Sara Craven - Dragons Lair

She reached for the button of the bedside lamp, but as she did so, a slight sound came to her ears, and she looked up to see the bedroom door opening. Gethyn sauntered into the room, and pushed the door shut behind him. His dark hair was damp and dishevelled from the shower, and he was wearing a towelling bathrobe, and Davina knew with a sudden tightening of her stomach muscles that he wore nothing else. He strolled across the room to the side of the bed where she was lying and stood looking down at her mockingly. When he spoke, she could smell the whisky on his breath.

‘Good evening, lovely. And how are we enjoying our solitary honeymoon so far?’

She bent her head so that a swathe of dark auburn hair hung across her cheek like a curtain. ‘Gethyn, please,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I—I’m very tired.’

‘Tired, is it?’ The note of exaggerated concern in his voice was almost more than she could bear. ‘But I thought a headache was always the classic excuse—or does that come later in marriage? You’ll have to instruct me—I’m new to these feminine foibles.’

She looked up at him in swift resentment. ‘You mean I’m the first woman to refuse the great Gethyn Lloyd?’ she could not resist the biting words.

‘No, I don’t,’ he said softly. ‘Because you haven’t refused me yet, and you’d better not.’

A searing quiver of alarm ran along her senses, and this time she made no attempt to answer him.

His voice went on. ‘For the past few weeks, you’ve been promising me all the delights of Paradise. But at the same time it was made clear that you being an innocent virgin, and Mummy’s daughter to boot, it would be at a price. Well, today I paid that price, and now you’re going to keep your side of the bargain.’

‘Gethyn—no!’ She spoke then, her voice husky with suppressed tears. ‘It—it wasn’t like that, believe me.’

‘Then what was it like?’ he said gently. He took off the bathrobe and tossed it aside. ‘You have a golden opportunity, lovely, to convince me, right now.’

She was cold and trembling as he took her in his arms. As his mouth sought hers, she turned her head away, and her body flinched as his hands began their long, slow exploration. After a time, he lifted himself on to one elbow and stared down at her averted face.

‘Was it all an act, then?’ he asked, his voice harsh. ‘All that passion and promise? My God, you really had me fooled. Well, you’re cast in a new and demanding role now, Davina, and I’m sorry if you don’t know your lines.’

He took her with an insolent expertise, just short of brutality. When it was over, she lay very still, the first scalding tears squeezing from under her closed lids and trickling slowly down her face. She knew he had left the bed, and when eventually she opened her eyes, he was standing watching her, tying the belt of his bathrobe, his face sombre.

‘Goodnight, Davina.’ His voice was cool and cynical. ‘Thank you for the loan of your body. If at any time in the future you’re curious to know how it really should be between a man and a woman, you have only to let me know.’

‘I hate you!’ she whispered with passionate intensity. It might have been a trick of the lamplight, but she thought for a moment she saw him flinch. But when he spoke, the mockery was still in his voice.

‘Do you, cariad? Then that makes two of us, because I also hate myself.’

He turned and left her.

She fell into a restless uneasy sleep just before dawn. When she awoke, it was to the rattle of a breakfast trolley being wheeled into the sitting room outside. She sat up, pushing her hair back, and dragging the covers across her body as a quiet knock fell on the bedroom door. But no one made any attempt to enter, and after a moment or two she got out of bed. Her discarded nightgown lay on the floor beside the bed where Gethyn had tossed it and she kicked it out of her way with loathing. She slipped a black silk kaftan heavily embroidered with butterflies over her head, and tugged a brush through the tangle of her hair. She looked heavy-eyed, but no more so than other bride waking up after her wedding night, she decided with a wry twist of her lips.

For a moment she stood, nerving herself, then she opened the door and marched out into the sitting room with a defiant tilt to her chin. But the gesture was wasted, because the room was empty. And the breakfast in its silver chafing dishes was quite clearly for one …

She poured herself a cup of coffee, glancing in bewilderment towards the closed door on the other side of the suite. Presumably Gethyn was still asleep, in which case, who had ordered this breakfast? Cooked food was beyond her, but she took one of the warm rolls and spread it with butter. When she had drunk her coffee, she got up restlessly and wandered across to Gethyn’s door. She stood for a moment with her head bent listening for some sound of movement, but there was none, and after a brief hesitation she twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The room beyond was also deserted, the sheets and blankets stripped back, and the wardrobe door standing open, as if the occupant had made a hurried departure.

Davina’s hand stole to her mouth as the implications of this burst over her. He had gone. But where? She had never felt so humiliated. Even the degradation she had suffered at his hands the night before seemed to pale into insignificance beside this. She sank down on to the softness of the carpet and stared almost unbelievingly about her. Nothing could have underlined more bitterly the terms of their relationship, she thought, swallowing. He had married her for purely sensual reasons, and when she had proved a disappointment, he had decided to cut his losses.

Slow anger began to burn deep inside her. And what was she supposed to do? Go meekly back to her mother’s house and admit that Vanessa Greer had been right, and that it had all been a terrible mistake? She would see him in hell first!

Within an hour she had bathed, dressed and packed and was in a taxi on the way to Gethyn’s flat. It had already occurred to her that he might not be there, but the landlord lived on the premises and would have a pass-key.

But there was no need for this. As she approached the flat door, she could hear the sound of Gethyn’s typewriter. She banged her case down and beat a tattoo on the door. After the briefest of pauses, the door opened, and Gethyn stood looking down on her. He did not offer any kind of greeting or explanation, but his brows lifted almost cynically at the sight of her.

‘Come in,’ he said at last. ‘There’s some coffee if you want some.’

Davina gasped as she dumped her case down on the sofa. ‘Is that all you have to say?’

He shrugged, his thin dark face inscrutable. ‘What do you expect me to say?’ he countered.

She held on to her temper with difficulty. ‘Well, some kind of apology might do to start with. Didn’t it occur to you as you walked out this morning that I would be worried sick?’

‘Frankly, no, it didn’t. How very wifely of you,’ he said smoothly, and she could have struck him. ‘But it can’t have been too traumatic for you as you knew exactly where to come to find me.’

‘That’s hardly the point.’ Her voice rose almost to a shout. ‘You walked out on me!’

‘You didn’t really expect me to hang around that gold-plated film set playing the doting groom to your adoring bride for the benefit of a pack of hotel staff—or did you?’ He gave her a long hard look. ‘I gave in to you yesterday only because it seemed to be what you wanted. Now I’m no longer sure what it is you do want. Except that it isn’t me,’ he added almost as a casual afterthought.