by Flora Kidd
Was he thinking of Stella? Had the sight of the lovely dancer made him regret his hasty marriage to a calm competent English girl who didn’t panic? Brooke was sure that he had not known of the death of Julius Cordoba when he had been in England. If he had known he probably would not have rushed so precipitously into a marriage of convenience. He would have returned to Caracas and married Stella.
The thought was painful to her because it seemed to her that in being so hasty Owen had once again played havoc not only with his own life, but also with Stella’s and her own. No longer could he be thinking he had, perhaps, done the right thing for once in his life, but entirely the wrong thing.
The music was sweeping to a passionate climax. Owen turned his head suddenly, caught Brooke staring at him and for a moment tension twanged between them. His grey smoky glance lingered enigmatically on her candlelit face, then moved deliberately to Eva, contented and smiling as her husband wound a tress of her hair round his finger.
Before Owen’s glance returned to her, Brooke was on her feet, desperate to escape from the sound of the passionate music which was having such a strange effect on her, making her long for Owen to turn to her, with love in his smile and his hands, and to love her as Diego was loving Eva.
“Please excuse me,” she mumbled. “I feel very sleepy. The country air, I think. I’d like to go to bed.”
“Of course,” said Eva, rising to her feet. “I’ll show you to your room. I’ve a nightdress for you. We’re much of a size.”
Alone in the bedroom where she had taken her siesta that afternoon, Brooke changed into the nightdress and climbed into one of the beds. She was glad to be alone, away from smoky grey eyes which watched her challengingly. Staring into the darkness listening to the perpetual chirping of the cicadas through the open, screened window, she felt her heartbeats resume their regular cool rhythm. At last she felt normal again, untouched by passion, no longer yearning for love. Sleep was already washing over her in soothing caressing waves and slowly she let herself drown.
Towards morning she dreamed of Kevin. They were together in her living room. She was lying on the settee and she felt cold. She mentioned the fact to him and his hand touched her briefly on the shoulder and he placed a cover over her. Gradually she became warmer and sank back into oblivion.
Sunlight slanting in through the unshuttered window startled her into wakefulness. She opened her eyes and saw a small woman with a dark Indian face come into view. The woman was carrying a tray bearing a silver coffee pot and some crockery. She put the tray down on a low handsomely-carved blanket chest beneath the
window.
“Buenos dias, senora, buenos dias, senor,” she said, and left the room.
Buenos dias, senor. The words penetrated Brooke’s mind as she blinked drowsily at the sunlight. Senor! Senor who? In one lithe movement she sat up and turned to look at the other bed.
“Buenos dias, senora,” drawled Owen.
He was sitting on the edge of the other bed which was a jumble of crumpled sheets and blankets and had obviously been slept in. He must have just finished getting dressed because he was buttoning his shirt.
“What are you doing here?” asked Brooke stupidly.
“I’m about to pour some coffee for you,” he replied urbanely, rising to his feet and going over to the tray. “It smells good. I must say I approve of Eva’s treatment of her guests. Coffee for two served in the bedroom is an excellent start to the day.”
“Have you ... I mean, did you ... how long have you been in here?” stuttered Brooke.
“All night.”
“Why?”
His eyebrows drew together in an impatient frown as he turned to glance at her.
“Are you always so woolly-headed in the morning,” he teased. “What do you mean by ‘Why’? To sleep, of course.”
“Oh, I thought ... I didn’t think,” she began incoherently. “Obviously you didn’t think,” he mocked. “You assumed that I’d sleep in another room. Or perhaps you imagined I’d sleep on the floor somewhere or hunched up on some sofa. Well, that sort of thing doesn’t appeal to me. When I’m offered a good bed I like to sleep in it no matter who else is in the room.”
To hide the sudden glow of pink in her cheeks Brooke shook her head. Red-gold hair slipped across her forehead into her eyes. She raised a hand and pushed it to one side, then lowered her arm quickly as she noticed the expression in Owen’s eyes change as they followed the movement.
“Afraid of what people might be thinking?” he asked. “You needn’t be. Eva and Diego and their household won’t be thinking anything is unusual about you and me sharing a bedroom,
because we’re married, senora. Or had you forgotten that?”
She stiffened, sitting bolt upright, bracing herself for any move he might make. His cool experienced mockery made her feel extremely young and foolish, as if she had been making a fuss about nothing.
“No, I hadn’t forgotten,” she muttered, and twisted the thick gold band on the third finger of her left hand.
“Good. I’m glad you haven’t. Now, how do you like your coffee? With or without cream? And how much sugar?”
Brooke told him, and watched him bend over the tray. A shaft of sunlight lit up his curly hair, glinting on threads of silver, and burnished the sun-bronzed skin of forehead and cheekbone. The coffee flowed from the silver spout of the coffee pot in a dark brown stream into a green and cream mug made from rough local clay. Sugar slid smooth and glittering from a silver spoon into the mug. A blob of cream was added and then Owen turned and brought the mug to her. Her hand shook a little as she took it from him and encountered again his intent and curious gaze as it flitted over her sleep-tangled hair and bare, sun-kissed arms.
He returned to the tray to pour his own coffee. Brooke sipped the hot delicious liquid and gazed out through the window. With the passing of the night the passion and the mystery had gone. In the clear light of morning the land was flat, fertile and green, stretching away to distant mountains pale-pinkish brown stippled with green vegetation, serene and benevolent in the sunshine.
“Why did you suggest to Megan that I was being chased yesterday?” asked Owen casually as he sat on the side of his bed, coffee mug in his hand.
“It was just an idea that came to me. I thought it might divert her. I knew you didn’t wish to tell her that she was the crisis which made you act quickly and marry again,” she replied. She felt calm again now, and was finding it pleasant to lie back against the pillows and sip coffee. There was nothing to hurry for. Megan was not demanding attention, being too busy playing with Tomas, probably. Owen did not have to go to work, and they had the whole day before them in which to loiter and talk and learn more about each other.
“But you must have had some basis for such an idea,” he persisted. “Who or what did you think was chasing me?”
Brooke looked down at the brown liquid in her mug and swirled it around. Dare she answer truthfully and risk rousing the sleeping volcano which was his temper?
“A woman,” she said, borrowing some of his abruptness.
He was silent, so she looked at him. He was pushing at his forehead with the fingers of one hand in that gesture of puzzlement which might become endearing if she lived long enough with him.
“Why should a woman chase me?” he murmured thoughtfully. Then his puzzlement vanished as swiftly as darkness is dispersed when a light is switched on in a room. “Stella,” he guessed accurately, and his eyes gleamed dangerously. “What made you think that?”
“The way she looked at you,” she replied warily, bracing herself for an angry outburst.
There was none. Instead he surveyed her, slowly and methodically. Once again she felt as if she was a core of rock being assessed for ore deposits. Did he know that his slow enigmatic glance was far more effective than any outburst of anger? she wondered, as she felt hot and cold by turns.
“You’re very observant,” he remarked at last, and stood up to go over to the tray
and pour some more coffee for himself. He stood for a while sipping his drink looking out at the view and as minutes went by in silence Brooke realized he wasn’t going to tell her anything about Stella.
“I take it you don’t approve of women who chase men,” he said suddenly, swinging round to look at her.
“I neither approve nor disapprove. The way other women behave is their concern.”
“But chasing a man is something you wouldn’t do. Is that it?” “Yes.”
“Perhaps you prefer to be chased,” he taunted.
“No, I don’t. In a proper natural relationship between a man and a woman, chasing should not be necessary,” she replied coolly.
His grin had a sardonic quality as if he found her idealism just a little too naive to take seriously.
“I suppose that’s why you didn’t chase the Irish boy-friend when he left you,” he observed dryly.
“Perhaps,” she returned as evenly as she could. “I can’t really see much point to this conversation. It isn’t leading us anywhere useful.”
“I disagree,” he retorted. “You do it very well, the cool independent woman of the world act; the woman who has her emotions under control, but you can’t fool me, girl. I was having my first love affair when you were in short socks. Yours was with the Irish boy and it hurt you like hell when he left you. It hurt you so much that you still dream about him and talk about him in your sleep.”
Her breath was sharp and cold, cutting the tender flesh at the back of her throat as she gasped. Her dream came tumbling back into her mind. Kevin beside her, his hand on her shoulder, his voice in her ear. Kevin covering her up because she had felt cold.
But it hadn’t been Kevin. It had been Owen, who had slept in the other bed last night and whom she must have woken with her mutterings.
“Why didn’t you follow him to Canada?” His voice broke into her chaotic thoughts.
“He didn’t ask me.”
“Did you have to be asked?” he asked curiously.
“Yes, I did. How would I know that he wanted me to be with him if he didn’t ask me? He wanted to go to Canada, so he went. He didn’t want me with him so he didn’t ask me. It’s as simple as that.”
In spite of herself her voice shook a little as she relived the pain she had experienced when she had realized that Kevin had not loved her as she had loved him and that possibly he had gone to Canada to escape from her.
Owen placed his mug on the tray and came across to the bedside, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. From under slanting eyebrows he surveyed her narrowly. Then drawing a hand from a pocket he reached out and to her surprise pushed the hair which had slipped forward on to her forehead again back from her eyes.
“You’re proud and you’re obstinate like your old man,” he said. “Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that Kevin what’s-his-name was expecting you to follow him because he thought you loved him? Isn’t it possible that he only went away to test you to find out if you really cared enough about him to follow him?”
He was cruel, a devil sent to torment her with such suggestions, which she knew could be true; a devil with smoky eyes and a soft purring voice which could deepen to unnerving gentleness, and she could only retaliate and protect herself by matching cruelty with cruelty.
“I suppose that’s how you explained to yourself why Glynis left you,” she countered shakily. “You like to believe that she went back to Britain taking Megan with her and stayed there to test your love for her. That way you can pretend she didn’t run away from you because you had stopped loving her.”
His eyes widened. The yellow flecks flared dangerously.
“Wow! And there was I thinking you’d never lose your cool,” he exclaimed mockingly. “I wonder what sparked off that little display of temper?”
It was much harder to hurt him than she had thought. He was merely amused by her attempts and the gap between their ages seemed to widen immeasurably as she realized how much must have happened to him before she had ever met him, to make him as tough as he was.
“You and Eva must have had a good gossip yesterday,” he went on, “and I realize she must have said something about Glynis and you jumped to a few conclusions - some wrong ones. Glynis didn’t run away because I’d stopped loving her.” His mouth twisted wryly. “We married for a variety of reasons, but I doubt very much if romantic love was one of them, although she often told me she loved me. In reality I think she married me because she thought it would be great to be the wife of a man who would inherit a sizeable fortune one day and would keep her in comfort for the rest of her life. She never thought beyond that. She never thought of the responsibilities involved, and it didn’t take me long to find out that she was strangely irresponsible and immature, and that we were totally incompatible. By then we had a child to think of.”
He paused and frowned, took a pace or two away from the bed and then turned back.
“For Megan’s sake I went on with the farce of our marriage Unfortunately Glynis’s nervous state began to deteriorate. She began to behave very strangely and it became more and more obvious that she hadn’t the mental stamina to continue with a relationship in which she had to take responsibility. I decided that she might benefit from a change and she went to live with her parents for a while. She took Megan with her, and she did seem better with them, although whether it was because they fussed over her and took all the responsibility off her shoulders so that she became their little girl again or whether it was because she was away from me, I shall never know.”
He stopped speaking and his mouth closed in a tight grim line. He had told her more than she had ever expected, more than he had ever told anyone else, perhaps. All her anger drained away, leaving her feeling sad and frustrated. She wanted to offer sympathy, but could find no way of doing so.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” she said by way of apology. “Not to worry, girl,” he comforted with some of his normal abruptness as he took her empty coffee mug from her, placed it on the tray and then lifted the tray up. “Now we both know a little more about each other and that’s the way I wanted it to be. I’ll leave you now to get dressed. See you at breakfast. I thought we’d drive back into the city and do some shopping later and then go over to see my Uncle Henriques. He’s my stepmother’s brother and is looking forward to meeting you.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Two days in which to get to know each other. It seemed that was all they were to have, because in the two days which followed their visit to the Francisco hacienda there was no time for personal conversation. Owen returned to work and when he came home in the evening the house was full of other people; Estaban relatives and friends like Al and Eileen Atkins, whom he invited to meet Brooke.
And then he had to go away again, to fly to Peru. Something
had gone wrong with some of the new drills which were being used in a geological survey being carried out in that country . He asked her to drive him to the airport and she was willing, thinking that they could talk on the way.
They were later leaving the house than they had intended, and Owen drove at a furious speed along the Autopista del Este in the orange-hued light of early morning, past the ultramodern building of the University of Caracas and the unusual Concha Acustica, the open-air concert auditorium.
Soon the city was left behind and the road cut down through the mountains to the coastal plain. Only eight more miles to go and they had not spoken to each other. Brooke wasted a few more precious minutes of time pondering on why Owen, to whom she had spoken so easily when she had first met him, had become almost unapproachable and even more of a stranger since those two days they had spent together. It was as if her new knowledge of his life with Glynis and his relationship with Stella Cordoba had created a barrier which had not been there before.
Not that there was any strain or tension between them. On the surface their marriage must look like a normal fairly happy arrangement to all those who had visited them. But it was the surface of a
thin easily-torn paper marriage; a marriage which had no depth because it existed only for the sake of one person who must be given a stable settled background so that she would not
frow up to be a hysterical, immature neurotic as her mother had een.
“Owen... ”
“Mm?” He was frowning, looking ahead as he guided the speeding car skilfully.
“Can I talk to you?”
What a silly question! Silly woman who couldn’t say outright what she wanted to say to her husband, but the trouble was he wasn’t her husband, not in the real sense. He was a paper husband and she was a paper wife.
“About Megan?” he asked.
Since that strange conversation which had taken place in the bedroom at the hacienda, whenever they had talked it had been about Megan; about the arrangements for a young teacher to come every day to give her lessons so that when she was able to go to the elementary school she would not be behind the other children in her grade; about the most recent report from the specialist concerning her progress. It seemed to Brooke that the child was his only concern outside of his work.
“No - about my father.”
His sidelong glance was wary.
“What about him?”
“It’s time I did something about his disappearance.”
“Is that why you married me? To get a free ride out here so that you could do something?” The touch of bitterness in the remark surprised her.
“Not entirely,” she replied as lightly as she could. “There were a few others.”
“Maybe one day you’ll feel like telling me what they were,” he murmured, with another sidelong glance which had the odd effect of making her heart skid to a standstill and then start up again, only much fester. “About your father - why don’t you get on to Miguel? He’s in a much better position to do something for you than I am. After all, he was involved in organizing the search.”
