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end of the belt with much the same sensual movements as those used by the Greeks when playing with their worry beads. 'I'm tired,' was all she could think of saying, and was not at all surprised to see his mouth curve with a hint of humour. But he refrained from commenting as he said, very softly, 'Come here, Alana.' She shook her head, automatically glancing towards the open window, outside of which ran the long verandah on which she would sometimes sit and read, or look over the gardens and orchard to the sea. 'Please go away.' She was somehow filled with a strange urgency for him to leave, for pity was creeping into her consciousness despite her efforts to crush it. Pity ... Why should she fear it? And suddenly she knew the answer to her own question. Pity could so influence her attitude towards her husband that it was possible she could find herself responding to his lovemaking. This she had always been fully convinced she would never do, mainly because she would then feel degraded, but also because she was determined never to afford Conon the satisfaction of having completely conquered her. 'Go away, I say! I don't want you here, and you're aware of that.' His dark brows lifted; he took a step towards her, his calm and languid manner not deceiving her in the least, so used was she now to his many varying moods. 'You're my wife, Alana ' That reminder is unnecessary!' His smile faded. 'In that case,' he said in the same soft and measured tones, ' you do not need reminding of your duty.' She coloured and looked again towards the window, this time more in order to hide her blushes than with any thought of escape. 'You don't appear to mind that there's nothing more than duty on my side and rights on yours?' She was thinking of the time when he was so much in love with her, when he had said that marriage to her would be perpetual bliss. 'I don't mind at all. I'm a Greek, remember; we form relationships with women whom we might even despise ' 'You despise me?' she cut in swiftly, unaware that the reason for the question might just be that she had no desire that he should despise her. His mouth curved in a sneer. 'Most certainly I despise you. To have married for nothing more than money, and been willing to have such a beast as that make love to you ' He stopped, and the sneering lips took on an ugly twist. Alana felt herself to be on dangerous ground and already wished she had - as always - succumbed without resistance to her husband's demands. 'What decent man would not despise a woman of your sort?' She looked at him, and wavered on the edge of a full explanation, the explanation that would clear her in his eyes. But suddenly his expression portrayed contempt so deep that she was provoked into maintaining a stubborn silence. He had never asked for an explanation, had not given her an opportunity of unfolding her story. He had instead taken for granted her worldliness, her greed for the material things of life. Why, then, should she trouble to disillusion him? Let him believe the worst of her; let him go on believing that she had led a normal life with Howard Beaumont, the man he called a beast. It mattered not one jot in a relationship where love was totally absent. 'I cannot help it if you despise me,' she said at length, shrugging carelessly. 'I am not really interested in your opinion of me, Conon.' His eyes narrowed. 'How mistaken I was in you, all those years ago. I looked upon you as my ideal, the perfect woman.' He raked her with disgust, and automatically she pulled the edges of her neglige together. 'But I was young,' he said bitterly, 'and had never bothered with women ..And his voice trailed away in the preoccupation that swept over him. Alana knew without any doubt at all that his thoughts had drifted into the past, and he was thinking about his first wife. 'Or of their wickedness ...' Again his voice trailed off, but this time his expression became frightening. It was his little son that occupied his thoughts now, observed Alana, watching his eyes become embers of hate mingled with an anguish that was terrible to see. For Alana, fear and pity struggled for supremacy, and she knew for sure that [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |