Red Lotus (22 page)

Her cousin was seated at a table at the far side of an inner, palm-shaded lounge where the splash of a fountain into a deep green basin was the predominating sound. Everything else was suitably subdued. The sunlight slanted coolly in through green, slatted blinds, the music was soft and the laughter low-pitched. It was an atmosphere of which even Philip might approve, but for the fact that Conchita sat alone at the table with the Marques de Barrios.

Neither Rafael nor Conchita looked up as Felicity and Sisa crossed the cool, tiled floor towards them. Rafael was smiling and examining his finger-nails with a look of

satisfaction in his eyes and Conchita was absorbed by what he was saying.

"But I am only keeping you to your promise, Rafael!" she protested in a hurt undertone as her cousin came within hearing distance. "You said you would get me this chance—to meet this man—"

She broke off, aware that they were no longer alone, aware that Felicity and her sister were standing there confronting her. For the time it took her to draw in her breath she had the look of a small girl caught in an act of disobedience, and then her face flushed scarlet and her eyes flashed their scorn.

"How dare you follow me!" she cried. "How dare you come here to spy! If Philip has sent you, please to tell him that I am not coming back to San Lozaro—ever. I will not go back to that—that prison!"

She spat the word out, but she had kept her voice low, too well-bred to make a scene, it would appear, or too afraid of what her escort might think. Her rage and disappointment were genuine enough, however, and Felicity even felt sorry for her.

"Come home, Conchita," she begged, "and talk it all over with Philip. It will not do any good taking the law into your own hands like this."

She had ignored Rafael, who was now on his feet making a great show of bowing over Sisa's hand before she snatched it away uncertainly and turned to her sister.

"Please do as Felicity says, Conchita," she begged. "She is right about Philip. Nothing will be gained by angering him in this way. He is our guardian."

"I will not listen to Philip!" Conchita cried, growing more excited. "Rafael, tell them I will not listen to Philip
anymore
! Tell them that it is you who will say what I am to do in the future."

The Marques looked uncomfortable.

"Querida—look," he said. "All this has been too sudden, even for me. I can't keep you here in Santa Cruz. I must go back to Zamora myself. We had arranged nothing. You have simply taken the bull by the horns and rushed off at a tangent. Of course I promised to speak to Luis for you, but not at half a day's notice. These things take time. You must have patience, querida. You must learn to wait."

The bright light of expectancy flickered and died slowly in Conchita's eyes.

"You mean that you will send me back, that you will not keep your promise?" she asked falteringly.

She had forgotten Sisa and Felicity. There was nobody in the world for her in that moment but Rafael, Marques de Barrios, but all she could see in his handsome face vas impatience.

"Of course I shall keep my promise," he assured her briefly. "But the time is not yet ripe."

"You mean to go away!" Conchita's face was completely colourless now. "You will return to Spain and I shall not see you again for many months. I know how it is, Rafael, when you want to go away!"

"For your comfort," he said arrogantly, "I am not going to Spain for several weeks yet. There is no reason for me to go." His eyes lingered on Felicity's set face and tightly-compressed lips, willing her to return the smile he gave her. "I am perfectly happy here. And now, since we are all in Santa Cruz so unexpectedly," he added, as if it had been, indeed, the most chance of meetings, "let me order you something to eat. First of all, we will have a bottle of wine, though."

"No, thank you," Felicity refused stiffly. "We must get back as quickly as possible."

"But that is ridiculous!" he protested. "You cannot drive back all that way without food. It would also look—uncivilized to walk straight out after you have just come in. Conchita will return with you," he added without giving Conchita a second look, "as soon as we have had our lunch."

It was three o'clock. Felicity glanced at her watch and supposed that he was right. Nothing would be gained by creating a scene in a place like this and to walk out would be stupid, as he had just suggested. There would be the question of finding another suitable restaurant, too, in a town she did not know, and the possibility of losing contact with Conchita.

That was the deciding factor. Conchita was already half convinced that she should return to San Lozaro. It would be madness to leave her now.

The meal was the usual leisurely Spanish one, served elaborately by three waiters in white coats and the major-

domo, a large, swarthy man with a wide, welcoming smile which embraced the whole world in general and Rafael de Barrios in particular. He hovered round their table and had obviously an eye for a pretty girl, because he paid Conchita the compliment of bending very low over her hand when they rose to leave.

Felicity had drawn a quick breath of relief when their coffee had arrived. She had refused the accompanying cognac which Rafael had suggested and was foolishly pleased when Conchita also shook her head.

Throughout the meal her cousin had been curiously silent, sitting almost sullenly in her chair and eating very little. It had seemed as if Conchita's temper might erupt again at any minute. The fiery, smouldering embers were not yet extinguished in her eyes and she twisted and re-twisted the small scrap of linen and lace that was her handkerchief as she sat waiting for Rafael to finish his brandy.

Felicity turned to the door. She was more than impatient to be out again in the fresh air, to be rid of Rafael, although she knew that she could not shake him off for ever. He was the type to whom a rebuff came in the nature of a challenge, and although he was probably already tiring of Conchita, he would not let her go until he had made the decision for himself

Somehow she felt sure of that, and was strangely afraid in consequence.

At the door she turned, waiting for Sisa. Her cousin came out into the full glare of the afternoon sunlight and stopped as if she had suddenly been turned to stone. She was looking beyond Felicity at the car which had drawn up at the kerb and the man who had jumped out from behind the steering-wheel with anger and impatience in his eyes.

"Philip—!"

Felicity swung round with a madly-beating heart to find Philip mounting the three broad steps to the hotel doorway. He was furiously angry. She could see it in his eyes and in the hard set of his jaw, and it was an anger which embraced them all.

"I had a vague idea that I might find you here," he said, keeping his temper in check with an obvious effort. "When you are ready, I will take you back to San Lozaro."

"We were coming home, Philip." The appeal in Felicity's

voice seemed to pass him by. "I—we came to Santa Cruz for the day. I did not think you would mind. Sisa said you had gone to Lozaro Alto—"

Her voice trailed away. He knew that she was lying, that this was no innocent trip thought up on the impulse of the moment. He believed that it had been planned while they had been at Zamora at the fiesta. And how could she deny it, other than by telling him the truth?

Conchita appeared on the steps behind them with Rafael by her side.

"Good heavens, Arnold! this is an honour for Santa Cruz!" the Marques laughed. "It is not often that we see you on this side of the island in search of the bright lights!"

"The bright lights have never attracted me," Philip told him curtly. "They are too artificial." He looked straight at Conchita. "You had better find a wrap for the journey back," he advised.

"I will not come!" Conchita stamped her foot. "You cannot make me do as you wish, Philip. I am old enough to please myself!"

"Not in this way."

Philip took her by the elbow, leading her firmly towards the waiting car, and for a fraction of a second Felicity thought that Conchita was going to create a scene. She pulled against her guardian's arm, but his was the superior strength, and finally she subsided in the back seat in a flood of humiliating tears.

"Querida," Rafael said softly, coming to the side of the big hired car, "you must not act in this way! I shall remember my promise. I shall speak to Luis for you—one day."

Felicity knew that he had no intention of speaking to the elusive Luis or to anyone else on Conchita's behalf. He had made a promise idly and he would lie his way out of it as charmingly as he could, leaving it to Philip to bear the brunt of Conchita's disillusionment and despair.

Philip stood stiffly on the pavement while they piled into the car. He did not attempt to offer Rafael a lift back to the valley.

"There's Sabino," Felicity remembered. "I sent him to get some food—"

"I have already seen Sabino," Philip answered, holding the front door of the car open for her because Sisa had already climbed into the back in an effort to comfort her

sister. "I found the car parked in the Cruz Verde. He is now on his way home to San Lozaro."

She knew that he was grudging the time he had been forced to spend in pursuit of them, but more than anything else his anger lay in the fact that they had come to Santa Cruz with Rafael de Barrios. That was what he thought. He had accused her silently. She was as much, if not more to blame than Conchita in his eyes.

Rafael stood back on the pavement, bowing with a small, relieved smile as they drove away.

"I wish you hadn't had to make this long journey, Philip," Felicity began tentatively as the frowning buttress of San Cristobal towered above them and they made their way out of the city. "I—we meant to be back before dark."

"You could scarcely have managed it," he answered curtly. "It is after four now, and you did not appear to be in any great hurry to leave."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, because there was nothing else she could say. A small pulse was hammering in his cheek, which suggested that his anger had in no way abated, and the blue eyes were fixed sternly on the uphill way ahead. "How did you know where we were?" she asked lamely.

"I came back to the hacienda unexpectedly," he told her dryly. "Evidently I was not supposed to do that."

"Philip, please listen," she said beneath her breath so that her voice would not carry to the seat behind them. "I didn't come to Santa Cruz to meet Rafael de Barrios. We—met him just over an hour ago at the hotel."

"Please don't lie to me," he said harshly. "I can stand anything but that."

"You've got to listen—"

"I would prefer not to. We can't discuss this thing here. Please leave it till we get back to San Lozaro."

She felt crushed and humiliated, but she could not blame Philip for what he thought. Had she not shown a marked preference for Rafael de Barrios' company in the beginning?

Her heart felt like ice. Did this mean the end of any trust between herself and Philip, the end of companionship? He had asked her to marry him, but what would be his reaction now?

They drove in a stony silence, past the pink and cream-

washed villas on the hill with their green shutters and red-tiled roofs and the cascades of purple clematis spilling over their boundary walls almost to the road. The sea far beneath them was green and blue in alternate patches, with little ships dotting the horizon, and the serried ranks of dark mountain peaks before them were flushed by the dying sun.

When it sank abruptly into the western ocean the darkness came like the cut of a knife, and Philip switched on his lights.

Felicity shivered. She had forgotten a coat; she had forgotten everything but the need to get to Santa Cruz in time to intercept Conchita.

Philip drew the car up by the roadside. He took off his jacket and handed it to her.

"Here, put this on," he commanded. "We can't afford to let you catch pneumonia."

Had he some use for her, then—still something he felt that she could do?

"I can't take your coat, Philip," she protested weakly, thrusting it back towards him.

"I think you must do as you are told," he said briskly, although not too unkindly. "The effects of our abrupt nightfall can be severe and we are still fairly high up. Sisa and Conchita can wrap themselves in the car rug."

Sisa had brought a little woollen bolero and Conchita had the protection of her riding-breeches and the jacket she had worn over her silk shirt for her early-morning departure from San Lozaro. He pulled the hood of the car up, fastening it securely on either side before he got in behind the wheel again and drove off.

Felicity drew the proffered jacket about her shoulders. Huddled in its warmth, she felt nearer to Philip than ever before; nearer, yet in some ways, much, much further away. The scent of the tobacco he used stung her nostrils, reviving the nostalgic memory of these moments when she had lain close in the shelter of his arms, feeling the touch of his lips strong against her mouth. It had been a passionate kiss, demanding and fierce, and in some ways it had not been Philip. It had been too destructive, too much laced with anger to give her any lasting satisfaction. There was more than cruelty and arrogance in his make-up.