Devil's Darling

by Violet Winspear

  ‘In England I thought you lovely,’ he said, in that voice that was extra meaningful because of its deep, foreign intonations. ‘But here in my country you are even more unusual, for hair such as yours is like the white-gold which the cruel conquistadores made my people mine out of the depths of the earth.’

  ‘Pluto’s palace,’ she said, with a quiet flippancy, her nerves made taut by his reference to her looks. ‘You seem to forget that you have conquistador blood in your veins as well, Don Diablo.’

  ‘True,’ he drawled, ‘and it is likely to come to the surface if you continue to treat me as if I were a stranger instead of your husband. Now, mi mujer, we will go to the table and eat. The food you will find is Mexican, like my house, like my soul. Come!’

  The noon light was brilliant with heat and only under the enormous lime tree was it partially cool, for it was where the lunch table had been laid, a beautiful lace cloth covering the circular, cane-plaited surface, with matching basket chairs in cane. On the table was an exotic arrangement of orchids, and wine in a basket, with glasses on those long stems that the Don was fond of toying with in his lean hands.

  ‘Be seated.’ He drew out her chair and she brushed against him as she sat down and was intensely aware of how tall he was, and how white was his shirt against the tawny skin of his body. Her beloved Marcus had been dark, but not nearly so dark as this man. He had been fairly tall, but he hadn’t towered above her in this intimidating way. At times he had been stem, but he had never emanated this degree of physical and mental power.

  ‘Fear takes the shape of a black panther in the night,’ she had once read, and that curious unrealistic fear was hers right now. They were about to eat, but when she looked into his eyes a terror of the night rushed over her.

  Since the conclusion of their wedding ceremony they had been travelling, and only now did it sweep over Per-sepha that she was ‘home’, if the hacienda could be called that, and today their life together really began.

  ‘You will enjoy the food,’ he said, ‘once you accept that everything in Mexico has an extra dash of spice.’

  Persepha shot him a look from beneath her lashes, for as always she suspected a double meaning in his words. White-coated Indians came to the table and began to pour the wine and to serve the food. All the time she could feel the Don silently watching her, there beneath the dappled shade of the lime-scented tree, faint shadows beneath her eyes, and her heart a rebellious weight in her breast.

  Obeying Marcus even in his death she had married this man he had chosen for her ... in a blind daze of grief and hopelessness she had been led to an altar which now felt like a sacrificial stone.

  ‘We will drink a toast.’ Don Diablo lifted his wine glass, in which the wine was as glintingly red as the rubies on Persepha’s left hand. ‘Come, join me, mia, for in truth this is our wedding breakfast.’

  ‘You realize—’ Her teeth caught at her lip. ‘You must know that I’ve made a terrible mistake in marrying you. I - I was out of my mind over Marcus, and now—’

  ‘Now it’s too late for regrets,’ he broke in, his voice as deceptively smooth as silk. ‘You are my wife, I am your husband.’

  ‘But only in words!’ She leaned forward, an eager pleading in her eyes. ‘A marriage such as ours can be annulled, for we haven’t - we aren’t totally bound.’

  ‘But soon we shall be.’ There was a whisper of ice in his voice, the kind that covers the cone of a volcano. ‘I re-quest that you lift your glass so that we might pledge each other, for I have no intention of letting you go, querida. You married me in a Catholic church, and on each hand you wear my rings; the golden ring of alliance, and the Ezreldo Ruy rubies which in their time have had real blood on them.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ she whispered, and her own blood felt as if it ran cold as she looked into his adamantine eyes, dark as the night that fell upon Mexico when the sun died away.

  ‘I should be honour bound to execute punishment if you should try and run away from me, but let me warn you that you won’t get very far. The boundary lines of my land are limitless and on that land live only my people. We are not in England any more, chica. Here in all truth I am the master of all I survey, and if what lies a thousand miles away is mine, then think how much is mine that my eyes look upon across the mere width of a table.’

  ‘You are quite ruthless, aren’t you?’ Persepha had never been more sure of anything as she looked across at those features that were as if hammered from bronze, the black hair sweeping back from the broad forehead that betokened a powerful brain. It was that brain allied to the Spanish ruthlessness which had helped to make him the master of so much territory. Her master, from whom at present there seemed no escape.

  Persepha lowered her gaze and picked up her wine glass, obeying the female instinct that told her that only by discovering the weak rents in his armour would she be in a better position to fight with him. Right now she hardly knew him. She was like one of those brides whose marriage had been arranged to a man unknown to her.

  ‘What toast have you in mind?’ she asked, bitter- sweetly. ‘A reassertion that I honour and obey you?’

  ‘I know very well, Persepha, that I can make you honour and obey me.’

  ‘Oh, then I hope that you didn’t have it in mind to ask a pledge of love from me.’ She thrust up her chin and dared a direct meeting with his unnerving eyes. His was the gaze of the basilisk, scattering into atoms the will of another person. ‘Whatever you get from me, it will never be love, Don Diablo.’

  ‘Brave words, querida.’ His gaze grew mocking as he raised his glass until a shaft of sunlight caught it and the facets and the red wine glowed in unison. ‘May you always be as courageous as you are right now, always as fair, and always as furious. It has never been my nature to want a dove in my nest, so today as the sun shines there come together a dark eagle and a white mate. To you, esposa mia, te quiero!’

  Her heart thumped. ‘I want you!’ he had said in Spanish. Had she hoped that he might say, ‘I love you!’ so that she might have a whip-hold over him?

  ‘To you, esposo mio.’ Defiantly she raised her glass. ‘May I die before I ever want you!’

  ‘Gracias!’ His sardonic expression was unaltered by her words, and after setting down his wine glass he proceeded to eat his food. ‘This is excellent, querida. You really must eat and get some colour back into your cheeks, for when they have that wild-rose flush you are truly the loveliest creature on earth.’

  ‘I wish to heaven I was ugly,’ she flung at him. ‘You wouldn’t want me then. You’d be repelled, for it’s obvious from what I’ve seen so far of your surroundings that you like everything to please your proud eyes.’

  ‘Tell me, my bride, do you really think that your most excellent Marcus would have wanted you had you been an ugly child instead of one who resembled the woman he adored? He saw in you a miniature of her; had it been otherwise I venture to say that he would have placed you in an orphanage and forgotten about you.’

  ‘That’s a cruel, unjustified thing to say!’ Persepha looked at her husband with eyes that hated him. ‘Marcus had a heart! He wasn’t like you — Lucifer; you want heaven and hell combined, so that you can be godlike and satanic at one and the same time.’

  ‘And hell hath no fury like the bride of Satan, eh?’ Abruptly he smiled and his teeth were incredibly white against his skin, and perfect as an animal’s teeth might be. ‘The food, at least, is heavenly, and so are many parts of my house. Later on I will escort you on a tour of inspection and you may judge for yourself, for even if you can’t admire me, you may find it in your heart to admire the hacienda. It was erected a hundred years ago and has been embellished ever since, and don’t tell me that you don’t like things that please your own proud eyes, my dear.’

  ‘I expect I shall admire the place,’ she said, eating her small potatoes that were baked with the meat and served with ears of sweet corn. The meat was tender and succulent, and the sauce had a delicious spicy
taste that added to the pleasure of eating. That Persepha was hungry she couldn’t deny, for she had not eaten properly for several days. She had been too dazed, too stricken, but now she was coming fully awake to her situation and her surroundings, and only by letting her youth find its strength again would she be able to combat the magnetism of this man.

  She gazed past that arrogant, haughty profile into the Moorish patio that could be glimpsed beyond a chiselled archway, the twin columns of which were a twining mass of brilliant mauve flowers. Set back from the archway and framed like a picture was a fountain of pure green marble, ornament of classic perfection, with miniature waterfalls tumbling from bowl to bowl, the magic of the water and the sun forming a rainbow that never faded.

  That she saw beauty whichever way she turned was undeniable ... but when she looked at Don Diablo she saw a formidable foe instead of a fond companion, as Marcus had so often been. Her throat muscles tightened, her eyes ached, and she was afraid she might cry again. She blinked rapidly and took a sip of wine.

  ‘Does the sun try your eyes?’ The Don looked at her narrowly. ‘It will seem fierce for a while, for in England you never see sunlight so dazzling, eh? It is moderate like the emotions of the people there. Polite and shy of flaunting itself as it does in Mexico. When you walk in our sun you must always remember to wear a hat ... I will find you a Mexican straw so that the wide brim will shield your fair skin.’

  ‘Are you afraid I shall go red as a beet and peel like a dried onion?’ she asked flippantly. ‘If that is the case, then I shall do my best to get sunburned.’

  ‘Neither sunburn nor sunstroke will be pleasant for you, so stop talking like a child.’ The look he gave her was menacing, with not a hint of humour in it. ‘If at any time you dare to go bareheaded, then I promise that you will learn a lesson from me that you won’t forget in a hurry. I don’t imagine that you have ever been spanked, but if you foolishly defy me in the matter of headgear when you go walking or riding, then I shall turn you over my knee and mark that white skin of yours with the flat of my hand. I mean what I say, Persepha. Behave childishly and I shall treat you as if you are a child.’

  ‘Can I take that as a firm promise?’ she asked, and gave a defiant toss of her head as a manservant came to the table and murmured some words to the Don in the local dialect which she didn’t understand, though she knew a smattering of Spanish from a holiday she had taken with Marcus in the south of Spain. She still remembered that cruel bullfight, and as Don Diablo rose from the table and excused himself for a few minutes, she saw that he had the lean hard grace of body, and the ruthless looks of the matadors of Spain. She could imagine him with a sword in his hand, his eyes fixing the bull as he plunged the blade to the very heart of the beast. Persepha was certain that he would have no fear, no hesitation, no regret as the blood spilled on to the sand.

  He walked away from the table with his long silent stride, and just a few moments later the servant brought dessert to the table, a delectable concoction of sliced pineapple and papaya with tiny quarters of orange and a jug of rich cream.

  Persepha ate her sweet in a suspended mood of peace which she ardently wished could last without interruption from the disturbing personality of the man she had married in haste.

  She could hear the soft splashing of the fountain of green marble, and the trilling of bright-winged birds in the many colourful trees that surrounded the courtyards and smaller patios. Finches and tanagers, she thought idly, for this place would invite both tame and wild birds to its exotic blossoms and its lush leafy plants. Her gaze followed the mocking-birds and the flame-tailed hum-ming-birds that flew in and out of the tangled creepers like whirling toys gaily painted.

  She was half a world away from England, and this was the place she must now accept as home, for she no longer had a home in her own land. Strangers now resided at Stonehill, which, towered and grey-stoned, had no resemblance to the Hacienda Ruy. In fact, if Marcus had not been master there it would have been rather a grim house, yet even so Persepha had never thought of it as she did this Spanish dwelling ... as a prison that held torment for her, unless she found some means of escaping from the place.

  Then, even in the midst of her thoughts, she felt the approach of her husband and she tensed in her chair and the look of introspection fled from her eyes to be replaced by the wary look of a creature snatched away from familiar surroundings into realms where a devil walked among the roses.

  Her eyes flicked the Don’s face as he sat down; his features were grim and the chiselled lips were drawn into hard, thin lines. He sat there silently while the manservant brought coffee to him in a shining silver pot. Persepha felt the beating of her heart... she knew instinctively that he had been giving someone a bit of hell, and she caught her breath when he looked directly at her as if reading her mind.

  ‘Yes,’ he said curtly, ‘I have just had the unwelcome duty of kicking someone off this estate. He was a groom who has so mishandled one of my horses that its mouth is damaged, and when I left you just now it was because I had been told that the horse had backed this man into a corner of his stall, where he might have kicked him to death. A misused horse can turn as dangerous as a tiger.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said, totally uncaring that the horse could have mauled him in its state of pain and anger. ‘Is that why they use the poor brutes in Spain to be gored by bulls? Because having been hurt and mishandled they turn dangerous and make better sport for your bloodthirsty people?’

  The Don heard her out and just looked at her, calmly lifting his cup and drinking the dark aromatic coffee to which he had not not added cream or sugar.

  It must be bitter as gall, she thought, pouring about half an inch of the thick cream into her own cup. It was as she lifted her cup and took a sip of her own coffee that she caught sight of the long rent in the shoulder of her husband’s white shirt, and when she saw the dark skin gleaming through she realized that he had had the task of getting the infuriated horse away from the stablehand who had hurt him.

  ‘You have seen a bullfight?’ Don Diablo asked her, his eyes intent upon her face as he tossed a quarter of orange into his mouth.

  ‘Yes, and I hated it,’ she replied tensely. ‘I was repelled by the delight of the crowd in so much torture and pain. No wonder the conquistadores were so abominably cruel when they came from a country like Spain. Slaughtering poor defenceless Indians must have been quite a sport for them.’

  ‘The Indians were never all that defenceless, for they had a few refined methods of torture of their own.’ A smile flickered on the lips that were as well cut as those on a golden Inca mask. ‘One of their most popular methods was to make a captive Spaniard swallow boiling oil or even gold. Believe me, querida, there is a deep-lying streak of cruelty in men of most countries, even your own.’

  ‘I doubt if any Englishman has ever gone to the extremes of cruelty that your Latin races have. Why, you said yourself that we English were more moderate.’

  ‘In your loving was what I meant,’ he drawled, leaning back in his basket chair and taking from his hip pocket not a flat gold case this time but a well-handled leather one from which he selected a slim cigar of such a darkness of leaf that it looked absolutely lethal when he placed it between his white teeth. He struck a match, applied the flame, and emitted a strong smoke from his nostrils.

  ‘Tell me, chica? that sardonic note was in his voice, ‘has it not drifted across your mind once or twice that your guardian was rather cruel in giving you into my hands? It surely bewilders you that he must have put mercenary values before emotional ones, and cared more that you have a rich husband than a fond one. Did you not tell me when you placed your hand in mine that you married me for his sake; because it was his last wish here on earth?’

  ‘Yes,’ her voice was husky, ‘I did what he wanted, but I do ask myself why. I do wonder if he ever regretted loving Daisy so much that it closed his heart against any other woman. I do wonder if he felt that love was too shattering an experience,
and that it would be better if I never felt it, never knew it, never had to endure finding and losing it. That would be like Marcus ... but it wouldn’t be like him to be cruel... to me.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ The Don shrugged his shoulders and lifted his dark gaze to the lime tree, through whose leaves and branches the sky gleamed a dazzling blue. ‘He wished to know about Mexico and I described to him this land I have known all my life, and loved, though you seem to doubt that it is in me to feel such an emotion.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and she could put a lot of expression into that small word, ‘I don't doubt your ability to love what you own. This hacienda, your horses, your miles and miles of fertile land. You are a feudal throwback, Don Diablo. You spring from the loins of ruthless and predatory men and you have to take what you want, regardless of the feelings of the women who cross your path.’

  ‘So it’s land I love, bricks and mortar, and mettlesome horses.’ He tipped cheroot ash with a quizzical expression. ‘So you don’t credit me with the ability to love one woman until my dying day, as your guardian did.’

  ‘Quite frankly, no,’ she said, and blew softly on a ladybird which had settled on the palm of her hand. The minute wings fluttered and the tiny thing flew away, and Persepha gave a sigh. If only she had wings and could just lift off into the air like Psyche. Instead she was like her namesake, who while playing in the fields of youth had been carried off by the lord of darkness, to his kingdom of Hades.

  ‘What has happened to your stablehand?’ she asked. ‘Did you thrash him? Yes, I can see from your face that you did. Oh well, Marcus once thrashed a young man for trying to seduce me, so you have that much in common with him.’

  ‘Tell me about this young man.’ The dark eyes grew piercing. ‘You were fond of him? You encouraged him to think that he could make love to you?’

  ‘No! and don’t go all inquisitorial, just like the traditional Latin husband.’ She gave a laugh, but it wasn’t a very humorous one. ‘If you thought I wasn’t virtuous would you throw me out? I have heard that Spaniards place inordinate value on the innocence of their brides, and it would be a laugh on you if I were shopsoiled instead of brand new.’ All at once the idea was tempting that she lay claim to a lack of innocence that she knew would appal him. His high pride would never suffer a bride who was not virginal... in all things he had to be first; the conqueror who plundered and took.