The Alvares Bride

by Sandra Marton

  “Your wife is fine,” the doctor had just told him. “She’s completely recovered. Life can go back to normal.”

  He’d offered Rafe a quick man-to-man smile. Rafe knew what the smile meant but it was not anyone’s business that he had no intention of being his wife’s husband in anything but name only.

  The jet gained altitude quickly and headed towards the Sierra Gaúcha mountains that separated the endless prairie from the ocean. He watched until it was out of view, then touched his stirrups to his horse’s sides and headed back to the house, and to his office. One of his men ran up and took the horse’s reins from him as Rafe dismounted. He nodded his thanks, automatically slapped the dust from his jeans and went across the patio and into his office.

  It was cool inside the house, thanks to high ceilings and slowly revolving fans that cast gentle shadows on the pale cream walls as they stirred life into the torpid air. Rafe drew the chair from his desk, sat down, turned on his computer and began reviewing the records of the last six weeks.

  Rio de Ouro was doing well, just as it had been ever since he’d bought the ranch a dozen years ago. His cattle grew fat on the grass of the pampas. His horses had some of the world’s finest bloodlines. And away from the ranch, his varied interests in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were successful beyond anything he’d ever imagined.

  “Whatever you touch turns to gold,” Claudia had told him once.

  Rafe frowned. That was true, if you judged success by the number on the bottom line of an accounting statement. But if you judged it by his relationship with his wife…

  What did that have to do with anything? He had a child he loved, one who would grow up with two parents. That had been his goal, and he had achieved it. Someday, Amy would ride this land beside him and love it as much as he did. His frown eased away; his lips curved in a smile. Surely, a man could not be faulted for taking pleasure from seeing his dreams come to fruition.

  After almost an hour, Rafe signed off the files and shut down the computer. He swiveled his chair around so that he was facing the glass doors that led to the patio, tilted back, laced his hands behind his head and let his thoughts drift down the long road he had traveled to get to this time and this place.

  Sometimes, even now, he could hardly believe it. He’d almost told that to Carin the night he’d brought her here.

  “Where are we?” she’d murmured, her voice husky with sleep as she stirred in his arms.

  He’d been holding her ever since she’d begun tossing in her sleep. The nurse he’d hired to accompany them to Brazil had reached for her medical bag.

  “Your wife is restless,” she’d said. “I’ll calm her with a sedative.”

  My wife, Rafe had thought. He’d watched as the woman took a hypodermic syringe from the bag. “No,” he’d said quickly, “she doesn’t need that.”

  Then he’d reached for Carin. She’d gone into his arms with a soft sigh, quieting right away, looping an arm lightly around his neck and laying her head against his shoulder, the way she had the night they met. Rafe had gathered her close against him, feeling not the hot tug of desire in his belly but a sudden fierce protectiveness.

  His wife didn’t need a sedative. She needed the feel of a man’s arms around her.

  His arms.

  He’d held her that way for hours, even after his shoulder began to cramp, telling himself that he was only doing it because it was right. Eventually, he’d dozed off, too, his face against her sweet-smelling hair, his body warm with the heat of hers. And he had dreamed.

  He’d dreamed that his bride smiled as he carried her over the threshold of his house; that she came to him in the darkness, dressed in a long gown of sheerest white lace, and pressed her open mouth to his; that she awoke in his arms to tell him how happy she was to be home with him, in the place he’d built with his own hands.

  And then he’d awakened, to find Carin stirring in his arms as the plane kissed the ground, to hear her say, “Where are we?” in a tone that implied the answer might well be that he had taken her into the bowels of Hell or the darkest side of the moon.

  Rafe rose from his chair and paced to the patio doors.

  He knew she hated it here. She hadn’t said it but she said hardly anything to him. Still, he could tell how she felt about Rio de Ouro. It was in her eyes, as she looked out across the endless pampas, in the set of her shoulders as she made her way through the house…but then, he hadn’t expected her to love it. He had brought her here against her wishes. She despised the ranch, the house…

  She despised him.

  It didn’t matter. He had done what he’d known he must do, for his daughter. As for the ranch—why should he care what Carin thought? He loved it. That was sufficient. He had always loved this place, even before he’d laid eyes on it. This land had been part of him, of his dream, for as long as he could remember.

  He had grown up on his mother’s bedtime descriptions of the ranch. Her vision of it, anyway, because she had never seen it, either. His mother had been a dancer in a nightclub in Rio when she met his father, and though Eduardo da Silva had never deigned to bring his mistress to his home, he’d described it to her.

  She, in turn, had described it to her son, even long after da Silva had left, even when he was nothing but a memory. She’d told Rafe about the big house, the outbuildings, the endless prairie and the rugged mountains.

  Amalia Alvares had given her child a dream.

  When Rafe was twelve, his mother died. Of poverty, of despair, of what happens to women who lose their youth and their beauty, and have nothing else to sustain them.

  Rafe lived on the streets and on his wits until he was fourteen. One morning, kicked awake by a policeman, cold and hungry but mostly filled with anger at the mother who’d died and left him and the father who’d never acknowledged him, he’d decided to take his destiny into his own hands.

  Deus, how could he have been so naive? Skinny, dirty, hiding his fear under a layer of street-smart toughness acquired hustling touristes on the beach at Copacabana, he’d set off for the paradise his mother had described, and for the father he’d never seen.

  It had taken him weeks to cover the distance between Rio de Janeiro and the endless prairies and mountains of Rio Grande Do Sul. He hitched rides on carts and in wheezing old trucks, walked until his feet were blistered, begged for food and stole it when his belly was so empty it growled, and slept wherever he could.

  Why was he doing this? he’d asked himself, as the miles slipped past.

  He’d been sure he knew the answer. He was going to confront the man who was his father.

  Rafe took a bright red apple from a silver bowl, tossed it up and caught it. Then he pushed open the patio doors. A rush of afternoon heat enveloped him; he stepped outside, slid the doors closed, and walked slowly to the iron railing that enclosed the patio.

  If he’d had a plan beyond that, he couldn’t recall it. Curse Eduardo da Silva? Tell him that the woman he’d once claimed to love was dead? Beat him until he begged for mercy?

  Rafe smiled thinly, tossed the apple again and propped one booted foot against the base of the railing.

  In the end, he’d done none of that. His long journey ended at a ranch in a state of ruin. Parched land, a handful of bony cows and tired horses. Outbuildings on the verge of collapse, a house with holes in the roof…and an old man, sick, dying, and pitiful.

  Rafe had left the place within hours.

  Eight years later, he came back. He had lived a lifetime in those years, learning to read and to write, to think with his head and not with his heart and fists. Best of all, he was rich, his pockets filled with the gold he’d panned for in a river hidden deep in the jungle.

  And Rio de Ouro, even sadder-looking than before, was for sale.

  Rafe sold his gold, put half the money into investments nobody but he believed in, and sank the rest into the purchase of the ranch. To this day, he could recall the sly look on the face of the agent who’d sold it to him.
r />   “You have made an excellent buy, senhor,” he’d said, even though his smile said Rafe was a fool.

  “I believe I have,” Rafe had replied politely, and he’d meant it.

  He’d gone into the small towns that clung to the foot of the Sierra Gaúcha, to the rougher towns scattered over the pampas, searching for men who were not afraid of hard work. Together, they’d torn down what remained of the da Silva house and built a new one. It was not a dark, Spanish-style fortress like his father’s but a house made of glass and tile, open to the sun, the wind, and the beauty of the land.

  They built stables and barns and fences. They burned scrub. And Rafe worked as hard as his men, even after the investments others had sneered at turned into the first of his millions. When a man created his own private world, he wanted his sweat and blood, his pain and his joy, to be part of it.

  Time passed. He moved in circles of wealth and power, and he began thinking about the future, and about passing on all he had built. When he met Claudia, things seemed to fall into place. She was charming and beautiful, and came from an old Brazilian family. He assumed she understood the importance of continuity, but the only things she understood were parties and jewels and herself.

  He knew they were not right for each other, and he ended their engagement, vowing to be more careful next time.

  He’d choose a woman who would cherish the world he’d built.

  Rafe stood straight and gazed blindly towards the mountains.

  Instead, he had made one mistake, and now he had a wife who was even less suitable than Claudia would have been, and who despised him and the life to which he’d brought her.

  But he had a child. That was what mattered. Someday, everything he’d built would be Amalia’s. That was how he thought of Amy, as his Amalia.

  It was amazing, the games fate played. He had taken a woman to bed, unthinkingly planted a seed in her womb, and she had given him a daughter that she named Amy, unknowingly choosing the diminutive form of his mother’s name.

  He’d thought of telling that to Carin but he suspected she’d have begun calling the baby something else if she knew the name pleased him and had a connection to him, so he said nothing. But he took joy in whispering “Amalia” to his little girl when he held her, and to know that she carried the name of the woman who’d given him life, and who had worked herself into an early grave because the man who’d fathered him had turned his back on them both.

  An insect chorus set up a loud trill. Rafe scowled into the hot afternoon and it seemed to get the message. Silence descended on the patio, and the stretch of waving grass beyond.

  Yes, he had a daughter he adored…and a wife who was as much a stranger to him as she had been the night he’d taken her to bed, almost a year ago. After six weeks of marriage, all he really knew about Carin was that she liked to visit with his horses and that she hated the sight of him. She wasn’t subtle about it, either. Deus, there were times she went out of her way to let him know how she felt.

  “Raphael,” she would say, if their paths crossed on the stairs or on the grounds.

  Then she’d tilt her head and sail on past him as if he were invisible, or as if he were a servant—except, she didn’t treat the servants that way. He’d come into the kitchen early one morning and found her talking with the cook or trying to, anyway, stumbling over a sentence half in Portuguese, half in English, laughing until she saw him. Her laughter had died and she’d given him that imperious nod as she swept by.

  She talked with the baby’s nanny, too. Really talked, because he’d hired someone who spoke English as well as Portuguese. More than once, he’d heard the sound of their voices and their laughter drifting down the hallway towards his rooms.

  She never so much as smiled when she spoke to him.

  “Are you well?” he would say.

  “Yes,” she’d reply.

  “Did the things I ordered for the baby suit you?” he’d ask.

  “They did,” she’d answer.

  “Do you need anything? Would you like me to take you to São Paulo or Rio, so you can shop?”

  No, no, and no.

  Joao, who spoke perhaps six sentences on a good day, was a better conversationalist than his wife. That was bad enough when they were alone but on several occasions in the last few weeks, he’d had visitors. His banker. His accountant. An old friend, who’d heard he’d married and had stopped by, unannounced, to say “hello.”

  In each instance, Carin had appeared only after he’d sent for her.

  “Hello,” she’d said politely, “how nice to meet you.”

  Then she sat in a chair—not beside him, on the sofa, but in a chair on the opposite side of the room—and she’d said nothing, done nothing, not rung to ask the maid to serve coffee, not inquired if his guests wished a drink or something to eat. She’d simply sat there, a polite smile on her face, until he’d wanted to storm across the room, drag her to her feet, shake her, shout at her, kiss her until she came to life and heat lightning flashed in those cool eyes of hers…

  Rafe sucked in his breath.

  No. Hell, no. He didn’t want to kiss her. Why would he? Despite what he’d told her the day he’d married her, he’d reached a decision. She was, she would always be, his wife in name only.

  The night he’d carried her into his home, he’d thought of taking her up the stairs, to his room, to his bed…not to make love to her, because he was not a monster, no matter what his bride believed. He knew she needed time to heal from the rigors of childbirth, but a man’s wife belonged in his bed.

  Marrying for the sake of a child was the right thing to do, but only a fool would live with a woman—a beautiful woman—without enjoying her.

  And then he’d looked down into Carin’s face. She was staring at him as if he were a monster, her eyes icy pools of darkness against the pale translucency of her skin, and a sense of self-loathing had roiled through him, like the water of the Amazon in flood.

  He’d said nothing, only carried her to one of the guest suites and left her there, and that was where she’d made her life over the past weeks, in her own rooms or in the nursery, or anywhere at all where she would not have the misfortune to cross paths with him.

  He knew he had only to command her to move into his rooms and she would have no choice but to do so. In his country, unlike hers, he held all the power in their marriage. But he wouldn’t do it. It was what she expected of him, and he would not do it.

  In fact, he didn’t want his wife in his bed anymore.

  He was a Brazilian; he lived in a country in which men didn’t have to apologize for their needs. Mistresses were commonplace, especially among those of his class and wealth. He’d taken them before. Soon, he’d take one again. The simple truth was, he no longer wanted Carin sexually. She held no interest for him, except as the mother of his child.

  He’d come within a second of telling that to her doctor, when the man had offered that little smile with the news that Carin was well.

  “I’ve told her she may resume intimate relations with you,” the medico had said, with some delicacy, when Rafe didn’t respond to the smile.

  Rafe had nodded. “I see,” he’d said.

  Had there been something in his voice that had given him away? He wondered about it, because the doctor had flashed him a look of understanding.

  “You must realize, senhor, that, ah, that such things may require a little patience. Some women take longer than others to recover from the experience of a difficult childbirth…”

  Rafe opened the patio gate, closed it after him, and began walking towards the stables.

  The difficulty of childbirth had nothing to do with his wife’s distaste for him but he didn’t care. All he wanted now was that she assume her proper role, as his wife. He would tell her, tonight, that she could no longer ignore him. She would dine when he did, preside over his table, entertain his guests, grace his arm at public and private functions.

  He would tell her, too, that he did no
t require her to lie in his bed. She could erase that from her mind.

  Perhaps he would turn to Claudia to soothe his sexual needs. She had been shocked to learn he was married—she’d phoned a week ago, and he’d told her, though, of course, he’d given no details.

  “I’ll miss you, darling,” she’d said, as if they’d still had a personal relationship—but they could. For all her faults, Claudia had never disappointed him in bed. She’d also made it clear that she’d be happy to be there again, if he asked. He never had, but now…

  Why not? he thought, as he reached the paddock where the stallion he’d bought from Jonas Baron kicked up its heels in the sunlight. Claudia was beautiful, and she would not need to pretend he was someone else in order to moan with ecstasy in his arms. Her only complaint about him had been that she meant less to him than Rio de Ouro.

  “You love this desolate place more than you could ever love a woman,” she’d said when he’d ended their engagement. “It’s the only thing you ever think about.”

  Rafe sighed.

  It was close to the truth, but marrying Claudia would have been a mistake had he never set eyes on the ranch. She was a spoiled little rich girl; he’d grown weary of her games, of her self-indulgence, of her unfaithfulness. In his culture, the law often looked the other way if a man beat his woman, even killed her, for infidelity, but he’d simply told Claudia he no longer wished to marry her.

  She’d accused him of never losing control enough to raise a hand to her because his real passion would always be for his land and never for a woman.

  He thought back to that moment in Carin’s hospital room. She’d taunted him by saying she’d have to pretend he was Frank before she could lie in his arms again.

  He had raised his hand, then. It was the first time he’d ever come close to such a thing, but it had nothing to do with passion for Carin. It was because she was impossible.