it, a heavy, steely force that could confuse and frighten her if she didn’t keep the upper hand.
And then a slow, beautiful smile spread over his face and that really worried her. She’d outwitted him, after all, so surely he had nothing to smile about! But she refused to step the few paces away from him that all her instincts were urging her to take because she didn’t back down for anyone, certainly not for him.
‘Together. Yes, I like the sound of that.’ Genuine satisfaction honeyed the dark, smoky voice but the sudden trap of his fingers as they closed punishingly on her upper arm was a cruel contrast. ‘Come, little fly. You walked into my web so prettily, and now we will wait. Together, as you said.’
Suddenly, the huge space seemed airless. Those dark, inscrutable eyes rested on her, seeming to map the way her brain was working as it tried to make sense of what he had said.
Wait? Surely he couldn’t be saying that during the relatively short time he’d spent here ahead of her he’d had the opportunity to search the warren of rooms that must make up the interior of the castle? That he’d found someone—one of the staff maybe—who’d told him that Piers was out somewhere, that he’d turn up again if they waited?
It made no kind of sense at all.
She frowned, making a determined effort now to pull away, but that only made the punishing pressure of his steely fingers more intense as he began to urge her across the stone floor. She tried to dig her heels in but it was impossible and she had the horrible feeling that if she resisted further he would pick her up and toss her over his shoulders like a rag doll.
‘Don’t hustle me,’ she snapped, doing her best to sound fully in control and formidably stern. ‘If you’ll show me where we’re supposed to wait, I’ll go without being manhandled, thank you.’ She injected a fine note of sarcasm but it made not a jot of difference, except that she imagined she saw a pitying smile flicker across his lips.
‘And how do you know they’re not in residence?’ she persisted doggedly, doing her level best to keep her breathing nice and regular, to ignore the manacle of his strong, lean, inescapable hand. ‘Dad’s neighbour told you they were here but you only arrived ten minutes before me, so you can’t possibly have had time to make a proper search, and for all you know the owner might be here too, and have us thrown out as mannerless intruders. I don’t suppose you’ve thought of that!’
She might have been talking to thin air for all the response she got and by this time they had emerged through another massive door, out of the dim shadows and into the brilliance of an interior courtyard, open to the deepening sun-shot early evening sky. There were fountains, she noted agitatedly, a single massive fig tree, masses of tubbed exotic flowers and shady arcades surrounding what she took to be the main living quarters.
Whoever owned this place was obviously a man of considerable substance, not to mention clout. But the relentless Spaniard hadn’t taken her warnings on board. He had simply, and with insulting arrogance, ignored every word she had said.
Or so it seemed until he strode into the shade of the nearest pillared arcade and informed her, almost indifferently, ‘I am the owner. And I can assure you that apart from a skeleton staff of two there is no one else in residence. Come, through here.’
Without giving her time to draw breath, let alone gather her thoughts coherently, he steered her through a deep archway into a cool, stone-walled apartment and up a narrow flight of twisting, banisterless stone stairs that clung to one of the inner walls. And her hair, hastily secured back in a makeshift knot with the few clips remaining following the slippery, silky descent in Arcos, flopped down all over again, obscuring her vision, and she could do nothing about it because the arm he wasn’t clutching was hanging on to her bits and pieces. She felt hatred bubble up inside her, vicious and violent and quite unlike her.
The untrammelled mass of hair, tumbling to her shoulders and falling over her face, put her at a distinct physical and psychological disadvantage. She could barely see to put one foot in front of the other, was actually having to rely on that iron-hard hand to guide her. She loathed the sensation of having to rely on this over-privileged boor for anything and the conclusions she was beginning to draw did nothing at all to ease her state of mind.
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