House of Storms

by Violet Winspear

  'For God's sake, Rodare!' Debra had had enough of sitting there listening to the pair of them. 'As if you have to marry me—the whole thing is ridiculous!'

  'There you are.' Lenora looked triumphant. 'These working girls don't expect proposals of marriage when they're caught with a man. Your trouble, Rodare, is that you've lived in Spain too long. You don't have to feel obliged and Miss Hartway knows it. Give her a cheque.'

  'I wouldn't touch his money with a bargepole,' Debra flared up. 'I'm going to pack my suitcase and I'm getting away from Lovelis Island before I finish up like Pauline.' She scrambled off the bed and hurried across to the cupboard where she kept her suitcase, but halfway there Rodare caught up with her and swung her to face him.

  'Do you really want to leave?' he demanded.

  'I can't wait to get away,' she retorted. 'I came here to work on a book and didn't expect to find myself being spoken to as if I'm a—a slut. I've never played around with men in my life a-and I won't be accused of it! You know very well that we weren't playing around!'

  'Really, Miss Hartway,' Lenora's eyes flicked her up and down, 'if being in the arms of a man on a bed isn't playing around, then please tell me your definition—it must be quite hair-raising.'

  'I—I was crying.' Debra sought for the words that would take the look of contempt off Lenora's face. 'I was upset about something and Mr Salvador was trying to make me feel better—'

  'I'm sure he was,' Lenora drawled. 'I am certain that Rodare is very good at making young women feel better—that was certainly the way it looked when I walked in.'

  Debra blushed vividly and couldn't stop herself, seeing the scene as it must have looked to Lenora who had already decided earlier in the evening that Debra, as an employee at Abbeywitch, had overstepped the mark by performing a rumba with the master of the house. If the situation hadn't been so threatening then it might have been amusing, but never had Debra felt less like laughing.

  The threat simmered in Rodare's eyes and in the way he was gripping hold of her. He hated the way they had been caught together, she realised, especially as he had been so quick to warn Stuart Coltan that if he did anything he shouldn't beneath the roof of Abbeywitch, he would find himself in trouble.

  Debra suspected that Stuart was at the bottom of this predicament she found herself in. She had the feeling he had been lurking about when Rodare had visited the nursery; he had waited and watched and seen Rodare follow her into her room, and he had then gone to Zandra and hatched mischief.

  'Oh, does it really matter?' Debra sighed. 'It's really only a storm in a teacup. I'll leave and the whole thing can be forgotten.'

  'Not by me.' Rodare spoke in a voice of iron. 'You may recall what I said, Debra, and I meant it. While you reside beneath my roof I guard your name . . . there is no way I can let you leave with mud on your name. It's a matter of pride.'

  'This isn't Spain, señor—' Debra had grown frightened by his manner, and all too well she remembered the scene down in the hall, when he had told Stuart that he made the rules that applied to this house and he expected himself as well as other men to abide by them.

  'Spain is where a Spaniard happens to be,' he rejoined. 'I repeat, I can't allow you to leave. I must put things right and that means you must marry me—whether you want to or not!'

  'What utter nonsense, Rodare. As if her good name matters?'

  He swung round to face his stepmother and he looked as if he were barely holding himself in check. 'You have said all I wish to listen to, señora. It's time to say good night, so please leave!'

  She stared at him a fraction longer, then with a shrug she turned to leave, saying as she went: 'Play the gallant fool if you feel you must, but you'll regret it—regret it with all your heart, just as Jack did. Fools the pair of you! Making wives of girls who don't fit into our way of life. Girls of a lower class!'

  She significantly left the door open behind her and Debra stared at the opening as if she wanted to dash out. . . out of this house which she had entered so innocently, unaware that she would find herself in a situation such as Rodare Salvador proposed.

  'It is nonsense,' she said to him. 'People these days don't get married to avoid a scandal, and no matter what your stepmother surmised or said, you and I know that we've done nothing wrong.'

  'Of course we know.' His look was sombre and very Spanish. 'But everybody else will think otherwise, and in all conscience I can't allow other people to put a wrong interpretation upon our behaviour. You see, the curse of a Spanish heritage is that honour and duty are deep in the bone, there in the marrow, and I am quite unable to watch you leave this island labelled as my partner in a grubby little episode.'

  'There was no episode—least of all a grubby one,' Debra protested. 'Why should I expect you to—to marry me? Only people in love get married.'

  'In Spain,' he said deliberately, 'love is not always the reason, as in this case. We have been caught so we pay the price!'

  'You can't make me marry you—' Debra backed away from him. 'You're behaving just like the other Don Rodare, and you know it!'

  'Not quite like him.' Rodare took a step forward in time with her every backward one until she had nowhere to go but out on the terrace in the chilly night air. He came after her and without any hesitation swept her up into his arms and returned her to the bedroom, where he held her and scanned her face.

  He gave a brief laugh. 'Come, don't look so petrified by the idea. Don't you find anything about me worth being married to? I have sufficient funds for the two of us and, after all, what is love? We say in Spain that love doesn't happen, it has to be made.'

  He dropped her to her feet. 'Your eyes are almost out of your head, so go to your bed and sleep will repair your shattered emotions.' He strode to the door and flung a few last words over his shoulder. 'Tomorrow I shall start to arrange matters and you had better write to your mother to inform her that you are going to become a wife. Buenas noches, Debra mia!'

  'I'm not yours,' she protested.

  He turned in the doorway to regard her as she knelt on the bed in an attitude of appeal. 'I think I know you better than most,' he said, 'so in that context you are mine. Does the thought frighten you?'

  'It frightens me that you're always so sure about everything,' she rejoined. 'You—you take things for granted.'

  'I am taking you for granted, eh?'

  'Yes—you think I shall tamely do as you say a-and marry you.'

  'You will marry me because you have no choice.'

  'I do have a choice.' Her eyes were pure green as she looked at him across the room, seeing in him everything she could intensely love if she allowed herself such madness, but seeing also a man whose pride enforced his proposal of marriage. It was the proud boast of his house Let honour reside within and Rodare felt duty-bound to stand by that statement.

  'And what choice is that pray?' He was drawn up to his full height, looking every inch the hidalgo to whom his name as well as hers was of the utmost importance . . . exceeding that of two people being madly in love with each other, swept by all the passions and not just a passionate sense of honour.

  'I respect your wish to respect me,' Debra's voice softened, 'but you must be realistic, señor. When you marry you must marry a girl who will fit into your way of life. I have a career—'

  'You have a responsibility,' he broke in.

  'Oh, in what way?' She looked perplexed.

  'You were responsible in the first place for my presence in your bedroom.'

  'But I—I didn't ask you in. I didn't ask for your sympathy, señor.'

  'You didn't repudiate it when I gave it.' He withdrew her pearl pendant from his pocket and swung it in his fingers. 'I shall have this repaired for you, but tell me who gave it to you in the first place?'

  'My father,' she said simply.

  'And would your father be happy if he knew that his daughter left her place of employment with a black mark against her name?'

  'No—but you exaggerate, señor. The r
ules in England aren't quite so definite as those in Spain and you must be aware that your stepmother had already decided that I should be dismissed.'

  'Dismissed because you danced with me,' he said ironically. 'The more we talk, señorita, the deeper we find ourselves embroiled—fate has decided for us, wouldn't you agree?' And he gave the smile that was never more than half realised, his gaze brilliant and unavoidable, his dominance accentuated by his haughty Latin nose.

  'Fate,' she murmured, and her head was slightly bowed so the lamplight played upon the subtle highlights in her hair, a glossy cape around the shoulders of her pale mauve wrap.

  She gave an emotional shiver, for it was as if fate had taken a hand and placed her within dangerous reach of a man she would never meet again if she left him as she secretly planned to do.

  'Run away from me,' he menaced, 'and I shall follow you.'

  'But why?' she asked.

  'Because I stand by my word!' He inclined his head like an eighteenth-century courtier, then the door closed behind him and Debra was left alone to remember every detail of his face as he had spoken those words.

  'Rodare,' she whispered. 'Oh, Rodare, you devil—you beloved devil!'

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  'WHAT do you think I should do, Nanny Rose?'

  Debra hugged young Dean in her arms and gazed across at the older woman with a hint of hope in her eyes that Nanny Rose would be able to solve the problem she had brought to the nursery quite early. Beyond the open windows the birds could be heard, but the sunlight was fitful as the occasional large cloud rolled above the sea.

  'Perhaps you should listen to your heart,' came the reply to Debra's anxious question. 'You may not get the answer you hope is the right one, but you'll get an answer if I'm any judge.'

  'But I daren't—' Debra broke off. 'You think I've fallen for him, don't you?'

  'Aye, you've fallen a good deal of the way,' Nanny Rose agreed, but the look in her eyes was gentler than her tone of voice. 'I could see it happening—you so untried, and Mr Rodare so big and dominating, with those Spanish ways of his. And now he wants to marry you!'

  'I—I told you why, Nanny Rose.'

  'So you did, ducky.'

  'But don't you think it's impossible?'

  Nanny Rose thoughtfully poured two cups of tea from the brown glazed teapot she had treasured through many households where she had worked as a nanny. 'It's time he settled down and to my way of thinking a kind-hearted girl like yourself would be better for him than the Chandler girl, for all her beauty and worldly ways.'

  'They belong to the same social circle and she is stunning.' Debra ruminated. 'I was watching them together at the party and they looked well-matched.'

  'So you don't think you're a match for him?' Nanny Rose placed Debra's cup of tea in front of her and removed the reluctant little boy to his high-chair. She gave him a rusk to nibble and sat down at the table, her eyes upon Debra as she stirred her tea.

  Debra shook her head. 'I'd no more fit into his life than Pauline fitted into his brother's— look what became of her! Perhaps her death wasn't an accident. Perhaps she took her own life. The facts were never firmly established, were they?'

  'The thing is,' Nanny Rose sipped her tea, 'Mr Rodare would take better care of a wife than his brother.'

  'You mean he'd be more possessive.' Debra had to smile. 'He'll never stop being three-parts Spanish—his spine went like a ramrod when Mrs Salvador made her suggestive remarks. I knew instantly that he couldn't bear them. He not only looks as if he's stepped out of the eighteenth century but he has the duelling instinct and I can see him with a rapier in his hand, defending his honour among the misty trees at dawn.'

  Debra's smile gave way to a sigh. 'But it's no joke and I think I must leave Abbeywitch.'

  'I don't see why,' Nanny Rose said unexpectedly. 'You're more akin to this house than Madam herself, and ten times more akin to it than Zandra. You've taken to the place, haven't you?'

  'Yes,' Debra confessed. 'I think I could stay here for ever, but Rodare has only proposed to me out of a sense of obligation and I can't let him marry someone he doesn't love.'

  'All the same it's tempting, isn't it?' Nanny Rose said shrewdly. 'It isn't every girl who gets the chance to get her hands on a man like him—granted he's a proud devil, but he's every inch a man and I bet the very thought of him stirs up your blood. Marry him and make him love you, girl!'

  'Marry him and make him hate me!' Debra jumped to her feet. 'I'm going to pack my things and I'll get Mickey Lee to take me across to the mainland in the launch. I shall miss you, Nanny Rose—you and little Dean.'

  Debra went to the boy's high-chair and, when he smiled up at her, she caught her breath, seeing in him a fleeting resemblance to the man she had to run away from.

  'Your daddy will come home soon, sweetheart.' She bent and kissed his cheek and right away he put his chubby arms around her neck and got rusk crumbs in her hair. She started to laugh, but tears rushed into her eyes and sent her running from the nursery. If this was love, she thought wildly, then it was a weepy business and no mistake. Once in her room she grabbed a paper handkerchief and scrubbed her eyes dry, and this time there was no one to stop her from packing her suitcase. Quite soon it was loaded with her belongings, and now she had to hope that she could get down to the boathouse without attracting Rodare's attention.

  She mustn't see him again. His effect upon her was too unsettling and though she had sought Nanny Rose's advice she couldn't take it. To be loved by Rodare would be wonderful, but to be married to him sans love would be impossible. The very fact that he had stayed a single man so long was an indication that he valued his freedom and the fact that he could spend lots of time in Spain. It had come as quite a surprise to Debra that when he took a wife he either lived permanently at Abbeywitch or gave up his inheritance. It was an entailment that probably went back to the first Don Rodare and had been enforced ever since so the eldest son had to abide by the terms if the house and the island meant anything to him.

  Debra buttoned her jacket and for the last time she went out on the terrace and walked to the parapet that overlooked the sea. A wind had arisen and the clouds were ripped like chiffon and the sea itself had a metallic sheen. It was as if the day matched her mood of melancholy and even as she stood there a spot of rain splashed her cheek, warning her that she had better be on her way.

  She closed the terrace doors, picked up her suitcase and walked from the room where only a matter of hours ago Rodare had said emphatically that he couldn't allow her to leave Lovelis Island with mud on her name. Well, she was leaving and she didn't feel in the least besmirched . . . she thought him gallant but where was the love . . . the subtle thread that led from one heart to another and joined two people together?

  Debra knew herself, she was a romantic with longings to be loved just for herself. She wasn't afraid of passion but she wanted it linked to tenderness and empathy.

  She reached the hall without being seen; it was still quite early and the family and guests were either taking breakfast in their rooms or were in the morning-room with a newspaper. Mickey Lee who worked as boatman for the family always took the motorboat to the mainland in order to collect mail and newspapers, so Debra felt confident that he would be down at the boathouse pottering about. He was the housekeeper's son and slightly retarded, still having the mind of a boy in his tough frame.

  Fingers tense upon the handle of her suitcase Debra hurried beneath an archway shaded by a mass of greenery and her nerves gave a jump as a black raven alighted on a branch, sharp of eye and beak, reminding her a little of the way Lenora Salvador had regarded her when she entered her room and saw what she took to be a clandestine affair between her stepson and Jack's secretary.

  It would take a more open mind to believe otherwise and Debra knew that Lenora had narrow and rigid views about people and their station in life and to her way of thinking a man of means didn't consort with a secretary, and it was that factor rather than anyth
ing else which had so offended her.

  Debra felt quite sure that had Lenora come upon Rodare in a compromising situation with Sharon Chandler she would coolly have looked the other way.

  Debra made her way down the cliffside steps, breathing the scent of stonecrop and rock-spurrey, seeing grey seals poking their heads above water, not far beyond where the surf foamed and bubbled. The wind blew cold against her face and she caught the sound of a curlew, the storm cryer. She hurried along the sand towards the aged boathouse which looked as if it had been constructed from wreckwood; small windows peered from the bleached walls and from inside she heard the sound of hammering.

  Hitching her shoulder-bag she made for the open doorway, hearing behind her the waves as they unfurled themselves on the beach with a hiss and a roar, spraying the air with moisture. A dracaena tree rattled its leaves, looking not unlike a cabbage palm, and again the curlew called.

  'Mickey!' She stood in the doorway of the boathouse and saw someone large bent over the hull of a rowboat. 'I'd like you to take me across to the mainland; I'll pay you!'

  The figure straightened and slowly turned to face her. He regarded her in silence for a few seconds and then came towards her, holding a claw-hammer in his hand.

  'You're the Miss who works for Mister Jack,' he said, and his smile was strangely flickering for it revealed a silver tooth near the front of his mouth. He was hulking and Debra knew that he took part in wrestling bouts, a still very competitive sport in Cornwall. Debra tried not to shrink away from the bulk of him and that strange smile.

  'That's right,' she said. 'I was working for him up until today, but now I'm leaving and I have to get to the mainland so I can catch the train for London. I would be grateful if you'd take me in the launch, and I'll certainly pay you for your trouble.'

  'But, miss,' his brow wrinkled, 'you can't leave work without your pay certificate. You won't be able to get another job.'

  'I—I'll send for it,' she assured him.

  'So you know where Mr Jack is staying as well?' His brow cleared and he took a step nearer to her, a confidential air about him. The others don't know. His Ma and his sister, they don't know, and I didn't even tell when Mr Rodare came and asked me. Me and Mr Jack, we played together as boys. We were friends!'