Compulsion

by Charlotte Lamb

  She had never thought of herself as particularly superstitious, but she was feeling a primitive, superstitious dread now, an instinct older than time, buried deep in the back of her subconscious. Slender and dry-mouthed, she looked back at Luc Ferrier and felt a pressing urge to run, to hide. She had never in her life been so conscious of being a woman. She had grown up sheltered and protected by the men around her. Even Chris kept a strong hold over his own feelings around her. Now she felt her own femininity and, in contrast, the strong threat of this man's masculinity, and she hadn't got a clue how to deal with him except by running.

  As if he understood exactly how she felt he was watching her with a strange little smile, his winged black brows rising. 'My God,' he drawled, 'you show everything, don't you?'

  Her flush deepened, her eyes widened further.

  'You shouldn't be allowed out on your own,' he added with a mixture of amusement and wryness. 'It's time you learnt to hide your feelings.'

  'I don't know what you're talking about,' she mut­tered huskily, head bent.

  'You know precisely what I'm talking about,' he said with a smile in his voice. 'I wouldn't be here if you didn't.'

  That ambiguous remark quickened her heart and in­tensified her state of nervous tension. He was close, far too close, the strength of his tall body an increasing threat the closer be came. The cotton shirt rose and fell as he breathed and she watched it, staring at the muscled structure of his chest beneath it.

  A flash of startling blue winged over the stream and they both glanced round as a bird vanished into the close-set trees behind them. 'Fascinating,' Luc Ferrier said. 'The colours here make the eyes ache.'

  'You haven't been here before?'

  He turned his head towards her, the strong brown throat catching her eye, and smiled down at her. 'No, my first time: I'm impressed, but in five years' time the place will be ruined. You can see the signs everywhere. Once tourists start flocking" in, everything changes.'

  Lissa sighed. 'I'm afraid you're probably right.'

  'Your fiancé’s casino has started the rot,' he informed her.

  'You wouldn't be here if the casino wasn't here,’ Lissa counter-attacked sharply.

  He inclined his head. 'True. That doesn't stop me seeing that the march of progress doesn't always make for happiness. The islanders are still able to enjoy life in their own way, but once foreigners flood in with more money than most of the natives have ever seen and a way of life they never dreamt about, discontent and resentment will spread like wildfire.'

  Lissa had no argument with that point of view. She had seen the beginning of it already in Ville-Royale. But for some reason she bristled when Luc Ferrier said what she had thought herself. She looked at him sharply, her green eyes dagger-bright.

  'It depends on their sense of values.'

  'Values have to be pretty strong to stand up to a dose of modern Westernised living,' he drawled, watch­ing the angry gleam of her eyes.

  'If you disapprove of that sort of world why do you go from casino to casino gambling?' she asked con­temptuously.

  His blue eyes held a mixture of laughter and odd ap­praisal. 'That's what I am,' he shrugged, 'a gambler.

  That's how I live.'

  'Surely you could live some other way? It can't be a very, pleasant life. You can't win all the time.' Lissa looked at the powerful body, the compelling blue eyes, the fierce bone structure of his face, and frowned. He did not look like a man with a weakness. You could read the flaw in Chris by merely looking into his rest­less eyes. He couldn't hide it because it weakened the whole fibre of his nature. But Luc Ferrier betrayed no such weakness. It wasn't merely that he was physically strong—there was a lazy, certain strength in his eyes. He was aware of himself, of everything around him, and sure of his own ability to face and defeat anything that barred his path.

  He was smiling slightly, a mocking twist of the lips which held a faint grimness. 'Ah, but I do,' he told her. 'I never lose. Now and then I have a temporary prob­lem, some resistance, but in the end I always get what I want.'

  She met the direct, watchful gleam of the blue eyes and her nerve ends rang wild alarm bells. Looking away hurriedly, she looked round. 'I wonder where Fortune has got to.' She called him loudly and got no answer. All was silence.

  Luc Ferrier whistled on a long, high note and she heard the crashing through undergrowth of the dog making his way towards them.

  Luc glanced down at her, grinning. 'He's coming.'

  She sensed his amusement and her eyes grew more annoyed. 'He couldn't have heard me,' she said, because she was not going to admit that her dog had ignored her but come to that man's whistle.

  The white body hurled itself through the stream, but as Lissa turned to catch him, Fortune flung himself at Luc Ferrier, barking excitedly, in welcome and recognition, his pink tongue lolling. Luc bent and picked him up, squirming. Holding him away, he said in mock sternness: 'And where have you been? You're filthy, you horrible animal!'

  She saw he was right. The dog's white coat was smeared with sand and mud, his paws black.

  Luc lowered the dog and deliberately immersed him in the water, rubbing his coat and paws to clean them. Fortune struggled and barked, but was helpless in the firm grip.

  'Now you look better,' said Luc, releasing him.

  Fortune sat down in the water, his head just above it, and scratched himself energetically.

  Luc laughed. 'He's an adventurous little beast, isn't he?' His blue eyes lifted and Lissa met them. 'Unlike his owner,' he added softly.

  She pretended she had not heard that. Moving away, the water gently flowing round her bare legs, she told Fortune to come along. Luc walked after her and watched her step into her straw sandals.

  He moved away to get his own. Lissa hurried away, the dog running before her, hoping to get back to the hotel before Luc Ferrier had caught up with her, but he was behind her a moment later, the long strides of his brown legs covering the ground at an enormous pace.

  'I haven't had a chance to see the island yet,' he told her. 'What is there to do here?'

  'Very little,' she hedged.

  'Where do you, go apart from the hotel?' he pressed.

  'Into town,' she said.

  'To do what?'

  'Shop. Have you seen the old fort yet? If you're interested in that sort of thing it's worth seeing.'

  'Show it to me this afternoon,' he came back at once.

  Lissa stiffened, 'I'm afraid...'

  'No?' He stopped her before her stammered excuse came out, shrugging with casual indifference. 'Never mind, I'll find someone else to show it to me. I thought you could fill me in on the history of the island.'

  'I have to work,' Lissa said nervously, not wishing to sound rude yet wanting to make it clear to him that she was not spending any time with him. 'I'm sorry,' she added, to pretend he was merely another visitor, trying to cover from him her instinctive wariness of him.

  'You don't come into the gaming rooms,' he com­mented, watching her. 'Don't you like gambling?'

  'No.' Lissa did not enlarge on that, her small face stiff.

  'Your fiancé likes it.' He said that coolly, eyes sharp.

  She knew he would not miss the faint tremor that ran over her, but she could do nothing to control it. She gave him no answer, walking faster.

  'He's got the bug badly,' Luc Ferrier drawled, still watchful. 'You shouldn't let him play. He hasn't got the face for it.'

  'You don't: have to play with him,’ she accused in an uneven voice.

  I don't have to play with anyone,’ he agreed. I choose who I play against.' He paused and added very softly, 'And why.'

  She stopped in her tracks and looked round, shaken and disturbed by that voice, those words.

  He met her eyes directly. He wasn't smiling and his eyes were a cool, glinting blue.

  'Why do you play with Chris?' she asked huskily, hoping he couldn't see the faint dew which had sprung out on her upper lip and forehead.

/>   'He has something I want,' Luc Ferrier said, and her stomach cramped as though clenched in agony.

  Trying to breathe evenly, she asked in a shaky voice, 'What?'

  She saw the slow derisive lift of his dark brows, the sardonic twist of his mouth. 'I don't have to tell you that, do I, Lissa?'

  She swallowed. 'Money?' she whispered, and he laughed under his breath.

  'Money? I never gamble for money.'

  The answer took her breath away. She stared in total disbelief. He grinned, amused by her amazement.

  'Gamblers never do—real gamblers, that is—oh, the amateurs may do it for that, but then it's the money they're interested in, not the gambling.' He had a, reckless, vital amusement in his face. 'A real gambler does it for the sheer hell of it. The kick he gets when he has a big win. The danger, the uncertainty, Ac­knowledge that he's walking a tightrope over an abyss without a safety net.' He paused and smiled oddly at her. 'Ask your fiancé. He doesn't gamble for money, either. He gambles for the same reason as myself—he has an urge to prove himself against other men.' His eyes glittered like strange blue stones and his skin was taut. 'He wants to flatten me'

  She remembered Chris saying excitedly: 'I can take him,' and the feverish brightness of his eyes. 'Why does he want to beat you so much?' she asked Luc Ferrier with unhidden anxiety.

  He shrugged wryly. 'I've got a reputation, I suppose. It gets around, and men hanker for the thrill of being able to say they beat me. It can be irritating. Every place I go to there's going to be someone itching to take me and wring me dry. Not for the money—just for the boosted ego of doing it.'

  Lissa was worried and angry and she burst out furi­ously: 'Why do you go on living like that? Drifting around from casino to casino, winning and losing money day after day. It's degrading!'

  'I only gamble in the summer,' he said with wicked amusement. 'The rest of the year I risk my life in Lon­don traffic.'

  She frowned. 'What?'

  He was mocking her. 'I suppose it's another form of gambling, really.'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'My job,' he said, and Lissa's mouth opened on a sur­prised intake of air.

  Luc laughed again. 'Close your mouth. Are you catch­ing flies? Out here you might catch something much nastier.'

  'Job?' she repeated huskily.

  'Nasty word, isn't it?' he said. 'I try to keep it quiet It only confuses people.'

  'You work?'

  His laughter deepened and he bent a wicked eye on her. 'Alas, yes.'

  'What at?' she asked, unable to believe he meant it.

  'What a narrow-minded girl you are!' he drawled. 'I work in a London office for nine months of the year, actually.'

  'Doing what?' Lissa regarded him incredulously.

  'Gambling,' he mocked, grinning.

  Lissa's teeth set. 'I don't believe you!' He was making fun of her. She turned to go and he caught her arm, his fingers folding softly round her elbow, not hurting yet making it impossible for her to move away.

  'I work with the Stock Exchange,' he explained.

  'The London Stock Exchange?'

  'That's right, I gamble on market fluctuations, I'm good at it, I make a lot of money. It calls for the same skills as poker. You have to have intuition, a gut feel­ing that some stock is about to move up or down, and the nerve to back your judgment with hard cash. In the last resort, that's what all gambling comes to—nerve and a clear head.' He paused, eyeing her. 'That's why your fiancé should stay away from it. He has the nerve and the desire to win, but he doesn't have the head for it.'

  . Lissa looked at the hard, assertive face and swal­lowed. 'Don't play with him again!' The fear she was feeling was inexplicable. All her instincts cried out that for Chris to play against Luc Ferrier was dangerous. She couldn't say why she should feel that. It was an unconscious reaction deep inside her and her conscious mind couldn't pin down the hidden reasoning which had caused it.

  Luc Ferrier's blue eyes narrowed and he watched her closely. 'We'll make a bargain,' he told her.

  'What?' She looked anxiously into the blue eyes, her face shifting in uncertainty.

  'Spend the afternoon with me and I promise I won't play poker with your fiancé tonight,' he drawled.

  Lissa sensed at once that lie had led her into that trap deliberately. He had known she was nervous about Chris playing with him and he had played on her fears.

  'Well?' he demanded.

  She looked down, biting her lower lip, trying to think. It was blatant blackmail and she would need her head examined if she gave in to it. Chris had promised he wouldn't play with Luc Ferrier, hadn't he? But Chris was a gambler and Lissa knew gamblers. Chris would forget his promise to her if his passion for poker beckoned.

  Luc Ferrier turned away, shrugging those wide shoul­ders. 'Okay, forget it. Obviously you have no objections to Brandon playing with me, after all.'

  'I'll come,' she said huskily as he moved away.

  He stopped and turned. The blue eyes smiled and she caught her breath at the beauty of them, set in their thick black lashes, the compelling nature of that smile irresistible.

  She knew it was madness to agree to spend the after­noon with him, but if she had refused she guessed he would have persuaded Chris to play tonight and Chris would have lost again. Lissa was certain of it. Chris hadn't got a hope against Luc Ferrier.

  She left Fortune at the desk with the day clerk and went to her room. She showered and changed into a plain blue shift in glazed cotton. It was sleeveless, with a low scooped neckline, quite short, exposing most of her body to the sun. Brushing her long blonde hair, she thought about the problem facing her. How was she going to spend several hours with Luc Ferrier and still keep him at a safe distance? In the past her innocence

  had protected her. All the men who worked at the hotel kept their distance without her having to do any­thing about it. They might smile, eye her admiringly, but they had never stepped over the line they drew for themselves.

  She did not need to guess that Luc Ferrier was going to be much tougher to handle; everything about him made it blazingly obvious.

  She drew her hair behind her head and anchored it with a small black velvet bow. The change of hairstyle gave her face a pure outline, very young, very innocent. She regarded herself assessingly. Yes, she decided, that was better. She did not put on any make-up. Quite often in the summer she didn't bother. Her tanned skin did not need it and spending so much time in the ocean she just forgot to put make-up on except in the evenings when she was going to work.

  When she joined Luc Ferrier she felt the quick, all-seeing shaft of his glance. The blue eyes were sardonic as she looked up into them. He knew she had dressed carefully and deliberately and he knew why.

  'Very demure,’ he murmured softly. 'Sweet and inno­cent. You look like a daisy.'

  She flushed, not liking the comparison.

  'Shall we be on our way?' Luc asked, and she turned reluctantly to walk out with him.

  Rebecca was crossing the foyer with a clipboard and sheaf of papers in her hand. Lissa felt her staring and avoided her eyes. Rebecca would tell Chris, she realised with a quiver of alarm. What would Chris say when he found out she had gone off with Luc Ferrier?

  She took Luc to the best restaurant in town. It did not look much on the outside. Housed in one of the frame buildings on the front, it had a ramshackle air, leaning crazily in the wind, creaking like an old boat. Inside it was elegantly furnished and the food was superb. It was island cooking at its best—tinged with that distinct French flavour which centuries of French dominance had given the islanders. The ingredients were alien, but the cooking and serving gave the meal a classic simplicity.

  'What's in this sauce?' Luc asked her, looking with pleasure at his plate.

  'Local honey, spices, pineapple, vinegar,' she said.

  He was eating octopus with rice and baked bananas.

  His brows had risen as he read the menu, but she could see that he was
enjoying the odd combination and Lissa knew from experience that it was delicious.

  She herself was eating chicken sliced very thinly and served wrapped in slices of local molasses-cooked ham.

  Their waiter knew her and hovered politely within earshot—she wasn't sure whether he did it out of a desire to be some sort of protection for her, or whether he was merely eager to please. Whenever she looked round she caught the white flash of his teeth as he smiled at her.

  Luc saw her smiling back and glanced over his broad shoulder. He crooked a long, brown finger and the waiter sprang forward. 'Sir?'

  'If we want you, we'll call you,' Luc said very softly, meeting his eyes.

  The waiter bowed and silently vanished.

  'They all know you, don't they?' Luc asked, and Lissa nodded, smiling faintly. 'How old were you when you first came here?'

  She told him and he listened with interest. 'So you were born in England?'

  She nodded, and he pushed away his plate and leaned back in his chair, his thumbs in the pockets of the waistcoat of his light blue suit. It was one of the things about him that betrayed his money—the cut of the suit had London stamped all over it. The design was modern without being aggressively in fashion and the tailoring was first class. He wasn't wearing a tie and the collar of his shirt was casually opened.

  'Have you ever wanted to go back to England?' he asked, studying her coolly.

  Lissa shook her head. 'Not to live—for a visit, per­haps. I think I'd find it a bit cold.'

  He lowered his thick lashes. 'Not necessarily,' he answered, and she saw the edge of his mouth curl up­wards in a secret little smile.

  Glancing up again, he asked: 'So you've known Brandon most of your life?'

  Lissa nodded. She felt his eyes probing into hers, the razor-sharp edge of his face tilted as he leaned back.

  'What gave you the idea you could sing?' he asked, and she didn't like the way he phrased that, flushing.

  'Chris thought...'

  'Ah,' he said. 'It was his idea, was it?'

  'I know I'm not the greatest singer in the world!' she flared in defensive annoyance.

  'You're not even in the third league,' he drawled.