The Golden Madonna

by Rebecca Stratton

  'I actually feel beautiful,' Sally confessed with a soft laugh. 'I've always rather envied the Spanish ladies their mantillas.'

  She carefully gave the word its Spanish accent, but even so Dona Alicia smiled and shook her head. 'Mantilla, Sarita,' she said correctly. 'By putting on the "s" at the end, you change the whole meaning of the word.'

  'Oh! Oh, I'm sorry.'

  'There is no need to be sorry,' Dona Alicia assured her kindly. 'But since you were showing some interest in using the Spanish pronunciation, I would have been remiss not to correct you.'

  'Thank you.'

  The kindly blue eyes smiled at her curiously. 'Are you going to visit the church alone?' she asked, and Sally shook her head.

  'Oh no, I daren't do that,' she said, without thinking, and saw Dona Alicia's dark brows question her meaning. 'I mean,' she added hastily, 'I've been warned not to go down to the village alone.'

  'Not by Mr. Storer, I think,' Dona Alicia guessed with a smile. 'He would not warn you, I'm sure. Your wording suggests that it was my son who— warned you, Sarita. Am I right?'

  Sally nodded her head, smiling ruefully. 'I have been threatened with being locked in my room and sent home,' she said, being very frank. 'So I'm going with Michael to see the church.'

  'Is he, too, interested in old churches, or rebuilt ones?' Dona Alicia asked, as if she already knew the answer, and Sally shook her head.

  'Not really,' she said. 'But he's ready to suffer on my account.'

  'He loves you.' The statement was so simple and matter-of-fact that it touched Sally deeply, and she nodded.

  'He says he does,' she admitted. 'But'

  'You are very young,' Dona Alicia told her softly.

  'Let yourself live a little first, Sarita, before you decide. And now,' she patted her hand, 'you should hurry before even Mr. Storer's patience is tried too sorely.'

  Michael was indeed impatient when she joined him again in the garden, and he looked at her darker dress and the mantilla with some misgiving, although both suited her admirably. 'You look a bit keep-off-the-grass in that outfit,' he declared when she spun round for his approval. 'But it has a certain spiritual look that should go down well in the village church.'

  'I feel rather good,' Sally informed him, smoothing a hand over the black lace that covered her fair head. 'And I don't mean in the way you do either, Michael. I think it's the effect of the mantilla, it's beautiful, isn't it?'

  'Where did you acquire that?' Michael asked.

  'Dona Alicia,' she replied. 'She caught me as I was coming out.'

  'It seems to me,' Michael said, after a moment or two considering the matter, 'that you and Dona Alicia are getting pretty thick lately.'

  'She's a very charming lady, and I like her,' Sally said.

  'Which is more than you'd say for the smouldering-eyed Ines, I'll bet,' he laughed. 'She isn't exactly a fan of yours, darling.'

  'I don't have to see her very often,' Sally said, taking a rose from one of the arches as they passed through the patio gates on to the driveway. 'But she doesn't like me, it's true, though I can't think why.'

  'Oh, come off it, darling,' Michael teased her. 'You're a very beautiful girl. Ines Valdaquez would dislike you on principle, and especially when she has the Maestro in line for the altar before too long.'

  'You think so?' She asked the question thoughtfully, wondering how much more the men of the party knew than she did herself. True, she was in the house and in closer contact with the family, but at least two of the men in the party spoke Spanish and they had many more opportunities to gossip to the servants. Sally had never subscribed to the belief that women are bigger gossips than men, she had seen it disproved too often.

  'We think so,' Michael told her with a knowing smile. 'But we're not too sure how the Spanish church stands on the point of a man marrying his cousin's widow. Otherwise we reckon that's the only thing that'll stop it.'

  'You could be right, I suppose.'

  Sally was thoughtfully silent all the way down to the village. Even the copper-bright landscape with the sea hurling itself at the rocks below the narrow road did not enthrall her as it might have done. She was thinking all the time of Ines Valdaquez installed at the Casa de Principes and demanding all Miguel Cordova's time and attention. How, she wondered, would those wealthy and beautiful mistresses fare then?

  The church they sought was set back from the small, dusty village square. Mellow stone carved and ornamented as the old one must have been, perhaps even copied faithfully from its predecessor. It was small but so beautifully proportioned that even Sally, who had little knowledge of such things as architecture, could recognise its merits.

  Inside it was cool and quiet, and reminded Sally as much of the Casa de Principes as the house always did of a church. There was that same air of stillness about it, and the same richness, in dark polished wooden screens and pews, carved as the old pews must have been carved, by craftsmen who put time and love into their work as well as skill.

  Candles burned at the altar, and Sally's eyes were at once drawn to the curved arch of bare wall behind it. That was where Miguel Cordova's Golden Madonna would hang when it was completed. The painting that he wanted her to sit for, and she gazed at the blank space for a long while trying to visualize the finished picture up there.

  'Darling! Sally!' Michael's voice brought her back from her dream world, and he smiled at her, puzzled by her preoccupation. 'What's the matter w7ith you, darling?' he asked, taking her arm. 'You looked as if you were seeing visions or something.'

  'Not visions,' Sally told him quietly, looking up again at the empty wall behind the altar. 'Michael —can you imagine a painting up there?'

  He looked up, frowning over the question for a moment or two, then he nodded. 'Yes, I suppose I can,' he admitted. 'They usually have something of the sort behind the altar, don't they? Why? What's your interest in it?'

  'It could be quite a big one,' Sally said, wondering for the first time about his reaction to the news. 'Don Miguel wants me to sit for the painting he's doing for the altar.'

  'You?' He stared at her as if he thought she might have taken leave of her senses. 'But why you? Surely a dark model would have been more appropriate. Why you?'

  Sally put a hand to her hair, her eyes smiling as she looked up at the blank wall. 'Because it's the Church of the Golden Virgin,' she said softly. 'Miguel sees me as his Golden Madonna.'

  She realised even as the words left her lips that she had made it sound much more of a personal thing than it would in fact be, and Michael was staring at her with a small frown between his brows. 'I see,' he said at last. 'Well, I hope for your sake, darling, that Ines Valdaquez is ready to accept you in the role, or you could find yourself on the receiving end of a very unsaintly temper.'

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT was not easy to judge just what Michael's reaction really was to the news that Sally was to model for Miguel Cordova's Madonna. He had assured her that she should be very honoured, that it would be a wonderful experience for her to be portrayed by one of the world's greatest painters, but somehow, beneath it all, she suspected he was not as pleased as he professed to be. As soon as a suitable opportunity offered itself, she would ask him about it.

  It was very near dinner time by the time they got back from the village, for the walk back up the hill had taken them longer than they had anticipated. She had much less time than usual to wash and change for dinner, and she was not only hurrying but preoccupied when she reached the head of the stairs, so that she did not see anyone there until a hand on her arm brought her to a halt, with a small cry of surprise.

  'Sarita!'

  Sally experienced with dismay the inevitable curling sensation in the pit of her stomach, and her pulses were racing with much more than the climb upstairs. Don Miguel,' she said breathlessly. 'I didn't see you there!'

  She still had the black lace mantilla draped over her hair, and his eyes went straight to it, appraising the picture she made. The da
rk green dress flattering the lightly tanned fairness of her skin, and wearing the traditional headdress of his country with as much effect as any Spanish girl had ever done.

  'The mantilla suits you,' he said, and when she would have removed it, stayed her hand with his own. 'No, leave it!'

  'It isn't mine,' Sally explained, her voice betraying the effect he had on her senses when he touched her. 'Dona Alicia lent it to me.'

  Briefly the whiteness of a smile touched the sternness of his face. 'Ah yes, you have been to visit the church?' Sally nodded, and the pressure of his fingers increased momentarily. 'You have been to see where my Madonna will hang?'

  'Yes,' she said. 'It—it needs something there to fill that space. A Madonna would be very appropriate.'

  'A golden Madonna,' he said softly. 'That is why I need you to sit for me. My mother tells me that you have agreed, and I have to thank you for that, Sarita.'

  Sally could not resist it. She looked up into the dark face, shadowed by the dimness of the daylight on the landing, disturbed by a strange gentleness she saw there. 'Because you've been told you should thank me?' she asked quietly, and a swift frown banished the gentleness for a moment.

  'No, nina,' he said softly then, 'because I think I should.'

  She knew she had been unfair, perhaps even childishly spiteful to make that dig at him when he was trying to apologise, and she regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. 'I'm sorry,' she said.

  'Are you?'

  'Yes. I shouldn't have been—bitchy,' she insisted, and saw him frown again.

  'That is not a good word to use,' he told her. 'Especially when it is not true.'

  'Oh, don't you think so?' she asked, chancing a swift glance at him from the shadow of her lashes. 'I thought you had a pretty low opinion of me, judging by your implications yesterday. You said, if I remember, that English women were timid and pallid, amongst other things.'

  Why she was being deliberately provocative, she did not quite know, except that it acted as a sort of defence mechanism against the way her whole being was responding to being this close to him. That same turbulence of emotions that he could arouse in her so easily was making her behave as she would never have dreamed of doing normally.

  'Did I say those things?' he asked quietly, and she felt a shiver run through her at the softness of his voice, and the way the black eyes were looking at her.

  'You did,' she said.

  'Then will you please believe me when I say how sorry I am?'

  Sally smiled, a small, slow smile that showed in her eyes and gave them a soft, glistening look that teased him for taking her so seriously. 'I'm not sure I do,' she told him. 'You're a very unpredictable man, Don Miguel.'

  'I mean it when I say that I am sorry I was rude to you,' he said, and made a wry grimace. 'You will be no doubt pleased to know that I have been—how is it you say?—-told off.'

  'Oh?' Sally looked at him for a moment, then laughed, unable to resist it. The vision of anyone being brave enough to tell off a man as proud and arrogant as Miguel was irresistible, and she knew that it could only have been Dona Alicia. Sally's blue eyes shone with mischievous delight, and she tipped back her head as she laughed, looking at him through her lashes, her throat softly pale above the high neck of the dark dress. 'That's something I'd love to have witnessed,' she told him.

  'So!' He looked at her for a moment with a dark gleam in the black eyes that rested so intently on her mouth. Then he took her face between his hands, the palms warm against her skin and his fingers strong as they cupped her face. 'You like the idea of me being reprimanded, do you?'

  'Yes, I do rather!'

  His mouth was straight and stern and she should have taken warning from it, but she felt quite blithely uncaring as she stood there, aware only of the touch of his hands, and the irresistible longing she felt to have his arms around her. Her eyes reflected something of what she felt, and glistened like jewels as she laughed again, softly provocative.

  'Because you think I deserve to be—how is it?— put in my place?' he demanded. 'Is that what you want?'

  'Something like that,' Sally agreed, her eyes daring him to deny that he deserved it.

  He was still for a moment, and she could feel the tense strength of him in the hands that cupped her face, then his fingers moved bruisingly hard on her cheeks. 'You —poco salvaje!' he whispered harshly.

  'No!' She tried to move her head, but could do no more than cry a protest.

  'You would enjoy seeing me punished, would you?' he said. 'You would see me on my knees, perhaps? Like a criado?'

  'I didn't say that,' Sally denied, a flick of panic in the erratic thudding of her heart when she saw the anger she had aroused in him. 'You said yourself that you deserved to be told off.' She met the brilliance of the black eyes and shivered, her heart almost deafening in its clamour. 'And you're being rude to me again, I know. That—poco, something.'

  'Little savage!' he told her, in a tight, harsh voice.

  'Oh, that's not fair!' Sally objected, but the hands either side of her face were holding her so tightly that it seemed almost as if he was trying to crush her between his palms.

  'It is true!' he said tersely. 'You enjoy seeing me without defence!'

  'Miguel!'

  'I tried to thank you for agreeing to sit for me.' He spoke through tight lips, ignoring her cry of protest. 'I meant only to be—grateful. As anyone would be grateful to a young girl who has consented to give so much of her free time to helping me, but' He shook his head and there was a searing look in his eyes that for a moment Sally found hard to face up to. 'You will not let me simply thank you. You do not behave as I expect you to. You do not behave as a young girl, but as a woman does.' His voice was a harsh whisper and the hands that held her, cruelly hard. 'You laugh at me, taunting me with your eyes, until I—Madre de Dios! What am I to do with you?'

  The outburst was unexpected and it startled her, but it did nothing to still the longing that she felt for him to hold her in his arms, and she could not deny, in all honesty, that a good deal of what he said was true. She had provoked him deliberately, and she could have curled up and died when she thought of how it must look from his point of view. She should have considered the effect such behaviour would have on a man of his temperament.

  She put up her hands to free herself of the relentless grip, but he seemed not to notice her efforts until she made a verbal protest. 'You're hurting me,' she said huskily. 'Please don't, Miguel, you're hurting me!'

  He stared at her for a moment, then let his hands fall to his sides. 'I am sorry.'

  There was such an oddly vulnerable look about him for a moment that she instinctively put out her hands to him, in a gesture that was almost an appeal. 'Miguel!'

  He drew a deep, steadying breath, shaking his head as if he sought to dismiss the past few minutes from his mind. 'It seems I have to apologise to you, yet again,' he said in a cold, calm voice, more like his own. 'I have promised your father that I will take care of you while you are under my roof, and again I allow myself to forget that you are a young student in my charge.'

  Sally's fingers curled into her palms, and there was a brightness in her eyes that now owed nothing to laughter. 'Stop talking to me as if I was a child,' she told him in a taut angry voice. 'You're not in charge of me, Don Miguel, no one is. I'm a grown, responsible woman and perfectly capable of taking care of myself, no matter what you and my father have connived between you.'

  His straight mouth was set firm, but it tipped briefly at one corner in the ghost of a smile. 'I am a man of my word, Sarita,' he told her. 'If I promise your father that I will—how is it?—keep an eye on you, then that is what I will do!'

  'And I've told you you don't have to!' Sally declared.

  It was humiliating, after the previous few moments, that he should resort to treating her like a recalcitrant child, and she suspected that it was as much to salve his own conscience in connection with his promise to her father as to punish h
er.

  He said nothing for a moment, but studied her from the concealment of his own thick lashes, leaning back against the wrought iron balustrade, almost casual after the tension of a few minutes before.

  'I suppose,' he said slowly at last, 'that you will refuse to sit for me now?'

  Sally had forgotten the Madonna for the moment, and when she was reminded of it, she found herself strangely reluctant to surrender her role to anyone else. Especially if there was a chance of it being Ines Valdaquez. She shook her head slowly, rubbing her sore cheeks with her finger-tips as she looked at him.

  'No,' she said. 'I'll still sit for you, if you want me to.'

  He looked at her for a moment, then a brief smile relieved the stern expression on his face. 'Ah, but of course,' he said softly, 'you now have a duena.'

  'Dona Alicia has promised to sit with me,' Sally agreed. 'She offered to come, it wasn't my idea.'

  He nodded, but it was plain from his expression that he knew exactly why Dona Alicia had volunteered for the task. 'Because if she had not, you would not have come, I think,' he said.

  'I told her I couldn't.'

  'Or wouldn't,' he suggested softly, and Sally looked up swiftly to argue, but he held up a hand before she could speak. 'I think we should prepare for dinner,' he said. 'It is almost time and you have not yet changed, Sarita. Will you perhaps come down as you are?'

  'Like this?' She looked down at the dark green dress with its high neckline and long sleeves, slightly dusty from her walk down to the village. 'I can't very well,' she told him. 'I'm much too dust-stained to appear at table.'

  He looked, for a moment, as if he would argue with her opinion, but then he thought better of it, and shrugged instead. 'As you wish,' he said, and turned on his heel to go downstairs. 'Adios, Sarita!'

  'But when does he intend starting on this portrait of the Madonna?' Michael asked, and it was obvious from his tone of voice that he was definitely not as much in favour of the idea as he had first appeared, as Sally had suspected.