Chris

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Tiffany gave an involuntary exclamation of surprise and delight. ‘These gardens are magnificent! It must have taken years for these hedges to grow.’

‘About a generation, I think,’ Chris answered. ‘My great-grandfather planted them for his wife. She was a Scot and found the climate of Portugal far too hot in the summer. Our ancestor, the original Calum Lennox Brodey who founded the House of Brodey, came from Scotland; that’s why the names Calum and Lennox are always passed down the generations.’

Tiffany was silent for a moment, then said on a wry, wistful note, ‘You and your cousins; you’re really into ancestors and family traditions, aren’t you?’

‘You have something against that?’ Chris turned his head to look at her, his eyes fixed on her face.

She gave a small shrug. ‘Not really. It’s just hard to understand when—when you’ve never experienced it before.’

‘You have no family of your own?’

They reached the end of the green tunnel and emerged on to another terrace that looked out over the rest of the hill. In every direction the slopes were covered in fruit trees and bushes in neat rows, facing south, facing the sun, which was turning red now, beginning to set.

‘Is all this your ground?’ Tiffany asked, ignoring his question.

‘It belongs to the house, yes. We’ve started diversifying by growing fruit for jam-making and preserves, that kind of thing.’ Walking over to a nearby tree, Chris reached up to pick a bunch of cherries and brought them over to her. ‘Here, try some.’

The cherries were deep red and fat. Tiffany put one into her mouth and bit through the skin. Juice, hot and sweet, spurted into her mouth, tasting like nectar. Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to the sensual pleasure of the taste on her tongue. She couldn’t remember ever having had fruit straight from a tree before; it had always come cold and tasteless from a supermarket, when it could be afforded at all.

‘Mmm, delicious.’ She opened her eyes, took the stone from her mouth, and found Chris watching her with a look of sexual awareness in his eyes. It was a look that she had seen many times before and knew how to use, or not use, as she chose. And she certainly didn’t have any use for it now, she thought with annoyance.

Flicking the stone away, she turned to go back, but Chris said, ‘Wait,’ and caught her wrist. ‘You have juice on your mouth.’ Tiffany lifted a finger to wipe it off, but he said softly, ‘No, let me.’ His eyes darkened and he bent to lick the juice away with his tongue.

Immediately Tiffany shoved him away. ‘Keep away from me. And don’t get any ideas,’ she warned, blue eyes sparking angrily.

‘But you looked so sexy.’

‘How I look is no concern of yours.’

‘Ah, saving yourself for Calum, are you?’ Chris stepped back and put his hands in his pockets. ‘You’re aiming high, Tiffany.’

She tossed her head. ‘And what’s wrong with that?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing, I suppose. But you’re not the kind of girl that Calum goes for—even if you are a blonde. Is that what gave you the idea of making a play for him; did you hear about the family tradition?’

Tiffany didn’t answer, knowing there was no point in telling him she’d never heard of the tradition until she’d started reading up on the family. But she felt a surge of guilt because, once having read about it, she had thought that being blonde herself might help her to get to know Calum.

She flashed him a furious look that Chris immediately took as an answer in itself. He laughed shortly. ‘I thought so. Do you know how many blonde girls—natural and dyed—have thrown themselves at Calum’s head? A dozen of them. You can bet your life after an article mentioning the tradition has appeared in the Press some blonde will—accidentally—bump into one or other of us. It’s become a family joke.’

Tiffany bit her lip. So much for a brilliantly original idea, she thought wryly. But then she remembered that she and Calum had seemed to get on well when they were alone together. When they were allowed to be alone together. Her chin coming up, she said, ‘What makes you so sure of the type of girl he likes? You may be surprised.’

‘I doubt it. Calum always plays it straight, and he abhors deceit. When he finds that you tricked your way into the party today, and slapped that poor American’s face for nothing…’ he shrugged eloquently ‘…you’ll be out of here so fast you’ll be choked by your own dust.’

‘Just what are you saying?’ Tiffany demanded. ‘What do you want?’

‘Why should I want something?’

‘Men always want something,’ Tiffany said with the certainty of long experience. She gave Chris a look of dislike. ‘You tried to kiss me earlier and you didn’t like it when I said no. You’ve telling me all this to threaten me. So that I’ll beg you to keep quiet.’

‘You did before,’ Chris reminded her.

She shook her head. ‘No, I asked you to give me a chance. But now you’re trying to blackmail me. And what would the price be, I wonder?’ she said jeeringly. ‘For me to go to bed with you? To give myself to you so that you can get your own back for me saying no before?’

His head came up and Chris’s eyes fastened on her. His jaw tensed, in anticipation, she thought, and for a moment he was silent, then he said, ‘And your answer?’

The loathing in her eyes deepened as she said curtly, ‘The answer’s no! It always will be no. Go ahead, tell your cousin. I’d rather leave and walk all the way back to Oporto than go to bed with you!’ She stood, short and fragile but full of defiance, her eyes alight with fury and her cheeks flushed as she faced up to him.

Chris’s eyes were still fixed on her but he had taken his hands from his pockets and clenched them at his sides. Conflicting emotions seemed to chase across his face and it was a moment before he said tersely, ‘You must know some very strange men, Tiffany.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ he said curtly, ‘that I also happen to play things straight, just like Calum. I said I’d give you a chance with him and I meant it. I have no intention of telling him about your scheming.’

Her mouth fell open. ‘You—you won’t tell him?’

‘No! And for your information I don’t have to resort to blackmail to get a girl I want. And, surprising as it may seem to you, I’m also civilised enough to take no for an answer without feeling any resentment.’

He stopped, as annoyed as she had been a moment ago, and all Tiffany could find to say was a faltering, ‘I’m sorry.’

Chris ran an angry hand through his hair. ‘Just who have you mixed with to make you think the way you do?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.

He looked at her for a moment, then said, ‘Come on, let’s walk along here.’

He turned to the right, to a paved walk where a long, high brick wall divided the garden, shoring up the earth of the upper level and providing a sun-soaked backing for espalier fruit trees and climbing roses, all mixed in together. On the other side of the path were stakes that held up vines that spread themselves across wires attached to the wall, the bunches of grapes, still green and unripe, hanging down, waiting for the sun. The last bees of the day buzzed around the flowers, and butterflies in breathtaking colours fluttered against the deep flame of the setting sun. A beautiful, dream-like time and place.

The walk seemed to go on forever, but after a couple of hundred yards they tacitly decided to stop to look at the sunset. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ Chris asked after a while.

‘About why I’m broke, you mean?’ He nodded, and Tiffany sighed. ‘It isn’t a nice story. You really wouldn’t want to hear it.’

‘Try me.’

She hesitated, still not trusting him, then gave him an expurgated version. ‘I was offered a job out here, down in the Algarve, as a kind of organiser and hostess at a swanky golf centre where a lot of English-speaking people came over on corporate hospitality trips, that kind of thing. It was OK for a while but then the hospitality company got hit by the recession and went bust, so I was out of a job with a couple of months’ salary owing to me.’ She paused, wondering if it would click in his mind, whether he would realise that it was the Brodey Corporation which was responsible. But his face showed absolutely no reaction; it didn’t mean a thing to him that so many people had lost their livelihoods. Something close to hatred filling her, Tiffany added tersely, ‘Then I got a job selling time-shares on a commission basis but I became ill and had to give it up.’

‘What was the matter with you?’

She gave a short laugh. ‘I got glandular fever of all things. I’d saved enough money for my fare, but the airlines said I was contagious and wouldn’t fly me home. I was too ill to make the journey overland. So all my money went on the rent for a room, and by the time I was well enough to work again the time-share company had also gone into receivership.’

‘So how did you end up in Oporto?’

‘A girl who worked at the time-share development, a Portuguese girl, got a job here and thought there might be an opening for me as a guide. So I used up the last of my money to come here, but it didn’t work out. Most of the tour companies want home-grown guides. I’ve been able to get a little work but it only pays enough money to live on.’

‘So you thought you’d find yourself a rich husband,’ Chris said with irony.

It was natural he should think that, Tiffany supposed, and she had to admit that seeing Calum, seeing this magnificent house, it had also been natural for the possibility of marriage to cross her own mind, too. But how to explain that to Chris? He wouldn’t understand; what man would? To a man it was degrading for a woman to go in search of someone with money and deliberately set out to marry him. There were all kinds of phrases to describe it: running after a man, getting your hooks into one, selling yourself, gold-digging. But when you were in a strange country, without a job, hungry and desperate, it seemed like a very good idea. Especially when there was only one other easy way to make money that was open to an attractive girl. But to Tiffany the latter just wasn’t an option, even though she was as low as she’d ever been. It wasn’t as if she would sell herself short; if she married a man she would give darn good value for money, and be as loving and attentive as she knew how. He would have no cause to complain.

‘Marriage is an older profession than prostitution,’ she pointed out shortly.

He gave her a sharp glance, then said, ‘If I offered you the fare home, would you go?’

Tiffany laughed. ‘What would be the point? I have no place in England to go to, any more than I have here. Getting a job would be just as hard, finding a place to live probably impossible.’

‘Don’t you have any family?’ he asked for the second time.

‘No.’ Tiffany turned and began to stride back along the path and through the garden, not looking to see whether Chris followed her or not, not giving him the chance to ask her any more questions.

They walked back to the house and Chris glanced at his watch. ‘I suppose we might as well get ready for dinner. We meet for drinks in the drawing-room from seven-thirty.’ He stayed by her side as they climbed the wide marble staircase and stopped at a door only three down from her own. ‘See you later.’

There was a Jacuzzi in the bathroom opening off the guest room. Tiffany spent a good hour in it, only coming out when her skin began to wrinkle. She washed her hair again and took her time putting on her make-up and slipping into the beautiful black velvet dress. When she was ready she stood in front of the full-length mirror and knew that she had seldom in her life looked as good as this. Excitement filled her, all mixed up with optimism and hope, emotions that she hadn’t felt for a very long time. But they frightened her. Experience had taught her not to hope because then the disappointment wouldn’t be so great. But it was in her nature to be optimistic, and she looked so good now that it was impossible to stifle it.

It was almost eight when she left her room. There was the sound of voices echoing up from the hall as some guests arrived. Tiffany walked to the top of the staircase and stood there a moment, watching as Calum and his grandfather greeted their guests. It was like watching a film: the richly dressed people, the voices and laughter, the beautiful setting; Tiffany could hardly believe that she was to play a part in it, be a part of it.

Then Chris and Francesca came into the hall, arm in arm, laughing. Francesca let go and ran to kiss an elderly guest on the cheek. Chris followed, but something made him glance up and he saw Tiffany. He stood still, just as Calum followed his glance. For a supremely wonderful moment both cousins seemed frozen, gazing up at her. But then Tiffany smiled and came lightly down the stairs towards them.

Chris stepped back and let his cousin greet her. Calum took her hand and held it. ‘You look enchanting.’ His eyes smiled, were warm.

‘Yes, that dress suits you.’ Francesca came over and put a familiar hand on Calum’s shoulder. ‘Grandfather wants to know who Tiffany is. What shall we tell him, Tiffany?’

Outwardly Francesca was as warm and friendly as ever, but Tiffany’s feminine intuition was tuned as finely as a Stradivarius and she immediately sensed a hidden antipathy in the other girl. Easy to sense but not easy to explain. Is she jealous because I look good? Tiffany wondered. Is she so vain that she doesn’t like it if someone outclasses or equals her in looks? Tiffany decided it must be that, although Francesca, in a stunning silver sheath-dress, was just as eye-catching as she’d been that afternoon. Tiffany could understand feminine jealousy and dismissed it from her mind; she was determined to enjoy herself for once and wasn’t about to let Francesca’s petty emotions spoil it.

Calum took her over to meet his grandfather, introducing her merely as a friend, and then took her into the drawing-room where he got her a drink. She met his other cousin, Lennox, with his wife Stella, who was wearing a rich red maternity gown that really looked good on her. ‘I suppose I would have looked more respectable in a dark colour,’ she confided to Tiffany, ‘but those might give my baby a sombre feeling and I want him to be warm and happy.’