One Who Kisses

by Marjorie Lewty

  She closed her eyes while he was speaking to the hospital, not even trying to understand the gabble of French she could hear faintly from the other end of the line.

  At last he thanked whoever it was he had been speaking to, and put the receiver back on its cradle. Then he looked down at Polly with a curious, unreadable expression on his face.

  'W—what's the news?' Polly faltered. She had a sudden feeling that Madame Brunet was dead—and that he was glad.

  But he said, 'Favourable, I suppose, as far as it goes. The operation seems to have gone off successfully, but they're not sure yet about possible further internal injuries. It certainly looks as if Madame is in for a long stay.'

  Polly nodded. 'I see. I suppose that suits you very well.'

  He was looking enigmatic. 'That depends.'

  'Depends?' she echoed idiotically. Why was he still standing there in the phone box, so devastatingly close? 'Depends on what?'

  He smiled and she could actually feel her toes curling inside her sandals.

  'On you, Polly,' said Piran St Just.

  CHAPTER THREE

  'What?' gasped Polly. 'Why does it depend on me?' But she knew why, she had had a horrid feeling for the last half-hour that it wasn't going to be easy to get out of this situation.

  He pushed open the phone box door with his hip and led her out into the street, his hand still gripping her arm. Just as if he were a jailer and she his prisoner, she thought resentfully.

  'Surely it's obvious?' he said. 'You seem to be my life-support system just at the moment. As you say, Jules isn't going to be easy to shift and—in spite of Madame's nasty insinuations—I'm no kidnapper. So if he's to come quietly it will have to be you to persuade him. You obviously like children, and you've won his confidence already. Possibly the fact that you're a little like his mother has something to do with it. In looks, I hasten to add. I'm sure you don't resemble her in any other way.'

  'Why are you so sure?' Polly enquired shortly. 'You don't know a thing about me.'

  He roared with laughter. 'My dear girl, do you think I can't recognise a tart when I see one? And you're not.'

  That should have been a compliment, but for some reason Polly felt slightly deflated. 'This is a fascinating conversation,' she said stiffly. 'Tell me what I am, then, if you're so clever at summing up people at first glance.'

  He didn't reply immediately and they walked on in silence. This was a quiet, suburban part of Paris; there were few cars and fewer passers-by. The green of a park glimmered darkly from across the road and the breeze rustled in the leaves above their heads. Piran gave Polly's arm a little squeeze and there was a smile in his voice as he said softly, 'You, Polly, are a nice girl. I've found that out already.'

  A nice girl. Little Polly from the orphanage; fond of children; easily led. A soft touch, in fact. He'd use me as long as I was useful, she thought, and then thank-you-very-much-and-goodbye. No, she'd rather be in London on her own, looking for a job. Piran St Just spelled danger. She wasn't in his league.

  They went up in the lift to the apartment. There was no sound from Jules's room, but Polly peeped in again just to make sure that he was still sleeping. Then she went back to the living room. Piran St Just was sitting on the sofa, long legs stretched out. 'Well?' he said, 'are you willing to help in a good cause?'

  She couldn't very well say no straight away. 'What are you suggesting?' she enquired cautiously.

  He patted the sofa beside him. 'Come and sit down and we'll talk it over.'

  She pretended not to see the gesture and sat down in a small chair opposite. He raised his eyebrows a fraction and shrugged. He didn't miss a thing, Polly thought. He could probably read her mind and was preparing to talk her round.

  'I'm not suggesting anything cut and dried at the moment. Merely that you stay with us and keep an eye on Jules and keep him happy while I make arrangements to get him back to England, and make sure that Madame Brunet is O.K. After all, the old biddy is a sort of relative by marriage, whether I like it or not. You said you were looking out for a teaching job—well, this would be the next best thing. What do you say, Polly?'

  Polly looked into the hard face, the hooded dark eyes searching her own, and almost intuitively she realised that this moment was vitally important, that whatever she said might affect her life for a long time to come. She knew that now she was still free to make a decision, but that after the moment had passed she would no longer be free. So, she thought, she had better choose the right path now.

  She shook her head. 'I'm sorry, Mr St Just. I'd like to help Jules, but I've got my own future to think of.' She grimaced. 'I haven't any life-support system, you see. I really think I must get back to London as soon as possible and try to find a permanent job.' His eyes were holding hers and doing strange things to her concentration.

  'Is that your last word, Polly?' He leaned towards her, elbows on knees. 'Couldn't I persuade you to change your mind? I can't very well plead for myself because I can see that I haven't made an altogether favourable impression on you. But for young Jules— it's perfectly obvious that you've won his confidence. It would mean a lot to him, I'm sure, to have you around for a while.'

  'Perhaps,' Polly acknowledged in a small, reluctant voice. 'And I'd like to help him to adjust. But—' she shook her head again '—no, I really can't. I have my plans made and I can't alter them because of a casual meeting.'

  He sank back into the depths of the sofa, regarding her with interest now. 'You don't believe in fate, then? You can't see a pattern in everything that happens?'

  'Can you?'

  'Oh, certainly I can. I think you were meant to sit next to Madame B. on the coach. I think that was the beginning of a pattern and that everything that happened afterwards, today, was intended to happen. Even you sitting opposite me now, looking faintly disapproving.'

  'I could easily come back with "Ships that pass in the night",' she said. 'And anyway, Mr St Just, the answer is still No. Sorry, but No. I must go back to London tomorrow. I'm sure Jules will soon get used to you looking after him.'

  He shrugged. 'I see I'll have to accept defeat, then. But it seems a pity.'

  Polly felt a quite unreasonable stab of disappointment. Weak, she told herself, that's what you are. You knew it would be crazy to agree, but you somehow wanted the decision taken out of your hands.

  She stood up. 'I think I'll go to bed now. I must be up early in the morning to go to my hotel and pack, if I'm to catch the afternoon flight.' She felt in command of things now that she had put the necessary gap between herself and the situation.

  He stood up, shrugging ruefully. 'Well, thank you for all you've done, Miss West. You've been a great help. I don't know how we should have managed without you, Jules and I.' He was smiling straight down into her eyes and Polly took the whole force of that look. She tried to turn away, but she couldn't move; his eyes held hers like a magnet.

  'Dammit, that's no way to say thank you to a pretty girl,' he said softly, and put both hands on her shoulders. 'Thank you, Polly,' he said again, and he bent down and kissed her lips. It wasn't a sensual kiss, neither was it merely a token of gratitude. For a moment longer than was necessary his mouth was pressed against hers, and she felt as if stars were exploding somewhere round her head.

  Then he drew away, and he wasn't smiling. 'Now I've really got something to thank you for,' he said. He gave her a little push towards the door of the room where Jules lay sleeping. 'You'd better go to bed now or I shall forget that you're a nice girl.'

  He was fooling, of course, and Polly knew she should quip back, take the kiss as lightly as he had offered it. But her throat was dry and she could say nothing at all. She stared at him for a moment, eyes wide, then she almost ran into the bedroom and closed the door.

  She stood with her back to it, breathing unevenly. She had never felt like this before about a man and she didn't know how to cope with it. What was she, for heaven's sake? He had called her a 'nice girl', but nice girls didn't feel lik
e she was feeling now about a man she had only met an hour ago. And a man who almost certainly had a beautiful, soignée wife presiding over an elegant home, where Jules would finally be taken, if Piran St Just's plans materialised.

  But she was very tired. She really didn't want to think about the man in the next room, she wanted to get some sleep.

  It was dark in the bedroom, but the curtains were thin, and a faint light filtered in from the street outside. Polly groped her way across to the bed opposite Jules's and turned back the duvet. It wasn't going to be a very comfortable night's sleep, she was sure of that. A strange bed, and no nightdress. Also she had forgotten to go into the bathroom to make some sort of attempt to clean her teeth. This worried her for a while, but she couldn't face the effort of returning to the living room to encounter the St Just man again tonight. She would have to pretend she was doing some sort of an Outward Bound exercise and sleep rough. With a sigh she pulled off her sandals and slipped into the bed.

  She screamed. And screamed. She couldn't help herself. In the bed something cold and clammy met her bare feet, sending wave after wave of terror shuddering through her whole body. Horrible, obscene memories of slimy animals, seen on TV nature films, presented themselves to her imagination. She was shaking from head to foot and sobbing with sheer terror when Piran St Just threw open the door and took her arms in a steely grip from behind.

  She heard his angry voice. 'What the bloody hell's going on? You'll have the gendarmes up here if you don't shut up.'

  'I—in the b-bed—' Polly whimpered. 'An animal—I think it's dead. It's horrible—'

  Again she experienced the nauseating shock when her bare feet encountered that obscene object in the bed and her sobs rose almost into hysteria.

  'Be quiet!' Piran shook her roughly and as she began to scream again he slapped her smartly on her cheek.

  Her knees gave way under her and she slid down to the floor as he snapped on the light. In a daze she saw him walk over to the bed and she stared in horror as he groped down into it.

  'God!' he muttered in disgust. 'Cold—and leaking. The mattress is soaked through. There's your animal, Polly.' He threw a rubber hot water bottle on to the floor beside her.

  After a moment she put out a shaking hand and touched it gingerly. 'Ugh! Beastly!' With a tremendous effort she got to her feet. 'Sorry!' she said in a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. 'That was silly of me, making all that fuss. I'm not usually such a coward.'

  'Understandable!' he said, not very sympathetically. He walked quietly across to Jules's bed. 'A good thing he was tired,' he murmured. 'He doesn't seem to have been wakened by all the fuss. Now come along—' he shooed her out of the bedroom. 'You can't sleep in that bed tonight, that's for sure.'

  Polly sank down on to the sofa, feeling absolutely whacked now. She didn't care about anything, or any impression she had made. All she wanted was to lie down and sleep. 'I could easily sleep here.' She patted the sofa; it was deep and soft. One of the springs was broken, but she could avoid that. She yawned. 'I— really must sleep somewhere soon,' she murmured stupidly.

  Piran St Just lowered himself on to the sofa beside her. 'You've had a shock,' he said. 'You need something to get you out of it first. You think you'll sleep if you just lie down and close your eyes now, but of course you won't. Or if you do, you'll wake up soon with a nightmare. And we don't want any more hysterics, do we?' He put one arm about her shoulders and gave it a little squeeze. 'Poor little Polly,' he said softly. 'What a game we've given you, haven't we? Never mind, you'll be rid of us tomorrow.'

  'Yes,' she said in a small voice, and suddenly it seemed terribly sad that she wasn't going to see him again. Or Jules, of course. Stupid tears gathered in her eyes and she bit her lower lip hard, but it was no good. A moment later she was sobbing, and he was holding her tight against his checked cotton shirt.

  He let her go on crying, he simply dug in his pocket and produced a handkerchief and stuffed it into her hand. She buried her face in it and it smelled of cologne and laundry-cleanliness, and there was something very comforting and—right—about being held in this man's arms.

  Which was odd, because up to now she had always carefully avoided situations where proximity with a man might go to his head—or hers. She didn't want to get involved in any sort of a love affair just yet.

  And now here she was with all her good resolutions tottering. Alone in a flat at night, with a stranger, and feeling warm, and soft, and weak with this treacherous longing to reach up and put her arms round his neck.

  Suddenly she heard a muffled sound from inside Jules's bedroom and sat up, wiping her eyes. 'Oh, goodness, I must have wakened him after all.' She jumped to her feet, anxiety allaying her tiredness, and hurried into the bedroom. 'It's all right, Jules dear—' she began.

  It was maddening that her silly mistake should have wakened him and upset him. Then she saw with horror that it was more than just an upset. He was sitting up in bed, wheezing and gasping, one hand to his throat, his eyes agonised.

  'Oh God!' Polly whispered over her shoulder to Piran, behind her. 'It's an asthma attack.' One of the boys at the home had been inclined to have asthma attacks, especially if anything happened to upset him, and she recognised the symptoms.

  'Have a look in all the drawers and see if you can see anything that looks like an inhaler with his name on it,' she said over her shoulder to Piran. She sat on the bed and put an arm round the child, speaking slowly and soothingly to him. 'There, love, you'll soon be better, try to breathe out. Blow on my fingers—there, that's better, that's fine.'

  'I can't find anything,' Piran whispered, by her side. Like most men in the face of sudden inexplicable illness, he sounded worried and at a loss.

  'All right, then,' Polly said in a low voice. 'This is probably just a stress reaction. He'll be better soon, I'm sure. You go and warm some milk. That will do him good when he's over the attack.'

  Piran disappeared promptly. Polly went on comforting the boy, and at last Jules was breathing more easily, lying back against the pillow, looking very white and frail.

  Piran came back with some warm milk in a beaker and Jules was persuaded to drink a little. Finally, exhausted, he dropped off to sleep again, breathing more easily, with only a little catch now and again. Polly waited until she was quite sure all was well and then went out of the room, leaving the bedside lamp switched on with its shade tipped away from the sleeping boy.

  In the living room Piran was standing in front of the electric fire, hands deep in his pockets, brow creased.

  'This is a facer,' he said gloomily as Polly sank wearily into the depths of the sofa. 'We appear to be dogged by bad luck.' He didn't seem to notice that he had said 'we', thus including Polly in the enterprise.

  But Polly noticed. She said quickly, 'I don't suppose it's anything to worry about. I said it was asthma, but it may only be a sort of nervous reaction to everything that's happened to Jules recently. I rather think he's one of those children who are inclined to bottle things up, and if he's been anxious inside then this attack would be his way of letting go. There was a little boy at the home who had one of these attacks and once he settled down it wasn't repeated. It probably won't happen again with Jules, either.'

  He flicked her a keen look. 'The home?'

  'The children's home where I grew up,' she said. 'It was a very good one,' she added. She would hate to give him the 'poor little orphan' impression. And she wasn't going to mention the bad times, either—the sickening feeling of waiting and waiting for the mother who had promised to come back but never came. The terrible black loneliness that came from nowhere and lasted for days. Mostly she had been contented, though, and some built-in cheerfulness in her nature had seen her through. By the time the examinations came along and she was immersed in work the black lonely periods came less and less frequently, until by now they seemed almost to have disappeared. The trick was to get busy, to find something to do, someone to help.

  She broug
ht her thoughts back and saw that Piran was watching her closely. 'But we were talking about Jules,' she said. 'As I said, I don't suppose this sort of attack will happen again.'

  'Can you promise me that?'

  'Well—no, of course I can't.'

  'Can you tell me how to deal with it if it does?'

  She saw where all this was leading. 'You—you just have to reassure him and—and comfort him until the attack passes off. And you'll let him see a doctor, I'm sure.'

  He ran a hand through his hair. 'Can you imagine just how comforted Jules will be—by me?'

  When she didn't reply he sat down beside her and said simply, 'I'm in your hands, Polly. Won't you change your mind and stay with us?'

  This time there wasn't any choice. Piran St Just would get his way, but not, Polly assured herself, because of his machismo. It was simply because she couldn't, now, desert little Jules.

  She sighed. 'I see I'll have to—for Jules's sake, of course.'

  He grimaced. 'Of course! I didn't suppose it would be for mine.'

  Polly ignored that. She said, 'I'm prepared to stay around and help until you can get Jules back to your home in England. And then your wife will be able to cope, I'm sure.'

  The grim look came back into his face. 'That's the trouble—I don't have a wife any more.' He was silent for a moment and then he added bitterly, 'The St Just men don't seem to have had much luck with marriage. Mine ended just under a year ago.'

  'I see,' said Polly. 'Well, I suppose you'll be able to get a housekeeper to look after Jules.'

  He glanced at her and away again. 'Yes, I suppose so.' He sounded less than enthusiastic. 'Oh well, we can sort that out when we get Jules home.'

  'And where is home?' Polly enquired.

  'A little village in Dorset, near the sea. You'll like it, Polly.'

  'Oh yes?' she enquired coolly. It sounded lovely, but she wasn't going to allow Piran to see that she was impressed. She felt as if she were walking through a minefield. One false step and everything would explode around her.