Country of the Falcon Read online

  ‘What does this mean—together? He was making love to you?’ Now Juana sounded astounded.

  Alexandra nodded. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Que!’ Juana sank back in her chair incredulously. ‘I do not understand.’ She sat up again. ‘There was something between you?’

  Alexandra drew a trembling breath. ‘Not really.’ She pressed her palms against her knees. ‘He—he thinks of me only as a child.’

  ‘A man does not make love to a child, Alexandra.’ Juana was impatient. ‘I was afraid of this.’

  ‘Why?’

  Juana linked her fingers together. ‘Because I do not like to see you getting hurt.’

  Alexandra rose to her feet. ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is.’ Juana looked down at her hands. ‘And when he knew you were leaving? Did Declan say nothing?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Alexandra’s lips curled. ‘He said something.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘He suggested I might like to go and stay with his family in Sao Paulo for a few weeks!’ Alexandra said bitterly.

  ‘He—invited you to stay with his family?’ Juana gasped. ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘What do you suppose I said? I didn’t want his—charity!’

  ‘Charity? What is this? In that way was this charity?’

  Alexandra paced restlessly about the room. ‘It was a way to solve his problems, don’t you see? It negated any protest I might have made about leaving with you and Daddy.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Alexandra sighed irritably. ‘Don’t you? Juana, has it occurred to you that some of what Clare said might have been right, after all? I—I fell in love with him, not the other way about. I wanted him to make love to me. Maybe he was—physically attracted, but if he was it was because—because I encouraged him.’

  Her voice broke and Juana rose and went across to her, putting an arm about the painfully thin shoulders, holding her close.

  ‘Oh, Alexandra!’ she exclaimed huskily. ‘Don’t—please don’t cry! Try to remember, you are only seventeen—all right, almost eighteen. But you have your whole life ahead of you. Give it a chance. Nothing is ever as black as it seems.’

  After Juana had left her Alexandra lay on her bed staring blindly at the ceiling. Talking had released a little of her tension, but it hadn’t solved the problem. Nothing could do that!

  During the next few weeks, Alexandra made a concerted effort to do as her stepmother had suggested and give life a chance. She dreaded their return from Cannes and their inevitable dismay at her deteriorating appearance. She had even visited a doctor and obtained some tablets to revitalise her appetite, but it was useless. She awoke every morning with the familiar feeling of dread which came from knowing she had to get through another twelve hours before she could swallow another of the capsules which assured her a night’s unconsciousness.

  Fortunately perhaps, Aunt Liz was too concerned about her own position in the household to pay too much attention to her niece and apart from berating her on occasion for not eating the good food she provided she made little effort to probe the cause.

  At the beginning of September they received word that Professor Tempest and his wife would be returning home in a little over a week. The news seemed to galvanise Alexandra into action. In two weeks her father would expect her to return to school and somehow she had to convince him before that time that she was capable of earning her own living.

  But her plans were hampered by a head cold which quickly spread to her chest and put her to bed for several more days. Aunt Liz looked after her competently, but she had none of Juana’s gentleness, and seemed to be beginning to find Alexandra’s continued ill health more of a nuisance than anything.

  ‘You’re due to return to school in a fortnight!’ she complained impatiently. ‘What on earth are they going to think we’ve been doing to you? You look like a ghost!’

  Alexandra buried her face in the pillows. ‘Perhaps I won’t be returning to school,’ she said in a muffled voice.

  ‘What? Not returning to school? Your father didn’t say anything about that to me.’

  ‘I know.’ Alexandra pushed the covers away from her feverish body. ‘But I don’t intend to go back.’

  ‘What nonsense!’ Her aunt was uncompromisingly abrupt. ‘You just pull yourself together, my girl. You’ll be returning to school. What else could you do?’

  ‘I could get a job!’

  ‘A job!’ her aunt scoffed. ‘What kind of a job could you do?’

  ‘I’d like to train to be a nurse—–’

  ‘A nurse!’ Her aunt was irritable. ‘Nurses need to be reliable, not wan-faced waifs who are blown over by the first puff of wind!’

  Alexandra knew her aunt too well to argue. So she let it go, deciding that whatever plans she made she would keep them to herself.

  The weekend before her parents were due home. Alexandra was left with only the servants for company. Her aunt had had a letter from an old school friend who now lived in the United States that she was leasing a cottage in Sussex for several weeks, and with it came an invitation for a weekend’s visit. To give her aunt her due she had been very doubtful about accepting, even though Alexandra assured her that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself for a couple of days. Secretly, she thought she might have the opportunity to arrange an interview at one of the many London hospitals who always seemed to need student nurses. If she could only accomplish something, have some proof to give her father that she was not as incompetent as he seemed to think …

  Aunt Liz left on Friday evening and Alexandra went to bed soon after eight o’clock, swallowing two of her tablets to assure herself of a decent night’s sleep. But she seemed scarcely to have closed her eyes before someone was shaking her awake again, someone whose hands were rough and impatient, whose voice was strangely harsh—yet familiar …

  She blinked in the light from the lamp that had been lit beside her bed—and then her heart almost stopped beating. She was having hallucinations now, to add to all her other miseries. It could not possibly be Declan who was bending over her, Declan’s hands that were shaking her, slapping her, Declan’s tongue that was lashing her with words that hitherto she had never heard him use. She closed her eyes to shut out the image.

  ‘For God’s sake, Alexandra,’ he was saying angrily, ‘wake up, can’t you? Damn you, what have you done to yourself!’

  ‘Really, sir, I don’t know what Miss Tempest would say if she came home and found you in her niece’s bedroom!’

  Alexandra’s eyelids flickered. That was Mrs. Forrest’s voice, her father’s cook and general factotum. What was Mrs. Forrest doing in her bedroom?

  Someone flung back the bedcovers and Mrs. Forrest protested. Cool air flooded over Alexandra’s body and she realised belatedly that she was wearing the sheerest of chiffon nightgowns. She tried to gather her wits while strong hands levered her up in the bed and forced her feet to the floor.

  ‘Now that will do!’ Mrs. Forrest sounded positively frightened. ‘If you don’t get out of here this minute, I’ll call the police—–’

  ‘Go and make some black coffee, Mrs. Forrest, and stop behaving like a panic-stricken mouse! What in God’s name has she been taking? Do you know?

  Alexandra swayed in a sitting position as Mrs. Forrest said: ‘Miss Alexandra’s been ill, sir. She takes sleeping tablets—I told you.’

  ‘Okay, okay, go and make that coffee! And stop looking so alarmed. She knows me, I tell you.’

  Alexandra thought she heard Mrs. Forrest walk away, but she couldn’t have done. None of this was really happening. It was all some horrible nightmare and in a while she would wake up beneath the covers of her bed, not pacing up and down the soft carpet on unsteady legs supported by a grip that was almost cruel in its firmness.

  ‘Alexandra!’ Declan’s voice was close to her ear now, and she tried to see his face. But he was too close. His face was
blurred.

  Licking dry lips, she summoned all her strength and said wonderingly: ‘Declan?’

  ‘Oh, God!’ His hold on her brought her suddenly close against the hard length of his body. ‘Oh, God, Alexandra!’ he groaned, and buried his face in the soft hollow of her neck.

  He was trembling, she could feel it, and as the waves of Morpheus began to recede her conscious mind took over. This was actually happening, he was actually here. And he was holding her in his arms as if he would never let go.

  Her lids felt sticky, but at least they no longer clung together and she looked incredulously round the room. It was just the same as it had been when she climbed into bed—how long ago? She focused on the clock. Ten o’clock! Was that all it was? Had she only been in bed a little less than two hours?

  As full recall came to her she became aware of her scanty attire and would have drawn back from him, but he would not le her go. At last he lifted his head and looked down at her, and now she could see the lines of strain which had etched a path from his nose to his mouth. She could see something else, too—the burning anger in his eyes.

  ‘How dare you!’ he demanded through clenched teeth. ‘How dare you abuse your body by drugging yourself like that!’

  Alexandra tried to push him away from her, shocked by the fury in his voice. ‘I—I haven’t been sleeping well,’ she began unevenly.

  ‘Damn you, do you think I have?’ His hands gripped her shoulders. ‘Why didn’t you write to me? Why didn’t you tell me—–’

  ‘Tell you? Tell you what?’ Alexandra quivered.

  Declan shook his head grimly, looking down at her, uncaring of her futile attempts to cover herself. ‘You’re so thin!’ he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘So thin! Don’t you realise how studid you’ve been?’

  Alexandra tore herself away from him. ‘I don’t need you to come here and tell me how stupid I am,’ she mumbled in a wobbly voice. ‘If that’s all you’ve woken me up for, please go away.’

  She heard him draw an unsteady breath. ‘That’s not why I’m here,’ he stated bleakly. ‘For heaven’s sake, where is that woman with the coffee!’

  Alexandra pulled on her silk dressing gown. ‘Perhaps we’d better go downstairs—–’

  ‘Why?’ He turned cold eyes on her. ‘This is good enough.’

  ‘Mrs. Forrest will tell my aunt—–’

  ‘Do you think I care?’

  As though in answer to his demand, Mrs. Forrest appeared at that moment carrying a tray. She looked relieved to find that Alexandra was awake and apparently unharmed, but as she put down the tray she said: ‘I—I couldn’t stop him, miss. He—he practically forced his way in here. I told him you were in bed and didn’t want to be disturbed, and he said that nobody went to bed at half past nine!’

  Alexandra forced a faint smile. ‘That’s all right, Mrs. Forrest.’

  ‘He said he knew you, miss.’

  ‘He does,’ Alexandra nodded. ‘Thank you, Mrs. Forrest. That will be all.’

  ‘Would you like me to stay—–’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs. Forrest.’ Declan walked to the door and held it meaningfully and Mrs. Forrest could do no more than leave them, although Alexandra guessed that her aunt would hear of this the minute she got back.

  Declan closed the door behind her, leaned against it for a minute, and then walked across to pour the coffee. Alexandra watched him. She had not seen him in a suit before, and the dark blue corded velvet fitted his muscular body closely. His shirt was blue, too, a darker shade, accentuating the darkness of his tan. He had a definitely alien quality in the pink and white luxury of her bedroom.

  He brought her a cup of black coffee. ‘Drink it!’ he commanded brusquely, and she obeyed. He drank his own coffee thoughtfully, and then without asking her permission lit a cheroot. There was nowhere for him to knock his ash, so he opened the door into her bathroom and dropped the ash into the washbasin.

  When he came back, Alexandra had finished her coffee and was putting down her cup on the tray. He watched her broodingly, the cheroot between his teeth, his hands thrust uncompromisingly into the front pockets of his trousers.

  ‘Well?’ he said at last, without taking the cheroot out of his mouth. ‘How long have you been like this?’

  Alexandra turned away. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Like this,’ he repeated coldly. ‘Sick, ill, not eating or sleeping?’

  ‘I—I’ve had a cold—–’

  ‘And the rest?’

  ‘If you must know, I developed a gastric infection before we left South America.’ She plucked nervously at the cord of her gown. ‘It’s taken some time to shake it off.’

  ‘You don’t look as though you have shaken it off,’ he commented, his eyes raking her mercilessly.

  Alexandra shook her head. ‘I—I lost some weight, that’s all. I—I look better with my clothes on than off. I—I always did.’

  ‘I disagree.’ He surveyed her without emotion. ‘I have different recollections.’

  Alexandra’s face burned. ‘Yes—well, I’m sorry if you don’t approve.’

  She was trying to be as composed as he, but her nerves were shattered by his nearness, and she couldn’t understand the contempt in his eyes when he looked at her. Tears pricked at the back of her eyes, and she turned away so that he should not see her pitiful weakness. She was unaware until she looked up and saw his reflection in the dressing table mirror that he could see everything.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here, instead of giving in to tears?’ he asked harshly.

  She swung round, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘All—all right. Why are you here?’

  He tossed the cheroot into the basin in the bathroom and came towards her. ‘Juana wrote to me.’

  ‘W-what?’ Alexandra was horrified. ‘Oh—oh, she shouldn’t have done!’

  ‘Why not? Do you know what she said?’

  Alexandra shook her head mutely, and he drew an envelope out of his inside pocket, tapping it against his other hand.

  ‘Then I’ll tell you. She wrote to thank me for looking after you while you were at Paradiablo.’

  ‘O-oh!’

  ‘That wasn’t all.’ His jaw tautened and she could see a pulse working away rapidly. ‘She also said that you had unfortunately developed a gastric infection in Rio and that in consequence you had been unable to accompany them to Cannes.’

  Alexandra pressed a hand to her throat. ‘I—I see.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Was—was that all?’

  Declan dropped the letter on to the bed. ‘Yes, that was all. Read it! What did you expect?’

  Alexandra shook her head. ‘I—nothing—–’

  Declan’s face darkened. ‘I don’t believe you, Alexandra. I think you were afraid she might have told me the truth about you.’

  ‘The truth?’ Alexandra felt hopelessly incapable to withstand his anger.

  ‘Yes. But fortunately Juana has some perception. She realised that if, as she believed, I did care about you, the very fact that you had been ill would be sufficient to bring me here to find out.’

  Alexandra was shaking so much her legs no longer felt as if they would hold her. ‘Declan, I—–’

  His face contorted with an expression of self-disgust and he reached for her, grasping her cruelly, wrenching her slender body close against the hardness of his.

  ‘Crazy, crazy woman!’ he groaned, burying his face in her hair. ‘Can’t you feel what you do to me—what you’ve always done to me. Only I don’t have the right to enjoy it!’

  Alexandra trembled violently. ‘I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she breathed, pressing her face against the silk of his shirt.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he insisted, holding her face between his hands. ‘I’m talking about you—and me—and the fact that I’m too old for you, besides living the kind of life no man should offer to a woman!’

  Alexandra’s pale cheeks suffused with colour. ‘
You mean—you mean—–’

  ‘I mean I’m in love with you,’ he muttered thickly, covering her mouth with his own and silencing her protests effectively.

  For a long time there was silence in the room, broken only by the endearments he murmured against her lips, her cheeks, the hollows of her throat. But at last he had to put her away from him, reaching unsteadily for his cheroots.

  ‘All right,’ he said, and his tone was grim again. ‘You begin to see how it is with me.’ He thrust a cheroot between his teeth and lit it with unsteady fingers. ‘When I received Juana’s letter I was—–’ He shook his head. ‘I knew I had to see you again. To assure myself that you were all right.’ He drew her close to him, seemingly unable to keep his hands off her. ‘Can you imagine how I felt when I arrived here and found you apparently suffering the effects of a severe sleeping draught?’

  ‘Oh, Declan!’ She slid her arms round his waist, herself unable to actually believe that this was really happening. ‘You don’t know how—how desperate I’ve been.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ His eyes were hard. ‘Why didn’t you accept the invitation to stay with my parents if you felt this way? Why did you have to go scuttling off home like a terrified rabbit!’

  ‘You—don’t understand. There—there were reasons—’

  ‘Clare? Yes, I know. Consuelo told me.’

  ‘What did she tell you?’

  ‘About what Clare had said—about the row she had heard between you and your father, ably assisted by Mrs. Forman.’

  Alexandra’s tongue touched her lips. ‘When did she tell you?’

  ‘After you’d gone.’ Declan shrugged. ‘Oh, don’t judge me too harshly, Alexandra. I wanted you, I admit it. I also admit to taking out my frustration on you.’

  ‘That day by the pool—–?’

  ‘Yes. That day by the pool.’ He compressed his lips derisively. ‘I was quite convincing, wasn’t I? God knows what would have happened if you hadn’t stopped me.’ He bent his head. ‘You’ve no idea how much I despised myself.’

  ‘But—why?’ She stared at him tremulously.

  ‘Because you were so young—so innocent. And you trusted me. The trouble was, I couldn’t trust myself.’