CHAPTER EIGHT.

If Marcos's visit the previous day had been a surprise to her, Holly was even more stunned when Aunt Nan came in the following afternoon, to see that she was accompanied by Helena. 'A visitor to see you, baby,' her aunt announced as she came into the room, and it was easy to see that the visit was none of her choosing, and that she was plainly uneasy about it. 'Do you feel like visitors?' she asked, and Holly inclined her head, unsure just how to respond to that question without being rude. Helena Mendez was the last person she wanted, or had expected to see, but she could scarcely say as much.

Helena looked as stunningly eye-catching as always, and the sight of her did nothing to rea.s.sure Holly that some ulterior motive did not lay behind the visit. Her tall figure was flattered and revealed by a dress of clinging dark blue silk that wisped about her elegant long legs when she walked, and she wore a wide-brimmed hat over her black hair, the same blue as the dress, and with a band of pale blue and white chiffon circling the crown.

She looked smart and elegant and as hard as iron, and Holly's heart was already beating a little faster when she looked up at that dark, unfriendly face. 'It's good of you to come, Senorita Mendez,' Holly murmured politely.

Helena's black eyes went to the mound under the bedclothes where Holly's left leg bulged with its plaster cast. 'You have a broken leg?' she asked.

'Holly also has concussion from a bad bang on her head,' Aunt Nan told her, before Holly could answer for herself. 'She needs to rest a lot, Helena.'

Helena inclined her head, but showed no signs of expressing regret at having disturbed her, or sympathy for her injuries, and Holly wondered what on earth lay behind the visit. Certainly not concern for Holly's health, of that she was certain.

Aunt Nan looked anxious, as well she might, Holly thought ruefully, for in the circ.u.mstances Helena was even more likely than usual to have the upper hand Holly was vulnerable enough to her brand of malice when she was on her feet and in full command of her faculties, but being confined to bed and conscious of the clumsy hump of her plastered leg beneath the covers, she felt completely helpless.

'You are recovering, I understand,' Helena said. She stood beside the bed and from Holly's half sitting position in it, looked to be even taller than usual.

Holly nodded, her eyes wary. 'Yes - thank you, senorita.'

'Bueno! Then soon you will be fit enough to travel, si?'

The reason for the unexpected visit was quite clear suddenly, and Holly almost smiled when she realized it. Helena had obviously only just learned the truth at last; that Holly had been on the point of leaving when the accident occurred, and she could well imagine what a bitter pill it must have been for her to swallow, realizing that but for her own vicious action, Holly might have been gone a week ago.

'I hope to be fit enough very soon now,' Holly agreed. She was finding it very hard not to enjoy the thought of how Helena must be feeling, but even such a minor sense of revenge was rather sweet, and she felt quite ent.i.tled to it in the circ.u.mstances.

Helena turned to Aunt Nan after a moment or two of rather telling silence, but her smile was a mere caricature of friendliness. 'Please do not let me detain you, Senora Delgaro,' she said in her smoothest voice. 'I know Don Jose will be wanting you, and I would like to speak with Senorita Gilmour for a few moments, that is all.'

She might have been dismissing a servant, Holly thought, instead of her hostess, and she saw the way her aunt frowned. 'It is time for Jose's tablets,' she said, but was obviously loath to leave Holly to Helena's mercy. 'But - I think perhaps Holly would like me to stay, would you, baby?'

Helena's lip curled derisively at them both, and her black brows flicked upwards in a scornful arch. It was obvious that she interpreted their fears all too easily. 'You need have no fears for the safety of your niece, senora,' she said. 'I wish only to speak with her.'

'Yes, of course you do,' Aunt Nan allowed, quietly. 'But please don't stay too long, Helena. Visitors aren't really very good for Holly at the moment.'

'You do not trust me, senora!' Helena asked softly, and her black eyes challenged Aunt Nan to deny it. 'I can a.s.sure you that I have only the interests of your niece at heart, Senora Delgaro.'

Aunt Nan looked from Helena to Holly, seeking a solution and apparently finding none but to leave them alone. It was difficult for her to refuse to leave them, Holly could see that, but just the same she faced the idea of her aunt's departure with a cold sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

'Will you be all right for a few moments, Holly dear?' her aunt asked, and Holly could do nothing else but nod agreement. Anything else would have branded her as afraid of being alone with Helena and, while it was true to a certain extent, she was unwilling to admit it, especially to Helena.

'Yes, of course I'll be all right, Aunt Nan,' she said. 'You go and see about Tio Jose's tablets.'

Holly seldom claimed the relationship with her host so openly, and she saw Helena frown over her familiarity, but she felt that in some way it put her in a stronger position. Holly was already part of the family, however remotely, while Helena still sought admission to it.

'All right, darling, I'll see you a little later.' Aunt Nan smoothed professional hands over the bedcovers, and brushed back Holly's hair from her forehead in the same soothing motion. 'Don't get too wound up, dear, will you?' she said, half under her breath, and Holly smiled at her.

'I'll try not to,' she promised.

If only Helena would sit down, Holly thought, she would not appear so overpoweringly tall as she stood beside the bed, and she tried to persuade her to do so as soon as the door had closed behind her aunt.

'Please sit down, Senorita Mendez,' she suggested, indicating a chair some distance away, but Helena shook her head, frowning impatiently.

'I prefer to stand,' she said, and narrowed her dark eyes as she looked down at Holly. 'I did not realize that you had intended to leave so soon,' she said after a moment of speculative scrutiny. 'You told no one that you were going.'

There was to be no preliminary sparring, it seemed. Helena meant to have everything out in the open from the start, and somehow Holly found it almost a relief. 'I told Aunt Nan and Don Jose,' she said quietly. 'I didn't consider it necessary to tell anyone else my plans, senorita.'

'You did not think that Marcos should be told?'

The black eyes were narrowed, challenging, and Holly lowered her own when she remembered her reasons for not wanting Marcos to know she was going. 'I didn't think it was necessary,' she agreed.

'Why?'

The one word was almost spat at her, and Holly looked up swiftly, startled by the vehemence of the question. 'I - I just didn't think so, that's all,' she said.

'Hah!' Again the vehemence of the reply made Holly blink. 'You did not tell Marcos, I think,' Helena said, 'because you would wish that he would ask you to stay on if you did, huh?'

'I did nothing-' Holly began, but Helena dismissed the interruption with a disdainful hand.

'You could not bear the thought of being wrong about it,' she went on. 'To have to face the fact that Marcos would not care when or how you went, so you did not tell him about it!'

That's not true!' Holly denied quickly, and hoped her voice sounded more convincing to Helena than it did to herself.

'Pah! I do not believe you!'

It was difficult, in the face of such provocation, but Holly held her temper firmly in check, and sat with her hands in front of her, held tightly together. 'That's your privilege, Senorita Mendez,' she said quietly, and Helena stared at her for a moment, obviously puzzled by her lack of response.

Then she clamped her lips tightly together, and a faint flush coloured the olive skin over her high cheekbones. 'I also understand that you accuse me of being responsible for your accident,' she said, seeking another tack, since her first had failed to have the desired effect. Her black eyes glittered angrily and Holly noticed how much more p.r.o.nounced her accent seemed than usual. 'You are foolish to make such accusations, sucia! No one will believe you!'

'I've already discovered that,' Holly admitted frankly. 'But it makes no difference to the truth, Senorita Mendez. I know it was you and so do you, but since I have no intention of suing you for dangerous driving or anything else, it doesn't really matter whether anyone else believes it or not.'

For a moment Helena's dark eyes regarded her suspiciously. 'You do not mean to go to the policial she asked, and Holly shook her head.

'No,' she said. 'It would hurt too many other people if I pursued it to the bitter end.' She looked at Helena steadily. 'Not that I wouldn't like to,' she added.

'Without proof? You would not dare to!' Helena declared confidently, and Holly faced the fact ruefully.

But it was not the fact that she had no proof that made her think as she did, and she wanted Helena to know it. 'Possibly not,' she said. 'But I really wouldn't like innocent parties to suffer just so that I could have my revenge on you, Senorita Mendez.'

'No?' She was obviously not believed.

'No,' Holly insisted. 'For myself I'd make you pay for the - the barbaric way you ran me down, but anything I did to you would hurt Aunt Nan and Don Jose, and I wouldn't want that to happen.' She looked up through the thickness of her lashes, watching for the reaction she felt was bound to come. 'And most of all I'd hate to hurt Marcos,' she added quietly.

She drew a sharp breath suddenly when she caught sight of the look in Helena's eyes, for it was something of a shock to realize for the first time in her life that someone actually hated her; hated her with an intensity that made her shiver.

She stared up at Helena and a small, cold flutter of panic clutched at her stomach when she remembered how helpless she was. Helena Mendez was tall, and probably a powerful, woman. If she was capable of handling those temperamental Arab horses of Marcos's, she would be more than capable of dealing with Holly, in her present position.

Helena said nothing for a moment, but her eyes glittered like jet in the olive smoothness of her face. Then she reached out suddenly and took a handful of Holly's dark hair, doing nothing more at first than twine it round her long fingers. Then the grip tightened suddenly and without warning and she twisted hard.

'Usted se ha equivocado, rustica,' she said softly, between tightly clenched teeth 'Lo siento!'

Holly bit her lip hard, not to cry out, but she instinctively put up her own hands to try and loosen that merciless grip in her hair. The b.u.mp on the back of her head made her scalp still tender enough to hurt with a sickening pain when it was subjected to such treatment, and she could feel the tears already running from her eyes and down her cheeks as she struggled to free herself.

'Let go!' she whispered huskily, clawing at the cruel fingers still gripping her hair. 'Please let go!'

'Rustica perra!' Helena twisted again, and Holly let out a cry, fighting to free herself.

'Let me go!' she begged, unable to do anything against the superior strength of the other girl, and Helena laughed shortly.

'I will let you go!' she said harshly, and gave another sharp tug before she released her. 'But be warned, perra,' she added. 'Do not dare to look at Marcos again. Comprende?'

Holly said nothing. Her voice was choked with the tears of anger and frustration as well as pain, that poured down her cheeks unchecked. She held her throbbing head in both hands, covering her eyes and leaning back against the pillows. But her hands were pulled roughly away from her eyes after only a moment, and through the haze of tears she saw Helena bending over her, those glittering black eyes hovering like a threat above her. An enveloping wave of some heavy, exotic perfume made Holly feel suddenly nauseated, both by the perfume and the woman who wore it.

'Did you hear me, perra?' Helena demanded, and Holly nodded, although she immediately regretted the movement and clutched her aching head again. 'Then you will go!' Helena told her in a cold harsh voice. 'As soon as you are well enough to travel, you will leave here and never come back again!'

For a moment Holly merely looked at her, swallowing hard on the humiliation of being so helpless, of being so angry and yet unable to do anything about it. 'I want to go,' she insisted, her voice husky and unsteady. 'I would have gone a week ago, if you hadn't done this to me! It's your fault I'm still here!'

'Si, that was a mistake I made.' Helena stood upright beside the bed again. Her tall, shapely figure and arrogant bearing, the ruthlessness of her anger, gave her a kind of savage grandeur, and even Holly, for all her own misery, was forced to recognize that such a woman would make a fitting mate for Marcos's hawklike pride, unbearable as the idea was.

She would give him tall, dark Spanish sons to carry on the Delgaro name into yet another century, and they would, in their turn, marry women like Helena Mendez because it was what they were meant to do. And if they too made occasional and casual love to some visiting English girl - well, it was a well established precedent, and why shouldn't they?

Holly shook her head, bringing herself out of a reverie that did nothing to ease her own misery, and almost overlooking the fact that Helena had finally admitted to being responsible for her accident.

'You - you've admitted it!' she said, watching Helena with half closed eyes, almost too tired to care. 'You admitted that you knocked me down and - and just drove off!'

Helena shrugged her elegant shoulders, evidently considering herself safe enough in admitting it, while there was no one but Holly to hear her. 'Why should I not admit I knocked you down?' she asked. 'As you have discovered, no one will believe it but you. I only regret that I did not know you were leaving so soon.'

Holly stared at her, still not quite able to grasp the fact that someone could actually hate her enough to do anything as deliberately callous. 'You - you really meant to hurt me?' she said, and Helena shrugged again.

'I meant for you to be - how is it? - scared. Scared enough to leave here.'

It was ironic really, Holly thought, and almost smiled. 'But it misfired,' she said. 'I'm still here.' She leaned back wearily against the softness of the pillows and closed her eyes, wishing with all her heart that Helena would go and leave her in peace.

'You are still here, but you are up here where no one sees you,' Helena said, and her ignorance of Marcos's visits gave Holly a certain grim satisfaction. 'Up here,' Helena went on, 'you cannot force your infantil co- queteria upon Marcos.' Her voice became soft and menacing again, and the smile that showed her excellent teeth owed nothing at all to good humour. 'And should you try to do so again when you are recovered,' she said, 'then I shall show you, sucia, just how much I can hurt you! Comprende?'

Holly said nothing, there was nothing she could say in the face of such unrelenting malice, and she turned her head hopefully in the direction of the door, when it opened, closing her eyes in a brief prayer of relief when she saw her aunt standing there.

Aunt Nan looked almost as if she could guess something of what had taken place during her absence, and she frowned at the glisten of tears in Holly's eyes and the pale, drawn look of her face. Then she came across to the bed and looked at Helena steadily, her small, plump figure drawn up to its full height and her blue eyes shining with determination.

'I think it's time you left, Helena,' she told her. 'Holly's obviously not at all well, and I don't think your being here is doing anything at all to help. Please leave now. You'll find Marcos downstairs.'

If Helena's dismissal of her had been summary, Aunt Nan's banishment of Helena was even more crushing, and it looked for a moment as if Helena would object to it, but then she gave a last malicious look at Holly and stalked haughtily out of the room, banging the door firmly behind her. For a moment after she had gone Aunt Nan stood looking at the closed door, then she turned slowly and looked down at Holly.

Her blue eyes were gentle and curious, but speculative too, as she put a soothing hand on Holly's brow. 'What happened, darling?' she asked quietly, and Holly felt on the verge of tears again when she thought of all that had taken place, and how unlikely it was that her aunt would believe half of what she told her.

'She admitted it,' she said huskily. 'She admitted to running me down in her car, Aunt Nan, because she said she knew no one would believe it.'

Her aunt sat down on the edge of the bed, and for a moment or two she studied Holly's drawn face with anxious and uncertain eyes, then she reached out and covered her hands gently. 'Did you accuse her, Holly?' she asked.

'She raised the subject herself, Aunt Nan,' Holly said. 'I didn't. She raised several matters, in fact, including the reason she did it.'

'Did she, darling?' The gentle hands encouraged her, but there was still a look of doubt in her aunt's kind, friendly face, and Holly shook her head, although it cost her dear to do so.

'It doesn't matter,' she said in a soft, resigned voice. She leaned her head back on the pillows and closed her eyes against the tears that were already starting again. 'You wouldn't believe that, either.'

It was another two days before Doctor Valdare considered Holly fit enough to get up and two more before he allowed her downstairs. Anxious as she was to be on her feet again, she viewed the prospect of facing them all again with some trepidation.

It seemed to Holly that nearly two weeks was rather a long time to have been kept in bed for only a minor concussion. The broken leg would have healed as well if she simply rested it, and it occurred to her that perhaps Aunt Nan had thought it best if she spent as much of her recovery time as possible away from contact with Helena, and had persuaded the doctor to see it too.

Holly had to admit that she looked forward to seeing Marcos again, but the prospect of Helena gave her much less pleasure. It was with mixed feelings, therefore, that she prepared for her first day downstairs.

She had dressed herself slowly, realizing for the first time how much twelve days in bed had weakened her.

She still looked rather pale, but it was a creamy paleness that flattered rather than detracted from her looks, and her eyes looked deep blue and huge between their fringe of dark lashes. A brief dress of rose pink with a demure little girl collar gave her a fragile and feminine look and she smiled as she took a last look at herself in the long mirror. Only the heavy plaster cast on her left leg struck a jarring note, and she frowned at it in dislike.

There was a soft tap on her bedroom door and she turned to smile a welcome at her aunt. But it wasn't Aunt Nan who opened the door and stood smiling at her, it was Marcos, and she felt the sudden wild leap her heart gave at the sight of him. It seemed so much longer than six days since she had seen him and she was almost surprised to see him unchanged.

He wore slim-fitting dark blue trousers and a cream silk shirt, and instinctively her eyes sought that glimpse of deep golden chest and the first shadowy darkness of black hair where the shirt fastened. She shook her head slowly when he came across the room to her, remembering his parting words to her - that she was a dream he could not afford to have too often.

'You - you shouldn't be here,' she told him, her voice sounding dismayingly unsteady.

Marcos smiled, that rare and devastating smile, and his black eyes held hers steadily as he looked down at her. 'I came to fetch you, nina,' he said softly.

'Oh!' She sat with her hands held tightly together on her lap, trying to control the impulse to lift up her arms to him, accept any excuse to have him hold her close to him. 'Do - do they know you're here?' she asked, and Marcos c.o.c.ked a questioning brow at her, surveying her curiously, his hands on his hips.

'If by they, you refer to my father and Dona Ana,' he said softly, 'yes, nina, they know I am here.'

'Oh, I see!' Apparently in this instance his coming to her room was not taken amiss, although she could not imagine that Aunt Nan had thought it a good idea.

'I persuaded them,' he told her, with a smile, as if he guessed what she was thinking. 'You have that clumsy cast on your leg and you could not be expected to walk down so many stairs when you have not walked at all for so long.' His eyes glittered a challenge at her, daring her to refuse to let him carry her, and she hastily lowered her gaze again.

'As it happens I can walk quite well,' she told him. 'I was practising all day yesterday and the day before. I'll make it all right'

Marcos said nothing for a second, then he reached out his hands and put them on her shoulders, standing close enough to play havoc with her senses as he worked that special kind of magnetism he always did on her. His palms were warm through the thin cotton dress and his fingers moved caressingly, kneading gently at her shoulders, his thumbs smoothing softly against her neck.

'You have spent almost two weeks in bed, mi pichon,' he said quietly, his voice, as well as those hypnotic fingers, seeking to persuade her. "You must be as weak as a baby, and yet you would rather struggle with that clumsy plaster cast than let me carry you Why, mi tonta nina?'

Holly was shaking her head, partly to rid herself of the wild impulses that were making her head spin, and making it hard to resist laying her face against those caressing hands. 'Is - is Helena down there?' she asked huskily, and felt the fingers tighten on her shoulders suddenly until they dug into her.

'Helena is not here,' he said quietly, after several moments. 'And I cannot think why it should matter to you if she was.'

Holly looked up at him reproachfully. He must surely see how wrong that was, unless he refused to see things in any other way but the one that suited him. 'Marcos, you know it would matter,' she told him, and he shrugged.

'You are my cousin, and I cannot see why anyone would object if I carry you downstairs when you cannot walk. You are making mountains, Holly.'

'Out of molehills,' Holly supplied automatically, and raised her eyes to look at him. 'And I'm not your cousin at all, Marcos, not really. You know perfectly well I'm not, you just say that to - to-'

'Si?3 Marcos prompted softly, and dug his fingers into her shoulders hard enough to make her shrug them in protest. 'What are you accusing me of now?' Marcos prompted softly, and dug his fingers into her shoulders hard enough to make her shrug them in protest. 'What are you accusing me of now?'