"A jungle storm can be fierce and unpredictable." The senhor 's eyes caught and held Morvenna, blue as
the flame on the edge of lightning. "There is every chance that we will be caught in this one — will you be afraid, with me ?"
She sat there, slim and silver-haired against the dense greenery, her eyes quite huge in her pointed face, eyes whose hidden sorcery seemed revealed in this strange setting and atmosphere. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm not the hysterical type, anyway. Perhaps my witch-ancestress implanted in me a feeling that the elements are less to be feared than people. People are far more unpredictable."
"That is very true." A little smile clung to his lips as he regarded the tip of his cheroot. "But there would be no drama, no comedy, no love without at least two people in any place together, preferably a man and a woman. And if they always knew the thoughts of the other, and how they were going to react to everything, it would surely make life less exciting."
"Don't you mind that I have caused you to lose an afternoon's work ?" she asked. "My unpredictability must surely irritate you ? You said the other day that I do things from instinct rather than from common sense.
"That is because you are a woman." His amused eyes flicked her face and her throat. "I don't pretend to understand women, Miss Fayr, nor my own fury at their antics at times, but I should not wish them to react to situations in the same way as men. How dull life would be without women to enliven it with their delectable comedy — ah, do I surprise you ? Did you think me a misogynist because I am over thirty and still unmarried ?"
She shook her head, for she knew that he had waited
for Raya to grow up. He would want a woman, not a half-grown girl. A woman of feeling and temperament, who would be able to excite him and amuse him. It did not do to remember that Raya had broken his trust in her, and that inevitably he would find out.
"Love makes people very vulnerable," he said, his eyes narrowed, and darkened by his lashes. "It is the revelation of our secret selves, so it is no wonder we treat the emotion as though it were a weapon aimed at our own hearts. No one enjoys pain, or pity . . . " there he broke off as lightning flickered above the treetops. In one lithe movement he was on his feet and killing the end of his cheroot against the trunk of a tree.
"Come, we must be making a move." He assisted Morvenna to her feet, and brushed pieces of fern from her shirt. She felt his touch right through the thin cotton, and she looked up at him as though magnetized, at his mouth that was so self-controlled and at the same time so passionate. She went curiously weak and couldn't stop herself from swaying against him. His arm came round her, steel-strong and warm, crushing her for a moment.
"What is a little storm ?" he murmured. "There are worse things to fear."
"I know." She was breathing quickly, his hard lean body against hers, here in the forest where the shadows were stabbed by that noiseless lightning. The atmosphere was electrical, menacing, curiously exciting, and suddenly Morvenna was rent apart from the senhor as thunder crashed and a blade of violet steel cleft a nearby palm tree from its crown to its roots.
Fingers of iron gripped Morvenna's wrist and she was borne away swiftly as the tree flamed like a torch
and a sheet of rain came down, blindingly. Fighting the abrupt fury of the storm, he thrust a way through the trees and drew her in under the primitive shelter of huge cabbage-palm leaves. "This is what we call a storm of the devil," he shouted above the roar of the rain. They would have to take a chance on the lightning, he added. Rain like this was even more dangerous, because it could batter a person to the ground and drown him in mud.
A giant wave of the rain threw her against him He gripped her and she huddled to him for shelter. In the extremity of the moment a girl could not feel shyness towards a man, and any reluctant feeling of fascination was forgotten with rain pouring down her neck.
"A little storm, did you say ?" she gasped.
She heard him laugh and a flash of lightning lit up his dark face and made her burrow close to him again.
The tumult went on and on, and all the time there was the fear that at any moment the claws of lightning would find them and strike them. The trees all around threshed in the wind, and the rain was frightening in its intensity. It lashed and blotted out everything, made of the jungle a misty green blur.
At some time in the timeless moments of danger and discomfort, her arms locked themselves around his neck and her face buried itself in the warm hollow of his shoulder. It wasn't until the storm grew quiet at last that Morvenna realized what had been going through her mind all the time. That if the lightning struck it would strike them as one person and they would die together like lovers in a legend.
The storm slowly died away and a hushed, dripping twilight was upon them. They stepped out from under
their sopping shelter of leaves, and mud splashed their ankles as they made their way back to where they had dined on mangoes. Mud, petals, butterfly wings and feathers littered their path. The air was drenched with damp green smells and the spilled sap from torn lianas. Everything dripped, including Morvenna and her companion. The rain had turned her hair to a metal cap. His shirt clung and dried in the steamy heat. The wet skin of his face and throat was burnished copper.
"Well," he gazed down at Morvenna when they reached the rain-battered bank of flowers where they had eaten slices of mango, "we cannot follow the homeward track in the dark. There will be a moon later on, but it will be overclouded, and we cannot take a chance on going astray in the forest . ."
He paused, and the smile in his eyes was a grimly humorous one. "We are going to have to spend the night together in the jungle, Miss Fayr," he said. "It will not be exactly comfortable, but I have a machete and the palm tree that was struck by lightning will provide fuel for a fire. Even a smoky fire will be better than nothing, eh ?"
She gave a shiver, and tried to smile. "Don't you feel like shaking me, senhor, for all the trouble I'm causing you ?"
"Of course." He put out a hand and ruffled the damp hair at her temples. "But I shall save what I feel like saying to you for another time."
"Thank goodness for that !" Her smile was shaky. "Are you going to give me a job to do in the meantime ?"
"I certainly am " His teeth glinted in a brief smile as he picked up the machete which lay in the wet fern.
"You can hold the pieces of wood as I chop them. The lightning will have charred the wood, so it should make good fuel for a fire."
"I feel hot and cold at the moment." she said, as she followed him to the stricken tree.
"Soon it will grow cool," he told her. "We are going to need enough fuel to see us through the night . . . not only because it will soon grow cold, but to keep off the animals that roam in the jungle at night."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AFTER the rainfall, the forest seethed with small sounds and a wild bouquet of scents. Their camp fire leapt smokily, and the bread-fruits baking at its edge spat and split with little hisses of steam. The senhor had noticed the round loaves earlier on, tucked high among the hand-shaped leaves of the tree. The storm had blown down several and he had collected them and set them to bake. Slices of hot bread-fruit were not exactly tasty, he said, but they were filling.
He was alarmingly resourceful, Morvenna thought. Armed with a machete he could live as comfortably in the jungle as any Indian. As he tended their supper, his profile was outlined against the flames. The well-defined cheekbones, the high-bridged nose and fleshless angle under his chin. The face of a strong and subtle man, with a sureness to all his movements.
"Our supper is almost ready." His eyes were upon her before she could pretend to be looking elsewhere.
"What a pity we have no coffee to go with it, eh ? I must remember in future to carry coffee beans and a billy-can when I go searching for you."
"I must try in future not to go astray." She sat on the tree stump which he had dragged to the fireside, holding her bare feet to the warmth. She wriggled her toes and
absently scratched a mosquito bite on her left ankle. At once her ankle was pinioned by his fingers. "Don't do that," he said. "You will break the skin and cause a fester."
"But it itches." A tremor ran through her, for his touch made her very aware of their aloneness. Like a current it seemed to leap from his fingers into her bones.
"I will give you something to apply to the bite." As he bent over her, she caught the glint of his teeth and his eyes. "Suddenly you seem nervous. You have never been alone like this with a man, have you? Are you afraid of me ?"
"Have I cause to be ?" she fenced.
His fingers pressed against the fine bones of her ankle, then let go. In silence he withdrew from his pocket the square oil-skin pouch in which he carried about a week's supply of the medicaments that were so necessary in the jungle. "Here you are," he handed her a small tube. "Squeeze some of that on to the bite and smooth it in. It will stop the irritation."
He stressed the word as though she irritated him. She supposed she did get on his nerves, what with blundering into the jungle with a storm coming on, and saying things that made his nostrils flare and his eyes look narrow and dangerous.
Half a moon floated in and out of the clouds left behind by the storm, it peered through the branches of
the trees like an inquisitive golden eye as Morvenna applied the salve to the welt on her ankle. At once the irritation began to go. "Hang on to the stuff;" the senhor was stabbing the bread-fruits with a pronged stick and lifting them out of the fire. "That tender skin of yours is going to invite a few more bites before the night is over."
"Th-thank you." She stuffed the tube into the pocket of her trews. "It certainly works like magic."
"Many of these remedies were discovered in the jungle long ago by the Indians and used by them in a cruder form." He built up the fire now their supper was cooked, and the smoke rose up in a tangy column and the hovering insects and moths buzzed off for the moment. "Nuno may have gone searching for a new medicine. He does this for a pharmaceutical company in Brazil."
"But he took the map with him," she said tensely, "and I'm afraid that it may bring him bad luck. It seems to have done that for my father and for Poppy's husband. Aztec gold that the old gods guard ! Isn't there a superstition to that effect, senhor?"
"A tribe of Aztecs were said to have fled to this region long ago, and superstitions are always rife in the jungle, but the Spanish invaders of the Aztec kingdoms were too greedy for gold to have let much of it slip through their fingers. The Aztecs may have escaped with a few golden idols, but a boy who has lived among the Indians would know that such things are best left alone."
"I don't think Nuno is looking for treasure," she said. "He — well, he's at the gallant age and may be trying to find out if my father is still alive."
"Miss Fayr," suddenly his blue eyes were as keen as steel, "I hope you are not letting any more false hopes take hold of you ?"
She shook her head, but for searching moments his eyes were upon her face in the firelight. Suddenly all her taut nerves jumped as the mae da lua cried through the forest.
"It is only a bird, known as the mother of the moon." He lifted his face to the jungle moon, and Morvenna's arms tightened about her knees at the look he had with the moonlight shining down on him. "We think of the jungle as a woman, senhorinha, for all plants and flowers are female, and also the rivers that run through
it.
"You love the wildness and the mystery of it all, don't you ?" Never had she felt so strongly that love of this jungle island was in his blood, at the very core of his heart. Was that why he loved Raya, because she was as lovely and secretive as the jungle?
"I belong here," he said simply. "For generations my family has lived here, and the pulse of the place beats in me."
He haunched down, supple as only a man of the open air could be, and sliced the bread-fruits that had now cooled to a bread-like firmness. He piled the slices on to the big leaves that made such handy plates, and handed Morvenna her supper. They enjoyed it sitting side by side on the tree trunk, and then they each had half a cup of water.
The creeper-veiled trees shook now and again, as if with the night time cold after the heat of the day. Strange sounds stole to Morvenna's ears, a mingling of chirps, drones and treetop chortles. There were slither-
ing noises in the undergrowth, and she was informed that giant lizards prowled at night for food. They were harmless, the senhor added, his eyes agleam in the firelight – like a panther's.
Their eyes touched as he carried a small burning brand to the tip of the cheroot he had just slipped between his lips. He tossed the brand back into the fire and puffed smoke at the flitting insects. "Are you too shy to sing me one of your folk songs ?" he asked. "After all, I cooked the supper and deserve some reward."
"I – I never sing without a guitar," she said in some confusion.
"I shall make allowances," he grinned.
"I couldn't." Her cheeks flamed. "Y-you make me feel shy enough as it is."
"Do I ?" He quirked an eyebrow. "I am only a man, senhorinha. Why then should I make you feel more shy than Mr. Challen does, or Nuno? You sing for them."
"They're different from you," she said bravely. "Leird is English and I understand him. Nuno is only a boy, and not nearly as complex as you are, senhor. "
"So I am complex ?" His cheroot smoke brushed her cheek. "What you really mean is that because I am not British, I look and behave differently from your own countrymen. Do I take it that you would sooner be spending a night alone in the jungle with Mr. Challen than with a Brazilian ? Are you still afraid that my Latin passions will erupt at finding themselves alone with a lilac-eyed, white-skinned little witch who has never been kissed properly ?"
"Oh—" The breath was shocked out of her. "I've never thought such a thing !"
"What, about being kissed properly ?"
"About being kissed — by you."
"That is just as well." Firelit shadows played over his face and revealed the shade of wickedness in his smile. "At this moment I have no intention of testing your reaction to a kiss of mine. If by requesting a song I make you shy, then I hate to think what would happen if I took a kiss. Tell me, has Mr. Challen ever kissed you ?"
"Of course not." She dragged her eyes from the demanding, fire-etched mouth. "Leird is only a friend, whatever Poppy may have implied. I've known him only a little longer than I've known — you."
"Love strikes quickly, senhorinha, in some cases. But I do not think your heart will be stolen by a man who has loved many other women."
"One expects a man to be experienced." She rose in defence of Leird, who had been kind and big-brotherly towards her.
"Experience is not the same as a restless searching that leads in the end to nowhere. Mr. Challen finds Raya attractive, but she will never marry him."
No, because the flash of a blade had cut Raya out from the rest, and she only played at friendship with Leird. But what of Flavio ? She was more than friendly with him. She had kissed him with the passion of a girl reckless of the consequences....
The fire flared as the senhor tossed on some of the branches he had set to dry, and Morvenna saw the profile of a man who could be many things. A master and a friend ... and a formidable enemy.
She rubbed her eyes, which felt gritty from tiredness and the smoke of the fire. She wanted to sleep, but the forest ferns were still damp from the storm and the
senhor would not allow her to curl down among them. She yawned, and at once his blue eyes were quizzing her sleepy face.
"No," he shook his head as he saw her casting a wistful look at the ferns, "you will catch cold, and a cold can lead to fever in the jungle."
"But I'm desperately tired," she yawned again, knuckling her eyes like a child. "Please, senhor—"
"You will sleep against my shoulder, here by the warmth of the fire." He spoke decisively. "But first let me pile up some fuel so that I will not disturb you too much when I replenish the fire."
/> She watched him, her heart pounding, as he shifted the woodpile to the side of the tree-trunk on which he intended to sit. He glanced at her. "Do you need to go into the bush ?" he asked casually.
"Yes, but I can manage." She hastened away before he took it into his head to come and stand guard over her. When she returned to the fireside, she was shivering a little from the cold. Some animal had coughed gruffly in the dark and that had helped to raise goose-bumps on her arms.
"Do – do the jaguars prowl about in the vicinity of a fire ?" she asked nervously. "I thought I heard one."
"One may sniff around," he said, "but the jaguar is too cunning to come face to face with a man. He prefers to attack from the limb of a tree, while someone is walking below."
Morvenna caught the sudden note of hardness in his voice, and saw the sombreness of his face as he pulled some ferns and used them to wipe his hands. She knew that he was remembering his mother and the way she had died.
"Don't be nervous," he said. "I know the jaguar, and I am also quite handy with the machete."
He picked it up and the firelight glinted on the blade as he placed it beside the tree trunk, within easy reach of his hand. "Are you thirsty ?" he asked. "I think I can spare you a small drink."
"No, I'm all right, just tired." She put a hand to her throat, as though to ease that strangling sense of intimacy in being alone with him in the dim, moist, mysterious jungle. He was so tall in the firelight, so dark and vital. Still such a stranger in many respects, in whose arms she was about to sleep.
Shyness raged through her when he placed an arm about her and drew her head to his shoulder. "Are you warm, pequina?" His breath was smoky from his cheroot as it brushed her temple, and he drew her closer, so that she felt again that deep, strong pounding of his heart. She had clung to him in the storm, but this was different. Now she was aware of him as a man rather than a refuge, and that the arm that enclosed her was both gentle and strong.
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