he repeated with some satisfaction, sliding the back of his hand along her jawline, and then the pilot was smiling at them and indicating that it was time to disembark.
Beth had chosen to wear pants for the journey. Climbing in and out of motor vessels was easier when one did not have to worry about billowing skirts, and she hoped Barbara would not think her jeans were a sign of disrespect. Teamed with a navy body shirt, they threw her intense fairness into relief, and she had secured the silvery rope of her hair with a silk scarf at the nape.
Their arrival had aroused a deal of interest, and as Beth thanked the dark-skinned pilot for his assistance on to the quay a crowd of people clustered around them, shaking Willard’s hand and asking about his health. Apparently everyone knew about his illness, and Beth was disarmed by their obvious concern. She herself came in for a lot of curious scrutiny, but Willard was beginning to look strained and she looked about them anxiously, hoping to break this up before he started introducing her.
She saw a car parked along the quay, and a man leaning against its bonnet. He was tall and lean and dark, dressed in rough cotton trousers and little else, and she thought at first he was a mulatto, but when he moved to push a drooping cotton hat to the back of his head, she saw that he was probably only darkly tanned. He was watching them with a curiously insolent expression, she thought, resenting the way he was staring, and deciding rather irritably that men like him were the same the world over. He probably imagined she was interested in him, she conceded impatiently, and looked away from his decidedly arrogant features. He looked cruel, she thought uneasily, and then chided herself for letting his attitude spoil what had been such a spontaneous welcome to the island.
She wondered where Barbara was. Surely she wouldn’t let her father return home after two months’ absence and an illness which had been severe enough to kill a weaker man without coming to meet him. If she had, it did not augur well for good relations.
‘Excuse me …’
It was the man from the car. He stood before her indolently, his thumbs pushed into the hip pockets of his pants, his weight resting without effort on one booted foot. This close she could see the shadow of beard already growing along his jawline, and the over-long darkness of his hair pushing out below the cotton hat. That same darkness was repeated across the width of his chest and followed an indeterminate path down to his navel. His eyes were a curious shade of green, unusual in one so dark, and shaded by thick dark lashes. They were slightly hooded eyes, but everything about him was aggressively masculine.
Beth glanced hesitantly towards Willard, but for the moment he had not observed the man’s approach, and she decided it was up to her to show him he was wasting his time on her. She had met men like him before, she thought contemptuously, men who imagined any woman would fall over herself to be friendly towards them.
‘I think you’re making a mistake,’ she said now, quietly but succinctly. ‘Do you mind?’
‘I mind,’ he returned annoyingly, and Beth squared her shoulders, for once glad of her five feet eight inches of height.
‘Get lost, will you?’ she said, her smile less than polite, and a mocking expression replaced the insolence.
‘If you say so,’ he agreed, and turning on his heel he sauntered lazily back to the dust-smeared vehicle.
‘Raoul!’ Willard’s startled voice arrested him, and Beth turned to stare open-mouthed at her fiancé as he excused himself from his audience and hastened after the other man. ‘Raoul!’ she heard him say again, and to her dismay he practically embraced him.
Over Willard’s shoulder, the man’s green eyes sought and found hers, and it was with a sense of impotence she acknowledged that he had some grounds for his provoking expression. But it took all her self-control to stroll after her fiancé, and wait patiently for him to introduce them.
‘My dear,’ he turned to her almost immediately after assuring the other man that he was feeling fine, which wasn’t strictly true, Beth decided. ‘Let me introduce you to Raoul Valerian, my—right-hand man. Raoul, this is Miss Elizabeth Rivers. My fiancée.’
Beth forced a faint smile and held out her hand. ‘How do you do, Mr Valerian,’ she said politely, and his long fingers gripped hers firmly for a brief moment. His hands were hard, and she could feel the callouses upon them, but his nails she saw were clean and well-shaped.
‘My pleasure, Miss Rivers,’ he acknowledged, with a mockery which was only apparent to her, and then he indicated the vehicle behind him.
Willard went towards it with evident relief, but Beth hesitated as Raoul Valerian went past them to attend to the unloading of their luggage. Two of the blacks who had greeted them were struggling towards the car with their suitcases, and Raoul went to help them, taking a case from each, speaking to them with easy camaraderie. Beth waited only a moment longer, and then, aware that her assistance wasn’t needed she followed Willard to the welcoming shade of the car. She had taken off her sunglasses as they landed, but now she pushed them back on to her nose again, glad of the anonymity they provided.
Willard had climbed into the back of the vehicle which Beth now saw was an old-fashioned station wagon. But it was in immaculate order, in spite of the dust, and she admired its flowing lines as she joined him. Briefly she looked at him over the rim of her glasses and saw the unhealthy pallor of his cheeks.
‘This has all been too much for you,’ she declared crisply. ‘You must rest when you get home. Promise me you will.’
Willard leaned back weakly against the upholstered seat. ‘I hope you’re not going to become one of those nagging women, Beth,’ he exclaimed, and then grasped her hand contritely when she looked hurt. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, but these are my people. They’re welcoming me home. I couldn’t ignore them.’
‘I wasn’t suggesting you should,’ replied Beth stiffly, and he squeezed her fingers.
‘I know, I know. You’re only thinking about me.’ He gave her a rather rueful smile. ‘I just hate being made to feel I’m helpless!’
Beth turned to stare out of the window, and then started as several cases thudded into the rear of the vehicle behind them. Raoul thanked his helpers, and slammed the rear doors closed, then came round to lever himself behind the wheel. He was lean and muscular, but not thin, and Beth’s trained eyes noticed how the bones and sinews of his back rippled smoothly under his sweat-oiled skin. He might have put on a shirt, she thought distastefully, although her own shirt was clinging to her like a second skin, and she was glad of a bra underneath to protect her modesty.
As the station wagon left the quay, waved off by their welcoming committee, Raoul said: ‘Barbara asked me to come and meet you. She wasn’t—feeling well, and as I had to come down to the town anyway …’
‘… you volunteered,’ remarked Willard, nodding.
‘That’s right.’
‘What’s wrong with Barbara?’
There was silence for a moment, and then Raoul said: ‘One of her migraines, I guess. I don’t know. She sent Marya over with a message.’
Willard didn’t seem surprised, but Beth’s nerves tightened. Barbara might well have a headache—a migraine, even—but her father had been away more than two months. In her place she thought she would have had to have been very ill indeed to prevent her from meeting him. Still, Willard wasn’t concerned, so why should she be? But she was.
