Sweet Seduction (7 page)

He sat down opposite her, hitching up his slim fawn trousers to allow his long legs to stretch. His matching jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a thin black silk shirt open at the neck. He had a small glass of raw rum in his hand. Not a man for fancy cocktails.

She was thrown by seeing him again so soon, confused by his rugged looks and masculine assurance. It was easier to nod briefly and let him call over a waiter. She tried to stay cool and calm. There was no way he would get the slightest inkling of how she was feeling.

Eight

"Planter’s Punch for my guest," Giles said, without asking her. "They make a good one here. It’s a mixture of rum, green limes, a dash of Angostura bitters, cracked ice, nutmeg, mint. One of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak; that’s the recipe, they say.”

Kira listened to his voice knowing that she could listen to it forever. It had a warm and magnetic quality and his eyes never left her face. He signed the chit for the drink without looking at it. She could become addicted to this man and this life, she thought. Perhaps she would become a beachcomber, sell necklaces like Moonshine and live off rum and free breadfruit. Forget about becoming influential, about Bruce and his new woman, and the baby of their hot and writhing flesh
. . .

Giles seemed to have forgotten about their abrupt parting that morning and was choosing to ignore her chilly silence. But the rum was creeping its insidious way into her veins, making he
r relax into a pleasant warmth.

"The decoration is a little over-the-top," he went on, referring to the harvest of sliced mango, pawpaw, glossy red cherries and fancy straw in her long glass.

"But the drink is wonderful," she could not stop herself saying.

"I like the dress," he said. "Very Twenties, and brings out the red in your hair. Did you know that your hair is an enchanting mixture of colours? A painter’s palette gone wild." He put out a hand as if to take hold of a lock, but Kira jerked back. He changed the direction of his hand and called over the wait
er, indicating his empty glass.

Kira was annoyed at her reaction. She should be taking pleasure from being in the company of the handsomest man in the room. She was well aware of the envious glances the other women cast in his direction and the fire of their desire.

"Is Sandy Lane Hotel your second home?" she said, passing over his compliment on her hair and dress.

"It’s my third home. I have a beach house built on the estate here. Sugar Hill is a great house, one of the last plantation houses. It’s too big for me to live in, even when Lace is there. I like the simplicity of the beach house. It’s quite beautiful, so peaceful and undemanding."

"Does Lace like the house?"

"She likes Sugar Hill but does nothing to help keep it together. She has never worked in her life; a lazy bitch, if you’ll excuse the language. Her life is one long round of parties and dancing and buying clothes."

"How nice," Kira murmured, thinking of her long hours at the House of Commons and her small flat in Pimlico, everything so compact that she could prepare a meal in her kitchen without taking more than three paces. "But what about your mother? She lives at Sugar Hill?"

"No, she’s in a nursing home. She’s in bed most of the time. It’s MS. She needs constant care. There’s little that can be done for her."

"How very sad."

"Perhaps you’d like to come and visit her, and then see Sugar Hill," he said, over the top of his glass. "It’s worth a visit. Stately home and all that. Very colonial."

Kira wanted to refuse, but if his mother was so ill it would be very impolite and cruel.

"Thank you, but not just yet. I’ve allowed myself twenty-fours to get over my jet-lag and now it’s back to work."

"Very commendable. But you could take a lunch break. It gets very hot. We could drive to Sugar Hill in less than twenty minutes."

"I don’t know. I have masses to do."

He inclined his head as if to acknowledge her tight working schedule and dropped the subject. He was looking at her again with a disturbing look that was playing havoc with her senses. She forced herself to sit still though she longed to turn away, run to somewhere safe, miles and miles.

"Are you sure we haven’t met before?" he asked. "There’s something about your face
. . ."

“Quite sure," said Kira. How could she ever forget if she had met him before? She took a deep drink, which was a mistake. Despite the cracked ice, the rum was strong and potent. A knot formed in her throat as if the liquid had burned and inflamed her mouth. She stirred the ice quickly and took in some of the melting coldness to still her starving desire.

"Careful. Rum is apt to mount up into the head," said Giles, mistaking her uncertainty. "I hadn’t realised that I was making you feel that you were under a microscope. Not only are you a beautiful woman but you do remind me of someone. And I can’t think who it is. You know how elusive memory can be, and I can’t pin this one down."

She looked towards the darkening sea. "I went walking today. There was this strange house – all pink, built like a castle with statues and turrets and battlements." Kira was probing cautiously, hoping Giles could throw some light.

"That’s Fitt’s House, Benjamin Reed’s home," said Giles dryly. "Or Reed’s Folly, as it’s sometimes called around here. He built it for his young bride, to tempt her into marrying him. He had grand ideas of turning her into a princess, they say. But the house didn’t bring him any luck."

"How unfortunate," said Kira. "It doesn’t sound very sensible."

"Don’t waste your sympathy on Benjamin Reed," Giles snapped, putting down his drink. "He’s not worth it. He’s a twisted, bitter and stubborn old man and deserves his unpopularity."

Kira’s heart fell into a long swoop, not quite anchored in time. The open-air bar was a moving field of light. Everything Giles was saying only confirmed her own opinion of her grandfather yet it did not help that other people felt the same way. It seemed disloyal in a funny way. It made her more determined to confront the man and tell him what she thought of him for his treatment of her mother
. . . yet somehow she ached with a raw sweetness for the old man, so alone, so bitter. What had happened to his fairy-tale princess?

"Doesn’t anyone like him?"

"His old workers dote on him, the loyal ones. He has a few new friends. But he cut himself off. It’s his own fault."

"Will you excuse me? I’m feeling quite hungry after my day in the fresh air. I think I’ll go into dinner. Thank you for the drink."

"What an excellent idea, Kira. I’m glad you’re feeling hungry. I’ve booked a table at Sam Lord’s Castle. You said you wanted to meet a pirate. Do you want to fetch a wrap? I usually drive with the roof down."

It was a bittersweet moment that pulled her two ways. He had a nerve, yet she was in too fragile a condition to cope with a man who was so sure of himself. But the idea of dining with him was tempting. Perhaps she could allow herself one slice of the goodie cake.

"I take it that was an invitation, not an order? But I have booked to eat here at Sandy Lane."

"You can eat here any time. A pirate’s stronghold is far more exciting, don’t you agree?
Think of the publicity, Kira. There are always swarms of reporters at the Castle, looking for an item for the morning’s front page."

The angles of his face were thrown into dark planes as they went outside.
The night air was warm and balmy, full of glorious scents from the gardens. The sea murmured in the background as it washed the sand smooth for the coming day. The lights in the gardens drew the insects and they buzzed around the glowing magnets like a grey net.

"Your research company could do with some publicity, couldn’t it? Have dinner with me at Sam Lord’s and you’ll get your photo in tomorrow’s paper."

Giles took her arm lightly and steered her up the steps and towards the car park. His touch was minimal but the pressure of his fingers on her bare skin was electric. His fingers were hard as if he worked with his bare hands, as if he not only gave orders from his office but rolled up his sleeves too.

"And what do you get out of this?" said Kira, still mentally kicking herself at the way he was manipulating her. He was wrapping his jacket round her shoulders.

"I get dinner with a prickly female," he said with a wicked grin. "A new experience for me. My car is over here."

"Charm doesn’t run my business," said Kira, flaring. He was teasing her. "I’m serious about my work. It’s more than a butterfly image. My consultancy is based on efficiency and hard work."

He chuckled in the darkness. "I meant no disrespect, ma’am. You ain’t no butterfly, that’s for sure. More like a tiger cat, I’d say. I guess you’ve got claws hidden under that pretty dress."

"I’m eating with you because I’m hungry, that’s all. Don’t think it’s going to lead anywhere." It seemed a stupid thing to say but the warmth of the night air was intoxicating. Something strange was happening, over which she had no control.

The words took her back into a private empty world where she was really lonely. She was starved for the touch of a man yet she was saying the words that would send him away. A terrible ache filled her that Giles might get the message and go, leave her. Sudden tears stung behind her eyes and she brushed them angrily away.

"Nothing further from my mind. No, lady, I’ve booked a table for two and afterwards I will bring you back to the hotel."

He leaned towards her and his mouth was a breath’s caress away from her lips. His hand ran lightly down her arm, disturbing the fine hairs in a feathery touch. She found her lips parting in soft anticipation and her body leaning towards him. He was standing very close in the evening’s balmy darkness, every plane of his face etched like a river running black.

"But I’m damned hungry," he said. "And not just for food."

Nine

Kira turned her face away. He was not going to get to kiss her and she was not going to make herself cheap. Bruce had taught her that. It was dangerous to succumb to male magic even when the silvery moonlight was adding to that magic and a sheen hung on the evening air. Giles was too close, towering beside her.

"I do appreciate your hospitality to a complete stranger but I assure you I’m no helpless lady. I’ve been looking after myself since I was a little girl, and eating alone is the least of my worries," she said.

"You mean you’ve been living on your own?" He sounded surprised, his voice also tinged with apprehension as if he suddenly saw a child at home alone. The Barbados culture was family orientated. A child would never be left alone.

Kira shook her head, unaware of the red lights forming an aura round her hair. Giles was watching her, suddenly seeing a different person emerging from the cool businesswoman;
someone vulnerable and afraid.

"Not exactly. My mother died when I was young. I was sent to a convent and the nuns were good to us but it was still a lonely existence. They are not given to hugs and kisses, more a pat on the head and ‘hurry along, there’s a good girl’."

"Then I insist on taking you out to supper and spoiling you." There was a new awareness in his voice. "My car is here. Allow me to play Prince Charming for one evening."

"Cinderella has to be home early."

"Of course. Though I’d rather like to see my Merc turn into a mouse."

"It was a pumpkin," she corrected.

She should have known he would have a white Mercedes. At a touch of a button, the roof folded back. Kira felt the last of her resistance slide away, as if she was walking into another life and taking that walk as if it was the only course open to her. She was being tempted by a car and ran her hand along its smoothness. She did not know that Dolly, her grandmother, had been tempted by a bathroom. She had never ridden in an open car before.

"Nice car," she said more abruptly than she meant to, as he opened the passenger door for her. The upholstery was pale blue with cream trim. The floor was carpeted in the same blue. She sank back into the comfort with a tiny sigh. Bruce had run a rust-ridden Ford Fiesta, a company car. She did not care what happened to the rest of this evening now. She would let it run and run. It was something out of time, a magic she would not allow herself to experience again.

Perhaps fate had decided that she was owed this kind of evening after the dark months of loneliness and pain. It was definitely the Cinderella syndrome. She looked sideways at her Prince Charming, his dark profile outlined against the lights hidden in the palm trees. He fitted the role well, though his strong arrogant nose and firm chin had none of the softness associated with the gallant fairy-tale prince.

She knew nothing about him. He was a stranger and yet she was letting him drive her across a Caribbean island to a place she had never heard of, an island that until yesterday had only been a name in a travel brochure. She must be out of her mind. It would serve her right if they found her tomorrow trussed up in a cane field. It was a dangerous world yet somehow she trusted Giles. A gut instinct told her that the danger was to her heart, not to her body.

A wry smile touched her face in the darkness. She had trusted Bruce and look where that had got her. A nightmare of hurt and anguish that was only now beginning to subside but could flare up with as much immediate pain at a thought, an image, a memory. That bouncing baby on the beach . . .

"Another sigh, Kira? Two sighs in one evening is the limit on Barbados. It’s a Government regulation. Sam Lord’s ghost won’t take too kindly to a melancholy visitor. He likes to be the centre of attention."

"A ghost? Really." She stared out at the passing countryside. It was swaying with strange grey, cobwebby images.

"Not really, but there should be. Enough people died at his command, they say. It’s said that he used to hang lanterns in the trees and in the windows of the castle to lure ships onto Cobbler’s Reef. The ships would be wrecked on the rocks and Sam Lord’s slaves would loot the wrecks and drag the spoils back to the castle through an underground passage."

Kira shivered though the night air was not cold. She could almost hear the cries of the drowning sailors. The dark countryside was sliding by in swiftly changing shapes, tall mahogany trees blotting out the ivory moon, mysterious gates leading to secret villas, clusters of painted chattel houses, glimpses of the sea glimmering with phosphorous and shot with light. Fields of cane rustled in the wind. The sweet smell of flowers and the lush cane drifted on the same wind.

"I don’t much like the sound of Sam Lord," she said. "Do we have to eat there?"

"It’s only a legend." He leaned across and touched her arm momentarily for reassurance. "Admiralty records show that he was out of the island when many of the wrecks occurred. And no-one has ever found the underground passage. Yet there’s no doubt he was a ruthless and dishonest man, and he treated his family and wife with terrible cruelty."

"And now his castle is a popular restaurant?" said Kira, with a touch of irony. "A funny kind of justice for those people."

"We can’t dictate the future. Perhaps Sugar Hill will become a holiday camp or a theme park one day. Sam Lord’s Castle is a luxury hotel, very elegant, with a lot of his pictures and furniture preserved, like a museum. But if you don’t care to eat there, we can go to Cobbler’s Reef, the restaurant in a garden which is more informal," Giles suggested with a touch of sensitivity she had not expected in the man.

"Which one is the nearest?"

"Sam Lord’s."

"OK. The pirate place it is."

He drove steadily but not fast. The speed limit on Barbados was low compared with Britain. The lanes twisted and turned, very much like Devonshire, and even late at night a mid-road game of cricket brought the big car to a halt. The boys pulled up the stumps and stood back to let the car pass.

"Hiya, Mister Giles," some of the boys called out.

"Come and bowl, sir?" asked another, cheekily.

"Not tonight," called Giles. "I have a lady with me."

"Is that my promised publicity?" Kira asked.

"Half of it." He was laughing
to himself and she liked that.

They drove through the village and passed the high walls of sugar cane in the fields beyond. The surprise was the flatness. Her eyes roamed over so much space.

Giles knew a way of cutting out the tortuous route through Bridgetown. He struck out onto Highway 7 – an ordinary two-lane thoroughfare, despite its title.

"The other half is that the news is already round the island that you are dining with me. They love gossip. They probably check when I have my hair cut."

A few minutes later he turned right into Bel Air Road, and she watched the deft way his brown hands handled the car. The discreet commercialism of the area became apparent, another way of life had taken over yet egrets flew overhead on their way home to roost. It was geared to tourism, almost a resort in itself with arcades of shops and mock village accommodation in the grounds. There was a uniformed security guard at the gate of Sam Lord’s who checked Giles’s reservation.

"They’re very careful," Kira commented, returning the guard’s big smile.

"They have to be. A lot of wealthy American tourists stay here. They pay to be looked after. Although there is little crime on the island – mainly mobiles and cameras lifted on the beach – and we want it to stay that way. We have a superb police force based in Bridgetown, very smart and highly trained. Have you seen the harbour police yet in their Nelson’s time sailors uniforms? There’s a good photo for you."

"I’m not a tourist. It’s the way people live that interests me. I shall hire a mini-
Moke to look round the island."

"Be careful. It’s easy to get lost. The narrow roads twist and turn.”

“I shall be careful.” But Kira was not careful enough.