'Really, senor ' Ricki didn't know what to make of the man.
'Yes, really, senorita !' He gave her a quick flash of a glance, half mocking, half serious. 'My problem involves a child, so on that count, perhaps, you will relax your guard and not fence with me. I have to be in the right mood and atmosphere to enjoy a fencing match with a woman, and right now my mind is occupied by the problem I speak of. Your name, please!'
Ricki gave it, responding to the 'crack of the whip' as spontaneously as in her training days. He repeated her name after her, making it sound like Rickee Oneeill, and his glance flicked her slim, boyish figure as the car turned into the parking place beside the inn where she was booked for the night. 'You have the name of a boy,' he said, bringing the car to a halt.
'Well, it's really Veronica,' she admitted. 'But I've always been called Ricki. I was a bit of a tomboy as a child, you see.'
'I can see.' The corners of his stern, thinly cut mouth again relaxed into a faint smile. 'Veronica is an interesting name. It is, you know, a pass with the cape in bullfighting, very intricate and daring. I wonder if your name is significant? It could well be, as you came alone to Spain, and saw no harm in wandering the callejons of Toledo.'
'Senor Cazalet,' Ricki faced him with a flush in her cheeks, 'who exactly are you and what is it you are going to ask of me?'
'I am the owner of sheep and olive estancias in Andalusia,' he told her, 'but my car is not the correct place for us to remain in discussion. Come, we will go into the inn, where I shall order dinner and contact the police for you while you go to your room and wash your face and hands.'
Just as though I'm a child, Ricki thought, preceding him into the inn and watching with wide eyes as the innkeeper bowed and beamed, quickly provided a telephone and clapped loud hands that brought his waiters running to take the orders of this lordly-looking Don from Andalusia, who accepted all this attention with the suave matter-of-factness of someone who was used to it.
When Ricki came down from her room half an hour later, having changed into a white pleated dress with mini-sleeves and a peridot-green belt that matched her shoes, a table had been neatly laid and set in an alcove that was rather like an inglenook, and Don Arturo was waiting to tell her that he had informed the local police of the theft of her bag. It would be several days before the thief was caught, no doubt, and in that time he would have spent her pesetas and found a crony to change the traveller's cheques for him. The Don added that he hoped she had nothing of real value in her bag.
'There is a compact and lipstick-holder decorated with jade shamrocks,' she said regretfully. 'But wouldn't they be traceable?'
'There is certainly a chance of that, Miss O'Neill,' he had mastered her name as he seemed to be mastering her. 'The Inspector of Police is calling in to see you later on and you can then describe these baubles to him; in the meantime, senorita, please to be seated.' He gestured to their table with his lean, strong, El Greco hands, and Ricki slipped into one of the wall seats with the impish reflection that her friends back in England were going to be really impressed when she told them she had dined with a real Don and actually given him advice regarding a child of his.
While he spoke to one of the waiters, Ricki studied him in his impeccable stone-grey suit with a wine clove in the buttonhole, and thought it strange that he should need the advice of a stranger. He had seemed impressed when she had told him she was a physiotherapist - could it be that his child was making a slow recovery from an illness or accident and he wished to discuss the child's symptoms with her in order to get a European opinion? Possible, but a bit far-fetched in view of the cleverness of Spanish doctors and the fact that this man seemed wealthy enough to afford the best opinion available. However, contact with parents at the hospital had taught Ricki that where children were concerned a hundred and one opinions were often not enough to satisfy really devoted parents.
Arturo de Cazalet had said he owned estancias, there-fore his child - doubtless a son would mean all that much more to him. Perhaps in his concern he needed tonight someone to talk to about the boy, for there was in his proud, dark face a look of sadness or was it a brooding bitterness?
As she pondered his brooding look, he suddenly met her eyes across the table and she at once dropped her gaze to his hands, noticing his signet-ring stamped with an escudo, and his cuff-links of chased gold-on-steel. The escudo was obvious proof that he belonged to an old, proud family, and Ricki's bewilderment was intensified as she again asked herself what this sophisticated hidalgo could want with a gauche young tourist like herself.
'You are looking puzzled, Miss O'Neill,' there was a teasing note in his voice. 'You ask yourself why I should invite you to dine with me, and the most obvious answer fails to occur to you - ah, here comes our wine! It should help you to relax.'
The Alella Marfil was in a sea-green bottle meshed in silvery threads and Ricki's smile held a quick enchantment that put lights in her eyes and deepened the fey hollows beneath her cheekbones. 'My father would say of such a bottle that it held the dews of dawn,' she said. 'He's an Irishman and a bit of a poet.'
'I had thought you had a look I have seen in Jerez.' Don Arturo took up hiswine glass as he spoke. 'There have been Spanish-Irish families there for many years and the moss-green eyes and hair with fire sparks in it crops up in the children of these people. Strange, indeed fascinating, how we carry like wine the tones and flavours of past vintages do you not think, senorita?'
She nodded and smiled rather shyly, comparing the rare vintage of this kind of table talk to that of her usual companions; brash young housemen, occasionally a male member of her own profession, several times a gangling, likeable footballer who lived near her relatives at Hen-don.
' Salud, senorita de los ojos grandest' The Don raised his wine glass with an unselfconscious flourish, and they drank together. 'Es bueno?' he asked.
'Muy fino, senor ,' she said, a faint flush in her cheeks because, having taught herself a kind of mongrel-Spanish with language records during the months she had saved up for this holiday, she more or less understood that he had just called her the young lady of the large eyes. Oh lord, what did he want of her?
'Ah, so you learn a little Spanish,' he said, as their first course was brought to the table, stuffed filets of sole, rolled, poached and garnished with muscat grapes. Vegetables were served on separate plates, small potatoes, green peas, and buttered carrots. From a child Ricki had loved carrots! These were small and sweet, orange as marigolds, and Ricki broke into a laugh as she and her companion reached together for the pepperpot. 'Please, after you,' he smiled, holding it in his fingers so that she could take it.
'Not so likely, Don Arturo!' She shook her head, her mouth crinkling into the first natural smile she had yet managed in his company. 'Help me to pepper, help me to temper!'
'Are not green eyes already a danger signal of temper?' His eyes held that disconcerting flash of very adult amusement, but he obligingly peppered his own vegetables before standing the pot in front of her plate. 'A peppercorn is very small, yet how it seasons every dinner - a saying we have in Spain, senorita,' he added, but she caught the quirk to his lips and wondered if he was implying that she seasoned this meal for him.
It was much more appetizing than her lunch had been, so it did seem likely that the innkeeper had urged his cook to extra effort on behalf of the important senorito who dined here tonight.
'These tours by coach, they are an olla podrida, eh?' the Don remarked, as she enjoyed a fresh fruit salad while he ate wedges of a strong-looking cheese. 'A mixture of sights, scents and sounds that must be very confusing at times - tell me, did you visit the Prado while you were in Madrid?'
He pronounced it Madreeth and Ricki couldn't help thinking how attractive Spanish words sounded when a Spaniard spoke them. 'I wouldn't have missed all those wonderful paintings for the world,' she replied. 'I especially liked the works of Murillo and Goya.'
'Murillo was of Andalusia,
which is why he painted with so much extra warmth. El Greco no doubt troubled you, you could not look at his paintings with ease, eh?' The Don's dark eyes searched her face. 'You like the things that are warm, gay, of the world of fairy tale - it is manifestado that life has not yet really touched you, though you are trained in an occupation and,' a glint of el diablo came into his eyes, 'old enough to vote.'
'I could appreciate the depth to the El Greco paintings even if their torment worried me,' she said, defensively. 'I'm not that much of a child.'
'Do not be on the defensive about being young,' he chided her. 'It is the best time of life to be young, and I am sure that you enjoyed every moment of the marionette theatre in El Retiro Park.'
Ricki caught her breath. Was she that transparent to this man - but then it was fairly obvious that he knew the world and what made women laugh and cry. 'Don Arturo,' she sugared her coffee, her boyish head bent over the task, 'why did you ask me to dine with you?'
She felt his dark glance upon her, and his fierce, fine bone structure was imprinted on her mind along with that lurking expression of bitter sadness. He had stepped straight out of an El Greco canvas and all that was needed to complete the picture was black and silver doublet and hose, and the shimmer of Toledo steel to match a temper that was no doubt swift and cutting. She gave a little shiver and heard a tall old clock ticking nearby, filling in with the mutter of conversation from other tables the small void of silence before he replied to her.
'Con su permiso? 3 He had taken a cigar case from his pocket.
'I - I like the aroma,' she spoke nervously. 'Please light up.'
He clipped and lighted the slim Havana very deliberately, then with his very, straight shoulders at rest against the panelling of their alcove, smoke weaving about his dark head, he said quietly: 'We of Latin countries believe a great deal in the machinations of chance, do you, Miss O'Neill?'
'I - I am inclined to be superstitious,' she admitted.
'Then you will agree with me that it is fortuitous that I, who am in needi of a physio-attendant, should be here in Toledo at the same time as yourself. More than that, that I should come along in my car at the precise moment you appear out of the deep blue of Toledo's callejons .' He inspected the tip of his cigar, then added: 'It seems to me that chance arranged our meeting, there can be no other explanation.'
Again there was silence between them, stunned on Ricki's part, then her voice returned and seemed over-loud. 'You need a physio-attendant?' she exclaimed. 'Me?'
'You, for several reasons, Miss O'Neill,' and his eyes looking into hers were suddenly damascened steel; he
had made up his mind on what he wanted, but Ricki tensed in her seat as though about to leap up and run at once his hand closed over hers as it gripped the table edge, his lean fingers locked about her wrist and she was held captive.
'You said of Spain that you found the place and the people wholly charming,' he reminded her. 'You have not a close tie with your father, otherwise he would not be persuaded to let you travel abroad without companionship. You are spirited but sensitive, with much imagination - the child also has these qualities and I think he would find you simpatica. Tell me, have you dealt much with children in the course of your work?'
'Yes, I've had children as patients,' she admitted. 'But, Don Arturo, what you're asking is impossible - I couldn't stay here and treat the child of a complete stranger '
'Permit me to tell you about the boy,' the lean fingers tightened about her wrist, compelling as the dark eyes that gazed straight into hers she wasn't going to be allowed to do other than listen! 'When you have heard the story of Jaime, I think you might find it in your heart to accept a post which would not be uncongenial. My estancia offers much of interest, and it is true of Andalusia that it is a place where no bitter herb takes root.'
'Do you speak of the soil - or of the heart, Senor Cazalet?' The question was out almost before Ricki realized that she was asking for a snubbing, or a flash of steel-edged temper, but with a slight shrug of his grey-clad shoulders he sat back against the dark panelling of this alcove seat. His eyelids were narrowed from her question and he looked faintly dangerous, like a man whose armour had felt the tip of a shaft through a chink that would not mend. The base of his chin had an obdurate squareness to it and it was plain to Ricki that she was dealing with a man who allowed few people to cross him. The arguments of women - if there were any women, apart from herself, who gave him an argument – were feathers to be blown out of his way.
'Jaime is my nephew,' he said curtly. 'Right away that should be a point in his favour, for you thought him my son, eh? He is seven years old, and for the past two years he has been confined to a wheelchair owing to a car accident which killed his parents. The parents were my brother Leandro and his wife Conquesta. It was a milagro - a miracle, you say - that the boy ever lived, for his spine was very badly hurt. The doctors say that he may walk one day, but so far there has been no sign of this, though God grant that a second miracle should occur and he will be as other children.' The Don spread the fingers of his left hand, then closed them together as, though to hold tightly to his wish.
' "They can conquer who believe they can." ' The Don's eyes brooded through the smoke of his cigar. 'Somehow we of his family have failed to provide the incentive which might help him to throw off the shackles of his invalid chair. If there had been other children, a sister preferably, the boy would not be so alone in his child's world which is also an adult world of suffering. There are children on the estancia, of course, but they are tough little peons who like to play their rough boyish games. It is impossible for Jaime to be other than,' the Don shrugged regretfully, 'a baby in a push-chair. He used to ask for his mamaita - his mother - but that phase has passed and he now spends much of his time drawing in a sketch book and colouring the pictures.
A sigh stole from the lips that looked so hard; it reached Ricki and touched her. 'These are not happy pictures, senorita. Always they are of cars that have crashed and of people lying broken and dead. I tell him to make pictures of the livestock about the farm; I take him to the fruit groves when the trees are in blossom in the hope that their beauty will banish the horror which haunts his mind, but still his pencils make these tormented pictures. Had his injuries healed, his mind also would have
healed, but as things are he lives in a world of his own peopled by his dead loves. My brother, the boy's father, was a young man of considerable sal, a Spanish expression for extreme charm and fascination. Conquesta ' the Don looked at the tip of his cigar, 'to say she was beautiful is not nearly enough. Bellissima was my brother's name for her, and you will concur that it conveys much more than that rather film-starish, over-used word which men today apply to every bleached blonde who saunters in a bikini along the beaches of the Costa Brava and the Costa del Sol.'
Don Arturo ground out his half-smoked cigar as though it had gone bitter on him. 'The world is full of cosmetic beauties whom I should not care to face first tiling in the morning, but that is beside the point. My nephew, you understand, requires certain treatments and exercises which must be given only by a trained person. Several physio-attendants have been employed by me in the eight months during which Jaime has been home from the hospital, but they have grown bored with life on a farm which is many miles from a city. Jaime's most recent attendant left a fortnight ago, and here in Toledo I was to pick up his new one. On my arrival at his hotel, I found he had left a message cancelling the arrangement, having gone instead to Barcelona to attend someone else. I was most annoyed. I took a drive in order to cool my anger, and it was on my way back that my headlights showed me suddenly a young turista who looked as though she had found some trouble for herself.'
He stroked the high bridge of his nose. 'Women are as attracted to hidden danger as mice to cheese,' he added sardonically.
'That's unfair, senor ,' she protested. 'I lost myself.'
'And I found you.' His unsparing gaze took in each detail of
her young face, the humour that curved her mouth, the hint of distress that lingered in her wide eyes after his story of Jaime, the little boy who was unable to walk since the accident which had killed his charming parents.
'In you, Miss O'Neill, my nephew might find what he needs. You are trained to help him physically, and you possess certain youthful qualities which might help him to emerge from his world of shadows. Please,' the Don spoke like a man who was unused to pleading, the proud flare to his nostrils making of his plea a demand, 'will you come to the estancia to be the companera of my nephew?'
Ricki sustained the compelling intensity of his gaze, but she did so with an effort. How did one refuse such a man? And how deny the nurse and the woman in her, especially when she had just been told that a child needed her in both capacities? When she knew also that she was free to accept private employment now she had quit the hospital? But even as her heart went out to the child, Ricki felt herself shrinking from the man.
There was an imperiosity about him that she had never met with before. He was part of a feudal system that made the rich landowner in Spain a power to be reckoned with, whose attitude towards his employees would be one of absolute authority.
'I sympathize with your problem, Don Arturo, and I am touched by your story,' she said, 'but I'm leaving Spain tomorrow and I regret that I just haven't the time to think over your proposition '
His fingers snapped impatiently. 'I find evasiveness irritating. Come, you feel the lure of Spain, the individuality which is unique to this country of mine, and the salary I shall offer will be more than adequate. Why do you hesitate? Have you a novio back in England whom you cannot be parted from?
'It isn't that,' she protested. 'But it would be rather rash of a girl to accept employment from a man she has known only a few hours '
'It can be readily established that I am Arturo de
Cazalet y Aguinarda and not Don Pluto who plans to carry you off to the dark regions.' His eyes held shifting glimmers of amusement. 'The Inspector of Police will vouch for me, and I have friends living not far from here "who have known me for many years.'
The Cazalet Bride Page 2