The Arrogant Duke (8 page)

The Duque drove fast, but expertly, the car making swift progress towards Venterra. They passed dark- skinned islanders along the road, men working in the sugar cane fields, or tending the bean plantations, women with young children, some riding on their backs, making their way to the market in Venterra; and all acknowledged the Duque's car, showing more clearly than words how liked and respected the aristocratic lord of Venterra really was. The colours were an assault on the eyes, and the scents and fragrances were an assault on the senses. Juliet didn't know how anyone could live on Venterra without being completely aware of its atmosphere. She had visited the West Indies before, so why was everything so much more brilliant, colourful and exciting this time? She refused to try and solve that particular problem. She was merely unsophisticated and over-sensitive, or so she told herself.

The Duque parked the car on the quay, leaving the two girls alone while he went into a warehouse to see about the importation of certain items he required which would be arriving on the island steamer that afternoon. Tall and dark, despite his tanned complexion, he stood out among the dark-skinned West Indians, exchanging a word here and there, inclining his head to listen to someone's problem; he was everything an island despot should be, thought Juliet ruefully, taking out her cigarettes, and lighting one as she viewed the bustling scene before her.

Obviously, all the commerce of the island was conducted here, and there were stalls selling fish and meat, fruit and vegetables, as well as materials and cooking utensils. There was the' smell of fish and drying ropes, the musky smell of soft fruit and the inescapable scent of humanity. It was strong, and not always pleasant, and yet it blended with the swaying hips and basket- adorned heads of the West Indians, to whom rhythm and music was everything. Even at this hour a steel band was practising somewhere, while a boy sat on the stone jetty strumming a guitar.

And over it all beamed the sun, like a benevolent uncle.

Juliet sighed, and Teresa turned to look at her. 'We've never discussed it, Senhorita Summers, but how did you persuade my uncle that your presence here was warranted?' Her eyes were cold and calculating.

Juliet felt momentarily at a disadvantage, and then, as though recalling that Teresa was much younger than she was, she said coolly: 'As you're so fond of intrigue, Teresa, why don't you ask your uncle yourself?'

Teresa's colour deepened. 'Don't be clever,
senhorita.
You're only here on sufferance, remember that!' She pouted her lips. 'I am glad I do not have to work for my living. It must be awful feeling inferior all the time.
^'

Juliet studied the tip of her cigarette. 'Why should I feel inferior, Teresa?
^'
she asked.

Teresa gave a derisive sneer. 'Well, it's obvious, isn't it? I mean - this island - the
quinta -
must be vastly different from anything you're used to.'

'So?' Juliet's eyes were holding Teresa's.

'So you're just - just a
servant!'

'And all servants are inferior, is that it?'

Teresa shrugged.

Juliet compressed her lips for a moment. 'Then let me tell you something, Teresa; there are rich and poor in this life, but what you are, or what you achieve, or simply what you do, is not designated by wealth and its compensations. A person has to find more than
things
to live with. Most of all a person has to live with himself. I sometimes wonder if you've ever found it difficult to live with yourself!'

'Porco!
How dare you speak to me like that!' Teresa's face was incensed.

Juliet shrugged, and lay back in her seat. 'Don't imagine you can continually criticize me without getting something in return,' she replied softly. 'There are lengths to everyone's patience!'

Teresa was breathing swiftly with anger, chewing furiously at her lips. Obviously, since coming to the island, no one, apart perhaps from Estelle Vinceiro, had ever crossed her.

At last she said: 'Felipe listens to me. I shall speak to him. I shall find out what lies you have told him about me!'

'Lies!' exclaimed Juliet. 'What lies?'

'The lies you must have invented to make him let you stay here.' Teresa calmed herself a little. 'Yes. We will see who can win in this game,
senhorita.'

Juliet half-smiled. Teresa was so young. Even her malevolence was a childish thing. Why then did she harbour such adult ideas about the Duque?

'All right,' she said, shrugging. 'You play the game, Teresa, and maybe we will all be surprised at the outcome.'

They were sitting in stony silence when the Duque returned, and he frowned as he got into the driving seat. 'The atmosphere in this car could be cut with a knife,' he remarked thoughtfully. 'Might I ask why?'

Teresa adopted the offended air she usually used in his presence. 'Senhorita Summers has been very rude to me,' she said, bending her head, in an appealing manner. 'Tio Felipe, surely you can see that all Senhorita Summers does is frighten and upset me.'

'Frighten?' The Duque set the car in motion, turning through the village square. 'You are exaggerating, Teresa.'

Teresa gave him a deliberately hurt look. 'No - no, I'm not. Yesterday - yesterday you didn't ask where we j drove. Oh, even to think about it.' She covered her eyes with her hands. 'I - I was terrified. I - I wasn't going to tell you - to worry you, but now I must!'

Juliet raised her eyes heavenward. She was absolutely sure that the reason Teresa had not mentioned their journey yesterday sooner was because when she had seen Estelle Vinceiro with the Duque all thoughtsof anything else had gone out of her head, and anything that was so easily banished could not have been as frightening as she was now making out.

The Duque lit a cheroot, while negotiating a bend that took them higher up the slopes above the sea, and curved round a promontory ahead leading to the far side of the island.

'Well,
^'
he said. 'Where did you go?' He glanced round at Juliet. 'As my niece appears to be overcome, can you tell me,
senhorita?

'Yes,' replied Juliet easily. 'We drove up to a place called Venterra Montanah.'

'Venterra Montanah!' The Duque swung the car round a curve and came to a halt. '
Venterra Montanah!
Teresa, is this so?'

Juliet hunched her shoulders. 'Did I say something wrong?' she asked, with some sarcasm.

The Duque swung round in his seat, his dark eyes accusing. 'Are you aware of the dangers of that road?'

'Dangers? You mean the curves?'

'Yes,
senhorita,
I mean the curves!' The Duque looked furious.

Juliet sighed. 'Well, for heaven's sake, I've driven on roads with much worse curves and gradients than those!' As soon as she said the words she wished she hadn't, for immediately the Duque looked sceptical.

'Indeed,' he said slowly. 'And where, might I ask, have you driven on worse roads than those?'

Even Teresa had taken away her hands from her eyes and was looking curiously at her new companion.

Juliet shrugged deciding there was no use in making anything up. 'In the Alps,
senhor
, the Swiss Alps!'

'I see. You have driven in the Swiss Alps.'

'Yes,
senhor.'

'And might one ask how a girl who reputedly has to work for a living comes to be driving in the Swiss Alps?''

Juliet had had a moment to think about this. 'I — I was companion-chauffeuse to an elderly - lady,' she said smoothly. 'We went to Monte Carlo last year.'

'Is that so?
^:
The Duque studied her intently. Then he looked at Teresa, and finally back at Juliet, almost reading her thoughts, she felt, with his penetrating gaze. 'Very well,
senhorita
. I will take your word for it. Nevertheless, Venterra Montanah is not for the amateur. I would rather you chose other routes for your outings. Teresa, obviously your fears were not based in reality. Maybe your emotional condition accounted for your fears.'

Teresa could not let it go so easily. She was not to be thwarted. 'You - you weren't there, Tio Felipe! You are taking her word for everything! She drove carelessly, I tell you. I was terrified!'

Juliet gasped. 'Teresa, that's not true!'

'It is so. I don't believe you've ever driven on roads in the Alps. I think you're telling my uncle lies!'

Juliet felt angry now. Earlier she had been exasperated, and then amused, but now she was really angry. Teresa seemed to think she had no defence against this man who was her employer.

Leaning forward, keeping her voice light and provocative, she said:
'Senhor,
your niece seems determined to put me in the wrong. In order to prove my point, would you allow me to drive
you
up to Venterra Montanah?'

Teresa eyes widened, and the Duque looked impatient.

'That is not necessary,
senhorita
. I am quite prepared to accept—
^'

'But I am not,
^'
insisted Juliet, her eyes mocking. 'At least allow me to prove my case, or I shall think you are unfairly biased in your niece's favour.'

The Duque lifted his shoulders.
'Senhorita,
I have told you I believe you.
^'

'Are you afraid also,
senhor?'
Juliet didn't quite know why she said that. Certainly it was not to prove anything to Teresa. Maybe it was to prove something to herself.

His eyes darkened momentarily, and something stirred in their depths, something that brought the hot colour surging to Juliet's cheeks.

'No,
senhorita
,' he murmured, 'I am not afraid.
^'
He drew on his cheroot. 'And some time I will accept your challenge, and allow you to drive me to Venterra Montanah,
sim?'
He looked at Teresa. 'Does that satisfy you,
pequena?
^'

Teresa looked furious, and Juliet couldn't dispel the feeling of having trodden too far into strange territory. Challenging the Duque in an attempt to bait Teresa was one thing, but challenging him because she wanted to challenge him was quite another. Her experience of men was not so great; naturally in her position as Robert Lindsay's daughter, she had had plenty of boyfriends, and she was not unaware of the facts of life. But they had been young men, most of them as unversed in the arts of sexual encounter as she was herself; her father had seen to that. She had not been allowed to run around with the so-called jet set, or to attend parties which could only be classed as doubtful.

The Duque was an entirely unknown quantity. He was no boy, he was a man, and the sensations he aroused inside her were completely outside her previous experience.

As the car moved on, Juliet attempted to retrieve her nonchalance, without a great deal of success. So she studied the scenery instead, trying to distinguish the various plants and flowers that grew in such profusion. It was no use worrying about something that quite possibly would never happen.

Lauganca Bay was unbelievably beautiful. Larger than the other coves Juliet had seen, it stretched for miles, white sand, green water and grey rocks. When the Duque brought the car to a halt, she slid out without waiting for permission, and walked across the headland, looking across the wide expanse of water which had once seen the demise of so many Spanish hopes. With the swirling waters high there was little to show the dangerous rock formations that lay just below the surface, like the smooth face of a lake that guarded undercurrents of disaster.

Juliet sighed and then turned back to the car, rubbing her elbows with the palms of her hands. The Duque and Teresa were still sitting in the car, and Juliet was suddenly conscious of the slim-fitting slacks and sleeveless overblouse. Her hair had blown in strands from the braids, and she felt sure she must look an absolute sight.

At her approach the Duque slid out of the car, standing tall and powerful in front of her.

'So,
senhorita
,' he murmured, 'what do you think?'

Juliet flushed. 'It's very beautiful,' she replied swiftly. 'Can - can we go down?'

'I don't see why not. I can bring Teresa.'

'Yes.' Juliet brushed past him and lifted her basket bag out of the rear of the car, aware of that awful twisted feeling in her stomach again. Get a hold of yourself, she told herself angrily. You only met him two days ago. What are you thinking of?

They descended to the beach by way of a sloping path that ran down the steep incline. The sand was soft at the rim, damp nearer the water, showing how the tide could cover the ground.

The Duque put Teresa down on a rug he had brought from the car, and then said: 'See - the motor boat we use for our expeditions - it is housed in the boathouse there.'

Juliet saw a wooden building at the far end of the beach, near the rocky headland. She nodded, wishing she knew more about skin-diving. Discussing the kind of dives she had made with the Duque would not arouse any interest on his part. Merely a surfeit of questions as to how she had any knowledge at all.

Teresa heaved a sigh. 'Must we stay here long, Tio Felipe?' she asked impatiently. 'The sun is hot, and I am thirsty.'

The Duque smiled down at her. 'Are you being a little awkward,
pequena?'
he countered. 'Perhaps Senhorita Summers would like to swim.'

Juliet shook her head. The idea of appearing before the Duque in a bathing suit was a daunting one which she had not really considered before. 'Thank you, but no,' she replied, sitting down on the sand beside Teresa.

The Duque nodded to her basket. 'I had thought you brought swimming equipment,' he remarked. 'It is early yet. I have some coffee in a flask in the car. There is no reason why we should not stay here for a while.'

Juliet didn't know whether he was baiting her now or not. She only knew she couldn't do it.

'Will you be swimming,
senhor
?' she asked, studying her nails.

Teresa stared at her, and then at her uncle, but the Duque was not disturbed. 'No,
senhorita.
Unlike you, I am not prepared. However, if Teresa will sit here for a while, and have some coffee, I will take you to the boathouse and show you some of our equipment.'