Against the Wind

by Anne Stuart

  Not that she could count on that. If she made a run for it she might very well end up with a bullet between her shoulder blades, and her father had yet to prove that he’d be worth that sacrifice. He had yet to prove he was worthy of her crossing the street for him, much less dragging herself down to San Pablo and being put through the gauntlet of everyone’s disbelief and suspicions.

  If and when she got out of that mess, she promised herself grimly, if and when she ascertained that her father was in decent enough health, then she would turn her back on him and on Jake Murphy, and never again would she let the memories drift back into her consciousness. She had had enough of Sam Lambert and his ideologies.

  She looked over at Ramon. His thin dark face was shadowed with exhaustion, his head dropping slightly on a narrow neck that seemed almost too frail to support it. He was sitting on the rough stone floor, leaning against the wall, his arms hanging limply by his side. Maddy watched with fascination as he struggled with a huge yawn and lost the battle. He looked up at her, smiling sheepishly.

  “You’re tired, Ramon,” she said softly, feeling deliciously insidious.

  “We all are, señorita. Most particularly Murphy. There are not enough of us for guard duty.” He yawned again.

  “When did you last get a good night’s sleep?”

  “I don’t remember.” He shrugged, then grinned up at her sleepily. “Murphy says this will all be over before long. Then I will get a chance to sleep all I want. I can only pray to God that it won’t be an eternal sleep.”

  Sudden guilt assailed her. “Me too.” She leaned forward, resting her arms on the rough wood table in front of her, listening to the imperceptible sounds of the night. The distant scrape and clatter from the kitchen and the fierce-looking old woman who accepted no assistance in her kingdom. The faint echo of nightbirds out past the thick walls. No voices, no footsteps. Nothing but the unexpected, faint sound of a snore.

  Slowly she turned. Ramon’s head had fallen forward, his eyes were shut, and his breathing was deep and steady. “Ramon?” she said, her voice a thin thread of sound in the stillness of the room.

  No answer. She tried it slightly louder, and he responded with a snort and a minor shifting of position. The gun at his hip scraped the floor, and still he slept on, oblivious.

  Why the hell did she feel guilty? Maddy demanded of herself as she slowly rose from the rough wooden bench. Why did she feel like the wicked adventuress everyone believed her to be? She was doing the only thing possible to prove her innocence. Jake refused to believe her, refused to let her anywhere near her father. And Sam Lambert himself hadn’t recognized her. Her only hope was to make her way through the smaller courtyard, up the crumbling steps to his bedside. After all, her father was almost seventy and in poor health, and the distance from that third-floor bedroom to the ground was substantial. It was probably just too far for him to see. Once he saw her up close he couldn’t fail to recognize her. She simply hadn’t changed that much in fourteen years.

  Ramon didn’t stir as she tiptoed out of the room, her sandaled feet silent on the long flight of stairs that seemed cut into the rock. It was dark and eerie. The electric lights were dim and intermittently placed. Maddy breathed a sigh of relief as she made it to the first floor without encountering anyone. They must be all locked away in their rooms in this bleak fortess, and she couldn’t blame them. If she had her choice she wouldn’t be there at all, and she sympathized with their trying to avoid each other’s less than enthralling company.

  The locked door to the courtyard wasn’t where she remembered it. Of course she hadn’t been paying proper attention at the time. All her thoughts and emotions had been tied up with the man taking her there. She was a complete washout as a spy, she thought miserably. She couldn’t even remember the most essential things. She might as well go back down and wake Ramon up, may as well stop trying to convince Jake of anything he didn’t want to believe.

  Turning a corner, she headed back down a hall she’d already traversed twice in her search for the garden. And there, recessed into the wall where she’d passed it without seeing, was the peeling green door that led to the garden. With a padlock uniting the heavy chain that festooned it.

  She let out a miserable little moan that broke the stillness of the darkened hallway, and then swallowed it as she realized that the padlock wasn’t fastened. And why should it be? The only danger in their midst had a constant guard. Never mind that that guard was a teenage boy in the advanced stages of exhaustion who’d fallen asleep and let his vicious prisoner escape.

  Very carefully she slid the padlock from the links of chain, letting the heavy steel swing silently to the floor. The wide wooden bar was another barrier, and she could feel the splinters dig into her palms as she shoved it upward, straining against its stubborn tightness. The two heavy bolts were rusty and hard from disuse and shrieked in the stillness. Maddy tugged at the door, but it didn’t budge.

  Maddy pulled at the door, hard, but it remained firm. She yanked at the door, throwing all her weight behind it, and with damnable perversity it flew open, out of her hands, banging against the wall with a crash that doubtless could be heard throughout the three floors and meandering ells of the old villa.

  Maddy didn’t wait for pursuit. The garden was brightly lit from the almost full moon, the outer stairway hidden in the shadows. She was through the door like a shadowy wraith herself, only vaguely aware of the figure that had raced down the stairs in her direction. Her white shirt stood out like a beacon in the moonlight as she ran through the tangled growth, the stairway beckoning her. She heard a shout behind her, calling her name, and she knew it was Jake, and that he was close behind her. With a burst of speed she leaped ahead, over a low-growing bush, suddenly desperate.

  It all happened at once. She heard his voice directly behind her. A hand clamped down on her shoulder, spinning her around, a heavy body slammed into hers, knocking her to the ground and flattening her beneath it, and the sudden whine of a bullet sped past her head as she fell.

  She opened her mouth to scream, but his hand clamped across it, just as his heavy weight pressed her into the dusty ground. She could hear his voice in her ear, feel the moist warmth of his breath. “If you make a noise, a sound, even a tiny movement, I’ll snap your neck.”

  She didn’t believe him. His hand was on her mouth, not her neck, the other arm holding her tightly against his body. She also wasn’t about to test her theory. She looked up into his eyes in the dark, moonlit night, her own mutely pleading. “Will you do as I tell you?” His voice was no more than a thread of sound. “Blink your eyes twice if you will.”

  Dutifully she did so, and his hand slowly pulled away from her mouth. “That’s better,” he whispered. “Because they’re waiting to shoot again—the slightest sound, the tiniest movement, and we’ll both be Swiss cheese. And I’m not ready to die.”

  There was a stone beneath her shoulder blade, but she couldn’t shift, even if she’d wanted to. Her rib was throbbing again, and she tried to concentrate on that pain, on the grinding beneath her back. But all she could think about was the feel of his hips weighing hers down, his long legs that lay on top of hers, of the warmth of his skin where it touched hers and the strength in his arms. And the smothering, enveloping weight of him, pinning her there.

  She couldn’t help the words that slipped out. The whole situation was absurdly melodramatic. “Do you know what the definition of a gentleman is?” she grated in a tone barely audible. “It’s a man who takes his weight on his elbows.”

  He laughed then. It made no sound, but she could feel his stomach vibrate against hers, and for a brief moment his cold, merciless eyes lit up. “Sorry, lady.” He bent down so that his mouth hovered directly above hers. “But I’ve never been a gentleman.”

  His breath smelled just lightly of whiskey. It was a pleasant smell, faintly erotic, mixing with the heat of the night and the overwhelming scent of the flowers. Wild gardenias and roses and something else she
didn’t quite recognize. Maddy lay beneath him, conscious of a thousand strange and maniacal longings. She wanted to bridge that gap, press her mouth against his, she wanted to wrap her long legs around his and pull him into her, she wanted to weep in his arms. She stared up at him, saying nothing.

  “We’ll wait till the moon goes behind a cloud,” he continued softly, “and then we’ll run for it. I’m going to hold on to your wrist, so you’d better be prepared to be fast. I’ll break your arm before I let go.”

  “I’m sure you would and probably enjoy doing it.”

  He smiled down at her then, a slow, lazy smile, and the weight against her seemed to heat and expand. “Don’t tempt me, lady. I warned you about snipers.”

  “So you did. You also didn’t give me any choice.”

  The light dimmed slightly, and he looked upward. There were fitful clouds, none that seemed large enough to do the trick. “We may be here for a while.”

  “Great,” she muttered.

  “You asked for it. You can suffer the consequences. Of course, we can always try something else. I could let you continue heading toward the staircase, and while they’re busy shooting at you in your damned white shirt I can make it safely back into the villa.”

  He was bluffing, she knew that full well. She’d played poker herself, played it with him years ago in that cool dusty house by her father’s swimming pool. “All right,” she said. “Get off me.”

  The speed at which he began to comply took her by surprise, and she reached out to clutch his shoulders before she could think twice. He laughed, that silent, demoralizing little laugh. “Maybe next time,” he suggested.

  “I wouldn’t want to make your life too easy,” she said in dulcet tones. “I’m sure I’m an added complication, and—”

  His hand covered her mouth again, and she barely controlled the strong urge to bite it. “Get ready to run,” he whispered in her ear, and she could feel his muscles tense in the heavy body that still covered hers. His hand reached down and caught her wrist, just as the moon disappeared behind the clouds, plunging the garden into darkness.

  They flew across the wide expanse of garden, there was no other word for it. Maddy’s sandaled feet barely touched the ground as she raced after Jake’s dark figure, her wrist felt like it was caught in a steel trap, and she held her breath throughout the headlong dash, her ears straining for the sound of gunfire, her body ready to feel the recoil from a thousand bullets.

  But none came. Before she even realized it they were through the door, the heavy wood slammed shut behind them, and she had collapsed up against the wall, her breath coming in rapid, frightened pants, her eyes huge, her wrist still imprisoned in Jake’s grip.

  He dropped it without looking at her, locking the door again, setting the wooden bar in place, this time fastening the redoubtable padlock. Then he turned to her, and Maddy realized with a sudden start that the danger was far from over.

  “Who was watching you?” There was no room for evasion in that rough demand, no possibility of not answering.

  Fortunately she wasn’t given the choice. Ramon appeared out of the shadows, his head hung in shame, guilt and despair written on his dark young face. “It was me, Murphy. I failed you.”

  Murphy didn’t contradict him, didn’t say a thing. He just stood there watching him out of dark, fathomless eyes.

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Maddy broke in, the oppressive silence unnerving. “You should have known he’d be no match against the Mata Hari of San Pablo.”

  But Ramon would hear none of it. “I have no excuse, Murphy. I fell asleep. I know what the punishment is for falling asleep during guard duty.”

  “No,” Maddy shrieked. “It wasn’t his fault. He was exhausted, he hasn’t had enough sleep—”

  “None of us has,” Murphy said, and his voice was deadly. “Ramon is right, he has no excuse.”

  “But you can’t—”

  “Be quiet.” Jake’s voice was low, harsh, and completely quelling. She closed her mouth, glaring up at him mutinously as he turned back to the miserable boy. “Go back to the common room. I’ll be down before long.”

  “Sí, Murphy.” Shoulders back, head straight, Ramon turned and disappeared back down the stairs, like a soldier marching to his doom. Maddy watched him leave with a sense of panic.

  “You can’t kill him,” she said, her voice little more than a plea. “It wasn’t his fault, I took advantage of him. …”

  “Then it is time you learned that others might have to pay the price for your thoughtlessness,” he said. “Come along.”

  “You can’t kill him,” she said again. “I won’t let you.”

  He’d turned away, but at that stubborn note he turned back to look at her. “And how do you intend to stop me?”

  It was a reasonable enough question, one for which she had no answer. She stared up at him, despair and anger fighting for control. “I don’t know,” she said. “But I will.”

  To her amazement a wry smile lit the dark corners of his face for a moment. “Very fierce from the Mata Hari of San Pablo,” he murmured, his voice strangely like a caress. “Have no fear, pequeña, I am not going to kill young Ramon. Nor do I eat children for breakfast. I’m not one of Ortega’s Gray Shirts.”

  If he expected her to bristle at the mention of her supposed lover, he was doomed to disappointment. She returned his smile with a brilliant one of her own. So grateful was she that she didn’t fight him when he took her wrist and led her up the wide staircase.

  “Where are you taking me?” she questioned after her first relief had worn off, following him docilely enough around the corner and down one dark, narrow alleyway of a hall.

  He didn’t bother to turn back this time, and his voice was distantly amused. “To your quarters for the night,” he replied. “My bedroom.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It did her no good at all to pull away from him as he dragged her down the hallway. He took no more notice of her than if she’d been a recalcitrant child. The hallway was shadowy and deserted, dust and the ominous sound of scratching, scurrying things adding to her rising sense of unease.

  “I’m not going to sleep with you, Murphy,” she said, her voice quietly defiant.

  He didn’t even bother to look back. The flimsy wooden door opened easily beneath his strong hand, and a moment later she was pulled into a small, barren room, the door slamming shut behind them. A dim light bulb illuminated the shabby confines, the narrow, sagging bed that was neatly made, the roughly made dresser with its scraps of paper and change, the small pile of books by the bed. It looked like a monk’s cell.

  “I don’t give a damn whether you sleep or not,” Jake replied, releasing her wrist. “I don’t expect you will.”

  Somehow that seemed even more ominous. He looked tall and dark and very dangerous in the dimly lit bedroom, and it took all Maddy’s determination not to let him frighten her.

  She managed a cynical smile. “Are you planning to rape me?”

  Jake’s look would have withered a far braver woman. “No. I’m planning to ensure myself a good night’s sleep. Since it appears I can’t trust anyone to keep a good watch on you, I’m going to have to do it myself.”

  “If you’re watching me how will you be able to sleep?”

  His smile wasn’t reassuring. “I’m going to tie you to the bed. You won’t be able to unfasten the ropes without waking me.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Spare me your dramatics. I’d dare just about anything,” he said in a weary voice. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

  “No!”

  “No? If I were you I wouldn’t let pride and temper let you in for an even more uncomfortable night than I’ve already got planned. I won’t take too kindly to being woken up at three in the morning to take you to the bathroom.” His face and voice were implacable, and no more threat was necessary. “Do you need to go or not?”

  It would have been stupid beyond belief to say no aga
in. Her eyes felt swollen and gritty from the contact lenses, and if her bladder wasn’t in immediate need she certainly wasn’t going to last the night. Besides, there might be a window or another unguarded doorway to the bathroom. They were on the second floor—one flight away from her father.

  “Yes.” She glared at him. “And I need my purse.”

  “Why? You don’t have any kind of weapon in there—I checked.”

  She’d already seen him pawing through her purse, but his offhanded announcement infuriated her anyway. “I need my contact lens case.”

  For a moment he paused, arrested, and those distant hazel eyes of his looked into hers. “Oh,” he said, and his voice sounded strange, like a man who’d just found the answer to a puzzle. Before she could even begin to guess what was going on behind his impassive face he shrugged. “You’ll have to make do with two water glasses. I don’t know where your purse is any more.”

  “But my passport, my money …”

  “I have your passport, Allison Henderson,” he replied with that cynical grin. “I imagine Carlos has your money. For now you’ve got more important things to worry about.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as how you’re going to manage to sleep with your wrists tied to the bedpost.” Once more his hand clamped around her wrist like a manacle as he started for the door.

  “Why don’t you just use handcuffs?” she snapped, making no effort to break away this time. She’d already learned it was useless.

  “I would but I don’t happen to have any. I’m going to have to make do with rope,” he replied in that raspy voice that had once delighted her. “Do you want me to tie you up now? It might make your time in the bathroom somewhat difficult.”

  “What? You aren’t coming in with me?” she said in her snottiest voice. “I can’t believe that you’d trust me.”