The Devil on Her Tongue (63 page)

When I went to Kipling’s late the next afternoon, the door of the blending room was closed. I knocked, and at Espirito’s murmur I opened it and stood in the doorway. I was uneasy, as if I’d displeased him. All night I thought of how I must have been completely mistaken about the way he looked at me, and felt a fool.

He was sitting at the table, a wooden box in front of him. He had the air of someone waiting.

“I’ve come for my pay packet,” I said, approaching the table.

He stood. “I bought you something. I saw it in a shop, and I …” He gestured at the finely carved box. “Open it.”

“Oh,” I cried in pleasure as I lifted the lid on a beautiful set of dominoes, running my fingers over the rounded edges of the bone, the tiny indentations of the ebony pips. “So beautiful.” I smiled at him, concern about my behaviour yesterday disappearing in that instant. “Why did you do this?”

He smiled back. “You’ve worked hard this harvest.”

“I’m paid for it, like you.”

“Seeing it reminded me of playing dominoes with you in Curral
das Freiras. It made me remember my relief in knowing my father was cared for, and that Cristiano was not so bereft.”

I sat down, my fingers still running over the tiles.

“Shall we play?” he asked, and when I nodded, he poured two glasses of wine. The clink of glass upon glass and the steady chirp of a bird in the courtyard were the only sounds. I thought of Bonifacio, still in the Counting House, and wondered what he would think should he find me here, drinking wine and playing dominoes with his brother.

But at this moment, I didn’t care what Bonifacio thought. I set the tiles on the table, face down, then reached across them with my glass and touched it, with just the tiniest tinkle, to Espirito’s, and took a sip. “A game of simple draw, to a score of one hundred,” I said, looking at the bone yard between us. “High doubles to start.” I turned over a tile: a double five, five ebony pips on either end.

He turned over the six-two.

“As it should be,” he said, and we slipped the two tiles back with the others and mixed them on the smooth surface of the mahogany table. “Ladies play first.”

I took another sip of my wine as we each picked our seven tiles and stood them up facing us. “The wine is full-bodied,” I said. “It will perhaps soothe your loss when I win this game.”

He laughed, his pupils widening just the slightest. “You’re quite sure of yourself, aren’t you, Diamantina?”

“About some things, Espirito. About dominoes, and about wine.” The thinning afternoon light from the open door shone on the smooth surface of the tiles. “And now, shall we begin?”

I smacked down a bone. At the sound, there was the old familiar rush of pleasure through my body. How I loved laying the first tile on the table; I had forgotten how much delight it brought me.

I watched Espirito’s fingers as he deliberated. My own fingers caressed the smooth, cool bone of my tiles.

He laid his four-three against mine. “Look out, Diamantina. I’m planning to win.”

“I may let you,” I said, and he looked up at me without smiling.

“Your turn,” he said.

We played the rest of the game in silence. There was a tension between us, as if the end of the game would signal the start of something else. The room grew dimmer; I was too warm, the setting too intimate suddenly, even though I’d often spent time in the blending room with Espirito. I had to concentrate on breathing slowly, evenly. I heard his boot move on the stone floor, and wanted to extend my own and touch his. Was there a sudden fragrance in the air? Outside, the bird’s rhythmic cry suddenly reached a fevered pitch, and then stopped.

I laid my last tile.

Espirito stared at me. “You’ve won, Diamantina.”

I looked from him to the tiles, unable to keep meeting his eyes, and then lifted two tiles and set them in the box, but my hands shook. Espirito put his hands onto mine, and I was forced to look back to his face.

“Why do you tremble?” he asked quietly.

I stood, overwhelmed at his touch, and pulled my hands from his, afraid of what I might say or do should we sit like this any longer. I quickly piled the rest of the tiles into the box and closed it. “I must go,” I said. “I’ve been gone too long.”

He stood as well. “Don’t forget your pay packet,” he said, going to a shelf and taking the bag of coins from it. He held it towards me, and I went to him as if drawn against my will, stepping so close that the back of his hand touched my bodice. I felt an immediate visceral reaction, and drew an audible breath.

I pressed closer, and he looked down at his hand against my breast, then back into my eyes. He didn’t move.

I held his gaze, and his lips parted. The heavy sweetness of the wine we’d drunk hovered in the space between our mouths. As I pressed even closer, the bag fell to the floor and opened, the réis pinging as they hit the stones. Espirito blinked as if suddenly awakened, and then there was the clatter of wheels in the courtyard, and a shout. He quickly left the blending room, left me standing with coins scattered around my feet, and full of desire.

I
t was difficult to sleep, thinking of Espirito—his hands on mine, the feel of his body against mine. Wanting him, knowing he wanted me.

Not knowing what would happen next. If anything.

The next afternoon, I gathered a bouquet of violets and lilies from the quinta’s garden, and took Candelária with me into Funchal Town. At the cemetery, I handed her the flowers. “Put them there, in the vase, for Tia Olívia, please,” I said, pointing to the receptacle at the base of the headstone.

She did as I asked, then stood back and lifted her little nose into the air, smelling the breeze. I remembered my father calling me
klein vos
. Little fox. “I smell something nice,” she said.

“It’s the flowers we brought,” I said.

“No. Not our flowers. The other flower smell, Tia’s smell,” she said, looking intently at Olívia’s headstone.

I went to my knees on the grass, my legs weak. Ever since she’d started speaking, I had suspected even more strongly that Candelária had my mother’s vision. She had been barely two when Olívia died, too young to remember Olívia or her scent of camellias.

She blinked then, and looked around as if awakening. “Look at that angel,” she said, pointing at a small cherub on a grave. “Can I touch it?”

“Yes, you may touch it,” I said, and she went to it, running her fingers over the stone features.

Olívia, I’m sorry
. Sitting back on my heels, I stared at the headstone, my hands in my lap.
I’m falling in love with Espirito
.

“Does it hurt to burn?”

I looked over at Candelária, standing beside the cherub. I got to my feet and went to her. “Hurt to burn? What do you mean?”

Her cheeks were red, and I put my hand on her forehead to see if she had a fever. It was cool. “Papa said to be an angel you have to be very, very good. And if you’re not good, you burn.”

When had Bonifacio said this to her? When had they been alone together? I knelt and put my arms around her. “You’re my angel,
querida
,” I told her.

Damn you, Bonifacio
, I thought, sending the curse out into the air of this resting place for the dead.
She’s not even four years old. Damn you
.

A week later, Cristiano went down to the
adega
, saying Espirito had errands for him. I hadn’t seen Espirito since I’d behaved so shamelessly with him. As the evening lengthened, I knew Espirito would have taken Cristiano for dinner in the square or back to the da Silvas’.

It was dusk when they came into the cottage together. I had already put Candelária to bed, and Bonifacio was stacking wood in front of the fireplace.

“I wanted to make sure he got home all right,” Espirito said, although we all knew Cristiano had long been capable of walking home in the growing darkness.

“Thank you,” I said.

“He ate with Eduardo and Luzia.”

“It’s late, Cristiano,” I said. “You should go to bed.”

“Thanks, Espirito,” Cristiano said as he went down the hall. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“He’s coming with me to Henry’s
adega
. I have some work to do there,” Espirito explained. The air in the room was thick with pressure, like the atmosphere before a storm. “Did you find the error in the Cramer order today, Bonifacio?”

“Yes. His men hadn’t loaded two of the pipes.” Bonifacio stood, brushing his hands together. “I’m going to bed,” he said, turning from us.

“I’ll walk down with Espirito,” I told him. “I have to get Candelária’s clean clothes from the wash house.”

Bonifacio shut his bedroom door.

We didn’t speak on the path. All my senses were heightened. Darkness was close. The air was too humid, the evening perfumes too strong, the cicadas too loud.

I stopped at the hidden entrance to the summer house, and then looked at Espirito and took his hand. “Come with me,” I said, and we went together, me leading, as the overgrown, mossy path was only wide enough for one.

My heart was racing, and after I climbed the four steps of the summer house, Espirito beside me, I was breathless as if I’d run all the way up the hill from Funchal to the quinta.

I could feel the heat from his body, and smell his scent of grapes. I was aware of something else, something I could only define as desire coming from him, or from me. From us both, so different from the straightforward odour of lust I had known with Abílio.

Without speaking, Espirito encircled me in his arms, holding me tightly against him. But after only a moment, a moment when all was possible, he gently pushed me away.

“He’s my brother, Diamantina,” he said. “I can’t do this.”

“But you want to,” I said, just above a whisper, my hands on his arms. “Tell me you want to. That you want me.”

He stroked my neck, his touch as fine as a breath of wind across my skin. “I’ve wanted you since I first saw you on Porto Santo,” he said, and I closed my eyes at the pleasure that ran through me at his words. And then he turned me, gently, by the shoulders. He unlaced my blouse. “I have dreamed of these,” he murmured, and I pulled my blouse from my shoulders. I heard his intake of breath, and then felt the first tender touch of his lips on my shoulder blades.

I turned to face him, and loosened my hair from its ties. I put my hands on his hips as he ran his fingertips over my lips and then down my neck. His hands came to my breasts.

“I have wanted you for so long,” he murmured.

“When you first thought me a wicked woman,” I answered with a small smile.

“You
are
a wicked woman,” he said, “and I am not a good man.” He untied my skirt, slowly, as around us the cicadas shrilled.

As I walked back to the cottage after Espirito’s final kiss, the dew was already starting, damp and cool on my warm feet and legs. My body was humming. I could think of nothing. In my bedroom, Candelária slept. I threw off my clothes and lay down, but could not settle. I rose again, and took my travel bag from the wardrobe and pulled out my mother’s necklaces.

I stood naked, my hair loose, my face flushed, the necklaces draped around me, their shells and glass cool and smooth against my heated skin. I watched myself in the mirror over the dresser as I touched the necklaces and ran my hands down my body. I thought myself beautiful for the first time.