House of Storms (9 page)

'Was Pauline that kind of a girl?' For some reason Debra felt disappointed; she had hoped that Lenora Salvador was in the wrong when she implied that the young dancer had married Jack in order to gain money and status. Debra had romantically hoped that it had been one of those breathless love affairs which had ended tragically because it had been fated to do so.

She gave a crooked little smile. 'I suppose I read too many books, Nanny Rose, and real life isn't like fiction, is it? Real people are very complex, almost frighteningly so.'

'That may be the case, my ducky, but don't you turn into one of those women who won't dare to love because the very dangers of the involvement are too much for them to face. That's what some people lose sight of when they tend to deride ''old maids", as they sourly call them. If I know anything about single women it's that they're a mite too romantic in their ideas, and a mite too ready to be self-sacrificing when it comes to family or career.'

'So in your heart, Nanny Rose, you do regret a little that you never married and had a family of your own to raise?'

'Now and again it crosses my mind.' Nanny Rose had put the sleepy Dean into his pyjamas, and she carried him to bed where he snuggled down with his floppy-eared teddy-bear. Debra gazed down at him and wondered how Jack Salvador could stay away from this affectionate little boy who needed him. Even if he blamed himself for the failure of his marriage he shouldn't allow that blame to include his son.

She bent down and kissed the rosy cheek. 'Sleep tight, little boy, and may the angels guard you.' It was a little prayer her mother always murmured to her when she was an infant.

She stayed a while longer with Nanny Rose, then bade her good night and went along to her own room. As she switched on the light and gazed around her, her usual pleasure in the room was diluted tonight by her troubled thoughts. Restlessly she wandered out on the terrace, a jacket flung round her shoulders in case it was still raining a little. But the rain had gone away and the sky had a refreshed look, the stars in silver clusters above the sea. She breathed deeply of the night air and felt a restoration of her spirits.

Despite the undertow of drama which seemed to haunt the atmosphere of Abbeywitch, she wouldn't have changed places with anyone. She felt strangely elated to be here, and all at once her mind was filled again with the dark and dominant figure of Rodare Salvador.

Debra knew that someone less sensitive than herself would accept his invitation to the party, even if he did make it out of courtesy alone.

Suddenly she shivered and drew her jacket closer about her figure. With a touch of panic she ordered herself to stop thinking about the master of this great house, a man to whom she could never mean anything other than the secretary of his brother; a man who at some unexpected moment would return to Spain and forget her very existence.

But Rodare Salvador was the type of man who didn't merely saunter into a girl's thoughts, he invaded them. Her fingers closed upon the stonework of the terrace and she stood there a long time, willing the wind to blow from her mind his tall, persistent image.

It was sheer madness to allow herself these thrills of fascination. It was begging for heartache to fall beneath the spell of someone who barely knew she was alive. She was the little mouse in the den, and she had better remember it!

With a last look at the stars Debra returned to her room and closed the terrace doors. She drew the curtains and prepared for bed. A slim romantic paperback awaited her on the night-table and she hoped it would relax the relentless hold which the
hidalgo
had upon her imagination tonight.

She was seated at the dressing-table in her wrap, passing a comb in long strokes through her hair, when someone rapped upon her bedroom door. Sometimes Nanny Rose came in for a chat, or it might be the young maid who liked to talk about her boy-friend who spent all his wages on his motorcycle and wouldn't save up to get engaged. Debra didn't hesitate to go and open the door.

She retreated with a gasp, for Rodare Salvador was standing tall in the corridor and he had a look of sombre elegance in a burgundy velvet jacket, his lean fingers holding a cigar from which the smoke drifted aromatically.

'Ah, I see you are upon the verge of going to your bed.' His Latin eyes took in comprehensively the honey-coloured wrap that she wore, her hair caping the silky fabric.

'Yes, I am about to go to bed,' she said nervously. 'What do you want,
señor
?'

He carried his cigar to his lips and drew on it, and Debra was desperately aware that he had previous knowledge of the shape and texture of her beneath the wrap, and she had to fight with herself not to draw the lapels together across her bare neck, a gesture that would indicate her extreme awareness of him.

His eyes flicked the slim bareness of her neck. 'You seemed disinclined, Miss Hartway, to accept an invitation to my party, so I came to impress upon you that you are expected to attend. I shall be most annoyed if you are absent, and people have been known to get very nervous when I'm annoyed.'

Because Debra was fighting his alarming attraction; because she had to conceal every indication that his air of Latin distinction made her legs feel weak, she answered him as if she disliked everything about him.

'You call it an invitation but it's really an order, isn't it,
señor
? You feel compelled to make it plain to me that I wasn't deliberately left off the guest list, but we both know that I was, and I really don't mind in the least—'

'I do mind,' he interrupted her, 'and I am making it very plain that you are to join us.'

'But I'm not a guest,
señor
.' Debra was determined not to be overruled by him; she didn't really want to see him being charmed by the young woman named Sharon who was coming as a very much wanted guest. 'I am here at Abbeywitch to work on your brother's book and I no more expect to socialise with you and your family than does Nanny Rose. I would feel very much out of things.'

'That is nonsense!' He gestured with his cigar and looked so haughty and Spanish that he made Debra feel gauche and very conscious that her hair was hanging about her face and shoulders in a way that intensified her youth.

'It isn't nonsense, a-and I won't be bullied—'

'Bullied?' he took her up, his eyes glittering. 'I don't like the sound of that word.'

'I don't suppose you do,' she said bravely, 'but it seems to me that you're using your position as head of this house in order to make me do something I don't want to do.'

'You would be so unable to enjoy yourself at my party?' He looked astounded, as if never before had a slip of a girl dared to oppose one of his whims. 'Not even with the handsome Stuart Coltan there to dance with? Surely he has every female in the house eating out of his hand?'

'I stopped eating out of anyone's hand a long time ago,
señor
.’ Debra strove to look haughty. 'I realise that you imagine me to be not long out of the schoolroom, but I've been earning my own living for several years now and I'm quite capable of taking care of myself and making my own decisions.'

'And so you have decided to throw my invitation back in my face, eh?' He drew on his cigar and watched her through the smoke, with eyes so unreadable it was impossible to tell whether he was annoyed or casually amused by her.

'That's putting it rather strongly,
señor
,’ she murmured. 'I'm merely saying that I understand why your sister omitted my name when she made out her list. I'm employed here.'

'So you keep informing me.' His glance drifted over the room beyond her shoulder. 'I see you have been given a comfortable room to sleep in, but I am not too sure that you have a restful room in which to be employed, least of all on one of Jack's books. It is rather isolated from the rest of the house.'

'And that makes it ideal,' she said firmly. 'I'm able to concentrate on what I'm doing and I don't get interrupted.'

'Not even by Stuart Coltan?'

'No—that is, he did look in this morning out of curiosity.'

'Yes, I would say that young man has a great deal of curiosity about young women who fail to swoon at his feet.' Cigar smoke made the Spanish eyes look devilish for a moment. 'You would inform me if he became a nuisance, eh?'

'No,' she replied.

'No?' A black eyebrow elevated with astonishment. 'But it would be my right to know.'

'Your—right,
señor
?' Almost without awareness Debra closed the lapels of her wrap across her throat.

'I happen to be the master of this house,' he rejoined, 'and I take it upon myself to safeguard those who sleep beneath my roof. That you address me as
señor
is proof, Miss Hartway, of what you see in me. You see my partiality for the ways of my mother's people; for their code of honour and their rules of hospitality. I was born in Spain and I grew up there when my parents separated and my father took a second wife. Jack and Zandra were born here and I expect you wonder why Abbeywitch is mine?'

She nodded, and even as her mind warned her against him, she was held by her own curiosity and his curious charm. He was as impossibly beyond her reach as a planet in the sky, but never had she felt so fascinated by anyone. He looked like no other man she had ever seen, and he had a way of speaking that made his slightest remark seem significant.

Debra was quite certain now that he had the air of a Goya
grande
, and if he commanded people to do things it was because nature had made him that way.

'It is a known fact,' he said, smoke curling from his lips, 'that men turn away from the children of a broken marriage, almost as if they blame the first wife for the failure. This is probably related to the fact that first love has something magical about it and when the magic fails it's often the fruit of the marriage that takes the bruising.'

He shrugged the firm, burgundy-clad shoulders. 'I was never easy to bruise, but my mother was—however this house and the island can only be inherited by the eldest child and so Abbeywitch became mine, much to my stepmother's ire. Had I been vindictive on account of my own mother and her unhappiness I would have emptied the place of Lenora and her brood, but too much of me is Spanish and there are a lot of rooms.'

He smiled briefly and his eyes flicked Debra's hair which glistened in the wall-lighting. 'There is a moth,' he murmured, 'which has wings the colour of your hair. It comes to the bougainvillea which shades my Spanish house and trembles there among the creamy blossoms, so vulnerable that its wings can be crushed by a fingertip. Tell me something, Miss Hartway, do you wonder what I do for my living?'

'No—' She supposed him a man with a comfortable income, and somehow he didn't strike her as a business tycoon.

'Perhaps you think me rich and idle, eh?'

'No, I can't imagine you being idle,
señor
.'

'True enough.' He shrugged off the very thought. 'I am a
padrino
,
señorita
, which in Spain is almost a profession. I act for people who need advice and fortunately I came into enough money to enable me to do what I like best to do. I expect my occupation strikes you as unglamorous beside that of my brother?'

'It's different.' She found herself smiling into the dark eyes, a moment so confusing that she held the edge of the door for support. Dear lord, she was falling headlong into infatuation with this man and it would be mortifying if he sensed his effect upon her. Swiftly she replaced her mask of polite reserve and drew back a step into her room.

'I really must go to bed,' she said nervously. 'I've worked a good few hours on the book and my eyes feel heavy.'

'No, you must never overstrain the eyes, nor must you make of your life all work and no diversion. I shall expect to see you in your party dress tomorrow evening at eight ... is that understood?'

Overwhelmed by feelings she was trying not to feel, Debra gave in to his dictate. 'Very well,
señor
, if you must have your way.'

'There are certainly times when I must have my way.' He inclined his dark head. '
Buenas noches, señorita
.'

She closed the door as he strolled away, and when she went to bed her knees still felt rather wobbly. She lay there with the curtains drawn open and watched the distant sparkling of the stars. The sea could be heard washing the rocks that littered the shore, and though there had been nights when the sound had rocked her off to sleep, tonight she was made restless by it.

Pressing her face into her pillow, she desperately told herself that she couldn't allow what she was feeling to have the name of love. She was infatuated with the dark authority of the man, and even though she was unworldly in some ways, she had instincts that told her to beware of his subtle charm ... an edge of steel showed through the velvet in which it was encased.

He was of the
hidalgo
class of Spaniard and no doubt used to casting his spell over girls like herself. Girls he could entrap in those dark eyes, beckoning them on until they found themselves in his arms. Debra burrowed into her bed and tried not to see his face, tried not to remember his voice, but it was as useless as trying to stop the sea from beating the rocks of Lovelis Island.

She lay there and there was no way she could stop herself from remembering the cadence of his voice when he had spoken of her hair and related its colour to that of a moth that clung to the bougainvillea of his Spanish dwelling.

She knew of her own unfledged wings, but she couldn't allow herself to be a tremulous moth drawn into his dark flame . . . she would burn like mad and all he would feel would be a haughty amusement.

What should she do about the party? She lay and pondered the problem, and when she finally fell asleep she dreamt that she was dancing, but she couldn't be sure if she danced with Stuart Coltan or the
señor
.