A Masterful Man

'Is that a compliment or the opposite?' he enquired.

Davina shrugged her slim shoulders. 'Just a bit of a surprise, perhaps. It looks more like a guest-house than staff quarters.'

'It doubles as either.'

'Well…'She didn't go on.

'I await your decision with bated breath, Mrs Hastings,' he said with irony after several moments.

They faced each other across the living-area and Davina discovered two things. That she would like nothing more than to tell him to go to hell, but that she couldn't quite bring herself to do it.

'Tell me something,' she said a little huskily as this dawned on her. 'What happens if I do turn out to be- exotic but quite useless?'

He smiled, just a bare twisting of his lips, his eyes remained a cool, watchful, curiously mocking hazel, and he said, 'I would pack you back to the mainland very swiftly, Mrs Hastings-but you aren't, are you?'

Davina licked her lips because she sensed an odd sort of tension between them that she couldn't quite define. 'How can you know, though?'

'I'll just have to rely on my intuition. In fact,' he said drily, 'I wouldn't be at all surprised if you were extremely competent-'

'That's a change of heart!' She flashed him a cutting little look.

'And intelligent,' he went on, unperturbed, 'and that is quite a waste, doing what you're doing with your life. I'd also be very surprised if you were a-frigid bitch, Mrs Hastings, but if you care to continue to masquerade as one, so long as it gets my job done, you're welcome to it.'

Davina gasped then paled slightly as she suddenly realised that this powerful, worldly man who could switch from insulting her with lazy mockery to malice aforethought incensed her, yet his attitude puzzled her… Why? she wondered numbly. I would have hated him if he'd made the traditional pass; I have to hate him as it is for… everything else; why should it be at all important to prove to him that I'm… anything?

'Mrs Hastings?' S. Warwick said, and added with sudden impatience, 'Look, if you really don't want the job, I'll send you back first thing tomorrow morning and they'll just have to find a replacement. It's up to you,' he added curtly. 'We've been-' he glanced at his watch '-fencing with each other for over an hour now and I'm getting tired of it. Yes or no?'

The effect of this was to wipe away all other thoughts from Davina's mind other than that he was the most arrogant bastard… 'Yes,' she said crisply. 'I'll stay.' And might just as well have said, So do your damnedest… He raised his eyes ceilingwards. 'I might have known!' 'And what might you have known, Mr Warwick?' she asked through her teeth.

'That all the foregoing was entirely unnecessary. Women,' he said scathingly, 'have to be the most entirely unstraightforward creatures-God alone knows why!'

Davina held on to her temper by the narrowest margin. 'Oh, I suspect,' she said sweetly, although her eyes were an icy violet, 'that it's what we have to put up with from men that does it. I mean to say, in the space of a couple of hours I've gone from being suspected of wanting to take my clothes off at the first opportunity to-'

He laughed. All of a sudden he relaxed, the tension went out of his broad shoulders and the furious impatience drained from his expression. 'I excelled myself there, I'm afraid,' he said wryly.

She could have hit him; she was visited by the most intense anger she'd ever experienced and to make matters worse that keen hazel gaze missed none of it-and Davina passed suddenly from rage to fear. I must be mad, she thought. This man… is dangerous. He incites altogether too much emotion in me even if it is rage and hatred. I should have said no…

'You still can, Mrs Hastings,' he murmured, and her eyes widened.

'D-do what?' she asked unsteadily, hoping and praying that he hadn't read her mind.

'Tell me to go to hell,' he said softly. 'In fact, I'm wondering why you didn't. Care to enlighten me?'

'Yes.' She attempted to pull herself together. 'I think I was hoping to prove something to you-'

'Well, that's fine with me,' he broke in, 'so long as it isn't… anything to do with the taking off of your clothes.'

'Do you know,' she managed to say almost thoughtfully, she wasn't sure how, 'your preoccupation with that subject leads me to wonder about you, but you will really just have to accept my guarantee on the subject; I can say no more.' And she kept her gaze supremely steady as it rested on him.

'OK.' He shrugged. 'I guess if I expect you to take me on trust, I shouldn't mind doing the same.' He smiled suddenly and it was quite a devastating smile, full of life and wry humour, and with a further shaft of fear Davina realised that S. Warwick could be a devastatingly attractive man when he chose. 'Unfortunately,' he added, 'I have to go out, I have a meeting, but that might give you the opportunity to potter around by yourself and get to know the place-you have carte blanche and there's plenty of food in the kitchen to make yourself a meal. By the way, don't feel nervous; there's no crime on the island.'

'I notice you don't even lock your front door,' Davina said involuntarily.

'No. You can lock yourself in here, though, if you're

so minded.' Davina said nothing, although she still returned his gaze steadily.

'Well,' he murmured after a moment, 'goodnight, Mrs Hastings.'

'Goodnight, Mr Warwick.'

He turned to go but turned back. 'What does the D stand for?'

'Davina,' she said coolly.

'May I call you that?'

'You can call me what you like.'

'I see,' he said softly. 'I gather it would be no good offering to return the compliment?' He raised a lazy eyebrow at her.

'I don't know what you mean.'

'I mean I'm quite sure were I to ask you to call me Steve, that you would persist in addressing me as 'Mr Warwick' with all the hauteur you're capable of.'

'You would be quite right, Mr Warwick.'

'I thought so. Goodnight, Davina. Sleep well.' And this time he left, closing the door gently behind him.

Davina took a deep breath then picked up a small cushion from the chair beside her and hurled it quite uselessly at the door.

Half an hour later she'd unpacked and was inspecting the main house. There were four bedrooms upstairs, all unusual, interestingly shaped rooms with steep ceilings and window-seats but three of them lacked any linen on the beds or in the en suite bathrooms. Steve Warwick's, which she looked into briefly, was done out in masculine fittings and the colour scheme was cream and green.

Downstairs she discovered that the gleaming kitchen was a cook's dream, with every kind of appliance one could wish for, all looking unused. There was also a breakfast-room-cum-sitting-room, a study that was entirely businesslike and contained a VHF radio, and a den with a television set. The laundry, which held a huge freezer, a shower cubicle and a linen store, was in an annexe-together with the four bicycles. She surveyed them for a long moment, then went back to the kitchen where she made herself a simple meal of scrambled eggs on toast.

Not long afterwards she took herself to bed and, despite the eerie quality of an almost silent night with just one strange bird calling mournfully, fell asleep quickly.

'Ah, Davina, you're up bright and early.'

Davina looked up from the breakfast she was making to see her employer lounging in the kitchen doorway. He had on khaki shorts, a white 'I-shirt, his hair was damp and tousled and his feet bare. She also wore a pair of long khaki shorts, a neat pink blouse tucked into them with a narrow leather belt around her trim waist and polished leather moccasins. She'd tucked her hair behind her ears and had only put moisturiser on her face and a touch of soft coral lipstick. The effect, nevertheless, because her thick hair shone and was well-cut, her skin smooth and fresh, her nails perfectly manicured, was one of good grooming and an air of purpose.

Steve Warwick took this all in as she merely nodded at him and told him that she'd taken the liberty of making him bacon and eggs this first morning.

He glanced at the pan she was tending. 'Bacon and eggs suit me fine.' He strolled into the kitchen and pulled a chair out from the table which was laid for one and had a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice on it. 'It seems to me that you've settled in rather well,' he remarked.