to her fury, removing the garments which she was sure had caused Zachary Fletcher’s preposterous insults and hurling them on to the floor. How dared he suggest … How dared he look at her like that … How dared he imply that …
Cheeks flushed, her eyes sparkling angrily under their fine brows, she turned on the shower, subjecting her body to a vigorous scrubbing as though by doing so she could punish it for encouraging Zachary Fletcher to believe she was the sort of girl who behaved in the way he had implied. And even if she was a man-chaser, she would never, ever in a million years, chase after someone like him, she decided through gritted teeth as she dried herself. Never!
IT was shortly before ten forty-five when Tamara walked into the hotel foyer to join the small group of people waiting there for the guide for the rain forest walk.
She saw Zachary Fletcher straightaway, but ignored him, deliberately going to join Dot and George Partington, who were chatting to the foursome they had mentioned the previous day.
‘Are you looking forward to it?’ Dot asked her, and when Tamara said that she was she added curiously, ‘By the way, what happened to you last night? I looked for you at dinner time, but I couldn’t see you.’
‘I ate in my room. I had a headache—probably too much sun,’ Tamara lied, knowing full well that the reason she hadn’t dined in the restaurant was that she wanted to avoid any further contact with Zachary Fletcher. It would have been just her luck to run into him in the dining-room and for him to accuse her of deliberately arranging it that way. Not even the brief evening telephone call she received from Malcolm had soothed her, and she was still burning with a resentment which refused to fade.
‘You’re looking very attractive, anyway,’ Dot told her, admiring the olive cotton jeans Tamara was wearing with a white tee-shirt with toning stripes in olive and rust. Over her shoulder Tamara had slung a large canvas beach bag with a slightly thicker long-sleeved sweat-shirt, sunscreen, and some other bits and pieces in it, the canvas almost exactly matching the dull olive of her jeans. The outfit had been bought especially for her holiday—Malcolm didn’t care for women in jeans, and Tamara had had to buy a pair of jodhpurs especially for her visit to his parents, who kept a couple of hunters for Malcolm’s and his father’s use.
Malcolm had insisted on Tamara learning to ride—it was expected that she should, he had told her when she protested that she was not likely to get much opportunity to use her newly gained skill in London.
She had drawn the line at hunting, though. Much as she enjoyed the stirring sight of the huntsman with his hounds and the riders in their pink coats she had no wish to emulate them.
Dot introduced her to the cheerful quartet she and George had been talking to. Alex, the fashion designer, was slim and fair-haired, his wife Sue dressed in a pair of high-fashion baggy trousers cleverly linked to the top and the man’s shirt she was wearing belted with gold suede.
Their friends, Heather and Rick Chalfont, were Alex’s business partners, although more on the financial side than the fashion, Rick explained.
‘Don’t you find it lonely being here on your own?’ Sue asked her.
‘Not really. I came away for a rest …’ Dot had turned away to talk to Zachary Fletcher and Tamara was unbearably aware of his lean, sardonic face, the mocking expression in his eyes as they rested momentarily on her flushed skin.
‘Yes, the build-up to a wedding can be wearing,’ Heather agreed sympathetically. ‘When is the big day, by the way?’
‘We haven’t decided finally yet. Malcolm—my fiancé—has to go to New York soon, and he isn’t quite sure how long he’ll need to be there. Once he gets back we’ll fix a firm date.’
‘Hardly an eager bridegroom, then?’ Zachary Fletcher drawled, joining in the conversation. ‘Haven’t you warned him what happens to laggards in love?’
Despite his reference to the old Border ballad Tamara knew that he was implying that she was the one urging Malcolm into a marriage he wasn’t too keen on, and she longed to be able to tell him that he was quite wrong and that Malcolm simply wasn’t the type of man to rush anything.
‘Oh, we all have trouble getting our men to the altar these days,’ Sue laughed. ‘That’s what comes of sexual equality. There isn’t the same need to rush that there used to be—It’s much better too, don’t you think?’ she appealed to Tamara. ‘Just imagine marrying a man and not knowing the slightest thing about him sexually. It’s almost as archaic as an arranged marriage to a stranger.’
‘Yes,’ Tamara agreed blankly, hoping that her expression wouldn’t betray her, but how could she admit in front of Zachary Fletcher that her sexual experience of any man, let alone Malcolm, was practically nil?
Oh, there had been a few tentative caresses when she was in her teens, but shyness and Aunt Lilian’s stern lectures had withered any natural desire to experiment, and as the years had gone by she had grown more and more ashamed of having to admit the truth. Not even Malcolm knew that she was a virgin. The subject had never come up, and for the first time she began to wonder how Malcolm would react. There had been a time in her late teens when she had begun to think that the truth must be written all over her face, and it had made her awkward and shy when she was approached by boys, but it was something she had eventually overcome.
It had been obvious that Zachary Fletcher hadn’t guessed the truth, and she had to fight down her rising anger as she remembered the previous afternoon.
When Sue claimed Dot’s attention to her horror Tamara found her běte noire at her elbow, looking hard and intensely masculine in the same black jeans, this time with a cotton shirt, which again had long sleeves and was unbuttoned only at the throat, where she could just see the first crisp tangle of body hair shadowing his chest.
‘I hope you aren’t going to accuse me of joining the walk simply to force an acquaintance with you,’ she managed to say in an undertone.
‘Hardly.’ The creases in his face deepened as he smiled. ‘I’d have to be paranoic to do so, wouldn’t I, seeing that I put my name down first. Do you enjoy walking?’
He didn’t really sound as though he cared whether she did or not, but Tamara forced herself to answer politely.
‘Yes, I do. I was brought up in the country …’
‘Well, today’s jaunt won’t be any country stroll. These mountains are pretty steep and I believe the jungle is extremely dense …’
‘Are you trying to put us off?’ George joked, suddenly joining in the conversation.
‘Not at all. I probably gave the wrong impression. To tell the truth, had I thought the walk would be too arduous I wouldn’t be attempting it myself.’ Zachary Fletcher touched his left leg as he spoke, and Tamara remembered George saying that he had seen him limping.
‘I was involved in an … accident,’ he added tersely, obviously reading the question in George’s eyes. ‘I’m here to recuperate, and take enough gentle exercise to get myself fit to resume normal work.’
‘You’re in the Army. I believe?’ George prodded.
‘Yes.’
The
