Jayne Bauling Read online

  Then Kemp was guiding her to the sofa, pushing her down and bending to remove her sandals, his hands warm on her slender, fine-boned feet.

  'Although why the sofa I don't know, when there are several perfectly respectable beds in the house,' he murmured.

  'Kiss me again,' she pleaded huskily, and he obliged while his fingers went to the fastening of her bra.

  He was touching her tumescent breasts now, kneading the taut satin-textured flesh, and she gasped his name in desperate entreaty. She had never permitted lovemaking to go as far as this with any man, always being the one in control, and she was totally unprepared for the almost agonising delight of his touch.

  Kemp raised himself to look down at her and drew a sharp breath. 'You're beautiful,· he said hoarsely, then put his mouth to the marble hardness of her nipples, and Valentine cried out, a long sobbing sound.

  He lifted his head again after a time to see the intensity of passion that was transforming her face, leaving her eyes feverishly glittering while her parted lips were rosy and swollen, her head helplessly twisting and turning from side to side with her dark curls escaping the arrangement she had taken such trouble over earlier. %

  'What are you, Valentine?' he demanded with sudden harshness. 'All that passion, and how much feeling to go with it? As regal as a queen and as sensuous as a cat; Aphrodite's body hidden beneath a fairytale heroine's garments . . . Are you a purely carnal creature or do you experience emotion as well? An angel-whore?'

  Desire was not enough; she knew that in some dazed recess of her mind, but still she drew him back to her, wanting to bind him to her for ever, till the end of all time. She must have unfastened the buttons of his white shirt because his chest was bare against her breasts and she was able to slide her hands over the heated dampness of his shoulders as his mouth found the moist sweetness of hers again.

  .She was like a wild creature in his arms, demented by her hunger and a growoing hopelessness.

  'You want this, don't you?' he groaned.

  But she wanted' more than his merely wanting her. She wanted a sharing of emotion—and truth. To allow him to take her not knowing what she had been in the life and death of his cousin would be despicable, because he would hate both her and himself when he found out.

  'It's too soon,' she murmured with a break in her voice, striving to restrain that madness of desire which invited her to let this tempestuous lovemaking proceed to its natural conclusion.

  'Too soon?' Sudden derision lightened his blue eyes as he levered himself away from her. 'Why be coy at this late date, sweetheart? It doesn't suit you. You know you're divine, a goddess created for love ... How many men have you allowed to make use of that exquisite body? How many have lost themselves in all that beauty and passion?'

  He ran an insolent hand over her from throat to waist, and she shuddered, but managed to say stonily, 'None, Kemp.'

  'None?' With a faint laugh he sat up and regarded her contemplatively. 'Truly, none?'

  'Truly,' she said clearly.

  She lay there, strangely unable to move. Her limbs felt heavy and an alien lethargy pervaded her being, making her eyes slumbrous as she looked back at him. She couldn't tell if he believed'her or not and, at that at that moment, she didn't care. Nothing seemed to matter. She could even, in that soulless moment, have brought herself to tell him about Philip, but that didn't seem to matter either.

  Kemp stood up and looked down at her, a searingly possessive look. Valentine lay where she was, heedless of the fact that her half-slip was ruched up around her thighs and she was uncovered from the waist up. Arms flung out, head tipped back on the slender white neck, dark hair brought to gypsy disorder by what had passed, she gazed back at him from beneath half-closed lids.

  A faint smile came to his face. 'My God, do you know what you look like, lying there? Wild and wanton—you're nothing but an animal at this moment. If I touched you again you wouldn't give me another spiel about its being too soon.'

  'And are you going to?' she asked with slow languor.

  'It's my decision really, isn't it?' he queried grimly. 'No, Valentine, I'm not. You're probably right about its being too soon—how long have we known each other? But old habits die hard, I suppose . , . You see, in the course of my work I've been accustomed to doing without women for long periods since I couldn't take a woman to some of the places I had to go to. That's why, when a project came to an end, I'd remedy the situation at the earliest possible moment, knowing the next stretch of enforced celibacy wasn't far away. But here . . . We've all the time in the world, haven't we? I'll have to get used to that idea.'

  'You're really a rather civilised man, aren't you?' she ventured, lips curving.

  'I hope you appreciate it,' he retorted. 'But you yourself aren't at all civilised, are you, sweetheart? In my arms just now you were the complete savage, all sensation and nothing eke, with your heart beating like any pagan drum under my hand.'

  'I'm surprised at myself, I'll admit,' she confessed carefully as pain began to claim her again.

  'You've never felt like that before?' he prompted.

  'Never.'

  'And I'll really be the first?'

  'Yes,' she said simply. Only he wouldn't want her when he knew the truth about her. Ah, God, she could die of this terrible, tearing regret.

  He looked at her strangely. 'Just as long as you do understand, Valentine, that it will be me ... That we will be lovers eventually. It would be stupid to deny the physical attraction that exists between us, and ulti-

  mately it must be consummated. You do understand?'

  'I've been waiting for you,' she said gravely, and her eyes, meeting his, were deep and tender with a promise because in that moment she was conscious only of the Tightness of an eventual union between them. All that would finally keep them apart was forgotten again.

  'Yes,' he said on an odd thoughtful note, and turned from her. 'Goodnight, Valentine. If I remain here any longer with the sight of you to tempt me, I'll forget that time is no longer of any importance.'

  It was only some time later, after she had gone to bed, that sanity returned in full and painful measure.

  Why, why hadn't she told him? To keep from doing so was merely inviting disaster as well as being unfair to them both.

  And yet still she was tempted to delay her confession although she had the intelligence to realise that it was something she owed to herself as much as to Kemp.

  He desired her and Valentine gloried in the knowledge, rejoicing in the fact that she had withheld her body from the countless other men who had desired it; had kept it for this one man whose passion could summon an answering fire in her blood.

  But when she told him the truth he would no longer want her. For a moment she wished she had let him possess her fully, but in the next moment she knew that to have done so would have ultimately destroyed her—because it wasn't enough that Kemp should desire her sexually. She was greedy for more, so very much more, because she herself was driven by more than just the hunger of her body.

  But love, or even liking, would take time to achieve, thanks to the brittle shell of sophistication she had hidden behind for so long. Underneath somewhere was the woman Kemp might have understood, the old Valli rather than Valentine, but to him Valli would be anathema.

  'And I don't have time,' she whispered into the darkness, mocking the wild yearning that tempted her to withhold the truth from him still longer.

  In the end. being human, she compromised, although she felt ashamed of the weakness that caused her to do so. She would allow herself time to win from him just one moment of genuine liking; a smile untinged with derision would suffice, or amusement without mockery.

  Just that, no more, and it would have to last her all her life because then she must tell him. But she would have to be quick about it because the truth must be told, for both their sakes.

  She had little contact with Kemp the following day, since Sunday was a day on which she often slept late, and he depart
ed for the Ducaine estate in the middle of the morning. Soon after he had gone, Gary arrived, and Valentine prepared a light lunch which they ate outside before riding two of the horses intjp the foothills.

  It was a lazy day, as Sundays ought to be, and it wasn't too difficult to -divert Gary when he showed signs of wanting to take their relationship a step further.

  Valentine told herself she was using the time to relax and gather strength for what she had to do, but her mind was constantly active yet bringing her no closer to a solution.

  It was late afternoon when they got back and handed the horses over to Freddie Jansen.

  'A drink before you go, Gary?' Valentine suggested hospitably, and he accepted eagerly.

  There was no sign of the Porsche, so Kemp must still be over at the Ducaine estate. Sipping her gin and tonic, Valentine wondered just what he felt for Emma. The other girl could never satisfy him . . .

  He belongs to me, I belong to him—it was the first time she had formed the thought with such clarity, and a secretive little smile tugged at her lips and disappeared in another moment when the weight of reality came dropping down on her like an avalanche: "there was still a truth in her life called Philip de Villiers. There could be no altering of the past.

  'When will I see you again?' Gary demanded a little later when she had skilfully implanted in his mind the idea that he ought to be leaving.

  'Ring me some time during the week,' Valentine advised lightly.

  They stood in the driveway beside which his car was parked, under one of the huge oaks, and he shook his flaxen head in reluctant admiration.

  'You never give an inch, do you?'

  She smiled. 'If I did, you'd take the proverbial mile.'

  .'I'll take a kiss to be going on with.'

  She didn't mind. However many men kissed her, the memory of Kemp's possession of her mouth could never be overlaid.

  Gary held her tightly, but she felt nothing, and his greedy kiss ignited no spark of longing. The whisper of tyres came to her ears and she disengaged herself, smiling slightly at the sight of the silver Porsche. Even a moment of jealousy from Kemp would satisfy her, she thought with wistful yearning.

  'Valentine!' Gary thought the smile was for him.

  'Goodbye, Gary,' Valentine said gently, and forgot him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KEMP was waiting for her outside the house when Valentine returned after Gary had driven away. She approached him unselfconsciously, her bright lips curving. She might not yet be a skilled horsewoman, but she knew how well riding clothes suited her tall slim figure. Her breeches fitted like another skin and were tucked into beautifully polished boots, and her cream -silk shirt had the sleeves rolled up and several buttons seductively open to expose her tender throat and just a suggestion of the hollow between her breasts.

  A twisted ironic smile greeted her. 'Adam will be insanely jealous. When does he get his share?'

  Valentine tilted her head to one side, regarding him curiously. 'I'm deeply disappointed,' she mocked liltingly and with what truth only she knew, suffering like the damned and never revealing a fraction of it. 'You're the one supposed to be insanely jealous.'

  'You must have forgotten what you told me last night; that I'm the only man who can arouse you to that extent,' he reminded her tauntingly. 'I'm merely interested. What do you get in exchange for the kisses and whatever else you allow your devoted swains?'

  Valentine lifted a graceful shoulder. 'Nothing. I'm just of a naturally obliging nature.'

  'Like all tarts.'

  'Well, it is generosity that makes tarts of certain women,' she retorted, unabashed.

  'And you're very generous, aren't you?' Kemp's eyes held hers, challenging her.

  A slow, ravishing smile made her beauty something rare and elevated, almost unearthly, but she felt she must faint with the effort. She yearned to fling herself at him, begging

  him to understand, to forgive, but she knew she would be rejected.

  'I could be.'

  'My God, I feel sorry for any man who can't see through your act," he said disgustedly, turning from her to enter the house. 'Enjoy yourself while you can, Valentine—or allow Adam and Gary to do so ... Because the flirtation game ends when we become lovers, my beautiful bitch.'

  But they would not become lovers, and Valentine knew it with a fresh chill. There was Philip, always Philip...

  One morning the following week, during a lull between visitors, she glanced idly at the calendar on which she had taken to writing her estimate of the daily number of visitors over each day's date. A moment later her eyes began to sparkle and she picked up the telephone receiver. The gathering of the grapes would get under way any day now, but first—

  'Sylvie?' Valentine queried. 'Could you take over from me for a short while up here? I find I have to go to Stellenbosch.'

  'Of course,' Sylvie was eager to oblige. 'Make it longer than a short while if you'd rather go to Cape Town.'

  'Stellenbosch will do.'

  But some time later, when Valentine had driven in to the beautiful university town with its backdrop of blue mountains, famous Stellenryck Wijn Museum and beautiful historic buildings, she encountered some difficulty in finding just what she wanted until she entered a tiny stationery shop she had never come across before.

  'You took some time off today?' Kemp mentioned enquiringly at dinner that evening.

  'Yes, is that all right?' she asked with a hint of mischief in her eyes, knowing too agonisingly well that this might be the last opportunity she had to appear appealing in his eyes and thus defiantly intent on making her last perfor- mance a flawless one. 'You see, my hours of duty coincide with shopping hours.'

  _'As long as Sylvie doesn't mind,' he said easily. 'What are you looking so pleased about?'

  'Was I?' The smile she cast him was wholly engaging and she was devastated to see his expression harden in response. Ah, dear God, was she to have no happy memory of a pleasant exchange with him? 'Well, I am feeling pleased.'

  Kemp watched her for a moment, noting that her lovely, delicate face was more expressively mobile than usual. She sat opposite him, fingering the stem of her glass with scarlet-tipped fingers, consciously alluring in her frivolous navy blue organza, deliberately enchanting.

  'Why?' A slight smile touched his mouth.

  A gurgle of laughter, sheer seduction, escaped her, and it had a ring of genuine amusement, for despite her sadness over what must come, she was feeling excited. 'I can't tell you now, but you will find out, I promise you.'

  'You're up to something,' he guessed, eyes narrowed as he surveyed her. 'I don't trust you at all, Valentine. You're a very dangerous lady.'

  'No, relax, please!' she insisted demurely, playing to the hilt. Her swan song, she thought anguishedly behind the mask; after tomorrow came the real pain, the real loneliness. 'It's nothing wicked or bad. It's simply a wonderful idea I had this morning.'

  'Your ideas are all likely to be wicked, sweetheart.'

  'You just don't know me, Kemp,' she protested gently.

  'I know all I need to,' he assured her sharply.

  'Don't you wish you understood me?' she challenged.

  'Oh, I' understand you, Valentine,' he said meaningfully, and she thought his voice contained a threat. 'I understand you only too well, which is why I don't wish to know any more.'

  'Now you're getting too clever for me,' she withdrew from the conversation with a smile. 'But I'm going to surprise you one day, Kemp . . . tomorrow, in fact!'

  He didn't take her seriously and the subject was changed, but when they parted later Valentine was still smiling.

  Kemp had not touched her again that week, although he had had plenty of opportunity to do so, especially as they were alone together in the evenings. Occasionally, testing his control, or perhaps her power, Valentine had been deliberately enticing—or perhaps she simply wanted to experience his lovemaking again. But the more blatantly seductive she was, the greater grew the derision with w
hich he habitually regarded her. She had to be a masochist, she thought disgustedly. Joy would never be her lot in life.

  Yet, in a strange, perverse way, she enjoyed the challenge, almost a contest between them, and wished it might continue until she had made him see her as she really was, but that would take too long. Soon now, the real agony must begin. But could it be any worse than this present pain, half guilt and half regret?

  The next morning she dressed herself in a scarlet dress with off-the-shoulder sleeves and a deep frill round the low neck, a flounce edging the skirt and a matching belt clasped about her slender waist, knowing that, being tall, she could carry off the feminine frills and flounces she loved. She wore her hair in a smooth style that day, and the silver studs in her ears were her only jewellery.'

  She waited until she knew Kemp was in the breakfast room before going along, her high-heeled red sandals tapping out an unhasty, measured rhythm. In her hand she held a medium sized envelope.

  'Good morning.' Her smile was brilliant, masking both nervousness and excitement as she held out the envelope with his first name written on it in her elaborate handwriting. 'This is for you.'

  'What's this? Formal notice?' he enquired mildly.

  'Oh, no. Think of today's date,' she suggested as she sat down.

  'The fourteenth of February?' Kemp opened the envelope.

  The card she had finally chosen lacked the crude gar-ishness of so many modern ones, since the designer had nostalgically reverted to an older style, but Valentine had crossed out the verse it contained and written simply, I'll be your Valentine.

  Kemp sat back in his chair, his eyes glinting. 'A clear invitation if ever there was one. They're supposed to be anonymous, though.' He read her inscription again and began to laugh. 'But you are already, aren't you?'

  The tragic irony of the situation engulfed her, but she forced her red lips into a smile. 'Yes,' she admitted, and pleasure touched her pain because she had made him laugh. The feeling was swiftly followed by the most profound sadness she had ever _ experienced as she remembered what must come soon—today. She went on, 'I have surprised you, haven't I? I said I would.'