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Sarah stiffened indignantly. Snake! He didn’t have to go out of his way to remind her of what had happened, her out-of-control response to him, the calculated way he had called a halt, did he? And what had he said to all those people that was so darned funny? One thing was certain: he might be the big man around here, rotten rich and lord of all he surveyed, but he was no gentleman!
Anger fuelled by acute embarrassment helped her to shrug his arm from her shoulders as she straightened her spine, telling him frostily, ‘I’m capable of waiting until I get back to prison. I won’t starve,’ and felt better after that, more in control, because it was a timely reminder of how she’d come to be here in the first place, knocking her feeble pretence hat this was somehow a day out of time firmly on the head.
He dipped his dark head close to her ear and murmured, ‘Sheathe those claws, little cat. You no longer need them,’ then took her hand again, led her to a table outside a café and sat her down in the shade of an orange tree. He gave his order and then proceeded to explain how he’d put the fortune he’d made on the world’s money markets to good use, providing better amenities for the villagers, making them proud again of the productive estates, and how he’d watched their contentment grow with the betterment of their living conditions.
‘You may think it feudal, but it works for everyone,’ he told her as he refilled their glasses from the bottle of rich local wine. ‘Everything had been neglected—the water supply was erratic, the houses crumbling, little work was done on the estates because what was the use when the produce wasn’t harvested at the right time, sold at the right time and at the right price through lack of my ancestor’s interest? We are a very isolated community; we have to pull together, all of us, work hard together to survive, to become a viable entity, to prevent the village falling into decay, the land losing its fertility, the lifeblood—the peoplemoving away to find a decent standard of living somewhere else.’ He visibly reined in his enthusiasm, giving her an underbrow look. ‘But I am boring you?’
‘Far from it,’ she denied quickly. But in a way she wished he had been. It would have been easier. But he’d held her interest completely and she knew now why everyone who’d gone out of his or her way to greet him had looked at him with respect and affection.
And far from boasting about what he had achieved she had read the pride in his voice, pride for the workers who had helped him realise his dream, seen the passionate love of his land in his eyes. And she knew she was coming dangerously close to admitting that what she felt for him was neither lust nor the fantasy of imagined love; it was real and abiding and, because of that, grotesquely painful.
‘I am glad,’ he said simply, standing up as he put down the pesetas to cover the bill. He held out a hand to her, but she wisely ignored it, giving him a tight-lipped nod of agreement as he suggested, ‘Shall we go?’
The afternoon was well advanced and there were few people around to waylay them as they walked back through the shimmering heat to where the Jeep was parked. Francisco said little and she said nothing, too busy with her thoughts. And they weren’t comfortable companions. Every time she started to congratulate herself for having reached the sensible conclusion that the circumstances, the situation, were responsible for the juvenile way she’d imagined herself in love with him, he upped and did or said something that made her believe that what she felt for him was no fantasy at all.
She was right in the middle of drumming into her head the sheer, self-destructive folly of allowing herself any emotions at all where he was concerned, reminding herself what a lawless brute he was, when he said gently, ‘We’ll relax, sit in the shade for a while. We can tackle the drive back later, when it’s cooler. You must be sleepy.’
She was, she recognised. Suddenly very sleepy. All that fresh air, the exercise, was finally getting to her. Plus the wine she’d had with lunch—and what a lunch! Pollo a la andaluza, Francisco had told her as she’d eaten heartily of the delicious chicken with sherry, saffron, almonds and garlic presented in a thick earthenware bowl, with a crisp salad on the side and a dish of roast sweet peppers to dip into. She had been groaningly hungry and couldn’t remember ever having eaten so much at one sitting bef
ore.
And the shade of the riverbank did look inviting and the idea of bouncing around in the Jeep with such a full tummy didn’t really appeal, and if he didn’t get too close then she didn’t see why they shouldn’t cool down in the shade, enjoy the slight breeze that came off the river.
If the time hadn’t been right up on the mountains, where there hadn’t been another living soul for miles, then he would hardly deem the riverbank a suitable setting for seduction when workers moving to or from the fields might pass by at any time, she rationalised. And took the risk.
‘Just for a few minutes,’ she agreed, her mouth consciously prim as she wandered nearer to the water’s edge and sank down gratefully on the soft green grass. Then she went rigidly still as she heard the unmistakable sound of rustling clothing and turned her head, suspicion sharpening her brilliant eyes.
He had removed his shirt. Her mouth went dry as her eyes were held by his hard, virile body, the smooth olive skin that glistened over wide shoulders and the taut muscles of his flat stomach. She tried to look away but her eyes wouldn’t let her; she tried to stand, to walk back to the Jeep and sit in it until he agreed to drive her back but her legs wouldn’t move.
He was coming towards her, the discarded shirt in his hands, and there was unrestrained virile splendour in the way he moved, sweet dark honey in his smile, and she laved her dry lips with her tongue, silently cursing the way her suddenly trembling body had divorced itself from her brain.
He said, with a tiny hint of mockery, ‘Relax. It is siesta time. Use my shirt as a pillow; the rug in the back of the Jeep probably smells of dog.’ Then he wandered away, arrogant confidence in every line of his body, and she folded the garment he’d tossed to her, her fingers shaking.
He had the ability to make such a fool of her, she thought miserably, watching as he sat down on the grass half a dozen yards away, his elbows on his knees, his hands cupping his chin, apparently lost in contemplation of the gently swirling water.
His timing was positively machiavellian. He couldn’t have failed to see the way she’d been transfixed by his near-nakedness, her eyes coveting his gorgeous body; he must have been laughing at her inside his head, tormenting her with what he withheld, remembering her ‘generous’ passionate response to his earlier, idly experimental lovemaking!
She ground her teeth together. She hated and loathed him, she really did! And that was a whole load better than imagining herself in love with the louse! Snorting to herself, she decided she might as well make use of his wretched shirt and, turning her back very decisively on him, bunched the soft fabric under her head. She listened to the music of the water, to the breeze as it danced through the tops of the trees and drifted to sleep with her fingers possessively clutching her makeshift pillow.
She woke, disorientated, to find him sitting beside her. It was cooler, the light much dimmer beneath the trees now, and she saw him turn his head to look down at her, his face shadowed, mysterious.
‘You slept for three hours.’
A gentle hand brushed the tousled hair away from her face and she struggled upright, objecting blearily, ‘You should have woken me ages ago. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not important. There’s no hurry. And I’ve been thinking—I want to ask you something, Salome.’
Oddly enough, she couldn’t object to that once hated name but reached for his shirt and pushed it at him. There was only so much she could take. She twisted her legs beneath her, not looking at him as he pushed his arms into the sleeves, doing her best to sound reasonably friendly but cool as she invited, ‘Ask away.’
She held her breath as he began bluntly, ‘Did you mean it when you said I was responsible for the way Encarnación has rejected her home, the values that were instilled into her since birth? It has been plaguing me; I have thought of little else.’
How to answer? The tension coming from him was stinging. He had obviously taken her words deeply to heart and much as a part of her weakly wanted to reassure him, stop him from blaming himself, she knew she could never lie to him again.
‘I think it’s a distinct possibility,’ she answered quietly. ‘I don’t know her, of course, or what kind of life she had here, but generally speaking the young are curious, adventurous. If freedom to satisfy their curiosity is denied them then sooner or later they’ll kick against the traces. I’m not saying that’s what happened in your sister’s case,’ she said into the deep silence. ‘Only that it’s a possibility.’
‘It’s more than that,’ he said heavily. ‘You made me think, made me look at myself. I kept her in a silken cage and when she showed signs of restlessness I thought I could cure it by taking her to Seville, pushing money at her so that she could indulge her passion for beautiful clothes.’
He took her hands in his and she hadn’t the power to pull away from the magic of his touch. He needed to talk this out, and she needed to listen, to help if she could, so she told him gently, ‘I’m sure you always did what you thought best for her. Teenagers are notoriously hard to handle.’
