Man of Destiny Page 4

  “I think,” she said slowly, avoiding his eyes, “that if Richard ran away he ran away to look for me.”

  “But that is nonsense!” he declared. “The child couldn’t hope to find you.”

  “He might have thought he could find me.”

  “Where?” His voice was like a pistol shot, his eyes hard and searching. “Where would he begin to look for you? Have you any idea?”

  “The docks ... the airport!”

  “And how,” with heavy sarcasm, "would he succeed in reaching the docks or the airport?”

  “I don’t know. I simply think his intention was to look for me, when, and if, he ran away.”

  “We know that he has run away. There is no suspicion that anyone decoyed him outside the hotel.” He left her standing alone beside the reception desk, and she made her way up to her room, and paced up and down it for a long time while she wondered whether there wasn’t something she, personally, could do. After all, if Richard had run away because of her it was up to her to do her best to find him ... And so certain was she in her own mind that Richard had run away because of her that she began to go over in her mind events of the evening before, when Senhor de Capuchos had visited the sitting-room of their suite and ordered Caroline to be ready to leave early the following day. It was possible that Richard had not been asleep when she left him, and during the course of the conversation he had had his ear glued to the crack of the door, or the keyhole, and had heard everything that had transpired ... or certainly the relevant parts. And being a strange, sensitive, at times curiously obstinate small boy he had made up his mind there and then that Caroline was not going to disappear out of his life without some effort being made on his part to stop her.

  But how he had proposed to stop her she couldn’t think very clearly. And how he had proposed to find her was a problem that not merely refused to yield up an answer, but it raised the terrifying question of how a small boy with no knowledge at all of his present surroundings, who couldn’t even speak the language and had no money in his pocket, was going to set out to look for her.

  She was beginning to feel she was going slightly mad as a result of her enforced inactivity, and the various explanations that kept darting through her head, when the telephone rang in the room, and a female voice behind the reception desk spoke to her in English.

  “Miss Worth?”

  “Yes, yes,” she answered. “What is it?”

  The reply caused such a wave of relief to flood over her that her voice sounded quite faint when she spoke again.

  “On their way up in the lift? Thank you! Yes, of course I’ll let Senhor de Capuchos know. Or perhaps you’d better phone him at the Aviz. And notify the police!”

  Then she jammed down the receiver and raced for the door, and as soon as she flung it open she saw Richard standing there, his face so small and puckered and weary that it made her want to cry, his smart black patent-leather shoes white with dust, and his cream silk shirt and matching shorts grey and black in places. She held out her arms to him and he hurled himself into them, and the awkward-looking taxi-driver who stood beside him sighed exaggeratedly with relief.

  “Well, at least he knew what he was looking for ... And it was the truth he told me!” he said in a mixture of English and Portuguese. He removed his cap and held, it awkwardly in his hands. “Your pardon, senhorita!” He was staring so hard that she would have felt embarrassed under ordinary circumstances. “The little lad said it was an English lady he was looking for, and she was in a hotel in Lisbon but he wasn’t sure which hotel.”

  Caroline looked down at Richard with misty eyes, and he nodded his head with its disordered black curls.

  “I heard Senhor de Capuchos say you were to go to a hotel,” he confessed, “and I had to find the hotel. It took me a long time, and I hid in a taxi ... this man’s taxi,” indicating him with a jerk of his chin. I went for a long ride first, and I was beginning to be frightened because I thought I would never find my way back to Lisbon ... But Jerez was kind when he found me under the seat. Very kind!”

  “The senhorita will understand that I had no idea he was hiding in the back of my cab ... no idea at all!” Jerez sought to impress this fact on Caroline, and he looked so distressed in case she failed to appreciate how innocent a party he had been, and so overawed by the glimpse of thick carpet and golden satin drapes through the open door of her room, that she was at a loss to know what to do with him, or how even to thank him for performing such a miraculous function as restoring Richard to her.

  She was certain that he ought to receive some sort of a reward, and she tried to get him to accept a wad of notes from her handbag. But he was so afraid of being implicated or suspected of having some part or lot in an attempted kidnapping that he shook his head violently and refused. He had returned the boy, and he was happy they had found the right lady...

  He kept repeating this over and over again, while Richard started to wilt in her arms, to yawn and whimper and even to cry a little, and she realised he was probably very hungry, having had nothing to eat all day, and the telephone started to ring shrilly on the desk in her room, and footsteps came briskly along the corridor from the direction of the lift.

  She lifted her head like someone scenting the approach of danger—or, in this case, a highly welcome relief party—and Senhor de Capuchos came to a standstill not far from the taxi-man, his eyes fixed on Richard.

  “So!” he said. “It was not a false report I received downstairs. Ricardo is back!”

  The taxi-man wheeled on him, and all his explanations poured forth afresh.

  “The senhor will understand! It was nothing whatever to do with me! I merely found the boy ... The senhor will appreciate that I returned him at once! I started looking for the lady ... the English lady. I enquired at all the hotels ... Indeed, senhor, I have been searching most diligently few some time...”

  “Yes, yes,” de Capuchos cut him short, with his high-bred air of being indifferent to explanations. He removed his own wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and doled out a sum of money that was far more considerable than the amount Caroline had been able to spare from her handbag. “And I’ve no doubt you expected a reward, which you now receive, so please go!” He repeated, “Go!” and Jerez, the taxi-man, shot away along the corridor in such an excess of relief that it would have been laughable if the situation hadn’t contained so many serious implications that even Caroline, who should have felt triumphant, could barely summon up a smile.

  The Portuguese looked down at her from his infinitely superior height, and his expression was bleak.

  “I’ve no doubt you feel extremely gratified that a small boy of seven thought so highly of you that he risked the dangers of the unknown to try and find you,” he remarked. And then his expression relaxed a little, the hard dark eyes grew definitely almost soft, and he laid a hand on Richard’s head—bowed in shame and embarrassment, as well as weariness—and gave it a surprisingly gentle pat, the long dark fingers straying for a second in the thick hair.

  “Ah, well, it is a good thing to know one’s own mind,” he observed. “And you apparently know yours, Ricardo! You have formed an attachment at an early age!”

  His eyes lost some of the softness as he glanced once more at Caroline.

  “I will request another room for Ricardo, and you will see to it that he is properly fed before he goes to bed. I will have some of his things sent round, and in the morning I will collect you both. You will be ready and waiting, Senhorita Worth?”

  She gazed back at him levelly.

  “I have a plane to catch tomorrow morning,” she reminded him. “If I am to be at the airport in good time I shall have very little time to spare here. You won’t forget that, will you, senhor?”

  For answer he looked back at her in complete silence for a moment. And then one corner of his mouth turned downwards in a dry manner.

  “I won’t forget it, senhorita,” he promised. “It will be necessary to collect a refu
nd on the ticket since you will not, after all, be using it. I must make a note of that in my diary, and my secretary can attend to the matter later on if it slips my own mind.” Caroline felt Richard’s fingers give hers a sudden, convulsive squeeze, and at the same moment her heart bounded queerly. It wasn’t just relief, or triumph. It was triumph tinged with amazement, and not entirely free from doubt. She could hardly believe her ears.

  “You mean, senhor, that you don’t wish me to return to England ... Not yet?”

  A quizzical gleam lit his eyes. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “I am a bachelor, senhorita. I am not accustomed to dealing with children. My employer, the Marques de Fonteira, is even less accustomed to dealing with them, and I have a feeling he would agree that you have a certain—competence, shall we say?—in handling them. Richard, in any case, is quite determined that you have, so for the time being we will say nothing further about putting him in the care of anyone else ... Unless you yourself feel very strongly that you would like to return to England?”

  Richard waited breathlessly for her reply, and Caroline didn’t keep him long in doubt.

  “No, senhor, I am not anxious to return to England—immediately.”

  A dry expression chased itself across the handsome, mobile lips of Senhor de Capuchos.

  “I understand, Miss Worth. The next time we wish you to leave we will give you fair warning. Is that agreed, Ricardo?”

  The next morning Caroline awakened with a strange, carefree feeling that sent her bounding to the window to inhale the freshness of Lisbon at that hour. And when she went next door to Richard’s room to wake him. He, too, when he opened his eyes, looked as if there was nothing very much wrong with his world. He even announced that he wanted a big breakfast, an English breakfast. “Not just coffee and rolls. I would like sausages and tomatoes, and before that fruit juice and cornflakes ... lots of cornflakes!” His brown eyes were sparkling. “Yesterday I had nothing at all all day until Jerez found me, and then he took me to a restaurant—one of those places with tables on the pavement—and tried to get me to eat sardines. They made me feel sick!”

  He sprang from his bed, and turned on his own taps in the bathroom, in order to be of assistance.

  When de Capuchos called for them they were trying not to look like a couple of cats that had stolen the cream. Caroline, bearing in mind a previous criticism, had selected a slim green and white dress from amongst the contents of her suitcases, and looked like a cool, golden-headed dryad instead of the well-trained governess she hoped to simulate. It was true that she had put her hair up and wore flat shoes, but it didn’t seem to make much difference. The absence of hair on her neck drew attention to its graceful shape, and the skin that had the warm tone of an extra creamy gardenia; and with low heels she lost height, which was never very impressive in any case.

  De Capuchos looked down at her and studied her for a long moment with a kind of undisguised interest. Then he nodded his head.

  “You have made the attempt, but I wouldn’t bother, if I were you,” he recommended. “Some people might mistake you for Ricardo’s sister—that is, of course, if you had the same colouring!” with his eye on a stray curl that had escaped confinement and bobbed against her neck. “But your colouring is so very different that we will have to think of you as his very good friend!” and he turned away as if with that thought he had satisfied himself, at least.

  The car sped through the suburbs and out into the genuine countryside, and for the first time Caroline saw Portugal wilting a little under the hot summer sun. But there was enough colour to dazzle the eyes ... every sunny wall was a sheet of purple bougainvillea or pink geranium, blue plumbago created a blue haze beneath the taller trees, colourwashed and white-walled villas stood in gardens that were ablaze with flowers and shrubs. There were fields of golden grain and silver-grey olives decorating the skyline, the dark, rich green of umbrella pines, and distant glimpses of a sapphire-blue sea.

  A good many miles out into the country and they came upon flocks of sheep ambling along the dusty lanes, park-like estates where the great trees grouped themselves round belvederes and elegant eighteenth-century facades. They ran through picturesque villages and beside babbling streams, tunnelled through cork forests and skimmed the floors of enchanting, flower-strewn valleys. By lunch time they were climbing a little into the sierra, and then they dipped down again towards the sea.

  In time for a late lunch they slipped between a pair of handsome, wrought-iron gates, and proceeded up a drive to what had once been a shooting lodge of the de Fonteira family. The long, dust-coloured, chauffeur-driven car came to rest before a flight of steps and the rosy-pink front of the building, and de Capuchos gave Caroline a hand to assist her alight, and then watched Richard jump down on to the drive. The child no longer had any fear that Caroline was going to be snatched away from him, and he glanced up curiously at the long rows of evenly spaced windows, with elegant little balconies abutting on to each, and then around him at the fairytale garden in which, presumably, he would be permitted to wander and enjoy himself when this tall man who kept such a hawk-like eye on them had satisfied himself that the eye was unnecessary, and had departed and left them to their own devices.

  And Richard hoped fervently that he would depart and leave them to their own devices very soon.

  But that was not Senhor de Capuchos’ intention for the moment. He led them into the house and introduced them to the housekeeper, who was a very sober-eyed, soberly-dressed woman of middle age, and explained that Senhorita Worth would be remaining to take charge of Richard, and not merely looking after him for a few days. He then asked for a meal to be served to them immediately, and suggested that they would like to wash and refresh themselves before being shown the dining-sala.

  The housekeeper, who had a face that gave away nothing, although her mouth was very primly set, conducted Caroline to a downstairs wash-room, and then left her to remove the grime from her own hands as well as Richard’s, and run a hasty comb through her hair. The wash-room was extremely luxurious, and through the open window they could see a corner of the garden and a tiled pavilion that looked as if it would be a delightful place in which to take refuge from the sun and rest or read a book. There was white-painted garden furniture on the platform outside the pavilion, and one wall was entirely covered in creamy pink and yellow roses.

  The dining-sala, when they reached it, was in keeping with the rest of the house, and that was impressive enough on first acquaintance. All the rooms were large and airy, and had tiled floors. In the hall they were black and white, like marble, but in the dining-room they were golden-yellow, like a burnished apricot. Everywhere there were handsome Oriental rugs and tapestries, satin-surfaced tables and damask-covered chairs. The dining-table was enormous, and was loaded with silver and lace table mats, crystal and a magnificent bowl of fruit. A white-coated manservant and a girl in a crisp and rather attractive uniform stood waiting to serve them, and Senhor de Capuchos intimated that the service of the meal could commence immediately they were seated.

  He had been quite affable on the journey, but now all at once he seemed aloof again, and remote. If he had been the Marques de Fonteira himself he could not have been more deferentially treated by the servants, and he had the air of fitting into the place by right, although he had already given her to understand that he did not live there.

  “I have a house of my own not far away,” he had explained, while she was being constantly diverted by the scenery, and had not entirely taken in all that he had said to her.

  But now, in the echoing silence of the dining-room, while he sat opposite her at the head of the long dining-table, as if he was indeed the host, she remembered something that had startled her a little when she first heard it, because it meant she had been addressing him incorrectly.

  The housekeeper had greeted him as Dom Vasco, and that meant he had a title of his own, and was not simply Senhor de Capuchos. So now she thought she would seize the oppo
rtunity to apologise for the mistake she had made.

  “You must forgive me, senhor,” she said. “But if you’ll remember we were never properly introduced. That is to say, we had to introduce ourselves.”

  “And you were expecting to meet the Marques, instead of the Marquis’s man?” He leant over Richard and removed the skins from a few grapes for him. “I assure you it is of no consequence, senhorita, and in future you can call me either Senhor de Capuchos or Dom Vasco as you please. But the name,” glancing in rather an odd fashion at her between his thick black eyelashes, “is, as I believe I did make clear when I introduced myself, Vasco.”

  “And I’m Caroline.” She didn’t quite know why she said it, but the name leapt out. She flushed almost immediately, realising how unnecessary such a piece of information was to him, but Richard made the awkwardness seem less awkward by stating proudly that he was allowed to call her Caroline.

  “Mama said I could, and I do, always.” He beamed across the table at Caroline. “Don’t I?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  But Dom Vasco frowned unexpectedly.

  “I’m not at all sure that that is a good thing. A child of your age, Ricardo, should not be on familiar terms with his governess. And you, Miss Worth, would feel that your authority was enhanced if he called you Miss Worth.”

  “Oh, but that’s ridiculous!” Caroline exclaimed, and then gathered from his expression that he didn’t think it ridiculous. “But of course, if you think so, senhor, we will have a different arrangement,” she corrected herself hurriedly.

  To her surprise his dark eyes smiled openly.

  “You mean you will instruct him to call you Miss Worth when anyone else is present, and Caroline when you are alone?” he said shrewdly. “Well, that would be a piece of deception I couldn’t countenance, so you had better stick to Caroline all the time.”

  “Just as you think, senhor,” she agreed demurely, and then laughed suddenly as he laughed, too, and Richard found the courage to join in.