ANNE WEALE - The Youngest Sister

Soon afterwards they touched down and the pilot applied reverse thrust.

Still holding her hand, Nicolas said, ‘Welcome to Mallorca...illa dels vuit vents..’

‘What does that mean?’ she asked.

‘It’s Mallorquín for “island of the eight winds”. We’ve been using wind-power since the fourteenth century, and our eight winds are also the reason so many yachtsmen come here.’

CHAPTER TWO

WHEN the aircraft had come to a standstill, Nicolas rose to his feet and opened the overhead locker where Cressy’s backpack was stowed. But when she would have taken it from him he shook his head, saying, with a glint of amusement, ‘You’re in macho territory now.’

She wondered if he was teasing her, or if, in the less touristy parts of the island, Majorcan manners and attitudes were still very different from those in London.

His own pack, when it appeared on the carousel in the baggage-reclaim hall, was a massive rucksack packed solid with equipment and, she guessed, too heavy for her to lift off the ground, let alone carry for long distances. But he swung it off the conveyor belt with the practised ease of a man who had done it many times before and whose body, compared with those of most of the tourists struggling awkwardly with their suitcases, was as different as that of a leopard from a crowd of overfed lap dogs.

With both packs on a trolley, they went through to the main concourse where a thickset man with grizzled hair was waiting for Nicolas. To Cressy’s surprise their greeting was very demonstrative. They embraced, they exchanged cheek kisses, they smiled at each other with the warmest affection she had ever seen shown by two men. Had they not been so dissimilar, she would have taken them for grandfather and grandson.

Eventually Nicolas turned to her. ‘This is Felió. He and his wife Catalina look after things when I’m away. He’s known me since I was born, and my mother as well.’

Thus he introduced her to Felió, who took the hand Cressy offered but whose smile was more reserved than the beam which had lit up his face at the sight of Nicolas.

It was like shaking hands with the exposed root of an old tree. Felió’s palm and fingers had been callused by years of manual labour. His face had the texture of a dried fig. He was a perfect match for the sun-baked landscape she had seen from the plane.

On the way to the car park, the two men talked to each other in a language which didn’t sound like Spanish. She supposed it must be Mallorquín. Then, out of this flow of words which made no sense to her, came two which did. Kate Dexter. Evidently Nicolas was asking if Felió had heard of her great-aunt.

The older man answered at some length, his reply accompanied by gestures which left Cressy uncertain as to whether he had or hadn’t.

When he finished, Nicolas said, ‘Felió knows where Miss Dexter lives. It’s only about fifteen minutes from my place. So that’s no problem.’

The vehicle in which Felió had come to fetch his employer was a military-green Range Rover.

‘Would you mind sitting in the back?’ said Nicolas as Felió unlocked the doors.

‘Of course not,’ said Cressy. ‘If you’ve been out of touch for a long time, you must have a lot to catch up on.’ She made a mental note to ask him later where he was returning from.

In contrast to her first impression of Majorca from the air, what struck her as they left the airport was the luxuriant blossom on the tall bushes lining the road. They looked rather like pale pink azaleas but she knew they were oleanders. The blue sky, the golden sunlight and these wonderful hedges, thick with flowers, combined to lift her spirits as if she were starting a holiday rather than being on a mission which might be fraught with problems.

She had thought that Nicolas would take the wheel, but he was in the front passenger seat, and from time to time he interrupted his conversation with Felió to turn and smile at her.

Usually when he did this Cressy would be gazing out of the window at the passing scene. But she always knew when he was looking at her and found it impossible not to return his smile. Each time he faced forward again she would have liked to continue looking at him, but she knew that if she did he would know it. She didn’t want him to guess she was far more interested in him than in the island’s hinterland.

She recognised that, although she had only just met him, she was in the grip of the most powerful physical attraction she had ever experienced. Everything about him was perfection and, to make matters worse—because she wasn’t comfortable with the feelings he aroused in her—his mind, as revealed in his books, was as pleasing as his person. Somehow she had the feeling that this was too good to be true, that there had to be a catch in it somewhere.

Neither of her sisters, who had everything going for them—brains, beauty, personality, wit—had been lucky in love. Why should she be? Except that she believed in love in a way that they no longer did and perhaps never had.

When they turned off the motorway where it was crossed by a minor road, she had a brief glimpse of a signpost indicating that Pollensa was seven kilometres further along the main road.

Not far along the side road the vehicle slowed down again to pass between massive stone pillars, one carved with the name Ca’n Llorenc.

Turning to her, Nicolas said, ‘In my Mallorquín grandfather’s time this was one of the largest estates in this part of the island. The main crops were almonds, oil and figs, but everything his family ate was grown or bred here. It was a self-sufficient community like the great estates in England. It could be still, if I wished it. But I prefer to travel, leaving the land in other hands.’

The drive was more like a farm track than the way to a great house. A long way ahead she could see the roofs of a number of buildings surrounded by what, at a distance, looked like giant feather dusters. Beyond them, in the distance, lay mountains, the farthest ones pale dovegrey in the afternoon light.

The track was flanked by ploughed land on one side and hay stubble on the other, with drifts of sky-blue wild flowers growing along the edges of the track.

Closer up, the feather dusters revealed themselves as date palms, with bunches of ripening orange-coloured fruit dangling among the branches. Then they passed through another stone gateway giving onto a large courtyard formed by the protruding wings of an old house built of rough stone with cut-stone lintels and sills above and below its many green-shuttered windows.

‘We’ll drop off Felió and my pack, and I’ll just say a quick hello to Catalina, and then we’ll go on to Miss Dexter’s place,’ said Nicolas. ‘While I’m gone, come and sit in the front.’

Cressy climbed out. After sitting still for several hours, she was glad of a chance to stretch and do a few limbering exercises. When the two men had disappeared, she put one hand over her shoulder and the other behind her back. With her fingers locked, she exerted the light pull needed to recover her normal flexibility.

The double doors leading into the shadowy interior of the house were shaded by the branches of an ancient vine trained over wires stretched between the wings of the building. In the centre of the courtyard stood a huge stone um, overflowing with brilliant red and pink geraniums. A well-fed black cat was drowsing in the shade of their leaves.

When Nicolas came back, Cressy was standing, storklike, on one leg, her other foot being held behind her to loosen her thigh muscles. Quickly she put it down and stood normally.

Behind him, lurking inside the doorway, wanting to see without being seen, was a woman in a print pinafore. Cressy smiled in her direction before turning and climbing back into the Range Rover.