"Always there has been this small seed of defiance in you," he murmured. "Let us hope that it does not grow and blossom or you and I will clash badly."
His free hand stroked her neck as he looked down at her, his thumb moving in a sort of hard caress along her jaw line, and suddenly his embrace was not comforting any more. A frightening excitement raced along her nerve-endings and she lowered her lashes nervously.
Colour flooded her face, making her grey eyes wild and shining as she glanced timidly up at him again and he smiled, his long, slow smile.
"Beautiful!" he said softly. "Almost perfect. You have only one flaw." He paused and she searched his face with anxious eyes, waiting with her breath shallow and uneven as he added with deliberate mockery, "You are English."
"That's not a flaw," she whispered, feeling oddly faint and shaky.
"Perhaps it is a flaw to me," he said softly, leading her to the house, his arm still around her.
She had raised her eyes to see the anger and shock on the face of Dona Barbara who stood in the doorway flanked by a disapproving Carmen and a brilliantly beautiful woman she had never seen before. Ramon's aunt looked like a Captain of the Guard with an escort of two troopers and she bristled with an annoyance barely held in check at the sight of Ramon's arm around his stepsister.
"You have arrived early, Tia Barbara," Ramon observed, clearly surprised to see her at all.
"We stayed overnight at Caracas and left at first light," his aunt replied, making a very great effort at charm and not quite succeeding. "I phoned ahead for the car but clearly you did not get my message. Fortunately someone did because that rogue Silva met us at the airstrip and here we are."
And just in time apparently, her tone said, as she looked with ill-concealed dislike at Meriel.
"It is Meriel's birthday," Ramon said off-handedly. "I have bought her a black foal. We have been viewing it."
His eyes were on the woman beside his aunt and his obvious interest banished the disapproval from Dona Barbara's face.
"I have brought Senorita Sandoval to stay with us over the weekend. Her family are old friends. I'm sure you have heard of her father, Ramon? He is in mining."
"Ah yes, we have met, but I did not realise that he had such a charming daughter. Your servant, Senorita Sandoval."
He bowed, graciously, charmingly, all too clearly interested, and Meriel walked quickly to the house, gathering her gifts and taking Manuel's hand. They were leaving as Ramon brought his visitors back into the hacienda.
"How lovely to see such affection between the children," Dona Barbara observed in a sweetly poisonous voice. "Obviously there is a great fondness, even though they are so oddly unalike."
"But you forget, Tia Barbara," Ramon said mockingly, his eyes on Meriel's flushed face, "Meriel is English— proudly English. She is not like us at all."
It had hurt badly and there had been no time for healing. Ramon had spent every spare minute with Senorita Sandoval who quickly became Consuelo and they stayed on and on.
The hurt had run deep and at Christmas she had not come, making the excuse to her mother that her father was unwell and needed her, but in the long summer holiday after her last days at school she had returned to Venezuela.
She was just eighteen and very vulnerable, her childhood admiration and awe with Ramon blossoming into a timid and frightening love that had grown over the year of their separation. She had almost wept aloud in anguish to find Dona Barbara firmly settled for one of her prolonged stays, Carmen and the beautiful Consuelo Sandoval with her. It did not need any imagination to realise that the twelve months had seen the relationship between Ramon and the beautiful Venezuelan girl grow.
Meriel had endured dinner in their company, painfully aware of her still too slender body at the side of the voluptuous Consuelo. The dusky pink dress that her father had bought her was daring for her, off the shoulder and tight at the bodice, but it had felt childish at the side of the gowns of her mother and their guests.
After dinner they had moved to the sala, their talk excluding her as it had always done, and she had escaped into the flower-scented air of the night, walking along the low veranda almost to the end, out of sight of them, wishing with all her heart that she had broken her promise and never returned.
She had not heard Ramon come out until his hand had touched her shoulder, making her start guiltily.
"You are nervous as a kitten," he observed softly. "You have a guilty secret?"
"N-no." She turned her face but he turned it back towards him looking down at her in the moonlight.
"I am sorry that I did not meet you," he offered. "I was very busy."
With Consuelo Sandoval, she thought miserably, but she managed a smile.
"It doesn't matter, I got here, as you see."
He looked at her steadily and then took her hand, drawing it through his arm.
"Come and look at your foal. He is a baby no longer and also it is time that he had a name."
"It's dark!" She had tried to withdraw her hand, frightened by her own heartbeats, but he merely tightened his grip.
"There is a moon like a lantern over the llanos," he observed dryly, "and I know where he will be. Every night at this hour I give him a treat. He waits by the fence." He withdrew his other hand from the pocket of his dinner-jacket, opening his palm and tossing up a few cubes of sugar. "He will be there, greedy for his sweets and clear for us to see."
It had been hard to enthuse over the horse, although he had enchanted her with his velvet nostrils and liquid dark eyes, and, his treat over, he had wandered away. But Ramon seemed content to linger, his foot on the bottom bar of the fence as they watched the horse retreat into the shadows.
"At Christmas you did not come," he said quietly, his face strong and harsh in the moonlight as he gazed across the paddock.
"No." She offered no excuse, knowing that her mother would have explained.
"I thought that perhaps you would not come again," he observed in the same quiet voice.
"I promised you…' she began and he turned, his back to the fence, looking down at her, his features in the shadow, the moonlight full on her face.
"That is the only reason that you are here?" 'Yes." She looked down, her lashes shadowy on her cheeks. "No one would have missed me."
"It is unusual to hear an unkind word on your lips," he told her softly. "Manuel would have missed you, he missed you at Christmas. Your mother too would have been unhappy."
"I don't really think so," she ventured, "but I'm sorry about Manolito."
"I too would have missed you." He lifted his hand and raised her face, and although the moonlight made it difficult she could see the brilliant intensity of his eyes. She could find no words to say, her mouth suddenly dry, her skin hot.
He too said nothing more but his hand moved over her face softly and slowly, tracing the contours, shaping her dark brows, cupping the pale bloom of her cheeks. She was spellbound, a tight pain flowering inside her as languor flooded her limbs, and when he drew her towards him she moved with soft acquiescence.
Still he said nothing, his hands smoothing her hair, exploring the shell of her ears, moving down her slender neck and across her bare shoulders, his eyes following the movements of his hands until she whispered with an unknown longing and his arms closed around her.
"A pale and beautiful rose, blooming in the moonlight."
His voice was thick and deep and he moved until he leaned against the fence, drawing her tightly against him before taking her lips with a deep groan of need.
There was a searing, yearning response inside her and his arms tightened as he felt it, his lips urging hers to part and allow him to invade the sweet moisture of her mouth. When he lifted his head, her breath was a frantic sobbing in her throat and he trailed his lips over her shoulders and along the slender white column of her neck, closing her eyes with light kisses, his hands gentle and coaxing on her nape.
"You are afraid of me, Meriel?" he breathed huskil
y.
"No—no." She gasped out the words, her head thrown back as his mouth caressed her skin.
"I am dangerous, though," he warned her in a low voice, his breathing harsh. "I look at you and there is a hunger in me like that of el tigre out across the moonlit plains."
"I don't care!" She wound her arms around his neck and he buried his face in her hair.
"This is what you want?" he asked in a strained voice, every muscle taut like an animal ready to spring into life. "This—and this?" His lips searched her jaw line and moved relentlessly down to the shadowy hollow at the base of her throat.
"Yes! Oh, yes!" She was wildly happy even though she had lied, because she was afraid. She was afraid of the power of his body, the intensity of his kisses, the thick alien huskiness of his voice and the feeling that like el tigre he would devour her. But her trembling body clung to him and his kisses brought her to heated, singing life.
"You are a child, barely eighteen, and I am almost twenty-nine," he warned, seemingly unable to stop his lips from kissing her, his hands from tracing the soft contours of her body.
"I'm not a child!" she cried, a new fear suddenly striking her. "I know what I want!"
"Last year, you wanted a career, a hard-selling, fast-talking job in the world of the press," he reminded her. "This year you want me?" He drew back and looked into her eyes, seeing the tears shining on her lashes. She shook her head in an agony of frustration, trying to move close again, but he held her away, gazing at her in the moonlight with dark, glittering eyes.
"I've always wanted you," she whispered brokenly, begging him to understand. "Last year, I didn't know… I couldn't explain… But inside, I've always known that…'
"And so have I," he breathed thickly. "I have always known that one day you would be like a dangerous trap and that I would walk into it foolishly and willingly."
He pulled her back to him, moulding her to the hard planes of his body, leaving her in no doubt of his desire, kissing her until she sobbed his name against his lips, their breath as one. Her body was shocked by the hard thrust of him against her but she couldn't move away, a new and terrifying delight surging through her at the power of him that she had never before even thought of, and he seemed to know her mind.
"You have never before been held like this," he muttered thickly, his lips searching her face. "You are shocked by my desire." She wanted to deny it but in any case she could not because his mouth was hot on her bare shoulders, the dress moved aside as he caressed the silken rise of her breast with kisses that burned. "I want you, Meriel," he breathed against her skin. His lips were feverish against her neck, against her mouth as his hands shaped her body, trapping her against the frightening strength of his thighs. "I have been hungry for a long, long time. A tantalising glimpse of you and then you are gone, and each time you return you are more beautiful." He raised his head and looked down at her in the moonlight, his eyes roaming hotly over her shoulders, the frantic rise and fall of her breast now only partly concealed. "So very beautiful," he breathed huskily. "So—perfect!"
His words thrilled her even more and she wound her arms tightly around his neck, her softness lying willingly and eagerly against him, her body inviting and freely offered, her fears stilled by the exciting power of the man who held her tightly.
"I don't want you to be hungry," she sobbed against his lips. "I want to belong to you—now. I've always belonged to you, Ramon!"
Her voice seemed to bring him out of the frenzy of passion that had him in its grip and he groaned aloud, putting her away from him and drawing harsh breath into his lungs as if gasping for life.
"Go back to the house, Meriel," he said in a shaken voice, turning away and leaning against the fence, his arms along the top bar, his head dropping forward.
"Ramon!" She wanted to reach out and touch him but she dared not. She was afraid of so many things, of rejection, of scorn at her ready acceptance of his passion, but most of all, she was afraid of that passion that would sweep her under its waves like a small shell in an angry sea.
"Go back, Meriel," he repeated tightly. "Go to bed-please! I will see you tomorrow."
She went back on trembling legs, half understanding his sudden withdrawal, half afraid to meet him the next day—as well she might have been.
Next morning she ate breakfast early and alone, still trembling and anxious, and her anxiety did not lessen at the sight of Ramon, dressed for riding as he strode into the breakfast-room.
"Ramon!" Consuelo appeared like a beautiful genie but Ramon hardly spared her a glance.
"I am taking Meriel riding," he said in a taut voice. "I need to talk to her in private. I will see you later, Conseulo." He looked at Meriel with tight lips. "Get dressed to ride," he ordered. Whatever he had to say was not good, his looks made that very obvious.
They rode towards the river hut when they were still far off he reined in and caught her reins too.
"I absolve you of your promise," he said quietly with a flat finality in his voice.
"I-I don't understand." She looked at him with wide eyes and he met her gaze squarely.
"You do, Meriel, I forced a promise from you that you would return to Venezuela for good, you have returned. Now I give you back the promise. You are free."
She stared at him with widening grey eyes, a chill racing over her skin as she said accusingly,
"You don't want me! Last night you said…!"
"Of course I want you!" he bit out impatiently. "I would not be human if I did not, but it is an impossible situation, ridiculous and dangerous. In the first place, you are a child. In the second place, you are my stepsister."
"I'm not a child!" she interrupted wildly. "And I'm no relation to you, no more a relation than Senorita Sandoval!"
"You are a child!" he ground out harshly, adding in a taunting voice that had her face paling to a dead white, "Consuelo is a woman and does not readily offer herself after a few kisses. I am as much a male animal as el tigre and part of the pleasure is in the hunting. You do not need to be hunted, you have been ready to fall into my arms and into my bed since you were little more than a child. You are still a child! What do you imagine would have been the result if I had accepted your ready offer last night? I will tell you. Soon, very soon I would have been bored out of my mind!"
She stared at him in a state of shock that held her fast to the spot. He had been cool, distant, uninterested, but never had he been cruel as he was now. His dark eyes narrowed at her deep stillness. He was waiting for some comment but she was unable to speak.
"You are English, Meriel," he continued in a hard voice when it became clear that she would not utter a word. "You are English in your appearance, your habits and in your heart. Venezuela is not the place for you, it never has been. You will be better with your father in England, with your own kind."
It hit her like the lash of a whip and she flinched with the cruel shock of it but she was accustomed to rejection, well used to being an outsider in this land and in the hacienda, and she never answered. She turned and rode quietly back to the hacienda and Ramon did not follow. During the day he left for the mines and she did not see him again.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT was after midnight when the sound of Manuel's screams awoke Meriel. She had been in a very deep sleep and the screams that rang through the quiet of the house were violent and shocking, making her grab her robe hastily and race from her room.
Ramon, still dressed, was also on his way and they met in the doorway of Manuel's room as Meriel pushed open the door and ran white-faced into the darkness.
"For God's sake! Why isn't there a light on in here?" she demanded, feeling for the switch, her hand brushing Ramon's as he found it first.
"I would think—Carmen," he muttered, blinking in the sudden light that flooded the room and turning worried eyes to the bed where Manuel knelt against the pillows, awake now and sobbing wildly.
"Shh! It was only a dream." Meriel knelt beside him and pulled him into h
er arms, rocking him against her, his face at her breast. "You're awake now and I am here, so is Ramon. It was only a dream."
For a while he sobbed loudly and unrestrainedly and she let him, rocking back and forth with him in a soothing rhythm, her arms tightly around the shaking body as Ramon looked on helplessly.
"I miss them, Merry," Manuel whispered against her as the violent weeping at last eased. "I will always be lonely."
"No." She raised his face and wiped his tears away, looking into his eyes. "Once I thought that too, when I was much older than you, but it was not true. Life is very exciting and there are many people who will love you and care for you for ever."
"Is that what happened to you, Merry?" he sniffed, looking up at her with dark unhappy eyes.
"Of course, Manolito." She smiled down at him and hugged him close. "Nothing is for ever no matter how much it hurts at the time. I thought that when I was very young but I was wrong. There was someone to love me and now I'm very happy and I have you too."
"You'll not go, Merry."
"No. I'll be here until you don't need me any more."
"Good." He settled down into bed again. "That means for ever so I can go to sleep, now that you have promised."
It sounded like Ramon and for a wild moment she felt her heart turn uneasily as she raised her eyes, almost as if commanded to meet the dark gaze of her stepbrother.
"What do you expect?" he asked with a shrug. "He is an Ortiga. Do not worry, when he is restored to normality he will no doubt absolve you from your promise and allow you to return to your—happiness."
She stared at him with angry eyes, fighting the rush of pain, and he turned to the door, motioning her before him, leaving the light and closing Manuel, now asleep, into the quiet of his room.
"That was bad," he said in a worried voice. "I had thought that perhaps the worst had passed."
"Have you seen him every time he's had one of these nightmares?"
He nodded grimly and she felt a burst of anger. So much for Carmen who even now had made no appearance.
The Ortiga Marriage Page 6
