by Natalie Fox
‘How long will this last?’ she asked Maria when she brought her breakfast tray, using the covered walkway from the study.
‘Days,’ Maria told her. ‘Is good for the land but no good for the people. It bring trouble. The torment of the head. Already it start.’
Gemma laughed, taking the tray from her hands. ‘What do you mean?’
Maria waved her work worn hands in the air. ‘Trouble, always the trouble when the rains come. Señor de Navas, Felipe, Bianca, they all trouble this morning. I go and keep out of the way.’
When she’d gone Gemma took the tray to the couch by the easel and sat down to eat but had no appetite. She drank the coffee, though, realising what Maria meant by the torment of the head. Hers was beginning to thump in time to the incessant rain outside.
She stared at the nearly completed portrait as she sipped her coffee and tried to appraise it from a stranger’s point of view. It was good and she wasn’t being vain. It was her best work and she knew it. Tears smarted her eyes. Her mother would never see it, would never see Agustªn as he was now. Distinguished, arrogant, proud…another session and she would have no reason to see him again either.
What a waste, Gemma mused. Their love lost, just like her and Felipe’s.
‘Puta! Lagarta!’
Gemma swung round. Bianca. She hadn’t heard her approach and fear stiffened her spine at the girl’s rage.
‘You spiteful bitch! You went to my uncle and told him everything!’ Her eyes blazed with such inky hatred that Gemma shot to her feet.
She was confused at first and then it dawned on her what this was about. So Mike had told Agustªn…or maybe…No, not Felipe. His pride wouldn’t allow him to acknowledge to his father that his bride-to-be was messing with someone else.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about…’ She did, of course, but a dumbstruck approach was safer, Bianca looked ready to tear her hair out.
‘Of course you do, that’s why you did it! To make things bad for me and Felipe. You can’t accept that he doesn’t want you, can you? You were so damned jealous you just had to spoil it for me. Everyone you wanted for yourself, even my uncle.’
‘Bianca, stop. You don’t know what you’re saying——’
‘I know exactly what I’m saying. Someone told my uncle about me and Mike and it had to be you and don’t deny you didn’t know because Mike said you had seen us in the gardens. He tried to finish with me saying it was unsafe because you had seen us but you had to put the knife in, didn’t you?’
Suddenly Gemma was exhausted despite the early hour, exhausted by this continual tirade on her nerves.
‘I had nothing to do with any of this,’ she protested.
Bianca swung to the portrait and accused it with her finger. ‘All the time you were doing that you were trying for Agustªn. You couldn’t have Felipe so you tried seducing his father——’
‘No!’ Gemma cried. She couldn’t take this. Now Bianca believed she wanted Agustªn.
‘Oh, yes! You’re nothing but an English whore——’
Something inside Gemma snapped. She turned to get away, felt a rush of hot air close to her and strong arms gripping her.
‘Bianca!’ The name came like a roar in the jungle and Bianca twisted round in fright, catching her leg against the easel.
Gemma spun out of Felipe’s grip to clutch at the canvas before it crashed to the ground. It all went down, the easel, the canvas, crashing to the pine floor. Gemma stared down at in horror and then with a sob she dropped to her knees next to the canvas.
‘Get out!’ Felipe roared. ‘Pack your bags and be ready to leave immediately!’
Gemma jerked her head up, her heart in traction. He believed Bianca, believed that she wanted Agustªn and now he was ordering her out. But he wasn’t looking at her. His fearful dark eyes were on Bianca.
‘I’m not going, Felipe,’ Bianca bleated. ‘Agustªn said we were going to work this out——’
‘I’m giving the orders, not Agustªn. Do as I say and prepare to leave.’ He turned to Gemma and lifted her from her knees. She stood against him, too shocked to move.
‘You’re making a mistake, Felipe,’ Bianca cried in desperation. ‘She’s a sneak, telling lies about me to Agustªn…she’s crazy about him, not you…’ She stopped as Felipe’s face darkened murderously and then with a deep sob she turned and ran out of the studio.
The rain, lashing the windows and the roof, drowned out all sound but Felipe’s ragged breath against her.
Slowly Gemma moved out of the circle of his arms, pushing at his hands with trembling fingers. She only allowed her mind to be concerned about the portrait, all else was a fog of confusion. She stooped to pick it up…
Felipe pulled her back from it, his breath now harsh on her face. ‘She’s right, it’s him you care more for than me.’
Her eyes shot flames of fire at him. For one hopeless moment she had thought he was on her side. ‘I’ve worked hard on this portrait. If it’s damaged——’
‘You’ll have to paint it again,’ he sneered. ‘And that should please you, give you more time with your lover.’
She stared up at him, numb with shock that he could still believe such a thing.
‘Do you love him?’ The question was torn out of his throat and his hands fastened so tightly round her arms that it drew her shoulders up with pain.
Her eyes were dark and wide with anguish and she knew she couldn’t take any more. She knew that he’d won and he’d destroyed her. All his threats and promises to leave her a broken woman had happened. But she couldn’t take his last torment.
‘Yes, I love him,’ she cried desperately, and his grip nearly snapped her arms. ‘Yes, I love him, because…because he’s my father!’
Her shoulders sagged as he let her go, brutally, as if she were aflame and he would get scorched if he held on to her a second longer. She held his eyes, his cold, shocked, implacable eyes. She was crying but could do nothing to stop it.
‘What are you saying?’ Felipe grated in disbelief.
Gemma shook her head from side to side. She couldn’t speak. She’d said enough and it was far too much. She turned and ran from the studio, not stopping even when he roared her name.
She was soaked through to the skin as soon as she dashed outside but she didn’t care. All that mattered was escape, to get as far away from him as she could. She ran, not knowing where. Lightning speared the air around her and on a scream of terror she sprinted to the nearest shelter.
Gemma threw herself through an open doorway and landed in a bed of warm yellow straw. Stunned, she lay there gasping for breath, and then more terror spurred through her.
‘Stay where you are!’
Gemma heard and obeyed and lay coiled and still in the straw.
Felipe soothed the spooked stallion with soft words of comfort, his hands caressing the animal’s muzzle. The black horse whinnied nervously and shifted his hoofs restlessly, dangerously close to Gemma’s paralysed form. Slowly Felipe stroked the stallion to calmness while Gemma cringed in fear.
‘Get in the next stall, slowly and without sudden movement,’ Felipe said calmly, and it was seconds before she realised he was talking to her.
Gemma looked up and saw that she was lying by a closed stable door that led to the next stall. She inched her way to it on her knees, keeping her fearful eyes on the horse, groping to find the door with trembling hands. Slowly she stood up, her back to the worn wood, her fingers fumbling for the catch. She found it at last, it gave easily, and, holding her breath, she backed through the door, slowly, carefully, easing it shut behind her.
She collapsed on to fresh straw and let the tension and fear seep out from her body. Minutes later she felt comforting arms around her, lifting her to sit up in her bed of straw. She blinked open her eyes and pressed her face hard against Felipe’s wet shirt.
‘It’s all right. You’re safe. You scared him more than he scared you.’
‘You…you wouldn�
�t like to put money on that, would you?’ she husked. What a time to joke. She must be mad! She was mad, clinging to him like this. She tried to move away but he wouldn’t allow it.
‘No more running, Gemma.’ He smoothed her wet hair from her face, wiped the raindrops from her chin with the back of his fingers. ‘You can’t drop a statement like that and make a dash for it. There’s nowhere to run to.’
She shook her head miserably. ‘I…I shouldn’t have said…I didn’t mean…’
He stilled her shuddering shoulders with his hands. ‘Look at me, Gemma. Tell me this is a dream.’
‘A nightmare!’ she sobbed, lowering her head, not able to look at him.
He made her, forced up her chin. ‘Why did you say what you did?’
She looked at him then, she had no choice. He didn’t believe her and why should he? It was all too fantastic for belief.
‘You said you loved Agustªn because he was your father. Gemma, tell me, tell me what all this is about.’
‘Why?’ she blurted. ‘So you can laugh at me, torment me, hurt me even more than you already have!’ She tried to struggle up from the straw but he hauled her down beside him, held her wrist so she couldn’t move.
‘I don’t want to hurt you, Gemma——’
‘You have! You do! All the time! You never let up on me——’
‘Because I’m crazy about you!’ he growled. ‘Can’t you see the damned torment you put me through? I love you so much I’m out of my mind with it…’ He stopped, let her go, sat raking his fingers through his dripping wet hair. ‘I love you so much I could kill you for it——’
‘You should have done,’ she cried, ‘months ago and then I wouldn’t have suffered so! You brought me here to torment me, Felipe, and you did, more than you could ever have imagined. Agustªn is my father. I’m the love child of him and Isobel Villiers, the woman your father built the studio for…and…and if that isn’t bad enough to live with, I found you were his son…I loved my brother…had made love with my brother…’
She thought he would kill her then. He turned on her with rage and fire in his eyes, spurred by the shock of her stuttered outpourings. She tried to scramble to her feet but he grabbed at her ankle, felling her with one twist of his powerful hand. She lay there, in the warm straw, stunned, and he straddled her, holding her wrists above her head.
‘What madness is this?’ he raged at the top of his voice.
Gemma squirmed helplessly under him. ‘It’s true!’ she panted. ‘I didn’t know till I got this commission but he is my father——’
‘And you thought I was your brother…and you let me make love to you!’
‘I didn’t know you were adopted then…I didn’t know till…’
‘Till when?’ Felipe raged and Gemma knew what was going through his demented mind.
‘You bastard!’ she raged.
‘Tell me! Our night of love—did it come before or after you knew I wasn’t your real brother?’
Gemma brought her knee up into his back and for a brief second his hold on her wavered. She brought her hands up and heaved at his chest. It was like trying to move a small mountain. She couldn’t fight him with her strength but there was plenty of power in her words.
‘Neither, you…you perverted rat, and don’t you mean our night of torment, not love?’
‘I know what it was but do you, sweet one? Have you any idea what you put me through——?’ ‘Huh, nothing to what you’ve put me through. No, I didn’t love you that night knowing I was committing…committing incest, I didn’t even know you were Agustªn’s son, real or otherwise, and I don’t care if you believe me or not because I hate you!’
‘Dios mªo!’ he breathed so deeply that Gemma thought it was his last breath. Then he lifted her up into his arms and buried his face in her wet hair. ‘I’ve done this to you,’ he grated fiercely. ‘Dear God, Gemma, what can I do to put all this right?’
She clasped him to her, tears mingling with the raindrops dripping from her hair to her face, their soaking bodies moulded together in the cloying heat of the stables. ‘Felipe,’ she moaned, and it was a cry of sheer desperation.
He held her for a long time, their hearts thudding against each other, the rain echoing the beat in the sudden stillness of the storm as its power weakened.
Gemma was the first to move. Hesitantly because she was still afraid, not of him, but of herself. She had suffered so much and she still hurt inside. Her guilt and shame had left its mark and she would never be free of this anguish.
‘I have to tell you everything, Felipe,’ she whispered huskily. ‘About Agustªn and my mother…’
‘And us, Gemma,’ he urged. ‘We must talk about ourselves, we must stop this torment with each other…’
She gave a small smile through her tears. ‘I didn’t know I was tormenting you too.’
‘More than you’ll ever know. London was complete and then nothing after that, like a living death. Not a moment passed without me poisoning myself with believing you didn’t care for me.’
‘I always loved you, Felipe, and I hurt so badly when you left. I now know why you had to go to New York; Agustªn said you had papers to sign…’
‘Yes, he summoned us both and wanted us there immediately. I didn’t get a chance to call you before we left and then when we arrived it was far more detailed than I expected. It was one of those family conferences that always seemed to get put off for more pressing matters but suddenly Agustªn wanted it settled there and then. He has a vast empire and Bianca and I are his only family…’ His voice trailed at what he had just said.
Gemma was family too now, but she said nothing and she said nothing about Bianca’s confession that she had manipulated Agustªn into that summons to New York. There had been enough trouble and harsh words already and it was best left alone.
‘I didn’t know that at the time, Felipe. I just thought you cared for Bianca and not me. Then…then you arranged the commission and I found out about my father…’
His lips on hers caressed away her distressed words and slowly, slowly she felt the tension ease a little. The freedom to love, it whispered in her heart, and she knew it to be true, but the suffering couldn’t be swept out of her tortured mind just like that. She moved her mouth from his and pressed it to his cheek.
‘Please, Felipe, please let me talk.’
He cradled her in his arms against the straw, kissing the top of her head as she started, haltingly, striving to sound lucid but sometimes failing so miserably that nothing came from her lips at all. She knew when her story troubled him; the kisses stopped and she felt the tension stiffen him. Tears punctuated her narrative and that was when he smoothed his hands over her cheeks to console her.
‘And you’ve not spoken of all this to Agustªn?’ he said at last.
‘How could I? I couldn’t just spring a daughter on him like that; besides after all he told me he thinks my mother betrayed him…’
‘As you betrayed me,’ Felipe murmured, and she turned to him with dismay in her wide brown eyes.
‘As you thought I’d betrayed you, Felipe. Can’t you see the irony of it all? History repeating itself and all that.’
He tightened his arms around her. ‘But history isn’t going to be allowed to repeat itself, because I’ll never let you go——’
‘Agustªn will never allow it——’
Felipe let out a rumble of laughter. ‘He can’t stop us, querida. I love you and I intend to marry you and put us both out of our misery for evermore.’
‘But Bianca——’
‘Bianca was nothing in my life, Gemma. How could you have ever believed she was?’
‘You said she was a bigger part of your life than I was.’
‘Only in time. Being my cousin she’s been around longer, that’s all. I never had any intentions of marrying her, Agustªn or not.’
‘But you were furious when you thought Mike was trying to seduce her.’
‘Only because I thought
he was betraying Christina.’
‘But…but…you used her to torment me——’
He didn’t let her finish, but eased up on one elbow to gaze down at her. ‘Love can be so damned destructive, my darling. I was so obsessed with you I hated you—it sounds crazy but it’s true. I baited you with Bianca because I wanted you to suffer as I had.’
‘You could only wish for that if you thought I really cared for you in the first place. You must have known how deeply I loved you.’
‘I knew that London hadn’t been a lie but I thought something had happened to change your feelings. I wanted to resurrect the passion we had known and then to destroy it, for us both. But after that night we made love I hoped, I prayed…I thought you loved me and wanted me. I knew my own love had never died, and then Agustªn arrived with Bianca.’
‘I thought you’d done it to add more torment and after that row at dinner I found out you were Agustªn’s son. Maria told me but she didn’t say you were his adopted son and——’
He brushed his lips across hers. ‘And you thought you’d made love to your own half-brother…’
Gemma turned her head from his, biting her lip to stop it trembling.
‘Gemma,’ Felipe breathed, a frown of consternation darkening his features, ‘it’s over. You have nothing to feel ashamed about.’
Her eyes widened and glazed with more tears. ‘I have everything to feel ashamed about, Felipe,’ she gasped raggedly. ‘You see…even…even when I thought we were blood relatives…I…still loved you…still wanted you…’
Felipe was still for a moment. ‘And if I had pushed you, really pushed you, you were afraid that you would have allowed it to happen?’
‘Of course!’ she blurted on a sob. ‘I didn’t know if I could hold back from you…’
‘But you did, silly,’ Felipe insisted, gripping her shoulders. ‘Don’t you see that you did? In the shower, Gemma, I could have taken you then and after when I stripped the towel from you to taunt you, it would have been so easy to take you——’
‘But you didn’t!’ Gemma insisted. ‘Because you hated me by then!’