The Sun Tower

by Violet Winspear

  prayed that it didn't show ... it wouldn't have been so bad if Raf Ventura hadn't kissed her—the way he had. If he had forced his lips upon hers then she might have been furious, but with a strange and tender audacity, like nothing she had known in her life before, Raf had laid kisses on her eyes and left her with the feeling that they were still there and could be seen.

  'I must go and take a shower,' she said, and with a rush of repentance because she had worried Bay, she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. 'Go and pacify Bella for me, and say I'm truly sorry for

  making her anxious-'

  'Anxious is hardly the word!' Her godmother came from the drawing-room into the hall and her painted lips were as thin as knife edges. 'I don't know what has got into you lately, Dina. Instead of behaving like a responsible young woman on the brink of marriage, you go mooning off all by yourself and you cause not only alarm but speculation. Bay tells me that you behaved rather oddly at the country club dance, which I imagine had something to do with that Ventura man. If I thought for one minute that you'd been with him—have you?'

  'No!' Dina flung back her head and defied her godmother to call her a liar. 'If you must know the truth, then it's quite simple, and probably ridiculous from your point of view. I can't bear to see a fox or a vixen chased until its lungs nearly burst, when the poor creature is hounded to its death and treated to the final indignity of having its brush removed. The whole procedure sickens me and that's why I ride off, as far away as I can get from the cruelty that poses as a sport. I only take part because I—I like to please you, but I just don't like

  to see a terror-stricken animal torn to bits by a pack of hounds. I have nightmares about it, but I haven't said anything because—well, in your eyes it's a weakness rather than a strength to be—to have—feelings.'

  Bella stood there staring at her white face, and Dina knew that the blood had drained from beneath her skin the moment Bella had mentioned Raf Ventura. It had been a desperate defence to reveal how she felt about fox-hunting, for it seemed as if all her life she had been trving to live up to her godmother's ideals and strengths, and to overcome an innate sensitivity probably inherited from her real mother.

  'I've tried to be what you want—sorry.' Dina gave a shrug. 'I guess I'm basically weak-kneed, but you wanted to know.'

  'Honey,' Bay was looking a trifle bewildered, 'd'you mean to say you've bottled up all this—this loathing and gone out with the hunt just to please us? You aren't weak-kneed, darling, you're one sweet martyr. Holy hell, why didn't you tell me how you felt? I've never given it a thought because I've had to do tougher things, and I merely regard those little red devils as pests that raid the local farms and orchards. The sweet mystery of you, Dina, takes my breath away!'

  'I enjoy the gallop, but that's about all.' Dina forced a smile to her lips, but she could still feel Bella's dark eyes upon her, boring into her, trying to read her mind, still suspicious because she had taken this violent aversion to Raf Ventura and would, if she could, have the hunters out after him for daring to 'raid' her property, on the lookout for a chick he could gobble up, to the last feather.

  Dina's smile deepened at the thought, and this seemed to anger Bella.

  'What else,' she asked sharply, 'do you force yourself to do in order to please your benefactor?'

  Dina's smile vanished. 'Oh, don't let's fall out because I hadn't the nerve to see a vixen being torn apart and sloped off on my own. We can't all have your strength of mind, Bella.'

  'No, perhaps not.' Abruptly Bella came to Dina and took hold of her. T care a great deal for you and I find it rather hurtful that you should imply that I force you into doing things that go against your feelings. It implies that I bully you. I don't do that, now do I?'

  'No.' Dina shook her head ... no, it was all done much more subtly than that and they both knew it. 'Am I forgiven for being a little coward? I know your loathing for the pigeon-hearted.'

  'It takes courage to face the guns even if you shake too much to fire one,' said Bay. 'You're okay by me, Di. I only wish you'd confided in me.'

  'Do you?' Her amber eyes dwelt on his candid face, with its fairness of skin, carefully shaven and bearing only a few smile lines. 'Perhaps I didn't want to disillusion you, Bay.'

  'Honey, I wouldn't want to torment you intentionally.' He grinned.

  'You're my gal and I kind of like it that you aren't a bloodthirsty female—why didn't you come and whisper in my ear that you wanted to take a gallop away from the crowd? I'm the guy you're going to marry, so you don't have to mind about dragging me away so we can be alone. Di, Sometimes I think you're a little shy.'

  'Oh, you'd have thought me a spoilsport in the

  midst of that throng, and the hounds were getting excited so I knew they'd caught the scent of their quarry. I slipped away and it was just a quirk of fate that I got unseated and Major decided to be a bit unruly.'

  'No more random adventures, do you hear, Dina?' Bella's hands gripped her slim arms. 'You aren't a schoolgirl playing truant, but a young woman who is soon to be married. Now go and get ready for dinner, and don't keep us waiting.'

  'Yes, Bella.' Dina shot a quick look at her fiance" before she made for the stairs and she saw that he was studying her with an intrigued expression in his eyes, as if there was something different about her, some aura that he sensed but didn't fully comprehend. His eyes met hers and her heart gave a jolt, for burning in his pupils was a glow of excitement, as if he would have come for her, had Bella not been present, and caught her in his arms.

  Oh lord! Dina dashed upstairs as if hounds were snapping at her heels ... so it did show, that another man had held her and kissed her ... a man who made Bay seem like a nice, kind, athletic boy.

  Dina hurried into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. Oh, stay away from me, she silently pleaded of that dark stranger, somewhere in Las Palmas, walking tall among his hotel guests in a dinner suit of impeccable cut and style, smiling his brief smile, politely inclining his black head, a man of unfathomable depths and a disturbing, gritty charm.

  Please! Dina spoke the word aloud in her bathroom, turning the shower faucet and plunging herself beneath the water as it poured from the chromium showerhead. It streamed down over her

  slim body, so white in contrast to the indigo-tiled walls, and her face was lifted to the stream in a kind of supplication ... but not every drop in the skies could wipe away the feel of Raf's warm lips as they closed the blue-shadowed lids of her eyes. Never—never again would she get him out of ' her senses. She felt the touch of him still, incredibly strong and so vitally alive in every fibre of his body. She had been merely kissed, and yet she felt as if she had been destroyed—he had made her want what she must not even think about.

  In a great blue towel she went back into her bedroom and stood there staring at her image in the long triple mirror. It gave back to her a trinity of reflections, of a young woman who looked innocent enough, and yet who had lied to her godmother, and to her fiance. That hour alone with Raf Ventura had had more meaning than anything which had ever befallen her, and yet it must never happen again. He and his isolated house were out of bounds to her, and if she ever saw him again she must streak off like a vixen and avoid him if she could.

  Dina stared into the mirror at her pale, large-eyed face framed by the blue towel, water dripping from her hair and running like tears down her cheeks.

  He could tear asunder her heart, her feelings, the entire fabric of her life, and she swore to herself, then and there, that if their paths ever crossed again she would find the courage to turn and run before he ever touched her again with his lean and knowing hands.

  In that instant there came a soft knock at her door, jarring her nerves. She swung round, half ex-

  peering to see Bella, but it was Chloe, one of the coloured maids, who entered. 'Miz Bella sent me up to help you get dressed for dinner, otherwise you gonna be dawdling again.'

  Chloe smiled and walked to the doors of the clothes clos
et and slid them open. 'Your blue tulle always looks nice, Miz Dina. How about that, or the marble print with them tortoiseshell colours that look good on you?'

  'You choose, Chloe. I'm not particular.' 'What, with Mister Bay staying to dinner?' Chloe drew out the marble print dress. 'I see you've got your hair all nice and wet—sometimes, Miz Di, you're like a young gal who won't become a woman.'

  'Alice,' Dina murmured, as the maid took diaphanous lingerie from a drawer and laid it on the bed, 'creeping off through the magic mirror to take tea with the Mad Hatter.'

  'What's that you say, Miz Di?' Chloe took hold of the towel and began to give Dina's wet hair a brisk rubbing. 'It's a good thing your hair is cut short or we'd never get you ready and Miz Bella would be hopping mad, having a guest and all to dine. A reg'lar one she is for doing things the right way, and you go and get yourself—what's this about taking tea with Alice? Do I know her?'

  'I guess we all know her, Chloe. She's somewhere inside all of us, wanting to escape into a world of crazy unreality.'

  'Sure, Miz Di, it's a crazy world, but we all got to face up to reality some time or other. You're in a funny sort of mood tonight—I guess you're in love.' Chloe gave her rich laugh as she gave Dina's hair a final rub. 'Now you get dressed and stop

  your mooning, though I will say he's a handsome young man and you're a mighty lucky gal to have him, what with all them other young ladies angling to catch him. I'll get out them cloudy ambers to go

  with that dress.'

  Dina nodded abstractedly ... in love, Chloe had said, and it was the one thing in the world she didn't dare to be.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A faint salty breeze was blowing along the beach and there was a refreshing tang in the air. The sun broke the sea into countless golden ripples and the soft high waves pounded the shoreline rocks in ceaseless energy.

  Dina lay at her ease on the coolness of the sand beneath a sheltering bush-palm and watched the energetic beauty of the sea through a pair of large-rimmed sunglasses. It was a morning for lazy dreams, when memories flitted in and out of the caverns of the mind like the glimmering fish among the rocks. The beach was long rather than wide and it curved in and out of the coves under the great belt of cliffs, where the seabirds settled like grey and white images, and then flew off again in their everlasting search for food. Dina took a deep breath and felt a primitive response to the mingled scents of ocean salt, seaweed and sunlit sand.

  Time and the awareness of everyday life lay beyond the barrier of the cliffs, as if only this place and this moment had any real meaning. The spume leapt high on the pinnacles of rock and the soft thunder of the waves was joined by the buoyant bird calls. Dina felt like some sea creature curled into a shell of peace that was bound to be broken sooner or later, but for now she was safe, nothing had yet come along to prod her out of her enclosure of pleasant sights and sounds. She could

  have been but a drifting mollusc in her brief shorts and thin cream shirt.

  Every secret in the world could be dropped into the ocean, she thought, and then there need be no feeling of guilt; no fear of discovery by those who could be hurt by your secrets. They could lie there in the blue-green depths, safe from the distortions they suffered when they fell into the hands of people who saw only the guilt and never the sadness. Yes, there was a certain sweet sadness to a secret, somehow like the decadent scent in a late summer orchard, or in a room where a lover's flower left its faded perfume.

  Dina made a movement with her hand, as if tossing her own secret into the sea ... and then she tensed and stared seaward, and the next instant was on her feet, a cry on her lips.

  Someone was out there swimming rapidly towards the shore, and travelling at an angle towards that lone swimmer was the arrow-glint of a lethal fin. Instinct sharp as a claw raked Dina from head to heel and she ran towards the rocks and the spume and the crash of the waves.

  'Raf I' She screamed his name even as the waves drowned it. 'Oh God, hurry, hurry, HURRY !'

  He could never make it, for sharks were as swift as they were deadly and not unknown along this stretch of the coast, one of the reasons why it was so secluded and why Dina could come here, 'the world forgetting, by the world forgot'.

  She was aware of nothing right now but that black head out there, those brown arms cleaving the water, exerting every nerve and fibre in his effort to reach the surge of the waves and be swept into them, thereby confusing that gliding killer

  who responded to motion and the sounds made by a swimmer.

  'Please, God,' Dina prayed, 'let him make it I Just a few more yards and he'll be safe! Dear Christ, I don't ask for anything more than this I I'll never ask for more!'

  The waves rolled high, a great silken swirl of water, and when they settled the man was part of them and the moment became so unbearable that Dina couldn't bear it. She flung her hands over her face and waited in a kind of shivering despair. Any second now it would be the shark or the rocks that tore into his body, ripping the brown skin, tearing him apart, turning him from a man to a piece of broken wreckage.

  She heard the hammering of her heart and the split-silk sound of the sea as it was gashed on the rocks, and it took all her courage to uncover her eyes and look along the beach.

  He crouched there on the sands, dragging air into his lungs, the water streaming off his shoulders, his back, his long legs. 'Raf !' Now she breathed his name. 'Oh, thank God!'

  He watched her come towards him, blinking the water from his eyes and shaking it from his hair. The sun glinted on the medallion that he wore around his neck, and Dina knew that sharks were attracted to shiny objects. It was a religious medal, no doubt, for Latins often wore them; the image of some Italian saint engraved upon the gold.

  'What were you thinking of?' Her nerves were quivering as if lashed by a storm wave. 'Don't you know how risky this place is for taking a morning bathe?'

  'If I'd known, honey, you can bet your bottom

  dollar I wouldn't have been tempted.' He sat back on his heels and the lashes clung wetly around his grey eyes as he studied her face, which was icy-white, the pupils of her eyes so expanded they almost blotted out the irises. 'I gave you a scare, eh? Did you know it was me?'

  'Th-this is Nun's Cove—I sensed it was you when I saw someone out there, with that shark looking hell-bent for its breakfast. Y-you could be so much chewed-up meat by now I'

  'Don't I know itl I once saw a guy torn from shoulder to hip by one of them—hey, don't fall on your face in all this sand!' He leapt and had hold of her ... her fingers clenched a shoulder like warm iron, and his arm was around her waist in a grip of shocking fierceness. 'My sweet noodle,' he murmured. 'The devil takes care of his own, don't you know that?'

  All she knew was that he was miraculously alive and in one piece, that by the merest kick of a foot he had escaped those voracious jaws. Whether saint or devil had intervened on his behalf was irrelevant at this moment and all that mattered was being crushed against the firm ribs that caged his heart. She drew a sob-shaken breath.

  'After the way you swam you ought to be a contestant for the next Olympics,' she said, and she had to clutch at flippant talk or burst into tears, and she disliked the weak, maudlin self-gratification of tears, which someone like Raf would hate.

  'Yes, it was quite a performance for a man of my years.' He touched a finger to the delicate cleft in her chin. 'But I was always as tenacious as Ranjit-sinji, and I'm not easily bowled over. What brought you to Nun's Cove—curiosity?'

  T—I didn't think you'd come here again-'

  'That I was more likely to be caught prowling around your private beach, eh? And risk your godmother's withering tongue?'

  'You obviously prefer the jaws of a shark,' Dina retorted. 'As I recall Bella didn't seem to wither you.'

  'I'm a very tough man, Dina. Didn't you tell me so?'

  'I'm convinced of it, after this morning. There wouldn't be much limit to any gamble you might take, for you once told me that you always stu
dy the game before making your bid—-you knew that sharks had been seen along this stretch of coast and so you decided to test your arrogance against theirs. Isn't that the truth?'

  As she spoke Dina gazed up at his strong, life-bitten face, and saw there the hint of recklessness, intensified by the damp strand of black hair across his brow, and the way that danger made his eyes glint. It was even in the feel of his body, as if a dynamo was humming there.

  'If life was not a test, a gamble if you like, then it would lose a lot of its excitement. Doesn't a woman take quite a chance when she gives herself to a man—the most elemental challenge of all is the surrender to the emotions, wouldn't you agree?'

  'I—I don't think I want to go into all that.' Dina wanted to make a delicate retreat from his arms, but he was unpredictable and she was still shaken by his close escape from the cruel ravages which a shark could inflict upon the human body. 'I'm so angry with you, Raf! You promised to stay away—

  to leave me alone-'

  'It was three weeks ago when we last met, but are

  you really certain that I made such a promise? I left it to chance, didn't I? I said if we met again it would be by pure chance.'

  'Pure!' she exclaimed. 'Is it ever like that, with you and a woman?'

  'Dina, is that a nice thing for a well brought up girl to even think, let alone ask?' There was a sunlit mockery in his eyes as they played over her face, and she was desperately aware of how closely he was holding her to his hard body, almost bare except for the damp band of his swimming pants. His warm brown skin was touching hers, and she could feel the tiny nerves quivering inside her as she fought not to react to him, as he wanted to make her react.

  'I'm not a fool,' she said. 'I know what you're after.'

  'Do you now?' His eyes held hers and for a moment they were conquering, wholly aware of his aloneness with her on this beach that other people avoided; those who liked to be part of the safe jostling crowd, who wanted to fill the water with their carefree antics and rubber rafts overloaded with their noisy children.