The Golden Madonna

by Rebecca Stratton

  Fluttering in panic now, she bent to retrieve them and stared at the piece she held in her hand, gazing at it in disbelief. Clearly against the white paper was a black line image of the top half of her own face. It was beautiful in its simplicity and Sally felt a cold twisting sensation in her stomach when she thought of the hate that had gone into its destruction, making a great ripping gash across the mouth.

  One by one she gathered the other pieces, her hands trembling, until she had the whole of Miguel's work for all those hours yesterday afternoon and evening in her hands, gazing at them in silence.

  She felt as if the attack had been made upon her physically, and she stood there, holding the torn pieces and shaking her head, while tears rolled down her face for the wicked waste of it, and the hurt it must have given Miguel.

  Miguel! She looked up, wide-eyed and suddenly panic-stricken, when she heard footsteps on the stairs and recognised his tread. Suppose he did not know about the drawings being destroyed, and he caught her there with them in her hands? There was no time for her to do anything about them now, and she turned and looked across at him as he opened the door.

  She looked small and tragic, standing there in the middle of the room with the remnants of hours of work in her hands and tears flowing unchecked down her face. He stopped in his tracks for a second when he saw her, and it was hard to determine just what his reaction was. Then he came swiftly across the room and took the pieces from her unresisting hands and laid them against the easel board.

  'I—I didn't do it, Miguel,' she said, huskily breathless. 'I didn't—I couldn't. '

  'I know.' His voice was incredibly soft and gentle, and he hesitated only briefly before reaching out to lay a hand on her head. It touched her soft fair hair in a stroking gesture that both soothed and caressed and played havoc with her senses. 'I know you could not do it, mi pichon,' he said. 'I do not blame you.'

  'But it's wicked,' Sally whispered. 'How could anyone do such a thing?'

  He looked at her steadily for a moment, and she tried to guess what he was thinking, but there was a deep, unfathomable look in his eyes that defeated her. 'I could if I was angry enough,' he told her, and, seeing her look of disbelief. 'You do not yet understand the Latin temperament, pequena.'

  Sally stared at him in dismay for a moment, shaking her head against the possibility his words suggested. 'But—you didn't—you didn't destroy them, did you?' she begged. 'You didn't, Miguel!'

  'No, I did not destroy them,' he assured her quietly. 'But I can understand the kind of anger— the passion that could do such a thing, while you do not, Sarita.'

  'If that's the kind of thing it can make people do, I don't think I ever will understand,' Sally said. She brushed a hand across the tears that still stained her cheeks, and looked up at him, already on the defensive against the expected opinion of her own tearfulness. 'I—I suppose you think I'm all kinds of an idiot for crying about it,' she guessed, and he shook his head.

  'No,' he said quietly. 'Weeping for something that is lost is a form of emotion, amada, and being Spanish that is something I also understand, you see.'

  She forced her gaze away from the demoralising effect of the black eyes, and instead looked again at the fragments of paper that lay on the easel. 'They were beautiful drawings,' she said softly.

  'And you were going to look at them, without being told that you might?' he asked, very softly, but with enough accusation to make Sally look up at him again.

  'I—I just wanted to see how it was going,' she told him.

  'Even when you know I don't like anyone to see unfinished work?'

  Sally bit her lip and held her hands closely together in front of her. At one time she would have been fiercely defensive about it, and it seemed incredible, even to her, that she was being so quiet and apologetic now. 'I—I suppose I shouldn't have looked,' she said. 'Not without asking you—I'm sorry.'

  'Sarita!'

  For a moment the black eyes held hers with that deep, heart-stirring intensity that she had thought she would never see again, after last night, and her brain began to spin chaotically. He stood so close to her that she could have touched him without moving an inch, but even as the thought came into her head, he stepped back and away from her, half turning his back to her as he picked up the sketch pad.

  'We will do more drawings,' he said, in a voice that sounded hard and cool after the gentleness of a few moments before. 'In a few moments my mother, your duena, will be with us. At the moment she is with Ines, but she promised to come straight away.'

  Mentioning Ines Valdaquez brought to mind the Spanish girl's imminent departure, and she thought she saw the reason for her dismissal now. Obviously Ines had destroyed the drawings during that angry scene last night. Miguel himself had not done it, and it was unthinkable that Dona Alicia was suspect.

  She reached out and touched the torn fragments on the easel. 'Was—did Senora Valdaquez do this?' she asked, and a moment later wondered at her own temerity in raising the question.

  Miguel turned slowly, his black eyes searching her face, as if to discover how much else she knew. 'Of course,' he said at last, quietly. 'That is why I am sending her away.' He raised a querying brow. 'You knew she was going away?' he asked.

  Sally nodded. 'Yes, Dona Alicia told me at lunch- time.'

  He smiled briefly and wryly. 'Yes, of course,' he said.

  'I'm—I'm sorry.'

  Again the black eyes questioned her. 'You are sorry?' he asked. 'I would have thought it was to your liking, Sarita.' She had never heard him laugh before, and the deep, quiet sound of it prickled her senses and sent her heart racing like a wild thing. He shook his head slowly. 'I do not think I know you very well, amada,' he said softly.

  'She's—I mean, I feel sorry for her,' Sally ventured, and again he frowned in curiosity.

  'For being a widow?'

  'No, for being so much in' She stopped short, her eyes widening in horror at the awful gaffe she had so nearly committed.

  'For being in love with me?' he asked, so quietly that she barely heard him, still appalled at her indiscretion.

  'I'm sorry, Miguel,' she said, her voice half choked in her throat. 'I didn't mean'

  He turned away from her again, so that his stern, arrogant profile stood out against the stark white of the opposite wall, and Sally's emotions were a tangle of wild longings and almost uncontrollable desires, with somewhere a spark of pity for Ines Valdaquez, because she too, must be suffering the same torment if she was in love with Miguel.

  'We cannot always have the things we most desire,' he told her in a cold hard voice, his own emotions apparently under complete control. 'Love is a comparative emotion. It cannot be allowed to cloud our judgment in matters more important.'

  'More important?' Sally asked breathlessly, wishing he would turn and look at her while he was speaking, and realising suddenly why he did not.

  'Ines is my cousin's widow, and I could not marry her, even if I had the wish to,' he went on, swiftly sorting pieces of charcoal with hands that seemed unusually aimless for him.

  'You don't love her?' Sally asked softly, and resisted the temptation to reach out and still those restless hands.

  'I do not love her!' he affirmed coldly.

  'Is—is there someone you do love?' she asked, and he was still suddenly, although he did not turn and look at her.

  He was silent for a long time, and Sally stood there so close, and yet feeling so far away as he stared at the blank pages of the sketch book. His mouth was tight and straight and looked cruel as it sometimes did, his black eyes hidden by those incredibly long eyelashes.

  'How old are you, Sarita?'

  The words startled her and for a moment Sally merely stared at him unanswering, then she swallowed hard, and shook her head. 'I—I'm twenty- one,' she told him, and just had to add, 'Why?'

  He did not answer, but busied himself with the charcoal again so that Sally at last reached out and put her hands over his, the very touch of him fil
ling her with a sense of elation so that her heart thudded heavily at her breast and the blood coursed through her body like fire. 'Why, Miguel?' she asked softly.

  He let her hands stay there for a moment, then he raised his own and threw them aside, as if he could no longer bear to touch her. 'I have done many things I should not have done, in my life,' he said, in that same cold, hard voice. 'Other men's wives, other men's mistresses have' He waved an eloquent hand. 'I have been discreet, at least, I can claim that, but those women have been there in my life, Sarita. Women who were experienced in the ways of the world, in the ways of men.' The black eyes turned to her at last, and the expression in them made her reach out again to touch him. 'You are a child, Sarita.'

  'No!' She had no hesitation now, needed no other encouragement but what she had seen in his eyes, and she slid her arms around his lean hard body and pulled him as close as she could, until at last he gave a cry that sounded almost like a cry of pain and his arms crushed her against him.

  'Sarita!' His mouth was at her throat, her neck and fiercely hard and passionate on her lips, every muscle of his body straining her to him as if he wanted to make her part of him.

  Sally's hands slid smoothly over the soft shirt, feeling the warmth of his sl^in through the thin material, her whole body crying out for him. 'Oh, Miguel!' She looked up at him at last, her eyes huge and shining like blue jewels as she shook her long hair. 'You won't send me away too, will you?' she begged, and one long hand smoothed back the hair from her forehead as he looked down at her.

  'I should,' he told her. 'But—Madre de Dios! I cannot when you look at me like that!'

  Sally laid her hands on his chest, one finger prising open the buttons on his shirt and softly stroking the golden skin beneath. 'You can't send me away and still have your golden Madonna,' she said, and laughed softly, knowing that that point at least was unarguable.

  'That is true,' he agreed straight-faced. 'But I am still not sure that it would not be more honourable for me to send you away, for your own sake.'

  'Not for my own sake,' Sally told him. 'I should pine away, and then you'd regret it.'

  For a long moment he said nothing, while Sally was prepared to plead, to beg, to do anything to stay with him. Then his arms tightened their hold suddenly, until the strength of them almost made her cry out."'I am not strong enough to do it, mi amada,' he told her. 'I love you too much.'

  Sally's sigh of relief was smothered when his mouth covered hers, and she cared for nothing but the strength of his arms and the strong steady beat of his heart against her. When at last he looked down at her again, the glowing black eyes had a deep warmth that aroused every nerve in her body. 'Will your father allow you to marry a Spaniard, mi amada?' he asked, and Sally laughed, throwing back her head and looking at him from beneath her lashes in the provocative way he had once scolded her for.

  'The way you two have been conniving behind my back,' she told him, 'I'm surprised you haven't arranged it already.'

  'Impudencia!' He squeezed her again tightly. 'Will you marry me in the Church of the Golden Madonna, mi pequena}' he asked softly, and Sally nodded, her eyes shining.

  'In our church,' she said. 'Perhaps with our Madonna looking on.'

  Miguel smiled, shaking his head. 'Oh no, amada,' he said softly. 'I will not wait that long for you.'

  'Miguel'

  'Este quieta!' Miguel ordered sternly, and kissed her again.

  It was some minutes later when Sally nodded agreement. 'Si, Miguel,' she said quietly.

  Table of Contents

  THE GOLDEN MADONNA

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE