Masquerade (46 page)

‘Did I not make myself clear when I told you I didn’t want to have anything more to do with you?’ she said coldly, trying to sound convincing, although her voice quivered a little. ‘Please go.’

His jaw contracted. ‘Hear me out and then decide. Even a criminal is given a chance to defend himself.’

He had caused her more than her fair share of pain so how could she be sure she could trust him to tell the truth? With an effort she hardened her heart.

‘I’m not interested in what you have to say. You’ve told me lie after lie, so why should I believe anything you say now?’

His eyes gleamed again, but this time with something like panic. He reached out and skimmed her cheek with his fingers. Luz’s reaction was instant. She pulled away from him as though his touch had scorched her, as indeed it had, with so many feelings she could not begin to describe, but she remained silent so he could not detect the emotions his proximity had unleashed.

‘Luz, give me the chance to explain,’ he pleaded softly, his voice infinitely sad.

‘Why should I?’ she uttered hoarsely. She glared up at him, though her heart compressed painfully. ‘So you can hurt me again? So you can use me while you prepare for your wedding with Doña Adalia Herrera?’

‘What are you talking about?’ In the shadows she could almost discern his frown. ‘There’s no wedding, Luz. Adalia and I have known each other since childhood. She’s a partner in my company and, though she can be difficult sometimes, I still value her as a friend. My interest in her stops there.’

Luz let out a low, bitter laugh. All previous rational thought had given way to her chaotic emotions now. She shook her head.
‘Still lying, still trying to pull the wool over my eyes, even now. You are really incorrigible.’

‘I give you my word of honour …’

‘What honour?’ she retorted derisively, wanting to lash out at him and hurt him as much as he had hurt her with his duplicity.

Andrés pressed his lips together in a thin line but ignored her barbed insinuation. ‘Adalia is nothing more to me than I’ve just told you. We dated once, many years ago, but it wasn’t right and to be honest, I’ve known she’s had designs on me, on and off, since then,’ he explained. ‘But believe me, Luz, her feelings are one sided.’

‘Is that so?’ She didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm in her voice. ‘Anyone seeing you together would think you were a couple. You’ve not exactly gone out of your way to discourage her. Did you ever think how humiliating it must have been for me at your party, barely acknowledged by my own lover, whose attention was entirely taken up by that creature hanging on his arm?’

He sighed. ‘I know, and I’m sorry. But try to look at it from my perspective, Luz. As I said, as well as a friend of the family, Adalia is my business partner, and a good one at that. She helped organize the party and I was grateful to her.’ He raised his hand to prevent Luz from interrupting.

‘Yes, I know, I’ve probably indulged her more than I should. I stuck my head in the sand, I suppose, to preserve the status quo. There would have been repercussions for our families and the business had I rejected her outright. Anyhow, I finally told her, in no uncertain terms, that I would never marry her, which is all she’s interested in. I’m sure that in the next few days I will receive a letter asking me to dissolve our partnership and buy both Adalia and Lorenzo out.’

Luz’s pulse quickened faintly. She stared at him.
Could she dare hope?
A soul-destroying voice told her to be reckless and give herself up to her need, her passion and her love. But she had to smother it before it vanquished her pride.

‘Please go,’ came her low, gutteral reply.

But Andrés knew her too well; he had always been able to read her. Even now, as they spoke in moonlit shadows, he had no need to see her features to detect the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her or her ache for him. She could sense it quivering in the air between them. He sat on the side of the bed, almost close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, and she swallowed as he leaned towards her
.

‘Querida
, hear me out. Whether Leandro or Andrés, my love for you has always been true. It has never wavered. Think back, I have always been there. Does that count for nothing in your book?’ he whispered.

A shaft of moonlight fell on his face. He looked distraught, his green eyes shining with emotion. ‘I’m not asking you to give yourself up to me and trust me immediately. All I want is for you to listen to what I have to say and then maybe you’ll give me another chance.’

He was not hiding his vulnerability from her and she could feel herself weakening. The knowledge of just how easy it would be to succumb to those woeful eyes sent a shiver of exquisite anticipation rushing up her spine. She knew she still loved him, still needed him; still wanted him. She must be crazy; had she forgotten all the reasons she had for hating him?

‘What possible story could you invent to exonerate you from those months of deceit? And why should I believe you?’ she went on inexorably, twisting the knife.

‘The facts are sad and complicated. Some aspects of them are not so good but, at the time, they seemed justifiable because I had every intention of making up for them. You’re a warm, generous woman, Luz, and I just had to trust to that.’

‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’

Andrés sighed. He stared at her, his expression pained. ‘I love you, Luz,’ he said softly. His body was taut; she could see he had difficulty in keeping it in check.

‘Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me and I will not press you any more. I’ll walk out of your life,’ he said, cupping her face gently in his palm and turning it to face him.

His hand was warm, the feel of him as electrifying as she remembered. And the magic was working for she was mesmerized by his compelling eyes, the softness in his voice, the tenderness of his touch. He was subtly different, the gypsy and hidalgo both present before her in a strange combination of passion and self-control. Emotions were spiralling swiftly out of control inside her. Oh, how she had missed him! Remembering the first time she had set eyes on him, she hastily tossed out a question that had been niggling her since his identity had been revealed.

‘That first day, when I fell off Zeyna, had you set out to attract my attention?’ she said, inside reproaching herself for asking.

‘Yes, but it was not with the intention of distracting you. Unfortunately, fate intervened on that day and reshuffled the cards,’ he replied easily.

Luz was unconvinced. ‘So when did you decide I was prey worth hunting?’ she asked shakily.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he told her as he heaved a painful sigh. He paused and stood up, moving out of the moonlight to retreat into the shadows against the wall. ‘I will answer your question, but let me first put it in context.’

Her laugh was sarcastic. ‘Oh, please do,’ she scoffed. ‘I’m dying to know what made you go to such lengths to set up that ingenious piece of theatre on the beach.’

She got out of bed abruptly and wrapped herself in her silk kimono. ‘It’s stifling in here,’ she said. ‘Let’s sit outside.’

They moved on to the veranda. Under the moonlight the ocean shone in cool, dazzling splendour like an enormous heaving carpet of shimmering silver. Twinkling stars seemed very close to earth. A big liner at anchor in the bay sat like a dark pencil across the length of the horizon, its lights burning steadily, while a few fishing boats moved slowly over the water towards the open sea. Luz felt the nostalgic quality of the atmosphere.

Andrés took up the seat next to her, where he had sat so many times in the past month, but tonight was different. Tonight, though
he was near her, the man she loved had never felt so far away, forbidden to her now by his own betrayal. For her pride’s sake, and to remain sane, she must not let herself be tempted.

They stayed silent, avoiding each other’s gaze, looking out to sea, listening to the quiet breath of the wind. Luz tried to appear remote and aloof. Andrés lit a cigarette and puffed on it for a while. Neither wanted to speak, spellbound by the beauty of the night, savouring this temporary moment of truce.

When Andrés spoke at last his voice was hoarse and low, revealing bitterness long suppressed.

‘I am the lovechild of
La Pouliche,
a
gitana,
and of Eduardo de Salazar. I was born in a prison in Jerez, where my mother was serving a sentence for theft. I was only a few hours old when I was taken from her and brought to Cádiz. My father could not keep me but he loved my mother and so he arranged for me to be adopted by his sister, Eleadora, and her husband, who had no children. I grew up ignorant of this until a few weeks before my sixteenth birthday when Eduardo, who was dying, called me to his bedside. He told me the truth and I went looking for my natural mother. She had made the enormous sacrifice never to approach me, though she had followed every step in my life since I was adopted by my aunt and uncle.

‘Eduardo’s solicitor sent her a report on my progress every month, with the latest photographs, and an annuity so she could live comfortably. She could have taken a house on her own but she chose to live with her people, the gypsies. Because I am her son and because they respected her, despite having a
gajo
’s child, they received me with open arms. Among them, I discovered a part of myself that had always puzzled me. Before then, I had always been wild and restless, wanting something so different from the life I knew.’

His lips curved in a gentle smile. ‘My mother lavished on me the love I had never had from Eleadora. Some of my gypsy family resented it, but she was the queen of our people and her word was law.’ A shadow passed over his face. ‘At first, I visited once a month and slowly I began to spend more time with them until it became a way of life. Ten days
a month at the gypsy camp, the remaining days among the people I grew up with. My mother had given me the name Leandro, Eduardo chose the name Andrés and I was baptized Andrés Leandro.’

He stubbed out his cigarette and gazed out over the gently rolling waves. ‘I went to university, went travelling, still struggling with my identity. When I returned to Cádiz in my mid-twenties, I became a successful businessman, dabbling in the latest technologies. Transformation of any kind fascinated me – I suppose that’s why I played around with coloured contact lenses when they came on the market. Another early innovation I couldn’t resist. Once I tried them, the buzz I got from splitting my personality was exhilarating. I could be the wild, dishevelled green-eyed gypsy, Leandro, one day, and then slip back into the persona of Andrés the next: both were me and neither were me. I already had a reputation for a degree of eccentricity so everyone got used to the brown-eyed Andrés de Calderón quickly enough. Over the past few years it’s given me great satisfaction to lead a double life, to keep those sides of myself separate.’ He sighed heavily and turned his head towards her. ‘Until now.’

Luz surveyed him a moment, taking in the features she knew by heart: the strong jaw, the curve of his lips, the hollows in his cheeks that were a little deeper tonight. The pain on his face and the haunted look in his eyes tore her apart.

She took a deep breath. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked. ‘Why the lies? Why the deceit? I still don’t understand,’ she said desperately, tears running uncontrollably down her cheeks.

He sighed deeply, closing his eyes brief ly as though to shut out a nightmare. ‘I wish I didn’t have to tell you this and hurt you even more,’ he whispered. ‘Fate has played a cruel part in both our lives …’ He hesitated.

Luz wiped her face with her hand. ‘Anything is better than not knowing,’ she told him resolutely.

‘My mother’s name was Marujita, she was the gypsy your father sent to prison more than thirty years ago with her brother, who died there of pneumonia,’ he stated flatly, lifting his gaze to face her.

Luz sucked in a deep breath. Her head was spinning painfully; the puzzle was fitting together and she could almost guess what he would say next. She stared at him.

‘Yes, my father sent them to prison,’ she said eventually. ‘Were you never taught right from wrong? They were thieves and, correct me if I’m wrong, but your mother’s brother drew a knife on my father and stabbed him. What was he supposed to do? Give them his blessing and let them go?’ She was trembling with anger.

‘I was only stating facts, not defending their actions,’ he told her gently.

‘How could you want to be part of those people? How can you live among such immorality and violence?’

‘Those people are my blood but I’m not proud of what they did, Luz.’ Andrés leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. ‘Gypsies live by the
navaja
but so do many of the poor. It’s only part of who the
gitanos
are.’ He smiled a sardonic smile. ‘I cannot change the fact that my mother’s blood runs in my veins but it doesn’t matter what I say or do, you’re determined to paint me black as black, is that not so, Luz?’

In her shock at his revelation, part of her knew she was being unfair to him in laying the past crimes of his family at his door, but it was too much to take in. Yet another layer of this man was being exposed that disturbed her beyond anything else he had said. His family had hurt her own, and presumably hated them still, and he had concealed his true identity from her since the first day they had met. There could only be one reason for that. But as Luz looked at him, she knew that the trembling she felt was modified by a different kind of passion, one that had always consumed her, and always would.

His green gaze moved over her, holding her eyes captive. She felt it burn on her skin. Her pulse was going crazy, her senses ablaze with the need of him; he was sitting far too close for comfort. Guilt and confusion washed over her. Desire fought with fear and she turned her face away so as not to succumb.

She was tired of fighting. ‘Please go away,’ she uttered thickly.

‘Why? You want me as much as I want you.’

‘That’s beside the point,’ she said angrily, staring straight ahead, concentrating determinedly on the dappled dark skies in front of her.