Singing in the Wilderness (3 page)

‘I suppose so.’ She didn’t like the thought that he might have other girl-friends to amuse him when he wasn’t working. ‘It sounds a bit cold-blooded to me. You may be big enough to be two people, but I’m sure I’ll get you muddled up sooner or later!’ She cast him a swift glance to see how he was taking that, hoping he hadn’t noticed that she had taken his continued interest in Stephanie Black rather for
granted. ‘I’ll try to be an adequate secretary,’ she went on hastily, ‘if you’ll just be a bit patient at first. I haven’t had much to do since we came here. I’m rather out of practice.’

He smiled at her and she was quite dazzled by the ironic amusement in his eyes. ‘In which capacity are you asking me to be most tolerant?’

She swallowed. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she denied crossly.

‘No?’ He raised an eyebrow, putting a friendly hand on her shoulder. ‘I have to admit I prefer Stephanie to Miss Black,’ he confessed. ‘Is that what you wanted to know?’

She muttered something completely incomprehensible,
a little scared by the pleasure his words had given her.

‘I think I prefer Cas too,’ she mumbled under her breath. ‘At least—’

His laughter brought the colour racing up her cheeks. ‘Oh, don’t go and spoil it!’ he begged her. He touched her lips with his fingers, daring her to withdraw her preference. ‘
C
ome on, honey-child, it’s time I took you home to say goodbye to your father!’

CHAPTER II

The evening wasn’t at all as she had expected it to be. It seemed that Stephanie had barely recovered from the rush of seeing her father off when Cas Ruddock was at the door, smiling and assured as he dwarfed the living room which her father and she had made their own in the last few weeks.

‘Was it a tough parting?’ he asked her.

‘So-so. I hope he finds things all right at home. I’ve never seen him really depressed before.’ She sighed heavily. ‘I can’t help thinking that there’s more to it than he’s told me.’ She turned to the large man beside her. ‘Do
you
know exactly what happened?’

‘More or less,’ he answered.

‘Then tell me!’

‘Not tonight. What I need is a drink, honey—
’
He stressed the word slightly, knowing that she was inclined to take it personally as a reference to the colour of her hair and the honey-coloured tan her skin had gained in the Persian sun—‘with ice, if you have it?’

She poured him a vodka and tonic, piling in the ice with a generous hand. ‘I’m sorry it isn’t whisky, but it’s too expensive here. Will this do?’

‘Thank you.’ He accepted the glass from her hand and toasted her silently, taking a deep sip of the sparkling fluid. ‘Mmm, it’s not bad. How about you? You look as though you could do with something.’

Stephanie shook her head. ‘A glass of wine is about my limit.’ She tried to dismiss the image of her father from her mind, but the picture of his harassed expression and drooping
shoulders
refused
to
go
away. Why, she wondered for the umpteenth time, had he made her stay behind
?

‘No head for it
?
’ Cas teased her.

‘It isn’t that,’ she explained, her mind obviously somewhere else. ‘No taste for it!’

‘I gather,’ Cas observed dryly, ‘that you had quite a hassle at the airport. Want to te
ll
me about it
?
’

She brushed the tears out of her eyes with her fingers. ‘He looked old! And he wouldn’t listen to anything!
But it wouldn’t be fair to talk to you about it, would it? It
wouldn’t be fair to him!’

‘It depends whom you’re telling, Cas, or Mr. Ruddock. I won’t hold anything you tell me here against either your father or yourself.’

Stephanie sat down, eyeing him ruefully. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘You may be able to play silly games about having two separate identities, but I can’t! I know who you are. You’re the man who’s replaced my father out here, and there isn’t anything you could say that would make me forget that!’

To her disappointment, Cas merely shrugged his shoulders. ‘If that’s the way you want it. I shan’t force your confidence against your will. I can probably guess most of it anyway.’

She wondered if he could. Of one thing she was quite certain: her father had more on his mind than being recalled to England because he had failed to make a go of things in Iran. But, if he was in trouble, why had he insisted that she should stay behind and work for his successor?

‘They haven’t sacked him, have they?’

His blue eyes looked straight at her and she moved uncomfortably beneath their regard. He saw too much, she thought, and she didn’t want him to know how much she would have liked to have turned the whole problem over to him and let him settle the whole thing for her, telling her what to do for the best.

‘Not as far as I know,’ he said.

‘And you would know, wouldn’t you?’

‘I guess so.’

She bit her lip. ‘Perhaps he’s worried about Mother. He didn’t like leaving her on her own to come out here, but her work didn’t allow her to come with us. She doesn’t look after herself properly half the time.’

‘What does she do?’ he asked her.

‘She’s a musician. She plays the violin a bit, and composes a bit—mostly signature tunes and background music for the television, things like that.’

‘She must be an unusual lady,’ Cas commented.

‘She is,’ Stephanie agreed, without much enthusiasm. ‘The trouble is she gets carried away with some new
effect and forgets everything else for hours together, Father included. I only hope she remembers to meet him at Heathrow tomorrow.’

‘It must be a nice gift if you have it. Don’t you like her music
?
’

He was far too acute! Stephanie smiled reluctantly. ‘Some of it. I enjoyed her Indian phase, full of sitars and quarter-tones, but I don’t like computerised music much. It’s too soulless. All we had for weeks was screaming mechanical sounds while she tried them all out. After a while I could hear them clearly in the marrow of my bones and I didn’t like that at all!’

Cas grinned. ‘And what are your talents, Miss Stephanie Black?’

She shook her head at him. ‘I haven’t any—unless you count a gift for housekeeping as a talent
?
’

‘What about your work
?
’

She made a face at him. ‘You’ll see for yourself. Most of the time I’d sooner be doing something else, though.’ Her thoughts returned to her father. ‘That’s why I can’t understand why he’s gone home alone. They’ll never be able to cope with getting meals and so on on their own!’

He laughed at her, swallowing the last of his drink. ‘You sound as though your maternal feelings are badly outraged. I thought you were the daughter in the house!’

She flushed. ‘That’s what he said. He said they needed to stand on their own feet.’

‘But you don’t like it
?
’ Cas accused her.

‘I like to have things nice,’ she excused herself. ‘Neither of them ever notice when things get in a mess. They need someone to clean up after them all the time!’

‘But not you,’ he said with quiet certainty. ‘They can hire someone if things get too bad, and they probably will. You need a man of your own to cook for and clean up after—’

‘I want more out of marriage than that!’ she exclaimed.

His eyes glinted dangerously. ‘So will the man you marry,’ he said quietly. ‘Most men worth their salt don’t want their emotions neatly tidied out of the way with the trash. People come before houses in my book. I never settle anywhere for long and my wife will have to pack and follow me wherever I go. It won’t do either of us
much good if she’s too busy plumping up the cushions!’

‘If she’s a good housekeeper she may be a good packer too,’ Stephanie put in.

His eyes crinkled with amusement. ‘Are you?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘as a matter of fact I am.’

‘I’ll remember that!’ He stood up, glancing round the room. ‘Do you mind that I’m taking over this apartment from you?’

‘Of course not!’ She was glad to be able to assure him of that. ‘I’ll leave it all ready for you,’ she promised. ‘Shall I stock up the refrigerator for you?’

‘No
,’
he snapped. ‘You’ll leave well alone. The last
thing
I want is for you to start mothering me! I’m used to doing for myself.’

She was hurt that he should be angry when she had only been trying to help. ‘Then I won’t remind you that you’ve just had most of the ice and that you’ll need to make some more
?
’ she asked him sweetly.

‘No, please don’t. If I don’t get around to it, I’ll do without. Satisfied?’

‘If you are,’ she said.

He reached out a long arm and hooked her neatly into the circle of his arms. ‘I plan to make you an expert in something much more exciting than housewifery,’ he told her. ‘It’s time you tried your hand at something more adventurous than your parents’ washing-up!’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she denied.

He bent his head, running his nose down the length of hers and putting his lips very gently to hers. ‘Don’t you?’ he muttered.

It was the most unbearably exciting thing that had ever happened to her. She opened her eyes wide with shock and stepped quickly away from him. ‘I thought we were going out to dinner,’ she said, making a determined effort to breathe naturally and not as though she had just sprinted up four flights of stairs. ‘Hadn’t we better be going?’

He picked up her wrap from the back of the sofa and put it round her shoulders, carefully arranging it to his complete satisfaction. ‘Don’t look so frightened,’ he said. ‘I shan’t make love to you until I’ve fed you—and maybe not then, unless you look a little bit more sure of yourself.
Okay?’

She nodded, feeling more than a little foolish. She cast him a speculative glance, wondering what it would be like to be kissed properly by him. She thought she might like it very much. Then he raised his eyebrows at her and she averted her gaze to the embroidered motif on her wrap.

‘Do you like it?’ she asked. ‘I made it myself.’

‘Very pretty!’ he drawled. ‘Just like its owner!’ He turned her face up to his with a masterful hand. ‘Do you want me to kiss you, Stephanie
?’

‘Of course not!’ she gasped.

‘Liar! I think you’re as much tempted as I am.’ He fondled her cheek, letting her go with an abruptness that made her stumble over her own feet. ‘We’d better go! I’m spending the night at the Shah Abbas and I thought we might eat there. I’ll leave it to you what we do afterwards.’

Now what did he mean by that? Should she make it clear once and for all that she wasn’t given to amorous adventures
?
It would be quite impossible for her to bring the subject up of her own volition, so it was now or never. She took a deep breath and rushed into agitated speech:

‘Cas, I’m a very ordinary sort of person. We hardly know each other at all. Perhaps I’m more reserved because I’m English, but I don’t go round kissing people on such a short acquaintance.’ She felt quite weak at the knees and, rather belatedly, she became aware that she was clutching his hand as though her life depended on it. ‘I’m not—’

‘Very experienced
?
’

She nodded her head, not daring to look at him.

‘My dear girl, what kind of a man do you think I am? No, don’t answer that! I can guess! What do you want me to do
?
I can’t alter the fact that I’ve known a great many women in my time, but I can’t help thinking you wouldn’t like me half so much if I were an inexperienced boy without any idea as to what he was about
?
’

‘It isn’t that!’ she protested. ‘It’s nothing to do with you at all! Not directly anyway. It’s just that I think you ought to know that I don’t want to have an affair with anyone, and certainly not with my
employer.
So if that’s why you asked me to have dinner with you I’m not coming. I’d rather—rather not go out with you on those terms!’

‘What makes you think I want to seduce you?’ he demanded with a wry smile. ‘Aren’t you afraid of putting the idea into my head
?
’

‘I think it was there already,’ she said seriously.

‘But you don’t like me enough
?
’

She lifted her chin a little. ‘It isn’t a question of liking. I like you very much—what I know of you—but—oh well, let’s just say I’m old-fashioned about these things.’ She managed to look at him then. ‘Do you mind
?
’

‘No, I don’t think I do.’ His eyes were bright with amusement and, with something else that set her heart beating like a mad thing within her. ‘I can wait!’

She was inclined to be indignant. ‘I shan’t change my mind!’ she declared with a violence that betrayed to her, if not to him, that she wasn’t nearly as sure of herself as she would have liked to have been.

‘Circumstances may change it for you,’ he retorted. ‘And I
?
Do I have no say in the matter
?
’

She shook her head silently, determined to make him see that her moral values were not a whim that she held by today and forgot all about next week.
Nothing
would make her change her mind!

‘We’ll see!’ he mocked her. ‘As I said before, I can wait!’

She devoutly hoped that he was wrong. ‘You’ll have to wait a long, long time!’ she told him.

He smiled at that. ‘Not so very long,’ he said, ‘not for what I want. I always get what I want in the end, one way or another, and so I warn you!’

She ought to have been shocked. At the very least she ought to have been afraid that he might be right. But she was neither of those things. All she felt was a wild, exultant glow of happiness that he still meant to take her out to dinner. After all, she told herself, he wasn’t to know how seldom she had been asked out by a man before, and she wasn’t entirely averse to the spice of danger that he had added to the occasion. Far from it! She could have hugged herself with glee that he should actually want to kiss her!