Free The Passionate Sinner by Violet Winspear Page A

Lon confirmed it?’
    ‘Yes, mynheer.’ She cast a sympathetic look at Tutup, who was devoted to Paul and who looked stricken by his master’s unexpected harshness. ‘You had better do as you’re told, Tutup. Your family is down there with all the others and you don’t want to make your mother anxious.’
    ‘You will go this instant,’ Paul insisted, ‘and you will take the mevrouw with you, do you hear me? Hurry before the rain starts lashing down.’
    The boy looked obstinate. ‘Why I have to go with woman? You come too, tuan, or let me stay.’
    ‘You will do as you are darned well told, my boy. And so will you, Miss Lakeside.’ Paul stood there looking in the general direction of Merlin, his hair roughly tousled from the wind and an iron set to his jaw. ‘I won’t have an hysterical woman and a child on my hands when this things hits us. Have some sense, the pair of you! I’m blind as a blasted bat and I’d be of no use to either of you should you be hurt, so you will both do as you are told and be off while you can still climb down those cliff steps without being blown down them.’
    ‘Come on, Tutup.’ Merlin had decided instantly what she was going to do, and taking the boy by the hand she hurried him away from the irate Paul. ‘It’s no use to argue, and you should be with your family.’
    ‘Tuan be all alone.’ The boy tried to drag her back towards that solitary figure, standing there unseeing, with the palm crowns crashing above his head and the rain increasing its volume. Lightning flickered, red-tipped, like angry barbs.
    ‘Do come on,’ she said urgently, but when they reached the valley steps and the stabs of lightning were turning to prongs, she let go the boy’s hand and called out to some other people to take him down with them to join his family. ‘The tuan’s orders,’ she told them. She had no intention of obeying those orders herself, and could hear Tutup yelling with protest as she hastened back towards the house. The air was rampant with the moist, earthy scent of jungle flowers being bruised by the rain that was now coming down solidly. Her shirt and pants were plastered to her before she reached the compound of the house and her hair was like a wet whip lashing against her skin as she ran those last few yards and flung herself up the steps. Raucous parrot cries mingled with the belting rain and the whining wind.
    ‘Who is that?’ Paul towered in the dimness of the porch, nostrils flared.
    ‘It’s me.’ Merlin said breathlessly. ‘I’ve seen to it that Tutup has gone down to the valley.’
    ‘You! I told you, ordered you to go with him!’ Merlin stood before that angry figure and felt her knees lock with actual terror as temper flared in his eyes, flame thrown on to oil when she added: ‘You can’t be alone up here. I want to keep you company, mynheer.’
    ‘You want?’ He took a violent step towards her. ‘I’m the one who’s in charge, not some snip of a woman who has never faced a typhoon before. I don’t want you, do you hear me? Crying and whining all over the place when the wind reaches full force and seems as if it will never relax its hold on the eardrums. Now get out and leave me alone! There’s still time.’
    ‘You can’t see the lightning,’ she shot back at him, frightened though she was of the temper she had released in him. ‘I’d sooner face you than run through that one more time. I shall be struck if I go out in it!’
    ‘You might be struck if you stay here.’ His fist clenched, as if he truly felt like hitting her for her disobedience. ‘You are a damn fool, mevrouw, do you realise it? If you get hurt I couldn’t see to put a bandage on you properly.’ ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, ‘stop feeling so sorry for yourself!’ ‘What—what did you say?’ He looked struck himself.
    ‘You heard me, mynheer. You want to be in charge of things, but because you’d only get in the way, you are taking your temper out on me. The villagers