Rain Shadow(16)

Rain-wet bricks rumbled beneath the carriage wheels, and he scrutinized  the Back Bay's distinctive buildings. Beacon Street. As he'd imagined,  this section of town smelled like money, breeding and arrogance. The  first commodity Miguel lacked and was of a mind to acquire, the other  two he possessed, or so his former wife had said.

Comtesse Remmington. His narrow lips twisted in bitter self-derision. A  title with no money is what she'd turned out to be, and she'd had the  audacity to divorce him when she'd discovered he was without resources.

The carriage pulled to a stop in front of a two-story brownstone, and  Ruiz paid the driver. With slim fingers, he checked the impeccable  crease of his trousers, straightened his ruby-studded cuffs and raised  the knocker. It fell with a resounding clack on the brass plate.

A butler ushered Miguel into a sitting room where several other guests were conversing.

"Mr. Ruiz!" Madelena rose from the brocade settee and greeted him. "I'm so glad you could come."

"Encantado." Adroitly sliding into the too-familiar role of suave charmer, he kissed the back of the hand she offered.

She blushed, the rosy glow complementing her dark features. Her black  hair, shiny and straight, was coiled in an elaborate coronet around her  head, a gold comb jauntily winking from her crown. She was of average  height, her waist small, and her body slender. No generous display of  bosom swelled over the top of her bodice, but the diamond and emerald  teardrop necklace drew his appreciative gaze to her breast regardless.

"Father hired musicians to play for us after dinner."

He forced himself to look into her zinc-colored eyes. "You must promise me a dance, querida."

"Of course. Come meet my mother."

An exquisite turquoise gown did nothing for the shorter, plain-faced  woman with dull brown hair and eyes. Ruiz took her hand and flattered  her with a lazy smile. Madelena had obviously inherited her father's  looks.

"Mr. Avarato." Miguel spoke to the man he'd met the week before at the same function where he'd been introduced to Madelena.

"After we met, I remembered I knew your father, Mr. Ruiz." Philippe  Avarato's elegant black mustache turned up in a smile. "We had business  dealings before the war." Unblinking, Miguel smiled through the  tempestuous feelings the mention of his father roused and offered a  polite reply. Avarato couldn't know Miguel's father had disowned him  years ago, or he wouldn't approve of this liaison with his daughter.  Perhaps the Ruiz name and his father's wealth would prove to be Miguel's  trump in this game.

Miguel's hungry eyes devoured the opulence of the dining room to his  left. Sparkling fine crystal lined the twenty-foot table, and  gold-rimmed plates glittered beneath the prismatic chandelier. He stood  on an imported Persian carpet, inhaling the elegance that tinged the  room. He'd been born and bred to this way of life. Raised among the  wealthiest and most affluent people in South America. Schooled for  success in the world of the privileged, and someday, he vowed, it would  all be his again.

Someday soon.

A servant announced dinner, and Miguel took his seat across from  Madelena and next to her grandfather, a silver- haired gentleman with a  hearty laugh.

"Where are you from, young man?"

"Buenos Aires, sir."

Fredrico Avarato quirked a white brow. "Our family originated near Rosario."

"We are neighbors." Miguel saluted his host with his wineglass, and then raised it to his lips.                       
       
           



       

"You were there during the republican revolution?"

"I had business in Europe during that time," Miguel evaded.

"What is your family's business?" Madelena's grandfather asked.

"Textiles. Leather goods."

One white eyebrow rose again in recognition. "Your father owns the largest manufacturing plant in Argentina."

"Our family's business is shipping," Madelena stated needlessly. "I  wonder if our ships have carried any of your goods, Mr. Ruiz."

Relieved of the old man's questions, Miguel disarmingly turned his  attention to Madelena. "Miss Avarato, you are not only beautiful, but  intelligent."

Madelena's lashes swept her cheeks in an artless imitation of beguiling  femininity. Conversation hummed around them, but Miguel offered her his  undivided interest. "Father's aide instructs me each week," she said.  "Father says I must be informed so that I can oversee the shipyards  should anything happen to him or-"

Miguel leaned forward as though hanging on her every word, inwardly weary of the offensive game.

She blushed. "Or my future husband."

Disgust seized his insides. He nodded sagely. "Ah." Miguel pressed a  napkin against his lips, careful of his mustache. "Do I know your future  husband?"

Madelena laughed and covered her mouth with her napkin. "I'm not yet promised to anyone."

This was the last time. The last time he would prostitute himself for  what he deserved in the first place. "No hurry, querida. Your father  looks in perfect health."

She flashed him an enamored smile. "You're right. There is no hurry. The  controlling stock doesn't become mine until I'm thirty."

The wine Miguel sipped turned to vinegar in his mouth. Thirty! She could  not be-he slid a critical eye over her features-nineteen. If he married  her now, he would have to wait ten years to see his investment pay off.  Could he wait that long? He knew from past ventures, a woman's appeal  dimmed in a matter of months.

The servants cleared the dessert plates, and he glanced about for an escape.

"Join us for a smoke, Mr. Ruiz?" Fredrico invited. Relieved, Miguel  excused himself and followed Philippe and the elderly gentleman into a  wood-paneled office. The room smelled of leather-bound books and  expensive tobacco. Folding himself into an Italian leather sofa, he  studied the gold inlay pendulum clock on the desk. The timepiece was  worth more than his entire marriage to the comtesse.

And Madelena only nineteen. Stupid little harridan. All this at his fingertips, and the heiress was nineteen.

Philippe seated himself across from Miguel.

"So you've been traveling." Fredrico flipped open a brass humidor.

"Si." Miguel accepted the cigar and sniffed the finest Colombian tobacco  money could buy. He observed the expanse of the room, noticing the  marble fireplace, the portrait over the mantel... It would take ten  years to obtain all this. Ten long years.

"I spent some time in Europe, too," Fredrico broke into his thoughts,  speaking as he seated himself behind his enormous desk. "Tediously  stuffy, isn't it?"

Miguel listened with one ear. His wandering gaze noted the beautiful  woman painted in the portrait, jet hair and somber eyes like Philippe's,  revealing a family resemblance. He lit his cigar and enjoyed the rich  tobacco flavor. A soft-looking aqua gown bared the woman's slender  shoulders, and against her pale chest a necklace, exquisitely captured  by the artist's adept brush strokes, caught shards of light.

The necklace riveted Miguel. Not diamond and emerald like the one  Madelena wore tonight, but gold... a unique filigree clasp and a  briolette-cut amethyst stone mined only in Bolivia.

A remote flash of recognition sparked his consciousness. Gold filigree, a winking lavender stone...

"-a family I met in Paris," Fredrico said loudly, breaking Miguel's concentration, irritating him beyond measure.

He nodded politely and drew on the cigar. Frowning at the portrait, he  peered with vague interest across the woman's face and hair, the elegant  gown, and was drawn once again to the locket. The elusive memory  wavered. Dark hair. Si. Dark hair. Trencilla. A braid?                       
       
           



       

Miguel choked on the smoke, and his eyes watered. He stood and gaped at the painting. It could not be.

Ignoring Fredrico's monologue, Miguel strode to the fireplace and gaped.

Recognition flared. It could not be. The locket loomed vivid in his  memory. There could not be two such lockets. Its design was unique. The  face in the portrait wavered. The Indian girl had worn it. The appealing  young girl he'd met just before the comtesse. The girl he had seduced  on the ocean voyage.





Chapter Six




What was Rain Shadow doing with the Avarato family's locket? Miguel  studied the woman's face, noting no resemblance to the Indian girl.  "Pardon my inquisitiveness, but who is the stunning woman in the  portrait?"

A flicker of pain passed over the old man's face.

"That is Juanita, my sister," Phillipe supplied.

Miguel returned to his seat. "All the women in your family are lovely."

A black-clad male tapped at the partially open door. "Would you like a fire, Mr. Avarato?"