Dark Fever

Freddie nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more. What does your mother think of the way you’re bringing up your boy? Does she keep a critical eye on you? My mother-in-law does; she’s always telling me where I’m going wrong in the way I treat my children.’

‘My mother’s dead, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Freddie gave her an uncertain look, eyes apologetic.

‘It was some years ago—she died not long after my husband, actually.’

Freddie’s face was full of warm sympathy. ‘That must have been a great shock to you—to have to bear two deaths so close together.’

Bianca sighed. ‘It takes a long time to get over it. For a while I felt death was haunting me. My father died a few months after my mother.’

‘Oh, poor Bianca!’

‘He was in his seventies, and really still very active, but I think he had lost the will to live. He missed my mother so much; they had been married for over forty years, had become almost one person; he was like someone who has lost half of himself. He was never the same man after she died; he wouldn’t go out, wouldn’t come to live with me, although I begged him to, he never seemed to eat much, and in the end he died in his sleep— a heart attack, the doctor told me, and I am sure that was what it was; his heart just gave up beating.’

‘How wonderful that they were so happy together, th

ough. You hear so many horror stories about marriages that don’t work—it’s good to hear about one that did.’

‘Yes,’ said Bianca, a smile in her eyes. ‘It was a very happy marriage. So was mine, and I can see your marriage is a happy one, too.’

Freddie’s face lit up, her mouth curving happily. ‘Yes, we’ve been very lucky; we have a lovely home and terrific children—and we are very happy together.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s getting late. I’d better go and get ready. Can you meet us outside the hotel in...’ she looked at the remains of Bianca’s breakfast, her half-drunk cup of coffee ‘... say, twenty minutes?’

Bianca nodded. ‘I’ll be there.’

She finished her coffee while Freddie was hurrying away, and a few minutes later made her way to her apartment to put on make-up, brush her hair, collect a shopping bag. In good time she went back to the main hotel building but there was no sign as yet of Freddie and her family. Bianca wandered along a path, admiring a display of blue, purple and yellow pansies under some slender young silver birch trees.

‘What are you up to?’

The voice made her jump; she swung round, her pulses leaping under her skin, and looked up at Gil, knowing her colour was high and her eyes feverish.

He looked into her eyes, a half-smile curling his mouth, intimacy and warmth in his gaze.

‘Oh... hello,’ she said, looking away again hurriedly. Oh, stop it! she told herself, but she couldn’t get over the way he looked—those striking good looks were intensified by the clothes he was wearing today—the hotelier’s uniform of dark suit and white shirt, discreet dark red tie. ‘You must get very hot in those clothes!’ she said huskily and he laughed.

‘Later in the year it becomes unbearable to wear them, but guests expect the hotel manager to dress suitably,’ he said wryly. There was a pause, and she felt his gaze wandering down over her, from her dark head to her sandalled feet. ‘Talking of clothes, why are you wearing that very elegant dress? Not that I don’t love the way it looks on you—it’s just the colour of these flowers, isn’t it? A wonderful dark, velvety blue. It suits you. But it isn’t exactly the thing to wear on the beach. It would be ruined in half an hour. I hope you weren’t planning to go anywhere? You know you can’t leave the hotel grounds without protection, not while those two little thugs are free.’

‘I’m going shopping in Marbella—’ she began, and

he curtly interrupted.

‘Oh, no, you’re not!’ He sounded really furious and she looked up at him defiantly.

‘With your sister-in-law,’ she finished, her voice rising over his.

He stared, his brows jerking together. ‘Freddie?’

She nodded. ‘And Karl, and the children. They should be here any minute, to drive me into town.’

‘Why on earth do you want to go into town? You should be down on the beach on a lovely day like this— not wandering around the streets of Marbella.’

‘I have some shopping to do, and, anyway, I liked what I saw of Marbella the first night I got here; I want to see it in daylight.’

‘If you’d told me, I’d have taken you!’

She gave him a quick look, even more flushed, then looked down again. ‘You’re working.’

‘I can arrange for someone to take over from me.’