Substitute Engagement

by Jayne Bauling

  Lucia turned to Chester Watson determinedly. The manager just had time to relieve her mind by assuring her that employment at the hotel included board and lodging if required, when someone interrupted, demanding his urgent attention.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll come and see me tomorrow morning and I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind, Lucia?’ he suggested quickly. ‘I really must deal with this now, unfortunately.’

  ‘I like him, but it is Rob Ballard I find attractive.’ With both men gone, Madelon seized the opportunity to indulge in girl-talk. ‘You too? I heard something, that you were engaged to Thierry Olivier previously, but Rob is much more exciting. I am not criticising your former choice, you understand, and Thierry is beautiful, but Rob is more—more of a man! You have known him long?’

  ‘A while,’ Lucia responded ambiguously, liking Madelon and aware that at any other time she would probably have been quite happy to play the rating game, however pointless it really was when taste was such a subjective thing.

  She hadn’t meant to make use of the fiction that Rob had established, her pride rebelling at the idea of needing anyone’s help or co-operation to get her through this ordeal, but she shrank from admitting that until a short while ago she had believed that she still was engaged to Thierry.

  ‘Not long enough to let him go?’ Madelon prompted mock-hopefully. ‘But perhaps he will come here more frequently and remain longer if you are here, and everything is fair, do you admit? We will have fun!’

  Several people who remembered Lucia began to drift up and greet her, and once again she found herself tacitly participating in the charade that Rob had initiated, smiling determinedly as they made knowing comments about her having landed a bigger fish, apparently under the impression that they were using a wittily appropriate pun.

  Lucia felt ashamed of herself, but knowing the truth would have made them as uncomfortable as she would have been in telling, if the relief and happiness they all evinced at seeing her apparently unperturbed by the occasion were anything to go by.

  The fact that they had obviously been concerned for her produced further emotional conflict for Lucia. She was touched to know they cared, but that they had needed to care was humiliating.

  Finally, when a hush had fallen and Rob was making a simple announcement of the engagement of his sister Nadine to Thierry Olivier, Lucia made herself look once more at the man who had let her in for all this.

  It was a shock to find Thierry looking at her, but she kept right on smiling, and after a moment she saw his gaze drop, apparently to her hands, now tensely locked round the stem of her glass, and then an incomprehen-sible mixture of expressions flitted over his sensitive features, presumably in reaction to the absence of her ring.

  Thierry! Lucia was rigid with rage and hurt, but she understood why he had done it this way. Thierry was a sensitive yet passive man, abhorring emotional conflict in particular and too much raw emotion generally.

  Even in the first flush of their youthful love just over three years ago, he had been uncomfortable with her grief over her father’s sudden death, staying away from her until he could be sure that she had it under control. Now it occurred to her that these traits had become more pronounced over the years; he had come to rely on her for so much, touchingly confident in her ability to deal with any unpleasantness on his behalf.

  Lucia remembered the day that seemed to symbolise that reliance, when his beloved dog had run in front of one of the island water-carrier vehicles, and he had been utterly unable even to look at the poor animal, begging her to take it away, to find help for it if it was still alive, throwing down his car-keys for her and retreating.

  She supposed that some people would have called that weak, but she had seen it as a measure of his faith in her. She understood and loved him—and now she had lost him. There wasn’t going to be any wedding, or a home that wasn’t borrowed or rented, or the security of knowing that she could stay put and never have to think about moving on.

  She was doing it again, Lucia realised—the thing that had begun to disturb her over the last year, thinking of marriage to Thierry in terms of having a home. Well, neither marriage nor a home was any longer on the agenda, so she wasn’t going to worry about it now.

  Abruptly, accepting the reality, Lucia raised her glass along with everyone else and toasted the newly engaged couple, her gaze resting a moment on the girl whom Thierry had preferred to her and then straying to the man whom Madelon had called ‘more of a man’.

  True enough, if you believed that manliness embraced insensitivity and an unwarranted sense of superiority. Right now Rob Ballard was probably congratulating himself on having saved the day for his sister.

  ‘You must be thirsty!’ Madelon laughed from beside her, and, looking down, Lucia realised that she had unthinkingly drained her glass. The champagne was available because hotels which catered for foreign visitors were exempt from the Koran-based laws of the archipelago. ‘I too. I will find a waiter.’

  Madelon took her empty glass away and Lucia went on staring at Rob, hating him for being the only person to know how this had hit her.

  ‘Lucia.’

  The coolly polite greeting had her turning to confront Thierry’s widowed mother, as trimly immaculate as ever.

  Although a light, in-flight meal was the only thing that she had eaten all day, the champagne couldn’t have gone to her head this quickly, but Lucia felt her smile widening outrageously, and the words that emerged from her mouth carried more expression than she had ever before permitted herself in addressing this woman.

  ‘Beth! Congratulations! This must be an amazingly happy day for you.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ Beth Olivier agreed smoothly. ‘Especially as I see you’re taking it so well. But then, judging by the company I saw you in earlier, you’ve found someone to distract you—and probably not for the first time over the years. So, all in all, Rob Ballard has been a force for good, although I still have to deplore these big, new hotels, spoiling the coastline and doing who knows what damage to the environment.’

  ‘The environmental impact studies were favourable to their erection,’ Lucia pointed out, finding a perverse relish in the realisation that she no longer had to be so careful not to disagree with Beth—at least Thierry had done her one favour!

  ‘And unless you want to return to the barter system, or cowries for currency, their presence benefits the local people and the economy in all sorts of ways, not least by providing employment, doesn’t it? I still remember the high incidence of kwashiorkor among the island children the first time my parents and I lived here, in the mid-eighties. Hopefully that’s becoming history.’

  ‘Darling.’ Rob had joined them in time to hear her words, putting a casual arm across Lucia’s shoulders and addressing Beth as he continued, ‘I’m discovering that Lucia is incredibly loyal—always ready to defend me.’

  His tone and smile were so indulgent that Lucia was disconcerted, needing to remind herself that it was all an act.

  ‘Oh, I suppose I have to forgive you, Rob, since it has been the Ballard Group’s venture here that enabled my son to meet someone so ideally suited to him,’ Beth allowed rather coyly, preparing to move on.

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing much of you, Lucia. I think it would be better if you didn’t come round to the estate at all, don’t you? Misguided though it was, we can’t get away from the fact that Thierry and you were once an item, and we don’t want to distress dear Nadine, do we? She’s staying with us, of course. I’m sure Rob agrees with me.’

  ‘Lucia is going to be too busy to have much time for casual socialising anyway,’ Rob claimed, with so much caressing significance that Lucia stiffened resentfully, effectively distracted from the additional humiliation of hearing that she was unwelcome in the Olivier home.

  Still further distraction was provided by the way his fingers were now stirring idly against the smooth skin of her upper arm, their warmth and the light movement producing an inner frisson
of awareness, so she hardly noticed Beth’s departure.

  ‘Stop it,’ she finally managed in a sharp little voice, moving out of his reach.

  ‘I told you, it’s not personal, Lucia,’ he drawled, the taunting challenge sparkling in the smoky eyes making them as brilliant as gems, and as hard. ‘But there is one thing about you that has actually succeeded in arousing my interest, and that’s your defence of the sort of controversial progress that goes with the tourist industry. Biologists aren’t usually part of the backlash against green concerns.’

  ‘And I’m not! I just happen to think people are the most important living things on the planet,’ she snapped. ‘Will you excuse me, please, and apologise to Madelon for me? She was getting more champagne, but I see someone has detained her.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ Rob demanded, as arro-gantly as if he had the right to know.

  ‘To fetch my luggage from the Olivier estate, as that’s where I left it and since Beth Olivier has just made it crystal-clear that I am no longer welcome there.’

  Lucia was horrified to hear her voice trembling with the rage that she felt against the things that had been done to her today. It should have been one of the happiest days of her life—her returning at last without the prospect of yet another departure and another year’s exile lurking a month or two ahead.

  ‘I’ll get a car and drive you there,’ Rob said.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she returned rebelliously. ‘Presumably Thierry and dear Nadine will be here a while yet, so I can be in and out while this party is still going on.’

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ he repeated calmly.

  ‘Why?’ she asked defiantly. ‘If “dear” Nadine doesn’t know anything about it, she’s not in danger of being upset, and that’s why you interfered in the first place, isn’t it? You weren’t rescuing me.’

  ‘Not intentionally, but as you appear to have taken advantage of the impression I set out to create, at least to the extent of refraining from saying or doing anything to contradict it, it seems that I was in fact rescuing you,’ he observed mockingly. ‘But let’s leave and get your luggage before your current mood leads you to shatter the illusion and waste all the effort you’ve put in.’

  ‘Thereby upsetting “dear” Nadine,’ Lucia added tartly, her hostility leaping in response to the insight which enabled him to recognise the present fragility of her control.

  ‘Listen to yourself, Lucia,’ Rob advised her on an iron note of warning. ‘Come on, let’s go—What is it?’

  She had made a small sound of exasperated realisation, and now she hesitated, trying to work out if the little money she still had available to her would stretch to the sort of prices that she guessed most of the new hotels would charge.

  ‘Chester Watson was called away before he could tell me what he has in mind for me, so I’m not actually employed here yet, when bed and board will be available to me. I’ll need to book a room for tonight if there’s a vacancy,’ she admitted, trying to sound casual about it.

  ‘We’ll organise something if there isn’t But it can wait until we get back from the Olivier place.’

  ‘This thing really is full of holes,’ Lucia accused resentfully a few minutes later, when she was seated beside him in the sort of up-market French car which would have been a rarity on the island not so many years ago. ‘The housekeeper could give everything away.’

  Rob slanted her a calculating look. ‘D’you think she can be persuaded or bribed not to?’

  Lucia shrugged. ‘It’s possible, if she thinks she’s doing Beth down in some way. Beth has never been exactly popular with any of her housekeepers. That’s why they change so often.’

  At least she didn’t have to worry about sounding disloyal now that Beth was no longer destined to be her mother-in-law, she reflected drily.

  ‘I understand she’s planning to go and live in South Africa once she’s seen her son safely married to Nadine,’ Rob commented.

  Her brief laugh had a brittle sound. ‘She wouldn’t even consider it when I was the one he was marrying.’

  ‘Because she saw the damage you were doing him, and she’s a devoted mother,’ he suggestesd brutally. ‘It’s obvious that she dislikes you, but Nadine really will suit him better than you.’

  ‘Nadine can hardly know him yet,’ she claimed furiously. ‘And how well does she understand him? He’s a passive man for a start—the kind who turns the other cheek, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, and that passivity was becoming a weakness when he had a character like you willing to run his life for him. I sensed both resentment and shame in his attitude while he was busy hedging about his relationship with you. With Nadine he’ll be able to feel like a man again. You were obviously emasculating him,’ Rob asserted contemptuously.

  ‘What do you know about any of it?’ Lucia demanded tempestuously. ‘You can barely know Thierry either, and you’ve only just met me.’

  ‘I know you haven’t put him first. You left him for most of three years, didn’t you?’ he prompted derisively.

  ‘I had to get my degree—’ she began.

  ‘Of course you did,’ he agreed sardonically. ‘Naturally that came first. You’re a career woman.’

  ‘I don’t believe this! Do you really have some kind of reactionary prejudice against women with careers?’ Lucia taunted, genuinely startled.

  ‘No prejudice at all, Lucia,’ he corrected her smoothly. ‘How can I when so many key positions within the Ballard Group are occupied by your sex? But Thierry Olivier doesn’t need a career-orientated woman for his personal partner anymore than I do.’

  ‘You? You’re the complete opposite of Thierry.’ Sheer astonishment provoked the spontaneous protest, but then she caught herself up. ‘For one thing, you’re utterly insensitive.’

  ‘And he’s so sensitive, leaving you to learn that you’ve been replaced from whoever might tell you? But add possessiveness to whatever other faults you’ve decided I have and you’ll know why I’d hate to be personally involved with someone who doesn’t put me first.’

  ‘I’d call that egotistical,’ she argued.

  ‘That too. Whatever, I like warm, generous, emotional women who give all of themselves to a relationship, not just the part that isn’t reserved for the pursuit of ambition.’

  ‘I’m really not very interested in knowing what sort of women you like,’ Lucia told him dismissively, although just for a moment she had found herself intrigued.

  But the exchange had been too personal—an attack on her, in essence—and if he really thought that she was career-obsessed to the exclusion of love then it just showed how little he knew about the whole situation, and she ought to be indifferent to his opinion—as she was!

  ‘And I already know what sort of men you like—when you can be bothered with them at all,’ Rob returned amusedly.

  ‘The same kind dear Nadine likes, obviously—and isn’t she going to find it a little difficult to believe you’re interested in me?’ Lucia added curiously as the question occurred to her. ‘She’s your sister, so she must know what your tastes are.’

  ‘We’ll appear to drift apart in due course.’ He was unperturbed. ‘Yes, as you’ve said, the thing has holes in it, but it was the best I could come up with in the necessity of the moment.’

  ‘You’re going to find it inconvenient if I insist on maintaining this fiction you’ve devised,’ she ventured maliciously.

  ‘Unfortunately for you, fortunately for me, I won’t be around for very long.’

  ‘Then, believe me, I consider myself equally fortunate!’

  Said feelingly, it made him laugh, but he didn’t take it up. Initially Lucia was relieved to be left to her thoughts, but she swiftly discovered that it had been the challenge he’d presented and the consequent need to keep arguing with him that had kept her strong. Allowed to dwell on what Thierry had done to her, her hold on herself loosened and she weakened rapidly, in danger of breaking down.

  Behind the dark le
nses, she blinked furiously, and it required an effort to make her lips stop trembling.

  ‘Wait here,’ Rob instructed her when they drew up outside the house on the estate that Thierry had inherited from his father. It was a typically French Colonial building, only to be expected as the islands had been French before three of the four had opted for independence in the form of a Federal Islamic Republic, and Thierry’s father had been French. ‘I’ll get your things and talk to the housekeeper. How many pieces of luggage are there?’

  She told him jerkily, hating herself for letting him do this without her offering even a token protest; hating herself for having let him take charge in the first place and continue to control the situation, but terrified of all that she might betray if she attempted to speak now.

  So she sat there in the car with the window open, a little soothed by the island scents carried on the tropical afternoon breeze, for these were the Perfumed Isles to those who lacked the sense of evolution that made another sobriquet, that of the Coelacanth Isles, equally romantic.

  The estate produced ylang-ylang, the base for most perfumes, and from here she could see a small plantation of the trees with their strange, twisted shapes but exotic blooms. Precious woods, vanilla pods, which were an offshoot of the orchid, and the spices for which the islands were famous—cloves, coriander, saffron and more—all played their part in giving Grande Comore its uniquely characteristic fragrance.

  From where she was she could also see part of the lower slopes of Mount Karthala, the volcano dominat-ing the island, its past eruptions responsible for the stretches of black rock which alternated with white sands at certain points along the coast and extended beneath the ocean to be visible through the clear turquoise water. The emissions periodically issuing from vents in the mountain’s sides were a reminder that it was still active.

  Rob Ballard’s reappearance distracted her. Lucia watched him striding towards the car, carrying her luggage as effortlessly as if it were weightless. So tall and lithe, he had a loose, easy way of moving that was utterly self-confident, and she felt a surge of hostile emotion that was mostly resentment. It was galling to have to accept help from him, especially under circumstances as embarrassing as these.