Roberta smiled across at her with every appearance of friendliness. ‘How are you finding Stephen as a fiancé, Miss Shannon?’ She laughed and made a deprecating movement with one hand. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask such a personal question?’
Laurel met her glance coolly. ‘Not at all. I think he makes a wonderful fiancé.’
Stephen grinned. ‘Thank you, darling. Loyal to the end.’
‘Of course he likes his own way,’ his fiancée added. Roberta nodded. ‘He always did,’ she murmured. ‘He hasn’t changed a bit. Take a word of advice, Miss Shannon. Don’t let him get away with it too often, or there’ll be no controlling him at all.’
‘I have no intention of letting him get away with it,’ Laurel replied, hoping her voice sounded as careless and amused as she tried to make it appear.
She wondered what Stephen thought of this verbal sparring between them. He probably knew that Roberta still loved him and was astute enough to recognize her remarks for what they were, since she obviously did not know the truth. That was the one thing that puzzled her. She felt sure that he would have explained to Roberta, at least, what had happened, and probably he would, now that he had finally made up his mind.
Roberta turned her smiling glance on Stephen. ‘On second thoughts, I think you must have changed, Stephen, to let your fiancée go to visit an attractive man alone on his yacht.’
Laurel watched Stephen turn his grey glance on her and raise an interrogatory brow.
‘You have me curious. Who is this attractive man you’ve been meeting in secret, my child?’
‘Oh dear, I hope I haven’t given anything away that I shouldn’t,’ Roberta said apologetically. ‘I took it for granted that you knew.’
‘Liar,’ Laurel said to herself. T think Mrs. Fransom means Manoel,’ she said aloud, as casually as she could manage, because she was seething inside. Roberta, she was quite sure, had invited them aboard simply and solely to impart that little item of information to Stephen, and had it been a normal engagement she might have done a great deal of harm. As it was, she must be quite disappointed in Stephen’s reaction. He looked supremely unconcerned.
‘So you’ve been meeting Manoel on the quiet, have you?’ he drawled affectionately. ‘Remind me to beat you when we get home.’
Roberta laughed and allowed the conversation to drift along on to another topic. If she did feel any disappointment at the reception her remark had received she did not show any sign of it.
The subject was not touched on again in Roberta’s presence and, from his reception of the remark at the time it had been made, Laurel thought that Stephen had been so uninterested in the fact that she had gone to see Manoel that he had forgotten all about it. Consequently she was surprised when he brought it up in the car, as he was driving her back home.
He tossed his slim gold cigarette case into her lap, as he had once before.
‘Light me a cigarette, will you?’
Silently she did so and handed it to him. He slid the cigarette case into his pocket again, then shot her a glance of rather unkind mockery.
‘So you’re providing me with a rival already?’
Laurel gave him a startled glance. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The attractive man you were meeting on his yacht.’
‘Manoel?’
He nodded and his glance, as mocking and derisive as when she had first known him, went over her again.
‘I think Roberta’s right. I should object. Manoel is far too attractive for you to be visiting him alone.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Laurel snapped. ‘Anyway, you would have no right to object, even if I did go to visit him.’
‘Then you did go to see him?’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Mind telling me why?’
‘It was...’ she broke off, realizing she could not tell him something that concerned only Barbie and Manoel. ‘It was a personal matter,’ she finished instead.
‘So it seems,’ he agreed. ‘Very personal.’ Again that grey glance slid over her, full of satirical mockery. ‘I take back everything I said about you being a coward. Just remember that with Manoel you’re playing with fire. He might be reserved, but he’s all Portuguese.’
Laurel flushed uncomfortably. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ she said again. ‘It ... it’s nothing of the kind...’
‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’ He swung the car adroitly round a sharp corner and added, ‘Don’t panic. Even schoolteachers have to learn about falling in love.’ There was another pause, while he negotiated a second tricky bend and came on to a straight stretch of road. ‘I begin to understand now why you were so unresponsive this morning.’
‘Perhaps I’m old-fashioned enough to want to go to the man I eventually marry without a whole string of affairs behind me,’ she was stung into retorting.
Stephen’s hands tightened on the wheel. ‘I don’t know whether I should kiss you or spank you for that last remark,’ he said thinly.
‘Well, if you can’t make up your mind—I would prefer to be kissed,’ she flashed back.
‘That’s quite an admission.’
‘Is it?’ Her breath was coming fast now and she regarded him with defiant eyes. ‘A kiss is soon over. A spanking often leaves after-effects which are also unpleasant.’
She heard him mutter something under his breath at that and she was aghast at what she had said, wondering how they had so suddenly lost the rather dangerous friendship that had been between them. Now they were acting almost as if they were deadly enemies.
After that he hardly spoke to her for the rest of the journey and she was angry and miserable at the same time, bitter with Roberta that she should have so deliberately brought up the subject and furious with Stephen for his quite unwarranted follow-up of it. After all, what business was it of his who she went to visit when he cared nothing at all for her?
At the door of Ned’s house he braked the car sharply and flicked the emerald ring on her hand with a derogatory finger.
‘We’ll get rid of that bauble as soon as possible, now that your attention is definitely engaged elsewhere.’
Laurel immediately wrenched at the ring and pulled it off. ‘You can have it back right now!’ she retorted.
He took the ring from her and pushed it back into place with ungentle fingers. ‘Leave it there for the time being. It’s too soon yet.’ He looked down at her with eyes that were almost cruel. ‘I can appreciate your anxiety to be free. Don’t worry. We won’t keep up this farce any longer than necessary. I imagine that’s what you want.’
‘You’re quite right. That is just what I do want,’ and before she could break down into humiliating tears, she jumped out of the car and ran into the house, but there, out of sight of the man she had left so tempestuously, she allowed the tears to run unchecked down her face. She heard the sound of the car drawing away as she ran up the stairs to her room, mercifully meeting neither Ned nor Pepita on the way, and looked down at the empty driveway from her window.
All anger was gone now. All that was left was a cold emptiness and the knowledge that, whatever else Roberta had set out to do, she had certainly destroyed the thin, tenuous thread of friendship that had joined her to Stephen. No, that was not all that was left—not quite. She was burdened also with a love that she knew to be quite hopeless and, it seemed, enduring.
What had she once called it—a dead-end avenue with heartbreak at the end of it? Well, the heartbreak had certainly started.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Laurel was not in the least surprised when Anthea breezed in the following morning and exhibited every intention of settling down to one of those heart-to-heart chats the elder girl had almost come to dread, since it seemed that, however much she might make up her mind at the beginning, somehow they still resulted in the wily and adroit Miss Barrington managing to manoeuvre her into a position which was not only quite against her will, but also afforded her considerable surprise later on at finding that she had al
lowed herself to be so expertly manoeuvred, when she had known all along that she was being subjected to subtle and expert tactics to that very end.
However, this particular morning, Laurel considered that she seemed to be escaping fairly lightly, unless of course her careful answers in response to Anthea’s gay, chattering questions gave away more than she realized, which was not at all beyond the bounds of possibility. She made no mention of Stephen’s attempt to make love to her on the island, nor did she mention their quarrel after Roberta’s delicate and highly successful interference; but some sign of the latter disturbance must still have been evident when Stephen reached Castelanto, since Anthea broke off quite suddenly in the middle of gay chatter about nothing in particular.
‘Just what did you say to Stephen to send him home in such a black temper?’ she asked with a frown, quite as if she had all the right in the world to know all the intimate details that would have to come to light to fully answer such a question, an attitude which was quite plain to Laurel who, because she was still feeling upset and miserable over the way in which she had parted from Stephen the day before, was not surprised to detect a touch of asperity in her reply.
‘I don’t think that’s any business of yours, Anthea. Having succeeded in placing both of us in such an unbearable position, you shouldn’t be surprised when it occasionally leads us to quarrel.’
Anthea whistled softly. ‘It must have been quite a row,’ she commented, without the least sign of apology for bringing up a subject which quite obviously was extremely delicate and still disturbed the girl beside her.
‘Why not ask Stephen himself?’ Laurel retorted.
‘I might at that,’ agreed the provocative Miss Barrington.
Quite suddenly Laurel felt that it was all becoming too much for her. They were quite heartless, these Barringtons! Anthea determined to twist circumstances to fit her own plans and Stephen playing lightly at love while he made up his mind whether it was worth accepting Roberta, with his eyes open this time.
‘Anthea, I don’t want to ask you to go, but if you say one more word on the subject, I shall. It must be quite obvious to you that Stephen is in love with Roberta.’
Instantly contrite, Anthea caught her arm as Laurel turned away to hide the involuntary tears that started to her eyes.
‘Laurel, I’m sorry,’ she said softly, with what, for her, was almost diffidence.
Laurel bit her lips to stop their trembling, before she turned back to shrug with assumed indifference.
‘Let’s drop the subject, shall we?’ She picked up a few sheets of paper that had been dropped on the table at Anthea’s arrival. ‘I’ve been drafting out a few notes for Mrs. B-S.’
After this, probably because even the Barringtons could not be completely heartless, Anthea took up her cue and did not pursue the previous subject.
‘About the Greek dancing, you mean?’
Laurel nodded, glad to find that the previous subject was abandoned—for the moment.
‘Are you interested?’ Before Anthea could reply she added quickly, ‘I warn you, it’s quite strenuous. It would take up a fair amount of your time.’
‘I have plenty of spare time.’
With the knowledge that Anthea had probably never done a day’s work in her life and Castelanto, run by an extremely efficient housekeeper, had no need of her attention, Laurel did not pursue that particular subject.
She went on briskly, trying to keep her mind off Stephen, ‘Have a glance at these notes. You’ll see what I’ve mapped out and the type of people we shall need. You might know of others who would be interested.’
Anthea shot her a quick glance, but she took the notes without comment, read them through and then nodded.
‘They’re clear enough. The men will be the problem, of course. The poor dears usually have a thing about being seen on the stage.’ A faint return of the usual impish smile crossed the perfect features. ‘I think I could persuade them, though.’
‘I don’t doubt that you could,’ Laurel retorted somewhat dryly. The Barrington methods of persuasion rarely failed, whatever it was they embarked upon.
Anthea was riffling through the sheets of paper, gnawing at her underlip thoughtfully. ‘You’ll want somebody quite striking for the part of the king of the underworld in the final scene,’ she commented, referring to the short ballet which concluded the programme, set around the old legend of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, king of the underworld. She hesitated a moment, then added, with a hint of the unusual diffidence she had displayed earlier, ‘Do you think Stephen would...?’
‘I don’t doubt that Stephen would look very appropriate for the part,’ Laurel interrupted, ‘but I doubt whether he would agree to do it. In any event,’ she added, in case Anthea offered to use her powers of persuasion on her brother, ‘I would prefer not to have him in it.’
‘All right,’ Anthea agreed. ‘I think I could get Peter Marshall, if he would do.’
‘Peter Marshall?’ Laurel wrinkled up her brows thoughtfully, then nodded. ‘Oh yes, I remember him.’ An afternoon to remember also, the day when she had first had to hide from Stephen’s too perceptive eyes the unwelcome fact that this sister had matchmaking plans for them, even to the extent of carrying Peter Marshall off into the garden to leave a clear field for Stephen himself.
Oh yes, she remembered Peter Marshall all right, because he had figured in one of those momentous meetings with Stephen—which never seemed to be like meetings with any other man—quite apart from the fact that she was in love with him. With the prospect of spending an afternoon or evening with Stephen in mind, one always knew that it would begin differently from a meeting with anyone else and most certainly end in an equally unpredictable manner. She was not quite sure whether that was part of the Barrington charm, or a reason to dislike them, but that did not of course stop anyone losing a heart or two to them, knowing it was quite hopeless but being in the unfortunate position of not being able to do a thing about it.
She realized after a moment that Anthea was watching her closely, with that too sharp Barrington perception, and she hastily brought her thoughts into order.
‘Let me know as soon as you can whether he’ll do it, then.’
Anthea nodded. ‘Are you going to take part in it yourself?’
‘No, not if I can help it. I shall have enough to do putting the thing together.’ Another half-formed thought at the back of her mind was that it was not fair to the others for her to participate, with the knowledge of the years it had taken to bring the easy, liquid flow to her body with some of the dance movements demanded. There would be too sharp a comparison for the audience to make.
‘I have complete sets of all the music we used in England,’ she went on, and was relieved to find that by this time Anthea’s interest was so genuinely caught she had completely abandoned all thought of holding an inquest on what had happened between Stephen and his supposed fiancée.
‘What about Barbie?’ Anthea asked after a time.
‘She says she doesn’t want to do any dancing, but I think it’s just shyness. I can probably persuade her, although I don’t want to do it against her will.’
Anthea shot her a suddenly sharp glance, proof that her agile mind was not completely absorbed in the dance programme.
‘That Brenton man is still on the island.’ She grimaced. ‘I wish we could blackmail him into leaving somehow.’
Laurel did not comment on the absurdity of such criminal tendencies. Instead she shrugged, knowing that matter at least was well in hand.
‘I expect he’ll lose interest and look for fresh fields to conquer before long.’
Anthea shook her head. ‘Not until he’s done some damage,’ she said grimly. ‘I know his type—and Barbie’s too nice to be in his clutches. I don’t know how she stands the man.’
‘He does have a kind of facile charm, I suppose,’ Laurel conceded, ‘and Barbie is too inexperienced to be able to see through him.’
Anthea
made a sound that was remarkably like a grunt. ‘You’re inexperienced enough, but you can see through him. I wish Manoel would get a move on.’ She grinned suddenly. ‘For a Portuguese, he’s awfully slow.’
‘He’s probably making sure he doesn’t rush his fences,’ Laurel said carefully. She had no particular wish to discuss Barbie’s private affairs—especially after the way Manoel had become involved in her quarrel with Stephen—but at least it did keep Anthea’s mind off the quarrel, until the conversation could be turned into impersonal channels again.
‘He’d better not wait too long, or he’ll find there’s no bird on the fence to catch,’ Anthea retorted, somewhat originally if ambiguously, Laurel thought ‘I think we can safely leave that to Manoel.’
Anthea nodded thoughtfully. ‘There’s a lot more to Manoel than meets the eye. He probably knows just what’s going on and how to handle it,’ which was quite an admission for her and one with which, remembering her own conversation with Manoel, Laurel fully agreed.
Manoel would no doubt catch his wild bird in the end, Stephen would marry Roberta and Anthea would some day or the other choose one of the men who flocked around her—while the foolish Shannons would just have to go on eating their hearts out for something they could not have.
With Anthea’s departure, Laurel settled down to prepare an English lunch, leaving Pepita engaged in the semi-spring-clean of the house she embarked upon every week-end, in addition to the daily cleaning, much to the amusement of both Shannons. The little house positively sparkled and she would indignantly refuse any help from the owner’s newly arrived sister, under the impression apparently that young, pretty girls should spend all their time enjoying themselves. Laurel had let her have her own way with the house, but put her foot down in the kitchen.
Ned, hot and dusty from a morning in the fields, popped his head around the kitchen door and grinned, with an appreciative sniff at the savoury aroma coming from the direction of the stove.
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