The Black Invader

by Rebecca Stratton

  'And you shouldn't speak of your grandfather in that tone!' Miguel Montanes told her sharply. 'What Don Jose discusses with me is his affair; you are his granddaughter and he has every right to talk about you if he wishes to. As it happens it came up in the normal course of conversation, and there was no indiscretion involved.' His eyes gleamed blackly at her and she had never seen those stern features look so menacing before. 'Mother of God, child, do you suspect everyone of wishing you harm?'

  'Not everyone, no!'

  His eyes narrowed as he looked down at her, and Kirstie fumed at his reference to her as 'child'. It was

  that as much as anything that made her act as she did. Turning her back on him, she reached for the mare's rein, but before she could loose it a hand on her wrist swung her round again so forcefully that she almost lost her balance. The same hands steadied her against falling, and for a moment the heat of his palms burned through her thin shirt into her flesh, so that she caught her breath.

  'Don't turn your back on me, my girl!' he ordered harshly. 'Why I'm concerning myself with you after the way you've behaved, heaven alone knows, but I promised Don Jose I'd have a word with you and you're going to Hsten to me even if I have to hold you forcibly while I talk!'

  'You '

  'Listen, damn you!' He shook her hard, glaring relentlessly into her flushed and angry face, but his words penetrated simply because of their sheer unexpectedness. 'You took secretarial training in your last two years at school, I understand?' Kirstie nodded automatically. 'Don Jose claims you were very good, and by coincidence my uncle is in need of a secretary. Whether or not the two needs can be satisfied at one stroke depends very much on you, Senorita Rodriguez. Your Spanish is almost faultless, and providing you come up to standard in other respects and can learn to control that childish resentment, I see no reason why you shouldn't be suitable.'

  The look in her eyes betrayed how stunned she was, and Kirstie tried desperately to get things into perspective. 'But I don't know ' she began. ,

  'You would be working at the Casa de Rodriguez,' he went on. 'I imagine that would be an added attraction.'

  Surprise followed surprise and Kirstie stared at him. 'At the house?'

  He nodded, but she was unaware of a certain look in his eyes that recognised the first sign of weakening. 'If you're interested and can stop behaving like a spoiled child, come and see my uncle this afternoon for an interview.'

  'I—I don't think I've ever seen him.'

  It had only just occurred to her that as members of the same family, he and his uncle could be expected to share some family characteristics, and Miguel Montaiies was not the kind of employer she had in mind when she spoke of taking a job. Evidently something of the sort had crossed his mind too, for a faint smile touched his mouth for just a moment.

  *If you're concerned in case my uncle is anything like me, or I am like him,' he told her, 'you have no need to worry.' Kirstie hastily dropped her eyes, uneasy at being so accurately read. 'You really do dislike me, don't you, Senorita Rodriguez?'

  Kirstie shifted her uneasy gaze about the landscape of trees and rice-fields and little white barracas, and wished he wouldn't watch her so intently. 'I don't see that you can blame me for that,' she said.

  'But I do!'

  The violence of his response startled her so that she turned her head involuntarily to look at him. He had a strong, almost harsh profile and he carried his head with the pride of a Moorish lord from whom, according to her grandfather, he was descended. Everything about him suggested power, and not least the hawkish features, tanned and weathered by the sun, and the almost black, thick-fringed eyes that watched her so steadily.

  His proximity was oddly affecting, and it was the reason she apologised v/ithout really knowing why she did it, and in a strangely breathless voice. 'I'm sorry.'

  When he raised a hand just briefly to run it through his hair, his arm brushed hers and sent unexpected shivers through her, and his anger seemed suddenly to have cooled with her apology. 'I'd like to believe that,' he said quietly. 'Shall I make an appointment for you to see my uncle this afternoon?' Kirstie nodded, taken aback to realise it was to be so soon. 'Will about three-thirty suit you?'

  Again she nodded, bringing herself hastily back to earth when she realised that something a little more de-

  finite was required of her. *Yes, that will be fine, thank you.' She moistened her lips anxiously. 'Shall I come to the house?'

  'Naturally.' She gasped when a long finger sHd beneath her chin and raised her face so that he looked directly down into it. 'You won't mind too much?' he asked, and softness edged his voice and showed in his eyes, as if he knew exactly how she would feel going back.

  'I'll mind,' she whispered, 'but I'll come.'

  'Good!'

  Again Kirstie turned to loose the mare's rein, but again she was prevented from achieving it by a hand on her arm. This time, however, it was a much less forceful touch and when she turned towards him she did so quite voluntarily, meeting his eyes for a moment, and then quickly lowering them to his mouth, although it was hardly less disturbing.

  Her pulse was thudding rapidly and her legs felt strangely unsteady, yet she found it hard to attribute the way she felt entirely to the proximity of Miguel Montanes. There was no shred of doubt about his mas-cuHnity, but she had never before been quite so stunningly aware of it as now, when he stood close enough for their bodies to just lightly touch. It was an inescapable contact because the mare was pressed against her back, and one shattering to her self-control, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  The mare shifted restlessly and nudged her still closer and his hands curved about her upper arms, holding her for a moment to the pulsing warmth of his body, while he looked down into her face with an intensity she found unnerving. 'I hope I haven't made a mistake by suggesting you have this job,' he said in a curiously rough voice, and Kirstie caught her breath when a long forefinger Hfted a wisp of hair from her neck briefly before letting it flutter back. 'You're very young and so determinedly—touchy I wonder if you'll do after all.'

  'You can't change your mind now!' she objected.

  anxious, now that there was a chance of losing it, to have the job with his uncle.

  Miguel Montanes studied her for a moment longer, then shook his head, letting his hands drop to his sides. 'No, I can't,' he agreed, and reached to untether her horse. 'Are you ready to ride back?' he asked, and was waiting to help her mount, Kirstie realised, if she agreed.

  'Not yet—thank you.'

  Her response was instinctive and for a moment he regarded her steadily, then he shrugged his broad shoulders resignedly and turned to fetch his own horse. 'Of course,' he said, as if he understood her reluctance.

  Kirstie watched him mount and when he eventually sat, tall and impressive in the saddle again, she realised for the first time that her attitude towards him, her wary suspicion, did not entirely stem from his having been the one to negotiate the purchase of Casa de Rodriguez. It was something about the man himself; an aura of menacing virility that was frankly disturbing.

  Pulling the stallion round where he could look directly down into her face, he held her eyes for a moment. 'Don't be nervous of meeting my uncle, Senorita Rodriguez,' he told her, 'we're not alike.' Briefly she glimpsed that faintly cynical smile again as he turned away. 'You'll like him!'

  He jabbed hard with his heels and applied the quirt to the stallion's rump, and the animal sprang forward eagerly, taking the way between the ranks of twisted olive trees at a speed that raised little spurts of dust in his wake. Miguel did not turn his head, but very briefly the quirt was raised in a gesture of farewell, and Kirstie watched him go with dark, thoughtful eyes.

  There would Be advantages to working at Casa de Rodriguez, she could not deny it. For one thing it would entail no travelling getting to work, since it was literally on her doorstep, but there could be disadvantages too. If the uncle she was to work for proved to be more like him than Migue
l Montaiies said, it wouldn't be easy

  working for him, and then there was the question of whether his two brothers resembled him as well. Nor was she quite sure how she would feel about walking into her old home every day as a stranger with no voice in the running of it. Turning to remount her horse, she sighed as she swung upward. She could only hope that she wasn't getting into something that she couldn't cope with.

  It was the first time that Kirstie had been required to earn her living, and the prospect of her first interview filled her with misgivings as the time approached. It had nothing to do with not being fully qualified, for she had passed all her tests at school with flying colours, but rather the fact that the man who was to interview her was a Mpntaiies; someone she was going to find it hard not to see as an interloper.

  She thought her grandfather regarded her rather anxiously as she took a last look at herself, and she swung her black hair in a gesture that could have been interpreted as defiance. Jose Rodriguez was seventy years old and had spent the whole of his Hfe, until the past few months, surrounded by the ease and luxury that his birth and upbringing had accustomed him to. Only now did Kirstie begin to realise how much harder it was for him than for herself, and her decision to ease their financial situation by working, she reahsed, was a practical way of helping him.

  He was a man of medium height whose carriage and posture gave the impression that he was much taller, and all the qualities of the old nobility were embodied in him. His hair was iron grey with scarcely any of its raven blackness still evident, and his eyes were dark and steady, showing only a trace of the sadness that had aged him several years in the past few months.

  Turning from the mirror, Kirstie grasped his arms and kissed him on both cheeks. 'Don't worry, Abuelo,' she whispered, 'I'll behave very properly, so that you won't be ashamed of me. I promise.'

  Don Jose smiled gently, his long fingers touching her cheek. 'I shall never be ashamed of you, child,' he promised. *And I'm certain Senor Montanes will give you the job; his nephew seemed confident that he would.'

  Then he won't dare do anything else!' Kirstie remarked pertly, and immediately pulled a face. ^I'm sorry, Abuelo, but just as long as I don't need to come into contact with Miguel Montanes I might be able to cope.' She kissed him again lightly and smiled. 'Goodbye!'

  Don Jose watched from the window as she walked with a deceptively confident step along the familiar tree-lined ride through the orange grove, but he couldn't see the suspicious brightness in her eyes as she approached her old home, only the slim straightness of her back and the proud lift of her head. Ever since they had been forced to leave the Casa de Rodriguez she had promised herself that she would come back one day, but she had never imagined it would be as an employee of the new owners, and the resentment she felt still stuck like an immovable bone in her throat.

  At the end of the ride a tall arched gateway with a wrought iron gate gave access to the gardens, and there was a heart-aching familiarity about it all that quickened Kirstie's pulse. When she pushed open the gate the walled patio gardens spilled colour and scent into the hot air, cooled only where a fringe of citrus trees grew against the surrounding walls. Roses, carnations and deep red oleanders crowded the wide beds, and urns filled with musky bright geraniums splashed their colour over the tiled entrance formed by an overhanging balcony running the width of the house and draped with vines of bougainvillea, morning glory and yellow roses.

  It seemed that nothing at all had changed, and for a moment Kirstie stood amid the colourful profusion and tried to pretend that all was as it had been before. Her eyes were bright with emotion and a hard lump in her throat refused to be swallowed no matter how hard she tried. Then the big blackwood door opened and Miguel

  THE BLACK INVADER '21

  Montafies stood in the opening for a moment watching her, before he spoke.

  'Sefiorita Rodriguez—will you come in?'

  Kirstie swallowed her pride. It wasn't easy to accept an invitation to enter what had been her own home, as if she was a stranger to it, but she nodded her thanks and for the first time in just over a month walked into the cool elegance of Casa de Rodriguez.

  It surprised her to realise how few changes had been made in fact. There were one or two different pieces of furniture in the hall, and the old ivory crucifix that had been in the Rodriguez family for more than a hundred years had been replaced by a bigger and more ornate bronze one. But the same small table stood below it, displaying a vase of white carnations from the garden, just as it had always done.

  The white walls still contrasted with black beams and a highly polished block floor, and incredibly one or two of the same paintings glowed richly in the shadowed coolness between arched doorways. It was a shock to realise that the Rodriguez family portraits that had taken pride of place, but could not be found room in their new accommodation, had been displaced by what were evidently portraits of past Montafies, and she wondered what had happened to her own forebears.

  'They're safely stored, not sold or destroyed, you have my word.'

  Kirstie looked at him in momentary confusion, then reahsed that he was referring to the missing portraits and gave him a faint, uneasy smile. Tm glad,' she said huskily. 'Thank you.'

  He nodded, as if yet again he understood exactly how she was feeling, then extended one hand in invitation. 'Will you come this way? My uncle is waiting for you.'

  He led the way across the hall to what had once been a small and seldom used salon, but which was now completely converted for business use. Unlike the hall it retained none of its original furnishings, although a particularly exquisite landscape that she had always

  liked still adorned the wall above the fireplace.

  A huge desk occupied the space immediately in front of the fireplace and another, smaller one stood over beside the window, while steel filing cabinets lined the walls and gave the room a stark, businesslike air. When Miguel Montanes opened the door a man seated at the larger of the two desks looked up immediately and smiled, but remained seated, and it was not until she shook hands with him that Kirstie realised Enrique Montanes was confined to a wheelchair.

  He was, she guessed, about fifty-three or four years old and bore quite a strong physical resemblance to his autocratic nephew, although his hair was greying brown rather than that raven-black and he seemed much less arrogant. There were sharp lines etched at the comers of his mouth that ran deep furrows upward beside an aristocratic nose, so that Kirstie could guess he suffered a great deal of pain. It was not only sympathy, however, that made her decide that she liked him just as instinctively as she had disliked the younger man, and at that moment she saw nothing illogical in it.

  Tlease sit down, Sefiorita Rodriguez,' he told her with a smile. Tm so glad you decided to come and see me.'

  Instinctively Kirstie glanced over her shoulder before she took the chair he offered, and found Miguel at her shoulder, waiting to help her to her seat. He leaned over her, pushing the chair against the backs of her knees, and she sat down automatically, murmuring her thanks as she did so and very conscious of his physical presence and of the light brush of his hands on her shoulders for a moment when he drew back.

  'I understand you trained in secretarial work,' said Enrique Montanes, obviously seeking to put her at her ease. 'Is that the extent of your experience, senoritaT

  'I'm afraid so,' Kirstie confessed. 'I've never actually worked at it; I hope you don't think I came here hoping

  for ' She bit back the suggestion she had been about

  to make, and decided that for all his seeming kindliness Enrique Montanes was unlikely to give anyone a job as

  secretary out of charity. 'I realise you probably want someone more experienced,' she amended, and he smiled at her reassuringly.

  ^Everyone has to begin somewhere, Senorita Rodriguez, and if your typing and shorthand speeds are up to my requirements then I see no reason why you shouldn't get your experience here. Do you have your diplomas with you?'

&n
bsp; *Oh yes, of course.' She foraged in her handbag for a moment and produced the required certificates, explaining as she handed them over, 'I was top in class each term, and if I've lost a little speed I'm sure I could soon pick it up again.'

  'I'm sure you could,' Enrique concurred as he flipped through the papers, and he was smiling when he handed them back to her. *You appear to have earned your position as top in class, Senorita Rodriguez, but in fact your typing is of more importance to me because I'm one of those curious people who find it difficult to think as I dictate.' He laughed at his own shortcomings and used his hands to dismiss any need to apologise for them. 'Do you think you will be able to cope with such an inefficient employer?'

  'I'm willing to try,' Kirstie assured him. 'But I think I ought to stress, Seiior Montanes, that I've done neither shorthand nor typing since I left school.'

  'Which surely cannot be so very long ago,' he guessed with a smile. 'You're very young, my dear senorita.''

  Miguel Montaiies was sitting with arrogant ease on the end of the second desk, and it was instinctive when she glanced over her shoulder at him before she answered, meeting for a moment his steady and disconcerting gaze. 'I'm twenty,' she said, and wondered why it should sound more as if she challenged that bright, dark gaze than merely answered a simple question. 'I shall be twenty-one in three months' time, but I hope you don't feel I'm too young to cope, Senor Montanes.'

  'Not at all,' he assured her. But from the way he sat studying the tips of his fingers Kirstie suspected there

  was something else on his mind. There is perhaps the question of your feehngs regarding the Casa de Rodriguez, senorita. I understand that you feel a certain— resentment at the loss of your home, which is quite understandable in the circumstances, but it might not prove an ideal situation were you employed by us.'

  It wasn't a situation that Kirstie was sure she could explain very well, especially with Miguel Montanes sitting close by and watching her with that steady, disturbing gaze of his. If it had been a case of working for him she would not even have considered it, but she thought she could work for his uncle without her emotions getting the better of her, and it occurred to her for the first time that she had better make sure that Enrique Montaiies was to have exclusive claim to her services.