Guilty Passion (11 page)

“So you did.”

She felt a flush rise in her cheeks. At the time she had hardly taken it in, because everything then had seemed to be happening at a distance, but now she remembered the implied insult when he had declined the offer. “Steven would have been more gracious in his refusal,” she said, her voice husky.

“Would Steven have refused at all?” Ethan drawled. “I thought he might have jumped at the chance.”

If he said he was surprised that
she
hadn't, Celeste thought dispassionately, she would stop the car and hit him. But he didn't. Instead, when she didn't answer the jibe, he folded his arms and to all intents and purposes went to sleep. Her foot came down unconsciously on the accelerator, and without opening his eyes, Ethan said, “There's a speed limit on the island, you know.”

She did know, and she slowed so that the needle sat just on the limit.

At the house, Ethan swung his bag out of the car and said, “Thanks. You're a good driver.”

“Thank you,” she said icily. She locked up the car as he opened the house door and stood waiting for her.

“I feel something's missing,” he said, as she made to pass him.

In the doorway, she looked back at him over her shoulder. “What?”

He gave her a gentle shove with a hand on her waist, and followed her inside. “A proper welcome home, perhaps,” he said, and pulled her briefly close, brushing her lips with his.

Before she could react at all, he let her go and made for his room, leaving her feeling ruffled and uneasy.

Steven came over in the afternoon. Ethan greeted him with rather steely courtesy, and soon afterwards took him up to the workroom. When they emerged several hours later, Celeste thought that Steven was worried and Ethan frustrated.

“Something the matter?” she asked.

“Alec used a password on some of the data on the disks,” Steven said.

“What does that mean?”

“We can't read the notes on that part of the disk,” Steven explained. “He doesn't seem to have written the password down.”

“Can't you get round the problem somehow?” Celeste asked Ethan.

“Maybe, in time. It would be simpler if we just knew what word he used, though. Have you any idea what it might have been?”

“He hardly spoke about his work to me. I guess he would use something relative to what was in the notes, wouldn't he?”

“We tried everything we could think of,” Steven said.

“Of course, it might have been something he just picked out of the air,” Ethan added. “Some word with no relevance whatever to the work he was doing. And for that matter, we've no way of knowing if that document has anything to do with his work. It could contain something else. Perhaps something personal.”

Steven said, “The rest of what's on the disk is related to the study he was doing. He must have had some other notes
somewhere
. So far, all I've seen is the background material that I gathered for him, and some stuff I pieced together with him that he intended to use when he was working on his own.”

“Nothing else?” Celeste asked.

“Well, some rather scrappy and frankly pretty useless theoretical stuff that was not much more than doodling. He was a bit cagey about the actual evidence for the theory that he was basing the project on,” Steven added hesitantly. “He said he didn't want to say too much until he had pulled the thing together, so I was working in the dark, rather. But I'm sure there was more to it than what we've found. From the research he asked me to do for him, I could see the direction his thinking was taking. I found it really exciting—enough to come up with some suggestions of my own, and he seemed to think they were pretty viable. But if we don't find out just what he was doing with the material he had. . .” Steven shoved his hands gloomily into his pockets. “I don't know.”

“I'm going to make dinner,” Celeste said. “Will you stay?” She glanced at Ethan. If she was cooking, she didn't think he could have any objection to her making the invitation.

He didn't second it. Steven said, “Sure, if it's not too much trouble. I'd like to.”

After they had eaten, the talk drifted, but eventually came back to Alec and his career. “I don't mind telling you,” Steven said, “I was thrilled to my back teeth when he accepted me as his assistant. The chance to work with someone of Alec's calibre is something people like me dream about.”

“You were a brilliant student,” Celeste said. “I remember him saying that he was lucky to get you.”

“Really? I bet he wasn't nervous like I was, though. He was very patient with me those first few weeks while I learned about his methods.”

“Alec was always patient,” Ethan said.

Steven turned to him eagerly. “Did you see much of him? He would have been years older than you, wouldn't he?”

“He came home during the university holidays. Must have found me a right little pest, but he never showed it. He taught me all kinds of things. Used to spend hours playing cricket and football with me, coaching me. In some ways—” Ethan stared into the distance, apparently forgetting who he was talking to “—he was almost like a father, rather than a brother.”

“Were there other brothers or sisters?”

Ethan shook his head. “No. Just the two of us. You're not planning to write a biography, are you?”

“Just interested,” Steven said. “But you know, that's not a bad idea. If I did, could I count on your cooperation?”

Ethan's eyes moved to Celeste and seemed to grow cold. His face went shuttered. “I'd have to think about that,” he said, and pointedly consulted his watch.

Taking the hint, Steven said, “I should be going. If I think of anything that might help with the password, I'll let you know first thing.”

Ethan nodded and stood up. “Right. I can let you have the other disks shortly, anyway. I've transferred the data on them because of possible damage to the originals, but most of it is readable, I think.”

“Thanks a lot. I've been at a bit of a loose end, with. . . everything that's happened. It'll be good to have something to work on, even if it's just checking over old ground.”

Ethan closed the door after him and came back to find Celeste washing the coffee mugs. Picking up a tea towel, he said, “He didn't just come for the disks, you know. He told me he wanted to see you.”

“I know. He told me that, too.”

“So why didn't you mention it?”

“It didn't seem important.”

“Does that mean that he isn't important to you?”

Celeste pulled the plug out of the sink and turned to face him. “Steven is a good friend. He's concerned about me, and I'm grateful for that.”

“I'm concerned about you, too.”

“I know, but. . .”

He finished what he was doing and put down the tea towel. “But?”

She moistened her lips with her tongue. “I somehow have the feeling that with you it's. . . something else. What do you want from me, Ethan?”

He gave a thin, peculiar smile. “There are times when I'm not at all sure myself.”

She said, “I can't bring your brother back.”

“You think that's what I want? Sometimes—” his mouth twisted, and she suppressed a shiver at the tortured look in his eyes “—sometimes, that's the last thing I want. Can you imagine how that feels?”

Celeste swallowed. “Yes,” she whispered. “I can.”

“Perhaps you can,” he said strangely. There was a hard light in his eyes now that frightened her. As though he couldn't help himself, his gaze wandered over her, over her cotton pants and loose shirt, and at once she felt naked. Her breathing was suddenly strained. She couldn't wrench her eyes away from his. Her lips trembled and parted.

His mouth took on a bitter curve. “My God!” he said softly, his voice filled with disgust. “What a pair we are.”

Then he turned his back on her and left the room. She heard him go out, pushing the door shut behind him. Swinging around to the sink, she held onto the counter with both hands, her head bent, eyes closed as she fought down a wave of nausea.
I have to leave
, she thought incoherently.
I have to get away from here, from Ethan
.

But in the morning she almost thought she had imagined the drama of the night before. Mrs. Jackson was there, with her down-to-earth normality, Ethan was as blandly courteous as he had ever been, and she found that she was again fighting a deadly lassitude that had the familiar effect of paralysing any ability to make coherent plans. Steven arrived with a list of words he had made that Alec might have used for a password, and the two men disappeared into the workroom. Celeste had coffee with Mrs. Jackson, then forced herself to prepare lunch for three, guessing the men would be too occupied to think about it themselves. Steven and Ethan ate rather absently before returning up the stairs. Afterwards she gathered up the things she had bought in Conneston and walked over to see Janice. She needed something to occupy her mind.

Under Janice's guidance, she began with a simple design, which she drew onto the wrong side of some tracing paper. Then she placed the penciled side of the paper on a piece of silk on a table, and went over the lines again, transferring the design lightly to the fabric. Trying to concentrate, she fixed the silk into an embroidery frame and began outlining the drawing with gutta, squeezing it out of the nozzle fitted on the bottle.

“Be careful not to leave any spaces in the lines,” Janice warned, “or the paints will bleed into each other.”

When the outlines were completed, Janice held the frame up to the light and said, “Good, I don't see any gaps. We'll leave this to dry now.” Looking shrewdly at Celeste, who had relaxed with a small sigh, she remarked, “Your heart's not in this today, is it? You've got a visitor, haven't you? If you want to get back. . .”

“No, he's with Ethan trying to work something out.” She explained about the password, and Janice said, “What was so secret?”

“Alec had grown a bit paranoid, I think. He might have thought someone would read his notes and steal his ideas.”

“You mean
really
paranoid? Or are you using a figure of speech?”

Celeste bit her lip. “I don't really know. His colleagues apparently didn't see anything wrong, and… perhaps I'm mistaken.”

Janice nodded. “I don't want to pry into your private business, my dear. But you do seem so troubled. If it would help to talk, anytime, I promise I'd respect your confidence.”

“Thank you. I know you would. But I expect it was all in my mind. Your husband seems to be of the opinion that I'm. . . mentally sick.”

“It's nothing to be ashamed of. But I don't think for a moment, and I'm sure Henry doesn't, that you are unstable or in any way unreliable. A little fragile, perhaps, emotionally. I can tell you've been under some considerable strain. You know—I hope you don't find this offensive—but when people die, one of the legacies they often leave with their loved ones is guilt.”

“Yes,” Celeste said, almost inaudibly.

“We all feel that we should have been kinder or more understanding, or realised that something was wrong much earlier. That somehow we should have prevented the death or made it easier. Or at least treated the person better. And mostly, you know, we have done our best by them. Wishing them back so that things can be different isn't going to help much.”

“But what if. . . the guilt is deserved?” Celeste said.

Janice asked, “Don't you think that you're maybe getting things out of proportion?”

Celeste leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes wearily. “I don't know. I don't know anymore. It's gone on for so long.”

Janice nodded. “Want to tell me what it's all about?”

Celeste opened her eyes. “It was. . . I'm not sure, because I don't know how he could have. . . guessed. I used to tell myself that it was all in Alec's mind, his imagination. Or maybe, in mine. Maybe what I thought was happening wasn't really happening at all. Because there was nothing. . . I mean, nothing he could have known about unless. . . and I know Ethan would never have told him. I know that. And Alec never mentioned it, not specifically. And yet. . . he knew something, he really did. If not in actual fact, he knew with his mind, with his heart. I tried to hide it, to forget it. I tried with everything in me. I did. So hard, and for so long, and with such. . . pain. But nothing could alter what had happened. It couldn't be erased, and sometimes I felt it was a mark, an indelible mark that Alec could see on me, as clearly as a brand. He knew it was there, and that was why he was. . . punishing me.”

“Punishing you?”

Celeste nodded. “For what happened—what happened between Ethan and me.”

She had first seen Ethan on her wedding day. He had flown over from America, where he was doing postgraduate computer studies, to attend. And she had been so excited and happy, so enraptured at being actually married to Alec, that beyond noticing how handsome Ethan was, and understandably experiencing a small thrill of pleasure at the admiration he didn't try to hide, she had scarcely noticed him. She had felt that the admiration was a compliment to his brother's taste, and Ethan's approval had added to the joy of the day. She knew that Alec was very fond of him.

As best man, Ethan had properly devoted most of his attention to her chief attendant, and Sandra had been ecstatic, telling Celeste as she helped her change out of her white lace dress and veil, “I've got my eye on your yummy brother-in-law. Isn't he gorgeous? Make sure you throw your bouquet in my direction. Do you think he'd take the hint?”

Celeste had laughed and promised to comply, but although Sandra duly caught the bouquet, she had later written to Celeste rather wistfully that Ethan had taken her out for supper and dancing, but nothing had come of it after all. Sandra married an accountant two years later and now had a family of four. She still lived in Auckland, New Zealand, and the letters they had exchanged gradually dwindled to cards at Christmas. Immediately after their short honeymoon Alec and Celeste had gone to Wellington, where he had taken up a new appointment.

The next time she had seen Ethan had been when he came home after completing his American studies. Alec had invited his brother to stay with them while deciding on his next career move. She and Alec had been married for just over a year.

Alec had gone to meet him at the airport, and when they arrived at the house Celeste heard the car and ran to open the door.

There was a small porch to the house, and three steps down to the driveway, where Alec had parked. Ethan got out and stood at the bottom of the steps, staring at her. She thought with a shock that she had not realised quite how good-looking he was, and then smiled as she plainly read the same thought in his eyes. She was glad she had put on one of her nicest dresses, a jade green crushed polyester, which she had teamed with a coral pink leather belt and shoes. Three tiny coral beads finished with a slender jade pendant dangled from each ear, swinging against her neck as she moved.

Ethan laughed, and said, “Hello, sister-in-law.”

Laughing back at him, she came down the steps with her hands extended in welcome. “Hello, Ethan. I'm so glad to see you again.”

He took her hands in his, holding them in a warm clasp. “It's mutual.” He hesitated for a moment, then bent and kissed her, a light, fleeting brush of his lips on hers. When he lifted his head, she saw he was no longer smiling. Then he let her go and turned to help Alec get his cases from the car.

Celeste remembered that with Ethan in the house, everything seemed to come to life. Lately she had been feeling less euphoric than in the early weeks of her marriage. The gloss had to wear off a little, she told herself. And in choosing an older man for her husband, she had invited some difficulties that she had not foreseen. Shifting to Wellington so soon after the wedding had meant leaving her friends, as well as her mother. Since her father had died when she was only ten, Celeste had only her mother, and she missed her more than she had thought possible. It was one of the things she had seized on that she and Alec had in common, both of them having been brought up by one parent.

Losing contact with her friends had caused her mixed feelings. Her engagement party had not been a wild success, for her friends had obviously felt inhibited by the presence of older people, many of their parents' generation, and Alec's friends had eyed the younger ones with varying degrees of tolerance and faint disapproval. It had the effect of making some of them defiantly noisy and boisterous, and Celeste had been torn between a desire to join in their rather childish revenge, and chagrin at what Alec and his friends were obviously thinking.

The next day she had apologised to him, miserably, and he patted her shoulder and said, “Never mind. I have to admit I'm surprised at your running around with that crowd, though. You're far more mature than any of them.”

He wouldn't have wanted to marry her if he had not thought so, she supposed. “Thank you,” she said, wondering why the simple words were like a betrayal of her friends.

“Anyway,” Alec said, picking up his stick, “we'll be meeting a whole new set of people after we're married and living in a new city.”

But of course, the people they met were Alec's colleagues at the university, most of them out of her age group. At first she exchanged letters with several of her classmates, but after a while there was less news to exchange. When Alec mentioned that she didn't seem to get so much mail these days, she said, “Well, my friends aren't writing so often. We have different interests now, you know.”

“What interests do you have?” he asked.

“Only you,” she answered, going into his arms. “It's enough, isn't it?”

He laughed and kissed her. “Suits me,” he said. And it did, she realised. He was content to be the centre of her world. That she was not the centre of his, but rather a delightful adjunct, was something that she came gradually to see, with a pang. If there had to be a choice between her and his work, the work would always win. Loyally she told herself that even insurance salesmen and bank clerks often put their careers before their families. And his work had been the most important thing in his life for a long time. She came to see that the accident that had disabled him in the course of his research had made his work even more important to him. He had to prove that the pain he had endured was not pointless, that his continued suffering had value.

He drove himself hard, and her role was to provide loving support and all the help she could give him. If sometimes she felt a bit restless, she put that down to the change in her life-style and the necessary adjustments of married life. Once she suggested she might get a job, but Alec was so opposed to it that she quickly dropped the idea. He increased the allowance he gave her, although she assured him she had not made the suggestion because she was short of money. He kissed her nose and said, “Go and buy yourself something pretty.”

She bought a seductive nightgown and was rather shaken at his reaction. He had watched her parading for him in a parody of film glamour and, instead of laughter, a strange, rigid look crossed his face, almost of fear. But then he had caught her to him and taken her to bed, making love to her with a ferocity that she had never encountered before. And afterwards, as she lay spent and a little frightened by the intensity of it all, he had said, running a caressing hand over her body, “You're mine. Don't ever forget that.”

“I won't,” she whispered, shocked. Turning to him, she put her hand on his cheek. “I could never forget it.”

The first time he took her to a public function, he had told her to get herself a new outfit for it. The hot pink dress was striking and fashionable, and Alec seemed to approve of her appearance. She thought, as he introduced her to various heads of departments and their wives, that he was enjoying showing her off. If she began to feel like a windup toy, she supposed that was just the strain of the experience. As newcomers they were no doubt being inspected in a way that was by no means unusual. And Alec, of course, was a well-known personality. As his recent bride she must expect to be subjected to curious glances and probing questions.

It was something of an ordeal, but when she confessed as much on their way home, Alec laughed and said, “Don't be silly. You'll have to get used to these functions. Of course all the old cats will be talking behind your back, knowing their husbands are envying me. You took the shine out of the lot of them tonight.”

“I just wanted to do you credit,” Celeste said, disconcerted by his assessment, and even more by the elation in his voice.

“You have,” he assured her, squeezing her hand. “I'm very proud of you.”

When had he stopped being proud of her? When had he stopped wanting to show other men what a prize he had captured, and begun to be morbidly afraid of its being taken away by one of them? She didn't know. And perhaps for a time both feelings had warred within him, for they were surely two sides of the same coin.

Six months after the wedding, her mother had visited them for a long weekend, and Alec had been charming, both to her and to Celeste. Not that he was ever anything else, Celeste reminded herself guiltily. He had never ranted at her, never raised his voice. His only fault was an occasional absentmindedness when he was deeply engrossed in his work. No reasonable woman, after all, would complain about a husband who made a point of complimenting her almost every day on how pretty she was, and telling her that other men had commented on it to him, who never criticised her for what she spent on clothing, and indeed encouraged her to buy something new when they had to attend a party or a dinner or a reception.

“He's almost too generous,” she told her mother, showing her a wardrobe full of clothes. “He seems to think I need a new dress every time we go out.”

“That's sweet,” her mother said. “You're happy with your father-figure, are you?”

“Father-figure?”

Her mother laughed a little. “Well, I couldn't help thinking that's what Alec is,” she said. “Oh, a very handsome and romantic one, I'm sure. But you did lose your dad at a young age. It's a natural sort of thing to do—marry a much older man. And I can't help noticing, he does have a rather avuncular manner with you.”

“Not always!” Celeste said, and blushed as her mother's brows rose.

“I suppose not. Well, as long as you're happy.”

Quelling a niggling, barely discernible sense of doubt, Celeste said firmly, “I am very happy. Father-figure or not, Alec is the only man for me.”

“I'm so glad.” Her mother hugged her, then said hesitantly, “There's something I want to tell you. The fact is, I've met a man. . . .”

A man who within three months had married her and taken her to live with him in Perth, on the far side of Australia. Hiding her panicky feeling of desertion, Celeste had expressed pleased approval and attended the wedding with a smile firmly fixed to her face. In the next five years she had seen her mother only four times, although they wrote often, and then had come the news that a light plane carrying her mother and the man who had made her happy in those few years had crashed in the heart of Australia, killing instantly everyone on board.

But that was later, some years after Ethan had come back to New Zealand and into Celeste's life.

Alec had been delighted to see his brother. He was full of excited enthusiasm, plying Ethan with drinks and questions and directing Celeste to sit and talk with them, even though she was preparing a special dinner for three and really needed to be checking on what was happening in the kitchen. Eventually she gently removed his arm from about her shoulder and said, “If I don't turn that chicken, it'll be burned to a crisp.”

Ethan brought some empty glasses in later, as she was dishing up. “Anything I can do?” he asked.

“No, it's almost ready, thanks. Put the glasses over there, I'll wash them later.”

“I can do it.” He began rinsing them at the sink, glancing around as she placed vegetables on the plates. “Looks good,” he said. “And smells even better. Alec says you're a great cook.”

“I'm not great,” she said. “But I can cook a decent meal.”

“He's been singing your praises,” Ethan told her. “According to him you're the most beautiful, talented, best-dressed, etcetera, etcetera. . .”

“Oh, I wish he wouldn't. . . .”

“Why not? Isn't it true?”

She looked up, flushed from her exertion and from embarrassment. His answering gaze was quizzical, reserving judgement, she thought. He took a tea towel from the rail by the sink and faced her, absently drying a glass.

“It's a lot to live up to,” she said weakly.

He nodded. “You know, I don't think Alec has been around women much,” he said. “Too busy hiking off into the wilds of New Guinea and the like. He's like a dog with two tails about you. No woman,” he added deliberately, “could be everything that he thinks you are.”

Celeste put down the dish in her hands, and stood very straight. Something—some current of awareness—flowed between them, and she saw his eyes narrow as he stiffened, too.

She said, her voice husky, “I'll do my best. I can only try.”

Ethan nodded. “Sure,” he said, overcasually, and carefully put down the glass that he had dried before picking up another.

While he waited for replies to several job applications, Ethan stayed on with Alec and Celeste. “Take Ethan swimming, Celeste,” Alec said. “It's his favourite sport, and much more fun with company.” Then he suggested other outings, telling Ethan, “I know she likes walking, and on Wellington's hills I can't keep up.”

When they came back from hiking up the steep hills to survey the view of the harbour, they found that Alec had left the university early and reached home before them.

As Ethan went off to his room, Alec said approvingly, “You've got some colour in your cheeks, Celeste. You should get out more often. You don't need to stay at home with a crock like me.”

“I like being at home with you,” she said, going over to him to kiss his cheek. “And you're not a crock.”

“But you enjoyed yourself today, didn't you? You like Ethan?” “Yes. Your brother's good company, but—”

“Well, I'm glad. I want you two to get on. Ethan and I are close, you know, in spite of the gap in our ages. It would hurt me if you two couldn't be friends.”

“We are friends,” she said. She found Ethan stimulating and interesting, and shared his sense of humour. “But we'd both like more of
your
company.”