The Black Eagle

  THE BLACK EAGLE

  Anne Hampson

  Roxanne had always been rather used to doing as she was told without question—which was presumably why, when the mysterious Mexican Don Juan Armando Ramires, known as ‘the Black Eagle’, swept into her life, married her, and carried her off to his hacienda, Roxanne found herself meekly submitting to it all.

  And so she embarked on this curious marriage—for certainly it was no ordinary marriage. The hacienda, she was told, was haunted still by the spirit of Marta, the girl Juan had worshipped, and always would worship. Indeed, it was only because of her striking resemblance to Marta that Juan had married her.

  In time, Roxanne’s hatred of her husband turned to love—but what chance had she of reaching his heart?

  CHAPTER ONE

  Gaily she allowed herself to be swung round and round, her long full skirt rising and twirling and falling in soft graceful folds.

  ‘I must kiss you!’ Joel’s lips were close to her ear and she made no demur on finding herself being propelled towards the great oaken doors leading off into the heated conservatory. ‘Say you love me!’ begged Joel when the shelter of foliage afforded them privacy from the hundred or so other guests at the wedding.

  ‘I love you, Joel,’ Roxanne’s voice was soft and sweet, and tender as a breeze in summer. But it contained a hint of obedience also, resulting from the strictness of her upbringing. ‘I love you very dearly—’ The rest was smothered by a kiss, and when at length she was able to look up into the frank blue eyes, her own eyes shone like stars, her lips were quivering, her heart racing joyously. Life was wonderful, for she had found her ideal, the only man she had ever loved, or ever would love. Tall and handsome, Joel was about as attractive as any man could be; he could have had any girl he wanted, but he had chosen her.

  ‘I can’t wait for you, darling.’

  ‘Oh—!’ She shied away from him like a frightened child. ‘Don’t say such things, Joel!’

  ‘Darling, you’re so out of date with your ideas. We shall be married when I’ve saved enough, so why are you so averse to a bit of love?’

  She frowned at the expression.

  ‘I want to go back, Joel.’

  He drew her to him and kissed her.

  ‘It’s that silly old woman—yes, it is, sweetheart, so please don’t deny it. She’s a narrow old spinster who has no trust in any man.’

  Roxanne said nothing, but became thoughtful for a space as she brought the woman in question into focus. Bent and aged, with watery grey eyes and hands twisted with rheumatism, Deborah was a very dearly loved and respected member of the household. Brought in when on Roxanne’s birth her mother had died, Deborah had brought the girl up in the way she believed was best.

  ‘The man who will one day love you will put you on a pedestal,’ she had often said, ‘and, Roxanne, see that you do nothing to fall from that pedestal. No matter how unfailing a man’s love might be, his memory will be equally unfailing. All his life he’ll cherish you if you stay where he has placed you. Fall and he won’t ever forget.’

  Joel had laughed at this, reminding Roxanne that she was nineteen and her own mistress. She should not listen either to her old nurse or to her father. But the drilling of years was not so easily forgotten, and the respect and awe in which she held her father was as strong now as when she was a child. Also, she would never do anything of which she knew Deborah would not approve, hence her continued resistance to Joel’s persuasions.

  ‘I want to go back,’ she repeated, and with a sigh Joel pulled her arm through his and took her into the large room in the hotel where an orchestra played a haunting waltz, and the guests laughed and chatted as they danced to it.

  It was after midnight when Roxanne, undressing before the mirror, and humming softly to herself, heard the door open and smiled as she turned to the old woman who had entered.

  ‘Oh, Deb, I’m so happy!’

  ‘I just came to say good night. I heard you come in,’ Deborah moved silently on the thick carpet and stood in the centre of the room, the pale grey eyes fixed on Roxanne’s flushed face.

  ‘You were awake? But, darling, you should have put out the light and then you would have slept.’

  ‘I like to know you’re in, my love.’

  ‘Since I’ve been going out with Joel you haven’t been anxious. I’m quite safe with him.’ She was, despite his periodic suggestions, for he always admitted defeat. A small pause and then, ‘Did you hear me say I was happy?’

  ‘Of course. How could I miss it? Even if you hadn’t spoken, it was there for me to see; it has been for some weeks. When are you getting married?’

  ‘We haven’t enough money—at least, Joel says we haven’t. I’d get married on nothing!’

  ‘Joel’s a wise young man. Your father agrees that he must save first.’

  The old woman’s eyes stared unseeingly at some spot on the wall. Roxanne looked at her, frowning a little.

  ‘What are you thinking, Deb?’ she wanted to know, and the stare was transferred to her. The old woman shook her head. She had disliked Joel at first, Roxanne recalled.

  ‘Nothing of any importance, child.’ She smiled then and Roxanne instantly responded. She regarded with tenderness the face that in age had become ugly, the skin sagging and the cheeks riddled with red veins, like roads on a map. The wispy white hair was straight and tightly drawn to form a ridiculously small bun at the back. ‘Good night, dear.’ Cold and colourless lips touched Roxanne’s forehead. ‘And pretty dreams.’

  Pretty dreams ... This was a familiar wish, spoken since Roxanne could ever remember.

  The door closed softly behind the old woman and Roxanne turned once more to the mirror. Slipping off the long flared skirt, she stepped out of it, her eyes taking in what the mirror revealed. A slender figure, perfectly proportioned; a face of classical beauty, the high cheekbones and contours beneath fashioned exquisitely by a more than generous nature. The long neck was arched, the high forehead unlined. A mass of honey-brown hair, flecked with delightful shades of copper-bronze, fell on to the soft white shoulders. The clear violet eyes shone like stars, reflecting the happiness within her. Life was good, she thought again; it held heaven and more, following a path where no shadows fell.

  ‘Dear love,’ Joel was saying a week later, ‘I have to go to London for the firm on Wednesday and won’t be back until Monday.’

  ‘Oh...’ Her disappointment was such that he might have just made the declaration that he was off for a year or more. ‘I shall die!’

  Joel laughed, and playfully flicked her cheek.

  ‘I hope, my sweet, that you’ll do no such thing!’

  ‘You won’t be at Claire’s party.’

  ‘No, dear, but you must go.’

  ‘I couldn’t go anywhere without you now.’

  ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t go. You mustn’t disappoint Claire. After all, she’s your friend rather than mine.’

  This was true. Claire had been at school with Roxanne, and had got to know Joel only through her having introduced them to one another.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I really ought to go.’

  But as she dressed for Claire’s birthday party on the Saturday evening Roxanne had no real interest in what she was doing. To dress for her beloved Joel was a different matter altogether. However, once she was dressed, in a long creation of filmy nylon and lace, and standing in the hall before her father and Deborah, both of whom wore expressions of deep admiration, she felt a little better.

  ‘Ready, dear?’ Her father was driving her to the party, since Joel could not, and the purr of the car outside told her that he was warming it up. ‘You look very charming.’

  She blushed a little and said thank you. Always he had overwh
elmed her, being an Army man, tall and straight and stern. Between him and Deborah, with their ideas of a strict upbringing, Roxanne had developed a trait of instinctive obedience and on occasions she would silently rebel, wishing she could be more self-assertive. When she was married, she thought, her own personality would be free to blossom as it should, for Joel would never be so masterful that he would subdue her.

  ‘I’ll come back for you about eleven,’ her father promised as he drove on to the forecourt of the magnificent Fortuna Hotel. Only the rich could afford to hold parties here, but Claire’s people were in the property business. ‘You’ll be ready by then?’ It sounded like a request, but Roxanne knew it was an order. Her father liked to be in bed long before midnight and his coming to fetch her at eleven was in fact a concession for which she was grateful.

  ‘Hello, Roxanne,’ Claire greeted her. ‘I was sorry to hear that Joel couldn’t come.’

  ‘I was terribly disappointed...’ Roxanne’s voice trailed away to silence as she stared, hypnotized by the piercing black eyes that had caught and held hers from the far side of the room. Nerves tingled unaccountably as she continued to stare, caught like a helpless prey fixed by the eyes of a pitiless predator. ‘Who—who is th-that?’ she faltered at last, her mouth so dry that her voice had become husky and low. Claire answered her, but the words went unheard as the black eyes moved in the immobile face, travelling over Roxanne’s slender body, absorbing every tender line and curve. She shivered and spread her hands automatically along her arms to her bare shoulders. She realized with a sense of awed shock that she was trembling, that nerves in her stomach fluttered in the way they did during pangs of hunger. Through a haze of indistinct thought she managed to take in his great height, his litheness of body, the copper-bronze of his skin. He had features of striking severity, a severity emphasized by the unusual eyes and the shining jet hair that cut a deep widow’s peak into the low and heavily lined forehead. The jaw was angular and strong, the thin-lipped mouth an inevitable adjunct to a face of aquiline ruthlessness and arrogance. The devil himself, she thought, another shiver passing through her. Why did he stare so? And why couldn’t she drag her own eyes away? ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Don Juan Armando Ramires.’ Claire cast her friend a sideways glance, a strange glance. ‘You seem fascinated by him.’

  ‘He’s so—so unusual.’ At last she withdrew her gaze. ‘He’s Spanish—or Portuguese?’

  ‘His home is in Mexico.’

  ‘How do you come to know him?’ Claire had linked her arm through Roxanne’s and they strolled towards a group of young people all of whom were well known to Roxanne. ‘You’ve never mentioned him before.’

  ‘I don’t even know him. He’s a friend of Martin’s. He met him on his travels last November.’

  ‘A friend of your brother? He’s here on holiday?’ Roxanne looked down, feeling faintly embarrassed, for Martin had badly wanted her to be his girlfriend, and when she refused he had gone off, hitchhiking all over the place, and Roxanne now recalled his having written to Claire saying he was on his way to Mexico, having travelled down from the United States.

  ‘I expect so. I only heard last evening that he was coming to my party. Martin has his own flat now, as you know, and he rang to say he was bringing a friend with him tonight.’ Claire shrugged her shoulders. ‘You know Martin; he’s erratic in all he does. Any other brother would have mentioned that this friend was coming over, but not Martin. He just springs things on you. I was horrified when I saw this Juan. He reminds me of the devil himself.’

  ‘That’s how he struck me.’ Roxanne’s eyes sought those of the man under discussion; he seemed faintly unreal as he stood there, his facial muscles unmoving, his black eyes staring at her from across the separating distance. Roxanne struggled to free her gaze, and at last succeeded. ‘He’s a very strange type of man.’

  ‘I did get a bit of information out of Martin, just a few moments ago,’ confided Claire, then added in a whisper, ‘I’ll tell you about it later, when we can be alone.’ She raised a charming smile for the guests towards whom they were moving. ‘Hello, everyone,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Thank you for inviting us.’ Glenda Hartnett paused a moment and then, ‘Who in heaven’s name is Lucifer over there?’

  ‘A friend of Martin’s from Mexico.’

  ‘He’s not a very good mixer, is he? Why doesn’t Martin bring him around and introduce him to us all?’

  ‘He will do. I think Martin was wanted on the telephone. One of the waiters approached him and the next moment he was going out into the foyer.’ Roxanne fell silent, scarcely hearing as the others joined in a conversation together, and it was with a sort of mechanical compulsion that she accompanied j them to a lounge where they were served with drinks. She was still affected by a nervous tension and this increased rapidly, as did her heartbeats, on perceiving Martin approaching with his friend. The introductions began with Claire, and went round; Roxanne was the last to be introduced. She felt her hand taken in a firm grip; she was compelled by the strange power of the man to force a smile to her lips and to say a polite,

  ‘How do you do?’

  ‘I’m most happy to meet you, Miss Hutton.’ The voice was quiet, but rich and deep-toned. Roxanne’s hand was retained for longer than was necessary and she sensed suppressed giggles from her friends as they watched. She felt the colour rise in her cheeks, was conscious of the man’s strange unfathomable stare. ‘We must talk together, later.’ Roxanne blinked and her lips formed the word, why? But it was never uttered, for Martin was speaking to his friend and the next moment he was introducing him to someone else.

  ‘Tell me about him?’ pressed Roxanne later, on finding herself next to Claire at the table to which they had both gone after choosing their food from the cold buffet.

  ‘Don Juan? Well, it’s an interesting bit of information, or gossip, or whatever you’d care to call it. He’s a throwback from wicked invading ancestors who pillaged and murdered—No, Juan didn’t tell my brother; someone he met while visiting Juan told him. Every so often one of these throwbacks appears in an otherwise handsome family, a family more fair than dark. But that isn’t all. Juan was engaged to a very beautiful girl who died. He became embittered and shut himself away on his estate, keeping to the hacienda and grounds. No one was allowed in and out except the servants—he has an army of them, so Martin says.’

  Roxanne said thoughtfully,

  ‘It’s a sad story—but I can’t imagine any girl agreeing to marry him in the first place. He’s—frightening.’

  Claire nodded.

  ‘I agree. Yet it might be his bitterness that makes him worse. There’s something rather attractive about him, in a way. It’s his severity and those thin lips that make him appear so formidable.’

  Mechanically Roxanne inclined her head in agreement.

  ‘If no one was allowed into the grounds of his home then how did Martin come to meet him?’

  ‘It was a strange thing, but the gates happened to have been left open and, feeling thirsty, Martin decided to go into the grounds and find someone who would give him a drink of water. He’d been tramping around, with his rucksack on his back, and the heat had got him down. Juan was walking about in the garden and at first he was furiously angry that Martin had been allowed to enter. However, they got talking—you know how charming my brother can be—and the result was that Juan invited him to stay for the afternoon, as he could see how welcome a bath would be. He allowed him to take a siesta afterwards and as it was dark before Martin awoke. Juan said he could stay to dinner. They had a very pleasant time, apparently, and the result was that Martin stayed the night. In fact, he remained as a guest at the Hacienda Ramires for three days. They’ve been corresponding since, and Juan said he would visit Martin just as soon as he got back to England. Well, Martin got back only a fortnight ago, as you know, so Juan didn’t waste much time.’

  Roxanne was frowning.

  ‘It all sounds mos
t odd to me. ‘Why, if this Juan had become such a recluse, did he have no hesitation in coming here?’

  ‘That puzzled me too, but Martin was delighted that he would come. He said it was awful to think of him being so completely cut off from the outside world, pining, as it were, for his lost love.’

  ‘I can’t imagine his pining, somehow.’

  ‘Oh, I can: That type usually loves deeply—once in a lifetime.’

  Roxanne had to smile at this knowledgeable pronouncement. However, her voice was serious as she asked how long it was since Juan’s fiancée had died.

  ‘Ten years!’ she repeated when Claire had answered her question. ‘He’s fretted all that time?’ It seemed quite impossible, for despite what Claire had said Roxanne had a different opinion of Don Juan Armando Ramires. ‘I can’t believe it!’

  ‘It’s true, nevertheless,’ Claire assured her. ‘Juan was twenty-three when it happened. The girl caught a germ of some sort and died within a week of entering hospital. Juan was inconsolable, and there were some who thought he would take his own life.’

  Roxanne was shaking her head.

  ‘He’s too much strength for that,’ she asserted.

  ‘Yes, I agree. But this man whom Martin got talking to—when he was in a cafe one day during his stay at the hacienda—said that all the people in the villages round about expected to hear of Juan’s death.’

  ‘This man seems to have been very expansive to a stranger.’

  ‘Everyone knew of the Englishman who had managed to enter the grounds and, unbelievably, get himself installed as a guest. The news spread through the servants, I suppose. It usually does. So it was to be expected that, having met Martin, this villager became expansive if only in order to draw Martin out. He failed, of course, because Martin knew that Juan would be both angry and disappointed if it came to his ears that his guest had gossiped about him after receiving his hospitality.’