The House of Adriano (8 page)

Finally they were in their seats and
she was watching the
station platform slowly slide behind them outside the window. The powerful express picked up speed and a little smile curved her lips.

As Marius Jenton had once said, it was a big country. Now let Duarte Adriano try to find her. She could have gone anywhere.

When they arrived in Melbourne it was teeming with rain, but they again went to the extravagance of a taxi. Aileen had taken the precautions of booking reservations the same day she had booked their railway tickets, but to get rooms at such short notice she had had to take them at a hotel far more expensive than she would have dreamed of in the normal way, and there had also been the expense of telephone calls by the tourist agency to book the rooms. Running away, she discovered, cost quite a lot.

Early the next morning she went out to buy a newspaper to look down the columns in search of a room or a small flat. There were plenty advertised, but complications set in when the prospective landladies or landlords realised she had a child with her, but eventually, after three days’ searching, she did manage to find a tiny flat and they moved in. It was not as good as the one they had had in Sydney and more expensive.

The next thing was to find a job. She found one fairly quickly, but it was nowhere near so good as her previous one had been. Unfortunately she could not give Marius Jenton and the Southern Cross as a reference, so she had to rely on references from the firm where she had worked prior to that, making the excuse that she had left to get married and now that her husband was dead had to get another job to support Peter. Luckily nobody knew how old Peter was, so the question of how many years it was since she had supposedly left to get married was not questioned, but it did make it difficult to get a well
-
paying job, since prospective employers took it that she was out of touch with office routine, but in the end she found something fairly satisfactory. The only trouble was that after only one day’s work she found herself cordially detesting her immediate superior, the man she worked for - and that too she blamed on Duarte.

The arrangements for Peter’s schooling were not quite so convenient as before, either, but they managed. That was something else to blame on him, though. They had been so happy together before he had come on the scene. She had been earning a good salary and she had enjoyed her work. She and Peter were still happy together, of course, but her life seemed in a turmoil. She could not settle down somehow and she was constantly haunted by the question of whether or not she had done right.

She did not regret in the least her most illegal and reprehensible decision to take the law into her own hands and run away - after all, anything was worth it to score off Duarte Adriano - but she did sometimes wonder if Peter himself would thank her for it when he became old enough to understand. Jenton had been quite right when he said that Duarte could give Peter far more than she could. Then she would tell herself not to be such an idiot. Of course she had done right. It was what Eric would have wanted too.

Anyway, it was too late to change now, unless she voluntarily returned, and she could not see herself doing that, surrendering her victory to a man she disliked so much, and so she slowly settled down into her new life, but all the time adding fresh fuel to her antagonism of the man she had run away from because everything was not as good as it had been before.

Much as she disliked him, though, she found she could not quite help herself thinking of him, especially one morning as she waited on the kerb to cross the road. It was teeming with rain and freezing cold and she pulled her raincoat more closely around her. It was much colder down in Melbourne, as she had noticed when she first arrived, and now, almost six weeks later, there was a distinct nip in the air as it began to chill down towards winter, although she had been told that such low temperatures were unusual for the time of the year.

It was a powerful, black car, passing by as she stood
on
the kerb, that made her think more vividly than ever of Duarte
Adriano
... of the time when another large black car had slid
to
a stop at her side while rain pelted down in another city.

She knew by now of course that he had been appointed Peter’s legal guardian. She bought the Sydney papers every day and always scanned them closely, especially the law notices. It had not exactly come as a shock when she saw the notice informing whoever cared to read it that Duarte Luis Manuel Diego y Carelis Adriano, Conde de Marindos, had been appointed the legal guardian of Peter Balgare. She had been expecting something like that all the time, but she had somehow now expected it to happen so quickly. Probably there were ways of arranging these things quickly though if one had power and money and the opposition was not fighting it. There were probably special fees that could be paid to hurry a case on, especially when it was such a case as this one. She could quite easily imagine him explaining that he wanted it through quickly because Peter had been left quite long enough in the care of someone who was not a relative nor capable of taking care of him properly, as she had to be out at work all day. It would no doubt have been quite easy for him, especially if an impression was given that Peter’s present unofficial guardian had only taken him on a reluctant burden, from a sense of duty because she had once known his parents.

Sometimes, when her thoughts became so very vitriolic, she would feel the sense of guilt again, because however much she disliked him, instinct t
o
ld her that Duarte was not the type of man to twist facts to suit his own ends. However true that might have been, though, she was quite convinced by now that there would have been no chance at all had she remained in Sydney and tried to fight it out with him. He had the money to hire the best lawyers in the country, while what little reserves she did possess would not have gone very far. No, this had been the only way, however wrong people might say it was.

Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night and wonder what Duarte would do if he did find them, but autumn passed into winter without a suspicion that he was anywhere on her track. Was he even still in Australia, or had he returned to Spain, leaving the search to the private detectives he had once hired to try to find Eric?

Winter passed and spring came round. Aileen had had promotion in her job and was now feeling far happier with her lot, a rise in salary and a boss she liked. Spring passed into summer and Christmas came round. In the New Year the shipping office had its annual picnic, where everyone was invited to bring their families. It was a golden day, without a sign of rain - it quite often rained in Melbourne - and Peter was skipping along happily at her side as they went to catch the train into town, his eyes positively glued to the window ail the time, expressing the wish, though, that he had brought something to throw into the river as the train crossed the bridge over the Yarra, whereupon Aileen retorted that it was just as well that he had not thought of bringing anything as that particular stretch of railroad had not been specially designed for people to throw things into the river, then they were leaving the train at Flinders Street Station and Peter was exclaiming delightedly at the traffic signs with their special little notices that lit up saying “Don’t Walk” in red and “Walk” in green, which, although he had seen them before, never failed to bring that little delighted chuckle of laughter.

The rest of the day passed
off
as pleasantly as it had started. They met other members of the firm and their families at the bus depot and everyone climbed aboard and headed out into the country. There were sports for both the children and the adults and a barbecue in the evening. Photographs were taken, the winners of the various sports presented with medals and ribbons and everyone went home perfectly happy.

Aileen did not know it, but from that moment Nemesis dogged her heels. Two months later she came out of the entrance of the shipping office and, feeling someone suddenly grip her arm, turned with a frown and a crisp word on her lips - but it was never spoken, and the frown slowly died as her face whitened, because the man who had caught her arm was Duarte Adriano.

CHAPTER IV

With
a horrible kind of fascination Aileen looked at his tall figure outlined in the rays of the late afternoon sun. He was really quite tall for a Spaniard, she thought in some abstract corner of her mind, while the rest of it ran round in circles, wondering how this awful thing had happened.

A trace of sardonic amusement crossed the dark features as he read the shocked dismay on her face.

“
Buenos tardes
,”
he slid evenly, the first time she had ever heard him use his own language.

“How ... how did you come to find me?” was all she could find to say, while every instinct urged that she should start a panic-stricken flight into the rush-hour crowds, while common sense at the same time warned her not to do anything so completely idiotic. She could not possibly escape. He was making quite sure of that by the relentless grip on her arm.

“My car is only a short distance away,” he said, and somehow she found herself walking meekly at his side, too stunned to even attempt to escape. Anyway, it would still be quite impossible. He had released her now, but instinct told her that ruthless grip would close upon her arm again if she made the least suspicious move.

When they reached the car he held the door open for her and she climbed in just as meekly. She was somehow too shocked and numb even to try to jump out while he went round to the other side and slid into the driving seat. He did not switch on the engine straight away, but turned to look at her, the aquiline features expressionless as a mask.

“Where have you left Peter?”

She did not even try to be evasive. Something in his tone demanded compliance, and she was not very surprised to hear her voice giving him the address of the nursery which arranged for Peter to be taken on to school.

After that it as an extremely silent journey. They reached the nursery, drove on to where she lodged, and he tersely instructed her to get Peter’s clothes packed, which she obeyed in the same numb state. It did not take very long, and a little later Peter was again seated in the car. She half expected that Duarte would take him away alone, but he motioned to her to get in also.

There was another silent drive, until they pulled up at what was obviously a luxury hotel - just the sort of place he would choose, she thought with some asperity, as rebellion began to break through the numbness that had claimed her since she first caught sight of him.

He was still silent as they went up together in an equally silent lift and were shown into a most luxurious suite of rooms, where an elderly, uniformed nurse took charge of Peter and led him out into another room. Then Duarte turned to her, and Aileen could not help flinching slightly as the gaze of those black eyes fell on her. It was not as if they were particularly merciless. It was more the fact that she could not guess anything at all of what he was thinking.

“Sit down,” he instructed in that melodious, attractive voice she hated so much, and she sat down as ordered, stiffly, on the very edge of one of the chairs, while he remained standing. “I brought you straight here so that there could be no repetition of your former escapade.”

“Very cautious of you,” she said in a tight little voice that hated him.

“You knew that I had been made Peter’s legal guardian?”

“I read it in the paper,” she said in the same tight little voice. Now that the shock was wearing off she wondered how she was going to hang on to her self-control. She was conscious of a desire to burst into tears, but to cry in front of him was the last thing she would allow herself. It would be better to fly into a temper. Even if he called her an uncontrolled child, that would be better than letting him see her in tears, letting him know how deeply it hurt her to know that he had won after all and she would have to give up Peter.

He brought a slim platinum cigarette case from his pocket and offered her one, but she refused. She did not in any event smoke, and even if she had, it would have choked her to accept anything from him, even a cigarette. He took her refusal quite calmly, requested her permission to smoke himself and lit his own cigarette before he spoke again.

“As to how I found you
...
”
he said after a moment’s pause. “Shall we say that it was ... fate?” His dark face had a distinctly satirical expression at that moment. “Your firm had a picnic some months ago.”

Those photographs! But how could he have seen them? They had never been for the general public or any of the newspapers.

He nodded, as if he had guessed what she was thinking. “Yes, I saw photographs of it.
At least ...
Marius Jenton saw them and drew my attention to them. I had found it necessary to return to Spain.”

“Marius Jenton saw them?”

“He is, if you did not already know it, the holder of several blocks of shares in that particular shipping company. They put out an annual company magazine that is sent to every shareholder. Photographs from the picnic happened to be included in the journal.” The sardonic smile flickered across his face again. “You happened to have been caught very plainly.”

Even if she could have had no knowledge of Marius Jenton owning shares in the shipping company, how could she possibly have been so idiotic as to allow her photograph to be taken like that? It was her own fault, she reviled herself, even though she could not have known that they would ever meet the gaze of somebody who knew Duarte Adriano and the situation concerning Peter. She could not blame Jenton, though. He had only done what he thought best, no doubt sending off a copy of the journal to Spain, whereupon Duarte had immediately returned to Australia. Once the name and address of the shipping company was known to him, it would have been easy to waylay her. He had been so confident he had even arranged for a nurse to take charge of Peter.