The Stars of San Cecilio Read Online Free PDF Page B

ring, but your heart could be involved. ’ The tiniest smile touched his lips as she glanced at him sideways.
    ‘I—no, I’m not ... I mean, there is no one! ’
    ‘That is as I would prefer it,’ he told her, as if a minor obstacle had been removed from his path. ‘You will settle down more easily if there are no emotional entanglements linking you with your own country, and no sudden feelings of nostalgia likely to come between you and your job. I’m afraid I demand efficiency and concentration in those I employ, and a single-minded attentiveness to my affairs.’ He sent her a look from his brilliant dark eyes. ‘Is that too much to ask of you, Miss Waring? Remember it is my only child I am entrusting to your care, and you will be left very much to your own devices while I am not here! ’
    ‘Yes. Yes, I realize that.’ But Lisa experienced another of those moments when she wondered whether after all she ought to allow herself to be employed by him — whether it wouldn’t be wiser suddenly to change her mind, and make her apologies. There was something curiously coldblooded about the way he referred to her emotional entanglements, as if he half expected her to give a guarantee of immunity from any such entanglement while, at least, she remained in his employ. ‘Perhaps,’ she suggested suddenly, ‘you would like to make more exhaustive enquiries about me before you seriously consider allowing me to take charge of your little girl?’
    ‘No.’ He shook his head as if he saw nothing strange about the suggestion, but had already made up his mind. ‘I have a feeling that you and Gia will get on well together, and that is the important thing. Also, if we can get the housekeeper and her husband back tomorrow— and they are not very far away, so that should be quite simple — I would like you to move in to the villa the day after tomorrow, and Gia of course will move in with you. ’
    ‘If you are thoroughly certain in your own mind that I shall give satisfaction?’ she heard herself murmuring, wishing she was as thoroughly certain in her own mind that this Spanish interlude, which was to have been nothing more than an interlude, wasn’t being unwisely prolonged.
    When they got back to the hotel Miss Grimthorpe appeared to take charge of Gianetta and Lisa thought she looked very sullen — not at all the type of constant companion she herself would have chosen for a child of nine. And the look she directed at Lisa was full of reproof, as if she considered that she had taken away her job, and a month’s salary in lieu of notice was hardly a suitable recompense. Which should have spoken well for the job itself, Lisa realized, but her own mind was too disturbed, and there were too many backthoughts to worry her, to permit such a thing as confidence to take any root just then.
    She bathed and changed for dinner, and in the hotel dining-room she was regaled by the sight of an empty table in the alcove where Dr. Fernandez always sat. But the flowers on the table were velvety scarlet roses, and they looked as if they were confident they would not remain unappreciated throughout the evening.
    And, just as she was leaving the dining-room, Lisa saw the doctor enter by the other portion of the swing doors, and he was accompanied by the woman with the coils of red-gold hair wound about her shapely head. Dona Beatriz de Camponelli! For somehow Lisa had no doubts at all that this was Dona Beatriz.
    She wore a black dress that was almost as striking as the golden one she had worn on the other occasion when she dined at the hotel, and about her shoulders was a gauzy stole that was iridescent with sequins. There were some blood-red stones, at her throat, and instantly Lisa decided that the scarlet roses had been chosen to match them.
    Lisa escaped as quickly as she could, before either of them saw her — or so she hoped — and outside on the terrace she was surprised when a page-boy handed her a note.
    The note said