Court of Veils Page 13

  She felt them with her hand. ‘I hope you don’t kick,’ she said.

  ‘Lord knows. It would be better if we were both - look, I’ll try and move up under the stern seat - ouch!’

  ‘What have you done ?’ she called out.

  ‘Given myself a black eye, I think.’ Then she heard him chuckle and guessed the bump wasn’t that serious. ‘A shiner would cause comment up at the hotel in the morning, eh?’

  Isabela would probably match it with another, she thought tartly.

  She listened while he settled down, and though they weren’t touching she could feel him with her nerves. Outside in the damp darkness tree frogs seemed to croak a question; the lake water whispered and the palm leaves joined in sibilantly.

  ‘Asleep yet?’ His voice made a low thunder in the dusk.

  ‘No.’ She nestled her cheek on her hand. ‘I’m wooing it.’

  ‘Sorry I don’t know any lullabies. There was one my Indian nanny used to croon to me when I was a nipper, but it would probably sound rather odd to you.’

  ‘I bet you were as wild as an Indian when you were a boy,’ she said drowsily.

  ‘That was inevitable, especially when—’ there he broke off and Roslyn felt him shift restlessly. ‘It’s funny . . . love, I mean. Love of a place as much as for a person. It gets into your bones.’

  ‘Do you wish you had never left the jungle?’ she asked,

  ‘I’m not talking about myself,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘No. Jungle life was an experience I wouldn’t have missed for the world, but I never felt as deeply about it all as my father did. For him it was home, purpose and playground. It was his life.’

  Roslyn knew from conversations with Nanette that Duane was a reticent man when it came to his personal affairs, and she was duly surprised that he should talk to her about his father. Was it their strange surroundings which induced this mood of amity? The darkness masked them from each other, and perhaps he also felt that if he talked about his father she would feel less nervous of being so intimately alone with him.

  ‘It must have been hard for him to leave,’ she said. ‘Nanette told me that he returned to England and that was why you agreed to take charge of the plantation at Dar al Amra.’

  ‘He was sick, tired. Much as he loved the jungle, many more months of it would have killed him and in the end he agreed to retire to Loughboys, a small riverside house left to him in Kent by his brother.’

  Duane fell silent, and the frogs in the trees went on croaking their question.

  ‘You’re tired,’ he said in a moment. ‘You must want to sleep.’

  ‘It’s the kind of tiredness that won’t let me sleep, just yet,’ she replied. ‘If you want to talk, I’d like to listen.’

  ‘Like kids in a dormitory, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Kids in the dormitory of an orphanage. She couldn’t yet remember the orphanage, the place where she and Juliet Grey had grown up. But orphanages were cold places. She had never known the warmth of a close relationship with a parent, and she wanted Duane to talk to her about his father.

  ‘How is your father settling down in England?’ she asked.

  ‘Better than I’d hoped. His letters are far more cheerful than they used to be - I wanted him to join me at Dar al Amra a couple of years back, but he wouldn’t come out. He said the place held memories for him that he just couldn’t face. He stuck it out at Loughboys, and now he seems to have found compensations there. It is a place you could grow fond of.’

  ‘You’ve been there?’ Somehow she couldn’t imagine him in a quiet country setting.

  ‘I took leave and went home with my father when he retired. Loughboys hadn’t been lived in for some time and it needed painting and redecorating. We did all that ourselves, then pruned out the orchard at the back of the house, and built a large hen-coop for the pullets and cockerels he wanted to breed. It was all very different from what he’d always cared for. Different for me, too. A Tudor house with a timber porch and honeysuckle climbers arching over it. The smell of gorse, and hops drying in the oast-kilns. Church bells across fields, where barley-beards shook in the wind.

  ‘I knew it would take him a devil of a time to settle down, and I offered to stay on in England, to get a job there. But he wouldn’t hear of it. If a man sacrificed the work he loved, he said, in the, end he shrivelled as a man and became no use to anyone. But the jungle wasn’t the same without him, and I jumped at the chance Nanette offered me. Fresh surroundings, doing the work I was trained to do, and wanted to do.’

  Duane was silent a moment, then he added: ‘The jungle held memories for me, the sort I could no longer face. I - don’t suppose I shall ever go back there.’

  He didn’t say any more, and Roslyn assumed that he had fallen off to sleep. Snug under the warm canvas, she thought about the last few hours and all that had happened since Duane had forced her to stumble round that dance floor. How she had hated him. Now ... now she didn’t know what to make of him.

  Perplexed, her eyelids weighted, she drifted off to sleep and everything fell quiet.

  The morning sun struck through the boat-shed window. It moved gradually across the shed until it dwelt, like a startled eye, upon the girl and the man at either end of one of the punts. The man slept with his face buried on a bare brown arm. The girl was beginning to stir. A minute or so later her eyes opened and she was blinking at the sun.

  Where on earth ... ?

  She struggled into a sitting position and took in her surroundings ... her sleeping companion.

  It was the stiffness of her shoulder that brought back last night’s adventure with a rush. There had been a violent storm, with torrential rain, and lightning so bad it had blasted a palm tree. The cliff-path to the hotel had been all but swept away, and Duane had said they must stay down here until morning.

  Now it was morning, and it was so good to see the sun and hear birds whistling outside. She flexed her shoulder-blades, then slipped out of the punt, careful not to disturb Duane before she had put on her trews and her shirt. The shirt was the drip-dry sort, but her trews still felt a bit tacky. She zipped the waist of them, and studied Duane before she had put on her trews and her shirt. He would awake any second now, but despite this she took a step closer to the punt and saw with wonderment how sleep robbed him of his aggressiveness, tamed him . . . made a boy of him, almost.

  His profile seemed less fierce, but that was because his eyes were closed and his lips a little open as he breathed in sleep. Then, as the sunlight shafted across his eyes and he began to stir, she turned and made for the door. She unlatched it and went outside.

  A morning mist hung over the lake, but already the sun was warm and drying out the puddles left by the rain. She went to the edge of the lake, knelt down and scooped water into her palms. She washed her face as best she could and after dabbing it dry with her handkerchief, dipped a comer of the cambric in the water and gave her teeth a makeshift scrub. She had no comb with her and used her fingers to get the tangles out of her hair.

  She must still look bedraggled, but it couldn’t be helped.

  A smell of mud and wrack hung on the morning air, and she guessed from the noise the birds were making that it was still very early. They winged from the shore to that green island in the centre of the lake, large birds and smaller ones that sped through the air like coloured arrows.

  She watched them for a few minutes, then made her way back to the boat-shed, where she found Duane folding and re-stacking the canvas they had made use of. ‘G-good morning,’ she said a trifle nervously. ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘No, I’m almost through.’ And as she watched, he heaved the punt back into position for repairs to its planking, dusted off his hands on the sides of his trousers and pulled on his sweater. Gone was that air of boyishness while he slept. With his unshaven chin and untidy copper hair he looked like a desperado, and she found herself backing out of the shed as he came toward
s her, his shirt in his hand.

  ‘The ends of your hair are wet,’ he said. ‘Had a cat’s lick and a promise in the lake?’

  She nodded, thrust her hands into the pockets of her trews and put on a nonchalant air. His voice had struck her as curt, his eyes as she met them were a cool green. He was armoured again, and the naturalness and ease between them was gone with the storm, the night, the putting in order of the strange sleeping quarters they had shared.

  He took a look along the shore, littered forlornly with broken branches, palm fronds and bird nests. The sun was spreading, dispelling the mist over the lake, and crusting the mud pools. ‘I’ll just splash my face, then we’ll take a look at the cliff-path and see about getting back to the hotel.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘What is the time?’

  He glanced at his wristwatch, the leather strap only a shade darker than his sun-tanned skin. ‘Five-forty,’ he said, and she saw his lip quirk with that smile that wasn’t kind. ‘We might manage to get back before we’re missed. You’re anxious for that, eh?’

  ‘What’s the odds?’ She tilted her chin and hoped she looked braver than she felt. ‘Some of the hotel staff are bound to see us.’

  ‘They might think we were on our way back to the hotel after taking a look at the landslide,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Of course,’ she said doubtfully. ‘I didn’t think of that.’ ‘Then again,’ his laugh was sardonic, ‘neither of us look as though we’ve slept anything but rough. You look as though you fell in a pond and had to be fished out and dried off in the sun. What I look like probably doesn’t dare description.’

  She swept her eyes over him, nettled. ‘You look as though you pushed me in the pond in the first place,’ she flashed.

  ‘Temper, temper,’ he chided her, then he swung about and crunched storm-wrack and drying sand under his shoes as he strode to the lake-edge. There he flung handfuls of water over his hair and his face, and dried off on the shirt that had once looked so crisp and white under his dinner-jacket. He threw it carelessly to one side, and as he rejoined Roslyn he flattened his hair with his palms. Hair as truculent and unmanageable as he was, the colour of brush-fire as the sun touched it.

  ‘That feels better, but I could go something to eat.’ He narrowed his eyes in self-torturing speculation. ‘A large plate of crisp-dried whitebait, with a stack of brown bread and butter, and a pot of coffee on the side. How does that sound?’

  ‘Sadistic,’ she rejoined. ‘Mr. Hunter, let me point out that the sooner we climb that cliffside, the sooner we will both get our breakfast.’

  ‘That path was in a pretty awful mess last night, and climbing it this morning isn’t going to be a picnic. I may decide to climb it alone - now don’t flash those grey eyes at me! If I say you stay down here a while longer, then you stay. I’ll get some help, and ropes to haul you up.’

  ‘I’m not helpless,’ she stormed. ‘I’ll climb that cliffside if it’s safe enough for you, and you won’t stop me.’

  ‘You think not?’ He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and stood looking down at her. ‘Obstinacy I can take because I happen to be that way myself, but you have another reason for wanting to get back into that hotel without anyone knowing about our little adventure. You’re afraid of what Tristan will think. To him you’re the little girl who hasn’t long trumbled out of the peach tree, and you don’t want to spoil his charming picture.’ ‘You - you cruel devil!’ She swung her hand at his jaw, but swiftly he caught and gripped it.

  ‘It wouldn’t occur to you, puss, that you’re being unkind yourself, not to say a little cruel.’ Now he held both her hands, and his teeth showed in a faint, thin smile as he gazed down at her, taking in the flushes high on her cheekbones, and the furious blaze in her eyes.

  ‘You and Tristan saw Isabela leaving my bedroom yesterday afternoon,’ he went on. ‘You both assumed I had been making love to her, and you’ve got it into your head that Tristan will think there was a repeat performance last night, with you as the leading lady. Am I right?’

  The flushes deepened in her cheeks. ‘Why do you say I - I’m being cruel?’

  ‘You women don’t like to be told that, do you?’ His smile was grimly amused. ‘It upsets even the most hardened, I’ve noticed. Well, if it will set your mind at rest with regard to what Tristan may think of our night alone in the boat-shed, I’ll tell you what Isabela was really doing in my room. We weren’t long back from lunch, which she insisted on having at a rooftop cafe, and I was about to take a snooze when she knocked on my door. The sunshine had given her a headache and she had nothing to take for it - could I provide? When you’ve lived under the sun as long as I have you learn to be wary of the orb and - like some Aunt Polly - I always carry remedies for headaches, the collywobbles, and attacks of fever.

  ‘I mixed a headache dose for Isabela and she drank it in my room. She was on her way to her own room to sleep it off when you and Tristan appeared on the scene and saw her, seductively clad in a peignoir, leaving me with her hair down her back. It was plain what you were thinking, Miss Puss.’

  He took Roslyn by the chin and tilted her face. ‘I didn’t set you right last night because I wanted you to think my type of girl strictly Latin. It was something new for me, the care and protection of a kid for the night, and I didn’t want you to get the idea that I found you - appealing.’

  ‘I - I’ve never made that mistake,’ she protested.

  ‘No, but you were quick to think my cousin would assume that I found you irresistible.’

  ‘Well, unlike you,’ Roslyn blushed, ‘he - likes me.’

  ‘And liking someone goes hand in hand with jealousy, eh?’

  She nodded. ‘Human nature being what it is.’

  ‘Our human natures are a problem, aren’t they?’ he said dryly. ‘We’re all mysteries, to ourselves and each other. If we weren’t, you would have accepted me as a sort of big brother last night and not given the matter a second thought.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ she gave a rueful laugh, ‘you don’t look like anyone’s big brother.’

  ‘How do I look, in your opinion?’

  Like thunder and lightning, she thought swiftly. Like all the things that belong in jungles and deserts.

  ‘You’re rather formidable, and you know it,’ she rejoined. ‘You haven’t Tristan’s gift, or your grandmother’s, for putting people at their ease.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that,’ his smile was wry. ‘But you’ve got to remember that I’m a mongrel. Grossing a French bitch with a British bulldog was bound to produce someone like me. But my bark, you know, is apt to be worse than my bite, at times.’

  She smiled, but deep inside she was shocked by something in his remark that wasn’t funny. Her eyes dwelt on him, wide and curious, and abruptly he let go of her and said it was time they were taking a look at the cliff-path.

  He strode on ahead of her, and when she caught up with him he was scanning the wrecked path, the exposed roots of bushes and loose rocks. The sun had climbed higher and behind them the lake had a metallic sheen. There was a buzz of tiny insects, drawn in swarms to the mud and vegetation drying out on the shore, and Roslyn aimed self-defensive slaps at herself as she watched Duane knocking the looser rocks free of the caked mud.

  She didn’t care what decision he arrived at with regard to the safety of the climb. She wasn’t staying down here to be eaten alive by sand-flies!

  ‘Let’s take a chance,’ she said. ‘I shall be covered in bites before very long.’

  He cast her a look over his shoulder, ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But I shall go ahead and I expect you to take every step I take. Understand?’

  ‘I’m not a child.’ She beat off a persistent fly from the side of her neck. ‘Please, let’s get going! These flies are a pest, and I’m dying for a cup of coffee and a wash.’

  ‘It’s a good job we aren’t starting a trek through the jungle.’ He smiled derisively. ‘These flies are ladybirds in comparison to the sort you
have to contend with there.’

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ she said tartly. ‘But I imagine I’d be wearing protective clothing of some sort.’

  ‘Do you want to wear my sweater?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s miles too big for me - ouch!’ she slapped hard at her leg. ‘It might hamper my movements.’

  ‘It probably would,’ he agreed. ‘Now look, I want you to hold on to my belt as we climb,’ he showed her the belt under his sweater. ‘Hold on hard, and don’t try anything that I don’t.’

  ‘Aye, aye, skipper.’ She grinned jauntily enough, but the rough-stepped path she had descended last night was gone and in its place was a steep, hazardous climb up the cliffside. Here and there large boulders jutted out. If one of them tore loose and crashed down on Duane and herself, they would be badly hurt ... even killed.

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘you could go back to the boat-shed -for an hour or so. You would be free of sand-flies.’

  ‘I’m not afraid to make the climb. You wouldn’t be making it, Duane, if you thought it dangerous enough to cause you an injury. You like being strong and independent, and people who get hurt lose their strength and have to surrender themselves to the care of others.’ She smiled knowingly. ‘You wouldn’t risk that.’

  ‘Come on then, clever puss.’ He swung to face the climb and reached up to test a claw of exposed roots. They held, and when Roslyn had slid a hand under and over his leather belt, he began to pick his way up the cliff-face.

  They strained and braced and forced themselves upwards. One by one the fingernails of Roslyn’s hands broke as she clung to Duane, and used the other hand to clutch at anything that offered. The sweat ran down her back, her feet felt bruised and her calves were aching. Every now and again Duane paused to give her a rest. Birds flew about them, curious and squawking.

  ‘Oh, for the wings of a dove,’ Roslyn panted.

  ‘An eagle’s would be of more use,’ Duane threw back. ‘I’d be able to whisk you up over that summit in my beak.’

  The summit, now, was only a few yards away from where they clung like a pair of limpets to the cliffside. The sun was full on them, and Roslyn could feel his warm perspiring skin under her hand. When he began to climb again, she felt the muscles of his back, and followed doggedly where he led.