The Forbidden Promise (13 page)

The
news of the engagement and upcoming marriage of Aurora Vargas de Coronado to
Lucas Navarra y Reyes spread around the city in an instant.
Viviana and Costantino broke the news to their next of kin who lived in
Tampico, Costantino’s elder brother Don Miguel and his wife Clara.
Don Miguel treated his sister-in-law, Viviana with a certain coldness, just as
he always had. The Vargas family had never forgiven her for the secret from her
past, her relationship with Hector, and had always disapproved of her marriage
to Costantino.
Doña
Clara received the news with some enthusiasm, fluttering her fan
more than usual.
" Viviana, you must be very busy with the preparations, how exciting! Who
knows, maybe in a little while, it will be my turn." She flirted.
" Marisol too?" Costantino asked amazed.
" Nothing official, of course," grumbled Don Miguel, glaring at his
wife. "We’ll talk about it, when the time is right."
" The gentleman who is courting Marisol is definitely a good catch."
Added
Doña
Clara, rejoicing inwardly at the fact that Marisol would be
marrying the Navarra brother with all the assets, not the brother, penniless
due the doubts about his birth.
Marisol, however, had not been so enthusiastic, when her mother told her the
good news, her eyes widened.
" It’s not possible." She stuttered "Not Aurora!"
" Yes, I know, dear. I also immediately thought that the husband she has
chosen is not a good match. All those rumors about his birth. The scandal has
never faded. Your Aunt Viviana so proud, as if she too were noble. She won’t be
so excited about the match." Said
Doña
Clara slyly. “You however,
have the best, the son who inherited everything."
Marisol however, did not have the same opinion as her mother. Under the guise
of wanting to give her personal good wishes to her dear cousin, she immediately
went to Aurora’s home.
Marisol however, had to wait, because although busy with preparations for the
wedding, Aurora was still trying to devote as much time as possible to her work
in the infirmary at
La Virgen de la Caridad
convent.
When she returned, already anxious because of the organization of the ceremony
that her mother faced as if they were getting ready for a funeral and not a
wedding, she confronted a furious Marisol.
" My dear cousin," said Marisol, kissing her on the cheeks.
"I’ve come to personally congratulate you." Her voice was cold and as
sharp as a blade.
" Thank you." Replied Aurora bewildered. She did not think she would
be able to handle the wrath of a jealous woman at that moment. Luckily
Doña
Viviana had gone to the florist to choose the decorations for the church, so
the two cousins could speak freely.
" You’ve been really clever! I definitely underestimated you,
cousin!" Snapped Marisol. "All that attitude of being a goody-goody,
of an impeccable scholar! But it was however, all a plan, wasn’t it!"
" A plan for what?" retorted Aurora beginning to get annoyed.
"To have Lucas all to yourself! That evening on the beach was all
organized, wasn’t it? Since when have you been sleeping with him, huh? Tell
me!"
Aurora felt anger rise inside her.
" You're wrong cousin! Lucas and I have never..."
" You're just a hypocrite ! How could you do this to me? How?" Anger
and jealousy deformed Marisol’s delicate features.
"Don’t you dare insult me, Marisol," cried Aurora. "Whether you
want to believe it or not, my relationship with Lucas began after I surprised
you together! And besides, you're not in a position to lecture me, are
you?"
" Don’t change the subject! I’ve always been honest with you, I told you
the truth right from the start. And what about you, what did you see fit to do?
To steal Lucas from me forever!"
Aurora's voice rose further, while her hands shook with anger.
"I haven’t stolen anything! You yourself told me that you would never
marry Lucas due to his position! You were already thinking about marring his
brother! You act modern, thinking about European culture, and yet you're just a
coward like all the others. You don’t have the courage to openly challenge
social conventions! With Lucas, you just had fun going to bed with him, like
any other slut. If you loved him so much, you should have married him, as I am
doing!"
Marisol stepped back, struck by  Aurora’s unexpected reaction.
" Don’t you dare." Began Marisol but she was interrupted by Aurora
" Don’t you dare accuse me of being a schemer who stole your man! And now,
if you'll excuse me, I have a lot to do!"
Aurora's tone left no room for a reply and Marisol, defeated for the first
time, left the house.
Lucas did not fare particularly better. Santos Robles was very surprised by the
news but he immediately congratulated his friend.
When Santos informed his sister Yolanda about Lucas' wedding, she immediately
burst into tears and ran away.
"I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!"
She did not even notice that she had run in front of her aunt, Penelope Robles.
" Yolanda, dear niece, don’t you recognize me?" Asked Penelope then
added, "what’s the matter?"
"Good afternoon, Aunt," sniffled Yolanda , trying to dry her tears
"It’s nothing, nothing ... "
" Oh, come on dear, come with me for a moment! You're too upset to be
wandering around alone."
Penelope gently pushed her niece into her shop of herbal medicines. She offered
Yolanda some lemonade flavored with ginger.
"Do you like it my dear?"
Yolanda nodded without speaking.
" Now tell me what’s happened."
Yolanda confided in her aunt, revealing the wedding of her beloved Lucas to Dr.
Costantino Vargas de Coronado’s daughter.
" Oh, poor dear! Don’t despair!" consoled Penelope.
" And I love him, aunt! I love him, but everyone thinks I'm still a girl!
"
Penelope embraced Yolanda to comfort her.
"Don’t cry any more, little one. You know what we’ll do now? Let’s use the
cards to see what the future has to say about this marriage. We could then
certainly do something to prevent it."
Yolanda frightened, broke away from her aunt’s embrace.
"No, Aunt! Santos has forbidden me to have anything to do with these
things, he absolutely doesn’t want me to get involved with tarot cards and
potions he would definitely reprimand me!"
Yes, my oldest nephew can’t stand me. Silly! He's only afraid of my powers!
Yolanda thanked her aunt for the refreshing drink.
"I have to go now."
She went out of her aunt's shop and went directly to Lucas’..
She began to tidy the house, violently dusting the furniture in the lounge,
luckily Lucas didn’t have any fragile ornaments on the shelves.

Lucas returned shortly
after with a pile of papers relating to the sale of his shares in the shipping
company and the improvements to be implemented in Zacatecas.
He saw Yolanda weeping, immediately guessed what was wrong.
" How could you do this to me! How?" cried Yolanda through her tears.
Lucas approached her, but Yolanda began to attack him with punches to his
chest.
" Come on, child, don’t do that," he said.
"I'm not a child! I'm a woman! A woman who loves you!"
Lucas hugged her.
"I'm not for you, Yolanda. To me you're like a little sister. I saw you
when you were born and I saw you take your first steps while I was playing with
Santos. I like you a lot, you know that, but not in the way that you
wish."
"I don’t want you to get married." Yolanda moaned through her tears.
" You're just in love with an idea that you've made up of me. You'll see
that soon you’ll meet the right man for you." Said Lucas
"Do you love this woman?" Yolanda asked suddenly, staring into his
eyes.
"Of course. Otherwise I wouldn’t be marrying her." Replied Lucas, as
he felt a slight feeling of discomfort.
It's a lie, I'm getting married in
order to have the money to fulfill my ambitions. What kind of man am I?
Although Aurora took care to put him at ease, Lucas continued to feel an
intolerable sense of guilt for having accepted such an agreement. He felt  he
had lost some of his dignity and found it hard to accept that to realize his
plans he had been reduced to a marriage of convenience, although, this was not
actually completely true. Certainly, it had not been he who had thought up the
pact. Aurora had proposed it and chosen him as a partner, but in fact, she had
put him in an awkward situation. He often wondered what would have happened if
he had refused. He would not have had the chance to buy the
hacienda
and
moreover, he would probably have crushed Aurora’s hopes of freedom. A woman so
beautiful, courageous and strong, did not deserve such pain, especially after
Federico’s deception.
But Lucas did not feel at ease with his conscience. For this reason, he sought
in every way to involve Aurora in every aspect of the organization of their new
life together and the work to be carried out in Zacatecas. It was right that
she should be able to voice her opinion and have the same authority that he
had.
" I hate her!" Exclaimed Yolanda. "I hate her with all my heart,
because she is taking you away from me!”
Lucas turned serious and took Yolanda by the shoulders.
" I don’t want to hear you talk like that!" He exclaimed harshly.
"Aurora is a wonderful woman, good and selfless. If you speak ill of her,
you hurt me too, remember this."
Yolanda suffered the rebuke without a murmur.
"You'll get on with her well, if you abandon these prejudices, you'll
see." He added in a sweeter voice.
" What do you mean?" Yolanda asked curiously.
" What! Santos hasn’t told you?"
"Actually no," said Yolanda timidly. “I didn’t let him finish talking
after he told me of your marriage."
Lucas laughed and stroked Yolanda’s hair.
"You're a silly thing." He commented, "anyway, be aware that
both you and your brother are coming with me to Zacatecas. I need help there.
Say something, you want to come to Zacatecas, don’t you?"
" Oh, Lucas, of course I do, I'd follow you to the ends of the
world!" Yolanda said, hugging him tight.
" Good girl. You’ll be able to take care of the house, together with the
staff that we’ll find there. Of course you also need to study, I suggest…"
“Ugh! I'll have to take orders from that woman."
"I’ll remind you that this woman, as you call her, will be my wife, so
you’ll have to obey her. Is that clear?" Asked Lucas
Yolanda did not answer.
"Is that clear?" Lucas asked again, lifting her chin with his hand.
" Yes, yes, of course!" She said finally, "But let me tell you
one thing: she’ll never love you like I love you!"
That said, Yolanda sulkily returned to her work, while Lucas looked at her
thoughtfully.
Yes it’s true, Aurora will never fall in love with me. This is just a pact
that allows us to achieve our plans. I must not forget it.

Shortly after her
meeting with Yolanda, Penelope was on her way to the Navarra
hacienda
as
Doña
Raquel had sent for her with extreme urgency and it was not a good
idea to make her wait. Penelope had had to suspend a session of divination with
a daughter of a bourgeois but the messenger that
Doña
Raquel had sent
had said that it was a matter of real importance.
Penelope entered the huge hall of the house, but she did not even pause to
admire it. She had no nostalgia for the time when she had had to clean and
sweep the house. She climbed the stairs and went towards the master bedroom.
She knocked on the door and received permission to enter the room.
Doña
Raquel was sitting in front of the mirror and combing her long
black hair.
" You've come at last," she said sternly.
"I came as soon as possible." Apologized Penelope. She approached
Raquel and gently took the brush from her hands. She continued to tenderly comb
Raquel’s hair just like old times.
Raquel closed her eyes, relaxed by the soothing movements of the brush.
" Tell me everything you know about the marriage of that bastard,"
she ordered.
" You already know?" Penelope asked, astonished.
" Federico found out from Marisol Vargas de Coronado. That idiot was very
disappointed, he had his eyes on Aurora but Lucas got there first," Raquel
grimaced. "Idiot, I would never have allowed him to be bound to Viviana’s
daughter, in any case. "
"I know that the marriage was a surprise to everyone, no one was aware
that the two had begun courting," said Penelope.
" Ah, Is that so. Love at first sight."
" Even my nephew and niece didn’t know that Lucas was courting Viviana
Vargas de Coronado’s daughter."
"There's something behind all this hurry," replied Raquel.
"It’s probable,
ma’am
."
“What are you thinking? Tell me!" Demanded Raquel
"Lucas has just bought a
hacienda
in Zacatecas where he is going to
live after the wedding. "
" No!" The cry broke from Raquel’s lips.
"I'm sorry."
"He succeeded, that bastard! How did he do it? Don Guadalupe assured me
that he would never get a loan! "
" But
Doña
Viviana’s daughter would have a large dowry at her
disposal."
Raquel pursed her lips.
" A marriage of convenience, then? That bastard has been really clever."
Suddenly someone knocked at the door.
" It's me, mother," said Federico.
" Come in."
Federico entered the room, embarrassed.
"I‘ve whipped those rebels laborers, mother, as you ordered."
Reported Federico.
Raquel made a gesture with her hand.
"Don’t bore me with this nonsense now! We're talking about your dear
brother."
" You know that he’s not my brother," muttered Federico.
Raquel glanced sideways at her son, but did not reply.
" However, thanks to this marriage, he’ll get that damn
hacienda
,
you understand, don’t you?"
"I'm afraid we can’t do anything about it, mother." Replied Federico.
"We can’t allow it!" Retorted Raquel.
Angry, Raquel stood up and began to walk around the room, wringing her hands.
" It wasn’t enough to disinherit him, to put you, Hector and  my son in
the position that Lucas was entitled to! He’s always trying to raise himself
up, first with the damn money from his mother, then the shipping company! Now
even a
hacienda
in Zacatecas! I should have also forbidden him to use
the Navarra name, so he wouldn’t have been able to marry a lady!"
I vowed that day to Eduardo, I would destroy Lucas at any cost!
“Calm down, mother, please," pleaded Federico. "You know that when
you get agitated it makes you ill."
"It's not over yet." Said Raquel. "No, I'll not let him get away
with it. It won’t help him going to Zacatecas! I know I can get him there
too!"
She turned to Penelope.
"I want you to find out as much as possible about this marriage. I want to
know all the details! There will be something, some weak point, where I can
strike!"
Penelope nodded.
"I’ll do as you say
ma’am
."
" And you also need to do the same.” She said to Federico, "Marisol
is her cousin, so it would definitely be useful to stay particularly close to
her."
" All right, mother."
" It's not at all well! You should get married too! We could use that
silly girl’s noble title! Also, I don’t want the first born of the next
generation to bear the Navarra y Reyes name to be the son of that
bastard!"
In these moments of black humor, Raquel was definitely inflexible. Federico,
therefore, could do nothing other than indulge her and agree to every reprimand
that his mother made.
Penelope almost laughed.
Federico is just useless.
He'll fail to do
anything good in life.
It was a punishment that fate had reserved for
Raquel to repay her for the schemes that she had carried out to the detriment
of the innocent.