Lissa came back in a taxi with her purchases and Marie smilingly thanked her. Lissa had done some shopping of her own. She unpacked her purchases in her own room and put them away tidily. She had had lunch at the tiny seafood restaurant on the quayside. It had been crowded with tourists who loved the lazy atmosphere of the old harbour.
The heat was now oppressive. She folded back the stiff honeycomb weave cover and lay down on the bed for an hour. She felt sleepy and weary, but as soon as her eyes closed she knew she wouldn't sleep. She was too busy worrying about Chris and Luc Ferrier. Would Chris keep his word? Normally he kept his promises to her, but where gambling was concerned Chris was unreliable.
It was her basic reason for not marrying him yet. She did not feel she could quite trust him. A man who has an addiction can't be trusted. He is an unstable element, dangerous, volatile, and has to be handled with care. Lissa knew that. She had watched Chris for years and she knew he was flawed right down the middle. The charm and warmth and kindness she loved could not hide from her the weak streak in him.
That evening she and Chris strolled down through the gardens in the twilight which within a few moments would become night. The sun went down with a rush as though swallowed by the sea, dragged by a hook into the jaws of a giant fish, the natives said. Each morning the fish spat it out and it shot into the sky in burning splendour to burn there for hour after hour unchanging until abruptly it was pulled back into the fish again.
The air was as warm as if the sun still hung above them. The sky was darkening to a soft purple. The sound of the surf came through the palms and the night was scented by honeysuckle whose perfumed sweetness filled the nostrils and almost made one suffocate. It grew in great profusion, the long stamens like yellow tongues, and orchids massed below it, natives to the island and growing wild in the shadowy creeper-draped forest, their thick gaudy flesh distasteful to Lissa.
On the edge of the palm-fringed beach Chris paused, his arm round her back, and looked across the dark ocean. 'Peaceful, isn't it?'
'Yes,' she said, leaning her head on his shoulder and wishing she felt peaceful but knowing she didn't.
Chris turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. She looked up and his face looked different in the smoky light. An alien excitement made his eyes glitter and his mouth taut.
'Liss,' he muttered, bending his head.
His mouth closed over hers and his arms held her tightly. She felt his hands begin to move up and down her back. He kissed her in a way he had never kissed her before, harder, more determined. His hands were gripping and clutching her and Lissa was torn between yielding and struggling.
A sound disturbed Chris's absorbed concentration on her. He slowly lifted his head and glanced over his shoulder into the shadows behind them. Lissa looked that way too, but saw nothing. The darkness hid whatever moved in it.
'Marry me now, Liss,’ Chris muttered, turning back to her in a fierce movement. 'For your own sake, baby, because my patience is wearing thin, and if we don't get married soon I'm going to do something we'll both regret. I'm not superhuman and I can't take much more of this.'
She leaned her head on his chest, her arms going round him. 'Yes,' she whispered unsteadily, although her head was choked with doubts. Chris wasn't a safe bet for anyone, but she loved him, and what was she to do? Unstable, addicted though he might be, he was still Chris and she had loved him all her life. She was going to have to take him as she found him. Chris had always been loving and kind to her. She was well aware that many men who were in love with a girl wouldn't be prepared to wait month after month as Chris had done. It hadn't been through any lack of passion that he had waited. At times she found it very impressive that he should be ready to wait when she could feel the impatient desire mounting inside him.
Now his hands held her tightly, he breathed into her hair, his heart racing violently. 'Liss darling, I want you so badly it's tearing me apart.'
She heard again a faint rustling behind them. Wakeful birds? she thought. Or one of the hotel cats on the prowl?
Chris was running his hands clown her back and he was trembling. 'My God, you turn me on hard, Liss!'
She felt a fierce colour run into her face at the voice, the look in his eyes. Chris frightened her when he looked at her like that. She half backed, biting her lip.
He stared at her, his mouth a tight line. 'Okay, I'm not going to press you tonight,' he said thickly? 'But for the love of God, grow up. I've used kid gloves with you for months. You say you love me, but you keep putting things off. I'm not asking for the moon, am I? I want to marry you, not just take you to bed.' His face softened from the harsh lines, 'Liss, I love you, darling. Trust me. Let's get married soon.'
She was relieved by the reappearance of his smile. When Chris had that liquid heat in his eyes she felt threatened, uneasy. She did not know him when he looked like that. It was one of the reasons why she felt she couldn't commit herself to him.
Huskily she whispered, 'We'd better walk back-I've got to go on and do my act, remember.'
Chris made a twisted face, his hands dropping away from her. 'Okay.' They turned back towards the close-packed palm trees and as they walked through them they heard footsteps and saw a red flare. The scent of cigar smoke drifted to them.
Chris glanced through the darkness quickly and Lissa felt her heart wince in a strange little spasm.
'Good evening,' said Luc Ferrier in a lazy, deep voice. 'Romantic down here by moonlight, isn't it?'
'Taking a walk before settling to the tables?' Chris asked lightly giving him a smile.
A shiver was running down Lissa's back. She remembered the faint movements she had heard while she and Chris were on the beach and as she met Luc Ferrier's guarded, unreadable eyes she had a distinct flash of warning, Luc Ferrier had been watching her and Chris, listening to them. She did not know what told her that; it was a certainty which sue felt as the hard blue eyes glanced over her and moved back to Chris.
'Are we going to hear that clever little song again tonight, Miss Radley?' Luc Ferrier drawled, smiling in a way she did not like."
She flushed. 'No.'
'Pity,' he remarked, and Chris's hand enclosed her waist and drew her close to him in a possessive movement. He nodded to Luc Ferrier and they walked on in silence. Lissa did not know what was absorbing Chris's mind, but she was relieved not to have to talk.
She did her usual act that night and was aware of the disappointment of the audience, although they applauded goodhumouredly enough as she bowed. She had aroused their expectations last night and they were far less enthusiastic now.
Luc Ferrier was at his table again. Lissa shot him a hurried look and saw his dark head veiled in drifting smoke. A cigar glowed red in the shadows around him.
She felt oddly nervous as she went off. Chris was nowhere in sight and she kept her fingers crossed as she walked through to the foyer on her way to bed. He would be in the rooms, of course, but with any luck he would keep his promise with her own promise in mind. If he was really as desperate to marry her as he said he was, he wouldn't ruin it by gambling with that man again.
Fortune was at the desk with the night clerk. Lissa picked him up and rubbed his rough head. 'Been for a walk?' she asked.
'I didn't get no time, Miss Lissa,' the clerk apologised. 'Sorry, but we've been very busy.'
I'll take him,' she said, smiling. 'I could do with some air.'
Moonlight lay in wide silver lakes across the grounds, turning the leaves of trees into looking-glasses and sheeting the grass with pale light.
Lissa put Fortune down and he scampered away excitedly as he caught sight of a small thin shadow slipping away. One of the hotel cats, she realised, whistling the dog. Fortune kept going, growling in the back of his throat.