Remembering other times, she crossed her own arms over her breast and imagined the warm, strong comfort of being in Dominic’s arms. Of being kissed as he had so nearly kissed her that day when Jenny had interrupted them; the hard, exciting touch of his mouth on hers and the fierce possessive strength of his arms around her. Even now she could close her eyes and feel warmed and elated at the memory of it.
She was jolted quickly back to reality when a big dark figure loomed in the doorway for a second before ducking inside, and she felt a need to cry out in her relief. She saw the searching, questioning look in his eyes as he sought for injury other than the trapped foot even while he was making his way in through the narrow entrance.
He had simply stripped off his shirt and put on the diving lung, and his dark torso gleamed like polished mahogany in the shifting uncertain light as he looked at her through the narrow window of the mask, seeking reassurance that she was unhurt. Bryony nodded, closing her eyes in relief and having to hold on to the air-let in her mouth so that she did not let escape the sob she could barely restrain, and let in water with the same breath.
Louis crouched down beside her as Edward had done, a heavy crowbar in his hands, and while she stood with a hand on his shoulder he broke through the boards next to the ones holding her foot trapped. Muscles knotted in his arms and shoulders, he prised at the encrusted timbers until they yielded, almost falling backwards when it happened. A brief inspection of her ankle brought a thumbs-up sign and a brighter, happier look to the dark eyes behind the mask, and he put an encouraging arm to help her start forward.
She had not realised until she swam back with Louis just how far she and Edward had come to find the wreck, and she was on the verge of collapse when they broke surface at last, and were helped aboard by three willing and anxious pairs of hands. Shaking the water from his black hair, Louis threaded his fingers through it, the sun already drying his slacks as well as the wet prints their feet had left on the deck.
He picked Bryony up before Edward even thought about it, and carried her to the only shaded spot there was, setting her down very carefully before bending to make a more thorough examination of her injured foot. ‘Not too bad,’ he decided after a second or two, ‘but the sooner we get you back an’ let Grand’mere fix it the better. That foot goin’ to hurt plenty pretty soon, petite.’
‘It looks pretty bad to me.’ Edward obviously considered the apparently light estimation of her injuries not good enough, and he peered at the swollen ankle with a serious frown. ‘You should have a doctor, Bryony.’
Feeling as she was at present, Bryony cared little who treated her, but she had to support Louis’s opinion. Marie had always attended their minor ailments and injuries skilfully and successfully, and a swollen ankle was well within her capabilities.
‘Marie will see to it when I get home,’ she said, and Louis once more ran his hands through his hair as he stood looking down at her.
‘You know you goin’ to get it fierce from Monsieur Laminaire for this,’ he reminded her. ‘He tol’ you never to go near them wrecks lessen you got somebody with you.’
‘I had Ned with me, Louis; and please don’t nag, my head feels as if it’s going to burst, it aches so much.’
‘You’re not going to tell him, Louis!’
Tim was looking at him as if he could not believe him capable of such treachery, and Louis’s dark eyes showed hurt for a moment. ‘I ain’t gon’ tell him anythin’, Tim, but Bryony gon’ to—I know her!’
Edward, crouching beside her, looked up at Louis’s tall broad figure and frowned his disapproval. It was unlikely, Bryony thought in a vague, hazy way as she gazed from one to the other through half-closed lids, that he would understand the closeness that existed between the inhabitants of Petitnue. Louis was so much more than an employee, just as Marie was, and all the other people who had lived on the island and been a part of its history for so many years.
‘Louis’s right, Ned.’ She thought even her voice sounded unlike its usual self, husky and slightly unsteady. ‘I shall tell Dominic what happened; how could I do anything else?’
‘And he’ll—tell you off?’ He made a short angry sound that scorned her admission, and straightened up, half turning to Tim for confirmation. ‘But surely you don’t have to always do as you’re told, like you did when you were a little girl? It doesn’t make sense for a grown woman, for heaven’s sake!’ '
Bryony’s head felt as if it would burst and she was limp as a rag doll as she leaned back against hot shiny boards with her legs stretched out in front of her. Her swollen ankle was already beginning to throb painfully, just as Louis had warned it would.
‘It isn’t a question of doing as I’m told,’ she denied fretfully, ‘but we’ve always promised Dom we’d never go in anywhere alone if we go exploring wrecks. This is the first time I’ve ever done so, and with what result you can see for yourself!’
‘A sheer accident!’ Edward looked slightly more uneasy suddenly, as if the possible consequences of what had happened only now occurred to him, and he bent down beside her once more. ‘I’m sorry this had to happen, Bryony, but you can’t be blamed for it. It was just rotten luck, and just when we were enjoying ourselves too!’
She put up her hands to brush the wet hair from her neck. It was almost as dark as his now, although the copper glints were already beginning to show as it dried in the sun, and she closed her eyes to ease the glare of the bright light.
Edward could say what he liked about it being no one’s fault, but nothing he said could change anything in the slightest. She knew quite well how Dominic was going to react, and she hated knowing that he was going to blame her. She didn’t want him to blame her, but to hold her in his arms and comfort her, as she had imagined it while she waited alone down there in that small, dim galley for someone to come and rescue her.
She wanted Dominic’s comforting presence more than anything at the moment, and she did not understand the sudden need that overwhelmed her, to weep on the broad comfort of his shoulder and feel the hard, reassuring pressure of his arms about her. Knowing that he was far more likely to remonstrate with her than offer comfort was more than she could face at the moment, and she put her hands over her face and cried.
It was neither Tim nor Edward who stroked a gentle hand over her dark copper hair and murmured comfort as she sobbed out the reaction and fear of those awful moments below, it was Louis. Reminding her of the days when she had been a little girl and in some scrape that Dominic was bound to disapprove of, the deep, sing-song accent offered hope.
‘He be so glad you come back safe, he not be too angry, petite, you see!’
CHAPTER NINE
DOMINIC had said very little so far about her injury, but Bryony suspected it was only a matter of time. He was probably waiting until Marion and Edward had gone, which would be some time this morning, and then he would want to know how she came to be exploring a wreck on her own. Once or twice last night at dinner she had caught his eye, but it had told her nothing, not even if he thought her foolish or not.
Jules had been both tensing and sympathetic, which was just what she expected of him, and Tim had scorned her being so silly as to get herself trapped, while Jenny, inevitably, was gently sympathetic. Only Dominic had failed to react as she expected him to and it puzzled her.
She admitted without hesitation that she was going to miss Marion and Edward when they left, and yet she had not been able to agree with Edward last night when he suggested that having had a taste of the outside world she would find it hard to settle to the rather solitary peace of Petitnue again. While she bathed and dressed she pondered once more on whether or not she actually did hanker after a change.
Lately she had to admit she had suffered from a curious restlessness that she could not account for, and yet whenever she contemplated leaving Petitnue she knew it wasn’t the answer. She loved the island’s peace and isolation, and leaving it was not the cure for her sense of unrest, she felt sure;
there must be some other solution.
She put on a sleeveless cotton dress, patterned over with small blue flowers on a darker background, and brushed her red hair until it gleamed like burnished copper, pausing for a moment to look long and thoughtfully at her reflection.
The brush still in her hand, she crossed her arms over her breast and remembered, as she had yesterday, how easy it had been to respond to the feel of Dominic’s arms around her, and to the touch of that hard, persuasive mouth on hers. Marion had started the suspicion, and Edward had charged her with feeling more deeply for Dominic than she admitted, but she had declared them both to be wrong. Now, as she gazed at her own reflection and hugged her arms tightly about her, she faced for the first time the possibility of them both being right
It was a little over an hour later, when they were all packing themselves into the jeep to drive along to the quay, that the question came to mind again. Dominic had said he was driving with them to the quay, since he was needed in the sheds, and both Tim and Bryony expected him to drive. He seldom let anyone else drive him, and particularly not Tim, who he said was downright dangerous on the road.
Tim looked surprised, but he made no demur as he took the driving seat with Marion beside him, but Edward looked definitely put out when the seat next to him in the back was taken over by Dominic. Bryony, unsure for a moment what was expected of her, hesitated by the open door and looked at him with a hint of reproach in her eyes, Tim watching curiously from his place behind the wheel.
‘Room for three in the back if you squash up,’ he told her, and Bryony guessed that was how it would have to be.
She started to get in, and immediately Dominic lent a hand, mindful of her injured ankle as he helped her up the rather high step, then he pulled her down on to his lap and placed an arm firmly about her waist, smiling into her frankly startled face.
‘It isn’t far, you’ll be all right on my lap, won’t you, ma petite?’ he asked, in a voice guaranteed to bring that frown of Edward’s back again.
Bryony nodded, too taken aback to say anything, and Tim was grinning broadly as he started the engine, sending them off with a jolt that sent Bryony lurching back against the broad barrier of Dominic’s chest. Edward obviously took a much more biased view of the strategy and his mouth pursed in obvious dislike of being so neatly out-manoeuvred.
Such an obvious ploy was so unlike Dominic that Bryony tried in vain to understand the reason for it, although she was not at all averse to sitting on his lap. One hand rested on her waist and the other held hers where it lay on her lap, while she put an arm around his neck and clung on tightly.
With Tim at the wheel, the ride was likely to be a rough one, and she could be thrown all over the place if she did not hold on tightly. In fact Tim might almost have been doing it deliberately, she thought, and caught a bright gleam of laughter in Dominic’s eyes that suggested he shared her suspicion.
Marion half-turned in her seat, and her smile was wide and beaming, taking no account of her brother’s sulky expression. ‘I hate leaving here, you know.’ She addressed herself to Dominic as her host, her eyes missing nothing of the way he held on to Bryony, holding her hand as well as keeping an arm around her. ‘I’ve had a marvellous time, Dominic, and you’ve been marvellous to put up with us the way you have.’
‘It’s been a pleasure.’ When he smiled his grey eyes had a warmth that Bryony knew would be irresistible to her impressionable friend. ‘Bryony’s loved having you here, and as for putting up with you—’ He shrugged his expressive shoulders and laughed. ‘You’ve been very considerate guests.’
‘Thank you!’ Marion laughed and her dark eyes were glowingly appreciative of the compliment. ‘I’m only sorry that poor Bryony had to get hurt on our last day, but thank heaven it wasn’t nearly as serious as it might have been.’
‘And you were hardly to blame for that, were you?’ Bryony, in the curve of his arm, stiffened unconsciously as she anticipated the blame she had been expecting would come her way since yesterday, but instead Dominic merely shrugged. ‘Accidents happen!’
The encircling arm tightened suddenly and Bryony was thrown violently against him when Tim braked sharply at the edge of the stone quay. Momentarily off balance, she looked up to find him smiling and the grey eyes watching her enquiringly as she pushed herself upright again. There was something infinitely disturbing about the nearness of him this morning; about the aura of almost earthy virility, of bare brown arms and a slash of brown throat in the open neck of a white shirt, and she felt her pulse racing wildly as he held her.
‘O.K.?’ he asked, and she nodded.
When she stood to get out of the jeep, he put both hands at her waist, his fingers gripping her firmly in case she was unsure on her injured foot, and instantly Edward was out of his seat and round the other side to help her too. He handed her down the step and kept hold of her hands, looking into her face with an earnestness she found hard to face at the moment.
Dominic stepped over the side, his long legs making easy work of getting past her, then he once more placed a hand on her waist and smiled down at her. ‘Don’t stand too long on that ankle, ma petite, hmm? Say your goodbyes and then drive back in the jeep; don’t attempt your usual walk through the groves, will you?’
‘No, of course not, Dom.’
‘Ah, you think I should take your common sense for granted, huh?’ He laughed, then bent swiftly and brushed her forehead with his lips. ‘I know you too well, cherie!’ Leaving her feeling slightly light-headed and much too preoccupied to think much about her friend’s departure, he shook hands with Edward and gallantly kissed Marion’s hand, a gesture she accepted with a bright flush of colour and bright, excited eyes.
If only she knew what had got into him, Bryony thought hazily as, walking in line abreast, they all four went along the quay to where Edward’s boat was moored, watched over by Louis. As if by mutual consent Bryony and Marion walked on a little beyond the mooring and stood at the end of the quay looking at the bright sun on the water, and the sweep of low slung palm trees around the point.
‘Ah, well—’ Marion gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘It’s all over!’
‘You have enjoyed it?’
Marion nodded unhesitatingly. ‘Of course I have— it’s been super.’ She grinned mischievously and glanced at Tim engaged in rather desultory conversation with a still disgruntled Edward. ‘And Dominic doesn’t have to bother that I’m going to become the great romance in Tim’s life, you know, Bry. I know Tim better than that, and myself as well.’
It never failed to surprise her how astute Marion could be, and she remembered Dominic’s expressed opinion of her with a twinge of uneasiness. ‘He’d rather you were than Sarah Bryant,’ she told her. ‘He said so.’
‘Hmm!’ Clearly Marion had no difficulty in adding the necessary qualification to that, and she smiled, glancing over her shoulder at the loading sheds where Dominic had disappeared. ‘I hadn’t realised until this morning just how—how French he is.’
It was something that Bryony had always been very aware of, and she laughed at the idea of it not being as obvious to everyone else. ‘Oh, but of course, he’s French! He’s not half English like Jules and Tim are, you know. His father as well as his mother was French. The Laminaires might have been born in the West Indies for the past three hundred years, but Dom’s as French as—as Paris or the Seine, or the—the Eiffel Tower!’
‘And you love him.’
Bryony caught her breath, unwilling even now to recognise the possibility of it, and she shook her head, though with little conviction she realised when she saw Marion’s smile.
‘You’re determined, aren’t you, Marion?’ She laughed, but her hands were trembling as she held them close together in front of her and she carefully avoided looking directly at Marion.
‘I’m right,’ Marion said firmly, and touched her arm with a finger-tip. ‘Don’t you realise it yet, Bryony?’
‘I realise that if Dom thinks it’s
even remotely likely he’ll ship me off to Aunt Germyn in England before I have time to turn around!’
‘Oh, Bry, he wouldn’t!’
‘He would—I know him!’ And she did, she told herself, better than anyone else did, just as Jenny had once told her.
Marion obviously doubted it, but Edward and Tim were almost on them now and there was no time to say anything else, something for which Bryony was grateful as she turned to smile at Edward. He still looked slightly sulky and it was clear that he saw himself as wronged in some way, though she could not imagine how she could have behaved any differently than she had towards him without giving him quite the wrong impression.
He shook hands with Tim, then turned and took Bryony into his arms and kissed her with such fervour that she eventually struggled to free herself. Breathless and flushed, she tried not to remember that Dominic could quite easily have witnessed Edward’s latest determined attempt to influence her.
‘I will see you again, won’t I, Bryony?’ Marion was watching closely, her eyes half curious, half sympathetic, perhaps feeling for her impressionable brother. But Bryony’s hesitation was enough for Edward; stepping back, he let his hands fall from her arms and his head shook jerkily as if he regretted that impulsive kiss. ‘I see!’
‘Ned, I have enjoyed having you here; it’s been great fun, hasn’t it?’
He took a moment or two before he smiled, and then it was a small and rather rueful one as he nodded his head. ‘It’s been fun,’ he agreed.
She gave him her hand and, after a second or two, he took it, just brushing her fingers before he let it go again. ‘Goodbye, Ned.’
He was already half turned back towards the boat that bobbed against the quay, waiting for him. ‘Goodbye, Bryony!’
It was, she felt, a very final-sounding goodbye.
Bryony was sitting alone in the salon resting her injured ankle when Dominic sought her out just after lunch. She looked up and smiled when she saw him, but blinked uncertainly when he looked so serious.
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