she could hear the sound of crickets, the warm air stirring the curtains, reminding her that she was now in a foreign country.
She felt thirsty, and far too keyed up to go back to sleep. Her cases were neatly stacked on a long, low chest; someone had emptied them while she slept. Opening the wardrobe, she took out a slim-fitting cotton dress.
She managed to find her way to the top of the stairs without difficulty, but once down in the hall was totally confused as to the whereabouts of the kitchen. Her throat, which had felt merely slightly dry when she first woke up, now felt like sandpaper and, calculating back how long it had been since she had last had a drink, she suspected she might be suffering slightly from dehydration.
She felt more vulnerable and unsure of herself than she could remember feeling for a long time. The years in foster homes had taught her well how to guard herself against the hurts unwittingly inflicted by others. It had been a long time since anyone had been allowed to hurt her, and even longer since she had cried, but today she had come perilously close to experiencing both.
The sharp sound of a door opening made her jump, her face setting in lines of cold rejection as she saw her host striding towards her.
‘So, you have decided to grace us with your presence after all. A pity you did not deign to join us for dinner.’
The insolent contempt in his voice banished all her good intentions not to let him provoke her into further hostilities. Acting with an impulsiveness that later would shock her, Shelley responded curtly. ‘Why should I? You obviously know exactly what I’m here for, so, as you’ve already made abundantly plain, there is scarcely any need for the normal civilities between us.’
She saw that something in her cold words had caught him on a sensitive spot. A wave of dark colour—probably anger rather than embarrassment—stained the tanned skin, his eyes glittering with suppressed rage. She had once read somewhere that these Moorish Portuguese were a very proud and correct race, and she judged that he would not appreciate her criticism of his reception of her.
Spurred on by her success, she added dulcetly, ‘You’re obviously a very clever man, Jaime, to be able to analyse so correctly and assess the reactions of others without meeting or knowing them.’
This time he had himself well under control, only his voice faintly clipped and harsh as he responded, ‘You flatter me, I’m afraid. In your case very little intelligence was needed; one merely had to look at the facts. A daughter who refuses to make herself known to her father until after his death, when almost miraculously she suddenly appears on learning that he had left her something of value; who would not even have given herself the trouble of coming out here at all if I hadn’t insisted that she did. Why did you never make any attempt to trace your father? While you were a child I can see that you must have felt bound by your grandmother’s desire not to see him, but once she had died—and I understand from the enquiries instituted by the lawyers that she died when you were fourteen—surely then you must have felt some curiosity about your father, some desire to find him?’
Her heart was pounding so heavily she could hardly breathe. It was plain to Shelley that Jaime had no idea to the real truth: that her grandmother had brought her up in the belief that her father was dead. But the same stubborn pride that had helped her endure so much as a child now refused to allow her to ask this man for his understanding or pity.
Instead of telling him the truth, she said curtly, ‘Must I?’
The absolute contempt in his eyes fuelled her anger, pushing her through the barrier of logic and caution to the point where she heard herself saying huskily, in a voice vibrating with emotion, ‘And by what absolute right do you dare to criticise me? You know nothing, either about me or about my motives in coming here. You are unbelievable, do you know that? You have the arrogance to criticise and condemn me without even trying to discover the facts; without knowing the first thing about me!’ Her eyes flashed huge and dark in her too-pale face, the violence of her emotions draining her last reserves of energy. She was literally shaking with the force of them, knowing that she was no match either physically or emotionally for this man, but driven to defy him.
‘I’m not staying here another minute!’ her voice rising now, her strength rushing away from her. ‘I’m leaving—right now.’
She turned sharply on her heel, her thirst forgotten, her one desire to leave the quinta just as soon as she could, but her flight was arrested by the hard fingers gripping her arm.
‘Be still!’
The rough shake that accompanied the hissed words almost rattled her teeth. She turned to look at him with loathing, shocked into immobility as the door he had come through suddenly opened and a woman stood there.
‘Jaime, querido, what is going on?’
She spoke in English, but even without that, Shelley would have know that this fair-haired woman could not be Portuguese.
So this was her father’s wife…her stepmother. As she looked into the delicately boned, fragile face, Shelley recognised the grief and pain in it. Yes, this woman had loved her father. A lump of cold ice formed round her own heart, the pain she had suffered as a child gripping her in a death hold as she met the worried blue eyes that looked first at her and then at Jaime.
‘Miss Howard seems to want to leave us,’ Jaime told his mother curtly. ‘I am just about to impress upon her the inadvisability of such a course of action. For one thing the village has no guest house or hotel, and for another, the advogado arrives tomorrow morning to discuss with her those matters relating to her father’s estate which concern her.’
Now, for the first time, her stepmother was forced to look at her. Up until now she had been avoiding doing so, Shelley recognised bleakly.
‘So you are Philip’s daughter. Your father…’ Tears welled in her eyes and she turned her head away. Jaime released Shelley’s arm to go to his mother’s side, his obvious care and concern for her so much in contrast to the way he had spoken to and touched Shelley that she felt her resentment and misery increase.
Part of her longed to burst out that it wasn’t fair, that she hadn’t been responsible for the split with her father, that she had suffered too, but caution and pain tied her tongue. She was not going to reveal her vulnerability in front of this man. He would enjoy seeing her pain… Oh, he would cloak his enjoyment with a polite semblance of concern, but deep down inside he would enjoy it.
The door opened again and a young girl came out. In her stepsister the Portuguese strain was less obvious than it was in Jaime, but she had her brother’s dark hair and olive skin.
Jaime said something to her in Portuguese, and after flicking a brief glance at Shelley she gently led her mother away.
‘I strongly advise you against leaving here tonight,’ Jaime told her coldly when his mother and sister had gone. ‘Of course, if you insist then I cannot stop you, but as I mentioned earlier, the advogado arrives tomorrow morning; there will be much he will want to discuss with you.’
‘And a great deal I shall want to discuss with him,’ Shelley told him fiercely. ‘Very well, Excelentíssimo.’ She let the title roll off her tongue with bitter sarcasm. ‘I shall stay until I have seen him, but believe me, your hospitality is as unwelcomely accepted by me as it is given by you.’
Before he could say another word she turned on her heel and went back upstairs. She was still thirsty, but she was damned if she would ask him for as much as a glass of water. God, how she hated him! When she
