by Susan Barrie
MOON AT THE FULL
Susan Barrie
Perhaps it was a little mischievous of Liane Daly to “lend” Stephanie a Paris flat that did not belong to her, but Liane’s action had far-reaching consequences.
For when the flat’s rightful owner, an immensely rich and glamorous French count, surprised Steve there, he promptly offered her a job—no less than to be social secretary aboard his luxury yacht, cruising through the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean!
Steve could not resist the opportunity of a few weeks in the glorious Mediterranean sunshine.
CHAPTER ONE
STEVE wandered round the kitchen of the flat, and she knew that never in her life had her imagination been capable of conjuring up such a kitchen as this.
It had everything. Pastel blue walls, primrose yellow fitments, masses of glittering chromium. The cupboards were stacked with primrose yellow china and in the sitting-room—would it be called the petit salon?—a glass-fronted cabinet held a Sevres dinner and coffee service.
There was some lovely English Minton that was quite obviously intended to be used for afternoon tea, and the sideboard in the dining-room groaned with silver. Exquisite, well cared for, crested silver.
Steve had devoted some time after her arrival to an attempt to decipher that crest, but it was strangely complicated, and her French wasn’t in the first flight of perfection. She managed to make out a motto that sounded a little odd. Noir est le Chevalier ... Black is the Knight ... et plus noir le coeur. And blacker is the heart!
What an extraordinary precept for a family able to boast of a crest! And where did such a spun-gold, light-hearted creature as Liane Daly pick it up? And all the other pieces of silver that were stamped with it?
Liane was French by birth, but she had married an Englishman, and so far as Steve knew she was not in the least noble. Rather the contrary. She had admitted to climbing the hard way when Steve had had lunch with her in her flat—the distinctly bijou Chelsea one that was smothered with window-boxes on the outside, and filled with floral tributes from her latest admirer inside.
Steve made a deliberate tour of the elegant Paris flat she had been loaned for a few weeks—or until she landed herself a job, and some more modest apartment where she could live—and she knew she was searching for some further evidence of the black knight’s distinctive hallmark. And she found it in the airing-cupboard, where there were piles of exquisite linen all beautifully embroidered with his motif, and in the bedrooms, where the made-up beds had it attached to the corners of the sheets and pillow-cases.
In the spare bedroom there was even a set of handsome masculine brushes that bore the crest, and the graceful candelabra in the olive-green dining-room had it indelibly imprinted on their base.
Steve felt for a moment so bewildered that she felt a queer tinge like apprehension. Those brushes in the spare bedroom sent all sorts of wild thoughts through her mind. Surely Liane...?
But Liane, at the moment, was very much attached to an American, who looked like stepping into the shoes of the deceased English husband. And, in any case, she wouldn’t be quite so careless...
But when, feeling a nervous constriction in her throat, and a strange fluttering sensation at the base of her stomach, Steve summoned up the courage to fling open the doors of the wardrobes—not only in the spare bedroom, but in the main bedroom as well—and found them full of masculine attire, she couldn’t prevent herself uttering a gasp.
She touched one of the suits gingerly—a dinner-jacket made of superlatively fine cloth—and felt as if it burnt her fingers. Then she pulled out a tray of silk scarves and neckerchiefs ... and was horrified because they all bore the crest.
Things like shirts and socks and ties ... they were all the property of the black chevalier!
She told herself not to be absurd, or to get into a panic. There was quite obviously some mistake, but it would be cleared up later on. For the moment she had the key to the flat, and Liane’s permission to occupy it. Liane knew she had been ill, and she wouldn’t play a trick on her.
Why, she had insisted on seeing Steve off at London Airport, and had put a lovely bunch of scarlet roses into her arms before she said good-bye.
“To bring color to your cheeks,” she said gently, before she actually kissed Steve. “Take care of yourself, chérie, and don’t rush around looking for work before you are fit for it. Have a good rest. Make yourself familiar with my adorable Paris while you have the chance, and don’t bother your head about anything. The flat is yours!”
Steve was so overcome by the scent of the roses, the other’s generosity, and the warmth of her smile, that she could only swallow on an embarrassing lump in her throat.
“You have sufficient money to carry you on for a while? You can manage, n’est-ce pas?”
Steve nodded.
“Oh, yes.”
“Then have a wonderful interlude ... a little adventure!” She smiled again, and it was the brilliant smile Steve would always remember, just as she would always remember the fateful day in August—a day of suffocating heat—when she had collapsed in the middle of the carpet while modelling a clinging velvet gown for Liane, who had only just started to patronize the gilt and plush establishment of Monsieur Paul Roche in Bond Street.
Monsieur Paul’s eyes had widened in horror, and a couple of assistants had pounced on the velvet to rescue it before it was irreparably damaged. The manageress had offered profuse apologies to the customer, but it was the latter who whipped out a bottle of smelling salts from her bag and knelt beside the inert figure with the chalk-white face and did her best to revive her with the minimum loss of time.
“It is so often I have felt like this myself,” she declared, after she had called impatiently for the windows to be opened wider, and some brandy to be brought. “Especially on a first night, when the theatre is crowded, and it is so hot and stuffy! Or even at a dress rehearsal, when the clothes are unfamiliar and tight.”
She lifted Steve’s head gently, and put back the moist hair from her brow.
“You are better now?” she asked softly. Her violet eyes were immensely shrewd, and the girl’s ribs could be plainly seen through the velvet, and the hollows in her neck were far too noticeable. “How long is it since you had something to eat?”
Steve gazed at her vaguely.
“I had an apple at lunch time...”
“An apple?” She glanced round, tight-lipped, at the helpless group surrounding them, and sharply ordered a taxi to be summoned. “I will take this young woman back with me to my flat,” she said, “and see that she has a proper meal. I will also pay for the dress she is wearing, and you can pack it up and send it round to me later on. I don’t suppose I shall wear it, but I wouldn’t like to think of anything being stopped out of her wages because it has been rendered unsalable!”
In the taxi, on the way to her fiat, she asked Steve her name, and smiled in her own particularly charming way as she observed that Stephanie Blair was a very pretty one.
“You too are very pretty,” she said, thinking that the girl’s eyes were like gentians, and her hair almost a living gold. “But you are much too thin, and you haven’t nearly a sufficient amount of color,” touching the wan cheek nearest her with a gloved finger. “A delicate pallor is becoming sometimes, but not when there are mauve shadows under the eyes. You must get rid of them, chérie!” Her flat was a little like a stage set in one of her spectacular musical shows, but the meal she provided, without apparently inconveniencing herself in the slightest, was excellent, and did wonders for the lack-lustre look in Steve’s eyes. But she had to give a full account of herself when it was over, and the singer was horrified to learn that for a midday meal she frequently made do with an apple or a banana. And
that didn’t mean that she always had a three-course meal in the evenings.
She wasn’t a regular model, and her other jobs included sorting flowers and feathers for trimmings, running errands for the more highly salaried attachments to the Roche establishment, clearing up when a state of chaos had been reached, and doing quite a lot of office work. It was she who typed the polite requests for a settlement—or a “part” settlement—of a fashionable customer’s bill when it was approaching alarming proportions, and it was she who was frequently sent round to remind a customer very tactfully indeed that such a request had been delivered, and hand over the latest purchase contained in an elegant carton at the same time.
And for these various services she received quite a modest salary.
And there were such things as rent and gas that used up a lot of it, essential hair-dos, and keeping herself reasonably well dressed. A young woman who had her living to earn couldn’t afford to look shabby.
“What about your parents?” Liane asked, frowning over her cigarette, and tap-tapping with her foot on her pale lilac carpet.
Steve explained that they were both dead.
“And you have no near relations?”
Steve smiled wanly, and shook her head.
“None that could be any use to me. And, in any case, one doesn’t care to thrust oneself upon relations!”
“That is true,” Liane agreed. Then, in a businesslike tone: “But you must give me some idea of your accomplishments. It is plain that you cannot go on as you are, and we must do something about it. You have some special talent, yes?”
“No,” Steve answered, smilingly wryly this time. “I have no special talents. I can speak three languages fairly well. My father was an artist, and he and I lived in Italy for a time, and also Spain. I have fairly fluent Spanish and Italian, and my French isn’t too bad. I wouldn’t like to boast about it, however!”
Liane tried her out with a sentence in French, and then clapped her hands.
“But that is quite good!” she exclaimed. “The accent is not in the least offensive! In France you could, I am sure, do better than you are doing here in your own country, and I shall send you to Paris with a letter to one of my most influential friends, and with luck a position will be found for you quite quickly.” She ran her eye over the girl facing her. “You have looks, chérie ... you speak well! All is in your favor! And until something is settled you shall occupy my flat, which is one of the most modern in the whole of Paris, and has an outlook such as you will never see anywhere else in the world. There is a woman who cleans, and who can also cook ... but if you do not wish her to cook there are many restaurants within easy reach.”
But one thing Liane had not said anything about was the man who filled the Paris flat with his possessions.
There could be no question of Steve having entered the wrong flat by mistake, for the concierge himself had directed her to it, and had asked after Mademoiselle Daly as if she occupied a high place in his esteem. It was true he had accompanied the inquiry with a somewhat odd look at Steve, and the sight of her limited amount of luggage seemed to surprise him.
“This is all?” he asked, as he picked up her single suitcase and hat-box. “Mademoiselle Daly never travels without enough baggage to break a man’s back, but she is generous in the matter of gratuities.” He looked openly for a tip, and Steve offered him something absurdly generous, but which he didn’t decline. He touched the peak of his cap. “Merci bien, mademoiselle!”
He placed her cases inside the hall of the flat, indicated the various switches that controlled the electric lighting, hot water system, and so forth, and went away whistling and clutching the piece of paper money she had presented him with in the palm of his hand.
Steve decided it was most unlikely he had conducted her to a flat she had no right to enter, and made up her mind it was one of those things for which there was no explanation—or no immediate explanation. No doubt one would be forthcoming in time, and in the morning she could have a word with the concierge. Although on second thoughts she decided against doing anything of the kind, for she couldn’t forget the curious way he had looked at her when she mentioned she was a friend of Miss Daly, and had her permission to take over the flat. He had been surprised, she was certain of that.
Very surprised.
She walked to the window of the huge square lounge and looked out over the rooftops of Paris and the dreaming trees. Liane had prepared her for a spectacular outlook, but this took away her breath. It was like being up in an aircraft and seeing Paris for the first time as if it was a map spread out below her, or an extraordinarily complete model.
But for the endless billows of trees she could have watched minute pedestrians sauntering in the evening sunshine, and toy cars humming softly over the broad roads. She might even have been permitted a glimpse of the Seine as it slipped beneath its bridges.
As it was, it was the light that fascinated her, and the endless spires and gargoyles that receded into the distance. They all swam in an enchanting golden haze that was like a golden sea in which the first stars already hung suspended, although as yet they had no radiance of their own, and the rosy flush of sunset that streaked across the sky was like a triumphant banner.
Steve felt her heart beat more quickly, and she wondered whether she ought to pinch herself to discover whether she was actually awake or dreaming. Paris and a new life ... was that what lay ahead of her?
She went into the kitchen and made herself some coffee. She had brought a few provisions with her, but in the morning she would go shopping. The thought was exciting and pleasurable.
After she had drunk her coffee she put away her few clothes in the limited amount of wardrobe space at her disposal, and then went into the bathroom to turn on the taps for a bath. It was an excitingly deep bath, sunk below the level of the floor so that one descended a brief flight of gleaming steps to enter it. The walls of the bathroom were black and shone like the ebony walls of a cave.
Steve remembered an extravagant purchase of bath essence she had made a few weeks before, and went to fetch it from her case. She had switched on the bedroom lights, and they glowed softly as she stood in the middle of the room and watched the light die gradually outside, and the velvet mantle of night close down over the city that was completely new to her.. She wondered why she was so loath to undress and slip into her white candlewick dressing-gown that hung on the door. Why she was even loath to move all at once.
The noise of the traffic came up to her, muted but growing as Parisiennes went forth to enjoy themselves with their escorts. Someone in an adjoining flat had switched on a radio, and someone else was playing a piano. There was a brief confusion of harmony, that endless fat kiss of tires on the superlatively well-kept roads, and then ... a noise in the hall of Liane’s flat! The unmistakable quiet opening of the front door.
Steve stood very still, gripping on to the back of a chair. She could hear her heart thundering noisily in her own ears, and yet she told herself there was nothing to be alarmed about, not even any reason to be amazed. It was probably the porter, or the daily woman ... no doubt both possessed keys.
And yet why should the porter or the daily woman enter the flat at this hour?
The bedroom door opened softly, and a man looked in. He was wearing a tweed suit, and he had a silk choker wound about his neck. Over his arm was a light dust-coat, and he peeled off his gloves very leisurely as he leant against the door frame.
“Well, well!” he said, and the tone of his voice was as soft as silk. “What a surprise! What an enchanting surprise! Who are you, mademoiselle? Or doesn’t it really matter?”
CHAPTER TWO
STEVE gripped the back of the chair so hard that her fingers were numb for several minutes afterwards.
“Your pardon, mademoiselle,” said the man suavely, “if I have disturbed you when you were not expecting to be disturbed. But this is, after all, my flat!”
Steve’s eyes grew enormous, and she stared
at him.
“Your—flat?”
He smiled sardonically.
“Does that surprise you so very much? Me, I could hardly be more surprised, but then I was expecting a very dull evening, and instead I find you here waiting for me! It is a reward I was scarcely hoping for at the end of a tiresome journey!”
The thing about him that struck Steve more than anything else was his surpassing elegance, and he was so dark that if he was a Frenchman he could just as easily have been a Spaniard. He had dark, enigmatic pools of eyes, and his hair was intensely black, although very lightly flecked with silver at the temples. His features were grave and even, his skin swarthy, and when he smiled—and it was his hard, cool smile that made her want to go on clinging tightly to the chair—his teeth flashed white and even.
“Perhaps after all it is best that we introduce ourselves,” he remarked, as she remained as if petrified. “I am Léon de Courvalles, and I repeat that I have a right to turn the key in the door of my own flat and walk in and find my bedroom free of the presence of an unknown female. In fact, just as it was when I saw it last!”
“But—but this can’t be your flat,” she stammered.
He smiled crookedly.
“Can’t it? Well, it’s highly unlikely I’ve been ejected in a matter of six weeks, which is the length of time I’ve been away; but we’ll return to the subject of ownership in a minute. Your name, please, mademoiselle?”
“Stephanie Blair,” she answered. “I am a friend—an acquaintance,” she corrected herself, because that was more accurate, “of Miss Liane Daly, and it is she who is the tenant of this flat. I assure you there can be no doubt about that, otherwise I wouldn’t be here!”
“I see, I see,” he said softly. “Well, at least some of the mystery is explained, for I like to consider that I also am a friend of Miss Daly. We have known one another for a number of years, and it is with my permission that she occasionally occupies this flat.”