An Undefended City Read online

  The maid was mildly surprised. 'But what does it matter,

  senorita? You are the reason they are going, after all. Senor Escobar will wait until you are ready. There is no rush.'

  `Senor Escobar might,' said Olivia mordantly. 'My Aunt Betty is another matter, however.'

  `Señorita Lightfellow is still asleep,' the maid told her soothingly. She gave a bright-eyed look at the hastily thrown back bedclothes. 'Would you like to go back to bed and eat your breakfast before you get up, senorita? I can easily bring you up a tray and the table swivels round over the bed,' she added proudly, demonstrating.

  `So it does,' said Olivia, more impressed by being offered breakfast in bed than by the wonders of Mexican furniture design. 'But I think I'd better get dressed first. If I could have a tray up here after my bath, I would be very grateful. Over there,' she added, waving at a walnut table of a size to serve a family of six with room to spare.

  `Certainly, senorita. And shall I take what you were wearing yesterday? They can be laundered at once if you wish to have those clothes in Cuernavaca with you?'

  `Take—' Olivia boggled. Rich she undoubtedly was by most ordinary European standards, rich enough to cause her some qualms of conscience at times, but she had never known the luxury of having her laundry removed for her with its return promised within hours. Normally she washed her own underwear herself, and frequently assisted in the household's weekly wash. Such pampering as was now being offered her seemed positively shocking. 'Oh—oh, thank you,' she said weakly. 'But don't bother about doing them at once. I mean, I've got trunks of clothes to take to Cuernavaca. I shan't need anything more. And I've got a change in my overnight case to wear on the journey today.'

  `Very well, senorita. If you give them to me I will have them pressed.'

  In the face of such determined indulgence, Olivia rather helplessly surrendered her keys and watched the maid unpack the little case with speed and expertise.

  She perched on the side of the bed and watched the proceedings. 'What's your name?' she asked.

  `Carmelita, senorita,' was the smiling reply. She turned

  with an armful of underclothes and a very pretty frou-frou housecoat which Olivia had bought in some trepidation and been duly scolded for on its impracticability. Carmelita had no such reservations, however. 'This is beautiful,' she said, quite without envy. She stroked its fragile sleeve. 'Shall I run your bath now, senorita?'

  Without waiting for assent she went to what looked like a cupboard, opened double doors and walked into a mirrored, marbled bathroom.

  Olivia gaped. She had discovered the wardrobe last night. The whole of one wall was covered in silk-panelled doors behind which were rails and shelves and drawers enough to house all her belongings, not just her clothes. This final refinement, however, she had not discovered.

  She wandered into the bathroom to find Carmelita inspecting an impressive array of perfumed bottles.

  'Bath oil?' asked the handmaiden briskly. 'Milk-bath? Bubbles?'

  Olivia sank on to a quilted chair. 'This is all very luxurious,' she said faintly.

  'Of course.' Carmelita again looked surprised. 'Don Octavio is a very important man and you are his only niece. You are a very honoured guest, senorita.'

  'Milk bath, then,' said the honoured guest, deciding that it would be wasteful to deny herself.

  Satisfied, Carmelita added the selected substance, whisked fleecy sweet-smelling towels from a cupboard beneath the wash basin and retreated with a bob of the head that denoted as much complacence with her own efficiency as respect for Olivia. The latter, feeling somewhat smaller and younger than she usually did even with her Aunt Betty, took the scented bath as she had been wordlessly instructed and found that she was enjoying herself.

  It would not of course be healthy to be treated as if one were a singularly idle mediaeval princess for long, but, just for the moment, it was agreeable. She felt pampered, relaxed and just a little mischievous when she eventually emerged from her suite.

  The house was a large one built on hacienda lines, though

  evidently modern. It had a central courtyard out of which ascended a curved marble staircase, with enormous pots of jungle green plants on every landing. The courtyard itself had a fountain and a profusion of trees so that the staircase was effectively hidden from the main entrance.

  Descending the stairs, Olivia heard voices behind the tinkling fountain and paused to see if she could identify the figures through foliage. And was so poised when Luis Escobar, for it was he who had just arrived, came round the trunks and lianas. He stopped and his eyes widened as if in shock or pain.

  Olivia was puzzled at this reaction and stayed where she was, looking troubled, wondering what there was in her appearance that could have caused this unlooked-for reaction. She stared down at him, quite unconscious of the picture she presented.

  To the man looking up at her it seemed as if he had suddenly been presented with a new image, not just of the girl whom he knew only slightly by reputation and less by acquaintance, but also of the life that Octavio Villa lived and to which all his assistants aspired. Olivia looked totally out of place on the imposing staircase. Its clear white stone and carved pillars suddenly looked cardboard as if they had come from a film set. A nineteen-forties musical, he thought wryly, when the lady poised between potted palms and hanging baskets of leather-leaved exotica would have been wearing heavy make-up and full evening dress. Indeed he had seen Elena Cisneros, Octavio's married daughter, and her sister-in-law Anamargarita gowned in just such a fashion, posing on those marble steps only a week before. Both were very fashionable young women and he had been in the party they had made up to go to a visiting opera company's performance.

  Deliberately he contrasted the remembered image with the picture now presented to him. Olivia was wearing trousers, a style eschewed by the elegant Anamargarita as unfeminine. They were slim and well tailored but very plain, a creamy oatmeal colour that lent warmth to her pale skin. Her shirt was the same colour, relieved only slightly

  by a touch of white thread embroidery on the collar. Her hands were innocent of rings and as far as he could see the only ornament she wore was a serviceably-sized watch on an ivory strap. Used to the diamond glitter of the Villa women he was taken aback to realise that the only glimmer of richness about her was in her hair, and that, as he now saw her in full sunlight, was a blazing auburn. He had called her beautiful last night, partly from kindness because she had looked so tired and defeated, partly in pursuance of his own private schemes. Now he began to wonder if it might not be true.

  He gave himself a little shake and stepped forward.

  `Good morning.' His voice sounded constrained. 'You look very—fresh. I did not expect to find you up yet after your late night. I trust everyone looked after you and that you slept well.'

  `Everyone has been very kind,' Olivia answered slowly.

  `I'm glad.' He came up the steps towards her. 'Not that I doubted it. They were all consumed with curiosity. You will have to put up with a good deal of that in Cuernavaca too, I'm afraid. In this country we keep our servants through generations. It won't just be Octavio who wants to talk to you about your mother.'

  `I haven't met any family retainers yet,' she replied, still guarded. 'I had a charming maid this morning who insisted that I have a positively voluptuous scented bath and wanted me to have breakfast in bed to boot. Other than that I've only spoken to an old man upstairs in the salon who was carrying a trayful ofcandlesticks, presumably to clean them. I was on my way to find the housekeeper and say thank you.'

  He laughed and the last vestiges of his constraint vanished.- 'How very English,' he mocked gently. 'She will be flattered. I'll introduce you if you like.'

  `Thank you,' said Olivia composedly. But don't you want to be off? I mean now you're here—' She spread her hands. a long way to Cuernavaca, I understand.'

  Luis Escobar took the hands lightly but firmly. 'Not so far by helicopter. And I merely arrived a
t this hour to see that everything was in order and there were no last-minute

  messages from Octavio. He's quite capable of phoning to say he wants a briefcase full of papers brought down to him, even though he's supposed to be on holiday. As for our departure,' he shook her hands a little to emphasise his point, 'we await your convenience.'

  `You're very kind,' murmured Olivia, staggered anew by this consideration for her comfort. `I'd better see what my aunt says.'

  `Your aunt finds travelling as trying as you do?' he asked with lifted brows.

  `Oh no. She's quite at home in aeroplanes. I think she enjoys it. She's wonderful for her age,' said Olivia, only half conscious of repeating an inculcated formula.

  He bowed his head in courteous if somewhat reserved assent and tucked one of Olivia's hands through his arm.span>

  `I'm sure she is. And so I think it is more important to be sure that you are feeling up to another flight than to fit in with Miss Lightfellow's inclinations.'

  `But I can't just say I'll set out at two, say, without consulting her,' protested Olivia, quite scandalised.

  `Of course you can,' he said with perfect sangfroid. 'If she is too tired, she is perfectly welcome to stay here until she wishes to make the journey, either by car or in another helicopter.'

  Olivia thought of trying to explain to him that it was less the precise arrangements for the journey that would worry Aunt Betty than the erosion of her authority and decided that the task was impossible.

  `But it wouldn't be very kind,' she said weakly. 'After all, she has had the trouble of looking after me so far . .

  He laughed. 'A trouble of which I am now very willing to relieve her,' he said fluently. 'You must not let yourself be bullied, Miss Olivia. What is the point of all this money if it cannot buy you freedom from bullying?'

  `I rather think money invites bullying,' she sighed. 'At least in the hands of cowards like me.'

  Luis Escobar gave her another of his sharp-eyed looks, but he said no more on the subject, merely indicating a wooden door at the end of the tiled passage.

  `The domestic quarters,' he said, the thread of mockery still running through his voice. 'Behind that door you will find a labyrinth of kitchens and pantries and larders, as if this were a fortress housing at least a battalion instead of the now much depleted family.'

  Olivia hesitated. 'Depleted?'

  `Since your grandfather died, your grandmother moved to Cuernavaca, your cousin Elena married and your cousin Diego found himself an apartment of his own. There are now only your Uncle Octavio and Aunt Isabel living here. And Isabel stays more and more in Cuernavaca so that there are whole weeks when Octavio lives here on his own.'

  But it's a mansion!' gasped Olivia.

  `You are unused to large houses, Miss Olivia?' he asked ironically.

  She blushed as if at an accusation. 'Well, no, of course not. My family home is very big, I suppose, but my father lived there all the time and drove into the Works every morning. And anyway it was attached to a farm. Half the buildings in the place weren't anything to do with the house. They kept the generator and the farm offices. And all the staff were the farm workers' family. We only had one servant who actually lived in. She used to be my nurse and became a sort of housekeeper after my mother died. There were au pair girls from time to time when my father wanted to give parties in the summer, but never anything like this. He had his flat in London, but I never saw it. I don't think it was more than a couple of rooms.'

  Luis Escobar halted. 'You never saw it?' he echoed, amazed.

  `It was where he went to get away from us,' explained Olivia quietly. 'My father and I were not—close.'

  He resumed his progress towards the kitchen, his brows knit as if at some private and disturbing thoughts, but all he said was, 'Very English again.'

  The meeting with the housekeeper was something of a revelation to Olivia. She found that the household's friendliness was by no means restricted to the younger generation and that Luis Escobar had been right when he

  foretold that she would be bombarded with reminiscences of her mother. The housekeeper had apparently been Senorita Carlotta's personal maid in the days when that lady had been setting Mexico City by the ears. She was very willing to go into details of the lady's exploits and the times that she, Manuela, had covered up for the young mistress, even going to the lengths of tiptoeing downstairs after she was officially in bed and the butler had locked up to unlock the garden door for Senorita Carlotta's clandestine early morning return.

  Olivia was slightly alarmed by this heritage.

  'Well, I shan't be asking you to do any such thing,' she told Manuela, and found Luis Escobar's eyes on her thoughtfully.

  Manuela said that she was quite sure the senorita had more sense, but the virtuous pronouncement was slightly tempered by a lingering disappointment and Olivia felt guiltily that she had not come up to expectations. In spite of the warm kitchen welcome she was glad when Luis Escobar made an excuse to leave.

  'Have you packed?' he asked her.

  'There was nothing to do. I didn't touch my cases, just my overnight bag,' she replied.

  He frowned. 'We can't take too much heavy stuff in the helicopter—there isn't room. Have you a case that is smaller than the others that you can take with you on the flight? The rest of the bags can come by road and you will have them tomorrow.'

  'You mean I need to pack an overnight case again,' interpreted Olivia.

  `Well, yes, that would be easier, if it's not a nuisance for you,' he agreed. 'Carmelita will help you.'

  Olivia snorted. 'However useless and incompetent you may think me to be, Senor Escobar, I am perfectly capable of packing a suitcase on my own.'

  He seemed amused rather than anything else by her sudden attack.

  'I have never called you incompetent, Miss Olivia. And certainly not useless. You are much too decorative for that.'

  Olivia was not in a mood to see the rider as a compliment and told him so. All her feelings of inadequacy which had been simmering all day came suddenly to boiling-point and she faced Luis Escobar squarely.

  `I suppose you don't think a woman can ever be anything other than decorative,' she concluded her diatribe bitterly.

  His mouth twisted wryly. 'On the contrary, some of them are extremely undecorative. And whether they're decorative or not they are, without exception, a damned nuisance.'

  In gentler moments Olivia would have been inclined to agree with this remark at least insofar as it referred to herself. Now, however, she was sizzling with an anger which only needed an object in order to catch fire.

  `How dare you!' she snapped.

  Luis Escobar retreated, mock-terrified. 'Indeed I don't know. Except I wasn't aware I was in the presence of such an Amazon,' he pleaded outrageously. He turned his head and addressed a large rubber plant conspiratorially. 'Not only is she extremely warlike but she can pack her own suitcases!' he told it in awed tones. 'Imagine that!'

  `You're laughing at me,' Olivia cried, almost dancing on the spot with irritation.

  `No, no,' he said soothingly. `I'm not foolhardy enough to do any such thing. I couldn't take the consequences.' And he shuddered, retreating behind the large stone pot and peering ridiculously through its leaves.

  `Oh, you're—you're impossible!' Against her will Olivia spluttered into laughter.

  He emerged cautiously from behind his barrier. `You mean I'm forgiven?'

  `Oh, I suppose so.' Olivia regarded him severely. 'Though you will please not talk about or to me in future as if I'm made of lace and china and can't do a thing for myself.'

  `You're over twenty-one, you're British and you're on dry land?' he murmured sardonically.

  `What?' Olivia, in the act of turning to go up to her room and pack the disputed case, was arrested.

  `The Englishwoman's creed,' he said innocently. 'All those ancestors of yours who went rioting round the British

  Empire as governesses and nannies and things. They always kn
ew they were perfectly secure because of their own superior capabilities.'

  `Certainly,' said Olivia, her nose in the air, 'the English have a well deserved reputation for common sense, of which I hope I have my fair share.'

  `I'm sure you have,' he said suavely. 'You would never do anything as silly and naughty as your mama used to, would you? You told Manuela so and I believe you.'

  `Mama,' said Olivia unwisely, but she was not a widely-experienced girl and did not catch the challenging gleam in his eye, 'was very susceptible.'

  In the split second after she had said it she became aware of two things. First, the remark sounded insufferably priggish. Second, Luis Escobar was unaccountably closer to her than he had been at the start of the dialogue.

  `And of course you're not?' he said with wicked softness.

  In panic Olivia compounded her original error. 'Of course not,' she blurted.

  His hands slid from her clenched fists to her elbows while she stared at him like a rabbit caught in headlights such as she had often seen on the Shropshire roads at night. She was, in spite of the brilliant sunshine, cold and shaking. His eyes fixed themselves on her trembling mouth. His hands travelled to her shoulders and then, slowly but very determinedly, drew her close to him.

  Upstairs Aunt Betty called querulously livvy! Livvy !'

  He hesitated, even questioning, but Olivia was quite incapable of moving. The kiss was long, leisurely and expert—even Olivia, infrequently and unpleasurably kissed, recognised that. If possible it intimidated her even further and drove the last vestige of defiant self-respect out of her.

  She stood mute and shamefaced while her aunt continued to call her name.

  Luis Escobar looked down at her seriously. 'As you say, not very susceptible,' he agreed, and Olivia hung her head as if that too were a failing.