The dinner went smoothly. The food was delicious, the service perfect, leaving little excuse for Anne to allow her attention to wander from the general conversation.
Doña Isabel, installed at the foot of the table with Esteban on one hand and an elderly gentleman, Señor Rivas, on the other, was in high form. She fairly sparkled with good humor, chiding her grandson for his silence and skillfully drawing each of the other diners out. In a most genteel way she even flirted a bit with Señor Rivas, who gallantly responded in kind. When Doña Isabel had added his name to the seating plan, she had said something offhand about evening the numbers, but Anne suspected the older woman enjoyed his company more than she admitted.
Places had been found for Irene and her new fiancé at the table. Irene was seated next to Señor Rivas, with Señor Martínez and Estela beyond her on Ramón’s left. Pépé was between Anne, at the place of honor on Ramón’s right hand, and Señora Martínez, with Esteban beyond the Señora on Doña Isabel’s left. That the arrangement was none too pleasing to Irene was plain, though her reasons had more to do with her distance from the head of the table than with her separation from her fiancé. Several times she leaned forward with a question designed to capture Ramón’s interest. Without effort, Doña Isabel foiled these attempts, doing it so sweetly that Irene could not take offense without appearing boorish.
Her antics were not lost on Pépé. Irene’s fiancé watched her with sullen suspicion in his face. When she flung him no more than a perfunctory smile, he grew steadily more morose, draining his wine glass again and again as the meal progressed.
If Ramón caught this byplay, he gave no sign. He, too, as Doña Isabel had remarked, seemed more preoccupied than usual. For a brief instant Anne allowed herself to think that her refusal to stay had meant more to him then she supposed. That thought was quickly ousted by the dread that it was Irene’s announcement which had disturbed him.
Did he, in spite of everything, feel some attachment for Irene? Suppose he had merely been using the silly little American girl who had forced herself upon him to teach his countrywoman not to take him for granted? Or worse still, suppose he was using Anne to distract Doña Isabel’s attention from the woman to whom his grandmother had taken a dislike?
Such thoughts were bitter company. Though she tried, Anne could not quite dislodge them from her mind.
Staring at the candle flames which wavered in a low silver holder nestled in a bed of yellow dahlias, Anne thought it was just as well she would soon be leaving. If she had to stay and endure the torture of such doubts for long, she would go mad.
Beside her, Pépé, perhaps deciding to take a page from his fiancée’s book, inclined his head in Anne’s direction with a low-voiced comment. She hardly heard, so deep was her concentration.
She glanced once more at Ramón to find his considering gaze riveted upon her face. Twin flames, the reflection of the candles, burned in his eyes. For an instant she was aware of a sudden breathless warmth in the room, then she realized his stare had moved past her to the man at her side. Sick at heart, she recognized the emotion which flared white-hot in his steady regard. It was jealousy.
They were just leaving the dining room when the guests invited later for the dance began to arrive. Laughing, talking, accepting glasses of champagne from deferential waiters, they crowded into the sala. They were a glittering throng with one thing in common, an air of expectancy.
It was Doña Isabel, standing regal in her lavender lace, who made the formal announcement of the engagement. The words, in liquid, sonorous Spanish, had a misleading finality to Anne’s ears. Side by side, she and Ramón accepted the first toast. They sipped once at their champagne glasses, then at the instigation of the elderly woman, linked arms to drink again.
With the eyes of everyone in the room upon them, Ramón stood smiling down at her. The contours of his mouth curved in an expression so loving that Anne had to clench her teeth to keep her own smile from wobbling. Deliberately, he took her free hand, and holding her gaze with his own, raised it, uncurling the fingers. He pressed his mouth, warm and firm, to the softness of her palm.
Anne caught her breath. She would have snatched her hand away if he had not held it fast. A moment later, the orchestra hired for the occasion struck up the first ceremonial waltz. Placing her captured hand on his shoulder, Ramón swept her out onto the floor which had been cleared for dancing.
They danced without speaking, circling the floor alone once before they were joined by other couples. Anne, becoming aware after a moment of the mechanical stiffness of her performance, made an effort to pull herself together. She was not helped by the steely feel of the arms which held her close against him.
“I believe it’s time I congratulated you on your acting ability,” she said, flicking an upward glance through her lashes.
He accepted the compliment calmly. “There’s no telling what heights we might reach, you and I, with a little more practice.”
Was there an oblique suggestion in his tone? Anne drew back in his arms. “You promised...”
“Did I?”
“You said we would discuss my leaving later on.”
“So I did,” he agreed, his voice hardening. “I wonder what is behind your persistence in bringing this subject up every time we are together. What is your hurry to get back to Texas? What are you running away from — or who are you running to?”
Anne felt her heart jerk. It was an effort to hold her voice steady. “There’s nothing like that. I just want to go back where I belong, back to being plain ordinary Anne Matthews. Is that so hard to understand?”
“No,” he answered. “Not if it is the truth.”
“You doubt my word?” A small frown drew her brows together.
“Let us just say I have little hope of a straight answer from you.”
Anne came to a halt, making a futile effort to free herself of his arms. They were near the edge of the dance floor. His hands cupping her elbows, Ramón shielded her from view with his broad back.
“You are angry?” he asked. “Very well. Shall we put it to the test? Tell me this. Are you running away from me?”
Anne went still, her eyes wide as she searched the stiff angles of his face. How was she to reply? A negative answer would be a lie. She was running away from him, trying to escape the effect he had on her senses and the disruption he had caused in her life. And if she answered yes, he would believe she was afraid of him, fearful that he might press his attentions upon her. Neither of those things were true.
And yet, her silence was in itself an answer.
After a moment he dropped his hands and stepped back. His eyelids narrowed, shuttering his eyes, but not before she saw the derision mirrored in their black surface.
“Ramón...” she said, touching his coat sleeve with cool fingers. “You don’t understand.”
His smile was bleak as he inclined his head. “Are you certain you do?” he asked, and taming on his heel as the tousle came to an end, he walked away.
Anne did not have time to determine the meaning of his cryptic remark. She was claimed immediately for a bossa-nova by Pépé, who seemed delighted to teach her the unfamiliar steps. Afterward she danced a stately measure, with Señor Rivas, followed in tam by Señor Martínez, and still Ramón did not come near her again. He led his grandmother out onto the floor, then stood beside her chair, leaving her only to solicit what were clearly duty dances with Señora Martínez and one or two other elderly women and young female relatives. Soon afterward, he disappeared, remaining away for nearly an hour. During that interval Anne noticed Irene leaving the room, however, she did not stay away for any length of time.
The relief Anne felt at seeing her return alone and with a frown of discontent marring her features was so intense that she sought a chair against the wall beside Doña Isabel. She remained there for fully half an hour.
The musicians which had been hired for the occasion were adept at modern music as well as the traditional Latin rhythms. I
t was interesting to watch young Mexicans in expensive evening wear gyrating to sounds she associated in her mind with American teenagers in blue jeans and T-shirts. They were an attractive people, Anne found herself thinking. With a more discerning eye than she had had when she arrived two weeks before, she could trace, in their high cheekbones and brilliant, flashing eyes, indications of their Aztec lineage. She could not begin to remember all their names, though most had been painstakingly introduced by Doña Isabel. Still, when they caught her eyes, these friends and distant relatives of Ramón gave her spontaneous smiles of acceptance that warmed her even though she knew she would never be one of them.
It was Pépé, his invitation a model of decorum, who succeeded in prying her from Doña Isabel’s side. He was helped considerably by the reappearance of Ramón. As Anne caught sight of him making his way toward them around the dance floor, she knew a moment of unreasoning panic which drove her out onto the floor.
It was when Irene’s fiancé took her in his arms that Anne discovered why he was so careful in his speech, so studied in his movements. He was somewhat the worse for drink. His tongue had a tendency to betray him by slurring his consonants if he spoke too quickly. Though he had not reached the point where he was unsteady on his feet, he was close to it. His breath smelled strongly of alcohol. He had also the delusion of the intoxicated about his singing ability, for he insisted on crooning the words to the music into Anne’s ear.
“Are you certain you want to dance?” Anne asked with a shade of annoyance as he stepped on her toes for the third time.
“Thousand apologies,” he murmured. "Si, si, I must dance. My Irene told me to go away and amuse myself, and I like to dance with pretty Americans.”
“I appreciate the compliment, but I don’t think you are in any shape to dance with anyone,” Anne told him.
The drinks that were being circulated by the waiters were not, she knew, strong enough to account for Pépé’s condition. She strongly suspected him of carrying his own flask or having access to a supply in his automobile outside.
He drew himself up as straight as he was able. “Are you saying I may be drunk?” he inquired.
“That is exactly what I am saying,” Anne assured him.
He considered that. “You may be right,” he said with a wise nod.
With the press of people in the room, the french doors which lined one side of them had been thrown open. Through these stole the faint ghost of a breeze to fan Anne’s heated cheeks.
Drawing a deep breath, Anne said pointedly, “Don’t you think we should sit down then?”
“To sit idle and watch my Irene dancing with Señor Castillo?” he asked, tilting his head to the area of the flora where Irene was just moving into Ramón’s arms. “No, that is too much the tame dog. I will not. I will go outside, that is what I will do. Outside, where the air is fresh,” a grin, half-foolish, half-pained, curled around his thin lips. “Will you step out with me into the patio?”
His suggestion seemed suddenly reasonable to Anne. She, too, could use a breath of untainted air. In addition, she felt sorry for Irene’s fiancé. His position — being used as a handy face-saver for the Mexican woman — was not an enviable one. If he cared at all for her, there was some excuse for his over-indulgence.
“All right,” she agreed wearily, “but only for a moment.
After the smoke-filled, over-heated closeness of the sala, the cool air of the patio was like mountain-cooled wine. Anne needed no urging to stroll along the arcade, away from the loud music and the confusion of voices. She even found herself grateful to Pépé for his suggestion. Getting away from the responsibility of being the guest of honor, constantly on view, was an unexpected relief.
“Señorita Matthews?” Pépé said, ambling to a halt.
“Yes?” Anne replied.
“You — like me, señorita?”
“What do you mean?” Anne asked, made wary by something she could not identify in his manner.
“As a man!” he exclaimed, his expression in the dim light from the curtain windows plainly showing that he found her dense.
“How can you expect me to answer that,” Anne edged, “when you know I am engaged to Ramón?”
“I did not expect you to come outside with me because you are the novia of Ramón, and yet, here you are.”
“Oh? I had not realized it was — indiscreet. I suspect we had better go back inside,” Anne said, swinging around.
“No, no,” he said, reaching out to catch her arm. “I did not mean to make you angry. I only — I only wanted an answer to my question. Irene has said to me that I am lucky she wishes to make herself my wife. She says I am not the kind of man who is attractive to many women.”
Her attention caught, Anne turned back. “Surely you must have met many young women who were — who responded to the compliments you paid them?”
“Yes, but perhaps they were only pretending,” he said in a quiet tone, a scowl crumbling his face as though he was trying to keep from crying.
If he had been sober, Anne thought swiftly, he would have died before saying such a thing aloud. She did not need to ask if Irene had planted that doubt also. Why would she say such cruel things? What kind of person was she to want him to follow like a tame dog at her heels, grateful for the bones of affection she might throw him? What a terrible ego she must have.
On impulse she covered Pépé fingers with her own where they clutched at her arm. “Pay no heed to Irene, Pépé. There are many women who could love you.”
“Ah, Señorita,” he said, his voice husky. “I knew you were kind ... and generous—”
With a quickness and rawhide strength belied by his appearance, he pulled her into his arms. Surprise held her immobile while his lips slid across her cheek to her mouth. An instant later, she broke his grip, stepping back to arm’s length.
“You...” she began, fumbling for words in her incoherent anger.
She never completed the sentence.
“Well, Ramón?” Irene, her voice dripping satisfaction like honey, spoke from the open french window. “It looks as though we have both been made to look like fools.”
Pépé recovered first, starting forward. “Irene, my love, my heart, let me explain.”
“Explain?” she jeered. “Pray tell me how? Are you going to ask me to doubt the evidence of my own eyes?”
She stepped out into the shadowed arcade, leaving a dear view of Ramón just behind her with Doña Isabel at his side. The sight of his host seemed to throw Pépé’s befuddled mind into greater confusion, and he made an abortive movement as though he would protect Anne from Ramón’s wrath.
The gesture enraged Irene. “No doubt you mean to give yourself time to think up a plausible lie? You can save yourself the trouble. Neither Ramón nor I will be stupid enough to believe you. Will we, my dear Ramón?”
Feeling as though she was caught in a nightmare, Anne turned toward the man in the doorway. Surely he would put a stop to Irene’s relentless browbeating of the young man.
The contempt that blazed in his eyes as they raked over her came as a complete shock. She was too numb to wonder at the whiteness about his compressed lips or the pulsating nerve that rippled the skin of his clenched jaw.
“No, I doubt my opinion of my fiancée,” he grated, emphasizing the last word, “can be altered — for better or worse.”
Doña Isabel glanced from Anne’s pale, frozen features to her grandson. “My dear Ramón,” she said in a frail voice. “Things may not be as bad as they seem.”
“No,” he said, “they are probably worse.”
His words, for all their quietness, cut into Anne like the lash of a whip. In the reflex of pain, she struck back.
“Never mind, Abuelita,” she said, her voice trembling. “Trust is too much to expect of Don Ramón Carlos Castillo.”
Her words seemed to snap the iron restraint which held him. He strode forward, his fingers biting into her arms as he dragged her from Pépé’s side. She fel
l against his chest and he pushed her upright, giving her a hard shake.
“Trust is something you earn,” he ground out, his eyes boring into hers. “It is given as a reward to those who have proven themselves worthy of it. You, my dear Anne, my beautiful cheat, have not!”
Anne, shivering with fury and a primitive reaction to his violence that she refused to recognize, opened her mouth. But he would not let her speak.
“I was beginning to believe your innocent pose, beginning to believe you had told the truth from the first. No more...”
He got no further. Irene’s piercing shriek cut across his words, a gasping sound that went on and on.
With a shaking finger she pointed to Doña Isabel like a crumpled doll on the flagstones. Her face was the color of chalk and her breathing shallow and fast as Anne stumbled to her knees beside the still figure. Picking up her hand, she found the small, bony fingers as cold as ice.
Ramón, dropping to a crouch on the other side of his grandmother, felt for her pulse. Flicking a hard look up at Irene, he snapped, “Stop that noise! Call the doctor — Abuelita’s personal physician, not your own choice.”
With a tenderness at variance with the harsh frown on his face, he straightened Doña Isabel’s limbs, then gently lifted her in his arms. “Go ahead and make her bed ready,” he said to Anne, his voice devoid of anything other than concern for his grandmother.
Irene had stopped shrieking, but she seemed unable to move. Pépé shot a hesitant glance at her, then swallowed convulsively, putting his shoulders back. “Which doctor?” he asked.
Ramón told him. Nodding to Anne, he said, “The curtains.” When she sprang to hold them back, he carried Doña Isabel through into the sala.
The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) Page 15
