The South American's Wife. Kay Thorpe
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a low-pitched ringing that turned out to be the telephone on the bedside cabinet.
‘How are you feeling?’ Luiz asked.
‘Better,’ she said, referring to the headache not the inner turbulence. ‘What time is it?’
‘Gone ten o’clock. You missed breakfast, but I can have something brought to the room.’
She wasn’t hungry, Karen started to say, breaking off as her stomach growled a protest. ‘Give me ten minutes,’ she said instead.
‘What would you like?’
‘Fruit and coffee will be fine.’
She put the receiver down, wondering how she could speak so calmly and collectedly when her insides were dancing a fandango at the mere sound of his voice. They’d made love the night before her departure, he’d said yesterday. If it was the truth, whatever had gone wrong between them hadn’t affected her physical responses even at that point.
Showered, she donned the white robe and went to open up the balcony doors with the intention of eating outside. She closed them again hastily on feeling the sticky heat, glad of the cool blast from the air-conditioning vents. São Paulo was far less humid than this, Luiz had said; she could be glad of that at least.
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a waiter with a table trolley containing far more than the items she had requested. Luiz followed the man in, despatching him with what appeared to be a whole handful of banknotes. It was unlikely to be payment on the spot in a place like this, Karen concluded, so it had to be a tip. Generous or not, she had no way of knowing.
He was wearing the suit from last night, this time with a black shirt. Opened a little lower at the neckline than the night before, it revealed a fine gold chain bearing a small medal, the latter nestling amidst a curly mat of hair.
‘I only asked for fruit and coffee,’ she said, pulse rate increasing by the minute. She indicated the cereal, the covered tureen containing who knew what, the rolls and preserves. ‘I can’t eat all that!’
From the look in the dark eyes, her instinctive move to tighten the tie belt of the robe had not gone unnoted, though he made no comment. ‘It’s of no consequence,’ he declared. ‘The choice is there should you change your mind. I’ll take coffee with you.’
Feeling distinctly vulnerable, she poured for them both, leaving his black as he’d requested the previous night. Luiz accepted the cup from her to set it down on the small table at the side of a nearby chair.
‘I reserved seats on the one-thirty shuttle to São Paulo,’ he announced without preamble. ‘You were right last night. Attempting to recreate our beginnings is a waste of time and effort. All we can do is return to Guavada and hope for an eventual cure.’
Karen took a couple of deep swallows from her own cup before answering, needing the stimulant. ‘What do we tell your sister?’
‘She already knows about the amnesia. I spoke to her earlier. She sends her love, and hopes to help in your recovery.’
‘And the others?’
‘Regina is to pass on the news. If you’re concerned for what Beatriz might say, you can rest assured of her silence,’ he added hardily.
‘You think she won’t even have told your brother the real reason I went?’
He hesitated. ‘Perhaps that would be asking a little too much. There should be no secrets between husband and wife.’
Karen busied herself slicing a banana into a dish, adding grapes and ready-cut pieces of melon. ‘As manager of the ranch, I suppose you hold a lot of authority,’ she murmured.
‘I don’t manage the ranch,’ he said. ‘I own it.’
Her head came up. ‘You own it?’
‘Why such surprise?’ he asked on an ironical note. ‘Do I appear a man of small means?’
‘No,’ she acknowledged. ‘Not at all. I just thought…’ She broke off, lifting her shoulders. ‘I’m not sure what I thought. Is your brother a partner?’
‘No.’ The statement was unequivocal. ‘Are you going to eat the fruit, or simply continue poking at it?’
Karen forked up a piece of banana and put it in her mouth, chewing on it resolutely. Fruit here had a far better taste than back home, she had to admit. Except that England was home no longer, of course. Not for her. She might never even see it again!
‘Is it far to the airport?’ she asked, shutting out the hovering despondency.
‘The São Paulo shuttle flies from Aeroporto Santos Dumont in the city centre,’ Luiz returned. The flight itself takes less than an hour, the drive to Guavada considerably longer, but we should be there before dark.’
To meet more people she couldn’t remember. People who had known her a whole three months. How, Karen wondered numbly, was she to deal with it all?
CHAPTER THREE
THE flight was short and uneventful. Luiz had left a Land Rover at the São Paulo airport on his way out, prompting Karen to wonder how she and this Lucio had got there themselves. If in a car, it must still be parked here somewhere.
She didn’t care to broach the subject. Any mention of Lucio Fernandas was like waving a red rag before a bull.
By four o’clock they had left the city suburbs well behind and were driving through a landscape of grassy, tree-dotted plains broken by isolated low ranges. As Luiz had promised, the climate up here, some two thousand feet above sea level, was far pleasanter than Rio’s.
Karen recognised nothing. Not that she’d expected to. The closer they came to the home she had abandoned just a few days ago, the worse she felt. Beatriz may be the only one to know the real reason she had flown, but the others were hardly going to see a supposed disagreement with Luiz as an adequate reason. There was every chance that her partial amnesia would be suspect to them, if not to Luiz himself. It was, she had to acknowledge, a very convenient method of avoiding responsibility for her actions.
‘Are you feeling unwell?’ Luiz asked, shooting her a glance. ‘Do you wish to stop?’
Karen shook her head, pulling herself together. ‘Just nervousness. How are they likely to react?’
He gave a faint smile. ‘If I know my sister, she will throw her arms about you and commiserate. She blames me for driving you away with my domineering manner.’
‘Are you?’ Karen ventured. ‘Domineering, I mean?’
‘No more than I have to be to maintain your respect. We come from different cultures. There were adjustments to be made by each of us. I believed we had achieved a balance.’
‘When I ruined everything by going off with another man,’ Karen said hollowly. ‘I still can’t imagine how I could have done that. To leave…’
‘To leave?’ Luiz prompted as she let the words trail away.
Like the night before, she’d been about to say, To leave a man like you, but it still sounded too much like sycophancy. ‘Without even a word,’ she substituted. ‘The whole thing was shameful!’
It was a moment before Luiz responded, his expression austere again. ‘We must put it behind us.’
‘Can you, though?’ she asked.
‘As I’ve said before, I have no choice.’
There was little comfort in the answer. Karen hadn’t really expected any. It was still difficult to accept that the person she had been—the person she still felt herself to be inside—could have behaved in the manner ascribed to her. As if someone else had taken over her body during the lost months.
‘Tell me about the ranch,’ she said after a moment or two, desperate for something to break