"Only because you are on very close terms with the owner of the Mackensie Press," he finished for her, leaning against the door and apparently settling in for a good while.
"How do you know anything about me?" she asked sharply, her face colouring at the smile of amusement on his dark face.
"You have seen Inez and Manuel quite often during the past three years," he reminded her. "Certainly they have made plenty of visits to England. I did not particularly like your mother but I did hold conversations with her in the normal course of a day. She was very proud of your success and never failed to talk of your work at great length."
"I'm sorry," she rejoined tartly. "You must have been unspeakably bored."
"Not at all," he countered easily. "It is only natural that I would be interested in the welfare of my stepsister, surely? Have I not always been interested in your welfare?"
"Only in a very vague way," she said shooting him a bitter glance. "Only when you had the chance to criticise me and take me to task," she added unfairly.
"You were somewhat of a trial," he murmured, his eyes moving over her with a curious intensity. "I feel that perhaps you will still be a trial." He turned to leave and then glanced at her over his shoulder. "You left the door open when you went to explore your—cupboard. I have closed it. Does this come under the heading of criticism?"
Meriel stared at the blank face of her bedroom door as he closed it. He had given her a timely reminder of the way he had cared for her and she felt suddenly distraught. She showered and dressed angrily, fighting down the feelings of guilt. He had protected her in his aloof and half-amused way, so what? She had been a child and his domination over her had been partly so that he could show her mother that she might be the new wife of Francisco Ortiga but she was in no way in charge of anything, not even her own daughter. He had never been kind to her. She bit her lip and shook her head. Yes, he had. Honesty made her admit it. In his own way he had been more than kind, there had been a sort of love between the clever, hard-riding, deep-thinking man and the lonely child she had been. What did she owe him? Nothing! He had finally wiped out the intervening years with his callous rejection of her, and had it not been for her altered relationship with her mother, she would never have been able to keep in touch with Manolito.
Even now, she was not sure what had finally drawn her mother to England over the past three years. They had written to each other of course, dutiful letters that had said nothing, but suddenly, Inez had arrived and there was a difference in her, a desire to work out some sort of relationship with a daughter she had treated with indifference for all her young life. Perhaps it was the staggering isolation of the hacienda or the fact that she was able to see Manolito growing away from his sister. Meriel had not really cared. It was not in her to continue her life with bitterness. Her job was satisfying, her life exciting and she had welcomed her mother and Manolito with a great deal of happiness, glad that Inez had been more than willing to meet her half-way in her attempts to set things right at last. Her love for Manolito had never faded and now, in her own familiar background, she had been able to show him how she cared, her happiness rubbing off on him until they were back into the way they had always been.
Now, she had nothing but the memories, but at least they were happy ones, going some way to ease the burden of her stay here and the bad memories that were rooted in this house. Clearly, Ramon would never have allowed her to see her brother and though he had called her back so imperiously, she was not deceived. He wanted help, temporary help, until Manolito had recovered from the shock of losing his parents.
She dressed and went to find him, determined that he should not be left to be lonely and lost as she had been, secretly determined too that if the chance came her way, she would get him out of here and back to England. He could live with her, go to an English school, be free of the llanos and Ramon, free from the responsibility of the Ortiga line and the Ortiga inheritance.
CHAPTER THREE
MERIEL stayed with Manuel until dinner time, talking to him and walking with him in the gardens. She had persuaded him out of the black suit and tie into jeans and a soft shirt and this had not gone unnoticed by Carmen, but she said nothing to either of them.
She had spoken to Ramon, however, because he called Meriel to his study as she made her way along in good time for dinner, still in the thin flowered skirt and cream blouse that she had donned earlier.
"Carmen is angry and hurt," he began without preamble as he closed the study door behind her.
"I'm startled and grieved," Meriel said dramatically, opening her eyes wide in mock alarm and apparently angering him too.
"Could you not have waited for her to go before you began to throw your weight about?" he rasped. "What difference would a couple of days more have meant!"
"All the difference in the world!" she snapped, not amused any more. "She may as well know who is in charge right from the word go."
"I am in charge," Ramon reminded her dangerously. "Also the word go will come from me—when I wish her to leave. In the meantime I would be greatly obliged if you could keep a modicum of civility in your tongue and a little courtesy in your behaviour."
"You," she said, her voice rising, "demanded my return to the hacienda. According to your telephone call and the things you have said since, Manolito needed me. She is complaining, I suppose, that I have persuaded him to remove the black clothes, wash his face and relax into being a boy, a child. I suppose that at some time in your life you were a child? Or don't you remember?"
"I remember," he said harshly. "I was tossed into the saddle at five and was bidden to ride. I was lectured on my responsibilities and charged with the security of my inheritance. At fourteen I was expected to be able to ride a full day with the men and spend the evening with my father on the matter of the family business interests. I remember! Manuel is not expected to do any of these things, the responsibility is mine and I will not have the house turned upside down because of your inability to keep a civilised tongue in your head and your English opinion of what is correct and incorrect!"
"What part of my English character were you expecting to be of use to Manolito when you ordered me home then?" she enquired, keeping her voice sharp to disguise the sudden tilting of her heart at the bitter picture he painted.
"Once," he said more quietly, "you had a gentleness, a gentleness that was very alien in this family. If anyone brought out the best in me then it was you. It is your gentleness that Manuel needs now, if you still indeed possess it. I think that somewhere you must possess it because although I have not seen you for so long, Manuel has seen you and pined for you. You even managed to mellow your mother in her later years. Give Manuel your love. I will fight for him and it would be better too if you and I did not fight each other because odd though it may seem to you, Manuel is fond of me and will be further torn apart at any sign of discord between you and me."
She looked at him for a moment and then turned away, chastened. There was no fight left in her and she remembered only too well that he was always scrupulously fair.
"All right, I'm sorry." She suddenly gave a light laugh as she reached for the door. "It's funny, that's twice that I've offered my apologies. I suppose that I've become very much accustomed to doing whatever I like and to having people bow and scrape a little. You certainly bring me down to earth and make me realise that in the content of the wide, wide world I'm very small fry, not nearly as important as I sometimes feel."
She felt his hands on her shoulders as she reached the door and he turned her towards him.
"Yes, Miss Curtis. Your call from Venezuela, Miss Curtis," he mocked softly. She suddenly found herself laughing with genuine amusement looking into smiling mocking eyes.
"All right. So you heard my working image. I take your point—all your points." He said nothing but continued to look down into her face and she found the smile dying on her lips as they simply became lost in each other's eyes.
"Meriel," he said in lit
tle more than a murmur, his voice fading away altogether as he let his gaze roam over her face, and she did not resist when he drew her closer, close enough for her to feel the heavy beating of his heart.
"I—I must go to dinner… Manolito is coming now…' Her voice too died away and her breath was thick in her throat at the taut, harsh expression on his face. "Ramon! No!"
He ignored her, drawing her tightly against him and swooping down to cover her lips with his, his hands tight on her back, his mouth harsh and plundering. He had clearly known that she would fight and therefore he attacked, leaving her no room for manoeuvre until she sighed, a mere whisper of sound, and rested against him.
She had always reacted to Ramon. Even as a child she had needed his approval above all others and later… She stiffened, memory coming to her aid, and he was ready for that too, drawing back and trailing one lazy finger-tip down her face.
"Why—why did you do that?" She struggled like someone fighting her way out of a deep dream, her body still and drugged but her mind clamouring frantically.
"I wanted to see if you remembered." His dark eyes bored into hers holding her gaze with such ease. "You do remember."
He was laughing at her, she could see it at the back of his narrowed eyes and it snapped her into reality and anger.
"Don't ever do that again!" she blazed, her temper and humiliation at her response to him flaring.
"If that is an order then I do not obey orders, I give them," he told her softly. "If, on the other hand, you require a promise then you know that I keep my promises and I am not about to make a promise that I cannot keep," he reached forward and ran the back of his fingers across her hot cheeks, "that I may not wish to keep."
"If you try your amorous tactics on me again—I'll leave!" she threatened heatedly, springing away like someone burned. "You were never short of women as I recall. It's perhaps time that you had a new one!"
"There have been plenty," he agreed, laughing into her flushed face. "Many since you left the hacienda, so young and sweet. You would have me be an innocent boy— inexperienced, gauche?"
"I wouldn't have you gift-wrapped!" she snapped, flinging the door open. "And don't forget, next time, I leave!"
"If I let you," he warned in a low taunting voice. "It is a very long way to England."
She didn't deign to answer and it took all her efforts to be even reasonably civilised at dinner, especially when Carmen felt the need to point out quietly but sourly the unsuitability of the casual clothes that Manuel wore, her eyes including Meriel for good measure.
"I expect he is comfortable," Ramon cut in before Meriel could explode. "Which brings me to a point. Tomorrow I am flying to Caracas on business, I am meeting one of the engineers from the mine. I shall take Meriel and Manuel with me. I understand from Manuel that his sister is not satisfied with the state of his wardrobe. Obviously he needs more clothes and it will be a good time for her to get them. The plane will easily take four and your luggage, Carmen. You can come with us and then fly on down the coast to your home."
Meriel did not know who was the more surprised, Carmen or herself, certainly they were both silenced, and from the corner of her eye she saw her brother trying hard to disguise his relief.
"Well, if you can manage without me…'
"We can." Ramon smiled warmly at his cousin. "You have been a treasure but I know that Tia Barbara will be missing you, she is no longer young."
"No." Pride, duty and disappointment warred in her face. "I suppose you are right, Ramon. I must confess too that it is a little lonely here on the plains."
"You have been very brave," Ramon soothed, his eyes perfectly serious.
"Well—I, well thank you." Carmen preened but could not resist a final shot at Meriel. "I do hope that you will not be too lonely here, Meriel. It's not London after all I do remember your loneliness and unhappiness when you were here as child—and even later."
"Yes, I was unhappy," Meriel agreed. "I have never after all been part of the life of the Ortigas and naturally I wouldn't want to be, being more English than Spanish. However I do have a job after all, it's not that I'll be here permanently. I expect that my boss will be demanding my return before too long. We have a very close working relationship."
"Meriel will be too busy to become lonely," Ramon growled impatiently, "and her leave will be extended as far as is necessary!"
"I do hope that you're right," Meriel intervened sweetly. "Stewart is so used to my being there every time he wants me. He really has taken this badly."
Whether Carmen's tight lips denoted that she thought having a job an undignified way of managing one's life or whether she had caught the veiled innuendoes in Meriel's remarks, Meriel was not sure. She knew though that Ramon had caught every innuendo and his black scowl was proof of it. He turned to speak to his cousin, cutting Meriel out with practised ease, he had done that to her all her life and when the two were in deep conversation, Manuel tugged at her sleeve.
"Merry? You will not leave me?" His dark anxious eyes, so endearingly like Ramon's, looked up into hers and she secretly squeezed his hand.
"Never in a million years," she whispered. "Sometimes I tell the most awful lies just to see what people will do."
He giggled, stifling his merriment quickly as Ramon looked coldly across and Meriel raised innocent grey eyes as he shot her a look of narrow-eyed suspicion and annoyance. It was nothing new. She stared at him, trying to summon up dislike and annoyance, but she was unable to do either. Although he talked only to Carmen for the rest of the meal, his eyes were solely on Meriel and she was glad when the ordeal was over and she was once again in her own room, Manuel tucked safely up in bed showing some signs of relaxation and happiness.
There was no happiness in her though, and for a long time she tossed restlessly beneath the silken sheets. The day had seemed endless and she had found cracks in her armour as far as Ramon was concerned. He was already slipping out of his niche as cold stepbrother into something much more potent in her mind. She had been here before in this situation but then she had been defenceless, a girl, she needed all the years away to help her to stay free in her heart.
Memories came flooding back in the darkness, memories she could not hold away even though she tried. Life here had been difficult enough, her holidays in Venezuela a duty that must be endured, and only the rides with Ramon, his strength and protection, gave her any kind of confidence, although he had little time for her, his attention to her sandwiched between his own duties and work and the women who frequently came to the hacienda as his guests.
It had taken four years to change the relationship between them, and for her it had changed subtly and frighteningly. She was growing and more than ever unsure of herself, neither child nor woman. She only knew that Ramon stayed in her mind more than he had ever done and the sight of him as she landed for the long summer holidays gave a queer lift to her heart, the cool kiss he invariably placed on her cheek the reward she waited for during the long months away. She would not have wanted to leave her father but the excitement that the thought of meeting Ramon brought was like a fire growing inside her.
She was taller then at sixteen than she had promised to be as a child, already filling out into the slender, softly rounded shape of a woman, but basically there was no change in her life at all. She arrived, was coolly greeted, rode with Ramon when he was not too busy, but her place at the hacienda of the Ortigas was set and firm, she was an outsider and she never felt more so than when the beautiful women that Ramon knew came to stay. Then, she saw nothing of him, and any intrusion on her part was deeply frowned upon by her handsome stepbrother. At these times, she longed for the holidays to end but shed many bitter tears when they did, always in secret, always in complete control of herself when Ramon drove her back to the airstrip.
The Christmas holiday when she had been sixteen and a half stood out miserably in her mind. The house had been full of guests, the Ortigas of course in full force, all of them ignoring her wi
th the exception of one distant cousin of Ramon whose attentions were an embarrassment, especially as it drew Ramon's disapproving eyes in her direction. He only seemed to notice her when Ricard Ortiga was there, and then he glared at her with a message that told her so obviously that she was stepping out of her place even to think of encouraging such attention.
She had wandered out into the courtyard and across to the stables and from there, drawn by the music coming from the quarters of the llaneros, she had lingered to watch them celebrating the fiesta in their own way, her own miseries partly forgotten as she watched them dance and listened to the guitars until she forgot the length of time she had been there.
Ramon's harsh voice had reminded her, his hand on her arm strong and impelling.
"What are you doing here?" he had demanded to know as he came behind her, swinging her round to face his hard and angry eyes.
"I—I'm watching the llaneros," she stammered, wildly searching in her mind as to any crime she might have committed without knowing it. "I love to see them dance the joropo and see them all dressed up like this in white."
"They are not on display for the curious!" he bit out harshly. "This is a holiday for them and God knows they get few days out of the saddle. They can well do without any interested bystanders. Leave them alone! If you are seeking admiring male attention then you will have to make do with Ricard!"
He had been forcibly leading her away as he spoke and now she stopped, gazing up at him with shocked and hurt surprise, tears beginning to well up inside at his cruel tones and his unjust accusations. Many times before she had watched the men dancing, even joining in as their womenfolk had shown her the steps. They were her friends in their quiet and polite way and she understood their hard but kindly faces, knew the harsh life they lived. He had never objected before and she could not understand this sudden and violent attack.
The Ortiga Marriage Page 4