she opened the door of Alan’s bungalow, Sally smiled up at her over Alan’s head. Alan himself was sitting on the edge of his chair; the posture a familiar one, his mind and body totally engrossed in the man seated opposite him. The electric light was unkind, revealing the stress in his eyes, but didn’t stop him from looking as alert as a terrier at a rat-hole, as he talked quickly, gesticulating, proffering the papers stacked neatly on the table in front of him.
Sally was drinking a rum punch, and poured one for Autumn, who took it with a smile. A large jug of the punch stood on the table, and as Sally leaned forward to top up Alan’s glass Autumn had her first glimpse of the man sitting opposite him.
Recognition and fear welled up inside her like sickness. She was shaking so badly that she had to clasp her hands together to hide their trembling. Thick dark hair curled down over the collar of a pale silk shirt, a jacket lying discarded next to its owner, his back lean and muscled beneath the thin covering.
Alan had stopped talking and was listening carefully. Autumn felt as though she had strayed into a nightmare. She had no need to listen to that cool, incisive voice, shredding all Alan’s carefully balanced arguments; its every inflection and intonation was as familiar to her as her own. If she listened hard enough she could even hear the faint contempt lacing the words.
‘You say everything would have been fine if it hadn’t been for this hurricane,’ he was saying to Alan. ‘But surely hurricanes and tropical islands are something that automatically go together and must be allowed for?’
Alan flushed darkly, his voice conciliating as he mumbled a reply.
How well she knew that hard, ‘I’ve got you in a corner,’ tone, Autumn thought numbly. And what would follow. Alan wouldn’t be allowed to escape until his arguments were relentlessly decimated. Her sickness grew and she wanted badly to run, and then Alan looked up and registered her presence, wariness and relief struggling for supremacy as he stood up and drew her forward.
‘Autumn, let me introduce you to Yorke Laing, head of Laing Airlines.’
She could tell from Alan’s eyes that although he was trying hard to pretend he did not, he knew quite well who Yorke was, and she acknowledged the introduction with a cold smile, extending her hand for the briefest second.
‘Yorke.’
She was not going to be part of the pretence. She knew that Sally was staring at her, and felt relief that her friend at least had not been a party to this charade.
She didn’t need to meet Yorke’s cold green eyes to know the expression she would find there; she had seen it too often before. His face wasn’t strictly handsome. It was too rugged for that, too male; the harsh symmetry of bones and flesh mirroring his nature and attitude to life. Dear God, Autumn thought hysterically. Alan had baited his line for a ‘big fish’ and he had caught one with a vengeance, but what had he used as bait. Her?
Yorke’s eyes slid over her with cool insolence, stripping away the silk suit and laying bare the flesh beneath, but Autumn forced herself to withstand it, her own eyes cold and contemptuous. There had been a time when that look had been sufficient to set her body on fire; but in those days she had seen only the sexual awareness and not the coldness which lay beneath it.
Women had been standing in line for Yorke from the first day he wore long trousers, and there wasn’t a thing he didn’t know about their minds or bodies.
‘Look, we’d better get over to the restaurant,’ Alan said quickly. ‘We can have a drink over there and talk later, when we’re all feeling more relaxed.’
He was standing up as he spoke, and Autumn walked out of the bungalow without a word, ignoring Sally’s puzzled eyes. She could feel Yorke looking at her, and she used the smile experience had taught her was a far more effective weapon than any amount of irritation or embarrassment. It was so cold and bitter that it normally froze off even the most ardent and thick-skinned Don Juan. On Yorke it was like using paper to ward off a forest fire; his glance consumed her, destroying her barricades, warning her of what was to come, but she gave him another of her cold little smiles and turned away from him to Alan. Behind her she could hear the breathless excitement in Sally’s voice as she answered his deep-toned questions. Even Sally, fathoms deep in love with her Richard, was not proof against Yorke’s sexuality.
Alan closed the door of his bungalow and turned to Yorke to make some comment about arranging for him to see over the grounds, and Sally used the momentary diversion to murmur curiously to Autumn, ‘What gives? I detected a definite undercurrent in the bungalow just now, and when you saw Yorke you looked as though you’d seen a ghost.’
‘No such luck,’ Autumn muttered bitterly, taken off guard when Yorke loomed over her, his teeth white in the velvet darkness.
‘What a devoted wife you are, my love,’ he murmured dulcetly, loudly enough for Sally to hear. ‘And when I’ve come all this way to find you…’
He turned back to Alan and Sally gaped in bemusement.
‘Was I hearing things, or…’ she broke off when she saw Autumn’s pale face. ‘My God, Autumn, he is your husband, isn’t he?’
Such was Yorke’s power that even though Sally knew what her marriage had done to her, she could still look at her with perplexed eyes, and was no doubt thinking she must have been a fool to leave him, Autumn thought on a ragged sigh. But who was she to blame Sally? Hadn’t she been just as bemused—once? She loitered behind the others deliberately, glad that the path through the gardens to the Five Fathoms restaurant was barely wide enough for two people. At first when she saw the white flash of a dinner jacket she froze in alarm, thinking it was Yorke, but he was in front of her, his arm resting protectively on Sally’s waist as he helped her to negotiate the twisty path.
‘I’m sorry about this, Autumn,’ Alan muttered, falling into step beside her. ‘It was a hell of a thing to do to you, but he didn’t give me much alternative. When he was first introduced to me I had no idea he was your husband. He’d been recommended to me by my merchant bankers and he seemed enthusiastic about the island. It wasn’t until he’d discovered just how bad things were that he started to put the screws on. He told me if I didn’t fix up this meeting he’d make sure I wouldn’t come out of this mess with ten pounds to call my own.’
‘So you simply caved in and threw me to the wolves?’ She tried to keep the shaken anger out of her voice, but it was impossible. When she had first seen Yorke in the bungalow she had thought she must be hallucinating; that it was all part of the dreadful nightmares that used to torment her in the early months after she left him. There had never been any question of him wanting her back—he had wanted the marriage to end just as much as she did herself. When she had left him she had reverted to her maiden name, simply because she couldn’t bear to retain anything that might remind her of him, and as far as she knew he had never made any attempt to trace her, so why this, now?
‘Come on, it isn’t as bad as all that,’ Alan said gruffly. ‘He just wants to talk to you, Autumn.’
Autumn ignored him.
‘You knew who he was all the time,’ she accused. ‘All the time you were giving me that “be nice to him” bit, you knew!’
‘He made me promise to say nothing. I tell you, Autumn, he would have ruined me if I hadn’t agreed. And still might. Look, I know I’ve no right to ask this of you, but St John’s means one hell of a lot to me; not just financially… and he has the power to make or break it.’
‘Come
