BELOVED CASTAWAY by Violet Winspear
Shipwrecked on the remote Brazilian island of Janaleza, Morvenna found herself pitchforked into the uneasy situation of having to wait there for one month — until the next steamer came along — under the authority of the island's autocratic overlord, Roque de Braz Ferro. She found the prospect, to say the least, daunting. Yet she found herself falling in love with him nevertheless. And where would that get her,when there was a beautiful Brazilian girl who was clearly destined to be his bride?
printed in Great Britain
Every month, four titles by favourite Mills & Boon authors will be re-published in the Classics series.A list of other titles in the Classics series can be found at the end of this book.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
First published 1968
This edition 1976
C) Violet Winspear 1968
For copyright reasons, this book may not be issued onloan or otherwise except in its original soft cover.
ISBN o 263 72204
CHAPTER ONE
THE sky was a dazzling blue, and the wings of tropical birds flashed in the sun high above the dense green masses of trees and giant-fronded ferns.
Within the heart of the forest long-tailed monkeys flung through the trees and peered down through the mesh of boughs to the distant glimmer of a sandbar that forked out into the blue ocean. Their keen little eyes were full of wonderment. And gay green parakeets cocked their heads as through the green shadows crept yard upon yard of speckled snake. All at once the parrots shrilled into a frantic clamour and flew from their treetop perches into the depths of the forest.
Far below on the shore, where the sands were as tawny as the pelt of a jaguar, lay a girl. She lay very still, her torn dress shimmering with dried sea-salt, and bound round her body like the scales of a mermaid. The hot sun played over her as though in curiosity, touching the silvery tendrils of her hair, her bare white arms, her hands clenched in the sand.
The sand pricked her cheek, and she heard as in a shell the murmuring of the surf, mingling with the pounding at her temples. She was too spent to move, but as consciousness slowly returned, she became aware of nausea. Suddenly it gripped her, arched her slim young body, and she began to retch. She hardly knew that she was making whimpering little sounds of distress.
"That's it." A hand pressed between her shoulder-blades, and a strong arm held her. "Get rid of what you've swallowed."
When it was over, the sea-water expelled, she lay in the strong hands wearily, a cold perspiration drying on her body in the heat of the sun.
"Better ?"
She knew the voice, it compelled her to open her eyes. She blinked at the merging of bright colours all around; they dazed her and brought tears to her eyes. The face bent above her was hazed by her tears. "Yes, I'm real." She knew the rough auburn hair, the sardonic drawl in the man's voice. "We're both very much alive."
"You — pulled me out ?" Her voice was husky, with a faint musical intonation.
"That's right." A smile quirked briefly at the edge of his mouth.
She lay looking up at him. The sun was unbearable and she raised a hand and shielded her eyes from the glare. This brought his face into clearer focus — tough, square, made attractive by a pair of swashbuckling eyes. She was about to smile her relief that they were both alive and safe, when, blindingly, she realized that they had not been the only two on the yacht.
"The others ?" She reared up, clutching his arm. "Where are the others ? Did we all get away all right ?"
He didn't answer — he didn't have to. She saw now that his tanned face was weary from something other than physical exhaustion.
"Are they dead ?" There was horror in her eyes.
"Yes." He helped her to sit up, kneeling in the sand and wincing as he pushed the tousled hair out of his eyes. She didn't notice his wince of pain, all she could think of was beautiful, luxury-loving Poppy cold in the sea — gone to the sharks. She gazed over Leird's shoulder
at the sea, saw the rampart of coral rocks where the Sea Panther had got herself ensnared like a cat in a trap. Just before that rending of the yacht's side they had seen the sharks, their fins cutting through the steel-blue of the sea's surface.
Leird and Poppy's husband had been planning to `take' a couple of the sea-tigers. Poppy had stood shuddering theatrically, her emerald green slacks a splash of colour below the spread sails of the yacht. "You'll be careful, honey," she called out to Gerald, her long, lazy eyes on Leird. "Now promise me you won't go falling in there among those fearful creaes."
Gerald had turned from the tiller to laugh at her, and that was when the crash had happened.
The whole scene sprang back before Morvenna's eyes. The shocking rending of the yacht's side, a high scream, a flash as something brightly emerald disappeared over the side. Then the shock of being thrown herself, of hitting the deck, the palms of her hands and her knees striking the planking as she tried to save herself. All horror in the crash was swamped in the horror of seeing Poppy thrown into the water among those ghastly sharks.
Morvenna crouched in the sand like a small, wounded animal. "Poor Gerald went after her, and the sharks went after both of them," she whispered. "That's how we managed to get away, isn't it, Leird ?"
"Yes." His eyes were bleak as he looked at her, and then out towards the reef, as though he saw it all with dreadful clarity, the yacht under those rocks, and the sea-water washing all the gaiety from Poppy's face.
A rim of foam washed around those guardian rocks,
and flecks of it were in the surf; splashing sand from small stones and fanned shells, bringing them to the light so that their colours winked in the tropical sunshine.
"Where are we ?" Morvenna gazed around her and saw the high mass of jungle vegetation, and heard the raucous cries of forest birds above the sound of the sea. She looked at Leird, and then gave a small cry of alarm as he suddenly pitched forward on his face in the sand, as though struck by a blow on the head. She leant over him in concern and saw the congealed blood of a wound at the back of his head. It had been concealed from her by the dark red colour of his hair.
"Leird," she whispered, and she stroked his cheek, grooved by the wind and sunshine of a dozen lands.
The call of a bush-bird rose to a squawk in the jungle growth behind her. She turned to look in instinctive awareness of a presence, and she tautened and was filled with apprehension as the bushes parted and men appeared.
They stood in a group, gazing down the beach at Morvenna and the large, sprawled figure of Leird Challen. They looked like Indians; short, wiry men who were regarding her with looks of superstitious awe. "Karumi?" she heard them mutter, and it sounded more like a question than a statement that she was a woman.
A frightened one, needing help for Leird but with only a very basic knowledge of the Brazilian language. She was gazing at the Indians, Leird's head in her lap, when the group broke apart to give passage to a much taller man. Without a moment's hesitation he came
striding down the beach towards Morvenna and a few seconds later he stood over her, his booted feet deep in the sand, lean, haughty, hammered out of copper, with the features of an Aztec warrior and hair black as jet above eyes of blue.
His eyes held her captive, fierce as the blue seen on the edge of a flame; or the wing of a kingfisher as it arrows down on its prey. A slash-throated shirt covered considerable width of shoulder; a man of Latin blood, Morvenna guessed, with a great deal of authority in this remote part of the
South American continent.
He looked at the man whom she cradled in her arms, then swift as flame his gaze ran over her face, taking in the freckles that spattered her slender nose, and the silver-gilt hair that clung to her head like a cap, peaked at the centre of her forehead above eyes the colour of sea-lavender.
"You are British – both of you ?" His voice was deep-pitched, his accent Brazilian, his command of English easy and educated.
She nodded, for this was not the time to add that she was half Welsh and very proud of the fact.
"Who is the young man ?" A lean brown hand gestured at Leird and the sun struck the heavy gold ring on the middle finger, a coiled serpent tail-in-mouth.
"A friend, senhor. He has a bad cut at the back of his head which needs attention—"
"Allow me to have a look." As the tall man hunched down beside Morvenna and carefully inspected Leird's injury, her gaze dwelt with awe and curiosity on the proudly defined profile. The nose jutted in a straight line from the broad forehead, the lips were cut to express every nuance of command. It was a face, she
thought dazedly, out of the days of the magnificos.
"The wound is deep but not too dangerous." Morvenna gave a start as the man fixed his arresting blue eyes upon her. "I am informed by my Indians that a small yacht ran on to the reef early this morning. You and your friend were alone on it, senhorinha?"
She gave a little shudder and told him wearily what had happened.
"The tubarao, " he muttered with a frown. "Sharks are not hunters of men, but the sinking of the yacht and the panic of the people you mention could have caused the tubarao to attack. However, there is a remote chance that your companions managed to swim ashore, so I will send some of my men to search farther along our coastline."
"Thank you, senhor." Her feeling of exhaustion made her eyes look like lilac shadows in her white face. Her eyelids felt heavy and she wanted to sink down and fall into the forgetfulness of sleep. Perhaps she was already asleep and dreaming all this . . . but no, the voice beside her that rapped out sudden orders was too alive to be part of a dream.
"Where is this place ?" she managed to ask.
"The island of Janaleza." The Indians lifted Leird and she was vaguely aware that they carried him carefully away towards the trees. Then she was lifted herself out of the crushed gold of the sands, her head fell back against a shoulder like iron, and blue eyes gazed down at her weary face.
An island, and the man who carried her was lord of it. Tired in mind and body though she was, she had no doubt that she had fallen into the hands of one of the feudal fazendeiros who ruled in these remote parts.
"My name," she heard him say in his deep voice above her head, "is Roque de Braz Ferro. I am taking you to my coffee plantation, where you and your friend will be looked after."
Green shadows enclosed them, along with a scent of lush tropical flowers. Morvenna felt the shadowed coolness on her face, in contrast to the warmth of the arms that bore her along under the giant trees. The sun no longer shot daggers through her head when she opened her eyes, and for the first time she was having a real glimpse of the Brazilian wilderness into which her father had so often ventured, following the beckoning magic of the emerald, or the hidden fire of diamonds.
Most of his life her father had been searching for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, and some months ago he had written to her from Manaos, a jungle city on the Brazilian coast, enclosing with his letter a copy of a map pertaining to lead to the treasure-trove of an ancient Aztec tribe. He was sure that at last he was on the track of the real thing, and Morvenna had read his letter with an an indulgent smile. He was happy exploring far-away jungles for his pot of gold, and though she often missed him, she was resigned to his long absences from England.
Her mother had died when Morvenna was fifteen, and she had brought herself up. There were wandering Celtic minstrels in her ancestry, and she not only worked in a music shop but had a flair for folk-singing and playing the guitar.
A prolonged silence had followed her father's letter and map, and then had come an official letter from the authorities at Manaos. The canoe in which Llew Fayr had set out on his expedition had been found
abandoned, along with his rifle and his canned supplies, cast upon the shores of a creek inhabited by crocodiles and piranha, a voracious type of fish which left little of a man to float downriver if he fell a victim to them.
The letter had shocked Morvenna, left her with a numb feeling of disbelief. Llew had always been so big and vital, so sure that one day he would find his pot of gold, that she couldn't accept the fact that he was lost to her, accounted dead in some far-away jungle.
She had left her job, and taken to a jeweller the half-dozen unflawed beryls her father had found long ago and given to her. "They should fetch a fair price," he had said. "Use them for your trousseau when the time comes."
They had fetched enough for her fare to Brazil, and a stay of about six weeks, during which time she hoped to find out more about her father's disappearance. It was at Manaos that she had met Poppy Tyson and her husband. They had shown immediate interest in the map, which she hoped might lead her to her father, and Gerald Tyson had suggested that they form an expedition and hunt for her father, and possible treasure, in his yacht the Sea Panther.
Leird Challen, a rover who also earned quite a comfortable living as a photographer of wild life, had been conscripted into the expedition by the vivacious Poppy.
It was obvious to Morvenna right away that Poppy was bored with her husband, and she didn't take much trouble to hide it. Leird's rugged charm and foot-loose nature had reminded Morvenna right away of her father. She was soon on good terms with him, but she had no illusions about him. Leird, the red lion, as
Poppy had called him.
Morvenna shuddered against the hard shoulder of Roque de Braz Ferro as she seemed to hear again that scream of Poppy's as the Sea Panther struck rock and went down. She wondered if it was true, the legend that those who sought Aztec treasure aroused the wrath of their pagan gods.
Her heart beat wildly, and she pulled suddenly away from the shoulder of the stranger who carried her to his plantation house. He glanced down at her, and the shadows of leaves played over the strong moulding of his cheekbones, the bold curve of his lips, and the indomitable set of his chin.
She had a wild impulse to escape from his arms, and he must have sensed this in the rigidity of her body, for his black brows drew together in a frown. The jungle trees closed in around them, and it was as though she and this dark stranger were entirely alone.
"Silence is more eloquent than words," he said. "What is the matter, do you fear that you and your friend have been cast up on the shores of an island inhabited by savages ?"
He carried her with ease along a track cut through ranks of tiger-gold bamboos, wild palm and tamarisks. His booted feet crunched the dry foliage underfoot, and the buzz of insects and the chirr of cicadas was as constant as the beat of the pulse under the tanned skin of his throat.
"This seems to be a large island, senhor, and my father once told me that as fast as a man tames one section of Central Brazil, another returns to its state of wildness."
"Your father must have been speaking from experience, senhorinha," there was a shimmer of blue behind black lashes as he looked at her.
"Yes." A lump came into her throat and she had to struggle to control her voice. "He's Llew Fayr. He set out on a treasure hunt seven months ago, and then was reported missing. I – I came to find him – now my map is at the bottom of the sea—"
"The authorities told you he was – missing ?" The blue gaze was keen rather than sympathetic; his tone of voice imperative.
"Yes, I had a letter from the officials at Manaos." She felt hurt by his brusqueness. "My father's canoe was found abandoned along with his rifle and supplies. A search was made of the area, and in the end it was assumed that he—"
Morvenna broke off with a choked little sound. She fought agains
t the tears that would not move this man of Janaleza. Roque . . . how well the name suited him ! Rock-like to touch, with no doubt a heart to match !
"Indian trackers would have been used in the search for your father," he said. "If they could not find him – then no one could find him."
"Please, don't say that." She looked at Roque de Braz Ferro with a desperate appeal in her eyes.
"Truth is like surgery, it cuts but cures." He held her strongly in the circle of one arm as he brushed a great plumy fern from their path, then as his arms encircled her again, she became aware of the torn state of her dress, through which she could feel his arm.
"It would seem that you have taken a long and foolhardy journey, Miss Fayr," he added.
"Meaning that it is foolish to love someone, I suppose?" A flash of antagonism came into her eyes as
she met the blue gaze that had not softened at her story.
"Always foolish, but unavoidably human." It could have been anger or amusement that flashed in his eyes, and she lay still in his arms, trying not to feel their hard warmth. "You spoke of a map at the bottom of the sea — a treasure map, I take it ?"
She nodded tiredly, and wished this interminable trek through the forest would end and his arms not be around her a second longer. "It wasn't any interest in possible treasure that brought me to Brazil," she said. "I only wanted to try and find my father."
"But I assume that your companions on the yacht were interested in this treasure — which was bound to prove a myth ?"
"You would be the sort to assume that people are more mercenary than merciful," she flashed. "Good heavens, how far is this coffee plantation, in the depths of the jungle ?"
"Not quite." A thin smile edged his lips. "We approach the tamarind grove in which the fazenda is set. Breathe deeply and you will catch their spicy scent."
"All these trees smell alike to me," she said offhandedly.
"At first," he agreed. "After a while you will grow used to their varied scents and be able to distinguish between them. The sandalwood, the oleander, the camphors, and breath-of-heaven."
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