Flower for a Bride

by Barbara Rowan

  Normally a governess, she felt sure, would have been a little below her notice, for there was that in the cast of her features that betrayed a good deal of

  pride, and when she was not actually smiling, or appearing animated, she could look just a trifle disdainful. It was possible, Lois realized, that she was genuinely kind-hearted, and the idea of a lonely English girl touched her in some curious way. It was possible too, that the diversion she was seeking for her brother was her reason. But somehow Lois couldn’t be convinced of that, for the son of a wealthy Portuguese was hardly likely to need distraction provided for him—and, in any case Lois had no intention of providing that distraction herself.

  She was a little curious about Rick Enderby, the English artist, who must be a local resident, but Dom Julyan had come so close to looking down his beautifully straight and very aristocratic nose at the mere

  mention of him that she was afraid he was not amongst the most acceptable of local foreign residents. Not where Dom Julyan was concerned, at any rate.

  But, then, Dom Julyan, she felt sure, was extremely fastidious.

  With so many doubts and perplexities in her mind she was not looking forward to her afternoon, but considerably to her surprise when she reached her destination she found that her host and hostess were two of the most delightful people she had ever met. Senhor Fernandes was a white-haired, jovial man with twinkling eyes, and his wife was plump and thoroughly amiable, and it was quite obvious their eldest daughter took after neither of them, although a little of her easy affability she might have inherited from her mother.

  She was extremely affable to Lois, and once again Lois was struck by her elegance, and by the animation in her face—the flame-like vivacity and suggestion of passionate warmth that dwelt behind the brilliant golden-brown eyes. But it was a warmth that could not be aroused by everyone, she felt sure, for even to her parents she was casual, and amongst the many guests there were those whom she completely ignored. Amongst the guests she obviously favored she picked out one or two to whom she introduced Lois, and amongst the first of the men—as if he had been invited for the express purpose— was Rick Enderby.

  Lois, feeling extremely under-dressed in her navy-blue tie-silk dress, with which she wore a little white hat and white shoes, and carried her big white pouch handbag under her arm, discovered he was looking at her with a kind of amusement in his eyes as she held out her hand.

  He was a big, fair man, with a bronzed face and a little, curling golden beard, and eyes as blue as Jay’s. They were disconcerting eyes, perhaps because of that twinkle in them, but Lois decided immediately that he reminded her of a Viking, and that she liked him. He gave her hand a very firm pressure, and he had a one-sided white-toothed smile that attracted her.

  “I’ve already heard quite a bit about you,” he told her, “and I don’t mind admitting I’ve been curious to meet you. Do you think you’re going to like looking after the Valerira infant?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lois assured him. She found herself smiling back at him naturally, as if she had known him for a long time. “I’m already quite attached to him, and I think I’m very lucky to have found such a comfortable job. I was on holiday, you know, and I didn’t expect it.”

  He nodded.

  “Yes. I’ve heard about that, too—the wedding that didn’t come off! You’re a relation of the bride-that-was-to-have-been, aren’t you?’’

  Lois ceased to smile for a moment.

  “Her cousin.”

  "Well, well!” he said. “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good! If you hadn’t come out here for the wedding Dom Julyan would never have seen you and decided that you were the ideal person to take over the charge of his precious son and heir, and the rest of us would never have met you. I wouldn’t have met you!”

  Lois felt herself coloring faintly, a trifle confused by the unmistakable admiration in his blue eyes.

  “I understand you’re an artist,” she murmured.

  “I paint pictures,” he admitted. “Not very good pictures— but they make it possible for me to live here, and if there’s one thing I can’t bear trying to do it’s attempting to eke out an existence in a cold climate. Here there’s so much color and warmth that it doesn’t matter very much how much money you have, and what little you have seems to go a long way. Unless my tastes are simple.”

  Are they simple?” she enquired.

  “I’ve a bungalow overlooking the sea, a garden that’s nearly always a blaze of flowers, and someone to look after me who understands my needs. What more could I want?” regarding her with that crooked smile. “One of these days you must come and see my bungalow, and if you don’t agree that I’m lucky I’ll be surprised. I’ll get my housekeeper to lay on one of her special lunches, and then you’ll agree that I’m extraordinarily lucky.”

  Lois was about to thank him for his invitation when Gloria came up to them and asked whether they were getting on as famously as she had felt certain they would. Her red lips had a smile on them that made Lois think once more of the Mona Lisa, and there was a sparkle of something that might have been a tinge of mockery in her eyes as she looked at Rick Enderby. He gazed back at her with a sleepy expression under his surprisingly dark eyelashes, and assured her with a bland note in his voice that naturally he and such an attractive fellow countrywoman were getting along very well. How could they do otherwise?

  “Well, don’t monopolize her altogether,” Gloria said.

  “There are other people who want to get to know her, you know,” but she made no attempt to introduce anyone else, and before she went away she sent another curious look at the Englishman which Lois found it well-nigh impossible to interpret. It was a look which suggested they knew one another very well, but it also suggested some sort of a challenge. Even a conspiracy between them, which made Lois look suddenly doubtful.

  “Come and sit down over here,” Enderby said, guiding her by the arm towards a secluded corner near one of the big windows, which overlooked an ornamental terrace, beyond which lay rolling lawns. “Do you like tea with lemon or without? Or would you prefer lemon-squash, or something cooling like that? At these ‘do’s’ all sorts of things are always available, unlike Sunday afternoon in England. And if you’re feeling hungry the ‘eats’ are rather appetizing.”

  “I’m not feeling a bit hungry,” she told him, “and I’d like tea with milk if you can get it.”

  “With cream,” he answered, “and I’ll get it immediately.” When he came back he sat looking at her again, as if he found her a refreshing spectacle. She sipped her tea and found it to her taste, and waited for him to ask questions.

  “How do you like Dom Julyan?”

  “He’s very considerate as an employer.”

  “And as a man?”

  “I hardly know him,” she answered.

  “H’m!” he commented, offering her a cigarette, and then lighting it for her. “You’re a young woman of discretion, I can see, and you’re not prepared to offer any comments about that marriage that failed to come off. But if I’m permitted to make one solitary comment it is that you’re quite unlike your cousin, and I’ll elaborate it by informing you that the rest of us could have told Miss Jay Fairchild that Dom Julyan’s way of life was not for her. It would have floored her absolutely, and before she’d been married a fortnight. She could never have lived up to one single thing he expected of her, and I shall never understand why he himself ever thought she could.”

  “And is that confining yourself to one comment only” with a demure look.

  Rick laughed softly.

  “Now, if it had been you ... I might have understood it!”

  “Oh, why?” she enquired.

  “Because, although you don’t wear such expensive clothes as your cousin, and you’re not a beauty—not an obvious beauty, anyway—and you don’t appear to have a doting mama in the offing, who has staked her all on finding you a rich husband, you’ve already struck me as having considerably more to offer th
an Miss Jay could ever offer any man. Why, even the old Marquis himself might have escaped raised eyebrows if he’d emerged from his seclusion and asked you to be his wife!”

  This time it was Lois who laughed, but with a strong tinge of embarrassment, tinctured with disbelief.

  “Doesn’t the old Marquis possess a wife, then? She asked. “No. She's been dead for years, and I don’t suppose he’ll ever take another. But you’d fit into his background very well—the palacio near Lisbon, and another in Estoril. You’re a dainty little lady, you know, and as poised as a sprig of apple blossom. Will you let me paint you one day?”

  “Paint me? But, why in the world should you want to paint me . . . ?”

  “Will you?”

  “I don’t get a great deal of free time, and it might not be very easy. Wouldn’t it be wiser for you to stick to all the marvellous beauties of nature that abound around here?”

  “It wouldn’t,” he answered, “and we’ll fix something up. You’re entitled to enough free time to make your job bearable, and Dom Julyan will have to recognize that. Will you have dinner with me one night this week?”

  She looked even more taken aback.

  “But I honestly don’t know about my off-duty periods. I haven’t gone into them very seriously...”

  “Then I’ll telephone Dom Julyan and tell him that I’ve asked you to spend an evening with me, and get him to state when you can be free. Then I’ll notify you, and the thing will be simple.” He smiled at her. “What an obstructionist you are, and don’t you know that all work and no play makes Jill a dull girl? There’s quite an attractive nightspot in Alvora where the food is good and the service excellent, and where we can dance, too. Now, don’t tell me you don’t dance!”

  She looked at him a little whimsically, deciding that in addition to looking like a Viking he had Viking methods of obtaining what he wanted, and that he would not be at all an easy man to sidetrack. She wasn’t at all sure that she approved of him ringing up Dom Julyan, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say just then that would be likely to put him off, and when he suggested going into the garden to inspect a corner of it devoted to some magnificent roses she agreed at once, and hoped that he would forget about his invitation to dinner, and the necessity of putting the matter before her employer.

  The garden was laid out regardless of expense, and the roses made Lois think of England, save that the hot sun in which they were displaying their perfection was not in the least like English sun. They were returning to the inviting coolness of the house, and she was just thinking that she would have to make her farewells to her host and hostess—and to Donna Colares, too, if she was not surrounded by a little knot of her friends—since it had been arranged that a car was to call for her at six, when a young man stepped from some bushes bordering one side of the path and confronted them.

  “Hello,” said Rick Enderby casually. “I wondered whether you were anywhere about. I suppose you think your support isn’t really needed on occasions like this?”

  “It can be dispensed with,” the young man replied, in rather an indolent tone. He was looking at Lois, and his tawny-brown eyes were openly appreciative. She guessed at once that he was a close relative of the Fernandes family, for in about twenty years time he would begin to bear a distinct resemblance to his father, and just then he was sufficiently like his sister to make the resemblance almost ludicrous. He had the same black patent-leather hair, the same restless sparkle in his eyes, faintly derisive quirk to a rather sensual mouth, the same irregularity to the rest of his features that prevented him from being good-looking, although he was very far from being the opposite.

  “This is Miss Lois Fairchild,” Rick said, regarding him with a gleam of amusement in his eyes. “I gather you knew you were expected to meet her this afternoon, and for that reason you kept out of the way?”

  Duarte Fernandes grinned unrepentantly, while still taking in all the details of the English girl’s appearance.

  “I like to make my own friends.” he said, “and Gloria has a habit of rather forcing hers on me. But I didn’t intend to absent myself altogether.” He held out his hand to Lois, and she put hers into it. “I’m Duarte, the black sheep of the family, and rather extra black at the moment. I saw you two amongst the roses, and it was then I decided I was missing something.”

  Lois couldn’t resist smiling slightly at him, but she thought his admission was in rather bad taste. She also thought those brown eyes of his that made her think of brown velvet with the sun on it were a little too bold to be the sort of eyes she could ever trust. Or anyone else could ever trust, if it came to that.

  “You’re too late, old chap,” Enderby told him carelessly. “Miss Fairchild and I have spent a very pleasant afternoon, and now she’s got to leave. Unless my eyes are at fault that’s one of the Valerira cars coming up the drive now, with Ricardo at the wheel, and he’s probably got instructions to be back on the dot. So you’ve wasted quite a lot of time.”

  Duarte looked round at the car, and then frowned slightly. Then he looked back again at Lois.

  "But do you have to leave?” he asked. “I understand you are a governess, not a slave to the whim of an employer.”

  “My employer is very considerate, and I’ve already had several hours off duty this afternoon,” Lois replied, rather stiffly, because she resented his manner of referring to Dom Julyan. And all at once she was glad that she was leaving, and that she would soon be back with Jamie in the nursery—Rick Enderby was very pleasant, and the afternoon had been a break, but she had no desire to repeat it.

  “I’m sorry your sister’s friends usually turn out to be rather a bore,” she couldn’t refrain from adding.

  Rick laughed as he helped her into the car, after promising to convey her farewells to her hostess for her.

  “You deserved that one, Duarte,” he told him, and Duarte’s eyes gleamed.

  “Nevertheless, there will be other occasions when we will meet, Miss Fairchild,” he told her, through the open window of the car. “And sometimes my sister has excellent taste! In future I will have to be a little more careful!”

  Lois looked away from him, and smiled at her fellow countryman.

  “Don’t forget that you’re going to have dinner with me one night this week,” he called, before the car rolled away. That’s a date!”

  “Is it?” Duarte looked with a hint of vexation in his eyes at the other man, and then shook his head regretfully. “I do seem to have wasted my afternoon, don’t I?” he remarked.

  C H A P T E R NI NE

  It was mid-week when Lois was summoned to Dom Julyan’s library, and as the summons came just before lunchtime one morning she wondered what it was he wanted to say to her that could not well have waited until they met in the dining room if he was going to be in to lunch.

  But as she walked along the corridor to the library, over the glistening marble floor that was strewn at intervals with rich rugs, she decided that he evidently wasn’t going to be in to lunch. He hadn’t been in the day before, or the day before that; and she sometimes wondered why he had made his stipulation about her bringing Jamie down to share the midday meal with her.

  She tapped on the library door, and was instantly bidden to enter by a quiet voice that called to her to “Come in.” As soon as she had obeyed the invitation and found herself in the immense room with its painted ceiling, and fluted pillars that supported it, she realized that she had all at once become extremely nervous. Her throat felt dry as if she had committed an offence and was expecting to be called upon for an explanation of her lapse, and she was conscious of not knowing quite what to do with her hands when she stood in front of the man who had summoned her. Her pulses seemed to be pounding a little uneasily, too.

  Dom Julyan, who had been standing in the opening of the tall French windows, looking out at one of the most attractive vistas of his garden, when she opened the door, turned as soon as he realized that she was within a few feet of him. As the weat
her was now very hot he was wearing a thin silk suit, and to Lois he looked handsome—almost painfully handsome—remote and a trifle austere.

  “I sent for you, Miss Lois, because I’ve just received a request over the telephone,” he told her, coming to the point at once. “A request to spare you for an evening in order that you can be taken out to dinner by someone you met on Sunday afternoon.”

  “Oh!” Lois exclaimed. She realized at once to whom he was referring. “You—you mean Mr. Enderby?” “Then you have already agreed to dine with him provided my permission could be obtained?”

  The censoriousness of his tone—the coolness of his voice that actually made her think of the coldness of icicles—had the effect of arousing a feeling of resentment deep down inside her, and suddenly it bubbled up and showed in her clear grey-blue eyes, and the sudden stiffening of her slight shoulders.

  “Is it absolutely necessary that your permission should be obtained, senhor?” she asked, looking him deliberately in the face. “I mean, I quite recognize that you are my employer, but surely my private life is my own?”

  "Agreed,” he answered silkily, “but so long as you live in my house I’m afraid a strictly private life is not possible for you, because I hold myself responsible for you. You are English, and accustomed, no doubt, to a good deal of freedom—in England you would probably accept an invitation from Rick Enderby without a moment’s hesitation, and without consulting anyone—but here you cannot behave in the same fashion as you would behave in your own country. For one thing, it is not customary for our young unmarried women to accept casual invitations, and for another the very fact that I do employ you, and that you live in my house, gives me the right to watch over you to a certain extent, and to safeguard your interests. Or, at least, to attempt to safeguard them,” rather more dryly.