Enchanted Island

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance; Historical Romance

Synopsis

He transforms her quiet world into a dazzling realm of money and success...but can she know what is really in his heart? Young Nicole loves her beautiful Mediterranean island paradise - until dashing composer Paul Quest looks deep into her eyes and promises to carry her away to his London penthouse. And so shy, tender Nicole trades her blue jeans and rope-soled sandals for high fashion and the dizzying sophistication of Paul's elite social whirl. But even as her young heart thrills at the romance, the question burns: will Paul's love stand the test, or is she destined to become just another of his brief affairs?

Release date: November 21, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 192

Sample

THE day that the hotels open on the Ile de Port Cros for the tourist season is always an excitement.

The mild winter had merged into a glorious spring. Easter Sunday would be a big day for the little shops and cafés on the waterfront. The children went down to the landing-stage to meet the first boat from the mainland with shouts and cheers. All the week-end, Madame Blanchot had been cleaning up and preparing her little shop. Pierre, her husband, a plump jovial man with a curling beard, helped her, but as a rule he was busy in the bakehouse whence rose the tempting odour of new croissants and those long crisp loaves beloved by the French. In Madame Blanchot’s shop you could get anything—from a reel of cotton to a postcard; from one of those wide-brimmed raffia hats, to a tube of toothpaste.

Nicole, Madame’s niece, helped to arrange the postcards on the revolving stand outside under a little awning. There had to be an awning, for the April sun was hot. Nicole, too, arranged the display of souvenirs in the window. Coloured shells bearing in gilded letters the name PORT CROS. Scarves and handkerchiefs, basket-work—bags and flower-pots, and miniature stands for oil and vinegar. Bon-bons done up in twists of coloured Cellophane. Huge slabs of chocolate, sugar-coated biscuits, pastries and cakes. And of course, flowers. Boxes of them came daily from Hyères, glorious bunches of the red and pink carnations which are so easily grown and quickly sold in the south of France.

Next door, the Blanchots’ neighbours, the Dubois, busied themselves in their café, bringing out the bottles of wine, while old Hortense, skirt tucked up, bare-legged, flopped about in her carpet slippers, as she had done for the last ten years, covering the tables with little red and white check cloths; sticking two flowers in each narrow-necked vase, ready to attract her customers.

In the opalescent dawn this morning the fishermen had come back with a good haul of wriggling silver fish which would soon be fried golden brown and served up with one of Madame Dubois’s perfect sauces. Fruit—luxurious apricots with melons and green figs—were piled high on their glass dishes. The veal was already roasting in the ovens. Two or three of the island women—who relied on the tourist season in order to enrich their pockets—were busy in the kitchens peeling potatoes, dicing vegetables, washing salads. A strong odour of garlic and roasting coffee pervaded all.

Oh, Easter Day was a great day on all the three islands in this blue Mediterranean water ten miles out from the loveliest coast in France.

But Nicole dreaded it. She loved Easter, the chapel and the bells. And, as always with a burning passion, she loved this particular island on which she had been born and brought up, and where she had spent the eighteen years of her life. But she did not like the tourist season.

The visitors, French, English—all nationalities—who swarmed over the islands in the summer, left litter on the beaches and filled the shops and restaurants—held no attraction for her. She was forced to deal with many of them because as Nicole was half-English, and spoke the language perfectly, Tante Marie made her serve in the shop. And when any of the islanders got into lingual difficulties, they sent for Nicole to act as interpreter.

But what Nicole really liked was going out in the boats. The sea was her passion. She was never happier than when she was fishing or swimming in one of the loneliest of the coves, and letting the limpid water caress her strong brown limbs, whilst she turned her wet blissful face upwards to the sun.

During the winter season, when the hotels shut down and nobody came to Port Cros, Nicole was content. She spent long hours at a stretch in the boats with André and his son, Gaston, who rowed out and around Porquerolles or the Ile de Levant. She adored helping them net the shining fish and the long slippery eels with which Tante Marie made such heavenly stew. Old André always said Nicole should have been a boy—she was so strong and resourceful.

All the islanders knew and loved her as much as she loved them.

‘Bonjour, little one!’ they would call to her affectionately as soon as they saw the young slim figure standing on the quay-side or seated in the sun, helping to mend the nets.

They had watched her grow up from a pretty healthy child into the girl that she was now, at eighteen years—small, but lithe and graceful, with the rich red blood of health showing under her sun-browned skin, dark hair cut short, giving her the gamine look that Nicole possessed long before it became fashionable. She had dark velvety eyes with upcurled lashes and a wide sweet mouth. She was happiest wearing her faded blue fisherman’s jeans and a check shirt. But on her eighteenth birthday Tante Marie had insisted that she wore dresses or skirts occasionally. She looked, of course, much more grown-up and feminine in them. But to put on girdle, stockings, and smart clothes did not please Nicole; any more than the occasional visits she had to make with her aunt and uncle to Hyères or Le Lavandou where they had relatives and friends. The civilized life on the French Riviera amazed and sometimes appalled her. And mostly it made her long to get back to the peace and beauty of Port Cros.

Nicole had only one ambition connected with the world of progress that lay so far beyond her belovèd island; to hear people sing and to watch them dance. She was much too shy and modest of temperament to dream of wanting to take part herself in these accomplishments.

They held rough and ready dances, on days of particular celebration. Once she had been with Tante Marie and Oncle Pierre to the Casino at Hyères. She had not only watched the dancing then but had a partner to herself. And she had found it quite thrilling. She responded with all the emotion locked away in her passionate young heart and soul to the tempo of lilting music. She possessed an old gramophone and some well-worn records. She played them over and over again. In fact the best present anybody could give Nicole was a new dance record; one of Jean Sablon’s songs, or even an American ‘crooner’. There was something romantic and intriguing about sentimental words and tunes, and they filled Nicole’s heart with a strange yearning; made her conscious of an inner loneliness which could not be assuaged and which she barely understood.

‘One day you will fall in love, get married and leave us,’ Tante Marie, who was quite romantic herself, had once said to Nicole.

This idea half-excited and half-terrified Nicole. But never, never, she vowed, would she leave Port Cros or the little whitewashed cottage in which she had lived most of her life. And certainly it would be difficult to know whom she could marry, for there were no eligible men on the island except young Gaston, who with his strong dialect and hands that always smelt of fish, barred all thoughts of romance. Or that nephew of Monsieur Dubois. But he, poor boy, was always ill and having to go away to the mountains. No husband for Nicole.

On this Easter morning when she was forced to exchange her jeans and shirt for a neat blouse and skirt and help in the shop, she felt particularly depressed. Once more the long months of tourism faced her.

She liked the British best of all (for had not her father been an Irishman?). But she couldn’t stand American men who made what they called ‘a pass’ at her and were over-familiar. On the other hand, Martine, her girl friend, who worked in the kitchens at Le Manoir, the beautiful old house which was now a hotel—called her ‘folle’.

‘You are silly not to be gay with the boys who come to the island and look at you with the eyes of love,’ Martine had told her on one occasion. ‘You are much too fond of solitude and your old music.’

But Nicole had replied:

‘Such men do not look with eyes of love—only with desire. Perhaps if ever I meet love I will return it.’

Martine laughed and continued to coquette with every good-looking young man who stayed at the hotel and wished to flirt with her.

Easter Sunday meant a busy time for the whole island. A boatload of tourists landed early and Port Cros was at once spoiled for Nicole. Strangers swarmed over the place. Tante Marie did good business and liked it. Hortense served one lunch after another. The sun shone brilliantly. The sea was like blue glass and the whole island looked green and beautiful. The old Fort de l’Estissac stood sharply etched against the cloudless sky. The palm trees were a deep glossy green, and the air was full of the scent of mimosa. The vegetation was almost tropical on the island, and one of the things that most attracted tourists were the huge butterflies that fluttered on gorgeous wings from bush to bush, and even settled on the beaches; delicate and colourful. High in the hills the forest of oak and pine cast a deep cool shadow. But down below the bougainvillaea, cerise and scarlet, cascaded in hot brilliant glory over the rough stone walls. The vines were already heavy with small grapes, and the oleander trees with creamy blossom.

From one o’clock till three, Tante Marie always allowed her niece to take a rest; for on these busy days Nicole often worked till late at night. So, during her ‘siesta’, the girl eagerly changed into a swim suit and put on a short jacket of yellow towelling which Martine, who was good at needlework, had made for her from a smart pattern in a Parisian fashion paper. Then she took her own small shabby boat and rowed herself round to the little bay which was called Calanque du Fausse Monnaie. Here the beach was deserted, white-sanded, with pine trees stretching down to the water’s edge. Here, too, the water was deep and so limpid that one could see the fish darting far under the surface.

Nicole threw off her jacket, dived into the cool water and swam out a long way. Then she returned and lay on her back on the warm sand, letting the sunlight drink the moisture from her limbs. It was hot and glorious and so wonderful to be alone, she thought blissfully, and to hear only the sound of the sea, and the gulls calling to one another as they wheeled over the island.

Lying thus, she dreamed of many things, and began to sing to herself (as she often did when she thought nobody could hear). She sang a few bars of a little song which came out of the latest musical show in London. All the way from London to Port Cros, a record of it had been sent to Nicole by a young Englishman to whom she had sold postcards last summer. Having discovered that she loved such songs, he had promised her a recording and in due course it had arrived.

This music was all the rage in the sophisticated world of dancing and music about which Nicole knew so little. The show had been running in London for the last year and was called Moonflower.

Nicole sang the theme song:

‘Keep all the stars,

Keep the moon above,

Keep the whole wide world …’

But she did not sing the final line because it was sung for her in a man’s rich baritone:

‘But give me back my love!’

With a gasp Nicole sat up and looked around. She drew a slim hand across eyes which were a little dazzled by the sun and sea water. She saw a tall, slimly built young man moving towards her along the beach. His fine muscular body was only a shade less tanned than her own. He wore blue trunks and had a towelling jacket over his shoulders, and a cigarette between his lips. His hair, chestnut brown, curled over his head and shone in the sun, glistening with water as though he, too, had just come out of the sea.

He reached her side and taking the cigarette from his lips bowed ceremoniously.

‘Mademoiselle …’ he said. ‘Bonjour.’

She knew at once from the accent that he was an Englishman. She sprang to her feet and answered him in English.

‘Good morning, sir.’

‘Don’t tell me you are English,’ he said.

‘Half, and half French …’ she smiled up at him.

‘You are here on holiday—like myself—anyway you’ve been to see Moonflower. That’s why you were singing the theme song.’

‘No, I live here. I just—know the song,’ said Nicole shyly.

And she felt as though she was enveloped in a shyness more extreme than she had ever felt before. The stranger’s handsome eyes—a warm chestnut hue like his hair—travelled over her with such flagrant admiration. Hurriedly she stooped, picked up her yellow beach jacket and buttoned it around her.

The man said:

‘Let me introduce myself—we seem to be the only people enjoying this exquisite beach—my name is Paul Quest.’

‘I’m Nicole O’Keefe,’ she said.

‘O’Keefe! Irish?’

‘My father was from Dublin. Mother was born here on Port Cros, like myself.’

‘You were actually born on this island!’ he exclaimed.

‘Yes.’

‘But how intriguing,’ he said, and looked at the young girl still with that warm all-embracing expression that made her heart flutter in the most unusual and extraordinary way. ‘I call Port Cros the “Enchanted Island”. And you are obviously a creature of sunlight and foam, and like the butterflies which I see on the seashore, will, in a moment, vanish from my sight for ever.’

Nicole remained silent. How poetically he spoke, and how rich was the timbre of his voice. She had thought that when he sang the last bar of her favourite song. The warm carnation colour rose under the gold of her skin. Paul Quest thought he had never seen a girl more naturally beautiful. Then she said breathlessly:

‘I—ought to get back. I—we are very busy today in the shop.’

‘What shop?’

She told him who she was and how she helped Tante Marie. He saw, now, the little boat moored to a pine tree and nodded regretfully.

‘I’m sorry. I’d like to come with you, but I’ve got my own transport.’

Nicole looked with deep respect at the elegant white and blue motor launch bobbing on the bright blue water.

‘So that is yours. I wondered whose it was.’

‘Yes. I arrived today with a friend. We are on holiday at the Manoir for a week.’

‘It’s a lovely hotel,’ she said gravely.

‘And you are exceptionally lovely,’ the man wanted to say, but somehow resisted the temptation. To pay idle compliments to the glamorous women of his acquaintance in London, Paris or New York, seemed easy and commonplace. But somehow the matter became more important when one looked into the lovely serious eyes of this young girl who had been born and brought up on the island.

He said:

‘Do wait a few minutes more. Sit down and talk to me—tell me more about Port Cros—and yourself.’

‘What time is it?’

He told her. She caught her lip between her teeth.

‘Just two moments then—yes, sir, monsieur.’

‘My name is Paul,’ he said, amused. Then, as they sat down side by side on the sun-warmed sand, he added: ‘I am really flattered that you know my song, and like my records so much.’

‘Your song—your records?’ she repeated, startled.

‘I am Paul Quest,’ he told her again, watching her reactions with interest.

Then suddenly the repeated name awoke remembrance in Nicole, and the handsome face of the English stranger, too. She had seen that face so many times on catalogues and advertisements. Paul Quest. Mon Dieu, she thought, her mind buzzing with mad excitement. It is he. The great composer—the man who wrote both words and music of Moonflower and of a dozen other popular musical comedies. He who often acted a leading role in his own shows; who was England’s matinée idol; whose lilting, haunting refrains were played in nearly every private house and by every light orchestra or dance band in the country. Or, indeed, in France. The French were just as crazy about Paul Quest and his songs as the English who loved Jean Sablon.

Tongue-tied with embarrassment—with awe—Nicole stared at Paul’s smiling face. Then a cry broke from her … in French.

‘C’est vous!’

And Paul Quest, the famous, the spoiled, the man who had been a world-shaking success for the last ten years (he was now only thirty years old), heard those words and was deeply touched. For they were spoken with such rich feeling that he could read in them a tribute more profound and sincere than any he had ever received in his life before. He was quite amazingly stirred. He picked up one of the brown slender hands of the young island girl, and bending kissed it.

From that moment, feeling the touch of Paul Quest’s lips, Nicole fell helplessly and hopelessly in love.

‘I ASSURE you, my dear Harry, she’s the most attractive thing I’ve ever seen in my life—and I’ve seen a few in my profession as you can testify,’ said Paul Quest warmly.

‘Then she must be what is vulgarly known today as a “smasher”, my dear Paul,’ said Harry Lang, his friend and companion, and finished an excellent coffee and sat back smiling at Paul, and lighting his cigar.

The spring night was warm and agreeable. Through the open windows of the beautiful thirteenth-century manor house which was an hotel, yet more like a luxurious country club—the night was luminous with stars. The oleanders and the thick luxuriance of palm-filled gardens gave the place a sub-tropical atmosphere. There was a strong scent of orange-blossom and spice-carnations. Lights had been hung in many of the tall trees and made a fairyland of the handsome gardens surrounding the Manor.

Harry Lang was feeling content—replete after that fabulously cooked dinner, washed down by perfect wine. He had been for a long walk up in the wooded hills this afternoon while Paul went for his bathe. Attached though he was to his famous friend, Harry sometimes liked to get away by himself. He enjoyed solitude. He was prepared to enjoy thoroughly a fortnight’s relaxation on this beautiful remote island. He had in fact brought Paul here. Harry’s young sister, Joy, had come to Port Cros for her honeymoon, and never stopped raving about the place.

Harry was Paul’s financial ‘backer’ as well as his friend. He had made money through Paul—and for him. Harry’s father, Martin Lang, before him, had been in the theatre production business and spent most of a considerable fortune upon it. Now, after his death, Harry carried on and enjoyed the thrills—the successes—even the failures. The ‘theatre’ was in his blood. In discovering young Quest, who at one time had been penniless with only his handsome face and considerable talent a. . .