Dancing in the Shadows (22 page)

‘Dorcas,
I think we should provide a meal for our departing guests to see them on their way. Indeed, I think we could all do to appease the hunger pangs after the anxiety. Do you feel up to giving a hand?'

‘Of course, señora.'

Rose Ruiz smiled before moving away, obviously expecting Dorcas to follow her. Dorcas hesitated. She had little doubt that she looked as raw and puzzled as she felt.

‘What did you mean, Carlos? What has been a major source of irritation?'

‘The role you have given me. I am not a Lord Bountiful. I have never regarded you as an object of charity. Neither have I wanted to do things for you out of a misguided sense of obligation. This is ridiculous! We can't talk about it now. It's too public. We'll talk later.'

Rose Ruiz turned round, suddenly aware that Dorcas wasn't immediately behind her. She saw Dorcas lift herself on tiptoe to kiss Carlos on the cheek. Protectively her eyes searched the room for her husband. Enrique had not missed that revealing, tender moment. He was looking fixedly at Dorcas and Carlos; his expression reflected interest, not displeasure. Rose Ruiz permitted herself a small contented sigh.

Dorcas walked away, following the course of Rose Ruiz's steps, feeling curiously lightheaded. Too much anxiety, too little food, might have contributed, but the main cause of
her
affliction was the look on Carlos's face as she spontaneously reached up to kiss his cheek. She didn't know why she'd done it. It had been an impulse. Definitely one of her better ones.

The impromptu meal went down well. Even those who said they weren't hungry found lively appetites.

Paco said he would take Isabel home. They walked out into a new day that was just misting into light, relief that Michael was going to get well nudging back their smiles, fingers tightly linked.

Rose Ruiz accepted Samantha's presence in their midst without fuss, and with minimal explanation. She gave orders for a room to be prepared for the unexpected guest. Samantha made a token protest. ‘Are you sure it's not too much of an imposition?' At the same time she looked as if it would take a bulldozer to evict her before she'd spoken to Michael.

Enrique Ruiz sought out his wife. ‘My Rose is wilting. There is nothing more to be done. Let us go to bed.'

‘Are you quite sure you are all right, Enrique? The strain hasn't been too much for you?'

‘I've never felt fitter. If I can come through this night of shocks and feel like this, you must see how silly it is of you to worry about me.'

‘Indulge me, Enrique, you are so dear to me I can't help worrying.'

‘No
regrets?'

‘None. Enrique?'

‘Yes,
querida
?'

‘I might worry about you less if you handed more of the running of the business over to Carlos. You do too much. And surely he's proved his capability?'

‘Indubitably he has. It's taken me a long time to come round to admitting it, but in the running of the business, and in other things, Carlos knows best.'

Rose Ruiz knew it was the ‘other things' that Enrique was mainly thinking about.

She said: ‘You saw Dorcas kiss Carlos on the cheek. You didn't mind?'

He smiled. ‘I saw Isabel and Paco holding hands.'

Rose Ruiz mentally hugged herself. ‘I saw that too.'

‘You know what it means, don't you?' His eyes were suspiciously shiny. ‘It means the debt is now paid in full.
Gracias a Dios
, we are not going to be asked to pay a second time. And now,
amor de mi vida
, come to bed.'

The love of his life put her hand in his, and they turned towards the stairs.

* * *

Samantha was with Michael when the effects of the tranquillizer the doctor had administered wore off. True, he still looked
gravely
ill, but the smile he gave her was a heartwarmingly contented one.

‘Hello, Sam. Glad you're here.' Sincerity outstripped eloquence. Not even Samantha, with all her suspicions, could have doubted him.

Her breath sucked in furiously. ‘I'm glad to be here. Go back to sleep love, if you want to. I'll still be here when you wake up.'

‘That's nice.' So saying, he closed his eyes and fell into a natural, healing sleep.

Samantha utilized the time by making plans. ‘I'm taking him home to meet my parents as soon as he's fit enough to travel. He can get to know them while he's recuperating. At the same time he can decide what he's going to do with his life.'

Obviously, with Samantha at the helm, Michael's aimless drifting days were over. Dorcas felt happy about this; at peace. She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this easy in her mind about her brother.

Samantha was so precisely right for him. She'd always thought he would settle down with a fragile beauty to complement his own special looks, and they would spend their lives getting out of one pretty pickle after another. Samantha was neither fragile, nor beautiful. Not even pretty. But there was a sturdy, glossy wholesomeness about her that was most attractive. She had depth of character. Her smile didn't merely charm her lips, but
warmed
her whole face. She was older than Michael, and made no secret of the fact that she had been considering dusting the shelf when he came along. Yet there was no question of her having grabbed a ‘last chance'. She idolized him, faults and all.

Carlos was not so impressed. When Dorcas said: ‘Isn't she lovely?' he wrinkled his nose and replied: ‘Much too bossy for my taste.'

Dorcas wondered how he of all people dare say that. Not one word to this effect crossed her lips, but the look she darted him was based on this thought.

He interpreted it well. Using that smug, intolerably overbearing tone that made her teeth feel as though they were being brushed with sandpaper, he said: ‘That trait is acceptable, even desirable in a man.'

This conversation was taking place in the library, the one room where they had a fair chance of being undisturbed. When Carlos increased the odds in favour of this by going over and closing the door, Dorcas knew it was time for that promised talk.

She both welcomed it and dreaded it.

‘Do you find me impossibly arrogant?' he asked.

‘No.'

Somehow she knew that wasn't the most vital issue. She might fight his attitude and insist she would dance to no man's tune, but it was the other thing she didn't properly
understand
that wouldn't let them harmonize.

He said, getting to the crux of the matter, ‘We haven't got the balance right. We tip too easily into misunderstanding.'

She nodded. ‘I feel so confused.'

‘Please don't look so worried.'

He reached out a hand in comfort, his fingers cherished the contours of her face. It was such a protective captivity that her bones melted in delight. His cheek rested briefly against hers, then she felt her chin being tilted. His face blurred before her eyes. She would never know how she managed to find the will to tear her mouth from the proximity of his, but the kiss that would have brooked no holding back on her part was averted.

‘No, Carlos. Not this way, with nothing resolved. Don't you see, I've got to understand?'

‘I'm sorry. I don't normally believe in taking short cuts, but this time it seemed a better choice than going the long way round. We have a habit of coming up against hazards.'

She had noticed.

He leaned his chin on his hands, looking cool, English, and unruffled. Perversely, she preferred the hotheaded Spaniard. She wished she hadn't deflected him.

‘I don't know where to start,' he said.

‘The beginning?' she suggested.

‘The beginning was all right. There were problems, yes. But none that I couldn't get a
grip
of. The moment I saw you, when you gatecrashed my parents' anniversary tea, I knew I wanted to know you better. You were terribly upset because you'd mistaken a private villa for a public tea garden. Short of nailing you to the chair, I couldn't stop you from going. As the roads were blocked because of the landslide, your only means of escape was by train, and it just so happened that my sister was planning to go home on the next train that was due out. So I knew there was more than a chance of seeing you again. You kept well hidden on the platform. I didn't spot you until the last possible moment when you slipped on to the train. My sister, Feli, had seen you earlier when you wandered into our garden by mistake. She'd already pulled my leg about my being taken with you, so all it needed was a word in her ear to ensure her full cooperation. But why are you looking so surprised? You surely didn't think that it was coincidence that made Feli sit opposite you on an almost empty train?'

‘Well . . . I realize how stupid I must seem . . . but yes! Wait a minute, though, Feli didn't recognize me straight away.'

‘I've no idea how she played it. I told her to go easy so as not to scare you off.'

‘Feli asked me to stay with her for part of my holiday. Are you saying she didn't ask me on impulse, but that she was following your instructions?'

‘I
wasn't twisting her arm, you know. Feli would have enjoyed
using
you. You would have earned your keep acting as unpaid nursemaid to my small niece. No, I'm not being fair. Feli loves company. But, when you turned her down, she didn't press the issue. And, well, you know what happened then.'

‘Yes. Part of the mountainside crumbled to block the railway track and the train ran into an avalanche of rock and earth and sludge.'

‘When word got back I nearly went out of my mind. I felt as if I'd wished this terrible thing on you. Before that it had been a rather pleasant game. You were on holiday, I was at a loose end; it had all the makings of an amusing interlude. Then suddenly it turned into this tragic reality. When I first came to sit with you in hospital it was to make amends. It could no longer be an amusing interlude, and I had no wish for a deeper involvement. I hadn't reckoned with . . . well . . . you can't be with someone all these hours, hurt for them, feel for them, without feeling something yourself. I wasn't looking too far into the future just then. We had gone through a very emotional period together; for the time being I was just satisfied to be taking you home.'

Realization came in a rush. ‘And I couldn't have made it plainer that I didn't want to come home with you.'

‘I remember your very words. You said, “I am not returning with you voluntarily to your
home.
Circumstance has put me in the invidious position of having no alternative.” '

‘Did I say that? I didn't mean . . .'

‘I could have been taking you to a prison for all the joy on your face. I wanted to wipe that trapped look from your eyes, but how could I when I was responsible for keeping you against your will? Then again, what alternative did I have? Nobody was trying to repay you for what you did for Feli and Rosita, because there's no price to be put on that. You were hurt and alone, but even if you'd had an army of relatives I'd still have fought for the privilege. Believe me, I
wanted
to take care of you.'

‘Oh. . . Carlos. . . don't. I can't . . . bear . . .'

‘Hush, I didn't mean to distress you. Proud and stubborn you might be, but the tenderness of your heart has never been in dispute. Dorcas, please don't let anyone, least of all me, tie any more knots in your emotions. At first I thought it was because you were alone in a strange country. I moved heaven and earth to get your brother here, because I thought his presence would give you the necessary anchor, the illusion of home. I still think that theory was right as far as it went, it didn't go far enough that's all. You need to sort out your feelings with your feet firmly planted on the ground. Home ground, if you like. Would you like to go home?'

‘Home?' Dorcas echoed stupidly. For a long time now, longer than she realized, home
wasn't
England. Home was here with Carlos.

‘I haven't quite made up my mind whether I am being self-sacrificing about this, or selfish. I do know it's a situation that calls for patience. I refuse to burden a decision of this magnitude on a small emotional yes, and I'm not going to risk a no. So you can relax. You're not going to be rushed or made to do anything against your will.'

He was wrong. He was proposing to send her home. That was against her will.

‘I'm sorry, Carlos. I didn't mean to appear rude and ungrateful.'

She had never meant to throw his kindness back in his face, but that's how it must have looked to him. No wonder he wanted to be rid of her. Oh! he'd wrapped it up in kind words, but the message was clear. Her seeming ingratitude had cost her dearly. It had lost her Carlos. The sun must have been in her eyes for her not to see that loving is caring and giving. She knew that had it been the other way round, if she had been the fortunate one, she would have wanted to give everything she had to Carlos. She had made it plain she wanted nothing from him. And so, because of her stupidity, he would never give her the one thing she wanted most of all. That priceless gift that had to be offered by him to have any meaning . . . the gift of love.

‘It's all settled then. I'll make the arrangements.'

The
words begging him not to send her away remained locked in that block of ice she called her throat.

She felt the brush of his lips against her cheek. When she looked up, he had gone.

* * *

‘Dorcas, what are you doing hiding in here on such a lovely day? I was quite convinced you'd gone for a walk, otherwise I would have fetched you to pay your respects to Isabel's mama. She's gone now, of course.'

After answering Rose Ruiz's smile—and a very self-satisfied smile it was at that—Dorcas said: ‘I'd no idea she was here. Was Isabel with her?'