The Sun and Catriona by Rosemary Pollock Read Free Book Online

have been telling her about you.’
    The scarlet beauty nodded graciously. She had perfect classical features, and the most beautiful brown eyes Catriona had ever seen, more striking even than Toni’s. Her thick black hair had been twisted into gleaming plaits that coiled themselves around her head, and her mouth, like her dress, was flame-coloured.
    ‘Hello,’ said Catriona. She was beginning to wish that the ground would open and devour her, complete with the blue dress.
    The vivid lips parted, smiling. ‘But what a pity. Your luggage has not arrived, Miss Browne ? ’
    Catriona felt as if the-sunburn on her nose were spreading all over her body. ‘I ... my luggage is here,’ she confessed awkwardly. ‘I didn’t bring much with me.’
    ‘Ah!’ Jacqueline Calleja smiled again. She gave the impression that she understood perfectly.
    Toni intervened. ‘The climate is so different here, and she hasn’t had time to buy anything yet—we whisked her away at a moment’s notice. It was too bad, but I’ll take her shopping in the morning.’ She collected some more cushions, and made them into a second pile. ‘Come and sit here, Catriona.’
    Still on fire with humiliation, Catriona sank gratefully on to the cushions. Then she saw that the Count was bending over her, holding out a glass.
    ‘Iced lime-juice, with lemonade,’ he said quietly. ‘You will find it quite innocuous. Of course, if you would prefer something stronger ... ’
    She shook her head hastily. ‘No. Thank you, that looks lovely.’ As she took the drink from him, she noticed the strength in his lean brown fingers, and when they brushed lightly against her own she felt as if his controlled energy sent a shock through her body. At the same time, in some strange way the contact seemed to calm her, and involuntarily she glanced up at him. But he had already moved away and was leaning against the fountain, paying no attention to her. The Borzoi had lain down at his feet.
    ‘Jacqueline is having dinner with us,’ Toni said brightly. ‘She is a television actress, and she’s going to tell us about her work.’
    ‘Not only television, darling.’ Jacqueline sounded slightly piqued. ‘I do take other parts as well, and my ambition is to be a very serious actress. I shall soon be playing in Twelfth Night ... I’m to be Olivia. I know an English director who says that part could have been written for me.’
    The Count set his glass down beside the fountain. ‘On stage,’ he remarked dryly, ‘one beautiful woman is very much like another. It is in real life that her theatrical ability is put to the test.’
    ‘Peter!’ The husky, heavily accented voice was reproving and indulgent at the same time. ‘You should not say things like that. Do you mean that we are always acting for your benefit?’
    He looked down at the top of her gleaming head. ‘Nearly always,’ he said lightly. ‘Some women, of course, are more talented than others, and consequently their performance is better—more convincing.’
    Somewhere in the depths of the old stone house a gong began to boom. Toni jumped up at once. ‘Let’s go in, I’m so hungry.’
    They dined in a quiet, white-walled room overlooking the street. As dusk began to fall, softly shaded lamps were lit and candles were placed on the table in front of them, but despite the approach of night it was still oppressively warm inside the house, and several electric fans whirred monotonously. Far off in the city a convent bell was tolling and Catriona began to feel that nothing was quite real. Could it be true that she had started the day in Berkshire—that only twenty-four hours ago she had been waiting at table in the dining-room of the Calverley Hotel? It was the sort of thing that only happened in novels. It was all too much to take in.
    They ate stuffed aubergines, followed by salmon cooked in white wine, and Jacqueline obligingly kept her promise to tell them all about her work. She seemed to lead a busy