Forbidden Flame

The girl put down the tray and straightened nervously, folding her hands together. ‘Carmencita, señorita,’ she answered, the wide dark eyes darting about the room. ‘Puedo salir ahora?’

Caroline sighed. She wasn’t absolutely sure, but she guessed Carmencita had orders not to gossip with the new governess, and spreading her hands, she gave her permission to leave.

With the door closed again she approached the tray with some misgivings. She would have preferred to go downstairs, to accustom herself to her new surroundings before she was summoned to meet her charge, but obviously she was obliged to follow orders. So she lifted the silver cloches that protected hot rolls and scrambled eggs, tasted the peach preserve, and poured herself some rich black coffee into a cup of such fine china it was virtually transparent.

Then, summoning all her composure, she opened her door and let herself into the corridor outside. The night before, Consuelo had escorted her to her room, bidden by Luis de Montejo, after his brother’s undignified departure. Whatever his position in the house, his word appeared to carry as much weight as that of Don Esteban, and Caroline suspected that they respected him more. Two brothers could hardly have been more different, yet the result was the same. And did it really matter to these people?

The long hall stretched ahead of her, its stonework inlaid with panels of carving, and interspersed with portraits of long-dead Montejos. Overhead, the ceiling was an arch of heavily embossed moulding, and because it was without windows, it was constantly lit by a series of gothic sconces, each accommodating an electric bulb. It was curious, but the night before Caroline had scarcely been aware of its eerie isolation, those painted eyes in their canvas sockets troubling her not at all. But this morning, the remoteness of her rooms from the rest of the hacienda seemed infinitely significant, and she could not dispel the realisation that she was completely without support here.

She hurried along the corridor, her heels silent on the softly piled carpet that unrolled its length in shades of black and gold, and emerged at the head of the staircase with a feeling of having navigated a particularly treacherous expanse of ocean.

Thinking of the nearness of the ocean, she endeavoured to dismiss her foolish fears. She was allowing the house, and its lavish appointments, to influence her impressions of her employer, and the sooner she found a true perspective the better.

Downstairs she encountered some of the servants, already at work, polishing the massive width of the hall on bended knees. They looked up curiously as she hesitated, uncertain as to her destination, and then the sound of a child’s laughter erased the last traces of her irresolution. Nothing was more delightful than the spontaneous laughter of a child, she thought, crossing the hall in the direction of the voices she could now hear. Don Esteban must hold some affection in his daughter’s eyes at least, and she was relieved to have the burden of indecision lifted from her.

But when she reached the arched doorway that led into a huge, sunlit salón, she faltered once again. Sure enough, her charge was there, a small, plump little girl, extravagantly arrayed in a white dress with layer upon layer of frills, overset by strings of pink ribbon, but the man who was on all fours, and on whose back she was energetically riding, was not her father.

‘Ah, Miss Leyton! Good morning!’

With a lithe effort Luis de Montejo swung the child down from his back and got easily to his feet, quelling the little girl’s protests with a soothing hand on her long black hair. In the same linen trousers he had worn the night before, but this time a cream silk shirt to complement them, he was relaxed and magnetic, a vibrant masculine being, with the unmistakable glow of good health. His shirt had become partially unbuttoned during his antics on the floor, and now his long fingers probed to fasten it, but not before Caroline had observed the dark arrowing of fine body hair that disappeared below his belt.

‘Tio Vincente, Tio Vincente!’ Emilia, for this was evidently Don Estaban’s daughter, tugged impotently at his sleeve. ‘Quien es?’ she exclaimed, subjecting Caroline to a malevolent scrutiny from beneath dark brows. ‘Que desea? Ella no me gusta!’

‘Hush, little one. Speak in English, remember?’ Luis exhorted her softly, restraining her sulky tirade. ‘Miss Leyton is here to teach you your numbers, as you know very well. And I do not wish to hear that you have been rude to her.’

Emilia’s lips pursed. ‘I know my numbers,’ she declared, in perfect English, surprising Caroline by her lack of accent. ‘Miss Thackeray taught me my numbers, and my letters, and I do not need any more teachers.’

Miss Thackeray? Caroline’s brow furrowed. Had Miss Thackeray been her predecessor, and if so, why was she no longer here?

‘Miss Thackeray used to be my governess,’ Luis inserted, dryly, correctly interpreting Caroline’s little frown. ‘She lived at San Luis from the time I was six years old, but unfortunately she died last year, and since then Emilia has had no formal education.’

‘I see.’ Caroline endeavoured to hide her relief. For an awful moment she wondered if she was the last in a succession of governesses, all of whom had objected to living at the hacienda.

‘You won’t like it here at San Luis,’ Emilia stated now, abandoning her pleas to her uncle and turning instead to the offensive. ‘There are snakes, and spiders, and bats that suck your blood!’ She twisted her face into a horrifying grimace. ‘Do you believe in vampires, Miss Leyton? Because if you do not, you must be as stupid as you look!’ And brushing past Caroline, she ran out of the room, before either her governess or her uncle could prevent her.

‘Well—–’ Left alone once again with Luis, Caroline felt hopelessly embarrassed, as much by her own sense of inadequacy as by what the child had said. ‘What do I do now?’

Luis’s mouth compressed. ‘You are asking me?’

‘Who else?’ Caroline made an encompassing gesture around the otherwise empty room. ‘There is no one else.’ She expelled her breath unevenly. ‘Is she always like that?’

Luis shrugged, tucking his thumbs into the back of his belt. ‘You must make allowances for Emilia. She has had a rather—unusual upbringing.’

‘That I can believe!’ Caroline was vehement.

‘Do not misunderstand me, Miss Leyton. I am not saying that Emilia is without—gentleness, compassion. Only that she has never known a mother’s care.’

Caroline shook her head. ‘But your aunt—–’

‘Tia Isabel is—how shall I say it?—a little unworldly.’ He paused. ‘Miss Thackeray provided the fulcrum of Emilia’s existence. When she died …’

‘But what about her father?’ Caroline had to say it. ‘Surely he—–’ She broke off, and then said inconsequently: ‘For two brothers, you are totally different.’

‘Forgive me,’ Luis’s grey eyes narrowed, ‘but is that one of your famous English non sequiturs? I do not see what relevance it has to the purpose.’

‘It hasn’t,’ Caroline sighed forlornly, bending her head. ‘I mean, it has no relevance, of course. I just wish—–’ She broke off again. ‘Are there really vampire bats here?’

Luis’s mouth softened a little. ‘And if I say yes, will you go running back to Merida?’

He was teasing her, but she could not respond to it. ‘Perhaps, if I could,’ she answered now, and his sudden humour disappeared behind a mask of gravity.

‘I think I must be going,’ he said, moving purposefully towards the door. ‘I promised Tomas I would ride with him this morning, and it grows late.’

‘Wait—–’ Caroline went after him urgently, her green eyes wide and anxious. ‘Please, you have to tell me—what am I do do about Emilia? Where is she? When do her lessons begin? And—and are we allowed to go outside the grounds of the hacienda?’

Luis halted in the doorway and looked down at her with studied consideration. His stillness disturbed her. The penetration of those light eyes was disruptive. Her lungs began to feel constricted, and her throat felt tight, and she wondered if this was how a penitent felt in the presence of a confessor.

‘I suggest you ask my brother these things,’ he advised her at last, his voice curiously constrained. ‘He is your employer, señorita, not I. Now, if you will permit me—–’

‘You’re not—leaving!’

It seemed imperative that she should know this for a fact, and without really thinking what she was doing, she emulated Emilia’s example and gripped his sleeve. Only somehow her fingers encountered the hair-roughened skin of his forearm, and the feeling of the taut muscle beneath his skin caused an involuntary tremor of awareness to ripple over her. She looked down at her fingers, spreading them almost experimentally, then her chin jerked upward as he wrenched his arm out of her grasp.

‘I return to Mariposa in three days, señorita,’ he told her harshly, and without another word, he strode away.

Caroline turned back into the salón, aware that she was trembling. She realised she had done an unforgivable thing by making him aware of her like that, but it had happened completely without her volition. Yet perhaps it was inevitable. He was the only person she could turn to, and she dreaded the thought of his eventual departure. But somehow she had to face that reality, and live with it.

‘Señorita!’

For a moment, the whispered use of her name confused her. She had thought herself alone in the room. But now she saw that the door to an inner salón had opened, and a tiny figure, voluminous in folds of black silk, was hovering on the threshold. A headdress, of the kind Caroline had previously only seen on those ancient portraits upstairs, formed a kind of jewelled halo above the woman’s coiled hair, and her ears and the gnarled knuckles of her fingers glittered with a veritable fortune in diamonds, rubies and emeralds.

‘Doña Isabel?’ ventured Caroline nervously, at a loss to know how else to address her, and the tiny figure bobbed her head in assent. ‘How—how do you do? I’m Caroline Leyton—er—Emilia’s new governess.’

‘Governess, pah!’ Doña Isabel released her hold on the door and advanced a few paces into the room, staring at Caroline with unconcealed contempt. ‘I know who you are, señorita,’ she admonished her, in a low guttural undertone. ‘You are Esteban’s latest puta, that is who you are! Do you think you can deceive me? I have lived here too long!’

Caroline was astounded. Her knowledge of Spanish might not be comprehensive, but she knew exactly what puta meant, and its connotations were not only shocking but insulting.

‘I assure you, Doña Isabel—–’ she began, only to have the old lady interrupt her.

‘Be silent! I do not hold conversations with putas!’ she hissed arrogantly. ‘How dare you enter my sister’s sitting room? How dare you show your legs, like any common—–’

‘That will do, Tia Isabel.’ The cultivated masculine tones came as such a relief that Caroline turned to face her employer with real gratitude in her face. She was fast coming to the conclusion that no one could remain sane in this madhouse, and to see Don Esteban entering the room, apparently composed, and sober, in his elegant grey lounge suit, seemed almost a miracle.

‘Puta! Puta!’ cried Doña Isabel shrilly, her voice rising in her agitation. ‘How dare Esteban permit his women to use my sister’s—–’

‘Tia Isabel, my father is dead,’ declared Don Esteban flatly, spreading his hands apologetically in Caroline’s direction. ‘Senorita, please forgive my aunt. She is sometimes—forgetful.’

Caroline shook her head in bewilderment as the old lady frowned, and tried to absorb what her nephew was saying. ‘Esteban is dead?’ she echoed, thin brows meeting above a long aquiline nose. ‘Then—then who is this girl? What is she doing at San Luis de Merced?’