The Englishman's Bride

Kit went rigid. ‘No bikinis,’ she almost shouted.

Tatiana stared.

‘I’ll get a one-piece from the sports shop,’ Kit said in a more moderate tone.

‘And some shorts. And light tops. You have no idea how hot it’s going to be,’ Tatiana warned her. ‘Something respectable to wear in the evening. Oh, and a straw hat to keep your head covered in the sun. Coral Cove is on the Equator. You have to be careful. Blondes more than most.’

‘Thank you for the advice. But won’t I be able to buy straw hats and stuff there?’

Tatiana snorted. ‘This is not a teen beach club, you know. There won’t be hot-dog stands and market traders. Nikolai said Coral Cove was one of the most sophisticated hotel complexes in the world.’

Kit narrowed her eyes at her. ‘So?’

Tatiana was unimpressed by the dangerous glint. ‘You’ll feel out of place if you don’t dress properly,’ she warned impressively.

‘Well, it’s an empty sophisticated hotel complex at the moment,’ said Kit, refusing to be impressed.

‘All the more reason to keep up the proper standards.’

‘Tough toenails. I don’t suppose I meet their standards in the first place.’

Tatiana sighed. ‘You have such a chip on your shoulder, Kit.’

‘Only when I’m around people who rabbit on about proper standards,’ said Kit dangerously.

Tatiana gave up. She turned to go.

The French window swung gently. An elegant white paw, like an arm in a long evening glove, appeared round it.

‘That cat,’ said Tatiana with disfavour.

Kit chirruped at it. The paw pointed daintily and was followed by the rest of the animal. A small brindled cat oozed round the door and leapt for the rug in front of the fire. It began to wash itself rapidly. Kit smiled.

‘Cats,’ muttered Tatiana. ‘Anyone would think you were a hundred, not twenty-two.’

‘She’s only visiting.’

Tatiana cast her kohl-rimmed eyes to heaven. ‘You ought to be having visitors who are tall, dark and handsome and make you rethink your position on bikinis.’

Kit shook her head, impatient. ‘Oh, not that again. Why does it matter to you what I do with my life?’

‘Because you’ve only got one,’ said Tatiana forcefully. ‘And I can’t bear waste.’

There was a fraught silence. Kit was the first to look away. She bit her lip.

Tatiana did not know the horrors that sometimes rode Kit, when the nights were long and she couldn’t sleep. Even Lisa did not know all of them. But Kit had some very good reasons for her position on bikinis. And tall and handsome visitors were definitely not welcome.

She said with difficulty, ‘Look, I know this doesn’t fit in with your world view, Tatiana. But not all of us are brave enough to go everywhere and experience everything.’

‘Bravery has nothing to do with it.’

‘Oh, yes, it does,’ said Kit quietly. She faced her simmering landlady squarely. ‘Believe me, I do the best I can. But I’ve done the tall, dark and handsome visitor bit, years ago. Didn’t work. In my experience men just tear your heart out. And, when they’ve finished that, they mess with your head. I’m not brave enough to go through it all again. And that’s the honest truth.’

Tatiana was silent for a moment. Then she nodded sadly. ‘All right. It’s your life. So it’s your business. But you’ll go to Coral Cove?’

Kit nodded. ‘I’ll go.’

Lisa was waiting at the small airport. Kit thought she would break, Lisa hugged her so convulsively.

‘You came. God bless you, Kit. Was it difficult to get time off?’

Kit grinned. ‘On the contrary. The clients fell on my neck when they heard they’d got another week to clear the house before I move in with the industrial cleaning machinery. I’m their favourite person.’

Lisa heaved her roll-bag over one shoulder and linked arms with her.

‘I’m really grateful, honest,’ she said soberly. ‘I know it was a lot to ask.’

‘Oh, yeah, really tough. A whole week at your expense on a private tropical island with cordon-bleu cooking. Only a genuine saint would sign up for that one,’ said Kit drily.

Lisa sighed. ‘Well, it’s not as great as it sounds. The gardens are pretty and the sea is warm. And, when you’ve said that, you’ve said everything. I hope you’ve brought plenty to read.’

Kit looked at her ironically. Lisa laughed.

‘Yes, of course you have. What is it this month? Russian?’

‘War poems. But I’ve brought some paperbacks as well,’ Kit said reassuringly.

‘Thank God for that. I’ve read all mine.’

Lisa led the way out into a blazing heat so strong that Kit gagged. She put up a hand to shade her suddenly dazzled eyes. Lisa sent her a quick, remorseful look.

‘I hope you brought sunglasses. I didn’t think to tell you.’

‘Neither did Tatiana,’ said Kit ruefully. ‘Though she made me bring a cocktail dress.’

Lisa stared. ‘A cocktail dress? You?’

‘She’s very strong-minded when she gets going.’

Lisa gave a crack of laughter. ‘I remember.’ She hugged Kit. ‘Oh, it’s so great to see you. We’ll get you some shades and the local insect repellent and then we’re on our way. A new experience for you—you get to ride in a helicopter.’

Coral Cove took Kit’s breath away. It sat in the sunlit ocean like a toy island. But as the helicopter came in over the land she made out huge trees, great gashes in the forest cover where rivers had carved their way in their path to the sea, and even—She leaned forward, entranced.

‘Is that a waterfall?’

‘Probably,’ said Lisa, unexcited. ‘Nikolai and I have got a little one just above our cottage. There’s quite a big one about half an hour’s walk from the main hotel garden. We’ll go up there this evening, if you like.’

Kit sat back in her seat with a sigh of perfect pleasure.

‘Sun, sea and waterfalls,’ she said blissfully. ‘I forgive Tatiana for the cocktail dress. I forgive Tatiana for everything.’

But that evening they did not walk to the waterfall. That evening Lisa was locked in her room not speaking to anyone. And Nikolai, having welcomed Kit through gritted teeth, had gone back to his conservationists.

Kit looked into the ferociously formal dining room, thought of the little black and silver number that Tatiana had thrust into her bag, and decided that she would pass on dinner. On the other hand, while everyone else was dining she might be able to swim undisturbed in the delectable lagoon she and Lisa had explored earlier.

‘They have swimming stuff if you haven’t brought anything to swim in,’ had said Lisa, who knew her sister very well.

‘No. I have.’ It was not a bikini, in spite of Tatiana’s best efforts, but it would be just fine for swimming.

Kit had been terribly tempted. The water was turquoise. Little wavelets stirred but the sand bars held back ocean-sized waves. It had looked like heaven—except that there were three other people already swimming there. Kit did not take her clothes off in front of anyone, not even to swim.

‘Maybe later,’ Lisa had said with understanding.

And now, thought Kit, looking at the rapidly darkening sky over the lagoon, later had come. Everyone was eating, or getting ready to eat, or still locked in their conference. She could swim safe from fear of disturbance. It was irresistible.

She went back to her cottage and climbed into the one-piece swimsuit she had picked up at the charity shop. Then she pulled on an ankle-length cotton robe and went to plunge into her first tropical sea.

Philip Hardesty’s eyes drifted back towards the great open windows yet again.

Someone was swimming in the lagoon. From his seat on the podium, Philip could see the swirl of phosphorescence. The lone figure cut through the undifferentiated blackness of night sky and water with arc after arc of shooting stars.

It looked wonderful, he thought. Cool and airy and—wonderful.

His shirt seemed to be sticking to him. Unobtrusively—or at least he hoped it was unobtrusive—he ran a finger round the inside of his collar. If only he could loosen his tie.

The hotel conference room was unbearably hot. Even with the old-fashioned ceiling fans twirling at full speed, and all windows onto the terrace flung wide open, the air seemed to hover like a storm cloud. Of course, the television lights did not help, he thought fairly. He was always fair. It was his profession.

Just at the moment his profession required him to sit behind this array of microphones, telling half-truths in the hope that people believed them sufficiently to stop killing each other. So he dragged his gaze back from the lone swimmer and nodded courteously to the next journalist.

‘Your question, Herr Dunkel?’

He knew the man. He had faced him at Press briefings like this in three separate countries in the last year alone. His question was a good one. A German, the man had twenty years more experience than Philip.

But then, everyone in this room probably has more experience than I have, Philip thought. And I’m so tired.

For a moment his confidence faltered. But then he pulled himself together. Everyone was looking at him. If he didn’t have confidence in the peace negotiation that he was just putting in motion, who would?

And Dunkel’s question deserved an answer.

Philip took a moment to consider. Then answered swiftly and fluently, as he always did.

Beyond the French windows, the lagoon stretched and sighed. It beckoned him like a playful animal. Or a dark angel.

Philip ignored it and took another question.

And another. And another.

Until at last the Press conference was over and his local minder was steering him towards the banquet.

The next performance, thought Philip. More diplomacy disguising desperation, more half-truths. More hope against hope. More anger behind the smiles. More pretence. He felt deathly tired.

‘Give me a moment,’ he said to his minder, with that gentle courtesy that never faltered, no matter how many people were losing their tempers at the negotiating table. ‘I’d like a breath of air.’

The man switched stride. Philip stopped him.

‘Alone, if you wouldn’t mind.’

The man gave him a wide grin full of gold teeth, and nodded.

‘Bar is over that way,’ he said helpfully.

He gestured away from the lagoon towards a great circular swimming pool. It was floodlit and there was a thatched bar beside it. Philip thanked him. But he did not look at the well-illuminated path to the pool. Instead he looked longingly out to sea.

He nodded to the man and stepped through the French windows.

At once the tropical night embraced him. The air was hot and sweet, heavy with the scent of trumpet vines. He breathed it in, luxuriating.

Philip glanced up. The swathe of silent stars shimmered. There were millions of them, frosted droplets suspended from a gigantic spiral. He could see the sky turning…turning…He shut his eyes, dazzled.

In the big reception room behind him everyone was talking. It reverberated like a drum. Philip winced and opened his eyes.

I must get away, he thought urgently. Even five minutes would make all the difference.

A pebble-edged pathway skirted the gardens and led out to a sand bar that curved round the lagoon. He took it, walking quickly. The sounds of the busy hotel receded.

At the junction with the sand bar, he stopped and listened: cicadas, falling fruits, the soft lull of the water and his own breathing. No voices; no demands. He let out a long, savouring breath.

The lone swimmer was still out on the reef. Only now she was diving, her body curving into a pure arc before straightening to enter the water, taut as an arrow. Luminescence exploded around her. She bobbed up to the surface and pushed back her sopping hair.

Obviously she thought she was alone. She waved her arms above her head, laughing aloud. Then, quick and supple as an otter, she tumbled into a couple of mischievous somersaults. They set up a sparkling wheel of phosphorescence for a fraction of a second.

The whole picture was physical delight incarnate. Philip realised he was smiling.

He looked back at the hotel. He had to go back; the banquet was just another stage in the peace negotiations. He had to chair it, just as he had chaired the meeting for the last three days. Just as he would chair the next week’s round upon round of talks.

But the girl’s uninhibited game in the water reminded him that it was a long time since he had done anything for the sheer joy of doing it.

He turned his back on the talk and the banquet and went out along the palm-fringed spur of impacted sand. It curved round the lagoon like an embracing arm. As he walked he could see the stardust trail that the swimmer was making above the water. She was streaking back to land. They would reach the end of the sand bar at the same time.

Just five minutes, he promised himself.

The girl got there first. She must have heard his approach. She trod water, turning towards the sound.

‘Who’s there?’ Her voice was husky, hurried, a little alarmed. ‘Lisa?’

It was not fair to alarm her, just for the pleasure of watching her carefree play in the water. And he was, he reminded himself with faint bitterness, always fair. Wasn’t he?

Suppressing his reluctance, Philip stepped out of the shadow of the palm trees. ‘No.’

She drew a little startled breath. He supposed she would be justified in being fearful at the sudden appearance of a solitary stranger. This hotel was on the edge of a war zone, after all, for all its international luxury.

He said in his calmest voice, ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m staying here. Just taking a walk before dinner.’

‘Oh.’

The calm tone worked its usual magic. Her alarm appeared to subside. She trod water, her head on one side.

‘Are you a naturalist?’

Philip hesitated. It was a long time since he had been with anyone who didn’t know exactly who he was, why he was here and what his attitude was going to be to any subject that might be raised. Now he realised that he would relish anonymity, however brief. He didn’t answer her question.

She swam towards him. Her languorous strokes set up sparkling fireworks in the water. He went onto one knee and leaned down to stir the lagoon as it lapped softly against the sand bar. It glittered, swirling.

The girl reached him. She looked down at the underwater sparklers, laughing.

‘Crazy, isn’t it? I don’t know what makes it do that.’

‘Bio-luminescence,’ said Philip.

She stood up. The water reached her waist, rocking gently. She moved with it, seeming wholly at one with the water.

‘What?’

‘Micro-crustacea. They give off light the way fireflies do on land.’

‘Really?’ She was polite but not quite certain that he knew what he was talking about.

Philip grinned unseen and decided to pull the stops out to impress her.

‘Unless they’re euphausiacea. In that case they have built-in searchlights,’ he told her, deadpan.

She was not easy to impress.

‘Are you laughing at me?’

Good girl, thought Philip, surprising himself.

‘No. You can look it up. Try eucarida in the encyclopaedia and work from there.’

He could see that she would do exactly that.

‘Eucarida,’ she said, committing it to memory. ‘How do you know that? Are you here with the conservation group?’

Conservation group? Philip hesitated. He vaguely remembered the security report on the other groups in the hotel. Now he thought about it, he was not surprised. This was an area that was rich in uncodified species as well as wild men and wars.

‘No,’ he said regretfully, ‘I’m not with the conservation group. But once—a hundred years ago—I thought I might be a marine biologist.’

She tilted her head in the darkness. It was a perfect shape, under the long mermaid’s hair that curved onto her shoulders. Her shadowed body looked as if it had turned smooth and streamlined in the sea, so that was the element to which it now naturally belonged. He had a sudden almost overwhelming longing to run his hand down that smooth curve from the crown of her head to her unseen toes.

But she was saying, amused, ‘A hundred years ago? You don’t sound that old.’

Philip was disconcerted. In spite of the darkness—or maybe because of it—she seemed to sense it. She laughed again and began to dance a little in the water.

‘You’re not that old, are you?’ she teased.

She had a husky voice with a slight catch in it, as if she was constantly on the brink of tears or laughter. It fascinated him.

‘What makes you say that?’ he parried, wanting to keep her talking. Even though she could not see him, he smiled at the beguiling shadow.

‘Well, if you were, you wouldn’t be standing here talking to me, wishing you were in the water too,’ she said softly.

This time he was more than disconcerted. He was struck to the heart. He had not known he was wishing any such thing. But he was. He was.

Philip’s smile died.

I can’t afford this, he thought.

The girl did not pick up his turmoil. She did a little boogie on the spot. Those unseen toes were deliberately stirring a thousand shooting stars into zipping through the turbulent water.

‘Come on in. It’s lovely and warm.’

Oh, but he was tempted. He could not remember ever being so tempted before. To slip out of the grey suit, the tie and the good manners and slide into the water with her. To swim and play like seals. Not responsible to anyone. Not responsible for anyone. Just abandoning himself to the moment and the lovely, uncomplicated girl.

He was already discarding the lightweight grey jacket, standard garb for negotiators in tropical climates, when she put both hands on the sand bar and lifted herself out of the water. The water streamed off her in an unearthly glow. Long legs, long hair, limbs that were supple and warm and headily female. Philip’s body responded instantly and unequivocally.

She was unaware of that too.

‘They leave the swimming stuff in a hut under the trees.’

‘Do they?’ His voice sounded odd even to himself.

‘Yes, it’s amazing. Like a tree house only on the ground. There were a lot of sky-blue birds with tails like saloon dancers’ skirts zipping around it earlier.’

‘The Asian fairy bluebird,’ said Philip, in his most detached tone. His palms were wet. He clenched them, fighting for self-control. ‘You’re very observant.’

How long before she observed the effect she was having on him?

He saw a flash of white teeth in the darkness. ‘Thank you,’ said the husky voice, laughing. ‘Come on. I’ll show you where it is.’

For a moment he had a vision of them both swimming, playing out in the bay as she had been doing earlier. It was so clear, that vision. It was as if he had always known there would be this night, this moon, this girl.

If only—

Then the accustomed discipline struck. It staked him to the ground like fallen masonry after an earthquake. Remember your duty, his grandfather would have said.

Duty. Dignity. Appropriate behaviour. Good judgement. Responsibility.

‘No,’ he said in a strangled voice.

‘But it’s just over there.’

‘No.’

He had better command over his voice now, though he stepped unobtrusively away from her damp body. She was silver in the moonlight.

All he could think of was that she must not detect the effect she was having on him. That it would spoil a perfect moment.

‘I’d better not. I’ve played hooky long enough.’

She seemed disappointed. Blessings on her beautiful, spontaneous head, thought Philip. She actually wanted him to enjoy himself.

‘Not even for five minutes?’ she coaxed, that enchanting catch in her voice making it sound as if she really cared; as if her disappointment was real.

His head was still whirling. But his self-command was practised and he could switch it on at a moment’s notice.

‘Not even for five minutes,’ he said regretfully. ‘In fact, I must go. They’ll come looking for me if I don’t get back.’

‘Oh.’ More than disappointed; almost bereft.

He allowed himself to take her hand. Her fingers were long and slim and surprisingly warm after her swim.

‘Anyway, I’ve had my indulgence for the night,’ he said teasingly. ‘I met a water nymph.’

Her hand twitched in his.

Philip was annoyed with himself. Now, why did I say that? It makes me sound like an elderly classics master.

Maybe it was to prove to himself as much as her that he was not an elderly schoolmaster that he forgot about not spoiling the perfect moment. Hardly realising what he was doing, he pulled her towards him.

He heard her startled breath. He felt smooth shoulders and the damp stuff of her swimsuit over the glorious warmth of breast and hip. He felt bone and muscle and curving flesh. Even then, he might have stepped away.

But then he felt her response.

For a tiny second she was his, mouth to fierce mouth.

Then, like water, she slid out of his arms and dived back into the lagoon, powering away for the open sea.

Behind him, there were voices.

‘Sir Philip? Are you there?’ The minder, slightly ruffled, as if someone had taken him to task.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ That was his aide. Presumably the one doing the taking to task.

And the restaurant manager. ‘Can we seat the guests now, sir? We can start to serve the meal as soon as you like.’

Responsibility! Here it comes again, thought Philip. Back in the cockpit and off we go for another trip round the same old sticking points.

But they were his sticking points. And his responsibility.

He turned and went to do his duty.

But he sent a last, lingering glance after the silver trail flickering away from him, never to return.

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