The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection)

by Blake, Jennifer

  With a conscious effort, she directed her thoughts into other channels. Was the señor married, she wondered. She had never heard Iva mention a wife. In fact, she thought she remembered her saying that the wife of one of his American business partners usually acted as his hostess when he was in Dallas. That could mean nothing, of course. Perhaps Señora Castillo did not like to travel? Perhaps there were children at home in school she could not leave, or small ones who could not have their routines upset by the difficulties of traveling back and forth? If so, it meant frequent separation, something she, if she were in his wife’s place, would not like. Not that he would allow his wife’s likes and dislikes to weigh very heavily with him, the poor woman.

  It was ridiculous. What did she care about his domestic arrangements? The wine she had drunk must have gone to her head. She would be much better off if she could use this opportunity to get a little rest. It had been a hectic day. Perhaps if she could relax a little her headache would go away. An aspirin would help, but she could not bring herself to ask the señor for one. It had too much the sound of trying to gain his sympathy. She closed her eyes.

  She awakened to find Señor Castillo bending over her, his face inches from her own. Her eyes widening, she pressed back against the seat, then flushed as an amused derision curled the corner of his mouth. Calmly, he continued fastening her seat belt. “Such shame to disturb you,” he said, his gaze on his hands as he tested the tightness of the belt across her lap, “but we are coming into Mexico City — or simply Mexico, as the residents of our capital call her.”

  Nodding both her thanks and her comprehension, Anne turned to the window. Below were the far-flung lights of a great city lying in a valley encircled by the dark ring of a mountain range. The lights danced and shimmered through a haze of clouds, and feeling the sharp downward slant of the plane, she knew a moment’s apprehension. A glance at the señor, buckling himself into the opposite seat without concern, was enough to allay her fears. He leaned back and, as the cabin light slanted across his features, Anne thought he looked tired and dispirited.

  “Is — is your grandmother very bad?” she asked after a moment.

  “I have no way of knowing. I assume so, or I would not have been summoned.”

  The faint note of impatience in his voice was enough to discourage further questions. Anne murmured, “I’m sorry,” and fell silent.

  The landing was smooth and uneventful. The night air that greeted them as they disembarked was cool and fresh, and, above the smell of dust and fuel oil, perfumed with a scent reminiscent of attar of roses. They were met by a slight young man carrying a pad and pen who might have been a secretary, and also a uniformed official. Neither were introduced. With the señor’s hand under her elbow, Anne walked with the three men into the airport terminal. There she was shown into a small, comfortably furnished lounge, and before she could either ask for an explanation or make her own, she was left alone.

  An hour passed with excruciating slowness, and then another. She leafed through the magazines that were available, but since they were printed in Spanish, they could not occupy her for long. Plaques on the wall representing a smiling sun and the frowning moon caught her interest and she studied them minutely. They appeared handmade with excellent craftsmanship, as did an ashtray on a carved teakwood table that she took to be a reproduction in turquoise-colored mica of the Aztec calendar stone. She stuffed a little, touching her fingertips to the roughness of the ashtray. It might be as close as she would ever come to the real thing.

  She had just convinced herself, for the third time, that she had better take matters into her own hands and begin making her own arrangements, when the señor returned.

  “My apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said, holding the door for her. “Everything is in order. We can go.”

  Anne did not move. “Go where?” she asked bluntly.

  “To my home. There is no commercial flight to Dallas until well into the morning. I offer you the hospitality of my house until that time.”

  The stiff formality of his last phrase was not unbecoming to him. Neither did it imply a very warm welcome. “I think I would prefer to stay here at the airport until the flight is called,” she said.

  “It would be most uncomfortable. Besides, you will miss your breakfast,” he reminded her.

  Lifting her chin, she replied. “I’m sure that won’t hurt me.”

  “Maybe not, but it offends my sense of hospitality,” he returned, a small smile curving his mouth.

  “I would prefer not to be obligated to you any more than necessary. You must know I cannot pay you for my return ticket just now, but if you will give me your address, I will send the money to you as soon as I can.” It had been a difficult speech. It was irritating to see how little effect it had on him.

  “Surely there can be no need. If you are the innocent victim you claim, a return ticket and a night’s hospitality are the least I owe you by way of reparation for carrying you off against your will, and if you are not, then shouldn’t you be ready and eager to take advantage of what I may offer you?”

  Anne eyed him warily. “I thought you had little use for the women who ‘foisted themselves on you.’”

  His brows lifted a fraction and a silver gleam shone in the depths of his eyes as he replied, “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “But your attitude...” she protested.

  “...depends on the woman,” he ended. “But why worry? Such matters have nothing to do with you, do they?”

  “No,” she answered in as firm a voice as she could manage.

  “Well, then? What need have you to distrust my hospitality?” His tone hardened. “It may help you to know that my grandmother is in residence with me. I assure you my thoughts at the moment are for her alone. I feel also that I have delayed long enough here at this time. The car is waiting. May we please go?”

  At the reminder of his grandmother’s illness, color swept into Anne’s face. “Yes, I’m sorry,” she said in distress, moving toward him.

  “There is no need for such remorse,” he told her, the sternness of his features relenting as he smiled. “I have put a call through to my home in San Angel on the outskirts of the city and they tell me she is sleeping comfortably.”

  Anne slanted a thoughtful glance at him as she walked beside him to the long, sleek car — and its driver, the bespectacled secretary — that waited for them outside the terminal. For reasons of his own, he had made it almost impossible to refuse to accompany him to his home for the night without seeming both ridiculous and ungrateful. Why had he gone to the trouble? Was it only an example of the famous Spanish hospitality, or was his reason entirely different? Was she a fool for agreeing so easily to go with him? No, surely not. A man like Señor Castillo had no need to force his attentions on a woman. Only an idiot would suppose that he might. And yet, she could not forget the kiss he had taken so effortlessly, or the helplessness she had felt in his arms. She felt a shiver over the surface of her skin, a primitive instinct of danger, one she could ignore at her own risk.

  Mexico City, even at this late hour, was far from being asleep. Cars flowed in a steady stream along the side streets, moving at incredible speeds, with taxicabs in various stages of dilapidation darting in and out, and men and boys on bicycles pedaling doggedly along in desperate danger to life and limb. At some of the intersections on the street called the Paseo de la Reforma were traffic circles like enormous revolving doors in which it seemed they might be caught forever. People strolled along the streets, the men for the most part in business suits and the women conventionally dressed, though here and there could be seen the traditional sombrero and serape against the cool night air of the mountains and an older woman with her head wrapped in a somber-colored rebozo. There were the ornate, carved fronts of old colonial-era buildings, towering skyscrapers glittering with glass and bright lights, the impressive, well-guarded portals of luxury hotels, and the bases of stone monuments whose figures were lost in the
darkness above them. And then the hustle of main streets was behind them and they entered narrow, winding streets marked with small blue and white signs on the sides of buildings indicating one-way traffic. This was an older residential section with trees lining the streets and leaning over the high, whitewashed, vine-covered walls of secluded, private homes.

  Once, as they slowed to turn, Anne caught a glimpse of a church, its old, tiled domes shining blue and yellow in the glow of a fitful moon. Seeing the direction of her gaze, the señor told her, “The convent church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen.”

  Realizing that she had been craning to see everything like the most impressionable tourist, Anne sat back. “I love old buildings,” she said by way of explanation, but as he smiled without replying, she found her own mouth curving into an unabashed grin. It was tremendously exciting to be in a foreign city, a city she had never dreamed she would be able to visit. She sincerely hoped that there in the dimness of the car she did not have too much the look of the cat with canary feathers on its chin.

  The car slowed, swung wide for a turn, and came to a halt before a pair of wide, wrought-iron gates set into a stretch of whitewashed wall. The driver blew a short summons on the horn. Almost immediately an elderly man shuffled into view and, unlocking the chain that held them, threw the gates open.

  A cobblestone drive was revealed curving around the main house toward a small building that had the look of a carriage house converted to use as a garage. In the beam of the headlights the drive appeared to cut through the meticulously kept expanse of a garden. Shrubs, vines, and climbing roses swept up to the walls of the dwelling, crowding about the arched colonnade on the lower of its two floors and casting lacy shadows on its ancient plastered walls. It was a massive building formed in the shape of a hollow square around a central patio, with wrought-iron grills over the lower outside windows and closed jalousies like sleeping eyes along the top floor. An enormous oil lantern illuminated the deep carving of the heavy wooden entrance door.

  At a sign from Señor Castillo, the car drew to a stop before the stone walkway that led to the front door. Alighting, the señor helped Anne out. The car slid away just as the front door was thrown open, spilling a square of light toward them like a welcome mat.

  “Ah, María,” the señor exclaimed, catching sight of the short, squat woman framed in the opening. A brief conversation in rapid Spanish followed as they stepped inside, then the señor turned to introduce Anne to the woman.

  “Miss Matthews, this is my housekeeper, María. She will show you to your room and make you comfortable. If there is anything you need, you have only to ask for it.”

  Murmuring her thanks, Anne smiled at the Spanish woman in her black dress covered by a white apron trimmed with red embroidery. No answering smile warmed that austere, censorious face. The woman turned in the direction of a wide staircase with polished treads and heavily carved balusters that rose against one wall of the entrance hall. Anne, preparing to follow her, glanced curiously at the wainscoted walls topped by wide expanses of cool white plaster enlivened by paintings.

  The ceiling was high, ornamented with a wide, molded frieze and a center medallion. Hanging from this by a thick chain was a chandelier of dark wood and multicolored glass. The colors were repeated in the glowing amber, red, brown, and black of the Persian carpet lying beneath it on the floor. There was a scent in the air of roses, the beeswax used to polish furniture, and the indefinable smell of old buildings.

  “María?” the señor called. When the woman halted and turned, he continued in Spanish that carried the firm tone of command.

  “Sí, señor,” the woman replied when he finished speaking, though her face, if possible, seemed set in lines of even deeper disapproval.

  Anne looked from the señor to his housekeeper. Mistrust gathered in her gold-flecked eyes. “What did you tell her?” she asked.

  “I only directed her to put you in the french bedroom,” he said, his expression perfectly serious except for the mocking lift of one dark brow. “It is a room in the portion of the house farthest from that of my grandmother so that the noise of your arrival and departure will not disturb her. What María finds not to her liking is that it is also only one door removed from my own bedroom. You must forgive her. She is not used to her master bringing young, attractive women of unexplained background home with him. Also, she is from the country, from the quinta, or farm, of my ancestors, and easily shocked.”

  “I must see what I can do to put her mind at rest then,” Anne told him.

  “Try, by all means,” he answered with a slight inclination of his head, “though you may find it hard going. María has no English.”

  Annoyance brought a flush of color to Anne’s cheeks. “You could make the situation plain to her if you wanted to.”

  “So I could, if I were willing to discuss my affairs with my servants, or allow them to be the arbiters of my actions.”

  There was no answer to that. Compressing her lips, Anne turned away, but the arrogance stamped on his dark Spanish-Indian features remained in her memory for some time.

  The bedroom she was shown into was not what she had expected. Considering the Spanish colonial style of the rest of the home, she had thought to find something similar, though perhaps not so darkly ornamental. Instead, she discovered elegance. The bed was a creation of brass and bone china with four posts, the two at the head rising to form a half-canopy. The china fittings on the posts, the footboard, and headboard were painted with delicate nosegays of pink roses and violets. Rose silk bedhangings were draped from the half-canopy, and drapes of the same material hung at the windows over muslin undercurtains. The dressing table and wardrobe had the graceful lines of the Louis-Quinze period, a style that blended perfectly with the cream and green and rose of the Aubusson rug.

  The amenities in the connecting bath were in keeping with the decor. The washbasin of white china had a rim of tiny pink roses above a swirl of painted gold ribbon. The tub stood on legs of an antique design, and the handles of the fixtures were in the shape of scrolls.

  An expression on her face of the same stolid endurance as a man going before the firing squad, María indicated fluffy pink towels and washcloths, bath salts, soap, and a drawer containing toothbrushes still in their wrappers, and small tubes of paste. A hairbrush of pristine cleanliness was brought out, then the woman went to the wardrobe to remove a nightgown of palest flesh-pink silk. A faint perfume of potpourri was wafted into the air as María laid it across the bed. Under the spell of such an old-fashioned scent, it was a moment before Anne realized that though the skirt of the gown was long and flowing, the bodice was composed of nothing more than a cobweb of lace. It didn’t matter, of course. There would be no one to see her in it. Still, that vague sense of mistrust she had felt earlier assailed her once more.

  “Buenas noches, señorita,” María said from the doorway.

  Collecting herself with an effort, Anne told the woman goodnight and, when she had gone, carefully locked the door behind her.

  A warm, lingering bath made a great improvement to her jangled nerves. By the time she had padded around in her bare feet, folding her cream drill skirt and jacket, and her orange shell over a chair, rinsing out her underclothing and hanging them to drip-dry, some of the strangeness of her surroundings had worn away. She could never really get used to such luxury, she mused as she caught sight of herself in the oval mirror with its candle sidelights over the dressing table. She was not meant for such things. She had to admit, however, that nothing she had ever owned had become her like the graceful wisp of the gown she was wearing. The color seemed to lend a pearl-like sheen to her skin and to bring a richer gleam to the gold highlights in her tawny blond hair. A faint color bloomed in the paleness of her face, and in the depths of her brown eyes a secret excitement glowed.

  Abruptly she turned away. Tomorrow she would be gone from here. This incident would soon be over and forgotten. That was all it was, an incident. An accident — stupid,
but not harmful. Annoying, but not harmful...

  Sleep seemed impossible. The small nagging headache behind her eyes had grown steadily more persistent. She had hoped it would go away, but it had not.

  Señor Castillo had said his bedroom was nearby, and it should be a simple thing to go and ask for something to relieve the pain; still, she did not dare. If she appeared at the door of his room now, when they should both be settling down for the night, he could hardly be blamed for jumping to the wrong conclusion. He had done so once already, and she did not, just now, feel equal to making the situation clear to him if he should react in the same manner. The imprint of his kiss seemed to linger on her mouth, an indelible reminder of the contemptuous regard in which he held the women who forced themselves on him.

  She might have mentioned her headache to María, of course, though at the time it had not seemed worth the effort of overcoming both the woman’s hostility and the language barrier. She had no one but herself to blame for the restless night she saw stretching before her.

  And yet, the moment she closed her eyes, she felt herself floating in a gray void that grew gradually darker. She slept.

  Pain, throbbing with the beat of her heart, pulsing like a current through her head, awakened her. The dim light of early morning sifting through the curtains revealed the furnishings of the french bedroom standing in ghostly splendor around her. Anne stared at them blankly, without recognition.

  Then she remembered. She was in the house of Señor Ramón Carlos Castillo, an unwilling, and unwelcome, guest. She must get up, put on her clothes, and get ready to leave. The flight to Dallas might be an early one.

  She started to raise herself on one elbow, then stopped as her head exploded with pain. Her vision blurred. Nausea rose in her throat, subsiding as she remained completely still. She closed her eyes tightly, opening them only when the throbbing had faded to a steady ache.