Sophie tried to hide her smile. It was odd to hear these scraps of grown-up conversation coming out of Emma's mouth. 'And did you have a nice time last night?'
Òh, yes!' Emma enthused. 'We went to some friends of Uncle Kyle's. There was music and dancing, and a feast—'
À feast?'
`That's what they call it in Kingston. Where the food's all laid out, and you sort of help yourself.'
À buffet?'
Ì think so. It was scrummy, anyway.'
`Lots of pretty ladies wearing lovely clothes?' Sophie probed.
`Mmm! There was a super Jamaican lady dancing with Uncle Kyle. She looked like a model. Not like you, though. Different.'
`Prettier?' Sophie asked casually.
`W ell...' Diplomacy struggled with accuracy as Emma concentrated on the plait she was making. 'Maybe just a tiny bit. She was ever so tall and smart, with a lovely figure.
She had beautiful hair, too, done in sort of an Afro style. Like in the films'
Ì see'
`Her name was Francie. She and Uncle Kyle go way back.'
Òh, they do, do they?' Sophie commented, feeling the flame of jealousy flutter into life.
'Did he dance with this beautiful Francie all night?'
Ì don't know,' Emma answered with devastating honesty. 'I got put to bed at ten. But he seemed very fond of her. Is that all right?'
Tying the plait, Sophie checked in the mirror. It was surprisingly proficient, and gleamed glossily at her nape. `That's lovely,' she smiled. 'Let's go!'
They went downstairs to the car, where Kyle was already waiting, wearing figure-hugging denims and a loose tank-top. He greeted her with a grin, and Sophie found herself wondering rather bitterly whether Francie with the lovely figure and Afro hair was responsible for a certain cat-that-got-the-cream air about Kyle this morning.
`Did you sleep well?' he asked.
`Very well,' she nodded. The impact of Kyle's beauty was hitting her all over again. His tan was deepening visibly after days in the sun, and in the denims that hugged his hips and the crisp cotton shirt he looked anything but a banker from London. More like a Hollywood sex symbol doing a bit of beach-combing.
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. The light kiss gave her a shivery sensation of goose-flesh.
`Blue suits you well,' he said, studying her calmly. 'You look stunning. You could pose for Aphrodite rising from the foam'
`Thank you, kind sir,' she said, and cursed herself for the blush that rose to her face.
Kyle opened the door for her, amusement registering on his bronzed features.
`You're not very poised for a top model,' he said. Àren't you used to compliments?'
`You say things that are just outrageous. They aren't compliments.'
Getting into the convertible, Sophie was having the weirdest feeling. It was exactly like being a young family, going on a glamorous outing together. Except that she wasn't married to the man, and the child wasn't theirs.
They set off inland, and drove across the centre of the island towards Mandeville, a hilltop town of cool English elegance. Its white houses were dazzling in the morning sun. Pausing there to wander along the Georgian avenues, and to buy Emma a glass of iced coconut-milk, they headed on towards the coast and Treasure Beach.
The vast sweep of golden sand, fringed on one side by a sea of impossible blue, and thick tropical vegetation on the other, was an incredibly beautiful sight. Sophie was enchanted, but Emma, clutching her spade and bucket, looked dismayed.
`But where's the treasure buried?' she wailed. `That's for you to find out,' Kyle smiled. ' I didn't say it was going to be easy, did I?'
Ìt could be anywhere!'
`You never know your luck,' Kyle said solemnly. 'And I've got a clue. The treasure is buried under the biggest palm tree on the beach.'
Ìt must be that one! Or that one!'
`W ell, let's cool off with a swim before you start digging,' he suggested.
The sand was already burning hot as they walked down to the sea across the dunes, and Sophie couldn't resist the delicious turquoise water. As soon as they'd found a satisfactory place to settle, she pulled off her shorts and shirt and ran into the sea.
The water was ravishingly cool as it flooded round her body. She struck out towards the horizon, splashing blissfully. It was a perfect day. The sky overhead was a vault of sapphire-blue, the sunlight pouring down like gold. Kyle and Emma followed her. He was completely at home in the water, moving with the easy grace of a big fish. He smiled at Sophie, the deep blue of the sky reflected in those green eyes, turning them the colour of the sea.
`You look as though you're enjoying yourself.'
Ì love Jamaica,' Sophie sighed rapturously. 'I just know I'll come back some day.' They swam for almost an hour, just revelling in the sea and the natural beauty all around them.
When at last they were lying in the baking sun, with Emma digging hopefully for treasure under the biggest palm tree she could find, Kyle turned to her.
`W hen are you thinking of leaving Jamaica?' Ì don't know,' she answered idly.
`Don't you have a job to go back to?' Kyle probed. `No assignment waiting for you back home?'
Not for the moment,' she replied.
`Does that mean I have you to myself on an indefinite basis?' he asked, the smile warm in his voice.
`You don't have me to yourself on any basis,' she replied tartly. She looked up. He was watching her. Once wet, the mauve Spandex costume clung to her in a very revealing fashion, and he wasn't bothering to disguise his interest in her anatomy. She fought down her prudish instinct to cover up. After all, she enjoyed looking at his body. Why should she feel so awkward? Stop being Maisie, she warned herself, and remember that you're Sophie again!
A beaming Jamaican beach vendor had arrived, with a vast basket of fruit balanced on her head. Kyle bought them bananas, pineapples and some strange, knobbly looking things that were called sweet-sop. He washed
the pineapple in the sea, and started peeling it with a knife.
`W hat about you?' she asked, watching him carve the dripping fruit. 'How long are you planning on staying here?'
Ì'm in no hurry to leave,' he said, his eyes holding hers. But if my brother and his wife take a long time sorting out their marriage, I'm thinking of chartering a yacht, and taking Emma across to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. To the Cayman Islands as well, if we have the time. Maybe even to Cuba.'
`Not exactly the well-beaten tourist track,' Sophie remarked, glancing at him.
`No,' Kyle agreed. But it's worth it, just for the Creole cooking' His smile glinted in the sunlight as he sliced the golden pineapple into juicy rounds. 'Besides, I know those islands well enough to be able to take care of myself—and Emma.'
`Knowledge gleaned during your misspent youth?' `Mmm.'
She assessed the powerful muscles of his chest and shoulders from under her thick lashes. 'You're very discreet about that misspent youth of yours. Was it so very wicked?'
I wasn't always a dull pen-pusher, slaving away in a City bank,' he said in amusement.
`So what took you to the Caribbean?'
Ìt's a long story.'
`W e've got all morning,' she hinted. He passed her some pineapple, and she bit into the fruit. It was nectar, with none of the acidity she associated with pineapples in England.
`Nice?' he asked, watching her.
`Heavenly.' She was getting the juice everywhere, but with the sea two steps away who cared? She brushed her chin with the back of her wrist. But I want to hear about why you came to Jamaica'
`W ell, the essence of it is that my father is one of the directors of a merchant bank in London. It isn't a very big one,' he smiled, catching her expression, 'but it's very well established, and it has a good name in the City. It's been going for a hundred and thirty years.' He consumed a chunk of pineapple, making a neater job of it than she had done. 'The tradition in our family is that the eldest son always goes i
nto the bank. I happen to be the eldest of the three of us, but when I came out of university I just wasn't ready to go into servitude.'
`Poor thing,' she condoled in a voice like lemon drops, `born to such a dreadful fate.
Fancy having wealth and a distinguished career thrust upon you so cruelly.'
He laughed huskily. 'I didn't see it quite like that at the time.' He passed her another piece of fruit. 'All I knew was that people who worked in banks were dull and staid and grey. I had the idea that bankers just sat around counting money all day. Well, I was crazy about yachts and yachting, and all I wanted to do was see the world. I told my father that I needed two years to settle down, and he reluctantly agreed. So I took off.'
`How, exactly, took off?'
Ì got a job, crewing on a yacht bound for Montego Bay. When I arrived, I just fell in love with the place.'
Sophie smiled, and hummed from 'Jamaica Farewell'. Ì took a trip on a sailing ship, and when I reached Jamaica, I made a stop.'
Èxactly,' he laughed. 'I spent the next twenty-six months in the Caribbean, mainly working on yachts between the islands. Sailing and ... seeing life.'
`W as she dark-skinned or light-skinned?' Sophie enquired, deadpan.
Kyle laughed softly. 'There were two, actually, and both had skins the colour of cortado—what the French call cafe au Tait. They taught me a great deal about
life...and love. But they weren't the only reason I stayed. I really did come to love the Caribbean. The work was hard, but I was fit and ready for most things.'
He didn't need to elaborate. Wisely, Sophie resisted the impulse to ask whether one of the ladies had been called Francie. 'It sounds like fun.'
`Life was good,' he agreed. 'There was a lot of hard physical work, but I didn't have many responsibilities or worries. I was just living from day to day, doing what I loved. I had a lot of good times. Then, one time, we went up to Florida on a fishing trip, and I found a rusty old steel-hulled yacht for sale in a mooring in Miami. I had just enough money to buy her. I sailed her back to Kingston, and cleaned her up, begging and stealing the paint and varnish where I could. A month later, I went into the charter business.'
Sophie couldn't stop herself from smiling. 'Trust you. The mercantile genes were coming out, despite the attempt to break free.'
`There's more truth in that than you know,' he agreed. Ìt must have been my destiny.'
`W hat astrological sign are you?' she asked.
Kyle snorted. 'You don't believe in all that silliness, do you?'
Ì don't knock it,' she replied. 'You talked about destiny just now, didn't you? So tell me, what sign are you?'
`Scorpio.' He gave her a dry look. 'Now you're going to tell me I'm ambitious, vindictive and deeply passionate, right?'
Ì wouldn't know,' she smiled, 'but those are typical Scorpio characteristics. Especially the vindictive bit. Most Scorpios I've known have been great ones for getting their own back. Their motto seems to be "don't get mad, get even"!'
`Could be true,' he shrugged. 'I hate anyone to get one over me.'
`There you are, then. Do you always get ,your own back?'
Àlways,' he said with a glint. 'Preferably in spades.'
Sophie felt a slight chill touch her skin, despite the tropical sun. But Kyle was smiling easily. 'And you?' he asked. 'Where do you come in the zodiac?'
Ì'm a Virgo.' Somehow, that made her blush stupidly, and his keen eyes didn't miss that fact.
`That suits you rather well,' he smiled. 'Didn't I say you had a cool, touch-me-not quality? So—what happens when a passionate, ambitious Scorpio male meets a cool, vestal Virgo female?'
That was not a question she cared to go into! 'W e were talking about your misspent youth,' she reminded him firmly. 'What happened after you got into the charter business?'
He sighed. 'Well, it was the beginning of the end, of course. I went at it with all my enthusiasm. In six months, I was buying two more yachts and starting to hire my own crews, and six more months later my bank manager was starting to talk about the benefits of floating a company.'
`Sounds like everybody's dream,' Sophie commented. Ìt wasn't my dream.'
`The magic had worn off?'
Ùnfortunately,' he nodded. 'While I was just lazing around, making love and having fun, it was paradise. Ònce money came into it, everything changed. I found I was thinking about the business all day long. Where I used to be content lying on the beach with a bottle of rum and a girl in my spare time, now I was making plans, working on boats, adding up figures.' He smiled at Sophie gently. 'One morning, I woke up, and I
realised I was out of my place. I could be doing the same work in the bank, and that was where I belonged.'
`Just like that?'
Ì discovered that I wasn't doing what I wanted any more. I was twenty-three, just your age, and I was playing truant from my real life.'
`Did you sell up?'
`Lock, stock and barrel. I was a little late on my promise to my father, but by the time I was twenty-five I was working in the bank, and heading for a seat on the board.'
She watched his face. 'And did you miss Jamaica?'
Òn grey, drizzly days, yes. But I'd realised by then that I had sow n my wild oats, and that responsibility couldn't be avoided forever. But I've always been able to come back for holidays—though if I didn't have Emma,' he added with a glitter, 'I'd be staying somewhere very different from the San Antonio.'
`With one of your café au lait charmers?' she suggested, tilting a dry look at him.
`Somewhere like that,' he agreed easily. He evidently took no trouble to disguise the fact that he was footloose and fancy-free as far as women were concerned. 'As a matter of fact,' he went on, 'I learned a lot in the Caribbean, about myself, and about business. And one of the things I'd picked up was that work doesn't have to be dull.'
Ì assume you've added your own particular style to merchant banking?' Sophie asked.
He smiled faintly. 'In a way. My speciality is financing projects which other banks have rejected as too avant-garde, or too risky, but which I think are basically sound. Ninety-eight per cent of the time it pays off handsomely.'
Ànd the other two per cent?'
`The other two per cent has to be explained away to the board...very convincingly.' He smiled into her eyes. `But I can be very persuasive.'
Ì'm sure you can.' Her eyes dropped to the curve of his mouth, so temptingly male.
`So how do you judge the sound projects from the cranky ones?'
Ìnstinct.'
`Did you also learn how to judge the worth of people while you were sowing your wild oats in the Caribbean?'
`That,' he said gently, 'is the most difficult art of all. But I think I'm good at it.'
She raised an ironical eyebrow. 'Really? And you never go wrong, say... make a snap judgement on the face value of things?'
`W e all do that, from time to time. But I try not to.' `That must be a great talent,' she said with well-veiled sarcasm.
`W hy do I have this idea that you're laughing at me all the time?'
`W hy should I laugh? Your life has evidently been a mixture of Errol Flynn and Pierpont Morgan.'
He laughed out loud at that, throwing his head back. He was so handsome that he made her heart ache. `You're an ironical creature,' he observed, meeting her eyes in amusement. Laughter was still rumbling in him as he rose to his feet. Ì'd better go and make sure Emma finds some treasure.
`Have you brought something?'
He showed her a little silver ring, set with a 'ruby'. It was clearly inexpensive, but quite authentically antique-looking all the same. 'I bought that from one of those Rastafarian stalls. Think she'll like it?'
`She'll adore it,' Sophie nodded.
Ì think the kid needs a little spoiling ' He looked down at her, tall and tanned. 'I'm not much good at entertaining little girls, but I'm learning from you. I don't know how I would have managed if you hadn't been here.'
&nbs
p; `She's not entirely unaware of what's going on at home,' Sophie said, wiping her sticky hands. 'She told me this morning that her mum and dad were talking about a divorce.'
Kyle's face changed. 'Damn. How do you stop a child from picking up these things?'
`You can't.' They looked at each other for a moment in silence. 'Have you heard from her parents yet?'
`My sister-in-law rang last night,' Kyle nodded. 'Things aren't going too well.'
Ì'm sorry to hear that,' Sophie said.
`Yes. W ell, it's just one of the things that happen, isn't it?' The bitterness on his face told her how much he cared, really. He walked across the beach to plant the ring in Emma's excavation.
Sophie went down to the sea to wash her hands. He was a strange man. So caring in some ways, so hard and ruthless in others. She basked in the sun for an hour, almost dropping off to sleep while Kyle entertained his niece. At noon they went back to the car, heading on down the coast towards Black River.
It was now fiercely hot. At a roadside stall they bought crabs and crayfish roasted over the coals, together with `bammies', manioc bread, and stopped in a particularly scenic spot to eat their feast. The food was delicious and fresh, given added zest by being eaten in the open, in such glorious weather. Emma was bubbling with delight over her ring, apparently completely unsuspecting that it hadn't been lying in the sand since Captain Morgan's time.
At Frenchman's Reef, they swam again, this time wearing face masks, and using snorkels. The water was clear and calm, and though they didn't find any pearls the underwater scenery was weirdly beautiful, bright shoals of fish flickering through miniature forests of corals, and waving fields of sea-grass patching a submarine landscape of pure silver sand.
In the late afternoon they drove on to Bloody Bay. All day they had been getting further and further from the well-beaten tourist areas, and now they were in almost completely unspoiled countryside. The wide and empty scenery had exerted a powerful hold on Sophie, and she was realising how much she'd missed by staying around Ocho Rios.
Bloody Bay had an even longer beach, and even warmer water, than Treasure Beach.
Duel of Passion Page 6