Singing in the Wilderness (19 page)

It was a long way to where the teams were actually working, setting up the new telecommunications equipment.
I
f Stephanie had ever doubted that Persia was a large country, that day’s drive would have convinced her. Mile after mile, they sped across the open, dun-coloured plains, reaching the pass over the mountains, only to find another plain before them, the mirror image of the one before. The dry atmosphere made it possible to see for miles in any direction, the view only restricted by the endless range of mountains that constantly changed colour as the rays of the sun played on their slopes.

After the first hour conversation became desultory and finally died away altogether. Stephanie became increasingly conscious of the stiffness of her limbs and she wished desperately that she and Cas had been alone in the Range Rover, without the constraint of a third person.

‘Tired, honey?’ he asked her, when a second and then a third hour had slipped by.

She was too proud to admit that she was. ‘Not a bit!’ She threw him a cautious glance from beneath her lashes. ‘How much further do we have to go
?
’

‘We’ll stop at one of the Government Rest Houses for lunch. It’s not too far now, is it, Idries
?
’

‘No,
aga,
not far now. The very next town. Then we have very nice meal. Madame will feel better then.’

‘I feel fine now!’ Stephanie declared with more spirit than truth.

‘Prepared for anything?’ Cas teased her. ‘You’ll need to be tonight. There’s not much chance of our finding a hotel in the middle of nowhere.’

‘We have our sleeping-bags.’ That reminded her about the well-used state of the two of them. ‘You must have slept out often before,’ she said. ‘Who used the other one
?
’

‘Still jealous
?
’ he mocked her.

‘Of course not. I can’t imagine—’ She broke off, horrified by what she had been about to say; that she couldn’t imagine
Amber camping with anyone!

‘My brother and I do a lot of fishing back home,’ he answered her original query. ‘One of the bags is his. I don’t say that no one else has ever used it, but you’re the first female, so far as I know. Satisfied
?
’

‘I suppose so,’ she murmured.

‘What else do you want to know?’

There were so many things. She wanted to know everything about him; ridiculous things like what he had looked like as a small boy, and what sort of things made him laugh.

‘I didn’t know you had a brother,’ she said.

‘I have a brother and a sister, aunts and uncles, and the usual complement of grandparents.’

‘And they all live in West Virginia?’

‘My father’s people do. My mother’s family are spread more thinly on the ground. Some of them stayed in Poland. You’ll meet them all in time, I guess. There’ll be a lot of talk about Casimir marrying a Britisher. They’ll all come and look you over to see if you’re good enough for me! Think you can stand it
?
’

She averted her face from the brash amusement she saw in his eyes.

‘
You should have taken Casimir’s dreamboat home with you and given them something to talk about!’

‘I don’t think Amber would care for Virginia.’

‘Perhaps I won’t either!’

The corners of his mouth curved into a smile. ‘I’m not afraid of your being homesick—at least, not often. You’ll fit in too well not to feel at home there.’

‘I shall miss my parents! I’ve always lived with them. This is the longest I’ve ever been away from them!’

His glance swept over her and his smile deepened. ‘Your home is in my arms,’ he said quietly. ‘Once I’ve convinced you of that, you won’t be lonesome for any other. I’ll see to that!’

She had no answer to that. Indeed, she could hardly breathe and her mouth was dry at the thought. How marvellous it would be when she was his wife in fact and Amber was back home in Beirut with her husband! In time
C
as might even forget the Armenian beauty and she might win all his heart for herself. There could be no greater bliss in all the world than that!

They came upon the town suddenly. It lay in the fold of the mountain range, a small stream running through its centre. It consisted of a few, dark, shuttered shops, lit by circular neon strips, and a collection of dun-coloured houses that were slowly crumbling back into the dust from which they had been built. At the far end was the mosque, crowned with a tiled dome that was badly in need of repair.

‘The town is far away,’ Idries explained. ‘Few people come this way.’

‘But it looks so sad and neglected,’ Stephanie murmured.

‘The owner never comes here,’ Idries told her. ‘He lives in Tehran and cares nothing for the people here. But these things will be ended soon. The Shahanshah has brought in many reforms and there will be others to follow. One day, these people will own their own land. In my village, it is already like that.’

‘They could at least repair the mosque,
’Stephanie said.

‘They are building a new one, near to the Rest House. That one is too close to the water. When it floods, all the walls fall down and no one can use it. The new one will be much better.’

But the old one had been a fine building in its time. It had been built on the same plan as one of the old Sassanian Fire Temples, in the form of a square cross, which had once held the sacred fire in its centre.

‘Was it always so near the river?’ she asked.

Idries shook his head. ‘The water moved its bed in an earthquake. The earth is always moving round here. Sometimes you can feel it trembling beneath your feet, but some
tim
es it has bad results and people are killed and their homes fall down.’

‘The people have a lot to put up with,’ Stephanie sighed.

Idries smiled, his white teeth flashing in the sunlight. ‘Everything is better now. We have oil now and money to do many things. Everybody can learn to do great things now!’

‘Like you, Idries,’ Cas put in. ‘You come from a village like this yourself, don’t you?’

The young Iranian nodded. ‘But soon I go to university and study telecommunications. If I work hard, we will have no need to rely on foreigners any more to do everything for us. This is the Shah’s wish for us.’

Stephanie wondered how it was that Cas knew so much about the young driver. Kindly though he was to those who worked for him, she couldn’t imagine her father taking the trouble to find out where one of his drivers came from, or what his ambitions for the future were. Cas, she thought, was the better employer, and she felt a surge of loving loyalty towards him because she thought he was also the better man—and he was hers! She had taken on his name, casting off her father’s, and she was glad she had made the change. It wasn’t only because she loved him, but she was burningly proud of him as a man and a human being.

‘My husband will help you all he can,’ she said to Idries.

‘Well, well,’ said Cas, ‘you said that as though you meant it!’

She felt as brave as a lion and full of conceit that she should be identified with him. ‘I did,’ she said.

Her courage deserted her as fast as it had come. She saw with relief that they had drawn up outside the Rest House and she leaned forward, impatient to be out of the Range Rover and able to stretch her legs. It was a two-storey building, she noticed, with the restaurant to the right of the main door.

‘Yours is upstairs, honey,’ Cas told her. ‘If you get lost, yell for help, and I’ll come and find you.’

He would too, she thought. It was reassuring to know that he wouldn’t leave her to fight her own bat
tl
es if she needed him. She mounted the stairs two at a time, feeling the pull of her muscles at the back of her legs and reflecting that the exercise would be good for her. She had almost reached the top when it came to her that he had ga
in
ed her trust after all. Yesterday, she hadn’t known what she felt
about him. It had all been a glorious muddle of physical attraction and a nerve-sapping insecurity that nothing would ever change. Now, she knew it had. She knew she could trust him as much and more
than she
trusted herself. He might not love her with the abandon that he felt for Amber, but he cared for her, cared more perhaps than even she yet knew. It was like being hit by a thunderbolt. There was so much more to being Mrs. Casimir Ruddock than she could ever have imagined a few hours ago.

Not even the dust that had settled on her face could hide the glow that lit up her features. She was happy she realised. Insanely, blissfully happy—and it showed! She made a face at herself in the mirror. What had she to be so happy about
?
And if she could see it, Cas would spot it at once. He was not a stupid
man.

She put off going downstairs for as long as she felt she could and went into the dining-room, swinging her bag by its strap, and deliberately not looking anywhere in Cas’s direction. She was surprised to find him alone at the table.

‘Where’s Idries?’ she asked. That was a good, safe subject to begin with.

‘He’s found a friend to talk to.’ He watched her through half-shut eyes as she seated herself opposite him, a
small
smile playing at the corners of his mouth. ‘Were you hoping he was going to chaperon you
?
’

‘Of course not,’ she denied.

She could hardly contain her relief, however, when two huge plates, loaded with piles of fluffy white rice, were brought to them. Deeply buried at the bottom of the rice was a nameless piece of meat, which proved to be much more tender than she expected.

Cas was drinking beer. Her eye fixed on his glass and she felt safe enough to smile at him. ‘I’ll never manage to get through all this,’ she said.

He grinned at her. ‘You may not get much more today,’ he warned her.

‘We have plenty of food in the Range Rover. I’m rather looking forward to cooking under the stars. I was never a Girl Guide, or anything like that.’

‘Have you ever slept out in the open before
?
’ His tone was deliberately idle, as though her answer could only hold the barest interest for him. ‘The ground can seem very hard if you’re not used to it.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before.’

There was nothing idle about the expression in his eyes. ‘You’re committed now, Mrs. Ruddock. You’ve decided to trust me after all, haven’t you?’

She thought about saying that she didn’t understand what he was talking about, but she couldn’t do it in cold blood. Not when he was looking at her as though he were tuned in on her most intimate thoughts, and sometimes she thought that perhaps he was! ‘Have I?’ she compromised.

‘Why now?’ he persisted.

‘It—it happened.’ She cut off a piece of meat with hands that trembled, and transferred it to her mouth with a care that amused him. ‘You wouldn’t have married me unless you wanted me to be with you.’

‘That was equally true yesterday,’ he drawled.

‘I didn’t know yesterday. I thought—I knew you wanted to make love to me, and that was all I could think about. Any woman would—’ She broke off, embarrassed. ‘Well, a lot of them have, haven
’
t they? I knew I wasn’t the only one!’

‘If you married me to cut out the competition, why did you imagine I married you?’ he asked with studied
interest.

This was worse than she had ever thought it could be. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘You wouldn’t have me in the office and I thought you wanted to keep an eye on me, to see that neither my father or I did any harm while you were in charge. I tried not to think about the
future at all—I didn’t think there’d be any—for me!’

‘I see.’ He sounded unbearably sad. ‘What made you change your mind
?
’

‘You said I’d fit in with your family in West Virginia, and that my home would always be with you,’ she said simply.

She couldn’t interpret the strange light in his eyes and wished hopelessly that she had the same trick of reading his mind as he could hers. He reached out across the table and put his hand on hers. The feel of his skin touching hers made her heart knock painfully against her ribs.

‘I’m glad you believed that at any rate,’ he said. ‘Though what I actually said was that your home would be in my arms—and I meant it too.’ His expression softened. ‘Oh, Stephanie, you little idiot! What did you suppose I was going to do with you after I’d had my way with you, and achieved your father’s conviction
?
Put you in prison too?’

‘I didn’t know. Americans are always getting married and divorced for no reason at all. How should I know what you might do?’

His laughter brought her indignation to a head and she glowered at him across the table, withdrawing her hand from beneath his with an injured air.

‘You’ve been seeing too many cheap American films, honey,’ he rebuked her. ‘As Amber told you, my people are good, solid Catholics, and we’ve never had a broken marriage in the family yet!’ He put a finger under her chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘Am I really such a stranger to you?’