Free The black invader by Rebecca Stratton Page B

solitariness by listening to Kirstie's account of the happenings at Casa de Rodriguez when she came home.
    She had been working for Enrique for two weeks and she now had a routine pretty well established, both at home and in the office. Preparing and cooking meals fitted in quite well with working hours, although she had much less free time than she once had. Her grandfather neither offered nor was expected to make any contribution to the running of the house, but on the whole things worked out very well.
    \yhile she dished out cod steaks in tomato sauce, Kirstie passed on the latest piece of gossip from Casa de Rodriguez, and Don Jose showed his usual interest. 'Did you know that Seiior Montaiies has his daughter-in-law and his granddaughter coming this evening?' she asked, and her grandfather shook his head, obviously interested. 'They're coming for a month, apparently.'
    'I've often wondered if he had a family apart from his nephews,' he observed. 'A daughter-in-law, you say?'
    Kirstie nodded. 'His only son was killed three years ago in the same crash that killed Luis's parents and crippled Seiior Montafies himself, and apparently he was his only child. He has the daughter-in-law to stay with him because he likes to see his granddaughter, but I gather from Luis that the daughter-in-law isn't very popular and she won't let the girl come alone.'
    'The fact that the mother comes too suggests that she's a dutiful daughter-in-law,' Don Jose suggested, but Kirstie smiled as she handed him his plate.

    'According to Luis the attraction is Miguel,' she told him, and noticed the way her grandfather frowned over her flippancy. 'Apparently Rosa Montanes has always— liked Miguel, and since her husband was killed she's made quite a play for him.'
    'It seems to me,' Don Jose remarked disapprovingly, 'that Don Luis is being very indiscreet about his family's affairs. Even if it is true that Seiiora Montanes wants to marry again, and would prefer it to be Don Miguel, he shouldn't talk about it to a stranger. I'm quite sure Seiior Montanes wouldn't like it if he knew.'
    'Probably he wouldn't.' For a moment Kirstie's eyes gleamed with malicious mischief as she looked across at him. 'I should think Don Miguel would like it even less!'
    'Kirstie!'
    For once she ignored the rebuke, caught up in the prospect of Seiior Montanes' unpopular daughter-in-law pursuing Miguel with marriage in mind. Not for a moment did she consider that he might be a willing victim, it simply seemed to her a kind of poetic justice after some of the remarks he had made recently about her own marriage plans.
    'Unless of course she's tall and thirtyish and sophisticated,' she went on. 'According to Luis that's the type Miguel prefers.' He had also told Luis that she herself was lovely—enchanting was his description, according to his brother, but she kept that strictly to herself. A curiously satisfying secret that she wished Luis did not share.
    'That young man gossips too much,' Don Jose insisted, 'and you shouldn't encourage him, my child, it's very wrong.'
    'I can't stop him talking,' she objected. 'And incidentally, he's warned me to expect fireworks while she's here; something to do with me being Senor Montanes' secretary, he says, although I can't imagine why it should bother her who her father-in-law's secretary is.'
    .Her grandfather was slightly more speculative than

    critical, she realised when she looked across at him, and she frowned at him curiously. 'Could it be because there could be a certain amount of—jealousy?' he suggested. *You are, after all, frequently in contact with Don Miguel, my child.'
    Despite her efforts, Kirstie knew she coloured furiously. That's most unlikely,' she insisted. 'Firstly because if I'm—friendly with anyone it's Luis, not Miguel, and I don't see Miguel nearly often enough to give even the most jealous lover grounds for suspicion!'
    Her grandfather said nothing, but his expression was thoughtful, and she thanked heaven