Sara Craven - Witch's Harvest

She saw his dark face tauten, felt his possession of her quicken, deepen almost to savagery, heard a hoarse cry of satisfaction torn from his throat, and then it was over. Vasco collapsed beside her and lay breathing raggedly, his face buried in his folded arms.

Abby lay still, staring up at the ceiling. She felt bemused, cheated, every inch of her body crying out for the fulfilment she had denied it. The risk of self-betrayal now seemed small, compared with the agony she was currently experiencing, but it was still real, and his continuing presence beside her was a threat to her self-command.

Swallowing past the knot in her throat, she put out a tentative hand and touched his sweat-dampened shoulder.

‘Will you go now, please?’

There was a silence, then Vasco lifted himself up on to an elbow and stared at her, the dark brows twisted in a frown.

‘We need to talk,’ he said brusquely.

‘No!’ The sound was almost violent, and Abby made a grab for an appearance of composure at least, when she saw the astonishment in his eyes. ‘There’s—really—nothing to talk about, and I want you to leave. Now.’

For a long moment he watched her broodingly, then the bronze shoulders lifted almost negligently in a brief shrug. ‘As you wish.’

He threw back the covers and got out of bed.

For a few heart-stopping seconds Abby’s eyes drank in every strong, supple line of his magnificent body, then she turned resolutely on to her side and lay, eyes closed, listening to the small sounds of him dressing.

Then there was silence, with Abby desperately conscious that he was standing beside the bed, looking down at her. She lay rigidly, eyes clamped shut, nails curling into the palms of her hands.

Let him think she was asleep, she prayed soundlessly and absurdly. Let him—just go.

At last she heard him sigh, and move away towards the door. Then his voice, quiet and almost mocking. ‘ Adeus —handmaiden.’

She didn’t reply, or give the smallest sign that she was aware of his departure. Only when she heard the flat door open and close behind him did she dare relax, and allow herself the luxury of her first slow, bitter tears.

She awoke late the next morning, and lay for a long time, trying to summon the energy to get up and tackle the usual weekend chores.

The other tenants were away, spending the weekend with their parents as usual, so Abby was able to spend a long time in the bath, washing her skin and her hair as if she was taking part in some ritual cleansing ceremony. As she dried herself, she inspected herself almost clinically in the mirror. It seemed impossible she should look the same after what had happened, yet she did, apart from the shadows under her eyes, and a few reddened patches on her body where Vasco’s rougher skin had grazed her.

They would fade soon, she told herself vehemently. Then there would be nothing to remind her what an abject, appalling fool she’d made of herself.

For once she didn’t bother to get dressed. She just put on her robe, while she started straightening her small domain, starting with her sleeping quarters. She dragged the sheets and covers from the bed, turned the mattress, and re-made the bed completely and immaculately, before embarking on a thorough dusting, polishing and vacuuming. She had to push herself to do it, but it seemed the only way in which she could exorcise Vasco’s presence from the room. And she needed to do that if she was to preserve some kind of sanity.

Last night had been madness, from that first moment when she had walked towards him across the crowded bar. In some secret compartment of her mind, she’d known what would happen. She’d wanted it to happen—had created it perhaps from her own need. And now she had to block it out. Forget it.

She knew she ought to go out and buy food, but she couldn’t face the thought of the bustling shopping centre, and the cheerful repartee of the shopkeepers who had become used to her regular custom. She would manage on whatever there was in the tiny fridge.

By evening the flat shone, but it had been the longest day she had ever spent, and the walls were beginning to close in on her claustrophobically.

She heated herself a tin of soup in the communal kitchen, and toasted a bread roll to go with it. She was tempted to eat there too, but the silence seemed oppressive, and eventually she carried the tray back to her flat, and had her meal by the fire. She turned on the television and sat through a raucously cheerful quiz show, before turning to a disaster movie on another channel. But the trials and tribulations of the assorted misfits threatened with total annihilation by an impending tidal wave seemed minor, compared with her own problems.

‘Serves them right,’ she muttered.

She was going to turn the set off, when the doorbell rang, and she stiffened. It was probably Keith, calling to apologise for his bad-tempered departure the previous night. She hadn’t the slightest wish to see him, or hear any apology he might wish to make. And if she kept quiet, he might go away.

The doorbell sounded again imperiously, and she sighed. Of course. The passage was in darkness, and he would see her light shining under the door.

She took a reluctant step towards the door, then halted, as another realisation burst on her. It might not be Keith at all. It could well be Della, hotfoot from Paris, and demanding to know what had happened to her letter.

Abby’s mouth felt dry suddenly, and she passed her tongue rapidly over her lips. Oh God, she couldn’t face Della, or the inevitable scene that would ensue.

Now that her cousin’s scheme for bringing Vasco to heel had gone disastrously wrong, she would be looking round for a scapegoat, and Abby was already too consumed with unhappy guilt to be able to cope.

The bell stopped ringing, and she drew a sigh of relief. But any hope that she was to be left in peace proved shortlived. Her visitor was now knocking on the door in a crescendo of sound which would disturb every other tenant in the building.

‘All right,’ she called wearily. ‘Just a minute!’

As she unfastened the latch, the door was pushed determinedly from the outside, and Vasco da Carvalho walked in. He slammed the door behind him and stood regarding her grimly.

Abby’s hand stole to her throat. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded croakily.

‘To talk to you.’ His tone was silken but implacable. ‘Or did you really think I could be banished so easily?’

‘I told you—there’s nothing to discuss,’ she began, but with a snort of impatience he took her arm and propelled her to the sofa.

‘Sit down,’ he directed curtly, walking to the television set and pressing the off-switch.

Abby’s brows lifted haughtily. ‘Please make yourself at home.’

He sent her a sardonic look. ‘I think I already did so—don’t you?’ Two swift strides brought him back to her side. He seemed to dwarf the room, she thought helplessly, and not merely because of his height either.

He took her small, cold hands in his and drew her down on the sofa beside him.

There was a silence, then, ‘Look at me,’ he ordered softly.

She obeyed reluctantly, looking up into his set, unsmiling face, and wondering whether she felt more wretched than foolish, and if it really mattered anyway.

He said, ‘Why did you not tell me you were a virgin?’

She shook her head, allowing a defensive curtain of hair to fall across her face. ‘I—I didn’t think it made any difference.’

He sighed. ‘You cannot be that naïve. Did you imagine I would be flattered by such a sacrifice from you?’

‘I—I wasn’t thinking very clearly at all.’ To her horror, a tear squeezed under her lashes and ran down her cheek. Vasco said something soft and pungent in his own tongue, then brushed the drop of moisture from her face with his forefinger.