She turned wide grey eyes on him and he smiled at her quick flush of shyness.
"You wanted me to come for you?" he asked softly, laughing quietly at her quick action to hide behind lowered lashes. "It is idiotic, is it not?" he said, "two people in the same house, both with the same hunger and the strings of the past holding them apart. Had you not been who you are, I would have come in the night and taken you to the warmth of my bed." He shrugged ruefully at her quick glance of surprise, his hands sliding into her hair and raising her face to his. "The other night," he said softly, "was not the same. It was unpremeditated and unavoidable, like an instant fire, but now I must wait for you. This wedding had better be very soon, though," he sighed, pulling her into his arms and resting his head against her hair.
He would never know how happy those few words made her feel and she waited now with a glowing face for the day of her wedding. Ramon was still obsessed with his need to protect her, even from himself, and she had no doubt that this would go when he realised that she was his wife, his to hold and keep for ever.
Her father arrived the day before to stay in one of the many luxurious rooms that the hacienda possessed, and her heart-beats steadied back to normal when it became clear that Ramon had accepted him, a little stiffly perhaps but none the less with kindness and courtesy, more kindness than she felt towards the other guests who began to arrive, relatives she had dreaded seeing for more years than she cared to remember. Not the least of these, by any means, were Dona Barbara and Carmen, both stiffly polite, kissing her cheeks like ice maidens and thereafter ignoring her. Consuelo Sandoval too was a guest, arriving with her father, a tall, dark man with cold eyes and an autocratic bearing that spoke of wealth and power and a steely determination to have his own way.
Her father noted them with his usual amusement and commented when they were all in the sala after dinner that night, so many guests around them that finding a corner to talk quietly was difficult.
"From earlier descriptions," he murmured in her ear, "I take it that the stiffly upright dragon of an old lady is the dreaded Aunt Barbara, her escort Carmen?"
"True," she sighed, her eyes on them as they collared a none-too-pleased Ramon. "They're now about to try and tell Ramon how he should do things."
"Poor foolish souls!" her father laughed. "He's like a rock-face, he even looks capable of crushing them too. I bet he only has to use a few words to get them off his back."
He actually laughed outright when the expected happened and Tia Barbara stalked away with an outraged Carmen beside her. Ramon chose that moment to look across at them, his frown not lifting as he saw Meriel, her father's arm around her, both of them laughing happily. It took a great deal of effort to keep the smile on her face as he began to make his way towards them purposefully and towered over them, his face moody and tight.
"Come and walk with me on the terrace," he said in little less than an outright order. "I'm sure that your father will survive for a few minutes, in fact I can see Manuel making his way determinedly over here and no doubt he is anxious to recapture your father."
It was true, Manolito had taken a great liking to her father and stayed resolutely beside him whenever he had the chance. So she nodded and went out to the terrace, having little alternative anyway with his hand clasping her possessively.
"He is younger than I expected," Ramon said as they stepped off the veranda and walked into the gardens. "He is fair too; I am beginning to gain the impression that all the men in your life are fair!"
"They come in all shapes, sizes and colours," Meriel quipped, more to escape from the tight feeling that restricted her throat than to make amusing comments. He swung her round and into his arms with frightening speed, his hands cupping her startled face immediately.
"They'd better not come at all!" he bit out, watching her for an angry second before suddenly laughing softly. "You can get under my skin with one little comment, do you know that? I am dying of frustration, irritated by the crowds of people who are separating me from you and on guard constantly in case your father decides suddenly to take you and make a run for it."
"He approves of the match," she said, her breath uneven as she looked up at him. "He knows I want to marry you and he wants me to be happy. He's not a selfish man."
"And I am?" he asked quietly, his hands beginning to trace her face, his body moving closer in the warm night air.
"I never said that and I didn't think it," she muttered, looking away from the gleam of his eyes. "I was making a point about my father."
He said nothing, simply continuing to caress her face with a trembling kind of touch that spoke of his hunger for her, his body hardening and adjusting to hers when she swayed forward and leaned against him.
"Ramon?" She looked up into his dark eyes, almost afraid by what she saw there and his lips brushed hers, moving back and forth in a teasing and exciting demand.
"Sleep with me tonight," he murmured against her mouth. "You're an obsession! I can't take my eyes from you. I can't sleep or eat. I've got years of desire to satisfy, years of watching you and imagining how you would be in my arms."
"You didn't!" she gasped against his open mouth as he waited to devour her.
"I did! I wanted you until I almost hated you. Certainly I hated myself. Only the knowledge that one day I would take you kept me sane, that and the duty I owed you, but it was a very thin line that we walked, my little witch."
The waiting lips swooped to claim hers, this time savagely, demandingly, his mouth smothering her cry as he tightened her to him in a crushing embrace that was all desire and no affection at all. She was a woman he craved and the depths of his craving were all too apparent.
"Now!" he muttered harshly, swinging her up into his arms as if she were merely feather-light. "We will go in through the back door, there are so many guests here that no one will even notice our absence."
"No! Ramon!" She plucked frantically at his shoulders and he stopped, looking down at her, his eyes glazed with desire.
"You want me!" he said harshly! "I can feel it running inside you like the river at flood-time."
"I do—do want you, but not like this," she whispered, pleading with him. It was not necessary however to plead, and what his response would have been she did not know because another voice called to him from the shadows, the soft, throaty voice of Consuelo Sandoval, and he stiffened with annoyance and frustration, setting Meriel down on trembling legs that threatened to allow her to fall, his arm still painfully tight around her.
"Ramon, my father wishes to have a quiet word with you." She faltered when she saw who was with him, noticing Meriel's wildly flushed face and the tight restraint on Ramon's. "I—I'm sorry. I—I didn't know that… I thought you were alone."
"Alone!" His bark of laughter was bitter and rather cruel. "That is an impossibility, I think, tonight. However, I will speak to your father," though how our words can be quiet words is beyond me!"
He left them both, striding off into the house without a backward glance and Conseulo moved towards Meriel, her face embarrassed.
"I'm sorry, Meriel," she said softly, clearly meaning it. "I should have known better than to come out but my father can be very angry when he chooses."
"Don't worry.", Meriel had regained some measure of composure. "I know all about very angry, Ramon is not short of a temper himself."
"I know." Consuela looked after Ramon with dark, veiled eyes. "I have known him for a long time, as you will remember. Passion like his can be wildly consuming."
She said nothing else and they returned to the house together but a little part of Meriel had suddenly frozen to ice. Did Consuelo know Ramon so well that she too had felt his passion? If that were to be taken away from her there would be nothing left but the past. She was more frightened than she had ever been before.
The wedding was early and Meriel did not come out of her room that morning at all until the time for the ceremony. Rosita herself had served her breakfast in bed although she
had been too tight inside to eat much of it. She had seen nothing of Ramon before bedtime last night and he had simply gone to his room and left her in hers. He had been in the study with Senor Sandoval for the rest of the evening and she had been glad of the soothing company of her father and Manolito who hung around until late, consuming every word that her father uttered until the whole thing became laughable.
She took one final look at herself in the mirror, her face faintly flushed with anxiety, her grey eyes large and clear but a faint fear in their depths. The beautiful dress was like a dream against her skin and the opal like a talisman hanging between her breasts. She had not allowed herself to think deeply about the words that had come without thought from Consuelo the night before but the tightening around her heart was a pain that would not go away.
Overnight, the house had been transformed. There were banks of flowers everywhere and she knew that the servants must have been up for most of the night to arrange the rooms for her wedding day. They were there too, lining the long passage way that led to the sala as Meriel walked beside her father, her hand on his arm, her fingers clenching and unclenching anxiously until he covered them with his own to calm her.
The doors at the end of the sala had been thrown open to add to the spaciousness and make the adjoining room available too but all she really saw, all she really remembered later, was Ramon, his face peculiarly still, his eyes too dark and deep to read as he watched her come towards him on this morning that would commit her to his life forever.
It passed in a dream, Meriel's world contracting to one man and the vows they both made, and only as they turned did the faces of the assembled guests take on any meaning. There was a strange kind of satisfaction on the face of Dona Barbara that puzzled her, but the face of Consuelo Sandoval was no puzzle at all. There were tears in her eyes that threatened to roll down her cheeks and shame her before everyone. Meriel wondered what self-destructive motive could have made her come to see Ramon married to another when she was so clearly in love with him herself. She glanced beneath her lashes at Ramon but he was not looking at Consuelo, he was looking at her, a smiling triumph in his eyes that lifted her heart.
There was a surprise in store for her too. When the meal was over and the toasts made, Ramon announced that he and his bride would be leaving within the hour.
"Leaving ?" Meriel looked up at him as he stood tall and handsome at her side.
"Si, leaving!" He smiled down at her and took her hand. "You did not imagine that we would be taking our honeymoon at the hacienda, I hope?"
"I didn't think that…'
"We are going to Mexico," he said softly, his eyes flashing over her startled face. "Many times you have expressed the wish to go there and this is a very good time to take you."
"Oh, Ramon!" Her face lit up with pleasure, all her worries cast aside, and he took her hand to his lips, smiling at her happiness, a great tenderness in him.
"I will always try to please you," he said softly. "I only want to be near you." Manuel was bursting with the news, almost bouncing with joy at their side.
"It was a secret, Merry," he informed her. "Only Ramon and I knew, but later of course we had to tell your father, Ramon and I picked out the hotel, we arranged the flight and everything!" He was bubbling with pride and Ramon gazed down at him with severity that was covering laughter.
"It is my wedding day," he said firmly. "You will have to stand back for a while."
"Carmen and I will stay to take care of Manuel!" Ramon's aunt announced in a voice that allowed for no argument, but Ramon turned to her with his charming smile that hid so much.
"Your kindness is so constant, Tia Barbara," he said quietly, "and of course I thought of asking you, but it is so isolated here and I decided that it was not reasonable to place you in such a situation. Meriel's father has agreed to stay, to take a week's holiday and keep an eye on Manuel. Senor Morales too has agreed to move into the house for a short time. He will be here every day to teach Manuel so it is more convenient that he stay here for the time being. With his presence and the presence of Senor Curtis, I think Manuel will be well supervised."
There was an audible gasp from Ramon's aunt before she managed to control her shock and chagrin, and Meriel caught her father's eye, seeing that he was having a great deal of difficulty in containing his ready laughter. Even Senor Morales had an unexpected twinkle in the depths of his normally sombre gaze.
"When did you arrange all this?" she whispered to her father when she had a minute to get him alone.
"Soon after I came," he said, dropping his voice to conspiratorial level. "Manuel asked me outright and I think Ramon was somewhat embarrassed by the sheer cheek of it, but oddly enough, quite pleased when I agreed. Senor Morales seems to be rather tickled by the events, I take it that he knows the aunt?"
"Don't we all?" Meriel whispered. "She'll not take this lying down."
"With your husband in charge, I really think she has no choice at all." The word husband rang oddly in Meriel's ears and she turned to look at Ramon to find his eyes intently on them both, a question deep in the gleam of them, his expression only lightening when she flushed and smiled shyly.
"I still cannot work out exactly what I am to you now, Meriel," Manuel commented later when they were almost about to change for their trip.
"I would think that the word "burden" would probably do," Ramon teased. "For a whole week she is rid of you. I can see relief written all over her face." Of course Manuel knew it was not true. He was happy as she had never seen him, and she knew that with her father there and the watchful and strict eyes of Arturo Morales upon him he would be quite safe. They left soon after to fly to Caracas and on to Mexico and Ramon did not seem disposed to release her hand for more than a few seconds throughout the journey. She was happy, safe, her wildest dreams a reality.
Even though it would not be the first time, her shyness overwhelmed her as the night drew near and they danced together in the ballroom of the hotel where they were staying. It was luxurious as everywhere that Ramon stayed was luxurious, and she was glad of the dresses she had bought.
He danced, as he did everything else, expertly, beautifully, and he was silent as only he could be. Her body followed his movements with an unthinking grace, his breath against her cheek, every movement he made adding to her desire to melt against him, her senses attuned to the aching that was raging inside him too.
"It's time to go to bed," he said abruptly, making a chill shiver over her.
"I-I want to—can't we dance a little longer?"
"Yes, if you want me to make love to you here in front of these nice, respectable people," he murmured derisively. He drew back and looked at her flushed face and then pulled her back against him. "It's not the same, is it? The first time was like being in an avalanche. I did warn you, if you remember."
"You—you mean that now it's—it's cold-blooded?"
His mouth quirked as he lifted his head back and looked into her anxious face.
"Naturally," he taunted. "With nothing surprising left and the need to be gentle gone it leaves only my— obsession."
"Ramon! I'm frightened—I…'
"Shut up," he said softly. "There's only one place that will cure your fright."
He swung her round, his arm tightly holding her as he led her from the floor to the lift. Safely inside, he did not touch her. He stood against the wall, watching her with a mounting amusement that brought swift colour under her skin as the lift rose rapidly to the suite of rooms at the top of the hotel. Even inside the comfort of the sitting-room, the lamplight soft and soothing, he still said nothing, and she walked to the great window to look out over the lights of the city, her heart-beats threatening to choke her. Her father had called him her husband and he was that in reality, but his silence, his power spoke only of Ramon, a dark handsome man who had ruled her life for so long, an almost alien being who had been her protection, her teacher, her tormentor for all the years she had been away from England. This
was no handsome stranger she had married, and there was so much past in their relationship that she was too frightened to respond in any way. He was not helping at all, his silence cruel and amused, laughing at her timidity as he had done for so many years.
She sensed him behind her and stiffened when his hands drew her back to him. There was no way now that she could lean against him and she could not imagine what mad yearning had led her to take the initiative after the storm.
He clearly expected nothing though, turning her in his arms and holding her close with a gentleness that was devoid of all passion, stroking her back in a soothing rhythm, finding the tense muscles beneath the heavy fall of her hair and massaging them with warm fingers.
Subtly, his silence was no longer one of amusement, it was sensuous, coaxing, his body closer and in harmony with hers, tightening against her as she began to move closer, taking its lead from her and accepting each movement she made.
He was ready when she slowly raised heavy-lidded eyes to his, a dazed look beginning to come over her pale face, but he made no move to claim her mouth. His hands traced the contours of her body, his lips brushed her face until she lowered her head as if it were heavy from sleep.
"Look at me," he whispered thickly. "Look at me and ask yourself what you see." She saw Ramon, a man she had loved in one way or another for most of her life, a man whose taut face was holding in a raging desire, whose dark eyes ate into her soul, and her breath was a little sob in her throat.
"Do you know that your shyness is a lure to me?" he asked, his breath harsh in his throat. "I am looking into the same eyes that I looked into so long ago when I wanted you like a mad fool. What do you fear, Meriel? Are you so lost in the past that you feel this is unreal, that I am merely someone who guards and protects you? I do not want that. We are equals or we are nothing and if we are nothing then my hunger for you is wrong, merely an animal instinct."
There was pain on his face that even outshone the desire and her arms lifted to hold him tightly, her body moving into his with a desperate urgency of its own.
The Ortiga Marriage Page 15