Hostage of Passion

by Diana Hamilton

  The thought of him touching her made her feel decidedly giddy, as if every cell in her body was being whirled around in a giant mixer, her blood singing and throbbing round her body, leaving her brain starved of oxygen.

  So she would think of something else instead. Such as what to wear. Pick the most sensible garment out of this bundle of froth and frivolity.

  But there wasn’t anything sensible to find—just silks and lace and cottons so soft and fine they were almost transparent. Trust a man to pick out unsuitable fripperies just because he liked the look of them, the feel of them as they slithered through his hands!

  Pressured by the fear that he might get tired of waiting around while she made her selection, and decide to poke his head round the door to satisfy himself that she wasn’t busily slitting her wrists, she scrambled into a wrap-over sheer cotton skirt in a delicate apricot shade and topped it with a sleeveless blouse in oyster-coloured silk. Then she discovered, too late to chop and change, that instead of demurely tucking into the waistband of the skirt the blouse was cropped revealingly short, ending just beneath her bosom, leaving her slender midriff bare.

  Her cheeks went pink as she suspiciously examined her reflection in the mirror. And, just as she had feared, her image was the last word in femininity, her ash-blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders, the soft expensive fabrics hinting at the delicate curves beneath, her feet bare because for some ridiculous reason she couldn’t bring herself to slip on the sensible flatties she had chosen to travel in. They would look hideous teamed with the things she was wearing.

  And, she found to her inner disgust, she didn’t want to look in any way hideous in his eyes. Not that she wanted to feel that way; she didn’t. But there was nothing she could do about it for the moment. Tantalising: that was the word he had used, wasn’t it? And tantalising simply wasn’t her style. When she dressed up she preferred elegance and simplicity, not—

  But at least she felt cooler and fresher and she could ask Rosalia to put her grey trousers and shirt in the washing machine. She needn’t wear this sort of stuff all the time. And perhaps she could look for herself, borrow something more suitable from Encarnación’s apparently limitless wardrobe. She would ask.

  So she hooked the wings of her hair behind her ears, resolutely stuffed her feet into the black leather flatties and walked out, and he didn’t look up from the papers spread out over the desk at the far end of the room until she edgily cleared her throat, the stern, brooding beauty of his profile making her unaccountably nervous now. And the nervousness increased to near panic when he did turn round, his smile too gorgeous to be borne, his eyes inviting her to drown in them.

  ‘Beautiful, just as I predicted.’

  His voice was a dark, sexily accented purr, which did nothing at all to help and her reaction to him made her despair, made her voice emerge as a sulky mumble as she plucked at the fabric of the floaty skirt and asked, ‘Couldn’t you have chosen something more practical? Jeans? T-shirts? I feel like a Barbie doll!’

  ‘No, you don’t. You feel adorable because you look adorable. Is that not so?’

  He rose, sweeping the papers into a drawer and nudging it closed with a wickedly lean hip. ‘Except for the shoes. We must see if something of Encarnación’s might fit. As for the rest—’ his dark eyes suddenly smouldered over her ‘—my sister is not like the rest of today’s youth. You will not find Encarnación astride a moped, hanging around bars or discos. She has not been brought up to the ugliness of the ubiquitous jeans and T-shirts; she is feminine to the core, brought up to look and behave like a princess.’

  A dark anger shimmered in his gaze and Sarah shuddered, sorting rapidly through what he had told her, her sympathies veering in Encarnación’s direction for the first time. ‘A princess’, he had said. Shut away from reality in an ivory tower? Pampered and spoiled but allowed no real life of her own, no thoughts of her own? Little wonder she had taken to her heels.

  All at once it no longer seemed to matter that she’d been forced to wear the other girl’s clothes, and the tiny frown that had formed between her eyes deepened fractionally when the hard slash of his mouth softened again as he told her, ‘I’m sure you’re not in the least interested. Come, I promised to open your cage, did I not?’

  But she was interested. What she had learned made sense of the way the Spanish girl had taken it into her head to disappear with a lover old enough to be her father—and then some.

  Despite being pampered and protected all her life she would have been normal enough to rebel, to want to join in with whatever the rest of humanity was doing. But she might well have been wary of going it alone in the world outside her ivory tower, warier still of relying on a boy of her own age to guide her through the nitty-gritty of the real world. But a much older man, a wealthy man, a man who—as Sarah knew—could charm the female of the species without even trying, then yes, she might have seen Piers as a form of salvation.

  Fully occupied with thoughts of the missing Encarnación instead of brooding on her own predicament, she followed where Francisco led, barely registering anything but the sound of their footfalls as they descended the stone stairs and crossed the main courtyard, blinking bemusedly when he unlocked the huge outer door and the harsh sunlight illuminated the dim apartment.

  ‘There,’ he announced lightly. ‘Your cage is open. And here is where we keep the key.’ He reached up and placed it in a niche in the stone door surround. ‘You need never feel you are a prisoner again.’

  She raised her narrowed eyes to his, searching his features for a hint of treachery; she found nothing but a challenge, bright and glittering, and only understood it when he escorted her through an open doorway in the walled castle approaches to a sweeping terrace, dripping with wisteria, standing back from her the better to watch the play of emotions on her face, his own an awesomely handsome mask that didn’t quite hide the devilish inner amusement.

  The sort of freedom she had been hoping to gain in no way equated with the situation. She had been a fool ever to imagine that it would, to experience the quick, tight lift of excitement when he’d unlocked the door, told her where the key was kept.

  Dry rocky mountaintops stretched away forever, severed deeply at the head of the lonely pass by an almost sheer drop of a thousand feet to the valley which sheltered the village.

  Shielding her eyes against the shimmering glare of the sun, she could pick out the crumbled remains of the old castle walls, the groves of olive trees, the fields climbing upwards, clinging to the mountainside, each supporting neatly tended rows of crops, the higher areas of scrub home to herds of goats.

  ‘And I suppose no one in the village knows a single word of English,’ she said thinly, wilting beneath the fierce power of the sun high in the brassy blue sky.

  There were wrought-iron seats on the terrace and she sank quickly down on one of them. Ever since he had tricked her into coming here she had been twisting her wits into knots, trying to figure out a way of getting away. But he had turned everything round, paid her back in her own coin—with interest—and she had never felt so despairing in her life. And she didn’t need his lazily amused answer to tell her that the final hope had dissolved as quickly as a morning mist beneath the savage rays of the Spanish sun.

  ‘No one. Few of them have ever ventured beyond the valley, or felt the need to. And most of them work on my estates. Besides, the road down is long and tortuous, and the road to the pass leads back to Arcos—and you know how far that is. In the other direction it goes only a little way into my estates, for transportation purposes. And the mountains are trackless.’ He rocked back a little on the balls of his feet, just watching her, and she thought that he had never looked so dangerous, so in control of everything, herself included.

  A shudder of anguish dredged through her. She could taste the danger, see it, hear its wordless, mind-numbing whisper, could almost name it for what it was.

  She pushed herself back to her feet, hating herself for that momenta
ry lapse into weak despair. What had she expected, for goodness’ sake? A half-hourly bus service from the castle gates? After all, nothing had changed. Except that the walls of her prison had expanded somewhat.

  She shot him a withering glare and he nodded, as if satisfied, and told her with a flashing smile of masculine superiority, ‘Rosalia will be serving lunch in the courtyard in about an hour. Unfortunately, I shall be involved in estate business until this evening. I look forward to taking dinner with you. Until then, Sarah.’

  A brief dip of his head and he was gone, but he left some of his powerful aura behind because for several long, heated minutes she couldn’t think straight, pacing the stone slabs of the terrace distractedly, trying to work out what had changed. She knew something had, and didn’t know what, or how, or when.

  And once, just once, a glimmer of understanding flashed into her consciousness like the appearance of a shooting star in a black velvet sky, and she tired to catch it, to hold it, but it went, leaving her more distraught than before.

  So, cross with herself, she gave up the attempt. Nothing had changed. How could it? She was letting the sun burn out her brain. She pulled herself firmly back together, walking quickly back the way Francisco had brought her, sitting in the shade of the arcade until Rosalia served her solitary lunch, making herself respond to the older woman’s smiles, her unintelligible comments, forcing herself to consume the salad of hard-boiled eggs stuffed with prawns and ham, the cold rice dish intriguingly flavoured with anchovy, tomato and thyme, quenching her thirst with chilled, delicious white wine.

  Which went some way towards helping her to thrust the unwelcome feeling of loneliness out of her head. Of course she wasn’t missing his aggravating company. And of course she wasn’t feeling abandoned because he had chosen to work. He had given her limited freedom, allowed her to see for herself how hopeless the idea of escaping on foot would be and, satisfied that he needn’t bore himself silly by watching her every moment of the day, had taken himself off to involve himself in work—a far more interesting and rewarding project.

  And she was glad, she told herself fiercely. Glad!

  She took herself off to indulge in a siesta, giving herself a chance to get her mind sorted out, catch up on some of last night’s missed sleep. She fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow in the sinfully comfortable bed, and woke in the late, golden afternoon, all nicely sorted out and knowing exactly how best to handle the horrible situation she’d been plunged into.

  So she put her brain on hold as she washed yesterday’s undies and put them on a towel-rail to dry, then had a shower, again, not knowing why she was bothering except that it helped to pass the time, and dressed in the clothes of Encarnación’s she had worn earlier, not caring now that she didn’t look in the least like her usual self.

  Francisco had said that he would join her for dinner and she knew that that probably wouldn’t be before nine in the evening, which gave her plenty of time to explore.

  She stole like a shadow through lofty formal apartments, a magnificent ballroom, smaller, obviously family rooms where fires would be lit in the evenings when the cold wind scoured the mountaintops and the rain-swollen streams roared down the ravines. And she wondered how brother and sister spent their time here. Did they entertain? And what of their parents? Had their family been here for generations, right back to the Christian conquest? She wouldn’t be at all surprised!

  Thoughtfully, she made her way back to the central courtyard and, finding it empty, the sky darkening overhead, tramped back to his suite of rooms in her sensible shoes, trying to push the sensation of loneliness to the back of her mind, and didn’t stop to examine the surge of relief that made her blood skitter light-heartedly through her veins when she walked through to the sitting-room and found him staring from one of the open windows, the mountain breeze ruffling his midnight hair.

  He turned slowly, reluctantly almost, as she closed the door behind her. His eyes were brooding, the dark brows drawn down. He looked abstracted, she thought, as if he didn’t know who she was, what she was doing here, and she wondered bleakly why that should hurt quite so much.

  ‘Of course.’ He shook his head slightly, as if dragging his thoughts back from outer space. ‘Dinner. Rosalia and Marcos will bring it presently. I always dine here when I am alone.’

  She nodded briefly, biting down on her lip, stifling the unexpected need to remind him that he wasn’t alone. She was here, wasn’t she?

  But to all intents and purposes he was alone. She didn’t count. He could extract a little amusement from her presence when he was in the mood to tease, insult or flirt. But he wasn’t in the mood for amusement at her expense now, so her presence would simply be an irritant.

  He must be deeply worried for Encarnación. Because he wanted to know she was safe and well, that she wasn’t being hurt, being taught how to love only to discover she was merely one of an army of women who could count on nothing more than a fleeting, spasmodic place in Piers Bouverie-Scott’s selfish attentions?

  Or did his concern cut more deeply, more coldly? Had he had his own plans for Encarnación? A solid dynastic marriage perhaps. One that would not take place if the prospective bridegroom discovered how she had been spoiled. ‘Spoiled’ had been the word he had used.

  Her bewilderment must have shown on her face because his eyes warmed suddenly, and he gave her a smile of such magnetism that her mouth went dry. Suddenly her hands were aching to reach out and draw his face down to hers, to kiss those sensual lips, drown in them, explore the secret of his masculinity, to kiss and be kissed until they were both beyond reason.

  Horrified, she balled her hands into fists and pressed them rigidly against her side. Now she knew where the real danger lay! She had sensed it, sensed it strongly, but had been unable to name it. She could now. Her physical response to him, something she had never felt for any man before, was the danger. It had been there from the first, she recognised sickly, and was hourly growing stronger.

  So she would be firm with herself, root it out. Kill it stone-dead. Remind herself what a louse he was. He was cruel, impatient, impossible, had the insolent arrogance of his personality stamped on every feature of that dark, brooding Latin beauty, a ferocious sexuality that had the power to stun…

  Quickly, she slapped down the direction her thoughts were taking her in and, not looking at him because that mouth was still softened by that mindstunning smile as he gestured her towards one of the sofas, said briskly, ‘It’s time for straight talking, I think.’ She tugged the drifting wrap-over skirt demurely back into place and folded her hands in her lap to ensure that her long bare legs didn’t inadvertently get back on display. ‘Keeping me here isn’t a joke, you know.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was.’ That sexy mouth was still curling as he joined her on the sofa. ‘I recognised the steel in you when I first saw you. I am not such a fool as to treat anything about you as a joke.’ An arm snaked behind her, along the back of the sofa. ‘In fact, I deeply respect your many and infinitely varied—qualities.’

  Whatever that meant. She didn’t think it would be wise to ask. He really was much too close. Sarah felt her entire body go quite rigid. Yet to move away would tell him that he affected her, and then the swirling danger would become something else again, something intolerable… She must project complete indifference. Somehow.

  ‘Then perhaps you will respect what I have to say,’ she uttered stiffly, blocking out the impulse to leap on to one of the other sofas. ‘It could be weeks before Piers even gets your message. And then there’s no guarantee he’ll respond.’

  ‘A man not respond to his daughter’s plight? How could that be so?’

  He was not taking her seriously. She could hear the laid-back amusement in his voice; it curled around her, stroked her, caressed her, crept into the very privacy of her soul. His hand moved slowly, taking a shining tendril of her hair between his long fingers, holding it gently, rubbing a little as if enjoying its silkiness.
He was a supremely physical man…

  ‘He doesn’t even like me,’ she muttered gruffly. ‘We don’t like each other. We’re chalk and cheese. After my mother died he packed me off to boarding-school, but I did my best, when I saw him, to get him to moderate his behaviour. It didn’t work out. Wine, women and work, never a thought to how embarrassing his behaviour—Well,’ she bit off, ‘that’s another story.’ She wished he’d stop playing with her hair! It was…it was… ‘The point being,’ she spluttered nervily, ‘he lives through all his five senses and he has spectacularly vivid senses, I might tell you. I prefer to use my mind and lead a tidy, professionally rewarding life. He won’t renounce the pleasure of the moment for my sake. That’s what I’m trying to get over to you.’

  ‘No, that is not what you are trying to convey at all,’ he said smokily, his fingers still intent on the enjoyment of what he was doing with her hair. ‘You are trying to tell me that you have no emotions, no sensuality. That you are a properly programmed robot, without a sex. Is that not so?’

  He edged a little closer, his fingers sliding up to her scalp, turning her head, making her face him, making her recognise the unholy silver gleam deep in those lustrous black eyes. ‘Well, protest away, Salome, but I know better. I know all about passion, therefore I can recognise it easily. It sang out to me; I saw it throbbing inside you, fighting to get out of that enforced sexless exterior on only our second encounter.’

  His fingers were warm on her scalp, stroking, gently kneading, and she twisted her head away, her face going scarlet as she snapped out, ‘Don’t call me that! It’s not my name; my name is—’

  ‘Salome,’ he interrupted with lazy amusement, capturing her bristling body with his hands, sliding them up to fasten round the naked skin of her midriff. ‘It’s more appropriate than you like to think. Shall I demonstrate?’