A Forbidden Desire by Robyn Donald

Author:Robyn Donald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2011-05-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

PAUL left for Auckland the next morning and didn’t retun for the rest of the week.

A good thing, Jacinta told herself stubbornly, settling into a calm rhythm of writing and swimming and walking talking to Dean and Fran—even helping the housekeeper in the garden, although a gardener worked there three days a week.

She might be poised on the brink of falling in love, bu she didn’t need to go looking for trouble—and that was what she’d do if Paul was there all the time. His absence gave her a breathing space, time to compose herself.

Time to miss him.

The manuscript dawdled along—partly because she of ten found herself dreaming as she stared at the compute: screen, dreams that had nothing to do with the character: she was striving to bring to life. But also because she’d reached an impasse; although she knew what the novel’s protagonists had to do, she found to her irritation and in dignation that they weren’t satisfied with the plot she and her mother had mapped out for them. They sulked and fumed and had to be forced along their preordained paths and in the process they turned wooden and obstructive and banal.

Jacinta set her chin and struggled on.

Three days before the party she took out the sari fron the wardrobe. The short-sleeved blouse in orange silk fitted her well, settling snugly at her waist. She remembered how to get into the soft folds of the skirt, and then draped her self in the silk veil in citrus colours of mandarin and gold and bright, clear orange.

It wasn’t her usual style. The Hindu woman in the hot little shop had been an excellent saleswoman, aided as she’d been by Cynthia Lyttelton’s cries of delight and pleasure when Jacinta had modelled the sari. Jacinta had only allowed herself to be persuaded because the vivid colours did such amazing things to her skin and eyes and hair.

As she turned away to take it off she remembered with a brittle smile that she’d bought it the day after Paul had danced with her.

Her sandals, of tan leather, had the right oriental air, although to really set the costume off she needed jewellery. She’d have to do without, because apart from a pair of gold hoop earrings she had none. Even her mother’s wedding ring had been buried with her, a pathetic reminder of the lengths she’d gone to in order to keep the censorious at bay in the small town where Jacinta had grown up.

Replacing the sari in the wardrobe, she hoped fervently that the guests at Paul’s party didn’t turn up in shorts and bathing suits!

On Friday the caterers arrived and took over the kitchen Although Fran complained about the mess, she revelled in the confusion, even bringing Jacinta’s lunch to her on a tray so that she wouldn’t get in their way.

The caterers drove back to Auckland that night, and Jacinta waited for Paul’s car, but at seven the phone rang. Jacinta knew who it was even before she picked up the receiver.

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