The Velvet Touch

by Margery Hilton

  'Nonsense,' he said, when she protested. 'You'll need suitable gear, and I've no intention of letting you stand the cost of clothes you wouldn't otherwise be buying.'

  'But you're already paying me all expenses plus my salary,' she exclaimed.

  'I'm claiming all your time, my dear,' he said firmly, 'besides landing you with Yvonne. And you should see the stuff she's bought for the trip,' he added feelingly. 'It looks enough to dress the entire Palladium troupe!'

  So she spent a pleasant if hectic morning choosing beach wear and casual separates that would interchange. Mr Searle had warned her that shopping facilities were very limited on Destino, so she also bought supplies of sun lotion, films, and various other holiday needs.

  On the Thursday morning Mr Searle brought Yvonne along to the office and took the two girls out to lunch. Yvonne, younger by four years, was tall for her age, and Laurel felt quite small when her own five foot four inches were ranged against Yvonne's five foot seven. Yvonne was very attractive, she decided, with her long lustrous raven-dark hair and vivid colouring, even though petulance marred her full crimson mouth and her attitude of resentment towards her father was scarcely hidden. But youthful impetuosity began to show through as the meal progressed, and Yvonne could not resist detailing the new gear she had bought. She described the long crimson voile skirt and tight white lace top she'd bought for evening—'even though he' —with an impertinent inclination of her head towards her father—'says there isn't any night life and the place we're staying isn't even a proper hotel. But it's absolutely gorgeous and you can just see my legs through it. I've got a tiny black velvet bolero to wear with it. I shall look like a seňorita!'

  'You'll be run off the island if you wear a semi-transparent skirt without a petticoat underneath,' Gordon Searle told his daughter patiently.

  'Petticoat!' Scorn curled Yvonne's red mouth. 'There'd be a slip attached to it if the designer thought it necessary. And if anyone objects I shan't be staying long enough to be run off their lousy island. It sounds like the last place God made, anyway. Don't you think so?'

  Appealed to, Laurel could only shake her head and smile. 'We can't judge until we get there. And the sun will be the super attraction, being able to wear our swimsuits all day if we want to.'

  Yvonne looked at the grey drizzle outside the restaurant window and conceded the point. Although April was nearly gone it had left spring far behind somewhere along the way, and there was little temptation by the weather to do much blossoming out in summer finery.

  Laurel parted on reasonably amiable terms with her future charge, and spent the afternoon with her employer going over her schedule for collecting the information he required. After a tray of tea and sandwiches in the office he wished her luck and sent her home to get her packing and personal chores done. By eight o'clock she was exhausted. She had completed her packing, tidied the flat, left a month's rent with her friend in the downstairs flatlet, remembered to leave a note to stop the milk, and all that remained to do was have a shampoo and bath. They were leaving on an early flight so she must not risk sleeping in and not being ready when her boss called to collect her and drive her to the airport.

  She was running the water into the bath when the door bell rang.

  Giving a muttered exclamation of dismay, she clutched her wrap about her and went to open the door a few cautious inches. The man waiting impatiently outside stepped forward, his smile coming with easy self-assurance, then his eyes rounded and he gave a soft, appreciative whistle.

  'Phil!' she gasped, torn between dismay and delight. 'But I didn't—'

  'Not to worry, darling. I don't mind waiting.' He was stepping across the threshold, utterly confident of his welcome, and his hands were reaching for her. 'After all, we did have a date, didn't we?'

  'Yes, but…' Laurel disengaged herself rather quickly from his embrace, suddenly conscious of her somewhat inadequate attire and a certain emphasised warmth about his kiss. She gestured helplessly. 'But I didn't expect you—you rang to say you were tied up all this week, so—'

  'I know, darling.' His whimsical mouth, the brown eyes widened ruefully, and contrite voice all expressed the charm she'd never been able to resist from the first moment he walked into her life six months ago. 'But fortunately I was able to clear up this tiresome business with Daverley's quicker than I'd expected, and then Jake Harving rang to say that tomorrow's conference was off because he had to go up to our northern factory to sort out a spot of bother there. So I'm free! All yours until Monday morning, sweetie.'

  He kissed her startled mouth lightly and moved across the living room. He stopped at the little cupboard where she kept her modest store of refreshment, and slid the glass door along. Perfectly at home, he frowned at the sherry bottle that was less than half full, and held up the bottle of Martini.

  'Lovey, we are well down below the plimsoll line. Or have you a new cellar hidden away somewhere?'

  He was getting two glasses out as he spoke, and when she made no immediate response he swung round. 'Darling, don't just stand there. It's after nine, you know. So go and brush out those lovely locks and get ready, there's a good girl. Unless,' his mouth pursed appreciatively, 'that's your latest in hostess gowns and you'd rather make it an at-home tonight. It's okay by me!'

  'No—it isn't, and I wouldn't.' She tightened the sash about her waist and pulled the lace fronts of her wrap primly up to her throat. 'Phil, I can't go out with you. I was just running a bath, and my hair's still wet. I'm—'

  'What do you mean? You can't.' He put the glasses down and moved forward swiftly. 'All right, I know. You're piqued, my darling.' He put placating hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. 'So let me make a very special apology—but I couldn't help it, you know.'

  'You said that the last time, and the time before.' Laurel was aware of tiredness, and a sad little stab of disillusion that she was beginning to recognise Phil's winning line in blarney. 'It's too late. I have to be up very early tomorrow because—'

  'Tomorrow! But there's all tonight first! Come on, Laurie,' he put a finger under her chin and smiled, 'kiss and make up, then we'll go on the town. Anywhere you like! How about—?'

  'No!' Almost despairingly she eluded another embrace, knowing how difficult it was to resist Phil when he chose to exert his most persuasive charm. 'I can't, Phil. I'm going away tomorrow.'

  'Away?' The smile died from his handsome face and a frown flickered across his dark brow. 'What do you mean? You're going away? You never said anything about this,' he exclaimed, almost accusingly.

  'I didn't know myself till last weekend,' she told him, giving a small shake of her head. 'You've been away all week. How could I let you know?'

  His mouth tightened with a brief flash of petulance as he seemed to realise that she stated only a fact. Then he said slowly, 'Yes, of course… But isn't it all very sudden? How long?'

  'A month, perhaps longer. You see—'

  'A month!' he echoed, aghast. 'Oh, no, Laurie, you can't do this to me. It'll ruin everything.' He stared at her bewildered expression, then hurried on: 'Listen, we've been invited to Jake Harving's place next weekend—down near Hove. This is the first time I've had an invite to one of Jake's weekend do's. Oh, Laurie I you've got to get back in time.'

  Laurel bit her lip. 'But I can't. Everything's fixed. Besides, I don't know Mr Harving. Why has he asked me? I mean, if it's a business affair…'

  'No, you don't understand,' he said, almost desperately. 'This is a tremendous chance for me. I'll be meeting influential people, and it means that Jake is beginning to recognise my potential—he never admits junior execs into his social life unless he's pretty impressed with them. But naturally he usually invites one to bring a girl, if one isn't married. And naturally I thought of you, never dreaming that anything like this would happen.'

  Laurel sighed. 'I'm sorry, Phil, but I don't see what I can do. My trip is business too, and I've given my word.' She shrugged helplessly. 'I can't let Mr Searle down. But
I'll willingly send my apologies to your boss —even though the invitation didn't come personally— if you think that'll help.'

  'You still don't understand,' he repeated impatiently.

  'I've talked about you, and Jake expressed a wish to meet you. You're the kind of girl he'd like. You dress beautifully, and you mix so easily. You always seem right, you are right, in every way, and that's of importance to someone like Jake. And now you stand there and tell me you can't make it. You're going away —just like that!'

  He was too wrapped up in his own indignation to notice the danger sign beginning to sparkle in Laurel's eyes. When he stopped and looked at her as though he expected instant contrition, her temper flared.

  'Listen, Phil. I've said I'm sorry, and that's the end of it. I'm certainly not going to start altering my plans at this late hour just to keep what amounts to a casual invitation to a weekend party from a man I've never met, even if he is your boss. Anyway,' she gestured, 'I still fail to see how my not being there is going to have any effect on your future chances of promotion.'

  'Do you? Then it's time you did,' he said bitterly. 'The right woman in a man's background can make all the difference in the world in some companies; and ours is one of them. I thought I mattered to you,' he said through tight lips, 'but apparently I don't.'

  For a moment Laurel was speechless as the full implication of Phil's words got home. Then she took a deep breath, controlling her temper with difficulty while she said quietly: 'You did matter to me. If it's any consolation, I fell in love with you the very first time you took me out. But it seems you weren't looking for a girl to fall in love with yourself, even for friendly companionship. You were looking for an asset, for a girl who looked right.' Laurel's voice rose sharply with bitterness and scorn. 'You wanted a girl of whom your boss would approve. A girl who would fit in with what he deemed a suitable feminine background for his junior executives. Well, I'm not that girl.'

  Slowly she crossed to the door and opened it, a curiously appealing and dignified air about her, despite the damp tendrils of hair curling about her brow, and the soft flowing folds of blue housecoat clinging to her slender figure. 'I don't think there's anything else to say, Phil…'

  She waited, while he stared at her with incredulous eyes. He took a step forward. 'You—you don't mean this, Laurie. You can't.'

  'Oh, but I do.'

  'But we're in love with each other! You've admitted it. And I can soon prove it.' He moved towards her with purposeful steps, his intent obvious.

  'No.' She put up her hands to ward off his embrace, keeping her expression cold. She knew of the power Phil held to stir her senses, should she be unwary enough to allow him the chance to use it, and the cold hard core of logic in her brain warned her not to weaken. 'I'm tired of standing by, waiting for the phone to ring, listening to your excuses, being available whenever it suited your book. It's over, Phil. I mean it.'

  'I believe you do.' But he seemed unbelieving as he stood there. 'And to think I believed you understood, that I was working for us, for our future. That as soon as I'd carved out a secure niche for myself in the firm I'd be able to offer you marriage, and the kind of home we could both be proud of. You're making a terrible mistake, Laurie.'

  She shook her head. All the things she'd tried to shut her eyes to were revealed with stark clarity. That basically Phil was selfish; that any girl who gave her heart to him would have to learn to subject her life totally to him. That what Phil wanted in life would always come first, and that the sweet charm would soon be revealed as the sham of excuses for that very selfishness. Ambition was all very well, and perhaps there were many girls who would disagree with her, but Laurel wanted more than that from the man she would choose as her life partner. Last of all did she want to be chosen because she was the kind of girl who would come out with a top score from the boss's vetting.

  She looked at him, an infinite sadness in her eyes as she recognised yet another truth; that even now Phil was acting. The smooth glib phrases came off his tongue so easily, the hurt, badly-done-to expression that drooped around his mouth even as the hint of suppressed anger darkened his eyes.

  For a moment she thought he would argue further, but he changed his mind and gave a shrug that plainly expressed resignation.

  'I can see I'm wasting my time talking to you while you're in this frame of mind,' he said sulkily. 'Perhaps you'll think differently later. Goodnight, Laurel.'

  Which meant he might be prepared to forgive her, later on, when she came to her senses and made apologies which he considered adequate and fitting, she thought bitterly. But she remained silent and unmoved, except for a toneless little goodnight, after which he closed the door with a suspicion of a snap.

  She heard his sharp footsteps diminish in sound as he went down the stairs, and then the slam of the outer door. Only then did she turn back to the silent room, and the full comprehension of what she had done.

  She willed herself to complete the tasks he had interrupted, determined not to allow herself to descend into useless regret. For it was over; she had to face that fact. For unless she made the first move Phil would never come back. She had hurt his pride, even as she had denied her own heart. But better to recognise the truth now, than later, when the anguish would be infinitely more severe.

  Despite all her resolution she cried that night, once the little lamp was extinguished and darkness crowded about her. She lay awake for long hours, wishing he hadn't come, that it wasn't all over, that Jake Harving hadn't issued that invitation. What had he said? Bring that girl of yours along. Let's have a look at her …? Or had it been couched in more man-of-the-world terms?

  Laurel sighed into her pillow. She would never know, but somehow the scene with Phil seemed a daunting omen for the future. She remembered Gordon Searle's warning, and she thought of Yvonne, and wondered uneasily about the unknown quantity of the local lord of the manor—if that were the proper term for a Latin grandee who sounded anything but welcoming. Was she going to be able to cope with the problems awaiting her?

  Suddenly she felt alone and forlorn, and just a little afraid…

  CHAPTER TWO

  'Oh, leave me alone! I can't be bothered!' Yvonne flounced across to the big garden swing and hurled herself into it, glowering petulantly at Laurel.

  Laurel looked down uneasily at the slender young figure in its briefest of orange-flowered bikinis and felt dismay. This was it, the start of the rebellion about which her employer had warned her and which she' had sensed was simmering in the spoilt daughter of Gordon Searle ever since the moment they arrived at the Villa Cristina.

  Yvonne glanced up with scarcely veiled insolence. 'You're wasting your time standing there. I'm not coming with you.'

  Laurel restrained impatience. Yvonne had been unusually quiet over breakfast and there was the possibility that she was suffering a reaction to too much sun and the change of food. She said quietly: 'You're not feeling off-colour or anything, Yvonne?'

  'Ha ha! Everybody laugh!' Yvonne stabbed viciously at the ground with a white-sandalled foot, sending the canopied swing into a violent motion that narrowly missed Laurel. 'Oh, yes, there's something the matter with me! I'm bored! Bored to extinction. We've been here three days, and all we've done is walk! Walk round this dreary island. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go, and nothing to see when you get there. Island of Destiny!' she added disgustedly. 'I could tell you what its destiny ought to be. It ought to—'

  'Keep your voice down,' Laurel said sharply. 'Be fair, Yvonne, you knew there wouldn't be many tourists and it would be quiet.'

  'Quiet!' Yvonne exploded. 'It's so quiet you can hear the cabbages growing. As for tourists…! There are eight people in this—this apology for an hotel, and I think I'm the only one without one foot in the grave. There's old Colonel Carlton and his wife doddering about. He talks politics all day and she bleats about what's wrong with the young people today. I could tell her what's wrong with her generation. And Mr Binkley, silly old fool, tryin
g to pinch my bottom when he thinks nobody's looking. He must be eighty if he's a day.'

  'I haven't exactly got one foot in the grave,' Laurel said dryly.

  'You're a female,' said Yvonne, as though this fact was somehow Laurel's fault. 'And then having that boring Miss Jessops tagging on to us yesterday, yackety-yacking all the time about the cost of living and how she can't afford to go to Cannes these days.'

  Laurel sighed deeply. 'Miss Jessops is lonely. Her companion died recently and she's alone in the world now. It isn't much to give her, a few hours of companionship.'

  'Not mine, thank you. Why doesn't she get herself another companion, someone as dried up and dull as herself, if she's that lonely?'

  Laurel came perilously near to losing her temper. 'Listen,' she said grimly, 'I know it's quiet. I know there aren't any young people here at the moment, but try to remember that I happen to be here to do a job—a job for which your father is paying me.'

  'Nobody's stopping you doing your job.' Yvonne gave another petulant thrust to set the swing going again. 'All I'm asking is that you leave me out of it.'

  'But what will you do on your own?'

  'I'll find something to do, I suppose. Go for a swim, then read, maybe.' Yvonne fished her sunglasses out of her tote bag and donned them. 'But I'm not going tramping for miles. I got a blister yesterday, if you remember.'

  'Yes, but you wouldn't have had that if you hadn't insisted on wearing unsuitable shoes.'

  'I like those shoes, and I bought them especially for the trip.'

  Laurel looked at her despairingly. She was rapidly discovering the difficulty of winning an argument, no matter how logically, with the self-willed Yvonne. But what could she do? She had her job to do, and she had undertaken to look after her unwilling charge, who plainly had no intention of setting forth on another exploratory ramble over Destino's beautiful, unspoilt countryside. Laurel made a final attempt at persuasion.