The Waters of Love Read online

  But three were doing their work very nicely she thought as the Marquis was looking at her worriedly, not quite knowing what to make of her. That was all right. She didn’t mind confusing him a little, but there was admiration in his eyes too.

  “You look beautiful,” he sighed.

  “You don’t think I am scandalous for wanting to be here?”

  “There are plenty of other ladies present.”

  But there were none, he realised, who looked so much at home. As she strolled on his arm from table to table, he could see that she understood everything that she saw.

  “Tell me,” he murmured, “exactly what did you learn in the California gold fields.”

  She smiled, understanding him perfectly.

  “I learned to play poker.”

  “You are not playing poker here!”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll restrain myself.”

  “So I should hope,” he said fervently.

  She paused by the roulette table and watched with interest as gamblers laid their bets and the wheel spun.

  “Lexia, why don’t we – ?”

  “No, I want to place a bet. I am feeling lucky tonight.”

  Somebody was just rising from the table and quick as a flash Lexia slid into the vacant seat, but as there was only one, the Marquis had to content himself with standing behind her and trying to restrain her from that position.

  In this he was entirely unsuccessful, but he doubted if he would have been any luckier sitting beside her. Lexia bore all the marks of someone who had the bit between her teeth.

  Her first bet was lucky and she won a small amount. The second gave her a big win.

  “You see?” she boasted, looking up at the Marquis. “I told you I was lucky. Why don’t you play too?”

  “No, thank you. One of us needs to keep a little common sense.”

  “Good. That can be you.”

  The man sitting beside her laughed at this sally.

  “Well done, ma’am. I like a lady of spirit.”

  The Marquis regarded him with disfavour, disliking his heavy build, black moustache and thick lips. Lexia, he was annoyed to see, appeared charmed by him, actually laughing at the remark as though it had been witty.

  “Would you honour me, ma’am, by placing a bet for me?” he asked.

  “Black twenty-five,” she said at once.

  The man immediately put his chips on black twenty-five. Lexia chose red twenty-two.

  The wheel spun.

  Black twenty-five.

  The man cheered and Lexia gave a little squeal of delight. It had an inane sound, quite unlike her normal self, the Marquis might have thought, if his mind had not been in turmoil.

  “I think we should leave,” he urged Lexia.

  “No, you mustn’t go now,” the man boomed, seizing Lexia’s hand. “You’re my lucky mascot. I need you.”

  He scooped up his winnings, shoving a small portion of them towards Lexia.

  “You see, I did win?” she squealed at the Marquis.

  “You won less than your stake,” he pointed out.

  “What does that matter? I won.”

  “Of course it matters,” he tried to point out. “You are losing money.”

  “Oh, never mind! I am enjoying myself.”

  He nearly tore his hair.

  “Lexia, if you thought black twenty-five was the right choice, why didn’t you bet on it too?”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” she asked with a shrug.

  “Place your bets, please.”

  “Red eighteen,” Lexia said at once.

  The man pushed his chips onto red eighteen and she did the same.

  The wheel spun.

  Red eighteen.

  Lexia and her companion gave a shout of joy and then he seized her hand, covering it with kisses, which cast Lexia into giggles.

  “My name is Alaric Carnoustie,” he declared passionately.

  With difficulty the Marquis repressed a snort, whilst Lexia beamed at the man still holding her hand.

  “Mine is Le – ”

  “Agnes!” called the Marquis warningly.

  “Agnes Malcolm,” she corrected herself quickly. “And this is my brother, Edward.”

  “Ah, a brother!” purred Alaric. “For a moment I feared he was your husband.”

  “Oh, no, he is not my husband. How could you have thought that? Look, I’m not wearing a wedding ring?”

  “True, but if not a husband, he might have been – ” Alaric leaned forward and mumbled in her ear.

  Lexia gave a shriek of laughter.

  “Oh, what a shocking thing to say!” she cried, giving Alaric a reproving tap with her fan. “He isn’t that, either.”

  “May I share the joke?” enquired the Marquis in a dangerously pleasant voice.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” came back Lexia. “I doubt if you would appreciate it.”

  “On the contrary, I feel fairly sure I could assess it at its true value,” he replied icily.

  “Well, we don’t want that, do we?” tittered Lexia.

  “Place your bets, please.”

  This time Alaric Carnoustie’s lucky mascot failed him and they both lost. Lexia promptly bet again and then again.

  The Marquis tried once more to persuade her to leave, but she shrugged him aside again.

  He began to feel as if he was living in a nightmare and to add to his troubles, the bosom of Lexia’s gown was revealing. It was not lower than was normal in an evening gown, but the Marquis, standing above and behind her, had to keep reminding himself that he was a gentleman.

  What could not be denied was that her shape was ravishingly attractive and he had never been so conscious of her before.

  Alaric Carnoustie seemed as indifferent to his losses as Lexia was to hers. He insisted that she was bringing him luck in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary.

  When he begged for just a little keepsake, Lexia whisked one of her blue feathers out of her hair and presented it to him, which sent him into transports of delight.

  Worse, he seemed to have taken possession of her hand and either sat clutching it or covered it with kisses in a way that made the Marquis want to knock him to the floor.

  Lexia was clearly having a wonderful time, despite the fact that she lost repeatedly and his alarm grew.

  “We should leave now,” he insisted, laying a hand on her arm.

  “Go away and stop being such a spoil sport,” she pouted.

  “You are losing too much.”

  She shrugged.

  “Lex– Agnes!”

  “Why don’t you leave her alone?” Carnoustie demanded in a voice that was not entirely sober.

  “I advise you to be silent, sir,” the Marquis told him in a freezing voice.

  “And I advise you to mind your own business! You are only her brother. It’s not as though – ”

  But suddenly Carnoustie fell silent. He could not have said why, except that something in Mr. Malcolm’s eyes made the words die in his throat.

  The Marquis’s hand on Lexia’s arm tightened.

  “We are leaving now,” he ordered softly. “You can either come willingly or I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you out. It’s up to you.”

  Looking into his eyes, Lexia read real intent.

  “I must go,” she said sweetly to Carnoustie. “It’s been delightful knowing you.”

  He kissed her hand.

  “Perhaps we’ll meet again,” he sighed.

  “No,” the Marquis intervened shortly. “You won’t.”

  Keeping Lexia’s hand firmly in his he made his way out of the casino.

  “Hey!” she said.

  “Have you taken leave of your senses?” he demanded furiously. “Whatever possessed you?”

  “I was enjoying – myself,” she stammered, speaking breathlessly, for he was moving at a fast pace.

  “You have no right to enjoy yourself like that.”

  They had reached her state
room and he waited while she took out her key and then came in behind her and closed the door.

  “Do you know how much you lost tonight?”

  “Actually I stopped counting.”

  “Stopped – ? Give me patience! Of all the irresponsible – you shouldn’t be allowed out with money if you don’t know how to handle it.”

  “But that’s what I told you,” she cried, “and I asked you to take care of it for me and you wouldn’t, so what could I do when you were so unkind – ?”

  “All right, all right,” he said hastily. “Give it to me now.”

  She opened her bag for him to take out the notes inside and then unlocked the drawer where the rest was kept and handed the bundle to him.

  He eyed her suspiciously.

  “If I thought you had done this on purpose – ”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t give me that innocent look,” he growled. “I am beginning to know you and you are capable of any trick.

  Lexia!”

  There was something about the way she was looking at him that frayed his control and he put his hands on her shoulders, looking hard into her face.

  “Lexia,” he repeated, “you must try to be sensible.”

  For some reason she was breathing hard, her beautiful bosom rising and falling.

  “If either of us was sensible,” she sighed dreamily, “we wouldn’t be here.”

  He gave her a little shake.

  “Stop trying to trip me up, you wretched girl. You nearly turned me white-haired with your antics tonight and as for the way you behaved with Carnoustie – ”

  “Careful, Edward!” she said with a hint of danger in her voice. “If I want to flirt a little, it really doesn’t concern my brother.”

  “It most certainly does!” he screamed, suddenly filled with a kind of rage. “And you were not ‘doing a little flirting’, you were making an exhibition of yourself.”

  “How dare you! I did no such thing!”

  “You practically made him a present of your hand and I am surprised it’s still attached to you.”

  Lexia’s eyes glinted with real anger.

  “Now you’re just being insulting,” she bellowed, trying to pull away.

  For an answer, his hands tightened on her shoulders, drawing her closer. He knew he was being unwise and that he should stop now and walk out, but somehow he couldn’t.

  The Marquis had never noticed how large and lovely her eyes were, but now that they were so close to him he could not avoid their impact.

  “Lexia – ” he started uncertainly. “I want to – ”

  “What?” she whispered.

  But no more words would come. His heart was thundering and the world seemed to be turning about him and suddenly he was unsure of everything that had been so clear earlier.

  Gradually he began lowering his head.

  She did not reach up to him, but neither did she pull away. She seemed transfixed, her eyes gazing into his as though she was waiting – hoping – for something.

  In another moment his lips would touch hers.

  And then reality burst in, shattering the pleasant dream that had been slowly enveloping him.

  This was a betrayal.

  He had promised to care for her and not take advantage of her. Now he was betraying that trust.

  He stepped back sharply, releasing her so suddenly that she had to grasp at something to steady herself. She did not know what it was, she was in a daze.

  “As long as we’ve got that clear,” he said. “I’ll take care of the money – the money, where is it?”

  “On the floor. You dropped it when – when – ”

  “Yes, I did, didn’t I?”

  He hastily seized the notes up from the floor and left without saying goodnight.

  He had one further matter to attend to before he could consider the matter closed.

  Late that night he knocked on Alaric Carnoustie’s door.

  When the door was opened, he entered without waiting for an invitation. A short scuffle ensued, after which he departed, somewhat dishevelled and clutching a blue feather.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  At Valencia they hired a carriage and spent a day sightseeing. Lexia returned to the ship weighed down with souvenirs which, as the Marquis pointed out to her, were useless and worthless.

  “You sound like Pa,” she told him. “He never lets me buy trinkets because he says they have no value and he likes to receive ‘value for every penny’.”

  “What about sentimental value?”

  “He doesn’t know what the words mean, but one day I shall be glad of my souvenirs. When I am old, I shall look at this – ” she showed him a large, red paper flower, “and remember that you bought it for me on the most wonderful trip of my life.”

  He grinned sheepishly.

  They were strolling along the deck, waiting for the ship to cast off.

  “Have you seen any of the new passengers who came aboard?” he asked.

  “Yes, there’s a crowd who seem to be Spanish from the way they were talking. Look, there they are at the far end of the deck.”

  A group of four people were strolling towards them. In the centre was a tall statuesque woman with a well developed figure and an air of magnificence. Her clothing was costly in an exaggerated style and jewels dripped from her. She walked like a queen who expected tribute from all about her.

  With her were two men and another woman, who gave the impression of being satellites hovering around a planet.

  A few more steps brought her within sight of the Marquis and Lexia.

  She stopped and looked them up and down.

  Then she seemed to dismiss Lexia and fix her attention on the Marquis. Her eyes flickered over him taking in every detail.

  She smiled and it was a luscious smile that curved her full lips extravagantly, as everything about her was extravagant. The smile was heavy with meaning.

  At last she passed on, her retinue trailing meekly behind her and the Marquis and Lexia breathed out.

  “My goodness!” she exclaimed.

  “That was as good as a circus,” he said.

  “Frank!” She thumped his arm gently. “That was a dreadful thing to say. She’s probably a great lady.”

  “I am sure she is, but she terrifies me. Did you see how she looked at me – as though I was something she was planning to eat for breakfast?”

  Lexia had observed the look, but it seemed to her that the Marquis had definitely misread it and that the Spanish lady had other plans in mind. She had noticed too the way she had looked at her or rather had refused to look at her, thus clearly considering her as of no account.

  And that was a challenge that could not be ignored.

  There was another passenger, a young man, who caught her attention. He was extremely handsome in a rather coarse way, but despite his looks she could not warm to him.

  He too noticed her, fixing his eyes on her in a way she found displeasing. He was practically leering and it did not seem to occur to him that she might object to his behaviour.

  She noticed him again when she and the Marquis had taken their seats in the dining room. He had reserved the best table and the waiters served him with an air of obsequiousness.

  “Who is that man?” Lexia asked their waiter.

  “That is Mr. Storton, ma’am. His father owns the shipyard that made this vessel.”

  “Really?” said Lexia, trying to sound indifferent, which was hard because the Marquis had just nudged her ankle under the table.

  “What did you mean by that?” she asked him when the waiter had gone.

  “Maybe he is the one you are seeking.”

  “Goodness, I hope not!”

  “He might be your destiny, the one for whom you have travelled the oceans – ”

  “If you don’t stop talking like that, I really shall kick you,” she replied crossly. “He is a disgusting slug and sooner than marry him I’d – I’d – I’d – even marry you!”

/>   The Marquis grinned.

  “And you can’t say worse about any one man than that, can you?”

  “No!”

  “I don’t know what you find the matter with him, as he obviously admires you from the way he’s staring at you and he must be rich in his own right, so he isn’t after your money.”

  Before she could answer the young man rose and approached them.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” he began. “Samuel Storton. Miss Malcolm, Mr. Malcolm.”

  “You know who we are?” she asked.

  “It was easy to find out. My father owns this ship, in fact, he built her.”

  So he had checked the passenger list, but far from being flattered, Lexia was annoyed by this revelation and she felt as though he had spied on her.

  He sat down without waiting to be asked and proceeded to deliver a monologue about himself.

  “I have to travel on his vessels from time to time to see if they are working properly,” he explained. “The Pater couldn’t do without my reports.”

  Lexia listened, nodding, saying yes and no and privately suspecting that ‘the Pater’ had adopted this method as a way of keeping a useless son out of the house for weeks at a time.

  There seemed no way to get rid of him.

  When their meal was over they all moved to the ballroom.

  “I am longing to dance with you,” he declared.

  Lexia had no desire to dance with him, but it was better than sitting listening to him.

  As they circled the floor she noticed the Spaniards they had seen that afternoon. They were clearly wealthy people with a certain haughtiness that was imposing.

  They had divided into couples, dancing together. The woman at the centre was tall and magnificent with flashing dark eyes and she danced as though she knew that she commanded everyone’s attention.

  As the dance ended she pulled away from her partner and marched boldly up to the table where the Marquis was sitting.

  “We dance well together,” asserted Samuel Storton. “We must dance again.”

  “No, thank you,” Lexia declined him firmly, detaching herself and joining the Marquis, arriving in time to hear the Spanish woman say,

  “They tell me you are English.”

  He rose, bowing gracefully to her.

  “Edward Malcolm, at your service, ma’am, and this is my sister, Agnes.”