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www.millsandboon.co.uk
Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Endpage
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
THE LIFT DOORS slid together, and the steel cage began its upward journey with a faint lurch, which Abigail Westmore’s stomach uneasily echoed.
What the hell, she thought despairingly, was she doing, acting as a reluctant messenger between her cousin and her fiancé? Why hadn’t she refused—stood out for once against Della and her outrageous demands? Because unless she’d totally misunderstood the situation, the letter in her bag contained some kind of ultimatum, and was the last thing she wanted to be involved with, particularly when … Her mind closed off.
For the umpteenth time she looked in her bag to check that the letter was still there, that she hadn’t, by some Freudian slip, lost it on the way here. Then she glanced at her watch, making sure that her timing was exact. Della had been most insistent about that.
‘You’ve got to deliver it just before six,’ she’d said sharply. ‘So don’t go into one of your dreams, Abby, and forget. Everything depends on you.’
Abby had no wish for ‘everything’ to depend on her, particularly when it meant delivering a message to Vasco da Carvalho which he would not want to receive.
They used to execute people who brought bad news in the old days, she thought, grimacing at her reflection in the lift mirror. Not that she thought Vasco would go to those lengths, although she suspected he had a temper, but he would be less than pleased to know that Della had been discussing the rift between them with a third party.
She could always slide the envelope under the door and vanish, she thought, then sighed. No, she had to give the letter to him in person. Della had been adamant about that too.
‘And if he’s not there,’ she added, ‘you must phone me instantly—at this number.’ And she had handed Abby a folded slip of paper.
Abby had been mildly surprised. After all, she’d spent the greater part of her life, since her parents’ death, sharing her cousin’s luxurious home in St John’s Wood. She could, she thought, be expected to remember the phone number, even if she had been living in her own bed-sitter for the past six weeks. But when she glanced at the paper later, she was disturbed to see that Della had written the number of a Paris hotel.
Although she wasn’t sure why she felt uneasy. Della, and her mother, often popped across to Paris on shopping expeditions for Della’s trousseau. And now that Della had learned to her fury and alarm that her future married life would not be spent in the lap of luxury in Rio de Janeiro but on an obscure cocoa plantation in Amazonia, she would probably have to re-think much of her wardrobe. But it seemed odd that she was going shopping when matters between Vasco and herself were so unsettled.
The lift halted, and Abby emerged reluctantly into the corridor, her heels sinking into the deep pile of the carpet. It was the first time she had visited the apartment block where Vasco was staying, and it was all as luxurious as she’d imagined. She could see why Della had fallen into the trap of believing this was the kind of background Vasco belonged to, rather than some obscure corner of the Brazilian rain forest. She could understand, to some extent, why her cousin had been convinced that the cocoa bean plantation was just a temporary aberration—a rich man’s whim—and that when he was married, Vasco would cheerfully take his place in his family’s wealthy export company in Rio, with all that implied.
Abby had never been so sure. She didn’t believe Vasco’s dark, elegant good looks concealed any such weakness of purpose. The firm lines of his mouth, the determined set of his chin belied Della’s conviction that she could wind him round her little finger.
And Della’s shock and outrage when he had made it bluntly clear that the cocoa plantation was his life, and that, as his wife, she would be expected to share it with him, had been almost comical. Except that Abby had never felt like laughing.
She reached the door of the flat and stopped, swallowing nervously. There was a large gilt-framed mirror on an adjoining wall, and she looked herself over, pushing her fingers through her fine mouse-brown hair, silently rehearsing what she was going to say, if he answered the door. ‘Oh, hi. I was just passing, and Della asked me …’
No, that wouldn’t do, she thought ferociously. How could she go for the casual approach when she looked as white as a ghost, her eyes twice their normal size?
But Vasco da Carvalho had looked at her so seldom, she thought without resentment, that he might think her pallor was perfectly usual.
She wished with all her heart that she could have shared his indifference. She wished that the only emotion he had inspired in her could have been the polite interest anyone could expect to feel for her cousin’s fiancé. Only it hadn’t happened like that.
She was an ordinary, practical girl. She didn’t believe in grand passions, or love at first sight. If anyone had told her it could happen, she would have treated it as the joke of the year.
But it isn’t funny, she thought painfully. It isn’t funny at all.
She had walked into her aunt’s drawing-room one evening and found him standing, with Della, in front of the fireplace. And nothing had ever been the same again, nor ever would be.
It had proved the impetus she needed to get her out of her uncle’s home, however. She had made one or two unsuccessful bids for freedom in the past, only to be dissuaded by her aunt’s fretful accusations of ingratitude, but this time she’d stuck to her guns. There was no way she could go on living there, seeing Vasco every day, watching Della bloom as his future wife. She had thought her hidden feelings for Vasco were her own personal secret, but she had been wrong.
That was why she was here, hanging round his door, trying to pluck up courage to ring the bell.
Della’s words, and the malicious smile which had accompanied them, still haunted her. ‘You either do as I ask, Abigail dear, and deliver my letter in person, and on time, or I’ll tell Vasco about the pathetic little crush you have on him.’
She’d said huskily, ‘That’s nonsense.’
Della’s smile had widened. ‘Oh, no, it isn’t, and we both know it. You’re incredibly transparent, darling, and if Vasco wasn’t absolutely besotted with me he’d probably have noticed your slavish devotion for himself by now.’ She held out the letter. ‘Believe me, Abby, it would give me great pleasure to point out that you’re dying of love for him. It would give us something to laugh about during the long winter evenings after we’re married.’ She studied the strained lines of Abby’s face with overt satisfaction. ‘And we will be married, you know. He’s crazy about me, and once he realises I mean business over this Amazon jungle fiasco, he’ll come to heel.’ Her lovely face took on a faintly lascivious look. ‘After all, he won’t want to forgo getting me into bed at last. Not that waiting was my idea in the first place, but Ina, after she’d introduced us at that Embassy party, warned me if I wanted marriage, I’d have to be a good, pure girl, and string him along, and it’s certainly worked!’ She giggled. ‘It’s been almost fun, playing the sweet little virgin, and watching him sweat. I think, if it hadn’t been for his damned sense of honour, I’d have let him persuade me. Because he is beautiful, as you’ve managed to work out for yourself, my sweet, like some gorgeous golden-skinned animal.’ She sighed. ‘I bet he’ll be sensational in the sack!’
Abby had winced at the crudity of it. She said in a low voice, ‘Dell, if you love him …’
‘Oh, I do.’ Della’s eyes gleamed. ‘But I don’t consider the world well lost for love. If Vasco imagines I’m going to follow him to the Amazon basin like a little submissive wife, then he can think again. The choice is his: this—Riocho Negro hellhole, or me. It’s quite simple.’
Abby shuddered as she remembered. She took the letter out of her bag, handling it gingerly as if it was a time-bomb, then rang the bell, praying he would be out.
But her prayers were not answered. Almost immediately the door swung open, and Vasco stood there surveying her with frank astonishment, and growing grimness.
‘Abigail?’ he queried. ‘I was expecting …’
‘Della,’ Abby supplied. She sent him a small nervous smile. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’
‘You have not,’ he told her politely. ‘It is naturally a pleasure to meet you again. It is some weeks, I think …’ He hesitated. ‘Would you like to come in?’
‘There’s really no need,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Actually, I’m here on Della’s behalf.’ She held out the letter. ‘She asked me to give you this.’
He looked down at the letter, and the grim expression on his face deepened alarmingly. Abby had never seen him like this. On their previous encounters, he had always been at his most charming. Now, once again, it occurred to her that he was a formidable man, and Della was insane if she imagined she could force him down any path he did not choose to go.
He said curtly, ‘I think you had better come in after all, Abigail.’ His hand closed on her arm in a grip which brooked no denial, and he drew her forward into the flat. She found herself in a large, comfortably furnished drawing-room. ‘Sit down,’ Vasco directed, indicating an enormous leather sofa.
‘I really can’t stay,’ she protested weakly. ‘I only came to deliver that and …’
‘Ah, yes.’ His smile was wintry. ‘Abigail at one time meant “handmaiden”, I think. You should not allow Della to impose on you. However, even a messenger deserves some reward. May I offer you some coffee, or perhaps you would prefer a drink.’
‘Neither, thanks. I do have to go …’
‘You have not been instructed to wait for an answer to that?’ He pointed to the letter she was still clutching.
‘Good God, no!’ Abby dropped the letter on to a coffee table as if it was a hot coal. ‘I think you should read it, Vasco,’ she said, trying to edge past him towards the door. ‘Della was very anxious that I should deliver it right now, and there’s probably a reason for that.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said curtly. ‘Over these past weeks I have been made well aware of the way her mind works. Do you perhaps know the terms of her message?’ There was a slight derisive emphasis on the last word.
‘Not really,’ Abby denied swiftly and unconvincingly, a faint, betraying colour rising in her face.
‘I see,’ he said icily.
‘No, you don’t.’ She punched a small clenched fist into the palm of her other hand. ‘Oh God, this is so embarrassing. I could kill Della! Believe me, the last thing I want is to be—involved in any way in any—problem you might be having.’
‘Thank you for the assurance,’ he said sarcastically. ‘But any problems are of Della’s own making. In my world, when a woman agrees to marry a man, she consents to share his life, no matter where or how that life is to be lived. Your cousin knew my home, my work was at Riocho Negro. I made no secret of it.’
She gave a quick meaningless smile. ‘Well, it’s really none of my business. Now you must excuse me. I—I have a date, and you’ll want to read your letter in peace.’
‘Peace is hardly the word I should have chosen,’ Vasco said with sudden harshness, making her flinch. He saw this, and his face gentled. ‘Tenho muita pena, Abigail—I am sorry. You are not to blame, after all. But you should not allow Della to use you like this.’
She shrugged lightly. ‘Well, it isn’t for much longer. I’m sure you’ll settle your differences together, Vasco. Goodnight.’
‘Boa tarde, Abigail.’
Reaction set in almost as soon as she was safely back in the corridor, with the door closed between them. Her legs were shaking so much suddenly that she had to stop and lean against a wall until she regained her equilibrium. Another door opened and an elderly couple emerged, the woman giving Abby a surprised and frosty glance as they passed.
She probably thinks I’m drunk, Abby decided, and, God, I wish I was!
As she waited in the bus queue, she realised it was the first time she had ever been completely alone with Vasco. It had been a tense interview, and nothing like any of the childishly romantic dreams she had occasionally indulged herself with.
Despising herself for a fool, she began, almost obsessively, to recreate him in her mind, to go over every tiny detail of his appearance. Her mind’s eye dwelt lingeringly on the length of the black lashes which veiled his brilliant dark eyes, the way his hair grew back from a distinct peak on his forehead, the expanse of coppery skin revealed by the open neck of his shirt, the long-fingered, well kept hands.
She gave a little shaky sigh, telling herself that she should be ashamed. It was not only wrong but futile to allow him to fill her thoughts like this. He belonged to Della. They would resolve their difficulties with some compromise, and get married, and if she was lucky she would never see them again.
Especially now that she was firmly established in his mind as an interfering busybody, she reminded herself ironically. But it was better to be regarded as a nuisance rather than a lovesick idiot. And if Della ever carried out her threat and told him her dull little cousin had fallen for him in a big way, Brazil was far enough away for her to be spared the knowledge.
And one day, she hoped, she would wake up cured.
Although not, she was forced to acknowledge, by Keith with whom she had a date that evening. He was pleasant enough, and one of the junior executives in the company she worked for, and they shared a mutual interest in the theatre, but that was as far as it went, on her side at least.
Not that Keith ever showed any sign of wishing to become wildly amorous, she thought wryly. He was far too cautious for that, far too aware of where he was going in life. Abigail often speculated that she was being put through a series of suitability tests by him, but they were leisurely enough not to cause her any anxiety. Even if she had never met Vasco, she would still have known there was no future with Keith, or anyone else she had come across, for that matter.
Perhaps she was basically cold, she thought. Maybe in her case, still waters ran shallow, and she permitted herself her fantasies about Vasco because he was forbidden territory and therefore no real threat.
In a way, she thought detachedly, as she climbed on to the bus and settled in her seat, she would rather believe that than the other nightmare which haunted her—that Vasco would marry Della and vanish from her life, taking with him, all unwittingly, all the love, warmth, and passion she would ever be capable of, leaving her to face the future bereft and emotionally destitute.
‘I found the second act rather disappointing,’ Keith said, frowning. ‘I thought he’d failed to establish the intruder’s personality strongly enough, and, of course, the whole thing hinges on that.’
‘Yes,’ Abby agreed, smothering a discreet yawn. She’d found the entire production rather long-winded, and less than gripping. No matter how determinedly she tried to concentrate on what was happening on stage, her mind had kept travelling inexorably back to Vasco, and the letter she had brought him, and his reactions to it. He was a man who liked to dictate terms, not agree to them, she thought uneasily.
She’d come out of the theatre with a slight headache, and had demurred when Keith suggested going for the usual drink, but he had looked so disappointed when she’d murmured something about having an early night that she had relented.
The pub was one they often used, but it seemed extra crowded that night, with no vacant tables, so that they were forced to stand near the bar. Which was all to the good, Abby thought idly, as Keith continued to hold forth on the playwright’s failure to develop his characters fully. It meant they would probably not be staying long. Keith hated standing up to drink.
The crowd shifted suddenly, giving her a new perspective of the other side of the room. Suddenly Abby seemed to stop breathing, her fingers tightening convulsively round the stem of her glass as she stared at the table right in the corner.
It couldn’t be! she thought feverishly. She was seeing things. She had allowed Vasco to occupy her thoughts so much that now she was hallucinating about him, imagining that he was there, in the corner, alone.
‘I don’t think you’re listening to a word I’m saying!’ Keith’s faintly indignant tones broke into her trance, shattering it, and she turned to him apologetically.
‘I’m sorry—I thought I saw someone I knew.’
‘Oh?’ Keith craned his neck. ‘He doesn’t look familiar to me at all.’
‘He wouldn’t be. His name is Vasco da Carvalho, and he’s engaged to my cousin.’
‘I thought he didn’t look English,’ Keith commented. He gave the corner a concentrated stare. ‘Been drinking heavily too, by the looks of things.’
‘Oh, no!’ Abby was appalled. ‘He hardly drinks at all. It must be that damned letter. There must be something terribly wrong.’
As she began to move through the crowd towards his table, Keith detained her. ‘Well, whatever it is, Abby, it’s none of our business. Leave it.’
‘I can’t,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I feel partly responsible.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He regarded her with disfavour. ‘You want to steer well clear of him, my dear girl, especially in that condition. Although I suppose you could phone his fiancée—tell her to come and collect him.’
‘She’s in Paris.’ Abby began to move forward again. ‘Please, Keith—I must help him!’
‘And I see no reason why you should do any such thing.’ Keith sounded really ruffled. ‘Drink up, and we’ll go somewhere else and leave him to his bender. Whatever’s wrong, he won’t thank you for poking your nose in, believe me.’
‘You don’t know how right you are,’ she muttered.
‘Now look here, Abby.’ Keith’s temper seemed to be deteriorating by the second. ‘Just what’s your connection with this fellow? What’s this letter got to do with it?’
‘I wish I could explain.’ She gave him an appealing glance. ‘But I can’t. Nor can I just—walk away and leave him in this state.’
‘Well, I can,’ he announced grandly. ‘If you persist in interfering, Abby, then you’re on your own. I’m not ruining a pleasant evening by getting into any hassle with some drunk, whoever he happens to be engaged to. You don’t know what you’re taking on.’
‘Then I’m about to find out.’ She sent him an impatient glance. ‘And I’m not asking you to be involved.’
He gave her an outraged look, opened his mouth, closed it again, then turned and stalked away. She couldn’t even feel sorry.
She reached the table and sank down on the bench seat next to him. ‘Vasco,’ she said urgently.
He gave her a long, concentrated stare as if he was having difficulty focusing, as he probably was, she realised, as she counted the empty glasses on the table. Apart from the fact that his silk tie had been loosened and the top button of his shirt undone, his appearance was as immaculate as usual. Only that unwavering gaze, and his too-relaxed posture, gave him away.
‘Ah,’ he said, carefully enunciating each word, ‘the little handmaiden. Que encantamento.’ He reached for his glass, but Abby forestalled him, moving it away.
‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ She was aware her voice was shaking a little.
‘No, senhorita, I do not.’ The smile he gave her was almost limpid, but Abby sensed it masked an abyss of darker, wilder emotions than she had ever dreamed existed. He was angry, but that was only part of it. And although she knew the anger was not directed at her, it hurt as much as if he had lifted his fist and struck her down.
‘It’s nearly closing time,’ she tried again.
‘But they have not yet called last orders,’ he said. ‘See how well I have learned your English customs!’
‘Good for you,’ Abby said grittily, reflecting that this was one custom she would have preferred him not to know. ‘The thing is, I want to get home, and it’s such a hassle finding a taxi after closing time.’
Vasco shrugged. ‘Then go now, and find your taxi.’
‘But I hoped you’d come with me.’
‘Did you, querida?’ he drawled. ‘How flattering of you!’
Abby bit her lip. ‘Please don’t play games, Vasco. You know perfectly well I can’t leave you here like this. Della would never forgive me.’
‘Now there you are wrong, senhorita.’ He removed Abby’s hand from his glass with insulting ease, and drank. ‘My wellbeing is no longer any concern of your cousin.’
‘Oh, God!’ Abby’s throat tightened. ‘Vasco, you mustn’t take any notice of anything she said in that letter. She’s used to having her own way in everything. She doesn’t realise how strongly you feel about Riocho Negro.’
‘Oh yes, she does,’ he said softly. ‘Or she would not have offered me the choice she did. At least we both now know the strength of each other’s feelings on the subject.’
‘Then isn’t that—grounds for negotiation?’ she suggested.
‘Unfortunately, no.’ He lifted his wrist and ostentatiously consulted the thin gold watch he wore. ‘Particularly as, at this very moment, my former namorada is in bed with another man.’
Abby stared at him. ‘That—isn’t amusing!’
‘On that we are in perfect agreement. But it is no joke. The letter you were so good as to bring me made that quite clear. I was informed that unless I telephoned your cousin at some Paris hotel by six-thirty to tell her I had changed my mind, and would be content to make my home with her in Rio, she intended to meet a man called Jeremy Portman and remain in Paris with him. He apparently also wishes to marry her, and give her the kind of life I so heartlessly propose to deny her.’
‘She was bluffing,’ Abby insisted desperately. ‘She must be. I’ve met Jeremy Portman. She doesn’t care about him …’
‘It is not important.’ He lifted his hand. ‘Because, in any case, I would never marry any woman capable of making such a threat.’
‘Oh, Vasco, no! She’s confused—unhappy. She didn’t realise what she was saying—how it would affect you …’
‘She knew.’ His voice was flat, the short syllables sounding like a knell.
Abby tried again. ‘But you love her. You have to forgive her.’
‘If she had loved me in the way that I believed—had been the kind of woman I wanted for my wife, then she could not have behaved in this way,’ he said, the words slurring faintly. ‘Anyway, it is finished. She is in Paris with her lover, and I am going to get another drink. Forgive me if I do not, this time, invite you to join me. I prefer my own company.’
She watched unhappily as he made his way to the bar. He was walking steadily, but she knew he was already near some dangerous limit, although this was probably more emotional than alcoholic.