'Hello, kids!' Frank greeted them with a strong American accent. 'You look as if you've been having a good time lately ... and I'm not surprised when you've got Sarah to look after you! I'd look as if I'd been having a good time, too, if she'd been looking after me!'
Roberto objected in polished English.
'But you are too old to be looked after by Miss Cunninghame. We are children, and that is why she is looking after us.'
Frank ruffled his hair.
'Sure, sure. And that just proves how lucky you are! I'd change places with you right now if I could, but I don't think it's possible somehow.'
Roberto regarded him gravely, and turned away. Maria, hugging her brightly-coloured pail of shells up in her arms, wandered back along the beach to look for more.
'Good!' Frank exclaimed, and took Sarah by her bare arm and led her back to her rock beneath which she had been sitting when he caught sight of her first 'What an odd pair of infants those are,' he observed.
'If I had anything to do with them I think I'd adopt a sterner line than you obviously do. I'd teach them not to stare for one thing! That little thing Maria's got a pair of eyes like a pair of reproachful saucers, and her brother's altogether too fine a young gentleman for my taste. What about the uncle? How do you get on with him? Is he here, or has he left you and gone back to Lisbon?'
'He's in Lisbon at the moment.' Sarah subsided once more on to lie warm sand, and he flung himself down beside her, his grey eyes continuing to devour her openly, while the curiously satisfied smile in them dismayed her for some reason that wasn't quite clear to herself. 'But he'll be returning any day now.'
'Why? Doesn't he trust you to take full charge of the children?'
She looked surprised.
'It's not that. As a matter of fact, I've been here for nearly a week alone with the children - apart from the servants, of course - and we've got along very well. But Senhor Saratola is responsible for his niece and nephew. He feels it's his duty to keep an eye on them.'
Frank smiled. He produced a crumpled packet of American cigarettes from his pocket and offered her one, but she refused.
'You're quite sure he doesn't also consider it a part of his duty to keep an eye on you?'
At that she looked amazed, and flushed brilliantly, and with annoyance.
'You must be joking,' she said.
'I'm not. You're pretty enough to arouse a sense of responsibility in a large number of uncles with small and precocious relatives, and Senhor Saratola has probably got a roving Portuguese eye amongst other things. The way he snapped at me when I tried to get your address before you left Lisbon seemed to prove to me that he was quite prepared to warn all followers off the grass! Which, incidentally, was rather more than a bit of cheek considering that you were merely helping him out.'
Sarah decided to defend her employer, and she did so rather primly.
'You're quite wrong about Senhor Saratola. I'm sure he didn't mean to seem impatient with you that day. But he was in rather a hurry, and he probably realized I hardly knew you, and he's rather a formal person ... all Portuguese are formal. The household here at La Cristola is very formal, but I believe I'm settling down in it rather well... at any rate, I hope so!'
'Splendid.' His voice had a drawling note, and he was still regarding her with rather too open admiration. He picked up a piece of driftwood and started drawing idly in the sand without removing his eyes from her face, and she wished she was wearing something that was rather more adequate as a means of covering than the cotton beach top and short, divided cotton skirt that showed him a lovely length of honey-gold leg and delectably smooth arms and sun-kissed shoulders.
'You don't look as if you're pleased to see me,' he remarked, his eyebrows crinkling as he leaned towards her. 'Had you forgotten all about me?'
'Of course not.' But, if the truth were told, she had forgotten him almost completely, and perhaps that accounted for the reason why she still felt dismayed by his sudden reappearance in her life. Another reason was her knowledge that Senhor Saratola would almost certainly take particular exception to his being there - within a few yards of his lovely coastal home - and might visit his displeasure on herself if he returned and found her entertaining on the beach a man for whom he had recently expressed profound disapproval. Particularly as she was supposed to be doing other things, and was receiving a salary for keeping an uninterrupted eye on the Saratola children.
She scrambled to her feet as the thought occurred to her that, any moment now, Saratola himself might return, and said something hastily about the children having spent a long enough time on the beach, and it was very close to lunch time, anyway. She looked round and summoned the children while Frank regarded her with an expression of some surprise on his face.
'Don't tell me you're going to run away and leave me?' he said. 'Why, I've only just arrived ... and we've had no conversation whatsoever as yet. Hello and Goodbye isn't what I've come all this way for. I've come to see you, Sarah, and to be near you for a few days. I'm staying here, at the local inn! I'm going to insist that you have dinner with me tonight, and in the meantime I thought you might ask me to lunch....'
'Oh, no!' Sarah exclaimed, as if the very thought filled her with horror. 'I couldn't possibly do that!'
'Why not?' His mild grey eyes regarded her closely. 'If the cat's away, the mice can play a little, surely?'
'You don't understand.' She relieved Maria of her pailful of shells, and ordered her and Roberto to go ahead of her into the villa and wash their hands and prepare themselves for lunch. But it was noticeable that they went a little unwillingly, being obviously very curious about Frank Ironside and unwilling, perhaps, that he should detain Sarah and make her late for lunch. 'Mr. Saratola would object very strongly if he heard that I had been entertaining anyone to lunch - even, I believe, a close relative - while I'm supposed to be looking after the children. And I should have thought you would have gathered from the way he spoke to you that day in Lisbon—'
Frank made a dismissing gesture with his hands.
'That day? He was probably in a very bad temper because of that accident to the children's nurse, or whatever she was, and vented his displeasure on me. Besides, aren't you entitled to the occasional visitor?'
'I don't know. I haven't asked permission to receive visitors.'
'Then you'll have to do so sooner or later. You can't be a prisoner here.'
'I'm not a prisoner ... and I really will have to go!' She glanced round hurriedly and saw that the children were standing sentinel just inside the villa gates, and realized that they did not intend to disappear without her. 'You don't understand,' she repeated agitatedly. 'The housekeeper would object very strongly if I asked you in, and although I'm pleased to see you—'
'You don't look as if you are!'
'Well, I - I am!'
'Little liar!' But he smiled suddenly as he reached forward and gripped her hands. 'All right! I can see you're half petrified by the thought of having to entertain me, and I can only put it down to the load of responsibility that has suddenly been placed on you, and the fact that your employer is a one hundred per cent bully and a typical Portuguese overlord! However, I'm not easily put off and I shall insist on seeing you tonight. As a matter of fact, I shall call for you about seven o'clock.'
'I wish you wouldn't.' She looked so alarmed that he gripped her hands harder than before. 'I honestly wish you wouldn't, because I shall have to refuse to go anywhere with you. In any case, the children might need me.'
'There are servants in the house, aren't there?'
'Yes. But it's my job to look after the children—'
'Every hour of every day? Without even a moment to yourself?'
She thought for a moment.
'We - we could meet you on the beach this afternoon. ...'
'Well, that would be something, I suppose,' he admitted somewhat wryly.
She wrenched away her hands and stooped to gather up the remainder of her own and the c
hildren's impedimenta that was still scattered about the beach in the shade of the rock, and he helped her and then stood watching her regretfully as she turned to fly hastily ?up the beach. But before she left him her conscience troubled her, and she assured him that she was really very sorry she couldn't lunch with him. She also added that it was nice of him to have come so far to see her.
'So long as you realize that it's you I've come to see, and not those confounded kids,' he replied.
'We'll look out for you this afternoon,' she muttered hastily. 'About three o'clock.'
He was still standing where she had left him and looking after her when she joined her two charges on the drive of the Villa La Cristola.
In the downstairs cloakroom, while she washed her small, tanned hands and carefully scrubbed her nails, Maria said gravely:
'I don't think my uncle likes that gentleman.'
'Wh-what gentleman?' Sarah was thinking of something else, and she felt startled.
'The gentleman you spoke to on the beach just now ... Senhor Ironside. That day we left Lisbon he wanted so much to see you again that he made my uncle angry.'
Roberto gave her a push, and frowned at her.
'It is nothing to do with you, Maria,' he scolded her, although he, too, looked a trifle concerned as lie thought of the persistence of Senhor Ironside. For it was true that their uncle had seemed to object to him quite strongly ... and there was no one apart from himself at the moment to provide any gentlemanly protection for Sarah should she need it. And it could be that his uncle had objected to the American on the grounds that he was not the right kind of companion for Miss Cunninghame.
Sarah smiled at him, and relieved his mind of a burden.
'Don't worry, Roberto,' she reassured him. 'I am quite capable of looking after myself, and I have your uncle's wishes very much in mind. Now, shall we go in to lunch? We are already several minutes late, and Senhora Delgado will be annoyed if we delay much longer.'
CHAPTER SIX
But Frank Ironside proved to be one of those people who could worm his way into childish good graces if he wished. He had no difficulty at all in proving to Maria and Roberto when he met them on the beach that afternoon that he knew exactly how to keep them entertained; and by the time the afternoon was over Roberto, at least, was his friend for life.
Maria, being feminine, was more cautious, but even she responded rapidly when he proved how knowledgeable he was about shells and all the sea creatures that fascinated her so much. And when he acquired for her a very rare specimen that she had been searching for for days, and added it to the water in her pail, her appreciation was quite touching. She followed him about for the rest of the afternoon, and was annoyed when Roberto detached him in order to go swimming with him. Frank was a strong swimmer, and had acquired several cups for his prowess in the course of his life, and Roberto learned a good deal from him during the course of their time together in the water.
In order to win Maria back to good humour Frank took them all to his hotel for cool drinks and cakes with a lot of cream in them, which Sarah was afraid might not be altogether good for them. She was permitted to buy them ice-creams, but over-rich delicacies were not on their menu. However, as Frank urged, it couldn't possibly hurt them just on one occasion. And after all, Senhor Saratola's friend had sent them chocolates. If they were to be spoiled on one occasion they could be spoiled on another.
Then Frank insisted on taking them for a short drive in his hired car, and there was only just time for a hurried supper before the children's bedtime when they got back.
Sarah had her own supper alone, as usual, and walked in the garden before retiring to her room. The moon was rising much later now, and in fact, it was too late for her to stay up and watch for it, so she was planning to take a shower and go to bed with a book when a voice from the beach hailed her, and she looked down from the considerable elevation of the villa garden to see the figure of the American waving to her imperiously from the shining strip of paling yellow sand on which he stood.
'Come down!' he called, and although at first she shook her head his insistence on repeating himself gradually aroused in her the fear that one of the servants might overhear him or see him, and she decided to go down and join him and warn him that in future he must not do that. If Senhor Saratola returned unexpectedly and caught her obeying signals from the beach she shuddered to think what might happen to her.
She would probably be sent packing straight away, and although that wouldn't seriously matter since she had merely been doing the Portuguese a good turn in looking after his small relatives, and had been very dubious about staying on and doing so in the first instance; it would affect her pride and her dignity very much indeed. And it would very likely upset the children, since they appeared to have become quite attached to her, just as she had become quite singularly attached to them.
So, in order to avoid unpleasantness and possible disaster - whether you looked at it from the point of view of the children or her own pride - she descended at last as rapidly as she could to the beach, and reproved Frank quite sharply for taking the liberty of imagining she might be ready and willing to join him on the beach long after the sun had set.
He grinned at her.
'So you did recognize me despite the poorness of the light? There is no one else locally who has become a slave to your charms and serenades you from the beach?'
'You weren't serenading. You were whistling and making a hideous din, considering the lateness of the hour and the correctness of a district such as this.'
'You and your correctness!' He took her by the arm and propelled her forward along the beach, despite the fact that her intention had been to have a few words with him and then return to the house. She did, actually, put up a small show of resistance, but he wasn't deceived. There was a lovely lavender light in the sky, and where the sun had disappeared in a blaze of, splendour there was still a line of primrose light that was a trifle unearthly in its beauty, and a whole galaxy of stars hung in the dusky indigo void above them. The high-prowed boats of the local fishing community that were usually - in day time, that is - drawn high up on the beach had their riding-lights set, and were bobbing about on the gentle swell created by the slight evening breeze far out to sea, and altogether there was a sense of excitement and freedom and a whole wide panorama of possibilities opening out before one down there on the rim of the ocean.
Or that was the way it affected Sarah, who had never dared to walk on the beach alone at this hour ... and she panted to snatch her arm free from the restraint of Frank Ironside's hold and run and run and run in the coolness and sweetness of the night until she was out of breath, and could throw herself down on the dimly seen sand and revel in the soft feel of it and the caressing warmth that was only beginning to seep away from it, after the blistering heat of the day.
'It's wonderful, isn't it?' she breathed in awe, and her companion laughed at her.
'Don't tell me you don't do this sort of thing often? Even without someone to act as your escort! Why, if I had your opportunities I'd probably sleep on the beach in preference to a stuffy bedroom.'
'I have a very nice bedroom in the villa, and Senhor Saratola would object very strongly if I elected to sleep rough on the beach.'
'Senhor Saratola!' he mocked. 'It's all Senhor Saratola with you! He would object to this, and he would object to that! Does it really trouble you so much that he has so many objections?'
'I work for him, don't I?'
'You are paid a salary by him, I suppose, but that doesn't mean he has acquired you lock, stock and barrel.' He frowned under cover of the velvety gloom, and his fingers kept tight hold of her slim, bare arm. 'How does he really treat you?' he asked shortly.
'Oh, very well.'
'Do you find him a considerate employer?'
She thought for a moment.
'Yes ... very,' she told him truthfully when the moment had ended.
'You like the children? ... They seem to be ni
ce enough kids.'
'Oh, yes,' with enthusiasm, 'I'm beginning to love them.'
'And the uncle?'
'The - uncle?'
'Do you like him? As a man, I mean, as well as an employer?'
He thought the large eyes she turned up to his face were suddenly evasive.
'Yes; of course I like hint.'
'How much do you see of him ?'
'Not a very great deal.'
'You sound as if that's a disadvantage.'
'Of course it isn't. I—' They were still moving forward along the beach, and, in fact, they were moving at such a pace that every time she answered his queries she sounded a little more breathless. 'Of course it isn't,' she repeated. And then: 'I'll have to go back!'
'Not beginning to - love him a bit, too, are you? In the same way that you're beginning to love the children!'
She wrenched away her arm and stared at him.
'What a question to ask!'
'Well, love me, love my dog! So why not love Maria and Roberto and love their guardian, too? By the way, he is only their guardian, isn't he? He isn't going to become their papa? Because I've heard a lot of things about the Saratola set-up back in Lisbon, and the charm, affability and beauty of Venetia!'
'I'm sure you haven't heard anything that is not to the credit of Senhora Saratola, and Senhor Saratola as well, if it comes to that!' But she found his questioning impertinent, and also he was staring at her as if he half suspected she was becoming involved in something. 'I must go! The children might wake and want me!' she turned on her heel.
'What about the tutor for Roberto? Has he turned up yet?'
'No.'
'A pity. You might find him rather charming . . . and also attentive. The Portuguese are so dark that they're usually irresistibly attracted by a girl with your colouring. Even Senhor Saratola might be unconsciously attracted by it, if he's fallen for Venetia, and perhaps that's why he asked you—'
But she was running back along the beach, and he called after her:
'Tomorrow ...!'
Sarah was far from sure she wanted to see him the following day, and once back inside the villa she went straight to the sala where the portrait of Venetia hung above the fireplace and stood looking up at it for so long that she forgot she was responsible for the two children upstairs, and that one or other of them might need her.
The Bay of Moonlight Page 10