Devil's Darling Read online

  She could feel the tremor in her hands as she took the brooch from the Aztec box, and Don Diablo must have seen that tremor, for quite without hesitation he took the brooch from her fingers and proceeded to attach it to the lace of her dress, just where he had indicated, just above where her heart beat as the living wings of a dragonfly would flutter when it settled on a jungle blossom. Persepha almost held her breath as the Don stood so close to her, his face so serious and intent as he pinned the brooch, his fingers warm against her body. She fought not to be aware of his touch and the memories evoked by the feel of him, and the aroma of him.

  She stood very still while the nerves plunged about in her body, and when the brooch was pinned she ran the tip of her tongue around her dry lips. He would expect her to thank him ... but instead he ran his fingers in a light caress down her cheek, and he said, quizzically: ‘A small token for being beautiful in my arms, if not willing. As the dragonfly is perfect in all its parts, so are you, little wife. As the dragonfly makes a trembling magic as it flickers through the air, so do you make a magic that flickers through my blood. I wanted you, querida, from the moment I saw you at Stonehill, and I have you, have I not?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, almost in a whisper. ‘For now, Don Diablo.’

  ‘For as long as I decree,’ he said, the arrogance back in his voice. ‘And now we will go downstairs, where I wish to introduce you to the more important people who hold positions on the estate. They will be charmed by you, Persepha. You have beauty and dignity when you are not fighting me tooth and claw.’

  She walked with him down the curving marble and wrought-iron staircase, and remembered her terror of that afternoon, when he had stormed up those stairs with her in his arms, like some black-haired barbarian who had just snatched for himself a girl to love. Her fingers clenched the iron rail, wrought into lacy patterns, for she had to hold on to something or go toppling headlong down those fateful stairs, to the foot of them where in the graciously tiled and arcaded hall stood a crowd of Mexi can people.

  It was utterly feudal ... completely unrelated to the world she had known all her life. At Stonehill there had been but a handful of servants, but here at the Hacienda Ruy there were entire families living under the Don’s jur isdiction, some with the same blood as he running in their veins.

  He was their hidalgo; their employer and their god father. He was all things to them ... but to Persepha he was the husband whom she feared.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE hacienda seemed so high and solitary, so cut off from the kind of civilization to which Persepha was accustomed, that when after breakfast one morning the Don suggested that she take a drive into the town with him she looked astonished. They had risen from the table out on the patio, beyond which rose the bell-tower of the hacienda chapel, a blending of grace and austerity that was so Latin, mixing a love of beauty with a sort of wildness and melancholy. The humming of bees and the tree-shrouded songs of the birds seemed to add to that indefinable air of mystery and passion. Never was there a sunlight so golden, nor shadows quite so black.

  Orange flower petals, waxen and lovely, lay scattered on the tiles of the patio. The warmth brought out the tang of the green camphor trees, and there were blue passion-flowers starring the archway where Persepha paused to glance at her husband, her eyes a deep golden-brown as they dwelt on his face. She had wondered why he was dressed so formally in one of those smooth grey suits that fitted him like a glove and gave him such an air of dignity and grave charm.

  What a deceptive charm, she thought, when it concealed a man without mercy, to whom she had been married for five long weeks.

  ‘Surely we must be miles from a town,’ she said. ‘It certainly feels as if we are.’

  ‘As the eagle flies,’ he agreed. ‘But a swift car can soon cover those miles and I thought you might like to look around the shops and buy things. Candy and records and a few cosmetics. Magazines and books and some perfume. Those incredible oddities dear to the female heart.’

  ‘You must be feeling generous, señor,’ Even after five weeks of living with him, Persepha still couldn’t bring herself to speak to him as if he were her husband; still she thought of him as the tyrant under whose sway she had fallen when brought low by grief and the loss of her home. He owned her, that was all. He took, she never gave.

  ‘Why, because I offer you a shopping trip?’ he quirked a black eyebrow and swept those possessive eyes of his up and down her slim figure in a butter-gold dress without sleeves, to the shoulder of which she had pinned the dragonfly brooch. The sun caught the gems and they flashed and burned, and the reason why she often wore it was that it symbolized what lay in her heart... the wish for flight; the wild hope that one day soon she would be able to get away from the Hacienda Ruy and the man whom the laws of the church compelled her to obey. The gems were real and the brooch could be sold, and that was all she cared. She attached no sentimental value to it, for it had not been given to her out of love.

  ‘I have to go into town on a matter of business and so you might as well come with me,’ he said. ‘I have to see my lawyer, and I am going to trust you, querida, to take a look around the shops and not get any foolish ideas about vanishing. I warn you beforehand, that it will be hardly possible, for no one will rent you a car and the nearest railway is beyond those hills.’

  He gestured with a lean hand to the distant peaks, smoke-blue and awesome, the high rocky guardians of his kingdom.

  ‘You have earned a trip,’ he half-smiled, coming towards her, so that his long, long shadow moved along the sunlit ground. Persepha tensed against the flower-draped archway column, her nerves in a state of clamour before those warm dark hands took hold of her. By now she should have been used to his touch, but still it could arouse her to a state of near-panic, so that she wanted to beat at his shoulders and struggle like a mad thing.

  He gazed down at her through his lashes, and there was a mockingly amused quirk to his lips. He studied the curling tendril of hair that clung golden to the side of her neck. ‘To be entirely placable is to be entirely boring, chica. I have only to touch you and I feel as if I take hold of a young tigress who would like to rip out my eyes. I have an idea! There is a beach near to the town and I think we should swim together. You would like that?’

  At the very thought of cool blue water, washing over her limbs, buoyant and relaxing, she trembled like a child who could hardly believe that she was being offered a little kindness after being unfairly punished. ‘Do you mean it?’ She looked up at the Don with unbelieving eyes, and his answer was a slightly curt laugh.

  ‘Do you have to look at me as if I’ve just offered you an hour’s parole from your prison?’ he asked. ‘Of course I mean it. You have a swimsuit, eh?’

  ‘I think so.’ She couldn’t quite remember any more what she had thrown into her suitcase that last day at Stonehill, and she rarely looked at the things he had bought her, merely pulling a dress from a hanger and putting it on, or snatching from a cedarwood drawer some item of lingerie. She covered her body without caring if she looked attractive ; she had learned the hard way that to look alluring was to wake the tiger that slumbered in the body and soul of this man, and she would have worn sackcloth and ashes if she could have got away with it.

  ‘Then go and fetch it,’ he said. ‘And if you will be so good fetch my trunks from the bottom drawer of the chest in my room. And bring a bath towel, querida. I shall be waiting in the car out by the main courtyard.’

  He let her go and she sped away into the hacienda, passing Carmenteira as she ran, who was pottering about putting flowers in the big shiny pots in the hall.

  Up in her room Persepha opened the wardrobe and pulled out her suitcase which had lain untouched since the night the Don had ordered her to wear only the garments which he had bought for her. She threw back the lid of the case and she stared at all the familiar things that brought back not vivid but curiously grey memories of Stonehill. She fingered the shirts and folded dresses, and grippe
d the album that held photographs of Marcus and herself taken on those European trips they had enjoyed together. A book of ghosts, she thought. Lost days of dreams and talk in places far from Mexico.

  She found her swimsuit at the bottom of the case and drew it out. It was a dark flame colour and in the one-piece style, for Marcus had not approved of the bikini, which had offended his eye with its love of Georgian graciousness.

  As Persepha held it up against her she reflected that Don Diablo would probably disapprove of the bikini, and out of sheer perversity she wished that the swimsuit was one of those skimpy garments that just about sat on the hips and covered the breasts with the minimum of material. What a shock for the Don when he saw her so scantily clad in front of other men on the beach; it was bred into his Spanish bones to possess a woman to the exclusion of everyone else.

  Anyway, she had been awarded a trip to town, which she had not yet seen, and she must make the most of it. She must hurry or he might change his arrogant mind and drive off without her. She sped into the bathroom for one of the big fluffy towels, and hesitated a moment outside the door of his bedroom.

  On the occasions she had been there she had not gone voluntarily, but had been carried there in his arms, to the enormous couch that filled the octagonal window space overlooking that sheer drop to the gorge. Once there had been white-gold moonlight flooding into the room through the great windows and no experience for her had ever been so out of the world, as if some dark god of natural forces held her in some pagan rite by the light of the moon.

  As Persepha entered his room her gaze fell upon the couch, which was covered by an immense brown-black fur, and she gave a shiver of sheer recall as she seemed to feel again the sensual softness of the fur against her skin.

  She swiftly turned her gaze from the couch and went to the carved chest that held his clothing. On top of the shining wood lay his hairbrushes backed with tortoiseshell, his stud-box in leather, and one or two other items of masculine use. His cigarro smoke still lingered there, along with the tangy cologne which he used. Across the foot of his bed lay his robe of dark heavy silk, and a leather-handled whip had been carelessly dropped to the floor from his early morning ride around the estate, from which he returned for his session in his steam-room.

  He always emerged looking very relaxed, with his black hair ruffled by the steam and a flagrant look of power in his torso and limbs. Clad in his robe he would come and go in her bedroom and bathroom, throwing out orders for the day, and sharing with her a tray of rolls, coffee and jam brought to her by one of the copper-tinted maids who worked in the kitchen. Sprawled on her bedr with its lace and flounces, he always looked outlandishly male, even slightly younger than when he was formally dressed in the evenings.

  Persepha opened the bottom drawer of his chest and sorted about until she found the black bathing-trunks ... and something else which she had not expected to find ... the silver-framed photograph of a woman, raven-haired, clad in a silk gown the colour of a geranium, a silk fan spread open in her long white fingers, a smile on her lips that were as luscious as a rose that the warm sun had opened from a scarlet bud. That the photograph was in colour added startling warmth and beauty to the woman’s face, eyes, and supple figure. She leaned against a patio column, with the flowered arch above her Ipvely head. That she was Spanish was evident in her every feature, and in the charmingly flirtatious way in which she held the embroidered fan.

  Persepha stood very silent and still and absorbed the woman’s Latin beauty, framed by the chaste silver, and kept by the Don among his clothes. Who had she been that he kept such a memento of her? Someone special, for Persepha had never seen any sign of other women he must have known.

  ‘What has the señora found that is so intriguing?’

  Persepha gave a start that went through her body and she whirled about to see old Carmenteira standing just inside the doorway. The knowing old eyes saw at once the silver-framed photograph in her hands, and feeling as guilty as a schoolgirl caught where she shouldn’t be, Persepha swallowed the dryness from her throat.

  ‘The señor wished me to find his bathing-trunks ... can you tell me who this is, Carmenteira? She’s very beautiful and I just couldn’t resist taking a look—’

  ‘The señora is curious, eh?’ Carmenteira came slowly to Persepha’s side and stood looking at the woman in the picture frame. ‘Really a Spanish beauty, from her ankles like ivory to her hair like silk. See her eyes and how they sparkle with the joys of life and love? Is the bride of Don Diablo envious of such gaiety, such passion, such allure? Does she see a woman that he might have loved ... really loved as he only desires his white-skinned girl of another race, who turns her eyes when he looks at her, who shrinks from his touch, and trembles at his passion?’

  ‘So she was someone he loved,’ Persepha said quietly. ‘Where is she now? Do you know?’

  ‘She is dead, señora. Gone from all laughing and all loving these past six years. The Señor Don was inconsolable, do you know that? When it happened he rode off on his most favoured horse and he rode that horse until it fell and had to be finished with a bullet in the brain. He spoke to not a soul for days on end, and at the funeral it was thought that he would throw himself into her grave.’

  Old Carmenteira transferred her wise and slightly wicked gaze to Persepha and a jeering look went across her swarthy, wrinkled face. ‘How could he love you when he loved such as her? How could he care how he treats you ... you are only the means by which he will get a son for himself, and that's why he seems so fond of your body. She was wine and honey ... you are milk and a dash of bitters. And I speak the truth, and you know it, don’t you, señora. I am too old in the ways of men and women not to know what he wants of you.’ Abruptly, almost painfully, one of the dark bent fingers prodded Persepha in the stomach. ‘Young, fair, healthy, and with a look of breeding about you. Yes, nice young virgins have pretty babies, and he knows it’s time for his heritage to be secured. Yes, they always come from sheltered homes, or convents, the brides of his kind. But the women they adore ... they come from heaven or hell, and they leave their memory like an undying scent.’

  And as the old woman’s words died away, Persepha, knowing that it was all true, what had just been imparted to her, turned to the chest and returned the framed photograph to its hiding place among the Don’s things. Carrying his bathing trunks, she paused only long enough in her bedroom to collect her swimsuit and the orange towel. He would be growing impatient, and as she hastened down the stairs she wondered why she had an almost shocking impulse to launch herself into space to the tiles of the hall.

  She shuddered and ran, making for the outer courtyard, running through the sunlight and shadow to the side of the man who had married her to have a son. She wanted above all to go to town, to see people and shops, and to swim in the sea until she was exhausted.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she cried out as she saw him waiting by the side of the sleek silver car. ‘Old Carmenteira wanted to tell me something and she delayed me. Oh, isn’t the sun hot!’

  ‘You shouldn’t race about in heat such as this, and where is your hat? You will need it!’

  ‘I - I forgot it. It won’t matter - I can buy another when we get to the shops.’

  As she spoke so breathlessly, and stood there a moment almost swaying, he caught hold of her and looked deep into her eyes. ‘You are all nerves, like a netted bird flying madly about in a cage. Is it so wonderful to be going to town for the day?’

  ‘Yes!’ She flung back her hair from her brow, which felt hot. ‘If you hadn’t given me this break, small as it is, I think I’d have gone crazy. What do you think my life is like, here under your roof, watched day and night by you, ordered what to do, what to wear! I’m your thing and all you want of me is—’

  She broke off, for to put it into words was to inflict upon herself a form of self-torture. It was awful enough that Carmenteira had painted such a graphic word picture of her place in the Don’s scheme of things. Someone desir
able enough to breed for him a male child to carry on his name; to inherit his vast lands and his fortune. A woman didn’t have to be loved in order to have a baby; all that was needed was the man’s passionate, ruthless desire to have his own way.

  ‘A pretty thing, in all truth.’ He abruptly bent his head and laid his lips against her brow. ‘Get into the car, chica, and do try to relax.’

  ‘Will you be driving?’ she asked ingenuously.

  ‘Yes.’ His look was sardonic. ‘You may sit at the back if you wish, away from me. I drive fast and I might unnerve you, as you seem in such a highstrung state since I invited you to go with me.’

  With a feeling close to relief Persepha took advantage of his dry suggestion that she sit alone, and when she entered the car she found there were linen covers on the seats to keep the leather from getting hot, and almost as soon as they were out on the highway the air-cooling system began to work and she lay back in her seat and felt the cool air blowing against her closed eyelids. On the seat at her side reposed the swimwear and the towel... in her mind lingered the face of a Spanish woman with vivid eyes in love with life.

  During that swift drive Persepha’s gaze dwelt often on the well-groomed head and broad shoulders of the man seated at the wheel in front of her, and there was a question in her eyes. She had thought him too hard, too careless of feminine feelings to ever really love a woman, yet now she had discovered that he had once loved, and was in all probability the type of man to love only once in a lifetime. It made him seem more human, but at the same time it starkly underlined the position which Persepha held in his life.

  She was not loved, and yet she had to accept from him all the various attentions of a husband; she had to submit to his demands whether she desired to or not: she had to live with him until she found some means of getting away from him.

  Now more than ever she wanted to get away, and her fingers crept to the brooch that gleamed against her dress and she traced with her fingertips the shape of the wings set with small emeralds and outlined by the white fire of diamonds. If she could find someone to buy it, then all she had to do was sneak her passport and travel documents out of his desk, the massive, many-drawered antique in his office, and she felt confident there was someone on the estate who could be bribed into driving her to the railway. Once she was aboard a train and heading for one of the tourist resorts of Mexico, she would be safe. He surely couldn’t snatch her away under the eyes of American and European travellers, who came to this exotic land for the sunshine, the handcrafts, and the history.