She hadn't changed very much in that respect, thought Verity, smiling faintly. Her face had lost its childish scrawniness and had developed instead a fine, high-cheekboned look that might have passed for beauty if it hadn't been accompanied by a nose that no one could call anything but snub and a mouth that was much too wide. And as for the rest of her! Argentinian men liked their girls nicely rounded in the places where it counted. No one in his right mind would look at her. No, she would stay single and dwindle into an old maid. As she finally drifted off to sleep in the early hours of the morning Verity dreamt that she was being wooed by an ageing Lothario in a tail coat who was telling her in a quavering voice, 'Marry me, why don't you? It's your last chance, you know. Your last chance of happiness.' As she pushed him away from her with a gesture of revulsion, she noticed that he had a name tag on his lapel. It was Raymond Vance.
For the rest of the week Verity and her father kept their talk to safely neutral subjects, determinedly avoiding the matter that was uppermost in both their minds. Mark Williams spent two long evenings bringing his ranch accounts up to date, assembling the information that Raymond Vance had requested. Verity helped him as far as she could, secretly horrified by the mess that was revealed. The package was sent off, she volunteered to take it to the post office in Campo Verde, the nearest town, herself.
Then the waiting began. A day to reach Buenos Aires, maybe two or three if there was some hold-up in the mail as was often the case, even with air deliveries. Then he would have to have time to study everything before he decided what action, if any, to take. It had to be at least a week, say ten days to be on the safe side, before they could even expect to hear from the man, perhaps longer if he was as long-winded as most of his kind and had other work on hand. It would not matter to him that the result of his deliberations was awaited with desperate eagerness at Vista Hermosa. Something in the lazy scrawl of his signature suggested a fair indifference to the views of others, Verity decided.
Mark Williams adopted a fatalistic attitude. Now that his worries were out in the open and he was no longer hiding anything from his daughter he seemed almost happy, and she could tell that a good half of the burden had been concealing it from her. Now he threw himself into the business of the estancia with more enthusiasm than Verity had seen in him for a long time, setting off to organise the cattle-dipping programme that took place every January as part of the regular campaign against disease.
Her father wasn't really happy as an administrator, thought Verity as she watched him go, riding off with the team of gauchos, the hardened men of the pampas, who spoke little but rode like the wind and understood cattle and their ways probably better than they did their fellow human beings. They would be gone all day, rounding up animals in the far pastures, driving them in to pen them near the dipping troughs and then back again to the rich grazing grounds miles from the main ranch.' It was taxing work, requiring hard physical effort, but it brought its own rewards. 'There's nothing like a life spent close to the land,' her father had told her once and, seeing the satisfaction he got after a day in the saddle, she could believe him.
Not that it was women's work. Verity accepted that. Machismo, that indefinable word that suggested a combination of brute strength and sexual vigour, in South American terms the ultimate qualities a man should possess, forbade any interference by the so-called weaker sex. To be out on the plains pitting his wits and testing his strength against the animal world and the elements was a man's destiny. Verity knew how appalled her father's workers would have been if she had ever tried to invade their territory. To a gaucho a woman had other uses.
It was a lovely day, sunny, but not too hot, with a breeze that drifted pleasantly through the avenue of eucalyptus trees that led to the house. Verity watched the men ride out until they were dust specks in the distance, then sighed and turned back towards the house. She would have given anything to have saddled up the horse that was kept for her own use and to have taken off for the day herself. She had often done that in the past, spending happy hours on her own. On a ranch the size of Vista Hermosa one could ride all day without seeing another soul, without even reaching the boundary fences.
But there was work to be done indoors and, with a shrug, she made her way to the kitchen and collected her cleaning materials. When she was at home, on holiday from the school where she had been a boarder, Verity had always made the housework her responsibility. Her father made an effort to keep the rooms that he used clean and relatively tidy, but there was usually a great deal to be done.
This time was no exception. Her father had lived mainly in the old-fashioned, spacious kitchen, using it for eating, the minimal amount of office work that he did and for relaxing and listening to the radio in his rare free time. Apart from his bedroom which was reasonably clean the rest of the house had been allowed to go to rack and ruin. Verity had determined that in this year that she would be spending at home with him before she went to university she would make a real effort to turn the place into the home that it had been when her mother had been alive.
And just because some interfering old man in Buenos Aires might evict them, it was no reason at all to change her plans, she told herself firmly. She headed for the sala, a handsome room at the front of the house where they had sometimes entertained in the days when her mother had enjoyed meeting their neighbours from adjoining estancias and sometimes folk from farther afield.
It was a long time since anything of that sort had taken place, Verity thought, as she wielded her cleaning cloth vigorously. Clouds of accumulated dust rose and she coughed and sneezed as she worked. She had wrapped a scarf round her hair and she had her oldest dress on, a shabby affair that should have been discarded years ago. But it was comfortable and shapeless and she had hung on to it. She must look nearly as much of a disaster area as the room itself, she decided, as she pressed on. Thank goodness they didn't have callers these days!
It was then that she heard the car. She went to the window and peered out. It was probably a false alarm. They weren't expecting anyone. Except—unless it was—— No, that was impossible. There would be all sorts of things to arrange before Raymond Vance sent someone to the ranch to organise matters.
But the car was coming to Vista Hermosa. She saw the Land Rover turn off the smooth-surfaced road, a cloud of dust accompanying it as it bumped its way up the unmade track that led past the stockyards and dipping pens and wound finally up through the sadly overgrown gardens, once her mother's pride and joy, to the estancia. There the driver pulled to a halt, the engine stopped and a stranger got out and strode quickly towards the flight of shallow steps that led to the house.
Verity did not know much about men, but she knew that this one meant trouble the moment that she set eyes on him. Trouble of a kind that her short and hitherto sheltered life had not prepared her to recognise until now—let alone deal with. But the experiences of the last few days had taught her a thing or two about the knocks that life could throw at one out of a clear sky.
He was tall, very tall by Argentinian standards, six foot at least, Verity judged with a powerful, broad-shouldered frame honed to a hard-muscled perfection that, with his deeply tanned face, suggested someone who was used to an active, outdoor life, although the immaculately white linen he wore, the well-cut dark suit that moulded itself to his form, the polished perfection of his shoes and the heavy gold watch that he sported on one wrist all made it transparently clear that this was no mere peon, but a man of standing. He was in his early thirties, she supposed, and something about the arrogant set of his dark head and the unsmiling line of his mouth told her more clearly than words could have done that this was a man who would brook no opposition to his authority.
Verity heard his step outside, an amazingly light tread for so big a man, and then the sound of a decisive rap on the front door. She had a sudden feeling of blind panic and hesitated on her way to answer it, strangely reluctant to confront him, whoever he was. Perhaps he would go away, if she did nothing,
remained silent within doors. Something inside her was warning her that this stranger was bringing upheaval to her tidy life and she didn't like the prospect.
She should have known that he wasn't the sort of man to be denied like that. He waited for a moment or two, then knocked again, and, after a brief pause, again, as if he was getting impatient. Then the handle turned and he walked in. Verity hadn't expected that. A shaft of sunlight from the open door pinned her where she stood amid the dim shadows of the entrance hall, poised for flight, but too startled to run anywhere.
'So there was someone here. You certainly took your time about answering the door.' He spoke in Spanish, his voice cool, accustomed to command. 'I want to speak with Seňor Williams. Is he here or out with the men?'
He had taken her for a servant. Hardly surprising, Verity thought, as she stood there in her out-of-date dress, clutching the duster she had been using to her breast as if in self-defence.
The cold, brusque voice sounded again. 'Well? You've a tongue in your head, I imagine? Seňor Williams, where is he?'
She answered automatically in the same language; she had spoken Spanish as easily as English from the age of three and all her schooling had been in that tongue. 'He's not here. He's—' She found this man too overwhelming for comfort at such close quarters. Somehow the right words deserted her, stuck in her throat.
The stranger broke in impatiently, 'I suppose not, at this time of day. Any reasonable man would have been at work long since—it's to be hoped so, at any rate. Do you expect him back for lunch or is he gone for the day? Where is he? Near the house? Rounding up stock? Is there someone else you could send to fetch him or are you on your own here?'
The questions came as thick and as fast as burst of gunfire and Verity struggled to reply. 'Yes—no—that is, there's no one here but me. You see—'
He shrugged. 'And you, heaven help us, wouldn't win any prizes in an intelligence contest,' he said to himself in an undertone. She flinched at the description and he noticed the action. She had an idea that this man didn't miss very much. 'Oh, you understood that, did you?' He didn't apologise for the remark and she hardly expected him to. After all, she had been behaving like some kind of halfwit. But he had taken her so much off balance that it was an effort to think straight.
'What's your business with Seňor Williams?' she asked. The words came out more belligerently than she had intended, and a dark brow rose quizzically in reaction.
'I don't think that's any of your concern. It's between him and me. Now, for the last time of asking, where is he?'
'Find out for yourself!' Her temper flared suddenly Just who exactly was this arrogant stranger and what right had he to be bawling her out like this? She wasn't going to put up with such rudeness. Verity turned on her heel. She didn't know where she was going, only that she had to get away from him before she did something really disastrous, like slapping his good-looking face.
He took two strides after her and seized her arm in a rough grasp, spinning her round to face him. 'I intend to find out,' he said grimly, 'whatever means I have to use on you to get the information.'
She felt a cold trickle of fear go down her spine. What was he going to do to her? What on earth had possessed her to tell him that she was alone in the house?
'Well?' His eyes were dark and as cold as ice chips and she stared at them as if mesmerised. He shook her impatiently. 'I'm waiting for an answer, damn you,' he said. 'It's important. It matters a good deal to me.'
'Does it? And just who exactly are you that you expect everyone to dance to your piping?' she asked angrily.
His grip tightened on her almost unbearably and she could feel anger in him, tightly checked. 'The name is Vance,' he said.
CHAPTER TWO
'Vance?' Verity was stunned and her face showed it. 'You're Raymond Vance?' Was this vital and aggressive hunk of manhood the elderly businessman that she had imagined and described so clearly to her father? It just did not seem possible.
'Ramón Vance,' he corrected.
Ramón, not Raymond. Yes, that made sense. On paper it was easy to confuse the two. But, in the flesh, there was nothing remotely English about the man who stood before her except the excellence with which he spoke the language. He was a tough, hard Spanish-American with a no-nonsense approach to life.
'You seem surprised,' he said stiffly. He released her numbed arm and she stepped back from him, rubbing it to restore the circulation.
'I am. You're not what we pictured at all after reading your letter.'
'I see. Has speculation been rife?' he asked grimly. 'I didn't realise that Mark Williams made a habit of sharing his personal mail with the servants.'
That was a misapprehension that she had not had a chance to correct yet. She supposed she had better introduce herself. 'No, Mr Vance, he doesn't. But—'
'But your position is a more privileged one, is it?' The dark glance raked over her contemptuously. 'I understand that Mrs Williams died some time ago—'
He paused significantly.
What was the man suggesting? He surely didn't think that she was—that her father would—Hysteria fought with blind rage at the insinuation. 'How dare you? I'm Mark Williams' daughter!' She moved towards him, her hand raised to slap the superior expression off the dark face in front of her. 'You swine—you—'
He anticipated the action. 'I shouldn't, if you know what's good for you,' he warned, catching her easily and fending her off with the minimum of effort before she could carry out her intention.
'I've never been so insulted in my life!' she spat at him.
'You haven't lived very long. If that's the worst anyone ever throws at you, you're lucky,' he said smoothly. 'It was an understandable mistake in the circumstances.'
'Really? I didn't think gentlemen made mistakes like that.'
He laughed harshly. 'Don't fool yourself. I'm no gentleman.'
'Apparently not,' she snapped, 'if that's all you're prepared to offer by way of an apology.'
'I'm not in the habit of apologising for my actions.' He dismissed the matter. 'And you still have the advantage of me in the way of names.'
Verity seethed. But there was nothing that she could do. She stood about as much chance of besting him physically as a fly beating itself against a steel wall, probably less. 'I'm Verity Williams,' she told him sulkily.
He gave her a curt nod of acknowledgment. 'Now that the formal introductions have been' effected, do we have to stand here in the entrance hall for ever?'
He had a knack of putting her in the wrong. She felt like a six-year-old, reprimanded for bad manners. 'Of course not. Perhaps you'd care to come into the sala?'
A morning's cleaning had made less of an impact on the room than Verity had hoped and, after one appalled look, he asked in disgust, 'Is there nowhere else?'
She shrugged. 'We use the back room, mainly.'
'It can't be worse than this,' he said distastefully. 'We'll go there.'
'All right.' She wasn't going to argue with him about it. At least the room was clean and reasonably tidy. She had done it out yesterday, ignoring her father's protests that he would never be able to find anything again. She led the way.
She couldn't tell from his expression whether this room pleased him any better. He gave it another of the sharp, searching looks that she was becoming to associate with him and then turned back to her. 'I could use a cup of coffee and something to eat.' It was an order, not a request, and she bridled instinctively. 'I've had nothing since a snatched breakfast early this morning.'
She felt like saying, 'Too bad. Don't expect me to feed you.' But she had the feeling that he was quite capable of putting her over his knee and spanking her like a small, disobedient child, if she tried anything of the sort. 'I'll see what I can find,' she said in a grudging tone, and headed for the kitchen, aware of his gaze following her as she went through the alcove into the adjoining room.
It didn't take her long to brew a pot of coffee and cut a pile of sandwiches.
If he was expecting anything in the Cordon Bleu line, it was just too bad, she thought furiously. She put the food on a tray and carried the lot back into the room, banging it unceremoniously down on the dining table.
Ramón Vance standing with his back to her looking through the window past the outhouses that clustered round the back of the house to the plains beyond. Vista Hermosa: beautiful prospect. The original owner had named the place for that view across the lush grasses of the pampas, and even today's neglect could not detract from the description. It was still enough to make Verity catch her breath when she met it unexpectedly, even after all the years that she had lived here. She wondered what Ramón Vance made of it all. Had he ever seen anything like it?
He turned and, without waiting for an invitation, seated himself in her father's favourite chair, a button-backed leather piece that had seen better days, but which was at least comfortable. 'You can put the tray over here,' he commanded, indicating the small table by the side of the chair.
He spoke as if she was indeed the servant he had mistaken her for at first sight. Verity bit back the tart reply that sprang to her lips and could tell from the sudden glint in his eyes that he knew exactly how she was feeling. Damn the man for his perception! She picked up the tray and deposited it where he had requested with another ungracious bang and rattle of crockery.
'Thank you,' he said. 'I've often heard about the overwhelming hospitality of the folk who live on the pampas. It's nice to see it in action.'
She shifted uneasily at the mockery in his tone. How soon could she make her escape from him and give herself time to recover her composure? She glanced longingly at the door. Would he want to be left alone while he ate his meal?
'Have you eaten yet?' His voice interrupted her thoughts.
The prospect of sharing a meal with the man revolted her. 'I'm not hungry,' she told him shortly— and as if to give the lie to her statement her stomach rumbled loudly in protest.
The Overlord Page 2