voice was cool, but he couldn’t help it. There was something about this girl that disturbed him, and it was a new experience for him. Normally he was in complete control of his reactions.
‘Very well.’ She made to close the door. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, senhora.’
He gave a stiff little movement of his head and the door closed. But after she had gone, he was conscious that he would be unable to banish her so easily from his mind as from his sight.
SINCE leaving the coast, the road had wound through a series of lushly cultivated valleys, bright with blossoming trees and shrubs, scented with pine and citrus. Rachel saw vine-clad terraces, orchards of fig and almond trees, pergolas draped with the lemon-vine while the varied colours of bougainvillea rioted in every available space. She had never seen jacarandas growing wild before, or longed to touch the satin-soft petals of the oleander. It was all new and stimulating, and she could not entirely deny the rising sense of excitement that was stirring inside her. Her fingers itched to take her paintbrush and try, probably without success, she thought, to transfer some of this beauty and colour on to canvas. This was Portugal, the country of the lean, dark man seated beside her at the wheel of his luxurious silver limousine, the natural background of this aristocratic nobleman, this unexpected friend of Malcolm’s, who regarded her with obvious contempt.
Her lips twisted and she shivered in spite of the heat of the day which had already forced her to shed the jacket of the slim-fitting cream slack suit she had worn to travel in. Her husband, overcome by the temperature, was asleep in the back of the limousine, but Luis Martinez, Marquês de Mendao, seemed totally unaffected by the climate.
She glanced surreptitiously towards him. His concentration was all on the road ahead and for a moment she was able to look at him unobserved. Who would have thought that in less than twenty-four hours her life could change so completely? Yesterday afternoon she had spent at her easel, trying to finish the portrait of one of the village children while Malcolm slept, aware of a certain excitement about him which she had not been able to explain. That the explanation had come in such a startling way was scarcely believable. And yet, last night, when she had opened the door and found the tall dark alien on the step, she had known that he was in some way responsible for that latent excitement. But even then she had not suspected that Malcolm intended to take her away.
She drew a trembling breath. He had wanted to do so, goodness knows, only circumstances had prevented it. Since his illness he had been almost fanatical in his attempts to keep her away from people she knew, but she had believed his hands had been tied. How he must have laughed to himself to think that the very thing which she had thought would keep them in Mawvry among her friends, among the people she knew and cared about, was the very thing which had provided the means to get them away.
The car braked smoothly at a bend where a narrow bridge negotiated a rippling stream below them. The water ran swiftly over smooth stones worn by the passage of time, and an enormous elm spread its branches casting avenues of shade. The lush green turf invited relaxation beside the stream where the sunlight dappled quiet pools and muted the birds’ song. Rachel could have climbed out of the car then and paddled in that stream, and she sighed, attracting the attention of the man at her side.
‘You are tired?’ he queried politely, his clipped tones betraying a certain impatience.
Rachel shook her head. ‘No. Not tired.’ She did not add senhor, and she was almost sure he noted this.
‘What then?’
‘I was just thinking how delightful it would have been to paddle in that stream we passed,’ she answered quietly.
His long-fingered brown hands tightened on the wheel, but he made no comment. His hands were very attractive, she thought, her artist’s eye appreciating their length and shape. They were slender without being thin, the bones smooth beneath brown flesh. She wondered if they were hard hands; she felt sure they must be. In spite of the fact that they must have done very little actual hard work, they nevertheless possessed a certain strength and toughness evident in the bones of his knuckles. She would have liked to have touched them, to have felt their texture and shape for herself, to have painted them ...
She drew herself up sharply. There was no question of her being allowed to paint any part of the Marquês de Mendao, and in any case, why should she want to do so? She glanced round at her husband sleeping peacefully in the back of the limousine. It was just as well he was unaware of her foolish thoughts.
She settled lower in her seat, lifting the weight of her hair off her neck with a careless hand. Again her action drew the attention of Luis Martinez, and he said: ‘As your husband appears to be sleeping at present, perhaps this would be a good moment for me to make certain things clear to you.’
Rachel stiffened. ‘What things?’
‘First of all, I would prefer that you remember to add the word senhor to the statements you address to me.’ Rachel gasped, but he went on: ‘This is not something that is of a great deal of importance to me, senhora, but my mother is of the old school of Portuguese who expect a certain standard of behaviour. Also, it is more fitting that our acquaintanceship should be seen to be on a formal footing, do you not agree?’
‘I thought your mother was English—senhor.’ Rachel just remembered the suffix.
‘She was—she is, of course, although lately she has taken Portuguese citizenship. Nevertheless, the customs of my country have always been her customs.’
‘I see.’ Rachel’s tone was dry.
‘Secondly, your—appearance, senhora.’
‘My appearance?’ Rachel looked at him in astonishment.
‘Sim, senhora, your appearance. It is obvious that you do not pay a great deal of attention to the manner of your clothing, but in Portugal women do not wear slacks except on very rare occasions. They adhere to certain principles. A simple dress or perhaps a blouse and skirt are considered much more suitable—can you appreciate this, senhora?’
Rachel felt angry. It had not been her wish to come to Portugal, and now this man was daring to criticise her manners and her clothes. Just who did he think he was?
Controlling the tremor in her voice, she said: ‘I’m afraid I disagree—senhor. For me, trousers are the most comfortable thing in my wardrobe.’
His dark eyes encountered hers and there was unconcealed anger in their depths. His lips were drawn into a line of disapproval and she thought that even in anger he was the most disturbingly attractive man she had ever seen. He was not handsome; it would be an insult to use so paltry a term to describe the carved lines of his tanned features, the high cheekbones, the deepset eyes, that mouth, the lower lip of which when it was not drawn tight as now portrayed an almost sensual fullness. The whiteness of his shirt lay against the brown column of his throat, brushed by the straight black thickness of his hair. What woman, she thought, could not be aware of him as a man, of his extreme masculinity, even if she was married?
Now he looked back at the road, and said: ‘Do I take it you intend to oppose me, senhora?’
Rachel sighed, her own anger evaporating under other, more disruptive,
