Kay Thorpe – The South American's Wife (страница 3)

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.