The house of the Amulet

by Hilton, Margery

  'Three minutes, Miss Blair?'

  'What?' She stared.

  'Your breakfast egg.'

  Melissa closed her eyes. This was crazy. Were these the only answers she was to receive; tea or coffee, a three minute egg? She nodded and sank down in the chair he had drawn out for her. He said, 'I'm afraid I

  can't offer you The Times—except one two days old.'

  don't want The Times,' she said wearily, unrolling the snowy napkin by her side plate, only want ...' She looked up at him 'You have too many advantages, and I don't even know who you are, or where I am. Is that to remain a mystery as well?'

  He passed her the tall glass jug of orange juice and the silver thermal container packed with ice cubes. 'My cousin and your sister are certainly maintaining discretion. It's Germont—Raoul—if it is not too soon for you to become informal.'

  She made no reply beyond the slightest inclination of her head, and he leaned forward. 'Relax! You are sitting there looking as though a tiger might appear at my shoulder at any moment. There is no need to be frightened.'

  'What else do you expect me to be?' Nervous now, in a subtly different way from her previous fear, she split and buttered one of the feathery croissants, taking rather a long time over the small task to avoid having to face that disturbing regard. 'You still haven't told me where this place is.'

  'This is Kadir. It is very small, too small to warrant an entry in the guide books for tourists—which is the way we prefer it.'

  'That is becoming very obvious, judging by the way you—'

  He shook his head and she sensed the approach of the boy. A large brownspeckled egg nestling in a yellow eggcup was set before her, and the sight of that speckled egg seemed to underline the final touch of absurdity. It was so normal, so utterly unsinister after the escalating chain of events leading to this

  moment that she experienced the sudden deflation of anticlimax.

  In silence, aware now that she was extremely hungry, she finished the egg and two more croissants. There was even a choice of cube sugar and brown sugar for coffee, and chunky marmalade as well as honey beside that folded copy of The Times that was two days old. She looked up, met the dark, considering gaze at the other side of the table, and shook her head. still don't understand, monsieur, but I enjoyed my breakfast.'

  'You look much better now—the English style breakfast we've had to import for my cousin seems to have reassured you, somewhat.' He flipped open a packet of English cigarettes, and when he had lit hers he rose to his feet. 'Come, I will show you the gardens and we will talk. No, not the riad—this way.'

  He gestured away from the window by which she had entered and touched her arm as he indicated the other french windows at the far end of the big room.

  There was another terrace bordering the outer perimeter of the house. It overlooked informally laid out grounds partially wooded with big spiky shrubs and clusters of stubby palms. A little way along the terrace Raoul Germont turned on to a broad sandy path that wound down away from the house. When they reached the first curve in it he said suddenly :

  `How does it feel to be kidnapped, Miss Blair?'

  Shock coursed through her. 'So it's that after all ! I was right ! You are ! I was locked in last night !

  She said I was imagining it, but I

  'You were locked in for your own safety,' he interrupted, 'and for that reason only. Had you decided to

  try to run out into the night harm might have befallen you. No,' he said grimly, wished you to understand something of the threat hanging over my cousin.'

  'Your cousin?' Melissa experienced a fresh wave of surprise. 'Is she—?'

  'My cousin Amorel, who played that stupid prank on you last night. But the threats against her are no prank, I assure you. So that is why she is here, and why your sister is here, and—indirectly—why you are now here.'

  'But why should anyone want to kidnap her?' Melissa halted, her eyes showing disbelief as she stared at him.

  'Why is kidnapping threatened? For gain, as a means of extortion of that gain. The motive is always the same.' He walked on, his steps gritting on the stone pitted sandy path. `Amorel is an heiress. She inherits a sizeable fortune when she is eighteen, and owing to certain conditions governing her inheritance I have had to bring her here and take steps to safeguard her.'

  Melissa was silent for a moment. Then she said slowly : 'But where do we come into it? We know nothing of your cousin and her fortune, or of you. Why Avril, and why me?'

  'Because your sister, having a slight resemblance to Amorel, agreed to take her place for a while as part of my plan to safeguard Amorel.'

  The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to fall into place at last—and also some of the implications. Melissa's mind leapfrogged rapidly over them and came to the obvious and alarming conclusion. Again she halted.

  'So if any kidnapping is done it'll be my sister who suffers! If they think Avril is ... they'll take her, and ... And you have the nerve to ask her, to expect her to risk her life for a total stranger. How dare you? I've never heard anything so . .

  'Keep your voice down,' he said sharply. trust

  there'll be no kidnapping, or danger to your sister. Provided you try to show a little more control and a little more sense.'

  'Sense!' Her hands clenched. think I've come just in time. I've never heard such an inhuman plan. You ...'

  He held up his hand. 'Hear me out, please. I have taken every possible precaution to avoid the danger you fear. And all might have been well, until you began your investigations. No one knew of Amorel’s whereabouts—or your sister's—before you started raising clouds in Casa, asking everywhere, and tracing us to my grandfather's old place on the coast, which meant I had to change my plans and bring them both here. You do realise, don't you, how near you came to ruining all my plans?'

  The dark visage filled with imperious accusation sparked her temper instantly and she burst out : 'Yes! And I'm glad I did! You had no right to do such a thing. Well you can find somebody else to do your dirty work. I don't know how you coerced Avril into coming here but it's over now, thank goodness, now I've found her.

  'Over?' The word was quietly spoken.

  'Of course! You don't think we're staying a moment longer, do you?' Melissa swung round to hurry back towards the house. 'We'll be out of here just as

  soon as Avril can pack. And don't you dare try to stop her.'

  lust a moment. I'm afraid that's out of the question.'

  He had overtaken her with a couple of long strides. She tried to shake free of the hand gripping her arm and said angrily : 'Leave go ! You've no right to stop us. You ...'

  'Listen, you little fool. I don't want to hurt you, but you're asking for it. You're here now, and you'll have to stay. There's no alternative. It's only for three weeks, and if you behave yourself it could be a very pleasant holiday. If you ..

  'Holiday! You must be crazy! As if we would. We're leaving,' she cried, 'and don't dare try to stop us! Or ...' She stopped and fell back a pace, something in the shake of his head infinitely dangerous.

  He said, can stop you. And if I fail ...' He paused and raised one hand, his expression ironical. 'If you will take a mere half dozen paces, Miss Blair, you will see something which will not fail.'

  For a long moment she hesitated, then, despite the angry defiance holding her in its grip, she took the few steps which brought her to a bend in the path and a spur where the ground dropped away sharply and a view opened out that took her breath away.

  At the foot of the long steep hillside stretching away below she could see a high wall snaking away to each side as far as she could see; beyond it was a sight she had never expected to see, yet if she had not been so utterly possessed by her anger and own predicament it was the first thing she would have expected. It was gold, dappled with darker billowing ripples where the

  ascending sun blazed across its vastness, and it stretched unbroken as far as the eye could see, to that shimmering haze where the sky
began.

  'Yes, the desert,' said the quiet voice at her shoulder. 'Even if you were to escape me, you would not get very far.'

  Dismay and the sight of those endless wastes kept her silent, and a new chill crept remorselessly through her entire body.

  'There is something else,' he went on in the same chilling voice. 'This is my world. Here, everyone is loyal to me. Loyal to me as they were to my father, and his father before him. Wherever you go, I shall know. Whatever you say, I shall hear. And if you are foolish enough to try to leave I shall bring you back.'

  He moved slightly, and slowly she turned to look at him. He was staring across the burning sands and now there was that air of alien affinity she had sensed in him the first time of meeting. Against this setting he was complete.

  He said coldly: will safeguard Amorel at all cost,

  and I will not be thwarted by a stubborn little English miss who would care more for an animal's fate than that of a human being.' He turned then, and the power in his eyes further silenced the defence she still sought to regain.

  'If you will try to cooperate I promise to do everything in my power to ensure that your stay here is a pleasant and comfortable one. If not ...'

  He stopped, as though he was letting her read what she liked in his silence, and slowly, feeling as though she were back in the nightmare, she looked back at the

  desert.

  'Why don't you admit it?' she said bitterly. 'You are going to keep me a prisoner here.'

  'Prisoner is not a pleasant word, but yes ... if we must be blunt ... it is the only way. You will stay here, my prisoner.'

  CHAPTER IV

  THE copper hazed dunes shimmered and the arid waves of the sirocco licked greedily across the lush green of the oasis, stirring through Melissa's hair and rousing her from her trance of shock.

  The man beside her had not moved, and she could scarcely believe he had actually voiced those chilling, remorseless threats. She said incredulously : believe you meant that !'

  'Yes, I meant it. I never waste time on idle words,' he said coolly.

  'You're contemptible!' Her hands clenched and she took a step back. 'You're not even civilised.'

  The next moment she was seized in a grip that bit like iron into the softness of her arm. His eyes narrowed and his chest heaved with his angry indrawn breath. 'Be careful. Do not try me with those rash accusations; you may rue them.' His tone was infinitely more quelling in its dangerous quietness than it might have been in blustering anger. 'What do you know of our ways and our code? What do you know of us? You, who will not listen and who screams before she is hurt.'

  With effortless ease he swung her close to him, holding her so that she was powerless to move. The dark angry eyes bored down, their gaze raking her white face contemptuously before fusing with her own. 'So we are not civilised! You were not so ready

  with your accusations when you needed my so uncivilised aid to deal with the riffraff of the bazaar. Perhaps, my hot headed little English miss with the cold heart, I'd better instil a little uncivilised education where it is so sorely needed.'

  Her lips parted, wordless now, her will battling against betraying her fear. 'How dare you!' she choked, twisting her arm impotently against his superior strength. 'Let me go!'

  The struggling movement brought pain and a gasp she couldn't repress. Suddenly he released her, giving a muffled exclamation of impatience, and she rubbed at the livid marks of his fingers and the scarlet welling about her wrist. 'How dare you?' she choked again. 'You add insult to injury.'

  'It is not my wish ever to injure a woman,' he gritted, 'still less to insult her, even when she provokes me. Why do you force me to hurt you? Why do you not ...?'

  'Why? Why .. .? Oh!' Melissa's voice broke, trembled into incoherence. The hard bronzed features blurred into the bronze of the desert behind him and swam in the brilliant haze of her tear filled vision. Wanting only to escape she backed, turned and ran blindly into the shelter of the palms.

  She had no idea where she was running, only that the narrow rough path must lead down to that imprisoning wall, and that somewhere in that wall there must be a gate. As she ran the bitter interchange reiterated wildly through her brain. At the moment she hated Raoul Germont as she had never hated anyone in her life before. How dared he bring her here, trick her, treat her this way? Dare to threaten to make

  her his prisoner. She'd rather die than let him succeed in his threat.

  The high white wall seemed to extend for miles without a break in it, and when she suddenly realised she was within a cool sunless dimness she stopped, grateful for the respite from the hard white heat of the sun, and tried to calm her chaotic emotions. Gradually she reasoned out the fact that the enclosing wall wandered round what must be much larger grounds than she had realised. Also, as she had passed gradually into its shadow, the wall had veered direction without the conventional corner angle, so perhaps it wasn't only part of the house, perhaps it was the boundary of someone else's domain, she reasoned feverishly. Perhaps escape might be easier, after all.

  She moved on, coming almost immediately to a small door set deep in the stone. But it did not respond to her eager grapple with its latch and her heart sank; she was still caught in Raoul Germont's domain.

  Her dress was clinging to her and sand clung in the crevices of her sandals, making the straps chafe her feet painfully by the time she eventually reached the main gate. She looked through the grille, at the continuation of the driveway snaking its way down the incline towards a small huddle of white buildings. Beyond them was the desert, and before her was a stout chain and a padlock which had nothing of old Morocco about its solid design. Her shoulders drooped, and a soft footfall gritted at her side.

  Mahmoud said : 'Is Mademoiselle all right? El Kadir wishes to see Mademoiselle.'

  'El .?' She frowned. `How do I get out of . . .?' 'Monsieur Germont, mademoiselle. He is con

  cerned lest you walk too far in the sun, mademoiselle. He wishes to ...'

  'But I don't!' she flung at him. 'Is that the village?' 'Yes, mademoiselle. You will return to the house now, please?'

  `Oh—go to hell!' She was almost beyond reasoning now. Ignoring the Moroccan's soft spoken protests she turned away and began to hurry up the driveway. She had to find Avril, find a way out of this impasse.

  She was hot, weary and in no mood for nonsense when she located Avril's room and found her awake but not out of bed.

  'Good heavens!' said Avril. 'Whatever have you been doing? You look like '

  'Never mind what I look like. Come on, we're leaving.'

  'Leaving! Have you gone mad?'

  No, but I'm beginning to think you have. Come on, Avril, you can't stay here a moment longer with that impossible playboy sheik, or whatever he is,' Melissa said urgently. don't know and I don't care what all this is about Amorel or whatever her name is, but we're getting out. Avril!' she snapped, 'will you move? Do you know what he said? Do you know what he ...'

  No, darling.' Avril betrayed a flicker of interest. 'What did he say?'

  Furiously, Melissa recounted the incident and concluded, 'If he thinks he can get away with it he's mistaken. There must be some form of transport we can hire, just to get us to the nearest telephone. Even fa it's a camel,' she cried despairingly.

  For a moment Avril did not reply, then she swung

  her feet off the bed and sat on the edge. 'You can please yourself, Lissa, but count me out. I'm staying.' 'Staying?'

  'Oh yes. I'll admit it's the back of beyond, but it's only for another three weeks, and it'll be worth it.'

  Melissa stared. 'You mean you refuse to leave? Not that you can't?'

  'Right first time.' Avril gave her a sharp look. 'You don't think I'm doing all this for fun, do you? In a month's time I shall be going on the spree of a lifetime. Two thousand pounds, darling. Think of it! Clothes, clothes, clothes.' She stretched her arms and her oval, dolly pretty face took on a gleeful complacency. think I'll go on a cruise, a
luxury one, and see if I can find myself a wealthy husband. A mod millionaire I could be faithful to. Opportunity only knocks once—if it knocks at all—and I don't intend to miss it this time.'

  She stood up, smiling at Melissa's horrified expression, and added: 'Though I'm not sure I might be missing it here. I'm beginning to wonder if Raoul isn't worth a potshot. He's pretty well loaded, what with this place and his interests in Casa. Trouble is, it would mean being stuck here most of the year.' She put her head to one side, considering. 'What do you think?'

  'That there's no end to your conceit. What is he to you?'

  Tye told you—nothing at the moment, but ...' Avril smiled cockily. `Now stop whining and try playing him with a little charm instead of spitting like a fury. I know your paddy and your goody goody little outlook. You'll only ruin everything.'

  'Well, of all the ...'

  'All right, I know,' Avril interrupted, 'but you've got here and found me and satisfied your curiosity, so you might as well join the party.'

  'It seems I haven't any choice.'

  `No, you haven't, darling,' Avril said bluntly, 'and take a tip; try not to get on the wrong side of Raoul. He's the power round here and you're a long way from home.' Apparently unconcerned by her own distance from home, she shed her filmy nightdress and stretched languidly. 'Isn't it bliss to be able to go starkers without freezing?'

  Melissa sighed. 'You don't change, Avril.'

  Her sister laughed and scooped up her wrap as she made for the adjoining shower room. 'I've no desire to.'

  The slim figure disappeared and Melissa shook her head. Sometimes she wondered how Avril could be so different in temperament and outlook to herself. Obviously there was neither sympathy nor help forthcoming from her worldly, egoistic sister. She was turning away when the cool voice called above the sound of the shower :

  'What's this about you and Philippe?'