House of Storms (15 page)

'I—I told you why, Nanny Rose.'

'So you did, ducky.'

'But don't you think it's impossible?'

Nanny Rose thoughtfully poured two cups of tea from the brown glazed teapot she had treasured through many households where she had worked as a nanny. 'It's time he settled down and to my way of thinking a kind-hearted girl like yourself would be better for him than the Chandler girl, for all her beauty and worldly ways.'

'They belong to the same social circle and she is stunning.' Debra ruminated. 'I was watching them together at the party and they looked well-matched.'

'So you don't think you're a match for him?' Nanny Rose placed Debra's cup of tea in front of her and removed the reluctant little boy to his high-chair. She gave him a rusk to nibble and sat down at the table, her eyes upon Debra as she stirred her tea.

Debra shook her head. 'I'd no more fit into his life than Pauline fitted into his brother's— look what became of her! Perhaps her death wasn't an accident. Perhaps she took her own life. The facts were never firmly established, were they?'

'The thing is,' Nanny Rose sipped her tea, 'Mr Rodare would take better care of a wife than his brother.'

'You mean he'd be more possessive.' Debra had to smile. 'He'll never stop being three-parts Spanish—his spine went like a ramrod when Mrs Salvador made her suggestive remarks. I knew instantly that he couldn't bear them. He not only looks as if he's stepped out of the eighteenth century but he has the duelling instinct and I can see him with a rapier in his hand, defending his honour among the misty trees at dawn.'

Debra's smile gave way to a sigh. 'But it's no joke and I think I must leave Abbeywitch.'

'I don't see why,' Nanny Rose said unexpectedly. 'You're more akin to this house than Madam herself, and ten times more akin to it than Zandra. You've taken to the place, haven't you?'

'Yes,' Debra confessed. 'I think I could stay here for ever, but Rodare has only proposed to me out of a sense of obligation and I can't let him marry someone he doesn't love.'

'All the same it's tempting, isn't it?' Nanny Rose said shrewdly. 'It isn't every girl who gets the chance to get her hands on a man like him—granted he's a proud devil, but he's every inch a man and I bet the very thought of him stirs up your blood. Marry him and make him love you, girl!'

'Marry him and make him hate me!' Debra jumped to her feet. 'I'm going to pack my things and I'll get Mickey Lee to take me across to the mainland in the launch. I shall miss you, Nanny Rose—you and little Dean.'

Debra went to the boy's high-chair and, when he smiled up at her, she caught her breath, seeing in him a fleeting resemblance to the man she had to run away from.

'Your daddy will come home soon, sweetheart.' She bent and kissed his cheek and right away he put his chubby arms around her neck and got rusk crumbs in her hair. She started to laugh, but tears rushed into her eyes and sent her running from the nursery. If this was love, she thought wildly, then it was a weepy business and no mistake. Once in her room she grabbed a paper handkerchief and scrubbed her eyes dry, and this time there was no one to stop her from packing her suitcase. Quite soon it was loaded with her belongings, and now she had to hope that she could get down to the boathouse without attracting Rodare's attention.

She mustn't see him again. His effect upon her was too unsettling and though she had sought Nanny Rose's advice she couldn't take it. To be loved by Rodare would be wonderful, but to be married to him
sans
love would be impossible. The very fact that he had stayed a single man so long was an indication that he valued his freedom and the fact that he could spend lots of time in Spain. It had come as quite a surprise to Debra that when he took a wife he either lived permanently at Abbeywitch or gave up his inheritance. It was an entailment that probably went back to the first Don Rodare and had been enforced ever since so the eldest son had to abide by the terms if the house and the island meant anything to him.

Debra buttoned her jacket and for the last time she went out on the terrace and walked to the parapet that overlooked the sea. A wind had arisen and the clouds were ripped like chiffon and the sea itself had a metallic sheen. It was as if the day matched her mood of melancholy and even as she stood there a spot of rain splashed her cheek, warning her that she had better be on her way.

She closed the terrace doors, picked up her suitcase and walked from the room where only a matter of hours ago Rodare had said emphatically that he couldn't allow her to leave Lovelis Island with mud on her name. Well, she was leaving and she didn't feel in the least besmirched . . . she thought him gallant but where was the love . . . the subtle thread that led from one heart to another and joined two people together?

Debra knew herself, she was a romantic with longings to be loved just for herself. She wasn't afraid of passion but she wanted it linked to tenderness and empathy.

She reached the hall without being seen; it was still quite early and the family and guests were either taking breakfast in their rooms or were in the morning-room with a newspaper. Mickey Lee who worked as boatman for the family always took the motorboat to the mainland in order to collect mail and newspapers, so Debra felt confident that he would be down at the boathouse pottering about. He was the housekeeper's son and slightly retarded, still having the mind of a boy in his tough frame.

Fingers tense upon the handle of her suitcase Debra hurried beneath an archway shaded by a mass of greenery and her nerves gave a jump as a black raven alighted on a branch, sharp of eye and beak, reminding her a little of the way Lenora Salvador had regarded her when she entered her room and saw what she took to be a clandestine affair between her stepson and Jack's secretary.

It would take a more open mind to believe otherwise and Debra knew that Lenora had narrow and rigid views about people and their station in life and to her way of thinking a man of means didn't consort with a secretary, and it was that factor rather than anything else which had so offended her.

Debra felt quite sure that had Lenora come upon Rodare in a compromising situation with Sharon Chandler she would coolly have looked the other way.

Debra made her way down the cliffside steps, breathing the scent of stonecrop and rock-spurrey, seeing grey seals poking their heads above water, not far beyond where the surf foamed and bubbled. The wind blew cold against her face and she caught the sound of a curlew, the storm cryer. She hurried along the sand towards the aged boathouse which looked as if it had been constructed from wreckwood; small windows peered from the bleached walls and from inside she heard the sound of hammering.

Hitching her shoulder-bag she made for the open doorway, hearing behind her the waves as they unfurled themselves on the beach with a hiss and a roar, spraying the air with moisture. A dracaena tree rattled its leaves, looking not unlike a cabbage palm, and again the curlew called.

'Mickey!' She stood in the doorway of the boathouse and saw someone large bent over the hull of a rowboat. 'I'd like you to take me across to the mainland; I'll pay you!'

The figure straightened and slowly turned to face her. He regarded her in silence for a few seconds and then came towards her, holding a claw-hammer in his hand.

'You're the Miss who works for Mister Jack,' he said, and his smile was strangely flickering for it revealed a silver tooth near the front of his mouth. He was hulking and Debra knew that he took part in wrestling bouts, a still very competitive sport in Cornwall. Debra tried not to shrink away from the bulk of him and that strange smile.

'That's right,' she said. 'I was working for him up until today, but now I'm leaving and I have to get to the mainland so I can catch the train for London. I would be grateful if you'd take me in the launch, and I'll certainly pay you for your trouble.'

'But, miss,' his brow wrinkled, 'you can't leave work without your pay certificate. You won't be able to get another job.'

'I—I'll send for it,' she assured him.

'So you know where Mr Jack is staying as well?' His brow cleared and he took a step nearer to her, a confidential air about him. The others don't know. His Ma and his sister, they don't know, and I didn't even tell when Mr Rodare came and asked me. Me and Mr Jack, we played together as boys. We were friends!'

Debra gazed up into the big craggy face in which the eyes were curiously guileless and she felt a rising excitement. So Jack Salvador hadn't gone away without telling someone of his whereabouts and that person was big Mickey Lee who could probably keep a secret because he retained a childlike trust in his friends.

Suddenly her own need to get away from Cornwall as soon as possible took second place to seeing Jack Salvador so she could impress upon him the fact that he was needed by his little boy. Though Dean was still only an infant, he was a bright and inquisitive child and he would turn his affection to other people if Jack continued to stay away from him. A rift would grow between them and to Debra's way of thinking that would be a great pity, especially as the child's mother was dead.

'Mickey,' she stepped forward and took him by the arm, 'you're right about my pay certificate, I should collect it from Mr Salvador, so I think it best if you take me to him. I wouldn't want it to get lost in the post, and if that happened it would cause a lot of bother.'

He nodded in agreement, and glanced at her slender hand upon his arm; for several moments it seemed to fascinate him, then his eyes slid to her face again. 'You leaving because of
her
?'

'You mean Mrs Salvador?'

'No.' He shook his head and his gaze travelled to the waves splashing the shore where the rocks stood dark against the sullen sky. 'She wasn't golden any more when they found her, she was all white like the marble tombstones in the churchyard of the Sacred Sorrows. You can hear the bells across the water when the wind is right—shall I show you where they found her, miss?'

And before Debra could quickly say no, he began to take long strides along the beach where the wind had torn seaweed from the rocks so it was scattered across the sand like drowned hair. Debra followed in the wake of Mickey Lee, for she had to conciliate him if she was to persuade him to take her to Jack Salvador.

He approached a jagged line of rocks where large pools of water would be deep enough to drown someone when the tide swept in, and there he paused and pointed with the clawhammer towards one of the pools. 'The tide left her there.' Mickey Lee stared downwards as if he still saw Pauline floating there, battered and lifeless, her hair like the seaweed on the sands. 'She was stony-drowned and there was no more laughing in her eyes.'

Abruptly he swung round and Debra noticed how hulking and dark he looked, as if chiselled from rock himself. She realised how alone with him she was, here on the beach which during her first weeks on the island she had freely used without realising any danger until Rodare had ordered her to take care.

She gave a sudden shiver and couldn't help but wonder what would have happened had it been Mickey Lee who had been standing over her instead of Rodare, seeing her not with Rodare's worldly eyes but with eyes which had noticed Pauline's golden looks.

'We must be on our way, Mickey.' Debra infused a note of authority into her voice. 'It's going to rain and I want to see Mr Salvador as soon as possible so I can collect my pay certificate. Come along!'

She turned and hurried back towards the boathouse, aware of him lumbering along behind her, that horrible-looking hammer in his hand. She was glad when he discarded it in order to stow her suitcase on the motorboat and then hand her in. The motor chugged into life and they were off, bouncing over the waves as they headed in the direction of the nearest mainland harbour which was at Penarth. She couldn't ask Mickey too many questions or he would guess that she hadn't any idea where Jack Salvador was staying.

Jack's family presumed that he had gone abroad, but as he was obviously in touch with Mickey he was more than likely in Penarth itself, needing to be near his son and yet unable to face a return to the island where everything reminded him of Pauline. In love with her or not her death was haunting him, and Debra knew from working on his book that he had a strain of sensitivity that other members of his family seemed to lack.

Debra had to include Rodare; she knew of his power and his pride but she doubted if he was a sensitive person.

'It's a shame you're leaving,' Mickey said at last, as if being on the water had lightened his mood. 'Mr Jack will be ever so sorry because he told me he was glad he had you working on his book.'

'That was nice of him.' Debra tried to look at ease, as if she were on her way to see a man she knew rather than someone who in person was a stranger to her. She knew Jack's voice, for she had listened to it often enough. She admired his work, but beyond that she wouldn't have known him had she passed him in the street . . . unless, of course, he resembled Rodare physically.

There wasn't a thing about Rodare that she would forget easily. The way he looked and spoke and carried himself, just a hint of a swagger in his walk.

'Why are you leaving?' Mickey wanted to know.

'Because I've had an argument with Mrs Salvador—the same as Miss Tucker. She isn't an easy person to please, I'm afraid.'

'I keep well out of her way.' Mickey scowled, and spray stung Debra's face as the motorboat sliced its way through the heaving sea. Overhead the sky was like armour-plating, heavy and dark with the threat of a downpour.

'The likes of her can't fire me because Mr Rodare is master of the house and what he says goes!' Mickey nodded to himself, his brows heavy and dark over his eyes. 'She don't like me and I don't like her, but there ain't a thing she can do about it. Never wept a tear she didn't, but it's known hereabouts that witches don't cry!'