The South American's Wife
Kay Thorpe
Waking up in a Rio hospital bed, Karen has no idea how she got there. And when Luiz Andrade introduces himself as her husband, Karen is shocked and bewildered.Though Luiz claims she betrayed him, they rediscover their intense mutual passion and Karen is convinced she could never have been an unfaithful wife. So what is the secret that Luiz isn't telling her?
“I can’t,” she admitted. “I can’t explain what I was doing on that plane. I suppose it’s possible we’ll never know, but if I’m to stay here—”
“There’s no question of anything other,” came the harsh interruption.
Karen spread her hands. “Fine. I accept that. Only, we both have to make the effort to put things right between us. If you turn me down now…”
“You think me capable of it?” He threw back the sheet, revealing his nudity all the way down. He was already fully and heart-jarringly aroused. Karen felt her stomach muscles contract, the heat rush through her.
“You’re right,” he said on a softer note. “Our only recourse is to wipe the past from mind. Come.”
Her heart thudding like a hammer, every nerve ending in her body on fire, she reached the bed.
He said something in his own language, the words foreign to her ears yet somehow understandable. When he held out a hand to her, she went willingly into his arms.
The South American’s Wife
Kay Thorpe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
SOFT but insistent, the sound of her name drew Karen out of a dreamless sleep. She opened her eyes to gaze for a blank moment or two at the unfamiliar, sun-filled room, her mind struggling to orientate itself.
Her eyes dropped to the lean, brown masculine hand covering hers where it lay on the white bed cover, travelling slowly up the length of a bronzed muscular arm to reach the face of the man seated at the bedside: a vital masculine face beneath thick black hair, short-cropped to control its curl.
‘So you’re back with us at last,’ he said in heavily accented English.
Mind still fogged, Karen eyed him in perplexity. ‘I don’t understand,’ she murmured, surprised to hear how weak her voice sounded. ‘What happened? Where am I?’
Some nameless expression flickered across the dark eyes. ‘You were involved in an accident and suffered a concussion,’ he said. ‘You’re in hospital here in Rio.’
The fog deepened. ‘Rio?’
‘Rio de Janeiro.’ He paused, brows drawing together. ‘Do you not remember?’
Karen stared at him in total confusion. Rio de Janeiro? That was in Brazil, wasn’t it? The farthest she’d ever been from home was Spain!
‘I don’t understand,’ she repeated helplessly. ‘Who are you?’
There was no immediate answer; the expression on the hard-boned face was disturbing. When he did speak it was in measured tones. ‘I’m Luiz Andrade. Your husband.’
She froze, eyes wide and dark, mind whirling. ‘I don’t have a husband,’ she got out. ‘What kind of game is this?’
The hand still covering hers tightened as she tried to draw it away. ‘The concussion has confused you. Relax, and everything will come back to you.’
‘No, it won’t, because it isn’t true!’ She pressed herself upright, wincing as pain shot through her head, but in no frame of mind to give way to it. ‘I’m Karen Downing! I live in London! I’ve never been to Rio de Janeiro in my life, and I’m certainly not married—to you or anyone!’
‘Hush! You must not agitate yourself this way.’ Looking concerned, he reached for the bell-push on the bedside table. ‘The doctor will give you something to calm you. When you waken, everything will be clear again.’
‘No!’ She tore her hand free, shrinking as far as she could get from this stranger, now on his feet and towering over her. ‘It’s all lies!’
‘Why would I lie?’ he asked. ‘For what possible reason would I claim to be your husband if it were not the truth?’
‘I don’t know!’ she flung back. ‘All I do know is that I never saw you before in my life!’
As if on cue, the door opened to admit a uniformed nurse. Looking from one to the other, she said something in a language totally foreign to Karen’s ears, answered by the man claiming to be her husband in what appeared to be the same language.
‘What did you tell her?’ she demanded as the woman exited again.
‘To fetch a doctor,’ he said. ‘You’re obviously suffering from a temporary amnesia.’
‘There’s nothing temporary about it!’ she claimed. ‘Whatever this is about, you can forget it!’ She glanced down at the white hospital smock she was wearing, then wildly about her. ‘Where are my clothes?’
‘The ones you were wearing at the time of the accident have been disposed of,’ he said. ‘Others will be brought when you’re deemed fit to be discharged.’
‘I want to go now!’ she shot back at him. ‘You can’t keep me here against my will.’
Powerful shoulders lifted. ‘To where would you go? You know no one in Rio.’ A muscle jerked in the firm jawline as if he’d clamped his teeth together on some addition to that statement. ‘Be patient,’ he went on after a moment, ‘and everything will be all right.’
He turned as the door opened again, this time to admit a white-coated doctor, addressing him in the same language he’d used with the nurse. Portuguese was the language spoken in Brazil; Karen knew that for a fact. She felt trapped in a never-ending nightmare.
The fight went out of her suddenly. She subsided on to the bed, unable to summon the strength of either mind or body to protest when the doctor produced a syringe. Sleep would be a welcome release from the turmoil in her head.
She opened her eyes again to soft lamplight, and for a moment imagined herself safe in her own bedroom, having fallen asleep reading as she often did.
Only it wasn’t her room, and it hadn’t been a dream, because the same man was seated at the bedside.
‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked.
Her voice came out low and ragged. ‘Afraid.’
Face expressionless, he said, ‘Do you know me?’
Karen shook her head, too demoralised by the realisation that the nightmare hadn’t ended to summon any semblance of spirit.
‘So what exactly do you remember?’ he asked.
‘I’m Karen Downing,’ she said. ‘I’m twenty-three years old, and I share a flat in London with a friend who works for the same firm. My parents were killed in a plane crash four years ago.’
That memory alone was enough to pierce her fragile control. She swallowed on the lump in her throat, recalling the agony of those days, weeks, months it had taken her to come to terms with her loss.
‘This much I already know,’ Luiz Andrade returned. ‘What appears to have happened is that your mind has somehow blanked out the past three months of your life. The three months you’ve spent here in Brazil as my wife.’ He paused again, as if gathering himself. ‘We met at the hotel where you were spending a holiday. We were married within the week.’
‘That’s impossible!’ Karen burst out. ‘I’d never…’
She broke off, biting her lip. If she couldn’t remember, how could she be sure of what she might have done? But three months! Three whole months missing from her life! It didn’t seem possible!
‘How did I get to Rio?’ she asked, forcing herself to calm down a little. ‘I couldn’t afford a holiday in Brazil on my earnings.’
‘You told me you had won a sum of money on your lottery, and decided to see something of the world outside of Europe while you had the opportunity.’
‘So you didn’t marry me on the assumption that I was rich,’ she murmured, trying to make sense of the story.
The strong, sensual mouth slanted briefly. ‘It was your beauty that attracted my eye, your personality that captured my heart.’ He registered the expression that crossed her face with another humourless smile. ‘You looked much the same way the first time I made my feelings clear to you—as if you doubted your power to stir a man to such a degree. Only when we made love did you begin to believe in me.’
Warmth rose beneath her skin as her eyes dropped involuntarily down the length of his body to the lean hips and long legs clad in close-fitting white jeans, the stirring deep down in the pit of her stomach no fluke of imagination.
‘You were a virgin,’ he went on softly. ‘That in itself would have been enough to seal my fate. It was fortunate that you felt for me too, because I would not easily have let you go.’
It had to be true, Karen thought desperately. As he’d said before, what possible reason could he have to lie? If only she could find even the slightest kink in the blanket cloaking her mind!
‘You said we were married within a week of meeting?’ she ventured.
‘Just five days, to be precise. For me, it would have been sooner, but there were necessary formalities to be observed. We travelled to my home in São Paulo the following day.’
Karen’s brows were drawn in the effort to recall, but there wasn’t even a glimmer. ‘You’re saying I never went back home at all?’
‘There seemed no need when you had so little to return for. Your friend was contacted, and your place of work.’
‘But my things!’
‘Most of which you had with you. The apartment apparently was rented. The few items you did express a desire to have were despatched by your friend.’
Karen absorbed the information in silence for a moment, trying to imagine Julie’s reaction to the news. ‘It must have been a tremendous shock for her,’ she said at length.
‘I imagine it was. You’re still in touch with her, if you feel the ring you wear isn’t verification enough.’
Karen raised her hand slowly to gaze at the wide gold band, shaking her head in numb acceptance. ‘I believe you. I have to believe you! It’s just so difficult to take in.’
‘It must be.’ Luiz leaned forward to ease his position, lips twisting as she flinched. ‘You have nothing to fear. Retribution is farthest from my mind.’
Karen felt her heart jerk. ‘Retribution?’ she got out. ‘For what?’
It was apparent from the expression in the dark eyes that he regretted having said what he had. ‘There are matters perhaps best left alone for the present,’ he declared. ‘The problems are many already without adding to them.’
‘I want to know what you meant,’ she insisted, every nerve in her body on edge. ‘I have a right to know!’
The hesitation was brief, the lift of his shoulders signifying resignation. ‘Very well. You came to Rio in the company of a man named Lucio Fernandas, with whom you had apparently been carrying on an affair. I followed you in order to bring you back, but the accident happened before I even reached the city. Perhaps fortunately,’ he added on a harder note, ‘or I may have been driven to measures that would have done none of us any good.’
Karen had difficulty finding any words at all. An affair? She’d been having an affair!
‘Are you sure?’ she asked faintly.
The firm mouth acquired a cynical slant. ‘Why else would you have run away with the man?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. And then with a flash of spirit, ‘But if it is true, why on earth would you have wanted me back?’
‘What is mine remains mine.’ The statement was all the more compelling for its lack of force. ‘There has never been, nor ever will be, a divorce in the Andrade family—no matter what the provocation.’
Karen felt a sudden shiver run down her spine. She made a valiant effort to regain control of herself.
‘So where is he, this Lucio Fernandas?’
‘Vanished, like the coward he is!’ The contempt was searing. ‘You were alone when the medics reached you.’
‘Reached me where?’
‘At the road outside the airport where you were hit by a car. It was fortunate that your bag wasn’t stolen while you lay unconscious. Once your identity was proven, news was relayed to our home, then passed to me on landing.’ His jaw contracted. ‘You were unconscious for almost two hours. It was feared that your skull was fractured.’
Karen considered the foregoing, feeling ever more confused. ‘You said the news was passed to you on landing?’
‘I set out after you the moment I became aware of your departure this morning,’ Luiz acknowledged. ‘You’d taken your passport, but I doubted that you would have gone straight to the international airport in case of pursuit. I was right. Unfortunately, I was fifteen minutes too late to catch you at Congonhas. I took the next flight to Rio. Having first checked that Fernandas was on the plane too,’ he added, anticipating the question hovering on her lips. ‘There was no mistake.’
‘I’m…sorry.’ It was totally inadequate, but all she could come up with for the moment.
The dark head inclined. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have told you all this so soon.’ He got to his feet, body lithe as a panther’s. ‘You must rest. I’ll see you again in the morning.’
Stranger or not, she didn’t want him to go. At least while he was here she could keep on asking the questions crowding her mind—keep on hoping for that breakthrough.
‘I can’t stay here!’ she exclaimed on a note of desperation.
‘You have to stay.’ His tone brooked no argument. ‘At least until we can be sure you suffered no deeper damage. Perhaps a night’s sleep will restore you.’
He didn’t believe that any more than she did, Karen reckoned. Whatever the reason for her memory loss, it was going to take more than a night’s sleep to restore it. In the meantime, she had no other recourse but to do as he said.
Thankfully, he made no attempt to touch her in any way, but simply lifted a hand in farewell. She watched him go to the door, appraising the tapering line from broad shoulder to narrow waist and hip. A fine figure of a man in any language. She had lain in his arms, known the intimate intrusion of his body. How could any woman forget that? How could any woman forget him?
The nurse who came in after he’d gone was different from the one before, but kindness itself. She insisted on helping Karen across to the en suite bathroom. A welcome hand, Karen found when she stood up.
There was a full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. The face looking back at her was pale, throwing into sharp contrast the purpling bruise at the temple. The wide-spaced green eyes looked bruised too, the soft, full mouth vulnerable. There was some grazing across cheek and jawline, though superficial enough to make any scarring unlikely.
If nothing else had convinced her of the passage of time, the couple of inches her hair had grown since she last recalled looking at it would have done so. Natural silver-blonde in colour, it fell curtain straight to her shoulders.
Luiz would be in his early thirties, she calculated. The kind of man most women would find devastatingly attractive, she had to acknowledge. She could well imagine the impact he would have had on her at first sight: an impact deep enough to make her willing to give up everything she’d ever known just to be with him.
Which made the idea of her having had an affair with another man within three months of marrying him even harder to believe.
The nurse waiting outside knocked on the door. ‘You are well?’ she called.
Karen gathered herself together. There was nothing to be gained from standing here grappling with matters she had no knowledge of. All she could hope for was eventual enlightenment.
A sleeping pill gave her a good night’s rest, but morning brought no change. Awake at five-thirty, with little of yesterday’s physical unsteadiness left, she got up to take a shower and wash her hair. She had no make-up to hand, and nothing but the gown left by last night’s nurse to put on, but at least she felt bodily refreshed.
Where she went from here she had no clear idea. She was married to a man she not only didn’t remember, but whose trust she had apparently betrayed. Even if he was prepared to take her back, could she bear to go with him?
Yet what other choice did she have when it came right down to it? She had neither home nor job to return to in England, even if she still had the means left to get there.
Back in the bedroom, she drew the window blind to look out on a picture postcard view of sparkling white skyscrapers and green parks stretching down to a sea the same deep blue as the great bowl of sky above it. Rising from a jutting peninsula, the conical shape of Sugar Loaf Mountain was recognisable from a multitude of travelogues.
Built up here in the foothills of the backing mountains, this was no common or garden hospital, Karen realised—something she should have known already from the standard of both furnishings and facilities. Luiz Andrade was obviously a man of some means.
She dismissed the idea that that might have had something to do with her readiness to marry him. If the very thought of it turned her stomach now, it would certainly have done the same then.
Breakfast was brought by yet another nurse, who spoke no English at all. Karen picked at the fruit and cereal, mind still going around in circles. Physically she was surely well enough to leave the hospital today, which made it imperative that she come to terms with her predicament.
Luiz Andrade was her husband. That much she had to accept. What concerned her the most at present was what he might expect from her. She had no idea of a wife’s rights here. For all she knew, he could be within his in demanding an immediate resumption of marital relations, regardless of her condition. There had been an element of ruthlessness about him last night when he’d spoken of what he might have done had he caught up with her missing lover. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that she might have suffered some form of retribution herself before being dragged back to wherever it was that they lived.
She was in a state bordering on panic by the time Luiz put in an appearance. He was wearing the same white jeans and shirt—both items freshly washed and pressed from the look of it.
‘I brought no change of clothing,’ he said, correctly interpreting the unspoken question. ‘There was no time. The hotel where I spent the night provides laundry facilities.’ He studied her, dark eyes revealing nothing of his thoughts. ‘How do you feel now?’
‘Much the same,’ she acknowledged, fighting the urge to throw a wobbly. ‘Mentally, at any rate. Physically, I don’t think there’s a great deal wrong with me.’
‘We’ll allow the doctors to decide that.’ He moved to take a seat on the edge of the bed itself, registering her involuntary movement with a narrowing of his lips. ‘You certainly look more yourself this morning. Apart from the bruising, of course. Is your head very painful still?’
‘Only if I move it too sharply.’ Karen was doing her best to maintain a stiff upper lip, vitally aware of the warmth radiating from the well-honed body. ‘I’d feel a whole world better for a touch of lipstick!’
‘You have no need of cosmetics to enhance your looks,’ he declared. ‘Your hair alone is colour enough.’
‘I washed it,’ she said, desperate to keep the conversation on an inconsequential level. ‘It was filthy.’
‘Hardly surprising after being dragged in the dust.’ Luiz put up a hand to tuck a still damp strand back from her cheek, refusing this time to be put off by her jerky movement. ‘Is my touch so obnoxious to you?’
‘It’s an automatic reflex,’ she said. ‘Nothing personal. I just can’t get my head round this whole situation.’
‘I find it difficult myself,’ he admitted. ‘You gave no indication that you no longer found my attentions desirable. Our lovemaking the very night before you left was—’
‘Don’t!’ Karen was trembling, the muscle spasm high in her inner thighs a hint that her body might remember what her mind did not. ‘Can’t we talk about something else?’
‘What would you suggest?’ he asked drily.
She cast around. ‘Your home?’
‘Our home,’ Luiz corrected. ‘The home to which we shall be returning.’ He shifted from the bed to the chair he had occupied the night before, face expressionless again. ‘São Paulo is many kilometres from here, the city the largest in Brazil, the state one of the richest. Guavada is a cattle ranch lying to the northwest of the city.
Nothing of what he was telling her meant anything. A cattle ranch!
‘You’re a manager or something?’ she hazarded.
About to answer, Luiz broke off as the door opened to admit the same white-coated doctor from the night before, getting to his feet to greet the man.
The latter came to examine the bruise on Karen’s temple, shining a torch into each eye before finally pronouncing himself satisfied with her condition.
‘You are fortunate,’ he said, ‘that the damage was no worse.’
‘I don’t see amnesia as a light matter,’ she retorted. ‘Have you any idea how long it might last?’
The man hesitated, obviously reluctant to commit himself to a prognosis. ‘Your memory could return at any time,’ he said at length. ‘Shock can do many things to the mind. You must be patient and try not to worry about it.’
Easy enough to say, Karen reflected hollowly. How could she not worry about it?
Luiz walked with the man to the door, returning to announce that she was cleared to leave the hospital.
‘Your bag will be brought for you to select fresh clothing,’ he said. ‘Shall you need help in dressing?’
‘No!’ The denial came out sharper than she had intended, drawing another of the cynical smiles.
‘I was thinking of a nurse’s assistance, not my own.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She made a helpless little gesture. ‘It isn’t that I don’t trust you.’
‘Is it not?’ he asked softly. ‘Can you truly claim to believe that every word I’ve spoken is the truth?’
‘I have to believe it,’ she said. ‘I don’t have any other choice.’
‘No,’ he agreed, ‘you don’t. Just as I have no other choice.’
He had gone before Karen could summon the strength for any further exchange. Not that there was a great deal left to say. She was going with him because she had nowhere else to go. To what exactly she had still to discover.
The leather suitcase that arrived a few moments later was accompanied by a leather handbag, neither of which she recognised. She rifled swiftly through the contents of the latter, finding a passport in her married name, along with a wallet containing a wad of foreign currency.
She had no idea of the worth. Nor did it make a great deal of difference to the present state of affairs. What she did wonder was just what plan she and this Lucio Fernandas had supposedly made.
There was nothing in the handbag to provide an answer to that question. She opened the suitcase, disconcerted by the jumble of clothing inside. Packed hastily and with little regard to content from the look of it, which suggested a decision made bare minutes before departure rather than a planned exit. Stuck in the middle of it all was a framed photograph that brought a lump to her throat. It had been taken on a camping holiday bare months before her parents had been killed. They were laughing together, holding up the tiny fish her mother had just caught in the river flowing behind them. A handsome pair, with everything to live for.
Julie would have sent it through along with the other things she’d asked for, Karen concluded, blinking the tears from her eyes. It would have been the last thing she’d have left behind, for certain.
She sorted out a pair of lace panties and matching bra, topping them with a white skirt and sleeveless cotton top she’d never to her knowledge seen before. There were only two pairs of shoes. She chose the pale beige sandals that were the only ones with a highish heel. At five feet six she was far from short, but she needed the boost to face a man over six feet in height with any degree of confidence at all.
The handbag yielded a pouch containing a pale pink lipstick, smoky eye-shadow and a mascara wand. No surprises there: she’d never used a lot of make-up. She donned the touch of lipstick she’d spoken of, and ran a comb through her dried hair. The bruising looked worse than it had the night before, as did the grazes on her cheek and jaw, but she had more to think about than her appearance.
Her last clear memories were of attending a leaving party for a workmate, followed by dinner out with a group from the office. Julie had been out herself when she had got back to the flat. She’d made a hot drink and gone straight to bed.
That had been the twelfth of September. The day before yesterday, so far as her mind was concerned. Luiz had said they’d been married three months, but that didn’t tell her the date now.
He supplied an answer to that question on his return.
‘It’s the twenty-seventh of January,’ he said. ‘More than halfway through our summer. The temperatures on the plateau are milder than here on the coast. While the days are hot at this time of the year, the humidity is low, the nights refreshingly cool.’
‘It sounds good.’ Karen was doing her utmost to stay on top of her emotions.
Luiz came to close and lock the suitcase she’d left open on the bed, hoisting it effortlessly up. ‘I have a taxi waiting to take us to the hotel.’
‘Hotel?’ she queried.
‘I think it better that the two of us spend some time together before returning to Guavada,’ he said. ‘We have a great deal to discuss.’
Karen forced herself into movement, reluctant to abandon the only bit of security she knew right now. Luiz went ahead to open the door for her, falling into step at her side to traverse a short, beautifully tiled corridor to a bank of lifts.
The one that arrived silently and smoothly in answer to his summons was empty. They descended without speaking, to emerge in a luxuriously appointed lobby. The receptionist on duty at a central desk bade them a smiling farewell, expressing what Karen took to be good wishes for the future. A forlorn hope indeed while the past months remained a blank.
Although it was still only a little after nine-thirty, the temperature outside was already soaring. Karen was glad to dive into the air-conditioned taxi-cab. With the suitcase stowed, Luiz slid in beside her. His thigh lay next to hers, the firm muscularity clearly de-fined beneath the fine cotton of his jeans when he moved.
Stripped, he would be magnificent, came the unbidden thought, bringing a sudden contraction deep down in the pit of her stomach. She would have seen him like that for certain—as he had no doubt seen her. She wondered how she, so unpractised in full-blown lovemaking, had managed to satisfy a man who would certainly have been no virgin.
They drove down through a city humming with workaday energies to a luxury hotel overlooking a superb crescent of white beach that was already heavily populated. Sugar Loaf reared now to the left, outlined against a sky beginning to cloud over a little.
‘Is it going to rain, do you think?’ Karen asked, turning from the balconied window—more for something to say than through any real interest in the weather. ‘Summer is the rainy season out here, isn’t it?’
Watching her from across the superbly furnished and decorated room, Luiz inclined his head. ‘It is, yes.’ His regard was penetrating. ‘You recall that much then?’
‘Not the way you mean,’ she said. ‘I must have read it somewhere.’
‘Then the view out there means nothing to you?’
Karen’s brows drew together. ‘I’ve seen it in pictures.’
‘But no more than that?’
‘No.’ Heart thudding against her ribcage, she added, ‘What else might it mean?’
‘It’s the view you had from your room in this same hotel three months ago,’ he said. ‘Not the same room, I admit, but a replica of it. I hoped it might strike some spark of recollection.’
‘It hasn’t.’ Her tone was flat. ‘I must have won quite a lot to afford to stay in a place like this.’
‘Several thousand pounds, I believe. A one-time opportunity to see how the other half lived, was how you excused the extravagance. There would have been little left to take home with you, for certain.’
‘Except that I found myself a husband who could afford to stay in places like this.’ She made a gesture of self-disgust. ‘Forget I said that, will you?’
The dark head inclined again. ‘It’s forgotten.’
Considering his expression a moment ago, Karen doubted it. If she wanted to alienate him any more than he already must be alienated, considering the reason he’d followed her to Rio, she was going the right way about it.
He was leaning against a chest of drawers on the far side of the queen-size twin beds. Karen could only be thankful that there were two of them—although the thought of sharing even a room with him was daunting.
‘I have the room next door,’ he said, reading her mind with an ease she found daunting in itself. ‘I’ve no intention of pressuring you into anything you find distasteful.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Karen scarcely knew what else to say. ‘It isn’t that I find you…unattractive.’
‘A start, at least.’ His tone was dry. ‘Patience is no particular virtue of mine, but it seems I must learn to employ it. Perhaps sight of our home will help.’
‘Perhaps.’ Karen hesitated, reluctant to put the idea in his mind if it wasn’t there already, yet needing reassurance. ‘You don’t think I’m pretending to have lost my memory, do you?’
His expression underwent an indefinable alteration. ‘What might cause you to do such a thing?’
She lifted her shoulders. ‘Fear of retribution, perhaps.’
‘You see me as a wife-beater?’
‘I don’t know what you’re capable of.’ She was beginning to wish she’d kept her mouth shut. ‘It isn’t true, anyway. If I were capable of putting on that kind of act, I’d belong on the stage!’
‘I believe you would.’ His shoulders lifted. ‘There have been moments in our relationship when you’ve sorely tried me, I admit.’
Karen eyed him in silence for a moment. ‘We had rows?’
‘We had some differences of opinion. You’re a strong-willed young woman.’
‘Where I come from, all women have minds of their own,’ she claimed.
‘As do Brazilian women—except that they are rather more subtle in their employment of it.’ The pause was brief, the sudden change of tone emphatic. ‘We have to put this behind us, and begin again.’ He held up a staying hand as Karen started to speak. ‘I’ll arrange a hire car and show you the sights—the way I did when we first met. Perhaps then things will start to come back to you.’
He straightened away from the chest, turning towards the door. ‘Come to the lobby in half an hour.’
Karen stood where she was for several moments after he’d left the room, mulling over everything that had been said. There were still so many questions to be answered, and only Luiz to supply those answers.
But was what he told her the whole truth? Why had she felt the need to turn to another man at all?
CHAPTER TWO
THE limousine Luiz had hired was already waiting for them outside when she went down. He put her into the front passenger seat before going round to slide behind the wheel.
He had shown her the sights this way when they’d first met, he’d said upstairs. If the hotel itself, plus the view from the window, had failed to stir her memory, it was unlikely that this was going to work either, but it was worth a try, Karen supposed. Anything was worth trying!
They headed for the mountains backing the city, leaving the congested streets to enter a world of tropical rainforest where thick lianas hung like pythons from tree branches furry with moss. The tangled canopy far above filtered out the sunlight, casting an eerie green glow over writhing creepers and huge tree ferns. There were flowers in abundance, their colours jewel-like among the foliage.
Karen was mesmerised, hardly able to believe that they were still within the city limits.
‘It’s like another planet!’ she exclaimed, viewing a begonia bush bursting with bright yellow blossom and smothered in bees. ‘What’s making all the noise?’
‘Monkeys,’ Luiz advised. ‘We invade their territory. This is the Terra da Tijuca, Rio’s national park. It spreads over a hundred or more square miles.’
‘It’s wonderful!’
He cast a swift sideways glance at her rapt face. ‘But in no way familiar?’
‘No.’ The enthusiasm faded as reality reared its head again. ‘To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never seen any of this before.’
She sank back into her seat, head against the rest, eyes closed. ‘I feel I’m living someone else’s life!’
‘I can assure you you’re not,’ Luiz responded. ‘Your memory will return when you’re ready to remember.’
Karen stole a glance at the hard-edged profile, feeling the fast-becoming-familiar tension in her lower body. ‘Supposing that’s never?’
His jaw compressed momentarily. ‘Then we accept matters the way they are and live our lives accordingly.’
‘I’m not sure I can accept it,’ she said, and saw the compression come again.
‘There’s no other way.’
It was obvious that any further protest on her part would be a waste of time and breath, Karen acknowledged silently. Whatever she’d done, she was his wife and she was staying his wife.
Topped by the towering white statue of Christ, the granite peak of Corcovado afforded a panoramic view over both city and coastline. The skyscrapers below were reduced in size to toytown dimensions, the beaches of Copacabana and Impanema to curving crescents of white dotted with ants. Karen was overwhelmed by the sheer spectacle.
‘You were equally impressed the first time you saw it,’ said Luiz, watching her face as she gazed at the scene. ‘As you were with everything.’
‘Including yourself,’ she murmured.
‘Including myself,’ he agreed. ‘As I intended you to be.’
‘How long did I hold out?’
Dark brows lifted. ‘Hold out?’
‘Before you got me into bed with you?’
It was a moment before he answered, his tone quizzical. ‘Does it matter to you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I need to know.’
His shrug was brief. ‘We made love on the first night of our acquaintance.’
Karen swallowed. ‘You must have thought me the easiest conquest you’d ever made!’
‘No such thought entered my mind,’ he denied. ‘We were two people drawn by the same overwhelming force.’
She couldn’t bring herself to meet the dark eyes full on. ‘Would you still have wanted to marry me if I’d had previous experience?’
‘I would have accepted it, yes.’
Karen looked at him then, oblivious to the other people on the platform. An arm resting against the guard rail, head outlined against the sky, he looked at ease in a way she envied. She had a sudden urge to disrupt that equanimity.
‘Tell me about Lucio Fernandas,’ she said with deliberation. ‘Who exactly is he?’
She gained her wish as his face hardened. ‘I prefer not to speak of him.’
‘We have to talk about him,’ she insisted.
Straightened now away from the rail, Luiz studied her for a moment in silence. When he spoke it was in tautly controlled tones. ‘There’s little enough I can tell you of his background. He was employed by one of my foremen. Had I had any notion…’ He broke off, gritting his teeth together. ‘Suffice to say he would have been in no fit state to arouse any woman’s interest!’
Karen’s chest felt tight as a drum. Luiz Andrade was a proud man; it didn’t take intimate knowledge to be aware of that. The discovery that his wife had been having an affair at all would have hit him hard enough, but for her to have become involved with a mere employee!
‘I’m still not convinced it’s the truth,’ she said defensively. ‘What actual proof do you have that there was any affair to start with?’
Amber lights glinted in the depths of his eyes. ‘What proof do I need other than that you provided yourself in running off with him?’
‘There had to be some prior signs, surely?’
‘There apparently were, had I been willing to see them. Beatriz suspected, but failed to warn me.’
Karen put up an involuntary hand to her temple as pain lanced briefly through it. There was an odd buzzing in her ears, a sense of being drawn somewhere she didn’t want to go.
Luiz moved swiftly to catch her as she swayed, arms sliding about her to hold her close. She could feel the strong beat of his heart at her breast, the sun-stoked heat of his body.
‘I’m all right now,’ she managed. ‘Just a bit of a dizzy spell, that’s all.’
He made no attempt to stop her as she pulled away from him. ‘I should have refused to discuss the matter,’ he said. ‘This isn’t the place.’
What attention they’d drawn from those in the vicinity had now been returned to the scenery. Karen tilted her head to let the breeze cool her cheeks, both hands on the guardrail to steady herself.
‘Who is Beatriz?’
Luiz made a curt gesture. ‘As I said, this isn’t the place. We’ll return to the hotel.’
She made no protest. The name had meant something to her, that was obvious, but there was no further break in the curtain.
It was well into the afternoon when they reached the hotel again. Luiz accepted Karen’s plea that she was tired and needed rest rather than food without demur, simply saying that he would see her later.
A shower was a first priority on reaching her room. She luxuriated for several minutes in the glass-walled cabinet, blanking out everything but the feel of the water streaming over her skin.
Towelled dry, she donned the robe provided and returned to the bedroom to extract fresh underwear from the suitcase. There seemed little point in unpacking fully when she had no idea how long they would be here.
Her throat closed up at the thought of what she would be facing when they did return to the ranch. However much she might want to disbelieve it, all the evidence pointed to the fact that she really had been having an affair with another man.
Where would she have been now, she wondered, if there had been no accident? What kind of life would she have had with a man capable of leaving her lying unconscious in the road? How could she have been drawn to another man at all when she was married to one as charismatic as Luiz Andrade?
Unless Luiz wasn’t the man he appeared to be either. How could she be sure what their marital relationship had really been like? There had been rows, that much he’d admitted. She only had his word that there had been no serious rift between them.
He left her alone until eight, by which time she had begun to wonder if he had deserted her after all. When he did put in an appearance he was wearing a light linen suit that sat on his frame as if made to measure.
‘I felt the need of fresh clothing,’ he said. ‘You at least have that facility.’ He ran an appraising glance over her slender curves in the lilac silk tunic that had been one of the few items in the suitcase she considered suitable for dining out. ‘Did you rest well?’
Karen turned away, unable to hold his gaze for long. ‘As well as can be expected, considering. What happens now?’
‘We have dinner here in the hotel. If we repeat, as far as is possible, the details of our time here together, perhaps it will stir something in your memory.’
‘Every detail?’ she asked after a moment.
‘I said as far as is possible,’ he responded. ‘I make no demands on you.’
‘For now,’ she murmured, and heard him draw a roughened breath.
‘Do you think me so easily able to banish the thought of you with Fernandas from my head? Whenever I close my eyes I see you in his arms!’
Karen made herself look at him, seeing the anger glittering his eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’ She paused, searching for words. ‘Do you think you ever will be able to put it aside?’
‘If not I must learn to live with it.’ He was in control again, though his voice remained taut. ‘The marriage will not be dissolved.’
There was nothing she could say to that. Nothing likely to help the situation. But there were still so many things she needed to know.
‘This morning you mentioned someone called Beatriz,’ she ventured. ‘Who is she?’
Something flickered deep in the dark eyes. ‘She’s the wife of my brother, Raymundo.’
The latter name struck no chord either. ‘Does he work on the ranch too?’
‘He and Beatriz have their home there,’ came the somewhat ambiguous reply. ‘As does my young sister too. Regina was devastated by your leaving.’
Karen sank to a seat, her legs no longer supportive. Just how many people would she be facing on her return to the home she had fled?
‘How old is Regina?’ she asked.
‘Eighteen now.’
Green eyes lifted to view the incisive features. ‘And Raymundo?’
‘Twenty-eight. Four years younger than myself. There was another brother between us in age, but he died some two years ago.’
Empathy came swiftly, born of her own loss. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You never knew him.’ Luiz moved abruptly, crossing to open a cabinet Karen hadn’t attempted to explore. ‘I think we’re both in need of a stimulant.’
He poured a colourless liquid for them both, bringing both glasses back to where she sat to thrust one into her hand. Not gin, she realised, putting it to her lips, but white rum. The spirit burned her throat, but she finished it, glad of the immediate effect. Alcohol was no solution to her problems, for certain, but it helped take the edge off them.
‘What about parents?’ she said.
‘I lost my father some years ago. My mother married again, and now lives in Brasilia.’
Karen viewed the empty glass in her hand with lacklustre eyes. ‘Have we met?’
‘Just the once, when I took you to visit her.’
‘Did she approve? Of the marriage, I mean?’
‘No.’ His tone was unemotional. ‘She would have preferred that I marry a woman of my own race.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘It’s of no consequence.’ His own glass also drained, he took hers from her unresisting hand, depositing both on the nearest surface. ‘Enough questions for now. You need to eat.’
Food was the farthest thing from her mind, but she rose obediently to her feet. It would be embarrassing going into a restaurant looking like this, she acknowledged, catching sight of her face in a nearby wall mirror, but there was little to be done about it.
There were others in the lift descending to the ground floor. Karen could feel the glances. If Luiz was aware of them too, he gave no sign. The subdued lighting in the restaurant afforded some comfort. All the same, it was a relief to gain the relative privacy of the alcove table.
There was nothing in the least bit familiar about the plush surroundings. She hadn’t really expected there to be. She left it to Luiz to choose her meal, eating what was put in front of her without tasting a thing. The wine he’d ordered went straight to her head. She drank only half a glass, afraid of losing her grip altogether.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ she said bleakly over coffee. She cast a glance at the man seated opposite, senses stirred by his dark masculinity. ‘I don’t think anything is.’
‘There’s nothing to be lost by trying,’ he said. ‘From here we went to a club.’ His gaze was on her face. ‘And then back to the hotel.’
Karen felt a pulse throb suddenly at her temple, setting her heart pounding in empathy. She tried desperately to grasp the image that fleeted through her mind.
‘What is it?’ Luiz’s voice was low but urgent. ‘Do you remember?’
She slowly shook her head. ‘Just a feeling for a moment. Nothing concrete.’
‘But it meant something to you, that was apparent.’
‘It seems so.’ She studied the vital features, wishing she could tell what he was thinking right now. ‘Does everyone know about Lucio Fernandas?’
The glitter sprang in his eyes for a moment, then subsided again. ‘Beatriz is the only one with that information.’
‘You trust her to keep it to herself?’
‘She had better do so. Regina believes you left merely because of dissidence between us. Your amnesia will be difficult enough for her to accept.’
Not nearly as difficult as it was for her, Karen thought. Recollection might not be palatable, but it had to be better than this blankness.
‘We could always try keeping it a secret,’ she said, and saw his lips thin.
‘You find the situation one to treat with flippancy?’
She made a small apologetic gesture. ‘No, of course not. It’s just…’ She paused, swallowing thickly. ‘Have you any idea what it’s like to sit here and listen to you telling me about people and places and matters I’ve absolutely no concept of? The person I seem to have become bears no relationship to the person I believe myself to be. It’s like looking in a mirror and seeing someone else’s reflection!’
Luiz inclined his head, face set. ‘Difficult for both of us. To be deceived is bad, but to be forgotten…’
He left it there, lifting a hand to signal to the waiter. Up to now, Karen had been too involved with her own feelings to give any real thought to what he must be going through. She tried to put herself in his shoes, to imagine how it must feel to be wiped completely from her mind after months of living together as husband and wife. What man could handle that with equanimity?
She watched him sign the bill that was brought to the table. Those lean, long-fingered hands would know every inch of her, came the thought, sending a frisson the length of her spine. In three months she would no doubt have got over any inhibitions she might have had herself: the way her body was reacting at this moment gave every indication of it. She might not remember loving this man, but she was vitally attracted by him. Whatever had driven her to seek another man’s arms, it couldn’t have been because Luiz no longer stirred her.
She made an effort to compose herself as the waiter departed, to meet the eyes raised to her. ‘What now?’ she asked.
‘As I said before, we follow the same pattern.’
‘You really think it’s going to help?’
‘Whatever chance there is of stirring something in your memory, we must take,’ he stated. He got to his feet, rounding the table to draw out her chair. ‘The night is still young.’
It was gone ten o’clock, Karen saw from the thin gold watch on his wrist as she rose. Handsome, charismatic, obviously not without money, it could be said that Luiz Andrade was everything any woman could possibly want. Yet she had left him for a man whose backbone, it seemed, was so weak he had left her lying in the road. It didn’t make sense.
They took a taxi to what appeared at first sight to be a large private residence. Luiz handed over a card in the well-appointed entrance hall, and they were duly signed in to wander at will through rooms devoted to various pastimes.
Luiz ignored the crowded casino, leading the way to a smaller, dimly lit room where couples swayed to the beat of an excellent four-piece combo. There were tables set around the periphery of the room, but he ignored those too, drawing her on to the floor and into his arms.
Held against the hard male body, Karen concentrated on matching her steps to his. She felt his hand warm at her centre back, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. Her mouth was in line with the hollow of his throat, revealed by the open neckline of his shirt; the male scent of him tantalised her nostrils.
All sensations of the present not the past, she told herself. Luiz was a man to whom any woman with an ounce of red blood in her veins would respond. Perhaps if they actually made love…
She rejected the thought immediately. Even if she could bring herself to try such an experiment, Luiz almost certainly wouldn’t with the images he’d spoken of earlier crowding his mind. He had followed her to Rio with the intention of fetching her back because his pride wouldn’t allow him any other course, but that wasn’t to say he’d have been prepared to make love to her again.
‘Could it have worked even if I hadn’t lost my memory?’ she heard herself ask. ‘Forcing me back, I mean.’
It was a moment or two before Luiz answered. When he did speak his tone was unemotional. ‘I would have found it difficult to put your transgressions aside, I admit. Trust isn’t easily restored.’
‘But you still wouldn’t have been prepared to finish it?’
‘No. Marriage, in my eyes, is for life. The reason why I waited so long to find the woman I could live that life with.’
‘Only she let you down,’ Karen said huskily. ‘I can’t tell you how awful it makes me feel to think I’m capable of that kind of behaviour! I still find it hard to believe I could be capable of it.’
‘There was no mistake,’ he said. ‘Only the one you made in choosing a man who cared so little for you that he left you sprawled in the dust.’
Karen rode the hurt as best as she was able. ‘What’s even harder to explain is why a man like that would have abandoned a good job.’
Luiz gave a short laugh. ‘Fear of what would happen to him when I discovered the affair would have been incentive enough.’
‘In which case,’ she pursued, ‘why would he have taken the risk in the first place?’
The laugh came again. ‘You do yourself an injustice. Few men could remain indifferent to you. You were a virgin when we met only because you’d never known one capable of bringing the fires smouldering within you to life. I could have taken you within minutes of our meeting.’
‘So why didn’t you?’ she challenged.
‘Because I wanted more than just your body.’ His voice had softened in reminiscence. ‘I wanted every part of you.’
All thought suspended, Karen felt heat rising through her from a central core, a spreading weakness in her limbs. Her body moved instinctively against him, pressing closer to his hardness.
‘Stop that!’ he said harshly.
She came back to earth with a jolt as reality raised its ugly head again, her face flaming as she looked up into the sparking dark eyes.
‘It wasn’t intentional,’ she stammered. ‘It just…happened.’
His lip curled. ‘The way it just happened with Fernandas?’
‘How can I know?’ she asked wretchedly. ‘How can I know anything for certain? All I have to go on is what you tell me.’
Luiz stopped moving, the spark grown to a blaze. ‘Are you accusing me of lying to you?’
‘No, of course not. But unless this Lucio Fernandas had money of his own, none of it adds up. The money I had on me almost certainly wouldn’t have been enough to take the two of us very far.’
‘So why else would the two of you have been on the same flight? Why else, for that matter, would you have been on the flight at all?’
Karen shook her head, feeling ever more desperate. ‘I can’t answer that. All I do know is…’
‘Is?’ he prompted as she broke off.
What she’d been about to say was that she simply couldn’t visualise walking out on someone who could make her feel the way he’d made her feel just now, but she wasn’t ready to go down that particular road.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Can we call it a day? I have a dreadful headache.’
Anger gave way to concern. ‘The fault is mine for insisting on continuing the attempt. I’ll arrange for a taxi to be called.’
He was solicitousness itself while they waited for the taxi to arrive. Karen hadn’t lied about the headache; it felt as if a hammer was beating at the space between her eyes. And this was just the beginning. There was worse to come. Facing the rest of the family would tax her resources to the limit.
It was coming up to midnight when they reached the hotel. Luiz had the receptionist on duty procure some painkillers and a glass of water for her before taking the lift to their floor.
‘I trust the headache will soon subside,’ he said at her door. For a moment he seemed to hesitate, his eyes on her pale face, then he said a brief goodnight and moved on to the room next door.
Thankful to be alone at last, Karen shed her clothing and took a shower. The bathroom was lined in mirror glass. She studied herself clinically as she towelled dry. Breasts high, waist slim, hips smoothly rounded, her body was, she knew from past experience, a magnet for male eyes, her face, in normal times, an equal draw. She’d had several short-term romances, but had lost hope of ever meeting any man who could make her want him the way he wanted her.
Until coming here to Rio and meeting Luiz Andrade. The very thought of him sent a ripple down her spine. The mistake she’d probably made then was in confusing lust with love. A mistake she must have realised eventually.
Regardless, she just couldn’t imagine herself turning to another man for solace. Especially one like this Lucio Fernandas. Could she possibly have been so desperate that she’d cultivate a relationship with him simply to secure his help in getting away from Guavada?
She was going round in circles again, she acknowledged wearily, and still getting nowhere. The only chance she had of learning the truth was by returning to Guavada. Not that she had any choice in the matter anyway.
Worn out, she slept like a log, awakening to sunlight and a low-pitched ringing that turned out to be the telephone on the bedside cabinet.
‘How are you feeling?’ Luiz asked.
‘Better,’ she said, referring to the headache not the inner turbulence. ‘What time is it?’
‘Gone ten o’clock. You missed breakfast, but I can have something brought to the room.’
She wasn’t hungry, Karen started to say, breaking off as her stomach growled a protest. ‘Give me ten minutes,’ she said instead.
‘What would you like?’
‘Fruit and coffee will be fine.’
She put the receiver down, wondering how she could speak so calmly and collectedly when her insides were dancing a fandango at the mere sound of his voice. They’d made love the night before her departure, he’d said yesterday. If it was the truth, whatever had gone wrong between them hadn’t affected her physical responses even at that point.
Showered, she donned the white robe and went to open up the balcony doors with the intention of eating outside. She closed them again hastily on feeling the sticky heat, glad of the cool blast from the air-conditioning vents. São Paulo was far less humid than this, Luiz had said; she could be glad of that at least.
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a waiter with a table trolley containing far more than the items she had requested. Luiz followed the man in, despatching him with what appeared to be a whole handful of banknotes. It was unlikely to be payment on the spot in a place like this, Karen concluded, so it had to be a tip. Generous or not, she had no way of knowing.
He was wearing the suit from last night, this time with a black shirt. Opened a little lower at the neckline than the night before, it revealed a fine gold chain bearing a small medal, the latter nestling amidst a curly mat of hair.
‘I only asked for fruit and coffee,’ she said, pulse rate increasing by the minute. She indicated the cereal, the covered tureen containing who knew what, the rolls and preserves. ‘I can’t eat all that!’
From the look in the dark eyes, her instinctive move to tighten the tie belt of the robe had not gone unnoted, though he made no comment. ‘It’s of no consequence,’ he declared. ‘The choice is there should you change your mind. I’ll take coffee with you.’
Feeling distinctly vulnerable, she poured for them both, leaving his black as he’d requested the previous night. Luiz accepted the cup from her to set it down on the small table at the side of a nearby chair.
‘I reserved seats on the one-thirty shuttle to São Paulo,’ he announced without preamble. ‘You were right last night. Attempting to recreate our beginnings is a waste of time and effort. All we can do is return to Guavada and hope for an eventual cure.’
Karen took a couple of deep swallows from her own cup before answering, needing the stimulant. ‘What do we tell your sister?’
‘She already knows about the amnesia. I spoke to her earlier. She sends her love, and hopes to help in your recovery.’
‘And the others?’
‘Regina is to pass on the news. If you’re concerned for what Beatriz might say, you can rest assured of her silence,’ he added hardily.
‘You think she won’t even have told your brother the real reason I went?’
He hesitated. ‘Perhaps that would be asking a little too much. There should be no secrets between husband and wife.’
Karen busied herself slicing a banana into a dish, adding grapes and ready-cut pieces of melon. ‘As manager of the ranch, I suppose you hold a lot of authority,’ she murmured.
‘I don’t manage the ranch,’ he said. ‘I own it.’
Her head came up. ‘You own it?’
‘Why such surprise?’ he asked on an ironical note. ‘Do I appear a man of small means?’
‘No,’ she acknowledged. ‘Not at all. I just thought…’ She broke off, lifting her shoulders. ‘I’m not sure what I thought. Is your brother a partner?’
‘No.’ The statement was unequivocal. ‘Are you going to eat the fruit, or simply continue poking at it?’
Karen forked up a piece of banana and put it in her mouth, chewing on it resolutely. Fruit here had a far better taste than back home, she had to admit. Except that England was home no longer, of course. Not for her. She might never even see it again!
‘Is it far to the airport?’ she asked, shutting out the hovering despondency.
‘The São Paulo shuttle flies from Aeroporto Santos Dumont in the city centre,’ Luiz returned. The flight itself takes less than an hour, the drive to Guavada considerably longer, but we should be there before dark.’
To meet more people she couldn’t remember. People who had known her a whole three months. How, Karen wondered numbly, was she to deal with it all?
CHAPTER THREE
THE flight was short and uneventful. Luiz had left a Land Rover at the São Paulo airport on his way out, prompting Karen to wonder how she and this Lucio had got there themselves. If in a car, it must still be parked here somewhere.
She didn’t care to broach the subject. Any mention of Lucio Fernandas was like waving a red rag before a bull.
By four o’clock they had left the city suburbs well behind and were driving through a landscape of grassy, tree-dotted plains broken by isolated low ranges. As Luiz had promised, the climate up here, some two thousand feet above sea level, was far pleasanter than Rio’s.
Karen recognised nothing. Not that she’d expected to. The closer they came to the home she had abandoned just a few days ago, the worse she felt. Beatriz may be the only one to know the real reason she had flown, but the others were hardly going to see a supposed disagreement with Luiz as an adequate reason. There was every chance that her partial amnesia would be suspect to them, if not to Luiz himself. It was, she had to acknowledge, a very convenient method of avoiding responsibility for her actions.
‘Are you feeling unwell?’ Luiz asked, shooting her a glance. ‘Do you wish to stop?’
Karen shook her head, pulling herself together. ‘Just nervousness. How are they likely to react?’
He gave a faint smile. ‘If I know my sister, she will throw her arms about you and commiserate. She blames me for driving you away with my domineering manner.’
‘Are you?’ Karen ventured. ‘Domineering, I mean?’
‘No more than I have to be to maintain your respect. We come from different cultures. There were adjustments to be made by each of us. I believed we had achieved a balance.’
‘When I ruined everything by going off with another man,’ Karen said hollowly. ‘I still can’t imagine how I could have done that. To leave…’
‘To leave?’ Luiz prompted as she let the words trail away.
Like the night before, she’d been about to say, To leave a man like you, but it still sounded too much like sycophancy. ‘Without even a word,’ she substituted. ‘The whole thing was shameful!’
It was a moment before Luiz responded, his expression austere again. ‘We must put it behind us.’
‘Can you, though?’ she asked.
‘As I’ve said before, I have no choice.’
There was little comfort in the answer. Karen hadn’t really expected any. It was still difficult to accept that the person she had been—the person she still felt herself to be inside—could have behaved in the manner ascribed to her. As if someone else had taken over her body during the lost months.
‘Tell me about the ranch,’ she said after a moment or two, desperate for something to break the silence between them.
Eyes on the road, Luiz lifted his shoulders in a brief shrug. ‘What can I tell you? Guavada produces beef for the export markets. It was founded in my grandfather’s day, the land area increased over the years to become what it is today.’
‘You own a third share then?’
‘As the eldest son, I inherited outright ownership.’ His lips slanted when she failed to comment. ‘I sense disapproval.’
Karen stole a swift glance at the hard-cut profile. ‘It seems a bit unfair, that’s all. In England all the children would be entitled to a share—male and female.’
‘This is not England,’ came the short response. ‘Raymundo is no pauper. He could found businesses of his own. As to Regina, she bears the name only until she marries.’
‘Is that imminent?’
‘Regina has yet to meet someone capable of retaining her interest for longer than a few weeks.’
‘Well, at eighteen she has plenty of time. After all…’
‘After all, I waited long enough to find the right person,’ he finished for her on a sardonic note as she broke off.
‘What you obviously believed was the right person at the time,’ she said, gathering her resources once more. ‘We can all make mistakes.’
‘Especially when judgement is clouded by a lovely face and body.’
‘I doubt that you’d have allowed your libido to rule you to such an extent.’ Karen kept her tone level with an effort. ‘Any more than I would myself.’
Luiz made no reply. He looked remote again. Karen leaned back against the seat rest and closed her eyes, willing herself to stay in control. Whatever happened from here-on-in, she could only go along with it.
They drove through a sizeable township bright with greenery, turning off the road on to a narrower one some fifteen minutes later, to pass beneath a tall wooden archway with the name carved into its surface.
Fencing stretched to either hand as far as the eye could see, though with no sign of either cattle or habitation. The latter proved to be hidden behind a large clump of trees a half mile or so ahead.
Anticipating something akin to the ranch houses seen in cowboy films, Karen was totally thrown by the lovely colonial-style building that came into view. Fronted by beautifully landscaped lawns, its white walls glinting in the late afternoon sunlight, it had verandas running the whole way round.
The girl who came out from the house as the car drew to a standstill was an Andrade through and through, her waist-length hair darkly luxuriant about her vibrant young face, her figure, clad casually in shorts and sleeveless top, lithe and lovely. As Luiz had predicted, she gave no quarter to the amnesia, descending the steps with open arms and a radiant smile.
‘So wonderful to have you home with us again!’ she declared. ‘But your poor face! How it must pain you!’
‘Not any more,’ Karen assured her. ‘And the marks will soon be gone too.’ She found a smile of her own, overcoming the awkwardness of the moment by sheer willpower. ‘Perhaps my memory will have returned by then.’
The shadow that passed across her sister-in-law’s face was come and gone in an instant. ‘It will! I’m sure of it!’
‘I think refreshment would be a priority at present,’ said Luiz with a questioning look at Karen. ‘A cold drink, perhaps?’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t suppose tea would be available?’
‘Of course.’ His tone was tinged with humour for a moment. ‘You insisted on it. Too much coffee, you said, was bad for the health.’
Mood lifting a little, she tried a lighter tone herself. ‘Not very tactful in a coffee-producing country!’
‘I like tea too,’ claimed Regina. ‘I’ll have some prepared immediately.’ She held out an inviting hand. ‘Come.’
Karen accompanied her indoors to a wide hall. A wrought-iron staircase rose from the centre to branch off left and right to open galleries. Plant-life abounded, spilling from standing pots, from hanging baskets, from the galleries themselves.
The woman who appeared in an archway under the curve of the staircase was in her mid-twenties. Unlike Regina’s, her hair was a dark blonde; her striking features were formed from a totally different mould, her figure voluptuous. There was no welcome in the tawny eyes, just a cold watchfulness.
She spoke in Portuguese, drawing a sharp admonishment from Luiz.
‘We will all of us speak only English when Karen is present. The way we did when she first came to Guavada.’
‘Does that mean I learned to speak Portuguese myself?’ Karen asked, picking up on the nuances.
‘You acquired a fair grasp,’ he confirmed.
She found that difficult to take in. She’d shown little aptitude for compulsory French in school, much less other languages.
On the other hand, she’d never lived in a foreign speaking household before.
‘You expect us all to believe this claim of yours?’ demanded the newcomer, who could only be Beatriz.
‘What you believe is your affair,’ Luiz cut in hardily before Karen could form an answer. ‘What you say in this house is mine. Where is Raymundo?’
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