To Marry a Tiger (16 page)

CHAPTER TEN

“THAT,” she info
r
med him roundly, “doesn’t mean a thing!”

She took the opportunity of retreating a few paces away from him, shocked by (the urgent desire within herself to fling herself ba
ck
into his arms and tell him she would be pleased,
proud
,
to do whatever he wanted of her.

“No?” He looked at her thoughtfully.

Ruth lifted her chin defiantly. “No!”

“Then you won’t mind if I kiss you again?” he suggested smoothly.

He looked as if he would be as good as his word and Ruth backed away from him as hard as she could. He smiled at her and her heart turned right over.

“Well?” he said. “You might even kiss me?”

She gave him a quick, harassed look. “You don’t understand!” she flared at him.

He took her hands back into his. “Explain it to me,” he said, with such sympathy that she was sorely tempted to give way.

She shrugged her shoulders instead. “I can’t!” she said. “It isn’t
enough
!”

“It’s a good deal,” he pointed out with an amused grin.

“For
you
!”
she stormed back. “You can come and go as you please!
Do
as you please! Why can’t I?”

He was very gentle. “What do you want to do?” he asked her.

She saw, too late, that she had fallen into a trap
of her own making. There was only one thing she wanted to do and that was to creep back into his arms on any terms he cared to offer her. But she would not be so craven! She drew in a deep breath. “Does it matter?” she challenged him.

His eyes filled with warm laughter. “Not a bit,” he replied swiftly, “if what you want to do is the same as what I want to do!” He looked so innocent that she was suspicious. “This, for example,” he went on casually.

She felt that she knew then
w
hat any small animal felt when an eagle swooped down on it and carried it up into the sky. As his lips came down on hers, she shut her eyes. Her will-power skidded away from her and she was hazily aware that she was enjoying the fact.

When he released her, she swallowed hard, struggling to regain her equanimity.

“I suppose you kiss Pearl like that too!” she challenged him, aware that she was flirting with danger, but quite unable to resist the temptation.

His face hardened. “And what is that to you?”

She didn’t answer. If she
had, he would have known that s
he was consumed by jealousy for his interest in anyone else, and she would sooner have died than for him to know that! She didn’t know when she had passed through such a shattering few minutes of self-revelation. If he kissed her
again
—! But already he had no excuse for not knowing that to her he was both ecstasy and the depths of despair. And she had thought of him as being a tiger! Why, the tiger was within herself and she had never even suspected its existence, she had been so busy being quiet and respectable and—and
dull
!

In a state of considerable agitation, she pulled herself free and ran away from him, as fast as she
could, up the drive to the house and safety. Saro, the dog, welcomed her at the front door by barking his head off, and rushed up the stairs after her with yelps of delight at this new and unexpected game.

At the top of the stairs, Ruth crashed into Pearl without even seeing her.

“I thought you’d gone out with Henry!” she accosted her
s
ister.

Pearl shrugged.
“
I didn’t want to. Whatever happened to you?” she added curiously.

“I’m going home!” Ruth announced.
“
Now
!”

“But I thought you were going to stay here for ever, waiting for the crumbs to fall?” Pearl reminded her, her blue eyes wide and innocent.

“Well, now I’m not!” Ruth retorted. The panic that had gripped her was beginning to subside, but she was still quite determined to run as fast and as far as she could.

“Good!” said Pearl. “And how are we going to leave?”

“I don’t know,” Ruth admitted. “But it must be possible. Did you buy your ticket when you were in Palermo?”

“
My
t
icket, not yours! You haven’t got a passport at the moment. Mario left it off at the British Consulate to have the name altered—”

“Oh no!” Ruth exclaimed wearily.

“I don’t see that it matters,” Pearl said reasonably. “If you’re really determined to go, you can wait a few days, surely?”

“No, I can’t!”
Ruth
snapped back. “I’ll—I’ll—” Her brow cleared dramatically. “I’ll get Roberto to help me!” she said with relief, and blinked earnestly at her sister. “You won’t breathe a word of this to Mario, will you?”

“I’m not a sneak!” Pearl denied, hurt. “I happen to
think that you won’t lose Mario as easily as you think, but that’s your affair.”

The very mention of Mario gave Ruth a desperate feeling. “Pearl, you’ve got to help me! There isn’t
anyone else!”

“I’ve said I will,” Pearl retorted with a touch of irritation. “Though I don’t suppose you’ll thank me when I have helped you. If you ask me, it will be a relief to everyone concerned when you and Mario sort yourselves out! He won’t so much as look at
me
at the moment, and you seem to have lost your head
entirely!”

This complaint brought an involuntary smile to Ruth’s lips. “He took you to Palermo,” she reminded her.

“So he did!” Pearl drawled. “What a thrill for me!”

“You would have thought so a few days ago,” Ruth
said bitterly.

“I might have done,” Pearl agreed, striking a dramatic attitude of what she thought a romantic heroine ought to look like.
“
That
was a few days ago. Strictly platonic relationships aren’t in my line, though, she added.

“It doesn’t look particularly platonic from where I
’
m sitting,” Ruth told her grumpily. "Oh, Pearl, how can you say so! It
couldn’t
have been platonic when he sent you the tickets to come to Sicily!”

“Love them and leave them, that’s my motto!” Pearl answered with a touch of humour. I don
’
t think Mario agrees with me, somehow.” She shivered slightly. “You know, Ruth dear, I don’t envy you your Sicilian bandit! It
may
be my nice nature that refuses to envy any sister of mine, but I don’t think so. I like being free and I like to enjoy myself. By the time Mario has finished with you, you won’t be able to call your soul your own!”

“I know,” Ruth said simply.

“So that isn’t why you’re rushing headlong in the opposite direction?” Pearl
s
ighed.

“N-no,” Ruth admitted.

“Then
why
?”

Ruth swallowed. “I can’t explain!” she parried quickly. “It’s all so awful! I never did understand about honour and so on. I suppose I gambled on it and I lost.”

Pearl looked increasingly bewildered. “What on earth are you talking about?” she demanded. “You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” She barely waited for Ruth’s faint nod of the head. “Well, there you are? What more do you want?”

“For him to be in love with me!” Ruth burst out. She coloured up finely. “N-not a grand passion,” she defended herself immediately. “N-not m-much at all, but just a little bit!”

Pearl stared at her, feeling quite uncomfortable in the face of such intensity of emotion. “Goodness!” she said blankly.

“It isn’t very flattering to mean nothing more than—than an honourable gesture!” Ruth went on, pursuing her point to the bitter end.

Pearl giggled. “Have you told him so?” she asked.

“No.” Ruth looked the very picture of dejection. “You must see that I
couldn’t
!”

“Well, I think he’s guessed!” Pearl said coolly. “He’s no fool, and anybody can see that there’s something the matter with you! When I think about how you lectured me! And I’ve never done anything as awful as allowing any man to capture me like some—some Sabine woman
!”

“Some
what
?”
Ruth gasped.

Pearl creased up her forehead. “Perhaps they weren’t Sabines,” she said thoughtfully. “But they didn’t want to go back to their own men when they were
rescued. They preferred to stay with the Romans!
”
she finished triumphantly, pleased to be able to produce this piece of classical history from some distant Latin class. “You must know the story, Ruth. It was about the only interesting one in the book.”

Ruth sat stock still, her back as stiff as a poker. “Are you suggesting,” she asked awfully, “that I don’t really want to go home?”

“No,” Pearl said pacifically. "But I don’t think you’d want to go if you weren’t pretty sure that Mario will come after you.” She eyed her sister thoughtfully. “Don’t blame me, that’s all, if you get hurt!”

“I won’t!” Ruth said dourly.

“That’s all right, then,” Pearl said with grudging approval. “You’d better set about getting Roberto to retrieve your passport for you. I shall hitch a ride into Palermo and get you a ticket. Have you got any money?”

Ruth found her purse and opened it. At first sight it looked as if she had millions of
lire
,
but when she counted them up they didn’t look as they were going very far.

“Will you have enough, do you think?” she asked Pearl anxiously.

Pearl accepted the bundle of notes with a resigned expression. “It won’t allow for luxuries, will it?” she said sourly. “What have you done with all the money we brought with us?”

“I left it at the hotel in Naples for you,” Ruth said.

Pearl looked a trifle guilty. “Oh, was I supposed to keep it?” she muttered. “I thought it was something to keep me entertained while you were away.”

“Oh, Pearl, you didn’t! What on earth did you spend it on
?
”

“Shoes mostly,” Pearl remembered with glee. “Italian shoes must be the best in the world! I’ve never seen such gorgeous, fragile creations! I could have bought up the whole shop
!
”

“But they weigh so heavily,” Ruth protested feebly. “What are you going to do on the flight home?”

“Smile at the man who weighs us in,” Pearl said simply.

Feeling more than a little harassed, Ruth went downstairs again, hoping to find Roberto on his own. In this she was lucky, for Mario’s uncle had deposited
his
wife at the house of some friends and had come home himself, looking for a quiet place where he could have a smoke and read some papers to do with his business. It had been a bad time for him to come away from Tunis, pleased as he had been to snatch a few days in his native Sicily, and he felt obliged to carry on with as much work as he could while he was there.

He looked up from the gilded sofa on which he was seated as Ruth came into the room.

“Ah, my dear, how nice! Have you come to have a chat with me?” His eyes noted her goaded expression with something very like amusement. “You know that I am very much at your service.”

‘Thank you,” she said with dignity. She sat down quickly on a small chair, facing him, wondering how she could possibly make her request known to him. If only he had looked a little less like Mario!

“It’s something dreadful
!
” she confessed in a forlorn voice.

“But not so dreadful that it can’t be put right?” he suggested.

She took courage from his quiet confidence and relaxed a trifle. “Will y
o
u help me
?”
she asked him frankly.

“That’s what I came to Sicily to do,” he reminded her quietly.

“Yes, I know,” she said, and stopped. She looked at him earnestly. “I can’t stay here after all!” she explained in a little burst. “I thought I could, but I can’t!”

She more than half expected his expression to harden as Mario’s did whenever he was crossed, but Roberto remained perfectly calm. “Then of course nobody will make you stay,” he said quietly.

“But that’s just it! Mario took my passport in to Palermo and now I don’t know if I even have one
!
And Pearl has bought shoes with most of the money! And our return tickets only go from Naples, and I don’t know if we have enough to get there! And even if we could, I can’t go
anywhere
without a passport!”

He seemed to have no difficulty in sorting out this rather garbled account. “I suppose your passport is at the British Consulate? But that’s the easiest thing in the world! We shall call there and ask them for it. They can hardly refuse to give it to you.”