Then, over breakfast, when she’d demonstrated that her fighting spirit was back to full strength, he had brought the power of that dark, sensual voice into play, talking of the warm wind on the mountains, of wine, of wild flowers—inviting her, if you please, to explore him!
She made a sharp, disgusted sound in the back of her throat and sat down on the slatted wooden seat that encircled the venerable old trunk, her legs thrust out in front of her.
Francisco Garcia Casals was working to a plan, she was certain of that. That he meant to seduce her she discounted after only a moment’s consideration. She was too humble, too ordinary for a man such as he, a man who could surely have his pick of the world’s most beautiful women. Not even the boredom of waiting for her father to respond could bring him to the point of wanting to make love to her to pass the time and lighten the tedium.
So the only sensible and logical explanation for his behaviour had to be his desire to confuse and disorientate her, get her to the point of not knowing whether she was coming or going, where she was at, too bewildered by the hard-and-soft, hot-andcold treatment he was dishing out to have any mental energy left to figure a way of getting out of here.
To keep her locked in that suite of rooms for the duration would eventually rouse Rosalia’s suspicions, so the only alternative course was to allow her limited freedom and keep his eye on her at all times. And, that being the case, it would suit him better to have her in such a disorientated state of mind that she would be too witless to cause any trouble.
A movement across the sun-drenched perfumed courtyard caught her eye. Rosalia clearing the breakfast-table. And taking her time about it. Had she been given orders to keep an eye on her master’s ‘guest’? Make sure she didn’t go wandering off, get herself lost in the harsh Andalusian mountains?
Sarah wouldn’t put it past him. In the same breath that he’d told her he was having to leave her on her own for half an hour he had tried to bemuse her with words. And had almost succeeded. He must have felt the need to use Rosalia as an unwitting guard, an extra form of protection.
Deciding to test her theory, she stood up slowly, then turned around and headed for the outer door set in the walls of the courtyard. Somewhere through there she’d find the great outer door.
It was easy enough to retrace the way they’d come yesterday afternoon, and she found the door. But it was locked, and she stood in the cool dim apartment, feeling completely trapped. As completely trapped as she’d been when he’d locked her in his suite of rooms.
Rosalia hadn’t followed, either. Like her master, she would have known there was no way out. And the worst thing was, he had lied to her.
He had told her there would be no more locks. She couldn’t imagine why she should have believed him in the first place. He was tricky and wicked, and she should have expected this. Instead, she couldn’t remember when she had last felt so hurt; like the silence in the great chamber the tearing pain of it seemed to climb inside her and squeeze her heart until she wanted to cry out with anguish.
‘Rosalia told me which way you’d headed.’
She hadn’t heard his soft-footed approach, and stiffened, trying to mask the hurt in her voice, in her eyes as she whipped round to face him.
‘You lied! You said there would be no more locked doors,’ she accused him, unable to understand why this feeling of betrayal should intensify beneath his warm, darkly penetrating eyes, when, if she were sensible, she should have expected him to lie, taken it in her stride. And she hated the way his mouth curled into a slight, compassionate smile, as if he knew exactly how she felt. She couldn’t bear the thought that he could come even close to reading the muddle of mixed emotions that were pounding through her head.
Her emotions, such as they were, had always been tidy, carefully controlled. That this man could churn them up, make them go haywire, shamed her. That he should know it demeaned her in her own eyes.
‘Though I should have anticipated it,’ she snapped out tartly, dragging herself back on track. ‘For a man who would stoop to kidnapping a perfectly innocent stranger, what’s a lie or two?’
She carefully avoided his eyes. He could make all her common sense, every last scrap of her cool control dissolve with one of those melting, disgracefully intimate glances of his; if she had learned anything from the past twenty-four hours, it was that. And she never forgot a lesson. But she couldn’t avoid his voice.
‘I’m sorry you’re upset. It wasn’t my intention.’
She shrugged, defending herself against the smoky drift of his words, denying, ‘Who’s upset? What’s a locked door, set against all the other indignities? Oh! Let go of me!’
‘Hush.’ The hand that had taken hold of her arm slid down to entwine with her fingers now and somehow her loud objections got pushed back down her throat, making her feel giddy, stingingly aware of those strong fingers laced with hers. ‘I have what I hope will be a pleasant surprise for you. And later we shall unlock all the doors. I will even show you where the keys are kept.’
Who did he think he was fooling? He was talking to her as if she were three years old. She snatched her hand away and dug in her heels. Show her where the keys were kept—so she could walk out of here any time she pleased? He must think she didn’t have a brain in her head! And she didn’t want his surprise, whatever it was. In her short but traumatic experience of him all his surprises had been grossly unpleasant!
He turned slowly, watching her, a tiny, annoying smile emphasising the sensuality of his heartstopping mouth. And her face went red as she shifted her feet uncomfortably. She knew she looked a mess in her crumpled, sticky clothes but he didn’t have to give the impression that he found her appearance verging on the hilarious, did he?
‘Stop being mulish,’ he ordered, his mouth tugging at the corners. ‘Come peaceably, like the sensible lady you like to think you are, or be carried. It’s all the same to me.’
Which left her no choice. And he knew it. Her greeny-blue eyes withering, she muttered, ‘Only mental incompetents use their size to bully those physically smaller than themselves. Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to ask nicely? Or wouldn’t that suit your macho image?’
Which earned her the cold blast of his sudden black frown and for some reason she shivered, right down to her toes, and covered it quickly, grumbling, ‘OK, I’m coming. Only don’t expect me to be in the least bit interested in whatever you’ve cooked up. The only thing I’m interested in is seeing you behind bars. Where you belong.’
Which was hardly original enough to be truly cutting but it did stop him staring at her with that odd, frowning look in his eyes and got him moving, walking ahead down the long shady arcade, passing the door that led to the stairs to his suite and entering instead a cool sitting-room, quite magnificent, she noted absently as she trotted behind, with elegant furniture, softly coloured tapestries of enormous age, exquisite carved stone tracery in the deep window embrasures and great bowls of white lilies to perfume the air.
He took her on and through to a central hallway with a high vaulted ceiling and a floor of solid wood blocks polished to a glassy finish, and an awesomely Gothic, balustraded staircase, curving upwards, flanked at almost every step by gilt-framed portraits of oval-faced ladies in black, with pearls and fans and mantillas of awe-inspiring delicacy, and proud, gaudily uniformed officers on fine horses, displaying drawn swords and expressions just as ferociously arrogant as the throw-back who was leading the way.
The sheer size of the place, the quality, age and perfection of everything she saw had her mentally assessing the inexhaustible funds that would be necessary for the upkeep of such tasteful splendour. The income of the estates he’d spoken about provided the wherewithal, she supposed. Whatever, her father couldn’t have picked a more formidable enemy if he’d set out to try.
She was on the point of asking how much further he expected her to trek when Francisco flung open a pair of double doors and led the way through to as feminine a suite of rooms as sh
e could ever have imagined.
Delicate, inlaid furniture graced the sitting-room, the panelled walls painted white, the fabrics soft shades of varying blues with just the odd touch of pale primrose yellow for highlights, and beyond another set of polished wood double doors she caught a tantalising glimpse of an elegant fourposter, the lavish hangings in the purest white, festoons of lace and shimmering shot silk.
Was he about to offer her the use of this suite? She scarcely dared hope that he could be so thoughtful. The use of a pig-pen would have been accepted with gratitude—anything to get out of a repeat performance of last night, with him breathing down her neck, and quite literally, too, after he’d made her sleep in that bed with him.
But this suite was almost too much to hope for, and so it proved when he told her, ‘These are Encarnación’s rooms.’ He gestured starkly, his mouth pulled down. ‘Can you imagine a young girl not being happy here? Can you? As you see, she had everything she could have wanted. Why should she want to leave, run away with a libertine three times her age? Why?’
Black Spanish eyes bored into hers and his tension was evident in the taut bunching of his shoulder muscles, his wide-legged stance, the way his jaw tightened, his mouth a thin slash in the carved dark splendour of his features.
‘How should I know?’ Sarah muttered, her offhandedness a defence of sorts against the fierce black rage that sat so strangely in this delicately feminine room. ‘Are these rooms your “surprise"? What am I supposed to do? Just look and make admiring noises, or move in?’
‘When my sister returns she will not want to find a stranger using her room,’ he returned with savage bite. ‘You remain where I put you. With me. For the reasons I have already stated. Entendido?’
Brute! So much for those fleeting hopes. And he needn’t think he could treat her any way he wanted, try to make her feel like nothing.
‘Oh, silly old me,’ she drawled, lowering her lids to hide her fuming eyes. ‘For a moment back there I thought you were about to do the honourable thing. Or don’t you know how?’
‘Honour? What could you know about honour?’
As his black eyes condemned her she almost lost her precarious hold on her temper, but somehow managed to cling on to it, reminding him coolly, ‘I am not my father, señor. Neither am I his keeper. And in my opinion you are just as unprincipled as he is. I am a totally innocent party in all of this mess yet you are keeping me here against my will whereas your sister, presumably, is with my father because she wants to be. Now, if I’ve seen whatever it was you meant me to see, may I leave? The air in the courtyard was marginally less oppressive. Out there I could almost believe I wasn’t in prison.’
That piece of what he would regard as gross effrontery would probably earn her a spell in the dungeons, she thought, almost beginning to regret the spikiness of her tongue.
Dark, angry colour stained his high cheekbones and for a heart-tripping moment she thought he might hit her for reminding him that Encarnación had a mind of her own, had run away from home to be with Piers, was exercising her right to be with her lover. But then he smiled, suddenly, stunningly, and her eyes went wide as he actually apologised.
‘Forgive me. You may be your father’s daughter—and that is your misfortune—but you are right; you have done no harm to me or mine.’ He spread his hands with disarming eloquence. ‘I forget myself, señorita. You are, above anything else, a guest in my home. I beg a thousand pardons.’
The quiet dignity sent a surge of admiration through her. He had a cruel tongue when he wanted to use it, and the dictatorial arrogance was something else, way outside her experience. But there could be moments, like this one, when his chivalrous charm was brought into play, when she found herself actually liking him.
Which was a pity because he was her father’s enemy, and he was holding her hostage, and that made him her enemy too, and not all the goodmannered chivalry in the world could excuse the way he had treated her.
Hardening her heart, she ignored his smile of contrition, suspecting laughter at her expense, a suspicion that deepened when he gestured expansively towards a sofa at the far side of the pretty room.
‘See how thoughtful I can be, if I choose? Come—’ An imperious snap of his fingers invited her to follow as he strode across the room. ‘Beautiful clothes for a beautiful lady.’
Spurious flattery would get him exactly nowhere, Sarah decided grimly, staying exactly where she was. Her looks had never been particularly important to her; they were an accident of birth. No more, no less. She could look reasonably attractive if she took the trouble to dress herself up but ‘beautiful’ she was not. And, as she could see now, the delicate Empire sofa had clothing spread all over it, soft fabrics in a multitude of gorgeous colours, like a rainbow freshly fallen from the sky.
‘Come and see. Don’t tell me you’re not interested in having something other to wear than that uninspired grey thing.’
She ground her teeth at the coaxing voice, the laughing eyes. She hated the thought of being beholden to him for anything.
But she couldn’t wear these trousers and shirt until her father came charging to the rescue.
If he ever did.
Sooner or later, of course, he would get in touch with his agent and receive that threatening message. But it would probably be later, especially if he was all bound up with his new young mistress, and in any case he would probably prefer to keep Encarnación than swap the exciting young love of his life for his chronically disapproving daughter! And hadn’t she set out to prove to Piers that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself with no help, financial or otherwise, from him?
He would dismiss Francisco’s threats, in the full knowledge that his prosaically level-headed daughter was perfectly capable of taking good care of herself.
Sighing, she walked slowly towards him, capitulating because she really had no choice. But not gracefully. She didn’t owe him any grace.
‘Where did you get this stuff from?’ she enquired coolly, using her thumb and forefinger to pluck out what turned out to be a floaty, gauzy dress in soft fine cotton, white at the simple V-neckline, shading to deepest turquoise at the handkerchief hem.
‘Where do you think?’ The upward drift of one dark brow was expressive. ‘From my sister’s wardrobe. I do not dress in women’s clothing behind locked doors.’
The idea was so laughable she almost smiled. But she wouldn’t let herself. Making her mouth tight, she riposted grittily, remembering how appalled he’d been at the idea of her using—and presumably sullying—his precious sister’s room, ‘And won’t Encarnación mind coming home and find a stranger wearing her clothes?’
He shrugged, his smile insolently arrogant. ‘Why should she? She can throw them all away once you have used them. She has so many. She would have to live to be a hundred to wear them all. I picked out things that looked as if they would fit any size. Encarnación is more…generously built.’
Raw fury flickered over her features. There were too many insults in there for her to single out one and refute it. She was beginning to heartily dislike his wretched sister. Not only had she been stupid enough to get involved with Piers, so landing her up in this unholy mess, but she was increasingly coming over as a spoiled and over-indulged brat.
‘Ah,’ he murmured, completely misreading the direction of her wrathful thoughts. ‘I intended no disparaging comparison. True, my sister is more bountifully endowed, but perfection of the female form—as you have already so generously shown me—does not depend on mere size.’ Veiled eyes swept slowly, explicitly over her body and she felt her face burn with scarlet embarrassment. And something else: the hot melting sensation that swirled around deep inside her whenever he looked at her like that, spoke to her like that.
He was doing it deliberately, she thought chokily. And if she had any pride at all, even a smattering of that precious commodity, she would turn on her heels and walk right out of here. But he mesmerised her, took away her backbone, and she
could only weakly stand and watch, gulping to ease her suddenly parched throat, trying to slow down her racing pulsebeats, as he turned and fluidly gathered up the pile of delicate garments, telling her in that wickedly husky voice of his, ‘We go back to our room, yes? And there you can clothe yourself in a manner befitting the owner of a tantalisingly delectable body. And I will watch, and maybe I will find myself being tantalised beyond mortal endurance. Who knows?’ His mouth quirked enticingly. ‘Señorita Sarah might be transformed into a veritable Salome. I shall,’ he ended loftily, ‘be happy to give my verdict.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘AVERITABLE Salome’—not if she could help it! A decade ago she had sloughed off that ridiculous name—along with the image that went with it. Erroneous, in her case, as he would soon see!
Stepping out of the shower, Sarah towelled herself dry, one eye warily on the closed door.
To her self-admitted amazement and neverending relief, there hadn’t been the expected need to fight her corner. Ending up back in his suite of rooms, she had sternly demanded privacy while she showered and changed. And he had calmly acquiesced, as if his disgusting earlier threat had not been made, the only proviso being that she didn’t lock the door.
Which meant that he still thought she might do away with herself, she sighed, pulling on the clean underwear he had dropped on a stool earlier that morning. She was going to have to disabuse him.
Stringing him along had seemed like a good idea at the time, a foolproof ticket out of here because, she had figured, he wouldn’t want her self-inflicted demise on his conscience.
Only events had proved he didn’t have one, or only enough of one to make sure he kept his eyes on her at all times. And no way was she going to share his bed again. No way! So she would have to come clean. He would be furious when she explained how she’d made a fool of him. All that wounded Spanish pride didn’t bear thinking about.
Yet it could work to her advantage, she comforted herself optimistically. He might even be furious enough to lock her up someplace else. Out of his sight. Which would be a darned sight more acceptable than having him forever hanging around, taunting her, insulting her, watching her, touching her…
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