House of Storms (28 page)

'I'm back on my feet now, madam,' Nanny Rose assured her. 'I'm only too happy to take up my duties again.'

'That's brave of you, Nanny.' Lenora glanced at her jewelled wristwatch. 'It's almost time for noon coffee with Millicent. She's a late riser but I do enjoy having her for company, along with dear Sharon. Will you join us, Jack?'

'I can't spare the time, Mama. Rodare and I have decided to burn the Devil tonight and we've got to organise the effigy—'

'Jack,' his mother cut sharply across his words, 'your father dispensed with that custom, he always said it was tantamount to inviting trouble—'

'Now who's being superstitious?' he mocked. 'Come on, Mama, it's only an additional bit of fun.'

'Irresponsible, adolescent fun!'

'Ah well,' he cast a lopsided smile at Debra, 'it does all of us good to be irresponsible once in a while because the business of being an adult isn't always easy. I'm hoping to persuade Zandra to donate her scarlet jogging suit, which stuffed with hay should make an effective body for the effigy. The head is going to be the problem.'

'Make it from a pumpkin, if you can get hold of one,' Nanny Rose suggested. 'Scoop out the fruit and carve eyeholes and a mouth in the pumpkin case, then you can mount the head on a stick and fix it in the body.'

'We'll need horns for the head,' Jack laughed.

'And a cloven hoof and a tail,' Debra reminded him, rather taken with the idea of seeing the Devil burnt.

'This is too much!' Lenora exclaimed. 'I hope you know what you are doing, Jack?'

'Dicing with danger,' he said, a mischievous gleam in his eyes. 'I must get hold of that deliciously awful jogging suit—have you any ideas about the Devil's horns, Nanny?'

'A pumpkin head will look wicked enough, Mr Jack.'

'I'm surprised at you, Nanny, for encouraging him,' Lenora scolded. 'You're a Godfearing Welsh woman who usually exhibits some common sense.'

'It's God-fearing, madam, to want to burn bad Old Nick.' Nanny Rose smiled and rocked Dean in her arms. 'Burn, Devil, burn, and don't you dare return!'

'Nanny Rose!'

The two women locked eyes and suddenly there crept into the room a silence filled with the awareness of Pauline's untimely death, and the lightning which had struck Abbeywitch and left the smell of sulphur hanging over the house.

'Very well.' Lenora moved towards the door as if she were making a stage exit. 'It's quite obvious, Jack, that you are in a wilful mood encouraged by everyone but your mother. Burn your effigy, if you must—at least we'll be rid of the sight of Zandra looking like a pillarbox on the run!'

As the door closed behind his mother, Jack broke into a laugh. 'Now we know who Zandra takes after, don't we? Though I suspect that Mama would have made the more significant actress.'

'There's no denying it, Mr Jack, your mother knows how to put on an act.' Nanny Rose gave him one of her long looks. 'According to Mrs Lee, who got the information from Mickey, the bonfire is twelve-foot high.'

He nodded. 'We lugged a ladder to it last night and when it was finished it was such a beauty we decided to bum the Devil on it.'

'Is Father Restormel going to approve, Mr Jack?'

'He's a Jesuit monk, isn't he? He's bound to be delighted.'

'It's pagan,' Nanny Rose reminded him.

'Isn't everything?' He suddenly stretched his arms in the sunlight. 'I'd better be off to my art work—want to help me, Debra?'

'Debra's going to stay and have a chat with me, Mr Jack.'

'You can be a martinet when it suits you.' When he reached the door he turned and added with a smile: 'I'll have tea and biscuits brought to you both, not forgetting "joose" for my son and heir.'

The door closed behind him and with a smile denting her lips Debra sank down in the slipper chair; the room in which Nanny Rose had recuperated was much grander than her previous one.

'It's lovely to see you back to your old self, Nanny.'

'And what about you, my girl, are you back to your old self?'

Debra looked mystified. 'I haven't been struck by lightning.'

'Haven't you?'

'If by lightning you mean the
señor
.'

'I could have meant Mr Jack.'

'We both know who you meant—may I hold Dean on my lap?'

'If you haven't got the trembles.'

'Why should I—?'

'Girl, we know each other well enough to talk without beating about the bushes—hold open your arms and I'm warning you Dean's getting to be quite a weight. Going to be tall like your Papa, aren't you, my duck?'

As Dean snuggled against her, Debra studied his upraised face. They wrinkled noses at each other, then all at once she felt a great need to share a burden of another kind with Nanny Rose. 'If I tell you a secret, Nanny, will you promise to keep it?'

'I've kept many a secret in my time, Debra. It goes with the job, being trustworthy.'

'What I've got to tell you has been weighing on me—Dean is a Salvador, isn't he? You've seen their look in him, haven't you?'

'Many a time.' Nanny Rose gave Debra a sharp look. 'It's bound to be there, with Mr Jack for his father.'

'The fact is, Nanny, Pauline told Jack the baby wasn't his, that night on the yacht—the night she fell from the deck and was drowned. That was why he left Abbeywitch in such a terrible state of mind, and the awful thing is—it could be true.'

'Never—'

'It could, Nanny, because of something Mickey Lee told me the day he took me to see Jack. He said he'd seen Pauline making love with a man on the beach though he wouldn't say who the man was. Then I met Jack and talked with him and he finally came round to the idea that Pauline had lied to him about Dean. I managed to convince him that she said it in a fit of temper, because she wanted to leave him and he would have stopped her from taking Dean with her.'

Debra stroked the soft dark hair away from Dean's dreamy eyes, for he was half-asleep in her arms, with his thumb in his mouth. 'I wish I was certain she lied to Jack, but I'm not—'

'You believe he's the son of Pauline's man on the beach?' Nanny Rose shook her head in disbelief. 'That silly, silly girl, what could have got into her?'

A blade seemed to twist inside Debra . . . why, in God's name, hadn't Rodare slapped her face for saying what she had said to him? There could only be one answer, and he had provided it last night when he had walked away from her.

'If Pauline told Jack the truth about her baby,' Debra said, each word like a weight on her heart, 'there's only one other man on the island who could have been her lover.'

'Mr Jack's own brother?' Nanny Rose looked appalled. 'A man such as he, haughty and proud, and thoughtful in his own fashion. How can you think such a thing, Debra?'

'Because I have no choice.'

'What does that mean?' Nanny Rose stared at Debra, reading her stricken face. 'You've accused him of it?'

'I—I'm afraid so.'

'You might well be afraid, my girl. As if he'd lay hands on his own brother's wife? As if he'd stoop so low? How can you hold such hate of him in your heart?'

'Oh—' Tears cruel as acid filled Debra's eyes. 'I don't hate him in the way you mean, Nanny. It's loving him that I hate!'

The words were out, they were spoken and there was no recalling them. They had spilled from Debra with all the sad impetuosity of her tears, making Dean blink his black lashes in surprise as a teardrop fell on his face.

'Dear, dear.' Nanny Rose sat shaking her head to herself, her fingers twined in the chain of the golden medallion. 'And there's Mr Jack thinking you'll stay on at Abbeywitch.'

'There's no way I can, Nanny Rose.' Debra wiped the teardrop from the soft warm cheek of Pauline's baby. 'The next time I leave it will be for good.'

'Better so, my girl. Nothing good can come of Mr Jack wanting you when you're wanting his brother.'

'I don't—want him.'

'Spare me the lie, Debra. There's been enough lying from the sound of things, and hand me back the boy.'

Debra did so without comment. She didn't stay to drink tea with Nanny Rose, she went sadly out of the room and wandered along the gallery to the beautiful rose window at the far end, like a great jewel whose colours glowed deep ruby, emerald and gold. A multicoloured web which held Debra in its strands as she stood there and realised the truth of what she had said to Nanny Rose.

There was no way she could remain on Lovelis Island, living in this house and never knowing when the master of it would stride into the hall and announce his return from Spain.

Work on Jack's book was coming to an end, and Debra knew that she must refuse his offer to stay on as his right-hand girl. 'Right-hand?' his mother had queried, and Debra had caught her meaning. She didn't want Jack to get any ideas about the part the left hand played in a relationship between a man and a woman.

It was in Spain where the right hand was ringed by a man, and as if running from her thoughts Debra sped down the staircase and was hurrying out of the sideway when she blundered into the very person she wanted so much to avoid.

'
Dios
, what is all this hurry, a touch of Midsummer madness?'

She shuddered to a halt in his grip, except for her heart which raced madly when she met his eyes. 'Believe me,
señor
, I've never felt so sane.'

'Then where were you going in such haste?'

'Nowhere in particular.'

'Then let me suggest that you come with me to Penarth in order to find this pumpkin which Jack insists upon.'

'Oh, the pumpkin head.'

'Si, the pumpkin head,' he said drily.

'No, I'd rather not come with you, thank you.'

His hands gave her a shake. 'It will be cool on the water and I refuse to accept no for an answer.'

'Typical of you to force people into doing what you want,' she said freezingly.

'So always I force you?'

'Yes.'

'In which case, come along!' Her wrist was gripped and like a mutinous child in rebellious silence, she was led down to the beach and ordered on board the motorboat. Mickey Lee stood there on the sands watching them, a big dark figure against the afternoon gold of the sky.

As they sped away from the island Debra wondered what Mickey Lee was thinking as he stood there rock-like, watching them out of sight on the sunlit water.

PENARTH was crowded with people enjoying the Midsummer market fair and the scene was a lively one, with the sun shining down on summery dresses and white shirts. There was a roundabout with painted horses and children laughing on the backs of them, and it was all such a contrast for Debra, so different from the last time she stepped from the quay and crossed the cobbled pavement.

Today she noticed the shaggy palm trees and the picturesque little houses facing the quayside, their granite walls softened by trailing plants, their slate roofs gleaming.

'To think that in days gone by Penarth was raided many times by the Spaniards,' Rodare remarked. 'I am with you right now because my notorious ancestor was one of them.'

'I'm sure it delights you to have him for an ancestor,' Debra rejoined. 'You certainly have his look.'

She didn't need to look at Rodare in order to see his buccaneer resemblance to the Spanish captain who had sailed his ship into Cornish waters, intent on pillaging anything he and his crew could lay hands upon. Then one morning they had anchored off Lovelis Island and he had rowed ashore alone and found unexpected plunder in the shape of a girl. Young and innocent, and probably scared out of her wits, she wouldn't have stood a chance of fighting off his advance.

'Did he never have a portrait painted of his stolen bride?' Debra found herself asking Rodare.

'It hangs on the white wall of my sala in Andalucia,' he replied. 'Don Rodare had her painted not as the grand lady of the house but wearing the dress of a fisherman's daughter, her hair blowing in the wind and looking exactly as she must have looked the day he abducted her from the beach. Their romance started with tears, but from the look in her eyes the Don soon convinced her that tears were a waste of time.'

Debra had often wondered about the companion portrait and now she heard his explanation it left her unsurprised. It would appeal to him to have in his Andalucian house the likeness of the girl from Bride's Cove. He had only to look in a mirror to see his own likeness to the man who had built Abbeywitch.

'Do you want to take a look around the market?' he asked. 'These stalls with their bric-a-brac are interesting and you might find something you would like to buy.'

'I haven't any money.' She shrugged. 'You did a bit of abducting yourself, didn't you,
señor
?'

His eyes shamelessly scanned her face. 'Don't worry about money, I have sufficient. Come, let us enjoy ourselves now we are here.'

'You—you take the prize!' she exclaimed.

'It's in the blood.' His dark eyes dazzled her and she turned her head away from him and walked in among the stalls where the local folk and the holiday-makers were clustered in lively groups around the goods on display.

Each time Debra paused to look at something she would be aware of Rodare close behind her, dark and tall in a leisure shirt and pale-mushroom trousers, the golden links of his watch blending with the gold of his skin. Sometimes his arm would reach across her shoulder and he would pick up an item that took his eye, and she would feel the touch of him and despise the thrill that went up and down her spine.

'What have you found?'

'Oh—this.' She had picked up a small vase and was rubbing at the grime that concealed the delicate latticework of its design. 'I think it's quite pretty but you can't see the colour for the dirt; it's grimed in.'

'Let me see.' He took the vase from her and studied its curved shape and fluted neck, and wetting a finger he rubbed at the latticework until a delicate rose colour began to show through. He turned it bottom-up, but sprawled over a possible maker's mark was the price in black lettering.