Beloved Tyrant

by Violet Winspear

  The problem of the spider had filled Lyn’s thoughts, but now she realized that her employer’s return tonight was unexpected. He had telephoned his wife a couple of days ago to say he would be detained in New York a further four or five days.

  “The family were not expecting you tonight, senor,” she said. “They have gone to a dance at the Polo Club.”

  “Concetta has gone with them?” Sheer surprise lifted his black brows.

  “Your brother managed to persuade her.”

  “You no doubt mean that he commanded her to go.” Julio’s fine teeth glimmered in a smile. “Rick can deal very thoroughly with female tears and vapours because he is completely nerveless. I often wish I were more like him in that respect, but our individual mothers were of very opposite temperaments. Women transmit their temperaments to their sons, don’t they?”

  “I have heard it said, senor.”

  “My father’s second wife was very much younger than he. They met while he was in Spain on holiday; my own mother died when I was six years old. I remember her with a nimbus of fair hair and very gentle ways. Teresa, my stepmother, came as a shock at first. She rode the plains like a peon; she laughed at everything, including my very dignified father. She bore Rick only an hour after a visit to the stables to comfort a mare in difficulties with a foal. Rick possesses his mother’s wild and passionate nature. Rosa is far more the American type.”

  Lyn agreed with him. Though Rosa had the gleaming dark hair and the golden skin of Spain, she thought and reacted like a more worldly woman of America. Even when it came to love she was torn between two men, whereas the true Spanish temperament had a tendency to love with a single, intense devotion.

  “After my father died,” Julio went on, “Teresa became very restless. She travelled all over the world and she took Rick, the older child, with her. When she finally came home, destiny waited for her. While out riding one day her mount’s saddle girth broke and because she was riding at her usual breakneck speed she was killed by the impetus of her fall. Rick was devoted to her ... he seemed to grow a little harder after her untimely death. He seemed to armour himself against feeling too deeply for anyone again ... I often wonder what will happen when that armour of Rick’s cracks wide open.”

  Julio stood reflective, gazing up at the big stars set in the indigo sky of Monterey. His profile by starlight was fine and carved, and Lyn couldn’t help but wonder if Julio had armoured himself against love because it had disappointed him.

  “All of a sudden the night air is freshening,” he said. “Come, let us go in.”

  He handed Lyn into her room and followed, closing one of the glass doors and leaving the other ajar. “Would you care for a glass of wine, or a fresh jicara of chocolate?” he enquired.

  “Thank you, no, senor.”

  “Your spent emotions are demanding sleep, eh?” He smiled and walked to her door. “In sleep you will soon forget your impertinent invader.”

  “I am most grateful to you, senor.”

  “It was my pleasure. Goodnight, Miss Gilmour.” He opened the door and stepped out on to the gallery ... where Lyn heard him exclaim: “Come back here immediately!”

  “Very well, Poppa.” There was a sulky note in the childish voice, mixed with a hint of tears.

  Lyn stepped outside her room as her employer lifted his daughter into his arms. “Now what are you doing wandering about at this time of night?” he demanded. “Why are you not asleep?”

  Leoni’s lips quivered. “I - I heard your voice—”

  “And you at once thought of presents, eh? Well, you must wait until the morning for them.” His glance swung to Lyn. “What do you suggest I do with this naughty chica?”

  Lyn wanted to say: “You could give her a kiss. It was probably the present she came looking for.”

  In diplomatic language she replied: “I think Leoni has missed you, senor, so I wouldn’t be too hard, on her.”

  “Have you missed me, child?” He looked at his daughter with musing eyes.

  It was a delicate moment, which the child herself had to go and spoil. “I haven’t, so there!” She scowled heavily at Lyn. “You always think you know everything, clever cat!”

  Julio’s softened expression hardened again. “For such inexcusable rudeness, Leoni, you will certainly not receive a single present in the morning. They will be given to Pico and his sister, and I mean what I say.”

  “I don’t care,” she retorted, and went on scowling at Lyn over her angry father’s shoulder as she was carried to her bedroom. Lyn sighed and withdrew into her own room. She stared at her gaping lingerie drawer and wondered with a touch of weariness if it was any use staying on at the hacienda. She felt heaps better physically and perhaps the time had come for her to start thinking about returning to her airline work. She gave a little shiver as she took a clean nightdress from the drawer and gave it a brisk shake. She had hoped that she was making headway with the child, but it seemed that she was mistaken. Leoni had still not lost her distrust of the women hired to keep her out of her parents’ way.

  But the arrival of morning brought sunshine and a revival of Lyn’s flagging spirits. She learned at breakfast that Rosa and Rick had arranged a beach picnic to which Cort Langdon and the del Reys had been invited. Rick quickly ate his breakfast and loped off to see about installing the barbecue grills in the estate car. Rosa explained that they were driving down to Monterey Bay, where Glenda’s cabin-cruiser would be waiting to run them across to Star Island, which was ideal for picnics owing to its broad white beach and its blue lagoon.

  Julio glanced over his morning paper at Rosa, who was laughing as she told Lyn to keep her eye on Leoni while they were on board the boat.

  “The child isn’t going, Rosa,” her brother said. “She behaved in a most ill-mannered way last night and a few deprivations will punish her far more effectively than a spanking.”

  “Does that mean Lyn can’t go?” Rosa demanded.

  “Not at all. I am expecting an important telephone call, so I shall be at home to keep an eye on her. Has Concetta agreed to go on this outing?”

  “No, Julio. And Aunt Estella turned up her nose at the idea of beach games and grilled steaks eaten beneath the shade of a palm tree.”

  “In which case Leoni will be well chaperoned.” Julio glanced across the table at Lyn. “How do you feel about beach games and charred meat, Miss Gilmour?” he enquired amusedly.

  Lyn returned his smile in an absent way. While her sense of justice agreed that Leoni should be chastised, her heart melted at the eager way the child had skipped off at Rick’s heels. “I’ll help you with the picnic things, Uncle Ricky,” she had said.

  “Senor,” Lyn crumpled her table napkin in her hand, “won’t you change your mind and let Leoni go to the picnic? She’ll be terribly upset if we have to leave her at home.”

  “It will do her good.” His eyes were adamant above his haughty Latin nose. “She grows in impudence as she grows in inches.”

  “What has the little devil been up to now?” Rosa asked.

  “Last night she addressed Miss Gilmour in a way that made me ashamed to be her father,” Julio replied. “She is seven years old and her impertinent remarks can no longer be excused as the rejoinders of an infant. She behaves with less breeding than my foreman’s children. That boy Pico—” He broke off and a frown clouded his face, then he swept back his cuff and took a look at his watch. “Rick will have loaded the car by now, Rosa.”

  His sister jumped to her feet. “We’d better dash upstairs for our swimsuits, Lyn!”

  Lyn arose from her chair, her troubled brown gaze on her employer’s austere face, words of appeal trembling on her lips as the dining-room door was thrust wide to admit Rick, his black hair tousled and a light blue shirt thrown open at his brown throat.

  “The wagon is all set to roll,” he announced, “and the good Bianca has provided steaks, sausages and yams, not to mention several juicy melons. Well, is everyone ready?”

&nb
sp; “Julio has to stay home to take a business call,” Rosa told him.

  Rick thrust an impatient hand through his hair. “Business will be flourishing when you are pushing up the daisies, big brother,” he said.

  “No doubt.” Julio’s eyes deliberately measured the width of Rick’s shoulders and his flagrant height. “But it also happens, my young brother, that for the past two weeks I have been surrounded by people and today I desire a little peace and quiet.”

  “You won’t get it, Julio, with Leoni underfoot,” Rosa remarked.

  Lyn was standing so that she faced the door where Rick towered. At once his eyes flashed over her face. “The child can come,” he said crisply, “even if Miss Gilmour finds the thought of our picnic not to her taste.”

  “My God, men!” Rosa looked as though she could have knocked her brothers’ heads together. “Stop lashing Lyn with your tongue, Rick! For the past ten minutes she has been pleading with Julio to let Leoni join the picnic, but the kid played up last night and as a punishment she is being kept at home.”

  “I see.” Rick put a hand to his chin and thoughtfully massaged the square base of it. “Leoni was chattering on about something out by the car, but I wasn’t taking a lot of notice - ventredieu!” A mere whisper, that favourite oath of his - a whisper that seemed to cut directly at Lyn, leaving a sting. “Yes, I do see!”

  Lyn’s hands clenched into fists in the pockets of her green dress, pinched in at the waist with a brandy-brown belt ... the exact shade of her eyes, raised in defiance to Rick’s. What did he see? His brother in her room, the rest of the family at a dance, and a bewildered child crouching with her ear to a closed bedroom door?

  “I don’t know why you’re being so hard on the kid, Julio.” It was Rosa who spoke, with a dick of her fingers, impatient to be off to the sea and the beach. “Your attitude is making Lyn feel guilty about going to the picnic. I can tell by her face!”

  “We don’t want anyone feeling guilty, do we?” Rick drawled.

  “Very well.” Julio stared at Lyn with dark, searching eyes. “Leoni may go to the picnic. Is she out by the car, Rick?”

  “She is in it,” was the dry reply. “Nestling on the beach rugs.”

  “Then I will go and have a few words with her. She must be warned to behave herself.”

  “She’ll take a lot of notice—”

  “Hush up!” Rosa gave Rick’s arm a fierce pinch as Julio left the room. “And don’t be so quick to say mean things to Lyn. Unlike you, she happens to be the sensitive sort.”

  “Really?” he drawled.

  Lyn flushed and saw mockery stabbing at her from a pair of glittering blue eyes set deep in dense black lashes. She felt a wild impulse to defend herself against what he thought had happened last night. And then again she felt like recklessly saying: “You were the one, remember, who told me to wake up and live again.”

  CHAPTER VII

  Star Island, so named because it was roughly the shape of one. A remote and wildly picturesque place, but not for those who enjoyed the blare of tiny radios, and the sound of gossip while they sunbathed in close-packed formation, like sardines. Nor were there any ice-cream vendors to shout their wares.

  Though excellent bathing was to be found here, the island had somehow escaped the brash touch of the tourist trade.

  On this fine Sunday morning the island slumbered green and white on its pacific bed, its birds fluttering white and black into the blue sky as Glenda Martell’s cabin-cruiser chugged towards a rocky ledge that made a natural landing stage. With practised skill Felipe secured the painter and the cruiser bobbed beside the ledge that arose out of the blue-green water.

  In no time at all the hampers, grills and rugs were unloaded and each member of the party carried an article across the soft white sands, to a spot where the barbecue could be set up without the sea breezes blowing too much fine sand over the food as it cooked.

  The salty-sweet tang of the ocean tickled Lyn’s nostrils; its rippling voice seductively invited them to swim. “Be absolute poppets, you men, and see to lunch.” Glenda dumped an armful of rugs within the shade of a large boulder. “We girls are going to have a frolic in all that lovely water!”

  “Let them go, amigos,” Rick laughed. “They will only get in our way and I have never yet met a woman who could cook a steak without roasting it.”

  Rick knelt on the sand to adjust one of the grills, and Glenda took a hank of his black hair in her hand. “That’s how I like you,” she said. “Kneeling before me.”

  He lifted his bold face to her, and his eyes filled with dancing blue devils. “How do you like your steak?” he asked.

  Glenda gave his hair a cruel yank. “Rare, and I hope that cook of yours packed some mustard.”

  “Do you need any?” he enquired drily.

  Her rich laughter broke through her red lips, then she stroked his hair back into place, touching a finger to the peak that pointed down into the V between his quizzically slanting eyebrows. “I like my steak rare and beautifully charred at the edges.”

  “With mustard, eh?”

  “Lashings, darling. I love to burn.”

  They changed into their swimsuits on board the cruiser. Glenda stripped with the unselfconscious awareness that every line and curve of her body was perfect. Lyn also noticed that she was completely tanned, with no white line where even the skimpiest bikini had rested. She swallow-dived into the sea from the side of the boat, her firm body encased in boldly patterned tiger-print.

  As Glenda’s tanned arms cut through the water, Rosa remarked: “There’s no doubt about it, she’ll make a splendid mate for Rick.”

  Mate was an appropriate term, Lyn thought. Glenda was like a tawny tigress who would be fierce and yet also playful in her loving ... she had an untamable streak to match Rick’s.

  Leoni made sand pies while the three girls swam, but as soon as they were stretched out on the beach for some sunbathing the imp of mischief proceeded to tickle their feet in turn, and to empty buckets of sand over their legs. A harmless occupation, until some of the fine sand showered over Lyn’s hair. Lyn, who had wanted to be liked by the child, set her chin and walked with Rosa to the camp site, where charcoal smoke lingered and the aroma of steak, sausages and yams hung on the air. Glenda sliced the long leaf of bread, a laughing mermaid with her ruddy hair almost to her waist. The men had grown hot over their chores in the hot sun and had stripped off their shirts.

  “A plate for madame!” Felipe handed one to Lyn, and his gay glance ran over her white two-piece suit. “You’re looking very fetching. A tangled, sea-urchin air becomes you.”

  “Thank you, kind sir.” But as Lyn spoke, she was aware of a sharpish glance from Glenda, the type who liked to be the pivot of all male admiration. Lyn, still smarting from Rick’s mockery, and Leoni’s enmity, decided that today she would be like everyone else. If her smile was touched with defiance Felipe didn’t appear to notice, all his attention given to her as she fingered the silver medallion that hung against his chest, which was smoother than Rick’s, less like a bronze shield to cover a heart he kept mostly to himself.

  “Is this your good luck charm?” she asked Felipe.

  “And upon occasion it works,” he said meaningly, as her unpainted fingertips turned the medal on its thin chain. “All Latins are superstitious.” He smiled and suddenly captured her fingers. “Didn’t you know?”

  “I suspected it.” Her hand struggled in his, but she was laughing. “You are also well supplied with the invading instincts of your forebears, aren’t you?”

  “And women aren’t so averse to being captured as they like to make out.” Felipe was smiling and pulling her closer to him when an arm came thrusting between them. A smoking steak landed on Lyn’s plate. “Any sausages or yams?” Rick demanded.

  Lyn pulled free of Felipe’s hand this time and without looking up at Rick she forked a sausage and a sweet potato off the dish under her nose. “That will do nicely, thank you, chef,” she said flipp
antly.

  “I’ll grab a steak and join you, Lyn.” Felipe whistled to himself as he strolled over to the steak grill.

  Rick’s immobility finally compelled Lyn to look at him. “You are getting well acquainted with our Latin inclinations, aren’t you?” he said, a baiting twist to his mouth.

  “What is that remark supposed to mean?” Her brown eyes fenced with his scornful blue ones.

  “You are going to the extreme when you encourage a married man on the one hand, and a notorious rake on the other,” he gritted. “Is the world such a small one? Are there no other men but those to help you obliterate that certain memory?”

  Lyn gasped and felt as if he had struck her. Then pain tore through her, unlocking her throat. “You unkind devil!” she gasped. “How dare you insinuate that I would run after your brother—?”

  “Was he not in your room last night?” Rick’s lowered voice seemed to lash at her. “The child saw you with him, so don’t bother to deny it.”

  “I have no intention of denying it.” She tilted her head and met his eyes with a flash of defiant pride. “I hate you for what you’re thinking and implying. Julio is a gentleman—”

  “He’s an unhappy man at present - and you are not unattractive.” Rick’s eyes swept her from head to foot, then he swung on his heel and walked away from her, a ripple as of supple steel to his back muscles, his pagan head held high.

  Lyn no longer felt very hungry, but she forced down half the food on her plate and rallied enough to appear wholly entertained by Felipe and his attentions. But she evaded them after lunch by offering to assist Rosa with the washing up. Cort carried the dishes down to the water’s edge, where he remained with the two girls and obligingly scraped off the clinging grease with handfuls of sand.

  From the direction of the camp there came sudden yells of childish laughter and when Lyn glanced over her shoulder she saw Glenda and Felipe playing beach ball with Leoni. Rick lounged against the trunk of a palm tree and fed the flame of a match to one of his slim cigars. But when Lyn and Rosa returned to pack away the crockery, he and Glenda had wandered off into the green heart of the island. Felipe was lazily permitting Leoni to half-bury him in the sand.