The Velvet Glove

by Rebecca Stratton

It was a question Laurette found hard to answer with any degree of certainty, for lately she had never been quite sure. The remembered face of her father, a face she had thought she would never forget, had become more and more overlaid by Ian's so similar features recently, until she was no longer sure which were common to both of them. Hugging her knees, she considered for a moment longer.

  'I don't honestly know, Baba Refik. I feel sure I do sometimes, but then quite often lately, I'm not sure whether the face I picture is Daddy's or Ian's.'

  'Your cousin is so much like my old friend?'

  'He's very like him.' It surprised her to realise suddenly that Ian and her foster-father had never met. 'But of course you've never met Ian, have you?'

  'Whenever he has called here for you I seem to have been occupied elsewhere and I have never had the pleasure of meeting him. It is an omission I very much regret.'

  Laurette mused for a moment longer on the confusing similarities between Ian and her dead father. Perhaps Refik Kayaman would be a better judge of just how strong the similarities were, for he would see both men from the view of an adult.

  'I'm sure you'd agree with me how alike they are, Baba Refik. Especially in certain things, like the colour of his hair, of course, and his eyes, but not only that. The way he holds his head, and a way of saying things, even the way he laughs.'

  'Your father was a man who laughed a great deal.' He spoke softly, remembering his old friend's boisterous good humour, and he reached out and lightly touched her cheek for a moment. 'And naturally this strong likeness to your father draws you to him.'

  'Well—yes, I suppose so.'

  She was not sure just what was behind that rather enigmatic remark, and she looked at him for a second uncertainly. It was so difficult to know what was going on behind those dark, unfathomable eyes, for like Nuri, he could show a face that completely disguised whatever was going on in his mind.

  'But it isn't only because he's like Daddy that I like Ian, Baba Refik. He's a very attractive man in his own right.'

  Impulsively she looked to Halet to confirm it, then as hastily had second thoughts. Halet's eyes were downcast—no matter if she thought Ian an attractive man, she was unlikely to say so in her father's hearing.

  'I'm sure you'd like him if you met him,' Laurette insisted, and her foster-father smiled.

  'Perhaps it is time that we met, eh?'

  She should have grasped the opportunity eagerly, Laurette told herself, but somehow she doubted if the meeting would be quite what Refik Kayaman envisaged. Something in the old man's voice too, made her uneasy. Perhaps she was ultra-sensitive at the moment, but she felt sure she detected some inflection in his voice when he suggested it, as if something more than simple hospitality prompted it.

  'Perhaps Mr Kearn would accept an invitation to dine with us one evening,' he went on when she did not reply. 'A few friends, just a small dinner party. We have not entertained for some time now, it would be pleasant to do so again and I will have the opportunity of meeting your cousin and judging for myself how like my old friend he is.'

  'Of course, Baba Refik.'

  Her own voice too betrayed her, she thought, for the old man was looking at her questioningly. 'Does the idea please you, Laurette? If you would prefer to wait until you are perhaps feeling more recovered—'

  'No, no, I'm perfectly well again now.'

  'Good, then we shall arrange it very soon, I think.'

  'Ian goes back to England in about two weeks' time, he—' She bit back the words hastily. This wasn't the moment to say that Ian wanted to take her back with him, even though she had no intention of going with him. Hastily avoiding Halet's unexpectedly discerning glance, she hurried on, 'I'm sure he'd love to come. Baba.'

  Perhaps Refik Kayaman had some inkling of the truth himself, but he was better at concealing his feelings than his daughter was, and even if he thought there was a likelihood of Ian persuading her to go with him, he would not simply charge her with the idea, but approach it with subtlety.

  'Then we must make it soon, bebek, eh?' Laurette nodded silently, wondering if Ian would even accept the invitation, feeling as he did. 'And perhaps we may leave the matter of the invitation to you?'

  'Yes, of course, Baba Refik.'

  'I feel sure he will not refuse you,' he said, and smiled at her. .

  Laurette saw nothing of Nuri until the evening when he came back from the office as he did every other day. He had lunched with a business colleague, but that was not unusual enough to cause comment, it was simply that she felt his absence was in some way hurtful. It was unreasonable of her, of course, but she would have liked to think he took the trouble to come home and see how she was, her first day out of hospital.

  She was alone in the salon when she heard him come in, and nothing she could do affected the sudden urgent beating of her heart when she heard his footsteps crossing the tiled floor in the hall, trying to judge whether or not he was coming in her direction. She was curled up on the ottoman, as usual, and the lamps were already lit, casting a soft golden glow over the exotically furnished room, and gleaming like flame on her copper-red head.

  The door opened and with it half a dozen reflections of the same moment in the mirrors that hung on the walls, and she looked up quickly, her face shadowed and the expression in her eyes hidden for the moment by a dark fringe of lashes. One hand held the magazine she had been reading and the other lay flat-palmed on the fat cushions beside her.

  'Hello, Nuri.'

  Why that slightly defensive edge on her voice? she wondered. Why did she always suspect that he was going to either scold or criticise? There was no clue at all to his intention or his mood at the moment, and his face was simply a chiselled bronze mask in the yellow light. Only the black eyes glittered with life as he looked down at her.

  'I was not able to come earlier, there was a—crisis that needed my attention.'

  The almost-apology took her by surprise and it showed in her eyes. 'Oh, of course, I know you're busy.'

  'Are you better?'

  It all sounded so very formal that she almost laughed; instead she inclined her head and smiled. 'I'm perfectly all right now, apart from a sore head, thank you.' She touched the plaster that still decorated her brow and made a grimace of mock pain. 'It's not nearly as bad as this makes it look.'

  'And your memory is recovered?'

  'More or less. I'm still a bit muzzy, but I can remember most of what happened.' If only he would sit down instead of standing over her the way he was! She looked up and smiled invitingly, indicating a place on the ottoman beside her. 'I wish you'd sit down, you look so far away up there.'

  Without a word he sat quite close beside her with his hands clasped between his knees. As he turned suddenly, the black eyes glowed like polished jet between those incredibly thick lashes scanning her face in a swift, explicit scrutiny that brought a flush to her cheeks and fluttered her heartbeat anxiously.

  'What did happen, Laurette?'

  'We went swimming.'

  A slight frown drew at his black brows as if he disliked the idea of that. 'So I understand, but what happend when you were injured?'

  'It was just sheer carelessness, I suppose.' She tried to make it sound far less serious than he obviously took it for, and somehow she had the feeling that he was trying to find some way of casting Ian as villain, something she had no intention of allowing. 'I should have looked where I was going and I didn't, it was as simple as that really. We were swimming close to a ruined castle and some of the walls were under the water—I just didn't realise how close I was.'

  'I see.'

  It was rash, but it was also inevitable, and she looked up at him suddenly, a sparkle in her blue eyes that he had no difficulty in recognising. 'There's no possible way you can make it Ian's fault, Nuri, no way at all.'

  If he had been angry she could hardly have been surprised, although she already regretted her outburst, as she so often did when it was too late. But instead he was looking at her
steadily from only a hand's touch away, and there was even a small shadow of a smile on his firm straight mouth.

  'I know you too well, bebek, to think you incapable of doing something as foolish as swimming around submerged ruins. I have no doubt at all that the fault was yours.' The smile became more evident and the black eyes challenging. 'Does that make you happier? To know that I do not blame your cousin for your accident?'

  He had neatly turned the tables on her in a way she had not anticipated, and her mouth was reproachful as she looked at him for a moment in silence. 'At least Ian came and saw me in hospital,' she told him. 'You didn't!'

  'Did you wish me to?'

  Taken unawares again, she blinked at him uneasily. It was all too easy remembering how anxiously she had looked for a visit from him, and how disappointed she had been when he did not come, but she was not going to tell him so. Not face to face like this with those black eyes watching her, as if he could guess the answer without her confirmation.

  'I would have been glad to see you.' It was a compromise, and from his expression she thought it was more than he expected. 'I felt horribly—cut off from everybody while I was in there. I'd never been in hospital before.'

  He reached out and touched the plaster on her forehead with a big, gentle hand that sent a flutter of sensation through her when she least expected it. 'Poor bebek.' His voice flowed, deep and soft, soothing as the hand on her brow, and she hastily lowered her eyes. 'We thought we had lost you when your cousin telephoned. He was so panic-stricken that he gave the impression you were—He spoke of so much blood from your head; that you were unconscious and in hospital.'

  'It frightened him, he told me so.'

  Nuri nodded, his face gentled by the soft lighting and his voice still had that soothing, deep sound that was so very affecting. 'It was frightening, little one. I cannot remember being so frightened since Ana died.'

  It was more than she expected, this fear he spoke of, for she remembered just how stricken he had been when his mother died so suddenly and unexpectedly. She had known they would be worried, but she had not thought of them being so fearful for her, and especially not Nuri, so that she looked at him for a moment with wide, incredulous eyes, her lips parted in surprise.

  'I—I didn't realise.'

  Her own voice was soft and husky with emotion, not quite steady, a condition that Nuri's gentle hand on her brow did nothing to help. 'You did not realise how concerned we were for you? But surely you know by now how much you are one of us, bebek.'

  'Ian said he was afraid, but I hadn't thought—'

  'You think us less sensitive?' The tone of his voice was reproach enough, and she preferred not to meet his eyes. 'But how could you think that, Laurette, when we have known you for so many years, and he is—a stranger to you?'

  'Nuri—'

  'He is a stranger, Laurette!' He was holding her hand in his, although she had not been aware of it happening, and from the way his strong fingers gripped her, she knew just how deeply he felt. 'How long have you known him?'

  'Almost ten days.' She made the response automatically. 'But he is my cousin, Nuri. I—I suppose that makes a difference to the way he feels.'

  'The way he feels! How is that, hmm? He tries to make you rebel against our ways—'

  'Nuri, you can't blame Ian for making me into a rebel—you've always thought of me as one!'

  'A tender rebel, perhaps, but not someone who deliberately sets out to deceive her family. This was never you until that man came here!'

  'You don't like him!'

  'I do not like him!' Hearing him confirm it in that flat, cool voice startled her for a moment, and a breath of a shiver fluttered along her back. 'I wish you were not so easily influenced by him, Laurette.'

  It was hard to deny it because she knew that a good deal of what he said was true. Ian was determined to make her throw off the influence of her adopted family if he could, and somehow she could never quite bring herself to deny him the right to do so as firmly as she should.

  'You—you make it sound as if I have no will of my own, and you of all people know that isn't true, Nuri.' Her hands tightly rolled in her lap, she was aware of him watching her, with that disturbing black-eyed scrutiny she was by now so accustomed to. 'Nuri'— she bit her lower lip anxiously, 'I—I wish we didn't always fight. I don't want to fight with you but some

  how I always seem to, and—'

  On the brink of tears, her eyes glistened as she looked up at him, and quite unexpectedly he was smiling. Just a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth as he stretched out a hand and lightly touched her cheek with a finger-tip.

  'Perhaps we are both too quick to anger, little one, eh?'

  His readiness to share the blame was unexpected, and the touch of his hand too disturbing to be borne without some kind of response from her senses. Looking up at the dusky gold features softened by the lamplight, she smiled.

  'We'll both have to learn to count to ten!'

  'To count to ten?'

  It was so seldom that she could puzzle him, that she laughed delightedly when she saw his frown and shook her head. 'It's something Daddy used to say to me when I was letting my temper get the better of me. Hold your breath and let it out slowly while you count to ten —it's supposed to stop you losing your temper.'

  'Ah! Then we shall both have to learn to count to ten, hmm?'

  ‘I’ll try.'

  The black eyes scanned her for a second or two, and he smiled. 'I think we should celebrate your return home in some way. You would like that? When you are feeling quite well again.'

  'Nuri—' She hesitated a moment, but then hurried on, praying he was amenable enough in this benevolent mood to receive the news of the dinner party his father was planning. 'Baba Refik has suggested giving a dinner party.'

  'A dinner party? That is a good idea, you will like that, will you not?'

  She neither confirmed nor denied her pleasure at the idea, because she was still in some doubt of her own feelings. 'He—he's quite anxious to meet Ian, having been told how much like Daddy he is.' Her voice had a light breathless sound and she realised suddenly how she was trembling. 'I've told him that Ian will be going home soon and he said we'll have the dinner party before he goes.'

  It was obvious that something in her statement interested him very much and he was looking at her with slighdy narrowed eyes. 'He is going home?'

  'Very soon—in slightly less than a couple of weeks.'

  'Ah!' It had to be satisfaction behind that short wordless exclamation, and for a second she felt the familiar flash of resentment. 'And Baba has decided that he will give a dinner party for him, hmm?'

  'He said it would give him an opportunity to meet him.'

  'Hmm!'

  Laurette was left in some doubt as to what his opinion was at the moment, and she looked at him in mingled curiosity and anxiety. 'It was Baba Refik's idea, Nuri, and—'

  'But of course—my father is entitled to invite whomever he pleases to his house, bebek.'

  'Nuri, you wouldn't—'

  A black brow swiftly elevated, cut her short, and she bit her lip. 'A guest in my father's house, Laurette? I imagine Baba has a certain curiosity about your cousin, it is natural enough in the circumstances. Also he is probably curious about his intentions.'

  Laurette caught her breath, her lips parted in surprise as she looked at him. 'His—intentions?'

  'Of course.' He got to his feet and stood for a moment looking down at her. She could have sworn there was a ghost of a smile lingering at the corners of his mouth when he reached down a hand to help her from her nest of cushions. 'It is customary in Baba's world for young men to call upon young women only when they have a betrothal in mind, and your cousin has called here on more than one occasion. It is possible that my father wishes to assure himself that this man's intentions towards you are honourable.' 'Oh, Nuri, no!'

  He seemed to find her dismay amusing, for there was an uncharacteristic glitter of amusement in h
is black eyes as he looked down at her. 'Do you still shy away from the idea of marriage, bebek? Does it frighten you so much?'

  'You have no right to talk to me about marriage, Nuri, you know that wouldn't please your father!'

  His strong fingers tightened about hers in an inescapable grip and he held her where he could look down into her flushed face with a boldness that she was unaccustomed to and found shiveringly disturbing. 'But do you not wish to marry your redhaired cousin, eh?' 'I don't want to marry anyone!' 'Never?' His eyes taunted her, and she pulled helplessly at the hold he had on her. 'But surely you will not remain unmarried all your life?' 'If I want to, I will!'

  With the hand he held he drew her towards him until she was aware of that tingling aura of masculinity about him that was something she had only lately become aware of. Looking down at her, he shook his head slowly, his black eyes unfathomable between those thick black lashes.

  'I think not, bebek! Someone will make you change your mind and you will go to him willingly!' 'You—you sound very certain about that!' Her voice was breathlessly unsteady and she could do nothing about it, or about the trembling unsteadiness of her legs that felt as if they would not hold her for much longer. And Nuri smiled, a small but infinitely disturbing smile that gave his dark face a strangely satyr-like quality that sent shivers of sensation through her whole body.

  'Oh, I am, benim güzel, I am very sure!' He bent his head for a second only and his lips touched hers with a lightness that promised so much that she closed her eyes instinctively in anticipation of a more passionate kiss. But while her senses still responded to the promise, he was once more looking down at her with those dark, unfathomable eyes and smiling. 'I think it is time for dinner,' he said. 'Shall we go?'

  Her eyes wide and still slightfy dazed, Laurette nodded. The strong fingers squeezed, drawing her towards the door, and she went unresistingly. At that moment she would have followed him anywhere.

  Ian telephoned the following day to see how she was, and it was at Laurette's instigation that they arranged to go out somewhere, although Halet urged her anxiously not to go too far until she was well enough. It would be easier to issue Refik Kayaman's invitation to dinner on more neutral ground, she felt, where there was no likelihood of anyone witnessing his reaction. It was possible he would refuse, and she did not want Halet to be a witness to it if he did.