Sweet Seduction

by Whitelaw, Stella

  "And now the sugar mills have gone."

  "That’s why we need this research," Giles started again with immense patience. Kira could feel his control, his fingers clutching a pen.

  Benjamin leaned towards Kira. "This island used to be dotted with sugar mills. Mostly all gone now. There used to be one here, in the garden behind the house. It got blown down in a hurricane."

  "How awful."

  "Would you like to see it?"

  "Yes, I would. Thank you."

  "Would you mind, Mr Chairman? The meeting hasn’t finished," Giles snapped. Kira felt like a schoolgirl caught talking in class.

  "Only talking to the chairman, sir," she said meekly. There was a maddening glint in his eyes. Did he disapprove of her talking politely to Benjamin?

  "The cost of lorry transport is sky high," Giles went on. "Even if a cane crop does arrive safely, the grower’s profit is already eroded, if not wiped out by the transportation cost. Deliveries go astray; weight is disputed; quality control is difficult to enforce. Miss Reed will make a full report on the situation, covering it far more thoroughly than we can ever hope to do."

  Kira could see her work spreading in all directions. "I’ll interview all the small growers, detailing their individual difficulties. The overall picture may help you come up with something," she said, tired of not saying anything, of keeping quiet.

  "Good idea," said Mr Howard, nodding. "I approve."

  A chorus of approval came from round the table. Kira was pleased with the way Giles had presented the situation and introduced her to the Association. She had only been on the island a couple of days but already she felt involved. Some of Giles’s nationalistic pride was brushing off on her. Benjamin’s blood ran in her veins and he loved the island more than anything or anyone.

  The meeting closed. The men came over to talk to her, adding suggestions for things she should look out for. Kira explained that Giles was employing her but it was plain he was going to share the results with the Association.

  "Isn’t that so?" she asked, as he brought her a cup of coffee.

  "If there are any results," he said flippantly. His sternness had totally gone. What an unpredictable man. "You’ll probably be off swimming half the time."

  "Be patient and you’ll see."

  "I’m not a patient man, Kira. You should know that by now. There’s only one thing I’ll wait for, with infinite patience. Even when you disguise your femininity in a severe business suit, you are still all woman."

  Kira was thrown. How dare he say anything so embarrassing, in front of all these people? He was so sure of his own masculinity, he thought every woman must be clamouring for his attention.

  "I assure you that your patience will be stretched to its limits as far as I’m concerned," she said. "I’ve looked at those lists you gave me yesterday and the map. Some of the smallholdings are so small, they are not even marked."

  "Some farmers are not even on the list. They send their crop in with a neighbour’s."

  "Recipe for chaos," she agreed.

  Giles was looking at her over the rim of his cup. He guessed she had lost weight since her accident, and the exquisite bone structure of her face fascinated him. She did not know how becoming she looked with a faint flush staining her cheeks or how it quickened his pulse. Beautiful women had pursued him all his life but there was something about this ice maiden that set her apart. He had a feeling she was fire and ice, a lethal combination for any man to cope with. He was suddenly alarmed, threatened, and set his cup down with a rattle in the saucer.

  "When are you going to start work?"

  "This afternoon. I have my route planned."

  "Why not now?"

  "Because now I’m going to enjoy Mr Reed’s garden and the ruined sugar mill."

  "Don’t let Benjamin influence you," Giles said abruptly. "He’ll try to get you to do things his way. He’s a devious old man."

  "I don’t think that’s true," said Kira, rising to the defence of the chairman. "You move too fast for him. Older people need time to get used to changes."

  "He’s got you on his side already." Giles scowled. "Don’t you have a mind of your own? I thought you were a woman of independence. I didn’t expect you to be swayed by a lunch with an old-fashioned charmer."

  Kira collected her bag and notes. She was aloof, her back straight.

  “You don’t know me at all,” she said.

  Eighteen

  "I’ll contact you when the report is ready," she said, as if it might be weeks. She swept across the room, her heels tapping on the polished floor, hoping her leg would not let her down.

  "Don’t forget to take a hat and don’t drive late. There’s no street lighting out in the countryside. It’s easy to get lost when you’re off the beaten track."

  "Get lost on an island this size? I’ll keep driving till I find the sea."

  The heat on the veranda outside took Kira by surprise. The big room had been cool, the wide-bladed ceiling fans coping as efficiently as modern air conditioning, and she had forgotten the rising temperature.

  "There’s no need to worry about me," she added, unbuttoning her jacket for coolness.

  "I had no intention of worrying about you, Kira. I’m more concerned about my Moke. Don’t drive it into a ditch."

  Benjamin was tugging off his tie, and his grizzled hair was standing up as if he had recently run his hand through it. He took Kira’s arm in a proprietary manner and drew her down the steps.

  "Let’s tour Fitt’s House from the other side of the wall. The sugar mill is only a ruin but you can still see the old furnaces. We’ll forget stuffy business worries. The problems will still be there tomorrow."

  "The Barbadian Malaise. That’s your trouble, Benjamin. It’s always tomorrow as far as you’re concerned. If it was left to you, Reed and Earl would be as ruined as your old sugar mill."

  Benjamin swung round to face Giles, his mouth contorted with distaste. Something had touched the raw in him.

  "Hard hats, guard rails, research consultants," he raged. "We never needed all these new-fangled contraptions in my day. The factory ran all right till you started meddling with everything. I’ve been in sugar all my life, since I was a boy. There isn’t anything I don’t know and there isn’t anything new. Fires, monkeys, plagues of rats, dogs, cane diseases. I was coping with them before you or your father were big enough to hold a cricket bat. So don’t talk to me as if I’m old and written off. And if I’m old and crabby before my time, blame your father, Reuben Earl, and what he did to me."

  * * *

  It was a long hot night. A melancholy horn blared out to sea. Creepers whispered in chorus against the long glass window panes.

  Dolly had never been in such a grand house before. Even the size of the rooms was intimidating, made her feel like a child again, on the fringe of the grown-ups at a tea party. She stared at the ceiling.

  She lay in the big bed, her heart pounding. She had brought her best nightdress, white lawn trimmed with embroidery. She had made it herself and it had lain in a drawer, unworn for more than a year.

  Shadows played across the ceiling and Barbadian folklore flew into her mind. Was it Papa Bois, guardian of the forest and small animals, or was it La Diablesse, the devil woman? Dolly had been to see a wise woman who lived in a shack on the edge of the water and the wise woman had given her a potion.

  "Sip this at every new moon," she had whispered, sparse white hair flowing like light. "And you will marry the man of your choice."

  Will o’ the wisp shapes, grey and mysterious, moved across the curtains, fluttering as the trade breeze caught their flimsy folds and sent them spinning into orbit. Dolly closed her eyes against the shapes and the thoughts that went with them.

  Reuben was coming. He said he had to see to his horse. That horse, Storm, was his pride and joy. His parents were staying with old friends at the other end of the island. They were not expected home till the next afternoon.

  There was a jug of ic
ed lime juice by the bed and Dolly drank nervously. Her mouth was as dry as an old boot. Reuben would expect her to taste as sweet as a flower. There was time to wash again in the empty, echoing bathroom across the wide landing.

  She slipped her bare feet out of the bed and hurried across the polished floorboards but the door opened before she could reach it.

  "Dolly, where are you going? Are to trying to escape? Have you taken fright like a little bird?" said Reuben, half laughing.

  "Reuben, I didn’t expect you back so soon. Is Storm all right?"

  He was stripping off his shirt, ripping buttons, his muscles gleaming in the half light.

  "How long did you think it would take me to stable a horse? A couple of hours? How could I waste a moment when I knew the most gorgeous and lovely girl in the whole world was waiting for me?"

  "Oh, Reuben, I don’t know if we should. This house is so big and your room is so strange."

  Reuben stopped abruptly. "But Dolly, I thought we agreed. Five years is a terrible long time. We can’t wait that long when we love each other so much."

  Dolly held out both hands to him. Now that Reuben was here, her fear was disappearing. She was not afraid of him; it was only the great-house that intimidated her.

  "Much too long," she whispered. "I can’t wait that long. I want you so much."

  "But we will get married," he promised hastily.

  "Of course we will get married."

  They were reading each other’s thoughts as clearly as if the words were spoken aloud, feeling the shape of the words and listening to hidden meanings.

  "We will, won’t we?" Dolly clung to him desperately. "Tell me that we will marry some day."

  "Sweetheart, trust me," he soothed.

  He was unbuttoning his riding breeches and stood before her, his young and proud manhood a new sight for her. For a moment she was terrified by his boldness, his size, that she might be responsible for this reaction. How could it get inside her? She would burst. She would be ripped apart. Her body dissolved in fear.

  "Don’t be afraid," he said, taking her in his arms, so that she felt him hard against her thigh. "I will be careful, gentle. Keep holding onto me. We’ve wasted all these years. I won’t hurt you. Sweetheart, darling, darling girl, trust me, love me."

  His mouth was kissing away her fears and he lifted her and carried her back to the cool smoothness of the bed. She didn’t struggle but wound her arms round his neck, longing for their beach feelings to return. It was all so simple on the beach, under the dripping palms, bathed in the warmth of the sun, the lapping of the waves soothing her fears and making a lullaby for her love feelings. She loved Reuben so much that sometimes it was as if she would die in that love, unable to breathe such intensified air for one minute more.

  One day Reuben would be master of this great-house. Would he have time for her then? She was only the half-wild daughter of a poor island painter. Or would he find the well brought-up daughter of some other planter more to his liking?

  He was slipping the straps of her nightdress off her shoulders, mouthing the silken skin, letting his lips stray lower to the curve of her breasts. She gasped as he touched the softly rising nipples. He was tantalizing her, teasing and touching and tonguing. Her nipples rose to pebble hardness.

  He eased his body atop her, firing her body with the glory of his weight. He was crushing her beneath him, moving her with long, drugging kisses. She spread her arms to her side, surrendering to his slow and rich exploration of her skin.

  An exquisite sensation shot through her body. It was something she had never known before. She threw back her arms in delight, shivering at the same time, her limbs weak with savouring. Perhaps it was going to be all right after all.

  * * *

  Giles’s mouth settled into a hard, firm line. Kira held her breath. The hostility between the two men could be cut with a knife. Giles’s eyes were pieces of granite. He came down the steps, all man, all dominant, swiping his wide-brimmed hat against his thighs like a whip.

  "You and my father damned near ruined both plantations and the factory with your near suicidal rivalry. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be living in a beach shack by now and Fitt’s House would be another restaurant for well-heeled tourists. When are you going to wake up to the fact that sugar is big business and personal conflicts don’t mean you run it like a cottage industry?"

  "Personal conflicts?" the old man snarled. "Blast you. Dolly was mine."

  "Reed and Earl would have been bankrupt in five years if Reuben hadn’t come to your rescue."

  "How dare you talk like this? You think you know everything but you know nothing. You have some dangerous ideas, Giles. Bad blood always come out when you least expect it. Thank God, I didn’t have any children."

  Kira gasped. Both men looked at her, suddenly aware of her, alarmed by the dismay on her face. She slipped away across the grass, her heart thudding. No children, no Tamara, no Kira. Had she been mistaken? Perhaps Benjamin wasn’t her grandfather after all. She tried to calm her breathing but it was the emotional bruising that hurt to the bone.

  She had been right to keep men right out of her life. For a while she had been lulled into thinking that there might be room for her grandfather, even Giles. But she had been wrong. Giles was dangerous. Benjamin was bitter to the point of madness. And her own treacherous weakness had found in Giles a man who stirred her emotions.

  Perhaps it was she who harboured insanely wild ideas. And that had to be stopped.

  * * *

  The Anglican Church in the centre of Bridgetown was packed to the doors. The Barbadian women almost outshone the planters’ wives with their finery. They wore their best Sunday dresses and colourful straw hats, decorated with flowers and fruit and feathers. White gloves and high-heeled pumps – no matter their size or weight.

  What the black women lacked in modish style, they made up for in sheer joy of the occasion. The planters’ wives sat in the front pews, their subdued colours in contrast to the riot of fruit and flowers and multi-coloured veiling nodding on the hats of the women in the back rows. The men sat, sweating and steaming, in their best suits.

  The music from the organ occasionally rose over the subdued chatter and greetings of friends. Everyone was smiling. This was going to be a great day. Bridgetown loved a big wedding.

  The groom waited, solemn and tidy, in his place at the far end of the aisle.

  The bride stood nervously in the porch. She was late and clung to her father’s arm. She made a beautiful bride. A dressmaker in Broad Street had dreamed up an ivory tulle dress with layers of skirt and she looked like thistledown, floating down the great church on a brush of the wind.

  Half of Barbados was there, from cane workers to plantation owners. Everyone had been invited.

  Dolly was shaking, her fingers gripping her father’s arm, her skin pale and clammy. She had been sick in the outhouse that morning, holding onto the basin while nausea heaved her stomach.

  She could hardly recognise anyone through the gauze of the veil. The sea of faces came up at her like a flouting sea washing into the Cave of Flowers. She hardly recognised anyone, least of all the man she was going to marry. God help me, she prayed, already dying by inches. What was she doing?

  Nineteen

  Kira had been driving inland and northwards for about an hour during the hottest part of the day. The sun was beating down relentlessly like rays of fire. She had a litre bottle of mineral water beside her and some fruit saved from breakfast.

  She checked out of Sandy Lane and paid her account, hardly flinching at the total. It had been money well spent. The luxury beach hotel had proved a relaxing experience, a paradise among the waving palms, but Kira could not afford it any longer. If she was to be moving around the island, she would find somewhere to stay each night. There must be plenty of guest houses and small hotels dotted round the coast.

  The first of her interviews was a smallholding in the north of Maycock’s Bay, beyond Hangman’s B
ay. She drove past an old whaling centre. She saw a ruined fort and evidence of the Barbados Defence Force. The landscape was changing to magnificent cliff scenery with wild and rugged hills.

  Kira stopped the Moke on a high point and gazed at the natural beauty of the area. It was criss-crossed with rough tracks that she would have to traverse to get to the scattered smallholdings. All right in the dry season, but treacherous in the rain.

  Courtney Blackwell Johnson was as big as his name, a middle-aged Barbadian who farmed a few acres of sugar on the lower hills but he could not get the cane directly to the factories for grinding.

  "I’z take the cane to a depot point in my van where’s it picked up by a lorry for transportin’ south to Reed and Earls," he told Kira. "But if I’z make any money from m’sugar then I count myself lucky."

  "It doesn’t seem right that all your profit is swallowed up by the transport cost," said Kira.

  "No, ma’am. I’m thinking of turning over to vegetables. I can feed my family on vegetables and sell a few over. But I’z don’t like the idea. I’m a sugar man like my father. We always had mills. St Lucy had six or seven mills, all within a mule’s ride."

  "Whose lorry takes your cane?" Kira asked.

  Courtney scratched his head. "Don’t rightly know, miss. Some fella we call Hopalong."

  "How can I contact this Hopalong?"

  "I dunno. He just comes along."

  "That’s not very satisfactory."

  "That’s the way it’s always been."

  "Well, thank you," said Kira. "I’ll put it in my report."

  "Thank you, ma’am. Nice seeing you."

  As she drove away, Kira was saddened by the economic problems that Courtney faced so stoically, a simple man working the land as his father had. The inland roads deteriorated until she was driving along rutted tracks of stone, pitted with pot-holes. She was shaken from side to side in the driving seat, wrenching at the wheel in an effort to avoid the worst of the craters.