Rachel. You went abroad with your father only a year before he died. I happen to know your passport is still valid.’
‘But—but I need time——’
‘Why?’
‘There are arrangements to be made——’
‘What arrangements?’
She shook her head. ‘Lots of things.’
‘Rachel, all you need to do is pack a suitcase. We leave in the morning.’
‘No!’
‘Yes. Naturally, Senhor Martinez will stay here tonight——’
Now Luis felt uncomfortable. ‘That’s quite unnecessary,’ he began automatically. ‘I can stay at a hotel.’
‘Nonsense,’ exclaimed Trevellyan. ‘Of course you’ll stay here. It’s the least we can do, isn’t it, Rachel?’
‘If you say so.’ There was a lacklustre quality about her now.
Luis controlled a sigh. He wished it were morning already. He had no desire to spend a night here, conscious as he was of Rachel Trevellyan’s resentment. But he could hardly refuse without throwing Malcolm Trevellyan’s hospitality back in his face.
‘I’ll go and see about making up a bed,’ said Rachel now, and her husband nodded.
‘That’s right. You can let us know when it’s ready. I’m sure Senhor Martinez is tired after his journey.’
While Rachel was away, Malcolm asked about Luis’s mother, the Marquesa de Mendao. For a few moments at least, Luis relaxed. It was reassuring to speak about his mother. At least there were no undercurrents there. He removed his overcoat and sat comfortably in his chair, lighting a cheroot which he favoured when Malcolm produced cigarettes.
By the time Rachel returned Luis was feeling infinitely less tense, although the atmosphere changed again as soon as she entered the room.
‘The room’s ready,’ she announced, and Luis stood up.
‘I’ll bid you goodnight, then,’ said Malcolm, apparently indifferent to his wife’s attitude. ‘What time do you want us to leave in the morning?’
‘I suggest we say as early as possible and leave it at that,’ remarked Luis. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’ Malcolm smiled, rather smugly, Luis thought, but then he accompanied Rachel from the room without another word.
They went upstairs and into a room at the front of the house. The rest of the building struck chill after the unpleasant heat of Malcolm Trevellyan’s bedroom, but Luis saw that Rachel had turned on an electric fire in the room he was to occupy.
It was a large bedroom, sparsely furnished, with only a bed, a wardrobe, and a kind of washstand. The only floor covering was a rag rug beside the bed, but as with the rest of the house everything was spotlessly clean.
‘I’ve put a hot water bottle in the bed,’ said Rachel, remaining by the door when he advanced into the room. ‘Is there anything else you need?’
Luis thought of his suitcase locked in the boot of his car, but shook his head. His eyes encountered hers. He had never seen such green eyes before and fringed as they were by long black lashes they seemed to overshadow her other features. The feeling of unease he had felt earlier stirred again and he didn’t know why. Something told him he ought to call this off here and now and refuse to take either Malcolm Trevellyan or his wife back to his home in Mendao. But that was ridiculous, he told himself angrily. He was allowing weariness to make him fanciful. What possible harm could come from offering the Trevellyans their hospitality for a couple of weeks? His mother might not welcome Rachel’s presence, she might take exception to her mode of dress, but surely that could be modified. For all her English upbringing, his mother’s forty years in Portugal had made her typically Portuguese in outlook.
And if Amalia considered it unseemly to have a young woman, albeit a married one, staying in his house in these weeks before their wedding, then perhaps some other arrangements could be made within the confines of the estate.
He realised suddenly that he had been staring at Rachel for an unconscionably long period and that her cheeks had suffused with colour under his gaze.
Forcing his attention to other things, he said: ‘Thank you, senhora. I have everything I need. I’m sure I shall be very comfortable.’
His voice was cool, but he couldn’t help it. There was something about this girl that disturbed him, and it was a new experience for him. Normally he was in complete control of his reactions.
‘Very well.’ She made to close the door. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, senhora.’
He gave a stiff little movement of his head and the door closed. But after she had gone, he was conscious that he would be unable to banish her so easily from his mind as from his sight.
SINCE leaving the coast, the road had wound through a series of lushly cultivated valleys, bright with blossoming trees and shrubs, scented with pine and citrus. Rachel saw vine-clad terraces, orchards of fig and almond trees, pergolas draped with the lemon-vine while the varied colours of bougainvillea rioted in every available space. She had never seen jacarandas growing wild before, or longed to touch the satin-soft petals of the oleander. It was all new and stimulating, and she could not entirely deny the rising sense of excitement that was stirring inside her. Her fingers itched to take her paintbrush and try, probably without success, she thought, to transfer some of this beauty and colour on to canvas. This was Portugal, the country of the lean, dark man seated beside her at the wheel of his luxurious silver limousine, the natural background of this aristocratic nobleman, this unexpected friend of Malcolm’s, who regarded her with obvious contempt.
Her lips twisted and she shivered in spite of the heat of the day which had already forced her to shed the jacket of the slim-fitting cream slack suit she had worn to travel in. Her husband, overcome by the temperature, was asleep in the back of the limousine, but Luis Martinez, Marquês de Mendao, seemed totally unaffected by the climate.
She glanced surreptitiously towards him. His concentration was all on the road ahead and for a moment she was able to look at him unobserved. Who would have thought that in less than twenty-four hours her life could change so completely? Yesterday afternoon she had spent at her easel, trying to finish the portrait of one of the village children while Malcolm slept, aware of a certain excitement about him which she had not been able to explain. That the explanation had come in such a startling way was scarcely believable. And yet, last night, when she had opened the door and found the tall dark alien on the step, she had known that he was in some way responsible for that latent excitement. But even then she had not suspected that Malcolm intended to take her away.
She drew a trembling breath. He had wanted to do so, goodness knows, only circumstances had prevented it. Since his illness he had been almost fanatical in his attempts to keep her away from people she knew, but she had believed his hands had been tied. How he must have laughed to himself to think that the very thing which she had thought would keep them in Mawvry among her friends, among the people she knew and cared about, was the very thing which had provided the means to get them away.
The car braked smoothly at a bend where a narrow bridge negotiated a rippling stream below them. The water ran swiftly over smooth stones worn by the passage of time, and an enormous elm spread its branches casting avenues of shade. The lush green turf invited relaxation beside the stream where the sunlight dappled quiet pools and muted the birds’ song. Rachel could have climbed out of the car then and paddled in that stream, and she sighed, attracting the attention of the man at her side.
‘You are tired?’ he queried politely, his clipped tones betraying a certain impatience.