The Casanova Embrace Page 5

  "I will not have this! I will not have this!" his mother cried. Eduardo could see the harried faces of the servants poking out of the kitchen.

  "You illiterate, incompetent little whore!" his mother screamed, repeating "little whore" until her anger reduced the epithet to a long piercing shriek.

  Finally, Isabella's stoicism crumbled and a low cry seeped from her chest, stirring him to compassion. He assumed it was compassion, since he empathized now and could feel and understand the girl's pain.

  "Enough, Mama!" he cried, standing up and banging on the table. Perhaps it was the sound of a male voice or simply the emphatic crack of his fist, but it was enough to cause his mother to take her hands off the girl. She must have been frightened by the outburst and had run screaming from the room while Isabella slumped to the floor like an injured animal whimpering with mortification and fear. Finally, one of the older servants lifted her from the ground and led her away through the kitchen door.

  That night he relived the incident in his mind, feeling again the empathy and compassion for this girl who was hardly more than his own age. But beyond the pity, beyond the knowledge of her suffering he recognized in himself for the first time a kinship with the servants. He felt ashamed for his mother, his sisters, and he determined that his father must intervene to stop any further abuse. What was a vase compared to a human being?

  The next day he searched the grounds of their estate for her. He found her puttering in a flower patch, kneeling in the soft earth. When she saw him, she stiffened and burrowed deeper in the earth with a trowel, ignoring his presence, her long hair spilling over her face, the ends almost touching the ground.

  "You mustn't be afraid," he said kneeling beside her. She continued to work, ignoring him.

  "I apologize for my mother," he said gently. "Really, she will forget all about it soon. I know she will." He doubted that. His mother held an endless supply of scorn and vindictiveness, especially for servants, a fact well known in the household. Whatever enmity was left was reserved for his father, whom Eduardo adored.

  "She will send me away," the girl said finally, swallowing hard to keep back her tears. Life in the poor villages was a terrible struggle. In a rich household, one ate regularly.

  "It wasn't your fault," Eduardo said. He patted her arm. The touch of her flesh warmed him, confusing his motives. She was bent over and her full breasts pressed tightly against her blouse. Despite his compassion, he was conscious of searching the fabric for the outlines of her nipples.

  "I was not careful," she said.

  "It was an accident."

  He felt the power of his own protection, seeing her even now in a different way, confused by a new implication. She is beautiful, he decided, as she glanced up at him, her large dark eyes reflecting her vulnerability.

  "It will be all right," Eduardo insisted.

  "She will send me away," the girl repeated. "Nothing can stop it." Servants were always being discharged, some for cause, others out of pique, or simply to reinforce the authority of the family over their lives. For Isabella, the fear was both tangible and logical. He stood up, towering over her. Still on her knees in the flower beds, she looked up at him.

  "I will not let them," he said. It was a solemn commitment. "I swear on my life." He had actually put a hand over his heart. Then he turned from her and walked swiftly back to the house. For the first time in his life, he felt the power of his manhood. Without turning, he knew her eyes were following him.

  That night his mother did not come down for dinner and he took her dinner tray to her bedside. It seemed a perfect ploy for ingratiation. She was always especially vulnerable when she was wallowing in self-pity. Reclining on a bubble of pillows, she was doing her nails. She wore a brocaded bed jacket and her hair had been fastidiously done in an upsweep by one of the servants. Actually, she was quite beautiful. And she always pretended to be sick on the eve of his father's return. He was still not of an age when he could grasp the complex relationship of his parents. When they were together publicly, they were stiff and polite. Privately, behind their bedroom door, they shouted and argued. Finally, his father's absences became increasingly longer and his mother's irritability increased. Dutifully, Eduardo kissed his mother's cheek after he had arranged the tray securely over her blanketed thighs.

  "How sweet, my darling," she said softly.

  "Are you better?" he asked, perching himself carefully on the foot of the bed as she sipped her soup.

  "Better, yes," she said between sips. "That incident with the vase unnerved me, I suppose. I am calmer now."

  "You must not get so upset. It was only a vase. A material thing."

  "An old possession is not to be taken lightly," she said, pointing the spoon at him. "Considering that one day you will be the head of this family, we will all look to you to protect our possessions." Like his father, she was obsessed with the idea of family responsibility. The family, the blood, ownership ... that was her principal obsession. The idea of it had been drummed into him very early.

  "I understand that, Mama," he said. He waited for her mood to change. "It wasn't really her fault," he said finally, his throat constricting despite his strong attempt to appear nonchalant. He knew he was testing the waters.

  "Not her fault?" Her spoon, poised in mid-air, dropped back into the soup. He had badly miscalculated. "Eduardo, you do not know about servants. Don't be fooled by their apparent humility. They would cut our throats if they could get away with it. Nothing is ever done by accident. It is all deliberate. In my father's time, they would be whipped."

  He had heard that all before, but for the first time the imagery was clear. He shivered, thinking of the small, helpless Isabella kneeling in the soil. Behind his eyelids, he could feel the well of tears begin.

  "We must never forget who we are," said his mother. "And we must never forget who they are."

  He stayed for a while longer, then left, kissing his mother on both cheeks. He had bungled it. He had failed her. He cursed his stupidity and lack of courage. He should have demanded mercy for her. He was, after all, a man.

  Those among the servants who had chosen to protect Isabella kept her out of the house and handled the flower arrangements for her. It was not uncommon for them to wait out their mistress' wrath. Keeping her out of sight might save her, although it was doubtful. Mrs. Palmero had the memory of an elephant, and she was brutally vindictive and unmerciful. Meanwhile, Eduardo visited her in the garden, reassuring his commitment.

  "As soon as I am noticed, she will send me away."

  "Not as long as I am here," he bragged.

  "You are still only a boy," she mocked gently.

  "I am a man."

  His father's return was always an event in the household. They had been told he was away on business. Since he was Chile's foremost authority on marine law, and much in demand, it was a logical story. Much primping and polishing would ensue and his handsome father's appearance at the end of the long polished table was always celebrated. However, it was not long before the tension between his mother and father would begin to emerge beneath the surface of their public attitude.

  "Rio is glowing," his father said, describing the city from which he had just returned. "At night the skyline looks like a mass of fireflies."

  "Fireflies are not the only insects that come out at night," his mother would snap and the girls would lower their eyes in embarrassment. His father's eyes would smolder and he would pat his lips nervously with his napkin.

  After a few days of accelerating domestic warfare, Eduardo knew that his father was contemplating another trip. His lips had grown tighter than when he had arrived and the pinched look under his eyes was more noticeable.

  But while he consciously measured his mother's and father's temper, he spent most of his time with Isabella, either sitting near the remote flower beds that edged their property or accompanying her on trips to gather the wild autumn flowers that crept up the foothills of the massive Cordillera. In the distan
ce, the craggy frost-tipped peaks watched over them like sentries.

  She was a simple girl from a small village in the remote upper reaches of the Cordillera. She could not read or write, but she was intelligent and quite beautiful with her long silken hair and dark eyes that peered up at him from under heavy curling lashes. She insisted on calling him "Señor Palmero."

  "I am Eduardo," he would say proudly, holding both her hands as they paused in their walk, looking into her eyes.

  "I cannot call you that," she said shyly, her head bowed.

  "But that is my name."

  "I am Isabella, but you are Señor Palmero."

  "I am Eduardo." He brought his face closer to hers. Their noses were almost touching. "Eduardo!" he shouted. "My name is Eduardo!" When she did not respond, he shook his head and smiled. But he could not keep his eyes off her, watching her effortless walk as she moved swiftly up the slope trails.

  He was, he knew, unable to relate the romantic notions abstracted from his books and the crude talk and actions of his schoolmates. His physical reaction was not unlike theirs, but his thoughts seemed quite different. There was another element, too, to his relationship with Isabella.

  "...and you must stay away from the servants," his mother had warned, concentrating her most formidable admonishment on him after one of her numerous lectures to her daughters. She had drawn him aside. Vaguely, he could remember an incident preceding her warning. A servant girl had been dismissed for pregnancy.

  "They are filthy and diseased. They will make your parts rot."

  He had only been ten at the time and it was a long time before he would know what "parts" meant. At the time, he thought it might be his eyes.

  "Do you get it by touching?" he had asked innocently. His mother had contained a smile for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  "Not by touching," she said, between side-splitting howls, further confusing him.

  So there was some element of danger in consorting with this girl, he knew, although he was still not completely certain how one crossed the Rubicon to this physical hell. He knew by now what "parts" meant. Isabella, too, sensed the fear in him and the danger to herself.

  "You should not be with me," she would say, when sounds of others could be heard on the trails, and they would hide in the brush, their heads close, their hearts pounding, as the footsteps would come toward them and fade again. Once he had kissed her hair and an elbow had brushed her breast, an action from which she recoiled in fear.

  "No!" she had hissed, like a cornered cat.

  "I meant no harm."

  She began to cry lightly. He wondered what had upset her.

  "They will surely send me away," she whispered between sniffles.

  "Never!" he vowed, enjoying his sense of bravado with its implication of manly protection. Tentatively, his arm reached out for her shoulders and she let him briefly caress her. Then, standing up, she led him back to the trail. But the touching had profound effects on him.

  "Will you be my girl?" he asked as they paused again on the trail. She put a finger on his lips.

  "They will send you away as well."

  "Me?" he chuckled. He turned and looked back at the house and the Pacific sparkling in the distance. "I am the firstborn," he said with imperial seriousness, as if the idea had been intoned by his parents. He beat his breasts like Tarzan and shouted across the expanse, "I will be the master here."

  "You are frightening me, Señor Palmero."

  He turned toward her.

  "I am Eduardo," he said. He reached for her. Whatever resolve she might have had vanished. He gathered her close to him, feeling the mounds of her breasts against his chest. "And you are Eduardo's girl." She nestled closer for a long moment. He felt the hardness begin. She must have felt it as well. Then she broke away and ran swiftly down the trail. He could not catch her and both of them slowed as they drew closer to the house. Even then, he knew why. The act of chasing a servant girl was, after all, inappropriate to the firstborn.

  But that did not stop him from thinking about her and wanting to fulfill his commitment to protect her. He determined to enlist the help of his father to prevent her dismissal. Indeed, it was his father who selected the opportunity one night at dinner.

  "I do not see the Ming," his father said, as his eyes searched the sideboard where it had stood for years. Eduardo felt his heart stop.

  "Oh, so you noticed," his mother said. "One of our clods of a servant dropped it and it broke into a million pieces. Now you see what I must go through in your absence?" She began to work herself up. It was an accident, Eduardo wanted to scream, but he held his peace. "If I ever see that little snip, I will kill her!" his mother cried.

  "Well, it was quite expensive," his father mumbled, as if the outburst required a reply to assuage it.

  "Expensive? It was priceless!" she said maliciously, as if his father's observation had merely been perfunctory. "I simply will not put up with such conduct."

  His father lowered his head and shrugged, his mother's venom continuing to spew in an endless cacophony, actually the litany of her own frustration in which Isabella was only a handy, vulnerable and dispensable conduit.

  Later his father retired to his heavily ornate study. Finding his courage, Eduardo followed him. The study was his father's sanctuary with its endless rows of law books and high windows which, when opened, as they were now, brought in the sounds and smells of the Pacific Ocean.

  "Father?" It was, he knew, the voice of the supplicant. When he entered the study, which was sacrosanct, it meant that important things were afoot.

  "Eduardo?" His father looked up over his glasses. He had been slumped over his desk scratching at a pad, an opened law book at his elbow.

  Noting his son's seriousness, the father removed his glasses and leaned back in the heavy leather chair. Eduardo, following the direction of his father's extended palm, sat on the straight-backed chair beside the huge carved desk. In that position, his father looked kingly, a god, with the power to grant mercy. He must, Eduardo decided, make a clever presentation.

  "I must talk to you about the Ming," Eduardo said, his voice cracking, as it was doing frequently these days.

  "The Ming?" The father nodded, remembering. Eduardo noted how quickly he had put the subject out of his mind.

  "It is a matter of simple justice," Eduardo said, knowing that such a thesis would draw his father's attention.

  "I saw it happen. It was purely an accident," Eduardo said, the words coming too fast. He urged himself to slow down, but he could not control the flow. "The serving maid had dropped this dish and the crash frightened the girl who turned and a stem caught on her sleeve and the Ming fell to the floor and broke."

  His father's eyes narrowed over thick eyebrows, a sign of his concentration. He has been engaged, Eduardo thought happily. Indifference had been his principal fear.

  "And Mother attacked the person." He was studiously avoiding the use of her name, attempting to simulate his own distance as an observer only. "It was wrong. Unjust." He emphasized the word, letting it sink into the salt-tinged air. "It is our responsibility to deal with the matter justly," he concluded, mimicking his father.

  His father smiled, perhaps proud that his son had absorbed the lesson.

  "Has she been dismissed?"

  "No," Eduardo said, hastening an explanation. "She has stayed out of sight and the housekeeper has not yet acted. But there is no doubt that Mama will erupt when she sees her again. Mama does not forget."

  "And have you discussed this with your mother?" Eduardo could sense the lawyer's mind turning over.

  "How could I?" he answered helplessly. Then quickly: "It is a matter of justice. There is genuine fear in this house. I am sure all of the servants are troubled and the poor girl must be living in hell."

  His father pondered the young face before him. Eduardo was conscious of the clear eyes caressing him. He loves me, he told himself. Not that the matter had ever been in doubt. And I
love him. He wanted to tell his father the truth, but held back.

  "I am asking you to give this woman justice, Father," Eduardo said, warming to the request. "To do what is right." He knew that, despite the growing animosity with his mother, his father's word was law in the house. No servant would dare go against his orders, regardless of what his mother might do.

  "I believe you should speak to her," Eduardo pressed, hoping that his father, seeing Isabella, would observe her helplessness, understand her vulnerability. And, more important, it would prove to Isabella that Eduardo had kept his word, that he had protected her.

  His father stirred, stood up and pulled the bellrope to summon a servant, who arrived quickly.

  "What is this person's name?" he asked.

  "I am not sure." He wondered if his hesitation had been duly noted. "Isabella, I think." His father turned to the servant.

  "Send Isabella here." The servant looked at Eduardo briefly, a stab of fear in his eyes, then hurried away.

  When he had gone, his father embraced him. He was still a head taller than Eduardo. He pressed him close, kissing him on the cheek.

  "I am pleased with you, Eduardo," he said, patting his back. "You have the sensitivity to understand. We are all God's creatures and He laid down the rules for our meting out justice. I understand."

  He wanted to kiss his father's hands but hesitated since he had often seen the servants do that. Instead, he settled for an abrazo and left the room quickly, heading out to the long patio that adjoined the study's high windows, settling himself in the shadows, braced in a corner against the chilly breeze floating in from the ocean.

  He did not have long to wait. His father had resumed his work, replacing his glasses on the bridge of his nose and scratching his pen along the pad. Isabella's knock was furtive, barely audible to his father, although Eduardo had heard it clearly. Then it came again, a bit more assertive, and his father raised his head. "Come in," he called. He looked over his glasses as the pale and frightened Isabella entered the room. She had apparently put on her best dress, although she was barefoot, and brushed her long hair. Eduardo's heart lifted when he saw her. His father waved her forward and contemplated her. Her head was lowered, her eyes watching the floor shyly. But her carriage was straight and her young breasts strained against the tightness of her dress. If only he could hold her now, Eduardo thought. Surely, when she sees how I have protected her, she will let me hold her in my arms, he thought with excitement.