Royal Purple (16 page)

CHAPTER XIV

LUCY found her second drive into Surry with Paul Avery less pleasant than the first she had made in his company. On the first occasion she had been thrilled by the beauty of the cream-coloured car, and intrigued by the slight air of mystery that surrounded the expedition. On the second she was aware only of Paul’s stiffness and detachment from the moment that he collected her at number twenty-four Alison Gardens.

As
h
e sat behind the wheel with
his
gaze fixed correctly on the road ahead he seemed to her an entirely different person. Or he had become an entirely different person since their last meeting.

He talked lightly and pleasantly enough, and occasionally there was the odd quizzical glance at her—the glance that saw quite a lot, although primarily it was amused. But the amusement faded rapidly,
hi
s jaw settled into a somewhat harsh rigidity, and
hi
s eyes returned to the road as if every twist and turn of it not merely demanded
hi
s close attention but was of paramount importance to
hi
m just then.

Lucy felt chilled by
hi
s absorption, and she also felt cut off by
hi
s wall of reserve. On
hi
s side of the wall there was a new and strange indifference, on hers a fear that it was she who had started that indifference.

As on the previous occasion when they made this journey it was a brilliantly fine day, but they were at least a fortnight nearer to summer and the hedgerows and the bare-branched trees reflected that advance in time. The bareness of the trees was not so stark, there was an almost invisible film of green over and above the blackest branch. Ornamental flowering trees were bursting into life, the hedges were splashed with colour here and there, the deep Surrey lanes were deeper and lusher and greener than on the earlier drive.

Paul had explained that he was ta
k
i
ng her to the cottage for lunch that day. Mrs. Miles was preparing lunch for them, and he had thought she would find it pleasanter than lunching in a restaurant.

“I always feel as if I want to help the service along when I’m lunching out these days,” he explained a little dryly, as they neared the cottage. “As if I ought to be standing be
hi
nd my own chair and offering the menu!”

Lucy glanced at
hi
m quickly. She wondered how often he lunched—and dined—out, and knew that he never looked like a waiter when he did so. In the company of someone like Sophie Devargue no one would ever guess that he had acted the part of a waiter.

“How long do you expe
c
t to continue working at the Splendide
?
”
she asked, venturing to betray curiosity.

He shrugged.

“For as long as it is necessary.”

“And how long—do you think it will be necessary?” He sent her a glance that was half smiling, half coolly amused.

“I have to earn my living, you know,” he reminded her, and she wanted to return swiftly: “But do you? Do you really?” But instead she bit her lip, and thought up another question.

“Have you seen Miss Devargue since—since the night of the party?”

In the same semi-insolent tone he replied:

"I have seen her on at least two occasions. The first was a little inco
n
venient, for she came to the Splendide and demanded to see me when I should have been working, and on the second occasion we had dinner together. Last night, as a matter of fact.”

Lucy pretended to find one of the instruments on the dashboard of sudden interest. She felt as if a cloud had passed over the sun and was obscuring it, and the lack of warmth increased the chilliness of apprehension around her heart.

“I—I hope you enjoyed the evening?”

“Very much indeed,” he assured her. “It was a great success.” His dark eyes gleamed whimsically. “How are your plans for the trip to Italy? Has the Countess received any confirmation yet that her friends are willing to assist her in her matrimonial schemes that have you for a vi
c
tim?”

Lucy blushed painfully, and as she glanced at him this time her eyes were both hurt and bewildered. She couldn’t conceal the hurt from him.

“I shouldn’t have told you about the Countess’s well-meant but very foolish plans where I am concerned,” she said swiftly and awkwardly.

“On the contrary, my dear, I’m glad you did,” he replied lightly, laying a hand for one very brief moment over hers. “I shall have time to think up a suitable wedding present for you instead of being taken by surprise. I hate being taken by surprise,” he added slowly. “I like to be aware of precisely how and where I stand at all times, and in every situation that is of the smallest importance.”

Over lunch he was the perfect host, and Mrs. Miles had prepared a delightful lunch for them. The oval dining-table was bright with flowers that she had gathered in the garden, and the room smelled headily of spring sunshine and spring sweetness. The cutlery gleamed and the lace table-mats and embroidered napkins struck Lucy as being incredibly fine, and she managed to decipher a part of the crest on the
corner
of her napkin when she believed Paul was not looking. It was quite definitely a crest, and there appeared to be a crown involved with it. But for the fact that there was a letter ‘P’ below the crown she was prepared to delude herself into believing that the linen might once have formed part of the Princess Sasha’s personal effects
...
unwanted linen that she had handed over to her godson when he furnished the cottage.

But the ‘P’ was a stumbling-block, and Lucy’s eyes were ready to shed their scales. She wanted to know the truth about the man who sat facing her at the beautifully appointed table, the man who, although he was only separated from her by a flower vase and a couple of entree dishes, might in actual fact be worlds removed from her, a man on a different planet.

Someone to whom his fellow countrymen flocked eagerly when they met him at a party, who bowed to him and dropped him curtseys, and looked as if they might well give way to the impulse to kiss his hand if he offered them the opportunity. Who pretended to be a hotel waiter, and was in actual fact a very good hotel waiter, but had been bora to something very different.

Lucy met his eyes a
c
ross the table, and summoned up the courage to demand the truth. If he had been looking at her more tenderly, and with less cynicism —cool, resigned cynicism that made her want to protest fiercely—she would have needed more courage, for his answer might have shattered wild hopes she had been harbouring in her heart; but as there was no longer any real hope it didn't seem to matter what he told her, so she put her question. She said as if she was suddenly consumed with curiosity (and nothing more):

“I wish you would tell me something more about yourself.” Mrs. Miles had just left the room after bringing in the sweet. “I wish you would tell me the
truth
!”

As the word burst from her she saw him smile, and knew that so far he had given her no indication of the truth.

“Hasn’t the Countess answered your queries?”

“I wouldn’t put queries to the Countess.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” he agreed, and she saw the contempt at the corners of his smile. “You are Her Highness’s companion, the ‘nice’ little English girl who runs her errands and wouldn’t dream of objecting to her out-of-date propositions.
She is entertained by the thought of launching you on an unsuspecting society
...
She might even make a bequest to you of all the worldly possessions she keeps locked up in a tawdry
jewelbox
in a shabby London flat if you play your cards cleverly and see that she is kept entertained! She has already bought you new clothes and equipped you for a role you should find it easy to play if you stick to your present policy of quoting the Countess on every possible occasion
...
‘
‘The Countess says this, and the Countess says that
!’ ”
The merciless mockery in his tone filled her with blank amazement. “Are you really so profoundly stupid that you are content to place your future in the hands of an old woman who is using you as she would a puppet?”

Lucy opened her mouth to protest, but he declined to allow her to do so. His merciless voice raced on: “Or has it already occurred to you, Miss Lucy Gray, that with Seronia nothing but an absurd obsession, that
jewelbox
will come in handy one day? When you have turned the tide of the obsession and provided a pleasing substitute in the shape of yourself!” Lucy gasped, and then turned red and white by turns. She was slowly growing very white indeed when Avery stood up and apologised so curtly that it was like the cracking of a whiplash past her ear.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no right to say that. It was inexcusable of me! Shall we go into the lounge and have our coffee?”

Lucy preceded him into the lounge with the feeling that something disastrous had happened, and that it was a disaster with which she was quite powerless to cope. Mrs. Miles was beaming and smiling when she carried in the coffee, and as she set the tray in front of Lu
c
y she enquired whether there was anything else that was required of her before she completed the washing-up and went home to her own small cottage. She assured Paul that she would be back in good time to get the tea, and added for their information that she had made a rather special gateau which she hoped they would enjoy; but Paul’s face was suddenly distant, and he plainly wasn’t interested in gateaux. He waved a dismissing hand to indicate that she could do what she pleased now that the lunch had been served, and Mrs. Miles withdrew with a slightly disturbed expression on her face, as if she was afraid that she had done something wrong.

Paul turned to Lucy and requested for her formally to pour out the coffee, and when she had handed him his cup—with a hand that shook a little, in spite of her efforts to control it—he studied her with his black brows creased in a frown, and apologised afresh for his unexpected attack on her.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I don’t know why I said what I did, and of course I know it’s nonsense...”

“Do you?” She stood up slowly and confronted him, and she still had very little colour. “Then why did you say it? We both know that I’ve allowed the Countess to buy me clothes, but I thought it gave her a certain amount of pleasure, and that was why I agreed to accept so many new things. For weeks I’d worked for her without receiving any salary, and the shopping expedition was something she thought of suddenly—as sort of—recompense
...”

He waved an impatient hand.

“Please! It is nothing to do with me! The Countess’s affairs are nothing to do with me, and of course you had a right to your salary.”

She bit her bottom lip hard.

“I’d be happy to work for the Countess for nothing at all, because I’m very fond of her, and whatever you may think, I have never once hoped that she would leave me even the smallest trinket in her will! I wouldn’t accept it, because she has relatives, and in any case I’d rather she sold everything of value she possesses so that she could enjoy the money in her own lifetime, and live comfortably
...”

“In Italy?” His eyebrows went up in a kind of cold query, and his eyes she realised were astonishingly hard. “With you?”

Lucy stared at him as if she simply couldn’t believe in this entirely new Paul who had taken the place of the one she had believed she was beginning to know, and then rather blindly she turned away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “that I let you bring me here today. Your housekeeper has gone to a lot of trouble, and I’m wasting your time. If you don’t want to return to London so early in the afternoon will you tell me whether, perhaps, I could get a bus? In fact, I’d rather take a bus—!”

“Oh no, my dear Lucy,” he said softly, gripping her by her arms with such hard fingers that they bruised her flesh. “You are not wasting my time, and the very last thing I’d allow you to do would be to go all the way back to town by bus! We have the whole of the afternoon before us, and we must take advantage of it!” His arms imprisoned her, and he bent his sleek dark head above her golden one. “Like this!”

For perhaps ten seconds after his hard and rather brutal mouth descended on hers Lucy surrendered to the sheer bliss of knowing that she was back in his arms, and then she began to struggle to free herself. A wild revulsion of feeling had set in, and there was no longer any joy in having her lips crushed in such a ruthless and determined manner by a pair of harsh masculine lips that were bent on bruising and humiliating her—or so it seemed!—rather than extracting pleasure from the fierceness of the contact. And when she managed to hold him off with her hands and looked upwards into his eyes they were blazing with something so u
n
pleasant that she felt appalled.

“
Paul!” she gasped, and made an abortive attempt to escape him altogether.

But he caught her back into his arms again, and he laughed in a way she found equally unpleasant.

"Lucy!” he mocked. "What is it, my little one? My little sweet! Are you afraid the Countess might have been right after all, and that it’s never a wise thing to choose your friends from amongst the ranks of those who cannot be vouched for?”

She twisted her face all ways to avoid his. His hands were hurting her, and he obviously knew it and didn’t mind; but more than anything else she hated the derisive darkness of his eyes, that kept coming so close to hers that it was almost impossible to avoid looking into them, and once she really looked into them and was engulfed by the velvet blackness she had a panic-stricken fear that nothing else would really matter. Not even that taunting mockery that looked out of them...

"This is the first time you have objected to my kisses,” he said softly, beside her ear. “Even on the very first occasion I gathered that you liked them. I even gathered that you liked me rather a lot!” His arms were holding her locked against him, and she could feel the hard muscular strength of his body. He forced back her head by twining his fingers in her hair and giving the silken ends a little tug. “Ah,” he said, with melting softness, meeting her eyes at last, “so it is not that you do not want me to make love to you! You are happy here in my arms, but you feel that you ought to fight me a little! For the sake of the Countess, you must put up a fight!”

Her eyes that were neither grey nor green nor blue, but a strange mixture of all three colours, and as transparent as rock pools, implored him, but his mouth came down again on hers, and his kiss this time was wooingly sweet, quite deliberately stealing the heart out of her body. She knew that she could no longer make even a
pretence of resisting him, and his sudden triumphant tenderness drained away even the will to cling on to such a comfortless thing as her dignity; and by the time that tenderness was engulfing her like a flood she had started to
cling
to him rather desperately.

“Oh, Lucy, Lucy!” he breathed huskily, laughingly, against her mouth, and he swung her up into his arms and carried her across the room to the chintz-covered chesterfield, lowering her lightly on to the cushions. He knelt down beside her and took her face between his hands, laughing into her eyes and at the same time compelling her with the strange hypnotic brilliance of his own extraordinary dark eyes.

“Do you still want to catch a bus back to London, or shall we spend the rest of the afternoon here together?” he asked. “Mrs. Miles has gone, and we’re alone in the cottage
...”

He ran a finger along the smooth side of her throat, and she quivered like an aspen deep inside her. The hypnotic brilliance between his thick black eyelashes grew more brilliant, and she felt suddenly confused.

“I’m not at all sure that I ought to stay
...”

“Oh, my adorable little Lucy, why not?” He was caressing her with his eyes and his hands and his mouth, and it was the compulsion of his mouth that set her trembling violently, and caused her heart to pound heavily and thickly against her ribs. “We came close to quarrelling just now, but it was my fault. I said things I didn’t mean! I was beastly and abominable to you, and I ask you to forgive me! Darling, darling little Lucy! Little love! Say you forgive me, and let us be as happy as I intended this afternoon!”

“How happy did you intend us to be this afternoon?” She managed to free her mouth, and she gazed at him with wide, fascinated eyes. “I rather gathered that you were annoyed with me
...
really annoyed!”

“Oh, my darling, no!” The softness of his mouth, the tenderness of his eyes, would have lulled her absolutely, but for the fact that she couldn’t be entirely lulled following the accusations he had levelled at her. He could carry her away with him temporarily on a sea of emotion, but the instant she was permitted to think again ... she wanted to struggle up on the settee and hold him off purposefully, without any further yielding. “Sweetheart, don’t be
so foolish,” huskily. “How could I ever be really annoyed with you
?”

“You sounded—very annoyed!”

“I’ve told you, I think you’re adorable!”

“I also think you despise me.”
S
he placed her hands against his shoulders and held him away from her. “I honestly think I ought to go now—”

“No!” That eager light in his eyes had vanished as if it had never been, and a cool and comfortless darkness was all that looked back at her as she gazed at him in bewilderment. His whole dark face had altered completely, and the line of his jaw was rigid. “It doesn’t matter whether I despise you or adore you, I’m not going to let you cut short our time together. This is something I’ve looked forward to all the week.” She caught the cold gleam of his teeth as he smiled for an instant. “And I thought you understood when I suggested that we lunched here instead of in town that it was in order that our time together should be longer
...
and as perfect as we could make it!”