Englishman's Bride (9781460366332)

by Weston, Sophie

  There was a pause. Not a comfortable pause.

  What on earth had happened? thought Kit. The last she had heard, Lisa and Nikolai could not wait to get away together. Lisa had had a series of mysterious viruses in the weeks running up to Christmas. They had left her weak and wan and uncharacteristically tearful. And Nikolai had been continent-hopping most of the year. This tropical holiday was supposed to get them some quality time together.

  Now only four days into the holiday, Lisa could hardly speak her husband’s name without spitting.

  ‘Anyway, holidays in a tropical paradise are not in my budget,’ said Kit into the silence. There was a hint of desperation in her voice. ‘I can’t afford it.’

  ‘I can.’

  There was no doubt about that. Lisa was head of trading in a London bond-dealing room. Her annual bonus alone made Kit’s eyes water.

  But she still said, ‘You’ve done enough for me over the years, Lisa. I’ll pay my own way now that I can.’

  ‘But you can’t afford a tropical holiday and I—need you here,’ Lisa added, so softly Kit could hardly hear her. ‘I really need some support, Kit.’

  Oh, lord, thought Kit, startled. What’s going on here? She had never heard Lisa say she needed support in the whole of her fast-paced life.

  ‘Come and keep me company, Kit.’ Her voice was tight. Kit knew that note. It meant Lisa was determined not to cry. And then, the controlled voice cracking, ‘I’m so lonely.’

  Kit was too shocked to say anything.

  ‘There’s a flight on Sunday. I’ve booked you on it provisionally. At least think about it.’

  She rang off without saying goodbye.

  Kit paced the room, disturbed.

  Had Lisa and Nikolai fallen out? But why? Lisa’s husband was an aristocrat and the Romaine sisters came from the wrong side of the tracks. A long way on the wrong side of the tracks, as Lisa had once told him.

  Lisa had got her education and her high-profile job entirely by her own efforts. Yet that had never seemed to be a problem before. If she’d been asked, Kit would have said Count Nikolai Ivanov was more in love with his raggle-taggle wife now than he had had been when he married her.

  But on the phone just now Lisa hadn’t sounded like a loved wife. And Kit loved Lisa. She was more than a sister. She was Kit’s best friend.

  Maybe this was the time to sink her principles, after all.

  She was still wavering when there came a tap on the French window.

  Tatiana, thought Kit. Normally she and her landlady had a slightly edgy relationship. Tatiana thought Kit was boring at best; at worst, a passenger clinging to her successful sister’s coat tails. Kit thought Tatiana was an eighty-year-old delinquent. But they met on their affection for Lisa.

  So Kit opened the door with unusual enthusiasm.

  ‘Lisa has spoken to you,’ said Tatiana, recognising the enthusiasm and diagnosing its source with accuracy.

  ‘Yes. I’m worried.’

  ‘So am I,’ admitted Tatiana.

  To Kit’s astonishment she sat on the sofa and made herself comfortable without once complaining about Kit’s pale cushions. Tatiana liked her furnishings bright.

  ‘She sounded wretched,’ said Kit, biting her lip.

  ‘When did you talk to her?’

  ‘Just now. She wants me to go out there.’

  Kit waited for Tatiana to say, Don’t interfere. Tatiana thought the only person who was allowed to interfere in the affairs of Lisa and Nikolai was herself. But she didn’t.

  The vivid, lined face creased into an expression of profound foreboding.

  ‘You talked to her now?’

  Kit nodded. ‘I just put the phone down on her. Or rather she put the phone down on me. She sounded really upset.’

  Tatiana’s monkey face looked as if she was about to burst into tears. ‘Do you know what the time difference is?’

  Kit was bewildered. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘It’s seven o’ clock here. That makes it three in the morning at Coral Cove,’ said well-travelled Tatiana Ivanova. ‘Three. And she’s calling you. Where’s her husband, for goodness’ sake?’

  Kit stopped her pacing, shocked.

  ‘No wonder she sounded so—fragile,’ she said, almost to herself.

  ‘You’d better go,’ said Tatiana. Adding, with that practicality that Kit always found so disconcerting, all mixed up with the crystal-balls philosophy and the joss-sticks, ‘Do you need some cash?’

  Kit shook her head. ‘Lisa’s booked me a ticket and paid for it. And I haven’t used my credit card for anything this month. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You’ll need a tropical wardrobe,’ said Tatiana, who thought clothes were the window of the soul.

  Kit shrugged.

  Tatiana bounced off the sofa. ‘You are impossible. Look at you. Wonderful golden hair, wonderful skin, pretty face. You’re tall and as slim as a model. Why on earth aren’t you out there buying disgracefully short skirts and giving everyone a heart attack with your skin-tight tops?’

  Like Lisa.

  Neither of them said it. They both knew what Tatiana meant.

  Kit said more sharply than she meant, ‘Just stop it, Tatiana. I dress the way I like.’

  Tatiana brooded. ‘Well, at least get yourself a swimsuit. I saw some pretty bikinis in—’

  Kit went rigid. ‘No bikinis,’ she almost shouted.

  Tatiana stared.

  ‘I’ll get a one-piece from the sports shop,’ Kit said in a more moderate tone.

  ‘And some shorts. And light tops. You have no idea how hot it’s going to be,’ Tatiana warned her. ‘Something respectable to wear in the evening. Oh, and a straw hat to keep your head covered in the sun. Coral Cove is on the Equator. You have to be careful. Blondes more than most.’

  ‘Thank you for the advice. But won’t I be able to buy straw hats and stuff there?’

  Tatiana snorted. ‘This is not a teen beach club, you know. There won’t be hot-dog stands and market traders. Nikolai said Coral Cove was one of the most sophisticated hotel complexes in the world.’

  Kit narrowed her eyes at her. ‘So?’

  Tatiana was unimpressed by the dangerous glint. ‘You’ll feel out of place if you don’t dress properly,’ she warned impressively.

  ‘Well, it’s an empty sophisticated hotel complex at the moment,’ said Kit, refusing to be impressed.

  ‘All the more reason to keep up the proper standards.’

  ‘Tough toenails. I don’t suppose I meet their standards in the first place.’

  Tatiana sighed. ‘You have such a chip on your shoulder, Kit.’

  ‘Only when I’m around people who rabbit on about proper standards,’ said Kit dangerously.

  Tatiana gave up. She turned to go.

  The French window swung gently. An elegant white paw, like an arm in a long evening glove, appeared round it.

  ‘That cat,’ said Tatiana with disfavour.

  Kit chirruped at it. The paw pointed daintily and was followed by the rest of the animal. A small brindled cat oozed round the door and leapt for the rug in front of the fire. It began to wash itself rapidly. Kit smiled.

  ‘Cats,’ muttered Tatiana. ‘Anyone would think you were a hundred, not twenty-two.’

  ‘She’s only visiting.’

  Tatiana cast her kohl-rimmed eyes to heaven. ‘You ought to be having visitors who are tall, dark and handsome and make you rethink your position on bikinis.’

  Kit shook her head, impatient. ‘Oh, not that again. Why does it matter to you what I do with my life?’

  ‘Because you’ve only got one,’ said Tatiana forcefully. ‘And I can’t bear waste.’

  There was a fraught silence. Kit was the first to look away. She bit her lip.

  Tatiana did not know the horrors that sometimes rode Kit, when the nights were long and she couldn’t sleep. Even Lisa did not know all of them. But Kit had some very good reasons for her position on bikinis. And tal
l and handsome visitors were definitely not welcome.

  She said with difficulty, ‘Look, I know this doesn’t fit in with your world view, Tatiana. But not all of us are brave enough to go everywhere and experience everything.’

  ‘Bravery has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it does,’ said Kit quietly. She faced her simmering landlady squarely. ‘Believe me, I do the best I can. But I’ve done the tall, dark and handsome visitor bit, years ago. Didn’t work. In my experience men just tear your heart out. And, when they’ve finished that, they mess with your head. I’m not brave enough to go through it all again. And that’s the honest truth.’

  Tatiana was silent for a moment. Then she nodded sadly. ‘All right. It’s your life. So it’s your business. But you’ll go to Coral Cove?’

  Kit nodded. ‘I’ll go.’

  Lisa was waiting at the small airport. Kit thought she would break, Lisa hugged her so convulsively.

  ‘You came. God bless you, Kit. Was it difficult to get time off?’

  Kit grinned. ‘On the contrary. The clients fell on my neck when they heard they’d got another week to clear the house before I move in with the industrial cleaning machinery. I’m their favourite person.’

  Lisa heaved her roll-bag over one shoulder and linked arms with her.

  ‘I’m really grateful, honest,’ she said soberly. ‘I know it was a lot to ask.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, really tough. A whole week at your expense on a private tropical island with cordon-bleu cooking. Only a genuine saint would sign up for that one,’ said Kit drily.

  Lisa sighed. ‘Well, it’s not as great as it sounds. The gardens are pretty and the sea is warm. And, when you’ve said that, you’ve said everything. I hope you’ve brought plenty to read.’

  Kit looked at her ironically. Lisa laughed.

  ‘Yes, of course you have. What is it this month? Russian?’

  ‘War poems. But I’ve brought some paperbacks as well,’ Kit said reassuringly.

  ‘Thank God for that. I’ve read all mine.’

  Lisa led the way out into a blazing heat so strong that Kit gagged. She put up a hand to shade her suddenly dazzled eyes. Lisa sent her a quick, remorseful look.

  ‘I hope you brought sunglasses. I didn’t think to tell you.’

  ‘Neither did Tatiana,’ said Kit ruefully. ‘Though she made me bring a cocktail dress.’

  Lisa stared. ‘A cocktail dress? You?’

  ‘She’s very strong-minded when she gets going.’

  Lisa gave a crack of laughter. ‘I remember.’ She hugged Kit. ‘Oh, it’s so great to see you. We’ll get you some shades and the local insect repellent and then we’re on our way. A new experience for you—you get to ride in a helicopter.’

  Coral Cove took Kit’s breath away. It sat in the sunlit ocean like a toy island. But as the helicopter came in over the land she made out huge trees, great gashes in the forest cover where rivers had carved their way in their path to the sea, and even—She leaned forward, entranced.

  ‘Is that a waterfall?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Lisa, unexcited. ‘Nikolai and I have got a little one just above our cottage. There’s quite a big one about half an hour’s walk from the main hotel garden. We’ll go up there this evening, if you like.’

  Kit sat back in her seat with a sigh of perfect pleasure.

  ‘Sun, sea and waterfalls,’ she said blissfully. ‘I forgive Tatiana for the cocktail dress. I forgive Tatiana for everything.’

  But that evening they did not walk to the waterfall. That evening Lisa was locked in her room not speaking to anyone. And Nikolai, having welcomed Kit through gritted teeth, had gone back to his conservationists.

  Kit looked into the ferociously formal dining room, thought of the little black and silver number that Tatiana had thrust into her bag, and decided that she would pass on dinner. On the other hand, while everyone else was dining she might be able to swim undisturbed in the delectable lagoon she and Lisa had explored earlier.

  ‘They have swimming stuff if you haven’t brought anything to swim in,’ had said Lisa, who knew her sister very well.

  ‘No. I have.’ It was not a bikini, in spite of Tatiana’s best efforts, but it would be just fine for swimming.

  Kit had been terribly tempted. The water was turquoise. Little wavelets stirred but the sand bars held back ocean-sized waves. It had looked like heaven—except that there were three other people already swimming there. Kit did not take her clothes off in front of anyone, not even to swim.

  ‘Maybe later,’ Lisa had said with understanding.

  And now, thought Kit, looking at the rapidly darkening sky over the lagoon, later had come. Everyone was eating, or getting ready to eat, or still locked in their conference. She could swim safe from fear of disturbance. It was irresistible.

  She went back to her cottage and climbed into the one-piece swimsuit she had picked up at the charity shop. Then she pulled on an ankle-length cotton robe and went to plunge into her first tropical sea.

  Philip Hardesty’s eyes drifted back towards the great open windows yet again.

  Someone was swimming in the lagoon. From his seat on the podium, Philip could see the swirl of phosphorescence. The lone figure cut through the undifferentiated blackness of night sky and water with arc after arc of shooting stars.

  It looked wonderful, he thought. Cool and airy and—wonderful.

  His shirt seemed to be sticking to him. Unobtrusively—or at least he hoped it was unobtrusive—he ran a finger round the inside of his collar. If only he could loosen his tie.

  The hotel conference room was unbearably hot. Even with the old-fashioned ceiling fans twirling at full speed, and all windows onto the terrace flung wide open, the air seemed to hover like a storm cloud. Of course, the television lights did not help, he thought fairly. He was always fair. It was his profession.

  Just at the moment his profession required him to sit behind this array of microphones, telling half-truths in the hope that people believed them sufficiently to stop killing each other. So he dragged his gaze back from the lone swimmer and nodded courteously to the next journalist.

  ‘Your question, Herr Dunkel?’

  He knew the man. He had faced him at Press briefings like this in three separate countries in the last year alone. His question was a good one. A German, the man had twenty years more experience than Philip.

  But then, everyone in this room probably has more experience than I have, Philip thought. And I’m so tired.

  For a moment his confidence faltered. But then he pulled himself together. Everyone was looking at him. If he didn’t have confidence in the peace negotiation that he was just putting in motion, who would?

  And Dunkel’s question deserved an answer.

  Philip took a moment to consider. Then answered swiftly and fluently, as he always did.

  Beyond the French windows, the lagoon stretched and sighed. It beckoned him like a playful animal. Or a dark angel.

  Philip ignored it and took another question.

  And another. And another.

  Until at last the Press conference was over and his local minder was steering him towards the banquet.

  The next performance, thought Philip. More diplomacy disguising desperation, more half-truths. More hope against hope. More anger behind the smiles. More pretence. He felt deathly tired.

  ‘Give me a moment,’ he said to his minder, with that gentle courtesy that never faltered, no matter how many people were losing their tempers at the negotiating table. ‘I’d like a breath of air.’

  The man switched stride. Philip stopped him.

  ‘Alone, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  The man gave him a wide grin full of gold teeth, and nodded.

  ‘Bar is over that way,’ he said helpfully.

  He gestured away from the lagoon towards a great circular swimming pool. It was floodlit and there was a thatched bar beside it. Philip thanked him. But he did not look at the well-illuminated path t
o the pool. Instead he looked longingly out to sea.

  He nodded to the man and stepped through the French windows.

  At once the tropical night embraced him. The air was hot and sweet, heavy with the scent of trumpet vines. He breathed it in, luxuriating.

  Philip glanced up. The swathe of silent stars shimmered. There were millions of them, frosted droplets suspended from a gigantic spiral. He could see the sky turning…turning…He shut his eyes, dazzled.

  In the big reception room behind him everyone was talking. It reverberated like a drum. Philip winced and opened his eyes.

  I must get away, he thought urgently. Even five minutes would make all the difference.

  A pebble-edged pathway skirted the gardens and led out to a sand bar that curved round the lagoon. He took it, walking quickly. The sounds of the busy hotel receded.

  At the junction with the sand bar, he stopped and listened: cicadas, falling fruits, the soft lull of the water and his own breathing. No voices; no demands. He let out a long, savouring breath.

  The lone swimmer was still out on the reef. Only now she was diving, her body curving into a pure arc before straightening to enter the water, taut as an arrow. Luminescence exploded around her. She bobbed up to the surface and pushed back her sopping hair.

  Obviously she thought she was alone. She waved her arms above her head, laughing aloud. Then, quick and supple as an otter, she tumbled into a couple of mischievous somersaults. They set up a sparkling wheel of phosphorescence for a fraction of a second.

  The whole picture was physical delight incarnate. Philip realised he was smiling.

  He looked back at the hotel. He had to go back; the banquet was just another stage in the peace negotiations. He had to chair it, just as he had chaired the meeting for the last three days. Just as he would chair the next week’s round upon round of talks.

  But the girl’s uninhibited game in the water reminded him that it was a long time since he had done anything for the sheer joy of doing it.

  He turned his back on the talk and the banquet and went out along the palm-fringed spur of impacted sand. It curved round the lagoon like an embracing arm. As he walked he could see the stardust trail that the swimmer was making above the water. She was streaking back to land. They would reach the end of the sand bar at the same time.