or have her caught.’
‘Do you think she is in league with Paveli?’ The doctor said the name like a curse. ‘She could have been acting as a lookout.’
Nico frowned. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps she’s his woman. We know nothing about her.’
‘Her accent says she’s a New Zealander. It seems unlikely she has anything to do with him, but she saw Paveli in the square, and she wasn’t going to tell me.’
The newcomer stared at the woman, and, moved by some feeling he didn’t explore, Nico adjusted her limp body so that her face was hidden against his chest. ‘We have to get her out of here,’ he said brusquely, and lifted her.
Fragrant against him, she lay in his arms as though she belonged there. Grimly Nico controlled his swift, fierce response and headed for the opening to the secret passage.
‘And you, my Lord, are altogether too recognisable,’ the doctor said briskly from behind.
Nico’s arms tightened around the woman in his arms. ‘So we’ll make sure she’s safe until we can ask her a few more questions.’
* * *
Leola woke to a throbbing head and a dry mouth; when she tried to lift her eyelids that hurt her head even more. Without volition she groaned.
From somewhere close by a woman said in heavily accented English, ‘You feel bad now, but soon you will be better. Drink this.’
Leola sipped greedily, then sank back into sleep, tossing restlessly as a hard-eyed Viking prowled through her dreams.
When she woke again she lay very still, forcing her sluggish brain into action. Slowly, reluctantly, it disgorged memories—her decision to go for a walk at night, and a face revealed by a flare of light. She shivered, because something about that face filled her with repugnance.
The image was replaced by another face—hard, forcefully handsome, compelling.
Ice-grey eyes, she thought, the pictures jumbling in her brain. He’d kissed her and all hell had broken loose…
Had he hit her over the head? A tentative hand revealed no sore spot there.
Drugs, then…
Dimly she remembered a sharp pain in her neck while he was kissing her. Her captor hadn’t been waving a hypodermic around, so someone else must have come up from behind.
Her captor’s kiss had been a cynical ploy to dazzle her into mindless submission.
Humiliatingly, it had worked. Shame ate into her; she’d known he was dangerous, yet she’d succumbed to his cynical caress like some raw teenager awash with hormones.
Never again, she vowed.
At least it didn’t seem as though he intended to kill her. On the other hand she might be a hostage or a bargaining tool. Or he might just fancy a playmate for a few nights before getting rid of her.
Feeling sick, she shifted uneasily, wondering if he’d already…
No, she felt entirely normal, just lax and sleepy. Surely she’d know if she’d been raped?
How? Although she’d had plenty of men friends, several of whom would have liked to become closer, she’d been too dedicated—too intensely focused on her dreams and her career—for relationships.
Too scared, too; long ago she’d decided that love and passion led to pain and humiliation. So, as one-night stands were definitely not her style, she was that rare thing in the modern world, a virgin.
But it hadn’t been fear she’d felt when the grey-eyed Viking had kissed her, and his kisses had wiped any thought of career and ambition from her mind. His kisses had made her feel uncontrolled and wanton and desirous.
No other man had ever done that.
Whatever she’d walked into last night in the square, she didn’t want a bar of it. She had to get away from here—wherever here was!
Feverish thoughts jostled through her brain, but in the end the only plan she could come up with was to pretend to be the idiot her captor no doubt thought her.
Feigning sleep, she tried to gather as many sensory impressions as she could. She was in a bed—a very comfortable one. Outside she could hear what seemed to be the soft lapping of water, but there was no smell of salt. Instead, an indescribable freshness filled the air, mingled with the now familiar scents of cypresses and something lighter and sweeter. Flowers?
And someone else was with her. Although the room was silent, she could just catch the faint rhythm of something making regular motions. A rocking chair, she thought, rather pleased with herself for working this out.
She simply couldn’t imagine the man who’d brought her here in a rocking-chair. Oddly enough that thought brought a smile to the corners of her mouth, and gave her the courage to slowly, stealthily, lift her lashes. This time they obeyed her will, so that she could see the woman who sat sewing beside a long window.
Nothing frightening there, she thought with a swift rush of relief. Middle-aged, pleasantly plump, clad in some sort of nurse’s uniform, the woman in the chair wore her black hair off her face in a bun at her neck. Her olive skin and Mediterranean features meant she was probably Illyrian.
As though she was warned by some sixth sense, the woman’s head swung abruptly around, her face lighting up when she saw Leola watching her.
‘Ah, you are truly awake,’ she said, and came across to stand beside her, automatically taking her wrist and checking her pulse.
‘Where am I?’ Leola’s voice sounded croaky and feeble at the same time.
‘In Osita, in the Sea Isles,’ the woman told her readily, releasing her wrist. ‘Yes, you are feeling much better. Perhaps you would like something to eat, hmm?’
Osita? Leola frowned, trying to remember where she’d seen that name, then discarded the search to concentrate on more important things. Although the thought of food nauseated her, if she said yes, the nurse might leave the room to collect it.
And then she could get up to work out where she was. ‘I’ll try,’ she said cautiously.
But the woman rang a bell beside the bed. ‘Something light would be best. Soup, I think.’
Baulked, Leola said in a muted voice, ‘Thank you.’
Almost immediately there came a knock at a door. The nurse bustled across and ordered whatever it was she’d decided on, then came back. ‘So, let me help you sit up,’ she said. ‘You will want to wash your face and clean your teeth. I will bring you a basin.’
After helping Leola sit against a bank of pillows, she went off through another door, this one in the wall opposite.
Turning her head carefully, Leola examined the large, beautifully furnished room. No prison cell this, she thought with a stab of unwanted appreciation. It was a sumptuously decorated bedroom—a woman’s room. The large glass doors opened
