The Golden Madonna (11 page)

'I'm not a philistine,' she denied, her head back so that she could look up into his face, the blue of her eyes deep and dark and as provocative as the soft mouth that pouted in mock reproach.

He studied her for a long breathtaking moment in silence, his hands holding her close so that she could feel the warmth of his skin through the light shirt he wore, and the strength of the muscles that strained her to him. 'You would look like a golden Madonna, if I painted you as you are now,' he said, in a voice that shivered through her. 'With your face half in shadow and your beautiful golden hair catching the last of the sun. I will paint you so, Sarita.'

'You—you will?'

The black eyes glistened down at her in the golden light and heavy lashes hid her gaze when he bent his head still lower and brushed his lips against her brow. 'I must,' he said, his voice strangely harsh as if he fought with his own weakness. 'You will be famous,
nina.
Cordova's Golden Madonna!'

'Miguel!'

He must have felt how she was trembling, for every nerve of her body was aware of the warmth and strength of the arms that held her close, and the steady but more rapid beat of his heart under her hands. A hand moved up and grasped a handful of her hair, pulling her head back. 'For me you will be even more beautiful,' he told her and, even as she closed her eyes to anticipate what he would do, his mouth came down over hers in a kiss that banished every other thought from her head but the desire to surrender completely to the sensuous excitement that engulfed her.

His sudden, almost brutal rejection of her a moment later sent a chill like ice-water over her burning senses and she stared at him with wide, unbelieving eyes. Her mouth still burned from his kiss and the impression of his hands must surely be imprinted on her body from the strength of his grip, and yet he was calmly turning his back on her, and smoothing non-existent creases from his impeccable jacket.

'You'

No words came, only a small harsh sound that could have been a cry, and he turned again to face her, his dark face stern and older-looking suddenly. I must apologise for my lapse from good manners,' he said quietly, and Sally shook her head slowly, still not quite believing either that any of it could have happened, or that he could so abruptly bring her back to earth.

'Please don't!'

He was insistent, however, and she kept her eyes downcast, her hands tight together to stop them from shaking, wishing he would do anything other than apologise. 'I do not always remember that the English temperament is unused to our Latin ways. My actions could perhaps be misinterpreted.'

'Oh, please, there's no need to apologise,' Sally said 1 ft a small, cold voice. She felt she had been slapped hard, and there was a heavy chilling sensation in the pit of her stomach. 'I—I understand perfectly .j For a brief moment she raised her eyes, then hastily lowered them again because they were bright with threatening tears and she refused to let him witness that.

'I am glad you are so understanding, Sarita.' She wished he had not used that particular name, for somehow it made it so much more difficult to remain calm as she so desperately wanted to. The black eyes looked down at her with a hint of curiosity, as if her calmness puzzled him. 'You are very young,' he said, in a voice that threatened her self-control. 'And the fact that I am acting for your father in taking care of you makes my behaviour the more reprehensible. I am sorry.'

A great wave of anger and humiliation swept discretion before it and Sally clenched her hands as she faced him, the glistening tears threateningly close. 'Oh, for heaven's sake don't sound so apologetic !' she told him. in a voice made harsh and dry by the threatening storm. 'I've been kissed before, Don Miguel—
and
by you!'

'Sarita!'

His voice followed her as she ran blindly from the room and down the narrow, dark stairs, her feet stumbling on the unaccustomed steepness, but he did not follow her, and she tried, as she hurried away, to be more certain that it was relief she felt and not disappointment.

'A
H
, Miss Beckett!'

Sally turned swiftly,., jolted out of her daydream, but smiling when she saw who the intruder was. 'Good afternoon, Dona Alicia,' she said. 'It's a beautiful day again.'

Dona Alicia smiled as she nodded agreement. 'You are not yet accustomed to our sunshine, my dear,' she said kindly. 'You do not have so much of it in England, I think.'

'We don't,' Sally agreed with a laugh. 'Although it was lovely when we left England three weeks ago. It was a beautiful spring day.'

Sally had been seated on the
patio
alone, having refused Michael's invitation to accompany the rest of the party to a bullfight. She had never actually witnessed a bullfight, but her instincts made her reject the idea out of hand.

The
patio
was pleasantly cool and shaded, and the scent of the hundreds of flowers had a heady effect, as always on her. Dona Alicia came and joined her where she sat on a wrought iron seat under one of the orange trees. As always, Dona Alicia looked tall and elegant in a dress of some dark material, with her greying black hair neatly coiled. She was a kindly, gentle woman, and the wonder to Sally was how she had ever produced a son like Miguel Cordova.

There was no trace of arrogance in Dona Alicia's manner, and she could never be cruel, Sally felt sure, not in the subtle, barely discernible way her son was. 'You do not like the
corrida
?' she asked quietly, smiling, as if to assure Sally that she would understand her not caring for her country's national sport.

Sally shook her head. 'I've never been to one, actually,' she confessed. 'But I know I wouldn't like it.'

Dona Alicia smiled gently. 'You remind me so much of my mother,' she said. 'Although that is possibly rather an odd thing to say to a young girl. But you understand, I am sure, Miss Beckett. She lived here in Spain for almost fifty-eight years, and she never once attended a
corrida.
She felt much as you do.'

'Of course, she was English, you said,' Sally remembered. 'Are you very like her, Dona Alicia?'

'Very little, I'm afraid,' Dona Alicia admitted with a light laugh. 'I am very Spanish, except for my blue eyes, of course.' She touched Sally's cheek lightly with a finger tip for a moment. 'I did not even inherit her wonderful English complexion, unfortunately. I often wished that I could have had a daughter as well as a son. so that I could perhaps have passed on some of my mother's characteristics, even though they did not occur in me.' She shook her head, smiling slowly. 'Perhaps, I console myself, Miguel' She broke off and shook her head again.

'I am prone to daydreaming, Miss Beckett, an old woman's pastime.'

'Not always,' Sally argued with a smile. 'I was doing just that when you joined me, Dona Alicia, and please—won't you use my christian name instead of Miss Beckett?'

'But of course I would love to, my dear.' The blue eyes studied her for a moment steadily. 'My son calls you Sarita, I believe, doesn't he?'

Sally looked surprised and a little uneasy for a moment. She had no way of knowing just how much Dona Alicia would approve of her son's familiarity with one of his students. The Spanish could be very formal, she remembered. 'Sometimes,' she admitted warily. 'But I'm afraid that Don Miguel is rather inclined to take his role as father figure a bit too seriously, even though it's a role he took upon himself. He treats me like a little girl.'

Dona Alicia's "eyes glowed with amused disbelief for a moment and she reached out and touched Sally's hand gently. 'Oh, I think not, Sarita,' she said softly, and reminded Sally quite alarmingly of her son.

'Oh, but he does,' Sally insisted, drawn into being frank by the kindly, encouraging smile of the older woman. 'He talks to me as if I'm a not terribly bright four-year-old, Dona Alicia.'

And it makes you angry?' Dona Alicia guessed, ; shaking her head. 'Sometimes clever men can be incredibly silly, my dear. You must forgive him, for my sake.' She glanced at Sally in a way that puzzled her for a moment, until she spoke. 'Did you know that he wishes to paint you?' she asked, and Sally gazed at her for a moment, startled by her knowledge.

'He said something about it, about a week ago,' she confessed. 'But I—I imagine he's had second thoughts about it since then.'

'My son does not have second thoughts about anything,' Dona Alicia assured her with a smile. 'Especially about his work. He means to have you sit for him, Sarita.'

The thought of sitting for hours up there in that isolated studio alone with Miguel Cordova made Sally's head spin. She could never bear to be that long in his company alone, and he would sense how she felt and taunt her unmercifully about it.

Her fingers played restlessly with the hem of her dress. 'I think you'll find he's had second thoughts about that,' Sally assured her. 'And anyway, I couldn't do it, Dona Alicia.'

'My dear child!' The gentle hands touched hers again, and Dona Alicia's kindly blue eyes were shadowed with doubt. 'What
has
happened?' she asked. 'Why is it that you had only one lesson with Miguel?'

Sally raised her eyes, so tempted to explain what had gone wrong, why she could not spend all that time with Miguel alone. 'Didn't Don Miguel explain?' she asked.

'He has said nothing,' Dona Alicia assured her, 'beyond saying that he is going to paint you as a golden Madonna.'

'It was just a—joke,' Sally protested, her heart racing wildly at the prospect of it being a reality. 'He didn't really mean it, Dona Alicia.'

'Then why should he be so sure that he did, when he spoke to me about it?' Dona Alicia asked, her brows drawn into a small frown. 'And why are you so reluctant to sit for him, Sarita? Would you not like to be painted by my son?'

'It would be quite an honour, I know that,' Sally admitted. 'But it would be—awkward.'

'Awkward?' The strange word sat clumsily on her tongue, and she frowned again. 'Sarita, what is wrong with you and Miguel?'

It sounded so strangely and disturbingly intimate put like that that Sally shrugged uneasily. 'There's nothing wrong, Dona Alicia,' she said at last, and knew she was not believed when her hands were gently squeezed in reproach for the untruth.

'That is not true,' she was told. 'Have you quarrelled with him, Sarita?'

It would have been untrue to say that they had quarrelled, although the manner of their parting had been much the same as if they had. And since that evening she had avoided him as much as possible, although she sat in on the classes now, and never missed one.

'It wasn't exactly a quarrel,' she said slowly, at last. 'It was—it was more a misunderstanding, Dona Alicia.'

'And that is why you have not had any more private lessons?' Sally nodded, and she sighed. 'It is a pity, for it would have been a great help to you, I'm sure, Sarita.'

Sally smiled wryly. 'Oh, I think I'm a pretty hopeless case,' she said. 'I'll never make a good artist.'

'I'm sure you must be wrong.'

Sally was shaking her head. 'Ask Don Miguel,' she advised. 'He'll tell you how useless I am. He's told me often enough.'

'Oh, my dear!'

'It's true,' Sally laughed, determined not to be made gloomy by it. 'And he's probably right, much as I hate to admit it.'

Dona Alicia sighed deeply, as if she despaired of her famous son. 'He is sometimes incredibly foolish for a clever man,' she said, endorsing her former opinion. 'He does not understand the English character, I'm afraid.'

'I'm quite sure he doesn't,' Sally agreed willingly.

'And I had such hopes of an English daughter- in-law,' Dona Alicia said. 'I'm afraid I shall be disappointed in that at least.'

'I am afraid you will,
amada!'

Both women turned sharply, almost guiltily, as the object of their conversation came upon them unseen from behind the concealing thickness of a bougainvillaea. Dona Alicia smiled, her momentary surprise soon banished, a hand extended to greet him.

'There is a saying in England, Miguel
hijo,'
she told him. 'That listeners hear no' She looked at Sally for assistance in quoting the half-forgotten phrase, and Sally obliged with a smile.

'Listeners hear no good of themselves,' she said.

The black eyes gleamed at her for a moment until she lowered her gaze. 'And neither in this case do speakers,' he said softly. 'When I marry, as I must one day for the continuation of the family name, I shall not want a pale timid woman, but a Latin with a passion to match my own.' The black gaze switched to Dona Alicia, and he smiled, a small tight smile that barely moved his straight stern mouth. 'Does that answer you,
mi querida madre?'

'Miguel!' His mother's blue eyes reproached him, although Sally told herself it was no more than anyone had a right to expect from him.

He raised his mother's hand to his lips and brushed his lips across her fingers lightly. 'I am sorry to disappoint you,
cara,'
he told her.

Dona Alicia shook her head, looking up at the dark, stern face of her son as if she despaired of him. 'I was not only reproaching you for your disappointing me, Miguel,' she told him quietly. 'I think you owe Miss Beckett an apology for your rather ungracious statement.' '' He stood between her and the sun, and Sally sat in his shadow wishing she could simply get to her feet and go, but there was no way of escaping without being discourteous to Dona Alicia. Instead she sought to make little of his contempt for her countrywomen by smiling, chancing a brief upward glance at him as she spoke.

'I think the English race will survive without Don Miguel's approval, Dona Alicia,' she said, and laughed shortly as she cast Dona Alicia a mischievous glance. 'Also,' she added softly, 'Don Miguel seems to forget that he is one quarter English himself.'

'That's true, Miguel,' his mother reminded him with a smile. 'Had you forgotten?'

The black eyes were watching Sally, as if he blamed her for his being reminded that he was not a hundred per cent Spanish, as he would so obviously prefer to be. 'I am as Spanish as my father was,' he told her. 'The fact of Abuela Cordova was—a trick of fate.' He smiled down at his mother. 'And I adored her,' he said softly.