Leaves rustled and Destine shivered as the night air touched her skin through the lace of her blouse. Like all old houses it was a house of ghosts and she swiftly turned her head, sensing a presence, and she couldn't suppress a gasp as she caught sight of the white glimmer there beneath the tree-bougainvillaea that arched over the patio. A hand leapt to her throat as she felt the frantic beat of her heart.
'Be easy,' said a voice. 'You were on the verge of a scream.'
She was powerless to reply, or to move. It was as if his silent approach had turned her to stone. Those eyes that were so densely dark that the pupils were lost in them were upon her upraised face, only faintly revealed by the patio lamp in its stone niche, flickering in and out of the faintly moving leaves.
'You walk like an animal,' she gasped. 'Are you following me?'
'For what reason would I follow you?' His tone of voice was ultra-mocking, and yet Destine caught the flash of fiery arrogance in his eyes and she was reminded that he not only resembled Manolito but there were the same passions and drives in his blood, and unlikely to be satisfied by what he felt for Cosima.
'You are either trying to drive me away from Xanas, or you are trying to find out if I—I can be made love to.' Destine leapt to her feet, for now she had found the courage to delve into what so disturbed her whenever she found herself alone with this man. She was a nurse and she was no fool… she knew that sensual attraction could flare into life between a man and a woman who were otherwise antagonistic. It was the very opposite of love, but it could be equally potent, and she was afraid.
Afraid of what she might feel if he should touch her.
'It would be unnatural if you and I, a woman and a man strange to each other and yet living under the same roof, were not aware of one another. Hate is as shattering an emotion as love, señora, and you do hate me, don't you?'
'Yes,' she breathed, knowing that her hatred had its roots in the way he made her feel, awake again to that physical self she had fiercely denied since Matt had died, in pain like a frozen limb upon which the ice was melting. She hadn't wanted to feel so aware of a man ever again least of all someone who was the dark, living shade of her husband's killer.
As a fury of rejection rose in her, she wanted to claw and bite him, like a young animal; rake cruelly the scarred face, hurt him for being so vitally, so mockingly alive when the man she loved was no more, his ashes scattered from the cliffs of Helzion where they would have been lovers.
With emotion choking her, she turned away from him and clutched at a limb of the bougainvillaea tree. The heavy, beguiling scents of the night were all around her, alone with this man whom she rejected with every atom of her body.
A cry broke on her lips as his hand wrapped itself about her neck as if it were a stem he could break. 'No one,' he said with cruel distinctness, 'can live with the dead. Certainly not you, for if you can hate me so that you actually burn and tremble with it, then you are alive and not half buried with someone who can never look at you again, and feel your skin against his fingertips.'
'Let me go!' In the instant that she wrenched away from him, he did let go of her neck, for his fingers were strong enough to have broken it. But at the same time he hooked his other arm about her body and swung her against him, locking her to his lean hard body with the frightening ease of someone who had handled horses all his life and never debilitated an athletic body in the pursuit of idle pleasures.
'Let me go!' The panic in her voice was more intense, and her eyes were blazing as she flung back her head and looked up into his face. 'I hate your touch—it's like something devilish!'
'Like my face, eh?' He crushed her to him so that she had to look at him. Relentlessly he forced her to see each aspect of his face that had been so badly burned in his youth, so that for all time it would be painful for any woman to look at him. The flames had destroyed certain facial muscles and the scar distorted his left eyelid and made him seem forever mocking.
'If you stay here, then you will see me often, señora. There is no way that we can avoid each other, and no way that we can deny that a certain spark of unholy attraction takes fire when we are alone like this. Neither of us wanted it to be this way. I would prefer that you left, and you may be sorry if you stay.'
She shivered as he held her with strong hands that had been so gentle with Cosima. Yes, it might well be lethal to her peace of mind if she stayed within his aura, yet what true peace had she known back in England? There was no sense of peace or security since Matt had died, and she felt a sudden recklessness as she faced the Don. He endangered her body, but he couldn't touch the heart that she had buried in a quiet grave with Matt.
'I—I can't leave now I've taken on the care of your cousin,' she said. 'It wouldn't be fair to her now we've become accustomed to each other. I—I'm not afraid of you, Don Cicatrice. You can't use your face and your threats to make a trembling fool of me.'
'Yet you do tremble,' he murmured, and his eyes were darkly wicked as they dwelt on her upraised face, with the fair hair framing her very English features. 'I can feel those tremors running through your body like the finely strung wires in a fine instrument wound up too tightly. You must take the advice that you no doubt give to Cosima—you must learn to relax.'
'With you around?' she retorted, before she could control the words that admitted how much he disturbed her. 'I know you, señor—you'll deliberately set out to make this job uncomfortable for me. It will be a means of amusement for you.'
'You think I am so taxed to find amusement that I shall prey on you whenever the opportunity offers?' He gave a mocking laugh, and then he held her away from him and flicked his eyes up and down her slender figure. 'If you ride, Nurse, then you might be distracting company—I have several young horses that are always in need of proper exercise, and one in particular, a spirited filly, might be an excellent mount for you. What do you say?'
'I do ride,' she admitted. 'A hospital I worked at was close to a park and I took lessons, but I don't know that I'd be able to handle your horses.'
'Afraid of taking a fall?' He stared at her, and she seemed to read in his eyes a double meaning in his words. She felt the nervous throb of her heart and wanted to jerk her wrists from the grip of his fingers.
'Each time we speak, señor, you seem to be taunting me as a woman, as a nurse—someone who has a mind and a will of her own. Before you met me, were women merely compliant to your will, or scared of your scar? I don't plan to be either of those things, for I've seen scars before, and hospital consultants can be almighty arrogant!'
'So now I'm arrogant, eh?'
'You know better than I what you are. You have lived with yourself long enough to be acquainted with your own ways, señor.'
'If I am arrogant, then you are an impertinent chit of an English girl.' His fingers tightened on the bones of her wrists until she thought he would break them. 'Is that painful, Nurse?'
'Yes,' she gasped. 'What are you doing—?'
'Finding out if you have good wrists. My horses are mettlesome, but I think you might handle Madrigal quite well, and if you are determined to remain at the casa, then you must have a horse of your own. The estate is a large one and the best way to see it all is to ride over the place.'
'Madrigal,' she murmured. 'What a lovely name for a horse.'
'It means a love song.' And with a swiftness that shocked the breath from her lips, the Don had hold of her by the elbows and he was swinging her over the waist-high wall upon which she had been seated. He leapt in her wake and walked her in the direction of the stables, made unmistakable by the aroma of horses and hay. They walked into the yard and along the length of stalls with their dutch doors closed for the night. About midway along the stables he paused and unlatched one of the doors, swinging open its upper part. A nearby wall lantern shone its light into the stall, and Destine saw a sleek, honey-coloured horse with its head bent to a trough of oats, which it was chewing with a lazy enjoyment, only pausing a moment to cock a
n eye at the couple who interrupted supper in this way.
'This is the filly which you will ride.' The lantern light shone on the unmarred profile of the Don, and Destine briefly noticed the hard, coin chiselling as she returned her gaze to the horse. 'Well, Nurse, what do you think of her?'
'She's beautiful, but she looks full of spirit.'
'Yes, but she has a good mouth and takes to a good rider. Well, do you think you could ride Madrigal?'
'I'll try. It's good of you, señor, to offer one of your best mounts to a novice.'
'Only by riding a good mount will you become an excellent rider.' He closed the dutch door and they walked back along the stone paving of the yard, while overhead Destine saw that the stars flirted with the sky, and she could hear the leaves of trees whispering as she and the Don made their way through the garden. He was a strange, unpredictable man, and she didn't want to be softened in any way by a gesture of kindness from him. Not that she really believed that he was being kind. He knew how isolated was this region, and if she intended to go on caring for his cousin Cosima, then she would need some outlet, some means of enjoyment when her patient rested.
They came to the archway that led into the casa, and she gave a start of renewed alarm when he stepped in front of her and she was forced to stand still. Hating that sense of surprise that could almost throw her off balance, she spoke involuntarily. 'What is it, señor? Must I show my gratitude in more than verbal thanks?'
'Would you like to?' he drawled, and his eyes were glittering down at her, that signal of danger there at the centre of the jet-dark pupils.
'No—' she stepped back and away from him and found herself against the stone of the archway, with his tall figure barring her escape from his mockery and her own foolhardy words. In all her time as a nurse she had never been so tempestuous, so unguarded, and she just had to find a way to get back at him for so unsettling her.
'You're the last man on earth I should like to kiss of my own free will,' she said, trying to ignore the fact that her body was trying to do the impossible by shrinking into the stone against which he had her trapped. 'Oh, don't imagine that I'm afraid of you—I just don't like men who assert their masculinity and regard women as mere ornaments and objects of male pleasure. I imagine that women and horses mean much the same to you, and I'm quite sure that if I were fat and forty you wouldn't dream of offering me one of your lovely horses to ride.'
'Indeed not,' he said, a smile thinning his mouth into a dangerous line. 'If you were fat and forty, then I'd offer you one of the stable mares with a nice broad rump. So that is what you think, eh? That I am a male chauvinist who believes that women should be seen but not heard? Well, in many respects that attitude has its advantages, especially when a woman chooses to put words into my mouth.'
'What do you mean by that?' Destine demanded, colour sweeping into her cheeks at the way he looked at her, as sure of his own strength as she was uncertain of hers. Nothing—no slings and arrows of angry words could ever alter the fact that he was a man and she a woman, with the physical superiority always on his side. Struggle as she might, they both knew that he would kiss her if he felt inclined to do so.
'It was you who said that I was asking for more than verbal thanks—the thought didn't enter my head, Nurse.'
'I don't believe you,' she exclaimed. 'Men always want something from a woman for anything they give—I've only ever known one man who wasn't selfish in this way. Other men just take all they can get, and they aren't interested if a woman isn't prepared to divide herself into little snacks for all and sundry. A blonde nurse, they think, is sure to be silly and willing. She must know all the answers because of the work she does. Men still seem to associate nurses with the type who did the work before Florence Nightingale came along and made the profession a respectable one. When you met me at the railway station you were quick to let me know what you thought of me, and now that I've agreed to continue with the nursing of Cosima, you've decided that you might as well take advantage of the English nurse.'
'Is that what you really believe?' He moved a menacing step closer to her, a dark Spaniard of the south whom she had dared to challenge. A man unaccustomed to having his motives questioned by a mere woman. A man still very much unknown to Destine, who felt her heart beating fast beneath the lace of her blouse as she strained away from him.
'Y–you wouldn't bother with me if I weren't young and fairly attractive,' she said, striving to keep her voice more controlled than her leaping nerves.
'Come, don't be so modest.' His hand moved and his fingers encircled her throat, holding her so that she had no way of avoiding his eyes. 'You are much more than attractive, Nurse. You are, I believe, what is referred to as an English rose—and you also have the thorns to prove it I What a thorny young creature you are, to be sure. This man you married must indeed have been brave, or was he the kind who only wanted the rose and not the woman?'
'Oh—how dare you say that!' Destine glared at the Don, feeling the touch of his hand on her throat, sending little darts of fury through her system. 'I—I could kill you for that!'
'My dear, it takes cold blood, not warm, to go through with a killing, and I can feel the warmth of your skin against my fingertips. You know, if you are going to hate every man for being alive while your husband lies dead, then your life is going to be one long trauma. One day you are going to love again—'
'No,' she denied, shaking her head so that her hair escaped the calot and fell around his fingers. 'Matt was my ideal, and I shall never—never want to love again.'
'Yet you will,' he said inexorably. 'It will be a different kind of love—perhaps a more vital and tempestuous emotion than the one which a young girl feels for the first man who enters her life. The very young are inclined to make idols and heroes of those who touch the untried heart, but now you are a woman. You have suffered—'
'Oh, I'm glad you realise that, señor,' she broke in. 'I was under the impression that you regarded me as a dizzy blonde—'
'Now you speak nonsense.' His voice cut into her. 'You are clutching at straws so that I won't talk about what the future might hold for you. You want to go on living in the past, because it is safe, and it gives you an excuse to cling to a dead man. A live one might wake you up to desire—he might make you forget the young surgeon who treated you as if you were made of spun glass.'
'How do you know how Matthew treated me?' She glared up into the dark face that was so different from the image that she carried in her mind of the man who had been her husband for six unfulfilled hours. 'You know nothing of his kind of love—you would treat a woman as your total possession, and her life would be dominated by you. She would be a wife only, and heaven help her if she wanted to have a career.'
'I admit to being wholly Spanish when it comes to a wife,' he drawled, and he made a shiver run through Destine as he deliberately stroked his fingertips across the skin of her throat. Her head reared back as if to escape his touch, and he smiled narrowly at her inability to escape him. 'What is wrong with a man wanting a woman who will devote herself heart and soul to him?'
'It's an arrogant, outdated assumption that women are meant to be tied to the belt and buckle of the man they marry. In England marriage has become a civilized arrangement, and if a wife wishes to work, then the husband gives his blessing and they form a working unit—'
'And live on tinned peas and frozen fishcakes, eh?'
'One would expect you to be sarcastic about it,' she retorted. 'The Moorish blood in your veins would be bound to make modern marriage seem too free and easy. You are the type who would like to see the harem and the purdah brought back into fashion. While women are kept in submission it makes your sort feel high and mighty—but women aren't slaves! They're human beings and entitled to share in all the rights and privileges that men have enjoyed all these years. It was their determined selfishness that kept women from really fulfilling themselves.'
'And are you fulfilled, señora?' His ga
ze held hers, quizzical, faintly amused, as if all her brave talk had brushed off him and left him quite unconvinced by it. 'And please spare me the insistence that you have your career, for I can't see the pleasure for any woman in being constantly in the presence of pain and fear.'
'Someone has to do the nursing,' she protested. 'Someone has to care for the sick—'
'Yes, but not exclusively. Not for always. Not you, Destine, and shall I prove it?'
'No—just let me go!' Her heart was pounding, and she knew that he must feel the pulse in her throat that kept time with her heartbeats. 'I—I have to look in on Cosima to see that she is comfortable, and I'm tired—a nurse, you know, is on her feet a good deal of the time.'
'Is she?' he said, and the next moment, with that agile strength that always took her by surprise, he swept her up into his arms and carried her beneath the archway, into the hall of the casa, striding with unimpaired ease along the arcades, where the wall-lamps threw their saffron light in and out of his dark eyes.
'Please, señor!' she gasped, clenching his shoulder. 'Put me down at once—before someone sees us! Whatever will they think? Please—I insist—'
'You see,' he mocked, 'for all your independent talk, and your insistence that you're an emancipated career woman, you have no way of getting out of my arms unless I choose to release you. You are at my mercy, Nurse!'
'You—you're just exerting your brute strength—your bullying instinct—'
'Not my gallantry?' he asked tauntingly. 'Not my concern that my cousin has had you waiting upon her since early this morning? You really give me no credit for a single act of kindness, do you?'
'You aren't being kind—you're being impudent and mocking, just to teach me a lesson because I dared to argue with your egotistical ideas. You aren't used to it, and so I have to be shown that I'm a weak female without your muscles!'
'Praise be!' He laughed in his throat as he dropped Destine lightly to her feet, just short of Cosima's apartment. 'Very well, Nurse, I let you go if you promise to take a swift look at Cosima and then go off to your own bed. I will give your farewells to the Marquesa's guests—unless you wish to say a personal goodnight to Señor Davidson?'
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