Grandie turned his head slowly and Marina knew she was not imagining the dread in his pale face.
She looked at Gideon and caught the silent warning glittering in those black eyes as he stared at Grandie in reply.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARINA played to Gideon again after their meal. Grandie came into the room and sat in his sagging old armchair with his head back, listening, a slight frown occasionally touching his face whenever he thought she had not played a passage particularly well- Grandie was a hard taskmaster. From an early age he had made her work. 'Music is nothing but work,' he said to her. 'Work hard and let the feeling come later. Without a solid base of technique, feeling floats around uselessly. Anyone can sit and feel soulful. You have to be able to translate that emotion into sound, and to do that you must reach as near perfection as you can. Practice is the only way.'
Although Gideon was silent while she played she felt him there all the time. He sat behind her where she could not see his face without turning, yet his eyes were on her and she was aware of them.
When she had ended she turned, her hands in her lap, palms upward, her eyes flying to his face in search of response. Stranger though he was, she was eager to know how he felt about her playing. He sat looking back at her with a little smile, the black eyes brilliant. For a long moment they stared at each other. Gideon was saying nothing, yet Marina felt the warm flow of communication between them, a silent exchange which held all the response she needed.
'There was some blurring in the scherzo,' Grandie said. 'You took it too fast. I heard some slide.'
Marina turned back to the piano. 'Here,' she said wryly, and played the passage again, with a more careful attention this time, picking out the notes with clarity. Turning her head with her hair flicking in a loose silver wave, she smiled at Grandie. 'Better?'
'Better,' he said, and smiled back. He would never accept second best from her. He had never accepted it from himself. He had been a world- famous name in his profession, travelling from concert hall to concert hall around the globe, feted and admired. That international acclaim had not meant as much to Grandie as knowing inside himself that he had performed a piece of music as he felt it was meant to be performed. For that he had worked and struggled. The by-product of fame had been irrelevant to him, although no doubt he had found it pleasant.
His son Peter had never shown any aptitude for music. 'Too lazy,' Grandie said with contempt. Marina was not sure what her father had done. Grandie was not forthcoming on that. He was a secretive man.
He got up, yawning. 'Bed,' he muttered. His hands were stiff and blue, thickly veined. Marina watched them fumble with the door, handle, her heart heavy. How cruel of fate to strike at Grandie through his most precious possessions, she thought sadly.
Gideon came over to the piano and drew her to her feet. He was so much taller, the black head towering over her. She had to put back her head to look at him when they were so close and when she did she found him looking at her mouth with narrowed eyes.
In any other man she might have decided by now that he was a flirt. Now and then Marina had come up against summer visitors who imagined that a girl living alone with an old man in a remote seaside village must be eager for experience. Marina had had no trouble in fending them off. None of them had ever attracted her in the slightest. She had learnt, though, to recognise the slightly insolent look which came before they tried to kiss her.
That was not the look Gideon was giving her. He was looking at her mouth with the lids half down over his eyes and his face was intent, as though it gave him deep pleasure to look at her like that.
It began softly, his lips coaxing hers, brushing them lightly. Then his hands went to her waist and drew her closer, enclosing her hands against his chest. His mouth moved delicately and she found her own parting. Gideon breathed faster. One hand moved up and down her back, fingering the fine bones, shaping her body against him. He was kissing her in a new way now. His other hand gripped the back of her head, tilting it backward, and he began to kiss her hungrily, the hard mouth demanding response.
She gasped at the change, a restless fluttering deep inside her, as though her nerves were going wild with pleasure. Her hands wriggled to free themselves and then slid round his neck, her fingertips touching the smooth skin, feeling his neck muscles tautening under her touch.
Gideon lifted his mouth to look at her. She leaned against him, flushed and trembling, her blue eyes shyly meeting his gaze. There was something of a question in his look, as though he were waiting for an answer to an unspoken question. Marina did not know what the question was and could not answer, but it seemed that her submissive look was the answer Gideon wanted, because after a moment he brought his mouth down again with a hunger which tore through her body with the shock of a blow.
He sat down in Grandie's armchair with her on his lap and kissed her deeply, one hand running over her relaxed body. It never even entered her head to be horrified or alarmed by the fondling movement of that hand. Gideon was caressing her shoulders, her breasts, her waist, and she was not protesting or finding anything novel or terrifying in what he was doing. She clasped her arms behind his dark head and sighed with pleasure.
The door opened suddenly. Gideon's hand lay on her breast, his fingers splayed sensually, the tips stroking her. He lifted his black head and slowly took his hand away. Marina felt hot colour rushing into her face. She tried to sit up on Gideon's lap, throwing a horrified look at the door, but Gideon restrained her firmly.
'Goodnight,' Grandie said brusquely. The door shut.
Marina stared at it and turned her incredulous eyes on Gideon. He lay back, in the chair, watching her.
She was sensitive to every tiny mood of her grandfather.
She had lived alone with him for too long not to catch each flicker of feeling or thought in him. She had felt just now that Grandie was angry, that he was shocked. He had not said a word, yet she had heard his unspoken protest at what he had seen. Yet he had gone without saying anything. She probed Gideon's glittering black eyes for a clue. Why had Grandie said nothing? Why had he merely gone out silently?
Gideon revealed nothing to her questioning eyes. He gave her a strange little smile. 'Bedtime, I think,' he said, and she could not fail to hear the reluctance in his voice, the deep tone which held an aroused passion.
In her own room she undressed and got into her bed, listening to the movements from Gideon's room, the creak of the ancient floorboards, the tiny sound of him winding his watch. She had her curtains drawn back. Moonlight streamed into the room like silent dust settling on all the furniture and silvering it. The sea was running softly tonight, a slow sad whisper far away as it began to withdraw once more.
Emma and Meg sat upright at the end of the bed. In the moonlight their faces had a listening awareness. 'Is he blackmailing Grandie?' Marina asked them. Her toes made little bumps under the bed clothes and she wiggled them thoughtfully. 'If he was, wouldn't Grandie hate him? And he doesn't. Tonight he smiled at Gideon several times as though he liked him. But although he likes him he seems bothered by him. It isn't as if Grandie is afraid of him, more as if he's worried by something about him.'
Her cheeks went pink as she remembered the way Gideon had kissed and caressed her. It had seemed so natural and right, as though it had happened many times before. Those long fingers had known their way around her body and her body had known their touch.
'It's creepy,' she said with a shiver. 'It must be reincarnation.' She felt the silent laughter of the dolls and made a face at them. 'Well, there has to be some explanation.'
Closing her eyes, she listened to the sea and gradually fell asleep, but it was a restless sleep. The moonlight lay upon her lids and filled her inner eye with dreams. She dreamt she was flying, floating, oddly weightless and free, the wind in her long hair.
Then she stood in a room and stared through the moonlight at a bed. Gideon sat up from a sleep- tossed sheet. It slid off him and she saw his shoulders bare, gleaming smoothly in the pale light. She floated over a floor she never touched and knelt on the bed, her eyes on his body. He wasn't speaking or moving. The heavy lids were way back from his eyes and they were gleaming like dark wells, watching her. She sank back on her heels, putting out a hand. It gently touched his shoulder, felt the roundness of the shoulderbone, fingered along the collarbone as though she were playing the piano.