Kay Thorpe – The South American's Wife (страница 5)

‘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.’