Summer Lightning

by Jill Tahourdin

  At night, after dinner, she would set up her portable screen and small projector in the library, ready to show her pictures if Dominic wanted to study them. Sometimes he would ask her to show them a second, even a third time.

  He was generous with praise when he was pleased, but impatient, even scathing when something didn’t come up to standard. She soon made the discovery that in his work he was a perfectionist. It made him an exacting taskmaster, but she didn’t mind that. Her pride in her work was stimulated. It was worthwhile enduring a few harsh criticisms to hear his sudden warm, “That’s first class, Chloe. Exactly what I had in mind.” Especially when it was said with the smile that never failed to set her pulses racing.

  Of Louise, since that first day, she had seen surprisingly little.

  “The signora sleeps late—often till nearly noon,” Lotta told her with sulky disapproval. “She stays out very late, too. Often till two or three o’clock. Nibblu must wake up and go out to open the gates.”

  Already, it seemed, Louise’s days were a succession of dates and social occasions. Chloe wondered if Robert had rallied around as he had been bidden, and seen to it that Louise was “in with the Navy.”

  She soon learned that Saturday was a half-holiday at the dig. Work on the excavations stopped promptly at noon and the laborers streamed off, laughing and shouting, to the nearest casal to buy cheap rough wine, to slake their dust-dry throats.

  Chloe drove fast to Mdina and had time to bathe and change into a cool, fresh apple-green cotton sun dress, before the lunch gong sounded through the echoing corridors of Santa Clara.

  When she came down to the salon she found Louise—lean and elegant as a greyhound in pale, beautifully cut linen—and Dominic.

  Dominic, whom Chloe had grown used to seeing in his khaki drill working clothes, was completely unfamiliar in white trousers, riding boots and polo shirt.

  “There’s to be a second match between an island team and the losers of the cup,” he explained, seeing her look of surprise.

  “You’re playing for the island?”

  “Yes. I’ve done so before at odd times when I’ve been here—I’m half an islander, after all. They called to say they’re short one man—fellow broke his wrist in a practice game. And as we’d promised to be there anyway...” He finished with a shrug.

  “Of course, Miss Linden would be thrilled to see you play. A pity work won’t allow her to be there,” Louise put in in her acid-sweet way.

  “Nonsense, of course she’s going to be there, if she wants to,” Dominic said shortly. But when his eyes met Chloe’s she caught the gleam of humor in them, and she wondered if he was remembering how he had snubbed her about Robert’s invitation—as she was remembering.

  “I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more than watching a game of polo,” she said demurely.

  “Then we’ll all go together. Mark can drive us.”

  Louise looked furious for a moment, then decided to be pleasant.

  “That’ll be fun,” she said, and actually smiled at Chloe.

  “Robert just called,” said Mark, joining them. “He says there’s to be a sundowner dance at the club after the polo. He suggests we all stay on for it, and dine with him afterward. Shall I accept, Dominic?”

  Dominic shot an oddly speculative look at Chloe, but her composed expression told him nothing. Before he could speak Louise linked her hands possessively around his arm and answered for him.

  “But of course, we’ll accept. Blessed Robert, give him my love, Mark. It’s years since you and I danced together, isn’t it, Dominic?”

  “Years,” he said dryly. “And I fear it’ll be years more before we do again. I don’t dance nowadays. But you stay on, of course, if you care to. Mark, too, then he can drive you back. We’d better, in that case, take two cars.”

  Louise had opened her sea-colored eyes very wide.

  “But, darling, you don’t mean to say you won’t stay and—well, drink or gossip or whatever you like to do after polo—and then have dinner with us? Isn’t that rather unkind of you, darling?”

  Dominic gave her a level look. “Is it? I don’t think so. We’ll stay on for a little, if it’ll please you. But I have a lot of work to do after dinner. And so, I’m afraid, has Miss Linden. You have got those new slides ready to show me tonight, haven’t you?” he added, turning to Chloe.

  “Yes. I got them ready this morning before I left for the dig.”

  Louise looked daggers at her. Suspicion, and a dawning jealousy, flamed in her eyes. She dropped Dominic’s arm and lifted her slim shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. Finishing her martini, she went over to pour herself another.

  As she passed Chloe she gave her a look of frightening malice. “Such a devoted little slave, aren’t you?” She said in a savage whisper.

  Fortunately the mellow booming of the lunch gong diverted her attention. Chloe sighed her relief. She had been going through her usual sensations of hot and cold, acute discomfort. She hated all this emotionalism. What had she said or done to arouse such dislike in Louise?

  However, when she had finished her third martini Louise seemed to decide to be more agreeable. At the lunch table she talked gaily of the match and the dance to follow. She ate greedily—it was her boast that she could eat like a horse and never put on an ounce. Today there was ravioli—she adored it—and fish grilled with fennel— “Utterly divine, your cook is a marvel, Dominic, my dear, and I love this local wine.”

  Chloe, still determined not to cross Louise or let anything she said or did upset her, tried to ignore her feelings of uneasiness and resentment. After all, what did it really matter if Louise didn’t like her?

  When Louise went upstairs to gather hat, gloves and handbag, she followed, but far enough behind to avoid having to talk to her. In her room, she waited till she heard the stilt heels go tap-tap along the marble corridor. A minute or two later, looking young and lettuce-crisp in her pale green dress and shady hat, she went down herself.

  The Marsa was a big, flat area given over to polo ground, racecourse, cricket field, tennis courts and the clubhouse, set in its pleasant, verdant gardens and lawns.

  Here, on Saturday afternoons, island society gathered to play or watch games, flirt, see and be seen.

  Here, today, the sun struck down hotly from a sky of limpid blue onto the stand facing the polo ground. This was already well filled. In front of it, behind the pink geraniums and white rails of the enclosure, a cluster of rapturous young things—alike in shining hair, painstaking suntan, and anonymous sunglasses—cheered on their favorite players and chattered like starlings.

  A smell of dust and hot horses mingled with the enticing almond scent of the flowering oleanders, white and rose pink, that lined the drive.

  A chukker was in progress as Chloe and Mark followed the other two to the stand.

  Somewhere overhead a brisk military voice, rather badly tuned, explained over a loudspeaker the moves of the game. Robert, riding a showy chestnut pony, raced down the field and scored for his side just as they reached the gate. Chloe felt a stirring of excitement—she loved the game.

  As the great hindquarters of the ponies heaved up and hurtled past them the young things at the rail applauded deliriously, squealing with delight. When the chukker ended and their heroes rode godlike off the field, the sunglasses came off. The bright eyes were alert to make contact, to register for future dates.

  “Heavens, aren’t they sweet? How old they make one feel,” Chloe whispered.

  “Me, too. In the sere and yellow.” Mark critically scanned the blue and pink, green, yellow and lavender dresses, the smooth tanned arms and legs, the glossy heads of blond and dark, red and brown hair, and felt elated to be escorting a girl who, in his considered opinion, knocked spots off the lot of them.

  He found a couple of vacant places in the stands and they sat down. In a moment the air was full again of the rousing thud of hoofbeats, the crisp smack of stick on ball, the snorting of horses, the shouts, s
eldom polite, of player to player.

  In the interval Chloe found time to look around her. Dominic was nowhere in sight. Louise, at the other end of the stand, was holding court. A tall man in the uniform of the French Navy was bending to kiss her hand with a Gallic flourish. Three younger men hung on her words.

  “The Frenchman is one of the top naval brass in NATO,” Mark whispered, seeing the direction of her glance. “And the blond chap is an aide-de-camp, who arranges all the palace entertaining. A useful chap to know. So’s the dark chap, the flag lieutenant. Louise sure knows how to pick them.”

  “Miaow!”

  “I love being catty. Look, here comes, Robert.”

  He was trying to join them, but Louise put out her left hand and stopped him.

  “You were marvelous, darling. Utterly devastating.”

  Robert preened himself a little. He had in fact scored twice and was no more averse to a little flattery than the rest of his sex. But his eyes strayed over to where Chloe sat with Mark. What he really wanted was to go along and hear her say how marvelous he had been.

  Louise may have seen; at any rate she forestalled him.

  “Sit down here next to me, my pet. You shall do a running commentary on the next chukker for us. We can’t hear a word the announcer says.”

  Robert glanced ruefully at Chloe, who wasn’t, however, looking his way, and with as good a grace as he could muster he sat down next to Louise.

  Chloe had just caught sight of Dominic, coming toward her in a purposeful manner. She went through the usual disconcerting moments of heart-swerve, quickened breathing, deepening color. She hoped he wouldn’t notice.

  “Enjoying it, Chloe?”

  “Enormously, thanks.” She had herself in hand now.

  “Understand the game?”

  “Yes—I used to go quite often in the summer to Cowdray to watch them play. I was born not so far away, you know.”

  “Were you, indeed? I’m a Sussex man myself on my English side.”

  “I know. Mark told me.”

  There was a sudden bright ripple of excited laughter from the rails as the teams rode out.

  “I see ‘the Fishing Fleet’ is here in force today,” Dominic said, adding dryly, “I’m told polo’s a great breeder of romance here.”

  “Is it?” Chloe answered coolly.

  “You wouldn’t know?” He sounded amused. “Not interested in the prospects of romance and marriage, Chloe?”

  “Are you?” she countered, trying to seem as casual as he was—for how, she asked herself, could she have let herself care so desperately, with so very little encouragement?

  “ ‘He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief,’ ” he quoted lightly. “Bacon, in case you didn’t know. I must say I couldn’t agree more. Look, I’ll have to be off. Must get over to the saddling lines. Wish me luck.”

  “The best. Make sure you score.”

  He walked off with his long, easy stride and she sat there thinking with mortification of what he had just said.

  She had an uneasy feeling that somehow she had given herself away to him. Was he perfectly well aware how strongly he attracted her? And was this his way, oblique but perhaps meant to be kind, of warning her off?

  The thought hurt her pride, but then she comforted herself—Dominic wasn’t the kind of man to go around thinking women were in love with him, or noticing if they were.

  Despite her resolve to try to get over him, when the players rode out for the next match it was for his tall, slim figure that she looked. She saw him move onto the field on a gray, riding easily and well—as he seemed to do most things.

  When the umpire threw in the ball and play began she watched him with such passionate intentness that it was as if her own body was rushing down the field with his. She caught her breath at each crisis in the game; her heart thudded in time with the thudding hoofbeats.

  She saw him score brilliantly. When the crowd shouted bravo she shouted too. She was completely carried away. When the chukker ended she found she was shaking all over with the thrill of it.

  After the game was over he joined her again and she was suffused with a warm glow of pride and happiness. But she kept it light and casual.

  “Well done! You play rather well for an eminent archaeologist—don’t you?”

  “So-so. I’m a bit out of practice these days,” he answered matter-of-factly. His handicap was three, and he had never had any use for false modesty. “Glad you enjoyed it.”

  “I loved every minute of it.”

  “Good. Well, let’s go and...” he was beginning. But Louise was standing up, beckoning him imperiously. He muttered something unprintable under his breath. He had been feeling grand after the hard exercise and the thrill of victory. Now his face set in taut lines. He didn’t want to talk to Louise—but he couldn’t snub her publicly. With a sigh he got to his feet.

  “Excuse me, Chloe,” he said shortly. “Mark will take you to the club and give you tea. I’ll see you there later on.”

  And, later on, when the polo was over and people began heading for the club, Chloe strolled with Mark into the club grounds.

  Tennis games were in progress, and through some big trees to the left she glimpsed white-flanneled figures pursuing a cricket ball. In the gardens members ambled around the lawns or sat at small tables, set among the sweetly scented roses, oleanders and frangipani.

  “Except for the vegetation, it’s really a very English scene, Mark,” she exclaimed.

  “Comes of our national talent for making any foreign place we occupy ‘forever England,’ ” grinned Mark. “It’s what makes other races dislike us so much.”

  “Do they?”

  “Of course, didn’t you know?”

  She didn’t reply. She was watching the approach of Louise and her entourage. Robert was one of them. He lingered behind to whisper urgently to Chloe, “I say, the first dance, please, may I? And see you for tea?”

  “Of course.”

  “Angel,” he murmured, and hurried away.

  Later in the clubhouse, there were introductions, new faces, lighthearted laughter, happy snatches of talk about nothing in particular. Then tea and buttered toast in a room hung with naval insignia, regimental crests and the flags of visiting yachts, and as full of a nautical atmosphere as was the club in Valetta.

  Dominic didn’t join them. Later on, when she and Mark were strolling in the gardens again, Chloe saw him talking with an older man. Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed at something his companion had said. Lit that way with amusement, his serious, dark face looked heartbreakingly attractive. She wished she knew how to make him laugh like that.

  As soon as the music began for dancing Robert came to claim her. He wanted to get her on the floor before it filled up. He was an expert performer and anxious for her to know it.

  He was out for conquest. He had fallen for Chloe in his headlong, facile way—though not with any serious intention, for he considered that a naval career was best pursued without the encumbrance of a wife. He hoped to make the most of the short time left before his ship departed from Malta on exercises—if only Chloe would be cooperative...

  Chloe recognized his type, but didn’t hold it against him. He was amusing and charming and good to look at, and she enjoyed dancing with him, even though he did hold her rather too close and would have pressed his cheek against her forehead in the American way if she hadn’t drawn back and shaken her head at him.

  “You dance perfectly. Give me all the rest of the dances,” he begged.

  “I promised Mark.”

  “Oh, Mark. He won’t mind.”

  But Mark was waiting to claim her. She slipped out of Robert’s arms and into his.

  “The next—promise,” Robert urged, scowling at his brother in a manner so pregnant with meaning that Mark grinned delightedly.

  She had hoped that Dominic might at least sit out a dan
ce with her, but he didn’t appear. So she danced with Robert again, and when the music stopped, let him lead her outside onto the veranda.

  The swift darkness had fallen by now, and Robert was quick to spot a shadowy corner with a couple of chairs discreetly placed.

  “A drink, Chloe? Long, cold one?”

  “Please.”

  He called a passing waiter and gave an order.

  “Quickly, before some other fellow butts in,” he said. “When may I see you again? Tomorrow?”

  “You forget what I told you—I’m a working girl.”

  “But Sunday—surely your Sundays are free? Vining isn’t a slave driver, is he? Let me show you the island. I can borrow a car. We can have lunch somewhere along the coast—I know some good places. A pity it’s hardly warm enough for bathing yet—we might have gone snorkeling— and there’s marvelous underwater fishing here, too—ever done any?”

  “Years ago, when daddy was posted in the West Indies.”

  “Oh, good. Then later, when we come back from exercises...”

  “If I’m still here.”

  “You’ve got to be. Anyway, we can picnic tomorrow. And you’d like to come aboard and look over the carrier, wouldn’t you?”

  He’s like a nice child offering me all his toys at once, she thought maternally, and laughed outright.

  “Stop, stop,” she cried. “I haven’t even said I’ll come out yet. Truly, I don’t know if I can. You remember what Professor Vining said about social engagements. I’m—”

  “Don’t laugh at me, Chloe, darling. And don’t hedge.”

  He caught her hand and leaned closer. With his lips almost brushing her hair he said plaintively, “Time’s awfully short. We’ll be off on the spring cruise in no time. I want to spend every spare minute with you.”

  Still laughing, though gently, she turned her head away from his lips—and felt the gooseflesh run along her arms. For Dominic had come around the corner, and was watching with a look of mocking irony that she found hard to bear.

  She could imagine him telling himself how right he had been, at their first meeting on the plane, to say he didn’t want her on the dig, stirring up emotional trouble, as he called it, among the team. Here she was, before his eyes and within days, involved in a flirtation...