by Anne Mather
‘Are—are you going to go away, Luis, or do I have to call the servants?’ she asked tremulously.
There was another angry expletive and then the door handle turned and Luis propelled it inwards, ignoring her puny efforts to prevent him. Once Rachel saw that she was losing the battle, she scurried across the room to drag the tapestry coverlet from the bed and wrap it closely around her thinly clad body.
Luis came in and closed the door, reaching for the switch which illuminated the lamps above the bed. Then he leant against the door, looking across at her with weary impatience. ‘Oh, Rachel,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Why have you come here?’
Rachel said nothing; she was trembling so much she was amazed the coverlet didn’t just fall from her thin shoulders. But she looked at Luis, and what she saw filled her with despair. Her feelings hadn’t changed. She was in love with him. But his face mirrored his irritation that she should have dared to come back to his house.
Luis straightened. In a black shirt and pants, he looked thinner than she remembered, and there were lines of weariness beside his mouth. ‘Are you afraid of me, Rachel?’ he asked.
Rachel tried to calm herself. Being nervous wasn’t going to do any good. ‘No,’ she said, with assumed composure. ‘No, I’m not afraid of you, Luis.’
‘Then by God, you should be!’ he said between his teeth.
Rachel paled. ‘Why?’ She glanced round. ‘I don’t believe you’d touch me here. I could scream, and there are servants——’
He swore in his own language. ‘That is not my intention—to touch you! On the contrary, I find you totally—totally——’ He shook his head mutely and turned away, raking his scalp with his nails. Rachel watched him helplessly, unable to understand his mental torment, unable to bear this obvious agony of mind.
She stepped forward, reaching out a hand to touch his shoulder. Even through the fine material of his shirt, his skin felt fiery to her touch. ‘Luis——’ she began tentatively, but even she was not prepared for what happened next.
Luis turned, his face tortured, and with a groan he pulled her into his arms. She had been close to him before, but never as close as this, conscious of the throbbing heat of his body even through the thickness of the cover she had thrown around herself. But his hands pushed the offending coverlet aside, seeking the smooth, fragile bones of her shoulders and throat, sliding round her neck to grip almost chokingly.
‘Oh, Rachel!’ he muttered savagely. ‘I could kill you——’
Rachel raised her hands to grip his wrists and as she did so the coverlet fell unheeded in a heap at their feet. ‘Why, Luis?’ she whispered huskily, bending her head to touch his wrists with her lips, uncaring for the moment that this situation ought not to be allowed to develop. ‘What have I done?’
Luis’s fingers loosened their grip. An expression of such longing crossed his face that her knees felt weak. And then his mouth was on hers and all coherent thought ceased. His hands slid round her back, moulding her body to his, making her overwhelmingly conscious of his need of her, destroying her good intentions to remain calm. Her arms slid round his waist, and she pressed herself against him.
Luis was muttering to her in his own language between kisses, burying his face in the hollow of her neck, in her hair, caressing her hips, holding her against him.
But then warning bells began to ring in Rachel’s head. There was no doubt in her mind now that Luis wanted her, and she wanted him, she loved him, but not even for love could she become his mistress.
With a little sob, she tore herself away from him, and with a heavy sigh Luis sank down on to the bed and buried his head in his hands. ‘Por amor de Deus,’ he groaned, ‘what am I going to do?’
Rachel stared at him. ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said chokingly.
He looked up at her, his face haggard. ‘Yes. Yes, of course, that is what I must do.’ But he made no move.
Rachel hugged herself, trying to make the cotton nightdress a less revealing garment. ‘I—it was as much my fault as yours.’
Luis’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you think that makes it any better?’ he demanded harshly.
Rachel shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never done this sort of thing before.’
Luis’s lips twisted. ‘No, I can believe that.’
Rachel didn’t like the look on his face. ‘I’m tired,’ she said. ‘Please—go!’
‘Why did you do it, Rachel?’ Luis might not have heard her.
Rachel frowned. ‘Do it? Do what?’
‘Come here. Wasn’t a letter good enough?’
‘No. I wouldn’t trust such things to a letter.’
‘I see. I wonder why. Malcolm never had such qualms. Or maybe you think you’d like to stay on here—as he did!’
‘What are you talking about?’ Rachel didn’t understand him.
‘Doesn’t that figure in your plans?’
‘Luis, what are you talking about?’
Luis shook his head grimly. ‘It’s no use, Rachel. You’re too late. I know the truth, the Alejentos know the truth. Who else are you threatening to tell?’
Now Rachel understood and she trembled with indignation. ‘How—how dare you speak to me like this? I—I’ve never been so insulted in all my life!’
Luis looked up at her with distaste. ‘Why? Are the facts unpalatable?’
‘They’re not facts.’ Rachel drew herself up to her full height. ‘If you had taken the trouble to ask your mother before coming here and speaking to me, you’d have learned that this morning I gave her back her birth certificate and the bank book of Malcolm’s which contains all the deposits made since—since the certificate fell into his hands.’
Luis sat there transfixed, just staring at her. ‘What?’
‘It’s the truth. Oh, Luis, what do you think I am?’
Luis put a dazed hand to his head. ‘You mean—you mean you weren’t a party to—to Malcolm’s plans?’
‘Of course I wasn’t. What do you take me for?’ Rachel’s voice broke on a sob. ‘Oh, go away, go away and leave me alone. Go back to Amalia! You needn’t worry, I shan’t tell her about—about your lapse of conduct!’
She turned away, trying not to burst into tears right there in front of him. She felt so humiliated. And the cotton nightdress was not the sort of garment one could behave in a dignified fashion in without looking completely ridiculous, she felt sure.
‘Rachel, Rachel, how can you ever forgive me?’ Luis sounded weak with relief. He leant forward and caught her wrist, refusing to release her when she endeavoured to free herself. He drew her compellingly back on to the bed beside him, taking her tear-wet face between his hands. ‘Rachel,’ he groaned, bending to touch the corner of her mouth with his lips. ‘Oh, Rachel, I’m sorry.’
Rachel drew a choking breath. ‘You don’t have to feel sorry for me,’ she declared unsteadily. ‘Just go away and leave me alone.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Not before I try and explain my position.’
‘I don’t want to hear your position—oh!’
He had closed her lips with his finger and was appealing to her silently. ‘Now,’ he said, still holding her face firmly, ‘you must know now what Malcolm was doing.’
She nodded. ‘Your mother told me everything this morning.’
‘So?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘So you will appreciate my concern for her.’
‘I don’t see what——’
‘Wait!’ His eyes narrowed, holding hers. ‘I discovered she had written to you some days ago, enclosing a cheque. Is that correct?’ Rachel nodded, and he went on: ‘I was furious with her for doing so, but she is—how do you say it?—not convinced that you mean to let everything drop now. She was in—suspense? Is that right?’
Rachel sighed. ‘She told me.’
‘So? Things are worse for her after you leave. After Malcolm’s funeral.’ He dropped his hands into his lap and bent his head.
Rachel noticed how, when he was emotionally di
sturbed as now, his accent was more pronounced. But what did he mean?
‘How—how were things worse?’ she asked, in surprise.
Luis sighed now. ‘I will come to that. You must know how I feel about you, Rachel.’
Rachel quivered. She ventured a glance at him and found his eyes upon her. ‘No——’ she whispered. ‘No, I don’t know.’
‘I am in love with you. I want you, Rachel. For my wife!’
Rachel could not believe it. She put her palms to her burning cheeks and stared blindly down at her knees.
‘It’s the truth,’ he said quietly, still not touching her even though all her senses cried out for him to do so. ‘But it was not that simple.’ He ran a hand round the back of his neck. ‘My mother was totally opposed to any relationship between us. Apart from anything else, I was betrothed to Amalia.’
‘Was?’ echoed Rachel weakly.
Luis nodded. ‘But of course. You do not think I could contemplate marrying Amalia when I feel as I do about you?’
‘I don’t know what to think.’ Rachel timidly put her hand on his knee. He flinched, but still he did not touch her.
‘You want I should show you,’ he said, rather thickly. ‘But I must not touch you until I tell you how these things happen.’ He drew an unsteady breath. ‘Very well, so much against my mother’s wishes I break with Amalia. But that is not the end. In spite of the fact that I love you, there is still the matter of—of——’
‘—the blackmail,’ prompted Rachel, stroking his thigh.
‘Yes.’ Luis spoke gruffly. ‘I thought I could not marry a woman who had been party to such a thing, particularly when I realised the effect it had had and could still have on my mother. But my feelings for you were stronger than even I imagined. I could think of nothing else. I wanted you, Rachel. So much!’
Rachel shivered. ‘Go on.’
‘My mother realised this, I think, and that was why she wrote to you. She thought if you accepted the cheque then I could see that you were just as corrupt as—as Malcolm. But even then I could not believe it, not entirely. I didn’t want to believe it, you see. So I flew to England to find the truth for myself. Then, of course, you were not there.’
‘No,’ Rachel nodded.
‘I made enquiries, but your neighbours could tell me nothing. All they could give me was the address of your solicitors. I went to them. I explained who I was. And when they could tell me nothing of your whereabouts also, I asked about you—about your marriage to Malcolm—about the reasons behind that marriage. They were reluctant to discuss your affairs, naturally. It is their job to remain unmoved by emotive pleas.’ His lips twisted. ‘But their clerk was a little more responsive to—persuasion.’ He shrugged expressively. ‘And when I mentioned the matter of your condition at the time of your marriage——’
‘My condition? What condition?’ Rachel stared at him in surprise.
Luis shook his head. ‘Of course you do not know. How could you?’ He sighed. ‘When Malcolm tried to justify his reasons for marrying you to me, he told me that you had had an affair with a young man who had deserted you when you became pregnant, and that after he had helped you by taking responsibility, you had had a miscarriage——’
‘Oh, no!’ gasped Rachel, in horror. She shook her head dazedly. ‘So that explains why you appeared to despise me, why you asked me those rather curious questions at the quinta. But it’s not true,’ she added, a note of anxiety invading her voice.
‘I know that now.’ Luis was reassuringly gentle. ‘I think I guessed it could not be true all along. And when this man—this clerk—told me of your father’s financial difficulties ...’ He clenched his fists impotently. Then, as though gathering himself again, he went on: ‘This afternoon, my mother telephoned the hotel where she knew I was staying. She left a message for me to return here right away as you were here. Can you imagine how I felt? I had just begun to have faith in you, but my mother’s message gave me second thoughts. I began to wonder whether in part she had not been right all along, and that you had come here to start the blackmail all over again. I was incensed and desperate. My need for you was such that just now I found myself wondering whether I could bear to marry you anyway.’
‘Oh, Luis! I love you.’
And then he touched her. He pressed her back against the soft silk sheets of the bed and covered her mouth with his own, and for several long minutes there was silence in the bedroom.
But at last he dragged himself up and away from her, smoothing his hair and buttoning his shirt with a slight smile on his lips.
‘So?’ he said. ‘When I present you to my mother tomorrow morning as my noiva, my fiancée, I want to do so with a clear conscience.’
Rachel smiled and then sobered. ‘But—but what about your mother?’ she murmured uneasily. ‘Will—will she accept me?’
Luis pulled her up into his arms. ‘I admit it will not always be easy,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘For so long she has been mistress here and Amalia and she would have managed admirably. Amalia has been brought up that way. But you——’ He touched her cheek gently. ‘You are different, and that is why I fell in love with you. You were so irritating to me, right from the very beginning, and right from the beginning I knew you meant trouble so far as my peace of mind was concerned.’
‘Did you mind?’
‘At first? Oh, yes. But I couldn’t keep away from you, as you may have noticed.’ His eyes darkened. ‘And nor could I bear to think of you with—with Malcolm.’
‘Poor Malcolm.’ Rachel could feel sorry for him now. After all, it was because of him that she had found something beyond price.
‘Yes, poor Malcolm,’ echoed Luis quietly. Then: ‘But now I must go. We have an appointment for tomorrow.’
Rachel hesitated. ‘And—and you think your mother will—will not be too disappointed?’
‘Let us put it this way: she has known so long that you are the only woman I would ever consider marrying that she will no doubt become resigned to the fact that this will be the only way I can beget heirs and she can become a grandmother.’
Rachel felt the hot colour flooding her cheeks. ‘I see.’
‘And besides, she telephoned me in England this afternoon and told me you were here. She needn’t have done that.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ Rachel drew back from him reluctantly. ‘Don’t you think I’ll be a big disappointment as—as a Marquesa?’
Luis touched his fingers to her lips. ‘Not to me, amada,’ he whispered. ‘Never to me ...’
And that was all that mattered after all.
ISBN: 978-1-472-09729-3
RACHEL TREVELLYAN
© 1974 Anne Mather
Published in Great Britain 2014
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
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