The Overlord

by Susanna Firth

  'I have business at the bank that will keep me there for the rest of the morning. Can you amuse yourself on your own? I expect they could find somewhere for you to sit and wait for me at the bank.'

  'No, thank you.' She did not sit around and wait for any man, let alone Ramón Vance. 'I was at school near here for ten years—I think I just about know my way about.'

  Sarcasm was wasted on him. 'Fine. Do you know the Crillon?'

  'Yes, of course. But—'

  'I'll see you there at two o'clock for lunch. Try not to be late.'

  He gave her a brief nod of dismissal, as if she had been a servant, she thought indignantly, and vanished down the narrow street that led towards the main commercial area of the city. How typical of the man not even to ask her if she wanted to join him for lunch! He just assumed that she would fall in with whatever plans he made. High-handed, arrogant, domineering swine that he was! She wondered what he would do if she did not turn up and smiled at the idea. Had anyone ever stood him up? she wondered. It would be a notable first for him.

  But just because Ramón Vance was an unreasonable character there was no excuse for her to emulate him and be equally bad-mannered, she decided as two o'clock approached and hunger pangs assailed her. She could, of course, make her way to any one of the little cafes around the pedestrian centre where she had just spent a happy few hours browsing in the little boutiques that abounded there, but the Crillon was one of the best eating places in Córdoba and it seemed a pity to pass up the chance of an excellent meal there just because her lunch escort was not to her liking. She headed for Rivadavia, passing the lovely baroque cathedral as she went.

  Ramón was waiting for her in the reception area of the hotel. The morning had clearly gone well for him: he looked relaxed and there was a decided air of accomplishment about him. He appeared not to notice the admiring looks that he was attracting from the Crillon's female clientele, but Verity was acutely conscious of the scrutiny she received when she joined him. Probably wondering what a dowdy-looking girl like me is doing in his company, she thought. But she did not care what they thought. Her head lifted defiantly in response.

  'We'll go straight in, if you're ready,' said Ramón, as he greeted her. 'It's good to find a woman who arrives on time. I expected you to be at least another ten minutes.'

  'Punctuality is one of my few virtues,' she said sweetly, letting him guide her towards the dining-room. She had no intention of telling him how close he was to not seeing her at all. If she had carried out her original plan of eating on her own, he would still have been pacing the floor in an hour's time or more.

  'And no bags or parcels either. Another virtue, or did you leave them in the cloakroom?'

  'No money,' she explained simply. 'But I enjoyed myself window-shopping.'

  He frowned. 'You should have told me. I would have let you have some cash. I had plenty with me.'

  'Why should you?' she asked coolly. 'I'm not your responsibility.'

  He gave her a speaking glance, but did not pursue the subject. His good mood of the moment evidently precluded arguments. Either that or his reluctance to have a stand-up row with her in the middle of one of Córdoba's plushest hotels. Although she could not imagine him worrying too much about appearances. He followed his own rules, not those laid down by other people.

  He saw her seated and took his own chair across the table from her. They had one of the best positions in the restaurant, discreetly hidden from view, but able to see the rest of the room. A perfect place for a rendezvous. Verity wondered if the waiter thought they were lovers to put them in this setting. A handsome couple, they said of engaged people. She smiled. No one could say that of her and Ramón Vance; a more disparate pair could hardly be imagined.

  Menus appeared before them as if by magic and she studied the selection of food in silence. Her father had brought her here once for afternoon tea as a great treat and special occasion. 'A meal here would just about break the bank,' he had joked, 'so make the most of those cream cakes!' As she looked at the wide selection of dishes available Verity was hardly surprised. This was gracious living and no mistake!

  'What will you have?' Ramón Vance had made his choice and looked across at her in query.

  'The fish, I think. We don't often get fresh trout at home.' Dazzled by the list, she made a quick decision.

  'Good.' Whether he was approving her choice or merely the speed with which she made up her mind, she did not know. 'I'll join the lady.' He gave the order to a hovering, attentive waiter and chose a wine to accompany the meal without consulting Verity. Not that it worried her. She knew remarkably little about the subject and cared still less, although she enjoyed the Argentinian wines that her father liked to sample on high days and holidays.

  The details disposed of satisfactorily, Ramón Vance sat back in his chair, entirely at his ease as he glanced round the room with a faintly critical eye.

  'Well, does it meet with your high standards?' She could not resist putting the question.

  'It'll do,' he said casually. 'It makes a change, at any rate.'

  'I suppose you lunch at much grander places in Buenos Aires.'

  He looked amused. 'Hardly. Usually a sandwich in the office if I'm lucky, and often I don't get that when I'm busy. If I want to linger over a meal I wait until the evening.'

  With soft lights, sweet music and the woman of his choice, Verity supposed. For a brief moment she let her imagination rove and wondered what it would be like to dine with him as his favoured lady of the moment. He probably changed his women nearly as often as his shirts, she thought, but while he was dancing attendance he would act as if one was the only woman in the world. He would charm and flatter and say all the things that one wanted to hear. Arid one would be a little bit in love with him, but not too much, because that was the way to get hurt.

  'I've never been to Buenos Aires,' she told him wistfully. 'Years ago, when I was about eight or nine years old, Dad went to the Palermo Agricultural Show one July. He was going to take me with him. He promised me he'd show me all the sights in town—the Plaza de Mayo, the President's palace, that little Italian quarter near the port—'

  'La Boca, they call it,' he told her. 'I know it well. But something stopped you from going?'

  'Measles,' she said ruefully. 'I cried for two days solid, I think. I was so miserable! All my life I'd been hearing about Buenos Aires. It was like a fairy tale city to me—and to have the chance of seeing it at last suddenly snatched away from me was too much to bear!'

  He laughed, genuinely amused by her story. 'There'll be other times. You're young yet. And when you do get there, you'll be much more able to appreciate what it has to offer than when you were eight years old. Think of the exclusive shops in the Calle Florida. They're enough to gladden any female heart. They rival Paris for sophistication. There's the theatre, the opera at the Teatro Colon, the museums and art galleries. And, when you're sick of culture, you can join the fashionable crowds at the race track or watch polo players at Palermo.'

  'It sounds wonderful. You must enjoy living there.'

  He shrugged. 'At first. I was a country boy and it dazzled me. Later still I found the ceaseless round of socialising rather a bore.'

  Verity tried to imagine him fresh from the country, naive and easily conned. It was an impossible picture. Ramón Vance had been born to dominate whichever environment he chose to live in. Not for him the agonies of indecision or selfconsciousness! The jaded sophisticate of today must have been recognisable even in his earlier years.

  'Dad told me that you came from an estancia near Rosario,' she commented.

  He paused while the waiter brought the wine of his choice for him to sample and then nodded his approval of it. Verity could not help noticing that instead of a local vineyard the name on the bottle was a French one. He must have money to splash around, she thought. She had heard her father mention the prohibitive cost of imported wines these days. He dined in style, did Ramón Vance.

  'Ye
s,' he said finally, in answer to her. 'It wasn't so very different from Vista Hermosa. A little smaller, perhaps. And our home lacked the decaying grandeur of yours.'

  Verity glanced quickly at him, registering a slight to her housekeeping abilities, then decided to let it pass. 'Were you a large family?' she asked him. She was suddenly curious to find out more about the man, eager to discover what had made him the way he was today.

  'Myself and my brother. Our mother died when we were still both at school. My brother left to help on the ranch. I stayed on to get my bachillerato, the qualification I needed for university. But I helped out in the holidays and later, in between studies.'

  Hence his uncanny skill with the stockwhip and his complete understanding of all matters agricultural. No wonder the men at Vista Hermosa spoke so highly of his knowledge and solutions to their problems!

  'And then?' She paused, taking a sip of her wine. It was cold and refreshing and it slid down her throat like nectar.

  'My father died. If we'd split our inheritance as he intended, it would have meant a struggle for each of us to survive. So I let my brother have the ranch and went to the city to make my own way in the world.'

  'That was good of you,' she said impulsively.

  He searched her face as if expecting to find sarcasm there and seeing none gave a faint smile. 'Yes, it was, wasn't it? And virtue brought its own rewards. My brother still struggles to make ends meet, while I have everything that money can buy.'

  'Happiness?' Verity asked.

  'As much as any man can expect, all things considered,' he said carelessly. 'I have a nice home in the best part of town. I drive a Lancia. I have the money in the bank to buy anything that I want, within reason. What more can a man ask?'

  'A lot more.' Verity waited until she had been served with the dish of her choice and then returned to the argument. 'There are things that money can't buy.'

  'Are there?' he asked cynically. 'I wouldn't have thought so.'

  'What about friends? I don't mean hangers on, but people who care about you and what happens to you. People that you can go to when you need help.'

  The arrogant features mocked her. 'I'm remarkably self-sufficient in that respect,' he told her. 'I tend not to need any assistance in running my life.'

  She tried another tack. 'All right. What about family life? Money can't buy you a wife and children.'

  He laughed harshly. 'I'm sure it could, if I wanted them. I think there'd be quite a lot of applicants if I advertised the post.'

  He would not need to advertise the fact that he was in the market for a wife, she acknowledged. She had no doubt that, in the past, any number of women had tried to get his ring on their fingers. Without a penny to his name Ramón Vance would draw women to him. His was that kind of attraction. He would only have to lift a hand and he would get the attention he wanted. And he knew it.

  She went on with her meal in silence, aware that he was studying her across the table. Was he wondering why the magic did not seem to work in her case? 'You're very cynical,' she accused.

  'I'd prefer to call myself realistic. I like a simple life without too many complications. If they threaten, I cut loose. It's as simple as that.'

  'By complications, you mean women, I suppose?' Verity asked. She had never talked like this to a man before and she was finding it a strangely stimulating experience. Discussing life and love with her schoolgirl confidantes, as lacking in worldly knowledge as herself, was not the same as talking to Ramón Vance. What he did not know about life in the big world probably wasn't worth knowing. 'And how many hearts have you broken in the process?'

  'Hardly any,' he said indifferently. 'Your sex is a good deal tougher than it pretends.'

  Perhaps he was right. No doubt the women with whom he came into contact were eminently capable of looking after themselves. They did not need a warning. They knew the score. They did not look for protestations of love or promises of marriage before they surrendered to a man. They probably found brief liaisons satisfying. Verity could not imagine herself reacting that way; it was not in her nature. Yet Ramón Vance had awakened a lot of emotions that she had not thought she possessed.

  She toyed with her food, pushing it round her plate. She had no appetite all of a sudden. She waited for him to finish. She was being silly, she told herself, to let the man get to her in this way. Did it really matter what he thought? He was a ship in the night, pausing for a while and then passing on. In six months' time she would have forgotten him. She raised her eyes and met his faintly searching look.

  'Have I disillusioned you?' he asked.

  'No.' That, at least, was true. Even before she had met him she had had a fair idea of how ruthless he could be. 'I stopped believing in story-book heroes a long time ago.'

  'Just as well,' he said casually. 'They're a bit thin on the ground these days.'

  'Yes,' she agreed. She turned her attention to the sweets trolley that was being wheeled alongside for her inspection and pretended an interest she was far from feeling in the selection before her as if the subject they had been discussing no longer mattered.

  They talked of other things after that—safe, non-controversial topics such as the weather, music, art and sport. Ramón knew something about almost everything, Verity discovered, and when he chose to exert himself, he could be fascinating. She was genuinely surprised when she glanced at her watch to find that over two hours had passed with a degree of pleasure that she would never have imagined possible earlier in the day. She wondered if that fact had struck him as well.

  It had. As he strode beside her as they left the restaurant his hand brushed against her arm and she flinched at the contact. She did not know why. She was not usually so jumpy with people. But Ramón Vance wasn't just people. He had a greater impact, somehow.

  'Is the truce over, then?' he asked, registering the gesture.

  'Was there one?'

  'I thought that in there,' he jerked a dark head in the direction from which they had just come, 'hostilities relaxed to a certain extent.'

  'Well, you thought wrong,' Verity lied. 'My feelings haven't changed at all.' Did he think that she was so easily won over to be charmed by pleasant manners and conversation? It was the man himself who mattered, and he had shown her his true colours.

  'It's a pity,' he shrugged.

  'For whom?'

  'For you,' he informed her. And, without looking to see if she was following him, he strode on.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Verity was surprised to see Isabel Delgado appear at Vista Hermosa the following day. She had never particularly liked the other girl and there had been little enough contact between them. Isabel had her father's habit of treating everyone in a faintly patronising manner, considering neighbours as lesser mortals to be ignored unless there was a good reason for cultivating them. Evidently her visit had a purpose; for all her polite noises it was not just a social call.

  'I hear you have a house guest.' After ten minutes of carefully maintained small talk Isabel finally reached her objective.

  So that was it. 'Yes.' Verity was not feeling in a communicative mood where Ramón Vance was concerned. Yesterday's trip to Córdoba had ended in a silent drive home and the prospect of future hostilities. She had had about as much as she could take of that man at the moment.

  'I heard about him from my father, you understand.' Isabel was delicately concerned lest Verity should suspect her of indulging in village gossip. The Delgados did not stoop so low; 'And then yesterday, in Córdoba, I was with a friend at the Crillon, and we saw you there. That was Seňor Vance that you were with?'

  'Yes, that was him,' Verity said shortly.

  If Isabel heard the brusqueness in the reply she did not heed it. 'He's a very attractive man. I had no idea he was like that.'

  Like a sleek dark fox setting all the chickens in the hen-house in a stir, thought Verity, but she did not voice the idea. 'He's all right, I suppose,' she conceded, 'if you like that kind of good looks.'
/>   'Are you telling me you don't? You seemed to be finding him absorbing company.' Isabel's tone was' faintly malicious. 'You were hanging on his every word. I tried twice to attract your attention, but you just weren't looking in any other direction but his.'

  Had it really looked like that? Verity hastened to put the record straight. 'Appearances are deceptive. I can't stand the man.'

  'Really? I wonder why.' The other girl's brown eyes took on a speculative expression.

  'Does there have to be a reason?'

  'There usually is. And he seems enough to bowl any woman off her feet. Tiene mucho gancho.'

  Isabel had not learnt that phrase in the correct, rather formal Delgado household, Verity thought. 'Yes, he's got sex appeal, machismo, whatever else you like to call it. But he's also rude, overbearing and a male chauvinist of the worst type.'

  Isabel seemed encouraged rather than put off by the description. She shrugged. 'One does not want a man who cannot assert himself. Strength is a good quality in a prospective husband.'

  'Are you considering Ramón Vance in that light?'

  'A girl must marry some time. It's inevitable unless, one wishes to dwindle into spinsterhood.' Isabel's look of disdain showed what she thought of that prospect. 'And, if Mr Right comes along, it's best to accept the fact and snap him up.'

  'Always supposing that the feeling's mutual.'

  'Even if it isn't.' She gave a satisfied smile. 'A clever woman can always find ways of bringing a man round to her way of thinking. A clever, attractive woman, hat is.' She glanced with faint contempt at Verity's casual appearance. Jeans and a faded cotton blouse were clearly not the marks of an attractive woman. She stroked her own expensive-looking silk dress with a complacent air. 'One has to know how to present oneself in the best light, of course.'

  'I wouldn't know about that.'

  'No. You'll learn some day, I expect,' Isabel said carelessly. Verity seethed and bit back a tart retort only with a great effort. 'After all, I am two years older than you are.'