The House of Adriano

by Nerina Hilliard

  After a most excellent lunch she looked across at him with cold blue eyes.

  “You said you had something you wanted to discuss with me.”

  Despite herself, her voice was not quite so even as she could have hoped, and she would not have been surprised if it had conveyed the implication that she would not have lunched with him had there not been anything to discuss. Anyway, she thought to herself, what could he have to discuss with her? And why had she so tamely agreed to have lunch with him? He had Peter, to be brought up now as an Adriano, and presumably that was all that mattered to him.

  One dark brow slanted up, again in that slight suggestion of irony, and she had an idea that he had guessed something of what she had been thinking, but his voice was quite level as he asked:

  “How much does your present career mean to you?”

  Aileen shot him a quick glance at that, because it was not exactly what she had expected to hear from him - although, come to think of it, just what had she expected to say? She was beginning to realise that he could be a complete enigma, which was understandable of course, since she was not used to his type of man. The Conde de Marindos of this world did not usually cross the paths of people like Aileen Lawrence.

  “I don’t like it as much as my previous job, if that’s what you meant,” she answered somewhat cautiously.

  “Then you might be prepared to give it up for another position?”

  “I might. It depends what the position amounted to.”

  “Not a secretarial one. I realise that you are very attached to Peter and that he has an affection for you.”

  Her heart gave a little jump of hope at that, but she could not resist a veiled jibe.

  “I didn’t think you realised that.”

  “I am not unobservant.”

  She had the impulse to retort that, even if he was observant enough to notice the affection between Peter and herself, she had not thought it would mean anything to him, but she restrained it and waited for him to continue.

  “I shall need somebody to take care of Peter.” The dark eyes held her shocked, incredulous gaze. “Would you be prepared to go to Spain with him?”

  “To ... to go to Spain?”

  She wondered if that was really her own voice. It sounded far too shaken and whispery. What would this incredible man say next? After every action and sentence seemed to have been deliberately designed to reveal him as a person who did not take other people’s feelings into account so long as his own wishes were carried out, he made her an offer like this.

  “I don’t quite understand,” she said at last.

  He shrugged, with a quick gesture of one slim, long-fingered hand that suddenly emphasised his foreignness, his difference from anyone she had ever met before.

  “It is simple. Dona Teresa, Eric’s mother, is still alive, but she is too old to take care of Peter adequately. I would prefer somebody younger, preferably somebody he knows. It will be difficult enough for him to settle in a new country, without finding himself surrounded entirely by strangers.”

  Aileen, if her life depended on it, could not have controlled the startled look she gave him. She was not really surprised to see the dark brows jerk up in a return of the sardonic mockery she had seen on his face on one or two other occasions.

  “I startle you?”

  “Not exactly.” Once again she had to carefully control what she said. “I hadn’t expected you to ... to think of that side of it.”

  “I see.” The sardonic amusement became more pronounced. “I am undoubtedly cast as the unfeeling monster who has no heed whatsoever of the feelings of other people.”

  Aileen flushed, because that was exactly how she did think of him - or had until that moment. Not that her dislike was any less, she hastened to assure herself. Quite apart from the question of Peter, there was something about him that instinctively antagonised her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, a little lamely she could not help but feel, but it is always hard to apologise when the apology is made reluctantly.

  “Thank you,” he said dryly. “Perhaps one day you will mean it,” which showed that he was under no illusions as to how she thought about him. Not that it would worry him, she was quite sure. The opinions of Aileen Lawrence would not mean a thing.

  “What about his schooling?” she asked, bringing the subject determinedly back to a more impersonal matter. “I have no training to be able to give him lessons.”

  “That would not be necessary. A tutor will be arranged for until he is old enough to go to school.”

  She could not help looking surprised at that. “He already goes to school.”

  “You will find customs a little different in my own country.” A little different! She had the feeling they would be a whole lot different. By school, though, he probably meant college. For all his excellent command of the English language, he had probably chosen the wrong word there.

  “There is one thing that must be understood, though,” he added, his voice hardening slightly. “There is to be no interference in whatever I might choose for Peter.”

  “From me, you mean?” she asked quite deliberately.

  He nodded, but a hint of amusement was visible in the very dark eyes. “I have no doubt that you will express yourself quite clearly if anything displeases you, but you will leave the final decision to me. There is to be no taking matters into your own hands again.”

  Once again she could not quite control the defiant little tilt of her head.

  “The circumstances would be different. Before, I was a free agent. If I was in your employ, I would naturally respect your wishes - even though, as you said, I might express myself quite clearly if I thought anything was wrong.”

  That would get the matter quite clear. As an employee she would certainly respect his wishes, as she did anyone she worked for, but it would also let him see that she did not intend to make a doormat of herself. Even employees had rights these days.

  “Then you accept?”

  She nodded. “Yes - and thank you for offering me the position.”

  One dark brow quirked up a little dryly again. “You have not asked what the remuneration would be,” and then he named a sum that made her gasp.

  “That’s far too much!”

  “You will leave that matter to me.” His voice was quite definite and she had another glimpse of the iron hand under the proverbial velvet glove he wore when he felt like it. “Another thing - we will get quite clear this question of being in my employ. It will not be stated as such. You will come to Marindos as an unofficial relative of Peter and, as such, part of my own family. You will be made an allowance, such as I would make to a blood relative, and you will mix with my friends.”

  So that was why he had named such a large sum. He expected her to dress to mingle with the same social circle that he moved in. She could not help feeling that it was a most odd arrangement, though, and said as much aloud, adding:

  “Wouldn’t it be far better to keep it on the usual basis?”

  “That also you will leave to me.” His voice was quite definite. “Those are the terms on which I would wish you to accompany Peter.”

  And if you don’t agree, you won’t see him again, her imagination added.

  “Very well. I accept on those terms.”

  CHAPTER V

  Aileen could not restrain a little thrill of excitement as she stepped down from the air-liner. There was the sound of Spanish voices all around her and, even though it was not really very much hotter than the temperatures she had been used to in Sydney during the summer, there seemed to be a different tang in the air.

  There did not seem to be any trouble with customs and any luggage they had brought with them was left at the airport to be sent on later. It seemed only a few minutes before they were installed in a luxurious cream-coloured, chauffeur-driven car and being whisked away from the airport.

  She could not help a surreptitious glance at the man who sat on the other side of Peter. She was e
ntering his world now, and perhaps when she saw the background he came from she might be able to understand him a little better - not that she would ever really like him, she told herself quickly, as if she might have needed reminding on that point, then she turned her attention to the window again.

  They were approaching Madrid now, and she knew straight away that she was going to like this city, even if she did not like one of its citizens. As they travelled further in she found her admiration growing. The main thoroughfares were wide, straight and clean, quite beautiful. On either side were magnificent examples of architecture. In other parts of Spain, she had read, they seemed to have a positive mania for huddling a town into the area that would normally be occupied only by a village in other countries. In Madrid, however, they seemed to have been able to overcome that phobia, because the city spread over as much space as it needed.

  The house itself, Marindos, was another surprise. It was large, but somehow not quite so large as she had expected. Her reading-up had given her the impression that the family houses of the old aristocratic families were gigantic, almost like palaces. It was only later that she learned that this was the Adriano town house. She had yet to see the Castillo Marindos itself.

  They entered through an immense nail-studded door, into a lobby which led in turn into a patio that was planted with shrubs and flowers. They did not enter the patio, but instead took another door off the lobby and, from that one quick glimpse she had, Aileen guessed that the house was built around that central patio, open to the sky. Later she learned that her guess had been right, but that there were also gardens that could be reached from the southern aspect of the house. For the moment though they passed into a cool, shady room with ancient, polished furniture upon an inlaid marble floor, exquisite curtains at the windows - later she learned that those curtains had been painstakingly hand-embroidered - a damask-covered settee and a couple of Persian rugs on the floor, but it was the elderly lady, sitting in a straight-backed chair by an occasional table encrusted with mother-of-pearl, who caught her attention immediately she entered, more than the appointments of the room.

  Dona Teresa Balgare had a Spanish correctness on the surface, but a little twinkling light in her dark eyes that made it quite obvious that her years in Ireland with her late husband had left their mark on her.

  When Duarte introduced them, Aileen saw her eyes go almost hungrily to Peter, and for the first time she felt some of her antagonism against the man begin to ebb away. Had he realised how much Dona Teresa had missed her son and might find him again in the child he had left behind?

  Peter looked up at her, seemingly quite intrigued by the fact that he had a grandmother.

  “Are you really my grandmother?” he asked naively, and when Dona Teresa assured him that she was indeed his grandmother, he nodded approvingly. “That’s good. I like you.”

  It was at that moment that Aileen intercepted a rather dry glance from Duarte, and she flushed and looked away hastily, surprised to find that her antagonism was lessening even more. It was this meeting with Dona Teresa that was doing it. She had been thinking of herself, all along; of what Peter meant to her, and not dreaming that there might be someone else to whom he could mean just as much.

  After a little while coffee was served, with a fruit drink for Peter, then, when it was cleared away, Duarte left them with some murmured excuse. Aileen suspected that it was to give Dona Teresa an opportunity to talk to them alone, to ask all those questions that must be trembling on her lips.

  “You knew my son well, senorita?”

  “I knew both Eric and Mandy, his wife,” Aileen told her, and went on to recount how she had come to live with them when she was still only a child. “He used to talk about you quite often,” she finished gently.

  It was strange how very much at ease she felt with this aristocratic old lady, even though they had met so very recently and despite the fact that she was also very obviously an Adriano. That same pride she had noticed in Duarte was in every line of Dona Teresa’s old but upright body, in the sleek head covered with the old-fashioned black mantilla. That poise and pride of family did not antagonise her as it did in Duarte - perhaps because there was none of the masculine virility that the other Adriano possessed, some little demon whispered at the back of her mind, and she sharply told it to be quiet. It was nothing at all to her that Duarte Adriano might possess a dangerous kind of personal magnetism when he chose to assert that urbane, aloof charm of his, or that he was quite exceptionally good-looking.

  “He found happiness in your Australia?” Dona Teresa asked, bringing Aileen’s thoughts back from their most unwelcome preoccupation with a man she still told herself she disliked intensely.

  “I’m sure he did. He and Mandy were the most perfectly happy couple I’ve ever seen.”

  “They went away,” Peter told her gratuitously. “So I came to live with Auntie Aileen.”

  He seemed to have taken one of his mercurial likes - and his dislikes could be just as quick and pronounced - to Dona Teresa, chattering away in the free-and-easy manner he had when he liked anyone, and Aileen was on tenterhooks all the time in case he should make some remark that would have better remained unspoken. She did not know how much Duarte had told his aunt. Luckily, however, nothing passed his childish lips that should have remained behind them, and a little later a young girl came to lead them to the rooms that had been prepared for them.

  They went along an arched corridor that apparently ran between rooms that on one side overlooked the patio and on the other side gardens or the street. At the end they came to another and smaller lobby, where a wooden staircase with a carved balustrade swept upwards. It was only a small staircase, but it somehow had a hint of restrained magnificence about it.

  At the top of the staircase they came out into a little hall - she supposed it could be called that - a square room with a polished wooden floor, quite bare except for an enormous vase that stood upon a wooden pedestal and was filled with exotic and quite unknown flowers. An archway led into another corridor, presumably directly over the one below, and they proceeded along this for a short distance, until the girl threw open the door into what could only have been described as a suite of rooms.

  There was a large, airy sitting room, furnished rather like the one where she had met Dona Teresa, with windows overlooking the patio and shutters that could be drawn across them, because shade was all-important in Spain, as she soon learned. Leading off, on one side, was a smaller room that had been prepared for Peter, with bright modern furniture. She wondered whom they had to thank for that. The way the rest of the house was furnished would have been quite overwhelming for a small boy.

  Even the sitting room had a hint of that same restrained magnificence, which was carried out also in her own bedroom, which led off from the other side of the sitting room. The curtains at the windows were of heavy silk that was again richly embroidered. Drapes of the same material covered the doors and there was a wrought-iron balcony that overhung the patio. Leading off her bedroom was her own private bathroom, complete with shower, a symphony of green and black tiles that was most definitely modern.

  She stood there for a moment completely breathless, then realised that the girl, Vanetta, in very jumbled English, was asking her if she needed any assistance, but Aileen quickly assured her that she could manage on her own. She had managed on her own long enough, she added to herself.

  Once she was alone, she wandered over to the balcony, looking down into the patio where flowering shrubs and acacia trees grew, together with many of those exotic-looking flowers. Some of them she recognised as having seen in Australia, but she had never had a head for remembering the names of flowers, except the more common ones, so she did not even try to recall their names.

  Peter at that moment chose to exhibit an inclination to try to swing on the wrought iron of the balcony, and she hastily caught him by the waistband of his small trousers and hauled him back, explaining that to do such a thing was exceedingly da
ngerous. He nodded and promised not to do it again, once again showing that amazing adult understanding.

  Just as she was about to draw back from the window she heard Duarte’s voice speaking to somebody below. It sounded different, and it was not until a few seconds had passed that she realised he was speaking his own language.

  Realising suddenly that he might see her and finding a strange embarrassment in the thought, she quickly left the balcony, settled Peter down for a rest, because she could see that he was tired, in spite of his protestations, then had a shower and changed her dress. She had just come back into her sitting room when somebody tapped gently on the door. Dona Teresa was revealed standing there when she opened the door.

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course.” She stood back as Dona Teresa entered, adding, “Please sit down.”

  “I felt I had to thank you again for taking such good care of Peter all that time, especially as he was no real relative to you,” she said, sitting down on the damask couch as Aileen closed the door and turned back to her. Her voice when she spoke English had a slight touch of Irish brogue, as Aileen had already noticed. That, she thought with a return of the slight touch of malice, must have annoyed the overbearing Adrianos. Not only had Dona Teresa run off with an Irishman, she had come back with an Irish accent.

  Somehow she could not quite think of Dona Teresa as an Adriano, in spite of the undoubted family likeness.

  Aileen shook her head, disclaiming any particular goodness of heart in assuming responsibility for Peter.

  “I loved taking care of him.” She paused slightly, choosing her words with care now. “He came to mean quite a lot to me.”