Whatever she had expected him to say it had never been this. Such hopes and dreams had left her when he had told her to go almost seven years ago. The manner of his speech too frightened her. He had not asked her to marry him, not declared any love for her. He had stated his desire and his intentions and she was expected to obey. A cold shiver ran over her and he pulled her closely to him.
"You are cold, pequena?" he asked softly. "Your skin burns and your cheeks are pink as a rose. Say that you agree and I will leave you to rest comfortably."
"I—I don't agree," she got out faintly. "Stewart wants to marry me because he loves me. You—you don't. You're cold-blooded and…'
"Am I?" he whispered into her hair. "You think he wants you as much as I do? Whatever words he uses to cloak his desire, there is not that between you that is between you and me, or you would not be still as innocent as I know you are."
"You don't know that I—that we…' she began, trying to pull away, but he held her tightly, only allowing her to ease away so that he could see her face.
"You have slept with him?" he asked, only amusement in his eyes.
"No! No—but—but-’
"And yet," he assured her softly, "were I to lock the door and hold you against me, you would not resist me any more than you would have resisted when you were eighteen and locked in my arms in the moonlight. You have moved from anger to games and to defiance since you have returned, but through it all your eyes have offered me all that I want."
"I—I won't marry you. It's unthinkable! You're doing this because…'
"Because I want you and I intend to have you and I will wait no longer!" he stated with a growing annoyance at her hedging that she could see beginning to darken his face.
He sat her up like an unresisting doll and pulled her straps into place, covering her and then looking at her with determined eyes.
"Enough of this nonsense. You will marry me as soon as I can arrange it and the matter is settled!" He stood and looked down at her, his expression suddenly softening at her wide-eyed fear. "Tell me, Meriel," he asked quietly. "Have you ever suffered hurt at my hands? Does marriage to me frighten you so much that you would refuse to be what you know you long to be?"
"I don't want to be…' she began but he tilted her face arrogantly and looked at her with raised brows.
"Lies sit very uneasily on your lips, Meriel," he stated. "Even though your lips say one thing, your eyes say entirely the opposite and I am an expert at reading the need in those grey eyes, I have never in my life been told outright by you what your needs were, always I have had to find out the hard way. We will say that the matter is settled."
He walked out, giving her no chance to speak even if she had been capable of speech. She was dazed, frightened and unable even to think with any clarity. She had imagined this so long ago on that moonlit night, imagined herself the wife of Ramon Ortiga, loved, needed and necessary to his life. Now, within a few minutes, he had announced that she was to be what she had so longed for, but it was too late now, her dreams had been too shattered, her trust almost completely destroyed, and she would always fear him, not physically but with the fear of someone who is never certain of her place in the heart of one she loves. He did not love her, except some lingering affection from the past. Better perhaps to marry Stewart and be a good and affectionate wife, without the enchantment of Ramon's arms, but safe. She knew that she could do neither. She had put off her answers to Stewart for so long and now she knew why.
She dared not stir from her room and it was only the anxiety on Rosita's face that made her change at last for dinner and go down to face Ramon's dark eyes. She was glad to find that Manuel was there already, clearly having been pardoned and allowed to leave the restrictions of his room.
"You look very pale, Merry," Manuel said worriedly. "I do hope that you'll stay a little longer now. I—I mean," he added as Ramon shot him a look of annoyance, "you don't seem to me to be fit to go so far, well, not yet."
"Your concern does you credit," Ramon said dryly, "however, she is not going at all, so calm your fears."
"Ramon!" Meriel's sharp cry brought both their eyes to her and Manuel looked greatly downcast.
"Please! I didn't mean to bring on another quarrel, I only meant…'
"You have brought on no quarrel whatever;' Ramon assured him, giving him a quick smile. "It is just that Meriel had not perhaps wanted to tell you yet that she is staying, therefore, I will not tell you anything else." He looked around the table and then at Manuel. "Would you go and ask Rosita for more butter?"
"Certainly!" Manuel left the table with great alacrity, glad to have escaped for a moment, and Ramon turned at once to Meriel.
"I have telephoned London," he said evenly as soon as the door had closed behind Manuel. "I spoke to Mackensie and I have told him that you have resigned. You can confirm it in writing."
At any other time, she would have flown into a temper, stormed from the room, but now, she felt only regret and an unhappy acceptance that there could be no future here for her without Ramon's love. She sighed, more tired than angry.
"Oh, Ramon," she looked at him miserably. "Why are you doing this? You know that he will ring me and that I'll say entirely the opposite thing. I will not stay here. I'm surprised that he hasn't rang back already."
"He has." Ramon sat back in his chair, smiling at her as if she had in fact just agreed to marry him. He was not taking any notice of her wishes or of her refusal. "He rang almost at once and I was able to tell him that you were not well and asleep."
"I wasn't!"
"You were," he assured her firmly. "I rang the moment that you were safely in your bed and you were certainly asleep when he returned the call. By the time I brought your soup the whole thing was over. One look at you this morning when the jaguar so nearly killed you was quite enough to convince me that this nonsense had gone far enough."
"You know that I'll ring him and tell him that it's not true. You can't go on pretending that I'm ill."
"Ring now," he suggested, still sitting back and watching her with a smile. "I intend to marry you, not to keep you prisoner. The telephone is yours to use."
She would have done, except that she felt so tired and except for the fact that Manuel returned at that moment, but more because they all heard against the window and the roof the first drops of rain that heralded the wet season, drops that grew in speed and sound until the rain was thundering against the roof like a thousand drums.
With it too came the first distant roll of thunder and Meriel stiffened in her chair, her eyes anxiously on the windows and the darkening sky.
"The rains are here!" Manuel actually sounded excited and happy, turning to her with glowing eyes. "There will be a storm, I think."
"It is too early in the season," Ramon said quickly, his eyes on Meriel, and subtle though he was, Manuel was not deceived.
"You are afraid of the storms, Merry?" he asked in astonishment. "I love them, they are so splendid, so noisy, so wild!"
"That, I think, will be enough," Ramon said quietly, getting to his feet and drawing the curtains as Meriel's scared eyes refused to be sensible and look away. "And yes, Meriel is afraid of storms. She is not however," he added quietly, "afraid of el tigre when her brother is in danger, so do not take to yourself any superior attitude."
"I would not!" Manuel protested. "Not with Merry. In any case," he added with a wide grin, "she is more than a match for me when I am being too big for my boots, that is the expression, is it not, Merry?" he added seriously.
"It will do nicely. It often fits the bill nowadays!" Meriel said wryly.
"I do not understand "fits the bill" either," Manuel started, but Ramon intervened.
"You understand bedtime, I assume?" he asked softly. "And that being the case finish your meal and be on your way."
Knowing full well that Ramon's statement that it was too early in the season for storms had been designed only to calm her, Meriel too went straight to her room after the meal. The though
t of telephoning to England had completely left her head and she later stood in her room peering from behind closed curtains into the night. These storms had always frightened her; in fact frightened was perhaps an understatement. They swept down from the high mountains and lashed across the dry plains with a wild ferocity, grand and splendid but terrifying to her. Before them came the rain, torrential and unrelenting as it was falling now, and it was rare indeed to have the force of the rain without the crash of thunder and the searing forks of lightning after the long dry season. Always she had been afraid but tonight her nerves were at breaking-point and she got into bed, thankful that the first signal roll of thunder had not yet brought the storm. The rain fell in torrents but that was not the noise she feared and finally she fell asleep, worn out by the most shattering day of her life, still keeping her ears attuned for the danger of the storm, her mind refusing to think about Ramon's plan for her life.
Next morning the whole thing had receded to a dream-like quality, and Meriel went to breakfast with the certainty that she would be able to sort things out very soon. She was unprepared for the sight of Ramon, still lounging at the table, any work that he had to do being ignored.
"I imagined that you would be out by now," she murmured as he held her chair courteously. "Isn't Manuel here!"
"Not yet," he answered easily, resuming his seat and leaning back to watch her with veiled amusement and the faint ghost of teasing at the back of his eyes. "We have a few minutes alone. Eat your breakfast and then I have something to show you."
"What?" she asked with growing anxiety. Now that she was sitting here opposite him, her confidence was not nearly so strong, especially when he kept looking at her like that with narrowed amused eyes.
"Later, do not be impatient," he advised, adding, almost as an afterthought, "You have telephoned to England?"
"No. You know I haven't!"
"Ah, yes, the tormenta! It did not arrive after all, did it? I waited to see if you would have need to be terrified but in the event there was rain only. Perhaps it will come in late this year."
"Good? Let it wait a few days and then I'll not be here. I'll be back in England where storms are more reasonable."
To her consternation, he laughed delightedly and leaned across to capture her hand.
"If you wish to play hard to get, do so," he offered softly. "I will go ahead with the marriage arrangements secretly if you wish and then I can always propose to you again, suddenly, perhaps in the moonlight."
"You didn't propose to me!" she snapped, blushing furiously. "You—you stated your intentions and never asked mine. There's no way that you can make me…'
"I can make you do anything that I want, be anything that I want, and we both know that," he said softly, his thumb probing her palm erotically. "Why not make your call to England now?"
He was challenging her to try to escape him and she rose to the bait.
"I will!" She strode into the hall angrily and made the call. Stewart was not there. He was not at his flat either and she replaced the receiver slowly, looking up to see Ramon leaning against the door, his arms folded, his eyebrows quizzical.
"No reply? He is not then shattered by your resignation, this man of great virtue? Perhaps he has some other nice girl lined up for your job after all. It is as well, he cannot have you."
She turned abruptly away but he caught her wrist and pulled her towards him.
"Come here," he said softly. "I promise not to tease you again for the whole of the day no matter how much you tempt me. Come, your breakfast can wait. I want to show you something outside."
With no alternative, she went. He was not about to release her hand and she was not up to any struggle so she stepped into the cool garden and walked in a worried silence beside him, her hand tightly in his.
"Cheer up," he said softly. "I have not captured el tigre and kept him in the stables to spring out at you. I wanted only to show you something that you have apparently forgotten. Your black foal," he added when she looked at him in surprise. "You have not asked about him since you returned home."
"I—I never thought. I only saw him for such a brief time." She felt guilty for no good reason and her annoyance showed on her face.
"You are in a very bad mood today," he commented. "Perhaps I can change that."
They came to the paddock and her eyes widened at the sight of the foal, identical to the one she had seen so long ago, to all intents and purposes the same.
"No," he laughed as she looked up in astonishment. "I have not discovered a way to stop things ageing. This is another one. Your original one is now a very mature stallion and this is a foal he sired. This time you will see him grow, and this time I will see you ride him. This time to, we shall have a naming ceremony."
She walked to the fence and saw the foal turn and quickly move towards them.
"You still tempt them with your sugar?" she asked, annoyed at the warmth that flooded over her as she remembered the night she had seen Ramon's method of bringing the animal to him.
"Yes." He was suddenly quiet and serious-faced. "I have something for you too and it is not sugar." Before she could protest, she was moved to the fence, her back against it as Ramon stood close to her making movement away impossible. For a moment he looked at her and then his hand stroked down her face.
"While you were shopping in Caracas," he said softly, watching her, "I too went to the shops." He felt in his pocket and took out a small black velvet-covered box. "Give me your hand, Meriel," he ordered softly. "It is time that you carried the proof of our future on your finger for all to see." She was so stunned that she never resisted and he slid the ring, a large glittering diamond, on to her finger.
"Ramon!" She suddenly came to life, but her protests died in her throat as he looked at her and pulled her towards him, his gaze heated enough to burn her, his hands hard and demanding.
"Refuse me and I think I shall kill you!" he said in a deep whisper. "I shall never allow another to take you."
His lips covered hers as he pressed her against the fence, the weight of his powerful body holding her prisoner as his hands moved over the softness of her body.
"You know with a certainty that you cannot deny that you are mine," he breathed, his mouth coming down to cut off any protests, opening over hers and making her tremble in a kiss that was like possession, all-consuming, his tongue plundering her mouth, his hands moulding her to him.
"You wear my ring, you are mine," he said against her hair after a while, holding her trembling body close. "From today, everyone will know and soon we shall be married."
He lifted his head and looked down at her, his hand tilting her chin and he simply waited, saying nothing, watching her until his eyes seemed to be the only thing in the world as she felt herself sink towards him, drowning in his gaze.
"Yes." She hardly recognised the whisper as her own, was hardly aware that with that one word she had committed her future into the hands that caressed her now, powerful hands that thrilled and frightened her. He was danger and comfort, cruelty and compassion, all she longed for and all she feared. He did not love her but she could never go away. She melted towards him and he kissed her eyes closed with tenderness.
"I have taught you the meaning of a promise, my elusive little sweet," he murmured. "This is a promise that you will never be released from. You have given me that answer I wanted and now you are mine."
For a few seconds, she felt the full power of his passion and then he released her with reluctance, his breathing harsh and uneven.
"I think that here is not the place to let you know my feelings," he said ruefully. "Come back to the house and finish your breakfast. We shall name the horse another day."
He turned her to the house and she was glad of the arm that he kept tightly around her. Queer bursts of feeling were warring inside her. Fear at what she had promised, excitement at his nearness and what his eyes had silently told her, and an uneasiness about the future that she thrust to the back of her mind
.
She raised her eyes as they came to the house and the past was relived in a few horrified seconds. On the step stood Dona Barbara and beside her, as before, Carmen and Consuelo Sandoval. She stiffened, but this time Ramon's arm tightened, his hand moving over her hip and splaying possessively against her stomach in an embrace that suggested an intimacy that was not in any way the affection of a man for his stepsister. As they moved forward, his hand also moved to her nape, soothingly and warmly caressing her openly before the horrified gaze of his aunt.
"An unexpected but timely visit, Tia Barbara," he said with a beaming smile. "You have saved me a great deal of trouble. Now I can tell you in person what I would have had to travel many miles to say. Meriel is home, as no doubt Carmen told you, and this time she will not leave us again. She is to be my wife and we shall marry as soon as the ceremony can be arranged. I have waited too long for her to take any delays with patience. You may put your mind to it and help me out. The ceremony at the hacienda, do you think?"
What she thought was all too clear. She turned on her heel and went inside, a white-faced Carmen escorting her, and Consuelo Sandoval was left to face them alone.
"They are overcome," Ramon said with caustic humour. "At this moment, no doubt, Tia Barbara will be thinking that our children will be brilliantly blonde and that the end of the world is near. You will offer your congratulations, Consuelo. We are stunned at the effect we have had on my aunt, are we not, my love?"
Meriel found that she too was simply staring at him, no doubt as white-faced as the other women, but he smiled into her eyes and kissed her lips lightly.
"We will congratulate ourselves then."
"I'm sorry, Ramon." Recovering quickly, Consuelo moved forward and Meriel steeled herself to hear words that she knew would come out now. At eighteen she had been in no doubt of the relationship between Ramon and the beautiful Venezuelan woman. How would she take this announcement that had been thrust upon her without warning? But Consuelo smiled brilliantly, kissing Ramon on the cheek, before turning to embrace Meriel. "Of course I congratulate you. Meriel is beautiful and the children will be beautiful too, in spite of your aunt's misgivings."
The Ortiga Marriage Page 11
