Olivia Gates - One Night in... Rio

The air was so clear, she saw, looking about her, realising that the blue line on the horizon was the sea. In the other direction purple mountains, half-shrouded in mist, looked distant and mysterious. Here, a heat haze hovered over miles of open grassland, the vast landscape punctuated by stands of pine or flowering acacia.

There were groups of cattle too, seeking shade beneath the trees. Rather dangerous-looking cattle, Isobel thought, their long, pointed horns turning irresistibly in their direction.

She was so busy taking it all in that she almost missed the stone gateposts with their arching logo of rearing stallions. The track narrowed between white-railed fences, steadily rising towards a sprawling mass of buildings about half a mile away.

There were more cattle here, and Isobel looked at Alejandro enquiringly. ‘I thought this was a horse farm,’ she said, gesturing towards the animals. ‘Do you breed cattle too?’

‘We try to be—what would you say?—sufficient, nao ?’ His smile was faintly mocking. ‘Carlos, my manager, would consider any waste of precioso —um, valuable grazing land—a crime.’

They were approaching what appeared to be a small settlement now, and Isobel waited in unwilling anticipation for her first sight of Alejandro’s house.

And, despite the number of outbuildings, the homestead itself was unmistakeable. The two-storeyed building had a wraparound veranda and dark-green shutters folded back from all the windows. Its walls were liberally covered with passionflower vine, and there were numerous tubs of blossoms spilling their beauty in the shade of the first-floor balcony.

Isobel let out a breath she’d hardly known she was holding, and Alejandro cast a glance her way. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ Isobel shook her head. ‘No. It’s—it’s lovely. I don’t know; I thought it would be a little less—less—’

‘Civilised?’ suggested Alejandro drily, bringing the car to a halt on the gravelled forecourt, and she bit her lip.

‘Sophisticated,’ she amended, pushing open her door without thinking what she was doing, only to gasp for air as the unexpected altitude took her breath.

‘Be careful,’ said Alejandro, pushing open his own door and getting out rather less enthusiastically. ‘We are several-hundred feet above sea level, but it is still very hot.’

‘Tell me about it,’ murmured Isobel, pushing out her lips and blowing air up over her hot face. She licked her dry lips. Then, pushing back the damp tendrils of hair that were clinging to her forehead, ‘Do you ever get used to the heat?’

‘In time,’ said Alejandro, seemingly unmoved by the temperature, which even here had to be in the high eighties. ‘Come. We will get some refreshment inside.’

Despite her reluctance to be alone with him, Isobel rounded the car to join him just as another man, a little older than Alejandro, appeared from the back of the house.

‘Ah,’ he said, coming to greet Alejandro with a smile on his face. ‘O que voce esta fazendo?’ His eyes turned to Isobel. ‘Quem isto e?’

‘Ingles, por favor, Carlos,’ said Alejandro wryly. ‘This is Ms Jameson. The young woman I was telling you about.’

‘Ah, Mees Jameson.’

Carlos’s accent was more pronounced than Alejandro’s, but his smile was infinitely more friendly. He held out his hand towards her. ‘Carlos Ferreira, senhorita. I am happy to meet you.’

‘Isobel,’ said Isobel at once, shaking his hand a little too enthusiastically. But it was a relief to know they weren’t alone after all. ‘I understand you do all the work around here.’

Carlos laughed then, white teeth showing below the rim of his dark moustache. ‘I cannot believe this man said that,’ he said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. ‘But if you would like a—how do you say?—a tour of the stables, nao? I am your man.’

Isobel glanced at Alejandro, but his expression was unreadable. With a little shrug, she said, ‘I’d like that very much.’

‘But not now, sim ?’ suggested Alejandro, his quiet voice as commanding as an order. He smiled at Carlos as if to soften his words. ‘Ms— Isobella —is hot and thirsty. I will ask Consuela if she has something cold and sweet.’

Isobel started to protest, but, after exchanging a few brief words with Alejandro in their own language, Carlos turned way.

‘Until later, Isobella,’ he called, raising his hand in farewell, and Isobel had no choice but to accompany Alejandro across the veranda and through the open doors into the house.

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