The Dragon's Cave (22 page)

‘But I don’t know it
!’
Pilar objected.

‘It doesn’t matter
,’
said Megan. ‘I’ll sing it without any accompaniment. In Ireland they often sing it that way.’ She smiled briefly at Inez, feeling unaccountably guilty. ‘Pilar exaggerates,’ she added. ‘Carlos has never been interested in me.’

Inez glowed, her mouth pouting a
little
with excitement. It would be a hard man who could resist her when she looked like that, Megan thought.

‘Oh,
that doesn’t matter
now!’
Inez laughed casually.
‘
Pepe is coming home
!
Pepe is coming
here
!
’

Megan gave her a look of complete confusion. ‘You don’t understand
!
Carlos didn’t really kidnap me—’

Inez shrugged, still smiling.
‘
But of course he did
!
’

Megan’s eyes met those of Carlos’ grandmother across the room. The old lady sat, her back as straight as a poker, missing nothing of the undercurrents that swept round the room. She nodded, graciously granting Megan her permission to begin, imperiously beckoning to everyone else to sit down.

Megan had never felt less like singing. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, concentrating on the sad, lilting Irish air. The words were poignant, words that she had always liked, but had never really understood until this moment. She would sing the song for Carlos, even if he wasn’t listening, for it summed up her own condition almost exac
tl
y.

She launched into the first verse, her voice husky with the tears that were only just below the surface. She didn’t dare look at her audience to see how they were receiving her performance. Instead, she looked down at her hands in her lap, wishing for the hundredth time that she had not been so young and silly as to fall in love with a man like Carlos Vallori Llobera.

She knew the instant that he came into the room. She refused to look at him, but she knew how he looked, standing in the doorway, tall and arrogant, his eyes angry and disapproving. She would have given anything not to have been singing at that moment, but she flung back her head and finished the song, because her pride wouldn’t allow her to do anything else.

‘
I’ll wear stockings of silk

And shoes of bright green leather

Combs to buckle my hair

And
a
ring for every finger.

‘Feather-beds are soft

And painted rooms are bonny,

But I would trade them all

For my handsome, winsome Johnny.

‘
Some say he’s black

But I say he’s bonny;

Fairest of them all

Is my handsome, winsome Johnny.

She came to an abrupt finish, standing up with decision, bowing formally to her audience. Still, she
couldn’t bring herself to look at Carlos. She knew he hadn’t moved a muscle, but then nor had anyone else. They were sitting as if they had been carved from stone and she knew that in any other circumstances she would have considered that a triumph.

Then somebody did move. Tony left the chair where he had been sitting and caught her into his arms, kissing her on the cheek and then the lips.

‘Darling, you’ve never sung it better
!
’

Megan froze, looking not at him, but over his shoulder to where Carlos was standing, his lips twisted in a cynical smile.

‘You’ll have to change the name to Tony the next time you sing it,’ was all he said.
‘
It will make it all the more touching
!
’ He turned to his grandmother, kissing her hand with all the elegance she had come to expect of him.
‘
If you are ready,
m
i
a cara,
I’ll drive you back to Soller.’

There was the usual flurry that accompanies the departure of guests at a party, complicated by the necessity for having to help Senora Llobera down the stairs to the patio. Pilar ran down the stairs after them, pulling at her brother’s sleeve, but he shrugged her off, giving all his attention to his grandmother as he helped her into the front seat of his spacious car. Only when he had shut the rear door on his aunt and was getting into the driving seat himself did he look up at Pilar.

‘Tell Megan I’ll see her in the morning
!
’ he commanded. And he drove off into the night without another word.

‘I
won’t be here in the morning!’ Megan reiterated stubbornly.

Margot, bored with the whole conversation, cast her a look of irritation. ‘Where will you be?’ she asked unfairly.

‘Somewhere
!’
Megan claimed, more hurt than she
had believed was possible. ‘Anywhere! I won’t be summoned into his presence like a naughty child! How dare he send me such a message
!’

‘That’s Carlos
!
’ Margot said dryly.

Pilar glared at her mother.
‘
I don’t suppose it’s anything you’ve done,’ she consoled Megan. He was anxious about his grandmother. The old lady looked fit to drop! I can’t think why you invited her to come out late at night.’ She hesitated, frowning. ‘Why did you?’ she threw at her mother.

‘She wanted to hear the child sing
,’
Margot replied.

‘
Child!’ Megan repeated. ‘Child! That’s all I hear from you all. I’m
not
a child. Her voice broke dangerously.
‘
In some ways I wish I were
!’

Pilar gave her mother an ironic look. ‘Couldn’t you have made it a lunch party?’

Margot shook her head.
‘
I wanted Tony Starlight to be there
.
’

‘
Why?’

It was Megan who answered. She was moving restlessly round the room, wishing that it had been anyone but the triumphant Inez who had witnessed Carlos’ humiliating indifference, followed by
the
even more humiliating summons for the morning.

‘I
can’t accompany myself,’ she said.

‘
But why ask
him
?’
Pilar insisted.

Megan shrugged. ‘He knows my style
,’
she answered indifferently.
‘What
does it matter? He doesn’t mean anything
!
’

‘I asked him to come
,’
Margot told her daughter.
‘
Pilar, you must be tired, my dear. Why don’t you go to bed? It’s typical of Carlos to upset us all when we were enjoying ourselves for once. I’m quite exhausted myself.’

‘
But you knew he was coming, Mother
,’
Pilar said, with that devastating frankness for which she was famous with her brothers and sisters.
‘
He told me he had told you when to expect us.’

‘
I don’t remember,’ said Margot.

‘And why Tony Starlight?’ Pilar insisted, ignoring Megan’s pleading expression and scarlet face. ‘Why him?’

‘I’ve told you
!
’ Megan exclaimed desperately.

A fleeting, tender smile flickered across Pilar’s face.
‘Well, Mother?’

‘I thought it would be nice for Megan. She’s used to a much freer and more social life than she has been living here
!’

‘And you wanted Carlos to see them together,’ Pilar prompted her mother.

M
argot looked suddenly angry.
‘That too!
Be your age, Pilar! If Carlos marries, it will be much better if he marries someone who understands
our
position! Someone like Inez—’

‘
Inez is frightened of him. She wants to marry Pepe.’

‘Pepe is much too young to be thinking of such things
!
’ Margot said sharply. ‘Don’t talk about things you know nothing whatsoever about, Pilar
!
I won’t have it, and I won’t be cross-questioned in this way. A couple of hours in Carlos’ company and you think you can behave as he does! Well, you’re
my
daughter, my girl, and I’ve heard quite enough from you for one day. You can, both of you, go to bed, and I hope you
’
ll both be in a more reasonable frame of mind in the morning!’

Megan would have gone at once, but Pilar was made of sterner stuff. ‘So that’s it
!
’ she stormed.
‘
Dios mio,
do you dislike Carlos so much?’

‘It isn’t a matter of liking or disliking anyone
,’
Margot retorted grimly.
‘D
on’t you understand that
everything
was left to Carlos? If he marries someone like Inez, Senor de la Navidades will insist that he set
tl
es a proper amount on Pepe, you and Isabel, and on me too! The Spanish are realistic about family loyalties. Can you imagine someone like Megan doing
anything for us? Oh no
!
She immediately set about reinforcing Carlos’ obsession over his mother
!
It didn
’
t take her long to discover that most of the money in the family is Llobera money
!
I thought the old Senora would make short work of her, she never did like the English—look at the way she treated me
!
—and one look at Tony Starlight should have been enough to tell her what sort of girl she is
!’
She laughed shor
tl
y. ‘The old lady is more gullible than I thought! But Carlos had his eyes opened for once
!
He won’t stop Megan going back to England now
!
’

‘
Oh, Mother
!’
Pilar sighed. Her mouth was white and pinched and, without her usual vivacity,
s
he looked suddenly faded and older than her years. ‘Oh, Mother
!’

Megan felt cut off from them both, alone as she had never been alone before. Was it possible, she wondered without much interest, that Margot had engineered Tony’s embrace as well? It seemed more than likely. He had been invited for that very purpose. She giggled, glad that her emotions had frozen into insensibility. The funny thing was
that
Tony had come out of the affair better than any of his detractors. He had been angry with her, but he had not been malicious. Nor had he patronised her, or tried to change her into something that she was not. Why, oh, why, if she had had to fall in love, hadn’t she fallen in love with him? But she knew the answer to that, she thought drearily. She could say goodbye to Tony without a second thought, but now that she had to say goodbye to Carlos, it would be like tearing out her heart.

‘Megan, you
must
see Carlos in the morning
!’
Pilar begged, the tears streaming down her face.

Megan turned and looked at her. She even smiled. ‘I don’t think I want to,’ she said. And she went slowly up to her room, to the bed that Carlos had had as a small boy, pulling off her dress and allowing it to
fall unheeded to the floor. From habit, she washed her face and cleaned her teeth, before she got into bed, pulled the bedclothes up over her head, and cried herself to sleep.

CHAPTER XII

Megan could hear Pilar and her mother arguing late into the night. She tried not to listen to their raised, angry voices, knowing that they were discussing her, but she couldn’t have understood them anyway, for Pilar had lapsed into her native Spanish, which she found much easier than English. When at last they went to bed, Megan still couldn’t sleep. She tossed restlessly back and forth, waiting for the dawn and the new day when she would go away from Carlos for ever.

It was nearly dawn when she heard
him
come in, banging the door behind him with a lack of consideration that was far from his usual manner. She lay, tense and scarcely daring to breathe, listening to his footsteps as he came up the stairs. She waited for him to go past her door, but he didn’t. The footsteps paused and he rapped lightly on her door.

‘
Megan?’

‘
Go away
!
’ she whispered back.

‘
Amada,
my grandmother wishes for us to have lunch with her tomorrow—’