Cassandra's Conflict (8 page)

He tipped her chin up and looked intently at her. 'What did you think?'

'I thought you had to love people before you could ...'

'There's no such thing as love, Cassandra,' he told her quietly. 'It's a myth; a fable; a fairy story that allows women to stop feeling guilty about their sexuality. Sensuality, lust, eroticism, those are real, but not love.'

Cassandra clasped her arms round her body. He was wrong, she knew that, but after what had happened she was in no position to argue with him. 'How can you let me look after your children after this?' she asked as she began to walk away from him.

'I knew all about you when I chose you. This has nothing to do with my children. Now get some sleep. I'm away all day tomorrow, but I'll be back for dinner. If it's fine we'll dine out of doors, so much cooler for us all!' He was laughing when she closed the door behind her.

It was nearly four a.m. before the baron climbed into his circular bed, but Katya was still wide awake, staring hot-eyed into the darkness. She hadn't been able to believe it when the closed-circuit television screen went blank. At first she'd had Peter rushing round trying to mend it, and when he'd told her that it had been turned off by Dieter she'd screamed like a fishwife at him. Nothing like that had ever happened before and she felt very frightened.

'Still awake, Katya?' the baron asked softly.

'Yes.'

'Did you and Peter have a nice time?'

'Probably not as nice as you and Cassandra.'

He laughed. 'Probably not.' He put out an arm and pinioned Katya on her back. 'I hope you're not thinking of making a scene. That would be a big mistake.'

'Why should I make a scene?'

His arm relaxed. 'Quite so! I was thinking that soon we should be ready for a visit from Rupert and Francoise. Perhaps you would arrange that.'

Katya's spirits lifted. Even if Cassandra coped with Dieter and the rest of the household, she'd never cope with Rupert and Francoise. No one ever could, except for her, which was why she was still there while even pathetic Marietta was gone. Marietta, who'd made the mistake of falling in love with her debauched husband and then committed the even greater folly of telling him so.

'Don't you think Helena's growing more like Marietta every day?' she murmured as she turned over to sleep.

The baron smiled to himself. Katya was obviously badly rattled. 'Perhaps, but that's better than growing more like me! As a matter of interest, Katya, did you enjoy yourself in the gym this afternoon?'

This was one area in which Katya knew she could score. 'Yes,' she said proudly. 'The pain was unimaginably glorious. Even I have never experienced such satisfaction. It was sublime.'

Feeling slightly sick the baron turned over and went to sleep while Katya, certain that this had put her one move ahead, finally slept too.

Cassandra awoke the next morning with an aching head and dry mouth. She fumbled for the alarm clock, her fingers thick and heavy, and by the time she'd turned it off her heart was racing madly. For a few minutes she lay there wondering if she was ill, but then memories of the previous evening flashed through her mind like slides on a screen and her body went hot.

'It must have been a dream,' she murmured to herself, but when her hands moved to her breasts the tenderness of the nipples and surrounding skin told her only too clearly that she was wrong.

She stumbled out of bed and into her bathroom, then ran an extra hot bath before climbing into the sunken tub. Through the haze of oil-scented steam she was able to study herself. There were tiny red marks and the beginnings of bruises showing clearly on her small white breasts. Cassandra couldn't believe it, and yet even while she was trying to understand how it could have happened, her body was remembering the pleasures and her legs moved lazily apart beneath the water, allowing one of the jets to play between them.

The shock of the sensation it aroused brought her to her senses. Quickly she washed all over then stepped out, wrapped herself in one of the huge, soft towels and rubbed her body harshly until she was dry. Fleetingly she felt a brief moment of panic at the thought of facing the baron over breakfast, but then she remembered that he'd said he'd be away all day and she relaxed again. She just wished she could remember how Katya had come to leave them alone after dinner. There was also a vague memory of another person in the room, a watcher in the shadows, but this was confused and might, she thought, have been part of a dream rather than reality.

As soon as she'd dressed in what she thought of as a regulation dark skirt and white cotton blouse, she took out the baron's list of instructions and checked through them. After breakfast each day he wanted the girls to have some form of exercise – she decided that today they'd make use of the indoor pool tucked away in a separate building at the back of the house. Mid-morning they had a drink and then 'something educational' was meant to take them up to lunch. In the afternoons there was a rest period, and then a trip out; museums, cinemas, zoos or parks were suggestions Abigail had put in, although Cassandra felt that Christina was far too young for anything more than a zoo or park. This was followed by time to themselves, tea at five o'clock, a story and game, bath then bed by six-thirty.

Two things on the list surprised her. One was the fact that the times the children were to use the bathroom were set down, almost as though the girls wouldn't know when they needed to use it themselves, and the other was the instruction: 'You have to maintain total control of the girls at all times. Any disobedience or failure to keep to the programme must be punished immediately'

Try as she might, Cassandra couldn't work out how two small girls could fail to keep to the programme when they were entirely dependent on her to take them anywhere. Some time, she thought, she'd question him about it, but most certainly not tonight.

The girls were awake when she went in, and they looked at her in surprise. 'You came from your own room,' said Helena, quickly pulling off her nightdress and pulling on a red and white checked dress with smocking on the chest.

'Where else would I come from?' Cassandra asked.

Helena shrugged in a gesture very like her father's. 'Papa's room, or Katya's,' she added, pulling the corners of her mouth down. 'That's where Abigail usually spent the night. She only used her own room when she'd been naughty.'

Cassandra felt uneasy. 'What do you mean, naughty?'

'Don't know. Perhaps she didn't eat her food or something. What are we doing today?'

'I thought we'd go swimming this morning, and this afternoon we could go for a walk on Hampstead Heath.'

Helena shook her head. 'No, we can't, not unless we take bodyguards and you have to arrange them the day before. Don't you know anything?'

'Not really. You'll have to help me learn,' Cassandra smiled.

Helena stared at her. I'm not helping you. If you get punished we won't. Hurry up, Christy, or you'll be late and that's a penalty point.'

Cassandra took the smaller girl on her knees and began to help her with her clothes. 'I don't believe in penalty points myself. That must have been Abigail's way of doing things.'

Helena deftly fastened her sandals. 'No, it's Papa's. You shouldn't help her so much, she'll never learn anything if you spoon-feed her. Papa says spoilt children disgust him. There, I'm ready.'

Cassandra looked at the beautiful little face and noted the unusually determined set of the mouth. 'You're very quick and efficient, Helena, but somehow I don't think Christina is quite as clever. She'll need help to be as self-sufficient as you.'

'She's like Mama,' Helena said witheringly. 'Mama couldn't do anything for herself either.'

At that moment a gong sounded downstairs. 'Quick!' Helena's face flushed. 'We've only got three minutes. Come on, Christy, hurry!'

'You haven't used the bathroom,' Cassandra said.

'We have. We use it at six forty-five and then after breakfast at eight-thirty, silly. Now, come on!'

'We're the only ones eating,' Cassandra pointed out. 'If we're a few minutes late no one will ever know.'

'Lucy will know, and she'll tell. It's her job to tell. Come on, Christy!'

Cassandra followed them as they dashed along the landing and down the stairs and she felt deeply troubled. Helena wasn't behaving like a four-year-old should, and Christina seemed in a world of her own, carried along on the tide of her sister's instructions. As for Lucy caring whether they were all late for breakfast or not she couldn't imagine how Helena had become so paranoid but decided that Abigail must have lied to them in order to try and get their obedience. Well, she'd do it by love.

It was two minutes past eight when they sat down at the dining table for breakfast. The heavy curtains that had been so tightly closed the night before were tied back and the windows were all wide open, letting the morning air into the room. When Cassandra glanced at the fireplace there was no trace of any fire, and she began to wonder if the nightmare scene of the heat and heavy food had all been part of a disturbed night. They could be she knew, but the marks on her breasts were all too real.

The day passed quickly. The girls were happy and at ease in the pool, and it was so warm that although Cassandra wasn't a strong swimmer she was able to spend two hours there without getting chilled. As Helena had predicted there was no one who could take them to Hampstead Heath, so instead they went on a nature walk round the wooded area of the grounds while Cassandra taught them the names of flowers and birds.

After tea they played in the nursery with a giant floor jigsaw, its pieces large enough for Christina to handle, and then in no time they were bathed and she read them a piece from
Alice in Wonderland,
taking up from where Abigail had left the bookmark.

'I like Alice's adventures,' Helena said sleepily as Cassandra kissed her goodnight. 'She lived in a confused sort of place too, didn't she?'

'She didn't live in it, she just thought she did. It was really all a dream,' Cassandra explained.

'Was it? How do you know?'

'Because the author tells us that at the end of the book.'

'We're not in a dream, are we?'

Cassandra, remembering her own feelings when she woke that morning, could understand her confusion. 'No, you're not. This is all real.'

'I thought it was, only so many people come and go since Mama died. Will you stay long or will you cry a lot and disappear?'

Shocked, Cassandra stared at Helena, remembering that cry of pain on the day of her interview.

'Well?' Helena demanded.

Cassandra put out a hand and touched the anxious little girl gently on the forehead. 'No, I won't go,' she promised. 'I'll stay here for as long as you want me.'

'Good!'

Helena seemed satisfied, but Cassandra was very disturbed and began to wish that she had someone outside the house who knew where she was and would worry if she too 'disappeared'. But then she gave herself a mental shake.
Probably Helena thought that Abigail had disappeared, when all that had happened was that she'd been dismissed. Children were so powerless that it made them fearful, that was all.

At seven forty-five, just as stipulated on the timetable, she went downstairs and out through the French windows into the garden, remembering that the baron had said they'd be eating outside that evening.

She had taken some time deciding what to wear, embarrassment over the night before making her even more self-conscious than usual. When Katya, dressed in a minute multi-coloured bikini with matching knee length see-through shirt over the top, saw Cassandra's wide-strapped, square-necked cotton sundress with its full, fifties-style skirt, she smiled to herself. Whatever had happened last night it obviously hadn't encouraged Cassandra to take any pride in displaying her body.

'Do have a drink, Cassie. May I call you Cassie?' she added as an afterthought.

'I prefer Cassandra. My ex-husband used to call me Cassie, I always thought it made me sound like a spaniel.'

'Perhaps you reminded him of one! Try this fruit punch; it's delicious.'

Cassandra took the drink from the other woman's beautifully manicured hand and wished she could stop biting her own nails.

Katya stretched sensuously on the sunbed and gave a sigh of pleasure. 'I adore this hot weather. I'm always trying to get Dieter to spend more time abroad but he won't. He seems to like this horrible country. He shouldn't be long now, he was changing a few moments ago. How were the girls?'

'I think they've enjoyed themselves today. I certainly did.'

'I don't think enjoyment is of primary importance, is it? Dieter certainly never gave Abigail the impression that their life was meant to be one long holiday. I think you're probably too soft-hearted, which won't do them any good. I shall tell Dieter that as well.'

'We did educational things,' Cassandra said evenly. 'Learning can be fun too, and they're very young.'

At that moment the baron came up the patio steps towards them. He was wearing perfectly tailored dark blue slacks and a short-sleeved white silk shirt with blue and gold stripes in it. His fair hair looked as though it had just been washed and was falling into his eyes so that he had to keep brushing it back with his fingers. He seemed to be in a very good mood because his eyes were bright and there was a half-smile on his lips as he sat down in a reclining chair next to Katya's sunbed.

'Peter's bringing out the food, my darling. Do you intend to lie flat on your back to eat as well as for everything else today?' he asked with amusement.

Katya laughed and sat up, wrapping her arms round her tanned knees. As the shirt fell open Cassandra couldn't help but see where the bikini bottom rode up between Katya's thighs, clinging so tightly to her that her sex was clearly outlined. Embarrassed she averted her eyes.

When Peter arrived with a large tray of salads and cold meats, his eyes went straight to Katya as well, and Cassandra saw that his hands were shaking when he put the tray down on the ornate metal table. The baron watched Peter closely, and his lips curved upwards for a moment when Katya, in apparent unawareness, swung herself round to the side of the sunbed and put her feet to the ground, knees spread well apart causing the material to cling even more tightly while concealing the actual outline of her sex. It also had the effect of bringing her breasts forward, and from where Peter was standing it was possible to see the top of Katya's nipples. He glanced at the baron, but there was nothing in his employer's eyes but merriment and so, disappointed, the lad withdrew from the garden.

Cassandra, who had been very aware of what was going on, felt the same tightness in her chest that she'd experienced the previous evening, only this time it wasn't caused by lack of air.

'So, what have you done today, Cassandra?' the baron asked her abruptly.

'They've had an enjoyable day!' Katya said with a harsh laugh. 'I don't think Cassandra understands ...'

'I don't believe I spoke to you,' the baron said, keeping his dark eyes fixed on Cassandra. Katya flushed and fell silent.

'I took the girls swimming, Christina managed without a float, and this afternoon we had a nature walk in the woods.'

'Good. I understand that you wanted to go to Hampstead Heath.'

'Yes, but it seems I have to give advance notice of outings, so I've arranged that for tomorrow instead.'

'Fine. I understand also that you were all late for breakfast.'

Katya brought her knees together tightly with an air of excited anticipation. Cassandra looked at him in surprise. 'Only three minutes!'

'Three minutes or three hours, late is late. I remember making my thoughts on punctuality very clear to you from the beginning, is that not so?'

'Yes, but ...'

'Then you know that you failed to keep to the timetable. The girls were late for breakfast, and there must be a punishment.'

'It wasn't their fault,' Cassandra protested. 'It's up to me to make sure they're on time.'

He smiled gently at her, and the dimple that had intrigued her at her interview appeared again. 'But of course. I was talking about a punishment for you.'

Katya put her hands together in a tiny clapping motion and sighed with satisfaction. Bemused, Cassandra turned towards the other woman. 'I don't understand.'

'Of course you don't!'

There was no help to be had from that direction, and so Cassandra turned back to where the baron sat in his chair, watching her calmly. 'Have some more punch,' he suggested, refilling her glass, and all at once she remembered how he'd poured wine over her the night before and the memory of the cool wine on her heated nipples made her blush and she sat there helpless to stop the flow of colour as it spread from her neck up over her face.

'Isn't she adorable,' Katya said, her voice honeyed. 'I've never seen anyone blush so sweetly before!'

Cassandra grabbed the glass of punch and drank from it thirstily. It had a strong fruit flavour and she had vague memories of fruit punch being served by her parents at Christmas so she felt quite safe, certain that it couldn't be too alcoholic.