Jacintha Point Page 7

  Coming on the house in that way had brought a gasp of admiration from Laurel despite her reluctance to see any part of the life of the man who had virtually blackmailed her into marriage. The house held a commanding position on the cliff top and stretched almost from side to side of the Point, descending in three-storied layers in a cascade of white walls and thick red Spanish-tiled roofs. From balconies spouted froths of brilliant blossoms in orange, red, mauve, and when they had ascended the steps from the beach to the house area Laurel had drawn in her breath again at the teeming plant life studded with colour on the wide terrace bordering the cliff's edge.

  Now, as Diego guided the car along the drive to the front of the house, she realised that someone approaching it from this side would be totally unimpressed by its size, not realising that most of the living areas tumbled down the hillside behind.

  Black-arched double doors were thrown open as the car drew to a stop, and Laurel recognised the plump figure of Juanita, Diego's housekeeper, backed by her tall and lean husband, Carlos, who seemed to be a general factotum at the villa.

  Juanita, her dark-skinned face wreathed in smiles, came forward to welcome them, her black button eyes delightedly taking in Diego's formal clothes, the carnation still fresh-looking in his buttonhole. While Diego bent to kiss her on each cheek, she murmured something in unintelligible Spanish and he glanced immediately at Laurel, dark eyes glinting.

  'You must ask my bride tomorrow if I am the perfect groom, Juanita,' he said in the same language, and Laurel's skin grew pink. Even had she not understood the language, there was no mistaking the meaning.

  After a sincere handshake from Carlos, Diego put a hand under Laurel's elbow, urging her towards the house's cool interior and ordering that light refreshments be brought to them in the small sala. Laurel was unable to summon more than a stiff smile in answer to the housekeeper's words of welcome, and her legs felt wooden as Diego led her across the smaller upper hall and down six steps to 'the polished-tile main hall, which seemed to be a central core for the rooms leading off it.

  On her first visit most of the time had been spent in the large room to their tight, furnished comfortably with sofas and chairs meant to convey a vacation atmosphere. But now Diego steered her towards a smaller, more intimate sitting room where deep cushioned armchairs and couches were arranged to take advantage of the stupendous sea views from wall-to-wall windows. Potted palms and slender-leaved dracaenas gave off the

  atmosphere of a tropical greenhouse, and Laurel undid the top two buttons of her jacket as she broke away from Diego's grip and went to stand before the windows.

  The ocean swelled and creamed at the outermost tip of the Point, dividing round it to form two separate beaches, one rough and wild as the rollers broke directly from the open sea, the other magically protected by a line of jagged rocks in the distance.

  Sensing Diego's presence at her shoulder, Laurel murmured abstractedly: 'At least I'll be able to swim here.'

  He seemed about to say something in harsh response, then change it to: 'It is safe to swim only at the south beach; the undertow is too powerful to the north. But it is safest of all to swim in the pool, and more convenient.'

  Convenient? Who thought of convenience when a travel agent's dream beach of curving white sand edged a sea of translucent green? Coconut palms ringed the beaches in an irregular pattern, their almost ripened fruits clustered at their centres.

  She felt Diego's warm hand on the nape of her neck, the fingers of his other hand reaching for her chin to tilt her head towards him. For a moment her eyes were caught in the unguarded expression on his face, then her lashes fell like a shutter over her eyes.

  'You think that swimming is all you will enjoy at , querida?' he put softly, his fingers tightening on the rounded flesh of her jawbones. 'I can promise you, mi esposa, that swimming will be only one small part of your pleasure.'

  Laurel jerked her head sideways away from his touch. 'You're very sure of yourself, senor.'

  'In the matter of pleasing my wife, yes,' he returned blandly, his voice growing husky. 'Carina , you will forget this Brent of yours when I hold you in my arms tonight, when I worship you with my body as I vowed today at our wedding.'

  Laurel turned restlessly back to the window. 'You disgust me, senor,' she said coldly. 'How can you speak of such things when you know our marriage was a farce? God forgive me, I took sacred vows today to a man I don't love, for my father's sake. Don't compound my error by forcing me to—to —'

  A startled cry escaped her when Diego whipped her round to face him, all gentleness gone from his smooth olive features.

  'You say you have no love for me, yet the kisses we have shared tell me the opposite. You think you will not grow to love me as your husband once you are completely mine?' His dark eyes softened, and his voice dropped a notch or two, 'I am sorry, nina. It is only natural that you feel a little fear, but can you not trust me to be gentle, to respect the innocence you have guarded?'

  It was on the tip of Laurel's tongue to ask how he could be so certain she had guarded her 'innocence' in that particular respect, but Juanita bustled in at that moment bearing a laden tray. Her bright eyes darted momentarily to where Diego and his new wife stood close together at the windows, noting in one swift scrutiny Laurel's flushed cheeks and the loosened buttons at the neck of her jacket.

  Laurel turned away With an irritated frown, and it was Diego who thanked the housekeeper.

  'Gracia s , Juanita.' He added a few rapid-fire words in Spanish, something to do with unpacking of the

  Senora's clothes, and she nodded vigorously before leaving the room.

  Diego turned back and said courteously: 'Will you pour tea for us, Laurel?'

  About to object, Laurel shrugged her shoulders instead and moved to the low table where the tray had been set. She was hot and thirsty after the long drive, and she had little energy left for sparring with the man she was beginning to fear and hate. Far better that she conserve her spirit for the confrontation she knew would come later that evening. She was more certain than ever that Diego Ramirez would come no closer to the intimate part of her than he had already. Somehow she would make sure of that, although in all honesty she had to admit that her unschooled senses were too openly vulnerable to a personality like his. Everything about him was exotic, from the pure sensuality emanating from his body to the opulence of his surroundings.

  Surprisingly, Diego kept the atmosphere relaxed by speaking informally of other things than their ill-conceived marriage. Accepting the fine china cup from Laurel's slender fingers, he sat opposite her in a comfortably upholstered armchair, crossing one leg over the other, helping himself liberally to the daintily prepared sandwiches and rich creamy small cakes after Laurel had professed herself uninterested in them.

  'Did you know, Laurel, that this estate is named after my grandmother?'

  'I hadn't thought about it,' she replied coolly, drinking thirstily from the small cup and replenishing it immediately.

  'Jacintha is my grandmother's name, and when my father had this place built he named it for her.'

  'Not for his wife?' she asked with pointed sarcasm, and was surprised to see a look of pain cross his eyes.

  'My grandmother did not approve his marriage to my mother,' he said stiffly. 'She was an American, alien to our customs and standards of behaviour.'

  Laurel silently applauded the long dead — 'What was your mother's name?'

  There was a fractionary pause before Diego replied cursorily: 'Laura. Her name before marriage was Laura Davis.'

  A cold shaft struck Laurel in her midriff section. Had Consuelo been right after all in her assertion that Diego had married her, Laurel, because of her similarity to his mother? The mother he had lost at a vulnerable age for a boy. There was something eerie in the thought that even the names were similar, and Laurel shivered. Diego noticed the sudden tremor and frowned as he looked searchingly at her.

  'What is it, querida?' he asked softly, un
crossing his legs and leaning towards her. 'You cannot think that my grandmother looks on you in the same light. Would she have welcomed you as she did, let you wear her bridal gown, if she did not accept you as a fitting wife for me?'

  Laurel set down her cup and rose quickly to her feet. 'I really don't care very much whether your grandmother accepts me or not,' she said coldly, knowing as she spoke the words that they were untruthful. In reality she had quite liked the autocratic old lady with the snapping black eyes who had shown by her every word and look how much she idolised Diego, her only remaining grandson. 'May I go to my room now?'

  'I will take you to our suite,' Diego corrected matter-of-factly, rising in one fluid motion and coming to join

  Her juanita is preparing a special dinner in our honour, but it will not be served until eight-thirty, so there is plenty of time.'

  Plenty of time for what? Laurel wondered wildly as she followed him across the tiled hall to a passage on the same level. Time to fulfil his threats of becoming her husband in entirety?

  Diego opened the door into a lavish set of rooms which were virtually a separate apartment from the rest of the house. Double doors were thrown open off an inner hallway to reveal an enormous master bedroom sumptuously yet tastefully furnished and decorated. The full-length windows gave on to a flower-filled balcony overlooking the wild north cove, and a wide-spanned bed dominated one wall. The Ramirez men, Laurel thought involuntarily, like plenty of room to exercise their matrimonial expertise. This thought was enough to turn her round impulsively to face Diego.

  `If dinner isn't until eight-thirty, then I would like to go and visit my father,' she said firmly, her nostrils flaring when Diego gave a half regretful shake of his black head.

  'That is not possible today, querida.' He seemed genuinely mystified at her proposal and Laurel fumed: 'Why isn't it? Our agreement was —'

  'Our agreement was that you would marry me and thereby give me greater power to hasten your father's court case,' he bit off curtly. And this I will do on behalf of my wife, as I have promised.'

  'You made no stipulation that I wouldnti be allowed to see my father!'

  'No such stipulation was intended,' he agreed dispassionately. But it will be expected that my new wife

  will not want to be parted from me on our wedding night. Would your father expect you to leave your husband at such a time in order to visit with him?'

  'Why wouldn't he? He knows that ' Laurel stopped abruptly and bit her lip. Her father didn't know that this was no love match, as Diego now pointed out to her.

  'Your father knows only that I love his daughter above all other women, and that my greatest wish is to bring her happiness.'

  All other women! Surely he had excluded, if only mentally, the mother he still idolised in his heart. Weary suddenly, Laurel turned away from him into the lavishly appointed bedroom with its atmosphere of light and brightness. Who would know, apart from the servants, if she went to visit her father that night? Was Diego really concerned for the opinion of his househelp, or did he want to make sure that she made no bid for escape before he had set his seal of possession on her?

  'Then if I can't go to my father, I'd like to rest,' she said shortly, stepping across the whisper-soft carpet of azure blue to stand before the wide windows. Even through the closed panes she could hear the rising crescendo and withdrawal of the restless waves on the rocks.

  To her surprise, Diego said formally: 'As you wish. You will find everything you require for your comfort, I think. I will return at eight to escort you to the small sala for drinks. Rest well, cariña .'

  His departure was noiseless, and the headache that had bothered her earlier in the day returned to plague her, and Laurel sought in her purse for the aspirin she always carried with her. She had cast off her heeled

  shoes as soon as Diego had disappeared, and now she padded across the floor to the bathroom.

  The elegantly appointed first section consisting of mirrored vanity unit and double gold-tapped sinks, from one of which she drew water to swallow her aspirins, led to a larger room reminiscent of a Roman bath house with its sunken green marble tub edged with potted palms, the drooping fronds of one concealing a mechanised swirl attachment. The vision of soothing stimulation was too much to resist, and she hurried back to the bedroom, undoing her jacket as she went.

  A door next to the bathroom opened to a massive walk-in closet where the clothes Juanita had unpacked for her were hung neatly on the right-hand rack.. A man's neatly pressed suits, jackets and slacks adorned the left and that, more than anything else, forced recognition on her that Diego Ramirez was indeed her husband, had the right to have his clothes hanging in close proximity to hers, the right to —

  Blindly she reached for her white satin robe and fled from the closet. But even as the pleasantly warm water massaged her tense muscles in the marble tub, her brain was searching for ways of circumventing Diego's plans for that night. Screams would bring no more than an amused chuckle from the robust Juanita and her husband, Carlos. They would be more surprised if a bride did not display nervous jitters on her wedding night. In any case, their home was in a cottage on the grounds and it was doubtful if they would hear cries for help.

  She could dress after her bath and slip out of the house, taking Diego's car as far as Acapulco, but what then? Her father would still be imprisoned in an at-

  mosphere abhorrent to his freedom-loving nature, and without Diego's help it was likely he would remain there for months, if not years.

  Sighing, lethargic, she rose from the tub and towelled herself dry with one of the voluminous bath sheets before sliding into the clinging silk of her robe. Perhaps Diego's better nature could be appealed to. After all, it couldn't gratify a man's senses apart from the sexual to take a woman against her will.

  She hesitated only for a moment before lying on top of the floral bedspread and stretching her relaxed muscles. She had to think of a way to hold Diego off, if only for that night. A wry smile touched her lips when she likened her situation to that of the slave girl who had staved off death for a thousand and one nights by telling the Sultan stories of such excitement that he couldn't bear not to hear the end of them.

  But somehow she fancied that Diego would not be so easily misled from his purpose....

  CHAPTER SIX

  WHEN she awoke, the room was in dusky darkness and for a moment or two Laurel could remember nothing of where she was or why she was there. It was only when she heard a door open and a light switch clicked on that remembrance rushed back to overwhelm her.

  The sight of Diego, startlingly handsome in white dinner jacket, coming towards the bed with the easy stride of a superbly fit man set up a panicked beating of her heart, but she was powerless to move as he came to look thoughtfully down at her. Her eyes clung hypnotically to his as their liquid gaze went down to where the silk edges of her gown had parted between her breasts.

  She watched sleepily as he eased himself on to the bed, his hand checking her lethargic movement to cover herself. Light from the twin bedside lamps cast a midnight sheen on his black hair as his head bent without haste to nuzzle the soft pink tip of her left breast, the mobile warmth of his lips bringing it to trembling awareness of his male persuasion. Almost absently, Laurel's hand lifted to stroke through the thick darkness of his hair, feeling its vibrant life under her fingers, opening herself to the insidious longing his lips provoked.

  When his head lifted his eyes held the fiery glints of a man aroused, his voice strained to the point of hoarseness when he murmured: You are so beautiful, cans.' His fingertips trailed fire across her cheek to her throat

  and along the tracery of her collarbone. Vague pricklings of warning stirred at the back of her mind, but when she opened her mouth to protest weakly Diego's lips came down hard in a kiss that made coherent thought slide away into oblivion. There was only the clamour of senses unfamiliar with the overwhelming need to give, and take, and give again until she was drained of all feeling.<
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  His weight was pressing her down into the mattress, the cloth of his jacket rough against her breasts, when Laurel awoke suddenly and completely and froze under him.

  What was she doing, accepting the passionate love of a man she cared nothing about? He had caught her at a vulnerable moment, in that state between waking and sleeping when she had been off guard. Jerking away from the love bites nipping at her soft shoulder, she said 'Don't ! in a voice choked with self-disgust, and pushed against his unsuspecting bulk until she could slide free across the bed.

  'Juanita,' she gasped. 'She would never forgive us if we—didn't taste the meal she's prepared.'

  For a long time there was silence, broken only by her own and Diego's quickened breath. It was impossible for her to bring her eyes round to witness the ebbing or otherwise of passion from his face, but when he at last spoke his voice was controlled, though having a caustic undertone.

  'Juanita understands the needs of a newly married couple.' Straightening from the bed to a standing position, he smoothed back the thick gloss of his hair, then walked around the bed to stand over Laurel again. 'But perhaps you are right. Our coming together will have the added piquancy of delay.' He bent his arm to

  glance at the gold watch on his wrist. 'We can still be in time for Juanita's gastric delights if you hurry. I will save time for you by selecting a dress for you to wear.

  He went striding to the walk-in closet and reappeared moments later with a long dress in white sculptured cotton, which he laid over the end of the bed.

  'You have many beautiful dresses, cariña, but I will buy for you the best that Europe or New York can provide. And jewels to complement the fire and ice of your nature.'

  Laurel sprang from the bed, securing the belt of her robe as she stepped past him. 'I'm not interested in clothes or jewels, senor. All I want is my father's release from prison.'