White Lies (11 page)

'The association?'

'The Agricultural Association,' he said absently. 'It's the marketing agent for the farmers of St Lucia. The farmers farm, the association buys the crop and sells in bulk. Fall out with the association and you have no market. That's what Father did.'

'You haven't a good word to say about him,' she said in sad reproach.

'I think he's getting his just deserts. You know the old saying—sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. He
is
an unpleasant man, Mandy. I hope you don't discover that personally. You're such a gentle soul and far too nice to get involved with him. It'll be a bumpy ride. Hold on.'

A bumpy ride in what sense? she wondered. But from then on conversation was impossible and the questions on her lips had to wait. She'd only heard one side of the story—Pascal's. His father might have a very different viewpoint and she was looking forward to the time when she eventually met Vincente St Honore and learnt why she'd been brought to St Lucia. And she was intrigued, she had to admit, to know the truth behind Pascal's hatred of his father.

The Jeep began to sway as it negotiated the ruts and Mandy concentrated on hanging onto the edge of the seat. Pascal's face was set in deep concentration till he sensed that she was watching him and then he turned and grinned ruefully at her.

'It gets worse!' he assured her.

'Oh, hurray,' she said wryly, and they both laughed as the Jeep plunged into a huge hole. 'Pro-phet-ic!' she jerked out, the breath leaving her body when they lurched out again.

When she could, she stole surreptitious glances at him, trying to work him out. A warm smile had taken up residence on his sunny face, a new air of energy had stolen into his body. He was happy here, she thought. Totally at home in this amazing place.

And she began to take in her surroundings because she thought that they might give a clue to the man. It was a real tropical wilderness—a jungle so dense and untamed that she felt a little afraid of it. Beside her, bucketing about in his seat, changing gear with a smooth and fluid skill, Pascal was obviously in his element and totally in command.

She looked at him with a new respect. Last night he'd been sophisticated and worldly in his hand-stitched dinner jacket. He inhabited a world of wealth where it was normal to have a crane and a barbecue on your boat.

And yet he was coming alive here, in this amazing jungle, dressed in casual bush clothes and with a wicked- looking cutlass clipped on the dash. This was his environment—exciting, exotic, dramatic, with coconuts lying where they'd fallen on the forest floor, tall, spearlike shoots sprouting from them, enormous stands of bamboo, the canes as thick as Pascal's strong thighs and roaring eighty feet into the sky, and thick lianas dangling Tarzan-style from immense trees.

'Mahogany!' shouted Pascal over the surge of the engine as they struggled up a steep and slippery hill. 'Breadfruit.'

Ha waved at a tree with enormous green footballs hanging on it and Mandy grinned and nodded. Then she cried out in delight when they crested the hill and drove towards a carpet of flame-coloured flowers that set the ground on fire. She looked up and saw a tree that seemed to touch the sky, ablaze with the gaudy blooms.

'Flame-tree!' He smiled to himself then leaned over to shout, as if he wanted to make sure that she heard every word, 'We use them to mark the end of territory!'

'Nicer than "Keep Off" signs!' she yelled.

They exchanged glances—hers full of joy at the beauty of the jungle, his at first unresponsive to her delight and then softening as if he couldn't help himself. It became a long, intense look. He stopped the Jeep, leaving the engine running, and simply gazed at her. And Mandy felt her breath becoming slower and slower while her heart rate increased rapidly.

'You like it here,' he said slowly.

'I think it's wonderful,' she replied, her eyes shining with emotion.

'Me too,' he said huskily, and he was looking at her intently.

A timeless silence stretched between them. Neither of them seemed able to tear their eyes away from the other and Mandy trembled at the mounting tension and the certainty that he'd reach out any second and take her in his arms. And at that precise moment she wanted him to.

Her eyes grew puzzled. She felt right here. Brought up in cities, moved from one children's home to another, finding a home in the Devon countryside with its hills and valleys and little stone cottages, she was nevertheless quite certain that she too could move around comfortably in this strange, alien environment and even call it home.

A nervous excitement pervaded her whole body. Perhaps it
was
her home. Maybe her ancestors had come over from Scotland as Mr Lacey had suggested and her family had lived in St Lucia—and that was why she felt so
right!

'Oh, Pascal!' she breathed, overwhelmed by the certainty.

There were fierce lights in his eyes, an emotional hunger that echoed hers. Instead of being afraid of it, she felt more drawn to him than ever. He too knew deep longings. Those pained eyes showed a knowledge of suffering, perhaps as great as hers. The lines around his mouth, his anger, his relationship with his father—all these pointed to a man who had been hurt and was unhappy. A wave of empathy engulfed her and she smiled hesitantly.

'We're close to my plantation, Beau Jardin,' he said quietly. He let out the clutch and with the movement of the Jeep the electrically charged air between them evaporated. 'See the bananas?' he asked prosaically. 'They're on my land.'

A little crestfallen, Mandy dutifully peered ahead, keeping her yearning to be closer to him a total secret.

At first nothing looked different, then she saw a mass of paddle-shaped banana leaves and suddenly they'd driven onto a smooth road and her bones weren't jumping up and down inside her skin any more. But she felt an odd kind of regret that the brief closeness and the strange emotional link between them had vanished.

Since that kind of thinking was unwise, she looked for some bright comment. 'You should sell that track back there to a theme park. A white-knuckle ride over hill and dale,' she said ruefully. 'People pay money for %t kind of thing.'

'And lose the wildlife to hundreds of screaming tourists? No, thanks.' He grimaced.

'It's a wonderful wilderness,' she said warmly. 'Anyone who owned it would be the happiest person alive.'

'You covet it,' he said, almost under his breath, and she saw so many emotions chasing over his face that she wasn't sure whether he was glad or disturbed by that fact.

She laughed. 'Anyone would, wouldn't they?'

Pascal's mouth thinned. 'Beau Rivage is the carrot my father dangles as a lure.'

The bitterness in his tone made her slant her eyes at him curiously. 'Do you have brothers or sisters?'

'No.'

'Then it'll be yours one day, surely?'

'I doubt it,' he said curtly. 'Do you see those blue plastic bags around the bananas?'

Mandy gave an inward sigh. It looked as if Pascal was not going to inherit Beau Rivage when his father died. And it was obvious that he wasn't prepared to discuss the matter.

'Yes,' she said, wishing that it were in her power to bring the two men together, and asked as Pascal evidently wanted her to, 'What are they for? They're such an eyesore!'

'Better that than to lose the fruit to tree rats, opossums or birds,' he said. 'They also protect the delicate skin of the young fruit. If we have strong winds or a hurricane, the dry leaves can damage the skins and make them unfit for market.'

'You could use green bags,' she suggested.

He smiled in a friendly way at her. 'Blue reduces the infrared rays of the sun and premature ripening.'

'It's much more complicated than I thought,' she mused.

'Things always are,' he said drily. But he continued to smile as he surveyed the rows and rows of bananas.

'You love this land, don't you? It makes you smile,' she said, touched by the pride in his face.

'I love it,' he said softly.

Expecting to see an old plantation house any minute, she was surprised when Pascal stopped for a moment at the head of a Robinson Crusoe-style beach and pointed to a white stone house with green tiles perched high on the cliff, commanding views over the almost land-locked bay where Pascal's boat lay at anchor.

'My house,' he said simply. 'It belonged to my father's cousin Louis. A great guy. Louis died about ten years ago, childless and unmarried, and left Beau Jardin to me.'

Mandy nodded. 'Adjoining plantations. That must be a difficult situation, with you and your father at daggers drawn. Your ancestors were French, presumably?'

'Aristocrats from Versailles. The St Honores were given land grants by Louis XVI in 1784 and have farmed here ever since. The land is our life,' he said softly.

'You mentioned an aunt but not your mother,' she said, tentatively probing.

'She ran away.' He leaned forward and stared ahead at the beautiful bay with sightless eyes.

Mandy's attention was completely captured. 'Oh, I'm sorry,' she said, shocked. 'How old were you?'

'Six. Mother was very much under Father's thumb. My main recollection of her is that she was a cowed and nervous woman who never left the house.' The strong jaw tightened and his mouth took on a hard line from some awful memory.

His mother had left him. He must have found that terribly hard to accept. Mandy put her hand on his where it clenched the steering wheel so tightly that it seemed as if he meant to crush it, and she felt the steely, straining sinews of his bare brown arm beneath hers.

Tm-8orry she ran away.' She was careful not to say, How could a mother leave her child? because that would have been hurtful. It had happened. Rubbing it in wouldn't help. 'Were you upset, or angry?'

'Contused. And, yes, I was upset. Not as much as you might think, though. We were never close so I suppose it was my pride and my sense of self-worth that suffered. And I had no wish to go with her. I would have been miserable living anywhere else,' he said quietly. 'This part of the world means everything to me. It draws me like a magnet. When I'm away I want to come home.'

'I suppose she knew that,' suggested Mandy diplomatically.

He gave a faint smile. 'I suppose she did. She knew how happy I was here. There aren't many places where you can wear nothing but shorts and old trainers all day long, right through the year.'

She nodded, remembering Simon's remark that Pascal wore very little. It certainly gave
her
a great sense of freedom—the thought of just reaching for a T-shirt and shorts each day. 'If she was the nervous type, it must have been hard for her to leave,' she mused. 'It's surprising she had the courage—'

'No.' Pascal was hardly breathing. Mandy watched sympathetically, seeing that his eyes glowed like burning sapphires in his harrowed face. Instinctively she tightened her hand, surrounding the cold, tensed fingers with warmth. 'She was driven out by sheer desperation.'

'Please don't go on—' she began, unwilling to hear of his parents' quarrels.

'You need to know,' he said tightly.

'Why? It can't have any bearing on my purpose here,' she argued uncomfortably.

'It has,' he insisted, and turned to face her, taking her hands in his with an urgent air. 'You need to know about my father,' he said harshly. 'The kind of man he is. That he's a bully and...' He scowled, a deep V appearing between his angry brows. 'I heard my mother screaming—'

'Please! Don't!' she cried, trying to pull away.

'Listen!'
He jerked her back, his strong brown fingers wrapping around the slender satin of her pearly wrists. 'It's important to me. I want you to know.'

'All right,' she said reluctantly. 'If it'll help.''I burst into their room.' Pascal's intense stare held her transfixed. 'He must have hit her because she was on the floor, cringing away from him.' His eyes blazed. 'My father ordered me to my room. When I was eventually allowed to come out my mother had gone.'

'Oh, Pascal!' she cried brokenly, her face filled with compassion. 'How awful! Your poor mother! No wonder she ran away. It must have been dreadful when you realised what had happened. Dreadful. You haven't known what it is to have proper parents at all, have you?' she said sadly, knowing how he must feel.

'I spent most of my time with Louis and with Father's sister, my aunt Susannah. I was happy enough. They were very loving and more than compensated for my parents,' he said quietly. 'I've told you this because it gives you some insight into my father's character. You can see why I don't want you anywhere near him. And that I have good reason to hate him.'

'Yes, but-'

'No buts!' he said sharply. 'You mustn't have anything to do with him—'

'But I
must\
she insisted helplessly.

'No. He's dangerous. You are very innocent and very appealing.'

His eloquent eyes seemed to smoulder and she felt a warmth stealing through her body as his hands eased their grip and, almost unaware that he was doing so, he began to caress her arms, moving his fingers in a compelling rhythm.

'Pascal!' she husked, and found that her throat had closed up. His mouth had softened. It seemed that he dearly wanted to kiss her and she leaned forward almost imperceptibly, her lips parting.

'Hell!' he muttered, frowning. 'You're a little witch! For the last time, Mandy, will you go home today, tomorrow, or not?'

'How can I?' she mumbled in distress, confused by her feelings. 'You know what I want. Whether I like it or not, I have to—'

'As you wish,' he interrupted coldly.

It was such a shame. Her heart had been touched by his story and she wanted to share some of her own loneliness with him because he, too, seemed to be alone in the world. He wasn't wearing a wedding ring, she noticed, although a man as charismatic as Pascal must have a partner, she realised, if not several.

But all her desires to ease the misery of his childhood were being thwarted by his stubborn demand that she should go home. How could she when his father held the key to her past? She didn't want to clash head-on with Pascal, not now. But it seemed as if she was destined to do so.