White Witch (8 page)

He went to pour the wine for Cristina, he knew Mercedes did not drink, and Laurel meekly subsided upon the settee, feeling as if she and Cristina were puppets he was manipulating, as perhaps they were. Politeness necessitated staying a little longer, after what he had said. Luis brought the wine to Cristina and looked from one to the other of the two girls.

‘The red rose and the white,’ he almost purred, ‘such a charming contrast, both lovely and both sweet.’

What was his object in keeping her there, Laurel wondered, and paying fulsome compliments—did he know he was tormenting her, or was he doing it deliberately to pay her back for her supposed lover in England? He could be cruel sometimes.

‘Is insipid, the white rose,’ Cristina declared.

She understood this flowery talk, it was what she expected. She gave Luis a languishing glance. ‘
Los hombres
prefer the red, do they not?’

‘You should know,’ Luis returned gallantly. ‘British girls, Cristina, are cold, because they live under grey skies, they are afraid to love, unlike the red rose, which spreads its petals to welcome the sun.’

How could he say that, even to reassure Cristina, when she had only a short while ago been ready to open her petals to receive his love? And why the simile of roses when that flower would always recall to her that day in Ronda when he had been so different from this mocking devil who seemed determined to wound her? Laurel could only surmise that in some way she had offended him, perhaps because she wanted to leave, or said she did, for she knew she would leave her heart behind in Mijas.

Cristina tilted her head coquettishly, opening her fan, which as usual was attached to her wrist. Holding it over the lower part of her face, she looked coyly at Luis over its rim. Laurel had heard there was a language of fans, but it did not take much skill to interpret Cristina’s action as an invitation. The Spanish girl had been practising feminine wiles ever since she was out of her cradle, and Luis seemed to be enjoying her byplay, and he needed to allay any suspicions Mercedes might have planted in her jealous mind. It occurred to Laurel that he was keeping her there to demonstrate to his intended his indifference to her, and to remind her that the chaste, protected Spanish girl was his choice for his consort, while Laurel was only a plaything, to be taken up and discarded at his whim. Thwarted by this unexpected visit, he was venting his frustration in barbed talk, not caring how much he hurt her, for he must know that she had been frustrated too and was yearning for him with every fibre of her being.

She was unconscious that her eyes were betraying her as she gazed wistfully at Luis. Luis and Cristina, apparently absorbed in each other, did not notice, but Mercedes did. As she sat apart on her hard chair, her keen observant eyes took in every nuance. She had known her brother, boy and man, all his life, and she understood him far better than either of the other two women did, and what she was seeing disquieted her.

‘In England the manners are much more free?’ Cristina was saying, and Laurel knew she was recalling that she had found her alone with Luis.

‘Very much so,’ Luis assured her. ‘To Laurel there is nothing unconventional about coming to see me alone, and we often need to confer about the boy, who is our joint nephew.’

Mercedes snorted. ‘Hardly necessary, but Luis has his reasons for being very interested in that child, who is so unlike his father.’ Luis shot her a warning look, and she smiled sourly. ‘From which you may deduce, my dear Cristina, that he will make an excellent father himself.’

‘If he ever marry a wife,’ Cristina said mournfully, thereby betraying that Luis had not yet proposed to her.

‘Only fools rush into matrimony,’ Luis stated casually. ‘It is something that needs careful consideration.’

Cristina looked furious, and Laurel felt sorry for her, for such a remark was not to be expected from an ardent suitor. She did not think Cristina was in love with Luis, there was no softness in her eyes when she looked at him, but he could give her a fine establishment, and she wanted to make sure of him, and it. She said something in Spanish, her eyes snapping, and Luis smiled quizzically, if she were reproaching him, he was quite unmoved.

‘
Paciencia, querida
,’ he told her. ‘All will resolve itself in time.’

When he had had his way with her, Laurel thought, but she had had a revulsion of feeling. She was thankful now for the telephone call that had saved her from her madness. She was in love with Luis and longed for his love in return, but if he had any to give he would bestow it upon his countrywoman. A brief physical satisfaction was all she could expect herself, which would have left her feeling degraded and bereft, for she could not kid herself that Luis had any intention of establishing a permanent relationship with her. What had happened that evening had been unpremeditated, an upsurge of the violent emotion which could so easily erupt between them, but it had not changed anything, except to make her departure all the more urgent.

Cristina was whispering to Luis now, behind her fan, his head bent towards her, and from his expression he was amused. Sitting with these three Spaniards, more or less ignored, Laurel had never felt more alien or more alone. She drank the wine in her glass, but did not taste it. Now she had finished it, surely he would allow her to depart.

‘I really must go now,’ she said with forced brightness. ‘I’ve some letters to write.’

A polite excuse, because she had no one to whom to write. She caught Luis’ baleful eyes, and knew he was thinking ‘to James’. But there was no James. However, he did not try to detain her, and she politely shook hands with the two unresponsive women, amid a murmuring of goodnights. Luis opened the door for her, and as she passed him she said appealingly:

‘You know I must go, Luis, so you will attend to the little matter about which I asked you?’

‘We will speak further about it,’ he returned uncompromisingly. ‘
Buenas noches
.’

He did not offer his hand, and intuitively she knew that he dared not touch her.

She went swiftly down the corridor without looking back, for she felt he was watching her.

She did not at all want a further interview with him, and prayed he would see about her ticket without a further request. He
must
realise that the only sensible course was to let her return to England. His womenfolk, all three of them, would press the matter, and she was confident he would yield to their persuasions, but never had her future appeared more bleak and friendless.

Next morning, Cristina left the Casa; Laurel, who was in her room at the time, saw her go. She was travelling, not in Luis’ car, but a hired one. Mercedes and Dona Elvira were seeing her off, and there was a great deal of excited chatter while the servant piled her gear into the boot of the car. Neither of the men was present. The three women embraced, Cristina was handed into the car and driven off. Laurel knew Esteban was spending the day in Malaga, but Luis must be somewhere around, and it was strange he had not come to say goodbye to his
novia
, if she were that, nor had anybody said last night that she was leaving, unless that had been her real reason for coming to his suite, and they made their farewells after she herself had left.

Laurel hung about the vestibule and lounge, hoping to receive word that arrangements had been made for her own departure, for she was confident that upon reflection Luis would agree to it. Once she asked Leonardo if there were any message for her. He looked blank—was she expecting one? If so, it would be delivered
pronto.
Knowing the Spanish tendency to procrastinate, she steeled herself to wait, but now she knew she had to go, she was impatient to be away.

She went outside for lunch; though she was not hungry, it served to pass the time. The attendant always reserved for her a mattress set in the shade to the side of the buffet, in a secluded corner surrounded by the steep banks that enclosed the upper part of the garden. Umbrellas were put up every morning, and one of these was set over her couch. The waiter was very attentive to her and she must give him a substantial tip when she left. The sun beat down out of a cloudless sky, and the distant view was obscured by a heat haze. The pool was full of near-naked visitors and the waiters were running back and forth with iced drinks. Laurel had a clear sight of it from the open side of her retreat.

Peter came to join her; he too was tanned to a lovely brown, and he was growing fast. He had passed his fifth birthday, the pony had been Luis’ present, and she had given him some gear for it. She had been invited to the Casa for lunch in honour of the day, a rather formal meal at which Luis had been present, but afterwards he had taken the boy down to the sea. Laurel had not been invited to go with them—that had been before Cristina arrived. Peter was going to be a tall man, and Laurel wondered if he would become darker as the years past. It seemed to her his hair had already become less blond since they had come, but his eyes, so similar to hers, would always be blue.

‘Awful shindig last night,’ he told her, sitting at the foot of her mattress. He giggled. ‘Spanish sounds so funny when people get excited, pop-pop-pop.’ He had been spending the night at the Casa.

‘What was it about?’

He spread his hands—he was acquiring Latin gestures.

‘I don’t know, I’d gone to bed, but you could hear them all over the house. Fifi barked. Tio Luis was there, I know his voice, and this morning Granny—I mean Abuela—was very, very cross.’

So there had been a row, with the result that Cristina had flounced off to Seville that morning without Luis saying goodbye. Laurel hoped she had not been the cause of it, but if she had, they would soon make it up when she was out of the way. If only Luis would produce her air ticket!

‘Do you want to do anything?’ she asked, hoping he would not suggest anything energetic.

‘Dunno, it’s so hot, and there are too many people in the pool to have a swim. Oh, here is Tio Luis.’

He brightened and ran to meet his uncle, Laurel sat up and pulled down the skirt of her yellow sun dress over her legs. At last he was coming to tell her he had made the necessary arrangements. He was wearing white trousers and shirt, his jacket slung over one shoulder. Her stomach muscles contracted, and excitement stirred in her veins. Last night they had ... but she must
not
think about last night. She must accept her dismissal and forget the might-have-beens. Halting beside her, he asked Peter to bring him a chair, and the boy rushed off to procure one of the white metal ones from the buffet. They exchanged banal greetings, mere meaningless words, but his eyes were intent and searching, and hers were luminous. Her hair gleamed around her face, and she looked very young and appealing as she gazed up into his dark, enigmatical face. Peter lugged up the chair and Luis thanked him gravely. Dropping his jacket on the grass, he seated himself beside her and turned to Peter. There would have been plenty of room on the mattress beside her, but she surmised he considered that would be too intimate.

‘I want to talk to your aunt,’ he told the boy, and then, seeing his face fall, ‘but I will take you down to the coast when I have finished. Go and plague Carmen, she is not busy and it is cooler indoors.’

Peter went reluctantly, and Laurel said:

‘You’re very good to him.’

He was watching Peter’s retreat, and he returned absently:

‘He is a fine little chap, it is a pity...’ He broke off and turned his head to look down into the blue eyes raised to his, which were so exactly like Peter’s.

‘It is time you came clean,’ he told her. ‘Of course I realise he is your child.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Laurel
returned the stare of the black eyes probing into hers, wondering if the heat had addled his brains or hers, or if she had heard aright.

‘You look as though you could not tell a lie to save your life,’ he told her. ‘But you are as twofaced as your sister was, and I have been as gullible as poor Pedro until Mercedes brought me to my senses last night. The boy told me himself that he was known as Peter Lester in England.’

‘Well, Joanna reverted to her maiden name, and yours is a bit of a mouthful...
’
Then it hit her. ‘Oh, no, Luis, you can’t be suggesting we swapped babies, that sort of thing only occurs in third-rate melodramas. Why ever should I want to do such a thing?’

‘To obtain security for him,’ he said gently. ‘I do not blame you, Laurel—with your upbringing, you are not likely to be scrupulous, and you saw an opportunity that you could not resist to provide for him. Last night...’ He looked away from her, ‘Cristina and I ... quarrelled about you. I told her ... never mind what. Then Mercedes talked to me, she said I was infatuated—perhaps I was.’ He passed his hand wearily over his face. ‘She never did believe your story, and neither did I ... at first.’

Which accounted for his initial antagonism, those penetrating looks that had disconcerted her, his occasional strange remarks. He had thought she might be a fraud.

‘You and your charming sister are just blind prejudiced,’ she cried angrily, cut to the quick that he could so misjudge her. ‘Because Peter used his mother’s name...’

‘Wait a moment, spitfire,’ his smile was almost tender. ‘We had only your word, remember, and perhaps you do not know that Joanna wrote to Pedro telling him his son had died ... of measles and ’flu.’

‘That’s an invention! Joanna would never write to Pedro, she would have been terrified of giving him a clue to her whereabouts.’

‘We have the letter, you can see it if you wish. She thought she would finally put an end to Pedro’s quest for the boy. Incidentally, the postmark was that of a part of London where she was
not
hiding.’

The bright sunlight danced before Laurel’s eyes. Such an action was typical of Joanna, obsessed and unbalanced as she became, but she had not dared to tell her sister what she had done. The Aguilas had accepted her communication as truth, but without the confirmation of a copy of the death certificate it was valueless. She told Luis so.

‘We knew that, and Mama was convinced the information was false, Joanna’s motive being obvious. Pedro promised he would make enquiries, but before he got anywhere, and he was beginning to lose interest in the fate of his son, he was killed. Mama was prostrated by the shock of his death, and was ill for a long time. When your letter came it had the effect of a reviving tonic. We tried to persuade her to wait, to allow me to go to London to interview you and test your veracity, but she insisted you must come at once. She could not bear to think that Pedro’s child might be in want.’

So he had come to meet her, full of suspicion and doubt. Couldn’t Joanna have foreseen how her foolish letter might reflect upon Peter, and she must have forgotten it when she had asked Laurel to return him to his people—typical of her sister, who never foresaw anything and always acted upon the impulse of the moment.

‘But Peter knows he’s lost his mother, he calls me Tia.’

‘Which would not convey much to the average Briton. Strange that it is the only Spanish word I he remembered. He is too young to recall events before his illness, and it was after that I suppose you met your James. By the way, what is his second name?’

Still in shock from Luis’ accusations, she answered mechanically: ‘B ... Baron.’ She had nearly said Bond. Why had she dredged up a name at all, when there was no such person? Was she still trying to delude herself he could be some sort of protection?

‘Perhaps you wanted to appear respectable to this Senor Baron?’ Luis said insinuatingly. ‘The bereaved mother would have been happy to pass the child off as hers, and hear him call her Mummy, besides she was much indebted to you.’

Laurel made a gesture as if pushing cobwebs away from her face. He was trying to make the improbably sound plausible. Mercedes must have worked hard to think up all this rubbish, for Luis would not by himself have arrived at such feminine conclusions.

‘This is ridiculous,’ she told him, trying to speak calmly. ‘There are people in London—the doctor who attended Peter and Joanna, our neighbours—who’ll explode your theories. I didn’t realise I would need to bring my credentials with me, or I’d have done something about it.’

It was not the query about Peter that had wounded her, and she had not had time to examine the depth of her hurt, but the realisation that Luis, the man she had learned to love, had been harbouring such cruel doubts of her and had from their first meeting suspected her of being a fraud and a cheat.

‘Naturally I shall make a thorough investigation,’ Luis said coldly. ‘Unless the boy is legitimate he cannot inherit his father’s property.’

That wretched property again, that would become his and Esteban’s if he could discredit Peter’s claim, which it was to his advantage to do. The Toro Negro—but surely on that day his doubts had been allayed. He would not have allowed the staff to be presented to the boy, if they had not—or would he? She looked up into his dark Spanish face, his unrevealing eyes. To play with her and Peter, lead them on, expecting they would betray themselves, manipulate them as the matador does the bull, before he gives the final thrust, wasn’t that characteristic of his devious, cruel mind? She cried out in anguish:

‘Oh, Luis, Luis, you can’t believe all this nonsense! It’s your venomous sister who has invented it. She’s always hated me because I resemble Joanna.’

‘That was the first thing I noticed about you.’ And had chalked it up against her!

‘But you said I had honest eyes,’ she reminded him. ‘You said I was true.’

Those remarks had puzzled her at the time, but now she understood their import.

A spasm crossed his face. ‘You
had
convinced me of that,’ he told her gently. ‘Until last night. I had thought ... but no matter.’ Voice and expression hardened. ‘You had deceived me about this James ... Baron, did you say? You concealed his existence, letting me suppose...
’
Again he broke off, then resumed, and now his face was like stone, his eyes glittering. ‘It was when you showed that you were panting to get back to him, insisting that you return at once, that the scales fell from my eyes.’

That was still rankling, her stupid deception that she had embarked upon as a defence against her vulnerability and his demanding passion. There was no James Baron, he was a myth, but how could she convince him of that now? She must try.

‘James—’ she began hesitantly, but he cut her short.

‘Spare me rhapsodies about the creature. No doubt he is all I am not, English to start with, and you said you would only marry an Englishman after Joanna’s fiasco, but she was a bitch, that one, she trapped poor Pedro and then betrayed him. I always thought he was a credulous fool until I nearly fell into the same net myself. But I have come to my senses now.’

Feeling bewildered, Laurel said: ‘But Pedro married Joanna, and you are going to marry Senorita Ordonez.’

‘Yes, I am,’ he said emphatically. He smiled sardonically. ‘She has gone off in a rage, but I have only to go to Sevilla and open my arms, and she will fall into them.’

Stabbed, Laurel remarked bitterly: ‘An establishment being more potent than love. You don’t love her and she doesn’t love you.’

‘It is not necessary to love to make a successful marriage, though no doubt you are besotted about your James. Love should come afterwards, if it ever comes at all. Similar backgrounds, shared points of view, family approval are much more important.’

Intuitively she knew that these were the arguments he had used to persuade himself into proposing to Cristina, but what did she care about that, when he had brought such a wicked and unfounded accusation against herself? Mercedes had instigated it, of course; she had sat in the corner of Luis’ suite watching them like a venomous spider weaving its web, knowing she held a trump card in poor Jo’s hysterical letter, oozing disapproval.

‘I was here when Peter was born,’ she reminded him. ‘Your mother will remember that, though you were away. I could not have been ... having a baby ... myself, could I?’

For to support his preposterous misconception, she would have had to be pregnant herself.

‘Mercedes has remarked, and indeed we have all noticed, that the
nino
seems very advanced for his years. He could be somewhat older than you pretend. If I remember rightly, Mama told me she tried to persuade you to make a long stay, but you said it was imperative you went back.’

To keep her job, of course, but these affluent Aguilas would not appreciate the urgency of that. She burst out:

‘What a tangle of suppositions and improbabilities! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Luis de las Aguilas, for listening to such rubbish!’

Luis sighed: ‘If only it were that!’

Laurel seethed with indignation. He
wanted
to despise her to counteract the attraction which they both knew was between them, and had led to the rift with Cristina, but what about Peter? What was to happen to him while they wrangled about his identity? Was he to be thrown out, lose all his newly acquired possessions because of a soured woman’s vindictive spite?

She asked anxiously: ‘What are you going to do about Peter?’

Luis had been regarding the people in the pool with an abstracted gaze. Without looking at her, he told her:

‘Nothing. He stays here. Would you have me break Mama’s heart? You have achieved that much, which is more than you deserve. The poor child is innocent, and must be provided for, though he is no Spaniard. Mama need never know the truth, Mercedes agrees about that, and in any case she will not be with us much longer as she starts her novitiate. He is a bright little lad and worthy of a good education. Who knows?’ Luis smiled wryly. ‘He may become an excellent hotelier.’

‘The Toro Negro,’ Laurel said, and he winced. Got you there, she thought with bitter triumph, you meant to acquire that for yourself, but you won’t get it, it’s going to be Peter’s.

She felt as if she had a lump of lead where her heart should be. Her growing love for Luis had been shrivelled by black frost; he had killed her dreams and seemed indifferent to what he had done, for he was idly watching a girl who had come out of the pool, a slim nymph in a bikini, who, becoming conscious of his gaze, preened herself and smiled coquettishly.

She reviewed the people she would contact on her return, the doctor for a start. Joanna had never applied for a child allowance, though they could have done with the money, fearful that Pedro might trace her through that source, but the Health Visitor had dropped in from time to time, much to Joanna’s disgust. There was the woman in the flat above theirs who had sometimes babysat for them, and her employer could testify she had never been off work long enough to have ... appendicitis. Come to that, a medical examination could prove ... Good God, had Luis thought of that, and that was why he wanted to make love to her?

‘Luis...
’
She had to force out the words. ‘When you ... when we ... were you meaning to seduce me to prove that...’ she could not finish. Luis seemed to rouse himself from some sensual fantasy evoked by the near-naked girl. There was a flicker of sardonic humour in his eyes.

‘What happened was spontaneous, nor were you adverse to being seduced, though you should have remembered it was ... unwise. A good conspirator should be able to control her emotions.’

‘Oh, you!’ she choked.

‘Mercedes said it was a great pity I had been unable to make sure.’

Mercedes again! He had actually discussed their most intimate moments with his unpleasant sister! Laurel swallowed convulsively.

‘Of all the cold-blooded, calculating swine!’

He blinked. ‘Not exactly cold-blooded, Laurel. You know I have always wanted you.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I had dreams, but...
’
He lifted his head proudly. ‘An Aguilas cannot accept another man’s leavings. Your James may not be so particular, we know England has a permissive society and divorce is rampant. Now it is to be permitted here, we may follow suit, but I expect chastity and fidelity in the woman I marry.’

He meant Cristina. I hope she plays him false, she thought bitterly, she looked quite capable of cuckolding him, the chauvinistic beast! Aloud she told him:

‘As soon as I get back to England, and I can’t get there too quickly, I’ll collect the evidence...’

‘You are not going back to England,’ he interrupted. ‘You will stay here.
I
will carry out the investigation. I am not going to permit you to run around suborning witnesses before I have contacted them.’

‘Ah, dear God,’ she sighed. ‘How much further can you insult me? But there is one witness you won’t find, and that’s James Baron.’

She hoped he would question that and she could perhaps make him believe the man was a myth, but he said brutally:

‘Is that so? Perhaps he is doing time.’ Laurel clenched her fist; she would have liked to smash it into his mocking face. Luis went on coolly: ‘Mercedes wants me to consult a solicitor, put the matter in his hands, but I prefer to deal with it myself. When I return I will dispose of you as I see fit.’