House of Storms (6 page)

'And already he has teeth,' Rodare exclaimed, as if he wasn't often in the company of very young children and didn't know a great deal about them. 'Such white little teeth, rather like grains of rice.'

A remark that touched Debra, though she was trying quite hard not to let the look and sound of this man get under her skin. He was a sudden and very alarming addition to the household, for she hadn't been prepared to meet in the flesh the living likeness to the Spaniard who had founded this family. Every muscular inch of him seemed to pulse with energetic life, as if he did take after his forebear in ways as well as looks.

Amused and intent he watched his nephew drinking orange juice from his Mickey Mouse mug, the boy's blue eyes fixed in turn upon his face. They seemed to Debra to be taking each other's measure, as if they were establishing their family bond.

'Joose,' Dean said, offering the mug to Rodare after he had taken his fill.

Rodare accepted the mug and solemnly raised it to his lips and swallowed some of the juice. 'Mmm, very tasty,
pequeño
.'

Dean glanced at his nanny with an eager smile, then he looked at Debra to see if she was impressed by his generosity. Utterly beguiled by him she took hold of his hand and kissed his plump fingers. 'You are a little gentleman, Dean.'

He nodded his head as if in agreement with her, and his uncle said musingly: 'Amazing in a child so young to have such innate good manners. He is quite a boy, I think.'

'He's Mr Jack's compensation,' Nanny Rose replied. 'Have you any idea of his whereabouts, Mr Rodare? He's making everyone so anxious the way he's behaving. After all, it's his duty to consider the living.'

'I quite agree, Nanny Rose.' Rodare gazed down sombrely at his brother's child. 'I had no idea Jack was still absent from Abbeywitch, and I shall have to look into the matter. I was very surprised when told that he was still away and had not communicated with his mother. As you rightly say, he has young Dean to consider.'

'I hope the poor man is all right,' Nanny Rose said worriedly. 'He wouldn't have gone and done something—foolish?'

'I think it very unlikely.' Rodare gestured in a very Latin way. 'No, he is in a morose mood that won't allow him to see reason. When we were boys he had a tendency to sneak off when he was upset about something, and the loss of Pauline was a great shock to him . . . perhaps he took some of the blame because they were quarrelling.'

Rodare glanced at Debra as he spoke, as if curious to see her reaction to his remark, and it did amaze her that Jack and Pauline had not been in sympathy, especially so soon after the birth of their son who should have been the living proof that they still cared for each other.

Debra's gaze dwelt on the handsome little boy, so unaware that he no longer had a mother and that his father was hiding away somewhere, either stricken by guilt or grief. Dean banged happily on his cereal bowl with his spoon, and Debra wanted to take him in her arms and hug him for Pauline . . . the girl from the chorus line who had never been accepted at Abbeywitch.

'Well, I have things to see to after my lengthy absence.' Rodare Salvador strode to the door. 'When I am less tied up, Nanny Rose, I shall take the
pequeño
to the zoo at Penarth. He looks as if he'd enjoy seeing the elephants and tigers, and someone has to stand in for Jack, eh?'

Directly the door closed behind him Debra sank down in the nursery rocker. It was as if a strong wind had swept through the nursery and left turbulence in its wake.

'So they were quarrelling,' she murmured. 'Jack Salvador and Pauline.'

Nanny Rose nodded. 'It was one of those marriages that never stood much of a chance. She had lovely long legs and could kick them high, but she didn't have a mind that could match his. It was based on physical attraction and to give his mother her due she knew this and would have preferred him to get Pauline out of his system without putting a wedding ring on her finger. That kind of attraction is far apart from love.'

'Then what is love?' Debra murmured, unable to believe that the cross-currents of sensuality that drew people together and then swept them apart were truly related to the mysterious emotion called love.

'I'm not smart enough to puzzle it out,' Nanny Rose retorted. 'I was a nursery-maid when I was fourteen and trained in the ways of being a nanny by the time I was twenty, and in those days a nanny was expected to stay single. The only young men in my life have been this sort.' She patted young Dean on the head. 'The only time they break my heart is when the time comes for them to go off to school. But over the years they go on writing to me and sending snapshots of themselves, and sometimes that's more than real sons bother to do.'

'Have you always looked after little boys?' Debra looked intrigued.

Nanny nodded as she took a flannel to Dean's face and hands. 'I'm good with lads so I select to nanny them. I had five sisters, you see, and by the time I left home to go and be a nursery-maid I'd seen enough of female tricks to last me a lifetime. I left the Welsh valleys with my suitcase in my hand and took a train to Somerset where I began my first job. A big grand house it was and I was so overwhelmed.'

'Didn't you ever want to fall in love and get married?' Debra asked.

'I suppose it crossed my mind when I was a romantic girl, but once I found out that I enjoyed being a nanny I stopped thinking about it. The best jobs in the best houses go to single nannies and I preferred that to chancing my arm with some young smart-alec who might make a drudge of me—I saw that happen to three of my sisters. Marriage can be a chancy business and no mistake.'

'It seems to be a mistake Rodare Salvador doesn't intend to make.'

'He's more like his mother's people than his father's, so he'll make sure he's got the right girl before putting a ring on her finger.' There was a dry note in Nanny Rose's voice, as if her years as a nanny to boys had given her quite a bit of insight into their ways. 'And I expect you can judge for yourself, Debra, that he won't be easily satisfied. He's got Spanish pride in him and he'll be a right challenge for the girl he settles on, and the Lord help her if she ever goes astray!'

'You sound like a Welsh soothsayer,' Debra laughed.

'I know how to read the tea leaves, my girl, so any time you want to know your fate I'll take a look at what lies at the bottom of your teacup.'

'I'm not so sure that I want to know my fate.' Debra rose to her feet and gave little Dean a cuddle. In response he laid his head against her breast and blinked his dark lashes at her, already showing signs of being quite a charmer.

'You're my boy-friend, aren't you?' she smiled at him, and Dean smiled in solemn response.

Some time later Debra was busily at work in the den when the door suddenly opened . . . she glanced up from the typewriter, taking off her horn-rims in order to see who had entered.

'Hi there.' Stuart Coltan closed the door behind him and strolled to her desk, wearing navy slacks and a sky-blue shirt that matched his eyes. Debra felt a flash of surprise at seeing him, and felt again that there was something disruptive in his personality.

'I'm very busy, Mr Coltan,' she said firmly.

'I really go for that crisp and efficient manner of British secretaries,' he drawled. 'It makes me wonder what it may be hiding.'

'All it's hiding, Mr Coltan, is the desire to get on with the job,' she retorted.

'On a Sunday?' He lounged against her desk and studied her hair in a ray of sunlight through the mullioned windows behind her shoulders. 'What a little glutton you are for work—is it all you live for?'

'When the work's enjoyable.' She had to admit to herself that close like this he was every bit as good-looking as on television, with thick dark hair that peaked above his eyes, a deep dimple in his chin, and a lean, agile body that gave every indication of his dancing ability.

'You really mean to say that you enjoy pounding that machine most of the day?' he quizzed her.

'I'm typing into manuscript Mr Salvador's latest historical novel and it's an enthralling piece of work,' she said warmly.

'D'you like being enthralled?' A suggestive note entered his voice and his blue eyes roamed her face. 'Y'know, you're not such a bad-looking chick when you take off those glasses, and I have to tell you that I go for the colour of your hair—what d'you call that shade of hair?'

'I'm sure I wouldn't know.' She perched her spectacles back on her nose and ruffled some pages of notes on the desk.

'It's called chestnut-brown, isn't it?' He smiled and showed a good set of teeth. 'After those big nuts that fall off the trees in autumntime.'

'I've heard of a mouse being chestnut-brown.' She drily let him know that she had overheard his description of her.

'Aw, don't hold that against me.' He leant forward to take a folio out of the tray and received a smart slap on the wrist.

'Don't you dare touch any of those pages!' Debra gave him a severe look. 'I shall report you to Mrs Salvador if you tamper with her son's book. The book is confidential and not open to the public until the day of publication.'

'Is that a fact?' He looked quite unrepentant. 'I was just curious to see what sort of a typist you are—I might want a letter typed.'

'Then get one of your girl-friends to do it,' Debra rejoined.

'Does that mean you're exclusive to the brilliant writer?' He quirked an eyebrow. 'I must say you look an exclusive sort of chick.'

'Is that meant to be a compliment, Mr Coltan?'

'It sure is.' He looked quizzical, as if not often did he find himself in the company of a girl who wasn't prepared to react to him. 'I believe your name's Debbie?'

'It's Debra, and I don't let people use it unless I—like them.'

'Don't you get the feeling that you're going to like me?' He spoke with the brash confidence of a young man who had always found himself attractive to the female sex. 'I've been told that I'm appealing.'

'How good for your ego.' She gave the frame of her spectacles a push and hoped they would turn him off, well aware that men with a basic lack of sophistication were put off by girls in glasses. When at the office, she used them as a form of protection against the office wolves on the prowl. They definitely seemed to cool the libido in men who regarded girls as playthings, with not a thought in their heads beyond being the sport of the sex hunters.

'Haven't you ever tried contact lenses?' Stuart Coltan deliberately took the horn-rims off Debra's nose. 'It's a crying shame covering up those big eyes with old-maid glasses.'

'Give them back to me!' Debra felt a flash of anger. 'If you don't do so this minute I—I'll go and tell Senor Salvador that you're interrupting my work!'

'Am I supposed to quake at the knees?' he mocked, and looking undisturbed by her threat he perched her glasses on his own nose and peered at her. 'Take a letter, Miss Hartway—Dear Debra, how do you feel about letting me wine and dine you one of these evenings?'

'Are you going to believe that I'm not interested, Mr Coltan?'

'You've got to be.' He took off her horn-rims. 'I've an unbroken track record.'

'Congratulations.' She held out her hand for the return of her glasses. 'I don't wish to break my own record, which is that I never go out with wolves.'

'You can't imagine that I'm a wolf?' He looked mock astonished. 'Here, you had better have these back—you're not seeing straight.'

'I see through you even without them.' She accepted her glasses and replaced them. 'Now be a good boy and run away to your games, I have work to do.'

'Prim as a pussy in a collar, aren't you?' He laughed and glanced around the den, with its rather forbidding leather-stamped walls. 'Who used to reside here, the head of the Inquisition?'

'Back in the mists of time an abbey was built on this site and a Jesuit priest was attached to the Sisterhood. This was his cell.'

'Is that a fact?' Stuart looked genuinely interested. 'It sure feels like a great place for writing historical novels, but how do you feel about working alone here?'

It was a perceptive question and took Debra by surprise. She realised that there might be more to Stuart Coltan than agile good looks and a rather brash line in self-confident flirtation. 'I don't mind working here,' she replied.

He studied her a moment and then took in all aspects of the leather-walled room. 'There's a certain atmosphere about this place and I bet you've noticed it.'

'Noticed what?' she murmured.

His eyes met hers. 'As if it might be— haunted.'

'That's your actor's imagination at work, Mr Coltan.'

'Is it?' He quirked an eyebrow. 'I bet when you're alone here and the dusk is beginning to make shadows you start to get jumpy. I reckon it's a crying shame that you've been tucked away among all these books about the past. You shouldn't put up with it, kid. If you act like a mouse then all you'll get out of life is other people's stale cheese.'

'Thanks for the pearl of wisdom,' she rejoined. 'I was offered another room to work in, but I happen to prefer this one. It's quiet and tucked away and I don't disturb anyone with my typing—nor does anyone disturb me,' she added pointedly.

'Am I disturbing you, honey?' He made the query sound suggestive.

'You know full well that you're disturbing my work, Mr Coltan.'

'What a let down, Miss Hartway, I did so hope that I was discomposing you.'

'It would take more than you to do that.' Debra rose to her feet and walked to the door, which she held open for his departure. 'Go and join your friends—especially Zandra. She'll have the bloodhounds out after you if you don't take care.'

'You don't have to worry about Zandra.' He strolled to the door and there he confronted Debra with his brazen smile. 'Your surname is a libel, do you know that? You don't know a thing about the ways of the heart.'