Beloved Tyrant

by Violet Winspear

  Both Julio and Rick were splendid in rich dark evening suits. Dona Estella wore black lace and a high jewelled comb held in place a magnificent mantilla. Concetta looked lovely but fragile in shell-pink organza over lace, worn with rubies that splashed her creamy skin like drops of blood.

  Julio seemed to tower above his wife, a certain austerity about him despite his smile.

  Lyn, returning upstairs for Rosa’s present, which she had forgotten during their conversation, came upon Leoni peering through the gallery openwork at the guests thronging the hall below. The imp was clad in her pyjamas, and she wouldn’t budge until Lyn promised later on to bring her a piece of cake and a tiny glass of wine.

  “Darling, pretty Lyn!” Leoni landed a rather moist kiss on Lyn’s cheek, then obediently she snuggled down into bed. “I’ll lie awake until you come,” she said.

  “I’ll come,” Lyn assured her. “There are rosebuds on the cake and I’ll try to bring you one.”

  She arrived downstairs to witness the arrival of the last two guests, Glenda and Felipe del Rey. It seemed as if Glenda had chosen deliberately to make her entrance before an assembled audience, for as she came into the hall there was a stirring among the men, an increased fluttering of the lace fans which the women carried. Glenda looked stunning in sea-green silk that shimmered like the waves of the sea with the sun on it. The heels of her slippers glittered with rhinestones; her eyes were artistically painted to enhance their lustre, while her richly coloured hair was woven into an intricate knot at the nape of her neck. Turquoise and diamonds studded her ears and encircled the honey column of her throat ... with superb ease she threw every other woman into the shade.

  “I’m dying for a drink,” she announced, after brushing her cheek against Rosa’s and cooing birthday wishes.

  “No sooner the word than the deed.” Rick placed a drink in her hand, his blue eyes smiling down into her silvery-brushed siren’s eyes. They fell into conversation, the bowl of his wine glass cupped in his hand, his bow-tie perfect, gold cuff-links opulent against his snowy linen. Yet for all his elegance he still seemed to Lyn a pagan, whose slashing shoulders threatened to break free of the expensive vicuna that covered them.

  Lyn sipped a sherry and found Felipe by her side. He smiled down at her with all the attentiveness which Rick had shown towards Glenda. “You look pretty enough to eat,” he complimented her. “I haven’t seen you since your holiday, and I hear it almost ended in disaster?”

  “Almost.” She couldn’t help glancing at Rick. “I suppose you have also heard that Rick snatched me like a brand from the burning?”

  “Yes, quite the hero, isn’t he?” Felipe also glanced at Rick with his cousin. “They look like Apollo and Aphrodite, don’t they?”

  It was an apt description ... they also looked as oblivious of the gay throng as if they were alone on a faraway island!

  Came the dinner gong and Lyn found herself seated at the long, beautifully arranged table beside Felipe. Throughout dinner he flirted with her, and the meal proved to be a long one, composed of a string of rich Spanish dishes, each one served with a different wine. Lyn had to protect her various wine glasses from Felipe, or at the end of dinner she would have staggered from the room.

  His capacity was really amazing and as dinner progressed so did his audacity. Several times Lyn broke into spontaneous laughter at something he murmured in her ear, and upon a couple of occasions her glance collided with Rick’s. He was seated at the other side of the table, near the head of it, between Dona Estella and Glenda. Lyn expected a smile from him, but he regarded her rather flushed cheeks in a frosty way ... as if he thought she had over-indulged in the free-flowing wines. Lyn felt a stab of resentment as she speared wild duck and orange salad on to her fork. Really, she wasn’t such a goof as to let a wolf like Felipe fill her with wine!

  It was towards the end of dinner that Julio rose to his feet to toast his sister’s birthday ... and her engagement to Cort Langdon. An immediate hum of approval and delight swept up and down the table, rising to a roar as Rosa, her eyes the colour of irises, accepted from her rugged fiancé a sapphire arid diamond engagement ring.

  “A vuestra salud!”

  The Spanish toast was loud and affectionate. Cort was urged to his feet to answer the toast, and Lyn’s heart beat quickly and warmly as she caught the way Rosa was looking up at Cort ... gone were those bitter little lines that had once marred her wide, generous mouth.

  Rose-shaded lanterns had been lighted in the patio, and chairs and lounges were set about among the flowers and by the fountain. Guitars strummed, for a troupe of dancers had been hired to entertain the party guests. Overhead a young moon flirted among the big Monterey stars ... but before enjoying the music and the dancing Lyn carried upstairs to Leoni the promised piece of cake, decorated with a tiny rose, and a small drop of wine in a glass.

  The child roused directly Lyn opened her door; her small lamp always burned low because she didn’t like the dark. “You came!” Leoni’s large eyes sparkled with delight. “You didn’t forget me!”

  “Not for a single moment, my imp.” Lyn sat down on the side of the bed and handed the promised goodies to Leoni.

  “I heard everyone shout a while ago - were you playing a game?” A pink tongue licked at the icing on the cake.

  “Your Aunt Rosa has become engaged to Mr. Langdon. They are going to be married,” Lyn explained. “Your poppa was giving the toast.”

  “Are they getting married right away?” Leoni asked eagerly.

  “Quite soon, I should say.”

  “And will I be a bridesmaid?”

  “I am sure you will, darling.”

  “Oh, won’t it be fun!” Leoni wriggled her nose above her wine glass. “Poppa does this, with his brandy, and I do think Uncle Cort has nice hair, all sort of crinkly and gold. But I don’t think he’s quite so beautiful as Uncle Ricky.”

  “Your Uncle Rick is handsome, my pet, not beautiful.” A smile quivered on Lyn’s mouth. “Only ladies are referred to by that term.”

  “But,” Leoni argued, “Poppa said the other day that his palomino stallion was a beautiful beast.” She broke into a giggle and gazed at Lyn under her lashes. “I think Uncle Ricky is a beautiful—”

  “Leoni, you mustn’t dare use such a word to describe your uncle!”

  “Don’t scold me, Lyn-Lyn. Look, I’ll show you something.” With an eagerness which nearly upset her wine, Leoni raked out a thick sheet of paper from beneath her pillow and handed it to Lyn. It was the sketch which Rick had made of his niece ... she stood by the fountain and she wore her widest grin, a mischievous imp at first glance, then something about the big dark eyes altered this opinion. Behind the laughter in the big dark eyes there lay a hint of sadness, and Rick, with his unerring artistry, had captured the essence of this child who waited for her small world to smash around her.

  Tears smarted in Lyn’s eyes, and she knew for sure that this little tiger-cub had stolen into her heart and that it was going to be a wrench to leave her. But Lyn also knew that she had her own life to lead, and she didn’t want to go on being a governess ... though for a while there had been a certain comfort to tucking herself into the background of other people’s lives.

  When Leoni drifted off to sleep, Lyn made her way downstairs. An exciting fandango was being performed, the girl’s poppy-red frills whirling against her partner’s dark suit. Castanets clicked on her fingers, while the onlookers clapped and cried ole each time the couple performed an intricate dance movement.

  Lyn stood fascinated in the shadows, watching the dancers; the flicker of lace fans, the proud faces in the rosy glow of the lanterns that hung in the archways. She did not stir from her shadowy retreat, for here she could gaze unseen upon those who had touched her life for a while. Rosa, sitting among friends with the man who would give her a warm, secure love and gradually ease out of her heart that other man who wasn’t free to marry her. Dona Estella, hard and elegant, her hands radiating gems as she
moved among the guests, betraying in her manner tonight her position as mistress of the hacienda.

  A sadness drifted into Lyn’s eyes as they rested upon Concetta, tucked away in the comer of a lounge while Julio discussed business with other ranchers.

  Laughter rang out near the fountain and Lyn watched a scintillating figure in sea-green pop a grape into her companion’s mouth. She then held her fingers against those arrogant lips, and the gesture seemed to say: “This man is mine!” Lyn watched the man smile and crunch the grape in his white teeth, and she saw his blue eyes lazily scan the patio as he did so. She thought his glance dwelt for a moment on the archway where she stood concealed, then it flicked to the dark-skinned youth who began to sing in Spanish to the murmur of his guitar.

  The chatter and the laughter grew muted; gauzy winged moths brushed in ecstasy against the lanterns, and Lyn stood immobile, drenched in the perfume of late-blooming roses.

  And I, a wayfarer in this far-off land,

  I remember Andalucia,

  I remember it in the core of my heart,

  In the blood of my veins, in the breath of my body.

  Lyn could follow the words, for the youth sang them slowly, but when the music died away she tamed restively from the party scene. She made her way across the empty hall of the hacienda, slipped out of a side door and strolled through the grass to Cypress Ridge. Here the night wore beauty like a garment; the air was warmly intoxicating like a southern wine.

  It was a night for lovers, and Lyn remembered how once before she had stood here and hungered for warm, cherishing arms around her. Again, as then, she gazed up at the sky and she could have counted the stars, so clearly did they glisten against that velvet infinity.

  She felt rather than heard a presence behind her, and when she turned it was to see Felipe standing there in the moonlight, with a smile on his mouth. Her retreat from him was instinctive, and almost in the same instant he caught hold of her. “You only look like an angel,” he murmured, “and that is a mighty long drop to the beach.”

  “You startled me.” She tried to pull free of him, but he deliberately drew her from the edge of the ridge towards him. His hair was rumpled, his eyes were excited, and Lyn’s heart raced as she recalled the many glasses of wine he had tossed down at the dining table.

  “I’m going back now,” she said. “To the party.”

  “Little fawn-eyes, I didn’t follow you here just to escort you back among other people.”

  “Felipe—” her voice had risen - “I won’t be flirted with just because we’re alone in the moonlight and you’ve been drinking!”

  “My sweet innocent,” he mocked, “I’ve wanted to flirt with you, as you call it, since the first moment I looked into those big, lonely eyes of yours. Lonely as hell, aren’t you? Crying out inside for a bit of affection. Well, I can be very affectionate, little face.”

  She was gathered forcibly against him ... his lips neared her own ... and then she cried out and lost her balance as he was suddenly wrenched clear of her. She fell to the grass of the ridge, a hand held to her mouth to stop a further cry as she saw a towering figure with blazing eyes shake Felipe as if he were a naughty boy. They stood so close to the edge of the ridge that she was deathly afraid for a moment that they would plunge over to the rocks below.

  “Rick!” His name broke from her. She scrambled to her feet and caught at his arm. “Stop what you’re doing! Can’t you see—?”

  “Yes, all too clearly,” he ground out, and now his eyes blazed down at her. “This friend of yours is higher than a kite - a ducking in the ocean wouldn’t do him any harm!”

  “Let him go - do!” she pleaded.

  “Very well, if he means so much to you.” Rick’s top lip twisted as he looked at her, sweeping over her the flamy scorn of his eyes. He released Felipe, who was white-faced with fury.

  “You high-handed devil!” Felipe fumed. “Go back to Glenda and mind your own business about what other people do. Can’t you see you aren’t wanted here?”

  What he saw when he looked again at Lyn was a girl fleeing away in the moonlight, holding the billowy skirt of her dress, a running ghost in the Monterey night.

  CHAPTER XII

  “You thundering little idiot!” Rick had charged after her and caught her before she entered the hacienda. “You seem bent on blundering into trouble like some giddy moth into flame. Don’t you know that del Rey is a girl-chaser, a Latin wolf of the worst type? Are you so blind?”

  Lyn shook with violated emotions as Rick bruised her arm with his hard fingers. She felt herself thrust through the stable-yard door and she stumbled, almost tripped over a paving-stone, and was saved by being jerked back against Rick’s hard chest. “You brute!” she gasped. And in this moment she felt like hating him. “Let me go or I’ll—”

  “Do what?” he demanded. “Being such a brute I might easily stop you.” He stood flagrantly tall above her white-clad figure, the roofing of the stables cutting off the moonlight and masking his face. “Just as I stopped you making a fool of yourself up there on Cyprus Ridge. Does your heart still ache so much that you have to try and assuage it with the kisses of a drunken lout?”

  “Do you imagine I invited his kisses?” she stormed.

  “You were flirting with him openly at the dinner table.”

  “I was merely laughing a little ... is a mere governess not permitted to laugh?”

  “Don’t be foolish.”

  “You are the one who is making a farce of all this - but then how could I expect you to behave like David? He was everything you are not, thoughtful, kind and patient - and tolerant!”

  “If by all that you mean I could never satisfy any cosy, chintzy dreams, then by hell I am not like him.” Rick’s hands suddenly gripped her shoulders, as if he might shake her as he had shaken Felipe. “I would want a mate, not a ducky little pie-and-cake wife. I’d demand a total giving, and can you visualize what that would be like, Miss Lynette Gilmour?”

  “I - I don’t want to, thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me. I have given you nothing, yet, to rate such scornful thanking.” Then suddenly, savagely, he bent his head and took her lips as they formed a frightened protest. The storm in him was out of control and Lyn was swept helplessly as into a devouring wave ... then he thrust her away from him and strode off, leaving her to rest against a wall and to feel that all men were cruel except her dear, forever lost David. She wandered indoors, an exhausted victim of Rick’s onslaught, glad to slip into the empty lounge, to close out the sounds of revelry from the patio, and to curl down on the high-backed couch that faced the fireplace.

  She plumped a cushion and pushed it behind her head, filled with an ache that rather confounded her ... and so weary that she had to close her eyes for ten minutes.

  She awoke abruptly from the doze into which she had drifted, to the sound of voices behind the high back of her couch. She was preparing to reveal herself when the woman’s voice rose sharply out of its usual honeyed depths. “You leave soon for Mexico and I’m not taking any more evasions—”

  Evasions?” Rick’s voice broke in, so that Lyn crouched back as if struck. “I don’t care for the word, Glenda.”

  “You know what I’m getting at, Rick. For years you’ve skirted round the subject of your feelings for me. Do you get a kick out of being cruel?”

  “Perhaps that is what I’ve been avoiding,” he said.

  “I don’t get you.”

  “One doesn’t like hurting an old friend.”

  “Friend? Oh, Rick!” There was a rustle of silk, and Lyn at once pictured Glenda close to him. “You cling to your freedom like a leech. Darling, you’ve earned recognition as a painter, you’ve travelled the globe and sown wild oats everywhere, I’m sure. But now it’s time for you to settle down. Marriage can be the most exciting adventure of all, with the right person.”

  A lighter snapped. Cigar smoke eddied towards Lyn, who had never felt so guilty in her life, or so unable to move. She
wanted to, but her limbs felt petrified.

  “I agree, Glenda,” Rick said. “The adventure must take place with the right partner.”

  Lyn’s heart beat in the vicinity of her throat as Glenda cut the momentary silence. “Are you saying that I wouldn’t be right for you, Rick?”

  “It isn’t enough,” he said, “to admire a woman’s looks and wit. Love is a supercharged emotion, and if I had felt it five years ago, nothing would have stopped me from marrying you.”

  “You said you had to make your way as a painter - that nothing else mattered. I thought you were utterly dedicated to your art.”

  “Dedicated, but not utterly, Glenda.”

  “It merely served your purpose to let me think so?”

  “If you want to put it that way.”

  “I - I ought to hate you.” There came to Lyn a swish of silk, as if Glenda caught angrily at the train of her wonderful gown. “There have been times in the past three months when I’ve come close to it. I could have killed you when you laughed at the Spanish Cove painting and called it a seaside poster. Then you wanted Felipe along when we went sailing, and I know full well he isn’t one of your favourite people. But all this evening—” Glenda caught her breath audibly. “Well, you’ve hung over me, been so attentive - Rick, I’ve never pretended to understand you, but you are in my blood. You’re in it like a fever and I’ll take you on any terms. I’m not asking you to love me—”

  “My dear girl—”

  “I mean it, Rick.” Her voice grew seductive. “You’re the most attractive man I’ve ever known - and love isn’t so important.”