be anyone else-”’
‘But she must have loved you, or why would she have married you?’ Gina asked.
‘She’s a lady of large appetites, which I was able to satisfy,’ Carson said bluntly. ‘And when that kind of passion overwhelms you, and you’re too callow and ignorant to know that passion isn’t everything, you think it’s enough. And when you discover it isn’t-it’s too late.’
He fell silent. Gina’s heart was beating hard at this glimpse into Carson’s secret pain, but she knew she was hearing things that weren’t for her, things he would regret telling her later.
Soon she would yawn and say it was time for her to go to bed. This would cut off his confidences about the woman he’d once loved, and who still seemed to obsess him. And it was better for them both that it should be so.
The moments stretched on. She didn’t move, and she knew she wasn’t going to. She was doing this for Joey, she told herself. The more she knew about his background, the more she could help him.
But it wasn’t for Joey’s sake that she strained to catch every inflection of Carson’s voice when he spoke of his ex-wife.
‘I knew she wanted to be famous, when we married,’ he went on, ‘but I had no idea how her ambition possessed her. She seemed so happy as a wife and mother that I thought it would last. Later I realised that it was just a stage, something she wanted to try out, like a new role.’
He drained and refilled his glass again, as though it was only with the aid of alcohol that he could endure his memories.
‘And when we discovered that Joey had problems she got tired of the role, and wanted something else. I tried to be understanding. We had a good nanny so that Brenda was free to spend time away from home. I didn’t like her going, but I thought our marriage was strong enough to survive anything.’ He gave a scornful laugh. ‘I had some very naive notions in those days-true love conquers all-no mountain too high. All that stuff the songs tell you.’
‘And you don’t believe that now?’ Gina asked, keeping her voice blank of expression.
‘If ever a man and woman loved each other, we did. And it all fell apart like a shoddy toy. Infatuation is a bad basis for marriage. The best one is if people have something in common and are fond of each other-but, even then, not too fond.’ He gave a grunt of bitter laughter. ‘If I’d known that then, I’d never have married a woman I was crazy about and we’d have spared ourselves a lot of grief.
‘She began spending longer and longer away. There were film parts that took her abroad. The parts became better fairly quickly. She was sleeping her way to the top.
‘At first she denied it. She can be so convincing. She can make you doubt what you know to be true. Then I caught her with someone-she begged me to forgive her-swore it would never happen again-’
‘And you believed her?’
‘It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But I needed to believe her for my own sanity. In the end she didn’t bother to pretend any more, and I knew I had to cut her right out of my life, or go mad. So that’s what I did.’
The last words had an air of finality, as though he’d drawn a line across a page. After that he said no more.
Gina sat, aghast at the demon that had been released. Beneath Carson’s quiet words she sensed a wilderness of anguish and rage. He’d known a passion such as came to few people, and its destruction had left him a shell. He had ‘cut her out’. And what was left behind was emptiness, because the only way to cut her out of his heart was to cut his heart out too.
A slight thud made her look up. His glass had slipped out of his hand and fallen to the carpet. He was asleep.
She bent to retrieve the glass, moving quietly so as not to awaken him. His head had fallen sideways and in the soft glow from the lamp Gina could see the relaxed lines of his face. With the trouble smoothed away by sleep he looked boyish, vulnerable.
She hadn’t consciously noticed his mouth before, but now she saw how wide and firm it was, how sensual it must have been before cruel experience taught him to beware sensuality.
‘She’s a lady of large appetites, which I was able to satisfy… When that kind of passion overwhelms you…you think it’s enough.’
Bitter words from a bitter heart, about something he no longer believed in. Why should she care?
He presented a controlled face to the world because he dreaded to be overwhelmed again, but once he’d been happy to give himself up to his love. The thought was mysteriously painful.
As she knelt her face was so close to his that she could feel his breath brush her mouth softly. The effect on her was electric. He hadn’t even touched her, and yet she felt the charge go through her body, melting it, making it weak with desire. She discovered that she was trembling.
She ought to go, but she stayed, thinking that somewhere in the world was a woman who’d had this man’s passion and thrown it away. And wondering if that woman was mad.
If he had loved her she would never have left him-because it would have been like tearing out her own heart. His love would have been the pinnacle of her life, fulfilling every dream, satisfying every desire. Instinct too deep to be examined told her that.
She seemed to have been taken over by another will, one that held here there watching him yearningly, made her lean towards him when she knew she ought to leave. It kept her still, fighting the temptation to lay her lips gently against his, but not fighting it very hard. In another moment she would yield and kiss him. And never mind the consequences!
He stirred, muttered, reached out his hand blindly. It touched her face and she froze, terrified in case he awoke and found her there. It seemed like an age that she knelt motionless while his fingers lay against her lips and her heart thundered.
Gradually she took his hand between hers and moved it away from her face to lay it on the sofa. Then she rose to her feet and fled the room.
Carson opened his eyes with a start, wondering if he’d been sleeping or waking. In his twilight state he’d almost thought that…
But there was nobody there.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ALL this time Dan had been keeping in touch, regularly asking her for a date, but she’d put him off, using Joey as an excuse. But when the boy had been home for ten days Carson said, ‘Dan called you again today. I shouldn’t monopolise you the way I’ve been doing. Call him back and say you’ll go out.’
‘How will you manage alone with Joey?’
‘Well enough. We can practise signs and he can have a good laugh at my expense. It’s a pity you won’t be here to see that.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said mischievously. ‘He’ll tell me all about it later.’
He grinned. ‘I’ll bet.’
His smile was cordial but it didn’t invite her in. It never did, these days.
The morning after their talk he’d said casually, ‘I had a drop too much last night. It always makes me come out with nonsense. That’s why I don’t do it often. Did I say much?’
‘Hardly anything,’ she’d assured him. ‘You were half asleep.’
‘Fine. Fine.’ And the matter was closed.
Encouraged by the generous wage Carson was paying her, on top of her salary from Renshaw Baines, she splashed out on a new dress. She had her doubts as soon as she got it home. It was pale yellow chiffon, floaty and glamorous, and she couldn’t imagine where Dan was likely to take her that would justify it.
It wasn’t a Dan sort of dress at all, she realised as she paraded in front of the hall mirror, her own room being too small for parading. It was designed to bring out the depth of her eyes and the auburn glow of her hair, and he was too used to her to observe either. This was a dress for a man whose attention she wanted to claim so completely that he would forget all other women.
