Beloved Tyrant Read online

  “Leoni seems to need to be in the charge of an older, more experienced person than I,” Lyn replied.

  “Well, the others were older and none of them managed the kid all that well,” Rosa argued. “Julio likes her to be out in the open rather than shut in a schoolroom, and you are young - you might get somewhere with her.”

  “Have you worked as a governess before, Miss Gilmour?” The question came from the hard, scarlet lips of Dona Estella.

  “No,” Lyn admitted, “but my work as an airline stewardess involved now and again the care of children. They seem to like me.”

  “It is merely necessary for a teaching companion to be efficient. She has no need to be ... likeable.” The sloe-dark eyes slid over Lyn’s face, and then across the table to Rick, who was now cracking nuts in the palms of his hands.

  “Catch!” He tossed a peeled nut across the table to his sister, who caught it with a hand that was rather badly scratched.

  “Your hands will soon resemble a cowhand’s if you continue to ride those half-broken colts of Julio’s,” her aunt remarked sharply.

  “I wish I had been a boy - a man!” Rosa retorted.

  Rick shot her a keen look. “What’s so interesting about being a man?” he demanded. “We liberated you women and let you run all over our feelings years ago.”

  “You men still have a freedom of body and spirit which is denied to all women who aren’t total tramps. Added to which, Rick, you have in particular an arrogant freedom of the soul. As much as you love Monterey, it can’t hold you because your roots are in your work. You don’t put them down in a woman or in a place. Women seem condemned to put down theirs in a man and a home, and it seems unfair of nature to have imposed on us this yearning to be tied. It’s this we’re crying out against. Freedom from our own impulse to be enslaved!”

  “Civilizations have been built on that impulse,” he drawled. “A man puts down his roots in his work so he can provide for the woman he wants and so give her the home in which she can put down her roots. It’s a circle, Rosa, because all life revolves in a circle. Encircling arms are the gateway to love, or warmth, or protection. A woman takes a ring from a man when she marries him, the symbol of the act of love as he slips, that ring on to her finger.” He pulled at his earlobe and looked impudent. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Most arrogantly so,” Rosa threw a carnation and hit him in the mouth with it. He caught the flower as it fell against his tuxedo and mockingly inhaled its perfume. It was obvious to Lyn that these two fought together, but she also sensed a bond, a deep affection that made them enjoy their battles.

  “The woman who gets landed with you is in for a life,” said Rosa. “You’ll never let her forget that she’s the loving slave and you the transcending male!”

  “Not until the day we both die,” he agreed, the lazy note gone from his voice and a sudden ring of steel in it. He rose to his feet as Dona Estella left the table, his hair catching a raven glint from the chandelier overhead. His glance dwelt upon Lyn. “It has stopped raining, Miss Gilmour. Would you care to come and see your first Monterey moon?”

  She hesitated, her gaze upon the arrogant stretch of his shoulders. “I shan’t eat you,” he drawled, and with a faint flush in her cheeks Lyn rose from her chair and let him come to her side. They left the dining-room and crossed the hall to an archway. They stepped out upon the damp tiles of the courtyard.

  The air was surprisingly warm after the rain, and filled with the scent of roses and the fragrance of sage, wild nicotine and oranges on the bough. The hacienda lay opal-white under the moonlight, and they had strolled to the rim of the tinkling fountain before Rick spoke. Standing tall and dark beside Lyn, his pagan face lifted to the moon, as if in worship of that most eternal of goddesses, he said, in a deliberate voice: “You have made the right decision - the Hacienda Rosa is no place for you.”

  Lyn’s glance lifted from the fountain to his face, and she felt again the force of him like a blow against David’s crushed and silent strength which she had loved and longed for. She wanted, suddenly, to defy this man and his dictatorial way of treating her. “How inconsistent you are, senor. You could have taken me to the station hours ago and got rid of me.”

  “That mountain road is hazardous in the rain.” He spoke crisply, his lighter flaring upon a cigar, the thin, dark, potent sort.

  Lyn remembered how the Mercedes had skidded on the edge of the ravine, the fear which had almost driven her to cry out David’s name. She realized that her fear had communicated itself to this man, hard and nerveless himself, and now he thought her a spineless ninny. Lyn burned at the thought. She wanted to deny his silent accusation; to say to him: “I had courage once, but seven weeks ago I went to hell and the journey back to life has left me like this. Shaky and unsure, and sad at heart.”

  A gauzy moth brushed against her cheek, and as her gaze roved the gracious contours of the hacienda she felt for the first time a reluctance to leave.

  “I came a long way to take up this job,” she said. “It isn’t very encouraging to be told I’m ineffectual and ought to leave.” She stood beside the damp basin of the fountain, slender in the moonlight, her mouth showing faintly wounded against the paleness of her skin. “Your sister could be right - it may be better for Leoni that I am younger than the other companions who failed with her. She’s only seven and I’d be a poor fool to be afraid of a mere child.”

  “She is not the only occupant of the hacienda.” The aroma of his cigar mingled with the other fragrances and increased their potency.

  “Of course she isn’t, but she will be the one I shall be mostly in contact with. If I stayed I should try hard not to get in your way, senor.”

  His eyes flashed to meet hers and the moonlight made them glint like steel. “Is the hacienda getting under your skin?”

  “Perhaps,” she admitted. “It has a certain beauty, and contrary to what you think I am not the quitting sort.”

  “Quien sabe!” he drawled. “But you may find that when you leap into a well, Providence is not bound to fetch you out.”

  “Meaning?” She drew herself up very straight and dared his eyes that were so daring.

  “That we are a deep family, Miss Gilmour. To step into our house is to step into our lives. We are not reserved like the English ... we display our tempers and our passions ... so beware.”

  “I shall indeed beware, senor.” And looking at him she knew that she meant him in particular, and she wondered how much like him his stepbrother was. “I think I will go in now. Goodnight, Senor Corderas.”

  “Buena sera, chiquita.” He gave her a formal but faintly mocking bow, and as she hastened towards the hacienda, a breeze wafted down from the mountains and blew cool against her skin. The archway towered over her as she entered, and she looked a slight and rather lonely figure, outlined a moment in her dark dress against the white stone.

  Bright morning sunshine was beaming into Lyn’s bedroom when she awoke. She stirred, yawned, and when she rolled over in the big carved bed she discovered Leoni sitting on the end of it, her dark hair in an uncombed mop about her face and a large tortoise perched placidly in her lap.

  “Are you leaving today?” The child gazed at Lyn with hostile eyes.

  Lyn pushed away the heavy lace bedspread and sat up, wondering just how long this strange child had been sitting on her bed, waiting to ask that question. “Do you want me to leave, Leoni?” Lyn studied her, aware of an impulse to stroke the vibrant hair out of her eyes; such unhappy eyes for someone so young.

  “I don’t like you.” Leoni thrust out her bottom lip and looked sullen. “I’m going to tell my poppa so.”

  “But you hardly know me, Leoni.” Lyn felt a little hurt. “You’re being rather unkind, you know, judging me without giving me a trial. Tell me what I’ve done to make you dislike me?”

  “I don’t like governesses.” Leoni stroked the vividly marked shell of her pet. “As a matter of fact I don’t like anyone.”


  “Not even that beautiful tortoise?” Lyn asked.

  “Ferdy’s not a person. Uncle Rick brought him from Mexico for me.” Leoni slid off the bed and holding her pet on her shoulder she wandered to the dressing-table, where she fingered Lyn’s toilet articles, the froth of chiffon in which a powder-puff nested, the bee-shaped stopper of a cream jar, then the tiny bunch of artificial cherries which Lyn had worn yesterday on the lapel of her coat.

  Leoni swung round from the dressing-table with the little cherry brooch agleam in her fingers. “Can I have this?” she asked.

  “No!” Lyn scrambled out of bed. “Not that brooch, Leoni! I’ll give you another one—”

  “I want this one!” Leoni darted to the partly open door and clasping her tortoise and Lyn’s brooch she slid out like a greased eel and went dashing away along the gallery, with Lyn racing after her, forgetful of her pyjamas and bare feet.

  “Leoni, please!” Lyn called out. “I’ll give you a much prettier brooch than that one—” There her words petered out and confusion seized her, for she had reached the bend of the stairs just in time to come face to face with Rick Corderas. Spurs jingled at his booted heels and the strains of Cielito Lindo were on his lips. The song ended on a note not included in the original score as his blue eyes settled on Lyn in her flimsy night attire.

  “Are you taking your morning run round the house?” he asked impudently. “Now if I had known you were this energetic I should have invited you to join me in a gallop.”

  Lyn’s cheeks had taken on the hue of the cherries his niece had danced off with. She backed away from him, clutching together the lapels of her pyjama coat. “Leoni ran off with a - a trinket I rather value. I dashed out of my room in pursuit—”

  “Regardless of the proprieties, eh?” Amusement glinted in his eyes as he lounged against the iron balustrade of the stairs, lazily swinging his riding whip against a booted leg. “It’s a shiny trinket, I take it? The little baggage has a magpie love of anything that shines.”

  “I’d let her keep it, but it was a present—”

  “And it therefore has a sentimental value.” He studied the confusion mixed with something else in her eyes - pain - and suddenly his whip curled about his glossy boot with a rather vicious snap. “I’ll see that your trinket is returned to you, Miss Gilmour. If you were to let Leoni keep it, she would have it for a day and then lose or break it.”

  “Thank you.” Lyn turned and hastened back to her room, where she closed the door with a feeling of relief to be out of range of those blue and piercing eyes; that flagrant maleness with the tang of the sage-covered hills on his skin and his riding clothes.

  That same scent was streaming into Lyn’s room along with the sunshine, and after she had bathed and dressed (it was marvellous to have her own adjoining bathroom) she went out on the veranda that overlooked the patio. Scarves of golden mist were floating about the mountain peaks and the air was intoxicating. Down below in the patio the tiles blinked with bright colour and big brown bees were raiding the roses, the tumbling wisteria and deep crimson oleanders. At a small ironwork table beside the fountain Rosa Corderas was taking breakfast alone. She was reading a newspaper and feeding titbits off her plate to that large dog which had been prowling the gallery last night.

  All at once she seemed to sense that she was being overlooked and she glanced up. “Hi there!” She broke into a smile when she saw Lyn. “Come on down and eat breakfast with me.” Breakfast by that cool fountain was infinitely inviting, and Lyn made her way down the veranda staircase. “Good morning, Miss Corderas,” she smiled. “Isn’t the sun gorgeously warm?”

  Rosa smiled and ran her gaze over the glossiness of Lyn’s chestnut hair in the drenching sunlight. “Take a seat, and don’t mind Rags,” she added, as the big dog rose to his feet and took stock of the stranger. Rosa poured out coffee for Lyn. “There are various goodies under those covers, so help yourself and eat hearty.”

  “I must admit I’m feeling hungry. It must be your wonderful Monterey air.” Lyn helped herself to mushrooms, bacon and buttered toast. The dog, with an eager eye on a few more titbits, came and wagged his huge tail against Lyn’s legs and was rewarded with a piece of mushroom.

  “What sort of a night did you have?” Rosa asked, folding her newspaper and lighting a cigarette. “I always think that the first night in a strange house makes one restless.”

  “I slept amazingly well,” said Lyn, “though I did find the bed rather intimidating when I first climbed into it. I’ve never slept in a Spanish fourposter before.”

  Rosa smiled. “Julio, I suspect, likes to imagine that Queen Isabella might have slept in one of the fourposters at some time or other. A good deal of our furniture was brought from Spain by sea a couple of hundred years ago. We are, you could say, a deep-rooted Monterey family by now.”

  “Those old pioneering days must have been enormously exciting,” said Lyn as she spread honey on a home-baked bread roll. “There must have been a thrill to breaking new ground, facing unknown hazards.”

  “It’s debatable whether the women thrilled to that part of it,” Rosa drawled. “But as my throwback of a brother remarked last night, it’s in the nature of women to like being dragged along by the hair. Wasn’t it superbly typical of Eve to bite the apple first, just in case it tasted sour and put Adam’s manly teeth on edge!”

  Lyn had to laugh at Rosa’s remark, though she saw the little twist of bitterness on her attractive wide mouth.

  Then, eyes narrowed against the smoke of her cigarette, Rosa said quietly: “Have you ever been in love?”

  All the colour receded from Lyn’s cheeks, and Rosa stared at her sudden pallor. “My dear girl, have I put my clumsy foot in it?”

  “I - it’s all right.” Lyn pulled herself together. “May I help myself to some more coffee?”

  “Of course!” Rosa watched as Lyn filled her cup and added cream. “Don’t tell me a guy ever hurt someone as pretty as you, Lyn?”

  “David died.” Lyn braced herself to speak of it. “I asked Sister Todd not to mention him when she wrote to your brother about employing me. He was the pilot of the plane in which I was injured.”

  Rosa gazed across the ironwork table at Lyn, whose slender body had been so recently hurt, and whose heart had been broken. The look in Lyn’s brown eyes was unbearably lost and lonely in that moment. “David was so terribly nice - a - and life seems so empty without him. By now we should have been married.”

  “What now, honey?” Rosa murmured.

  “Work ... probably this job here for a while, if your other brother approves of me. Then back to the airline, when I’m perfectly fit again.”

  “You aren’t nervous about going back?”

  “I don’t think so. It’s what I’m used to, and I .shall feel closer to David.” Lyn glanced at the blue sky. “They die young, whom the gods love.”

  “And the wicked flourish.” Rosa stubbed the end of her cigarette. “I must say that kid Leoni has the devil in her. She’s as full of tricks as a monkey and poor Concetta just can’t cope with her. Julio’s attitude doesn’t help. One moment he’s petting the kid, and the next he’s brushing her to one side, letting her see that she isn’t the son he would really like. The baby Concetta lost was a boy, which makes the situation even worse, and he’s been warned that a third attempt to sire a son and heir will cost Concetta her life. She’s sweet, but a trifle ineffectual. She and Julio between them have made rather a mess of bringing up Leoni.”

  “Your brother Rick thinks the child should be sent to the village school,” Lyn remarked.

  “Why not? Roughing it there would do her the world of good, but Aunt Estella will keep harping on Julio’s wealth and the possibility of Leoni being kidnapped for ransom.” Rosa broke into a short laugh. “Whoever kidnapped that little angel would soon be glad to let her go!”

  “I had no idea that Julio Corderas was quite so rich,” said Lyn.

  “He runs one of the best beef herds in this part of t
he country, and he also owns a frozen meat business. My two brothers are the brilliant ones - I’m the Cinderella. Rick paints like an angel - the one they tossed out of heaven!”

  Lyn thought of the unholy attraction of Rick Corderas, and thought Rosa’s description of him an apt one.

  “Are you going to stay with us, after all?” Rosa asked.

  “I - think so.”

  “You’re no quitter, anyone can see that, and I’m glad you’d like to give the job a try.”

  Lyn absently stroked Rags’ big shaggy head. Julio Corderas might yet agree with his aunt that she was too young and inexperienced for the job, and she still couldn’t forget what Rick had said to her last night, almost on this exact spot. He had near enough said to her: “Go away, Lyn Gilmour. You aren’t tough enough to cope with Corderas passions.”

  “Rick’s against your staying, isn’t he?” Rosa said.

  “Yes.” A spark of rebellion kindled in Lyn’s eyes. “I believe he thinks me a bit of a ninny. From the moment he saw me at the station he made up his mind that I’d be hopeless at handling Leoni. Your aunt reacted in the same way - perhaps I wouldn’t be able to cope with the child.”

  “She is an enfant terrible,” Rosa admitted. “In her mind governesses represent gaolers who are hired by her parents to keep her from bothering them. In a strange sort of way the kid is right.”

  Then Rosa jumped to her feet and brushed crumbs from her black toreador pants. With them she wore a silk matador’s shirt whose narrow red tie was matched by her slippers. The outfit suited her, intensifying her look of Old Spain ... that look which her brother Rick had in such startling abundance. “Come on, Lyn,” she said. “We’ll get the mother on your side before either Rick or Aunt Estella has a chance to spoke your wheels.” They crossed the sun-hot tiles to one of the fretted archways, and Rags ambled along beside them. The hall was cool, scented by syringa in big stone pots, and as they mounted the stairs to the gallery Lyn was reminded of her encounter with Rick earlier that morning. She wondered if he had recovered her brooch from Leoni ... the quaint trinket which to her was worth far more than a diamond-studded clip. Those little red cherries, strung on silver, were studded with memories.