Free Hotel Mirador by Rosalind Brett Page A

beaches seemed to be used solely by men, and the swimming pool by the rich hotel guests. She would have to work it out
    * * *
    The evening swim in the huge and magnificent pool was an excellent idea, Sally decided, as she took off her white bathrobe and pulled a cap over the bronze curls. The grounds were cool and scented, a faint breeze ruffled the water, and the only figures in sight were those of the servants moving between the balconies and the lower regions. She dived in and found the water warm and caressing, and far more buoyant than she had imagined. It was piped sea-water. She swam and floated, looked at the jewelled sky and told it she hadn’t a trouble in the world. At least, nothing really sizeable. There seemed to be one or two little things fretting at the back of her mind, and there were moments when she felt really anxious about Lucette, but on the whole she was beg innin g to find life almost tranquil here in Shiran.
    She found herself accepting the foreignness of the place. The call of the muezzin was romantic at first, and then hardly noticeable, the smells became part of the atmosphere, and how could a coastal town of Morocco possibly be complete without the veiled women and the men in white and striped djellabahs, the comical camels, the street-venders and fortune tellers, the cobblestones and crenellated walls? Sally was willing to accept them all.
    She lay on her back, moving her arms lazily in cartwheel circles and watching the droplets slide from her fingers in the darkness. Then, distinctly, she felt a tickling sensation at the sole of her foot, and she pulled up her knees and sank them, to come face to face with Dane. Dane, who looked like a wet, mocking mask carved from mahogany.
    “Hallo,” she said. “I thought you swam in the mornings.”
    “I do, but I came out on to my balcony ten minutes ago and saw something interesting in the pool. It turned out to be you.”
    “Who did you think it was?”
    “You.”
    She laughed. “Such flattery, Mr. Ryland! You came down to save bothering with a shower.”
    “Maybe. Come on out. I want to talk to you.”
    “Right now?”
    “It’s possibly the only place and time we can’t be interrupted—everyone’s too busy making themselves handsome for dinner. Come to the side, I’ll pull you up.”
    But Sally swam farther, to where her robe had been dropped, and by the time she reached the spot where Dane was crouching on the side of the pool and extending a hand. She took the leap and landed beside him, felt him sling the robe about her shoulders before he slipped down and sat as she did, with feet dangling in the water.
    “I didn’t bring any cigarettes. Do you mind?”
    “No. Talk away.”
    “Give me time, little one. Even I prefer a few preliminaries occasionally. Is this your first dip in the pool?”
    She nodded and pulled off her cap, shook back her hair. “It’s delicious, isn’t it? But I’m hoping to bathe in the sea some time. Your hotel guests don’t seem to bother much with the beach.”
    “The Moors don’t care for scantily-clad women, so we discourage communal bathing, excepting in our own grounds. But there are some lovely wild beaches along the coast where people picnic and swim in families. I’ll take you some time.”
    “Why, thanks! I’ll hope to deserve it.”
    He gave her a sidelong, calculating glance. “What does that mean—that you were unsuccessful with Mike this morning? You didn’t report, so I took it you’d drawn another blank.”
    Sally took the scuff of the terry-cloth robe between her fingers and rubbed an itch from her chin. “I don’t think I did, actually. Mike told me a few things and he didn’t tell me not to come again. He’s terribly touchy, of course, but so heartily sick of himself that I believe he’ll talk again. Why don’t you go up and see him more often?”
    “I go almost every day,” he said briefly.
    “But you don’t stay long. Were you and he good friends before his