House of Storms

by Violet Winspear

  'I'm not smart enough to puzzle it out,' Nanny Rose retorted. 'I was a nursery-maid when I was fourteen and trained in the ways of being a nanny by the time I was twenty, and in those days a nanny was expected to stay single. The only young men in my life have been this sort.' She patted young Dean on the head. 'The only time they break my heart is when the time comes for them to go off to school. But over the years they go on writing to me and sending snapshots of themselves, and sometimes that's more than real sons bother to do.'

  'Have you always looked after little boys?' Debra looked intrigued.

  Nanny nodded as she took a flannel to Dean's face and hands. 'I'm good with lads so I select to nanny them. I had five sisters, you see, and by the time I left home to go and be a nursery-maid I'd seen enough of female tricks to last me a lifetime. I left the Welsh valleys with my suitcase in my hand and took a train to Somerset where I began my first job. A big grand house it was and I was so overwhelmed.'

  'Didn't you ever want to fall in love and get married?' Debra asked.

  'I suppose it crossed my mind when I was a romantic girl, but once I found out that I enjoyed being a nanny I stopped thinking about it. The best jobs in the best houses go to single nannies and I preferred that to chancing my arm with some young smart-alec who might make a drudge of me—I saw that happen to three of my sisters. Marriage can be a chancy business and no mistake.'

  'It seems to be a mistake Rodare Salvador doesn't intend to make.'

  'He's more like his mother's people than his father's, so he'll make sure he's got the right girl before putting a ring on her finger.' There was a dry note in Nanny Rose's voice, as if her years as a nanny to boys had given her quite a bit of insight into their ways. 'And I expect you can judge for yourself, Debra, that he won't be easily satisfied. He's got Spanish pride in him and he'll be a right challenge for the girl he settles on, and the Lord help her if she ever goes astray!'

  'You sound like a Welsh soothsayer,' Debra laughed.

  'I know how to read the tea leaves, my girl, so any time you want to know your fate I'll take a look at what lies at the bottom of your teacup.'

  'I'm not so sure that I want to know my fate.' Debra rose to her feet and gave little Dean a cuddle. In response he laid his head against her breast and blinked his dark lashes at her, already showing signs of being quite a charmer.

  'You're my boy-friend, aren't you?' she smiled at him, and Dean smiled in solemn response.

  Some time later Debra was busily at work in the den when the door suddenly opened . . . she glanced up from the typewriter, taking off her horn-rims in order to see who had entered.

  'Hi there.' Stuart Coltan closed the door behind him and strolled to her desk, wearing navy slacks and a sky-blue shirt that matched his eyes. Debra felt a flash of surprise at seeing him, and felt again that there was something disruptive in his personality.

  'I'm very busy, Mr Coltan,' she said firmly.

  'I really go for that crisp and efficient manner of British secretaries,' he drawled. 'It makes me wonder what it may be hiding.'

  'All it's hiding, Mr Coltan, is the desire to get on with the job,' she retorted.

  'On a Sunday?' He lounged against her desk and studied her hair in a ray of sunlight through the mullioned windows behind her shoulders. 'What a little glutton you are for work—is it all you live for?'

  'When the work's enjoyable.' She had to admit to herself that close like this he was every bit as good-looking as on television, with thick dark hair that peaked above his eyes, a deep dimple in his chin, and a lean, agile body that gave every indication of his dancing ability.

  'You really mean to say that you enjoy pounding that machine most of the day?' he quizzed her.

  'I'm typing into manuscript Mr Salvador's latest historical novel and it's an enthralling piece of work,' she said warmly.

  'D'you like being enthralled?' A suggestive note entered his voice and his blue eyes roamed her face. 'Y'know, you're not such a bad-looking chick when you take off those glasses, and I have to tell you that I go for the colour of your hair—what d'you call that shade of hair?'

  'I'm sure I wouldn't know.' She perched her spectacles back on her nose and ruffled some pages of notes on the desk.

  'It's called chestnut-brown, isn't it?' He smiled and showed a good set of teeth. 'After those big nuts that fall off the trees in autumntime.'

  'I've heard of a mouse being chestnut-brown.' She drily let him know that she had overheard his description of her.

  'Aw, don't hold that against me.' He leant forward to take a folio out of the tray and received a smart slap on the wrist.

  'Don't you dare touch any of those pages!' Debra gave him a severe look. 'I shall report you to Mrs Salvador if you tamper with her son's book. The book is confidential and not open to the public until the day of publication.'

  'Is that a fact?' He looked quite unrepentant. 'I was just curious to see what sort of a typist you are—I might want a letter typed.'

  'Then get one of your girl-friends to do it,' Debra rejoined.

  'Does that mean you're exclusive to the brilliant writer?' He quirked an eyebrow. 'I must say you look an exclusive sort of chick.'

  'Is that meant to be a compliment, Mr Coltan?'

  'It sure is.' He looked quizzical, as if not often did he find himself in the company of a girl who wasn't prepared to react to him. 'I believe your name's Debbie?'

  'It's Debra, and I don't let people use it unless I—like them.'

  'Don't you get the feeling that you're going to like me?' He spoke with the brash confidence of a young man who had always found himself attractive to the female sex. 'I've been told that I'm appealing.'

  'How good for your ego.' She gave the frame of her spectacles a push and hoped they would turn him off, well aware that men with a basic lack of sophistication were put off by girls in glasses. When at the office, she used them as a form of protection against the office wolves on the prowl. They definitely seemed to cool the libido in men who regarded girls as playthings, with not a thought in their heads beyond being the sport of the sex hunters.

  'Haven't you ever tried contact lenses?' Stuart Coltan deliberately took the horn-rims off Debra's nose. 'It's a crying shame covering up those big eyes with old-maid glasses.'

  'Give them back to me!' Debra felt a flash of anger. 'If you don't do so this minute I—I'll go and tell Senor Salvador that you're interrupting my work!'

  'Am I supposed to quake at the knees?' he mocked, and looking undisturbed by her threat he perched her glasses on his own nose and peered at her. 'Take a letter, Miss Hartway—Dear Debra, how do you feel about letting me wine and dine you one of these evenings?'

  'Are you going to believe that I'm not interested, Mr Coltan?'

  'You've got to be.' He took off her horn-rims. 'I've an unbroken track record.'

  'Congratulations.' She held out her hand for the return of her glasses. 'I don't wish to break my own record, which is that I never go out with wolves.'

  'You can't imagine that I'm a wolf?' He looked mock astonished. 'Here, you had better have these back—you're not seeing straight.'

  'I see through you even without them.' She accepted her glasses and replaced them. 'Now be a good boy and run away to your games, I have work to do.'

  'Prim as a pussy in a collar, aren't you?' He laughed and glanced around the den, with its rather forbidding leather-stamped walls. 'Who used to reside here, the head of the Inquisition?'

  'Back in the mists of time an abbey was built on this site and a Jesuit priest was attached to the Sisterhood. This was his cell.'

  'Is that a fact?' Stuart looked genuinely interested. 'It sure feels like a great place for writing historical novels, but how do you feel about working alone here?'

  It was a perceptive question and took Debra by surprise. She realised that there might be more to Stuart Coltan than agile good looks and a rather brash line in self-confident flirtation. 'I don't mind working here,' she replied.

&nbs
p; He studied her a moment and then took in all aspects of the leather-walled room. 'There's a certain atmosphere about this place and I bet you've noticed it.'

  'Noticed what?' she murmured.

  His eyes met hers. 'As if it might be— haunted.'

  'That's your actor's imagination at work, Mr Coltan.'

  'Is it?' He quirked an eyebrow. 'I bet when you're alone here and the dusk is beginning to make shadows you start to get jumpy. I reckon it's a crying shame that you've been tucked away among all these books about the past. You shouldn't put up with it, kid. If you act like a mouse then all you'll get out of life is other people's stale cheese.'

  'Thanks for the pearl of wisdom,' she rejoined. 'I was offered another room to work in, but I happen to prefer this one. It's quiet and tucked away and I don't disturb anyone with my typing—nor does anyone disturb me,' she added pointedly.

  'Am I disturbing you, honey?' He made the query sound suggestive.

  'You know full well that you're disturbing my work, Mr Coltan.'

  'What a let down, Miss Hartway, I did so hope that I was discomposing you.'

  'It would take more than you to do that.' Debra rose to her feet and walked to the door, which she held open for his departure. 'Go and join your friends—especially Zandra. She'll have the bloodhounds out after you if you don't take care.'

  'You don't have to worry about Zandra.' He strolled to the door and there he confronted Debra with his brazen smile. 'Your surname is a libel, do you know that? You don't know a thing about the ways of the heart.'

  'Then that makes two of us, doesn't it?'

  'Okay, Miss Heartless, but you haven't seen the last of me.' And as he passed by he quickly bent his head and planted a kiss on her mouth, then he sauntered off down the corridor, walking with the confidence of a young man who had decided that the world was his peach-tree and he was going to shake it for all he was worth.

  Debra reluctantly smiled as she closed the door and returned to her typewriter. He was charming and insouciant, with a dash of East Side shrewdness which had already brought him a measure of success. Debra felt quite sure that he had already broken several hearts and gone casually on his way without looking back at the damage.

  She slid carbons between sheets of manuscript paper and switched on the tape-recorder. Soon the sound of Jack Salvador's voice had dispelled the drawling tones of Stuart Coltan. She was into the third chapter of Savage By Night and the story grew stronger with each tape that she listened to. It saddened her that the author didn't come home to his little son and his new book, but if Rodare Salvador was right, then it was something to do with the failure of his marriage that made him reluctant to return to Abbeywitch.

  Debra pondered the drama of it all as she worked away at Jack's fiction, and she couldn't help wondering if Pauline had deliberately drowned herself? Had Jack grown bored with her once the physical side of their marriage was satisfied and was that why he stayed away, because he was racked by doubt and the suspicion that his young wife had intentionally jumped from the side of the yacht?

  Yet even as Debra reasoned it out, she couldn't quite believe that a lively showgirl would take her own life. It would be more feasible to imagine her taking a lover.

  Debra's fingers paused on the keys and she gazed reflectively at the sun's rays picking out the sombre patterns on the jackets of her employer's many books of reference . . . the one piece of pattern that seemed to fit was that Lenora Salvador should be so sure that her clever son would in time find Pauline tedious, and it seemed to Debra that in self-defence Pauline would turn to another man to whom her blonde charms would appeal. A man, perhaps, who was less intellectual than her husband.

  Debra couldn't pretend to be experienced in such matters, but she could see how the attraction of opposites could lead to unhappiness. Feelings of mutual attraction couldn't always be controlled, and the mere glimpse of someone could set the pulse racing.

  That morning in the nursery it had happened to her when Rodare Salvador walked in. Her knees had gone curiously unstable and again he made her feel vulnerable even though he gave no sign that previously in his presence she had not been wearing a sedate blouse and skirt.

  Without effort he made her aware of his forcefulness, to such an extent that she felt almost a sense of threat ... as if her instincts were sending warning signals through her body.

  There was no telling how long he meant to remain at Abbeywitch, and perhaps had they met in a less unconventional manner, then she might not be so sensitive to his presence in the house. At least, that was what she told herself.

  Determinedly she pushed him from her thoughts and carried on typing, taken by surprise when a maid tapped on the door and carried in a glass of wine and biscuits on a silver tray.

  The master said to bring you these refreshments, miss.'

  'Oh—thank you—!' Debra felt flustered by the unexpected attention and when the maid had gone she slowly raised the tawny wine to her lips and tasted it. It was utterly delicious and the first time she had been offered wine from the Salvador cellar which was deep beneath the house in the cool old cloisters which had been part of the ancient abbey.

  Giving in to a sense of luxury, she sat in the windowseat drinking her wine and nibbling her biscuits, thinking to herself that along with more subtle and disturbing ways, Rodare Salvador had his share of Spanish courtesy. He knew to the hilt how to play the hidalgo.

  Having savoured the wine, she held the empty glass up to the sunlight and watched the myriad fine colours sparkling in the crystal. How long, she wondered, did the hidalgo stay when he came home to this fascinating old mansion on Lovelis Island? This house whose motto declared: Let honour reside within.

  Could there possibly be a more romantic setting for an island than this most evocative of regions—the Land of Merlin, whose legends and stories still haunted the very air? Cornwall itself was almost an island, surrounded as it was by the sea and the River Tamar. Though its old Celtic language was seldom spoken now, there was in the voices of its people a sound like no other; a kind of depth and mystery.

  Debra sat there with the taste of wine on her lips, and her mouth wore a small, almost poignant smile. In the city she had felt alone, but here she felt akin to the sea as it tore itself on the teeth of the rocks; she breathed honey when the wind blew through the grasses of the cliffs, great ledges of granite where the chough had its nesting place.

  She even loved the beach at low water, when it was desolate and the sands were lit strangely by the dying sun. Across the water she would hear the bells of the Chapel of Sacred Sorrows and combined with the duskfall and the lapping sea they would create an indelible impression.

  A little voice in the mind warned her not to become too attached to Lovelis Island, but with the optimism of youth she told herself that perhaps when Jack Salvador came home he would decide to employ her as his full-time secretary.

  It would be so much more rewarding for her than working in the city where the rush and roar of the traffic had eliminated any sense of enjoyment for most people. It was part of Debra's nature to like natural things and she found the ambience of this island more exhilarating than anything she had ever known before.

  With each passing day there seemed to be something expectant in the very air she breathed and with all her heart she longed to stay. She returned to the typewriter, feeling today less of a stranger in the house which long ago the piratical Don Rodare had built for the bride snatched from the sands and carried on board his ship with his other booty.

  It was no wonder, she told herself, the Salvador men were unconventional in their ways. Debra glanced across at the silver tray on which stood the crystal wine glass and she felt the strangest of feelings go tingling through her veins.

  Was it possible ... oh no, her reason for wanting to stay at Abbeywitch couldn't be related to that proud personage who chose to spend most of his time in the deep warm heart of Spain! The very idea alarmed her and her fingers were as if petrified upon the typewr
iter keys.

  It wasn't only that she had never met his like before, it was that she distrusted the emotions which gave rise to physical attraction. That distrust had taken root in her when she was at a very impressionable age, and though she could be detached about it all in a book, she didn't know that she could face the reality of it . . . least of all in relation to Rodare Salvador.

  She typed rapidly and her heart almost kept pace with her flying fingers. She wanted the thought of him to go away, but it was as if his every feature had become a fixture in her mind. Dark, aloof, fascinating... it was as if the wine he sent to her had contained a potion that cast a spell over her.

  She firmly told herself that when she was through with her work she would take a brisk walk along the headland and let the wind blow these schoolgirl notions out of her head.

  Getting ideas just because he behaved with Spanish courtesy and sent her a glass of wine to refresh her! She smartly tapped the key with the exclamation mark upon it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EVENING had fallen and as Debra crossed the court to the side entrance a light rain was coming down. The combination of moisture and lights sheened her hair as she stepped into the great hall. She shook the moisture from her wind-blown hair and her eyes were still alight from the fantastic sunset which she had watched from the brim of the high cliffs.

  'Buenas tardes, señorita.’

  She swung round with a catch of her breath, expecting to see the tall figure who had been in her thoughts as she walked in the wind and rain. But it was Stuart Coltan who stood running his gaze over her slim figure which was warmly encased in a fluffy jersey and hip-hugging pants. 'That set your nerves jumping, didn't it?' he jeered. 'You thought I was El Rodare.'

  'Oh, it's you,' she said in a cool tone of voice, and she proceeded across the hall to the staircase.

  'Whoa there!' Stuart leapt forward and caught her by the arm. 'You don't have to be in such a hurry.'