had seen few pale-skinned people since coming to South America, but contrarily she admired the brown skins she had seen, envying them their immunity to the sun’s rays.
Ricardo spoke to her once or twice, asking her about her father, and revealing that he, too, had known Charles Durham. It was reassuring to hear that her father was not forgotten by these men, but although she would have liked to have asked him questions, she was all too conscious of Estelita’s cold dark eyes upon her.
The meal itself was rather too rich for her palate. A casserole of meat and vegetables, very highly spiced and hot with peppers, was an assault to a stomach still not attuned to the change of latitude, and Alexandra contented herself with crumbling the bread which accompanied it, and spreading it thinly with butter that tasted slightly rancid.
‘You are not eating, señorita,’ Estelita remarked once, her lips twisting contemptuously. ‘She will never lose that boyish figure if she does not put some flesh on her bones, eh, Jason?’
Ricardo made a comment to this which seemed to amuse him greatly, and which caused the housekeeper’s eyes to flash angrily. Her response was a vituperative tirade in their own language, which Jason silenced with a curt admonishment. But Ricardo was unrepentant, and turning to Alexandra, he explained:
‘I tell Estelita she does not need any more flesh on her bones, no? I think perhaps she could afford to spare you some, hmm?’
‘Ricardo!’ Jason’s impatient interjection gave Alexandra the chance to avoid an embarrassing answer, but Estelita was not appeased. She spent the remainder of the meal in sullen silence, only responding when Jason suggested she should serve the coffee.
Alexandra, apprehensive of Jason’s censure, was glad when, after the meal was over, he disappeared, and making the excuse of seeing how Miss Holland was faring, she left the room. The hall was a silent cavern, and the lamp standing on the chest cast pools of darkness in shadowy corners. The remoteness of their situation was suddenly a tangible presence, and shivering slightly she crossed the tiled floor to the stairs. A shaft of light from an open doorway caught her gaze as she ascended the stairs and dipping slightly to peer into the room, she saw Jason standing behind a square desk. The desk was strewn with papers, and he was presently engrossed in the sheet he held in his hand, a brooding expression marring his lean features. His indifference to the isolation was reassuring somehow, but she went on her way, aware that for tonight at least, Jason’s company was barred to her.
In her room, she turned out the light and stepped out on to the balcony. The scent from the passion-flower vine below her windows rose tantalisingly to her nostrils, and she tried to relax. But the starlit darkness was like a wall between her and the life she had known, and succumbing to a ridiculous sense of unease, she closed the shutters and went to find Miss Holland.
Morning had displaced the shadows of the night, and although it was early, even for her, Alexandra was up soon after six. Her system was still adjusting to the time change, and besides, she was eager to dispel her first impressions. She was sure her anxieties of the previous evening had been exaggerated, and the prospect of seeing more of the estancia lifted her spirits. She was even prepared to believe that that scene with Jason had never happened, that it had been some figment of her imagination, and she determined to show him that her feelings towards him had not changed. Exactly what those feelings were, she was not quite sure. She felt a sense of gratitude towards him, of course, but it was more than that that made her senses tingle when he was near her. He was much older than she was, even if he was much younger than her father had been, but not old enough to regard in that light. She only knew she liked being with him, better than with anyone she had ever known before, except perhaps her father, but even in her innocence she sensed that the relationship she wanted with Jason was much different from the relationship she had wanted with her father. It was all most disturbing. She had sent herself to sleep trying to imagine how she would feel if Jason treated her as the sheik had treated his fair prisoner, but her inexperienced imagination had been unable to provide any satisfactory answer.
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