Another Life Read online

  He still found her desirable. Ridiculous that notwithstanding his taunting that one fact should yet be meaningful. In the small second of joy she understood that an awareness of her feelings would give him even more power over her than he possessed already. Also, that he would not hesitate to use it.

  She raised her head, and the glance she threw him was cool and remote. 'Thanks for the compliment—not that it means anything. I can't deny that I once slept with you. I don't happen to make a habit of it. With Peter dead, I have no desire to sleep with anyone else.'

  He was still holding her. Now the hands that were on her back jerked her to him with sudden violence. 'Don't give me that! You never loved him.'

  'I loved my husband very much,' Sara said shakily. Clyde need not know that the love she spoke of was not the same as the love she had felt for Clyde himself. 'Nor do I want to discuss him.'

  'If I didn't know you better I'd think you were like the swan-maiden you once danced. Pure and sweet, relatively untouched.' His tone was harsh. 'A false image. You married a man for his money and the material things he could give you. You slept with me. And with how many others besides?'

  'No others.' She was very white. 'Clyde, please stop, before you say something you'll regret…'

  'And now you claim to be content with a celibate life,' he jeered. 'Who is there? Well, Sara?'

  It was possible to keep her temper in check just so long. She was no longer thinking as she bent backwards, and struck him hard across the face.

  Clyde was white as he touched his cheek. But when he spoke there was an odd satisfaction in his tone. 'I wondered what it would take to shatter that madonna-like facade.'

  'You wouldn't believe me,' Sara said, shuddering.

  'I still don't. There's passion inside you, Sara Demaine. You could no more live without sex than you could live without food.'

  Again he pulled her to him. She could feel the length of his body against hers as he tightened his hold and crushed her to him. He was as taut and hard as she remembered him. Taut thighs and a hard line of hipbone, and the hardness of a chest in which the heart beat as strongly and rapidly as her own. Hardness of shoulder, where her head had once nestled willingly and now lay under protest. A hardness, which despite the indignation and outrage filling her mind, brought excitement cascading through her nerve-stream in waves of fire.

  One hand went to her hair, sliding up her neck to pull it back from her face, then drawing her head back. His lips went to her ears, playing first with one small lobe, then the other, tracing a path across her eyes and around her mouth without resting on her lips. The path of his mouth was tantalising, with none of the brutality his earlier kiss had contained. Sara felt sensuous pleasure that brought a stifled cry to her lips. Somewhere, in the farthest reaches of her mind, was the knowledge that she had to resist him. But the knowledge was rapidly swamped by the desire leaping within her. If she had control left over her reactions, it was only the merest thread.

  She felt his tongue trail sensuously down the sensitive column of her throat, then his mouth returned once more to hers. Her own lips parted willingly, for her mind had abandoned the last of its protest. He began a slow exploration of her mouth and she was lost completely. Without thinking, she lifted her arms and caught his head in her hands, letting her fingers bury themselves in the thick soft hair above his ears.

  Her response seemed to ignite fresh fires in Clyde. The increased hardness of his body as he welded her to him revealed that his wanting was as great as her own. One hand went easily beneath the flimsy bikini-bra, curving forward to reach a breast. The soft nipple hardened beneath his touch, so that even if she had been able to maintain an outward control, her body would now have betrayed her.

  He lifted his head quite suddenly and stared down at her. His colour was high, his breathing ragged. There was an odd expression in his eyes. If she had not been so dazed by emotion she would have seen it.

  As it was, she saw the break in his kisses only as a respite in which she could draw breath and murmur what was on her mind. 'Clyde, not here… Someone might come along… see us…'

  'Then you do intend to sleep with me.'

  She was caught not so much by the words as by the tone. For a moment she stared at him uncomprehendingly. It took several seconds before reality struck. Clyde had made love to her for a purpose. He had taunted her about her facade of purity and untouchability. He had spoken of it with contempt. As the expression in his eyes began to register, she understood it for what it was. Understood too that he had had a purpose in making love to her.

  'You… you aroused me deliberately!' Her voice was shaking.

  'Perhaps I did.' The acknowledgement came quietly. 'And in your own way you asked for it.' He paused, watching her all the time. Then he said, 'You must have known I'd come looking for you, no matter your protests of surprise. That's why you wore this bikini. You'd have remembered it turned me on once before.'

  Sara was past caring, past noticing. 'Leave me, Clyde. Just leave me.' Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

  His hands dropped to his side. 'It's not what you want.'

  'You don't know the first thing about what I want!'

  'You need a man, Sara.'

  'But not you! Anyone but you!' She turned to face the ocean, knowing that she could not hold the tears back much longer, knowing that she did not want him to see them, unaware that he had seen them already.

  'Thank God I won't have to see you again,' she said tersely. 'Your life is in Cape Town. Mine is here.'

  'Mine is here too,' he said very quietly.

  Forgetting her tears, she spun round at the unexpected rejoinder. 'You don't mean that!'

  'I have an appointment at Stellenberg.'

  She gazed at him speechlessly. He looked back at her, registering her shock. Something flickered in the blue eyes, then, without another word of explanation, he turned on his heel and walked away in the opposite direction from the one he had come.

  Sara watched him go. His stride was loose and supple. From the back even more than from the front, he did not look like a doctor. The shock of fair hair, blown by the wind, and the bronzed limbs, long and well-shaped and muscular, gave him the appearance of one whom an artist would wish to immortalise in paint or marble.

  Sara herself was as still as any statue. Just minutes ago, when her body had trembled with arousal, she had felt as if she was on fire. Now, although the sky burnt down from an African sky that was vast and blue and cloudless, she was gripped by a great chill.

  Clyde here. Living here, working here. Her mind rejected the fact, even while she knew she must find a way of accepting it. Clyde could not live here. His life was in Cape Town; that was where he must stay. Loving him had brought her to the edges of despair once—admittedly through no fault of his. She never wanted to experience that kind of unhappiness again.

  Sara knew about Stellenberg. It was a hospital for ill children, mainly children who had been crippled. Morning Glow was situated a little way west of the village, Stellenberg some ten miles east. Sara had never been there; she was not acquainted with any of the children who lived there. The death of her own baby was still so recent as to make her unhappy in the presence of other children, especially sick ones. Their misfortune would touch her beyond endurance.

  What she knew of the home was through Peter. He had talked highly of Stellenberg. But he had never spoken of Clyde in the context of the place. Either he had wanted to spare her—if her erstwhile fiancé had not been mentioned between them, her husband had nevertheless understood that her feelings for him had not vanished—or Clyde's appointment was recent.

  That he should be there at all was a puzzle. It did not fit in with Sara's image of what Clyde Montgomery wanted of life. Of what Andrea would want for him. Perhaps, she thought, a few months at the home might be part of some compulsory practical training. There were children at the home who would need surgery, and Clyde could help them.

  The lithe figure had grown sma
ll with distance. He must have walked half a mile by now, Sara thought, and seemed to be making toward one of the holiday beaches. How he would get his car back from Morning Glow, if that indeed was how he had come there, she did not know, did not care. She herself would slip back in through a side entrance that was concealed from the front of the house.

  Not once had Clyde turned back. Had he done so he might have seen the small slight figure who watched him, eyes never leaving him for a second. He had become one with the blur of golden sand when Sara finally began to retrace her steps. For the first time she saw the footprints that ran alongside her own—bigger prints, forming a parallel line with hers.

  The tide had risen in the time since she had walked this way. The water left by the incoming waves washed over the footprints, leaving a curving mark on the sand some inches beyond them. Here and there, where a print was especially deep, a little of the foam remained. Soon there would be nothing left of the parallel prints, Sara knew. There was something symbolic in the fact. In just this way her relationship with Clyde had been a temporary thing. It seemed only fitting that the visible sign of their togetherness today was temporary also.

  With the rising of the tide the sound of the surf had increased. It was more difficult to negotiate the way back, for there were parts where rocks which had previously been exposed were now slippery with water. Sara had to tread warily. But she was not frightened. For all her outward frailty, she could cope with the elements of nature.

  It was a situation with which she did not know how to cope, a situation and a set of facts.

  How would she handle things next time she met Clyde? There was no doubt in her mind that the probability of a next time existed. While she had closeted herself at Morning Glow her contact with people had been limited. Clyde could have been at Stellenberg some months. He might have shopped in the village, eaten with Andrea in a restaurant. Sara would not have known. Lettie had been in the habit of doing the shopping; Sara herself had seldom gone into the village.

  Now all was changed. She was obligated to Lynn. Her friend had worked very hard to make the Antique Den a profitable enterprise. She had taken the cruise with her mother only because she knew that her business was in good hands. There was no way Sara could decide to stop running the shop. She could not let Lynn down.

  Nor did she want to let Lynn down, she decided. Her friend had been right about one thing: for too long she had made Morning Glow a retreat, a prison, a comfortable hideaway where she was sheltered from life and its demands. It was time that she broke free of the chains she had forged for herself, no matter that pain might be involved. If she was to build a new life for herself—as she must do, she told herself firmly—then self-respect had to be an integral part of it. There could be no self-respect while she remained in hiding.

  With the wind blowing her hair, and the surf roaring, and the gulls soaring and dipping over the waves, Sara was able to be honest with herself. Part of her reluctance to return to Cape Town had stemmed from the fear that some time she might meet Clyde. She had met him anyway. In the village the chances of meeting him were almost inevitable.

  She would have to learn to deal with such a meeting. Once she had had the strength to push herself to the limits of her physical endurance. For the sake of her career she had driven herself to dance when her aching muscles screamed to her to stop. Now she must push herself to accept a situation. She could not run away—she would not. She owed something to Lynn. Even more she owed something to herself.

  It would not be easy to meet Clyde, to talk with him just as she would with anyone else. It would be even less easy to see him with Andrea. Yet that too was inevitable. She must be ready for the situation when it arose.

  She lifted her head, welcoming the spray that moistened her cheeks, the freshness of the sea air, the taste and smell of salt. Her step quickened. She was letting memories and the force of Clyde's personality get to her unnecessarily. For reasons of his own he had decided to seek her out today. Although she would have said that Clyde was a person who would force himself to shunt the past out of his system and concentrate on the present, perhaps the matter of hurt male pride had never been entirely resolved. He might have followed her this morning with the sole purpose of proving something—what exactly? she wondered—both to her and to himself.

  One thing was fact: Clyde was married. As such any further meetings would be purely coincidental. Neither he nor Andrea would wish it otherwise. Just as she herself did not wish it, Sara told herself. And wondered why a small voice deep inside her whispered denial.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next days were so busy that Sara had little time to think of Clyde. It was the holiday season, and custom was brisk. It appeared that Lynn had a flair for searching out the unusual. People were attracted to the Antique Den in much the same way as Sara had seen them attracted to Lynn herself. Slowly but surely it was becoming a name to be remembered among those who liked quality combined with something out of the ordinary. Sara had been shocked by Clyde's visit to the shop. Now, remembering his penchant for old things, she understood that his visit could have been only a matter of time.

  It was hard to push Clyde from her mind completely. Sara wondered if the time would come when she would ever be able to do that. There was more to it than that he had been the first man she had slept with, and that he was the only man she had ever loved crazily and with an utter lack of reserve. It seemed that he had become a part of her; part of her thinking being, her emotions; part of her very bloodstream. Accepting that, she was yet wise enough to know that she could not let him destroy her, as he would surely do if she allowed him to dominate her every thought and waking minute. She must make a point of concentrating on other things.

  She threw herself into the running of the Antique Den with all the energy which had been pent up inside her for too long. She did most of the serving herself. Lynn had given her the name of a girl who was willing to assist whenever necessary, but Sara called on her only rarely. She made it her business to find out as much as she could about each article in the shop, and was filled with pride when she found herself able to discuss a purchase intelligently with a customer.

  The more Sara immersed herself in antiques, the more fascinated she became. There was so much to learn, to know. There were the important periods in European furniture and styles; Regency and Chippendale, Queen Anne and Georgian. There were dynasties in Oriental culture when objects of priceless value had been produced. Ming and Wan Li and Sung became names with meaning. There was so much to learn, to know. It was not enough that Sara should be able to pick up an object and quote a price. She wanted to be able to talk with customers from a position of strength, or at least on equal terms.

  In the evenings, she sat in the library at Morning Glow and read. Disregarding Lettie's clucks of disapproval, 'Miss Sara will get sick again, and then where will we be?' she read till the early hours of the morning. She was learning that Africa had a culture all its own. Just as the lovely gabled houses were products of Cape Dutch architecture, so there was furniture that was uniquely of Cape craftsmanship. Furniture in woods that were unknown in Europe; stinkwood and kiaat and a particular rich-looking mahogany. There were objects of silver, the Cape silver which Clyde had asked to see. Lovely things that were becoming increasingly valuable and hard to find.

  As one piece of knowledge led to another, Sara found new avenues of knowledge to explore. She was learning more of the history of the African continent. She went to the library and looked for books, and she realised that there was a whole area of knowledge which she had never known existed. Once ballet had encompassed her world. When that had been taken from her, she had felt empty. The Antique Den had introduced her to a new world, one that was interesting and exciting in an entirely different way. It was a world which she felt she might very well wish to make her own.

  If the reading increased her knowledge, it also kept her from dwelling on Clyde. At night, when she was asleep, Sara was powerless to control
her dreams. In the mornings she would waken with memories that were sometimes too painfully vivid. This was not new. She had dreamed of Clyde even when she had been married to Peter. She could only hope that with time her subconscious mind would relinquish what seemed an obsession.

  But at least her conscious mind was under con—much of the time anyway. When she found herself thinking of Clyde she would firmly change the drift of her thoughts. Hard though that was, more and more she was successful.

  Lynn had given her authority to attend auctions and sales, and had told her how much she could spend.

  'If I go, I might buy the wrong things,' Sara had protested.

  Lynn had laughed. 'If you don't go, you could slip up on something we ought to have.'

  'You'd really trust me,' Sara had said wonderingly.

  'I trust your gut instincts.' There had been a perceptive glance from candid eyes. 'You'll be okay.'

  On a Saturday, just a week after the encounter with Clyde, Sara went to a sale. She had taken an inland road to the farmhouse some thirty miles from Morning Glow. Coming back, with a trunk-full of first-edition leather-bound books, she took the road that paralleled the sea, and was rounding a bend when she saw Stellenberg.

  The sight was a shock. Momentarily the car jerked. Sara was aware of the tension knotting her neck and her shoulders, and when she looked at the wheel she saw that her knuckles were white.

  Her first instinct was to drive on, when she saw a widening in the road, a viewpoint where cars could pause to admire a particularly lovely view of the bay. She pulled off the road and drew the vehicle to a halt. Deliberately, very deliberately, she forced herself to relax, first one set of muscles then another, till all of her body was at ease. Then she looked once more at Stellenberg.

  Like so many of the houses in the Cape Peninsula, its architecture was Cape Dutch. There were the lovely gables, the brown-shuttered windows, the graceful pillars at the front of the stoep. There were the white walls covered with creepers, a wide expanse of lawn bordered with the indigenous aloes and proteas. In the shade of some trees was a group of children. Sara saw that many were in wheelchairs.