Island of Darkness (11 page)

“I would hope you had more sense,” Scottie allowed, and for the first time smiled at her, putting an arm round her shoulders in a much more possessive way than she had noticed before. “Why don’t you come in and sit and talk to me for a while?” he suggested. “It isn’t so often these days that I get you to myself - with Jason out of the way it’ll be more like old times.”

Lucia provided them with some ice-cold lemonade and they sat in the little room next to the kitchen and talked. It was Scottie who said most, talking about his old home and how he intended going back there one day to settle down. He picked up his glass of lemonade and took a sip, looking at her over its rim, his gaze steady for a moment, then shifting quickly as he put the glass down again.

“You’d love Scotland, Leonora,” he said quietly.

“Oh, I’m sure I would,” she agreed, and kept her own gaze averted, for she had a strange uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach that warned her that something unprecedented was to happen at any minute now. She laughed nervously. “It’s odd,” she said, “we came all the way here to Italy to live and yet I’ve never been to Scotland, which was right on our doorstep, you might

say.”

“It’s a common enough thing,” Scottie said quietly. “Not to appreciate what’s under your nose until it’s no longer there.”

“You - you regret leaving your home?” Leonora asked, and he shook his head slowly, looking down at his hands where they clasped together between his knees.

“Oh no,” he said. “But lately I’ve had the feeling I’d like to go back. I’ve seen a deal of the world since I’ve been with Jason and I’ve enjoyed it, I’ll not deny that, but —” He shrugged his shoulders. “Things change, people change and there are different things to consider now.”

Leonora’s first thoughts were of the man he had been with for so long, and what he was about to face. “You -you aren’t thinking of leaving Jason now?” she asked, her eyes expressing her disbelief, and Scottie looked vaguely uncertain for a moment before he shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said, and heaved a great sigh. “He doesn’t specifically need me, you know, Leonora.” He sought for the right words to explain how he felt, what he wanted to convey, and he found it hard. “He needs someone, always,” he went on after a moment or two, “but it doesn’t
have
to be me!”

“Oh, Scottie, it does!” Her hazel eyes had a dark, bright look that reproached him and at the same time betrayed the tears that were only just a breath away as she thought about Jason without Scottie, especially at a time like this. “You can’t go now, not when he has so much to - to face! You can’t, Scottie!”

He took a moment or two to decide, and she almost held her breath, wondering how he could even think of leaving

Jason just when he needed him most. It did not sound like Scottie at all and his attitude not only puzzled but disturbed her.

"I suppose I can’t,” he agreed at last. “I’ll see him through this. After that, if he’s back to normal he won’t need either of
us,
lassie, he’ll be so cock-a-hoop at being Jason Connor again!”

Leonora looked at her folded hands and nodded, her mouth soft and trembling when she faced the truth of it. “Yes, I realise that,” she said quietly. “At least it’s true as far as I’m concerned - he’s so used to you he probably wouldn’t let you go easily.”

Scottie was silent, his hands clasped tightly, his gaze on his own strong, capable fingers. “I’ve a job, everything ready to step into,” he said at last, and glanced up briefly to see if she showed any interest. Seeing her puzzled look of curiosity he went on, “One of my cousin’s and I are coowners of a garage near Oban. It’s a going concern, but at the moment he runs it on his own, I’m no more, than a sleeping partner. I - I’ve been thinking of going back and settling down there for some time now.”

“Oh, Scottie, that’s a lovely idea!” She refrained from sounding too encouraging, for her heart was hammering at her ribs, and she had a strangely uneasy feeling that all this concerned her in some way.

He looked up, swiftly, jerkily, and there was a look in his eyes that she preferred not to meet. “You think it’s a good idea?”

Leonora hesitated at being asked to word it so definitely. “I think you should see Jason through this - this bad time first,” she said.

“And then?”

He sounded anxious, almost appealing, and for the first time since she had known him she found it hard to believe that he was so much older than she was. He seemed so vulnerable, as if he sought her support and her approval for something he wanted to do, but was unsure about doing.

“And then,” she echoed quietly, “if you still want to go back, why
not
join your cousin? After all, it’s what you do best, isn’t it, Scottie? Engines are your life, aren’t they?”

He caught her eye before she could look away again and held her gaze for a long moment before he spoke. “Not quite my entire life, Leonora,” he said quietly. “Not since I’ve known you.”

Leonora’s thoughts were racing wildly in all directions at once. She had a strange feeling of being trapped, and that was surely not the right reaction for a girl about to receive a proposal of marriage - and that was almost certainly what Scottie had in mind.

“Scottie—” she began, but he held up a hand and smiled.

“Let me finish, lassie,” he begged softly, “before I lose my nerve!”

She sat there facing him, her heart thudding at her ribs and wishing with all her heart that Lucia, or even Jason, would come in before the question was asked so that she need not find an answer right at this moment. He sat quite still, not looking at her now, but with a serious frown of concentration on his broad, honest face.

“I want you to marry me, Leonora,” he said quietly at last.

In the silence that followed, so many things crowded into Leonora’s head that it quite spun with the chaos, but she found it incredibly hard to provide an answer. An answer with words that would not hurt too much. “I - I can’t, Scottie,” she told him softly. “I can’t marry you.” Instinctively she reached out to touch his clasped hands and the taut hardness in the bony knuckles troubled her. “I’m sorry,” she added in a whisper.

“Aye!” The one brief, expressive word said it all, and Leonora almost cried.

Instead she leaned forward in her chair, barely able to reach him, her eyes wide and anxious and bright with the turmoil of emotions that churned away inside her. She could offer him affection, friendship, anything but the one thing he wanted of her and which she could not pretend to feel for him. She pressed her fingers anxiously over the strong brown hands and looked at his face - at the understanding and the disappointment.

“Oh, Scottie,” she said softly, “I wish I
could
say I love you! I like you so much and — and -” She shook her head, biting her lip in despair of ever finding the right words to tell him how sorry she was. “I
wish
I could!” she whispered.

After several moments he looked up at her and a hint of the old familiar smile creased his brown face, crinkling the corners of his eyes as he studied her. “You’re very lovely,” he said in a soft, quiet voice. “But you’re so young that I shouldn’t have expected any other answer and I’m only sorry I put you in the position where —” He shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of such hopelessness that she felt the tears actually in her eyes at last. “I love you so much,” he said simply. “I - just hoped, that’s all.”

Leonora slipped from her chair and for a moment stood beside him while he took both her hands in his and kissed the fingers gently. “Would you rather I didn’t come again?” she asked gently, and he shook his head.

“Och no, don’t do that!” he begged. “I can still see you sometimes, at least. If—” He looked up at her steadily. “If you still want to come.”

“I do.” She met his eyes and something she saw there for a brief moment told her that he had put quite the wrong interpretation on her wishing to go on visiting the villa. She even almost convinced herself that it was the wrong reason and hastily shook her head, half smiling. “You’ll need some help to cope with Jason when he gets difficult,” she told him. “You know you never have the heart to tell him off the way I do, do you?”

Scottie looked at her steadily for a moment, then bent his head again and pressed the hands he held to his mouth. “I think he’s going to need you as much as he needs me soon,” he said in a muffled voice. “You’ll be good for him!”

“Scottie?”

They both turned swiftly, almost guiltily, and Leonora moved away from Scottie’s chair without quite knowing why she did it. It passed briefly through her mind that if only Jason had joined them a few minutes earlier how much agonising thought he could have saved her. He stood just inside the arched doorway leading from the kitchen and she felt sure that he must have caught the last few words of their conversation at least.

“I’m here,” Scottie told him.

“Alone?” The question was sharp, and Leonora was

about to answer when Scottie forestalled her.

“No,” he said sharply. “Leonora’s here with me.”

“Ah!” Again he displayed that startling accuracy he had of always knowing where she was and he turned to her unerringly, his nose wrinkling appreciatively. “I’d have known it was you, Leonora!
Boheme
,” he explained when he sensed her perplexity, and smiled.

“You leave a trail of spicy scent even a blind man can follow!”

He reached out a hand and she put her own into it without hesitation, trying not to notice the frown on Scottie’s face when he observed the easy familiarity of the gesture. Her pulses fluttered responsively when the strong fingers closed over hers and she despaired of ever controlling them.

“I thought you were supposed to be resting,” she said. “Scottie says you have a tiring time ahead of you, with Sir Basil Thorpe.”

Jason’s fair brows drew together into a frown, and his jaw tightened, drawing his mouth into a straight line and making him look suddenly older. “Sleeping in the daytime is for babies and old women!” he retorted sharply. “And Scottie talks too much!”

“Scottie knew I’d be interested,” she replied with almost equal sharpness. “You don’t have to be so touchy, Jason, I won’t feel sorry for you!”

“Why, you -” He laughed suddenly, although it was rather a harsh sound, and he shook his head as if to dismiss something he did not wish to remember. “I’m glad to hear it,” he told her. “The whole rigmarole is designed to boost my morale, of course, but old Thorpe is supposed to know

his job.”

“He’s a very good man,” Leonora said quietly, and he made a short, sharp sound that was not quite a laugh.

“Huh! He’ll need to be!”

He looked as if he had been sleeping, for his blond hair was as tousled as a schoolboy’s above that broad brow, and his shirt was opened down its entire length, exposing the lean, tanned length of his torso and the gold medallion swinging on its chain against his chest.

He wore no shoes, but stood barefoot in the centre of the little room looking quite incredibly earthy and seductive. A defiant backward tilt to his blond head and a grim taut smile on his face, holding her hand so tightly that her fingers were crushed in the grip.

He could be arrogant and self-confident, even in blindness, and Leonora felt her pulses respond to the sense of excitement he aroused in her, the bold, masculine magnetism he emitted. She looked up at him, betraying far more in her eyes that she would have dared do if he could have seen her.

“You really ought to rest more often,” she said, resisting the temptation she felt to brush the thick fair hair back from his forehead. “You need far more rest than you get, Jason.”

“I don’t need a nurse!” he retorted. “And I doubt very much if you’re old enough to qualify for the job anyway! For God’s sake don’t fuss, Leonora!”

Instinctively she wanted to retaliate, but instead she shook her head slowly and only Scottie saw the way her eyes shone with a brief flash of anger. “I’m not fussing,” she denied quietly. “I’m just trying to be sensible.”

“I have enough sense of my own,” he told her, then a moment later smiled wryly. “I just can’t picture you as an angel of mercy,” he added. “Do you look like one?”

She glanced briefly at Scottie, sitting so quietly in his chair. “How - how do I answer that one?” she asked, and felt herself trembling when he reached out his other hand and touched her cheek with his finger-tips.

“I sometimes wish I knew what you
do
look like,” he mused. “You intrigue me, I have to admit, and that’s quite an admission! Scottie describes you as a beauty, but I suspect he’s biased. I can’t even guess whether you’d come into
my
category of beauty or not, and it’s maddening!”

Leonora laughed a little shakily and tried in vain to still the breathtaking thud of her heart while he traced the outline of her mouth with his long, sensitive fingers. She knew that Scottie was watching them, and hating every minute of Jason’s half serious teasing.

“You should have a pretty good idea of what I’m like,” she said. “You embarrassed me terribly when I first saw you by putting me through the most nerve-racking examination.”

Jason nodded, a trace of smile on his mouth, as if he recalled the incident easily enough and had no regrets. “So I did,” he admitted. “But it isn’t the same thing at all. Oh, I know what you
feel
like.” His fingers still lightly caressed her mouth and she could see from the comer of her eye that Scottie was growing more angry at the trend of the conversation. “You’re soft and warm and undoubtedly feminine, but it doesn’t tell me what you actually look
like
!”