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And while she was reduced to a shell-shocked wreck by a simple kiss—just a kiss, what was wrong with her?—he was acting, it seemed to a mortified Nell, as if nothing had happened! I kissed him back!
Nell stumbled a little and his hand shot out to steady her and stayed at her elbow. She did not mistake the gesture for concern. He’s probably getting ready to rugby tackle me to the ground if I try and run, she thought.
A rugby tackle would have been infinitely preferable to a kiss…although rolling on the ground with him did present some worrying opportunities for making a fool of herself.
The room they entered was in shadow. Nell could make out the general outline of furniture and a frail figure propped up in a big carved bed. She spoke in Spanish but Luiz replied in English.
‘Surprise? I doubt it. Don’t tell me the jungle drums have not already told you I had arrived.’
Nell tried to slow her laboured breathing as she watched Luiz walk towards the bed and bend over it.
Seeing the walking frame beside the bed brought back a rush of memories and to her horror Nell felt her eyelids prickle with tears. Eight weeks and I cry now. Please, no, not now. Inch by inch she fought her way back to control, dabbing angrily at the moisture at the corners of her eyes.
‘I’ve brought you a visitor and she doesn’t speak Spanish.’
The contrast between his callous attitude to her moments earlier and the tenderness in his manner as he kissed the sunken cheek of the tiny figure lying in the bed increased the emotional ache in her throat. She remained stubbornly reluctant to endow him with finer feelings or motives, but if he didn’t love this old lady he was a very good actor.
‘This is Nell.’
How could anyone put so much expression into one word—one name?
It was astonishing, and her reaction to the warm husky intonation in his deep voice suggesting unspoken intimacies was no less shocking.
Luiz reached a hand towards her and she responded without thinking to the compelling message in his eyes and stepped forward, taking his hand. An embarrassing rush of heat passed through Nell’s body as he tugged her towards him and slipped his arm around her waist before pulling her into his body.
She suddenly felt a spasm of sympathy for Lucy. If his cousin had half this man’s seductive powers, then it was hardly surprising that her inexperienced niece had fallen so hard.
‘Turn that light on, Luiz.’
Nell blinked as the light from an angle lamp fell across her face.
‘Good bones…’ came the verdict. The sharp eyes slid thoughtfully back to her grandson’s face, before she returned her attention to Nell. ‘Not your usual type, Luiz.’
Tell me something I don’t know, thought Nell as to her relief Luiz aimed the light away from her eyes. Then prompted by the expression in his eyes, she held out her hand. Like some sort of puppet, observed the disgusted voice in her head.
‘Well, now I won’t have to change my will, Luiz,’ Doña Elena joked.
It took a couple of seconds for Nell to register the comment, and when she did she was gripped by a wave of disillusionment. She had wanted to know and now there was no doubt. It was quite irrational to feel so let down. People did unpleasant, low, nasty things when large sums of money were involved, so why should he be any different?
‘Were you going to leave it to Felipe?’
The standing joke between them raised a weak smile from the old lady and a horrified look from Nell. Elena Santoro, who was perfectly aware that her younger grandson had no fondness for the estancia that was, to quote him, ‘an anachronismin the modern world’, teased back.
‘Possibly.’ Felipe had even less enthusiasm for the responsibilities that came with it and he remained mystified by their grandmother’s stubborn determination to hang onto what he referred to as a damned money pit. He had been almost comically relieved when she had explained to him that it was her intention his cousin would inherit, but he would have her house in Seville and the art collection it contained.
Turning her head towards Nell, she asked, ‘You have met Felipe?’
Nell shook her head. ‘Not yet.’ She could almost feel sorry for him.
‘He is a good boy, artistic, but I expect he will grow out of that. You notice I do not speak of my sons. IfI left the estancia to them, Nell, they would split it up and sell it off to speculators before I was cold in my grave.’ She broke off as her slight frame was racked by hacking coughs. ‘I’m fine, don’t fuss, Luiz,’ she gasped breathlessly as she patted away his solicitous hand. ‘So when, Nell, are you going to marry my grandson?’
Luiz spoke for her. ‘We have not set a date yet.’
Despite her physical frailty there was nothing weak about the glare that was directed at Luiz. ‘Does the girl not have a voice, Luiz? Let her speak,’ she quavered imperiously.
Nell lifted her chin. If Luiz was scared about what she might say, he ought to be. ‘I can speak.’ She flashed Luiz a look of distaste and thought, Let him sweat.
‘Tell me about yourself.’
It was a request, not an order, but Nell was starting to realise this was not a lady who did requests.
‘What would you like to know? I’m twenty-five, a library assistant.’
‘How did Luiz come to meet an English library assistant?’
‘Perhaps it was fated.’
Luiz gave an enigmatic smile and smoothed Nell’s hair back from her brow as though, she thought as she fought the impulse to pull away, he had performed the tender act a hundred times before. You had to admire the man’s acting ability, if not his morals.
The old lady returned her attention to Nell and almost caught her rolling her eyes. ‘You have family?’
‘I have a sister and a brother, both older and both married with children.’
‘You live alone?’
‘I live with my dad,’ she said without thinking. Then she remembered and muttered, ‘So stupid, I keep forgetting. I lived with Dad.’
‘Your father died?’
Luiz, noticing for the first time the violet smudges beneath her big eyes, felt an unidentifiable emotion break loose inside him as she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and scrubbed them like a child before responding to his grandmother’s question.
‘Eight weeks ago.’ Beside her she was conscious of Luiz stiffening.
‘Eight weeks,’ she repeated in a softer, almost surprised voice. Weeks that had been filled with practicalities; there had been no time for grieving.
Lots of practicalities, she mused, thinking of the pile of packing cases she had left when she had jumped on the first flight available. The removals people would be arriving in the morning and there would be no one to let them in.
And Clare, who was arriving to collect the more valuable pieces of furniture that she had claimed for her own home, was going to be annoyed. Nell was conscious that the idea of her sister’s anger and the removal people standing on the doorstep ought to bother her more, but it didn’t.
‘The house was only on the market a week when it sold.’ You are telling them this why, Nell? ‘It would have been too big for me anyway.’
Clare and Paul had both said it was fine by them if she stayed on for a while, but she knew they had both been pleased when she had put the property straight on the market. They would both find the money from the sale useful. And as they had said, she could find a nice little place of her own.
‘Your father, he had been ill for a long time, Nell?’ There was a gentler note than she had yet heard in the old lady’s voice.
Nell nodded tiredly and registered Luiz say something that sounded angry in Spanish. His grandmother responded, saying, ‘Can’t you see she needs to talk? The little one has been bottling up her emotions.’
‘He had a stroke. It left him partially paralyzed down his left side…’ Nell sketched an explanatory sweeping motion down her side. ‘He had some mobility problems so I didn’t go to university.’
If she had taken her university place and not stayed on the option would have been a nursing home or sheltered accommodation and Nell knew how much her dad loved his home. And with a few modifications to the house he had become reasonably independent, to the point that before his death he had been pushing for Nell to go to college as a mature student.
‘But he was doing really well. That’s why it was such a shock when he…’ Her voice trailed away as she swallowed past the lump in her throat. ‘It was pneumonia.’
Nell heard her voice crack and thought, Please, no, not now, not here. Her grief lay lodged like an icy block in her chest. When it melted she knew there would be a lot of moisture and a lot of pain—but not now.
Luiz, watching as she forced her stiff features into a composed smile, felt her grief as a physical pain in his chest.
‘I told him that it was my choice to stay at home. I wanted to be there with him. There was no need for him to feel guilty about university, but…’
Nell didn’t connect herself with the strangled whimper. The second sob she felt as it worked its way up from deep down inside her and escaped and then she couldn’t stop them.
As the tears began to flow she turned her head and found Luiz’s chest. A hand came up to hold her there and another wrapped around her ribs, hauling her up against him.
‘This was not a good idea,’ Luiz, his face set like stone, said to his grandmother as he cradled her shaking body. The sound of her sobs tore him up inside; he had never felt so impotent in his life, or more responsible.
He should, he told himself, have recognised her vulnerability, but he hadn’t and this was the result.
He rested his chin on the top of Nell’s head and rocked her in his arms. ‘It will be all right,’ he soothed.
‘The girl has a sense of duty. I like that.’
‘I think she’s had enough,’ he said abruptly, before he swept her casually into his arms and walked out of the room with her.
CHAPTER FIVE
NELL’S sobs went straight to an unprotected portion of Luiz’s heart. Each sob seemed to be dragged from deep inside her. It was painful to listen to, to feel as they racked her body.
While she wept Sabina floated silently into the room, took in the scene at a glance and, after nodding at him, left. When she returned a short time later she was carrying a tray laden with sandwiches and cake, a coffee pot and two cups.
Luiz, nodding as she left, would not have minded the addition of something more stimulating. It was not a need he felt when facing the collapse of a multimillion-dollar deal, but right now… He glanced down and winced. It seemed to him the tears would never stop. But gradually, over the next few minutes, to his relief they lessened until she gave a final deep, shuddering sigh and lifted her head from his shoulder, her damp cheek brushing his as she did so.
He made no attempt to stop her as she slid to the opposite end of the sofa.
Weak in the aftermath of the emotional excesses, Nell lifted her hand to push away the damp skein of hair that had flopped into her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, not looking at him.
It bothered her that she had lost control, but for some reason it bothered her a lot more that she had lost control in front of this man of all people.
‘I’m fine now.’ Her level look dared him to contradict her.
‘Of course you are,’ he said, pushing a box of tissues supplied by the ever-alert Sabina her way.
‘About your father—’
Nell blew her nose. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said in a fierce little voice. ‘You’ve got what you want.’
Luiz, on whom her unfriendly attitude had not been wasted, angled a questioning brow. ‘I have?’
‘Well, your grandmother’s going to leave you her loot, isn’t she?’ She lifted her scornful red-rimmed eyes to his and added, ‘I suppose it beats working for a living.’
A look she couldn’t interpret crossed his face. It wasn’t guilt, but it should have been.
‘Perhaps we do not all have your strong moral integrity.’
The faint derision she heard in his voice brought an angry flush to Nell’s tear-stained face. ‘I’m not suggesting I’m perfect.’
Luiz looked at her, the red swollen eyes, the pink nose, and found himself thinking, Maybe not perfect, but awfully appealing. And not his type…even his grandmother had recognised this.
She sniffed and he experienced a sharp twinge of emotion. Refusing to recognise its source, he got abruptly to his feet and walked across to the table where the tea tray lay undisturbed.
‘Can I get something for you?’
‘You can get me Lucy, take me to her.’
He regarded her incredulously. ‘Now?’
‘Certainly now.’
He shook his head doubtfully. ‘You don’t look in any condition to go anywhere.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m terribly sorry I don’t reach your standard of airbrushed perfection, but we had a deal and I’ve done my bit, which, I have to tell you, has left a nasty taste in my mouth, so now it’s your turn. Do you actually even know where they are? If so just tell me. I’ll drive myself there—I have a car.’
The silence stretched. She was, he decided, more than capable of doing just that if he allowed her. The woman gave a new meaning to stubborn…or maybe, he conceded, she just had to keep going because if she stopped or slowed down she would feel. The grief would come crashing in. It was a coping mechanism that he recognised, he had used it after Rosa died. In his case it had taken the form of work and more work that had been viewed in some quarters as a lack of caring.
Not that Luiz had cared. Strange that back then he had been unconcerned what anyone thought, and now Nell’s assumption he was an avaricious scrounger felt like a slap in the face. It had been a warped sense of pride that had prevented him putting her right, warped because he had given her little reason to have a good opinion of him—a good opinion he still refused to accept he wanted.
‘The road, such as it is, is not good. Only a four-wheel drive or preferably a horse will get you there.’
‘I don’t ride a horse.’ But it was not difficult to see Luiz Santoro on one.
‘Then four-wheel drive it is.’
Nell gave a watery smile of relief. ‘You’ll take me?’
‘As you are clearly not fit to be let out alone—yes, I will.’
Nell let the inference she needed a keeper pass. She was just so relieved to actually be doing something and not standing around.
He glanced at the metallic banded watch on his wrist, screwed up his eyes as though making a mental calculation, and said, ‘I have some things to attend to, so we’ll say an hour’s time. In the meantime eat. I’ll send Sabina, who will show you where to go if you want to freshen up.’
His frowning scrutiny brought a self-conscious flush to Nell’s face. The last thing she wanted was to look in a mirror.
‘Who is Sabina?’ she began, but he had gone.
She did not have long to wait to find out as the Spanish woman appeared moments later carrying fresh coffee. Nell found her manner soothing as she explained in heavily accented but perfect English that she was the housekeeper.
A few sandwiches forced down, her caffeine levels topped up, her hair combed and her face washed, Nell felt a lot more like herself and able to cope…so long as she didn’t think of that kiss.
