Good manners dictated that Frances should accompany Maria and the Conde to the stables where their mounts had been left in the care of grooms prior to their departure. So with burning cheeks and an air of discomfiture enveloping her like a contemptuously flung cloak, she trailed in Maria's shadow, suffering her malicious glances and supposed overtures of friendship.
'We must arrange a date when it will be convenient for you to visit my home, Seňorita Ross.' Small, perfect teeth bared in a smile of condescension. 'My father is always eager to show off his herd of fighting bulls that is the result of hundreds of years of careful breeding aimed at producing the characteristics most desirable in the bullring—supreme courage, strength, and stamina. Some claim that the Andalusian-bred bull is the most dangerous animal in the world. Certainly, whenever a bull has been put inside a cage with a lion or a tiger, the bull has always survived the experiment. Even the elephant, though protected from mortal injury by his thick hide, has been known to attempt an escape, totally terrorised. Our ranch covers many thousand of acres of harsh land where the grazing is thin but extremely nourishing. Bull calves are born in winter and left to roam free, to forage where they can, to fight whenever they want to, consequently those that manage to survive the winter provide proof of their strength and durability.'
'And what happens to those that don't?' Frances' voice was husky with compassion.
Maria shrugged. 'Any animal that does not achieve the required standard of bravery is either raised for beef or disposed of immediately.
Breeders cannot afford to be sentimental, bullfighting is an art form, an expression of Andaluz temperament which combines an eye for graceful movement, admiration of courage, lust for excitement, with proud hauteur and just a hint of barbarity.'
Frances shuddered, resisting an impulse to follow the direction of Maria's glance that had homed like a pigeon towards the silent man sauntering by their side, adjusting his rangy stride to the tip-tapping progress of high-heeled riding boots and the reluctant drag of cork-soled sandals. Sickened by the thought of animals being bred solely for the purpose of slaughter, she protested, 'How can you possibly find pleasure in killing for killing's sake? Have you no feeling of pity for the unfortunate bull who is given no choice but to star in the savage pastime you term entertainment!'
Maria's look of scorn was as predictable as the Conde's cold query.
'Unfortunate?' he swung round to condemn. 'I think not! When the time arrives for the bull to fight his last fight he has enjoyed five wild, glorious years of freedom on the range. Wouldn't any creature, given a choice, turn down the sluggish existence of a steer condemned to chewing his way nearer and nearer extinction inside a slaughterhouse in favour of the honour of being chosen to star in the lidia, a pageant with a history that can be traced back almost five thousand years from the times of the Cretans, the Greeks and Phoenicians, right through to the Arab occupation of Spain? Even Spanish conquistadors tried out their lance work on the highly combative animals in order to maintain form for fighting in battle. I cannot argue with your view that bullfighting is not a sport, for the outcome is predictable, therefore there is no contest. But neither is it the type of gory spectacle relished by Englishmen who follow packs of hounds in pursuit of small red foxes merely to claim as a prize the bloody brush that is all that remains after the dogs have caught and worried their prey. By comparison, the ritual of the bullfight is an art form, a dramatic pageant that portrays the ability of both man and beast to show dignity and courage while dicing with death!'
As she sat high in the saddle, displaying the proud, straight-backed carriage for which Andalusian riders are famed, probably nothing could have been more calculated to restore Maria's good humour than the sight of her verbal antagonist standing with head bowed, scuffling the soles of her sandals in the dust, as she waited to wave farewell to their guest and her sharply-spoken champion.
When an elongated shadow fell across the ground at her feet, Frances sighed and raised a pale, chastened face towards the Conde, expecting further rebuke, then she stared wide-eyed with wonder when she saw that he was smiling. Across his shoulder she caught a glimpse, of Maria's hardening expression before earth, sky and landscape were blotted out when deliberately he lowered his head until his firm, rather cruel mouth was resting lightly as a bee drawing nectar from sweetly-parted lips, quivering soft and pink as flower petals.
'I shall return as quickly as I can, querida,' his husky promise was pitched just loud enough for Maria to overhear. 'I suggest that you rest in the coolness of your room.' With a show of concern that appeared incredibly genuine he stroked a tendril of hair back from her brow and scolded tenderly, 'Pale English flowers tend to wilt beneath the blazing Andalusian sun—I shall expect to see your fresh young beauty completely restored when you join me for dinner this evening.'
Rendered dumb and incapable of movement, Frances watched dazedly as the high-stepping thoroughbreds carried their riders into the lush Andalusian vega.
'Why…?' she breathed, concentrating her mind upon the riders receding swiftly into the distance, not daring even to begin analysing strange emotions that had been stirred into life by the tight clasp of his arms holding her safely in the saddle and which ever since had responded with a wince or a throb to every scathing word, every casual look exchanged up until their last breathtaking encounter. 'Why does he find it necessary to use me as a barrier between himself and Maria when they are such a perfectly matched pair, as right together as night is with day, bitter with sweet, as a sin-black stallion is with a virginal white mare?'
Long after horses and riders had disappeared out of sight she remained staring into space, then, becoming conscious of the heat of the sun on her bared head and a throbbing at each temple, she turned on her heel to seek relief inside the cool interior of the Palacio. As usual, whenever she set foot inside the majestic marbled hall with its high-domed ceiling, portraits, heirlooms, and a smell of antiquity that reminded her of cathedrals, she experienced the awe of an impoverished interloper confronted with trappings of wealth undreamt of, a weight of great fortune that imposed bonds as heavy as those of slavery.
She was lost in thought, staring fixedly at a porcelain plate beautifully decorated with gold leaf and bearing a painting on its base of a pair of Oriental golden pheasants, the cock proudly strutting, flaunting his colourful plumage before a cooing, adoring hen, when a sibilant voice hissed past her shoulder.
'The tail feathers of a strutting cock bring luck in the search for love!' Sabelita nodded, indicating the plate with the painted tableau. 'Girls must resort to magic if their love affairs go awry. If you wish it, seňorita, I could concoct for you a love potion which, when administered secretly in a drink, will turn the coldest-hearted man into a passionate lover. My potions always work,' she promised, 'provided the one who administers them is good and pure in love. Tell me the date of your birth,' she urged eagerly, 'down to the exact minute, so that I may know exactly which stones, flowers, herbs and oils to gather, as well as the exact time to mix the potion in order to ensure maximum strength?'
With a blush that gave immediate lie to her words, Frances stammered a hasty refusal.
'Don't be foolish, Sabelita! What need have I of a love potion? And as for El Conde, I should imagine he would be the last man in the world to need help with his love affairs.'
'Love is necessary to all who wish to live life as it ought to be lived,' Sabelita insisted fiercely, 'happily, and with many nights of glorious passion! Provided that you are truly in love, and that the man in your life is not in love with another, a few sips of my magic philtre will transport you both to the gates of paradise.'
Deciding that the embarrassing conversation had gone on long enough, Frances attempted a humorous side-step away from the subject.
'If I were to arrive there this minute, I doubt whether I would be allowed in,' she quipped, glancing ruefully at the skirt that was growing shabbier with every passing day.
When Sabelita glared and
tossed her dark head until hooped golden earrings jangled, Frances stepped back in haste, reminded of tales she had heard about the gypsies' witch-like ability to cast spells, for good and evil, as well as their reputed gift for foretelling the future.
'You poke fun at me, seňorita,' the old woman almost spat, 'which means that I am now forced to prove beyond doubt that my potions, collected by many generations of my family who travelled the world learning the secrets of old alchemists and sorcerers of the East, really do work!'
When she flounced off in a huff, Frances frowned and bite worriedly into her bottom, lip. Then heaving a sigh of resignation she walked towards the stairs, feeling tossed and battered by emotion, yearning for the peaceful atmosphere of her bedroom where, with the key turned in the lock, she could feel protected, at least physically, from the aggravating, exasperating, overpowering inhabitants of the Palacio del Flamenco.
In spite of a built-in resistance to following advice given like a command, the divan with its shimmering blue cover and silken sheets drew her as if magnetised and fulfilled its promise of bliss immediately she laid her aching head upon a soft cloud of pillows. Determined to stay awake, to mull over her thoughts, to drag her heart from a morass of confused emotions, she fixed her gaze directly ahead, intending to clear her mind by concentrating for a while upon a portion of the pale, carved wooden panelling lining the walls of the room.
At the first she had no difficulty identifying crescent moons, ears of wheat, the horseshoes, horns and stars that were typical Eastern, emblems of good luck and fertility. But gradually, the fur and feather, beaks, claws and teeth of birds and animals began blurring behind a screen of wavering lashes, then finally vanished as she sank into a deep sleep.
The room was full of shadows when, some hours later, her slumber was disturbed by a slight sound that sent her lashes flying upwards over her drowsy eyes. Lazily she stirred, then while lifting a hand to smother a yawn she stiffened, wide eyes questioning the movement of a patch of dark shadow lowering towards the bed.
'Don't be alarmed, cara,' a familiar voice soothed. 'I merely came to remind you that it is almost time to dress for dinner.'
'I don't possess a dress, as you must surely have noticed, seňor!' The shocked puzzlement in her voice was reflected in accusing grey eyes. 'Are you in the habit of entering a lady's bedroom without asking permission?. If so, I must remember in future to lock—'
She lapsed into sudden silence. She had locked her door!
With a gesture of mockery, he drew aside to indicate a hollow gap in the length of wall panelling.
'Behind there lies a secret passageway connecting this room with my own,' he smiled, bending nearer so that an eagle-fierce head with silver-tipped wings seemed to swoop towards her out of the darkness, 'an indication, I suppose, that promiscuity must not be considered a prerogative of the present century,' he concluded, displaying an ease of manner which for some inexplicable reason left her feeling intensely affronted.
Striving hard to hide her fear of the man whose moods ran the gamut of Spanish hauteur, Romany passion and Moorish arrogance, she stormed at his shadowy outline.
'Whatever vices there are in the world, Conde, I feel certain that an ancestor of yours must have been in on their inception! The tree of sin spreads roots that strike deeper with each passing decade, throwing up shoots that develop in its own likeness!'
'Just as I, too, am certain,' he responded in a tone silken as the stroke of his hand along the tender curve of her neck, 'that females who make a vice out of virtue are often driven into doing so by lack of temptation. However,' he turned swiftly aside, 'I came here not to rob you of your virtue, but to attempt to preserve it. Maria, prompted by the most charitable of motives, has drawn my attention to the fact that your presence unchaperoned in my home could give rise to unpleasant speculation. I have therefore decided,' he informed her coolly, 'that as tradition has imposed upon me the duty to produce an heir, the solution to both our problems can be provided by a simple contract of marriage.'
Frances wanted to move, to fling herself off the bed and run as far away as possible from the calculating, emotionless devil who regarded marriage merely as a solution to a problem. But the touch of his fingers against the virginal skin of a neck that had never before felt the power of a man's caress had rendered her body weak, flame-devoured, and utterly boneless.
'Well…?' His threatening shadow wheeled, then loomed towards her. 'Have you no answer to my proposal?'
'Is that what. it was?' she managed to force through a throat so tight she could barely swallow.
'I thought you were offering me a contract, a merger of two bodies with the object of ensuring continuity of an established institution.'
She could not see his face, yet she sensed from his immediate stillness that his expression was wary.
'You find such an idea distasteful?' The words hissed from his lips as he bent towards her. Then without giving her time to draw breath he pounced, plucking her from her nest of pillows into arms that lashed her body hard against his tautly-muscled chest.
'How remiss of me to have overlooked the possibility of a child betraying a tendency towards womanhood once in a while,' he murmured, then laughed softly, deep inside his throat, as if fully aware that the kisses he was feathering against the silken, exposed curve of her shoulder were jabbing delicious thrills of terror along every nerve. 'Do you regret the absence of male hunger, carita de angel!' he chided thickly. 'Very well, as you appear to cherish a yearning to be wooed, then by all means let us have a clause to that effect written into our contract!'
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wearing the simple white dress Dr Ribero had brought with him from the Reserve, and with it the necklace of brilliant blue beads that Sabelita had insisted must be kept about her person as protection against the 'evil eye', Frances exchanged marriage vows with the Conde in low, faltering responses that drifted like a sigh into the silent interior of a private chapel inside which sad-eyed plaster Madonnas and saints with painted expressions of extreme melancholy had looked down upon generations of family baptisms.
On Dr Ribero's supportive arm she had walked up to the altar rails where the Conde had stood waiting, and amid an atmosphere redolent with the perfume of massed albahaca blossoms had promised like a spirit bewitched to love, honour and obey the man who needed a wife to bear him a child, one who could be paraded like the trophies his Moorish ancestor had paraded in order to communicate contempt of neighbouring Spaniards who had dared to oppose his will.
'May I say, Condesa, how very proud I am to have been asked to act as a stand-in for my friend, your late father?' Bernardo Ribero beamed at the bride, looking as bemused as a child caught up in some grown-ups' procession. 'At the risk of being thought presumptuous, I must state—as I am certain he would if he were present—that no father could hope to place his daughter into better, kinder or more thoughtful hands than those of El Conde! May el Buen Dios bless you both,' he concluded simply, 'and also the marriage that I have been privileged to witness this day.'
Frances smiled her thanks, unwilling to speak in case words should break the trance-like state of bewitchment in which she had existed ever since the moment the Conde had forced from her crushed, passion-inflamed lips the confession that she loved him, adored him, that her rapturously awakened body had been seduced by an insane longing to belong to him.
'Thank you, Bernardo, for your support and for your good wishes.- Knowing the little amount of time you can afford to spare at this season of the year, I have instructed the pilot to have the helicopter ready for an immediate return flight to the Reserve. So sorry you cannot join us for a celebration lunch,' he concluded with what sounded to Frances like an abrupt dismissal, 'however, I'm certain my wife will second my invitation to pay us a visit at some early date.'
Unaware of tension that was causing her fingers to contract around the stems of albahaca flowers threaded through her bouquet, Frances waited with the Conde outside the chapel until Dr Ri
bero's departing figure had faded to a speck in the distance. Then, her senses reeling from the effect of potent perfume rising in a cloud from flowers employed by gypsies to ease the pain of unrequited love, she raised reproachful eyes towards her unsmiling, totally unrepentant husband.
'Sometimes, Rom,' his name seemed to stick for an anguished second in her throat, 'I wonder if you realise how aggressive you can appear to those who offer you love or friendship?'
'I learnt the habit from nature, car a,' he returned, making no pretence of misunderstanding. 'Big birds eat little birds, little birds eat insects, insects eat grubs. I never seek affection,' he shrugged, 'therefore I see no reason why I should feel guilty about those who offer it too readily.'
'You dismiss friendship and affection because you are not prepared to give anything in return,' Frances murmured sadly, pained by this brief insight into the heart and mind of the husband she had resigned herself to loving even though she knew he had no love to give her in return.
As if sensing a little of the dejection being felt by his new bride, he gently tilted her chin with a forefinger and gazed deeply into eyes reflecting the moist blue loveliness of violets.
'I wear no mask for you, Frances,' he grated. 'But because I lost my heart once and swore never to do so again, it does not follow that I am incapable of emotion—only that I refuse to become passion's slave. The truest comparison I can make is that of a man who, having recovered from a bout of fever, is still prone to regular attacks, yet has been rendered immune to dangerous complications.'
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