A Woman Of Passion

It was hardly the way to gain Maria’s sympathy, and before the woman could make any comment, Helen pushed back her chair. ‘I’ve got some paracetamol,’ she offered. ‘It’s good for headaches.’ Particularly hangovers, she added silently, recalling how Tricia had drunk the best part of two bottles of wine the night before.

‘Oh, have you?’ Tricia turned to her with some relief. ‘D’you think you could bring them to my room? I think I’ll stay in bed this morning.’

‘But you said you’d take us into town this morning,’ Henry protested, not yet old enough to know when to keep his mouth shut, and his mother turned on him angrily.

‘What a selfish boy you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘Always thinking of yourself. Perhaps you’d like to spend the morning in bed as well. It might make you realise I’m not doing it for fun.’

‘Oh, Mummy—’

‘I don’t think Henry meant to upset you,’ put in Helen hurriedly, earning a grateful look from her young charge. ‘Why don’t you go back to bed, as you say, Tricia? I’ll get the paracetamol, and then bring your breakfast on a tray. I’m sure you could manage a croissant, and Maria’s brought some mango jelly and it’s delicious.’

‘Well…’ Tricia adopted a petulant air. ‘That does sound nice, Helen, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat anything. My head’s throbbing, and I’m sure I’m running a temperature. I may have to call the doctor if it doesn’t let up soon.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Helen could sympathise with her. Having a headache in a hot climate always seemed so much worse. The light was so bright, for one thing, and there seemed no escape from the heat.

Tricia sighed. ‘Perhaps if you brought me some coffee?’ she suggested. ‘And a little orange juice to wash the tablets down. Oh—and maybe a lightly boiled egg, hmm? And do you think you could find a slice of toast?’

‘Leave it to me.’

Helen ushered the other woman out of the room, before she could remember the threat she’d made to Henry. Then, when Tricia was safely installed in her bedroom, she returned to the kitchen to find Maria grinning broadly.

‘Just a lightly boiled egg,’ she declared wryly. ‘And some coffee and some orange juice and some toast…’ She paused to give Helen a wink. ‘Did I miss something?’

Helen wouldn’t let herself be drawn. All the same, it wasn’t the first time Tricia had spent the morning in bed. When they were in London, she had seldom seen her employer before lunchtime. If Tricia wasn’t attending some function or other, she rarely got up before noon.

When the tray was prepared, she collected the paracetamol from her room and delivered it in person. Tricia was lying back against the pillows, shading her eyes with a languid wrist, which she removed when Helen came into the room.

‘Oh, there you are,’ she said. ‘What have you been doing? I’ve been waiting ages.’

‘Just five minutes,’ Helen assured her, depositing the legs of the tray across her knees. ‘Now, if you want me, I’ll be on the beach. I’m going to take the children to search for shells.’

Tricia shuffled into a sitting position, and reached for the orange juice. ‘Well, don’t be long,’ she said, swallowing the tablets Helen had given her with a mouthful of the juice. ‘You’re going to have to go and pick Drew up from the airport. I can’t possibly do it. His plane is due in just after two.’

Helen stared at her. ‘But that’s this afternoon. You’ll probably be feeling perfectly all right by then.’

‘I won’t. I never feel all right until the evening,’ replied Tricia firmly. ‘And driving all that way in these conditions—well, it’s simply out of the question.’

Helen took a breath. ‘He’ll be expecting you to pick him up,’ she said carefully.

‘Then he’ll be disappointed, won’t he?’ Tricia regarded her testily. ‘My God, you’re almost as bad as Henry. Does no one care that I’ve got a migraine? I can’t help it if I’m not well.’

‘No.’ Helen moistened her lips. She’d already learned that there was no point in arguing with Tricia when she was in this mood. ‘Well—will you take care of Sophie and Henry, then? I don’t think Maria is willing—’

‘Can’t they go with you?’

Tricia stared at her impatiently, and Helen realised she wasn’t being given a choice. She couldn’t leavethe children to look after themselves. But it was almost an hour to the airport, and Sophie, particularly, didn’t travel well.

‘Can we leave it until nearer lunchtime?’ she suggested, hoping against hope that Tricia might have changed her mind by then. She’d have thought her employer would have been keen to see her husband again. It was several days since they’d come away.

‘I expect you to go and meet Drew,’ Tricia informed her inflexibly, and Helen couldn’t help thinking that there was no sign of the frail invalid they had encountered earlier. ‘Must I remind you that if it wasn’t for me you might not have a job? Let alone a well-paid one in enviable surroundings.’

‘No.’ Helen felt her colour deepen. ‘I mean—yes. Yes, I do appreciate it.’ She turned towards the door. ‘I’ll-tell the children.’

‘Good.’ Tricia attacked her egg with evident enthusiasm. ‘Just so long as we understand one another, Helen. I don’t like pulling rank here, but it really had to be said.’

CHAPTER TWO

MATTHEW AITKEN lounged behind the wheel of the dust-smeared Range Rover, waiting for his assistant, Lucas Cord, to emerge from the arrivals hall. He was getting impatient. The plane from New York had landed more than twenty minutes ago, and as Fleur had been booked into a first-class seat her luggage should have been cleared some time ago.

It was hot where he was sitting. There was little shade at this time of day and, despite the air-conditioning in the vehicle, which had been working fairly adequately on the journey to the airport, a prolonged period of waiting was causing the heat to rise. The annoying thing was that he wouldn’t have been here at all if his phone hadn’t been out of order. He’d discovered that when he’d tried to call New York that morning, and as he needed to speak to his publisher rather urgently he’d had no choice but to try elsewhere.

In consequence, it had made sense to continue on to the airport. Lucas had offered to make the call for him, but he’d wanted to speak to Marilyn himself. It was so much easier to deal with the matter personally. And the delay in the completion of the manuscript was his problem.

All the same, he disliked giving Fleur the impression that he had nothing better to do than come and meet her. It wasn’t as if he was even eager to have her here. But she was still his sister-in-law, even if his brother was no longer around. Chase’s death at the age of forty-two had been such a bitter blow.

Which, of course, was why the latest manuscript hadn’t been completed. Although it was eight weeks now since Chase’s fall, he was finding it hard to work. Dammit, he thought irritably, what had Chase been thinking of to attack his opponent so recklessly? It wasn’t as if he was an amateur. He’d been playing polo for almost thirty years.

Fleur, of course, had been devastated. When he’d seen her at the funeral, he hadn’t doubted that it was a blow to her, too. She had been dressed all in black and oozing tears, and he’d had to feel sympathy for her. For the first time in his life, he’d pitied her. He couldn’t believe even she could have wanted Chase dead.

But as he sat there in the Range Rover, with sweat dampening the shirt on his back and his bare thighs sticking to the leather seat, he couldn’t help remembering that he hadn’t always felt so charitably towards her. He’d been only sixteen when his brother had brought Fleur to live with them. The fact that she had still been married to her first husband at that time hadn’t sat too happily with their father either, but Chase had been mad about her, and somehow they’d all settled down.

It was just as well his own mother hadn’t been around, Matthew reflected drily. Emily Aitken had died of a rare form of cancer when he was ten, and until Fleur had come to live at the ranch their housekeeper, Rosa Cortez, had been both wife and mother to the three men.

Fleur had changed all that. In no time at all she was giving Rosa orders, telling his father what to do, and bullying Chase into doing whatever she wanted. His father hadn’t liked it but he was a mild man, more at home with temperamental horses than temperamental women, and at least he could escape into the stables whenever he felt like it.

Of course, the horses their father bred were what had enabled Chase to become the successful sportsman he had been. The Aitken Stud was famous throughout the United States, and enthusiasts came from as far afield as Argentina and Europe to buy the spirited stallions he produced. It was a lucrative business, and for all Matthew had been so young, he had had no doubt that Chase’s wealth had been a goodly part of his allure. Fleur had liked spending his money too much to have been attracted to a poor man, and he’d sometimes wondered what her first husband must have been like, and whether he had been wealthy, too.

Fortunately, during the early years of their marriage, he, Matthew, had spent most of his time away. College, and then university, had enabled him to avoid the image of his big brother being turned from a laughing, confident man into a grovelling supplicant. Whatever Fleur had, Chase had certainly been hooked on it, and Matthew had preferred to stay out of their way whenever he was at home.

He had been twenty-two when Fleur tried to seduce him. He remembered the occasion vividly. Chase had been away, playing a match in Buenos Aires, and his father had been attending the horse sales in Kentucky. Matthew wouldn’t have been there at all had it not been for the fact that he was attending an interview the following day in Tallahassee. The editor of the Tallahassee Chronicle was looking for a junior reporter, and Matthew had been hoping to get the job.

At first he hadn’t believed what was happening. When Fleur had come to his room, he’d assumed there really must be something wrong. It was when she had complained of being so lonely and started to shed her satin wrap that he’d comprehended. And, although his hot young body had been burning, he’d succeeded in throwing her out.

However, he hadn’t been able to hide the fact that she’d aroused him, and Fleur had seen his weakness as a challenge. At every opportunity she’d let him see how willing she was to be with him, touching him with clinging hands, bestowing longing looks.

Matthew had been sickened by it. It wasn’t as if there had been any shortage of women his own age, ready and willing to satisfy his every need. But not his brother’s wife, he’d assured himself disgustedly. Dear God, he’d thought, if he ever got that desperate, he’d go out and buy a gun.

Not that his attitude had deterred Fleur. On the contrary, she’d seemed to find his resistance very appealing. It became a point of honour with her to succeed, and not until he threatened to tell Chase did her provocation cease.

Of course, that was a dozen years ago now, and Matthew had long stopped worrying about his brother. His own career—first as a newspaper columnist, and then as an overseas reporter working for an agency based in New York—had broadened his mind, and he was no longer surprised by anything people did. Working in war-tom Lebanon and South-east Asia, he’d become inured to man’s inhumanities to man. The problem of a sex-hungry sister-in-law seemed small indeed, when compared to the struggle between life and death.

Besides, in his absence, Fleur and Chase had appeared to reconcile any differences they might have had. They had both grown older, for one thing, and Matthew’s different lifestyle had reinforced the barriers between them.

Then, five years ago, Matthew had written his first novel. A lot of it had been based on his own experiences in Beirut, and, to his amazement, it had been an immediate success. Film rights had been optioned; in paperback it sold almost five million copies. He’d become an overnight celebrity—and he’d found he didn’t like it.

That was when he had had the notion of moving out of the United States. He’d always liked the islands of the Caribbean, and the casual lifestyle of Barbados suited him far better than the hectic social round of living in New York had ever done. When his second book was completed, he had it written into the contract that he was not available for subsequent publicity. He preferred his anonymity. He didn’t want to become a media hack.

But, to his astonishment, like Fleur when he’d rejected her, his public found his detachment as intriguing as she had done. Avoiding talk-shows and signing sessions made no difference to his sales. His books apparently sold themselves, and curiosity about his lifestyle was rife.

All the same, it was a lot harder to reach him at Dragon Bay. The villa, which he had had erected on the ruins of an old plantation house, had excellent security features, and Lucas Cord—once his sound technician, but now his secretary-cum-assistant—made sure he wasn’t bothered by any unwelcome guests. Matthew supposed he’d become something of a recluse, only visiting New York when he needed stimulation. He seldom invited women to Dragon Bay. He wasn’t married, and he had no desire to be so.

Which was probably something else he could lay at Fleur’s door, he reflected cynically, watching as a dusty estate car skidded into the parking area and a girl and two young children tumbled out. For all his brother’s marriage had lasted until his death, he doubted Chase had really been happy. He’d lived his life constantly placating a woman who’d tried to cheat him at every turn.

‘Henry—wait!’

The girl—or was she a young woman? Matthew was never quite sure of the distinction—yelled desperately after the small boy, who had darted recklessly between the parked cars. She seemed hung up with the other child, who appeared to be doubled up with pain, and Matthew could see an accident in the making if the boy gained the busy area where the taxis were waiting.

Without giving himself time to think about the pros and cons of what he was about to do, Matthew thrust open his door and vaulted out of the Range Rover. His long legs swiftly overtook the boy’s, and his hand descended on the child’s shoulder seconds before he reached the open road.

‘Ouch,’ The boy—Henry?—looked up at him indignantly. ‘Let go of me! I’m going to meet my daddy.’

‘Not without your mother, you’re not,’ returned Matthew smoothly, turning to look back towards the cars. ‘Come along. I’ll take you back. Did no one ever tell you it’s dangerous to play in traffic?’

Henry looked up at him mutinously. ‘I wasn’t playing.’

‘Nor are the drivers,’ said Matthew drily, feeling the boy’s resistance in every step they took. He was aware that his action had drawn some unwelcome attention, and he hoped that no one imagined he was enjoying himself.

The child’s mother was hurrying towards them now, and Matthew regarded her with some impatience. With her waist-length braid and narrow body, she hardly looked old enough to have two children, albeit of preschool age. But she had the casual elegance of many English holidaymakers at this time of year, women who knew nothing about caring for their own children, and he felt a surge of anger at her obvious lack of control.

‘Oh, Henry!’ she exclaimed when she reached them, bending down to grab the boy’s hand with evident relief. ‘Don’t you ever—ever—go dashing off like that again.

If—if—’ she cast a swift glance up at Matthew ‘—this

gentleman hadn’t caught you, you could easily have been knocked down!’

‘Perhaps if you’d held on to his hand sooner, he wouldn’t have had the chance to run away,’ observed Matthew shortly, aware that it was really no concern of his. It wasn’t his place to tell her how to look after her children, and the deepening colour in her cheeks caused him as much discomfort as herself.

The trouble was, he realised, she had annoyed him. Driving into the car park like a mad thing, allowing the boy to put his life in danger. People like her shouldn’t be allowed to have children, he thought unreasonably. Though why he felt so strongly about it, he really couldn’t say.

‘Yes,’ she said stiffly now, facing him with eyes that were an indeterminate shade of grey. ‘I know it was

remiss of me to let Henry run off like that. But—’ she

cast her gaze down at the younger child, who Matthew could see was looking quite green ‘—Sophie was feeling sick again, and it all happened rather fast.’

It was a valid explanation, and Matthew knew it, but for some reason he couldn’t let it go. Was it that her colouring reminded him rather too strongly of the woman he’d been forced to invite here? Or was it some lingering sense of resentment that he’d had to get involved at all? Whatever the solution, he knew that she disturbed him. And he resented that intensely.

‘Wouldn’t it have been more sensible, then, to leave the child at home?’ he countered, and her eyes widened in obvious disbelief. He was getting in too deep, and he knew it. All it needed was for her husband to appear and he’d be totally out of his depth.

‘Mr—?’

‘There’s Daddy!’

Before she could finish what she had been about to say, the little boy started pulling at her arm. A tall man in a business suit, trailed by a porter wheeling a suitcase on his barrow, had just emerged from the airport buildings, and Matthew’s frustration hardened as the little girl set up a similar cry.

‘Daddy, Daddy,’ she called, her nausea obviously forgotten. ‘Daddy, we’re here!’ She tugged at her mother’s hand. ‘Let me go. Let me go. I want to go and meet him.’

The young woman cast Matthew one further studied look, and then released both children as the man got near enough to hold out his arms towards them. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell their father what a hopeless case I am?’ she invited coldly. ‘I’d introduce you myself, but I didn’t catch your name.’

Matthew’s jaw compressed. ‘Forget it,’ he said shortly, turning away, but before he could put a sufficient distance between them the children’s father came up, carrying both his offspring. He looked quizzically at his wife, and then turned his attention to Matthew.

‘Do you two know one another?’ he asked. Then, loosening his collar, ‘God, it’s bloody hot, isn’t it? I can’t wait to get this suit off.’

‘Henry ran away,’ said Sophie, before anyone else could say anything, and Henry made an effort to punch her behind his father’s back. ‘He did,’ she added, when she’d regained her father’s attention. ‘He would have been run over if this man hadn’t brought him back.’

‘He might have been run over,’ amended her mother evenly, refusing to meet Matthew’s eyes, but her husband set both children down and held out his hand.

‘Thanks a lot,’ he said, shaking Matthew’s hand vigorously. ‘I know Henry can be quite a handful. I’m Andrew Sheridan, by the way. And I’ll see he doesn’t do it again.’

‘Aitken,’ said Matthew unwillingly, banking on the fact that it wasn’t such an uncommon name, and obviously neither of them had recognised him from the jackets of his books. ‘Um-actually, your wife wasn’t to blame for what happened. Your little girl was sick, and——’

‘I’m not—’

‘Thanks, anyway.’ Before his wife could complete her sentence, Andrew Sheridan intervened. He gave her a mischievous look, and then continued pleasantly, ‘You’ll have to come and have a drink with us some time. Give us a ring. We’re renting a villa out at Dragon Point.’

‘Really?’ Matthew managed not to make any promises, and to his relief, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lucas striding towards him with Fleur flapping at his heels. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, his polite tone disguising the dismay he’d felt at discovering they were holidaying a short distance from his estate. ‘If you’ll excuse me…’ He inclined his head curtly, and walked swiftly away.

He heard the young woman exclaim, ‘Why did you do that?’ and then, almost immediately afterwards, a choking gasp, as if her husband had hit her. It brought Matthew’s head round, in spite of himself, but there was no evidence that she’d been abused. On the contrary, she was staring after him, as if he’d done something wrong, her eyes wide with horror and all the colour drained out of her face.

It was crazy, because she meant nothing to him, but he was tempted to go back and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. He’d got her off the hook, hadn’t he? She should be thanking him. Not gazing at him, for God’s sake, as if he was the devil incarnate.

With a grunt of impatience, Matthew swung his head round and continued towards his car. Forget it, he told himself fiercely. It was nothing to do with him. But he couldn’t deny a sense of anger and irritation—and the unpleasant feeling that he’d been used.

‘Who was that you were talking to?’ Fleur asked, after the briefest of greetings had been exchanged—reluctant on his part, fervent on hers. She insinuated herself into the seat beside him, despite the fact that Lucas had held the rear door for her, and gazed at him enquiringly. ‘A little young for your tastes, isn’t she, darling?’ she teased. ‘Or have you acquired a liking for schoolgirls in my absence?’

‘And if I have?’ Matthew countered, her accent jarring on him after his exchange with the other woman. His eyes glittered maliciously. ‘I’m only following in your footsteps, sister, dear. We both have peculiar tastes, don’t we?’

‘I’m not your sister,’ hissed Fleur, as Lucas climbed good-humouredly into the seat behind them. She cast the other man a tight smile. ‘Perhaps I can get some sense from you.’

‘I don’t know who they are,’ declared Lucas ruefully. ‘I’ve never seen them before. They’re probably here on holiday. We get a lot of them at this time of the year.’

‘On holiday?’ Fleur’s expression altered. ‘Not friends of Matt’s, then?’

Lucas met his employer’s gaze in the rear-view mirror, and gave an apologetic shrug of his shoulders. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he conceded wryly. He pulled a face at Matthew before adding, ‘Did you have a good journey?’

Fleur relaxed, and for the first time since her arrival she allowed herself to show a trace of regret. ‘It was—lonely,’ she said, rummaging in her capacious handbag for a tissue, and using it to dab her eyes. ‘I couldn’t help remembering that the last time I came here Chase was with me. He loved to spend time with Matt, you know? It’s sad that in recent years they spent so little time together.’

Lucas made a polite rejoinder, and Matthew bit down on the urge to tell Fleur that she knew why that was, better than anyone. He had the feeling he’d been wrong to invite Fleur here, however sorry he’d felt for her at the funeral. She hadn’t really changed. She was just as ingenious as ever.

‘How’s Dad?’ he asked now, refusing to be drawn in that direction, and Fleur gave a careless shrug.

‘So long as he has his damn horses to care about, no one else seems to matter,’ she declared bitterly, as Matthew joined the stream of vehicles leaving the airport, and he gave her a brief, scornful glance. They both knew that wasn’t true. Ben Aitken had loved his eldest son dearly, and he’d been shattered when he was killed. What she really meant was that the older man had little time for her, and he didn’t have to pretend any more now that Chase was dead.

‘But he’s well?’ Matthew persisted, suddenly recognising the vehicle ahead of them. Andrew Sheridan was driving now, but there was no mistaking the young woman seated in the back. He’d have recognised that accusing profile anywhere. She was staring out of the rear window, and he was sure she was looking at him.

‘He was. When I left.’ Fleur pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her bag and put one between her teeth. ‘I spent a couple of days in New York before coming here.’ She scanned the dashboard for the automatic lighter. ‘Dammit, where is it?’

Matthew didn’t reply, and as if becoming aware that his attention had been distracted, Fleur followed the direction of his gaze. ‘Oh, God,’ she said disgustedly, ‘it’s the girl again, isn’t it? Whatever is she staring at? Someone should teach her some manners.’