Frost in the Sun

by Claire Lorrimer

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

Casilda Montero is the beautiful and hot-blooded daughter of a wealthy Spanish aristocrat. Sent from the family hacienda in Southern Spain to an English boarding school, she befriends Joscelin Howard, a shy, serious English girl. As both girls find themselves swept up in the dramatic events unfolding in 1930s Europe, this enduring friendship is the one constant in their lives. From the carefree glamour of London high society to the devastation of the battlefields in Spain, Casilda, Joscelin and their families are tragically linked by passion and bloodshed.

Release date: March 27, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 528

Sample

DON JAIME MONTERO, son of the Marqués de Fernandez de la Riva, dismounted his Arab stallion and handed the reins to the groom awaiting him in the hot dusty patio adjoining his country house, the Hacienda El Campanario. Both he and the horse were sweating profusely, and with a sigh of relief he removed his sombrero and allowed the cool breeze from the surrounding plains to blow through his thick, dark hair.

“It went well, the corrida, señor?” the servant asked as he threw a colourful blanket over the stallion’s steaming flanks.

Don Jaime smiled, his handsome face lighting up with pleasure as he recalled the bullfight in Sevilla where two of his best beasts had put up very creditable performances.

“It went very well, José!” he said. “I regret you could not be there. Vincente Pastor was magnificent — at his best. Francisco will tell you about it when he arrives home.”

It would be another hour at least before his head herdsman returned with the empty carts in which the bulls had been transported to the corral outside the bullring the previous afternoon. Don Jaime’s friends had wanted him to remain in Sevilla to celebrate, but with a three-hour ride ahead of him he had declined. He could have stayed overnight at the family’s house in the Plaza San Isidoro, but his wife and children were at the Hacienda and since Ursula was pregnant with their sixth child, he felt obliged to return as quickly as possible.

Ursula was English and had never really become accustomed to the isolation of the Spanish countryside. Elder daughter of an earl, she had spent her childhood in the luxury of their big London house. She had never become reconciled to the somewhat primitive conditions of the Hacienda, and the bulls he bred on his ranch terrified her.

Jaime turned now and walked through the archway into the courtyard of his home. Momentarily he was sheltered from the dying rays of the September sun by the arched entrance, on top of which was the belfry — the campanario from which the Hacienda had several hundred years ago derived its name. He had always loved the place. Spanish law decreed that on the death of his parents an estate such as this must be divided equally among all the surviving children. Jaime considered himself fortunate that since his two sisters had married foreigners, they had already agreed that he should buy out their shares in the property when that time came.

His arrival had been noted and the courtyard was a bustle of movement. A servant was placing a tray of drinks and a plate of olives and almonds on the table beneath the big bougainvillaea tree where Ursula was seated in a cushioned basket chair, her tapestry by her side. She had made the patio as English as possible. In the centre of a lawn of coarse green grass was a stone goldfish pond. A gardener was watering the grass, as he did every night when the heat of the sun was gone. Carnations, geraniums and roses which Ursula had had planted gave off a pleasant perfume, and Don Jaime greeted her with a feeling of pleasure and well-being.

Ursula looked cool and elegant in a lavender tea-gown that concealed most of her seven months’ pregnancy. It was not her fault, he thought as he kissed her hand, that she did not look either passionate or sensual. The excitement of the bullfight had left him with a strong desire to end the day with the rewarding pleasures of a woman’s body, but the mistress he kept in Sevilla was away in Madrid and was not, as was usual, at his disposal.

He sat down beside his wife and poured himself a glass of manzanilla. “I am surprised to see you alone, cariña. Where is everyone?”

“Your mother and father are still resting,” Ursula replied in English. “Nanny Gordon is changing the little ones’ clothes. Miss Smart is reading to Eduardo.”

Jaime lent back in his chair with a barely concealed sigh. He could not abide the governess Ursula had recently imported from England; moreover the thought of his eldest son, Jaime Eduardo, pleased him little better. He was invariably irritated by the sight of this delicate, undersized child whose timidity was such that he was always to be found clinging to either his nanny’s or his mother’s skirts. Born prematurely, the boy had been close to death for the first few months of his life, and as a result Ursula had become obsessively careful of him.

At least he now had two more sons, Jaime reminded himself — Patricio and Cristobal, who had a twin sister. But by the time they had been born, Ursula had already presented him with his eldest daughter who, despite her sex, compensated totally for his disappointment in his first-born son. Casilda, not yet five, now outstripped her eldest brother in every field. Fearless, she could sit her pony without a lead rein where Eduardo would still not go near a horse. She loved nothing better than to ride behind her father when he inspected the vast acreage of his olive and orange plantations or the bull ranch. The child seldom grew tired and was happy chatting animatedly to the olive pickers or herdsmen whilst he stood discussing matters with his administrator.

Ursula had complained to him many times about Casilda. “You indulge her, Jaime, and the servants follow your example. Nanny tells me the child is incorrigible and it does not surprise me since you forgive her every transgression.”

There was an element of truth in his wife’s accusation, but Jaime had not the slightest intention of altering his ways. He adored his pretty, dare-devil child, and now he put down his glass and rose to his feet.

“… one or two things to see to …” he murmured, unwilling to admit that his intention was to go in search of his small daughter, who he had fully expected to greet him, since their love for one another was perfectly mutual.

It was ten minutes before he found her in one of the many stables where the farm carts were normally housed. Since this was in the middle of the olive-picking season, the carts were out and Casilda, with a young companion, had taken the opportunity to convert the building into a miniature bullring.

The children were too engrossed in their play to notice his approach and he stood in the shadow of the doorway, observing them with considerable amusement. His daughter, barefoot and only just recognizable beneath a coating of dust and grime, was charging round the bullring pushing a little cart on which was mounted a pair of carved wooden horns resembling those of a small bull. He vaguely recognized the boy as being the son of his mayoral — the all important overseer of his herd of fighting bulls. The child, a year or so younger than Casilda, was waving a piece of scarlet cloth in perfect imitation of a matador tempting his bull towards him.

Casilda’s wild, uncontrolled charge with her little trolley brought a moment’s apprehension to the watching man as he realized how easily the small boy could be hit — and hurt — were he not quick enough to avoid the charge. But the child stepped aside with remarkable skill, and involuntarily Jaime called out:

“Olé, matador, olé!”

The children ceased their play instantly at the sound of his voice and Casilda, dropping her cart handles, rushed into his open arms.

“Papá, Papá!” she cried, her big, dark eyes sparkling with pleasure. “We are playing corridas and Benito is Vincente Pastor and now it is his turn to be the bull and I shall be Pedro Romero because once you told me he was the most magnificent matador of all! You must watch me. I have been practising all day. Jorge says I perform very well — muy, muy bien! …” She broke off to draw a long, painful sigh before adding reluctantly: “But Benito is nearly as good as me. He says he is going to be the best matador in Spain, which I cannot be since I am a girl. Why am I a girl, Papá? I want to be a boy. Can you not ask our priest to pray for a milagro to change me to a boy? Don Alfonso says if we have faith in God, He can even move mountains. Will you ask him, Papá, please?”

Amused, and yet sensitive to his daughter’s earnest hopes, he said gently: “I do not think I will, mi amor, even to please you. You see, I love you as you are. You are a very pretty girl and it would be a terrible waste, would it not? Come now, show me quickly how you perform, my little matador.”

Diverted, the child leaped from his arms and ran to snatch the red cloth from the boy’s hands. He had been watching motionless, silent, but with a grin on his brown face which deepened as Don Jaime winked at him. He had no fear of his father’s employer who, everyone said, was a stern man but kindly and fair. Don Jaime became angry only if his horses or his magnificent herd of fighting bulls were mishandled, never blaming a man for a mishap that was not of his making.

“Dáte prisa, Benito, hurry yourself!” Casilda commanded both in Spanish and English, confusing the two languages as she often did when she was excited. “I want to show Papá how good I am! You must be a strong, fierce bull. You are to forget I am a girl!”

Don Jaime leaned against the cool stone wall and watched silently as the children played, their movements perfect imitations of adult man and beast. This was no girl’s game, and he knew his wife would object most strongly were she to know of it. But he had played such a game many times as a child and he knew the pleasure of it. Moreover, it pleased him to know of his daughter’s interest, young though she was, in this particular hobby of his. It was his obsession to breed the best fighting bulls in the country.

His thoughts returned to the small girl who seemed to him to have few of his wife’s characteristics. Casilda was all fire, passion and laughter where Ursula was cool, dignified and rigidly self-disciplined. His wife had borne him five children, but from a liaison which had never been more than dutiful on her part, and he wondered now how between them they had fashioned so exotic and wild an offspring as his elder daughter. Even Ursula, who disapproved of the child as forcibly as he himself loved her, admitted that one day Casilda would grow into a beautiful girl.

She would have to be found a rich and indulgent husband, Jaime thought with a smile as he carried her on his shoulders back to the Hacienda. But meanwhile, he wished her to enjoy the freedom of childhood a little longer. Soon enough, she would be constrained by the restrictions that must inevitably be imposed on her as she grew up. Listening to her bright, happy chatter, he could not now envisage her cooped up in the English convent Ursula was determined she should attend. A convert to Roman Catholicism upon her marriage to him, his wife was deeply concerned with their daughter’s religious education and, since boarding schools were not de rigueur in Spain, she had made up her mind that Casilda should go to England — a proposal Jaime did not support.

Fortunately, he told himself as he handed the excited girl over to her governess, he need not worry about Casilda’s education for several years yet.

“The child is quite filthy, Milady!” Miss Smart said disapprovingly to Ursula. “And she has torn her dress. Really, Casilda, you look like a gipsy!”

Jaime grinned as he saw the brief play of emotions on his wife’s face. She clearly supported the governess’s opinion but knew from past experience that her husband would champion the child. Casilda knew it, too — the little minx! — and was clinging to his hand, gazing up at him appealingly.

“Anda, niña!” he said, giving her a playful tap on her bottom. “Off you go and put on your prettiest dress for Papá to see at dinner. We will show Mama and Miss Smart that you are no gitana!”

With a laugh the little girl ran off, her stiff-backed governess in pursuit.

Jaime seated himself beside his wife and said placatingly: “She is very young, cariña. Youth is too fleeting, is it not? Although when I look at you, my dear, I find it hard to believe that you are the mother of five!”

Ursula’s thin mouth relaxed momentarily into a softer expression, although she was well accustomed to such facile compliments from her handsome husband, aware that they could slide from his lips as easily as did the harsh recriminations when his temper flared. Her sister, Pamela, had once asked her if she loved her husband.

“I would be quite mad about him if I were you, Ursula,” she had said with her disturbing candour. Ursula preferred not to talk about such things, but her younger sister’s temperament was the very opposite to her own. She herself did not care to think about love — far less about sex. She was reasonably certain that Jaime kept a mistress in Sevilla, but welcomed the fact since it meant he came to her bed less frequently. Her husband’s attentions never failed to sicken her and inevitably culminated in another pregnancy — a state that she felt reduced her to a level little better than one of Jaime’s cows.

Pamela, however, envied Ursula, saying that she would willingly change places with her sister. “Jaime is so romantic!” she proclaimed. “And your life is so exciting, Ursula! You should try being married to Angus!”

Angus, Lord Costain, a full generation older than Pamela, was a dour, crotchety Scot who refused to participate in the social whirl of London society that his wife enjoyed. He spent a great deal of his time on his estate in Scotland, and it was many years since he had claimed his marital rights. This was not a subject Ursula cared to discuss, but her aversion to what Pamela called ‘girlish gossip’ did not halt her sister from talking quite shamelessly about her married life.

Sisters they might be, Ursula thought, but they resembled one another in looks only. Pamela, she considered, was a ‘libertine’. Ursula had tried to persuade her younger sister to convert to Roman Catholicism, but soon realized that Pamela had little or no interest in religion, whereas for her it had become the mainstay of her life in this foreign country. The family priest was not only her confidant but her constant companion whenever Jaime was away. If her husband were not attending bullfights in Sevilla or Madrid or Barcelona, he was at the Coto Doñana where he hunted with the young King Alfonso. Ursula had met the Queen, a pretty girl, granddaughter of the late Queen Victoria, who had already given the Spanish monarch an heir — a child now two and a half years old and rumoured to be a haemophiliac. As a consequence, Ursula and the priest had increased their daily prayers of thanksgiving that her first-born, Eduardo, had grown into a healthy, if delicate, child. He was a quiet little boy who gave no trouble — unlike Casilda who was thoroughly disobedient.

Ursula was unaware that part of her aversion to her elder daughter lay rooted in jealousy. She had to compete with Casilda for Jaime’s approval, knowing that from his affection for her sprang his willingness to indulge her — a state of affairs by no means common in Spanish husbands, who were very much a law unto themselves. His parents, both elderly and in poor health, lived with them. Ursula was disgusted by the old Marqués’s habit of falling asleep at table, but Jaime refused to agree to her request that the old people should be kept apart in their own rooms. He was a family man and at his happiest with his entire family gathered around him.

That night, Ursula regarded his flushed, smiling face with well-concealed resentment. She still found the late hour of ten o’clock for dining did not suit her digestion. Whilst her husband could eat with hearty enjoyment, she could only toy with her food. Casilda, she noted, piled her plate as indecently full as Jaime’s. Without regard to her mother’s oft-repeated adage that children should be seen and not heard, she was chatting between mouthfuls alternately to her grandmother and to her father, monopolizing his attention as usual. Nanny was trying to feed the twins, Cristobal and Carlota, who, at the age of two, still chose to use their fingers in preference to their cutlery. Miss Smart, her little finger outstretched in the manner she considered to be refined, was chasing a quail’s leg around her plate in rapt concentration. Only Eduardo and Patricio were free of Doña Ursula’s resentment as she contemplated her family.

But the comparative calm of the meal was suddenly shattered by the arrival of Jaime’s head groom. Clutching his sombrero against his chest, the man bent to whisper in his employer’s ear. His face was indicative of his apprehension, as was the nervous twisting of his hands.

Ursula’s head turned sharply as her husband sprang to his feet and stood glowering at his servant.

“What do you mean, lame!” he shouted in Spanish. “The animal was perfectly all right when I rode him home.”

The groom’s mutterings seemed only to increase Jaime’s anger. He grabbed the man’s arm and strode out of the room, his raised voice audible to the silent group at the dining table.

Casilda appeared to be the only one not affected by her father’s furious outburst. In a high, excited voice, she said to her grandfather: “José has just told Papá that Ramón, Papá’s white stallion, has been found with a knife buried in his foot. José said it was not his fault because it is always Jorge who looks after Ramón.”

Ursula sighed as she signalled to the servants to clear away the dishes. The uneasiness affected them all, and her sensitive Eduardo more than most, Ursula thought as she saw him refuse the apricot tart which she had ordered especially to please him. It was almost a relief when Jaime came storming back into the room.

“Maldito! Estúpido!” he exclaimed as he paced the floor. “Imbécil!”

For once Casilda sat still, not daring to go to her father to ply him with questions.

He needed no prompting, however. His handsome face was distorted by fury.

“It’s more than probable that I shall lose Ramón as a result of this idiotic piece of negligence,” he raged. “Jorge swears that he replaced the compactum knife in the tack room the last time he used it, but you could see by his face that he was lying. He probably dropped it in the straw and didn’t see it! How could it have got from the tack room to Ramón’s stable by itself, I asked him? Knives don’t walk! The bistoury was exposed and my poor Ramón must have put his weight fully on it. José found the confounded scalpel wedged beneath the shoe, and the point had pierced right through the frog. It makes me sick to think about it. It’s out now, of course, and José has poured disinfectant into the wound, but blood poisoning will probably result!”

Now at last Casilda left her chair and ran to throw her arms about her father’s legs. “Poor Papá! Poor Ramón!” she said with genuine concern. “Did it hurt him very much? Don’t worry, Papá. I will pray for him.”

Jaime’s face softened as he lifted his daughter into his arms. “We must pray for his recovery,” he said, sitting down once more, Casilda on his lap. “In the meanwhile, I have fined Jorge a week’s wages and dismissed him.”

“But Papá …” Casilda’s voice was filled with astonishment. “You have always said Jorge was so good with the horses — and that one day you would make him head groom.”

Jaime’s voice was stern as he replied. “No doubt my praise of him went to his head,” he said coldly, “and has resulted in him becoming complacent — and at the very least, criminally careless. I consider his punishment perfectly just. It is his misfortune that he has a young wife and family to support. He will get no reference from me if Ramón dies.”

Suddenly, the old Marqués spoke. “There have been many people in the yard today, my boy. How can you be certain that one of them did not take the knife to the stable?”

“Who would do such a thing? And for what purpose?” Jaime said. “Of course I am certain it was Jorge.”

“Why, Papá, I was in the yard with Benito and we …” Casilda fell suddenly silent as her glance went to the bowed head of her brother, Eduardo. He had gone to the yard with her and Benito. He had not wanted to play bullfights and seemed content to remain on his own with the tin train he had been given for his birthday. He was going to mend it, he had told them, for it had a big stone wedged in its wheels.

Casilda’s face turned a fiery red as she recalled perfectly clearly that she and Benito had seen Eduardo, a short while later, leaving the tack room and disappearing into Ramón’s stall. She had thought nothing of it at the time, but now she knew that her brother, not Jorge, must have been the culprit.

She felt a thrill of fear as she realized how furious Papá would be if he were to learn the truth. He might beat Eduardo; he might even be angry enough to kill him! She felt Eduardo’s fear as if it were her own. But at the same time she liked Jorge, who had taught her to ride her first pony, and it was not fair that he should be dismissed because of her brother’s carelessness. Confusion was causing her to shift restlessly on her father’s lap and he lifted her down. For a moment she lingered at his side, wanting him to know the truth and yet not wanting poor Eduardo to become the butt of his wrath.

Suddenly, the boy was sick. Nanny Gordon and the younger children jumped to their feet as the evil-smelling, undigested food spread slowly over the table.

“Poor Eduardo, poor darling!” Doña Ursula said.

Jaime drew a deep sigh of exasperation.

“Take the boy to his room, Nanny,” he ordered, as he beckoned to a servant to fill his glass. His anger and fear for his beloved Ramón were abating and now he felt only depressed. Not only was he in danger of losing his favourite stallion but he had lost his best groom. Not that he regretted dismissing the man. A man not to be trusted was not worth employing. No, he was well rid of him, even if he was the most intelligent groom he’d ever had. The fellow was head and shoulders brighter than most of the peasants from the nearby village and the men looked to him to solve their problems.

He sighed again as his wife instructed Nanny to put the little ones to bed. He informed her that he would finish his drink in the salón. Casilda could stay up a little longer, he added, smiling at his daughter. She would distract him from his unwelcome thoughts.

Don Jaime might have found it a great deal more difficult to dismiss his anxieties had he realized that the day would come when his dismissal of Jorge would bring tragedy to him and his family. The future seemed as secure for him, the future Marqués de Fernandez de la Riva, as it was precarious for his groom.

“FOR heaven’s sake, Nanny, he must be somewhere! Surely one of the servants has seen him?”

Lady Costain’s voice was only slightly tinged with concern. She adored her only son, Alan, in her vague, detached way, but felt the children’s nanny fussed over him far too much. He was, after all, almost eight years old and no longer a baby. Doubtless Alan had sneaked away somewhere where he could amuse himself without Nanny’s endless cautions.

“It’s getting quite late, Milady — and if Master Alan is out in the garden, he’ll catch his death of cold. These autumn nights can be perilous and …”

Pamela Costain stopped listening as her thoughts turned to the Scottish climate, which she always found uncongenial. This huge stone mansion was never free of draughts even in summer, and the winds howled in over the moors from the Atlantic Ocean. Angus, her husband, seemed impervious to the cold and to the isolation of his ancestral home, and came to Strathinver Castle as often as he could, mooching around with a gun or a fishing rod or tramping the hills stalking some wretched stag.

Whenever she was able, Pamela remained in London in their large, comfortable house in Rutland Gate. There were endless diversions there to help her forget her growing conviction that she should never have married a man whose upbringing and interests were so totally opposite to her own. She had been very young when Angus had first proposed during her débutante season. Because he was wealthy and titled, her parents had persuaded her that it was a most satisfactory match, and that love would come with marriage. Far from it — her physical aversion to her elderly, ginger-haired husband had alienated her still further from him. Her two daughters, now nine and ten, had inherited their father’s colouring, their white skin freckling at the slightest hint of sunshine and their eyes an unbecoming, watery blue fringed with sandy lashes. Alan was the only one of her three children who resembled her — his hair gold, and his eyes a beautiful hazel green.

“Yes, Nanny, I’m sure you’re right. Tell Macpherson to send someone to instruct the gardeners to make up a search party. But I’m certain no harm has come to the boy.”

Pamela walked restlessly across the drawing room to stand by the tall, narrow window looking westward towards the sea. At any moment now a servant would come in to draw the curtains, for darkness was falling fast. She would get one of the footmen to light the fire, she thought with a shiver. Nanny was right — the autumn evenings here in Sutherland could be bitingly cold. She seemed always to be cold.

Ursula, she thought enviously, would doubtless be basking in the hot summer sun of southern Spain — that land of music, colour, excitement — with her stunningly attractive husband to fuss over her.

As she expected, one of the maids came in to draw the heavy velvet curtains across the windows, breaking her train of thought.

“Has Master Alan been found, Jean?” Pamela asked, the first real tinge of fear causing her to shiver as she realized how quickly darkness had fallen.

“No, Milady,” the girl replied. “The bootboy said he thought he’d seen him down by the stables, but that was at three o’clock, Milady, and no one’s seen the wee lad since.”

Pamela frowned. “Tell Macpherson I want the house searched again, Jean,” she said. “And I’ll have this fire lit … the nursery fire, too. If Master Alan has been outside, he may be cold. Where are Miss Barbara and Miss Isobel?”

“With Nanny in the schoolroom, Milady,” Jean told her. “Nanny said they were to have their tea at the usual time, no matter what.”

“Very well, Jean. That will be all!” Pamela dismissed the maid. For the time being, she thought, she would not report Alan’s disappearance to his father. Angus would simply be irritated, for he hated being drawn into discussions about the children’s upbringing, which he considered his wife’s responsibility. If only he would show more affection for his children, she thought, as one of the footmen came in to light the fire — a vain wish when she knew very well that he was quite incapable of showing any affection to her. She doubted sometimes if Angus knew what it meant to be fond of another human being.

Although Pamela was correct in supposing that there was no love lost between Alan and his father, at this particular moment the boy wanted his father more than anyone else in the world. Alone, somewhere in the depths of a vast pine forest, Alan knew that he was lost. His legs were scratched by brambles and there was a painful weal across one cheek where a branch had hit him. But it was not physical discomforts which brought tears to his eyes — it was the realization that he would almost certainly have to spend the night alone in this alien place where, for all he knew, wolves would be lurking to attack him; or, worse still, the witches and ogres of his story books might at any moment appear in terrifying guise.

Crouching with his back against one of the large pines, the boy shivered. His jersey was not keeping out the cold. There were terrible noises everywhere around him, as if the whole forest had suddenly come alive. He tried calling for help but his voice sounded feeble, echoing forlornly around him and causing him further fright as birds flew up in alarm from their branches. If only his father — or someone — would come! Surely by now the household would have missed him and started looking for him? But commonsense warned him that no one had the slightest idea where he might be …

Rubbing his eyes, Alan thought back to the start of this disagreeable adventure. It had begun so excitingly when he had seen a fox in broad daylight steal one of the chickens raised by the lodgekeeper’s wife and sneak off with it.

He decided at once that it must be a vixen taking the fowl home to feed her cubs. For as long as he could remember, he had wanted a fox cub to raise as a pet. Now he might find an earth, were he to follow the vixen. Quickly and stealthily, just as Willie, the head gardener, had taught him, he followed the animal across the field. He had been able to keep it well in sight until it disappeared into the outer perimeter of the pine forest. Certain that he would soon catch sight of it again, he hurried into the wood, looking eagerly about him. This was forbidden territory — a rule Alan thought unduly restrictive and quite frequently had disobeyed this summer.

Spurred on by excitement, he had gone deeper into the forest. It had been warm, soaked in afternoon sunshine and smelling of hot pine needles. He had heard the soft cooing of wood pigeons and occasionally he had glimpsed a red squirrel. Of his thieving vixen, however, there was no sign.

The discovery of a burn, silvery bright and filled with crystal-clear water, had proved yet another distraction. He had taken off his shoes and socks and paddled for a while, until he became aware that the