and uncle and Isadora, but her life had been emotionally empty. Here, with her few possessions around her, she was at least independent. And if she lacked for love and companionship, that was nothing new. She wondered occasionally if her aunt had minded having to hire a housekeeper and social secretary after Noreen’s expulsion from the family home. She’d never had to pay her niece for these services. It would never have occurred to her.
Ramon had moved to a new apartment, she recalled, after Isadora’s tragic death. He hadn’t been able to face going home to the scene of his beloved wife’s last hours, for which he still blamed Noreen. She’d tried and tried to make him listen to the truth, just after it happened. But, maddened with grief and pain, he’d refused to let her speak. Perhaps he preferred the heartless image he’d endowed her with since their first meeting. God knew, he’d never really looked at her anyway.
She recalled with pain her first sight of him, getting out of a stately Jaguar in front of her aunt and uncle’s huge, sprawling mansion. His black hair had shone in the sun. His tall, athletic form in a staid gray suit had made him seem leaner, more imposing. As he entered the house, the impact of his liquid, coal black eyes in a handsome, blemishless dark face had caused Noreen’s heart to stop dead for an instant. She’d never known such sensations in her life. She’d flushed and stammered, and Ramon had smiled almost mockingly at her momentary weakness. It had been, she recalled painfully, as if he knew that her knees had gone weak in that instant. He was worldly, so perhaps her reaction was one to which he’d become accustomed. But God knew, amusement had been his only expression. He’d turned right away from Noreen after the quick, indifferent introduction, right back to his beautiful Isadora.
“Don’t think that he noticed you at all,” Isadora had said mockingly that evening, “despite the calf’s eyes you were making at him. Imagine a man like that looking twice at you!” she’d added, laughing.
Noreen hadn’t been able to meet those demeaning blue eyes. “I know he belongs to you, Isadora,” she’d said quietly, tidying up after her cousin.
“Just remember it,” came the curt reply. “I’m going to marry him.”
“Does he know?” Noreen couldn’t resist asking the dry question.
“Of course not,” her cousin murmured absently. “But I’m going to, just the same.”
And she had, only two months later, with her aunt as matron of honor and one of her set as bridesmaid.
Ramon, courteous to a fault even to strangers, had puzzled over the selection. Two days before the wedding, while Isadora enthused over her bridal gown with her mother, Ramon had paused in the doorway of the kitchen, where Noreen was taking tiny tea cakes out of the oven, to ask why she wasn’t participating in the wedding.
“Me?” Noreen had asked, sweating from the heat of the kitchen, where she’d been sent to make pastries for afternoon coffee.
He’d frowned at her appearance. “Do you never wear anything except jeans and those—” he waved an expressive dark hand “—sweatshirts?”
She’d averted her eyes. “They’re comfortable for working around the house,” she’d replied.
She could feel him watching her while she slid the cakes onto a china plate and placed the cookie sheet into the stainless-steel sink for washing.
“Isadora doesn’t like to cook,” he murmured.
“I imagine you won’t mind having someone else do it,” she replied uncomfortably. She hated having him even this close, she was so afraid of giving herself away. “Anyway, Isadora’s much too pretty to waste time on domestic chores.”
“Are you jealous of her,” he’d asked, “because she’s pretty and you aren’t?”
The mocking tone of the question had brought her pale gray eyes up flashing. She almost never talked back, but he seemed to bring out latent temper in her that she hadn’t realized she possessed.
She remembered standing up straight, glaring at him from a face flushed with heat and temper, her dark blond hair hanging in limp ringlets from the bun atop her head. “Thank you so much for reminding me of the qualities I lack. I don’t suppose it would occur to you that I’m capable of looking in a mirror?”
His eyes had sparkled, for the first time, at her. His eyelids had come down over that glitter and he’d stared at her until her unruly heart had gone crazy in her chest.
“So you’re not quite a doormat, then?” he’d prompted.
“No, no soy,” she replied in the perfect Spanish she’d been taught in school, “y usted, señor, no es ningún caballero.”
His eyebrows had gone up with her assertion that he was no gentleman. “Que sorpresa eres,” he murmured, making her flush again with the intimacy of the familiar tense—only used between close friends or relatives—when she’d used the formal. What a surprise you are! he’d said.
“Why, because I can speak Spanish?” she asked in English.
He smiled, for once without sarcasm. “Isadora can’t. Not yet, at least. I intend to teach her the most necessary words. Of course, those aren’t used in public.”
From a distance of years, she looked back with faint curiosity at the way he’d taunted her with his feelings for Isadora. It had been that way from the beginning. It grew much worse as the couple celebrated their first anniversary.
Noreen hadn’t ever been sure why she was invited to the party. She hadn’t planned to go, either, but Ramon had sent a car for her.
Hal and Mary Kensington welcomed her enthusiastically in front of their guests, and then ignored her. Isadora seemed furious to see her there and had pulled her to one side during Ramon’s brief absence, with curling fingers whose nails had almost broken the surface of her skin.
“What are you doing here?” she’d demanded furiously. “I didn’t invite you to my anniversary celebration!”
“Ramon insisted,” Noreen said through her teeth. “He sent a car.”
The other woman’s delicate blond brows arched. “I see,” she murmured. She dropped her cousin’s arm abruptly. “He’s getting even,” she added with a harsh laugh. “Just because I had Larry over to dinner while he was away operating in New York.” She shifted abruptly. “Well, he’s never home, what does he expect me to do, sit on my hands?” Her eyes ran over Noreen angrily. “Don’t imagine that he sees stars when he looks at you, sweetie,” she continued hotly. “He only made you come so that he could make me jealous.”
Noreen had caught her breath. “But, that’s crazy,” she’d said, choking. “For heaven’s sake, Isadora, he doesn’t even like me! He cuts at me all the time!”
The other woman’s deep blue eyes had narrowed. “You don’t understand at all, do you?” she’d asked absently. “You’re such a child, Norie.”
“Understand what?”
Ramon had come into the kitchen then, his face hard. “Why are you hiding in here?” he asked Isadora. “We have guests.”
“Yes, don’t we?” she replied with a pointed look at Noreen. “I should have asked Larry,” she added.
