Compulsion

by Charlotte Lamb

  "Promise,' she pleaded, looking at him beggingly.

  'Darling I can take Ferrier,' said Chris, grinning. 'Don't get uptight about him. You're a funny little bunny, aren't you?' He kissed her nose and hurriedly said something about having to check on the front. She stared after his disappearing back in disturbed intensity. Chris had deliberately refused to promise not to gamble with that man even with her promise to marry him dangled as bait. Lissa did not like that. She stood there, biting her lower lip, and worrying.

  CHAPTER TWO

  She did not see Chris again that evening. As she walked through the hotel on her way to bed she ran into one of the croupiers, Max, a copper-skinned native with a French father and St Lerie mother, who gave her a quick, appreciative stare. 'Caught your act, Liss,' he said, smiling. 'Knocked them for six, didn't it? You're coming on.'

  Flushing she thanked him, then asked: 'Seen Chris?'

  'In the rooms,' said Max, half in flight, turned to­wards her with a grin. He was a handsome young man with a slim, lithe figure which looked good in the formal white evening clothes he was wearing. All the croupiers dressed well; it was one of the house rules. They wore red carnations in their buttonholes and spoke in soft, polite voices, but they were all as tough as Hades, Chris told her once. Born and brought up in the back streets of Ville-Royale, fighting from the moment he could walk, Max had a hard glint under his smooth manner. Any trouble which occurred at the Casino was quietly, discreetly taken care of by one of Chris's young men.

  Lissa had never received anything but courtesy and a smile from Max, but she found him slightly alarming. She had the feeling he might well have a knife up his sleeve.

  'Is he playing?' she asked nervously now, and Max gave her a quick, shrewd look.

  'If you want to know go and look,' he said. He knew Lissa rarely ventured past the door, which was always guarded by several smiling men in elegant suits be­neath which one could clearly glimpse the muscles of professional fighters.

  Chris preferred her to stay out of the club, partly be­cause he did not like her to get involved in that part of the hotel and partly because what she did not see of his activities there she could not complain about.

  Now she bit her lip, shaking her head, and Max looked amused as he went away.

  Everyone at the hotel treated Lissa as carefully as if she were made of icing sugar and might melt in the rain. The attitude had grown up during her childhood there. Chris's father had been very fond of her and had made her a special pet. Everyone else had followed suit, from Gaspard, the gardener, to old white-haired Uncle Joey whose only task for years had been to hang around the foyer and keep the uniformed bellboys in order.

  If she had had a different nature she might have been spoilt by all the loving attention she had received, but she was far too serious and far too gentle. She had recognised the care with which she was surrounded and responded with loving affection to it. Even the tough boys from the dark alleys in the shanty town which tourists rarely saw had always treated Lissa like a princess. Their attitude, combined with her convent training and her own natural modesty, had kept her safely in a crystal case for years.

  She went on to her own room, frowning. Was Chris gambling? And most important of all—who was he gambling with? Please, please, don't let it be Luc Ferrier, she thought desperately.

  She took some time to get to sleep that night. Usually she fell asleep the moment the light was out and her head on the pillow. Health and constant activity gave her no time to dwell on the day's problems. Sleep normally just swallowed her up and what dreams she had were never remembered next day.

  Tonight she lay awake, listening to the night sounds beyond her window, familiar and pleasant sounds to her but tonight oddly menacing.

  Chris was a reckless gambler. Although his nature was lazy and charming, he became different inside the gambling rooms. When she had occasionally set foot in there she had found it hard to recognise Chris if he was playing poker. He was a man possessed, his hand­some face excited.

  She sensed he had no chance against the man with hard blue eyes and a cool aware smile. She knew faces. She had watched them come and go; bearing their nature in their faces. Luc Ferrier was outside the ordinary run of gamblers who came here. She had never seen anyone like him before. He frightened her. She did not like to think of Chris playing poker with him.

  When she did fall asleep her dreams were filled with an insubstantial menace. She woke up several times, trembling, but could nto reclal what had been troubling her.

  Next morning the air had that deceptive coolness which it only kept for an hour or so before dawn. Far too soon the sun would stand in the sky immovably hour after hour, burning with furnace-like power in the clear blue. Lissa always liked to spend that hour on the beach before it became overcrowded with holidaymakers.

  This morning she felt stiff and tense, as though she had slept in a state of alarm all night. She slipped into one of her brief bikinis and put on a tiny white towel­ling robe. Fortune scrambled after her as she made her way across the lawns towards the palms. The hotel was silent. The guests wouldn't be up for an hour or two at earliest. Many did not cat breakfast and only got up late in the morning, particularly those who played half the night in the casino.

  On the beach Lissa dropped her robe and waded into the water, letting the warm swell of it carry her for­ward. The splash of Fortune entering alongside her made her turn to grin at him. He bobbed along in her rear, paddling vigorously with his paws.

  The sky this morning had a mild milky radiance. She swam for a while before turning on to her back to drift back to shore and was so absorbed by her thoughts that she did not notice the arrival on the beach until she came close enough to see and recognise him.

  He was wearing sun-glasses, his face barred darkly by them, and they increased the faint threat she felt in him.

  He stood on the pale sands, his hands on his hips, the short black swimming trunks belted low on his body, watching her as she uneasily walked out of the water.

  'Good. morning, she said politely, smiling In a nervous manner.

  'You get up early,' he observed, still staring. The mirror lenses flashed in the rising sun and made his face unreadable.

  'Yes,' she said vaguely, looking round for her robe.

  As she turned away Luc Ferrier remarked, 'I enjoyed your act last night. Clever.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Surprisingly so,' he added in a faint drawl which made her face grow pink. 'It wasn't what I'd been ex­pecting.' Although she could not see the eyes behind their barrier, she felt them intensely as they swept over her. 'Particularly the dress. You're deceptive, Miss Radley.'

  Lissa did not like the way he said that or the smile curling round his mouth as he said it.

  She stood hesitantly, poised to go, and Luc Ferrier asked: 'What's the origin of the name Lissa? Unusual.'

  'I was named Melissa,' she explained. 'But it was too long for me to say when I was little and Lissa stuck somehow.'

  'Melissa,' he drawled, eyeing her. 'No, I don't like that. Lissa is much more suitable.'

  She watched Fortune gambolling like a saturated lamb, shaking himself clear of water which sprayed across the fine brittle sand in dark swirls.

  'Well,' she stammered, 'enjoy your swim, Mr Ferrier.'

  'Ah,' he said softly, 'you know my name.' She got a strange impression that that pleased him, for some reason. Did it give him a triumphant sensation to be recognised everywhere he went? When they had famous visitors at the hotel she had noticed that although they protested fiercely against their fame they were, all the same, irritated if they went unrecognised.

  She was dying to ask him if he had played with Chris last night but felt hesitant to bring the subject up, as though it would reveal too much of her frame of mind to him.

  From the first moment they met she had been strangely wary of him and as he watched her, her wariness increased.

  'I'm in no hurry to swim,' he said. 'Sit and talk to m
e.'

  Lissa looked at him in nervous alarm. 'Thank you, but I must get back to the hotel,' she said huskily.

  'Why must you? Nobody is stirring yet,' he said. 'It's only seven o'clock.'

  Lissa searched for some plausible reason, but took too long to do it. He took her elbow and pulled her down on the sand before she even knew his intention. Lissa looked at him with wide, troubled green eyes. If only he would take off those sun-glasses, she thought, staring at the arrogant nose and hard mouth.

  As if he had heard her, he suddenly readied up and removed them. She looked unguardedly into the dark blue eyes arid felt her stomach turn over without know­ing why.

  'How long have you worked at the hotel?' he asked.

  'Since I left school.'

  'When was that?' He smiled as he asked and the glint of amusement in his eyes deepened her flush.

  'Two years ago,' she admitted.

  'Which makes you?'

  'Twenty,' she said.

  His mouth twisted. 'Twenty,' he said on an odd, hard note. His blue eyes stared into hers intently. 'I'm thirty-seven,' he said as though she had asked, as though he was answering some unspoken question.

  Lissa had no idea how to answer that, how to react. She looked away, nodding, her damp hair clinging to her damp shoulders as her head moved.

  Fortune was running along the pale sand, dancing on his own shadow. A seabird cried over his head and he looked up, barking, excited by the darting, daring flight.

  She glanced back and her stomach turned over again as she found Luc Terrier's blue eyes moving over her with a cool intensity which seemed to strip the few thin barriers between them from her body. Lissa drew a harsh breath and her blood ran fiercely up her neck and face.

  His eyes lifted as if he had heard that intake of breath and he gave her a veiled smile.

  'You're very lovely,'

  She moved to rise and his hand clamped down on her arm, tethering her by his side.

  'Where are you going?'

  'I must go,' she muttered huskily.

  She saw his black brows rise in that winged flight, mockery coming into the blue eyes. 'You're a funny mixture,' he commented. 'The quiet manner of a schoolgirl one minute and then when you came on to the stage last night you'd become a very sexy little package at a stroke. Is it your stage manner? Or do you reserve it for close acquaintances?'

  Face burning, she said drily. 'Please let go of my arm, Mr Ferrier.'

  He still stared at her, mockery in his face. His hand slid slowly, tantalisingly, down her arm and her skill tingled everywhere he touched.

  'How do I register?' he asked, and she stared in be­wilderment. 'As a close acquaintance?' he added to clarify the issue and Lissa was stiff with outrage at the tone he used.

  He laughed at her flashing anger, her green eyes vivid in her suntanned face.

  'Is there an entrance fee?'

  'Let me go!' she snapped furiously, pulling free of him, and as she did so he caught sight of the handsome diamond glittering on her left hand. His fingers seized hers and he twisted her hand to bring it up into the sunlight. 'So,' he said curtly, 'you're engaged?'

  'Yes,' she said with unhidden hostility. 'Who to?' he asked.

  'Chris,' she said.

  He was staring at the ring, his face totally expression­less. 'Chris?' He raised his dark blue eyes and Lissa could see no thought in them, only a cold blank fixity.

  'Chris Brandon.'

  His brow knitted. 'The hotel manager?'

  'He owns the hotel.' She said that with a faint em­phasis as though establishing Chris's status.

  He dropped her hand and she rubbed it as though the grip of his powerful fingers had cramped the blood.

  'How long have you been engaged? When's the wed­ding?' He sounded politely interested, and she could think of no reason for refusing to answer, although every fibre of her being was screaming out as though she were in some deadly danger. Lissa had never thought of herself as superstitious, yet something about Luc Ferrier raised the hair on the back of her neck. She could well understand why people called him Lucifer and said he was connected with the devil. She felt exactly the same herself.

  'We've been engaged for a year,' she muttered.

  'A year?' He asked that sharply as though eager to hear her answer.

  Lissa looked at him in nervous impatience. 'Yes.'

  He stared at her fixedly, the impassive lines of his features gleaming in the sunlight. The sun struck light from his tanned skin and turned it a brilliant gold, gave depth and power to the blue eyes, so that they pierced her and made her feel more and more alarmed. She felt he was looking right through her to her backbone, that he could read her mind as though her head was made of glass.

  'And when's the wedding?' he asked in a slow, thoughtful voice.

  Lissa slid her eyes from the compelling stare of his and. mumbled, 'We haven't decided yet.'

  He moved slightly and she looked at him in hurried wanness. He gave her a hard, cool smile. 'No hurry? How wise. One should never hurry into marriage. I'm sure the old saying is true—marry in haste, repent at leisure. I've borne it in mind all my life.' His smile was teasing, amused. 'I've no taste for repentance.'

  Lissa could believe that. Looking at the sharp razor edges of his fleshless profile, she could easily believe it. Luc Ferrier wasn't a man who was likely to repent any­thing. She had the feeling he did just as he pleased and damn the consequences.

  Looking away from him across the level sands, she asked huskily: 'Did you play last night, Mr Ferrier?'

  'Of course,' he said, as though surprised she should ask. She felt him staring at her profile, the small soft outline of her face averted from him as far as possible. She had the features of a young girl, smooth-skinned and slightly delicate, her brow high and wide beneath the sleek wet blonde hair, her eyes set beneath thin brows, their slanting upward gleam hidden now by pale smooth lids fringed by darkened lashes which were naturally pale. Her nose was small and straight, her mouth tender. The rounded chin and long slender neck underlined her youth.

  'Roulette?' she asked with dry nervousness.

  'Poker,' he said, watching her.

  She swallowed, trying to disguise it from him by keeping her face averted. 'Oh? Who did you play with?'

  He was silent for a moment and she turned in a quick motion to look at him, meeting the sharp stab of his stare with alarm.

  'Your fiancé,' he drawled, still watching her.

  She tried to smile and it was a lamentable failure, her lips moving stiffly. 'I hope you didn't lose.'

  Luc Ferrier's hard mouth twisted. 'Do you?' His eyes made it clear he did not believe that. 'Well, as it happens, I didn't.'

  She fought not to show alarm, but his eyes narrowed as he watched her innocent, anxious face.

  'Oh,' she said unevenly. 'Oh. Good.'

  She rose and he rose with her. 'Well, I'd better have that swim,' he announced, to her relief. As she walked away she heard the splash of his entry into the water. The dog ran along ahead of her, prancing excitedly over the lawns which surrounded the hotel, delighted with his prolonged visit to the beach. A flock of birds soared up as he ran towards them, and Lissa's eyes fol­lowed their flight absently.

  How much had Chris lost last night? Was he insane to play poker with a man whose face could put up shutters which hid every single thought in his head?

  She showered and dressed and had a light breakfast of fruit and coffee. A few people were drifting through the foyer as she went towards the offices. They glanced at her in recognition as she passed them and she re­turned their smiling greetings.

  'Hallo there,' one of them said, halting to detain her, his hand on her arm.

  Lissa glanced up at him. She had seen him several times on the beach. He was not one of the gamblers; he was here for surfing and sunworship. His lithe brown body witnessed to that. At a guess she would say he was only a few years older than herself and from his manner she would imagine he had plenty of money.
He was used to impressing the girls he dated. His light, shallow smile set her teeth on edge.

  'Great act last night,' he told her. 'How about coming out for a drive with me this afternoon? Show me the island.' He gave her what he imagined would be an irresistible smile. 'We could have fun together.'

  'My fiancé wouldn't like that,' Lissa said sweetly. She had had this sort of approach before from visitors. He was not going to be hard to deal with—he didn't have the dangerous control of Luc Ferrier. She found no difficulty in reading his mind at a glance. She smiled to herself. She might be alarmed by Luc Ferrier but men of this sort did not bother her an inch.

  He looked disgruntled. 'Fiancé?'

  'Chris Brandon,' she explained.

  His hand dropped from her arm and he took a hur­ried step away. 'Oh.' She caught the incredulous, nerv­ous flick of his eyes, then he was gone so fast it was laughable. Mention of Chris always seemed to make men sheer off fast. It was odd that Chris, for all his charm and lighthearted manner, somehow managed to have this effect on other men.

  Although Chris employed a number of very tough men from the back streets of the town, not one of them had ever so much as looked at Lissa with anything but careful courtesy. The hotel attracted a number of pretty girls. Lissa saw Chris's men around with some of these girls and recognised that their manner to other women bore no resemblance to the way they treated her. She found it touching. Chris's men knew that if they turned those insolent, appraising glances on her she would run like a rabbit, perhaps.

  Or perhaps, she thought, as one of the men let her pass through into Chris's office with a careful smile, the men knew that Chris would get very angry if any of them so much as laid a finger on her.

  He was having one of his morning conferences with the men who ran the casino. As Lissa walked into the room Chris was talking in a crisp, staccato fashion. She caught the tail-end of a sentence. 'Not a penny more. Got that?' Then Chris turned and saw her and his face softened and warmed. 'Good morning, darling.'