The plants, Jenna noticed, were standing in cream marble tubs, and there was even set into one wall, an open fireplace with a brass surround. Flanking the chimney-breast were two mirrored alcoves with bookshelves. Some pretty, pinky-beige, shaggy cotton rugs covered the marble tiles in places and the shades on the brass light-fittings and lamps were in distinctive art deco style. As she bent closer to one of the lamps to study the pink, green and cream glass Jenna realised that the lamp portrayed an island scene.
She glanced up queryingly and James told her, ‘I had them made to my own design in London.’
‘By Carla Meadows,’ Jenna said for him, wondering momentarily if his relationship with the provocative and talented designer had been merely a business one. A minute later she was chiding herself for the thought. What business of hers was it what sort of relationship James had had with Carla…or might continue to have, for that matter?
‘I recognise her style,’ she told James. ‘She’s very good.’
‘Would you like to see the rest of the suite while we wait for our dinner? I ordered it in advance,’ he told her forestalling her question.
Large, sliding windows looked out on to the velvet darkness of the Caribbean night, and Jenna gestured towards them. ‘What’s outside?’
‘Come and have a look.’ James walked over to the windows and touched a switch. Immediately, lights sprang on outside, subtly illuminating a delightful private patio area, with raised, mellowed-brick plant containers and a high brick wall on one side, which James explained separated them from the next suite. Set into the wall was a bench and further along a barbecue. When Jenna marvelled over the detail that had gone into the patio’s construction James explained to her that they had designed the suites so that anyone taking one could either use the facilities of the hotel or could remain independent of it and prepare their own meals.
‘Couples who have staff to wait on them at home, sometimes prefer to cook for themselves on holiday. Each suite has its own small kitchen. So far mine is the only one to be completed and furnished. Of course, if you want to make any changes to it…’
‘Who chose the décor?’ Jenna asked him curiously, reluctantly turning her back on the patio to study the sitting-room once more. It was a very attractive room. Cool and yet welcoming, with attention paid to detail, right down to the prints of scenes of the island set against the same dusky pink background found in the upholstery fabric, and framed in matt white.
‘I did,’ James told her, surprising her. Of course a lot of the top interior designers were men, but somehow she had never imagined that James might possess this talent.
‘The room’s perfect,’ she told him generously.
A strange expression crossed his face, but before Jenna had had time to evaluate it, he said drily, ‘Anything can be had at a price—even good taste!’
‘You’re wrong,’ Jenna corrected him, ‘believe me.’ She shuddered to think of the things she had been asked to do, and the tact she had sometimes had to exercise to prevent some of her clients from giving in to their more bizarre impulses.
‘Come and see the rest of it.’
Beyond the sitting-room was a small dining-room which also opened out on to the patio. The furniture was constructed of the same wood as that in the sitting-room. He had seen it used a good deal in Spain and the Canary Islands, James told her, and had liked the effect of its dark richness against the pastel backgrounds. Both the sitting-room and dining-room walls were painted a soft pinky-beige, which was both warm and relaxing.
The kitchen was small but well equipped, making use of the same dark wood.
‘With air-conditioning we don’t need to worry about the wood rotting or warping in the moist heat, which is one blessing. ‘The bedrooms are this way.’
A door led out of the kitchen into a corridor with two doors off it.
‘Two double bedrooms,’ James told her, each with its own bathroom. The first bedroom was plainly decorated in the same shades as the sitting-room. Two single beds with dark wood headboards, and cream, pink and green cotton covers were the room’s only furniture other than a traditional rocking chair, but Jenna realised why when she walked further into the room and saw the long wall of mirrored wardrobes with a well-designed dressing-table in between. At the end of the wall was a door, which she discovered opened into the bathroom. Here, again, marble had been used, but this time it was pink rather than beige, the pink exactly matching the colour of the sanitaryware.
‘And this is the master bedroom,’ James continued when Jenna rejoined him in the corridor.
It was larger than the previous room and possessed a double bed. It was also, and this surprised Jenna, distinctly feminine. Above the top of the bed set into the ceiling was a pale, bluey-green, marbled corona embellished with carved shells, a pearl set between each one. Jenna recognised it instantly as the work of Catherine Palmer and acknowledged that it was beautiful. Gauzy silk-fine cotton muslin curtains in the same shade of bluey-green fell from the corner to drape the top of the bed caught by shell clasps attached to the wall before falling to the floor.
The headboard itself was also shaped like a shell, and had been painted and veined in the most delicate colours so that it shimmered in a stunning mother-of-pearl effect.
The valance, and what she could see of the sheets and pillowcases, was the same soft bluey-green as the cotton curtains, and the bedspread was a work of art in itself; pale cream heavy satin appliquéd with self-coloured satin shells the edges of each one worked in a combination of delicate peach and bluey-green.
Here, too, the floor was marble tiled, not cream or pink, but deep turquoise so that it was like walking on water. Even the walls repeated the colour motif although in a much paler tone, and they, too, had been marbled.
A cornice in a soft cream shell design, which Jenna knew must have been specially designed, separated the walls from the ceiling, which in turn picked up the colour of the floor.
‘I…I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she told James truthfully. ‘It’s stunning.’
‘I’m glad you like it. It was designed with you in mind.’ He saw her face and explained lightly, ‘The colour is a perfect foil for your hair.’
It was, but Jenna could scarcely credit that James had specifically designed this room because of that. ‘But…but you couldn’t have had time to organise all this?’
Everything in the room had been done by someone who was an expert in his or her field. Catherine Palmer alone had a four-month order book, Jenna knew that much for a fact.
‘But I did,’ James told her gently.