And perhaps soon Peter might achieve his ambition to have his own agency in London, that would be really splendid. Suddenly, as she leaned towards the mirror to stroke gold-dusted eye-shadow over her lids, a bright idea struck her. Perhaps her father might help Peter on the financial side. It would be only a drop in the ocean of his vast business enterprises and Peter would surely not be too proud to accept a loan from his future father-in-law, just to get him started up. Yes, that was a marvellous idea. She would have to think out how she could broach it to the two of them.
Suddenly the future looked bright. She was ready for marriage. She had so nearly let Peter make love to her on the night when her father's letter came. She looked at the big, satin-covered bed and warmth began to seep through her as she imagined herself and Peter lying there, entwined. Yes, she had denied her woman's instincts long enough.
She covered her hot cheeks with her palms. She must stop this and remember she had to meet her father's friends in a moment or two. She twirled round before the mirror and was satisfied with her choice of the lilac dress. It still fitted perfectly. The pearly skin of her neck glowed against the low, swathed neckline. The filmy skirt swished round her knees as she turned before the looking glass. She adjusted the narrow shoulder-straps, glittering with rhinestones, and wondered if her father would remember that he had paid for the dress. A smile played around her mouth. It was good, now, that she didn't mind a bit if he did remember, that she no longer felt defensive or guilty when she thought of him.
There was a tap on the door at a minute after eight and Peter came in. He had changed into silver-grey trousers with a shirt to match, and his fair hair was brushed immaculately.
'You look very smart,' Lucie smiled, as he slipped an arm round her possessively.
'And you look incredibly beautiful,' he whispered close to her ear, planting a kiss on her shining dark hair. 'This is a super place, isn't it? My hotel is small but extremely comfortable. You must come and see my room,' he added meaningly.
'Yes.' She laughed into his eyes.
'Does that mean what I hope it means?' His arm tightened round her waist.
'Perhaps,' she teased. Soon she would tell him. 'But now we must go down and join the party.'
From the living-room came the buzz of conversation and laughter and the clink of glasses. 'Sounds like a crowd,' Lucy said, and for a moment she was sixteen again, being brought down to meet an intimidating collection of her father's business acquaintances. To be looked over and summed up. 'Pretty child—a pity she's so gauche and tongue-tied.' That was what she had heard one woman say, when she was within earshot. Lucie had seethed. Gauche, indeed! Tongue-tied! 'And you're shallow and conceited and backbiting!' she had longed to fling back. How she had hated them all! She could smile, now, for the over-critical, prejudiced child she had been.
'Not too many,' Peter was saying. 'Mostly American. Seem quite pleasant people.'
Good, thought Lucie wryly, as they entered the long living-room. Pleasant people at her father's parties would make a nice change.
Her father came across the room, glass in hand. 'Here you are, Lucie, come and meet everyone.' One arm went round her shoulder and the other waved towards his guests, disposed round the room. She was aware that he had been drinking fairly heavily already, but he had always been a man who boasted that he could hold his liquor and his voice was steady as he performed the introductions. 'Dorothy— Mary—Harriet—Steve—Frank—meet Lucie, my little girl.'
Quite the proud father, thought Lucie in amusement, responding to the chorus of 'Hi' and 'Hello' and 'Glad to meet you, Lucie'.
Peter was right, they were pleasant people— warm, friendly, family people. Very different from the guests she remembered from dinner parties in the bad old days—those hard-boiled business men and their exotic, expensive, chilly wives.
'And I'm sure you remember Guy Devereux,' her father was saying. 'Guy just dropped by a minute or two ago and I've persuaded him to join us.'
Lucie's head jerked round towards the end of the room as if it were being pulled by a string. The shock that stabbed through her was a purely physical thing, for her mind had gone numb. At the end of the room, in tight-fitting black trousers and a snowy white shirt that emphasised his darkness, a tall man was standing beside the drinks cabinet, leaning over to speak to a woman in a grey taffeta dress with a frilly collar. He lifted his head as Warren Martin spoke and Lucie met gleaming, dark-blue eyes fixed on her under lowered lids, and felt icy cold, as if she were going to faint. Guy Devereux sauntered across the room, holding out a hand. 'I hope you remember me, Lucie. I remember you very well indeed. I hear that congratulations and good wishes are in order. I hope you'll both be very happy.' The deep, mocking voice set her nerves jangling, and automatically she moved closer to Peter and put her arm through his.
'Thank you.' She couldn't meet those incredible blue eyes, instead she looked up at Peter with a trembling little smile, which could be construed as happy emotion in a young bride-to-be.
'You've just arrived, how was the weather in London?' Guy was talking to Peter now, exchanging remarks that were quite casual but watching him with that same concentrated gaze that he had fixed on her. Peter was laughing and being charming and the two men seemed to be hitting it off splendidly. Peter tried to draw her into the conversation, but her mouth was dry and all she could manage was a nod or two of agreement and a smile that was frozen on her mouth.
It was quite absurd to react like this, humiliating to discover that this man still had the power to reduce her to a zombie. She hated him, she loathed him. Finding him here was spoiling what promised to be a happy time of reunion.
As he walked away and resumed his conversation with the woman in the grey dress her knees went groggy and she sank into a chair between her father and Peter, reaching with a shaking hand for the drink that was put in front of her.
'My banker,' Warren Martin was explaining to Peter. 'One has to keep on the right side of one's banker.'
'Indeed so!' The two men exchanged a knowing smile and Lucie wanted to scream.
'Did you have to invite him, Father? You know I've always disliked the man,' she muttered in a low voice, looking up.
'Oh, Devereux's OK,' Warren Martin replied easily. 'Although he's not everyone's cup of tea, I admit.' He gave her a fond, indulgent smile and she knew he was remembering—everything. And playing down its importance to both of them.
'But he's not really your banker, is he? Surely it's his father who's the top man in the bank?'
'His father retired a few months ago. Guy holds the reins now. A big responsibility for a comparatively young man to be chairman of a private merchant bank,' he added to Peter, and Lucie saw Peter glance towards Guy with something like awe.
Chairman of his bank! That would boost the man's ego no end and make him more odiously superior than ever. 'Oh well, I'll try to bear it—only keep him away from me, that's all I ask.'
When they all drifted out to the cars that would take them to the restaurant further along Seven Mile Beach, Lucie's hopes rose as she saw Guy Devereux getting behind the wheel of a low-slung, vicious-looking convertible, and driving off in the opposite direction. 'Oh, good,' she muttered, squeezed between her father and Peter in the front seat of her father's saloon, 'the man's not joining us.'
Her father chuckled. 'He is, you know. He's just gone back to his hotel to take a phone call he's expecting from New York. He'll be along later.'
It was absurd, she told herself, as the party trailed into the restaurant, to be rocked back on her heels like this because of a man she had met and disliked three years ago. There was no possible way he could pose a threat to her now. She would ignore him and enjoy the evening.
'Nice place.' She put a hand on her father's arm as the party settled down at tables on the vast outside deck. Feathery palm-trees overhung the edges of the deck, waves swished softly beneath and the lightest of breezes stirred her hair. On each table shaded lamps threw a golden glow over th
e gleaming cutlery and glass and the posies of tiny pink and white flowers. And above it all the dark velvet arch of the sky was thick with stars.
'No, not merely nice,' she laughed. 'It's a fabulous place. So clever of you to pick it!'
Her father patted her hand and smiled down at her. He was so glad that they had got back to their old, loving father-and-daughter relationship, she could see that. It was years and years since she had felt so close to him, not since she was in her early teens, before her mother became ill, before she found out the kind of man he was. But he had changed— mellowed—she was sure of it. Oh, it was lovely to have a father again, a father she could be proud of. She wasn't going to allow Guy Devereux to spoil her pleasure in their reunion.
She and her father and Peter shared a table with a couple called Dorothy and Steven Maddox, and when they were settled, Dorothy, a plump fiftyish woman with thick white hair, waved to perfection, and wearing a flowery dress, leaned towards her. 'I hear you're an artist—do tell me about your work, I'm sure my darling grandchildren would just love your book.'
As the meal progressed the talk flowed freely along with the wine. Lucie drank a little too much wine and laughed a great deal and kept her eyes on their own table because she wasn't sure of her reaction if she saw Guy Devereux come in to join the party.
Dorothy was a blessing in the circumstances, a non-stop narrator of her grandchildren's talents and cute sayings. Steven, her husband, was a tubby teddy-bear of a man, evidently a keen scuba diver and he and Warren Martin talked diving. Lucie remembered that her father had always enjoyed diving whenever they had lived in a part of the world where it was possible. When she was growing up he had tried to persuade her to learn to dive, but the paraphernalia of scuba diving—the clumsy backpacks and rubber wet-suits and face-masks—had never appealed to her.
The two men seemed to be making arrangements for the next day to go to Cayman Brac, one of the two 'sister' islands, and Dorothy was trying to persuade her husband against it.
'Oh, Steve, why do you want to go all that way? Flying and everything, just for a swim?'
Her husband grinned at her. 'Ah, don't call it "just a swim", girlie. Some swim! The Bob Soto diving setup here is good but Warren here tells me that Cayman Brac is the best and I'm not finishing this vacation without diving the wall there. Why not come along with us tomorrow—flight leaves at eight-thirty a.m. on the dot, and you're there in under an hour. Come on, Dot, you don't need your beauty sleep.'
His wife pulled a face at him. 'No, thank you. You don't get me up at that hour!' She turned to Lucie. 'You're not going with these madmen, are you, Lucie?'
Lucie looked at her father. 'I don't think—'
He smiled at her. 'Don't worry, love, I know you're not interested. And anyway, you've done enough flying for the present. You and Peter stay around here and take it easy. We shan't be away long, shall we, Steve? I've got an appointment at four o'clock, anyway, so I'll have to be back by then.'
She nodded. 'OK, go and enjoy yourselves, boys.' She would enjoy herself too, lazing away the day with Peter under the palm trees, sipping iced drinks and eating gorgeous seafood like the creamy concoction that was being served up to them at this moment.
'Luvly grub!' murmured Peter. 'I could do with a month of this kind of life. Do you know, I've never eaten out of doors under the stars before. It's kind of romantic' He squeezed her thigh under the table. 'You look spectacular, darling, you're the prettiest woman in the room.' His hand was warm and his voice caressing.
She turned her head to smile at him, and as she did so she encountered the dark intensely-blue gaze of Guy Devereux, between the fronds of overhanging palms. He must have come in some time after the main party and he was sitting at the next table. He was staring fixedly at her, and her stomach churned.
Peter followed her look. 'Seems I'm not the only man who thinks so,' he chuckled. 'Our macho friend from the bank has his beady eyes on you, sweet. He'd better watch it!'
There was a short silence, then Peter queried:
'What's the matter, Lucie? You look—' His eyes moved from her pale cheeks to the dark, grim face of the man at the next table and back again. 'He's not— he wouldn't be the fellow you were telling me about? The one your father tried to marry you off to when you were a teenager, would he?' When she didn't reply he nodded slowly. 'So that's the way it is. I see. He looks a fairly tough customer. Well, you needn't worry about him now, darling. He'll have me to contend with if he tries any funny business.'
He sounded quite fierce, and Lucie laughed it off with a light remark. She didn't want any awkwardness with Guy Devereux, she just wished he wouldn't look at her.
The five-piece band on the raised platform in the corner of the deck was launching into a tune from the Top Forty, and couples were crowding on to the floor. When Peter said, 'Dance?' she stood up immediately, glad to put a distance between herself and the impact of those dark-blue, probing eyes that seemed to reach right into the very depths of her.
The small dance-floor was crowded with jiving bodies, each doing their own thing. Lucie laughed up at Peter as they jigged and dipped and twirled in the starlight. She hadn't done any disco-dancing since her art-school days, but it was something you didn't forget, like riding a bicycle—which was another thing that belonged to her time in Birmingham with James and Angela. She laughed up at Peter, letting herself relax and move to the rhythm of the music. When it finally stopped and they returned to their table, her eyes were shining.
'That was lovely.' Lucie put her hand through Peter's arm and squeezed it. Her cheeks were pink and a tendril of silky black hair fell across her forehead. She slipped into her chair next to her father, turning half away from the next table. She didn't even know whether Guy Devereux was still there, and she didn't care, she assured herself.
'Enjoying yourself, poppet?' His childhood name for her! It must be all often years since she had heard it.
'Oh yes, this is a marvellous spot, I'm loving every minute.' She took a swig from her wineglass, which had been refilled while she was on the dance-floor. She was a little drunk, but that was what a birthday party was all about, and it was helping to dispel the last vestiges of her doubts about the wisdom of coming. Everything was turning out wonderfully well, and tomorrow she and Peter would have a lovely day together and she would tell him that she'd made up her mind. She took another drink of wine.
'May I claim a dance?' Suddenly she was conscious of a tall form standing behind her chair, and her heart flipped. She looked towards Peter, but he had been buttonholed by Dorothy, who was shrieking with laughter at some story she was telling him.
'Go and dance, poppet.' Her father gave her a little push. 'You mustn't let Peter monopolise you. Look after her, Guy.'
'I'll do that.' The deep voice vibrated in her head. All the other sounds—the music, the laughter, the talking—faded into background noise, and only the sound of Guy Devereux's voice was real. It sounded like a threat. Lucie felt herself begin to shake inside; it was terrifying how this man affected her. But she mustn't let him know that, she mustn't let him know that she remembered that night in Paris, or that it had left any impression on her at all.
She got to her feet and let him lead her on to the floor. The band had changed to a slow, smoochy beat and couples were locked together, swaying to the music. Guy's arm went round her waist and she found her step automatically following his as they moved together. She tried to think of something to say—something light and amusing—but her mind was blank and her voice seemed to have dried up.
He was silent too, just holding her and moving slowly, almost sensuously, to the music. The very silence between them seemed to make the moment far too—too intimate. As if they had known each other for ages, as if they didn't need words to renew their acquaintance. She licked her dry lips, desperately conscious of the hard body so close against her own, her memory taking her back treacherously to that other night when he had held her, kissed her—
She swa
llowed hard. 'What a delightful place—' she began, but he cut off the rest of the conventional little remark.
'I came back, you know,' he said, and as she raised startled eyes, he added, 'I came back the next day, to see you, but you weren't there.'
She knew that it was no use playing a game with him—pretending not to know what he was talking about. He would see through that in a moment.
'Why?' she asked faintly.
'To apologise. To ask you to forgive me for what must have seemed unpardonable to you. I'm afraid I made the mistake of placing you with your father's somewhat sophisticated set. Your get-up suggested that you were much older than I took you for. If I'd. known you were so young, so—'
'Naive?'
'Let's say inexperienced.' she heard the faint smile in his voice.
'Well, I was—then.' She wriggled in his arms. 'Shall we sit down now?'
His hold tightened. 'Not yet. I've apologised—a bit late in the day, but that wasn't my fault. The least you can do, Miss Lucie Martin, is to accept my apology. I'd like us to be friends. Your father—'
'Don't tell me what I must do!' she snapped. 'And leave my father out of it!' She was being very rude, she knew, but this man brought out all the prickliness she hadn't felt since those bad old days when, in order to preserve her own identity, she had constantly opposed her father's orders. 'My father has nothing to do with it.'
The music stopped and he led her back to her table. But before he released her arm he spoke again, very low so that only she could hear. 'I'm very much afraid you'll find you're wrong about that.' And then, to Warren Martin, at the head of the table, 'Will you excuse me now, Warren? I have some work to get through tonight. Thank you for inviting me—I've enjoyed it very much. And I'll see you tomorrow— yes?'
Lucie looked at her father. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes slightly hazy. 'Yes, yes, tomorrow. Four o'clock at your office, we said, didn't we? Yes. Goodnight, Guy. Go carefully.'
Honeymoon Island Page 4
