Buch lesen: «Substitute Engagement»

CHAPTER ONE

SHE had kept her promise to her father. Now it was time to keep another—that given to Thierry Olivier, too long ago for her liking.

Lucia’s sensitive mouth curved happily at the thought of the beautiful man she loved.

For the moment she couldn’t spot his bright red-gold head anywhere among the crowd thronging the attractive open-air functions area of Grande Comore’s newest hotel, one of the Ballard Group and the latest in a chain gracing most of the popular holiday islands of the Indian Ocean.

Thierry hadn’t been at Hahaya Airport to meet her, of course. As this was early in November, flights from South Africa were not fully booked and she had managed to get on to one a week earlier than she had originally anticipated.

Nor had he been at home when the taxi had delivered her to the Olivier estate, but the new housekeeper there had told her that he and his mother were at the hotel, so she had set out to find them, hailing the first of the local taxis to pass—one of the fourteen-seater Peugeot trucks, or ‘bakkies’, as she had learnt to call them during her three years in South Africa.

Lucia had wondered a little at Thierry’s absence from the estate at this hour on a Saturday afternoon, but when she’d failed to find him in the main bar the presence of several familiar faces among the gathering outdoors had seemed to suggest some local celebration for which this area had been hired.

But the face that distracted her gaze from its roving quest for Thierry was definitely unfamiliar. She supposed that he would stand out anywhere as he was so tall—a rangy six feet or more—but, whoever he was, he had a presence that was nothing to do with his height Somehow he appeared more sharply in focus than anyone else around him—at least to her subjective vision—as if the character so evident in the quirkily attractive dark face invested him with that sharp, clear outline.

Obeying some inner instinct that insisted on seeing the untinted reality, Lucia removed her sunglasses, but learned nothing further. He was dark, he was probably in his early thirties, and he was dead sexy.

With his attention being wholly given to a glamorous young woman with dark red hair, she was unable to discover the colour of his eyes from where she stood, here on the fringes of the throng, but she could see arrogance in the aquiline curve of his nose, while his mouth was many things—firm, controlled, sensual, and yet a little harsh, until he smiled at something the girl with him was saying and the harshness vanished.

With her own eyes no longer hidden by dark lenses, Lucia became aware of a rippling murmur of recognition in both English and French from several people close by.

‘The Flanders girl.’

‘Lucia…’

It amused her to know that it was her eyes by which she was recognised when she didn’t think much of them herself because they were neither blue nor green but something between the two. She would have preferred one or the other to such an indeterminate mixture.

An ensuing silence, so absolute as to be breathless startled her momentarily, but then she was distracted again, because the man who had caught her attention was now staring straight at her, as if alerted by the murmurs that had preceded this strangely avid hush.

She couldn’t think of a word that described his eyes—unless she settled for ‘smoke’. Their colour was as much an enigma as their expression, shadowed and secret, and yet something there made her instantly conscious of herself as a woman, automatically picturing the way she must look to him. Of course, the simple, sleeveless white dress, with its round neckline and softly gathered skirt, would flatter her more in a week or two, when she had got her light, honey-coloured tan back and her straight, fine, shoulder-length hair was fair again, instead of the light brown to which her recent lengthy stint of studying indoors had dulled it.

Lucia gave the man the tiniest of contained smiles and caused her gaze to move on casually. She had looked quite long enough for an engaged, soon-to-be-married woman.

A moment later she was forced to return her attention to him, warned by the stir of interest that she detected among those people nearest to her.

He was coming over to her, his long legs giving him a lithe, easy stride, and his face was lit with a smile that gave every indication of delight.

‘Lucia!’ the voice matched the smile. ‘You made it after all.’

Astonishment barely allowed her to register that the smoky eyes were sparkling with enjoyment as he reached her. Then amazement gave way to pure shock as he took her by the shoulders, turning her slightly so that her startled expression was concealed from the group of onlookers. She was five feet seven so he had to bend his head to brush a kiss across her cheek.

Lucia was aware of warmth both from his lips and the body so close to hers, its nearness an invasion when he was a total stranger, however welcoming.

‘What…’ she began faintly, her voice trailing away as she became conscious of something else—an urgency about the way his fingers were biting into her shoulders, their grasp somehow imperative.

‘Please excuse us a minute.’ He threw the perfunctory request at a small cluster of spectators, and then he was moving her out through one of the Moorish-style archways bordering the large courtyard with its tubs and hanging baskets of lush foliage and the covered bar at one end.

Caught off balance, Lucia couldn’t resist until they had rounded a corner and were alone, when she wrenched herself free of his hold and turned to face him indignantly, her heart’s rhythm still a speedy drumbeat of surprise.

‘What do you think you’re doing, accosting me like this? Abducting me?’ she demanded furiously.

‘Do you always exaggerate?’ he enquired amusedly.

‘No, only when absolute strangers give me an exaggeratedly warm welcome,’ she retorted.

‘The situation called for drastic measures,’ he asserted rather coolly.

‘Oh, I agree! Slapping your face wouldn’t be too drastic under the circumstances! Who are you, anyway?’ she asked tempestuously, noting that his smile had gone.

‘Rob Ballard,’ he supplied. ‘And it’s just as well you didn’t come out with that question back there at the party.’

The magnate himself, she realised, trying to remember what she knew about him. But the only thing she could recall was his Zimbabwean nationality and the fact that his hotels had a reputation for luxury and casual elegance.

‘And you, of course, are Lucia Flanders,’ he added, with a swift, raking assessment of her heart-shaped face, its delicate bone-structure creating gentle curves that cast soft shadows here and there.

‘Well, look, Mr Ballard-’

‘I think you’re going to have to call me Rob, you know,’ he cut in with soft significance, accompanying it with another smile, brilliantly slashing this time.

‘I’d forgotten about men,’ Lucia murmured obscurely. His tone had given her a clue as to what this was about, and she spent a moment reflecting that during the last couple of months she had forgotten about most of the things that pleased, amused or even infuriated her. ‘Sorry, Rob—but look! Engaged!’

With a piquant smile she held up her hand, displaying the flashing diamond on a plain gold band, and the smoke-coloured eyes narrowed briefly.

‘Are you sure of that?’ The smile had grown slightly cruel. ‘Take it off, Lucia.’

He was reaching for her hand so she dropped it hastily, a little disconcerted by his manner but still confident that she could handle this, even if he was using lines that were unfamiliar to her. She shook her head slowly.

‘I’ve worn it too long,’ she claimed happily.

‘Way too long when you haven’t placed a wedding band beside it,’ he agreed smoothly.

‘That’s due to happen shortly,’ she informed him easily, deciding abruptly that she didn’t need to make the rejection kind when he was so over-confident ‘So you’re out of luck, aren’t you?’

‘What? Do you think I’m making some kind of pass?’ he asked disbelievingly.

It rocked her, because that was exactly what she had thought, but pride came to her rescue and she managed to mask her embarrassment.

‘What was it, then?’ she demanded. ‘That warm welcome when we’ve never met before—what were you doing?’

‘Securing my sister’s happiness, or at least her peace of mind—and coincidentally saving your face, I suspect,’ Rob Ballard submitted expressionlessly, and paused. ‘Didn’t Beth Olivier at least give you some warning when she last visited South Africa?’

‘What are you talking about?’

Suddenly Lucia’s voice was sharp with anxiety. Thierry’s mother was a South African who visited her country several times a year, but she had never once contacted Lucia when she’d done so.

Lucia had always been aware of her future mother-in-law’s disapproval, and when all her most winning efforts had failed to achieve any softening in her she had accepted the situation, respectful of the breeding which caused Beth to ignore her when she could and be coldly polite when she couldn’t, because an open, ongoing quarrel would have been intolerable.

‘You’ve stayed away too long, Lucia. Thierry Olivier obviously got tired of waiting for you, because he and my young sister are on the point of announcing their engagement. That’s what this afternoon’s party is about, and partly why I’m here.’

He made no attempt to soften it—the brutal announcement was thrown at her with a trace of mockery but nothing else whatsoever.

‘I don’t believe you.’ The denial was automatic. ‘Thierry and I have been in love for years, and engaged all this last year.’

‘Too long, as I’ve said.’ He was taunting.

‘He knew there was no point in our getting married when I couldn’t be here living with him. I had to get my degree,’ Lucia explained, her tone growing almost blithe as confidence reasserted itself.

‘Of course, and you’ve just completed your third and final year at the University of Witwatersrand, I’m told. So perhaps he decided someone who would put his needs before her career suited him better,’ came the derisive suggestion.

‘I’d like to hear that from him,’ she retorted, beginning to move forward.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘To find Thierry and ask him what’s going on,’ she snapped, but stopped and took a step backwards as she saw Rob Ballard’s hands raised to halt her departure, finding that she didn’t want him to touch her.

‘Oh, no, Lucia, you are not going to go through there and cause a scene,’ he advised her with silken authority. ‘But, in a minute or two, you are going to join the party with me and ease my sister’s mind by showing her and everyone else that you don’t care, that, if anything, this is the way out you’ve been looking for—ever since you met me, I think we’ll make it.’

‘And where would I have met you?’ Lucia enquired scornfully, but a gathering uneasiness was nudging at her confidence and a tiny crease had appeared between eyebrows which were a shade or two darker than her hair.

‘I spent a week in Johannesburg on business a couple of months ago, which is where you’ve been at university. And, for all anyone knows, I’m in and out of there quite regularly. I’ve hardly even had a chance to talk to my sister since I arrived here, so she won’t wonder why I haven’t mentioned you.’

Lucia stared at him with eyes that were beginning to blaze.

‘The thing is full of flaws—’

‘We’ll make it up as we go along.’

‘We won’t make anything up! You’re forgetting something.’ Abruptly her fury erupted. ‘Even if one word of what you say is true, I happen to be wearing the engagement ring Thierry gave me, and he has not asked me to remove it, or to release him in any way whatsoever.’

‘Yes, I had a suspicion that that was the way things were when one of the local people employed here blurted out that he felt so sorry for you. And Olivier was vague about his previous engagmenet when I questioned him about it. Unfortunately I did it in my sister’s presence as I couldn’t really credit that he’d be so stupid as to be engaged to two women at once. I could see her growing uneasy.

‘He didn’t even mention your name—I got that from Hassan Mohammed—so she won’t wonder at my failure to mention the coincidence when she realises who you are, and I know she’ll have questioned Olivier about you by now.’

‘Sorry for me!’ Lucia’s face had flamed at the phrase and she had barely absorbed the rest of his words. ‘No one has any need to feel sorry for me! If any of this is true, then this girl, your sister—what’s her name?’

‘Nadine.’

‘She has stolen Thierry from me and I’m going to get him back! Let me past, please!’

Past him was the only way she could go, she had discovered, because a semicircle of close-growing fran-gipanis blocked her way in all other directions.

‘You’d want him back when he has treated you like this?’ He was deeply contemptuous. ‘Everything else is understandable, but his failure to end one engagement before contracting another is mind-boggling. Presumably he couldn’t know how well you’d time your arrival—or how badly, depending on who is looking at it—and was intending to tell you when the new one was an acomplished fact.’

‘And you think this man is a suitable husband for your precious sister?’ Lucia flared, long acquaintance enabling her to understand Thierry’s behaviour—if any of this was true.

‘It’s complicated, and my absence is delaying the announcement,’ he returned impatiently. ‘It’s enough to say that he suits her, and I happen to think that she’ll suit him better than you would. It’s obvious to me that you’ve been a weakening influence there as it’s only in relation to you that he seems to become less than a man, whereas with regard to my sister I’m satisfied that he is what she needs—strong without being oppressive. Take off that ring, Lucia.’

His eyes had fallen to her hands in which she still held her sunglasses, her fingers twisting and turning tensely. Following his gaze, Lucia forced them to be still.

‘And because that’s your opinion I must simply give him up?’ she taunted. ‘If any of this is true.’

‘Why would I invent something like this?’

Yes, why? The simple question forced her to accept that he was probably telling the truth, and her face went still and closed as she looked away, staring unseeingly at one of the massive old baobabs that grew here on Grande Comore as they did on the African mainland to the west.

In a short while, when the sun’s reunion with the horizon began to streak the sky with lemon and amber, the giant bats of the Comoros, which hung motionless in such trees by day, would begin to emerge, but for now the sun was still a dazzling disc in the blue sky, as bright as the diamond on her finger, and the breeze that caressed her skin was tropically warm; the chill that she was beginning to feel was strictly an interior one and clashed oddly with the heat of rage.

If Thierry truly had done this to her…! The combination of pride and sensitivity that was such an intrinsic part of her nature made the humiliation unendurable, and she thought that she hated this man—this Rob Ballard—for having been the one to deal her the humiliation, knowing, as he had to, that she hadn’t seen it coming; and knowing too that a man had so little regard for her that he had left her to learn of his rejection from a stranger, which was how it would appear to Rob.

Assaulted by a sudden, panicky suspicion that she must be revealing all the anger and shame just beginning to manifest themselves, Lucia hastily put her sunglasses on before looking at him again.

Such a short while ago, before all this, Rob’s dark individuality had been appealing, even arresting—loving Thierry hadn’t diminished her healthy appreciation of personality and sex appeal—but she could no longer find anything attractive about him.

Viewing him now, from behind concealing dark lenses, all she could see was the enemy, tall and dark, the fit lines of his body relaxed beneath the casual but obviously good-quality shirt and trousers that he wore. And yet at the same time he gave the impression of being on the alert and in control, ready to deal with anything.

She hoped that she would never have to see him again. Lucia started to remove her ring, her shaking fingers a betrayal now that rage was a buffeting storm within her.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she ordered him furiously when she found her hand in his as he took over the operation.

‘I know!’ He was sardonically comprehending. ‘Right now you’re very busy hating me, aren’t you? I’m the messenger, and you want to kill me. Illogical but inevitable!’

His perspicacity infuriated her still further. ‘You enjoyed being the messenger!’

‘Someone had to be.’ He didn’t deny the accusation, but his expression had hardened. ‘I’ll keep this for you.’

He had slid the ring from her finger quite easily, and Lucia couldn’t honestly feel its removal as a loss since she wasn’t really accustomed to its light embrace, having preferred not to wear it on campus, especially as her course had entailed so much laboratory work.

‘Give it to me,’ she demanded, seeing him slip it into the breast-pocket of his dark green shirt.

‘I will when you’ve calmed down sufficiently not to make it a prop in a public performance.’ He ignored the hand that she stretched out to him while her other one was busily opening the small bag that hung on a strap from her shoulder. ‘Then you can give it back to Olivier some time when my sister isn’t around, or throw it back at him if that’s what you prefer. Unless you’d like me to do it for you?’

‘He’s not getting it back,’ Lucia stated tautly. ‘He gave it to me. It’s mine and I’ll do as I please with it.’

‘Ah! You’re going to be theatrical and hurl it into the sea,’ he guessed, a gleam of amusement appearing in his mysteriously coloured eyes.

‘I’m going to flog it and keep the money,’ she correct him impulsively. The reasoning behind her defiance was somewhat confused, except that if Thierry really had done this to her he didn’t merit any grand gestures.

Rob’s amusement had increased. ‘Very practical. Now, try to look as if we’ve just enjoyed a passionate reunion and we’ll join the party.’

Lucia hesitated, making a business of closing her bag to give herself time to think, although she already knew that she had no option. Intense pride was reminding her that several people who knew her had seen her arrival. If she failed to reappear they would guess why with some accuracy, and she could no morè bear the idea of being the subject of pitying gossip than she could have endured public ridicule.

Lifting her head, she looked at Rob Ballard and said tightly, ‘The act is unnecessary—I couldn’t enjoy a passionate anything with you—but all right, let’s go.’

‘Then smile,’ he adjured indifferently, and stood aside to allow her to precede him.

The only passion he aroused in her was passionate dislike, she reflected, with rather desperate humour. It occurred to her that she ought to be grateful to him for saving her from making a fool of herself by intercepting her search for Thierry. Lucia’s face burned as she entertained a picture of herself finding Thierry, innocently inviting his embrace and being publicly rejected, but the fact that she had something for which to thank Rob Ballard only exacerbated her resentment.

As they joined the crowd in the beautiful, big courtyard she felt his arm slide about her waist, and she stiffened.

‘I said there was no need for that,’ she reminded him stiltedly. ‘Let go.’

‘When I’m sure I can trust you to behave.’

‘Won’t your wife or girlfriend object?’ she asked tartly, chagrined to find herself curious about his personal situation. Her reaction was partly in response to the looks that he was drawing from just about every woman around—those who caught his attention offering smiles of unmistakable invitation and a favoured few winning themselves answering smiles that were undeniably charming.

‘I don’t have a wife, and my girlfriends are all very understanding,’ he murmured smoothly.

‘I suppose they have to be,’ she countered, thinking that his answer told her a lot, ‘or they rapidly become ex-girlfriends.’

‘I travel a lot,’ he offered dismissively, as if in explanation.

Lucia was having difficulty with her breathing. She knew that it was because she was on edge, dreading the moment when she saw Thierry and would know if he had really done this thing to her, but it was easier to blame Rob for the tight, breathless sensation afflicting her.

‘Don’t hold me so tight,’ she muttered angrily.

‘Don’t worry, Lucia, it’s not personal,’ he responded in a low voice for her ears only. ‘I’m not especially attracted to girls like you.’

‘And I don’t like men like you,’ she retaliated promptly.

‘Great.’ He gave her a sharply scintillating smile. ‘We should get on perfectly.’

‘Or not at all—’

She broke off as her eyes encountered a bright red-gold head some distance away, and a tiny sound of acute distress escaped her as she looked for and found the young woman clinging to Thierry Olivier’s arm. The nightmare was real.

The arm about her waist tightened, reminding her of the urgency with which Rob’s fingers had grasped her shoulders when he had first accosted her.

‘You’ll be all right,’ he asserted in a hard voice.

‘I know I will,’ she flared.

‘And your heart isn’t breaking.’ Rob was openly taunting now, as if he actually wanted her furious.

‘No!’

Inwardly she was coming apart, but she would never admit it, never show it to anyone, and least of all to this man who had already seen too much of her, who had seen her openly disbelieving when he had told her the truth, and who must now feel only pity or contempt—either of which were anathema to all that was proud and sensitive in her.

‘Because you didn’t really love him.’ His smile was savagely derisive this time.

‘Because I know I can get him back,’ she contradicted, in an absolute rage with him and the world, and saying just anything. ‘If I want him. I’m not sure that I do.’

Rob’s eyes had narrowed, and it was a moment before he spoke, observing idly, ‘You definitely don’t need him.’

‘I don’t need anyone!’

It was pride driving her to make these wild claims, because it was all she had now, and no one must guess at the humiliation that was scalding her.

‘That’s one thing I knew about you before I’d even set eyes on you,’ Rob commented in a tone of agreement.

Lucia ignored that, forcing her lips into the shape of a smile as she became aware that several people nearby were regarding them curiously, although Thierry was not yet aware of her presence.

‘So that’s her—your sister?’ she prompted in a low, taut voice, staring at the woman whose colouring was the only thing she appeared to have in common with her brother, and whose oval face was still and serene.

‘Nadine,’ he confirmed, ‘who does need Olivier. So you’re going to let her have him, aren’t you? Your hands, Lucia.’

Only then did she become aware that her hands were clasped in front of her, their tense fingers twisting and turning agitatedly again, and she flushed, forcing them free of each other and letting them drop to her sides.

She didn’t care; she wouldn’t care, she told herself frantically. She wouldn’t let these people destroy her—Thierry and that woman, and this man who saw too much and knew how devastated she really was.

‘How did they meet?’ she asked, managing a netural tone despite the unevenness of her breathing.

‘Nadine has been working here at the hotel.’

‘Nepotism,’ Lucia accused smartly, intent on keeping him the main focus of her anger because somehow it seemed safer that way under the present circumstances.

‘She knows the business. She did a course at the hotel school in Johannesburg.’ Rob made it sound as if he was being incredibly magnanimous, bothering to enlighten her that much, but then he gave her a hawkishly challenging look.

‘Strange! Hassan Mohammed didn’t mention gratuitously opinionated and critical. “Such a vivacious, sunny-natured, loving girl” were his exact words, but perhaps something is traditionally blinding him.’

Lucia knew Hassan well. He had clearly been exaggerating, but she supposed that the description could apply loosely. When she wasn’t wounded in pride and heart, she liked and got on with people.

She had felt a pang of envy when Rob had mentioned his sister’s training. Because it involved dealing with people, the hotel industry had always attracted her, and she had been looking for some unhurtful way to tell her father that she wanted to go to the hotel school rather than getting her degree when the unexpected, fatal heart attack had hit, and there had only been time for a loving urge to ease his final minutes with a promise to go for the degree that meant so much to him.

She had done it, confident that when the results came out she would have passed. And she had come back to the Comoros to fulfil her promise to Thierry, knowing that she was unlikely ever to have to use her qualifications for a number of reasons—including Thierry’s reactionary dislike of the idea of a wife who worked, unless it was to help him on the estate.

Nevertheless, she had come intent on requesting a few weeks in which to unwind after the mental pressures of the last year before they started planning their wedding, and she’d been hopeful that he would be agreeable to her at least taking a temporary job at one or other of the new hotels’ which had been erected on the island in proof of international faith in the Comoros’ burgeoning popularity as a holdiay destination.

However briefly, she yearned to experience more of the sort of contact for which she had acquired a taste in South Africa, earning her air fares between Johannesburg and Grande Comore by waitressing at a restaurant in the evenings and working on the tills of an up-market chain store on Saturdays and Sunday mornings.

Now it occurred to her that, without Thierry, a job was a dire necessity as she hadn’t bothered to save a full return fare this year. In effect, she was stranded here, and not even a national. She could only have become Comorean when they’d married, gaining a proper national identity at last, plus the sense of belonging that she imagined must come with being settled and part of a pair.

Lucia sent Rob Ballard an oblique look from behind her sunglasses.

‘She won’t be working once she marries Thierry,’ she ventured.

‘She has quit already.’ His glance was slightly curious.

‘Then—’ She hesitated, but the urge to phrase it antagonistically wouldn’t be suppressed. ‘She has got my man, so can I have her job? Or any job?’

‘You’ll have to apply to Personnel, or ask Chester Watson—the manager here,’ he elaborated, seeing her blank look. ‘They do the hiring and firing and I don’t interfere. I’ll introduce you to Chester in a minute as I’ll have to leave you to announce this engagement for the happy couple, and I don’t want you anywhere near them until you’ve got yourself under better control than you have now.

‘But why don’t you go back to South Africa and get a job? The Comoros aren’t really your home.’

‘They were going to be. Neither is South Africa, and I barely remember England because we moved around the Indian Ocean most of my life. My mother tried to persuade me to go back with her and study in England after my father died, but Johannesburg was nearer and cheaper, and by that time Thierry and I had fallen in…’ Her words faded as Lucia realised that what she was describing was an illusion. ‘My father was—’

‘Ernest Flanders, the marine biologist,’ Rob supplied, when she broke off again as she wondered why she was bothering to confide anything at all. ‘He made some impressive discoveries, and it seems that you’re set to continue his work eventually as it’s marine biology you’ve been studying, isn’t it? Johannesburg always strikes me as an incongruous place to do it, inland as it is, but, of course, Wits degrees are recognised worldwide.