In Name Only (14 page)

Little one, indeed.

On Sunday morning it was still raining, and so Jill passed the time making notes about the size of Las Flores's rooms and how she might want to furnish them.

For lunch, at her request, Senhora Cordero served her a salad of tropical fruits, picked fresh from the orchard. It was a heady but subtle mix of tastes, including the pink, sweet meat of caju, familiar mango and a strange taste of biriba which turned out to be a combination of banana and pineapple, or so it seemed to Jill.

Later that day, when the sun came out, she took a short walk along the tree shaded street. Little one. The words, like a tattoo, seemed drummed into her consciousness. Words of endearment or a statement of fact?

On Sunday night Simon called again, but admitted freely that he was at a party and couldn't talk for long. Their conversation was brief, a businessman's expected phone call to a wife of many years. Still, she was satisfied that her fears about his being with another woman, seemed unfounded, at least for the time being.

On Monday morning she was at the breakfast table, when Simon entered the room in a rush. He was wearing a yellow jersey short sleeved shirt with blue jeans. She had not seen him dressed so informally before. With his deep tan and copper hair, he had the fresh, healthy look of an adventurer who lived satisfyingly in the wild, who needed nothing and no one.

Senhora Cordero, beaming, came into the breakfast room behind him.

Acting. Jill pushed her chair back and flew into his arms. It was part of the script, the warm way in which their lips met.

"Mmm, I missed you," Simon told her in very precise Portuguese, while the housekeeper busily moved the breakfast things about.

"I thought you'd never get here," Jill said breathlessly. "I've been counting the minutes."

"Would you like breakfast?" Senhora Cordero's voice, full of motherly mirth, disappeared beyond the door leading to the kitchen.

"Not now." Simon, with his arm about Jill's shoulder, led her upstairs to her room. Once inside, however, he dropped all pretense, and left her quickly for his own room. Jill was tempted to slam the door shut between their rooms, but unable to make up her mind, flopped down on her bed instead. The script called for them to remain out of public sight for a decent interval, she supposed.

Simon came to the door, stripped to the waist, his bare brown chest and arms rippling with the muscles of an athlete.

"Been keeping out of trouble?" he asked.

Jill reached over and picked a magazine off her night table. She flipped through the pages, trusting herself better if she did not look at him. She was dressed in a light pink sleeveless housecoat which closed with a small tab at the waist. She realized in a terrible fit of longing that she wanted to tear it off and rush headlong into his arms. It was no way for a bride of a few days to feel about a husband she scarcely knew. Simon waited at the door.

"Shouldn't that barrier between us remain closed?" she asked, at last, still turning the pages of the magazine.

The door slammed shut. She looked up. Simon, at her bedside, reached over and took the magazine from her, tossing it to the floor. He sat down next to her, his hands gripping her arms.

"We can keep a war going between us," he said, "or we can keep our relationship cool and easy. Which is it going to be?"

"You're calling the shots, aren't you?" she asked, unafraid, not attempting to pull away from his touch.

His voice had a bitter, rough edge to it. "Your uncle would have liked you. He was a scrapper. He never backed down from a fight, and as I recall, he usually won."

"Then I'm glad I'm a chip off the old block."

"Is that a declaration of war? As I told you, your uncle and I got along. That's why you're here." He smiled grimly, his fingers still digging tightly into her arms, as though he had forgotten he held her.

"That's why you've done me the great honor of marrying me, for which I suppose, I should thank my lucky stars."

For a moment they stayed looking at one another, measuring the depth of their emotions, two people married and worlds apart. Yet the air quivered between them. The feel of one another's bodies had already been exchanged. That could never be denied. Jill felt it now, even in the crush of his fingers on her arm, a fire that, once ignited, could flash dangerously, swallowing everything in its path. Jill was afraid that she would be powerless to put it out.

Simon suddenly loosened his grip, but only in the act of pulling her toward him. His mouth searched out her neck, her ears, her eyes, in an uncontrollable rush of passion. She pushed her hands against his bare chest, afraid of giving in as his mouth against hers became a formidable weapon. She knew that in a moment all sense would leave her, that she would have to give in to his control, be at the mercy of a man who, by his own admission, intended to live his own life, his way. With a strength she did not know she possessed, she pushed him away.

"Never," she cried, as he sat for a moment, a smile forming on his face at once haphazard and crude, as he watched her pull agitatedly at her housecoat.

"Never?" He gave a small, cold laugh. "Never is a long, long time." He stood up abruptly and went to the door to his room. "Be ready at eight o'clock this evening, my love. Meanwhile, I'm afraid you'll have to have dinner alone once again." She heard the door close, the lock click shut. She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and stood up. "Oh, I hate him," she said in a whisper. "I hate him. He's arrogant. He's sure of himself and he's
spoiled
." That was it. Spoiled. If she didn't want him, he all but told her with his crude smile there were women ready for him, willing and waiting.

They had drawn swords now, and she thought, grimly, that only a declaration of love on his part would stop the war between them. And that, she knew, could never happen.

Jill took one last look in the mirror, at the stranger who appeared there and stared seriously back at her. The year of preparations for the many dates she had had with Derek had not added up to the time and care she had spent getting ready for her date with her husband that evening.

And now, looking at herself, at the new person she had turned into, she could not help but exult. Dressed for her debut into Manaus society, it was Simon she wanted to impress. She had pulled her hair into a thick braid at the back and fastened it into a soft knot at her neck with a hibiscus blossom. Apart from the flower and her rings, she wore no jewelry but for tiny diamond earrings, a precious inheritance from her mother.

She had put on a strapless gown of sapphire crepe de chine with white and red flowers sprinkled along the bodice and hips, and a fuchsia velvet streamer tied at her waist. With it she wore gold sandals and carried a gold mesh bag which had been her grandmother's, and was still in perfect condition. At the last moment she dabbed on a faint French scent, clear yet vaguely powdery, fresh and not at all powerful, a teasing kind of aroma. He'll never get close enough to notice, she told herself. The touch was for her. It completed the picture. She picked up her sheer blue stole with its pale copy of the flower print and stepped quietly out of her room. She paused at the balcony overlooking the center hall and saw Simon standing below, talking quietly with the housekeeper.

He was dressed in a tuxedo. It was expensively cut and seemed molded to his powerful body. She thought, with a feeling akin to longing, that he was one of those men who slid into clothes and the purposes for which clothing was meant, with extraordinary ease. He was graceful, his broad shoulders ramrod straight, as though he had been a military man, yet even as he stood, one hand gesturing in the air, the other casually in his pocket, he looked in his element, a man meant to grace social evenings, every eye upon him.

The housekeeper looked up first and spotted her. She pointed to Jill, beaming, and Simon turned slowly. Jill walked down the stairway carefully, holding her long skirt, afraid that she might suddenly trip and go sprawling down.

"Ah, but look at the way she walks. A queen," the housekeeper breathed.

A queen, thought Jill, not daring to look at her husband. A queen ready to fall on her head. She was aware that he watched her closely, and for a moment she felt faint, as though all her efforts were in vain, that he disapproved thoroughly of her long hours of preparation.

When she reached the hall, she walked carefully past Simon, keeping her eye on the door, determined not to let him make a fool of her.

"Just a minute." His voice was harsh, a command. She turned, her heart beating rapidly. It was an inauspicious debut at the least. She wondered what she had done wrong. Everything, she supposed.

She walked over to him, braving a smile. Simon held a velvet box in his hands from which he was in the process of removing a necklace, which she realized, drawing in her breath in surprise, was a strand of diamonds, all of equal length.

"Stage prop?" she asked flippantly, in English, trying to hide her astonishment.

"Hardly." He ground the word out, holding the strand carelessly, letting the brilliant fire flash for a few seconds. He handed the box to the housekeeper.

"A wedding present," he said. "Turn around." She felt the cold metal against her flesh as he gently tied the clasp. Then his warm lips against her neck as he held her for a moment, a ruse she decided, for the benefit of Senhora Cordero. She wanted, unaccountably, to laugh, even as her flesh rippled under his touch. She had the strangest feeling that Senhora Cordero should applaud their performance and shout a few bravos as well.

Jill twisted in his arms until she faced him. Surely a scenario would call for that. Her forehead against his lips, she whispered demurely, "Thank you. You're spoiling me."

"I intend to," Simon said, still holding her. "You look very beautiful tonight."

"Shall we go?" She turned away, feeling a flush rising to her cheeks.

He bowed mockingly. "Of course, senhora. Let's go, by all means."

Black and white tiles formed dizzying waves beneath their feet as Jill and Simon walked across the square toward the opera house. The Teatro Amazonia, lit by spotlights, glowed rosy and spectacular against the night sky. Still, Jill was not prepared for the beauty of the concert hall itself. Red and gold under the sparkle of Venetian crystal chandeliers, it took little imagination to feel she was back in the early nineteen hundreds at an opera gala.

By the time they were ushered into their box, the houselights had begun to dim. "I've secured this for you for the season," Simon whispered to her.

Jill threw him a grateful glance, but it was too dark for him to notice. The conductor was warmly applauded as he walked onto the stage, and Jill, surveying the crowded opera house now dimly lit and romantic, let out a deep sigh of contentment.

She was a long way from Chicago.

During the intermission, when the houselights were raised, and after the applause had died away, Simon turned to her.

"Would you like something to drink?"

She nodded, still full of the pleasure of the music. He took her hand and led her quickly out of the box. The hall outside was crowded and they had trouble fighting their way to the refreshment stand. Simon brought her champagne, and then, finding some space against the wall, stood over her, as if to protect her from the crowd.