‘Do I look so undernourished?’ he asked in an undertone, and she had to school her features to prevent herself from giggling.
‘Not to me,’ she answered in a low voice, and this time he looked directly at her.
It was a devastating experience. This close she could see the silvery tips of his lashes, short thick lashes that just missed being feminine. But there was nothing feminine about his face, with its gaunt cheekbones and deeply set eyes. It was aggressively masculine, and possessed that doubtful distinction—sexuality. Returning his gaze was like looking into a deep pool, that invited as well as repelled.
The sure awareness that Barry was watching them brought her eyes back sharply to her plate, but when she ventured to lift her lids her fiancé was still looking at her. She arched her brows in silent, if not very convincing, interrogation, but Barry just continued looking at her, his eyes cold and lacking in sympathy.
The remainder of the meal passed, for Helen, in discomfited silence, and she was glad when Mrs Fox suggested they had coffee in the drawing room and she could escape from Barry’s inimical stare.
Susan joined her as they crossed the hall, whispering insinuatively: ‘Just six more days, Helen! Just imagine—a week tonight you’ll be in Alcudia.’
‘Yes.’ Helen sounded distracted and Susan gave her a second look.
‘What’s wrong? Getting cold feet?’
‘No—–’
Helen was impatient, but Susan overrode her denial insisting: ‘I know. It’s Morgan, isn’t it? I saw the way you were looking at him at dinner. Are you thinking he’s more of a man than Barry will ever be?’
‘Susan!’
Helen was angry now, but Susan was unrepentant. ‘You can’t fool me,’ she insisted. ‘I can see how attractive he is. I could even be attracted to him myself.’
‘Susan!’
‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not quite that stupid. But if I was only his stepsister…’
Mrs Fox’s hand on Helen’s arm-made her start violently, and the older woman looked at her strangely as she said: ‘Pour the coffee, will you, Helen? I want to help Mrs Parsons clear the table and then she can load the machine while I relax.’
‘Yes, Mrs Fox.’ Helen swallowed her embarrassment, and seated herself beside the low table where Mrs Parsons had already placed the tray, just as Barry and his stepfather came into the room. Barry came straight across to her, seating himself beside her, and she gave him rather a nervous look before asking Mr Fox how he would like his coffee.
‘Oh, black, please,’ declared the older man, slipping his arm about his daughter’s waist as she came to stand beside him. Then he bestowed a teasing look upon her. ‘I suppose you’ll be next,’ he remarked, squeezing her affectionately. ‘I wonder who the lucky man will be?’
‘Don’t you mean the unlucky man?’ remarked Barry sarcastically, and Susan pulled a face at him.
‘Well, when I do choose to get married, it won’t be to some stuffy civil servant!’ she retorted. ‘Why—why, Morgan’s got more guts in his little finger than you’ve got in your whole body!’
Her words were intended to be jibing. Barry and Susan often indulged in this harmless kind of baiting, and neither of them took it seriously. But tonight Helen sensed an underlying note of bitterness, and she guessed Susan’s admiration for her half-brother had added fuel to Barry’s already smouldering resentment. It was perhaps fortunate that Morgan was not around to hear his stepbrother’s savage indictment of doctors who allowed this country to pay for their training and then took themselves off to some more lucrative practice overseas.
‘I hardly think Osweba qualifies in that category,’ Mr Fox interposed quietly, at this unwarranted criticism of his son, and Helen hastily handed Barry his coffee before he could say anything more.
It was with mixed feelings that she saw Morgan coming into the room just then, but as Helen’s hands were occupied with her own coffee, Susan took the opportunity to pour Morgan’s coffee herself.
Barry replaced his empty cup on the tray with a decisive clatter, and then said shortly: ‘Well?’
Helen, who had been expecting this, made no attempt to evade the question. ‘If you mean what I think you mean, then aren’t you being a little small-minded?’
‘Is it small-minded to object if my fiancée makes eyes at my stepbrother?’ he snapped, and Helen gasped.
‘I—I didn’t!’
‘What would you call it, then?’
‘I—we—we spoke half a dozen words together, that’s all.’
‘I’m not objecting to what you said!’
‘Oh, Barry…’ Helen replaced her own cup now, glancing about them uncomfortably. But fortunately no one seemed to be paying any attention to them and she turned reproachful eyes upon him. ‘Can’t I even look at another man? Heavens, he’s your own brother!’
‘Stepbrother,’ Barry corrected briefly. Then he scuffed his toe against the leg of the coffee table. ‘Oh, what the hell! There’s nothing I can do about it.’
Helen sighed. ‘There’s nothing to do!’ she said imploringly, fiddling with the coffee pot. ‘Would you like another cup?’
‘No, thanks.’
Barry shook his head, but Helen was relieved when his mother came to join them and conversation became general. Naturally the wedding came under discussion, and those final arrangements that were still left to make. Talking about the white Mercedes he had hired for the occasion, Barry came out of his black mood, and Helen relaxed as her fiancé extolled the virtues of foreign cars. It was a favourite topic with him, and she allowed her head to rest against the back of the sofa and her thoughts to drift.
Almost compulsively, her gaze moved round the circle to rest on Morgan Fox’s unusually light hair. It was thick and straight, with a side parting that left several heavy strands to fall across his forehead. From time to time he pushed them back, his long brown fingers combing through his hair and occasionally resting in a curiously weary gesture at the back of his neck. His hair was shorter than Barry’s, barely brushing his collar at the back, and he didn’t wear the long sideburns Barry effected and which gave her fiancé’s face a rather artistic appearance. She thought he looked rather tired, and this knowledge brought a wave of unwilling anxiety sweeping over her. Yet what did it matter to her if Barry’s stepbrother needed some sleep? Why should she be concerned? Anyone who had just flown five thousand miles would be tired, particularly bearing in mind the time change.
Realising she was staring at him again, she quickly looked away, relieved to see that no one else had observed her betraying appraisal. But even though she concentrated on the delicate pattern of the coffee cups, she could still see his face and the sensual fullness of his bottom lip.
He moved, giving her a reason to look his way, and her eyes ran over the long muscular legs outlined beneath the dark blue lounge suit he was wearing. She wondered if he was more at home in shorts or safari suits, and guessed he found an excess of clothing uncomfortable after so long in the tropics. This time his eyes flickered over hers, but their appraisal was cool and detached, and she pretended there was a speck of dust on her skirt in an effort to avoid detection of her interest.
The conversation had shifted to Morgan now and Helen listened as he answered his father’s questions about the politics of Osweba. Then, inevitably, his daughter was brought into the conversation and it was with obvious reluctance he produced his wallet and the photograph of the bespectacled teenager everyone called Andy.
Barry barely glanced at his niece, but Helen studied the portrait with avid curiosity, trying