Вайолет Уинспир: Dragon Bay

She sank down on the side of the nearest bed and stared at the floor. It flooded over her in cold little waves that Nikos was far away, and now the husband of a girl called Cicely. Nikki, with his long, lively face that was so good-looking when he laughed.

She tried to bring his face into focus, but the brown eyes went diamond-hard and green; the boyish features hardened and grew bolder, beneath a crest of foxfire hair.

Lucan Savidge … a man whom people spoke about in whispers, who carried on his cheekbone the mark of his mother’s whip.

There is only a little dusk in the tropics. The sun shatters in a web of colours, and then night falls and the stars come out, a retinue for the moon this second night of Kara’s visit to the Isle de Luc.

The small open carriage drew up at the entrance of the Painted Lantern, and white teeth flashed against an ebony face as the driver accepted his fare from Kara’s escort. Then the whip lightly cracked and the horse-drawn carriage moved off.

‘The last time I drove in one of those was in Athens.’ Kara bit her lip, for Nikos had been with her instead of a tall, wide-shouldered man in cream drill worn with a brown silk shirt and tie. She felt his fingers under her elbow as they entered the restaurant, and was very aware of how erect and lithe he was.

‘I promised you an unusual evening,’ he said, and her eyes widened as she gazed around the softly lit room, with teakwood tables in alcoves, bird-painted screens, and pergolas entwined in frangipani. Coming towards them was a Mandarin figure in a long silk gown, long-nailed hands clasped together, his smile oblique as he bowed them to a secluded table.

‘It is a great pleasure to see you again in my humble restaurant, Mr. Savidge,’ he said.

‘It is my pleasure, Mr. Yen, to be a visitor again in your house of soft lights and excellent food. I hope you have duck meat with lotus seeds on your menu tonight?’

‘Always we have what your heart most desires.’ The Mandarin figure bowed again, and his eyes were dark as lacquer as he smiled and clapped his hands for a waiter. Hands that might have been painted by a brushstroke artist.

Kara let out her breath very slowly as the silk-robed Mr. Yen was lost behind a beaded curtain. ‘Did I dream him?’ she murmured, a small, shy smile in her eyes. Am I dreaming? she wondered. Did I really agree to dine with a man who looks fierce even by oriental lantern light?

As if reading her thoughts, he gazed deliberately across at her and took in her simple dress tied at the waist with cherry ribbons — a little-girl dress, which she had donned deliberately.

‘Have you ever had Chinese food?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘Then it will be a new experience for you.’ And something in his voice, his eyes, seemed to add that experiences shared with him would all be new to her. Her heart beat as rapidly as a cicada wing, and she glanced away from the lean, audacious face with its mark of Cain.

‘A menu, sir, and one for madame.’ A Chinese waiter was at the table, and Kara opened her menu and gazed in perplexity at the Chinese script.

‘Will you put yourself in my hands?’ asked Lucan Savidge, and again she was aware of some deeper shade of meaning in his deep voice.

‘Yes, you choose my dinner for me.’ Her smile pulled at the nerves of her lips. ‘Only don’t order anything too exotic’

‘Are you scared to take a chance?’ he mocked. ‘A girl from the land of pagan gods and nymphs.’

‘That was long ago, Mr. Savidge. Now our gods are domesticated and our nymphs very cautious,’ she said demurely.

‘How disappointing.’ There were green devils in his eyes as he looked across at her, then he turned to the waiter and Kara listened as he ordered — she was sure — the most exotic edibles on the menu.

‘Do you want to try bamboo k’uai tzu?’ he asked solemnly.

‘Whatever does that taste like?’ As she looked at him, wrinkling a dubious nose, he laughed. She glanced at the waiter and saw a smile in his oblique eyes.

‘K’uai tzu are chopsticks, madame.’ A slight inclination of his head made her look in the direction of a nearby table, where a couple were eating with dexterous movements of their chopsticks.

‘Bring two pairs with the chow fan,’ ordered Lucan Savidge. ‘And rice wine right away, to settle madame’s nerves for the ordeal in store for her.’

‘What a terrible person you are!’ Kara said, when the waiter had left them alone. ‘I think you enjoy making a fool of women.’

‘You look like a small girl,’ he said carelessly. ‘How did the knight of your girlish dreams treat you, as a rose, waiting in your bower of thorns to be plucked? Is that why you ran away from him, because he hesitated a little too long?’

‘I don’t intend to share with you what is private to me,’ she said tensely, and her nostrils flared with anger and the fragrance of the witch-white frangipani.

‘We can’t pretend to be strangers, Kara.’ He smiled devilishly. ‘Last night we shared the same room, remember. What would your Greek sweetheart have to say to that?’

‘Very little, Mr. Savidge.’ Her lips were tense around the words. ‘Nikos happens to be married to someone else, if you must know. He met her in America, and she possesses all that I could never hope to compete with golden hair, a perfect figure, and a lovely face.’

‘So if you had golden hair you would now be wearing a golden ring?’ Lucan Savidge looked quizzical. ‘How long have you known this boy?’

‘All my life.’

‘And you think your heart is broken, eh?’

‘I think you are the most cynical man I have ever met,’ she flashed. ‘I don’t think you have a heart to break.’

He quirked an eyebrow, and then said lazily: ‘Here comes the waiter with our wine. It is called Shau-shing, and is said to warm the coldest heart — not mine, of course.’ His teeth flashed white against his tanned face. ‘I tick over on a different system from other people.’

The warm amber wine was poured into little porcelain wine cups, and Kara was shown how to raise the cup lightly in her hands and to drink every drop with a backward tilt of her head. The oriental wine caressed her throat and then ran like a gentle fire through her veins. A pleasant sensation that soothed away her tenseness.

Their chow-fan was a delectable mixture of spiced egg and rice, and Kara found that if she picked up small pieces with her chopsticks and held the bowl near her chin, some of the chow-fan found its way into her mouth.

‘You had better use a spoon,’ said her companion drily.

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I am just beginning to get the knack. Mmmm, this is tasty.’

Afterwards they had duck with lotus seeds, tiny mushrooms, and other vegetables she could not name, and then a dessert into which pieces of ginger had been inserted. It wasn’t until their hands had been refreshed by hot towels, and Chinese tea brought to the table, that Kara realized how the meal had relaxed her. She breathed the jasmine in her bowl of tea, and listened as Lucan Savidge talked of his home at Dragon Bay.

It stood on a crest above the plantations of sugar and cocoa, and a drive bordered by Royal Palms led to a columned portico and a great front door of teakwood, enduring as the stone of which the house was built. It was three-winged, with covered flagstone walks joining the wings to the grand patio.

‘It might be a Babylonian palace from your description of it,’ Kara smiled.

‘It stands out against the blue sky like a feudal stronghold — it even has a ghost.’ His smile was a sideways pull of his bold, hard lips. ‘A lady dressed in gold, who steps out of a painted window above the stairs. She died tragically in a fire at the old sugar mill, where she was said to meet her lover.’