But how? she wondered miserably as the day progressed into a round of gaiety that swept Vulcan from her side and into the net of flirtatious senoritas emboldened by the lack of chaperones who, because it was the romeria, the fiesta, had retreated discreetly into the background. She would not have minded so much had he made his enjoyment of their company less obvious, or if he had seemed more concerned about the fact that when dusk descended and the darkened square became transformed into a wonderland by a myriad coloured fairy lights, she became more and more pestered by the attentions of young, slightly inebriated caballeros who were drawn towards her cool, English beauty like moths are drawn towards flame.
She was seated at a table, inside the crowded dancing tent into which the company had been drawn, trying to look composed as she countered outrageous flattery, trying not to show that the sound of cracking castanets seemed to have become permanently lodged inside her head, when belatedly Vulcan came to her rescue.
'Are you having a good time, querida?' he smiled, then with an aristocratic wave of his hand dismissed the bevy of eager swains from around her table. 'I promised you a happy day, did I not?' Closely, he quizzed her hectically flushed cheeks as he hooked forward a chair with his foot and sat down beside her. 'It appears that I have succeeded,' he continued dryly. 'Menorquin society has taken you to its heart, all day I have been congratulated upon acquiring such a beautiful, intelligent and charming bride.'
'How nice for you,' she retorted with a tartness that surprised him, 'but what a pity I cannot return the compliment—unfortunately, it's been made obvious to all but the blind that I have not been favoured with a solicitous, attentive husband!'
Instantly his eyes narrowed so that in the darkened comer where they sat, their table rimmed with light from a candle stuck into the neck of an empty wine bottle, the lines of his face seemed to tighten, giving hint the look of an angry diablo.
'I thought I was acting for the best,' he clamped. 'For days you have scurried from the sound of my approach, making no secret of the fact that you were averse to my presence, which is why, today, as soon as I reasonably could without giving rise to comment, I left the field clear for others. I imagined that that was what you wanted!' As his head jerked forward to probe features set pale as a cameo a draught swayed against the candle, sending twin torches of flame leaping into his eyes. 'Tell me, querida, what do you want...?'
I want your love! she yearned to blurt through lips that felt painfully stiff, but as the band began to play she pulled back from the brink of degradation and gasped: 'I want to dance!'
For one brief, mortifying second he hesitated as if about to refuse, then with a sigh of resignation she found humiliating he rose to his feet and invited bleakly: 'I must be smitten with temporary madness ... but very well.'
As they joined the couples on the dance floor the band was playing a bolero, one of the quieter Spanish dances requiring poise, grace and charm.
Birdie's heart pounded in time with the music while, with the aptitude of a born dancer, she slipped into the routine of the dance, conscious all the time of Vulcan's grim expression and aloof, unbending stance. It was a relief when the tempo changed and the band slipped into the faster rhythm of a fandango, the dance which above all others is a part of Spanish life and expresses to the full the character of its people.
Gradually, her tense limbs responded to the snapping of fingers, the tapping of heels and the clicking of castanets, growing sinuous as the tempo quickened and the pace became so terrific that self-consciousness fled and she was able to express to the full the emotions of a girl alternately teasing, beseeching and pursuing her lover.
When the music stopped suddenly she stood rigid, her eyes sparkling with the joy of the dance, and stared panting, pink lips falling slightly apart, into the masked, expressionless face of her husband. Filled with a reckless urge to gamble everything on one last chance to communicate with her body the emotions she found impossible to put into words, she remained stock still, even when Vulcan exerted pressure upon her arm to guide her away from the empty dance floor. Just when he seemed in danger of losing patience fate took a hand when, as if inspired by some form of telepathy, a guitarist began to play music with a dark, melodic undertone, throbbing with the passion of the Tramontana that gusted through wintry streets, stirring vague, nameless fears as insistently it gathered strength.
Like the spirit of the wind, Birdie began to dance, sinuous as a savage, withdrawn from the crowd, aware only of Vulcan's fixed stare. With movements graceful as a soaring bird she glided towards her immobile caballero, then swiftly turned away, casting a teasing, flirtatious glance across her shoulder. As passionately the tempo quickened her daring rose. Archly she darted Vulcan a look that was an unmistakable invitation to a lover, then danced away out of sheer coquetry, whirling and spinning until her silken skein of hair fell free, tumbling down past her shoulders to add to her look of abandoned ecstasy as, with her hands clasped behind her head, she danced provocatively around the proud, stiff-backed Conde.
Finally she achieved the uttermost peak of daring when, with head thrown back and eyes saucily beguiling, she sidled towards him and leant back, rubbing like a purring kitten against his chest, then in a slow, passionate, infinitely seductive movement she turned to face him, her expression plainly depicting the longing of a girl aching to be held in the arms of her lover.
The shock of steely fingers digging into her shoulders startled her back to reality, to the awareness of a gaping, admiring audience, and to the impact of Vulcan's devil-dark scowl.
'Dios!' he hissed savagely under the cover of piercing catcalls and enthusiastic applause. 'Have you taken leave of your senses? In the theatre your act might pass uncensured, but here in Spain such explicit tableaux are still confined to the bedroom.
Come!' he bundled her roughly from the dance floor, 'let's get out of here before someone decides that you deserve to be arrested!'
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE grip of Vulcan's fingers upon her waist communicated fiercely contained aggravation to Birdie as he bundled her out of the dancing tent and into a square alive with music, thronged with laughing, excited merrymakers. Whistles, catcalls and cheers of delighted appreciation caused her ears to burn as he mounted the waiting stallion, then swooped to haul her into the saddle. With all the ferocity of a conquering Moor he dug his heels into the horse's flanks to send it galloping out of the square and into the dark anonymity of narrow, silent lanes lined with houses that appeared deserted, their windows like blank, unseeing eyes wearied by the sight of centuries of Moorish atrocities.
'Where are you taking me?' she gasped, suddenly very frightened, experiencing insight into the emotions of a terrified young girl held captive within the arms of a hawk-faced, darkly-brooding stranger. 'Put me down!' she cried, pummelling his chest with her fists, alarmed by the tight, thrusting outline of his jaw. But the clatter of hooves over cobbled streets was the only response to her plea, the spark of iron striking stone the only reflection visible in eyes clouded dark as the sky before the onset of the Tramontana, as coldly menacing as sea storing up turbulence to be released in the heart of a storm.
She could feel his heart pounding forceful as waves against a cliff face when he reined in the stallion and lifted her out of the saddle and flinched from his whiplash tone when curtly he directed her to precede him through wrought iron gates leading into the garden surrounding the house where they had spent their honeymoon.
'Wait here, the servants have been given time off to attend the feria—I'll return in a few seconds.'
When he began leading the horse in the direction of the stables she shivered, feeling stranded in a shadow-filled oasis where the perfumed breath of unseen flowers mingled, forming a cloying, smothering cloud. She choked back a cry of panic, feeling her senses reeling, and almost collapsed with relief when Vulcan's hand clutched her elbow.
'Dios!' she heard him breathe as she sagged against his chest, then fear drained away when she
was swept off her feet and carried towards the house with her head resting blissfully against his shoulder.
'Which role have you opted to perform this time, nina?' he challenged grimly, cradling her closer while he turned a key and charged open the door with his shoulder.
'Which role would you prefer me to play, Vulcan?' she whispered, daring to feather her lips along the rigid line of his jaw.
But when he deposited her roughly on her feet and strode a few paces to depress a switch that flooded the hallway with light she was shocked at the sight of his taut whiteness, at his aloof stance and expression of icy resentment.
'I would prefer you to return to your Doctor Coppelius,' he grated, 'the man who created a doll which at short distance actually appears human enough to experience emotion!'
When he spun on his heel and strode into his study as if the sight of her bewildered face was more than he could bear, she felt as discredited as Coppelia, the puppet whose sole talent had been the ability to excite admiration, to dance when wound up, to throw mechanical kisses, and to inspire words of love that left no impression upon her wooden heart.
Suddenly, pride and the risk of humiliation paled to insignificance compared with the importance of telling Vulcan exactly how she felt about him. In spite of the fact that she had become an embarrassment, an encumbrance that not even her rapport with Lucita could make tolerable, she knew that she could not walk out of his life without curing the hurt she had so unthinkingly inflicted, by easing his tortured conscience with the admission that her responses to his lovemaking had not been entirely forced, that eventually her capitulation had been willing.
In spite of her determination not to falter she did not look brave, but sounded as timid as she felt when nervously she followed him inside the study to address a plea to the back of a proudly-held head and intimidating shoulders.
'Vulcan,' she whispered, 'do you mind very much if I love you? If only you'll allow me to stay I won't let my feelings show, won't ever expect my love to be returned!'
A shiver shook her slender frame when slowly he turned to face her. Lashes flew down to hide agonised eyes as she waited for scorn to be poured upon her downbent head.
'Madre de Dios! Did I hear you aright...?'
The shock in his tone jerked at her heartstrings; he had sounded almost as if...
'Preciosa ...!'
Lashes flew up over eyes large with wonder when his tormented groan registered, but before she could force her stiff lips to repeat the admission, before she could even draw breath to utter the first damning word, he had closed the gap between them in two forceful strides to crush her, hungrily as a bear starved of honey, against his pounding heart.
'Mi querida,' he husked with a humility that fell alien from the lips of the proud conquistador, 'please don't lie to me out of kindness, promise me that you are not pretending, that your love has thrived naturally without being forced! I adore you, amada!' With a shaky hand he pushed aside a soft wing of hair to groan the confession against the tender nape of her neck, 'My heart flew into your breast, you clipped its wings, and it has remained there ever since the moment we first met. Will you allow it to stay, mi cara, can a tyrant's heart live for ever in your keeping?'
'Vulcan darling!' Her cry was smothered by a kiss that drained her dry of doubt, a kiss whose sweetness was made exquisite with the bitterness of tears, tears of regret for the hours they had wasted, for the deep misunderstanding that had cast a .shadow over moments of great love, for doubts that had forced them to act like strangers even while their hearts had rejoiced at the prospect of perfect love.
'If only you had said, Vulcan, if only you had told me just once that you loved me!'
He lifted his head and for grudging seconds held her loosely in the circle of his arms. 'I tried, querida,' groaned the shaken master of the piropos. 'Dios, how I tried! But the day I met you I met fear for the very first time in my life, fear of rushing you; fear of losing you; fear of the clumsy words and actions that caused me to ruffle your feathers at every encounter; fear of the desire that forced me to pounce each time my timid little bird pecked at the crumbs I threw to entice her into my cage! And once I had you here, mi cara, I knew I could never let you go—which is why, instead of daring to tell you of the great joy I experienced simply by watching the grace and' fluidity of your movements; of how grateful I felt for being allowed to share moments of incredible repose; of how listening to your voice gave me more pleasure than the sweetest music, of how I coveted your body more than any priceless work of art, I fell back upon the cowardly pretext of asking you to marry me for the sake of Lucita. I had to possess you, preciosa,' he confessed, deeply morose, 'so I tried to ease my conscience by telling myself that a husband is entitled to demand his rights, that it is his bounded duty to erase from his wife's mind the image of every other man. Yet in the end I was defeated by a look from gentle eyes that made me feel brutal as a savage. Is that how you see me, nina?' he husked, tensing taut as a whip beneath her soothing hands.
'Yes, my darling,' she sighed without complaint, 'but promise me that you'll never change, that you'll always remain my tender, tyrannical, sweetly-savage Senor Conde!'
She trembled with delight when he pulled her into a fierce embrace and thrilled to the ragged edge of passion in a voice that told her that in spite of his penitence the conquering conquistador would never be far away.
'And what about you, querida? he demanded roughly. 'Will you be content to be a loving, much adored wife, or will you continue to torment me by finding different roles to play?'
Reaching up to cup his lean face within tender, stroking fingers, she assured him with sweet solemnity: 'Because life has not always been kind, because I had no real home, no one to whom I really belonged, I tried to cushion my loneliness with daydreams, splendid imaginings that had no real existence—but now that need is gone, my darling, for I have found true love, a real castle in Spain.'
'Then I shall make it my main aim in life, preciosa,' he husked whimsically, yet with a serious underlying vein, 'to ensure that, true to the tradition of all the best stories of the ballet, the young princess is kept protected from harmful spells and lives happily ever after.'
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Castle in Spain Page 14