House of Storms (27 page)

His lip curled slightly, and Debra agonised in silence as she watched him. Was he really going to tell Sharon how he happened to know that her hair wasn't tinted. 'I doubt,' he drawled, 'if a beautician could ever reproduce that shade of hair. There are some things that only nature is in control of.'

'Such as?' Sharon's blue eyes were openly flirting with him. 'I know you Spaniards can be alarmingly frank in your opinions, so what else is nature in control of? Men and women?'

'Unquestionably,' he replied, and shot a look at his wristwatch. 'I don't know about you people but I'm ravenous, so shall we make tracks and go and have breakfast?'

'Egg, bacon and sausage, here we come!' Jack smiled sideways at Debra, but she saw in his eyes a questing look. A look that was still there when they dismounted in the stable yard and handed over the horses to the groom. Rodare ran a hand down the neck of Tidy Boy.

'Larry,' he addressed the groom, 'have you clocked this
castaña's
speed along those sands?'

'That we have, sir.' Larry broke into a grin. 'He's quite a goer and should be raced.'

'I agree with you. I think it might be a good idea to enter him for the Staunton Stakes; see about it, will you?'

'Happy to, sir.'

'Did you catch that?' Jack murmured to Debra as they entered the house through the side way. 'Tidy Boy might turn out to be a winner, so you had better lay a bet on him when the time comes.'

'He moves like silk through a loom,' she smiled. 'I'm just a little bit too light for him and my hands lack the strength he needs to keep him in control. I can see he's got Arab in him from the shape of his head.'

'Have you noticed that similarity in Rodare?'

'Yes.' She stood hesitant as Rodare entered the hall with Sharon. 'I won't join you for breakfast—'

'Oh, but you will!' Jack caught her by the hand and marched her across to the diningroom which was flooded with sunlight through the open windows. An array of covered dishes stood on the sideboard and at Jack's insistence Debra helped herself to scrambled egg and kidneys, reflecting as she did so that life for the Salvadors on their island had stood still in time and the world of convenience foods wrapped in plastic seemed a thousand miles away. She somehow guessed that Rodare was responsible for this maintenance of a timeless, untouched atmosphere at Abbeywitch, as much in keeping with life in Spain as he could make it.

As she followed Jack to the table, she couldn't help glancing round the room with a sense of appreciation. The proportions were superb, rising to a ceiling of such a felicity of detail it was almost Moorish, another reminder of what lay simmering in Salvador veins . . . there in Jack as well as Rodare, but buried deeper and not quite so close to the surface of his personality.

Through the windows as they ate breakfast there stole the strong scent of flowers and watered flagstones drying in the sun beneath broad-leafed trees—camellia begonias, dusky red roses, and a great bed of mixed carnations and pinks. Larkspur stood tall and blue in companion with lupins, and gypsophila spilled around a pagola. It was the kind of garden Debra's mother would have loved, for in their narrow back garden at Newington Green she had grown as many shrubs and herbs as possible, with borders of flowers edged with aubretia, that heavenly mauve plant which was one of the reasons Debra was so fond of the colour.

'That was a deep sigh?' Jack glanced up from his bacon and sausage, which he was greedily tucking into. At the other end of the long table Sharon was carrying on her flirtation with Rodare, who seemed in a mood to be charmed by her.

'I was thinking how many flowers you have in the garden here at Abbeywitch, such an abundance of them, as if they thrive on the sea air.'

'The island is in the same stream of climate as the Scilly Isles.' He broke a piece of toast and buttered it. 'It wouldn't have suited our infamous ancestor if it had been a cold island, for Spaniards love the sun.'

'The desert in them,' she murmured. 'Shades of the sirocco and the seraglio.'

His lips quirked. 'So you've noticed Rodare with his head inclined to Sharon's lively chatter. She does look the kind of bright flower he might want to lock up with the seven keys of Moorish legend, behind the iron grilles of his granja deep in the heart of Andalucia. Those roses you can smell are from cuttings he brought from there, so deep red and velvety they hold their scent for hours, especially in the evening.'

Jack paused to refill Debra's coffee cup. 'You haven't changed your mind about this evening?'

'No.' But she had to brace herself to say it. 'I don't go back on my word if I can help it.'

'You went back on your word where Rodare was concerned.'

'Oh—that.' She buried her nose in her cup of delicious coffee which she knew to be percolated from Brazilian beans especially ordered for the household. 'The entire idea was farcical and I said so.'

'You actually used that word in reference to his—proposal?'

'Yes, I said it was a farce and that couples in this country cared first and foremost about each other.'

'Brave words, my wench.' Jack spooned thick golden marmalade on a wedge of toast. 'No wonder there's such an atmosphere between the two of you—I noticed it this morning. You could have cut it with a knife.'

'I daresay.' She managed to sound cool and casual. 'Anyway, he dredged up some of his Latin courtesy and apologised for calling me a novice where riding is concerned.'

Jack gave a quiet laugh, but his eyes were thoughtful as they dwelt on her face and hair in the stream of sunlight through the windows. She felt her skin warming beneath his gaze and knew what was going through his mind . . . he was curious about Rodare's insistence that her hair was naturally
castaña
, as he had called the chestnut horse.

Indelibly fixed in Debra's mind was an image of herself stretched upon the sand, quite nude beneath dark Spanish eyes which had not missed a detail of her person. How long he had stood regarding her before she stirred awake Debra would never know, but he had stood there long enough to have assessed each particle of her body, including such details as her natural colouring and the tiny mole on her left hip.

'Does he consider you a novice at anything else?' Jack suddenly asked, almost as if he forced out the words.

'I—don't quite know what you mean, Jack.' She wiped nervous fingers on her napkin.

'I think you do, Debra.'

With an effort she met his eyes. 'Surely by now you know your own brother and his tendency to make most things sound more significant than they are?'

'He's my half-brother,' Jack reminded her, 'and I've never been entirely sure of him. There's a Spanish word called
duende
and in so far as it can be translated it refers to shadow of the soul. It's in Spanish music, drama and the bullfight. A kind of lament. A kind of reaching out for a dream so elusive that in retaliation the crowd sits in the arena and watches a man in a suit of lights put out with a sword the light of life in a bull's eyes, then an additional barbarism is the presentation of an ear to the loveliest lady present at the ritual.'

Jack sat back in his chair and there were brooding Latin shades in his own face. 'The spectacle is so brutally beautiful that I confess to having watched it once or twice on visits to Spain, and I've always been aware that in Rodare there is a ruthlessness allied to great generosity and even compassion. He has something of a matador nature, as many Spaniards have. The game of dare or die appeals to him, but he was born a gentleman and in the main the fighters of bulls are from penurious backgrounds. The
hidalgo
of Spain is very aware of his privileges and his duties and he observes tradition up to the hilt.'

'And when he comes to England?' Debra murmured.

'I'm never sure.' Jack cast a glance at his brother who sat drinking black coffee and looking amused by his blonde companion, who seemed to have a fund of diverting conversation.

'Don't you feel just a little twinge of jealousy?' Debra was a little curious, having been told by Nanny Rose that Sharon had been very friendly with Jack before he met Pauline. 'Miss Chandler seems to be as amusing as she's pretty.'

'She's a light, sweet wine before the headier vintage,' he rejoined, rising to his feet. 'I'm going to take Dean on a visit to Nanny Rose, so come along.'

As Jack held out a hand to her, Rodare glanced in their direction and she just saved herself from accepting that extended hand. 'I'll go and change out of my breeches and boots and join you in her room,' she said, and with a polite nod at Sharon and Rodare she walked out of the dining-room.

Alone in her turret, as she changed into a cool print dress that left her arms bare, Debra let the events of the morning slide through her mind. As she braided her hair and made it into a knot at the nape of her neck, she had an image of herself riding along the sands with her hair blowing free in the balmy wind. She knew what Rodare released in her, it was a response to the primitive, a yearning to let her senses rise above her sensibility as the high tide rose above the sands until only the rocks could be seen.

That image of the ebony rocks with the sea thrashing around them was so vivid that she felt it to be a warning. She held the jade hairpin poised above her nape knot, then stabbed it home like a sharp resolution.

Never again would Rodare treat her as if she was just a body for him to enjoy . . . someone he fancied as if she were a piece of candy to melt in his mouth.

She was fiercely glad that she had retained her chastity, which some girls seemed to discard as if it were an undergarment they no longer enjoyed wearing. But for Debra it was a symbol of her independence and the right to make a choice. It was the seal of approval upon her own thoughts, actions and dreams.

With a tilt to her chin she studied her reflection in the vanity-table mirror . . . the mirror which had once held the reflection of Pauline. Had Pauline stood here and placed her hands against her body and felt the movement of the child she had denied was her husband's. She had flung the denial in Jack's face and defiantly she had told him that Dean belonged to another man.

Debra drew away from the mirror, as if Pauline might appear at her shoulder and whisper the name of the man. She turned and hastened out of the turret and was glad when she reached Nanny Rose's room and heard, as she opened the door, the sound of Dean's happy chuckling.

Nanny Rose was in an armchair by the window, cuddling Dean in her arms . . . and Mrs Salvador was also in the room and it was too late for Debra to make a retreat for Jack spoke her name.

'Come along in, Debra. I was just telling Mama how well the book is going and that we've earnt the holiday we're taking today.'

Crossing that room to the group near the window was for Debra an ordeal, for she didn't believe for one second that Lenora welcomed her back to Abbeywitch. When they looked at each other it was impossible for them to forget their last confrontation.

'So there you are, Miss Hartway.' Lenora's voice was polite and she even managed to fix her lips in a smile. 'Dear Jack is quite insistent in telling me that you are responsible for his return to us. Needless to say, had we suspected for one moment that naughty Mickey Lee knew where he was hiding, then I would have insisted that my stepson shake the information out of him. You, of course, wheedled it out of him.'

Debra caught the underlying suggestiveness in the words, but she decided that the best way to deal with Lenora was to pretend that her claws left no scratches.

'He's just like a big child,' she said quietly. 'You get more out of children with a smile than you get with a scold.'

'Really?' Lenora raised an elegant eyebrow. 'I do happen to have borne two children of my own, Miss Hartway, and I don't think dear Jack would ever say I was a scolding mother. Both my children have been as loved and spoilt as darling Dean.'

'We know we have, Mama, so don't get prickly.' Jack lightly kissed his mother's cheek. 'And as I'm a big spoilt boy I want you to pamper me by being nice to Debra who may agree to take Miss Tucker's place as my right-hand girl.'

Lenora greeted this as Debra expected, with a sharp query in a voice of silk. 'You did say right-hand, Jack?'

'I did, Mama,' he said drily.

'One way or the other, Miss Hartway,' Lenora's silken tones seemed to thread a little, 'you have the knack of making yourself indispensable to the men of this family.'

'Mama,' Jack spoke warningly, 'you've lost me one proficient secretary and I don't intend to lose another. If Debra leaves this house a second time on your account—'

'My account?' His mother looked highly indignant. 'Your half-brother had more to do with her leaving than I did, or hasn't she told you of her involvement with him?'

'Debra has told me all about it.' But he spoke with just a touch of constraint. 'Anyway, let's drop the subject. I'm glad to be home and I think we should all forget our differences and be one big contented family.'

He leant down and kissed the top of Dean's head. 'You agree with me, don't you, infant? Miraculous age, isn't it? He thinks life revolves around the dinner bowl, a nice splash in the bath and lots of toys—what's that you're playing with at the moment, son?'

'He's taken a shine to my good luck medal, Mr Jack.' Nanny Rose wore the medallion on a long chain around her neck. 'Mr Rodare gave it to me; he said it wasn't likely lightning would strike me twice but I had best be on the safe side and be protected by St James of Spain.'

'Rodare and his superstitious nonsense! Jack, don't allow the child to put the medallion in his mouth!'

'It won't harm him, madam.' Nanny Rose gave Lenora a look between tolerance and mischief. 'It's pure gold, the chain as well.'

'Really?' A frown almost gathered Lenora's brows together, and then she disciplined her face into its polite, slightly disdainful mask. 'I'm gratified that you are feeling so much improved, Nanny. I would gladly look after darling Dean all the time but I am such a martyr to my nervous headaches. He's a dear child but he will persist in banging that drum which Zandra foolishly gave him. I tried taking it away from him but he went into such a tantrum.'