Wounds Of Passion

Wounds Of Passion

Charlotte Lamb

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

PATRICK OGILVIE flew into Nice Airport on a hot summer afternoon. As he headed towards the taxi ranks, walking fast, his tan leather suitcase in one hand, he heard someone calling his name.

‘Patrick! Hey! Patrick!’

Stopping in midstride, startled, he turned and saw a girl hurrying towards him, looking more like a thin, graceful boy, in a black velvet jacket and sleek black jersey leggings, the only feminine thing about her outfit the jabot of white lace cascading down the front of her shirt.

‘Rae! What the hell are you doing here?’ Patrick was so taken aback that he couldn’t even pretend to be pleased to see her, his brows heavy over his blue eyes; but Rae Dunhill didn’t seem to notice; she flung her arms around him and hugged him.

‘Graham rang early this morning and told me you were on this flight.’ She was out of breath, laughing up at him. ‘Thank heavens I spotted you; I was sure I was too late and had missed you. I got caught in a traffic jam on the motorway.’

‘Our plane was delayed; we should have been here half an hour ago,’ Patrick explained unsmilingly, his body rigid as he disengaged himself. ‘You aren’t staying in Nice too, are you? I thought you were somewhere on the Italian Riviera?’

‘I am,’ Rae nodded, and he caught the secret glance she gave him.

Patrick’s frown deepened. He should never have told their joint editor, Graham Clive, that he was going to Nice, or at least not mentioned the time his plane left Heathrow. He might have known Graham would get in touch with Rae and tell her. What else had Graham told her?

‘I’m staying at Bordighera, not far from the French border, with my American friends, Alex and Susan-Jane Holtner,’ Rae told him. ‘You remember Alex? He’s the cartoonist. He does that very funny series about the American Indian in New York...you know, the one with the wigwam on top of a skyscraper.’

Patrick nodded indifferently. ‘Oh, I know, yes, crazy sort of humour.’

‘I love them,’ Rae said indignantly. ‘I was at school with Susan-Jane; she was my best friend. We’ve always kept in touch. She and Alex have a wonderful villa just outside Bordighera, on the coast road. They come every summer, for three months; they’ve been inviting me to stay for years, but I’ve always been too busy. This year, though, I finally managed to get some time off while they’re here.’

‘You certainly need a good break; you’ve been working hard for months,’ Patrick said.

‘So have you, Patrick. A few weeks in the sun is what you need, too,’ said Rae, sliding her hand through his arm as they emerged into the hot sunshine of Nice. Patrick crinkled his eyes to peer at the ultrablue sky, and, half blinded, slid dark glasses on to his nose.

‘Yes, I am tired. That’s why I’m here, to have a few weeks’ peace and quiet.’ He firmly pulled his arm free of her fingers, hoping she would get the message.

Rae wasn’t that easy to discourage. ‘You won’t get that in a Nice hotel! You must come back to Bordighera with me—it was Alex’s idea. He and Susan-Jane love to fill the villa with friends; they’ve been dying to meet you ever since I first mentioned you to them.’

Patrick’s face set like concrete. ‘No, thanks, very kind of them, but I’ve booked my hotel; I can’t change the arrangement now.’

Rae fizzed with impatience. ‘Of course you can! Don’t be silly! And the villa is so comfortable—much nicer than some impersonal hotel. We can ring up and cancel your hotel room from the villa. It will only take us a few hours to get to Bordighera; the motorway’s very fast.’

Typical, he thought grimly. There she goes again—trying to order me around! Ever since they’d started working together she had given him orders, rearranged his life, made decisions for him, as though she had some God-given right to do it, and he had never argued, because Rae Dunhill was someone he admired.

Only twenty-eight, she was already a best-selling writer. He had been a fan of her work long before he had met her and been invited to illustrate a new series of books she was working on.

Her children’s books were extraordinary: original, sensitive, clever. Like Rae herself, he had to admit. She was fascinating—but she was also a woman of incredible energy and drive, who liked to run the lives of everyone around her, and Patrick didn’t want to be managed by women any more, even for his own good.

‘Very kind of your friends,’ he curtly said, ‘but I would rather go to my hotel. Sorry.’ He didn’t even try to look sorry, glowering into the blue distance of sea and sky. ‘Look, Rae, I’m tired. I couldn’t cope with having to make polite conversation with strangers.’

‘I really think you should, Patrick,’ Rae began, and he suddenly lost patience, and turned on her, with an angry snarl.

‘Stop trying to run my life, will you?’

He felt her tense, staring. She had a memorable face, if not a beautiful one: thin, mobile, high-cheekboned, with brilliant dark eyes and thick, curly black hair cut short like a boy’s, flicked back behind small, neat ears.

Carefully, she said, ‘Sorry. Was I?’

‘Yes, and please stop it; I can run my own life!’

Patrick turned away, shifted his case to another hand, and walked over towards the scrimmage which was what passed for a taxi queue outside the airport, hoping she would take the hint and go. She didn’t, though; she followed him, watching him sideways. Patrick ignored her.

‘Graham told me about Laura,’ she softly said. ‘I’m so sorry, Patrick.’

His profile tensed, dark colour invading his face. ‘Graham talks too damn much!’

He had had lunch with Graham the day after his engagement was broken off; he couldn’t think, talk, about anything but Laura. Graham was a good listener; he had made quiet, comforting noises, and Patrick had talked until he was hoarse. Now he wished to heaven he hadn’t.

‘I suppose you told your friends all about it, which is why I’ve been invited to their villa?’ he bit out. ‘Well, I don’t need their sympathy—or yours, either, come to that. I’m not the first guy to get dumped by a woman, and I won’t be the last! I won’t die of it.’

‘Of course you won’t, and I didn’t tell anyone else about Laura!’ she said, her voice soothing; and that made him feel as edgy as a cat whose fur was being stroked the wrong way.

‘I don’t want to talk about her!’ Patrick muttered. He couldn’t bear to talk about Laura, and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about her. How long did it take to get over this sort of pain? It wasn’t like a headache, or even like a migraine—he had bad ones, sometimes, when he had been working very hard, whirring yellow lights and zigzags in front of his eyes turning him almost blind. At least you always knew they would be over within a matter of hours. You took a couple of pills and lay down in a darkened room to wait.

You couldn’t do that with the sort of ache he had at the moment; there was no way of knowing how long it would last, and no pill you could take.

‘It will take you ages to get a taxi in this mob,’ Rae pointed out. ‘At least let me drive you to your hotel.’

He hesitated, which, with Rae, was always fatal. ‘Come on,’ she coaxed, sliding her hand through his arm again, and he let her lead him across the road into the car park lined by palm trees.

As Rae unlocked her little red Fiat, he said roughly, ‘But only if you promise not to ask any questions!’

‘I won’t even mention Laura,’ Rae reassured, as they both got into the car.

But she had. Laura, he thought, the mere sound of the name opening a new wound in his heart. Oh, Laura, how could you do this to me?

When he was younger, he had never had a problem attracting girls—not that he was handsome; he had never been that. He had learnt in his teens, though, that he had something—he wasn’t sure what it was, but he did know that for some reason girls liked him. Maybe it was his build—he had shot up when he was sixteen, to almost six feet, and he had a good body, because he liked sport, especially at school. He wasn’t a beefy, hefty man, but he was wiry, his arms and legs tough and muscled, and he dressed well, kept his brown hair smoothly brushed.

But he had often thought it was his temperament girls went for—he was light-hearted, liked life on the sunny side, enjoyed being with other people, smiled a lot; and he hadn’t taken anything seriously until he’d met Laura Grainger and fallen in love like Humpty Dumpty falling off a wall.

And now, like Humpty Dumpty, he was in pieces, and not all the King’s horses or all the King’s men could put him together again.

He had known from the start that Laura didn’t love him as much as he loved her, and perhaps it was even her coolness that first attracted him? She was a challenge after years of finding it easy to get girls. One look at her, and Patrick had actually heard his heart beating. It had been an odd experience. That was how he’d known he was in love. What else could make you suddenly aware of your own heart beating? He’d never been aware of it before.

He had soon realised that Laura didn’t just look cool—she was cool. She was beautiful and clever, quite accustomed to being chased by men; and very different from the other girls he had dated. They had been eager to wait on Patrick hand and foot—done his washing, cleaned his flat, cooked him meals. Laura hadn’t; she was far too busy running her public relations agency. She wasn’t the domesticated sort, either. They ate out quite often, and when they ate at home it was usually in Patrick’s immaculate flat, and Patrick cooked the meal.

He had always enjoyed looking after himself; he was a practical man who was good at doing practical things.

Whether it was painting or modelling in clay or bronze, or ironing, cooking and cleaning, he was deft, with quick, capable hands; and he was intensely interested in detail. He had endless patience with objects, and people. Whatever the work, Patrick enjoyed the sense of satisfaction he got from a job well done, but it was even more of a pleasure to him when he was doing it for Laura.

Her name carried so many echoes, like remembered music—Laura, he thought; Laura, cool as a winter morning, distant as the dark blue horizon he saw as Rae’s red Fiat turned into the Promenade des Anglais and sped along beside the sea.

He had always had a dream girl at the back of his mind, the sort of girl he wanted to marry one day, and the minute he had seen her he’d known Laura perfectly matched that image—with her cat-like green eyes and pale golden hair, the slender elegance of her body and that fine-boned face.

He’d once asked Laura, ‘Did you ever daydream about the sort of man you wanted to marry?’ Of course, he’d hoped she would tell him he was her dream come true.

‘Of course, doesn’t everybody?’ she had smiled. ‘I knew it would have to be a man who was ready to share everything with me—fifty-fifty. Who was cheerful about cooking supper if I was tired, or would do the shopping for me when I had to work late, who didn’t expect me to wait on him the way my mother waited on my father, as if she were a servant and he were the lord and master. I made up my mind when I was very small that I’d never put up with that sort of relationship.’

How stupid could you be? he thought, his eyes dark. He had made himself everything he’d thought she wanted him to be; but she had still left him. Well, he’d never turn himself into a doormat for another woman. Doormats just got walked all over—the way Laura had walked all over him.

He had been a fool. He’d lied to himself, told himself she was too busy to have time for love; Laura was a high-powered and ambitious woman whose business drained all her energy and attention. Her emotions had been in deep freeze, but one day, he had believed, she would suddenly thaw, and he would be there.

He had been wildly wrong. Oh, she had suddenly thawed, but not for him—for another man.

For all Laura’s talk about being a modern woman who would only marry a man who treated her like an equal, for all her claim to want a modern man who was ready to share the jobs around their home, who would happily change a nappy or do the ironing, who could be gentle, sympathetic, caring...for all that, she had ended up by dumping him for a man who was the exact opposite of everything she had said she wanted.

Patrick was still reeling from the shock. Who could have guessed? Oh, now and then he had worried that one day Laura might meet someone who really got to her in a way that Patrick knew he didn’t. But never in a million years would he have suspected it could be Josh Kern.

The man Laura finally flipped over was an aggressive Yorkshire farmer who had put Laura’s back up the minute she met him. It had never occurred to Patrick that she might actually find Josh Kern attractive. Laura was sophisticated and clever—what could she have in common with a farmer Patrick saw as some sort of Neanderthal, who rode over anyone who got in his way, who certainly showed no signs of being gentle or caring? Patrick couldn’t even imagine the guy changing a nappy, let alone cooking or doing the shopping.

From the first day she met Kern Laura had been very vocal on the subject of how much she disliked him, and Patrick had believed her until the other day, when he had arrived at her flat to find Kern there and to see the way they looked at each other. He had known in a flash, and hadn’t needed to hear Laura admit she had fallen in love with the guy.

It showed in her eyes, in her face, even in her body. She had been alight with passion.

Patrick’s jaw clenched. Rae caught sight of his tense face and instinctively put out a hand, touched his arm. ‘Oh, Patrick, don’t! I hate to see you so miserable!’

He jerked his arm away, scowling. ‘Oh, for God’s sake! How many times do I have to tell you? Leave me alone, can’t you?’

Her kindness was like a fingertip laid on raw, burnt skin; the lightest brush was agony to him. He needed to be alone, to be quiet, to be still. Pain throbbed in his head, his veins, his heart. He wished to God Rae had not come to the airport.

‘Which hotel?’ Rae asked huskily a moment later, and when he told her, ‘Oh, yes, I know it, one of the nineteenth-century hotels, lovely ironwork balconies,’ she assured him, weaving in and out of the fast, busy traffic pouring along the Promenade des Anglais, the blue of the Baie des Anges on the right and the elegant façades of Nice hotels on the left.

‘How’s the new book coming?’ Patrick asked curtly, and Rae accepted the change of subject, beginning to talk about her work.

She had written her first children’s book when she was at university. A modern fairy-story, it was a runaway bestseller and was later made into a very successful film, with spinoffs from toys and games, making Rae Dunhill a very wealthy and famous writer.

Patrick had been very excited when she had asked him to illustrate the new series of books she was writing—international stories of mythology and legend. He’d leapt at the chance to work with a writer he admired, and he hadn’t argued when Rae insisted he did everything her way.

Maybe that was my trouble! Patrick thought, his eyes moody. Maybe I was too eager to please; both her, and Laura. I never argued with either of them, let them ride roughshod over me. Did Laura come to despise me in the end? Stop thinking about her! he angrily told himself.

They left the Promenade, spun round a corner and then another; the sea breeze blew his brown hair across his face, and he raked it back with an impatient gesture, felt Rae giving him sideways glances, and sensed her trying to read his mind, which made his profile harden, resisting her.

‘Here we are,’ she said, pulling up outside his hotel.

‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said and managed a reluctant, apologetic smile. It wasn’t Rae’s fault that his engagement had been broken off, after all; and it had been very kind of her to drive all this way, across the Italian border, to come to the airport to meet him. He shouldn’t have been so surly with her.

‘I enjoyed the drive,’ she assured him, then put a hand on his arm. ‘Patrick...’

‘Yes?’ Not more questions! he thought, a little nerve twitching beside his mouth, while behind his sunglasses his blue eyes burnt fixedly on the bluer sky.

‘Will you at least come over to Bordighera for the weekend? Alex gives famous barbecue parties on the beach; he’s planning one for Saturday, and it will be terrific fun. Do come!’

‘How many times do I have to tell you?’ he broke out, then his voice shook and he had to stop speaking. He felt her watching his averted face and wanted to scream at her, Stop staring! Will you just leave me alone? But he couldn’t; it would have been too much of a self-betrayal. He struggled to contain his rage, but felt as if his bones were pushing out through his tense skin. Then he caught sight of Rae’s small hands trembling on the wheel, her knuckles showing white. There was a silence for a few minutes and Patrick stared out of the window without seeing anything.

Why am I taking it out on her? he thought. She’s only a little thing, for all her bossiness and her self-assurance. It isn’t her fault.

‘OK,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll come for Saturday night, but just for the weekend, Rae!’

‘That’s fine,’ she said, breaking into a smile. ‘I’m so glad, Patrick; I’m sure you’ll have a great time, and you’re going to love Alex and Susan-Jane. They’ve got a terrific sense of humour.’

‘They’ll need it, if they’re to put up with me for a weekend,’ Patrick said with bitter humour.

Rae laughed, then said hurriedly, her voice husky and unsure, stammering so that it didn’t even sound like Rae talking, ‘Patrick, I know you said you don’t want to talk about it, but I have to ask...it wasn’t...Laura wasn’t...well, lately, I did wonder if...if she resented you being with me...being away so much, I mean? I remember she was upset when you had to change your plan to meet her in Amsterdam because I insisted we went back to Rome to do some more work there. That wasn’t what you quarrelled over, was it? She wasn’t...’ She broke off, very pink, then went on, ‘She wasn’t jealous over me, was she, Patrick? I’d hate to think I’d been the cause of you two breaking up.’

Patrick gave a curt bark of angry amusement. ‘Odd you should say that. Laura did make some stupid remark about you and me, hinting that I might be interested in you.’

Rae’s face turned scarlet. ‘Oh, no...’

‘There’s no need to look like that—that wasn’t why we split up! She was just using you as an excuse, and I told her she needn’t try to pretend she believed anything so crazy!’

Rae’s hot colour drained away, leaving her pale. ‘Yes, of course—it would be crazy,’ she said flatly.

Patrick was scowling up at the elegant white façade of the hotel, built during the Second Empire, with that faint trace of fantasy, of over-decoration.

‘She couldn’t possibly have believed it; she was only trying to use you as an excuse,’ he said grimly. ‘She wouldn’t have to feel guilty if she could kid herself I was interested in another woman.’

‘She must be out of her mind, preferring someone else to you!’ Rae broke out, and he laughed harshly.

‘I won’t argue with that!’

Rae watched him anxiously. ‘Patrick, I’m so—’

‘Don’t say sorry again!’ he snarled, and she flinched as if he had hit her.

The blare of a horn made them both look at the road. Nice was a parking nightmare, too many cars looking for too few parking spaces, and sometimes people double-parked, even triple-parked if they dared.

Rae’s car was blocking the narrow road, which was already crammed with parked cars. Another car wanted to get past—it was wider, and the driver was incensed.

Rae hurriedly dragged on the wheel, moving up on to the pavement to let the other car pass. The driver leaned over to bellow something very rude in French as he shot through, and Rae made apologetic gestures at him. Being a Frenchman, he mellowed enough to give her a forgiving wave and a shake of his head; she was, after all, chic and very female.

‘I’d better get out, before you get fined for parking on the pavement!’ Patrick said, opening the car door.

‘I’ll come and pick you up here, on Saturday morning, OK?’ Rae said as he collected his suitcase from the car. ‘Ten o’clock sharp? Then we can get to the villa in time for lunch. Make sure you have your passport.’

Patrick nodded and ran into the hotel. Minutes later he was in his room, which had a sideways view of the Baie des Anges through palm trees. He undressed and took a long, cooling shower, lay down on his bed wearing only a towel, and went to sleep with the shutters of his room closed, excluding the hot afternoon sun.

He had decided to go to the Côte d’Azur because it was not a place he knew well, and he had hoped he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. He was still trying to make sense of what had happened to him, but it was hard when he felt as if he had broken into pieces—little jagged, dagger-sharp pieces that hurt like hell whenever he tried to touch them or explore the damage that had been done to him.

All he knew so far was that nothing in his life would ever be the same again, especially himself, and that he needed to be alone for a long time, to come to terms with what had happened to him.

He ate dinner in a little restaurant near his hotel, which, like many small French hotels, did not have a restaurant, went for a stroll in white jeans and a thin T-shirt, sat at a terrace bar drinking a beer, then went to bed listening to the constant hum of Nice traffic.

In the morning he got up, ate croissants, drank coffee, went for a walk down to the beach, and sunbathed until lunchtime. He ate lunch on the beach at a busy restaurant—a salad niçoise and French bread, a glass or two of white wine, a coffee. Then he went back to his room and closed the shutters and took a shower and went to sleep on his bed again, got up as evening began, ate dinner at the same restaurant, went for a stroll to the same bar, drank a beer, went to bed.

The days passed in a dull routine which soothed the anger and the pain in him by sheer monotony, and then it was Saturday and Rae arrived, as she had promised, her short black hair windblown after her drive across the border, her eyes bright, her smile warm. She was wearing a light summer dress in white cotton printed with violets and soft green leaves.

She gave him a wary look which tried to assess his mood. ‘Ready?’

He had bought himself a new overnight bag, which he had packed with a few things. He threw them into the back of her car, nodding, climbed in beside her, and they set off. In a short time they were on the toll road, heading along the coast, towards the Italian border. Rae drove with skill and daring, talking all the time about her ideas for the illustrations to the next set of stories.

They arrived at the border and queued up for nearly half an hour before they got through.

‘The border is always busy on a Saturday. Weekends are the worst times to cross,’ Rae said, then asked casually, ‘What are you going to do when we’ve finished the work on the books? Will you go back to York to live?’

He shook his head without looking at her. He wanted to be a thousand miles away from anything that could remind him of Laura. If he returned to the city where he had lived for years he would be bound to run into her all the time.

‘What will you do, then?’ Rae persevered.