House of Storms

by Violet Winspear

  'The rumba!' he mocked. 'If he'd thought you could manage it he'd have led you into a paso doble. My, my, what an exhibition.'

  'At least I didn't trip over his feet,' Debra retorted.

  'Implying that El Rodare is a better dancer than me?' Stuart's eyes narrowed and there wasn't a vestige of his charm to be seen; at that moment he looked almost feral. 'Anyway, what would you know? I suppose you felt flattered by his attention, but take it from me neither Zandra nor her mother were impressed. That exhibition reminded them of the way he used to dance with Pauline—that surprises you, doesn't it, Miss Coolheart? Jack's the academic one, but El Rodare with his Latin blood likes to trip the light fantastic . . . makes you wonder, eh, what else he and Pauline liked to do together?'

  Debra's nerves felt as if they were jerked on strings ... in a way she wasn't surprised that Rodare had found Pauline stimulating to dance with, but her innermost self felt shocked by the suggestion that he may also have been her lover.

  'What a nasty thing to say!' She gave Stuart a disgusted look. 'You must have a very low mind to even think it.'

  'Because Pauline was his sister-in-law and he likes to act the honourable hidalgo?' Stuart gave a jeering laugh. 'It's about time you took your nose out of books and took a real look at people. You might discover that some of them aren't quite the heroes you take them for.'

  'I'm not such a greenhorn as you seem to suppose,' she rejoined. 'Not for a moment was I fooled by you. I could see that you're only out to please yourself and you don't care who gets hurt so long as you get what you want out of life. You're self-centred!'

  'Isn't everyone?' he scoffed. 'When you realise that every single person is bound up in himself then you stop having illusions. You start seeing straight and you head for your own goal and don't get side-tracked by some false emotion that singles someone out from the crowd. Take it from me, we aren't put on this earth to be boxed up with one partner and one set of emotions. We're here to live as much life as we can manage, not to go stale in a cage, looking at the same old face, hearing the same old opinions year in, year out. I'd go nuts and I'm honest enough to say so.'

  'You're entitled to your opinion,' Debra agreed. 'I don't think I want to discuss the philosophy of life with you. Right now I think you're behaving like a petty little boy who breaks someone else's toy just for the pleasure of it. I don't call that being grown up. I think you've quite a long way to go before you become an adult.'

  He stood scowling at her, then with a shrug he turned on his heel and walked off. It gave her a heartfelt sense of relief to see him go, and when she picked up her pendant she cradled it in the palm of her hand as if it had been desecrated. Anxiously she examined the pearl and found to her distress that the silky surface of it had been damaged along with the gold attachment. She felt choked up and as the emotions of the entire evening welled up in her, tears brimmed in her eyes.

  When a hand suddenly touched her on the shoulder she thought Stuart had returned and she whirled round, words and tears spilling over. 'You swine, leave me alone—' She broke off, for the male figure confronting her was Rodare Salvador.

  His eyes raked over her tear-streaked face. 'Why are you crying, and who did you think I was?' he demanded.

  'I—' But she couldn't speak, his sudden appearance on top of her scene with Stuart seemed to let loose an avalanche of tears and once again she ran from him, into her room. But this time he followed, closing the door behind him. He came and stood behind her and clasped her heaving shoulders with both hands.

  'Who has done this to you, eh? Has Zandra been to see you? Has she said something to upset you?'

  Debra shook her head and tried desperately to control herself. She wasn't a weepy person as a rule, but she couldn't seem to stop the sobs from tearing at her throat.

  'Come!' Rodare propelled her to the bed and sat her down on the side of it, then he strode into her tiny bathroom and in a few moments returned with her face flannel and wiped away her tears as if she were a child. He poured her some water from the carafe on the bedside table and made her take a few sips. In a while he brought her to a state of semi-calmness and she was able to tell him what had occurred. He opened her clenched fingers and took the pearl and chain out of her grasp. He examined the damage and she heard him mutter a word which she didn't understand.

  'So this came undone while you were with me in the conservatory?'

  She nodded and didn't meet his eyes. 'T-the catch is a little stiff a-and I couldn't have fastened it properly. I don't wear the pendant all that often, you see.'

  'I shall have to confront Coltan about this.'

  Debra pushed the hair away from her brow as if it weighed on her. 'I'd rather you didn't, señor. I'm leaving, aren't I, so he isn't likely to bother me any more?'

  'You are leaving over this?'

  This time she was compelled to look at him. She shook her head and felt certain she must look wretched with her swollen eyelids and disordered hair. 'You know I can't stay. Your stepmother and sister will want me to leave.'

  'Why so?' His eyes dwelt intently on Debra's face and he seemed to her more foreign than ever before in the neat environs of her bedroom; his Latin swarthiness was intensified and even his voice seemed extra deep. She noticed that he was wearing a robe and she wondered why he had been in the vicinity of her bedroom. Had he looked in on his young nephew, who might have been disturbed by the extra noise in the house?'

  'I—I think Zandra and her mother are annoyed by me,' she replied.

  'Is their annoyance of such importance that you intend to leave Jack's book in less attentive and considerate hands?' he asked, and as if he felt that he was threatening her with his height he sat down beside her on the bed, so that instantly she became aware that the upper part of his body was bare beneath the heavy dark silk of his robe. She could see the swarthy skin of his chest and the black hair across his pectoral muscles, producing deep within her a clenching awareness of him as a man.

  A man she was very much alone with in the depths of the night.

  She lowered her gaze and bit her lip rather painfully. 'I don't want to leave my work unfinished,' she said, a quake in her voice. 'I have enormous respect for your brother's book, but when you found me crying you asked if Zandra had upset me. You know how displeased she and your stepmother are. I—I shouldn't have been at the party, you know that!'

  'Do you imagine that I worry about those two women and their ideas of social acceptance?' Abruptly he reached out and taking Debra by the chin made her look at him. Her lashes fluttered wildly and his touch increased her awareness of him. 'You came as my guest in my house and too bad if I offended their sense of propriety by dancing with you. Everyone else seemed to enjoy our performance.'

  'I don't imagine Sharon Chandler did.' The words emerged before Debra could suppress them; they had been waiting to leap from her lips and were all part of her emotional state tonight. She had never felt such a mixture of feelings churning about inside her before.

  'Let us get something straight.' His hand moved itself to the nape of Debra's neck, enclosing it warmly beneath the cape of her hair, and his big frame seemed to loom closer. 'I don't live my life in subservience to other people and what they expect of me. I am my own person and I don't choose to bow my neck to any woman. I wished to dance with you and so we danced. Why on earth you should feel guilty about it, I do not know.'

  'Simply because I work here, señor, and the members of your family are conscious of their social position.' All the time she spoke Debra could feel his thumb in movement against the skin of her neck, and she knew that if he were to lean forward and take her lips she would be helpless to resist him. She felt his power like an intoxicating Spanish wine, dark and rich with ingredients that went to her head. It added to her confusion that he probably knew how his close presence on her bed was affecting her.

  'You simply mean they are snobs,' he mocked. 'That they haven't the wisdom to know that in Spain a beggar may have the pride of a prince if he
also has a sense of honour and abides by it. That is why I love Spain, señorita. That is why I choose to be there more often than I am at Abbeywitch. In my absences Jack is master, but where is Jack, I wonder?'

  'Probably alone and brooding,' she murmured, and all at once she recalled Stuart's insinuation that Jack's wife may have been involved with Rodare. She couldn't bear to believe it, and yet Pauline had found herself in need of a refuge against the in-laws who despised her because she worked as a chorus girl and wasn't a social butterfly like Sharon Chandler.

  Debra gave a sigh. 'Poor Pauline,' she murmured. 'One moment her life was filled with bright lights, and the next she lay dead among the cruel rocks. Isn't it a good thing we don't know what fate has in store for us?'

  'It certainly keeps us from going mad,' he said drily. 'Have I convinced you that you have no need to leave Abbeywitch?'

  'I—I don't know.' She looked at him and saw how very Spanish he was; that soon he would leave Abbeywitch and if she stayed she would be like Pauline, at the mercy of Zandra who couldn't endure Stuart Coltan to look at another girl. At the mercy of Lenora Salvador who until her dying day would assume herself to be superior because her elegant and useless hands had never been put to use.

  'Wherever Jack may be, I know he's relying on someone to do their utmost for his book.' Rodare gave her a compelling look and his strong hand cupped her head so her hair was flowing over his fingers. 'You won't let him down, will you? I can't believe that you are the sort of girl to be easily intimidated—you defended yourself well enough when we met for the first time on the beach, remember?'

  Oh yes, she remembered every detail and the memory made her realise that right now she was clad for bed beneath her wrap. Her skin warmed and she felt a blush running over, showing itself through her fair skin so he couldn't help but notice her heightening of colour. Something seemed to spark in his eyes, and then like a portcullis his lashes came down and his eyes were guarded again.

  'We danced well together, eh?' A smile quirked the edge of his mouth. 'I wonder how you would perform the paso doble? Have you ever tried it?'

  She shook her head and thought of what Stuart had said. 'I know it's an exciting dance, but I quit dancing school before I could start the Latin American course. The rumba is fairly simple.'

  'But most enjoyable. Why did you run away—were you suddenly overcome by shyness?'

  She smiled diffidently. 'I felt I had showed off enough, and I could see that Mrs Salvador and Zandra were displeased. I—I know what they were thinking.'

  'Do enlighten me, Miss Hartway, what were they thinking?'

  'That I was—flirting with you.'

  'Dios, how that must have scandalised them.'

  'I know you're amused,' she said defensively, 'but I've now been at Abbeywitch long enough to have learnt that your stepmother never approved of Pauline, so she's bound to be annoyed if she thinks I'm stepping out of line. You must have seen for yourself the way she was looking at us!'

  'I had no need to look,' he drawled.

  'Do you always suit yourself regardless of other people's feelings?' Debra asked him quite seriously.

  'Whose feelings do you refer to, señorita, your own or my stepmother's?'

  'Both, señor. You made me dance with you, and you knew she would disapprove, so you can't blame me if I think you please yourself most of the time.'

  'Do you think I am bothered by your opinion of me?'

  'No—'

  'I wonder?' He leant a little closer and searched her eyes and she felt his breath fan warm across her face. 'It rarely comes as any surprise to me that young Spanish girls have a certain innocence, but whenever I return to England I find innocence a commodity which soon will have antique value. Can you wonder at my first reaction when I came upon you on the beach? Always when I return I take a stroll along the sands and there you were on my beach, bare as a peeled shrimp—ah, you don't care to be reminded of it, do you?'

  Debra had gone rigid in his grip . . . once again, as in the conservatory, she had the feeling that he was trying to delve into her personality and make her fit into the pattern of the experienced English girl who couldn't be over twenty and still a virgin.

  'You seem to like reminding me,' she said tensely. 'Why should you be shocked if you believe that all English girls are shameless? You should have taken me in your stride, like those topless holidaymakers on the Costa Brava.'

  'You were a little more than topless,' he mocked. 'Of course, had we met in my brother's office then I might have been fooled into thinking you a sedate young spinster. What a pity!'

  Debra stared at him and felt her heart thudding away in her innocent frame and there seemed no way she could hit back at his big, powerful, threatening form. He seemed to be able to take the initiative in any situation and she wished she could make him feel less sure of himself.

  'The sooner you go home to your pure Spanish girls the better,' she said. 'I was getting along fine with my job before you came and spoilt everything—now your family will think that I throw myself at men, and I don't! I didn't want to dance with you—you forced me into it—oh, I wish you'd leave me alone!'

  'Do you imagine I came to your room on purpose? I looked in on my nephew, and there you happened to be and you were crying. I showed for you the same concern I would show for any other guest in my house—' Abruptly he broke off as the door was thrust open and Lenora Salvador swept in, outrage written all over her face.

  Her eyes took Debra in, still captive in Rodare's grip, there on the bed. The look of anguish which Debra flung at him could only be misread like everything else. How was there any way to explain his presence in her bedroom, and even if he attempted an explanation his stepmother wasn't in the mood to believe him . . . the look she was giving them made Debra tingle to the roots of her hair. She felt sure Lenora wanted to grab her by the hair and throw her out of the house.

  'Zandra warned me!' Lenora's lips were thin with rage. 'She said you had been seen coming in here—you, Rodare, with your proud talk about the ways of Spain and how the men respect the honour of the women. I don't see you living up to your proud boast!'

  'I came in here—' He paused. 'I came to propose to Debra.'

  The incredulous look on his stepmother's face was no match for the look which Debra turned on him. And then with haughty indignation Lenora spoke again.

  'You can't be serious, Rodare? You know the terms of your father's will—the terms which have always existed. It's because of them that you have stayed a bachelor.'

  'Exactly. When I marry I must settle here at Abbeywitch or renounce my right to the property. Only a saint or someone insane would give up his birthright, so I shall abide by the terms of padre's will and make my home here with my bride.'

  Debra listened and decided that Rodare had to be insane and she was about to make some kind of a protest when he tightened his arm so powerfully around her and gave her such a warning look that she bit back her protest and bewilderedly wondered why he should make such a statement to Lenora.

  What on earth was he doing . . . was he protecting his Spanish standards of honour because his stepmother found him in the bedroom of his brother's typist?

  But I'm not a typist, Debra thought indignantly. I'm an editor, and a good one, and I'm not putting up with this nonsense!

  She was about to speak out when Rodare silenced her in the most effective way ... he planted a kiss on her mouth. Then imperturbably he returned his attention to Lenora, rising to his feet so he towered over her.

  'It's high time that I took a wife and settled down,' he said. 'As the saying goes, a man without a wife becomes selfish while a woman without a husband becomes fastidious. What is the matter, Lenora? How disapproving you look.'

  'Can you wonder?' She cast an icy look at Debra, sweeping her eyes over the disorder which Rodare had caused. 'I refuse to believe that you seriously mean to marry someone who is employed in the house! I know you have an odd sense of humour, but you are going a little too fa
r, Rodare. The girl might take you seriously!'

  'I hope she does,' he rejoined. 'You are taking me seriously, are you not, Debra?'

  Debra met his eyes and she wondered what he would do if she did take his crazy proposal seriously. She decided to give him a dose of his own medicine and said softly: 'Of course I am, Rodare. I can't wait to marry you.'

  Something flickered in his eyes, but his face remained imperturbable. 'There you are, Lenora, you have your answer. Debra is all eagerness to become my wife.'

  'I daresay she would be,' Lenora snapped back at him. 'You happen to have money and land and she probably set out to be seduced by you from the moment she laid eyes on you. You've allowed yourself to be taken in just as Jack was, and you'll live to regret it. For heaven's sake, Rodare, pay her off and let her go!'

  Debra flinched and realised that the joke had gone far enough. 'Mrs Salvador,' she started to say, and was brusquely interrupted by Rodare.

  'Perhaps, Lenora, I should suggest that you leave Abbeywitch if you can't bring yourself to live under the same roof with my wife. I know padre was generous to you in his will so you can well afford your own apartment. I daresay you could share it with Zandra.'

  Lenora stared at him as if she couldn't believe her ears, then she carried her silk handkerchief to her nostrils in her habitual gesture of the grieving widow. 'I never thought I'd live to hear you speak to me in such a way, Rodare. That girl is changing you just as Pauline changed Jack. Why are the pair of you drawn to girls beneath your station?'

  'Perhaps it runs in the blood,' Rodare retorted.

  'You—you're insulting,' Lenora gasped.

  'And so are you.' His face was dark and hard. 'Do you think it's kind for Debra to sit and listen to the things you've been saying? Do you think it's ladylike?'

  'Do you think it gentlemanly to creep into her bedroom while we have guests in the house?' Lenora retaliated. 'That's why I came to warn you—we don't want a scandal, do we?'

  'How could there be a scandal when I intend to marry Debra?'