by Susan Barrie
“I could have predicted that it would work out like this,” Neil Heritage remarked to Steve, when they were not much more than half way through the Red Sea. “It’s amazing how many couples become engaged—or think they’d like to become engaged!—when they’ve spent a short while together under a Red Sea moon,” and he glanced at her wryly, for although she liked him very much indeed, and enjoyed his society, he could not yet deceive himself into believing she was anywhere near falling in love with him.
And every time he looked at her his expression gave away the fact that, Red Sea moon or no Red Sea moon, he was perilously near to falling in love with her.
She hoped earnestly that the final catastrophe could be avoided, and he wouldn’t fall seriously in love with her.
“Perhaps they recover when the glamour of the voyage is over,” she returned, not daring to meet that faintly reproachful look. “Perhaps they're even glad—if they’re strong enough to resist the moon magic!—that it wasn’t serious after all.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed, dryly. And then he caught sight of Tim Strangeways and Gabrielle emerging from the cocktail bar and making for a trio of chairs that had been set up on the deck earlier in the day, beneath a protective awning. “If that fellow Strangeways didn’t happen to be related to our fascinating Mademoiselle Descarté our host might have some reason to complain of the extra ordinary attachment they have for one another,” he observed. “And for a half-brother and half-sister they really do seem to enjoy one another’s society to a somewhat singular extent!”
Steve followed the direction of his eyes, and murmured something that was no doubt in agreement.
But she was careful of entering into any sort of discussion concerning Gabrielle and the man she claimed to be related to her, although Steve was fairly certain there was no relationship whatsoever. Only once had she openly accused Strangeways of practising a deliberate deception, and that was on his very first morning aboard the yacht, when she got up early to enjoy the coolness in the atmosphere, and by some strange coincidence he did the very same thing.
He came up behind her where she was leaning on the rail in her thin white linen shorts and colorful sun-top, and even before she could turn he addressed her in the quietest of voices.
“Don’t look startled, but this had to happen some time, and I thought this was an excellent opportunity.” Naturally, she turned swiftly, and he was smiling at her with only a very little amusement in the smile. He was wearing well-pressed white flannels and an open-necked shirt, and he looked a very well-groomed and rather open-faced young man, with eyes that were bluer than those of Neil Heritage, and the same intensely fair hair. His mouth was strong, and his chin good, and she felt she couldn’t understand him.
“I told you we’d probably meet again, didn’t I?” he said. “And that it might even be aboard this yacht.”
“You said something about wishing you could get a job aboard this yacht,” Steve returned with ominous quietness.
He went on smiling at her.
“Well, I was fairly certain Gabrielle wouldn’t have, agreed to that, so I suggested we became temporarily related to one another. And it worked.”
“But why?” she demanded. “Why?”
He shrugged.
“Let’s say we like to see as much of one another as possible, and where better than aboard a yacht? Besides, this is a luxury yacht, and I haven’t had a great deal of luxury lately. I’ve been ‘hard-pressed,’ as the saying goes. And I’m hoping that the Comte will write me out a nice fat cheque before we part company in exchange for a few of my pictures.”
“But you haven’t brought any pictures aboard with you,” she pointed out.
“No, but I can get him interested, and I’ll probably paint one or two while I’m on the Odette. Long, lazy days at sea are ideal for painting ... sunsets and dawns, and that sort of thing.”
“I can’t imagine the Comte, who has a fortune in pictures at his house in Tangier, being eager to buy a sunset—or even a dawn!—painted from the deck of the Odette,” she remarked with a good deal of dryness. “Not unless it’s a very spectacular sunset or dawn.”
Strangeways smiled with much more amusement.
“I can see it’s rather foolish to try and deceive you, but for the time being I’m afraid you’ll have to be deceived. If you know anything at all about Gabrielle—if you’ve discovered anything about her, that is, while you’ve been seeing such a lot of her—you’ll know that she’s a most determined young woman (as I once said, her pursuit of the Comte must have convinced you of that!) and she doesn’t let anything or anyone get in her way when she’s got something planned. At the moment she has, most decidedly, got something planned, and in your own best interests you’ll do nothing to cause her to behave spitefully towards you. For, believe me, she can be ... very spiteful.”
Steve believed that, but she said firmly:
“I don’t think I like the idea of my employer being deceived in this way. It’s completely obvious that you and Mademoiselle Descarté are a couple of—adventurers—and if I behave like a really reliable employee I’ll go straight to the Comte and tell him the truth about you both! In fact, I’ve made up my mind that that’s what I must do this morning.”
He smiled at her pityingly.
“And what exactly is the truth about Gabrielle and myself? Have you any evidence to prove that we’re not related as we’ve said?”
“No,” she admitted, “but—”
He laughed, softly.
“Then what will you say? How will you convince a man who is nine-tenths of the way to being seriously in love? Or serious about his marriage partner, anyway. ‘Oh, Monsieur. le Comte, I can’t produce any proof, but I do happen to feel fairly certain that Mademoiselle Descarté and the young man who calls himself Timothy Strangeways are not really related! In fact, I believe they’re carrying on an affair while enjoying your hospitality!’ Is that what you’d say? Why, my poor, foolish child, he’d laugh at you!” Her eyes were seriously troubled, but from the way she, bit her lower lip he could tell that she was fairly certain that he was absolutely right.
“He might even put you ashore at the next port, and have you flown home from there. Once he’d had an opportunity to listen to Gabrielle defending such an accusation he’d very definitely put you ashore!”
Steve said nothing, and he moved nearer to her. In the early morning brightness she looked very slender and youthful and touchingly attractive, with her delicate golden tan, and there was no one to see when he put out a hand and touched her bare shoulder.
“Listen to me, honey, and take a little advice! Let things remain as they are—convince yourself you’ve never seen me before, and forget all about Tangier. If it became absolutely necessary I’d swear that, so far as I’m concerned, you’d never set foot in Tangier. I’d never clapped eyes on you before until I met you on the island of Rhodes.”
“But you know that’s an absolute lie!” she gasped. “And you simply couldn’t tell a lie of that magnitude!”
“Couldn’t I?” He shook his head at her pityingly, but at the same time his blue eyes softened. “What a child you are, and how horribly experienced I feel by comparison with you.” Then, in a more urgent tone: “But I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything foolish ... for your sake, as much as mine. Gabrielle isn’t nice when she shows her claws. I warned you of that before!”
A footstep sounded behind them on the newly scrubbed deck, and he spun round. Léon de Courvalles, in a terry-towelling robe over a pair of bathing trunks, stood regarding him with a hint of noticeable distaste in his infinitely dark eyes. Tim sketched him a bright and breezy morning salute.
“So you’re up early too.”
“It’s a habit of mine,” the Comte admitted coldly. Then he indicated to Steve that she could leave them, but before she had taken a couple of steps along the deck she heard her employer speak crisply. “Mademoiselle Blair is an employee of mine, and not for the entertainment of th
e passengers, Monsieur Strangeways. If you are ever tempted to forget it I shall be exceedingly annoyed!”
From which Steve deduced that he had seen that light touch on her bare shoulder, and for some reason resented it. And although he often sent her wry looks—sometimes as wry as those Heritage directed at her—Tim Strangeways was careful not to give any more offence, or arouse the Comte’s annoyance where Miss Blair was concerned, all the way through the Canal and down through the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.
When they reached the Indian Ocean the days seemed to grow more dreamlike and unreal to Steve. They were such blue, blue days, with such an expanse of unsullied sky overhead, and such incredibly starry nights. She found it fascinating just to watch the stars in the velvety black night sky, and sometimes she was reminded of a display window in a fabulous jeweller’s shop ... all the magnificent shimmer of diamonds against a back-cloth of midnight plush.
Sometimes there were flashes of green and emerald as a shooting star trailed across the sky. Sometimes the sky was violet, with a kind of luminous light low down on the horizon where the sun had disappeared.
They were cruising amongst, a group of islands that were as green as gardens in a cooler latitude. They looked like upturned green saucers of land on the broad bosom of the ocean, and they had coral reefs and blue lagoons, and sometimes the surf piled up outside the lagoons and made a thunderous noise as it rolled upon the yellow beaches.
Some of the islands were inhabited, others were not. They went ashore on one where the Governor was a friend of the Comte, and they were all invited to lunch in a low white building known as the Residency. The Residency gardens were such a. delight to Steve that, after lunch, she escaped from the rest and wandered in them alone until Neil Heritage joined her; and then the Comte himself came looking for them, and he seemed quite annoyed because Steve had vanished at a moment when the host was about to conduct the entire party round the gardens.
At least, that was the explanation he offered for the heavy frown that drew his dark brows together; and the almost aggressive gleam in his eyes when he met them strolling companionably in an orchid-lined grove where lovebirds circled in the air above their heads. But it had struck Neil Heritage several times in the past week or so that he was not nearly as popular as he had once been with his French friend; and although the latter more or less insisted upon him escorting Steve whenever they were ashore—possibly to ensure that she didn’t yield to the temptation to detach herself from the rest of the party, as she had done once before—he couldn’t help reflecting sometimes that the Comte’s growing hostility was somewhat strange.
In the Residency gardens he looked like a man who, although provided with an excellent lunch, and surrounded by his chosen companions for the voyage of the Odette, was either suffering from indigestion because of the Governor’s chef had included too many unfamiliar dishes in the menu, or was very blandly displeased about something. He said sharply to Steve:
“Your habit of despising the rest of us—with the exception of Mr. Heritage here—is a little tiresome sometimes, Miss Blair. Does it never occur to you that I employ you to look after my guests? ... My feminine guests! And at this very moment one of them might be glad of your services in some way or other!”
She flushed brilliantly, and for a moment she couldn’t think of anything to say in reply. Then she returned quietly:
“I’m sorry if I haven’t been giving very satisfactory service, monsieur.” She turned towards the house. “I’ll go back at once and see if I can make myself useful.”
But Heritage protested swiftly, and incautiously:
“It’s much too hot to go running round after a pack of females who’re perfectly capable of fetching and carrying for themselves! You do far too much of that sort of thing, anyway!” He directed a glance of sudden, acute dislike at the Comte, and then seized Steve by her bare, slim arm as she was about to dart away from them. “But if you’re going back to the house I’ll come with you, and see that you walk at a reasonable pace. Otherwise we’ll have you down with heatstroke.”
The Comte said suavely:
“There is not the slightest reason why Miss Blair should be smitten with heatstroke. Our host has opened up several of his guest-rooms for the ladies, and Miss Blair can rest in one of them until tea-time as the others are proposing to do.” He appropriated the arm which Steve had only just succeeded in freeing from Neil’s determined grasp, and added that as he was going back to the house he would see to it that she didn’t run any risk on the way back to the Governor’s Residence. “And if you take my advice you’ll go to bed early tonight, instead of sitting up on deck with Mr. Heritage studying the stars! As a sailor he probably knows a lot about them, but it would be more restful in your cabin.”
She gazed at him in amazement sideways.
“But it’s hot,” she protested, “terribly hot at night. And one can’t sleep—”
“You can always read,” he suggested smoothly. “Or watch the stars as you lie in your berth.” Read...? Watch the stars as she lay in her berth...? She didn’t actually repeat his words aloud, but she felt suddenly indignant as she studied his dark, haughty autocratic profile, and thought that while she was lying in bed he would be making love—possibly very passionate love!—to the lovely Gabrielle on deck. More than once when she had come upon them by accident Gabrielle had been clinging to him like a graceful limpet; and no doubt when they were alone—when they were quite sure they were alone! ... She swallowed, and wondered whether he had entirely forgotten the night when he had taken her into his arms and kissed her. The night that had created an uncontrollable longing in her to be back in those arms ... but not for a brief period of moonlight and madness.
She wanted far more than Gabrielle would ever want. She wanted those arm to be content; with her, and no one else—or she would if she was in Gabrielle’s exquisite, hand-made shoes. Never, never anyone else!
She felt her pulses bound in the heat and amid the exotic scents of the Residency garden, and as she felt herself propelled towards the house—although not in a way that forced her to hurry—the grip on her arm made her senses swim. His fingers were so long and strong and vital, and they were clasping her sun-warmed flesh in a way that could leave a mark. She glanced at him again sideways, and his dark eyes were fixed upon her face, intently, broodingly. He felt her falter, and instantly concern leapt into them.
“You are finding this heat too much?” he inquired swiftly. “In that case you must certainly rest until teatime in one of the guest-rooms. And tonight I will see to it that another electric fan is installed in your cabin. I meant it,” gravely, “when I said that I would prefer you to go to bed early rather than sit up on deck.”|
And behind them Neil Heritage looked grim as he followed in their wake.
That night, perhaps because it really was intensely hot, the conversation at dinner was not as lively as usual, and the host took practically no part in it at all. When they left the big oval table in the dining-saloon Mrs. Trent said it was too hot to play bridge, and she was going to lie under her electric fans and rest if she couldn’t sleep. Madame Villennes said much the same thing, and the Comte looked meaningly at Steve, and she realized he was silently ordering her to follow their example.
For a second she glanced at Neil—and very likely it was the heat, but he was looking even grimmer than he had looked after lunch—and then decided to go straight to her cabin. Her employer said “Good girl!”, very softly, to her, when she had said her good nights, but she didn’t dare to glance at him before she slipped out of the saloon. She only knew that the words set her heart beating ridiculously fast with the oddest kind of pleasure, and when she reached her cabin there was a bright glow in her eyes, as if instead of being ordered out of the way she had been most unexpectedly rewarded in a very satisfactory manner.
The extra fan made the atmosphere in her cabin much more bearable, and she was about to undress and slip into a cool robe when she remembered that she had
left the book she was reading on deck. She slipped up to retrieve.it, and was about to descend once more to her cabin when a shadow moved along the deck, in the protection of the chart-house.
The first quarter of a new moon was hanging like a pale slice of melon in the violet sky, and although there wasn’t a great deal of light from it yet there was sufficient to outline a familiar dress. An Orchid-colored gown with a voluminous skirt that was scattered all over with multicolored rhinestones, like fireflies performing an eccentric dance in the dusk. Steve had helped to zip up that gown only an hour before, when Gabrielle had summoned her to her cabin to search through her drawers for something that she herself couldn’t find.
Now, when the party had split up, she was in the arms of a man ... and of course it was the Comte!
Steve felt her back stiffen, and her footstep dragged to a standstill. For one moment she suffered such an acute sensation of anguish that she literally hadn’t the power to move; and then, as the baby ray of moonlight that had pierced the shadows under the chart-house wall glanced off the gorgeous dress and on to a man’s sleeve, she realized with a shock that it was not the sleeve of a dinner-jacket, and the only one amongst the male guests who appeared in the evenings in a light grey suit—having, apparently, no dinner-jacket with him—was Timothy Strangeways!
The moonlight crept upwards until she saw how it silvered his fair hair, and a pair of white arms that were clasped tightly about his neck were transmuted to silver also.
Neither of them, apparently, heard a sound, or had the least idea that anyone was near them. They were too engrossed with one another, too utterly absorbed in one another. And having surmounted her shock Steve gathered her wits and stole silently down the companion-ladder to the deck below. And it was only when she regained her cabin that the enormity of the thing she had just witnessed struck home to her. Gabrielle was, as everyone on board the Odette had realized long since, hoping and planning to; marry the Comte. Yet she allowed another man to make love to her ... a man she was at present passing off as her brother!