Dancing in the Shadows Read online

  She paused to sip her tea. Rattling her cup back in her saucer with none of her usual care, she seemed to bend to an overwhelming compulsion. ‘I hope it’s Carlos. I shouldn’t be saying this. I know I’m speaking out of turn, but I can’t keep it back. When I said just now that I considered you family, it wasn’t just because I find you a kindred spirit. I hope you will be family. I do so dearly hope that Carlos has the good sense to marry you. I know I couldn’t wish for a sweeter daughter-in-law.’ She leaned forward to kiss Dorcas’s—by this time—damp cheek.

  Dorcas brushed the tears away with the back of her hand, as a child might have done. She was a child again, remembering a moment long ago when her own mother had pulled her close in just such a spontaneous gesture. Her mother had never made any difference between her and Michael. The past was too painful. She pushed it back where it belonged.

  Concentrating hard she said: ‘I don’t think that is very likely.’

  ‘Oh dear! Have you had a lovers’ tiff?’

  For answer Dorcas bit hard on her lip. ‘Lovers’ tiff’ sounded like a small dissent that could easily be resolved. Their difference went much deeper than that. Try as she might, she couldn’t see a happy making-up.

  A hand came comfortingly down on hers. ‘I shouldn’t worry too much. Things have a knack of coming right.’

  Some things were too wrong ever to come right. It seemed ironical that now it was right with Carlos’s parents, it was wrong between them.

  * * *

  When several days elapsed and Carlos still hadn’t said anything about getting her plane reservation, Dorcas decided he wasn’t going to send her home while Michael was so ill. It was the sort of considerate gesture she had come to expect of Carlos. What struck her as being out of character was the new and not totally acceptable soberness about him these days. Yet she could have sworn that somewhere at the back of that unduly grave expression was a locked-in smile. Yes. Very strange.

  Michael had youth on his side, and a tip-top constitution to start with. He soon got better. He complained of getting headaches, but was assured these would clear in the time it took his hair to grow to its original length. They’d cut away the hair round the gash in his head in order to stitch it. This had given him a rather lop-sided appearance which only severe, all round cutting had resolved. He looked even sweeter and more angelic than ever with very short hair.

  Each day found Carlos more deeply involved with a heavier work load. It wasn’t just the merger; he was shouldering a larger slice of responsibility than he had previously borne. It was a result of the merger that an opening occurred for a liaison man. Carlos offered the position to Michael. A move that did not altogether surprise Dorcas, because Alfonso Roca had spotted Michael out as a bright prospect some time earlier. Michael’s appointment would be with don Alfonso’s approval now that Isabel was officially engaged to Paco, and Michael was no longer a threat. Urged by Samantha, he accepted. And now Samantha and Michael were making wedding plans, and searching the district for a modestly priced villa. There was nothing to keep Dorcas now, and she lived in daily dread of being handed her air ticket home.

  She called at the garage to tell Tom Bennett that she expected to be going home quite soon. She was sorry to learn that things hadn’t worked out for him and Jane. He revealed the contents of the letter his eyes had strayed to on her previous visit. Instead of informing him of the date of her arrival as Tom had led Dorcas to believe, Jane had written to say it would be like coming out to marry a stranger. She said the separation had been needlessly long, that if they’d really wanted each other they would have found a way. She wrote that the only thing left to say was—and this was the message of Jane’s letter—goodbye.

  ‘And she’s right,’ Tom said sagely. ‘We couldn’t have wanted it enough, or we would have made it happen.’

  It made Dorcas think again about Tom’s lightly worded proposal of marriage to her. Had it entirely been the joke she had taken it for? Was it, just possibly, the tentative thoughts of a recently jilted man, motivated by loneliness? She would never know. Neither did she want to. She liked Tom, she would always remember him as a friend, but the vital spark was missing. When she left, promising to convey his thanks to Enrique Ruiz who had kept his word about putting some business Tom’s way, she was careful not to kiss him goodbye.

  She arrived back at the villa to be told by Rose Ruiz: ‘You’ve just missed Isabel and her mama.’

  ‘I wish I’d known. I would have hurried back. Are they well? Is doña Maria bearing up?’

  ‘Only just. Isabel is a dear girl. At the moment she’s bubbling over with joy. She’s like champagne. Can you imagine a regular diet of champagne? Come talk to me, Dorcas. On any subject but weddings. Unless—?’

  There was blatant appeal in Rose Ruiz’s eyes. Dorcas had nothing to tell her. At least, not the thing that Rose Ruiz seemed to want to know.

  ‘Did you know that Carlos was arranging to get my plane ticket home?’

  Rose Ruiz thought about it for a moment. Comprehension touched her features like a golden glow. ‘Yes dear,’ she said, to Dorcas’s intense surprise.

  It was contradictory, surely? If the señora knew that Carlos was sending her home, how could she cling to the belief that their differences were as good as settled? It didn’t make sense. It was even odder than the strange, even smug expression Carlos wore these days.

  ‘Carlos is up to something,’ she said speculatively. ‘I don’t know what, but he’s planning something.’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about it. Whatever it is, it’s sure to include you.’

  There it was again, that firm belief that they had a future together, when all the facts pointed against it.

  ‘Carlos is said to favour me in looks, but he is like his father in many ways. They both adore springing surprises. Without breaking faith, I can tell you that at the moment they are acting like a pair of grown-up children. At such times it’s best to humour them. Now, my husband was looking for you earlier. If you go at once, I think you will find he is still in his study.’

  ‘Do you know what he wants me for?’

  ‘That comes under the heading of Awkward Questions. I’m pretending like mad that I don’t know anything is going on. I honestly don’t know.’

  Her mouth was a curve of blissful satisfaction.

  ‘But you’ve guessed.’

  ‘It comes with practise. Over the years I’ve become adept at picking up the clues. For example, you wouldn’t believe what you have told me just now. It’s what I suspected; you confirmed it. No, don’t ask me. I’ve said too much as it is.’ Knocking tentatively on the study door, pushing it open, Dorcas said: ‘Did you want to see me, señor?’

  ‘Ah, yes, Dorcas! Come in and shut the door behind you. I want to show you something.’ When he added: ‘It’s a surprise,’ she had to suppress a smile. ‘I want the feminine viewpoint on a present I have bought for my wife’s birthday.’

  It was a necklace of sapphires and turquoises.

  ‘You do not think it is perhaps too ornate for my English Rose?’ the señor asked anxiously.

  ‘No, no señor. It’s in impeccable taste. The señora will love it.’ Her approval shone through her enchanted eyes. ‘When is the señora’s birthday?’

  ‘On the sixteenth of this month. In Spain, we do not celebrate birthdays as you do. We celebrate our saint’s day. My Rose insists on her English birthright to celebrate her birthday. It is good, yes? We have two countries, two sets of customs.’

  ‘Yes, señor, it is good.’

  ‘My Rose’s birthday is always special.’ He smiled on a private thought. ‘This year it will be even more special than usual. As you will see, Dorcas.’

  Rose Ruiz was right. Don Enrique was acting like a grown-up child.

  Dorcas had already bought parting presents for everyone. For Rose Ruiz the had chosen an antelope carved in wood, poised as for flight. Carlos had once likened her to a gazelle. She hoped that sometimes he would look at
it and think of her. It would have been too obvious to give the wooden animal to Carlos. She still had a little money left, so she would buy the señora an extra gift for her birthday. Something personal and frivolous. Perfume perhaps.

  Later that same day, Carlos handed her the dreaded plane ticket which would take her home.

  I look the same, she thought whimsically, but I’m not me. This man has taken me apart, and put me together again. Outside, I look nice and tidy and composed. Inside, I don’t know where anything is. My independent spirit is there somewhere, but I can’t find it.

  ‘What date is my flight?’

  He seemed to be regarding her closely. ‘The fourteenth.’

  She had expected more grace. A week, even longer. ‘That’s in two days’ time,’ she gasped, her composure sabotaged by the finality of it all. ‘It’s just that—’ Searching for a plausible explanation to account for her distress—‘I’ll miss your mother’s birthday.’

  ‘By what misguided thought did you arrive at that?’

  ‘Can we start again, please. You’ve just lost me.’

  ‘That, my love, is precisely what I am safeguarding against not doing.’

  ‘This is crazy! Your mother’s birthday is on the sixteenth? Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well . . . if I’m going home on the fourteenth . . . ? I don’t understand.’

  ‘In Spain, birthdays are considered of less importance than one’s saint’s day. Were you aware of this?’

  ‘I wasn’t until your father told me.’

  ‘Mother claims her birthright to celebrate her birthday. This year my father thought it would add a special touch if it was celebrated in the country of her birth.’

  ‘You mean . . . England?’

  ‘I might as well take this back to keep with the rest,’ he said, plucking the plane reservation he had just given her out of her hand.

  ‘The rest?’

  ‘I’ve got tickets for all of us. Grandmother in particular is looking forward to the trip.’

  ‘You mean you are all coming to England to celebrate your mother’s birthday?’

  He gave her the kind of tolerant smile he might have awarded a much-loved child. ‘Yes, of course!’

  ‘So that’s what your father meant when he said your mother’s birthday was to be even more special this year. It also accounts for that smug look of yours these past few days.’

  ‘Oh? Have I been looking smug then?’

  ‘You know you have.’

  His eyes, resting on her so tenderly, were tempting her to hope. Yet when had hope ever fulfilled its promise? Hope beckoned—to disappoint. Tempted—to disdain. Yet here it was, resilient as ever, rising again. This time don’t let it bank her into a brick wall. This time, let it be different.

  ‘I thought you were sending me away. I thought you didn’t want me any more,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Sending you away?’ he said incredulously. ‘Not want you!’ He groaned. ‘If only you knew!’

  ‘I know you’ve played a mean trick on me. You deliberately led me to believe what I did.’

  ‘You think I should have told you about the extra birthday surprise my father was planning for Mother? But Dorcas, you must see the secret wasn’t mine to divulge. My father went to a lot of trouble to keep it from Mother. You can’t deny the two of you are as thick as thieves. Could I risk Mother wheedling it out of you?’

  ‘You are doing it again, Carlos. You know that’s not what I meant. Anyway, I think you would have a hard task keeping anything from your mother. The only person who has been in the dark about what’s been going on is me.’

  ‘No, you are wrong there, Dorcas. I haven’t been too enlightened myself.’

  She braced herself. She wanted to enlighten him . . . but how could she enlighten the cautious Englishman without stepping on the arrogant Spaniard’s toes? By agreeing, she decided.

  ‘It’s like you said about the balance not being right. We have tipped too easily into misunderstanding.’

  But not any more. Her expression was both exultant and tender. Of course! Carlos was no ordinary man. In trying to understand him, she hadn’t taken into account that by virtue of his English mother and his Spanish father, he was two men. He was Charles, the fun loving, cautious Englishman. And Carlos, the romantic, arrogant Spaniard. What a devastating combination! And she was hard-pressed to know which she loved best, and it was a bonus to be able to love them both in the same extraordinary, gentle, dominant, compassionate, arrogant man.

  ‘Would you say the balance of understanding was about right now?’ Carlos suggested.

  He had been studying her face closely, and now it was his expression that seemed to drive the breath from her body.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s what I think.’ That arrogant smile played so sweetly about his mouth. ‘If I did mislead you—and yes, I intended to a little!—I was also giving you time to sort yourself out. I thought that if I could find the patience to wait until we were in England, I would stand a better chance of getting the response I wanted. I won’t take no for an answer.’

  ‘You won’t have to, Carlos,’ she said shakily.

  ‘My beloved.’ The tenderly spoken endearment melted her eyes to tears. ‘Yes, you are that, Dorcas. I never meant to keep you in suspense about my feelings.’ His hands worked their way up to her elbows and then he drew her the rest of the way into his arms. ‘I love you.’ He seemed to sigh the words, as if finding a long-awaited release in that so joyously received declaration.

  Dorcas took it, this precious gift . . . his love . . . into her humble and grateful heart.

  ‘I love you too, Carlos.’

  ‘We must never misunderstand each other again. I won’t allow it.’

  She couldn’t resist asking mischievously: ‘And what will you do to prevent it? Beat me?’

  ‘No. I’ll range our children on my side and outnumber you.’

  ‘Children . . . our children! Oh . . . Carlos.’

  ‘Not straight away, so you can wipe that blissful, maternal look off your face. To begin with I am going to be very selfish and insist on having you all to myself. Aren’t you arguing?’

  ‘No.’ There was a certain wisdom in what Rose Ruiz said about letting time take its course.

  ‘That’s settled then.’

  ‘Not quite, Carlos.’

  His puzzled look was quickly replaced by a smile. ‘Ah . . . yes! As I only intend doing this once, I might as well do it in style.’ And now his eyes were solemn to suit the occasion. On bended knee he said: ‘Will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dorcas, swallowing hard. ‘That was a beautiful thing to do. I’m sure no one proposes like that these days.’ Then, realizing, ‘Dearest Carlos, of course my answer is yes.’