Ilse smiled.
“Oh, of course if I thought you were capable of making up to him I’d send you packing at once. But I know you’re not. You’re what I would describe as a ‘nice’ girl—nice, and English, and homely at heart. I told Dom Vasco as much.”
“Why?” Caroline asked, resentment making her voice quiver.
Ilse flicked ash from her cigarette into the flowery porcelain saucer of her coffee cup.
“Because we happened to be discussing you, my dear, and we’re neither of us entirely certain that you’re right for Richard. You look after him very well in a way, of course, and he’s got a childish crush on you, but school might be the answer as soon as we can get it fixed. You can then go home to England, and if the Marques feels tempted to embark on matrimony again he must pick someone older than you are, and less likely to provide him with an heir,” introducing a deliberate note of flippancy into her voice. “And of course we can’t have the Marques producing an heir and doing Richard out of his rightful inheritance!” Dom Vasco’s own words, Caroline thought, at an early stage of their acquaintance ... And it was Dom Vasco who was always talking of sending Richard to school. So undoubtedly they had been having quite a serious talk, largely concerned with Richard.
She turned away from the bed, collecting another pair of cobwebby stockings on her way to the bathroom. They were lying in the middle of the carpet, and she stooped to pick them up.
“So it’s Dom Vasco who is taking you for a drive, is it?” she said, although she had no need now to have this confirmed.
“Yes, isn’t it sweet of him?” Ilse decided she had better begin making preparations for the day ahead if she was not to keep the Portuguese autocrat waiting, and gravitated to the edge of the bed. “And Richard, too, if he wants to come ... But I told him I didn’t think he’d want to leave you,” with a gently jibing note in her voice.
Caroline groped for the bathroom door handle, and mechanically turned on the taps at the basin in preparation for washing the stockings. So Dom Vasco had not suggested that she should accompany Richard! That would spoil the atmosphere of a family party!
She returned to the nursery wing, and took Richard down into the garden. There was no one about at that hour, and the Marques obviously hadn’t left his quarters. She was turning over and over in her mind what she would say to him if she did accidentally run into him before lunch, and whether it might not be far and away the best thing for herself—and ultimately Richard, since he would have to do without her sooner or later—if she asked to be relieved from the position of Richard’s governess almost immediately, when Dom Vasco’s car—the long, lithe, dust-coloured one this morning—swung in between the main entrance gates and tunnelled its way up the drive.
Unfortunately for Caroline Richard had deserted her, and she was alone on the steps leading up to the front of the house, with no excuse to seize him by the hand and drag him indoors to wash his hands, or anything like that. She had to maintain a dignified attitude while Vasco alighted from his car and accorded her an extremely friendly bow, and even smiled at her as if he found her a pleasing sight on such a morning.
“Good morning, Miss Caroline!” It had ceased to be Miss Worth unless he was out of humour with her. “You look as if you slept very well after the entertainment last night! How did you enjoy Senhorita de Capuchos’s piano-playing? I feel sure you must have thought it excellent.”
“It was,” Caroline replied, aware of a stiffness in her throat that made the words sound curt, and without even attempting a smile.
Dom Vasco put his head on one side and regarded her a little whimsically.
“Is it possible you did not sleep so well after all?” he asked. “Or has Ricardo been giving you trouble, and are you at this moment vexed with him?”
She shook her head.
“No, senhor, I am not vexed with Richard.”
“Then with me? Is that it?” smiling rather more indulgently, and looking very dark and distinguished and handsome as he stood there confronting her in the sunshine on the drive, a dark grove of ilex trees behind him showing up the pristine whiteness of his impeccably tailored suit. “Because I thought you knew more about wines, and could distinguish between cognac and one of our finest burgundies? However, as the Marques pointed out to me afterwards, it was very thoughtless of me ... a young woman who doesn’t normally partake of wine even at meals! But the moment was urgent, and I’m afraid I was somewhat agitated. I offer you my apologies, Caroline,” and his voice was suddenly deep and quiet, and should have convinced her that he was sincere.
But she turned away.
“No, senhor, it was nothing like that,” blushing because she had given herself away. “It was nothing at all!”
He leaned against one of the stone pillars at the foot of the flight of steps, and looked up at her intently.
“Was it because I interrupted your conversation with Senhor Rambozi last night?” His tone was not so urbane; his face more expressionless. “I was amazed when I saw him leave his seat beside the young woman we all hope will be his wife one day, and join you in the back row of seats in the music-room. And the two of you appeared to be conducting some kind of whispered conversation while Carmelita was still playing. It struck me as a trifle rude, if nothing more.”
She was amazed. “I’m sorry, senhor—”
“Forget it.” His face was as cool as hers had been. “Only in future, until you are aware of the state of the relationship that exists between a man and a woman—particularly when they are young—whom you have just met at a dinner-party, or any other type of function, do not immediately leap to the conclusion that he is free to pay you attentions! He may well be free, but that sort of thing is not done in Portugal.”
She stared at him.
“But, Dom Vasco, you don’t think—?”
“I have told you, we will forget it!”
She grew furiously angry all at once.
“How dare you talk to me like that, when I’ve done nothing to deserve it?” She drew her slight form up to its full five foot three and a half inches, and even the golden hairs on the back of her neck seemed to bristle. “Senhor Rambozi slipped into the seat beside me at the concert without my even having noticed that he had made a move, and as to him being engaged to some young woman who certainly did not sit next to him at dinner, for he sat next to me, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Her voice quivered with her indignation. “And as to a whispered conversation—”
Suddenly she remembered what they had been whispering about, and the colour that had been steadily mounting under her clear skin deepened with a little rush.
“Well?” Dom Vasco enquired, a hard gleam of mockery in his eyes.
“If we were whispering—it was nothing important ...” she stammered.
“But you admit that you were whispering?”
“We were discussing—someone.”
“Extremely polite, when Carmelita was playing as I’ve seldom heard her play before,” Vasco commented, and the amount of condemnation and disapproval in his voice made Caroline feel as if she had been reduced to a mere grain of dust on the front door steps, instead of a young Englishwoman in uncrushable turquoise linen who disliked putting a foot wrong because she, too, had a sense of the fitness of things. “I hope that in future you will behave better when invited to share in our entertainments. And I hope that you will be more discreet in your dealings with Senhor Rambozi.”
Caroline realised that now was her opportunity to state with all the stiffness and correctness she could muster that she would prefer it if she could be allowed to go home to England, and that now that Senhora de Fonteira had arrived she could take charge of her own child. But he had put her in a state of guilt, and she could not find the words. He had made her feel that, compared with him and his friends, she was a brash young English girl who had never been taught how to behave in polite society, and the injustice made her bite her lower lip and try desperately to think up a crushing sentenc
e or so that would not merely reverse his opinion, but make him feel that he was the one who had behaved badly ... who was something in the nature of a cad!
But while she was frantically searching for the words he said something that made it more or less impossible for her to give utterance to them just then.
“Will you let Senhora de Fonteira know that I am waiting for her, senhorita—” He looked deliberately away from her, as if other matters of more vital importance than she could ever be to him were already occupying his mind—and the fact that they were back on the ‘senhorita’ basis convinced her of his annoyance. “She is expecting to be taken for a drive, and although I do not wish to rush her I have an engagement for two o’clock this afternoon that will not permit me to be late for lunch.”
“Of course, senhor. I—I’ll let her know...”
She turned to run blindly into the house, but Ilse herself made her appearance at that moment, and a complete transformation came over him and he was ail bows and charmed smiles once more.
He went forward and bent over Ilse’s delicately gloved hand, kissing the inside of her wrist, which the glove left uncovered, and enquiring solicitously after her health. The fact that she looked positively radiant, in lime green and white, with a large hat and parasol to help maintain the illusion in the strong sunlight, convinced him that she really had recovered from her fainting fit of the night before.
He placed her in the back of the car, and explained that, as it was his intention to show her something of the countryside, he had thought it best if they were chauffeur-driven.
“Of course.” She smiled up at him in agreement, delighted because she would have his full attention. “It is a pity that Ricardo is not to accompany us.” He glanced round at Caroline, who felt unable, for some reason, to desert the scene of her humiliation. “Where is he, Miss Worth? Could you find him quickly? I think we should take him with us.”
Ilse attempted to dissuade him, but unless she was to appear unwilling to have her son with her she knew she had to sound a little half-hearted. And Dom Vasco’s mind was made up. Caroline was despatched to find Richard, and to make him presentable in as short a time as possible so that he could accompany his mother and his great-uncle’s man of affairs on a tour of the estate. And the fact that Ilse looked a little less dewy-eyed at the prospect of the drive did not, apparently, strike the Portuguese.
“Perhaps Miss Worth could come with us,” she suggested, thinking that the two of them could sit in the front beside the chauffeur.
But Dom Vasco shook his head very firmly.
“No, I think not. I think that for once we will have the boy to ourselves,” and that somewhat surprising ‘to ourselves’ restored Ilse’s confidence in herself, and her ability to achieve what she set out to achieve if only her will was strong enough. And she remained consistently beautiful and appealing!
She waved a hand to Caroline before they set off down the drive, but Dom Vasco did not so much as turn his head as the car glided away. Richard looked thoroughly uncomfortable and unhappy seated between his mother and the tall, dark man who seemed to wield such a lot of power over his destiny, and might wield more power in the future—if he became his stepfather.
As they drove away, and she saw that strong dark chin rigidly averted from her, and realised that his dark eyes were probably smiling bleakly at Richard. Caroline thought of him for the first time as a man of destiny ... a man who could make or mar other people’s lives. Richard’s life, very possibly Ilse’s life would be re-shaped by him, and her own—her own would lie in ruins from this time forth!
She had offended mortally, and she would not be forgiven. The unnecessary cruelty about that insistence on taking Richard with them, and leaving Caroline behind, was a very clear indication of that.
She wandered aimlessly into the house and back to the nursery wing, and the remainder of that morning she spent trying to do something about the general state of comfortlessness that existed in the nursery. She rearranged Richard’s books on the shelves, and put his most recent presents on view. She went down into the garden and brought back flowers for the vases, and then she went along to the bathroom and attempted to take a shower. But the heating apparatus was faulty, and the shower merely released a few drops on to her head, and finally practically blew up.
She reported this to the housekeeper, and was given the reassurance that something would be done about it. But Senhora Lopes was so concerned with ensuring the comfort of the principal guest, and the Marques de Fonteira himself, that Caroline was reasonably certain little would be done until the novelty of having the Marques in the house had worn off a little.
And by that time she herself might have left!
She wondered where she was to have lunch, for towards the middle of the morning a telephone call was received from Dom Vasco to the effect that he and Senhora de Fonteira and Richard would be having lunch at an hotel, and apparently he was not, after all, rushing back to keep his two o’clock appointment. But just as she had made up her mind that she would ask for a tray to be served to her in the nursery a message was brought from the Marques, particularly requesting that she would lunch with him in the dining-room.
Caroline was immediately thrown into a state of near panic, because unless the secretary and the assistant manager were there it would be a tete-a-tete lunch, and she had no idea what she and the Marques would talk about.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BEFORE they came face to face in the dining-room she made up her mind that there was one thing they could talk about, and that was her future position in the household. How soon arrangements could be made that would free her from looking after Richard, and how soon she could return home to England.
And after her morning’s encounter with Vasco de Capuchos on the main steps of the house she had the feeling that she couldn’t rush home to England quickly enough.
But the Marques must have had some idea of what was fermenting in her mind, for he kept the conversation well away from such ordinary, everyday subjects as herself and Richard. The subject that lasted them throughout the meal was Portugal, and having a great love for his country in his heart Duarte de Fonteira was capable of tremendous expansion and dilation when it came to adding to the knowledge of a stranger all the colourful history and the romance of Portugal. On the subject of its wine-growing industry alone he could talk for hours... And he was a wine-grower himself.
He was many other things besides, including an extremely rich landlord, a farmer and a philanthropist, a collector of rare china and a lover of art. He could talk for hours on the subject of art alone. And he had travelled widely, and was a lover of England.
And England was another subject he wished to discuss with Caroline.
As she had feared, they were alone together in the dining-room. Both his secretary and his agent had jobs to perform, and wherever it was that they took their midday meal it was not in the magnificent dining-sala, with its great table loaded with all the crested silver Senhora Lopes had managed to get brilliantly clean in time, as well as flowers, fruit, and glowing decanters of wine.
The Marques insisted that Caroline sit at his right hand, and all the rest of the table was like a brilliant oasis. He also insisted that she drink a little wine, and that was when he commenced her education on the subject of wines. After that, with the fish course and the main course, and all the numerous courses that seemed to come in between and follow after, he instructed her on various matters, and as he had a delightful voice, and spoke her language with the ease of consistent practice, she found it quite a pleasure to listen to him, and gradually grew so relaxed that she was no longer in awe of him, and he was able to crack a joke with her occasionally without seeing a forced smile on her face.
When the smile came it was a natural smile. The Marques was pleased.
It was only when coffee was brought to the dining room, instead of the sala, and he settled down to continue the talking, that she realised it was all leading up to something
after all. By devious ways it led up to herself, and the Marques asked quite bluntly whether she was happy in her job.
She replied that she was very fond of Richard.
“But you’re not so sure that you wish to continue being his governess?” the Portuguese nobleman enquired shrewdly.
Caroline realised that here, at last, was her opportunity. But once again the words stuck in her throat. The Marques helped her out.
“Perhaps if Senhora de Fonteira had not come here to be with her son you would be happier to remain with him?” he stated rather than asked.
Caroline felt uncomfortable. The only harm Ilse had ever done her was to make a dead set at Dom Vasco, and the fact that she had done so had really nothing whatever to do with her, Caroline Worth. And yet it had resulted in Caroline knowing that she couldn’t stay. She couldn’t remain and watch the friendship ripen, the warmth grow, the inevitable end come about. Marriage ... a wedding! For Ilse was woman of the world enough to expect nothing less, and Dom Vasco was an honourable man, a close connection of a noble house. He wouldn’t single out a woman for attention unless he was serious, and the determined way he had included Richard in the expedition today was an indication of intense seriousness.
The only fly in this ointment was Carmelita—Carmelita, whom he had known for so long. But it was possible there was no secret understanding between him and Carmelita, which didn’t make Caroline feel any happier.
In any case, he had been almost brutal to her that morning, and the night before.
She swallowed. The Marques watched the muscles of her slender throat contract.
“It isn’t that I wouldn’t like to stay,” she admitted, “but Richard will be being sent away to school before very long. He won’t really need me.”
“No?” The Marques smiled a little.
“And he does need his mother ... until he goes away to school, I mean.”
“But his mother was prepared to marry in England and leave him to grow up out here?”
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