The Desert Castle

by Isobel Chace

  ‘She’s afraid of you,’ Gregory answered. ‘She thinks you’re beautiful and clever, and that you haven’t got time for ordinary people like her.’

  Marion could imagine her saying that. The impertinence of it might have amused her at another time, but not today. She knew then that Denise was her enemy, and she couldn’t remember ever having had an enemy before.

  ‘She should talk to Lucasta,’ she said wryly.

  ‘She hasn’t Lucasta’s confidence, or yours either,’ Gregory sighed. ‘For all her father wraps her in cottonwool, she’s a very vulnerable person.’

  Marion lifted an eyebrow. ‘Sensitive,’ she shrugged.

  He ignored her obvious mockery. ‘More young and defenceless. It would be easy to hurt her.’

  Marion could only marvel at the blindness of men. In her book, Denise was neither young nor defenceless; she was as tough as old leather and in no need of anyone’s care and protection. Still, it was easy to see Gregory had swallowed the bait she had cast in his direction, hook, line and sinker. The only thing Marion couldn’t understand was why she should feel hurt on his behalf. She had no reason to suppose he deserved better treatment than he was likely to get at Denise’s grasping, possessive hands. Had he worried about Judith’s feelings back in London?

  ‘Where is she now?’ Marion asked him.

  ‘I persuaded her to go off with Lucasta and Gaston. The three-day week-end wreaks havoc with my work schedule.’

  Marion gurgled with delighted laughter. Denise couldn’t come as high up on his list of priorities as she had thought if his work still came first with him!

  ‘What’s funny about that?’ he demanded.

  She shook her head at him, breaking into laughter all over again. ‘Is the book going well?’ she asked in a trembling voice.

  ‘No, it’s not! I came here to get away from people, not to have to entertain half the world every weekend!’

  ‘My mother,’ Marion told him gently, ‘always says it’s a mistake to try to escape from the demands of other people. They’re more important than our own interests—most of the time.’

  His mouth clapped shut into its familiar disapproving line. ‘Easy to say when you haven’t a deadline to meet,’ he growled. ‘Are you trying to tell me that I ought to give in to Denise’s demands?’

  She couldn’t bring herself to recommend any such thing. ‘Only you can answer that,’ she managed to say. ‘I don’t know what her demands are!’

  ‘And that makes a difference? What about your own demands?’

  That shocked the colour out of her cheeks. ‘What makes you think I would make any?’ she retorted. ‘I don’t want anything from you Mr. Randall.’

  The steely glint in his eyes disturbed her. ‘Your very presence here makes demands!’ His expression relaxed into a smile of unusual warmth. ‘It makes me think of all the other things there are to do besides shutting myself up and working.’ He leaned back in his chair, watching the mobile features of her face as they reflected her uncertainty and the defensive reaction to his words. ‘Have you ever heard of the mosaics of Madaba?’

  She nodded, because she had vaguely known that there was a sixth-century mosaic map of Palestine somewhere in Jordan. Her father had spoken of it warmly, she remembered, when he recommended that if she was interested in fine mosaics the best place to see the very finest was in the Bardo Museum in Tunis. ‘Except for the Church of St. Saviour in Chora, in Istanbul.’ he had added. ‘But that is something else and not to be compared with what we usually mean by mosaic work.’

  ‘Doesn’t it depict Old Jerusalem?’ she said now.

  He gave a wry smile. ‘If you can spare the time, would you like to go and see it this afternoon? We could go on to the Dead Sea afterwards.’

  ‘Could we?’ she hesitated. ‘Shouldn’t we go tomorrow when the others can come too?’

  ‘And listen to Gaston whispering sweet nothings in Lucasta’s ear?’

  Her eyes opened wide. ‘Oh dear, I do hope not. Should I speak to her, do you think?’

  ‘What about?’

  Marion stumbled, not knowing how to put it. ‘Would Mrs. Hartley consider Gaston a suitable friend for Lucasta? She is only seventeen.’

  ‘Quit worrying, Marion. You’ll only make a fool of yourself if you try to put Lucasta on a leading-rein. Do you want to come with me this afternoon or not?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  She had forgotten that he had said he was coming to see the results of her morning’s work after lunch and she couldn’t think why he followed her down the long corridor that led to her room. A light remark might have relieved the atmosphere, but she couldn’t make her brain think of anything except the way he towered over her as he walked beside and to wish for the millionth time since she had grown up that she were tall and dignified, and didn’t have to skip along beside him, employing three steps for every two of his.

  When she opened the door her eyes went straight to the little houri she had treated. Her timidity was as familiar as if it were her own.

  ‘What made you begin with her?’ Gregory asked, moving in close to look at the little figure the better.

  ‘She appeals to me,’ Marion confessed. ‘I felt as though I knew her as soon as I saw her.’

  Gregory looked amused. ‘That’s hardly surprising,’ he said drily. ‘She’s a favourite of mine too.’

  Marion picked up a brush and touched the houri’s robe with a loving hand. ‘None of those soldiers are going to get her! They’ll have to make do with all the others!’

  He laughed. He was closer to her than she had thought and she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. She put the brush down hastily, self-conscious in a way she had never been before. It was fortunate that he didn’t want to watch her work, she thought. She’d be too nervous to do a thing!

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ he said. ‘When I first came to see this place I noticed her at once. It’s a good thing she’s shy, I thought to myself, because that one has to wait for me! Most certainly, those brutish soldiers are not going to have her!’

  ‘You’re much less brutish, of course,’ Marion murmured with a smile. It was quite a thought to think of Gregory Randall making love to anyone as timid as— the little houri, for example. Indeed, she wished the thought had not occurred to her at all, for she had been much better off without it. Yet she couldn’t help remembering how warm and firm his lips had been against hers at the airport and she felt a gust of feeling within her that was as real as a body-blow to her solar plexus.

  ‘Perhaps not in intention,’ he said with a mocking amusement that made her hope earnestly that he couldn’t read her mind. ‘She looks very kissable to me.’

  ‘No better than any other pin-up, in fact,’ Marion said, disappointed in him. ‘I think she’d be better off with an appreciative soldier, who’d see her as a person, not a sex symbol.’

  ‘She might like being kissed,’ he objected. ‘Don’t you?’

  Her experience was much more limited than she wanted to admit, especially as kisses were considered such common currency nowadays. She pinned a smile to her lips.

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  He put his hands on her shoulders and swung her round to face him, lifting her easily on to the stool she had been using to give her extra height while she worked. Finding herself on his level for once, she found his mouth much less disapproving than she had thought. It was firm and very, very self-assured, but there was nothing condemnatory about it, not even when she made a flustered movement to escape him. She wasn’t ready to be kissed by him! She heaved a deep breath to try and steady herself, scarcely surprised at all when his hand slipped from her shoulder to the back of her head, drawing her firmly but inevitably into the circle of his embrace. She would have protested even then, but her lips trembled so badly that she thought better of it.

  ‘What a sweet fraud you are, Marion Shirley,’ he said softly. ‘You’re every bit as shy and as fearful as she is, aren’t you? No wond
er you have such a fellow-feeling for her.’

  She hoped she didn’t look as ridiculous to him as she felt. ‘I didn’t know—You took me by surprise!’ she defended herself.

  His lips met hers in the briefest of contacts and the shock of it reached right down inside her, fountaining up again in a sensation of such warm delight that she could only wonder if she would ever be the same again. She stepped off the stool in a haze of bewilderment and sat down on it quickly in case her knees refused to support her any longer.

  Gregory squatted down beside her, his navy-blue eyes very dark as he looked at her. ‘Marion, what’s the matter? Are you all right?’

  She managed a shadow of her usual smile. ‘You shouldn’t flirt with the art woman!’ she rebuked him.

  He smiled back at her, cupping her chin in his hand. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Denise told you not to,’ she reminded him.

  ‘You’ll have to think up a better reason than that,’ he murmured.

  ‘What better reason can there be? Don’t you want to please Denise?’

  ‘Not to the point of having her tell me what to do. No girl, however pretty, is going to run my life for me,’ he said firmly.

  SShe stirred against his restraining hand, seeking to make her escape, but he had no intention of letting her go.

  ‘We’ll have to do something about this fixation you have about Denise,’ he said against her lips. ‘I don’t want to hear her name again this afternoon.’ He kissed her slowly and all inclination for escape died away. ‘There!’ he warned her on a note of masculine triumph there was no mistaking. ‘I’ll claim a similar forfeit—’

  ‘No. No, you won’t!’ Marion leaped to her feet, not even trying to hide her anger. ‘You may have Judith in London, and Denise for week-ends, but you haven’t got me! I don’t play those sort of games—’

  ‘And you think I do?’

  She nodded, unable to speak when she saw the cold mockery on his face. She would have given anything to have banished the dislike she was sure he felt for her.

  ‘One day,’ he said, weighing each word with a deliberation that appalled her, ‘I’ll make you take that back, Miss Shirley. You’ll eat your words if you choke on them, and I won’t lift a finger to help you!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘You haven’t begun to be sorry!’ He hesitated, aware of the appeal in her wide, anxious eyes. ‘I shan’t bother you again!’

  Marion looked away, struggling with the bitter despair that seized her. ‘Are we still going to Madaba?’ she asked, afraid he would see the tears that were gathering at the back of her eyes.

  ‘Do you still want to go?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  He watched her for a moment in silence, then he said, ‘Don’t give it another thought.’ He twisted his mouth into a wry smile. ‘I’ll meet you in ten minutes at the car. You needn’t worry about being alone with me,’ he added caustically. ‘I don’t seduce frightened little girls. I prefer a more sophisticated approach!’

  ‘Oh, Gregory, please don’t!’

  He crossed his arms in front of him and stared at her. ‘Don’t what? What do you want?’

  She blinked, wiping the tears away from her cheeks. ‘I’d like to be friends. I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Friends?’ He sounded as though the word had really stung him on the raw. ‘I wonder if you know what you’re asking!’ He walked over to her and touched her wet cheeks with gentle fingers. ‘I’ll try, Marion,’ he said at last. ‘Only don’t cry any more and I’ll do anything you ask!’

  She gulped. ‘Thank you,’ she said with relief. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you, Gregory. It was a compliment—in a way—because most women would like you to make love to them, only—’

  ‘Only you don’t?’ he finished for her.

  But she did! She liked it far too much! ‘I didn’t dislike it,’ she compromised, and wondered why he laughed, his face clearing as if by magic. ‘But it didn’t mean anything, did it?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ he said, and turned on his heel and left her alone with the little houri she was restoring.

  Marion made a face at her, admitting to herself that they were two of a kind. ‘You can’t wait for ever,’ she addressed the painted wall. ‘He might not come. He might never get to heaven and what will you do then?’

  But the houri made no answer. Only Marion knew quite well what she would have said if she could. She would have pointed out that Gregory was in the same world as Marion and yet she hadn’t fared very well either.

  ‘I only want to be his friend!’ Marion declared out loud, and flung a cloth at the simpering disbelief on the face of the houri. Well, she didn’t believe it either! But if she didn’t want that what else was it that she did want?

  Marion tied her scarf round her head, pulling it so tight that she almost strangled herself. She reached up her hands and began to pull herself up into the front of the Land Cruiser when two strong hands lifted her easily and dumped her on to the canvas-covered seat.

  ‘I’ve left a message for the others,’ Gregory said, ‘We won’t be back till late.’

  Marion said nothing. She clutched the edge of her seat as they set off across the rough ground, her spirits rising by the minute. It was grand to have the sun on her face and the wind pulling at the edges of her scarf.

  ‘How long will it take us to get there?’ she asked as Gregory eased the Land Cruiser through the rusty iron gates.

  ‘To Madaba? More than an hour. To the Dead Sea, rather longer. I thought we’d go by way of Mount Nebo so that you can see where Moses looked down into the Promised Land before he died.’

  ‘The very spot?’ she insisted, sounding doubtful.

  ‘Why not? It wasn’t very long ago in the historical perspective of a land like this.’

  ‘Three thousand years,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Practically modern times,’ he teased her. ‘I’m sure if you asked around you’d find someone who remembered him passing through their village.’

  ‘They’ll remember you,’ she asserted. ‘What made you want to live in a castle?’

  ‘It was there I saw the difference the Spaniards were able to make when they restored the frescoes of the most famous of the desert castles, Qasr Amra, and I wanted to do the same for my castle. It’s too far out for it to be on the tourist circuit, and there isn’t enough money to go round anyway. It seemed almost too good to be true when I heard about you!’

  ‘You used to write to my father,’ she said shyly. ‘My mother told me so.’

  ‘That didn’t mean you had followed in his footsteps. It was Lucasta who told me about your evening classes. My sister could hardly believe her luck when I offered to have Lucasta for the holidays—providing you came along too.’

  Marion squinted into the sun. ‘That child is left alone far too much,’ she said severely. ‘Isn’t your sister afraid she’ll get, into trouble?’

  ‘I fancy she feels the risks are less in London than if she were to drag her off to some of the parties she and my brother-in-law go to. Lucasta is too young to keep her head amongst the jet-set just yet.’

  ‘You don’t seem to mind if Gaston turns her head. He’s quite a bit older than she!’

  Gregory grinned. ‘He won’t do her any harm. He’s still wet behind the ears compared to the sort of gentlemen I’m thinking about. Lucasta will run rings round him and he won’t even know it. He’s a decent enough young fellow.’

  ‘But, at seventeen—’

  ‘Lucasta is as old as Cleopatra compared with her would-be chaperon,’ he mocked her. ‘You don’t have to worry about any niece of mine, Marion.’

  But she did have to worry about herself! She sat back in her seat, half wishing that he would give her something more to worry about. The desert was more beautiful than ever and she amused herself by trying to judge how many miles she could see in any given direction. They met the old King’s Highway, the ancient tr
ade route the caravans of old had travelled between Cairo or Mecca in the south, and Damascus, the Lebanon, and even Antioch, which was now the ruined Roman city of Jerash, in the north. The new, modern Desert Highway that cut several hours off the journey went off to the left.

  ‘That’s the way to Aqaba,’ Gregory told her. ‘And to Petra, the “rose-red city half as old as time.” ’

  Petra had been a dream of her childhood, but she had never thought she might go there herself.

  ‘I don’t suppose Lucasta would be interested,’ she sighed.

  ‘Probably not,’ Gregory agreed, too promptly not to be convincing. ‘You’ll have to get someone else to take you.’

  She felt snubbed and supposed she deserved it ‘Have you been there often?’ she asked in a small voice.

  He turned to look at her. ‘Are you asking me to take you?’ he said bluntly.

  ‘No, of course not.’ She tried to leave it there, but she could not. ‘If I asked you, would you take me?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  That hurt more than anything else had done. She tried telling herself that he had his deadline to meet and that he couldn’t possibly spare the time to indulge her childhood dreams. He was more than doing his duty by taking her to Madaba.

  ‘I’ll talk to Lucasta about it,’ she said.

  ‘You won’t make me change my mind,’ he told her, his voice hard with the dislike she knew he felt for her. ‘Petra has long been my dream too, and I won’t allow you to spoil it. You might persuade Denise to fly you down there.’

  ‘I don’t want to go with Denise,’ she said childishly. ‘If Lucasta doesn’t want to go, I won’t go at all!’

  ‘Then I wish you luck in persuading her,’ he told her. But it wasn’t luck he was wishing her. He was hoping that she would never get there, though she didn’t stop to ask herself why. The tears burned at the back of her eyes. She had made a mistake in wanting to be friends with him. He was the most hateful creature she had ever met!