A Spanish Lover by Joanna Trollope Page B

Sevilla.’
    Frances looked at him.
    â€˜You are late,’ she said.
    â€˜I am?’ He seemed amazed.
    â€˜In your letter, you said you would be here at nine o’clock. It is now almost twenty-five to ten.’
    He smiled again, making a balancing movement with his hand. ‘One little half hour! In Spain—’
    The foyer doors opened again. A youth in black trousers and a black-leather jacket appeared bearing a tin tray with a single glass of red wine on it. The receptionist emerged from his retreat.
    â€˜Your wine, Miss Shore,’ he said with quiet triumph.
    The youth put the tray down on the reception desk. Frances and José Gómez Moreno both looked at it.
    â€˜Please,’ Frances said. ‘Take it to the couple sitting over there. With my compliments. They can share it.’
    â€˜
¿Qué?
’ said the youth.
    â€˜You explain,’ Frances said to the receptionist and then, turning to José Gómez Moreno who was gazing at her with an expression of profound puzzlement, ‘and then
you
can start.’
    He took her to a restaurant in the Pasaje de Andreu. It was underground, in a vaulted cellar that had once, he explained, held great oak barrels of wine.
    â€˜White wine,’ he said smiling again, ‘Moriles and Montilla. The best vineyards for these wines are near Córdoba.’
    Frances wasn’t interested in Córdoba. She held the menu – ‘
Entremeses
’, it said in flowing script. ‘
Sopas, Huevos, Aves y caza
’ – well away from her in order to show José Gómez Moreno that she was not to be side-tracked and said, ‘I think there has been some confusion.’
    He smiled. He was really very beautiful, with a decisively boned face and clear dark eyes and the smooth, obedient dark hair that is so rare in England.
    â€˜Confusion? Surely not—’
    Frances laid the menu down and folded her hands on it.
    â€˜When we spoke. Señor Gómez Moreno—’
    â€˜José, please—’
    â€˜José, you said that your hotels were open but not busy at Christmas and that, as you and your father would both be working, there would be ample time to show me—’
    â€˜There will be! There is! Please look at the menu. Here is most excellent
sopa de ajo
, a soup of garlic, paprika—’
    â€˜I don’t want to look at the menu, José. I want to know why I am staying at that most inferior hotel when you are supposed to be impressing on me the suitability of your
posadas
for my clients.’
    José Gómez Moreno gave a deep and sorrowful sigh. He poured wine into Frances’s glass.
    â€˜There comes something surprising.’
    â€˜I beg your pardon?’
    He sighed again. He spread his elegant hands.
    â€˜My father goes to Madrid for two nights. All is here as usual. Your room is ready. Then comes the telephone, quite unexpected, quite unforeseen. It is a party from Oviedo, from the north, wishing to stay for four nights, an excellent booking, of much benefit at a quiet time.’
    â€˜So someone from Oviedo, who may never come to your hotel again, is given the room I was to have and I am – am fobbed off with the Hotel Toro?’
    â€˜I don’t understand fobbed off—’
    â€˜José,’ Frances said. ‘Do you think this is any way to do business?’
    She leaned forward and peered at him. She saw that he was not only beautiful but also very young, perhaps no more than twenty-four or five.
    â€˜Does your father know about this? Does he know that I have been thrown out for the last-minute party from – from wherever it was?’
    â€˜Oviedo.’
    Frances said crossly, ‘It doesn’t matter where it was. I think you are making me far too furious to be hungry.’
    â€˜Please—’ He put a hand out and laid it on hers. ‘I make mistake. Truly I am sorry. The Hotel Toro