An Apple in Eden

by Kay Thorpe

  'You're one of the Perestrellos' English guests, aren't you?'

  'Is it that obvious?' she asked smilingly, turning to look at him.

  'Well,' he said consideringly, 'you're not dark enough for a true Spaniard, and they don't as a rule have green eyes, although I have to admit I've only just noted those.' His grin was attractive. 'As a matter of fact I've been watching you for the last hour or so in there. You and your ... sister, isn't it? The folk I came with told me who you were. I understand your sister is engaged to one of those two. Hard to tell apart, aren't they?'

  'On the surface,' Eve agreed, wondering if perhaps the news of Juan's claim on Lynn had disappointed this countryman of theirs. 'Are you staying in Puerto yourself?'

  'As a matter of fact I work on the island,' he answered. 'The name is Randolph. Tony Randolph. I'm employed on an engineering project in Santa for six months, with four still to run. How long are you over for?'

  'Only another week,' she told him, and stifled the inevitable sinking feeling with a bright smile. 'How do you like it?'

  'It's not bad. Not as steeped in tradition as I expected, although they still tend to keep their women fairly strictly supervised. I made a date with one girl from the town a couple of weeks back who turned up with both her brothers in tow to give me the once-over.'

  Eve laughed. 'Did you pass muster?'

  'Apparently not. I haven't seen her since. They probably decided that my intentions were too obviously temporary.' They both joined in the applause for a particularly brilliant piece of display, then he glanced back at her. 'Has your partner deserted you?'

  'I don't think so. He left me for a moment just before they announced the fireworks, and I got carried out here in the general enthusiasm. Lynn and Juan are somewhere around.'

  'Are you ...' He hesitated. 'I mean, does he have any particular-claim on you, or is he just the brother of the brother-in-law to be?'

  'No and yes,' she replied steadily.

  'Then maybe we could meet again while you're still here? I'd greatly enjoy an evening out with someone I didn't have to think Spanish with all the time.'

  Which was one way of putting it, thought Eve humorously, if not the most flattering. 'I don't really ...' she began.

  'Oh, come on. be a devil ! ' he coaxed. 'We don't have to be formally introduced, do we? Anyway, I'd have thought you'd be ready for a bit of relaxing company yourself. You didn't look too much at ease when you were dancing with laddo ! '

  And that was the understatement of the year! All the same ... Eve opened her mouth to finish what she had been about to say, and closed it abruptly as Ramon appeared at her elbow with a look in his eye that she didn't care for at all.

  `I've been searching for you,' he said. He gave Tony Randolph a comprehensive glance. 'Who is this?'

  Eve murmured introductions, aware that the two men were summing one another up with neither of them liking very much what they saw. `Mr Randolph works in Santa Cruz,' she added for no particular reason other than an urge to keep talking. 'On an engineering project. He came with some Spanish friends.'

  'Yes?' Ramon's appraisal continued. 'You know each other already in England?'

  'Well, no.' It was Tony who answered, voice a little belligerent. 'As a matter of fact we've only just

  met. I was asking Miss Raynor if she'd care to take pity on a fellow foreigner and have dinner with me one evening before she returns home.'

  'Then I will give you her answer now. No.' Ramon's hand was under Eve's elbow. 'Come, the display is almost over.'

  Just a minute.' Eve was trembling with a sudden influx of anger and bristling indigation. 'I'm capable of speaking for myself.' She forced a smile for Tony's benefit, squashing the childish urge to tell him that she would be delighted to have dinner with him any time. 'It was good of you to ask me, but there really wouldn't be much opportunity before I leave. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay.'

  `So do I,' he said, and turned away hastily, quite obviously not wishing to be involved in any kind of scene over what had only amounted to a matter of impulse.

  Ramon's mouth was set in lines Eve hadn't seen before as he guided her firmly down some steps and along a path beyond the flood of light from the house until they were out of sight of the watchers still gazing skywards. When they finally stopped he turned her none too gently to face him.

  'Now,' he said, 'we'll have one thing made clear between us. Tonight you are with me and under my protection, which gives me the right to squash flat any such advance as made by the man we have just left. No Spanish girl would think of acting in the way you did!'

  'But I'm not Spanish,' she returned with some heat, 'I'm English. And in my country a man usu-

  ally credits a woman with the ability to do her own squashing. I had no intention of accepting the invitation—even if it was a bit of a temptation.' The last she couldn't resist. 'He seemed nice enough, and obviously a bit lonely for his own kind.'

  Ramon gave a derisive snort. He was trying to pick you up. Anyone could see that ! There are plenty of English people he could be in company with in Santa if that's his only need. Is your knowledge of men so limited that you fail to recognise those kind of tactics?'

  'Your ways are not our ways,' she flashed back, and then bit off a small cry of pain as his fingers slid up from her elbows to grip the softer flesh of her upper arm with bruising force.

  `No,' he said, 'they are not. And should you humiliate me like that again you'll very soon find out the differences '

  'I humiliate you! I like that! It was you with your ... your jealousy who humiliated both of us!' Eve stopped, shocked by her own vehemence, added in quieter if no less angry tones, 'Lack of confidence, didn't you say earlier?'

  `I did. And I say the same now.' His grip relaxed again, and a smile touched his lips. 'I'm not jealous, nina. It's a matter of pride.'

  'You made out they were the same thing.'

  `Ah, but there are different kinds of pride. My forebears would have called mine a matter of honour and demanded satisfaction. As I'm forbidden that course of action I must take it out on you instead.'

  `If you felt that strongly about it you could have knocked him down,' she retorted with sarcasm, and he lifted a brow.

  'You would have liked that?'

  'No, of course not. I only meant ...' She knew she was beginning to make a fool of herself, and the knowledge didn't help a bit. 'You know very well I wasn't serious,' she snapped.

  'I know nothing of the kind. If you are to take everything I say seriously I can surely be forgiven for doing the same.' He let her go, flipped back a tendril of hair from her cheek. 'You'll be good for the rest of the evening, yes?'

  'Oh, exemplary!' She moved hastily away from him. 'With you for company who could be anything else ! '

  His sigh was mockingly resigned. 'I can see there are things I still have to teach you about me. And so little time left. I'll have to make certain that we spend most of it alone together.'

  Eve gave a deliberate little shrug. 'Don't bother. I prefer to stay around the villa with Lynn.'

  He laughed softly. 'You refuse to admit it even to yourself, don't you?'

  'Admit what?' she asked without turning her head.

  'That you want me as much as I want you. That you'd love to forget your oh, so British morals and allow your heart to rule your head for once.' He came up behind her, his hands sliding warm around her waist, his lips nuzzling the nape of her neck. 'Sweet Eve, the apple was tasted long ago. Would

  you have the world turn backwards?'

  'Yes, if what you're suggesting is supposed to be progress,' she answered low-toned. 'Let me go, Ramon.'

  'You're trembling,' he murmured in her ear. 'You want to love me, but you're afraid. There's nothing to fear in love, amada. Trust me.'

  Heart thudding, she tore herself free. 'You can't bear it, can you? To have someone actually dare to resist the irresistible Ramon Perestrello! If you tried being a little less arrogant, a little less sure of your
self I ...'

  'Yes?' he prompted with interest as she broke off abruptly. 'You might be more prepared to fulfil my desires, is that what you were going to say?'

  'No! I was going to ...' She registered his expression and curled her fingers suddenly and tightly into her palms. 'You're teasing me.'

  'If I am,' he came back, 'you rise to it with perfection. But you can't be sure.' Tauntingly he presented his arm. 'Shall we go back?'

  The guests began leaving about two o'clock. Driving homewards along the dark coast road, Lynn gave a contented sigh. 'I'll say one thing, you people certainly know how to celebrate! Life here is one long holiday!'

  'Don't you believe it,' Juan smiled. 'We work hard, so we deserve to play hard too. Two days of festivities followed by weeks of unremitting toil. Would you begrudge so little?'

  Lynn was laughing. 'Unremitting toil indeed! The one time I came down to the factory I found

  both of you with your feet up drinking coffee.'

  `Leave me out of your arguments,' came the easy interjection from the rear. 'I need the occasional stimulant.' He was looking at Eve as he said it; she knew it, but refused to turn her head. 'We'll have to show your sister our place of work before she leaves and correct any mistaken impression that we're there as figureheads only.'

  `Whatever impressions I leave with I'm sure they won't be mistaken ones,' Eve retorted, but her tone was subdued. 'You don't have to prove anything to me.'

  'After the weekend,' he went on as if she hadn't spoken. 'That will still leave time for Teide. Have you ever been right to the top of a volcano before?'

  'No,' she said, and determined there and then that she had no intention of accompanying Ramon up any mountain, volcanic or otherwise. She was having enough trouble keeping her feet on the ground here below the clouds.

  It was unusually late when she woke the following morning. By the time she got down the men had left and Señora Perestrello was busy elsewhere. There was a letter waiting for her at her place at the table. Eve slit the envelope with her knife and took out three closely written pages from Gavin with an odd sense of reluctance. It was strange, but it felt more than just a week since she had last seen him. Gavin was a part of another world, another Eve; she didn't want dragging back into that life just yet.

  He began predictably by thanking her for her postcard, which made her feel guilty because she

  hadn't taken the trouble to write a letter herself, and went on to describe the weather, the state of his mother's health and the increasing difficulty in finding a place to park his car near the office, in that order and in detail. I got that promotion I was after, he said modestly on the final page. So we could afford to convert a part of Mother's house into a self-contained flat for her own use. I wouldn't ask you to share a kitchen with any other woman; I know how much women hate that. But I'm sure you will agree that we could hardly leave her entirely alone under the circumstances. She sends her love and looks forward, as I do myself, to your return home.

  Big deal, thought Eve, and was immediately ashamed. She liked Gavin's mother, who bore her ill health with far more fortitude than her son, but sympathy wasn't enough to make an arrangement like that work out—at least not for her. If she had married Gavin she would willingly have agreed to contributing towards a nurse-companion to live in with Mrs Crooks. Only she wasn't going to marry him. Not now. She had learned far too much about herself these last few days.

  Lynn came into the room as she was sliding the letter back into its envelope, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.

  'Hi,' she said. `Do you feel as dead as I do, or is it just me who can't stand the pace? What time is it? My watch has stopped.'

  'Ten o'clock,' Eve told her. 'There's a clock in your bedroom.'

  'So there is, but I'm not there, I'm here.' She

  helped herself to coffee. 'Is that from Gavin?' 'It is.'

  'Old reliable.' There was no malice in Lynn's tone, but a certain curiosity in her glance. 'Eve, are you really thinking of marrying him?'

  'Why?' she hedged. 'Don't you like him?'

  'He's all right. There's nothing to dislike about him, is there? He's just so ... so dull!'

  'You once said that about Juan,' Eve couldn't help pointing out.

  'Yes, but I was undergoing a psychological crisis at the time. I know what I want now, and I shan't change my mind. Do you know what you want, Eve?'

  'Right now I'd like some more coffee if you've finished hogging the pot,' Eve said lightly.

  'Now isn't that just like you! You never would tell me anything.' Lynn leaned forward with both elbows on the table, face suddenly serious. 'Eve, don't shut me out again. This last few days we've been closer than we've ever been—like sisters really should be. You don't have to feel responsible for me anymore. I've got Juan to lean on now.'

  Eve sat very still. 'Is that what I did?' she asked at last. 'Shut you out?'

  'Yes, although I never realised at the time why you were doing it. All the worry you must have had over money because Dad spent his life in the past instead of looking ahead a bit. And me expecting things to go on just as before. That holiday in Portugal must have taken some saving for, and there was I carping because we were in a tiny back-

  street hotel instead of one of the big glamorous ones. Perhaps if you'd told me the truth then I might have grown up a lot earlier.'

  'You ... seem to have been doing a lot of thinking.'

  'Not that much. It was Juan who said never to take anything or anyone as they might appear on the surface without trying to find out what was underneath. Up till then I'd thought you resented me, resented the drag I must have been on your own life since Mom and Dad went. If I played up—and I know darn well that I did—then it's partly because I was so envious of you.'

  'Envious of me?'

  'That's what I said. You were always so much cleverer and so capable. You were able to meet Dad on his own level, while I simply bored him.'

  'That's ridiculous,' Eve said swiftly. 'He was tremendously proud of you.'

  'Oh, sure. Both Mom and I knew that much. We were part of his collection, something he liked to look at. But it was you he talked to and wanted to be with most. I can remember you now, poring over those books together, using words I wouldn't even have known how to pronounce. Mom and I could have stood on our heads then and you wouldn't have noticed anything different.'

  Eve swallowed the lump in her throat. 'Lynn, I'm sorry,' she said achingly. 'You and Mother always seemed so self-sufficient together. You didn't seem to need us. Why didn't you tell me all this before?'

  'I suppose I was doing my own shutting out.' Lynn's smile was rueful. 'Anyway, it's been said now so we can both forget it.' Impulsively she added, 'Why don't you do as Juan suggests and stay on here—at least until after the wedding. You'd easily find another job when you did go home—if you did go back. A better one than that stuffy old bank,' she tagged on with a return to the old Lynn. 'You don't want to marry Gavin, Eve. Even I know that!'

  It was on the tip of Eve's tongue to agree with her, but one thought held her back. To tell Lynn that she wasn't going to marry Gavin could be one way of also telling Ramon, who would interpret that piece of information his own way. With several more days to spend here, she didn't intend to be the object of that kind of derisive triumph.

  'Two years is a long time,' she said mildly. 'And I could do a lot worse.'

  'Not much, though.' An old expression passed across Lynn's face. 'Still, who am I to tell you what you should do with your life! What shall we do with ourselves today?'

  'Laze in the sun and be content. Incidentally,' Eve added lightly, 'what will you do with yourself all day when you're married to Juan?'

  'Oh, that's all taken care of. I'm to learn how to run a Spanish home.' She smiled. 'And then Juan wants us to start a family right away, so I expect I shall have my hands full one way or another. Can you imagine me with a baby? The Rejons' child was three, and I found him enough of a problem! Still, I expect I
shall cope.'

  'I'm sure you will,' Eve assured her, and tried desperately to shut out the mental picture of a laughing dark-eyed little boy who looked exactly like his uncle.

  The weekend went through its phases. For Eve time seemed suddenly to be racing by, yet no one else appeared particularly affected by thoughts of her impending departure. When on Sunday afternoon Ramon disappeared for several hours without explanation she found herself unable to relax, wandering irresolutely from terrace to pool and back again to the villa, trying not to believe that he was very probably visiting the lovely Isabella, telling herself between times that it was none of her business if he was. When he did put in an appearance just before dinner she had reached a state where she was beginning actively to hate him for what he was doing to her emotions, and responded to his smile of greeting with a cold green glance which raised his brows in mocking speculation and made her want to kick herself for not having the sense to conceal her reactions to his absence.

  It was with this in mind that she raised no objection when he suggested a stroll in the grounds after dinner, and for once she made no definitive move to keep the few inches of safe space between them as they walked in the headily scented darkness.

  'Did you miss me this afternoon?' he asked when several moments had passed in silence.

  'Did you intend me to?' she hedged on a suitably light note.

  He shrugged. 'Perhaps. It's economical to kill the

  two birds with the one stone.'

  `Economical?'

  'On the emotions. Mine,' dryly, 'are becoming exceedingly shredded.'

  `If we're still talking about me you probably mean frustrated,' Eve retorted sweetly. 'Although I'm sure Isabella fulfils all your desires in that direction ! '

  `So you did think I might be with her.' The smile was back in his voice. 'You're very probably right at that. Isabella is all woman, and knows exactly how to make a man happy.'

  `And doesn't mind sharing your interests with others, apparently.' Having fallen neatly into the trap, Eve felt she might just as well be hanged for a sheep as well as a lamb. 'A pity she didn't scratch your eyes out after leaving her flat like that at the fiesta.'