She brushed aside Rosita and went to her room, her legs hardly able to carry her. Manuel was out for the day, another visit with Arturo Morales, his notebooks under his arm as he had driven off in Senor Morales' car. He would not be in until nightfall and there was nothing of comfort that she could have got from her brother in any case, she would never tell him this.
She thought of telephoning her father, of making a great attempt to find out where Ramon was, and finally she rang one of the mines.
"Senor Ortiga is at the other house, senorita. I can get a message to him. Who shall I say is calling?" The quiet voice came from far off but Meriel was silent, unwilling to disclose her identity to anyone, ashamed that she seemed to be unexpectedly checking up on Ramon. It had not been her intention.
"The other house?" She had heard of it though she had never seen it. It was smaller, less grand than this but one of the Ortiga homes that was rarely used. "Can you give me the number?"
"I regret, senorita, that I cannot. Senor Ortiga left strict instructions that no one was to be given the number of the telephone at this house. It has been only recently connected and he wishes it to remain unknown. Perhaps Senorita Sandoval has this authority. I can give you her number although I fear she will not be at her own home. I myself saw her go to the house with Senor Ortiga early this morning."
"Thank you." How stupid, her mind said, how bizarre to thank someone who has just shattered your life. She sat by the telephone for a second and then went back to her room, their room, the room she shared so happily with Ramon, the room where he held her close in the darkness and overwhelmed her with his passion. She was too spent for tears.
It was much later that she got up and began to pack her cases, taking only two, all she felt was necessary, and all the plane would be likely to hold with her other bits and pieces. The clothes she had bought here were left, she never wanted to see them again.
Luck was with her too. From the window she saw Luis Silva and went out to him.
"I'm flying to Caracas in about two hours, Luis. Please get the car ready and then fly me there." She used all her new authority, her face perfectly cool.
"Si, Senora Ortiga." His dark eyes scanned her face swiftly and he looked away again with the same speed. "I have first an errand that must be done, it may be that it will be a little more than two hours before I can get back but I will then be here with the car and we will be off at once. I hope that this is satisfactory."
"Very well, Luis, but hurry."
He nodded and went on his way and she waited in a fever of anxiety. She knew that Ramon would have left him with jobs to do. Nobody here sat around idle. Also he would not have dared to disobey Ramon and take her off the rancho leaving his tasks uncompleted. She would have to wait, she only hoped that she would be away before Manolito came back. She could not tell him of Ramon's betrayal, he was only a child, and she could not stay and face Ramon, not now that she knew.
She was still pacing the floor when she heard the car and she was completely ready, her cream silk trouser suit a good outfit to travel to Caracas and then to England, her deep blue blouse unwittingly showing up the pallor of her face. There was only the jacket to put on and she could get Luis to fetch her things. She turned from the bed where it had been waiting and faced the door, a gasp of alarm and shock leaving her at the sight of Ramon, dark and furious, his frame filling the doorway, barring her passage. Her hand went to her stomach in an unconsciously protective gesture that she had picked up as a little habit since she had realised that she carried Ramon's child inside her. As yet there seemed to be nothing to protect but the habit had grown and she was now afraid at the rage in those burning dark eyes.
"So!" he hissed angrily, his eyes going from her to her luggage and back again." You have had your fill of the llanos! You are once again hearing the call of England, your father and the full life you lived there!" He locked the door, his eyes never leaving hers as he turned the key, and fear threatened to choke her at such fury that raged across his normally impassive face. "Luis betrayed me!" Stupidly it was all she could gasp out and it served only to heighten his fury. "Si', he is as afraid to die as the next man. He has flown to the mine to bring me home. He knows better than to assist you in any flight. It would have been his last flight, he would have had wings of his own and well he knows it!" 'I won't stay here!" Her cry might be filled with panic but she was adamant. She could not stay here to be destroyed. Even now with fury on his face, her heart turned over at the sight of him, a sickness deep inside her that he felt nothing but passion, no spark of the love that she felt, not even it seemed a lingering affection now that she had defied him.
"The English rose is withering on the wild plains of Venezuela?" he queried bitterly. "You have realised then your mistake in committing yourself to me and to this land? The idea of the floods, the storms, the isolation does not really appeal to you now that you have been left alone to think deeply? It comes to my mind that after our honeymoon you wished to live in a hut in order to be with me. How short-lived has been your commitment."
She could not answer, could not bring herself to say the things that needed to be said. She loved him too much to see the proud face reduced to embarrassment by her accusations, and dreaded the alternative that he would tell her coldly that it was true and that she would have to live with the reality of it forever.
"You imagine that I will let you go?" he asked with a menacing quiet. "Once you could have escaped me but not now, not ever. I have held you in my arms, owned you, felt your body beneath mine and I will feel it again even though you hate me."
She backed away from him as he advanced, fear written across her face, her hand again going in the protective gesture to her still flat stomach. He stopped dead as if an invisible barrier had been thrown up between them, his own face suddenly pale and stricken.
"You are pregnant!" It wasn't a question. His eyes skimmed over her, resting on her hand that stayed flat and trembling against her body. "You are carrying my child and you were prepared to flee from me and take the child with you!"
He pounced on her and grasped her shoulders, dragging her to him and staring into her wide and frightened eyes. She could see so many things in those eyes, rage, astonishment and oddly enough a pain that almost matched her own.
"You were prepared to fight me for possession of a child we made together?" he whispered harshly. "You wish to see history repeat itself, another lonely and unhappy child torn between two ways of life, two worlds?"
"No!" She tore herself away, turning her back to him, tears beginning to well up into her eyes. She had given no thought to that aspect of the affair. She could not stand up as her mother had done and face Ramon as Inez had faced her father, coldly and logically fighting for a bewildered child, and he would fight, she had no doubt, but she could not let this part of him that she had go. It was all she would ever have.
"I—I won't ever do that," she whispered brokenly. "You're not like my father and I'm not like Inez. Somehow, we'll work it all out later. I won't deprive you of the baby."
"You will not get the chance," he murmured bitterly. "I will not let you go. It is you that I want and though I never touch you again I will have you where I can see you for the rest of my life. When I made you mine it was permanent, forever, even before our marriage vows. I have not changed my mind!"
"I shall go, Ramon," she said dully. "You can't hold me here against my will and I think you know that perfectly well."
She walked away from him to the high French windows, looking out at the sky, the distant mountains and the heavy thunder clouds that gathered like the black weight in her heart. "Oh! If only it could have been different! If only it could have been real! I've trusted you all my life, believed every word you uttered, relied on your honesty and now…'
"In what am I dishonest?" he said with tightly controlled anger, his voice just behind her although she had never heard him move.
"I—I have no desire to embarrass you, Ramon, and you can s
urely understand that I don't wish to hear you confirm what I already know."
"Embarrass me!" he invited harshly. "Embarrassment will be an entirely new experience."
"Please, Ramon! I know about Consuelo! Don't play games with me!"
She turned tear-filled eyes on him and he drew back and rested against the dressing-table, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes as shuttered as they had ever been.
"How do you know about Consuelo? She is miles away!"
So he was confirming it. Her last hopes died.
"Your aunt came today. She told me—she told me that Consuelo can never have children. She—she told me that an heir was needed and that I was the sacrifice because— because you wanted me in any case." Her eyes fell and she stared unseeing at the deep carpet knowing that she could not go on for much longer. The strain had been too much. Nausea was beginning to well up inside her and her skin felt clammy and cold. "I rang to tell you, hoping it wasn't true, but you were at the house, the other house. You were there with Consuelo!"
She turned and raced to the bathroom slamming the door, her whole body racked with the bitter sickness of pregnancy, tension and grief. For a few minutes she stood on the point of fainting, blackness washing over her, receding and then returning as she clutched tightly to the edge of the mirror.
Then Ramon was there, wiping her face with a cool cloth, forcing a little water between her trembling lips and lifting her gently into his arms. She was too spent to struggle and he also was white as a sheet.
He sat in an armchair, settling her on his lap, her head lifeless against his shoulder, and it was comfort, security, happiness, but she struggled weakly to be free. This was not now for her and she did not want his tender affection.
"Stay with me," he begged, his voice uneven. "Let us face this nightmare together." His arms tightened around her. "At this moment I could destroy the whole Ortiga clan but they can wait. Now there is you and I. There is also the truth."
"I don't want to hear the truth!" She struggled up, her hand again on her stomach, clinging to what was real like a charm to ward off evil, and he subdued her easily with no harshness whatever, his eyes following the movement of her hand, making her flush and snatch her hand away.
"This is the—heir you were sacrificed to produce?" he asked quietly. "I should perhaps remind you that there is already an heir, your beloved Manolito. My father had foreseen the possibility of any difficulties and I would say without doubt that your mother was the sacrifice, because I can tell you without any question that although she was a decorative companion he never ceased to love my own mother. When she died he turned to stone, the inheritance and its security his only reason for living. Inez, it appeared, was perfectly willing to be the sacrifice in order to have wealth and ease. A sacrifice of that nature was never required of you. You were required to sacrifice something very different: your country, your father, your own way of life." His hand came to take the place of hers, flat and warm on her stomach, possessive and gentle with a touch that sent flames through her whole being. "This is not an—heir, Meriel. This is a baby, our child, and there is only one reason why it is there." He looked into the wide grey eyes as he had looked since she was a child, his gaze roaming across her tear-starred lashes, her wet cheeks, her trembling mouth. "I love you," he said softly. "I have never dared to say it before, never felt that I had the right to place such a burden on you, but now it must be said and you must choose your own sacrifice whether to stay with me or go away knowing how I feel."
For a second she closed her eyes, unable to take any more emotion, unwilling to believe the evidence of her own ears, but when she opened them he was leaning over her, his face tender and wistful, his eyes burning into hers.
"Ramon!" She shook her head, unable to grasp the happiness that had been so quietly handed to her, and she saw his smile, long and slow as his hand moved warmly and gently over the place that she instinctively protected.
"I love you, my sweet and adorable Meriel," he whispered. "My clever little wife, the reason for my days, the joy of my nights. If you leave me then it must be with the knowledge of this and with the knowledge that were I to live for ever there would be nobody else in my heart, no other woman at the hacienda of the Ortigas, no other wife for me, and I would be like the rocks that rise from the plains, cold and hard, lonely and silent, with just memories to keep me alive."
CHAPTER TEN
FOR a second only Meriel met Ramon's eyes, seeing the wistful longing there, the great love he had never allowed her to see, and then she wound her arms tightly around his neck, holding on until he gasped and laughed shakily, his arms closing round her like a fortress of warmth.
"I love you, Ramon!" she cried, tears, laughter and happiness mixed up on her face as he took her hand gently in his hands and looked down at her.
"I know," he smiled, his voice deep and gentle. "I know that you love me. I have known since you were little more than sixteen. I saw awe and admiration turn to something much more tangible, much more durable. It came into my mind to keep you here when you were seventeen and describing to me the way you had mapped out your future in England." He laughed at her surprise and shook her head gently. "At that moment I developed an intense dislike for all things Anglo-Saxon," he confessed wryly. "When you did not come at Christmas I had to use every ounce of self-discipline not to get on to a plane and fetch you here by your long yellow hair. When you did come," he added softly, "I lost my head in a few moments in the moonlight."
"Why did you send me away?" she whispered, her hand stroking his face as he gathered her against him tenderly.
"You were too young," he stated simply. "You were warm, alive, willing and the greatest temptation of my life, but inside, you were afraid. I knew you as I know myself and I knew that I would have to let you go, hoping that the love would grow and not fade into a dream and die. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do."
"I thought you were in love with Consuelo," she confessed against his shoulder, and felt his silent laughter, but his voice was tinged with a remembered bitterness when he answered.
"I know. I realised that I was hurting you, but in this I thought I would save you from a greater and more, permanent hurt." He paused for a moment and her heart gave a frightening lurch. She knew that the moment had come when she would learn about Consuelo and she had not yet fully grasped her new-found happiness sufficiently for any hurts to slide easily away.
"By the time that you were eighteen," he said quietly, "I knew Consuelo very well. For a whole year I did not see you and I fought against a desire that was in many ways unacceptable to me. I could not make the adjustment from one kind of love to another. Duty has always been strong in me and I had seen you as a duty, one who needed my protection as Manuel needed it. Consuelo and I saw a great deal of each other. She is closer to my own age, easy to get on with, and she is very charming," he sighed and held her close," but it was of very little use. Your face was always before me and I could not learn to love anyone else. She was a good friend, though, and we were never lovers."
She lifted grey eyes to meet the burning darkness of his and saw, as she had always seen, only the truth written there. Whatever he had to tell her mattered not at all now, he loved her and nothing else mattered.
"Did she know about—about me?" Meriel ventured softly.
"Everything about you," he confessed with a laugh. "She was the only one that I could tell, and I wanted to speak about you even if only to hear your name spoken. She, too, needed a friend and I am glad that I have been able to be that."
"Why were you with her at that house?" She sat up and looked at him, seeing the rueful twist of his perfect lips as he answered.
"An act of kindness that almost lost me the one who is everything in my life," he answered. "Consuelo is also in love, has been in love for years. The man is not, however, of a wealthy family, and her father is, as you have no doubt seen, a man who gives not one inch when his own interests are at stake. The man was the
manager at the Sandoval mine. He is the best mining engineer in Venezuela, we would all have paid him anything to have him in our employ but he would not move, because of Conseulo. Only there at the Sandoval mine did he have any chance of seeing her at all.
"Soon after you returned to me, he declared his love and the matter was put to Senor Sandoval. The action he took was typical of him; he fired his manager and forbade Consuelo to see him again. The night before our wedding his deeds rebounded on him, he had a strike on his hands and he came to my study to beg me to help. While I have been away this week, I have helped, I have persuaded the men back to work and they were willing as soon as they knew the fate of their greatly respected manager."
"What happened to him? What is Consuelo going to do?" Now that she knew everything, Meriel's instincts were to assist Consuelo. In this day and age it seemed monstrous that anyone could cause another such unhappiness because of wealth.
"She is going to marry him, my love," Ramon said softly, "and you," he added, tilting her chin, "are to attend her; she especially wishes it."
"Oh! I'm so glad!" Meriel suddenly laughed and looked at him with devilment. "That's one in the eye for your aunt!"
"I will deal with Dona Barbara," he said darkly. "First we will settle our differences, then we will get Consuelo married and then—Tia Barbara!"
"What will they do, though?" Meriel asked worriedly. "I mean with no job, no home…'
"Did I not tell you that he was the best mining engineer in Venezuela?" Ramon said with a grin." He is working for us, love of my life. If Senor Sandoval can see his way to reason and bless the marriage then perhaps we will allow him to borrow our manager from time to time if he runs into any trouble. As to a home, I have given them the other Ortiga house; that is why I was there with Consuelo. You are not jealous of that, or worried?"
The Ortiga Marriage Page 17