Pale Dawn Dark Sunset

Miranda relaxed, “Of course. And I should thank you for what you’ve done for her. Father Esteban has written and told me how often you’ve visited her—how often she had visited you here.”

Juan’s swarthy features expanded. “No tanto. Soy su amigo—we are friends, si?”

“I’m sure your attention has made everything so much easier for her,” insisted Miranda, looking about her with interest. “And this beautiful old house—she must love coming here”

Juan was making some deprecatory comment when his mother returned accompanied by an elderly Indian woman whom Miranda assumed must be the housekeeper, Jezebel. It was an unlikely name for such a wizened old creature, but her eyes were sharp and appraising and Miranda guessed they missed nothing.

“You will show Señorita Lord to her room and provide her with a light meal, Jezebel,” Doña Isabella was saying as they neared the others, and Jezebel was nodding.

“Si, señora.” Continuing to stare at the newcomer, she said: “You come—por favor?”

“Yes, go with Jezebel,” directed Doña Isabella, linking hands on which glinted a veritable fortune in diamonds. “She will take good care of you. We will meet again in the morning.”

“Yes. Yes, thank you.” Miranda glanced awkwardly at Juan. “Goodnight then—Doña Isabella; señor.”

She could not bring herself to say Don Juan, although she supposed that this was his usual appellation. However, he seemed to notice nothing amiss and presently she was walking behind Jezebel up a baroque staircase followed at some distance by one of the menservants carrying her case and haversack.

She sighed now. If she didn’t go to sleep soon she would be too tired to drag herself out of bed in the morning. But everything was so strange, so uncannily quiet after the sounds of traffic that constantly created noise beneath the windows of her small flat in Chelsea. It was strange to think that life was still going on as usual beneath those windows half across the world, and that one of the typists from the pool would be taking shorthand from David Hallam possibly at this very moment.

David had not wanted her to come to Guadalima to identify her niece. He valued her services too highly as his secretary to appreciate the disruption her departure had caused. He had said it would have been much more sensible to have the child flown to England for identification as that was where she was going to live. But then David was a cold fish, and had never fully recovered from her rejection of his marriage proposal four months ago.

It had been at the time when her sister and brother-in-law had first gone missing, and no doubt he had imagined she would welcome his offer with open arms. But he had been mistaken. Much as she liked David, much as she was aware of his fair good looks, much as she knew that the other girls in the office envied her position as his private secretary, she had no illusions about her own feelings. She couldn’t picture herself married to David Hallam. She couldn’t see herself hostessing his little dinner parties, taking care of his service flat, bringing up a clutch of children exactly like him in every way. He was too correct, too—sedate. His shirts were always pristine white, his ties were never crooked, his hair was never overly long. In short he was the glossy magazine’s idea of the successful young businessman, and he never forgot it. Miranda felt sure that had she accepted him he would have attempted to mould her into the successful young businessman’s wife, and she simply wasn’t interested. It wasn’t that she was careless with her own appearance. She liked wearing casual clothes, but she equally enjoyed putting on pretty dresses and being absurdly feminine. However, a mortgaged detached on a suburban estate was not her idea of what life was all about, although she had to admit that she liked the company of men and some day would want a home and children of her own.

Thinking of marriage brought her thoughts back to the conversation she had had with Rafael Cueras on their way to the airport at Puebla. He had been most determined in his negation of her question about his own marriage. She wondered why. Had some woman jilted him in the past—or was he merely a woman-hater? The former seemed unlikely, the latter equally so. He was so arrogantly masculine himself, he could not possibly dislike the opposite sex. And yet he had seemed totally unmoved by her personality, and she moved restlessly when she recalled how coolly he had treated her.

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