earlier mockery. ‘I am sorry, I did not mean to do so. But you asked for my opinion, and I gave it.’
Caroline shrugged. ‘You haven’t offended me,’ she declared, although, unknowingly, her whole demeanour suggested that he had. ‘I was trying to think of a suitable answer, that’s all.’
‘I think you mean a suitable set-down,’ he observed, giving her a wry grin. ‘I am sorry, truly. Believe me, you are a very feminine lady, and I salute your courage in pursuing your career.’
‘You don’t really.’ Caroline would not be deceived. ‘You’re probably one of those men who thinks a woman shouldn’t have a brain in her head!’
‘No!’ His humour was infectious, and against her will Caroline found herself responding to it.
‘You do,’ she insisted, abandoning all formality between them. ‘I just hope your brother is more tolerant in his attitudes to women.’
There was another of those pregnant silences, when Caroline wondered exactly what she had said, and when he replied, there was little humour left in his voice. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and she heard the irony in his tones, ‘Esteban is much more tolerant you will find. It was he who employed you, señorita. How could he think otherwise?’
It was not the answer she would have preferred, and she was left feeling decidedly deflated. For a few minutes she had lost the feeling of apprehension that had gripped her ever since Señor Allende burst into her room. But once again a sense of unease enveloped her, making her overwhelmingly aware of her own vulnerability.
‘How—how much further is it?’ she asked now, needing his voice to dispel her tension, and he frowned into the darkness.
‘Not far,’ he told her. ‘Five miles, at most. Are you tired? Or perhaps hungry? I am sure my brother’s housekeeper will have a meal waiting for you.’
‘And—and your aunt?’ Caroline probed. ‘Señora Garcia told me she also lives at the—the hacienda.’
‘That is correct. She came to San Luis when my father married her sister. She has never married, and she considers San Luis her home.’
Caroline welcomed this information. An elderly aunt sounded infinitely less intimidating than a man whose wife had died in childbirth, and who might or might not have mourned her passing. She stared out blindly into the darkness. It seemed such a long way. The road was so bad, and so twisting. Was this the only link with civilisation?
She was not thinking what she was doing, slumped in her seat, wrapped in the corkscrewing spiral of her thoughts. When the Range Rover swung round a bend in the road, and Señor Montejo braked hard to avoid a pile of rocks and debris brought down by the rain, she was flung about like a doll, cracking her head on the windscreen before being thrown back against him. It happened so suddenly she was unable to save herself, and she clutched at him violently, to prevent further punishment.
‘Dios mío!’ he muttered, as the vehicle shuddered to a standstill, and his arm automatically went around her. ‘Are you all right? Did I hurt you? I am sorry. This road can be treacherous after a storm.’
Caroline breathed shakily, her face pressed against the soft material of his shirt. Beneath the fine cloth, his heart was pounding heavily in her ears, and the clean male scent of his skin filled her nostrils. His body was hard, muscular, unyielding, and yet possessed of a supple strength, that accommodated the flexibility of hers. Even after the Range Rover had ground to a halt, and the uncanny silence had enveloped them in its blanketing shield, she clung to his strength, and knew it was not just the near-accident which had aroused such a desire for his protection.
‘Miss Leyton!’ His voice was a key lower, husky, possessed of a certain restraint. ‘Miss Leyton, what is it? Are you hurt? Tell me, what is the matter?’
His words brought Caroline to her senses, and with a little gesture of negation she moved away from him. Immediately he withdrew his arm from the back of her seat, and after allowing her a swift appraisal, he thrust open his door.
Sliding his arms into his jacket, he retrieved a spade from the back of the vehicle, and while she endeavoured to compose herself, he vigorously disposed of the pile of debris. He worked in the illumination from the headlights, bending and lifting, and throwing the contents of the spade across the ditch at the side of the road. Caroline watched him with uneasy awareness, troubled as much by her own reactions to him as by their brush with danger. It was disturbing to realise that during those moments in his arms she had known a wholly unexpected sense of anticipation, and she knew if he had chosen to bend his head and find her mouth with his she would not have objected.
It was a shocking realisation, not only because of her feelings for Andrew, but because she had known Luis Montejo for such a short period of time. She had thought herself so self-confident, so emancipated—yet, when the warm scent of his breath had brushed her cheek, she had felt as weak and susceptible as any Victorian miss. She checked the shoulder-length curve of her hair with unsteady fingers. No doubt he had known how she felt, she thought, with some self-derision. He must be highly amused now, after her previous assertions of female rights. Perhaps she should be grateful he had not chosen to take the affair any further. It would have been doubly humiliating to arrive on Don Esteban’s doorstep, with his brother’s brand already upon her.
The spade thudded into the back of the vehicle, and she stiffened as the door beside her opened, and Luis Montejo climbed back into his seat. This time, he kept his jacket on, and the damp smell of the material mingled with the faint odour of sweat from his exertions.
‘You are sure you are all right?’ he enquired again, his voice perceptibly cooler now, yet still polite and concerned, and she nodded, fingering a slight swelling on her temple.
‘I should have been more careful,’ she answered, endeavouring to keep her tone light. ‘Your roads are certainly—unpredictable.’
‘And dangerous,’ he agreed, with grim impatience, starting the engine abruptly and thrusting it into drive, and Caroline turned her head away from him, to gaze through the rain-smeared window.
San Luis de Merced was a village, as well as the place where Don Esteban de Montejo had his estates. There were lights in the village, glowing through the shutters of adobe dwellings, mingling with the smoke from a dozen chimneys. There was the spicy smell of meat and peppers, and the stronger aroma of woodsmoke, and children in open doorways, to watch their progress. Someone shouted after them, and Luis Montejo answered, raising his hand in greeting as Caroline thought she heard the word ‘padre’. But her attention was diverted as the Range Rover lurched on to an upward slope, and she clung desperately to her seat as they wound precipitously up through a belt of trees, to where high wooden gates were set in a grey stone wall. The wall itself was easily eight feet high, a solid barrier to what was beyond, and Caroline’s nerves tightened. Beyond the wall was her destination, and her courage faltered at the sight of that prison-like edifice.
Luis Montejo brought the vehicle to a halt and sprang down again to hammer on the gates. Reassuringly, they were soon opened, by an elderly retainer, dressed in the usual garb of loose-fitting pants, and waistcoat, the sleeves of his shirt rolled back to his elbows. He removed the wide-brimmed hat from his head as they drove through, then replaced it again to close the gates behind them.
‘Gomez,’ remarked her companion shortly, as Caroline glanced back over her shoulder. ‘He used to work for my brother, but now he is too old to ride herd, and spends his days keeping the gate.’
‘Like St Peter,’
