It was Lavinia who came into the kitchen and she got straight to the point. 'How did my grandson hire you, Davina? He made no mention of any such intentions to me,' she said as she walked around the kitchen, examining surfaces and trailing an experimental fingertip along the windowsill.
Davina explained about the agency and mentioned that she'd be serving lunch on the terrace.
'I see. Personally, I'm always happier eating inside; I don't hold with putting oneself at the mercy of bugs, beetles, birds and whatever when one is consuming food, but if you've already-'
'I have,' Davina said quietly. Lavinia stopped her tour and looked at Davina keenly, which Davina didn't ignore but didn't allow to fluster her at all.
'Hmm, I see,' Lavinia said again. 'So, you know your own mind, Davina? I like that in a person.' 'Thank you,' Davina replied calmly. Whereupon Lavinia put her head on one side and said thoughtfully, 'You don't look the kind of person to be doing this kind of job, if you don't mind me saying so.' 'All the same, I'm quite good at it,' Davina said with a faint smile. 'How long have you been here?' 'Three days.'
'And you'd never met Steven before?' 'Never.'
'So-he had no idea he was going to get you?' 'None at all, nor was he particularly pleased when he did get me,' Davina said levelly, thinking, If this old lady is fishing in the manner I'm pretty sure she is, I might as well get this over and done with even though it's become less than true in some respects, but all the same… 'He, too, didn't think I looked the right type for the job. But, of course, the proof of these things is always in the pudding, isn't it?'
'Indeed,' Steve Warwick's grandmother said slowly. 'Indeed.' And with the kind of turn around that was rather devastatingly reminiscent of her grandson, added charmingly, 'Do tell me what's for lunch. I'm starving.'
'Uh… quiche lorraine with a salad, and fruit and icecream.'
'Excellent! I'll hurry the other two up, not that it's ever much good hurrying Loretta, she is the most unpunctual, lazy person I know. And, what's more, if she thinks that on this holiday she'll succeed in getting her hooks into Steven, she'll find she's as mistaken as she has been before or I'm a Dutchman.' And, with this stunning parting shot, she left the kitchen regally.
Davina stared after her and blinked dazedly.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lunch was apparently successful.
Davina declined an invitation to join them, saying she'd already had hers, and got the impression that both Mrs Warwicks were hungry enough to be somewhat mellowed during the meal. Then Loretta took herself upstairs for a short siesta, as she put it; Lavinia took the second Land Rover to see a friend, inviting Candice to join her but she refused surlily, so her grandmother left with a haughty look.
Half an hour later, Davina was aware of Candice mooching around moodily and decided this might be one of the times when she should act as a babysitter.
'Did you bring any games with you, Candice?'
'Like what?'
'Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly-I thought we might play something together.'
'I grew out of Snakes and Ladders years ago,' Candice said scornfully. 'Besides, I don't like playing with grownups. I don't like grown-ups much at all, if you want to know.'
'Is that so? Oh, well, we all have things we like and don't like, I guess.'
A spark of interest lit Candice's eyes behind her glasses. 'Don't you mind if I don't like you?'
'Not at all,' Davina said cheerfully, and walked away.
Ten minutes later, Candice sidled into the laundry where Davina was scrubbing her sand-shoes, trying to rid them of the mud stains they'd collected on Mount Lidgbird, and asked her what she was doing.
Davina explained.
'Well, when you've finished, I suppose we could play something,' Candice said grudgingly. 'I've got nothing else to do and Mum will sleep for hours,' she added darkly. 'She's a night person, she says.'
Davina made no comment, but eyed her shoes critically. 'Something tells me they'll never be the same again,' she murmured. 'Why don't we go for a swim, instead?'
A further spark of interest showed. 'Steve's the only person who takes me swimming,' Candice said. 'When he can tear himself away from work. Mum can't swim and Gran says she's too old. Mum does lie on the beach a lot, though, getting a tan and catching the eye of all the men around. But she hardly ever gets herself wet. I'm not a very good swimmer.'
'I see. I am,' Davina remarked.
'So you'd come right in with me?'
'All the way.'
'OK, if it's what you want.'
They rode to Ned's Beach, and for an hour or so Candice became like any ordinary little girl, giggling and squealing with enjoyment while she clung to Davina and they fed the fish that zoomed in on them as soon as they entered the water, then had some swimming lessons in the gentle swell. Ned's was a protected beach, unlike Blinkys. Then they put their shoes on and went over to inspect the colony of Sooty Terns that made their home among the rocks at the foot of Malabar Hill on the northern end of Ned's Beach.
'It's amazing how close you can get to them, isn't it?' 'Boy!' Candice said admiringly. 'There's hundreds of them.'
'I should have brought my camera,' Davina said ruefully.
They had an ice-cream on the way home, and had just got off their bikes to walk up the last hill when Steve Warwick pulled up behind them.
'Well, girls,' he said lightly, 'I couldn't have come at a better time. What have you two been up to?'
Candice told him enthusiastically as he hitched their bikes on to the back of the Land Rover, and he watched her glowing little face for a moment then raised an eyebrow at Davina. 'You've done well, by the sound of it, Mrs Hastings-my compliments.'
'What does that mean?' Candice asked as she climbed into the back seat.
'Nothing at all,' he replied and drove off.
Davina said nothing at all.
Candice, on encountering her grandmother when they got home, said plenty, however, still in the same enthusiastic vein, and caused that lady to regard Davina thoughtfully.
Which was probably why she wasn't as successful at ducking out of dinner, she reflected later.
'I insist you join us for this meal, Davina,' Lavinia said grandly, sweeping into the kitchen about ten minutes before Davina was due to dish up.
'Thank you, but-'
'But me no buts, my dear. I too am a person who knows my own mind and I'm about to set another place at the table.' She pulled open a drawer and clanked cutlery vigorously. 'Has Steven made any mention of you eating separately?'
'No, it's entirely my own decision, Mrs Warwick. I have certain practices when I'm on a job, and this is one of them.'
Lavinia snorted. 'Then I'll get him to ask you himself.'
'Ask her what?' Steve Warwick strolled into the kitchen.
His grandmother placed her hands on her hips. 'This silly girl insists on eating on her own. I've decided I won't even hear of it.'
'She is the housekeeper; it's probably a fairly common practice for housekeepers not to-'
'There are housekeepers and housekeepers,' Lavinia interrupted. 'It's perfectly plain to me that Davina is a rather superior kind of housekeeper but, that aside, who are we to stand on ceremony?'
'I'm simply slayed by your logic, beloved,' Steve Warwick murmured, and turned to Davina, amusement twisting his lips. 'It's up to you.'
'How can you be so lily-livered, Steven? Tell her to come!'
'Davina.' There was open laughter in his eyes now. 'Could you please see your way to rescuing me from this little contretemps?'
Davina breathed exasperatedly. 'Very well.'
'That's my girl,' he murmured, and swung back to his grandmother. 'Happy now?'
'Extremely, although why I had to go to all those lengths-'
'Come and have a drink, Lavinia,' he interrupted, and led her out of the kitchen.
'Why do I have the feeling I've strayed into a madhouse?' Davina muttered to herself.
'Probably becaus
e you and I are the only two sane people in the place.' Davina jumped. Steve was standing right behind her. 'Why do you keep doing that?' she said irately. 'I came back for some ice-I was not creeping up on you, if that's what you thought. But you know, I complimented you on Candice this afternoon-may I now say that to have impressed my grandmother the way you have is… extremely impressive. How did you do it?' He looked at her, his eyes dancing with devilry.
'I… she seems to think I know my own mind, which is something she admires in a person, apparently,' Davina said carefully.
'Well, she's right about that, I can vouch for it,' he said ruefully. 'But I also have the feeling that, were she to know the implacability of…certain of your mental processes, she would take a very different view of things.' Davina frowned. 'What do you mean?' 'I think,' he drawled, 'I'll let you work that one out for yourself, Mrs Hastings-I see you're no longer wearing your wedding-ring, incidentally.' Davina glanced down at her hand. 'No. I… no.' 'Well, that might set the cat among the pigeons but- who knows?' And he withdrew the silver ice bucket from the fridge and walked out with it.
Davina stared after him, shook her head dazedly once then thought, It is a madhouse, and you're wrong about one thing-I might be the only sane person in it.
The next couple of days proved several things to Davina. While she wouldn't exactly accuse Loretta of being a lousy mother, she was certainly a bit unhandy at it. She seemed not to be aware that if you laid down rules, you needed to stick to them, with the result, or so it appeared to Davina, that a lot of Candice's tantrums arose from sheer confusion. And it appeared to her that Lavinia exploited this quite shamelessly at times. But there was also very genuine affection for the child.
As for the animosity between the two Mrs Warwicks, while Loretta never appeared to be too fazed by her mother-in-law's barbed remarks, she could always be relied upon to retaliate in a lazy yet telling way. But more and more Davina got the feeling that behind Loretta's lazy smile and undoubtedly lazy ways at times there lurked shrewdness and intelligence. Of the fact that she had any intention of converting her mother-in-law to a Dutchman, there was little evidence. At times she amused Steve, at times she exasperated him, but there were no overt displays of trying to engage his interest with a view to matrimony.
So for a few days Davina ran the household successfully, and worked her way discreetly through the minefield of the Lavinia-Loretta saga by taking Candice off their hands as much as possible. She took the little girl on some photographic expeditions, back to Malabar where they shot the Sooty Terns, to the swamp at the Blinkys end of the runway and out on a glass-bottomed boat expedition where they snorkelled together over the coral in the lagoon and marvelled at the fish-and made Davina long to own an underwater camera. Sometimes, they just got off their bikes and sat in the lush grass and absorbed the views and the lovely clear air.
It did dawn on Davina during these days that Lavinia was trying to find out as much as she could about her background, also that she was rather wily about eliciting information. So that, without Davina quite knowing how she'd done it, Lavinia came to know where she'd been to school-and approved-to know that she'd spent six months overseas with her mother when she'd left school-again approved-to know all about her catering course and to know a bit about her photographic ambitions. This she approved of vigorously. She also managed to draw forth Davina's taste in music, literature and art, her knowledge of current affairs and her opinions and she once said that Davina was obviously well-brought-up, well-informed and had most of the ingredients to be a woman of style and perception as well as amazingly capable. But, beyond a lurking amusement at this process, Davina hadn't given it much thought- for one thing she simply hadn't the time. For another, a lot of her spare thoughts seemed to centre around Steve Warwick, to her dismay, but there was nothing she could do about it, she found.
He seemed to have taken her at her word and she was horrified to find herself remembering what he'd said about pique. Was she piqued? Surely not. So what was she…? But that was even harder to deal with, unless, she thought starkly once, you admitted to yourself that you just couldn't forget the feel of his arms, his lips… certainly not when you virtually lived in the same house with him, encountered him several times a day and so could never free yourself from the impact of his strong, streamlined body, his hands… Stop it, she told herself. Just… stop it.
But she got caught more than thinking it once. He came home one day with a fine catch of kingfish; it was a beautiful evening, so she scrapped her plans for a veal casserole for dinner-it would keep anyway-and while he lit the barbecue she filleted the fish and made salads. They had a wonderful barbecue beneath the Southern Cross. For once, Loretta and Lavinia seemed able to bear each other's presence; Steve asked Candice to help him cook the fish and she grew almost visibly in stature. But Davina was suddenly attacked by a sense of the vastness of the ocean all around them, and her general insignificance in the great plan of things. It came on towards the end of the meal, fortunately, so no one noticed when she got up rather abruptly to clear up; in fact everyone helped. But she was the last to go to bed, or so she thought, and was lingering in the dim, quiet, clean kitchen-lingering because she didn't trust herself to the loneliness of her chalet-when Steve came in.
From the way he raised an eyebrow she guessed he'd thought the same as she: that he was the only one up. He said quite normally, 'Still around, Davina? I'll have to start paying you overtime.'
And she was furious to discover herself pinned to the spot, her heart beating heavily with an intense longing, her body bereft and aching because his hands weren't on it, the remembered feel of his body against her like a blueprint in her mind and upon her skin.
'Something-wrong?' he said, after a long moment, his gaze narrowing and drifting down to her breasts beneath the white T-shirt she wore with blue shorts, to her long bare legs-and, to her supreme embarrassment, she started to bring her arms up to cross them in a defensive gesture that was also a dead giveaway…
'No,' she said, but her voice was hoarse as her hands sank to her sides. She cleared her throat and started to turn away. 'No, nothing. Goodnight.'
'Goodnight, Davina,' he replied, and although she couldn't identify what it was, something in the way he'd said it made her feel sure he'd known exactly what had happened to her.
She locked herself into her chalet and didn't know why. She put her hands to her face and tried to block out Steve Warwick, but it didn't work. She was tormented by so many things about him: the golden hairs on his arms and legs, the tendency to freckles and the way his dark red-brown hair grew. How it had been to lie against him in the shallows at Blinkys and feel the unmistakable response of his body to hers, the rapture and delight of being kissed by him.
She pushed herself away from the door and, to her grim amusement, went to take a cold shower while she wondered how she was going to get through one more day let alone roughly another twenty-one.
She was saved from herself the next day by Steve Warwick at his very worst. It all started when one of his charter boats, due to an error of judgement by the skipper, ran aground and had to have its passengers transferred to another boat, and be towed home.
Despite the fact that no one was really in any danger, there were other boats in the area and the rescue-boat was quickly on the scene, his anger was awesome.
And when the unfortunate skipper came to the house to make his report, Davina, who was baking a cake and biscuits, couldn't help but be in earshot as Steve explained in the coldest, most cutting terms she'd ever heard that the fact that everyone was safe meant nothing, that the potential for a disaster that could ruin not only his business but the reputation of the island as a holiday destination was what mattered… and so on.
And, when the poor man finally stumbled out, pale and shaken, she couldn't help but feel some sympathy for him-probably because she knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Steve Warwick's anger and deadly brand of savage sarcasm. Not that she would h
ave dreamt of saying so, but when he proceeded to take out his feelings on them all, she unwittingly intervened.
It was a wet, gloomy afternoon, which was why she'd decided to make more of a ritual of afternoon tea than usual. Lavinia sampled the cake, pronounced it mouthwatering and said, 'Steve would like some of this.' Steve was still closeted in his study.
Loretta looked at her with wry amusement. 'Then we'll nominate you to take it in to him, Lavinia.'
Lavinia glanced at her coldly, but, to her credit, did say, 'I think we should draw straws.'
And before Davina, who'd gone to fetch some hot water, realised what was happening, Candice had taken up the idea and Davina found herself drawing a short straw and then having to ask its significance.
'Thank you,' she said with considerable irony to Loretta and Lavinia. 'If you want my opinion, we should leave him be.'
'Ah, but Lavinia is of the opinion that your wonderful cake might just sweeten him up,' Loretta murmured.
Davina opened her mouth to say that she had good reason to want to stay outside a hundred-mile radius of Steve Warwick, for reasons that had nothing to do with today, but she caught a look echoed in both their eyes that was oddly curious. Damn, she thought, don't tell me they're cottoning on…? And she straightened her shoulders and went to prepare a smaller tray with as much nonchalance as she could muster.
'What's this?'
'Afternoon tea,' Davina said politely in reply to his curt query and, although she couldn't help being a bit taken aback by the harsh lines his face was still set in as he'd looked up from his desk, she couldn't resist adding when she should have just left it with him, 'Your grandmother thought… you'd like some.'
'Well, take no notice of her in future, Davina. I'll tell you what I like and don't. You can take it away. Tea is the last thing I need at the moment,' he added scathingly. She felt her temper rising and cursed herself for being jockeyed into this position against her better judgement-all of which combined to make her say, with deceptive gentleness, 'Aren't you being a bit childish,
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