Intimate Page 9

  'You're chilled,' he observed, apparently unaware of the charged heat already tingling through her at his touch. 'You ought to be careful with this Chicago weather. Even on a nice fall day it will nip you when you're not looking.'

  'I'll try to be more careful,' she teased.

  'I'm beginning to think you need someone to look after you,' he added, his long fingers cradling her wrists. 'Bumping into strange men in hallways, going out in cold weather without enough warm clothing… You're a woman who needs watching.'

  'Perhaps you're right there,' she said, recalling her uncertain attempts to deal with the jarring events of the past two weeks. 'Perhaps I should…'

  But her words trailed into silence as his hand, having adjusted a strand of her windblown hair, caressed her cheek with lulling tenderness. Her eyes half-closed in pleasure, she stood transfixed by the seductive power of his nearness.

  'I thought you were working today,' she said at last, regarding him curiously.

  'I was,' he smiled. 'But I'm not any more.'

  'I thought you said your partners were…' she began.

  'Busy?' he interrupted. 'Yes, we're busy. On the other hand, we're always busy. I was looking out my office window at this beautiful sun, and I suddenly had a wonderful idea. I thought I'd check it out with you before putting it into action.'

  'Really?' she joked, hoping her banter would disguise the sensual flare his warm hands were kindling under her skin.

  'Here's my idea,' he began. 'I happen to know a beautiful lake in northern Wisconsin. It has the clearest water in the whole state, and it's surrounded by thick woods. Birch, maple, oak… a little of everything. Since it's up north, the leaves naturally turn earlier in the fall, so that on a weekend like this it would be quite a showplace. There are lots of trails to walk in the woods, and a person can go canoeing or fishing or whatever else he wants to do around a lake.'

  The black depths of his eyes, tinged with enigmatic merriment, came closer as his arms slipped around her waist.

  'And, as luck would have it,' he went on, 'there's an inn there. A very pretty colonial place, with nice sitting rooms and quilted comforters on the beds, and no television, and old faded landscapes on the walls, and a dining room with a huge fireplace. It can be quite busy there in the summer, but today it will be nearly deserted. The owner and his wife are friends of mine. They enjoy running the place, and they both have a lot of personality. Of course, they're not at all pushy. They would welcome us warmly, and then fade into the background so as to respect our privacy. Shall I go on?'

  Anna nodded, intoxicated by the tale of bucolic peace he was spinning, and reluctant to stop him.

  'It's quite simple,' he smiled, caressing her waist with quiet intimacy. 'You and I would make a couple of stops here in town, just to get ourselves ready, and then we would drive north in my car. It would take a while to get up there, even through Saturday traffic, and it would be dark by the time we arrived. But the fire would be burning, and the lights would be on in the lobby behind the veranda, and we'd have a nice hot drink to warm us up. Then, tomorrow morning, we'd have one of Elvira's special breakfasts before taking a long, relaxing walk around the lake. Before you knew it, we'd have the city's noise out of our systems.'

  'You paint an awfully pretty picture,' she sighed, already beginning to count the reasons why it could never become a reality.

  'I haven't finished,' he said. 'My partners in the firm owe me more than a few favours by now, so I'm sure they would look the other way if we made it a very long weekend. Since you're not working, it would be convenient for you, and of course it would be just the tonic I need. I haven't bothered to take a vacation in a long time, since I had no interest in relaxing somewhere alone. But now I would be with you, Anna, and I doubt that I would take much notice of the leaves or the lake or the inn. I'd concentrate on being the happiest man on earth.

  'Of course,' he added with feigned concern, 'the whole thing depends to some extent on your sister. Is she in town this weekend?'

  'Yes, I think so,' said Anna. 'But what does Sally have to do with this?'

  'Well,' he said, his slow smile widening, 'you wouldn't want to get married without telling your sister, would you? She'd feel slighted if she missed your wedding this afternoon, don't you think?'

  'Marsh!' Anna was too overwhelmed by the boldness of his proposal to think of an immediate response.

  'Judge Bardwell is an old friend of mine,' he went on with unflappable calm. 'He'd be available to perform a quiet ceremony for us. I'd grab a witness from somewhere, we'd pick up Sally, and then drop her at her apartment on our way out of town. We'd have our time together up at the lake, come back next week, move your things over to my place, and live happily ever after.'

  'Marsh, I…'

  'After a while,' he interrupted, 'we'd move out of my apartment and into a house. We'd need more room, of course, in order to start a family. How many children would you like, Anna? Do you prefer boys or girls? Personally, I have an open mind on the subject…'

  With a furtive glance down the quiet sidewalk, he had drawn her closer to him, and she felt the warmth of his desire add itself to the power of his will in a convincing combination.

  'You've thought of everything,' she murmured against his chest.

  'I think so,' he agreed. 'We'd help Sally finish college, and of course money would be no problem, since her expenses don't amount to much. In return, she'd babysit for us, I imagine. At some point you might decide to go back to work, if that's what you wanted—but you'd need maternity leave. Yes, Anna, I think I've thought of everything. As I say,' he smiled, 'it seems to me a workable plan. With one proviso.'

  'And what is that?' she asked, returning the impassioned gaze of the ebony eyes that held her.

  'Do you love me?' he asked.

  With a grateful sigh she spoke words that had clamoured to escape her lips long before this moment.

  'Yes, Marsh, I love you.'

  'And I love you,' he whispered, holding her close to him. 'Shall we give up delaying the inevitable, then?'

  For an answer she pressed herself to his hard body as the truth of his words came home to her. The cruel phone call that had prevented her from responding to his proposal last night was no more than a brief delay imposed upon a process which had been gaining momentum since the moment she met Marsh Hamilton.

  'You're sure,' she smiled, 'that you want to saddle yourself with someone who has no job, no prospects…'

  'Oh, you'll have a job, all right,' he laughed. 'You'll have your hands full with me, Anna. And your future will be our future.'

  Something of his dauntless, cheerful confidence seemed to spread through her own depths as he held her close. And she knew that it had been so days earlier. Though she had struggled alone with her recent difficulties, she could not suppress the intuition that Marsh was somehow involved in her efforts, somehow supporting her from a distance. In her bitter passage from interview to interview, her blunt revelation of the truth to Charles Robbins, and even her blithe drowning of Porter Deman's lingering hopes, she had gathered strength from the bright image of the man who had crossed her path so recently.

  Perhaps, in a mysterious way, she had already been looking back on these challenges from the vantage point of her happy future with him. Perhaps she had coped with them so fearlessly because she knew that the solitary existence they menaced was about to be eclipsed by a new life of unlimited promise.

  'What do you say?' he asked. 'All we have to do is cross this sidewalk, go up those old stairs of yours, call your sister, and pack a bag. Then the future is ours.'

  Anna felt herself turn to lead him into the shadows of her home. His strong arm rested on her shoulder like a steadfast beacon which freed her from every impulse to look backward. Already she was his, and she knew it.

  He had taken her key and inserted it in the lock. The heavy door swung open easily.

  CHAPTER SIX

  'Come on, lazybones, get up!'

  Ma
rsh stood over Anna, his hands on his hips, the cheerful smirk on his lips plunged into shadow by the blinding light of the sun behind him.

  'Mm-m, in a minute,' she purred. 'I like it here.'

  The dry leaves crackling under her on the still-green grass were like a comfortable bed of straw. The cool of the earth under the warm blades of grass was so refreshing that she was loath to get up and continue walking.

  'Come on, silly,' he prodded, dropping to his knee beside her. 'We're only up here for four days, so we have to keep moving. We've got exploring to do.'

  'Uh-huh,' she smiled. 'Come here, you.' Grasping his shoulders, she pulled him down beside her and kissed his lips tenderly. 'That's adventurous enough for me,' she said.

  'I see your point,' he agreed, returning her kiss with an intimacy that left her breathless. His hand strayed over her jacket, grazing the outline of her breasts under the suede, and came to rest beside her cheek. For a languorous moment he stroked her gently, contemplating the lush mane of her hair on its bed of leaves. The auburn waves seemed to take up the autumnal aura of their surroundings, as though Anna herself were a forest creature whose silken fur blended into the hues of the foliage around her.

  She was gazing into his eyes with a calm he had not seen since he had known her. A slight smile of amusement on her lips, she toyed absently with the fabric of his windbreaker, her eyes glowing with a strange, elfin satisfaction.

  'Penny for your thoughts,' he said, his finger touching the soft skin beneath her ear.

  'I love you,' she murmured.

  Marsh smiled, a pained nostalgia coming over his features.

  'When I think how long it took me to find you,' he said, 'and to hear you say those words. Five years in the same city, before you finally bumped into me!' With a theatrical shudder he banished the memory.

  'I love you,' she repeated. 'You can hear it all you want, now. I love you, I love you, I love you.'

  The exultation in her green eyes, framed by the hair splayed over the coloured leaves, was too bewitching to resist, and he bent to kiss her again. Her arms encircled him softly and, oblivious to the remote possibility that someone might pass, she hugged him to her, flexing her slender arms in an affectionate imitation of his own powerful embrace. With a histrionic gasp he made believe she had squeezed the wind out of him. But already his lips had touched the softness of her neck, and she felt his cool cheek against her own. Sandwiched between his warm body and the bed of leaves under her, she felt a mysterious peace enfold her, and lay motionless, her arms around him.

  The sun glinted among fiery leaves as the branches of the huge oak swayed above her. Crisp autumnal odours were everywhere. Here at Crystal Lake, just as Marsh had predicted, the fall was considerably more advanced than in Chicago—and incomparably beautiful. Luck had been with them, and the Lake was warmed by fresh Indian summer air so pleasant that one nearly felt tempted to have a swim. The long walks they had taken through the many woods near the inn were like so many purifications, freeing Anna from the city's tensions and from her own painful memories.

  Within minutes of her agreement to marry him, Marsh had been on the telephone, making hurried arrangements for a wedding in Judge Bardwell's chambers. Anna, feeling her excitement grow by leaps and bounds, had called Sally to explain the urgency of the situation. It was all happening so fast that her head was spinning as though in a pleasant dream.

  Judge Bardwell had done his best to superimpose a stern, judicial expression over his approving smile.

  'Mr Hamilton,' he said impishly, 'can you give this court one good reason why you deserve this beautiful woman?'

  Sally had stood by, her eyes lit with the puckish satisfaction of the matchmaker, as the brief ceremony was performed. Several of Marsh's colleagues from the firm arrived, laden with bottles of champagne and makeshift wedding presents. The air seemed charged with humour and affection on all sides.

  'I'm so happy for you, Anna,' Sally had smiled, kissing her sister. 'I know you've made the right decision.'

  And in a whirl of activity which left Anna breathless, it was over. She found herself in the car with Marsh, embarked on the long drive to northern Wisconsin. A soft smile played over his lips as she held his hand. The highway flowed under them like a moving ribbon in the cool autumn air. And as afternoon turned to dusk, and the car's headlights illuminated the wooded expanse all around, Marsh and Anna talked and talked, filled with plans for the days ahead and the life together that awaited them. The feelings of release, of unaccustomed calm he had brought her over the past week blossomed now into a great glow of peace and happy expectation in the warm quiet of the car.

  At last it seemed everything would be all right. Dazzled by the sudden transition her life had made from utter desperation to heady excitement, Anna clung to Marsh as the one clear beacon that showed the way to her future. During their late supper at the hotel, she found herself gazing into his eyes with an eager avidity that made her blush.

  After tipping the sleepy bellboy. Marsh turned to her, his eyes filled with humour and tenderness.

  'Well,' he said. 'Mrs Hamilton, is it?'

  'Mrs Hamilton,' she smiled from the bed.

  'At last,' he murmured, enfolding her in his powerful arms.

  And the last traces of her unhappiness seemed banished for ever by the calm yielding she felt in his embrace. Finally she could accept him, open herself to him without second thoughts, experience the fiery intimacy of his lovemaking without an inner struggle to dominate the emotions that bound her to him. And it was a magical sense of sudden belonging that shuddered through her as she grasped and caressed him, certain at last that she was his for ever.

  After what seemed a long dream of pure rapture, pleasure had given way to happy exhaustion in her, and she fell into a sweet, refreshing sleep in his arms.

  Now, as she lay on the cool grass, her body warmed by the nearness of the man she loved, she felt a flutter in her senses which was instantly echoed by a subtle quickening in the touch of his flesh against her own.

  'Let's go back,' Marsh murmured into her ear. 'We'll explore later.'

  He felt her nod, and in a single lithe movement he had arisen, pulling her gently to her feet beside him. His hand rested quietly on her hip as they walked through the crackling leaves towards the inn. The sun shone through the boughs of the trees with a sharp, bracing brilliance, as though in celebration of a holiday from which all care and melancholy were banished. The crisp freshness of the world around them was a harmonious counterpoint to the hidden heat that linked them.

  'Anna,' he said with sudden seriousness, 'we've talked a lot since we got up here, but you've never really told me how you came to leave N.T.E.L. I never asked Bob Samuels or anyone else about it, because I thought you'd want to tell me yourself sooner or later. Do you want to talk about it?'

  Disturbed by the thoughts his question gave rise to in her own mind, she held herself closer to him.

  'No,' she said. 'I just want to be with you.'

  'You're sure?'

  'It wasn't very important,' she said, 'and it's all over now. Now that I'm with you…'

  'Okay,' he smiled, hugging her as they walked. 'As long as you feel you can put it behind you. But remember: we're married now, and you can tell me anything. If they treated you badly, you've got me to complain to, if you want.'

  'I'm not in a complaining mood,' Anna laughed. 'I was happy there for a few years, and then not so happy. I don't blame N.T.E.L. itself. It was just a thing that didn't work out.'

  She was disturbed to keep her chagrin over N.T.E.L. a secret, at the beginning of a new life, a new commitment to Marsh. But the episode, and the memory of Porter Deman, was too loathesome a thing to bring to mind now. She simply could not allow it to trouble the happiness to which she clung with all her heart.

  Besides, she knew how upset and angry Marsh would be if she told him of Porter Deman's vicious, clumsy attempts at seduction. The insult to her integrity would pain Marsh deeply, and she couldn
't help fearing that he would make up his mind to punish Porter with some sort of retribution. Now was no time for revenge, and Marsh was a man capable of strong emotions.

  But she could not forget Debby's opinion that something should be done to stop Porter Deman, for the sake of his future victims. When her honeymoon was over, she resolved, she would discuss the whole situation dispassionately with Marsh. His knowledge that Anna herself was no longer imperilled directly by it would insure his objectivity. She was more than confident that, with his intelligence and resourcefulness, he would know how to take action against so outrageous an injustice.

  They would decide what to do together, she determined. But there was no point in spoiling the peaceful closeness of their honeymoon by pondering so distressing a topic. For now, she coveted all the happiness she could find with Marsh. She must derive strength from her love for him, and try to forget the last and most desperate moments of her life without him.

  She stood silent by his side in the warm corridor as he turned the key in the heavy lock. With a muffled swish, the door swung back over the thick carpet and they were inside the room. The bright afternoon light shone gaily through the window, and then vanished in shadows as he pulled the curtains shut. The quiet beige walls, with their assortment of landscapes painted in dark hues, were plunged into darkness. Only a pale rim of light remained at the top of the curtains.

  A curiously sensual feeling crept over Anna as she stood in the darkness, her eyes half shut, listening to the sounds made by Marsh's movements about the room. It was as though a deliberate silence had fallen between them, charged by their mutual knowledge of what was about to happen.

  Her jacket lay on the chair now, and she had slipped off her shoes. She stood in her bare feet, consciously sensing the silky fabric of her blouse, the tightness of her jeans, on the alert flesh underneath. Her embrace with Marsh outside, in the cool air, had stirred her senses to a sudden tumult of desire, and she knew now that in a matter of seconds her impatient body would be naked again, free to spread its passion to the still air of the room, to melt with abandon into his own heat, to feel its excitement expand against his muscular limbs.