"No, you're very generous and kind." She wound her arms around his neck and for long moments was lost in the love that was poured over her by the dark and vibrant being who held her as close as death, his arms her only refuge in life as they had always been.
"I think, though," she accused when he released her, "that you could have telephoned me. I've been so cut off from you."
"When I am away I cannot telephone you," he confessed. "I learned that when I started to telephone you on my odd days away when we came back from our honeymoon. The mere sound of your voice and everything else leaves my head. I hear your voice and I want you. The only thing I can think of is getting back. It is your gentleness that comes out on the telephone, I hear it even when you are angry as you were angry when I phoned you in England, and also there is your delicious little accent."
"I speak Spanish fluently!" she protested. "I have no accent whatsoever."
"You speak it beautifully and with great ease," he admitted soothingly. "Much better than I speak English, but still there is that delightful little accent, and I would not like you to lose it. It is so sexy!"
"Ramon! How can you say that!"
"Ramon!" he mocked. "How can you say that! You are doing it now, beloved, and it is turning my bones to water. Come, let us walk out in the garden before I start to get other ideas. I have been away for two weeks and my self-discipline is very slack at the moment."
They walked in the gathering cool of the garden, arms around each other, and there was a contentment in Meriel that there had never been before.
"If only you had told me you loved me long ago," she sighed as his arms held her close. "I would never have gone back to England. I would have waited here until you wanted to marry me."
"I know that," he assured her. "I knew that then. One day, though, you might have wondered what it would have been like to live in England, to have a corner of your own, to see more of your father, and I would then have seen it in your eyes and it would have been a grief to both of us. You had to fly by yourself, soar in your own freedom, learn where your heart truly rested."
"You never called me at all, never wrote," she whispered, remembering her earlier despair when she had first left Venezuela.
"Freedom is not freedom when there is a rein on it," he said deeply, turning her into his arms. "No matter how tender and loving the rein, no matter how loosely held, it tethers you to the past and I wanted your future, freely given."
"How did you get to be so clever?" she asked, smiling lovingly into his eyes.
"It is a matter of birth," he said with mocking arrogance. "I was born like that, you will have to work at it."
Her tussle with him was broken short as they felt the first drops of rain and both turned their faces to the sky and the distant mountains now black with storm warnings.
"At last it is here," he sighed happily. "The rains are coming, the dry and the dust are over and everything will renew itself and become green and filled with life. When next the land is dry I will have a son of my own!"
He lifted her into his arms holding her high against him, his face filled with a glorious happiness as he carried her back towards the room they had left a short while ago, placing her on her feet and drawing the curtains.
"What are you doing?" she asked, startled as the room became dim and mysterious, the light faint.
"You are afraid of the tormenta," he reminded her, the flash of his teeth white as he smiled wickedly. "I am shutting it out."
"It's only rain," she protested, "and not much of that yet."
He stood perfectly still, listening, his eyes a dark gleam in the dimness of the room, and she heard, far away, the first roll of thunder, her hand going to her mouth in instant anxiety.
"You know that there is nothing to fear," he said softly coming towards her, "You know I will not leave you. The curtains are drawn, the door is locked and I love the storms and the darkness, they first drove you to my arms."
She moved into his arms now, as eager as he to be lost in their own kind of storm, hearing his quiet grumbles as he undressed her.
"What is it?" she laughed as he held her away, exasperation on his face.
"When I undress you, I like it to be easy," he murmured. "I like you to be able to stay close to me the whole time. More than that also I do not like trousers. I like to see your long and slender legs." He slid the white trousers from her hips and lifted her into his arms, his elegant toe kicking them aside. "We will have a ceremonial burning of those," he asserted grimly.
"They're silk!" she protested, hiding her face against him as the first flash of lightning lit the room.
"So are you, my darling," he breathed, placing her on the bed, his hands running with the familiarity of possession over her as he came to take her in his arms, "and now there are no shadows between us. I can show you how I feel, how I love you."
There was no postponing his hunger and Meriel felt the same way too. She had thought that she had lost him, thought that she would have to leave this house, this land and the man who made her life heaven, and her response had his breath catching in his throat.
They came together with a passionate ferocity that seemed to soar over the ferocity of the storm that raged outside, and she did not notice the violence of sound that the thunder brought as she listened to the thunder of his heart over her own. The dazzling lights that shone before her were inside her own head as they climbed beyond the world, lost in a timeless world of their own.
"You are enchantment," he whispered huskily as she lay still and content beneath him at last. "You are everything that I have dreamed of. You give me more than any man could ever hope for, and when you call my name in that little cry of passion it is with that delicate, sexy little accent."
"And your bones melt," she teased, breathlessly, her fingers tracing his smiling lips.
"Repeatedly," he whispered, capturing her hand and kissing each finger lingeringly.
"Manolito is not home yet," she told him worriedly as he moved to the side and drew her into his arms. She found that she could watch the lightning flare across the sky with no fear whatever and that the sound of the thunder was merely interesting. "You've cured me of my fear of storms," she said excitedly, coming up on one elbow and looking at him with astonishment.
"I hope not," he said lazily. "I want more time to work on the cure, do not be too hasty. We will certainly have to put in more time on the kind of therapy that you need." He pulled her across him, laughing into her face, no trace of the dark silence she had known for so long on the beloved face that adored her.
"As to Manolito," he said darkly, "he is with Senor Morales and quite safe. Do not make me jealous," he added, biting gently at her neck.
"What about Manolito?" she asked when the tender assault was over and she lay relaxed and content beside him. "I mean, what about the inheritance?"
"I have already taken steps about that," he assured her seriously. "When I discovered your ability to absorb the business side of things I put into action plans that I made long ago. A block of shares in the estate has been transferred to you. You may now attend the meetings and speak your mind, throw your slender weight about," he added, his hand sliding over her seductively. "It is time that the family recognised that there is a new and dynamic Ortiga among them."
"Oh, Ramon, I don't think…'
"I do!" he asserted forcefully. "You are too clever and talented to sit about here and do nothing."
"Well, there'll be the baby…' she began but he was not to be put off.
"You will manage that beautifully as well," he assured her with pride in his voice, "And there will be more than one. This one has filled me with so much joy that I can see no way that it will not be having company very quickly. As to Manuel, I have split the inheritance down the middle; he is also my father's son. Until he is of age, we will guard his inheritance and then he will take up the burden on his own. One day he too will have children and with ours and his, the Ortiga wealth will be split into
a normal share of prosperity, not this deadly weight that both my father and I have carried for so many years. Should we both have children who will spend it unwisely, then one day it will cease to exist."
"Wouldn't you care about that?" she gasped, the calmness of his announcement stunning her.
"What I care about, all that I have cared about for many, many years, I hold now in my arms," he said seriously. "The rest is duty, a mere burden that I bear."
"Do I deserve you?" she asked, looking at him with a glowing adoration that had the dark eyes gleaming into hers.
"Probably not," he assured her with laughter in his voice, but then his teasing stopped suddenly. "I have not forgotten how you have been hurt," he said angrily. "Today we will love and celebrate our new happiness. Tomorrow I shall get to Tia Barbara!"
"She's not important," Meriel sighed, kissing the suddenly tight lips.
"This much she is about to find out," Ramon promised darkly.
It was only later when they sat to a happy and candlelit dinner with Manuel, the generator having failed again and the storm returned with a vengeance, that Ramon put forth his final plan.
Manuel had entertained them for most for the meal with his many small but interesting adventures, congratulating himself and not Senor Morales that they had managed to arrive back between the storms, and Senor Morales had been able to return to his own home in good time.
"I did not know until he told me at our wedding that your father was an accountant," Ramon said, looking closely at Meriel. "It is odd, when he has meant so much to you, that I didn't even know what he did for a living."
"There was a time," she said quietly, "when I found it a little painful even to talk about him. Since then, well…'
Ramon's hand came to cover hers, his outright adoration bringing a pleased gleam to Manuel's eyes, their liquid darkness taking in everything.
"I had wondered," Ramon said gently, "if he would like to come here and work for the Oritga Estates. It would take a great deal of work from my shoulders," he added hastily as she gasped. "I could really do with him here."
"You are really the most wonderful person in the whole world," Meriel said softly, wishing for once that Manolito were in his own room so that she could show Ramon how she felt. He knew, however, because a slow burn of heat spread across his cheek-bones as she looked at him and his hand tightened on hers.
"You have plenty of accountants," she reminded him softly, "and I don't need my father under my watchful eye. In any case, he wouldn't come. He has his own firm; it's small and not rich but they do a good deal of business and they have a respected name. Also," she added, her eyes twinkling, "I really think that there's a certain lady…'
"Ah!" Ramon looked at her intently. "You do not mind?"
"Darling!" she laughed delightedly. "Why should I mind? Let's leave him to get on with his own life at last. He'll have to put up with hearing my—voice on the phone."
"Ah! You will be speaking in English, it is not the same." Ramon laughed, his eyes teasingly on her.
"It is a great pity," Manuel cut in, no longer able to hold his tongue. "I am greatly fond of Senor Curtis. What relation is he to me?" he added turning to Meriel.
"I wonder sometimes if you are in full possession of your faculties," Ramon murmured, returning to his coffee. "I would have thought that you had enough relatives already without this insatiable desire to claim more."
"I'd like a few that I can be happy about," Manuel said mutinously, his eyes suddenly worried when he caught the wryly amused look on Ramon's face, the dark raised eyebrows that had so troubled Meriel when she was his age. "I'm sorry, Ramon," he apologised quickly, relaxing when he saw Ramon's quick grin.
"I really understand your feelings," Ramon assured him seriously, his laughter quickly suppressed. "However, take note: the only Ortigas who matter are right here in this room; the others will, I think be keeping well away in the future, the more—gloomy ones," he added with a smile at Meriel that threw her headlong into the past.
Later in their room, Meriel asked the question that had been hovering on her lips all evening.
"Why didn't you tell Manolito about the baby?" she asked, her face carefully hidden as she undressed for bed.
"I'm damned if I'll share everything with my brother," he growled, his hands warm on her skin as he dealt with the zip of her dress. "Why didn't you tell him, if you are anxious for him to know?"
"I'm not," she murmured, her lashes covering her eyes as he turned her slowly towards him." It's a glorious secret that I only want to share with you."
"Those words have cured me of my tiny bit of jealousy," he smiled, kissing her eyes closed and easing her into his arms. "Secrets with you are my greatest joy."
"Rosita will tell him," she sighed, but Ramon laughed, his breath fanning her hair.
"She will not!" he said with a certainty." He frequently complains that she thinks he is only a boy."
Their laughter mingled as his lips found hers and he lifted her up into his arms, smiling into her loving eyes.
"I sometimes wonder," she mused as she lay watching him getting ready for bed, "what would have happened if there had not been that dreadful accident. It's very sad to me that it took such a tragedy to get us together again."
He stood still and looked down at her, his shirt still in his hand, his lean body dark and gleaming in the light of the lamps that had now returned to lighten the room with soft colour, his narrow hips powerful and graceful in the black trousers he had worn for dinner.
She wished she had not voiced such a melancholy thought to spoil their joy and happiness, but Ramon simply watched her for a minute and then moved to the small drawer of the bedside table and felt inside.
"This would have happened," he said quietly, handing her an airline ticket that was very much out of date. She glanced at the date, March, the destination London, and her eyes searched his face in a kind of wonder.
"I was waiting for their return," he said softly, sitting beside her and lifting her into his arms. "I had listened for three years to every word that Inez spoke of you. She was so proud. You were doing well, a success, tackling a difficult and demanding job with a flair she had not recognised you possessed. She was delighted, too, with Mackensie and your—glittering life-style. The London scene for the rising and brilliant Miss Curtis. Nights in beautiful ball-gowns with the giant Senor Mackensie at your side. Every word she spoke made me die a little. It was what I had dreaded, the reason I had let you go free; it was happening and I could not stop myself from listening. I had nothing to offer that would replace it. There were the days in the house, the trips to Caracas, the vast stretches of the plains to hem you into the gloom you had discovered here." He sighed and wiped a tear that had come unbidden to her eyes and trailed slowly down the soft glow of her cheek. "I loved you so very much and I was torn apart. Finally I decided to come and see for myself how you felt, although I had really no hope. I imagined that after nearly seven years you would have forgotten. I imagined that you would be in love with Mackensie. In the event, I never came. The plane bringing them back crashed and I found myself once again chained by duty. I can only thank God that you came to me."
"Ramon! Ramon!" She pressed close to him, raining kisses on his face, frantic tiny caresses that had his lips urgently searching for hers. "I never stopped loving you. I told myself that I'd got over it but I knew that I hadn't."
"Mackensie said you hated me," he accused gently, his arms tightening around her.
"I had to tell myself that," she whispered. "I thought I'd never see you again, never hear your voice, never feel your kisses, and Mother spoke of you too, always in connection with Consuelo. I thought that it was a part of my life that was over and would haunt me for ever."
"You would have married Mackensie?" he asked fiercely, looking down at her.
"No. I would have been a fast-talking, hard-headed salesperson, just as you said so long ago. A bitter one. I would never have recovered from loving you.
"
"I don't want you to recover," he whispered fiercely against her ear, his arms crushing her to him, "because I shall never recover from loving you. It is an illness that we shall live with happily for the rest of our lives."
He moved over her, his love strong and real, and her hands went limp, her body turned to melting flame, her last act to crush the airline ticket and allow it to fall from her languid hand. They would never need to fly to each other.
They would never be apart again. It was a love that had flowered in silence, had grown over the years and changed to a burning passion that distance had only fanned into a brilliant flame. Nothing could separate them now because they knew each other like two halves of the same mould.
"Ramon!" she whispered and felt his lips smile against her skin at the sound of his name on her lips.
"Say that again, my sweet, beautiful love and I shall feel my bones turn to water before I devour your sweetness."
He felt the smile on her lips too as his arms drew her closer.
"Ramon!" she whispered, "I love you." Try as she might she could hear no accent, but he heard and his face lifted to hers, his smile sensuous and tempting.
"My beautiful English rose," he murmured in English, the soft accent turning her heart over, widening her eyes. "You see?" he murmured. "It is a game that two can play. If ever I am away again I shall ring you several times a day and we will converse in English. That way you will take the full brunt of the temptation. You must learn to share the responsibility now that you are grown up." His smiling lips captured hers and no further words were necessary.
The End
The Ortiga Marriage Page 18
