Counterfeit Bride (12 page)

'I suppose not,' she said defeatedly.

He took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up at him. 'A word of warning. Do not make my cousin Ramon fall in love with you. I should not find it amusing.'

'I don't find any of this particularly amusing,' she snapped, pulling away from him. 'But you don't have to worry. With an unwanted bridegroom in my life, I'm not likely to start encouraging anyone else!'

She turned to leave, but he gripped her arm, pulling her round to face him.

'So you don't want me,' he said softly. ;What a little hypocrite you are, amiga.'

He bent his head and found her lips with his. This time there was no savagery, no coercion. His mouth moved slowly and persuasively on hers, coaxing her lips apart in a sensually teasing caress which sent her blood hammering through her veins. All her good resolutions about remaining aloof and unbending died a swift death as he drew her closer against the hardness of his body, his own urgency firing a response she was helpless to control.

She thought, 'I never knew it could be like this. God help me, I never knew . . .' Then all thinking processes were suspended as her awareness yielded totally to these new sensations he was evoking in her. Her hands linked behind her neck, her fingers curling into his thick dark hair, and eyes closed, she swayed against him, blind and deaf to everything but the clamour of her body as his kiss deepened endlessly.

Pilar said from the doorway, 'Luis, is your telephone switched off? There is a call for you . . . Oh!'

Without any great haste, he lifted his head and looked at her.

'Gracias, Pilar. Perhaps you would be good enough to find Carmela and tell her that my novia is anxious to be shown the rest of the house.'

Pilar gave a little sniff and turned on her heel to leave, sending, as she did so, a look at Nicola which combined the usual hostility with a kind of shocked curiosity.

Nicola's face burned as she stepped back, her hands going up to smooth her dishevelled hair.

When she was sure Pilar was no longer within earshot, she said unsteadily, 'I hate you.'

He smiled. 'Perhaps, querida, but at least you are not indifferent to me.'

‘I’ll be working on it,' she whispered, staring at him.

He shrugged slightly, his amused gaze roaming over her flushed face, and the swift rise and fall of her breasts under the tight fitting bodice. 'What a waste of energy, querida, that might be employed in more—agreeable ways. And now, if you will excuse me ...' He reached for the telephone.

Nicola longed to slam the door as she left the room, but it was too heavy and solid, resisting her efforts to close it even, so that she had ample time to hear his soft-voiced, 'Si, Carlota, how is it with you?'

She stood in the corridor outside, staring at the heavy timbers which prevented her hearing any more, and knowing a childish desire to beat on them with her convulsively clenched fists.

The unknown caller had to be Carlota Garcia, the woman Teresita had mentioned. She had assumed the affair was in the past, but it seemed she was mistaken. Luis had not the slightest intention of allowing a little thing like marriage to interfere with his chosen pleasures. The sudden ache in her throat made her feel as if she was swallowing past knives, and yet what had she really expected?

She began to run down the corridor. In the hall, she encountered Carmela, a stout woman with greying hair whose ready smile faded to puzzlement and sympathy as Nicola explained that she had a headache and would not be seeing any more of the hacienda that day. She refused all offers of cool drinks and medication, and fled upstairs to her room.

But even there, there was no sanctuary. She lay on the wide bed and looked up at the butterfly, its delicate embroidered wings shimmering in the sunlight. Her emblem was everywhere-—this giri who had travelled half across the world to find her love. .

Nicola thought, ‘I’ve travelled as far—but what is there here for me? No love, certainly.'

There were tears on her face, but she welcomed them, knowing that, without love, she would one day know a bitterness too deep for tears, and wondering, with a kind of despair, why she should suddenly be so sure of this.

By the time Maria arrived to help her to dress for dinner, she had regained some measure of control. Maria had brought with her the dress she had been altering, a simple black sheath, with a deep square neckline and elbow-length sleeves. Dressed in it, Nicola felt prepared to face the world, if not enjoy it. She had finished doing her face under Maria's approving scrutiny and was applying some gloss to her lips, when there was a knock at the door.

Maria went to answer it, and stood aside giggling as Luis walked in. Then, before Nicola could stop her, she vanished, leaving them alone together.

She sat staring into the mirror, watching him approach. He came and stood behind her.

He said, 'I regret, querida, that I shall not be here for dinner. I have to go to Santo Tomas quite unexpectedly.'

Nicola replaced the cap on the tube of glosser and put it down. She was pleased to see how steady her hands were.

'Have you nothing to say?' His eyes watched hers in the mirror.

'What do you want me to say?'

He shrugged. 'Just a word that you are sorry—that you might even miss me.'

She said without a trace of expression, 'I'm sorry. I shall miss you,' and saw Ms mouth tighten.

He said, 'I had intended to give you this later, but I thought perhaps you might wish to wear it at dinner— as a reminder of me,' he added cynically.

He put a flat velvet case on the dressing table in front of her. For a moment she didn't move, and he said with a trace of impatience, 'Open it, amiga.'

It was a pendant, a single lustrous pearl on a long golden chain. Nicola had never seen anything so lovely. As she stared at it, she felt as if she could scarcely breathe.

He leaned over her shoulder and lifted it out of its satin bed. He put the chain round her neck, and the pearl slid coolly into the hidden shadowed valley between her breasts. Luis bent and put his lips to the curve of her shoulder.

If she had been calm before, then she was trembling now, her pulses hammering at the slightest brush of his mouth on her body.

He said softly, 'It matches your skin, querida.' His hands moved on her shoulders, sliding the dress away from her.

Nicola said, 'No,' hoarsely, and her hands came up, snatching at the material to cover her breasts.

He frowned a little. 'Don't be frightened, amada. I only want to look at you—not touch—or kiss. I shall keep my word. But when you are my wife, and perhaps less shy of me, then you can wear it as I wish—with nothing to hide either the pearl—or you—from me.'

Slowly, almost mockingly he readjusted her dress. He said, 'Aren't you going to thank me?'

Nicola said coolly, "Gracias, señor. It's very lovely. I'm sure Teresita would have been delighted with it too.'

The dark face hardened, and he straightened abruptly. She expected some stinging retort, and closed her eyes as if to shield herself from his anger. But none came, and when she ventured to look, he was alone.

Her legs were shaking as she got up from the stool at last. She got downstairs somehow, and into the salon where they were waiting for her.

She said, 'I'm sorry if I'm late.'

Ramon came forward drawing a deep breath. 'If you are late, little cousin, then you are more than worth waiting for, believe me. May I get you a drink?'

She said with mock plaintiveness, 'Would you think me rude, Don Ramon, if I said I would rather have my dinner? I'm very hungry.'

Dona Isabella rose with a snakelike rustle of skirts. 'Then by all means let us go into dinner. It has been delayed long enough. Come, Pilar.'

She swept past Nicola, without a second glance, followed by her daughter.

Ramon said hurriedly, 'Nicola. I am truly sorry that Luis cannot be here tonight.'

She raised her eyebrows calmly. 'Why?'

'Well-r—' he spread his hands defensively, 'it is your first evening—your first dinner in your home. An auspicious occasion. You have every reason to complain about his absence.'

Nicola said, 'Don Luis' absences are something I shall have to get accustomed to. I may as well begin at once.' She had managed to say it without wincing, she thought, but she couldn't suppress the bitterness totally. 'Besides, I suppose there's something to admire in such—loyalty to an old friend.'

She had expected Ramon to faint with embarrassment and shock, but he registered nothing but surprise and dawning approbation.

He said, 'So you know —and you understand?'

'It seems I have little choice,' she said in a brittle voice. 'Now shall we go into dinner?'

And all through that interminable meal, she sat with Luis's pearl like a frozen tear between her breasts.

As her wedding day drew inexorably nearer, Nicola found the days were taking on a strangely dreamlike quality. She was very conscious that she was no longer in control of her own destiny, and as a consequence reality seemed to withdraw to a distance. But afterwards, certain incidents seemed to her to stand out with startling clarity.

She had spent quite some time writing letters—to her parents, to Elaine and to Teresita. The first had been incredibly difficult, because she had to leave so much unsaid. For instance, she could hardly write to two people who loved her, 'He makes me burst into flames if he so much as takes my hand, but he has a mistress in Santo Tomas a few miles away and he visits her several times a week, and will probably continue to do so after the wedding.' So instead she told them that she was very happy and that if they thought they could come to the wedding, Luis would send the air tickets immediately.

The letters to Elaine and Teresita were much easier, because she confined herself to a bald statement of the facts without explanation or expansion. Her sole concession was a 'Please don't worry about me' scrawled at the end of each.

Dona Isabella did not mellow as Luis had predicted, but her attitude gradually became more resigned as the wedding approached. Nicola suspected she derived a great deal of secret enjoyment from the arrangements in spite of her constant complaints. Certainly she made the most of playing the gracious hostess when visitors began arriving to meet Don Luis' novia. There were luncheon parties and supper parties, with guests from all over the state and beyond, some of them even arriving in their own private planes and helicopters on the landing strip at the rear of the hacienda. Nicola had discovered that Luis himself possessed a pilot's licence, and frequently took the controls at his own light aircraft which he kept at Monterrey airport.

Nicola found the frequent parties an ordeal, even when Luis was there at her side, and far worse when he was not. And he was not always there by any means. She was beginning to realise the extent of his wealth and responsibilities, and understand why he was often away at meetings, sometimes for days at a time.

She always felt uneasy when he was away from the hacienda. Not because she missed him, she assured herself swiftly, but because without his presence and protection she was always more aware of his family's hostility and disapproval.

Not Ramon, of course. If he had misgivings about his cousin's choice of bride., he concealed them well, and was always friendly and considerate, but he wasn't always there either, and it was then that his mother and sister began to plant their barbs, holding long conversations from which Nicola was excluded because she knew nothing of the people they were mentioning, or the incidents to which they referred. She knew they were deliberately showing her that she did not belong to their leisured world, and she wanted to say, 'Don't worry—it wasn't my idea. But the alternatives were pretty appalling too.'

She had sometimes wondered if she could appeal to Dona Isabella for help. The border with the United States couldn't be all that far away, but she guessed that if Dona Isabella had to weigh ridding herself of Nicola against deliberately arousing Luis' wrath, there would be no assistance there. Besides, Luis still had her passport, and during his absences, the door to his study was kept locked.

But her life wasn't just a constant stream of visitors and social events. Señora Mendez, the dressmaker, was now installed at the hacienda, a small stout woman with flashing eyes and an imperious manner, trailing a downtrodden daughter carrying pattern books and fabric samples in her wake. Nicola was aware that the Señora was there to make her wedding dress, but she was frankly taken aback at the extent of the trousseau which was to be provided, particularly in view of the fact that there was to be no honeymoon trip as such. Luis had informed her abruptly that his business commitments were too pressing, but that he would arrange something later in the year.

'But if we're not going away, then I don't need all these clothes,' Nicola protested.

He lifted a brow, sending her a sardonic grin. 'I agree, chica, but we must not scandalise Tia Isabella.'

She had turned away, flushing, half in anger, and half with the forbidden excitement which always uncurled deep inside her when he looked at her like that. And it happened too often for comfort. Sometimes as she sat at the dining table, or on the terrace, or walked in the courtyard she would look up and see him watching her, a deep sensual hunger in his eyes which he made no effort to conceal.

In a way, although her mind rejected all the conventional connotations of a honeymoon, she felt it might have made things easier for her if they had gone away somewhere, if only for a few days. She would find it embarrassing in the extreme to have to face the small enclosed world of the hacienda each day as Luis's bride. But at the same time, it was impossible to confess her misgivings to Luis, to tell him frankly that she would prefer her transition from girlhood to womanhood to be observed by no other eyes but his.

Because that wasn't strictly true either. Each day, the implications of what she was about to do pressed more heavily upon her, filling her with a kind of panic. She might feel that she no longer had any real will of her own, that some unknown current was sweeping her away, and she could no longer swim against it, but the fact remained that the ultimate intimate submission still lay ahead of her, and she was terrified.

It was not just the thought of being alone with him which intimidated her, or of having to accede to demands which were still, in spite of any amount of theoretical enlightenment, very much a mystery. He had enough expertise, enough experience, she knew helplessly, to make it easy for her, to gentle her into acceptance of him—if he chose.

But instead he might simply choose to give free rein to the tightly leashed passion she sensed every time he came anywhere near her. After all, he had made no guarantees of consideration, or tenderness. He had said that he wanted her, and warned her not to fight him. And, worst of all, he knew that he could make her want him.

She had never dreamed it was possible to be so deeply, physically aware of another human being. And yet each time he returned to the hacienda from one of his trips, it was as if she was warned by some secret, invisible antennae. Long before she heard his voice, or recognised his long lithe stride, she knew when he was near her.

This was what frightened her—the prospect of total physical enslavement, the subjugation of her personality to his. If she was honest, it could already have taken place if he had made the slightest attempt to woo her, or even be alone with her. But he never did, and never had since that evening in her room when he had given her the pearl.

She had not worn the pearl since, although she had worn other jewellery he had given her—family heirlooms, most of them in exquisite if old-fashioned mountings.

And the best gift of all had been no heirloom, but barely more than a trinket, which he had handed to her quite casually one evening when they were all gathered in the salon before dinner. Inside the tissue wrappings of the small package, Nicola had found a butterfly, its body silver and its wings mother-of-pearl, to fasten in her hair. She had exclaimed in delight, turning to him with shining eyes as she tried to thank him, knowing that if only- if only they had been alone she would have cast restraint to the winds and kissed him. But she didn't dare, not as much as a swift peck on the cheek. He had shrugged, turning away. 'De nada, Nicola. You seemed so intrigued with La Mariposa, I thought it might be appropriate.' Even a muttered comment from Pilar about 'cheap rubbish' had not dimmed her pleasure.

Although she had made a positive effort to establish some kind of relationship with Pilar, this had borne no fruit at all. The other girl avoided her whenever possible, and was inimical when they were in each other's company. Nicola was not convinced her behaviour was prompted by thwarted love for Luis either. She used no arts to allure him, to show him what he was missing. Her attitude wavered between bare civility and smouldering resentment, and in his turn Luis treated her with a guarded patience bordering on exasperation. Only the blind maternal love of someone like Dona Isabella could ever have linked them as a couple, Nicola decided ruefully.

As the days passed, the fact that she wasn't dreaming or that this whole situation was not some vast hideous joke being perpetrated on her in revenge began to come home to her fully. There were legal details to be settled, and papers to be signed, and she found herself obeying like an automaton, knowing as she did so that there was no turning bark.

But did she even want to? If by some alchemy it was possible to wipe out the past weeks, to transform her into the girl she had been in Mexico City with nothing ahead of her but a sightseeing trip, would she do so?

I don't know, she thought. I just don't know. And that, strangely, was the most disturbing thing of all.

From the niche above the altar, the painted eyes of the Virgin looked down. Nicola found her own gaze returning to the image time and time again as the ceremony which made her Luis' wife proceeded according to the time-honoured ritual. It was not so very different from the service which would have been held at home in England in the village church, as Father Gonzago had explained during one of his visits in the past week to instruct her briefly in the Catholic faith.

But the church was very different— almost alien with its carving and gilding and the smell of incense heavy in the air, and the statue of the Mother of God was the most alien of all, in her heavy gold brocade robes stitched with precious stones, and the high gold coronet on her head. She was nothing like any of the smiling blue-robed Madonnas in English churches, Nicola thought. An honoured Christian symbol she might be, but at the same time there was something essentially pagan about the gorgeous robes, and the fixed almost inhuman smile, reminding Nicola, if she needed reminding, that the land they stood on had had Christianity imposed upon it, but that older, darker gods, worshipped in blood, still lingered in the memory of its people.

How many Montalba brides had those painted eyes watched? She wondered, as her voice obediently repeated the vows after Father Gonzago. None of it seemed real, least of all herself in this dress— yard upon yard of billowing ivory silk--and the exquisite antique lace mantilla which Luis had asked her to wear. He did not explain, and she didn't ask, but there was something in the way he touched it as he handed it to her which told her it had been his mother's.

She wondered what her own mother would have thought if she had seen her like this. Her parents had wanted to come, but there was too much to do on the farm, so they had promised a visit later. 'When you're settled, darling,' her mother had written, and Nicola's lips had twisted ruefully at the homely phrase. It bore no relationship to any life she might expect to have with Luis.

But she had been surprised to learn that Luis had also written to them. He had never mentioned any such intention to her, and she had been pleased and a little touched by the gesture.

In the absence of her father, she had wondered who would give her away, until Luis's godfather had informed her during one of his visits that it would be his privilege to do so. He was a correct man, inclining towards stoutness, with a neat grey beard, and he was so like the mental image that Nicola had once harboured of Luis himself that she had had to fight to conceal a smile when she had first been introduced.

But he had been amazingly kind to her as he took her down the aisle on his arm, patting her hand reassuringly, and telling her that she was as beautiful as an angel.

Nicola didn't believe him, but she had been satisfied as she took a final look in her mirror. Señora Mendez was a genius, and her dress was wonderful, fairytale, dreamlike. And it would bring her good fortune, the Señora had smilingly assured her. Had she not sewn good luck tokens into the hem with her own hands?

'And there is also this.' With a droll look, she had slipped a flat tissue-wrapped parcel into Nicola's hands. 'Always for my brides I do this. One gown for the day, and another for the night.' She sighed sentimentally, gave Nicola's skirt one last professional twitch, and departed.

Nicola undid the white ribbon and unfolded the tissue, knowing what she would find. It was a nightdress, white as a cloud in chiffon, falling from the tiniest of bodices in handmade lace. Nicola stared at it, feeling panic rising in her throat again.

'Ah, how beautiful!' Maria who was hovering nearby, darted forward. 'Let me take it, señorita. See?' She allowed the material to drift across her hand and arm so that Nicola could see just how sheer and transparent the wretched garment was.

Maria sent her an arch look, began to say something, then thought better of it.

Nicola wrenched her thoughts back to the present, aware of a frozen feeling in her throat, as Luis' ring slid into place on her finger. She was married—married twice, in fact, because earlier in the cool of the morning they had driven to Santo Tomas for a brief civil ceremony.

The evening before, she had chosen a moment when she knew Luis was in his study and alone and had gone to him there.

He had risen as soon as she appeared hesitantly in the doorway, his brows lifting in surprise.

'You honour me, querida. I had imagined you busied with a thousand last-minute details.'

'No,' she said. 'There's nothing. Your aunt is very efficient. Everything is ready—except . . .' She hesitated.