‘My father commissioned two Venetian artists to paint the ceiling, they spent several months here in 1958 when the house was built,’ Nicholas informed his visitor casually, as if speaking of an everyday occurrence.
A French glass chandelier, ablaze with two dozen candles, hung dramatically above a Regency dining table set with gleaming crystal and antique silver resting on a white linen tablecloth. In the centre of the oval table there was a carved, marble dish filled with sparkling water, on top of which floated pink and white hibiscus. Tall, glass doors covered one entire wall of the room and arched fanlights touched the ceiling. Tonight they were tightly secured against the storm, but Royole could picture them open to the prevailing breeze on a calmer evening – when the murmur of the sea would mix softly with the sound of conversation and laughter.
Royole wanted a room like this for himself.
‘It’s perfect,’ he said in a hushed voice.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen anything like it before.’ Lord Frazer-West adopted his most patronising tone.
Royole was aware of the small hairs on the back of his neck beginning to stand on end. It angered him that this pompous man could make such assumptions about him on sight. He looked directly into the eyes of his unwilling host and replied with deliberate courtesy.
‘This house is extremely beautiful and you are a very lucky man to own it.’ He paused, allowing Nicholas the satisfaction of a smug smile before continuing, ‘l am a well-travelled man, Lord Frazer-West; and I’ve seen many spectacular homes. I’ve met lots of different people all over the world,’ his voice deepened, ‘and I’ve seen sights you could only begin to imagine. Things for which there are no words.’
Nicholas merely grunted, making no comment. He was disconcerted; irritated by this intrusion into his home. More than that, he felt somehow threatened by the stranger. It made him edgy and bad-tempered.
He turned to Serena who, to his extreme annoyance, was looking at Royole with a triumphant glint in her bright eyes. He muttered something under his breath before picking up a bell from the table and ringing it loudly.
Joseph appeared.
‘Pour me some white wine,’ Nicholas ordered grumpily.
Serena indicated the chair next to her, patting it. ‘Please sit down, Mr Fergusson.’
Royole made no attempt to move. ‘I didn’t ask to join you for dinner, Lord Frazer-West, and if you would rather I left, please feel free to say so now.’
Nicholas offered a formal smile and spoke resignedly, as if quite bored by the whole thing. ‘I believe all men, at any given time,’ he paused, staring vacantly over Royole’s shoulder, ‘are victims of fate. A storm has chosen that we dine together this evening and, on that note, I welcome you to my table Mr Fergusson.’
To Serena’s delight and Nicholas’s chagrin, Royole Fergusson proved to be a very stimulating dinner guest; both articulate and amusing.
As the Château Margaux flowed, then so did his deep voice. At once intense and passionate when expounding a favourite theory, yet so readily slipping into a frivolous, easy wit when teasing his hosts with an amusing anecdote. At thirty, he was the same age as Nicholas and had indeed lived a full and exciting life.
‘Have you always lived in Jamaica?’ asked Serena, holding his emerald-green gaze for far longer than necessary.
He fascinated her.
She was powerless to stop staring at him, even though she was aware that she was virtually ignoring Nicholas. It was just that she had never before met anyone like Royole Fergusson, and as the evening progressed she found herself more and more drawn to him. It was as if he had cast a spell and she was bound up in it.
‘No, I was born in St Vincent, in the Grenadines, to a negro father who claimed direct descendancy from a Royal Zulu tribe. Hence my name. My mother’s half-French Caucasian and half Guyanese, and at …’ he paused, calculating in his head, ‘… fifty-three she’s still an exceptionally beautiful woman. I have a brother and two sisters. We moved to Port Antonio, when I was three years old, and six years later to Boston, where my father practised as a doctor until his death two years ago.’
Serena said that she was sorry about his father, then continued to listen avidly; learning that Royole had won a scholarship to Harvard, where he had studied law for two years before dropping out in favour of his long-cherished dream of coming back to live in the Caribbean.
‘And you, is this your first time in Port Antonio?’ Royole addressed his question to Serena.
‘No, the fifth trip, the first time was on our honeymoon.’ She sighed, ‘Our stays are never long enough for me, I feel like I want to become a West Indian,’ she laughed lightly.
Royole agreed, his voice impassioned. ‘The Caribbean’s like that. It kind of gets into your blood, there’s nowhere on earth quite like it.’
Nicholas addressed him directly for the first time in little under an hour. ‘That I must say is only your opinion, yet you do speak with rare perception.’
The compliment was delivered with a feigned sincerity, intended to disguise the disdain Nicholas actually felt for the charming and charismatic individual sharing his table who seemed to threaten everything he stood for.
During the course of the evening Royole had not only dominated the conversation, debasing many of Nicholas’s hard-held principles, but he had also captivated the wife he cherished.
In two years of marriage, even in their most intimate moments, Nicholas had never once seen Serena look at him the way she was looking at the animated and handsome face of Royole Fergusson this evening.
After dinner Joseph served strong, Colombian coffee in demitasse china cups. Royole tried gamely to get his finger through the handle but failed, and finally settled for holding his cup in the palm of his hand.
It was exactly ten-thirty when they suddenly noticed that the incessant clattering of the rain beating against the shutters had ceased. ‘Listen,’ Serena whispered.
A hush had descended. Even the wind had dropped to a dull murmur.
Nicholas stood up and strode across the stone floor to throw open one of the tall windows. He unhooked the shutters and craned his neck outside to look upwards into the overcast sky. It was still raining a little but the calabash trees in front of the dining room were now swaying a lot less violently. The air was damp and it smelt heavily of sea water and sodden earth; that peculiar combination so typical of the Caribbean Islands.
‘I think the worst has passed,’ Nicholas called out before pacing back towards the table, giving an elaborate yawn. ‘I’m exhausted, don’t know about you?’ He directed his words deliberately at Royole.
Serena glared at him, as Royole stood up, saying, ‘I think it’s time for me to leave.’
Less than five minutes later Royole was on the doorstep, holding his original clothes in an untidy, damp bundle.
‘Thank you both for a wonderful evening. It’s been a pleasure meeting you, and I would very much like to return your hospitality.’ He looked expectantly between the two dimly lit faces before him; Serena’s animated and eager, her husband’s incomprehensible and closed.
Nicholas wanted to say that once was more than enough, but he prided himself on being a gentleman with impeccable manners. ‘The pleasure has been all ours, albeit an unexpected one. You must call us soon, and we’ll see what we can fix up.’
He sounded bored and Royole, as he had done several times that evening, wondered what a beautiful young woman like Serena could