'Don't encourage her, Chrissy. She needs none of your influence.'
She wondered how he could respect a wife he had to treat like a child. 'I shall be leaving soon, so there's no danger of my being a bad influence,' she sparked back, annoyed with him as well as determined to set the record straight so there could be no misunderstandings about her eagerness to get back to work.
'I said we'll discuss that.'
'You said we'd discuss it at lunchtime.' Her eyes opened wide.
'So let's discuss it now if you insist.'
'When can I leave?'
'If you're going to take that attitude you cancel out any chance of a proper discussion,' he came back. 'You've only just arrived and now you want to go away again. Haven't you been quite well looked after so far?'
'That's not the point and you know it. I have work to do. That's why I came here in the first place. Now I've been forcibly stopped from working. It's not good enough.'
'Would you rather I'd left you at the forest house by yourself?'
'I would have been all right with Senhora Suarez and her husband around --' she bit back.
'But they are now on leave.'
'What?'
'They are taking a well-deserved six-week break.'
'Under your instructions?'
'Naturally under my instructions.'
'But why—I thought they were supposed to be running the place? Isn't anyone else taking over?'
'I really can't spare anyone.'
'There must be someone. Everybody doesn't have to wait for you to give them a job, do they?'
'They do when they live on my land.'
'Your land.' She looked down at her plate. 'It can't all be yours.'
'Everything we flew over this morning is most definitely mine. Unfortunately to find the sort of help you would need at the forest house you would have to return to the city and try one of the employment agencies. Even then you might find it difficult to persuade anyone to come out here. Away --' he smiled cruelly, mocking her own words '—from civilisation.' He went on, 'Even if you did manage to find someone I would not permit them to work on my land and in my property.'
'I could live there alone --'
'Really?' He gave a soft laugh with just a hint of menace in it. 'I must say you are a most difficult young woman. It doesn't yet seem to have occurred to you that you have no choice, emphatically no choice but to do as I say.'
'I'd like to go home,' she muttered, furious and not a little scared as the truth of what he was saying began to sink in.
'Home? Tell me about your home. I imagine it's very different from this.'
'Naturally. My mother is an ordinary woman not a medieval monarch --' She bit back the words at once but it was too late. He was laughing softly, laughing at her, as if she were a child like. Juanita.
She lifted her blonde head and gave him a pitying glance. 'Have you any idea how other people live?'
His eyes darkened. 'Are you criticising me for happening to inherit what has been in my family for three hundred years? I didn't ask for power—it was given to me as a responsibility. Are you holding it against me?'
'Would it matter?'
Their glances meshed.
'You two, so serious!' Juanita tapped Rodrigo on the hand, 'What are you talking? I don't understand.'
'You're not alone, caro.' He gave her a brief smile then his glance swivelled to Chrissy again. 'I asked you about your home. I want to know about it.'
'I have a one-bedroomed flat in the university town where I work,' she told him grudgingly.
'And that's your home?' He looked mildly shocked even though he had obviously been expecting something like that from the way she had been attacking him.
'My real home...? I suppose that's where my mother lives, in the village where I was brought up, where my friends are. She lives in a nice house, really. By ordinary standards, that is. A square-built, grey stone country house with roses round the front porch, a garden that tends to run a little wild in summer...and in autumn becomes a haze of gold from the fallen beech leaves...' Her eyes misted.
'You are homesick, Chrissy?'
The softness of the question took her unawares. He had the knack of lowering his voice to a caress when it suited him. She shook herself. 'Yes, a little.'
'You would hate to leave that home for long?'
'I shall probably have to. I go where my work takes me.'
'Here? You would be homesick if you were here?'
'As I'm not likely to be here much longer it's hardly a question I'm losing any sleep over,' she clipped.
'And so now what?' He asked the question that was uppermost in her own mind. But there was a long silence which even Juanita hadn't the temerity to break.
Eventually Chrissy spoke. She said, 'You told me we were going to discuss the next few days. But in almost the same breath you told me I had no choice when I left, or, indeed, where I went to. Then, amazingly, you ask "now what?" Would that I knew, Senhor Montada. Would that I knew.'
Ignoring the irony in her tone, he replied, 'Well, the first thing is, I suggest you forget any further idea of living at the forest house. It would not be good for you to be there alone. Surely you see this?'
When she bit her lip, unwilling to admit the truth of what he said, he went on, 'You can work here if you are intent on fulfilling your obligations to your employer --'
'That's crazy and you know it! How can I work here?' She felt his eyes on her and she added hastily, 'It's beautiful, and I'm sure your hospitality will be impeccable, but don't you see I have to finish off Gavin's study of that particular area—what could I do here?'
'You are very methodical --'
'I'm trained to be.'
He appeared to be deep in thought and she wondered what clever twist he was going to come up with this time—though what his purpose was in practically abducting her and keeping her a prisoner here she couldn't imagine. Juanita was looking bored, a pout on her childlike face getting worse by the minute.
'How long do you need to work in that area, do you think?' he asked at last.
She shrugged. 'Who knows? The intention would be to work there until the money runs out.'
'And if there is no danger of the money running out?'
Again she shrugged. 'This is purely hypothetical, isn't it? It could be another six months to gather all the relevant information. And then a year, longer maybe, to collate it and make sense of it.'
'In only six weeks you were barely scraping the surface?'
'True,' she couldn't help agreeing. 'But it was a beginning. I was simply tying up the loose ends for Gavin's initial survey. Nobody knows at this stage what we might find. It's --' her eyes had brightened and she leaned forward '—it's exciting to know that out there we may find the cures for most of man's diseases. It's a fascinating trail --'
'Tell me.'
She propped her elbows on the table. 'Well, we already know about the curative properties of sassafras, smilax and cinchona and many others, but in recent years cures have been found as a result of discovering previously unknown plants—' She went on to tell him a little more, wondering how much he really knew, and a little surprised when he seemed to be reasonably clued up about her field of research. 'So you see,' she finished, 'it's pretty important to do everything we can, especially as the forest is being destroyed so rapidly these days.'
'I can assure you my forest is in no danger of being destroyed.' He smiled. 'I'll have someone show you over the fruit farms if you're interested.' He went on, 'Have you ever been in a rubber plantation?'
When she shook her head he said, 'Remind me to take you with me. I'm due over there shortly. But now, we still haven't solved this problem.'
'Short of flying me back every day I don't see how we can solve it --'
'Very well. Do that.'
'But --'
'You don't mind helicopters?'
'But the expense? And --'
'I think I can probably take care of that. We
will find you somewhere to write up your field-notes here then perhaps you need only go out on collecting trips one or two times more?'
She nodded, her mind still reeling. 'That might be possible.' It was true she had a lot of notes to make after the work of the last few days. Only when they were completed need she venture back again. But how long was he intending to keep her here? Before she could broach the question again, he said, 'I am not happy at the thought of you climbing about alone in the forest. You will at least take someone with you next time.'
Rapidly revising her opinion of him yet again, but at the same time still wary until she discovered what was behind this apparent eagerness to help, she said, 'I think I know what I'm doing.'
'So did your colleague and look what happened to him.'
'He felt ill the previous evening. Perhaps it was something to do with that.'
He got to his feet. 'I'd better ring the hospital. They should be there by now. Excuse me.'
'Come!' It was Juanita. 'I show you your suite. Is very pretty.' Taking Chrissy by the hand, she led her in the opposite direction to the one Rodrigo was taking. She noticed he went through some doors on the other side of the pool and when he folded them back she could see a desk with a woman sitting at a typewriter inside. What a gorgeous place to work, she thought. Then she realised she was going to be in the same boat for the next few days. 'How extraordinary all this is!' she exclaimed to Juanita. She had to remind herself that she wasn't dreaming.
As Juanita had told her, the suite allocated to her was ravishingly pretty and, despite the inevitable humidity, the air-conditioning kept it cool and fresh. Looking round, Chrissy realised it would be far more pleasant to work here than in the lab. She could easily organise it, for, in addition to a bedroom and bathroom, there was a small sitting-room with a useful table and straight-backed chair and there was even a balcony with a view of the pool.
Leaning on the balustrade, she gazed across to the row of palms she had seen from the helicopter, then to the paddock with the horses and beyond that to the limitless dark green of the jungle...
'Juanita?' She turned but the girl had gone out without a sound. She wondered what the pattern for the rest of the day would be—she hadn't even had time to pick up her notebooks, as the helicopter had touched down and lifted off inside a few minutes.
The house was silent and she wondered if it was the traditional siesta-time that had brought this lull in any activity, or whether it always had this brooding silence hanging over it.
Wanting nothing more than to explore her surroundings, she knew it would be killing in this heat. A splash from the pool made her swivel in time to see a dark head break the crystal surface.
It was Rodrigo. With powerful strokes he covered the length of the pool then turned to swim back. As his head came out of the water he glanced up towards her balcony, then he was ploughing powerfully back towards the house. When he got there he looked up again. 'Chrissy, come on down. You swim, don't you?'
She leaned on the balustrade and looked down at him. His striking looks still caused her heart to bump. 'I'm going to lie down—besides I haven't got a swim-suit.' And it's safer up here, she said to herself. But he hauled himself out of the pool and came to stand beneath her balcony. She. tried not to stare. He was one gorgeous man, with firm, well-developed muscles, and perfectly proportioned, with the final touch of a golden all-over tan.
'I'll get someone to find you a suit to wear. Don't go away.' To her relief he disappeared indoors.
A few moments later a maid stood on the threshold with a selection of swim-suits. 'Please to try?' she said, pushing them into Chrissy's hands.
Unused to being organised in this way, she nearly pushed the suits back, but realising it would look rude she thanked the girl and went back into her room. He was simply too well organised for comfort, but at least she might as well slip into the suits to see what sort of shape she was in. They turned out to be far more glamorous than the sort of suit she would have chosen—or, more truthfully, been able to afford. They were high-sided and cut to flatter, and she had difficulty in making up her mind. Then she picked the black one with just a slash of green across the top of its boned bodice. Even as the most demure of the three it made her feel like a siren with its laced sides and clingy styling.
Wondering if she could still find an excuse not to go down, she had a peep over the balcony, but Rodrigo spotted her at once. 'Any good?' he called.
'Not bad,' she replied.
'Come on, then.'
Wondering if Juanita would be joining them, she made her way self-consciously downstairs with a white towelling robe slung over her shoulders, suddenly shy at the thought of exposing herself to Rodrigo's critical examination.
He was standing on the edge of the pool when she emerged and strode over to her with an interested smile. 'Well? Did you find one to fit?'
Slowly, feeling awkward, she slipped out of the robe. As it slid to the ground he raised his eyebrows. There was a pause while he seemed to discard several responses that apparently sprang to mind, and finally he simply said nothing, only his expression, a mixture of open approval and something like mischief, showing that he wasn't completely impervious to the effect she created.
He waited until she was standing on the edge before coming up behind her and slipping a hand round her waist pulling her in with him. They hit the water together. It was delicious, like cool satin on her skin, and she struck out for the other end straight away. She could see Rodrigo out of the corner of her eyes swimming lazily along beside her.
They swam about for a good half-hour, having little races then swimming off by themselves before coming back again to race and chase each other again. She was surprised how approachable he could be when he wanted to be—gone was that rather forbidding air of authority he sometimes wore, the pride, the arrogance—he was almost boyish, charming and light-hearted. She wondered what it was for and how long it would last, remembering how changeable he could be.
'Where's Juanita?' she asked as they tacitly turned back towards the house.
'Can you imagine a kitten like her getting her swim-suit wet?' He chuckled. 'She's a little animal, she sleeps, she eats and she plays...'
Chrissy felt an invisible hand squeeze her heart. The word play sounded too innocent for the sort-of things she imagined those two would get up to. For a while she had forgotten the existence of any love interest in Rodrigo's life. He was like that, she was beginning to discover. He could make her feel she were the only woman in the world. It was the way he looked at her— the intensity in those cobalt eyes as if she was more than just an unimportant fragment in his obviously busy and complicated life.
She climbed out of the water in a shimmer of sparkling droplets then turned as he climbed out beside her, unable to conceal an involuntary shudder as he put a hand on her shoulder. 'Drink?' he murmured in a voice that was pitched intimately low for such an innocent invitation.
'That would be nice,' she said coolly, moving away.
'It's too hot out here,' he informed her, picking up a dazzling white towel and draping it round his shoulders, 'Let's go somewhere cool.'
Confident there would be servants about, she followed him in bare feet across the cool marble of interconnecting rooms until they came out on the north side of the house where there was a shady trellis-covered patio. It was so pretty with its trailing flowery vines, orchids and a host of other rioting plants that she couldn't help exclaiming with approval.
'I'm surprised you don't see them as just another number on a grid,' he remarked. 'Doesn't being a botanist take away the joy?' He reached out and pulled a pure white orchid from its stem and held it near his nostrils.
'It doesn't spoil it, but I do know that if it's scent you want you should have picked that purple one over there.'
He laughed. 'I chose this because it reminds me of you...' He held it out to her.
She knew she could reject it with a little joke, but she took it from him instead and held
it to her face, knowing she would treasure it long after this moment was forgotten. Its creamy heart seemed to hold the light like a pearl. She looked down into its depths wishing she could hold the moment—forever. It was an unexpected tableau.
Confused by the chaos of emotions it released, she stumbled a little as she made for one of the wicker chairs. Fervently hoping he would have the tact to choose one of those placed at a safer distance, she felt nervous when he sat down beside her, stretching out his long legs and even making her turn a little to avoid the danger of accidental contact. Juanita's existence was firmly at the forefront of her mind.
'Are you not used to being given flowers?' he probed. One of the maids appeared as if by magic with a jug of iced fruit juice topped with leaves of dark mint.
'It usually means something when an Englishman gives flowers. It's not an everyday thing.'
'How unromantic.'
She laughed jerkily. 'Yes, I suppose so. But sincere?'
'So you took that to be an act of insincerity just now?'
'No! I mean—well, yes, in one way...' She glanced at his gold ring as he reached over to hand her a glass.
'I meant it most sincerely.' His blue eyes were like the turquoise pool, catching and refracting light, shot through with silver and shadow.
'What did it mean?' she mocked lightly, safe in the protection that gold band represented.
'It meant I admire the beauty of the flower just as I admire the beauty of the woman—you, I mean.' His glance had fallen to her lips and she felt them trembling under his gaze.
'Very pretty words, thank you,' she managed to say. 'The flower is beautiful.'
'But you are probably thinking, this is the man who the other day told me beauty is only skin deep, so the compliment is worth nothing.' He laughed. 'Am I right?'
'I wasn't thinking that, no,' she countered, tearing her glance away. Her lips were burning as if he had done more than merely look at them with hunger in his eyes.
'Of course, there is more to you than physical beauty. I'm learning that. You are quite intrepid. Honest. Proud. A mixture of common sense and innocence.'
'This is like an inventory,' she remarked, embarrassed at hearing herself analysed in this way.
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