Silver Fruit Upon Silver Trees. Anne Mather
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book into one of the better known hotels, and this one was in the very heart of the city. It was also alarmingly exepensive and Sophie wondered how long her money would last out if she had to stay here longer than expected. From the window, the bustling throng of humanity outside frightened her a little. She was not a seasoned traveller and nor was she an extrovert, and the knowledge that she knew no one amongst all these people of so many different colours and nationalities was rather terrifying.
There were Indian women in saris, American men in Hawaiian shirts and straw hats; dhotis and turbans, lace mantillas and fezes. She saw beautiful olive-skinned Chinese girls in gorgeously patterned cheongsams slit daringly to thigh level, and black African women carrying enormous bundles on their heads with casual elegance. Car horns blared impatiently, bicycle bells jangled, and those who were brave enough to board the gaily painted buses clung carelessly to the rails and seemed to jump on and off wherever they liked. To Sophie the whole scene breathed an excitement and exuberance from which she felt totally alienated.
Suddenly the telephone beside the bed shrilled loudly. Sophie almost jumped out of her skin. She turned back to look at it, both hands pressed to her mouth, and felt a genuine sense of panic assail her. The only people who knew she was here in Port of Spain were the St. Vincentes, so this call had to be something to do with them. All of a sudden she was sure she couldn’t go through with it and she heard the phone ringing and ringing through the waves of unreasoning fear that swept over her.
The phone eventually stopped ringing and the silence which followed brought her inevitably to her senses. Her hands fell loosely to her sides and she drew long trembling breaths, trying to calm her shaken nerves. She should have answered it, she told herself fiercely. What if the telephonist chose to check up on who was in room 75? What if she discovered that it was not Miss Hollister after all, but Miss Slater? Sophie’s heart thumped violently, and she quickly crossed the room to seat herself on the side of the bed and lift the telephone receiver. This had been another of Eve’s devious ideas: to book into a hotel large enough not to remember the names of all their guests, and then to give a room number in her communication with the St. Vincentes. Naturally, she had had to take a room in her own name. They had wanted to see her passport. But what if right now they were flicking through their records, telling whoever it was who was trying to contact her that there was no one called Hollister registered in the hotel?
When the telephonist answered, Sophie said: “Were you ringing me? I’m afraid I was – in the bathroom.”
“Miss Hollister?” asked the telephonist politely.
Sophie crossed her fingers. “Yes.”
“There is an extension in the bathroom, Miss Hollister,” the telephonist advised her smoothly. Then: “We have been trying to locate you. There’s a gentleman in the foyer waiting to see you. A Mr. St. Vincente.”
St. Vincente! The name threatened to destroy all her new-found confidence. And he was here, in the foyer! She had not expected him to come without calling first.
Managing to keep her voice calm, she said: “I – I see. Er – I’ll come down. Gi – give me five minutes.”
“Very well, Miss Hollister. I’ll tell Mr. St. Vincente you’ll be down directly.”
“Thank you.”
Sophie replaced the receiver and looked down at the simple cotton dress she was wearing. Was this the sort of garment Eve might have worn to meet her grandfather for the first time? Or ought she to change into something a little more formal? She shrugged. Eve would not want her to behave any differently from usual, and the pale blue dress looked cool and attractive against her pale skin.
With a sigh she rose to her feet and walked to the dressing table, examining her face in the mirror there. Her cheeks did look very pale, and her grey eyes seemed to be reproaching her for what she was about to do. But it was too late now. She was here. She was committed.
At the end of the rubber-tiled corridor outside her room, a row of lifts gave access to the ground floor. A dark-skinned West Indian boy smiled at her when she chose to enter his small cage and commented cheerfully upon the weather as they descended the six floors between them and the foyer.
When she walked into the foyer she was trembling, but she had to go on. She crossed to the reception desk covertly examining the men she could see standing about in groups or singly, but none of them seemed old enough to be Eve’s grandfather.
The receptionist of the moment was a slim young Indian who smiled encouragingly at Sophie when she approached him.
“I’m – I’m Miss Hollister,” she said in a low voice. “I understand there’s someone waiting to see me.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Hollister.” The young man nodded. “Mr. St. Vincente is waiting for you in the Kingston Bar.”
“The Kingston Bar,” echoed Sophie faintly. “Where – where’s that?”
“Through the archway, miss. You’ll see the sign on your right.”
“Oh! Oh, thank you.”
Sophie nodded her thanks and turned away from the desk. The Kingston Bar! Hardly the place she would have expected an old man to wait for his long-lost granddaughter, but that was hardly her affair. And how on earth was she to recognize him?
She walked to the archway the young Indian had indicated and looked about her. There were several illuminated signs directing guests to the various different facilities of the hotel and the one indicating the Kingston Bar was easy to find. Everything about the hotel breathed the kind of luxury she had never until now experienced, and the Kingston Bar was no exception. Even at this early hour of the evening there were a number of guests partaking of pre-dinner drinks in the secluded booths set between trellises of climbing plants, vivid with flamboyant blossom. The bar was artificially lit by old ships’ lanterns which cast a shadowy gloom into certain corners inducing an intimate atmosphere, while the bar itself was strung with coloured lights which glinted in the shiny black face of its Trinidadian tender.
Sophie looked down again at her unsophisticated cotton dress. She should have changed, she thought unhappily. After all, it was almost dinner time and the women she could see were all dressed with the ultimate amount of care.
She looked about her helplessly. Where was Eve’s grandfather? Surely he ought to have been waiting near the entrance to the bar, watching for her. But there was no one near the entrance, no one who appeared to be alone at all except a dark man seated on a tall stool at the bar with a tall glass of some amber-looking liquid before him.
Even as her eyes lingered on him the man turned his head and looked her way and a shiver of pure apprehension ran through her. He was easily the most devastatingly attractive male she had ever seen in her life, although she realized there was something cruel in the thin line of his mouth and a sardonic appreciation of the effect he had upon women in the cynical depths of his eyes. They were strange amber-coloured eyes, reflecting the colour of the liquid in the glass he raised to his lips, and they moved over Sophie with insolent consideration.
She looked away from him quickly. She was not used to being assessed in that manner and she didn’t like it. Where on earth was Brandt St. Vincente? Why didn’t he come forward and introduce himself? Surely if he was here, he could see her standing there obviously waiting for someone?
The man at the bar slid off his stool, swallowed a mouthful of his drink, made a casual comment to the bartender and then walked toward her. Sophie’s pulses raced alarmingly, and she half turned away. Heavens, she thought in dismay. He thinks I’m on the lookout for a man!
“Eve?” The attractive male voice spoke somewhere near her temple.
She gasped and spun round again. The man from the bar was standing negligently before her, one hand brushing the jacket of his immaculate dark brown silk suit aside to rest on his hip just above the low waistband of his trousers, his other arm hanging casually at his side. Close to he was even more disturbing than before, and Sophie could hardly formulate the words she wanted to say. His hard body, lean and muscled, was only inches away from hers, his