‘Turn this launch ’round,’ Catherine demanded with more authority than she felt. ‘Take us back to New Providence this instant.’
‘Alas, that is not possible,’ said Piers. ‘Not until I’ve found out what is going on. Much as I’d like to help, this is the best position I’ve ever had. Good food, no shortage of women, an excellent wine cellar, perfect surroundings—all the bounties a man could wish for, in fact. Much as I would like to accommodate you, I cannot jeopardize all this by doing what you ask.’
‘You should have thought of that before you brought us here. Let me tell you—’
‘No—let me tell you. You are going to lie low while we find out what this is all about. If you are good girls and make no trouble for us, we’ll come back and take you to New Providence. O.K. ?’
It was far from okay, but she couldn’t make Piers take them back straight away, and they certainly couldn’t swim back. Unsatisfactory as it was, she accepted the deal, bypassing Piers to entreat Jock not to be too long. Jock’s vague nod of agreement was hardly confidence-inspiring.
When the two boys had ambled off, Deirdre said sheepishly, ‘You were right to be suspicious. I’ve been such a fool, thinking I was going to get an introduction to Gus Strindberg and kidding myself that something would come of it. A proper chump I’ve turned out to be, falling for a set-up like that.’
She looked so helpless and down in the dumps that Catherine hadn’t the heart to be cross with her. ‘You’re too vulnerable for your own self-preservation. We both are.’
Deirdre nodded in agreement. ‘They never intended to take us back tonight. It really grates on me what I could have got you into. I don’t trust Piers now. Will he . . . do you think he will get us back tonight?’
‘My life won’t be worth living if he doesn’t.’
Deirdre bit heavily on her lip and said in deep repentance, ‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. No one’s going to think it strange if my bed at the hotel is unoccupied tonight, but I can see your predicament. It won’t be so hot for you to have to account to that dishy boss of yours.’
‘You don’t know the half of it. Paul has a guest, or guests, coming to dinner. He made a special point of telling me to be there. If I’m not, he’ll skin me alive.’
Deirdre laughed weakly. ‘Paul—what did you say his other name was?’
‘Hebden.’
‘Hebden . . . Hebden,’ she said to herself. ‘Has there been some mention of him in the press fairly recently? The name rings a bell.’
‘Funny you should say that. I haven’t seen anything myself, but he mentioned something of the sort, a reference to some unkind gossip which he thinks I’ve read.’
‘He’s not connected with the film industry, is he?’
‘No. He writes detective novels.’
‘It isn’t the same guy, then.’ In an abrupt change of subject, Deirdre inquired, ‘Are we really going to sit it out here?’
‘What do you have in mind? Storming the house, asking to see Gus Strindberg and demanding to be taken back?’
‘No, I suppose not.’ A rueful smile came to Deirdre’s lips. ‘Piers doesn’t deserve any consideration. It’s Jock I’m sorry for. For his sake we’ve got to give the other smart aleck a chance to redeem himself.’
‘My own sentiments exactly.’ Catherine sighed in ironic agreement, thinking what a couple of softies they were.
‘I was thinking that we ought to see something of the island while we’re here. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. I don’t know whether I mentioned this to you or not, but Piers told me that Edge of Paradise was shot here. Did you see that movie? Gus Strindberg was the producer and it starred Zoe Sheridan and Jeremy Cain. He was already established, but it was her first starring role and brought her instant fame.’
‘Yes, I saw it and thought it was marvelously realistic. The best movie I’ve seen in ages. It held me on the edge of my seat for the entire time. Was it really filmed here?’
‘According to Piers. I know his track record for telling the truth isn’t so good, but he wouldn’t have any reason to lie about that. He promised to show me the waterfall—you know, where Zoe Sheridan did the nude scene. She was sticky from being in the sea, so she had a quick look ’round to make sure Jeremy Cain wasn’t there before she took her clothes off—only the rat sneaked up and caught her in the act.’
‘He didn’t sneak up. He’d just fished her out of the sea, remember? He was protective toward her.’
‘It was his fault she was in the sea,’ Deirdre pointed out. ‘He crashed the plane on the reef.’
‘He followed her to the waterfall to make sure she was safe,’ Catherine insisted. ‘I don’t usually like nudity on the screen, but it was so beautifully done, so natural, that no one could take offense.’
‘And Zoe Sheridan has such a superb body that it’s a shame not to show it off,’ Deirdre inserted mischievously.
Unperturbed, Catherine maintained her defense. ‘The man who directed it must possess extreme sensitivity.’
‘And an eye for a beautiful body,’ Deirdre quipped irrepressibly.
‘Oh—you! You’re right about one thing, though. If Edge of Paradise really was shot here at Coral Cay, it would be a sin not to have a look at the place. I’d love to see the waterfall, and the cave where the big love scene took place.’
‘Superb acting, the critics said—except it was for real.’ Deirdre’s eyes rounded in gleeful speculation. ‘Did you know that Zoe Sheridan was the director’s girlfriend? I wouldn’t be surprised if that wasn’t what got her the part. She left him for Jeremy Cain. That must have been tough on him, directing all those steamy love scenes and knowing that the passionate clinches continued after the cameras stopped rolling. Not that you could blame her. That Jeremy Cain is some looker, with those big baby-blue eyes and that mass of tight toffee-colored curls. I’d go off the straight and narrow for him any day of the week.’
Catherine vaguely remembered reading
some of the gossip at the time, but she had let it float over her head. She preferred to cling to the illusion of sweetness and romance portrayed on the screen rather than the crude reality that took place off it. The film had made a deep and lasting impression on her. It had opened with the two main characters flying in a light aircraft which lost its bearings in a thunder storm, and came down on the reef encircling an uninhabited island. Not that they had known it was uninhabited, of course, as they survived the coral fangs of the reef, as deadly as shark’s teeth, to battle with the fierce undertow and, thanks to his persistence and superhuman strength, eventually wash up on the white sand. They had kissed—he told her that her mouth tasted of the sea—and she had declared herself too exhausted to walk a single step. So he had carried her up the beach to the sanctuary of a cave, where they made their home. The story had been about their struggle for survival in primitive, back-to-nature conditions, and their dawning love for one another, a love they fought desperately to deny because they both had left partners back in civilization. They spent six tortured months together in this earthly paradise before they were found. What made it especially heartbreaking was their decision to do the right thing and return to their lawful partners. Catherine had come out of the cinema with eyes that were red and puffy from all the tears she had shed. The film had won awards and accolades and become a box-office sellout, and because of public demand a sequel was going to be made called Return to Paradise. As the cast and crew were to be primarily the same, the dead gossip about the director and the two co-stars’ love triangle had apparently been dug up again by the more sensational newspapers.
They set off, carefully skirting the house the boys had made for. It was a truly beautiful house, with pastel-colored walls which were almost obliterated under a clinging, climbing mass of overgrown vines and bougainvillea. Built on the lines of a Spanish hacienda, not the more usual type of colonial dwelling found in these parts, it was set in magnificently landscaped gardens, with several terraces dropping down
to the sea, each terrace decorated with statuary. The trees blazed with the flutterings of numerous brightly colored birds; the gardens were an eye-catching display of flowers that gave off an overpowering scent and attracted butterflies of especial brilliance.
The first impression of Coral Cay was of a well-maintained luxury haven. They soon walked out of this into dense vegetation, the nature-run-wild setting of Edge of Paradise. It was so poignantly familiar that Catherine wouldn’t have been one bit surprised to see a suntanned masculine hand drag back a trespassing branch to allow the dark-haired Zoe a relatively unscratched passage.
When the hand did reach forward to lift back a branch and Zoe Sheridan, appeared on the path in front of them, admittedly not the character she had portrayed in Edge of Paradise, but an immaculately made-up creature with the indefinable gloss and poise of a superstar, Catherine’s mouth fell open in stupefaction. Yet why, when she came to think about it later, she didn’t know. Some of the scenes of the sequel would obviously be shot on the same location. Had filming started, she wondered, or was the star familiarizing herself with the surroundings she had supposedly lived in for many months?
Catherine pressed well back to give Miss Sheridan automatic right of way, and noticed out of the tail of her eye that Deirdre was doing the same thing. The courtesy gesture was acknowledged by the tightest and most begrudging of smiles as the actress regarded them with open curiosity. Her male escort showed equal surprise at the unexpected appearance of two unknown females, but a smile laden with charm graced his boyishly full, yet dangerously sensual, lips. His bright paintbox-blue eyes twinkled with delighted appreciation—but whether he was appreciating the two strange faces for their appeal or their stunned expressions was another matter entirely. He made a gallant little half bow and continued on his way.
‘Did you see who that w-was?’ Deirdre gasped out.
Catherine knew that it wasn’t the feminine face that had made her companion practically swoon in ecstasy and amazement. She nodded. ‘Yes, it was Jeremy Cain.’
‘Pinch me to see if I’m dreaming. I’ve seen Jeremy Cain in the beautiful flesh! And I was too dumbfounded to do anything about it! Oh, isn’t he lovely? A million times more handsome than he is on the screen. This must be the best day of my life.’
Catherine laughed, feeling some of Deirdre’s joy rubbing off on her and saying that it certainly was a day for surprises, little knowing as they began to walk again, drawn by the rushing sound of water falling from a great height, which presumably would turn out to be the waterfall in the film, that the biggest surprise was yet to come.
He was squatting on his haunches. The furious, full-bubbling noise of the water had blanked out the crackle of twigs underfoot as they stepped into the clearing. Some sixth sense must have alerted him to their presence. He stood up, turning ’round very slowly.
As jade green eyes met sapphire blue ones, surprise registered on only one face—hers. But this didn’t occur to Catherine until very much later. Her stunned brain digested the fact that even though she had a slight time advantage, surveying him as she had for those few unobserved seconds, Paul was the one to keep his cool.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Catherine,’ he said. Unruffled, outwardly pleasant, if with an underlying displeasure which was very apparent to her, master of himself and the situation. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Hello, Paul. I was just going to ask the same of you.’
‘There is a subtle difference. I don’t have to account to you.’
Whereas she did have to account to him, she thought hollowly.
‘I came with . . . with Deirdre,’ she submitted lamely, remembering all too vividly his parting command not to get in touch with Deirdre, her ‘man-eating companion of the plane.’
‘Obviously,’ he said.
She swallowed, feeling ridiculously chastened as his eyes flicked scathingly over her. She hadn’t deliberately set out to disobey him; she had stumbled on Deirdre by chance and had felt the need, in Deirdre’s best interest, to accompany her on what had turned out to be a foolish and irresponsible escapade, although she didn’t think that would rate as an excuse with him. In any case, she wasn’t the type to blame someone else or make excuses. Neither was she going to go feminine and simper all over him—beg forgiveness with eyes full of appeal and supplication, or apply any of the little-girl tricks a lot of women were prone to call upon in a tight spot. Dissembling, likewise, was out of the question. So she straightened determinedly, assumed what she hoped was a confident tone and said truthfully, ‘Piers and Jock brought us in the launch, without first getting their employer’s permission, I regret to say. It was their bad luck he came back unexpectedly.’
‘One person’s quick thinking can be another’s bad luck,’ he said obscurely.
‘Is that a quotation?’ She hadn’t heard that one before.
‘Shall we say a suitable comment? What did you have in mind to do now?’
‘Keep out of the way until they can take us back.’
‘Presumably without Gus being any the wiser?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘But now the cat is out of the bag,’ he said.
‘Apparently so.’
She wondered if he was making a joking reference to the shortened version of her name. But his face was deadly serious, his tightly held mouth devoid of amusement as he said, ‘The only course, as I see it, is to make our way to the house and instruct Cleopatra, Gus’s housekeeper, that there will be two extra for lunch.’
Catherine was conscious of Deirdre’s joy; the other woman’s expression was a bright burst of inquiry and anticipation and it wasn’t difficult to guess that she was speculating about whether Jeremy Cain would be present. It was also blatantly obvious that, in view of this new turn of events, she didn’t care a bit that their discovery would earn Piers and Jock a reprimand for taking advantage of their employer’s absence and bringing the two women over in the launch. Mr. Strindberg might even consider dismissal to be just punishment for their breach of conduct.
Under the circumstances, it was the height of irony for Catherine to care what happened to them. Their misdemeanor could have had—could still have, judging by the severity of Paul’s face—serious consequences for her. It was ridiculous to feel any responsibility at all, but she did. In the first place, she ought to have talked Deirdre out of it. Instead, she’d been bluffed into coming, having fallen for Deirdre’s taunts that Paul wouldn’t approve and not wanting to lose face. Paul did disapprove, but in an odd kind of way it was a benign censure, as if he knew she’d been outmaneuvered by Deirdre’s deviousness. If she spoke up for the boys it would make it look as if there had been no coercion and point to her total involvement.
Sighing at her own stupidity, she said, ‘Paul, have you any influence with Mr. Strindberg?’
‘What if I have?’
‘Would you consider using it to square things for Piers and Jock?’
‘I might, if I had a good enough reason.’
‘Would my asking you rate—high enough?’
‘Ungallant as it sounds—no. I must own to having a more self-indulgent reason than that in mind.’
If only she knew what was behind that secretive, twisted smile. It was a front, she knew that. She wasn’t naive enough to think she would get out of this lightly. At the same time, she felt a disarming and touching wave of gratitude toward him for not reading her the riot act in front of Deirdre.
The narrowness of the path forced them to walk single file. Paul went first to lead the way, followed by Catherine, with Deirdre bringing up the rear. Suddenly Paul stopped walking. Turning to face Catherine, he said, ‘Consider it smoothed out for those two unworthy characters. I’ll make it right with Gus.’
With studied deliberation he reached forward to remove an errant strand of hair from her forehead. His hand descended by way of her cheek and remained on her chin, tilting it in a demonstration of familiarity that she sensed was for her benefit rat
her than Deirdre’s. She had the strangest feeling that he was telling her something, indicating that she should behave in a certain way, accept his familiarity in exchange for his compliance in the matter of Piers and Jock. It didn’t make sense to her, but even so, she knew she was right. She gave an almost imperceptible nod, which found approval in his eyes and secured her chin’s release. Without knowing what she had let herself in for or why, she had just sealed a bargain.
Cleopatra, Mr. Strindberg’s housekeeper, turned out to be a Jamaican woman in her mid-forties, with an ample girth and a wide white-toothed grin. She accepted the two extra lunch guests with neither fuss nor surprise, as if she were used to people appearing from nowhere without notice and took it in her stride. Of Gus Strindberg, or Zoe Sheridan or Jeremy Cain, for that matter, there was no sign, and so Paul took it upon himself to instruct Cleopatra to show the girls where they could wash their hands and generally freshen up.
She ushered them into a luxury bathroom and left them to it, advising that lunch would be ready in twenty minutes or so and that drinks would be served on the poolside patio when they were ready.
Running water into a pale mauve basin, Deirdre said, after looking ’round and making the predictable exclamation of awe at her surroundings, ‘I didn’t realize you had such a cozy working arrangement with your boss or I would have kept my own greedy eyes off.’
‘It’s not that cozy,’ Catherine responded wryly.
Deirdre prattled on. ‘I got the shock of my life when I saw him by the waterfall. What’s he doing here?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve been wondering that myself. He had a meeting fixed up with someone this morning. It looks as if it could have been with Gus Strindberg.’
‘Wow! What do you think they have to do with each other?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that. It’s occurred to me that it could be something to do with the sequel to Edge of Paradise. Perhaps Paul’s writing the screenplay.’
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