Dancing in the Shadows (15 page)

‘The naughty child made prior arrangements. I see your brother is absent too.'

‘Señor Ruiz suspects Michael of having a romantic assignation.'

The moment the words were out, Dorcas knew she'd blundered. But Señora Roca didn't pick her up, which made her wonder if she wasn't being too mentally alert. It could be coincidental that Isabel Roca
and
Michael weren't present.

But now that the idea had sparked, it wouldn't go away. Michael was meeting someone in secret. Right from the start Isabel had drooled openly over him, and Michael was rat enough to take an unfair advantage of Isabel's infatuation. Perhaps she was doing Michael an injustice in piling all the blame on him because Isabel would be difficult to resist. She was a beauty; despite her air of girlish innocence, she had the full appeal of a woman.

‘Is anything the matter, child?' Maria Roca asked anxiously.

‘I hope not,' said Dorcas. ‘I sincerely hope not.'

‘Carlos
got off all right this morning?' Señora Roca enquired guilelessly, although she had said the one name guaranteed to rivet Dorcas's attention. ‘Such a dear boy. The man he has become reflects the child he was. Always polite and well mannered. By that I do not mean he was a quiet child. Dear me, no! Just the opposite. I could tell you some of his pranks . . .' And Maria Roca did just that until the matron on the other side, making it clear she thought Dorcas had been monopolized long enough, decided it was time she had a slice of her attention.

* * *

For the rest of the day Dorcas kept an eye open for Michael's return, but although it was now evening, she still had not seen him. Sooner or later, and instinct pressed for later, she was going to have to have things out with him. There was still the business of his having told that exaggerated story of her not being able to follow a brilliant career because of the injury to her leg. Even though he had done no apparent damage, he must have known he was going against her wishes. And now there was this new fear that Michael was playing fast and loose with Isabel Roca. Couldn't he see the danger? Didn't he appreciate that this wasn't England?

Even as Dorcas built herself up to give
Michael
the cautionary telling off she felt he so justly deserved, she anticipated the outcome with a weary sort of inevitability. Michael had a way of manipulating words to suit his own ends that was little short of genius. She had the strongest feeling that his plausible tongue would make his wrong-doing sound like an act of gallantry. So many times she had started off knowing she was right, but had found herself being turned round until she was agreeing with Michael.

During the day the sun blanched this part of the terrace, draining the flowers of their scents and weighting the air with an exotic blend of fragrances that was overpowering. Evening was kinder. The breeze that gentled the flowers carried a fainter and more subtle scent. The tranquillity of her surroundings smoothed away her frown. It was sacrilege to let all this be spoilt for her by thoughts of Michael. But the line between having the conviction and following it is perilously thin. Dorcas did not manage to tread it very successfully, because her thoughts kept returning to her brother's cavalier attitude to life.

The interruption would have been welcome on its own account. The content of it made it doubly so.

‘Teléfono, señorita.'

Dorcas looked up to see Teresa standing before her. Who would be telephoning her?

‘Are you sure it's for me?' she asked the
little
Spanish maid.

‘
Sí
señorita.'

Behind the respectfully straight mouth was a look that Dorcas could not immediately identify. The caller—male, if Dorcas correctly read the delighted interest Teresa was so valiantly trying to suppress—was someone Teresa knew.

‘Hurry, señorita,' Teresa implored, adding a further clue. Someone whose orders Teresa was conditioned to carry out at speed.

Not someone: Carlos? Yes? Her heart did its usual high vault, and the stuffing that seemed to have come out of her legs filled her mouth with a cotton wool effect.

‘Teresa, is it—' And Dorcas stopped. It seemed blatantly revealing to ask Teresa if it was Carlos, with such bright hope in her eyes.

‘
Sí
, señorita, it is the young señor,' said Teresa, not noticing that Dorcas had omitted to say his name.

Dorcas breathed on relief when Teresa indicated the telephone in the hall. It would have been too inhibiting to have to take the call on the drawing room extension with Rose Ruiz listening. Even so, the hall, with its many doors leading off, was not exactly private. She must keep this fact in mind.

‘Hello, Dorcas here,' she said in a voice that did not live up to her good intention by failing to hide all the strange things going on inside her.

His
delighted laugh underlined her negative attempt. ‘It is Carlos here, as you are already aware.' Implying, pompously, that she only went to pieces for him.

‘Good evening, Carlos,' she said with exaggerated correctness. ‘Did you have a safe and pleasant journey?'

‘A safe journey, yes. It was not pleasant to leave you.'

She refused to be put off by the teasing reproach in his voice, and persisted: ‘Have you got a nice room?'

‘I have been given the room I am always given when I stay at this particular hotel. It is on the seventh floor, where it is quiet.'

‘If you are away from the noise, you will be able to work undisturbed.'

‘That is the general idea. Always before I have been able to write out my notes. This time I am distracted by thoughts of you.'

‘If you are on the seventh floor,' she said, wildly searching her brain for the words to switch the content of the conversation to something of a more manageable, less explosive content, ‘you must have a magnificent view.'

‘The hotel is situated on the highest point and is renowned for its view. The daytime impression from my balcony is of a higgledy piggledy series of drops. It gives an avalanche effect of building sitting upon building. Church standing upon tall slim apartment block,
municipal
building standing upon church. The city is overflowing with people; the roads are chronically blocked by cars. By day the sun strikes with malice. The evening is reward for sustaining the day. The city lights come on one by one. The places of special interest, the cathedral, the parks and gardens and some of the more distinguished monuments, are illuminated. I wish you could see my view by night. I think you would agree it is almost perfect.'

‘
Almost
perfect. From the way you have described it to me, I know if I were there I should think it quite perfect.'

‘If you were here it would be. My view is not perfect because I cannot see you.'

‘You are not being fair, Carlos. I am trying to remain very cool and level-headed, and you are not helping me one little bit.'

‘Why should I? I do not want you cool and level-headed.'

His voice, stripped of everything but that soft, seductive note, grated on feelings that were too newly exposed to be anything but raw and tender. She was glad he could not see the blush in her cheeks, marking her weakness and vulnerability. She clutched the telephone mouthpiece harder to stop it dancing up and down in her shaking fingers.

‘Carlos,
please.
' Besides the passionate plea in her voice there was a note of censure that contrasted sharply with the aching longing in
her
to hear more. ‘Carlos?' she said into the small silence that followed.

‘I am thinking up insincere words of contrition. Do I apologize for speaking the truth?'

‘I do not know what the truth is,' she said distractedly—in desperation.

‘I could say I'm not prepared to tell you over the telephone, but I suspect I do so every time I open my mouth.'

She could tell by the tone of his voice that his face had relaxed into gentleness.

‘Carlos, I'm so confused. I don't know what to believe . . .' Her voice tailed away tiredly. She felt emotionally drained.

‘Just believe,' he said softly. ‘And now, goodnight little one.
Buenas noches, pequeña
,' he repeated in Spanish.

‘
Buenas noches.
Carlos—' urgently ‘—Don't ring off. You haven't told me why you phoned.'

‘I phoned to say goodnight.'

‘Oh . . . goodnight then, Carlos.'

‘Goodnight,
cariña.
'

She replaced the receiver in a haze of joy. Carlos had said, just believe. Dare she believe that . . . believe that he . . . that he loved her?

‘Are you all right, Dorcas?'

Dorcas answered in the abstracted daze she was in. ‘No, señor. I don't think I will ever be all right again. Oh!'—as it hit her. ‘Señor Ruiz! I spoke without thinking. Even though I heard you and even answered you, I did not properly
realize
you were standing there.'

‘I understand,' Enrique Ruiz said, stroking his beard reflectively. ‘At least I think I understand. I would know I understood if I also knew the name of your caller. If, for instance, I knew your caller was male. What am I saying, of course your caller was male! Only a man could paint such joy on your face, eh, Dorcas?'

His smile burst into mischief. His curiosity, though impertinent, was of the kindly nature that Dorcas was not proof against. All this weighed in with the compulsion to tell someone, and it did not seem at all incongruous that this someone was Carlos's father.

‘It was Carlos. He telephoned to say goodnight,' she said, in part triumph, and part disbelief.

The bearded chin nodded sagely. ‘That is what I thought. You did not speak up clearly enough for me to know for certain that you spoke my son's name.'

‘I am sorry, señor,'—straight-mouthed. ‘Next time I will speak loud enough for you to hear.'

Unabashed, her kind señor said: ‘Next time it might be wiser to take the call in the privacy of my study. ‘It might also be wiser—' Taking Dorcas's arm and guiding her feet across the hall—‘if we continue this conversation with due regard to privacy. Come into my study for
a
moment.'

He did not speak again until they were in that masculine, book-lined room. Taking p ride of place on his desk was a silver framed photograph of Rose Ruiz. Beside it, appropriately, in a crystal vase, was a rose. The scent of this perfect bloom filled the room like an overpowering presence. Dorcas felt the potency of Rose Ruiz's dominant personality as though the señora was standing by her side.

Enrique Ruiz also felt the domination of the rose—which was cut at the peak of its perfection and changed daily—but in a different way. His fingers brushed against the petals, absorbing the sweetness into his fingertips, and the eyes of an old man glazed over with the love of a young boy.

His chin came up. Without preamble he said: ‘Let us not shadow box, Dorcas. Let us come out in the open. Has Carlos said anything to you?'

‘If I replied that Carlos has said many things to me, would I be shadow boxing?'

‘Yes, Dorcas.'

‘Very well. Carlos has not asked me to marry him. But he has given me to believe that he will do so on his return.'

‘It is exactly as I thought,' he said with disarming candour.

‘You are not displeased, señor?'

‘That does not come into it.'

‘What does, señor?'

‘I
think you have been a part of our household long enough to appreciate the obstacles.'

‘Do you mean the señora?' As far as Dorcas could see, Rose Ruiz loomed over her as the biggest obstacle.

‘My wife is not an obstacle,' he chided, but more in humour than rebuke. ‘She is the finger pointing out the obstacle.'

‘I'm sorry, señor. I shouldn't have made that unkind reference. Señora Ruiz has shown me every kindness.' Her voice melted to nothing.

‘Your shame and your honesty do you credit,
niñas.
But let us not digress. Carlos already has a
novia.

‘Isabel Roca.' Dorcas supplied the name with dignity, keeping the twist of jealousy well hidden beneath a matter-of-fact tone.

‘As you say, Isabel Roca has long been my son's sweetheart. A marriage between them would ally a long-standing friendship and cement a business merger that is imperative for the survival of both families. I will not go into the details because I know you are already acquainted with them.' At Dorcas's involuntary start, his face bent a question at her. ‘Does it surprise you so much that my wife informed me of the—' a delicate pause ‘—small conversation she had with you on the subject of why Carlos should marry the daughter of our dear friends?'

‘Yes it does. I would have thought she'd
keep
that to herself.' The truth pumped out of Dorcas. Too late she realized where her unfortunate honesty was leading her. ‘Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to criticize the señora's actions. After all, it's natural for a mother to warn off . . .' If, when she had made her first slip, she had left it there, it wouldn't have been too bad. She was making it worse by going on about it.

Dorcas realized there was something odd in the way Enrique Ruiz was looking at her. It did not prepare her. Having sustained one shock, she was ripe for the next.

‘It is true that my wife endeavoured to warn you off.' His eyes pierced hers with a brilliance of meaning. ‘On whose behalf do you think she was acting?'

So the señora wasn't against her. She had been merely carrying out someone else's instructions.

‘Yours, señor?' she said. She had to grapple with the dizziness in her brain to think.

Nothing had changed. He wasn't coming down heavily against her because . . . But the because of it evaded her. She wasn't forgetting about the business angle. It would be a happy solution if Carlos were to marry Isabel Roca, but the feeling persisted that it went deeper than that. There was something else. But what?