Counterfeit Bride(21)

'Have you nothing to say?' His eyes watched hers in the mirror.

'What do you want me to say?'

He shrugged. 'Just a word that you are sorry-that you might even miss me.'

She said without a trace of expression, 'I'm sorry. I shall miss you,' and saw Ms mouth tighten.

He said, 'I had intended to give you this later, but I thought perhaps  you might wish to wear it at dinner- as a reminder of me,' he added  cynically.

He put a flat velvet case on the dressing table in front of her. For a  moment she didn't move, and he said with a trace of impatience, 'Open  it, amiga.'

It was a pendant, a single lustrous pearl on a long golden chain. Nicola  had never seen anything so lovely. As she stared at it, she felt as if  she could scarcely breathe.

He leaned over her shoulder and lifted it out of its satin bed. He put  the chain round her neck, and the pearl slid coolly into the hidden  shadowed valley between her breasts. Luis bent and put his lips to the  curve of her shoulder.

If she had been calm before, then she was trembling now, her pulses hammering at the slightest brush of his mouth on her body.

He said softly, 'It matches your skin, querida.' His hands moved on her shoulders, sliding the dress away from her.

Nicola said, 'No,' hoarsely, and her hands came up, snatching at the material to cover her breasts.

He frowned a little. 'Don't be frightened, amada. I only want to look at  you-not touch-or kiss. I shall keep my word. But when you are my wife,  and perhaps less shy of me, then you can wear it as I wish-with nothing  to hide either the pearl-or you-from me.'

Slowly, almost mockingly he readjusted her dress. He said, 'Aren't you going to thank me?'

Nicola said coolly, "Gracias, señor. It's very lovely. I'm sure Teresita would have been delighted with it too.'

The dark face hardened, and he straightened abruptly. She expected some  stinging retort, and closed her eyes as if to shield herself from his  anger. But none came, and when she ventured to look, he was alone.

Her legs were shaking as she got up from the stool at last. She got  downstairs somehow, and into the salon where they were waiting for her.

She said, 'I'm sorry if I'm late.'

Ramon came forward drawing a deep breath. 'If you are late, little  cousin, then you are more than worth waiting for, believe me. May I get  you a drink?'

She said with mock plaintiveness, 'Would you think me rude, Don Ramon,  if I said I would rather have my dinner? I'm very hungry.'

Dona Isabella rose with a snakelike rustle of skirts. 'Then by all means  let us go into dinner. It has been delayed long enough. Come, Pilar.'

She swept past Nicola, without a second glance, followed by her daughter.

Ramon said hurriedly, 'Nicola. I am truly sorry that Luis cannot be here tonight.'

She raised her eyebrows calmly. 'Why?'

'Well-r-' he spread his hands defensively, 'it is your first  evening-your first dinner in your home. An auspicious occasion. You have  every reason to complain about his absence.'

Nicola said, 'Don Luis' absences are something I shall have to get  accustomed to. I may as well begin at once.' She had managed to say it  without wincing, she thought, but she couldn't suppress the bitterness  totally. 'Besides, I suppose there's something to admire in such-loyalty  to an old friend.'

She had expected Ramon to faint with embarrassment and shock, but he registered nothing but surprise and dawning approbation.

He said, 'So you know -and you understand?'

'It seems I have little choice,' she said in a brittle voice. 'Now shall we go into dinner?'

And all through that interminable meal, she sat with Luis's pearl like a frozen tear between her breasts.





CHAPTER SIX


As her wedding day drew inexorably nearer, Nicola found the days were  taking on a strangely dreamlike quality. She was very conscious that she  was no longer in control of her own destiny, and as a consequence  reality seemed to withdraw to a distance. But afterwards, certain  incidents seemed to her to stand out with startling clarity.

She had spent quite some time writing letters-to her parents, to Elaine  and to Teresita. The first had been incredibly difficult, because she  had to leave so much unsaid. For instance, she could hardly write to two  people who loved her, 'He makes me burst into flames if he so much as  takes my hand, but he has a mistress in Santo Tomas a few miles away and  he visits her several times a week, and will probably continue to do so  after the wedding.' So instead she told them that she was very happy  and that if they thought they could come to the wedding, Luis would send  the air tickets immediately.                       
       
           



       

The letters to Elaine and Teresita were much easier, because she  confined herself to a bald statement of the facts without explanation or  expansion. Her sole concession was a 'Please don't worry about me'  scrawled at the end of each.

Dona Isabella did not mellow as Luis had predicted, but her attitude  gradually became more resigned as the wedding approached. Nicola  suspected she derived a great deal of secret enjoyment from the  arrangements in spite of her constant complaints. Certainly she made the  most of playing the gracious hostess when visitors began arriving to  meet Don Luis' novia. There were luncheon parties and supper parties,  with guests from all over the state and beyond, some of them even  arriving in their own private planes and helicopters on the landing  strip at the rear of the hacienda. Nicola had discovered that Luis  himself possessed a pilot's licence, and frequently took the controls at  his own light aircraft which he kept at Monterrey airport.

Nicola found the frequent parties an ordeal, even when Luis was there at  her side, and far worse when he was not. And he was not always there by  any means. She was beginning to realise the extent of his wealth and  responsibilities, and understand why he was often away at meetings,  sometimes for days at a time.

She always felt uneasy when he was away from the hacienda. Not because  she missed him, she assured herself swiftly, but because without his  presence and protection she was always more aware of his family's  hostility and disapproval.

Not Ramon, of course. If he had misgivings about his cousin's choice of  bride., he concealed them well, and was always friendly and considerate,  but he wasn't always there either, and it was then that his mother and  sister began to plant their barbs, holding long conversations from which  Nicola was excluded because she knew nothing of the people they were  mentioning, or the incidents to which they referred. She knew they were  deliberately showing her that she did not belong to their leisured  world, and she wanted to say, 'Don't worry-it wasn't my idea. But the  alternatives were pretty appalling too.'

She had sometimes wondered if she could appeal to Dona Isabella for  help. The border with the United States couldn't be all that far away,  but she guessed that if Dona Isabella had to weigh ridding herself of  Nicola against deliberately arousing Luis' wrath, there would be no  assistance there. Besides, Luis still had her passport, and during his  absences, the door to his study was kept locked.

But her life wasn't just a constant stream of visitors and social  events. Señora Mendez, the dressmaker, was now installed at the  hacienda, a small stout woman with flashing eyes and an imperious  manner, trailing a downtrodden daughter carrying pattern books and  fabric samples in her wake. Nicola was aware that the Señora was there  to make her wedding dress, but she was frankly taken aback at the extent  of the trousseau which was to be provided, particularly in view of the  fact that there was to be no honeymoon trip as such. Luis had informed  her abruptly that his business commitments were too pressing, but that  he would arrange something later in the year.

'But if we're not going away, then I don't need all these clothes,' Nicola protested.

He lifted a brow, sending her a sardonic grin. 'I agree, chica, but we must not scandalise Tia Isabella.'

She had turned away, flushing, half in anger, and half with the  forbidden excitement which always uncurled deep inside her when he  looked at her like that. And it happened too often for comfort.  Sometimes as she sat at the dining table, or on the terrace, or walked  in the courtyard she would look up and see him watching her, a deep  sensual hunger in his eyes which he made no effort to conceal.

In a way, although her mind rejected all the conventional connotations  of a honeymoon, she felt it might have made things easier for her if  they had gone away somewhere, if only for a few days. She would find it  embarrassing in the extreme to have to face the small enclosed world of  the hacienda each day as Luis's bride. But at the same time, it was  impossible to confess her misgivings to Luis, to tell him frankly that  she would prefer her transition from girlhood to womanhood to be  observed by no other eyes but his.

Because that wasn't strictly true either. Each day, the implications of  what she was about to do pressed more heavily upon her, filling her with  a kind of panic. She might feel that she no longer had any real will of  her own, that some unknown current was sweeping her away, and she could  no longer swim against it, but the fact remained that the ultimate  intimate submission still lay ahead of her, and she was terrified.