She picked up her shawl and bag and joined the queue of guests at the front door waiting to say goodbye to their hosts. As Luna came up to Count Salvador de Rueda she held out her hand. He took it, and carried it to his lips in a chivalrous kiss. His steel-grey eyes fixed on her.
‘We did not see you for the prize-giving, señorita. Que lástima, what a pity, I would have liked to make your acquaintance before you left,’ he said in English. ‘I hope we will be able to make up for this contretemps some other time. Buenas noches.’
A pink hue rushed to Luna’s cheeks. ‘Gracias por su amable hospitalidad, señor, thank you for your kind hospitality, señor,’ she whispered in Spanish, meeting the old man’s perceptive gaze.
She should have known those alert, metallic eyes would not have missed a thing.
Chapter 7
Some time later, in the early hours of the morning, the lights were still on in a small house at the top of a hill on the edge of Cádiz, which looked across the isthmus to the slumbering city. From the outside of the hacienda could be heard the sounds of sleepy cicadas mingling with the random notes of a lone mandolin.
Ruy stretched out in a hammock on the terrace of El Viento, staring up at the stars. A guitar lay abandoned on a chair a few feet away, next to some sheets of music. With a half-empty glass of brandy on the floor beside him and his mandolin resting on his chest, his fingers picked idly at the strings, occasionally stopping to strum a chord quietly. He loved the view of Cádiz at night, its ancient towers illuminating the city like a mysterious, beckoning lodestar, but tonight the city seemed to glitter forlornly: a remote jewel, out of reach against the inky sky. Over the past hour, he had been replaying the evening in his head; the same evening that he had looked forward to all day, sending every part of him stirring in anticipation, but which had turned into a fiasco. In a few hours it would be dawn but, for now, the heart of night still felt vast and solemn above.
When he returned to the ball, Luna had already left, ‘alone in a taxi because you weren’t anywhere to be found,’ his grandfather had told him reproachfully. Ruy had stayed long enough to placate his family – and evade their questions about Luna – before heading for his car. If the circumstances had been otherwise, he would have gladly stayed and had a drink with them all, but this wasn’t the way he’d envisaged the evening would end. Luna was meant to be with him and he would have taken great pleasure in presenting her to his family properly. Instead, she was gone and who could blame her? So he’d made his excuses and left.
The drive back to Cádiz had seemed long. He’d almost been tempted to head straight for La Gaviota to speak to Luna but knew that would have been a foolish mistake. Instead, his mind had picked over what had happened, trying to make sense of everything.
He was a logical man and Luna’s attitude towards him was puzzling. She still evaded him, despite this silent hurricane of electricity between them. The edges of his self-control had been fraying dangerously thin ever since he met her, and tonight her stubborn denial of her feelings and attempts to cast him as the persistent womanizer had made him snap.
Now, watching a cloud drift across the doleful moon above, Ruy groaned inwardly, remembering his harsh words to Luna in the garden, brought on by physical and mental frustration. His hunger for her had been so strong that the lust-crazed beast within him had been exposed again and, as he had pushed her up against the wall of the summerhouse, it was all he could do not to rip that wisp of a dress from her body and give in to his primitive urges.
What was happening to him? He had never lost control, nor had he ever pursued a woman who hadn’t been putty in his hands; he hadn’t needed to: women chased him!
Ruy clenched his fist, the muscles of his forearm flexing with tension, and brought his fingers down harshly across the strings of the mandolin in a discordant sound.
Damn it, he must get a grip on himself.
He frowned. No, Luna was not a tease, Ruy knew that perfectly well – so why? Why did she persistently reject him? Why, when she obviously wanted the same thing as he did? What was it that scared her? There was a fixed look in her calm, quiet eyes that always made him wonder what was going through her head and a hint of some hidden fear, which inspired an urge from deep within him to protect her; but protect her from what he did not know.
Are you like this with all men, Luna – or is it just me? The thought made him slip further into pensiveness. He leaned over and picked up his glass, taking a gulp of brandy, enjoying the hit of fiery sensation in his throat.
An image of Luna drifted into his mind once more. When she had opened the door to him at La Gaviota, the sensual impact had hit him like a freight train. Had she been naked under those diaphanous shrouds of material? It certainly looked like it. The dress dipped low at the front and his eyes had lingered a little too long on the white snow of her delicate neck, her alluringly curved shoulders and the shadowy cleft between the soft swell of her breasts. The sight of her pearly complexion, her slender and elegant limbs that moved so gracefully, the brilliant mane of silk-like blonde hair, was almost more than he could handle. He was captive; a prisoner of the Queen of the Night, so ravishingly beautiful that whoever set eyes on her would not be able to turn away. How he had longed to touch her …
Desire, pure desire: this was why he couldn’t think straight about her.
Not that Ruy was a stranger to desire where women were concerned. Women had always been drawn to him even when he wasn’t interested. In his youth, his adolescent libido had found its release in the usual ways – though never with gitanas from the gypsy camp, who were far more provocative with their flashing smiles and earthy sexuality than busno girls. His father, as well as Chico, had schooled him in the unforgiving nature of gypsy law and so he was careful to channel his urges in other directions. When he was older, Ruy found that he didn’t even have to try – women responded to him with very little encouragement and a few charming words. The more sophisticated and worldly they were, the more he enjoyed the chase. Yet, that heady rush of excitement had become increasingly hard to recapture as time went on.
Now Ruy’s senses were under siege, like a banquet being presented to a starving man. Hot, forceful desire unlike anything he’d ever known, even in his panting adolescence, coursed like wildfire through his veins for one woman only.
Luna.
The irony was that now she must be thinking he’d run off into the woods after one of his many conquests, when the situation was anything but. He gave a groan of frustration. Why couldn’t everything be simpler?
Ruy almost feared the power Luna had over him.
It was probably why he had not seen the obvious before. Why it was that she had rejected him when the look in her eyes reflected his own desperate longing. He had worked with patients before who had suffered trauma, and he cursed his own blindness with Luna. The reality was that he was much too overcome with his feelings for her to think straight. It was if his natural intuition had been skewed.
He strummed his mandolin gently while he turned the thoughts over in his mind. Yes, it all figured. She must have been scared somehow by a past experience and he’d been too blinded by his own hunger for her to register the reason. His jaw clenched, berating himself for his own insensitivity towards her at the summerhouse. He’d always known she was too direct and forthright to lead a man on yet, in the heat of the moment, when he was desperate to feel her body under his hands and her lips on his, he’d grasped at the ridiculous notion, used it to taunt her.
Was she still a virgin? Somehow Ruy thought so. The idea gave his masculine pride a guilty surge of satisfaction, to think that she hadn’t been touched by another man; and yet the idea that another man might have been the reason for her vulnerability made that same male instinct in Ruy rise up fiercely in anger.
She was a beautiful sophisticated enigma who kept men at arms’ length because someone had hurt her and, most probably, they’d had neither the intelligence nor the finesse to deal with someone like Luna, or
to see through the elaborate barricades she’d built up as a defence.
Still, it was a force beyond desire that overwhelmed him. It was Luna herself.
He wanted her, and Luna wanted him. Ruy had been aware of her longing as they danced, knowing that he himself was feeling the same electrifying sensation when he took her soft palm in his. She had quivered under his touch like the strings of a Stradivarius under the bow of a virtuoso, echoing the notes of his desire. Her body had moved with his, alive and receptive, her long shapely legs against his hardening thighs, in a way that nearly drove him insane. The chemistry between them was like a primitive impulse, which their bodies, moulded against each other, were unable to fight. He had pretended not to notice or understand, but he knew all along that she had been fantasizing about him silently as he held her. Just as he was doing with her, imagining that glorious body naked against him as heat built intensely in his groin and spread wildly through the length of him. If he had not been so conscious of the people around him, his self-control would have snapped there and then. Just thinking about it now aroused him, and he pushed an unsteady hand through his hair.
Though Luna’s rejection of him was galling, it was more the intensity of his desire for her that exasperated him. This woman had the ethereal looks that were as fresh and innocent as a spray of white jasmine, and a sensuality that haunted his every waking hour and assaulted his nights, rousing him repeatedly from his dreams panting, tortured by an aching need. This attraction was not just prompted by lust – though he longed to possess her as he had never longed for anything else before – but it was as if invisible external influences beyond his control were at work.
Were those invisible forces pushing Luna away from him tonight, just to test his resolve?
His thoughts turned to Sabrina. The young gypsy girl was hopelessly in love with him and yet his feelings for her had never been anything but those of a brother for a younger sister. On her deathbed, her mother, Leyla – or ‘La Pharaona’ as they called her in the neighbourhood – had entrusted her daughter to him. ‘She’s not one of the Calés of Cádiz, she’s alone in the world. One day, like all good gypsies, she will fly by her own wings but, until then, guard her with your heart, Ruy. Remember the old saying: “God waits to win back his own flowers as gifts from man’s hands.”’
Ruy scowled, as dark phantoms from the past loomed closer in his mind’s eye. La Pharaona had saved him. Her care and remedies had kept him sane when all he’d wanted was to shut the world away and let his own darkness consume him. The memories crowded in again, but he shook them aside. Yes, he owed La Pharaona big time, and the day had come when he must deliver.
Still, why did Sabrina have to appear at the ball and ruin the slim chance he had of gaining Luna’s trust? Already their fragile relationship had been fractured by his outburst at the summerhouse. Running after Sabrina, as he had done, may well have given the kiss of death to any chance of his making amends to Luna.
Now she would put up more resistance than ever, but he knew that he’d already breached the defensive walls of her emotions and, if he handled her carefully but let her know in no uncertain terms how he felt, he might still have a chance of redeeming himself. It would mean giving her space, though, and for him that would be the hardest challenge of all. His need to be close to her was strong, compulsive and so visceral it made his blood pound and his body ache.
Ruy sighed in frustration and lifted himself up. Gitano-Negro jumped off the balustrade where he had been dozing and rubbed against Ruy’s leg. He meowed twice and followed his master into the spacious living room. Ruy squatted down and scratched him under the chin, making the cat purr throatily. ‘What d’you think, Gitano-Negro, ey? Should I go after her or just drop the whole idea?’ Gitano-Negro gazed at him for a moment with knowing golden eyes before closing them to slits as his master stroked him gently behind the ears. ‘You’re right, no choice there. One thing’s for sure: I have to find a way to apologize. I’ve got to somehow try to act professionally in the office too.’ Ruy straightened and breathed out heavily. ‘The devil’s been in my body all evening and, if I don’t calm down, there’ll be no rest for me tonight,’ he muttered as he pulled his T-shirt off restlessly and headed for the bathroom.
* * *
She had to get away; she must get away before he caught her again and ripped her nightdress off. Though she was running as fast as she could, her legs were heavy, so heavy, as if weighed down by lead. She thought she had been in bed but now she was in a wood, stumbling through rough brambles, trying to find the path out of the dense trees that leaned towards her with gnarled, twisting branches. Up ahead was some kind of light, glowing between the trees, and somehow she knew it was her salvation. She mustn’t stumble before she reached it. If she tripped and fell, then he would be upon her. Branches scratched her face and arms as she tried to push towards that distant luminescence. She could hear his ragged breathing right behind her. He was getting closer … closer. Any moment now he would catch up with her. If only she could move faster … If only she were not so afraid …
He seized her nightdress, and the scream died in Luna’s throat as she woke up choking; panting and gasping for air. Sick terror and a sense of helplessness invaded her, the very distinct memory of the nightmare hitting her again, leaving her with a panicked sense of impending doom.
The bedroom was bathed in moonlight, its pearly beams throwing monstrous shadows on the white walls. At first Luna did not know where she was. Wide-eyed, she stared blankly at the chandelier hanging from the beamed ceiling, trying to make out her surroundings. Was anyone lurking in the dark corners? Intense fear continued to envelop her as, still numb with sleep, her brain staggered to wakefulness, searching for landmarks that would indicate she was safe, miles away from the trauma that, like an insidious disease, had changed her life over ten years ago and marked her personality.
Trembling, Luna sat up on the edge of the bed, her face ashen, eyes glassy with fear; hideous flashbacks and images leaving her feeling bruised and soiled. A long shiver traversed her from head to toe. Her skin was icy and damp, and she was trembling fiercely. She was cold … so cold. Now she closed her eyes and hugged herself, rocking to and fro. Minutes passed. Fully awake now, she realized that she had just emerged from another of her nightmares – the worst she’d ever had. She reflected desperately that even the earliest ones had not been so terrorizing.
The shivering had almost stopped. For a while she sat there staring at nothing then, putting out a hesitant hand, she felt for her bedside lamp and flicked the switch, but turned it off immediately with a wince of pain: the glare hurt her eyes. The fear had almost subsided, leaving her with a violent headache and a parched mouth. She slid out of bed with a groan and made her way unsteadily to the bathroom. Filling a glass from the tap, she drank it in one go, then stepped into the shower and spent a good twenty minutes letting the warm water wash away the anxiety and stress that had invaded her.
Why were these memories beginning to surface? Luna hadn’t ever remembered being in a wood before. These terrifying nightmares always followed the same formula and took place inside a room, usually her bedroom. She wondered what this sudden change meant. Since she’d arrived in Spain, the order and control she’d always taken care to maintain in her life had been in utter turmoil; it was perhaps inevitable that all this would find its way into her subconscious.
Luna slipped into a clean nightdress and tried to throw off the uncomfortable conclusion that it had something to do with Ruy. The emotions she was afraid to feel for him tormented her enough in her waking hours, and now they were confusing her dreams.
Morena’s words floated back into her head: Someone close to you is dangerous, and you keep running, but run towards the dazzling light.
Was Ruy something to do with the light – or the danger?
He had often appeared in her other dreams – dreams that were intense but achingly sensual and passionate. The only fear she ever felt was when she woke and b
egan to analyze them. It was then that the initial fantasies about being with him were brushed aside, and the endless scrutiny of the risks to her heart would start, with her habitual logic and cautious instinct for selfpreservation holding sway.
After what had happened tonight, Luna was inclined to think that she should have listened to her logic all along.
Back in bed, she tossed and turned but couldn’t get back to sleep. No matter how she tried to put him from her mind, her thoughts returned inevitably to the ball and to Ruy, remembering the way they had danced and the warmth of his body radiating through the thin material of his silk shirt. It had felt good, so good! She had never experienced anything so sensuously powerful: hard, masculine, virile muscle that had pressed against her, moulding itself to her own softer, feminine curves. Then there was that long, stormy kiss that had almost made her lose her mind – she could feel the need blossoming inside her at this very moment, just at the thought.
Luna sighed. Why was she remembering this now? It had all been thrown away in an instant, she thought unhappily, as she recalled the dazzling young siren with flaming red hair who had appeared out of nowhere – Sabrina, Ruy had called her. Yes, she’d been a siren all right; she had sung a tune only for his ears and, like those sailors in ancient legends, fascinated, he had gone to her without a second glance at Luna.
Ruy had run out on her. He had dumped her there, and then embarrassed her.
If this was his way of punishing her for rejecting him it was just as well that she had acted as she did at the summerhouse. Still, that was no reason for him to abandon her in the middle of the ball. After all, she was his guest. How did he think she would get back to Cádiz? What if there had been no cars left to take her?
Luna’s mind raced on through all the other ‘maybes’ whipped up by her paranoia and discomfiture, not once considering that Ruy might have appeared soon afterwards, looking for her. Instead she told herself that she had been lucky to get a taxi, and that his family had been discreet enough not to ask why she was returning home alone. Still, that did not make it any less crushing for her.
Legacy Page 20
