Substitute Engagement

‘Because you didn’t really love him.’ His smile was savagely derisive this time.

‘Because I know I can get him back,’ she contradicted, in an absolute rage with him and the world, and saying just anything. ‘If I want him. I’m not sure that I do.’

Rob’s eyes had narrowed, and it was a moment before he spoke, observing idly, ‘You definitely don’t need him.’

‘I don’t need anyone!’

It was pride driving her to make these wild claims, because it was all she had now, and no one must guess at the humiliation that was scalding her.

‘That’s one thing I knew about you before I’d even set eyes on you,’ Rob commented in a tone of agreement.

Lucia ignored that, forcing her lips into the shape of a smile as she became aware that several people nearby were regarding them curiously, although Thierry was not yet aware of her presence.

‘So that’s her—your sister?’ she prompted in a low, taut voice, staring at the woman whose colouring was the only thing she appeared to have in common with her brother, and whose oval face was still and serene.

‘Nadine,’ he confirmed, ‘who does need Olivier. So you’re going to let her have him, aren’t you? Your hands, Lucia.’

Only then did she become aware that her hands were clasped in front of her, their tense fingers twisting and turning agitatedly again, and she flushed, forcing them free of each other and letting them drop to her sides.

She didn’t care; she wouldn’t care, she told herself frantically. She wouldn’t let these people destroy her—Thierry and that woman, and this man who saw too much and knew how devastated she really was.

‘How did they meet?’ she asked, managing a netural tone despite the unevenness of her breathing.

‘Nadine has been working here at the hotel.’

‘Nepotism,’ Lucia accused smartly, intent on keeping him the main focus of her anger because somehow it seemed safer that way under the present circumstances.

‘She knows the business. She did a course at the hotel school in Johannesburg.’ Rob made it sound as if he was being incredibly magnanimous, bothering to enlighten her that much, but then he gave her a hawkishly challenging look.

‘Strange! Hassan Mohammed didn’t mention gratuitously opinionated and critical. “Such a vivacious, sunny-natured, loving girl” were his exact words, but perhaps something is traditionally blinding him.’

Lucia knew Hassan well. He had clearly been exaggerating, but she supposed that the description could apply loosely. When she wasn’t wounded in pride and heart, she liked and got on with people.

She had felt a pang of envy when Rob had mentioned his sister’s training. Because it involved dealing with people, the hotel industry had always attracted her, and she had been looking for some unhurtful way to tell her father that she wanted to go to the hotel school rather than getting her degree when the unexpected, fatal heart attack had hit, and there had only been time for a loving urge to ease his final minutes with a promise to go for the degree that meant so much to him.

She had done it, confident that when the results came out she would have passed. And she had come back to the Comoros to fulfil her promise to Thierry, knowing that she was unlikely ever to have to use her qualifications for a number of reasons—including Thierry’s reactionary dislike of the idea of a wife who worked, unless it was to help him on the estate.

Nevertheless, she had come intent on requesting a few weeks in which to unwind after the mental pressures of the last year before they started planning their wedding, and she’d been hopeful that he would be agreeable to her at least taking a temporary job at one or other of the new hotels’ which had been erected on the island in proof of international faith in the Comoros’ burgeoning popularity as a holdiay destination.

However briefly, she yearned to experience more of the sort of contact for which she had acquired a taste in South Africa, earning her air fares between Johannesburg and Grande Comore by waitressing at a restaurant in the evenings and working on the tills of an up-market chain store on Saturdays and Sunday mornings.

Now it occurred to her that, without Thierry, a job was a dire necessity as she hadn’t bothered to save a full return fare this year. In effect, she was stranded here, and not even a national. She could only have become Comorean when they’d married, gaining a proper national identity at last, plus the sense of belonging that she imagined must come with being settled and part of a pair.

Lucia sent Rob Ballard an oblique look from behind her sunglasses.

‘She won’t be working once she marries Thierry,’ she ventured.

‘She has quit already.’ His glance was slightly curious.

‘Then—’ She hesitated, but the urge to phrase it antagonistically wouldn’t be suppressed. ‘She has got my man, so can I have her job? Or any job?’

‘You’ll have to apply to Personnel, or ask Chester Watson—the manager here,’ he elaborated, seeing her blank look. ‘They do the hiring and firing and I don’t interfere. I’ll introduce you to Chester in a minute as I’ll have to leave you to announce this engagement for the happy couple, and I don’t want you anywhere near them until you’ve got yourself under better control than you have now.

‘But why don’t you go back to South Africa and get a job? The Comoros aren’t really your home.’

‘They were going to be. Neither is South Africa, and I barely remember England because we moved around the Indian Ocean most of my life. My mother tried to persuade me to go back with her and study in England after my father died, but Johannesburg was nearer and cheaper, and by that time Thierry and I had fallen in…’ Her words faded as Lucia realised that what she was describing was an illusion. ‘My father was—’

‘Ernest Flanders, the marine biologist,’ Rob supplied, when she broke off again as she wondered why she was bothering to confide anything at all. ‘He made some impressive discoveries, and it seems that you’re set to continue his work eventually as it’s marine biology you’ve been studying, isn’t it? Johannesburg always strikes me as an incongruous place to do it, inland as it is, but, of course, Wits degrees are recognised worldwide.

‘Hotel work seems a bit of a waste for you. Why don’t you go back and find something that will utilise your specialised knowledge?’

She was surprised that he should know so much about her, but she didn’t dwell on it, riled by an awareness that his advice was far from being disinterested—proffered for his sister’s sake rather than hers. He wanted her off the island.

‘Why? Are you afraid I’ll embarrass Thierry and your sister if I hang around?’ she challenged defiantly. ‘That I’ll cause trouble—try to get Thierry back?’

‘And succeed? Haven’t you learnt anything this afternoon about the dangers of being over-confident?’ Rob derided with deliberate cruelty, and Lucia was very glad of her darkened lenses, because while she could keep her mouth in the shape of a smile she had no control over anything her eyes might be revealing.

‘Go back to South Africa or home to England, Lucia. There’s no suitable work for you here, and at this stage of your career, fresh out of university, no research organisation or publisher is going to give you the sort of funding your father must have had to be free to roam around the ocean for so many years.’

‘I’m staying,’ Lucia insisted, wishing that she could come up with some dignified reason for doing so, hating the idea of his knowing just how stupidly over-confident she had been in coming back to the island without giving any consideration to the possibility that Thierry might no longer want her and that she would be left trapped here, unable to afford to leave.

‘If I can’t get a job here, I’ll try somewhere else—one of the other hotels, probably.’

He studied her in silence for several seconds, his eyes very hard. Then he shrugged. ‘Do as you please, but I think you should bear in mind that if you make any attempt to sabotage my sister’s relationship with Thierry Olivier I will make you regret it.’

The arm round her waist took on the quality of steel, so she was perplexed by his sudden, flirtatiously caressing smile until he added authoritatively, ‘Don’t stop smiling, Lucia. Olivier has just seen you, and he and Nadine are both looking this way now.’

‘I don’t want to speak to them yet.’

She couldn’t keep a panicky note out of her voice. Even if no one else guessed what she was going through, Thierry should, and the thought was unbearable. She couldn’t even bring herself to look in his direction for the moment

‘Until you’ve planned your strategy?’ Rob mocked. ‘You won’t have to speak to them. I’ll take you over to meet Chester Watson now, and then I’ll go and make the great announcement for them, as that’s the way my sister wants it. But just remember what I’ve said. No trouble—no spoiling her day, please, Lucia.’

CHAPTER TWO

LUCIA’S face ached from smiling and smiling as she pretended that she didn’t care, but the glass of champagne that Rob had taken from a tray borne by a passing waiter and handed to her had a tendency to shake if she didn’t concentrate.

It was difficult to concentrate on anything at all when her inner turmoil was so distracting, but she was determined not to let anyone know how shaken she was so she kept on smiling, forcing herself to talk sociably when she was introduced to Chester Watson—an attractive, stocky Englishman whom Rob said the Ballard Group had poached from one of Kenya’s most famous hotels.

It was obvious that Chester held his employer in high esteem, and Lucia saw why. Their conversation touching briefly on hotel business at one point, Rob became very much the high-powered tycoon, decisive and commanding, but without being condescending, looking at Chester as he spoke, using his name and soliciting his opinion.

They were soon joined by the young woman in whose company she had first seen Rob. Madelon Brouard was a few years older than Lucia, glamorous and sufficiently sophisticated to be able to reveal her interest in Rob without being crass about it in any way, even when he had his arm round another woman’s waist.

‘Incidentally, Chester, Lucia thinks she’d like a job here,’ Rob mentioned after the introductions were completed.

‘You would love it, Lucia,’ Madelon immediately put in enthusiastically. ‘I work in the hotel shop. It is the best employment I have had, and I have done most sorts of work. I was infected so badly by the wanderlust that I could not go home to take up my place at university when the one year of travelling I promised to myself ended. So here I stand, unqualified for all but casual labour to this day. But I have learned several languages and had many wonderful experiences. Did I say, Rob? Chester talks of moving me into Nadine’s post.’

‘So you won’t be replacing Nadine, Lucia,’ Rob said significantly, with a mocking smile that added silently, Although Nadine has replaced you in another area.

‘In fact, I’ve an idea that we might have something unique for you, Lucia,’ Chester told her. ‘In view of who you are—Ernest Flanders’ daughter—and your own special interest and abilities. Oh, yes, I’ve heard a lot about you since I’ve been here. You have fans on the island, it seems, and, of course, your father is remembered with admiration.’

‘I’m sure I can be useful,’ Lucia submitted eagerly. ‘And, while I can’t match Madelon’s several languages, I am as fluent in French as in English, because when we weren’t living in the Comoros we’d often be in places like Mauritius, Réunion and the Seychelles, and I usually had to attend French schools.’

‘And you get on with people?’ Chester probed.

‘Very well,’ she claimed confidently, and was piqued by Rob’s sceptical smile.

Well, of course he was an exception. What else did he expect when he had been the bearer of bad news, delivering it with more sadistic enjoyment than compassion? Not that she wanted his sympathy, or anyone else’s either—

It was at this point in her angry thoughts that Rob removed his arm from around her waist, and Lucia was subject to a moment’s sheer, unreasoning panic in response to the loss of its warmth and, she realised belatedly, its support.

‘Will you excuse me, please? Nadine is sending out agitated signals so I’d better go and play my part. I won’t be long, angel,’ he added to Lucia, his tone indulgent. ‘Chester and Madelon will look after you.’

Furious, she would have told him that she didn’t need looking after if it hadn’t been for the inhibiting presence of the other two.

So it was shaming that his departure should leave her feeling so oddly bereft, but she would have died rather than show it. She watched him go, attracting as he always did much feminine attention and rewarding it with the occasional smile when eye contact was made, but she thought that she knew where his real interest lay, as it was with Madelon that she had first seen him.

Lucia turned to Chester Watson determinedly. The manager just had time to relieve her mind by assuring her that employment at the hotel included board and lodging if required, when someone interrupted, demanding his urgent attention.

‘Perhaps you’ll come and see me tomorrow morning and I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind, Lucia?’ he suggested quickly. ‘I really must deal with this now, unfortunately.’

‘I like him, but it is Rob Ballard I find attractive.’ With both men gone, Madelon seized the opportunity to indulge in girl-talk. ‘You too? I heard something, that you were engaged to Thierry Olivier previously, but Rob is much more exciting. I am not criticising your former choice, you understand, and Thierry is beautiful, but Rob is more—more of a man! You have known him long?’

‘A while,’ Lucia responded ambiguously, liking Madelon and aware that at any other time she would probably have been quite happy to play the rating game, however pointless it really was when taste was such a subjective thing.

She hadn’t meant to make use of the fiction that Rob had established, her pride rebelling at the idea of needing anyone’s help or co-operation to get her through this ordeal, but she shrank from admitting that until a short while ago she had believed that she still was engaged to Thierry.

‘Not long enough to let him go?’ Madelon prompted mock-hopefully. ‘But perhaps he will come here more frequently and remain longer if you are here, and everything is fair, do you admit? We will have fun!’

Several people who remembered Lucia began to drift up and greet her, and once again she found herself tacitly participating in the charade that Rob had initiated, smiling determinedly as they made knowing comments about her having landed a bigger fish, apparently under the impression that they were using a wittily appropriate pun.

Lucia felt ashamed of herself, but knowing the truth would have made them as uncomfortable as she would have been in telling, if the relief and happiness they all evinced at seeing her apparently unperturbed by the occasion were anything to go by.

The fact that they had obviously been concerned for her produced further emotional conflict for Lucia. She was touched to know they cared, but that they had needed to care was humiliating.

Finally, when a hush had fallen and Rob was making a simple announcement of the engagement of his sister Nadine to Thierry Olivier, Lucia made herself look once more at the man who had let her in for all this.

It was a shock to find Thierry looking at her, but she kept right on smiling, and after a moment she saw his gaze drop, apparently to her hands, now tensely locked round the stem of her glass, and then an incomprehen-sible mixture of expressions flitted over his sensitive features, presumably in reaction to the absence of her ring.

Thierry! Lucia was rigid with rage and hurt, but she understood why he had done it this way. Thierry was a sensitive yet passive man, abhorring emotional conflict in particular and too much raw emotion generally.

Even in the first flush of their youthful love just over three years ago, he had been uncomfortable with her grief over her father’s sudden death, staying away from her until he could be sure that she had it under control. Now it occurred to her that these traits had become more pronounced over the years; he had come to rely on her for so much, touchingly confident in her ability to deal with any unpleasantness on his behalf.

Lucia remembered the day that seemed to symbolise that reliance, when his beloved dog had run in front of one of the island water-carrier vehicles, and he had been utterly unable even to look at the poor animal, begging her to take it away, to find help for it if it was still alive, throwing down his car-keys for her and retreating.

She supposed that some people would have called that weak, but she had seen it as a measure of his faith in her. She understood and loved him—and now she had lost him. There wasn’t going to be any wedding, or a home that wasn’t borrowed or rented, or the security of knowing that she could stay put and never have to think about moving on.

She was doing it again, Lucia realised—the thing that had begun to disturb her over the last year, thinking of marriage to Thierry in terms of having a home. Well, neither marriage nor a home was any longer on the agenda, so she wasn’t going to worry about it now.

Abruptly, accepting the reality, Lucia raised her glass along with everyone else and toasted the newly engaged couple, her gaze resting a moment on the girl whom Thierry had preferred to her and then straying to the man whom Madelon had called ‘more of a man’.

True enough, if you believed that manliness embraced insensitivity and an unwarranted sense of superiority. Right now Rob Ballard was probably congratulating himself on having saved the day for his sister.

‘You must be thirsty!’ Madelon laughed from beside her, and, looking down, Lucia realised that she had unthinkingly drained her glass. The champagne was available because hotels which catered for foreign visitors were exempt from the Koran-based laws of the archipelago. ‘I too. I will find a waiter.’

Madelon took her empty glass away and Lucia went on staring at Rob, hating him for being the only person to know how this had hit her.

‘Lucia.’

The coolly polite greeting had her turning to confront Thierry’s widowed mother, as trimly immaculate as ever.

Although a light, in-flight meal was the only thing that she had eaten all day, the champagne couldn’t have gone to her head this quickly, but Lucia felt her smile widening outrageously, and the words that emerged from her mouth carried more expression than she had ever before permitted herself in addressing this woman.

‘Beth! Congratulations! This must be an amazingly happy day for you.’

‘Oh, it is,’ Beth Olivier agreed smoothly. ‘Especially as I see you’re taking it so well. But then, judging by the company I saw you in earlier, you’ve found someone to distract you—and probably not for the first time over the years. So, all in all, Rob Ballard has been a force for good, although I still have to deplore these big, new hotels, spoiling the coastline and doing who knows what damage to the environment.’

‘The environmental impact studies were favourable to their erection,’ Lucia pointed out, finding a perverse relish in the realisation that she no longer had to be so careful not to disagree with Beth—at least Thierry had done her one favour!

‘And unless you want to return to the barter system, or cowries for currency, their presence benefits the local people and the economy in all sorts of ways, not least by providing employment, doesn’t it? I still remember the high incidence of kwashiorkor among the island children the first time my parents and I lived here, in the mid-eighties. Hopefully that’s becoming history.’

‘Darling.’ Rob had joined them in time to hear her words, putting a casual arm across Lucia’s shoulders and addressing Beth as he continued, ‘I’m discovering that Lucia is incredibly loyal—always ready to defend me.’

His tone and smile were so indulgent that Lucia was disconcerted, needing to remind herself that it was all an act.

‘Oh, I suppose I have to forgive you, Rob, since it has been the Ballard Group’s venture here that enabled my son to meet someone so ideally suited to him,’ Beth allowed rather coyly, preparing to move on.

‘Well, I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing much of you, Lucia. I think it would be better if you didn’t come round to the estate at all, don’t you? Misguided though it was, we can’t get away from the fact that Thierry and you were once an item, and we don’t want to distress dear Nadine, do we? She’s staying with us, of course. I’m sure Rob agrees with me.’

‘Lucia is going to be too busy to have much time for casual socialising anyway,’ Rob claimed, with so much caressing significance that Lucia stiffened resentfully, effectively distracted from the additional humiliation of hearing that she was unwelcome in the Olivier home.

Still further distraction was provided by the way his fingers were now stirring idly against the smooth skin of her upper arm, their warmth and the light movement producing an inner frisson of awareness, so she hardly noticed Beth’s departure.

‘Stop it,’ she finally managed in a sharp little voice, moving out of his reach.

‘I told you, it’s not personal, Lucia,’ he drawled, the taunting challenge sparkling in the smoky eyes making them as brilliant as gems, and as hard. ‘But there is one thing about you that has actually succeeded in arousing my interest, and that’s your defence of the sort of controversial progress that goes with the tourist industry. Biologists aren’t usually part of the backlash against green concerns.’

‘And I’m not! I just happen to think people are the most important living things on the planet,’ she snapped. ‘Will you excuse me, please, and apologise to Madelon for me? She was getting more champagne, but I see someone has detained her.’

‘Where are you going?’ Rob demanded, as arro-gantly as if he had the right to know.

‘To fetch my luggage from the Olivier estate, as that’s where I left it and since Beth Olivier has just made it crystal-clear that I am no longer welcome there.’

Lucia was horrified to hear her voice trembling with the rage that she felt against the things that had been done to her today. It should have been one of the happiest days of her life—her returning at last without the prospect of yet another departure and another year’s exile lurking a month or two ahead.

‘I’ll get a car and drive you there,’ Rob said.

‘Don’t bother,’ she returned rebelliously. ‘Presumably Thierry and dear Nadine will be here a while yet, so I can be in and out while this party is still going on.’

‘I’ll drive you,’ he repeated calmly.

‘Why?’ she asked defiantly. ‘If “dear” Nadine doesn’t know anything about it, she’s not in danger of being upset, and that’s why you interfered in the first place, isn’t it? You weren’t rescuing me.’

‘Not intentionally, but as you appear to have taken advantage of the impression I set out to create, at least to the extent of refraining from saying or doing anything to contradict it, it seems that I was in fact rescuing you,’ he observed mockingly. ‘But let’s leave and get your luggage before your current mood leads you to shatter the illusion and waste all the effort you’ve put in.’

‘Thereby upsetting “dear” Nadine,’ Lucia added tartly, her hostility leaping in response to the insight which enabled him to recognise the present fragility of her control.

‘Listen to yourself, Lucia,’ Rob advised her on an iron note of warning. ‘Come on, let’s go—What is it?’

She had made a small sound of exasperated realisation, and now she hesitated, trying to work out if the little money she still had available to her would stretch to the sort of prices that she guessed most of the new hotels would charge.

‘Chester Watson was called away before he could tell me what he has in mind for me, so I’m not actually employed here yet, when bed and board will be available to me. I’ll need to book a room for tonight if there’s a vacancy,’ she admitted, trying to sound casual about it.