Forbidden Pleasure

‘And you enjoy swimming.’

Ianthe drank some of the liquid, relishing the refreshing tartness. ‘I always have,’ she said at last.

His gaze sharpened, but after a moment he nodded. Feeling as a possum must when the spotlight swings away from its tree, Ianthe allowed herself to relax.

‘You spoke of a media circus,’ he said. ‘Was that because you’re a television celebrity?’

Mark, of course. It was unlikely he’d seen the documentary series—as far as she knew, it had only just sold to England and America. Wishing Mark had kept his mouth shut, Ianthe said lightly, ‘Shark attacks are always newsworthy. I was only a very minor celebrity.’ The scar on her leg itched. She ignored it, as she wished she could ignore Alex’s speculative glance.

‘And how did you get into such a career?’ he asked.

He didn’t sound avid, merely interested. Pleased at his restraint, Ianthe said, ‘I’m a marine biologist, and I was working with dolphins in the Bay of Islands when a film crew thought I’d make a nice little clip on a reel they were making for Air New Zealand. About six months later someone rang up and asked if I’d front a documentary series about New Zealand’s marine life.’

‘And, dazzled by the glamour, you agreed.’ His voice missed mockery by a whisker; although he was teasing her, there was understanding and amusement there.

She laughed. ‘If that was the reason I’d have been very disappointed! We lived in pretty spartan conditions on a glorious schooner that was built for freight, not passengers. No, I decided to do it because I’d just had the plug pulled on my research funding and the film company offered good money—enough to keep me from going cap in hand to sponsors for quite a while if I lived economically.’

‘And will you be going back to your dolphins?’

‘As soon as I can.’ She willed her face to reveal nothing, her eyes to remain cool and composed, willed him not to notice the guarded nature of her response.

She didn’t know whether she’d succeeded.

Alex Considine didn’t have a poker face, but she suspected he revealed only what he wanted to. At the moment he looked mildly interested.

‘Did you enjoy the film work?’

‘After a few initial hassles, yes.’

When he lifted his brows she explained drily, ‘I didn’t realise that all they expected was someone to look reasonable in a high-cut swimsuit, someone to frolic in the water. They wanted me to grow my hair so that I could flick it around for the camera, and they expected me to coo over lobsters and shells and pretty fish. After we’d sorted that out I liked it very much.’

‘And how did you sort it out?’ he asked, a smile tucking the corners of his controlled mouth.

‘Got stroppy and waved my contract around a lot,’ she said, ‘until they realised that I actually did know what I was talking about and wasn’t just some lightweight mermaid who was kinky enough to prefer dolphins to men.’

Enough bitterness seeped into her words for him to give another of those laser glances. A shiver ran the length of her spine but she met his hooded eyes squarely.

‘And do you prefer dolphins to men?’ he asked, a lazy smile robbing the question of impertinence.

Ianthe laughed. ‘You know where you are with dolphins,’ she said, ‘but, no, I don’t.’

‘Where are you with dolphins?’

‘You’re in their country, and you’re a curiosity,’ she said readily. She’d been talking far too much about herself, so she said, ‘You’ve spent some time in England, I imagine, from your accent.’

He looked amused. ‘My mother is the source of my accent. She has very strong opinions on the proper way to speak, and the ruthlessness to enforce them.’

‘Persuading your children not to sound like some refugee from a cartoon is a never-ending business, I’m told.’ Ianthe smiled as she thought of Tricia’s battles with her five-year-old.

‘I have no children,’ he told her, his voice smooth and impersonal, ‘but my friends certainly say so. I’m not married.’

He’d thought she was fishing. Fighting back her indignation, Ianthe tried to ignore the way her heart fluttered and soared.

He asked, ‘Will you go back to working in television?’

‘They don’t want a front-person with a scar down her leg. It doesn’t look good, and the limp is ungraceful.’ Because it didn’t matter, her voice was as pragmatic as her words.

She didn’t quite hear what he said under his breath, but judging from the glitter in his eyes the succinct phrase was probably rude. Astonished, she looked up into a hard face and scornful, searing eyes.

‘Did they tell you that?’ he asked, on a note that sent a shiver up her spine.

‘No, but it’s the truth. Viewers don’t like their programmes spoiled by ugly reminders that the real world has carnivores prowling it. People complain bitterly if they see insects eating each other on screen! Probably because most of us live in cities now we want to believe that the natural world is one of beauty and meaning and harmony.’

The harshness faded from his expression as he leaned back into his chair. ‘But you don’t believe that?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s extraordinarily beautiful, but it’s also unsentimental. Animals kill and eat to survive. They’re not pretty different-shaped humans with human attitudes. Even pack animals, which we can understand best, have a rigid hierarchy with crushing rules that would drive most of us insane.’

‘But we’re animals too.’

‘Of course we are.’ Made uneasy by the focused intentness of his gaze, Ianthe resisted the impulse to wriggle. ‘Our problem is that we know what we’re doing. Most animals live by instinct.’

‘So it’s not cruel for animals to drive an ill or wounded member from the pack, but humans shouldn’t?’

For a moment she didn’t realise what he meant. When she did she gave him a startled, angry glance. ‘Animals drive their sick away or abandon them because their presence attracts predators. If you’re using me as an instance, I’m not ill, but my wound could well have put an end to the series’ existence if people had stopped watching. Besides, I was in hospital while they were filming the last programmes so they had to get someone to take my place. I have no hard feelings.’

‘As I said before, you’re astonishingly tolerant,’ he said, his smile hard and humourless.

Oh, she could be enormously tolerant. The loss of her job was the least of her problems.

He said, ‘Will you always have that limp?’ He glanced at her trouser-clad leg.

For the first time Ianthe realised that most people when confronted with her scar did one of two things—the rude stared and commented while the polite kept their eyes fixed on her face. Both responses irritated her because they seemed to imply that she was less than perfect, less than human. Alex, however, looked at her leg without aversion.

‘Always,’ she said, steadying her voice so that her self-pity didn’t show.

‘You seem very relaxed about it.’

Although her unusual frankness had given him the opportunity to probe, she’d told him enough about herself. ‘I try not to worry about things I can’t control,’ she said coolly. ‘It doesn’t always work, but fretting over the past is just a waste of time.’

‘Fretting over anything is a waste of time.’

Nodding, she let the sun soak into her, acutely aware of the strumming of the cicadas, now reaching for a crescendo. However, balancing the shrill stridulation were other sounds—the soft rustling of reeds swaying against each other, the lazy cry of a gull that had drifted inland from the coast a few miles away, and the sound of a speedboat on the one lake that was open for powerboats, its intrusive roar muted by intervening hills to a pleasant hum.

And a fantail—the same one, perhaps?—black and cheeky as it darted around collecting insects from under the vine over the pergola.

Accepting her tacit refusal to discuss her leg any further, Alex Considine said, ‘Do you know anything about the way dune lakes are formed? Why are there lakes in this valley, but not in the valleys on either side?’

‘Because under this one there’s an impermeable ironstone pan. Rainwater collects above it and forms the lakes. The sand is silica, which is why it’s so white.’