The Golden Madonna

by Rebecca Stratton

  She must have sighed, unconsciously, because Michael was looking at her a little strangely, his blue eyes questioning her quiet, almost sad mood this morning. One hand touched her neck and he moved a little closer to her on the seat.

  'What's wrong, darling?' he asked, and Sally looked startled for a moment, then shook her head with a smile.

  'Nothing's wrong,' she told him. 'I'm just a bit tired and edgy, that's all.'

  'Is that modelling business too much for you?' he asked. 'If it is you must give it up.'

  'I couldn't do that,' Sally said with a smile.

  'How did you get on?' he asked. 'I didn't ask last night because you seemed a bit—silent, and I didn't want you to explode. I thought maybe you'd been— well, arguing.'

  'We hadn't,' Sally denied. 'It went quite well, I think. He's only sketching at the moment, of course, but he seems to have done quite a lot.'

  'No problems?'

  Too easily suspicious, Sally looked at him for a moment, but there seemed to be no hidden meaning behind the question, and she shook her head. 'No, no problems,' she said. 'Except that I have to learn to sit still for long periods at a time, and it can be a bit wearing until one gets used to it.'

  'I can imagine,' he said sympathetically. 'Did he give you any idea of how long he'd need you?'

  Sally reached out and took the falling petals from a rose and held them in her hand for a moment, gazing at them thoughtfully before she answered. 'It's going to take quite a long time, Michael,' she said at last. 'Maybe longer than the time we have here.'

  'I expected it would,' Michael said. 'But he won't need you for the whole time. It's not like a personal portrait, you know, he can use someone else's hands and everything. It's been done before.'

  Sally said nothing for several minutes, but held the rose petals to her face and inhaled their fragrance. 'I know it can be done like that,' she said after a while. 'But I promised I'd stay on, until it's finished.'

  'You' He stared at her unbelievingly. 'What on earth possessed you to do that?' he demanded. 'Have you gone quite crazy, darling?'

  Sally's cheeks had a flushed and rosy look, and there was a defensive gleam in her blue eyes when she looked up at him. 'No, I haven't gone crazy,' she denied. 'But I want to see it through, Michael, all the way through. I don't want some—some other woman's body put on to my face. I want to do it all. It's my Madonna as much as it is Miguel's!'

  Michael gazed at her for a moment, as if he could not believe what he heard, then he shook his head, and there was a dark, speculative gleam in his eyes and a firmer look about his mouth. 'You've had a change of heart, haven't you?' he said. 'If you don't watch your step, darling, you'll have Senora Firebomb wanting to scratch your eyes out too!'

  CHAPTER NINE

  IT was a relief, Sally admitted it, when Dona Alicia appeared to be more her usual self at lunchtime. She talked as usual and with no sign of being upset about anything, although her eyes did stray several times to her son, at the head of the table. What she really thought about last night's episode with Ines Valdaquez, Sally could only guess, but judging by her manner, she attached no sort of blame to Sally for what had occurred.

  'Are you prepared to come to the studio again this afternoon, Sarita?' she asked, while Michael's attention was diverted, and Sally nodded. It settled a question that had been in her mind ever since last night.

  'Yes, of course, Dona Alicia.'

  An elegant hand reached out and patted hers gratefully. 'I am so glad, my dear. Miguel was afraid you would refuse in the circumstances.'

  Sally shook her head, not quite sure how frank to be at the moment. 'I—I believe Senora Valdaquez was under a strain,' she said carefully. 'I wasn't hurt, senora.'

  'Your beautiful hair!' She glanced at Sally's head. 'I should have asked if you are suffering any ill effects, my dear. Does your head ache?'

  'Not at all,' Sally assured her. 'Please don't worry about it, Dona Alicia.'

  'But I do worry about it,' Dona Alicia told her. 'I was as angry with Miguel as I was with Ines. They both behaved disgracefully towards you, and I have told them so.'

  'Oh, please don't blame Miguel!' Sally begged her, without stopping to think, and Dona Alicia's blue eyes looked at her for a moment steadily.

  'I can scarcely blame you, nina,' she said softly. 'You are little more than a child, and I could not bear to see you hurt.'

  'But I won't be—I—I mean I wasn't,' Sally hastened to assure her, wondering if she was getting herself in too deeply by trying to protest Miguel's innocence in the matter. She laughed shortly and did not look at the older woman. 'I—I did know that Don Miguel likes—that he likes feminine company,' she said. 'Please don't think it was all his fault.'

  She was aware that Dona Alicia's gentle blue eyes were studying her with a glimmer of something in their depths that she could not quite interpret at the moment. 'Sarita!' she said softly. 'Oh, mi cara, I am so sorry!'

  'Dona Alicia' It was an impression that must be corrected at once, Sally thought wildly. Not for one minute must Dona Alicia be allowed to think that she was in love with Miguel. She could not bear the humiliation of it, besides which it wasn't true. It simply wasn't true.

  'I did not realise,' Dona Alicia was saying softly, and her blue eyes looked clouded and thoughtful. 'Please forgive him, Sarita.'

  'There's really nothing to forgive,' Sally assured her, smiling determinedly. 'I'm none the worse for having my hair tugged. I had the same treatment at school, many times!'

  Dona Alicia looked at her for a moment in silence, then she nodded her head, and began to slice a peach carefully and precisely, giving it all her attention. 'Ines is leaving us tomorrow,' she said quietly, and Sally composed her features to look suitably surprised, although she felt terribly two-faced for doing so, and wished, yet again, that Michael had kept his piece of gossip to himself.

  'I'm sorry,' she said politely. 'You enjoy having her here, I know, Dona Alicia. You'll be sorry to see her go.'

  'Perhaps,' Dona Alicia allowed quietly. 'We have known Ines for most of her life, and one grows accustomed to people.'

  It was perhaps not very tactful in the circumstances to ask questions, but Sally was curious to know if Dick, the eavesdropper, could possibly have been mistaken. In one way she rather hoped he had, for if Miguel had really sent Ines Valdaquez packing, then Dona Alicia would have been more troubled than she showed, and Sally hated to think that she had been hurt, however indirectly, by her actions.

  'Is—is Senora Valdaquez going home?' she asked, and Dona Alicia nodded.

  'She has a very beautiful home in La Rabida,' she said. 'She is recovered from her loss now, and it is better that a woman is in her own home.'

  Could there have been discord between the two women in the one household? Sally wondered. 'Yes. Yes, I suppose it is,' she agreed, but doubted very much if Ines Valdaquez saw it that way.

  Sally was not sure just how soon she was required for her modelling duties, so she planned to do some work of her own in company with the rest of the students when they left the dining-room. Her own studies had been very much neglected lately. Her good intentions were not to be allowed to materialise, however, for as she walked across the patio with Michael she heard her name called.

  'Sarita!'

  She turned, her pulses responding swiftly and alarmingly to Miguel's voice. Michael turned too, frowning as he did so and looking at their host with less favour than ever before. 'Oh, damn!' he said under his breath. 'I'm going to lose you already!'

  Sally scarcely heard him as she watched Miguel come across the patio towards them. He was impeccably dressed as usual, in slim-fitting cream trousers and an open shirt, the sort he always wore and which suited him so perfectly. It was his usual working garb, but somehow she could never get used to how disturbingly attractive he looked in it.

  The black eyes gave Michael a mere passing glance, then settled on Sally, and she would have sworn that there was the faintest hint of uncertainty q in
his voice when he spoke again. 'Are you going to sit for me again, Sarita?' he asked.

  Sally met his eyes for a moment, then hastily lowered her own when her heart began that crazy tattoo against her ribs, and she felt that curling sensation in her stomach again. 'Yes, of course, Don Miguel,' she said quietly, and was amazed to hear how calm she sounded when his just being there could play such havoc with her common sense. 'Didn't Dona Alicia tell you?' she asked.

  A tight little smile just touched the sternness of his mouth for a moment, and he tried to make her look at him by gazing at her steadily. 'I was not sure whether she had understood you aright,' he told her quietly. 'I am glad she was right.'

  'You—you want me now?' Sally asked, and immediately wished she had worded it differently.

  'If you please.' He might almost have followed her train of thought, the way he answered her in that low, soft voice, and she sensed Michael's annoyance as he shifted his feet on the tiled patio.

  'You'll never do much for your own art, darling,' he told her, in a short, irritable voice, and Sally glanced up in time to see Miguel's dark brows draw together above the black eyes as he answered him.

  'Miss Beckett has no illusions that she will ever make a good artist, Mr. Storer,' he told him, his stern dark face expressing the dislike he felt at being criticised. 'She is, however, an excellent model for my purpose and you may rest assured that no one will be cheated. I have already returned the fee for her stay here to Mr. Beckett, as he will no doubt inform his daughter in his own time.'

  'Oh, but you shouldn't have!' Sally protested, quite unable to understand how this man's mind worked. 'There was no need to have done that, Don Miguel!'

  There was no glimmer of a smile on the stern features as he looked down at her, arrogantly confident, as usual. It was difficult for her to believe that he was the same man who had held her in his arms and kissed her so passionately last night. He was so stern and reserved this morning, almost cold, she thought, except that she knew it was not coldness that made him appear so stern, but iron self-control.

  'It is a matter between men, Sarita,' he informed her. 'You need not concern yourself with it.'

  'But I do!' Sally insisted. 'You make me feel as if you've' She stopped hastily and he looked at her enquiringly, one brow raised.

  'Si, senorita?' he asked softly.

  'Oh—nothing!' Sally said. 'If you want me to come now, I'm ready.'

  'Bueno!' He indicated with one hand that she should precede him back to the house, but Sally looked at Michael's disgruntled face, and shook her head.

  'Give me a moment,' she begged. 'I'd like to have a word with Michael.'

  For a moment she thought he was going to refuse, but then he shrugged briefly and turned on his heel, t striding off back across the patio, while Sally watched and wondered, yet again, at the marvelously lithe and cat-like grace of such a tall man.

  'Damn him I' Michael said vehemently. So vehemently that Sally looked at him with startled eyes.

  'You don't usually talk about him like that,' she said. 'What's wrong, Michael?'

  'I wish I knew,' Michael confessed unwillingly. He looked down at the beautiful mosaic tiles that covered the patio, and kicked at them with one foot, aimlessly. 'I've just got a feeling, Sally.'

  'A feeling?'

  He nodded. 'Oh, I know I'll probably get a rousting from you for even suggesting it, knowing how you feel, but—Sally, has the Maestro ever—well, made a pass at you?'

  Sally's heart was hammering uncomfortably hard against her ribs and she sought for words as she had never done in her life before. It occurred to her to lie, to hope that he would never find out what a fool she had been, not once but three times, but it would be useless, she thought. If he did not learn it from someone else, sooner or later she would give herself away, somehow, as she had to Dona Alicia. Better now, while she was comparatively cool and calm, than wait for a quarrel with Michael to let it slip.

  She moved a little way away from him, and sought concealment in the cascading bower of a climbing rose, burying her face in the cool fragrance of the blooms, her voice muffled and indistinct when she spoke. 'I can't say that,' she said slowly. 'Because I can't blame Miguel for what happened. It was my fault—after the first time, it was anyway.'

  'The first time!' Michael, she knew, would be staring at her in disbelief and she did not want to face him, now that he knew. He was not prepared to talk to her back, however, and he grabbed her right arm and swung her round to face him, his blue eyes dark and angry. 'How many times have there been, for God's sake?'

  'Only three,' Sally confessed, a warm flush colouring her cheeks, and Michael stared down at her, his good-looking face blank with disbelief.

  'Only!' he said at last, and laughed bitterly. 'And you made such a big show of disliking him! Playing me for a fool, and all the time—my God! Up in that damned studio of his, I suppose?'

  Sally nodded, her whole body crawling with humiliation and wanting to get away from Michael and his accusations before she cried. Whether his anger was because of his love for her, or for her stupidity in allowing herself to be fooled by a practised seducer she did not really care at the moment. Certain she could not face the accusing look in his eyes any longer, she wrenched at the arm he held. 'Let me go, Michael!'

  He said nothing for a moment, the hand that held her sliding slowly down her arm to fall at his side as he stood there and stared down at her. Then gradually she saw realisation dawn, and he shook his head slowly from side to side. 'It was you,' he said in a voice that threatened to break. 'It was you that Ines Valdaquez was talking about last night. She knew about you!'

  'I don't know that it was,' Sally said. 'It might have been something else, I don't know! Ines— Senora Valdaquez came up to the studio when— when'

  'Oh, in God's name spare me the details!' Michael begged harshly. 'And because he was caught in the act, he's sending her packing! What a gallant Spanish gentleman!'

  There was no more bitter discovery, Sally thought, than finding an idol had feet of clay, and on whatever pedestal Michael had put Miguel Cordova, it had just come crashing to the ground, and she could not help feeling sorry for him. Dalliance with other women, he could accept as the Maestro's due; when it concerned what he considered his own girl, it was vastly different.

  'It wasn't Miguel's fault,' Sally insisted: 'It—it was mine, if it was anybody's.'

  He looked at her with such hurt in his eyes that she almost cried out. 'And that's supposed to comfort me?' he asked bitterly.

  'Oh, Michael!' Sally felt close to tears, because she knew that explanations were useless. As useless as the love she had for Miguel and which she had only now recognised for the deep and enduring passion it was.

  'I loved you,' Michael said dully. 'I really loved you.'

  'Michael, I'

  'Don't say anything else, Sally, for heaven's sake,' he begged. 'Especially don't say you feel sorry. I don't think I could stomach that right now!'

  For a moment she stood there, feeling very small and vulnerable, her long gold-coloured hair catching the hot sunlight and seeming to blend with the pale yellow dress until she appeared golden from head to foot, then she turned without a word, and walked across the patio to the house. Miguel still wanted her for his golden Madonna, if for no other reason.

  When Sally made her way through the house a few minutes later, she saw no one, except for a brief glimpse of Ana, the housekeeper, and the woman's dark, smileless face never gave her call for encouragement anyway. The dining-room was quite deserted now, even the evidence of their recent meal had been cleared away, and she walked across the cool, silent room to the door leading out to the studio passageway.

  She had no need of a guide now to find her way to the studio, and she expected Miguel was already waiting for her and not very patiently. It would never do to keep him waiting for much longer.

  The scent of the white roses, freshly picked and placed before the big brass crucifix in the passage, filled th
e narrow space, and, almost without thinking, Sally paused in front of the tiny shrine. Still without conscious reason she reached out and touched the brass cross lightly with her finger tips, finding the metal almost incredibly cold.

  Her pause was brief, and as she walked on towards the stairs she was surprised to find tears trickling down her face, so that she put a hand to brush them away. The same movement reminded her of how cold the brass crucifix had been to her touch, for the coldness of the metal was transmitted to her skin and made her shiver involuntarily.

  Her own footsteps sounded softly on the stairs, but she could hear no sound from the studio when she knocked on the door. Another knock produced no call to come in, and she ventured at last to open the door a fraction and peep in. The big, sunny room was empty and had a strangely deserted look, despite the paraphernalia of the artist, and for a moment Sally hesitated, then, looking round at the silent stairs warily, she went in and closed the door.

  Only the sound of the sea below the rocks disturbed the silence, and it had a more peaceful air than she had ever noticed in it before, probably owing to the absence of its usual occupant.

  The sketch pad he had used was still propped on the easel, and the temptation to look at what he had done so far was too much to resist. There was no sound of anyone coming yet, and she would surely hear them on the stairs, but just the same she lifted the paper cover of the pad very gingerly and peeped under it.

  She blinked for a moment, for the page was completely blank save for a smudgy thumb-print on the top left-hand corner. Picking it up, she stared at it unbelievingly, curiosity overcoming any fears she had had of being caught. As she picked it up, however, several sheets of torn-up paper slipped from behind the back pages and scattered over the floor in every direction.