The Velvet Glove

by Rebecca Stratton

  With the same concern as Halet, lan refused to let her come any further than the end of the street, only a few metres from the house, and he was out of his seat and waiting for her when she appeared, seeing her into the passenger seat of his car before he said anything at all.

  Then turning in his seat he regarded her silently for a second or two before he leaned across and kissed her. 'How are you, love?'

  Kissing her was a privilege he took for granted as her cousin, she supposed, but with Nuri's rather startling observations still fresh in her mind, she found it more unsettling than usual.

  'I'm a lot better, Ian, thank you. I feel fine.'

  'Headache gone?'

  'Almost.'

  He seemed undecided for a moment or two, then nodded suddenly, as if making up his mind. 'I think we'll just take a nice steady drive somewhere,' he decided. 'We needn't dash about, and you can stay out of the sun.'

  His concern was touching, and she smiled at him as he started the car again. 'You're the one who has to keep out of the sun,' she reminded him. 'I'm used to it —it's only stone walls I tangle with.'

  'Nevertheless,' Ian decreed firmly, 'we won't take any chances. I don't want your Turkish warriors breathing down my neck!'

  'Ian, please!'

  He sent her a brief grin over his shoulder. 'Sorry, love!' He shook his head, taking the car along the tree-lined street and down into the main part of Antalya. 'I just can't help feeling that your family of protectors must have me in mind for the villain after that little episode with the castle ruins.'

  'Not at all!' Laurette thought of Nuri's frank opinion on the matter and for some reason smiled about it to herself. 'Nuri said he wouldn't dream of blaming anyone else when he knows I'm quite capable of doing something as daft as bumping into a wall and cracking my head.'

  'Good God!'

  Ian's stunned surprise made her laugh and she looked at his fresh, sunburned face for a moment while she brought herself round to issuing Refik Kayaman's invitation. 'In fact Baba Refik has asked me to invite you to a dinner party next week. Will you come?'

  'A dinner party?' He looked as if he found it too incredible to believe. 'Are you serious?'

  'Of course I'm serious, Ian!' She looked at him earnestly, hoping he was not making a vendetta of his feelings for the Kayaman family, and Nuri in particular. 'Baba Refik was a very good friend of Daddy's, Ian, and he—well, he would like to meet you for that reason anyway. I've told him how much like Daddy you are.'

  'And that's his only reason?'

  It wasn't going to be easy, and Nuri's implications last night about why his father wanted to meet Ian did not make things any easier when they kept popping into her mind every few minutes. 'I—I don't know that he has any other reason, except that you're my cousin, of course. The Turks are a very hospitable people, Ian, you must have found that, even in the short time you've been here.'

  'Oh, I have! I get along well with most of the people

  I meet, but the Kayamans ' He shook his head, his face distorted for a moment into a grimace.

  'Oh, Ian, you can't refuse! You can't possibly!'

  'Code of manners and all that, you mean?' He looked as if he conceded the point, then nodded. 'O.K., cousin, never let it be said that I let the side down! I'll come to your dinner party, but just do one thing for me, will you?' Laurette frowned at him curiously and he grinned. 'Keep Nuri Bey out of my way, or I might let good form go by the board and punch him!'

  'Oh no, Ian, you wouldn't!'

  From the stubbornly fierce look on his face it was clear that he would, given the provocation, and her heart fluttered uneasily. His blue eyes sparkled and he was grinning in a way she recognised as exactly like her father. 'Don't you believe it, love! I'd as soon punch that black-eyed devil as look at him, given half a chance!'

  Laurette thought of Nuri and his antagonism towards Ian, just as fierce in its way and perhaps even more passionate when put to the test, and she wondered at two men disliking each other so much when they had met no more than three or four times at most.

  'I don't understand you,' she said, watching his face curiously. 'How can you dislike a man so much when you scarcely know him?'

  'Easy—when it's Nuri Bey!'

  'But why, Ian?'

  'I dunno.' He shrugged, grinning amiably at her over his shoulder. 'Maybe because I suspect he's got plans for you, and I hate the idea of you disappearing into a Turkish harem for the rest of your beautiful life!'

  Laurette had said little during the past half-hour, and she thought Ian knew the reason behind her silence. He surely must realise how he had shaken her with that statement that Nuri had plans for her, though he had offered no further speculation on the subject, almost as if he realised he had said enough to make her uneasy.

  They took a pleasantly steady drive as he had suggested, along the main motorway out of Alanya, eastwards out of the town, and Laurette gave her attention to the scenery whenever her preoccupation allowed it, but always that disturbing suggestion of Ian's came back and distracted her.

  He had kissed her, and being kissed by Nuri was a new enough experience to arouse her responses still when she remembered it. It stirred the kind of emotions in her that she had never thought herself capable of and it was quite unconscious when she touched her mouth lightly with her fingers.

  Parked at the roadside at the edge of a village, she looked out at an olive grove, its squat, craggy grey trees sprawling on either side of them, like ungainly ghosts in the summer sunlight. A girl herding a flock of goats looked at them curiously from above the cloth carefully drawn across her face, questioning the fact of a man and a woman sitting in a car together, apparently without reason, thinking them lost, no doubt, but too shy to offer help without being asked.

  The village houses straggled along a steep hill before them, surrounded and divided by orchards and fields of beans and wheat. It looked quiet and well ordered and as if it had not changed for a hundred years, which it probably hadn't to any degree. Laurette could find no fault with it, but she wondered if Ian shared her view, or even if he shared her view of very much at all, despite their relationship. He was still so much a stranger, and she was still much too unsure whether or not she wanted to remedy the fact in the short time available to them.

  'You're quiet, cousin.'

  Ian was smiling at her, half turned in his seat and with his bottom lip pinched thoughtfully between a thumb and forefinger. It was doubtful if he had any idea how much his seemingly casual remark had affected her, and she was probably taking it much too seriously, but somehow it was difficult not to.

  'I'm thinking, that's all.'

  'About coming back to England with me?'

  She had forgotten about that, and her expression showed it as she hastily avoided his eyes. Looking out at the roiling countryside and the soaring impressive-ness of the Taurus mountains she was reminded once more of how hard it would be to leave this country she had come to regard as her own, and it served to strengthen her resistance when she answered him.

  'I hadn't really thought seriously about that, Ian. I —I hadn't thought about it at all.'

  'I see!'

  Clearly he saw her attitude as hostile and his blue eyes had a bright resentful look when she turned her head. 'Oh, Ian, please don't think I don't appreciate the fact that you offered to take me back with you—'

  'But you just haven't bothered to give it another thought—I know! You probably prefer that damned harem after all!'

  'And will you please stop talking such nonsense about harems! There haven't been any harems in Turkey for —for years! The Turks are a modern, civilised people and I won't have you always running them down just because you claim to be my cousin !'

  'Claim?' He looked stunned for a moment, then one hand reached out and gripped around her upper arm, the fingers tight and digging into her flesh, as if he did not realise how hard he held her. 'Oh, you surely don't intend to deny it, not after this long?'

  'No, of cour
se not!' She shook her head, and found it aching far more than it had when she left home, so that she put a hand to her brow. 'I just wish you wouldn't always sound as if you dislike my family so much, that's all, Ian.'

  'Do they know I want you to come home with me?'

  She looked down at her hands rather than at him, and she wondered why she had been so reticent about telling Refik Kayaman at least. The old man had some inkling, she knew, he had more or less said as much, and so, she thought, had Nuri. They both suspected Ian of trying to lure her away, but she wondered what they would have said if they knew he had issued a firm invitation for her to go with him to England.

  She shook her head, though it cost her a twinge of pain. 'I haven't said anything to them about it.'

  Ian slid a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face, studying her for a moment or two before he spoke. 'Then I think you should, little cousin, don't you? Because I don't intend to let up, you know! I shall do everything I can to persuade you.'

  'Ian—'

  He leaned across and pressed his mouth to hers before she had time to say more, drawing her into his arms and holding her tightly, as if he feared she might try to pull away from him. But Laurette made no effort to resist, nor did she respond, and when he let her go at last, slowly and lingeringly, he was briefly puzzled but not deterred.

  His mouth brushed her chin and the soft skin beside her ear, then pressed lightly to the vulnerable softness of her throat. It was an experience she would probably have found much more exciting only a week or two ago, but since then she had been held in Nuri's arms and he had kissed her in a way that took her breath away and made her tremble. She felt nothing like that when Ian kissed her.

  Raising his head, Ian looked down at her with bright, determined blue eyes and smiled, one hand curved about her face as he lightly kissed her mouth again. 'I can be very persuasive,' he promised.

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT was because she sought reassurance about her foster-father's motive for giving a dinner-party and inviting Ian that Laurette sought Halet's opinion, but Halet had been disappointingly uncertain about it, so that once more she had been obliged to fall back on her own vague suspicions..

  When Nuri had suggested that his father wished to meet Ian with a view to discovering his intentions towards her, she had not known whether to take him seriously or not, but further consideration had almost convinced her that it was likely.

  Refik Kayaman took the whole man/woman relationship much more seriously than Ian probably realised, and she wondered if she ought perhaps to have given her cousin some warning hint. It was too late now, of course, for their guests would be arriving soon and Ian was probably already on his way, prepared to be formally polite, but still touchy and suspicious not only of his host, but particularly his host's son.

  A glance at her watch showed her just how early she was, but she had been unable to settle as easily after lunch as Halet had, so she had come up to her room really much too early, and then spent more than half an hour soaking in a hot bath and trying to relax.

  There would be several other people there as well, and it was silly to suppose that Ian's inclusion in the guest list had been prompted by any other reason than her foster-father's desire to meet the man who so closely resembled his old friend. Nuri's intimations had been meant to tease her, no more.

  For a while she had pretty well convinced herself, while she lazed in the steaming luxury of the bathroom, but while she was dressing and doing her hair the uncertainties had returned. In a cloud of green chiffon and extravagantly perfumed to give her confidence, she whirled around in front of her bedroom mirror and watched her reflection thoughtfully. The colour suited her, and she felt very feminine in the flowing softness of chiffon, but the uncertainty she still felt showed to some degree, and she wished it didn't.

  Ian was quick-tempered, but being so herself Laurette could hardly fault him for it. Nuri had quite frankly admitted to not liking him, and it was with both factors in mind that she foresaw an evening fraught with tension if the two of them were to be in frequent contact.

  Nuri, she knew from experience, would and could hold his formidable temper in check rather than allow it rein against a guest in his father's house, but she wished she could be as sure of Ian's self-control. If he caused a scene that was likely to embarrass her foster-father she would find it very hard to forgive him.

  'Oh, they mustn't, they mustn't!'

  She murmured the words with her eyes closed and her hands close together under her chin. Then with one more rueful glance at her solemn faced reflection, she turned away, the chiffon dress floating romantically around her as she went.

  There was no one else in the salon and it was a little too early for their guests to be arriving, so she sat on her favourite seat on the ottoman, skimming heedlessly through a magazine for a few minutes until she heard voices coming across the hall. Nuri and Halet, she recognised, and wondered what on earth they could be discussing with such feeling in their own tongue. It sounded very much as if they were disagreeing about something, and the suspicion was confirmed as soon as the door was opened.

  Halet's darkly pretty face was flushed, and her eyes bright with the kind of resentment Laurette so often felt herself after an exchange with Nuri. He, of course, was well in control, although the black eyes glittered at her for a moment as he came across the room.

  Half expecting to be involved, whether she wanted it or not, Laurette watched him cautiously, but all he did was murmur a greeting, then sit himself in one of the armchairs and pick up a newspaper. Halet, still flushed and looking unbelievably defiant, came and sat beside Laurette on the ottoman, her eyes quite plainly trying to convey a message.

  Since she was unlikely to say anything while Nuri was within hearing, Laurette suggested they went for a walk in the garden before the guests arrived, a suggestion that Halet agreed to with such obvious eagerness that it was plain whatever she had on her mind she was anxious to share.

  Nuri looked up, watching them over the edge of his newspaper as they rose together, and for a moment Laurette thought he had it in mind to say something about their departure. Instead he contented himself with a resigned shrug and disappeared again behind the newspaper.

  Outside the air was cool and scented, and the gardens dappled by moonlight where the trees fluttered their branches in the breeze, the two of them walking side by side in silence for a few seconds, as if Halet sought words to explain her secret. Then turning her huge dark eyes on Laurette, she sighed.

  'I am sorry, Laurette, but the deception we had with the swim suit did not happen as we hoped it would.'

  Momentarily caught unawares, Laurette frowned at her curiously. 'I don't quite understand, Halet.'

  'You remember that I came to the hospital to collect that very bold costume that you had—'

  'Oh, that!' Laurette already looked resigned. 'Is that what you and Nuri were talking about when you came in just now?'

  Halet nodded. 'He has discovered about how little you wore when you went swimming with your cousin.'

  'Oh dear!'

  Halet's look suggested that she sympathised, but saw little hope of it being simply passed off. 'I am sorry, Laurette.'

  'Why should you be?' Laurette smiled at her ruefully. 'You weren't wearing the blessed thing, I was!'

  Halet pulled a face. 'He has also discovered that I went to the hospital to fetch it so that Baba—and Nuri —would not know about it.'

  'Oh, Halet, no!'

  'He has told me that to do such a thing was a deliberate deception and not worthy of me.'

  Halet was quoting her brother, that was obvious, and the old familiar protectiveness for her stirred in Laurette for a moment. 'Oh, but he had no cause to scold you for it, you were trying to help me, and he should realise that.' Something else occurred to her then, and briefly cooled her indignation against Nuri. 'He won't have said anything to Baba Refik, that's one good thing.'

  'Oh no, of course not!'

 
'But I shall tell him that he shouldn't have scolded you for being loyal to me, that simply isn't fair!'

  She would have gone and tackled him about it there and then, but Halet was pulling anxiously at her arm, and shaking her head. 'No, there is no need to do that, Laurette.'

  'But he bullies you, Halet, you know he does!'

  'I think not so much this time,' Halet argued quietly, and something in her manner made Laurette look at her curiously. 'I have admitted that I went to the hopital to fetch the costume because we did not wish them to know about it, but I have also told Nuri that it is not my concern what you choose to wear, nor the concern of anyone but yourself.'

  Hardly believing her ears, Laurette stared at her for a moment. It simply was not like Halet to tackle her formidable brother with such home-truths, and she wondered where on earth she had found the nerve after all these years. She smiled, then eventually laughed, because she found it impossible not to, while Halet looked slightly sheepish with her eyes downcast and her cheeks flushed.

  'I can hardly believe it, Halet! You, of all people! But what I don't understand is, how did Nuri know?'

  Halet pulled a face, admitting herself a novice at deception. 'He guessed my reason for being so anxious to fetch your things when Doctor Alcilic told him at lunch time what you were wearing when you were taken to the hospital. He saw her with her husband and they laughed about how you could keep on such a brief costume while you were swimming.'

  'Oh dear, he'd have hated that! I'd banked on the doctor being a bit more discreet!'

  Halet regarded her for a moment. 'I think that Nuri is not so concerned that you were wearing the costume, but that you were with your cousin Ian when you were wearing it.' Her dark eyes had that curiously knowing innocence they sometimes did, and she was shaking her head. 'I am not always able to understand Nuri as well as Bedia and Latife do,' she confessed. 'He is behaving strangely.'