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'There you go again. If you have something on your mind, say it! Don't hide behind snide remarks and hints.' Clare's voice echoed against the glass wall facing the street, and she consciously tried to lower it.
David had no such reservations. He turned to face her, eyes smoking as he demanded, 'Why didn't you want to come with me tonight?'
'I told you,' said Clare tightly. 'I don't enjoy big parties.'
'Perhaps if you made an effort you might surprise yourself. After all, you manage to socialise quite easily with all the strangers who flit through Moonlight. But you didn't want to enjoy yourself tonight, did you? You were just aching for an excuse to walk out.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' hissed Clare furiously, although in a way he was right. She hadn't made any special effort to join in. Instead she had al-lowed herself to be overwhelmed by her own sense of inadequacy.
'Oh, no? I bet you made a phone call this evening, before the concert.'
'Well, yes, I—' She had called Virginia, and promised to drop in and see her before they went back to Rotorua.
'And was Julian pleased to hear from you?'
'Julian?'
'Why the secrecy? Could it be that the sweet, ever-faithful madonna is feeling a little guilty about her affair! I can accept that your sex drive didn't die with your husband, Clare, but wasn't it rather tacky to fall into bed with someone else even before he was gone? Tim said you and Uncle Julian were sleeping together while his father was in hospital…'
Clare felt the blood drain from her face. For a moment she thought she was going to faint. 'W… what exactly did Tim tell you?' she croaked, white-lipped.
David was equally pale, under the olive complexion, the fury seeming to have drained out of him now he had tapped the raging conflictions that had been festering inside him during the last twelve hours: jealousy, disillusionment, frustration, contempt and sheer male pique… none of them had quite banished the hope and fierce desire. Dammit! If he'd known he had a flesh and blood rival, he might have handled everything differently…
'Ironic, really,' he said. 'We had a pre-breakfast chat this morning in which I was trying, in a roundabout way, to reassure him about your going away. We discussed loneliness and the different ways that people coped with it. We agreed that music was a good focus for negative as well as positive feelings. And we went deeper into the subject of personal loss, and Tim said that when his father got sick and went into hospital that you used to cry at nights until you started sleeping with Uncle Julian. You often sleep with Uncle Julian when you get lonely, he said. You tell him your troubles and he keeps you warm the way that Lee used to. No wonder Tim is so frank about sex! But why make it a big secret? Don't you realise that you must be confusing the hell out of him? After telling me that, he clammed up and made me promise not to tell anyone. Why is it so important that nobody knows? After all, your husband has been gone two years now. What's stopping you getting together openly? Is it because the illicit freedom of an affair gives you a kick? Or is Julian married? Is that it, Clare? Are you having an affair with a married man?'
'No. But I almost had one with an idiot! You sanctimonious—' Words failed her. She ought to have put him straight right there and then, but the thought of all that he had put her through that day because of a simple misunderstanding that could have been cleared up with a few words enraged her. That he could think she was so… so underhanded and lacking in morals—
She simmered all the way back to the school, alone in the back seat of the cab, savouring the expression of blank outrage David had been wearing when she had slipped past him and slammed the car door in his face, after sweetly informing him that she was going to spend the night with Julian.
And to think of all the tossing and turning she had done the last few nights, worrying about whether she should forget her doubts and scruples this weekend and succumb to the temptation that would inevitably arise! And, from the dog-in-the-manger way he had acted, he had obviously hoped for the same, even though he thought she was in the middle of a secret adulterous affair with another man. In his
sophisticated world, such a ménage a trois might be commonplace, but not in hers.
The black dress was replaced by a bewitching yellow silk teddy and matching robe—which she blushed to admit she had packed in anticipation of David's admiration—and Clare ruthlessly scrubbed off her make-up in the bathroom along the hall before slamming back to her lonely room. The trouble was, she didn't feel in the least like sleep. She wanted to have a good rage or a good cry, and couldn't decide which would be more beneficial. She wished she was back at Moonlight, in familiar surroundings. She ached for the lost innocence of loving only Lee. After a great deal of pacing and muttering, she sighed and smiled wryly at the comforting hump in the bed.
'At least I've still got you, Uncle Julian. Looks like it's just going to be the two of us.'
At first the knock on the door was so tentative that she hardly heard it. She hesitated, and decided it couldn't be David. David, particularly in the mood in which she had left him, would never be tentative. She knew that some of the staff and parents were still up and about because she had heard chatter and the clink of crockery in the kitchen.
It was David.
'What do you want?'
He smiled as tentatively as he had knocked, and Clare had a very clear image of hastily donned sheep's clothing. 'I had no right to say those things. I lost my temper. I'm glad you decided to come back here.'
The hint of satisfaction in the soft words stiffened Clare's spine. 'It's late and I'm tired. You can do your grovelling in the morning.' She tried to close the door, but it wasn't a sheep's hoof that slammed against it. Clare looked from the strong, flat hand to the dark Slavonic face.
'Clare, please. My mother always used to warn me against letting the sun go down on an argument.'
'It's nearly midnight, the sun went down hours ago,' Clare pointed out tartly.
'If you let me in, I'll explain—'
Clare thought of the lump in the bed behind her, and tightened her hand nervously on the doorhandle. 'In the morning.' Unfortunately her voice wavered and she could feel a blush sneaking up her throat. David's eyes sharpened. He tried to look beyond Her into the room, and she made the mistake of trying to narrow the gap in the door to prevent him. The sheepskin slid to the floor and the wolf, or rather the bear, showed its savage teeth.
'What are you trying to hide, Clare?'
'Nothing.' Her flush mounted at the lie. David's eyes sank to the loving yellow silk.
