House of Storms (10 page)

THE long casement windows were ablaze with light, but out there on the headland of the island the winds of the wild huntsmen seemed to howl.

Before bracing herself to go downstairs, Debra stood at her windows and heard the wind whipping the sea across the rocky strand way below the house; it was as if the elements were trying to get at the occupants of Abbeywitch ... as if some sad, demented creature was angered by the sound of music wafting from the windows.

Debra couldn't help thinking of Pauline who had loved to dance, and who had been far too young and vital to perish in the sea. Did the souls of the young linger to haunt the environs of the place where they had died? It was down there among the cruel rocks that Pauline had been found, her long pale hair floating in the water, her slim and lifeless body turned marble-white in the light of dawn. In a hushed voice Nanny Rose had related the details to Debra who, as she stood there in her long-skirted party dress, felt indescribably sad on an evening when she should be feeling light-hearted.

It seemed that the party tonight was the first to be held at Abbeywitch since Jack's wife had died.

With a catch of her breath, Debra took a final look at herself in the mirror, seeing a wide-eyed figure in the charming simplicity of a white dress which set off the colour of her hair. Tonight she had arranged it at the crown of her head with the jewelled Japanese pin, and the styling revealed the slim grace of her neck and shoulders. Her only adornment apart from the pin was a pearl pendant, glowing and silky against her skin and shaped like a small pear. It had been bought by her father from a Japanese pearl-diver during the time he and her mother had been resident in Japan, and because she had been only a tot the pendant had been put away until Debra was grown up enough to wear it. Actually, there hadn't been too many occasions but Debra had decided that tonight was an occasion she both feared and yet had to face.

She had the certain feeling that Rodare Salvador would come to fetch her if she didn't put in an appearance. His deep sense of Latin courtesy wouldn't allow him to shrug her off, and the last thing she wanted was to be marched to the party in the grip of one of his firm brown hands.

Oh no, she didn't want to be the cynosure of all eyes but wanted to slip in among the guests and hope not to be noticed by
el señor
. But even as she was thinking this there was a rap upon her door and her pulse leapt like a frog on a lily-pad. She went reluctantly to the door and opened it, and her relief was tinged by a little stab of disappointment when she saw Stuart Coltan standing there, looking very striking in a white tuxedo over dark trousers, his pale pink shirt set off by a dark string tie. On any other man the outfit might have looked theatrical, but Stuart had the kind of dashing good looks that could carry off whatever he chose to wear.

'My,' she murmured, 'you look ready to take part in a tropical extravaganza.'

'So you like the jacket.' He smiled and smoothed a lapel, and those blue eyes of his didn't miss a detail of her dress. 'You look
très charmante
, if I may say so? I was half inclined to wonder if you'd put on the owl-rims and have your hair bunned.'

'I was half inclined to do so, Mr Coltan.' She had been very tempted to make herself look dowdy, but something deep inside her had swayed her away from the idea. She would show Zandra and her friends that she could look attractive even if she did a job that shut her away in an office all day. Even if she couldn't afford expensive dresses as often as Sharon Chandler, she knew that her white dress was impeccably styled, the fabric soft and fluent, and the pearl on its slim chain a real one.

Debra tilted her chin and felt sure she was a credit to her parents; she had healthy hair and good teeth and her hands were nice. A beauty she had never pretended to be!

'When are you going to start calling me Stuart?' he demanded, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a slight squeeze. 'We aren't living in the days of Jane Austen when even the matrons addressed their husbands as Mister.'

'Isn't it a pity that we aren't?' Debra drew determinedly away from his touch. They were such gracious times compared with what goes on these days.'

'Sure, fine for the upper middle classes.' Stuart's eyes narrowed into slits of steely blue. 'The poor were dirt beneath their feet, and the marvellously erudite Miss Austen wrote mainly about her own class; the fine ladies and gentlemen who had nothing better to do than flirt behind their fans and their glasses of Madeira.'

Debra lowered her gaze, for it was true what Stuart said.

'Surprised that I've even opened a book?' he mocked.

'Of course not.' Debra knew very well that self-educated people often read far more books than those who were fortunate enough to have parents who could send them to college.

'You had better believe it.' He firmly tucked her arm through his. 'We're two of a kind, you and I, honey. We have instincts in place of a university degree and we can go as high as we want to.'

'You might be ambitious,' she protested. 'What makes you think I'm equally so?'

He shot a side-smile at her as they walked down the grand staircase, arm in arm, her long white skirt brushing the dark material of his narrow-fitting trousers. 'You're here at Abbeywitch, aren't you? The Salvadors are landed gentry, and here you are among them, looking like a princess.'

'Your talent for flattery is inexhaustible,' she rejoined. 'There has to be a dash of Irish in you, Mr Coltan.'

'For sure there is,' he laughed. 'My greatgrandfather was a real wicked lad from the old country; I believe they threw him out in order to save the chastity of the girls of County Mayo. He landed up in New York harbour, never made a penny that he didn't spend, and married himself a little lacemaker. There, now you have my family history you can start to call me Stuart.'

'Is Stuart your real name, or adopted for the stage?'

'Does it matter, honey?'

'Not in the least.'

He laughed softly to himself, as if he thought it did matter to her that he kept his real name a secret.

'You're very conceited,' she informed him.

'Am I?' He didn't seem to mind in the least that she thought so.

'You really believe that every girl you meet falls in love with you.'

'Love?' He gave her a wryly amused look. 'Now there's a word to conjure with . . . what do you think it means?'

'What it says, I suppose.'

'Two lonely souls drawn to each other by a fine thread of fate into an everlasting devotion?'

'You're being sarcastic,' she accused.

'Why not, when it's a lot of romantic tosh. You've been reading too many books, honey. Don't confuse fiction with reality or you'll land yourself in trouble.'

They reached the foot of the stairs as he spoke the words, and the way he looked her up and down informed Debra that he thought her naively amusing and about ready to be taught the real facts of love.

'Have you ever had a boy-friend?' he asked, in his impudently assured way.

'I think you know the answer to that question, Mr Coltan, so why ask me?'

'It isn't every girl who would admit such a thing.' His eyes glinted with a hunting light. 'You're a bit of an innocent, aren't you?'

'Oh, I'm not so innocent that I'll allow you to singe my wings,' she retorted.

'You might enjoy the experience.'

'I doubt it,' she said, with spirit. 'A short while ago you said I was ambitious and in a way you're right. I like the business of books and I want to develop my skills as an editor, but I'd stand little chance of doing that if I allowed myself to be carried away by your blarney . . . in more ways than one. I'm not a flighty little fool, Stuart. My head is firmly set on my shoulders.'

'So you're going to settle for all work and no play,' he scoffed, 'and end up a lonely spinster?'

'I expect that will happen,' she agreed. 'Quite frankly, I can't see much wrong with it, especially when I think of Pauline Salvador and the way she ended up. No one gave that marriage much chance, did they? No one in this house accepted that poor girl and they wonder why her husband has gone off by himself.'

'Perhaps she's on his conscience,' Stuart said, his eyes narrowing. 'There's hot blood in the Salvadors and he may have caught her playing around.'

'Would Pauline do that!' Debra gave him a troubled look. 'She had the little boy to consider, and despite what everyone thinks, I don't believe she married Jack Salvador for money and position.'

'How would you know?' Stuart gave a short laugh. 'You never met Pauline and you have the tendency, honey, to judge people as if they're characters in a book. Real people, my dear girl, can be very unpredictable. They don't behave to a prescribed pattern, and do you honestly believe that anyone ever really knows anyone else? I doubt if we know ourselves from one day to the next.'

'That might well be true,' Debra agreed, 'but Pauline had Jack's baby and surely that proves something?'

'What exactly?' He looked directly into her grey eyes with their vagrant tints of green, and the edge of his mouth was cynically quirked.

'That they loved each other.'

'Sainted James, you are innocent, aren't you?'

'I—I know what you're thinking.' Debra wanted to walk away from his jeering, but at the same time she didn't want to walk in among the party guests all on her own.

'What am I thinking?' Stuart demanded.

'That babies don't come from the heart.'

'Isn't it a fact?' he drawled.

'If you're such a cynic, Stuart, why do you bother to go and play with little Dean in his nursery?' This frankly puzzled Debra, for not a thing about Stuart Coltan indicated that he had the slightest interest in young children. He seemed to her a young man who was busy enjoying himself and quite detached from the more serious aspects of life, including a little boy whose mother had drowned and whose father left him in the hands of other people.

'I knew Pauline, so why shouldn't I be interested in her nipper?' Stuart pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and his gaze drifted from Debra and settled on the dominant portrait of Don Rodare de Salvador in its huge baroque frame; he wore black and silver and his eyes were dark and alert in his lean Spanish face. 'I'm not immune from feelings, Debra. You've got the wrong idea about me. I bet I've a softer centre than any member of the Salvador clan, especially the present-day
hidalgo
.'

Her own eyes had focused on the portrait and she gave a start when Stuart mentioned the man who so much resembled the Don Rodare who had founded the family into which a showgirl had married, her young life doomed, it seemed, from the moment Jack Salvador had carried her over the threshold of Abbeywitch.

Her start became a shudder when Stuart suddenly gripped her by the shoulder. 'Is that it?' Stuart's breath was hot against the skin of her neck. 'You've got your eye on the
hidalgo
?'

'Don't talk nonsense—!' Debra wrenched away from him, but he pursued her and before she realised he had trapped her in one of the alcoves of the hall, out of range of the chandeliers and therefore shadowed. Stuart caught her roughly against him and before she could protest he had his mouth on hers, insistent and expert and entirely unwanted.

Maddened in case Rodare Salvador saw them, Debra drew back her foot and kicked him on the shin, right on the bone with the toe of her silver shoe. It made him let go of her and instantly she whirled out of his reach and fled towards the sound of music and people ... a breathless young creature in georgette, unaware that she had the look of a deer fleeing from a fire as she entered the high-ceilinged, wide and panelled room where the party was in progress.

She stepped forward quickly as Stuart loomed up behind her, and in that instant her gaze fused with that of an even taller figure in matt-black evening suit and striking white shirt. His skin had something naturally gold about it and more than ever he looked as if he had stepped out of a Goya painting. He stood framed by tall embrasured windows draped in flame-coloured curtains . . . black, gold and flame of the Inquisition, striking in Debra a chord of awareness more intense than anything she had ever felt before.

A burning sensation ran over her skin and she had a wild desire to turn and run and not stop running until she was as many miles as she could get from that darkly brilliant gaze . . . compelling as the flame that traps the moth.

'That music is driving my feet crazy!' Debra didn't resist as Stuart propelled her to the centre of the room where the parquet floor had been waxed so the guests could dance. A group of professional musicians had been hired and they were excellent, with a lilt to their playing that Debra recognised.

'That's Georgie Dane,' she breathed, her eyes fixed upon the young man playing the piano.

'Sure is.' Stuart smiled as they moved to the easy rhythm, to the lilting touch of those fingers on the keys. 'I knew he and his group were entertaining at the St Regis in Newquay and I suggested to Zandra that she get them for the party. I'm full of great ideas, eh?'

'If you say so.' Debra felt herself smiling, her annoyance with him dying away. He was good to dance with, and being here with him among the throng of dancers was safer than being within reach of Rodare Salvador. She didn't dare to look in the direction of the windows where he seemed to stand apart from the fun and chatter . . . rather like a monarch amused by his subjects!

'Don't look now,' Stuart murmured in her ear, 'but our haughty host has just been joined by a package I'm sure he'd like to unwrap.'

Debra strove not to look but her curiosity overcame her caution. Her heart gave a thud when she saw that Rodare had been joined by a dazzling young blonde, and that his dark head was bent to her in a listening attitude and he seemed to have lost awareness of the other people in the room.