The House on Flamingo Cay (9 page)

* * *

About three o’clock on the following afternoon, Sara was exploring a small inhabited island somewhere in the blue-green expanse of sea between New Providence and Eleuthera. The rest of the party were lazing under an enormous beach umbrella which had been brought over from the launch, but a clump of brush screened them from her view and, now that she was out of earshot of Conrad’s transistor radio, she could enjoy the illusion of being a solitary castaway, remote from all civilization.

This particular cay was a little on the small side for idyllic isolation. It was about half a mile long and a hundred yards wide, slightly crescent-shaped and with a low ridge of scrub forming a kind of spine. There was no fresh water and only two or three palmettoes to provide leaf for thatching.

She had just straightened up after peering into a rock pool, when she saw Stephen coming along the waterline towards her. He had taken off his beach shirt and was in dark swimming shorts with a towel slung over one shoulder. For a moment, she didn’t know why, she had an impulse to pretend she hadn’t seen him and disappear over the rise.

Apart from a polite greeting when they had first met in the morning, and helping her from the launch into the dinghy by which they crossed the reef and beached on the cay, he had taken very little notice of her. In fact there had been moments when she had suspected that he was deliberately ignoring her.

She sat on the sand and waited for him to reach her, feeling curiously tense.

“Girl Friday, I presume?” Stephen dropped down beside her and lounged on one elbow. “You know, from a distance, crouched under that hat, you look like a shrimp-hunting ten-year-old.”

“Do I?” Sara dug her toes in the sand and looked out at the launch lying at anchor.

She had taken off the hyacinth cotton skirt that matched her strapless sun-top and wore brief white shorts. Yesterday’s skiing with Peter had improved her colour. Her legs were now a satisfactory brown. A broad-brimmed straw hat shielded her face from the brightness.

Stephen lit a cigarette. She noticed that, unlike Conrad Stuyvesant, who had an elaborately monogrammed gold case and matching lighter, he kept his cigarettes in the packet and used a worn metal storm lighter.

“Now that you’ve seen some of the Out Islands, what do you think of them?” he asked, presently. “Do you still have a yen to emulate the Robinsons?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said lightly. “But I thought you were taking us to your island.”

“I would have done—if I thought you would have come on your own,” he answered, rather enigmatically.

“You don’t like the Stuyvesants?”

He shrugged. “I have enough of tourists in Nassau.”

“But I’m a tourist, too,” she pointed out.

He smiled at her. “But not a rather garrulous American matron.”

Sara traced a pattern in the sand. “It wasn’t very kind of you to make fun of her last night,” she said gravely. “She may be a little foolish, but she’s very warm-hearted.”

“Make fun of her?” he queried.

“You know—when you told her you were descended from a pirate. She took it seriously.”

“Didn’t you?” he asked solemnly.

Sara gave him a mildly exasperated glance, then laughed. “Well, hardly.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Oh, it’s
possible,
I suppose,” she conceded. “But I should have thought that, if there were any pirates in these seas, they would mostly have ended on the gallows. Anyway I thought they were all much further south in the Caribbean.”

“Yes, that was the centre of their operations, but they didn’t overlook the Bahamas,” he said lazily. “For about fifty years, they practically ruled all this territory. It’s true that the most notorious ones were finally strung up on Fort Charlotte, but quite a few of them settled down and became fairly respectable.”

“Including Black Jack Rand?” Sara asked, with a sceptical glance.

“Presumably, or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.” His eyes were narrowed against the sun, but there was a tell-tale quirk at the corner of his mouth. “Of course I wasn’t obliged to admit my nefarious ancestry. I could have told her something more prosaic—like my father coming out here and investing in property before tourism hit the islands. But I doubt if she’d have been equally interested.”

“Well, I hope you realize that she’s certain to spread it around,” Sara said drily.

Stephen grinned. “It may improve our bookings.” His glance became thoughtful. “What made you two come to Nassau?” he asked suddenly.

Sara looked away towards the end of the island where an outcrop of small rocks formed a kind of tail.

“It was Angela’s choice. She ... she thought it would be a change,” she answered with secret irony.

Stephen looked down at her. “I would never have taken you for sisters.”

“That’s what Peter Laszlo said—what most people say.”

He sat up and buried his cigarette end deep in the sand. “Mm ... I was forgetting about Laszlo,” he said, in an odd tone.

“You sound as if you don’t like him.”

“I’ve nothing against him—from a personal point of view.”

“What other view is there?”

“Let’s say that if I had a young and rather unsophisticated sister, I wouldn’t encourage her to get too interested in him.”

Sara stiffened. “He’s a very interesting person,” she said, with an edge in her voice.

The lift of Stephen’s eyebrow was faintly derisive. “Has he been telling you about his daring escape from Hungary?”

“He’s never mentioned how he got out,” she said coldly. “I imagine he wants to forget it.”

Stephen shrugged. “Perhaps.”

It seemed to Sara that there was a tinge of satire in his tone, and she was suddenly angry. “I should have thought he deserved sympathy—not suspicion,” she said cuttingly.

Stephen was openly amused now. “I wonder if there was ever a woman who could resist a broken accent and an impression of courage in adversity,” he said, with a provocative grin.

“I suppose you don’t approve of him because he might upset the tourists,” she retorted hotly. “It would be a pity to remind them that life isn’t all cocktails and sunbathing! Though I shouldn’t worry about it. From what I’ve seen so far, I should say that most of them never give a thought to other people’s difficulties. They’re all much too preoccupied with enjoying themselves.”

“Including you, I would have thought,” Stephen said mildly. “I doubt if you lost much sleep over the Hungarian situation until you met our friend Laszlo.”

“Perhaps I didn’t—but at least I’ve never sneered at anyone because they don’t happen to be rich or important.”

“Now hold on a minute! You’re flaring up too fast, and without a good reason,” Stephen said sharply. “I haven’t sneered at Laszlo. I quite like the fellow.”

“In a patronizing sort of way!” Sara put in scornfully.

She saw Stephen’s mouth tighten and a glint of impatience light his eyes. She sensed that he was beginning to get annoyed and, for some unaccountable reason, a thrust of excitement went through her. One instinct warned her that the argument was getting out of hand and that it would be wise to retrench, and another urged her on.

“I suppose if you had a young sister who was spineless enough to be influenced, you’d encourage her to cultivate some rich and impressionable American like poor Connie Stuyvesant,” she said rashly.

As soon as it was out, she knew that it had been a mad thing to say. There was a moment of painful silence while her face flushed scarlet with embarrassment.

Then, not daring to wait for Stephen’s reply, she began to scramble to her feet and said huskily, “We’d better get back to the others.”

“No, wait a moment!” His lean brown hand clamped firmly over her wrist and pulled her down again. His expression had changed now. It was no longer suggestive of controlled exasperation, but of something else—something which sent a tingle of apprehension down her spine.

“Please let me go.” She tried to sound coolly disdainful, but there was an audible tremor in her voice.

“You know you’re asking for trouble,” he said mockingly. “I’m not sure which would be the most salutary—an old-fashioned spanking or this.” And, with a swiftness that caught her totally unprepared, he let go of her wrist and swivelled her into his arms.

It was futile to struggle. He was much too strong for her to make any effective resistance, particularly as her hat had been knocked off and the sun was shining directly into her eyes. All she could do was to lie rigid with fury against his knees and seethe with impotent rage. It was even impossible to avert her face as her chin was cupped in his palm and, at the least movement, his fingers tightened against her jaw. And it only intensified her fury to know that this was precisely the climax which her instinct had warned her to avoid.

But his kiss, when it came, was not what she had expected. His lips brushed lightly and briefly over her cheekbone, and then, with a stifled laugh, he pushed her back into a sitting position and reached to retrieve her hat.

“You needn’t have panicked, poppet,” he said carelessly. “But that little ordeal may wake you up to some realities. You’re still in the junior league when it comes to coping with wolves.”

“
Oh
!” Sara snatched back the hat, and choked on a rush of scalding retorts. “I—I think you’re the most abominable person I’ve ever met,” she burst out, finally.

And then, with a glare that should have reduced him to a crisp, she turned and marched back along the shore.

Mrs. Stuyvesant was alone when she reached their picnic place.

“I thought you were with Stephen, honey,” the American woman said. “Connie and Angela have just gone over the ridge.”

Sara bent over her beach-bag. “Have they? I think I’ll have a swim,” she said, her voice still unsteady.

“You know, I think this is every bit as romantic as the South Seas,” Mrs. Stuyvesant said dreamily. “It’s certainly a lot more accessible. Connie’s talking of buying up one of these cays and building a beach-house.”

“Oh, really. Excuse me.” Sara disappeared behind the canvas screens that formed a changing place and tugged at the zipper of her shorts. Her heart was still beating in great heavy thumps and her fingers were all thumbs.

Stephen was still far down the beach when she waded into the sea. After a while, swimming in the placid turquoise lagoon within the protective reef, she began to calm down. It was useless to go on raging. Men like Stephen Rand were impervious to snubs or disdain: to give vent to her outrage would only increase his amusement. No, the best way to deal with him would be to shrug off the whole maddening incident as if it had been a triviality. That was how she should have dealt with it at the time, she realized reluctantly. Instead of looking petrified and witless, she ought to have behaved with the utmost composure. That would have shaken his arrogance! Well, it was too late to retrieve her most serious error, but at least she could foil any further diversion he was expecting to derive.

Presently she saw her sister and Conrad coming back. They were holding hands and Angela was laughing at something he had said to her. The sound carried out over the water and made Sara feel a surge of distaste. Suddenly she wished that Aunt Dorothy had never left them the money, that they were safely back in London. There, if nothing else, she had felt her life was reasonably under control and that she was capable of dealing with all the likely eventualities. The weeks had sometimes been a little monotonous, but at least they had had some purpose and formed a pattern.

But here in the Bahamas, where everything had a kind of Technicolor unreality, there was neither purpose nor pattern—unless one accounted the pursuit of pleasure as an adequate motive for existence.

When Sara came out of the water, Stephen was back. By a tremendous effort of will, she forced herself to look at him and to return his quizzical glance with an untroubled smile.

Later, when it was time to return to the launch, she allowed him to hand her into the dinghy without a sign of the effect on her. Yet now, even that casual physical contact made her throat tighten.

It was a little before six when they returned to New Providence. A newly arrived cruise liner was lying in the harbor, and as they passed the outer wharf, they could see that it was the
Caronia.

With the skill of long use, Stephen brought the launch to the hotel steps, and sprang out to assist Mrs. Stuyvesant ashore. And then, as they were all thanking him for a most enjoyable trip, a girl appeared in the doorway at the back of the terrace and called his name.

“Stephen, you wretch! You might have been here to welcome us!” she exclaimed laughingly, coming forward with both hands outstretched.

She was about the same age as Angela, and rather tall. It was evident that she must have been a passenger on the
Caronia
as, unlike air travellers from Europe, her olive skin was already deeply tanned. Indeed, with her tawny complexion, curly dark hair and sparkling brown eyes, she looked like a pretty gypsy—an impression heightened by her hibiscus red dress and the gold coin ear-rings jangling at her ears.

“Hello, Val. It’s nice to see you again. Did you have a good trip?” Stephen asked, taking her hands in his.