A Canopy of Rose Leaves (14 page)

She lifted her shoulders, casually dismissing Anne from the scene. ‘Ian and I understand each other,’ she said.

‘Do you? Is that why you were so miserable about his marriage?’

‘Well, I was,’ she acknowledged. ‘But I’ve been thinking since. I
like
Ian better than any other man I know and I want to go on working with him. The shop is all I have. Just because Ian married someone else it doesn’t mean that I’m not entitled to claim my share of what we’ve built up together. I may not be getting what I’d hoped, but at least I’d be sure of material security. I should have thought you’d approve of that!’ She thought that he must know that she would never settle for anything so mundane, but then she realised he was too angry to have given any thought to what she had said. The temptation to tell him then and there that she had no more intention of keeping an interest in the shop than of flying to the moon was overwhelming.

She turned her head and smiled at him. ‘One has to be realistic about these things, doesn’t one?’ she added mendaciously.

‘No!’ he exploded. ‘Good God, one would think you didn’t know Ian at all, to hear you talking about him! Haven’t you learned yet the kind of man he is? He’s just like my father all over again! Outwardly sound and respectable, inwardly nothing better than a parasite, living on those all round him. Ian would suck you dry in a few years and give you nothing in return! You were lucky, my girl, when Anne took him off your hands! Ian’s not for you! If you want it in words of one syllable, he isn’t man enough for you—and you know it!’

‘I don’t know anything of the sort!’ she denied.

‘Then it’s time you did!’ He eyed her. ‘Did you ever feel with Ian one tenth of what you felt in my arms, Deborah Day? Because I don’t believe it!’

‘We aren’t talking about that,’ she said. ‘I’ve accepted that Ian is married to Anne—I think. But I want to go on working with him. There’s nothing wrong in that! It’s my business just as much as it’s his!’

‘And do you honestly believe it would stop there?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not?’

‘Because Ian would never accept that you weren’t staying around because you belong to him!’

‘I don’t belong to anyone!’

‘Not yet! But you won’t be happy until you do! Any man won’t do for you, especially not one who belongs to someone else. What you need is someone who’ll take every bit of love you have to offer him, who’ll possess you so completely you won’t have the time or the inclination to pass the time of day with the Ians of this world! Don’t waste your time my dear, pretending that life with Ian could satisfy you! Not he, nor anyone like him, will be able to master your heart and love you as you ought to be loved!’

Her eyes dropped to her feet. ‘Just because you’re seeking perfection—’

‘Ian!’ he snorted. ‘I could take anyone but Ian! You’re a fool!’

‘Undoubtedly,’ she replied. ‘But the sort of paragon you have in mind for me wouldn’t want someone as ordinary as I am! Besides, you seem to forget that Ian
is
married to Anne. I shall only be his business partner, nothing more.’

‘True,’ he agreed, somewhat mollified. ‘How much does this shop mean to you, Deborah? Would anything make you give it up?’

‘Only one thing,’ she answered lightly. ‘I’d give it up if the right man asked me to do so. I’d rather have love than security, even if it didn’t last!’

She could hardly have told him plainer than that how she felt, she thought, but his thoughts were still with his brother.

‘As long as Ian is married to Anne you have time—’

‘Oh, there you are!’ Mrs. Derwent was obviously pleased to have found them. ‘You’ve caught the sun, Debbie, or has that son of mine been bullying you again? How you two do love to quarrel with one another! You make me feel decidedly
de trop
.’

Which at the moment she decidedly was, Deborah thought mutinously. But she felt a rush of affection for the other woman as she came awkwardly down the bank to stand beside them. It wasn’t her fault that it had been the wrong moment for her to appear and it would be unfair to let her see that it had been. She gave Mrs. Derwent such a warm smile that Roger’s mother actually blushed.

‘It’s been one of the liveliest afternoons I ever remember!’ she exclaimed happily. ‘But I’ve seen enough now. Let’s go home!’

Deborah had expected Maxine to be involved in her affairs, but the American girl’s complete lack of interest in her adventures was rather devastating.

‘I’m sure it was awful for you,’ Maxine grinned at her. ‘Though I think it might have been worth it just to see Roger flipping his lid! Oh, Deborah, I’m so happy I don’t know what to do with myself! David’s coming has started me painting again! Howard and he had a row to end all rows, of course, and surprise, surprise, Howard lost and is going back to the States as soon as he can get a passage.’ She hugged herself with glee. ‘David is staying on here with me!’

‘And you want me to go?’ Deborah put in, resigned to the inevitable.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t you want to be alone with him?’ Deborah asked, surprised.

‘You won’t make any difference,’ Maxine told her frankly. ‘The whole world could be living here and I’d still feel alone with David. You can stay as long as you like as far as we’re concerned.’

‘I’d be glad to stay a day or two,’ Deborah compromised. In a day or two Roger
must
come.

But two days came and went, and then a third, and by the fourth day desperation had set in. Deborah walked through the bazaar and along the main road past the citadel which was destined to be the new Shiraz museum, paused ostensibly to look into the bookshop’s window, and then turned down the narrow road that led to the hotel.

The receptionist was more than helpful. To make a telephone call to England might take time, he told her. If she didn’t mind waiting, he would place the call for her and tell her when she would be able to speak to London. She thanked him, feeling more nervous by the minute, and went to sit down in front of the same television set she had been pretending to watch when she had first seen Roger.

It was more than three hours before the receptionist called her to the phone. ‘Mr. Ian Derwent is waiting now to speak to you,’ he told her.

‘Thank you.’ She took the receiver from him and held it to her ear. ‘Ian? It’s Deborah.’

‘I know that,’ Ian’s voice came back to her. ‘What do you want?’ He sounded close enough to touch. ‘Have you any idea what this call is going to cost?’

‘I had to speak to you,’ Deborah said. ‘Ian, will you do something quite mad for me? I wouldn’t ask you, but I think you owe me something and it won’t cost you anything—at least only the cost of a telegram.’

‘Deborah, what on earth are you up to?’

‘I want to marry Roger,’ she said simply.

‘You
what
! Roger eats people like you alive for breakfast.’

‘Yes, I know. But I’d rather he ate me than anyone else. Only I need your help to convince him of that. Will you help?’

‘What do you want me to do?’ Ian asked grudgingly. ‘Deb, you’re not doing something daft on the rebound from me, are you?’

She laughed at that. ‘No, truly I’m not, but unfortunately that’s all he thinks I feel for him. Will you send me a cable saying your marriage to Anne is finished and that you’re coming out here to get me?’

‘You’re mad! Anne would be furious! Anyway, how did you know? It was the biggest mistake of my life to marry Anne. All she wants from me is a provider she can show off to her friends!’

Deborah could have told him that from the first moment she had set eyes on his pretty bride. A mercenary little soul was Anne, with an acquisitive eye that had revolted Deborah when she had seen it passing judgment on the possible value of Aladdin’s Cave and had known that the other girl was assessing to the nearest penny exactly what was in it for her.

‘Ian, I don’t think I’m the right person for you to tell your troubles to, do you? All I want to know is, will you send the cable?’

‘No, I won’t! I’m not doing anything to help you get yourself tied up to Roger. I’ve never even liked the fellow! Besides, if it doesn’t work out with Anne, what am I to do then?’

This was worse than she had thought possible. She held the receiver more tightly still and swallowed hard. ‘You married Anne,’ she reminded him. ‘Even if Roger won’t have me, I’m not available to pick up the pieces with you. I want to marry Roger or nobody!’

‘Look, I know I hurt you—’

‘But you didn’t! You bruised my pride a little, but you didn’t touch me—not the real me. I didn’t know myself at all!’

‘Well, I still won’t do it! Oh lord, Anne’s just come in. I’ll have to go!’

Deborah put everything she had into the last throw, ‘If you send the cable I’ll give you my half of the shop,’ she said.

‘But, Deborah, you can’t afford to give it away!’

‘I can’t afford not to! Put Anne on if she’s there—’

‘But she’ll make me accept! Deb, you can’t let me do this to you. I never wanted to hurt you! I’d have married both of you if I could—’ The voice broke off and a cool, clear feminine voice replaced it.

‘Deborah ? Anne. Did you offer to give us half of the shop as a
wedding
present? How kind, my dear, and how realistic of you to realise that the partnership between you and Ian would never have worked out now he’s married to me. I can’t see what good this cable will do you, but Ian will send it straight away if that’s what you want. But we’ll both deny all knowledge of it if we’re ever asked about it. You do understand that, don’t you?’

‘That’s what I expected,’ Deborah said drily.

‘Anything to get you out of Ian’s reach, darling,’ Anne responded. ‘Ian is mine—and that’s the way it’s going to stay.’

Relief made Deborah positively light-headed. ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘you’re welcome to him. I don’t want him at all. The only thing that surprises me is that I ever thought I did.’

She heard Anne gasp and, laughing under her breath, she replaced the receiver in its cradle. How could she have been so rude? Worse still, why didn’t she care that she might have hurt Anne’s feelings? She had never felt less guilty about anything. In fact, she didn’t feel anything.

Not feeling anything meant that she didn’t even feel lonely. Half an hour at a time was as much as she could do with of David’s and Maxine’s company, for Maxine had never said a truer word than that they wouldn’t notice if she was there or not. They were so taken up with their own tempestuous relationship that she felt more like a ghost than ever. It was like having no flesh and blood of her own at all.

The cable came and she sent it, together with a polite little note from herself, round to Roger’s address.

‘Dear Roger,’ she had written: ‘As you will see from the enclosed, Ian has decided that he made a mistake in marrying Anne. I am going back to England to be with him during what is bound to be a difficult time for him. At least my own personal problems look like finding a happy solution in the end. Thank you for all you have done for me since I have been in Iran. Yours, Deborah.’

She had pondered long on how to sign herself and the ‘yours’ had been the final result. At least it was honest, she had told herself. She would be his for as long as she lived and breathed.

In the afternoon she walked down the road to the octagonal pavilion that until recently had housed a collection of paintings and finely illuminated Korans. Now it was empty, but the building still remained, the panels of beautiful Zand tiles, ceiling and the carefully restored paintings of floral arabesques and birds were all as impressive as ever.

Deborah emerged from the building again, feeling her way down the high blocks that served as steps up to the entrance, and stood for a moment savouring what was left of the garden. She was genuinely startled when she saw Roger coming round the building towards her. She put up her hands in unconscious appeal, but he paid no attention, merely taking advantage of her action to take a firm hold of her wrist, pulling her after him along the path to the street and into his waiting car.

‘Get in!’ he ordered her.

‘But—’

‘Deborah, don’t argue! Get in and be thankful I don’t beat you here and now!
Get in
!’

And she did.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Roger
drove with a ferocious efficiency, not even glancing in her direction, and the silence between them grew and grew until she was afraid that it would go on for ever.

‘Did you get my note?’ she asked at last.

‘Yes, Miss Day, I did.’

‘
Miss Day?
Oh,’ she said. The silence dragged on. ‘Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere—anywhere where we can be alone!’

‘I don’t know that I want to go with you,’ she declared.

‘You should have thought of that before!’ He drew up at the side of a deserted street and turned and looked at her. ‘This time, Deborah Day, I’m calling the shots!’

She didn’t answer. All she could do was to sit beside him with bowed head, waiting for him to tell her that he never wanted to see her again.

‘Well, Deborah?’

‘Well what?’

‘I want to hear what game it is that you’re playing now?’

‘I’m not a child!’ she retorted.

‘No, you’re not! But you seem determined to behave like one! I could wring your stupid neck!’

‘I thought you were going to,’ she told him.

‘I may yet.’ His eyes glinted dangerously at her. ‘But before I do I’m going to show you just what you’re turning down for Ian’s antiseptic kisses!’

He gave her no time to reply. He pulled her firmly into his arms and dropped his mouth to hers in a possessive kiss that aroused her to a passionate response that shattered the last of her defences against him. She ran her fingers through his hair and abandoned herself the more completely to the urgency of his hands as they fumbled at the neck of her bodice, found what they wanted, and unashamedly explored the soft curves of her breasts.

‘Roger, somebody will see us—’

‘Let them see! Don’t you understand how much I want you?’

‘Do you? Oh, Roger, are you sure?’

He kissed her again with a groan that could have meant anything at all. Then he put her back in her own seat with a final caress. His hands when he put them on the steering-wheel were trembling and the knuckles shone white as he gripped the wheel to steady them.

‘Am I sure? That’s good, coming from you! You’d better do your dress up, or do you want me to act as lady’s maid as well? You and Ian will make a fine pair!’

The tears started in her eyes. ‘Please don’t be cross,’ she pleaded with him. ‘I can’t—’

‘
Ian!
I can’t believe it! I’ve a damned good mind to take you back to the Qashgai. The Khan’s idea was the right one in the first place: I should have shared your bed and your body and argued with you afterwards! You wouldn’t still be hankering after that brother of mine, you’d have something better to think about! Me! You may have hated me for it, but by God, you wouldn’t have dismissed me then with a cool little note! You could hate me all you please, but you’d know you belonged to me and there’d be no question of your going to England, or anywhere else, without me!’

Deborah made an effort to swallow the painful lump in her throat. ‘If you felt like that, why didn’t you—’

‘Because I was fool enough to think you needed time to make up your mind and that it wouldn’t be fair for me to hurry you!’

‘To—to make up my mind?’

‘It’s a very different proposition to love a man like me from playing around with Ian, or Reza, walking always in the sunshine of everyone’s approbation! I wanted you to love me so much that it hurts. I wanted you to live, breathe, eat and sleep your love for me, regardless of whether my mother or Toobi or anyone else liked you any better because of it! I wanted every bit of you for myself!’

Deborah felt winded, as if he had hit her below the ribs. ‘You never said anything. You haven’t been near me for
four days
!’

‘And that was your fault too! I had to cool my heels in Teheran, holding my mother’s hand until her John could catch up with her. I thought it would be what you wanted me to do for her!’

‘He came? You mean he came to her at once and that she’s with him now? Oh, Roger, how lovely for her! Aren’t you pleased, just a little bit pleased, that it worked out for her?’

‘Delighted!’ he said drily. ‘They’re getting married almost at once, probably as they pass through London on their way back to the States. My mother sent several messages to you, but I can’t remember what any of them were. She wasn’t particularly coherent at the last, but she did seem to think that you’d be waiting with bated breath for my return to Shiraz. Little did she know!’

‘But I didn’t know you were in Teheran! How could I have known?’

‘Didn’t Maxine tell you?’

She shook her head. ‘I expect she forgot,’ she murmured. ‘She isn’t particularly coherent just now either.’

Roger heard this in silence. ‘I see,’ he said at last.

She didn’t think that he did. ‘I thought you’d forgotten about me,’ she declared. ‘You never came to see me before either!’

‘No. I think I knew even then that I could easily go in at the deep end over you, and I didn’t want it to happen—not if the sort of person you cared about was, brother Ian!’

‘I like Ian—’

‘You’ve made that abundantly clear! It’s a pity you’re not young enough to be run in as being in need of care and protection, for what use you think Ian will be to you I can’t imagine! Good heavens, sweetheart, you must know the kind of man he is. He’s ditched you once already, and what for? You don’t have to draw me a picture of Anne, I can see her as clearly as if I’d known her all my life. She saw the possibilities of Aladdin’s Cave at a glance, and if anyone can do it, she’ll push Ian into being a great success. And don’t you dare feel sorry for him! He may resent her drive. Most weak men do resent their womenfolk being more able than themselves, but he’ll cling to her because she’ll build him up in the eyes of his friends as being someone in his own right. In his weaker moments he’ll think of you as the sweet alternative, but he’ll always go back to her when the going gets tough. He’s my father all over again!’

‘How do you know that?’ she asked him, rather put out that he should have read his brother’s character so accurately when she, who had known him all her life, had only just discovered what Ian was really like.

‘I see my father from time to time. Ian’s mother is probably very like Anne. She made my father what he is and she had even less to work with than Anne has with Ian. My father has plenty of surface charm, but he suffers from the fatal flaw of being totally insensitive to the motives and ideals of those around him. When he married my mother I think he really did love her. He was like a healthy ivy getting a stranglehold on a pine tree. The pine tree soon rejected the parasite, but the handy oak was only too pleased to give him shelter. When you look at them now, it may be the leaf of the ivy that catches your eye, but the whole edifice is held up by the wood of the oak underneath.

‘You’re too nice a tree to be smothered by Ian, my dear. The ivy kills the oak tree in the end if it’s allowed to thrive unchecked. Do you want to end up like Ian’s mother? Glassy-eyed and with all feeling deadened in the all-consuming drive towards material success?’

Deborah managed a little smile. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I think your mother is more like a holly bush than a pine tree,’ she added.

‘Prickly? Well, yes, but it’s the pine tree that stands aloof and alone in altitudes where lesser beings freeze and fall apart. Ivy couldn’t hope to survive at her level.’

Deborah’s attention was momentarily diverted. ‘I didn’t know that you liked her as much as that, but you do, don’t you? I’m glad.’

‘By which I gather that you like her too?’

‘Yes, of course I do. I can see why you compare her to a pine tree, but I still think she’s more like the holly. She reminds me of the legend of how the holly got its red berries. When the Christ-child was newly born and cold, the trees of the forest were asked to give their branches to make a fire to keep him warm. They all had the best excuses as to why they shouldn’t do so; all except the holly, which didn’t seem to have any particular use in the world. So the holly willingly gave its branches to the flames to keep the Child warm, and the scarlet berries are an eternal reminder of how it sacrificed itself. Isn’t that just the sort of thing your mother would do?’

‘Could be—if she saw it as her duty.’

‘Exactly, that’s why I wish she could marry her John properly. She’ll go through the ceremony as a legal requirement, but she’ll know that it isn’t true for her. As far as she’s concerned, she’s still married to your father. I know she does, because I’d feel exactly the same way myself!’

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Tell me more,’ he invited her.

Deborah was only too glad to do so. ‘I think
you
were her branches. She was afraid you would suffer for her sins.’

He smiled. ‘Even clever women can be incredibly stupid,’ he remarked. ‘Forget about my mother and the past, love. Suppose you tell me instead what you’ve been up to yourself?’

She cast him a swift glance from underneath her lashes. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean exactly what you think I mean,’ Roger retorted. ‘If you feel like that about marriage, wasn’t it a trifle convenient to forget that Ian is a married man?’

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Precisely!
Oh!
What were you hoping to gain?’

She found to her surprise that her hand was still in his and she clutched at his fingers as though her life depended on it. ‘You,’ she said.

His eyebrows rose. ‘Me?’

‘Please don’t be angry again,’ she begged him. She tickled the palm of his hand with her forefinger and looked imploringly across at him. ‘It was a mistake. You see, I didn’t know you were in Teheran. Couldn’t we just forget all about it?’ She sighed, seeing the answer to that written on his face. ‘You frighten me when you’re angry—’

‘Rubbish! You’ve never been the least bit afraid of me!’

‘Well, perhaps not afraid,’ she amended, ‘but you’ve made me feel pretty uncomfortable once or twice.’

‘Only once or twice? My dear girl, I marvel at my self-control if it’s only been
once or twice
! A more exasperating female it has never been my privilege to meet! I could have murdered you when you got yourself carried off by the Qashgai. I probably would have done if you hadn’t looked so pleased to see me. And you were glad, weren’t you, my foolish darling?’

She nodded silently.

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ he teased her.

‘I’m afraid you’ll be angry again—’

‘Very likely! But not as angry as I was then, when I thought I might be too late to extract you from some kind of wedding with Reza Mahdevi. If necessary, I’d have kidnapped you back myself.’ His eyes looked deep into hers. ‘What would you have done if I had?’ he asked curiously.

Deborah felt a strong feeling of regret that he hadn’t carried her off by force. Her eyes fell before the brilliant inquiry in his.

‘You know what I wanted,’ she murmured. ‘When you didn’t make love to me I thought I didn’t appeal to you—not enough for you to be more than chivalrous about it. You’d come, but only as you would have come for any girl who’d got herself in the same pickle. I thought you didn’t like me much. Only, at Persepolis, I thought you sounded a bit jealous of Ian, and—’

‘Ah yes, Persepolis.’ His fingers tightened round her wrist. ‘At Persepolis I had despaired of persuading you that you were as much in love with me as I was with you. I couldn’t wait for you to get it together any longer, not if I wanted to hang on to my sanity. I made up my mind that as wooing you was getting me nowhere, I’d try another tack and hurry you into marriage with me so fast that you wouldn’t have time to indulge any further nostalgia for the might-have-been with Ian. But then my mother turned up and you were so relieved to see her that I felt a brute. When I came back from Teheran and found your bombshell waiting for me I thought I’d lost you. Have I, Deborah?’

‘I thought I’d lost you too!’ she said slowly.

‘And that hurt?’

‘It still does! If I’d known where you were it wouldn’t have been so bad, but I thought you were in Shiraz and didn’t want to see me. I thought you’d decided that I didn’t measure up to your standards, not—not in a nasty way, but that I wasn’t worth giving up your freedom for.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘I made Ian send that cable. He didn’t want to, but I spoke to Anne and she made him do it.’

‘At a price, I imagine she would,’ Roger put in, and she thought, though it couldn’t be true, that he was trying not to laugh out loud at her. ‘What did you bribe her with?’

‘My share of the shop.’

He did laugh then, a great sound of joyous triumph. Deborah gave him a startled glance and then began to laugh herself.

‘I thought you’d be angry.’ she said, still not quite believing that he wasn’t.

‘How could I be angry about anything so beautifully, so gloriously right? Ian is welcome to it!’

‘Yes, but it was all I had,’ she reminded him. ‘Without it I haven’t got a penny in the world. What kind of security is that?’ She sat up very straight and looked straight ahead of her down the deserted street. ‘I hoped you’d put your foot down if you thought I was going back to Ian. I hoped that you’d be jealous enough to want me yourself. It was an impulse, a long-growing impulse, to tempt you to come to my rescue again. I even thought you might like it! But it wasn’t a very nice thing to do and I was ashamed immediately afterwards, but it was too late then to change my mind.’