Bell looked from one to the other. There was no reason, after all, why she shouldn’t share her birthday with friends, however new they were.
‘I’m twenty-eight tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Juliette leapt to her feet. ‘Your birthday? This is a fine time to tell us. But we must certainly have a party. Chariot – mustn’t we?’
‘Only if Bell wants it.’
‘Of course she does. Don’t you, darling? I must telephone, and see Madame Robert … oh, what fun. Mama will be appalled.’
Dancing with excitement Juliette planted a kiss on top of each of their heads and whirled away.
Charles put his hand out to cover Bell’s.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked, softly.
‘No.’
The room grew very quiet as they sat and looked at one another. Bell saw that there were gold flecks in the dark blue irises, and noticed a tiny pulse jumping at the corner of one eyelid.
Charles was afraid of something too, she realized.
Bell wanted to stay suspended within that moment for ever. They were equals, waiting to offer each other something precious. She was still, for those last seconds, free and in command but the world seemed full of promise and enchantment.
Very slowly Charles reached out and with a fingertip he traced the outline of her mouth. Then he pulled the combs out of her hair and let it tumble down in a thick mass around her face.
‘My English Bell,’ he murmured. ‘You are very beautiful, and very unusual.’
Then he was holding her hands, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. She let her face fall against the soft dark cloth of his jacket but his hand went to her chin, turning her face up inescapably to meet his. She glimpsed something then in his eyes, a shadow, but then their mouths met and they clung together.
Bell was rocked by a current so strong that it threatened to carry her away.
Time stopped moving for them both, questions went unanswered and fears disregarded.
At last Charles led her up the shallow stairs under the huge chandelier. They stood in front of her door, not speaking, their eyes still locked together.
Charles’s hand rested on the catch.
‘Not yet,’ breathed Bell. ‘Please. Charles, I must think.’
His mouth was set and she saw the shadow, guarded, in his face before he replied.
‘I know. Tomorrow, Bell, we must talk.’
Then he turned away abruptly, and was gone.
‘Tomorrow,’ Bell said into the darkness. Then the memory of something that Juliette had said came back to her. It had been nagging at her subconscious all evening, and now it surfaced.
‘Then something tragic happened,’ she had said. Her face had been hidden by her hair, but the fingers plucking at a thread in the white coverlet had betrayed her anxiety.
Tragic? Something that affected Charles?
Tomorrow.
Light filtered in through the blinds, defining the outlines of pieces of furniture that only minutes ago had been vague shapes of denser blackness. Valentine Gordon, lying on his back in bed with his hands clasped behind his head, breathed out sharply in irritation. He rolled his head to one side to look at the green numerals of the digital clock. It was 4.23, and he hadn’t slept at all. He turned his head the other way, towards the tangle of white-blonde hair and the exposed shoulders and neat breasts of the girl sleeping beside him. Her breathing went on, as even and deep as it had been for four hours, ever since he had rolled away from her and begun his long stare up into the darkness. He put his hand out to touch the tanned skin, thinking he might as well wake her up and make love to her again. Then he frowned and jerked his hand back. He knew that she would be instantly responsive, yawning and kittenish, and the idea bored him.
Instead he swung his legs out of the bed and groped for his bathrobe. He felt sticky, in spite of the cool air-conditioned room, randy, and irritable. He wanted something, or somebody, but it definitely wasn’t Sam. If he left her asleep at least she wouldn’t follow him around talking and giggling. He wrapped the robe around himself and walked away from her, treading very softly. It was dark in the corridor outside but he moved faster, very sure of his surroundings, through another doorway and across a big room to a wide expanse of curtained window. He pressed a wall switch and the curtains slid back, letting the room fill with the dawn light. It was getting brighter every minute. The touch of another switch set up a tiny humming noise and the long panels of glass glided away. The air that flooded in from the verandah was perfumed and still warm from the heat of the day before, but at least it was fresh. Valentine stepped outside and leant on the white-painted rail to stare out at the view.
Immediately below him three white steps ran down from the raised wooden verandah to the wide circle of well-watered lawn. Beyond the grass, with its fringe of cedar trees, was the low wall which separated the garden of Valentine’s house from the focus of his attention. He was looking out at the vineyards, a sea of grey-green foliage, that swept away from him across the valley floor. Behind the house the sun was well over the horizon and the sky over the steep hills enclosing the valley was beginning to turn the electrically bright blue of the Californian August. It was very, very quiet.
Most of what he could see, including the impressive wood and stone winery just visible along the track to the left of the house, belonged to him but the knowledge didn’t give him, any more, the frisson of pleasure that it once had. Instead one half of his mind mechanically listed the jobs he must attend to today while the other nagged around a deeper, uncomfortable awareness. Valentine knew that he was bored, and he knew that boredom dragged a different, dangerous Valentine out into the sunlight.
He turned sharply away from the beauty of the Napa Valley, intending to go inside and mix a big Bloody Mary to take the uncomfortable innocence off the day. Then the ache between his eyes reminded him of the night before, and instead he flopped down on one of the cushioned loungers that lined the verandah. This side of the house faced west and was pleasantly shadowed, and the leaves of the bougainvillea festooning the fretted woodwork waved in a light, warm breeze. Valentine pulled off his robe and dropped it beside him, rolled over on to his stomach and stretched naked against the cushions. Seconds later he was asleep.
At nine o’clock it was already hot and the breeze had dropped. Sam came out of the open glass doors carrying a tray with orange juice and a pot of coffee. Valentine was still asleep, one arm dangling off the lounger and the other cradled under his head. The girl bent to put the tray down beside him and noticed that there were two or three silver hairs in the crisp blackness over his temples. Her eyes ran over his body. Valentine Gordon was thirty, she knew that he ate and slept too little and drank too much, but he still had the physique of a twenty-year-old athlete, broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped. Sam knelt beside him and kissed the small of his back, letting her hair brush his skin. He stirred at once, then rolled over with sleep still clouding his blue eyes. He didn’t smile, but she was used to that.
‘Coffee
