Brief Ecstasy

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Rosemary takes a job in Spain, as a companion to Mercedes Lamanda. Then, on the brief few hours’ train journey to Malaga, Rosemary meets Paul and falls completely under his spell. But her dreams of love are shattered when she meets Mercedes, and learns of her engagement to Paul. Hurt and angry, Rosemary hatches a devious plan. Heavily veiled, she changes places with the bride at Mercedes’ wedding to Paul—but the consequences are quite different to how she imagined…

Release date: August 14, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 158

Sample

“WHAT are you doing for this year’s holiday, Rosemary?”

Rosemary Wallace, filing letters as the final effort of work before the end of office hours, looked over her shoulder at the woman who had just put the question to her. Ida Bryant, dear old Ida, who was confidential secretary to the head of the firm, and chief of the staff here. Ida, plain of face, with her horn-rims and lanky hair which she wore in a bun and refused to bob, but who had a romantic heart and the most generous of natures under that unattractive exterior. She was Rosemary’s best friend, and of course Ida had adored Rosemary from the time she first came to Tring & Sons as a typist, two years ago. Rosemary, as flower-like and fragrant as her name, and as young and slim and lovely as Ida was the reverse.

Last year Ida had taken her usual lonely holiday in the Devon hamlet which was her paradise. She had wanted Rosemary with her, but Rosemary’s mother was alive and she had had to go away with her. But this year Rosemary was alone in the world, Mrs. Wallace having died, soon after Christmas, of double-pneumonia.

Rosemary still lived in the little flat in Hampstead which had been her home for as long as she could remember, but Miss Bryant was always hoping Rosemary would join up with her. Indeed Rosemary had promised to do so as soon as she could dispose of the lease of the flat.

“My dear Ida,” Rosemary answered her friend, “it’s a bit early in the year to talk of holidays.”

Ida Bryant looked out of the office window. Through a veil of dust she could see a pale orange glow … sunset over the river. And all day long she had seen the sun, and it had made her remember that this was April and that spring was at hand.

“Summer will be on us before we know where we are,” she sighed.

“Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Rosemary.

“Come down to Devon with me.”

“Maybe I will, but you know I want …”

Rosemary stopped and bit her lip. The older woman continued for her:

“Oh, yes, I know. You want to go abroad. You’re hankering after Spain. You’re Spain-mad, my dear. Ever since you started taking Spanish at those night classes and saw that Spanish film with me.”

Rosemary walked to her desk, sat down, took a little mirror and a powder-puff from her bag, and dusted a small and attractive nose. It was an altogether very attractive young face which smiled a trifle wistfully at her from the mirror. And with the delicacy of feature, the fragility which the transparent skin and fair, almost ash-gold hair suggested, was fire and spirit. Rosemary at heart was a passionate and impetuous person who hated the routine office life—the whole grey, dreary confinement of the existence which she had been forced to lead since she left school. Nobody looking at Rosemary’s curved red mouth with the almost impatient curl of the short upper lip, or into the warm, hazel-gold of her eyes, would deem her as placid, as tranquil as her name suggested.

Ida Bryant, who knew her, realised this fact with some trepidation. She often wondered what would happen to Rosemary Wallace … particularly when some young man as attractive and impetuous as herself came along. She only hoped Rosemary would find the right person. At the present moment there was nobody. Rosemary was not interested in any of the men she met through her work—and little wonder, thought Ida Bryant. They were none of them worth looking at twice.

But why this craze for Spain and things Spanish? Miss Bryant, a solid Britisher and very Conservative, mistrusted all foreigners, and had never once wanted to go out of her own country for a holiday.

She thought Rosemary crazy to study Spanish so arduously. Although she had to admit that the girl was not wasting her time. Already she could speak with surprising fluency and even read a Spanish novel Miss Bryant regarded this with awe but secret misgiving.

“Rosemary Wallace, you’re not thinking of going to Spain for your holiday, are you?” she asked, eyeing her over the rim of her spectacles.

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” said Rosemary. “And if only I could afford it … but I don’t suppose I can. Ida, darling, you don’t know how Spain attracts me. The more I know of the language, the more I like it.”

“Poof, my dear. A nasty, dirty uncivilised place full of barbarians. It was bad enough when they had an English queen on the throne, but now they’ve turned her and the king out of the country I’m sure it’s not a fit place to live in. You’d get shot by a revolutionary as soon as you ever entered Madrid.”

Rosemary went into peals of laughter.

“Ida, darling, you are killing!”

“Well, the papers are always talking of revolution and bloodshed.”

“There’s political trouble in the country, I know. But I’ve met heaps of people at the classes who have been to Spain and had glorious holidays. And one or two Spanish students who laugh at the reports in the papers. They’re always exaggerated.”

“Then are you seriously contemplating …?”

“Not so much a holiday as a job.” And now Rosemary Wallace blurted out a secret she had meant to keep, but which excited her so that she had to reveal it: “Ida, darling, as a matter of fact I’ve been answering advertisements, and I’m in touch with a lady in Spain who wants an English companion for her daughter. It had to be somebody who could speak the language, and I managed to write quite a nice little letter in Spanish and it was very well received. In fact, I am to interview the sister in London to-morrow, Saturday, afternoon. And, if I please her, I’m going to throw up my job here and go out to Spain at the end of the month.”

Miss Bryant received this news in stony silence—just staring at her young friend over the rim of her glasses. She was used to disappointments. Life had never been very kind to her. But this seemed the unkindest blow of all—to remove from her path this fair, attractive girl, who was not only a delightful person to work with, but a fresh, sweet companion outside the office. All the starved mother-love in Ida Bryant’s heart had been given to Rosemary Wallace since their first meeting. She could hardly bear to contemplate losing her so completely … losing her to a job which would take her right out of England. And to that country which Ida doggedly believed was barbaric and where a lot of dark wolves would probably swallow her darling lamb up completely.

Rosemary walked over to the desk at which her friend was sitting, slightly bowed, and put an arm around the shrunken figure in the cheap skirt and knitted jumper.

“Darling, is it an awful shock to you? I didn’t tell you before because I wanted to be sure I was going to get the job, and I’m almost certain now … that is, unless the Spanish lady takes a violent dislike to me when she sees me.”

“It certainly is a shock,” said the older woman slowly. “And it isn’t as though I don’t want you to better yourself, or that I recommend anybody to spend a lifetime, as I’ve done, in this God-forsaken office. But I don’t like the idea of losing you, Rosemary, and that’s certain!”

“I shall miss you too. You’ve been terribly good to me.”

“And now you’ll go to your beloved Spain and forget all about me.”

“Certainly I won’t. I shall never forget you, Ida. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t go on being friends. I’ll write to you, heaps. And I don’t suppose my job will last for long. Maybe less than a year. I believe this girl, to whom I’m to be companion, is half-engaged now, although she is only eighteen. And when she’s married I’ll come back.”

“Or get another job in Spain,” said Miss Bryant gloomily.

Rosemary gave a little sigh. She stretched her arms above her head with unconscious grace, and the older woman looked at her graceful figure and felt a pang of apprehension. She was so pretty, Rosemary. Those nasty, swarthy Spaniards would all fall in love with her, and who would she have to look after her.

“I only wish it wasn’t Spain!” she exclaimed. “I’d rather you were going anywhere but abroad like this.”

“Oh, but that’s the whole thrill of it … the fact that it’s taking me abroad, and especially to Spain.”

“Well, I suppose you know best.”

“It’s what I’ve worked for,” said Rosemary. “I’ve absolutely slaved at my Spanish all this last year.”

“Oh, well, I must accustom myself to it,” said Ida Bryant. “But I’m going to miss you horribly.”

And she took off her glasses and wiped them, blinking.

Rosemary tried to cheer her up. She, herself, had no desire to break up what had been a very close friendship. But the thrill of adventure was in her veins, and it was queer how the thought of Spain fascinated her. She liked anything that was Spanish … dances, music, castanets; the high combs and lace mantillas that she saw in pictures, shawls; paintings which showed white courtyards and balconies, orange and lemon trees, flowers and sunlight drenching everything. The very word Spain breathed romance to her. And the more she studied the language and books on the country, the more deeply she became absorbed.

Now nothing would content her but to go to Spain, and this seemed her big chance.

Riding on a bus through the London twilight that evening toward the inexpensive brasserie where they were to have supper together, Rosemary tried to interest Ida Bryant on the subject, gave her more details about the impending job.

To-morrow she was going to the Cumberland Hotel to meet this Spanish lady whose sister, Señora Lamanda, had advertised for an English companion for her daughter, Mercedes.

The Lamandas, so Rosemary had learned, through a Spanish student, at the night classes, were a very powerful and well-known family in Spain. They were enormously wealthy, and had not had their estates or wealth removed from them, like so many royalists, because they were “in” with the present Government.

“In the letter that I received from Señora Lamanda,” Rosemary told Ida, “she said that they lived partly in Madrid and partly in Malaga, where they have a villa, some seven or eight miles out of the town. I am to go to this villa and spend the next few months giving English lessons to Mercedes and accompanying her wherever they go.”

“Well, it all sounds very interesting,” Miss Bryant was forced to agree, “but I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like what?”

“The thought of you in Spain.”

“But what on earth can happen to me? I shall have a marvellous time with people who have so much money and influence.”

“If you marry a Spaniard I’ll never forgive you.”

Rosemary’s golden eyes danced.

“Old idiot; why should I? There’s no question of me going out there and getting married. I’m going to a job.”

“And will this sister take you out there?”

“No. She’s over for the summer. I’m going out alone.”

Miss Bryant’s face grew longer.

“So you’re going to travel alone? I don’t like it.”

“Well I shall like it,” said Rosemary laughing. “It will all be a most thrilling adventure. But don’t let’s either of us get too het up over it. Señora Lamanda’s sister may take a violent dislike to me and refuse to engage me.”

“I’m afraid there’s no chance of that,” said Ida.

And of course she was right. Twenty-four hours later Rosemary’s fate was sealed. The interview with the Spanish lady at the Cumberland Hotel had proved entirely satisfactory. Rosemary’s good looks and charming manners had won the day for her, and she on her part had thought the Señora charming. If the Lamandas were like that, everything would be perfect. The Señora had even had a photograph of her niece to show Rosemary, and that had thrilled her. Mercedes Lamanda, at eighteen, wearing a high comb and white lace mantilla, looked ravishingly lovely. And a glowing description of the Villa Santa Barbara, near Malaga, fired Rosemary’s imagination. It all just sounded too good to be true. Her most cherished dreams were going to be realised. It was impossible for Rosemary to regret answering the advertisement and taking the job.

It only remained for her to give in her notice at the office and settle up affairs at home and she could be off. Off to Spain, to the sunlight, the romance, for which she had worked and about which she had dreamed for so long. Perhaps the one regret was Ida … poor old Ida, who was so fond of her and relied so on her company. But life was like that. There had to be a wrench of some kind, and after all the job might not last long and she would come back and be with Ida again. Now that she was so fluent at her Spanish, she felt that she would always get work of some kind—in London if not abroad.

Ida was a stand-by until the last; helped her let the flat, and dispose of her furniture, and spend some of the money that her mother had left her on an outfit. It was early spring in London, but in Malaga it would be like summer. The Señora had told her to take thin frocks. There would be bathing and tennis and picnics in the mountains, and all the delightful recreations of summer in full swing.

Little wonder that Rosemary was thrilled when she bought and packed a variety of silky summer dresses, a pair of gay beach pyjamas, a big hat or two, and some evening dresses … the first really smart ones she had ever possessed, because never before had she been so extravagant. With her hair properly set, and her nails manicured, she tried on the new clothes, and found herself transformed. And Ida looked at the lovely, elegant young figure, and felt that she had indeed lost the little Rosemary of office days.

Nevertheless, despite her reluctance to part from Rosemary and her mistrust of Spain and this adventure, she tried not to cast a shadow over Rosemary’s happiness, and kept her doubts to herself.

Then came the day when Miss Bryant got the morning away from the office in order to see her young friend off to Spain. A thrilling morning for Rosemary, and a sad one for the elder woman, tinged with anxiety. She kept feeling that something. . .