The Latin Affair

by Sophie Weston

  ‘New clothes?’

  Nicky could hardly believe her ears. Her life was shattered and her mother was worried about her wardrobe? Margaret looked uncomfortable.

  ‘You really have outgrown everything. We know that’s why your clothes are a bit skimpy. But other people—well, men—can get the wrong idea.’

  Nicky whitened.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Margaret said hastily. ‘But, my point is, it’s not theirs either. You do look—’

  ‘A blonde totty,’ said Nicky, tightly.

  Margaret laughed. ‘Well, a bit, darling.’

  ‘I won’t ever again.’

  And she had not.

  Ten years later, Nicky found she was pulling her dressing gown round her so hard that her fingers were white with the effort. Deliberately she relaxed her clenched hands. She was holding her breath as if bracing herself against an expected pain.

  But it was not painful any more, she assured herself. At least, it shouldn’t be. She had dealt with it, put it behind her. No matter what Andrew said, she could handle it. She had got up and gone to work the next day, got her life back on track, picked herself up ready to go on again. Hadn’t she?

  She let out a slow, ragged breath.

  Well, yes, she had. Until Martin had told her to do what Esteban Tremain wanted.

  Why?

  Nicky had no answer for that. Maybe it was the hint of masculine coercion. Or maybe—She did not know.

  She did not take the dressing gown off when she got into bed. She told herself it was because the room was cold. It was not true. It was because she wanted the protection of heavy cloth huddled round her. As if she could take its defences into her dreams with her, Nicky thought wryly. After she had let the memories surface again, she knew exactly the sort of dream she was likely to have.

  She was right. Only this time there was another man stalking through the terrible carnival. In the dream Nicky followed him along the quay. Only then the sea wall ran out and he turned to face her. It was Esteban Tremain.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT WAS late. He should have been working. Esteban looked at the papers spread out over his big desk and recognised that his concentration was shot to hell.

  He stood up and moved restlessly to the window. He was gazing down on to an exclusive London private quay. But other images danced in front of his eyes so that he did not know what it was that was really disturbing him.

  Francesca of course, was appalling. He had never been in love with her but he had liked her. And when he’d found she had spilled his private life to a journalist her disloyalty had shocked him. Not that, in the end, the journalist had printed all that much. But when she’d threatened to talk about the girl from the boat he’d believed her.

  A pulse started to beat in Esteban’s temple. He touched irritable fingers to it.

  Why did it still matter so much? By now, the girl would have forgotten, anyway. She certainly would not be the brave, vulnerable, fighting creature that had awakened something in him ten years ago. Something that Francesca and a dozen others had never managed to touch since.

  Esteban looked out of the window and saw not the lights from the building reflected in the oily water, but a pale, furious face, surrounded by a mass of gold curls; lips that trembled in spite of her fierce words; legs that somehow seemed too long for her, like a young colt…

  ‘Hold it right there,’ he said to himself. Just as he had said ten years ago.

  In spite of her spirited defence on the boat she had been so unsure, so young. Too young. Too young for the feelings she’d aroused in him. Too young, when she’d kissed him on the beach, to know how dangerous her innocent sensuality was. And far, far too young to understand the adult anger when he’d lashed out at her.

  Esteban closed his eyes against that memory. It made no difference. He still saw her shocked face, that morning on the quay. As if she could not believe that anyone could be as heedlessly cruel as he had been the previous night; as if she hated him.

  He’d deserved it, he thought dispassionately. In fact it had probably been a good thing for her that she had hated him. It would have helped her get over it. That was why, in the end, he had given up trying to find her, although he probably could have done if he had stuck at it.

  He had thought it best to let the whole incident slip into the past. Only—it wouldn’t stay there. ‘Do something wicked and it stays with you,’ Esteban told himself bitterly. The only reason Francesca knew about the girl was because he had told her one day when his conscience was pricking him and she seemed sympathetic.

  He shook his head. Why was he thinking about things that happened so long ago? He had urgent problems sitting there on his desk. He needed to find a way to sort out his stepfather’s precarious finances.

  His expression darkened. There was a simple answer to Patrick’s difficulties: sell some paintings. But every time Esteban suggested it Patrick just blanked out. So far Esteban had managed to subsidise Hallam. But he was already working all hours, taking every case that was offered him, and Hallam’s expenses went on growing. In fact he wondered now whether the new kitchen had been a waste of money, if Patrick was going to have to sell the Hall after all.

  Unexpectedly, Esteban’s mouth quirked. If he had not bought the new kitchen, he would not have crossed swords with Nicola Piper. Now, that had to be worth it. In her way she had the same passionate belief in herself as his urchin Cleopatra.

  He left the window and went back to his papers.

  By three in the morning, his eyes were gritty with tiredness and Patrick’s finances seemed, if anything, in greater turmoil than ever. Really, Esteban ought to see him; make him understand that there was no alternative to selling one of the paintings.

  ‘Fat chance,’ said Esteban aloud.

  He stood up, flexing his cramped neck. What I want, he thought, is fresh air. Or, even better, a run.

  He ran along the silent quay, his feet pounding in regular rhythm. In the summer the small dockside had been full of tubs of bright flowers. Now the plants were straggling and withered, waving in the strong wind off the river. There was rain in the air.

  Esteban finished his circuit and hesitated for a moment outside his luxurious apartment block. He looked up. There was no way you could see the stars through the sodium lights and the blanket of London vapours. He was filled with a great longing for the sea and the cool, sharp air of Cornwall.

  Well, why not? He wasn’t in court for the next few days and he had no meetings he couldn’t postpone. If he took his laptop computer and his modem, he could work in Hallam just as well as here. And if he talked to Patrick over several days perhaps he could convince him at last.

  He yawned hugely. There was something in the back of his mind that felt like a reason not to go but he could not remember what it was. He shrugged. He would deal with the future of Hallam once and for all. It was time.

  The morning chased the ghosts away. In fact Nicky began to enjoy herself, driving down country lanes in the late October sunshine with a bouncy dance tune filling the car’s interior. Even when she thought she was lost, she only laughed and resolved to ask at the next village pub.

  ‘If there is a pub between here and the end of the world,’ she said aloud as the road got narrower and narrower.

  By now the car doors were being scratched on both sides by autumnal blackberry bushes, their spines exposed as leaves and fruit withered. The road surface was deeply rutted, too. It felt as if no one had been down this road for months.

  ‘Or maybe I should turn back now to the last village,’ she said blithely. ‘At this rate I’ll be able to write the definitive Lost Guide to Cornwall.’

  Only then she saw the sign. It was small and so old that she could barely make out the words. What was more it looked as if, even when it was new, it had been scrawled on a piece of bark by an amateur. The lane it indicated was no more than a rough track. But it did, indubitably, say Hallam Hall.

  ‘Go with the flow,’ said
Nicky bravely.

  She did. The car bounced so badly on this track that her head twice bumped the roof. Well, that would account for the damaged appliances, she thought. Shaken to pieces before they even arrived. The unkempt bushes nearly met, so that it looked as if the car was cutting its way through jungle.

  ‘What a dump,’ Nicky said.

  She turned up the music, snapping her fingers to the beat defiantly. And then she saw the sea.

  Nicky gasped. It was as brilliant as a tilting mirror in the October sun. She had a brief, disconcerting vision of driving straight out into the gleaming air. Then, when she had hardly got her breath back, the path dropped abruptly downhill and she saw the house.

  ‘Oh, wonderful,’ she said. ‘It’s not a house. It’s a blasted castle. There’s probably wet rot, dry rot and enough damp to short every single machine Springdown put in.’

  Her diagnosis was reinforced when she stepped into a dark, panelled hall. The smell of damp and old polish smote her. Nicky made a face.

  She pulled out her mobile phone and reported in.

  Sally answered. ‘Find it all right?’

  ‘No problem. Hallam Hall is the only thing that stops you driving right off the cliff.’

  ‘Is it wonderful?’ Sally sounded envious.

  ‘Bit creepy, so far. It smells like a church.’

  ‘Ghosts?’

  Nicky looked round the tapestry-hung stone walls. The sunlight did not penetrate this far.

  ‘Dozens, I should think.’

  ‘Will you be afraid to be there on your own?’

  Nicky laughed. ‘If I’m not afraid of angry plumbers, I’m not going to be seen off by any Blackbeard the Pirate Spook.’

  ‘Oooh, you are brave. How bad does it look?’

  ‘Haven’t started yet. Have you heard any more from the client?’

  Nicky could hear Sally riffling through pages of messages on her desk. ‘His secretary rang to say if there is anything more you want to call her. The cleaning lady has gone to Madeira for two weeks but she should have left everything ready for you.’

  Nicky shivered. ‘That doesn’t seem to run to putting on the central heating. Oh, well, I suppose I’ll find the controls somewhere.’

  ‘Of course you will.’ Sally thought Nicky could cope with anything. ‘Is it very cold?’

  Nicky peered out of the leaded window. The sea was grey, the wind whipping the waves into foam.

  ‘Yes.’

  Sally moaned sympathetically. ‘And you’re really sure you don’t mind being there on your own?’

  To her private disgust, Nicky knew that she would have been a lot of happier if Martin had been at Hallam Hall too. Or even Ben. Then she had a thought and grinned.

  ‘It beats being here with the client,’ she said with feeling.

  She rang off and set about unpacking the car. Then she tracked down the heating controls to a cloakroom cupboard. She turned them on. An asthmatic boiler wheezed into action without noticeable effect.

  It will take for ever to heat a house this size, thought the experienced Nicky with gloom. And as for hot water! She could only pray that there was an immersion heater somewhere. She began to explore the cold house.

  And was astounded. The place might look like a fortress from the outside, but inside it was pure Mediterranean paradise.

  There were paintings of riotous gods and peasants in every room. On walls where there were no paintings, sculptures were set against trompe-l’oeil alcoves. Painted terraces were half hidden by swathes of real velvet. The whole of one wall in the high-ceilinged dining room was an olive grove, with nymphs in wafting draperies dancing through a lemon-tinged twilight.

  In fact, thought Nicky grimly, she had never seen so many nymphs in all her life. Some played among trees, some dreamed by fountains, some languished on flower-strewn banks and looked frankly wanton. They were every shape and size, from tall, graceful girls with hair as loose as their draperies to the plumply luscious whose elaborate garments looked as if they had been specifically designed to fall off at the touch of a godlike hand. It all added up to a rich mixture of sun, sex and classical landscape.

  Great, thought Nicky. Just what I need.

  She hunched her shoulders and turned her back firmly on the laughing nymphs.

  ‘Immersion heater,’ she said. ‘Work. Get moving.’

  She stood up and began to make her way systematically round the kitchen. To her huge relief she found an immersion heater quite quickly. The next hurdle was to see whether it was working.

  ‘Well, the pilot light is on,’ said Nicky, trying to encourage herself.

  She set out her work plan, her files, the instruction books for the appliances and the box of provisions she had brought down with her. She set out the food and looked at her schedule. First check the main fuses. Well, that was easily done.

  Nicky went back to the control cupboard. Yes, there it was, clearly labelled ‘power points, ground floor east wing’. The circuit breaker was still in place. She knew enough about electricity to check, just to be sure. But it did not take long to establish that the reason that the machines were not working had to lie somewhere else.

  ‘Probably mice,’ muttered Nicky as a castle-sized draft whipped round her ankles.

  She went back to the kitchen and plugged in the small travelling kettle she always brought with her. She was going to need coffee.

  While she was waiting for it to boil, she took critical stock. This was one of Martin’s rustic kitchens, all mellow cherry wood and brass handles. It was—as far as she could see—perfectly finished. But, until Nicky had arrived and set out the tools of her trade and messed it up, it could have been in the showroom. There were absolutely no signs of an individual occupant.

  If Esteban Tremain had a lady in residence, she had not left her mark on the kitchen. Nicky grimaced at the thought Probably not surprising. No doubt she was perfectly groomed, with cool, elegant manners, and research-laboratory standards of hygiene. Not, Nicky thought wryly, someone who lost her temper at the drop of a hat and blushed when he looked at her.

  ‘Not that it matters. Whoever he chooses is welcome to him,’ Nicky said with feeling.

  She worked her way through a cycle of preparing and cooking a full meal. Springdown had found it was the best way to test everything. By the time the light was failing she had established that the freezer did not work. Nor did the shining new Aga, the microwave, the kettle, the waste disposal unit or the coffee-grinder.

  Judging by the delicious smells which emerged after Nicky put the pheasant casserole in to cook, however, the small gas stove had life of a sort, though neither the automatic ignition nor the timer worked. Nicky noted it carefully and sipped coffee. Suddenly the kitchen was warm, with the sort of smells a kitchen should have, and Hallam felt a friendlier place.

  The preparation of an apple pie and a chocolate cake had left her with throbbing wrists, though, because she had established that the electric mixer was not working either. Nicky had had to cream butter and sugar and crumb flour and fat all by hand. As a result, her hands were caked, she had smears of flour on her face and her autumn-gold sweater looked like army camouflage under its additions of butter and chocolate.

  ‘Bath’, said Nicky with resolution.

  She had found only one bed made up, presumably for her use. The bathroom next door had another immersion heater.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said devoutly, switching it on.

  Her reflection in the bathroom mirror told her only too clearly how badly she stood in need of a bath.

  ‘You’re a messy cook,’ Nicky told her image.

  She was feeling more cheerful by the second. The house was getting warmer, more human, as she put her stamp on the place.

  She checked the pheasant and looked at the clock. The bath water should be hot by now. Outside it was fully dark. If she were really Hallam Hall’s hostess, this would be the time when she would go and have a bath and get ready for her guests. But then if she we
re really Hallam Hall’s hostess she would be the cool and elegant lady she imagined.

  Nicky gave an involuntary shiver, all her cheerfulness shrivelling as the thought touched her. It was like borrowing somebody else’s life. But she needed a bath and Esteban Tremain was safely far away in London.

  So as soon as the water was hot she climbed into a bath with claw feet and limescale deposits under the taps that would have made a geologist swoon with envy. There was no soap or bath preparations. Not even towels.

  ‘Just as well I brought my own,’ murmured Nicky.

  But the immersion heater was efficient and the water was blessedly hot. She sprinkled a few drops of her precious Roman bath oil into the water and lay back in the scented steam. Slowly, slowly, she felt the tensions of the drive and the strange house float away. Even the unwanted memories slipped back into the past where they belonged.

  Scented steam clouded all the bathroom’s Victorian mirrors. It hung in the air like aromatic fog. Nicky breathed in luxuriously. She relaxed, dreaming…

  And suddenly came bolt upright, water spraying everywhere. What if the fault was electrical after all? Not at the mains but in the individual plugs? Why hadn’t she checked at least one plug earlier?

  Nicky shook her head to clear it. The mirrors were still clouded but the fog had dispersed. What was worse, she found the water had cooled. She leaped out of the tepid bath, shivering.

  Hurriedly she pulled on her elderly dressing gown and thrust her feet into flip-flops. Neither was enough protection in this freezing cold pile but at least the kitchen would be warm. She ignored the cold as she dashed along the corridor. The inadequate lighting made every dark corner spooky but Nicky was too excited by her idea to notice.

  Her dressing gown swung wide as she scampered down the grand staircase. Impatiently she knotted the sash. The smell wafting up from the kitchen was rich. She had better just check on the casserole before starting to look for the screwdriver.