Fantasy Unlimited Page 13

  No! Josh wasn't offering her love or marriage; he was extending the invitation to spend a few nights with him, to let her hair down and go a bit wild, to take on the role of the lover in a brief and very artificial play. He didn't want commitment; he wanted a few days of fun and games, a diversion, a satisfactory conclusion to his vacation. Samantha felt her sweet fantasy shatter and crack like a picture that is dropped from a great height, its shards of glass, splintered and cutting, exploding in every direction.

  'All right?' Josh asked again.

  Samantha came back to the reality of the small, hot car, the dry wind blowing in her face from the opened window, the sounds of roaring traffic in her ears. Well, she thought wryly, she wouldn't commit herself to anything either. Love might have dimmed her instinct for caution, but it hadn't entirely distinguished her instincts of self-preservation. All she had to do, she decided, was keep herself away from such dangerous places as the bedrooms of staterooms and isolated beaches.

  'Yes,' she said, 'all right.' And because her voice was so flat and calm, Josh glanced at her again. Samantha could feel his curious scrutiny, but she kept her eyes on the road, her back straight and her head held high, not knowing that the delicate sweetness of her profile made something catch in his throat and caused him to look quickly away as if she had suddenly become too bright for his eyes, far too brilliant to bear.

  It was the theory of safety in numbers that made Samantha decide to go to the dance that night, despite that fact she was still having bouts of dizziness as well as the occasional cold spell followed by the sensation that she was hot and flushed. It would have been wiser, she supposed, to crawl into bed and suffer, but she couldn't bear the idea of spending hours in her own company, arguing with herself about Josh, contemplating her own misery. Besides, she was rarely ill and, when the occasional 'flu struck, she'd always managed to shrug it off with the ease of someone who is blessed with good health. So she took two aspirins and put on her pale yellow dress, the one with filmy long sleeves and a tailored, collared neckline that contrasted strongly with its flowing skirt. A bit of cover-up hid the mauve circles beneath her eyes, and she could thank the tan she'd got for the rest. The woman in the bathroom mirror who stared back at her looked as if she had stepped out of a bandbox.

  The Princess Marguerita was due to leave that night for Crete. Its gangplank had been drawn up, and its crew were making preparations for departure. The ballroom was crowded. When Samantha entered, she was immediately assaulted by a kaleidoscope of colours and sounds, the lanterns strung across the ceiling vying in hue and shade with the women's dresses, the hum of vivacious chatter filling the air between the beat of drums and the pause of the band.

  It took Samantha a while to distinguish strangers from acquaintances, partly because of the crowd and partly because when she did so, the first identification came as something of a shock. She had to blink to make sure she wasn't seeing things, and then stepped forward in order to assure herself that she wasn't making a mistake. Not five feet in front of her was a table tucked away in a corner and, at that table, were two people. Their being together was not the surprise in itself, since David and Marybeth had been thrown together in one another's company so many times that there was no reason why they shouldn't share a table. No, it was what they were doing that rooted Samantha to the spot where she was standing.

  They were engaged in a kiss.

  And the kiss was not your garden variety that grew out of affectionate friendship. It was a full-blown, passionate kiss, with hands tangled in hair, bodies pressed together, mouths clinging to one another like limpets. The odd thing about it was that Samantha could have sworn that Marybeth had seen her before the kiss had started. Not that she minded, of course. In fact, she felt a surge of relief that David had finally found someone who was receptive to his advances. It just had never crossed her mind that that someone would be Marybeth, but then weren't shipboard romances supposed to be like that?

  The proof of that hypothesis was to be found as she headed by the corner of the dance floor and found Betty swirling past her. She gave Samantha a small smile over her partner's shoulder and a little wave before she was danced back into the crowd. Samantha had to stop once more, blink and then wonder how so much had taken place under her nose without her being aware of it all. Certainly, the very last person she would have expected Betty to be dancing with was—the purser of Vulcan Cruise Lines. The hand-wringing, spectacled and moustachioed purser.

  What else? Samantha thought as a dull throbbing began in her temples. What strange permutations of people would she find swaying on the dance floor or tucked away in small corners? Nothing was quite as it had been, and she had the feeling that she was living by old rules while everyone else had adopted a new set without telling her.

  She was, therefore, incapable of shock and surprise when she turned to find Reuben and Helen walking arm-in-arm out of the ballroom and looking into one another's eyes as if their glances had permanently locked into a mutual wavelength. Marybeth, Reuben, David, she murmured the names to herself, mentally counting fingers in her head, Betty ... that leaves Marvin. She twisted around to see if she could find Marvin among the throng of faces, but he didn't seem to be in evidence, so she shrugged and made her way to the bar. The throbbing in her head had escalated to a far more painful pounding, and she had come to the conclusion that perhaps alcohol would dull the pain.

  'Samantha darling!' The room whirled with her as she turned to face Josh. 'I've been looking all over for you.'

  'Have you?' she asked.

  His hand tucked under her elbow, his dark eyes smiled down at her. 'Didn't you think I would be?'

  It was amazing what a white dinner jacket could do for a pair of broad shoulders and an already handsome face. Samantha's head took an extra, dizzying little spin and she swayed right into Josh's arms. 'I really wasn't worried,' she said as he pulled her to him.

  His laugh was low. 'You shouldn't be.'

  To her surprise—no, she shouldn't be surprised, should she? After all, the band was playing—she and Josh were now dancing together.

  'Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?'

  The compliment insinuated itself between a memory of Josh walking out of the sea and a particularly bad throbbing over her left eye. And, instead of warming her, it triggered a suspicion that she had thought she had laid to rest days ago. What a line, a small, internal voice said. You think this guy is for real?

  She cleared her throat, looked up and discovered that she could drown in his eyes. 'N ... no, you haven't.'

  'Forgive me,' he said. 'You're very lovely.'

  She swallowed. 'Thank you.'

  'I've never really met anyone like you before.'

  The oldest cliché in the book. You'd better face it, baby, this guy has to be getting paid to deliver dialogue like that.

  Samantha tried to ignore her sly, inner voice and concentrate on what could be a delightful flirtation. 'Really?' she asked.

  'Really. You're different, you know.'

  'Oh—in what way?'

  'Cranky, irritating, frustrating, maddening ...'

  'You sure know how to pay a compliment!'

  ' ... interesting, sexy, exciting, fascinating.'

  A particularly vicious throbbing at one temple almost made Samantha faint, but she tried to ignore that, too. 'Oh,' she said lightly, 'I'm sure you've met other sexy and fascinating women before.'

  His voice was deep. 'None like you.'

  Despite her headache, she was alert enough to ask the question that she hadn't managed to get to on the beach. 'Didn't you recently have a love affair that went bad?'

  Josh paused for a moment and then once more swayed again with the music. 'How did you know about that?'

  'Helen told me.'

  'I see.'

  'Well?'

  He was silent, his eyes looking into the distance. Then he looked down at her once again. 'It was bad,' he said slowly, 'very bad.'

  'What was she l
ike?'

  'Tall, dark-haired, attractive, very wealthy. She had more money than she knew what to do with.'

  'That doesn't sound like a sin.'

  'No, but it made her very vulnerable to boredom. You see, she had everything she wanted or, if she didn't have it, she could get it so easily that it lost all meaning for her. I'm afraid I wasn't quite in her financial league, and she eventually got weary of having to spend time with a man who had to work from nine-to-five.'

  'So what happened?' she asked.

  His mouth twisted into a wry slant. 'She went on to bigger and better things—a prince of something-or-other, I think.'

  The pain he had suffered was so obvious that Samantha couldn't think of anything to say except, 'I'm sorry.'

  He smiled down at her. 'You shouldn't be. I learned something from it.'

  'What?'

  'That I was tired of casual affairs that ended on sour notes, that I didn't want to be used any more, that I was looking for something more serious.'

  Another agonising throb in her head made her look away from him and lean her cheek against his shoulder. But the pain wasn't enough to keep a note of triumph out of her inner dialogue. There, she said, is a man who has suffered and paid the price for it.

  He wouldn't have lied about that.

  Why not? It's a masterly way of eliciting sympathy.

  And he's interested in me. You heard what he said—he's looking for something more serious. He likes me! He thinks I'm fascinating and lovely and sexy and...

  The better to seduce you, my dear.

  'Sam?' His head bent lower so that his lips were by her ear. 'You know I'm crazy about you, don't you?'

  Anger, unhappiness and confusion mixed chaotically with the unmerciful pounding in her head. Nausea rose in her throat and pressed on the back of her tongue. The ballroom seemed to slip and spin about her, a multi-coloured cube turning on end, tumbling round and round until she had had to shut her eyes or she would begin to tumble, too.

  'Sam? Are you feeling all right?'

  But she had finally managed to extricate herself from his arms, pushing him away from her with the hardest shove she could manage and sending him sprawling into another couple. There were gasps and startled looks from those around them, but Samantha didn't stay long enough to apologise. She spun away, missing the expression of shock on his face and then the sudden anger, and ran as hard as she could, fighting furiously to keep her balance, to keep the room from heaving and throwing her to one side, to keep herself from knocking into anyone as she rushed out of the door and down the corridor.

  Later, Samantha would have to give one of the stewards high marks for unflappability. He didn't seem at all surprised when she ran into him, a whirlwind of yellow silk, trembling dark curls and wide, frightened eyes, and asked him how she could make an emergency phone call to New York. 'From one of the hotels, miss.' Nor did he express shock when she demanded that the gangplank be put down again, saying that it was a matter of life and death. 'Of course,' he said soothingly and, after making her sit down in his small office, he phoned the ship's bridge. Within minutes, one of the ship's officers had arrived, had taken one look at Samantha's white face and agreed with the steward that there was probably just enough time left before embarking for Miss Lorimer to make her phone call.

  The gangplank was lowered with due speed, and Samantha was escorted by the sympathetic officer off the boat, into a taxi and down to one of the hotels.

  The hotel lobby's guests stared at her with fascination when she arrived, barefoot and clutching the officer's jacket over her shoulders. The hotel's telephone operator, a plump girl whose nonchalance was only matched by her boredom, shrugged and said, 'Sure, why not?' when the officer made his request. Then Samantha was put into the manager's deserted office where she could have some privacy, put the receiver of the phone to her ear and waited while the operator made the connection. After an interminable amount of time in which Samantha listened to assorted clickings and buzzings and tiredly imagined one tiny connector after another hooking together across thousands of miles, she finally heard a telephone ring. Despite the pounding in her skull which had grown to such proportions that it actually hurt to keep her head up straight, she stiffened in the chair.

  'Hello,' a voice said.

  Samantha felt a surge of relief. 'Grand... Margaret? It's Samantha.'

  'This is Margaret Lorimer,' the voice said tinnily. 'Please don't be put off by this damned answering machine. I don't much like it either, but I've bowed to the demands of technology. I'm sorry I can't come to the phone right now, but Cassie and I decided that we couldn't stand New York one minute longer. So we're sunning ourselves in the Caribbean and will be back at the end of May. You can leave a message if you want after the machine beeps. 'Bye now.'

  Samantha stared down at the receiver, winced when it beeped at her and then slowly put it back on its cradle, her shoulders slumping in helpless defeat. She'd never know now. Never. There was no way of proving or disproving the insinuations of that cruel inner voice.

  In the nightmare that followed, she took a few steps to the door of the manager's office. The officer, who had been chatting up the receptionist, took one look at her and ran to her side. His horrified glance .let Samantha know that she had finally started to look just as bad as she actually felt.

  'Are you all right?' he asked.

  Nausea caught hold of her and, swallowing convulsively, she shook her head.

  'Can you get back to the boat?'

  The words came out so low that he had to bend to hear them. 'I don't know.'

  He took her arm. 'Take it easy now. One step at a...'

  The door of the hotel was flung open, and Josh hurried in, the captain of the Princess Marguerita right behind him.

  'Samantha! What's wrong?'

  'Josh,' she said faintly.

  He grabbed her, his hands strong, pulling her up to him. 'Sam, why did you run away?'

  His face loomed over her. 'I...'But she could no longer speak. His dark eyes burned into her, piercing her and then sucking her up into their depths. She tried to swim against their strength and power; she tried to fight their hold on her. She struggled and the room began to sway around her, the faces of other people disappearing into a mist of grey, noises fading into a buzzing hum, light dimming until she could barely see.

  'I...' she started again, but it was too late. His eyes seemed to grow so that they were no longer eyes but pools, lakes, oceans. They sucked her in even further, swallowing her, pulling her under. Samantha made one last effort to keep her head up, but she was helpless against his force. The dark, dizzying waters closed over her head, and she fainted, not knowing that the whole room stood up in shock or that it was Josh who picked her up, one arm under her knees, the other under her shoulders so that her head lay back against his arm. He gazed down at her with a stricken look and then, pulling her up closer to him, he buried his face in her neck.

  The sun was a gold circle low in the velvety purple of the southern sky, and balmy breezes caused the clear blue water of the Caribbean to lap up against the boat. It was the cocktail hour, and the waiter went from lounge chair to lounge chair, taking drink orders from passengers who were chatting or simply lying back, letting the sun's rays heat their skin. Down from the bar area were the ping-pong tables, and the tiny slaps of small white balls against paddles gave a rhythmic backdrop to the low murmurs of conversation and the clink of glasses.

  Margaret Lorimer was sitting on a lounge chair, her tiny form wrapped in what appeared to be miles of floating pink and white floral chiffon. She wore glittering gold mules on her feet and had a delicate chain with a diamond 'M' wrapped around one small ankle. Her eyes were hidden by huge sunglasses and her white hair was twisted low on her neck into a chignon. In one beringed hand, she held a Martini, the other hand was gracefully gesturing in the air.

  'No, darling,' she was saying to the blond and beautiful young man in the chaise-longue beside her, 'I'm simply not up to
it. Shuffleboard takes up too much energy—all that bending and pushing! Besides, I've always been opposed to exercise. It's far too strenuous.'

  To her left was Cassie on another chaise-longue. She provided a stark contrast to Margaret, being dressed in a sensible pale-grey dress and white shoes with foam treads. She wore a wide-brimmed straw coolie hat to keep the sun off her face, and she was alternately sipping at a lemonade and writing a letter. Cassie never went anywhere without her stationery box.

  The sound of her pen on paper caused Margaret to glance over at her. 'Which one of your wretched relatives are you writing to now?'

  'My niece.'

  'Which one? You know I can never keep your hordes of relations straight.'

  'The one in Akron.'

  'The go-go dancer.'

  'Ballroom dancer,' Cassie corrected her. 'She teaches ballroom dancing.'

  'Hmph.' Margaret took a sip of her Martini. 'Teaching waltzes to a lot of old fogies!'

  Cassie remained undisturbed. 'Foxtrots and cha-chas,' she said 'She's a good lass, and found herself a nice fellow, too.'

  Margaret snorted once again, glanced at the blond young man at her side and said, 'Speaking of fellows, how do you suppose Samantha is getting on?'

  'She'll be having a wonderful time, I'm sure.'

  'That young lady has always been wound up tighter than a corkscrew. You know what her parents are like; Roger's so stuffy they could put him on a museum display. I don't know where he came from, I really don't. There isn't a bit of me in him.'