Lesley, concluding that the interview was over, walked towards her desk to pick up the notes he had brought in, but he put a hand on her arm as she passed him. She went tense and cold as she had last week when he had touched her in the members’ marquee at the point-to-point.
‘There’s just one point I’d like to clear up,’ he said.
‘Yes?’ With an effort she forced herself to brave his cold eyes.
‘This fellow in Australia. Your sister said something about his coming here in the summer. You wouldn’t let his arrival interfere with your work here, would you? These surfing exhibitions usually last only a short time. It would be very inconvenient if you left us in the lurch before the end of the season. There was some mention of marriage, wasn’t there, though I notice you don’t wear a ring.’
Her green eyes, black-fringed, looked back at him with contemptuous antagonism. Was there any limit to his intolerable interference in Trevendone affairs? she wondered in exasperation.
‘I’m not in the habit of breaking my word, Mr. Defontaine. If I promise to stay till the beginning of October, I shall stay, and if it’s of any interest to you I don’t wear a ring because I’m not engaged.’
‘Oh!’ If the information had given him any satisfaction there was no evidence of it on his dark face. ‘One other point,’ he went on casually, “if you aren’t engaged to that fellow in Australia and not waiting for him to arrive here, what’s made you decide to stay on? You’re working for no salary and you’re working damned hard. How come?’
It was only later that Lesley began to wonder what lay behind that question. At the moment she took it at its face value and answered simply, ‘I’m staying because of the twins. I brought them here and I must see them settled. I hope my work here covers the cost of their keep and my own. The Trevendones try to pay their debts, Mr. Defontaine.’
‘Most admirable,’ he returned in a voice of silk as he strolled over to the window.
She watched him, aware of tension in her neck and down her back. In so far as she could ever have any warm feeling for this man she was grateful for what he had done for the twins in getting them both admitted to a local technical institute where Rita was studying commercial subjects and Rick a G.C.E. course which included a study of music.
Rita had been moderately amenable about the arrangement, but it had been touch and go with Rick until Tim Drage down at Penpethic Harbour had weighed in with his approval.
Suddenly Defontaine swung round. ‘You worry too much about those twins. You’re much too young for so much responsibility. Isn’t it time you made some sort of life for yourself?’
She gave him a straight look from her clear green eyes, but she was careful to keep her voice indifferent, even colourless. ‘When are you too young for responsibility, I wonder? How old were you, Mr. Defontaine, when you took over the responsibility of Trevendone?’
A small muscle in his jaw tightened. ‘Actually I was fifteen ... much, much too young. But I’m a man, Miss ... er ... Trevendone. I’m tough. Too much responsibility is bad for a woman. It makes her hard.’
Hard, thought Lesley, remembering Sorrel Lang. You should know. ‘I’m sure you’re a very good judge,’ she said politely.
CHAPTER VII
It was later when she was remembering that conversation that Lesley suddenly thought of Dominic. Had Blake’s probing questions about her reasons for staying been put to find out whether Dominic was the attraction?
Perhaps she was being kinder to the young man than was altogether wise, though she doubted if Dominic would misunderstand no matter what other people might think. But she had felt really grieved for him after ‘witnessing his curt dismissal by Sorrel in the first aid tent at the point-to-point meeting and the way the girl had quite unashamedly shown she preferred the other man. If any kindness on her part could help him over a bad patch, Lesley was only too willing to show it.
Of course she had liked him right from the start not only for his good looks and charm but also because from the beginning he had accepted them as Trevendone cousins from over the sea, not the unwelcome strangers which they had been to Blake and Sorrel and even to Jennifer. He always had time for the twins, and was interested and indulgent about their ‘crazes’—Rita’s about horses and Ricky’s about his music.
On his side, Dominic flirted with her quite openly and unashamedly as he probably did with any pretty girl, and only gradually did it begin to dawn on Lesley that Blake suspected she had more than a passing interest in the young man.
Was that why he had questioned her about Steve Wentworth, or was his real reasoning for exacting a promise that she would stay to the end of the season a fear that when she ‘realised that there was nothing serious behind Dominic’s blandishments she might in a fit of pique decide that ‘slavery’ here at Trevendone wasn’t leading to anything worth while and she might as well leave?
She began to notice that Blake always looked particularly sardonic when Dominic called her Yseult. One day they even came to the verge of a quarrel on the subject. Lesley was, upset, for she could never be sure what Blake really thought behind the mockery that forever tinged his bleak eyes when he looked at her.
‘This Tristan and Yseult-caper,’ he said, stretching his legs indolently. He had been dictating letters to her in the little office off the great hall and Lesley was looking through her notes for any queries before she began to type.
She looked up, her white brow pleating, her eyes wary. ‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Oh, not at all,’ he said with a curl of his lips. ‘I merely wondered who was featuring as Tristan and who was the one she came over to marry—Mark, wasn’t it? Do I recollect he was rather a dull old stick and Tristan was the ‘handsome young man about town?’
‘I really haven’t the slightest idea, Mr. Defontaine,’ Lesley replied repressively, ‘I’m not really very familiar with your Cornish legends.’
‘Now I am surprised to hear you say that,’ he mocked. ‘The twins have always given me the impression that you were the romantic one of the family, you were the one, as they put it, who was sold on Cornwall.
‘But in any case I thought all you visitors from the Antipodes and the States were very familiar with our legends, much more so than we are ourselves. King Arthur and Guinevere and Sir Lancelot are the trio in another version, aren’t they? One of these days I must take you over Bodmin Moor to Dozmary Pool and you can picture the sword Excalibur glittering with jewels as it was thrown into the lake ... or the three queens bearing King Arthur to the fabulous Isle of Avilidn.’
Lesley said coldly, ‘I’ve read the stories, of course, but I’m not in the least romantic and not really interested.’ Which was a lie and he took her up on it immediately, a gleam in his grey eyes.
‘You were down at Tintagel with Dominic the other day. Wasn’t it the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that took you there—the magic of ... Tristan ... Or shall I say Lancelot?’
Lesley’s eyes shot green fire and something odd constricted in her throat. What exactly was he getting at?
‘What I do in my spare time can be of no interest to you, Mr. Defontaine.’
He shrugged. ‘You’re right about that, of course. I’ll be in my lab if there’s anything in those letters you want to ask me about. But use your own initiative as far as possible and don’t bother me. As I’ve told you I like to keep the Lodge and my lab completely separate from Trevendone affairs.’
He sauntered out, arrogant as ever, and Lesley watched him go, gritting her teeth. That particular crack was because she had had to seek him out twice yesterday with queries. If he thought she was doing it for the pleasure of seeing him or hearing his voice, he couldn’t be more mistaken. He was the most infuriating, hateful man she had ever met. She washed she could have reminded him that she had agreed to stay on here to help the Trevendones—but the truth of the matter was that he was Trevendone.
Why this sudden—or perhaps it wasn’t so sudden—interest in
Dominic and herself? She thought: I must begin to mention Steve more often. It won’t be so very long now before he flies over.
For that matter it wouldn’t be so very long before visitors in large numbers began to come to Cornwall. And then as Blake had said, the hotel business would keep her occupied and she would have less time for typing his lecture notes and the book on which he was still working.
Then her thoughts were back again to his latest remarks. He mocked at everything, she thought angrily. He knew quite as well as she did that Dominic was laughter-loving and gay, and his pleasant little conceit of calling her Yseult meant nothing very much. But it made her feel happy for the dark romantic-looking young man to pay court to her. It wasn’t as if they took each other seriously, but if her smiles assuaged Dominic’s pride and helped him to forget his ill-starred love for Sorrel what was the harm?
Later that day she sat idly for a few minutes, her work finished, planning to stroll on the cliffs for a while until it was time for the evening meal. On this lovely evening of early April you could almost be forgiven for thinking that summer was already here.
As so often her thoughts were on the twins. They grumbled far less these days and seemed to be making lives of their own even at Trevendone where Ricky was on excellent terms with Dominic and Jennifer and also with Blake. For Rita, Sorrel came first, though she was also attached to Dominic. But life at Trevendone Manor as Lesley had imagined it and painted it to them in the romantic country of Lyonesse just didn’t exist. Perhaps it never had in the way she had pictured it. And not for worlds would she let Blake Defontaine guess how romantic her ideas had really been.
Her life here was completely workaday, she told herself, suddenly feeling lonely and depressed. Perhaps that workaday world was redeemed occasionally by views of the lovely coastline and the burgeoning countryside now spring was really here. She had imagined they would see it when they drove down to Cornwall that early February day of cold sleet, but it had been late in coming. But now it was here giving the country lanes an embroidered pattern of yellow primroses that sent Lesley into raptures of delight as she went out to pick them and arrange them in bowls of glowing sunlight on the dark polished tables and chests in the old Manor House.
Lesley thought of all that loveliness and wondered why she should feel so dissatisfied. Was it because every time she walked on those magnificent cliffs that separated Trevendone Manor from the turquoise and emerald sea she was reminded that sometimes on that beautiful and treacherous coast that same sea was the colour of dark pewter—the colour of a man’s eyes; and that when the curling; sparkling foam fell back, there were malignant black rocks jutting brutally out of the water—but no more brutal than a man’s tongue could sometimes be.
The Easter weekend in mid-April brought a spell of fine weather and during that busy time Lesley had her first real taste of hotel work. Each night she went to bed so tired .that she slept quite dreamlessly the moment her head touched the pillow.
The worst of the rush was over by Wednesday and in the hour during the afternoon when Jennifer had taken over from her at the reception desk, Lesley decided to find a sunny spot at the edge of the garden, close her eyes and just relax.
She walked across the courtyard and the lawn with its gay flower borders and suddenly remembered the spot which Dominic had called the Kissing Seat, the half of an upturned boat with a board across to make a seat, and sheltered between the two trees which leaned together, their branches, for ever entwining. There she would find some shelter from the wind that now seemed fresher than it had been over the warm weekend and where she could get a glimpse of the distant sea, this afternoon stretching smoothly like a length of turquoise silk.
She had sat for only a few minutes when she saw Dominic standing above her, a grin on his good-looking face. ‘I followed you out, little sweet, and I wondered if I might catch up with you here. Remember what it is—the Kissing Seat? Well, anything to oblige my pretty little Yseult.’ He bent over her, obviously intending to kiss her, but as she had done once before, Lesley jerked away. She flirted with Dominic often enough, but he must not get the impression that she was leading him on. With Lesley Arden he would have to learn that it was so far but no further.
He laughed, and his grip on her shoulder tightened as he leaned still further towards her. ‘Oh no, Yseult, you pay the forfeit this time. No escape.’
‘Dominic, no!’ she whispered, and breathed a sigh of relief when he straightened up. ‘I’m off,’ he said curtly, and strode away.
Lesley, though she had had every intention of repulsing any further attempts at lovemaking, was rather surprised that he had been so easily snubbed. Then the reason for his precipitous departure became all too apparent. She had long suspected that Dominic in spite of the smoothness of their surface relationship disliked Blake Defontaine as much as she did. It appeared he wanted to avoid him just now. She was anxious to do the same, for there had been a scene in the little office this morning between Blake and herself that she didn’t want to think about.
All the same, she wasn’t going to beat a retreat quite as obviously as Dominic had done. So she remained firmly seated inside the boat, looking steadily ahead of her. Blake advanced, a glitter in his eye.
‘So you’re taking up the challenge, Miss Trevendone,’ he smiled, and it seemed to Lesley that there was in his voice as always when he spoke to her the flicking of a whip against her senses. ‘Is this your first time in the Kissing Seat?’
All at once, and quite stupidly, Lesley’s heart began to beat at a rapid pace. He wouldn’t ... dare ... She got up in what she hoped was a leisurely manner.
‘Surely you’re not going to run away when you’ve succeeded so quickly and presumably at your first attempt,’ he mocked her. ‘I gather Dominic is not the man to lose an opportunity. I do apologise for my own inopportune appearance. I’m sure you realise that I’m too old for such nonsense.’
Lesley gave him a swift, startled look. His dark eyebrows were raised, and a faint cynical smile twisted one corner of his mouth. Her face flamed in indignant fury at the implication of his jibes. That she had sat here to encourage Dominic to make a pass at her, and remained here on the chance that he too...
‘Mr. Defontaine, believe me,’ she said between her teeth, ‘I never bother to have a single thought about you apart from my work. And now if you’ll excuse me I’ll go. The sun seemed so bright I thought it would be pleasant to sit here, but the wind is treacherous like so much of the English ... climate. Apparently warm but really bitterly cold.’
‘You sound rather disillusioned. Why not, since you fed devastating, call it the Limey climate?’ he asked, the mocking inflection still in his voice hut something fiery in his usually cold eyes. ‘That’s a word I used to hear often from your young ... brother and sister.’
‘So far as I understand, Limey is just used for people,’ she returned. ‘But don’t let me detain you, Mr. Defontaine. I was just going to move.’
‘I’m sure you were going to do nothing of the sort,’ he challenged. He seemed to be looming over her, but despite her every inclination, Lesley was determined not to run away.
‘You like Dominic? You get on well with him?’
‘Of course I like him,’ Lesley’s voice was light. ‘He’s a very pleasant young man—good-looking and charming and considerate. No girl could help liking him.’
‘And working together as you are doing in the hotel? You find that satisfactory?’
Now what was this in aid of? she wondered. Well, if he thought she was going to venture some criticism about Dominic’s easy-going attitude to work, he was mistaken. ‘Of course,’ she remarked non-committally. ‘We get on very well together indeed.’
There came then what to Lesley’s stretched nerves seemed a long, long silence. When she ventured to look at him she saw something in his eyes that she had never seen there before, something dangerous which filled her with trembling alarm. In spite of all her resolutions she was going to retreat. In
fact she was going to run.
She said, chokingly, ‘I’m cold,’ turned from the Kissing Seat and ran through the nearby gate. Once behind the wall she stood beneath the Kissing Trees, willing herself to still the stupid panic in her heart. She had closed her eyes and so his arms were around her and his lips were on hers before she knew he was there.
For a moment she stood rigid in his hold, and then it seemed as if all her bones had melted. There was just one kiss, hard and swift and merciless.
‘We can’t let Dominic have all the fun, can we, my love,’ he whispered softly. ‘But I didn’t intend kissing you in the Kissing Seat—only under the Kissing Trees.’
Before she could think of anything to say, he had strode away. By the time Lesley had to some extent recovered her composure, she was alone and a quick glance round showed no one else in view. Trembling, her thoughts completely chaotic, she hurried to the old Manor, walking through the dark panelled hall to the warm, well-appointed kitchen.
She was on good terms with all the staff at the Manor, but she particularly liked the housekeeper, Mrs. Piper, who had been so good when Rita was ill. She was a Cornish woman from St Benga Town and with daily domestic help from the village, she ran the old Manor House, cooking for old Mrs. Trevendone and her companion and some meals for the rest of the family. She lived in a flat over one of the garages with her son Jeff who drove the hotel Landrover and acted as handyman.
‘What you want, m’dear, is a nice hot cup of tea,’ she said with a quick glance at Lesley. ‘I’ll have it in a jiffy, and you just get warm by the stove. A real cold wind there is out. It’s turned this afternoon, as I know, having just walked back from the village.’ She chuckled. ‘No wonder you’re all but frozen, m’dear soul. I see’d you there sitting in the Kissing Seat.’
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