Man of Destiny (9 page)

CHAPTER NINE

BUT Ilse failed to give the impression that she needed much support when Caroline sought her out in the suite of apartments that had been placed at her disposal during her stay in the
quinta.

They were three very charming rooms, a bedroom, dressing-room and sitting-room. They had long windows overlooking the gardens, and there were balconies with protective awnings on which she could recline when the sun was hot, or she wished to be alone. The furnishings were positively sumptuous, and even Ilse seemed particularly gratified by them as she stood leaning up against the dressing-table in her white-carpeted bedroom and allowed her eyes to rest on the cascades of satin-damask, and the glimpse of ebony and silver in the bathroom.

“What a mediaeval set-up!” she exclaimed, when Caroline and Richard joined her. “I feel like the princess in the tower stowed away here, and it’s an ivory tower, too! I’ve an idea I’m going to be unusually comfortable.”

She had cast her enormous pale pink hat on to the bed, and it lay there like an island of soft rose lost in a sea of embroidered cream-coloured satin. Looking at her, Caroline wondered whether the fact that she was a widow and wore no black had struck even a temporary chord of displeasure in the breast of Dom Vasco. The Marques was so obviously much more easy-going that it might not have struck him in any particularly significant way, although in a country
where women wore some sort of black most of the time it could have appeared a little alien.

Ilse was smoking a cigarette in a long ivory holder, and she was smoking it as if she had not enjoyed a cigarette for some time.

“Duarte may appear amiable, but he doesn’t approve of women doing this,” she said, crushing out the cigarette beneath her heel on the balcony outside the open window. “But he’s a pleasant surprise, isn’t he?” one
corner
of her mouth quirking upwards in an amused smile as she glanced over her shoulder at Caroline. “Not at all what I expected, or had been led to believe. I thought he’d be positively doddering, and a perfect martinet. But he’s not. He’s a lamb!”

She extended a hand to Richard, but there was no repetition of the motherly effusiveness or the fr
ying
need that she had displayed downstairs. She ran her fingers through his hair and remarked that he really was looking very fit and well, and then made a thoughtful reference to Dom Vasco while she lighted another cigarette.

When I caught sight of him on the ship I was astounded,” she confessed. “He looks so frightfully aristocratic that I thought, at first, he was the Marques, and then I realised he was much too young.” She inhaled luxuriously, and her green eyes glowed as if they had been lighted up from within. “Much too young!” she repeated.

“
He is in control of the Marqu
e
s’s estate, and he also happens to be a relative,” Caroline told her.

Ilse nodded.

“
Yes; I’ve learned all that since my arrival. Duarte is quite attached to him.”

“Was it because you—thought he looked rather interesting that you decided to fly to Portugal?” Caroline enquired, without any
changing
of her expression.

Ilse smiled at her.

“You know me quite well, don’t you? I never could resist a handsome
man!
Carlos was handsome, you know ... that’s why I married him. But unfortunately he never had his fair share of the family fortune.”

“And what about Mr. Prentice
?
”

“I suppose you could say he ditched me.” She looked angry for a moment, and then she shrugged her shoulders. “Ah, well, it didn’t require a great effort to get over him. Even on the ship I was beginning to find that Anglo-Saxon fairness of his a lit
tl
e cloying. I like men to be dark
... my
men!”
She smiled almost slumbrously at Caroline. “And when I saw you shooting away from the ship with Dom Vasco, and realised how lucky you were to be even temporarily under the protection of someone like him, I was suddenly inspired. I had a right to be cosseted and cared for, too, by my in-laws ... the
Marques
owed me something. So I wrote warning you that anything might happen, and followed up the warning by booking myself an air flight to Lisbon. The Marques invited me to stay with him in Estoril, and then brought me here. Naturally he thought I was simply burning to see Richard
...”

“I think you succeeded in impressing Dom Vasco with the fact that you’re very devoted to Richard,” Caroline remarked drily, and Ilse looked pleased.

“Do you think that went down well? He’s such an autocratic creature, isn’t he? And yet he was terribly sweet to me, I thought.” Her face hardened suddenly. “Who is this Carmelita de Capuchos who is to act hostess for us tonight
?
”

“A cousin of Dom Vasco, or so he told me
himself.”

Ilse sighed with relief.

“Only a cousin
?
Oh, that’s splendid! And probably old-maidish, and not too young...
?
”

“I’d say she is in her early thirties, and beautiful in a strange sort of way.”

“Oh!”
The green eyes were not so pleased. “What do you mean by a strange sort of way
?
”

“Well, she struck me as being a little like a paper-white rose,” Caroline admitted, because that was exactly how Carmelita de Capuchos had struck her, and was not surprised when Ilse flung away from her and became petulant all at once.

“By that you mean she’s got a Portuguese pallor, and is probably as dull as ditch-water?” she stated rather than asked. “I’ve seen her type before, in Portuguese East Africa ... and there are probably lots like her within a few miles of this place! That kind of woman doesn’t constitute a menace, unless a man is contracted to marry her. And you haven’t heard anything about Dom Vasco being betrothed to his cousin, have you?” wheeling round and studying Caroline’s face with barely concealed anxiety while she waited to hear whether that was the case or not. Caroline shook her head.

“I haven’t actually heard that they’re engaged—”

“Then why do you suspect it?” sharply.

Caroline felt surprised. Why did she suspect that Carmelita de Capuchos was interested in Vasco in the way a woman does become interested in a man when someone has suggested to her that it would be a good thing if she married
him ...
one day
?
Why, although she had met Carmelita only twice, had she made up her mind that there was a woman who had succeeded in making an impression on Vasco
—
getting past his guard—and that, whether she knew it or not, she had him in the hollow of her hand?

“
I have seen them together,” she replied evasively. “They seemed to me to make a good pair.”

Which, now that she stopped to
think
about it, was true enough.

Ilse made an impatient movement, and rang the bell for the maid to come and unpack her suitcases, and run a bath for her. She had already shooed the girl out twice, because she wanted to be alone; but now she no longer wished to be undisturbed ... She wanted to go ahead with her preparations for the evening, and make certain there was nothing hurried about them, or nothing that wasn’t carefully planned beforehand.

“
Dom Vasco is a very handsome man,” she remarked, “and the fact that he isn’t married proves that he hasn’t yet met the right woman. Without wishing to prove you wrong, I
could
prove you very wrong indeed! So wrong that you might be surprised ... one day!”

With a meaning smile she whipped open her beauty-box, and started to remove her make-up. Then she pressed the bell still more impatiently for the maid.

“That girl,” she declared, “must be
deaf!”

“The staff of the
quinta
are very good,” Caroline remarked, as she urged Richard towards the door—although, in point of fact, he had been displaying
signs
of wishing to escape from the room for the past five minutes. “But they’re not accustomed to looking after visitors. There haven’t been any here for some time.”

Ilse was about to let her go, and then
called
out
to her.

“If I want to get in touch with you, where do I find you? I’d like to say goodnight to Richard.”

This was something so new that Caroline could barely conceal her surprise. In the past it was only by accident that Richard saw her before he went to bed.

“We’re in the old nursery wing, at the end of the corridor,” she said. “The maid will show you the way.”

Ilse nodded her head, and Caroline and Richard found themselves on the other side of the luxurious bedroom door. Richard sighed with relief.

“Now let’s go and play in the garden, shall we?” he suggested. “We don’t seem to have been in the garden at all today
!”

Caroline humoured him for about half an hour, and then took him back upstairs and saw that he had his supper and was bathed before going to bed. The
n
—leaving the door of his room open so that he could hear her moving about in her room—she started her preparations for the evening.

She didn’t really want to join the others for dinner. In fact, the more she thought about it
the more she shrank from the idea. She had nothing very spectacular in the way of an evening dress to wear, and she felt sure the Portuguese guests—to say nothing of Ilse, when she emerged from her room after devoting the better part of a couple of hours to her appearance—would all be beautifully gowned and groomed, and probably dripping with diamonds. The little she had seen of Portuguese women at night they did tend to give the impression that their entire worldly wealth was concentrated upon their person, even if they invariably wore black—the costliest black obtainable; and as for Ilse, she was like a
glamorous butterfly at night, brilliantly beautiful, and enough to make any man find satisfaction in simply gazing at her.

Therefore it seemed a little pointless that she, Caroline, should be expected to play her part in such a brilliant company. The Marques and his guests could not be expected to notice her, Ilse wouldn’t even bother to notice her, and if the solemn young man who was something in the nature of an assistant to Dom Vasco was placed next to her at dinner—as he probably would be—and expected to entertain her, then neither of them would derive very much entertainment from one another.

For he looked as if young English governesses were hardly his line of country, and Caroline had so little Portuguese that she probably wouldn’t be able to follow a word he said.

And it was highly likely he was attracted to the young woman who was the Marques de Fonteira’s secretary, and as they spoke the same language they would prefer to be together.

Nevertheless, having been bidden to the feast, as it were—and expected to regard the invitation as serious—Caroline realised she would have to do something about ensuring that her appearance would meet with approval, if nothing else, and she went very carefully through the contents of her wardrobe and selected a slim dress of navy blue chiffon, with floating panniers that were finely pleated, and transparent sleeves that were caught in at the wrists with bishop
’
s cuffs. In addition to being simple and rather elegant, it emphasised the fact that her position in the household was not frivolous; and it seemed unlikely that anyone could find fault with it on any grounds whatsoever.

Having selected the dress, she selected a neat row of pearls to go with it, and decided that the occasion warranted a pretty pair of pearl ear-rings to be attached to her ears. Then she went along the corridor to the antiquated bathroom, was lucky enough to find that the hot-water supply had not been entirely exhausted by Richard and the girl who had superintended his bath, emptied a phial of bath essence into the water—she had been reserving it for just such an occasion as this (or one that could have been expected to afford her more pleasure!)—and enjoyed a somewhat leisurely bath. After which she returned to her bedroom and did her nails, brushed her hair until it shone, and slipped into her undies. Her makeup she arrayed on the top of her dressing-table, ready to apply when she had slipped into her underclothes.

She was calling out to Richard that he must stop singing songs and go to sleep—he liked humming to himself until he fell asleep—when the outer door of the suite was burst open without ceremony, and Ilse’s voice called loudly:

“Caroline
!”

Caroline reached for her dressing-gown and dipped into it hastily. It was a very charming dressing-gown, of Chinese blue satin, and it had actually been handed on to her by Ilse; but she knew that her face was still glowing from her bath, and her hair was cascading about her shoulders like a spun-silk cloak, and she certainly didn’t expect to find anyone in the corridor but Ilse. The shock she received, therefore, when she found not only
I
lse but Dom Vasco actually standing right outside her bedroom door very nearly deprived her of breath.