Time of the Temptress Read online

  "One thing I'll say for you, young deb, you don't make a fuss about eating and drinking like a soldier. Thanks." He accepted the mug and tipped it to his own [40-41] mouth, and Eve could have sworn that he set his lips exactly where hers had been. Oh heavens, she thought, and came to the realisation that there was an insidious, very masculine charm under the veneer of hardness that this mercenary Major presented to the world in general. She recalled his firmness in getting the nuns aboard the last plane to Tanga, and the way he had briefly smiled at Sister Mercy.

  "Are you a Catholic?" she asked him abruptly.

  "I was born into the faith," he replied, tossing corned beef into his mouth and munching with appetite. "It isn't often that I get to practise its tenets, as you can see from the uniform I wear. Why do you ask?"

  "You were very kind to Sister Mercy and the other nuns, and I noticed that once or twice you used Latin terms that she understood."

  "And I don't strike you as being normally kind, eh?"

  "I-I wouldn't say that." Eve glanced at the fire and chewed her own supper. "I'm glad we have a fire, but it still scares me in case it gives us away."

  "You don't have to be scared," he drawled. "You won't know what's hit you."

  "All the same--well, we've both got a lot to live for, haven't we? You have your son, and I--I have my life back in England."

  "With the honourable young man who allowed you to come out here to scrub floors and risk your neck?" A black eyebrow arched above cynical grey eyes, which dwelt on the fine gold chain and golden good-luck coin which she wore, glinting in the firelight against the smooth skin of her throat. "Were you testing him, honey? Hoping he'd dash after you and grab you off the airfield before you boarded the plane?"

  [41-42] Eve thought bitterly of James the last time she had dined with him, eating expensively at the Charisse before they went on to the theatre . . . she had told him she was thinking of coming here, but he had laughed away the idea. "Don't be a silly girl," he had said, patting her hand as if she were an infant or his doddering aunt, but never a girl he hoped to sweep off her feet with his love-making. "Whatever would you find to do out in the bush? A little orchid-picking, my sweet?"

  She could have told Wade O'Mara that she despised James and thought him a useless stick, but wisdom prevailed and she smiled what she hoped was a yearning, romantic smile.

  "I wanted to prove that I could be of use, and I have proved it," she replied.

  "You've proved to the hilt that you were running away from that exciting life of yours back in England. Of course you were, so don't deny it. If you were so keen to be of use to the community you could have applied for proper training at a hospital or taken a Cordon Bleu course in cooking and opened your own bistro . . . both would have offered you the chance to scrub floors and peel potatoes."

  "You're a sarcastic devil!" Eve exclaimed. "The cynicism is layers thick on your hide!"

  "It probably is," he agreed. "But at least I'm honest about what drives me to do certain things. I don't wrap my motives in a self-deluding veil of sacrifice and service. You were bored to the hilt with being a social butterfly, so you decided to create a flutter by scorching your wings on the edge of a political flare-up. Only it turned out to be more like a forest fire and you didn't bargain for being caught in it with a stinging brute [42-43] like me, did you?" The look he gave her was derisive and knowing. "Hand me your plate, Eve. You've earned a sweet even if it's too late for a spanking."

  "No doubt that's how you've dealt with your son," she said, "when you've been at home to deal with his training."

  "No doubt," he drawled. "Come on, I've opened a can of pineapple chunks and I'm fairly sure you have a sweet tooth, not having arrived at the stage when you need to trim any surplus fat from that sylph-like figure; and believe me, by the time I've dragged you through the jungle, like Tarzan and Jane, you'll be trim enough to be a model."

  Setting her lips and refusing to be humoured, Eve handed him her plate, for the truth was she was still quite hungry but she knew he had to preserve as much of their solid food as he could. She certainly wasn't averse to sharing the pineapple chunks, but his caustic remarks took some swallowing . . . maybe because he struck too close to the truth for comfort. It wasn't until she had arrived at the mission and found there was real need for her services that she had faced the truth of why she had come. It had been her act of rebellion against a cushioned yet controlled life, and she had needed to get far away from England in order to feel free of her guardian's iron hand in the velvet glove. She was fond of him, and grateful to him for the way he had cared for her, but he expected to rule her life and plan her future, and Eve had fled in a sort of revolt a man like Wade O'Mara could never be expected to understand.

  She doubted if Major O'Mara, sprawling there in his mercenary khaki, had ever felt a stab of fear in his en-[43-44]tire life. No one had a lead on him, not even his wife. But Eve felt beholden to her guardian, though not yet was she going to be forced into marriage that would suit him far more than it would suit her. She had wanted to test her wings, but she wasn't complaining about the scorch marks, and with a tilt to her chin she accepted her plate of fruit chunks with a stiff murmur of thanks.

  "Sorry there's no ice-cream to go with them," he drawled, "but I guess you can whip up enough ice for the two of us when you put on that frosty look."

  "Funny, aren't you?" Eve ate her pineapple from her fingers and thoroughly enjoyed doing so . . . maybe in her secret heart she had longed to be a hoyden for a while, her feelings roughed up by a man who would never have been smooth with women. She could just imagine what she looked like with tangled hair, wearing slacks that flapped around her ankles and a shirt that was oily from insect repellent. Her guardian would have a fit, and James would probably swoon.

  "That's it, smile." The voice was as rough and purring as if it came from a leopard's throat. "I won't ask you to share the joke, for I'm well aware that naughty thoughts can lurk behind a demure face."

  "I expect you presume to know all there is to know about women," she rejoined, licking juice from her fingers. "I don't doubt that in your travels as a warrior you've met every colour and every creed. Your wife must have a mind as broad a Loch Ness."

  "Broader," he agreed, and the smile on his firelit face was an inscrutable one, making Eve wonder just how much his marriage meant to him. Like all the other thoughts he aroused it was a disturbing one . . . she didn't want to delve into his private life, but they were [44-45] a man and woman alone in the primeval jungle and it would have been unnatural had she not been curious about him . . . as he was probably curious about her.

  Suddenly an ominous snarl came from the depths of the trees and Eve turned her head towards the sound and felt her heart give a leap. "What's that?"

  "Probably a leopard on the hunt for its supper," he said casually.

  "So long as it doesn't start fancying us," she gasped.

  "Let's hope it will soon find its kill. I don't want to use the rifle if I can avoid it, for a gunshot in the dark can carry for miles."

  Eve shivered, and realised anew how perilous their situation was. The fire had to be kept low in case the flames were seen and this increased the chance of some dangerous animal leaping upon them.

  "Don't start getting jittery," he said. "Leopards are the least of our worries. Have you ever seen one?"

  "One or two used to roam about in the vicinity of the mission, but there was a fence of pointed stakes around the compound."

  "Lovely creatures," he murmured, "with a spring to them like oiled silk. Too bad they're hunted for their skins."

  "I hate real fur coats," she said, recalling with a flash to her eyes a quarrel she had once had with her guardian when he had tried to make her wear a sealskin jacket he had bought for her birthday. "I can't bear the thought of animals being slaughtered just to satisfy the vanity of women and the ego of the men who buy furs for them."

  "Do you know how they kill the leopards so the lovely supple skins w
on't be marked?" Wade was rolling him-[45-46]self a cigarette from his pouch of tobacco, and he shot her a look across the guarded flames of their fire, his brows a single dark slash above his eyes.

  "In some beastly cruel way, I expect." Eve met his eyes. "Have you ever hunted them?"

  He shook his head. "Would you care for a cigarette?" he asked. "Hand-rolled, but they serve."

  "I don't smoke, thank you." She watched as he took a glowing stick from the fire and lit the cigarette between his lips; the flame played a moment over his features and she thought again how ruthless he looked, and yet there was a side to him that was far more subtle and complex, as if cruelty might repel him. "Major, did you fight in Biafra?" she asked on impulse.

  "Yes." He slung the stick on to the fire and leaned back on the blanket, his eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette in the corner of his mouth.

  "It must have been horrible."

  "It was."

  "Those fearful massacres! We read about them in the newspapers."

  "They weren't a pretty sight," he agreed. "But you don't want nightmares, and in a while we're going to settle down for the night."

  Eve glanced around her at the density of the jungle trees, at what might be lying in wait to pounce upon them while they slept.

  "I sleep like a cat," he drawled, "with one eye open. You'll be safe enough with me."

  "Will I?" The words sprang of themselves to her lips, and for some reason they sounded--provocative, so that instantly Eve could have bitten her tongue.

  "The fact that you're an attractive wench cuts little [46-47] ice with me," he said, a trifle cuttingly. "Apart from the fact that you were with those nuns, I don't happen to seduce girls young enough to be my daughter. Does that relieve your girlish apprehensions?"

  Eve was grateful for the darkness which concealed the colour that rushed into her cheeks. "I didn't mean--"

  "Didn't you?" Smoke curled about his dark head. "I'm a soldier and I fight wars, and when the opportunity offers I relax--with a woman. I don't happen to regard this situation as a very relaxing one, and when we do kip down for the night I'm going to give you a tablet that will relieve any aches and sprains and make you sleep easy, so you'll dream for a few hours that you're back in your cosy canopied bed at the family mansion, which I daresay stands in its own acres, with enough land a man might farm without breaking his back."

  "You sound as if you might be a frustrated farmer," she murmured. "Is that your ambition, if you don't get a bullet in your back?"

  "Who taught you perception?" he queried, squinting across the fire through his pungent cigarette smoke.

  "Maybe I was born with it," she said. "Even debutantes aren't necessarily feather-brained."

  "No, the only thing that's feathery about you, lady, is that you're such a fledgling in a hard cruel world. You'll grow up, more's the pity."

  "Why is it a pity, Major?"

  "Kids I find amusing, even those with plenty of backchat, but women have only one function as far as I'm concerned."

  "What ghastly cynicism!" she exclaimed. "How did [47-48] you ever come to get married with your outlook on--love?"

  "There are a couple of specific reasons why a man puts his head into that particular noose, so can't you guess? I was doing my National Service and I met this fetching little waitress in the canteen. As I don't happen to believe in abortion I became a husband at the age of nineteen, and a proud father at twenty. Let me add that I've no regrets on that score, and now are you satisfied that you've winkled my secret out of me?"

  "I-I wasn't being inquisitive," she denied, and it was curious how unshocked she was by his revelation. Somehow she had guessed that this tough, resilient character had never been romantically in love . . . it was there in his face, in his eyes, that he placed women in two categories, those to be revered like Sister Mercy, and those to be desired like the girl he had got into trouble during his very first year as a soldier. It touched Eve that he had done the honourable thing and was so obviously proud of the son from his enforced marriage. Her fingers clenched in the blanket on which she sat almost as if she were controlling an impulse to reach out and run her fingers down his lean life-clawed face. Heaven help her, it wouldn't be wise to touch him . . . as that other Eve had touched Adam when the serpent whispered.

  "You shivered just then," he said. "Beginning to feel cold? That does happen in the jungle at night."

  "I-I guess I'm tired," she gave a little yawn. "It's been a long and very unusual day."

  "It has, at that." He leapt with agility to his feet and tossed the cigarette butt into the fire. "You'll want to go into the bush to spend a penny, so you'd better take [47-48] my torch. Keep the light trained downwards, won't you?"

  "Of course." Romantic he wasn't, but he was certainly to be trusted not to take a girl for a plastic doll without natural functions which needed to be relieved. She accepted the torch with a murmur of thanks, and was so terribly glad he wasn't like James, who went turkey-red when a girl excused herself to go to the powder-room. There in the jungle bush she tried not to think about snakes and knobbly black spiders and concentrated on how James would react if he could see her right now. When she returned to the fireside she was smiling to herself.

  "Something tickle your fancy?" Wade enquired drily.

  "Oh, I was just wondering how they'd react back home if they could see me now."

  "So it amuses you that the guardian and the boyfriend would probably be shocked?" As he spoke he was delving into his knapsack and Eve saw the glimmer of something white in his hands. "The boy-friend might have grounds for breaking off the engagement if he knew you were alone in the primitive jungle with a mercenary, eh?"

  "We aren't yet officially engaged," she said, and watched as strong, deft hands unfurled a length of filmy mosquito netting.

  "But it's on the cards, eh? The desirable union of the season's deb with a young man capable of handling your inheritance if not your imagination."

  "My imagination, Major O'Mara, is no more vivid than anyone else's."

  "I beg to differ. You're standing there right now and [49-50] having mental images of sharing this blanket and net with me. Dare you deny it?"

  "I-I had come to that conclusion," she admitted, feeling the warmth come into her cheeks as she envisioned herself tucked in close to that lean and ruthless body . . . she had never been that close to a friend, let alone a stranger.

  "And as your imagination is female, Eve, you've gone a step further and petrified yourself with the belief that a rough soldier is going berserk the moment he comes in contact with your nubile young body. It could happen, along with a lot of other things that might happen before I get you to Tanga in one piece, but you're going to have to take a chance, like the one you took when you told that pilot you could trek it with me. You knew when you spoke up that I wasn't a weed among the coronets."

  "I was aware of the risks I was running," she said, a trifle breathlessly. "It was more important to me that Sister Mercy and her nuns be flown to safety--I happen to mean that! I might be a bit spoiled, but I'm not selfish!"

  "There's no need to be on the defensive with me," he drawled. "I know a lot more about women than you'll ever know about men, so let's get something straight. When a man makes love, just about everything else goes out of his head and he becomes almighty vulnerable. I can't afford that happy state of being right now, with leopards and rebels on the prowl. Do I make myself clear?"

  "As glass," she said, and could feel her cheeks burning.

  "Right." He held out his hand and there on the palm [50-51] of it was a small round object. "Swallow this and you'll sleep through without being worried about me or anything else. Go on, take it."

  Eve accepted the tablet and put it against the edge of her tongue. "I-I think I might sleep without it," she said nervously.

  "You'll take it," he rejoined. "I want you fighting fit in the morning, with no residue of pain from that ankle you turned over. The tablet has something in it to re
lax your nerves and ease your aches, and I'd take one myself except that I've got to keep alert and not fall into a deep sleep. D'you want a sip of water to help it go down?"

  "Please."

  He poured a little of their water into the mug and handed it to her. Eve made no further protest and swallowed the tablet. She had to trust him . . . there was no one else around to see after her, and even to look into the density of the jungle was to feel the nerves crawling in her stomach. The trees were black creaking shapes in the darkness and there were stealthy sounds that made her skin creep.

  Wade handed her the netting and told her she was to swathe herself in it. "Like an oriental bride," he drawled wickedly, "right over your head and face. Go on. You won't suffocate, but it will keep out anything that might crawl on you in the night."

  "Oh, do you have to be so explicit?" she appealed. "What are you going to use to cover yourself, or don't you care about the crawlies?"

  "I can wrap this around my head like granddad's nightcap." He showed her the white silk scarf which he had confiscated at the airfield bungalow.

  [51-52] "So that's why you wanted it!"

  "Sure. Did you imagine I was saving it for a night out at the country club?"

  Eve grinned as she began to twirl the netting about herself. "I can't imagine you at the country club drinking gin slings and talking about the latest polo match. I think that would bore you to distraction."

  "And what can you imagine me doing in my spare time?" he asked, and he was down on his haunches banking the fire with half-dried mosses and leaves which he had gathered from the edge of the clearing.

  "Riding," she said instantly, "but not in any kind of local pack. And you probably play a lot of squash."

  "How come you say that?"

  "You haven't a pot, have you?"

  He stood up, tall and hard from his chin to his heels. "I'm not quite in my dotage, kitten, but I guess thirty-nine must seem pretty ancient to you."