Meeting in Madrid (23 page)

‘Manuel, are you talking about Dona Lucia’s ruby?’

He nodded.

‘She did not want me here, although we had been lovers,’ he said, his dark eyes suddenly lit with passion. ‘But that is true no longer,’ he declared. ‘I have been a fool. I allow her to play with my affections and I care too much when she is suddenly cold. Now I care no longer. I will marry a
senorita
of my own station in life instead and live peacefully.’ He raised his head disdainfully. ‘She tried to buy me off with the ruby, but I returned it to her, and that is when she put it into your room. This I watched,’ he declared. ‘She is full of spite, that one, although once I loved her much.’

‘Manuel!’ Catherine gasped incredulously, although all the pieces seemed to be fitting together like a jigsaw. ‘You’re quite sure about this?’

‘Why would I say it if it was not true?’ he demanded, grievously affronted that she should doubt his word.

‘No, I’m sure you wouldn’t.’

‘I have told all this to Don Jaime,’ Manuel went on, ‘and he is very angry. He will punish Dona Lucia in his own way. She would like to marry him, but I don’t think that could ever be.’

‘What a mess we’ve made of everything!’ Catherine exclaimed.

‘This I agree,’ he returned, flicking his whip against his muddy riding-boots. ‘But Don Jaime will speak to you about it on his return.’

And meanwhile there was Lucia, Catherine thought, her heart pounding like a sledgehammer. It was difficult to believe that anyone could have proved so treacherous, but the evidence of the ruby lying in her drawer was too clear to refute. No one else but Lucia would have done such a thing, because Lucia had been fighting for her life. All she had ever wanted was to remain at Soria as mistress of the
hacienda
and she would have married Jaime without love to achieve her goal.

And Jaime? What did he really think of his sister-in-law now that he knew the truth? Even with the evidence of Manuel’s statement, would he still marry Lucia to save Soria from ruin?

She could not believe that he would, and the very fact that he had left Soria to its fate up there in the mountains to rescue them seemed to underline her faith in him. Her safety and Teresa’s had meant more to him even than the
hacienda,
which was his birthright.

Lamps were burning in the kitchens and Eugenie was ladling soup into two large containers while Teresa looked on. There was no sign of Lucia.

‘She has gone to the mountains,’ Eugenie said when they asked. ‘Riding that mad black horse which is more like a devil than a natural animal! She will be too late if the dam is already down, and men do not trust a woman who is always poking her nose into what is their business!

Catherine helped to carry the soup out to the covered waggon.

‘Better keep our noses to ourselves!’ Teresa said with a grin. ‘Manuel, can you manage on your own?’

‘
Si, s
en
orita
, I will manage very well.’ Manuel cracked the long whip and rode away.

‘Lie down for a while,’ Teresa suggested, ‘and Eugenie will waken us at five o’clock. Then it will be time to go back to the reservoir with some more soup. You look very tired. I’m dropping,’ she added. ‘I’ll be asleep before my head touches the pillow!’

It was impossible for Catherine to sleep with so many conflicting thoughts racing round in her mind, and long before Eugenie came to call them she was up and dressed and waiting for Teresa.

A pale, thin dawn was breaking as they set out in the little cart which Teresa said she could drive. It was drawn by one of the sturdy cream ponies and seemed adequate for their journey, but the pace was almost unbearably slow.

‘I wonder what we’ll find when we get there,’ Teresa mused, voicing Catherine’s anxious thoughts. ‘If anyone has been hurt they would have been brought down by now.’

It was a hope to hold on to as they made their second trek into the mountains, but this time the going was easier. In the rapidly strengthening light the sure-footed little pony covered the ground with confidence, and already the thirsty earth had absorbed much of the rain of the day before. The gullies were still full of water, and where there was a steeper slope it plunged down to the terracing in a miniature cascade, sending up little plumes of spray into the cool air, but the overall volume seemed to be less. El Teide sat above it all, serene and watchful, with only a single white cloud hovering about his head to suggest the havoc of the night before.

‘He is a demon!’ Teresa cried. ‘
Now
he can smile!’

They reached the spot where the car had left the road.

‘They’re bringing it up,’ Catherine said in some surprise. ‘It wasn’t so very far down the hillside, after all.’

‘It seemed as if we had gone right to the bottom,’ Teresa mused, pulling up to look. ‘They’re using ropes. It must be some of the equipment from the dam.’

Catherine was looking round for Jaime, but he was nowhere to be seen. Obviously he had left the recovery of the car to someone else.

‘We’d better press on,’ said Teresa, flicking her whip above the pony’s ears. ‘I know how hungry Ramon can get, especially when he has been out on the mountains for half the night!’

Her anxiety was showing through the glib chatter by the time they had reached the dam.

‘Look! Down there,’ she pointed. ‘The water is all running away into the
barranco
!’ She pulled the cart up with a yell of delight. ‘They made it!’ she cried. ‘Ramon must have dug out the last section of the channel just in time. Oh, Cathy, isn’t it wonderful? A real miracle, because not one drop of that water has gone down into the valley!’

Catherine closed her eyes for a moment, hardly able to believe what they had seen.

‘It’s the answer to a lot of prayers,’ Teresa rushed on. ‘It could have meant absolute disaster, you know, taking years of hard work to put right. But now Soria is saved and Jaime won’t have to work like a slave to build it all up again.’

He came up the narrow path towards them, weary and unshaven but triumphant.

‘It’s all over,’ he said, gazing down at the swirling brown water as it plunged harmlessly into the
barranco.
‘Ramon has certainly excelled himself. He worked like someone possessed—for Soria.’ He passed a hand over his mud-caked face. ‘It’s been quite a night,’ he observed, looking up at them with the new sun glinting in his eyes. ‘Thank you for all you have done.’

‘Like wrecking your car,’ Teresa suggested, able to smile at last. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll ever forgive us for that.’

‘It was nothing.’ He dismissed the accident with a brief wave of his hand. ‘There is very little damage—a scratch or two, no more—but for a moment I thought you were dead.’ He looked from one of them to the other. ‘It was a narrow escape,’ he added.

Teresa jumped down from the cart and he turned to help Catherine.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised. ‘It would seem I’m not a very good driver either.’

His hands tightened on her waist as his dark eyes continued to hold hers.

‘London isn’t Soria,’ he said briefly, although he didn’t let her go. ‘Cathy, I have a lot to say to you,’ he added, steadying her on her feet, ‘but it must wait until we return to Soria.’

Teresa, who had been an interested spectator, jumped back into the cart.

‘I’ll take this food down to the men,’ she suggested, laying the rein along the pony’s back to start him off. ‘See you when you come!’

Before they had time even to protest the cart was rolling and bumping its way downwards over the land which might have been destroyed by flood but which lay now in the early morning sunlight, as rich and fertile as it had always been.

Jaime turned to find his horse. The patient animal had been cropping the grass nearby, waiting for him to ride back to the makeshift camp which had been established at the foot of the valley, and something about its smooth whiteness reminded Catherine of another horse which was as black as ink.

‘Lucia,’ she said. ‘What happened to her, Jaime? She left Soria to come up here—to be with you.’

His face darkened at the mention of his sister-in-law’s name.

‘She got here around one o’clock, apparently, after I had seen you safely on your way home.’ He had used the word naturally, but he was still frowning. ‘Cathy, all this is very painful to me, but it was Lucia who put the ruby in your room. She is a member of my family and I have to apologise for her, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is something you could never forgive.’

‘Manuel told me.’ Catherine’s voice was not quite steady. ‘He said Lucia had offered him the ruby, but he had given it back. Jaime,’ she added breathlessly, ‘please don’t let us talk about it any more. I know you had nothing to do with it and that’s all that really matters. Lucia’s home is at Soria—’

‘Not any more,’ he said, tight-lipped. ‘I have asked her to go. She will be provided for elsewhere, of course. I offered her Las Rosas, but she would not accept it. The isolation, she said, would be too great, so now it will await Ramon and Alex Bonnington if they care to use it when they marry. As for Lucia,’ he continued harshly, ‘she will probably go back to Madrid where my grandmother will keep an eye on her till she marries again.’

Tired though he undoubtedly was, he had fulfilled his responsibilities to his family as carefully as he could, providing even for Lucia until she married for a second time.

‘She will not return to Soria,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘She has gone to the Serranos in the meantime and she will wait there till her possessions are sent to her.’ He drew a quick breath. ‘This was something I didn’t mean to say to you until we were back at Soria, Cathy, but now I know that it will not keep.’ His voice was suddenly vibrant with passion. ‘I love you. I’ve wanted you ever since you proved how wrong I was about your youth back there in Madrid. For a long time I’ve known I had to keep you here, not only for Teresa’s sake but for my own, yet I couldn’t believe that you would stay. You have made a difference in all our lives—Teresa’s and Ramon’s and mine—and Soria needs you. I never thought to be in love again,’ he added slowly, ‘but I knew that night when I saw you with the wedding
mantilla
on your head and the petals from the floss-silk tree on the ground at your feet. Cathy!’ He put his arms about her. ‘Even after all that has happened, after everything Lucia has done and my utter blindness, will you marry me?’

She could not believe that he had asked her so simply, his proud head bent to catch her answer, and then all the joy of loving and being loved in return rose in her heart to be reflected in her shining eyes.

‘Jaime,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make you happy. Surely you know that?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I would never have guessed. Not in the beginning, anyway!’ He was smiling down at her in the golden light. ‘Nothing that happens from now on will ever dismay me,’ he declared. ‘I have paid Lucia back Soria’s debt to her and I am a poor man, but soon the
hacienda
will prosper and we will live well. Ramon, I think, will stay at Las Rosas, but that is for Alex to decide.’

He took her fully into his arms and their lips met in a long, promising kiss which was so utterly different from the kiss he had taken on the day of
fiesta.

‘What will your parents say to all this?’ he asked, true to his sense of family obligation. ‘Do you think they are likely to object to me?’

‘On the contrary,’ Catherine said with a wry little smile, ‘I think they’ll be relieved to know I’ve found someone to look after me.’

Once more he kissed her, holding her close as his eagle gaze swept down across the terraces lying tranquilly in the sun to the ragged banana plantations below.

‘All this,’ he said, ‘and love, too! It was indeed worth waiting for, Cathy. The past is now behind me and the future is very bright.’

The patient white Arab nuzzled his arm.

‘Time to go!’ he said, lifting her easily into the saddle. ‘There’s still much work to be done.’

They rode down towards the valley, the tall man on the white stallion with the slight, bright-haired English girl seated behind him, her arm loosely about his waist. It was a scene as old as time in the mountains, a man and a woman setting out on a journey which would last a lifetime.