Mishap Marriage. Helen Dickson

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      Chapter Three

      Leaving the house and crossing the garden, Shona took a path that led into the forest. As she entered it she passed into a new, beautiful twilight world. Trees of enormous girth reared up two hundred feet in height, but their upper boughs could not be seen because they became lost in a smother of vegetation—a tangle of creepers which looped in all directions and cascaded down like green waterfalls, while others snaked upwards like green pythons. Mosses and ferns as large as small trees sprang out of the hollows, with stems as thick as a man’s arm. Many trees were loaded with fruit: green avocadoes, golden mangoes, wild apricots and limes.

      The path wound downwards and, after five minutes, she emerged into an open space floored with an outcrop of rock. Water cascaded over huge boulders into a deep pool in the centre of the outcrop. On one side of this clearing a tangle of great boulders sloped up to a twenty-foot-high cliff, overlapped with verdure where the forest began again. On the other sides of the clearing trees again towered skyward and between them the dense vegetation cut out any view of the open space.

      * * *

      Zack arrived at the house for his meeting with Antony just as Shona left. From the open French doors he watched her walk into the woods. Moving to his side, Carmelita saw the way he watched her sister-in-law.

      ‘Shona is very beautiful. Do you not think so, Captain?’

      ‘I do agree.’

      ‘And—I suspect your visit is not just to see my husband?’

      Zack’s eyes narrowed slightly. Leaving her question unanswered, he said, ‘I am here on your husband’s invitation to see the island.’

      ‘Then since Antony has been delayed at the mill and is not expected back for another half an hour, perhaps you would like to follow Shona. There is a creek where she likes to walk. It is very pretty. I am sure you would appreciate the view. Besides, for some reason she seems out of sorts today. Perhaps some company might cheer her.’

      Zack was wary of her suggestion and felt that he was being manipulated in some way, but regretting his behaviour of the previous night and feeling he had to apologise to Shona for his harsh words and unable to quell the need to see her once more, he set off after her.

      Her expression the quintessence of cunning, Carmelita watched him go. So far so good, she thought. By the time he reached the creek, Shona would have removed her gown and would be slipping into the deep waters. Having seen the lust burning in the depths of Captain Fitzgerald’s eyes whenever they had fallen on Shona over dinner the night before, she was in no doubt that he would be unable to resist her.

      But showing him the bait was the easy part. Now she had to get him on the hook.

      * * *

      Zack followed the path Shona had taken. The most troubling thing of all was the intensity of his physical reaction to her. The lust. The rock-hard lust that turned his body into a single, painful craving to smell her scent, to touch her skin, to see her eyes soaking him up, to feel her taking him into her, looking at her face in pleasure, insanely, obscenely hiding nothing she was holding back.

      This was no ordinary reaction to a woman. This shook him to the core and interfered with his thoughts, his life, tormented him, overpowered him. He didn’t understand why she had such a volatile effect on him, but he understood that he wanted her—he wanted her warm and willing in his arms.

      In the dining room it had not gone unmissed that her sister-in-law’s sharp eyes were fixed on her the entire evening, which led him to believe that all was not as it seemed at Melrose Hill. It hadn’t been difficult for Zack to put the pieces together or to understand why Shona McKenzie had proposed to him afterwards. And he could sense her distress now as she sat at the side of the creek with her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees, staring into the depths of the pool.

      Zack distinctly felt his heart move and soften, then something speared him in the centre of his chest. She was a determined, wilful young woman, there was no doubt about that, but there was something vulnerable and sweet in her, something worth pursuing, something untapped, which she had allowed no one to see. He had been overwhelmed when he had left her the night before by the stunning realisation that this woman, if he didn’t take care, could mean something to him and he didn’t want it. He ought to stay away, he warned himself as he descended the path, realising Shona McKenzie spelled trouble and more trouble.

      In this secluded place she had removed her dress. Her hair was wet and slicked back from her face, her petticoat clinging СКАЧАТЬ