The Midsummer Auction

by Pia Tremayne

  “And if they were unable to repay it?”

  “I thought to marry Nicola. That way the estates would be joined and the money would stay in the family. It seemed like a good plan.” His teeth gleamed momentarily and he completely missed the sudden glare in Anthony’s eye.

  “Did you propose to her?” Anthony’s voice was dangerously soft.

  “Yes, but alas, she refused me. I believe she has a lover in England. I told her if things do not work out in England I would still want her to be my wife.”

  “You can wait ’til hell freezes over,” Anthony thought, looking at him sourly.

  Something about his demeanor must have filtered through to Enrique, because he looked suddenly discomfited. “So, what now?” he said uneasily. “Will you be calling the police?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind whether I want to do that. It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “A number of things. First, you and I will have to meet with the lawyers. Certain matters have to be straightened out. I am sure that they will make every effort to simplify my life.”

  Enrique looked relieved.

  “Then I need to see the Edgertons as soon as possible.”

  “The older sister Emma is here, but it may not be possible for you to meet Nicola as she is in England,” Enrique informed him.

  “She’s here,” Anthony said tersely. “She arrived two days ago.”

  “How is it that you know this?”

  “She’s here,” Anthony repeated.

  Enrique gave him a sharp glance. Their eyes locked. Enrique leaned back in his chair. “So, you are the English lover of Nicola,” he said perceptively. “An interesting coincidence,” he observed.

  There was a telling silence as Anthony’s eyes remained fixed on him.

  “Obviously, Nicola does not know who you are since she has never questioned my identity. Who does she believe you to be?” Enrique asked shrewdly.

  “I am Anthony Astonville. I was formally adopted by the Astonvilles.” Damned if he was going to enlighten him about the Astonvilles’ personal worth or the fact that he had been their sole beneficiary. “Now here is what I want you to do,” he continued and outlined his plans.

  After some discussion, Anthony stood up. “And now we must meet with the lawyers to begin discussions. In the meantime, I will await your telephone call at my hotel to advise me that everything is arranged. Please understand that I am reserving the right to inform Nicola and her sister of the circumstances of my birth in my own way at the appropriate time,” he said, moving toward the door.

  Enrique nodded. “Would you prefer that I live elsewhere? I have very few personal possessions to move and can easily find other accommodation,” he said, adopting a casual tone.

  Anthony paused, thinking. “I think we should hold off making those decisions until we talk with the lawyers. I myself will be staying at the hotel.” He rapped on the door, which was immediately opened, and they went out.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Who was that on the phone?” Nicola asked as Emma came back out on the verandah where they had been chatting.

  “Antonio. He’s invited us over tomorrow night, just for drinks.”

  Nicola sighed.

  “We don’t have to go if you don’t feel up to it,” Emma said gently. “I can always call him back and cancel.”

  Nicola shook her head. “No. I’ve been enough of a wet blanket, moping since I got here. Let’s go. It’ll do us good to get out and Antonio is fun to be with.”

  Emma scrutinized her face. “What’s going on, Nicki? I heard you this morning, in the bathroom.”

  She looked at Emma mutely. She wasn’t crying, but her eyes showed she was drowning in unhappiness.

  Emma sat down abruptly next to her on the wicker settee and took her hands in hers. “What’s wrong, Nicki? Tell me.”

  “I think it’ll be faster to tell you what’s right, Em. The list will be so much shorter,” she said. Her attempt at humor failed miserably and she began to cry, burying her face in Emma’s shoulder.

  Emma said nothing, rubbing her back until the storm of crying had subsided. “Are you pregnant, Nicki?” she asked quietly.

  Nicola nodded, her face still buried in Emma’s shoulder.

  “How long?”

  “Six, seven weeks,” she gasped.

  “Does he know?”

  Nicola shook her head. “I can’t tell him,” she said brokenly.

  “Why not?”

  She shook her head again. “Don’t ask me that, Em. I can’t explain, not yet.”

  “It’s all right. When you’re ready to talk about it I’m here to listen.”

  She sat up, wiping her eyes. “I’m not going to play ‘poor little me,’” she said. “It wasn’t an accident. I wanted it to happen.”

  “Of course you’re not a ‘poor little me.’ Your biological clock wasn’t exactly running out at twenty-four, but it didn’t have to be for you to make that choice if you wanted a child. You’ve always known exactly what you wanted out of life.”

  “I wanted his child, Em, his child. I suddenly knew it, after I’d been with him the very first time. I knew he was the only man I wanted to be the father of my child.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  They drove over to the Torres estate the following night. Antonio was on the veranda, watching for them. He came down the front steps as they drove up and waited while they got out of the jeep.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, as they mounted the steps together and entered the living room. They settled themselves on the living room couch and he went to the antique sideboard to mix their drinks.

  “Just a bitter lemon for me, Antonio,” Nicola said.

  She and Emma exchanged a glance. Emma asked for a gin and tonic. He poured the drinks and handed them around. Instead of sitting, he went to stand by the window. They sipped their drinks and watched him, curious about his obvious anxiety.

  All at once, he uttered a little exclamation in Portuguese, walked over, and sat in one of the straight-backed wooden estate chairs. He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, appearing lost in contemplation of the drink he held loosely in one hand. A silence fell.

  “Nicola, Emma,” he said suddenly. “I have to tell you something.”

  Nicola’s heart contracted. She had an awful feeling he was about to say he needed them to repay their loan sooner rather than later. What was she going to do? She held her breath, while Emma looked uneasy. It seemed this wasn’t going to be a purely social occasion after all.

  “What is it, Antonio?” she asked. She sounded almost resigned.

  “I have a confession to make. I have deceived you, and there are no words to tell you my sorrow over this.”

  “Deceived us how?” Emma asked, perplexed.

  “I am not who you think I am. I am not Antonio Mendoza Torres. I am a Torres, but my name is Enrique Torres. I am an impostor.”

  They stared at him in shocked silence. “But how? Why? I don’t understand,” Emma stuttered.

  “I am not proud of it, but it is very simple,” he said. “Felipe Torres was my uncle. When he died his son Antonio was named in his will as his beneficiary. When I discovered this, I came here from Brazil and assumed the identity of Antonio, who I believed to be dead.”

  They gazed at him, their faces mirroring shock and a trace of disappointment that somehow bothered him much more than their obvious surprise.

  “I am so very sorry,” he said. He gestured apologetically with his hand.

  “But why are you telling us this now?” Nicola asked.

  “Because the real Antonio Mendoza Torres is very much alive,” Anthony said, walking into the living room.

  Nicola’s face went white, and then was flooded with color. She stood up precipitately. “Anthony! What is this?” she inquired sharply. “Is this some kind of joke?” she asked, turning to look at Enrique. “What is he doing here?”

  “I am sorry to tell you th
at it is not a joke. Nicola, Emma, this is Antonio Mendoza Torres, the son of Felipe Torres.”

  “Felipe Torres was my biological father. I am the adopted son of the late Sir Robert Astonville and his wife Felicity. My name is Anthony Astonville,” Anthony added, for Emma’s benefit. Standing in the middle of the living room, his eyes moved from Nicola to Emma and back. As he spoke part of his mind registered how desirable she looked, her tanned arms and shoulders emerging from a simple low-cut cotton dress held up by the tiniest of straps inviting his touch. It was all he could do not to stride across the room and pull her into his arms.

  Observing them, everything fell into place for Emma. She knew instinctively that Anthony Astonville had to be the man Nicola loved, whose child she was carrying. She got up and walked over to him.

  “I am so very pleased to meet you,” she said warmly. He took her hand with a slight bow, then straightened up and looked into her eyes. What he saw there reassured him. Simultaneously, their heads turned toward Nicola, who was regarding him dumbly.

  “It’s not true,” she whispered. “It can’t be. You’re just making this up. You followed me, and you’re just making this up.” Her voice was fragmented.

  “Sit down, Nicola,” he said gently, going to her and attempting to take her arm. She wrenched it away.

  “Don’t. Don’t touch me,” she said sharply.

  “All right,” he said. “I won’t. But please sit while I explain.” She remained standing, her face mutinous. Emma went to her and took her arm.

  “Sit, Nicola,” she said. “Let him explain.” She tugged Nicola’s arm and the two of them sat back down on the couch to listen to what Anthony had to say.

  “My mother was a Colombian woman named Valentina Mendoza,” he began. “She was housekeeper to Felipe Torres, a Brazilian who had immigrated to Jamaica in 1951. After she became pregnant by him, he informed her he wished to have nothing to do with the child and that when it was born. She was to keep it out of his sight. I, of course, was that child. I was his son and my birth was properly registered, but apart from that he had no interest in me and never acknowledged my existence. I am his beneficiary simply by default.” It was a dry restatement of fact that gave no indication of the pain he had endured because of his father’s rejection of him, a pain that he had buried until Nicola Edgerton had resurfaced so unexpectedly in his life.

  “When I was about ten, Felipe told my mother he had no further need of her services. He gave her some money and we went to Brazil. I believe she thought Felipe’s relatives would be happy to see his son. As it turned out she couldn’t have been more wrong.”

  Anthony set his mouth in a hard line, recalling the months they had stayed in Brazil, months that seemed to last a hundred years.

  “I believe that it is time for me to leave,” Enrique broke in, rising precipitately, as though he would just as soon avoid listening to the story of the months that Antonio and his mother had spent in Brazil. At the sound of his voice, the three faces turned to him in surprise. They seemed to have forgotten he was still in the room.

  “Yes, fine,” Anthony said distractedly.

  A silence fell as Enrique left the room after bidding farewell to Nicola and Emma.

  “Go on with the story, Anthony,” Emma said, and he complied, picking up where he had left off.

  “We then travelled to Colombia. My mother apparently reconnected with her former employer, the Colombian Ambassador to Jamaica, whose housekeeper she was before she started working for Felipe. This man recommended her to some people called the Daughtys, and it was while we were living at the Daughty residence—in the servants’ quarters—that I met the Astonvilles. They persuaded my mother to let them take me to England with them and she agreed so that I could have a better future. The Astonvilles treated me like a son and adopted me when I was eighteen. They died within three days of each other and I became their sole heir. There’s not much more to tell,” he ended, looking directly at Nicola.

  Her eyes were wary, filled with questions, and he felt a wanting then, a need to take her in his arms and explain that by coming into his life she had made his past irrelevant. And regardless of what the future held for him, it would be meaningless without her.

  God, how he wanted to hold her, touch her. He swallowed, his jaw rigid with the effort to control the heat inside him that suddenly flickered into flame.

  She must have detected the movement, the corresponding twitch at his temple, because she averted her eyes and he knew she had willed herself to do it.

  Emma wiped her eyes. “That is the saddest story I have ever heard,” she said, her voice soft with empathy. “And the most romantic.”

  “Romantic isn’t the word I would use to describe my life,” he replied wryly.

  “What will happen to Antonio…uh, Enrique?” Nicola asked, looking directly at him again, her eyes still wary. He received a distinct impression that she had deliberately put her emotions on hold.

  “I’m not sure. The lawyers have advised that it would be better if he moved off the property for the time being, and he has done so. I believe he is staying somewhere in New Kingston.”

  “Will you be pressing charges?” Emma asked.

  “Right now, that is doubtful, for several reasons. The questions are very complex. He appropriated my property, but I do not think he intended to deprive me of it permanently. He assumed my identity, but he believed me to be dead. He believed that had I been alive, I would have supported his actions. Years may pass before all the legal ramifications, whatever they may be, are sorted out, and I don’t think I want to devote years of my life to legal wrangling just to prove that Enrique set out to deceive me. I don’t care that much about it, and I have no doubt at all that he is fully prepared to relinquish any claim to Felipe’s property.

  “But the main reason I would be reluctant to prosecute is because while we were in Brazil, Enrique was the only family member my mother and I could trust. He and I are practically the same age. He was the only friend I had and he behaved toward my mother the way a nephew would or should behave—with respect. She liked him, and in spite of everything, so do I. Several times, when he knew I would be hungry, he secretly brought me food he had taken from his family’s kitchen.”

  At that point Nicola got to her feet. “I don’t want to hear any more,” she said. “Come, Emma, we have to go. It’s getting late.” She looked at Anthony. “We owe you a lot of money,” she said, endeavoring to sound composed. “I do not think we shall ever be able to repay you. I will advise our lawyer to contact yours about transferring ownership of our estate to you. I think that would be best.”

  As she walked by him to leave the room he took her arm, restraining her. “It’s not your land I want,” he said, forcing her to look at him.

  “It isn’t about what you want,” she replied. Something spilled into her eyes, turning them into dark green ponds. “All this time, you knew who I was, you knew everything about me. You spied on me,” she said, her voice catching. “You shouldn’t have done that to me, Anthony. Don’t you see? I will never be able to trust you and I hate you for that,” she ended, her voice breaking. She pulled her arm out of his grasp and walked out of the room.

  Her words left him momentarily speechless until he caught himself and started after her. Emma reached out quickly to detain him.

  “Don’t, Anthony. Give her time to get over the shock of everything. Come ’round tomorrow.”

  He hesitated, torn by reluctance even to let her out of his sight. Then he nodded and released a breath, trying to expel some of the frustrated desire that was consuming him.

  After they had driven off in their Jeep, he prowled the house restlessly. He would stay here tonight. It was almost eleven o’clock. The long drive back to Kingston over unfamiliar, winding mountain roads was best undertaken in daylight. It felt odd to be in this house, which had always been forbidden territory and now was his. He moved from room to room, picking up objects, examining them, and putting them back
down. There were no photographs of anyone, anywhere. Felipe Torres had cut himself off completely from his past and had never developed relationships that did not involve business. He had been a recluse. Now that he had passed away, it was as though he had never even existed. The house held no memories of children’s laughter, of the nighttime murmurings of a man and a woman or of their early-morning wakings. Love had never lived here. The house was a lifeless shell of wood and concrete. It was his property now, he owned it, and standing there in it, he felt nothing but a total sense of alienation that he knew he would never overcome. It would never be home to him. Moreover, Jamaica itself would never feel like home to him. Except for his mother, Jamaica held no fond memories for him and he had never been homesick for the place.

  Nicola loved Jamaica, he knew, but his home was England, and that was where they would create their own memories. It hadn’t even occurred to him to question his assumption that they had a future together now, because anything else was simply inconceivable. It was his destiny to be with her, in every possible way.

  The thought of being with her cut through him like a shard of glass, leaving him feeling splintered and bleeding all over. He leaned against the foot rail of the iron four-poster bed in one of the bedrooms he had wandered into, wrestling with desire so acute the hair stood up on the back of his neck. It had clawed him from the first moment he walked in and saw her sitting there. He had clamped the lid down over it, because his story had to be told. But now he could feel her, smell her, taste her, and it was consuming him like a fever. He straightened up, swore aloud, and almost ran out of the house.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Nicola sat up in bed, her arms around her legs, her head resting on her knees. She had told Emma she was tired and that they would talk more in the morning, but every time she lay down he was there, memories of the hard feel of his body invading her mind and her space and making hers thrum with recognition. She had to forget him because the man she had fallen in love with didn’t really exist. The soul she thought she had glimpsed belonged to a figment of her imagination. He had let her come to him, knowing who she was and everything about her, but had kept his own secrets, withheld himself entirely from her.