'I'm-just going up to my room, for-for a book.'

Lily nodded and resumed what she was doing while Catherine walked quickly across the room and ran lightly up the stairs. But on the gallery, she paused. Did she really intend invading his studio? Dared she do such a thing? And what if she was discovered?

She sighed impatiently, angry with her own indecisiveness. No one knew she did not have permission to enter the studio, and she intended no harm, after all. She just wanted to see where he worked, to examine some of his canvases.

She walked along the corridor she had seen Susie taking with the tray with an outward confidence it was hard to simulate. But if she was seen, it would be better to look as if she knew where she was going.

She reached the end of the corridor without incident and there it was-the narrower flight of stairs leading to the second floor.

Taking a deep breath, she lifted her foot on to the first step, and dismissing the twinges of her conscience climbed to the top.

She was on a narrow landing with only two doors opening from it. Which to choose? She bit her lip and turned the handle of the first. It was a bathroom, and she closed the door again quickly, and reached for the second.

She found herself looking into an enormous apartment which seemed to stretch across half the width of the house. Long windows on three sides could let in the maximum amount of daylight, but right now shafts of sunlight only filtered through the slatted blinds. As in the beach house, the walls were stacked with canvases, but there were also drawing boards, tables bright with jars and tubes of colour, oils and enamels, varnishes, bottles containing brushes, pens and charcoal, palette knives, pads and drawing tablets, all the paraphernalia a.s.sociated with the craft. It was a veritable Aladdin's cave, and Catherine closed the door and leaned back against it, savouring the delights of exploration.

An easel stood in the middle of the floor, bare of any canvas. She guessed Jared had taken whatever had been on it with him. The portrait of the governor-general's lady, perhaps. The commission which was demanding his undivided attention.

She sighed and straightened, walking across the floor boards lightly, unwilling to alert anyone downstairs to an awareness of her whereabouts. She guessed this room had been specially designed to meet Jared's needs, but she doubted it was soundproofed.

There was a door at the far side of the room, and it opened, as she half expected, into a second corridor with more doors opening from it. Probably at one time, this top floor of the building had had similar proportions to the lower floors, but the need to expand the studio had divided the house. She wondered why the studio had not been built at this side of the house, but as she retraced her steps, her question answered itself. The windows at the side of the studio commanded a magnificent view of the distant ocean.

She walked across the room again, bending to examine some of the canvases leaning against the walls. They covered an amazing variety of subjects-some portraits, some landscapes--figures imprisoned forever in scenes alive with pa.s.sion and colour. The workers in the cane fields, scythes catching the sunlight, faces dark and alert, teeth white and realistically uneven. The yachts down at the Careenage, the harbour policemen in their uniforms, the sh.e.l.lfish squirming in their pots. There were fishermen and sailors, market vendors with their goods, the wobbling wheels of the 'Jackals' carts had a dimension Catherine had seldom seen.

Windmills and ruined plantation houses, the sails of a schooner in the sunset, and the seething, rolling thunder of the surf.

She was enthralled, entranced, fascinated by a talent so tangible she could actually feel it. On her knees, she turned over the canvases, feeling no sense of intrusion, absorbed as in an exhibition that had to be shared.

Behind the canvases, she came upon a handful of sketches, swiftly executed things of charcoal, pushed away where no one might be expected to see them. She turned them over rapidly, eyes widening in disbelief as she recognised their subject. Her own face stared back at her in a dozen different moods, sad and wistful, alert and excited, sulky or just plain provocative. But not just her face -her body as well, unclothed, and burgeoning with motherhood.

Her lips parted on a gasp, half admiration, half dismay, and as she sat there with the sketches in her hands, she heard footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later the studio door was thrust open. She had expected it might be Susie, Henry even, or at the outside, Elizabeth. But Jared stood there staring at her, and her hands trembled uncontrollably at the look in his eyes.

'What are you doing?' he demanded, striding across the floor and s.n.a.t.c.hing the sketches out of her grasp. 'Who gave you permission to come up here? Where's Liz? I don't believe she would do such a thing?'

Catherine remained on her knees. She had not seen Jared since she had ridden away on his motorbike leaving him stranded at the beach, and the enormity of both offences momentarily paralysed her. He looked down at her angrily, tall and disturbingly masculine in a denim waistcoat and jeans, the rolled up sketches beating a tattoo against his thigh.

'Well?' he said 'Are you dumb as well as deaf? What are you doing up here?'

Catherine expelled her breath on a sigh. 'I should have thought that was obvious. I wanted to see where you worked. I was curious. Is that unreasonable?'

'You should have asked me if you wanted to come up here.'

'Oh, yes?' She looked up at him bitterly. 'And I suppose you'd have granted my request?' She bent her head again. 'Well, anyway, it's done now. I'm sorry if you object.'

'Are you?' The sketches were thrust aside, and he hauled her unceremoniously to her feet. 'Don't pay lip service to me, Catherine! I know you too well. You're not sorry-except perhaps that you were caught!' His hands were heavy at her armpits. 'Well, I hope you're satisfied now!'

She looked up into his lean dark face, and fear had no part of the emotions she was experiencing now. She was remembering what had happened between them before she leapt on to his motorcycle and rode away--remembering his unleashed pa.s.sion, the same pa.s.sion she had just admired in his paintings, in those sketches that mocked the savagery of his anger.

'Are you?' she breathed huskily, and felt his fingers tightening as they moved down the sides of her body to her waist and lower.. .

He was looking down at her, heavy lids shadowing the grim frustration in his eyes, his mouth twisting as he acknowledged her awareness of his weakness. 'You're supposed to be at the beach house,' she whispered, her tongue appearing to moisten her upper lip, and he nodded his head in bleak resignation.

'I know, I know. But I had to come back. There were things I needed. ..' A pulse beat rapidly near his hairline, and his jaw was clenched tight.

'Wh-what things?' she probed, stretching out a hand to explore the hollow of his navel, but he knocked her fingers away and with a supreme effort thrust her away from him.

'Get out of here!' he commanded violently.

Catherine began to tremble again, but she refused to let him see how he had hurt her. 'What are you going to do with those sketches?' she asked quietly, and he swung round to face her.

'These?' He picked up the sketches from the table nearby where he had tossed them minutes before. His expression was cold and sardonic. 'What am I going to do with these? Why, what I always do with things that don't please me: I destroy them!' And before she realised his intention, he had torn the charcoal drawings into shreds and thrown the pieces into the waste bin.

Catherine was appalled. They had been so brilliant, so alive, so much a part of her that his destruction of them seemed like a partial destruction of herself.

'You-you swine!' she choked, staring down into the bin, seeing the scattered sc.r.a.ps of paper like some fantastic jigsaw puzzle that could never be solved.

'Now perhaps you'l keep away from me,' he snarled. 'You have to live in my house-but that's enough!'

Catherine stared at him blankly. 'You don't honestly think it's as easy as that!'

'Don't I?'

'You drew those sketches.'

'Yes, I did. And you know why.'

'Pagan motherhood? Oh, yes, I remember. But I never posed for you. Does Laura know about this?'

'Keep Laura's name out of it!'

'Why should I? She's so proud of you.' Catherine's voice broke on the words, but pride and something else, something she did not want to acknowledge, was driving her on. 'I'd have thought she would be the first to compliment you on the vividness of your imagina-'

'Shut up!'

With a tormented groan, he reached for her, and shuddered.

His hands slid over her shoulders and down her arms, finding her hands, and gripping them tightly. 'Oh, Catherine-Catherine!'

He spoke her name against her mouth, his breath filling her throat, parting her lips with his tongue and caressing them with his own. His eyes were open, looking into hers, but when she moved against him, she saw the darkening emotion narrowing their tawny penetration. His hands closed on the tops of her thighs and she felt the iron hardness of his body. She lifted her arms to his waist, hooking her thumbs into the low waistband of his jeans, pressing herself closer.

He seemed to have been holding himself in check, but the yielding softness of her body against his own released the need inside him. His mouth hardened into pa.s.sion, possessing hers with a rousing urgency that left her weak and clinging to him.

'This is madness!' he protested against her hair, but she shivered convulsively beneath his questing hands. 'Dear G.o.d-kiss me!

Again! Catherine, you do know what I'm going to do to you, don't you? Oh, G.o.d, of course you do. . .'

'Stop tormenting yourself, Jared,' she breathed into his chest.

'You don't understand.'

I don't want to-'

'Jared! Jared, are you up there? Is Catherine with you?'

'Laura!'

Jared's hoa.r.s.e e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was only audible to the girl in his arms.

Laura's voice echoed clearly up the narrow stairway, and Catherine's legs refused to continue to support her. When Jared dragged himself away from her, she sank down weakly on to the floorboards, cross-legged, shoulders drooping, her head almost touching her knees.

Jared cast one desperate look in her direction and then raking his hands through his hair, he walked to the head of the staircase. If his voice was a little uneven as he answered his fiancee, only Catherine was sensitive enough to hear it. She heard Laura's footsteps as she mounted the stairs, and then determinedly lifted her head as the other girl entered the studio.

'Oh, you are here, Catherine,' she exclaimed lightly, and once more Catherine was astounded by her capacity to turn a blind eye to anything that didn't appeal to her. Didn't she really suspect what had been going on? Couldn't she tell from Catherine's bruised mouth what Jared had been doing to her? Hadn't she glimpsed the slightly glazed look in Jared's eyes?

Apparently not. Laura tucked her hand through her fiance's arm, looking up at him adoringly. 'I came over to see Catherine, actually. I was so excited about the news, and I had to share it with somebody. But when Lily told me that you were here. ..'

She reached up and kissed his cheek. 'Oh, darling, thank you!'

Jared looked as if he could use a drink, and disentangling himself from her clinging hands, he walked across the room to stare grimly out of the window.

'Don't thank me, Laura,' he told her bleakly. 'It was Liz's idea. I'm not sure it was a good one.'

So they had discussed it!

Catherine scrambled to her feet. She had no part of this conversation, and again she was seeing Laura's air of confidence disintegrate.

'I'll-go down-' she began awkwardly, but Jared turned to stare at her, supporting himself with his hands against the sill.

'Why?' he demanded. 'Don't you want to hear my reasons?'

'Jared-' She glanced helplessly at Laura.

'What's wrong?' He seemed bent on a course of self-destruction.

'Laura knows what's been going on, don't you, Laura? She just doesn't want to acknowledge it.'

'Jared!'

Catherine's cheeks flamed, but Laura had, if anything, lost colour. She stood there listening to what Jared was saying, and although her expression had hardly altered, she looked frozen.

Catherine shuddered. This was awful! What was Jared trying to do? How could he profess to love someone and then treat them so abominably? Didn't he care what Laura was feeling?

'Isn't that right, Laura?'

Jared seemed determined that she should answer him, and she moved her shoulders in a helpless little gesture. 'I shouldn't have come here,' she said tremulously. 'I realise that now. You're still upset because you haven't finished the commission-'

'd.a.m.n the commission!' he swore angrily. 'Don't you listen to anything I say? I've been kissing Catherine, Laura, do you hear me? I've been holding her in my arms and caressing her, and if you hadn't interrupted us, I'd have made love to her-'

'No! '

Now it was Catherine who interrupted him, and he turned to glare at her furiously. 'What do you mean? No?'

'I mean-no. I-I wouldn't have let you.'

'You couldn't have stopped me!' His lips twisted mockingly. 'You forget-I know you, Catherine. I know all about you. And there's something about once having tasted the fruits-'

Catherine's Fingers stung across his cheek, and her hand tingled long after the tell-tale marks had appeared on his dark skin. She slapped him for herself-and for Laura; and for all the agony he evoked inside her...

For a moment she thought he intended to return the slap. His hand moved-but went to his face, his fingers probing the marks hers had made. Laura uttered a sob of dismay, and then she interposed herself between them, pushing Jared's hand aside and examining his face with anxious eyes.

'Oh, darling,' she exclaimed, her voice breaking, 'this is all my fault! Say you forgive me. I can't bear it when you're cruel to me!'

As Catherine turned unsteadily away, she encountered Jared's hard gaze above Laura's head. The contempt she read there filled her with despair, and she groped her way towards the door. She didn't understand this-she didn't understand them. What did it all mean? Would Laura really accept Jared on any terms?

On the first floor, she made her way almost automatically to her own room. She felt sick, physically nauseated by the scene she had just witnessed, torn to pieces by emotions she did not want to identify. Could Laura intend marrying Jared knowing that he was already unfaithful to her, in mind if not in body? Had she no pride? No self-respect? No pain at her own humiliation? So long as she wore his ring, was that all she cared about?

And why had Jared created that terrible scene anyway? Why couldn't he have allowed her to remain ignorant of what had occurred, even if it was only feigned? What had he hoped to gain by his revelations?

Catherine realised she was trembling, and sat down jerkily on the side of her bed. Oh, G.o.d, she thought shakily, why couldn't she hate him? Why couldn't she despise him? Was she no better than Laura? Would she be prepared to accept him on his terms?

She got up again and paced about her bedroom. No, she told herself fiercely, no! She pitied Laura, that was all. She pitied any woman who was so obsessed with a man that she would go to any lengths to keep him. And there was still Elizabeth...

Elizabeth-with whom he had discussed his wedding to Laura.

But when? When he got back in the early hours that morning?

Had he gone to her room? Had he confided what had happened to her? Had she soothed and comforted him?

Bile rose in the back of Catherine's throat, and she struggled to reach the bathroom, leaning over the basin until the violent spasm pa.s.sed. But not everything pa.s.sed so simply, she thought, grasping the door frame to support herself, as the room swam dizzily around her.

Her hands were hot and sticky with sweat, slippery against the smooth wood. She couldn't hold on. She could feel herself sliding down through waves of giddiness, but she could do nothing to save herself...

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Catherine recovered consciousness as someone was lifting her on to the bed. She opened her eyes slowly, and blinked incredulously up into Jared's dark angry face.

'Wh-what happened'.'

'You pa.s.sed out,' he replied grimly, lowering her on to the pillows, slipping off her sandals and dropping them on the floor at his feet. 'How do you feel now?'

'I'm'-Catherine glimpsed Laura's anxious face hovering behind him, and it all came flooding back, 'I'm all right.'