House of Storms (31 page)

'Thank God,' she said, and didn't know that she spoke aloud.

'Yes.' Zandra rose to her feet. 'You are right there, Debra, and as I said before, we mustn't let Midsummer Eve be spoilt. We'll leave you to get ready—come along, Sharon.'

'You will be all right, Debra?' Sharon hovered, her hand on Debra's shoulder. 'You've had such a fright so perhaps we shouldn't leave you on your own?'

'I'm fine now.' Debra smiled and decided that she liked Sharon Chandler, that her first impression of her had not been wrong. She was a warm-hearted girl who would make the perfect daughter-in-law for Lenora Salvador.

'Don't be too long,' Sharon said. 'We'll see you downstairs.'

The door closed behind the two figures in their glamorous dresses and once again Debra had to approach her closet in order to find something suitable to wear. She couldn't quite suppress a shudder as she put her hand inside the closet and withdrew the white dress she had worn the night she had danced with Rodare.

Yes, she would wear this dress in which to say
muy bien
to him, and in a quietly resigned mood she bathed in the scent from her favourite sachet, slipped into her nicest underwear and sat down at the vanity-table in order to comb her hair and arrange it so her neck was left slim and vulnerable for the style of her dress. She still looked rather pale so she applied light touches of blusher, lightly made up her lips and hung around her neck the pearl pendant and chain which were now as good as new, thanks to Rodare.

Yes, in retrospect, she should have guessed there was something more amiss with Stuart Coltan than a tendency to react like a destructive child when he was denied his own way. She fondled the pear-shaped pearl and her eyes were reflective. She had assumed he was merely vain and flirtatious, but remembering the crazy smile in his blue eyes she shivered and hastened with her dressing.

Later they would all go out on the headland to watch the blessing of the fire, so Debra decided to take a coat downstairs with her. It was a white angora jacket and Debra carried it over her arm as she descended the dark magnificence of the staircase lit by the blazing glitter of the chandeliers. She smiled a little and thought to herself that she should be trailing mink or sable in the leisurely wake of her silver shoes. Inevitably she thought of herself walking down these stairs with Stuart when he had said they were both ambitious.

He had been unbalanced and greedy, but Debra knew that her own ambitions were linked to her mother's hard-working struggle to provide her with a good start in life. She had a good position awaiting her at Columbine, and one day, perhaps, she would be able to look back upon events at Abbeywitch with a composure she didn't feel right now.

'There you are.' Jack came forward from a shadowed alcove and held out a hand to her. 'We've turned dinner into a buffet so come along in and eat something.'

She let him take her by the hand and directly they entered the dining-room she saw Lenora in conversation with a lean man in the dark robe of a monk. 'Come and be introduced to Father Restormel,' Jack said, and as she walked with him across the room she thought of what Zandra had said about exorcism. When her hand was taken by the monk's and she looked into his eyes she felt a sense of peace, the kind that comes when the spirit has been in turmoil.

'I hear that you are a very brave young woman,' he said, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, he made the sign of the cross on her forehead and with a look he seemed to say: 'Forget the evil that men do and think only of those who do good.'

Encouraged by Jack and Sharon, she managed to eat a slice of roast goose and some salad accompanied by a glass of Krug. She chatted with them but wondered all the time if Rodare would suddenly walk into the room and see her in her white dress and forgive her for being young and unworldly and confused between her dreams and the reality of desire.

But it wasn't until they all stood out on the headland, with the flames of the Midsummer fire leaping skywards, and no burning of the devil after all, that Rodare came at a leisurely pace towards them, as if he had all eternity instead of only a few more hours in which to tell her why he had come to her room.

'Mickey is putting the boat away,' he said. 'He will be here soon to admire the bonfire he helped to build.'

'Rodare?' His stepmother's voice held the question they all wanted to ask.

'Taken into custody,' he said, 'and tomorrow the official enquiry will begin, which means I must cancel my return to Spain in order to be here. I fear it will all be stirred up again, Jack. There is no avoiding it.'

'At least we now know everything,' Jack said quietly. He turned his gaze to Abbeywitch, a wonderful sight in the moonlight, as if thinking of his son fast asleep in the care of Nanny Rose. There would come a day when Dean would learn how his mother died, but time would dim the brutality of her death. The flames leapt high in their golden dance, and a quiver went straight to Debra's heart as an arm stole around her waist and a deep voice murmured in her ear:

'Come quietly with me, I have something to say to you.'

Like a figure walking in a dream she went where he led, until the fire was only a glow in the distance and they were alone above the waves beating on the beach. Then Rodare turned her to face him and in the moonlight his face was strong but his eyes were tender. 'How young you look in your white dress, and how much I want you.' He said it quite simply. 'That is what I came to say to you,
querida mia
, but if you don't want me then I shall do my best to accept defeat with good grace.'

'You saved me,' she said softly.

'
Dios mio
, I don't want your gratitude!' He snapped his fingers at the very idea. 'Between us it is fire and passion and need—or it is nothing, so take your choice!'

'But is it love?' she murmured, entranced by the fire in his eyes.

'Love?' He threw wide his arms. 'It is all this—the moon and the stars and the sea. We knew the day we met and we shall know it the day we die so we might as well surrender to it. And if you need to hear me say it, then listen while I say it—I love your hair when it blows in the wind, and I love how spirited you can be. I love it when I touch you, and I am lonely when you aren't there to touch.'

'Lonely?' she breathed.

'Ah, that touches you to the quick!' And with sudden ruthless impatience he caught her close to him and held her white-clad body with an urgency that stirred into life the last remnants of her doubts and fears. Like sparks they danced through her blood and then were quenched by what she saw in his eyes.

She saw there the fear that she would elude him again.

'Rodare,' her hand pressed against the nape of his neck, 'I—I need you to forgive me—you know what for.'

'Ah, that.' His gaze moved slowly, almost tormentingly over her moonlit face. 'Perhaps I should punish you first.'

'Punish me?'

'Like this.' And gathering her even closer to him, he brought his lips down upon hers and kissed her without mercy.

Merciless he was, but by some miracle, some decree of fate, Debra knew they belonged together. . . but could they be together here on Lovelis Island?

Side by side they stood on the headland, their arms twined about each other, and he had released her hair so the moon made it shine.

'What of Abbeywitch?' she quietly asked.

'It's a wonderful house,' he said, 'but you were right when you called it my burden. I want no burdens but that of making you happy, querida mia, so what I think I shall do is to let it belong to Jack. He is more a part of it than I am, for I am a Spaniard and there is only one place in the world where I want to live with my wife and raise my family, and that is in Andalucia.'

With strong and loving hands he turned Debra to face him. 'Will you live with me and be my love in Andalucia?'

Her eyes were a little tearful in that moment, then she raised a loving hand to stroke his Spanish face. 'How generous you can be, Rodare, to give away your birthright.'

'I wasn't born,' he smiled, 'until one fine day I met a shameless hussy on a beach . . .'

'Oh, you're going to hold that against me!'

'I don't intend to ever forget it.'

'Then I shall—'

'What will you do?'

'Go to Columbine and be chief editor of their children's books. I've been offered the chance, you know,
el señor
.'

'I'm sure you would make an excellent chief editor of children's bocks, but what of me?' he asked. 'Don't I count?'

'Oh yes,' she sighed, 'more than anyone in the world.'

'Dare I believe you?' He framed her face in his hands and searched her eyes by the light of the moon. 'How much does Jack mean to you?'

'I admire him as a writer and I like him as a man.'

'I saw him coming from your turret last night.'

'He had picked some strawberries and we shared them.' She spoke with the simplicity of truth. 'That was all we shared, Rodare, and I think you know me well enough to believe me.'

'True,' he smiled. 'The girl who thought I kissed and caressed her because I thought she was just a toy for me to play with. Will you believe that the look of you, the ways of you, drive me wild with wanting you? Will you at last believe me?'

'Yes,' she said, and not a shred of doubt was left in her heart . . . this was love and it was both a dream and a consuming need to share his desire. And below where they stood so closely embraced the sea had an unearthly beauty, sharing with them the mysterious aura of two people who had found each other's love.