White Lies (19 page)

'Penny,' he said gently.

'I was thinking how deceptive first impressions can be,' she said with a laugh. 'You pretended to be hard and cold. You're about as hard and cold as cooked dasheen!'

His grin gleamed white in the half-dark. 'You're taking to island life like a duck to water,' he said in approval. 'Cooked dasheen, indeed! I can be hard and ruthless when I have to. Wait and see.'

'Is that a threat?' she giggled.

'Definitely,' he growled. 'Come here. I want to see if you taste different now you're a married woman.'

Mandy happily surrendered to his arms, giving her entire heart and body to him, till she thought that she must pay for such happiness in some terrible way. No one could be as blissful as she and not pay a price.

But they grew closer, becoming greater friends and more adventurous lovers over the next three weeks as they cruised around the Grenadines, laughing more together, than she would have thought possible. She told him about herself, about her happy life with Dave. But he wouldn't speak much about his own background and she knew that it hurt him still to think of it.

Their homecoming was an excuse for a vast party, given by his aunt, with the plantation house decked in flowers and steel bands playing on the beach. That night they went to the panelled master bedroom, in a part of the house Mandy hadn't seen before. Tenderly he undressed her and tenderly they made love in the big bed draped in pure linen and lace. Mandy felt as if her heart would break if she didn't tell him soon how she felt.

'I'm going to see Vincente,' announced Susannah the next morning. 'Shall I tell him you'll be visiting in the near future, Pascal?'

He made a face and quartered a slice of mango before answering. 'I suppose I'll have to,' he said shortly. 'I must check on his mail too. Not today, though. Mandy wants to see Herbert, the minibus driver. She said she promised to visit. We'll do that today. I'll call in on Beau Rivage tomorrow morning then go to the hospital in the afternoon.'

Mandy could sense his tension all through the boat journey to Soufriere, where Herbert lived. And when they set off in the taxi he'd hailed she tried to jolly him out of his mood because it hurt her when he was sad.

'It's very picturesque,' she said, admiring the faded elegance of the sun-bleached, wooden buildings in the old French fishing town. Many houses had verandas which were decorated with elaborate fretwork carvings, as if someone had been at work with an icing set.

'It used to be the capital of St Lucia before they developed Castries in the north,' he said idly. 'The Empress Josephine played as a child at Mai Maison, not far from here.'

'Such glamour,' she sighed. 'I can imagine it all. The parties, the flirting...'

'We still know how to party,' he answered with a grin. 'I met Caroline at a smart version of the local jump-up.'

Mandy nodded. He'd promised to take her to one of the Friday-night jump-ups. Friday night, Saturday morning, loud music and dancing in the streets, hot food from street vendors... She suddenly realised that he'd mentioned his late wife and she might find out something about his past.

'What was she like?' she asked tentatively. 'There aren't any photographs of her around.'

A shadow fell on his face. 'They were all burnt in the fire,' he answered heavily, and she reached out to cover his hand with hers in sympathy. 'Our house was further up the track from Beau Rivage. I designed and built it myself, with the help of the plantation carpenter. Nothing remains of it. The jungle has covered it all.'

'I can't bear to think of it!' she said, clasping her hands together passionately.

'Well—' he tensed his jaw '—you know how it is. You've been there too. I never said goodbye; that was the worst of it. I'd gone for an early-morning ride and had crept out of bed so as not to wake Caroline.'

'I suppose there's no doubt that it was your father who caused the fire?' she suggested hesitantly.

It made her heart go out to him to see him trying to control his emotions by unnecessarily smoothing the crease in his beige linen suit.

'Susannah saw him by my house, smoking one of his cigars. Father denied being there at all. But I'd rather believe Susannah. Why would she lie about something like that? I saw the smoke from a distance and rode like hell, but when I arrived the house was a ruin.'

'And .then?' she asked quietly.

He stared gloomily out of the window. 'I went berserk and dragged Father out of his study and threw him into the garden. His men hauled me off, otherwise God knows what I might have done to him. Caroline and Charles were everything to me and I'd lost them because one stupid old man couldn't be bothered to put out his damn cigar properly. Father then made a complaint to the police. He destroyed our family,' he said bitterly. 'And Caroline's too. They've never forgiven me for her death.'

'But it wasn't your fault!' she cried, upset.

'As far as they're concerned, if I hadn't married Caroline she'd still be alive,' he muttered. 'That's how they see it. I wasn't flavour of the month when we married.'

'Why?' she asked indignantly.

He shrugged. 'Father's behaviour was notorious and they were afraid I'd inherited all his worst traits. I can't blame the Cavendish family for wanting their daughter to marry someone else. We were an odd lot. Father had brought his mistress into the house after countless affairs, he'd ostracised Louis, his own cousin, to the extent that they strode up and down their borders with loaded shotguns, and he'd bullied and subdued Susannah, his own sister, so thoroughly that she became a permanent spinster.'

'But you were so much in love that you defied everyone and married,' she prompted, wondering if she'd ever find anything at all to like about his father.

'We had to.' He turned to face her. 'Caroline became pregnant,' he said gently. 'It was a deliberate act on our part, to force the Cavendish family to see that our marriage was inevitable—and we both wanted a child very much.'

'But they never accepted you? Didn't they see how good you were and how much you loved Caroline?' she asked heatedly. 'Surely they could tell you were kind and hard-working and—'

'Spare me the flattery,' he said with a rueful laugh. 'There was a little more to it than that. They were English settlers from way back. They thought they could do better for their daughter than me.'

'That's ridiculous!' she said stoutly. 'But...are you saying that her family live on St Lucia?''There's only her younger brother left now. He has a plantation on the edge of the rainforest.'

'You should have told me!' exclaimed Mandy. 'Weddings are a good time to heal old wounds. We should have asked him to the wedding—'

'You have a kind heart, Mandy,' he said, leaning over and kissing her protesting mouth. 'But Jake Cavendish would never have come. Besides, he's something of an absentee owner. He's a Reuter's war correspondent and spends most of his time abroad.'

'I think someone ought to tell him you're blameless,' she said crossly. 'And worth a million other men.'

He grinned. 'Thank you. I doubt Cavendish would agree. All I wanted to do was to run the plantation, and that wasn't good enough for his family. They'd imagined some whizkid from the high echelons of English society as their son-in-law, not a French rogue with a Caribbean accent!' he said with a rueful chuckle.

She beamed. 'I love your accent,' she confided. 'I want one!'

'Get educated in the University of the West Indies,' he said, 'and it's free.'

'No expensive Paris schools?' she teased.

'I was educated in England for a while,' he said surprisingly. 'In the banana trade you need good English. It's mandatory. But I missed home and I was going to have to be away for five years. I was desperately homesick for St Lucia and I ran away. Father was furious. He sent me to our Belgian chateau and I attended a college for the sons of gentlemen for a while.' Mandy's eyes widened. A Belgian chateau! 'I finally ended up where I wanted to be,' continued Pascal, 'spending university terms in Barbados and coming home for odd weekends and holidays. Wonderful.'

'Yes,' she said fondly. 'It is.'

'I think,' he said, almost to himself, 'that I would take the law into my own hands if anyone ever tried to take away my inheritance. My dream is to link Beau Rivage and Beau Jardin and all the rest of the St Honore wealth again.'

And she felt the same. Perhaps through their children the St Honore estates would cease to be hostile areas of contention where—so Pascal's overseer told her—the workers had to be careful to note the imaginary boundary lines between the flame-trees if they didn't want Vincente St Honore firing buckshot at them.

'That's Herbert's house,' he said suddenly.

'And look!' she cried in excitement. 'There's Herbert!'

She jumped out of the taxi the moment it stopped and ran over, delighted to see that his whole family was lined up on the veranda, waiting for her.

After being shown around the tiny house, with Mandy wondering where on earth everyone slept, they went outside to the small garden to drink freshly squeezed lime juice beneath a tall, flowering immortelle tree which had scattered its red blooms all over the ground. Pascal and Herbert talked earnestly about the banana trade and the search for new markets while she played with the children and ate banana chips.

'Mr St Honore,' said Herbert's sweet-faced wife, 'he's real happy! I never did see him so happy. He loves you, Mandy. And look—see how he holds my baby? Soon he'll want babies of his own.'

Wide-eyed, Mandy watched Pascal. He was lifting the baby into the air in an age-old game that fathers loved the world over. Her heart ached to see him, knowing that he must have played the game with his own son. And she wondered if she did already carry his child. She knew it was a possibility. At the thought of a baby her face suffused with an unspeakable joy.

'I would love to be a mother,' she said softly.

'You got that look about you, girl!' crowed Herbert's wife.

Pascal sensed Mandy's intense gaze, turned sharply and grinned broadly at her. 'Herbert's going to pollinate the orchids. Want to come and see?' he called.

Mandy giggled with Herbert's wife at the connection between their conversation and pollination and jumped up eagerly. She ran to Pascal, laughing when the baby chortled merrily as he swung the child onto his shoulder and began to bounce along. 'Pascal,' she said, unable to keep her feelings a secret any longer. 'Pascal...' She sighed. He looked at her with such tenderness.. .surely Herbert's wife had been right? If it wasn't love, then it was a deep affection. And that would be enough. 'Pascal,' she said softly, 'I love you.'

The smile left his face. His eyes closed and for one terrible moment she thought that he was going to be angry with her for spoiling their agreement. Then he lifted the baby down and held him out with a silent but commanding look at one of the older children, who took the little boy away.

Gently he took Mandy in his arms. 'And I you,' he said huskily. They stared and smiled at one another idiotically till the children tugged Mandy's skirt and demanded that she watch their father.

Lost in a magical world, she tried to concentrate while Herbert explained how he was hand-pollinating the vanilla orchids growing on the cocoa tree to encourage the vanilla pods to form. But she was only conscious of Pascal's warm body against hers, the rapid beat of her heart and the growing feeling that she carried their child. He loved her. He really loved her!

Herbert's wife was laughing behind them. 'I think you two got something to talk about!' she cried in glee. 'Herbert! They not listening to you! Get the bus out the shed and take Mr St Honore back to the harbour,' she ordered, beaming all over her broad face.

Mandy blushed at Pascal's amused raised eyebrow. 'I think we should go,' she said, embarrassed. 'But we'll call again, Herbert.'

The children affectionately hugged them both. Pascal was wonderful with them, she thought dazedly as they drove back to Soufriere Bay. Maybe she and Pascal hadn't had much luck with their own parents, but they'd start a new family and give their children love and security. And someday, she mused dreamily, perhaps Pascal's efforts to trace her background through a network of detective agencies would bear fruit.

'Something to tell me?' he asked when they were alone on the boat.

She watched the crew cheerfully preparing to cast off from the jetty. Drawing in a huge breath, she scanned the wide alluvial valley and the low buildings of Soufriere nestled at the foot of the incomparable Pitons. 'Are you happy?' she asked.

'More than I could ever have imagined,' he answered in a voice low with choking emotions. He kissed her hands. 'I thought once that I would never stop loving and mourning Caroline. I believed there would be no one who could take away the pain and the sense of being abandoned by everything good and wonderful. You see, I thought you could only fall in love once.'

'Perhaps that's true,' she said, her lashes spiky with happy tears. 'What I feel for you is deeper than my feelings for Dave.'

Pascal's eyes kindled. 'My darling!' he said softly. 'I think maybe you're right. It's hard to recall my feelings for Caroline now; they're only a pleasant memory. I won't ever forget her, Mandy, but what we have seems to be on a different plane.'

'Everything you've said goes for me too,' she told him lovingly. 'As far as I was concerned Dave was the beginning and the end of my love life. I think maybe he opened my heart and I was the one who closed it. You've given me something I can't express properly; I only know that I feel ours is a love that will survive anything—and I haven't dared to risk saying so before. Now I don't care.'

'Mandy! I love you!' He kissed her tenderly, lingeringly. 'I have everything I could ever want—'

'Everything?' she asked breathily, arching a dark brow. And her eyes asked if he wanted their child.

He stiffened with surprise, gave a half-laugh and then his mouth was serious and laughing at the same time, his eyes somehow hopeful and wary.

'Do you mean—?' It was obvious that he hardly dared ask.