Image of Love

by Rebecca Stratton

  No matter whether or not he had actually offered to drive her home himself, she had given him to understand that she did not intend leaving for quite some time, and Don Jaime Delguiro, she guessed, was not the kind of man to take kindly to being turned down in favour of someone else.

  Marta, she found when she got back to the house, was full of her plans for their afternoon visit. She was eager for Rosanne to meet an old friend of hers, someone she had known when she and Julio lived in another town, before they came to Almaro. She had not seen her for years, Marta confided, obviously excited at the prospect of renewing the friendship, and neither of them was a very good letter writer, so they had been quite out of touch for quite some time.

  'And now she's living here too? That's a coincidence, Marta!'

  'Si, she is so very close after all this time!' As usual when she was excited her English became slightly less perfect. 'She has a cousin with whom her sister and her mother live since her father died, but everyone will not be at home today so that she sees an opportunity for us to visit her and talk together.'

  Rosanne looked doubtful. 'Oh, but surely, Marta, wouldn't the two of you rather be on your own? I mean, old friends—you must have lots to talk about, surely you'll enjoy it so much better if you talk in Spanish.'

  'But of course you must come also! I have told Beatriz that you are a friend from England and she will be most disappointed if you do not come. She looks forward very much to meeting you, Rosanne, you must come.' '

  'Well, that's very sweet of her.' Rosanne wondered how easy it would be to refuse the invitation and go with Federico somewhere instead, but she decided there was simply no way she could turn down the invitation politely, so instead she accepted it with every appearance of pleasure. 'I'd love to come, of course.'

  'Bueno!' Marta looked quite satisfied, and Rosanne knew she looked forward to introducing her to her Spanish friend. 'Beatriz will be delighted to meet you.'

  'You say she's staying with a cousin and her mother and sister in Almaro?'

  Marta shook her head. 'Not for always, only until her husband returns. There is only the cousin at present, I suppose,' she mused, 'because her sister and her mother are in Paris to buy clothes.'

  Impressed, Rosanne pulled a face and smiled. 'Very nice too!' Obviously the friend, whoever she was, belonged to a very wealthy family if she could afford to go off to Paris on a spending spree, and she pondered on which of the bigger houses in and around Almaro the cousin owned. 'Where is she staying, Marta? With anyone I'm likely to know?'

  Marta's dark eyes showed a mingling of curiosity and mischief as she looked at her for a moment before she replied. 'He is someone that you seemed to know when we met him at the Sanchez' the other night, Rosanne 1 Beatriz' cousin is Don Jaime Delguiro.'

  'Oh!'

  Perhaps her response was not quite what Marta expected, but she was regarding her quizzically. Obviously she had considered the fact of Don Jaime's claim to know her ever since the Sanchez' dinner party, but she had probably refrained from asking about it in case it embarrassed her. Now she was hoping to bring the matter into the open and her dark eyes were frankly curious.

  'I did not know you knew Don Jaime, Rosanne. It surprised not only me, I think, to hear him speak to you as if he knew you quite well.'

  'So Federico Sanchez seemed to think 1' Rosanne ran her fingers through her long hair and looked at her" reflection critically in a mirror as she passed it. 'But he doesn't know me well at all, in fact. All that happened was that I made a complete idiot of myself by stepping out in front of his car that morning and he nearly ran me down. It was my own fault, and there was nothing significant about it at all, Marta.'

  Marta looked vaguely anxious. 'I did not know that you had had an accident, Rosanne, you did not tell me. Were you hurt?'

  'Not in the least, just slightly shaken, that's -all.' Rosanne hastily dismissed the recollection of an unexpected hand beneath her elbow to lend support to her shaky legs as they crossed the square, and Don Jaime's insistence on ordering brandy for her and staying with her until she recovered. 'Obviously Don Jaime saw himself as in some way to blame, because he drove me home afterwards in his car.'

  'Rosanne!' Marta's eyes widened and rounded, eager to know more and obviously suspecting there was a good deal more than she was being told. 'Don Jaime drove you home in his car and you did not tell me about it?'

  He would have driven her home today too, Rosanne recalled, only she had more or less refused the unspoken offer. However, there was no need for Marta to know about that, not at the moment anyway, and she determinedly played it down.

  'It wasn't that important, Marta.'

  Marta's raised eyes appealed for understanding. 'But did you not know how interested I would be, mi amiga?' She looked almost indignant at her lack of enthusiasm. 'Don Jaime is very attractive, do you not think so?'

  'And if I'd told you, you'd have been matchmaking before the words were out of my mouth!' Rosanne teased, laughing to dispel any suggestion of criticism. 'Not that I mind too much in the normal run of things, but Don Jaime just isn't my type.'

  She could have added that according to Federico, Don Jaime was soon to be connected to the Sanchez family by marriage, but she refrained at the moment because she had the feeling that Federico had been getting a little ahead of events by telling her that, and she knew that the Spanish were very formal about things like betrothals. Federico, she thought, had been trying to impress her and had spoken impulsively, but there was no need for her to do the same.

  'Ah, but Federico Sanchez is your type, eh, Rosanne?' Marta was not to be outdone, and her eyes sparkled mischief. 'You like him, hah?'

  Marta was tireless in the matter of finding her a husband and Rosanne was almost resigned to her ministrations, although she did not allow herself to be influenced. Shaking her head, she laughed, treating the matter as lightly as she had her encounter with Don Jaime.

  'I like him so far, but I hardly know him well enough to form a really firm opinion.'

  'Oh, Rosanne!'

  'I'm in no more hurry to settle for life with Federico Sanchez than I am with anyone else at the moment,' Rosanne assured her, still laughing. 'You might just as well give up your matchmaking, you'll find me a very disappointing subject!'

  "Do you not wish to have a husband?'

  'I'm in no particular hurry to marry, that's not quite the same thing, Marta.' But perseverance was a Spanish characteristic, Rosanne had long ago discovered, and when Marta looked like following up the subject she hastily and firmly changed it. 'And if we're, to go visiting I'd better go and change, I'm horribly dusty.'

  'So that you will look nice in case Don Jaime returns while we are visiting his cousin?' Marta suggested with an irrepressible smile.

  Despite her attempts to control it, Rosanne felt a suspicion of Warmth in her cheeks when she remembered that dark angry profile turned against the sight of her and Federico standing by the patio gates. It appalled her to think of being discovered as a guest in his house when she had so obviously offended him, and a curiously fluttering sensation shivered along her spine for a second.

  'Is he likely to?' she asked, and Marta shrugged.

  'Beatriz has said that she will be alone in the house, so I do not anticipate that he will return.' Whether or not she had noticed that faint flush of colour in her cheeks, Rosanne did not know, but once more those bright mischievous eyes were watching her closely. 'It could be that he will return sooner than he is expected,' she added with evident relish, and laughed when Rosanne shook her head and turned away.

  The Casa Delguiro was very impressive, and well concealed until one was almost on top of it. Distinctly Moorish in design, it was just the kind of house that Rosanne thought suited Jaime Delguiro perfectly, though she could not have said why, except that it had a slightly exotic air about it.

  It was surrounded by the traditional patio, the high walls all but concealed by the profusion of growth that overspilled the wide borders. There we
re so many trees and flowers everywhere, and a fountain played gently in the centre of a tiled courtyard—it was a very Spanish house, and nothing less would have suited Don Jaime, she felt.

  Although its basic shape was square, it rambled much further than its original concept, and the ground floor was now on two different levels, fronted by curved and fretted Moorish arches that supported an upper balcony and gave shadowed darkness to a row of eyeless windows with their shutters set wide for coolness. The upper floor was decked with wrought iron railings, swelling in a pot-bellied S-shape and dripping with roses and flowering vines that spilled almost to ground level in places.

  There were flowers everywhere, more than Rosanne had ever seen in one place, and she could imagine nothing more delightful than to live among such profusion. Roses, carnations and geraniums tumbling out of stone urns and giant pots and twining themselves around the columns that supported the upper floor.

  The variety was endless and the mingling of their scents and colours rioted through the senses as they virtually hid the sun-weathered stone and tiles of the patio with their abundance. Itstruck Rosanne, from the moment she saw it first, that no matter how stiff and autocratic a man Don Jaime Delguiro might be, he was evidently a lover of beauty, and that, she decided, was a definite point in his favour.

  They had left the car at the gates of the patio and continued on foot across the tiled area, but they had barely time to take more than a few steps before a young woman came out of the house to meet them, hands outstretched in greeting, their welcome in no doubt; reassuring to Rosanne when she remembered her last sight of Don Jaime.

  She was fairly tall and well rounded, and she had the same dusky colouring as Don Jaime; the features were similar too, but there was no suggestion of arrogance or sternness in this smiling face. Her pleasure at seeing Marta again was unmistakable, and the two young women hugged one another excitedly, chattering in Spanish for a moment or two before Marta turned to bring her into the conversation and introduce her.

  'Rosanne, I would like for you to meet Beatriz Manola, an old friend; Beatriz, this is my dear friend from England, Rosanne Gordon.'

  'I'm delighted to meet you, Senora Manola.'

  'Bienvenida, senorita!' They shook hands and Beatriz was laughing and shaking her .head as she did so. 'No, no, no—please to call me Beatriz!' She flashed Marta a bright smile and turned them both in the direction of the house, a hand on each arm. 'Then we shall all be friends, eh?'

  Inside the house the emphasis was on comfort as well as tradition. The hall was wide and cool, tiled beneath scattered rugs of rich oriental design, and furnished with dark period furniture that stood against white walls. There were only a few pictures, but they were large and richly coloured in the jewel hues of the old Spanish painters. Standing on a small fretted wooden table at one side was a huge copper urn spilling over with roses, and the inevitable crucifix, such a feature in Spanish homes, hung on one wall, gleamingly rich and impressive on stark white.

  Beatriz Manola took them' into a room that was quite obviously well used and had a comfortable, lived- in atmosphere despite the richness of its furnishings. The floor was covered in deep red Turkish carpet, and there were several big comfortable-looking armchairs in red Spanish leather as well as other, smaller, brocaded chairs with wooden arms and bowed legs. It was a cosy and very friendly room, and Rosanne somehow found that surprising in the home of Don Jaime.

  They talked mostly about England and about Rosanne's impressions of Spain, and Rosanne found Beatriz Manola as easy a conversationalist as Marta, so that the time passed very quickly. It was when the conversation turned to their respective husbands that Rosanne suggested she would rather like to stroll around the gardens, and leave the two old friends to converse in their own language.

  At first it seemed that Beatriz took it to mean that she was growing restless with their talk and she showed the concern of a good hostess who has failed to entertain her guest. It was Marta, rather surprisingly, who assured her it was not so and, although Beatriz was not altogether convinced, she eventually saw her reason and appreciated it. Her dark eyes smiled warmly and she glanced at Marta with a hint of mischief.

  'You are very understanding, Rosanne! As you say, husbands are a matter for serious discussion and one is inhibited to a degree by a strange language.'

  'Then I shall go and enjoy your lovely gardens while you talk!'

  'You are fond of artistic things?' Rosanne was part way across the room when Beatriz asked the question, and she turned back to smile agreement, wondering what treasures the Casa Delguiro held.

  'Very much,' she told her. 'Like those wonderful paintings in the hall out there.'

  Beatriz' expression suggested that the answer pleased her, and she was nodding. 'If you find pleasure in beautiful things, then you will like my cousin's collection of miniaturas—that is the same word, si?'

  'More or less,' Rosanne agreed, extremely doubtful if Don Jaime would like it if he returned and found her among his precious collection. Just the same she had a curious desire to see the kind of thing he held precious, and she nodded. 'Wouldn't Don Jaime mind my seeing them?'

  Beatriz was shaking her head, smilingly confident. 'He will not mind in the slightest, Rosanne; they are very beautiful and he is very proud of them.' She waved a slim, beringed hand in the air vaguely. 'They are in the room next after this one, if you wish to see them, please do not hesitate.'

  The gardens were a temptation, but Don Jaime's collection of miniatures was irresistible, and instead of making for the outside door when she left the sala Rosanne turned to her left, the general direction that Beatriz had indicated. She had her hostess's permission, but just the same her heart was beating with unusual urgency as she approached the closed door of the next room, and she felt curiously stealthy as she opened it and peeped in.

  She could see nothing of the promised miniatures on display as she cautiously walked a little way inside and looked around, but possibly they were valuable and were in a locked case somewhere. The room was quite small and furnished to look more like an office or a study than anything else.

  The furniture was dark and solid and there was a simplicity about the room as a whole that suggested it was a man's room pure and simple, with no frills or fuss. A couple of small paintings were the only relief on stark white walls, and a tall easel stood to one side, near a big mahogany desk, with a light cloth covering thrown over whatever stood on it.

  Rosanne knew little about the methods of displaying miniatures, so she supposed it was just possible that they would be mounted in some kind of a frame and stood on an easel. The cloth was possibly meant to keep them free of dust, although it was not usual to keep precious paintings under cover, she would have thought.

  She was already coming to the conclusion that she had no real right to be in this quiet and very masculine room, but somehow it was impossible to resist the temptation to see what actually was under the cover on the easel. It seemed such an unusual item to find in an otherwise strictly functional room that it intrigued her.

  Hesitating with one hand hovering at the corner of the soft cotton cover for a moment, she felt the rapid and urgent way her heart was beating and she nearly drew back. It was almost an involuntary movement when she eventually moved the cloth aside and found a painting there, still stretched over its frame and looking remarkably fresh and new.

  But another second and she caught her breath, her whole being suddenly still and immovable when she recognised the subject of it—for her own face looked out at her from the canvas. The background was hazy and unrecognisable to her, but the features and the colouring were unmistakably hers.

  It showed the face turned three-quarters to the viewer, the upper half of the body in profile. Soft creamy shoulders, only lightly tanned by the Spanish sun, and the pale blue dress that had once been her favourite, Light brown hair streaked with gold by the sun and softly framing the face—all of it was unmistakable.

  Rosanne's head was sp
inning and the beat of her heart was so deafening that she was unconscious even of where she was for a moment, only aware of her own face, half-smiling and curiously unfamiliar, looking back at her. She had no idea yet who the artist could have been, but his skill was such that she was held enraptured by her own image as by that of a stranger.

  The colouring and the features were all hers, and yet there was a definite Spariishness about the painting as a whole; a certain brooding, almost sensual depth in the eyes and the half-smiling mouth that was strange to her and yet hauntingly familiar. Like the image caught in a mirror when glimpsed at unexpectedly.

  A slight sound from somewhere, she was not even sure from where, brought her swiftly back to reality and she started as if she had been struck, staring instinctively at the door. She had closed it behind her, she knew, but while she watched with eyes that found difficulty in focussing properly because she was still dazed by events, it closed again, softly and carefully, with a gentle click, so that she had no doubts that someone had looked in and seen her there.

  She stood for a moment without moving, then shook herself back to conscious action and hurried across the room to see who it was. Her footsteps were muffled and she felt as if she was stifling with the urgent effect of her heartbeat as she put a hand on the door handle and turned it.

  Opening it only a fraction, she peered out into the hall, half afraid of what or who she might see. She saw only one person; a tall and unmistakable figure just walking into the sala, apparently to join his cousin and her visitor. So—Don Jaime was home!