Sweet Seduction (14 page)

"He’s got you on his side already." Giles scowled. "Don’t you have a mind of your own? I thought you were a woman of independence. I didn’t expect you to be swayed by a lunch with an old-fashioned charmer."

Kira collected her bag and notes. She was aloof, her back straight.

“You don’t know me at all,” she said.

Eighteen

"I’ll contact you when the report is ready," she said, as if it might be weeks. She swept across the room, her heels tapping on the polished floor, hoping her leg would not let her down.

"Don’t forget to take a hat and don’t drive late. There’s no street lighting out in the countryside. It’s easy to get lost when you’re off the beaten track."

"Get lost on an island this size? I’ll keep driving till I find the sea."

The heat on the veranda outside took Kira by surprise. The big room had been cool, the wide-bladed ceiling fans coping as efficiently as modern air conditioning, and she had forgotten the rising temperature.

"There’s no need to worry about me," she added, unbuttoning her jacket for coolness.

"I had no intention of worrying about you, Kira. I’m more concerned about my Moke. Don’t drive it into a ditch."

Benjamin was tugging off his tie, and his grizzled hair was standing up as if he had recently run his hand through it. He took Kira’s arm in a proprietary manner and drew her down the steps.

"Let’s tour Fitt’s House from the other side of the wall. The sugar mill is only a ruin but you can still see the old furnaces. We’ll forget stuffy business worries. The problems will still be there tomorrow."

"The Barbadian Malaise. That’s your trouble, Benjamin. It’s always tomorrow as far as you’re concerned. If it was left to you, Reed and Earl would be as ruined as your old sugar mill."

Benjamin swung round to face Giles, his mouth contorted with distaste. Something had touched the raw in him.

"Hard hats, guard rails, research consultants," he raged. "We never needed all these new-fangled contraptions in my day. The factory ran all right till you started meddling with everything. I’ve been in sugar all my life, since I was a boy. There isn’t anything I don’t know and there isn’t anything new. Fires, monkeys, plagues of rats, dogs, cane diseases. I was coping with them before you or your father were big enough to hold a cricket bat. So don’t talk to me as if I’m old and written off. And if I’m old and crabby before my time, blame your father, Reuben Earl, and what he did to me."

* * *

It was a long hot night. A melancholy horn blared out to sea. Creepers whispered in chorus against the long glass window panes.

Dolly had never been in such a grand house before. Even the size of the rooms was intimidating, made her feel like a child again, on the fringe of the grown-ups at a tea party. She stared at the ceiling.

She lay in the big bed, her heart pounding. She had brought her best nightdress, white lawn trimmed with embroidery. She had made it herself and it had lain in a drawer, unworn for more than a year.

Shadows played across the ceiling and Barbadian folklore flew into her mind. Was it Papa Bois, guardian of the forest and small animals, or was it La Diablesse, the devil woman? Dolly had been to see a wise woman who lived in a shack on the edge of the water and the wise woman had given her a potion.

"Sip this at every new moon," she had whispered, sparse white hair flowing like light. "And you will marry the man of your choice."

Will o’ the wisp shapes, grey and mysterious, moved across the curtains, fluttering as the trade breeze caught their flimsy folds and sent them spinning into orbit. Dolly closed her eyes against the shapes and the thoughts that went with them.

Reuben was coming. He said he had to see to his horse. That horse, Storm, was his pride and joy. His parents were staying with old friends at the other end of the island. They were not expected home till the next afternoon.

There was a jug of iced lime juice by the bed and Dolly drank nervously. Her mouth was as dry as an old boot. Reuben would expect her to taste as sweet as a flower. There was time to wash again in the empty, echoing bathroom across the wide landing.

She slipped her bare feet out of the bed and hurried across the polished floorboards but the door opened before she could reach it.

"Dolly, where are you going? Are to trying to escape? Have you taken fright like a little bird?" said Reuben, half laughing.

"Reuben, I didn’t expect you back so soon. Is Storm all right?"

He was stripping off his shirt, ripping buttons, his muscles gleaming in the half light.

"How long did you think it would take me to stable a horse? A couple of hours? How could I waste a moment when I knew the most gorgeous and lovely girl in the whole world was waiting for me?"

"Oh, Reuben, I don’t know if we should. This house is so big and your room is so strange."

Reuben stopped abruptly. "But Dolly, I thought we agreed. Five years is a terrible long time. We can’t wait that long when we love each other so much."

Dolly held out both hands to him. Now that Reuben was here, her fear was disappearing. She was not afraid of him; it was only the great-house that intimidated her.

"Much too long," she whispered. "I can’t wait that long. I want you so much."

"But we will get married," he promised hastily.

"Of course we will get married."

They were reading each other’s thoughts as clearly as if the words were spoken aloud, feeling the shape of the words and listening to hidden meanings.

"We will, won’t we?" Dolly clung to him desperately. "Tell me that we will marry some day."

"Sweetheart, trust me," he soothed.

He was unbuttoning his riding breeches and stood before her, his young and proud manhood a new sight for her. For a moment she was terrified by his boldness, his size, that she might be responsible for this reaction. How could it get inside her? She would burst. She would be ripped apart. Her body dissolved in fear.

"Don’t be afraid," he said, taking her in his arms, so that she felt him hard against her thigh. "I will be careful, gentle. Keep holding onto me. We’ve wasted all these years. I won’t hurt you. Sweetheart, darling, darling girl, trust me, love me."

His mouth was kissing away her fears and he lifted her and carried her back to the cool smoothness of the bed. She didn’t struggle but wound her arms round his neck, longing for their beach feelings to return. It was all so simple on the beach, under the dripping palms, bathed in the warmth of the sun, the lapping of the waves soothing her fears and making a lullaby for her love feelings. She loved Reuben so much that sometimes it was as if she would die in that love, unable to breathe such intensified air for one minute more.

One day Reuben would be master of this great-house. Would he have time for her then? She was only the half-wild daughter of a poor island painter. Or would he find the well brought-up daughter of some other planter more to his liking?

He was slipping the straps of her nightdress off her shoulders, mouthing the silken skin, letting his lips stray lower to the curve of her breasts. She gasped as he touched the softly rising nipples. He was tantalizing her, teasing and touching and tonguing. Her nipples rose to pebble hardness.

He eased his body atop her, firing her body with the glory of his weight. He was crushing her beneath him, moving her with long, drugging kisses. She spread her arms to her side, surrendering to his slow and rich exploration of her skin.

An exquisite sensation shot through her body. It was something she had never known before. She threw back her arms in delight, shivering at the same time, her limbs weak with savouring. Perhaps it was going to be all right after all.

* * *

Giles’s mouth settled into a hard, firm line. Kira held her breath. The hostility between the two men could be cut with a knife. Giles’s eyes were pieces of granite. He came down the steps, all man, all dominant, swiping his wide-brimmed hat against his thighs like a whip.

"You and my father damned near ruined both plantations and the factory with your near suicidal rivalry. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be living in a beach shack by now and Fitt’s House would be another restaurant for well-heeled tourists. When are you going to wake up to the fact that sugar is big business and personal conflicts don’t mean you run it like a cottage industry?"

"Personal conflicts?" the old man snarled. "Blast you. Dolly was mine."

"Reed and Earl would have been bankrupt in five years if Reuben hadn’t come to your rescue."

"How dare you talk like this? You think you know everything but you know nothing. You have some dangerous ideas, Giles. Bad blood always come out when you least expect it. Thank God, I didn’t have any children."

Kira gasped. Both men looked at her, suddenly aware of her, alarmed by the dismay on her face. She slipped away across the grass, her heart thudding. No children, no Tamara, no Kira. Had she been mistaken? Perhaps Benjamin wasn’t her grandfather after all. She tried to calm her breathing but it was the emotional bruising that hurt to the bone.

She had been right to keep men right out of her life. For a while she had been lulled into thinking that there might be room for her grandfather, even Giles. But she had been wrong. Giles was dangerous. Benjamin was bitter to the point of madness. And her own treacherous weakness had found in Giles a man who stirred her emotions.

Perhaps it was she who harboured insanely wild ideas. And that had to be stopped.

* * *

The Anglican Church in the centre of Bridgetown was packed to the doors. The Barbadian women almost outshone the planters’ wives with their finery. They wore their best Sunday dresses and colourful straw hats, decorated with flowers and fruit and feathers. White gloves and high-heeled pumps – no matter their size or weight.

What the black women lacked in modish style, they made up for in sheer joy of the occasion. The planters’ wives sat in the front pews, their subdued colours in contrast to the riot of fruit and flowers and multi-coloured veiling nodding on the hats of the women in the back rows. The men sat, sweating and steaming, in their best suits.

The music from the organ occasionally rose over the subdued chatter and greetings of friends. Everyone was smiling. This was going to be a great day. Bridgetown loved a big wedding.

The groom waited, solemn and tidy, in his place at the far end of the aisle.

The bride stood nervously in the porch. She was late and clung to her father’s arm. She made a beautiful bride. A dressmaker in Broad Street had dreamed up an ivory tulle dress with layers of skirt and she looked like thistledown, floating down the great church on a brush of the wind.

Half of Barbados was there, from cane workers to plantation owners. Everyone had been invited.

Dolly was shaking, her fingers gripping her father’s arm, her skin pale and clammy. She had been sick in the outhouse that morning, holding onto the basin while nausea heaved her stomach.

She could hardly recognise anyone through the gauze of the veil. The sea of faces came up at her like a flouting sea washing into the Cave of Flowers. She hardly recognised anyone, least of all the man she was going to marry. God help me, she prayed, already dying by inches. What was she doing?

Nineteen

Kira had been driving inland and northwards for about an hour during the hottest part of the day. The sun was beating down relentlessly like rays of fire. She had a litre bottle of mineral water beside her and some fruit saved from breakfast.

She checked out of Sandy Lane and paid her account, hardly flinching at the total. It had been money well spent. The luxury beach hotel had proved a relaxing experience, a paradise among the waving palms, but Kira could not afford it any longer. If she was to be moving around the island, she would find somewhere to stay each night. There must be plenty of guest houses and small hotels dotted round the coast.

The first of her interviews was a smallholding in the north of Maycock’s Bay, beyond Hangman’s Bay. She drove past an old whaling centre. She saw a ruined fort and evidence of the Barbados Defence Force. The landscape was changing to magnificent cliff scenery with wild and rugged hills.

Kira stopped the
Moke on a high point and gazed at the natural beauty of the area. It was criss-crossed with rough tracks that she would have to traverse to get to the scattered smallholdings. All right in the dry season, but treacherous in the rain.

Courtney Blackwell Johnson was as big as his name, a middle-aged Barbadian who farmed a few acres of sugar on the lower hills but he could not get the cane directly
to the factories for grinding.

"I’z take the cane to a depot point in my van where’s it picked up by a lorry for transportin’ south to Reed and Earls," he told Kira. "But if I’z make any money from m’sugar then I count myself lucky."

"It doesn’t seem right that all your profit is swallowed up by the transport cost," said Kira.

"No, ma’am. I’m thinking of turning over to vegetables. I can feed my family on vegetables and sell a few over. But I’z don’t like the idea. I’m a sugar man like my father. We always had mills. St Lucy had six or seven mills, all within a mule’s ride."

"Whose lorry takes your cane?" Kira asked.

Courtney scratched his head. "Don’t rightly know, miss. Some fella we call Hopalong."

"How can I contact this Hopalong?"

"I dunno. He just comes along."

"That’s not very satisfactory."

"That’s the way it’s always been."

"Well, thank you," said Kira. "I’ll put it in my report."

"Thank you, ma’am. Nice seeing you."

As she drove away, Kira was saddened by the economic problems that Courtney faced so stoically, a simple man working the land as his father had. The inland roads deteriorated until she was driving along rutted tracks of stone, pitted with pot-holes. She was shaken from side to side in the driving seat, wrenching at the wheel in an effort to avoid the worst of the craters.

She thought about the two men at Fitt’s House that morning, the angry words that had flared between them. She could have taken sides, defending both of them. Both men had been tugging at her feelings. How could they argue so fiercely? What had happened all those years ago? It had been a strange day. She had discovered a grandfather she liked and wanted to keep in her life, and another man she dare not have or encourage. Yet she had to deny that family bond in order to keep Benjamin as a friend.

This work is going to be good, she thought, and it’s real. I need to do something entirely different from the same old constituency problems and the tug-of-war political scene. She kept her eyes skimmed for the next sign of habitation. The wild and rugged landscape could not have been more of a contrast to the elegant and touristy St James’s Coast.

"I needed to leave London and start doing something that would not remind me of Bruce and Penny and the baby," she said aloud, convincing herself. It was a relief to say the words, the names, and face the reality of the situation.

In the distance, tucked against a hill, she saw the usual style wooden chattel house with steep roof and doll’s house windows. A woman was nursing a baby to her dark and swollen breast, a picture of happiness. It didn’t help. Kira felt a stab of envy at the cameo of maternal joy.

She stopped the
Moke in the yard and hung onto the wheel, fingers clenched. Skinny chickens scattered in all directions, wings flapping. A floppy puppy scratched lazily in the sunshine and went back to sleep. It was a hazy, lazy, peaceful picture.

"Hello," said Kira, swinging her long legs out of the
Moke. Her cotton skirt clung to her thighs. Her skin was sticky. "I’m Kira Reed. Giles Earl has asked me to come and talk to your husband about transport problems. Is he around?"

The young woman’s face broke into smiles. Kira discovered her passport into any home on the island. She had only to mention Giles’s name and she was welcome anywhere.

"From Mr Giles? Why, ma’am, that would be a pleasure. You sit here in the shade and I’ll go find Kingsley. He’s out in the fields."

The young woman hoisted the baby onto her hip and, with another wide smile, set off down a path towards the lush sugar cane. It was some distance but she did not hurry, her walk a rhythmic sway from side to side. Her dusty brown feet splayed out, the bright cotton of her dress flattened against her swelling body. She was already expecting another baby.

Kira sat in the shade of a gnarled old tree, letting the sugar-scented breeze lull her into a doze. She saw the magnificence of Giles’s height and his unyielding muscles. She remembered the way his hands had rested on her rounded hips, and the lazy confidence in his voice as he had teased her. Giles, she breathed, her eyes closed, let me feel the wall of your body again, soon, now. I can’t endure this tantalising delay . . . She hugged herself, aching with longing. The image of his strong face was robbing her of all thought.

She jolted herself into consciousness, shaking her hair out of her eyes.

"I’m an idiot, a fool," she told the shaggy puppy watching her curiously. He grinned hugely in agreement, panting.

She knew what it was. The hangover from her grief over Bruce was making her long for comfort and love, for physical contact with someone who thought she was desirable. It was as simple as that. Giles obviously thought she was attractive so why not let him have his brief summer affair? Perhaps he had a tourist belt on which to notch up his conquests. Kira knew it was wanton but she didn’t care.

Kingsley arrived along the path, a bulky young man with flashing teeth. But his grin soon faded as he poured out his troubles to Kira. His wife brought drinks of fresh pineapple juice and Kira accepted, knowing that to refuse would offend their hospitality. They were poor. They had hardly anything yet they were so happy. Kingsley could not stop touching his young wife, stroking her bare arm, tickling the baby, letting his hand rest easily on her knee.

"Something’s got to be done," he said. "Before we all go bankrupt. I’d hate to try and sell this bit of land but we gotta eat."

"What would you do?"

"Get a job in a hotel, I suppose. I’m strong. I could be a porter or a gardener."

"That doesn’t seem right. You’d have to move south, too."

Kira wanted to give them something. But what did she have to give them? She could only put their problems in her report and hope that Giles could find the answer. She went silent with determination, his name and promises almost on her tongue.

She had some English money in her purse and took out a brightly-minted pound coin, pressing it into the baby’s brown hand.

"A lucky coin from England," she said, not believing it was lucky but not knowing what else to say.

Kingsley and his wife thanked her and waved her off their land. As she drove away, with promises to return that she knew she would not keep, Kira felt a new sadness. What was happening to her? Barbados was weaving its promised spell, or was her true blood beginning to assert itself? She was here for a month or two, no longer. Giles’s fee and her conscience money from Mr Connor would last that long if she was careful.

She had been planning to be back at the Commons in mid-October in time for the State Opening, either to resume her job with Percival Connor or find another MP to work for. Her flat in Pimlico was gathering dust. Kira realised she had nothing else to make her go back to England. Only her flat. She did not really want to work for Mr Connor again. He’d reached his sell-by date.

It began to rain with an abruptness that was hard to believe. The clouds opened. Rain poured off palm leaves in sheets, splashing into the road, quickly turning the dust into rivulets, drumming on road bins. She drove for several miles in the downpour, her speed reduced to a crawl. She was nearing the East Coast and tried to peer through the overworked windscreen wipers for somewhere to stop and stay, or at least take shelter. She had forgotten the advice that the eastern coast was wild and barren. Not for nothing was it called the Highlands.

Suddenly she glimpsed the sea ahead and rammed on the brakes. Great rollers thundered in from the Atlantic, breaking over outcrops of rock with powerful plumes of white spray. The long curving beach was deserted, the machineel trees swaying under the onslaught of rain, their leaves washed to a dark green gloss. There was not a hotel or any habitation in sight.

"I think I’m lost," she said.

She managed to turn the
Moke in a clearing, with much grinding of gears. Gusts of rain were blowing in both sides of the open vehicle onto her bare arms and face. Soon she was drenched. The wind was whipping her skirt up and off her knees, bunching it round her hips. She clutched at the sodden material in her lap like a bundle of wet washing.

Through the rain she caught sight of a line of workers hurrying from the fields using their straw hats and banana leaves for some protection. But their faded clothes were soaked. They balanced bundles of cane on their heads, too precious to drop and run. She called to them but they could not hear and disappeared into the mist.

Now she could hardly see through the torrential rain, the road ahead a swirling mass of mist and water. She had never seen rain like it. Dreary swathes washed in from a low blank sky. English rain was merely April showers compared to this deluge.

"Hey you there, sunny Barbados," she called out loud. "Where have you gone?"

A tall stone building loomed sideways out of the mist, its strange beehive shape at first unrecognisable. Then Kira caught sight of four broken blades and realised that it must be one of the ruined sugar mills. Its pitted stone surface was overgrown with weeds, but it looked solid enough for temporary shelter. She wrenched the Moke off the road and drove erratically along the hidden track towards the shape of the mill.

The yard was littered with rusty machinery, brown water running off the iron components. There were no houses. The disused mill was completely isolated.

Kira made sure the handbrake was on firmly then, collecting her handbag, braved the onslaught and ran through the rain to the ruin, praying there would be an easy way inside. The heavy mahogany door yielded at the first push and Kira staggered inside.

At first she could not see, not only because of the gloom but because her lashes were stuck with water. She wiped her face with her hand and looked around. Her heart fell. She had picked a ruin all right. It was empty except for some derelict machinery and a stack of old canes, dry and withered. She sank down onto her knees on the dusty floor and cradled her head in her arms. Her body was stiff with driving but at least she would be out of the rain here and off the treacherous track. If she waited until the rain stopped, perhaps she would be able to move on. Surely it couldn’t rain like this for long?

She thought of her case in the back of the Moke, but no way was she going outside again, not even for dry clothes. She had had the foresight to lock her notes away in her briefcase. She had no idea where she was. These roads were certainly not on Giles’s map.

She peeled off her wet skirt and looked for somewhere to hang it up. A couple of nails in a beam were a convenient height and the drips were soon failing onto the dust, creating tiny craters. Her skirt hung like a wet ghost in the gloom; the only sound, apart from the lashing rain, was the
dismal dripping onto the floor.

Outside, the palm fronds rustled wildly, pounded by the rain, tossing wildly this way and that in the boisterous wind.

Kira wrapped her arms across herself, standing back from the doorway, watching the relentless deluge. The sun was going down but there was no glorious sunset tonight. The heavily-laden clouds scurried across the sky liked winged creatures from Greek mythology. Kira shivered in her damp briefs and silk shirt as the temperature dropped.

* * *

Dolly shivered in the big Edwardian wrought-iron bed. She had on the same pristine white nightdress, resolving that she would wear it all night and never, ever take it off. She was cold despite the heat lingering from the day.

It had been an exciting day in a strange way, with everyone watching her. Her father had beamed like a beacon. He saw all his financial problems being solved. The dowry from the groom had been generous and the cheque crackled in his pocket.

But Dolly did not remember much of what had happened. Time passed in a white haze of voices and words, music, food and wine. There were people she did not know. She drank greedily of the wine, accepting every refill, hoping to dull the ache in the pit of her stomach with an overcoat of alcohol. Someone took the glass away.