Guilty Passion Read online

  “No,” she said, her voice shaking. “Oh, no!”

  Ethan’s mouth was an ugly line. He straightened, as though he couldn’t bear to be close to her. “Oh, yes!” he said. “And you’re responsible. . . you little tramp!”

  Celeste gasped. “Ethan!”

  “Have I shocked you? My, what delicate sensibilities we have all of a sudden. Can’t you stand a spade being called a spade?”

  She swung her legs off the lounger and stood. “It isn’t fair to blame me,” she said unsteadily. “I didn’t do anything. . . .”

  “Didn’t you? This,” he said, looking down at the letter clutched in his hand, “is as near to being a suicide note as you’re ever likely to see.”

  “Suicide note?”

  “Chapter and verse. He knew that you’d soon be leaving him—for someone younger, someone he had trusted.” He held the letter out to her. “Read it.”

  Recoiling from it, Celeste cried, “It isn’t true! He couldn’t have thought. . .”

  “Alec was a scientist. He didn’t jump to conclusions easily. He’d have looked at the evidence, weighed it carefully.”

  Celeste said, trying to be reasonable, “But in his private life he was different. You hardly saw him for years at a time. Do you really know what he was like? If I even spoke pleasantly to a man, he thought I was flirting. . . . It was all in his imagination.”

  “All of it?” Ethan sneered.

  “Ethan, you have to realise. . . he was abnormally sensitive about some things, and getting more so. . . . I wondered sometimes if he was mentally unbalanced.”

  Ethan gave a short, harsh laugh. “You expect me to believe that? About Alec?”

  Celeste gave a hopeless little shrug. Of course she shouldn’t have expected it. Ethan worshipped his older brother; it was the habit of a lifetime. Nothing she could say was going to alter his opinion. Bewildered, she stood with her hands clenched at her sides, staring at him.

  He said, “You can cut out the innocent act. I told you, I know all about you. I didn’t see much of Alec over the past few years, thanks to you and. . . certain related factors which we needn’t go into just now. But we were always close. He wrote to me often. Long letters, Celeste, very private letters in which he told me a lot of things that he would never have discussed with anyone face-to-face. It was a safety valve for him, to be able to pour out his heart over a marriage that had gone sour, over a wife who was. . . faithless.”

  Celeste cried, her cheeks losing all colour, “That’s not true! Ethan, you can’t believe that’s true.”

  “Why not?” he said, unemotionally. “You might say I’ve had a sample of the evidence—at first hand.”

  Wordlessly, Celeste shook her head. “No,” she murmured. This couldn’t be real, she told herself. It didn’t feel as though it was real. It felt like a dream, a nightmare from which she must surely wake.

  She turned and headed for the house, wanting to get away from him, to be alone behind a closed door.

  Hard hands grasped her and swung her around. Ethan said, “Celeste!” and the hands on her shoulders tightened, gave her a little shake. She knew she was going to faint, and she thought, Not again.

  Vaguely she was aware that he had hoisted her into his arms and was carrying her. She felt cold and floaty, and very dizzy, quite unable to help herself.

  After what seemed a long while, she began to feel less sick and the blood seeped back into her veins. She opened her eyes and found that Ethan had placed her on the bed where she had slept last night, and dropped a light duvet over her. A folded facecloth lay over her forehead.

  Ethan frowned down at her. “Better?” he inquired curtly.

  She murmured, “This is becoming a habit. I’m sorry.”

  “Maybe that’s my line,” he said. “Lie still.”

  She did, closing her eyes, but said, “Are you apologising?”

  “If I caused this, yes. I’m not a sadist.”

  “But you’re not sorry for. . . what you think,” she said tiredly. “Are you?”

  For a moment he didn’t reply. Then he said evenly, “Don’t worry about it just now. The letter was a bit of a shock. Maybe I overreacted.”

  “But if you really believe. . .” She moved her head, and her eyes fluttered open, finding his.

  “I said don’t worry about it,” he repeated, reaching down to adjust the cloth, which had slipped. “You’re obviously not up to discussing it. Just stay there for a while. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

  Too weak to do otherwise, she obeyed him. When he had brought the coffee, Ethan stood by the window, his hands thrust into his pockets. Celeste sat up on the bed, against the pillows he had adjusted for her, and sipped at the cup, then suddenly put it down and rushed out of the room and across the passage to the bathroom.

  When she had finished being sick and rinsed her mouth with water from the basin, she found Ethan beside her, holding her arm as she straightened. Fleetingly glancing at his face, she saw that he was pale and tight-lipped.

  “I’m all right,” she said, making a halfhearted attempt to evade his hold, but she swayed in the doorway. He picked her up, carried her to the other room and deposited her on the bed again.

  Celeste raised a hand to a clammy forehead. The room was whirling, but it gradually steadied, and she could see Ethan frowning down at her. “Lie still,” he commanded. “You’d better stay in bed for the day. Where’s your nightgown? You do wear one?”

  “Under the pillow.”

  He found it and turned down the bed, moving her gently over to do so. Then he slipped the canvas shoes off her feet, and sat on the bed and began unbuttoning her blouse.

  “I’ll do that,” she said.

  “Sure you can manage?”

  “Yes.”

  He stood. “You don’t want any more of this?” He picked up the coffee cup.

  “No, thank you.” She shuddered.

  “I’ll come back in ten minutes,” he promised.

  When he returned she was lying in the bed with her nightgown on and the sheet up under her arms. She felt frail and exhausted but mercifully uncaring. She knew what Ethan thought of her, and it didn’t seem to matter.

  He left the room, and she lay quiet, and even dozed, waking up to realise it was late afternoon.

  She went to the bathroom, and Ethan must have heard her moving about, because when she returned, with her wrap loosely over the nightgown, he was in her room. Automatically, she drew the edges of the wrap together.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “A little dizzy, still.” She sat down thankfully on the bed, and he helped her off with the wrap and pulled the blankets over her.

  “Could you eat something?”

  She shook her head.

  “Fruit juice, then. Diluted, perhaps. You musn’t get dehydrated.”

  “All right.”

  She drank the juice but refused anything else. Later he brought an omelette, and she managed a few mouthfuls, followed by weak tea, and afterwards cleaned her teeth in the bathroom. By the time Ethan looked in on her again, she was fast asleep.

  When she woke it was full daylight, and she knew she had slept for hours. She lay there for a time, reluctant to leave the bed, even though her watch told her it was after eleven o’clock. Then, with a sigh, she got up slowly and, finding that she could stand without dizziness, had a shower, dressed in a blouse and skirt and made her way carefully down the stairs.

  Ethan came out of the kitchen, his face quite expressionless. “Feeling better?” he queried.

  “Yes, thank you,” she answered stiffly. “Ethan, I think it would be better if I left.”

  “You only just got here,” he reminded her. “And anyway where would you go? You’re obviously in a poor state of health. This is the only place you can rest and recover, which is what you
badly need.”

  She moistened her lips. “How can I do that, if you. . . if you’re going to be accusing me of. . .” A hand wavered to her temples. She felt perilously close to tears.

  Ethan came swiftly forward, taking her arms and shoving her gently into a chair. “Listen,” he said. “You don’t have a choice. I’m the only one around to care for you.”

  “Care for me!” A flash of sarcasm lit her eyes.

  “Look on that episode yesterday as an aberration. It won’t happen again.” “But you think that I—”

  “Forget it,” he said shortly. “I lashed out without taking time to consider what I was saying. I want you fit, before I. . . before we talk about it again. I owe it to Alec to look after you. Just stay until you’re back to normal, okay?”

  The familiar lethargy was creeping over her again. She didn’t want to think about the terrible things he had suggested. It was tempting to relegate the whole episode to the back of her mind and pretend it had never happened. Especially when Ethan was being so persuasive, his voice quiet and reasonable. Her brain felt muzzy, and she wasn’t up to arguing, let alone making arrangements for the flight back and someplace to live and the myriad other decisions that would be needed if she left. She knew it was weak and spineless, but the very prospect of having to do all that both frightened and exhausted her. “All right,” she agreed, stifling the warning voice at the back of her mind. “I’ll stay.”

  He said, “Good.” Then he left her, to return later with two plates of salad. “Think you can get this down?” he asked.

  “It looks delicious.” She wasn’t hungry but, somewhat to her shame, she was grateful for his determination to take care of her.

  “Outside?” he suggested. “I’ve got a sun umbrella up now.”

  She had not noticed, even though she had spent the last five minutes staring out at the patio and beyond it to the sea.

  While they ate they spoke little, but gradually Celeste was aware of the slackening tension, and as they sipped coffee afterwards, Ethan said, “Did you go down to the beach yesterday morning?”

  Celeste shook her head. “I saw the path. Is it safe?”

  “Perfectly.” He cast her a sharp glance, and she knew that he was thinking of how Alec had died, smashing onto the wave-swept rocks at the bottom of a cliff. He said, almost too casually, “If you’re nervous I’ll take you down the first time.”

  Celeste said, “No, I’ll be all right on my own. I’m sure you have things to do.”

  “Some. Work has a habit of piling up when I’m away. If you’re thinking of going there now, perhaps you shouldn’t be alone, though.”

  “I feel fine,” she lied. “And I’d like to see the beach.” She didn’t feel fine, but she wasn’t dizzy or sick anymore. She was quite capable of walking a few hundred yards.

  “Don’t be surprised if you see a naked body or two. Only locals use the beach, and it’s accepted that nude swimming and sunbathing are okay.”

  “Thanks for warning me. It’s safe for swimming, then?”

  “Unless a storm blows up. But I think you should wait until you feel stronger before swimming on your own.”

  “I don’t really feel like swimming today, anyway.” They were talking like strangers, politely but with no warmth. “I’ll do the dishes before I go,” she offered.

  “Don’t bother. It’ll only take a minute. You’re the invalid.” He gathered up the plates and got to his feet.

  “I’m not,” she said. “I mean, it’s just. . .” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t know what it was, but it seemed an age since she had felt truly alive.

  “Depression, the doctor said,” Ethan told her.

  “Yes, but he thought. . .”

  “Thought what?” His gaze had sharpened.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said listlessly. The doctor had obviously assumed that Alec’s death was the cause, and she had not told him that this lack of energy and even of interest had begun long before that, only intensifying to unmanageable proportions in the days after Alec died. She shook her head and stood up. “I’ll go down to the beach.”

  “Sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  He watched until she entered the trees, then turned and went inside.

  The path was steep, Celeste found, but quite easy to negotiate. In some places steps had been cut and a wooden railing provided. She emerged from the trees onto soft white sand and looked about her. The cove was an almost perfect crescent, with headlands enclosing it. About a hundred yards from the shore, the sea cut off one of the headlands from a flat-topped rocky islet, bare of vegetation and ideal for sunbathing, if one wanted to swim that far. Looking back to the shore, among the trees on the surrounding slopes she could see a couple of roofs. So there were other houses about. But the beach was deserted. No bodies, naked or otherwise. She took off her shoes and slowly walked along the water’s edge until she reached the rock shelf, grey and worn smooth by the water. Climbing up easily, she wandered along beside a series of pools filled with anemones and tiny crabs and little black fish, and sat down in the shadow of a tree growing low on the cliff. She leaned back against the smooth sandstone and watched the sun’s restless glitter on the water.

  Someone called her name, and her eyes flew open. For a moment she was disoriented, the hushed sound of the sea in her ears, the dazzle of shimmering water in her eyes. The sun had slipped low, and the sea had a brilliant orange sheen. Her arms were cold, and she shivered and rubbed them as a shadow against the light resolved itself into the figure of a man. Ethan, his eyes dark and angry. She realised that he was barefoot and had rolled up the legs of his jeans to the knees, but even so they were wet.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “Did you faint again?”

  Celeste blinked. “No, I. . . I must have fallen asleep,” she said feebly, starting to get up.

  Reaching down, he curled a hand about her arm, almost yanking her to her feet. He examined her closely, and said, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You chose a hell of a place to sleep. Didn’t it occur to you the tide might cut you off?”

  “I didn’t intend to sleep at all. It just happened. I’m sorry if I’ve worried you.”

  “Never mind,” he said briefly. “Let’s get you back.”

  They picked their way around the rocks, but in the end the water was between them and the sand, and Ethan splashed into it up to his thighs.

  Celeste paused to hitch her skirt, but Ethan had turned and before she knew what he was going to do he had her in his arms and was wading to the shore.

  He let her down on the dry sand, and she said, “That wasn’t necessary.”

  “No sense in both of us getting wet clothes. Come on.”

  He led the way up the path. Following him, Celeste found herself panting when they got to the top. He turned and frowned at her. “Why didn’t you say that I was going too fast for you?”

  She stopped, catching her breath. “I seem to have put you to a lot of trouble already.”

  His frown deepened. “No trouble,” he said curtly. “Take it easy. I’ll go and change.”

  Watching him disappear into the house, she wondered why tears were prickling at her eyelids. Blinking them away, she trailed after him as far as the lounger on the terrace. She settled herself on it and laid her head against the cushion. If only she didn’t feel so lifeless. No wonder he was irritated with her. Having to be rescued from her own foolishness like some brainless damsel in distress. Fainting at his feet, not once but twice. She would be disgusted with herself if she could only muster up enough energy to feel such an emotion. To feel any emotion at all.

  You did feel something, an inner voice whispered. Down there on the beach, when Ethan held you in his arms.

  Yes, for a few seconds she had b
een wholly alive again, feeling the beating of his heart against her breast, the warmth of his skin through the shirt he wore, the strength and sureness of his hold on her.

  Firmly she shut that out of her mind. A momentary awareness, like the sudden awareness in the coroner’s court when she had looked up and found his eyes on her with hard disbelief. And like the rush of relief and gladness that she had felt when at the funeral she had seen him waiting for her at the rear of the church. When she had thought, He’s here. Ethan’s here. Everything will be all right now.

  Only, of course, he hadn’t been waiting for her. He had come to see his brother buried, and everything was not all right. Everything was wrong, horribly wrong. Ethan didn’t trust her, he didn’t like her at all, and he blamed her for causing Alec’s death.

  “Nothing will ever be right again,” she whispered to herself, shivering. “Never.”

  The stark truth hit her, and she raised her hands, rubbing at the sudden gooseflesh on her arms. She got up and went inside, running up the stairs to her room, arriving there breathless and with tears on her cheeks. She wiped at them impatiently. She had never been the weepy, swooning type. Pull yourself together, she admonished sternly, for heaven’s sake!

  Her feet and her hair felt gritty with sand, and she decided to shower and change. Her sandals had been left lying on the beach, she realised, wondering if they would be there tomorrow or if the tide would have washed them away. She couldn’t be bothered going down there again to find out, and she daren’t mention it to Ethan. Already he thought her several kinds of idiot. She didn’t want to give him reason to add to the list.

  She washed her hair in the shower, and after towelling it half-dry, she pinned it back in a knot. She put on the dress she had donned when Ethan called the day after the funeral, and slipped her feet into a pair of fawn-coloured medium-heeled shoes. When she went downstairs it was to find Ethan in clean dark blue slacks and a lighter blue shirt, standing with his hands thrust into his pockets, and looking out at the rapidly fading sunset.

  He must have heard her, and it seemed to her that he turned reluctantly as she reached the bottom of the stairs. His gaze swept over her and she thought he looked rather disparaging. But all he said was, “Are you ready to eat?” “Have I kept you waiting? I—” “Don’t start apologising again,” he said curtly. “We’ll have it in the kitchen if that’s okay with you.”