Master of Comus

Raging, yet helpless beneath the heavy weight of his body, she struggled in vain to free herself, but Paul was remorseless. Slowly Leonie felt her own secret hunger leap up to meet his as his lips parted her mouth, demanding a response. For a few moments she fought her own desire as well as his, then, with a smothered groan of defeat, she surrendered, locking her arms behind his head.

Paul slid his mouth down her throat, one hand expertly pulling down the thin straps of her nightdress. She began to tremble as his lips burnt along her shoulder, down over her breasts, while his fingers explored freely, stroking and caressing her.

'Paul ... darling ... her own voice sounded strange in her ears, hoarse with passion she had never felt before. Her heart was pounding as though it would burst. Her breath hurt in her lungs. A dizzy excitement taught her the responses of which until this moment she had been ignorant; her hands running down Paul's back, feeling him arch in pleasure, breathing fiercely against her naked flesh.

Her senses clamoured for release from the spiralling hunger he had aroused, but suddenly Paul sat up, still breathing hard, and said savagely, 'I hope that has taught you a lesson.'

She lay as he had left her, her black hair loose around her face, her nightdress half off, her body still quivering from the last few moments. Shock kept her silent.

'I could take you now, and you would be more than willing,' Paul told her icily. 'Next time you're tempted to lecture me on morals, my darling, remember that! I can get you to abandon all your principles in the space of ... what? Five minutes?'

Anger began to churn in the pit of her stomach— anger and bitter shame. She said nothing, lying there in the darkness, stiff with self-disgust and outrage.

Paul moved away, picked up the bedclothes from the floor where he had flung them, and vanished.

Leonie stared into the blackness of the room and hated him with a hatred which was part despair, part self-loathing. She knew that she would never forget, never forgive him for what had just happened, for what he had just said.

CHAPTER FOUR

THIN needles of light penetrated the room at dawn, pricking Leonie awake. She had fallen asleep with difficulty, and her eyes were still pink-rimmed from weeping. She lay watching the room gradually swim out of the darkness, too weary to get up.

A muffled clatter from below made her suddenly aware that Paul was moving about. She slid out of bed, put on a cotton wrap-over gown and went downstairs. As she had discovered last night, there was no bathroom. Paul had shown her the clear, pebble-bottomed stream which ran down behind the olive grove and provided the only source of fresh water. She did not much relish the prospect of washing there this morning, but she had no choice.

Paul, in a blue shirt and faded old jeans, stood beside the blackened old range watching the coffee pot. He turned as he heard her footsteps, and their eyes met briefly:

'I'm sorry about last night,' he said abruptly. 'I lost my temper—I've no excuse. It was unforgivable.' There was a visible tension in his handsome tanned face. His mouth was taut, his eyes shadowed. Leonie guessed that he, like herself, had lost sleep.

'It doesn't matter,' she said, knowing she lied. The memory of those few moments was burned on her brain and she knew she would never forget them.

r /> But they were up here alone in this isolated house for a week. It was necessary to re-establish some sort of truce. They could not exist in a state of enmity. It would make ordinary living impossible.

He watched her without illusions, reading her hidden reactions in her face. Heavily, he gestured to the coffee pot. 'Have some?'

'I want to wash first,' she said.

He nodded. 'Continental breakfast, I'm afraid. Hot pitta and coffee. Okay?'

'Fine,' she said lightly, moving out of the back door. The sun still lay just on the horizon, faintly illumining the hills with a blue-gold light. A purple haze crowned the highest peaks. The scent of pine trees, mixed with the fragrant odour of heather and dew-wet grass, made the air sweet to breathe. Leonie found her way to the stream through the olive grove, knelt down on the stony bank and splashed vigorously, stinging her face awake with the ice-cold water.

Ten minutes later, her black hair combed up into a neat coil, her slim body sheathed in a black shirt and jeans, she was eating breakfast.

'I thought we could take some food and go for a long walk across the hills,' Paul suggested. 'I'm afraid there isn't much to do up here.'

'I would like that,' she said quietly.

They washed up, tidied the house, found some meat, cheese and bread and set off just as the sun came swimming up above the sea.

She was glad to have her body and mind occupied by the exercise. She had no time to think. She was too busy clambering after Paul, who strode up t hillsides as though he were a goat, his long legs covering the ground at a staggering speed. Their path was littered with grey rocks fallen from above, and on the slopes beside it she could see the sturdy green sprigs of thyme which gave the hills their special fragrance. There was no habitation for miles around. All she could see was the sky, the sea and the great sweep of the hills, as ancient as the earth itself, their stark outlines untouched by man.

At noon they paused in the shade of a wild olive to eat their frugal meal. Paul had brought a bottle of retsina in the rucksack of food he had carried on his back. While Leonie lay back, panting, her head cushioned on a little bed of green moss kept fresh by a constant trickle of water from the rocky hillside stream above them, Paul laid out the food and opened the retsina. She accepted a mug of it from him, cautiously sipping the resin-impregnated wine and finding it curiously refreshing after her exertions.

Paul handed her a flat oval of pitta and a scoop of curdy goats' cheese pushed down inside the split bread. She gave him a polite little smile. 'Thank you.'

He almost winced, his blue eyes stormy. 'For God's sake, Leonie! Stop looking at me as if I were the wolf and you were Little Red Riding Hood. I've said I'm sorry about last night. I know an apology is hardly sufficient, but what else can I say or do? We can't go on like this. I'm not a patient man. I couldn't stand this state of warfare for long.'

'You can hardly blame me for feeling uneasy,' she pointed out, her voice husky.

'You provoked me into that outburst last night! I would never have behaved like that Otherwise.'