The Ortiga Marriage

by Patricia Wilson

  The Ortiga Marriage

  Patricia Wilson

  * * *

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  * * *

  He was all she'd longed for, all she feared.

  The same call that delivered the tragic news of her mother’s death delivered Meriel back into the force field that was Ramon Ortiga-the man she had left Venezuela seven years ago to escape.

  Nevertheless, Merry couldn't ignore the pain of her young brother, Manuel, and felt impelled to return to the hacienda to guide him through his grief.

  But Merry knew that going back meant being trapped by her own yearnings for the man who had once protected and dominated her—for the aristocratic and unbending male that was Ramon Ortiga.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "TELEPHONE call for you, Miss Curtis!"

  The voice came clearly to Meriel as she crossed the foyer of the Mackensie Building and she raised a hand in acknowledgement, hurrying on and into the lift.

  "Hold it, will you? I'll take it as soon as I reach my office."

  "Right, Miss Curtis. It's an overseas call."

  Meriel nodded pleasantly as the lift doors swished closed and the silent speed lifted her to her third-floor office. Overseas. That would be the call from France. She had been almost certain that she had got the Paris contract and they had promised to ring today if the news was good. Stewart Mackensie was going to have to eat his hat after all. She grinned to herself, looking forward to the next few minutes, cherishing the moment when she could take the lift back down and walk into his office in a casual manner with the news.

  Her floor reached, she walked quickly along to her office, her long legs closing the gap between the lift and her own office door with easy, swinging steps, her slender height perfectly balanced. The cap of thick, blonde hair cut in a loose pageboy style swung too as she walked and there was nothing but pleasure on her flawlessly beautiful face. The Paris contract! The biggest thing she had pulled off yet!

  "All right, Sandra. I've arrived."

  "Yes, Miss Curtis. Your call from Venezuela, Miss Curtis." The telephonist slid into her professional voice as the line was connected but Meriel froze into icy stillness.

  "Meriel?" She didn't answer. She couldn't answer. She had been expecting to hear a French voice, her mind attuned to it, and everything inside her chilled at the deep voice, the softly spoken Spanish sound of her name. For one blinding second, the room dimmed, fading to almost nothing.

  "Meriel!" No question now, a command, his natural attitude to life. "I will assume that you are there but if you do not intend to reply, have the courtesy to replace the receiver. I do not have all the time in the world to listen to empty miles of space!"

  Meriel sank into her seat, her mouth dry. Seconds before she had been smiling, her world filled with promise, and now she was shaking, stricken, unable to breathe as the voice of Ramon Ortiga struck out at her from half-way across the world.

  "I'm here." She managed it with no stammers, no hesitation, no sign of fear. "I was expecting a call from Paris; the change of direction and language stunned me for a second. I had to re-orientate my mind from business."

  "I am well aware of your importance in the world of the Mackensie Press," he said coldly. "I am phoning you because it is necessary. Your call from Paris will have to wait."

  Her hand gripped the receiver so hard that she doubted her ability to relax her fingers. Why didn't she simply put the phone down? Why did she sit here with her heart hammering in a panic as she listened to the sound of a voice she had thought never to hear again? The arrogance of his voice came across the miles and she could imagine his face, cold, aristocratic, handsome and unbending. She could see again the dark, dark eyes that could flash with fire and narrow to glittering points of anger. She could see the tall, lean, athletic frame leaning indolently against the huge shining desk in his study and it took every bit of her considerable spirit to get a grip on her feelings, to realise that she was free of the Ortiga domination, had been free of it for years.

  "Then as you are paying for this expensive and so far pointless call, may I suggest that you proceed with it?" she said coolly. "My call from Paris will no doubt be received when this line is clear, therefore, to save you expense and me irritation, please come to the point of your call."

  There was a silence and she could imagine his raised eyebrows. He had always done that when she had answered back, not that she had answered back very often, but when her nerve had been up to it and she had defended herself his attitude had always been one of aloof surprise, raised black brows, a wryly amused twist to his lips. Hatred shot through her like a searing flame and she forestalled his reply.

  "I am waiting! I also do not have all the time in the world to listen to empty miles of space, Senor Ortiga!"

  "Por Dios!" he snapped in an unexpected burst of temper. "I have been Ramon to you for many years of your life; has your lengthy stay with your own countrymen robbed you of any little courtesy we were able to force into you? I am your stepbrother!"

  "You are nothing." Merial answered flatly, her voice empty of emotion. "You are a man who is ringing me from Venezuela, criticising me for my conduct. Your right to do that ended long ago when you told me to get back to my own kind. I am with my own kind, with my own countrymen, and you no longer have any right to call me to order. Unless you come to the substance of this call, I shall replace the receiver as you at first suggested. I am expecting an important call and I am at work. I do not have time to conduct a transatlantic battle, nor do I have the interest."

  She stopped speaking and her eyes caught sight of her reflection in the facing mirror. Her face was white and strained, her eyes haunted and she could hear the sound of her own heart.

  "Meriel." He paused and she strained her ears to ascertain if what she had thought was correct. His voice had softened, dropped to a low murmur as she remembered it could do.

  "Meriel—you must come home."

  "I am home! I live here, work here. Everything that I…'

  "Meriel!" The sharp command cut into her heated reply leaving her no further chance to talk. "There has been an accident. Your mother and my father were in a plane crash. For the love of God do not say anything more! Do not continue with your fight now from so far away, saying words that you will later regret." He paused and she was so stunned that she could not think of any words at all. The news would just not sink in. "Come home, Meriel. Now!"

  "My mother! Where is she? How are they? Ramon!"

  The poignant cry was completely out of the past. The office and her importance, the security of her life in England faded away and she was back in the land where she had spent her childhood years. She was calling his name with the same despairing urgency.

  They are dead, both of them. There is no other way to tell you except in this way. One sharp blow is better than an endless sawing away at the heart."

  There was just the tiniest hint of compassion in the deep, proud voice but Meriel barely heard it. She could see the beautiful, cold face of her mother, the proud and indifferent face of her stepfather, and though she had thought at one time that she would never want to see them again, the realisation that now she never would hit her like a hammer blow.

  "You are all right?" Ramon's voice pulled her back in time and she took a deep steadying breath, closing her eyes for a minute but failing to blot out the bitter memories.

  "Yes, I'm all right. I'll come at once. When is the funeral?"

&nb
sp; "The funeral was this morning."

  She gasped aloud at the even statement, colour from shock and disbelief flooding her face.

  "You—you dare to tell me that you held a funeral for my mother—my mother—and I was not informed?"

  "In the first place," he interrupted angrily, "I had no address, finding you has not been easy. In the second place, I would not have told you even if I had been able to discover your whereabouts in time. I did not want you at the funeral!"

  Cold grief flooded over her. Even now, when this tragedy had struck both their lives, he did not want her there.

  "Then there is no point whatever in my coming now," she said unevenly.

  "I thought that you would perhaps want to see the place where they are buried," he informed her quietly. "But even that is not the point of my call. The dead are dead, it is the living that should concern us both. You have a brother, Meriel, or had you forgotten about Manuel?"

  She had. For one small selfish moment she had forgotten Manolito, her dearly loved half-brother, and for the first time, tears flooded her eyes and she was unable to reply. Of course he took her silence to be guilt and continued accordingly.

  "Now that you have been reminded," he rasped, "let me also remind you that he is here, right in the thick of things. He sees an empty house, he saw the crash and he will not be comforted. He grieves constantly and there is nothing that I can do to reach him. To all my approaches he has but one reply, "I want Merry." It is your duty to return to Venezuela. It is your duty to come home. I am aware that you dislike me for being what I am but our mutual differences must be put aside. Manuel needs you."

  "I'll come." She almost whispered the words but apparently he heard her because she also heard him as his breath left him in an audible sigh. No wonder he wanted her there; he had resented Manolito as much as he had resented his half-English stepsister, and now he was calling for help when he could not longer cope. She was too stunned by the news and by her words with Ramon to have the energy to say more than, "I'll get my affairs in order and be out on the first available flight."

  "There is a first-class ticket already waiting for you at the airline office in London. It has no specific date. Make your arrangements with them and then call me. Remember though, that your duty lies here and not with some glossy magazine chain. Manolito is waiting for you. I will be waiting too."

  It sounded like a threat but she was quite used to that, and to the finality of his voice as he replaced the receiver at his end. It was only later that it dawned on her that he had said 'Manolito' and she knew that it was either a slip of the tongue or a sop to induce her to hurry. Ramon Ortiga was not given to calling anyone by a pet name. He was cold all the way through, as cold as the snow on the Andes, as deep and silent as the great stretch of the plains where he had spent his life. It was only her years away from him that gave her the courage to face him again, that and the knowledge that Manolito needed her and was now living in a house without comfort, living in a great hacienda with nothing but miles of empty grassland to reach out to.

  The call from Paris came almost as soon as Ramon had rung off and she had got the contract, though how she answered the questions, made the arrangements, she was not later able to remember. Her face was still deathly pale, her hands shaking when she took the lift down to Stewart Mackensie's office.

  He was on the phone, barely glancing at her as she came in. A great hulk of a man, kind and generous with the faint burr of the Highlands in his voice, he was almost as fair as she was herself. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, the very opposite of Ramon Ortiga. She had often thought guiltily that it was this sharp contrast that had drawn her towards him.

  He had taken over the large and thriving chain of magazines when he was only twenty-six. With no father to take up the flag he had been given little choice when his grandfather, the founder of the Mackensie Press, had died. Under Stewart though the firm had expanded and become very powerful. He often said that he had printing ink in his veins where others merely had blood, and as head of advertising for the whole chain, Meriel knew his worth both as a man and as head of the firm.

  Many times he had asked her to marry him but her constant refusals had marred neither their happy working relationship nor their deep friendship.

  "All right, you didn't get the advertising contract with Paris, so I don't have to get a straw hat to eat," he remarked in amusement as he turned from the phone. "I know you've not got it or you'd have been bouncing about with impatience while I was phoning instead of standing there quietly like…'

  His voice faded away as he saw her face and he was beside her quickly.

  "Meriel! What is it my dear?"

  "I got the contract," she assured him in a small faraway voice, "the details are here, but somebody else will have to do it. I've got to have leave." She raised stricken eyes to his and then burst out, "Oh Stewart! My mother was killed! She's dead! And Ramon said… Ramon said…' She burst into tears and he folded her against the hard warmth of his chest.

  "Hush! Hush!" he said quietly. "You'll have all the leave you need. What did that stepbrother of yours say?" he added on a rising note of anger.

  Meriel told him later over an early drink in a nearby cocktail bar and his face darkened with anger. Over the years that she had known him, the details of her life in Venezuela had come out a little at a time and he was too protective of her to have any sympathy for Ortiga.

  "Why the hell can't he fly Manuel out to London?" he grated. "The boy will recover a lot more rapidly in a new place."

  "How can he?" she asked simply. "How can he ask a child to fly at all, let alone so far when his parents have just died in an air crash? Anyway," she added almost absently, "he would never let Manuel come to me and leave Venezuela. Manuel is an Ortiga, part of a straight, pure line from the past. There's the inheritance."

  "The bloody inheritance!" Stewart rasped. "Ortiga seems to be more like a sack of gold than a man, more like a damned golden statue!"

  No, she thought tiredly, looking at Stewart but seeing another face, a proud, magnificent face with eyes like jet in the sunlight, a perfect physique that was power, grace and endurance. A body that could rise at dawn and ride with the men until nightfall with no sign of weariness. Not a golden statue, a bronze statue, beautiful to see but cold, cold, cold and cruelly hard.

  She didn't speak her thoughts aloud though; instead she said quietly, "He believes in duty."

  "From what you've told me," Stewart said in disgust, "he hasn't a kindly thought in his head. Of course, you'll have to go, my dear, but watch your step. There's no need to take any insults or lordly behaviour from Ortiga. You don't rely on him at all. You're a success in your own right and I'm always here, you know that, Meriel."

  She knew that. She smiled up at him tremulously as his hand covered hers, nodding her agreement, too full of emotion at the moment to say more. Over the years, he had pieced together some of her life in Venezuela, but there was much that she had never spoken of, would never speak of. Stewart Mackensie thought Ramon cruel, but he did not know Ramon. She often thought that she was the only one who knew him, who knew the different expressions that crossed that dark, handsome face. Only she knew that the stern and unbending face of Spanish aristocracy could suddenly melt into the ready laughter of a Venezuelan. Only she knew that the gulf between them was too painful and too deep for any bridge ever to cross.

  She was a success. From a painfully insecure, tongue-tied child she had grown into a person with a ready charm that was attractive and persuasive. She had learned the hard way to hide her feelings and talk easily. She could charm birds from trees, according to Stewart, and she had charmed plenty of advertising business their way. Already bilingual, she had taken French and German at school and had used her language skills to draw business from the Continent, and she had climbed fast in the firm.

  It was ironic that at the peak of her success, when she had everything she wanted, Ramon should have the power to call her back. No doubt he was no
more looking forward to this than she was, but he had ordered her 'home' and she had no alternative but to obey. Once, she had not wanted a career, success, she had wanted only Ramon. Stewart did not know that, only she knew—and Ramon, although he would probably not even remember. Six years was a long time ago, a lifetime ago, it seemed. She had pushed the thought of him away with all the other hurts that she had suffered and she had thought him too distant to hurt her ever again. She had been wrong.

  The llanos! It would be still dry, parched, waiting for the wet season that began in April. It was mid-March now and even from the air, Meriel could see the tall, coarse grasses of the plains, the leafless trees, the whole of the savanna waiting with a kind of breathless stillness for the torrential rain and the sudden floods that would encourage life and greenery.

  The cattle were dotted about the land, small groups of them moving restlessly and worriedly as the light aircraft sped low and noisily above them, but even they seemed too taken up with the breathless waiting to run in any kind of panic. They would soon be gathered into huge herds and moved to higher ground, away from the devastation of floods and the terror of the storms that would sweep the hot dry grasslands that were the llanos.

  Meriel had watched this scene so often in her life. She had watched it with the same mixture of feelings that flooded through her now. A feeling of relief to see again the wide sweep of the grasslands and the seemingly endless stretch of land and sky, but a tight anxiety within her at what she would face at the grand hacienda of the Ortigas.

  She cast a swift glance at the broad face and shock of black, curly hair of the man beside her. How many times had Luis Silva flown her across this landscape? How many times had he met her plane at Caracas and led her with wide smiles to the small Ortiga plane that would take her home? How many times too had Ramon waited by the airstrip on the Ortiga ranch to drive her to the cool and indifferent greeting of her mother and stepfather as she had come from boarding school in England to spend the long holidays with her family in Venezuela?