Crime of Passion

And then

she heard another voice—very quiet, very aim—speak in Spanish, and there was one of those explosive silences which could be physically felt... It seemed to go on forever and ever before she heard the astonishing but unmistakable sound of Rafael's retreat. Only then did she appreciate that for once impulse had not betrayed her. The church was the one place Rafael Rodriguez Berganza did not rule supreme.

She knew her saviour had to have been the priest, and she waited shakily to be forced into speech, but no voice spoke and the sDence stayed, slowly soothing the tumult f her emotional upheaval, enabling her to think again. So now she knew why Rafael had refused to listen to her attempts to explain the platonic nature of her friendship with Danny. He had been suspicious of her morals long before that day. The pills—then what? Steve's dislike of him? Steve had not been jealous, for goodness' sake! Steve simply hadn't liked Rafael. And when Rafael had seen that embrace, he had forced every other fact to fit, choosing to assume that that accidental glimpse was merely the tip of the iceberg in a far more intimate relationship. After all, hadn't she been shame­lessly encouraging towards him?

Had her passionate response to him been that mis­leading? Had she come across as some sort of nympho­maniac? He had a wild imagination... Or had he? Witnessing that embrace certainly would have been a shock, as much of a shock for Rafael as it had been at the time for Georgie. Rafael could never have seen a hint of such intimacy in her behaviour with Steve at any other time. And that fact alone might well have been the final confirmation of Rafael's suspicions. Clearly he had believed that she and Steve were polished pretenders at being simply stepbrother and sister in public view, an act they had put on to conceal their true relationship from family and friends.

Moisture dripped on her tightly clenched hands. She lifted an uncertain hand to her damp face, discovered she was crying. It was so very hard to try and be calm about an accusation so outrageous and so distressing. But that same accusation revealed so much about Rafael. She shuddered.

From the outset Rafael had been sickly prejudiced against her. He had probably fought hard against the attraction between them and, even in succumbing to that attraction, he had still been on red alert for any flaws that she might display. Desire had driven Rafael, and the price of fulfilling that desire had been marriage.

But intellectually, of course, he hadn't wanted to marry her. If it hadn't been for her connection with Maria Cristina, Rafael would just have taken what was on offer and slept with her, slaking his desire in the most bask way possible. Subconsciously, he must have fiercely re­sented that reality. So it must have been relatively easy for Rafael to begin to suspect that her innocence was an act, and fate had been wonderfully kind to him in serving up the kind of evidence he required to convince himself that she was a whore instead.

Rafael had run true to type, she reflected numbly. Hot-blooded, suspicious, jealous and melodramatic—the ar­chetypal smouldering Latin lover. Yet it was so difficult to equate that image with the freezingly self-contained male who had rejected her at their final meeting. He had not mentioned Steve then. Why not? Had it been be­neath his precious dignity to reveal the extent to which he believed himself to have been deceived? He had not called her a whore, either. Indeed, in retrospect, she realised that Rafael had been remarkably restrained that day. But it was almost laughable that he could have be­lieved her steeped in sexual sin at so tender an age. But she couldn't laugh, had never felt further from laughter. She felt agonisingly hurt and bitter and it was that incredible pain which she now feared most of all. Her pride and her principles revolted against the image Rafael now had of her. Yes, perhaps she would have liked the romantic illusion back, just as he had shrewdly divined. Being treated like a scarlet woman might have briefly appealed to her sense of humour when she put on an act that first night in an effort to hold her own, but with Rafael, she could never ever forget that once she had loved him.

The memory was just there in the back of her mind all the time, warning her that she was vulnerable, warning her that she still found him staggeringly attractive on a purely physical level, and that something inside her which she was deeply ashamed of made her behave more out­rageously around him than she would ever have dreamt of behaving around any other man. Why was that? Was there actually a part of her which rejoiced in his desire for her body? Could she be that stupid? Hurriedly, she rose from the worn wooden pew.

She was walking towards the blinding sunlight flooding through the doors when the portly little priest appeared before her. 'I am Father Tomas Garcia,' he told her in perfect English, extending a polite hand that couldn't be ignored. 'And you are Georgie, Maria Cristina's friend.'

Taken aback by the assurance with which that statement was made, Georgie mumbled she knew not what.

'Would you like some tea? Or possibly some lem­onade? This is the hottest part of the day and I think you must be very thirsty. You are a teacher, aren't you? A fine profession, but more challenging now than it was in my time,' he remarked, accompanying her outside and turning towards the small house in the shadow of the church. 'Primary or secondary level?' he prompted with interest.

Ten minutes later, Georgie was ensconced in a comfortable armchair with a glass of lemonade, in a cluttered but sparsely furnished sitting-room, and she didn't quite know how she had got there. 'You know,' she muttered uneasily, fearing that the little priest was acting on a false assumption, 'I'm C of E.'

Father Garcia chuckled. 'I'll forgive you. You were telling me about your history course,' he reminded her.

It was over an hour before she departed, and her throat ought to have been sore from talking so much. After all, when all her years at college had been exhausted, they had somehow moved on to her family and from there to London, which her companion had visited forty years earlier and never forgotten. She was astonished by how relaxed she felt as she turned uncertainly back.

'Thanks,' she said huskily.

'For what do you thank me?' Father Garcia's sparkling brown eyes, so lively in his round, peaceful face, rested on her intently. 'It has been a very great pleasure for me to make the acquaintance of Rafael's bride-to-be.'

'Bride?' Georgie couldn't help it; the repetition erupted helplessly from her startled lips and even to her own ears she sounded like a cat whose tail had been trodden on. 'Fiancee?' the little priest suggested with apparently unshakeable good humour that took no note of her shock. 'That is the modern term, I suppose.'

'I'm afraid you've misunderstood,' Georgie began, in an agony of discomfiture.

'It is supposed to be a secret? But how could it be here?' Father Garcia's expressive eyes twinkled merrily. 'Naturally we are all excited at the prospect of Rafael's marriage.'

And off he went before Georgie could unglue her tongue from the roof of her dry mouth. Dear heaven, did Rafael have any idea of the expectations he had raised by bringing her here? Father Garcia had spoken of their marriage as though it was one centimetre short of ac­complished fact, and she had only arrived yesterday! Was he aware that Rafael had once planned to marry her?

In a renewed state of turmoil, Georgie headed back to the house, but this time she was abnormally con­scious of the number of smiles and inquisitive looks she received on the way. Without hesitation she went off in search of Rafael, determined to demand transport off the estancia again. This farce had gone far enough! He simply couldn't keep her here against her wishes!

He was on the phone in the library, which he appeared to use as an office. As she burst through the door his gleaming dark head jerked round, an expression of as­tonishment briefly etched on his devastatingly handsome features. Presumably nobody ever entered the inner sanctum without a knock and official permission.

'I will be with you in a moment.' It was a cool aside.

Stalking over to the window, Georgie turned her back on him and jerkily folded her arms. She listened to him talk in fast, idiomatic French, his accent and inflexion flawless. It set her teeth on edge. He was rapping out orders like the feudal autocr

at that he was. When the call was concluded, she spun round.

'I hear that Father Tomas has been entertaining you '

"The grapevine is supersonic around here, isn't it?' Georgie cut in, throwing her vibrant head back and watching him with a bright little smile pinned to her sultry mouth. 'Did your little bird also tell you that he thinks we're about to get married?'

'What an extraordinary idea,' Rafael gibed without pause, betraying not an ounce of the discomfiture she had expected to rouse. Eyes dark as Hades raked over her and his sensual mouth twisted wtih cruel amusement. 'I may have gone overboard in my lust to possess you four years ago, but you will recall that I didn't ever get as far as a proposal. In short, querida, men like me don't marry women like you, unless they are suffering from temporary insanity.'

The angry flush on her beautiful face slowly receded, leaving her painfully drawn.

'You see,' Rafael extended indolently, 'I first met you at a time when I was bored with the easy availability of your sex. No woman was ever a challenge. Every woman I ever wanted came to me, shared my bed, did whatever it took to try and hold my attention. I wanted to be the hunter but I never needed to exert myself '

'I don't want to hear this!' Georgie interrupted with sudden violence.

'I want you to hear it.' Rafael lounged gracefully up against his solid antique desk and surveyed her with hooded dark eyes. 'And then, one day, I met quite unexpectedly the most stunningly beautiful girl, who blushed with enchanting regularity and looked at me with what seemed to be her every thought written in her gorgeous eyes. But this stunningly beautiful girl was untouchable by virtue of her youth. And that for me was the very essence of the romance which every other woman had been so quick in her eagerness to deny me. Don't look so staggered... remember, I was only twenty-four,' he reminded her with sardonic bite. 'And, with hindsight, not one half as clever as I liked to think I was!'

'Don't!' Georgie was disturbed by his savage self-mockery, and her nails dug painfully into her palms.