The Bride Of Santa Barbara

Daniel’s harsh, brooding features took on an expression of total absorption, as if he were a chess master faced by a teasing problem or a champion skier embarking on a taxing downhill slalom.

‘Where are you staying in Santa Barbara?’ he rapped out.

Beth stared at him in bewilderment.

‘Nowhere,’ she said. ‘Warren and I drove a hire car up here from Los Angeles during the night. And we were going to drive back this afternoon.’

‘Right. That simplifies things. Where was your luggage? In the car?’

‘No. All aboard the motor launch,’ said Beth despairingly.

‘Never mind. We’ll replace it. Now we’d better get moving if we’re going to sort this out. Come on.’

He dragged her to her feet, opened the door and thrust her out into the clubroom’s main lounge.

‘But where are you taking me?’ demanded Beth.

‘Back to my place to get things organised,’ replied Daniel. He snapped his fingers at a figure who was hovering discreetly on the far side of the room. ‘Benson, come here. I want you to go down town and buy Miss Saxon some clothes. A size eight, I’d say at a guess. And how about shoes? What size do you take?’

‘Six,’ stammered Beth, wondering whether her companion had gone right off his head.

‘And size six shoes,’ finished Daniel briskly. ‘Enough for three days. Bring them back to the house as soon as possible.’

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Benson, turning on his heel and departing.

Daniel intercepted Beth’s look of horrified disbelief and a mocking smile flickered suddenly around the edges of his mouth.

‘Don’t worry, Benson is a genuine English butler,’ he assured her. ‘And he has excellent taste. I’m sure you’ll like the clothes he chooses.’

‘It’s not that!’ wailed Beth. ‘But you must see, I can’t possibly go with you. I don’t know anything about you.’

Daniel brushed aside this objection with a careless wave of his hand. ‘I’m not really in the habit of kidnapping young women,’ he assured her wearily. ‘But I’m sure the Yacht Club manager will give me a character reference if you need it. Now, are you coming with me or not?’

Beth stared at him, feeling completely taken aback. She couldn’t help feeling an ominous sense of misgiving about the prospect of going off with Daniel. Not that she expected him to do her any harm, but she sensed a subtler kind of danger in his company. The danger of an intoxicating, sensual attraction whose potency she could not ignore. Yet what else could she do? Alone in a strange city with no possessions, who else could she turn to? Besides, she need not stay long. If he would just let her use his phone to contact Warren, she could be on her way again as soon as Benson brought her some clothes.

‘I suppose I’ll have to,’ she said slowly. ‘I don’t know where else I could go in your dressing-gown anyway.’

Daniel gave a low growl of laughter.

‘Well, you could try getting a job as a mannequin in a store window,’ he suggested. ‘But failing that I think you’d better come home with me and have some breakfast.’

With a feeling of unreality Beth allowed herself to be led out into the car park and handed into a gleaming silver Jaguar. As they drove through the streets of Santa Barbara, she pinched herself quietly on the arm, wondering whether all of this was real. But the white Spanishstyle buildings with their orange-tiled roofs, the tall palm trees with their waving fronds like giant pineapples, the dark blue soaring backdrop of the hills and the glimmering expanse of the harbour all looked much the same as they had an hour earlier.

‘Where are you from?’ asked Daniel abruptly. ‘You don’t sound like an American.’

‘I’m not,’ agreed Beth. ‘I’m from Australia.’

‘And what are you doing in California?’ he asked. ‘Are you on vacation?’

‘No.’ She shook her head and felt drips of water cascade down her neck. ‘I’m here on business, or I was.’

‘What kind of business? Fashion design?’

‘Yes. I’ve been invited to show my autumn collection of clothes at a big fashion parade in Los Angeles on Tuesday.’

‘Los Angeles, huh?’ echoed Daniel. ‘So what made you come to Santa Barbara? Are you just having a weekend off before the big event?’

Beth shook her head again, trying to fight off the despair that was beginning to well up inside her.

‘No. We just drove up from Los Angeles to do some publicity photos of the collection. I couldn’t afford a professional model, so I modelled the clothes myself.’

‘What were the photos for?’ asked Daniel. ‘Advertising?’

‘Yes, sort of. You see, after the fashion show on Tuesday there’ll be trade shows in other places: New York, Miami, that sort of thing. What they do is hire a large hall and everyone sets up a booth with photos of their collection so buyers can come and see them and order whatever they want. I showed my clothes to an agent in LA and she encouraged me to get the photos done and send them on to New York. If the show went well on Tuesday, I was hoping I could break into the rest of the US market. But now—’

Her voice wobbled suddenly. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.

‘I see,’ said Daniel softly. ‘But now your entire autumn collection is at the bottom of the Santa Barbara harbour and you think your life is ruined. Is that right?’

Beth’s eyes blurred suddenly. Two large tears rolled down her cheek.

‘That’s about it,’ she breathed huskily.

Daniel’s powerful right hand shot out and squeezed her fingers so hard that she felt the bones grate. She glanced at him in surprise and his dark eyes met hers briefly in a look that seared her. Then he turned back to face the road, gritting his teeth as if he had just taken some momentous decision.

‘Trust me,’ he urged. ‘I’ll find a way to solve your problem.’

Beth gave a croaking laugh which was close to a sob.

‘If you do, you’re a magician!’ she said bitterly. ‘Anyway, why should you bother?’

‘I have my reasons,’ he said cryptically.

CHAPTER TWO

BETH was still puzzling over what he meant when the road suddenly took a turn up into the hills and the car began to climb along a series of winding lanes. At last Daniel turned off the road at the imposing entrance to a villa. Black wrought-iron gates rose eight feet high in an intricate filigree pattern between two massive pillars of honey-coloured stucco. On either side of the gateway hung Spanish wrought-iron carriage-lamps. Beyond the gates, Beth caught a glimpse of a garden which looked cool and green and inviting. Amid its tangled foliage the driveway curved out of sight in a dappled pattern of light and shade.

Daniel touched a button on the sun visor above the windscreen and with barely a squeak the gates swung wide open. They drove through a twisting avenue of cypresses for nearly two hundred yards before at last the house itself came into view. It was an imposing villa built in a Spanish style with cream stuccoed walls, black shutters, orange roof-tiles and a clock tower. Daniel parked the Jaguar on a brick terrace and led Beth up to the front entrance of the house. This too was in the Spanish style with pillars of sandstone, an arched entranceway and double doors surmounted by a graceful fanlight. In the centre of the porch hung another wrought-iron lamp and on either side of the door there were tubs of light blue lobelias and yellow violas to soften the harshness of the sandstone.

Daniel inserted a key into the brass lock and flung open the doors, revealing a cool marble-floored hallway. On the right this gave way to an open-plan living and dining area with a parquetry floor, Mexican rugs, a lot of black leather and chrome furniture and a huge central fireplace stacked with freshly sawn logs. Most of the far wall was occupied by floor-to-ceiling glass French doors which led on to a shady terrace. Striding across the room, Daniel unlocked one of these doors and ushered Beth outside.

‘Go and sit by the pool,’ he urged, ‘while I rustle up some breakfast.’

‘Can I do anything to help?’ asked Beth in a subdued voice.

‘Yes. You can stop looking as if you’re about to face an executioner at any moment,’ replied Daniel.

But Beth found the advice hard to follow. Slumping into a garden chair, she cupped her chin in her hands and gazed moodily over the vista that lay before her. It was an attractive sight. Beyond the kidney-shaped pool was a brick terrace flanked by tubs of geraniums and bordered by a low wall. Below this the ground dropped away sharply to reveal a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean. By now the sun was high in the sky and the sea had turned a deep cobalt-blue. Huge, fluffy white clouds floated against a paler blue sky and the bright sunlight gleamed back from the creamy white stucco walls of the Spanish-style houses far below. Bees buzzed in the flowering plants that climbed a trellis on one wall and the air was sweet and heavy with the scent of jasmine.