Luz remained looking up at him for a moment, adrenaline coursing through her blood, leaving her heart stuck in her throat. There was nothing she could find to say as she fought for composure. Something was shifting in her and she didn’t know how to stop it. She bent down to retrieve her shoes from the sand and felt his gaze following her darkly as she moved in front of him. Together they started back up the beach towards the house.
* * *
Andrés watched Luz drive out of the hacienda. A heavy ache tore at his heart. He had seen the rejection on her upturned face as he had almost kissed her – and the fear. Unwilling to trust himself, almost unable any longer to control the wild emotion that had clamoured for some physical expression, he had forced himself to stop. His mouth had been so close to hers, so soft and full, so sweet … He sighed, a deep harrowing sigh. Sleep would evade him tonight.
Slowly he retraced his steps to the terrace they had just left. He sat under the stars, looking out to sea, listening to the boom and thunder of the waves dashing against the rocks below, a lonely figure in the drowsy cloak of night. Behind pensive eyes, his thoughts ran chaotically as he tried to catch up with them. He felt at a disadvantage, as if the situation he was trying to cope with was already beyond him. His plan was flawed; he had not given it enough thought. It was all clear now, so clear that he could only curse his blindness in not seeing it all before; he must find a way of tipping the scales back.
For years his heart had been closed. Up until now he had led a free and easy life. Of course he’d had liaisons, forgetting them almost as quickly as they began. He had wanted nothing more from life than a good time … until the day he had laid eyes on Luz. Her lively intelligence and spirit were as captivating as her beauty. And now he had the feeling that he had come to a turning point in his life, one from which there would be no return. For the first time his heart had decided its destiny and all he had managed to do was hurt her. The yearning that had swept over him as she walked beside him in her floating black dress, a black-and-gold butterfly, beautiful and fragile, was still with him. To add to the burning in his blood he had noticed the melting look that for a mere second had surged like the rushing blue sea in her glorious eyes. And he knew himself well enough to realize that like a parched man’s need for water in the desert, his thirst would not recede until it had been quenched.
* * *
As if she were running away from Lucifer himself, Luz drove home in a frenzy of shock and confusion. She could not believe or accept what she had actually felt for a split second down there on the beach. Still, no matter how much she hated to admit it, she had been intensely aroused by Andrés; the physical stir she had experienced at his touch, at his mere proximity, had been no figment of her imagination. She could find no excuse or reason for this, except of course his undeniable resemblance to Leandro. That had to be it, didn’t it?
The gypsy still filled her heart despite her determination to fight the emotions she believed were doomed. She had not forgotten Leandro’s lively and passionate nature that so intrigued her, or that colourful, mysterious edge he had; and yet he was so direct in his desire for her that it made her senses run rampant. No, her love for the young gypsy could not be dislodged so easily and perhaps that was why she had felt so disturbed by her reaction to the sophisticated hidalgo.
Andrés always seemed to make her play a dark and dangerous game, a struggle for power that both appalled and excited her. She knew he wanted her and his quietly self-assured demeanour should have made her feel safe but she was also aware of something else between them: a psychological undercurrent more potent and reckless. It spoke to something deep inside her and triggered the panic that had struck her on the beach. Now she had no idea how to deal with this new sense of guilt. The situation as it was could not go on.
She was relieved to find the lights off in the annexe when she arrived back home and slipped quietly into her room. Luz lay propped up in bed for a long time, staring ahead of her. Through the open window she could see the dark, colourless water glimmering in the distance under the glow of the moon, streaked with trembling golden lights reflected from the town and the ships in the harbour. Finally she got up and went on to the veranda. The velvet canopy of an ink-like sky hung above; the stars seemed so near to earth that Luz felt if she stretched out her hand she could touch them. She wondered about both Leandro and Andrés. Were they sleeping soundly, oblivious to the chaos they had created?
Lately, there had been times when Luz studied herself in the mirror to see if she was the same young woman who had left England not so long ago. As she had earlier tonight, before she had gone out to meet Andrés. Though she looked no different, maybe a little healthier and tanned, she had changed inwardly. Back in England it had suited her to tether her wilder instincts. Since her arrival in Andalucía, life had now revealed much to her: unsuspected things, feelings, which had probably always lain dormant within her. She was not sure she much liked the confused, wanton new her, but there was nothing she could do about it for she felt helpless against the tide of emotion that rose repeatedly inside her like a flood-surge.
She had three alternatives, she told herself wearily. Firstly, she could leave Spain and go back to England for six months, but that was running away, which was not in her nature. Secondly, she could decide that Leandro was the man for her and fight the world to accept their love; but how could she be sure he even wanted this? After all, he was a gypsy, a nomad, free as the wind, to use his own words. Finally, she could simply leave matters as they stood and try and get a grip, somehow curb her feelings for Leandro and face the situation with Andrés. The latter was surely the most difficult but eminently sensible choice. She would sleep on it; in the morning things might seem clearer.
That night she dreamed again of the Garden of Eden. This time Leandro and Andrés, joined at the shoulder, were playing hide and seek with her through the trees. They were the twins and each wore the Gemini half-mask. Suddenly they seemed to be moving towards her. As they neared, their image gradually merged into one, with the mask covering the whole face until the irises behind it were so close to her, glancing through the leaves, that a green eye and a black one stared with saturnine mockery into the horror of her own.
Luz woke with a hoarse cry, her heart beating hard against her ribs. She sat up, trembling, in haunting semi-darkness. The room was hot and airless; she needed to breathe. She ran out on to the veranda and inhaled deeply.
The air was light and salty. She focused sleepy eyes on the familiar view. Though the moon had not yet quite beaten its retreat, a blood-red dawn streaked across the horizon. The chorus of birds had begun their cheerful calling. A young wind ruffled the surface of the clean-swept ocean and the lighthouse over in Puerto de Santa María still winked steadfastly, its lonely message breaking the monotony at the end of the night.
Luz leant against the balcony, aware of the images from her dream flickering on through her mind, and the turmoil and confusion they ref lected. Running away was not the answer. As for her passionate romance with Leandro … she smiled sadly to herself. Where was Leandro? She felt a little like Don Quixote with his naïve and unrealistic quests. What was real and what was illusion? She raised her hands and pressed both knuckles into her eyes, which were now welling up with tears. Nothing and no one had ever had this effect on her; she must not let events overwhelm her so. Her mother would say it was all part of the rich pattern of life. She must get a grip and rise above these problems. They were trivial when compared with some of the dreadful things that happened in the world.
Luz stayed like this for a long time and, as she stood there witnessing the glorious f lamboyant colours of the sun rising out of the mist, a certain peace came to her after the rush and emotion of the previous evening. She watched some fishing vessels sail smoothly and slowly through a sapphire sea towards the horizon.
It was still early by the time she shook herself out of her reverie so she went back to bed. Perhaps because she had almost reached the end
of thought, Luz fell into a deep, dreamless sleep and a couple of hours later woke feeling heavy-headed.
She had a light breakfast in silence under the steady, scrutinizing dark gaze of Carmela.
‘Doña Luz, la cara es el espejo del alma, the face is the mirror of the soul and yours is not happy. Come now, you can tell Carmela. Is it a man that makes those pretty eyes so gloomy, eh?’
Luz sighed. ‘Am I gloomy? Sorry, Carmela,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t sleep well, but I’m fine otherwise.’ Nevertheless, she had caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on the way to breakfast and knew that Carmela would not be fooled. The telltale signs of sleepless nights were there on her face, her eyes shadowed by dark circles left from the tears of frustration that she had given into in the early hours.
‘Looks to me as though you’re not sleeping for a good reason,’ observed Carmela, arching an eyebrow.
‘Carmela, there’s no novio for you to get excited about, I assure you.’ Luz managed a wan smile and sipped her coffee. ‘Now, I need to get dressed and down to the motorboat as I’m off for the day. A swim will wake me up, I’m sure,’ she told the housekeeper, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.
Carmela tried to probe a little further, clearly surmising Luz was up to mischief, and though Luz assured her that all was well and there was no important man in her life, Carmela looked highly sceptical as she packed a basket of food and then waved her out of the door.
Luz sailed to her favourite beach early, long before most bathers were up. The little secret cove, with its fine sand strewn with a multitude of chromatic shells, lay dreaming under a clear and moist blue sky. It was a lovely, isolated spot. She peeled off her outer clothes, under which was her bikini. The sea temperature was fresh as she floated alongside the rocks and there was a certain purity and cleanliness in the air like balm to the spirit. She spent an easy morning turning burnished gold on the white sand, swimming, snorkelling and idly watching the boats as they came and went from Cádiz’s harbour. At midday she unrolled her towel next to a large rock and lunched on the melon and delicious jamón Ibérico Carmela had provided. She fell asleep in the shade of the rock, her thoughts hazy and her senses suddenly dulled by tiredness, the ceaseless sound of the sea and the drowsy heat of the afternoon.
The sun was still blazing when she woke up, hot and clammy. Her bikini was sticking to her like a second skin and her hair was damp, unpleasant against her nape. She padded across the sun-warmed sand and stood digging her toes deep in the fine ivory-coloured strip, feasting her eyes on the crystal-clear waters lapping at her feet. Golden sunbeams danced on the glasslike surface; it was seductively inviting. Luz looked around her; she was tempted to strip and bathe naked. She had never done so before, but had heard it was the most sensuous experience. Ocean-battered rocks towered a hundred feet above her. This was such a private place that no one would know. Without a second thought, she stripped off her bikini and ran boldly into the sea.
She shuddered with pleasure as her hot skin hit the cold water. The rippling cool envelope that caressed her nakedness felt delicious. With a curious ecstasy that was all new to her, she swam out a little way into the open. She could feel the long hot sunbeams on her back as she went, then, diving down, eyes wide open, she scanned the deep, exploring the spectacular kaleidoscopic undersea world. There were beds of coloured coral and fields of strange grasses, pink and green and lavender, waving in the underwater currents. Baby octopus, tiny crabs and a startling array of variegated fish darted in and out of the rocks, busily going about their business on the highways of sparkling white sand stirred up from the seabed. Life below the surface might be joyously lively, but above the air was sweet and fresh, she thought, slowly bringing her face up again.
Luz turned on to her back and floated like an exotic mermaid playing in the sunshine, her lustrous black hair trailing behind her. In the broad afternoon glare the outline of hills, olive groves and vineyards rising behind the town were visible in the distance and immediately above her, perched high, was the quaint little brown church with its green bench where she had often sat to gaze at the sea, the ships and the port. It seemed so remote, standing sentinel up there on the cliffs.
That is when Luz saw him. He was standing at the top of the cliffs, not far from the church, on a huge grey rock that stretched like a tongue over the sea. Dressed only in Bermuda shorts, his muscled torso bronzed from the sun, he was very still, a hand shielding his eyes, gazing down at her. The empathy between them was such that, in the first moment of seeing the man silhouetted up there against the sky, Luz knew without a shadow of a doubt it was Leandro.
But she did not anticipate what happened next. She watched wide-eyed, holding her breath, her heart beating furiously as the faraway figure sprang into the air and plunged over the cliff. His lean limbs uncoiled slowly in the air, like the wings of a magnificent bird. Arms stretched out in front of him, he dived headfirst, his body a lean, sinewy line, darting like a missile into the depths of the sea.
There was another breathless moment while he disappeared into the blue abyss when Luz waited for him to resurface. And then his head came up in the sunlit spray as he swam towards her with a powerful over-arm stroke. She hurried to meet him, her heart leaping tumultuously in her breast. Both reached the bobbing red buoy a little out of breath. The droplets on Leandro’s head glistened like diamonds; his green eyes the limpid colour of peridot. He leant his strongly muscled arms on the anchored float and passed a hand over his face and hair to sweep off the surplus water.
‘I was walking along the cliff, hoping you would turn up somewhere. Then I saw you in the water. Even though I couldn’t see you clearly, I knew it was you.’ He laughed, his gaze travelling over her face.
Luz smiled, flushed with pleasure. ‘I knew it was you, too, but I never expected you to launch yourself into the air the way you did. You nearly gave me a heart attack.’ Her voice was low and unsteady, due in part to the light glinting off his broad, wet shoulders submerged in the water.
He shrugged, green eyes sparkling. ‘I’ve told you, we’re sea gypsies. Besides, we gitanos are pretty good acrobats. I’ve never worked in a circus but I’m sure many of my forbears did. It’s in our blood.’
They were treading water, their eyes locked, as if the other was something precious they had lost and found again at a most unexpected moment, in a most unexpected place. All alone, completely closed to the world around them.
‘You always appear out of nowhere when I least expect it and then you disappear just as suddenly, like a dream. Sometimes I wonder if you’re even real,’ she pondered. ‘I find it a little unnerving.’ Her voice was hesitant, trying to suppress the slight reproach in it.
‘You can’t hold a gypsy, Doña Luz … we roam the world freely as the seas and the wind,’ he whispered, confounding her with a grin of utter boyish mischievousness.
The current suddenly pulled them together. Their bodies collided. Only then did Luz remember she was bare from head to toe. Leandro shuddered and his eyes flared as he clearly felt her nakedness against him. He let go of the buoy and took her in his arms.
‘Do you still doubt that I’m real?’ he murmured.
‘No, I don’t,’ she whispered and, despite the cool of the water, heat rushed through her body, pulsating between her thighs. His mouth found hers; his lips were firm, cool and mobile, his kiss deep, passionate and familiar. Luz wrapped her thighs around his hips, feeling the length of his firm arousal. She clung to him; all thought and reason and past resolve evaporating, her skin fluttering beneath his touch, intoxicated by love, by desire and by the sun.
Leandro was now ploughing into the surf with one arm as he held her against him with the other, keeping them both afloat. He swam powerfully towards the shore, striking out with strong strokes, and with vigorous thrusts of his leg muscles.
He carried her, naked and dripping, out of the sea and laid her on the towel she had rolled out on the sand earlier. Though the sun was still warm, she
was shivering uncontrollably. Torrents of words rushed to her tongue but were not uttered. He covered her with his hard body, still wet from the sea, and held her tightly in his warmth for a while without moving. At last Luz was where she had longed to be. She was aware of his smooth, tanned skin and beneath it the solid outline of his back and shoulders. His broad chest, with its tantalizing dark hair, was pressed against her naked breasts and his breath grew more ragged. Her heart was pounding loudly, or was it his she could hear? But it was of no importance: nothing mattered but the storm of emotion and the ache inside her crying out for the song of his lovemaking. So he sang.
His mouth was sizzling hot when it came down on hers and she was lost. It seemed to explode into her as he sucked at her lips and her tongue with a primitive, starved ferocity, drinking up her soul. She welcomed his assaulting overture with a wanton fervour that fuelled the already raging flame Luz could sense within him. As though wild for the taste of her, his lips moved from her mouth to her cheek, down to her neck. A sob of raw desire caught in her throat, every part of her pulsating and alive as he continued to seek out her soft vulnerable places, branding them with the fire of his kisses.
The sea appeared to be dancing in the afternoon sunshine.
The tempo of Leandro’s lovemaking deepened as his hands joined his lips, a new instrument in the orchestration of foreplay and sensuality. As he explored, Luz’s eyes closed, shutting out the world around them, while his palms trailed over her slim curves, bathing her with the heat that radiated from him. Her body opened up to him like a flower in the sunlight, inviting, yielding, relishing this intimate contact as she spiralled smoothly down into a whirlpool of shameless, voluptuous pleasure.
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