Again Luis gave her grandfather that slightly uneasy sideways glance, as if he would like to have said whatever he had to say without his overhearing. 'All I know for sure is that Rosa has packed up and gone,' he said, and Kirstie caught her breath, looking up quickly and frowning.
'She's gone?'
Luis spread his expressive hands and shrugged. 'She's gone. She went the day after this happened, and I don't think she and Miguel parted very amicably as far as I could judge. He drove her to the station, and the look on his face would have discouraged a harder nut than Rosa.'
A half-forgotten threat stirred in the back of Kirstie's mind and she looked at Luis anxiously. 'Luis, you don't think she'll keep Margarita from seeing her grandfather—because of this, do you?'
'I don't know.' His shrug suggested he ha4 heard nothing of the threat to deprive Enrique of his granddaughter. 'I've never seen Rosa quite so subdued, as a matter of fact, even though she suggested a smouldering volcano waiting to erupt. Somebody, and I can only guess it must have been Miguel, must have laid down the law to her, because obviously '
He broke off suddenly, and Kirstie's heart began a wild, fluttering beat as she too caught the sound of booted feet coming quickly across the patio, for this time there could be no mistaking who the caller was. Her hands clasped tightly together, she watched her grandfather move to open the door, before Miguel had time to knock on it, and this time, she noticed, he did not
hesitate to invite the caller in.
Miguel loomed for a moment in the doorway, his tall figure outlined by the harsh sunlight outside like a figure of vengeance, pausing for a second when he saw that his brother was there. Then his eyes switched to the bouquet of roses that lay on the table beside her, and Kirstie saw his black brows drawn very briefly into a frown.
*Don Jose.' He greeted her grandfather with the deference he always accorded him, then came across to where Kirstie sat, and stood for a moment looking down at her still pale face and heavy-fringed, downcast eyes. 'Kirstie,' he said, so softly that the colour flew into her face. 'I see you're much better.' He spared Luis only a very brief glance. 'Well enough to receive visitors, it seems.'
'I dropped in for a few moments, that's all,' Luis told him, and Kirstie frowned because he saw fit to excuse his presence when she saw no reason for him to.
'And you're very welcome,' she assured him before Miguel could pass any comment. 'I'm very glad to see someone after lying in bed for days with only myself for company.' She reached and picked up the flowers from the table, holding the deep yellow roses to her cheek for a moment. 'And the roses are beautiful, you're very thoughtful, Luis, no one else brought me flowers.'
He took the allusion, Kirstie had no doubt, but instead of showing annoyance she could have sworn that his mouth twitched just sHghtly at one comer and her colour deepened. How dared he laugh at her for being pleased with Luis's flowers? 'Luis is of a romantic turn of mind, as I told you before he came,' he remarked, but for a moment when Kirstie met his eyes she felt certain it was resentment she saw there, not amusement.
'And didn't I tell you that I Hked romantics?' she countered swiftly.
Luis's visit wasn't going as he had planned at all. He had anticipated sitting beside her bed and perhaps holding her hand, murmuring the kind of things that any girl would find conducive to getting well. Instead he had
been chaperoned from the moment he set foot inside the door, first by her grandfather, and now by Miguel as well.
His good-looking face had a definitely sulky look as he got to his feet, and he reached down to take one of her hands, holding it in his while he looked down at her with soulfully appealing eyes. 'I was hoping to see you alone for a few minutes,' he told her, 'but—' He shrugged eloquent shoulders and glared at his brother before raising her hand to his Ups. 'Perhaps later, my pigeon, eh? Adios, my lovely.'
Kirstie would normally have taken Luis's extravagances in her stride, but the present situation deprived her of her usual aplomb, and she nodded her head and murmured a rather subdued 'AdiosV It wasn't easy to behave normally with her grandfather and, worst of all, Miguel standing by and watching every move.
He gave Don Jose a very brief and formal bow, but ignored his brother altogether, then departed with all the drama his extravagant nature was capable of. For a moment after he had gone it seemed as if those remaining were waiting for something to happen, and eventually it was Miguel who broke the silence as he accepted her grandfather's silent invitation to take the chair his brother had just vacated.
His proximity affected Kirstie as it always did, and she wished she could conquer the sensation just for once that made her feel as if her will was completely subject to his. There was a suggestion of power in his broad shoulders and bare brown arms, and it was much too easy to recall how they had held her on more than one occasion, so hard that she could scarcely breathe. And that firm, straight lower lip was disturbingly sensual when it was pursed sHghtly, as now.
'Are you really fit to be out of bed and receiving visitors?' he asked, and Kirstie couldn't help noticing that her grandfather took no offence at all at his questioning her.
'Don't I look fit?' she asked, but immediately re-
gretted inviting closer inspection, because it was still more disturbing.
Black-fringed, heavy-lidded eyes moved slowly over every feature then came to rest on her mouth, and her pulse responded like a wild thing to the burning intensity of his gaze. His voice, when he answered her had the deep and breathtaking sensuality that she had heard on other occasions, and she wondered how her grandfather could not notice that at least. She wondered too what he would say and do if he knew just how much more vulnerable she was with Miguel in a romantic situation than she was with Luis.
'You look pale and heavy-eyed,' was his eventual verdict on her appearance, and such stunningly unflattering honesty coming after that explicit scrutiny took her breath away.
She flushed warmly and her blue eyes sparkled with resentment as she flung back the hair from around her face and looked at him down her nose. 'You're not very flattering, or very good for my morale,' she informed him in a small and shiveringly angry voice. 'Luis was much better for me, and you more or less sent him away!'
'Would you rather I went too?'
It was a direct challenge; soft-voiced and stunningly affecting, but a challenge for all that, and Kirstie guessed Miguel wasn't in the least surprised when she shook her head. 'You interrupted Luis when he was telling me about Rosa—Senora Montanes leaving, so you can tell me instead.'
She sensed her grandfather's frown, and knew he considered she had been too pert, but it was more difficult to judge Miguel's reaction. There was a look in his eyes that she judged to be anger, yet it aroused a curious feeling in her that she did not begin to understand. 'I drove her to the station myself the morning after you were hurt,' he said.
'Why?'
Her grandfather drew a breath to object, but Miguel
forestalled him, though she thought her asking came as a surprise. *Why did she leave? Because I—no, we thought it the best solution.'
Kirstie stuck firmly to the path she had chosen and her eyes challenged him unmistakably. *Even though you know she was responsible for what happened to me?' It was hard not to look appealing when she thought about how her grandfather had said he carried her home in his arms, and the strange mood he was in. 'You wouldn't talk about it when it first happened,' she reminded him, 'but I was almost certain you believed me.'
'I believed you—I saw it happen.'
His quiet matter-of-factness stunned her for a moment, and she stared at him, for she couldn't believe he had deliberately put Rosa Montaiies out of harm's way, knowing her guilty of the attack. 'You—you saw what happened?' He nodded abruptly, and Kirstie's colour rose swiftly as she stared at him with shimmering blue eyes. 'You know what she did and you let her go home without—without doing anythingV
'That wasn't what I said,' Miguel corrected her quietly, and still
her grandfather remained quietly in the background, Kirstie noticed bitterly. 'I can imagine how you must be thirsting for vengeance after the way Rosa treated you, Kirstie, but vengeance could only lead to more bitterness and top many people could be hurt.'
'/ was hurt!' Kirstie reminded him, and her voice wavered slightly. 'You saw her hit me, but you simply let her go home as if it wasn't worth making a fuss about! ! suppose to you it was more important to keep your precious name intact! No scandal to be attached to the Montanes name, and the Rodriguez hardly count for anything now, do they?'
'Now you're starting to talk that same silly nonsense again,' Miguel told her, and the cool, deep voice almost shattered her self-control.
'Don't talk down to me, Miguel! I'm not a five-year-old!'
Her grandfather moved forward, and she gave a sob
of exasperation when she saw him draw back again because Miguel indicated with a brief nod that he was capable of dealing with the situation. Getting up out of his chair, he came and crouched down in front of her, taking her hands in his and affecting not to notice her first ineffectual efforts to escape him.
'I think we'd better leave explanations until another time,' he said. 'You're obviously tired and still not up to talking for too long. Suppose you go back to bed and rest, and I'll explain it all later, hmm?'
His gentleness, his understanding had always been something she found annoyingly disarming, but in this instance she felt reassured by it and in some way strengthened. 'I—I'm all right,' she insisted, and shook her head to try and clear the tears from her eyes. 'I want to hear about it, please; I—I think I'm entitled to hear about it.'
'And I agree,' said Miguel, still holding on to her hands. His big, powerful hands were remarkably gentle, she had noted it before, and she let her own relax slightly. 'If you're sure you feel up to it, I'll go on, but don't fly in a temper with me before you've heard what I have to say, O.K.?'
'I'll try.'
He sighed, as if it was as much as he could hope for, then let go her hands and sat back in his own chair again. 'Everything possible was done to avoid what could have been a very ugly incident with long reaching consequences. Rosa claims that the blow on your head with the handle of her crop was an accident, and I think I know Rosa well enough to recognise it as the truth. According to her she was carrying the crop the wrong way round and had forgotten it when she hit you; she intended striking you with the lash, which to me sounds more feasible.'
'She also rode Suli at me quite deliberately,' Kirstie reminded him, and he nodded.
'That was a stupid and dangerous thing to do, and Rosa is no longer in any doubt of it'
Kirstie was in no doubt who had impressed it upon her either, and the way he had told the story she had to admit it could be the truth. And she recalled how certain Margarita had been that she had struck her mother with the stick she was carrying; it wouldn't do to make such a determined judgment herself if there was the slightest possibility of it being wrong. Then she remembered something else too, and looked across at Miguel anxiously.
*Will—will she be coming back?' she asked, and shook her head hastily when he obviously did not understand her asking. 'I mean, she won't keep Margarita away from her grandfather? She did threaten to once.'
Miguel leaned forward in his chair with his big hands clasped together in front of him and his elbows resting on his knees. 'She'll be coming back,' he told her quietly. 'It's the price of getting away with the attack on you.' When she looked up swiftly to make a protest, for the first time since she had known him she saw a look of appeal in those deep, dark eyes and found it irresistible. Her protest was never made, and he went on in the same quiet voice, 'I know you probably think that you've had less than justice, Kirstie, but I was thinking of Tio Enrique. I don't know how you heard of the threat she made, but I couldn't doubt she meant it when she made it to me and my uncle.'
'I didn't doubt it either.'
There was a glimpse of warmth in his eyes that brought faint colour to her cheeks, and she hastily lowered her glance as he went on. 'I can't prevent you taking Rosa to court, even now, but if you do she'll make certain that Margarita doesn't see her grandfather again, at least until the girl is old enough to choose for herself. Would you want that?'
'No. No, of course I wouldn't. I won't take any action against her.'
'I thought not.' Again that warmth gleamed from the depth of his eyes and seemed to reach out to her. 'And now that's an end of the subject for the moment,' he
decided. 'You shouldn't be out of bed so long, and I think you should go back, hmm?'
It was only when she turned to speak to him that Kirstie reaUsed her grandfather was no longer with them, and she felt the colour rush into her face, for the move was so blatantly obvious that she felt ashamed of it. The lull she had felt while Miguel was talking to her was banished and in its place was embarrassment at her grandfather's determined matchmaking.
She got to her feet and she was shaking like a leaf, her face flaming and her eyes carefully evasive as she stood for a moment clinging to the back of the chair she had been sitting in. Miguel was on his feet at once, and reaching out his hands to help her. 'Youf grandfather seems to have left us,' he said, 'so you'd better let me help you.'
Quickly she snatched back out of reach. 'No, no, I can manage on my own, thank you!'
He let his hands drop, but he was frowning, she could sense it. 'Shall I call Don Jose?'
Kirstie laughed a Httle wildly and shook her head. 'After he's gone to the trouble of leaving us together?' she asked. 'Don't play into his hands, Miguel, I've no intention of doing so. It was bad enough when he was set on marrying me off to Luis, but now he's approached
you ' She turned quickly, almost too quickly, for
she had to cling tightly to the chair.
'You find the idea even more unpalatable,' Miguel suggested, and there was a certain roughness in his voice that touched her senses. 'I quite understand, Kirstie— you can't imagine a worse fate!'
Had she really made it sound like that? Kirstie wondered. She stood holding on to the chair and needed its support, for her legs felt incredibly weak and unsteady. 'I—I didn't want to sound—ungracious,' she tried to explain, 'but you know how I feel, Miguel'
'I only wish I did,' he told her quietly, and she turned again to make her way back to her room, and again he automatically reached out to help her. 'You're very
unsteady and you need support, let me help you.'
'No!'
Shaking her head insistently, Kirstie clasped the robe to her throat and began slowly to cross the room, discarding even the assistance of the various items of furniture that she had used when she first left her room. But she had taken only one or two steps when she felt her legs begin to give way and she made a small anxious sound as she groped around her for something to hold on to. A week in bed had sapped her strength even more than she had realised.
'Kirstie!'
A strong arm was slipped around her and pulled her close against him, supporting her firmly so that she instinctively let herself go and clung to him, while the touch of him fired her senses as it always did. Miguel simply held her for the moment, his long fingers curved into the softness of her breast and spread over the span of waist and hip. Then he drew her closer still and his voice came from the region of her left ear.
'Now will you let me help you?' he murmured into the muffling softness of her hair. 'Or am I supposed to stand and watch you fall at my feet before you see sense?'
There was little else she could do but concede, Kirstie realised, and she nodded. 'I don't think I can get there on my own,' she confessed huskily. 'I feel horribly limp and my legs are so unsteady.'
'After a week in bed, my dear child, of course they're unsteady.' The whispering softness of his voice calling her his dear child aroused such a chaos of emotions that she protested automatically against it.
'I'm not a five-year-old, Miguel, and I dislike being called a child, I've told yo
u before!'
For a moment the arm about her tightened so hard she felt as if her breathing had been stopped, but then he eased it a little and turned her to face him, putting the other hand around her cheek and lifting her chin so that she looked at him. His eyes, when she looked up at
him in alarm suddenly, were deep and gleaming black as jet, and induced a shiver of anticipation that slid Hke ice along her spine.
'If you could decide which you are,' he murmured, his voice rough-edged, Td know where I stand! You're child and woman in turn and neither seems to know her own mind!'
*I know,' Kirstie whispered defiantly, and flinched when a sudden harsh laugh startled her.
Then you'd better tell me before I put you back into bed,' he told her, *it could make all the difference!'
'Miguel!'
He ignored her protest and lifted her into his arms, carrying her through into her room, and as he laid her down on the bed Kirstie fought an almost irresistible desire to prove to him that she was a woman and not a child; definitely not a child. Instead she let her arms slide from around his neck and lay back on the pillows with her eyes downcast.
He said nothing, but stood over her, looking down with that steady disturbing gaze that did wild things to her pulse. Then he leaned over suddenly and touched his lips to her brow, a light, lingering touch that caught her breath. She looked up at him, her blue eyes between their thick black lashes almost slumbrous and her lips slightly parted because it was difficult to draw breath with him hovering so close.
Her head was no longer bandaged, but a faint mark on the skin showed where the wound had been, and Miguel touched it with his fingertips, brushing back the silky black hair from her brow. Kirstie could feel the urgent pulse that fluttered under his fingers and her eyes half-closed as if of their own volition as she instinctively lifted her face to him.
The Black Invader Page 17
