The Golden Madonna (9 page)

'You see,' he told her, 'Michael is willing to give up an evening with you so that you may come to me.'

His choice of such a provocative phrase, Sally felt sure, was deliberate, although Michael seemed not to take it amiss. 'It seems I have no choice,' she said resignedly, and hastily avoided the glint of satisfaction in her tormentor's eyes. She raised an almost full glass of wine to her lips and drank the contents down in one long draught, then shivered involuntarily when a flick of panic curled icily in the pit of her stomach.

A
LL
day long Sally had been praying for something to happen that would make Miguel Cordova change his mind, either that or that something would prevent him from keeping his private tutoring appointment with her. Any small hope she had nurtured, however, vanished when she was leaving the dining room with Michael the following evening.

Feeling a hand slide under her elbow, she turned swiftly and stopped in her tracks, her own instincts telling her who it was even before she turned. 'Oh!' Her dismay was so apparent in her expression that he smiled briefly, the black eyes gleaming with amusement.

Michael, of course, was unaware of anything but the obvious, and he smiled down at her, squeezing her hand to remind her. 'Of course, darling,' he said. 'You have some homework to do tonight, remember?'

Don Miguel's strong fingers curled over her arm and they squeezed much harder than Michael's did.
'Had,
you forgotten, Miss Beckett?' he asked softly, and Sally looked up at him, shaking her head, her mouth pursed in her usual soft pout of disapproval, when something displeased her.

'I was rather hoping
you
had,' she told him, and he looked at her sternly down his arrogant nose, his black brows drawn into a straight line.

'I do not make arrangements and then forget them,' he informed her quietly. 'I am not very flattered that you supposed I would.'

'I didn't really,' Sally confessed. She was being very ungracious about it, she knew, but her own impulsive emotions were driving her on to try and delay, if not cancel, the moment when she would have to be alone with him again. 'It's just that—I was rather hoping you'd have second thoughts about it, Don Miguel.'

He regarded her in silence for a moment with that steady black gaze, while Michael stood looking from one to the other, probably wondering if she had taken leave of her senses. 'Of course Don Miguel hasn't had second thoughts, darling,' Michael told her. 'Have you,
senor?'

Miguel Cordova smiled, one of those small, enigmatic smiles that troubled her so. 'Never,' he said firmly.

'I just thought'

'You
hoped,'
he interrupted softly, and the fingers on her arm tightened again until she could have cried out. 'Come, Sarita, we are wasting time.'

There was an implacable glint in the black eyes that even Michael noticed, and he laughed a little uneasily, as if he was less sure of letting her go. Darling, if you'

'I "am not accustomed to being kept waiting,' Don Miguel informed her quietly.. 'You will please come with me.
Adios,
Mr. Storer, we have work to do.'

'Yes. Yes, of course.' Michael's blue eyes looked at Sally uncertainly for a brief moment, then he smiled, apparently reassured. He gave her hand an encouraging squeeze and kissed her lightly beside her mouth. 'I'll see you later,
amada,'
he told her.
'Adios, senor!'

Sally saw him walk off to join the others in the garden, and her eyes followed him reproachfully for a moment, but she was given little time to feel sorry for herself or to blame Michael, for an insistent hand under her elbow turned her about, and guided her back across the dining-room.

'Is Mr. Storer learning to speak Spanish?' Don Miguel asked, and Sally shook her head, too concerned with her own situation to worry about Michael.

'I don't know; probably,' she said. 'He seems prone to using Spanish words lately, although he probably doesn't know what half of them mean.' She felt she owed Michael that much for deserting her.

'Have you no inclination to learn my language, Sarita?' The question was put in a soft, sensuous voice that was bound to arouse all sorts of reactions in her, and she curled her hands tightly as she shook her head.

'Not really,' she said. 'I'm not very bright at things like languages, and I haven't Michael's desire to go native.'

'I see.' He obviously had no difficulty in recog-nising pique when he heard it, for the hand under her arm shook her gently, as if in reprimand. 'Do not be angry with him for leaving you in my charge,' he told her. 'He is being very understanding, and you should appreciate that.'

'I wish I could,' Sally said, in a small voice. 'The trouble is, he doesn't understand at all.'

'You think not?'

The grip on her arm tightened again and she could imagine how tight and firm his mouth looked when he spoke again. 'And I am not at all sure that I understand
your
attitude, Sarita,' he said quietly.

'I'm sorry if I sound ungracious.'

'I'm glad you realise you sound ungracious,' he told her. 'At the risk of sounding conceited, most young artists would count themselves very fortunate to be offered the opportunity of being privately tutored by Miguel Cordova. You merely seem to look upon it as some kind of punishment.'

Sally looked up at him at last, but only warily from under her lashes, all too well aware that what he said was true. She was, as he had suggested, very privileged to be given special attention from him, but all the same she would much rather not have been singled out for the honour. Perhaps it was conceited of her, but after her previous experience with him she just could not believe that his suggesting the private tuition had been prompted only by a desire to improve her art.

'You're quite right about the others jumping at the opportunity,' she said, trying hard to ignore the sensation his hand on her arm aroused in her. The impression of warmth and strength and the cat-like grace of him as he walked beside her was hard to ignore. 'Most of them would be very—honoured.'

'But not you?'

She did not answer for the moment, then she shook her head slowly. 'It's not that I don't appreciate the honour,' she told him. 'I do.'

He sighed deeply over the reluctance of her admission as he opened a door she had never been through before, or even really noticed. It was tucked away in one corner of the dining-room, and led through into a narrow, coolly dim passageway, arched and silent as cloisters. The white walls were starkly bare except for a big bronze crucifix, similar to the one in the hall, and this one too had its offering of heavily scented roses that filled the narrow passageway with their perfume.

'You would run away now,' he suggested softly, looking down at her, 'if you thought you could manage to escape me. Would you not, Sarita?'

Sally did not answer, intrigued and, at the same time, vaguely alarmed by her new surroundings. This narrow, bare corridor with its arched windows and its cool silence, and only the huge crucifix on one wall to relieve the starkness of it, reminded her uneasily of a convent or a monastery. The sensation made her feel trapped and, almost instinctively, she hung back against the guiding hand on her arm.

'Where are you taking me?' she wanted to know, and the black eyes looked down at her, as if he knew exactly what her reactions were and the thought amused him. 'To my studio,' he said, and took her to where a flight of steep, narrow stairs led upwards, taking up the full width of the passageway. 'You are surely not afraid of that, are you,
nina?'

'Of going to your studio? No, of course not!'

'Then come!'

Sally wanted to resist that firm, persuasive hand that urged her on, but something deep inside her also fought for recognition. Curiosity and another emotion, even stronger that she dared not admit to, even to herself. He had a studio, on the ground floor of the house, where he sometimes took them, and she had expected it would be there that he took her now. This new and unexpected revelation troubled her.

'I—I thought your studio was on this floor,' she ventured, and he smiled briefly, following her line of thought all too easily.

'Not this one,' he told her. 'Now are you coming with me to do some work or do you intend to turn and run away like some timid schoolgirl?'

The jibe stung harshly, and Sally felt the colour in her cheeks, recognising it as a challenge too. After a moment she nodded, looking upwards at the dim outline of a doorway at the top of the stairs. 'I'm not a timid schoolgirl, Don Miguel,' she told him. 'If your studio is up there, then of course I'll come.'

'Bueno!'

He nodded his satisfaction as she moved with him to the foot of the stairs. She took the first step too hastily in her anxiety, trying to match his long stride, and missed her footing. Her fall threw her against him, and in a flash his hands caught her and held her firm, with her palms spread instinctively on his chest.

The gesture reminded her immediately that she had stood like this once before, when he had come and found her on the coast road. He had held her then, tight in his arms, with her hands spread wide over the steady beat of his heart, and she closed her eyes briefly to shut out the memory and the sudden, wild longing that his touch aroused in her again.

'Are you hurt?' His voice was so quietly matter-of- fact that Sally looked up at him for a moment, startled and confused because his reactions were less emotional than her own.

'No.' She eased herself free of the hands that still held her. 'No, I'm not hurt.'

'You are sure?' For all his coolness he seemed reluctant to release her, and she felt a steady, urgent throbbing under the hand she put to her own throat.

'I'm quite sure, Don Miguel, thank you.' It was difficult to match his coolness, but she tried, and she glanced upwards at the flight of shadowy, unlit stairs between stark white walls, her heart beating warily fast. 'Is—is it straight up these stairs to your studio?'

He nodded, putting a helping hand under her arm again. 'And take more care this time,
nina.'

They mounted the narrow stairs with Sally one step ahead and, as they reached the door at the top,he tightened his hold on her arm momentarily, so that she looked up at him in the dim coolness. She thought for one moment that he was going to have second thoughts about bringing her there, and then, just as inexplicably, he shrugged and reached past her to open the door.

He pushed her through before him, with a hand in the small of her back as if he still feared she might turn and run, and Sally stood in the doorway for a moment, looking around her, not knowing quite what to expect, a strange and head-spinning sense of excitement stirring in her suddenly.

Miguel Cordova was a proud and, in some ways, a strangely reserved man, and yet he was admitting her, of all people, to his holy of holies. The studio that none of his other students had ever seen. Always sensitive to atmosphere, she felt a faint tremor through her body when she experienced a feeling of intimacy that disturbed and excited her.

Even had she not known it was his room, she felt she would have sensed it instinctively, for it was filled with his strong, dominant personality. It was here that his enormous creative talent released the deep, innermost secrets of his mind and revealed them in the beauty of his paintings, and the impression of his personality was almost tangible.

A room where he painted the things he wanted to paint, like the harsh brilliance of a picture that caught her eye, over on the far wall. Vivid and alive With all the colour, movement and barbarity of the bullfight, detailed in cruel perfection by a master of his craft. It stirred a response in her, despite her dislike of the subject.

The room itself smelled of the inevitable mixture of oil and paint and new canvas. Of the completed and part-completed pictures that stood propped against the walls, giving tantalising glimpses of form and colour. It was a big room and still retained its essentially Spanish air, like the rest of the house, except that one of the windows at the far end had been much enlarged and gave a breathtaking view of the sea and the rocks on which the house stood.

The big window, being unshaded, made the room much warmer and must, in the full light of day, have been dazzling in its brilliance. White walls reflected the light and even this late in the evening, gave the impression of being at the heart of some great light force. An oddly disturbing sensation.

An easel was set up, practically in the centre of the room and lower down, nearer the big window, was a model's dais with a chair. The silk-draped chair had a bare and sadly tatty look, somehow, without an occupant, and Sally found herself wondering who had sat in it last.

She glanced up at Miguel Cordova, and her silent question was answered by a brief nod, the persuasive hand still under her arm. 'You are very silent,
nina,'
he said softly after a moment, and the sound of his voice set her heart beating rapidly again as she tried to ease herself free of his hold without appearing too obvious about it.

'I'm very impressed,' she told him. 'It's—it's an unusual room, beautiful in a way, but'

'But?' he prompted gently, and Sally hesitated. To put exactly what she felt into words could equally easily amuse or anger him. It might even cause him to reveal that disturbing hint of cruelty again, so she moved away from him, shaking her head, declining to explain herself.

Her evasion was short-lived, however, for he followed close behind. 'But?' he asked again, and a long forefinger brushed lightly against her neck, as it lifted her long hair gently. 'Tell me just what impression my studio makes on you,
mi pichon.'

'I—I'm not sure.' She closed her eyes briefly when a shiver slid along her spine at the touch of his hand. 'It's—disturbing. I can't explain!' she added hastily before he could laugh the idea to scorn.

'It—disturbs you?' He echoed her hesitation, but he sounded neither angry nor amused. A hand smoothed aside her long hair, and the long fingers almost reached round to her throat as they curved about her neck, the palm warm and firm at the nape of her neck. 'Why should it disturb you? Do you know?' He laughed softly. 'Or will you not tell me?'