Daphne Clair - Wife To A Stranger

Rolfe moved towards her, his hands going to her waist. He studied her face, his eyes very dark and enigmatic. Then he tightened his grip and lifted her down, and she felt his lips brush her forehead before he let her go. ‘Maybe we were in too much of a hurry back then. This could give us another chance.’

‘Another chance?’

‘To get to know each other again,’ he suggested. ‘It’ll be…different this time.’

‘I want to get to know you,’ she told him, still feeling breathless. ‘Thank you for being so understanding.’

His continued scrutiny of her turned curious, even puzzled. He nodded. ‘It could be…my pleasure,’ he said rather obscurely.

She looked away from the disturbing light in his eyes. ‘Do you mind if I wander around—familiarise myself with the house?’

‘It’s your home, Capri. Would you like me to come with you?’

‘In case I get lost?’ She gave him a pale smile. It was a big house, but hardly a castle.

‘In case you want to ask questions.’ His eyes cooling, he asked abruptly, ‘You’re not faking this, are you?’

She blinked. ‘Faking?’

Impatiently, Rolfe shook his head. ‘No, of course not,’ he answered himself. ‘There’s no reason—’

‘Well, you’d know better than me about that!’ she said with a spurt of indignation. ‘Why would anyone want to fake amnesia? It’s no picnic!’

‘It was just a thought.’

‘You have very strange thoughts!’

‘You don’t know the half of them.’ His eyes held hers, sending hot shivers down her spine. He moved away from her. ‘Go and take your tour of the house,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in the lounge if you want me. You do know where that is?’

‘Yes, we passed it on the way in.’

She left it until last, after she had seen the several bedrooms and another bathroom, the utility room, and one that must be Rolfe’s office, with bookshelves, filing cabinets and a desktop computer. And a room that held a sewing machine, a work-table strewn with paper templates, and shelves filled with pattern books, fashion magazines, and piles of fabric, a sumptuous collection of colour and texture. A dressmaker’s adjustable form stood in one corner, and here too there was a computer, with a box of disks beside it.

She retraced her steps to the wide lobby-cumpassageway and the double doors leading to the lounge. Like the rest of the house, the large room was furnished with taste and discernment—she could almost picture the words in some glossy magazine.

Rolfe was sprawled on a long off-white sofa, reading a newspaper and listening to something she vaguely thought was Mozart. She said, ‘I found the sewing room.’

‘Yes?’ He swung his feet onto the carpet and picked up a remote control, muting the music to a low background sound.

‘Am I a dressmaker?’

Rolfe smiled with a hint of incredulity. ‘A dressmaker? You’d hate to be called that. Come over here.’ He indicated the space on the sofa beside him and folded the paper, putting it aside on an elegant glass table.

Tensely she walked over and sat down, leaving two feet of space between them. ‘It doesn’t look like a home sewing room,’ she said. ‘It’s a workroom. What did I do?’

‘You do some fashion design,’ he said patiently. ‘You’re quite talented. Although…’

‘Although what?’

He shrugged ‘You’ve come close to winning awards a couple of times, but…your temperament isn’t suited to steady work. You have flashes of inspiration, work on them like mad for a few weeks, and need as many weeks to recover—and, I suppose, to allow the creative juices to flow again. It isn’t a style that adjusts well to the business world.’

Digesting that, she glanced around the room. The long sofas arranged in a U-shape with glass end tables, and the group of chairs around another, larger glass table looked comfortable enough. The pictures on the walls were originals and she recognised the signatures on a couple of them.

The drapes that Rolfe had drawn against the night were textured faille silk, well chosen to complement the turquoise carpet used throughout the house, and in the daytime to frame the view of the sea and echo its colours.

Everything was beautifully co-ordinated and money had not been stinted. But she felt like a visitor here. ‘Who decorated the rooms?’ she asked. ‘And who designed the house?’

‘One of Auckland’s top architects did the house. And we hired an interior designer. You wanted perfection and insisted on expert advice. What’s the matter?’

She had shifted restlessly, oddly dissatisfied. ‘Nothing. It’s a lovely room.’

It was a lovely room, only it seemed to lack warmth. She supposed that in summer the cool effect might be an asset.

The music had stopped. ‘Was that Mozart?’ she asked.

‘Yes—I know you’d prefer something a bit livelier. The tapes and discs are over there under the player. Why don’t you choose one?’

Hesitantly she got up and went over to the built-in unit holding the music centre, knelt and opened the top drawer.

Rolfe said, ‘Most of yours are in the second drawer down.’

She opened the next drawer. The first few labels meant little, but then she found a CD that she lifted out with delight—an album by a New Zealand group that had made the pop charts both in their home country and overseas. ‘This is one of my favourites!’

‘Yes.’ Rolfe had approached silently across the carpet and was standing just behind her, looking over her shoulder. ‘You used to play it a lot.’

And her subconscious had remembered. ‘Can we play it now?’ She twisted to look up at him.

‘Feel free.’

She turned back to the music centre, inspecting the rows of buttons and dials. It took her a minute to locate the CD component. ‘Here?’ she asked, checking.

‘Right.’

She slid out the disc that was already there and replaced it with the new one. Nothing happened, and Rolfe said, ‘You need to press the “play” button.’

Her fingers hovered as she read the labels on the various buttons, then touched one. ‘This?’

‘Yes.’

The music began, barely audible, and she asked, ‘Where’s the volume control?’

‘Here.’ His lean fingers turned the knob. A hand briefly lighted on her shoulder, then he offered it to help her up.

Taking it, she rose to her feet. ‘Thank you. Don’t you like pop music?’

‘Some.’ He let go her hand. ‘These guys are musicians. They know what they’re doing.’

‘So we have tastes in common.’

He regarded her strangely. ‘I guess we do.’

Her lips parted, her tongue caught for a moment between her teeth. ‘Of course we do, or we’d never have married.’

His laugh was brief. ‘That’s a remarkably naive view of marriage, for you.’

‘For me?’

‘For anyone,’ he amended swiftly. ‘Don’t they say opposites attract?’

‘Do they? I mean, yes, I know people say that but…I’m not sure it’s a good basis for marriage. Are we opposites?’

‘Some people might have thought so,’ he allowed. ‘But we were both willing to take a gamble on our relationship. Perhaps for different reasons.’

‘Different reasons? What were they?’

He was silent, staring down at her. ‘I can’t speak for you,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair. And as for myself…’ Shrugging, he turned away to go back to the sofa. ‘I suppose I was in love.’

‘You suppose?’ Following him, she stopped short as he sat down, facing her.

When he looked up his eyes had a strange, glazed glitter in them. His smile twisted. ‘All right,’ he said, and reached forward, his hand closing about her wrist to tug her down beside him.