Hidden Rapture

by Lane, Roumelia

  CHAPTER TWO

  HER dreams were tortured and when she awoke Vivienne knew why.

  The first thing that assailed her nostrils was the old familiar scents of the city; spices and sandalwood, kebab, courtyard jasmine and dust-blown streets. She rose heavily thinking how much easier it had been to assuage .her unhappiness under the cool, remote skies of England.

  Coming back was like whipping the dressing from her partly healed heart, leaving it raw and inflamed with memories.

  The view when she drew the curtains was like a death blow to it. The sea, a shimmering well-remembered blue, lay flat into the distance, dotted with moth-like craft near the harbour. The Casbah, framed against the tips of dark cypresses, the ragged greenery of eucalyptus, tumbled down the hillside, a complex of ugliness and beauty as its box-type dwellings, its flaking pastel-tinted facades were caught by the lilac and rose of early morning. To her right the white tall-storied buildings and hotels of Tangier, bordered by a golden beach, were almost hidden from view by immense palm groves. And yet down there somewhere was the Boulevard Pasteur and the hotel El Riadh.

  Would she ever forget its name, or that night when she had first met Gary?

  Her fingers clenched round the curtains. She closed her eyes as though shutting out the view would shut out the too-sweet recollections. What had she done, that she should be put through this torment?

  The feeling of desolation was short-lived; she saw to that. She had had four years in which to train herself and it was with squared shoulders and firmness of step that she went to bathe and dress.

  In a belted striped dress and simple straw sandals she smoothed her hair at the crown to the neat froth of waves at the nape of her neck, allowing it to spring up at her brow, and picking up a straw handbag containing a fresh handkerchief and odds and ends she made for the open glass doorway of her room.

  The wide balcony was shaded by a line of archways similar to those on the ground floor. On either side of her Were the twin white towers comprising the main rooms of the house. Those standing back under the archways seemed to be given over to guest apartments, but through a doorway across in the far tower she discovered interiors much the same as those she had seen last night. The decor was dominantly French of the Versailles style but with a strong masculine flavour noticeable in the heavy filigree Moorish lamps, stout carved chests and colourful leather accessories. All of it, one could see at a glance, was of the kind to be found only in the very richest of households.

  Her smile curled knowingly at the thought as she turned back to the outdoors. The air on the balcony was limpid and soft. There was an outside stairway at the far end, just beyond her room, which took her down to the terrace where the car had pulled up last night. There was no sign of it now, so one assumed that there were garages elsewhere.

  Separating the terrace from the main grounds to one side was a line of squat palms and flowering shrubs. It was from beyond these that Vivienne caught the sound of voices and guessing that the swimming pool was in that direction her heart began to knock against her ribs.

  Robert was there; she knew it, waiting excitedly for her to make her entrance, and she had no idea where she was going to find the courage to do so. Suddenly the whole scheme to try and pass herself off as the writer of the letters seemed fantastically wild and crazy.

  How had she ever expected to get away with it? She toyed with the idea of searching out Trent Colby, confessing that she was an impostor, then making a quick departure. But rooting her there was the picture of Lucy’s sad little tear-blotched face, and another one she had conjured up in her mind of a young man sitting in a wheelchair eager to make the most of a small happiness before his time ran out.

  She gulped back the dry tears and an angry helplessness. It was no good; she was in this thing and there was just no way out of it.

  Steadying herself, she went past the palms and following the sound of the voices down a step to another terrace where tall greenery, beautiful trailing plants and shrubs encompassed a magnificent azure pool. There were figures there, a servant perhaps and … yes, a wheelchair. A pulse began to throb in her throat. Such an incredible distance to walk! And no introductions. She wondered crossly if Trent had planned it this way.

  Her sandals whispered over the colourful mosaic surround. She walked with a natural grace, feeling the warm sun on her bare head and, curiously, no selfconsciousness at all. She watched the seated figure in the wheelchair draw ever nearer, and then she was there, smiling and plunging painlessly into the part she had agreed to play.

  ‘Viv! You’ve come at last!’ Her hands clasped in a surprisingly firm grip she looked into a pair of eyes a darker boyish blue than Trent’s but unnervingly similar. ‘Robert! I’ve waited a long time to meet you.’

  It was odd but she really meant the words.

  After the first ardent hand-clasp they drew away shyly. To give herself time to scrape together more light-hearted remarks she studied the young man in swimming trunks with a gleam of what she hoped looked like whimsical affection. He was very brown, but his thick thighs and muscular arms and shoulders had a pitted look as though crumbling from within. Her throat constricted, but the smile never left her eyes or her lips. Only inwardly did she cry out aloud at the cruelty of fate.

  His hair was very blond and thick and straight and framed his square features, much like Trent’s but without the jagged corners, in a way that was heart-catchingly handsome. Of course while Vivienne was playing for time he was soaking up the sight of her, a look of wonder and contentment on his face.

  ‘Your hair is just like it is in the photograph.’ He reached out and let the silken strands filter through his fingers. And with a quick deep laugh, ‘It’s funny, but you’re exactly as I imagined you, pretty as anything.’

  Vivienne slid him an openly admiring look and replied laughingly, ‘I’m not going to inflate your ego by telling you what effect you have on me!’

  He gave her an immodest grin and turned his wheelchair slightly to introduce the figure standing respectfully behind.

  ‘This is Haroun. He carries me to the water when I want to swim and tucks me up in bed at night.’

  Vivienne had already noticed the incredible individual whom she had at first taken to be a servant. How could she miss him? He was bigger than Abdul with biceps almost as wide as her waist. He wore spotless cricket trousers, a cream string vest and a floppy turban and in a dusky oriental way. he reminded her of a genial physical training instructor. Robert had described him lightly enough, but she gathered that Haroun watched over him night and day. The two of them had been engaged in a laughing conversation of sorts before her appearance and Robert explained, ‘His English is about as good as my Arabic, but we get along. Right, Haroun?’

  It was clear that the brown giant had no idea what was being said, but he responded readily enough in the booming tones of an amiable genie, ‘That is so, Lord.’

  ‘Take no notice of the tide,’ Robert said with his blue twinkle. ‘He’s an Ouarzate, and his tribe believe that all fair people are the true descendants of the Prophet. Trent had him brought from Marrakesh.

  I’m not exactly a lightweight and there was nobody locally willing to take on the job,’ the handsome young invalid elucidated humorously and without a trace of self-pity. He shot something which sounded like, ‘La bas aleyk,’ at the big Moor and as they both grinned he told Vivienne, ‘Haroun’s teaching me Arabic. I make noises like a camel clearing its throat, but I want to get the hang of it so I can learn something of his background.’

  With so little time! Vivienne was careful to show no reaction, though Robert’s courage had a way of humbling one. She was smiling along with him and making some light-hearted rejoinder when she saw Trent coming through an opening in the tall hibiscus hedge on the opposite side of the pool. He had obviously been walking dose by and it struck her that he had probably engineered it so that he could witness her meeting with Robert, but at a distance. Her cheeks burned fleetingly, first wi
th anxiety—had she played her part convincingly -? and then with indignation. Trust apparently did not come into Trent’s scheme of things. Though she had to admit he looked disarming enough as he strolled round to join them.

  In lemon-coloured slacks, superbly tailored of course, and a paisley-patterned silk shirt, he had that relaxed yet shrewd air of a man whose main strength is self-assurance. She guessed he was at least ten to fifteen years older than his brother. The difference showed in the heaviness of his build. His hair had only a light sprinkling of Robert’s fairness so that in the sun it showed bronze streaks. There was no denying that he was attractive in a rough-hewn kind of way.

  But then, she reflected with an inward bitter smile, he had all the trappings on hand to give a man polish. How could he miss!

  Of course she gave no sign that she had been taking all this in. Her dress crisp in the morning sunlight, the wide belt hugging her slender waist, she stood by striving to appear completely at ease as he approached.

  ‘Good morning, Vivienne.’ His blue glance fenced with hers before moving on to the wheelchair where it straight away gleamed with lazy affection. ‘Well, Rob, old son,’ his tones were teasing, ‘the gift pack safely delivered as I promised. How does it feel now you’ve untied the ribbon and taken a peep?’

  ‘Great!’ The younger brother reached out a hand to take hers. ‘Viv’s everything and more than I expected.’ He looked up to explain to her with his grin, ‘Trent wasn’t keen to have a girl in the house. He’s lived a bachelor existence for so long he’s got choosy about who he allows into his domain.’

  Vivienne told herself she much preferred the soft, youthful curve of his mouth to that hard excuse for a smile that was trained in her direction. ‘I’ll try not to get in his way,’ she said with the same sort of ice that he applied, wrapped up of course in the ostensible warmth of friendship.

  ‘Don’t creep about on my account. I’m ready to concede that a woman about the place adds a decorative touch,’ Trent replied suavely, drawing up a poolside chair for her to sit in. He found one for himself, nodding pleasantly to Haroun and rattling off something, perhaps an Arabic ‘good morning’, before seating himself on the other side of his brother.

  Robert wanted to hear all about Vivienne’s arrival, how Trent had picked her up at the airport and brought her back to the house. They gave him the details between them, leaving out the tight-lipped lecture and the cool rejoinders in the car, and the unfriendly sparring at the dinner table. Even so Robert looked from one to the other while they talked as though he sensed something of the discord behind their smiles.

  At the corner of the pool nearest the house there was a raised circular platform, a viewpoint no doubt, furnished for outdoor dining, and while they chatted together breakfast was being trolleyed out and arranged by the stately Abdul and the attendant who had waited on them at the dinner table. Instead of his dashing waistcoat of last night Momeen wore a starched white jacket over his silken pantaloons so that viewing the top half of him he looked rather like a dapper maitre d’hotel, while the bottom half defied description. Vivienne could only assume that he was making a stern attempt with himself to become Westernised while at the same time still clinging in some ways to his comfortable Eastern garb. Abdul, of course, was wholly and unquestionably Arab.

  A tray of glinting silverware signalled the arrival of the tea, and rising, Trent guided Vivienne before him while Robert, who had been helped into a cotton bathrobe, was pushed in the wheelchair by his muscular aide. A ramp had been designed alongside the steps of the dining terrace and once the young invalid had been positioned at the table Haroun left them, presumably to have his own breakfast indoors.

  Vivienne saw at once that the view was, as she had expected and dreaded, as strikingly lovely as it had been from her balcony. The sight of well-remembered haunts drove a shard of pain through her heart and foolishly, as she almost instantly realised, she chose a chair with her back to the low-walled parapet.

  Trent, seeing her settled, commented with an ironic smile on his lips, ‘As a female guest you’re supposed to swoon at the amenities we have to offer here at Koudia, namely in this case, the first-hand view of the Casbah and the steamers in the harbour below.’

  ‘I don’t care for heights,’ Vivienne replied smoothly, flicking open her table napkin. But far from being able to meet his gaze as he seated himself across from her it occurred to her in the next moment how dangerously near she had come to forgetting her role.

  ‘You’re joking, Viv.’ Robert looked at her teasingly as he poured milk into his tea. ‘We’re no higher than an anthill up here. And what about that time you were winched up on a bale of hay at your dad’s farm?

  You wrote me about it, remember?’

  Trent’s blue gaze on her was satirically enquiring. ‘So you’re a farmer’s daughter?’ He reached for a finger of toast, openly eyeing her slim shoulders and slender wrists.

  ‘Not only that, she’s got grit too,’ Robert said proudly. ‘Do you know what she did? Because no one else was available she rode up on a bundle of hay to the top of the gantry tower to free the pulley in the roof, full fifty feet from the ground. She didn’t brag about it, but I guessed how it was from the way she wrote.’

  ‘Plucky!’ Trent agreed, raking her with his blue gleam.

  ‘I don’t work much around the farm now,’ Vivienne said quickly, fighting the colour that she knew was creeping up her throat into her cheeks. ‘I haven’t done for ages.’

  She was glad that the trolley arrived at that moment to divert the attention away from her as the sizzling breakfast dishes were transferred to the table. And fortunately after that the conversation was merely the light chat that usually accompanies a meal.

  It was a richly laid out table there on the little terrace where Japanese lilac and tiny button roses glowed against the blue sky. Besides grilled swordfish and other succulent seafood titbits, plus tender young lamb and chicken livers, there was honey from Valencia, the long black dates from south Morocco, green figs and tangerines.

  Vivienne guessed that the tantalising display was aimed at tempting Robert’s indifferent appetite. He was keenly interested in the history of Tangier and without giving much thought to what he was eating he told her about a Britisher of the past, owner of a villa across the bay, who had kept open house for the country people on their way in and out of Tangier because the country Caids saved his life when he was captured by the brigand chieftain Raisuli.

  He talked about anything and everything, boyishly eager to make her feel at ease and part of the household, and she very soon slipped into a more relaxed frame of mind. Momeen was on hand to serve when required. He was particularly attentive towards Vivienne, showing by his elaborate gestures and pearly smile that he too hoped she would stay for a while. Delicious though they were, she had to make a firm stand when it came to a second helping of the Tafilalet dates.

  ‘Allow me, mademoiselle, to refill your dish with more of these droplets of sunshine.’

  ‘They’re a wonderful start to the day, Momeen, but I’m afraid I couldn’t eat any more.’

  ‘But Mademoiselle has swallowed less than a bird would need for its flight across the garden.’

  ‘What bird is that, Momeen, a fat turkey perhaps? Or a waddling duck?’

  She argued laughingly with him in his own tongue without giving it a thought. It was only afterwards that she realised what she had done.

  Trent was watching her. He said lazily, ‘You speak very good French, Vivienne.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied politely. But this time she made a determined effort to keep the colour from staining her cheeks. What was wrong with being able to converse in the language widely used in Tangier? Lots of people spoke French fluently. It was pure nerves, she told herself, making her imagine pitfalls where there weren’t any.

  After breakfast she thought Trent would disappear indoors, but much to her dismay he accompanied them back to the poolside, Haroun having returned by t
his time to take charge of the wheelchair, and from a briefcase which the manservant Abdul brought from the house, as though this was routine, he sat at the drinks table casually checking through business figures.

  Vivienne took the chair next to Robert. She would have given anything for a brief respite. She could understand Trent wanting to spend every available moment with his brother, but it was singularly wearing on her to have to remain constantly on her guard. She needn’t have worried. It hadn’t dawned on her, but Robert too was finding the poolside a little overcrowded. Holding hands, they had only been sitting for a short time when he said with a restless grin, ‘I think Viv and I will take a stroll, Trent. Maybe I could show her the grounds.’

  Glancing up from his work, Trent said drily, with a mocking lift of an eyebrow, ‘Don’t mind me.’

  Haroun came to take over the wheelchair, but with a pleading look at his brother Robert put in quickly, ‘Viv can manage. I can turn the wheels a bit myself.’

  Trent looked doubtful, but he said something and the Moor stepped back into the shadows. ‘You and the chair make, a considerable weight to push around, Rob,’ he pointed out. ‘The job might be too tough for Vivienne.’

  ‘I’m sure I can manage,’ Vivienne replied, taking charge of the chair.

  She would gladly have had. a go at pushing an armoured tank to get away from Trent for a while!

  Robert showed her the way and they went round the pool and through the opening in the tall hibiscus hedge. Beyond it was even more lovely than the section of the grounds she had already seen. A fountain standing in a star-shaped pool of cream tiles which in turn was set in a richly coloured mosaic star, played musically in a spacious area bordered by banana trees and palms. From here the path led them into the deep shade where potted plants were clustered beneath flowering vines, lianas and jasmine, then out into the open past various lawned platforms and sweet-scented flower-beds, some screened by the green lacework of towering pepper trees, others by cedars, no less magnificent than their counterparts lining the drive.