The House of Adriano (12 page)

“I have nothing to discuss as yet.”

“Then why did you say you had?” If she was not talking to him as one would to an employer, then he had only himself to blame. It was he who had proposed the terms of her coming here.

“It was necessary, otherwise I suspect you would have stood and argued that you wished to walk.”

That was said with such cool imperturbability, even a hint of that urbane charm he could assert when he chose, that she almost gasped, then he proceeded to disarm her by taking her on a driving tour of the city.

It was difficult to remain annoyed in such circumstances, especially as she was really exceedingly interested in everything around her, and that attractive voice with its slight accent could comment even more interestingly on notable buildings and other things around them.

They drove down the three-mile-long Calle de Alcala, where she saw the colourful flower beds and the impressive Puerta de Alcala, the Paseo del Prado and the statue of Neptune, and at last came to the Puerta del Sol, where there was really no gateway at all, as there was in the Puerta de Alcala, but merely another plaza with a dozen or so streets coming into it and more flower beds. The
modern
, wide streets finished there. It was a maze of crowded buildings and twisting, tortuous byways, but was supposed to be the centre of Madrid.

Then they drove to University City, with the Guadarramas in the distance. When they left University City, he drove around for a short time longer, then returned her to Marindos.

Aileen went up to her room with her thoughts rather in a turmoil. She was beginning to wonder just what to make of him. True, he still infuriated her and she was quite sure she still disliked him, but there had been times during the morning when she had almost forgotten that.

Peter greeted her boisterously and distracted her thoughts away from Duarte, for which she was rather glad. She was finding they had a tendency to dwell on him a little too much. Peter’s childish enthusiasm over the ornamental pond he had seen, with its tiny coloured fish, was a good antidote, though, and she gave in to his persuasions that he take her to see the pool.

To get there they had to cross the patio, and there she saw Duarte again, coming from one of the rooms that led on to the pillared terrace and thence down into the patio. For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether she should pass him by with a brief smile, but before she could make up her mind, he came over to her.

“Peter wants to show me the fish pond,” she said a little too quickly, rushing into speech and conscious again of that odd breathlessness. It could not, of course, be because she had suddenly become acutely conscious of his masculine attraction, the tall graceful body with its inherent pride handed down by generations of Condes de Marindos, the aquiline features and the dark eyes that could be so cool and remote or sardonically mocking, sun glinting with a blue-black sheen on the dark, straight hair.

“So already you do more exploring,” he said, looking from her to Peter. He smiled down at the boy, that brilliant smile that could so illuminate and alter his chiselled features. “Perhaps you will show me the fish pond too.”

Peter, completely without inhibitions, gave him a surprised look. “Don’t you know where it is? It’s your house.”

She thought that a tiny quirk of amusement turned up Duarte’s lips at that, but he answered gravely enough.

“It is so long since I have been there, I think I may have forgotten the way.”

“All right,” Peter replied agreeably - and slipped his hand into Duarte’s.

Aileen thought he looked a little surprised, but not displeased, but then Peter had to add embarrassment to the little scene by putting out his other hand and grasping her own, so that they started to walk down the paved way that led to the pool like some married couple with the child between them.

It was a distinctly disturbing thought, to link her with a man she did not even like, and she felt a flush rise to her cheeks as just a tiny suspicion was
born
in the back of her mind that disliking a person did not necessarily make one indifferent to him as a man.

“Quite a domestic tableau,” Duarte remarked a little mockingly, as if the same thought had occurred to him as Peter grasped both their hands.

"It’s just a habit he has,” she said, too quickly again. “He used to do the same thing with Paul.”

The dark brows went up at that. “Paul?”

Aileen could have bitten out her tongue for mentioning Paul. She had the feeling that he could be distinctly mocking about any man in her life, remembering the way he had once jeered at her for preferring a career to marriage.

“Just somebody I used to know in Sydney,” she said evasively.

“She means Uncle Paul,” Peter informed him gratuitously, and Aileen could cheerfully have gagged him.

“Aunt Aileen and Uncle Paul,” Duarte said thoughtfully. There was a faint hint of derision in the glance he slanted at her, although his voice was apparently serious again as he glanced down at the boy. “But aunts and uncles are usually married.”

“Oh, Uncle Paul wanted to marry her,” Peter told him casually. “He used to mend all my toys for me,” as if that was one of the requirements of anybody who should want to marry his Aunt Aileen.

“Is this the fish pond?” Aileen asked in heartfelt relief, as they came in sight of a small ornamental pond. Anything to change the subject - and she had the idea that she had not
heard the last of it.

Peter nodded and broke from them, running on ahead to drape himself rather dangerously over the stonework surrounding it.

“I’d better see that he doesn’t tip in,” Aileen said hastily, leaving Duarte behind and almost running after Peter. She could not have remained at his side in any circumstances at the moment.

She caught hold of Peter and hauled him back, to make her excuse look reasonable, sternly holding on as he wriggled protestingly.

“I won’t fall in - and I want to catch that spotted fish.”

“He’ll die if you take him out of the water.”

“I’m not going to take him out of the water,” he explained. “I just want to hold him for a moment,” whereupon he made a determined effort to get his small hand around the particular spotted fish in question, while Aileen held on to him just as determinedly and refused to look at Duarte to see what expression was on his face at the moment. However, after a moment a firm hand reached out and removed him from her grasp and set him up on the stonework.

“You said you were going to show us the pool, not imitate a fishing rod,” he said with apparent sternness, but Peter did not seem to take the remark at its face value. He laughed up into that dark face that bore such a subtle resemblance to his own, but submitted to sitting on the stonework and only looking down into the pool, instead of trying to catch any of its occupants.

“When is the tutor due to arrive?” Aileen asked. She already knew since Dona Teresa had told her, but it served as an innocuous remark to open the subject and keep away from anything personal.

“He will be here on Monday,” which was four days away.

Peter grimaced. “School again!” He shrugged with that almost adult mood Aileen was used to in him. “Still, I suppose it won’t be so bad, and I’d be a dead loss without it,” he added, the Australian slang term coming so oddly from his childish lips.

For a moment Aileen had the satisfaction of seeing Duarte show a glimpse of surprise. The dark brows went up dryly.

“I had not expected you to welcome the idea of it.”

Peter shrugged again. “Didn’t say I liked it,” he corrected, still with that amusingly adult attitude. “But Auntie Aileen said you have to learn things sooner or later, so it’s best to get it over with early.”

That dry glance slanted towards her
this time. “Your
... Aunt Aileen seems to have a technique all her own.”

He did not add to the remark, however, and Peter chose that moment to slide down off the stonework and go to investigate the statue of a seventeenth-century soldier that stood a short distance away. If she had been able to stop him leaving them with some legitimate excuse, Aileen would have gladly done so.

“So this Paul of yours wanted to marry you,” Duarte’s voice remarked at her side, as she had been expecting and dreading.

“Peter was imagining things,” she said in an attempt to deny it. “We used to live next door to each other and Peter would always run to him to mend his toys for him. I was never much good at that sort of thing. And
... and we used to go swimming together too.”

“But never for moonlight walks?” That softly attractive voice had an undertone of mocking derision now. “That Paul of yours must surely have realised the value of such things to combat that prized career of yours.” His voice was most definitely mocking now. “Did he never pause with you in some garden where night flowers were scenting the air
?
Or walk along the beach in the moonlight, with the sound of the surf behind you?”

“Since we both occupied little one-room flats, there was hardly any question of walking through flower gardens,” she retorted as dampeningly as she could.

“True,” he conceded. “But there was always your famed Botanical Gardens - and the sea was very near to you.”

“Is that how you would ask any girl to marry you?” she countered.

It was a slightly dangerous counter-action, but he was not going to get away with everything his own way and, even if it did make him withdraw into that remote coolness, he could put on like a cloak whenever he chose, that might be better than having him pry too closely into her love life and jeer at her apparent lack of womanly emotions. She was not going to let him guess that she was every bit as feminine as any other girl. If he chose to think that she was a die-hard career girl and it irritated the species of masculine conceit that liked to imagine a woman’s only career was marriage, so much the better.

However, he did not draw back into the cool mask she privately labelled his Conde de Marindos mood, as distinct and apart from the mocking derision he could hand out as Duarte Adriano.

The broad shoulders, covered by expensive and perfectly tailored cloth, shrugged with bland ambiguity.

“Perhaps,” he said in the same tone that his shrug had conveyed. “But we are not talking about Duarte Adriano.”

No, he was in a mood instead that seemed determined to poke and pry among her emotions and make fun of them. How these latins loved to put out the idea that they knew everything there was to know about love and that other countries that did not put so much emphasis on the emotions were cold-blooded fishes! Not that she could ever imagine Duarte in the throes of any heady passion. Spanish or not, he seemed far too self
-
controlled.

She shrugged herself. All right, if he wanted to take up that attitude, she could counter it.

“The sea was very near to us,” she admitted, “but we only went there during the daytime. There was no need for any romantic walks. We were just friends.”

“Ah - friends. That very elastic word that can mean so many things.”

Her head tilted more challengingly than she realised. “Don’t you believe in friendship between a man and woman,
senor
?”

“Sometimes it is possible - but when the girl is young and attractive, has blue eyes and very fair hair - no.”

Aileen felt an odd weakness go through her, but she answered composedly enough.

“If that is an oblique kind of compliment,
senor
- thank you.”

The dark head inclined slightly. “It is natural to pay compliments to an attractive girl.” His eyes glinted with the same mocking
a
musement. “Did your Paul not think the same?”

“We never indulged in compliments.”

She was certainly not going to tell him that Paul had once said moonlight made her hair like silver and that, far from
Paul being only just friendly, Peter had been quite right in saying that he had wanted to marry her. The first time he had asked her had when they were swimming together. It could hardly have been less romantic. True, her slim-fitting green swimsuit was most becoming, but she had also had rubber “flippers” on her feet and a glass-fronted diving mask over her face. They had both come up breathless and he had taken her not exactly by surprise by suddenly proposing to her.

There must have been something reminiscent in her expression, something in her face that gave her away, because she suddenly realised that Duarte was watching her with a peculiarly searching gaze, but it was quickly overlaid by the familiar mockery as he in turn realised that she was aware of his gaze.

“So he did want to marry you, but that so important career interfered.” He shook his head again. “It is a pity he could not have come to Spain.”

“You think that would have made any difference?”

That sardonic black brow jerked up. “He might have learned the value of our Spanish moonlight,” he retorted, his voice so very jibing that she could have hit him.

“I think you overrate your Spanish moonlight.”

“So? I think perhaps some time we must experiment.”

She was not given a chance to ask him what he meant by that, because Peter chose to return to them at that moment, for which she was quite glad, since it was not a conversation she would willingly have chosen to continue. Duarte had the annoying knack of being able to counter just about anything she said, and she had the feeling that it was best not to investigate any ambiguous remarks too closely or she would find he was merely scoring off her again.

Attractive or not - and there was no doubt that he was extremely attractive - he was also the most irritating person she had ever come across!

Pablo Doran, the tutor, a remarkably shy and bespectacled young man, duly arrived, and Peter settled down to lessons. When he had his Spanish lessons Aileen joined him, which Peter found vastly intriguing and made no secret of it. At other times during the day Aileen found plenty of free time on her hands.

She was not needed during the hours set aside for lessons, and some of the time she spent with Dona Teresa, who informally helped her with her Spanish vocabulary, both of them laughing over the mistakes she made. Sometimes it was hard to realise that the elder woman was Spanish, and on occasion Aileen had the feeling that Dona Teresa welcomed her presence. Even though, as she had said, she had tried to fit into the old ways again, it was obvious that her years away from them had irrevocably changed her, so that the more orthodox Manola could not discuss with her the very many subjects she wanted to discuss, anything from politics to what Aileen’s old home had been like during those days when she had been living in the country.