Element Of Risk

Frank whistled when she told him what she wanted him to do. ‘I told you not to tell him. You can’t trust people when it comes to children. Any ideas?’

‘Try Mrs Bennet, Mrs Philip Bennet. She used to live in Epsom—I’m almost certain it was Owens Road. She’s the grandmother. Oh, and can you give me the name and address of that solicitor you were recommending— the one who specialises in family law.’

‘Yup.’ He didn’t say again that he’d told her so, but she heard it in the monosyllable.

She scribbled down the name and address he gave her, said goodbye and hung up, then turned to look around her. The room was small and sparsely furnished in motel style, with furniture that didn’t fit her long legs and body. The rush of adrenalin that had sustained her so far faded slowly, leaving her melancholy and thoughtful.

Setting her mouth, she went out into the street and called into the florist’s shop. They weren’t busy so the woman made her a posy of cottage flowers while she waited, looking at her curiously when she thought she was unobserved.

After Perdita had paid for them she said in a rush, ‘You know, you look awfully like that model—the Adventurous Woman.’

Perdita gave her a warm smile. ‘I’m retired, now,’ she said.

The woman’s eyes widened. ‘You came from around here, didn’t you?’

‘I used to spend holidays here with my cousin.’

‘Mrs Dennison at Pigeon Hill.’ She sighed. ‘That was a tragedy. She was a lovely lady.’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, well, you must be noticing quite a few changes in the last ten years.’

Perdita smiled again. ‘Quite a few. The place has grown.’

‘Are you planning on living here?’

Until that moment the thought had never occurred to Perdita. She said vaguely, ‘No, I don’t think so,’ but as she walked out of the shop the idea took root and on the way down the hill to the cemetery it flourished. Nothing would give her greater pleasure than to live close to her daughters.

But would it be fair to them?

And how would Luke deal with that? At the thought of his reaction her skin prickled. He was a bad enemy.

The little graveyard had served the district well for over a hundred years. Perdita walked across newly mown grass sheltered by the huge old puriri and totara trees that made a dense barrier around the perimeter. It was very quiet and still.

Natalie’s headstone was plain and austere. With wet eyes Perdita read that she was the beloved wife of Luke, loved mother of Olivia and Rosalind, aged thirty-seven years.

Stooping, Perdita put her flowers with the others there. Death was so final, so impersonally unfair, when it carried off those who were young and good and happy.

She turned away, only then seeing through the sparkle of tears the tall, powerful figure of the man who had made Natalie so happy. Damn, she thought, suddenly exhausted by emotion. Why did he have to come here now?

Head held high, chin tilted, she waited beside the grave. He’d see the results of her grief, but she wasn’t ashamed of it.

His face was set in lines of harsh restraint. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

She said, ‘I brought flowers.’

He closed his eyes as though she couldn’t have said anything more painful. On a note of bitterness she finished, ‘I loved her too, Luke.’

‘Yes, I know,’ he said heavily, looking down at the bunch of cottagey flowers, bright cornflowers and spray carnations in a froth of white gypsophila.

‘She was so kind to me,’ Perdita said.

He jerked his head away but she saw the flash of naked emotion in his pale eyes. Gripped by compassion, she touched his arm. He had rolled up his sleeves, so her fingers were pale and slender against the tanned forearm with its light dusting of hair. The heat of his skin burned through barriers she hadn’t been aware of. Something moved deeply inside her. Snatching her fingers away, she had to resist the temptation to cool them in her mouth.

Hastily she went on, ‘She taught me how to dress and how to behave, that I wasn’t strange because I liked to read. In a funny sort of way she gave me my career. If she hadn’t taken me to Clive’s that Christmas to buy my clothes he wouldn’t have recommended me to the model agency. My life would have been as narrow and circumscribed as my mother’s. Natalie gave me everything, and she did it with such grace and empathy. She never made me feel that I was a gawky nothing.’

‘She groomed you to take her place,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘I wonder what she’d have thought of that.’

His words drove every vestige of colour from her face. Instinctively she stepped back, casting a swift, horrified glance at the mute grave.

His mouth curled into a mirthless, wolfish smile. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘She can’t hear you. She’ll never know that you betrayed her love by seducing her husband. She’ll never know that the children she adopted and loved so much were yours and mine. She’s dead, Perdita, and you and I are left to wonder just what would have happened if she hadn’t died. Because you’d have come back just the same, wouldn’t you?’

Perdita’s lips trembled. ‘Yes.’

‘And created even more damage than you did when you crawled into my bed that night.’

She shook her head, but he went on relentlessly, ‘Why did you do it?’

‘I told you. I was asleep when you came to bed. I didn’t expect you home that night,’ she said indistinctly.

The sun summoned auburn fire from his hair. His eyes were as cold as his laugh, as completely lacking in amusement.

‘Even though it was the bed Natalie and I slept in every night?’ He let the pause linger for endless moments, then brought it to an end by saying smoothly, ‘I find that very difficult to believe.’

She had slept in their bed because Luke was due back from three days spent in Wellington, and Natalie had decided to go halfway to Auckland to meet him at the house of friends.

‘He’ll be tired after three days’ arguing with the government,’ she’d said. ‘I’ll meet him at the Gardiners’, and we’ll stay there, then come back tomorrow after he’s had a good night’s rest. You won’t mind staying here, will you?’

Of course Perdita didn’t mind.

‘Just in case you’re nervous, why don’t you sleep in our room?’ Natalie suggested. ‘The phone’s right by the bed. Oh, and if you find it difficult to sleep in a strange bed my sleeping pills will be in the drawer. They’re quite harmless. They don’t knock you out, they’re more like calming pills than sleeping pills, really.’

‘I won’t need them,’ Perdita said.

Natalie hugged her. ‘What it is to be young and able to sleep on the head of a pin! I’ll leave one there just the same. Right, now that that’s organised, I’ll go and ring the hotel so he knows about the change of plans.’

But the anonymous someone in Luke’s hotel in Wellington hadn’t handed on the message, and Luke had driven all the way home, to find Perdita, slightly drugged with the pill because lying in Luke’s bed had given her too much of a secret, forbidden thrill, asleep in the innocent abandon of childhood. She hadn’t heard him come in, hadn’t realised until she woke in his arms that he had thought she was Natalie. And by then she had been unable to think…

But she couldn’t tell him that now. After it happened she had tried to explain, and he had refused to believe her, cursing her for stealing something that had been Natalie’s, exiling her to Auckland and her mother, who didn’t want her and had never forgiven her for driving her father away.

‘It’s a bit late to be putting flowers on her grave,’ Luke said curtly. ‘You repaid Natalie by betraying her.’

The words were like fiery arrows, tearing Perdita’s composure to shreds. Stung, still racked by guilt, she flung back, ‘As you did!’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘You don’t have to try to make me feel guilty, Perdita. I’ve never been free of it since that night.’

‘It wasn’t your fault you thought I was Natalie,’ she said. It had been Natalie he’d held in his arms, Natalie who was the recipient of his savage tenderness, Natalie…