Season of Shadows Read online

  'Why did Elizabeth accompany him on this mission?' she asked, her unreasonable anger subsiding and leaving her feeling a little ashamed of herself.

  'You know as well as I do that Robert never went anywhere without his wife,' he explained, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his impeccably tailored dark suit as he stood with his back turned towards her. 'There seemed to be no reason why she should stay behind on this occasion, and no one, not even I, suspected that there would be any real danger involved in what he was about to do.'

  'Did Elizabeth know the purpose of his mission?'

  'I'm certain she did.'

  Laura realised now, with sickening clarity, why he had been so adamant about their bodies never being recovered, and as she stared up at his broad back she wished that she could leave the matter there, but there was one more question she had to ask. 'Why did you want to hide the truth from me? I can understand why it's best to keep it from Sally, but why from me?'

  'I hoped you would never have to know,' he said, turning to face her, and as she searched his chiselled features in an effort to understand his reasoning, he added abruptly, 'What you don't know, you can't divulge to others.'

  Her anger rose sharply at the obvious insult. 'Just what do you think I am?'

  'Don't jump to conclusions,' he ordered sharply. 'I've just told you that there was more danger involved in that mission than anyone realised, that's why there's safety in total ignorance.'

  'Safety?' she echoed stupidly, then her eyes widened as comprehension dawned and brought with it a certain amount of fear. 'You mean I—I can't be forced to speak of something I know nothing about?'

  His mouth hardened. 'Exactly.'

  'The situation is still dangerous, then?' she asked unsteadily, a cold shiver racing up her spine.

  'It could be, but we're taking no chances.'

  'We?' she queried, but Anton's shuttered expression warned her that she was beginning to pry too deeply. 'I'm sorry,' she muttered apologetically. 'And thank you for telling me as much as you have.'

  She held her breath, trying to decide whether to feel afraid or not, and then the awkward silence was shattered by the sound of running footsteps on the path below the terrace.

  'I thought you were coming for a swim,' Sally demanded of Laura with a well-remembered haughtiness as she skipped up the steps.

  'Yes… well, I…' Laura flashed an appealing glance in Anton's direction, and he reacted in a most surprising way.

  'If you give me a couple of minutes, then I'll join the two of you for that swim,' he announced, removing his tie as he entered the house through the double glass doors.

  'Don't be long, Uncle Anton,' Sally called after him and, taking Laura's hand, she said: 'Come on, the water is lovely.'

  Sally swam well, Laura noticed as she floated lazily on her back in the cool, refreshing water. Robert Dean and her sister had made certain that their daughter could swim before she was a year old, which was just as well, Laura thought wryly, considering that the yacht had practically been the child's home.

  She closed her eyes for a moment to shut out painful memories, but when she opened them again she found herself staring up at Anton who stood poised on the edge of the pool. Long-limbed, tanned and muscular in his blue swimming briefs, she was again made aware of that quality of steel in him; that ruthless strength which had somehow always frightened her. To have him as her enemy was something she prayed would never happen, for Anton DeVere would be merciless in his attack.

  Steel-grey eyes mocked her as if he knew every single thought that raced through her mind, and then he was diving into the water, his body moving beneath the surface with eel-like swiftness in her direction. Her heart hammered and her throat tightened with something close to panic as she tried to get away, but she felt like a helpless infant thrashing at the water. Strong hands encircled her waist, and a little cry of terror passed her lips before she could prevent it from doing so.

  Anton was not indulging in a foolish prank, she realised at once when he emerged behind her. The roughness of his hard chest was against her back, and the hands about her waist tightened almost threateningly as he hissed into her ear, 'Remember… not a word to Sally of the information I passed on to you. Not a word to anyone, in fact.'

  'Of course not!' she whispered back indignantly, angered that he should have thought it necessary to remind her, and then she was released.

  'Race you to the other side, Uncle Anton,' Sally challenged, and then Laura was left to continue with her leisurely swim, but somehow the pleasure had gone out of it.

  Jemima eventually served them with iced lemonade, and they sipped at it appreciatively while they dried themselves in the sun.

  'Are you going back to the office after lunch, Uncle Anton?' Sally wanted to know.

  'No,' he smiled faintly, tugging playfully at one wet pigtail. 'I thought we might take a drive out to Bloubergstrand.'

  There was a terrifying little silence during which only the chattering of the birds in the trees could be heard, then Sally asked hesitantly, 'Are we going to the cottage?'

  'Yes.' Anton drained his glass and placed it in the tray. 'Would you like to go?' he asked casually, giving the impression that he did not care whether she went or not, but when Sally finally nodded, that faint smile was again noticeable about his hard mouth.

  The drive out to Bloubergstrand did not take long that afternoon, and on this occasion they did not travel in the long black chauffeur-driven limousine which had met Laura at the airport, but in a white Jaguar with Anton driving himself. His hands were relaxed on the wheel, and fine dark hairs curled about the gold wrist watch which had emerged from the sleeve of his grey lightweight jacket. He had nice hands, she decided absently. They were broad and strong, with clipped, clean fingernails.

  Sally sat quietly in the back of the car, but when Anton parked the car at the gate of the whitewashed cottage, there was a frown between her dark brows and a tightness about her small mouth that disturbed Laura.

  From almost every window in the cottage one could look out across the ten-kilometre stretch of Table Bay at the most photographed view of Table Mountain with the city sprawled out below it. It was a view she would never tire of, she thought as she recalled looking out of the bedroom window one spring morning to see a carpet of colourful wild flowers covering the sand dunes.

  'Why don't you get the rest of your things together so we can take them back to Bellavista when we leave?' Anton suggested to Sally as he unlocked the front door and stood aside for them to enter.

  'Okay,' Sally replied listlessly and, not wanting to leave her alone in this mood, Laura followed her to her room.

  She helped the child pack some of her belongings into suitcases and an empty box which they found in the kitchen, but when Sally eventually said stiffly, 'I can manage on my own,' Laura realised that she was intruding on Sally's last moments in the home she would never enter again, and she left her reluctantly to go in search of Anton.

  She found him in Robert's study, searching through the desk drawers, and he looked up with a noticeable start when she entered the room and asked curiously, 'What are you looking for?'

  'Anything and everything which I may have missed yesterday, and which might connect Robert with the mission he was on.'

  Laura shivered involuntarily. 'I'm beginning to feel as if I've leapt into the middle of a James Bond movie.' Her foot kicked against an object lying half hidden beside the desk, and she bent down quickly to retrieve it. 'Here's something. It looks like a map of sorts.'

  'That's it!' he said sharply, almost snatching the folded paper from her hands to examine it. Satisfied that he had found what he had been looking for, he dropped the map into the grate and set it alight. The paper discoloured and curled as it turned into ashes, and as the last flame flickered and died, he turned and asked abruptly, 'Why aren't you helping Sally?'

  Laura's back stiffened with annoyance. 'She wanted to be alone, but if you feel I'm in the way—'

&nb
sp; 'Don't be so touchy, dammit!' he growled irritably, taking a flat gold case from his jacket pocket and flicking it open. 'Cigarette?'

  'No, thank you.'

  She turned away towards the window while he lit a cigarette for himself and stood smoking it in silence beside the fireplace. Laura felt choked and close to tears as she stared out across the bay. Being in the cottage among the bric-a-brac Elizabeth and Robert had collected together over the years was an unbearably painful experience, and it forced upon her the stark finality of death.

  'There's something about you which has always puzzled me,' Anton's voice invaded her thoughts, and she controlled herself forcibly before she turned to face him questioningly. 'Why is an attractive girl like yourself not married yet?' he asked unexpectedly.

  Laura stiffened and replied daringly, 'I could ask you a similar question.'

  'I've never found a woman whom I thought I could spend the rest of my life with.' His eyes were narrowed and mocking beneath the heavy eyebrows. 'Now it's your turn.'

  'I haven't met the right man yet.'

  'You've known several men?'

  She looked away from his curiously penetrating gaze and coloured slightly. 'A few.'

  'Were they passionate affairs?'

  'Certainly not!' she exclaimed indignantly, her colour heightened by the gleam of sardonic amusement in his eyes. 'I don't believe in—in that sort of thing.'

  'Why not?' he laughed shortly, flinging the remainder of his cigarette into the grate. 'Are you afraid of sex?'

  Laura drew an audible breath, and lowered her eyes as she said furiously, 'I refuse to continue this outrageous conversation.'

  'There's nothing outrageous about sex,' he persisted blandly.

  'I never said there was,' she replied defensively, 'but I have no desire to indulge in a sexual affair with any man unless I'm married to him.'

  His mouth twisted cynically. 'Chastity in unmarried women went out of fashion years ago.'

  'I wouldn't be so ready to believe that, if I were you,' she retorted hotly, her blue eyes sparkling with anger. 'It's more likely that you've met all the wrong kind of women.'

  'I've always found women very easily persuaded to relinquish their virginity.' His glance was an intolerable insult as it roamed over her with a deliberate slowness that left her with the shattering sensation that he was stripping her mentally, and then, to add to her embarrassment, his mouth curved into a sensuous smile as if he had enjoyed what he had seen. 'If a man with the right amount of experience came along, you might find yourself equally eager to lose what you now pride yourself in possessing.'

  Her slim body went taut with resentment. 'When you speak of a man with the right amount of experience, I presume you're referring to yourself?'

  'Possibly.' The lazy, sensuous smile still hovered infuriatingly about his mouth, but those razor-sharp eyes were quick to notice that treacherous little pulse throbbing madly at the base of her throat. 'Does the thought excite you?'

  'I think you're despicable!' she exclaimed angrily, for once not afraid of him as she felt herself blushing to the roots of her hair.

  'Perhaps I am,' he admitted, his expression becoming decidedly bored as he seated himself on the corner of the desk and crossed his arms over his chest. 'It was one way, though, of making you forget your surroundings for a time, and the tragic circumstances which have brought you here.'

  'Do you mean to say you were baiting me deliberately?' she demanded with a mixture of incredulity and anger.

  'You could say so, yes,' he admitted without the slightest sign of regret.

  Laura was speechless for a moment as she stood with her hands clenched tightly at her sides in an effort to suppress the mad desire to strike him, then the words seemed to tumble from her lips. 'I think you're the most detestable man I've ever had the misfortune to meet!'

  During the electrifying silence which followed her outburst, his eyes pierced her like steel blades, and she realised, too late, what she had said, and to whom, but, while she still struggled to formulate an apology, an incredulous voice demanded from just inside the study door, 'Are you two fighting?'

  For a moment neither of them moved, then his expression cleared miraculously as he turned to look at the little girl who stood hovering nervously in the doorway. 'You could say we were having a slight difference of opinion, Sally,' he explained with surprising affability. 'Are you ready to leave?'

  Sally stared at them with a measure of uncertainty, then she nodded her dark head, and said: 'Yes, I've got everything.'

  'Good,' he nodded abruptly, and a few minutes later they were driving back to Bellavista, leaving behind a locked and shuttered cottage filled with personal reminders of the two people who had once lived, and loved, there.

  After dinner that evening, when Sally had gone to bed, Laura joined Anton in the living-room in a grimly determined effort to discuss her plans for the child. His long, virile body was sprawled lazily in a chair, and his eyes were closed when she entered, but she had barely walked a few paces into the room when she found his cool, calculating glance fixed intently upon herself, and for one frightening moment her courage almost deserted her.

  'I'd like to talk to you about Sally,' she said in a rush before she had time to change her mind.

  'Ah, yes, Sally's future,' he remarked slowly, looking thoroughly bored as he gestured vaguely that she should sit down.

  Laura seated herself stiffly on the edge of the chair facing him, and tried not to look as nervous as she was feeling at that moment when she said: 'I want to take Sally back to Johannesburg with me.'

  'I'm afraid that's out of the question,' he replied evenly. 'Sally will remain here at Bellavista with me where I can keep an eye on her.'

  'I don't think you have any right to dictate her future,' she argued tritely, hating his superbly confident manner. 'I'm her aunt; her only living relative, and—'

  'And I'm her guardian,' he cut in smoothly.

  She sucked her breath in sharply, her eyes widening in incredulous disbelief. 'You're her what?'

  'You heard me.'

  'But that's absurd!'

  'Is it?' he smiled, but the smile never touched those cold, heavy-lidded eyes, and she shuddered at the thought of Sally being placed in the care of a man who was so totally without the necessary compassion and sensitivity.

  'A man can't possibly see to all the needs of a girl Sally's age,' she argued desperately, gripping her hands tightly in her lap to hide the fact that they were shaking.

  'She will enjoy the safety of my home, the best schools in the country, and my entire staff here at Bellavista will be at her disposal to pander to her needs when she's not at school.' Those steel-grey eyes beneath the heavy brows seemed to be viewing her with a calculating coldness filled with contempt. 'What can you offer Sally? A small flat in Hillbrow where she'll spend most of her time alone and without supervision while you're at work?'

  'But I—'

  'You have my permission to come and see her whenever you wish, but, as her legally appointed guardian, I insist that she remains here.'

  There was a sinking feeling at the pit of Laura's stomach when she heard that deadly finality in his voice, and what she hated most was the knowledge that he had been right. Sally would have more freedom here at Bellavista in comparison with children living in the cosmopolitan flat-land of Johannesburg, and, financially, she was ill equipped to offer Sally the kind of life she was accustomed to; the kind of life Anton DeVere could offer her even without the considerable amount Sally would eventually inherit from her father's estate.

  Laura's mind darted this way and that, frantically seeking a loophole in order to fulfil the promise she had made Sally, but she knew in her heart that, legally, she did not stand a chance against someone as wealthy and influential as Anton DeVere, and she reluctantly had to admit defeat.

  'Much as I would have wanted her with me, it seems as though I have no choice but to leave her in your care,' she sighed at length, biting down hard on
her quivering lip, and avoiding those probing eyes. 'If you're certain that my staying here won't inconvenience you, then I'll make arrangements to return to Johannesburg next Friday as planned.'

  'My private aircraft will be at your disposal whenever you wish to return.'

  'No no, Aunty Laura! You can't leave me! You promised !' Laura leapt to her feet at the sound of Sally's voice, almost losing her balance as the child hurtled across the room directly into her arms to cling to her desperately while she cried wildly and hysterically, 'Tell, her, Uncle Anton! Tell her she has to stay. You can't leave me. I won't let you. I won't let you go!'

  Laura was vaguely aware that Anton had risen quickly from his chair, but she was too alarmed by the sobbing, hysterical child in her arms to hear what he was saying.

  'Sally, don't!' she ordered sharply, stroking the dark head soothingly. 'Stop it, do you hear me? Stop it! You'll make yourself ill!'

  A heavy hand came down on to Laura's shoulder and gripped hard. 'Get her upstairs. I'll call the doctor.'

  Slight of build and strength, Laura managed somehow to get Sally up to her room, but the hysterical weeping did not cease even when she sat on the bed with the child in her arms.

  'Don't leave me, Aunty Laura,' Sally pleaded repeatedly, her eyes wild in her damp, flushed face. 'Don't leave me. You promised!'

  'Calm down, darling. Calm down,' Laura tried to pacify her, but nothing she could do, or say, seemed to have the desired effect on Sally. She could not repeat the foolish promise she had made, knowing now that she could not fulfil it, and she was almost frantic with concern and despair when Anton entered the room some minutes later with a tall, thin, grey-haired man.