The beauty flicked a glance at ‘Agnes’, barely greeted her and returned her attention to ‘Edward’.
“I am the Señora Juanita Engracia Sofia Raiña Cadiz and I have found that Englishmen dance as well, if not better, than the Spanish,” she crooned in a deep heavily accented voice. “Will you prove to me that this is true?”
“Well, I – ”
The Señora tossed her head imperiously.
“Englishmen are shy about taking to the floor, while the Spanish spring onto it the moment the music starts.”
The Marquis smiled.
“I will be delighted to dance with you.”
“My cousin Dionisio will look after your sister. He fancies he is as good as the English when it comes to moving on the dance floor and I know he would love to dance with her.”
She made an imperious gesture and he came forward. He was tall and pleasant looking, but there was nothing distinguished about him.
He bowed politely to Lexia, expressed himself honoured and gave her his hand. He seemed to find nothing strange in being virtually commanded to dance with her to suit the Señora’s convenience.
Nor, she noticed, did the Marquis seem to mind being summoned to dance with this arrogant lady.
Mr. Storton melted away to her infinite relief.
Lexia took the floor with Dionisio and had to admit that he moved well. She began to enjoy herself, despite the behaviour of the Señora, who was dancing very closely in a rather exaggerated manner with the Marquis.
Despite what he had said earlier about being terrified of her, he seemed to be enjoying her company.
“Are you travelling very far?” Dionisio asked Lexia politely.
“Oh, just around the Mediterranean. And you?”
“I don’t know. It’s up to Juanita and since she became a widow she is a law unto herself.”
“A widow?” echoed Lexia. “Did her husband die long ago?”
“Six months, but it was not a happy marriage. He was a tyrant and her parents had forced her to marry him because he was so rich. However, he died and left her all his money, so everything was for the best.”
“I – really?”
She could think of nothing else to say in response to this kind of realism.
Clearly Juanita was not grieving.
“Who are the two people with you?” she asked him politely.
“They are Juanita’s sister and her husband on their honeymoon. It pleases her to have them with us.”
And clearly whatever pleased Juanita was law.
“She does indeed seem to be enjoying herself,” observed Lexia.
“Oh, yes,” Dionisio said at once. “She says after all she suffered in her marriage she is going to enjoy herself very much now and then she will find another husband, but he must be very, very different from the first.”
“Really!”
“And she says that with him she will share a great passion.”
“So she’s looking for another Spaniard. I hear they’re known as a very passionate race.”
This was a mistake as Dionisio immediately held her closer, looking down at her with a sensual droop to his mouth that would have made her want to laugh if she had not been so agitated.
“We are certainly a passionate race,” he declared huskily. “It pleases me that you understand.”
“Not me,” she replied, exasperated beyond endurance. “I am talking about your cousin.”
“She does not think Spaniards are passionate. She is bored with them and says that Englishmen are much more interesting.”
“Englishmen are not passionate,” asserted Lexia firmly. “She is wrong about that.”
“She says not and although they appear cool and controlled, that is only on the surface. She says that underneath an Englishman is a volcano waiting for the right woman to inspire him to glory!”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Lexia. “That is a myth.”
“Juanita does not think so. She says when an Englishman is inspired – ”
“Yes, I understand,” Lexia interrupted him hastily.
“I think my cousin and your brother enjoy each other’s company very much,” murmured Dionisio, glancing across the floor to where the other couple were swaying.
Unwillingly Lexia followed his gaze. The Marquis seemed to be moving in a trance, looking down at the Señora with brooding eyes, as though determined to take in every detail of her.
And that included her extremely low-cut gown, Lexia decided, thoroughly annoyed by now.
It was positively disgraceful, the way that woman seemed to be showing everything.
Her shoulders were warm and creamy, the perfect background for the rubies around her neck and an exotic scent arose from her. Lexia had received a hint of it when they met and knew that it was hot and musky. She could only imagine what it was doing to the Marquis at close range.
“Does it not seem to you that they are growing very close?” asked Dionisio.
“Exceedingly,” snapped Lexia.
“Soon she will inspire him to glory.”
Lexia set her jaw and refused to answer him.
“He is fighting her,” whispered Dionisio, “but he cannot resist. At any moment the volcano – ”
“I am a little tired,” came in Lexia hastily. “I would like to sit down.”
He escorted her back to her table and attempted to make conversation until at last, defeated by her listless air, he took himself off.
Now she was alone and surely Frank would return soon? She looked around the floor, trying to find him and perhaps catch his attention.
But he was nowhere to be seen, nor was the Señora.
They had vanished together.
She looked again, trying to believe that she was mistaken, but there was still no sign of either of them.
What she did see, advancing on her like doom, was the awful Samuel Storton.
‘I think it’s time I retired to bed,’ she told herself hastily.
She felt very lonely as she slipped out of the ballroom without anyone seeming to take any notice of her.
She knew that she should not blame the Marquis as something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
‘But he’s become like my big brother. That’s what he is – my brother and you don’t expect your brother to desert you.’
As she approached her stateroom she could not help slowing, just to hear if any noise was coming from the Marquis’s room next door. It was not the same as eaves-dropping, she told herself. She was merely concerned for him.
But there was total silence from the other side of the door and relieved, she went on her way.
With Annie’s help, she undressed herself and climbed into bed.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have left without telling Frank,’ she thought, ‘but how could I tell him, when I didn’t know where he was? Besides he might have thought I was expecting him to leave too.’
After all, she thought glumly, they had come on this strange adventure to meet other people rather than those who were chosen for them.
‘I’d have enjoyed myself more if Dionisio had not been such a bore. He danced well, but his cousin seems to be his only topic of conversation and he certainly was not as interested in me as she is in Frank.’
She turned over in bed and tried to go to sleep, but she could not help listening to hear if Frank’s door opened.
But there was no sound and she thought by this time Juanita would have taken him out on deck and would be flirting with him in the moonlight.
‘Oh, nonsense! She isn’t at all the kind of woman he admires.’
She said it to herself again and then she said it again, but the truth was that she did not know the kind of woman he admired.
Juanita was beautiful and rich and he had found her for himself.
That might be all he needed and then it struck her that perhaps if Frank was really intrigued by the Señora, she might find herself very neglected and lonely.
‘Oh, pleas
e God,’ she prayed, ‘don’t let this adventure end too quickly.’
It was a cry which came from her heart.
She knew she should be sensible and the Marquis was only doing what they had planned, but she could not help being disappointed.
Something had gone wrong and she could not quite work out what it was.
As she fell asleep she was still trying to hear any sound from next door and pretending to herself that she was not doing so.
*
The next morning, when she woke, she found the sun pouring through her porthole and she knew there was another glorious day ahead.
But then she remembered the events of the night before and the sun seemed to go in.
She had not heard the Marquis return last night, so he must have stayed up late with his wealthy Spanish widow. Perhaps they had gone on dancing.
Or they had strolled the deck in the moonlight.
Or perhaps she had lured him into her cabin.
‘She is very attractive,’ thought Lexia, ‘and he would have found it difficult not to respond to her when she was determined to attract him, but it’s too quick. I am not ready. I wanted Frank to myself for just a little longer.’
Or perhaps a lot longer.
She tried to laugh, but it did not sound very convincing to her own ears.
She had breakfast in bed, but she did not eat very much. Her appetite had suddenly deserted her.
She was just thinking that she should get up and dress, when there was a knock on the door.
Annie opened it and Lexia heard the Marquis say,
“May I come in?”
“One moment,” she called, reaching for her bed jacket.
She could not allow him to see her in a low cut silk nightgown, but the bed jacket would make it proper.
“Come in,” she called.
Annie stepped aside to let him pass and he entered her room smiling.
“I had breakfast in bed,” she explained, “as I had no idea what time you went to bed. You might have wanted to sleep until luncheon time.”
He came towards her bed and, sat down on it, saying,
“You slipped away so quickly last night that for a moment I was frightened you had fallen overboard.”
Lexia laughed.
“You were never frightened of anything so stupid. I could see there was no chance of my getting a word in edgeways, so after dancing twice with Dionisio, which was quite enough, I went to bed.”
“That was very sensible of you and you missed very little.”
Lexia looked at him.
“Are you telling me that you missed anything,” she enquired archly, “because I find it hard to believe you.”
“She was very persistent, but somehow I managed to get away. I listened at your door when I came to bed, but everything was quiet and I didn’t want to wake you up.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“I would have enjoyed it a great deal more if I had not felt it a mistake to become involved too soon,” he answered.
“In other words you ran away,” she teased.
“I suppose I did, but some instinct warned me that the lady was trouble and, having just escaped one difficulty, it seemed to me unwise to walk straight into another.”
He saw her regarding him quizzically.
“So, if you want the truth,” he said, “I came to bed alone and, strange though it may seem, I slept peacefully.”
“So it all ended well this time,” she laughed. “On the other hand, perhaps you should consider her seriously as she is very rich or didn’t you know about that?”
“Oh, yes I did,” he muttered gloomily. “She told me all about it. Then she told me again and then again. Thank goodness they are leaving the ship today.”
“Well, that is a relief at any rate,” agreed Lexia.
“A relief?”
“Well – ” suddenly flustered at what she had betrayed, she stammered. “It would be nice if it happened to us both at the same time, so that one of us isn’t just left – I mean, you did seem very taken with her and – ”
“Lexia,” he said softly, “I am not as foolish as you think I am.”
The way he spoke was so heavy with meaning that for a moment she could not think what to say.
“That is very unfair,” she protested at last. “I don’t think you are a fool. I think you are very clever. I am only frightened that you will be swept away by some woman who is not worthy of you.”
“Let me tell you one thing. If I have learned nothing else, I have learned to be suspicious. If you reach for the stars, you must tell yourself that only the stars will do and never settle for less!”
“And Juanita isn’t the stars?”
“No, Juanita is more of a planet. Probably Mars, the harbinger of war.”
“That sounds very interesting,” said Lexia demurely, her imp of jealousy not quite dead.
He grinned.
“Let’s just say that she is not part of my plans, nor likely to be.”
She poured herself another cup of tea and then the Marquis said unexpectedly,
“You look very lovely in bed.”
“What did you say?” queried Lexia, hardly able to believe her ears.
“I have always thought that women look particularly attractive when they lie back against a lace-trimmed pillow and their hair touches their shoulders.”
Lexia stared at him.
She had a strange feeling, as though the satin bed jacket had vanished, and there was only the thin silk of her night gown between them. She felt as though she was blushing all over.
“That does not sound like something you learned in England,” she replied, trying to sound normal. “I rather suspect that you learned it last night.”
“No,” he stated emphatically, “I thought of it many years ago while you were still in the nursery. I thought at the time how lovely my mother looked against her pillows and I have never yet seen another woman who rivalled her.”
“I wonder if your mother would be shocked at you being in my room while I have breakfast.”
“I had almost forgotten for the moment that I was supposed to be your brother,” he laughed. “But, now I think of it, we are merely acting our part sensibly and, if I was your brother, I should certainly be taking breakfast with you!”
“But as you are not my brother, I think you should go and have breakfast in the Saloon and when you return, I shall be dressed.”
He seemed to become suddenly conscious of where he was and what she was wearing.
“Yes, certainly,” he mumbled, rising to his feet and going slightly red. “I’ll see you again later.”
He walked out without looking back.
For a long time after he left Lexia lay staring at the door, full of thoughts and feelings that she did not understand.
“You look very lovely in bed.”
That was what he had said and it had taken her totally by surprise.
She could hardly remember what words she had uttered in reply – something stupid, she feared.
She only hoped he had not detected her confusion. She had tried to speak lightly, almost passing it off as a joke, but now that she was alone she realised that something very important had happened.
She smiled and snuggled down in bed, luxuriating in the feeling.
CHAPTER NINE
For the rest of the day they stayed together as the ship headed for Barcelona.
Just once they encountered Juanita as she was about to leave the ship and at the sight of her, the Marquis seized Lexia’s hand, which was already tucked into his arm, making sure that she could not remove it.
She had no intention of removing it.
He smiled politely and Juanita cut him dead and then she flounced down the gangway.
“Let’s go and enjoy ourselves in Barcelona,” suggested the Marquis.
They took a carriage and spent a few happy hours exploring the beautiful old City, but when they were having lunch, he observed,
/> “You’re not really thinking about where we are now, are you?”
Lexia sighed ruefully.
“You have seen through me. My mind has gone ahead to Greece as when I was very young my mother used to read to me about the ancient Gods and Goddesses. As I got older I started reading about them for myself, which rather annoyed my governess, who thought it was far more important for me to learn deportment and flower arranging.”
“Who is your favourite?”
Lexia considered.
“I can never quite decide. Wise Athene, Apollo, the Sun God, Aphrodite, Goddess of Love – ”
“Don’t forget Ares, the God of War,” he reminded her. “I always thought it fascinating that Eros, the God of Love, was born of Aphrodite, which you would expect. But his father was Ares and so he was the child of both love and conflict.”
“Does that mean that the love he represents isn’t perfect?”
“No, it means that it’s human. Love and conflict go hand in hand in the world. My own parents had very hot tempers and they were always quarrelling so that people wondered how they could ever stay together.
“But the truth was that they loved each other deeply enough to see them through their fights. When my mother died my father was desolate. He only survived her by a year and then he had a heart attack and the doctor said if he could have written ‘died of a broken heart’ on the death certificate, he would have done so.”
He looked into the distance for a moment.
“Perhaps that is one reason I could never take to any of the insipid females that were introduced to me. I could not imagine any of them telling me I was talking nonsense, which Mama used to say to Papa all the time.”
“Perhaps you never talk nonsense?” observed Lexia wryly.
“Lexia, please!” he cried in disgust. “Not you as well.”
She laughed aloud.
“No, I can be counted on not to flatter you, can’t I?”
“Thank goodness,” he said fervently.
They raised their wine glasses, watching the bright sun wink off the red liquid as they toasted each other.
“I cannot wait to get back to the ship and leave for Athens,” enthused Lexia. “I have waited so long to see it and somehow I never thought I would manage it.”
“I daresay a lot of people would feel the same.”
The Waters of Love Page 11
