by Penny Jordan
‘Shelley, my dear…what is it? Have you and Jaime quarrelled?’
So much for concealing the truth from her, Shelley thought tiredly. All at once it was too much for her to bear alone any longer. Tears weren’t far away, as she subsided into a chair and gulped painfully, ‘Worse than that—I’ve found out exactly why Jaime married me.’
Bit by bit the Condessa dragged the whole story out of her. When at last Shelley had finished, her stepmother was as pale as she was herself.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I knew there was some sort of relationship between Jaime and Sofia, of course. One does not expect a man of his age to live the life of a monk, after all,’ she added with motherly dignity, ‘but this other…this claim of hers that Jaime intends to sell the villa and its land to her father. I knew he wanted it, of course. He approached your father about it some time ago…but Jaime knows quite well how both your father and I felt about the unchecked development of the Algarve coast. He knows we would never, ever sell that land to Sofia’s father. And neither, I am sure, would Jaime. No, Shelley, my dear, I’m sure that Sofia has lied to you.’
‘But why…for what purpose?’
‘Perhaps because she is jealous of you,’ the Condessa suggested shrewdly. ‘She is as very hard young woman, and one I would never have wanted to see married to Jaime, but she was quite relentless in her pursuit of him.’
‘According to her she and Jaime are still lovers,’ Shelley said in a low voice.
‘Did you tell him about what she had said to you, Shelley? Have you discussed it with him?’
Shelley shook her head. ‘No, but he must realise that I know. She… Sofia called round while he was out—he had to go out on business the evening we arrived back at the quinta. Sofia said he had gone to meet her father…to tell him that our marriage meant that their plans could go ahead. She told me Jaime had never wanted me. When he came back I couldn’t talk to him about it, I was too afraid that he would convince me that she was lying. If he had…if…if… Oh, can’t you see, that if I’d let him convince me that night, I’d never have felt I really knew the truth? Now I know it must be true. He hasn’t made any attempt to…to put our marriage on a normal footing.’
The Condessa looked appalled, whether by Shelley’s revelations about her son, or by what Shelley herself had done, Shelley had no way of knowing.
‘But you must have given him some reason…some explanation for…’
‘For not sleeping with him?’ Shelley sighed. ‘Yes, I told him that I felt that he’d rushed me into marriage before I was ready. I…must go and see the advogado,’ she said huskily. ‘I need to know exactly where I stand legally. I’ve no idea of the legalities affecting married women’s property in Portugal…and then there’s the matter of having our marriage annulled. I’m not going to let him sell my father’s land,’ she finished fiercely. ‘I can’t let him do that, no matter…’
‘No matter how much you love him,’ the Condessa finished drily for her. ‘Shelley, I know my son…I can’t believe what you’ve told me is true. Are you sure you’re not just allowing yourself to be hurt unnecessarily by a vindictive woman? Why don’t you talk to Jaime about it? Why…’
‘No!’ The denial was wrenched from her throat. ‘No…I can’t. I felt all along that he couldn’t really love me; I should have listened to my head and not to my heart.’
‘Oh, Shelley.’ The Condessa took Shelley’s hands in her own. ‘My dear, how much of this is my fault? I was so worried about the conventions that I helped to push you into this marriage. I knew you wanted to wait. What is it that really frightens you? The thought that Jaime doesn’t love you? I assure you that he does. He’s my son, Shelley, and I know him very well, very well indeed, and now I’m beginning to know you. Ever since you and Jaime met you seem to have been looking for some excuse to run away from him—and from yourself. Why? You’ve just told me you never really believed he could love you. Why not? You’re a beautiful woman, inside as well as out, and my son has sufficient intelligence to see that. Are you sure the root of all this heartache isn’t really your own sense of inferiority? I know what you had to endure as a child. I know how your grandmother treated you, but Jaime isn’t your grandmother, Shelley; he’s a man who loves you…’
The Condessa’s words were too close to the truth to be borne. She had been subconsciously almost willing him to fail her; she knew that now. Because in some ways, now that he had done it was almost a relief. Now she needn’t go on hoping any longer. Now she knew that he was just the same as everyone else, that her grandmother was right, that she was unworthy of being loved.
‘He doesn’t love me,’ she protested bitterly. ‘He loves Sofia.’
‘You need time to think,’ the Condessa told her. ‘Yes, I know you want to see the advogado, but first we will go for a short drive together while you try and calm yourself. I always find it a most soothing remedy.’
Oddly enough, the Condessa was quite right. The stately progress of the chauffeur-driven Mercedes did have a calming effect on her overwrought nerves, at least until she happened to glimpse a man in the street who from the back bore a remarkable resemblance to Jaime. She forgot that he had gone out this morning in a formal dark suit and this man was wearing one in pale grey, and jerked upright in the car, to stare almost hungrily out of the window. They passed the man and she looked back. he was nothing like Jaime, nothing at all.
To her surprise the car turned into an impressive modern hotel. ‘We will stop here and have a cup of tea,’ the Condesa announced, ‘and then we will go back to the house and rest. This afternoon, if you still feel it is necessary, I shall make you an appointment to see the advogado, but I do advise you to talk to Jaime, Shelley.’
She wasn’t going to be pushed into doing anything. Not now, but still she followed the Condessa into the plush foyer of the hotel, sinking almost ankle deep into a thick pile carpet.
‘This way.’
The Condessa took Shelley’s arm and led her into a richly decorated salon, already more than half full of elegantly dressed women, sipping cups of tea, while a girl played softly on a piano in one corner of the room.
This was obviously ‘the’ place to come, Shelley reflected, noticing the discreet display of jewellery and designer clothing. The décor was a little overpowering for her own tastes, especially in a modern hotel, but she could see nothing to criticise in the smiling welcome of the waitress who showed them to a table almost directly opposite the large open double doors that led back out to the foyer. Through them Shelley had an uninterrupted view of the reception area, busy now with a sudden influx of business-suited men, all apparently wanting attention at the same time.
The crowd cleared, their waitress brought them tea, and a selection of sandwiches and delicious-looking cream cakes, and while the Condessa poured for them both, Shelley’s attention drifted back to the foyer.
Suddenly she stiffened as she saw Jaime walk up to the reception desk, and it was him, this time, there was no mistake about that. He leaned across to speak to the girl and she flashed a brilliant smile at him. Someone moved in front of him, blocking Shelley’s view, and then when the stranger had moved away again Shelley felt her heart lodge painfully in her mouth. Sofia was standing beside Jaime, clutching his sleeve, and she was also taking the key the receptionist was handing over.
Shelley felt as though she was slowly being torn to death. She couldn’t have dragged her appalled concentration away from the couple now walking arm in arm towards the lifts, to save her life.
The Condessa, noting her ashen face and fixed expression, touched her arm, and glanced over her shoulder, her curious, ‘Shelley, what is it?’ suddenly silenced as she too saw the other couple.
‘Shelley, there must be an explanation,’ she said quickly. ‘It doesn’t mean…’
‘She gave them a key,’ said Shelley tonelessly. She stood up jerkily, pushing the table and its dainty contents away so fiercely that she spilled the tea. Tears blinded her almos
t completely.
‘I have to go,’ she told the Condessa huskily, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t stay. Not now…’
CHAPTER NINE
FORTUNATELY Shelley had kept the set of keys to the villa, which Jaime had given her. When they reached the quinta, she paid off the taxi driver, and although the staff were obviously surprised to see her back and alone, no one made any attempt to stop her as she packed her cases and loaded them into her car.
All the time she worked she was conscious of her fear that Jaime would follow her; that at any moment his car would draw up in front of the quinta and that he would try to stop her from leaving; that he would try to turn her own aching need for him against her and use it to overcome her will.
And it wouldn’t be so very hard for him to do, not once he touched her. Admitting that to herself was the very worst form of torture. Despite what Sofia had told her, she still loved and wanted him. One rebellious corner of her mind wondered what she would have done if they had not been interrupted by his mother that night, and he had made love to her. Could she have turned her back on him so easily had there been a possibility that she might be carrying his child?
But he hadn’t made love to her. Instead he had deliberately and intentionally aroused her to the point where she was incapable of thinking of anything other than his possession, using her unsatisfied desire for him to enslave her mind.
Once inside her car she forced herself to concentrate on her driving. The Condessa had almost persuaded her that perhaps she had been wrong, that perhaps she had been duped by Sofia after all, but seeing the two of them together like that, with Sofia clutching the damaging evidence of that key… No, that was something that could never be explained away.
Were they still together now, sleepily languorous after having indulged their appetite for one another? What would Jaime have said to her when he eventually returned to his mother’s home? Would he have lied to her about some mythical business meeting, or would he simply have hidden himself away behind that icy silence she was becoming used to?
Even if he hadn’t already guessed, he must surely know the truth by now. Sofia must have told him about their meeting and what had been said.
At first it had pleased her to pretend that Sofia’s visit had simply been a social one; she had taken a painful pleasure in imagining him trying to work out exactly how much Sofia had told her, but now she bitterly regretted not flinging the truth at him while she had had the chance. And to think she had once thought him so moral, so upright!
A rush of tears almost blinded her eyes, and she had to stop her car to wipe them away. She should never have come to Portugal. But if she hadn’t she would never have learned the truth about her father’s love for her. But nor would she have had to endure this agony of loving a man who had callously used her for his own purpose.
She paused in the action of re-starting the car, remembering what the Condessa had said to her. Honesty forced her to admit that there had been some truth in the older woman’s words; she had been looking for an excuse to doubt Jaime’s love, because subconsciously she had feared to trust him, dreading the shock and pain of ultimately finding that trust abused. But she had been right to mistrust his feelings for her, hadn’t she?
She stopped again on her way to the villa, to buy herself some supplies.
Common sense told her that she should really have remained in Lisbon, but in her emotional reaction to seeing Jaime with Sofia, all she had wanted to do was to run away and hide, to put as much distance between them as possible, and the villa had beckoned to her like a shining light in unending darkness. Here, in the home that her father had willed to her, she would find sanctuary—or would she? What if Jaime came after her? Was he so desperate to obtain the villa and its lands that he would…?
What? Force her to hand them over to him? Hardly. She would have to write to the advogado now, instead of speaking to him in person. She really was a fool for leaving Lisbon, but she had been so emotionally overwrought she hadn’t stopped to think.
Would the Condessa tell Jaime what had happened? Stop thinking about him, Shelley warned herself. If she could have scourged him from her heart and her memory she would have done so, but it was impossible. She still loved him. God, how she hated to admit it, even to herself. What had happened to her fabled remoteness, her ability to protect herself from any sort of pain? Both had deserted her the moment she met him, or so it seemed with hindsight.
Part of her knew that, much as she would loathe herself for doing so, if he were to come to her now, to touch her, she couldn’t guarantee that she would be able to resist. Oh, she would hate him for doing it, and hate herself as well, but her hatred wasn’t a strong enough weapon to defeat her love.
She reached the villa just as the colour of the sky heralded the onset of dusk. The traumas of the day had resulted in an exhaustion that left her body numbed but her brain overactive. She went right through each room checking windows and doors, and all of them were safely locked. Even if Jaime did come after her he wouldn’t be able to get in. For the first time in her life Shelley found herself wishing for the panacea of a sleeping pill.
A hot bath and a milky drink were the best substitutes she could find, but as she lay under the soothing heat of the water, she acknowledged that her body was refusing to relax.
Every time she closed her eyes she was tormented by a confusing jumble of memories. Of Jaime, touching her as she had done that night in her bedroom, of Sofia, her eyes glittering with malice and relish. Of the Condessa, suddenly older and in pain, and then of Jaime again, and the way he had looked at her body, of the way he had seemed to want her, and yet all the time had not. And that was the greatest betrayal of all: that he should have deceived her in such a cruel way.
It was gone eight o’clock, too early to go to bed really, but she was so weary that was all she wanted to do. She was half-way between the bathroom and her bedroom, her damp body wrapped loosely in a towel, when she thought she heard the sound of a car outside.
Instantly terror invaded her body and she tensed, waiting to hear a peal on the outer doorbell. Instead as she listened, scarcely daring to breathe, she seemed to be surrounded by a thick muffling silence…
No matter how much she strained her ears, nothing penetrated the stillness, and in an agony of apprehension she ran to her bedroom and battled to unlock and open the heavy shutters.
Once she had them open she stared out into the front courtyard. Nothing seemed to move, but the moon was obscured by clouds and everything was cloaked in a thick, heavy darkness.
From the village the sound of a dog barking was carried to her on the breeze. She could smell the scent of the pines and realised that there must have been a recent shower to release such a pungent scent. As she stood by the window, rigid with tension, she waited, ears stretched to catch the elusive sound that had initially disturbed her, but nothing moved. Either mechanical or human.
Sighing faintly, she stepped back from the balcony and into her bedroom, closing the shutters behind her.
She was letting her imagination play tricks on her. Jaime wouldn’t come after her; it was absurd to think that he might. A man who would marry a woman simply for financial gain was above all else a realist; he had to be, and as such Jaime was bound to see the pointlessness of trying to change her mind.
In her anxiety to check up on the car she thought she had heard, she hadn’t bothered to switch on her bedroom light. An oblong beam of illumination from the half-opened door of the bathroom lit up the landing, her damp footprints clearly marked on the polished wooden floor.
As she stepped towards the door, remembering that she had left her night things in the bathroom, a shadow suddenly fell across the lighted doorway.
A scream rose in her throat, trapped there by a paralysing mixture of fear and shock. A filled the doorway, blotting out the light.
‘Jaime!’
His name left her lips on a breathy, terrified whisper. Her body started to tremble like that of
someone gripped in the most terrible fever. Without being aware of having done so, she took a step backwards, and then another one, her hands coiled tightly at her sides.
For one moment she could almost have believed he possessed some supernatural powers that had enabled him to suddenly materialise here in her doorway, blocking her only means of escape, she realised, as her heart lodged achingly in her throat.
As her initial shock receded and sanity reasserted itself, she heard herself saying almost stupidly.
‘How did you get in? What do you want?’
As he lifted his hand she heard the jangle of keys, and cursed her own stupidity. Of course…of course Jaime would have a spare set of keys. All that idiocy of hers in locking all the doors and the shutters had been just so much wasted time. Where she had thought herself safe behind her locked doors, in reality all Jaime had had to do was simply to walk in. It was an omen she didn’t want to take to its logical conclusion.
‘What do I want?’
Surprisingly she saw that he looked unbelievably, furiously angry, a tight white line of rage drawn sharply round his mouth.
‘Just what the hell is going on, Shelley?’
He dared to ask her that? Anger flashed in her eyes, and she saw from the brief darkening of his own that he had registered it. She had expected him to come after her, of course, but not so quickly, and certainly not in this white heat of rage.
‘How…?’
‘My mother paged me,’ he told her curtly, anticipating her question before she could ask it. ‘Something that had you any sense you might have thought to do. She was very shocked and distressed, Shelley.’
‘And do you think I wasn’t?’ The words were out before she could stop them, an anguished lament for her lost dreams, but Jaime didn’t seem to hear the agony in her voice.
‘Going by the way you’ve been behaving these last few days, why the hell should you?’