Free Man of Destiny by Rose Burghley Page B

moment Richard was a major concern of his, and therefore he had automatically become a major concern of hers. She was full of plans for a picnic into the surrounding sierra, and intimated that she would fix a day and time. Then she departed, her dark eyes smiling as if she was very well aware that she had gone halfway to fulfilling a duty, and left behind that exotic smell of violets that Caroline found cloying, although violets, as it happened, were her favourite flowers.
    Il se wrote again rather mysteriously. Don’t be surprised at anything that happens! Give my love to Richard!
    Richard received it without much enthusiasm.
    “I thought she was going to get married,” he said, looking up at Caroline in faint perplexity. “She promised to send me a piece of wedding-cake!
    “Did she?” The promise struck Caroline as in rather bad taste. “But I don’t think she is going to get married after all,” she explained. “At least, in her last letter she said that the marriage was off.”
    “Then that means I won’t have a stepfather after all?”
    “Do you mind?” slipping an arm behind his shoulders and drawing him against her.
    Richard shook his head.
    “No, of course I don’t. I probably wouldn’t have seen much of him in any case,” philosophically. “And if I’ve got to have a stepfather I’d rather have someone—different.”
    She looked down at him, startled.
    “How do you mean ? Different ? ”
    Richard’s beautifully marked, slim black brows knitted themselves together. He shook his head, as if he was slightly surprised at himself.
    “Well, my father wasn’t a very tall man, but he was kind—and he was dark. Like me !” He touched a lock of his dark hair. “Dom Vasco is dark like me.” Caroline felt even more startled.
    “But I didn’t even know you liked Dom Vasco—” she was beginning, when a car driven at speed raced up the drive, and emerging from the arbour where they had been reading poetry together they saw Dom Vasco leap out of a neat white coupe that he had been driving himself and stand for a moment in the white-hot sunshine on the drive, looking about him impatiently as if anxious to discover where they were.
    When he saw them advancing towards him from the arbour, hand in hand, he quite obviously heaved a sigh of relief. He started to stride briskly to meet them.
    “Good morning, Senhorita Worth,” he called out clearly. “Good morning, Ricardo !” Then he delivered his bombshell. “The Marques de Fonteira is on his way here from Estoril, and he is bringing with him a guest.” His glance dwelt for a moment on Richard.
    “ It is the boy’s mother. She flew out from England forty-eight hours ago, and will stay for a while in Portugal to be near her son.” A certain dryness invaded his tone as his eyes returned to Caroline, and for several seconds they met and held her astounded sea-blue ones. “It would seem, after all, that she is not to marry again. The Marques is very pleased about that, as he believes that a mother has prior claim to her child. Would you say,” still more drily, “that mother-love has triumphed after all?”
    Caroline found it difficult to answer him, for, although she was surprised, the astonishment she might have felt was lessened by the fact that she had recently received two letters from Ilse, and in each of those letters she had professed the utmost concern for her son’s welfare. She had even, apparently, gone so far as to break off her engagement because the arrangement that deprived her of Richard had suddenly appeared to her as not quite satisfactory ... Or had the glimpse she had obtained of Dom Vasco, when he collected the child on the ship, anything to do with it ?
    “I suppose it’s quite natural ... that she should disli ke being parted from Richard,” she offered as explanation, but Dom Vasco was obviously not impressed, for his eyes remained cold and critical. “After all,” she added, “he is her only child.”
    “He has