Jacintha Point Page 11

  An apology he was due. Without Diego's help, her father would have been in much dire straits than he now was. She knew that, yet some demon she had been unaware of possessing always urged her on to provoke this man who was her husband in fact but not in deed. Perhaps it was a streak of feminine pique at his calm acceptance of the status quo between them. For all the attention he had paid to her as a woman since the night at when he had told her she would have her freedom, she could have been a marble statue he had bought for his collection.

  And it was as an inanimate object that he had admired her during those interminable days of their pseudo-honeymoon. With every change of clothes, from brief sundresses to swimsuits to elegant evening wear, she had been aware of his appreciation of her slender beauty, but knew at the same time that it was admiration from afar. While her own pulses raced treacherously at his slightest touch, intended or inadvertent, his features remained impassively closed.

  Which was something, she told herself wryly, for a man of his temperament whose emotions of the moment were usually highly readable. She had never had doubts about the desire he had felt for her on the few occasions when she had been in his arms. The memory of their wedding night, when they had come so close to consummating the marriage he had forced, still haunted her restless nights in the postered matrimonial bed upstairs....

  'Sorry?' she blinked to the older man at her right,

  realising suddenly that he had been addressing her not for the first time. 'I must have been dreaming,' she laughed awkwardly.

  'Your husband is a very lucky man,' he said again, a twinkle lighting the darkness of eyes set in a fine network of age lines, 'to be able to inspire such dreams in his bride on an occasion such as this. I think Diego has been trying to attract your attention for some time—perhaps to signal to you that dinner is over?' he-added tactfully.

  `Oh. Yes.' Flustered, her eyes met the forbidding black of Diego's down the length of the table, and for a moment it was as if she were paralysed in her seat. Then, still amazed that people engrossed in laughing conversation one minute would immediately take her cue, she led the way into the formal salon. There she took up a stance before the baroque fireplace and watched as the guests gravitated to different areas of the huge, high-ceilinged room.

  This was the night, she had no need to remind herself, when the Justice Minister and two of his aides were in attendance. The night when Diego would take his first step towards effecting her father's release. Would he speak to them at the now empty dining table, or take them into the comfortably furnished study off the main hall?

  Her attention was diverted by the small talk of people wanting to thank her for the stupendous meal she had provided.

  `I did no more than agree to the menu the chef sent to me,' she admitted honestly with a smile. And Diego's staff are so well trained that it needs only a minimal effort on my part.'

  Her stomach turned and dropped when her roving

  eye caught sight of the Justice Minister listening intently to something one of his aides was telling him. The other assistant was at the far side of the room, chatting with the older couple who had been sitting on Diego's left at the table.

  Where was Diego?

  With a murmured apology, and noting that black-clad servants were circulating with trays of additional refreshments, Laurel made her way unobtrusively to the double doors thrown wide for the occasion. A glimpse into the dining room where maids were busily CLearing the table made it clear that Diego hadn't lingered there, and she swivelled thoughtfully on the heel of her sandal. Could he have gone to the study to be alone for a while? It wasn't like him to shut himself away from their guests, but perhaps there had been a phone call. It seemed to ring incessantly for him when he was at home, even in Acapulco, but this one seemed to be taking an interminable time.

  Crossing the hall past the soothing splash of the fountain, its pool strewn with camellia blossoms for the occasion, she went across the tiled floor to the recessed study door. Pausing there for a moment with her ear to it before realising that no sound would penetrate its solid thickness, she turned the black iron handle and went in.

  Diego was just lifting his head from the tear-stained face of the woman he held in his arms. Francisca.

  Diego was the first to recover himself. His expression,

  which had hardened at the sight of Laurel, softened

  again as he looked down into Francisca's mortified eyes.

  `Go now, cara,' he husked softly. 'We will talk again later.'

  Released from his arms, Francisca hurried past Laurel with downcast eyes. Diego took a slender cigar from the humidor on his desk and lit it with steady fingers before turning to look fully at Laurel, his features set again into the controlled pattern she had become used to.

  `So, mi esposa,' his voice came mockingly as smoke curled up past his glittering black eyes, 'you have a reason for tracking me to my lair?'

  The icy shock Laurel had experienced on seeing Francisca wrapped in his arms thawed in the sudden heat of her anger.

  `I don't care how many women you make love to in this room,' she lashed, scarcely recognising the high-pitched voice as her own, 'or even that you are neglecting guests you have asked to your house. All I'm concerned with is that you're breaking your promise to speak to the men who can get my father out of your lousy jail!'

  The hard line of Diego's jaw tautened to granite, but he took his time about answering her, first flicking the ash from his cigar into the ashtray on the desk, then going to lower himself into the black leather chair behind it.

  'I have broken no promises,' he observed evenly, studying the dull glow at the end of the cigar. 'There was never any intention on my part to speak of your father to them tonight.'

  'But you told me—'

  'I told you that these matters must be undertaken slowly in my country,' his voice rose dangerously. 'It would not be correct for me to approach these men when they are guests in my home.'

  Laurel made a rush for the desk and banged her

  dosed fist on its leather surface. 'I don't give a damn for your snail's pace courtesy,' she railed, her voice verging on hysteria, then she pivoted on her heel. 'If you won't talk to them, then I will! '

  Her fingers had barely touched the heavy door handle when Diego caught up to her and swung her round to face him, his fingers like pincers on her wrist.

  'You will not embarrass guests in my home he ground out, his face white under the tan. 'Go to your room now, and I will apologise for your absence. I will speak with you later.'

  'Before or after you speak with Francisca?' she jeered. 'You're having quite a night with your women, aren't you?'

  Releasing her wrist, he took a step back from her and said quietly: 'I owe you no loyalty in that connection.'

  'Then you can't stop me from going out there,' she challenged, chin high as she glared at him, her heart tripping in sudden fright when he leaned forward to jerk the heavy doors open, then stooped to lift her effortlessly into his arms.

  'In that you are mistaken, mujer regañonna; he pronounced grimly, and proceeded to carry her past the pattering fountain to the broad sweep of red-carpeted stairs leading to the upper floor.

  'Shrew wife, am I?' she panted, and struck out at his face with her free hand, hearing only dimly the hum of voices from the salon. 'You haven't seen anything yet '

  'Por Dios, you try me too far!' Diego swore explosively, pausing only momentarily to twist her arm cruelly behind her back and so leave her impotent as he continued his progress up the stairs.

  Laurel lay quiescent in his arms, partly because he had disarmed her, but mostly because of her sudden

  tumultuous awareness of his nearness, of the soft strain of her breasts against the hard warmth of male chest under white dinner jacket, the musky scent of the cologne he used drifting towards her nostrils making her dizzy.

  Inside the bedroom his steps were soundless as he walked to the bed already drawn back and dropped Laurel on its yielding surf
ace, his breath coming only slightly more rapidly from the exertion of carrying her up the long flight of stairs.

  'You will stay here until I have seen to our guests. They will be leaving soon, and then we will talk.'

  Struggling with the unbelievable sensations coursing through her, Laurel could only gaze up helplessly into the hard glitter of his eyes, her tongue locked in the dryness of her mouth. For another moment Diego stood over her, looking broodingly down into the green eyes widened in stunned recognition. Just before he turned away, the harsh lines of his mouth appeared to soften, but there was no lessening of the dark fury, in his eyes.

  Laurel watched his swift retreat to the door, his hand reaching for the heavy key in the door lock, and heard the sound of its insertion and turning on the outside. Still she lay as if paralysed, staring at the door he had gone through. Then, slowly, her hand came up to cover her eyes as if in that way she could shut out the knowledge she didn't want to—couldn't---face at that moment.

  Oh, God,' she whispered shakily, 'I can't be in love with him, I just can't....'

  It couldn't have happened just like that. One minute hating him, the next—wanting him so badly that her whole body ached with the longing. And it wasn't only

  a physical thing. She wanted to be everything he had expected of her as his wife—mistress of his households, hostess to his friends and business associates, bearer of his children.

  Why had she taken so long to recognise the signs that had been there for the noticing? The way his bronze moulded body pleasured her eyes, the way his slightest touch inflamed her senses and stirred the bitter-sweet delights of sensual desire, his consideration for servants who had been kind to him as a child, the respect and affection in which he was held by businessman and servant alike—not to mention his caring for her own father. There were a hundred reasons why she should love him. The only mystery was why she had wasted so much valuable time in realising her own vulnerability.

  But it wasn't too late—surely it wasn't too late. She had found him kissing Francisca that night, but she was certain that intimacy had been the first since the other woman's return from France. And not all the Franciscas in the world could take him away from a wife he had possessed, the wife he was about to discover loved him in the way he had once told her he loved her. She could still win him back....

  Noise erupted into the courtyard beneath the windows of the bedroom, and there were the sounds of farewell and car doors closing, engines purring off into the night. Leaping from the bed with sudden joyous energy, Laurel rushed to the long bank of heavy wardrobes and wrenched one of the doors open, fingers fumbling in her haste as she unzippered the shimmering green dress she had worn for the dinner.

  After wasting a few precious moments looking along the rack of nightdresses, her final selection was one of

  gossamer purity in its whiteness ... the purity of her innocence in sexual experience. Diego would discover that anyway.

  The pounding of her heart was suffocating when she stood at last before the long mirror, knowing that she had never looked more desirable as a woman. She had loosened her hair and brushed it into gleaming silver falls at either side of her flushed cheeks, and her eyes held the deep shine of anticipation. Her fingers, long and slender, ran lightly over the curves dearly outlined under the wispy full-length nightdress in the knowledge that soon her hands would be replaced by Diego's. A shiver ran over her skin and she turned from the mirror, her step light as she went in bare feet to straighten the rumpled covers on the bed, leaving them invitingly open over the green silk sheets. Then, her tongue dry with nervousness, she padded softly across to switch off the main lights, leaving only two small wall sconces above the dressing table and the bedside lamps to cast their subdued light into the heavy atmosphere of the room.

  How she had hated it, this room, with its oppressively black Spanish furniture, its air of brooding darkness that had made her revert to childhood and leave the wall sconces burning the night through.

  Now she would share it with Diego, and his sleeping body beside her in the enormous bed would be security enough for her.

  He was taking so long to come, she frowned, going to draw aside the heavy brocade curtains covering the softer lace next to the grilled window. Her heart leapt at the thought that he was perhaps talking to the Justice Minister after all, setting aside his ingrained courtesy for her father's sake.

  But the courtyard was empty of cars, apart from Diego's own Mercedes glinting silver under one of the elaborate wrought iron lamps surrounding the paved area. Breath stopped, then rushed in a sudden gust through her mouth when she saw Diego's unmistakable figure, the white sleeve of his jacket splashed across the black cape of the woman with him, walk slowly towards the car.

  Laurel bit down so hard on her lower lip that she tasted blood when the pair halted beside the passenger door and Diego's other arm enfolded the woman so that she stood with raised face in the circle of his arms. Francisca!

  When Diego's head began to bend towards the pale oval of the dark woman's face, Laurel cried out once in animal-like pain and dropped the curtains back in place with a hand that was nerveless.

  The door must have been unlocked some time during the night, for when Laurel woke, her personal maid, the diminutive Teresa, had already left the usual early morning coffee tray on the bedside table, although the heavy curtains were still drawn across the high windows.

  A touch on the silver pot telling her that the coffee was lukewarm, Laurel pushed her legs out of bed and stumbled to pull back the outer curtains, blinking when bright sunlight streamed into that half of the room. She stared dully at the hands of the ormolu clock on the mantel above the fireplace. The hands stood at a few minutes after nine. Was it possible she had slept so deeply and so long after spending what seemed like the entire night drowning herself in tears of misery?

  The mirrored wall above the bathroom sinks made it clear that she hadn't dreamt the night away. The normally clear-cut outlines of her finely boned face were blurred and swollen, her eyes -unbecomingly puffed from the access of tears. Some of the fiery redness and swelling disappeared when she bathed her face in iced water from the specially fitted tap, and her brain was clearer when she went back to the bedside table and poured coffee into the fluted cup. Tepid or not, its familiar taste was comforting.

  As she wandered around cup in hand, shunning the bed that was as abhorrent to her now as it had been enticing the night before, her mind kept returning to the indisputable fact that Diego had not returned until dawn was streaking the sky—if he had returned at all ! She would have heard the car, quiet though its engine ran.

  But at least, by sleeping late, she had avoided the necessity to come face to face with him in stark daylight. There was no way he could have known of her elaborate preparations to receive him last night ... a wry laugh rasped bitterly in her throat. But there was humiliation enough in the knowledge that he had stayed with Francisca rather than come back to her room as he had promised.

  She paced restlessly back to pour more coffee into the cup, and this time took it to one of the brocaded armchairs flanking the fireplace.

  Of course he had to have come back some time during the night, or Teresa wouldn't have been able to come in with the coffee tray. Unless—the final humiliation of all! —he had left the key to his wife's locked door on the half table to one of it in the passage outside.

  Were the servants even now chattering and giggling among themselves at the senor's bravura in locking away his recalcitrant wife before going to his mistress?

  But speculation must have been rife anyway about the fact that the señor did not share the matrimonial bedchamber with his norteamericana bride. Teresa was a simple, obliging girl, but she would have had to be loca not to notice that only Laurel slept in the bed which would have accommodated six comfortably.

  The bed she had thought to share with Diego, the husband she had come to love, the man who had grown tired of his fruitless tie to her, who had rekindled
the passion he had once felt for Francisca. And Francisca was now free to marry him....

  Fresh tears trembled on her lids when a peremptory knock came at the door. Before she had time to do more than rise precipitously to her feet, the door was thrust open and Diego, immaculately fresh in charcoal suit and crisp white shirt embellished with a red and grey striped tie; was standing only a few yards from her. She, had forgotten the revealing nature of her nightgown until his vitally alive eyes swept her from head to toe in a purely masculine gaze that penetrated the misty folds of the gown and took in the total femininity of her curved form beneath it.

  Laurel heard his swift intake of breath, and checked her own instinctive movement to cover herself. To a man coming from Francisca's voluptuous curves, her own must pale to insignificance. But she could do nothing to control the wild leaping of her pulses the sight of him provoked—tall, strong, and still exuding that air of sexual desirability despite his night of love with Francisca.

  'Are you so unhappy, querida?' he asked roughly, making her aware of the fresh tears that had spilled from lid to cheek, standing there like frozen reminders of the life they might have shared.

  Brushing them away with a brusque movement of her hand, she answered caustically: 'Unhappy, señor? Why should I be unhappy? I'm married to a man who is rich and powerful, and I'm the daughter of a man wrongfully accused of drug smuggling. What is there in my life to make me unhappy? One and one still make two, don't they? One powerful husband, one released father—isn't that the way it's supposed to go?'

  'Laurel, I promise you—'

  'Save your promises for Francisca,' she bit off harshly, animated enough now to walk confidently to the wardrobe and extract the negligee matching her nightdress.

  'Francisca?'

  His frown of uncomprehension could almost have been genuine, and she would have believed his bewilderment if she hadn't seen him leave with the attractive Mexican the night before.