‘Thank you.’ She watched him adjust the crimson mask; it fitted perfectly over his brow and his blade of a nose, and she drew back against the jamb of the door as in front of her eyes the man became a devil.
‘Well ?’ he drawled. ‘Will I do ?’
‘You will frighten every girl at the ball,’ Kara said, with a laughing gasp.
‘As long as I don’t frighten you.’ He leaned forward and his eyes glinted with secret laughter through the slits of his mask. ‘Do I frighten you, Kara ?’
‘Sometimes,’ she admitted. ‘You are right to wear motley, for who knows Lucan Savidge knows only one side of him?’
‘What do you know, little one?’
Her heart skipped a beat at the casual endearment. ‘That all the girls you have known mean less to you than the spindrift that flies over the rocks at Dragon Bay,’ she replied. ‘When you talk of your home you have a savage ring of love in your voice that no woman could put there, and I pity the woman you will take there one day as your wife.’
His eyes glinted through his mask as he heard her out, then he straightened to his full, dominating height, ‘Shall we be off to the ball ?’ was all he said.
She swished in her silk and lace as she went down the stairs by his side. When they reached the lobby a party of costumed merrymakers were emerging from the lift. They were bound for the bal masque and the men of the party greeted Lucan with reserve and gave Kara the coolest of bows.
She hardly cared what these people thought. She had already guessed that they had heard of the night she had spent in Lucan’s bedroom. That it had been entirely innocent would not occur to them. Any girl in Lucan Savidge’s bedroom was bound to be a coquette.
‘Are you going to the ball, Miss Stephanos?’ One of the young women was gazing at Kara with a look of avid curiosity in her eyes. She wore eighteenth-century costume with a powdered wig and beauty patches, and there was something of Paris chic about her, as though she might be a guest at one of the plantations instead of a resident.
Kara nodded coolly, unprepared to be sociable with people who treated Lucan as a rake.
‘We must have a little talk later on,’ said the girl, and a cold finger seemed to touch Kara’s heart as she followed Lucan out of the hotel.
‘Do you know her?’ Lucan asked, as he handed her into the open carriage young Nap had secured for them. She shook her head, and then forgot the incident as they made slow progress through the noisy streets and up the cobbled hill to the French-Colonial house where the ball was taking place.
A big open pavilion in the gardens had been turned into a ballroom, and as this was a bal masque the music was old-fashioned and romantic. Masked couples could be seen whirling to the music through tall arched openings of the circular pavilion, and ceiling lanterns sparkled and threw jewel colours down upon the colourful throng.
Kara’s heart quickened with excitement as she and Lucan stepped through one of the archways. She turned and smiled up at him, one of several Harlequins but like no other because of his height and his crimson mask. She entered his arms and felt them tighten as they danced.
The melody was Lilac Domino, and Kara closed her eyes as she gave herself up to the music and tried to recapture the carefree pleasure of another time, another place, and the arms of Nikos. But no, those moments could not be recalled in Lucan’s arms. His personality was too strong.
She felt herself drawn close to his hard body as they whirled round and round at the climax of the waltz. She seemed to melt, to become part of his motley. No, no, cried her heart. This is a dark enchantment, not love. This time your heart will be broken, not merely bruised!
The music died, the spell was broken, and he was pulling her by the hand to where the buffet was laid. They ate crab legs and shrimps dipped in a delectable sauce, and drank champagne. His teeth flashed in laughter below his crimson mask, and Kara was aware all the time of feminine eyes upon him. Some shone boldly through the mask openings, others looked at him with a fascination verging on fear.
The queen of the carnival was at the ball, looking picturesque in a brilliantly coloured Martinique costume. Later on, Lucan said casually, she would send one of her pages to the man she desired to have the Empress Waltz with. This was all part of the annual fun and games.
Kara watched the bubbles rising to the rim of her champagne glass. ‘You are looking into your wine glass as though into a fortune-teller’s crystal,’ Lucan laughed.
‘Shall I make a prediction?’ Kara slanted him an impish smile.
‘No, come and dance,’ he said, and he took the glass out of her hand and put it down on the buffet table, and the next moment they were in among the crush of dancers. It was then that Kara glimpsed the Frenchwoman who had spoken to her in the lobby of the hotel, and again she stared at Kara—most disapprovingly—as their partners swept them past each other. Kara looked away from her, reminded uncomfortably of a girl she had known at school, who was always ready at the slightest broken rule to say: ‘I’ll tell on you, Kara.’
‘Who is the girl in the powdered wig and patches?’ Lucan was looking down at her. ‘She seems to know you, Kara.’
‘I don’t know her.’ Kara tilted her chin to look at him. ‘People have been talking about us, Lucan, and she is evidently curious about me.’
‘I am afraid the Isle de Luc is a small enough place for any gossip to grow out of proportion.’ His teeth glinted below his mask. ‘Do you mind being thought Lucan Savidge’s latest jade?’
‘Have there been many, Lucan ?’
‘What do you think?’
‘That you don’t care much what I think.’
‘Then let us leave it at that.’ They executed a movement in the foxtrot they were dancing and she felt his grip tighten on her fingers until the bones ached, then his grip relaxed and she wondered whether he hurt her for being right about him, or wrong.
The gaiety increased as the hours slipped by. Big coloured balloons and balls of streamers were let down from a net in the ceiling, and the fun was at its height when it was announced that the carnival queen would now choose her partner for the Empress Waltz. A buzz of speculation swept round the pavilion as the lovely girl in her colourful flounces bent to whisper in the ear of one of her pages in yellow silk. The boy nodded and with a look of great importance on his pert brown face he began to thread his way through the gay crowd thronging the verge of the dance floor.
Kara watched that small figure in a yellow tunic and knee-breeches, the buckles twinkling on his shoes, as he drew nearer all the time to where she stood beside the tallest Harlequin in that big, warm, scented pavilion … all talk hushed as the page tapped Lucan on the arm.
He bowed in the carnival queen’s direction, then he turned to Kara and his eyes gleamed through the slits of his crimson mask. ‘Will you excuse me?’ he drawled. ‘It would be inexcusable if I refused to dance with the prettiest girl on the Isle de Luc’
‘I am sure it would,’ Kara smiled, for she had known all along that the carnival queen would choose Lucan as her partner. ‘I hope you enjoy yourself.’
‘I shall,’ he said, and the next moment he was striding across the dance floor towards the girl whose wisp of a mask did not hide the dimples of satisfaction in her creamy cheeks. A murmur swept around the crowded pavilion as to the opening bars of the waltz, Lucan drew the charming girl into his arms and whirled her on to the dance floor with the authority and assurance of a king.
They waltzed alone until they had circled the floor, and then one by one they were joined by other couples until the floor was a moving sea of colour and eyes sparkling through mask openings.
Kara drew back into the shadows beyond the dance floor, and then she bunched her skirts in her hands and ran out into the garden. She told herself she did not care that Lucan danced with a beautiful girl, but her heart was heavy as she walked among the whispering trees and breathed the peachy scent of frangipani.
She began to follow the scent, and sudden
ly a cold little thrill ran through her as she heard someone brush through the trees behind her. She swung round as a hand parted the hangings of a monkey-tail tree and an eighteenth-century figure stepped in front of her.
‘If a man did that to me I would never talk to him again.’ It was the woman in the powdered wig and patches who confronted Kara in a beam of moonlight. ‘I followed you to have a little talk with you.’
‘I resent being spied upon and followed,’ Kara said, her voice sharp with dislike. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend of Paul and Domini Stephanos.’
Kara stifled a little cry of surprise, and distress.
‘Such a small world, is it not?’ The woman had unmasked and the moonlight gleamed down on her rather cold features and thin, painted lips. ‘From the moment someone told me your name and that you were Greek, I knew that you were the young stepsister of Paul Stephanos, whom I met in Paris last year with his lovely wife Domini. I met them at the Louvre. I was there with a friend, and it turned out that he and your brother knew each other. The four of us dined at Maxim’s that evening and had a wonderful time. Paul talked so fluently of Andelos and its colourful and old-fashioned customs.’
The moonlight shone on satin as the woman drew nearer to Kara. She raised her left hand and fingered a beauty patch on her cheekbone. Her hand flaunted a large, square-cut diamond, but the ring was a dress-ring and not on the finger that would have proclaimed her the beloved of a man, who might have softened that cold face and put warmth in those basilisk eyes.
‘What a splendid man your brother is.’ The thin lips smiled … a flicker, as of a snake striking. ‘So proud — I really must write to Domini and tell her of our meeting—she will be so surprised, eh?’
Again those cold fingers curled about Kara’s heart. This woman with the bitter-sweet smile was a troublemaker. There was spite in her heart because never had she been loved by a man like Paul … or wanted by a man like Lucan.
‘You know, my dear, you hardly look the sort to have affairs, and hardly the type to attract Lucan Savidge.’ She gave a malicious laugh that was echoed by the tinkling coo of a bird among the trees. ‘Could you not bear to see him dancing with that exquisite creature in there? Is that why you ran out into the night?’
‘Lucan and I are friends and nothing more,’ Kara spoke with Greek dignity, ‘and if you write anything to my brother that robs me, or Lucan, of our good name—’
‘What good name has Lucan Savidge?’ the woman asked scornfully. ‘Everyone on this island knows that his brother is in a wheelchair because of him—that if Pryde had been killed, Lucan would be the master at Dragon Bay.’
‘Lucan was not responsible for that accident,’ Kara defended him, fiercely. ‘He told me himself that it was Pryde who suggested they climb the cliff that rises steep from the bay—’
‘He told you?’ Thin dark eyebrows rose to meet the silvery wig. ‘Do you in your innocence believe everything that he tells you? The Da at the Great House—Nanny to the boys from their birth—heard Lucan challenge his brother to the climb. She told their mother so after the accident, and she would hardly make up such a story. Poor Pryde was too ill and broken to be able to deny or support whatever Lucan said, and when he began to recover his senses he could not remember who had been the one to make the challenge. Most convenient for Lucan, enabling him to act the martyr with silly little girls who can’t see beyond his green eyes to the ambitious animal that stalks inside his tawny skin.’
‘You talk about Lucan Savidge as though you hate him,’ Kara said. ‘What has he ever done to you?’
‘Why, nothing.’ The woman’s laugh was metallic. ‘I know him by repute, and I abhor his type. Women are nothing but playthings to such men—and the playthings are usually brainless dolls. You really are the exception, Kara.’
‘Lucan is a friend and nothing more—’
‘My dear, it must be a very close friendship, from all accounts.’ And with a sharp rustle of satin the woman swung about and walked quickly away, leaving Kara alone among the trees. She gave a shiver as a click-beetle darted past her cheek, flickering green as the twisted envy of the girl in the silver wig. She was no friend of Paul or Domini, but someone who needed to hurt those who were in love and happy. She would write her letter because of that, and Kara would have no antidote against its poison because the man into whose room she had wandered was Lucan Savidge.
Kara glanced about her, feeling like someone lost in a bad dream. Music stole through the trees, reminding her of the bal masque and the gaiety; and of Lucan holding in his arms the queen of the ball. Kara knew she ought to go back to the pavilion, but instead she followed the scent of the frangipani. Her polka-dot mask fell unnoticed from her hand, and in a while she came to a little pagoda wreathed in the coral stars of the temple flower that evoked memories of the first evening she had spent with Lucan.
She entered the pagoda, a little garden house with seats in it, and by the light of the moon saw water-lotuses glimmering like tiny dancers on the surface of a fishpond. She sat down, a pensive, waiting figure. For what she waited she hardly knew, but it was peaceful here, with the fish stirring the water of their pond and the white flowers moving in a ghostly ballet.
When she heard footfalls this time, her heart jumped and brought her to her feet. A tall figure loomed in the doorway of the pagoda, shutting out the moonlight.
‘It is you, Kara?’
‘Yes, Lucan.’ Her voice was lost and his name came out in a whisper.
‘What’s the matter ?’ He stepped inside and the peaked roof seemed to come lower and the woven walls to close in about the two of them. ‘I found your mask on one of the paths—is the masquerade over for you ?’
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘Yes, Lucan, it’s over, and I am going away from the Isle de Luc this time.’
‘You sound strange—as though something has upset you.’ His eyes gleamed down at her through the slits of his mask. ‘Was it all that carnival nonsense in the pavilion ? Surely you can take a bit of fun ?’
‘Of course I can.’ She spoke wearily, fed up with people treating her as an adolescent and either making threats, or scoffing. ‘I—I’m tired—today has been a long, noisy one and I think I would like to go back to the hotel. I can go alone—’
‘First you will tell me what is wrong.’ His hand shot out and gripped her wrist. ‘As I came looking for you, I passed the woman who spoke to you at the hotel. There was something about her—a look of breathless pleasure, as though she had just slapped someone, or been kissed.
I would say from the look of her that she would get a lot of pleasure out of slapping someone, and she would not need her hand to do it. Tell me, Kara! Has that woman said something to upset you ?’
‘It is my business—’ Her hand struggled in his and in an instant he captured her other hand and made a prisoner of her. She gazed up at him, wildly … alone in the night with a masked devil of a man….
‘You will tell me if I have to keep you here all night,’ he said grimly. ‘The two of us alone in a garden house for the night should really give the gossips a meaty bone to chew on.’
‘You would not dare, Lucan!’
‘Challenging me?’
The word was like a goad, driving Kara to the limit of her resistance. ‘That woman knows my brother,’ she said raggedly, ‘and she is going to write to tell him that his young sister—whom he happens to love and respect—is having an affair with the notorious Lucan Savidge of Dragon Bay.’
There was a taut moment of silence, and then Lucan let out his breath savagely. ‘It seems that I have only to look at a girl,’ he muttered. ‘Well, let them say such things about my wife and there will be hell to pay!’
Kara went taut, her every nerve shocked wide awake by what he said, then pain gripped her that not once had he mentioned another girl—a girl he meant to marry. Not a whisper about her as they toured Fort Fernand, swam in its green waters and lazed on the sands. Not a hint w
hen he persuaded Kara to keep him company until he went home to Dragon Bay.
‘Congratulations,’ she said in a brittle voice. ‘If you had let me know before, I would have bought the bride a present.’
‘Would you?’ He gave a mocking laugh. ‘Do brides usually buy themselves a wedding gift ?’
Kara stared up at him, and her heart beat so hard that it made her feel weak. ‘Lucan, what are you saying? I—I don’t understand you.’
‘I am proposing to you,’ he said quizzically. ‘I want you to be my wife.’
‘No—!’ She tried to pull away from him. ‘You don’t have to offer to marry me because of that hateful woman and her threats. I would rather die—’
‘Thanks!’ His hands felt as though they could have crushed her. ‘Of all the answers a man expects when he proposes, that is about the least flattering. Am I so unattractive, Kara?’
You are a man who could have any woman. Many would be only too flattered,’ Kara said quietly. ‘I prefer to be loved.’
‘You want me to say I love you?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Her eyes raised to his face were blind with the moonlight. ‘But I would like to ask why a man who snaps his fingers at convention should suddenly turn conventional. Why, Lucan, do you ask me to be your wife?’
‘Because I need a wife,’ he said simply. ‘A girl with courage and spirit enough to come with me to Dragon Bay. To live in the Great House, with the sound of the waves crashing on to the beach at night, and rich scents rising from the cocoa valley during the day. Would it not compensate, Kara?’
‘For what?’ she asked. ‘What do I give in return?’
‘Yourself.’ And then, more shattering than anything else, his hands shaped a heart and fitted her face into them. ‘It is quite simple. My brother can no longer provide the heir to the House of Savidge. For generations the Savidges have lived at Dragon Bay and the line has gone on and on. Now it rests with me to provide the next link in the chain.’
‘Then this marriage would be a real one—not in the sense that you love me, but that you would expect to make love to me?’ Her heart was shaking as she spoke. ‘Lucan, why ask this of me ?’
[Stephanos 02] - Dragon Bay Page 6