Forbidden Flame. Anne Mather

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      Outside, the downpour had eased somewhat, but it was still raining. Water drained in douches from the eaves above their heads as they crossed the muddy street to where a scarcely-identifiable Range Rover was parked, and the shoulders of Caroline’s shirt felt damp as she scrambled with more haste than elegance into the front seat. Her companion thrust her cases into the back, then came round the bonnet to get in beside her, removing his jacket as he did so, and tossing it into the back along with her luggage.

      He didn’t say anything as he inserted the keys into the ignition and started the engine, and Caroline endeavoured to recover her composure. It wasn’t easy, with the memory of what had almost happened still sharply etched in her mind, but as her breathing slowed she managed to get it into some kind of perspective. In retrospect, it seemed almost ludicrous to imagine herself tumbling across the bed, but at the time she had known definite fear.

      ‘A baptism of fire, would you say?’ Señor Montejo enquired, as the vehicle reached the end of the village street, and Caroline glanced sideways at him. Ahead was only jungle, vine-infested and menacing in the fading grey light, and although Las Estadas was scarcely civilised, compared to what was beyond, the lights of the village seemed infinitely comforting. What more did she know of this man, after all? she pondered. Only what he had told her. And Señor Allende’s behaviour, which had spoken of fear, as well as respect. But fear of what, and of whom, she had yet to find out.

      ‘How—how far is it to San Luis de Merced?’ she ventured, not answering him, and his mouth drew down at the corners.

      ‘Not far,’ he replied evenly. ‘Between twenty and twenty-five miles. Why?’ He was perceptive. ‘Are you afraid you cannot trust me either?’

      Caroline moistened her lips. ‘Can I?’

      He inclined his head. ‘Of a surety, señorita.’ He paused. ‘Believe me, you have nothing to fear from me.’

      It was dark long before they reached their destination. It came quickly, shrouding the surrounding trees in a cloak of shadows, hiding the primitive landscape, concealing the sparse settlements, much like Las Estadas, if not in size, then certainly in appearance. Caroline wondered how these people lived in such conditions, where they worked, how they supported themselves, what kind of education their children had. There seemed such a gulf between the man beside her and these poor peasants, but she was loath to voice it when he did not.

      The road did improve for some distance, when they joined an interstate highway, but after a while they left it again to bounce heavily along a rutted track, liberally spread with potholes. Caroline gripped her seat very tightly, to prevent herself from being thrown against the man beside her, and she felt, rather than saw, him look her way.

      ‘Are you regretting coming, señorita?’ he asked, again surprising her by his perception. ‘Do not be discouraged by the weather. It is not always like this. Tomorrow, the sun will shine, and you will see beauty as well as ugliness.’

      Caroline turned her head. ‘You admit—there is ugliness?’

      ‘There is ugliness everywhere, señorita,’ he replied flatly. ‘All I am saying is, do not judge my country by its weaknesses. If you look for strength, you will find it.’

      Caroline hesitated. ‘That’s a very profound view.’

      ‘Profundity is as easy for a stupid man to mouth as a learned one,’ he remarked, and she saw him smile in the illumination from the dials in front of him. ‘Do not be misled by my enthusiasm. I love my country, that is all.’

      Caroline was intrigued, as much by the man as by what he had said. He was a very attractive man, but she had known that as soon as she saw him. What she had not known then was that he had a sense of humour, or that she should find his conversation so stimulating.

      ‘Your brother,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘he runs a ranch, doesn’t he? Do you work with him?’

      There was a moment’s silence before he answered her, and then he said: ‘Here, we call it a hacienda. And yes, Esteban is the hacendado. But he does not run the ranch. He has a—how do you call it?—overseer to run the spread for him.’

      ‘And what do you grow? Corn? Maize?’

      ‘Cattle,’ responded Luis Montejo dryly. ‘My brother employs many gauchos. It is a very large holding.’

      Caroline nodded. She had known this. Señora Garcia had told her. And about her granddaughter, Emilia …

      ‘Your niece,’ she tendered now. ‘She’s an only child, I believe.’

      Again there was a pause before he replied. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Emilia has no brothers or sisters. Her mother died when she was born.’

      ‘Oh!’ Señora Garcia had not told her this. ‘How distressing for your brother! He must have been very upset.’

      ‘Yes.’

      It was an acknowledgement, no more, and Caroline found herself wondering whether she was mistaken in thinking his tone was clipped. Surely there was no suggestion that Don Esteban was uncaring of his wife’s death. Surely Señora Garcia would have warned her if this was so.

      Yet, she realised, she really knew nothing of these people, beyond what they chose to tell her. That was why her own parents had been so opposed to her travelling so far on such a slender recommendation. If they had not felt equally strongly about her relationship with Andrew Lovell, she knew they would have done their utmost to make her change her mind. As it was, they were torn in conflicting directions.

      ‘So, you are young to have come so far alone,’ Luis Montejo remarked, unconsciously interpreting her silence. ‘But then,’ he continued, an ironic twist to his lips, ‘English girls are more emancipated than Spanish women. They do not have the restrictions put upon them as our girls do.’

      Caroline struggled to recover her earlier enthusiasm. ‘Do you disapprove, señor?’ she ventured, forcing a light tone, and waited with some misgivings for his answer.

      ‘It is not my concern,’ he responded, moving his shoulders in a gesture of dismissal, and Caroline knew a moment’s impatience.

      ‘You must have an opinion,’ she insisted, curious to know his feelings, and with a rueful grimace he avoided a pothole before replying.

      ‘Let us say I have the usual chauvinist attitudes,’ he remarked. ‘A woman is not a man, and she should not try to emulate one.’

      ‘You think that’s what I’m trying to do?’ exclaimed Caroline indignantly, and his laughter was low and attractive.

      ‘No one could mistake your sex, señorita,’ he assured her dryly, and she felt a not unpleasant stirring of her senses. ‘All I am saying is that a woman’s role is not naturally that of the hunter, but that the inevitable conclusion to any continued adaptation is transformation.’

      Caroline gazed ahead of her, watching the headlights of the Range Rover as they searched out a marsh cactus, glimpsing, as if in a shadowy reflection, a four-legged creature moving out there in the darkness. His answer had been predictable, and yet more logical, than some she had heard. But it was not flattering to find oneself compared, however indirectly, to a member of the opposite sex, and she wished she had some clever response to flatten his biased СКАЧАТЬ