Beloved Tyrant

by Violet Winspear

  David had discovered the brooch in a quaint little shop during one of their stop-overs, and when he had pinned it on her lapel she had felt the gates of her heart opening to let him in. Tall, fair David!

  Rosa paused in front of a door along the gallery and gave it a light tap with her scratched hand. Then she opened the door and strolled into the room. “Good morning, Concetta, I’ve brought Miss Gilmour to meet you There she broke off, to exclaim a second later: “Julio! When did you get back?” Lyn hovered in the doorway behind Rosa, and even as it struck her that Julio Corderas was a man of authority and austere good looks, she also noticed that he was in quite a temper. The nostrils of his imperious nose were flaring with it, and the pupils of his eyes were diamond-sharp. Then he slowly unclenched his angry fingers from the lace-covered shoulder of a woman huddled on a chaise-longue.

  “I ran into Mrs. Martel’s cousin at the border and I drove back with him ahead of the men.” Julio told his sister. “He has gone on to the Casa del Rey.”

  “So Felipe is back!” Rosa thrust her hands into the pockets of her pants and looked intrigued. “He was in Las Vegas the last time I heard of him.”

  “Yes, in one of the night clubs there.” Julio’s eyes were hard and scornful. “You know the born gambler he is, and no doubt he will begin to sponge charmingly on Glenda now she has become a wealthy widow.”

  Then noticing Lyn by the door the master of the Hacienda Rosa smiled some of the temper from his features and approached her with an outstretched hand. “Welcome to Monterey, Miss Gilmour. I must apologize for greeting you like this in my working clothes, but I have just returned from a cattle muster. I think, too, that I need a shave!” When his hard fingers released hers, he rasped them across his chin and jaw, which were indeed looking rather blue. Lyn decided that in his grave Spanish way he was rather charming when he smiled, but she noticed also that he was studying her behind that smile.

  “Bring Miss Gilmour over here, Julio.” His wife spoke in a rather weary tone of voice. “You are blocking her from my view with your big frame.”

  As Lyn shook hands with Concetta she was instantly certain that this was a woman who was deeply unhappy, though she lay in a room sumptuously furnished with a pale velvet carpet from wall to wall, a cascade of brocade and fine net curtains, and a bedroom suite of old, fine craftsmanship.

  Concetta’s thin ivory-coloured face was framed by black hair that seemed too abundant for her dainty head, while tear-shaped pearls swung in the lobes of her ears. “Tell me about dear Toddy,” she exclaimed. “She was so good to me when I was in hospital - is she keeping well and making a great success of her nursing?”

  Lyn assured Concetta that Toddy was very fit and would soon be made assistant matron at the hospital which overlooked the Golden Bay.

  “How good to have a career and to be so sure of your life. I—” Concetta broke off, and to Lyn’s quick distress the large dark eyes filled with tears. Then all at once the jewelled hands were locked over the beautiful Latin face and Concetta was distractedly weeping and rocking herself to and fro on the silken lounger.

  “Virgen Santissima!” Julio bent over his wife, and Lyn caught a glimpse of his eyes, glittering with anger again, as he forced Concetta to take her hands from her face. “You are behaving like a child, and very soon I shall lose every bit of patience with you. Now stop this at once, do you hear? You will make yourself ill again!”

  “I am ill,” she moaned. “I am sick and tired—”

  “You are hysterical.” Julio shook her none too gently, so that the pearls swung against her wet cheeks. “Now you will stop this at once or Miss Gilmour will begin to suspect that I beat you.”

  His attempt to ease the situation with a touch of humour was not a success. “I - I want to go away!” His wife’s voice had risen almost to a scream. “Let me go, Julio - I beg of you!”

  “Come away.” Rosa closed a hand over Lyn’s arm and drew her from the room. Outside in the corridor she said quietly: “I don’t know who I feel most sorry for - Julio doesn’t fully understand Concetta, and of all the things a man can give a woman, and Julio is very generous, he gives her nothing if he doesn’t give her his understanding.”

  As they walked away from the bedroom Concetta’s distracted sobbing could still be heard.

  CHAPTER III

  “Your sister-in-law sounds as if she might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Lyn remarked, as she and Rosa made their way down the stairs. “If she wants to go away from the hacienda for a while, don’t you think your brother would be wise to let her go?”

  “Concetta often talks lately of wanting to go away, but it’s only a phase, Lyn, triggered off by having borne Julio a stillborn son last year. He was upset, you know, and now poor Concetta feels guilty. She wants to run away and hide from him - actually she adores him.”

  Lyn thought of the master of the hacienda, authoritative, used to being obeyed, with flashes of charm that would make him very attractive at times. But there was flint in him as well, a dislike of emotional display ... and Concetta seemed a woman who lived upon her emotions. She would love extravagantly as Latin people often did - and it would be a torment for her not to be able to give her husband the lusty son and heir he longed for.

  Rosa glanced sideways at Lyn. “Yes, Julio is a little hard,” she agreed. “Both he and Rick have taken life by the throat and made it bend the knee to them, and such men can be exhausting at times. There are occasions when I look at those two and their very strength and determination make me feel as limp as tossed lettuce.”

  Lyn broke into a slight smile, but she still felt strangely disturbed by that scene in Concetta’s bedroom. Had a note of fear jarred in that beautiful creature’s voice when she had begged Julio to let her go away?

  “Let’s find Leoni and take her for a walk,” Rosa suggested. They located the child in one of the barns adjoining the hacienda, where a tortoiseshell cat had recently given birth to a litter of kittens which Leoni was intently studying. Hearing footsteps she glanced round, her dark brows tangling in a scowl.

  “How about coming for a walk?” Rosa said to her. “Miss Gilmour wants to get to know you.”

  Leoni stared at Lyn. “Are you staying after all?” she demanded.

  “Yes, imp, Lyn is staying.” Rosa took hold of her niece and hoisted her to her feet. “Come along, leave Toto alone with her kittens. You’re disturbing her.”

  “I’m not!” Leoni fought Rosa’s grip. “I want to stay here. I like it here with Toto.”

  “For heaven’s sake do as you’re told for once!” Rosa forcibly marched the child out of the barn. “Your father has met Miss Gilmour and he’s pleased with her, so you had better get used to the idea and behave yourself.”

  “Is Poppa back?” Leoni wriggled like an eel as Rosa brushed pieces of hay from her canary-coloured denims.

  “Yes, and you’re to keep out of his way for a few hours. He’s tired after the round-up.”

  The fact of her father’s return seemed to subdue Leoni to a certain extent and she obediently skipped ahead of Rosa and Lyn as they strolled to nearby Cypress Ridge, a stretch of wild, sage-hung cliffs overlooking the sea, which was like cool blue silk today, white-laced as it rippled about the rocks at the edge of a cove shaped like a horseshoe. A tranquil, almost romantic spot, with the cove overhung by cliffs that were mantled with wild flowers. The black and white wings of gulls and egrets were etched against the speckless sky.

  “That’s Spanish Cove just below us,” Rosa said. “It continues round that cluster of rocks to another beach, which is a little more rugged owing to the undercurrents there. Rick likes the place and he’s probably there right now, with Glenda. She’s every bit as elemental as the sea.”

  Leoni lay with Lyn on the grass and peered with her over the cliff edge. “Uncle Rick has your funny brooch,” she remarked. “He took it away from me, but I don’t care.”

  Rosa looked interested and Lyn explained how the brooch had passed from
Leoni’s possession into Rick’s. “I’ll give you another one, Leoni,” she offered.

  “No, I don’t want any of your soppy brooches.” The child blinked her lashes in a disdainful fashion.

  “You sweet child!” Rosa gave the child’s ponytail a light tug. “Your mother ought to let Uncle Rick take you home with him when he leaves for Spain. You’d return here a lot tamer.”

  “But Momma won’t, so there!” Leoni sang the words and dropped a handful of wild oats down the back of Rosa’s shirt. That started a mad chase across the cliffs, and as Leoni laughed and evaded capture, it occurred to Lyn that with patience the child might be won over. She was naughty, with a dash of wildness in her, but she wasn’t malicious.

  In a while Leoni wandered off to pick dandelion leaves for her tortoise, and Rosa offered Lyn a cigarette. “You don’t smoke! You are virtuous, Lyn.”

  “Not really.” Lyn smiled and lay listening to the cries of the sea birds and the quickening of the sea as the tide began to turn. These moments were pleasant, and she suddenly felt more certain that she wanted to stay at the hacienda.

  It was about half an hour later when the tranquillity was broken by the ring of laughter on the rock steps winding up from Spanish Cove. Lyn raised her head; a moment passed, then over the headland stepped a Titian-haired, gold-limbed beauty, a poplin skirt the colour of a sunset swinging above long and shapely legs. Rick Corderas followed the girl, his skin pirate-dark against his white shirt; his male arrogance matched perfectly by this splendid siren with her sea-green eyes.

  Both of them were “tameless and swift and proud,” Lyn thought, like the west wind in Shelley’s poem.

  She sat up, watching the girl with the ruddy mane of hair walk gracefully through the wild, herb-scented grass towards her.

  “Hullo, Glenda!” Rosa smiled with delight. “Has the tide driven you pair of pagans out of your hideaway?”

  Glenda laughed again ... she radiated abundant health and self-assurance, and seemed not to feel over-burdened by grief for the husband she had so recently lost.

  “Has Rick told you about the painting?” she asked Rosa. “I am to become the ghost of Spanish Cove.”

  “A pretty lively ghost,” Rosa scoffed. Then she turned with a smile to Lyn. “Lyn, meet Mrs. Martell. Glenda, this is Leoni’s new governess.”

  Glenda extended a brown hand, on which shone an emerald big as a dice. Lyn met the sea-green eyes, then she scrambled to her feet and shook hands with the young widow.

  “So you’re the latest in a long line?” Glenda had a voice warm and rich as honey; an almost insolent ease of manner fed by the security of wealth and beauty. “I must say you’re quite pretty, for a governess.”

  Lyn flushed slightly, aware of the man beyond Glenda’s shoulder, regarding her from beneath lazily drooped eyelids. Then abruptly he was moving towards her and she saw the cherry brooch in his fingers. “Who’ll buy my cherries?” he drawled, holding the trinket so the glass cherries gleamed and swung on their silver pin. Lyn quickly held out her hand and she knew he was watching the agitation of her lashes as he dropped the brooch into her palm.

  “I expect Leoni declined the offer of another trinket, eh? It’s a Corderas trait, Miss Gilmour. We must have that which we set out hearts - or nothing at all.”

  “I wonder where the enfant terrible has got to?” Rosa shaded her eyes from the sun and gazed around the cliffs. “Leoni - magpie!” she carolled.

  Only the gulls and the sea splashing over the rocks made reply. Rosa gnawed her lip, then she said to Glenda: “By the way, Julio drove back, from the border with your cousin Felipe. Did you know he was coming home?”

  “He intimated that he might in a recent letter.” Glenda’s bare left arm entwined about Rick’s right one. “Come back to the casa for lunch,” she said to him. “Felipe will be full of tales - and also the pair of you might start one of those exciting verbal battles over me.” She lifted to him her red mouth, as if she invited him to kiss it then and there. “How I’ve longed to be fought over, and now at last my two gladiators are back together in their old arena. El Diablo, will you fight for me?”

  “Beso las manos!” Looking like the devil she had just called him, he carried her hand to his lips and saluted it.

  Lyn glanced away from them, down towards Spanish Cove ... and her heart seemed to mount a tightwire and then plunge off it. There was a flash of yellow down there on the beach where the tide-driven waves were now crashing over the rocks and filling the cove with water. Leoni was wearing canary-yellow denims!

  “What is it, Lyn?” Rosa must have caught the sharp catch of Lyn’s breath.

  “Leoni’s down in the cove!”

  Lyn was darting to the cliff steps when fingers of iron gripped her arm. “Stay up here!” Rick ordered, and her arm stung from his grip as he leapt down the steps, to reappear a minute later on the beach below. The tide was surging in at a terrific rate, creaming and hissing like water on the boil, and those on the headland saw the small figure in yellow run towards the jagged section of rock that separated the twin coves. Rick swooped upon her as a huge tongue of water licked over the child ... the two of them were swallowed into the seething waves about the rocks.

  Rosa caught at Lyn’s arm, while Glenda stood on the headland with her hair glowing in the sun, and she said in a thrilled voice: “Those currents won’t get the better of Rick. He’s done battle with them before.”

  With a child in his arms! Lyn glanced at Glenda and saw excitement not anxiety on her face.

  Rosa’s fingers were grinding into Lyn’s arm, and for seconds on end they watched as Rick fought free of the savage embrace of the sea, exerting all his strength to throw off its coils, emerging at last on the beach with his small niece spread like sea- wrack against his chest.

  “I told you the ocean hasn’t the power to conquer Rick,” Glenda exulted. “Only a woman can do that!”

  Lyn, the gentle stranger, shuddered at the words. What sort of a woman was Glenda Martell that she could enjoy the spectacle of a man fighting for a child’s life? Both he and Leoni could have died cruelly among those rocks!

  A doctor came to the hacienda to take a look at Leoni and he advised her parents to keep her quiet for a day or two, to offset the shock of her experience.

  Downstairs in the lounge, before the doctor took his departure, Lyn noticed how keenly his glance dwelt on Concetta. Her face was ashen, her eyes almost too dark and wild, and she held a hand to her throat as if to hold back the hysteria that struggled for expression.

  “Are you sleeping badly, Mrs. Corderas?” the doctor enquired.

  Concetta replied that she wasn’t sleeping at all.

  “That won’t do,” he said. “You must have some sleep and I’ll give you a prescription for some pills that will help you to sleep.”

  Julio took the prescription, saying he would collect the pills when he went into town. Lyn saw Concetta glance at her husband’s face, an unreadable mask as he placed a glass of brandy in her shaking hand.

  The doctor departed, with a further assurance that Leoni was all right physically, and Julio was dispensing drinks to the other occupants of the lounge when Rick came striding in. There was a damp shine to his hair and he was wearing a light suit that threw into prominence his Latin darkness.

  “Shall we be on our way?” he said to Glenda, and his eyes were brilliantly blue as he looked at her.

  Glenda finished her drink and rose with grace from an armchair.

  Julio said quietly: “My thanks for what you did, brother. Leoni is a bad child—”

  “Don’t just call her a bad child,” Rick retorted, a sting to his words. “Look to yourself - are you such a model parent?” Then he closed a hand upon Glenda’s elbow and Lyn saw a tiny pulse beating in his jaw, while his eyes held a dangerous, flamy look. After he and Glenda had left, a tense silence fell upon the lounge. Nerves were coiled like springs inside Lyn, but moved by compassion she crossed over to Concetta and sat down on the couch b
eside her. “Don’t worry any more, Mrs. Corderas,” she urged. “Leoni is quite safe now. She’ll sleep away the fright she has had.”

  Concetta gazed at Lyn with tormented eyes, then Lyn felt the sudden clinging of her fingers.

  “Miss Gilmour,” it was Julio who spoke, and Lyn glanced up enquiringly into his dark eyes. “My daughter has demonstrated in no uncertain fashion how troublesome she can be, but I hope you are still willing to stay and be her governess?”

  “Julio—” His aunt moved sharply in the straight-backed chair she occupied, her commanding eyes fixed upon her nephew’s face. “It seems to me that if Miss Gilmour had been paying more attention to Leoni this morning, the child would not have ventured down to the cove while the tide was on the turn.”

  “Lyn isn’t to blame for Leoni’s naughtiness,” Rosa broke in. “The kid knows very well that she isn’t supposed to go near Spanish Cove at high tide. She went down there deliberately, hoping Lyn would get the blame and be sent away. It was a darn lucky thing for her that Rick was on hand. Those currents would have dragged her under in seconds otherwise.”

  Lyn felt the tremor that ran through Concetta, and suddenly her indecision was no more. She would give this job a trial for the sake of this unhappy woman, and despite the enmity agleam in Dona Estella’s eyes.

  “Senor Corderas, I shall be pleased to undertake the care of your daughter, and I shall try hard to see that she doesn’t endanger herself again.”