The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) (6 page)

The old woman sighed, her shoulders sagging. “I might have known she would take it like that,” she said, half to herself.

“Yes, you might,” her grandson replied. “Am I to take it that was not your object?”

“No,” Doña Isabel answered, a reluctant smile twitching at her mouth. “You were always too perceptive, Ramón.”

He ignored the last. “You look well,” he said. “It would seem quarreling is good for you.”

“There is a certain truth in that. I was never so ill as to send for you, however. That was Irene’s doing. I grew so tired of her meddling with my routine, rearranging the household to suit herself, and telling me every day that I look more ill than the day before that I took to my bed and refused to see either her or the doctor she had called in place of my own family physician. She panicked, I think. Never have I been so angry as when I heard she had sent for you, taking you away from your business concerns for nothing. If you want her back, I will apologize, of course, but otherwise, no.”

“I do not consider your well-being nothing. I had no idea that I was leaving you in such bad hands,” her grandson said seriously.

“I have tried to tell you, though I must admit she has grown worse this last time you were away. But never mind that. You are sure you are not angry? You have no regrets?”

Anne thought he hesitated a moment before he leaned forward to kiss the soft crepe skin of Doña Isabel’s cheek. “None, so long as you are happy.”

“And this child here?” she said, indicating Anne. “I think something was said of a headache, and indeed, she doesn’t look at all well.”

As they all three turned to face her, Anne tried to smile. She felt oddly embarrassed, as though she had been watching a play and the actors had suddenly asked her to come on stage. There was a nimbus of light around the old lady’s white hair and also around Señor Castillo’s dark, arrogant head. The housekeeper seemed to be peering at her with less animosity than she had previously shown. “I’m sorry,” Anne whispered. “I didn’t mean to be so much trouble. I only wanted something for my headache.”

“Don Ramón...”

Anne heard the housekeeper’s warning accents; then, though she had not been aware that she was falling, she felt herself caught up and swung high against a man’s chest. She was carried a short way, then placed on the yielding softness of a mattress. When she opened her eyes, she saw through the blur of tears of pain, the rose-colored hangings of her bed. Señor Castillo was a wavering shape beside the bed. Before she could gather her thoughts to speak, he was gone.

He returned almost immediately. With an arm behind her back, he helped her to sit up. He shook out a capsule from a small bottle and put it into her hand, then gave her a glass of water. When she had taken the capsule, she sank back down on the pillows and closed her eyes. After a moment, she felt the light touch of a sheet and blanket being tucked around her.

“Thank you,” she murmured. In the recesses of her mind, she realized the señor still stood beside the bed staring down at her. She moved restlessly, disturbed by something she did not understand in his silence. A long moment later she heard his footsteps receding. The door dosed behind him.

Three

Sleep. She wanted the drifting unconsciousness to go on forever, and yet she wanted also to awaken. She could not quite achieve either state. Vaguely, she knew when a short, dapper Mexican with a Vandyke beard came to examine her. His probing fingers at her temple made her head start to pound once more. The capsule he gave her was much like the one Señor Castillo had brought to her, and had much the same effect. She drank some beef bonbon through a straw at the insistence of the Spanish nurse, but went back to sleep before she could manage to eat the crackers that came with it. Once, she opened her eyes to see the señor silhouetted against the moonlight beyond her window, staring out in a brooding absorption. When she looked again, he was gone. A young girl she thought of as a maid flitted in and out of the room at odd hours, always trying to be quiet, never quite succeeding. It was she who found Anne awake at last.

“Buenas dias,” she said, a smile spreading over her round face. “Good morning. Is that not right?”

With a slow nod, Anne returned the greeting. The movement brought no pain. Her headache was gone.

Seeing her sudden smile, the maid said. “You are better this morning, no? The doctor, he say you can get up if you feel like it.”

“What time is it?” Anne asked, nudged by a vague feeling that it was important.

“It is after eight o’clock in the morning, señorita. You have had a good sleep?”

The girl’s laugh was infectious. Anne found herself smiling before she realized that the joke was on her.

“How — how long have I been here?” she asked, a shade of anxiety in her voice.

“It is not to worry, señorita,” the maid replied soothingly. “It is only two days.”

Two days! Anne sat up straight in bed. “And today is—”

“Monday, señorita.”

“It can’t be,” she cried in horror; still, even as she said it, she knew there was no mistake. What in the world would Judy and Iva and Joe be thinking? They would have a missing-person bulletin out for her at the very least, especially if they found Judy’s car deserted at the airport. Throwing back the sheet, she swung her legs off the bed.

“Wait, señorita, let me help you,” the maid exclaimed, hurrying around the bed. “There is no need for such haste. I will bring your coffee, and perhaps you will take breakfast in bed, no?”

“No,” Anne answered “I have to get up and get dressed, right now. I have to speak to Señor Castillo. Where are my clothes?”

“They have been cleaned and pressed, and I, Carmelita, hung them away in the wardrobe with my own hands. But, señorita, you will make yourself ill again if you get up too soon. Please to have breakfast slowly in bed, then I will run your bath and lay out your clothes. That is the way. Besides, Don Ramón has not left his room to go down to the patio for breakfast, and he sees no one before then. For my life I would not disturb him, not me!”

Daunted by such a heartfelt declaration, Anne paused. After a moment, she asked, “What about after breakfast?”

“That would be much better. While you are making yourself ready I will speak to Pedro, Don Ramón’s secretary, and see what may be arranged.”

Irritation with such formality touched Anne, then receded. “Thank you,” she replied.

The light of the sun was blinding after the dim interior of the house. Anne stood for a moment in the doorway to let her eyes adjust. The patio, including the dim recess under the arched and columned loggia that encompassed it on four sides, was large. It was paved with gray stone except for a circle of yellow and blue geometric tiles that made a base for a sparkling fountain. Orange trees lifted their glossy branches to shade one corner. Under the loggia hung baskets of enormous ferns and flowering begonias. Fine green moss grew between the cracks of the floor. Hardy ferns lined the edge of the loggia, and placed at intervals were large terra-cotta pots filled with cascades of white petunias growing around the bases of red geraniums. Through an arched opening in the wall closed by an iron grill could be seen an expanse of the garden and the wall that bounded the property. Roses and sweet peas clambered over the wall, a pink and magenta and rose mass of fragrance with bees drunkenly picking and choosing among them.

Glancing up from his paper, señor Castillo caught sight of her hovering there under the arcade. He rose to his feet at once, tossing aside the paper, and held out a chair for her at the glass-topped wrought-iron table where he had been sitting.

“Coffee?” he asked as he resumed his place. A coffee service of heavy, polished silver sat before him on a tray though all evidence of his breakfast had been removed. Since it would give her something to do with her hands, Anne agreed. He poured it out and, without consulting her, added sugar before passing the cup to her.

“You are rested?” he asked, his narrowed gaze on the pale fragility of her face as he sat back with his own cup.

“Yes, perfectly,” she answered, “though I must apologize for the trouble I have caused.”

“It was nothing.”

“I’m sure it was awkward for you. I — I would like to thank you for taking care of me.” It was difficult to go on in the face of his apparent indifference, but she had to have his cooperation. It might be days before she could untangle the mess she was in and return home without his help. “I cannot quite remember, but it seems I must have told you that I have friends, my employers and my roommate, who will be worried about me. Do you know — is there some way I could get in touch with them and let them know I am all right?”

“Certainly. The telephone is available whenever you would like to use it. However, you need be in no hurry to contact your employers. I have spoken to them already. They know where you are and the circumstances, and will not expect to hear from you any time soon. It is more than likely that your roommate will learn of your whereabouts from them when you don’t turn up, don’t you think?”

“You — you called Metcalf’s about me?” As Anne set her coffee cup on the table it clattered a little in the saucer.

“From the plane,” he admitted with the faintest flicker of a smile. “You would not tell me your name, if you remember, and I had to know it, along with a number of other particulars, in order to persuade the authorities to let you into the country.”

“Then you are convinced that I came to be on your plane as I said?” she asked, unable to resist pursuing this sore point.

“Let us say I am convinced you are employed with Metcalf Caterers. For the rest...” He shrugged.

Anne stared at his shuttered expression in frustration. The guard, that was it. Señor Castillo still considered that, discovering herself on his plane with the guard who had seen her go on board out of the way, she had taken advantage of the situation to bring herself to his notice. It was infuriating, but the only thing she could do about it was to take herself off as quickly as possible.

Taking a deep breath for composure, she said, “Then you will be happy to see me go. If you will arrange my flight as you suggested the night we arrived, I won’t trespass on your hospitality any longer.”

A frown of concentration between his eyes, he stared past her into the shadows under the loggia. Propping his elbow on the arm of his chair, he pulled at his lower lip. Abruptly, he brought his hand down. His dark, intense gaze on her face, he asked, “Why do you want to go?”

“Why?” she repeated, at a loss.

“You have no family, no close man friend. What is there to hold you in Dallas? Why is it necessary for you to return?”

“I have friends, acquaintances, people I have known all my life. It’s my home. There is my job—”

“Friends can be made in other places. As for the job, there is one here for you.”

“Here, in Mexico?”

“Here, in my home.”

For a moment she was tempted. To stay in Mexico, to see more of the country and its people, would be a lovely thing. It was the only way to really get to know another land. But to be alone in that land, away from everything known and familiar? No. She did not quite have the courage.

“I’m sorry,” she began.

“But you have not heard what your position will be,” he interrupted, a dry note in his voice. “Aren’t you being a bit hasty?”

“I don’t see that it matters,” Anne said defensively.

“No? What I am offering you, Anne Matthews, is the position, the paid, temporary position — let me make that clear — of my fiancée. Who knows? There is always the possibility, if you play your cards right, that the position might become permanent.”

Anger impelled Anne to her feet. With one hand resting on the table, she stared at him, aware of a pulse behind her eyes, a warning that her headache would return if she allowed herself to be upset much further. “If this is your idea of a joke—”

“Not at all. I am perfectly serious,” he answered without moving.

“Why? I see no reason for you to go to such lengths to acquire a fiancée. I’m sure,” she added with the most telling of deadpan sarcasm, “that you must know dozens of women who would be only too delighted to take the position for nothing.”

A muscle tightened in his jaw, but he did not raise his voice. “Unfortunately you are the one my grandmother identified to Irene as my future wife. The ploy, mistaken though it was, was helpful in ridding my house of a woman who had become, in fact, one of the kind of entanglements I have been trying to avoid for years. The situation is complicated by the added fact that she is my distant cousin and I am, in a sense, her guardian until her marriage. Our fathers were not only related, they were close friends. They stood godfather to each other’s children and executors to each other’s wills. They did not, you perceive, plan also to die together, but they did, in a boating accident.”