Dangerous Rhapsody

by Anne Mather

  After a while, her legs began to tire, and afraid of cramp, she sought the shallower water, and the warm silkiness of the sand. She sank down wearily, lifting off the mask, and pulling the flippers from her feet. Then she lay back and closed her eyes.

  She must have drowsed in the warm sun for a while, because when she opened her eyes again it was to find Damon sitting on the sand beside her tinkering with an oxygen cylinder which he had taken from the boat.

  Paul and Chris were diving from a plateau of rock some thirty feet above the pool below Minerva's Stone. They had shed their equipment, and it was lying on the sand near her feet.

  She sat up abruptly, shading her eyes with her hand, watching Damon. A cigarette between his lips, he was tightening the valve of the cylinder, and seemed unaware that she had woken.

  ‘Did I sleep long?’ she asked, self-consciously.

  He glanced at her indifferently, she thought. ‘Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, that's all. I guess you were exhausted. It takes some getting used to.’ He thrust the cylinder to one side, and removed his cigarette from his lips. ‘Would you like a cigarette?'

  Emma nodded. ‘Please.’ To her surprise he lit the cigarette before handing it to her, and she drew on it gratefully. ‘What time is it?'

  ‘A little after three. Relax! If Annabel wakes up Helen can take care of her for a while. I guess you haven't had much free time since you arrived.'

  ‘I have every evening,’ said Emma.

  ‘Yes, but that's hardly the same, is it? I mean, every employee is entitled to at least one day off every week.'

  ‘All right. Thank you.’ Emma drew up her legs, and hugged her knees, staring out towards the yacht unseeingly. It was nice, she thought, relaxing like this without verbally sparring with Damon every sentence she spoke. Damon had pulled on his light jersey again, and looked broad and muscular. She noticed he had not removed his watch for swimming.

  He lay back, drawing dark glasses out of his pocket, and sliding them on to his nose. Then he said, surprisingly:

  ‘Tell me something, Emma; exactly why did you break it up?'

  Emma was startled by the unexpectedness of the question. She was off guard and vulnerable. ‘You know why,’ she replied stiffly.

  ‘I know what you said,’ he corrected her. ‘That there was someone else; someone you'd just realized you were in love with.'

  Emma felt her whole body was bright red with embarrassment. ‘Must we talk about it?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it's such a long time ago… ’ She wished she could see his eyes, read their expression; she was sure he had put on dark glasses deliberately so that she was at a disadvantage.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ he murmured derisively. ‘After all, I'm the one who was jilted!'

  ‘Oh, stop it!’ she exclaimed. ‘You were so badly hurt by it all that you married Elizabeth Kingsford ten weeks after we parted!'

  At last she had got under his skin, and he wrenched the glasses off his nose and stared at her with cold, angry eyes.

  ‘I want the truth, Emma,’ he muttered furiously, ‘and by God, I mean to get it!'

  ‘I don't know what you mean,’ she cried, putting the palms of her hands over her ears. But that did not cut out the sound of his voice; the icy derision that was worse than any hot temper could have been.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he said. ‘There was no other man, was there? Or if there was, where is he? No, Emma, you had second thoughts, didn't you? After all, you were eighteen, I was thirty-seven, more than twice your age! Why couldn't you have admitted that you thought I was too old for you? Old enough to be your father, in fact!'

  ‘No!’ The word was wrenched from her and she stared at him with tortured eyes. ‘No, no, no! That isn't true!'

  Damon's eyes showed their disbelief, and she turned away helplessly. He would never believe her!

  Paul and Chris came strolling along the beach towards them, and Emma was relieved. At least it prevented any further conversation of this kind.

  ‘Coming for a swim, Emma?’ asked Paul, and she sprang up gratefully.

  ‘I'd love to,’ she replied, managing a light smile, and let Paul chase her through the shallows before they both plunged into the deep pool and swam across it swiftly.

  The water was refreshing to Emma's hot body, and Paul's obvious pleasure in her company almost made up for Damon's anger. Paul showed her where they could climb out of the water, on to a ledge, and up a kind of winding rock stairway to the plateau where he and Chris had been diving from

  ‘Can you dive from here?’ asked Paul doubtfully. ‘Don't attempt it if you'd rather not.’ He smiled. ‘You can wait here for me.'

  ‘Oh, no,’ exclaimed Emma. ‘I don't want to wait. I have done a lot of diving at home, in swimming baths and so on, so I'm sure I'll be okay.'

  ‘All right.’ Paul grinned and squeezed her hand. ‘Did you know that Damon used to dive from the top? When he was younger, of course.'

  Emma looked up, shaking her head; it seemed a terribly long way. ‘Wasn't that dangerous?’ she asked.

  ‘Not really. If you're an expert you can do it. The danger comes during the actual dive, maintaining your balance. If you lose that you could break your back… or your neck!'

  Emma swallowed hard. Picturing Damon injured fatally, or crippled, was terrifying. She spent almost an hour with Paul, joined later by Chris while from their ledge they saw Damon take the dinghy back to the yacht and return with Annabel in her swimsuit. They played on the beach, and in the shallows, Annabel demonstrating her swimming skill, her squeals of laughter coming clearly to them across the water.

  Later they all went back to the Annabella and after drinks turned for home.

  Helen insinuated herself between Annabel and Emma on the homeward journey, and said:

  ‘How did you come to get this job, Miss Harding? Are you a children's nurse?'

  Emma shook her head. ‘No. I was a nurse in a hospital in London, but the prospect of several months in the Bahamas was too good to miss.'

  Really, thought Emma as she said this, it was very easy to say. What had started as a painful chore had become unreasonably enjoyable, despite her encounters with Damon. She knew she would rather be here, than back in London, with Damon only a heart-stirring memory of the past.

  ‘Then how did Damon come to choose you?’ Helen was still curious.

  ‘I… I… applied for the post when it was advertised.'

  ‘Was it advertised? That's unusual for Damon. He usually hires an agent to secure his staff for him.'

  Emma flushed. ‘Well, in this instance he didn't,’ she said shortly.

  Helen shrugged, and looked at Emma disbelievingly. Her suspicious mind was already creating situations that didn't exist. For an employee who had only known her employer a very short time she acted very familiarly, and Helen was prepared to believe the worst of anyone who was as attractive as Emma.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FOR the next couple of days Damon devoted the whole of his time to Annabel. Emma felt quite superfluous, for Damon took over the tasks she had been used to doing, and she managed to stay discreetly in the background. Paul took her to Nassau one afternoon, and would have stayed until after dinner, but she insisted on being back in case she was needed. Besides, she had the feeling that Paul wanted to have a closer relationship than friendship with her, but much as she liked him she had no personal interest in him and did not wish to act otherwise.

  She had a letter from Johnny which disturbed her a little. He seemed to be finding it difficult caring for himself, and she hoped he was getting enough to eat. London seemed such a long way away from Sainte Dominique's Cay, and her life there in retrospect seemed colourless and wholly concerned with her work,

  Then, three days later, Damon departed early one morning in the helicopter with Paul, and Emma learned, through Tansy, that he had returned to the States to complete his business there.

  After he had gone, nothing was quite the same. Just his presence in the house had added a kind o
f vitality to the days, and now he had gone the place seemed empty. Annabel was regretful, but contented, because her father had shown such interest in her during the last couple of days. He had swum with her, played with her, read to her, and generally amused her. Emma found it difficult to take the place of Damon, even though Annabel obviously had grown fond of her.

  A week later they were invited to Sainte Catherine's Cay for the afternoon. Annabel grumbled when Emma said they ought to accept as Helen had issued the invitation, but she finally agreed and they went.

  Helen's home was not a bit as Emma would have expected. It was far from clean, as though the servants were not observed very thoroughly, and piles of books and magazines littered the living-room. Chris had shut himself away in his study, and the click, click of his typewriter was all that could be heard of him. Helen put herself out to be more friendly towards Emma, but Emma thought she must be a lazy creature to leave the house in such a state. Helen was dressed sloppily in slacks and a sweater, and her hair needed washing. She knitted interminably, and Emma wondered what she was making, but didn't like to ask. Both she and Annabel were relieved when the time came for them to leave, and Emma hoped she would not have to repeat that experience.

  The days slid slowly by. She wrote to Johnny regularly, and received casual notes from him from time to time. Worries about him were her only concern; she refused to admit to the continual ache she felt when she thought of Damon,

  * * *

  Damon was restless.

  It was exactly three weeks since he had returned to San Francisco, and now all his work was completed and he and Paul were leaving for London the following day. But this was not why he was restless. Despite his intensive concentration on the job in hand he had been unable to get thoughts of Emma Harding out of his mind, and consequently he was short-tempered and irritable, and even Paul was unable to get through to him.

  His evenings had been taken up with invitations from various of his colleagues and friends, who all wanted to see him while he was there. He attended the cocktail parties, the lunches, the dinners, but although he was polite and charming when spoken to, when left to himself he was morose and withdrawn, and he knew Paul could not understand why. He was tempted to tell the younger man of his earlier relationship with Emma and thus reveal his reasons for his attitude, but he was not a man to seek the sympathy of anyone, much less in a situation where he felt he had made a fool of himself.

  He had admitted to himself that he was still attracted to Emma even though it might only be the physical attraction which had brought them together in the first place before her personality and warmth had enslaved him, making him desire her more than he had ever desired any woman.

  He cursed himself angrily as he paced about the soft fitted carpet of his bedroom at the Royal Bay Hotel. Why did his mind persist in trying to find reasons for Emma's defection seven years ago? Why couldn't he accept what she had told him? But there were too many points on which his calculating brain seized again and again. When she had first broken their engagement he had been so hurt and angry that he had hired a private detective to report to him on her movements. There had been no other man, however much she protested that there had, and his feelings had been trampled when he had had to assume the reasons for her withdrawal had been solely concerned with himself; his age, his appearance, his personality.

  And now, to his intense disgust, despite her actions in the past, he found his traitorous senses stirring at the memory of her smooth lithe body lying relaxed in slumber on the sands below Minerva's Stone.

  He lit a cigar, drawing on it violently, and started when there was a knock at his door. ‘Come!’ he called, peremptorily, glad of the respite from his thoughts.

  Paul entered, closing the door behind him, grinning amiably. Reaching into his slacks’ pocket for his cigarette case, he said:

  ‘You have a visitor!’ He lit a cigarette. ‘Madame Tsai Pen Lung!'

  Damon stared at Paul incredulously. ‘You must be joking!'

  ‘Sorry, but I'm not. I was in the bar just now, getting some cigarettes, when she came up to me. She asked whether we were staying in town long, and naturally I told her we were leaving in the morning.'

  ‘Naturally,’ remarked Damon laconically. ‘So what?'

  ‘So she invited us for a farewell drink.'

  Damon grimaced. ‘Damn! Is she in the bar now?'

  ‘Yes, and likely to stay that way.'

  Damon flung himself down into an armchair. ‘Just when I feel like getting good and drunk!'

  Paul shrugged. ‘You could have it sent up,’ he suggested. ‘I might join you myself.'

  Damon shook his head. ‘I don't feel in the mood for solitary parties. I need company; my own depresses me.'

  Paul stared at him. ‘Honestly, Damon, what's wrong with you? You've been practically unapproachable since we left the island!'

  ‘There's nothing wrong with me that a good binge won't cure,’ remarked Damon. ‘Come on, Paul. We'll go down. I can think of worse females I've known.'

  Paul sighed, unable to pierce the mask that Damon had somehow assumed. Stretching, he left the room for his own where he donned a tie and jacket before rejoining Damon.

  The bar downstairs was crowded, but Madame Tsai Pen Lung must have been watching for them, for as they entered she came purposefully across to join them. Tonight she was wearing an oriental-styled trouser suit, covered in red dragons and crescent moons, with a high mandarin collar and close-fitting pants. Her hair was wound on top of her head in a coronet, while heavy jade hoops hung from her ears.

  ‘Ah, Mr. Thorne,’ she said, smiling, including Paul in her greeting. ‘I am so glad you were able to join me.'

  Damon murmured something politely, and then she led the way across to a small table in one corner of the huge, brilliantly-lit saloon. A waiter attended to them, and when their drinks were supplied she lay back studying Damon intently. There was about her tonight an air of nervousness, which Damon had not noticed before. A tautening of her features, and an awareness, almost of anxiety. The dark oriental eyes darted hither and thither as she spoke to them, as though searching for something, or someone.

  Damon shrugged, dismissing his deductions as a hangover from his own particular brand of mental anguish, and determinedly swallowed the remainder of his whisky, and ordered another.

  ‘Do you often come to San Francisco, Mr. Thorne?’ Tsai Pen Lung asked, sipping her cocktail delicately.

  Damon shrugged again. ‘It depends. When I have business here sometimes I stay for many weeks, but at others I may only stay overnight.'

  ‘And you commute to London?'

  ‘I usually spend some time in London,’ he agreed, his eyes narrowing, wondering why she was so concerned about his movements. He had noticed she divulged very little information about herself.

  ‘What about you?’ said Paul, breaking into their conversation. ‘Do you intend staying in San Francisco now you're here?'

  She shook her head. ‘Maybe, maybe not. It depends whether I am permitted to stay.'

  ‘I'm sure no one could refuse to allow such a beautiful woman as yourself permission to remain here,’ said Paul gallantly, catching Damon's eyes mockingly.

  ‘Why, thank you, Mr. Rimini. It is very kind of you to say so, but I regret immigration officials are unmoved by appearances.'

  ‘Appearances can be so deceptive,’ remarked Damon coolly. ‘After all, what possible attributes can be satisfactorily diagnosed as being particularly undesirable? A priest can look like a devil, and a murderer can have the face of an angel!'

  ‘It is the eyes, I think,’ replied Tsai Pen Lung thoughtfully. ‘One can usually discriminate honesty in a person's eyes.'

  Damon drew out his cigarette case. ‘And when one is blind, what then?'

  She stared at him. ‘You are not blind!’ Her tone was incredulous.

  ‘No.’ Damon opened the case and offered her a cigarette. ‘Did I say I was?'

  She swallowed, and shook
her head, then took a cigarette, smoothing it between her fingers in a distracted way. Again Damon felt disturbed. There was something troubling her; something playing on her mind, something behind this ambiguous conversation.

  He shook himself slightly. It must be the amount of alcohol he was consuming, he thought. He was becoming quite fanciful. Yet he was concerned somehow. He wondered whether if he had been alone she would have confided her problem to him. He inwardly chided himself. Hadn't he enough problems of his own, without pondering the problems of a Chinese girl he had met exactly three times?

  Realizing she was waiting for a light, he flicked his lighter hastily and in so doing dropped it. It slid from his fingers and fell with a thud on the soft fitted carpet beneath their feet.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ he apologized, looking at Tsai Pen Lung, and discovering her face was chalk-white. She seemed to be looking beyond him, but when he turned his head to see what she was staring at there was nothing. He looked back at her, and then at Paul, who appeared to have noticed nothing amiss and was lazily carrying on a conversation about baseball with a man sitting at his other side.

  He frowned, remembered his lighter, and was about to retrieve it when Tsai Pen Lung forestalled him. ‘Let me,’ she said, and slid down to the floor in a lithe, fluid movement.

  Damon glanced round again, his heightened senses aware of someone watching him, or Tsai Pen Lung. It was ridiculous, he knew, and yet among that sea of faces, talking so vibrantly, there was someone who had frightened the girl. But why? Who was there in San Francisco that she could be frightened of? She had only been in the country about five weeks. Who could she possibly have made an enemy of in that time?

  His desire to get drunk was fast disappearing. He thought that at least she had lifted a little his shroud of depression. She slid back into her seat, but only momentarily before excusing herself, saying: