by Susan Barrie
“You slept well, senorita? You look as if you slept very well indeed, you are so golden and charming.” She caught hold of her guardian’s arm, and leaned against him as she gazed up into his face. “Is not Miss Day quite typical of England? So pale and delicate, like a spring morning, and as uncertain as the sunshine!”
He tweaked her ear.
“A lot you know about England, chiquita. You spent a few weeks there once, when you were very young, but that is all.” Then he turned to April and smiled at her in his somewhat heart-jolting fashion. In addition his eyes studied her carefully. “If I may be permitted to say so, you do indeed resemble sunshine, mia cara,” he told her. His eyes were on her shining hair, swinging, as always, loose on her shoulders, and as her eyelids fluttered, and she looked straight up at him, he found himself looking deep into her extraordinarily limpid golden-brown eyes. The increasing heat was warming her skin, and it was golden, also—but a paler gold than Constancia’s.
Constancia, at sixteen—actually, April discovered later, she was close upon seventeen—was a full-blown rose, like the scarlet rose she wore behind one ear. But April, at twenty-four, was a mere pale bud, a half-opened yellow rose of the type that often has to be nursed along in a hothouse.
Not that she was really delicate, but she had none of the robust constitution of Constancia. Although born and brought up in the country she was a little afraid of trampling horses’ hooves too, and she moved backwards somewhat hurriedly as Don Carlos’s spirited chestnut, its desire for exercise only partially abated by the quick run it had been given that morning, reared unexpectedly on to its hind legs and was handed over by Don Carlos to a groom.
He gave the mare a pat, and then moved to the side of April. He drew her out of the path of the trampling hooves, and then bent and kissed her hand.
“That is to wish you good morning,” he said, with strange softness, as he once more smiled into her eyes. “I must offer you my apologies for last night, and my omission to say good night to you. But I was called away, and by the time I returned you had gone to bed.”
She felt almost as if her heart lifted. A faint but unmistakable depression, with which she had awakened—and which she had refused to believe was due to that omission of the night before—floated magically away from her, and, overwhelmingly aware of the fact that he was still holding her hand (was there something electric about the touch of his fingers? she wondered. Something that set her own fingers tingling?) she coloured as if she had been caught off her guard, and assured him at once:
“Oh, I quite understood! And, as a matter of fact, I think I went to bed rather early.”
“By Madrid standards, you mean?” He was still smiling, a little quizzically. “Here we do not attempt to turn night into day.”
He was wearing a hard Spanish hat that was fastened beneath his attractive bronzed chin with a strap, and in his Spanish-style riding dress, with polished boots and glittering spurs, he had the odd effect of making her heart not merely lift, but turn over. It occurred to her to wonder, like a thought out of the blue, what she had done to merit this transition from a working life—a life of looking after a small child, and attending to all his daily needs—to the unreal existence of a publicly acclaimed fiancée of such a man as this, who could be disturbing, magnetically attractive when he felt like it.
And she had a vague suspicion that he felt like it this morning.
Constancia, patting the chestnut before it was led away, and feeding it lumps of sugar, looked sideways over her shoulder at them, and a little of her exuberant good humour seemed to fade from her eyes.
“You are not too fond of horses, Miss Day?” she inquired, an apparent quirk of mischief at the corner of her mouth. “You do not care to come too close and reward this beauty as I do, with a lump of sugar?” She threw an arm about the satin-smooth neck. “See, nothing could be more docile!”
But when, as if in response to a challenge, April would have conquered her nervousness and stepped forward, Don Carlos gripped her by the arm, and spoke sharply.
“Do not allow that naughty one to goad you, Chiquita!” he cautioned her. “She fears nothing and no one ... not even me!” a trifle grimly. “And she was born on the back of a horse ... or the next best thing to it, for her mother was a great rider!”
“I see,” April murmured, and wondered why she had felt so strongly compelled to defy that taunt in the glittering dark eyes of the born rider, who was also so very beautiful.
Constancia pouted at him, and tossed the chestnut’s reins to the waiting groom.
“You do not tell me enough about my mother, Carlos,” she protested.
He frowned swiftly.
“You have far too insatiable a curiosity,” he rebuked her. “Now, run away, and dress yourself in something more suitable than that abbreviated skirt. And how many more times must I tell you that I do not approve of that careless hair style?”
She pouted again, but she also peeped at him coquettishly between her thick eyelashes.
“Rodrigo tells me that it suits me,” she told him.
“Rodrigo is nothing but a boy,” he snapped. “A mere callow youth! Now, do as I tell you, and have less to say for yourself!”
But she had one thing more to say.
“I will if you will promise to take me riding again tomorrow morning,” she pleaded. Her eyes were soft, appealing as a doe’s, big and black as the night. “Please, Carlos!”
April could almost feel his resistance seeping out of him as he stood looking down at her from his infinitely superior height, and she could sense the indulgence that took its place even before he uttered a word in response to her plea. And when it came, that word was the word Constancia wanted, unconditional agreement, although from the rueful look on his mouth it was wrung out of him by nothing less than her one hundred per cent feminine appeal, and the affection he had for her.
“Yes. Since you will pester me all day if I refuse.” But the qualification meant nothing, April realized. And Constancia let out a little delighted cry, clapped her hands, blew him an unashamed kiss, and then fled round a corner of the buildings.
April looked upwards at Don Carlos.
“You find it difficult to refuse her anything, don’t you?” she said quietly.
When he looked down at her his eyes were dark and unrevealing, as if a screen had come down over them.
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “But she is very young, and very endearing.”
“She is also beautiful,” she said.
He thought for a moment, and then agreed with her emphatically.
“Very beautiful! But her mother was even more beautiful.” They were walking back to the house, and he had placed his hand beneath her elbow to ensure that she took the right path. “Shall I tell you about her?” he asked abruptly.
April felt her heart start to beat quickly, uncomfortably quickly, but she answered composedly:
“Yes, please do, if ... if you feel that you would like to do so.”
Although she wasn’t looking at him, she knew he was frowning hard at the path as they walked.
“She and I were betrothed to be married, but she married someone else ... I was eighteen, and she was several years older. When Constancia was born her health was not at all good, and by the time Constancia was five it had deteriorated so badly that we all knew she could not live long.” His voice died into silence, and, daring to steal a glance at him, April saw that his face was a mask from which all feeling had fled. His voice was flat as he continued. “When she died I took Constancia, for her father was so overcome that he seemed scarcely to know what to do with her. A year later he too died—he was killed in a motor accident while travelling abroad—and Constancia became my legal ward. She has grown up in my care, and she will of course enjoy my protection until the time that she marries.”
“What a—what a tragic story!” April said, or heard herself saying.
He nodded, but there was still no warmth or feeling in his voice as he e
choed her:
“A very tragic story!”
“I understand now why you feel that you have to spoil her.”
Instantly his face lightened, and his handsome mouth curved at the corners with humour.
“I do not so much spoil her as give way to her for the sake of peace. She is a somewhat turbulent personality, as you yourself must have recognized at once when you saw her for the first time yesterday. But in addition to the turbulence—the wildness, on occasion—there is a quality of sweetness which is difficult to resist sometimes. Sweetness and truth and honesty, and—I’ll confess!—determination. And when these are allied to the charm of a woman’s face, albeit she is a girl in years...”
“You can’t resist her.”
“Perhaps not,” he admitted once more. “Perhaps that is the real reason why she twists me so easily around her finger!”
As she dwelt upon this April felt her amazement gradually grow. And she had thought him hard ... a type it would be almost impossible to impress! Yet a sixteen-year-old girl had the art of twisting him round her finger!
“Has she ever been away to school?” April asked.
“No, she was taught at home, and my sister has taken her on various holidays. As I think we mentioned, she has been to England.”
“And Dona Ignatia is as devoted to her as you are?”
“I would say that is the case, yes.”
“She is a fortunate girl,” April remarked, but what she was actually thinking was that Dona Ignatia, with her wise eyes, probably realized, as he did not, that the young girl’s passionate devotion to her guardian had lately turned into a passionate adoration that was in no sense of the word an adoration of the mind. Like most Spanish girls she had developed rapidly, and, midway between sixteen and seventeen, she had fallen in love in a possessive, physical sense.
As she walked at Don. Carlos’s side in the brilliant morning sunshine April was aware of a sudden uneasiness that had started to grow at the back of her own mind. And it wasn’t in connection with the lovely Constancia only. Now that she had heard something about Constancia’s mother she felt she had been supplied with a key to the whole personality of Don Carlos de Formera y Santos.
At eighteen he had fallen in love, and his love disappointed him. In addition to that she died while he was still wholeheartedly devoted to her, and the chances that he would ever forget her now were possibly very remote. By making her daughter a part of his life he had made her an imperishable part, too, and any woman who fell in love with him would find it difficult to dislodge the pair of them. Difficult to establish for herself a place in his heart, even if she succeeded in making for herself a place in his life.
The morning sunshine fell less goldenly for April, and she wanted to protest suddenly and unreasonably. She wanted to delve suddenly and deeply into the question of his affections, and reassure herself on one point, at least. That he was not at the moment in love with anyone.
Because she could not possibly do this she asked: “And are there any other members of your family that I have yet to meet?”
“Several,” he answered, smiling carelessly. “One or two uncles and an aunt, a few cousins. And,” as a small pale blue car travelled under the arch towards them, “my half-brother, Rodrigo. He is here to breakfast with us, or so it would seem. He looks after my vineyards and has a small house of his own a couple of miles or so from here.”
The pale blue car braked, and then stopped, and by the time they reached it Rodrigo de Formera was standing beside it and watching their approach with a slight smile of incredulity on his devastatingly handsome face.
He was a typical young Spaniard of the upper classes, but he had far more than a typical Spaniard’s good looks. Even his brother’s paled into insignificance beside them, although the quality of Don Carlos’s appeal for the opposite sex did not depend merely on his looks. It was in everything about him, and particularly in his arrogance, and air of complete assurance. Rodrigo, on the other hand, had an almost feminine appeal, made up of big brown slightly sloping eyes that were not many shades darker than April’s own, perfectly chiselled features and thick black curly hair that glistened like oiled silk in the sunshine.
He advanced to meet them when a bare foot or so separated them and greeted his brother with a little salute.
“You are up early, amigo! You returned last night, and this morning you could not wait to be in the saddle, is that it?” He bowed with excessive formality to April, the surprise in his eyes so unconcealed that it brought a little smile to her lips. Although when his admiration got the better of his surprise, and she was treated to the full blaze of it, she felt the colour rise up in her cheeks and spread wildly. “Good morning, senorita! This is indeed an honour!”
Don Carlos looked for an instant amused, and then his amusement vanished. He made the introduction curtly.
“My brother, Rodrigo, April. Rodrigo, my wife-to-be ... Miss April Day!”
Rodrigo’s astonishment was almost ludicrous. “Wife-to-be?” It was quite plain he had not seen Dona Ignatia for several days. “But this is delightful news, although so unexpected that I find it hard to take in! You must forgive me, Miss Day, if I appear as if I am completely astounded, and, as a matter of fact, I am...” He looked helplessly at Carlos, his dark brows knitted, and then a somewhat perplexed expression crossed his face. “And you are English! We were fairly certain Carlos would take an English wife one day, but...”
Carlos intervened.
“You have declared yourself astounded, and we are prepared to believe you, Rodrigo. Now, since you are here, you will come in to breakfast. That was, no doubt, your intention?”
“Of course.” But Rodrigo was finding it difficult to recover from his surprise. “I had no idea you were back until I passed Jose on the road just now. You look as if your stay in Madrid agreed with you. But of course,” making a little gesture with his hands, while his eyes laughed, “if you found there a wife ... and, if I may say so, such a very beautiful one! I shall be happy to have you for a sister-in-law, senorita!”
During breakfast he talked a great deal, making frequent gestures with his hands, always including April in the conversation. His eyes found it difficult to leave her face, and although his admiration was a little overwhelming it began gradually to amuse her again when she realized it was purely spontaneous. Neither Dona Ignatia nor Constancia made their appearance in the cool, bare room where breakfast was served, and April made up her mind that in future she too would breakfast in her own quarters—after all, she had been provided with a sitting-room of her own. And it was probably considered the thing to do if one happened to be a woman.
But as she poured out coffee for the other two, and helped herself to fruit juice and a delicious ripe peach, she was glad of the preoccupation while Rodrigo’s slightly bemused brown eyes rested on her. He seemed to be completely fascinated by her softly falling brown hair, and the delicacy of her skin, and all the time that unmistakable perplexity remained at the back of his eyes, and every time he looked at his brother he seemed to be trying to read his mind. To get at the bottom of a riddle.
“You ride, senorita?” he asked eagerly, when the coffee-pot was empty, and all three were smoking cigarettes. “You rode with Carlos this morning?”
She shook her head.
“No, that was Constancia.”
“Ah, Constancia!” He glanced at her curiously, as if he was wondering what she thought of her future husband’s ward, and whether her coming had been entirely appreciated by Constancia.
“She rides well alone, but she prefers to ride pillion with Carlos.”
“I’ve never seen anyone ride pillion on the back of a horse until this morning.”
“Then you must become accustomed to seeing it in Andalusia. You must try it yourself, senorita.” He leaned towards her, his eyes suddenly audacious. “If not with Carlos, then with myself. I am a better horseman than Carlos.”
“But when April rides pillion it will be with me
,” Carlos told him with much and quite unmistakable crispness.
Rodrigo sighed, and ran slim brown fingers through his silky black curls.
“Ah, yes, of course ... you two are betrothed! I had forgotten!” His eyes glinted mockingly as they turned once more to his brother. “It is difficult to believe so much has been settled in so short a time, when the last time I saw you you were a free man, Carlos!”
“Important decisions do not take a great deal of time to arrive at,” Carlos returned, with a displeased expression in his black eyes. Then he rose purposefully from the table. “I have much to discuss with you, Rodrigo. I shall require a full report from you of all that has happened in my absence, and now is an excellent time to hear some of your news. If you will pardon us, April,” inclining his head towards her politely. “I have no doubt you can find some means of entertaining yourself this morning. Late this afternoon, when it is cooler, I will take you for a drive and let you see something of the countryside which I’m afraid you missed last night.”
Rodrigo held out his hand at parting.
“April,” he said softly. “It is a charming name! Am I, as a prospective brother-in-law, permitted to call you April?”
“Of course,” April answered.
Don Carlos did not look too pleased.
“So long as you do not make comments every time you use it I suppose I cannot reasonably object,” he said.
CHAPTER VIII
But the late afternoon drive half promised by Carlos did not, after all, become a reality. Some people arrived just before tea, and April was summoned from her room to meet them.
She had retired after lunch for a siesta, following the example of Dona Ignatia and Constancia, although she would have much preferred to sit in the cool of one of the verandas with a book. But that was not considered correct in this very Spanish household, and she had to resign herself to at least a couple of hours in the absolute hush of her room, with the shutters closed and a green twilight making the hug carved bed seem a trifle grotesque, and the vast wardrobe and dressing-table seem even more grotesque.
