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.'Did what?''Why?' she demanded.'I don't know what you mean,' said Gideon, and turned and walked towards the cottage, pulling her after him like a child, his fingers tight around her wrist.Marina was angry with him for kissing her like that for Tom to see.She knew he had done it deliberately.He had been warning Tom off—that was too obvious to miss.But why? What right did he think he had to do such a thing?As they entered the cottage Grandie looked round with that curious anxiety in his face and the anxiety grew as he took in Marina's hot, angry face and the way Gideon was dragging her after him.'What's wrong?' he asked hoarsely.'Ask him,' Marina said crossly, freeing herself with a yank of her arm.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 FOURMarina 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
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