'You haven't been here before?'
He turned his head towards her, the strong brown throat catching her eye, and smiled down at her. 'No, my first time: I'm impressed, but in five years' time the place will be ruined. You can see the signs everywhere. Once tourists start flocking" in, everything changes.'
Lissa sighed. 'I'm afraid you're probably right.'
'Your fiancé’s casino has started the rot,' he informed her.
'You wouldn't be here if the casino wasn't here,’ Lissa counter-attacked sharply.
He inclined his head. 'True. That doesn't stop me seeing that the march of progress doesn't always make for happiness. The islanders are still able to enjoy life in their own way, but once foreigners flood in with more money than most of the natives have ever seen and a way of life they never dreamt about, discontent and resentment will spread like wildfire.'
Lissa had no argument with that point of view. She had seen the beginning of it already in Ville-Royale. But for some reason she bristled when Luc Ferrier said what she had thought herself. She looked at him sharply, her green eyes dagger-bright.
'It depends on their sense of values.'
'Values have to be pretty strong to stand up to a dose of modern Westernised living,' he drawled, watching the angry gleam of her eyes.
'If you disapprove of that sort of world why do you go from casino to casino gambling?' she asked contemptuously.
His blue eyes held a mixture of laughter and odd appraisal. 'That's what I am,' he shrugged, 'a gambler.
That's how I live.'
'Surely you could live some other way? It can't be a very, pleasant life. You can't win all the time.' Lissa looked at the powerful body, the compelling blue eyes, the fierce bone structure of his face, and frowned. He did not look like a man with a weakness. You could read the flaw in Chris by merely looking into his restless eyes. He couldn't hide it because it weakened the whole fibre of his nature. But Luc Ferrier betrayed no such weakness. It wasn't merely that he was physically strong-there was a lazy, certain strength in his eyes. He was aware of himself, of everything around him, and sure of his own ability to face and defeat anything that barred his path.
He was smiling slightly, a mocking twist of the lips which held a faint grimness. 'Ah, but I do,' he told her. 'I never lose. Now and then I have a temporary problem, some resistance, but in the end I always get what I want.'
She met the direct, watchful gleam of the blue eyes and her nerve ends rang wild alarm bells. Looking away hurriedly, she looked round. 'I wonder where Fortune has got to.' She called him loudly and got no answer. All was silence.
Luc Ferrier whistled on a long, high note and she heard the crashing through undergrowth of the dog making his way towards them.
Luc glanced down at her, grinning. 'He's coming.'
She sensed his amusement and her eyes grew more annoyed. 'He couldn't have heard me,' she said, because she was not going to admit that her dog had ignored her but come to that man's whistle.
The white body hurled itself through the stream, but as Lissa turned to catch him, Fortune flung himself at Luc Ferrier, barking excitedly, in welcome and recognition, his pink tongue lolling. Luc bent and picked him up, squirming. Holding him away, he said in mock sternness: 'And where have you been? You're filthy, you horrible animal!'
She saw he was right. The dog's white coat was smeared with sand and mud, his paws black.
Luc lowered the dog and deliberately immersed him in the water, rubbing his coat and paws to clean them. Fortune struggled and barked, but was helpless in the firm grip.
'Now you look better,' said Luc, releasing him.
Fortune sat down in the water, his head just above it, and scratched himself energetically.
Luc laughed. 'He's an adventurous little beast, isn't he?' His blue eyes lifted and Lissa met them. 'Unlike his owner,' he added softly.
She pretended she had not heard that. Moving away, the water gently flowing round her bare legs, she told Fortune to come along. Luc walked after her and watched her step into her straw sandals.
He moved away to get his own. Lissa hurried away, the dog running before her, hoping to get back to the hotel before Luc Ferrier had caught up with her, but he was behind her a moment later, the long strides of his brown legs covering the ground at an enormous pace.
'I haven't had a chance to see the island yet,' he told her. 'What is there to do here?'
'Very little,' she hedged.
'Where do you, go apart from the hotel?' he pressed.
'Into town,' she said.
'To do what?'
'Shop. Have you seen the old fort yet? If you're interested in that sort of thing it's worth seeing.'
'Show it to me this afternoon,' he came back at once.
Lissa stiffened, 'I'm afraid…'
'No?' He stopped her before her stammered excuse came out, shrugging with casual indifference. 'Never mind, I'll find someone else to show it to me. I thought you could fill me in on the history of the island.'
'I have to work,' Lissa said nervously, not wishing to sound rude yet wanting to make it clear to him that she was not spending any time with him. 'I'm sorry,' she added, to pretend he was merely another visitor, trying to cover from him her instinctive wariness of him.
'You don't come into the gaming rooms,' he commented, watching her. 'Don't you like gambling?'
'No.' Lissa did not enlarge on that, her small face stiff.
'Your fiancé likes it.' He said that coolly, eyes sharp.
She knew he would not miss the faint tremor that ran over her, but she could do nothing to control it. She gave him no answer, walking faster.
'He's got the bug badly,' Luc Ferrier drawled, still watchful. 'You shouldn't let him play. He hasn't got the face for it.'
'You don't: have to play with him,’ she accused in an uneven voice.
I don't have to play with anyone,’ he agreed. I choose who I play against.' He paused and added very softly, 'And why.'
She stopped in her tracks and looked round, shaken and disturbed by that voice, those words.
He met her eyes directly. He wasn't smiling and his eyes were a cool, glinting blue.
'Why do you play with Chris?' she asked huskily, hoping he couldn't see the faint dew which had sprung out on her upper lip and forehead.
'He has something I want,' Luc Ferrier said, and her stomach cramped as though clenched in agony.
Trying to breathe evenly, she asked in a shaky voice, 'What?'
She saw the slow derisive lift of his dark brows, the sardonic twist of his mouth. 'I don't have to tell you that, do I, Lissa?'
She swallowed. 'Money?' she whispered, and he laughed under his breath.
'Money? I never gamble for money.'
The answer took her breath away. She stared in total disbelief. He grinned, amused by her amazement.
'Gamblers never do-real gamblers, that is-oh, the amateurs may do it for that, but then it's the money they're interested in, not the gambling.' He had a, reckless, vital amusement in his face. 'A real gambler does it for the sheer hell of it. The kick he gets when he has a big win. The danger, the uncertainty, Acknowledge that he's walking a tightrope over an abyss without a safety net.' He paused and smiled oddly at her. 'Ask your fiancé. He doesn't gamble for money, either. He gambles for the same reason as myself-he has an urge to prove himself against other men.' His eyes glittered like strange blue stones and his skin was taut. 'He wants to flatten me'
She remembered Chris saying excitedly: 'I can take him,' and the feverish brightness of his eyes. 'Why does he want to beat you so much?' she asked Luc Ferrier with unhidden anxiety.
He shrugged wryly. 'I've got a reputation, I suppose. It gets around, and men hanker for the thrill of being able to say they beat me. It can be irritating. Every place I go to there's going to be someone itching to take me and wring me dry. Not for the money-just for the boosted ego of doing it.'