Beloved Stranger (10 page)

“He was very kind,” she said sincerely. “I was afraid I was monopolizing him, that he felt he had to stay with me until someone came and took me off his hands.”

Ricardo’s dark eyes looked down at her and he did not speak for a minute. Then he said, very quietly, “You underestimate yourself, Susan. I have not seen Julio talk so much in a very long time.”

“I do love his poems, you see.” “Yes.” He smiled again, teasingly. “I see.” Once again Susan felt her heart give that disturbing jolt. She had thought, if she had thought at all, that Ricardo’s attraction for her was purely a physical thing. He had a sexual magnetism that was as powerful as it was rare. It was a force felt by nearly every woman who met him. She knew that. She had seen it. She knew also that that was why she had succumbed to him that strange night in New Hampshire.

She had thought that, with effort, they might perhaps build a workable marriage. It had never crossed her mind that she could fall in love with him. He was the total opposite of the kind of man she had thought she could love. They were poles apart in interests, cultural background and temperament. But that moment of revelation at the ball had opened her mind to what her heart had known for quite some while. She loved this dark Latin stranger who had come so disruptively into her life and turned it upside down. She loved him, but she didn’t understand him.

It frightened her, this love that had come up on her so unexpectedly. She was afraid of the weakness his presence produced in her. He had only to touch her and she melted; she had no strength to oppose him. He was pleased with her; she knew that. Why shouldn’t he be? In all their relationship so far she had conformed to what his idea of a wife ought to be. She had been as docile and tractable as her mother thought her. She had bent before the overpowering force of Ricardo’s personality, given in to all his wishes. But if the day came when she had to stand up for herself? If she stopped, being what he thought a wife ought to be?

She shivered a little, suddenly cold in the pleasant heat of the ballroom. He put a warm hand on her bare arm. “Come,” he murmured, “let’s dance.”

“All right,” she said, and let him lead her out to the floor. As always, their movement together, to music, enveloped them in a special world. His arms came around her and she rested her head lightly against his shoulder, her eyelids half closing with the sensuous pleasure of his nearness, the feel of his strong body against hers. When the dance ended, she raised her head and found him looking down at her, his eyes dark and unfathomable.

“Susan.” It was Marta. “Do come and meet some friends of mine.”

“Susan is tired, Marta,” said Ricardo pleasantly. “I’ve just promised to take her home.”

“But it’s still early!” Marta protested to her sister-in-law.

“Early for you, perhaps,” returned Ricardo, “but Susan doesn’t like staying up to all hours of the night.” Belatedly he turned to her. “Do you,
querida
?”

Her eyes laughed at him although her lips were grave. “No, I’m afraid I don’t, Marta,” she said. “But it’s been a perfectly splendid party.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Marta said. “Take the car,” she told her brother. “Luis and I will see Mama home.”

“Shame on you, Ricardo,” Susan said as they got into Señora Montoya’s comfortable old Mercedes.

He chuckled and leaned forward to start the ignition. “The things a man must resort to in order to be alone with his wife.”

“What if I had wanted to stay?”

“But you didn’t,” he said serenely.

He was right. She wanted the same thing he did. She watched his profile in silence as they drove through the darkened streets. When they reached his mother’s house, he turned to her and said, “It will be good to get home. Then we won’t have to find excuses.”

She smiled at him, unspeakably pleased by his words. “I thought, perhaps, you regarded Bogota as home.”

He looked surprised and then thoughtful. “I used to,” he said at last. “But not anymore.” He opened his door and came around the car. “Come,” he said. “They’ll all be back before we know it.” And she laughed.

Chapter Eight

They arrived home in mid-January, after having been in Colombia for over a month. “How was the christening?” Mrs. Morgan asked her daughter when she came to visit a few days later.

“Very lovely,” Susan replied. “Ricardo’s sister Elena and her husband were godparents, and Ricky wore a christening dress that has been in the family for generations. The archbishop did the job, and I must say it was all very impressive.”

“The archbishop?” Mrs. Morgan raised an eyebrow.

“Yes. Ricardo’s mother and sisters are very active in church circles. They are really a quite prominent family in Bogota, Mother.”

“I never thought Ricardo was from the barrio,” Mrs. Morgan said dryly. “Nor did I think he was so religious.”

“Well, actually, he’s not,” Susan replied a little unwillingly. “Or at least he doesn’t go to church much. I think that’s another one of those things he leaves to the women.”

Mrs. Morgan smiled with real amusement. “I’ll tell you, Susan, if Ricardo weren’t so outrageously charming, he would be impossible.”

“Yes,” said Susan slowly, her eyes on her knees. “I know.”

“Susan!” The front door banged and the object of their conversation came bursting into the living room, lean and brown and ablaze with life. “Oh, Helen. How nice to see you.” And he came across the room to kiss his mother-in-law.

“Was that you I heard sawing wood?” Mrs. Morgan asked. Her face had become very bright and young looking,

“Yes.” He grinned, cocky and irresistible. “I’m on my second cord.” He shed his vest, which missed the chair and hit the floor. He turned to his wife. “I’m starving,
querida
. What have you got to eat?”

“Would you like some of this banana bread Mother and I have been having?”

“Um. Sounds good. I’ll just go wash up first.”

He left the room and Susan rose to go to the kitchen. She bent, picked up the vest and then met her mother’s eyes. Quite suddenly her face dissolved into laughter. “It’s no good telling him to hang it in the closet,” she said. “He’ll only reply, with irrefutable logic, that it goes upstairs.”

When she got back to the living room with the bread, Ricardo had returned. She served him a large slice and a glass of ginger ale and had to refrain from reaching out to smooth back the thick dark brown hair that had fallen over his forehead. He had rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt to wash his hands and his forearms looked as hard as iron in the late-winter light.

“Susan has been telling me how much she enjoyed Bogota,” Mrs. Morgan said. “I haven’t been there for many years. It sounds as if it’s changed.”

“It has. There’s a lot more money in the city, for one thing.”

“Drug money?” Mrs. Morgan asked bluntly.

He shrugged. “Of course, some of it comes from drugs.” He took another bite of his bread. “And then in some ways Bogotá hasn’t changed at all. There’s still the poverty, the street children, the thefts. It will be many years before it approaches the social equality of this country.”

Susan sat back and listened quietly to the conversation between her husband and her mother. When Mrs. Morgan got up to leave, Ricardo said, “But why don’t you stay for dinner?”

Mrs. Morgan looked immensely gratified. “I’d love to but I can’t,” she said with regret. “I have a meeting at seven.” She turned to her daughter. “I ran into Charlotte Munson the other day, dear. She lives in Stamford, as you know, and she was telling me about the women’s club here. They are very active in a wide range of areas and they desperately need more people. And then there’s the Junior League. They’re starting up a project to work with foster children that sounds very promising.”

“I don’t think I’d have the time, Mother,” Susan hedged.

“Why ever not?” her mother returned impatiently. “Really, Susan, you are so—immovable.”

“She has just gotten home from a very long trip,” Ricardo said pleasantly. “Give her a chance to catch her breath, Helen.”

Her mother’s face relaxed. “Yes,” she said. “Of course.” She kissed Susan and then Ricardo. “Take good care of that grandson of mine.”

“I will,” promised Susan. “Good-bye, Mother.”

“Don’t let her push you into doing something you don’t want to do,” Ricardo said sympathetically as they moved back to the living room.

“You see,” Susan explained quickly, “I want to start to write, and if I fill up my life with other activities, I won’t be able to find the time.” She smiled ruefully, “Or the energy.”

“You must do as you please,” Ricardo said again, “not what your mother thinks you should do. You are all grown up now,
querida
.”

In the end, however, it was not her mother who put obstacles in the way of her writing but Ricardo. He started out by being very helpful. “Of course you can use the study,” he said when she inquired. “I’m starting to do taxes, but that will only last until April.”

“Until April?” she echoed incredulously.

“Yes. I prefer to do my own, you see, and it takes time. But I don’t work on them every day, Susan. You can use the desk when I don’t need it.”

“And what about Mrs. Noonan?” Mrs. Noonan was the woman who came in once a week to deal with Ricardo’s mail. “Doesn’t she always use the study?”

“Yes. But that is only once a week.”

“Ricardo, between your taxes and Mrs. Noonan, I’m afraid there isn’t going to be much time left for me. I’ll find somewhere else to work.”

She settled on her old bedroom and Ricardo helped to fix it up, bringing in a larger desk, a typewriter and some bookcases. She was able to get a start on her novel by setting up a schedule that allowed her to work three hours a day in the morning. She actually got the first chapter written.

Then Ricky got sick and she was up with him for two nights in a row.

Then Ricardo came down with the flu. He was used to being splendidly healthy and consequently was a wretched patient on the few occasions when he did become ill. He had a fever and he ached all over and he only wanted Susan. The baby still was not back to sleeping through the night, and after three days of toiling up and down stairs, taking Ricardo’s temperature, bringing him medicines and juices and food that he didn’t want after he had asked for it, she was exhausted. And frustrated as well. She had actually been writing. She had felt the book taking shape for her, the words obeying her thoughts. She wanted to get back to her book. But she hadn’t the energy.

Ricardo’s fever subsided to a little above normal five days after he first became ill and he seemed more comfortable. That afternoon Susan sat down at her desk and reread her opening chapter. She stared out the window and once more put herself back into the hidden, secret world of childhood. She picked up her pen.

“Susan!” came Ricardo’s voice from the next room.

“Yes?” she called back, a hint of impatience in her voice,

“Will you bring me up my account books? They’re on the study desk. I think perhaps I could work a little.”

Susan sighed, put down her pen, and went downstairs. The books were not on the desk. After two more trips up and down stairs she located them on top of his filing cabinet. She sat down at her desk again, picked up her pen and Ricky woke up. She let him cry for a minute, hoping that Maria would come up to him.

“Susan!” came the voice next door. “I hear the baby.”

Susan put down her pen. “Yes, Ricardo,” she called with resignation. “I’m going to get him.” She did not get back to her book for three more days.

* * * *

“We’ll be leaving for Florida in a week,” Ricardo said to her at dinner a few nights later.

“In a week!” Susan looked at him in astonishment.

“Of course. Spring training begins,
querida
. You know that.”

“I didn’t know it began so soon. I thought it began in the spring!”

He laughed. “The season begins in the spring, Susan. The training is for the spring season. And it has begun in February for years and years.”

She put down her fork. “But, Ricardo,” she almost wailed, “I’ve only just gotten home.”

“I know.” He didn’t sound at all sympathetic. “But it is only for six weeks. Then we will be home for the rest of the year.”

She picked up her fork again and pushed the rice around on her plate. “I feel like a nomad,” she muttered mutinously. “Someone is always pushing me to go somewhere.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” he said coolly, and she looked up to meet his eyes. He was watching her steadily and for once there was no amusement in his face.

“I don’t think it’s being dramatic to resent being hauled off around the world without even having my wishes consulted,” she said. There was bright color in her cheeks. “You gave me four days’ notice before we went to Colombia. I suppose I should be grateful that you’ve given me a whole week this time.”

“Why do you need notice? Do you want me to give you a schedule for the year?”

At the tone of his voice all the brilliant color drained from her face. “No, I don’t want you to give me a schedule,” she said a little unsteadily. “I want you to ask me. I am your wife, not your slave.”

Ricardo’s face was closed and shuttered, his eyes cold. “You are my wife and you go where I go,” he said evenly. “What is there to ask about? I do not have a choice. I must be in Florida on February twentieth.” His eyes narrowed. “Or are you saying that you do not wish to come with me?”

“No, I’m not saying that.” Susan had been gripping her fork tensely and now she forced herself to relax her hold and set it down. “Of course I want to go with you. But it—upsets—me to have unexpected things flung at me like this. I need time to adjust my thinking.”

“So.” He took a mouthful of chicken, chewed and swallowed it. “In the future I will try to be less unexpected.”

It was not what she wanted but at the moment she knew it was the best she could hope for. She did not want to run the risk of angering him further. She forced a smile. “Thank you, Ricardo.”

He shook his head in rueful bewilderment. “Such a tempest in a teapot,” he said. “I think I had better make out a schedule after all.”