Authors: Fiona McIntosh
‘To chew,’ Rafe answered and took a small one. ‘A way to achieve sweet breath.’
Stella grinned, her previous glum moment seemed to have passed and she felt light-hearted again, surprised at how her emotions were seesawing these days. ‘And these?’ she asked, staring at a mound of pebbles of a translucent golden hue.
‘Frankincense,’ the two men answered together.
‘Oh,’ she breathed, delighted. ‘I’ve always wondered what it looked like since I was at Sunday School.’
‘Sir, I think a sandalwood-based perfume would suit Miss Stella. Come, please, let us find you the perfect oil to dab on your wrists tonight,’ Youssef said, turning his attention back to her.
An hour later they drifted back to the hotel, Stella armed with a richly scented fragrance of sandalwood, roses, bergamot and a host of other beautiful smells that formed a concert of harmony that suited her skin and, as Youssef assured her, ‘personality’ to wear at night.
They spent the afternoon in their room, shutting out the rest of life, and their world now stretched no further than the breadth of their bed. Here Stella found the ultimate comfort wrapped in Rafe’s arms and had to hold back the tears again when he looked deep into her gaze and admitted: ‘If I died right now, I would die happy because of today.’
She shooshed him, cradled his head near her naked breast, and they slept away the afternoon heat in each other’s arms, content in the tingling aftermath of their lovemaking.
‘Tonight we dance,’ he whispered as they slipped into peaceful sleep.
He found her on the balcony as the sun was dipping closer to the snowy caps of the Atlas.
‘You left me, wicked wench,’ he croaked.
She turned, chuckling. ‘You were sleeping so peacefully I didn’t want to disturb you.’ That much was true but she then felt obliged to follow with a lie to save them both more heartache. ‘I only woke about ten minutes ago.’ Stella had stirred more than an hour earlier to stare at the man who shared her bed. Rafe was still a relative stranger, she conceded, but consoled herself that she knew as much as she needed to. It mattered only that she had finally found love; a love so fierce that she knew it was akin to bereavement that these coming few hours may be their last together for a long time. With this notion came the memory of her parents and their intense bond and an unexpected stirring of guilt for her anger at them.
With him so tranquil, lost to his dreaming, she had felt alone and that created the space for her fears to fly back like dark shadows. Those she loved and even those she didn’t, including Beatrice and Georgina, sat on the imaginary boundary of her mind and nodded. Yes, indeed, she should be scared, they warned.
There is no future with Rafe. Rafe is a lone wolf. Rafe is a dangerous influence. Rafe is in waters deeper than you can imagine. Rafe would never leave Harp’s End. Rafe would tear your family apart because your very love for him would force you into a choice. Rafe might not survive tomorrow.
That last one came at her like a snarling beast and its shock brought with it a fresh wave of the familiar nausea she thought she had left behind on the rocking ship. But it had found her again on a beautiful late afternoon on the stillness of the land of Marrakech and she’d had to run to the bathroom and retch quietly so she didn’t disturb him. Acid liquid had erupted violently to burn her throat and sting her mouth, leaving her prone on the cool of the mosaic floor, panting and frightened. What was happening? Something was stalking her. Was she harbouring a sinister illness, or was her love for Rafe so intense that it had moved beyond that glorious feeling of irrepressible brightness that glowed in every cell and become a physical incarnation of fear? Fear of losing him, fear of abandonment, fear of him returning to the life he loathed but knew, fear of him preferring his strange marriage with Beatrice that gave him freedoms most family men did not experience, fear that the child he loved would ultimately trump her? Fear that she simply wasn’t enough?
Finally, after an interminable time, when the breathlessness had ceased and the roiling in her belly had dissipated, she had hauled herself to her feet and placed a damp flannel on her face. The cool worked. She had rinsed her mouth, brushed her tousled hair and pulled on a thin cotton bathrobe to stand in the shade of the balcony to wait for him while she shared the sun’s journey towards day’s end.
She watched him now, the lie that came so easily floating between them, smirking at her.
He yawned and stretched in his comfortable ignorance and without embarrassment for his lack of any covering. She heard his shoulder click and his contented sigh at the sound. As impossible as she may have thought it a short while ago, Stella felt her body arouse once again at the sight of his nakedness.
‘How old are you, anyway? You look so good for it.’
He gave her a look of arch offence. ‘You above all should know I am good for it.’
Stella reached for him and pulled him tightly to her. She needed his jaunty humour to carry them through this . . . they simply had to get through another day – less than twenty-four hours, even. By tomorrow noon it would be over and they could make plans for the rest of their lives.
He was still sleepy and buried his head in her shoulder. ‘What time is it?’ he asked, his voice echoing beneath the canopy of her hair and within the cradle of her shoulder. Stella felt his head shift, knew he would look to the mountains to make up his own mind. ‘Must be nearing six,’ he decided.
She straightened. ‘How do you do that? Is there anything you don’t know?’
He grinned back at her. ‘Plenty. I don’t know how you got this tiny scar, just here,’ he said, running a finger beneath her chin. ‘I don’t know what your middle name is. I don’t know how it is that you don’t have to say anything yet I can hear your voice in my mind and I feel I know what you’re thinking. I also don’t know the square root of eighty-three.’
She laughed helplessly, pushing him away but not losing contact with his fingers. She never wanted to lose contact. ‘Fool.’
‘I envy fools and their innocence,’ he admitted and Stella heard the wistful note, understanding what had prompted it.
She threw him a look of sympathy. ‘Has Mr Guilt arrived?’
‘Knocking at the door but I refuse to answer.’
‘Good, ignore him.’
‘He’ll smash it down, of course.’
‘But we’ll be gone by then,’ she assured, smoothing back the hair that habitually wanted to flop across his forehead. ‘We shall climb down off this balcony and run away from all those people making us listen to Mr Guilt.’
He moved fast to kiss her, chuckling at the mental image she’d prompted, but a moment later he looked up from her lips with an earnest expression. ‘When this is done, Stella, I want you to run away.’
She squinted at him, focusing squarely on his eyes to gauge the meaning behind his ever-carefully chosen words. ‘What about you?’ she asked, tiptoeing with equal care.
‘With or without me, get away from Harp’s End and London. Follow your dream of the café in the spa town.’
She began to deny him but he pressed on.
‘Promise me,’ he urged.
Again the farewell bells sounded in her mind but she wasn’t ready to face reality yet, panting with fear and heartbreak on a bathroom floor. It was only when they were parted that the demons whispered their doubts. When he was awake and moving around her, like now, so full of life and ideas, smiles and affection, she believed in their future.
‘Rafe, don’t let’s talk about what we can’t yet see or know. You told me to focus on the now.’
He nodded and turned away but she caught the sad expression before he could rearrange his features into a smile. ‘I’m showering. Soon it will be time for cocktails. Answer the door, would you? There’s a delivery coming.’
‘What is it?’ she said to his back as he left her.
‘You’ll find out,’ he replied and within moments was humming in the bathroom, the sound of water splashing noisily.
There was a knock at the door. Stella opened it to find a member of the hotel staff holding a box.
‘Madame Stella?’
She nodded.
‘
Merci
,
Madame
,’ he said, smiling and offering his light load with a small bow.
She took the plain white box. ‘
Merci, Monsieur
. Oh, pardon . . .’ Stella gestured for him to wait. She rifled through Rafe’s trouser pocket and found some Moroccan francs. ‘
Merci
,’ she repeated, dropping the coins into his palm. He nodded and left.
Stella checked, seeing the package was addressed to her at this hotel. She blinked, eased the lid from the box and pulled back the white tissue to reveal a magnificent silken fabric of green and ecru. It looked to be a pattern of leaves and stars. Holding her breath, Stella lifted the fabric and it unfurled from its rustle of tissue to reveal itself to be a summer evening gown. She gasped at its simple beauty and the effortless drape of fabric that created its intriguing, yet wholly modest criss-cross neckline whose folds broadened to achieve pretty caps for sleeves.
It was feather-light and figure-hugging.
‘Like it?’ he asked from where he’d obviously been watching her from the doorway.
She blinked, astonished at how silent he could be. He was towelling his hair but she smiled in a delicious rush of love for the delineated areas of his body that were tanned. His knees to his ankles were bronzed, as were his elbows to fingertips, with a white band where his watch habitually covered. His face and neck glowed and there was the V at the base of his neck where the sun had kissed it long and deep.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Do you hate it?’
She shook her head, overwhelmed suddenly. ‘I love it but not as much as I love you.’
‘Wear it for me?’
‘You’ve orchestrated all of this. Did you never doubt we’d be here together?’
He looked back at her with a sheepish discomfort.
A silence stretched and it turned awkward. She laid the flimsy sheath of a dress against its tissue.
‘What’s wrong, Stella?’
‘I’ve always thought of myself as someone in control of herself, and yet you’ve been pulling all the strings in the background of my life since we met.’
He didn’t move as she’d expected but stared at her from the threshold of the bathroom. ‘I can’t tell you how to feel, Stella. I can only show you how I feel about you, about us. It’s true I wanted you here because I may need your help but I wanted to make you happy as well. I wanted us to have time away from everyone and everything we know.’
She gave a grimace of annoyance. ‘I hate feeling sorry for myself. It’s such wasted energy.’
‘So get ready. I’ll meet you downstairs in the bar, mint julep at the ready.’
She kissed his shoulder as she moved past him into the bathroom. Tonight she would look like a goddess for him and if it were to be their last evening for the foreseeable future, she would ensure her image and desirability was all he would think of when he left her to return to Beatrice.
She stepped into the lounge that was brimming with drinkers and was aware immediately of appreciative glances. Heads turned and smiles from men drinking together or alone were flashed in her direction. But her attention was drawn to Rafe, whose silhouette she picked out immediately as he stood alone on the verandah. The sun had set but the dying echo of its presence had left the sky in a red blaze around him. She laughed inwardly. For a girl known for her pragmatic nature, how ridiculously fanciful she’d become since meeting him; her life felt a long way from London’s Underground, grocery shopping and battling through traffic to get to work each day. That all seemed to belong to a different world now.
The gown billowed gently at her ankles and she was sure she must look as though she were floating across the room. He’d seen her, turned fully and leaned back against the balustrade to watch her approach. The ceiling fans beneath the verandah’s ceiling stirred the otherwise breathless evening and she realised they were not alone once she’d stepped out of the lounge and into the evening. But the others didn’t matter.
He kissed her hand and then leaned in to kiss her cheek, his eyes glittering darkly in the low light as they turned away to look out across the gardens.
‘Nothing to say?’ she murmured.
‘I’m speechless, that’s why,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know which word best describes how you look or how it makes me feel to look upon you. Humbled, I suppose.’
‘Another odd word choice,’ she jested. ‘Why humbled?’
‘That you’d choose me.’
She shook her head and considered him, wondering whether to say what was in her mind. She decided she would. ‘Rafe, perhaps what I like most about you is that you aren’t aware of the effect you have on women. Either that or you are ruthlessly self-effacing.’
He shrugged. ‘Most people bore me, Stella. I don’t put myself around enough of them to see my reflection . . . if I can put it that way.’
She took his hand, smiling gently at his explanation. ‘Well, thank you for the compliment and for the heavenly dress; I really don’t know how you do it . . . size me so well, I mean. You could have a well-paid job at Bourne & Hollingsworth any day of the week!’
He gave a low chuckle. ‘You and Georgina are a perfect match; I’ve been buying for her since she was a little girl.’ She knew he was right, recalling how well Georgina’s sailor’s dress had fitted. She banished the annoyance that recollection brought. ‘Women’s garments are so much more interesting than men’s,’ he said, flicking at a lapel.
‘Shall I put your name forward to the buying team, then?’ she offered, laughing as she spoke. ‘We can both work and travel together buying beautiful clothes to sell in the department store. What a team we’d make.’ Her amusement faltered as something dark ghosted through his expression but he rearranged his grin so fast she couldn’t chase down that haunted look. Besides, he was already signalling to a waiter, distracting them both from the notion.
‘I promised a mint julep. And I think you must have one. It will match your gown.’
‘Both so appropriate for Marrakech,’ she remarked. ‘The leaf design even looks like mint.’
He grinned, spoke to the waiter and turned to sigh at the scape before them. ‘A beautiful night for a beautiful woman.’
‘Stop now. I was impressed by you long ago; no need to charm,’ she teased gently, linking his fingers in hers.
Rafe shrugged. ‘I could wish I’d tried my hand at poetry.’
‘Why can’t you?’
He gave a snort of disdain.
‘Why not? You have years yawning ahead of walking moors and climbing hills.’ It was meant to sound light and jaunty but her remark won only a glance of soft wistfulness she couldn’t fathom.
‘There is some bad news, I’m afraid.’
Stella’s expression fell. ‘Oh no, what?’
‘There’s a fellow I know – Wilkinson – also staying at the hotel tonight and he invited himself to join us for dinner.’
Even though her expression reflected disappointment, she felt relief drain through her. She’d expected worse. ‘Couldn’t you put him off?’
‘Did my damnedest,’ he admitted, as the waiter arrived with a tray. ‘Ah, here we are, lovely it is too, served traditionally in a silver cup.’
Stella beamed as she was handed a cup, so chilled it had frosted over, with a sprig of mint waltzing lazily amongst clinking ice cubes. She smelled the fumes of the spirit base.
‘Good southern bourbon served here,’ Rafe said, clinking cups. ‘Here’s to balmy, wonderful nights of lust,’ he said with a wicked glint.
Stella paused, before adding, ‘To warm and happy days ahead.’
He didn’t reply to that but sipped, looking away to the darkening sky with now only a glimmering slash of its glow from moments earlier.