The Jewelled Caftan

by Margaret Pargeter

  For a long moment Ross stared numbly at her clenched hands. She felt strange, quite cold inside in spite of the heat of the day. So this was what he was? .And he wasn't Moroccan after all but French. His aunt must be, too, which explained a lot. Or should do, when she was capable of thinking it out! How hadn't she guessed? Hadn't she felt all along that he was different? The bleak feeling increased three-fold. Why hadn't he told her?

  Her paling face must have alarmed the woman sitting opposite. 'I hope this hasn't disturbed you, child. I find it hard to believe he said nothing.'

  'No,' Ross confessed, trying to hide her deep misery, 'There was no reason why he should, madame.'' Deliberately she forced herself to ask, 'Why, if Monsieur Guerard is a famous surgeon, does he spend so much,time in the desert, and under a different name?'

  CHAPTER TEN

  MADAME leant forward eagerly, clearly more than willing to talk of her own family, to give Ross the information she so painfully sought. 'My father, Armel's grandfather, was with one of the French regiments when Morocco was a French protectorate. My brother and I spent much time here, and it was here that I met the Caid and married him. My brother, Armel's father, married a French girl, but they were both killed in an accident when he was little more than a baby. Fie was a delightful baby, mademoiselle, and my husband and I brought him up. He went to school in France, then on to university, but all his holidays he spent with us. I believe he is still fonder of Morocco than France, although he practised there.'

  She paused, as if the next bit was not going to be so easy to relate. 'He was brilliant and became extremely well known. Then he crashed his car one evening. He had been operating all day and was undoubtedly overtired, but he naturally blamed himself.'

  'Why naturally, madame?''

  'Why?' Madame sighed resignedly. 'Don't we always? There was no one else involved. He crashed into a tree, but his fingers were badly crushed and he couldn't operate any more. I think because of this he became very bitter, or maybe it was because his fiancee gave him up. Anyway, he left everything and came here to do research work. The well- being of our desert tribes has always been near to his heart. A lot of these people still refuse to see a doctor, and there are pockets of disease, as there are still in many countries. To use another name has made it easier for him to work in many areas, although he has always had the full blessing of the authorities. He doesn't, of course, receive any payment, nor does he ask for any, but already he has merited much acclaim.'

  'I see,' Ross whispered, scarcely able to find the voice to speak at all. So Armel had been famous, was famous, and had had a fiancee! Somehow it was this latter that hurt more than anything else. 'I knew none of this,' she admitted slowly, 'although some of it, I suppose, I might have guessed.' It was only too easy to realise now what he had been doing out in the desert, and during all those long hours he had spent in his tent. And she had called him a brigand 1 'I do know about his fingers, but he gave me no details.' She hesitated. 'I believe he was annoyed when I could see little wrong with them.' She shivered as she recalled how he had deliberately used them on her body as if to punish her for tact he in no way appreciated.

  His aunt was nodding, as if what Ross said agreed with her own views. 'I have reason to believe he might go back to surgery, perhaps sooner than we had hoped.'

  Ross said uncertainly, 'Perhaps you shouldn't be telling me this? I'm not sure that Armel—Monsieur Guerard—would wish you to.'

  'I realise, ma chere,' Madame grimaced charmingly, 'but I feel I must tell someone. I'm having the greatest difficulty in keeping it to myself.' Her dark eyes, so like Armel's, snapped, and again she leant towards Ross eagerly. 'About three weeks ago I had a heart attack. Just a slight one, I admit, but it made me feel quite ill for a time. I have an excellent doctor who flies here if necessary, and, just as I began to feel better, I have this phone call from Armel's fiancee—his ex-fiancee, you understand?'

  The cold in Ross turned swiftly to ice, but she was able to nod.

  'It seems,' Madame continued, 'she wishes to see him again, to be, how is it you say, united. That she regrets what she did to him, the pain she caused him, very much. She is convinced that he still loves her but that he is too proud to seek her out. This is why she is coming here, why she begged me to find Armel, so that they might be together again. I felt his happiness was at stake, that my illness was an excuse provided by a benevolent fate to get him from the desert so that they might setde their differences. So immedi- ately I sent Moulay, my only son, to fetch him, ostensibly for my benefit, of course.'

  'I see.' Ross scarcely recognised die flatness of her own voice. So this was how it was with Armel. Well, he had never pretended there could be anything between them but antagonism, so she had no reason to feel so tragic. She could see now why he had not allowed her one glimpse into his private life. To discover he was French was not totally surprising, not after the first shock had worn off, but that he was a famous surgeon put him miles beyond her own humble status. How he must have laughed at her recklessly sweeping assumptions that he was a common, low-down thief!

  As if this was not enough it seemed he had a fiancee, a girl whom he loved. The distress Ross had suffered overnight because of Freddy and Cynthia receded into the background when faced with this new torment. With Freddy and Cynthia it had been nothing she had not known before in varying degrees, but this was something entirely outside any previous experience, a vicious kind of torture. She had been half resigned to remaining here for at least a while, not having been able to resist the idea of helping Armel. Unconsciously, perhaps, she had hoped to see the friction between them dissolving when he learnt how efficient she could be? Had there also been, she wondered heavily, rosy, improbable dreams of the future? Of Armel and herself in the desert, of directing him away from dishonest activities to something useful? How utterly crazy she had been to have ever visualised the two of them finding a lasting happiness together beneath the lonely desert skies!

  'Will his fiancee be long in coming?' she asked slowly, aware vaguely that Madame awaited her comment.

  'No !' Madame appeared exhausted but eminently satisfied with herself. 'She is an American, so you will understand that travel is no problem, especially as she is wealthy ! She will arrive any time, but then we are prepared. Of course .. .' momentarily a frown stilled her tinkling laughter, 'I must ask you not to say anything of this to Armel. I'm afraid I have been rather indiscreet, but as a personal secretary you must be used to such confidences, and the keeping of them, I feel sure.'

  'Yes, madame.'

  'I have only his happiness at heart!' Madame smiled brilliantly, a smile that faded somewhat swifdy as the door opened without warning and Armel strode in.

  'Good morning, Yvette,' he said dryly, 'I hope your health continues to improve. I still can't think why you thought me necessary!' His cryptic glance went straight to Ross and it was easy to see he was extremely displeased about something. 'I trust also that Mademoiselle Lindsay has been keeping you sufficiently entertained?' Startling them both, he swung almost savagely to Ross. 'Did I not tell you to stay in your room?'

  'I .. .'

  'The girl,' Madame intervened quickly, 'was simply on her way to the gardens, Armel, when I happened to see her pass. I merely called her in for coffee. Will you not have some?'

  Coffee not being the wisest choice at that particular moment, he refused. 'No!'

  How curt he could be when he chose ! Ross glanced at him trying, in a confused fashion, to recall his softer moods but there was nothing in his face this morning to invite prolonged inspection, only everything to deter it. His anger, at her apparent disregard for his orders, appeared to be surfacing and she could not sustain the glacial narrowness of his eyes.

  Madame, possibly because of her high station in life, proved quicker witted in such situations. Milder remarks, she obviously sensed, would be lost on her nephew right now. She must provide something more effective, one which might remove the onus from herself.

 
; 'I am surprised to learn, cheri, that you omitted to inform Mademoiselle Lindsay of your true identity? That you are French.'

  Armel's fingers, curling around Ross's wrist in the act of yanking her to her feet, tightened perceptibly and the ensuing jerk landed her within inches of his imperiously straight nose. 'Since when was it any of her—of your busi- ness, mademoiselle!' His words swung harshly from his aunt to herself, almost as if it were she who had reproached him.

  Ross heard herself replying tautly, 'I am not complaining, monsieur. It is natural enough that your aunt should be surprised. After all, it would have been easy enough to have told me.'

  And because I didn't choose to, you behave like a sulky child, even to the droop of your provoking lips. Your wilfulness has never been concealed from me. It makes me regret I didn't deal with you, out there in the desert, as I often felt tempted to 1'

  'Please!' Ross whispered urgently, her throat strangled, 'your aunt, monsieur!' She was aware that Madame listened to Armel with a kind of bewildered sharpness in her eyes, as if something lay just beyond her comprehension, some knowledge, almost within reach, that annoyed her by its evasiveness. Ross added, as Armel neither moved or appeared about to shut up, 'I really don't think Madame is well enough to be upset by such a senseless conversation! I disrupted, if unintentionally, your routine in the desert and you were naturally annoyed, but there was no indiscretion that need worry your aunt.'

  Two minutes later Ross was again standing in her own room, having been torn from Madame's apartments and along the corridor before she quite realised what was happening. Here Armel flung her arm away, as if such contact burnt him, leaving her to stare at him unhappily as he strode to the window and stood staring out. It wouldn't be the mountains he contemplated so grimly, but her growing number of sins. She supposed it might be tactful to apologise for disobeying his orders, but somehow could not. This morning, dressed as he was in a light shirt and dark slacks which moulded his long, powerful legs, his head bare, his hair brushed back thickly, he did look French. This, along with other things she had just learnt, made him seem too much of a stranger to make such overtures possible.

  But surely he had no right to regard her as if she had committed a crime of unheard-of enormity! Hadn't he been guilty of far worse things himself? Hurt began to push aside her indignation. Yet the pain she felt now would be nothing she knew to that which would develop when she had time to fully digest all Madame had told her about his fiancee! She had promised not to mention it, a promise that hadn't really been necessary, as Armel's personal life could have nothing to do with her. Even his career, as he had so recently and decisively pointed out, was none of her business 1

  Then, as his silence unnerved her more than she liked, she faltered to his broad back, 'I'm sorry you feel so strongly about what I did, that I left my room when you told me not to, but your aunt was nice to me and I'm sure she didn't betray any confidences deliberately. Apparently she had no idea you hadn't mentioned your true nationality. It would, as I have already pointed out, have been extremely easy.'

  'Quite,' he agreed hardly, swinging around to face her, 'but you scarcely invited such confidences, did you! You were so sure I was every type of criminal rolled into one. I don't think I exaggerate to say you looked at me often as if you went in fear, even of your life?'

  'No,' she cried. 'Well, maybe,' she confessed reluctantly, her eyes falling guiltily from his.

  'Maybe!' He was by her side again, his hold hurting. 'There was no doubt about it, fair Rosalind ! I meant to make you pay dearly for such undisguised condemnation. Shall we say it became a challenge I couldn't resist? In that you can justifiably relegate me to the ranks of a fool! That I did not take into consideration the enticement of a slim white body, eyes and lips which lured and bewitched, even as they denied, mademoiselle, the final taking!'

  'I did nothing to encourage such—such advances,' Ross stammered, unable to meet the flare of something unrecognisable in his eyes, her heart throbbing so she knew he must feel it. 'Shouldn't you,' she went on desperately, 'be glad you did nothing—er—indiscreet? Nothing which could sully your reputation.'

  'As a member of my profession, you mean?' His head went back and he laughed unkindly. 'Mon dieu And you are not even my patient! So you really think I was bound by such ethics? I left my profession formally, mademoiselle, when I was no longer able to use these 1' He flung up his hand and her dazed glance rested on his two scarred fingers.

  'They look almost perfect now, monsieur. I can't think they can be a handicap any longer.'

  His mouth thinned as he nodded, but it was not as if her words appeared to give much comfort. Impatiently he retorted, 'This I realise. I seem to have regained complete flexibility and am considering returning to France. After I have satisfactorily concluded my work here.'

  'Then you should no longer feel bitter 1 Unless . . .' her voice trailed off. Almost she had betrayed her knowledge of his fiancee. Very nearly she had assured him that all his dreams were on the verge of coming true, not just one of them. That the past was about to compensate him fully for what it had done to him. Her hands were tied, hadn't she promised? Besides, why subject herself to the pain of witnessing his joyful anticipation of another woman?

  Armel Guerard waited, still impatient. 'Second thoughts, cherieV he queried sauvely as she refused to finish her sentence.

  'Some things,' she muttered, 'are better left unsaid. Or perhaps I should say some things are best found out for ourselves.'

  'And what,' he sneered sarcastically, 'am I supposed to conclude from that?'

  'Nothing that is going to make you unhappy, monsieur,' she cried, her blue eyes almost blurred with her own despair. 'Anyway, I wish you every success, in everything,' she added stiffly, as if they were already wishing each other goodbye.

  A moment's enigmatic pause. 'Success,' he rejoined dryly, 'is very rarely all that it seems. I imagined I was relatively successful with women once. Until I met you.'

  Had his voice softened? Had his eyes, his sensuous mouth taken on a gentle irony, as if he sought some assurance only she could give? If only she could tell him that in a very short time all his confidence in that direction would be restored. His fiancee should be with him, probably within hours. All Ross could hope for with reasonable expectation was that she

  might be spared the agony of seeing them meet.

  'You don't speak!' He studied her, and if she had been unsure of the warmth there was no mistaking his coldness. 'Occasionally,' he added, 'I suspect it pleases you to appear somewhat disturbed, so that I must seek every answer myself. Come here, you little deceiver!'

  Before Ross could move his arms went out to draw her to him, slipping around her slender back so forcibly as to make her realise it would be useless to fight him. But she didn't want to—it was a fault in her that she never wanted to ! Her eyes widened, then closed, her whole body responding to the hardness of his touch. She turned up her mouth,"uninvited, as he lowered his, feeling the same urgent desire as her body moulded itself against his hard frame.

  His hand came up, spreading and tugging through her tumbled hair, and she half lay against him, her balance gone. His mouth trailed over the soft skin of her cheek to the bare curve of her neck, seeking out each sensitive hollow as he bent her back over his arm. There were waves of white shooting stars breaking into shattering fragments about her head, and her lips parted as at last his returned to plunder them unmercifully. His voice was low, murmuring between kisses and she heard herself whisper his name as she answered him. Then, suddenly shocked by the recklessness of her own behaviour, she was pushing him away, denying that there could ever be anything between them.

  She had not hoped he would let her go easily, but he did. 'I don't know why you feel you must go on punishing me,' she whispered, her face intensely white with emotion. 'You could be sorry.'

  'That sounds very like a threat—or a warning?'

  'No.' She must be careful! Hadn't Madame warned her not to say anythin
g?

  Armel stood back, his eyes glinting coolly. 'Well, I am about to issue both! An order, if you like, and I have no wish to be disobeyed ! I will send a girl to take you down to the gardens. Afterwards you will be served with a light lunch in your room. This evening you will join the family for dinner, to which I will personally escort you. My aunt will be there, for a little while. I am telling you this as you appear to derive more comfort from her presence than mine.'

  Again, as he paused derisively, Ross wondered drearily how he could so quickly dctach himself from the emotional scenes they so frequendy shared. It pointed to only one thing, and she didn't care to think about it. Tears stung her eyes, the desolate tears which of late had been coming too frequently. He was in no way involved, not as she was! * He continued, As it seems you are particularly resilient you can begin working tomorrow on those letters which she feels can be put off no longer. But that is all! In a few days' time you could probably do a certain amount for me. We shall see.'

  We shall see ! Ross's chin lifted angrily. It was his arrogant way of taking supreme command of the situation ! Did she have no say in the matter? 'You may find in the next few days, monsieur, you don't need me at all 1' There was so much emphasis in her voice as to indicate unmistakably that there was at least one thing he wasn't aware of. That he had a shock of some sort coming.

  His mouth moved to a guarded line of suspicion, his eyes piercing on the surge of guilty, defiant colour in her face. 'What exactly has Yvette been up to now?' he snapped instantly. 'Just what has she been saying?'

  Her nerve cowardly dispersing, Ross shivered unhappily. 'Why, nothing,' she faltered, wishing desperately for even a little of Armel's icy control. Before it her attack lay weakly shattered. 'What would she tell me—a stranger !'

  'What indeed!' He was by no means pacified. 'After over thirty years in her position one might imagine she must have learnt all about discretion, but there are still times when she fails to stop and think before she speaks.'