Counterfeit Bride

As the office door crashed open, she made herself smile.

‘You’ve been long enough,’ she began teasingly. ‘Did you have to pick the beans personally or …’

She stopped short, her eyes widening in disbelief as she studied the dishevelled, woebegone figure in front of her.

‘Teresita!’ she gasped. ‘Querida, what is it? Has something happened? Are you ill?’ Her heart sank as she saw Teresita’s brimming eyes. ‘Cliff—oh, my God, has something happened to Cliff?’

‘No,’ Teresita said. ‘He is well—he is fine—and I shall never see him again.’ And she burst into hysterical tears.

Nicola had got her into a chair and was trying to calm her when Elaine returned with two paper cups of coffee.

‘I guess I should have brought something stronger,’ she remarked as she put the cups down on the nearest desk. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I wish I knew.’ Nicola scrabbled through drawers until she came across a box of tissues in the last one. ‘All she keeps saying is that she wants to die, and begging our Lady of Guadeloupe to take her.’

Elaine raised her brows. ‘Clearly, she means business. Talk to her in Spanish, Nicky. She may make more sense that way.’

Nicola mustered her thoughts and said crisply ‘Stop crying, Teresita. If we can help you we will, but first we must understand why you’re so distressed.’

Teresita was still sobbing, but she was making an effort to control herself. When she spoke, Nicola could just make out the whispered words, ‘I am to be married.’

‘Yes, we know that.’ Nicola passed her another tissue. ‘To Cliff, just as soon as it can be arranged—so what is there to cry about?’

Teresita shook her head. ‘It is not so.’ Her voice was steadying, becoming more coherent. ‘Today I visited the convent to pray in the chapel for Cliff’s safe return. The Reverend Mother, she tells me there is a letter for me, and I see at once it is from my guardian, Don Luis. I read the letter. Madre de Dios, I read it and I wish only to die!’

‘You mean he’s forbidden you to marry Cliff?’ Nicola asked sharply.

‘He does not yet know that Cliff exists,’ Teresita said bleakly. ‘Always I have waited for the right time to tell him, because I feared his anger.’

‘Will someone please fill me in on what’s going on?’ Elaine demanded plaintively.

‘I wish I knew myself,’ said Nicola, hurriedly outlining the gist of the conversation so far.

‘It’s obviously this letter,’ Elaine said. She crouched beside Teresita’s chair, taking her hands in hers. ‘Hey, honey, what was in the letter? Does the mighty Don Luis want you to marry someone else? Is that it?’

Choking back a sob, Teresita nodded, and Elaine darted Nicola a sober glance which said ‘I told you so’ more clearly and loudly than any words could have done.

‘Tomorrow,’ Teresita said. ‘Tomorrow I must leave Mexico City and travel to Monterrey with Ramón. Later we shall be married.’

‘You and this Ramón? Just like that?’ Nicola demanded, horrified.

Teresita’s eyes widened. ‘Not Ramón, no. He is just the cousin of Don Luis. I met him once when I was a child.’

‘For heaven’s sake,’ Elaine muttered, and Nicola said hastily, ‘I’m sorry, darling, we’re trying to understand. But if Ramón isn’t the bridegroom then who …?’

‘It is Don Luis.’ Teresita’s voice was flat.

Nicola muttered ‘My God!’ and Elaine’s lips pursed in a silent whistle.

‘Nice one, Don Luis,’ she approved. ‘Nothing like keeping the cash where it belongs—in the family.’

‘It is what my father intended. I have always known this,’ Teresita said tonelessly. ‘But, as time passed, and he said nothing, I began to hope that it would never happen. A man so much older than myself, a man who has known so many women.’ For a moment, a world of knowledge that the good sisters had never instilled showed on the heart-shaped face. ‘I—I allowed myself to hope that perhaps he would choose elsewhere—perhaps even marry Carlota Garcia.’

‘Just who is that?’ Elaine asked.

Teresita gave a slight shrug. ‘A—a friend of his. Her husband was a politician. She has been a widow now for several years, and their names have been coupled together many times. A girl—one of the boarders at the convent—told me it was known that she was his—amiga. She said it was impossible that he would marry me because I was too much of a child for him, accustomed as he is to women of the world.’

Disgust rose bitterly in Nicola. Not just elderly and arrogant, but mercenary and a womaniser into the bargain.

She said hotly, ‘You can’t marry him, Teresita. Write to him. Tell him it’s all off. He can’t make you.’

Teresita almost cowered in her chair. ‘I cannot disobey.’ Her voice shook. ‘Tomorrow I must leave for Monterrey in Ramón’s charge. You do not know Don Luis—his anger—how he would be if I wrote him such a letter.’

‘But he must know that you don’t love him—that you’re even frightened of him,’ Nicola argued stubbornly.

Teresita sighed. ‘My mother would have said that it is a good thing to respect the man that one must marry—and that love can follow marriage,’ she added doubtfully.

‘When you already love Cliff?’

Teresita’s mouth quivered. ‘That was craziness, a dream. I must forget him now that Don Luis has spoken at last.’

‘Oh, no, you mustn’t,’ Nicola said forcefully. ‘Teresita, you can’t let yourself be pushed around like this. Your father may have intended you to marry Don Luis at one time, but if he was here now, and knew Cliff, and realised how you felt about him, I know he’d change his mind.’ She looked across at Elaine, who gave a silent shrug. She tried again. ‘Why don’t you and Cliff elope?’

For a moment, a hopeful light shone in Teresita’s eyes, then she crumpled again.

‘He is in Chicago.’

‘Well, I know that, but we could cable him, tell him it’s an emergency and he has to get back right away,’ said Nicola.

Teresita shook her head. ‘I must leave tomorrow. There is no time for him to return.’

‘Then he’ll just have to follow you to Monterrey and make Don Luis see reason.’

‘It would be no use. Don Luis would not receive him, or allow me to see him.’ Teresita spread her hands helplessly. ‘Nicky, you do not understand.’

‘On the contrary, I understand only too well,’ Nicola told her grimly. ‘You’re not prepared to stand up to this guardian of yours.’

Teresita seemed to shrink. ‘Nicky, it is not possible to stand up, as you say. He follows his own will at all times, and always he is obeyed.’

‘Oh, is he, indeed?’ Nicola said wrathfully. ‘I just wish I could meet this lordly gentleman. I’d do anything to stop him getting his own way for once in his life!’

‘Then why don’t you?’ said Elaine.

‘Why don’t I what?’

‘Stop him.’ Elaine gave a shrug. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Teresita, but you’re not very well acquainted with this Ramón, are you?’

‘No.’ Teresita gave a puzzled frown. ‘As I said, he is Don Luis’ cousin, and many years ago I met him at La Mariposa and …’

‘Right,’ Elaine interrupted. ‘And all he knows is that tomorrow he has to collect you someplace—the convent, I guess—and escort you to Monterrey. Well, Nicky can go in your place.’

There was a shaken silence, then Nicola said, ‘That’s the silliest idea I’ve ever heard.’

‘It’s not so silly,’ Elaine said calmly. ‘Stop and think. You speak Spanish like a native, and if we fitted you out with a brunette wig, some dark glasses and a heavier make-up, you could pass for Teresita—especially with a guy who saw her once when she was a kid, for God’s sake.’

Nicola gasped, ‘But I’d never get away with it! Just supposing I could fool this unfortunate man—which is by no means certain—what would happen when I got to Monterrey? I couldn’t hope for the same luck with Don Luis.’

‘You wouldn’t need it. You take your big leather shoulder bag in which you have one of your own dresses, and your papers and vacation tickets. When you get to Monterrey, you make some excuse to stop off somewhere—a store or a restaurant, and you go to the powder room, where you take off the wig and dump it, change your dress—and—voilà. Goodbye, Teresita Dominguez and hello, Nicola Tarrant, leaving Don Luis with egg on his face because his novia has run away. Oh, he’ll be looking for her, but he won’t be equating her with any blonde English chick, and he won’t be searching in Mexico City, where she’ll be marrying Cliff, with me as chief bridesmaid. When she’s ready, she can write and tell him she’s already married, and let him figure out how she did it.’

Nicola was about to tell Elaine that this time she had finally flipped, when she saw Teresita looking at her, with the dawning of a wild hope in her eyes.

She said, ‘Teresita, no—I couldn’t! It’s crazy. It’s impossible. It wouldn’t work.’

Teresita’s hands were clasped tightly in front of her as if she were praying. ‘But we could make it work, Nicky, in a wig, as Elaine said, and some of my clothes. It will take two days, maybe even three to drive to Monterrey, because there are business calls which Ramón must make on the way for my guardian. Then when you reach Monterrey, there could be at least one more day while Don Luis searches there …’ She turned eagerly to Elaine, who nodded.

‘We’ll cable Cliff right away,’ she said. ‘Maybe Nicky could play for time in other ways on the trip—pretend to be sick or something.’

‘I wouldn’t have to pretend,’ Nicola said desperately. ‘Stop it, the pair of you. You’re mad!’

Elaine gave her a steady look. ‘You said you’d do anything to stop this happening. What Teresita chiefly needs is time—time for Cliff to get back here and marry her himself—and this you could give her.’

‘Yes,’ Teresita said with a little sob. ‘Oh, yes, Nicky. If I go to Monterrey, then I shall never see Cliff again. I know it.’

‘But I really don’t think I could get away with it,’ Nicola said, trying to hold on to her sanity. ‘Oh, I know people congratulate me on my fluency and my accent, but all it would need would be one small mistake and I’d be finished. And I can hardly drive hundreds of miles in stony silence.’

‘But why not? Ramon would not expect me, the novia of his cousin, to talk and chatter to him. It would be indecoroso. And if you pretended that the motion of the car was making you ill, then he would not expect you to speak at all. He is much younger than Don Luis, and when I was a child, he was kind to me.’ She was silent for a moment, then she said pleadingly, ‘Nicky, I beg you to do this thing for me. I could not love Don Luis, and he does not love me. He marries me only because it is time he was married, and because he wishes for a son to inherit this new—empire that he has made. Would you, in your heart, wish to be married for such a reason?’

Nicola was very still. As if it was yesterday, she saw Ewan smiling at her, and heard his voice. ‘Of course I’m not in love with her, darling. It’s you I care about. But Greta knows what the score is. She understands these things. Once I’ve married her, there’s no reason why you and I shouldn’t be together as much as we want, as long as we’re discreet.’

She suppressed a little shudder, remembering how, even through the agony of the moment, there had been a flash of pity for Ewan’s wife, who would never possess the certainty of his love and loyalty. A marriage of convenience, she had thought bitterly. Very convenient for the man—but heartbreak for the woman.

Teresita didn’t deserve such a fate.

She said, ‘All right, I’ll do it.’

CHAPTER TWO

NICOLA stood nervously in the shadow of the portico and stared down the quiet and empty street. Ramón was late, and at any moment the door behind could open and one of the nuns emerge, and ask what she was doing there.

For the umpteenth time she had to resist the impulse to adjust the wig. It was a loathsome thing, totally realistic, but hot and itchy. Orchid pink silky dress, strapped sandals with high heels in a matching kid, and two of Teresita’s expensive cases as window dressing. The only thing out of place was the bulky leather bag on her shoulder, but it would just have to look incongruous. It was her lifeline.

She glanced at her watch, biting her lip nervously, thinking how funny it would be if it was all for nothing and Don Luis had changed his mind—and then she saw the car and her stomach lurched in panic.

It was too late now to run for it. She could only cross her fingers that the wig and cosmetics and the large pair of dark glasses would be sufficiently convincing. Swallowing, she adopted an air of faint hauteur as Teresita had suggested and stared in front of her as the car came to a halt in front of the convent steps.

There was a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel, but Nicola barely registered the fact. She was too busy looking at the man who had just emerged from the front passenger seat and was standing by the car watching her.

Young, Teresita had said, or at least younger than Don Luis. Well, he was at least in his mid-thirties, so that figured, but what she hadn’t mentioned, either because she’d forgotten or had been too young to notice, was that Ramon was a disturbingly, even devastatingly, attractive man. Tall—unusually so—with black hair, and eyes darker than sin. Golden bronze skin over a classic bone structure that went beyond conventional good looks. A high-bridged aristocratic nose, a firm-lipped mouth, the purity of its lines betrayed only by a distinctly unchaste curve to his lower lip, and a proudly uncompromising strength of chin.

‘Ye gods,’ Nicola thought, ‘and this is only the poor relation! What the Mark II model is like makes the mind reel.’ Somehow the image of the plump, pompous grandee didn’t seem quite so valid any more.

He walked forward, strong shoulders, lean hips and long legs encased in a lightweight but very expensive suit. His black silk shirt was open at the throat, allowing a glimpse of smooth brown chest.

He was smiling faintly, and Nicola thought, her hackles rising, that he was clearly under no illusion about his effect on women.

‘Señorita.’ He stood at the foot of the steps and looked up at her rather enquiringly.

‘I am Teresita Dominguez, señor,’ she said coldly. ‘And you are late.’

Now that the words were uttered, and the charade begun, it was somehow easier.

If Don Luis had informed his cousin that his future wife was a submissive doormat of a girl who would speak when spoken to, then Don Ramón de Costanza had just had the shock of his life, she thought with satisfaction. She was pleased to see that he did look taken aback.

‘My apologies, Señorita Dominguez. I was detained. And of course I could not know—I was not warned what a vision of loveliness awaited me.’

No one warned me about you either, she thought silently. And Don Luis must be off his head to let you out of your cage to prowl round the girl he’s going to marry, cousin or no cousin.

She primmed her mouth disapprovingly as he came up the steps to her side. ‘Don Ramón, must I remind you who I am?’

‘Indeed no, señorita. You are the novia of Don Luis Alvarado de Montalba, the most fortunate man in Mexico. Welcome to our family, Teresita—if I may call you that?’ He lifted her hand as if to kiss it lightly, then at the last moment turned it over, and brushed his mouth swiftly and sensuously across the palm instead.

‘Señor.’ Nicola snatched her hand away, aware that she did not have to pretend the note of shock in her voice. Her flesh tingled as if it had been in contact with a live electric current. ‘I hope I do not have to inform Don Luis of your behaviour.’

‘Forgive me.’ He didn’t sound particularly repentant. ‘I forgot myself. You will have nothing further to complain of in my conduct, I swear. Will you allow me to put your cases in the car?’

She assented with a cool nod, and followed him down the steps, her heart still thumping.

‘And your bag?’

She swallowed, shaking her head and taking a firm hold on the strap.

‘I prefer to keep it with me.’

He surveyed the bag in silence for a moment. ‘It lacks the charm and elegance of the rest of your appearance.’

‘It has sentimental value,’ she said shortly.

‘I’m glad it has something,’ he said smoothly. The chauffeur was holding the rear door open, and she climbed in, taking pains to do so without displaying too much leg. The door was shut and she saw her travelling companion detain the man with a hand on his arm and tell him something which clearly caused the chauffeur some surprise before he nodded and turned away.

The next minute Ramón came round and also got in the back of the car beside her. She saw the chauffeur watching covertly in the mirror, his face deliberately stolid and expressionless.

Keep your eyes on that mirror, amigo, she addressed him silently, and if he puts a hand on me anywhere, call in the army.

She leaned back in her seat, forcing herself to relax, reminding herself that she was occupying a very spacious, luxurious air-conditioned vehicle, and the fact that it felt crowded was purely imaginary.

The car began to move, and she felt tiny beads of perspiration break out on her top lip. They were on their way. So far so good, she thought, then stole a glance at her travelling companion and realised that there was absolutely no room for complacency on this journey. And she had promised Teresita that she would use delaying tactics, and make it last as long as possible. She swallowed, and turned her attention as resolutely as possible to the scenery outside the car.

They had been travelling for over half an hour when he said, ‘You are very quiet.’

It was her chance. She produced a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her bag, and dabbed her lips with it.

‘I am not a good traveller, Don Ramón. You must excuse me.’

She hiccuped realistically, and settled further into her corner of the seat, relishing the slightly alarmed expression on his face. She closed her eyes and pretended to doze, and eventually pretence was overtaken by reality, and, lulled by the smooth motion of the car, she slept.

She awoke with a start some time later. Her eyes flew open and she saw that he was watching her, the dark face curiously hard and speculative. As she looked at him uncertainly, the expression faded, and there was nothing but that former charm.

‘Welcome back, señorita. Are you feeling better?’

She said, ‘A little,’ and sat up, her hands automatically smoothing some of the creases out of the skirt of her dress. His eyes followed her movements, observing the rounded shape of her thighs beneath the clinging material, and she flushed slightly, thankful that her bag was on the seat between them, an actual physical barricade.

‘Where are we?’ They seemed to be passing through a town. He mentioned a name, but it meant nothing.

‘I had intended to stop here for lunch,’ he said, after a pause. ‘But as you are unwell, perhaps it would be unwise.’

Nicola groaned inwardly. She could hardly confess the truth, that she was starving. Tension seemed to be giving her an appetite.

‘Please don’t let my indisposition interfere with your plans, Don Ramón,’ she said meekly. ‘While you eat, I can always go for a walk. The—the fresh air might do me good.’

Again she was conscious of the speculative stare, then he said, ‘As you wish, señorita.’

The chauffeur, whose name was Lopez, parked in a small square behind the church.

Ramón helped her out. ‘Are you sure you will be all right?’ He paused. ‘It is only a small place, you can hardly get lost.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ she assured him, reaching for the strap of her bag.

‘You don’t wish to take that heavy thing with you. Leave it in the car,’ he suggested.

Rather at a loss, she said, ‘I’m used to carrying it. It—it doesn’t worry me.’

‘Clearly you are not as frail as you seem,’ he murmured.

She waited to see what direction he took with Lopez, and made sure she went the other way. In one of the streets off the square a small market was in full swing, and there were food stalls, she saw thankfully. Black bean soup, she decided with relish, and sopes to follow. She had learned to love the little corn dough boats filled with chili and topped with cheese and vegetables and spiced sausage which were to be found cooking on griddles at so many roadside foodstalls. She ate every scrap, and licked her fingers.

She felt far more relaxed, and in a much better temper as she sauntered back to the car. Ramón de Costanza was standing outside the car, looking at his watch and tapping his foot with impatience as she approached.

‘I wondered if I would have to come and find you,’ he said silkily. ‘Did you enjoy your stroll?’

‘Gracias, señor. Did you enjoy your lunch?’

‘It was delicious.’ He looked faintly amused as he surveyed her and Nicola wondered uneasily whether she had left any traces of black bean soup round her mouth.

As he took his seat beside her in the car, Ramon said, ‘I have a business call to make a few kilometres ahead, and then we will find somewhere to stay for the night.’

‘Already?’ she asked with a frown.

He looked surprised. ‘It will soon be the time for siesta. You don’t want to continue our journey through the full heat of the day, or ask Lopez to do so.’

‘No, of course not,’ she said, feeling a fool. ‘I—I wasn’t thinking.’ That had to count as a slip, she thought. Surely by now she should be used to the way life in Mexico slowed to a crawl in the late afternoon. She was taking too much for granted, losing her edge, and it couldn’t happen again, or he might begin to suspect.

They eventually arrived at a motel, a large rambling white building surrounded by lush gardens, fountains and even a swimming pool. Nicola stared at it longingly, and then banished even the thought regretfully. Ladies wearing wigs stayed on dry land. Besides, her bikinis were all in her own cases on the way to Merida by now, and that was just as well, because the prospect of appearing before Ramón de Costanza so scantily clad was an alarming one.

Every time she had as much as glanced in his direction, he had been watching her, she thought broodingly. And that was putting it mildly. What he had actually been doing was undressing her with his eyes, and in her role as Teresita she couldn’t even make a protest, because the innocent Teresita wouldn’t have known for one moment what he was doing.

But I know, she thought, grinding her teeth, and longing to embed the delicate heel of her sandal in his shin.

The cabin to which she was shown was spotlessly clean and comfortable, with a tiny tiled bathroom opening off the bedroom. She turned to close the door and found Ramón on her heels. He gave the room an appraising look, which also encompassed the wide bed under its cream coverlet. Then he turned to her, taking her hand and lifting it up to his lips.

‘A pleasant siesta. You have everything you need?’ He looked straight into her eyes, and with a sudden rush of painful and unwelcome excitement she realised she had only to make the slightest sign and the door would be locked, closing them in together.

She snatched her hand away, seeing the mockery in his eyes.

‘Everything, thank you, señor,’ she said in a stiff little voice.

‘Can I hope for the pleasure of your company later at dinner?’

She gave him a cool smile and said that it would be very nice. When he had gone, she turned the key in the lock herself. She wanted to collapse limply across the bed, but first she took off the orchid pink dress, and the wig. She saw herself in the mirror across the room. Except for the slightly heavier make-up, she was herself again. She ran her fingers through her sticky hair and moved towards the bathroom. As she did so, she had to pass the bed, and just for a moment she let the tight rein she kept on herself slacken a little and wondered what would have happened if she had given him the signal he wanted—a smile would have been enough, she thought, or even the faintest pressure of her fingers in his.