Free The House on Flamingo Cay by Anne Weale Page A

who was almost a stranger. But somehow, here, in the holiday atmosphere of Bahamas, to cling primly to every convention seemed as silly as carrying round a sweater and mackintosh in case the weather changed. And besides she had an intuitive conviction that—whatever Angela might suspect of him—Peter was perfectly trustworthy.
    The interior of the bungalow seemed to confirm this instinct. There was nothing of the wolf’s lair about it: no well-stocked cocktail cabinet, no cushioned divan. It had what she guessed to be the standard furniture of most of the rented villas, some cane armchairs, a coffee table, palmetto-leaf mats and a jardiniere filled with pot-plants. But the personal touches were masculine and functional, mostly pieces of skiing and diving gear, a record-player, too many books and magazines to fit on the shelves and a couple of underwater spring guns clipped to the wall.
    Peter apologized for the clutter, and showed her through to the bathroom, which evidently doubled as a darkroom. There was a line of color prints drying above the bath and some developing pans on the window ledge.
    Sara washed her face and hands, applied some lipstick and combed out her damp salty hair. She returned to the living room a few moments before Peter came in with a jug of iced fruit punch.
    “It’s my butler’s day off, so I’m afraid I can’t offer you a very epicurean meal,” he said, filling their glasses.
    “Can I do anything to help?”
    He shook his head, then smiled. “Does my bachelor disorder arouse your domestic instincts?” he asked teasingly.
    Sara laughed. “Not at all. Anyway, I wouldn’t call this disordered. It’s just comfortable and lived-in.”
    “But I would think you are naturally fastidious—always neat and well arranged,” he remarked.
    “If I am, it’s more from necessity than choice. Our flat was so cramped, one simply had to be tidy or get knee-deep in junk. Our entire living space wasn’t much bigger than this room,” she added with unthinking candour.
    After lunch, Peter carried the coffee-tray on to the paved verandah that overlooked the beach and they relaxed in low-slung canvas loungers.
    “This afternoon I shall take some pictures of you. Then, when you return to England, they will remind you of this holiday,” he said presently.
    Sara watched him light a thin dark cheroot and flip the match into the tray. “What about you? Are you going to settle here for life?” she asked curiously.
    Peter shrugged. “Who knows? I make no plans now. I like it here and I can make a good living, so the future must care for itself. I find life goes more smoothly if one does not have—what is that English expression?—a hostage to fortune?”
    “That usually means a wife and children,” Sara remarked. “Are you a confirmed bachelor?”
    “I don’t think so,” he said casually. “It would be more accurate to say that I have nothing to offer a woman, so marriage does not occur to me.” He gave her a rather quizzical grin. “You are still young enough to have all the illusions, so perhaps I should not express my views to you, but there are very few men who genuinely wish for marriage, you know. It is a feminine contrivance which men have been obliged to accept. It does have some conveniences but is not at all essential to them in the way that it is for a woman.”
    Sara digested this for a moment. “Is love a feminine contrivance too?” she asked, after a pause.
    “Ah, now that is another subject,” he replied swiftly. “But I was expecting you to counter me like that. You see, for women, love and marriage are indissociable. They must always go together. But for a man this is not so at all. He does not think of love in terms of weddings and honeymoons and a whole lifetime together. These ideas have been imposed on him by women.”
    “He seems to have accepted them quite readily,” Sara returned, with a touch of dryness.
    “But certainly—because it is expedient to do so. As you