House of Storms (17 page)

Debra flung round from the window and her tumultuous thoughts were in her eyes, making her look as tormented as she felt.

'Did I startle you?' Jack Salvador stood there in a navy-blue pin-stripe suit and with his lean face shaven and his hair combed he looked the distinguished author whom Debra had admired for a long time.

'Yes.' She forced a smile. 'I was miles away in my thoughts.'

'Having regrets about leaving Lovelis Island?'

'N-no.'

'I believe you are, Miss Hartway. I believe you've fallen for him, haven't you?'

'I'm sure I don't know who you mean!' His words had made her heart turn over.

'I mean young Dean.' His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. 'Who did you think I was referring to?'

And in order to safeguard her feelings for Rodare she snatched at a name. 'Stuart Coltan—he's terrifically handsome, isn't he, and he assumes that every woman wants him.'

'Ah, so Coltan is on the island.' Jack looked cynical. 'A ubiquitous young man who hangs around Zandra and makes use of her. So he failed to impress you, Miss Hartway?'

'I can't stand him!' she rejoined. 'The little boy is a darling, of course.'

'Shall we go to lunch?' Jack held open the door, and held Debra's gaze as she approached him, a man of embittered charm . . . the author she had longed to meet, who from the beginning had been her reason for wanting to work at Abbeywitch.

THEY sat in an alcove of bottle-glass windows and nearby a fire glowed cheerfully in the stone fireplace. A game of darts was going on in the saloon bar and Debra listened to the thud of the darts in the board as her host ordered the meal. They had both chosen the silverside of beef with pease-pudding and vegetables; a good old English lunch to go with the ambience of the oak-panelled dining-room.

'I can understand why you chose to stay here,' Debra remarked.

He glanced at the oak beams and the panelling almost black with age, the floor of footworn flagstones and the pair of duelling pistols hanging above the fireplace.

'Because I like things of historical value,' he agreed. 'I have no use for the plastic age; I abhor modern gadgetry up to a point but I have to admit that dictating my work on to cassettes appeals to me. I hope you didn't find listening to the tapes too much of a bore?'

'Far from it,' she assured him. 'You must have been vitally involved with the book because the plot and the characters are so alive.'

'Yet you won't stay to complete work on it.'

He ran his gaze over her face and took in her mist-green, cowl-necked sweater. 'Don't you care for Cornwall, the garden of legend as it's called?'

'Cornwall's a magical place but—' She glanced away from him, seeing a wet and distorted world beyond the bottle-glass windows. 'You could send the tapes to London and let me work on them at the office—won't you do that, Mr Salvador? I'd take every care of them.'

'I'm sure you would, but I just can't take the chance of one of the tapes going astray. I know how egocentric I sound, but if you were a writer yourself, Miss Hartway, you would understand how I feel. A book to an author is like a child.'

Debra looked at him gravely when he said that and something in her eyes must have got under his skin. 'Dammit, what right have you to judge me?' he demanded. 'You're thinking to yourself that a child of flesh and blood is worth far more than a novel about made-up people, even if I happen to know that Dean isn't my son.'

'How can you be so certain—?'

'Certain?' Lines of pain clawed at his face. 'Because I received the information from my own wife, that's why!'

Debra recoiled as if from a slap. 'Oh no!'

'Oh yes, she was quite defiant about it—she said she was leaving and taking Dean with her, and when I said that only over my dead body would she take him, she flung at me that I had no right to him; that being her husband didn't make me the father of her child. She ran off then to the other end of the yacht where one of Zandra's theatrical friends was doing impersonations. I stood there by the rail listening to the laughter and hearing it as if it came from hell. I told myself she was lying about Dean, but I had never known Pauline to lie about anything. She had an almost childlike candour, quite embarrassing to my mother when Pauline would state in front of rather grand friends of the family that she grew up in the slums of Belfast and wore her sisters' cast-off clothes. She'd talk about how her feet were smaller and the handed-down shoes had to be stuffed with cardboard soles in order to make them fit.'

Jack Salvador sat there in silence, gazing beyond Debra as if he saw the ghost of Pauline, the girl who had danced her way into his heart but had not been able to attune herself to his imaginative mind.

'That was the night she died,' he said quietly. 'How it happened, why it happened, remains a mystery. You are probably thinking, Miss Hartway, that I had every reason for seeing her dead, but I had nothing to do with her death. I believe the inquest verdict was the correct one. She was over-excited and she'd been drinking champagne, and she took with her the name of her lover.'

Debra sadly wished that Pauline's lover had been only a myth, but Mickey Lee had seen them together on the beach. He knew the man's name but some primitive impulse kept him from telling Jack, who had always befriended him. Jack was the same age and he was less intimidating than Rodare . . . Rodare who came every so often from Spain, bringing with him the dark gold look of his mother's people; the smouldering danger and charm of the Latin temperament.

Was it possible, Debra wondered, that Pauline had tempted him and made him betray his strong sense of Spanish morality? Was that why she had glimpsed his likeness in Pauline's little boy?

She sat watching the waiter as he cut appetising slices of spiced beef and laid them on the plates. The pease-pudding was added, then the potatoes, carrots and turnips. It all looked delicious but Debra ate her lunch in an automatic way, feeling it was an effort to get the food past the heaviness in her chest. She swallowed red wine with each mouthful and listened rather inattentively as Jack Salvador talked about Cornwall, which he obviously loved as much as Rodare loved Andalucia.

He talked of the wild coppery moors and the lonely grandeur and the superstitions that were as firmly rooted in Cornish people as the misty banks of bell-heather, and the old moor-stones that were supposed to be men and maidens who had been petrified for dancing on the Sabbath.

'This magical realm of Morte d'Arthur and the Wizard Merlin.' Jack smiled almost to himself. 'Land of legendary lovers such as Tristan and Iseult. When Rodare and I were boys we'd join the fire circles on Midsummer Eve and when the flames had died down we'd all clasp hands and leap among the embers to drive away the Devil. Fire is supposed to ward off witches and demons, and sometimes at dusk-fall the moors can be very evocative, and only a fool will glance over his shoulder when crossing Bodmin after dark.'

'I can understand why you've used Cornwall so frequently in your books.' Debra watched him across the rim of her wineglass and remembered the hours she had spent in the leathered den at Abbeywitch, listening to his voice on tape, her fingers tapping away at the typewriter keys as she transcribed his latest book.

'It has atmosphere and history,' he agreed. 'So you think my new book has been worthwhile? Have you no criticisms? Contrary to what people think, authors hunger for an opinion whether it stings or strokes their ego.'

'I can only stroke your ego,' Debra smiled. 'As I said, you must have been deeply involved with your characters.'

'Perhaps so.' He brooded on her words. 'Possibly, do you think, to the detriment of my marriage?'

'I—I can't give you an answer to that question, Mr Salvador. I don't know what makes or breaks a marriage.'

'Of course not, you're just a girl and I put to you a question that wise old men can't answer. The seas of marriage aren't easy to navigate and I suppose mine went on the rocks because Pauline and myself weren't truly compatible. I took her away from the bright lights of show business and brought her to Cornwall because it's where I need to work. It was rather like plucking a southern flower and planting it in soil that changed its character—but, by God, she was pretty! And I swear she was mine—utterly mine in that first year we had together.'

'Then you have something good to remember,' Debra murmured. 'If you realise that she was missing the bright lights and the excitement of show business, can't you forgive her for not being quite an angel?'

His face grew shadowed again and he pushed his plate away from him. 'I wouldn't be fool enough to think any woman an angel, but when Dean was born I believed him to be my son and I loved him so when he was placed in my arms. He wasn't nude-looking like so many babies because he already had dark hair, and there is no feeling in the world such as a man feels when he holds his first child. I worshipped that boy, and then she said he wasn't mine and it was as if a fist reached inside me and tore away part of my heart. I don't feel good remembering that, Miss Hartway.'

'I'm so sorry.' She spoke involuntarily. 'It's naive and clumsy of me to talk to you about returning to Abbeywitch. Every stick and stone of the place must remind you of details you want to forget.'

'I realise that you have the child's welfare at heart,' Jack's brow was dark and frowning as he studied the dessert list on the menu. 'The steamed jam-roll with custard is nice, or would you prefer strawberries and cream?'

'Oh, I don't know if I can manage a sweet,' she said hesitantly. Her appetite was fickle today and she had decided that she wanted to catch her train as soon as possible . . . she had imposed on Jack Salvador long enough with her idealistic notion that his place was with Dean, even if the child did remind him of Pauline's infidelity.

'We'll both have strawberries,' he said, and beckoned the waiter to their table. The diningroom had filled up with people and the warmth and chatter made it a haven against the rain that was pelting against the windows and splashing from the stone sills to the cobbles of the courtyard.

'I'm sure you like strawberries.' Jack's brow had cleared a little and his eyes, when he looked at her, held no reproach of any sort. 'I'm equally sure that you like little boys and Dean has inherited a great deal of charm from his mother. I expect you look forward to a happy marriage, eh?'

'No—I want to have a career.' She spoke with a fervency which was all part of her flight from Rodare. 'I've always loved books and nothing makes me happier than working among them. I'd like to go on to become a chief editor—I mean it, Mr Salvador, even though you're looking at me as if you think I'm kidding myself and hungering for a great romance.'

'It's perfectly natural for a girl to hunger for romance and I don't see why you should make an exception of yourself.' A smile kindled in his eyes. 'I'm not so soured on romance that I'd warn you off—you might be fortunate enough to find your very own Tristan or Galahad.'

Debra smiled slightly, thinking to herself that instead of meeting a gallant Sir Galahad she had met someone more in the shape of the overpowering Lancelot who had betrayed King Arthur by making love to his wife Guinevere.

'I find the world inside books safer than the one outside them,' she said. 'I find the people I read about easier to—like.'

'Because the people in the real world are a little too fond of exploiting each other, eh?'

She nodded, and they didn't speak again until the waiter had served their strawberries, large and moistly bright, the cream the true clotted cream of the West Country, blending so temptingly with the strawberries that Debra's appetite forgot to be fickle and it really was a delicious sensation biting into the plump berries, the juice and cream like a sensuous wine.

They were drinking their coffee when Jack said: 'I'd really like you to continue work on my book—won't you reconsider and return to the island? Surely in view of your praise of the book and your ability to lose yourself in an author's make-believe world you can cope with my mother? Won't you give it another try?'

Debra was on the point of regretfully shaking her head when she was struck by an idea, one so simple and yet so difficult to face up to if he should comply with it.

As she sat hesitating and weighing up the consequences of his possible agreement, he leant forward and stilled her drumming fingers with his lean hand. 'You're indecisive, aren't you? Your sense of duty is pulling you in two.'

'Yes,' she admitted, and felt the captivation of her hand in his. 'Aren't you pulled in two yourself, Mr Salvador?'

'Back to that, are we?' But he said it without rancour. 'Come along, what's on your mind?'

'How do you know I have something on my mind?'

'Your eyes tell me so.'

'I see.' Her lashes flickered and her gaze fell to his hand covering hers; it was his left hand and when she saw that it still wore a gold wedding band she knew she must speak out. If she didn't do so regret would be her travelling companion on the train journey back to London and she would always wonder if he would have given her a positive answer.

'I'm willing to make a deal with you,' she said, the pulse in her throat beating like a small tom-tom.

'What kind of a deal?'

'I'll return to Abbeywitch and finish work on your book if you'll come with me.'

In the silence that hung between them the noises in the room seemed to grow louder; someone dropped a fork and it made a musical sound as it hit the oak floor, then a woman's laughter broke off as lightning shimmered in broken pieces against the windows, followed by a peal of thunder. 'Storm!' a voice exclaimed.

'The gods are angry,' Jack murmured. 'They're crossing swords up there—that's what Rodare and I used to believe as boys. Rodare has returned to Abbeywitch, hasn't he?'

'Yes.' When the lightning licked again at the bottle-glass Debra felt her hand leap in Jack's like a trapped frog.