The House of Adriano

by Nerina Hilliard

  It was a powerful, black car, passing by as she stood on the kerb, that made her think more vividly than ever of Duarte Adriano ... of the time when another large black car had slid to a stop at her side while rain pelted down in another city.

  She knew by now of course that he had been appointed Peter’s legal guardian. She bought the Sydney papers every day and always scanned them closely, especially the law notices. It had not exactly come as a shock when she saw the notice informing whoever cared to read it that Duarte Luis Manuel Diego y Carelis Adriano, Conde de Marindos, had been appointed the legal guardian of Peter Balgare. She had been expecting something like that all the time, but she had somehow now expected it to happen so quickly. Probably there were ways of arranging these things quickly though if one had power and money and the opposition was not fighting it. There were probably special fees that could be paid to hurry a case on, especially when it was such a case as this one. She could quite easily imagine him explaining that he wanted it through quickly because Peter had been left quite long enough in the care of someone who was not a relative nor capable of taking care of him properly, as she had to be out at work all day. It would no doubt have been quite easy for him, especially if an impression was given that Peter’s present unofficial guardian had only taken him on a reluctant burden, from a sense of duty because she had once known his parents.

  Sometimes, when her thoughts became so very vitriolic, she would feel the sense of guilt again, because however much she disliked him, instinct told her that Duarte was not the type of man to twist facts to suit his own ends. However true that might have been, though, she was quite convinced by now that there would have been no chance at all had she remained in Sydney and tried to fight it out with him. He had the money to hire the best lawyers in the country, while what little reserves she did possess would not have gone very far. No, this had been the only way, however wrong people might say it was.

  Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what Duarte would do if he did find them, but autumn passed into winter without a suspicion that he was anywhere on her track. Was he even still in Australia, or had he returned to Spain, leaving the search to the private detectives he had once hired to try to find Eric?

  Winter passed and spring came round. Aileen had had promotion in her job and was now feeling far happier with her lot, a rise in salary and a boss she liked. Spring passed into summer and Christmas came round. In the New Year the shipping office had its annual picnic, where everyone was invited to bring their families. It was a golden day, without a sign of rain - it quite often rained in Melbourne - and Peter was skipping along happily at her side as they went to catch the train into town, his eyes positively glued to the window ail the time, expressing the wish, though, that he had brought something to throw into the river as the train crossed the bridge over the Yarra, whereupon Aileen retorted that it was just as well that he had not thought of bringing anything as that particular stretch of railroad had not been specially designed for people to throw things into the river, then they were leaving the train at Flinders Street Station and Peter was exclaiming delightedly at the traffic signs with their special little notices that lit up saying “Don’t Walk” in red and “Walk” in green, which, although he had seen them before, never failed to bring that little delighted chuckle of laughter.

  The rest of the day passed off as pleasantly as it had started. They met other members of the firm and their families at the bus depot and everyone climbed aboard and headed out into the country. There were sports for both the children and the adults and a barbecue in the evening. Photographs were taken, the winners of the various sports presented with medals and ribbons and everyone went home perfectly happy.

  Aileen did not know it, but from that moment Nemesis dogged her heels. Two months later she came out of the entrance of the shipping office and, feeling someone suddenly grip her arm, turned with a frown and a crisp word on her lips - but it was never spoken, and the frown slowly died as her face whitened, because the man who had caught her arm was Duarte Adriano.

  CHAPTER IV

  With a horrible kind of fascination Aileen looked at his tall figure outlined in the rays of the late afternoon sun. He was really quite tall for a Spaniard, she thought in some abstract corner of her mind, while the rest of it ran round in circles, wondering how this awful thing had happened.

  A trace of sardonic amusement crossed the dark features as he read the shocked dismay on her face.

  “Buenos tardes,” he slid evenly, the first time she had ever heard him use his own language.

  “How ... how did you come to find me?” was all she could find to say, while every instinct urged that she should start a panic-stricken flight into the rush-hour crowds, while common sense at the same time warned her not to do anything so completely idiotic. She could not possibly escape. He was making quite sure of that by the relentless grip on her arm.

  “My car is only a short distance away,” he said, and somehow she found herself walking meekly at his side, too stunned to even attempt to escape. Anyway, it would still be quite impossible. He had released her now, but instinct told her that ruthless grip would close upon her arm again if she made the least suspicious move.

  When they reached the car he held the door open for her and she climbed in just as meekly. She was somehow too shocked and numb even to try to jump out while he went round to the other side and slid into the driving seat. He did not switch on the engine straight away, but turned to look at her, the aquiline features expressionless as a mask.

  “Where have you left Peter?”

  She did not even try to be evasive. Something in his tone demanded compliance, and she was not very surprised to hear her voice giving him the address of the nursery which arranged for Peter to be taken on to school.

  After that it as an extremely silent journey. They reached the nursery, drove on to where she lodged, and he tersely instructed her to get Peter’s clothes packed, which she obeyed in the same numb state. It did not take very long, and a little later Peter was again seated in the car. She half expected that Duarte would take him away alone, but he motioned to her to get in also.

  There was another silent drive, until they pulled up at what was obviously a luxury hotel - just the sort of place he would choose, she thought with some asperity, as rebellion began to break through the numbness that had claimed her since she first caught sight of him.

  He was still silent as they went up together in an equally silent lift and were shown into a most luxurious suite of rooms, where an elderly, uniformed nurse took charge of Peter and led him out into another room. Then Duarte turned to her, and Aileen could not help flinching slightly as the gaze of those black eyes fell on her. It was not as if they were particularly merciless. It was more the fact that she could not guess anything at all of what he was thinking.

  “Sit down,” he instructed in that melodious, attractive voice she hated so much, and she sat down as ordered, stiffly, on the very edge of one of the chairs, while he remained standing. “I brought you straight here so that there could be no repetition of your former escapade.”

  “Very cautious of you,” she said in a tight little voice that hated him.

  “You knew that I had been made Peter’s legal guardian?”

  “I read it in the paper,” she said in the same tight little voice. Now that the shock was wearing off she wondered how she was going to hang on to her self-control. She was conscious of a desire to burst into tears, but to cry in front of him was the last thing she would allow herself. It would be better to fly into a temper. Even if he called her an uncontrolled child, that would be better than letting him see her in tears, letting him know how deeply it hurt her to know that he had won after all and she would have to give up Peter.

  He brought a slim platinum cigarette case from his pocket and offered her one, but she refused. She did not in any event smoke, and even if she had, it would have choked her to accept anything from him, even a cigarette.
He took her refusal quite calmly, requested her permission to smoke himself and lit his own cigarette before he spoke again.

  “As to how I found you...” he said after a moment’s pause. “Shall we say that it was ... fate?” His dark face had a distinctly satirical expression at that moment. “Your firm had a picnic some months ago.”

  Those photographs! But how could he have seen them? They had never been for the general public or any of the newspapers.

  He nodded, as if he had guessed what she was thinking. “Yes, I saw photographs of it. At least ... Marius Jenton saw them and drew my attention to them. I had found it necessary to return to Spain.”

  “Marius Jenton saw them?”

  “He is, if you did not already know it, the holder of several blocks of shares in that particular shipping company. They put out an annual company magazine that is sent to every shareholder. Photographs from the picnic happened to be included in the journal.” The sardonic smile flickered across his face again. “You happened to have been caught very plainly.”

  Even if she could have had no knowledge of Marius Jenton owning shares in the shipping company, how could she possibly have been so idiotic as to allow her photograph to be taken like that? It was her own fault, she reviled herself, even though she could not have known that they would ever meet the gaze of somebody who knew Duarte Adriano and the situation concerning Peter. She could not blame Jenton, though. He had only done what he thought best, no doubt sending off a copy of the journal to Spain, whereupon Duarte had immediately returned to Australia. Once the name and address of the shipping company was known to him, it would have been easy to waylay her. He had been so confident he had even arranged for a nurse to take charge of Peter.

  She rose to her feet slowly. “What are you going to do now?”

  “First I suggest that you join me for dinner, then we can...” He was not allowed to go any further. Her dislike and hurt fury boiled over.

  “Join you for dinner! It would choke me. You’re the most detestable person I’ve ever met, and I wouldn’t take a thing from you - and if you want to set the police on me for running away with Peter, you can do so,” with which she ran out of the room and down the stairs before he could make any move to stop her.

  The first part of the night she spent in tear-drenched misery, the second in an exhausted sleep, awakening in the morning just as miserable as when she had first reached home, perhaps even more so, because she was quite convinced that she would never see Peter again. As for her parting shot about the police, she did not really think that Duarte would take any action against her. He would not want his own name involved, and now that he had got his own way doubtless that would be enough for him. Instinct told her - however little she liked to admit it - that he was not a vindictive man.

  It was a morning when she did not have to get up early, but she got up at the usual time, because lying in gave her too much time to think. She usually worked alternate Saturdays, and this was her morning off, but she did not know whether to be glad of that fact or sorry. If she had gone to work she would not have had this awful sensation of being so alone. Everything in the little flat seemed to echo with emptiness. There was only one place to be set at the table, breakfast only for one and washing up only for one.

  Would she ever get used to it? She supposed she would eventually. That old cliché about time healing any wound was true enough. One thing she was certain of, though - time would never deaden her extremely acute dislike of Duarte Adriano.

  After a little while the quietness and solitude of the flat became too much for her and she decided to go out, wandered for a little while in an aimless manner, then caught the train into town. Once there she wandered aimlessly again, did a little window-shopping, but was not very interested even in that, especially when once, off in the distance, she caught sight of the hotel where Duarte was staying - and Peter, of course.

  A swift little pang shot through her. Was he missing her? Although personal inclinations might make her hope that he did, on the other hand, for his sake, she must hope that he did not miss her too much and quickly managed to get used to his new life. Then she abruptly turned down a side street so that the hotel was out of sight, went into Myers vast department store and, in a flash of recklessness, bought an exquisite pure silk Indian stole that was so expensive she would in the ordinary way only have looked at it longingly before she went on to something far less costly, even if she had been looking for a stole, which she really was not at the moment. She did not know when she was going to use such a beautiful thing, but she supposed it would come in handy some time or the other for a ball, although balls and dancing were the last things to appeal to her at the moment. It was just the feeling that she had to do something out of character, spending a lot of money on something she did not really need, to take her mind off Peter.

  She smiled a little ruefully as she watched the assistant carefully wrapping up the shimmering turquoise folds that glinted with silver embroidery. At least she now possessed something that would never have joined her wardrobe in normal circumstances.

  She wandered around for a short while longer, than caught the train home again - and there a shock awaited her. Drawn up outside the front door was a long, black car she recognised immediately.

  She stiffened, and her first impulse was to walk by without acknowledging the man she knew would be sitting in the driving seat, but even if she might have given way to the impulse, it was too late, because he had already seen her, and with surprising quickness and the lithe grace that was so characteristic of him, was standing on the footpath at her side.

  The dark head inclined with urbane courtesy, but Aileen acknowledged his greeting with stiff, conventional politeness, wondering why he had chosen to wait for her.

  “How ... how is Peter?” she could not help asking, although she had determined not to bring up the subject.

  A shade of sardonic amusement crossed his face. “You will doubtless be pleased to learn that he has already displayed signs of missing you.”

  “Not exactly,” Aileen replied, somehow managing to keep her voice quiet and even. “The sooner he gets over missing me, the better it will be for him.”

  “Your altruism is to be admired.”

  She shot him a quick look at that, but there was no suggestion of derision or even mocking amusement on his dark face. Yet at the same time she could not quite take his remark at its face value.

  “Is it?” she answered cautiously. “I’m fond of Peter. Although I would naturally prefer that he doesn’t forget me, I can see that it will be best if he does ... and as quickly as possible, since he isn’t to see anything further of me.”

  He looked at her for a moment in silence, then asked abruptly, “You have lunched yet?”

  “No.”

  “There is something I wish to discuss with you.” He looked around them with the slightest trace of a frown. “We cannot talk here. At the risk of causing you to ... feel like choking, perhaps I might ask you to lunch with me.”

  Was there just the faintest trace of irony as he said that? Aileen stiffened and could not stop her head going up sharply.

  “I will apologise for my rudeness, Mr. Adriano - but at the time I meant what I said.”

  “Then I may take it that you accept my invitation?”

  “I should be glad to ... thank you.”

  If he could be so formally polite, then so could she, not that her dislike had abated in the least. There was, however, something that slightly puzzled her about him and she glanced surreptitiously at his chiselled, aquiline profile as he started the car, after seating her with grave deference beside him. There seemed to be something different about him this morning, and she was sure it was not imagination. He was more as he had been when she had first met him, even a hint of that aloof, distant charm as he made a few innocuous remarks on the way in to town. Of course, all through he had never lost that calm assurance, and she realised now that it had been the reason why she had flown into a p
anic and run away as she had. Nor had he ever really descended from that cold pinnacle of his. Any outbursts or rudeness had been on her side alone, but although she might regret her lack of control on occasion, she excused it by telling herself that she had plenty of reason for it. Duarte of course must have been coolly certain all along that he would win. It would be nice to go through life with such assurance, she thought with a little mental sigh, and hoped that some day he would come up against somebody or thing that would manage to prick that irritating assurance. Still, she did have some small satisfaction in knowing that she must have caused him a certain amount of trouble. He might be the Conde de Marindos, but he must be aware by now that there was at least one person who did not consider he was everything to be desired.

  The car drew up at the same hotel she had fled from sight of only a few hours before, and he ushered her into the dining room with a kind of unconscious care she might have found pleasant in other circumstances. .At another time - and with a different person - the deference and attentiveness of the staff might also have thrilled her, but just now it only served to heighten her dislike of him. It was bad enough here, but probably in his own country people just about lay down and let him walk on them. No wonder he thought of himself as some kind of uncrowned monarch - with which final cross little harangue to herself she schooled her features into conventional politeness and made quite sure that her tone of voice was the same.