The Spanish Promise Page 16

  Not that she felt any safer within the estate. Things had changed since Juan Esperanza’s murder. There was an edge now between her and Vale and Montez, a trace of menace lurking beneath their interactions – the next morning after the murder, under Vale’s watchful gaze across the table, she found a shard of glass in her breakfast dish – too big to miss but a warning nonetheless; another day they instructed the cook to cancel her dinner altogether, saying she was feeling ill. She felt their gazes on her every time their father walked into the room, not trusting her to remain quiet, but for once, she didn’t try to fight them. They had already proved they were capable of anything. What was it Arlo had said? She had to pick her battles? Well now she felt she had no fight left in her. She was defeated.

  Moving away from the window, she unbuttoned her dress, letting it fall listlessly to the ground. She stepped into her new riding habit – midnight velvet, again made especially for tonight. It was heavy and would be impossibly hot in this midsummer heat, but the rich brushed pile was so perfect against Indigo’s gleaming hide. She fastened the jacket up to her chin, her fingers fumbling with the scarlet frogging. It was close-fitting and stiff and she tugged it down at the waist as she examined her reflection, the full skirt falling around her in deep plush folds.

  She was putting on her hat when the bedroom door was suddenly flung open and Arlo fell in. He was the only one of her family who never knocked, feeling he had special dispensation to burst in whenever he liked. That she was a young woman who valued her privacy, and modesty, never seemed to occur to him.

  ‘Woah!’ he cried, mid-leap onto her bed as he caught a proper look at her. ‘Look at you.’

  She looked back at her reflection again. Yes. Look at her indeed. She too was transformed tonight. In the party dress she had looked simply . . . pretty: more than attractive, less than beautiful, she’d have said. But in this habit, even if she did acknowledge it herself, she looked magnificent. She twisted, doing a half-turn one way, then the other, admiring her fashioned silhouette, the dark lines and curves of the midnight velvet.

  ‘Looks like Señor Lacuna won’t get the chance to adore you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, whirling round to him.

  ‘Well, how can he compete when you’re far too in love with yourself?’

  ‘Oh, stop it!’ she hushed, grabbing a cushion from the chair and throwing it at him.

  Arlo laughed and braced as it landed on him. Like he could talk! He was dressed to the hilt too. All the Mendoza men were wearing new black trousers beribboned on the outer leg, elaborate black silk bowknots at their necks and immaculately cut cropped jackets. In fact it was a wonder to Nene her brother was able to move with such abandon, for he looked every bit as corseted as she.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ he asked, watching as she began fussing with her hair. The styling was fiddly, looping down to her neck in a net but leaving enough room for the angle of her hat.

  ‘Of course not. Indigo could do this in his sleep.’

  ‘He’s unpredictable.’

  She tossed her head haughtily, securing the hairstyle with pins. ‘For you maybe. He and I understand one another. He won’t put a foot wrong tonight. We’ve been practising for months for this.’

  ‘I overheard Señor Martin telling father they can get a king’s ransom for him. They’re putting him out to stud, you know.’

  Nene shrugged. ‘They can do what they like. Even his babies will be pale imitations of their father. There’ll never be another horse like him.’

  ‘No? Four legs, tail, black, bad-tempered, highly strung—’

  She threw another cushion his way and he laughed again as it hit him square in the face. ‘What would you know? All you can think about are bulls. Bulky, stupid, plodding bulls.’

  ‘You wouldn’t call them that if they were running behind you.’

  She put on the hat, fiddling to get the right angle, casting a nervous glance over her completed look, then turned to him. ‘What do you think?’ She bit her lip nervously. For all her and Arlo’s jokes about her marrying into the Lacunas, she knew that tonight was important to her parents and her showpiece with Indigo was the denouement before dinner and later, dancing: an embodiment of precision, grace, control, power and elegance, it was to represent everything the Mendozas were and wanted to be.

  Arlo didn’t respond for a moment, pretending to look pained by the sight of her. ‘. . . Not bad for an ogre,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Beast!’ she laughed, reaching for another cushion to throw his way but she was all out. ‘Lucky for you!’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he scoffed. ‘Or else you’d have me running scared?’

  ‘You know I would,’ she said defiantly, a smile on her lips.

  ‘Little Nene, our baby, you are the toughest of us all,’ Arlo grinned, jumping up from the bed again. ‘Come on, I’ll escort you to the stables. I worry for your safety looking like that. Felix Lacuna will want to make passionate love to you as soon as he sets sight on you.’

  ‘Ugh, eeew!’ Nene scowled, crumpling her face into a thousand furrows as they swept from her room and along the stone corridor. The skirt was so long, she had to pinch the fabric up as they descended the stairs and, due to the number of admiring glances coming from the staff alone, they slipped out through the kitchens. They would never get through the guests in time otherwise.

  As predicted, the habit had her sweltering within minutes – the evening temperature still at thirty-two degrees – as they crossed quickly from the hacienda towards the stable block. Nene patted her pocket, checking for the sugar cube which would be Indigo’s reward when this was over, the spirited voices, laughter and music in the courtyard dimming at their backs as they headed for the lush pastures which had been a source of much comment and praise from her father’s guests tonight; in this hot summer, green grass was considered a true extravagance.

  ‘Papa has asked me to help him select the bulls tomorrow,’ Arlo said as they cut diagonally across the grazing field, the bulls having been moved to the field closest to the hacienda tonight (for their father saw no harm in showcasing his business at his wife’s birthday celebrations). The grass had been allowed to grow longer and more tangled here, clusters of wild buttercups and tiny purple flowers – sand viper’s-bugloss – dotting the ground into a painter’s palette. ‘He says it’s time I became a novillero.’

  ‘Arlo, no,’ Nene gasped. For all his bravado and professed obsession with the family’s business, she knew it was a ruse designed to attract their father’s attention; she knew he didn’t share their older brothers’ reckless courage.

  ‘No, I’m ready for it. I am,’ he said, nodding a little too vigorously, looking more handsome than he would ever know in his new clothes. ‘Papa has been waiting for the right moment for me and if he believes this is the time, then I believe it too. He had Vale and Montez out there when they were fourteen and fifteen remember, younger than I am now.’

  ‘Yes, but they are barbarians,’ she said forcefully.

  Arlo glanced across at her. ‘It cannot be put off forever, Nene. I am a Mendoza. Bulls are our blood. I always knew this day was coming.’

  She reached over and squeezed his hand. ‘Then I will be there with you.’

  ‘No.’ His voice was firm as he looked back at her with his clear round eyes – just like hers. ‘It would be better if you are not. In case I . . . embarrass myself.’

  ‘You’re always embarrassing as far as I’m concerned,’ she quipped.

  But his smile in reply was only half-hearted and they fell into an uneasy silence, both of them thinking of what lay in the ring for him tomorrow. Montez still had the scar on his left thigh from where he had turned too late his first time.

  A sound of a twig cracking made her look across towards the holm oaks, where the bulls liked to stand in their shadows in the midday heat. She had expected it to be a ground squirrel or perhaps a fox, an elephant shrew or even a lynx, for the grooms had told her the continuing drought w
as forcing the higher-ground animals down to the valleys for water. What she wasn’t expecting it to be was a man. Her eyes followed him as he sprinted away, his arms and legs like pistons, something in his hand. Instinctively, her feet stopped moving.

  ‘Santi!’ The word erupted from her with such passion, such longing, he came to an immediate stop.

  He stared back at her, his new unfamiliar face sending a jolt through her, his dark eyes burning bright. And for just a moment, as his chest heaved and his body recovered from his sprint, she could see a trace of the skinny boy who had once been her dearest friend in the world. He had grown strong and muscular from his years in the fields, his skin tanned a rich chestnut brown, but she knew if he smiled, there would still be that gap between his teeth which she had loved to tease him about as a girl; it would be proof he was still the friend she had once known. If only he would smile . . .

  ‘Please, wait,’ she cried, picking up her skirt and making to head towards him. But Arlo grabbed her by the elbow, holding her back.

  ‘Nene, no. You must not. You know you can’t.’

  Santi’s eyes flashed blacker at his words and she saw suddenly that although beautiful, although her old friend, he was also savage. Where she had grown tame and obedient in his absence, there was something feral about him, as though he had cast off more than the powerlessness of childhood. He was an angry young man now.

  ‘Arlo, please.’ She tried to tug herself free but he held her firm. She looked over at Santi. ‘Santi, please.’

  But as he stared back at her she felt the breach between them not narrow but widen, like two tectonic plates being pushed apart, mountains thrusting up as a wall, dividing them forever. She realized how she and Arlo must look to him – dressed to the nines in their formal riding velvets, a party at their backs, whilst he stood barefoot in trousers held up by a leather lasso, his shirt closed with only one button. And in his hand . . .

  Her gaze fell for the first time to his hand, just as he turned and sprinted away again, like a deer from the wolf. Her heart began to thud heavily in her chest, her jacket feeling even tighter than before. ‘Santi,’ she whispered.

  ‘What is it?’ Arlo asked, paling at her expression. ‘Nene, what is it?’

  ‘Something’s wrong.’ And before he could ask her what – or how she knew – she began to run too. The velvet skirt was heavy and unwieldy in her hands as she tore across the ground with a pace she hadn’t found in years. The stables were only a few hundred yards ahead but it felt like miles, her ribs constricted in the tight jacket, her hat flying off her head and remaining only by the cord at her neck.

  Arlo ran after her but even with his greater height and strength he couldn’t keep up; desperation was propelling her. ‘Nene! Wait! What are you doing?’

  She could see the stable-hands now – some of them sweeping the yard, another refilling buckets, several others raking the sand in the training school into neat ridged furrows. The guests were due over here in half an hour and final preparations were well under way.

  One of them glanced up, freezing momentarily at the sight of her and her brother racing over the field. He straightened and waited, concern buckling his expression as he too saw hers. ‘Señorita Mendoza,’ he said politely. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Where is Indigo? Where is he?’ she cried, running onto the cobbles, her skirt still bustled in her fingers. ‘Is he tacked up?’

  ‘Not yet, señorita, I am sorry,’ he said humbly. ‘It was decided to wait until the last few minutes, because of the temperatures. We did not want him sweating—’

  ‘Is he in his stable?’ she demanded, looking wild.

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked across the courtyard. Why then wasn’t he nodding over the stable door? He always whinnied and barged the door at the first sound of her voice.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Of course, señorita. If you like—’

  But she didn’t like anything. She didn’t want servitude and obsequiousness. As she looked over at the empty stable, she wanted to know where Indigo was. What had Santi done with him? She knew he had done something, that he had found out from someone what that horse meant to her and used him as a way to get back at her. She raced across the yard, feeling panic switch with anger. He had hidden him? He wanted to humiliate her as their guests assembled for the display by hiding her horse? But how could he have pulled that off? No one could have stolen into these stables and simply walked out with the family’s prized stallion – not without inside help, or a diversion.

  She saw the alarmed looks on the faces of the grooms and stable-hands as she ran past, oblivious to how imposing she looked in her habit. She had no sense of the impression she made to others, only the desolation she felt inside that her horse had been stolen. That it was Santi who had done this.

  ‘Nene, what on earth is the matter with you?’ Arlo asked, sounding desperately out of breath behind her.

  She reached the stable and as her hand drew back the bolt, she saw over the half-door and felt a punch of sudden joy: Indigo was there, her magnificent beast on the ground and sleeping, his beautiful dark coat rendering him a polished shadow.

  ‘Oh my God! Indy!’ she cried, throwing open the door with a relieved sob as all her panic and dismay dissipated at once. ‘I was so terrified—’

  Her eyes fell to the thick, hot carmine tide running over the cobbles towards the drain. She stared at it, as though it was an impossible thing to see – a floating lake or pink unicorn, something that defied the natural order. An abomination.

  Behind her, Arlo’s cry echoed around the yard, bringing the workers running, but Nene was oblivious, her entire being focused on making her brain understand what her eyes were seeing. Her gaze drew inexorably up the wash, towards the source – a thin tributary at his throat – and Nene felt something deep inside her break.

  Her magnificent beast was on the ground. But he was not sleeping.

  Chapter Twelve

  Charlotte was back in the room again, having slept significantly less overnight than the occupant here. The blue curtains had been pulled open, a breeze ruffling the previously fetid air and rippling the pages of a television listings magazine on the sill. The sun was still on the east side of the building, leaving the room in shadow, but it sang out with colour and life in a way that had been obscured last night. Standing here now, Charlotte noticed the round jute rug on the tiled floor, orange gerberas freshly arranged in a vase; the pink floral dress hanging on the door hook, a paste necklace on the bedside table. But more than anything, she saw the woman whose domain this was – really saw her, for awake, hers was a magnetic presence. Age had not diminished her. Here sat a matriarch, a woman who had lived and loved. A woman not to be trifled with, nor to suffer fools.

  Her eyes, though rheumy, were a startlingly clear grey, her white hair worn short in an almost boyish crop. She was sitting on the bed in a coral linen shift, yellow plastic globes at her ears and a matching bracelet on her wrist. Liver spots speckled her thin arms and legs and she wore heavy black-rimmed spectacles which were reminiscent of the model Iris Apfel. She had that especial avant-garde air which women of advanced age possess when they retain an idiosyncratic sense of style.

  Marina was pouring iced water from the jug on the chest of drawers, handing it out to them in plastic tumblers.

  ‘Abuela, Charlotte works for a bank,’ Marina said, coming to sit beside her grandmother on the end of the bed. Charlotte herself was perched in the stiff, wingback chair opposite.

  ‘Bank?’ Señora Quincy frowned. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘No. She’s come to us with an offer. Well, you. She has an offer for you.’

  The old woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of offer?’

  Charlotte put down her untouched glass of water and leaned forward so that her elbows were on her knees. It made her physically smaller and less threatening; it was also a more relaxed, confiding pose. ‘Señora Quincy, there’s a lot for us to discuss
but perhaps I should first begin by introducing what I do: I don’t work for a bank per se; the bank is a client of mine. I’m a wealth counsellor.’ She spoke slowly, enunciating carefully, but at the mention of ‘wealth’ she saw the old woman’s eyes narrow further. ‘It’s a funny title, I know, but actually what I do is very simple and very important: I help high-net- worth individuals – rich people, in other words – manage the emotional aspects of their wealth.’

  She paused, letting the old woman absorb her words, for she already knew what her first thoughts would be: why do rich people need help with being rich? It was what everyone puzzled over. But that wasn’t what ran through her expression and as Señora Quincy looked back at her, Charlotte could see caution in the movement now, a certain shuttering internally. ‘I am not rich, nor do I wish to be.’

  Charlotte hesitated. She had never met anyone who actively didn’t want to be well-off. ‘Well, I am here because I am obliged to present to you an offer on my client’s behalf. You are of course free to refuse it but before I go any further, I must advise you there are several conditions attached.’ She waited, anticipating another objection, but when there was only silence, she continued. ‘The offer is on the table for this morning only; once I leave here today, it will be withdrawn. Secondly, this is a first and only payment. If you choose to accept, you will have to sign an agreement in which you forfeit any future right to claims on my client’s estate. Thirdly, the money is yours to invest or dispose of as you wish. This is not a loan but a gift.’ She clasped her hands together and looked into the old woman’s clear eyes. ‘Do you understand what I’m telling you? Is there anything you’d like me to clarify?’

  But the old woman didn’t respond in any way – not by the tilt of her head or a frown or a smile.

  ‘Señora Quincy, my client wishes to offer you—’