Dancing in the Shadows (20 page)

‘I have just this second digested that fact. I hope you don't think I said what I did to suit my own purpose?'

‘Of course not! Who's being an idiot now? Oh, Dorcas, I'm so ashamed. I should feel miserable. Instead I feel happy.'

‘You're being an idiot now, that's who. There's nothing to feel miserable about. Michael is going to get better.'

‘You're an angel. Please, please be right about Michael. I hope things go well with you and Carlos.'

Isabel's long skirt brushed against Dorcas's ankle. She hastened inside to find Paco, drying her tears as she went.

Dorcas sat on for only a hand-count of seconds before she too went inside. In the
sala
, she saw that Isabel had gone to Paco. Even as Dorcas watched, Isabel's fingers wound themselves round his. Paco's startled reaction was reflected in his eyes. He knew Isabel was making a declaration; he seemed uncertain whether to let her. At least, that's how it seemed to Dorcas. Towering above the two sitting figures—as if he had just that moment
risen
to give Isabel his seat—Carlos wore a troubled look. His quick intelligence would have summed up the situation. With dropping dismay, Dorcas saw how his expression searched down into a frown.

Oh, Carlos,
no
! Oh, my love. Not
you
! Sometimes it happens that way. Feelings are discovered too late. The realization that you love someone coming when the loved-one is lost to you. But it didn't happen to well integrated people like Carlos. The fact that she would have staked her reputation on Carlos's clear-sighted judgement made it all the harder to bear.

It was the dangling carrot that was so edibly and sweetly within reach. Her teeth had scraped its surface; this time it had seemed impossible for happiness to be denied her but, just like all the other times, at the very last moment was it to be snatched away from her? And yet, those other disappointments were but trivial pin-pricks in comparison with her disappointment now.

She hadn't realized she was parading her misery for everyone to see, until a kindly voice said: ‘Come sit by me, dear.'

Following the direction of the voice, Dorcas found herself looking into Rose Ruiz's concerned eyes. Her fingers were taken, tightly held.

‘Your hand is just like a peg of ice. That will be the shock.'

Yes,
it was the shock. Although why it should come as so much of a shock she didn't know. Even the most clear-sighted person has the odd blind spot. And, goodness, hadn't she wondered often enough how Carlos could look at someone as incredibly lovely as Isabel and be indifferent to her!

‘Your devotion does you credit, child, but you must not allow yourself to give way to grief. You must be strong.'

‘I did not know I was so transparent. I promise to do better. I have no intention of giving way.' To prove it, Dorcas put on a brave smile.

‘Good girl. That smile will be Michael's best recovery aid.'

That
shock! Nothing should have taken precedence over concern for Michael's grave condition. It seemed especially shameful that her mind had been so selfishly occupied.

Totally mistaking her stricken look, Rose Ruiz piled on the approbation. ‘Michael is very lucky. I can hardly think he is deserving of such a caring sister.'

Dorcas firmly contained her shame behind sealed lips. It wasn't that she didn't want to tell—just the opposite. Confession would have absolved a tiny portion of her guilt. There wasn't time to tell. Not with Carlos bearing down on them.

‘Isabel's parents will be wondering where she is,' Carlos said, demonstrating his usual
thought
for others.

A frown crossed Rose Ruiz's brow. ‘You are so practical, Carlos. That thought never occurred to me. I'll telephone straight away to let them know what has happened.'

‘Have you forgotten it is not possible to dial direct? The switchboard operator listens in. It would be served up in every home with the breakfast rolls.'

‘M'm. You are so right. So—I'll send word with one of the servants. Now, who has the most tactful tongue? I don't want a garbled version passed on that might cause alarm.'

‘The only tongue I can guarantee is my own. I'll go.'

‘No, Carlos, I won't allow it. You've already had that long drive home. I don't know why you didn't wait until morning. Providence must have guided your choice, because I don't know what we would have done without you. You've been a tower of strength, but you can't be expected to do more. You look worn out.'

Rose Ruiz was right. Whether or not Carlos had been successful in his quest to stabilize the family business, the effort he'd put in had taken its toll. There was a stark, staring blankness about his eyes. He looked like a man who has not slept for a week, or a man in deep shock.

‘You fuss too much,' was all he said.

Impulsively, Dorcas said: ‘Let me go with you.'

Rose
Ruiz backed up this suggestion. ‘Yes, if you insist on going, then at least take Dorcas with you.'

With a slow, robot-like movement, his head turned round to Dorcas. How cold his eyes were. Coldly condemning. This puzzled her. Cold indifference she could have understood from a man so recently jolted into a change of heart. Guilt, even, because he had led her on a bit. His guilt, not hers. Yet his eyes accused her.

She fully expected him to reject her offer to accompany him. Yet it was the flavour of his acceptance that surprised her even more than the acceptance itself.

‘Why not? No fear of my falling asleep over the wheel. With you by my side I'll need to keep alert.' The scorn in his voice was unbelievable. ‘Don't you want to wait to hear what the doctor has to say about Michael?'

Was it concern or sarcasm that motivated this question? Dorcas was too baffled by Carlos's change of manner to tell.

‘I can't alter the doctor's verdict. It will wait until I get back.'

She got to her feet. The contact of her dressing gown against her ankles reminded her that she must first go upstairs to dress. Carlos guided her to the foot of the stairs without speaking.

On the first stair she turned her head and their eyes met. He hadn't expected her to look
back
and his unguarded expression was hurt and questioning.

‘Carlos?' she said, the bright burning blood of confusion rushing to her cheeks. ‘What is it? Please tell me.'

‘Tell you what? That I have made a gigantic fool of myself by falling in love with a woman I thought to be quite perfect. Do you want it in gruesome detail that my love led me to believe she felt the same way, when all the time her heart was given to another. Even though everything about her, every sweet and loving look and gesture denied it, her interest in me was a pretence. Can you look me in the eye, Dorcas, and tell me truthfully this is not so.'

Dorcas dipped her head. Of course she could not. What she ought to tell him was that although Isabel had been foolish in thinking she could marry to forge a business alliance, she hadn't deliberately set out to delude him, but to please her father. An act of daughterly obedience that Carlos would surely understand.

‘I'm sorry,' Dorcas said from the bottom of her heart. Sorry that Carlos had ever found out he loved Isabel. If only the discovery could have stayed hidden long enough for her to have made her mark on his affections, then perhaps he would have turned to her for warmth. If, instead of being scared silly that Carlos would think her mercenary, thanks to Michael's silly scheming and sly innuendos,
she'd
encouraged him . . .who knows?

The look of disgust he gave her shamed her and made her wonder if he could read her thoughts.

‘It is true, then? Even when Paco told me, I hoped that by some miracle it was a lie.'

‘Paco told you!'

She was surprised at Paco's forthrightness. It had been firmly fixed in her mind that he had made the observation himself by seeing them together. She thought he had identified the loving look Isabel had given Paco as an open declaration of her feelings.

The compulsion to comfort was great. Greater than her shame, greater than the risk of humiliation in rejection. Her hand reached out to touch his cheek, but it was grasped at the wrist. She felt herself being propelled none too gently forward.

‘Have a care, Dorcas. We are playing a different game now, with a different set of rules to observe.'

‘I don't understand. I know you've been hurt, but I don't understand why you want to hurt me.' Although his fingers cut cruelly into her wrist, it was the mental anguish she referred to. Her lashes met; she didn't want him to see the weakness of tears.

She didn't see the expression in his eyes, but she heard the bitterness and contempt in his voice. ‘Michael said your hope of being a great dancer was ruined. Doesn't he know you have
it
in you to be a greater actress than you could ever be a dancer? You are giving an Oscar performance.'

‘I am not acting. I never wanted anything from you, anything material that is.'

‘Ah yes! The pride your brother spoke of. He said I would have to find a more subtle way of rewarding you for the act of courage that saved Feli and Rosita at such high personal cost. He said you were an attractive, nicely constructed . . . quite so,' he said, lingering there for the time it took his eyes to leave her face and make an insulting all-over survey. ‘ . . . warm-hearted girl.' It was her cheeks that were warming at the manner of his inspection. ‘Surely it would not be too difficult? he said. I asked him to stop hinting and come right out with it. He said that in keeping with most caring brothers, it was his wish to see his sister happily married.'

‘I'll match my brother's bluntness. We both know Michael only cares about himself. It would suit him to have a rich brother-in-law. But this isn't something new to you. You've known Michael's attitude all along. It's never made you bitter before. You've even laughed about it.'

‘Because his avarice highlighted your lack of it, or so I thought. You more or less said that because Michael had spoken to me of this matter, it made it impossible for you to consider it.
Cara
, you have no idea how much
that
delighted me.' The carelessly used endearment was a knife in her heart. A piercing hurt of hope that, somehow, stitched more tightly—intensified—her dismay. ‘I believed you. I thought Michael was the unethical one. Michael makes no bones about being an unscrupulous opportunist. I can at least admire him for his openness. What I cannot forgive is cupidity hiding behind the fair face of virtue. I thought you were so pure in your ideals.'

‘I hope I am. I do not understand what you are talking about, but I am going to find out.'

‘The game is up, Dorcas. Don't waste your acting talent on me.'

‘Why are you attacking me? I haven't done anything terribly wrong, and neither has Isabel if it comes to that. You've exaggerated the issue in your mind. You've blown it up until you're not seeing straight.'

‘On the contrary, I'm seeing straight for the first time.' And then on a quizzical note. ‘What has Isabel to do with this?'

‘Everything.'

‘Forgive me for stealing your lines, but now it is I who do not understand.'

‘Then please let me refresh your memory. Paco told you something. Right?'

‘Yes.' The soft puzzlement went from his face and his expression tightened against her.

‘What he told you put you in a flaming temper.'

‘I'll
concede that, too.'

‘Well?'

‘If that is supposed to be the conclusion of your explanation, I think you are being deliberately provocative.'

‘That is the last thing I am being,' Dorcas said bitterly, untruthfully, because her restrained anger was electric provocation.

‘I know what I know and I see what I see. The two are not in accord.'

His hand left her wrist to grasp the back of her neck. The fingers twisting her neck round so that he could see her face better, sent a sensuous thrill down her spine.

‘What do you see, Carlos?' Her voice stole from her throat as a dry little whisper.

‘I see a woman. She is desirable. I want her. She is a temptress and I am only human.' His voice was harsh with self-contempt.

He called her a temptress, but she was only human too. She stood rooted to the spot, willing him to kiss her.

Hooded blue eyes regarded her, their expression flicked her senses raw. A pulse beat angrily above his cheek-bone as the austerely sculpted mouth bent in response.

No welching—she had invited this. But, dear merciful God—not
like
this. She didn't know what had triggered it off—what had she done,
said
to unleash this beast? His mouth insulted hers. It was hard and demanding and it laughed at her—with her lips pressed up
close
she could feel it laughing—because she couldn't deny the explosive feeling ripping her apart.

He had only ever kissed her once before, the time the Rocas were dining and he'd come to her room to fetch her because their arrival was imminent, and that had been an improper peck. Their first proper kiss should have been a paradisical experience, not this degrading grappling of lips that both sickened and excited. She resisted; he pulled her closer until the unyielding hardness of his body pained her flesh. His hands chafed,
and caressed.
He kissed her until her mouth hurt with the joy of it, and her knees were water. Never in her life had she been brought to such shame; never before had her dignity been dragged to this low of degradation.
He was using her.
She was a body and a pair of lips to satisfy his lust. He wasn't holding her in respect.

A final wrench and she was free to examine his face. Strangely, she could see no apology in his eyes. It was a two-way scrutiny. After that shameful display which had debased everything good that had gone between them, surely he didn't expect to see anything to his advantage in her face? Her breath expelled slowly. Yes . . . he did! She got the distinct impression that he expected her to look repentant.