Roumelia Lane - The Scented Hills

by Roumelia Lane

  She wanted to smile at Elaine's cool daring in hoping to inveigle Neil, but somehow the smile glistened as a tear in her eyes. Elaine didn't have to have a motive. She would get what she wanted simply because she was Elaine, a woman who made all male heads turn when she went by. Was there a man anywhere who wouldn't be moved by her loveliness? And Neil was a man and a half.

  Tessa would turn away to stop the torture. It wouldn't do any good anyway. She herself meant nothing at all to him and could never hope to. And who could say? Perhaps he had always wanted Elaine for himself. He had warned Barry off her at the start, hadn't he, and he had danced with her constantly when they had met up again that night at the hotel. And look at him now.

  Try as she might, Tessa couldn't stop her mind from twisting the knife in her heart. Though she wasn't looking forward to the night, when she would be expected to take part in the festivities at the villa, it was becoming infinitely more preferable to the ones she was witnessing now.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The August day of Barry's birthday dawned blue and clear. Tessa went downstairs at an early hour to help with the preparations for the evening, glad of any task that would take her mind off her own gnawing heartache. There were the big silver trays to be brought out from the old carved sideboard in the dining room and polished, and endless table napkins to be folded and pressed. Perfume executives from London had flown into Cannes the day before, and with Barry's friends and Madame Devereux's neighbours, dozens of everything were needed.

  Through the morning a consignment of buffet tables and garden furniture was delivered, and workmen came to lace the terrace and trees with overhead multi-coloured lights. Tessa kept to the back of the house where she could, and caught up in the happy bustle of the servants, she had no time to think of herself. She had lunch with Nicolette at a small round table in the kitchen, then helped to cut the mountains of various shaped pastries ready for baking and stuffing in the afternoon.

  Occupied in this way, she wouldn't have cared if the work had gone on unendingly, but eventually all the preparations were made, and there was nothing else that anyone could find for her to do. Snatching at any chore after that, she went out with a pile of gleaming white tablecloths that Nicolette had been meaning to take and never got round to, and placed one in readiness on each of the tables bordering the terrace.

  Barry was there, lounging in a sun-chair and thumbing through a magazine. Tessa had seen him earlier to wish him a happy birthday. She had no occasion to speak with him now. Neil was fixing a bulb in an empty socket along a string of lights. Beside him, Elaine looked cool and lovely in white.

  Tessa strung her task out so that there wouldn't be much time left before everyone had to go upstairs and change. She came up to where the repairs were being carried out. The new bulb had been screwed in. As the big figure leaned to switch on from a small neat box high on a lamp along the balustrade, Elaine brought her hands together to exclaim on a bell-like laugh, 'Oh, Neil, please! Let me!'

  With a smile Neil helped her up the set of wooden steps and steadied her. She flicked the switch and the lights sprang on in a myriad of colours, then she was caught against him as he swung her down beside him. She bent as they both laughed, to examine a slim stockinged knee where one shining thread was looped, and looking up to where Tessa was standing she said throatily, 'Tessa, be a darling and pop up to my room for my nail varnish, these stockings cost me the earth.' She tilted a condescending eyebrow over the flushed features and flour-streaked cheeks and smiled, 'The colourless one, dear.'

  Tessa nodded and went. It was something else to do to pass the time, she told herself bleakly. Upstairs in Elaine's room she hunted for a while before she found the colourless nail varnish in a box with several vivid-hued ones in the drawer of the dressing table. She was just turning quickly away when her gaze fell on the phial of perfume on the top. Cut crystal and expensively shaped, there was no mistaking the Devereux stamp. In fact she recognised the bottle and the name as the first one she had picked up and admired on her visit to the factories. She remembered Neil's slow smile as he had taken it from her to replace it on the shelf, telling her, 'You'll never be the Cleopatra type.'

  She swallowed now, dragging her gaze away from the dressing table. Obviously Elaine was the Cleopatra type. His type. There was no doubt about that now. He must have made her a present of the phial on that recent afternoon when he had taken her down there. The thought of him knowing his favourite perfume on her all week made Tessa want to run from the dull unhappy thud of her heart.

  She went downstairs and outside to where Neil and Elaine were still smiling together, and placing the nail varnish in Elaine's hand, she went quickly off into the gardens.

  Her hasty steps were no cure for the stinging tears, but she blinked and blinked and gradually the world became less rainy, the garden its usual sun-dappled green.

  Madame Devereux was just ahead beyond the loggia. She had been cutting flowers for the villa vases. Tessa went to help her gather them up eagerly, but the older woman hadn't missed her flying steps along the path. Her kindly gaze had been penetrating at times over the past few weeks and as they turned and walked back together to the house she said gently, 'You're not happy, ma chere.'

  Tessa clutched the flowers to her and kept her tear-starred gaze to the front. After a few moments she said, 'I won't be marrying Barry.'

  Madame Devereux's eyes showed no surprise. She asked simply, 'Why not?'

  'I don't love him,' Tessa said, smiling to soften the blow.

  Madame Devereux nodded. 'I am sorry,' she said, gazing at Tessa. 'You would have made him a fine wife,' and then as they walked she added softly, 'Barry is young and impetuous. One day you will meet an older, more gentle man.'

  It won't do me any good! No good at all! Tessa gulped back the ache in her throat and kept her gaze from where Neil stood at the far end of the terrace.

  She dressed that night simply and unhurriedly in the dove- grey Paisley-patterned silk, and went downstairs as late as she dared, intending to come up as early as she could discreetly manage it.

  In the dusk the terrace and gardens were gay with people and lights. The white-clothed tables were laid out with food as she had seen it arranged in the Nice and Cannes hotels; silver trays piled high artistically with everything from lobsters, clams, and oysters, to fresh salads, cool melon and all kinds of meat dishes and fruit.

  The other members of the villa would be mingling with the guests somewhere, but Tessa slipped in thankfully with

  Barry's friends. She wandered through the gardens wüth them, admiring the green floodlighting among the trees and the blue-toned fountain, and ate with them around a table fronting the drawing room windows.

  The villa was ablaze with lights. They went and sat around among the rich old furniture for a while, an
  When the musicians eventually put away their instruments and left, the more orchestral tones of the record player was switched on, but people were for relaxing now and standing around.

  The evening was coming to an end, Tessa had been meaning to slip away for some time, but Ralph, a dark-eyed, more serious member of the Devereux set, had stayed beside her most of the evening and she had just had a last dance on the terrace with him.

  Everyone was there now. Madame Devereux's distinguished elderly friends, the perfume executives and their wives and Neil and Elaine… his wife-to-be.

  Tessa hadn't let herself pick the two out all evening, but there was no denying Elaine's loveliness now. Slim and fair in black figure-moulding dress, she laughed up at Neil
as they danced. Gazing down at her, he drew her close and brushed his lips along her cheek.

  Tessa looked on from where she stood, hollow-eyed. Barry was watching them from some distance away, as he must have been for most of the evening, for she had seen little of him. She saw his downcast features now, his lips pressed tight against the hurt. As he had watched that close embrace he knew he had lost Elaine.

  Tessa's heart went out to him. She wanted to hurry over and offer some word of comfort, but he disappeared quickly among the guests. She kept a look out for him as the dancing gradually petered out and people started to leave, and searched through the rooms of the villa for him without success.

  When his friends left, she thought he might have been there along the drive to see them off, but he didn't appear.

  Amidst laughter and handshakes, she heard the business executives and their wives depart for their hotel in Cannes. The elderly guests drove off in their sedate transport. Soon the terrace had only one lamp lit to shine a dim glow on the scene of past festivities. The gardens were all in darkness.

  Tessa searched every path and corner by the light of the stars and the drive once more, before turning her steps despondently towards the dimly lit villa and her room.

  No sound came from the house. The bedroom shutters were all closed and fastened for the night. Tessa stepped beyond the shadows in the doorway and saw Barry across in the drawing room. He was fiddling idly with the knobs and switches of the record player. She always thought how incongruous his gleaming expensive music equipment looked against the rich old French furniture.

  She went in to him and stood over him and thought how young and utterly alone he looked, and impulsively she reached into her handbag for the two rolls of notes she had always kept there, and handed them to him to say brightly, 'I couldn't get you a birthday present, Barry, but you can have the money back you gave me. I was going to use it for my fare home, but I can always hitch-hike or something.'

  She finished on a humorous note, trying to lift him from his mood, and after a while he raised his head. Her gaze searched for his. As their eyes met she drowned in his unhappiness and tried to hide her own. In the long moment, he looked at her and at the money, then, overcome with something, he pulled her against him and said hoarsely, 'You're the only real thing around here, Tess. I don't know why I haven't seen it before.'

  The move took Tessa completely by surprise. As his lips searched quickly for hers she strained away with sudden cold shock. She hadn't had anything like this in mind when she came in to offer her sympathy. She pushed herself free, meaning to make a light joke of it before leaving, but his arms were about her again, before she had barely time to take a breath. Forcing his mouth down on hers, he said desperately, 'We could get married, Tess.'

  Tessa found herself powerless to hold him off. She didn't know what Elaine had done to him, but he was very much the man tonight, with a man's strength. After a fierce turbulent kiss, she struggled and wrenched herself free and, thrusting the money into his pocket, said shakily, 'I think we should talk about that in the morning.'

  Half blind with revulsion, she stumbled to the door, knocking things over in her path in her anxiety to quit the room. But Barry was behind her scowling and pleading urgently, 'Wait, Tess!'

  As she got out into the hall he caught up with her and swung her roughly against the wall. In the struggle she heard her dress go, and dragging from him she choked, 'Is this my thanks for helping you with Elaine?'

  It seemed that the sob in her throat, and the movement down the hall were one and the same sound, and then a voice, sharp and keen-toned as a whiplash sliced through the air.

  'Barry, go to your room!'

  Tessa felt the arms holding her slacken, as Barry stepped away from her, swaying on his feet. He looked at her face and the torn neck of her dress, as though just coming to from another world, and running a hand through his hair he said quietly, 'I'm sorry, Tess.' Keeping his gaze down, he went rapidly along the hall and up the stairs.

  Tessa was just finding the strength to push away from the wall, when Neil came up. The old twisted smile was back on his face as he drawled, 'Barry losing his charm?' Before she knew it, he was jerking her roughly against him, the flame- lit green gaze roaming over her as he rasped, 'Maybe I ought to see how my own rates now?'

  Tessa pulled in a breath. There he was harping on his money again! And wouldn't that tie things up nicely for him? He had Elaine for himself. Now all he had to do was clear the villa of its unwanted guest. His lips looked as though they might descend on hers, and the thought of him trying to trick her in this way opened the floodgate of tears that she had been holding back all day. As they welled up into her eyes she said struggling, locked against him, 'If you want to know, I think you're the most loathsome man I've ever met!'

  She thought the lines on his face seemed suddenly more deeply etched, the weary look around his eyes more pronounced, but she didn't wait for his reply. As his arms slackened, she turned and fled blindly up the stairs.

  In her room, she paced with the tears and bathed them away and went to gaze out dully over the gardens. Some time later,' she heard Neil come up and stride along to Barry's room. She knew that he wouldn't go to him until he had given himself time to cool down, but now that he was in there, she saw her chance.

  Quickly and silently she changed her dress and then pulling her case out flung everything that she could lay her hands on inside. When her room was bare of her possessions, she opened the door quietly, and case in hand, went swiftly downstairs.

  The big door was closed but not locked. In a second she was out in the night. The weight of her belongings was considerable but not unmanageable, and stepping out she soon found herself half-way along the drive. The road when she got to it was dark and lonely in the dead of night, but she turned bleakly downhill and walked in the direction of the coast.

  Passing the villas that dropped down the valley, all shuttered for the night, and then the fields rolling away into black nothingness at the sides, she swallowed dejectedly and wondered at the picture she made. Her and her case and the long empty lonely road.

  The distant squealing of brakes hardly registered on her numbed senses. As they grew louder, she became vaguely aware that somebody's driving was as crazy as Barry's. She listened to her footsteps on the road until they were drowned by the sound of wheels tearing down the bends, and wondered how far it was to the coast.

  An engine thundered in the darkness as she stepped out. Tyres screeched round the last bend, and suddenly awake to the noise hurtling towards her, she looked back to see blazing headlights in a gleaming amber car.

  Her footsteps quickened as the shafts of light picked her out. Small shoulders squared, she gazed straight ahead, ignoring the car as it slewed to a stop well away from her off the side of the road.

  Neil leaned from his window to clip, 'Get in!'

  'No!' Tessa carried on walking.

  He was out of the door and swinging her case out of her hand before she could stop him. 'Where do you think you're going at this time of night?'

  'To England.'

  'On foot?'

  'It's no concern of yours.'

  'It's more my concern than anybody's.'

  As he threw the case into the back of the car she glistened, 'You can stop looking after me for Barry's sake now. You know there's never been anything between us.'

  'I know.'

  As he faced her she snapped, 'Well, you needn't feel so smug to think you know everything!'

  'What don't I know?' he glinted down at her.

  'You don't know that if it wasn't for your wretched money…' she blurted, and choked to a stop.

  'Considering I haven't got any,' he towered over her. 'The best part of it's tied up in the business anyway. What don't I know?' His tones were softer now, the green eyes vaguely bantering. But there was something else in his gaze that drew her close to him, closer than she had ever intended to

  As she leaned against him his f
ace looked less worn. With a glimmer of the old white smile he murmured, 'Maybe you can tell me this way.'

  Her lips were there waiting for his, but she didn't care. He owed her this at least. She took everything from his kiss, trembling at its fire, yet melting at its overpowering tenderness. The memory of his nearness now would last her a lifetime.

  Dragging herself away from the sweetness of it at last, she held the tears back to quiver, 'And now that you've satisfied yourself that I'll do anything to get a rich husband, I'll be on my way.'

  As she turned to walk away he growled, 'Come back here, you adorable little idiot!'

  Tessa turned back and blinked. Adorable? As he drew her into his arms she had a feeling she had been here before. That night in his embrace in the garden. And the one beside the well at Miramar. Could it be that… ?

  Finding her voice, she asked hazily, 'Where's Elaine?'

  'She left with the others.' Neil trailed his lips along her throat. As Tessa looked at him he grinned, 'I told her any wife of mine would have to make her place in the home, bringing up the dozen or so kids I intend having.'

  Tessa held herself from him and said coolly, 'I noticed you made the most of her company all week.'

  The big shoulders shrugged. 'Barry was all set to make a fool of himself over her. I had to let him see what she was.'

  Tessa digested this. Close against him she asked evenly, 'Is that how you planned to expose me?'

  'Barry knows what you are,' he glinted, 'and so do I. A crazy little fool who let herself get mixed up in one of his wild schemes to get his own way.' As Tessa gazed up at him he nodded. 'He told me the whole story. I came straight from his room to yours.'

  Tessa looked at his chest and drew in her lip. 'He was really sorry to lose Elaine.'

  'She'll make out,' Neil said drily. 'I hear she's been friendly with a wealthy American staying at her hotel. I've an idea it's a friendship that will go a lot farther. All the way to New York.'