Winds of Enchantment Read Online Free Page A

was in the kitchen till he spoke.
    “Do you always leave the back door unlocked when you take a bath?” he asked.
    She swung round, startled. “N-no one ever comes,” she faltered.
    “I did.” His eyes flicked her youthful, pyjama-clad figure.
    “Well, now you’re here you can empty the bath for me. ”
    He lifted it and, resting one edge on the sink, slowly raised it till the scented stream had run away. Then he mopped it round with a cloth and shoved it back under the table. “Soon you’ll have houseboys to do that for you,” he said. “How do you feel?”
    “Rather chu rn y,” she admitted. “Shall we go into the next room?”
    He reduced the glow of the lamp and followed her. “Where’s your dressing-gown?” he asked.
    “Packed. I was going straight up to bed.” She ran and knelt on the rug in front of the living-room fire.
    “Cold?” He came and stood over her.
    She shook her head. “I—I didn’t expect to see you again before we start,” she observed.
    “I watched Bill go out. I knew this was my last chance to see you alone. There’ll be others at the boat.”
    “Let’s have a sherry.” She felt him watching her as she went to the sideboard. She heard his step, then before she could turn, or move away, he had bent and kissed the tousled hair at the nape of her neck. “No!” she said huskily. “No, Steve.”
    “You know how I feel, don’t you?” His voice was hungry behind her, she felt his hands close on her arms.
    She pulled free of him, and relief surged as the gate crashed and Bill came singing up the front path.
    “You’re marrying Celia,” she said urgently to Steve. “You can’t have it both ways.”
    Now she was looking at him, seeing his face torn by conflicting emotions.
    “Why did you have to grow up, Pat?” he groaned.
    “You asked me that once before.” She handed him his glass of sherry, and took a sip at her own. It tasted bitter, not sweet, and her throat was hurting her. “Let’s drink to each other’s future,” she suggested. “Let’s hope we’ll both find happiness along the roads we’ve chosen to take.”
    And whatever his answer might have been, it was never spoken. Bill entered the room, looking jovial and flushed. “That’s the ticket,” he laughed. “Drink to our journey, Steve. Wish us well.”
    “Here’s wishing you well,” Steve said, his eyes fixed on Pat’s face. “I’ll write every mail and cable everything important.”
    “Send us snaps of the wedding, won’t you,” Pat said lightly. “Celia will look dreamy in white satin.”
    The journey out to Kanos was a long, hot sea cruise which Pat thoroughly enjoyed. She played deck tennis and swam in the pool with the other young people aboard. There were dances in the evening, and smart young officers to pay attention to the slim English girl with corn-gold hair and eyes of an amber colour. She was friendly, they found, but not inclined to flirt, and had anyone looked closely enough at her, they would have seen shadows haunting her amber eyes.
    Her goodbye to Steve still lingered and caused pain, and in her cabin at night she lay reflecting on their long friendship. He had intimated on that last evening that he cared for her—Pat could not be certain of the state of her own heart. She hadn’t known many men. She would need to meet a few of the worldly sort before she could be sure of her feelings—and whatever her true feelings, Steve was marrying Celia. There was no future for him, come what may.
    They came at last to Kanos, and from the boat Pat saw a city of white buildings and palm-fringed avenues. The steely African sky stretched above and beyond it to the green jungle. Between the liner and the shore, mudflats emerged raked by the roots of mangroves and in the rivers between them the native boys were fishing from boats with fibre nets, while their woman waded out to scoop shellfish into shallow baskets. There was a haze of heat, a hundred smells in the air, and