“Here.” He reached for her hand and moving it away, he depressed the lock with his broad dirt smudged thumb forcing the resistant lock down in a series of powerful thrusts, adding “There. This will make you feel better.” His smile remained unchanged, almost mocking in its sincerity.
Moving to the right and reaching in through the passenger window the man now readdressed Jonathan and patting him on the shoulder asked, “How you doing today Jonathan?”
“I’m fine.”
Jonathan smiled across his shoulder, but catching a glimpse of Christina out of the corner of his eye and sensing her irritation, he turned quickly away from a conversation with the man.
“Would you please move away from our car and take your things so we may go.” Christina interrupted what she felt was a purposeful attempt on the man’s part to irritate her by delaying her further. Despite her travels throughout the world, she had never felt comfortable with men, particularly of the sort that was now standing just inches away from her, seemingly holding them there with his right hand now on the top of their car.
Men like him were all too aware of their own physical virility and presence to suit her. They were boorish and assuming and enjoyed using their masculine prowess to prove some pre-historic myth about man’s ability to intimidate women. She, however, was not in the habit of tossing her heart in the air just to see where it would land every time a breathtakingly good looking man knocked on her senses. This man was wasting the effort and might as well know it.
Christina’s heart raced as she gathered the courage to say crisply, “It’s been a pleasure not meeting you. Now please move your hand, and all your clutter. Jonathan, help the gentleman with his things.” The words scraped huskily from her tension filled throat and her mouth was dry with her own hesitant assertiveness.
The man quickly moved his forceful hand from the top of the car to the window ledge as if to make a point of holding her there still. She breathed deeply and shut her eyes in obvious irritation.
Smiling even more broadly than before, his richly hued eyes crinkled in the corners. “Whoa now, Arthur seems to have gotten himself an in-a-hurry lady, he has,” the stranger chided.
She flushed at his obvious knowledge of her identity, but in anger chose to ignore her curiosity as to his relationship to the driver, Arthur and his apparent knowledge of her arrival. Christina’s flashing eyes narrowed and met his directly. Beyond his broad face and over his shoulder she caught a glimpse of a sea bird riding the azure blue sky far above them, and she considered how closely the color of the sky matched the man’s eyes. In the same moment, she became consciously aware of his masculine clean scent as it mixed through the window with the smell of the sea and the dust from his darkly tanned hand as it continued to hold the car in its power.
Before she could speak, he asked, while looking at her gracefully curved shoulders and her blouse as it touched the bare skin of her breasts, “Has Agatha had a look at you yet?” His voice was softly provocative and his expression amused at her apparent discomfort.
Anger consumed the traces of her fear at his implication that she was some unannounced piece of baggage being dropped off for judgment at the Vaughn home. Her lips tightening, her finely sculptured jaw jutting slightly forward, she glared into his commanding features.
“I beg your pardon!” she uttered hotly. “I can’t imagine that who I am and what Mrs. Vaughn knows, or feels, or thinks, is any of your concern!”
Pushing against Jonathan’s shoulder, Christina instructed forcefully, “Leave. Drive over his things if you have to. I mean it, Jonathan!”
Releasing the car from his grip, the man straightened and pensively rubbed a glistening bead of perspiration as it moved slowly through the golden brown haze on his powerful chest.
In a gesture, ushering them onward, he stepped away, kicked some things from the car’s path and in a friendly tone said, “Later Jonathan…be careful not to drive this lady off the edge. If you did, she’d have you straight up in your seat for it after you landed.” He winked wryly at Jonathan, who continued to look straight ahead, not incriminating himself in the exchange.
As the car slowly departed, Christina looked at the man and quelled another disquieting rush of fury as he said, with a nod of his cap in her direction and as his eyes softened from their mocking amusement, “Welcome to Tortola Miss Weldon.”
Hearing her name, she pivoted in her seat toward the man as their car maneuvered past the jeep and resumed its journey toward the Vaughn estate. Her eyes held on the stranger for several seconds with a sense of uneasiness.
Chapter 2
Christina’s anger and curiosity over the provoking encounter was surpassed only by the pride which restrained her from asking the silent driver the man’s identity. In her preoccupation with the encounter, she was barely aware of the watercolor palette of sights that she traveled through as the car continued on to the very edge of Road Town.
After a few minutes, Jonathan’s slowing of the car brought Christina’s awareness of her surroundings into consciousness. On both sides of the road, in sharp contrast to the simple, pale, unkempt houses were groups of native children, dressed in colorful school uniforms and looking, in the brilliance of the tropical sun, to Christina like brightly hued bouquets of flowers. The children returning home from school appeared to be grouped together by size, or grade, Christina mused, straightening her back against tiredness, the vehicle’s hard seat and her body’s reaction to her encounter at Kingston Point. The children’s richly toned faces looked eager with anticipation at the afternoon’s freedom awaiting them. They moved down the dusty paths in a joyful kaleidoscope of crimson pink, Prussian blue and mocha colored shirts and blouses.
The trip to the Vaughn home required them to leave the main road on the outskirts of town and climb a frighteningly steep and winding pavement. The sheer unexpectedness of the road’s ascent stretched the brief ten minute trip in Christina’s mind and she braced herself as she half prepared for Jonathan to slam on the brakes again.
Turning into a drive, Jonathan announced over his shoulder that they had arrived at the “Vaughn residence.”
Apprehension surged forth into Christina’s consciousness and as her palms moistened she felt her chest sharply pressured from within. Until this moment, she now realized, this entire trip had seemed to her an upcoming adventure, a search in a childhood paradise for a romantic, ancient artifact thought lost off the coast of Tortola, an event out of the reality of her settled life at the university with her father. It had been going to happen, in several months, next week, tomorrow. Now, it was no longer an expectation, but a reality. Within moments, she would be very much alone in Arthur’s world, thousands of miles from her father’s side. She bit her bottom lip and a look of anxiety darkened her eyes.
Leaving the car, Jonathan led the way up the long flight of winding, white terracotta steps. The fragrance of the citrus blossoms which were spilling over the railing filled Christina’s every breath. The impact of actually being here, at Arthur’s home, seized her thoughts. Her thoughts rushed over flashing traces of the many hours he had entertained her during his stay in Seattle. They had attended concerts, museum openings, several plays and lectures together. They had spent days discussing with H. Trent his theory about the existence of a 17th century Spanish cannon with a young Spanish girl’s ring hidden in it and resting in the coral off the Tortola coast.
Arthur at 35, was to Christina, a haven of safety from the many men who mistook her inheritance of her “mother’s natural beauty,” (as her father called it), as a challenge to their physical prowess, a category to which she had assigned the man changing the tire at Kingston Point. Seldom had she found men interested in her thoughts or her feelings or her ideas, except as they might relate to them. Arthur had always been mannerly, courteous and almost avuncular in his attention to her. He had been interested in her ideas and observations during their many dinners together and never once had he presumed upon her physically.
She admired Arthur’s grace, style and respectful treatment of her, but she, in her panic as Jonathan opened the door, was facing the realization that she was about to become involved in the daily life of a man she knew little about. Arthur had implied that her coming to Tortola would be the beginning of a more serious relationship between them. When she had pursued Arthur’s meaning, he had smiled assuredly and patted the back of her hand, changing the subject to the search for the cannon and the excitement of sharing its potential discovery. The door swung fully open. Christina’s body was flooded with the impulse to turn and run.
The richly paneled door opened into an enclosed courtyard that was open to the sky but surrounded by the house on three sides. Overhanging limbs from a nearby tree had been carefully trained to partially canopy the space, while providing interesting mid-afternoon shadows on the pathway. The walkway itself seemed to float on the pool that filled the area of the courtyard in such a way as to reflect the tree limbs and pieces of the sky across its surface. Water plants adorned by a few flawlessly open flowers ornamented the pool with such elegance and heavy aroma that Christina momentarily forgot the weariness in her legs.
“How lovely,” Christina murmured to herself.
Jonathan, ahead of Christina and at the end of the walkway, opened a louvered door to the house and the deep toned voice of a woman who was coming from the shadows of its interior.
“At last. This is Christina.”
The voice was followed by the appearance of a meticulously manicured hand that was being extended in Christina’s direction. As the hand emerged from the shadows, a brilliantly jeweled bracelet burst into a shaft of sunlight that was illuminating the space between the two women. The bracelet’s owner, dressed in a full length, white cotton caftan emerged into this sunlit space as if onto a stage she was determined to conquer.
Attempting to adjust her eyes to the unexpected glare of the light and its almost blinding reflection off the white fabric of the woman’s costume, Christina became aware of the blurred image of Jonathan who had taken a position respectfully to the side of the doorway allowing the woman to walk into the shaft of sunlight without hindering her graceful movements.
“Christina my dear,” the woman purred with sympathetically pursed lips, “you must be exhausted. I’m Agatha Vaughn, Arthur’s mother. He was devastated at not meeting you, but I awoke with this simply dreadful headache, and the dear really insisted on going to town to take care of some very boring, but vital business for me. He really feels bad for not being here to greet you. But look at you. Poor tired thing. All the better that you have your lovely reunion after you rest.”
Christina’s hand lifted ambivalently to Agatha’s cordial reach and a hesitant smile relaxed her somewhat tense expression.
“I’m very glad to meet you Mrs. Vaughn, I…”
Her words were interrupted as the woman guided her along side with one hand while putting her other hand against the small of Christina’s back. Christina’s damp blouse felt cool as it touched against her skin.
“Oh my, you did get warm didn’t you?” Agatha quickly removed her hand from the dampness of Christina’s blouse and with contrived politeness said, “Now I insist, Christina, that you call me Agatha. Mrs. Vaughn from the lips of a girl your age is simply too, too, Victorian, don’t you agree?” she cooed.
Before Christina could answer, Agatha directed Jonathan to, “Take Miss Weldon’s things down to the guest house.”
“It’s all prepared and waiting for you,” Agatha added.
Christina discreetly bit her bottom lip in puzzlement at Agatha’s mention of her lodging somewhere “down” in a guest house. Before her eyes, lay an obvious over abundance of room in the wonderfully designed house. Why would she not stay here?
“Guest house?” Christina quizzed, running her hand through the length of her silken hair. Her expression bore her sense of hesitation at the idea.
Descending several steps into the spacious living room, Agatha delicately lifted the hem of her caftan to ease her feet down the wide tiles of the steps. Tipping her head a little to the side, her naturally white hair touching her shoulder, Agatha put her finger to her lips in an authoritative gesture that halted any potential protest on Christina’s part.
“Arthur told me you wouldn’t want to be any trouble and that you would want to stay here in the main house. I just had to be firm, however, and say that a young woman would be far more comfortable with her own privacy than having to bump into him at every turn. The darling fusses about the house half the night. So I won’t hear another word about it.”
“I’ve been so anxious to see Arthur.” Her words fell into the lonely realm of Agatha’s lack of response. Weariness and disappointment seizing both her mind and her body, the thought of being alone anywhere in this house and away from Agatha’s ingratiating manner seemed suddenly and overwhelmingly welcome.
Smiling politely at Agatha, Christina conceded, “Mrs. Vaughn,”….she corrected herself “…Agatha…the guest house will be lovely. I appreciate your concern. I am probably even more tired than I look. You are absolutely right; I would welcome the opportunity to freshen up.”
Before she could continue, Agatha was touching her arm and leading her through the contemporary opulence of the living room.
“Of course, you are tired, you poor darling,” Agatha purred. “You take a long soak, and have the tiniest little nap and I’ll see that you’re not bothered by Arthur until dinner at 7:00 o’clock. We’ll have a lovely meal, the three of us and you can tell me all about your plans for your stay.”
They were nearing the large veranda that sheltered the living room’s walls of glass. The veranda framed the view of the sea, giving the feeling that one was in an elegant theater box, watching the drama of sail boats, seabirds and a cloud capped horizon.
Christina noticed that Jonathan was waiting at the edge of the veranda as if Agatha’s plan had been to dispatch her to the guest house with the luggage, even before she arrived.
Agatha instructed Jonathan to show her through the garden to the cottage, adding to Christina, “Now you get out of those weary looking clothes, rest, and not a peep from you before seven o’clock. I don’t want a guest of mine to ever say I didn’t look after them.” Christina felt properly dismissed and her lips tightened even further as Agatha motioned her in Jonathan’s direction by wiggling an index finger and jutting her chin a little forward in a ‘that-will-be-all-for-now’ gesture.
Christina managed to reestablish a smile but as she turned away from Agatha a sense of anger arose within her.
…
Jonathan led the way along the short walk past the swimming pool and through the formal English garden. The estate was breathtaking, in a setting of swaying tropical trees and colorfully lush native flowers. The mid-afternoon sun was beginning to soften over the tiny island and the trade winds were picking up off the sea, giving the air a salty feel and gently bending the palms.
Jonathan politely ushered her into the charming, intimately furnished cottage, its dark-beamed ceiling sharply contrasted with the cool, white stucco walls. He quickly disappeared from the living room through a far door with her luggage.
Christina glanced around, struck with a sense of familiarity in the room. Everywhere, in tastefully grouped positions, on furniture, in bookcases, cabinets, and on walls, were small treasures, obviously collected by the Vaughn’s in their travels throughout the world. Christina’s home, as long as she could remember, had never been a location particularly, but rather a collection, very much like this, of objects her parents had acquired i
n their travels as her father pursued his archeological career.
Christina was jarred from her pensive examination of the room by Jonathan’s reappearance. Even in the intimacy of the cottage, his formality was unshaken as he showed Christina the small kitchen and explained the phone service to the main house.
…
As Jonathan departed, Christina’s sudden impulse to ask about the identity of the stranger on the road stained her cheeks with a warm flush of surprise and self-consciousness. At the closing of the door, she drew in a deep breath that flooded her with relief. Her eyes closed, her breath cleansing away the man’s image, the anger and resentment she felt about Arthur’s absence and Agatha’s dismissal from her mind, Christina felt a sudden sense of relief.
She slowly opened her eyes and soon found herself exploring the cottage that was to become her home for the next few weeks.
In the tiny kitchen, the refrigerator was well-stocked with fruit, a selection of cheeses and a carefully chosen white wine. On the blue tile counter, wrapped in a colorful linen napkin, Christina discovered several freshly made croissants. Breaking off a piece of the lightly textured roll, she turned and looked across the open-beamed living room, through the large windows to her own personal view of the Caribbean and the islands beyond.
Slipping out of her sandals, she crossed a Peruvian wool rug on the living area floor and opened the door through which Jonathan had taken her luggage. Before her lay a delightfully inviting bedroom filled with dappled sunlight. As Christina gazed into the room a cool breeze from the sea gently lifted the edges of the silken gauze window coverings in the delicately feminine room. Entering this enchanted space, Christina slowly pulled the hem of her blouse from her slacks and unbuttoning it allowed it to fall to the floor behind her steps. Her firm body now freed to the freshness of the room’s atmosphere, she crossed to the bathroom stretching her long slender arms as her finely sculpted breasts rose in the movement.
Courier of Love Page 2
