Free Pagan Lover by Anne Hampson Page A

back.’
    ‘Not a chance, my child. I want you and have gone to a great deal of trouble to get you. Your destiny is to be my wife, the mother of my sons—’
    ‘No! I don’t want your children!’
    The dark eyes bored into her, so that she was compelled to lower hers, and absently she began to trace a pattern on the boarded deck.
    ‘Nevertheless, you will have my children,’ he said implacably, ‘because it is my intention that you shall. Marriage without children lacks something vitally important.’
    ‘Important to what?’ She glanced sharply at him, puzzled by the inflection in his voice, for although it was stern, and dictatorial there was an underlying element which, she felt, would be important if only she could understand it.
    ‘To the success of the marriage,’ he answered after a pause which made her suspect that the words he had uttered were different from those that had previously lingered on his tongue. Had he been going to say important to ‘happiness’? she wondered, arid as a result of this idea she said,
    ‘Don’t you consider happiness important in marriage?’
    There was a strange silence after that which lasted for, perhaps half a minute. What was he thinking about?
Tara felt tensed, expectant, as if she were about to make a discovery. But it was a fleeting sensation which passed, and was to be forgotten for ever.
    ‘We shall be calling at
Corfu tomorrow,’ he told her, deliberately changing the subject. I shall go ashore and seek out my friend, the priest, who will come aboard to marry us.’
    Her heart sank to the depths, and every inch of her body went cold.
    ‘You didn’t tell me we were so close to
Corfu,’ she faltered, white to the lips.
    ‘You had no need to know,’ he returned casually. ‘I’m fully aware that at each place where we’ve stopped for fuel you have cherished the hope of escape, but by now you will, I think, have accepted that I am thorough, and that my crew are very careful to carry out my orders, which are that you are to be watched all the time that we are in any port. At
Corfu you’ll be locked in your cabin, as is usual when we’re in port.’
    She twisted her hands distractedly.
    ‘I don’t want to marry you,’ she whispered, swallowing hard because of the dryness that had settled in her throat, ‘For God’s sake, let me go! I’ve promised I will keep silent—’
    ‘How would you explain your absence?’ he broke in, his eyes flickering with interest.
    ‘I’d think of something!’ she returned wildly. ‘I lost my memory—people often do!’ –
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ he chided as if talking to someone little more than a baby. ‘You were abducted, remember?’
    ‘I’m not likely to forget—not ever as long as I live!’
    ‘Perhaps one day you will regard it as a very fortunate occurrence in your life.’ He spoke casually, lifting an indolent hand to smother a yawn. ‘You will wear the dress I bought in
Lisbon. The colour’s delightful for you, and so is the style. You like it?’ he added as if the thought had just occurred to him.
    She shook her head dumbly, thinking of her beautiful bridal gown, perfected after several fittings and now lying at the bottom of the sea. The dress
Leon had bought—among many others collected at the ports where they had stopped to refuel—was coral-gold with a tight-fitting bodice and finely-pleated skirt. The sleeves were long and full, gathered into a narrow cuff. It was a model of perfection which she felt she hated, now that her captor had decided it was to be her wedding dress.
    ‘It’s all right,’ she mumbled, realising he was waiting for an answer. ‘Is there no way I can persuade you to let me go?’ He shook his head, frowning, and before he had time to speak she was saying in a loud and vibrant voice,
    ‘This man shall not marry us! I’ll threaten him—and although you can keep me prisoner you can’t imprison my tongue! I shall put so much fear into him that he’ll refuse to marry