“That’s rather a good question, I suppose. Actually, I haven’t really made any definite long-term decisions beyond the point where I am right now. I figure I haven’t abused Joaquín’s hospitality to such a point, yet, that he’s on the verge of kicking me out on my rear. That’s one advantage to having him as such an old family friend. Besides, you needn’t really be concerned, if that happens to be the reason for you asking. My father didn’t actually leave me destitute, you know. He had to leave me something for fear I would rush off to the law courts and try to make his will worth little more than the paper on which it was written.”
“Frankly, my mother expected you to do just that,” Alyssa said candidly. “Tie up the estate in lengthy litigation, I mean.”
“That’s because the older one gets, the more one becomes obsessed with money, property, and possessions,” he said. “Had I been older, like your mother, I might well have fought the will. But, twenty-eight isn’t all that old. And, in the end, I’m quite convinced that I would rather go out and make my own way in the world than be shackled with the world my father managed to erect before he died.”
“You aren’t resentful, then, that he left the hacienda and the bulls to a stranger?” Now that she’d finally broached this line of conversation, she was reluctant to abandon it.
However, there was the lull necessitated by a young man suddenly there to replace their plates and another young man to serve up delicate molds of caramel custard. Finally, there was a new bottle of white wine needing to be uncorked to go with the dessert.
“I’m not at all resentful,” Adriano immediately picked up the conversation once Alyssa and he were again alone in the large dining room bordered by its four walls hung with the portraits of…Adriano’s ancestors?…men and women, many of them on horseback. “And, besides, you’re no longer a stranger, are you?”
Alyssa blushed. Adriano was—and, for not the first time—taken in by the young American woman’s attractiveness. If the candlelight and the atmosphere muted what remained of Adriano’s cuts and bruises, it also worked to emphasize all of Alyssa’s many good points. Her hair seemed exceptionally golden, her eyes exceptionally purple, her mouth exceptionally inviting, and her neck exceptionally graceful.
“You could stay here, you know,” she suggested, wondering what she was thinking. “I mean, of course, until you decide just what you planned to do with yourself.”
“I’m not at all sure that would be the best thing for your reputation,” he replied.
Alyssa looked for his smile of amusement and found it. “I’m not sure I follow you,” she said, although she knew she was lying. For some reason, she found the idea of having him around a very inviting one. Without him, she was surrounded only by servants and ranch hands. On the other side of the same coin, she hadn’t come all of this way for a social life, rather for seclusion, peace, and quiet.
“How would it look if you, a single young woman, had me, a single young man, living in the same house?” he ventured, leaning forward. His voice had dropped into a lower, conspiratorial octave, and there was a definite edge of amusement playing throughout it.
“Granted, I’m inclined to believe people everywhere are prone to grab at the first opportunity to gossip” she admitted, leaning toward him—although, there continued to be a wide length of table separating them. “But, you and I are almost brother and sister. I mean, when you come right down to the bottom line, we can correctly argue that we’re still stepbrother and stepsister. Yes? Since when, then, is it so scandalous for relatives to live together under the same roof?”
“Since I hardly look upon you as my stepsister.” His voice got even lower when he added, “In fact, the very idea of someone as attractive as you being related is a bit disconcerting.”
That really made Alyssa blush, because, if she wasn’t mistaking, he was definitely flirting with her, telling her that he far preferred her in the role of American stranger than even tentatively connected to him by the marriages of his promiscuous father.
“I’ve embarrassed you,” he said, sitting back in his chair and acting—albeit only slightly—apologetic. “But, surely you must realize how attractive you are. Yes? And I, after all, am only human, and a man to boot. While I, undoubtedly, do have many faults, one of them is not the inability to appreciate a pretty face and body.”
Probably what Alyssa found the most embarrassing at that moment was how she hadn’t, for a second, looked on Adriano as a stepbrother. That connection between them was so tenuous as to be virtually nonexistent. And, she had found him attractive. She had made her offer, because she wanted to keep him around, if just because, after Ty Gordman, Adriano Montego seemed horribly exciting, exotic, and even dangerous.
It all boiled down, she decided, to her being embroiled in a bunch of romantic poppycock of her own making. Quickly, she determined she was undoubtedly making far too much out of Adriano’s little confession. The chances were more than good that he was simply throwing out harmless conversational flattery, much as any young man might do in payment for hospitality rendered by his hostess.
“I’m sure I could survive the gossip if you could,” she stammered finally. Was he viewing her as an amusing, naive goose? “So, you might just remember that the offer was made and add it to your list of possibilities.” She lifted a spoon and used it to slice off a delectable chunk of the caramel custard which she immediately fed her mouth as a good excuse for not saying anything more for the moment. “Besides,” she finally managed between succeeding spoonfuls, “I’m sure the place could use a man’s touch to keep things running smoothly. I’m afraid I know absolutely nothing about raising bulls.”
“I think you would possibly be far better off to let Ramón take care of the bulls,” Adriano said, his eyes downcast and apparently focused on the shimmering mound of molten dessert. “My attitude in the past has hardly ingratiated me to your employees. And, considering recent happenings.…”
He let the sentence hang, glanced up, and delivered an expression that seemed just as embarrassed as anything Alyssa had managed to come up with until then.
“Certainly, I wasn’t insinuating that you would have to work for your keep,” she said, rushing to fill a silence she felt was in the making. “You’re welcome to stay on, whatever the circumstances.”
“I appreciate your offer of continued hospitality,” he said, deciding to leave any decisions until later. He had to admit the idea was tempting. Also, he had to admit that he found Alyssa Dunlap, perhaps, a little too tempting. While he had been less than completely serious when he had pointed out the possibilities of scandal inherent in his remaining at the hacienda beyond the point of his complete recovery, and while he was nowhere nearly as promiscuous as his father had been, he certainly wasn’t beyond feeling certain basic instincts spawned by a man’s confrontation with a beguiling female. He decided he would have to do some in-depth analysis of his feelings toward her before he made any kind of commitment to live under the same roof with her. For, if one thing among all the others was a certainty, it was that he never had thought, and probably never would think, of this ravishing young woman as his stepsister.
“This is delicious custard, isn’t it?” she said after searching for a neutral area of conversation that would relieve the tension. There was, indeed, tension in the room. Although it certainly couldn’t be identified as entirely negative, its presence did somehow managed to quicken the flow of blood through Alyssa’s veins, making her physically excited. She felt charged with electricity; as if by reaching out she might send an arc of sparks flying in any direction.
“Destina is known far and wide for her flan,” he said, echoing what Mara had told Alyssa earlier. “It’s rumored that people used to come from miles around on the pretext of visiting my father just to sample the dishes his cook put on the table.”
Alyssa realized she hadn’t even known the cook’s name before Adriano mentioned it. Really, it was unforgivable on her part, except that she had decided not t
o form any kind of ties, here, hadn’t she? She had utilized every imaginable excuse to keep away from more personal contact with the staff. Still, even if she were only planning a stay of a few weeks—or, at most, a few months—it seemed unbearably snobbish that she should go about her business, pretending real people, with names, and lives, were nothing more than inanimate objects whose sole purpose was to provide for her comfort.
Take the meal in question. It had been delicious, prepared with obvious care and skill by a woman whose name Alyssa hadn’t even known until a few seconds ago. Destina was obviously more than a short-order cook. It was about time that Alyssa got beyond the point of treating her like one.
“Let’s call Destina in and thank her, shall we?” she suggested. “Do you think she’d be offended?”
“Offended?” Adriano provided an accompanying laugh. “Destina lives for her cooking. She’s happiest when she knows it’s enjoyed.”
“She’s probably delighted, then, to have you back to eating,” Alyssa said. “I’m afraid that up until tonight I haven’t been ordering things much of a challenge to anyone’s culinary skills.”
As if sensing she was wanted—servants long in-service somehow are able to develop a feel for such things—Mara made her appearance. Alyssa asked to see the cook for a few minutes if the woman was available.
Destina looked like a cook who thoroughly enjoyed her own cooking. She was a large woman, even more so than Mara. She had apprenticed in this very kitchen under the cook who had supervised under Lalo Montego’s father. By the time Lalo had taken over control of the estate, Destina was more than prepared to handle the scheduling of dinners, parties, and fiestas that had accompanied Lalo whenever the great matador had finished a season of the bulls and had returned to his ranch. She was just as skilled at preparing the intimate suppers for two that had been required even more often than banquets for hundreds.
The woman, though, was exceedingly nervous when she was informed the new mistress of the hacienda had asked to see her in the dining room. Since Lalo’s death, Destina had about decided she might retire from service. The ranch just wasn’t the same without the hustle and bustle that had surrounded Lalo’s fame in the corrida. She had taken momentary hope, what with the arrival of Alyssa Dunlap, that the good times might somehow be resurrected, but that hope had immediately paled when the attractive young American showed no indication whatsoever of becoming the hostess Destina had hoped she would become. In fact, until word had been passed down that Alyssa wished something a little extra special to be prepared for that evening, it seemed the young woman was content to survive on nothing but cold chicken sandwiches.
Destina had expected to be summoned long before this and had been somewhat curious as to why she hadn’t been. Mara kept insisting that it would take the American woman time to get settled, but Destina knew that if the new owner didn’t establish her authority in the household soon, she would have difficulty ever doing it.
Destina was exceptionally surprised that Alyssa had called her to the dining room not to put forth some sort of criticism but actually to compliment on a job well done. And, if for a second she suspected it had been Adriano who had put her up to it—Destina had always liked the young man, even if his manliness had so often been put into question because of his reluctance to face the bulls—that suspicion was soon laid to rest.
“I would have suggested accolades myself,” Adriano told Destina, “but Alyssa beat me to the punch.”
Destina certainly didn’t overlook the fact that Adriano had progressed beyond calling the mistress of the hacienda by her last name.
“I’m afraid I’ve been a little lax in my duties,” Alyssa said, flashing a friendly smile that had Destina thinking the young woman just might be capable of taking control after all. “I’ll stop by sometime tomorrow for a longer talk.”
“You’ve almost got her completely in your corner,” Adriano announced when Destina had exited the room flushed with pride. “Now, if you just assure her you will be doing quite a bit of entertaining in the days to come, you’ll have her licking out of your hand. Destina is always at her best when there is the prospect of a few hundred critical palates waiting in the wings to be satiated.”
“Unfortunately, I’m hardly in any position to entertain,” Alyssa said.
The custard dishes had been cleared away. The wine had been replaced by large snifters of cognac.
Alyssa swirled the liquid inside her bulb-like liqueur glass. She wondered if she should inform Adriano of her intention of selling the estate.
“Certainly, it can’t be a question of facilities or finances,” Adriano observed. He was well acquainted with the cash settlement, quite aside from the ranch, bestowed on Alyssa by his father.
“It’s a question of acquaintances,” she answered. “So far, the only two people I even know, hereabouts, aside from some members of the staff, are you and Joaquín Hidalgo.”
“Ah, but after Saturday’s tienta, you will have countless acquaintances to draw from for your guest list,” he said with an expansive wave of his hands.
“Tienta?”
“A testing of animals for bravery,” he defined, though Alyssa’s Spanish had so remarkably improved since her arrival that she was actually able to catch the gist of most words, no matter how quickly they were spoken. “Are you a fan of the corrida, Alyssa?”
She hesitated in making a reply, because she knew Adriano apparently looked upon the bullfight with a good deal of aversion.
“Joaquín is thoroughly caught up in la fiesta brava, and he and I have managed to remain good friends,” Adriano informed, obviously sensing the route her thoughts had taken.
“In truth, my exposure to bullfighting has been very limited,” she quickly confessed. “It’s not your everyday American sport, you know.”
“Actually, it’s not considered a sport at all, in Spain, but an art form,” he corrected.
“So, there you see how much about it I really know,” she said with a shrug that laid her case to rest. “I’ve seen only one corrida in my whole life. That was in Tijuana, Mexico. I was twelve at the time. My mother was dating a Commander in the U.S. Navy, and he was stationed in San Diego. We all left after the third bull, my mother insisting all the scheduled matadors were novices. I think, although she never did indicate any real fondness for the art form, that she had, by then, as now, still come to think of herself an authority, having at one time been married to your father for a whole month.”
Adriano grinned. Having never met his father’s second wife, he had always wondered just what Karen had been like. She would have had to be a good-looker, or Adriano’s father wouldn’t have bothered. And, of course, Alyssa’s beauty gave clear indication of the genes on her mother’s side of the family.
“So, whether I’m a fan or not, at this point in my life, is up for grabs,” she admitted. “I do remember my mother assuring me that the bulls died far more humanely in the ring than in the slaughterhouse. Also, I do remember how they’re bred to do what they do, so I mustn’t assume they’re helpless domesticated animals turned loose for mere butchering. ‘A domestic bull,’ my mother informed me, ‘would run like hell at the first placement of a pic, let alone still be charging after the banderillas’.”
“Your mother undoubtedly did her homework.” He lifted his cognac to his nose and sniffed before swallowing some of it.
“You don’t agree as to the spectacle being more of a religious ritual than anything else?”
“Certainly, it’s a reenactment of life,” Adriano said, “and of death.”
There was a pause of uneasy silence, wherein Alyssa tried to think of something to say. It was Adriano who ended up filling the void.
“You may be surprised to learn,” he said, “that I’m not actually against the corrida, per se. Actually, I think Spain would be far less the Spain that I love if there were no bullfights.”
“But, I thought.…”
“Yes, I know what you and a helluva lot of o
ther people thought and think,” he interrupted. “But, you’ve, now, the benefit of getting it directly from the horse’s mouth. What I have against bulls, you see, is that they are big, and they are dangerous. And, that at my very first corrida, a big Concha y Sierra bull called Borbón gored my father and put him in the hospital for two months. Quite frankly, that scared me to death. It’s as simple as that: I hate them because I fear them. However, I don’t hate or fear them to the point where I would ever consider gunning them down when they couldn’t fight back.”
Evidently, he suspected Alyssa of still harboring some doubts as to his innocence in the killing of her bulls—gun or no gun found.
In the same instance, his admission of being capable of fear somehow brought him all that much closer to Alyssa, in that the young woman found that admission of his vulnerability exceptionally appealing. She found it a decided strength that he was able to admit to his fear. Most men, her fiancé included, would have gone around pretending that nothing whatsoever on God’s green earth could possibly faze them. The importance of “macho” certainly wasn’t a posturing exclusive to Spaniards. Every man she had ever known—at least up until now—had displayed a certain me-Tarzan-you-Jane mentality, at one time or another, which she had always resented.
“Anyway, let me thank you for the delightful dinner and companionship,” he said, coming to his feet. “I don’t want to play the party-pooper, but, if I’m going to look fit as a fiddle for the fiesta this Saturday, I’m afraid I really must call it a night.”
“You’ll think about staying on here at the hacienda?” She was surer than ever that she would like to have him around.
“We’ll both sleep on it,” he said, coming around the table to pull out her chair.
She stood and turned to find she was standing close—very close—to him. She didn’t pull back, either, and, neither did he.
They were so close that she could make out the slight discoloration that still lingered along his left cheekbone. She could see the faint line of mended skin on his lower lip and wondered if there would be a permanent scar.
Matador, Mi Amor Page 5