Rachel raised her eyebrows. ‘Surely that’s rather a radical viewpoint for someone with such conservative ideas.’
He frowned. ‘We are talking at cross purposes, senhora. You think because my ideas of correctness and dignity seem old-fashioned to you that I must be backward-looking.’ He shook his head. ‘I assure you I am not. The system we have here will bear comparison with any system anywhere in the world and my people are given every opportunity to succeed.’
Rachel was looking at the village. It was quaint and somewhat unworldly to her eyes, but charming nonetheless. As well as a small store and a café, there was a school and a church, and the narrow footbridges over the river which divided the two halves of the village were arched and attractive. The road ran along beside the river for some way, shadowed by evergreen oaks and more of the spreading elm trees.
Beyond the village they branched on to a narrower track and presently came to a gate across the road with the word ‘Privado’ printed upon it. Rachel cast a questioning glance in Luis’s direction, but for the moment he ignored it, sliding out of the car to open the gate before getting in again and driving through. When the gate was closed behind them, he said:
‘I know what you are thinking, but that notice is not for the people who live here. They know they will never be turned away from the quinta. But we have turistas who can be quite a nuisance.’
Rachel had to smile at this. ‘Am I so transparent?’ she murmured lightly, and he looked at her.
‘To me—in this instance, yes,’ he said, and then as though realising the sudden intimacy between them he pressed hard on the accelerator and sent the sleek limousine cruising swiftly up the curving sweep of the drive.
Rachel’s first glimpse of the Quinta Martinez was through a belt of trees. Thickly foliaged trees and bushes encroached on the drive from both sides, successfully providing a natural screen between the quinta and the rest of the valley. It reminded Rachel of the thorn hedge which had grown up around the castle of the Sleeping Beauty in legend, and in fact, the Quinta Martinez did resemble a small castle at that first appraisal.
Nestling among trees, with dozens of small turrets outlined against a backcloth of deep green, it had an unreal quality, a fairy-tale appearance. Mellow stone was warmed by the rays of the sinking sun which winked on the small Gothic windows and gilded the sculptured façade.
Rachel leant forward in her seat, totally absorbed, for the moment oblivious of her surroundings, of her reasons for being there.
Then Luis said: ‘You like my home, senhora?’ and reality asserted itself.
She sank back in her seat. ‘Oh, yes, yes. It’s—unbelievably beautiful!’
‘My father’s family have lived here for many generations,’ he said. ‘Naturally in recent years the quinta has been extensively modernised inside, but not sufficiently to dispel its character, I feel.’
The car emerged from the trees and circled a central courtyard to come to rest at the foot of stone steps leading up to the arched entrance to the building. The steps were shallow, leading into the shade of a terrace which seemed to circle the quinta. There was a fountain in the courtyard which gave the sound of constant running water and this was the first thing Rachel noticed as she stepped unaided out of the car.
Luis had walked round to assist her with his innate sense of politeness and she looked up at him helplessly as she scrambled out. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not used to anyone opening doors for me—senhor!’
Luis’s lips tightened and then he looked up expectantly as an elderly man appeared at the head of the flight of steps.
‘Senhor Marquês!’ the old man exclaimed warmly. ‘Estimo muito ve-lo de novo.’
‘Boa tarde, Mario.’ Luis smiled, and Rachel looked away from the warmth of that greeting and leant into the car to say:
‘Malcolm! Malcolm, we’re here. At the quinta.’
Her husband opened his eyes reluctantly. ‘What’s that? What did you say?’
‘We’ve arrived, Malcolm. In Mendao. How do you feel?’
‘If you will permit me ...’
Luis was behind her with the folding wheelchair which he had taken from the boot of the car. Rachel drew back abruptly, almost cracking her head on the roof of the car as she did so. She was hot and nervous now that they were actually here, and the idea of meeting the old Marquesa was an intimidating one after what Luis Martinez had said.
She contemplated asking whether she might bathe and change before meeting anyone and thoughtfully went over the few clothes she had brought with her in an effort to think of something suitable to wear. But then she gave herself a mental shake. What was she thinking of allowing these people to influence her to such an extent that she was actually considering dressing to suit them? Good lord, she was not an impressionable schoolgirl, was she? She was twenty-two, and a married woman, completely indifferent to any reaction she might have on Luis Martinez’s mother.
At Luis’s instigation, the man Mario had drawn the wheelchair up the shallow steps and now Luis was lifting Malcolm out of the back of the silver limousine and carrying him up the steps to install him in the canvas seat of the chair. For the journey Malcolm had worn a dark blue tweed suit, and Rachel thought he must be feeling the heat as she was. Draping the jacket of her slack suit over one shoulder and the strap of her suede bag over the other, she mounted the steps after them, trying not to feel like the intruder she was sure she was.
Mario took charge of the wheelchair. Rachel sensed that Malcolm would have preferred her to guide him, but there was little he could say in front of Luis Martinez which would not sound ungrateful and he said nothing as Luis urged them across the terrace and into the coolness of the mosaic-tiled hall.
Rachel looked about her with sharpened interest. Every artistic nerve within her was throbbing with awareness of the magnificence of her surroundings. Carved pillars, a sweeping baroque staircase, a shadowed gallery above. There were long silk curtains at the windows the colour of wild roses, while on a marble plinth an enormous bowl of those delicately perfumed flowers provided a splash of scarlet. There were small statuettes of saints in the window recesses, reminding one if any reminder was necessary that this was a truly Catholic household, while to the right and left archways gave glimpses of other exquisitely furnished apartments.
If Rachel had imagined that the Marquesa de Mendao would meet them in the hall she was mistaken. On the contrary, at this late hour of the afternoon when the shadows were deepening and a certain coolness was entering the air the quinta was as silent as a cloister and only a small dark woman appeared with long black skirts and a white apron who was obviously another of the servants.
She greeted Luis warmly and then looked enquiringly at Rachel and Malcolm. Clearly she had not been expecting two visitors, but her expression was not reproving, merely expectant.
Luis spoke swiftly in his own language, apparently explaining that Senhor Trevellyan had brought his wife with him. Rachel recognised such words as espôsa and marido, but most of what he said was incomprehensible to her.
The woman, whose name was Luisa, eventually nodded and said something in reply which seemed to please her employer, for he nodded, too, and speaking in English, he turned to Rachel and her husband:
‘Luisa tells me that she has had a suite prepared for you on the ground floor, senhor. In the circumstances we thought it best that you did not have stairs to contend with. It will be a simple matter to prepare one of the adjoining rooms for your wife.’
Malcolm’s hands gripped the arms of the wheelchair tightly, revealing his tension, although his expression was complacent as he said: ‘I’m sure there’s no need to prepare a special room