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“One doesn’t always see such a true love match,” he remarked after a long pause. “It’s commonplace in Argentina and many parts of the world for material considerations to be put first. Fiona explained to me how your cousin came to be restored to his family. It’s an extraordinary story, though many families have dark secrets and tragic histories. Still…incredible to think it took all this time before his identity came to light. Your cousin deserves his great happiness.”
“He does. Blood is very binding,” she agreed in a low voice.
“No matter the separation.” Again there was a certain nuance that caused her to look up at him.
“You sound as though you know all about the trials of separation.”
“What gave you that idea?” He stared down into her eyes.
“You do know though, don’t you?”
He was silent a moment. “You’re obviously a woman of admirable perception. Separations happen all the time. Some perhaps in a way that others do not. Some separations bring misery and trauma, others make us, as they say, fonder. You and your cousin are very much alike. Anyone seeing the two of you together would assume you were sister and brother. You don’t have a brother of your own?”
She shook her head with deep regret. “I’m an only child. I would have liked a brother, preferably brothers and sisters, but my mother had difficulty having me, so no more family! It was wonderful when Daniel came into our lives, and now Sandra. We’ve become good friends. And you, señor, you have siblings?”
“Didn’t I beg you to call me Raul?” His tone dropped low into his chest. It was almost a deep purr. “After all, I intend to call you Cecile.”
He pronounced it in the French fashion. It sounded… lovely. Like being stroked. Featherlike strokes all over her face and up and down her body. He was using his voice like the finest of instruments. One could fall in love with such a voice, she thought shakily, even if the owner were plain.
That night bird called again. Was it serenading them? The scent of gardenias was heavy in the air, their waxy white flowers dazzling in the dark. “I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of each other, however.”
“You say it like it cannot be,” he challenged. “Your distinguished grandfather has already invited me to a dinner party he’s giving Wednesday of this coming week. Perhaps you are wrong. I might be often on your doorstep. I understand you are staying with your grandfather for a month? There is much you could show me if you would only be so kind to a stranger to your country.”
Kind? Kindness wasn’t what he wanted from her, of that she was sure. Though he mesmerized her with his charm, the idea that he might have an agenda of his own wouldn’t have shocked her. He could even be exploiting her. Such attempts had been made before, but she had easily staved them off. “I’m sure there are many others who would be delighted to play that role,” she said with a slight air of irony.
He didn’t appear to notice.
“But you’ll have some time on your hands, Cecile. I could at least be some company, as your fiancé has to return to Melbourne.”
She stopped dancing, aware of her burning cheeks. “My grandfather told you that?”
“He did when he issued his invitation.”
A curious thing—he kept hold of her hand. “He also told me your fiancé is a lawyer with a prestigious Melbourne firm.”
“He is,” she said, defeated and unnerved by the thought that Stuart didn’t mean as much to her as he should. How, if she loved Stuart, could she put herself into Raul Montalvan’s hands? “He should make full partner in a year or so.”
“You see yourself as the perfect wife to a man of law?”
“What’s behind that question, Raul?” She withdrew her trembling hand and walked on.
“Ah. So I’ve made you a little angry.” He caught her up easily, bending his head as if to search her expression.
“You would know if I were angry.”
He only smiled. “Fire and ice. However, I don’t think your eyes could sparkle any more dangerously than they do now. I apologize if I’ve somehow given offense. I never meant to. You asked if I had siblings. I have. A younger brother, Francisco, and a sister, Ramona, who is so beautiful she turns heads. But then you would know all about that.” The resonance of his voice deepened. “So tell me, do you feel rewarded working with children who are in much mental pain? Your grandfather told me you were a child psychologist. I’d very much like to hear why you chose such a profession. It seems to me to reveal a deeply maternal streak, does it not?”
In her high heels she stumbled slightly over an exposed tree root and he swiftly steadied her. “Thank you,” she murmured, fathoms deep in awareness.
“So?” he prompted with what sounded like real interest.
She made an effort. “I do love children. I want children of my own. My guiding star is to help ease the pain. It’s greatly rewarding to be able to steer badly hurting young people through very real and sometimes just perceived crises in their lives.”
He nodded agreement. “There are so many areas of conflict to contend with, especially during adolescence.”
“Children are far less secure these days than ever before. Marriages break up, and the fallout can be very damaging. Some children tend to blame a particular parent for the breakup of the marriage. Usually the mothers. Daddy’s gone and Mummy drove him away. This can lead to profound upset for the parent who has to bear the blame. Then again, I find a lot of the time that problems originate with the parents’ behavior. They have one another and kept the children at arm’s length. That can make change very difficult. Other parents persist in keeping up a front. They disguise, disown or actively lie about the part they play in these conflicts. Children are so helpless. They suffer loneliness, excessive stress and acute depression just as we do. I have a little ten-year-old patient at the moment, a girl called Ellie. I’m trying very hard to help. In fact, she’s been constantly on my mind while I’m here on holiday. Ellie has a good many behavioral problems that are getting her deeper and deeper into trouble both at home and school. In some ways she’s a contradiction. I’m prepared to back my initial impression she’s highly intelligent, yet she’s earned the reputation for not being very bright, even with her parents.”
“Good people?” he questioned, frowning slightly.
“Good, caring people at their wits’ end,” Cecile confirmed. “So far I haven’t been able to make a breakthrough, either, though it’s early days.”
“Then I wish you every success with young Ellie,” he said, sounding earnest. “Perhaps she’s grieving about something she can’t or won’t talk about? The innocent grieve. It is so very interesting, your choice of a profession. Surely you wouldn’t have known suffering or conflict in your privileged life? A princess, Joel Moreland’s granddaughter?”
She felt a moment of unease. “Is that your exact interest in me, Señor Montalvan? I’m Joel Moreland’s granddaughter? I have to tell you I’m long used to it, consequently forewarned. I saw how you were secretly studying me while I was standing on the balcony.”
“Perhaps I was only thinking how beautiful you were,” he answered, smoothly turning her into his arms again. “As serene as the swans that glide across your lake.”
She had little option but to continue dancing. “Somehow I don’t think that was it. The look wasn’t at all an admiring glance or even friendly.”
“What was it, then?” he asked, his wide shoulders blocking the light.
She wished she could see his expression more clearly. “Extremely disconcerting.”
“Perhaps that was only an illusion. I was simply admiring a woman exquisite in her beauty and outward appearance of serenity.”
She couldn’t fail to pick up on the outward. “You think something entirely different goes on inside me?”
“Would it be so strange if I did? I, too, am a student of psychology. No one could say it’s a simple life any more than we are simple beings. The inner person and the outer person can be significantly different.”
“Of course. It’s no easy thing to become a well-integrated adult. We all continue to harbor the fears and anxieties we had as children, but we’ve had to learn how to master them or seek help. I see young patients in terrible self-destructive rages because they’ve had to live through years of conflict and unhappiness. I see a great deal worse, physical and sexual abuse sometimes where one least suspects.”
“That must be extremely upsetting?”
“It is.” She drew a deep breath. “I’ve seen children sent back to the care of the very people who’ve abused them and I’ve been helpless! Some of it I’ll never get out of my mind. It’s ghastly stuff. That’s one of the reasons I needed this holiday with Granddad. It’s not easy what I do and I can’t always stand aloof. In childhood we all assemble the building blocks that go into making the adult.”
“So when the building blocks are in extremely short supply and the conflicts never resolve themselves, one is left scarred and without an inner haven to shelter.”
“Exactly.” It was obvious he was following her words closely. “The violent pattern most frequently repeats itself.”
He sighed, his breath warm and sweet. “It’s difficult to disassociate oneself from intense traumas in childhood. Didn’t William Faulkner once say something about the past not being over or even past?”
“I’m not going to disagree with the great man.”
“Me, neither. So you see we do have much to talk about, Cecile, if only our mutual interest in the development or the destruction of the human psyche. The great human values of love and honor coexist with hate and evil. Now, I must surrender you to your fiancé. He’s heading very purposefully in this direction. I don’t know that I would care to see my beautiful fiancée in another man’s arms, either.”
CHAPTER FOUR
STUART TOOK HIS LEAVE at noon the following day. Exactly one minute after Cecile drove her grandfather’s Bentley through the front gates of Morelands, the argument broke out just as she knew it would, when there was no one around to overhear.
“Damn it all, I wish you were coming back with me!” Stuart exclaimed, his handsome face marred by an angry expression.
“You don’t begrudge me my vacation, surely?” She winced. Even with her sunglasses on the sunlight was much too bright.
“I simply want you with me.”
“I know.” Stuart had been simmering ever since he’d joined her and Raul Montalvan the previous night, leaving her with the sensation she was caught in the eye of a storm. Even when they met up at breakfast, she’d sensed the continuation of his mood, but as a guest in her grandfather’s house he could scarcely vent feelings of outrage or jealousy. She was very much aware he’d had to make a huge effort in the final hours of the party. The celebrations had continued unabated until after two in the morning. When they’d left the mansion, the grounds were thronged with the staff of the firm that supplied the huge marquees and the tables and chairs, among other things.
Cecile tried to remain calm. Inside she knew she was approaching her own crisis point in life. It was a real struggle to hide it; harder yet to fight back.
“I just hate the idea of your being away from me,” Stuart said tersely, equally off balance.
“Goodness, it’s only a month!” She tried a soothing, sideways glance. “We’ll be speaking to each other every day.”
“Count on it.” He stared moodily out the window. “That bloody Raul made a hit with your grandfather.”
“That’s not very nice, is it, bloody Raul.”
“I know it isn’t, but I can’t help it. He’s too suave, too charming by half.”
“That’s his Latin blood,” she offered by way of explanation. “You’re not going to blame him for being charming?”
Stuart had the grace to look embarrassed. “I just wish he hadn’t turned up. He’s the sort of guy that stirs everything up.”
God help her, hadn’t Stuart put his finger right on it? “You are in an odd mood, Stuart. No sleep?”
“Not when you wouldn’t join me,” he said, sounding painfully rebuffed.
“Not with a house full of relatives, Stuart. I told you that wasn’t likely to happen.”
He gave an angry snort. “Sometimes I think you don’t give a damn if you sleep with me or not.”
Her heart was beating painfully fast. She hadn’t asked for any of this. It had just happened. Anyone could become madly infatuated. It was what one did about it that counted. “That’s not true, Stuart.” Even to her own ears her response didn’t sound terribly convincing, yet she enjoyed their lovemaking. Stuart was a considerate lover, able to give satisfaction and not lacking finesse. “Do we really have to ruin a beautiful day with all this? I promised to marry you, didn’t I?”
“But, Ceci—” Stuart twisted in the passenger seat to stare at her “—you won’t set the date. You’ve no idea how insecure that makes me feel. Hell, it’s like Justine says. We should be married and expecting our first child by now. You told me you loved children. I’m no longer sure.”
Normally slow to temper, she felt intensely irritated. “What an alliance you and my mother have formed! Both of you pushing me into marriage and motherhood like I was the wrong side of forty. I do love children, Stuart. I think my choice of a profession proves that. If you and my mother continue to hound me—” She broke off, breathing a sharp sigh of frustration.
“It’s not like that.” Stuart reached out to stroke her arm. “Darling, it’s not like that,” he said softly.
Nothing. She felt nothing. She was greatly shocked.
“We would never be guilty of that.” Stuart faced front again as though he thought it crucial he, too, mind the road. “Justine just wants the best for you, Cecile. You can be very difficult sometimes.”
That was grossly unfair. She shook her head weakly. “I thought I rarely gave trouble. In fact, I was the model child. Ask anyone. I always did exactly what was expected of me. I had to be top in everything, grades, sports, ballet, piano. I worked so hard to keep my mother proud of me. I was never under that kind of pressure from my father, thank God. I was always obedient and respectful. I’ve never played around. I’ve never touched drugs. My mother wants her idea of the best for me, Stuart. I’m not my mother. I love her, but I’m not like her. She means well, but she spends every day of her life making plans for me. She had to give up on Dad. I want her to stop. I’m twenty-six, but she continues to act as though one day I’ll screw up. Maybe she’s right. Now there’s a thought! My mother has always been too focused on me as her only child. I wish to God I’d had brothers and sisters. Anyone to take the heat off me. It won’t stop even after we’re married. Not with you encouraging her. Or is that going to stop when you’ve finally won the prize?”
Stuart’s whole face turned stony, an expression she rarely saw and decided she didn’t like. “I don’t deserve that, Ceci,” he said coldly. “Of course you’re a prize, but I’m genuinely fond of your mother. She’s a marvelous woman.”
“It’s a pity you didn’t meet someone like her,” Cecile shot back. “You have so much in common.”
Censure was in his voice. “You sound pretty darn resentful, do you know that? As a psychologist, you ought to know it. Justine and I do have a lot in common. We both love you. Look, I don’t want to argue, Ceci. I’m like a bear with a sore head today. I had way too much to drink last night and I’m no drinker, as you know. It’s just that I’m worried about leaving you here, especially with that bloody Argentinian hanging around. They fancy themselves as great lovers, you know.”
Cecile took a deep breath, trying to rein in her anger. “Well, he certainly gives the impression he might be. You don’t trust me, is that it? You were furious I was dancing with him. Your coldness to him made it pretty apparent. You didn’t get the opportunity to take it out on me, not with a party going on. You’re acting as though I can’t conduct myself in an appropriate manner if you’re not around, just like you’re bloody well braking now with your foot while I’m driving the car. Do you think I’m going to fling myself at a complete stranger like in some fruity melodrama?”
“You want the straight answer? Yes,” he said in a goaded voice. “There’s so much about you, Ceci, that’s beneath the surface. You act so cool and composed, but that could be your training. There was something between you, Ceci. You’re trying hard to deny it, but I’m not a complete fool. I’m your fiancé, the man you’re going to marry. Need I jog your memory? I have the right to question you.”
“Really? I might have to start questioning if you’re the right man for me. I hate people who go on about their rights, Stuart, unless it’s the right to life, liberty and freedom. So to hell with your right to interfere with my freedom.”
Stuart scowled. “You’re being childish, Ceci. It’s not like you to rebel. Maybe you were on too tight a leash as a child. My aim is to protect you. I’ve always trusted you in the past.”
“How sad, then, I’ve committed a very serious breach.”
“Ceci, you of all people appeared to be encouraging him.” He turned to her, his expression deadly serious.
She groaned. “You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”
“You think I want to speak like this?” His voice was a rasp. “I feel I have an obligation to point certain things out. I do respect your high moral standards, my darling. It’s Montalvan I don’t trust. You don’t have much vanity, but you’re a very beautiful woman. Who could blame him if he was attracted to you?”
“How the heck do you know he was?” she demanded, her anger fueled by feelings of guilt.
“Oh, he’s attracted all right!” Stuart declared with great conviction. “You could have been alone on an island. Forget there were three hundred bloody guests all around you.”
“You have to stop this, Stuart,” she said. “My head is starting to pound. Jealousy is a terrible thing. Lots of relationships can’t survive jealousy. So we were enjoying the dance. No big deal. I reserve the right to choose the men I wish to speak to or dance with without consulting you, fiancé or not!”
Observing the hectic flush in her cheeks, Stuart backed down. “Of course you can, Ceci. It was the way the guy was holding you, looking at you, that put me in a rage. He knows bloody well you’re my woman.”
She felt like stopping the car and jumping out. It would be so much easier than trying to push him out. “Don’t you love to get your tongue around the word my,” she fumed. “You’ve got a whole list starting with my career, my ambitions, my political aspirations, my new house, my new Beemer, my fiancée. I’m right down the list.” She realized in her agitation she was over the speed limit and quickly slowed. “Raul Montalvan is a beautiful, natural dancer. Why not? Argentina is the home of the tango after all.”
“Ahhh, Ceci,” he groaned, “You’re making quite an effort to put me off the scent, but there was a little more to it than that. Even Sasha noticed.”
“Sasha?” Cecile gave an incredulous laugh. “The two of you were spying on me?”
“Of course not.” Stuart spoke in an aggrieved tone. “It was only by chance she spotted you.”
“I bet!” She swung her head toward him. “Sasha always was a troublemaker.”
“Actually she’s very fond of you. She wouldn’t want to see you put a foot wrong any more than I would. Women are very sharp. You catch on to things we men don’t. But the way the two of you moved together it would have crossed anyone’s mind, even trusting ol’ me. There was just some aura for all to see.”
“Could it have been an alcoholic haze?” she asked with some sarcasm. She was rebelling against the accusations, even as she knew she was in denial. “Sasha was sloshed. I could equally well point out you had no objection to Sasha’s clinging on to your arm.”
Stuart grimaced. “She doesn’t mean a thing to me and you know it. I bet you weren’t a bit jealous of Sasha even though she’s a damned sexy girl. Doesn’t that tell you something about our relationship?”
“I’ve learned to trust you, perhaps?” Cecile maneuvered the big car into the busy right lane so she could take the freeway turnoff.
“You can trust me. I don’t want anyone else but you, Ceci. And I have some ethics, if that bloody Argentinian doesn’t. Who is he, anyway? He appears out of nowhere and makes a beeline for you.”
She felt like she wanted to sleep for hours. Shut it all out. “One dance!” she said sharply. “You call that making a beeline?”
Stuart sat straighter, rubbing his trousered knees. “Steady on.”
