gave her a half mocking glance over his shoulder. ‘I doubt that brute will ever belong to anybody,’ he remarked flatly. ‘I suppose technically, yes, you could say that as he runs on my land, he belongs to me, but no one’s ever succeeded in breaking him.’
‘You have caught him, then?’
‘Yes.’ Jason nodded, and Miss Holland’s expression grew even more confused. ‘But he’s a proud bastard—excuse me!’ This as that lady’s brows ascended. ‘He considers running my range with my mares and keeping them happy his prime objective!’
Alexandra’s low laugh was intimate, and as if realising her bare arm was resting comfortably against the broad expanse of his shoulder, Jason’s expression hardened and he moved so that she was not touching him. Fortunately, perhaps, Miss Holland chose that moment to ask a question of her own, and Alexandra sank back against the upholstery as Jason explained what they had seen.
‘You breed horses, Mr. Tarrant?’ she enquired, her lips twitching a little as if at a rather distasteful subject, and Jason’s hard features softened a little.
‘Horses are my passion,’ he admitted, his eyes meeting Alexandra’s for a brief compelling moment. Then, braking as the road took a sharp curve, he added: ‘But the production of beef is my primary concern.’
‘But this animal—the one Alexandra has just seen—is a wild creature?’ Miss Holland persisted.
‘I suppose he is,’ Jason nodded, frowning as the wheels of the Range-Rover slid across a shingly patch of pebbles dangerously close to the edge of the track. ‘But sometimes I wonder if he’s not more civilised than we are.’ His lips twisted at the older woman’s apparent astonishment. ‘There’s little that goes on at the estancia that he doesn’t know about. Some of the Indians think he’s the reincarnation of one of their gods. To them, he’s sacred. To me, he has less saintly qualities.’
Miss Holland shook her head, obviously disturbed by her first introduction to life at San Gabriel, but Alexandra was filled with a mixture of anticipation and excitement. This was what she had always wanted, she thought with satisfaction; travel and adventure, and a chance to live her life instead of just existing. Jason’s disapproval did not disturb her, it was a challenge, and something told her he was not as indifferent to her femininity as he pretended to be.
Then her breath caught in her throat as she suddenly glimpsed a building ahead of them. As yet, it was below them in the valley, but the painted tiles of its roof, leaved across a wide verandah, gave her her first sight of Jason’s hacienda.
Uncaring of his hostility, Alexandra leant forward again, deliberately allowing her slim fingers to stroke the nape of his neck, hidden beneath the over-long straightness of his hair. ‘Is that your house?’ she breathed, and the scent of her breath mingled with the perfume of wild verbena that drifted irresistibly through the open windows of the Range-Rover.
Jason’s hand came up, ostensibly to smooth his hair, but he pushed her fingers determinedly away, as he answered: ‘Yes, that’s San Gabriel,’ and her delight in her surroundings obliterated the coldness of his tones.
‘It’s rather a large house, isn’t it, Mr Tarrant?’
Miss Holland had her own opinion, and Jason chose to tell her that the sprawling outbuildings she could see were the lodgings of the gauchos who worked for him. He pointed out the long bunkhouse and the cookhouse where their meals were served.
‘I have twenty men who work for me on a permanent basis, and at least twice that number who are employed if and when we need them. Then there’s Ricardo Goya, and Andrés Alberoni, who has his own home at the other end of the valley. Ricardo is my foreman, and Andrés is the best herdsman this side of the Andes.’
‘Quite a large establishment.’ Miss Holland was impressed, although Alexandra guessed she still had misgivings about coming out here. It could only be all too different from what she was used to, and unlike Alexandra she was old to change her ways. But pride, and necessity, had taken the choice of working conditions out of her hands, and she had been prepared to sacrifice her desire to remain in England for the very adequate salary Jason had offered her.
The road widened as they reached the grassy lower slopes of the valley, and now they could see the river that meandered beside banks bright with golden rod and curiously yellow poppies. There were cows grazing beside the river, not the wild-eyed beasts they had seen on their journey, but fat, placid-looking creatures that were more interested in cropping the grass than watching their passage. As they neared the homestead, Alexandra saw the corrals where they kept the mares and their foals, and nearer at hand, shaggy-haired goats and chickens that scuttled out of their path.
But the hacienda itself riveted her gaze. Now, she could see that the low-hanging tiles were a deep red in colour, shading a balcony above the verandah, where rattan chairs suggested a shady retreat on hot afternoons. Right now, with the sun sinking lower every minute, the air was comparatively cool, unlike earlier in the day when Alexandra had had to discard the jerkin that matched her blue cotton pants. Beyond the verandah, she could see a shadowy hallway, framed by the sprawling cluster of vines and honeysuckle which had made their home around the pillars that supported the balcony. At the side of the building, a wrought-iron staircase wound, Spanish-fashion, to the upper floor, and along the balcony Alexandra could see long curtains moving in the breeze from open shutters. The shutters were all folded back at present, green slats against a pale-washed wall, as distinctive in their way as the riot of exotic blossoms that tumbled carelessly from urns beside the verandah steps.
Unable to suppress her delight, Alexandra bounced forward again, but Jason was already stopping the vehicle, and as he began to open his door a woman appeared round the corner of the building. She was young, that much Alexandra registered at a glance, tall, with full swelling breasts, and hair as dark as Jason’s own. It was long, like Alexandra’s, but whereas hers was inclined to curl in the heat, this woman’s was perfectly straight, and fell smoothly over one shoulder. Her features were those of the Madonna, calm and impassive, but as Alexandra alighted from the vehicle, too, she felt a wave of hostility emanating from her that had none of the Virgin’s compassion about it.
Jason greeted the woman with a faintly wry expression, turning first to help his other passenger to climb down, before saying: ‘This is my housekeeper, Miss Holland. Señora Vargas. Estelita, this is my ward—and her companion.’
‘Hello.’
Alexandra stepped forward, holding out her hand, determined not to be daunted by this sloe-eyed female. Close at hand, she was not half as young as she had at first imagined, but she was not mistaken that the faintly contemptuous stare Estelita conferred upon her sleeveless vest and creased cotton pants was intended to intimidate. The woman’s attire of long black skirt and loose-fitting blouse was common to women she had seen in Valvedra, but Estelita bestowed a certain grace upon them which was not typical.
Now, she allowed Alexandra to take her limp hand before saying: ‘Bienvenida, señorita!’ in tones which said just the opposite.
‘Inglés, Estelita,’ Jason warned in an undertone, and the housekeeper greeted Miss Holland in her own language, showing more enthusiasm towards the older woman than she had done to the younger one.
‘Come inside …’ Jason was already mounting the steps, and Alexandra quickly followed him meeting his gaze deliberately as he looked back at them. But he refused to answer the question in hers, and strode ahead into the cool, tiled hall of the hacienda.
The
