Forbidden Flame

by Anne Mather

  Caroline turned to look at him. 'They are not as I could have wished either, seňor,' she declared, making no effort to disguise her annoyance. 'I was employed to teach Emilia, not to indulge in sightseeing outings to Las Estadas. You must know that had I suspected Emilia would not be accompanying us, I also should have refused.'

  Don Esteban's expression did not alter. 'I see. You would prefer to go back, perhaps?'

  'I would prefer to go back,' she agreed.

  Don Esteban inclined his head. 'Very well. When we reach the village, I will turn the vehicle round, and we will go back for Emilia.' He made a dismissing gesture. 'And if she contracts a fever, then we must hope she has the strength to overcome it.'

  Caroline's lips clenched. 'If Emilia is delicate, it would be madness to take her to Las Estadas on a day like this,' she exclaimed.

  'It is your decision, seňorita,' he intoned flatly, and Caroline gazed at him in helpless fascination.

  'You'd do that? You'd take your daughter with us? You'd risk her health—'

  'Seňorita, my wife was like Emilia.' His thick fingers swung the wheel to avoid a pothole in the road, and Caroline groped for the rim of the seat to save herself from falling against him. 'Juana was susceptible to every germ and virus that came her way.' He grimaced. 'Myself, I blame her parents. They used to treat her like glass.' He uttered a short mirthless laugh. 'And like glass, she shattered, without even giving me the son for which I married her. Oh, yes,' this as Caroline turned a disbelieving face towards him, 'that was why I married her, seňorita. San Luis needed a son and heir, and my father contracted the marriage for me. Unfortunately, he had no idea that it was Luis whom Juana really wanted, when she cast those soulful eyes in this direction.'

  Caroline blinked. 'You speak so dispassionately.'

  'Why not? Juana never cared for me, and Emilia is like her mother.' He hesitated. 'But perhaps, if I treat her a little less tenderly, she will survive her first pregnancy.'

  Caroline expelled her breath with incredulity. 'Seňor, I can't let you do that!'

  Don Esteban's heavy lids narrowed his eyes. 'How will you stop me, seňorita?' he asked, and she could tell he was attracted by the prospect, so that her answer came swift and slightly breathless:

  'We will not turn back, seňor. I will accompany you to Las Estadas.'

  It was an arduous journey, the road slippery and running with water, the landscape dark and dripping with rain. Even when the downpour lessened sufficiently to let her see something of her surroundings, the encroaching wall of vegetation was grim and unyielding, giving only on to solid outcrops of rock, starkly chiselled to make way for the road. They passed through areas of cultivated land, where the rampant undergrowth gave way to banana and coffee plantations, and occasionally a cow or a donkey wandered haphazardly into the road, causing Esteban to swerve and swear violently, as the Range Rover's tyres spun uselessly centimetres above the surface. But mostly the journey was accomplished in silence, Caroline too absorbed with what she had learned to pay much attention to Esteban's uncertain humour.

  Las Estadas was just as depressing as she remembered it, but this time Esteban parked the Range Rover off the main street, and adjusting his jacket, jumped down into the road.

  'I will show you the way to the post office,' he said, walking round the vehicle and swinging open her door. 'Come, I will help you down.' His eyes mocked her. 'I regret there are no sidewalks here.'

  Caroline could have done without his assistance, but rather than antagonise him she allowed him to help her down on to the spongy surface of the road. For a moment she was close to him, aware of the flesh-softened muscles of his chest, her lungs filled with the powerful scent of his deodorant, and then she glanced up and found him looking down at her, and recklessly she took a backward step.

  Immediately her foot was plunged into the murky depths of a puddle that had formed at the roadside. She tried to disguise her gulp of annoyance, but Esteban saw the consternation on her face, and taking her arm again, he drew her forward.

  'Sometimes it is better to bear with the devil we know than tempt the devil we do not,' he remarked, his tongue circling his already moist lips. 'Seňorita, you and I must come to an understanding.' His expression was enigmatic. 'But for now, the post office is this way.'

  Caroline bore the intimate possession of his arm about her waist as they crossed the road, but once they were at the other side she determinedly freed herself. She would rather walk in the puddles than have his hands upon her, she thought, revolted by his proprietorial attitude, and she was relieved when the shabby building that housed the post office was reached.

  'I have to go to the bank,' Esteban remarked then, glancing thoughtfully about them. 'I suggest you attend to your business here while I am absent, and meet me in half an hour's time at the hotel.'

  Caroline's mouth went dry. 'The hotel?' she echoed. 'The hotel where I stayed the night before…'

  Her voice trailed away, but Esteban didn't appear to notice. 'Allende's posada, si,' he declared shortly. 'We will have lunch there, before returning to San Luis. It is not the most desirable hostelry, I know, but it is the best Las Estadas has to offer.'

  Caroline nodded, but her reaction was unmistakable, and as if he was aware of her reticence, Esteban's mouth compressed. 'You find my arrangements displeasing, Miss Leyton?' he enquired heavily. 'Or is the company not to your taste? You would prefer that my brother was here in my place, perhaps?'

  Caroline stifled her gasp of astonishment at his words, and forced herself to meet his accusing stare. 'If—if I have given you that impression, I'm sorry, seňor.'

  'Are you?' Esteban was evidently unconvinced. 'Do you dislike me, Miss Leyton?'

  'No!' But her denial was almost too quick, too vehement. 'I—er—I'm getting wet, seňor,' she protested faintly. 'May I go and post my letter?'

  Esteban thrust his hands into his coat pockets. 'Muy bien.' His shoulders hunched. 'Do as you say. We will meet at the hotel in twenty minutes.'

  'Twenty minutes, seňor?'

  'How long does it take to post a letter?' he countered caustically, and turning, strode away across the muddy street.

  The hotel was just as seedy as she remembered, the group of Mexicans sitting on the verandah, tipping back their chairs, as they drank their tequila and watched the world go by, just as dead-eyed and indolent. Caroline crossed the slatted boards on hasty feet, reaching the comparative privacy of the reception hall with relief, and then drew back apprehensively, when Seňor Allende himself appeared from the bar.

  'Ola, it is Seňorita Leyton, is it not?' he exclaimed, squinting at her in the poor light that filtered through the grimy windows. 'Que quiere usted? Una habitation?' He chuckled maliciously. 'No se si puedo ayudarte.'

  Caroline was about to explain that she didn't understand what he was saying, when her employer's voice interrupted them.

  'Miss Leyton does not require a room, Allende,' he stated coldly, coming into the hall behind Caroline, and laying a possessive hand on her shoulder. 'But, had she done so, you would have done well to accommodate her, my friend, unless you are wishing to relinquish the tenancy of this establishment forthwith.'

  'Seňor! Seňor Montejo, how could you think such a thing?' The fat little proprietor almost prostrated himself before Esteban. 'Mees Leyton and me—we were having what you call a leetle joke, no?' He cast imploring eyes in Caroline's direction. 'Is that not so, seňorita? Old Domingo, he likes a leetle fun. You know it is so.'

  Caroline wondered how funny it would have been if she had been seeking accommodation, but her conscience would not permit her to be the unwilling instrument of his downfall.

  'Seňor Allende did—provide me with a room the last time I needed one,' she offered, avoiding the little man's eyes, and Esteban drew a harsh breath.

  'So he did. On my recommendation.' His expression was unyielding. 'No obstante, he would do well to re-member to whom he owes his loyalties.'

  Caroline thought so, too, ju
dging by the expression on Seňor Allende's face. Evidently, Esteban was his landlord, but it was more than just fear of eviction that put that consternation into his eyes. In a town like Las Estadas there could be no future for anyone who fell foul of the Montejos, and she almost pitied the little man as he fawned around them. But when, in the course of his conducting them into the tiny dining room of the hotel and seating them at the best table by the window, she accidentally intercepted Seňor Allende's gaze, she was shocked by the fleeting glimpse of hatred she saw there. It was quickly concealed behind a mask of grovelling servility, but the memory of it remained with her, disturbing and unnerving.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Esteban drank too much that evening.

  Watching him filling and refilling his glass during dinner, calling for more wine, finishing the meal with a decanter of brandy, Caroline experienced the same kind of discomfort she had suffered on her first evening at the hacienda, and now there was no Luis to counteract his indulgence.

  But without his brother to taunt and attempt to humiliate, Esteban turned his attention to Doňa Isabel, making fun of her pitilessly, mocking her style of dressing, and deriding her husbandless state.

  But Doňa Isabel just went on spearing cubes of cheese with her knife, and popping them into her mouth. 'If you consider marriage so attractive, Esteban, then perhaps you should consider the success of your own,' she remarked, nibbling a cracker thoughtfully. 'You have been singularly unlucky in your partnerships. Your first wife died without giving you any children at all, and poor Juana could only produce a puny girl child—'

  'Basta! Be silent!' Esteban's face convulsed with anger. 'What do you know of anything, you stupid old bruja! My marriage to Margarita was no marriage at all, and Juana was always a feeble-minded hypochondriac! How could either of them be expected to give me sons, when they couldn't even fire a man's passion?'

  Doňa Isabel shrugged, unmoved by his insults, but Caroline sank lower into her seat. She had not even known there had been a wife before the unfortunate Juana, and she wondered what had happened to her when her inability to conceive had proved absolute.

  'Perhaps it is you, and not Luis, who should enter the priesthood,' Doňa Isabel suggested, and Caroline was astonished at her audacity. 'After all, Seňorita Leyton has no doubt heard the rumours that Emilia may not be your daughter, and if that is so, there is no proof that you can provide an heir for the hacienda.'

  Caroline thought he was going to hit his aunt then, but although anger brought the hot colour to his cheeks, and his eyes almost started from his head, discretion—or perhaps respect for the sharpness of her tongue, which was more than a match for his—stayed his hand.

  'Go to bed, old woman!' he said, sinking back into his seat, his fingers closing once more around the decanter. 'I will provide an heir for San Luis soon enough.' His eyes flickered briefly over Caroline. 'I shall not need Luis's assistance when that time comes.'

  To Caroline's relief, the clouds had disappeared by the morning, leaving a day that was hot and very humid. But anything was better than being confined within the walls of the hacienda, and she and Emilia spent the first half of the morning identifying plants and flowers in the garden. It was Emilia herself who did most of the instruction, teaching Caroline the names of the plants and explaining their cultivation, but the little girl seemed to enjoy airing her knowledge, and Caroline was glad to be out of the heavily cloistered atmosphere.

  'Did you enjoy your visit to Las Estadas, seňorita?' Emilia asked, as they crouched beside the prickly tongues of a cactus, and Caroline gave her charge a thoughtful look.

  'You did not accompany us,' she remarked, brushing a leaf from the skirt of Emilia's dress, and the little girl gave a nod of acquiescence. 'I should not have left you, had I known you would not be coming with us.'

  Emilia shrugged, and rose to her feet. 'You wanted to go, didn't you? You could have said no.'

  'I suppose so.' Caroline straightened, remembering the choice Esteban had given her. 'Well, I'm sorry you were left alone.'

  'Oh, I wasn't alone,' retorted Emilia, beginning to walk back towards the house. 'I went down to the stables to talk to Benito. He let me play with Cabrilla. She is the foal of Tio Vincente's mare, Aphrodite, the one he let you use, the day he took you riding.'

  Caroline stared at her. 'You know about that?'

  'Of course.' Emilia was haughty. 'He told me. But I would have found out anyway. Benito would have told me.'

  Caroline sighed. 'I'm not at all sure your father would approve of your spending time down at the stables. Particularly not when you are so prone to colds and chills.'

  Emilia's indignation was unmistakable. 'You may be prone to colds and chills, seňorita, I am not,' she retorted, very much on her dignity. 'And my father would not disapprove of me spending time with Benito. He, too, used to like to visit the stables, when he was a little boy, and later on, he and my mother used to meet there.'

  Caroline sighed. 'You're talking about—Don Luis, aren't you?'

  'Tio Vincente, yes.' Emilia pursed her lips. 'I've told you, Don Luis is my father. Why do you think he plans to enter the seminary? Because the only woman he ever loved is dead!'

  'Where do you find such melodramatic nonsense, Emilia?' Caroline struggled to keep her tone light, even though the child's words were disturbingly plausible. 'Don Luis's mother—your father's stepmother—she has entered the church. It is she, and not your mother, who dictates your uncle's conscience.'

  'That's not true.' Emilia stared at her mutinously.

  'It is true,' retorted Caroline sharply, annoyed to find she was trembling. 'You must stop imagining things, Emilia. The only person you convince is yourself.'

  To Caroline's astonishment, dinner that evening passed without incident. Only the pouches beneath Esteban's eyes looked a little heavier than usual, but his manner towards his aunt had reverted to the patient, sometimes cajoling tolerance he had previously shown. His attitude and conversation were completely different from the night before, and Caroline thought it was almost as if he was two people masquerading in the same body. She had heard that alcohol could change a person's character, but she had never witnessed such a phenomenon until now.

  Her own relief was mixed with uncertainty, compounding as it did her doubts concerning her position at San Luis. While the previous evening, she had been convinced that she should leave, as soon as her probationary month was up, tonight her fears seemed groundless, the inevitable result of an over-active imagination. Her sympathy for Emilia, and the confusing identity she was creating for herself, seemed far more important than fending off Esteban's advances, and although she found him looking at her sometimes, with curiously speculative eyes, she suspected his interest had been stimulated by her association with his brother. She doubted he knew the whole truth of that relationship. Indeed, she prayed he did not. And she hoped that now Luis was gone, Esteban's interest in her might wane accordingly.

  During the following days, life at the hacienda assumed a pattern, and gradually Caroline began to relax. Her mornings were spent working with Emilia, either in the library or the garden, depending on the weather; she rested during the long hot afternoons, renewing her interest in Pope and Steinbeck, from the wide selection available to her on the library shelves. In the evenings she dined with Esteban and his aunt, and discussed the food, and the weather, and the progress Emilia had made that day, and although occasionally she endeavoured to introduce a more stimulating topic, her employer seemed quite content to treat her as he treated his aunt. It was frustrating, after years of being regarded as the intellectual equal of the men she associated with, and she began to realise that Doňa Isabel was not as eccentric as she appeared. She had had a lifetime of combating this kind of male dominance, and while it could not be denied that she did occasionally suffer from delusions, perhaps that was the inevitable outcome of a suppressed personality.

  The routine was again disrupted by Esteban.

  As on that other occ
asion, he came into the library, and interrupted a biology lesson Caroline was conducting, with the help of a butterfly they had captured in the garden. The glossy-winged creature was safely imprisoned inside an air-filled plastic bag, and Caroline had every intention of letting it go again, once Emilia had had time to examine its complex structure and absorb its various functions. She was in the process of explaining how important its wings were, not only as a means of flight but also as a method of protection, when Esteban came into the room, and for once Emilia turned to her father, in eager exclamation.

  'Miss Leyton has captured a butterfly,' she exclaimed, although Caroline noticed she still forbore to address him personally. 'Come and look! Isn't it pretty? Don't you think the colours are beautiful?'

  Esteban took up the inflated bag and held it critically towards the light. The insect crawled across the base of the bag, confined within its cocoon of silence, and Esteban's lips curved with mocking satisfaction. 'So. They are a pest,' he observed, his thick fingers curving over the globe, and the helpless creature was thrown into a panic-stricken beating of its wings.

  'You're frightening it!' cried Emilia, getting up from her chair and reaching for the bag, but her father held it just out of her reach.

  'I should have thought Miss Leyton might more profitably be teaching you about the birds and the bees,' he remarked tormentingly, and the little girl gazed up at him without comprehension.

  'The birds and the bees?' she echoed, and Caroline knew she had to intervene.

  'Did you want to join our lesson, seňor?' she asked, firmly taking the imprisoned butterfly out of his grasp and handing it back to Emilia. 'You may find my methods of instruction boring, but you're welcome to listen.'

  'I am sure I should enjoy that,' agreed Esteban smoothly, his dark eyes lingering on the dusky hollow between her breasts, just visible above the low vee of her smock dress, and automatically her hand moved to conceal it. 'But that is not why I am here, seňorita.' He smiled, observing her instinctive gesture. 'It is a fine day—warm and only a little humid. Perhaps you and Emilia would enjoy a visit to the coast.'