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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.
