was still Lisette Fabergé to consider. Exactly what was her relationship with Logan? It was all very well for him to explain that her husband was dead and that she had no one else, but where did they go from there? And when it was obvious that she turned to him for guidance in everything, wasn’t it reasonable to assume that sooner or later he would marry her?

      Charlotte’s nerve-endings tightened. It didn’t matter to her what Logan Kennedy should choose to do, she told herself angrily. He had walked out on her eleven years ago, and just because now he was showing masculine hostility at the knowledge that she had quickly found someone else to replace him, there was no reason for her to get involved. But she was involved, a small voice inside her taunted stubbornly. Nevertheless somehow she had to persuade Robert that in spite of their eventful arrival, ultimately the situation was as expected. How ludicrous that sounded, she thought bitterly, realising it would take more than her reassurance to convince her son.

      The sound of metal falling on to rubber tiles alerted her to the fact that in spite of the early hour, Robert was already about. Without stopping to dress, she stepped into her mules, and opened the bedroom door. Robert’s bedroom, which was across the hall from her own, was empty, and she padded along the passage to find him.

      The kitchen door stood wide and the kettle was almost boiling. Robert, in blue cotton pyjama trousers, was busily setting cups and saucers on a tray, and guessing he meant to surprise her, Charlotte would have drawn back. But the sound of her mules attracted his attention, and he spun round to face her, a slightly shamefaced expression marring his lean features. His black hair flopped untidily over his forehead, and as he lifted his hand to push it back, she could see all the bones of his rib-cage through his pale skin.

      ‘I—er—I was just making some tea,’ he offered, gesturing towards the tray. ‘Did you—did you sleep well?’

      Charlotte СКАЧАТЬ