Master of Hearts (4 page)

"It's easy to be generous when you're rich and it doesn't hurt your pocket," Kathleen pointed out, stubbing the end of her cigarette in the ash-tray with a kind of unnecessary vigour.

Peggy's eyes twinkled at her over the tip of her own cigarette.

"You're determined to hold it against him, aren't you, because he didn't let you have that job? But, on the whole, I think it's a good thing you didn't get it! You're inclined to behave occasionally as if you were a law unto yourself, and that sort of thing doesn't go down well in a strictly Portuguese household. The female must always defer to the male over here, and you're not good at that—it's probably the Irish in you! I think an English employer is safest for you."

"I imagine that if I had been taken on to look after the boys I'd have been employed by their mother," Kathleen stated.

"Nothing of the kind, darling," Peggy as
sured her blithely. "Rumour has
it that Dona Inez has been left very badly off—in fact, her husband doesn't seem to have had any money at all! And therefore the whip is in the

hands of your enemy, and I've no doubt he'll crack it to the good of his nephews—as he sees it!"

"Poor little Jerry and Joe!" Kathleen said, so feelingly that once again Peggy decided it might be advisable to drop the subject of the Conde de Chaves.

"Oh, I don't know," she murmured, and let it go at that. And then, with sudden briskness: "But we mustn't for
get that tomorrow really is you
r last day, and we must do something to make it memorable! What shall we do? Go for a whole day to Lisbon, or have a picnic somewhere? It's up to you, darling! Shane will fall in with anything that doesn't involve dressing up—he and the Conde would never see eye to eye!" Peggy sighed suddenly. "I must admit I like dressing up myself sometimes."

Kathleen took the basket from her as they started to walk home, the brilliant sea on one side of them; and then she slipped her free hand inside her sister-in-law's arm and asked with a trace of concern:

"But you're happy here? You like the life?"

"Oh, darling, it's a heavenly life?" Peggy looked out to sea, and her velvet-brown eyes grew dreamy. "A bit gypsyish, but perfect! Wonderful summers and short winters; ideal conditions for Shane to paint under! And the people are all so nice and friendly, and homely."

"All except the Conde!" Kathleen heard herself remark.

Peggy took her arm and squeezed it.

"Forget him," she advised. "Forty-eight hours from now and he'll have passed right out of your life!"

But so unexpected is Life, and so strange at times—following an unnecessarily intricate pattern, or so it often seems—that twenty-four hours from that walk home along the colourful sea front Kathleen was installed in the Quinta Cereus, and unpacking her things in a delightful room that was all English chintz and period Portuguese furniture.

It had all come about in such an unexpected fashion that she felt she wanted to pinch herself to make certain she wasn't dreaming.

On their return home they had had lunch and discussed plans for the following day, and it had been decided that a whole day in Lisbon would be ideal. Shane said he would spread himself and take them to lunch at rather a fabulous restaurant where the food was unforgettable, and Kathleen had chosen one of her prettiest frocks to wear for the occasion. But instead she wore the frock when a car from the quinta—long, and glittering, and black like all the Conde's cars—bore her in state to the home of the man to whom she had taken a violent dislike.

The fat Rosa had been summoned to the bedside of a stricken parent, and the household at the quinta had been thrown into a state of uproar because no one seemed capable of taking charge of the twins. To make matters worse, their mother had succumbed to some indisposition that prostrated her, and therefore there was no hope that she would make herself responsible for the good conduct of her offspring. In a state verging on desperation (and it must have been sheer desperation, Kathleen thought, to allow him to once more turn his thoughts towards her) the Conde had remembered the English girl who had so failed to impress him, but whom rumour had it was still in Amara, and had sent a politely couched appeal to her to step in and fill the breach. She was under no obligation to accept if she didn't wish to — and apparently once Rosa returned she would be sent packing again! — but it would be of inestimable assistance, and greatly appreciated, if she would rise to the occasion in spite of her earlier rejection.

Peggy was so much taken aback by this imperious request, for in spite of the politeness of the plea it was imperious, that she was inclined to advise her sister-in-law to have nothing to do with it, particularly as it was only a temporary gap she was to fill. And Shane wasn't too pleased, either, that his one and only sister was about to be made use of — if, that is, she consented to take the job! But Kathleen, to the mild astonishment of

them both, didn't seem to think she had any option but to accept.

"I'm thinking of Jerry and Joe," she explained. "With no Rosa and a mother out of action they might even be sent away somewhere if the Conde can't hand them over to someone! And although I was all for them being sent away to school I didn't mean immediately! They're such helpless scraps — and you've no idea how ridiculously undersized they are! — for that to happen to them yet!"

"Well, darling, whatever their size I don't really think they're your concern," Peggy said diffidently, but Kathleen was quite firm.

"It doesn't matter how long the job lasts. I'll take it until I'm thrown out — and if my methods are unconventional I'll probably be thrown out very quickly! —but I won't turn my back on poor Jeronimo and Joseph at this juncture!"

And within a short space of time that was actually less than a quarter of an hour, she was travelling in superb comfort to the quinta, separated from a dignified, impeccably uniformed chauffeur by a glass partition that provided her with a sensation of splendid segregation.

The Conde's cars must have been specially built for him; they disdained every imperfection in the surface of the road, so that she might have been travelling on a mechanised air-cushion. And the sleek door panels bore a crest which was repeated, she was to discover, on everything that was owned personally by Miguel de Chaves.

He was waiting for her in the hall when she ascended the tall flight of steps to the front door, which was standing open. She could see him posed against the sumptuous background she remembered very vividly, although she had had only one previous glimpse of it.

Today the Conde was wearing a pearl-grey suit, and the thing that struck her most about him was the stark whiteness of his linen. Possibly it was the darkness of his skin that threw it into prominence, but whatever it was she was certain that his laundry bills would have been colossal if he had been a man with no servants.

He stepped forward at once to greet her, and she wondered whether, if she had been someone of importance, he would have met her at the foot of the flight of steps.

"It was good of you to come, Miss O'Farrel," he said, and his English was correct and effortless. She noticed particularly that he refrained from addressing her as senhorita, and wondered whether it was because she had come and he wished to make her feel as much at home as possible.

"I was on the point of leaving for home," she admitted. "But as you wanted someone badly, naturally I came."

They looked at each other. His eyes were darker than she remembered — perhaps not so much grey as a kind of grey-black, rather like the sea when storm clouds mass above it. Hers were utterly serene, betraying not the slightest tendency to drop before his, and wonderfully, deeply blue. Her eyelashes had a powdering of gold at the tips, and her hair was a lovely golden cloud reaching almost to her shoulders. The dress she had selected for the trip to Lisbon had tiny blue flowers scattered all over a white muslin ground, and she could hardly have looked less like a governess if she had tried.

"It was good of you to come so promptly," was all he said then, and she realised that he intended no apology for having seized upon her like a lifeline after unhesitatingly dismissing her only the week before because he was quite certain she couldn't be of the slightest use to him.

Her lips curved a little wryly as he stood aside to permit her to ascend the staircase in the wake of the servant who was carrying her luggage, and although she was certain his eyes followed her part way up the stairs, when she turned to look back over the balustrade he had vanished from the hall.

Plainly he was a man who believed in wasting little time on a mere employee, even if he had once given her sister-in-law a lift and behaved towards her as if her social status was not altogether beneath him!

But the slightly uncomfortable, flat feeling that had assailed Kathleen disappeared as soon as the door of her room was flung open, and she saw how delightful it was. Obviously got ready for her in a hurry, because there was a little pile of English magazines on a low table near one of the wide windows and a delicate toy of a Sheraton writing-desk had been placed between the windows, and looked a little out of keeping with the rest of the furniture, it was nevertheless a most attracive room. And that in spite of the fact that the bulk of the furniture was heavy and typically Portuguese, with ornate carving and a slight air of solemnity.

Kathleen examined the spirals of the four-poster bed, that reached almost to the ceiling, and decided that the contents of her suit-cases would be lost in the wardrobe space that was at her disposal. But the chintz of the chair-covers, with its pale yellow flowers against a lavender ground, pleased her. It looked as if it was carefully preserved, and at some time or other some member of the de Chaves family must have brought it from England.

There were yellow roses in a bowl, and yellow towels in the bathroom adjoining, that she discovered was to be her own. And throughout the paintwork was an agreeable shade of pale turquoise.

It was about seven o'clock when she arrived; by eight o'clock she had met no one apart from the Conde for those few minutes on arrival, and the maid who had offered to unpack for her. But this she preferred to do herself, and she was thinking how extraordinarily silent was the quinta and how little her presence there seemed to be needed, when the maid returned with a tray on which was her evening meal.

It was a beautifully arranged tray, and there was everything on it that she needed to satisfy her appetite —which was slight, however, because she felt so strange —and set down on the little table in the window it was very pleasant toying with the food in the last of the daylight. But very soon the half-light became starlight, and the big room seemed queer, silvery and empty, yet

somehow she couldn't bring herself to move and switch on the lights. Besides, there were some delicious flower scents coming in through the open window, and there was an odd fascination about watching the intricate effect of moonlight on the quiet garden without, and the checkerboard of light and shadow — infinitely black shadow — it made on the paths. There were high hedges and strangely shaped bushes and shrubs, and the palely glimmering trumpets of the Queen of the Night flowers were almost too exquisite to be real.

When the maid came for the tray she seemed surprised to find her sitting in the darkness, and wanted to put on the lights. But Kathleen stopped her. She summoned enough Portuguese to ask:

"Where are the little boys? Are they asleep?"

The maid seemed disconcerted by the question, and merely echoed. "They sleep!" before she fled from the room.

Kathleen sighed, and wondered whether it would be safe for her to go to bed. The Conde was no doubt dining out, and possibly his sister was dining out with him. Or was she still in a state of collapse? But how strange that no one had felt the slightest desire to see her and give her a few instructions. And who had put the children to bed? Who had temporarily taken on Rosa's duties?

The question was answered when a small pyjama-clad wraith came tip-toeing to her door, and who after he had put his head in a few inches to make certain she was there held a finger to his lips and took a flying leap across the room until he landed in her lap.

"You've come, you've come!" he exclaimed joyfully, in an exaggeratedly hoarse whisper. "Joe said they wouldn't let you, but they have! We played up old Rosa so that she had to go, and then Mama had one of her `turns'—heads, you know! She just lies in a darkened room, and stays there, and that meant there was no one to look after us at all, excepting old Maria, who put us to bed tonight. But Joe said he heard your voice on the stairs, and I stayed awake until there was no one about, and came to look for you!"

He was shivering with delight and satisfaction because he had found her at last, and he buried his head against her chest. Kathleen was so moved by his undisguised pleasure that at first she could say nothing, not even reprove him for having deserted his bed, and the feel of his small body snuggling up to her was comforting. Then she managed to say:

"But, your uncle! What would he say if he knew you were here?"

"Uncle Miguel's gone out. He goes out nearly every evening, 'cept when there's a party!"

"And how do you know he won't come home early and bring someone with him?"

"If he did he wouldn't bother about me—or Joe!" "But he might bother about me! He might want to make sure I was still here!"