Dearest Demon

by Violet Winspear

  Cigarro smoke issued from his hawk-nose and that twist to his lip caused by his scar seemed deeply ironic as he caught those looks from men who had married active women who had given them sons as well as physical happiness.

  Destine felt the beat of her heart, for in the face of all of them he seemed aloof, scornful, even dangerous. She felt that they were hornets buzzing against his tough skin. Nothing—no one could ever hurt this man as the elemental force of fire had. It had been a kind of auto-da-fe from which he had emerged with a lonely inner strength that was almost frightening.

  'Destine!'

  She gave a start as Cosima addressed her, that little hint of sharpness in her voice. 'You will be good enough to fetch my handbag from the car. I need my powder-case.'

  'Right away, señora.'

  Destine hastened to where the touring car was parked in the courtyard and she leaned over the side to where Cos­ima's hand-worked leather bag lay on the seat. Her fingers caught at the strap and then she gave a stifled gasp as she felt her foot slipping on the step, only to catch her breath anew as she felt herself saved by a strong pair of hands.

  Still holding her by the waist, they swung her around, but already she knew to whom the hands belonged and she had her face schooled into a polite mask, though she could do nothing about the flush which rose under her skin. Flushed, with her hair fallen forward over her left eye, she looked at him and muttered a word of thanks.

  'Wouldn't it have been easier to have opened the' car door?' he asked drily. 'Women are like cats, they seem always to take the devious route and the way that will cause mischief for them. If you had fallen and struck yourself on these courtyard stones—' He allowed silence to conclude his sentence, and Destine gave a little shiver. He had the gift of emphasis in his looks, his words, and his eyes. But it wasn't only his emphatic picture of her sprawled on the cobbles, it was the fact that he had followed her to the car that really unnerved her.

  'The señora asked me to fetch her bag—it didn't need two of us,' she said, and she wished fervently that he'd remove his hands from her waist before they were noticed by one of Cosima's friends. That they were her friends rather than his had struck Destine right away; there would always be some­thing about Don Cicatrice that would keep most people at arm's length, and it would therefore be noticeable if someone came upon them and saw him touching her.

  'I wanted a word with you about Señor Davidson. He seemed to be annoying you.'

  'No—of course he wasn't annoying me,' she denied. 'Why should he?'

  'Why should he not?' The eyes that were so naturally dark, and made more so by the black lashes and brows, swept an explicit look over her face and her person. 'As an employee of the Marquesa you are in a position that places you above the unwanted attentions of even a house guest of the Castros family, unless I mistook what I saw for eagerness on your part rather than reluctance? There are women, I know, who find the chase more exciting than the capture, and perhaps I am mistaken and you wish this man to pursue you?'

  'One way or the other, it's my affair,' she rejoined. 'I am an employee and not a guarded Spanish girl who needs a dueño to keep an eye on her. I can handle Mr. Davidson—'

  'It didn't seem that way to me, but then again I don't profess to be an authority on British passions. He had hold of you and you were trying to get away, or leading him on.'

  'And what if I were leading him on?' Destine felt a quiver of temper run through her that the Don should take it as his arrogant right to cross-examine her. 'Anything pertaining to my personal life is nothing to do with you—you have no more right to probe into that area than I have to ask you questions about your—your private life. Every minute of the day you act the Latin overlord, but I'm not one of your field workers—'

  'No one ever suggested that you were.' His hands gripped and he gave her a sudden shake that made her little heart-pendant dance against the skin of her throat. 'But as a British young woman in a foreign country you are entitled to be protected from wolves, whether they be Latin or Welsh.'

  'Oh—really!' Destine gave a scornful laugh. 'Mr. David­son is far less of a wolf than you are, señor! Has it escaped your memory so soon that you dragged me into a corner and forced me to kiss you?'

  'I see that it hasn't escaped your memory.' His eyes narrowed and fixed themselves upon the gold heart against her white skin. 'But I recall that I was very much provoked by you—is that what you were doing with Señor Davidson, provoking him?'

  'Of course,' she said recklessly. 'It's all I live for in my spare moments, a form of revenge against all men who aren't the man I loved. As a Latin with a dash of the Moor you should understand all about the vendetta and how it can become the ruling passion of a person's life. I live to break men's hearts—'

  'Yes,' he took her up, 'I think perhaps you do. Be careful someone doesn't break your heart, señora.;

  'How can anyone break something already broken?' she asked. 'Now please allow me to take the señora's handbag to her before she grows impatient and sends someone to investigate the delay. You know how she dislikes being kept waiting and I don't want her to be upset today. She has found the courage to come here, and that took quite a lot of resolve, you know. She's a vivacious person and it hasn't been easy for her to let her friends see her as an invalid.'

  'You must be feeling pleased with yourself, Nurse, for you have accomplished what my aunt and I were beginning to think of as an impossible task. Will Cosima continue to improve, do you think?'

  'I see no real reason for any setbacks, señor.' Destine spoke confidently. 'She has you to depend on in a capacity greater than any nurse can offer. Marriage is the best medi­cine she could possibly have.'

  'Medicine?' He quirked an ironic eyebrow. 'Is that how you regard me, Nurse? A stringent dose of tonic straight out of the cabinet of cures? You don't find it romantic that after all these sad happenings Cosima and I should suddenly be swept together by the tides of—fate?'

  He had briefly hesitated before that final word, and Destine wondered if he had meant to use a more evocative term, such as passion. She understood why he had paused and changed his mind. There could be no real, sweeping passion between him and the cousin whom fate had so cruelly injured, and Destine dragged her gaze away from his mouth that upon hers had been fiercely warm and urgent… lips that curled in this instance, baiting her.

  'Don't be shy, Nurse, of being your usual candid self. What woman could feel romantic about a face such as mine, and we both know, don't we, that Cosima sees in me only a strong crutch to lean upon, and though she might love that weak fool who let her down, she knows that I shall be constant.'

  'So you know—' Destine bit her lip. 'Don't you mind that Cosima still cares for him?'

  'Not that much!' He clicked his fingers, and then his hand came suddenly towards Destine's hair and she thought he was going to touch her. Nerves tingled and she ducked to avoid his hand, and heard him mutter something in Span­ish, rather savagely. 'To be so emocionante because I brush away a bee that might sting you,' he mocked. 'My skin is tough and I'm used to the bees from working in the or­chards, but you have a very fine-textured skin and a sting would not only hurt you but mark you.'

  'Oh—I didn't realise.' That tingling sensation had now reached the backs of her knees, as if bees had got under her skin and were tormenting her. What had got into her to make her react, as he said, so emotionally? It had to be the climate, for only a short while ago she had been in a tussle with Lugh Davidson… but with him she hadn't felt this sense of danger and provocation. She had known that she could handle him, for at heart he was kind and predictable. But the Don was a different species of tiger… when he purred it was no indication that he could be stroked.

  Unable to stop herself, Destine cast a look at him from beneath her lashes… he seemed to be smiling, but it was really only the twist of his scarred lip that gave the illusion of a smile. 'I—I really must be getting back to the señora' she said. 'You're her novio and she's very Spanish
and possessive, and I don't want her to think—'

  'Exactly what, Nurse?' His query was the very essence of sardonic irony, as if her mind lay open like a book for him to read.

  'You know I don't have to spell it out,' she rejoined, and the skin over her cheekbones seemed to burn again. 'She's an invalid, señor, and every woman who isn't is a potential enemy who might take her man from her a second time. I'd hate Cosima to think I'd do that to her. I've established a good relationship with her and I don't want to spoil it while I remain at the casa as her nurse. In all probability she'll be well enough for me to leave in a few weeks, especially now she has started to go out again and to associate with old friends. In no time at all she'll be almost her old self and I shall be redundant.'

  'Redundant?' His brow quirked as his left hand slid away from her waist. 'Meaning dispensed with because no longer needed, eh? Where will you go when you leave us, Nurse?'

  She considered his question, fingers twined in the handle of the leather bag that was weighty with all the cosmetics that Cosima carried around with her, as if no longer sure of her looks. 'I think I shall return to hospital work—it's less personal and one doesn't become quite so involved with a patient's emotional problems, being part of a team, just another nurse on day or night duty. A hospital is such a busy place that there just isn't time for—introspection.'

  'Yes,' he agreed. 'If one keeps busy then the deep thoughts are kept at bay, aren't they, Nurse? There, you are quite free to hurry back to your patient. I am going round to the stab­les to compare Fernando's horses with my own. He brags that he has a stallion of pure Arabian blood stock, but por Deus, what is pure any more? It is like hoping to kick dust to find gold. Hasta luego, señora. My novia should not be too suspicious of you, for she believed I was on my way to the stables to see this four-legged paragon when I waylaid you instead. She's as confirmed as everyone else in the belief that I place love of the equine before anything in human shape.'

  With a sardonic bow he strode away from Destine, and she was left to ponder his cynical words as she made her way back to the patio where Cosima was now in close conversation with an elderly member of the Castros house­hold, a rather forbidding dowager, indulged by the house­hold, and with a crisply ironed mantilla covering her white hair. In her hand was a large fan, ivory-handled, and on a table at her elbow a glass of sherry and a plate of small iced biscuits.

  Destine hesitated, but Cosima caught sight of her and beckoned her to join them. 'Señora Castros, this is my Eng­lish nurse who, I might tell you, has bullied me out of my bedroom into the warm sunlight. Oh, I agree, she is only slight, but she has a very determined character.'

  The dowager swept her shrewd eyes over Destine and in that way that was so Latin she seemed to make her feel very young, much less the cool and collected nurse who had been looking after people for close on ten years. The ivory-handled fan opened in the gnarled hand and there were red roses embroidered on the lace, perhaps a relic of the dow­ager's days of youth and flirtation.

  'You must join us in a sherry, miss, and you must talk about London and that remarkable shop called Harrods, and tell me if they still serve tea and cucumber Sandwiches in the lounge of the Ritz.'

  Like most educated Latins the dowager had a remarkable command of English, with that sibilant emphasis on certain words that made them seem—more exciting, somehow. Destine broke into a smile as she sat down in the cane chair which Cosima indicated.

  'I'm afraid, señora, that our English nursing service doesn't pay enough for its nurses to shop at Harrods, or take tea at the Ritz. But I'm sure both establishments are still as glamorous as they always were.'

  'But if you are the clever nurse that Cosima tells me you are, then why are you not paid enough? I thought your country was far more advanced in these things than we are in Spain. Of a far greater sophistication when it comes to its working classes. You are of that class, are you not?'

  'Yes, señora.' Destine didn't lose her composure, for she knew that a streak of dominant snobbishness ran in the veins of Latin women of the upper classes. From childhood they had servants to wait on them, and anyone who worked for a living had, for them, the status of a servant. All the same Destine couldn't help comparing this woman to the Marquesa de Obregon who had a grace of breeding that held no hint of condescension towards her daughter's nurse. Life had been kinder to this dowager who lived among her sons and their children, but it was the Marquesa who had the tenderness and the kind of beauty that was unimpaired by the acid of a sharp tongue. Even Cosima would never have the graciousness of her mother, but just recently Destine had begun to wonder if the Don had some of his aunt's gallantry tucked away in a secret corner of his heart.

  A manservant had obeyed the signal of the lace fan and a glass of sherry had been placed on the table for Destine. 'Salud,' she murmured, as she picked up the fluted glass and took a sip of the rich golden wine that probably came from the cellars of the finca. Each of these families—or rightly these dynasties—had their own vines, from which their own brand of sherry was distilled and bottled.

  It seemed a pride, almost a way of life for each establish­ment to try and outdo the others in the matter of superior sherry, more virile sons, finer horses, and lovelier women. It was a feudal system, and Destine felt many miles removed from the modern life of London, as if time had turned back­wards and she found herself in the nineteenth century, a girl whose dress seemed to expose too much leg for the scrutiny of the Señora Castros.

  She glanced away and it was quite by chance that she happened to look in the direction of the table where several male members of the party were taking wine and more robust snacks than iced biscuits. 'What do you think of Spain and its men?' The question came sharply, curiously. Destine felt a youthful compulsion to pull at the hem of her simple dress, which instead of making her inconspicuous now seemed to underline her difference from the raven-haired, golden-skinned young women of the south.

  'Do you find our men good-looking?' the señora insisted. 'I see that my sons and their friends compel your blue eyes—blue always seems to me such a deceptively innocent colour, but I understand that Nordic women discard their innocence as soon as possible.'

  Destine glanced back at the dowager, and caught the amused look that Cosima cast at her, as if to challenge her to try and get the better of the Spanish woman steeped in having her own way, and probably never opposed by the wives of her sons and the novias of her nephews.

  'I imagine that in all countries there will always be girls who can be tempted by persuasive men. I don't imagine, señora, that the iron grille at Spanish windows is always effective in keeping Don Juan at bay, for I have a godmother in Madrid who is the benefactress of a home where young woman of your country go to have their babies. It really isn't fair to brand Nordic women as shameless, and to pretend that all Latin girls are speckless. The truth is that all human beings are frail or strong in the face of—love.'

  Having stated her case Destine took a deep sip of her sherry. She wasn't a Latin girl and she wasn't going to be browbeaten by the matriarch of the Castros family. It was enraging that because she was English she was supposed to swoon at sight of a Spaniard.

  'Are you in love, miss, to speak so emphatically on the emotion?' The señora reached out and patted Destine on the left wrist with her fan, which she had closed with a snap. 'Will you be frail, or strong, when this man persuades you to open your window one night, when the dama de noche opens in the courtyard and turns your head with its per­fume?'

  'The man I love was killed,' Destine said simply. 'I came to Spain to work, not to—to have my head turned by a handsome Spaniard and the flower of the night. Thank goodness I'm not a foolish girl any more.'

  'It would be foolishness to suppose that the girl ever leaves the soul of a woman.' The old señora stared hard at Destine for a moment, and then a thin smile edged her lips. 'The body ages, miss, but the feminine heart ever quickens that some man might still say, "A sus pies, guapa!"'

/>   'Really, I want no man at my feet,' Destine replied. 'In fact it must be one of those exaggerated Latin claims, for I just can't imagine any Spaniard in that humble position. He strikes me as being far too proud and confident to ever make a doormat of himself.'

  'You'd be contemptuous of the doormat, eh, and would want a man to be your master?' The dowager spread her fan and took a deliberate look around the large patio. 'She wants him muy hombre, but my sons are married men, and my nephews are bespoken, and half the region knows that Don Cicatrice has waited years to marry you, Cosima. You are out of luck, miss, if you want one of our Spaniards. They are the property of Spanish girls.'

  'Who are welcome to them,' Destine said, her coolness vanishing in a wave of heat. 'I didn't come to the finca to find a man but to keep an eye on my patient. Your sons, señora, your nephews, and anyone else's novio are quite safe from my designs—good heavens, are all English women treated in Spain as if they have nothing to do but seduce the men? I, for one, find Spaniards too much a mixture of pepper and steel to want a closer relationship, and I'm quite happy to be left among the images, as I believe the term is for a woman soledad?

  'Such temper in a seemingly self-contained young woman,' mocked the old woman, fluttering her fan and with a gleam in her eyes. 'Look how the paleness has vanished and given way to wild roses—and so you call yourself soledad, eh? You think you can live alone, with no man to wrap his arms around you when the nights are cold and the siesta a little too warm? You think it will be easy, eh, never to have a child rush from its play into your arms? You must have lots of courage, miss, for to be the lonely virgin is not the kind of fate that any Spanish girl would wish upon herself.'