Marriage by Capture Page 11

  'Rickets?' her brow knitted. 'Isn't that something babies used to get?'

  'And still do, among the poorer classes of society,' he reminded her grimly. 'It's still prevalent among the children of tribal Indians.'

  'But it can be cured, surely?' she insisted eagerly.

  'Provided there are no complications, I believe the disease can be halted by giving the patient a sufficiency of fat—cream, oil, anything of that nature will do—by complete rest and strangely enough by providing plenty of light, either sunshine or artificial. Fresh air is also advisable, but as I'm suspicious of the lamb's dry cough he'd better remain indoors for tonight at least.'

  Once the dinner dishes had been washed and tidied away they settled down to keep vigil over the lamb that Claire knelt to comfort each time its small pot-belly heaved when he coughed. Rolf tried insisting, pleading, then finally bullying in an effort to get her to go to bed.

  'Even if you lie down fully dressed you'll feel the benefit,' he coaxed. 'I promise to waken you the moment I see the slightest change in his condition.'

  'Pete is my patient,' she insisted adamantly, 'and I will nurse him through the night.'

  Exasperated by her stubbornness, Rolf finally gave in. From the depths of the dresser he unearthed a bottle of cod liver oil and managed to coax a couple of spoonfuls down Pete's reluctant throat. Then he positioned the oil lamp so that its beam created a halo of light around the lamb's head before carefully banking up the fire to ensure regular heat throughout the night.

  Eyeing Claire sitting tensely upright with her eyes fastened upon the sleeping lamb, he held out his hand with the carefully casual suggestion, 'Come and sit with me on the settle. If we're to remain in here all night we might as well make ourselves as comfortable as possible.'

  To his surprise, she did not hesitate, but crossed, heavy-eyed, to sit beside him on the hard, cushion-less settle and did not attempt to fight off the arm he placed around her shoulders or the hand that drew her head down until it was resting in the hollow of his shoulder. All day the weather had been threatening to break, and as the first drops of rain splattered against the windowpanes she snuggled closer with a sigh of contentment, feeling the room, its quietness complete except for the constant heavy ticking of the ancient clock, to be full of ghosts happy, benevolent ghosts.

  'Tell me about the people who used to live here,' she murmured, 'were they happy, do you suppose?'

  'What is happiness?' The thought crossed her mind that Rolf sounded far less relaxed than she felt. 'What is regarded as good fortune by one can be considered a disaster by another. According to his descendants, who I must admit could have been biased, Angus Ramsey, who inherited this croft from his father, was something of a scribe and was far more interested in making small wood carvings such as you see around you in the cottage and in fashioning hats and creels out of straw rope than he was in farming. He bequeathed to his family many small diaries inside which he had written that his mother worked hard in the home as well as doing a stint in the fields, and that their neighbours were kind, thoughtful folk who all helped one another to sow the crops and to harvest and stack the corn. They gathered around their firesides in winter to gossip and to retell ancient tales such as the one about the buggane that haunted the caves at the Black Head, or of the old karrans, powerful giants who were said to be descended from the Armada Spaniards who were supposedly wrecked upon Spanish Head. The youngsters gathered separately in another house to sing and dance and no doubt to pair up and do their courting. So you see, it's hard to judge in which circumstances happiness may be found, for although Angus Ramsey became a wealthy man, nostalgia for the old days is evident in every page of his diaries.'

  'We're slow to recognise happiness until it's lost,' Claire proffered dreamily, appreciative of the harmony that had taken the place of discord.

  'A lot depends upon ourselves,' he cautioned, handling the subject as if it were fine crystal liable to shatter into a thousand sharp splinters under undue pressure. 'Obviously you possess a depth of maternal feeling that will remain a barrier to your happiness until you find some object upon which it can be lavished. You need a child, Claire,' he finally dared to challenge, keeping his eyes fastened upon a space above her head.

  He braced for the inevitable spate of scorn, but glanced down hopefully when she remained silently content within the circle of his arm. Gold-dusted lashes were fanning her cheeks, her breast was rising and falling in time with her even breathing, and her mouth was curved upwards, smiling as if pleasant dreams were invading her deep exhausted sleep…

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The first thing Claire saw when she awoke was the blue elk medallion a mere inch from her cheek that was burrowed, hotly flushed, against the rock-hard surface of Rolf's chest. For a second her mind remained fuddled, unable to offer an explanation as to why she should be lying in his arms inside a kitchen shrouded in nocturnal shadows. Then a sound impinged upon her conscience, a weak paroxysm of coughing followed by the pitiful, panting gasps of a lamb fighting for breath.

  She jerked erect to glare accusingly into Rolf's sombre face. 'Why didn't you waken me!'

  'There was no point.' He sounded strained, extremely uptight, which caused her to wonder if he were not as insensitive as he had implied to the appeal of delicate creatures. Unaccountably, she felt deprived when he removed his arm from around her shoulders and stood upright. As she sensed his mood of savage impatience, her indignation was replaced by concern.

  'I'm sorry for being so selfish,' she faltered.

  'In what way were you selfish?' he questioned tightly, stepping up to the fireplace to hook the kettle on to the slouree without even glancing her way.

  'By falling asleep and neglecting my patient,' she spelled out quietly, 'by pandering to my own needs at the expense of your own.'

  His head lifted sharply to direct a dark-eyed, penetrating stare. 'I'd begun to think you haven't the least inkling of a man's needs, that you imagined me to be some kind of automaton, designed to be made use of during the day, then stacked away in some convenient corner at night.'

  Bewildered by his sudden change of attitude and unnerved by the restless manner in which he had begun to prowl the room, she queried, heart in mouth, 'Aren't men's needs basically the same as women's? Each of us needs sleep, and warmth, and comfort.' Feeling an urge to be kind, she suggested impulsively, 'Why not make use of my bed while I stay on watch, you can't possibly have felt relaxed during the nights you've spent lying with nothing but a sleeping bag between you and bare boards. Don't try to deny that I'm right!' she continued swiftly, almost gaily, when he seemed prepared to argue. 'I've heard you prowling restlessly at night and letting yourself out of the cottage at daybreak to go down to the beach for an early swim.'

  When he loomed out of the shadows to stand glowering down at her she gasped, feeling her breath severed as if by the flick of a hunting knife.

  'Mon dieu'.' he blistered, 'what narrow depths of understanding you possess! In exchange for being used as a flaccid, accommodating pillow I'm to be allowed the privilege of occupying your bed—alone —while you remain in here lavishing affection upon an animal that can neither understand nor appreciate its good fortune. You work tirelessly in an effort to ease its misery, yet can conveniently overlook mine! I suspect you're drawn towards animals because they make no demands—are you so incapable of deep emotion, Claire, that you shy away when you recognise it in others?' Without seeming to move he plucked her from the spot where she stood rooted, enclosing her within arms that hugged tightly as a bear. 'Let's find out, shall we?' he challenged thickly. 'To hell with being a gentleman, I much prefer to be the father of your son!'

  His lips crushed down upon hers, injecting lusty desire into every vein, catching her so unawares she was given no time to erect a dam against the racing, roaring, boiling flood of passion that snatched her into its rapids and tossed and buffeted her until she was gasping for breath, clinging to him as desperately as the shipwrecked cling to
any available spar.

  Claire' was ashamed of the terrible fascination he aroused whenever he lost control, of the urge she felt to discover what lay beyond the tantalising stage their relationship had reached. As his kisses drowned her in waves of sweet confusion she experienced at one moment the reckless bravery of a swimmer determined to conquer unknown seas and in the next the cowardice of a nervous beginner teetering on the edge of a diving board wondering if she were competent enough, if she would be hurt, if the dive might even prove to be fatal.

  'Clear Running Water…!' A delicious thrill trembled through her body when he gently nibbled her ear. 'Pure as melted snow, cool as a mountain stream, fascinating as a waterfall plunging into mysterious, unplumbed depths! Stop this torment, Claire,' he groaned, tracing with his lips the soft, pulsating curve of her neck. 'These past hours have been agony, holding you close yet knowing you were distant; being clawed by an inner war, a battle between a mad urge to possess and a conscience that insisted upon holding me to my promise.' His low, shaken voice became suddenly insistent. 'Be kind to me, Claire, as kind as you would be to any animal in torment—put me out of my misery!'

  His lips found hers, drowning the sob of indecision lodged like an arrow in her throat. The emotions she had shared with Jonathan had been nothing like this, his kisses had been chaste, making her feel adored as a remote princess set upon a pedestal. But with Rolf she felt wanton, a sister to the young Manx maidens who, when tossed across the shoulders of lusty Viking raiders, had submitted to capture with hardly a murmur.

  Weakened by his forceful persuasion, she melted against him and mercilessly he exploited her weakness by pushing away her blouse from her shoulders and seeking every vulnerable nerve with a touch that unearthed deeply-hidden ecstasy, and with lips that branded his mark of possession upon every tender hollow and curve.

  'Rolf!' she gasped, attempting to plead for mercy against such exquisite punishment. But a madness had entered his blood, an insanity that would be assuaged only when passion had fused both their bodies into one.

  She had just discovered the terrifying rapture of his leaping reaction to her first shy but positive response, when above the clamour of pounding heartbeats she heard the plaintive cry of an animal in distress. He must have heard it too, yet when she tried to pull away he jerked her back into his arms with the hoarse imprecation:

  'Mère de dieu, you can't be prepared to leave me now!'

  But when the cry came again, a pathetic bleat followed by a paroxysm of coughing, remorse combined with panic to give her the necessary strength to push her way out of his arms.

  Trembling, dishevelled, with a cloud of golden hair falling down past one bare shoulder, she knelt to soothe and stroke the lamb. 'I'm certain he's worse,' she jerked, sounding thrashed with emotion.

  But her remark was lost, drowned by the sound of a slamming door and by footsteps striding out angrily into the darkness.

  Shaking with reaction, she ministered to the lamb, that small part of her mind still capable of reasoning blessing Rolf's foresight in positioning the singing kettle so that steam from its spout was feeding moisture into the air, enabling the lamb to breathe a little easier. For what seemed hours she remained crouched on her knees trying to coax Pete into accepting drops of oil or warm milk, but to no avail. His spasms of coughing grew more frequent until eventually her dismayed eyes caught sight of some substance dribbling from the side of his mouth that had no connection with any of the medicine he had been given. When finally he lapsed into exhausted sleep she sat hugging her own deprived body and took time to formulate her thoughts, to dissect with all the honesty of which she was capable, rampant emotions, now subdued to a steady pulsating throb, that needed only the sound of Rolf's voice, the crunch of his approaching footsteps, as a signal to start once more the battle to tear her apart.

  'Is this love?' she murmured, feeling physically and emotionally battered. 'Can this be the emotion lovers rave about and poets find so inspiring? Surely love should be a joy, not a penance, should unite instead of tearing asunder.' Yet even in the midst of confusion she knew that she had been allowed a glimpse of paradise that fabled place wherein everything was beautiful and joyful, and where pain and suffering were unknown.

  Suppressing an urge to weep, she rose to her feet, carefully banked up the fire, then after drawing the rocking chair as close as possible to the sleeping lamb, collapsed on to its hard, comfortless seat. Determined that her heavy lids should not be allowed to droop, she sat stiffly erect, levering one foot against the floor to keep the chair in constant motion. But gradually her head sank sideways, the rocker became motionless, and once again she was overwhelmed by sleep of such depth she was rendered oblivious to fingers of early morning light groping into the dark corners of the kitchen, and to the squeak of hinges on a cautiously-opened door.

  She awoke with a start to the sound of bacon sizzling in a pan and to the rattle of crockery as Rolf set out breakfast dishes on the table. Sun beamed through the window, playing upon willow-patterned plates and a matching jug filled to the brim with rich, creamy milk, upon spoons hollowed out of horn and upon a vase of wild flowers, foxgloves, pennywort, and the colourful thrift that flourished in every nook and cranny of rocks towering high above the sea. Were they a peace-offering? Claire wondered, still half asleep. A wordless apology for Rolf's uncharacteristic burst of ill-temper? Perhaps he had taken to heart the moral contained in the song he was so fond of singing about the voyageur who had bitterly regretted the rift between himself and his loved one.

  'If you hurry you'll have time for a shower before breakfast.' The curtness of Rolf's tone gave lie to her theory that he was in a mood of repentance. She gasped, made breathless by his cold splash of words, then jerked erect when she remembered Pete. Her eyes swivelled towards the spot where she had left him and remained staring hard at the empty space that had once held a blanket topped by the lamb's plump, brown-fleeced body.

  'Where's Pete? she gasped, rounding upon Rolf.

  'I've put him outside,' he clipped, his expression unfathomable.

  Not even the fact that he was still annoyed with her could repress the surge of thankfulness she felt at his words. Her grey eyes, tender as sea-mist, reflected the happiness of her serenely beautiful smile. 'He's cured!' She breathed a heartfelt sigh. 'Somehow I knew he would be, he's far too lovable to die. Where is he?' she continued eagerly. 'I'll just take a peep at him before breakfast.'

  Uplifted by her sense of triumph, she could not understand why his mouth remained tense, his eyes darkly brooding.

  'He's at peace, so let's leave him that way.' As if guessing her intention to argue, he turned his attention upon the contents of the pan. 'Five more minutes and this will be ready—ample time for you to shower and dress, if you hurry!'

  His attitude of urgency lent wings to her feet. Without further encouragement she sped into her bedroom, grabbed a towel and a change of clothing, then with steps as light as her spirits almost danced her way outside towards the makeshift shower.

  The water inside the improvised tank, had been drawn from a deep, cool well, yet as icy needles jabbed against her warm skin she spared not so much as a thought for the luxurious bathroom she had left behind—the butter-coloured tiles chosen especially to match the deep bath with twin, dolphin-shaped taps that gushed forth an endless supply of steaming water; shelves crammed with talcum and body lotions; carpet thick and green as summer grass that had enveloped her feet up to the ankles, and the piles of warm, fluffy towels. All of these she had taken for granted, yet as she fumbled for the tees with which to plug up the holes in the plastic container she felt blissfully refreshed, tingling from head to toe with health and happiness.

  After gently patting her skin dry with a coarse towel, she slipped into clean underwear, pulled on a pair of curve-hugging denims and a blue cotton top, then swathed the towel turban-wise around her damp hair, intending after breakfast to sit outside in the sunshine and comb it dry.

  He began di
shing out the meal immediately she stepped inside the kitchen. 'In that outfit, you ought to look like an urchin,' he told her dryly, 'yet in some inexplicable way you manage to retain your air of dignity. It's been said that we bring nothing into this world and take nothing out, yet I feel certain, ma chérie,' he spared her a sudden, brief smile, 'that when you made your entry into this world it became immediately obvious that the child being delivered was a descendant of a very proud and gifted family.'

  'But has it not also been said,' she teased, eyeing her plate with healthy relish, 'that a man who prides himself on his ancestry is like a potato plant, the best part of which is underground? That would seem to indicate either that I'm half dead—or only half alive. Which is it, do you suppose?'

  That she was able to tease him so easily was a measure of the progress that had been made in their relationship, yet instead of the response she expected—the appreciative glint, the crooked half-smile, the tilt of a strongly-marked eyebrow—her words provoked a puzzling wince.

  Seeming forced into making a decision, Rolf pushed aside his untouched breakfast and leant across the table, fixing her with a steady eye as obliquely he intoned, 'Once, during my stint as a forest ranger, I came across a beaver pond. I moved towards it, soundless as an Indian, I thought, but I must actually have made as much noise as a bear lusting after its mate, because suddenly I heard the beaver's danger signal—a sound like the crack of a rifle shot, made by the slap of a broad, heavy tail against water. This was followed by a splash as the alarmed beavers dived to safety.'

  Claire laid down her knife and fork to give him her complete attention. Instinct told her that he was not merely making pleasant breakfast conversation, but that he had a message to impart and also that her understanding of the message was important to him.