Forbidden Flame

by Anne Mather

  'No. Interesting!' Caroline became aware that once again Seňora Calveiro was watching her. 'Believe it or not, but I am not looking for a husband.'

  'You have a lover in England?' he asked in a low voice, and her cheeks flamed once again. He had no right to ask her such a question, and she was tempted to tell him so. But then it occurred to her that perhaps this was a means of defence, and straightening her spine, she said levelly: 'There is someone—yes,' and had the satisfaction of knowing that for once she had disconcerted him.

  Then, with a brief shrug of his shoulders, Luis got to his feet again. 'I would say he is a foolish man, seňorita,' he remarked, winning the point after all, and pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket, he gave her a polite nod before walking silently away.

  To Caroline's relief, the party broke up soon after. In spite of her fears, Don Esteban remained sober enough to wish farewell to his guests, and she made her escape in the melee, only desiring the peace and seclusion of her room. The shadowy corridor had never seemed longer, with the knowledge of Doňa Isabel's presence behind one of the closed doors, but she reached her room without mishap and leant back wearily against the panels.

  What a tangled web her thoughts had created, darting and weaving among the jumbled threads of their relationships. If only Esteban's wife had still been alive; if only Luis had been her employer; and yet did not the two things contradict themselves? If Luis had been her employer, she would not have wished for him to have a wife. She hardly knew what she wished any more. She was tired. It had been a long day. And even if she only stayed for the probationary month, there was still more than three weeks to go…

  CHAPTER SIX

  In the morning, things looked different.

  Caroline had slept shallowly, and she awakened early, spending several minutes on her balcony, watching the sun's rays colour the sky. It was another beautiful morning, the air cool and refreshing, the distant shimmer of the ocean like a mirage on the horizon. The heady scents from the garden below her windows filled her room with their perfume, and although she knew that later the heat would make their petals droop, now they blossomed voluptuously, spreading their velvety stamens and reaching greedily for the sun.

  She rested her elbows on the balcony rail and cupped her chin in her hands. This was her fourth day at the hacienda, she thought pensively. Was she going to give it up so easily? Was she really going to admit defeat, and return to her home in England?

  She sighed, aware of her uncertainty now that the sun was shining again. Had she not perhaps overreacted to circumstances that were new to her? Was she over-sensitive to other people's criticism? After all, she was not like them, and their restrictions should not be allowed to interfere with her determination. She was letting their attitudes influence her decision, and that had to be foolish.

  Seňora Calveiro was to blame. It was she, as much as anyone, who had put the doubt in Caroline's mind. Intimating that she might be interested in Don Esteban, insinuating a relationship that was wholly imaginary. No doubt, she had her own daughter's future in mind, and it was true that Don Esteban might present an eligible image in her mind—a widower, with only one child, not too old, and undoubtedly wealthy. If Josetta appeared to prefer his brother to Don Esteban, that also was not important, for wasn't it already decided that Don Luis should follow his mother's example?

  Caroline's teeth dug into her lower lip, unable to deny any longer the apprehension she felt when she thought of Luis's departure. It was ridiculous, she knew, but somehow she felt safer with him around. Yet that in itself was crazy. What had she possibly to be afraid of here? Don Esteban might drink too much, but he was a civilised human being, not some perverted monster, who threatened her virginity. Emilia was just a child, and Doňa Isabel, for all her eccentricities, was frail and elderly. She was more than a match for any of them, she told herself, and shutting all thoughts of Luis from her mind, she went to take her shower.

  Half an hour later, in a white camisole top and black and white patterned skirt, she left her room and walked quickly along the corridor and down the stairs. It was too early for the maid to bring her breakfast, and she had decided to take a walk outside before the heat became too oppressive.

  She opened the door into the ante-room that she and Luis had used the previous morning, then tried the door that led outside. It was locked. There was no key to turn to give her her freedom, and no matter how she tried, the heavy wood would not budge.

  Frustration brought a beading of sweat to her forehead. Damn, she thought, damn,, damn, damn, and knew the panicky feeling of a prisoner, confronted by the irrevocable boundaries of his cell. Not that the hacienda bore any resemblance to a prison, she thought, struggling against hysteria, but its cloying atmosphere was suddenly stifling.

  Turning away, she clutched at the handle of the door that bore the crucifix nailed to its surface. The iron latch lifted easily, and she drew back to allow the studded wood its outward passage, peering half apprehensively into the shadowy interior beyond the door.

  A flight of stone steps led down and, licking her lips, Caroline ventured forward. It was cool in the draught wafting up from below, and she wondered rather anxiously whether there were dungeons below the hacienda. Had the Spanish built dungeons below their palaces? She thought somehow they had, and while this was not a palace, it was very old.

  But the light grew a little stronger as she reached the bottom of the steps, and what she had thought was another door turned out to be heavy velvet curtains concealing the chamber that now confronted her. It was a chapel, a small but exquisitely decorated chapel, with a damask-covered altar, lit by candles. The screen behind the altar was intricately carved, and there were statues of the Virgin and Child, and another of the patron saint of San Luis de Merced. The statues were gowned in richly textured robes, glittering with precious stones, and the altar-cloth and the velvet kneeling hassocks were brilliant splashes of colour within the chapel's grey walls. It was so vivid, and so unexpected, that she caught her breath, and the man who had been kneeling almost out of sight behind one of the stone pillars that supported the roof of the chapel turned to gaze half angrily at her.

  It was Luis, unfamiliar in a long black cassock, his expression mirroring his impatience with her for having interrupted his devotions, and Caroline's feet took her backward, seeking the soundless anonymity behind the curtains.

  'Wait!'

  His harsh admonition arrested her, and she faltered, watching his forceful approach with uncertain eyes. Seeing him like this was unnerving somehow, a confirmation of what hitherto had seemed scarcely credible, and her own emotions clawed inside her, making a mockery of the frozen face she turned towards him.

  'I'm sorry,' she said, as he neared her. 'I didn't know, I didn't think—' She broke off as he halted in front of her, and then added awkwardly: 'The door into the garden was locked. I couldn't find the key.'

  Luis studied her anxious face with a dark intensity, then made an indifferent gesture. 'It is no secret that I come here,' he said, gesturing round at the altar. 'It is the only place in my father's house where I feel truly at peace.' She noticed he did not say his brother's house. 'But you wanted to go outside. I will show you the way.'

  'Oh, please…' Caroline put out a hand. 'Do—do go on with—with whatever you were doing. I mean—don't let me disturb you—'

  Luis looked down at her imploring fingers, then bent to haul the long black robe up and over his head. Beneath, he was wearing a black shirt and corded pants, and he thrust the enveloping tunic aside and ran smoothing fingers over his hair.

  'Come,' he said, starting through the curtains, and with a curiously dry mouth she followed him up the steps and into the ante-room.

  The outer door was still immovable, and bidding her wait for him, Luis disappeared into the main body of the house. He returned a few moments later, weighing a handful of keys between his fingers, and after a moment's examination he found the one which opened the door.

  'My
brother becomes more security-conscious as he grows older,' he remarked, turning the key. 'This door was never locked in my memory.'

  Caroline recalled what Doňa Isabel had said about the use of the puerta accesoria, and coloured. Perhaps Don Esteban had had the door locked to prevent the woman his aunt had seen from entering the hacienda? The woman they both believed was Luis's mistress!

  'Is something wrong?' Luis had observed her sudden stillness and Caroline forced herself to move past him, out of the door and into the sun-drenched morning air.

  'Why, no. What could be wrong?' she responded tautly, turning her face up to the sunlight, and then was disconcerted still further when he fell into step beside her.

  'Tell me,' he said, 'why do you think the door was locked? To keep you in?' He paused. 'Or to keep someone else out?'

  Caroline's tongue appeared briefly. 'As—as you said, seňor, your—your brother is aware of the value of his possessions—'

  Luis snorted. 'But you do not believe this?'

  Caroline bent to touch the petals of a scarlet hibiscus, growing with others in wild profusion beside the zigzag paving of the path. She was glad of the diversion to hide her expression from him, and choosing not to answer him, she inhaled their delicate fragrance. 'Do you know,' she said, brushing pollen from her fingers, 'people pay a lot of money for plants like these back in England? We have to keep them indoors, and cultivate them so carefully, whereas here they grow like weeds.'

  She heard his angry intake of breath, and the impatient oath that slipped unbidden from his lips, but she did not turn, and he strode past her, leading the way down shallow terraced steps to a trellised rose garden. She hesitated for a moment, but then, shading her eyes against the glare, she followed him, treading the path that wound between sculpted banks of foliage. There were bees buzzing among the flowers, and butterflies rose in startled flight as her shadow crossed their path, and the natural barriers of nature closed around them like the walls of a maze.

  The path gave out beside a lily pond, where exotically coloured fish darted among the trailing blossoms. Occasionally they came to the surface, to feed from the suicidally-reckless insects that skimmed the still water, and the rippling sound they made reminded Caroline that it must be almost time for breakfast. But when she turned, Luis was standing right behind her, blocking her path, and she was obliged to walk round the pond to put some space between them.

  'I leave tomorrow morning,' he said at last, when Caroline, who had been searching her thoughts desperately for something to say, was almost at the end of her tether, and his words fell like chips of ice between them. 'This may be the last time we meet. Tonight I have to attend a wedding in the village, and tomorrow I shall be gone before you awake.'

  'I—I see.' Caroline swallowed hard. 'I—I—we shall miss you.'

  'We?'

  'Emilia and I,' she declared defensively, and he inclined his head in silent acquiescence. Then: 'Will—will you be away long?'

  'You mean—will I be coming back?' he amended harshly, pacing slowly round the circuit of the pool. 'Not for some time, I think.'

  'Oh!'

  Caroline was shocked at her own reactions to this. Even after what had happened this morning, even after seeing him in the robes of the priesthood, she could not reconcile herself to his calling. He was a man, and he disturbed her as no other man ever had, not even Andrew, she acknowledged unwillingly, and the emptiness his going evoked inside her was a physical thing.

  'I—I'm sorry,' she said now, as he reached her, and stopped to lift one booted foot and place it on the raised balustrade that surrounded the pool. 'I—I know Emilia—'

  She broke off abruptly, unable to go on beneath the level scrutiny of those dark-lashed grey eyes. She could not continue mouthing platitudes, when she was so overwhelmingly conscious of the hard strength of his body only inches away from her own, and her complicity filled her with shame.

  'Will you stay?' he asked now, turning his head to look at her, and she endeavoured to present a calm facade.

  'Stay?' she echoed, her mind blank for a moment. 'Oh—oh, you mean here, at San Luis. I—I honestly don't know.' She moved her shoulders helplessly. 'It— depends.'

  'On what?'

  He was persistent, and expelling her breath unsteadily, she made a helpless gesture. 'Whether—whether my—my work is satisfactory, whether your brother is happy with Emilia's progress, whether I—I find the work rewarding—'

  'And that is all?'

  She bent her head, the silky strands of pale hair falling about her ears. 'I suppose you're referring to what I said last night,' she ventured. 'About—about Seňora Calveiro.'

  'She had appeared to upset you. Or was that Esteban?'

  Caroline shook her head. 'I was tired last night. I may have been a little—hasty.'

  'So you will stay?'

  'I don't know, do I?' She lifted her head, and her eyes, wide and indignant, met the naked passion in his.

  'You must go,' he said, with sudden violence. 'I do not want you here. Go home. Go back to England. Go back to this man, who cares for you in a way I cannot understand.'

  Caroline's breathing quickened. 'What do you mean?' she whispered, gazing at him tremulously. 'What has my staying to do with you?'

  Luis's mouth hardened. 'I should say nothing, of course, should I not?' he retorted. 'You are here at my brother's instigation. You are his employee. And if you were a little reckless in accepting a situation so far from the people and places you are used to, that also should not be my concern.' He made a savage gesture. 'But it is! It had been so ever since I saw you in the hotel in Las Estadas, and although I tell myself I should care nothing, that you are old enough to make your own decision, you are a constant cause of vexation to me!'

  'I'm sorry.' Caroline was taken aback. She had not realised he might feel concern for her. 'I assure you, I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself.'

  'Are you? Are you?'

  Without another word he put out his hand, his fingers curving behind her nape, under the silky sway of her hair. Although she would have drawn back, his grip was purposeful, compelling her irrevocably towards him, drawing her against the upraised curve of his leg. Her hands, balled against his chest, were no defence to his strength and determination, and he bent his head without effort and covered her mouth with his.

  His kiss was light and soon over, his lips barely brushing hers, and stiff, as if he held himself in check. 'You see!' he said, and he was unable to conceal the raw emotion in his voice. 'You are as helpless as a baby in the hands of a strong man, and you must realise my brother is no celibate!'

  Caroline quivered in his grasp. 'As you are.'

  'As I am,' he conceded harshly.

  Caroline moistened her lips. 'A—aside from the woman—the woman who comes from the village,' she choked impulsively, and the darkening anger of his expression was evidence enough of his comprehension.

  'So. You have learned a lot in a very short time, seňorita,' he grated, releasing her abruptly, and removing his foot from the balustrade,. 'And already you are prepared to think the worst.'

  'I didn't say that.' Caroline's legs felt like jelly, but she had to go on. 'Is—isn't it true? Is there no woman?'

  Luis hunched his shoulders. 'Oh, yes,' he said, and his response caused a pain like a knife to twist in Caroline's stomach. 'Oh, yes, there is a woman. Her name is Ana Pascale.' His lips twisted as he turned to look contemptuously at her. 'And what do you think we do together, when she confesses her sins to me?'

  Caroline moved her head helplessly from side to side. 'It—I—it's nothing to do with me.'

  'You brought it up,' he reminded her.

  Caroline expelled her breath unevenly. 'We'd better go back.' She lifted her head. 'Goodbye—seňor. I—I hope you have a good journey.'

  Luis returned her gaze broodingly, making no move to leave. 'You really believe it, do you not?' he demanded grimly. 'You really accept that I could have a mistress!'

 
Caroline shook her head. 'I've told you—'

  '—it is nothing to do with you, I know. But that is not good enough, seňorita. I find I do not like to be humoured like a recalcitrant child.'

  'Seňor—'

  'No, I will not be treated like this. I am a man, verdad! Do you not think that is hard enough for me to try and forget, without you insinuating proof of a relationship that is abhorrent to me!'

  'I'm sorry—' Caroline pressed her palms together anxiously, but he was not to be placated.

  'Sorry?' he echoed, his eyes smouldering. 'You are always sorry, are you not, seňorita? Unfortunately, sorry is not always good enough.'

  'Oh, Luis…'

  His name slipped carelessly from her lips, and although she caught her breath at its passing, it was clearly audible. She stood, with lips parted, waiting for the censure she was sure was to come, and with the certain knowledge that her reckless tongue had destroyed any chance of a reconciliation. In any circumstances, she had no right to think of him by his given name, and added to his earlier condemnation it was a total indictment.

  Shaking her head helplessly, she turned away, taking deep gulping breaths of air, and as she did so, she felt him move behind her.

  'Luis,' he said, and the way he said his name was so much more disturbing than the way she said it. 'You called me Luis,' he added, his breath fanning the nape of her neck. 'You should not have done that.'

  'I know, I know,' cried Caroline tormentedly, bending her head over her twisted fingers. 'Oh, why don't you just go away and leave me alone? All right, so I was insolent. Can't you just forget it? You're leaving soon. Does it really matter?'

  'It matters to me,' he responded in a low voice, and she started violently when his hands closed on her waist and impelled her back against him.

  'What are you doing?' she exclaimed frantically, trying to push his hands away, but then she felt the powerful masculinity of his body moulding itself to hers and her legs almost gave out on her.

  'Caroline,' he breathed, rubbing his tongue against the throbbing pulse behind her ear, and her resistance dissolved.