Главная страница | Современные любовные романы | A Spanish Honeymoon

A Spanish Honeymoon
ANNE WEALE


When Liz moves to the idyllic Spanish village of Valdecarrasca, she's stunned to find herself living next door to the infamous Cameron Fielding….Cameron has a string of glamorous female visitors, so Liz is amazed to discover he's contemplating marriage–to her! It is strictly a practical proposal–but when their honeymoon sparks into passion, it's clear that their marriage could also become permanent…







Dear Reader,

If you live in a part of the world where the weather for much of the year is cold or wet, you probably dream of escaping to a warmer climate. Or if your job requires you to live in a city, you may daydream about a quiet life in the country.

The heroine of this story has realized both those dreams and—like her creator—escaped to a life in the sun in a village in the mountains of Spain. However, it isn’t long before the stresses she has left behind are replaced by emotional complications that turn her life upside down.

The setting for this book is very familiar to me. Valdecarrasca, the small Spanish pueblo in this story, is an amalgam of more than thirty real villages and small country towns. From each I have borrowed some feature—a fountain, a street, a plaza, a picturesque old house—combining them to create a place that is wholly imaginary and yet typical of the part of rural Spain where, for many years, I have been spending the winters.

Having created Valdecarrasca, I find my imagination teeming with ideas for more stories set in or near the village. At the end of this book you will find an extract from my next Valdecarrasca love story, The Man from Madrid (#3793), published in Harlequin Romance® next month.

Anne

anne@anneweale.com


Anne Weale was still at school when a women’s magazine published some of her stories. At twenty-five she had her first novel accepted by Mills & Boon®. Now, with a grown-up son and happily married to her first love, Anne divides her life between her winter home, a Spanish village ringed by mountains and vineyards, and a summer place in Guernsey, one of the many islands around the world that she has used as backgrounds for her books.

Acclaim for Anne Weale’s writing:

“Sweet romance, with interesting characters.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“A rich reading experience.”

—Romantic Times


A Spanish Honeymoon

Anne Weale






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#u81ac7f5d-8734-50a4-a2e1-bc40d4906c6b)

CHAPTER TWO (#u7d775e24-4cb1-5afc-bcf9-987d7f4b0c0c)

CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


La mujer sin hombre es como el fuego sin leña.

Woman without man is like fire without wood.

THERE were nights when Liz couldn’t sleep.

Memories…regrets…doubts…unfulfilled longings…elation at breaking free…panic at her recklessness; all these fizzed about in her brain, like the firecrackers the village boys let off in the street on fiestas, and made sleeping impossible.

When this happened she would get out of bed, make a mug of herb tea and, unless it was raining, which was blessedly seldom in this benign climate, climb the outside staircase to the flat roof where she dried her laundry and sunbathed.

One night she was up there, gazing at the moonlit mountains surrounding the valley, when she was startled by noises. They came from the big house that had its front door on the next street up the hillside on which the small Spanish village of Valdecarrasca was built.

Named after the fig tree in a corner of its walled garden, the big house was called La Higuera. Its rear windows overlooked the rooftops of the terrace of much smaller houses on the street below, where Liz lived. But as La Higuera had been empty since her arrival, six months ago, she had almost forgotten that, some day, its owner would return and her flat roof would no longer be as private as it had been up to now.

The first intimation that someone had arrived was the rattling sound of the persianas being rolled up, releasing a glow of light from each of the ground-floor windows.

Liz’s instinctive reaction was to leap up from the lounger, hurry down the staircase and disappear into her house before anyone at La Higuera noticed her.

Standing in her unlighted kitchen, she waited to see if the blinds hiding the upstairs windows of the big house would be rolled up. It might not be Cameron Fielding, the owner, who had arrived. Sometimes, she had been told, he lent the house to his friends.

To many of the foreigners living in or around the village, Cameron Fielding was a household name. Liz had never heard of him until she started living in Valdecarrasca. Nor, from what she had been told, did she like the sound of him. However, being a fair-minded person, she took some of the more scandalous stories with a pinch of salt.

Whoever it was who had arrived at La Higuera must have come without Alicia being notified, she thought, as she watched and waited.

Alicia was the portly Spanish lady paid a retainer to keep an eye on the house while it was empty, and to air and clean it before anyone used it. According to village rumour, she was supposed to do this once a month so that it was always in order. In practice, so Liz had heard, she did it only a day or two before Mr Fielding or his guests were expected.

This time, it seemed, she had been caught napping. To Liz’s certain knowledge, Alicia had not set foot in the place for months, which meant that every horizontal surface would be thick with dust and the rooms would have a musty smell.

Wondering if tomorrow Alicia would find herself out on her ear, Liz saw one of the upstairs persianas being hauled up by the stout tape that reeled the slats into a box at the top of the window. Many village houses, including her own, still had the old-fashioned wooden-slatted blinds that were pulled up by cords into a roll that remained visible. But La Higuera had been altered and modernised.

The person who had lifted the blind was a man but, because he was silhouetted by the lights in the room behind him, all she could see was that he was tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair. In fact he looked like a Spaniard. Although many of the elderly locals were short and often bandy-legged, owing to an inadequate diet in the years when Spain was a poor and backward country, the younger Spaniards had much better physiques and were as well-built as their contemporaries in other parts of Europe.

Then a second person came into view, a woman. As the man, whoever he was, stood looking out at the moonlit valley, she moved close behind him and put her arms round him. Immediately he swung round to return her embrace. Liz saw his head bend towards the girl’s and, for quite a long time, they engaged in what was clearly a passionate kiss.

It was still going on when, almost as if some sixth sense told him they were not as private as they might expect to be in a small Spanish village at one o’clock in the morning, he reached out an arm towards the side of the window. The next moment Liz’s view of the embrace was blocked by the pair of curtains whose draw-cord he must have pulled.

Feeling as guilty as if she had been caught watching something far more intimate than a kiss, Liz drew the kitchen curtains and felt her way to the light switch. Then she made another cup of tea and took it up to her bedroom, intending to continue reading the book on top of the stack on her night table.

But, like a love scene in a movie or on TV, what she had seen had stirred up the powerful yearnings that, as they had no hope of being realised, she did her best to keep battened down.

She was also curious to know if the man in the bedroom at La Higuera was, in fact, the legendary womaniser whose amorous exploits provided so many titbits of gossip for his fellow foreigners to relish.

‘…a different girlfriend every time he comes here,’ was one of the allegations Liz had heard about him.

‘Not what you could call handsome, but madly attractive…my goodness, yes, as attractive as the devil and totally without morals. Still, as he isn’t married, can you blame him for grabbing his opportunities?’ was another comment that had stuck in her memory.

Liz, who had had her childhood and teenage years blighted by a man of the same stamp who had been married, was disposed to dislike all philanderers. She had no time for people who treated sex as a game. She despised them all.

Despite a disturbed night, she was up at her usual early hour the next day. Brushing her teeth in the bathroom, she thought for the umpteenth time how different she looked today from the way she had looked on arrival, pallid-faced and drawn after a cold and wet northern European winter and a succession of head colds caught while commuting from her home in the outer suburbs to her workplace in central London.

Now, even after a disturbed night, she had three times as much vitality as she had ever had in England. She had never been a beauty. Her dark blue eyes and her clear skin—once pale but now lightly tanned—were her best features, counterbalanced by a disastrous nose and a rather unfeminine chin.

In her other life, as she had begun to think of it, she had adapted her hairstyle to a conservative version of whatever was the prevailing fashion. Here, to save money, she had given up going to the hairdresser and let it grow to a length she could tie back or pin up. Her basic colour was mid-brown. In place of professionally-done highlights, these days she had only sun streaks, helped by rubbing selected strands with a cut lemon. There was always a lemon to hand because there was a limonero, that bore fruit all year round, growing in her little back yard.

After a quick hot shower, she dressed in a plain white T-shirt, a navy blue cotton skirt and navy sneakers. Later she was driving to the weekly produce market in a larger village a few kilometres away. She had planned, immediately after breakfast, to spend half an hour working in the walled garden of La Higuera.

In the same way that Alicia was supposed to look after the interior of the house, the previous owner of Liz’s house, an elderly Englishwoman called Beatrice Maybury, had undertaken to take care of the neighbouring garden. Beatrice had asked if Liz would be willing to continue this work and Liz had agreed. She had always liked gardening, and the generous fee paid to her predecessor in return for an hour’s work a week would be a welcome addition to her limited funds. At that time, of course, she had not known the kind of man the house belonged to. Beatrice had never mentioned his predatory tendencies. Perhaps she had been unaware of them since, by all accounts, she had kept herself to herself and not been part of the expatriates’ grapevine.

After their late arrival, and whatever had followed that passionate kiss, it seemed unlikely the people staying at La Higuera would be up and about before mid-morning. Liz decided to stick to her plan and do some weeding and watering before they surfaced for the day.

She entered the property by a gate at the side of the house that, by way of a narrow passage, led down to the ‘secret’ garden at the rear. Most of the larger houses in the main part of the village did not have gardens, only patios. In the rest of Europe, a patio meant any paved sitting-out area. But in Spain it was an open area within the structure of a building. In Valdecarrasca, many of the houses too small to have a patio had a small garden or yard. But the garden behind La Higuera was the size of a tennis court.

Her first task today was to plant out some cuttings she had taken from a clump of silvery-grey artemisia and kept, in water, in a dark green wine bottle until they put out small roots.

She was on her knees by the narrow bed at the foot of the wall clad with variegated ivy that spilled over the top and cascaded into her own little yard on the other side, when a man’s voice said, ‘Hello…who are you?’

The question gave Liz such a start that she let out a muffled squeak and, in scrambling to her feet, almost overbalanced. He stepped forward, grabbing her arm to steady her.

‘Sorry…I didn’t mean to scare you. I suppose you thought the house was still empty. I got back late last night, or rather early this morning. I’m Cam Fielding, the owner. And you are…?’

She had known who he was immediately. ‘Madly attractive’ had not been an exaggeration. He was unquestionably the most attractive man she had ever encountered.

Last night she had taken him for a Spaniard and he did have some of their characteristics: the black hair and eyebrows, the olive skin that tanned easily, and the hawk-like features that often indicated Moorish ancestry. But although by no means all Spanish people had brown eyes, she had yet to meet one whose irises were the colour of steel.

‘I’m Liz Harris,’ she said, acutely aware of his grip on her arm and also of the fact that, under a white terry bathrobe, he was undoubtedly naked. Glancing downwards, she saw that his feet were bare, which was why she hadn’t heard him approaching. Looking up again, she noticed his hair was damp. He must have just had a shower, come downstairs to make coffee and seen her from the kitchen window.

She had never been inside his house but Beatrice had described its layout so she knew that the two doors set close to each other led into the kitchen and the garage.

‘Are you Mrs Harris’s daughter…or her daughter-in-law?’ he asked.

‘Neither…I’m Mrs Harris.’ She wished he would let go of her arm and move back a bit. At such close quarters his physical magnetism was uncomfortably strong.

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘I see. I expected you to be much older…the same age as Beatrice Maybury. When she wrote that an English widow was buying her cottage, I assumed that you were contemporaries. How old are you?’

‘Thirty-six,’ said Liz, relieved that he had finally let go of her arm so that she could step back and widen the distance between them. It was rather a cheek to ask her age at this early stage of their acquaintance, she thought. ‘How old are you?’ she countered.

‘Thirty-nine,’ he replied. ‘Was your husband much older than you…or did he die untimely young?’

‘He was a year older. He died four years ago.’ She had never met anyone who asked such personal questions so soon. Most people carefully avoided mentioning anything to do with her premature widowhood.

‘What happened?’

‘He was drowned trying to rescue a child in a rough sea. He wasn’t a very good swimmer. They were both lost,’ Liz answered flatly. Duncan’s heroism was still a puzzle to her. He had been a cautious man, not one who took risks or chances. The courage and folly of his last act had been totally out of character.

‘That makes his action even braver,’ said Fielding. ‘Were you living in Spain when it happened?’

‘No, in England. We had stayed in Spain several times with his parents. They used to rent a villa to escape the worst of the winter. But I like the mountains better than the seaside resorts. Beatrice Maybury’s brother—the one she’s gone back to look after—knows my father-in-law. Mr Maybury thought my parents-in-law might like to buy her house. I came out with them to look at it. They didn’t like it, but I did.’

‘And how is it working out?’ Fielding asked. ‘The majority of the British expats in this part of Spain are retired…though the number of young working expats is building up, so I’m told. Do you have a job apart from keeping this garden in order?’

‘I’m a freelance needlework designer…mainly for women’s magazines. It’s work I can do anywhere—thanks to e-mail.’

Her attention was distracted by colour and movement on the terrace built out from the house. The girl she had seen last night was coming to join them. Like Fielding, she was wearing a robe, but his was utilitarian and hers was designed to be more decorative than practical. Made of irregular layers of chiffon in sunset colours, it floated, cloud-like, round a spectacular figure of the kind displayed at movie premières and Oscar presentations.

‘Cam…the fridge is empty. There’s no orange juice,’ this vision said plaintively, wafting down the steps that connected the terrace and garden.

‘I know. I’ll get some from the shop. I didn’t expect you to get up until later.’ He introduced them. ‘Mrs Harris…this is my house guest, Fiona Lincoln. Fiona, this is my neighbour from over the wall. Mrs Harris keeps the garden in order.’

Liz removed the cotton gardening glove from her right hand. She was not surprised to find that Fiona had a limp handshake. She didn’t look the sort of person who would shake hands firmly. Glamorous women hardly ever did, in Liz’s experience. Perhaps they thought it was unfeminine to exert any pressure.

‘I thought you had a maid to look after things,’ Fiona said to Cam.

Despite not being dressed for the day, she was already fully made up, Liz noticed.

‘I have a cleaning lady, but it doesn’t look as if she’s been in recently,’ he answered. ‘Do you know my home help, Mrs Harris? Is she ill or something?’

‘Beatrice mentioned that you had help…someone called Alicia. But we don’t run into each other,’ Liz told him. ‘I’m usually here before breakfast or in the late afternoon. I expect she comes in the middle of the day.’

‘I know where she lives. I’ll call round there. Now we’ll leave you in peace while we get ourselves organised. Catch you later.’ As they turned away, he put a possessive hand on the other woman’s slender waist.

Watching Fiona leaning against him as far as the foot of the steps, Liz felt a moment of envy. She would have given a lot to have a man in her life against whom she could lean like that. At the same time she knew that a relationship such as theirs—she felt sure it wasn’t ‘serious’ and would probably end as casually as it had begun—would not satisfy her. She could never take a lover purely for physical pleasure, or be a temporary girlfriend.

The stairs to the terrace were narrow, with succulents growing in clay pots placed at the outer edge of each tread. Before mounting them, Fiona furled her floating layers of chiffon, wrapping the garment more closely around her and, in so doing, drawing Fielding’s attention to the curves of her shapely bottom.

Watching him admiring it, Liz wondered how men like him and her father could be satisfied with making love to women for whom they felt no real affection or even liking. To her, the idea of going to bed with someone you didn’t love was repugnant.

Because she had married so young, she had missed the sexual freedom enjoyed by most of her generation. Duncan had been her first boyfriend and her only lover. That she might marry again seemed doubtful. Unattached men of the right age were thin on the ground. And anyway did she want to marry a second time? Marriage was such a huge risk.

With a sigh, she resumed her planting.

After lunch, Liz went for a walk on the dirt lanes and narrow tarmacked roads criss-crossing the vineyards that stretched from the edge of the village to the far side of the valley. When she arrived the grapes had been tiny, no larger than orange pips. She had seen them grow and ripen until they were ready to be picked. Now the vine leaves were turning red or purple.

On the way back, she followed a lane that gave her an overall view of Valdecarrasca. Its clustered rooftops were dominated by the church and a sloping line of cypress trees leading up to the small white-walled cemetery where coffins were placed in banks of narrow vaults marked by their occupants’ photographs as well as their names and dates.

Even for an outsider, it was a comfortable feeling to be part of a small close-knit community where each generation had been at school together and had many shared memories.

The rest of the afternoon was spent working on a design for a tablecloth and matching napkins for a ‘garden lunch’ feature scheduled for publication the following summer.

At six o’clock she went downstairs to fix herself a gin and tonic and started preparing the salad she would eat at seven. Some of the foreigners who lived here had adapted to Spanish meal times and had a siesta after lunch. For the time being, in her own home, she was sticking to the timetable she had always been used to.

She was about to halve one of the avocado pears that were so much cheaper here than in London, when someone knocked on her front door. To her surprise, when she opened it, she found Cameron Fielding standing on the narrow pavement outside.

‘I hope this isn’t an inconvenient moment to call. Do you have five minutes to spare?’

‘Of course. Come in.’

She stood back while he ducked his head to avoid cracking it on the rather low lintel. Two of the things that had put her parents-in-law off the house were the absence of a hall and the lack of light in the room facing the street. It only had one small window guarded by an iron reja as was standard in Spanish houses whether they were palaces or cottages.

‘Come through to the kitchen,’ she said, after closing the door.

Fielding waited for her to lead the way. Perhaps it was the first time he had been here, she thought. Because Beatrice had been to his house it didn’t mean he had been to hers.

But a moment later he corrected this assumption by saying, ‘You’ve had the kitchen altered. It’s much better now…much lighter.’

‘Beatrice wasn’t keen on cooking. I enjoy it,’ said Liz. ‘I’m having a gin-tonic.’ This, she had read, was what trendy young Spaniards called what her parents called a G and T. ‘Can I offer you one?’

‘Thank you. Ice but no lemon, please.’

Liz fixed the drink and, with a gesture, waved him to the basket chair in the corner. ‘What did you want to see me about?’

‘I’ve always suspected that not a lot of cleaning went on when I wasn’t around. This unexpected visit has confirmed it. The house obviously hasn’t been touched since the last time I was here.’ His powerful shoulders lifted in a philosophical shrug. ‘Well, that’s not unusual. It happens in lots of countries where foreigners have vacation houses. Incomers are usually regarded as suckers with more money than sense. Cheers!’ He raised his glass to her.

‘Cheers!’ she echoed. Was he going to ask her to take on the housework as well as the garden? Surely not.

‘Alicia is not a bad worker when she gets down to it, but she needs keeping an eye on,’ he went on. ‘I was wondering if you would be willing to provide that supervision…to make sure she does what she’s supposed to do. Also I’d like to have someone I can rely on to stock the fridge and maybe arrange some flowers. But perhaps you’re far too busy with your own work to tackle anything more?’

Liz had been preparing a frosty answer if he asked her to take over the cleaning. Not because she considered housework beneath her, but because she resented him thinking her own work was little more than a hobby.

While she was rethinking what she had intended to say, he went on, ‘By the way, it’s obvious that you’re doing far more in the garden than Beatrice did. I don’t think I’m paying you enough. If you were willing to oversee Alicia’s work, I’d be happy to increase your fee.’

He then suggested an amount, in pesetas. It seemed such a massive increase that, at first, Liz thought she must have made a mistake converting it into pounds. Even after six months here, she still tended to think in sterling except with small everyday transactions.

‘If you feel that isn’t enough, I’m open to negotiation,’ he said, watching her with those curiously penetrating grey eyes.

‘It’s enough…more than enough. But I need time to think it over. I’m not sure I want to take on the double commitment. For one thing, my Spanish is still pretty basic. I get by with the man at the bank who comes from away, but the village people seem to have a problem with my accent. Do you speak Spanish?’

He nodded. ‘Try out your Spanish on me.’ He suggested some sentences for her to translate and, when she had done her best with them, said, ‘You’re coming along very well. Remember that the people here speak Valenciano, the regional language, from choice and Castilian Spanish to communicate with outsiders. Nowadays, with supermarkets everywhere, the expats who live near the coast can get by without learning any Spanish, and most of them do.’

‘How did you learn the language?’

‘My grandparents retired here after spending most of their lives abroad. My parents were also abroad a lot and I used to come here during the school holidays. Children pick up languages faster than adults do.’

‘Was La Higuera your grandparents’ house?’

‘No, they lived on the coast, before it became overcrowded. When my grandfather died, he left their house to me. But by then it was surrounded by elaborate “villas” with swimming-pools, so I sold it and bought La Higuera for when I retire.’

Liz picked up the critical note in his voice. ‘What have you got against swimming-pools?’ she asked.

‘In a country like this, with a chronic shortage of water, they’re an unsustainable extravagance. The main blame lies with the planners who, up to now, haven’t introduced legislation to make it obligatory for all new houses to have cisternas filled by rainwater, not mains water. People without cisternas should swim in the sea, or have very small exercise pools and swim against power-jets.’ He finished his drink and stood up. ‘We’re here until Saturday evening. When you make up your mind, call me. The number is in the book.’

She saw him out. Returning to the kitchen, she was uncomfortably conscious that she would have liked him to stay longer. Yet, apart from his looks and his charm, what did he have to recommend him? Nothing. He was just like her father, a despicable charmer whose infidelities had caused her mother years of anguish. Even as a parent, Charles Harris had been unreliable, the pursuit of his numerous affaires often taking precedence over his paternal responsibilities. Though she hadn’t discovered until later the reason why he broke promises to attend school plays and other functions.

Closing her mind to thoughts of past unhappiness, Liz washed Fielding’s glass and put it away in a cupboard, as if removing the evidence of his presence would eradicate him from her thoughts. But, try as she might to concentrate on other matters, the impact of his personality, and the extra income he had offered her, continued to preoccupy her throughout her solitary evening meal.

It was the sort of wage that people paid for domestic and garden help in London, and no doubt he could well afford it. People who worked in television seemed to earn massive salaries. But was it right for her to accept it? It would certainly make a big difference to her somewhat straitened finances.

At eight o’clock, when Spanish telephone charges became cheaper than during the working day, she went up to the larger of the two small bedrooms which was now her workroom and where she used her computer.

After checking for incoming e-mails, her link with colleagues and friends now far away, she clicked on her Internet browser and went to a favourite website. The World Wide Web offered an escape from the problems of the real world. Sometimes she felt she might be becoming a Web addict, but at least it was a harmless addiction, not like taking to the bottle as some lonely widows did.

On Friday afternoon she rang his number.

‘Cam Fielding.’

She would have recognised the distinctive timbre of his voice if he hadn’t given his name. ‘It’s Liz Harris. If your offer is still open, I’d like to give it a try.’

‘Splendid…that’s excellent news. If you’ll come round, I’ll give you a set of keys and a quick tour of the house.’

‘Now?’

‘If it’s convenient.’

When, five minutes later, he opened the door to her, he was wearing a coral linen shirt and pale khaki chinos.

Unlike her little house, his had a spacious hallway and a staircase with a beautiful wrought-iron balustrade that looked antique.

‘Fiona is in the garden having a siesta,’ he said, as he closed the door. ‘We went to a nightclub on the coast. I hope our return in the small hours didn’t disturb you.’

‘A car wouldn’t wake me,’ she said. ‘In the summer, when the nights were hot, the local dogs were a bit of a nuisance.’

He showed her around the ground floor. The windows on the street side were small, with protective iron rejas, but those on the south side had been replaced with tall windows with no rejas to obstruct the view of the mountains. There was a large kitchen with a big family-sized dining table at one end. Folding doors connected this to a living room lined with bookshelves and paintings. There was also a bedroom-cum-study lined with more books and, next to it, a spacious bathroom.

‘This serves as the downstairs loo, and upstairs there are more bedrooms and bathrooms,’ he told her. ‘Let me give you a cup of coffee and then we’ll discuss the new arrangements.’

The daughter and wife of men with no domestic capabilities, Liz was always surprised by men who knew their way round a kitchen and could keep themselves fed and laundered without female assistance. Whether Fielding’s competence extended beyond making coffee, she rather doubted. Though perhaps it might if his life as a roving reporter for a television news channel had, from what she had heard, taken him to many of the world’s trouble spots where hotel facilities were not always available.

‘I expect to be down here more often in the next twelve months,’ he said, putting cups and saucers on a tray. ‘How often, in your view, does the place need cleaning to keep it in reasonable order?’

Liz leaned on the rose marble worktop that divided the working part of the kitchen from the dining area. ‘The kitchen and the bathrooms need more attention than the other rooms. I have no idea how efficiently Alicia cleans when she does clean. The most sensible plan might be for me to look in, say, every two weeks and suggest to her what needs doing.’

He gave her a smiling glance. ‘I notice you say “suggest” not “tell”. That sounds as if you have good management skills.’

Conscious of his charm, and resistant to it, she said, ‘Most people prefer to be asked rather than ordered. That’s just common-sense. For what you’re prepared to pay me, I’m prepared to make sure that the house is always ready for occupation. Though, obviously, some notice of your arrival is important as far as stocking the fridge is concerned.’

‘Give me your e-mail address and I’ll give you mine,’ he said. ‘That way we can keep in touch easily. You’ll find a notepad and pencils by the phone in the other room—’ with a gesture towards the living room.

Liz fetched the pad and wrote her address for him. While waiting for the kettle to boil, he wrote down his for her. Then he spooned coffee powder from a jar of instant decaff into the cups, filled them with water and carried the tray to the table.

‘I didn’t buy Alicia’s explanation of why the place was in a mess when we arrived,’ he said. ‘Hopefully, with you keeping an eye on her, she’ll pull her socks up. If she doesn’t, it may be necessary to find someone else. Perhaps you could make enquiries. I know a lot of the younger women have cars now and prefer to work in supermarkets and offices. But for the older women, without any transport, domestic work is still the only option.’

‘I’ll keep my ear to the ground,’ said Liz. ‘But it has to be said that cleaning an empty house for an absent employee is not much fun. Alicia may buck up a lot if you’re going to be here more often, and if I’m around to applaud her efforts. Housework is horribly repetitive and women who do it need to feel appreciated.’ She was thinking of her mother, whose excellent housekeeping had never been praised or even noticed.

He changed the subject. ‘Do you mix with the other foreigners round here? Have they been friendly?’

‘Very friendly…and so have the local people.’ But, as she had already learned in England, there was a world of difference between the life of a wife and that of a widow. The social world was set up for pairs, not singles.

The door to the terrace opened and Fiona joined them. She was wearing the briefest possible silver two-piece swimsuit. As Fielding rose, she said, ‘Is that coffee? Can I have some?’ Only as an afterthought did she toss a ‘hello’ at Liz.

For something to say, Liz asked, ‘Did you enjoy your night on the town?’

‘It was OK.’

Fiona’s indolent shrug made her breasts do a jelly-like wobble in their silver cups. Probably most men would find her nudity enormously sexy, Liz thought. But would a discriminating man? Wouldn’t he think she was overplaying her seductiveness. Still, presumably sex, and lots of it, was the only reason she was here. She didn’t give the impression of being a great conversationalist. She was not even good at the small talk that strangers tossed back and forth in situations like this.

Liz drained her cup. ‘I’d better be off. I have a lot to do today.’

‘Hang on a minute.’ Fielding handed Fiona her coffee, then felt in his back packet and produced a billfold. ‘You’d better have some money on account…both to pay Alicia and for yourself.’

‘That really isn’t necessary. We can settle up next time you’re here.’

‘Certainly it’s necessary. I might get my head blown off by a terrorist and then where would you be?’ He handed her some twenty mil bills. ‘Tomorrow morning I’ll call at the bank and arrange for the payments into your account to be altered. You also need the extra house keys I had cut. They’re in a drawer in the hall.’

Following him from the kitchen, Liz said, ‘Goodbye, Fiona.’

Fiona did say, ‘Bye,’ but she didn’t bother to mask her indifference with a smile.

She must be fantastic in bed for him to put up with her abysmal manners, thought Liz, as she marched down the street, the money in her pocket, the keys to La Higuera in her hand.

When Cam returned to the kitchen, Fiona said, ‘She ought to get that nose bobbed.’

‘What’s wrong with her nose?’

‘It’s too big.’

‘So is mine,’ he said, rubbing the prominent bridge inherited from his great-grandfather, Captain ‘Hawk’ Fielding. His features had been similar to those of the Afghan tribesmen against whom he had played the Great Game on the North West Frontier, eventually dying a hero’s death in Kabul in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign. Cam had often thought it was probably a gene from his adventurous forebear that had dictated his own choice of career.

‘That’s different,’ said Fiona. ‘On a man a big nose is OK. On a woman it’s not.’

‘I only noticed her eyes. They’re the colour of speedwells.’ Realising that Fiona might never have seen a speedwell, he added, ‘They’re small wild flowers…the bluest of blues.’

‘She doesn’t like you,’ said Fiona. ‘Or me. She was looking down her big nose at both of us. But it didn’t stop her taking your money.’

‘Why do you think she doesn’t like us?’ Cam could guess why, but he doubted if Fiona could.

‘I expect she envies you,’ said Fiona. ‘You’re famous and rich and successful, and she’s a nobody living in a grotty little house with no money. I shouldn’t think she’ll ever get another husband.’

‘You’re a luscious piece, but you don’t have a kind heart, do you, Fifi?’ he said dryly. ‘My reading of Mrs Harris is that she likes her little house, she doesn’t want to shop till she drops, and she’s still in mourning.’

Fiona didn’t like it when he called her Fifi. There were several things about him she didn’t like. He could be sarcastic, and sometimes she had no idea what he was talking about. But she enjoyed being envied by other women who would like to be his girlfriend, and he didn’t expect her to do all the work in bed, like some of the men she had known. In fact going to bed with him was a treat. She was in the mood for it now.

She gave him her most alluring smile. ‘I’m going to have a shower. Care to join me?’

In the night, without waking Fiona, Cam got up and went downstairs for some water. In his twenties and early thirties he had got through a lot of alcohol, but nowadays he drank less and less, knowing what happened to journalists who went on hitting the booze into their forties.

He was fit, and he wanted to keep it that way. He had drunk more this week, with Fiona, than he had for a long time. And he knew why. Because she bored him. When they weren’t actually in the sack, he found her a dull companion. It had been a mistake to bring her. This wasn’t her kind of place. She liked shopping and smart restaurants and places to dance. It had been selfish of him to deprive her of the things she enjoyed. She was a playgirl, but he was no longer a playboy. It was time to recognise that fact, to restructure his life accordingly.

After drinking one glass of spring water, he carried another upstairs. The bedroom was full of moonlight. It illumined Fiona’s unconscious face and the voluptuous curves outlined by the rumpled sheet.

Cam went to the window and looked out. Beyond the top of his garden wall was a row of Roman-tiled roofs, many tiles out of alignment, others speckled with lichen. Several of the houses were empty or used only for storage. There was only one flat roof, a conversion done by Beatrice Maybury.

Thinking about her successor, the buttoned-up Mrs Harris, he felt he had made a good move in appointing her to sort out his domestic problems. She seemed the conscientious type who would earn every peseta of the extra money he was paying her. She was certainly doing a much better job with the garden than Beatrice had.

At the same time he thought she was crazy to bury herself in a place like Valdecarrasca. Obviously, as he had said to Fiona, Liz Harris was still in mourning for her damned fool of a husband who had thrown away his life, and ruined hers, in a gallant act of madness. If his attempt had succeeded, he would have been a hero. Instead of which he was dead and she was condemned to a lonely future. He hadn’t asked, but he felt sure there were no children. If there were, she wouldn’t be here.

That she had accepted his offer, while privately disapproving of him, suggested that her work as a designer wasn’t bringing in enough money. Not that she had shown her disapproval, but his job had made him an expert at picking up vibes. Like most ‘good’ women, she had a strict moral code that put free agents like himself and Fiona beyond the pale. Good women wanted everyone to live the way they did, the men in solid nine-to-five jobs like accountancy and the law.

But he had chosen a career that demanded he pack his bags at short notice and go to wherever the headlines were being made, usually somewhere bloody uncomfortable, from which there was always a chance he might not return. The casualty rate was high among war reporters and photographers. It wasn’t a life to share with a wife and children. Some of his colleagues had tried, but usually it ended in divorce. It was wiser not to attempt it, or not until one retired. Which was what he was thinking of doing.

For almost twenty years he had run the gauntlet of violence in all the world’s worst trouble spots and got through with only a graze from a bullet on his arm. His luck might not hold out much longer. Too many colleagues had died, or been badly injured, or resorted to dangerous forms of Dutch courage. It was time to call it a day and become a desk-bound presenter or, failing that, find some other way of earning his living.

He had a hunch the Internet held the key to his future and, if that hunch proved correct, he could live where he pleased, perhaps here in this peaceful village, so remote from the war zones where he had spent recent years that it might be on another planet.

Early one morning, a week after the persianas came down at La Higuera, Liz opened the Inbox on her e-mail program to find a message from Cameron Fielding. In the subject line, he had typed ‘Congratulations on your website’.

Although the e-mail address she had written down for him was what was known as a dot com address, she was slightly surprised that he had bothered to check that the last part led to a website. But then she remembered he was a journalist, and curiosity was their stock in trade.

She read the main part of the e-mail he had written.

Dear Mrs Harris (or may I call you Liz?)

I’ve been looking round your website. I’m impressed. Maybe you should switch from needlework designs to website design. I’m told there’s a big demand for good site designers. How about making a start by designing a site for me? If you’re willing to have a crack at it, I’ll be happy to pay you the going rate.

Think it over.

Regards, Cam.

Liz printed out his e-mail and put it in her bag to re-read later. Today was the day she drove down to the coast to attend the weekly meeting of the Peñon Computer Club at Calpe.

According to elderly people who had known Spain before the tourist invasion, when she was a little girl Calpe had been a sleepy fishing village. Now it was a large resort with many tall blocks of apartments, most of them holiday flats or the year-round homes of retired expatriates.

Liz didn’t like Calpe but acknowledged that lots of people did, and it took all sorts to make a world. She did enjoy the club meetings, although most of the other members were old enough to be her parents or even grandparents. But their shared enthusiasm for computers made the age difference unimportant. One or two of the old men were inclined to ogle her, and one was a furtive groper. But she could cope with that.

After the meeting, she and Deborah, a divorcee in her late forties who kept in touch with her children by e-mail, had lunch at a Chinese restaurant not far from the port. It was close to the Peñon de Ifach, a massive rock, a thousand feet high, that reared out of the sea and was a mecca for rock climbers from all over Europe.

‘Have you ever walked up the path that goes up the other side of the Peñon?’ she asked her friend.

Deborah shook her head. ‘I don’t have a good head for heights. Living on the higher floors of some of the apartment blocks would worry me!’

‘Me too,’ said Liz. ‘I should feel uneasy sitting out on some of those tiny balconies. But a penthouse apartment with a garden might be nice. The views must be wonderful.’

After lunch she drove back to Valdecarrasca where, having no garage, she had to leave her seven-year-old vehicle in the car park near the building that had once been a lavadero, a public laundry with a stream running through it. Since then the stream had run dry and today, so Beatrice had told her, the water came from deep bore holes near a village at the far end of the valley. Nowadays everyone had mains water and washing machines but, in a country with little rainfall, the ever-increasing demand for water could not be met indefinitely.

After changing out of her good clothes into everyday things, she settled down to reply to Cameron Fielding’s e-mail.

She didn’t mind him calling her Liz, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to call him Cam yet. However, to start ‘Dear Mr Fielding’ sounded rather stuffy in response to his informality, so she stretched a point and started off.

Dear Cam,

I’m glad you like my website and I’m flattered that you’re willing to entrust the design of your site to me. As I have never done any designing for other people, I have no idea what the going rate is. But I can find out, and perhaps we can discuss the matter further next time you come down. I should have to ask you a lot of questions before I could create a site that satisfied us both. What would the purpose of the site be?

Liz.

After she had connected to the Spanish telephone company’s freebie server, and sent the message on its way, she had a spasm of doubt about the wisdom of becoming any more involved with Cam Fielding than she was already.

From the first moment of meeting him, she had been on her guard with him. That being so, was it foolish to take on a commitment that, inevitably, would involve more contact with him? Would it have been more sensible to politely decline his suggestion on the grounds that she had more work than she could handle?




CHAPTER TWO


Entre col y col, lechuga

Variety is the spice of life

UNTIL Cam put the idea into her head, it had not struck Liz that there might be a better income to be made from designing websites than from her present occupation. A site commissioned by a ‘name’ as big as Cameron Fielding would certainly give such a venture a splendid start.

But would there also be a downside? Would designing a site for him involve a lot more personal contact than she wished for?

Cam’s reply to her e-mail came into her Inbox the next time she logged on.

Liz,

In a couple of hours I’ll be flying to the Middle East to cover the latest outbreak of hostilities. Hope to be back next week. Meanwhile I’ll think about the kind of site I want. Maybe I’ll be able to get down to V. for a night or two so that we can put our heads together and get the basics sorted out.

Take care, Cam.

The phrase ‘put our heads together’ conjured up a degree of intimacy that she wasn’t comfortable with. At the same time she was increasingly curious to see him in his public persona.

Beatrice Maybury had not owned a television set. She considered TV a waste of time. Liz had had a set in England but had not brought it to Spain, or bought a new set here. She preferred reading anyway.

She was certainly not going to ask any of the foreigners she knew if she could watch a news programme on the channel Cam worked for. That would immediately trigger more gossip on the lines of— ‘Liz Harris has taken a shine to the heart-throb at La Higuera, we hear. I wonder how long it will take him to get her between the sheets?’ The thought of being the subject of lubricious speculations made Liz cringe.

It was in the middle of another wakeful night that she suddenly realised that his TV channel would have a site on the Web where she might find information about Cameron Fielding, foreign correspondent.

Although her computer was three years old, and not equal to handling the very latest technology, she could pick up the ordinary stuff. She sat up in bed and reached for the quilted dressing gown thrown over the footrail. The days were still mild and warm, but at this time of year there was a significant fall in the temperature after sunset.

With her feet tucked into cosy slippers, she went to her workroom and was soon online. It took only moments to find the website she wanted, and a few moments more to find a list of the channel’s presenters and reporters.

When she clicked on Cam’s name, up came a potted biography and a photograph. The sight of his face looking out at her from the screen had almost the same effect as when she had scrambled to her feet in his garden and looked into those amused grey eyes for the first time.

In an automatic reflex, she right-clicked with the mouse, bringing up a menu that included the option to save the picture to her hard drive. Then, not wanting to, yet compelled to continue, she saved the photograph in her My Documents folder where it would remain until she chose to delete it.

The bio at the side of the picture read:

Cameron Fielding is arguably the best-known of the élite group of internationally famous foreign correspondents who report world news for television. He has been awarded the CBE for his services to journalism.

In a career spanning almost 20 years, Fielding has worked for the BBC, CNN, ITN and Sky News. His reporting has won widespread critical acclaim and many awards including the Amnesty International Press Award, the Reporter of the Year award at the New York Festival of Radio and Television, the James Cameron Award for war reporting, and the One World Broadcasting Trust Award. He has also won the prestigious Emmy Award presented by the American National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Below this was a question-and-answer interview.

Q: Where did you grow up?

A: All over the place. My father’s career involved frequent uprooting. My passport is British, but I was born in Hong Kong and spent my formative years in Tokyo, Rome, Madrid and Washington DC, so I count myself a citizen of the world.

Q: What was your first job?

A: I joined the BBC’s World Affairs Unit after reading Modern History at university.

Q: What was the most memorable event you have reported?

A: I’ve covered a succession of memorable events: Tiananmen Square in 1989; Baghdad and the Gulf War 1991; famine in Somalia 1993; the Soweto riots 1996. Every year produces a major disaster. I wish the media would focus more on mankind’s achievements. I think being swamped with bad news depresses people.

Q: What are your worst and best qualities?

A: Worst: I’m impatient, especially with petty bureaucracy. Best: Probably tolerance.

Q: If you could travel backwards in time, what era would you visit?

A: I’d like to have been the expedition reporter on Christopher Columbus’s ship Santa Maria when, trying to reach the East by sailing westwards, he discovered the New World.

Q: What excites you and what depresses you?

A: I’m excited by the World Wide Web: I believe it has the potential to make life better for everyone. I’m depressed by self-satisfied, self-serving politicians.

As she re-read his answers to the questions, Liz was forced to admit that, had she known nothing about his personal life, the interview would have impressed her.

His childhood sounded far more exciting than hers. She had always longed to travel, but a possessive mother, shortage of money and falling in love with Duncan had conspired to prevent her from being anything but an armchair traveller. Now her wanderlust had diminished. From what she read, mass tourism and the popularity of back-packing had combined to make exotic destinations far less exotic than they had been when she was eighteen. The time to take off and see the world had been then, not now. As her grandmother had often said to her, ‘Opportunity only knocks once’.

Liz shut down her computer and went back to bed. After she had switched out the light, for a while it was Granny she thought about. Granny had tried to dissuade her from marrying so young. ‘You’re not properly grown-up,’ she had said. ‘You’ve had no experience of life…or other men. There are more fish in the sea than Duncan.’

Knowing that her grandmother’s marriage had not been happy, Liz had dismissed her advice.

But her last thought, before she slept, was not about Granny. In her mind’s eye she saw the strong features of the man whose faced was filed on her computer.

Cam’s e-mailed instruction, before his next visit, to have Alicia make up the bed in the room above the garage puzzled Liz until, on her own next visit to La Higuera, she went upstairs for the first time. It then became clear that the bedroom where she had seen him kissing Fiona was a comfortable guest room and the room over the garage was his room.

The first thing that caught her eye was a portrait on the wall between the two windows, obviously placed there so that the light wouldn’t fade it. It was an oil painting of a man in the regimental dress uniform of a bygone age. He had an early Victorian hairstyle, but otherwise it might have been Cam in fancy dress. There was a small engraved brass plaque on the bottom of the ornate gilt frame. She had to go close to read the small writing—Captain Nugent Fielding, 1st Bombay Light Infantry. Clearly the captain was Cam’s ancestor.

There were family photographs around the room and many other personal possessions. She found it interesting that he slept here when he was alone, but used a guest room when he had a girlfriend in residence. What would a psychologist make of that? she wondered. That he didn’t want his private space invaded by any woman? That he saw women purely as sex objects and therefore, like kitchen equipment and garden tools, they belonged in certain areas, but not in here?

It was twelve-forty-five and she was about to wash the fruit she was having for lunch when the telephone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘It’s Cam. I just got in. What are you doing for the next couple of hours?’

‘Nothing in particular, but—’

‘Then we’ll go out to lunch. There’s a lot to discuss. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes, OK?’

Taking her consent for granted, he rang off.

Liz flew upstairs to her room, whipped off her house clothes and scrambled into grey gabardine trousers and a grey and white striped silk shirt. Slotting a belt through the loops on the waistband, she stepped into suede loafers, then put on her favourite gold knot earrings, hurriedly slapped on some make-up and re-brushed her hair before pulling it through a black scrunchy.

It was only when she was ready, with a couple of minutes to spare, that she asked herself, What am I doing, making an effort to look good for a man I don’t even like?

There wasn’t time to consider the answer to that question because, remembering that once summer was past the interior of Spanish restaurants could sometimes be chilly if they didn’t have an open fire, she had to whizz back upstairs and grab her red shawl.

She was running downstairs when she heard a knock on the door. She had thought he would pip his car’s horn to alert her to his arrival, but when she stepped into the street he was waiting to open the door for her. Quickly, Liz locked up and slid into the passenger seat. No doubt it was part of a womaniser’s armoury to have impeccable manners, she thought as he bent to pull the safety belt out of its slot and handed her the buckle.

‘Thank you.’ She tried to recall a previous occasion when a man had performed that small extra courtesy but could not remember it ever happening before.

‘So what’s new in Valdecarrasca?’ he asked, as he got in beside her and pulled the other belt across his own broad chest.

‘Nothing…as far as I know. How did your trip go?’

‘I’ve been dashing around the world, covering outbreaks of mayhem, for too long,’ he said, checking his rearview and wing mirrors before pulling away from the kerb. ‘It no longer gives me a buzz, which means it’s time to call it a day and find something more rewarding to do.’

‘What have you in mind?’

‘It would be fun to do a Gerald Seymour.’

‘The name rings a bell but I can’t place him.’

‘He used to be a war reporter. Now he writes excellent thrillers.’

‘Oh, yes…I remember now. My husband used to like his books.’ Not that Duncan had been a bookworm, but when they were going on holiday he would buy a thriller at the airport and often would still be reading it on the flight home.

‘Unfortunately I don’t think I have Seymour’s imaginative powers,’ said Cam, ‘and, although there are exceptions, not many non-fiction writers make a comfortable living. By the way, the house is in the best shape it’s been in since it was new. Your relationship with Alicia is obviously going well.’

‘My Spanish is improving too,’ said Liz. ‘It’s hard to get her to speak really slowly, but we’re managing. I’ve started buying the Saturday edition of El Mundo. It has very good health and history supplements. It takes me all week to read them, but it’s good for my Spanish vocabulary.’

‘There are some Spanish novels on the shelves in the sitting room. If you want to borrow them, or any of the books, feel free,’ Cam told her.

‘That’s very kind of you. If I do, I’ll take good care of them.’

‘If I had any doubts about that, I wouldn’t have suggested it.’ He took his eyes off the road for a moment to smile at her. ‘I don’t give many people the freedom of my library.’

The flattering implication that they were two of a kind, at least as far as books were concerned, was a small breach in her defences that she couldn’t afford to let him repeat.

‘If there are any wonderful restaurants around here, I haven’t discovered them,’ he went on. ‘But Vista del Coll has a good view and the food is passable. Do you know it?’

‘I’ve passed it. I haven’t eaten there.’

‘The clientele is an odd mix of elderly expats and Spanish workmen. At weekends and on fiestas it’s packed with Spanish families. Young couples are reducing the number of children they have, but the different generations of the family still go out in a bunch in a way you don’t often see in the UK,’ he said. ‘I like that.’

Liz made no comment. That she had no children, and probably never would have, was a sadness she had learned to live with. But sometimes, seeing other women with theirs, she felt an ache inside her.

It was only a short drive to the restaurant where, although it was early for lunch by Spanish standards, there were already several cars parked.

‘Would you prefer to eat inside or outside?’ Cam asked, as they mounted the steps to the terrace.

‘It’s such a lovely day, it seems a pity not to make the most of it.’ Liz had left her shawl on the back seat of the car.

‘That’s my feeling too. How about there?’ He indicated a table for four where they would both be able to sit facing the mountains.

Cam was drawing out a chair for her when the proprietor bustled out to greet them. Evidently he remembered Cam from previous visits and the two men—one short and rotund, the other tall and lean—had a conversation in rapid Spanish.

Then the other man gave a smiling bow to Liz and presented her with one of the two menus he was carrying.

‘What about a drink while we’re choosing what to eat?’ Cam said. ‘A glass of vino blanco, perhaps?’

‘I’d rather have a glass of sparkling water.’ She wanted to keep a clear head.

Cam’s left eyebrow rose a fraction, but he didn’t try to persuade her to change her mind.

The menu, she discovered, was set out in several languages. She read the Spanish page, keeping her finger in the English page in case there were dishes she could not translate.

With her bottle of spring water came a glass of white wine for Cam, a basket of crusty bread and a dish of alioli to spread on the bread.

‘When I was in my teens, alioli was always made on the premises,’ he told her. ‘But then an increase in salmonella caused several bad cases of food-poisoning and restaurant hygiene regulations became a lot stricter. Now it’s not homemade any more and doesn’t have the same flavour.’

Liz sipped the refrigerated water and looked at the view. There was no denying that it was nicer being here, sitting in the sun with an interesting companion, than having lunch by herself at home.

‘Were your father and grandfather journalists?’ she asked, remembering what he had told her before, and what she had read about him online.

The question seemed to amuse him. ‘Definitely not, and they didn’t approve of my choice of career. They wanted me to follow them into the foreign service but fate decreed otherwise. Do you believe in fate?’

‘I don’t know. Do you?’

‘No, actually I believe in chance. The chance that led me to break the family tradition happened in Addis Ababa…if you know where that is?’

‘Of course…it’s the capital of Ethiopia in north east Africa.’

‘Your geography is above average. You’d be surprised by how many people I meet who have only the haziest idea where places are outside their own country. It happened during a vacation while I was at college. I was in Ethiopia when a munitions dump blew up, killing a TV reporter and leaving the cameraman and sound recordist without a front man. I persuaded them to let me stand in for the guy who was dead. I had beginner’s luck. The reports we did were good enough to get me a place on the payroll as soon as I got my degree. How did you get your start?’

‘As an office dogsbody. Then I worked up to being PA to the magazine’s crafts editor. Needlework was my hobby. They were always short of good projects and they took some of my ideas. After a bit I was promoted to assistant crafts editor. I might, eventually, have succeeded her. But after…There came a point when I suddenly realised I hated the twice-daily commute and the whole big city thing. I’d had enough of northern winters and unreliable summers.’

‘That’s the way I feel. I’d like to spend nine or ten months of the year here, and the rest of the time networking in London, New York and wherever else I needed to keep up my contacts. That said—’ He broke off as the proprietor came back, expecting to take their order.

When Cam explained they hadn’t decided yet, he gave an accommodating shrug and turned away to greet some new arrivals.

‘We had better make up our minds. What do you fancy?’ said Cam.

‘I’d like to start with a salad and then have the roast lamb, please.’

‘You’ll have some wine with the meal, won’t you?’ Liz nodded. ‘I like wine…but I can’t knock it back like some of the expats I’ve met.’

‘Oh, the drinks party crowd.’ His tone was dismissive. ‘You find them wherever there’s a large foreign community. People who live abroad fall into two groups. One lot thrives in a different culture. The other never feels really comfortable. Have you met Valdecarrasca’s first foreign residents, the Drydens?’

‘I’ve heard them mentioned. I haven’t met them. He’s an American, isn’t he?’

‘Todd is one of those cosmopolitan Americans who has spent more time outside the US than in it. He used to be something important in the oil business and then, in his forties, he had a heart attack and nearly didn’t make it. They decided to downsize their lives and came to Spain, where Leonora discovered she had a genius for doing up derelict fincas and transforming them into desirable residences for well-heeled rain exiles.’

‘They live in that house near the church with cascades of blue morning glory and purple bougainvillaea hanging over the wall, I believe?’

‘That’s right. Leonora bought it years ago, when they were living on the coast near where Todd’s yacht was berthed. She bought up a lot of properties. Prices were much lower then. The hinterland was unfashionable. I expect you’ll be asked to the Drydens’ Christmas party. It’s when they give newcomers the once-over. Those who pass muster are invited again. Those who don’t, aren’t. Leonora doesn’t suffer fools and bores gladly.’

‘She sounds rather daunting,’ said Liz.

‘She’s a doer,’ said Cam. ‘She has no patience with people who aren’t. She’ll be impressed by your courage in coming here on your own.’

‘It wasn’t courage. It was desperation,’ she said lightly. ‘I was in a rut and I had to get out of it.’

Cam signalled to the proprietor, who came back and took his order. When he asked, ‘…y para beber?’ Cam turned to her.

‘Would you like red or white wine? Or they have a good rosado, if you prefer it?’

‘I’m easy,’ she said, without thinking, and then wished she hadn’t. Not that he was likely to read the alternative meaning into her answer. Or was he?

The order completed, Cam picked up her remark about being in a rut. ‘I feel much the same. I don’t know if there’s any scientific basis for the idea that our bodies go through seven-year cycles of change, but I think it’s a good idea to review one’s life every ten years or so. I don’t want to spend my forties the same way I spent my thirties and twenties. It’s been a lot of fun, but now it’s time for something new.’

The wine arrived. Here, Liz noticed, the usual restaurant ritual of pouring a little into the host’s glass and waiting for his approval was ignored. It was taken for granted the wine would be drinkable. This would have disappointed Duncan and her father-in-law, who had both enjoyed the pretence of being connoisseurs. It didn’t seem to bother Cam.

When both their glasses had been filled, he thanked the young waiter and said to her, ‘Here’s to us…an escapee from the rat-race and a would-be escapee.’

Liz responded with a polite smile, not entirely comfortable with a link that seemed tenuous, to say the least.

She was even less comfortable when, after they had both tasted the wine, he proposed a second toast. ‘And to your new venture as a website designer…with me as your first client.’

She put her glass on the table. ‘I think we need to discuss that before we drink to it. That’s why we’re here…to talk business,’ she reminded him.

‘Certainly, but business goes better when it’s combined with pleasure, don’t you think? For me, it’s much more enjoyable having lunch with an attractive, elegant woman than with a teenage or twenty-something techie who knows all the IT answers but not much else.’

Liz decided it was time to put her cards firmly on the table. ‘As long as it’s clearly established that business is where it begins and ends. You have the reputation of being a—’ she searched for the politest term for it ‘—an habitual ladies’ man and, in the last four years, I’ve found that a lot of men think a widow is a sitting target. I just want to make it clear that I’m not.’

As soon as she had made this statement, she felt she had gone too far and the lunch, far from being enjoyable, would be ruined by deep umbrage on his side and acute embarrassment on hers.

‘I’m sorry if that sounded rude. It wasn’t intended to. I only want to avoid any…misunderstanding. It’s not that I have an inflated idea of my attractiveness. I don’t. Compared with Fiona Lincoln…’ She felt she had said enough and left it at that.

While she was speaking, Cam had leaned back in his chair, watching her with an expression she could not interpret. Now the flicker of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.

‘It must be very annoying to have passes made that you haven’t encouraged,’ he said mildly. ‘You’ll be relieved to hear that I never do that. I only make passes at women who indicate, beyond doubt, that they would welcome a closer relationship—and not always then,’ he added dryly. ‘So now you can relax, señora. If I tell you I like your clothes, it will be a straightforward comment like saying that I like the shapes of those mountains—’ with a gesture at the craggy crests to the south of the valley.

At this point, to her relief, their first course arrived. Liz’s salad was more imaginative than the standard Spanish restaurant salad that often consisted of lettuce, tomato, onion and a few olives. Here, the chef had added hard-boiled egg, grated carrot, sweetcorn and pickled red cabbage, the last perhaps a concession to the taste of German patrons.

Cam had chosen canelones and they came in a small round glazed clay dish, hot from the oven or, more likely, the microonda.

A combination bottle containing oil in one section and wine vinegar in the other was on his side of the table, its surface covered by a white paper cloth anchored to the undercloth by plastic clips. Cam passed the bottle to her, and the pepper and salt.

‘Thank you.’ Liz loved olive oil, especially the green-gold first pressing that was not always provided in restaurants, although it was in this one.

Cam said, ‘When my grandparents came to Spain it was easy to get cooks and maids. They had a wonderful cook called Victoria who didn’t only cook the specialities of this region but dishes from the other provinces. Spain is intensely provincial and they all think their ways are the best.’

He spoke as if nothing had happened to disturb the ease of their conversation. He broke off a piece of bread and dipped it into the red sauce covering the three stuffed rolls of pasta that were his starter. Putting the bread in his mouth, he chewed for a moment, then gave a satisfied nod. ‘This isn’t out of a bottle. Now…to business. You asked, in an e-mail, about the purpose of my website. I suppose what I want is a CV, but also something more than that…’ He began to elaborate.

Their discussion of his requirements went on through the rest of the meal, only occasionally interrupted by remarks on other topics.

He had also chosen lamb for his main course and, when it was served, Liz said, ‘One of the things I love about living here is going up to my roof and seeing a shepherd and his flock and his dogs passing somewhere near the village.’

‘Have you noticed how they lead their flocks, not drive them? As a boy, I knew a shepherd. He was a gentle sort of guy who hated having to take his sheep to the matadero, the slaughter-house.’

‘At least they enjoy their lives while they are alive,’ said Liz. ‘It bothers me when animals are kept in unnatural conditions. Do you eat out a lot when you’re here? I’m sure Alicia would cook for you, if you wanted it.’

‘I can cook, if I need to. Victoria taught me how to make a caldo and a tortilla. Sometimes foreign correspondents find themselves stuck in situations where they need practical skills as well as the gift of the gab.’

He topped up her glass, making Liz suddenly aware that the bottle was three-quarters empty and he hadn’t had the lion’s share. She had drunk more than she’d intended and must be careful to make this glassful last. She had never had enough to make her tight and wasn’t sure what her limit was.

‘I don’t do puddings,’ said Cam, when their plates were being removed. ‘But don’t let that put you off. The flan here is home-made, not served in a plastic pot.’

‘I don’t do puddings either. Too many calories. Why don’t you eat them?’

‘I’m a cheese man, and generally speaking the cheeses of Spain aren’t wonderful. Cabrales, a goat’s cheese wrapped in leaves, is good, but it’s rare to find it in restaurants and you don’t see it often in supermarkets.’ His glance took in as much of her figure as he could see. ‘You don’t look as if you have a weight problem.’

‘I don’t, but I think I might if I didn’t watch it. I walk on the lanes through the vineyards every day, but that, and a bit of gardening, is not a great deal of exercise. Most of the time, I’m sitting.’

‘Talking of the garden, let’s go back and have our coffee there. I have some ideas for improving it that I’d like your opinion on.’ He signalled for the bill.

In the light of his assurance that he never made passes without encouragement, and assuming he was a man of his word, Liz had no grounds for feeling uneasy about going back to his place for coffee in the middle of the day. It would have been different at night, but then it was most unlikely they would ever have dinner together. Nevertheless she did feel slightly uneasy. Mainly, perhaps, because he was agreeable company and she didn’t trust herself to remain impervious to his charm if they were together too often.

When they reached his house, he said, ‘Sit tight while I open the garage.’

He unlocked the metal up-and-over door and swung it open. Earlier, watching him eat, she had wondered how he kept fit. Inside the garage, she saw a mountain bike and a shelf bearing several pairs of heavy walking boots.

Before he closed the outer door of the garage, Cam unlocked the door to the terrace for her. She did not offer to help with the coffee but left him to deal with it while she went down to the steps to the garden and settled herself on one of the two park benches with metal arms and wooden seats. The bench at the west end of the garden was close to two huge lavender bushes that were in flower with a score of bees working on them.

She had sometimes sat on this bench for a few minutes at the end of her gardening sessions. She wondered what changes he wanted to make, and then her thoughts drifted back to the garden of the suburban semi-detached where she and Duncan had lived together for thirteen years, slightly more than a third of her lifetime.

Cam came down the steps carrying a folding table that he set up in front of the bench. Soon afterwards he reappeared with a tray. As well as the coffee things there were two liqueur glasses and a bottle on it. Liz’s doubts about his intentions reactivated.

‘I mustn’t stay long. What are your ideas for the garden?’ she asked.

Instead of answering the question, he said, ‘What’s your hurry? Why not relax for the rest of the afternoon?’ He checked the stainless steel watch that circled his muscular wrist. ‘It’s past three o’clock now.’

‘I want to type out the things we discussed about your website while they’re still clear in my head.’

‘I can save you the trouble. I’ll send you a copy of my notes. Is it OK to send them as an attachment, or do you regard e-mail attachments in the same light as unprotected sex?’

She knew then that he thought her a prude, and perhaps she was, because, coming from him, even a joking reference to sex made her uneasy.

Forcing herself to sound composed, she said, ‘I certainly wouldn’t open an attachment sent by a stranger, or with come-ons like “Free” or “Win a million dollars” in the subject line. But I’m sure your computer is effectively virus-protected.’

‘It’s protected. How effectively I’m not sure. The hackers seem to invent new viruses faster than the anti-virus guys can pile up the barricades.’

While they were talking he had been pouring the coffee. After placing a cup in front of her, he put a glass alongside it and reached for the bottle.

‘Not for me, thank you,’ said Liz.

‘You don’t like liqueurs…or you don’t like poire William.’

‘I’ve never tried it, but I think any more alcohol might give me a headache.’

‘You’ve only had three glasses of wine. That’s not heavy drinking, especially with meat and two veg. Come on, let me give you a small one.’

‘I don’t want it, Cam. Please don’t press me.’

‘I shouldn’t dream of pressing you to do anything you didn’t want to.’ He took the glass away from her cup and placed it next to his own, pouring a generous measure of the liqueur for himself. ‘But your nervousness does make me wonder what you’ve been told about me. Am I accused of luring respectable women into my garden and plying them with potent liqueurs before attempting to have my wicked way with them?’

Liz grabbed the strap of the shoulder bag she had hung on the back of the bench. Jumping up, she said crossly, ‘If you’re going to take that tack, I’m going home…now.’

She was halfway to the steps when he hooked his hand in the bend of her elbow and stopped her. As, angrily, she swung to face him, he said, ‘You’re making a fuss about nothing. I was only teasing you.’

‘I’m not amused,’ she said hotly.

And then, as they faced each other, her indignation evaporated, replaced by a different and unfamiliar emotion.

For a long, tense moment they looked at each other and she saw his expression change from a smile to a look she could not define or describe.

All she knew was that, for several seconds, some kind of current was switched on and flowed between them.

Then he released her arm and said quietly, ‘Come back and drink your coffee and let’s talk about the garden.’

Dazed and disturbed by what she had just experienced, Liz returned to the bench and sat down. As if nothing had happened, Cam began to outline his ideas. Forcing herself to concentrate, she listened to him.

‘The last time I was here, I went to a party in a garden where the owners had made clever use of a large piece of mirror glass. They’d placed it so that it appeared to be an ivyclad archway leading to another garden. Do you think we could copy that here?’

Liz drank some coffee and thought about the suggestion. ‘You would have to try it out with a small piece of mirror. I go to the rastro at Benimoro most Saturdays. I could probably pick up a mirror for a few hundred pesetas.’

‘Could you? That would be great.’ He explained his other ideas, one of which involved getting a local builder to construct a walled bed for shrubs against the side of the terrace.

Eventually the conversation came to a natural end and when Liz got up to go he did not attempt to detain her.

She left by way of the house in order for Cam to give her a Time magazine he had bought for his flight down and thought she might like to read.

She had turned the corner into the short length of downhill street that connected his street and her street when she encountered a middle-aged woman she knew by sight who was holding a baby in one of the quilted bags in which recently born infants were often carried about.

By now Liz knew that baby girls could be recognised by the earrings they wore from soon after birth. The appropriate comment was an admiring, ‘Qué guapa!’ if the child was female or, in the absence of earrings, the masculine form of the word meaning pretty or handsome.

Often the babies were beautiful only to their parents and grandparents, but this tiny boy was a charmer with large dark eyes and a mop of quite thick black hair. As Liz touched his petal-soft cheek with a gentle finger, a wave of sadness washed over her.

She controlled her feelings until she was safely indoors, but then the repressed emotion welled up again and she found herself in tears. It was most unlike her to cry. Perhaps it was partly reaction to the stresses of lunching with Cam. But mostly it was the reminder that in a few years it would be too late for her to have a baby of her own.

She had wanted to start a family two years after her marriage, though Duncan had been less keen. When she was twenty-five, after tests, her doctor had assured her there was no medical reason for her failure to conceive. At his suggestion, Duncan had undergone tests. The results had shown that the only way they could have children was by adoption, which her husband had not wished to do.

She was drying her eyes and pulling herself together when there was a knock on the door. She expected the caller to be the woman across the street who, if the postman left a package on Liz’s doorstep while she was out, would take charge of it till she returned. But when she opened the door, it was Cam who stood outside.

‘You forgot your shawl,’ he said, handing it to her.

‘Oh…thank you. I’m sorry you had the bother of bringing it down. Thank you very much.’ Was her mascara smudged? Would he see she had been crying? Flustered, she closed the door.

Cam walked back to La Higuera wondering what had made her cry. She didn’t seem the weepy type. He felt sure it had nothing to do with her angry flare-up in the garden. It would take more than that to reduce her to tears. Anyway, by the time she left that had been smoothed over.

He remembered that when, during lunch, he had asked her about her working life in England, she had spoken of the probability that she would have succeeded the crafts editor. She had started to say ‘But after…’ and then paused and begun again with ‘There came a point when I suddenly realised…’




Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/anne-weale/a-spanish-honeymoon/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.