His chin was tilted in arrogance, his blue eyes were brilliant in laughter. Dorcas found him dangerously attractive. A greater proportion of English reserve, a smaller helping of Spanish charm, would have produced a more manageable man. But not such an interesting one, was the renegade thought.
Sighing, she rose to her feet. ‘Thank you for the tea. Goodbye.’
‘If you are determined to go, I cannot stop you.’ His smile was philosophical. ‘The world is not such a big place and it is shrinking daily. Perhaps . . .’ The implication that they would meet again was as empty as the air it trailed into.
He could not mean the regret his tone conveyed. Flattery was a basic Spanish trait. Relish it, then relinquish it. Prudently observing this thought, Dorcas dragged back the hand given to him in goodbye and bent to pick up her suitcase.
‘Let me take that. Allow me to drive you somewhere.’
‘No. Thank you but that won’t be necessary.’ The only voice at her command had husky undertones. ‘I’m perfectly capable of carrying my own suitcase.’ She straightened her shoulders, as if to strengthen her independence.
His smile no longer seemed quite so arrogant. ‘As you wish.’ His rueful expression dimmed his Don Juan image. He looked—yes—unhappy to see her go.
Dorcas walked away imprinting it all in her mind. The blending of scents drifting on the breeze, the wild non-uniformity of colour spilling joyously from the flower urns skirting the steps. Colours fade, scents evaporate; Dorcas knew that Carlos Ruiz would stay brilliant in her mind for some time to come.
The sun ploughed into a bank of cloud, plunging the hazy gold overtones of the day into premature twilight. She had the strange, soul-sinking sensation of walking away from light and laughter.
* * *
On arrival at the railway station, Dorcas looked round for a seat in expectation of a long wait. Spanish trains were slow and often late. Neither were they all that frequent.
She was fretful and on edge. Leaving her suitcase, she walked the length of the platform, then resumed her seat. Her normal command of patience was conspicuously absent.
One moment she was quite alone on the platform, the next it was swarming with people. She identified them as a break-away dozen or more of the Ruiz party.
She pressed her shoulders against the hard platform seat, as though wishing to disappear into it. Silly of her, because had Carlos Ruiz intended to follow her, he would have done so straight away. Also, he would have come alone.
No great mystery. The reason they were here turned out to be the obvious one. To wish godspeed to a girl of about her own age, a girl blessed with luxuriant black hair and sparkling eyes. She had a champagne personality, bubbling over with animation. Words effervesced from her lips.
‘I’ve had such a wonderful time. I have so much to tell my dear Jaime when I get home. Yes, I wish I could have stayed longer. No . . . no . . . I will not be persuaded to change my mind. I have already been parted too long from my dearest husband. My heart aches at the absence . . . besides which, my Jaime is too attractive and has the too plausible tongue to be left on his own.’
This sage-tinged witticism received its expected laugh, and then Rose Ruiz came into the limelight with an imploring: ‘But Feli, my child, I beg you to reconsider. In a few days the road will be open and your brother will be only too pleased to drive you home. The train journey is so tedious. Think how much more pleasant it will be by car.’
Was the ‘my child’ a figure of speech, or was Feli her daughter? Was Carlos the brother Señora Ruiz referred to? More to the point, was Carlos here?
Dorcas searched faces until her eyes felt screwed-out and sore; then the sound of that memorable voice directed her head.
‘Mother is right. It would be more sensible to stay until I can drive you home.’ But his words were flat and without command, and he gave his sister but scant attention. It was as if he were aware of Dorcas’s scrutiny and his head was alerted for sight or sound of her.
Dorcas was on the point of coming out of the shadows and revealing her presence when two white arms slid up and fastened round his neck. A voice, husky with meaning, demanded: ‘Can love ever be sensible, Carlos? Is it not natural for Feli to want to hasten to her man? As any woman does, for that matter. Are you so cold that your heart does not beat faster at the thought?’
He replied: ‘Isabel, you may hasten to me any time you wish.’
Strain as she might, Dorcas could only get a tantalizing back view of the daring Isabel. And Carlos’s two hands clasped proprietorially round her incredibly slender waist.
So! It was exactly as she had surmised. His English blood had not diluted his aptitude for meaningless Spanish flattery. What had passed between them had no greater significance than an English wink or a wolf whistle. While she was in Spain, Dorcas would do well to remember that unlike his English counterpart, the Spanish male makes a gala performance of a simple act of appreciation.
The train drew in. Dorcas slipped unobtrusively aboard. Feli scrambled on breathless seconds before it started to move. From the door she blew kisses and goodbyes, and began to progress totteringly along the swaying carriage. Her eyes were still turned in on happy thoughts so that although she chose to sit opposite Dorcas, she did not actually see her. The baby, a girl, gurgled in her arms and pushed her fat feet against Feli’s flat stomach.
Dorcas gasped in spontaneous delight. ‘I didn’t know about the baby! I didn’t see her.’
‘Why should you know about my baby?’ Feli enquired, puzzled. ‘I do not think we are acquainted.’
Afraid lest Feli thought she was too pushing, Dorcas drew back. ‘No. I witnessed the leave-taking just now.’
‘Papa was holding Rosita. She is the light of his life. The second best flower in his garden.’
‘Rosita? What a pretty name.’
‘Mama, the flower of his existence, is Rose. My little one just had to be Rosita. Little Rose.’
‘How charming. And so is she. You must be very proud of her.’
‘Beware. That is a most imprudent remark. I am tempted to answer at great length. I am told I can talk for hours on the subject of my daughter. Or any other subject for that matter. In the family circle I am called a chatter-box. Are you certain we are not acquainted? I feel that we’ve met somewhere . . . quite recently.’
‘I hardly think that likely,’ Dorcas put in quickly. ‘I should have felt it too.’
‘Yes. Of course you are right. Are you visiting friends? Or are you on holiday?’
‘I’m on holiday. I decided rather late and the package tours of my choice were fully booked, so I’m doing it the adventurous way.’
‘And is it? Adventurous?’
‘It has not been without trauma. I hired a car and it broke down on me. I decided to continue my sightseeing by train.’
‘A most wise decision,’ said Feli, nodding over the baby’s head, ‘considering the havoc wrought by the recent rain. Have you been to Spain before?’
‘No. This is my first visit.’
‘Caramba!’ exclaimed Feli, waving her free hand in a gesture of dismay. ‘You came for the sun and found the tempest. What a dreadful first visit. I’ve never known such torrential rainfall. I don’t wonder that landslips have made the roads impassable. That was a violent storm we had last night. Did you manage to get any sleep?’
‘No. As I lay in bed I felt that at any moment a thunderbolt was about to crash through the roof of the hotel. Finally I got up and sat it out by the window. I’ve never seen lightning at such close quarters before. I could quite clearly make out the forked shape. It was scary, unreal. I’ve never seen anything so spectacular or as frightening in my life. I could hardly believe it when the sun blazed in the sky this morning. I think that’s what unnerved me.’ And made her susceptible to later events.
‘The contrast, you mean? We are a country of sharp contrasts. Light and shade. Cruelty and kindness. We love and we quarrel in practically the same breath.’ Triumphan
t recognition darted across her features. ‘I am right! I knew I was. We have met before, and I’ve remembered where!’
Feli’s smile deepened; so did the colour in Dorcas’s cheeks.
‘I see I must own up. I gate-crashed your parents’ anniversary party.’
‘You were not unwelcome. On the contrary, you were most welcome to stay. Why did you run away? What did my wicked brother say to make you go in such a hurry?’
‘Nothing. I found your brother quite charming.’
The stiffness in her voice drew a perceptive: ‘Ah! Too charming, perhaps?’
‘That seems to infer he is too charming to a lot of females. But perhaps he is more charming to one than the others?’ Her probing was rewarded.
‘You mean Isabel? He won’t marry her. Papa won’t press it for one thing, because he is too much of a romantic. It would please Mama. It would unite two old families and two family businesses. Isabel’s family are also wine merchants. Carlos won’t marry her for that. He has not officially asked for Isabel. He’s always teased her and told her that he’s waiting for her to grow up, but that’s not the same, is it?’
‘Don’t you want Isabel for a sister-in-law?’
‘No. How blunt that sounds. Don’t misunderstand me, she is a dear girl, no one could wish for a sweeter friend, but I feel it in my heart that she is not right for Carlos.’ Impulsively, Feli reached forward and touched Dorcas’s hand. ‘Now that we’ve met, do not slip away. Will you spend part of your holiday with me? We have too many empty rooms, and my Jaime will be delighted to meet you. He likes me to have company.’
Dorcas felt the silken thread of fate very gently pulling her in. It would have been so easy to say yes. She genuinely liked Feli, and if she were honest with herself she didn’t want to lose touch with Carlos’s family. But there was something too planned about the whole thing. Something that caught like a scream in the throat. Something as frightening and forbidding as the thing we don’t understand, like the storm she had lived through last night. It had drawn her and terrified her, so that while every nerve craved to huddle under the illusory safety of the bedclothes, she had squared her chin and gone out to meet it. She was not a coward.
She shook her head to clear it. This wasn’t the same thing at all. And so, for the second time, she denied fate.
‘I’m sorry,’ she informed Feli, smiling regretfully, ‘but I must say no to your kind offer. There is so much of Spain that I’ve promised myself to see that there won’t be any time to squeeze in a visit to you.’
‘It was just an idea,’ Feli said wistfully. ‘You must follow the dictates of your heart.’
Dorcas thought that if she did that she would be accepting the invitation, not declining it.
The sky darkened with terrifying swiftness. It was as if some enraged power, showing its displeasure, had contemptuously flung a cloak over the earth.
Feli shivered. ‘We’re going to have another storm. I hate storms.’
The baby absorbed her mood and began to whimper.
‘Now, now,’ said Dorcas in brisk, jollying round tones. ‘We mustn’t look on the—’
‘Dark side?’ said Feli, casting her frightened eyes up at a sky that was getting blacker by the second. ‘There have been reports of tornadoes seen off the southern coastline. Weird tunnels of wind sucking up everything in sight.’
‘Now stop that,’ Dorcas admonished sharply. ‘This is just a storm. Most likely it will die out as quickly as it started.’
The sky was now so black it was the colour of pitch. The rain started to fall like some terrible vengeance, ceaselessly beating and flattening the vineyards and olive groves, tormenting the deepening spread of trees and a lone farmstead that valiantly clung to the side of a hill.
The rails sliced down into a valley where there were more vineyards, and the wind rivalled the rain until there was little to see of the whipped, tossed, wet countryside. Thunder rolled down the mountains. A blue light, like the blue-white flash of a camera flashgun, illuminated the carriage, picking out Feli’s stone-tense features and those of the whimpering child.
Aggressively cheerful, Dorcas reached into her handbag.
‘Have a mint.’ Anything to snap Feli out of her frozen inertia. ‘Not you, sweetie.’ Pressing a finger against Rosita’s button nose. ‘Can the little one have some chocolate?’
‘What?’ Feli’s eyes were as blank as her voice.
‘Chocolate. Can Rosita have some? Inclined to be messy.’
‘Yes of course. I’m not one of those fussy parents,’ said Feli, momentarily snapping out of it, and accepting the broken-off piece of chocolate. ‘I’m being silly, aren’t I?’
Dorcas, not feeling too brave herself, was keenly sympathetic. ‘We all have our hang-ups. Look, the sky is brightening. The storm is abating, just as I said it would.’ She heaved a sigh of relief. She was beginning to feel like a spent force herself.
Too much had happened in too short a time. She was as much mentally as physically cramped to the point of exhaustion. Too many things had played on her emotions. Her grandmother’s death had been a cruel blow. Her grandmother had filled a large part of her life and she still couldn’t believe that she would never see her again. Apart from losing a loved one, Dorcas had been faced with the upheaval of leaving home for the uncertainty of finding temporary accommodation and never properly unpacking her suitcase. The strain of rehearsals and the fight to keep on her dancing toes in a competitive field. All this on top of the heartache of discovering that her brother Michael had a hard, greedy side to his nature that was difficult to forgive.
Grandmother had spent as she lived, leaving only the house and its contents. At first Dorcas had been hurt that she hadn’t been remembered in the will, until she reasoned it out in her mind that her grandmother had assumed that Michael would keep on the house and provide Dorcas with a home there. But Michael had sold the house and contents. Dorcas didn’t want a share of the proceeds. She had her pride. But it would have comforted her to be offered something. She was not too proud to ask for a memento of her grandmother. ‘Of course,’ Michael said obligingly when asked. ‘I didn’t think. Take anything you want.’ ‘If I may, I’ll have this,’ and she picked up her grandmother’s well thumbed bible.
The sky was darkening again. For a moment Dorcas thought the storm was returning. Then she realized the train was travelling in the shadow of a range of mountains. She disliked the mountains. They blocked out the remaining bit of daylight and she felt menaced.
Rosita was still fretful. Dorcas offered to hold her for a while. Feli gladly handed over her precious burden. The child gazed up at Dorcas disbelievingly; her eyes were like twin moons. There was a chocolate smear down the side of her mouth. She stared at Dorcas for a long moment, wondering whether to accept her or not. Finally she gave an aggrieved snuffle and settled her head against Dorcas’s breast. Dorcas could feel her breathing; the warmth of conquest mingled with the wonder of the child’s perfection. She was sorry to hand Rosita back to her mother.
There was a distant rumbling sound, and the feeling of menace gripped Dorcas once again, only it was fiercer now. Feli’s and Rosita’s cheeks were glued together; Feli was smooth-talking her daughter to sleep. The rumbling sounded again, nearer, like thunder, and not like thunder. Dorcas found herself struggling to identify the sound, recognizing its importance with the sense of self-preservation.
She was sitting up, tense, alert, waiting. The train seemed to be reducing speed, as if it too was hesitant to plough into danger. Or were her taut nerves playing tricks? No, the train was slowing, she was quite certain of that. And the rumble of thunder, that was not thunder, filled her ears.
She knew she had to move. Quickly. She was acting on instinct alone. She couldn’t give Feli a plausible explanation. Feli could not heed the danger and was reluctant to move. ‘Stretch your legs if you want to. I’m perfectly all right here.’
‘It’s not that. I think we should all go to the end of the train
. There’s a fair chance that we might be safe there.’
‘Safe? What are you talking about? Safe from what?’
Dorcas couldn’t tell her because she didn’t know herself. She only knew she had to get Feli and Rosita to the end compartment. The urgency of the presentiment that was driving her, robbed her of simple speech. She must not panic. She must stay cool. Her eyes were eloquent of all the things she could not find words for. Success at last! She could tell by the changing expression on Feli’s face that she had managed to transmit her fears. For the first time she blessed her ‘talking’ eyes.
‘I’ll come with you. I don’t know why, but if it matters to you that much, I’ll come.’ So saying, Feli got to her feet.
They began to walk. They were only two thirds down the train when it happened. Rocks started to smash against the carriage windows. The floor quivered alarmingly beneath them. The mountainside was crumbling. It was coming down on them in an avalanche of rock and sludge.
Feli screamed. ‘Madre mia! It’s a landslide.’
Rosita was clutched tightly in Feli’s arms. Dorcas’s arms went round both of them. The instinct now was to protect. The train screeched to a stop. The thunder of the collapsing mountainside went on . . . and on . . . and on. A dull, reverberating boom . . . boom . . . boom . . .
CHAPTER TWO
They had been thrown to the floor of the carriage, which seemed to be tilted at an angle. In assessing the situation, Dorcas thought she might have come off worse. Her leg was trapped. She must have acted as a sort of buffer for Feli and Rosita. Feli’s mouth quivered between laughter and tears. Dorcas didn’t need medical knowledge to know she was in a state of shock.
Rosita’s face crumpled and she let out a great sobbing wail as blood appeared from nowhere and began to trickle down her forehead. Dorcas ignored the stinging pain in her leg and by reaching out as far as she could, managed to collect up the hurt little girl. Rosita was too tiny to be caught up in such a frightening situation. It seemed very important to wipe the blood away before Feli saw it. Dorcas rummaged for her handkerchief and wiped away the sticky wetness before it got into Rosita’s eyes. She dabbed at the poor mite’s forehead until it became apparent it was only a superficial scratch.
Dancing in the Shadows Page 2
