Love is for Ever (20 page)

“Then why not come and share it with me?” he answered at once.

She looked across at him and smiled, an uncertain, faintly wistful smile.

“I almost wish I could,” she told him.

“Well, why not?” He leaned forward and offered her a cigarette, and his eyes studied her with a mixture of earnestness and concentration. “Don’t think I’m asking you to marry me because of your money,” a faint twinkle disturbing the concentration, “because as a matter of fact, if you did agree to marry me, I think I’d prefer that you declined the magnanimous gesture made to you by the Senora Cortina. I’m not altogether dependent on my salary, and I could manage to keep you in reasonable comfort without that thousand a year—although, of course,” the twinkle deepening, “it could always be put to good uses.”

Jacqueline put down her coffee cup and looked at him rather curiously.

“As a matter of fact,” she confessed, “I’ve already more or less made up my mind to refuse the
senora’s
generous bequest. And it
was
generous of her—amazingly generous. But—”

“You feel you’d be happier if you displayed a little independence and said ‘No’ to the condescension of the Cortinas?”

“Yes—that’s right,” she admitted. “Somehow, I—I know I’m not entitled to the money, and I don’t want to accept it.” “Then what about becoming Mrs. Neville Barr?”

“You know very well,” with rather sad shrewdness, “that you’re not in love with me!”

“I could fall in love with you very easily if you’d only give me an opportunity to do so!”

“But that’s not—that’s not love!” She saw him sitting opposite her, very attractive in his evening things, very much a man to make an attractive husband—almost certainly a kind, possibly a considerate husband—and one whose home she would have delighted to look after, just as she would have delighted to look after him, if only there had been no Dominic in her life—if she had never met Dominic! But having met Dominic there was nothing any man could offer her that would tempt her! “That’s not
love
!” she repeated. “Not when you require opportunity to help develop the feeling you already have for me!”

He smiled at her very gently.

“You seem to know a lot about love, and I’m very sorry you do—very sorry!” as he crushed out the end of his cigarette in an ash tray, and regarded it thoughtfully. “In some ways it might have been better for you if you’d never come back to Sansegovia.”

“Yes,” she admitted, a little miserably—because she knew it was no use pretending to him—“in some ways I think it might.”

“However, that doesn’t mean that the future hasn’t got a great deal in store for you, Jacqueline,” lighting himself a fresh cigarette, and doing it with a great deal of deliberation. “And the one thing you really don’t know is how much I do think of you!” His eyes had a touch of pleading as he looked across at her this time. “Oh, I know Martine bowled me off my feet, and perhaps if she’d have been willing to marry me I’d have married her with zest and thankfulness, in spite of the fact that I know she’s altogether the wrong type to make a good doctor’s wife. But you’ve grown on me tremendously in the last few weeks.”

“Thank you,” she smiled, a tinge of humor in the smile. “And I’ve a feeling that you could grow on me to such an extent that in time I’d forget all about Martine! Forget about her altogether!...” He stood up and went across to her, putting out his hands and drawing her, although she was not quite sure why she allowed him to do so, out of her chair. “Jacqueline,” he said to her earnestly, looking down into her face, “don’t you think there’s so much we could do for one another in the way of healing damaged feelings? We’ve both been hurt—although perhaps it’s our own fault that we’ve been hurt, because we both knew, more or less, what we were up against!—and I’m certain we could provide one another with a cure! In a short time we’d probably be madly in love

with one another!”

“I don’t think so,” and once again her voice sounded sad, and she shook her head sadly.

“Don’t you?”

“Not even if we tried—”

“As a beginning,” he suggested softly, “we could try this ...” And she felt his lips pressed to hers, and for an instant the touch of them struck her as so extraordinarily comforting that she actually yielded herself to his arms, and he folded her closely up against him, her slender form in the white lace dress melting and merging into the darkness of his regulation evening clothes as inevitably, or so it would have seemed to an onlooker, as a hand finding after much searching its appropriate glove.

“Oh, Jacqueline!” Neville whispered, when he lifted his head. “Darling—”

But by that time Jacqueline had ceased to be taken by surprise, and she had ceased to find any comfort in his hold. She only knew that when one man had taken her into his arms it had been absolute bliss, without any comfort whatsoever, and that henceforward for her there could be no second best, and that Neville, much as she liked him, was not even second best. She had no desire to be kissed and held by him, but she was shocked and disturbed by her own temporary weakness.

She was looking up pleadingly into his eyes and about to beg him to release her when Dominic, after leaving his car in the road beyond the gates to the short drive, walked in through the open doorway which admitted to the verandah.

It was the third time, Jacqueline realized afterwards, that Dominic had called for her at Neville’s bungalow, and on this occasion it would have been quite impossible, as a result of merely looking at him, to decide the kind of mood that claimed him.

If she had been capable of looking at him closely, and was not so covered in confusion, she might have decided that he was a little pale, and his eyes had a strange, bright glitter under his thick eyelashes. A closer look would probably have warned her that the glitter was just a trifle menacing, and the line of his mouth seemed cold and set. But that did not prevent him smiling, with a flash of his perfect teeth, at them both.

“So here you are!” he said. “Martine and I came down here to look for you about an hour ago, but the place was in darkness, so I took Martine home. Have
you
had enough for one day, Jacqueline, or has Neville persuaded you to make a night of it? If you feel I’m breaking up something I’ll disappear again, and Neville can run you back to the villa when he feels like it, but I did promise
Tia
Lola that I wouldn’t let you be too late.”

His voice had a silken quality which for some strange reason, since it was so silken, grated on her ear, and his smile held just a touch of insolence. When he looked at Neville the insolence seemed to be causing his sensitive nostrils to dilate a little, and the curl of his lips was not particularly pleasant. Neville said at once, in defence of Jacqueline:

“It isn’t at all late, and you gave us no idea that you would be joining us here. As a matter of fact I’d made up my mind that that was the last thing you intended to do!”

Dominic’s haughty, handsome head seemed to go backwards a little.

“Oh, indeed,” he murmured. “And why?”

“I’d decided you’d have too many preoccupations of your own, and I think Miss Vaizey was of the same opinion.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure Miss Vaizey was of that opinion,” Dominic replied, the underlying mockery in his tone this time passing neither of the other two by.

And then he turned away to the open door beyond which lay the darkness of the verandah.

“Well, I’ll be waiting in the car, Miss Vaizey, if you’d like to say your goodnight to Dr. Barr!”

And when Jacqueline joined him, after a bare few seconds devoted to looking rather helplessly at Neville, and receiving an encouraging squeeze of the hand from him, he was standing very stiffly beside the open door of the car, and he put her into it without uttering a word, and then went round to slip into the driving seat.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When they arrived at the Cortina Villa Jacqueline realized that throughout the whole of the journey neither of them had uttered a single word. Dominic had stared at the road ahead, his slim, brown, powerful hands gripping the wheel, and she had watched the moon, looking huge and round but rather tired, as it slipped from sight behind an umbrella pine crowning the crest of the rise. And when they reached the villa, the gates being wide open, Dominic had scarcely abated his speed as he slipped between them, bringing the grey car to a standstill on the gravel sweep with a sharp jolt that was unlike him, and must have seriously affected his tires.

The swinging lantern in the hall was burning softly when they entered, but otherwise the house was very still, and it was plain that everyone was in bed. The younger servants who had been granted permission to take the evening off must have long since returned, and
Tia
Lola had probably retired to her room almost immediately after dinner.

Dominic said nothing to Jacqueline but led the way into the lounge, switching on most of the lights as he did so. Jacqueline followed because she was not quite certain what to do just then, and she had a curious feeling that some explanation was due to him, although it was certainly nothing to do with him that he had come upon her apparently welcoming the attentions of Neville Barr.

“Well?” Dominic said, turning upon her suddenly when he reached the middle of the salon. “Is there something you want to say to me? Is that why you haven’t gone straight upstairs to bed?”

Jacqueline looked at him for a moment with wide considering eyes. His tone had shocked her—harsh, almost contemptuous, as it was—and the expression of his face shocked her still more. Now the vivid dark blue eyes were drawn into narrow slits, and the rest of his features looked cold and set. Her heart missed a beat, and then rushed on nervously, as if something had caused her to panic.

“I don’t think there’s anything particular I have to say,” she answered, biting her lip. “I followed you in here because, well, you were good enough to drive me home, and I haven’t said goodnight—”

“Well, say it!” he encouraged, and his voice was rough and icy with mockery. “Say it, and let’s see how nicely you can say it!”

Jacqueline stared at him, and then turned slowly rather white.

“Goodnight,” she got out, in a barely audible voice, and turned away.

“No, not like that!” Dominic moved after her and caught her by her slender shoulders and wrenched her round to face him. “Like this!—The way you said it to Neville Barr!”

For the second time that night masculine lips possessed hers, but these were not the cool and comforting lips of Neville Barr, but the hard, bruising lips of a man who wished to hurt. They were burning lips, too, and they seemed to scorch through her to her inner being, and something deep inside her shrivelled at their touch. She felt as if she literally hadn’t the power to move or to escape him as he went on showering kisses on her face and throat and hair, holding her in a manner that would have defied her to escape him in any case, and which, although she had experienced it once before, had none of the half tender magic of those moments in the lane outside
The Golden Cockerel.

Then, she hadn’t even wanted to escape—not at first. Not until the insistence and the demand behind those kisses had frightened her a little. Now—now she felt frozen, and appalled, sick and ashamed.

“Querida,”
he whispered, his lips moving almost wildly in her tumbled curls,
“Chiquita!...”
And then he stopped kissing her and held her away from him, his hands bruising her shoulders, demons dancing in his eyes. “You are lovely,” he told her, in a voice she hardly recognized, “so lovely that Barr must have told you so, too! He must have told you how small and desirable you are—how feminine and tender! Such a little, little thing, and yet full of deception, and hardly worth bothering about!”

The line of his mouth was suddenly so savagely cruel that she gasped, and making a frantic effort freed herself and fled a few paces away from him. There she turned and faced him.

“How—how dare you?” She managed to force the words past her lips.

“How dare I?” Hands shaking noticeably he produced his cigarette case and managed to light a cigarette. “I told you, I was merely saying goodnight to you in the apparently acceptable manner!”

Jacqueline was so white that her eyes looked enormous, but although her mouth was quivering her voice was steadier than his.

“Dr. Barr asked me to marry him,” she said, a strange dignity in her tone as well—a young, badly damaged dignity, but dignity nevertheless.

If anything his eyes grew narrower.

“Interesting,” he observed. “And you said?”

“I don’t think it’s any concern of yours what I said.”

Dominic’s face remained masklike.

“You said?” he repeated.

“I have no intention of marrying Dr. Barr—or anyone!” she told him, and wished she could stop the sudden sick trembling inside her.

“I see.” He ground out the cigarette he had only just lighted in an ash-tray and stood staring at her. “Not— anyone?”

“No,” turning away and hoping she could summon up the necessary strength to crawl upstairs to her room and lock the door upon him. For she knew she was all at once terrified of him, and she wouldn’t feel safe until a locked door was between them. “And I’ve no intention of accepting the legacy your grandmother made to me in her will—I’m going home to England as soon as the arrangements can be made, and I never want to hear any mention of Sansegovia again. I—I hope I’ll be able to forget it altogether!”