The House of Adriano (4 page)

Despite all her efforts, Aileen could feel a slight flush creeping up into her face, and she heartily wished that Jenton would get on with signing the letters and allow her to escape. Duarte Adriano’s eyes were fully on her now and there was something
mockingly amused in the depths of their intense darkness.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jenton went on, happily oblivious that his efficient and attractive secretary was feeling like gagging him. “I meant the type. Your women are still taught that marriage is the only career.”

The dark brows went up a little quizzically, but there was a hint of the same mocking amusement in the glance that slid over Aileen, before the Spaniard turned back to Jenton.

“Well, isn’t it?”

Aileen wondered about the mocking amusement and thought perhaps he might have sensed her antagonism when their glances had clashed out in the vestibule the day before, although why he should want to mock at her and why she should cause him amusement was beyond her. She had thought previously that she would hardly register on him as other than a cipher in the background. Of course old Jenton was not exactly keeping it impersonal.

“Maybe we’d like them to keep on believing it’s the only career,” the little Jew said. “Some of them don’t believe it any more, though.” He slanted a glance at Aileen this time. “That’s right, isn’t it, Miss Lawrence?”

Aileen, on the point of making some noncommittal reply, found her dislike abruptly heightened as she again met the cool dark glance of Duarte Adriano. Unconsciously, her chin tilted a little.

“Yes, I suppose it is. The idea that marriage was the only career came from the times when there was no other career for a woman. They had to find a man to support them. Nowadays, of course, it isn’t necessary. Quite often girls married just to avoid the so-called shame of remaining single. Now they can be independent and stay that way if they wish.”

“And you will wish to stay that way?”

Once again she felt that stiffening of dislike creep up her spine. She made no effort to evade the glance of those very dark eyes and even smiled, very sweetly, but with something in her voice that was far from being a smile, although it was perfectly courteous and polite.

“
Probably
. A secretarial career is a lot less troublesome than a husband about the place.”

It was perhaps not exactly the right thing to say, but it was said with that deceptively sweet smile, and Jenton roared with laughter as he signed the last of the letters. Aileen could not help noticing though that Duarte Adriano’s eyes had narrowed slightly, and she went back to her own office with a feeling of satisfaction.

Jenton was chuckling as the door closed behind her. “A secretarial career is a lot less troublesome than a husband,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I don’t think she was entirely joking either,” he added ruefully. “Not that I would want to lose her. She is too efficient. Best secretary I’ve ever had,” which remark was one he must have passed a couple of dozen times, perhaps because it never ceased to amaze him that anybody who looked so attractive as Aileen Lawrence could be efficient too. His previous secretary had been grey-haired and definitely most unattractive. “Had any news of your cousin yet?” he asked in one of his sudden changes of subject.

Duarte shook his head. “Nothing - except that he was supposed to have left Queensland for Sydney.”

“Pity I can’t help you. Anyway, knowing my connection with your family, Eric would have avoided me if he wanted to drop out of sight.” He shot his companion another of those sideways glances. “He must know that Dona Luana is dead now, though.”

Duarte shrugged. “Eric was always stubborn. I doubt that he will contact us of his own choice. If I can find him and talk to
him ...
perhaps I can persuade him to come back.”

Jenton gave him a suddenly speculative glance. “What happens if he’s married?”

“That eventuality I shall face when and if it occurs,” Duarte Adriano, Conde de Marindos, retorted dryly.

By the time five o’clock arrived it was pouring with rain and Aileen regarded the dripping world outside the staff entrance with a jaundiced eye. For once Sydney was not running true to form. It had started off as a gloriously sunny day, but about four o’clock black clouds had started to roll up out of nowhere and by five a heavy, pelting thunderstorm was in full swing.

Aileen glanced at her watch and frowned. She could wait for a short while - luckily she had no shopping to do this evening - but she could not leave it too long. The rain was teeming down as if somebody had opened floodgates, and unfortunately there was about ten minutes’ walk to where she caught her tram. Even the bus, which started from a different point, was no nearer. There was nothing for it but to brave the heavy curtain of water outside, so she slipped from under the sheltering metal canopy, dashed across the road and gained the shelter of shop canopies on the other side. Unfortunately they did not continue for very far and she was just about to forsake their shelter when a powerful black car slid into the kerb at her side. She did not take any notice until a voice spoke her name.

“Miss Lawrence.”

She turned slowly, recognising that melodious voice with the faint, attractive accent. Duarte Adriano was leaning across from the driving seat of the car, holding open the door nearest to her. It was a tacit invitation, but she hesitated and saw a faint expression of mocking amusement flash into the dark eyes.

“I am sure it will be quite permissible since we have been formally introduced.”

Aileen stiffened slightly, but replied with conventional politeness. “I’m a little damp. I was thinking of your upholstery.” Privately she was feeling a sense of wonder - mixed with the odd antagonism he aroused in her, of course. An unimportant little nobody like Aileen Lawrence being offered a lift by Duarte Adriano! Wonders would never cease.

The dark glance flicked from her to the drenched pavements. “You will become even
more ... damp
. Please get in.”

That last was said with an inflection in his voice that, although courteous as always, instinctively drew obedience, and a moment later, somewhat to her own surprise, Aileen found herself relaxing against luxurious upholstery.

“It’s very kind of you,” she said as the long, powerful car swung up the road in the direction in which she had been proceeding. “If you will just drop me at the top of the road, I can catch the tram from there. It stops almost at my door.”

“There is no need,” he returned coolly. “If you will direct me I can take you there.”

“It’s very kind of you,” she said again, and momentarily that brilliant dark glance flashed over her again.

“Not at all. When there is no necessity to go home in the rain, it is foolish to do so. Besides
...
”
there was an inflection in his voice she could not quite place, “you interest me.”

Aileen felt a little ripple of shock go through her. “I interest you!” She hardly felt there was anything about such a mundane person as herself to interest Duarte Adriano.

He nodded, without taking his eyes off the road. “Naturally.
I had heard of these career women who arrange their lives directly against nature, but I had never met one.”

Aileen gave a little gasp. His tone was very even and deliberate, but in some way she felt that she ought to take the remark as an insult. After all, it was tantamount to calling her unnatural. The next second, however, the tenuous antagonism that always bristled at the thought of him rose up more strongly than ever and swept over her almost uncontrollably.

“Was that meant to imply that I’m unnatural?” she asked smoothly.

Her tone was as even and deliberate as his own had been, but there was a little sparkle in her eyes that would have warned anyone who knew her. In any case, he was looking at the road and did not see it, shrugging slightly as he replied.

“Isn’t anything that goes against nature unnatural?” This time he did shoot a very quick glance at her and she caught a glimpse of that mocking amusement again. “A woman’s natural career is marriage.”

“And what about those whom nobody wants to marry? I understand there is a surplus of women in the world.”

“I do not think that should worry you.”

There was quite a pronounced tinge of amusement in his voice this time, and Aileen bristled, but just as she was about to give way to the sharp retort on the tip of her tongue she controlled it and spoke very sweetly instead, the same kind of sweetness that had been in her voice in the office when she had told him that women no longer had to rely on men to support them and that a secretarial career was much less troublesome than a husband about the place.

She even smiled. “If that was meant as a kind of oblique compliment - thank you.” In the same tone, she went on, “As it happens, it doesn’t worry me, but not from the same reason.
It never has particularly bothered me whether or not
I
married. According to statistics quite a few women are destined to remain single, and I’m sure that nowadays a lot of them do so quite willingly.”

“And romance?”

Again there was that thread of amusement in his voice, as if he listened to the prattling of a precocious child, and once again it made her bristle with annoyance.

She shrugged. “Everyone has their own attitude towards it. As for myself, I find it quite overrated - and to anticipate what I’m sure will be your next remark, I find kisses equally overrated and boring.”

“I wonder if you actually believe that yourself.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

How on earth had this conversation become so personal - and with a total stranger, somebody she did not like very much at that? Of course it was the rain that had started it - and now the rain had decided to stop and there was even a glimpse of a setting sun peeping through the clouds, as if the weather had got her into this uncomfortable discussion and now intended to leave her to it. Why hadn’t the rain stopped just a little earlier? she thought rebelliously, then he would not have had any excuse to offer her a lift. Probably he had cursed the rain himself, because she did not delude herself into thinking that he had actually wanted to make the offer. It was just that his upbringing drove him to it, because it was somebody to whom he had been formally introduced, even if she was only an insignificant little typist, and now he was whiling away the boring waste of time while he drove her home by indulging in a little mocking amusement at her expense. Immediately he had dropped her off at her flat he would most certain
l
y forget all about her, but even so, she did not intend to sit quiescent
u
nder those remarks of his.

“And your opinion of men?”

A swift glance at his hawk-like profile made her suspect that there was just a hint of a smile on that firm mouth.

“I could hardly express it now, could I?” she returned, with commendable self-control, she thought. “Especially as you’ve been so kind as to save me from a soaking.”

A glance out of the window told her that they were nearly home - she had been interspersing directions between her retorts
-
or at least they were almost at the Misses Carstairs’ house. Then she suddenly thought of Peter.

A little boy who, young as he was, already looked an Adriano
-
and sitting at her side was the man who was the head of the house of Adriano. Would he recognise that likeness in Peter? And if he did, how would he react to it?

Suddenly she had an odd sense of fear and she did not know what caused it. All she knew was that as the car drew up outside the grey stone house she had the overwhelming desire that he should not see Peter, and so when he asked if that was where she lived, quickly, without thinking, she said yes, thanked him for driving her home and walked up the path. As she lifted the old-fashioned knocker she was aware of the soft purr of the car driving away, and this time she was thankful that it had been raining, because it had made the Misses Carstairs keep the children inside, otherwise Peter might have been waiting at the gate for her, as he so often was - and then she frowned to herself, feeling the odd chill of apprehension run through her again. Just what was she afraid of?

CHAPTER II

Over
the week-end - it had been Friday night when he drove her home - Aileen tried to forget Duarte Adriano. She did not see him when she went to work on Saturday morning, so there was no glimpse of that tall figure to bring him to mind. It was not, however, as simple to put him out of her thoughts as she had imagined.

The odd sense of apprehension she had felt the night before had completely disappeared by now, though, and she could laugh at herself for feeling it, but the antagonism the man himself roused in her was far from gone. She was quite sure that she had never met such an irritating creature. Of course nobody could deny that he was more than a little attractive, and that his great wealth and title added glamour to it, but it all added up to somebody who was just too sure of himself and who was no doubt quite aware of everything that he possessed. Probably half the women he met ran after him - more fools they, she decided with some acerbity.

It was also quite obvious that he could not understand the idea of feminine independence and that it was unpalatable to him. A lot of those latin countries had outmoded customs, especially concerning their womenfolk. What was it Eric had once said about them? - that they were very pretty and very domesticated, fond of their children and their home, but as for being companions, to discuss problems with and with whom to hold serious conversations ... He had shaken his head. Not for him. He had wanted a wife who was a companion also and in Mandy he had found everything that a man could wish for.

These men who demanded that their wife should be merely a reflection of their own personality never knew what they were missing. It was all right to have a wife who was pretty and docile and who knew how to please a man, but such a wife only pleased the senses, not the mind as well. Of course there was always the type of man who liked his wife to be completely dependent and dominated by him, to look up at him as if he was some kind of minor deity, to follow out his every wish - and he was not so sure that it wasn’t such a bad idea at that, he had added with an impudent grin, whereupon Mandy had pretended to threaten him with the rolling pin and he had grinned again with Irish audacity, caught her in his arms and kissed her with a warmth and fervour that seemed to indicate that his Spanish blood was not exactly dormant, and Aileen had crept silently out of the room to play with Peter, hoping that some day love like that would come to her, and, in spite of everything she had told Duarte Adriano, she still hoped that it would. It was such a pity that she could not love Paul.