Challenge Page 10

  She did not admit, even in her most private thoughts, that the loss of him as a sparring partner was also disappointing. The zest had gone out of life, at least temporarily. She acknowledged the fact but assured herself that it was entirely because she was tired. She would get back her energy when she returned to London and had a break.

  At a little before seven-thirty she went to the side of the boat where the launch was moored. The young uniformed sailor helped her aboard and cast a quick look at his watch.

  `Do you have a tight schedule this evening?' Jessica asked idly.

  `This evening, signorina?'

  `For the party. Don't you have to ferry people backwards and forwards?'

  `Oh, that.' He smiled. 'No. There are a couple of men in the port who do that. They are hired on such occasions. I will only help if they get too busy and then only if Signor Leandro says I may.'

  Suddenly uneasy, Jessica queried, 'Signor Leandro? But surely he'll want you to fetch his guests before anything else?'

  The young man grinned. 'Perhaps. But these are not his guests.'

  `What?'

  `This is Signora Volpi's party, signorina,' he told her, happily unaware of her consternation. 'Signor Leandro has told her he will not stay on board for it.'

  He looked at his watch again.

  Jessica began to realise, with a sense of numb inevitability, that her careful strategy had been for nothing. When they were hailed and Leandro swarmed down the ladder into the launch she was hardly even surprised.

  `All right, Gianni,' he said, casting off the mooring rope and nodding at the young man. 'Let's go.'

  The sailor started the engine as Leandro lowered himself to sit beside Jessica. She met his flashing smile with resignation.

  `Good evening, Jessica. I have not seen you lately. Are you well?'

  `Very well,' she said gloomily.

  He laughed. 'And very bad-tempered!' He patted her hand. 'Never mind, cara. You can spend an enjoyable evening telling me off.'

  `Why should I do that?' she asked, trying to sound cool.

  His eyes danced. 'Because my strategy is better than yours and you don't like it,' he told her.

  She ignored that. meant why should I spend the evening with you?'

  `Because I'm kidnapping you,' he said flippantly. `I could walk away,' she objected.

  He raised one eyebrow, looking at the sea all round them.

  `When we land.'

  `Then I might decide not to land,' he said outrageously, adding, 'And you don't swim very well, do you? You told me so yourself.'

  Jessica gave him a far from admiring look, and he smiled.

  `Much better to allow me to feed you and relieve your feelings by quarrelling with me,' he advised, and leant back with one arm loosely round her shoulders, the picture of ease.

  Jessica told him what she thought of him. She told him at length and with precision. The young sailor stood rigidly not looking at them, but it was obvious from the painful concentration of his posture that he spoke enough English to understand what she was saying. That infuriated her too, adding acidity to her remarks, but it seemed to give Leandro even further cause for amusement.

  `You are quite right,' he said, when she finished. 'It is a frightful thing to do, to take a girl out to dinner and to see the sunset.' He shook his head.

  `I am not,' said Jessica in a stifled voice, 'a girl.'

  `No?' He put his head on one side, quizzically. 'Maybe you're right. You could be a fury, mmm? An avenging angel? A witch?'

  `Oh!' In childish temper she drummed her fists on her knees. 'I could tip you out of this boat!' she exclaimed.

  `I don't think you could, my dear. But you're welcome to try.'

  Jessica prudently put her hands behind her back as he turned to her invitingly.

  `Don't tempt me,' she gritted between her teeth.

  `I have every intention of tempting you. I think it could be highly amusing,' he said calmly.

  `Leandro. .

  `Yes?'

  `Oh, you're impossible! Why can't you accept that I just want to go off and have a quite meal on my own for once?'

  `Quite right. That's exactly what we're going to do.' `But I'm not alone when I'm with you,' she pointed out in a wail.

  `Ah.' Leandro turned to her and took her hand in a warm, firm clasp. 'You feel it too.'

  It was no good. He was an expert tease, too quick-witted to withstand. Jessica tried and failed to resist. Her choke of laughter was quickly suppressed, but he heard it. He lounged back on the seat, smiling at her, retaining her hand.

  She sighed. 'Do you ever fail to get your own way?'

  `Far too often.' He slanted a look at her. 'Can I take it that that oblique remark means that you are not going to make a break for it the moment we land?'

  Resignedly she shook her head.

  `Amazing,' he murmured. 'Don't look like that, cara. You might even enjoy yourself.'

  `I might,' she said without inflection.

  He squeezed her fingers. 'Particularly if I let you push me into the sea, I suppose. Well, I don't think I'm prepared to go quite that far. But I will give you the best seafood on the coast.'

  'Thank you,' said Jessica nastily.

  Leandro gave a chuckle. 'Not like that. You say, "Thank you, Leandro darling. I can hardly wait. " '

  `Thank you, Leandro.' Jessica showed her teeth. 'Darling.' And then, with a wistful look at the sea and the side of the boat, 'I can hardly wait.'

  His shoulders shook. 'If you tip me overboard, I will take you with me,' he promised her. 'And then you will really be in my power.'

  She sniffed. `No more than I am now. And it would be worth it, just to see you ruffled.'

  `Darling—' it was a wicked imitation of her own tone `—you ruffle me all the time without having to resort to violence.'

  `No one would guess,' Jessica assured him.

  'Oh yes.' He turned her hand and set his wrist against her fingers so she could feel the pulse there. 'Oh yes,' he said again softly.

  Startled and suddenly uncomfortable, Jessica snatched her hand back. He let it go without protest. In fact he began to feel in his pocket for the inevitable dark glasses which she disliked so much.

  `And everyone has guessed. Except you, I suppose.' She swallowed. 'Don't be ridiculous,' she said sharply. `It is ridiculous to find you attractive?' he asked, sliding the glasses on to his nose.

  'Yes, of course it is, and you know it.'

  'I know nothing of the kind. Explain it to me.'

  She stared at him in frustration. 'We're entirely different.'

  He nodded, his mouth quirking. 'One male, one female.'

  Jessica ignored that. 'You don't take anything seriously!'

  `And you take everything much too seriously,' Leandro said swiftly. 'I think you need me as therapy.'

  `There you are!' she said triumphantly. 'You don't even deny it. You think I'm dull and boring.'

  He gave a soft laugh. 'Kiss me, Jessica.'

  `What?'

  `Kiss me,' he invited, 'and see how dull and boring I think you are.'

  There was a tense silence. She could not read his eyes because they were hidden by the smoked glass, but everything else about him proclaimed that he was enjoying himself enormously. At my expense, thought Jessica. She gave him a measuring look.

  `I'll offer you a trade,' she said at last.

  He sat up. 'Trade?'

  `Mmm. Swap.' She allowed him a sophisticated smile. `One kiss.'

  Leandro said uneasily, 'I have a feeling I'm not going to like this. What do I have to pay for my kiss?'

  Jessica opened her green eyes very wide. 'The chance to tip you into the Mediterranean,' she said sweetly.

  There was a choked sound from the helmsman, and Leandro turned slightly to look at him.

  `Now see what you've done—you've embarrassed poor Gianni. Really, you liberated women have no consideration for people with more subdued customs,' he said in reproof.

  `I'm sorr
y.' There was no sincerity in her voice at all.

  `So you should be.' He ran a hand through his hair.

  She watched fascinated at the ripples in the streaked

  golden brown, wondering how it would feel to the touch. `And, provided I get my kiss first, I accept.'

  'What?' This time she was really startled.

  He gave her a kindly smile. 'Only, of course, I shall choose my moment to take it. Maybe when you're full of scallops and Ligurian wine you won't feel so combative.'

  Jessica surveyed him in unflattering silence. He laughed again, holding out his hand imperatively, and she stared at it.

  `Or have you lost your nerve?' he challenged softly. She sat bolt upright. 'Of course not!'

  `Then you've got yourself a deal.'

  He flapped the hand again.

  Slowly, reluctantly, Jessica put her own into it. She had the feeling that once again she had been outflanked by superior strategy. As they shook hands on the bargain, she had a little suspicion that this was yet another stage along the road to her own ultimate defeat.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THEY were eating, she found, in a hotel set high above a small bay, overlooking a waterfront of tall, ochre, plastered buildings. They had moored in the good-sized harbour and then walked along the pavement above the shingly beach. Leandro held her hand, lightly but proprietorially, all the way.

  `Where are we?' Jessica asked, trying to ignore the sensation that his fingers aroused.

  He looked amused. She was very nearly sure that he guessed what she was feeling and also that she was determined not to let him see it.

  But all he said was, `Camogli. Famous for its sunsets and its thirteenth-century apartment blocks.'

  She was startled. 'Are you joking?'

  He shook his head, indicating the buildings past which they were walking. They were six or seven storeys high, with facades decorated in orange and apricot and innumerable pairs of shutters.

  `It looks like an Advent calendar,' said Jessica involuntarily, stopping to stare at the one at which he was pointing.

  Leandro grinned. 'Is that the professional architect speaking?'

  `I've never designed an Advent calendar,' she told him loftily, unable to drag her eyes away from the facade before her. Suddenly she narrowed her eyes and said suspiciously, Is that shutter at the top there real? It only looks painted on to me.'

  Leandro was delighted. `Aha! The professional eye.'

  She turned to him. 'You mean it is painted on?' should think a good fifth of them are,' he said with complete sangfroid.

  She gasped, beginning to feel indignant. He had plainly prepared a trap for her; but he continued blandly.

  `One of the best games in this area is to walk round the little towns identifying scene-painters' windows. I've been doing it since I was a child. Have you not noticed the trompe l'oeil windows in Portofino?'

  `I'm ashamed to say that I haven't,' Jessica confessed. `That's because you always rush through it with your head down,' Leandro told her tolerantly.

  His fingers tightened and he gave her hand a little tug. Slowly she began to walk along the path again at his bidding.

  `What do you mean?'

  He gave her an exasperated, quizzical look. 'My dear Jessica, you must know what I mean.'

  She shook her head. 'Truly, I don't. Except,' she added with a flash of mischief, 'you sound very disapproving.'

  `I am.' He drew her hand through the crook of his elbow as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Her fingers twitched, trying to retreat, and he calmly covered them with his other hand. 'I am very disapproving indeed. As I have already pointed out to you.'

  `Because I haven't done the tourist bit in Portofino?' Jessica's voice was incredulous.

  `Because you haven't done anything but work anywhere. As long as I've known you.'

  She flashed a startled upward glance at him. 'But. .

  `Jessica,' he said very pleasantly, 'if you tell me that's what you're paid for one more time, I swear I will forget my fancy education, and smack you.'

  `Oh.' Jessica digested this and found she believed him.

  He went on, 'My uncle is no doubt a hard taskmaster.

  I don't care for the way he treats his staff a lot of the time.

  But I do not believe, no matter how anxious he is to have this damned project up and running, that he told you to slap on a pair of blinkers and walk around like a zombie until the work was complete. Now did he?'

  I No,' she agreed in a small voice.

  `Right. So when you dive through Portofino with your head down, thinking of nothing but the next stage in your work schedule, it's entirely your own fault.'

  `Entirely,' she agreed. Her tone was even, but her eyes were beginning to glint. By what right did he take her to task? By what right did he manhandle her along the seafront without so much as a token apology?

  Unaware of brewing resistance, Leandro said, 'That 's what I disapprove of.'

  `I see.'

  Alerted perhaps by the expressionless voice, he tightened his grip on her arm. But it was too late. With one swift, strong tug Jessica disengaged herself and moved to put a safe distance between them.

  `I'm glad to know that,' she said politely. 'It will be so useful—if I ever mind whether you disapprove of me or not.'

  He did not appear in the slightest disconcerted. Instead he gave a soft laugh, as if he were really enjoying himself.

  `I'm glad you see it that way,' he said, smiling. `I'll let you have a list some time.'

  Jessica so forgot herself as to stamp her foot. The paving stones were uneven and, as she was mid-stride at the time, she nearly lurched off balance as a result. To her fury Leandro, though he surveyed the action interestedly, made no attempt to assist her.

  She righted herself, rather flushed.

  `Tired?' he asked solicitously.

  Jessica tried to keep hold of her anger but, as so often

  with this infuriating man, felt it slide away into laughter.

  `No. Just letting my worse self get the better of me,'

  she admitted ruefully. She sent him a considering look.

  `I've never met a man who made me lose my wig as quickly as you do! You must be very bad for my blood pressure.'

  `And you, my dear, are very bad for mine,' he assured her with a chuckle.

  She was certain he was going to reach for her hand again, and she avoided him neatly, sighing.

  `I suppose I asked for that.'

  Leandro laughed. She gave him a measuring look.

  `Why do you keep trying to flirt with me?' she asked in tones of despair. It's pointless, and you know I don't like it.'

  The dark glasses hid his eyes. The soft voice told her nothing.

  `Ah, but why don't you like it?'

  `Why? Well, because it's silly, I suppose,' said Jessica, momentarily floundering. 'It embarrasses me. It doesn't mean anything.'

  `If it embarrasses you, it must mean something,' Leandro pointed out in an academic tone. 'Even if it's only that you're not used to flirting.'

  `Well, that's true enough,' she agreed.

  He took her hand again. And that also is something of which I disapprove,' he said with finality.

  He was impossible! He was utterly impervious to her feelings, or even the conventions of ordinary good manners, Jessica decided. This time she did not try to detach her hand from those possessive fingers. There did not really seem much point.

  They went to the hotel Leandro had indicated from the sea. It was a stiffish climb and Jessica was out of breath by the time they arrived on the geranium-strewn terrace. Leandro, by contrast, was annoyingly unperturbed, she saw.

  She complained, 'It's very unfair that, with a lifestyle like yours, you should survive that Himalayan ascent

  unpuffed.' She put a hand to her side where a stitch was beginning to make itself felt.

  He laughed half-heartedly.

  `What do you mean, a lifestyle like mine? I lead a very heal
thy life.'

  `Sunshine all day and champagne all night?' she asked drily, as she got her breath back.

  `It's better than hunching over drawing boards and never getting either sunshine or champagne.'

  `That's a matter of opinion,' said Jessica, preparing for battle, but she was interrupted.

  They were recognised, it seemed. Not only recognised but expected. Leandro, as she was beginning to realise, laid his plans very carefully, for all he looked so laid back. She wondered when he had booked their table for dinner this evening. Probably as soon as his mother announced her plans for the party, she thought sourly. He would not, of course, think it necessary to invite Jessica. He would simply make it impossible for her to go anywhere else.

  He was talking to the waiter in low-voiced conference. Jessica, ignored, looked about her.

  The terrace was on the very edge of the cliff, so that, if you leaned over the restraining barrier, you looked straight down into the sea that was drumming against the rocks below them. She shivered a little, watching as the spray was flung high into the air. It was a potent reminder of the vulnerability of human blood and bone.

  Behind her Leandro said sharply, 'Don't lean too far out!'

  She drew back, looking over her shoulder at him. He looked oddly pale, although that might be an illusion caused by the dying daylight and those masking black lenses.

  He came quickly up to her and drew her away from the side.

  `You can get mesmerised,' he said shortly, 'looking down like that. This is a bad coast for accidents.'

  Not presumably from the terraces of luxury hotels, however,' retorted Jessica. She found she was slightly shaken by this uncharacteristic behaviour. 'It would hardly be good for business to have people tipping over into the sea. That barrier looks pretty solid to me.'

  Leandro let out a long breath. Then it seemed as if he took charge of himself again and whatever had provoked him was either dismissed or put to the back of his mind He gave her a charming smile.

  `You're right, of course. This terrace is designed to give a front stalls view of the sunset, not for people to leap into the sea.'