“Where’s your pride?” he said curtly. “If he still cares, he’ll be the first to write. Wait till he does.”
“I suppose you’re right!” She paused. “It’s funny, but I miss his letters and the sketches he used to send. Nick,” her eyes shone round at him in the darkness, “I keep thinking of those early days, when I first came to Kanos. Am I—Bill’s daughter again?”
“Yes,” he said deliberately, “I think you are.”
For many minutes the only sounds were the hum of moths and the passing of a car or two. When she spoke again the subject was polo.
Pat disliked Black Adam from the wicked glint in his eye to the barbarously curbed tail. He was huge, well over sixteen hands, and handsome as a black shiny coat and rippling muscles could make him, but even Nick admitted that his head was too large for him ever to make a first-rate polo pony.
“Then why try making him one?” she demanded, exasperated.
“There’s a bet on it,” he said lazily. Then after a few minutes: “Worried in case I take a tumble?”
“Well, as I remarked the other day, Nick, you are beginning to look a bit battle-scarred.”
He laughed, his lighter clicked, flared, and aromatic cigar smoke drifted to her nostrils. The African night cloaked them in its .dusky, scented, throbbing mystery, and Pat sat very still as Nick sought her hand, turned it in his and regarded its smallness with a quirk of amusement. Then, quite coolly, he lifted her fingers and ran his warm lips along the tips of them. She tensed as he held her hand pressed tight to his jaw. “Wanting to claw me?” he murmured.
“No—”
“I wonder.” He lowered her hand to her lap. “We’re mighty candy-cousin for once, aren’t we? It can’t possibly last, eh?”
“No,” she agreed. “It can’t last. We’ll find something to wrangle about very shortly.”
And they did, when Nick played polo that Saturday and tried again to put the black gelding at the posts. Apart from the goal, the horse responded to polo training. He had his idiosyncrasies, and one of them was to circle the ball so that Nick had to undercut him, but he could play a hard and fast chukka and finish nearly as fresh as he started. In practising ‘turning on a sixpence’ he always reared, and the sight thrown up against the sky of Nick’s head tight against the great beast’s neck sent such a shudder of horror down Pat’s spine that she at once left the polo field and went home alone.
Later, when Nick telephoned, she learned that he had strained a shoulder.
“Serves you right,” she cried into the mouthpiece. “Next time he’ll break your neck!” and brought down the receiver as though it were a whip on the black’s flanks.
Nick was her escort to the Governor’s Ball. Pat’s silken green gown rustled as she made her curtsey, and Bill’s diamond-bow brooch sparkled in her hair. She laughed a little at the pomp and glitter, and wished Bill were here to look piratical and proud of her.
The gardens were jewelled with lanterns and a few couples danced outside on the dry cropped grass, but many sought the white garden benches. Trailing with Nick along the paths, Pat felt serene and close to happiness. When her fingers swung into his hand and were grasped, she laughed, but did not withdraw them. On the edge of darkness he persuaded her to a seat, and they sat watching the lights of the house through the trees, while the music drifted and mingled with the distant thunder of waves from the shore. Pat gave a little shiver of delight.
“Cold?” he asked.
“No. Happy.”
He turned sideways on the bench, facing her, his arm along the back of the seat. “You’re growing rather beautiful, child,” he said.
“You haven’t looked at my nose,” she laughed.
“It’s the cutest in Kanos.” His hand slipped up the back of her neck and caught a fistful of her corn-gold hair. “Don’t ever cut this,” he ordered.
Again she laughed, a breathless, scoffing sound. “I’m surprised at you, Nick—tangling yourself up with the moonlight and a woman’s hair. Let go. That hurts.”
He, too, laughed softly. “Just to let you know this is Nick, not one of those romantic young officers.”
She shook back the hair he had released. “Do you imagine I’m angling for a—kiss?” She gestured to indicate another bench partly hidden by shrubs about a hundred yards away. A pale blur of masculine white merged with billowing pink.
“Would you like me to oblige?” he murmured mockingly.
“You’d want to kiss any woman you might have here, on this seat,” she, retorted. “Even you wouldn’t waste such a setting.”
“Then here goes!” She saw the green glint of his eyes as he suddenly leant close—and kissed the tilt of her nose.
“Candy for little cousin?” she asked, very aware that she had jerked back from him, expecting and fearing, the touch of his lips on hers.
“You shied like a filly then,” he said drily. “Can’t imagine what you’d do if I copied the guy on that bench over there.”
“You took me by surprise. Shall we go back now, Nick? I—I want to dance some more.”
“In a minute.” He lifted her hand and looked into the palm. “I thought so. The inevitable dark man.”
“There are dozens of dark men,” she said lightly. “Here comes one right now!”
Peter was coming towards them over the grass. “Pat,” he called, “wouldn’t you sooner be dancing?”
“You bet!” She jumped eagerly to her feet and went hurrying to meet Peter, calling back over her shoulder, “I’ll see you later, Nick. You’re driving me home, aren’t you?”
“Sure, honey,” his tone was quizzical. “I’m driving you home.”
CHAPTER TEN
THERE was to be a polo match between the Kanos club and the Army, and the ground fluttered with bunting and the flag went up on the stand. The army band rolled out its marches as the audience collected, the women in gay flowered dresses and carrying lacy parasols, the men in white suits and uniforms.
Pat came alone. She had turned down offers of escort in the natural belief that Nick would follow his habit of picking her up at about four, but she had heard no word from him all day. During the past week he had not mentioned the match except to remark: “I don’t know what all the fuss is about. You stay away, honey, and be nice and fresh for the polo dinner in the evening.”
Her answer was that if he thought she was going to miss the last exciting match of the season, then he was very much mistaken. She knew he was riding Black Adam, and suspected a tussle like the one he had had the other week. But what was the use of advising Nick not to ride the black devil—Nick took little heed of her opinion.
Just inside the fence she caught up with one of the club team who had recently had a bad spill. “Hullo,” he growled, limping along on two sticks. “Come to watch the spit-and-polish take a beating?”
“I hope so. Who’s playing Number Three?”
“Howell. He’s too light, but he teams well. Nick’s a good captain; swears hell out of you at practice but says little in a match. Howell’s a bit nervous, but Nick’ll carry him till he’s got his stride. Here is Nick. What’s he doing this side of the field?”
Nick cantered up and swung to the ground. His kit and polo cap were impeccably white, his riding boots gleamed red. His arms, bare to just above the elbow, were brown and strongly muscled.
“I thought you were going to take my advice and give this one a miss.” He scanned her impudently. “You’re looking keyed-up.”
“It’s in the atmosphere,” she said. “Nick, be careful on that brute.”
“I will.” His tone was cool, and he glanced across her head to her companion. “Look after her, will you, Whit, and give her tea just after five.”
“Tea?” Pat was astonished. ‘You know I never take tea at polo.”
He bent upon her a lazy glance. “Tea will settle those keyed-up nerves. Have tea at five and rest in the pavilion.”
Pat flamed into temper. “What’s the matter with you, Nick?
Have you got a touch of the sun?”
“Can’t stop now,” he rejoined. “Don’t forget, Whit.” He leapt back into the saddle and was away.
Pat turned to Whittaker. “What’s he up to?” she demanded. “Has he gone mad?”
“I’ll be able to answer that after the match,” Whittaker said drily.
He invited her to sit at his table on the terrace of the pavilion, and she was conscious of an unusual tension among the crowd in the stand which seemed to ease with the cheering that greeted a detachment of uniformed horsemen parading the ground.
When the club team came out, Pat leaned forward and gazed hard at Nick’s unmistakable figure on the big black horse. She frowned and recalled something he had said about a bet. Darn the man—he was as bad as Bill when it came to taking dares. A nerve jarred in her throat. Suddenly the sun felt too hot, and the crowd round her grew hazy. “Next time he’ll break your neck!” she had cried down the telephone, and her mind was suddenly filled again with a picture of Bill being thrown headlong out of that canoe.
She stood up, unaware. She wanted to run out of the pavilion, and then she heard Whittaker say something and she sat down again, feeling a trickle of sweat coursing down between her shoulder-blades.
From the start it was a gruelling game. Polo at its best is the fastest, most dangerous and colourful sport on earth. This afternoon the play was superb, the pace breakneck. The pounding horses and ringing oaths, the smack of stick on the ball, the twisting and turning and wheeling of men and horses in the height of condition, combined to excite an already vibrating audience.
It was grimly obvious to Pat that Nick, in back position, was determined to let no ball through. In perilous moments his perfect back-hand stroke came into play, obtaining a clear-away for his own side, and a few times he left Howell to cover while he followed through and placed the ball for the forward. It was from one of those mad sweeps down the field that the first goal for the club was scored.
Whittaker rubbed his hands. “Did you see the forward waiting near the boards for the ball? He knew just where it would come. Hard and accurate, that’s Nick.”
Pat’s pulses were plunging with the horses, her heart thudding with the hoofs.
In the fourth chukka one of the army players was thrown. It was a nasty spill from which the rider was carried off unconscious and the horse led away limping. Pat had gone cold with horror, but when Whittaker suggested she go inside for tea, she shook her head. She now had the absurd feeling that so long as she was watching nothing would happen to Nick—then a cheer rent the air as the club scored a second goal.
As the sixth chukka ended, Whittaker lumbered to his feet. “I promised Nick to give you tea,” he said.
“Please sit down, Whit,” she spoke firmly. “I don’t want any.”
“He was emphatic about it. You’d better come.”
“But I don’t want tea, and if I did I could have it here.” She rubbed the palms of her hands with her handkerchief. The last chukka was due to start.
“Look here, I promised Nick...” Whittaker sounded a bit desperate.
She turned to look at him. “I can’t help that. I’m a person, not a chattel.”
Whittaker raised his shoulders as though leaving everything in the hands of the gods, and sat down again. A minute later he thumped the table. “Here he comes!” he exclaimed.
It was Nick, superbly astride Black Adam. Again Pat’s heart turned over and her bones ran to water. Whittaker was chuckling.
“Why does he have to ride that creature?” Pat spoke in a low, shaking voice. “He’ll be killed!”
“Well, the bet’s up next Wednesday,” Whittaker remarked.
“And what exactly does that bet entail?” she demanded.
“That Nick last a full match on Black Adam. He’ll do it yet, if the other horses don’t excite the beast. Look at that!”
But now she couldn’t look. Her mind was full of agonizing pictures. Bill in white, plunging into the water. Nick in white, plunging to the hard ground of the polo field.
“Don’t worry,” Whittaker said casually, “Nick knows how to fall if he gets thrown.”
The crowd were standing and shouting, because out there the great black horse was getting up to his tricks, rearing, snorting, fighting Nick every inch of the way down the field—and Nick was leaning out of the saddle to undercut, managing the stormy beast with all his determined, utterly controlled strength.
Seizing his chance, the army forward was attacking all the time. A swipe that seemed a certain goal sent the ball clear between Black Adam’s legs. Nick reached out and saved and the crowd cheered, but a second later the cheer turned to a roar as the black nosed a post and shot up, pawing the air, before Nick had recovered his seat.
Paralysed, Pat watched the slick pulling in of his knees, the downthrust of his head, the sure grip of the saddle. Then she turned and fled.
She ran down into the gardens at the back of the pavilion and along the path to the pillared arbour that was deserted now, and cool. She clung to one of the pillars, faint with haste and fear, and presently moved over to the semi-circular seat and collapsed on to it, taking off her hat to allow the air to her damp temples.
A long cheer signalled the end of the game, but she could not move. The babbling diminished and she guessed that most of the spectators were taking drinks in the pavilion.
On the path before her Nick appeared, loping, a grin on his face. Hate flared anew in her. At the entrance to the arbour he stopped dead, his expression gone grave, then came in. He looked hot from the race, his eyes alight with green fire from the chase, the conflict, then the victory.
“You won, of course,” she said coldly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Go away!”
“You’re trembling. Pat, tell me!”
“The hero,” she said through her teeth. “All puffed up with his own courage and daring. Playing to the gallery on that damned black thing. Nick the conqueror. Nick the showman...”
He stared down at her, and the smouldering fires went out in his eyes. A nerve kicked in his jaw. “You caught the end of the match?” he said.
“No, not quite the end.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “That—that bet. That beastly bet! You knew how I hated that horse and you didn’t care.”
“You weren’t meant to see.”
“I’m well aware of that.” She stood up, fingers clenched on her lace-rimmed hat, a whiteness under her golden tan, her eyes a dark amber. “Risking your neck for—for money and cheers...”
“Pat, look at me. That’s it. The bet was made months ago—at a time when my neck didn’t seem to be worth much to me—or to you.”
“Was—Bill alive?” The pupils of her eyes had dilated.
“Well—no.”
“Bill was dead, and you thought it wouldn’t matter if that black horse threw you a—and broke your neck?” She was passionate with dislike as her eyes swept his dusty figure, black hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, a red welt on his forearm.
“I’ve hurt you, Pat—I’m sorry—”
Her chin tilted. “Go back for your laurels, captain. I’m going home.”
She swept past him and walked rapidly along the path. She arrived home very weary, anger drained and an aching hurt in its place. Even an hour later it was an effort to stir herself to bathe and dress. Wherever she looked there was Nick in white, the sun glinting on his brown arms and throat, his teeth glittering in a devilish grin as he careered about that polo field on Black Adam.
She drew a long, shaky breath ... how she hated him!
That night at the polo dinner and dance, she partnered everyone but Nick. She couldn’t bear the thought of his arms around her—then abruptly he came over to her. “It’s been a full day,” he said curtly. “Shall we go now?”
She nodded. She thought he would drive her straight home to the villa, but instead he made for Winterton Terrace. “Come in for a drink,” he said. “We’ve had n
o chance to talk.”
As she entered the grey lounge there was constriction in her chest and a nerve jerked at the corner of her mouth. He gave her a drink and suggested that she sit down.
“What are we going to talk about?” she asked, without looking at him.
“The boom in rubber, if you like.” He lounged in a favourite position, against a table, and out of the corner of her eye she could see the starched whiteness of his dinner-jacket and the long, narrow black trousers, the gleam of polished shoes.
“You’re good at wresting the utmost out of the elemental,” she said coldly. “Out of rubber, the jungle, horses—and women.”
“I’ve only tried to be as good a—friend as I know how, Pat,” he replied. “I’m not a god, and if I make mistakes—”
“You’re Nick Farland, aren’t you?” she cut in. “Master of your own destiny, who needs no one. It was quite a blow to the friendship I thought was ours to see you this afternoon, risking your neck on a bet. It showed me how little I’ve mattered—”
“Pat, for heaven’s sake!” His glass rang on the table and he came striding over to her. He caught her by the shoulders and pulled her up roughly to face him. “I won’t be put into Bill’s place, do you hear? I’m not your father! I am Nick Farland—a separate individual.” He gave her a shake, then abruptly drew her against his shoulder and pressed a large hand against the back of her head.
“You’re still so young,” he murmured, “and I forget that. A sensitive little cuss who can’t help bruising herself against the toughness that I can’t help. Well, if it’s any consolation, pet, I shan’t use Black Adam on the polo field any more. It would mean breaking his spirit, or breaking my neck, and I guess you value both, eh?”
She nodded, there against his white shoulder. A transient sense of peace had returned, and then a little to her surprise she heard herself saying to him: “Nick, couldn’t we take a short cruise on one of our own vessels?”
Winds of Enchantment Page 11
