Love In Torment

by Natalie Fox

  ‘It’s arranged,’ Bianca screeched. ‘We are going to be married, Felipe!’

  Gemma thought her heart would stop. She tried to will her legs to move so she could run from this horror but they wouldn’t be fired into life.

  Suddenly Agustªn’s fist slammed down on the table, shuddering the flames of the candles, slurping wine from the crystal glasses.

  ‘Enough!’ he roared, his skin dark burgundy with rage. ‘How dare you do this to me? How dare you?’ He clenched his fists, his eyes not shifting from Felipe’s. ‘You will not marry the English, Felipe, you marry your cousin——’

  ‘And you and your precious schemes can go to hell where you both belong!’ Felipe fired back at him.

  Gemma got to her leaden feet then, her head swimming, her stomach lurching dangerously. She wished instant deafness on herself, not wanting to hear another word of this horrible family row.

  ‘Will you excuse me?’ she said faintly. ‘I don’t want to be a part of this.’

  ‘Gemma,’ Felipe called, but his voice was in the distance, so far away.

  The curving stone stairs were long and tortuous and Gemma thought she would never get to the top of them. She heard someone else call her but didn’t heed the cry. Dizzily she flung open her bedroom door and just reached the bathroom in time.

  Grasping the edge of the sink, she was violently sick. She felt arms supporting her. Maria. Gemma clung to her, so glad she was there and no one else.

  ‘You all right now?’ Maria asked anxiously.

  Gemma nodded weakly, tears streaming from her eyes. ‘Did you hear, Maria? That terrible row.’

  ‘Si, I hear, I hear all, Gemma. The family have the worst rows and that Bianca, she trouble. She make it bad between father and son——’

  Red fire flashed before Gemma’s eyes. Her grip tightened on Maria’s arms.

  ‘Wh…what did you say?’ Please, God, don’t let it be true! ‘Father and son?’ Gemma croaked disbelievingly.

  Maria patted her arm. ‘Si, it’s natural for the father and son to fight…’

  The fire engulfed her, reduced her to ashes in a fiery instant. Gemma crumbled to a heap on the bathroom floor.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THERE was pain, a deep physical pain, low down in her stomach. Gemma’s head swam sickeningly and she was so hot, on fire from her throbbing head to her burning toes.

  She felt cool water on her forehead. Slowly she opened her eyes. The fan spun slowly, persistently over the bed. Maria came into focus, hovering over her with a damp face cloth.

  ‘You sick, Gemma. I get Felipe.’

  ‘No!’ Gemma cried, grasping the sleeve of Maria’s black blouse. ‘No, I don’t want to see anyone, not yet, not ever!’

  Maria looked frightened. ‘I should tell Se?or de Navas. You faint and you have sickness. You have the pain?’

  Gemma nodded, rubbing her stomach, and then she knew what had caused it.

  ‘I shouldn’t have eaten the chipi, the clams. I don’t really like them and seafood doesn’t agree with me.’

  ‘Dios mªo! Is my cooking make you bad?’

  ‘No, Maria, it isn’t your cooking, it’s me. I’m all right now.’

  She sat on the edge of the bed and held her forehead in her hands. She wasn’t all right; far from it, the pain in her stomach might be receding but not in her heart. She was trembling from head to toe with shock but she had to pull herself together, she had to!

  ‘I have some powders I make for you but first I get you into bed.’

  ‘Honestly, Maria, I’m much better now. Being sick helped. I just want to sit here and get myself together.’ Oh, please go, Gemma inwardly implored. She wanted to be alone, completely alone, for ever!

  ‘I still get the powders,’ Maria told her, going to the door.

  ‘Maria, I don’t want to see anyone,’ she reminded her as she got to the door. She needed time to think, to plan a way out of this awful mess.

  ‘Is too late,’ Maria smiled from the doorway, thinking that Felipe was the exception. ‘Gemma is sick,’ she told him. ‘She sick, she faint. I go for the powders.’

  Felipe came towards her, his face grey with worry.

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about…’ Gemma croaked, the anguish in her eyes defying him to touch her.

  ‘There is, you look as white as a sheet…’

  ‘I’ve been sick. I shouldn’t have eaten the clams-they don’t agree with me.’ The words came out in a feverish rush and she looked away, not able to look into his eyes. This was too soon, this confrontation. She didn’t want him here, showing concern, breathing the same air as her.

  He leaned down to place a hand on her shoulder and his touch was like a branding iron on her senses. She moved away, quickly, jerkily, standing up and going to the window to put distance between them. Oh, God, he mustn’t touch her, not ever again…

  ‘But you fainted,’ he persisted.

  She jerked her head towards him. ‘Was it any wonder?’ she cried. ‘How dare you do that to me, use me in your war games with Agustªn…?’ He must never know the truth, why she had passed out. The shock had been too much for her already tormented mind to cope with. It would never pass, this sickness and disgust inside her: she had made love to her own—’I’m sorry,’ Felipe said softly as if he’d just realised what was wrong with her, ‘sorry you got caught up in our family row.’

  ‘You think an apology will make it all right? You’re sick, Felipe, and I hate you for what you’ve done. What vicious, wicked games you play! Torment me, torment Bianca…is there no let-up from you?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but blazed on. ‘Everything you have wished for has come true. You have punished me more than enough but you can’t stop. You bring Bianca here to push me over the edge.’ She had to do this, throw everything at him. It was the only way to be rid of this terrible feeling inside her.

  ‘Agustªn brought Bianca here.’

  ‘You told me yourself she was coming next week. She was part of the plan to torment me. This week, next week, what difference?’

  ‘A world of difference,’ he told her darkly.

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ God, why was she bothering to ask? She didn’t want to know, didn’t care any more what his motives were. Nothing in her life, past or present or future, mattered any more.

  ‘In your present state of hysteria I doubt you would understand.’

  ‘I only understand one thing, Felipe: your bitterness, Agustªn’s bitterness, Bianca’s bitterness. You are all tarred the same. I’m the pawn in your devious games, to be used and then cast aside. Great, that suits me fine. I want out of here anyway!’ She had to go! it was imperative that she leave this very minute.

  He came towards her then and Gemma swayed as if someone had upended the room. He stood so close to her his breath was warm on her face. ‘After last night, you want out of here?’ he drawled coldly.

  Nausea rose inside Gemma. A flush careered across her cheeks. Last night! How could she bear to think of it? She turned away to gaze dizzily out into the black night but Felipe took her chin and jerked her head to face him. ‘We made love last night and it had nothing to do with revenge. I meant what I said downstairs. You are my life——’

  ‘But you’re not mine!’ Gemma spat out, so sharply she fired instant anger to his eyes. His hand fell away from her chin. ‘You said you wanted to marry me,’ she went on, ‘and don’t you think I know what spurred that insane proposal? You hate your father and you used me to stab at him…’

  She stopped as pain tore at her heart. If only she had known the truth, that Felipe was the son of Agustªn, none of this would have happened. Their affair in London would have happened, nothing could have prevented that, it was destined, but if he had left things alone and not arranged this commission to get her here she would never have known!

  ‘Why, Felipe!’ she screamed in anguish. ‘Why didn’t you tell me Agustªn was your father?’

  His eyes glittered darkly and Gemm
a waited for his answer, but knowing that it made no difference. How could it? But she just wanted to lay the blame anywhere but on her own shoulders. It was his fault, all his damned fault!

  ‘It was no concern in our life,’ he told her.

  She shut her eyes in pained sufference. No concern in our life. Oh, God, from now on she had no life.

  ‘Get out, Felipe,’ she said through her teeth. ‘Get out of my bedroom. I never want to see you again.’

  ‘But you’re going to, querida, because we want each other and nothing in this world is going to change that!’ he grated, and then he did what she prayed he wouldn’t. He gripped her forcibly by her arms and lowered his lips to hers. Shame fired her strength, shame and rage and disgust. She tore herself from his arms, bruising her arms as he tried to hold on to her.

  ‘Go back to Bianca where you belong,’ she spat. ‘I told you that making love to me would make no difference. You had my body last night but not my heart…’

  He went still as if he’d been punched so hard that it had knocked the living breath from him. ‘You bitch!’ he rasped at last, living anger flooding back into his bones and darkening his skin. ‘You cold, hard bitch!’

  He turned and left her then, slamming the door hard behind him.

  Gemma stared at the back of the door. Nervous perspiration poured from her brow and with trembling fingers she wiped the moisture from her face and gazed down at it as if expecting to see her life blood on her fingertips. Slowly she lowered herself into a chair by the window and clutched at her bruised arms and rocked herself to and fro. She stayed that way far into the hot night.

  ‘You still sick, Gemma?’ Maria asked the next morning, putting a tray down on the sideboard and sweeping the lace drapes back from the window. ‘Felipe he say not to bring you the powders last night, said to leave you to sleep.’

  Gemma lay like a corpse in her bed. She’d hardly slept, only a little at dawn. She was exhausted with thinking. She had to leave and this morning if possible.

  ‘Drink this, Gemma,’ Maria softly ordered.

  Gemma struggled up on to her pillows and feebly took the glass of dissolved powders from Maria. She wished it were strychnine; that was the only answer to this awful mess. She swallowed the draught and her head started to clear almost immediately.

  ‘Se?or de Navas, he want you at ten…’

  ‘Felipe?’ Gemma croaked, looking up at Maria in disbelief. After last night she would have thought he never wanted to see her again.

  ‘No Felipe—Agustªn. In his study at ten.’

  ‘It’s nearly that now!’

  ‘Si, you hurry, he no like you late.’

  ‘I won’t be,’ Gemma said resolutely, leaping out of bed. So Agustªn wanted to see her, did he? To dismiss her from the Villa Verde? Nothing would give her greater pleasure but to accept that dismissal with open arms.

  She dressed quickly in a cotton sundress after raking a comb through her hair, smoothing it down with her palms before flying out of her bedroom. If there were any justice in this world Mike would be revving the engines of the plane at this very moment. She ran downstairs, knocked on the study door and walked straight in without waiting for an answer.

  He looked no less severe this morning though he was dressed casually enough in light grey trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt. He was seated at his desk and he leaned back in his chair as she walked into the room.

  It all hit her then, last night, him and Felipe arguing, Bianca sticking her vicious oar in, Maria’s revelations. She felt incredibly sick and shaken and must have looked it because Agustªn urged her to sit down. She nearly fell into the chair in front of his desk.

  ‘Maria tells me you ate food that didn’t agree with you. Rather a silly thing to do, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Perfectly idiotic,’ Gemma agreed, her strength and bite rallying.

  ‘I apologise for our behaviour last night. It was unspeakably rude of us and you are a guest in our home.’

  Gemma shook her head, a curtain of jet silk caressing her cheek. ‘I’m not a guest in your home, señor…’

  ‘Please call me Agustªn.’

  She nodded and went on. ‘I came here to do a job and I’m sorry that it didn’t work out.’

  Apparently he didn’t hear her because his next statement came without preamble. ‘You had an affair with my son in London. I’d like to hear about it.’

  She was surprised; her eyes widened. ‘I don’t think it has anything to do with you,’ she answered quickly. She didn’t want to talk about it, to even think about it any more.

  He raised a brow. ‘Don’t you? You have badly interfered with the plans I had for my son, I think that has everything to do with me.’

  ‘But nothing to do with me,’ Gemma told him resolutely. She didn’t need this, to be cross-examined as if she were a criminal. She had done nothing wrong, not knowingly anyway. ‘You have nothing to fear from me. I’m not going to marry your son. I plan to leave as soon as possible.’

  He awarded her a cynical smile for her intention. ‘You were summoned here to paint my portrait and that is precisely what you will do.’

  Gemma’s mouth parted in shock. No, not this, not strong-arm tactics from him, she’d had enough of that from Felipe.

  ‘You don’t understand——’

  ‘You were commissioned to paint my portrait and you will.’

  ‘I wish to withdraw from the contract,’ she told him defiantly. She couldn’t stay. If she lost a lifetime of commissions over this she would do it to be free. ‘You don’t want it done and I don’t want to do it——’

  ‘Because I refuse to allow you to marry my son?’ ‘I think Felipe is old enough to make his own decisions, but that isn’t the point. I don’t want to marry him, with or without your permission.’ Of course he couldn’t know how sickeningly impossible it was anyway. Sickeningly impossible, that was the sum of it all.

  He stood up, tall and proud, and slowly came round the side of the desk to be closer to her. He perched on the edge of the desk. ‘That’s twice you’ve denied wanting to marry him. That surprises me. Most women would give their soul to the devil to be married to my son. Do you love him?’

  The question was so unexpected that Gemma nearly choked. Quickly she composed herself and forced an answer, a very inadequate one she thought but it was the best she could do.

  ‘That is my business.’

  ‘You are in love with him.’

  She couldn’t stand any more of this. If she didn’t need his permission for Mike to fly her out of here she would storm from the room. ‘I find your questions impertinent,’ she told him, unable to mask the hurt in her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’ He said it so softly that Gemma’s heart jerked. Softness was a characteristic she hadn’t expected from him, hadn’t thought it was one he was capable of.

  ‘You…you don’t offend me. I…I understand your curiosity.’

  ‘Yes, I am curious,’ he murmured. ‘You interest me.’

  Gemma’s nerves were suddenly on red alert. She didn’t want him probing into her life. It would be so easy to let something slip, some little thing that would connect her to her mother. She went for diversionary tactics. ‘You interest me too.’ He looked surprised at that. ‘Why do you feel it your duty to arrange your son’s marriage?’

  His eyes narrowed warningly. ‘I now find your questions impertinent, but perhaps I owe you some sort of explanation. You must have heard the expression “stick to your own kind”. I want Felipe to marry one of his own kind.’

  ‘Why?’ Gemma asked bluntly.

  ‘Because it is as it should be. You are of a different culture and do not know our ways. Felipe will be safer with a wife of his own culture.’

  Gemma couldn’t agree more. Culture as in experimentally grown bacteria! ‘An arranged marriage? I thought that went out with the Charleston. Was your marriage arranged?’ She was posing this daring question for her mother, she realised. Perhap
s trying to salvage some sort of human understanding out of this twisted mess.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ he admitted.

  ‘And…and you were lucky enough to love her?’ Why was she doing this? Her mother had loved this man, still did; why was she searching for something from him that might hurt her?

  ‘Love isn’t necessary to make a good marriage; it can come later,’ he told her brittly.

  But it didn’t for you, Gemma wanted to say. She could tell by his tone that it hadn’t worked for him. She watched him as he walked away from her to sit at his desk again and she saw bitterness in his face and wondered at it.

  ‘If you feel well enough I’d like you to start today.’ ‘The…the portrait,’ Gemma husked unbelievably. ‘But I…I don’t want to do it. I mean…it’s impossible now.’

  ‘Nothing is impossible. Difficult, perhaps, but never impossible.’

  ‘But it isn’t fair, not fair to me after what has happened,’ Gemma protested hotly. ‘You can’t expect me to stay on here after last night.’ Especially after last night and what I learnt, she wanted to cry. But how impossible to be able to tell anyone. What a terrible secret she was burdened with for the rest of her days.

  His eyes narrowed again. ‘I will have a word with Bianca. She won’t trouble you, if that is what you are afraid of. As for you and Felipe, the problem is yours. You started it and you will have to sort it out as best you can. Be back here at two this afternoon to start the portrait. Now if you’ll excuse me I have work to do.’

  Gemma stood up, quite prepared to argue her case, but with an upward, dismissive glance at her he lifted the phone. Gemma turned on her heel and stormed from the room.

  This was impossible. First Felipe had scuttled her plans to leave, now Agustªn. She raked a frustrated hand through her hair and wandered outside. She wouldn’t stay. She was damned adamant about that.

  She found Felipe in the orchid garden. ‘I’d like you to have a word with your father,’ she started when he turned to look at her. He was re-potting a delicate sapphire-blue orchid that had split out of its pot, his strong tanned hands a sharp contrast to the pale exotic blooms he handled so tenderly. His hands, so gentle at times, so tantalising, so exciting…She bit hard on her bottom lip to stop the rush of blood to her head.