A Canopy of Rose Leaves (2 page)

Deborah was rather shocked by his matter-of-fact tones. ‘Did your mother marry again?’ she asked him, almost anxiously, as though it really mattered to her.

‘No,’ he said. ‘She went back to the academic life which suited her far better than marriage to my father did. I followed in her footsteps. I have few of the social graces that sit so easily on Ian’s shoulders.’

That was true, she thought, but it didn’t seem to matter as much as it had a few minutes ago. ‘Are you terribly clever?’ she asked him, trying not to sound as awed as she felt.

‘Terribly!’ he mimicked her tone. Then more seriously, ‘It depends what you mean by clever. I have no difficulty passing exams and I’m one of the top men in my own field, but I’m less clever when it comes to human beings. I avoid them whenever I can.’

‘Is that why you have no time for me?’

His expression was unreadable as he studied her face, allowing his eyes to wander slowly over her until she moved restively beneath his glance.

‘I don’t suffer fools gladly,’ he said. ‘Nor do I enjoy hurting the defenceless.’

‘And I’m both?’ Deborah didn’t like the picture of herself that his judgment had held up to her.

‘Defenceless, yes; but rather less foolish than most of Ian’s girl-friends have been.’

Her eyes flashed with indignation and he laughed. ‘I suppose that’s fair,’ she said coolly. ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t care for arrogant men any more than you tolerate fools.’

‘Am I arrogant?’ He was obviously surprised by her choice of adjective. ‘I would have agreed with you if you had said I was confident—’

‘Over-confident,’ she insisted.

She was amused when he gave his whole attention to the matter. ‘I think not,’ he said finally. ‘But you are entitled to your own opinion,’ he added with obvious reluctance.

‘Of course,’ she acknowledged, and smiled at the look of distaste on his face. He wasn’t as intimidating as she had thought him at first. ‘Why did you come to Persia?’ she asked him.

‘I was offered a temporary professorship at the Pahlevi University here in Shiraz. The tuition is in English there—not that that would have bothered me, I wanted to learn Farsi anyway. One of the greatest civilisations the world has ever known had its roots in Iran. I wanted to get to know it better.’

She was impressed, but she wasn’t going to admit it if she could possibly help it. ‘And have you learned Farsi?’ she questioned him lightly.
Of course he had!
While she hadn’t even bothered to find out that that was what the language the Iranians spoke was called! No wonder he thought her stupid!

‘Some,’ he said.

Meaning that he spoke it fluently, she supposed. ‘Ah, but can you read it?’ she rounded on him.

He was amused by the thrust. ‘Of course,’ he said simply. ‘What use would it be if I couldn’t read documents in the original? I already speak and write Arabic and they use the same script, so it wasn’t very difficult for me.’

‘Would it take me long to learn?’ Deborah asked him. ‘How would I go about it?’

‘You won’t be staying long enough to make it worthwhile. I shall write to Ian myself and tell him that you’ll be returning to England as soon as I can book your flight. He, at least, should understand how impossible it is for you to remain here by yourself.’

‘He may, but Anne won’t. I can’t go back to England yet, and I wouldn’t go if I could. I
have
to do this on my own. It’s important to me—like learning Farsi was to you!’

‘Not a very realistic ambition, if I may say so,’ he told her, quite gently but with a rock-like determination that she knew Ian would never withstand. ‘Ian will have to think of something else to do with you.’

Deborah rallied her spirits with an effort. ‘But the final decision doesn’t lie with Ian. We’re equal partners in the boutique and neither of us has the right to tell the other what to do. I’ve already decided that I’m staying here.’

‘Then you’ll do so without any help from me!’ he shot at her.

‘I know that,’ she declared. ‘You need never see me again if you don’t want to. You’ve done your duty by me, Mr. Derwent. It isn’t your fault if I won’t submit and go running back to England like a good little girl. You can wash your hands of me with a clear conscience.’

He stared at her for a long moment, a reluctant smile playing at the corners of his stern lips. ‘Were you very much in love with Ian?’ he inquired. ‘I find it very difficult to believe.’

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

‘None at all,’ he agreed. ‘Were you?’

‘I was going to marry him,’ she said.

‘Then I was right in my first assessment of you; you are a fool!’

She glared at him, biting back her temper with difficulty. ‘One doesn’t exactly choose these things—’

‘I do!’

‘Then you’ve never been in love!’ she informed him roundly. ‘Which I can very well believe. She’d have to be a paragon indeed for you to notice her, let alone stoop to lose your heart to her. I don’t think I should like her at all! I wish you joy of her—if you ever do find her!’

He seemed amused. ‘I’m not entirely ignorant of your sex,’ he informed her drily.

Deborah eyed him with dislike, longing to put him in the wrong if she possibly could. She opened her eyes very wide. ‘Really? You do surprise me! You must tell me all about it, Mr. Derwent. I suppose she was blonde and—and beautiful?’

‘None of them was plain,’ he said even more drily. ‘If one is going to take the trouble to pick a flower, one may as well choose a perfect specimen, don’t you think?’

Deborah stiffened, her disapproval of such a coldblooded attitude written plainly on her face. ‘I can only be glad that you won’t be looking in my direction!’ she murmured. ‘I’m not for the picking by anyone!’

‘Is that why Ian passed you over?’

Deborah twisted her fingers together and refused to answer. It might have had something to do with it, she supposed. It was a mistake to have too long an engagement. It had imposed strains on them both in different ways. She had been a fool not to have seen the signs of
restiveness in Ian long before he had taken himself on that fateful holiday to Spain and had come home with Anne.

‘I don’t want to talk about Ian,’ she said.

‘I gather that Anne wasn’t so particular? Didn’t you know that Ian was unlikely to appreciate such old-fashioned ideas in anyone close to him? Ever since I can remember he has worshipped the modern and “with-it”. How did you persuade him to include the antique in that boutique of yours?’

Deborah was fast coming to the conclusion that Roger Derwent knew his brother much better than she had imagined. She found it a relief not to have to defend Ian to him, for he plainly would not have listened if she had. That had been one of the worst parts of the last few weeks, although she had refused to admit even to herself, but she had felt obliged to defend Ian against all comers and very wearing she had found it.

‘Ian likes to make money,’ she said aloud, and then wished she had held her tongue. ‘There’s nothing wrong in that!’ she declared. ‘He’s a very good businessman.’

‘It will be interesting to see how he gets on without you,’ Roger Derwent remarked. ‘That is, if you really intend to stay in Iran for the time being?’

‘I have to,’ she said.

He looked round the hotel lounge, his eyes coming back to her face. ‘You won’t be able to afford to stay here for long. Where will you go then?’

‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps you could recommend some family to me that would like to have a lodger for a short while? You must know a lot of people through the university?’

‘You forget that I’ve washed my hands of you,’ he reminded her with an oblique smile.

‘But if you know of a family—’ she began.

‘Like my brother, I never do anything for nothing,’ he interrupted her. ‘What would you do for me in exchange?’

Her eyes fell before his. ‘I haven’t anything you want,’ she said.

‘Isn’t that for me to say?’ he mocked her.

She struggled to remain outwardly calm and completely normal by not looking at him and by ignoring the quickened pace of her heart within her. ‘I don’t pretend to be perfect, Mr. Derwent, so I can hardly hope to appeal to you in that way; and I’ve never been thought to be particularly clever either.’

‘You’re certainly not beautiful,’ he agreed, a little too promptly for her liking, ‘but you’re pretty enough to attract more attention than you’ll know what to do with. However, that’s your affair! If I find you somewhere to live in Shiraz I shall want your word that you will listen to any advice I offer you as to how you go about your buying. Is that fair?’

‘I thought you didn’t want to be bothered with me,’ Deborah said in a small voice.

‘I don’t!’ Roger Derwent assured her fervently. ‘The last thing I want is to have to feel responsible for any of Ian’s friends, particularly if they’re young and female!’

‘Then why—?’

‘Because if you get into trouble I’ll be dragged into it anyway, so I may as well do what I can to prevent you from making the more obvious mistakes.’

‘I shan’t be any trouble—’ Deborah began.

‘You won’t be able to help it!’ he retorted. ‘Women never can! But if you do as you’re told you will be considerably less trouble then otherwise.’

‘If you feel like that,’ said Deborah, ‘I’d much rather you didn’t help me at all. I’ll find somewhere to live by myself!’ She raised her eyes to his. ‘In fact, I’d prefer to do that, if you’re going to cluck over me like a broody hen. I can’t stand being fussed!’

For an instant he seemed totally at a loss and a gorgeous sensation of triumph ran through her veins. At last she had succeeded in disconcerting him! She hastened to press home her advantage. ‘You’re worse than Ian! At least
he
admits that I can look after myself!’

‘Does he indeed?’ Roger Derwent said grimly. ‘I’d hardly say that was much of a compliment to you, Miss Day, but if that’s the way you want it—’ He shrugged, leaving it to her to finish his sentence for herself.

‘Why isn’t it a compliment to me?’ she demanded.

‘Do you really need me to tell you that? As you pointed out yourself, you’re not beautiful, but you’re not wholly without attraction. Just because my brother underrated you as a woman and preferred someone else, it would be a mistake for you to accept his word as the last word on the subject, as half Shiraz will be only too willing to prove to you. They play the game to different rules here in Iran. Here the rules are all man-made and they don’t make the same allowances for Western ideas of female independence as we have learned to do in Europe. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ His eyes held hers, making sure that she felt the full weight of the threat that he had held out to her. Satisfied, he smiled at her. ‘You shouldn’t sell yourself short, Debbie. Beauty isn’t everything in a woman.’

‘Not if you’re looking for perfection!’ she retorted.

He sat back, still smiling, and she looked away suddenly breathless. ‘If you’re looking for perfection you’ve come to the right place. As Hafez sang:

“Right through Shiraz the path goes

Of perfection;

Anyone in Shiraz knows

Its direction”

CHAPTER TWO

Deborah
turned over with a groan and frowned at the early morning light. A glance at her watch confirmed her worst fears, that it was not yet six o’clock. If she subtracted the two and half hours’ difference between English summer time and the time in Iran, the equation was too horrible to be contemplated. Yet there was someone outside who was already hard at work. She could hear one of the gardeners busily watering the hundreds of pots of night-scented stocks that graced the hotel garden. She could smell them too, a sweet fragrance that was missing now in so many of the gardens she knew. It gave her a good feeling to awaken to such a pleasant assault on her nostrils. It was almost enough to reconcile her to the early hour.

Try as she would, she could not get back off to sleep again. It would have been nice to spend an hour drifting through that hazy middle land between sleeping and waking, but she had never felt less sleepy in her life. With a restless movement she turned on to her back and began to think about her encounter with Roger Derwent the evening before. She had avoided thinking about him for as long as possible because she had yet to make up her mind whether she disliked him very much indeed, or whether her caution towards him had merely been inspired by his being the most devastating personality she had yet met. She was inclined to think he was right when he said he had no social graces—he was abominably frank and she was almost sure that he didn’t care a flick of his fingers what she, or anyone else, thought of him, but that was a trait that excited her envy more than her dislike.

She tried to imagine anyone else she knew asking her if she had been very much in love with Ian, just as though it had been a dose of measles or some other childish complaint that he couldn’t bring himself to take seriously.

He didn’t much like Ian. She wondered why not. Everybody liked Ian, and his family positively doted on him. She had liked him herself, as well as loving him. Oh, he was spoilt of course and selfish to the core, but he was much more likeable than his brother!

Roger Derwent was an unknown quantity. He was dark enough to be a Persian, but his eyes, which she was convinced saw far too much, were light grey and set under beautifully moulded, sleepy lids that contradicted the sternness of his mouth and chin.

Deborah had grey eyes herself, the colour of storm-clouds, and she knew that they were far and away the best feature she possessed. Not that Roger Derwent had thought much of her pretensions to beauty, she thought wryly. She got out of bed and examined herself carefully in the looking-glass of the dressing table. Her hair was neither dark nor fair, but it curled nicely into her neck and gave her the minimum of trouble in the short, rather boyish style that she had worn now for more than a year. Her mouth had been made for laughter and, denied this pleasing characteristic recently, it had taken on a droop that displeased her. At least she had pleasant teeth, she thought. They were white and even and added rather than detracted from her smile.

All right, so she wasn’t beautiful, but there was no reason that she could see for him to lay such stress on the fact. He could hardly have made it clearer that she wasn’t his type
—and she didn’t want to be
!—but he needn’t have made her feel a fool into the bargain.

Because she had time, and certainly not because he had said he would call for her that morning, she took far more trouble than usual over getting dressed. She brushed her hair until it shone and tried out every lipstick she possessed before she was satisfied that she had chosen exactly the right colour. Even so, it was still only shortly after seven when she went down to breakfast, far too early, she thought, to intrude on the silence that reigned within the restaurant.

She remembered noticing a bread shop on the corner of the entrance to the hotel and decided to pay it a visit as an amiable way of wasting a few more minutes of the morning. Some small brown birds that she didn’t recognise were flirting noisily in the garden as she walked down the paved path, past the hotel shop and out into the narrow street beyond. Two young girls in
chadors,
the ankle-length veil that many Persian women still prefer to wear outside their own homes, eyed her with curiosity as she passed them. When she stared back at them with an equal frankness, one of them averted her face, pulling the pretty cotton cloth of her veil across the lower part of her face. The other girl flashed her a laughing smile, scarcely pausing to draw breath in the voluble flood of words with which she was regaling her friend. They watched until Deborah disappeared into the baker’s shop, creeping closer to see her emerge again, bearing the large, floppy piece of bread that the baker had folded neatly for her to make it easier to carry.

One of the girls made a movement as though she too were tearing off a piece of bread and eating it. When Deborah offered her some, she giggled and nudged her friend in the ribs, but she tore off a piece about the size of a pocket handkerchief and, in another flurry of laughter, shared her prize with the veiled girl beside her.

Deborah joined them in the impromptu breakfast, marvelling at the strong wheaty taste of the hot bread. She smiled at the two girls and they giggled some more, finally saying shyly in English,

‘Hullo. What is your name?’

‘Deborah Day. What is your name?’ she asked them back, but they shook their heads, exhausted by the effort they had already made.

‘What do you do? Housewife? Teacher?’ one of them produced after a long silence. Deborah suspected that the sentences had been learned by rote and neither of them had any idea what they meant.

She pointed to the bread. ‘Very good.’

They nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, very good!’

‘May I have some too?’ a masculine voice asked behind her. The two girls dragged their
chadors
more closely about them and fled down the street, the thick wedged soles of their shoes wobbling ominously in their hurry.

Deborah met Roger Derwent’s pale grey eyes with a frown. ‘Did you have to frighten them away?’ she demanded.

He grinned. ‘I’m sorry. The bread smelt good and I’m hungry. Have you had breakfast yet?’

She shook her head, holding out the bread to him and hoping he would choke on it. ‘The shop is just behind you,’ she pointed out. ‘You could buy your own bread.’

‘Yours tastes better!’ He tore off a portion and returned what was left of the loaf to her, making a face at her unsmiling countenance.

‘You could have had your breakfast before you came out. It’s not half-past seven yet,’ she complained. ‘I didn’t expect you so early.’

He bit into the bread. ‘Shall I go away again?’

‘No!’ She had not known how she had been hanging on to the knowledge that he had been coming for her that morning. ‘No, please don’t go.’ She glanced at him. ‘If you haven’t had breakfast, perhaps we could have it together?’ she suggested.

‘In the hotel?’

‘Why not?’

His eyes were not nearly as indifferent as his voice had led her to believe, she noticed. They were bright and interested and watching her a great deal too closely for her comfort.

She took a deep breath. ‘I’d be pleased for you to have breakfast with me,’ she said with an effort. ‘I mean, I’d like it to go on my bill——’ She broke off, aware that she was making bad worse.

‘I’ll be very happy to be your guest for breakfast,’ he cut her off with an abruptness for which she found herself unexpectedly grateful. ‘We can decide which of the two addresses I have for you you’re likely to prefer. I expect you want to get settled as soon as possible.’

‘You mean you have
two
addresses
already
?’ she exclaimed.

‘I got on to them last night,’ he admitted. ‘I began to think I wouldn’t have a moments peace while you were traipsing around on your own and I rang up everyone I know.’

‘That was kind of you,’ she said.

‘Kindness had nothing to do with it!’

She opened her eyes wide, smiling a little. ‘Oh?’

‘Only kindness to myself,’ he amended. ‘You should smile more often, Deborah Day.’

She made a quick face at him. ‘I used to smile far too much. They called me the Cheshire Cat at school, I smiled so often. It was something I was glad to grow out of. One can’t go around laughing at everything all the time!’

‘That sounds like a quotation from Brother Ian,’ he commented. ‘You must be younger than I thought to take so many of your opinions ready made from him. A cheerful aspect never did anyone any harm.’

She turned on her heel to go into the hotel, annoyed that he had succeeded in putting her in the wrong again. He didn’t smile much himself, come to that I So why should he expect it of her?

‘Ian and I were close for a long time,’ she told him. ‘It isn’t surprising that we think alike about many things.’

‘No, I quite see it was a cruel dilemma for you,’ he agreed, obviously far from serious. ‘Either you agreed with him and were duly commended, or you disagreed and weren’t listened to at all.’

‘How do you know?’ she demanded crossly.

Tan is very like my father. He never listened to my mother either. It’s one of the penalties women have to pay when involved with stupid men—’

‘Ian is
not
stupid!’

‘Don’t you think so?’ he asked, interested. ‘I should have thought the only use he had for any woman was as an echo of himself. But doubtless you know him better than I do.’

Deborah could only glare at him. ‘You’re bitter about your father!’ she accused him wildly. ‘I expect your mother is too! But Ian is different—’

‘How different?’ he put in conversationally.

Deborah swallowed. ‘He used to listen to me about the shop. He even said my ideas were often better than his—’

‘Which is probably why he married Anne. If you wanted to keep him, you should never have competed with someone as selfish as Ian, or only with the greatest subtlety and even more flattery.’

‘You make him sound a complete idiot!’ she shot at him.

He nodded his head solemnly. ‘That says it all,’ he agreed.

Deborah nursed her anger all the way back through the hotel gardens. She cast several furious glances in his direction, but as he showed no signs of noticing her displeasure, it seemed rather a wasted effort on her part.

‘I think you’re a fraud,’ she announced at last. ‘You don’t like anyone to argue with you any more than Ian does. If they do, you look down your nose at them and make them feel small. Well, it won’t work with me! I don’t care if you do think I’m stupid!’

‘Not stupid,’ he denied, pausing to admire a rose that was just burgeoning into life close to the path. ‘Young, and as green as grass, but not stupid!’

‘Nor am I as green as I’m cabbage-looking!’ Deborah retorted, quoting a much-favoured phrase of the lady who helped her mother with the housework at home. When he didn’t answer she was irritated beyond endurance. ‘Am I?’ she challenged him.

‘Greener, if possible.’

‘Oh, you’re abominable!’ Deborah was very much afraid she was going to laugh. ‘I’m not as inexperienced as you think. One can’t help acquiring a certain
savoir faire
in a shop, especially in one like ours which attracts some of the oddest customers.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he invited her.

She was happy to do so. She told him how they had decided to sell only things that had their origin in the East, hoping that it would give them a gloss of mystery and pull the customers in. ‘It worked very well!’ she assured him. ‘We were lucky too, for there’s a great vogue for our sort of thing at the moment. We’ll make a bomb with our Persian stuff if I do a good job out here. We’ve never been able to get reliable suppliers in Iran, and yet all their things are simply marvellous! Ceramics, miniatures, printed cottons, carpets, they have the best of everything, if I can only get in touch with the right people.’

‘That shouldn’t be too difficult,’ he encouraged her. ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘But I don’t really know where to begin.’

He opened the door into the hotel for her with a mocking smile. ‘A green, callow maiden with beguiling ways, who sounds very much as though she’s about to ask me to do her work for her,’ he taunted her.

She tossed her head as she went past him. ‘You’d be the very last person I should ask! You don’t have to worry that I shall involve you in
anything
I do! I’m not as callow as that!’

‘I’m glad you recognise the dangers of arousing my interest,’ he replied, unperturbed.

‘Your interest lies in perfection,’ she reminded him. ‘Have you forgotten?’

‘Perfection, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps I’m more easily pleased than you imagine.’

Deborah was conscious of the same breathless feeling of excitement that she had experienced the evening before. She didn’t like the sensation. It made her vulnerable in a way that she would not have believed possible. It was as if he didn’t see her as a person at all, but only as a female being who was strictly not to be taken seriously. Not even Ian had made her as conscious of her sex as Roger Derwent did when he looked at her in a certain way and uttered those throwaway remarks that confused rather than informed her. What did he mean now, for instance? Did he mean that he liked her a little after all?

She sat opposite him at the table, convinced that she was on the point of making a fool of herself. He was bound to ask her to make up her mind about where she wanted to live, and at that moment she couldn’t even decide how she wanted to have her eggs.

‘We’ll have them scrambled,’ Mr. Derwent told the waiter, ‘and some hot local bread. And coffee for both of us.’

‘I prefer tea,’ Deborah found herself saying.

He leaned back, looking at her down his nose, his eyes amused. ‘You should have spoken up earlier. However, I don’t suppose the waiter will mind bringing you tea if you really want it.’

But when the waiter came back with their eggs, Deborah said nothing at all. She told herself it wasn’t worth making a fuss about nothing, but the glint in Roger Derwent’s eyes told her he was not deceived. She had chosen the wrong issue on which to assert herself and they both knew it. She hurried into speech before the incident attained an importance it didn’t deserve, inhibiting her fund of small talk still further.