'You have received a bad blow on your head, Senorita Gilmour,' he said in his stiff, precise English. 'And you have been exposed to the sun for possibly longer than is wise for one unused to our climate. You are, I think, suffering from a delusion.'
'I knew no one would believe me,' Holly said resignedly. She felt suddenly very tired and tearful again and not a bit like being questioned. 'That's why I didn't want to tell you.'
'But, Holly dear, you must be mistaken,' Aunt Nan argued, and Holly flushed.
'Why should I have to be mistaken in the case of Helena but not in the case of Marcos?' she demanded. 'You were ready enough to believe it was him only a moment ago!'
The doctor and her aunt exchanged uneasy looks, unable to deny the truth of that at least, then Aunt Nan looked at Holly again and a small frown drew at her brows. 'Darling,' she said gently, taking her hands again, 'Helena's been here for some time, and she said nothing about seeing you along the road - you must be wrong, baby.'
'I'm not wrong, Aunt Nan,' Holly said wearily, her eyelids drooping, eyes suspiciously bright. 'But I didn't expect you to believe me, as I said.'
Again looks were exchanged, and Holly realized that her aunt at least was beginning to have some doubts about Helena's innocence in the matter. The doctor, however, remained to be convinced. 'I think you are mistaken, senorita,' he insisted quietly. 'It is an easy enough mistake to make in the circumstances, but as Senora Delgaro has told you, Senorita Mendez has been here for some time and she has said nothing of seeing you.'
'I know the car,' Holly told him flatly, 'and I know Senorita Mendez, well enough. They both came close enough for there to be no doubt in my mind.' She saw the looks of doubt on the two faces still and wished she could feel more like arguing with them, making them see she was right. But already the tears were gathering in her eyes and she put a hand to her aching head. 'Anyway,' she said tearfully, 'it doesn't matter - I shall be gone tomorrow.'
Doctor Valdare shook his head, his cool dry fingers on her hot forehead. 'I think not, Senorita Gilmour,' he said firmly. 'First you must have your leg put into plaster and then you will have to rest. You will not be able to travel for some time yet. I am sorry.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
Holly looked at her aunt anxiously. She could guess how much disturbance her accident had caused in the household, but she did not yet know whether anyone had said anything to Helena about her part in it. It was the evening of the day following the accident and Holly still felt shaky and rather stunned.
She felt as if every bone in her body had been broken, instead of just her left leg, and she was still horribly prone to be tearful at the slightest cause, a state of affairs that she found very frustrating when she was so anxious to be cool and calm. She felt dismayingly close to tears now as she looked at her aunt.
'Oh, Aunt Nan, how can I stay on?' she asked in a husky and not very steady voice. 'You know how anxious I was to get away.' She looked again at her aunt's kindly, placid face and wondered if she was yet ready to accept that Helena had been responsible. 'And especially now,' she added.
Aunt Nan apparently chose, for the moment, not to be drawn, for she merely placed a gentle hand over Holly's and smiled. Her nurse's smile, Holly always, called it, and recognized its professionalism, to calm and console the patient.
'I'm afraid you haven't much choice but to stay on, dear,' her aunt told her. Tor the moment you're out of action, baby, and you just have to realize it. Anyway, you know that Jose and I don't mind how long you stay, although we'd rather it had been in happier circumstances, of course.'
'I know,' Holly said, and smiled ruefully. 'But my flight, Aunt Nan. I—'
'I cancelled it, of course, dear.'
'Oh! Oh, I see.' Somehow cancelling sounded so much more definite than postponement, and Holly pondered on how prolonged her stay was likely to be.
'I had to, naturally,' her aunt told her, and pulled a wry face, her eyes speculative as she looked at Holly. Unfortunately, dear, while I was calling the travel office about it, Marcos heard me. He's very cross to think he'd been left in the dark about your leaving, I'm afraid.'
Holly looked round-eyed, realizing how her well- laid plans had gone awry, and she could well imagine that Marcos would take his exclusion from them with bad grace. 'Oh dear!' she said. 'I'd forgotten that Marcos didn't even know about my leaving.' She looked at her aunt anxiously. 'Did he say anything?' she asked.
Aunt Nan nodded. 'Quite a bit,' she said. 'But he said most of it in rapid Spanish and under his breath, which was probably as well. However, I think he'll want to know why he wasn't told when he sees you next. You know Marcos!'
Then please don't let him see me,' Holly begged. She sighed deeply and leaned back against the supporting pillows. She looked pale and rather fragile in a white lawn nightdress that had tiny puff sleeves and a wide scoop neckline. Her eyes were dark-ringed and looked much too big for her face, giving her a soulful look. 'He was so nice yesterday when I was hurt,' she said wistfully. 'I knew it was too good to last!'
She felt a little better today than she had yesterday, but she was still in pain and dismayingly shaky, so that she was not really sorry to be confined to bed in comfortable ease in this cool airy room. Her head still ached and her broken leg throbbed dully, but here she could rest and not have to bother about anyone.
Aunt Nan sat on a chair beside her bed, and from the look on her face suddenly, Holly suspected what subject she was about to raise. 'Holly dear,' Aunt Nan said, slowly and as if she was not at all sure that she was saying the right thing, 'I know it's a difficult subject and perhaps—' A shrug resigned her to the inevitable. 'Have you thought any more, darling, about who caused your accident?'
For a moment Holly said nothing, but her fingers pleated the coverlet on the bed with deliberate care. 'I don't have to think about it, Aunt Nan,' she said quietly. 'I know who it was.'
'Oh, Holly!' It was almost an appeal to change her mind, and Holly set her soft mouth stubbornly, refusing to allow herself to be persuaded, no matter how politic it might be considered 'Please think about it, dear, for all our sakes,' her aunt urged. 'I know how you dislike Helena, and she has been dreadfully - bitchy to you at times, but you must be mistaken about it being her car.'
'I'm not,' Holly insisted. 'And no amount of persuasion will make me change my mind, Aunt Nan.' She remembered another prospect for a moment. 'Does Marcos know?' she asked, and Aunt Nan gave one of her expressive Latin shrugs.
'I don't know, dear,' she said. 'But he will before very long, I expect. Doctor Valdare told Jose, I know, and I think Jose is deliberating before he decides whether or not to say anything to Marcos.'
'Because he thinks I'm lying too,' Holly guessed bitterly. 'And it's certain whose side Marcos will take, if he's told!' She wished that getting annoyed did not make her headache so much worse.
'Not lying, baby,' Aunt Nan corrected her gently. 'Just making a mistake.'
'I suppose no one's said anything to Helena about it?' Holly asked.
'I don't know,' her aunt said, frowning over it. 'Probably not.'
'I see!'
Aunt Nan looked vaguely uneasy. 'I think we thought it best to let you think about it again first, darling. In case you had second thoughts.'
This time it was Holly who shrugged, a resigned and weary shrug. 'I shan't,' she said, in no mood to argue, and especially with her aunt. She guessed she had little hope of being believed, so there was really not much point. After a moment or two she smiled, only too willing to let the matter drop. A huge alabaster vase filled with roses stood on the table beside her bed and she reached out a hand to them. 'These were here when I woke this morning,' she said. 'Someone knows I like roses, thank you, Aunt Nan.'
'I can't really take th credit for them, I'm afraid,' her aunt told her quietly, and the expression in her eyes struck Holly as oddly speculative. 'Marcos got them for you first thing, and Maria brought them up.'
'Oh! Oh, I see!' Holly felt the warmth of
colour in her cheeks suddenly and she hastily drew back her hand, her fingers tingling with the cool softness of the rose petals. 'That was very thoughtful of him,' she said.
'He is thoughtful, baby,' her aunt said quietly, and was silent for a moment. 'You may not believe it, Holly dear,' she told her after a moment or two, 'but Marcos is much more sensitive than I think you realize. This - this business about you insisting that it was Helena's car that hit you, could hurt him as much as anyone.'
'Oh, Aunt Nan!' Holly's cry held despair as well as protest. 'What can I do? What do you want me to say - you and Doctor Valdare - all of you?'
'Just admit that you're making a mistake, dear, that's all.'
'But I can't,' Holy insisted desperately. 'I'm prepared to let the whole matter drop. Heaven knows I don't want to - to sue anybody, or make a big issue out of it, I just want the whole matter to be dropped, but you won't let it drop! You may be satisfied if I make all the right noises, but I won't - I can't say it wasn't Helena, when I know perfectly well that it was!'
Aunt Nan sighed, patting her hand gently, professional again, humouring the patient. 'All right, darling, all right,' she said soothingly. 'Don't get upset about it. I know how convinced you are, and I promise I won't mention it again.'
'Thank you, Aunt Nan.'
Holly did the best she could to control the tears, but they rolled dismally down her cheeks and her blue eyes looked big and vulnerable as a child's. It would be so much easier for her to cope with her bumps and bruises if only she did not feel as if no one in the world wanted to believe that Helena Mendez could be guilty of dangerous driving.
If her aunt was so unwilling to be convinced, it was more certain than ever that Marcos would think she was simply being spiteful towards Helena, seeking retaliation for past wrongs - and somehow that prospect was hardest of all to accept.
She had her broken leg encased in plaster and she had been told to stay in bed for at least another two or three days, but Holly saw no reason why she should not at least hobble across the room to the window, when no one was looking.
She had spent the past five days in bed, and seen no one, except for an occasional visit by her aunt, and the attentions of Maria, the little maid. But Maria spoke very little English, and she was too nervous of the housekeeper to spend too much time away from her other duties, so that she was no use as company for Holly, and the patient was beginning to get restless.
She knew, of course, that Don Jose could not visit her and she could not expect her aunt to spend too much time with her when her husband required not only her company but her professional help as well, but she was in two minds whether or not to be relieved about Marcos staying away.
Admittedly she had asked her aunt not to let him come and see her, but she had not realized just how much she would miss seeing him, or that he would be quite so willing to comply. She understood too, that it would not be considered very proper, by Spanish rules, for a man to visit a young woman in her bedroom, Aunt Nan's reaction to finding him there had expressed as much, but what really bothered Holly was whether or not Don Jose had told him about Helena.
If he had been told about Holly's accusing Helena of being responsible for her accident, it could be that his continued absence, or inquiry after her, was an expression of his anger.
She sat for a moment on the end of the big bed, looking rather forlornly at her reflection in a dressing mirror that stood against the opposite wall. It was a huge, gilt-framed antique, almost seven feet tall, and it gave a head-to-toe reflection of her.
She was the first to admit that she made an oddly lopsided picture, with her heavily plastered left leg clumsily at variance with the delicate flimsiness of a pale pink negligee and nightdress. Her dark hair was loose, the colour of polished mahogany, and tied with a pale pink ribbon that added to the rather childlike and vulnerable effect, an impression further fostered by the wistful expression in her blue eyes. The marks on her grazed cheeks and forehead, she was glad to note, were already beginning to fade.
She gave a sigh, at last, and got awkwardly to her feet, hobbling across to the window to peer out between the slats of the shutters at the arched balcony outside. She could see very little for the heavy-headed bougainvillea that twined around the pillared arches and tried to inveigle its way into the room whenever the shutters were opened, but the scent of roses and orange trees, and the musky perfume of geraniums drifted up to her from the terraces below.
Holly felt suddenly lonely and rather sad, up there in her solitary room, and after a few moments, she raised the catch and opened the shutters a little way. From her balcony it was possible to see quite a long way, down over the vine-clad hillsides to the village, and the dusty ribbon of road appearing and disappearing wherever a gap in the trees allowed.
She could see as far as the far-off hills that shimmered in a distorting heat haze under a coppery blue sky, and the irrigation channels that looked like small, well-ordered streams as they ran between the thirsty crops. It gave one a strangely elated feeling, somehow, being up so high, surrounded by the solid stone walls of the castle and able to see for miles around. No wonder the conquering Moorish Delgaros had handed on such pride and arrogance with the more solid evidence of their victories.
Nearer to her view were the grassy slopes that ran down to the paddock, sheltered behind its fringe of fig trees, and the white stable buildings where the amorous Carlos lived, those buildings too half hidden by another grove of trees. The whole scene looked hot and breathlessly still in the golden, sun-dried air.
It all looked so familiar and friendly suddenly, basking down there in the sun, and Holly realized with some surprise that she had grown quite attached to the magnificent old castle, in the weeks she had been there. She could now better understand Aunt Nan's opinion that it was a home, like any other. She had thought such a thing impossible at the time, now she felt much the same way about it as her aunt did, having grown used to its size and its ancient splendours.
She was distracted from her day-dreaming suddenly, by the appearance of someone coming up the slope from the stables, and she felt her pulses respond as they always did to the sight of Marcos's tall leanness as he strode out with that masculine grace that was so unmistakable, his black head bared to the full heat of the sun.
He saw her, Holly thought, at almost the same moment she became aware of him, and for a moment he seemed to pause in his stride, looking up at her, a pale pink shadow of a figure among the mass of flowers on the shadowed balcony. Holly hesitated to let him know that she had seen him, and before she could decide whether or not to acknowledge him, he moved on again without even raising a hand.
With her own hand half raised to him, Holly gazed at his rapidly disappearing figure in dismay. He must have seen her, she knew he had seen her, and yet he had not even waved a casual hand to acknowledge her existence. She bit hard on her lip and called herself all kinds of a fool, but there was nothing she could do about the wetness of the tears that rolled down her cheeks.
Marcos had never before so pointedly snubbed her, and it hurt far more than Holly cared to admit. What did concern her most, however, was whether it was the matter of Helena that was angering him most, or his own exclusion from her plans to leave, and at that moment she would have given anything to be able to talk to him.
She stood there for several minutes, her head resting against the cool green shutter frame, feeling even more small and miserable than before, wishing she could get away from the castle, and the general air of suspicion that she was lying, simply to be revenged on Helena Mendez.
It was most unfair that she should have to be subjected to such suspicion on top of everything else she had to suffer. Self-pity had never been an emotion she felt before, but she felt now that she was entitled to a little indulgence.
A light, but insistent, tap on her bedroom door brought her head up sharply a few minutes later, and she hastily rubbed the tears from her eyes, looking across at the empty bed guiltily. If it was Maria,
as was most likely, the little maid would undoubtedly report her finding to Aunt Nan, but Holly knew she had no time to get back in before the door was opened.
She did not bother to answer the knock, but stood by the window waiting for whoever it was to come in, and looked across, wide-eyed and apprehensive, as the knob turned. The door was flung open suddenly and with something of a flourish and for a moment Holly stared at Marcos across the room, her mouth parted in surprise, her knees suddenly feeling even weaker and likely to collapse under her at any moment.
He had been riding, and Holly always secretly thought that Marcos looked better in riding clothes than anything else. Smart fawn breeches and highly polished brown boots with spurs, something one seldom saw on an English rider, made him appear incredibly virile and masculine and her senses responded inevitably and uncontrollably to him, no matter how she tried.
Somehow he seemed taller, too, and much darker with a white shirt open at the neck and showing that strong column of neck and throat, and the first suggestion of dark hair across the deep golden chest. He must have discarded the crop he normally carried, en route, for there was no sign of it.
His black eyes regarded her for a moment, but he said nothing, then he strode across the room suddenly, a grim determined look on his face, and his mouth set sternly in a firm straight line, so that for a moment Holly wondered what he meant to do.
She was not long in doubt, however, and she gave a soft cry of surprise when he scooped her up into his arms suddenly and without warning. Her own arms went instinctively around his neck and she was suddenly held close to him, able to feel the warm strength of his body through the thinness of his shirt.
The warm, masculine scent of him went to her head like wine, a tingling blend of horses and some spicy after-shave that she remembered all too vividly from other times in his arms, and she found herself wishing that the big bedroom was endless so that he would never put her down.
Rebecca Stratton - Castles in Spain Page 10
