A Masterful Man

CHAPTER NINE

It was with the greatest effort of will that Davina presented a normal image to her mother when she arrived at the flat they shared in Sydney that evening.

'Davina! Darling, I didn't expect you home yet. Has something gone wrong? Not my letter-'

'No.' She kissed her mother and looked round the familiar flat with a sigh of relief. 'No, it was just one of those impossible jobs. I…walked out.'

Her mother grimaced. 'It must have been bad for you to do that; you're usually so competent, and not only at housekeeping but handling these people-but you know, I do wish you'd think of doing something else. It's… not much of a life. What did you think of the island, by the way? Plenty to photograph?'

'Oh, it's a paradise in that respect,' she said with the barest tremor. 'Do you know, Mum, I've got the feeling that that will be my last job as a temporary housekeeper? I don't quite know how, but I'm going to concentrate on photography for a while. I've saved a bit in the last few years so-who knows, you might be looking at another Cecil Beaton. In the meantime, there must be jobs as-fashion photographers et cetera.'

'I'll help you look,' her mother said eagerly. Then she sobered. 'About Darren-'

'Don't worry about him, he can't hurt me now,' Davina said, and turned away.

Her mother hesitated but didn't persist.

But that night when Davina went to bed, she closed her door and stared around at her room and at all the photos pinned to the wall, and wondered if she had the simple will to gather together a portfolio and try to hawk her wares around the picture libraries and agencies. Whether she had the energy to seek commissions or jobs as a staff photographer, whether she could turn her flair to something like fashion, whether she was only ever destined to be a passionate amateur…whether she didn't feel like dying.

She sat on her bed and dropped her face into her hands. And discovered that no amount of telling herself that Steve Warwick was impossible to the point of being hateful at times, could do something as essentially dictatorial as what he'd done, had been brutally frank enough to make her doubt he could truly fall in love with anyone, no amount of it quite stilled the small murmur within that she was both stupid and a coward. Nor could it conquer the numb, barren feeling that was creeping up in her. And she wondered how her anger could drain away like this…

It was the next night that the memories attacked her. Lying alone in bed, she remembered his last words and was flooded with cameos of the times they'd been together, such as the morning after the night at the cottage when she'd told him about her father and Darren…

She'd wakened first, seen that he was still sleeping deeply and eased herself out of bed without waking him. She'd pulled on a T-shirt and shorts and slipped out to breathe in the clear, rain-washed air, the smell of damp earth, and to trail her feet through the sun-spangled grass. Then she'd decided to take him breakfast in bed, but there'd been no wood chopped fine enough to light the stove and she'd regarded the axe and the chopping block outside the back door, and thought, It's probably quite simple to chop wood; why don't I try to add it to my list of accomplishments? I'm sure Lavinia would approve, if no one else… It hadn't proved simple at all, and Steve had appeared at the back door only wearing a brief pair of underpants.

'I was going to bring you breakfast in bed,' she'd explained ruefully, and explained about the wood.

A lazy smile had lit his eyes and he'd rubbed the stubble on his jaw as he'd said, 'It's quite simple really. Let me show you how.'

She'd laughed. 'That's what I thought, but…' She'd gestured ruefully at the mess she'd created.

So he'd picked up the axe and, within a few minutes, reduced several sturdy blocks to fine, even slivers. But as he'd put it down, she'd remained transfixed by the sheer perfection of his body, the long lines of his back and the flow of muscles of his shoulders, the ease and strength of his movements, the compact hips and the springy darkening hair that ran down to his loins… And she'd stood rooted to the spot and blushed hotly like a silly, dizzy schoolgirl. But the growing wry query in his eyes had suddenly gone oddly gentle and he'd taken her hand and taken her inside, saying only, 'It's OK. You do it to me all the time.'

'I feel a bit foolish…'

'Don't.' He'd tilted her chin and looked into her eyes. And then he'd taken her back to bed and their love-making had been piercingly sweet…

Was I mad? she wondered, coming back to the present and her lonely, torment-filled bed. When will I get over this raw, wounded feeling?

But over the next few days it grew so much that she doubted she would ever recover from putting Steve Warwick out of her life, however much cause she might have had to do it. But not only did the pain grow, it seemed to pose these questions-had she walked out on a man not because he could be difficult and arrogant-he could also be wonderful-but because she was still terrified to trust herself to any man? Why had she not defended herself by telling him about Darren's letter- because even in her anger at the time, she'd perceived it would only be putting a totally unfair burden on him? Or because she was a coward and it had been something to hide behind in her mind?

I don't know, she thought. Perhaps I will never know unless I can put Darren behind me forever…

Her hands stilled suddenly. She was in the small third bedroom they'd converted to a dark room, developing her Lord Howe photos, and she was only putting herself through the pain of doing that because her mother was dying to see them and very determinedly helping her to put together a portfolio. Not that it was one of Steve in the dish emerging in the solution, but the house, with Lidgbird and Gower in the background, and as she stared down at it, then closed her eyes as it evoked memories of him that took her breath away, it made her wonder, with sudden tears streaming down her cheek, how you could love and hate a man at the same time. Was the hate bit mainly because you were afraid to love, though? she asked herself. Was it because he couldn't break down that barrier that he was so impossible and-the rest? But, of course, there was still Darren…

She opened her eyes suddenly and started to breathe erratically. Could she do it? The one thing that might free her of him forever? If she did do it, could she go back to Steve Warwick and say-you make me hate you sometimes but mostly I love you, so if you still want to take a chance on me, I'm prepared to take that chance, too?

A week later she landed once again on the tiny strip at Lord Howe and had to beg a lift from the airport.

The lovely house browsed in the afternoon sunlight, a wood-hen scuttled into the grass beside the barbecue and there was not a soul in sight. There was also not a soul at home as she hesitated at the front door then let herself in. Upstairs, the three bedrooms Lavinia, Loretta and Candice had used were bare, but there was evidence in the kitchen of a meal recently consumed and so she went into the den and sat down to wait.

It was an hour before he came and the sun was starting to sink. She heard the Land Rover and tensed, then she heard him come in through the kitchen and took a frightened breath and found she couldn't move. She'd left her bags outside the den door, though, and she heard him start to walk towards the stairs then stop and change direction and, with her heart beating like a train, she looked up as he loomed in the doorway. And they just stared at each other wordlessly for a long moment.

Until her nerves or whatever got the better of her and she stood up abruptly and said jerkily, 'I hope you don't mind me doing this, letting myself in I mean. I…' She stopped and swallowed.

'Of course not,' he said quietly and seemed about to say more but stopped, too.

'Steve.' She twisted her hands. 'I've come to tell you something. Will you let me just say it? I don't know if it will explain anything to you but I need to try.'

'Yes. Why don't you sit down again?'

She did and he came to sit opposite her and it struck her that he looked tired and tense with lines beside his mouth. But she tore her mind away from those kind of things deliberately, and from the fact that he'd given her no clue as to how he felt about her walking back into his life like this. It doesn't matter, she told herself, it's myself I'm squaring… 'Steve…oh, would you read this first?' She drew Darren's now crumpled letter from the pocket of her jeans and handed it across to him.

He frowned down at it and started to read, then he lifted his eyes to hers and said in that same quiet way, 'Go on.'

Oh, God, she thought, I've left it too late… 'That,' she said with an effort, 'came the day I left. It was the reason, or so I thought, for going like that. It wasn't until later that it occurred to me I could do something about it, and that unless I did it I would never know… how things really stood for me and… between us.'

She paused then said, 'So I took steps to ensure that Darren would never be any threat to you again. I went to see him and I took with me a prepared statement that detailed most of our life together. It included the pressure he and my father had brought to bear, it included how he, Darren, had tried to offload assets into my name and a couple of other highly unethical methods he'd employed that I'd unwittingly become aware of-and it included the name of every women he'd ever flaunted before me and every night he'd spent away from home.' 'And you had proof,' Steve said, not as a question, she was to realise later, but as a statement.

'Yes, I had proof. I kept a diary. Not with anything like this in mind; it just seemed to ease the pressure a little to have something to confide in. He… at first he didn't believe me, he didn't believe I would do it-go on Paul Grainger's show and tell all. Then he tried to bluster that no one would be interested anyway, but when I pointed out that a few of those names belonged to women married to some very prominent men, he changed his tune. He had the gall to tell me I was about as low as anyone could go but, well, to cut a long, unpleasant story short, we did a deal. In return for my silence, he will stay out of my life now, forever.'

'Davina-'

'No, let me finish. I'd always thought I would feel dirty if I was ever forced to do anything like that, that the mud would have to cling somehow, but I found that it didn't. And it had something to do with this… I may have been a victim once but I was in danger, as you pointed out to me a couple of times, of becoming a willing victim. And not only because I was still letting him frighten me and still living under the shadow of what he did, but because I was afraid to ever try again with anyone else. I'm-' she looked down at her hands then up into his eyes ' -not that any more.'

She thought he sighed, and thought she knew why with an arrow of pain going through her heart as she said, 'But if, with the benefit of hindsight-or whatever, you… you-' her voice shook '-don't still want me, I'll go-'

'No, you won't,' he said with something of his former arrogance. 'Not ever again-'

'Steve,' she whispered, her eyes widening, but she got no further because he stood up and pulled her up into his arms and held her so that she could barely breathe.

'You didn't have to do that; you didn't have to put yourself through all that just because I was such a bloody fool,' he said torturedly as he kissed her hair and her eyelids. 'I could have killed him; I nearly did when I found out.'

'You knew?' She stared up at him out of stunned eyes.

He picked her up and sat down with her. 'I went to see him a couple of days after you did. Loretta, for reasons best known to herself, finally told me about the magazine articles and gave me a more in-depth idea of the Paul Grainger interview. Well, to be honest,' he said, 'after I all but drove you away, I took myself off for over a week and they couldn't get hold of me. I…' he laid his head back '…don't remember ever feeling more manic or…unable to believe what was happening to me. That I couldn't have the only woman I'd ever really loved and nine-tenths of it was my own fault. But, when I got back, Loretta collared me and told me a few home truths, and between us and Candice and Lavinia, we worked out that you'd got a letter that had upset you that day. I thought that the two people who were most likely to have upset you were either Darren Smith-Hastings or Paul Grainger. So I started with Smith-Hastings.'

Davina stirred, but he ran his fingers down the side of her face very gently. 'I was a bit amazed at his reaction-well, first of all he flatly refused to see me so I had to…employ certain methods; I did a bit of ranting and raving to his secretary until she let me in. Then he looked as wary as hell and the first thing he said was, "It's over, Warwick, you can have her. We've done a deal."' He stroked the side of her neck. 'I asked him to elucidate. He said, "I'm sure she's told you all the dirty details herself." I said I'd like to hear them from him; nevertheless. I think,' he said slowly, 'he realised when he'd finished how close I came to throttling the life out of him. I don't think he'll ever forget it.'

Davina moved her cheek against his shirt and closed her eyes at the wonder of the feel of his fingers on her skin.

'So, now you're wondering, I would imagine, why I didn't come straight to you?'

'No,' she murmured. 'I mean…'

He kissed the top of her head. 'It was all Loretta's fault. She told me I'd been rushing you and probably frightening the life out of you myself. I knew something I'd been doing hadn't been working. So, I thought, once again, perhaps I can wait, perhaps I should wait-that you wouldn't have done what you'd done unless… So I came home, but these last few days have been pure hell. I can't sleep, I can't settle to anything; I know I wouldn't have lasted much longer.'

'Steve,' she said softly, and put her hand to his face, 'I love you-'

But he said imperatively, 'Hang on. There's more. You see, I knew it all myself, I didn't really need Loretta,' he said drily, 'to spell it all out for me. I knew that after a ghastly experience like that, you were hurt and humiliated and afraid of men. What I couldn't do-' his voice dropped ' -was give you the time you needed. Oh, I tried a couple of times, only to find I couldn't wait; I'd never wanted a woman so much, I'd never lived with the fear that I mightn't be able to have her, not only to hold, but to love in all senses of the word-and it drove me in a way I'd never known, even for me. But I did try to hold off, in a sense. I said and did some things all designed not to pressure you. And to hide from you,' he said grimly, 'the fact that what had happened to me was a bit like being hit on the head, and that every day it was becoming clearer to me that I couldn't let you go; that I was exactly the kind of man you thought you feared most, who would want to dictate to you and…well, I suppose you know what I mean.'

'Steve-'

He kissed her and said, 'Let me tell you all, my darling; I don't want there to be any misunderstandings between us again. One of my stratagems,' he said, with a sudden weary little smile, 'was not to let you think I was trying to push you into marriage. I thought I could do that better by showing you how inevitable it had to be. You said to me once that you'd thought it would be high drama when we slept together, if we ever did-I tried to make it something that was warm and tender and fun and something you could see lasting us a lifetime. I tried,' he said very quietly, 'despite the fact that wanting you was the most intense thing that had ever happened to me, to play it down, to…' He shook his head.

'You did-you made love to me so wonderfully it… made me forget everything else that had ever happened to me.'

'But it didn't make you believe-and the way you were sometimes led me to think I never could make you believe. That's what drove me the day you left, drove me to do the things I did and say the things I did. I knew something had gone wrong and I knew I should have been there with you, but…well, when exactly what I feared might happen apparently had happened, I lost my head and reverted true to type, I guess. I also knew I only had one shot left, the one I was deathly afraid of playing and it was this-if you do ever marry me, Davina, I'll never let you go. But that's the problem: that's not only the kind of man I am but the way you affect me. I probably don't have to tell you that; you may have worked it out for yourself. I'm the one kind of man you told me so often you could never-'

'Steve.' And this time her voice was low and husky but insistent. 'Let me tell you what I've worked out. I've worked out that I'll have a terrible life with you.' But a smile curved her lips as he tensed and she went on softly, 'I know you'll go to any lengths to get your own way, but you see, there's not a lot you'll have to fight me about now. I think we're in some agreement about the basics such as-the fact that I can't live without you. I'm lost and lonely, there's this awful ache within me that only you can stop; I believe now, Steve, and it was me I was fighting more than anything and there was only one way I could resolve it, which I've done now…'

He stopped her right there, and as he kissed her and held her she felt his heart beating against her breasts in a wild, exalted way that matched her own.

'A lot of people will still tell you you're mad,' he said some time later as she lay flushed and breathless in his arms, thoroughly kissed and still held as if he was afraid to let her go.

She slid her fingers through his tawny hair and down to those lines beside his mouth. 'Some people have told me the opposite.'

He raised a wry eyebrow. 'I can't imagine who, if you discount Lavinia-she's not altogether unbiased.' 'Well, let's see. There's Maeve. She told me the day we first met that you were a lovely man-' her lips trembled '-a bit hard to handle maybe, but really, no wife could ask for more. In the way of washing and ironing machines.'

He laughed and said wryly, 'My one fan.'

'No. There's Candice. She even stood up for you one day when Lavinia and Loretta were-commenting on how difficult you could be.'

He grimaced. 'I can imagine. Candice will be thrilled by this turn of events, by the way.'

'I'm glad. I felt terrible about walking out on them, too.'

'I wouldn't,' he said with a wicked little smile. 'You achieved more harmony between Loretta and Lavinia by getting them to gang up on me than I would have believed possible. They're still ganged up, incidentally' 'Loretta also told me to… well, think twice about you.' 'Loretta,' he said a shade drily, 'will be impossibly smug now.'

'But she also told me that you were an…all-or-nothing man, one of those masterful types, perhaps, but…' She smiled into his eyes.

'Now, that,' he said slowly, 'I have to agree with, the all-or-nothing bit.' He stopped, then went on in a deep, quiet voice, 'I had these fantasies. Of you, with no shadows in your eyes, in this house, in the sunlight with me, the rain, whatever… I thought of kids: a girl who looked like you and could twist me round her little finger as well as trust me to always have her best interests at heart; a boy I could pass on to not only everything I love about this island but the love and respect I had for his mother. I couldn't get them out of my mind.'

'Oh, Steve,' she whispered with sudden tears in her eyes and buried her face against him.

'No more tears?' he said later, as they lay side by side in his bed, loosely entwined.

'None.'

'You're so beautiful.' He traced the outline of her body from her waist to her hip and thigh.

'And you do things to me-I probably don't have to tell you about.'

'You could show me.'

'OK.' And she freed herself, but only briefly. 'There, how's that?'

He moved beneath her weight and slid his hands down her back to the curve of her bottom, and looked into her eyes with just a suggestion of the old wicked glint she knew so well. 'You have me entirely at your mercy,' he also said softly. 'If I moved, I'd be…lost.'

She pressed her breasts against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. 'Don't move. I'd be lost, too, you see. What I'm really trying to tell you is how much I love you.'

'Ah. But, if we… got lost together, would that not be an affirmation of our love?'

She laughed down at him, and he caught his breath. 'What?' she queried, sobering.

'They're gone,' he said with an effort. 'The shadows in your eyes are-gone.'

She relaxed. 'Because you made them go-Steve?'

'Yes?'

'I don't think I can last much longer…'

'I'm so glad,' he said with an intensity in his voice and his arms, 'because I was going to try to tell you how much I love you, but now I'm going to have to show you.'

And he did.

'Now what do we do?'

It was over a year later and the occasion was a christening party. Lavinia was in blue silk and wearing her pearls. Loretta was wearing little, but what there was of it was a vivid yellow watermark-taffeta creation, and she glowed with good health and good humour. Candice was pretty in pink and absorbed with the baby as was Davina's mother, and Davina herself wore a distinctive shade of chalk-blue.

There had been a few wrangles. Lavinia had been unable to prevent herself from commenting on how highly unsuitable Loretta's dress was for a christening, as well as delivering herself of a lengthy discourse on childcare to anyone who would listen. Loretta had retaliated by stating with a lazy smile that if this baby's mother had to put up with all she'd had to put up with, she might as well prepare herself to acquire the patience of a saint.

But it was none of this that caused Davina to look up from her three-month-old baby into Steve's eyes as she asked that question with love and laughter in her own. Because this was no violet-eyed, fair daughter they'd had baptised Caroline Warwick. This little girl had little hair but what there was of it was definitely gingery, and not at all unlike her father's. She also had grey eyes that were developing little yellow flecks in them and, moreover, was given to announcing her likes and dislikes in a way that reminded them all of one person- her father.

'Now what do we do?' he repeated with a wry little smile and putting his arm around her. 'Keep trying?' he suggested, looking into her eyes with a mixture of devilry and love that still made her heart beat rapidly. 'I seem to be somewhat addicted to it, as you may have noticed,' he added.

'As it happens, so am I, Mr Warwick,' she replied gravely, and lifted her face for his kiss.