[Stephanos 02] - Dragon Bay

by Violet Winspear

  ‘Yes,’ Clare said frankly. ‘He’s a devil, Kara. There have been affaires de coeur.’

  ‘And you don’t think I am up to holding him, Clare?’

  ‘I hope you are, my dear, because I find you sincere and kind-hearted — Dieu, that bold, bad brother of mine should have left you alone to play at sandcastles a while longer. You are a child! Little older than Rue.’

  ‘I am twenty-one,’ Kara laughed, ‘and I am Greek. We grow up quickly in Greece, where it is recognized that a girl can best fulfil herself by loving a man—and bearing his children.’

  ‘Love frightens me,’ Clare rose in her restless way and went to toss the stub of her cigarette out of a window. She stood there, framed against the curtain in her dragon-red shirt and tapering black slacks. ‘A man’s love is so primitive, somehow, and possessing. To think I am a Savidge — untouched by drama, a wild love, a destructive fury in my blood.’

  She laughed as she spoke, but it seemed to Kara there was a false note in her laughter. She turned her gaze on every object in the room seekingly. ‘This bedroom is large,’ she said. ‘I expect you would feel lost in it if you didn’t share it with Lucan. And how plainly one can hear the sea from this wing.’

  ‘Do you like the sea?’ asked Kara.

  ‘Not with passion.’ Clare smiled, as though passion was something she kept at a distance from her life. ‘The sea reminds me of love with its whispers, with its cruelty. I have my work, and all else takes second place to it. With hard, clean marble I can fashion people as I wish them to be.’

  ‘Cold,’ said Kara, ‘with no emotions to be wrung, no hearts to be gay or sad. You have your kind of people, Clare, I will have mine.’

  ‘Yours will hurt you, little Greca.’ Clare strolled to the door and opened it. ‘Good night, sweet dreams—if such are possible in this house.’

  Alone in her big lamplit bedroom Kara lay thinking of Clare and the things she had said. She denied the Savidge in her, but her roots were as interlocked as her brothers’ in the history of this house; in the people who had lived here through the years of drama and feud; of love and hate. Their blood was Clare’s. The impulses of her heart were surely as strong as Lucan’s, or Pryde’s.

  It was, Kara thought, the elements of struggle in its occupants that haunted this house … and she tensed as she heard Lucan enter the adjoining room. She reached over quickly and put out the bedside lamp, and was pre­tending to be asleep when he opened the door of her room.

  ‘Kara?’ The light from his room plunged through her open door.

  She lay still, and felt him with her every nerve as he stood silent and tall in the doorway.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said at last, and she knew as he left her in darkness that she had not fooled him. She buried a sigh in her pillow and wondered why she behaved in this way. Lucan was not a patient man, and in the end she would drive him right away from her … was that what she wanted ?

  All the miles between them that separated Dragon Bay from the Greek isle of Andelos ?

  Kara was too active a person to enjoy lying in bed and it felt good to be up and about again. Her arm was still an assortment of colours, but much less painful.

  Lunch had been enjoyed on the veranda, and now the house was wrapped in its afternoon stillness. Nils and Clare had taken Rue for a drive. Lucan was out in the fields with Josh the overseer, and Kara knew as she wandered about the picture gallery that she shared the house with Pryde, who had wheeled his chair into his study after lunch.

  She paused to gaze at the Irish brothers who had started the plantations and built the Great House. Conal looked a daredevil, but his brother had been rather dour. He was the one who had not married, and something about his sombre gaze reminded Kara of Pryde. There was a similar look of autocracy, and a frown cleaving the straight line of the brows. The massive ring on Diarmuid’s right hand was the one that Pryde now wore.

  She wandered on, intrigued by the women whom the Savidge men had married. Some had been Creole beau­ties with high French noses and the look of queens. Others had been quite plain, girls married for their dowry, per­haps—or for the love that often flowers more warmly in the quiet heart.

  Kara explored the long passages of the house, and mounted its sudden flights of stairs. She saw great chests in deep alcoves—looking like caskets—and as shadows began to creep along the galleries she came to the window of the Golden Lady.

  As always, when the sun was not outlining the crino­lined figure, the window looked vacant—as though Luella had glided out of it and rustled away in her golden silk to meet her young lover.

  Kara shivered and found herself running swiftly down each curving flight of stairs, where at the foot of them she was brought up short by Pryde in the hall in his wheel­chair.

  ‘You seem a trifle distraite,’ he said in that attractively harsh voice of his. ‘Has something frightened you?’

  ‘The house is so big,’ she said in confusion. ‘Full of shadows and little creaks, especially when everyone is out and the servants take their siesta.’

  ‘L’heure bleue is always a mysterious time. The blue hour, approach of dusk, when I enjoy a glass of wine in my den—the dragon’s den, eh?’

  She smiled slightly. ‘I won’t detain you, seigneur—’

  ‘No, you will join me. A glass of wine will put the colour back in your cheeks.’ He swung his wheelchair with expert ease and propelled it across the polished floor of the hall to the door of his den. The rubbered wheels pushed open the door and it swung back easily to allow him entrance.

  Kara followed, feeling both nervous and pleased at being invited into Pryde’s sanctum. It was a room of rich dark woods, glimmering crystal and flashes of ruby-red. Against the rosewood panelling were hung several of Utrillo’s Montmartre scenes, soft coloured, softly shadowed. Kara knew at once that they were Utrillo’s because she had once had a friend, an English painter, who had taught how to distinguish the truly great artist from the facile craftsman.

  Lovely paintings, Buhl cabinets inlaid with brass and tortoiseshell, and an ancient vase of Persian blue that made her want to hold it in her Greek hands that were so alive to beauty.

  ‘Does my den please you ?’ Pryde murmured.

  She nodded and sank down into the deep chair which he indicated with the lean, strong hand on which glinted the massive ring which each master of Dragon Bay wore in his turn.

  He moved on silent wheels to a cabinet on which an­tique decanters shone lustrously. He poured an old amber wine into deep-bowled glasses, and placed a dish of sweet biscuits on the rosewood table between his chair and Kara’s.

  The brilliant melancholy of his gaze was upon Kara as she took a sip of the wine. The lamplight a little to his left was like a flame behind the ruby shade, and the tragic elements in his face stirred her, aroused a passionate pity, made her so aware of her own active limbs that she wanted to conceal them from this man who could not put his feet to the good earth and feel it.

  ‘This wine is called Flamme de Coeur.’ He caressed the crystal bowl with his long fingers. ‘Do you find that it warms your heart?’

  ‘It is like Greek honey with a pinch of spice,’ she smiled.

  ‘Do you miss your Greek isle?’ he asked. ‘Is Dragon Bay still strange to you?’

  ‘Yes, but interesting. Your family history is such a colourful one, seigneur, and this afternoon I was up in the picture gallery admiring the portraits of your ancestors.’

  ‘Each Savidge bride has her portrait painted. Your turn will come, Kara—a year from now, perhaps, when you have borne your first child. That is the tradition.’

  Kara grew warm with confusion, and she glanced away from him and knew he was studying her averted cheek, her slim body, her shy-proud head with its flowing dark hair.

  Your portrait will be an intriguing one,’ he said. ‘You are a Boucher nymph in danger from a satyr. I see you are looking at that amber box—will you hand it to me and I will give you your wedding gift.’

 
‘Seigneur, I don’t expect a gift—’

  ‘Of course you do, and I have been tardy in giving you one because I have not been sure of what you would like. Now I know that you like things of intrinsic beauty and not the show and glitter of the things that only impress other people. Please hand me the-amber box.’

  She did so and watched him turn the small key in the lock and open the carved box. He lifted a necklace out of one of the compartments inside. ‘Very old amber,’ he said. ‘Tiny flowers of gold. Will you kneel beside me so that I can fasten them around your neck?’

  Shyly she knelt on the carpet beside his wheelchair and felt the touch of his fingers against her nape as he fastened the clasp. She then sat back on her heels so that he might see how the necklace suited her. ‘You have the skin for amber,’ he nodded. ‘It suits you very well.’

  ‘It is a lovely gift, seigneur. I thank you.’

  ‘I am glad it pleases you.’ His hands clenched over the sides of his wheelchair. ‘You must brave my den again and drink a glass of wine with me.’

  ‘I want to be friends with you,’ she said sincerely.

  ‘Ah yes, friends.’ A faint smile twisted one corner of his mouth, and she knew that he was thinking—what more could a stricken giant expect of any woman but her friendship ?

  She left him sitting alone among his rare possessions. The crest of lamplight illuminated his head and shoulders, the rest of him was in shadow. It would always be in shadow.

  CHAPTER NINE

  TODAY Kara had not found the courage to tap upon Pryde’s door and invite herself into the dark grandeur of his study. Perhaps her reluctance had something to do with the way Lucan had looked at her at dinner last night—he had known the amber necklace was a gift from Pryde and he had not been pleased!

  She paused on the Dragon’s Stairway, and fingered the flower-shaped pieces of amber that hung warm against her neck. She still wore the necklace because she had been unable to unfasten it, and she had not dared to call Lucan into her room last night to unfasten it for her. His hands would have touched her … and shutting her mind to the rest she ran on down the giant steps towards the rippling water.

  It had been a rather moody-tempered day and a sultri­ness hung in the air with the smell of seaweed. A lone bird swooped suddenly, cast a large shadow and was gone. She glanced at the sun, copper-tinged and awe­some, and wondered if it was going to rain or storm.

  She reached the sands and walked around the break­water to the other cove, where a coral-stone beach house stood enclosed by a veranda. The long room inside was furnished with bamboo, and there was a cupboard of tinned provisions, a shelf of books, and oil for the stove and the lamps. Kara had brought cushions from the house to make the wicker divan more comfortable, for after her evening swim she liked to relax in the beach house for half an hour.

  Eager for her swim, she stripped off her trews and her shirt and changed into her swimsuit. She revelled in the isolation of the cove as she ran down into the water. The shock of the waves was exhilarating, and she breasted them with easy strokes and loved the sting of the spray on her body.

  As always in the water she felt free and unfettered, and took no heed of the stormy hue of the sun as it began to slide into the sea. It was like swimming in molten pewter, and the chains of coral that guarded the bay were alight along their tips. The raw smell of the coral was in her nostrils and the tang of the sea upon her lips.

  The cawing of the seabirds grew louder as she neared the coral bastions—they were diving and feeding and as a greedy gull snatched a fish from the beak of another there was a wild flapping of wings and shrill cries that echoed across the water.

  Kara turned at last to swim homeward, and saw a large, finned shape glide from an opening in the coral and show its long snarling snout above water. Kara’s blood seemed to freeze for a moment. ‘Don’t ever panic if you see a barracuda,’ Lucan had said. ‘Swim swiftly for the shore, and don’t try that silly trick of kicking about. It won’t frighten the sea-tiger, and you will waste precious energy. Just swim, effortlessly and fast.’

  Kara struck out for the shore, which was about half a mile away. A swift backward glance showed her the tail-fin of the barracuda cutting through the water behind her. She was scared, for she knew that the beast attacked by tearing out a chunk of leg or thigh.

  She knew also that she was not up to racing that mon­ster with an arm that was still rather stiff, and she made hastily for a large rock that jutted out of the water and reached it just in time. With the energy of the desperate she hauled herself beyond the reach of the saw-edged teeth and huddled on the rock, watching with frightened eyes as the sea-tiger circled her small fort of refuge, show­ing its toothy snout and greedy eyes.

  ‘Go away, you brute!’ she said, and knew that it might be an hour or more before the killer-fish grew bored and swam off. She gazed towards the shore and wished Julius would appear. He would spot her with his keen eyes and come for her in his skiff.

  ‘Julius!’ she yelled. ‘Julius!’

  But only the seabirds answered, and the sea darkened and the presence of the circling barracuda grew even more fearsome. Kara shivered with nerves and increasing coldness, for every now and again a wave dashed half­way up the rock and drenched her with spray. The next wave came a little higher, and she saw the birds heading for the safety of the cliffs and realized that if a storm should start, she would be swept off her refuge into the jaws of the barracuda.

  The wind quickened and the palm trees along the shore were bending lower. Vagrant spots of rain touched her cheeks, and a feeling of despair was creeping over her when she saw a movement on the shore and glimpsed the white shirt of a tall, dark figure.

  ‘Julius!’ She prayed wildly that he would hear her. ‘Ahoy there! Ahoy—I’m stranded! Julius!’

  The wind must have carried her cries across the water, and her waving arms might have been spotted in the sea light that still faintly lingered, for almost at once the man was running towards the skiff that was tied up by the jetty of the other cove. Kara thanked her stars as she saw the dark figure climb into the boat and begin to row out towards her.

  Each wave now seemed to be trying to drag her from the rock to which she clung, and her hands and feet were growing numb with the cold. ‘Hurry, Julius,’ she pleaded through chattering teeth. ‘P-please hurry.’

  And then, as the skiff grew closer, a sudden flash of lightning lit the rower’s face—strong, relentless, the face of Kara’s husband!

  More flickers of lightning revealed her slim, drenched, clinging figure to him, and then the skiff scraped in against the side of the rock and for a moment the savagery of Lucan’s eyes were almost worse than the sea-tiger’s.

  ‘A—a barracuda was circling me,’ she stuttered, chilled by the rain and by his anger.

  ‘Into my arms—quickly!’ She was caught and collected into his arms as if she were seadrift. For taut seconds her wet, tousled head rested against his shoulder and she felt close to her the vigorous beat of his heart. Then he put her from him into the other seat and began to row through the rising fury of the waves towards the shore.

  A dragon’s tail seemed to lash at them, and Kara sat huddled on her seat, longing for some word of comfort from her grim-faced husband.

  ‘You do the craziest things,’ he said, the words lashing her above the rage of the wind. ‘There was every indica­tion that a storm was coming on, yet you swim out that far and risk attracting a barracuda.’

  ‘I-I am so glad you spotted me.’ She felt like weeping with distress and coldness. ‘Julius is sometimes p—potter­ing about on the shore and I thought—’

  You thought it was he who was coming to pick you up.’

  ‘You are n-not often home from work until l-later—’ her teeth chattered so hard that she had to massage her jaws with her numbed hands.

  ‘You little fool,’ he muttered. You must have been out on that rock some time—good thing I felt like a stroll, or you would still be out there.�
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  ‘Don’t!’ she pleaded. The gathering roar of the stormy seas was all about them, the spray stung like needles, and through it all she was aware of the angry glint of his eyes. He never showed her any gentleness, she thought wearily. He never spoke a word that might betray worry or con­cern. He had decided to take a stroll, that was all, and she had spoiled it for him.

  He had had to row out to bring her in, and now his shirt was plastered to his torso as the waves flung over the skiff and it took all his strength and skill to keep them from being overturned.

  At last, after nightmare minutes of tumult and struggle, they were in against the jetty and he was leap­ing up and securing the bucking skiff to a bollard. Then he hoisted, Kara out of the boat and began to plough through the wet sands, Kara in his arms. A tongue of wind and water lashed at them, and then he had made it to the other cove and Kara thought he would make for the lift in the tunnel. Instead he carried her towards the beach house, while lurid flashes of lightning lit the heaving seas.

  ‘Lucan—the lift!’ Kara yelled above the demoniac wind.

  ‘No,’ he shook his head, his hair in wet jags along his forehead. ‘The electricity fails during a storm and we might get trapped halfway up.’

  And as he mounted the steps of the beach house and pushed open the door, Kara’s heart beat with a new wild-ness. He dropped her to her feet, and the lightning flashes showed him the way to the table on which stood a lamp and a box of matches. Kara closed the beach house door and shut out some of the stormy din, and she blinked as the lamp bloomed, and shivered in her wet bathing suit.

  ‘Get out of that wet thing while I light the stove and heat up some soup,’ Lucan said briskly. He went to the cupboard of provisions and was examining the labels on the tins, his back to Kara as she cloaked herself in her towelling wrap and wriggled out of her wet-clinging swimsuit. It fell to the floor, and she stood hugging the wrap about her, unbearably conscious of her nudity as Lucan swung round holding a couple of tins.