Forgotten Passion

‘I’m eleven years older than you and I’ve seen my share of the world. Besides, I have a purpose here, and my family…’

‘All right, you don’t need to remind me any more that I don’t belong here,’ Lisa bit out, interrupting him, more angry than she could ever remember being in her life. ‘Anyway,’ she told him childishly, ‘it isn’t up to you, it’s Leigh who says whether I can stay here or not, and…’

‘And he’s clinging to you because you remind him of your mother,’ he told her grimly. ‘Is that what you really want from life, Lisa? Out here the living’s easy, we all know that, but you’re too young for easy living; and if you’re not careful it can become degenerative.’

She looked up at him and his mouth twisted wryly. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you believe me? Take a look around you; look at the native island girls, most of them mothers before they’re fifteen. Like I said, life out here is too easy.’ He turned and Lisa saw the almost brooding quality of his frown.

Why was Rorke so anxious for her to leave St Martins? Surely he wasn’t jealous of her relationship with his father?

‘Rorke,’ she said his name, huskily and uncertainly, trying to conceal the faint tremor.

‘Lisa—Rorke!’ Both of them turned at the sound of Leigh’s voice, and Lisa decided she must have imagined the look she had glimpsed in Rorke’s eyes before his father arrived, because just for an instant it had seemed hotly possessive and bitterly resentful of his father’s arrival.

Although she tried to forget them, Rorke’s words kept troubling her. She was thinking about them one morning as she walked along the beach dressed in frayed denim shorts, her sandals in her hand, the breeze flattening her thin tee-shirt against the burgeoning curves of her body as she walked across the sand of her favourite bay, just below the house.

‘Hello there!’ She came to an abrupt halt as a tall, lean-limbed young man suddenly bounded down the beach towards her, fair hair flopping into his eyes, an engaging grin splitting a face still pale enough for him to be an obvious newcomer.

‘I’m looking for Mr Geraint—am I heading in the right direction?’ he asked cheerfully. ‘Mike Peters at your service, by the way, newly arrived and newly qualified doctor of medicine, appointed to your local hospital. Curer of all ills known to man; and surgeon extraordinaire as well,’ he announced, sweeping a mock bow and making Lisa laugh with his friendly absurdity.

‘I’m just heading back to the house, we can walk there together,’ she told him. ‘Are you really? The new doctor, I mean. Leigh told me one was arriving, but somehow…’

‘You pictured an old greybeard, not the dashingly handsome young blade you now see before you,’ Mike Peters clowned, grinning. ‘Actually, don’t tell anyone, will you, but I still find it hard to believe myself. It’s been such a long slog to get qualified, I’m still half afraid, someone’s going to creep up behind me, filch my certificate and tell me it’s all a mistake—hence the flight to St Martins. Wow!’ he exclaimed, coming to a standstill as he saw the house for the first time. ‘That’s really something, Palladian, isn’t it?’

Warming to him more and more by the minute, Lisa agreed that it was, and explained a little of the island’s history.

They were just crossing the smooth greenness of the lawn, when Rorke suddenly emerged from the house, his forehead creasing in a frown as he looked from Lisa to her companion.

‘Rorke, this is Mike, our new doctor,’ Lisa introduced, wondering what had made him look so grim.

‘Peters,’ Rorke acknowledged, betraying that he already knew of Mike’s existence. ‘Lisa, Dad’s been asking for you.’

‘Phew—friendly soul, isn’t he?’ Mike grimaced as Rorke turned on his heel and left them, adding apologetically, ‘I’m sorry, I had no right to say that about your brother.’

‘Rorke is my stepbrother,’ Lisa told him absently, surprised to see comprehension dawning in Mike’s eyes and even further confused by his comprehensive: ‘So that’s the way the land lies! Look, if you can just direct me back to the village… I came out for a walk…’

‘Billy can run you back in the Moke,’ Lisa assured him. ‘In fact if Dad didn’t want to see me I’d come with you myself.’

‘No patients to look after, Peters?’ Neither of them had heard Rorke approach, and his clipped voice and hostile expression puzzled Lisa. What on earth was the matter with him?

Ten minutes later when Mike had left with Billy in the Moke she tackled him about it.

‘What on earth was wrong with you, Rorke?’ she demanded crossly, ‘Poor Mike was so embarrassed!’

‘So it’s Mike now, is it?’ Rorke responded savagely. ‘God, Lisa, what is it with you? Haven’t they warned you at that damned school of yours about being too forthcoming with strangers?’

‘You mean when they ask me to go for a ride in their car and offer me sweeties?’ Lisa demanded angrily. ‘Rorke, I’m sixteen, not six, and besides, it was obvious that Mike…’

‘What? Come on, Lisa,’ he jeered, ‘tell me that Peters is impervious to physical desire, if you dare—it was written all over his face that he wanted you—and no wonder! Dressed like that you’re offering an open invitation to rape!’

She wasn’t going to cry; she wasn’t going to give Rorke the satisfaction! There was nothing wrong with her tee-shirt and cut-off shorts; she had worn them for the last couple of holidays; they were clean and comfortable. What was the matter with Rorke?

‘That’s a horrid thing to say!’ she flung at him. ‘And Mike wouldn’t do a thing like that. All we were doing was talking; he didn’t even try to kiss me!’

‘He didn’t? Then perhaps it’s damned well time that someone did,’ Rorke muttered half under his breath, reaching for her, with hands that wouldn’t allow any escape, lean tanned fingers biting into her skin as she was hauled against the taut muscularity of his chest, the bronzed flesh rising and falling with the irregularity of his breathing.

‘Damn you, Lisa,’ he groaned against her hair. ‘Why the hell did my father have to go and complicate things by bringing you back here?’

Lisa wanted to protest, to demand that he release her, but a strange weakness was spreading through her veins, a pulsing excitement firing her blood; a wantonness she had never known she possessed urging her to reach up and touch the bronzed flesh exposed by the vee of Rorke’s shirt.

‘Lisa!’ Rorke bit out her name as though he hated her, the sudden pressure of his mouth on hers shockingly intimate, robbing her of breath. ‘Open your mouth,’ he muttered huskily against her skin, and as though she were completely lacking in any willpower, Lisa felt her lips parting moistly to the sensual intrusion of his. A fierce, painful urge to mould her body against Rorke’s rippled through her, shocking her with its mindless intensity. She pulled away, and Rorke released her immediately, allowing her to turn and run into the cool shadows of the verandah.

What on earth had possessed him? What had possessed her? Lisa asked herself fiercely. They were practically brother and sister; or were they?

Shivering despite the tropical heat, she allowed her fingers to touch the sensitive flesh Rorke’s mouth had just ravaged. For a moment in his arms she had been oblivious to everything but the strange pulsating need to lose herself in him, to be part of him to… With a small cry Lisa clapped her hands over her ears, not wanting to listen to the inner voice telling her that she had wanted Rorke to make love to her. Rorke, who had never shown her anything but careless affection; Rorke who she knew from her mother had a whole contingent of girl-friends; who was worldly and experienced and would surely break her heart if she was ever foolish enough to let him know how easily it had slipped into his possession.

CHAPTER TWO

‘THAT young Peters fellow’s been on the phone again.’ Leigh teased Lisa, several days later after dinner. ‘Something about wanting to take you sailing.’

‘Lisa isn’t going sailing with Peters or any other young fool who thinks because the Caribbean looks placid and blue that it’s easy to sail,’ Rorke snapped before Lisa could reply.

‘Rorke’s right,’ Leigh palliated, seeing the anger sparkling in her eyes. ‘These waters can be dangerous, Lisa. If you’re desperate to go sailing why don’t you let Rorke take you? You were talking about going over to St Lucia anyway, weren’t you?’

‘It wasn’t the kind of journey where I’d want company, though,’ Rorke announced grittily. ‘At least not Lisa’s. I’d planned to pick up Helen Dunbar.’

Helen Dunbar! A vicelike pain gripped Lisa’s heart. Helen Dunbar was one of Rorke’s more long-standing girl-friends. A passionate redhead who lived on St Lucia, she had visited St Martins several years previously. Her uncle was Leigh’s lawyer and she owned a very exclusive boutique on the other island. Lisa knew that there had been a time when Leigh had worried that their relationship might become more permanent. Leigh had never made any secret of the fact that he wanted to see his son married, preferably with children, but he was old-fashioned enough not to want to see Rorke married to a woman like Helen, to whom Rorke was one in a long line of lovers.

‘Who says I’d want to go with you anyway?’ Lisa threw back at him. ‘You’ve been like a bear with a sore head recently—ever since I came back, in fact!’

‘So you’ve noticed,’ Rorke mocked sardonically, ignoring his father’s frown and Lisa’s growing anger. ‘Full marks, little girl.’ He got up as he spoke, pushing away his chair. ‘I’ve got to go and ring the hotel on St. Lucia,’ he told his father.

‘Don’t take any notice of Rorke,’ Leigh told Lisa quietly when Rorke had gone. ‘I don’t know what’s got into him recently.’

‘He’s been really unkind to poor Mike,’ Lisa told him, trying not to remember the treacherous feelings she had experienced in Rorke’s arms—she couldn’t possibly be in love with him, she had told herself; she was too young to fall in love, and not with Rorke of all people!

‘Has he?’ Leigh frowned. ‘In what way?’

‘Oh, he told me off because I’d been walking on the beach with Mike. In fact he more or less accused him of being a potential rapist,’ Lisa told him indignantly. ‘I…’

Her cheeks coloured as memories of the hard pressure of Rorke’s mouth against hers surged over her, but fortunately Leigh wasn’t looking at her. In fact, he looked totally engrossed in his own thoughts.

‘Umm,’ he said at last. ‘Well, despite what Rorke says, I think it might be a good idea if you went to St Lucia with him. It’s time you had some new clothes, for one thing.’ He glanced at her shorts and tee-shirt, and Lisa grimaced.

‘Yes, I know these are indecent—Rorke’s already told me.’

‘Has he now! Indecent wasn’t exactly the word I had in my mind—but you’ll certainly need some extra lightweight things. Mama Case tells me you’re not a little girl any longer, Lisa, and looking at you now I know that’s true.’

‘It seems a waste to buy me summer things, when Rorke wants you to send me back to England,’ Lisa murmured, voicing the concern that had lain at the back of her mind ever since Rorke had taxed her with it.

‘My darling child!’ Leigh stood up, placing his hands on her shoulders, his face grave. ‘I’m still master on St Martins, and there’s simply no way I’m going to allow you to leave. Ignore Rorke, he has his own problems.’ A faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘You’ll go to St Lucia with him and buy yourself some pretty clothes—Rorke often has to visit our hotels, and when he does, I think it might be a good idea if you went with him. You’re growing up, Lisa, you’ll be seventeen shortly. It’s time you started taking your place in the adult world.’

An exciting prospect, but somehow Lisa couldn’t see Rorke agreeing with it. Ever since he had kissed her, things had been different between them. He had kissed her as some form of punishment, she knew that, but the punishment had been far more bitter than he could know, because it had opened her eyes to so much she had never known existed before when she had thought of ‘love’ as a rosy, uncomplicated dream. Now she knew better.

Lisa had been playing tennis with Mike—a hot energetic game which they had drawn. It had been Mike’s morning off and now he had returned to the small cottage hospital, and Lisa was going upstairs to shower and rest in her room until dinner.

Leigh was visiting a friend—the family lawyer, who lived on the other side of the island. The two men enjoyed playing chess, and as she revelled in the cool hiss of the shower over her heated skin, Lisa reflected on Leigh’s announcement the previous evening that Rorke had agreed to take her with him to St Lucia. Exactly what pressure he had brought to bear on his son to effect his capitulation Lisa couldn’t guess, but that Rorke wasn’t pleased about the idea had been evident.

Rorke. Her eyes became dreamy, the brisk rubbing she had been giving her skin with her sponge suddenly forgotten as the movement of her hand stilled, quickfire excitement running through her veins. Rorke! His name escaped her lips on a soft sigh, and she had rinsed the suds off her skin before she realised that she had left her towelling robe on her bed. Her feet left damp footprints on the cool tiles of the bedroom floor as she padded across it. Her hand was on the robe when she heard the rattle of someone opening her bedroom door.

‘Lisa!’ She froze as she heard Rorke’s curt voice, too shocked to cry out a warning to him, and then he was in the room with her, his eyes moving in darkening comprehension over the lithe curves of her body still beaded with moisture. Just for a moment time seemed to stand still, as Rorke’s gaze skimmed the firm upthrust of her breasts, moving downwards over her slender waist and long coltish legs.

And then, as suddenly as he had come in, he was gone, leaving her to breathe more easily, shivers suddenly coursing over her heated flesh, her fingers numb with a panic that came much, much too late as she pulled on the protective covering of her robe. Her hand brushed the curve of her breast, her heart pounding unsteadily. What was happening to her? She felt as though suddenly she had a fever, her pulses racing, her body shivery and aching. Was this what love felt like?

She was very subdued over dinner, hardly able to bring herself to look at Rorke. Were those brief seconds imprinted as vividly on his mind as they were on hers? Of course not, she mocked herself. She was far from being the first naked woman he had seen; to him she was simply a schoolgirl still.

‘Have you told Lisa you’re leaving in the morning?’ Leigh asked Rorke during dinner.

‘Not yet. Can you be ready by then?’ Rorke asked her, without looking at her, and as though he had said the words out loud Lisa knew that he didn’t want to look at her.

‘Of course she can,’ Leigh announced genially before she could speak. ‘And don’t forget, Lisa,’ he added, giving her a warm smile, ‘get yourself plenty of pretty things while you’re in St Lucia.

‘How long are you planning on staying?’ he asked his son, and again Lisa was aware of Rorke’s deliberate exclusion of her as he shrugged powerfully.

‘A couple of days—no longer. It depends on how quickly Helen is ready to leave.’

Helen! A pain like red-hot knives bit into her skin, and it was all she could do not to cry out loud. So this was jealousy; this searing, tearing agony destroying her.

Once again Rorke excused himself the moment the meal was over. Some of Lisa’s dismay must have shown in her face, because she realised that Leigh was watching her with some concern.

‘Don’t worry about Rorke,’ he told her gruffly. ‘He’s going through a difficult time at the moment. I remember when I first met your mother…’

Lisa stared at him. What did he mean? Surely Rorke wasn’t planning to marry Helen? She reminded herself that it was no business of hers if he was, and then wondered why she was weak enough to allow herself to be persuaded into going with Rorke when all the trip to St Lucia was likely to bring her was the pain of seeing him with Helen.

But of course, she couldn’t disappoint Leigh, and she knew he would be disappointed and hurt if she refused to go. She glanced down at her skimpy cotton dress and suppressed a grimace. Her clothes were getting shabby. Strange how all at once she had become aware of it, mentally comparing herself to Helen, seeing herself with the sophisticated eyes of a man used to elegance and sensuality in a woman.

Mama Case fussed round her at breakfast, complaining under her breath until Rorke said sardonically, ‘She’ll be safe enough, Mama Case—we’re leaving Dr Peters behind!’

Lisa’s cheeks stung at the implied suggestion, but somehow she managed to repress the hot words clamouring for utterance. Why should Rorke disapprove of Mike so much? She enjoyed his company. They were on the same wavelength, he was kind and friendly, his manner very evocative of that of her friends’ brothers towards her. It came to her with a sudden sense of shock that Mike was more like a brother to her than Rorke. Her feelings for Rorke had never been sisterly, she acknowledged on a sudden wave of self-awareness; there had always been beneath the surface a fine thread of tension making it impossible for her to relax in his company the way she could with Mike.

‘Daydreaming about Peters?’

She came to with a start, realising that Rorke was propped up against the wall watching her, and her face coloured again as she worried about what he might have read in her expression.

‘And if I was?’ she challenged, tilting her chin, determined not to allow him to guess that he had been the subject of her thoughts.

‘Forget it,’ Rorke warned her grimly. ‘He might be a young girl’s dream, Lisa, but you won’t be a young girl for ever. One day you’re going to be a woman, and when you are,’ he said softly, ‘you’re going to want a man, not a boy.’

He was gone before she could retort; before she could demand that he explain what he meant.

Half an hour later, she was waiting for Leon to row her out to where Rorke’s schooner lay anchored in the bay below the house. He had bought it three years earlier, and Lisa had watched adoringly while he lovingly restored what had originally been no more than a shell. Now the graceful vessel swung lazily at anchor, sails furled, paintwork gleaming. Lisa had been aboard her several times during her visits home, and was completely at home on the elegant craft. Leigh himself had taught her to sail, and on one never-to-be-forgotten occasion Rorke had actually allowed her to crew for him when he raced the schooner in a local regatta.

‘You can take the for’ard bunk,’ Rorke told her grittily, bending to grip her wrist and help her on board. ‘Leon’s already stowed your stuff. Not that there was much.’

For a moment the brilliance of the sun on the white paintwork dazzled Lisa, and then her vision cleared and she became aware of Rorke standing barefoot on the deck, his denim shorts almost as disreputable as her own, the rest of his body burned a warm teak by the sun and salt.

‘Leigh wants me to get some new clothes while we’re in St Lucia,’ Lisa reminded him, frowning a little as she glanced down at her bare legs and frayed shorts.

‘So he told me,’ Rorke agreed. ‘He seems to think Helen might take you in hand. Quite a challenge, I should think,’ he said insultingly, adding, ‘I’m going on deck to cast off.’

‘Want any help?’ Lisa called after him, trying to swallow her hurt, but he barely paused in the narrow doorway to her cabin.

‘No, thanks,’ he told her curtly. ‘I can handle Lady on my own—in fact sometimes it’s easier that way.’

‘Meaning you want me to stay in my cabin until we reach St Lucia?’ Lisa demanded, disappointment and pain suddenly overwhelming caution. ‘Is that what you’re trying to say, Rorke?’

‘It might make things easier all round,’ he agreed, apparently unaware of the pain he was causing her.

The morning passed slowly for Lisa, cooped up in the small cabin, watching the waves through the porthole and mentally chafing at her imprisonment.

By lunchtime she decided that nothing, but nothing was going to keep her in her cabin any longer. She had originally decided that Rorke would have to get down on his knees and beg her before she would so much as put one foot on the deck, but boredom and hunger had overcome her resolution. Even Rorke had to eat, she reminded herself, and he could hardly do that and sail the schooner as well.

Her rubber-soled sneakers made no sound on the seasoned timbers of the deck as she went in search of Rorke to ask him what he wanted for lunch, but there was no sign of him, and she realised that the schooner was rocking gently at anchor. Where was he?

Tiny shivers of apprehension shuddered down her spine. Surely it was stupid to imagine that an experienced sailor like Rorke could fall overboard in a calm sea? Of course it was. He was probably resting himself! She was just on the point of going down to his cabin to check and had turned away from the deck when a shadow fell across her path.

‘Rorke!’ She swung round, relief in her voice, and saw Rorke straightening up on the deck, his skin sleek and damp, his hair plastered to his skull, and shock coursed through her, rooting her to the spot as she realised that he was naked, his body glistening tautly brown under the salt water spray.

‘Lisa!’ She saw his teeth snap together in anger. ‘I thought you were going to stay in your cabin?’

‘I came to see if you wanted any lunch.’

She had to drag her eyes away from the male perfection of his body, shocking in its masculinity and yet, at the same time, undoubtedly exciting. Tremors of reaction were pulsing through her own skin, a cramping delirium in the pit of her stomach.

‘Later, when I’ve showered and changed. What’s the matter?’ he demanded tautly when she didn’t move, adding impatiently, ‘For God’s sake, Lisa, get below, before I do something that will really shock you!’

They made St Lucia earlier than Lisa had anticipated, and she had a shrewd suspicion that Rorke had deliberately cut the journey short.

Castries, the main harbour, was busy. A cruise ship had come into port and the town’s narrow streets were thronged with trippers. Lisa was forced to fall behind as Rorke’s long legs propelled him swiftly through the crowd. At one busy intersection he waited for her to catch up with him, grimacing as he took her arm. His fingers were rough against her skin, and she could see the faint salt bloom on his chest and throat. A wave of faintness came over her as she remembered seeing him step on to the deck after his swim. That it wasn’t the first time he had swum nude had been very evident in the depth and extent of his tan, and the faintness increased tormentingly as she wondered if, on those occasions, he had always swum alone, or if, perhaps, someone had joined him—Helen, for instance.

Just for a moment she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to float motionless beside him in the blue-green depths of the Caribbean, the silky water her only covering.

‘Lisa!’

The harshness of his voice jerked her out of her pleasurable daydream and back into the present. They were standing outside Helen’s exclusive boutique. Inside both Helen and her assistant were busy serving the cruise liner’s passengers, but Helen had obviously seen them.

‘We’ll go on to the hotel and come back later,’ Rorke announced. ‘I’ve warned them to expect us.’

A taxi took them from Castries to the Paradise Cove hotel, in which the family had shares. The hotel was a modern one; a complex rather than a hotel, with chalets spread out through luxuriant grounds and a central hotel block comprising restaurants, bars, half a dozen shops, and a large games room.

They were greeted enthusiastically by the manager, who was obviously anxious to impress Rorke with the smooth running of the hotel, and certainly there was no fault to be found with the speed with which their baggage was taken care of, and complimentary drinks brought to them in the foyer-cum-lounge. While the two men talked, Lisa got up and strolled over to glance at the small parade of shops. One window had an exquisite display of beach and resort wear, another expensive and exclusive casuals. Lisa glanced over her shoulder. Rorke was still deep in conversation with the hotel manager. On a small spurt of rebellion she opened the door to the boutique. She knew Rorke had intended to hand her over to Helen and leave it to the older woman to choose her new clothes, but during her time in England Lisa had often visited the homes of her friends, and had gone with them on shopping expeditions. She had a natural sense of taste and flair, her mother had always said, and her initial qualms were quickly stifled as a charming and pleasant girl stepped forward to help her.