Indiscretion

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EB ISBN 978-0-9926718-9-1

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest
punishment we can bring on ourselves.

F
EDERICO
G
ARCÃA
L
ORCA

En la sangre hierve EspaÃ±a sin fuego.
In Spain, blood boils without fire.

S
PANISH PROVERB

P
ROLOGUE

London, 1950

T
he shrill summons of the doorbell echoed through Newton Place, a grand old mansion house by the river in Cheyne Walk.

Alexandra de Falla glanced at the clock on her bedroom mantelpiece. It was just past eight in the morning but she had been sitting at her desk since dawn, chewing over the outline of a new story, one that had nagged her out of an already fitful sleep.

Who on earth could it be at this hour?

Putting down her pen, she closed her notebook and tucked it next to her typewriter. Outside the wide bay window, the gloomy morning hugged pavements wet with overnight rain and a chilly January wind stirred the bare branches of the tall trees lining the elegant Chelsea street, whining against the window panes like a dog left out in the cold. The only other sounds were the clink of bottles in their crates as the milkman finished his morning deliveries and the clip-clop of his horse as the cart moved off in the direction of Albert Bridge. From Alexandra's bedroom, the view of the Thames, London's glittering main street, was magnificent. It swept upstream to the trees of Battersea Park on the opposite bank and downstream past the dark mystery of warehouses and wharves. She imagined it flowing past the Tower of the capital, standing formidable against a pale sky smudged with pewter-white clouds and which, this morning, must seem especially solemn in its stark and gloomy solitude. There was still a frosty mist in the air. Alexandra loved
the city but longed for the warmth and colour of spring to burst through this grey dampness. The relentless silence of the morning made her even more restless than usual.

She sighed. Today was her twenty-fifth birthday, shouldn't her life be turning a corner by now?

Sometimes Alexandra felt like she was waiting for something â
anything
â to happen. Somewhere inside she could taste it, the immense potential of her passions and dreams. Where did it come from, the feeling that she didn't quite belong? Was this burning desire to know more of the world something she had inherited from her mother? But that was a question, like so many others, she would never be able to ask her.

Once more the doorbell resonated rudely through the house. As Mrs Jeffrey, the housekeeper, had gone out, Alexandra pulled on her dressing gown and descended the stairs to the large oak-panelled hall.

âYes, I'm coming,' she called out, drawing the brass bolts back and opening the door.

The man standing on the doorstep had his back to her, staring up at the sky. Short and dark, he was holding an enormous bunch of pink roses. He turned, looking both embarrassed and anxious.

âHello, Alexandra,
querida
.'

For a moment she could hardly breathe. His face was so familiar to her and yet he was almost a stranger.

â
PapÃ¡? PapÃ¡
â¦ is it really you?'

â
SÃ, soy yo
. Fifteen years is a long time, I know.' Don Alonso de Falla paused and then his mouth broke into a most disarming smile. âI'm glad you still recognize me.'

Her face frozen in shock, she didn't return his smile. âWhat are you doing here,
PapÃ¡
? You didn't write to say you were coming to London, I wasn't expecting you.'

âI wanted to surprise you on your birthday. Here, these are for you. May I come in?'

âYes, yes, of course. Thank you. They're lovely.' Alexandra took the flowers from him and placed them on the hall table.

âI see the house hasn't changed at all,' noted Don Alonso as he stepped into the hall. âOh, but enough of that.
Mi querida Alexandra, deja que te mire
, let me look at you,' he declared, holding his daughter at arm's length. âYou've grown into a beautiful young woman â¦ so like your mother.' Cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her warmly on both cheeks. âI know you must have a lot of questions,
niÃ±a
. Is there somewhere we can talk comfortably?'

Trying valiantly to regain her composure, Alexandra led him into the drawing room, to the two wing-backed chairs facing each other in front of the fire, which was already lit. Stunned, she sat down, looking across at the man she hadn't seen since she was ten years old.

The one photograph she had of him, standing with her mother, depicted him as a much younger man, the way he was in her childhood memories. Now, although still handsome, his black hair and goatee were peppered with silver and his face was narrower and slightly worn-looking.

So he was back, after fifteen years, looking at her as if he were seeing her for the first time, no longer the vulnerable ten-year-old he had left behind in the charge of her protective but rather austere English aunt.

Don Alonso settled himself in the chair and gazed at her. âYou have your mother's pearly complexion and her beautiful dark copper hair,' he told her wistfully.

Alexandra's eyes momentarily clouded with tears. She had no real recollection of her mother and the few black-and-white photographs that Aunt Geraldine possessed were faded. Still, years of suppressed anger and resentment at her father's absence made her reluctant to talk about her mother in front of him. She decided to be blunt.

âSo why have you waited until my twenty-fifth birthday to come back to London,
PapÃ¡
? Are you here on business for the family estate? When are you going back to El PavÃ³n?'

âOf course, I wanted to come back sooner.' Don Alonso raised his hands defensively at her barrage of questions. âYou know from my letters how difficult things have been. The uprising at home â¦ then
the war in Europe. And it wouldn't have been easy to leave the country these past five years either.'

Knowing that wasn't quite true, she stared at him defiantly. âBut not impossible.'

âNo, not impossible.' He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. âThankfully, the government seems to be steering us out of isolation, which is good for business.' Noting her arched brow, he added hastily, âand of course, it made it easier to arrange this trip to see you. I've been out of your life far too long. You know, I've always regretted not being here, leaving your Aunt Geraldine to bring you up but, as your mother was gone, I thought you needed a female substitute. A girl needs a woman to guide her.'

âThey also need their fathers,' Alexandra replied softly.

âYes,
querida
, so they do.' He smiled sadly at her now and tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair as if deliberating what to say next. She almost felt sorry for him. At least he had taken the trouble to surprise her on her birthday and he
had
remembered the date, after all. She smiled at him for the first time.

âI'm pleased to see you,
PapÃ¡
, truly I am. It's just that it's a bit of shock, seeing you after all these years with no warning at all.'

âAre you still writing?'

âYes,
PapÃ¡
. I sent you my two novels, did you read them?'

âAh
si
,
mi hija del novelista
! My daughter the novelist!' Don Alonso ignored her question but smiled at her indulgently. âAlways, your nose in a book. And even when you were small, scribbling away â¦ all those little stories â¦ wanting to go on adventures. So like Vanessa â¦' He broke off, as if lost in his own memories.

âI hope
MamÃ¡
would have approved then, if we are so alike.'

He looked up at her. âMmm?
SÃ, por supuesto
. Yes, of course.' She thought he was going to tell her more about her mother and suddenly wanted so very much to hear about her but Don Alonso clapped his knee and leaned forward.

âCome, I'll wait while you dress and then let me take you out to breakfast, we can talk while we eat. I haven't had an English breakfast
with sausages, bacon, eggs and all the trimmings in years and, God knows why, I miss it.'

* * *

Don Alonso took Alexandra to Hazlitt's, the fashionable eighteenth-century hotel just down from Piccadilly Circus, a place redolent with atmosphere, with its oak-panelled walls, tall windows draped with luxurious gold velvet, and marble fireplaces. It was Alexandra's favourite because it had been the haunt of so many writers in the past. Her father led her to a table in the corner of the dining room, which hummed with the murmurings of polite conversation and the tinkling of silver. Don Alonso took great delight in ordering almost everything on the menu.

Alexandra and her father spent hours talking, making up for lost time, and he made her laugh with stories of her childhood antics. Her resentment towards him began to soften. Their conversation was so easy and he was so charming, it was almost as if she had rediscovered an old friend.

âSo,
niÃ±a
, have you thought much about us over the years?' Don Alonso poured them both another cup of coffee.

She smiled. Her fascination for her roots exerted a pull she couldn't understand. âYes, I have. Often. My memories of the family are minimal, given I was only three when you and
MamÃ¡
brought me over to England, but I've often wondered what my life would have been like, had we stayed in Spain.'

âYes, life would have been different indeed. For all of us.'

âI remember you telling me stories about the family on your visits when I was a child but, of course, I've forgotten much of it now. I do remember that Grandmother very much ruled the roost â I suppose she had to after your father died. You were young when it happened, weren't you? A riding accident.' Alexandra said quietly.

Don Alonso's eyes clouded momentarily. âYes, I'm afraid the story of the de Falla family has often been governed by the winds of
capricious fate. Your uncle Armando, myself and our cousin Luis MarÃa were only boys when my father,
Duque
Juan Raphael de Falla, died, though Luis MarÃa was a few years older than my brother and me.' Don Alonso's face brightened. âBut we were inseparable growing up, despite the difference in age. We got into some fine old scrapes. As we say in Spain, “
El que de joven corre de viejo trota
, he who runs in youth, trots in old age,” and I suppose that explains why your old
PapÃ¡
has slowed down so much now.' He grinned.

âWhat happened to Luis MarÃa?'

âHe married a real aristocratic beauty, Cecilia de Bermudez. She was a distant relative of the
Duquesa
but a young widow, and
MamÃ¡
did not approve. Cecilia had been left with two children, Esmeralda and Salvador: a situation totally unacceptable to the
Duquesa
, of course. Luis MarÃa adopted the children, giving them his name.'

âWhy did Grandmother not approve?' Alexandra shook her head, then added, coolly. âI suppose she thought that Cecilia wasn't good enough for him because she had been married before. Knowing the
Duquesa
, she regarded her as second-hand goods.'

Don Alonso sighed. âYou have to understand my mother had single-handedly run El PavÃ³n after my father died. One has to respect that. I know she's somewhat formidable but it's just that she has a particular vision for the family dynasty. Protecting the de Falla bloodline has always been uppermost in her mind. It wasn't only Luis: neither Armando nor I married as she would've wished.'

âNothing excuses Grandmother's treatment of
MamÃ¡
.' Alexandra's eyes flared with barely suppressed emotion.

Don Alonso, suddenly uncomfortable, fiddled with the napkin on his lap. âThat's as may be, but you still have to respect her for managing to steer both the family and the business through the most harrowing period in the de Fallas' history. We barely survived the Civil War.'

Alexandra burned with desire to know more about her family, despite her antipathy towards the
Duquesa
, but thoughts of her
mother haunted her even more. She sipped her coffee, feeling anything but calm. âWhen
MamÃ¡
went off to the South of France, I thought she would come back for me, but then â¦ the car accident â¦ and then, to make matters worse, you returned to Spain. I presume you made it back into Grandmother's good books. I hope it was worth it.'

There was a moment's silence that hung between them, full of so many unspoken things. She realized now how heavy was the weight of sadness, bitterness even, that she'd carried for the past decade.

â
MamÃ¡
would like to meet you,' Don Alonso said suddenly.

Alexandra's face shut down. She shook her head, saying, âShe's too late.' True, her grandmother, the
Duquesa
, had started to write her the odd letter when she was a teenager, asking about her life in England, but Alexandra had shoved them in a drawer and never replied.

âYour grandmother is getting old,
niÃ±a
. She doesn't want to die before seeing her granddaughter. She talks about you often. I believe she sent you a family heirloom of great value that had belonged to your great-grandmother?'

âYes,' Alexandra conceded, âafter the success of my first book.' It was a charming medallion made of chased gold, encrusted with diamonds and rubies. The
Duquesa
herself had worn it as a young girl, she explained in the accompanying note, in which she had also expressed the strong desire to meet her granddaughter. Alexandra had accepted the gift reluctantly and had briefly thanked the old lady in a short letter, but remained deaf to further attempts at reconciliation made by the dowager.

âSo, as you can see, your grandmother has always taken a great interest in you and doesn't understand your reluctance to take up her invitations to go to Spain â¦'

âIf she is so concerned about me now after all these years, I wonder why she didn't bother taking more trouble to find out about me when I was a child. What's more, if she had made my mother's life happier when she was in Spain, rather than driving her away, perhaps
MamÃ¡
might still be with us now.' She picked up her spoon and stirred her coffee distractedly, even though she hadn't added sugar to it. âBesides, England is where I belong, not Spain.'

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