'An inventory of what, I wonder? A good friend, a companion—or something more?' He raised one eyebrow as if expecting her to supply the answer, but he had lost her.
'I'm afraid I don't know where this line is leading --'
'I shall tell you if you really don't know --' again he paused '—and you say you don't?'
Chrissy held her breath for what was coming next.
He said, 'I want to be your lover—I would ask you to be my mistress if it weren't such a quaint word summoning up pictures of schoolteachers or house-maids or scandal.'
She realised he was serious. And that he had gone on talking, making it into a sort of casual remark because he was actually nervous. But he was serious about what he wanted of her. There could be no doubt of that.
Damn his nervousness, she thought as a shoot of anger like a red-hot flame flared along her spine. For the second time provoked beyond reason by something he had said, she raised her hand to strike him. This time, though, she managed to stop herself. Instead she rose to her feet. There was nothing to say that didn't sound melodramatic. But then, they were in a melodramatic situation. It was after all a land given to drama—everything was bigger and grander and more highly coloured than in monochrome old England. The people were more vivid, the plants, the animals, the insects, the flowers—and the passions. She herself had never felt so vibrantly alive.
'Senhor, you insult me!' she managed to hiss before she realised she was wrongly dressed for a big operatic scene. With a more natural exclamation of rage she turned and briskly left his presence.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chrissy was trembling by the time she realised she was lost in the network of rooms she had stumbled into, but Rodrigo reached her before she could find a way out. The walls were full of paintings in gold frames in a dark Spanish style, horsemen and soldiers and men in black robes whom she took to be his ancestors, and there was an impression of polished leather, dark oak, ormolu and high empty mirrors with diaphanous curtains blowing in the late afternoon breeze.
His expression sombre, he approached down the echoing gallery with his hands out as if expecting her to try to run past him.
'How insult you?' His eyes spoke shock as he reached her side. 'It was intended as a compliment. The most I can do.' His voice was shaking. 'Hasn't it been clear that I will do for you whatever you wish?'
'How can you say that,' she burst out, 'when you've tried to thwart me at every turn and now, just when I was beginning to think you were being --' she couldn't think of a word adequately combining every confusing thing she felt so she said '—when I thought you were all right you say a thing like that and show that everything was designed just to seduce me --?'
'Just to?' His expression of shock deepened. 'Is it not important? To be seduced, made love to, honoured by a man who is passionate about you?'
'Passionate? The only passion has been dislike and anger. You even told me you didn't like me!'
'Like? What is that? Like, dislike? We are different. We love. We hate. Yes? You're not lukewarm in your emotions, Chrissy, I've seen that now. That is what I adore about you --'
'But you shouldn't be saying this sort of thing to me --' she cut in.
'Why ever not? It is the truth. Don't you believe me?' The strength of his emotions made his accent more pronounced, as if his voice was the first thing over which he lost control. It made him sound even more attractive, if that were possible, and Chrissy wanted to lean weakly in his arms. With a superhuman effort she checked the urge and stood ramrod straight in front of him, waiting for an opportunity to escape.
'In this country,' he was saying, blocking her exit, 'it is different maybe from yours?'
She couldn't help giving a faint smile.
He grimaced. 'OK, I think you too are sometimes very strange, difficult. Infuriating even. And you think the same of me. But I don't dislike you. Nor did I dislike you when I used that word. I was afraid, Chrissy, don't you understand? I was afraid of where my desire for you was leading me.' He paused. 'I am Garcia Montada— and I was afraid!' He gave an amazed laugh, inviting her to share his astonishment, but all she could feel was guilt—guilt that she should arouse feelings of desire in the heart of a married man, feelings that he—a man with the sense of honour of Garcia Montada—could not control.
He was gazing at her now as if willing her to share his emotions and his voice dropped to a husky, more intimate note. 'I think,' he stated baldly, 'I am obsessed by you.'
He moved closer. Chrissy felt she was going to fall. She swayed slightly but gripped on to her self-control with both hands. Why was he saying this to her? Did he really believe she would become his mistress? It was cruel—it was the most cruel invitation she could ever imagine being offered—her own feelings were in turmoil and she had to snatch her glance away before his will invaded her feeble defences.
He said, 'I put my helicopter at your complete disposal. I wouldn't do that for anyone else. I did it because I want to give you the world. I thought that would be satisfaction enough!'
He ran a hand through his thick mane as if impatient with himself for being unable to explain so she could understand. 'Don't you know,' he went on, 'if that fellow hadn't fallen from a tree giving me the perfect opportunity to bring you back here I would probably have had to push him?' His mouth curved for a moment then his tone roughened.
'I left, telling you I would not return. That was my firm intention. It seemed best to end it there before it got out of control. But I spent an entire night sitting with a drink in my hand beside the pool, thinking, thinking... thinking only of you. I guess I must have willed that fellow out of the tree!'
She smiled. She couldn't tell whether what he was saying was true or not. Probably not, she judged—he was too tough to wear his heart on his sleeve like this. Yet there was something unexpectedly vulnerable in his expression—something that tugged at her heart-strings, for he seemed astonished by what he was telling her, as if he couldn't believe it was happening to him. As if he had never expected to love a woman like this. At least, if he really did love her.
She frowned. That wasn't a word he had actually used, was it? He said he was obsessed by her. He wanted her. No. Love was not a word he had used. She bit her lip. Instead of making things clearer he had confused her even more. She was almost swayed by him. He was so convincing. And she longed to believe he felt the same way she did. Yet there was one thing saving her from giving way. It was clear. He was married, and she didn't intend to let the situation go any further than it already had done.
He put out a hand. 'Now come on,' he coaxed, 'let's at least talk it over.'
'But how can I talk over such an outrageous suggestion?' she protested, rallying all her reserves to resist him. 'Probably before I know it you'll have persuaded me it's a good idea!'
He was already taking hold of both her hands.
'Please don't touch me, Rod—I don't want you to.' She drew back with a nervous little shake of her head.
'Ah, so that is what you call me in your dreams!' His fingertips played over her bare arms.
'I don't call you anything in my dreams!' she bluffed. 'How vain to imagine it!' Her knees were trembling. If only he wouldn't touch her like that. Look at her like that. Say such things to her.
'I wish you would share my dreams at night,' his voice vibrated. 'Often I can't sleep and when I do finally drift away it's like heaven, because there I find you—waiting for me.'
'Not so wonderful for your wife --' she managed to blurt.
'Wife?' He gave a shrug. 'A wife is something else. Now please,' he went on, composure fully restored, 'at least come back and finish your drink. You are here for some days, if not weeks, so you may as well learn to talk to me without jumping up every time I say something that surprises you. And you must agree it would have been wrong to hide how I feel about you?'
She couldn't answer.
He was sounding reasonable and in control again and had even removed his hands from around hers.
'I must go and get changed,' she said nervously. 'I would like to have my shirt and trousers laundered...'
'No problem. Give them to the maid. Juanita has found things for you to wear? We are quite informal, but perhaps that swim-suit is a little too sizzling if you wish to keep me at arm's length?' He turned her towards the door she had missed. 'This way. Let me show you.'
He's being a knight again, she registered, as he guided her back through the shadowy rooms to the foot of the marble stairs. Extracting a promise to come down soon so he could show her around the gardens, he left her and, safe in her room, she pulled on a plain black cotton dress with a high round collar and an unfortunate plunging back which she tried to hide beneath a silk shawl. The other garments were even more provocative and she wondered what sort of lifestyle led him to have a supply of new and expensive designer clothes on supply for his female guests.
She also wondered why Juanita was leaving him to entertain her by himself, but she realised she could delay no longer, so, determined to keep him at arm's length, she went down to find him.
He had already changed into a black shirt and a pair of plain black trousers and when he saw she was in black too he began to laugh. 'Perhaps we are not so far apart as we think, caro?' He cupped her chin in one hand before she could step back. Then she found it too pleasurable to prevent, and when he kissed her lightly on the end of her nose she realised that her good intentions were not enough.
'Rod, you know you shouldn't touch me like this --' she blurted as they walked out through the double doors at the front of the house.
'Would you like me to keep my distance so?' He moved about two yards away. 'Safe?'
She nodded. 'Just about.'
'At least you're not telling me I don't have any effect on you. That is a beginning, no?'
'And an ending too,' she told him across the intervening space. 'It can't go any further than this. It really can't.'
'There is someone else?' He came closer. 'This Gavin you've taken over from. Is it he? He is something special to you?' His eyebrows had gone up in astonishment.
Chrissy bit her lip. It might help if he thought her heart belonged to someone else, but she couldn't tell a deliberate lie. Her silence was enough, though, to make him jump to the wrong conclusion.
His light-hearted mood changed. 'You should have told me sooner. I'm a jealous man and I won't let you waste your life with a man like that --'
'But you hardly know him,' she was forced to protest. 'How can you say a thing like that about a man you don't know?'
'What is he? A botanist. Does he earn, what, how much?'
'That's nothing to do with it.'
'Aren't you trying to say you're thinking of marrying him?'
She shook her head. 'I've told you what I feel about marriage. I want to be established in my career first.'
'Ah yes, and then you throw yourself away on this nobody?'
'No, not necessarily—look, I'm not going to marry him!'
'Not marriage, so he is just someone you pass the time with?'
'No!' Even that wasn't true. She had only met poor Gavin once!
'So what is he? Not your fiancé, not your compadre... and that leaves only one thing—your lover. Is that it, Chrissy?'
'No, of course not! You've got this all wrong.'
His face was haggard and she had never seen him look so cold. She put out a hand but he dashed it away. 'No, I don't want compassion. Don't you recognise anger? Really, to think you would consider giving yourself to a man like that—a man with—really, Chrissy. This cannot be true.' He turned away.
'Rod, honestly, you really don't understand.'
'I don't?' He gave her a sardonic smile. 'It's more difficult than this? What a labyrinthine love-life you must have.' He walked on briskly, calling over his shoulder. 'Come along.'
He took her towards the stable block. There were fifteen or so beautiful polo ponies, in quarters that shone with care, and she put up a hand to stroke what was evidently his favourite, a grey that whickered softly through its nostrils when they turned to go.
'And now the garden as I promised.' He led at a brisk pace so that she had to hurry to keep up. It was a very brief inspection of the terraces at the side of the house, where roses grew in profusion, but she got the feeling that he regretted offering to show her round and only wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. She knew he was angry at what he now believed, but it was hardly her fault he had jumped to conclusions, and anyway, he shouldn't even think of her like this. It was all wrong.
His aloof manner lasted all through dinner. Luckily a couple of the farm managers had been invited and while Rod addressed a few remarks to them Juanita's constant chatter covered any awkwardness.
Next day Chrissy was flown out in the helicopter to pick up her things from the lab and when she came back one of the maids came to tell her that a room in the office apartment beside the pool had been arranged as a study for her. It couldn't have been more idyllic.
She set her things out on the wide desk beside the open windows and raised the blinds so she could look out. Sun slanted through the row of royal palms at the far end, casting rippling shadows over the empty water. Over on the other side someone was already bringing out a drinks trolley and flares were being prepared for when it got dark. The small fountain, invisible in an inner courtyard, was audible now in the quiet of evening. She gave a sigh of pleasure.
The only dark cloud was Rod. Today she had seen him once when he came out to the helicopter with her— no doubt checking that she wasn't going to hijack it and fly back to the city! she thought. But he had hardly spoken to her. Indeed, he had hardly even looked at her. It seemed if she wasn't going to play his game he didn't want to have anything to do with her. He was behaving like a small boy deprived of a toy. He had probably always had things his own way. It was a major flaw in his character and she told herself that if she kept on remembering it she would soon get over her hopeless physical longing for him, for mere attraction soon palled without anything deeper to strengthen it and make it grow.
The days unfolded predictably. She worked every morning and evening in her study and spent many an agreeable and leisurely lunchtime with the girls who worked in the office next door. Juanita was around for a day or two then came to say goodbye before disappearing in the helicopter.
'Gone to her house on the coast,' one of the girls told Chrissy. She wasn't mentioned after that.
Rod seemed to have retreated into a tower of silence. She saw him, dressed in white jodhpurs and a black T-shirt, wearing shiny black leather boots and a hard hat, exercising the horses in the paddock; or, in a drill shirt and army-style gear, leaving the hacienda in a Jeep to visit the plantations; or deep in conversation with his managers in the casual clothes he had worn on their first night here. His bronzed good looks haunted her but he was always moving away in the distance, always busy, always with his attention elsewhere.
He hadn't repeated his invitation to take her out to the plantation with him. She had gleaned the fact that the hacienda started as a rubber plantation several hundred years ago, but that now it was a major supplier of fruit and coffee. She gathered that there were other interests—schools, a hospital—the one where she could visit the luckless Lars as it turned out—and a bank—a network of interests that had grown up alongside the expansion of the fruit business just as a small village had grown up alongside the hacienda in order to supply its needs. There was a butcher, a baker, a cheerful little book store and even a hairdresser, as Chrissy discovered one day when she happened to mention that her hair needed a trim.
One of the girls took her down later that afternoon. It was the first time she had walked further than the grounds of the house since arriving here. Everyone they met on the road gave them a cheerful greeting and when they came to the infants' school a crowd of dark-haired tots ran across the playground to meet them. Chrissy's companion, Anna, lifted one of the children high in the air then hugged him to her.
'This is my own precious one.' She smiled when she deposited him back in the midst of his friends. 'I thank the Garcia Montadas every day of my life for what they have done for me and my family. Things are not so wonderful elsewhere in the world.'
'It's a model village,' agreed Chrissy. 'There's everything you could need.' They chatted to the baker, tasted cheeses at another shop, admired the flower display in the little church and finally reached the hairdresser's.
'You're completely self-sufficient,' she went on. 'No need to bother with the outside world at all.'
'It would be narrow, no, living like that? I like to visit the city maybe twice a year to go to the cafes and the cinema and the dance-halls. See new faces! El Senhor spends much time in the city. Maybe you go with him?' She gave Chrissy a quizzical glance.
'I'm here to work, not go gadding about sightseeing!' laughed Chrissy. In her heart she knew she wouldn't even get the chance—flying around in the helicopter with Rod might have been heaven in other circumstances, but as things stood it was the last thing that would happen, and the last thing she wanted!
When they returned to the house her hair had been not only expertly trimmed but piled up in a sophisticated arrangement that was a mass of artlessly falling tendrils—she only wished she had somewhere special to go to show it off! But there was work to be done again after dinner. She thanked Anna and made her way up to her rooms.
A dark shape was just coming out of one of the shadowy inner salons, but she knew who it was from his bearing before she saw him fully. That he hadn't known she was going to be there was evident from the way he jerked to a halt then carried on walking as if too busy to stop. Chrissy's heart turned over. Despite her still smouldering anger with him she couldn't bear for things to have descended to this level of animosity again.
She called out to him.
He had reached the outer door by now and turned with his hand on it. 'I'm in rather a hurry, Chrissy, will it wait?'
'Are you really too busy to --' She broke off, not wanting to reopen things but pushed to say something, if only to express her gratitude for his undoubted generosity.
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