Pilgrim's Castle Read online

  The chauffeur paused in front of carved double doors and tapped upon one of the panels. He then took hold of the bronze handles and opened the doors and left Yvain to enter the room on her own.

  Yvain stood just inside the doorway of the sala, trying to get her bearings, and aware of panelled ceiling murals lustrous as old jewels, gold-framed Spanish paintings against panelled walls, antique furniture, and silky rugs that echoed the colours in a mosaic picture of the Virgin and Child.

  She took a step forward and at once the tall double doors were closed behind her and her eyes dilated as they settled on the tall figure who stood looking at her from one of the great arched windows. He was smoking a thin dark cigar with deliberate movements of his hand and she had an impression of aquiline features and cold brilliant eyes under brows intensely dark. His high cheekbones lent a satanic look to his face, and his dominant nose was matched by an imperious mouth. He stood unmoving against the stained-glass window, wrapped in silence and the incense of his cigar. A blade of ruby light played over thick black hair slashed with silver.

  He was a grandee of Spain - imperious, aloof, sombre, dressed with an immaculate exactness that made Yvain desperately aware of her own odd garments, and the alpargatas tied on with cord around her ankles.

  The senor appraised her in silence, from head to toe. Her fingers curled nervously against the sides of her lop-legged jeans. She felt dazed by the grandeur of the man and his surroundings. She had not the nerve at this moment to tear open the door and run from the deep-set eyes and the chiselled mouth that looked as if it rarely smiled.

  'You are the girl whom Emerito fished out of the ocean?'

  'Yes.' Her heart was gripped by the alarm he aroused in her; she had known before he spoke that his voice would be deep and magnetic, but she had not known that he would speak English so perfectly and with the added edge of his Spanish accent. It was the voice of a dark sorcerer, compelling as his gaze.

  'How are you called?'

  'My ... my name is Yvain Pilgrim, senor.'

  'Be seated.' He gestured at a high-backed velvet chair. 'We

  will talk.'

  She felt defenceless and was glad to sit down before her legs let her down. She was trembling. Never in her life before had she felt quite like this ... this was surely fright at first sight!

  He moved from the window that soared so high, and now she saw that he walked with the aid of a black stick and that his left leg seemed to have something amiss with it. When he reached the fireplace, over which his family crest was emblazoned, he gave her a slight bow. 'I am Don Juan de Conques y Aranda, Marques de Leon,' he said in that deep, spell-binding voice.

  The impressive name made Yvain feel faint. So he was the Lion of the island ... feudal lord who ruled from his castle, and whose word was probably a law unto itself.

  'We have a saying, Senorita Pilgrim. A Spaniard might wound you, but he will not immediately skin your hide. Stop looking so nervous of me!'

  At once she was made even more nervous, for now he was closer to her and his almost black eyes were fixed upon her face, with its sensitive mouth untouched by any man's. The tapering cheekbones, the pointed chin, the tiny mole on her temple just above her wide-set eyes. 'Still waters run dangerous!' It had been a favourite saying of Ida Sandell's. And she had insisted that Yvain's hair be unbecomingly rolled up, and had further insisted that she wear the plain-rimmed spectacles prescribed for the slight difficulty Yvain had in seeing distant objects.

  She had no difficulty in seeing Don Juan.

  'Don't you like the look of my house, senorita? Many people find it beautiful with its sea tower, its almond groves, and its fountain courts.'

  'Your house is a castle, senor.'

  My house is a castle,' he agreed sardonically. 'Have you never been inside one before?'

  'No, senor.' She tilted her chin. 'What would a maid-companion be doing in a castle?'

  'What indeed?' He fingered the roses in a golden bowl on the marble fireplace. Their scent mingled with that of his cigar.

  'How many years have you, Senorita Pilgrim?' She sat stunned, for it was not a question a man of her own nationality asked outright like that. He frowned and she realized that when the Marques de Leon asked you a question, no matter how personal, you answered him without hesitation.

  'I am nineteen, senor.'

  'I thought you younger.' His eyes scanned her thin young figure, made waif-like by the clothes Emerito had provided. He drew away from the mantelpiece and limped to an exquisite little table on which stood a dish of grapes like drops of gold. He picked up the dish and handed it to Yvain. 'At the moment you look too young for wine.' A brief and faintly shattering smile touched his lips. 'Come, try them. They are from the vines of the Castillo.'

  The grapes were delicious, but Yvain felt shy of the dark eyes upon her as she ate three or four.

  'Did Emerito feed you?' he asked, and now he stood in front of the mosaic picture of the Virgin and Child and he seemed to lean rather heavily on his stick. It struck Yvain that his leg pained him. His beautiful mouth seemed shadowed by pain, a hint of bitterness, something that made him a little less remote.

  'His wife cooked breakfast for me, senor. I . . . I should have died but for Emerito.'

  'Quite.' He studied her through his cigar smoke. 'It was the thing unbelievable, eh? A nightmare for you. Don't think about it any more. You are now safe — '

  'All those people ... crying out as the ship went down!'

  'I expect many of them have survived, like yourself.'

  'I was travelling with my employer, a Mrs. Sandell. I wonder — '

  'If she is also safe?'

  'Yes.' Yvain's eyes were wide with distress. She had never felt much affection for her employer, but she knew how it felt to be adrift in the dark ocean, with a numbness creeping to your heart.

  'I shall see that inquiries are made.' His eyes narrowed as they dwelt on Yvain. 'You wish to return to her, if she has been

  picked up?'

  'No!' The word escaped before Yvain could stop it. 'But I suppose I must ... I have nothing, no clothes, no money.'

  'Would you prefer to stay here?'

  For a stunned moment Yvain couldn't believe that she had heard him correctly, and then like the reverberation from a bombshell it shook her that she had heard him all too plainly. She stared at him, at a loss to understand the invitation. He was a marques and she was a plain and bedraggled maid-companion ... was he, perhaps, offering her a job as a maid at the castle?

  'You ... you wish to employ me, senor?' she asked faintly.

  'My servants are all men except for my housekeeper.' Again that brief smile flickered on his lips. 'No, senorita, I am inviting you to stay here for a while.'

  'But-'

  'But what?' He raised a black eyebrow. 'You appear none too eager to return to your former employment. Would you not prefer to stay here at the Castillo?'

  'In ... what capacity?' She felt tortured, but she had to ask.

  'As my guest, Senorita Pilgrim.' His eyes held mockery. 'Did you imagine that you had aroused my passions?'

  She blushed to the roots of her hair, and felt his eyes following the course of that blush from her ear tips to the seatangled hair above her eyes.

  'I assure you I don't exercise my droit de seigneur over every female who sets foot on the island,' he said sardonically. 'To me you are but a waif on my hands. You will stay here! I have made up my mind!'

  Yvain sat speechless in the tall velvet chair, her hands holding the dish of golden grapes as if they were an offering. What of his family? Surely they would not be pleased to have a waif landed on them for a guest?

  'What now is the objection?' He leaned on his stick and studied her as if she were an odd little object, out of place in this beautiful room but with something about her that interested

  him.

  'What will your family say?' she asked nervously.

  'I have no family.' Suddenly his face was harsh, as if unwitt
ingly she had probed a wound he kept hidden beneath his armour. 'I am unmarried and childless, senorita. There are cats about the castillo and an Alsatian wolfhound, but as you see,' he tapped his left foot with his stick, 'like Lucifer I limp.'

  A coldness ran over Yvain. Lucifer the fallen angel, heaven denied to him because of having too much pride. Yes, she had thought from the moment of their meeting that there was something satanic about this man!

  'You mean to be responsible for me?' she asked nervously.

  'It will be a novelty.' He rang a silver bell to summon a member of his household. 'I realize that the English don't like to be under obligation to anyone, but the Isla del Leon is quite a long way from the mainland and you must accept my hospitality whether you want to or not.'

  'I ... think you kind to offer it, senor.'

  'Kind?' His chiselled mouth scorned the word. 'I am practical and I am a Spaniard. My house is yours!'

  Her glance stole round the sala, taking in the dark rich colours, glimmering rugs and golden rose bowl. She felt like the beggar-maid with King Cophetua!

  'Everything necessary will be arranged with the comisaria on the mainland,' he said, and then he turned to the doors as they opened and a woman entered. She had a severe face and wore unrelieved black, and the Marques spoke rapidly to her in his chiselled Spanish. Yvain felt the woman's, glance upon her and she met a pair of eyes that appraised her without warmth.

  'Si, Don Juan.' The woman curtsied and withdrew from the room.

  'My housekeeper has been told to prepare a room for you. Her name is Alma and you will find her quite helpful.'

  Yvain looked at him in a lost way. He had taken charge of her as if she were a bedraggled kitten found on his doorstep, but there was not a glimmer of warmth in his manner. 'Thank you,' she murmured, and this time she didn't add that he was kind. She had the feeling that he wasn't moved to kindness by a plain little nobody like herself. He was curious about her and he invited her to stay here so he could study her reaction to his castle. She wished she dared oppose him, but reaction from her ordeal of last-night was taking its toll of her and her eyes and limbs felt heavy and weary.

  'From your bedroom you will have a view of the sea,' he said. 'O mar e lindo.'

  She winced to hear the sea called beautiful. She could not forget being adrift in its darkness, like flotsam. She could not forget her fear and loneliness.

  'Do you understand our language?' Don Juan's eyes were fixed upon her and she knew they were reading her thoughts.

  'A phrase here and there,' she said.

  'Before you leave the Isla de Leon I daresay you will understand a lot more. And I, who knows? I may enjoy my guardianship.'

  Devil guardian! The thought struck sharply and it brought Yvain to her feet. She clutched the dish of grapes and was reflected in her incongruous garments in a gold-framed mirror on the wall. She stared at herself, and then suddenly she began to laugh. The held-down hysteria welled up in her and she couldn't stop laughing, and even as she laughed the tears ran down her face. Through her tears the Marques loomed over her, dark and forbidding, and then she cried out as he raised his hand and slapped her deliberately across the face.

  'OhI' A shudder ran all through her and her cheek stung. She stood like a child, tearful and slapped, and she hated the Marques de Leon with all her young and lonely heart.

  'We will have no more hysteria,' he said quietly. 'You will learn from this moment to have dignity, do you understand?'

  'Why?' Tears spilled silently from her wide eyes. 'I ... I told you I was only a maid to a s-spoiled and s-selfish woman.'

  'You were a maid.' He caught at her chin and lifted her tear-wet face so he could study it, mercilessly. 'Yvain, you have an

  unusual name. You will live up to it.'

  The fingers that gripped her chin were those that had stung her. He was cruel, beyond her understanding, and before he handed her over to his housekeeper he drew a handkerchief from his pocket and told her to wipe her foolish eyes. 'You will forget the sinking ship, understand? You will go and rest and tomorrow you will feel better.'

  She wiped her eyes and felt utterly miserable. How nice to be one of those who in a crisis had someone with warm arms to hold one. How long ago it seemed since she had known what it was to be loved.

  In silence she handed back the handkerchief, which he thrust into the pocket of his black velvet jacket. On his left hand he wore a heavy gold ring set with a single ruby. The gem gleamed against the black. Satanic colours, well suited to a man such as Don Juan de Conques y Aranda, Marques de Leon.

  Yvain followed the housekeeper up a twisting staircase to her room, and she knew from the curving walls and windows that she had been put into a turret of the castle.

  The housekeeper opened an adjoining door and there was a bath tiled all over its exterior with gold and green azulejos.

  'The salon de aguas,' said the housekeeper in her severe voice, and she showed Yvain which was the hot and which the cold tap, and opened a closet in which hung huge Turkish towels. A drawer beneath held soap, crystals and a sponge. Over in a corner stood a porcelain lavatory, and Yvain realized that she had complete privacy here in this turret suite.

  She offered the housekeeper a smile, but the woman's features did not relax in return. Instead she flicked a look over Yvain's apparel, and Yvain remembered the snobbery of the servants at Sandell Hall.

  'I ... I think I shall take a bath,' she said.

  The woman nodded and evidently understood her English. 'The senorita will find a robe and a nightgown on the bed. 'The Senor Marques gave orders, that clothes be

  brought from the town for the senorita.'

  'There is a town?' Yvain exclaimed.

  'But of course.' Alma raised her eyebrows. 'The castillo is isolated here by the sea, but six miles away there are shops, a hotel, and a theatre. There are large houses at Puerto de Leon. Friends of Don Juan have their residences there.'

  Oh, what a relief to know that she wasn't entirely cut off from civilization! Yvain held a big bar of pine-oil soap to her nose and sniffed the delicious scent. A bath, and a sleep in that big bed in the other room, and she would feel more like her old self.

  'Would the senorita like some refreshment?'

  'Would it ... oh, would it be possible for me to have a cup of tea?'

  'If the senorita wishes.' Again Yvain was treated to that faintly scornful look. 'We are not savages on this island. For many years a de Leon has been in charge of affairs here, and men such as the Senor Marques are forward-looking.'

  'He looks,' Yvain had to say it, 'as if he likes his own way.'

  The housekeeper inclined her head with its smoothly coiled braids. 'A Spaniard is master in his own house, and Don Juan more than most. His family title and deeds are recorded in the history books of Spain, senorita.'

  Yvain didn't doubt this statement for one second. The feudal history of the family was written on the man's face; was deep in his blood and bones. He could be generous, but she had already discovered that he could also be cruel.

  'The island must be very beautiful,' she said, half desperately.

  'The senorita will see for herself — come.' The housekeeper beckoned her to one of the windows, a casement which she opened outwards. At once Yvain could hear the sound of the sea, like the wind through the boughs of tall trees, sighing and restless; whispering a secret enticement.

  'Lean out,' murmured Alma. 'Take a look'

  Yvain did as she was told and saw far below her the jade-blue sea and the turret-like rocks that it continually caressed, washing around them in foamy swirls. Yvain's hair blew in the salty air that careened about the turret in which her room was situated. She felt like Rapunzel, held captive here by the dark sorcerer who was the master of the castle.

  'The sea whispers.' The voice of the housekeeper was close to Yvain's ear. 'At night you will hear it and it will seem to belong to something human. You see, senorita, long ago a Leon bride was killed off those rocks.'
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br />   Yvain caught her breath and drew away from the window. She met the woman's dark eyes and saw their total lack of welcome; their intent to unnerve her.

  'She was young, like yourself. She was from a foreign land, like yourself, and fond of taking for a walk along the cliffs of the castle a large wolfhound, such as the family have always liked to keep here. The dog pulled her by his lead to the edge of the cliffs, senorita, and they both went over.'

  With these words the housekeeper walked to the door and opened it. 'When the senorita has bathed, I will fetch a pot of tea.'

  The door closed behind her black-clad figure, and Yvain gave a cold little shiver as the sound of the sea and the wind entered through the casement, tangy with salt, sand and flowers. Haunted by a voice long silenced by the rocks and the waves.

  For the first time she took a real look around her room and saw that it was quite beautiful, like a room fashioned for someone who had come and gone ... or a woman who had never appeared to claim it. The bed was impossibly grand and covered by a lovely spread of lace, each petal and leaf perfectly detailed. The fine linen sheets were monogrammed, and a silver reading-lamp stood on the bedside table, carved from a brown-gold wood like the rest of the furniture. There were small silk-tapestry chairs and a matching lounger, and a deep carpet as azure as the sea, spreading from wall to panelled wall of rosewood.

  Yvain could not help but compare it with her room at Sandell Hall, set beneath the eaves and furnished with cast-offs from grander rooms.

  She heard, as in a dream, the pealing of nearby chapel bells mingling with the voice of the sea.

  'There is a crossroads in your palm.' So had said the old Romany at the fair on the heath at Combe St. Blaize a week before she had left with Ida Sandell on the cruise which had ended so disastrously. She had wandered on alone through the fair, listening to the joyous laughter of other girls with their escorts, and in her heart she had hoped that the gipsy might say she was to meet her destiny on board the ship, in the shape of a tall, dark stranger. . . .

  Yvain held her breath as she thought of the tall, dark, unsmiling stranger who had offered her a home for a while. He was not the young and charming man of her dreams ... with his cold and finely sculptured face, his eyes that brooded and his leg that dragged, he frightened her.