CHAPTER ONE
Ricki O'Neill had felt the grip of Toledo's fascination from the moment the touring bus from Madrid entered the city and serpentined through its narrow streets, which were shaded by medieval-roofed buildings.
Toledo, somehow lost in time, a tiered city built on rock, lapped by the waters of the Tagus and facing towards the sombre plains of Castile on its fourth side. Most of the tall granite houses, Ricki noticed, were enclosed within walled courtways; worn flights of steps led up to decaying palaces and down into dim cellars where music of a strange, haunting tone seeped out of iron grilled windows. The cobbled alleyways seemed to hold the echoes of spurred and booted feet, while to Ricki's mind any sudden burst of laughter could be that of masquers setting out on their revels, cloaks billowing, dark eyes glinting through face masks of velvet. The old Espana of steel at the hip and a gleam of el diablo in the eye still haunted the atmosphere of Toledo, and Ricki's sense of adventure was aroused by it.
A tour of this old, historical city ended her holiday in Spain. Fourteen days she had thoroughly enjoyed despite warnings from well-meaning friends in England that she was inviting trouble travelling around a foreign country on her own. 'You must be kidding about going abroad on your own,' they said. 'That won't be much fun - and think of those Latin wolves!' Well, once spirited Ricki had made up her mind to do something there was no stopping her - and it had been fun.
Right now she was enjoying a coffee at a sidewalk cafe, and as she sipped at it, her forehead was puckered in thought. She was pondering on her decision to quit the hospital before taking her holiday. She had done so not in a mood of defiance but out of the knowledge that she would never settle down to a routine existence. She had grown tired, as well, of tangling with her superior at the physiotherapy department.
Ricki was convinced that a chat and a laugh were beneficial to her patients while they were being treated, but Miss Hardcastle thought otherwise and she would tartly snap at Ricki that she wasn't treating these people in their homes or in her own time. 'We have to keep to a routine here or everything goes to pot,she was fond of saying. 'Now do hustle that old Mrs Brown of yours out of the end cubicle the woman seems to think she's sunbathing on the Costa Brava instead of having the infra-ray on her back.'
Fond of elderly people, Ricki had staunchly defended her patient's right to dream, but she had known once and for all that afternoon that she didn't want to be hemmed in by routine any longer, her every thought and action regulated by a disc ticking on a wall. She had given in her notice quickly, giving herself no time to think about the matter. Thinking put the lid on things, according to her Irish father; it made you timid when often you'd be adventurous.
Ricki took a bite out of a sugary bun and absently noticed that here and there on the plaza evening lamps were popping alight. Dad was right, and now she was a fully fledged physio she could work as a freelance if she so wished. It would be fun, and a relief not to have old Hard-as-stone bawling her out for allowing mothers to have their kiddies in the cubicles with them. Well, they got so restless in that drab old waiting-room
Aunt Meg and Uncle Jack had been dubious about this break she had made from the hospital, but they had never really grown used to how different she was from her cousin Helen. Dear, unimaginative Helen, who had never understood how Ricki got herself involved in mad pranks at school. How she came to fall through the ice on the canal that hoary winter - and how on earth she could go on that ban-the-bomb march with all those rowdy students!
'If everyone sat on the fence and blinked at events like lazy cats, nothing would get done,' Ricki had rejoined. 'Anyway, it was fun. We sang protest songs as we marched along, and our leaders, don't forget, were churchmen. It wasn't a sort of buskers' parade.'
'The trouble with you, Ricki,' Helen said primly, 'is that you take after that crazy Irish father of yours.'
Ricki flicked sugar crumbs from the side of her mouth and grinned to herself as she thought of her father. He was an actor; gay, improvident Tynan O'Neill, the eternal dreamer of grandiloquent dreams and spinner of whimsical tales, a charmer who would never settle down. Ten years ago, when his wife had died suddenly, he had brought Ricki across from Dublin to England to live with her mother's sister. Twelve-year-old Ricki had kicked up the dust at the idea of being parted from him, but for once he had been adamant.
'Actors' digs are no place for a girl to be brought up in,' he had soothed, while her tears made a damp patch on the shoulder of his suit. 'Now be sensible, darlin', and ease off the waterworks. You'll be fine with your English auntie, much better off than you'll be with a carousing rebel like me-self.'
'No, I shan't!' Ricki had stormed. 'She's all bread and butter and go and wash your hands! Pops, you can't leave me here with people I hardly know - you can't !'
Tynan had sighed and clasped her close, for there was a bond of the spirit between them. 'You'll grow up a little lady with her, not a hoyden,' he groaned. 'Ricki, me heart, it's what my Beth would wish me to do, to put you in the care of her sister.'
Children are adaptable and the Graysons had been kind to her, if somewhat bewildered at times by a personality so different from their daughter's. With the passing of the years Ricki had grown to regard her father as one does an untameable child. Now and again they met in London for lunch and a show, but there was never any talk of them setting up house together. Tynan liked his freedom too much, and Ricki wasn't the sort to impose herself on even her own father. She worried about him, of course, but knew him to be happy in his drifting way. He should, she often thought, have lived in the days of the colourful, strolling players.
Now she noticed that the strollers along the Plaza de Zocodover had grown more numerous. The evening paseo was in full swing, and a glance at her wristwatch revealed that it was almost half-past seven. Golly, was it that late! She had promised herself a look inside the Cathedral that reared its gothic pinnacles above the crowding roofs of the city, for she was on her way back to Madrid in the morning and wouldn't get another chance to explore the place.
She settled her bill, but as she rose from the table and gathered up her handbag and gloves, she was suddenly aware of feeling rather blue.
Her holiday was all but over, and as she made her way across the plaza and along the cobbled turnings that led to the Cathedral she was acutely aware that she would be very sorry to leave Spain. She liked the people, their grave way of smiling at you, and their open affection towards their children. There were wolves about, of course, but when approached by one of the pack it was generally effective to start walking determinedly towards a Guardia Civil, unmistakable in their green uniforms and Napoleonic hats.
It was more than an hour later when Ricki came out of the Cathedral, bemused by its rich offerings of carving and tile work, and the Madonnas arrayed in real brocades and sombre jewellery. Darkness had now settled down over the narrow streets, which were lit by flickering lamps in wall brackets. The doors and walls of the houses were inscrutable, offering no cheerful glimpses into lighted parlours, and it began to dawn on Ricki in a while that instead of nearing the peopled gaiety of the main square she seemed - in her over-confidence - to have wandered off course into a web of murky lanes.
This realization brought her up short and she glanced about her. Cats spat at each other down a nearby cul-de-sac, and Ricki jumped like a cat herself as a dustbin lid clattered to the cobbles. She turned to retrace her footsteps - and felt the lurch of her heart as a lean figure shifted out from the shadows and stood in the bilious flicker of a wall lamp. Alarm jangled through her. She knew instinctively that the man was either a pest or a petty thief who had been silently following her for some time
He moved, his shadow lancing along the wall, and Ricki
wildly debated banging on one of the nail-headed doors for admittance. No, there was little hope of anyone hearing her puny fists hammering on the stout wood, and it was obvious that a scream would receive scant attention in this neighbourhood!
Ricki wheeled about, feeling trapped and scared, and raced for all she was worth from the lean satyr who menaced her in this murky alleyway. She was built for speed and wearing flatties, and she might have eluded the man if in her panic she had not darted down the cul-de-sac where those cats were snarling over the fish-heads they had unearthed. As Ricki blundered into their lair, they streaked past her legs into the night and she gave a cry as she almost stumbled over the fallen dustbin lid -and felt at the same time the clutch of hands on her suede jacket!
Nothing had ever been so frightening, but it soon became evident that the thief was after her handbag and a fierce little scuffle ensued as she fought to hold on to it. She kicked at his shins in fear and temper, a veritable vixen who wasn't going to be robbed of what was hers without a struggle. She called him quite a few names, which petered out into a cry as she fell back against the wall from a spiteful shove and felt the strap of her bag 'wrenched out of her grasp. In a flash the thief was scurrying away into the shadows with her handbag, leaving her shaken and roughed up.
'You fool girl!' she muttered shakily. 'You silly little boob!' For gone with her bag was the last of her traveller's cheques and roughly three pounds in pesetas, though thank goodness she had had the sense to leave her passport and steamer ticket locked in her suitcase at the inn where she was staying here in Toledo. To have lost those would have been a real catastrophe, as it was it was going to be awkward being without money. The police weren't likely to recover her handbag overnight.
Her breath recovered, she hastened past the place where the thief had lurked, not the type of girl to go right to pieces, though her heart was still hammering against her ribs from that frightening encounter. Her holiday had gone so well up to now it was infuriating to have proved right those sceptics who had said that girls travelling alone were asking for trouble of one sort or another. The only answer was judo, Ricki told herself wryly, remembering with a shudder the bony strength of that alley rat.
A few minutes later she rounded a corner and found with relief that she was facing a main road. She was standing at the kerb, glancing around for someone who could direct her to the Plaza de Zocodover, when the lights of an oncoming car illumined her slim young figure. The car stopped right beside her and the driver thrust a dark head out of the window. Ricki met eyes of an unbelievable darkness and she stared right into them until, gripped by a shyness that suddenly gave way to panic, she darted round the long bonnet of the car and sped across the road towards a small shop.
Green, amber and ruby red pharmacy bottles glowed in the window. She made a grab for the door handle, but it turned impotently in her grasp - the shop was shut and behind her someone was gripping her shoulders and spinning her around as easily as though she had been a doll!
Etched and shadowed by the thrusts of coloured light from the shop window, the man's face was both striking and forbidding. His cheekbones and the shaping of temple and jaw were pure El Greco, his mouth was a stern line, his hair and eyebrows black as night. Ricki's heart skipped such a beat that she almost lost her breath -the face she was looking at belonged to a devil or a saint, and with her nerves already in a tumult she was ready to believe the worst!
'It is most indiscreet in certain parts of Spain for a woman to be walking alone after dusk,' he crisped, in a deep-toned, accented voice. 'You are a turista, and presumably lost, eh?'
Stock still in his grasp but with her heart racing, Ricki realized both from his educated use of English and the cut of his suit that this particular Spaniard was way above the class who ogled you in the street, or snatched your handbag in a gloomy alleyway, and in a voice that shook slightly she admitted that she was a tourist and hopelessly lost.
The senor's very dark eyes flicked over her, taking in her ruffled appearance and the fright that still lingered in her eyes. 'You appear very shaken up,' he said, then his voice sharpened: 'What has happened - have you been pestered in some way?
'M-my handbag's been snatched,' she told him. 'It was rather an awful experience - it happened back in one of those dark lanes '
'You were wandering alone in those callejons ?' His nostrils dilated with disapproval as he gazed down at her. 'I presume that you are British and accustomed to doing just what you please, without heed for the consequences.'
In an instant this lean autocrat had Ricki bridling. 'I -I lost my way after coming out of the Cathedral,' she hotly defended herself. 'Anyway, I wasn't expecting to be stalked in the dark and robbed!'
'Por mi vida! A woman who walks alone at -night is tempting the devil's eye - why is it that you did not keep with the rest of your party?'
'I happen to be here on my own,' Ricki said, with dignity. 'I've been here two days and tonight's encounter was unexpected by me because, senor, I've found your country and most of your people wholly charming.'
'Added to which the British are far from chicken-hearted, eh?' The severity of his mouth suddenly relaxed into a smile well, it wasn't actually a smile, just a movement of his lips that showed a white glimmer of teeth. 'Now if you will tell me where you are staying, which inn or hotel, and I will drive you there. Then it will be necessary to report the theft of your handbag to the police -did the bag contain much of value?'
'My traveller's cheques and about three pounds in pesetas,' she shrugged. 'Luckily my passport and travel documents are in my suitcase at the inn, which is situated in the Calle de Torres.'
' Vaya? I stay with friends quite close to Tower Street, so it will not take me out of my way to drive you there. Come, senorita . His hand on her shoulder propelled her across the road to his car, a long, estate vehicle with wood embellishment and the interior ease of soft beige upholstery. He switched on the roof light, then with an elbow on the wheel he studied Ricki in the seat beside him. It was so cool an appraisal that she was able to meet it without embarrassment, for this man wasn't 'picking her up'. He wasn't interested in her as a woman, only as a tourist who had suffered a misfortune she could have avoided - his eyes plainly said - had she behaved with the sense and discretion of a senorita. How very dark his eyes were! Her fingers crept unknowingly to the traveller's charm that hung on a thin chain about her neck. Her hair clung close to her head and was the rust-shade of beech leaves in autumn. Her eyes were the colour of Irish moss, well-set in a face that was thin and elfish. There was a feminine boyishness about her, a hint of truculent shyness where men were concerned, and she wore a brown suede jacket lined with silk green as peridots, a brown skirt linked to a cream shirt by a green belt, and flatties of pigskin-suede.
A wild goose never laid a tame egg, and Tynan O'Neill and his English wife had hatched a rare mixture in Ricki - her mouth, half sensitive, half tempestuous, was the clue to her disposition.
'You seem to me very young to be travelling through Spain on your own,' commented the Spaniard. 'Your parents must put much more faith in your common sense than you have demonstrated tonight.'
I happen to be old enough to vote,' Ricki's tone was stiff as her spine against the comfortable passenger seat of his car. 'My father - I have no mother - knows that he has no need to worry about me. I admit that it might have been wiser to do my sightseeing before it grew dark, but I'm leaving Toledo in the morning and I wanted very much to see the interior of the Cathedral.'
'And its many attractions stole time away before you realized, eh?' The Spaniard's fine eyes held a momentary flash of amusement. 'Tell me, are you now quite without funds?'
'I shall be by the time I've ransacked the toe of a stocking in order to settle my bill at the inn,' she admitted ruefully. 'My bus fare back to Madrid is already paid, but I shall have to ask the British Consul for a loan -there's my fare to London from the steamer I'm going home on.'
'You s
peak like a young woman who deplores the idea of dependence upon the goodwill of a man.' A hint of mockery edged that accented voice, which did certain things to English words that gave them a new, startling flavour, 'It is not a favourable asset, I think, for a woman to be too independent.'
'Oh, I've noticed that here in Spain the rooster still crows the tune, senor. A twinkle darted into Ricki's eye. 'I'll admit it is the natural way of things, but when a girl's doing a job that not many years ago was mainly done by men, she's apt to get into the habit of thinking and acting for herself - and rather liking it!'
'Ah, now you intrigue me.' A quick interest gleamed in his eyes. 'And where do you do this work?
'In a hospital, senor '
'Most interesting.' His glance dwelt on her slim, well-kept, ringless hands. 'A job once reserved for men, eh? Are you by any chance a masseuse?
'That's part of my work,' she looked impressed by his shrewdness. 'I'm a physiotherapist.'
He drew an audible breath, then he started the car and a startled sort of silence hung between them for several minutes. Ricki's side-glance dwelt on the man's haughty Latin nose and thoughtfully jutting lower lip, then he abruptly spoke. 'I must introduce myself! My name is Arturo de Cazalet, and various other appellations you would no doubt find confusing. Now please to tell me how you are called?
Ricki's startled eyes raced up and down his profile, while her mind was suddenly full of the things her nursing friends had said about Latins. Here she was in the car of one of them and for all his distinguished appearance and impressive name he could be one devil of a wolf!
'I - I hardly see why it's necessary for you to know my name,' she spoke coldly. 'Look, we're nearing the Plaza de Zocodover - if you will let me out '
'You will again lose yourself, no doubt.' His tone was droll. 'Please to dismiss those foolish thoughts you have just been having! I ask your name, senorita, because I am going to suggest that we dine together for the purpose of discussing a problem which confronts me.'
The Cazalet Bride Page 1