Falkone's Promise

by Rebecca Flanders

  ‘There’s a house,’ pointed Dawn. ‘Anyone you know?’

  Vernon glanced at the large, mansard-roofed structure overlooking the sea, and shook his head. ‘That’s the Manns’ place. I don’t think we’d better.’

  Dawn was inclined the agree.

  After a moment, while the mist became thicker and his driving more cautious, he said, ‘I suppose you’ve heard about the mess with Hilary Mann.’

  ‘Some,’ she replied carefully. ‘I understand that Byron is trying to buy out of the partnership.’

  ‘It would be a mistake,’ he answered, ‘but what else can he do?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ suggested Dawn, for no other reason than a sudden sharp recurrence of the memory of hurt and abuse she had recently suffered at the hands of Hilary and Byron, ‘he could try being a bit more tolerant.’

  The gaze he shot at her was pure amazement before he shifted his eyes back to the road. ‘Clearly, you haven’t heard the whole story. There are certain things a man like Byron can’t tolerate in anyone—much less the girl he’s going to marry.’

  ‘All I’ve heard is a lot of one-sided accusations and half-truths,’ she answered. ‘There are two sides to every story.’

  ‘Well, this one is pretty cut and dried. I personally never could understand what he saw in Hilary. She’s a beautiful woman, true, but so—manipulative, if you know what I mean. I was always a little afraid of her. And he put up with hell from her, too, if you’ll pardon the expression, long before this all came up. It always looked as if every fight they had would be their last, but she always got him back. And I’ll tell you something else: I don’t think the people of the island would ever have accepted Hilary as the mistress of Falkone’s Acres.’ He spoke as though that were important. ‘Then, one day a couple of months back, she started making all these trips to the mainland. Byron never suspected a thing. It turns out she was chasing after this man in Edinburgh—one of Byron’s biggest competitors, no less. Then one day she brought him here, and the rest is history. The rumour now is that she’s going to marry the fellow, and I say good riddance to bad rubbish.’

  For some reason, she was disappointed. It would have made her feel better at that moment to believe the entire thing had been Byron’s fault. It was wretched to be so hurt by a man and still understand him. ‘So he’s afraid that when Hilary does marry this other man, Falkone’s distillery would be eventually swallowed up by his competitor.’

  ‘That could never happen,’ replied Vernon confidently. ‘It would be foolish of them to even try. Byron will always hold the controlling interest, and it would even be profitable for another distillery to try to merge. No, it’s simply that honour plays a large part in the Boyds’ business dealings, it always has and it always will. Major negotiations are sealed with a handshake, and neither party has ever had to worry that it wouldn’t be binding. He simply refuses to deal with someone he can’t trust.’

  Dawn remembered the motto: Confido—I trust. And there was a peculiar yearning in her heart for a place that treasured so carefully the old ways, a man who clung so stoically to the old values.

  Suddenly it began to rain, great, cold pounding drops of rain, and they were soaked before Vernon could stop the car. He gestured to a clump of rocks and scrubby undergrowth on the hillside. ‘Over there!’ he shouted, running around to her side of the car. ‘It will at least keep us out of the downpour!’

  He took her hand as he helped her up the slippery hill, mud sucked at her shoes and one was completely lost as they scrambled for shelter. He pushed aside the shrubs this way and that until they finally found an overhang of rock large enough to accommodate the two of them. It was rather cramped, but they squeezed inside, and it was like a small, dark cave with the steady curtain of rain forming the door.

  ‘Well,’ sighed Vernon, ‘that’s better. Not much, but better. These showers usually don’t last long. I would offer you my coat, but it’s as wet as your sweater.’

  ‘It’s O.K.,’ chattered Dawn, squeezing moisture out of the hem of her sweater. ‘I’m just glad we found this place. That rain is freezing!’

  He smiled at her in the uncertain light, then said unexpectedly, ‘You’re not married, are you?’

  She was a little taken aback, possibly because it was the second time in a week she had been asked that question, and by two strikingly different men. She answered, ‘No, I’m not,’ and hoped he would not pursue.

  ‘I didn’t think so. I mean, I can’t imagine a man who would allow his wife to run around the world taking pictures ... but then American customs are so different from ours.’

  She stared at him. ‘Any man I would marry,’ she told him, ‘would allow me to do whatever was necessary to pursue my career. Marriage is a partnership, not an enslavement!’

  He chuckled. ‘I told you your customs were different.’

  ‘I don’t see that at all,’ she insisted. ‘Half the workers at the distillery are women, and you can’t tell me all of them are unmarried.’

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe I was interjecting more of a personal opinion than a true social statement.’

  ‘If Hilary had married Byron,’ she added, ‘she would have continued to work. If and when I marry I expect the same sort of arrangement.’ She was aware that she had spoken her thoughts out loud, and was a little embarrassed because it made it sound as if she associated Hilary’s relationship with Byron with her own situation. But she was also a little surprised to discover that, when viewed in that context, her desire for a career took an immediate back seat to the imagined contentments of a home and children. Hadn’t Byron summed it up pretty accurately ... that her violent devotion to her career was simply a substitution for a permanent relationship in her life? And perhaps, when that ultimate, totally perfect man came along with his promises of foreverness and devotion, everything would change...

  Vernon said abruptly, ‘You’re in love with him, aren’t you?’

  Dawn swallowed hard and did not answer. It was not that she refused to, but that she couldn’t. She was remembering with a tightening of her throat the cold, vengeful look in Byron’s eyes as he turned to Hilary after having kissed her, and her own plummeting despair as she realised his display of tenderness towards her was in fact no more than a slap in the face to Hilary. If only, she thought wistfully, that moment could have been as genuine for him as it was for me ... But she refused to pursue it, not even to herself.

  Vernon, watching the changing emotions soften her rain-streaked face, nodded and said nothing. They both turned to stare back at the curtain of rain and the churning surf, and time ticked by in silence.

  As Vernon had predicted, the shower did not last long, but it was intense, and when it finally lightened enough to go back to the car they found an inch of water in the floorboard. ‘Oh, your poor car!’ cried Dawn, but he shrugged it off.

  ‘She’s been through worse than this,’ he assured her, and tried the key. It ground and choked out. Dawn looked at him sympathetically, and he tried again, to no avail.

  ‘It’s too far to walk back,’ he apologised wretchedly. ‘Especially—’ He glanced at her one remaining waterlogged shoe clutched in her hand. ‘Barefoot! Oh dear, Dawn, I’m awfully sorry about this.’

  ‘The rain wasn’t your fault!’ she insisted. ‘Come on, do whatever it is you do under the hood and I’ll try the key.’

  It took over an hour before they heard the longed-for sound of the motor catching and accelerating. Jubilantly, they started up the dirt trail which would join with the road to the castle. It was already getting dark, and Dawn suspected she would be late for dinner, but after all, she really did not have to account to anyone at the castle. She was only sorry to have put Maggie out, and possibly worried her.

  They had gone perhaps a mile before they bogged down in mud. Vernon apologised profusely all the time he was pushing and rocking and trying to dig the back tyres out of the mud, and Dawn felt so sorry for him she went out of her way to be philosophical. ‘Don’
t be silly,’ she told him when they were finally on their way again. ‘It’s been a real adventure!’ She tried to ignore the fact that she was wet and muddy and chilled to the bone; it was past nine o’clock and she was starving.

  At last the warm yellow lights of the castle came into view, shining like a beacon through the fog and darkness, and Dawn could not remember ever having been so glad to come home. A moment later she had to remind herself this was not her home, after all, and wonder why she should think of it as such.

  Vernon pulled up before the front steps. ‘I won’t come in,’ he said, ‘I’m a mess. Dawn, I can’t tell you how sorry I am ... you’ve been a real sport about it.’

  ‘Honestly,’ she assured him, ‘it’s nothing to get upset about. I had a great time today and got some terrific shots, and the rain couldn’t be helped.’

  ‘I hope your camera isn’t damaged,’ he offered miserably.

  ‘Oh, no, the bag is insulated and I kept it pretty dry under my sweater.’

  And because he just sat there, gripping the steering wheel, looking like a half-drowned, scolded puppy, she leaned forward and gave him a light peck on the cheek. ‘Thanks for a wonderful day,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I mean it.’

  After a moment, Vernon returned her smile, and she got out of the car. As he drove away she turned and started up the steps. And there, outlined against the light of the door, looking like a feudal warrior greeting the enemy, was Byron.

  Dawn climbed the steps silently, aware as each step drew her closer of his ominous stance, the hard, angry lines of his face. At last, when she stood directly below him, he spoke. ‘Where have you been?’ he demanded.

  ‘Vernon drove me around the island,’ she explained a little hesitantly. ‘We got caught in the rain and then the car wouldn’t start...’

  He turned on his heel and stalked back inside. Confused, she followed him. ‘I’m sorry if I upset anyone ... I didn’t plan to be gone so long...’

  In the foyer, he whirled on her. ‘I’ll just bet you didn’t!’ he spat. ‘We’ve been half out of our minds with worry while you’re off in the woods somewhere with—Vernon! Well, I hope you enjoyed it!’

  ‘Enjoyed...’ She stared at him, aghast. ‘Now, just wait a minute! I told you what happened ... though why it should be any concern of yours I’m sure I didn’t know—’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, his anger working itself into a cold flame. ‘It is none of my business.’ His eyes raked her up and down, from her half-loose, wet hair tangled with bits of leaves and mud, to the satin shirt which was plastered to her body beneath the sweater so revealingly it need not have been there at all, to the bare feet, and Dawn felt herself begin to burn with his insinuation. ‘Go upstairs,’ he said icily, ‘and put some clothes on.’ Her reserve shattered, and she flung the camera bag on to a nearby throne chair with a force that completely disregarded the expensive lenses and delicate adjustments of the instrument. ‘I am not one of your—serfs! You have no right to talk to me that way, to imply—what you’re implying! Even if it were true—which it most certainly is not!—what gives you the right to censure my behaviour? You may think you own everyone else on this island, body and soul, but you have no hold over me—none whatsoever!’

  ‘That,’ he replied with a barely-maintained evenness to his own tone, ‘is apparent. I may not have any ‘hold’ over you, my dear, but I do claim a certain amount of control over what goes on under my roof, and I will not have a guest in my house attempting to seduce one of my employees!’ Dawn gasped, and was speechless.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he taunted her. ‘And you don’t try very hard to hide the fact, do you? You come in here, looking like a wanton, half dressed—’

  She interrupted, incredulously, ‘My shoe—’

  ‘And did you think I wouldn’t see you kiss him right there on the front lawn?’

  ‘A friendly kiss on the cheek!’

  Byron laughed bitterly, shaking his head with a sharp jerk. ‘You almost had me fooled for a while, I’ll admit that! I suspected what you were from the first—any woman with looks like yours can only be after one thing. Romance and adventure in the Scottish Isles, right? A two-week roller-coaster of passion, another conquest to take back to the States with you and brag about to your girl friends. You tried it with me, but it didn’t work, so you turned to the first available man for a substitute. Poor old Vernon, he’s not much of a catch, at that, but any port in a storm, as they say, eh?’

  She cried, incredulous and furious, ‘How—dare you—accuse me—’

  ‘Yes,’ he shot back, his eyes black with snapping wrath, ‘I dare! I told you before, Dawn, I’m sick of women who make promises they don’t keep, so if you think for one moment you’ll be welcome in my house after tonight—’

  ‘Promises?’ she objected shrilly. ‘What promises? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Of course,’ he returned sardonically, ‘it would mean nothing to you. A few kisses on the sly, a come-hither look, a provocative nightgown ... every one of them a promise of something more, and every one of them a lie.’

  Dawn drew a shaky breath. This was incredible, she could hardly believe it was happening, but her own angry instinct for self-defence came to the surface. ‘I—promised you? You’re the one who made the promises, Byron, and you’re the one who broke them! Before I even knew you you grabbed me in the woods and forced yourself on me—’

  ‘I’ve never forced any woman!’

  ‘And what was it to you?’ she continued over him, in a high voice. ‘A joke—a game! You’re the one who tried to make love to me in the garden ... you knew my being there was perfectly innocent! And what was that? Just another form of anger. And the other day—in the office’ She almost choked on hot tears. ‘Every time you’ve touched me, Byron Boyd, you’ve made promises—of affection, of caring—promises you had no intention of keeping. When a girl is kissed she likes to believe it’s for some better reason than just getting even with another woman!’

  He stared at her. ‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded.

  ‘Hilary!’ she returned, blinking back the angry tears. ‘You’ve been using me ever since I came here to—get over her—get back at her—to prove to her, or yourself—oh, I don’t know what! But I do know I don’t like it, and if this is a sample of your—proud honour!—then that...’ she gestured behind her to the crest with its mockingly gleaming motto, ‘is a joke!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said in a low voice, ‘what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh,’ she cried airily, her voice becoming hoarse with the effects of the cold and forcefully repressed tears. ‘I’m sure you don’t! I’m also sure that when you took me into your office the other day you were totally unaware that Hilary was just outside the door, and when you kissed me it never crossed your mind that she had a ringside seat for the whole event!’

  His eyes narrowed ominously. ‘You think,’ he said hardly, ‘that I arranged that on purpose!’

  ‘That is precisely what I think!’ she shot back, gulping. ‘So I suggest before you start throwing your wild accusations at me you examine your own closets for skeletons, because I’m tired of being used!’

  She could not stand there a moment longer, looking at his surprised, angry face, so she turned and ran up the stairs. Halfway up, she thought she heard Byron call her name, but she did not turn back, because by then the tears had started to flow down her face and she would not have him see her cry.

  CHAPTER SIX

  One phrase above all others kept Dawn awake through the night. ‘... don’t imagine you’ll be welcome in my house...’ She tossed and turned and tried to blot the hateful words out of her ears. What had she done to deserve that? Nothing ... nothing! Only Byron’s stupid pride and a misplaced sense of autocracy. She had done nothing to help the matter with her loss of temper in retaliation, and after the things they had said to one another she did not know how she could bear to stay here another hour, and risk facing him again. She only knew th
at she could not bear to leave, not like this, with him hating her for the lowest kind of woman, and with the despicable accusations she had flung at him still ringing in her ears.

  Besides, she rationalised to herself, the article was not nearly finished and she simply could not go back to New York and face her editor with failure on her hands.

  She dressed quickly the next morning and waited until she heard his door open, then stepped swiftly out into the hall. He was apparently on his way to the shower; he wearing a short blue velour kimono and apparently nothing else. He carried a razor in one hand and a towel flung over his arm, and his expression as he looked at Dawn was at first nothing more than sleepy surprise. The combination of naked thighs and half-uncovered chest was intimidating, yet at the same time his rumpled hair and stubble of beard was endearing, so that her heart began to pound uncomfortably and she felt herself beginning to blush. Then the expression on his face changed to wry amusement, he leaned back against the door and crossed his arms, letting the kimono part a little more revealingly, and waited for her to speak.

  She took a breath, forcefully moving her eyes from the intriguing triangle of crisp hair at his chest to the lazily mocking eyes. She said, ‘My work isn’t finished yet. I know you would like me to leave, but I can’t leave a job half done. It’s true that I need the article, but you also need the publicity. If you would only stop and think about it you’d realise how foolish it would be—after all the expense you’ve gone to, to turn down this opportunity for promotion ... It might make the difference between profit and loss for you. So,’ she smoothed her clammy palms on denim-covered thighs and took another breath, ‘if I’ve offended you I’m sorry, and you can call my editor and complain if you want to. But I’m not walking out on this job without a direct order from him.’