Witch's Harvest

‘Oh, I do.’ Della’s eyes gleamed. ‘But I don’t consider the world well lost for love. If Vasco imagines I’m going to follow him to the Amazon basin like a little submissive wife, then he can think again. The choice is his: this—Riocho Negro hellhole, or me. It’s quite simple.’

Abby shuddered as she remembered. She took the letter out of her bag, handling it gingerly as if it was a time-bomb, then rang the bell, praying he would be out.

But her prayers were not answered. Almost immediately the door swung open, and Vasco stood there surveying her with frank astonishment, and growing grimness.

‘Abigail?’ he queried. ‘I was expecting …’

‘Della,’ Abby supplied. She sent him a small nervous smile. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’

‘You have not,’ he told her politely. ‘It is naturally a pleasure to meet you again. It is some weeks, I think …’ He hesitated. ‘Would you like to come in?’

‘There’s really no need,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Actually, I’m here on Della’s behalf.’ She held out the letter. ‘She asked me to give you this.’

He looked down at the letter, and the grim expression on his face deepened alarmingly. Abby had never seen him like this. On their previous encounters, he had always been at his most charming. Now, once again, it occurred to her that he was a formidable man, and Della was insane if she imagined she could force him down any path he did not choose to go.

He said curtly, ‘I think you had better come in after all, Abigail.’ His hand closed on her arm in a grip which brooked no denial, and he drew her forward into the flat. She found herself in a large, comfortably furnished drawing-room. ‘Sit down,’ Vasco directed, indicating an enormous leather sofa.

‘I really can’t stay,’ she protested weakly. ‘I only came to deliver that and …’

‘Ah, yes.’ His smile was wintry. ‘Abigail at one time meant “handmaiden”, I think. You should not allow Della to impose on you. However, even a messenger deserves some reward. May I offer you some coffee, or perhaps you would prefer a drink.’

‘Neither, thanks. I do have to go …’

‘You have not been instructed to wait for an answer to that?’ He pointed to the letter she was still clutching.

‘Good God, no!’ Abby dropped the letter on to a coffee table as if it was a hot coal. ‘I think you should read it, Vasco,’ she said, trying to edge past him towards the door. ‘Della was very anxious that I should deliver it right now, and there’s probably a reason for that.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said curtly. ‘Over these past weeks I have been made well aware of the way her mind works. Do you perhaps know the terms of her message?’ There was a slight derisive emphasis on the last word.

‘Not really,’ Abby denied swiftly and unconvincingly, a faint, betraying colour rising in her face.

‘I see,’ he said icily.

‘No, you don’t.’ She punched a small clenched fist into the palm of her other hand. ‘Oh God, this is so embarrassing. I could kill Della! Believe me, the last thing I want is to be—involved in any way in any—problem you might be having.’

‘Thank you for the assurance,’ he said sarcastically. ‘But any problems are of Della’s own making. In my world, when a woman agrees to marry a man, she consents to share his life, no matter where or how that life is to be lived. Your cousin knew my home, my work was at Riocho Negro. I made no secret of it.’

She gave a quick meaningless smile. ‘Well, it’s really none of my business. Now you must excuse me. I—I have a date, and you’ll want to read your letter in peace.’

‘Peace is hardly the word I should have chosen,’ Vasco said with sudden harshness, making her flinch. He saw this, and his face gentled. ‘Tenho muita pena, Abigail—I am sorry. You are not to blame, after all. But you should not allow Della to use you like this.’

She shrugged lightly. ‘Well, it isn’t for much longer. I’m sure you’ll settle your differences together, Vasco. Goodnight.’

‘Boa tarde, Abigail.’

Reaction set in almost as soon as she was safely back in the corridor, with the door closed between them. Her legs were shaking so much suddenly that she had to stop and lean against a wall until she regained her equilibrium. Another door opened and an elderly couple emerged, the woman giving Abby a surprised and frosty glance as they passed.

She probably thinks I’m drunk, Abby decided, and, God, I wish I was!

As she waited in the bus queue, she realised it was the first time she had ever been completely alone with Vasco. It had been a tense interview, and nothing like any of the childishly romantic dreams she had occasionally indulged herself with.

Despising herself for a fool, she began, almost obsessively, to recreate him in her mind, to go over every tiny detail of his appearance. Her mind’s eye dwelt lingeringly on the length of the black lashes which veiled his brilliant dark eyes, the way his hair grew back from a distinct peak on his forehead, the expanse of coppery skin revealed by the open neck of his shirt, the long-fingered, well kept hands.

She gave a little shaky sigh, telling herself that she should be ashamed. It was not only wrong but futile to allow him to fill her thoughts like this. He belonged to Della. They would resolve their difficulties with some compromise, and get married, and if she was lucky she would never see them again.

Especially now that she was firmly established in his mind as an interfering busybody, she reminded herself ironically. But it was better to be regarded as a nuisance rather than a lovesick idiot. And if Della ever carried out her threat and told him her dull little cousin had fallen for him in a big way, Brazil was far enough away for her to be spared the knowledge.

And one day, she hoped, she would wake up cured.

Although not, she was forced to acknowledge, by Keith with whom she had a date that evening. He was pleasant enough, and one of the junior executives in the company she worked for, and they shared a mutual interest in the theatre, but that was as far as it went, on her side at least.

Not that Keith ever showed any sign of wishing to become wildly amorous, she thought wryly. He was far too cautious for that, far too aware of where he was going in life. Abigail often speculated that she was being put through a series of suitability tests by him, but they were leisurely enough not to cause her any anxiety. Even if she had never met Vasco, she would still have known there was no future with Keith, or anyone else she had come across, for that matter.

Perhaps she was basically cold, she thought. Maybe in her case, still waters ran shallow, and she permitted herself her fantasies about Vasco because he was forbidden territory and therefore no real threat.

In a way, she thought detachedly, as she climbed on to the bus and settled in her seat, she would rather believe that than the other nightmare which haunted her—that Vasco would marry Della and vanish from her life, taking with him, all unwittingly, all the love, warmth, and passion she would ever be capable of, leaving her to face the future bereft and emotionally destitute.

‘I found the second act rather disappointing,’ Keith said, frowning. ‘I thought he’d failed to establish the intruder’s personality strongly enough, and, of course, the whole thing hinges on that.’

‘Yes,’ Abby agreed, smothering a discreet yawn. She’d found the entire production rather long-winded, and less than gripping. No matter how determinedly she tried to concentrate on what was happening on stage, her mind had kept travelling inexorably back to Vasco, and the letter she had brought him, and his reactions to it. He was a man who liked to dictate terms, not agree to them, she thought uneasily.

She’d come out of the theatre with a slight headache, and had demurred when Keith suggested going for the usual drink, but he had looked so disappointed when she’d murmured something about having an early night that she had relented.

The pub was one they often used, but it seemed extra crowded that night, with no vacant tables, so that they were forced to stand near the bar. Which was all to the good, Abby thought idly, as Keith continued to hold forth on the playwright’s failure to develop his characters fully. It meant they would probably not be staying long. Keith hated standing up to drink.

The crowd shifted suddenly, giving her a new perspective of the other side of the room. Suddenly Abby seemed to stop breathing, her fingers tightening convulsively round the stem of her glass as she stared at the table right in the corner.

It couldn’t be! she thought feverishly. She was seeing things. She had allowed Vasco to occupy her thoughts so much that now she was hallucinating about him, imagining that he was there, in the corner, alone.

‘I don’t think you’re listening to a word I’m saying!’ Keith’s faintly indignant tones broke into her trance, shattering it, and she turned to him apologetically.

‘I’m sorry—I thought I saw someone I knew.’

‘Oh?’ Keith craned his neck. ‘He doesn’t look familiar to me at all.’

‘He wouldn’t be. His name is Vasco da Carvalho, and he’s engaged to my cousin.’

‘I thought he didn’t look English,’ Keith commented. He gave the corner a concentrated stare. ‘Been drinking heavily too, by the looks of things.’

‘Oh, no!’ Abby was appalled. ‘He hardly drinks at all. It must be that damned letter. There must be something terribly wrong.’

As she began to move through the crowd towards his table, Keith detained her. ‘Well, whatever it is, Abby, it’s none of our business. Leave it.’

‘I can’t,’ she said wretchedly. ‘I feel partly responsible.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He regarded her with disfavour. ‘You want to steer well clear of him, my dear girl, especially in that condition. Although I suppose you could phone his fiancée—tell her to come and collect him.’

‘She’s in Paris.’ Abby began to move forward again. ‘Please, Keith—I must help him!’