Fyrea's Cauldron. William Maltese

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      Certainly, he looked pretty much the same: so, it apparently wasn’t any kind of glaring physical anomaly that Marie sensed. His skin was burnished a deeper bronze than she remembered, making his blue eyes even bluer, but his jaw still had its characteristic squareness, his mouth its sensuous fullness, and his cheeks their distinctive dimples that balanced the deep cleft in his chin. His neck was still bullish, ending in the hair-covered vee of skin that appeared at the open collar of his white shirt.

      “Give me your baggage tabs, and I’ll have the bags loaded while we have a bit of refreshment at the hotel,” he said, his eyes sparkling in a way that was uncharacteristic of the rather serious and somber Charles whom Marie had known in London. Then, it was only natural he should be more at ease on his own stamping grounds. “Did you have a good trip?”

      “I’m afraid I’ll never make a good sailor,” she admitted.

      He laughed. His lips slipped easily back to reveal his wide expanse of white teeth. He took her left arm in his right hand and exerted the pressure necessary to guide her through the crowd. They stopped briefly while Charles transferred her baggage tags to a Negro man introduced as Petre. Then, Marie and Charles got into an awaiting taxi, the driver apparently having received previous instructions as to their destination.

      The Hotel King Philip was a confection of pink architecture situated on a small rise overlooking the harbor. As it was only a short drive, Marie had only just gotten settled into the cab before its door was again open, and she was stepping back into the bright sunlight.

      “Monsieur Camaux,” a white-liveried Negro on the porch greeted as Charles came up the stairs. He turned dark black eyes on Marie. “Mademoiselle.”

      “Madame Camaux,” Charles corrected.

      The Negro got a decidedly strange expression, and, then, turned to lead the couple down the porch to a small table in the shade. There was a good view of the steamer still disembarking its passengers and baggage on the quay.

      “I believe there’s a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé waiting us on ice,” Charles told the black man before turning his attention back on Marie.

      “I couldn’t possibly drink much wine, Charles,” she protested. She feared a resurgence of her queasiness.

      “We’ll just have enough to keep us in good spirits on the long drive home,” he assured her.

      His use of the plural, by way of who would be drinking, thoroughly confused her. She had never seen him take one drink of alcohol. At the beginning of their relationship, she was sure he had said he was a teetotaler.

      “Oh, I see!” Charles exclaimed, suddenly, as if it dawned on him as to how he was seemingly acting out of character. “You must learn that the Charles you knew in London isn’t quite the same as Charles, here, on Saint-Georges. Or, do you object to your husband occasionally having a nip or two?”

      “Of course I don’t object.” Marie had been raised in a family where wine with the meals was de rigueur, and she could embrace this unexpected turn of events. She had usually foregone wine when with Charles, rather than drink it alone.

      “Good,” he said, settling back in his chair and eyeing his wife as if he were really seeing her for the very first time. “Now, tell me all about your trip.

      She began a brief rundown of all that had occurred since their last meeting, keeping a close watch to make sure her story wasn’t becoming too boring. The wine arrived just as Charles’ interest was peaked by Marie’s mention of her brief encounter with Pierre Yonne.

      “From Isla Charlotte, you say?” he asked while the waiter filled their glasses.

      “He said it wasn’t too far from here.”

      “Oh, it’s not. Just half an hour by sail.”

      “I hope you didn’t mind my telling him he might call. He’s really about the only passenger I had a chance to speak with onboard.”

      “Of course I don’t mind. I’m just curious as to what he might have had to say about our marriage.”

      “Not much of anything, really. The longest conversation I had with him took place just shortly before we docked. That consisted of his commenting mainly on the island topography. I think he said he was just returning from a sabbatical of some kind in the U.S.”

      “There is a small school on Isla Charlotte, now that you mention it,” Charles said. “So few people, though, on that dismal little rock pile, these days, that you’d think the whole lot of them would have packed up their bags and come back here after over eighty years of waiting, wouldn’t you?”

      “Pack up their bags and come back? Waiting for what?” Marie had been struck by the obvious oddness of Charles’ phraseology.

      “Paranoid lot,” Charles observed, sipping his white wine. “Most of the original bunch went over in 1931. No one wanted the place before then. Now, I guess, their children’s children are still taught to expect another blowup from The Cauldron at any minute.”

      “The Cauldron?”

      “You must have seen it when you sailed in,” he said, filling their glasses with more wine from the bottle he retrieved from the ice bucket after waving off the waiter. “It’s always the first of the island to be seen on the horizon.”

      “Mont d’Esnembuc?” Marie distinctly remembered the emergence of that domed-shape mass, seemingly from the sea.

      “That is what it’s called on the maps.” Charles worked the wine bottle back into the ice. “Around here, it’s simply The Cauldron. I guess a few million years back, there was a collapse of the central part of the mountain, during an eruption, to cause the sizable lake now up there. You’ll enjoy a day trip, by horseback, for a look-see. You do ride?”

      Marie tried to decide if Charles was joking. Twice, they had borrowed horses in London from the Galen-Waydes for trots through Hyde Park bridle paths.

      “Then, every English girl rides, doesn’t she?” He flashed a wide smile and reached across the table to give her hand an intimate pat.

      She was going to answer with something. She didn’t know just what—but something. She had this inexplicable feeling (had since that first unexpectedly passionate kiss on the quay?), that, somewhere between London and Saint-Georges, Charles had undergone several definite changes.

      “Ah, our car!” he said, nodding toward the limousine which had reached the upper curve of the hotel gravel driveway and was pulling to a stop. “If we hurry, we can reach the Château for an early supper.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      INAUSPICIOUS BEGINNINGS

      “Charles, are you all right?” Marie asked. Actually, it was Marie who wasn’t feeling well. Her seasickness of the past few days was replaced by car sickness brought on by the twisting road the driver chose immediately upon leaving The Hotel King Philip driveway.

      “I’m feeling fine,” Charles replied, giving Marie a loving pat on her leg. “I must say, you’re looking rather peaked, though.”

      “Would СКАЧАТЬ