The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  “Certainly. The telephone is available whenever you would like to use it. However, you need be in no hurry to contact your employers. I have spoken to them already. They know where you are and the circumstances, and will not expect to hear from you any time soon. It is more than likely that your roommate will learn of your whereabouts from them when you don’t turn up, don’t you think?”

  “You — you called Metcalf’s about me?” As Anne set her coffee cup on the table it clattered a little in the saucer.

  “From the plane,” he admitted with the faintest flicker of a smile. “You would not tell me your name, if you remember, and I had to know it, along with a number of other particulars, in order to persuade the authorities to let you into the country.”

  “Then you are convinced that I came to be on your plane as I said?” she asked, unable to resist pursuing this sore point.

  “Let us say I am convinced you are employed with Metcalf Caterers. For the rest...” He shrugged.

  Anne stared at his shuttered expression in frustration. The guard, that was it. Señor Castillo still considered that, discovering herself on his plane with the guard who had seen her go on board out of the way, she had taken advantage of the situation to bring herself to his notice. It was infuriating, but the only thing she could do about it was to take herself off as quickly as possible.

  Taking a deep breath for composure, she said, “Then you will be happy to see me go. If you will arrange my flight as you suggested the night we arrived, I won’t trespass on your hospitality any longer.”

  A frown of concentration between his eyes, he stared past her into the shadows under the loggia. Propping his elbow on the arm of his chair, he pulled at his lower lip. Abruptly, he brought his hand down. His dark, intense gaze on her face, he asked, “Why do you want to go?”

  “Why?” she repeated, at a loss.

  “You have no family, no close man friend. What is there to hold you in Dallas? Why is it necessary for you to return?”

  “I have friends, acquaintances, people I have known all my life. It’s my home. There is my job—”

  “Friends can be made in other places. As for the job, there is one here for you.”

  “Here, in Mexico?”

  “Here, in my home.”

  For a moment she was tempted. To stay in Mexico, to see more of the country and its people, would be a lovely thing. It was the only way to really get to know another land. But to be alone in that land, away from everything known and familiar? No. She did not quite have the courage.

  “I’m sorry,” she began.

  “But you have not heard what your position will be,” he interrupted, a dry note in his voice. “Aren’t you being a bit hasty?”

  “I don’t see that it matters,” Anne said defensively.

  “No? What I am offering you, Anne Matthews, is the position, the paid, temporary position — let me make that clear — of my fiancée. Who knows? There is always the possibility, if you play your cards right, that the position might become permanent.”

  Anger impelled Anne to her feet. With one hand resting on the table, she stared at him, aware of a pulse behind her eyes, a warning that her headache would return if she allowed herself to be upset much further. “If this is your idea of a joke—”

  “Not at all. I am perfectly serious,” he answered without moving.

  “Why? I see no reason for you to go to such lengths to acquire a fiancée. I’m sure,” she added with the most telling of deadpan sarcasm, “that you must know dozens of women who would be only too delighted to take the position for nothing.”

  A muscle tightened in his jaw, but he did not raise his voice. “Unfortunately you are the one my grandmother identified to Irene as my future wife. The ploy, mistaken though it was, was helpful in ridding my house of a woman who had become, in fact, one of the kind of entanglements I have been trying to avoid for years. The situation is complicated by the added fact that she is my distant cousin and I am, in a sense, her guardian until her marriage. Our fathers were not only related, they were close friends. They stood godfather to each other’s children and executors to each other’s wills. They did not, you perceive, plan also to die together, but they did, in a boating accident.”

  The conventional response was automatic. Señor Castillo disregarded it.

  “I did not tell you these things for sympathy. I only want you to understand my position. My first concern in this matter is to see that my grandmother is not disturbed by Irene again. The best way to assure that is to have her go on thinking I am engaged to another woman.”

  There was an obvious flaw in that plan; still, Anne saw no need to point it out to him since she had no intention of agreeing to it.

  “My second thought,” the señor went on, “is to relieve my grandmother’s mind concerning your presence — the seed of doubt Irene planted as to our relationship was a destructive one, and I will not have Abuelita worrying over it. She was brought up in an age of strict moral standards and cannot easily forgive anyone she thinks may have failed to meet them. It has been a long time since she has felt it necessary to pray over me, and I don’t intend for it to happen again.”

  That was understandable, even laudable, though privately Anne considered it a useless precaution. She had detected no doubt in Doña Isabel’s manner toward her grandson.

  “My third reason you are already familiar with, and I see little reason to give you the opportunity to level the charge of conceit at me again,” he continued with a slight smile. “There may be among my friends a woman who would be glad to assist me, but I’m afraid her price would be too high to make the game worth the candle.”

  “Your freedom,” Anne ventured.

  “Exactly.”

  “Aren’t you afraid that my price might be just as high?” she asked, a curious light in her brown eyes.

  His answer was brief. “With you I am forewarned.”

  “Then,” she said gently, “there is little reason for me to do as you wish, is there?”

  She had silenced him. Still, the expression on his face as he watched her swing around and walk back into the house made her uneasy. What would he do now? Would he make the arrangements for her flight as she had asked, or would he try again to persuade her. She had no choice but to wait and see.

  “Señorita?”

  The quiet call came with a knock on the bedroom door. Anne, intrigued by the stealthiness of that soft summons, moved to answer it at once.

  The maid Carmelita stood outside. “Pardon señorita, but Doña Isabel wishes to speak with you if it is convenient,” she said, her round face flushed as she darted a glance up and down the hallway.

  Doña Isabel. Anne had a hazy memory of the white-haired old woman. Señor Castillo’s grandmother. Much of what had occurred on the night she arrived had become dearer in her mind since her talk with the señor, but she could not recall the exact part Doña Isabel had played. She was supposed to be ill, very nearly on her deathbed, or so Anne had thought, and yet she had been strong enough to put Irene in her place.

  The secretive attitude of the maid was puzzling too. Why should Doña Isabel not speak to her grandson’s guest if she wished? Who would care, and why? The best way to find out was to speak to the old woman.

  Carmelita led Anne down the hall to the far end where she tapped on a door and pushed it open. Standing to one side, she held the door for Anne then went out, closing it gently behind her. The housekeeper, who seemed to serve also as nurse-companion, stood beside the slight figure in the bed. In her hand she held a tray on which the invalid had just placed a small glass bearing the telltale purple stain of grape juice. At some unseen signal, she smiled at Anne and followed the maid from the room.

  “Señorita Matthews, I am so glad you could give me a moment of your time. I was afraid you would be too busy with your preparations to leave us. Come in, child, come in. There is no need to stand on ceremony. Take a chair, here beside the bed so I can see you.”

  Doña Is
abel sat propped against lace-edged pillows in a canopied bed of mammoth proportions. Bed curtains of yellow muslin under gold velvet hung from the heavy mahogany frame. The same materials were drawn back from a series of arched windows that looked down into the central patio, letting in a flood of golden sunlight. In the warm glow, the old lady, sitting up in the bed in a lavender bed jacket with her long hair hanging in a silver plait over her shoulder, seemed vividly alive.

  Anne’s smile as she seated herself on the slipper chair covered in cream brocade was rueful. “I hate to admit it, but I have no preparations to make at this moment. I’m not sure I know quite what to do.”

  “I hope you will allow yourself to be guided by my grandson,” the old woman said, an odd inflection in her voice.

  Passing over the suggestion, Anne went on. “In any case, I am glad to be able to come and thank you for intervening the other night, and to be certain that you were — that you did not—”

  “That I did not collapse after the ordeal? No, no, my dear, though it is kind of you to be concerned, I am not on my last legs, I assure you, whatever you may have been led to believe.”

  “I didn’t mean that exactly,” Anne tried to explain.

  “No? I can’t think why not. I’m sure you had every reason to expect it. And that is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, though I cannot do so without touching on your relationship with my grandson, something I think you are reluctant to discuss. Am I correct?”

  “There is no relationship between us to discuss,” Anne said, returning Doña Isabel’s gaze frankly.

  “Even though he asked you to be his fiancée?” the old lady asked in quiet disbelief. Then, seeing the questioning look on Anne’s face, she went on. “I have ways of knowing what is going on in this house. I have lived here all my life, known the servants, most of them, since they were children. If Ramón does not want me to know of his affairs, he should choose a more secluded place for his interviews than an open patio where file gardeners are working.”

  Anne smiled at her droll expression. “Your grandson offered to pay me to pretend to be his fiancée, a different thing entirely.”

  Doña Isabel frowned. “But not something he would ask of a complete stranger, or a woman in whom he had no interest?”

  “Even if he did wish to become personally involved with the woman?” Anne suggested.

  The old lady folded her hands across the sheet that covered her to the waist. “I can see I am going to have to ask you to tell me the complete story. I hope,” she continued with a flickering smile that reminded Anne of her grandson, “that you are not going to disappoint me.”

  It was not possible, of course. With a shake of her head, Anne began her story.

  When she had finished, Doña Isabel nodded. “I begin to see. I think I understand his motives, even if I can’t approve of his methods. In my attempt to defend his good name, I represented you to Irene as someone dear to him, and he is trying to keep me from looking the fool. It is just like him.”

  “I don’t see how it can matter what was said in the privacy of his home,” Anne objected.

  “You do not know Irene. She has gone to an apartment in the center of the city. I imagine she has lost no time in acquainting her circle of friends with the cruel way in which she was treated; encouraged to think herself the chosen bride of Ramón, only to be ousted in the middle of the night in favor of a stranger, and a norteamericano at that! It will make an affecting enough tale without her being able to add the fact that you, my dear, were no more than a — a passing fancy, brought into his house under the same roof as his grandmother who is on her deathbed.”

  “I cannot believe anyone would accept her word for what took place against your grandson’s, or that he would care if they did.”

  “Envy makes people credulous where the rich and powerful are concerned. They would believe it. As for Ramón’s being concerned, no, not for himself. Still, he is a businessman with many interests, many people large and small who depend on him. Where there is great responsibility, there must also be great integrity. In Mexico, the trust given a man depends to a large extent on that old-fashioned concept, his honor.”

  “But—” Anne began.

  “Naturally, he could go to his associates and say that Irene lies, but she is his cousin. Such a course would not only be against his principles, it would be against the interests of the family. To us, this still means something. So, would it not be better to make what Irene thinks to be so true indeed, at least for a short time? There is much to be gained, and little to lose. You will be seen a few times with Ramón, and soon his friends will be saying they do not blame him for preferring a lovely creature like you to his sour cousin. For yourself, you will have a nice holiday for two weeks — three — a month; then there will be a small quarrel in public with Ramón and you will return home somewhat richer than when you came.”

  The old lady made everything seem so logical, so simple. As her soft voice went on and on, Anne could feel her resolve weakening. “But I don’t even like your grandson,” she protested.

  “Don’t you?” The old woman tilted her head to one side. “Why not? He is thought to be a most attractive man, even without the undoubted allure of his money.”

  “He still thinks I deliberately stayed on his plane in order to bring myself to his attention.”

  “Tiresome of him, but going away will not convince him otherwise, nor will it give you satisfaction. Only by staying can you be revenged on him. It will be within your power to make him suffer, just a little you understand, for his attitude.”

  “I don’t want to make him suffer,” Anne said rather desperately.

  “Don’t you? Then you are more forgiving than I would be in your place,” Señor Castillo’s grandmother said.

  “He — he could have abandoned me when we reached Mexico City,” Anne pointed out in an attempt to be fair.

  “A Castillo? Never,” Doña Isabel declared. “Especially not a woman of your attractions.”

  “I’m not that attractive,” Anne said, as mutinously as if it made a difference to what the elderly woman was suggesting.

  “Because you refuse to allow yourself to be. You could be truly beautiful with the right clothes, the right attention. It would be great fun to bring about the transformation. To see my grandson’s fiancée creditably established would also be sufficient reason for me to leave my bed and go out and about again. You see, my motives are not entirely unselfish.”

  Turning her head in a wary gesture, Anne asked, “Meaning?”

  “Meaning” Doña Isabel answered slowly, “that I will do anything to keep Irene from returning to this house. She is the grandchild of my eldest sister, long dead, but I cannot bear to have her near me, nor does she feel any affection for me, for all of her extravagant claims otherwise. To her, I was no more than an excuse to force her way into Ramón’s company when he showed no inclination to seek hers. Ramón was fooled by her pretense of devotion and installed her as my companion over my protests. It was done, no doubt, for my own good, but I have not yet forgiven him for it. Lately she had grown sure of her position, sure that she could manipulate me, and Ramón, as she saw fit. She made it plain that she considered me an encumbrance she would be rid of as soon as she and Ramón were wed. For the sake of my health, of course, I would be shuttled into a very comfortable, very expensive home for the aged. Toward this end, she made a great display of my infirmities, calling attention to every lapse of memory in the most sorrowful tones, arranging the menus so I was fed gruel and milk and toast and stewed fruit suited to my invalid condition, wrapping me up in shawls and blankets until I almost suffocated from the heat. She cautioned me every time I put my foot to the floor, pushed a footstool at me every time I sat down, handed me my glasses when I could well put my hand on them, fussed about drafts and my favorite chocolate candy and the amount of coffee I enjoyed, and the fatal effects of colds and insects bites and evening air until I was ready to pass away in an apoplexy
from sheer irritation of the nerves.”

  The old woman took a deep breath, her eyes flashing. “I was driven to staying in my room, curtailing my visits for fear of what she would do in my absence, and my visitors for fear of what she would say to them behind my back. Ramón was away so much he thought my retreat from physical causes. That being so, he did not like to leave me alone with only the servants when he was absent. The complaints I had to make of Irene sounded to his ears like attentions for which I should have been grateful. But the last straw came when she took it upon herself to summon Ramón simply bemuse I closed my door to her, seeing only my own Maria, whom I have known all my life. I heard her tell that quack of a doctor she sent for that I was indulging in a childish fit.”

  Doña Isabel actually snorted, a flush of anger pink across the parchment of her cheeks. “Well, I had enough wits about me to put such a menace from me, but I cannot rest until I am certain there is no chance of her return.”

  “Surely if you explained to your grandson as you have to me he will understand?” Anne told her, firmly resisting the impulse to make her tone soft and soothing.

  “He will not listen. She has poisoned his mind until he sees me as an invalid to be pampered with grape juice and protected from all things. He does it from his great love for me, this I understand, but it makes me afraid that his love will cause him to wrap me up and put me away like a precious toy grown too fragile to play with. He needs someone else to love, someone else to distract his mind, but not, please God, Irene. If there is some small thing I can do to stall off that calamity, I will. Won’t you help me, señorita? Won’t you please say you will help me?"

  There could be only one answer to such an impassioned plea. "I would like to, Señora Castillo, though I don’t see what you hope to gain by this masquerade when it will last such a short while.”