Rooted in Dishonour Read online

  'You know that Raoul brought her home, don't you? God knows how she ran into him, but then perhaps he knows something we don't.'

  'What are you implying, Barbara?' Willard's voice was icy.

  'Implying?' Barbara sniffed. 'I'm not implying any- thing. It just seems rather improbable, doesn't it? Meeting Raoul unexpectedly like that. You'd almost suspect she got lost deliberately.'

  'What do you mean?'

  Beth hung back against the wall, her hand pressed to her lips. Barbara knew her father better than he knew himself. Intuitively, she had struck on the one aspect of this situation that Willard had accepted least objectively.

  'Well...' Barbara was enjoying this, Beth could tell. 'Raoul is an—attractive man, isn't he?'

  'Beth hardly knows him,' snapped her father curtly. 'She's only met him twice.'

  'That you know of,' inserted Barbara silkily, and Beth could imagine the way her words were affecting Willard. 'Where did she meet him today? Did she tell you that?'

  'Yes.' Willard's voice was strangled. 'He was at the school. With Isabelle Signy.'

  'Isabelle?' Now Beth heard Barbara's voice change, and the throbbing emotion in that one word convinced her that she had not been mistaken in imagining Barbara's feelings for her father's overseer were in no way indifferent.

  'Yes, Isabelle!' declared Willard now, and Beth could almost have sworn he was enjoying this sudden turn in the conversation. 'Beth found her way to the school, and Valerian offered to bring her home. Does that satisfy that suspicious little mind of yours?'

  'So that was where he was...' Barbara seemed to be talking to herself, but the sibilant sounds were audible to Beth's ears. Unable to remain an unwilling eavesdropper any longer, she opened the door without knocking and faced both of them.

  'Beth...' Willard came to her at once, his still-hectic countenance evidence of the strain he had been putting upon himself. But at least he seemed calm enough now, and only the shallowness of his breathing bore witness to the fact that he had been in some pain. 'We were just talking about you.'

  'Yes, I know.' Beth ignored the baleful stare Barbara was directing towards her. 'I heard you.'

  'You heard!' It was Barbara who spoke, but her father interposed himself between them.

  'What did you hear?' he asked, and Beth looked up at him steadily.

  'Enough,' she answered quietly. 'And I just want you to know that I've never made any assignations with Raoul Valerian, whacever Barbara thinks.'

  Willard's face mirrored his satisfaction, and with an arm across her shoulders, he turned to face his daughter. Beth faced her, too, fighting an inward battle with her conscience as she did so. But after all, she had said nothing less than the truth, and when one was faced with an adversary of Barbara's calibre, one had to use the weapons closest to hand. Some time she would have to come to terms with her own complicity, but not now. Now she was fighting for the future Willard wanted— the future she told herself she wanted, too.

  Expecting Barbara to say something more, Beth found her silence more disturbing. She had not forgotten Barbara's observation of the marks on her arm that first afternoon she was on the island, and if the other girl had chosen to confront her with her suspicions as to their origin, Beth might well have found herself in very deep water. But Barbara said nothing, and it was Willard who spoken first.

  'Well?' he said challengingly. 'Shall we abandon this argument, as you abandoned Beth at the summit of Mount Fall?'

  'I think Barbara expected me to follow her—' Beth

  was beginning carefully, when the other girl broke in on her.

  'Don't make excuses for me, Miss Rivers!' she snapped, brushing past them on her way to the door. Her eyes spat fire. 'If I ever do decide to abandon you, I'll make sure it's somewhere a little less accessible than the slopes of Mount Fall!' and she slammed out of the room, the door banging heavily behind her.

  Willard made an automatic move to follow her, but Beth held him back. 'Let her go,' she exclaimed urgently. 'Please, Willard. We—let her get over it. Don't upset yourself any more.'

  He looked down at her tautly for a moment, and then he closed his eyes as if the effort was too much for him. 'All right,' he said, his lids opening again. 'I'll let it go this time. But if this happens again...'

  'It won't.' Beth made this assertion more confidently than she felt, but somehow she had to win a breathing space—for both of them.

  It was two days before she saw Barbara again. In those two days Willard had made it his business to speak to Clarrie and now Beth was consulted about dinner menus, and her opinion sought as to what household duties should be carried out. This latter arrangement suited her far more than the other and it was with great satisfaction she accompanied the black cook-housekeeper on a tour of those apartments of the house that were in use, and had the opportunity to peer into some of the dust- sheet shrouded rooms that were not.

  The amount of dust and decay in these unused apartments was appalling. Ants and beetles had made their homes in crumbling woodwork, while mouldering upholstery and mattresses were the hiding places for cockroaches and other crawling horrors.

  'Doesn't anyone ever air these rooms?' Beth asked, drawing back with a shudder from a spider-haunted cupboard, but Clarrie just shook her head.

  'No time, no servants,' she explained, without concern. 'Miss Barbara, she says look after the rooms that are in use and leave the rest,'

  'But isn't she afraid that insects will invade the rest of the house?' Beth protested, and Clarrie's several chins pursed with indignation.

  'I'se no mind-reader, Miss Rivers. Miss Barbara, she

  say look after—'

  '—the rooms that are in use, I know.' Beth closed another door on a scene of devastation. 'All right. I'll take it up with Mr Willard. Now, shall we turn out the linen cupboard?'

  Surprisingly, she felt, Willard was less concerned about the neglect of his house than she had expected.

  'You're not used to Sans Souci yet, my dear,' he explained over dinner that evening. 'It's impossible for man to keep one step ahead of nature without the staff to do it. That was why slavery was so necessary here on the islands. You've seen what's happened to the gardens. When I was a boy—even then, things were beginning to get out of hand..

  'But, Willard, those rooms would be better empty—'

  'What?' He stared at her aghast. 'What—throw all that furniture away?'

  'It's no use.' Beth sought for words. 'Willard, it's old! Decayed! No one will ever be able to use it again.'

  He folded his napkin with careful precision and laid it on the table beside his plate. 'My dear, you don't know what you're saying. There are items in those rooms that are quite priceless. Articles of especial interest to antique dealers and collectors.. .'

  'Not now, Willard.'

  He went on as if he hadn't heard her. 'There are items of furniture there that have been in this family for generations, and you're suggesting I should throw them out!' He stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. 'One day—one day, who knows? I may find someone who would treasure them as I have, and then maybe I might be persuaded to sell some of them. At the right price, of course. Until then...' He shrugged with annoying inconsequence. 'Leave them be. Let them rest in peace.'

  'Moulder, you mean,' exclaimed Beth, hardly willing

  to believe her ears. 'Willard! You can't know what it's like in those rooms.'

  'I know,' he replied, and with a sigh she" resumed her paring of the peach she had accepted earlier. But now its velvety skin was too much like the wings of an enormous moth she and Clarrie had found trapped in the folds of a rotting curtain, and she pushed the peach aside and tried not to be aware that in some subtle way Willard had disappointed her again.

  At least, she determined, she would see that the rooms . that were in use were kept more thoroughly than they had been in the past. To this end, the following morning she and Marya began a turn-out of the drawing room. The young maid wasn't altogether
suited at the idea of the standards of her work being called into question, but Beth ignored her sulky countenance.

  The previous evening Willard had sent word to the plantation that he wanted to examine the records of any transactions which had taken place in his absence, and almost before he was dressed, Andre Pecares had arrived and was right now closeted with him in his study. Beth, who had been expecting Raoul, had steeled herself for the confrontation, and her relief at seeing his assistant had been tempered by the uneasy suspicion that the overseer was avoiding her.

  She was standing on some steps lifting down the portrait of Willard in his college robes when she became aware of someone watching her from the archway which led into the hall. She looked round rather impatiently. Marya had gone to fetch a cloth to polish the hearth and was taking over-long about ir. Beth suspected she was complaining to Clarrie, and was on the point of issuing an order to her to hurry when she saw the lean, dark- haired man leaning negligently against the stonework. He was the last person she had expected to see, particularly as Andre was presently employed in discussions with her fiance, and in consequence she moved too fast and too carelessly and lost her balance. The portrait

  landed squarely on the mantelshelf without suffering any mishap, but Beth fell awkwardly, jarring her hip on the stone surround of the hearth.

  Raoul's hard hands helped her to her feet, but she drew sharply away from his touch. 'I'm all right,' she exclaimed shortly, running exploratory fingers over the tenderness of her thigh. 'That was a stupid thing to do.'

  Raoul looked down at her steadily, his eyes moving with almost tangible persuasion over her body, and she stepped back from him, pushing aside a loose strand of hair, wishing he would say something. But there was a guarded kind of intensity in his stare, and she found her breath was sticking in her throat. Not here, she told herself sickeningly. Oh, not here! But already her body was betraying her, and the remembrance of the intimacies they had shared was compelling an awareness inside her that made her badly want to reach out and touch him again. Then she saw the wide band of plaster on his wrist, and gestured towards it awkwardly, needing to break the silence between them: 'How—how are the burns?'

  'Oh...' He lifted his arm and regarded the dressing without interest. 'Did Willie tell you about that? I did a stupid thing, too. Scalded myself with some boiling water.'

  Beth's look was uncomprehending. 'I know—' she

  was beginning, when someone else came into the room behind Raoul. It was Barbara, slim and elegant as usual in her riding gear, her dark eyes flashing maliciously towards Beth before coming to rest with proud possession on the man beside her.

  'Did I hear someone fall?' she enquired mockingly, her lips curling as she surveyed Beth's dishevelled appearance. 'Oh, yes, I did. Working hard. Miss Rivers?'

  Beth had no answer for her. The other girl's appearance had thrown her into a state of shock, and she was thankful her pallor could be construed as reaction from her fall. However, it explained Raoul's casual explana- tion of the dressing, although how Willard should know about it, she couldn't imagine. But what was troubling her most was her reaction to seeing Raoul again, and the realisation of how easy it would be to slip into an affair with him. She had no illusions regarding his feelings for her. She knew it was only respect for his employer which had prevented him from making love to her when he had the opportunity, but how long would that respect last once she and Willard were married? Once she was no longer a' virgin ...

  'Miss Rivers looks like she's spring-cleaning,' observed Raoul now. 'A little late in the season, but not unwarranted, hmm, Barbara?'

  'I expect Miss Rivers is used to menial work,' retorted the other girl spitefully. 'I suppose you emptied bedpans in the hospital?'

  'Not for years and years,' retorted Beth, stung into retaliation. 'But I've done my share in my time, and it's not such a bad job. I expect you've done less and fared worse, Barbara.'

  Barbara's mouth drew into a thin line. 'You think you're so clever, don't you?' she snapped. 'But don't think because you find it easy to fool my father that you can fool us!'

  'Us?' Beth's eyes moved from Raoul to Barbara and back to Raoul again.

  'Yes, us!' confirmed Barbara triumphantly. 'You didn't think Raoul was taken in by your professed love for my father, did you? He knows as well as I do that you saw my father as a massive meal-ticket!'

  Beth was more shocked than she should have been. It ought to have been no surprise to her to learn that Raoul had discussed his feelings with Willard's daughter—after all, he had made them plain enough to her. But hearing them from Barbara's lips was somehow obscene, and she could not immediately hide the stricken look in her eyes.

  But Barbara wasn't finished yet. 'So don't think you can go running to Raoul when things get tough,' she added, 'as you did the other day. He told me how you begged him to bring you home—how you pretended not to be able to follow his directions.'

  Beth's gasp was audible. 'He said that—!' she began,

  disbelievingly, and then closed her lips on the words of denial that fought to be spqken. What were they trying to do to her? To get her to admit what had happened at Raoul's beach-house? Did Barbara know about that, too? Had they arranged it between them, knowing how jealous Willard could be?

  Raoul's eyes compelled her to look at him, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing how distraught she felt. Instead, she thrust her hands into the pockets of her jeans and said with unknowing adroitness: 'What's the matter, Barbara? Are you jealous, too?'

  'Why, you—' Barbara spat out a vicious expletive,

  and Beth turned abruptly away, fumbling for her duster, unable to face them any longer.

  'I think you're wasting your time, Barbara,' she heard Raoul say with dry insistence, but she felt no gratitude towards him. He was part of this—this conspiracy to get her to leave here, but he would see—they would both see—that she was made of sterner stuff. And at least their behaviour had made her see her sexual attraction for the overseer for what it was. Nevertheless, she was relieved when she heard their footsteps crossing the tiled floor, and when she ventured to look round again she found she was alone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LATER in the morning Willard sent a message with Jonas inviting her to join him and his guests for coffee, but Beth refused. She made what she was doing an excuse, but when towards lunchtime Willard came to find her, he expressed impatience with her efforts to help the servants.

  'We don't do that sort of thing here,' he said, showing little interest in what she had achieved. 'It's hard enough to keep servants as it is. Do you want me to lose those I have?'

  Beth moved her shoulders uncomprehendingly. 'I don't understand.'

  'Marya's been complaining to Jonas that the new missus doesn't think her work is good enough. If I'm not careful, Clarrie will add her voice to the protest and then where would we be?'

  Beth sighed. 'All right, all right. I won't do anything else. But if—I mean, when—we get married, you won't be able to stop me from complaining if the place isn't kept as clean as it should be.'

  Willard's bony hands descended on her shoulders, and a smile lifted his mouth. 'When we're married,' he echoed with some satisfaction. 'Yes. That was one of the reasons I hoped you'd join us for coffee. I've been discussing the arrangements for the dinner party with Barbara.'

  'Oh, yes?' Beth was wary, but Willard obviously knew nothing of their confrontation.

  'Yes. She agrees with me—we should invite all our friends. Including those from St Lucia and Martinique.'

  'Oh, Willard! Should you?' Beth was less enthusiastic. 'Won't that mean that some of them will have to stay overnight?'

  'Why not?' Willard was on his guard again. 'Now you're not going to give me that guff about it being too much for me again, are you?' He shook his head. 'I warn you, Beth, I'm getting a little sick of all this mollycoddling.'

  Beth bit her tongue and moved her shoulders in a dismissing gesture, and he gave her a
swift hug.

  'That's my girl,' he said. Then he wrinkled bis nose.

  'Hmm, you smell dusty. I think you'd better take a shower before lunch, and then we'll have no more of this unnecessary activity. I don't want you wearing yourself out before I even get a ring on your finger.'

  His choice of words reminded her too uncomfortably of Raoul Valerian, and excusing herself, she left him and ran up the stairs to her room.

  A shower cooled her body and her nerves, and when she joined Willard on the patio for lunch, she looked relaxed and tanned in a sleeveless cotton smock whose scalloped edge ended just below her knee. It was white with only a line of embroidery to add a touch of colour, and its fullness hinted at the slim but rounded curves beneath.

  Willard took both her hands and surveyed her with smiling possession. 'Beautiful,' he said huskily. 'This is how I like to see you. Not hot and grubby, and stinking of beeswax.'

  'The transformation is not so hard to perform,' Beth remarked quietly. 'Why shouldn't I ring the changes?'

  'Because I'm master here,' replied Willard, and although he smiled as he said it, she knew he meant it.

  As if to underline her position, Clarrie had produced a delectable lunch. A cold crab bisque was followed by tiny cutlets of veal, stuffed with ham and cheese, and fried in breadcrumbs, and to finish there were peaches, soaked in brandy and served with cream. It was the kind of meal Willard could not be permitted to have too often, but conscious of his earlier disapproval, Beth made no demur when he had a second helping of cream.

  Afterwards, he was obviously drowsy, and offered no protest to her suggestion that he should rest. But once he was settled in his room, Beth came downstairs again, unable to find the relaxation for herself she had offered to him.

  Outside, the sun and the sea beckoned, but mindful of Raoul Valerian's bungalow along the beach and his arbitrary use of the beach, she was loath to venture there. Even so, she was restless, and on impulse, she left the house and walked round to the coach houses at the back where the station wagon she and Willard sometimes used was garaged.