From Back Cover…
Destine felt her life had come to an end on her wedding day—the same day that her adored young husband was killed in an accident, only a few hours after the wedding. It was in an effort to put the whole thing behind her that she had taken a job in southern Spain, nursing a young invalid woman. It was unfortunate, then, that her decision should lead her to meet the one man in the world who was the most likely to remind her of the tragedy she only wanted to forget—the sinisterly named Don Cicatrice, scarred and embittered. So why should Destine care that this man of all men was to marry her lovely young patient?
Dearest Demon
by
Violet Winspear
CHAPTER ONE
There came a hazing of all shadows that elongated as the sun fell with a streaking, flaming beauty and the sky deepened to purple-blue. The scene had an unreal quality, so that Destine wondered if she was dreaming or really travelling by train through the flame-tinged fields and valleys, past high-walled farms and the ruins of old castles.
Darkness came suddenly, as she had been warned that it would in this region that was almost tropical, and it saddened her to lose sight of the towering palm-trees and the high jagged crest of the mountains of Santa de Leones.
She would have preferred to travel during the day to her destination, but it had been impossible to book a comfortable seat on one of the day trains or a long-distance bus. They were always crowded, the Condesa had told her, and Destine hadn't argued with a woman who had lived in this country for twenty years, who before her marriage to a Spaniard had been a close friend of Destine's mother.
It was because of the Condesa that she was installed in this night train compartment, that was almost Victorian in its padded comfort and its seclusion, the blinds to the corridor drawn down so that she had complete privacy from other passengers. She would have preferred to see other people passing to and fro, but the Condesa had said that it was better for a woman travelling alone in the south to keep to herself.
Destine was a trained nurse and up until now she had always worked in hospitals; now for the first time she was going to work privately for a friend of her godmother's. A woman who had lost the use of her legs after an attack of polio, which had struck her down while she had been on her honeymoon. A short while afterwards her husband had left her and it was thought that he had gone away with another woman; as a result she had fallen into a melancholia that so alarmed her family that at the Condesa's suggestion they had agreed to hire an English nurse for her, one who could come all the way to Santa de Leones to be in constant attendance upon the Señora Arandas.
'You are exactly the right sort of person for this case,' the Condesa had written to Destine. 'You are practical, and you took so well the sadness of losing your own husband. You have something very much in common with Cosima—both of you lost something of great value on your honeymoon.'
Destine had lost her husband, a young and brilliantly promising doctor, who had been crushed to death in his car right outside the restaurant where they had stopped for a meal on their way to Cornwall. Destine had forgotten her handbag and had gone back inside to fetch it—the big Bentley had run into Matt's car during her short absence. Her husband of six hours had been killed outright, and sometimes her own single, terrible scream still rent her dreams and turned them into nightmares.
If at the time she had seemed not to show any emotion it was because it had happened so suddenly, but for a long time her grief had been deep and silent. She returned to her nursing, and friends seemed to think it best not to mention Matt. It was as if he had never been, yet there was a gold ring on her left hand to prove that he had lived and loved her.
A strange sort of coincidence did seem to underlie this coming meeting with Señora Arandas. 'It was meant to be, I think,' the Condesa had said, when she had come to the train with Destine and ensured that she had food, wine and books for the journey. 'Cosima is of a similar age to yourself, Destine, and one might also call you soul-twins.'
Destine rested her head against the padded seat and closed her eyes, so that the rhythm of the train became soothing, hypnotic, so that she might have fallen asleep had she not been inwardly nervous about working in a strange country, among people who were foreign to her. That she knew Spanish was one of those fortunate things; when her mother had been alive they had spent several holidays with the Condesa and it had fascinated Destine to learn the language, and the Conde, that most courteous of gentlemen, had insisted that her pronunciation and her grammar be exact, and her flow of words so fluent that it would startle Latin people that so fair a woman should speak their language as if it were her own.
She smiled a little… none of them could have guessed that her language lessons as a teenager would result in her employment by Latin people when she was a woman of twenty-four.
Then her smile faded and her face became pensive. No one could have known that this would be her future, for at nineteen she had met Matt at the teaching hospital and they had become engaged quite soon. But they had waited to marry, putting it off until he had qualified as a surgeon, and by that time Destine had been twenty-two.
It seemed incredible that it was almost two years since that awful accident… two long and lonely years in which some of her former gaiety had lost its sparkle, and she had become a composed, efficient, and self-sufficient young career woman.
She would never marry again… of that she was certain. Matt had meant the world to her, and never again could she feel so much a part of another human being. Her great regret was that they had never been lovers. Matt had never demanded that during the course of their engagement. He had had a fine discipline of mind, body and hand. He would, she knew, have been a great surgeon and a strong, stable husband. Their life together would have been a good one, soundly based on the security of their mutual love and respect for each other.
Love… romance… marriage, they were ended for her. At twenty-four Destine Chard was quite content to be excellent at her job, and to have just a few very good friends. She asked nothing more of life, not any more. Matthew was gone, and so was her dearly loved mother. She believed that the shock of the accident had weakened her mother's heart, for she had loved Matt as if he were her own son.
Destine sighed… it didn't pay off to plan your life, for there was some strange element in it that did the planning. Like her name she was a woman of destiny… she had not known a month ago that she would agree to come to Santa de Leones to work. When the Condesa's letter had first arrived she had been inclined to reply that under no circumstances could she think of leaving her hospital work… when or why the decision had been reversed she couldn't say. But one evening she had found herself sitting down to reply to her godmother that she would find it a change to work abroad.
And here she was, only hours away from her first meeting with her Spanish patient, in a region of the south that the Condesa had said was hot, picturesque, and still faintly Moresque.
It was getting on for midnight when a sudden jolt of the train wheels stirred Destine out of the half-sleep into which she had fallen. She glanced at her wristwatch… ten minutes more and they would be running into the station where she was to alight. The place was called Xanas, a Spanish word that meant fabulous, enticing, part of an enchantment.
Xanas. She repeated it to herself, with the exact pronunciation. The Spanish language was a colourful and difficult one, but she had mastered it when she was a schoolgirl, the best time of all to learn a second language.
She opened her handbag of golden-tan leather, which she had bought in Madrid, where the Condesa and her husband had an apartment, and taking out a comb and mirror she tidied her hair, which took a simple cut and needed only a couple of strokes of the comb to
look good. She was naturally fair, and the streak of silver running from her temple to her nape was not there to add a dash of glamour to her appearance. It had been there since Matt had died; the result of the shock she had suffered when she had run from the restaurant to find a shattered body in place of the lean, clever-faced man she had married in church only hours before the tragic ending of his life.
The man responsible had been driving recklessly, in a temper, hurtling the big car out of the way of a cat running across the forecourt of the restaurant. In that split second he had crashed into the smaller car that was parked there, waiting for Destine. Murderer! She had flung the word in the face of the man who had killed her husband and all her hopes for the future, and she would always remember the sudden terrible look in his eyes.
She had been too ill to attend the inquest, where it had been established that the unfortunate appearance of the cat on the drive, and the rather dangerous way in which the dead man had been parked, had combined to cause an accident not due in any way to drink or faulty steering. The case had closed on a note of regret, certain costs, and that was all.
But from that moment Destine seemed to hate men. She couldn't endure their touch, or the compliments that were aimed in their own self-interest. When a man flirted with her, she just looked at him with chilly blue eyes; a girl who changed overnight into a cool and untouchable woman, kind towards her patients, but whose emotions were iced over.
Satisfied that she looked neat and tidy even after a fairly long journey, Destine gathered her belongings together, and tried to ignore the slight fluttering of nerves in her midriff. She was usually very composed, but this was the first time she had arrived in a strange place at midnight, to take on a case that the Condesa had warned was going to be a difficult one.
The Señora Arandas had not adjusted to her life as an invalid, nor had she forgotten the man who had walked out on her; who had not stood by her now she could no longer be the full and vibrant woman she had been.
Men! Destine muttered the word to herself as the train ran smoothly into the station, where ringed by lights was the name of the region, Xanas.
She was the only passenger to alight on the platform that was deep with shadow where the lights didn't penetrate, and she stood a moment feeling almost a sense of panic that made her want to jump back on the train. But that would be a foolish and childish thing to do; it would be letting down her patient, and her godmother, who had said quite frankly that Destine had needed a change of environment for a long time now.
She lifted her suitcase as the train began to move off without her; too late now to run away, and with abrupt resignation she made for the station office, where a sleepy porter accepted her ticket and mumbled that no one with a car waited for the Señora Chard. Perhaps she would care to take a seat while she waited? As he said this he cast a curious look over her slim, impeccable figure in a pale, tailored trouser-suit. That she was a foreigner was obvious, but he was puzzled, she knew, that she should speak his language so well.
'I'll wait outside and stretch my legs,' she said. 'I've had a long journey, and I don't suppose I shall have to wait very long for a car to come and fetch me.'
'Will the señora be staying at the posada?' he asked, with that natural and uninhibited curiosity of the country Latin.
'No, I am to go to the Casera de las Rejas,' she explained. 'I am the new nurse for the dueña there.'
'The dueña?' He looked faintly puzzled. 'Is she sick, then? We had not heard that this was so.'
'I'm speaking of the Señora Arandas,' Destine explained. She's an invalid—'
'Ah, but of course.' He looked relieved. 'We are all very fond of our Marquesa and we shouldn't wish to hear that she was sick.'
'The Marquesa?' It was Destine's turn to look perplexed. 'I do have the correct address, I hope? The Señora Arandas does reside at the Casera de las Rejas?'
'Absolutament,' he replied. 'She is the daughter of the Marquesa—did you not know?'
Destine frowned and wondered why the Condesa had not mentioned this fact. Had she thought that working for a titled family might put Destine off… it all rushed back, her fury of two years ago; her insistence that the court had been lenient with the murderer of Matt because he had been titled. An Honourable Something-or-Other. Highly dishonourable in the unrelenting opinion of Destine; he had used influence and money to get him off the hook that she would have liked to thrust in his throat, she hated him so much.
'Well, so long as I have the right address,' she said, pulling herself together. 'I've come a long way and should hate to be stranded—'
'I hear a vehicle, señora, so it would seem that you have come to the right place.' The porter smiled sleepily, and followed her out of the office into the slightly chill air of the station. Regions that were hot during the daytime were invariably cool at night, and Destine gave a slight shiver as she felt the touch of the wind, and saw in the dimness the approaching vehicle that was bound to be for her. Hoofs clattered on the cobbles of the station forecourt and a horse-drawn landau appeared, looking so old-world and far removed from the modern way of life that Destine felt a curious sense of being in another world, in another time, so that she ought to be wearing a chip-bonnet and a hoop skirt instead of a suit.
A man leapt down noiselessly from the landau and the lights were too dim out here for Destine to be able to make out his face. She presumed that he was a servant from the casa, for there was no one else for him to be meeting at this time of the night.
'You are the Señora Chard from Madrid?' he asked.
'That is so.' He was an exceptionally tall man and she had to tilt her head to look at him, though she was no dwarf herself. She had an impression of hair so black that it was almost invisible in the shadows, and she caught the gleam of eyes equally dark. Again she shivered, for no certain reason, and when he reached for her suitcase she felt half inclined to hold on to it, and not go with him. His height unnerved her, and the dark aloofness of him as he was briefly close to her, unlocking her hold on the case.
'Have you no other luggage?' he asked, and her brows gathered in a frown at his peremptory way of addressing her. She had heard from other nurses that servants didn't always take kindly to the presence of a nurse in the house. She was neither a servant herself, nor a guest, and Destine had a sudden cold feeling that she had made a mistake in coming here. She shouldn't have listened to her godmother and been persuaded that it would help heal old wounds if she left England and came to Xanas for a few months.
'I have a small trunk that is being sent on separately,' she said, in a reluctant voice.
'Then let us be away—'
'You are from the Casera de las Rejas?' Suspicion tinged her voice, and a thread of uncertainty. 'You are the chauffeur for the family?'
As she said this Destine heard the station porter catch his breath quite audibly; she thought he was about to speak, but the man who had come to fetch her shot a look at him that was sufficient to still the words on his lips. This little exchange so increased Destine's sense of foreboding that she actually reached out as if to take back her suitcase. Her fingers came in contact with his hand, and as if burned she drew away.
'Come!' He spoke with a tinge of impatience. 'It is a late enough hour for a nurse to arrive at Xanas without the necessity of wasting further time. I am from the casa where your patient awaits you, so there is no need to regard me as Count Dracula about to carry you away to a bat's belfry.'
'Really!' Destine had not had very much to do with Latin servants, but it seemed to her that this man was extremely insolent. It was because she was the nurse, of course. Had she been a guest of the family his manner would have been a bit more deferential, and she followed him to the old-fashioned conveyance with the unhappy feeling that nursing in a private house was going to be a lot different from working in a hospital. There one was part of a team instead of being all alone and at the mercy of hostile servants, the possible interference of the family and the moody dispos
ition of the invalid herself.
Destine tried not to jerk away like a nervous schoolgirl when the driver put a hand beneath her elbow in order to assist her into the landau. 'Gracias.' She sat down quickly in her seat and watched covertly as he leapt up at the other side and took the reins. The harness jingled as the horse trotted out of the station yard on to the dark road that lay ahead of them. She had known that Xanas was a country place, but hadn't quite imagined it in the depths of beyond. The village, for there had to be one, probably lay in the other direction, for they passed no habitations for some considerable time, and everything was silent but for the regular beat of the hoofs on the road.
The lights of the vehicle illumined only the road ahead of them, so that Destine still had no clear impression of the man at her side. They seemed to be driving through fields of some tall plant that rustled like straw, and finally she had to break the silence, for if these were wheat fields, then never had she seen wheat that grew so high.
'Sugar cane,' he said in answer to her question. 'This region has a hot sun and is sheltered by the mountains, so many of the crops are of a tropical variety. As you are from England, señora, I hope you won't find our climate too sultry for you. It would be a pity to have come all this way only to find that you had made a mistake. Personally speaking I think a Spanish nurse would be more suitable.'
'I daresay.' Destine spoke with slight sarcasm. 'But I understood that a Spanish nurse—or were there several?—had not been successful in dealing with Señora Arandas. I was informed that she has bad moods of depression, and her Latin nurses were inclined to encourage her bouts of misery rather than to make her snap out of them. Tears are no use. They alter nothing, and only make a person feel more sorry for herself.'
'You sound very cold and severe,' he said. 'I am relieved that I am not to be your patient if you are so unsympathetic'
'Of course I have sympathy for people who are sick, otherwise I wouldn't be a nurse.' Destine flushed slightly, and wondered why it was that she had got off to such a bad start with this man. If he was representative of the staff at the casa, then she was in for a grand time.
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