Or would she? She was conscious of an angry need to prove something to Rob Ballard, but precisely what she wanted to prove was obscure—perhaps that she was worth more than Thierry’s rejection would seem to suggest. But that would mean winning Thierry back, and she definitely didn’t want him back, she had decided.
Impatient with herself for allowing Rob to trouble her thoughts and emotions for as much as a second, Lucia made a determined effort to shut him out of her mind. She had more important things to concern her, such as her need for employment.
When she saw him a little later, Chester Watson listened courteously as she described her experience waiting tables and working tills; he then proceeded to outline the job that he was offering her—on the strength of her local reputation, it seemed.
It called for specialised skills, and Lucia possessed them to a degree that made her confident that she could compete with anyone anywhere. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a job that she would have chosen for herself, but she was in no position to turn it down, and at least it had one enjoyable aspect in that it would bring her into contact with hotel guests.
‘Your familiarity with these waters specifically and things marine generally will be a definite plus,’ he told her. ‘The young man I was thinking of hiring wouldn’t have been nearly as knowledgeable—a marooned yachtsman.’
And, in his way, probably as desperately in need of employment as she was, Lucia reflected guiltily, remembering how frequently yachtsmen were stranded on these islands here in the mouth of the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the African mainland, their yachts generally requiring expensive repairs if they hadn’t been lost altogether.
But she couldn’t afford to make any altruistic ges-tures, so she smiled at Chester. ‘I’ll need a timetable of the tides and I want to inspect the underwater gear—and talk to the boatman as well,’ she requested.
‘Who, like so many people who are at home on the sea, is useless in it; he can’t swim a stroke,’ Chester laughed. ‘I must organise a permit for you too. The equipment should meet with your approval as our contract is with one of the most reputable manufacturers in the world. Then, when you’re satisfied and have worked out at what hours you’ll be going out, I’ll have notices put up and placed in the rooms, announcing this new service to our guests.’
‘Don’t just aim it at the action-orientated types, though,’ Lucia suggested. ‘Some people who aren’t adrenalin-junkies might like the idea of a day on the water but won’t want to do anything too physical, so make it clear that the diving and snorkelling are optional. That way we won’t lose custom by the less adventurous members of parties or halves of couples persuading the others to give it a miss. People don’t like being separated on holiday.’
‘You’re right,’ Chester agreed. ‘And I’m reassured. Obviously your proficiency in the water hasn’t made you intolerant of those less skilled or daring.’
Lucia merely smiled, not about to tell him how truly unadventurous she really was. She could do the job. She didn’t have to enjoy it.
She spent the next couple of hours diligently inspecting the hotel’s diving equipment and then interviewing the boatman—a local with the sort of mixed ancestry that made him the indigenous version of Creole, who was delighted at the prospect of this new venture supplementing the income he earned taking the occasional guests out fishing.
The Japanese-manufactured boat was of an unusual design but familiar to her as it was widely used among the islands—a solid, stable, diesel-fuelled craft with outriggers and a double skin—virtually unsinkable.
Satisfied, she reported to Chester’s assistant and was directed to the room she was to occupy in the impressively comfortable, ground-floor staff quarters, where she unpacked her belongings before going to lunch.
Conditions permitting, she planned to take her first group out the following day, so the notices had gone up by now, mentioning her name, and Hassan Mohammed told her that there had already been several enquiries and one definite booking.
Later in the afternoon she discovered that someone must have pointed her out to interested guests, as first she was waylaid by a group of teenage boys, one of whom was a scholarly individual acquainted with her father’s work, and the rest of whom wanted to know what sort of action they could expect if they joined one of the outings.
Next came two couples—Senegalese and Austrian, which wasn’t unusual as most visitors to the Comoros came from South Africa, the continent’s several French-speaking countries, or mainland Europe—especially France.
Chester had told her that her job placed her loosely among the hospitality and entertainment staff, where socialising with guests was not only permitted but encouraged if they showed an inclination that way. Thus Lucia accepted happily when the four invited her to join them for a sundowner in one of the alfresco bars, reflecting once more that this was the part of her job that she was going to enjoy.
It would be fun working for an establishment whose main aim was to please people, because that was what she was good at and liked doing, when she wasn’t in the grip of rage and humiliation. She had always been a sociable person, getting a buzz out of meeting and mixing, and was lucky enough to get on well with most people.
She had just finished her drink and was drawing fascinated questions from her companions with the tale of an unfortunate swordfish that she had once seen caught here when her eyes encountered a shining red-gold head, and she hesitated momentarily.
The bar was thatched but open to the air on three sides, and Thierry was hovering on the outskirts, an unhappy look on his face.
Lucia finished her story and answered a few more questions before excusing herself. She knew Thierry must be looking for her and her first angry impulse was to refuse to have anything to do with him, but she also knew how much it would have cost him to overcome his natural inclination to avoid possible unpleasantness and seek her out.
For both their sakes this confrontation needed to be private, so, ensuring that Thierry had seen her, Lucia left the bar, finding a deserted bench above the beach and sitting down to wait for him.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘AND SO, Thierry?’
It had taken Thierry a few minutes to follow her—regathering his courage, Lucia guessed—but now he stood in front of her in the softly golden light of a Comorean evening.
Lucia remained seated on the bench, suppressing an urge to leap up and hit him, and with no right any longer to leap up and hug him.
Her tightly laced fingers the only outward indication of the angry tension that possessed her, she looked up at him. He was such a beautiful man, with his velvety brown eyes and sensitive features, and he wasn’t hers any more. She still didn’t belong anywhere. She swallowed, noting that he wore an expression of utmost misery, and she felt her anger receding as she registered all over again how much effort it must have cost him to come here to her.
She rewarded the effort with the tiniest of smiles, but it did nothing to soothe Thierry, as he merely looked even more abject, and confused too, she observed.
‘Lucia, what were you doing with Rob Ballard yesterday?’ The first accusingly wounded question confirmed his state of mind. ‘He says you met in Johannesburg. You never told me.’
‘Well, we haven’t been in touch much lately, have we?’ she countered evasively, only realising as she said it that she was going with the lie—for his sake and for her pride’s too, quite apart from Rob’s threat—but disinclined to let him get away without some small reproach to his conscience. ‘I could ask a similar question, Thierry. What were you doing with Nadine Ballard?’
‘I know!’ he acknowledged miserably, but with a faint, underlying note of resentment. ‘I was going to telephone, or write…I wasn’t expecting you so soon.’
‘Perhaps you hoped I’d simply never come back,’ Lucia suggested waspishly. ‘That I’d forget you so you could forget me—although you don’t seem to have had too much trouble there.’
‘You were never here!’
He had progressed to trying to justify his behaviour.
Lucia sighed, knowing him too well for surprise or indignation.
‘You agreed to wait until I had my degree,’ she reminded him.
‘Maybe you made me. You were so insistent about your promise to your father,’ he attacked sulkily. ‘You wanted to wait, and my mother also thought it would be for the best if we didn’t rush into marriage, so I went along.’
‘I’ll bet she did,’ Lucia agreed tartly. ‘Mamma is thrilled by your new engagement, isn’t she?’
‘It’s better all round,’ Thierry agreed, suddenly almost eager, appealing for her understanding. ‘We both know she never liked you, and I was sorry for that, but maybe she saw something…knew we weren’t right. But Lucia—’
He broke off in alarm as she stood up, suddenly impatient with the whole situation. She didn’t want to be here with Thierry, exchanging reproaches, because some of the things she was feeling were distressingly wrong, inappropriate to a broken heart. Anyway, he was part of her old life and she wanted to start living the new one right now. Lucia gave him a wide smile.
‘It’s all right, Thierry! Of course, you should have let me know what was happening to you…’ She heard herself with distaste, because enough had already been said; despite his attempts to turn this round and blame her, his conscience was troubling him. ‘But, thanks to the craziest coincidence, we’re both going to come out of it all nicely undamaged. And if you really love Nadine and think you’ll be happy with her, then I do wish you well.’
Thierry looked only half-relieved. ‘Lucia, are you sure? Do you really…? Is it all right?’
A certain degree of wistfulness lay in the brown eyes as he stared at her, so slender in her white cotton shirt and pink shorts which were subtly gathered to make her waist look incredibly small, and Lucia kept on smiling encouragingly.
‘It really is,’ she offered gently, lifting a hand to his shoulder and giving it a reassuringly friendly squeeze.
It was the wrong shoulder. The strangeness of the idea disconcerted Lucia, especially as the sensation she had was sufficiently powerful to make this idea almost a conviction. Thierry’s shoulder felt wrong to her hand because her hand had recently rested on a harder, stronger shoulder—Rob Ballard’s, this morning, she realised, with a little spurt of angry resentment after a second or two.
‘I’m glad—’ Looking past her, Thierry broke off, his expression grown discomfited as he moved out of her reach. ‘I ought to be going—Nadine will be wondering…’
The excuse fading away into silence, he didn’t even wait for her response but departed abruptly.
The light had deepened to an amber glow and Lucia let him go with a shrug and a breath of impatient laughter. She stood staring unseeingly out to sea for a few moments, registering and trying to analyse what she was feeling now, in the aftermath of the encounter, and discovering that she had spoken with some sincerity in wishing Thierry well.
Why not? After all, she had loved him. She still did, she supposed, although she hadn’t expected a broken heart to feel quite like this. She felt more adrift than properly hurt, and her emotions had a lot to do with the need to relinquish the prospect of finally putting down roots, which had kept her going through the last three years.
There was so much anger involved too—a churning, boiling cauldron of it—and yet so little of it was truly directed at Thierry, or even at Nadine. Rob Ballard was its main target, or so it seemed. But wasn’t it really aimed at her own folly, the way she had made a victim of herself with her loving desire to please the men in her life? And she had put her father before Thierry, which was why she had lost Thierry.
And she had been guilty of something similar just now, she acknowledged angrily. Stupid! Making it easy for Thierry, letting him get away with what he had done like that, still putting herself out, still denying her personal urges in order to please! Never again, not for anyone! Then she would never have to feel like this again.
As she swung round her breath caught in her throat and her heart gave a little jump of fright. Rob Ballard was standing on the slope above the bench, as dark as the long shadow he cast in this light, and something about his absolute stillness struck her as peculiarly threatening.
Then she expelled the arrested breath in a rush, almost glad to see him because here was a proper and worthy focus for her rage.
‘Are you safe to approach?’ he enquired amusedly, stirring and beginning to stroll towards her. ‘You look so very furious…I trust that little scene wasn’t the first shot of a campaign to win Olivier back, Lucia.’
‘I didn’t get time. You frightened him away.’ She answered flippantly, with her best smile, as she guessed that he must have been responsible for Thierry’s retreat.
‘Yes, I suspect he thinks I’ve turned against him since I questioned him about you, and he’s off to reassure Nadine in case I should report his lapse. To do him justice, I believe that’s all it was—because he knows now that you’re bad for him, so the reassurance will be genuine.
‘In fact, I’m satisfied that he’ll be good for her. He’s just what she needs, even if he isn’t the most exciting personality I’ve ever encountered. And it’s only around you that he becomes a wimp. As I say, he knows it too, and he’s ashamed. Letting himself become attracted to Nadine was the start of his fight against your influence.’
‘You don’t understand him!’
She was defensive, furious with herself for her quip because, of course, it had been a betrayal of Thierry, just as recalling the feel of Rob’s shoulder had been. Then a fleeting look of confusion passed over her heart-shaped face because she no longer owed Thierry any loyalty, and the realisation engendered an anchorless feeling incongruously mixed with relief, or, perhaps, a sense of freedom—yet another betrayal, and this man’s fault.
‘What is there to understand? He isn’t exactly complicated, but, as it happens, I do understand him. If I didn’t, don’t you think I’d be doing my utmost to dissuade my sister from marrying him?’ Rob demanded.
‘Oh, and I understand you too, Lucia. I understand why you believe such a man would suit you. It’s the particular mix of your two personalities, what he becomes in response to you. You can push him around, force him to fall in with your plans.’
Lucia regarded him inimically, resenting the uncomfortable sensation that the words induced. Hadn’t Thierry himself just virtually accused her of forcing him to accept a long engagement against his will? And she had known him well enough to be aware that he would offer little or no resistance rather than risk the disturbance of an argumentative confrontation.
She shrugged defiantly. ‘Maybe that would suit him.’
‘Too much of it would destroy him. Keep away from him, Lucia—especially if you have any genuine feeling for him. You’re bad for him.’
His expression held her silent for a second. It was so strange—the way his mouth would seem so overtly sensual at some moments and utterly ruthless at others, as now. A frisson of apprehension shook her inwardly. You could never push this man around. He was too much the dominant, demanding male, and the reverse would be true: you could end up doing things against your will just because he had decided you should.
This uneasy recognition of his maleness and the powers it implied seemed to come from such a primitive part of her femininity that Lucia was incensed.
‘I can’t keep away—not yet, anyway,’ she pointed out. ‘Because you’ve still got my ring if I want to return it to him.’
‘Ah, you’ve given up the idea of selling it?’ In the gathering dusk his teeth looked very white as he smiled.
‘I have a job now,’ she admitted shortly.
‘I’ve heard,’ he acknowledged, ‘and you know what you have to do to keep it. I’ll let you have the ring tonight. That’s why I was looking for you. Is dinner at eight all right?’
‘I suppose, if we have to carry on with this nonsense,’ she agreed grudgingly, continuing rebelliously as she
remembered, ‘I let Thierry believe it.’
‘Hoping to make him jealous?’ Rob challenged softly. ‘The look he gave me as he passed was somewhat resentful, now I think of it. Just remember that this charade isn’t for your benefit, Lucia.’
‘Nadine’s,’ she conceded bitterly, stirring. ‘I’m going in.’
‘Shall I come and fetch you later?’
‘No, I’ll meet you,’ she snapped. ‘Where?’
He told her, sounding amused now by her hostile attitude, but Lucia was in no mood to stay and give vent to her annoyance, turning and stalking away with only a brief nod of acknowledgement.
Rob Ballard was just too knowing, and too inclined to mock what he knew. Lucia loathed the thought of having to spend part of the evening in his company, but he was quite capable of telling Chester to find someone else to do her job if she refused to go along with the pretence he had devised.
When she had reached her room Madelon Brouard looked in to welcome her.
‘I am going to Moroni for the evening, but I think you will have something arranged with Rob?’ she guessed.
‘Dinner,’ Lucia confirmed.
‘Lucky Lucia! And it is the sweet, early stage of not really knowing, am I right?’ Madelon gestured expressively. ‘Or you would not be in here, but sharing his suite. That liberates me. I need not have scruples. I should warn you that I made my—opening move when I encountered him this afternoon. He was friendly, possibly even flirtatious.’
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ Lucia prompted on a gasp of laughter.
‘Serious in the way people are serious about sports-games! Love is a game. I like to compete, and I enjoy the victory too for a time. Then I seek another contest.’
She might suit Rob, Lucia reflected as Madelon departed, smiling happily. She suspected that he too only played at love. Had she been genuinely involved with him, she would have been uneasy. Madelon was so beautiful, and unexpectedly engaging in her outspokenness.
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