Don Joaquin's Pride

Three hours ago? People worrying? In dismay, Lucy checked her watch. ‘Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry…I had no idea I’d been out here so long!’

‘Stop playing it cool. I’m not fooled,’ Joaquin delivered with withering derision. ‘You were lost.’

‘No…’ But Lucy looked back in the direction she had come, only to find that she was no longer so sure of that direction. She might well have had some difficulty finding her way back to the path, she conceded grudgingly.

‘And since I cannot believe that Mayan civilisation is an overwhelming passion of yours—’

‘I’d just like to see the temple before I leave…’ Screening him out with obstinate determination, Lucy focused on the massive elaborate building which she had been steadily working towards but continually tempted away from. ‘Please, just give me five minutes.’

‘Lucy…’

Since it seemed pretty obvious that she was unlikely to get the chance of a return visit, Lucy closed her ears and hurried off.

‘Just who are you trying to impress here? Have you even the slightest conception of what you’re looking at?’ Joaquin demanded crushingly.

From the steps, Lucy was engaged in studying the vast weathered masks of deities adorning the huge ornate entrance.

‘Well, that’s Hun Hunapu, the maize god…and that one is—I think—Chac, the god of rain…and this one’s Kinich Ahau, the sun god,’ she replied self-consciously, and then passed on into the dim interior. ‘And I bet I’m mispronouncing those names, because I’ve only read them and never heard anyone say them out loud. Does this temple have a pib na?’

In the incredibly charged silence which followed, Lucy chewed her lower lip and glanced at Joaquin. A deep frownline between his level dark brows, he was studying her with fixed intensity.

‘Is there something wrong?’ she asked.

Joaquin breathed in deep. ‘Sí…the temple has an underground room.’

‘With murals?’ Lucy prompted, and then she sighed. ‘I suppose the humidity has wrecked them?’

‘Not quite…’ Joaquin continued to scrutinise her with brilliant green eyes while giving out the impression of a male having a rare struggle to concentrate. ‘But while the conservation project is underway to preserve them they are not available for viewing.’

The silence lay heavy between them. Joaquin was very still. Lucy stole a questioning glance up at his lean strong face.

His aggressive jawline squaring, he met her eyes levelly. ‘On one count I have wronged you, and for that I owe you a sincere apology. Only out of respect for your late husband’s memory could you have taken such an interest in the Maya.’

His sincerity was patent. But that apology hit Lucy like a slap. The colour drained from her cheeks. Joaquin believed he was addressing Mario’s widow and he was finally showing some respect. Only he had naturally misinterpreted the connection which had first fired her fascination with the Maya. Suddenly she felt desperately ashamed of the deception she was engaged in.

‘It’s getting late,’ she said stiffly.

But Joaquin rested a light staying hand on her arm. ‘You must have loved Mario very much—’

Her discomfiture increasing, Lucy tugged free and started down the steps again. ‘It’s not something I want to talk about.’

‘Perhaps not, but when we were children Mario and I were close friends.’

‘I’m sure that didn’t last long,’ she heard herself snipe, because she was so keen for him to change the subject. ‘The heir to the Del Castillo fortune and the ranch foreman’s son?’

‘It was never like that between us,’ Joaquin responded in a quiet tone of rebuke. ‘Mario still thought enough of that bond to call me on your wedding day and confess that he was happier than he had ever hoped to be in this life.’

That was an admission which Lucy knew she would pass on to her twin when the timing was right. Only at that particular moment she did not want to be drawn into Joaquin’s recollections of his childhood playmate. With every honest word he spoke her own subterfuge made her feel like the lowest of the low.

Joaquin caught her hand in his. ‘Look at me…’ he urged. ‘I pride myself on my judgement, but perhaps I was too quick to judge you for failing my standards after Mario’s death.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ Lucy cut in dismissively.

‘Por Dios! At least give me cr

edit for finally trying to comprehend what might have made you behave in such an unseemly fashion within weeks of the funeral!’

Lucy yanked her fingers free of his. At that demand, her discomfiture blazed up into angry resentment. ‘You patronising bastard…’ she whispered in furious reproach.

‘Que pasa?’ Joaquin demanded, his lean darkly handsome features clenching hard on that unexpected attack.

‘You…you’re wrong about everything!’ Lucy flung at him in impassioned defence of the sister she loved. ‘And you’re far too spoilt to be capable of understanding.’

‘Spoilt?’ Joaquin repeated in ringing disbelief.

‘How many houses does one man need to live in? How could you ever know what it’s like to be poor and depressed and not care about anything any more?’ she asked in blunt condemnation. ‘What would you know about the kind of terrible grief that sends people off the rails?’

After that outburst, which had truly come from the heart, Lucy flung him a final look of disgust and took off. He shouted in her wake. Lucy ignored him, which wasn’t difficult when he was calling after her in Spanish. In any case she could see the path now and could see no reason to put up with his company when she could find her own way back to the house.

As she sped down the path, she was recalling the evening that her twin had talked about Mario’s sudden heart attack. Cindy had confided that she had felt so devastated and wretched after Mario died that she had done some things she had since regretted. Lucy hadn’t pried but she guessed she knew what those things had been now. Stripping off for the camera, getting involved with married men. Men who ought to have had more decency, for Cindy could only have been seventeen at the time!

Emerging from her troubled thoughts, Lucy noticed that the vegetation surrounding her seemed much more dense than she had noticed earlier. Exotic plants flourished in a fantastic lush carpet below the trees. Huge ferns, spiky bromeliads and pale orchids shone in the dim, misty light. Yes, the light was fading, or possibly the tree canopy was heavier at this point, she reasoned, and then she heard the sound of rushing water.