He had gone to sleep thinking of his sister’s problems with regard to her son, but had slept deeply and dreamlessly and this morning he felt vividly aware of his good health and high spirits.
Part of it, he knew, was relief from no longer being oppressed by the seriousness of his mission or by being in danger.
The past years in fact had made him feel older than he actually was and now he felt like a schoolboy starting his holidays, sure that he was going to enjoy every minute of them.
He thought, as he helped himself from a plate of fish that had been caught the previous day, that once David had set out for Africa he would enjoy being alone with his sister and talking as they had not been able to do for twelve months.
He had not been flattering her when he said that he found her more intelligent and indeed more attractive than any other woman he knew.
He loved Helene because she was sympathetic and both in her appearance and in her outlook a very feminine woman.
Tyrone Strome had lived a tough and what many people thought a hard life and it had taught him to be ruthless and at times cruel.
In contrast, when he was with a woman, he wanted everything about her to be soft and yielding.
This was what he had demanded of any woman with whom he had a love affair and he knew when he thought about her that Nevada van Arden typified everything he disliked in the modern girl.
Almost as if the thought of her conjured her up, he heard footsteps behind him and turned his head to see David and Nevada together advancing towards him over the carefully watered green lawns.
Silhouetted against the dark cypress trees, Nevada looked, as she had last night, ethereal and very lovely.
She was not wearing a hat and the sun glinting on her hair turned it into tongues of fire and her eyes were very green against the translucency of her white skin.
Slowly, annoyed that he should be interrupted at breakfast time, Tyrone Strome rose to his feet.
“Good morning, Uncle Tyrone,” David said and there was an unmistakeable touch of nervousness in his voice.
“Good morning, David, good morning, Miss van Arden,” Tyrone Strome said. “Will you forgive me if I go on with my breakfast? You are both surprisingly early.”
“We came to see you because Ronaldson told me that you are going into Nice,” David said.
“That is what I intend to do,” Tyrone Strome answered. “As I told you last night, I have some guns aboard my yacht and also other equipment that you will find useful in Africa.”
“I did not wish you to take an unnecessary journey,” David said.
The words were spoken almost hesitantly. Then, with a triumphant note in her voice, Nevada interposed,
“What David is trying to tell you, Mr. Strome, is that he is not going.”
Her green eyes were on his as she spoke and Tyrone Strome knew that the expression in them was deliberately provocative.
He raised his eyebrows but said nothing as David explained rather uncomfortably,
“I wrote a note to Nevada last night and told her I was going to Africa, but this morning she has persuaded me to stay here and look after her. It was what I had promised to do.”
“Then naturally you must keep your promise,” Tyrone Strome replied.
If David expected him to protest – if they thought he would show anger or irritation at his nephew’s change of mind – he was determined that they would be disappointed.
“There, David, I told you that you were working yourself into a frenzy for nothing!” Nevada remarked.
As she spoke, she reached out and took a piece of toast from the silver rack on the breakfast table, spread it with butter and added a spoonful of honey.
She bit into it with her pearly white teeth.
“Delicious!” she said. “I cannot think why I did not ask for honey. I forgot how good it is in this part of the world.” David was looking at his uncle.
“I don’t want you to think I am ungrateful, Uncle Tyrone, for what you suggested last night. Ronaldson told me that you have already sent a telegram to your friends. I am sorry about that, but naturally I wish to stay if Nevada wants me.”
“Of course I want you,” Nevada said. “I need a handsome and distinguished escort to dance with and to take me to all the fascinating places there are to see around here.”
“Yesterday you said they bored you,” David remarked.
“That was yesterday,” Nevada replied with a wave of her hand. “Today I have changed my mind. We must make plans, David, to explore all the interesting places in the neighbourhood.”
“Will you be content to do so in one of Mama’s carriages?” David asked. “Or are you going to insist on going in that noisy and smelly car of Charlie’s?”
“That is certainly a thought,” Nevada answered. “Incidentally it’s not smelly and it’s very fast.”
“Much too fast!” David said sullenly. “It is dangerous, as you well know, to travel at any speed on these roads.”
“I like living dangerously,” Nevada answered. “Mr. Strome will agree with that – will you not?”
She looked directly at Tyrone Strome as she spoke, opening her green eyes with a deliberately contrived expression of innocence in them and making her question sound ingenuous and flattering.
Tyrone Strome looked at her with a glint of amusement in his eyes.
“I wonder, Miss van Arden, if you have any idea of what danger means?”
“Not unless you are referring to being alone on a moonlit deck with a very attractive man,” she replied.
“When did that happen to you?” David asked jealously. “You never told me.”
“My dear David, you cannot expect me to confess all the interludes that occur in my life. Besides you know I dislike men who are jealous.”
“How can you expect me to be anything else?”
“I find jealousy, like love, an emotion I can do without,” Nevada replied lightly. “They are both extremely inhibiting to enjoyment and, make no mistake, I am determined to enjoy myself.”
David was looking at her with an expression of hopeless yearning.
It was not surprising, Tyrone Strome told himself, that the boy was infatuated, for Nevada was undoubtedly one of the loveliest creatures he had ever seen in his life.
It was a pity that she was also, he thought, one of the most unpleasant specimens of her kind that it had ever been his misfortune to encounter.
He was well aware that she was attempting to show him her power over David and to flout his authority in a manner that told him all too clearly she would stop at nothing to get her own way.
“I suppose, Mr. Strome,” she said as she finished the toast and honey, “it would be useless to include you in our plans for today?”
“Is that an invitation?” he asked.
He spoke in a manner which surprised her.
She glanced at him quickly and his long experience with women told him that for the first time she regarded him as a possible conquest.
“Why not?” she asked. “You know that I would love hearing about your exploits – if you are prepared to talk to me about them.”
She almost overdid the eagerness of a young girl encountering a celebrity, Tyrone Strome thought cynically, but he answered,
“I should be afraid, after all you have said about wishing to be amused, that you might find them dull.”
“I am sure nothing you could do would ever be dull, Mr. Strome.”
“Adventures, however unpredictable can have their dull moments, especially if one is alone,” he answered.
“Then we must certainly try to make up to you for the times that you have felt lonely,” Nevada said softly.
“I am flattered,” Tyrone Strome smiled, “but I must not impose myself upon you and David. I am sure you have things to do together and, if I accompanied you, I should be very much de trop.”
“No, no, of course you would not!” Nevada said quickly. “We would like to have you, would we not, David?�
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“If you say so,” David replied without much enthusiasm.
Tyrone Strome could have laughed aloud at the way this inexperienced young woman thought she was on the point of captivating him.
He had flirted with some of the most alluring, sophisticated and famous beauties in the world and he was not for one second deceived by the wide-eyed ingenuousness that Nevada had now assumed for his benefit.
He was also well aware that his nephew was looking at him suspiciously, already jealous of Nevada’s interest in him.
“I think perhaps I had better first find out what your mother wants to do, David,” Tyrone Strome said. “She did speak of visiting my yacht.”
“Oh, I would love to see it, too!” Nevada cried. “Would you show it to me? I have a passion for yachts.”
“But of course,” he answered. “It would be a very great pleasure to show you over The Moulay.”
“Is that what you call her?”
“Yes, it means, as you may not know, ‘Sovereign’ in Arabic. I consider my yacht is a King among other vessels.”
“Then I must certainly see her immediately!” Nevada said imperiously. “Please persuade Lady Merrill to take us all to The Moulay.”
“Have you forgotten that you asked me to send a note to Charles telling him I would come over to his villa to play tennis before luncheon this morning?” David said sulkily. “I expect by now the groom will have left with it.”
“So I did,” Nevada answered. “Well, we can send another to say that after all you are too busy.”
Tyrone Strome had the idea that she had been making arrangements to take David’s mind off the fact that he was altering his plans to go to Africa.
“Perhaps the groom has not yet left,” she said quickly, “Go and find out if you can stop him.”
“All right,” David agreed, “but Charles will be disappointed.”
“I will console him later,” Nevada said lightly.
David, who had been sitting on the arm of the chair near the breakfast table, rose and walked back towards the villa.
Nevada waited until he was out of sight, then she said,
“Perhaps I made a mistake in stopping David from following your advice. It might have been more amusing without him.”
There was an innuendo in her voice that made Tyrone Strome long to spank her, instead of which he said suavely,
“I thought it would interest him to do some big game shooting.”
“And of course he would forget me! It is the standard solution for a young man in love with someone unsuitable.”
“Did I say that you were unsuitable?” Tyrone Strome asked.
“You made that obvious last night.”
“Perhaps my judgement was too hasty and based on hearsay.”
“And now you have changed your mind?”
“Are we still talking about David?”
Tyrone Strome was playing the game of duelling with words when every sentence had an ulterior meaning and each one was as sharp as the point of a rapier.
“I think, Mr. Strome, I am a little frightened of you,” Nevada said.
Her lips curved over the words and she deliberately dropped her eyes in a manner which to a less experienced man would have seemed enticingly young and shy.
“I am sure you are nothing of the sort,” Tyrone Strome replied. “I feel Miss van Arden, we have a lot to learn about each other.”
“I would like you to call me Nevada. Miss van Arden sounds so formal.”
“You are very gracious.”
Only those who knew Tyrone Strome very well would have realised that he was not only being sarcastic but also there was an impish light in his eyes which showed that he was enjoying himself.
He had not forgotten for one moment that last night he had saved David from an action that might at this moment have shrouded the whole villa and everyone in it in the deepest misery.
He was determined to fight this vixen of a girl with her own weapons and he knew, despite the fact that she had come out into the garden to crow over him, hating him because he had shown himself last night to be critical, she was now thinking that she would have her revenge by making him her slave.
It was quite understandable that she was used to men falling head-over-heels in love with her on sight and becoming like David so infatuated that they lost all sense of proportion.
There was no doubt about her beauty, but Tyrone Strome thought it was a beauty that was as evil and pernicious as that of Medusa, who had at least warned men of her wickedness by wearing her hair filled with snakes.
Nevada’s hair had an enticement that was all of its own and he knew that most men would find it impossible not to lose their heads when she looked at them from under her dark lashes and her green eyes seemed to hold all the mysteries of the East.
“I wish we had talked for a little longer last night,” Nevada said in a sweet voice, “but of course, there are other nights and the moonlight makes this one of the most romantic places I have ever visited.”
“That is what I think myself,” Tyrone Strome agreed. “Then perhaps we could look at it together,” she suggested softly.
“Why not?” he enquired, “but we must not waste the hours of sunlight.”
“No, of course not,” she answered, “and I would like to see your yacht.”
She looked at him for a moment, before she added,
“I will make David play tennis. He will only be a bore mooning about after us when there is so much I want you to tell me, so much I would like you to explain.”
“What a good idea!” Tyrone Strome exclaimed. “You go and arrange things with David and I will go and talk to my sister.”
He rose from the breakfast table as he spoke and Nevada rose too.
Every movement that she made had a grace that was all its own and he thought in her white gown and with her gleaming red hair it was hard to believe that she was as dangerous as he had learnt her to be from the first moment of the acquaintance.
He smiled in a way that women had found beguiling ever since he had been in the cradle.
“I shall look forward to being your host on The Moulay.”
“It will be very exciting!” Nevada replied with that glance from under her eyelashes that Tyrone Strome was quite certain she had practised in front of a mirror.
They walked slowly side by side towards the villa.
They had almost reached the long white steps leading up to it when David came running down them.
“It’s no use, Nevada,” he said, “the note has gone, but I can send the groom back with another as soon as he returns.”
“I think that would be needlessly unkind – ” Nevada began.
Tyrone Strome did not wait to hear any more. He left the two of them talking together and went up to his sister’s room.
He knew she did not rise early and in fact he found her sitting up in bed wearing a blue chiffon dressing-jacket and looking young and very attractive against a pile of lace-edged pillows.
“Good morning, Tyrone dearest,” she said. “I was hoping you would come and see me.”
He bent to kiss her cheek and then sat down on the edge of the bed to take her hand in his.
“You slept well?” she asked. “You are looking extremely handsome this morning. I am looking forward to introducing you to my friends so that they will see what a charming brother I have.”
“Unfortunately I have bad news for you.”
He felt her stiffen, then he said,
“That girl, Nevada, has persuaded David not to go to Africa.”
“Oh, no!” Lady Merrill exclaimed. “I was thinking it over last night, Tyrone, and was certain that it was the right thing for him to do. He has been so miserable, so unhappy ever since she came here.”
“I can understand that.”
“One moment she encourages him, the next minute she snubs him and crushes him in a manner that is so unnecessarily cruel that I can hardly bear to watch it happening.”
“Why do you think she behaves like that?”
“I suppose it is to show off her power. She is the same with every man she meets. She has to have them grovelling at her feet. Lord Dundonald is feeling nearly as desperate about Charles as I am about David.”
“How long did you invite her to stay?”
“For another three weeks!” Lady Merrill said. “Heaven knows what damage she will have done by then!”
It was a cry that her brother could well understand, remembering what had nearly happened last night.
“Surely she has not travelled from America alone?” he asked.
“No, of course not!” Lady Merrill answered. “Her father sent an elderly woman with her, who I believe is very nice, although I am quite certain she was completely ineffective as a chaperone where Nevada was concerned.”
“What happened to her?” Tyrone Strome enquired.
“She was ill when they reached London. When I invited Nevada to stay, having no idea what she was like, I naturally asked them both to be my guests.”
“But the chaperone did not come?”
“No, Nevada wrote and explained that she would come alone and arranged for a courier to escort her on the journey.”
Lady Merrill made a little gesture with her hands.
“As I have already told you, she is very efficient when it comes to looking after herself and I believe she has travelled quite a lot in the past.”
“So she arrived alone,” Tyrone Strome enquired.
“Yes, she left her lady’s maid to look after Mrs. Langholme, or whatever her name is, and asked me to find her a French replacement for the time she was with us.”
“So she will be here with you for a further three weeks,” Tyrone Strome said reflectively.
His sister looked uncomfortable.
“If I am honest, I must tell you that I said three weeks or as long as she wished. I had no idea that Elizabeth’s daughter would be like this or indeed so beautiful.”
Lady Merrill sighed.
“One cannot deny her beauty, but it is the way she uses it that is so disturbing. Oh, Tyrone, do try to persuade David to go away.”
“Nevada has informed him that she wants him here to escort and amuse her.”
The Punishment of a Vixen Page 3
