‘Oh, isn’t that just typical?’ she flashed. ‘Is that what blondes do? Run their batteries down because they’re too fluffy-headed to remember to turn their lights off?’
Esteban shrugged. ‘Anyone can forget they’ve got their lights on. Especially on grey days like these.’
‘Well, I didn’t.’ Nicky was still fulminating. ‘You think I’m a complete bimbo, don’t you?’
Esteban shook his head. ‘Whenever did I say that?’
Put on the spot, of course, Nicky could not remember. Except—
‘You called me a blonde!’ She did a savage imitation of his dismissive tone on the telephone.
He stared at her incredulously.
‘Is that what this is all about?’
Nicky stared at him with hot eyes. ‘All what?’
‘This morning. When you wouldn’t talk.’
‘I talked—’
‘Last night,’ he went on as if she had not spoken. ‘When we nearly made love.’ He paused, then added deliberately, ‘Should have made love.’
It was the last thing Nicky expected.
‘You’re out of your mind,’ she said when she could speak.
He considered that dispassionately. ‘You could be right. I thought that the moment I walked out on you last night’
The old feelings of vulnerability washed over her like a tidal wave, drowning every other sensation. She felt adrift; helpless. For a moment she hated him.
Esteban saw it. His eyes widened. He looked shocked.
‘What is it?’
Nicky whipped round and almost ran to the sink. She ran her hands under the tap, lathering them recklessly with washing-up liquid.
‘I got grease all over me.’ She was talking at random, breathless. Esteban came up behind her.
‘I never meant to upset you.’
He brushed the drifting hairs off her neck, where they had fallen out of the knot she had skewered on top of her head. Nicky froze.
‘Of course you’re blonde.’ His voice was husky. ‘Blonde and beautiful.’
‘Don’t.’ It was hardly more than a breath.
She could feel his eyes on her.
‘Don’t what? Tell you you’re beautiful? Or kiss your neck?’
Nicky stood like a statue. She felt his breath against the exposed skin of her neck. Or she thought she did. She quivered. A thought came: I’ve been waiting for this for ten years.
He brushed the nape of her neck with his fingertips. Nicky let out a strangled breath.
‘Well,’ he said in an odd voice.
She did not turn round.
‘If you touch me again,’ she said harshly to Martin’s finely crafted plate racks, ‘I shall call a cab to Exeter and go now. I don’t care about leaving the car. I can get the train or stay in a hotel or—’ Her voice became suspended.
He turned her round to face him. His arms were strong. There was nowhere to go.
‘This is nonsense,’ Esteban said harshly.
And kissed her.
Against her will, against every consideration of common sense and her own decision, Nicky kissed him back. Her kiss held all the fire of anger, all the desperation of last night’s self-betrayal. When they fell apart they were both panting.
He stared at her as if he had never seen her before. Or, rather, as if he had suddenly realised that she was somebody quite other than the person he had thought
He’s remembered! thought Nicky, horrified.
‘Don’t look like that!’ he shouted.
She jumped.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a more moderate tone. ‘But you keep looking at me as if you think I’ll hurt you. I don’t like it’
‘Then don’t give me cause’, retorted Nicky.
She pushed past him. The kiss had shaken her more than anything that had gone before.
He gave a laugh that was half a groan. ‘What cause? And don’t give me any nonsense about calling you a blonde. You must have got used to the idea after all these years.’
Oh, God, he had remembered. Nicky felt sick.
‘What years? What do you mean?’ she said sharply.
‘Even if you don’t believe your mirror,’ he said judicially, ‘your lovers must have told you how beautiful you are.’
The mockery was unexpected, and so cruel that Nicky could have screamed. Then she saw the look in his eyes. Unbelieving, she realised he was perfectly serious. Oh, boy, am I out of my depth, she thought.
But all she said was, ‘N-no.’
He did not touch her. But the way he looked at her was a potent caress.
‘Then let me be the first,’ he said softly.
There was a deafening silence. Out of my depth and drowning, Nicky thought
They just stood looking at each other, not moving. It might have been an hour; it might have been a few seconds. Nicky felt the steady floor shift under her as if it were preparing for an earthquake. She put an uncertain hand behind her and grasped the countertop.
‘From the first time I saw you,’ Esteban said at last
Nicky could have wept ‘You don’t even remember the first time you saw me,’ she said bitterly.
‘Oh, but I do. Across a floor full of fridges.’ He gave a soft laugh. ‘Hardly romantic. You’d come in from the street and your hair was all blown about’
He touched the hair at her temples gently. She was so stunned she did not retreat.
‘All gold, like the summer.’
Nicky felt his hands loosening the pins that held her knot in place. She did not resist. The pins clattered on to the flagstones. Her hair slid down over his fingers. To her amazement, it felt voluptuous as velvet as it flowed over his skin. She shook it out deliberately, so that it caressed his fingers. Heard his little indrawn gasp of pleasure. Leaned into him…
This time the kiss was long and slow. Half a question, half a promise of passion. The passion was unmistakable, thought Nicky, who had avoided passion for years. Until last night She was deeply shaken by her certainty. Especially as she was almost sure Esteban shared it.
His eyes were intense. ‘At least now you know I wasn’t making fun of you.’
Nicky shook her head, dazed and trembling. No, he was not making fun of her. He was starting to make love to her again. His sort of love, not hers. But she did not think she could resist.
She said as she had said last night, ‘Oh, heaven help me.’ She hardly knew she was speaking aloud.
Esteban shook her slightly. ‘Stop fighting it,’ he murmured. ‘You know you need this as much as I do.’
And the trouble was, she did. She did not know which was worse—the way she despised herself or the sexy confidence in Esteban’s eyes.
He slid a hand round the back of her waist under the grubby shirt and ran a mischievous finger down her spine. Nicky could not suppress the bolt of sensation which shot through her. His eyes gleamed with triumph.
‘We’ll call the garage tomorrow,’ he said roughly, preparing to swing her up into his arms.
At that moment Nicky did, literally, hate him. Nobody should be that sure of another human being.
She pushed him away and strengthened her wavering backbone. ‘Too late. I’ve already called. They said they’d be here as soon as possible.’
Esteban groaned.
But when the man arrived Esteban was courtesy itself. He made him coffee before taking him out to the beached car. To small effect.
The dungareed St George took one look at Nicky’s car and shook his head. In spite of Esteban’s objections, he insisted on escorting her back to the car for diagnosis. Esteban slipped an oversized waxed jacket over Nicky’s clothes and accompanied them, one arm protectively round her.
‘You won’t get that started,’ said the garage man with gloomy relish.
Nicky was suspicious. Had Esteban slipped him a bribe to claim her car was beyond repair tonight?
‘How can you tell?’ she demanded. ‘You haven’t even looked inside the engine.’
T
he man traced the edge of the fuel cap with his finger. ‘See that?’
Nicky leaned closer. It looked as if there was some sort of gritty discharge from it. She touched it. The crystals felt sticky.
‘What is it?’
‘Sugar.’
Esteban, who had been watching with detached interest, suddenly lost his detachment. He leaned forward.
‘What? Joe, that has to be nonsense.’
The man stood back. ‘See for yourself.’
Esteban did, frowning.
‘But how could sugar have got into the petrol?’ Nicky said, puzzled. ‘And why?’
‘Gums up the pipes,’ said Joe laconically. ‘Sugar doesn’t dissolve in oil, you see. Just forms into a mass and stops the petrol flowing. Bet you thought you’d run out.’
‘But how can it have got into the tank?’
‘Only one way. Someone put it there.’
Esteban said, ‘But that means someone deliberately—’
‘Sabotage,’ said Nicky shakily. ‘Again.’ She felt a cold which had nothing to do with the wind buffeting them off the sea.
Esteban looked down at her in quick concern. ‘Well, vandalism, certainly. Can you do anything about it, Joe?’
‘Needs to be stripped down. I’ll take it back and see what I can do.’
Esteban took the keys from Nicky’s nerveless hand and passed them across.
‘Do that. Let us know how it looks. Put it on the Hall’s account.’
Nicky came out of her shocked reverie. ‘I can pay for it I’ve got my credit card.’
Esteban put his arm round her again. The gale made them both stagger and whipped her hair across her mouth. He brushed it gently behind her ear.
‘We’ll talk about it later. Let Joe see what’s wrong first.’ He hugged her comfortingly. ‘Go back. You’re frozen.’
She turned to him instinctively. His body was warm. His strength seemed to revive and sustain her. Nicky felt herself steadied.
‘Yes,’ she said thankfully.
He gave her a little push. ‘Go and get warm. I’ll just help Joe hitch up your car.’
‘My case—’
‘I’ll bring it in,’ he assured her. ‘Go on.’
She went.
After about ten minutes Esteban followed. He took one look at her white face and came over to her.
‘Don’t look so worried.’
‘What was it you were saying about your enemies?’ Nicky said. ‘Is sugar in the petrol tank their sort of form?’
His eyes did not quite meet hers. ‘Much too childish.’
She huddled her arms round herself, although the kitchen was warm as toast
‘But effective.’
‘Only in the short run.’
He reached out but Nicky drew away. A thought had occurred to her and she needed an answer.
‘Is that what you were doing in my room last night?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What?’
She was seeing him standing at the dressing table, still fully dressed. He had not come bent on seduction, had he? She had just jumped to that conclusion. And then let her long-repressed hunger take over.
‘You really were looking for a torch, weren’t you?’
Esteban watched her. ‘I told you I was.’
And she had just brushed it side. Nicky’s whole body burned with shame. She tried to ignore it.
‘What happened?’ Her voice was harsh. ‘Did you hear an intruder?’
He seemed to debate with himself. Then he shrugged.
‘I wasn’t sure. I thought I’d take a look. Only then—’ his voice warmed to sexy amusement ‘—something came up that seemed more urgent.’
He slanted a look at her. It said as clearly as words that he enjoyed the memory. It invited her to share his pleasure. Nicky winced.
‘And did you find anything? I mean—’ she swallowed painfully ‘—afterwards.’
The amusement died out of his face. ‘Nothing definite.’
‘Have you told the police?’
‘Until now there was nothing to tell.’
She looked round the kitchen, at all the machines she had spent the day rewiring.
‘Wasn’t there?’ she said heavily.
His jaw tightened. ‘Nothing I couldn’t handle.’
Nicky shivered, not answering.
His voice gentled. ‘Look, Nicky, I know this feels bad. But I’m almost sure you were right when you said it was all my own fault. So I’ll deal with it.’
‘Great,’ muttered Nicky. ‘Like you’ll beam in a new engine for my car?’
‘I can’t do that,’ Esteban admitted, his mouth wry. ‘But I can take care of everything else.’ His eyes compelled her to look at him. ‘Believe me,’ he said with great deliberation, ‘I will take care of you.’
All Nicky’s memories attacked. Miserably undecided, she wrung her hands.
‘Trust me,’ he said strongly.
What choice did she have? For tonight, at least, she was stack. In the end she admitted it, at least to herself.
‘All right,’ she said reluctantly.
Esteban’s mouth turned down as if he had bitten on something sour.
‘I’ll make you forget all this,’ he vowed.
Nicky thought of all she had to forget. More than he knew.
‘You can try.’
From his alert glance, she knew he’d registered her reservations. But he was too shrewd to challenge her.
Instead he said lightly, ‘Why don’t you go and have one of your scented baths? I’ll make a few phone calls, then I’ll give you the guided tour. And later I’ll take you out for a meal. That will put everything into perspective.’
Nicky very much doubted it. On the other hand, a bath would be very welcome. She agreed.
Later she came downstairs in her last remaining change of clothes: sapphire velvet trousers and a softly alluring sweater the colour of cornflowers. It made her skin look porcelain and turned her eyes sea blue. Esteban, coming out of the study, stopped dead.
‘You beautiful thing,’ he said after a stunned pause. He sounded almost angry.
Nicky’s chin lifted to a challenging angle. ‘So?’
He stared at her for a moment, his eyes hot.
‘What is it you’re not telling me?’
Nicky jumped, disconcerted. ‘You’re imagining it.’
‘Am I?’ He was grim. ‘You know we want each other. You feel it, just like I do. But then you remember something and you turn on me as if I’m your enemy. Last night—’ He broke off with a frustrated, furious gesture. ‘Why?’
Nicky should have told him then. She knew she should have told him. She could not bear it.
She said in a high, tense voice», ‘I thought you were going to show me round the house.’
He gave an exasperated exclamation. But Nicky was already turning away. Esteban shrugged and followed.
He took her from room to room like a professional guide. Except that no professional would have loved the place as he clearly did, treated it so carelessly and yet with such affection. He seemed to know the history of every stick of furniture, every tapestry, every fireplace. But it was on the paintings that he really came into his own.
‘School of Botticelli,’ he would say. Or, ‘Tintoretto. The insurance is ruinous.’ Or again, ‘Van Dyck. A rather badly behaved ancestor, I’m afraid, but a nice picture.’ Eventually he stopped in front of three garlanded girls in a midsummer copse. ‘Raphael, according to my stepfather. Fortunately the experts don’t agree with him or we wouldn’t be able to afford the security.’
Nicky looked at the laughing girls. She felt hot and cold. Hot with embarrassment to be standing beside Esteban looking at all that luxuriant abandon. Cold with dread that she would never be able to throw off her inhibitions and dance in the sun.
Esteban frowned. ‘One of them will have to be sold, though. I don’t know how my stepfather will bear it.’
Nicky was struck. ‘How odd. My parents regard
all possessions as goods for barter.’
He looked down at her. ‘Don’t they have things they treasure? Think of as part of the family?’
Nicky laughed aloud at the thought. ‘My parents? You’re joking.’
‘I don’t mean a painting, necessarily. Something they inherited from their parents that stands for continuity.’
‘Let me tell you about my parents,’ Nicky said, glad of the diversion. ‘They’re the original flower children. Flowers don’t make good heirlooms.’
He was taken aback. ‘Flower children? And you?’
Nicky grinned suddenly. ‘Peace and love, man. My upbringing in a nutshell. My parents are the last hippies. They made the Summer of Love last thirty years. So far.’
‘So you’re a rebel against parental conditioning?’
‘I think I must be,’ Nicky said reflectively.
She looked at all the voluptuous flesh on the canvas over her head. Constraint returned, sharp as a wind off the sea. She looked at her watch.
‘When are we eating?’
Esteban looked from Nicky to the painting; and back.
‘Ah,’ he said, as if he understood everything suddenly.
He lent her the oversized waxed jacket again and put her into the low, gleaming Jaguar. The wind howled but the car seemed impervious to its buffeting. Esteban set it silently down the darkened lanes to a sprawling inn at a crossroads.
The restaurant was a tiny room, with just five tables. Every one of them was full in spite of it being midweek and long past the tourist season. And from the moment they stepped inside Nicky felt as if they were alone.
Alone and—she drew a wondering breath—in love. All her prickly anger had gone. Their discreet corner table was like a charmed place, where nothing existed but the candlelight and each other. Even the waiter hardly impinged on Nicky’s consciousness. She was quite calm and she had total confidence that Esteban would bring the evening to the resolution that had been waiting for them since they were born.
He looked steadily at her across the flame as if he could see right down into her soul.
‘Tell me about these flower-children parents.’
She did. For the first time she found herself laughing about the trials of life on a boat, instead of denying them.
‘It sounds a tough childhood.’
The Latin Affair Page 13