He smiled with just a brief movement of his lips—well-cut lips above the clean definition of his jaw, with not a hint of self-indulgence but with definite shadings of a determined and ruthless man.
'On a table in that charming little room I see a coffee pot,' he said. 'Is there a chance that it's still warm, and may I beg a cup?'
'You've never begged for anything,' she replied, and then realised that if she agreed to give him a cup of coffee he would have to release her from the imprisonment of his whip. It seemed almost inevitable that Bella would soon appear, and if her confrontation with Raf Ventura had to take place, then it would be infinitely better if her godmother didn't find her like this ... bound to the man.
'All right,' she kept her voice as cool as possible, 'I'll let you have a coffee if you'll let me go.'
'A fair enough bargain,' he said, looking sardonic, and she felt his hand on her bare arm as he unbound her from the whip. Instantly she escaped into the sala, but just not quick enough to slam the doors in his face. With a lithe, silent swiftness he followed her into the room, and she knew from the mocking glint to his eyes that he had guessed her intention and was delighted that he had foiled it.
'I had better ring for a fresh cup and saucer,' she said, feeling the side of the silver pot and finding it still quite hot. She turned towards the bell-pull and he stepped in front of her, blocking the action that would bring a manservant to the sala.
'I don't mind drinking from your cup, Dina. I've drunk from muddy pools before now, so go ahead and pour for me—black, with one spoonful of sugar.'
She obeyed him, and felt unbearably conscious of him in this sunlit, chintzy room. He looked more foreign than ever, making her realise how people of the Latin races retained their look of the past, so that in fairly modern surroundings they seemed to step forward from a canvas which might have been painted by Titian or Tintoretto. Dina handed him the cup of coffee and as he slowly stirred in the sugar he glanced around the sala, taking in the circular writing-table and bookcase in amber walnut, the silky oak floor with its amethyst rugs, the lovely Romney painting above the ivory-coloured fireplace.
Sipping his coffee, he walked to the fireplace and gazed at the study of a young girl in a pale dress seated in a field of cornflowers, her fingers loosely entwined in the ribbons of her sash, her pale gold hair curling, over her shoulder. The eyes in the
portrait were enormous, and they were also of a golden colour.
'Lovely,' he murmured. 'Che bellezza!'
He leaned a little forward to study the delicately portrayed face, and then he turned with almost military precision towards Dina. 'Intrigante, would you not say? Painted by George Romney all those years ago, and yet it might be a portrait of you, Dina, when you were a child of fourteen.'
Dina flushed slightly under the piercing regard of his grey eyes. 'Bella, my godmother, bought it for that reason. She was in Europe at the time and came upon it at an auction; I believe it's a genuine Romney and not a copy by some clever artist.'
'It would certainly appear to be genuine. The eyes in the painting are very like yours, signorina. They have a candid gaze, and yet one wonders about the thoughts going on in that lovely head. At that age was your hair long?'
'Yes-' She tilted her chin. 'I prefer it bobbed
for riding and swimming and being out on the golf course with Bay. Long fine hair becomes so untidy in the wind.'
'An attractive disarray,' he drawled. He lifted his coffee cup and drained it. 'You are still very young, so why should you mind if your hair gets tangled by the wind so that it resembles the mane of a Palomino filly? I have one of those, by the way, at my stables. She is being trained at present for next season's races—one day you must come over and ride her.'
'I don't think that would be very wise, Mr Ventura——'
'Discretion, wisdom, at your age?' He quirked a lip as he placed the empty cup and saucer on the
silver tray. 'Those are virtues which should come with age, otherwise when you are in the autumn of your years you will look back and be sad that you didn't use your springtime as the birds and bees use it.'
Dina looked at him and couldn't help but notice how he brought into this room a vital aliveness. almost a flame which fascinated even as it aroused an active trepidation. He defied comparison to other men and challenged all that she kept in restraint deep within her. He would handle horses and women with daring and authority, and it was something she didn't dare to think about.
'You really are the devil in the garden, aren't you?' she said. 'Is the seduction of women your pastime?'
He gave a grating laugh and his eyebrows had a devilish slant to them as he moved about the room, examining its various objets d'art, picking them up with tapering dark fingers in order to feel the quality of the porcelain. He had the lithe movements of an animal, she thought, unselfconcious and also unpredictable.
'Why is it invariably assumed that men of Latin blood are more of a menace to the fair sex than men of the Northern races? It sometimes occurs to me that Cesare Borgia and Valentino did their compatriots no good at all, for we are now assumed to be untrustworthy and hot-blooded. The truth is, Miss Caslyn, that I often find more to admire in my racehorses than I find in females in general. A fine thoroughbred is sleek, silky, swift and beautifully tempered. Such a creature asks only for a stall of clean hay, a well-scrubbed carrot or an apple, a gallop in the fresh air, and some genuine affection.
Look what women demand of a man—his freedom, his unswerving attention, and most of his hard-earned money. And what does she give in return, eh? She either grows plump and sulky, or she takes to good works and becomes a seller of flags, tickets, and the left-off clothes of her friends.'
He picked up a pale ivory horse with its forelegs in the air, and he studied it with quizzical attention. 'My pastimes are my work, my horses, and the occasional fishing trip ... for barracuda.'
'It would be barracuda,' she murmured, and didn't believe for one minute that he didn't have a liking for women. It was there in his eyes, and in the way his lean hands caressed the antique ornaments, with a sensual enjoyment of the smooth contours. But they would be women that like these valuable pieces of bric-a-brac had some striking facet to their looks or personality. Raf Ventura might have worked his way up from dish-washer to entrepreneur, but on the way he had garnered more than a little knowledge about art and beauty.
He was a disturbing person, and she wished he would say arrivederci and ride off before Bella appeared.
Arrivederci! Her pulse jumped, for that was the Italian word for meeting again, not saying goodbye.
'I'm sure you have work to do, Mr Ventura,' she said, with an edge of desperation to the words. 'You hardly look the type to delegate any of your authority, having built your Sun Tower high and proud.'
'It does have a certain something, does it not?' He smiled, a brief glint of white teeth under that black moustache. 'My iorre paradisiaca, with its white terraces and shining windows rising into the
tun; with its scenic elevator climbing its walls like a glittering serpent. We have an Italian proverb which says that if you care greatly for something, then you should treat it with indifference in case the dark gods take notice.'
'Is that easy to do if you care for something?' she asked. 'And are you really so superstitious?'
'The Milanese are shrewd, but superstition stalks their blood like a grey cat in the shadows of an alley.' He shrugged his shoulders in a very Latin way. 'As to the other question—one learns to have the iron face, as we say.'
As he spoke his gaze was impossible to evade; the grey eyes had a steely quality that drew her glance to him against her will.
'Please go now,' she said, and it frightened her that she saw the iron in his face, and sensed in him those untamed forces from another land; the ruthless pleasure in his power to make her quail.
'Go!' She spoke the word sharply, almost like a cry of pain.
'Our vendetta isn't yet played out.' He fle
xed the whip in his hands, whose braided leather wasn't much darker than his skin. 'You do understand me, I presume?'
'You mean you're going to be vindictive because
I-' There Dina broke off as she caught the
sound of high heels on the oak floor beyond the hall door of the sala. She glanced wildly from the face of Raf Ventura to the door that was about to open.
'It's my godmother!'
If she had hoped that he would make a swift exit through the garden doors she was mistaken, for he stood there in his riding clothes, so sure of him-
self, so uncaring of how Bella would react to his presence, that Dina could have pushed him over ... had she possessed the muscle.
A middle-aged woman entered the room, made tall by the high-heeled shoes of crocodile skin that encased her narrow feet. She wore an expensively tailored silk suit, and every hair of her head was carefully in place and very precisely tinted to the chestnut it once had been. She had large features that now made her rather handsome, but in her youth, when she had been slimmer, she had not been considered a belle. It was said by those of her generation that she had attracted the wealthy Mark Rhinehart by her dominance, for he had been a man who had wanted his life run for him. Bella had succeeded very well in this, but a perceptive person might have seen deep in her dark brown eyes a residue of bitterness that she had not been the kind of girl to attract a dominant man.
Raf Ventura stood looking at her, his eyes as penetrating as actual steel. Dina felt as if she wanted to run off into the garden and not have to be part of the forthcoming duel between the two most dominating people she had ever met.
Bella Rhinehart returned his look and slowly raised an inquiring eyebrow. 'Have we met?' she asked, in her precise and cultured voice.
'In a manner of speaking,' he replied, and to Dina's ears his voice was as smooth and dangerous as ice over a dark gully.
The regal Bella swept her eyes up and down his tall, lean figure in the immaculate boots, breeches and hacking-jacket. 'Any visitors to this house are reported to me from the gate,' she said, and her eyes flashed to Dina, who flinched. 'Who is he?'
Bella demanded.
Forcing herself to speak calmly, Dina made the introduction. 'Mr Ventura and I met at the country club last week,' she added, and hoped to heaven that he wouldn't add that he had been there to discuss the buffet arrangements with the club secretary.
'Are you a new member, Mr Ventura?' Bella spoke his name in her most supercilious tone of voice, and Dina knew instantly that it would trigger him to a sardonic response.
'I've never subscribed to the select membership of clubs and Masonic orders,' he replied. 'I have business dealings with them and that is the extent of my interest.'
'Really?' There was a rustle of silk as Bella drew herself up haughtily. 'May I inquire your interest in coming here to my house without an invitation? It has always been understood between my goddaughter and myself that her acquaintances be made known to me so I can approve of them or not. A form of selectiveness which I subscribe to in the interest of Dina herself, for she has led a sheltered life and is less a judge of people-'
'Of men, do you mean?' he cut in.
'Yes, of men in particular. What business are you in, may I ask?' Once again Bella looked him up and down, and out of the corner of her eye Dina saw his hands grip and bend the handle of his whip.
'I run a hotel and restaurant, among other things, Mrs Rhinehart.'
Very audibly Bella caught her breath and the look she cast at Dina was sharp as acid.
He caught that look as well and his sardonic tone
of voice was even more pronounced as he added: 'You and Miss Caslyn stayed at my hotel several weeks ago, at Las Palmas, if you recall. I don't make it a rule that guests should be selected from a special list, but the idea has its appeal.'
Dina bit her lip, feeling the twitch of a humorous nerve. She had learned in her years with Bella never to have positive reactions about anything, for they were the prerogative of her godmother, but just now her reaction had been a treacherous desire to laugh, and Bella would have found that unforgivable. And deservedly so, for Bella had her best interest at heart... whereas Raf Ventura had a far from saintly reason for coming here.
A glare of animosity came into Bella's eyes, for it wasn't often that anyone dared to be sarcastic at her. expense. 'Did my goddaughter invite you into this house?' she demanded. 'Or have you had the audacity to push your way in?'
'I'm sure you know already, Mrs Rhinehart, that your goddaughter is too well trained to your slightest wish or whim to dare disobey you, so you may take it that I gatecrashed into your pleasance.' He glanced around him, until his gaze settled on the Romney portrait. 'A charming room, which would lose aspects of its charm without that painting above die fireplace. Would you part with it, I wonder?'
Bella's answer was to take a rapid step to the porcelain bell and give it an angry peal. 'A servant will show you out,' she said, in a brittle tone of voice. 'I don't think I need add that you are not invited to come again.'
'It is in my philosophy to believe that actions speak louder than words,' he drawled. 'The years
don't mellow people as they do the trees and fine old houses, do they? Satanita has its attractions, especially as its iron bars aren't visible to the eye.'
With that lean, lithe precision of body he turned to Dina; he didn't speak right away and for a brief moment her eyes entreated him to go away and forget about her. If he saw what lay in her eyes he didn't transmit a reassurance that he would call off their vendetta.
He gave an inclination of his dark head. 'Perhaps we'll meet at Santa Luisa in the racing season. Don't be too shy to come and ask if I have any tips for a winner—I have an eye for a good runner.'
He sauntered towards the garden doors and there he gave Bella a parting salute with his whip shaft. He stepped outside, unloosened his mount's bridle from a tree and leapt with casual grace into the saddle. He rode off the way he had come, and Dina could feel the nervous beating of her heart as her godmother stood silently seething, having been denied the pleasure of having him shown out of Satanita by one of her servants.
'Why didn't you get Hudson and the dogs to run him off the place?' Bella turned and raked over Dina's face a look of anger and sharp curiosity. 'You haven't encouraged the man in any way, have you? His type are only too quick to take advantage of a lady, and I've made certain that you are one, Dina, and no Latin upstart is going to come here with his smart talk and his amorous ideas and undo all the work I've put into burying a scandal which could have ruined your life. If he approached vou at the club dance, why did you say nothing to me about him?'
'I—I didn't think it important-'
'That isn't quite true, is it? Haven't we always been perfectly candid with each other? Haven't you always known that you're in a vulnerable position as my goddaughter and heiress—that man could be in the rackets from the look of him, and you should have told me at once that he'd had the temerity to approach you at the country club. Did you tell Bay—did he know?'
'Yes, he saw him, but I really dismissed him from my mind, Bella-'
'Then how come he turns up at Satanita, riding in here as if he's well acquainted with the place? He must have come in from the beach, and I really will have that pathway shut off with barbed wire-'
'Please, Bella, no.' Dina reached out and touched her godmother's arm, pleadingly. 'I'd feel a complete prisoner if I couldn't ride that way to the beach—I don't know how he found out about it, but he won't come again. He could see that he wasn't welcome.'
'Indeed not! It's obvious to me that the man has been watching you come and go, and I really feel that I should report the matter to Commissioner Fields—my God, we don't want a kidnapping!'
'Bella!' For a wild moment Dina didn't know whether to laugh or throw something, and there was temptation in the thought of hurling one of these carefully chosen objets d'art to the floor. Barbed wire, and no more dawn gallops with Major!
. 'Dear Bella, if the man was planning to kidnap me, he'd hardly come and show his face at Satanita. I expect he was trying to pick me up.'
Bella Rhinehart gave a visible shudder, and gave
instructions to the manservant at the door never to admit into the house a dark foreigner by the name of Ventura. 'And bring some fresh coffee She indicated the tray. 'And croquan ts
'Yes, madam.' He lifted the tray, slid his eyes across Dina's face, and went quietly from the sala.
'Now there'll be gossip in the kitchen.' Bella paraded back and forth across the room, and her striking face had assumed its tragic look. Dina was never sure if tragedy was a genuine feeling in Bella, who always seemed so in command of her own life and other people's. She had known tragedy, of course, some years before Dina had been brought to Satanita to live. She and her husband had been on a trip to the Alps and he had plunged down a mountainside on his skis, straight into a raging cascade of icy water. Bella hadn't married again, but it often struck Dina that she must have come to care for Lewis Caslyn, otherwise why would she have taken on the sole care of his only child?
'Dushechha,' in this mood Bella was inclined to become rather Tolstoy, 'darling soul child, I've only ever wanted the best for you, and that is not a Latin gambler who runs a restaurant.' She half-closed her heavy white eyelids. 'You are my ward of court, Judge Manders made it so, and if this man tries hanging around you, then I'll see to it that he goes to jail. I have that kind of influence, and you know it, don't you?'
The Sun Tower Page 5