The Abducted Heart (Sweetly Contemporary Collection) (14 page)

All the worry, the decisions, and the lists were unnecessary. The entire affair could have been turned over to Ramón’s staff. Doña Isabel would have had no more to do then choose the gown she would wear and enjoy herself. She had repudiated the suggestion with scorn. Such a thing was well enough when Ramón was entertaining business associates; it would not do for her grandson’s engagement. Doña Isabel assured Anne that Ramón was content so long as he knew his grandmother was not trying to shoulder the burden alone. As for Anne herself, she had had no opportunity to discover for herself what he thought. She had not seen him since they returned from Teotihuacà. He had thrown himself into his work as if to make up for the afternoon away from it. He did not breakfast at home, nor did he eat any other meal there. Sometimes Anne heard his car returning in the early hours of the morning and she would lie awake wondering where he had been and who had been with him. She had dreaded at first the thought of seeing him again after the discovery she had made about herself. But as the days passed, she grew restless, filled with an odd longing to be with him if only, she told herself, to test her reaction to his presence, to see if she could smile and talk and behave naturally. She had a ferrule fear that she would give herself away in the first moment.

On the afternoon of the third day, Doña Isabel dismissed her. It had been a tiring morning. Anne, Maria, and the elderly woman had been closeted with the chef, though Anne, lost in a flood of Spanish and French, had retired to a corner while the final menu had been chosen. Fixing on a date had been equally exhausting, though they had finally settled on a week from Saturday. It had seemed a good choice to Anne. It would be two weeks to the day since she had come to Mexico. Her reign as Ramón’s fiancée would be over. The night of the party, then, would be a perfect time to stage the scene that would put an end to this masquerade. No doubt that was what everyone would expect. It might be a good idea to discuss it with Ramón, if she could bring herself to broach the subject.

“Are you all right, my dear? You are looking very pale.”

“I’m fine,” Anne replied, flashing Doña Isabel a smile, “just thinking.”

“I’ve kept you cooped up with me too long, I think. I’m a thoughtless old woman — and also an exhausted one. Why don’t you run along, get out and get some air, while I indulge in a nap? It will do us both good.”

Put like that, what else could she answer? Anne tried to make it clear that she enjoyed being useful, but she was quietly and firmly eased out of the room.

The house was quiet, echoing with emptiness in the warm, somnolent air. Nothing stirred. The rooms were spotless, the shuttered dimness filled with the smell of roses and beeswax. Luncheon was over, the preparations for dinner not yet begun. The servants were in their quarters resting. Anne knew that the most sensible thing she could do would be to follow their example, but she was too on edge to relax.

Moving as quietly as if she was afraid of being seen and stopped, she went to her room and found the small handbag Ramón had bought her, then slipped clown the stairs and let herself out the front door. On one of the trips into the business district she had made with Doña Isabel she had cashed her salary check, taking most of it in traveler’s checks but requesting a few Mexican pesos. It had given her an uncomfortably dependent feeling to have no money readily available to her, and she still had no idea when she would receive her payment from Ramón or what form it would take.

At the gate the keeper was nodding with his hat over his face as she slipped through. Outside, she stopped and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She had not realized how confined she had felt. She had not stirred a step in nearly a week without Ramón or Doña Isabel or some servant hovering. It was ridiculous to be so hemmed in, almost as if this was the nineteenth century and she an innocent Spanish maiden. It was odd how an attitude could linger long after the need of it had passed.

She walked along the street without considering where she was going or what she was going to do with her unexpected free time. The sun, warm on her hair, was kept from being too hot by a gentle breeze. Scents from hidden gardens teased her nostrils while the upper stories of ancient mansions stared down at her with hooded, indifferent eyes.

The residential street gave way to a busier thoroughfare. Nearby was a bus stop with a collection of people waiting around its bench: smiling women, most with net shopping bags on one arm and laughing, dark-eyed babies on the other; old men with fierce mustaches carrying canes; and ancient matrons in black, their hair covered and gloves on their hands against the strength of the sun. They were going downtown, most of them, she discovered. Every few minutes a bus would come by and pick up a half-dozen or so. By the time the next bus came more had gathered. Anne, more in curiosity than real intent to go shopping, joined the group. When a bus labeled Chapultepec Park pulled into the curb, she made a sudden decision and climbed on board.

Estela had mentioned the park in passing. It was supposed to be similar to Central Park in New York, a “fourteen hundred” acre area with walking and riding trails, a zoo, museums, lakes for boating, scenic trains, and a playground for smaller children. At the East End of the park on the high promontory known as Grasshopper Hill was Chapultepec Castle. The building once housed the West Point of Mexico and was the scene of the famous battle between the cadets and the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. At a later date the castle was the home of the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian and Empress Carlotta.

Anne walked slowly, idling through wooded glades and along avenues of ancient ahuehuete trees, massive giants that must have stood when Montezuma of the Aztecs was king. She stopped in the cool mist of the Aztec-style fountain, like a wall of water with the heads of feathered serpents pretending from the masonry. Moving on to the edge of the lake, she stood watching in amusement as the father of a young family tried to row a boat and at the same time keep three small, excited children, holding a balloon each, from overturning them all.

Time slipped past unnoticed. Tiring, she rested for a while in the convenient shade of a small pavilion with a domed roof and a platform protected by delicate wrought-iron grillwork. As the afternoon advanced, she slowly, surely, made her way toward Chapultepec Castle.

Being a week day, there were few people enjoying the terraced, stone balustered gardens of the castle. The tried walks under the airy arcades were deserted. Inside, the walls echoed to few footsteps other than her own, and there were only a few persons, including a pair of long-haired students with brown cigarettes burning between their fingers, standing before the fifty-foot-long mural by Juan O’Gorman. She recognized the style as being like the one on the wall in Ramón’s library study. Anne stood staring at it a long time before moving on to the rooms used by Maximilian and his wife.

Once Anne had read a novel about Maximilian and his empress, Carlotta, who went slowly mad here in this place as her husband’s fortunes in Mexico grew dim. It was easy to imagine her sweeping about this great stone pile overlooking the city, wringing her hands and weeping. Such thoughts combined with so much faded grandeur were depressing, and so she did not linger.

Below the castle was a museum, a fascinating collection of dioramas depicting the history of Mexico with emphasis on the fight for independence. Following the exhibits around the interior of the building, she emerged a full floor lower than when she had started.

She had gone perhaps a dozen yards beyond the museum when she glanced back to see the young men she had noticed at the castle leaving the museum behind her. A coincidence, she told herself and faced forward again, resolutely ignoring them. It was only because it was a long way back across the park and the hour was growing late that she quickened her step.

The path ahead of her branched and she took the right fork, hoping the young men would take the more direct route to the main entrance. They did not. Their footsteps rang hollowly behind her under the spreading branches of the tall ahuehuete trees.

No doubt they were going in that direction anyway; there was more than one entrance to the park. She must not panic. Even if this was a weekday instead of Sunday, when the park was crowded, even if this side path was becoming increasingly more wooded and remote from everything, there were bound to be people somewhere nearby. She could not come to any harm.

The footsteps were coming closer. Anne forced herself to walk on as if unaware. It was always possible the pair would pass her by. They were probably intent on their own business and it was only in her imagination that she was their quarry.

“Señorita!”

A brown hand with grime around the nails came out to catch her arm. Anne stopped. She wanted to fling off the hand that held her, but she was afraid it would start a struggle she could not win. Controlling a shiver, she stood still, her gaze raking the faces of the two young men. In their eyes was a caressing bravura backed by determination.

“What do you want?” she asked, forcing the words past her tight throat.

They looked taken aback at her English, but only for a moment. One of them said something in Spanish to the other and reached out to touch her tawny blond hair.

Anne jerked her head back. “Let me go,” she said distinctly, glancing with purpose at the fingers still clutching her arm.

The two looked at each other, laughing, then eased closer.

Anne was as much angry as frightened. She thought she sensed a feeling of horseplay, of flirtatious amusement at her expense in their attitude. Still there was always the possibility that their intent could change.

“Touch me again and I’ll scream,” she warned them, flecks of gold sparkling in her brown eyes. Then as one of them began to snake an arm about her waist, she drew in her breath, preparing to put her threat into action.

A hint of something that was not amusement appeared in the face of the young man who held her arm. His grip tightened and his hand came up.

At that moment a sharp command rang out in Spanish. There was an instant of frozen stillness, then Anne found herself freed. As the young men stepped away from her, she swung to stare at the man approaching with the measured tread of anger from the direction they had come.

It was Ramón, his lips compressed into a thin line and his dark brows meeting together over his eyes. A few phrases more, and the two young men, their faces pale but impassive, muttered a few sentences that had the sound of an apology, then moved hurriedly on along the path.

Anne’s smile as she turned from them was a little tremulous with relief. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know where you came from, but I was never so glad to see anyone in my life.”

“I came from up at the castle. I saw you from the terrace,” he said, his tone grim. “You are all right?”

“Oh, yes, I — I don’t think they meant any harm.”

“No, though most women object to being mauled.” He took her elbow in a grip that was none too gentle, turning her toward the main gate.

“You think I don’t,” she said after a moment.

“Obviously not, or you would not have ignored my warning not to go out alone.”

“I had no idea—” she began.

He cut across her protest. “Exactly, that is why you might have let yourself be guided by those who know.”

Anne caught her breath. “In that case, all I can say is I am sorry to put you to the trouble of rescuing me.”

He slanted her a dark look but made no reply for several steps. When Anne thought he did not intend to speak at all, he said, “If I had known you wanted to see the park I would have brought you.”

“It — it was just an impulse,” Anne said at last. “Besides, you have been so busy these last few days.”

Ramón did not answer. The manner of their last parting hovered palpably between them. They walked in silence around the lake and back toward the gate through which Anne had entered. It was not until they were seated in Ramón’s car that Anne was able to take a stab at normal conversation.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“One of the gardeners saw you leave the house. He followed you, saw you take the Chapultepec bus. He could not be easy in his mind until he told one of the maids, who told María, who informed my grandmother the moment she woke from her nap. Abuelita phoned me.”

“I see,” Anne said.

He sent her a sardonic look from the corner of his eye. “It is an ancient system of supervision, but a reliable one.”

“I wonder,” she said thoughtfully, “who it was designed to protect: your women or your men?”

She was a little afraid he might take offense, but he did not. “Does it matter,” he asked, “as long as it works?”

“It makes unprotected women afraid and encourages the predatory instincts of men,” she charged.

“I would have said it discouraged them,” he answered dryly.

“It might discourage a man from paying his attentions to protected ones, but it gives him reason to think unprotected women are fair game.”

“Aren’t they?” he asked, taking his eyes from the traffic long enough to give her a smile. There was something so disturbing in it that she swallowed.

“Of course not. Every woman doesn’t have a man to stand guard over her.”

“She should have. Just as every man should have a woman to guard.”

“But — but what of trust, and respect?”