Nevertheless, having been bidden to the feast, as it were—and expected to regard the invitation as serious—Caroline realised she would have to do something about ensuring that her appearance would meet with approval, if nothing else, and she went very carefully through the contents of her wardrobe and selected a slim dress of navy blue chiffon, with floating panniers that were finely pleated, and transparent sleeves that were caught in at the wrists with bishop’s cuffs. In addition to being simple and rather elegant, it emphasised the fact that her position in the household was not frivolous; and it seemed unlikely that anyone could find fault with it on any grounds whatsoever.
Having selected the dress, she selected a neat row of pearls to go with it, and decided that the occasion warranted a pretty pair of pearl ear-rings to be attached to her ears. Then she went along the corridor to the antiquated bathroom, was lucky enough to find that the hot-water supply had not been entirely exhausted by Richard and the girl who had superintended his bath, emptied a phial of bath essence into the water—she had been reserving it for just such an occasion as this (or one that could have been expected to afford her more pleasure!)—and enjoyed a somewhat leisurely bath. After which she returned to her bedroom and did her nails, brushed her hair until it shone, and slipped into her undies. Her makeup she arrayed on the top of her dressing-table, ready to apply when she had slipped into her underclothes.
She was calling out to Richard that he must stop singing songs and go to sleep—he liked humming to himself until he fell asleep—when the outer door of the suite was burst open without ceremony, and Ilse’s voice called loudly:
“Caroline!”
Caroline reached for her dressing-gown and dipped into it hastily. It was a very charming dressing-gown, of Chinese blue satin, and it had actually been handed on to her by Ilse; but she knew that her face was still glowing from her bath, and her hair was cascading about her shoulders like a spun-silk cloak, and she certainly didn’t expect to find anyone in the corridor but Ilse. The shock she received, therefore, when she found not only Ilse but Dom Vasco actually standing right outside her bedroom door very nearly deprived her of breath.
Ilse, who would have thought nothing of it if she had been even more scantily clad, said casually: “We just want to say goodnight to Richard. He seems to be making quite a din in his room,” but Dom Vasco was plainly as shocked as Caroline was herself. He stared for an instant, apologised mechanically, and then started to retreat along the corridor. But Ilse laughed and caught at his arm to prevent him leaving the suite altogether.
“It’s only Caroline,” she said. “She’s obviously been wallowing in a very luxurious bath,” inhaling the fragrance of the bath essence that was certainly filling the nursery suite. “Let’s hope you’ve arranged for some nice-looking man to sit beside her at dinner, otherwise all her efforts will be wasted!”
Caroline retreated into her room and shut the door tightly. She heard Dom Vasco saying stiffly that of course they shouldn’t have entered like that, Miss Worth wasn’t expecting them to pay a sudden visit, but Ilse wouldn’t have it that there was anything unusual about such a visit.
“I always say goodnight to Dicky when I have the opportunity,” she said. “And Caroline should beautify herself at a more reasonable hour. The Marques pays her to look after Dicky, and really she ought to be wearing some sort of a uniform, not dressing for the evening as if she was a guest! However, it’s so difficult to get suitable girls to take charge of one’s children nowadays, and I suppose one must make concessions.”
Her voice died away as she disappeared into the bedroom to say goodnight to Richard, but Dom Vasco obviously remained outside in the corridor, for when Ilse rejoined him Caroline heard him say in a constrained voice:
“Everything all right with the child?”
“Perfectly all right.” Caroline could detect the relaxed note in the recently bereaved widow’s voice; and because she had just been afforded a preview of her in her glittering golden lame dress, with her hair in glorious array on top of her head, and her make-up bland and perfect, she knew how utterly alluring she looked as she smiled up into the face of the dark, distinguished Portuguese who stood beside her in his white dinner-jacket and cummerbund, and perhaps slipped a hand inside his arm—for Ilse always clung to her escorts. “I’ll say one thing for Caroline,” she conceded. “She’s quite responsible when it comes to looking after children, and Dicky took a fancy to her straight away. They get on very well, you know.”
“Yes; I do know,” Caroline heard Vasco reply very quietly, and then the suite door closed with a sharp little click, and she realised that the intrusion was over.
She put away the ear-rings and the pearl necklace that she had been intending to wear that night, did her hair in a style that was almost severe, ignored the perfume bottle on her dressing-table, and used makeup sparingly; and when she went downstairs at last she was able to hug to herself the thought that at least there would be no one amongst the guests who would be likely to be dazzled by the appearance of Miss Caroline Worth, the English nursery-governess.
The governess who knew her place, even although she ‘wallowed’ in scented baths, and took time off from her duties in an effort to make herself glamorous.
She was the more surprised, therefore, when the Marques himself, crossing the hall from his private library to the main sala, and looking every inch an aristocrat in his beautifully fitting evening things suddenly paused as if in surprise and delight and greeted her.
“Miss Worth! If someone old enough to be your father is permitted to pay compliments, may I say how utterly delightful you look?”
Caroline could hardly believe the evidence of her ears. The Marques was even more distinguished—if that were possible!—than Dom Vasco, but his handsome hazel-grey eyes were alight with honest admiration, and there was something deliciously old-world about the way in which he bowed before her.
“Thank you, Senhor Marques,” she said, and her eyes sparkled back into his in gratitude.
The Marques lowered his voice to a confidential whisper.
“I’ll be honest with you, senhorita,” he told her. “If there were to be no guests tonight, and if I could obey my inclinations, I would do nothing but talk with you throughout dinner, and afterwards. You are English, and I am very, very fond of England. Also you remind me—you remind me of someone...”
There was a partly reminiscent, partly regretful expression in his eyes as they continued to rest on her, and as he broke off he sighed. She gathered that the ‘someone’ she reminded him of was feminine, and that he had not seen her for some considerable while.
“As it is, we will have our talk some other time.”
Dom Vasco appeared in the hall at the very moment that the first cars started gliding up the drive, and as the butler held open the front door the Marques had perforce to turn away to welcome arriving guests. Vasco approached silently over the marble floor until he was right behind Caroline, who was debating whether to retreat upstairs or to try and gain admittance to the sola.
“I have an apology to make to you, senhorita,” he said, and because she had already caught sight of him out of the tail of her eye she was able to prevent herself looking startled. “An apology because my intrusion tonight was unwarranted. You had every right to resent it.”
She looked up at him with eyes that widened slowly.
“I didn’t resent it, senhor,” she told him. “It was simply that it was unexpected, and I was not in a condition to receive you properly.”
“That’s what I mean. The nursery wing is under your jurisdiction, and visits to it should be authorised by you. Naturally, Senhora de Fonteira has a right to visit it whenever she chooses, but I have no right to do so.”
All at once she felt herself dimpling uncontrollably, and she knew that her eyes were amused.
“If only I had been just a little more prepared to receive you ... I really had been wallowing in my bath. Senhora de Fonteira was perfectly right
about that, but I wasn’t trying to make myself glamorous. It was just that someone gave me a rather special phial of bath essence before I left England, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use it...”
“And tonight provided you with that opportunity? It was the reason why the nursery wing smelt like the Garden of Allah when we entered?”
“Did it?” She glanced up at him with grey-blue eyes that refused to be abashed by the sudden dry look round his mouth, the unconcealed spark of humour in his eyes. “Well, I suppose it did! I must have emptied the entire bottle into the water, which was a mistake ... and extravagant!”
“For a young woman who is not paid to beautify herself?”
Her expression grew more rueful, in fact, very rueful.
“Yes; I heard that, too. But Mrs. de Fonteira was right, of course ... my main preoccupation is, and should be, with Richard. However, he was in bed tonight, and I have to have a bath sometimes. It was a pity I chose just that time to have one.”
“Judging by the results—and I am referring more particularly to the glamorising period after the bath—your efforts were by no means wasted,” Dom Vasco observed slowly, and with very definite emphasis, while he took in all the details of the dark blue chiffon, that managed to look infinitely becoming even without anything to adorn it. “I would like to congratulate you, senhorita, on combining modesty with charm. No one will mistake you for a guest, because your colouring is completely un-Portuguese; but, on the other hand, I personally would not mistake you for a nursery-governess. And I am not trying to undervalue nursery-governesses in general.”
Caroline felt herself flushing brilliantly. His dark eyes were smiling down at her, and for the first time since she had known him they were full of admiration ... undisguised, utterly confusing admiration.
She felt as if she had started to run up a very steep flight of stairs, and she was out of condition and her quickened breathing made her want to gasp. Her pulses were bounding, her blood seemed to be raring ... and it was all so new to her that she failed to understand it.
Until she forced herself to meet his eyes again. And then it wasn’t so much that she understood; but she began to be afraid that she ought to understand...
“Thank you, senhor,” she , said, and her voice sounded strange and breathless in her own ears.
Dom Vasco lightly touched her bare arm, and indicated the door of the sala.
“You will find a friend in there,” he said. “Senhorita de Capuchos arrived ten minutes ago. She will be happy to renew her acquaintance with you.”
CHAPTER TEN
IT was an evening quite unlike any evening Caroline had known before in her life. The company was brilliant, the dinner superb, and afterwards the guests remained until a very late hour, drinking coffee in the sala and making conversation that was frequently witty, and frequently centred round personalities about whom Caroline knew nothing at all.
She found it necessary to revise her opinion of Portuguese women. They were not all as dull as the types she had met aboard ship, and in Portuguese East Africa. Women like Carmelita de Capuchos, for instance, unmarried, and with neither husband nor children to anchor their thoughts and prevent outside interests, could be entertaining and vivid, bright as a butterfly and in complete command of the situation when men sought to occupy the floor and steal their limelight from them.
Carmelita had been educated in England and France, and she spoke both languages fluently. She had learned to dress with the flair of a Frenchwoman, and she had as much confidence as Ilse de Fonteira, with the difference that she was basically and exceptionally feminine, and would have scorned to play two roles, as Ilse frequently did.
If she had been married she would have been devoted to her children, and there would have been no need to act a part occasionally. She could live and breathe quite as happily when there were men around as when there were no men around. A man’s admiration might be important to her, but it was not all-important. She was sufficient of a mystery—possibly to herself as well as to her friends—to be intriguing; and she had a Mona Lisa-ish type of smile that could always count upon adherents.
As a hostess she was superb. Caroline realised that as soon as she saw her seated at the long dining-table, facing the Marques, and sending him brilliant smiles occasionally, and directing more subtle smiles at Dom Vasco from time to time. The conversation at her end of the table simply flowed, and under the brilliant lights she looked enchanting. Not so much a beauty as a charmer, dressed by someone who knew exactly how to dress her, and wearing a fortune in jewels on her neck, wrists and fingers.
Ilse, who had chosen golden lame because she knew it exactly matched her hair, began to look slightly less confident than usual before the dinner was a quarter of the way through. She could not compete with Carmelita, and she knew it ... neither socially, conversationally, nor artistically. Her golden lame looked a trifle brash under the lights, and her pale English loveliness was not as exciting as Carmelita’s delicate, faded darkness. Carmelita really did suggest a rose ... a folded white rose. Ilse, despite clever make-up, looked a little older than her twenty-eight years, and there was something very, very slightly full-blown about her.
She found herself allotted the place of honour on the right hand of the Marques, and that meant she was some considerable distance away from Dom Vasco. Even Caroline was closer to him than she was, and between Caroline and the most personable male member of the dinner-party was a very stout elderly lady and a white-haired elderly gentleman, who paid a good deal of polite attention to the English girl, and in that way vied with the serious assistant bailiff, whom she had on her other hand.
On the whole, Caroline enjoyed the dinner, although the amount of food she was expected to consume was quite beyond her. The dishes were endless and most elaborate, and as a result it was a very long-drawn-out and protracted meal.
She actually preferred it when they returned to the sala for coffee, and then she could sit and watch Dom Vasco being beautifully polite and attentive to each of the lady guests in turn, while Ilse had to put up with the attentiveness of the white-haired elderly gentleman who had been Caroline’s neighbour at dinner, and Carmelita flirted openly and quite delightfully with the Marques.
It amused Caroline—although she knew it ought really to do nothing of the kind, and she ought to feel sympathy for a fellow-countrywoman—to sense that Ilse was becoming badly frustrated, and that the cool triumph she had expected of the evening was not such a triumph after all.
For one thing, she spoke hardly any Portuguese, never having bothered to learn the language, and the one or two attractive, youngish men who had been invited to meet her had hardly any English to speak of. They looked at her with admiration, stumbled awkwardly over a few sentences, and then left her to the protection of the elderly gentleman, who knowing all about her recent widowhood didn’t honestly expect her to feel the need to be entertained.
All the same, when Carmelita transferred her attentions to Vasco, and started to engage him in an amusing duologue, Caroline began to feel a certain sympathy for Ilse. Or rather, she understood the reason why she was looking more and more withdrawn, and why the elderly gentleman received nothing but clipped answers from her whenever he addressed her.
Dom Vasco wasn’t merely attractive, he was an exceptionally eligible bachelor, a close kinsman of the Marques de Fonteira, and an extremely rich man in his own right. He had no need to hope that one day the Marques would leave him something substantial in his will; he had plenty of his own, and a great deal to offer to the woman he one day made his wife. All the unmarried young women in the district must be secretly hoping that one day he would notice them in a way that would mean he really was beginning to think about marriage ... Unless it was generally accepted that he would marry Senhorita de Capuchos.
But to someone like Ilse, recently widowed and left not very well off, even if it was generally accepted that he was to marry Carmelita the challenge would be there, the insistent tho
ught that he could be made to become aware of another woman’s charms, another woman’s needs. She was beautiful, and she needed someone like him to provide a background for her beauty—a more fitting one than Portuguese East Africa! And that dark, dangerous attraction of his—his intense, masculine charm—would add something to the conquest that would also add a zest to life. Her life in Portugal!
No doubt she had the whole thing worked out after meeting him that afternoon, but it hadn’t honestly occurred to her that any dark-eyed Portuguese woman who was no longer in the first flush of her youth could provide a serious obstacle to such newly concocted plans. Carmelita de Capuchos, a mere cousin, could be overlooked ... until she met Carmelita.
Caroline felt sure she was literally seething with resentment because Carmelita, after all, was a person to be reckoned with. And if she hadn’t been living in a kind of rarefied atmosphere all evening, ever since Vasco’s dark eyes had looked at her, and smiled at her, in such a way that he had practically deprived her of breath, she might have felt greater sympathy for Ilse. She might have been able to forget that he had already revised his opinion of her, and was apparently prepared to treat her as if she was something rather special in the way of an appealing widow for whom every right-minded person would feel sympathy; and she might even have thought that it would be nice for Richard if he could acquire a stepfather who would almost certainly have his well-being at heart, and be a great support to him in the future.
But Dom Vasco’s hand had touched her arm following that look that had set her pulses racing, and although it had been the merest, lightest contact with his fingertips she had wondered why the truth had never occurred to her before ...that one man’s look, and one man’s touch, had, sooner or later, to affect her whole future life.
And apparently Dom Vasco, whom she had started off by disliking on account of his arrogance, was that man!
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