Meriel knew that any movement would be the last movement she would ever be able to make. From the corner of her eye she could see the car, so near but unattainable. To stand as she stood now, frozen into immobility, was not likely to preserve her safety for very long but she knew that to run to the car would be the end of her. Silently she prayed, shocked to realise that her prayers were not to some unseen Creator but to Ramon. He would never know how she loved him, and though he would be sorry, his life would go on. Manolito would be shocked beyond recovery by this and she had brought it all on by her inability to obey Ramon. She was mesmerised by the evil in the eyes of the hunting animal, knowing that even were he to turn now and run away across the river she would be still unable to move. He would not wait indefinitely.
The shot when it came added to her fear and the noise of the galloping horses hardly entered her mind. She saw the huge cat leap, turn and spring to the ground but it was not towards her that he raced, it was to the shelter of the overhanging bank and the safety of the trees across the river. She stood as she had been, paralysed with fear, and even the sound of Ramon's voice, the sight of the men with him as they plunged their horses down the bank in pursuit of the killer failed to bring her back into the present.
"Meriel!" The urgency in Ramon's voice caught her attention and she turned dazed eyes on him, his name soundlessly on her lips as she fell to the baked earth at his feet.
When she came round the car was in motion, Ramon at the wheel, his other arm supporting her as she lay against him. Odd disjointed thoughts flashed through her mind: he had left his horse, he had brought a gun, he had found her. She only realised that she had been murmuring her thoughts aloud when he answered her.
"The men will bring my horse back. I do not suppose that they will get the jaguar but perhaps they will. I knew that I could not hit him, the distance was too great. My only hope was to scare him into flight. I could not reach you in time. He might have attacked long before we got close enough."
"Ramon! I'm sorry—sorry!" She felt the first healing wave of tears and he pulled her close, resting his head for one moment against hers.
"Never mind. You are safe. We will discuss your latest crime when you are feeling better. For now you are here and safe. Hush, Meriel."
He sounded deeply moved and she wept silently against him until the storm of tears had passed, still unable to sit up of her own accord.
"Manuel!"
"He is at the hacienda? For the first time, anger entered his voice. "He was never anywhere else. He has more sense than to cross the llanos and head for the river alone; such hot-headed acts he leaves to his sister. Por Dios, if the cupboard were still unshelved I would be tempted to take your mother's course of action with the boy. His prank has almost cost you your life."
"I'm sure he didn't mean it! He had no idea that I would do anything so stupid!"
"No." He pulled her tightly to his side and sighed despairingly. "Only I, it seems, know your ability to react foolishly and wilfully. You have frightened yourself badly and you have added several grey hairs to my head. Do not act again without consulting me. I have your promise, Meriel?"
"Yes." It was a promise that would be easy to keep because she would be going away, away from the plains, away from Venezuela and she would never again know the comfort and peace of Ramon's arms. She let tears flood over her again, but this time it was not fear that brought them to her face, it was love that was as hopeless now as it had ever been.
CHAPTER SIX
STILL unable to stand without support, Meriel was half carried into the hacienda and straight to the study when they returned. Manuel was there, sitting bolt upright on the edge of a chair as if he had been told to sit there and not move a muscle.
At the sight of Meriel, his pale face lit up with relief, and he stood to run to her but Ramon's sharp command stopped him instantly.
"Remain in your seat!"
Manuel sank back to his former position, his face growing more pale as he saw the condition of Meriel and Ramon's anger.
"You will spend the time here in observing the shock and distress on the face of your sister!" Ramon said sternly. "Your foolish prank has almost cost her, her life. Henceforth you will remember that when you state an intention it must be truthful!" It was plain to see that he was furious and Manuel did not answer, his eyes were on Meriel's face, on the grazes that her fall to the hard earth of the river bank had produced and on the trembling of her hands.
"She believed your note and acted out of love for you!" Ramon continued angrily as he strode to the cabinet and poured brandy into a glass, taking it back to the settee where he had placed Meriel and holding it to her lips. "While you were hiding in comfort, Meriel was facing el tigre!"
"Merry!" Manuel jumped up in spite of Ramon's angry eyes and ran to his sister, kneeling and burying his face in her lap. "I'll never do anything like that again. I wanted you to stay, to be friends with Ramon. I did not think…'
"It's all right." She stroked his dark hair with trembling hands. "Just don't ever do anything like that again. I was so frightened for you."
"You may now go to your room and you will have the goodness to remain there!" Ramon intervened in a hard voice. "I wanted you to see her and I wanted you to realise that we are all responsible for our actions. Fortunately, you have not been called upon to live with the idea that your selfishness was the cause of your sister's death."
Manuel went out with no further word and Meriel looked at Ramon helplessly.
"You think that I am hard?" he asked. "He has a life of great responsibility before him. Unfortunately neither he nor I can afford the luxury of thinking solely of ourselves."
"He's only a boy, Ramon," she said quietly and he nodded in agreement, coming to sit by her and help her to more brandy.
"I know it. He will however have to face some of the life that I have faced even though I wish it were not so. He cannot learn soon enough that the duty he owes to those who care about him is the greatest duty that he has."
She was silent. She could only agree after all. Even though she was not in any way related, Ramon had faithfully carried out any duty that was necessary as far as she was concerned. It was not his fault that she loved him and she was suddenly filled with a great affection that ran side by side with her love.
"We are both quite a trial to you," she whispered shakily, managing a smile when he looked at her quickly and questioningly. "And it's quite funny really, neither of us means to be a trial at all." She couldn't help the look on her face nor could she stop the hand that came up to touch his face with the timidity and wonder that had been there when she had daringly touched him as a child.
"There are some crosses that I bear gladly," he murmured with a faint answering smile. "They say too that lightning does not strike twice in the same place so perhaps your brush with death at the river is a chapter that can be written off."
He looked deeply into her eyes for a moment and then took her hand as it lay against his bronzed face and turned it to his lips.
"You must now go to bed for a while. I will call Rosita to help you. For myself, I think that it would be a good idea to finish the bottle of brandy and drown my shocks for the rest of the day. However," he continued, standing and helping her to her feet, "I have too much to do so I will try to regain my temper and my ease of mind by working."
He rang the bell and then helped her to the door as they heard the quick steps of Rosita on the passage and her sharp tap on the door of the study.
"Try to sleep," he advised. "By dinner time you will be much better."
She was helped to her room by Rosita who clucked and shook her head impatiently at the antics of her favourites, helping Meriel into bed in her slip when she had bathed the grazes, and within minutes Meriel drifted into sleep, the feel of Ramon's lips still on her hand, his words still in her mind.
It was mid-afternoon when she woke to the slight sound of someone in her room and opening her eyes saw Manuel sitting anxiou
sly on the bed close to her.
"I did not mean to wake you, Merry," he said softly. "I wanted to see that you were still all right."
"Of course I am." She reached out and ruffled his hair. "Try to forget all about it now. As it turned out, nothing happened except that I got an awful fright. At least I can now say that I've seen el tigre. I expect I'll be proud of that when I get over the fright."
"Ramon will never forgive me," Manuel confided with mournful eyes, his expression filled with drama, and she laughed, amusement wiping out the lingering fears.
"Of course he will. It's all over and you get on very well with him. It's just that we are a big responsibility to him."
"I think you would not be so sure of his forgiveness if you had seen him," he said worriedly. "We saw you drive out of the gate. He had already found me."
"Where exactly were you?" she asked intrigued by his unexpectedly boyish antics.
"I was in Jose's small house. He is my friend and I have often hidden there before when Ramon has been—after me."
"Ah, so you are not as good as I imagined?" she asked her amusement growing. "He's been after you before then?"
"Yes, I do things wrong, from time to time," he confessed seriously, "but this is the greatest thing I have done and when he saw you leave he seemed to know where you were going. He went mad I think and I was glad to go and sit in the study and not move as he had ordered. If he had not found you, he would have killed me."
"What a very dramatic person you are," she laughed. "I'm perfectly sure that Ramon would not have killed you."
"Do not bank on it!" Ramon's voice from the doorway made them both jump guiltily. "The thought is even now crossing my mind. You are living very dangerously to disobey me yet again, Manuel!"
He stood there with a forbidding frown on his face, a tray in his hand that was clearly for Meriel, and further words were not needed. Manuel crossed the floor with very hasty steps and in a moment they heard the door of his room close behind him.
"He was only anxious about me," Meriel began in a placating tone but he looked at her with exasperation as he crossed to the bed and sat beside her, placing the tray on the bedside table.
"He really is very skilled at making his own excuses, he has had many chances to practise," he said wryly. "Believe me, he can think up excuses that would never enter your head. I would leave him to cover his own tracks if I were you. I have brought you a little soup," he added. "Sit up and take it now."
"Thank you. I—I'll have it in a minute." She was in her slip and not about to sit up while Ramon was here.
He raised his dark brows in further exasperation and simply leaned across, placing his hands under her arms and hauled her up in bed, plumping the pillows up behind her and placing the tray firmly on her lap.
"Now!" he ordered sternly. "I will talk to you as you take the soup and we will have no nonsense." He wasn't looking at her with any other expression but a determination to get down to business and after a few seconds she quite forgot that apart from the thin ribbon of the straps her shoulders were bare and that the lacy top of her slip was cut very low, was provocatively scanty.
"You cannot now simply go tomorrow," he said without preamble, holding up his hand for silence when she would have spoken. "I am not about to say that Manuel will collapse should you go so soon," he added, "it is perhaps dawning on you that he is not quite the defenceless angel that you were at his age. He is an Ortiga. The same blood runs in his veins as runs in my own and the last thing we are is defenceless. I was thinking only of you. You are in no fit state to fly to Caracas, let alone to London. You will therefore stay longer!"
"You don't realise, I suppose, how very domineering you are," she offered softly, her eyes downcast on the tray, not at all sure how to take this firm decision. She wanted to stay with him but the idea was a dangerous one and she knew that all too well. Better to be thousands of miles away from him. Even now her breathing was difficult and it had nothing to do with the shock of this morning.
"Of course I realise it!" he answered arrogantly. "I can never see the need to be other than what I am."
Stunned by his attitude, she raised wide, surprised eyes to his face and found him watching her in amusement. He took the tray and placed it back on the table, his lips twisting at her expression.
"You think that, like your brother, I should make excuses for my conduct! I cannot. Excuses do not sit well on my tongue and I am always sure that I know best."
"Why, you…!" She was open-mouthed at his words and he laughed delightedly, a long, low chuckle of pleasure.
"I can ask for forgiveness though," he confided, his dark eyes warm on her face. "I am sorry that I could not resist the chance to wind you up into one of your small tempers. I find it fascinating to watch your eyes change from silver to dark grey, to see them grow in your face to keep pace with your anger. It is a pleasure to watch—always provided that you finally give in. I like to win."
"Now look, Ramon!" she began heatedly, no longer feeling weak either from her fright or his nearness.
"I am looking," he confessed slowly. "I have been looking for the past ten minutes and I could remain here and look for days and days."
His dark eyes moved over her creamy shoulders, her slender neck where a pulse beat frantically in time to the rhythm of her heart, over the beautiful mounds of her breasts where the lacy top only added to the temptation.
"Still you wear the opal," he commented softly.
"I forgot to—to…'
He shook his head, his eyes claiming hers, a fire beginning in their secret depths.
"You forgot nothing," he murmured, his gaze moving to the deep hollow where the stone lay and then back to her face. "You still feel my touch on your skin and the opal is warm, a reminder." His eyes began to move over her features, no longer smiling in their teasing way but possessive and burning, and Meriel sat as still as a mouse, as hypnotised by those gleaming eyes as she had been all her life.
"Once before," he continued in a low voice, "I touched you but then it was in the moonlight and you were beautiful, gentle and utterly willing, as you are now."
She wanted to tell him that she was not, that she was no longer eighteen and vulnerable, but her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth, her lips were dry and speech was beyond her. He had come into her room in his usual businesslike way and now he was a different person, sensuous and arousing, his eyes compelling, his whole demeanour dominating her mind. She wetted her lips with the end of her tongue and his eyes followed the movement hungrily, his finger-tip moving to trace the same path along her lip.
"Ramon! I-I…'
"Shh!" His hands began to explore her features like a blind man, tracing her cheeks, the smooth curve, of her forehead, the delicate line of her chin and the slender length of her neck. There was a strange half-smile on his lips as his eyes followed the slow, seductive movements and saw the quickening rise and fall of her breasts.
He lifted the opal as he had done before, holding it in one hand as his other hand smoothed her shoulder, moving beneath the ribbon of her strap to ease it away, but this time he did not let the precious stone fall back into place, he put it there between the mounds of her breasts with slow and deliberate movement, his fingers lingering on the warmth of her skin before opening to spread out across the curve of her breast and claim it possessively.
"No! Ramon!" She gasped out the words but his hand stayed in warm, tender possession as his eyes rose to hers.
"Why do you say no, when you mean yes!" he asked softly. "Your skin melts to my touch, your eyes offer me everything that I could ever want. Now, I simply want to touch you, to look at you, to know that you are here, warm and willing beneath my hands and not lying dead and violated beside the river."
His hands moved to slide away the lacy top, letting the ribbons fall down the smooth skin of her arms, and his eyes moved over her as she sat spellbound, unable to stop him as he gazed at her breasts.
"Do you know what I tho
ught this morning when I saw you so still and terrified, your eyes on the jaguar?" he asked deeply. "Even before I saw him, I knew the reason for your stillness and fear and terror shot through me too. I thought, she will die. That beautiful face will be lifeless, that slender body knocked to the dust by a killer's stroke, and I have never owned her, never seen her beauty lying naked in my arms, never wakened to the sight of her head on my pillow. You and I," he continued thickly, "have been destined to be lovers for more years than I care to remember. You are ready for me and I want you, I will not allow you to leave."
"I—I won't stay here and become—become…' The words would not leave her lips and it was useless to deny his words, she wanted him with a deep, lonely longing that had simply grown with the passing of time.
"Become what?" he murmured, his lips trailing arousingly across the tips of her breasts. "My mistress?" He lifted his head and looked at her with a strange twisted smile. "You think that I would ask you? You think that is what I intend?"
He lifted her up towards him, his fingers laced in her hair, his eyes burning with desire.
"You imagine that I need a bedmate only, some pliant toy in my hands?" he smiled, his old arrogance flaring. "If I did, you would come to me, but that is not what I want from you. You have told me so very often that you are an outsider, that you are merely tolerated in this house, in this land. You will be an outsider no longer if that is what you are sure you have been. Your name will be Ortiga, my name. You will be the mother of my children, the one who stands beside me securely when we are beset by my— abominable relatives." His smile deepened as he reminded her of her own words. "You are to be my wife. I do not intend to sit here and wait until you have married this— this Englishman or whatever he is. You belong to me and I am claiming you."
For a second she stared at him, stunned and light-headed.
The Ortiga Marriage Page 10
