she already decided that it was foolish to prejudge the situation? She knew nothing about her step-family or the life her father had lived here in Portugal apart from the fact that he had continued to paint. Charles Buccleugh had known that much at least. Indeed, he had seemed almost amused by her own tentative questioning on this point, although she didn’t know why.
It had been the Portuguese solicitors in Lisbon who had informed her that her stepbrother wished her to travel to his home. Although his request had seemed a little high-handed, she had been due some leave, and there was no reason why, if she found her step-family in the slightest degree uncongenial, she should not simply get into her car and drive home.
The mingling of anticipation and dread she was experiencing was an unfamiliar sensation. She didn’t normally allow herself to be so troubled by ‘nerves’, but for once her notorious self-control seemed to be deserting her.
The road crested a small hill, and she caught her breath in shocked delight as she had her first glimpse of her destination.
Below her, nestling in the curve of the hills, lay a collection of buildings whose whitewashed walls and terracotta tiled roofs should have looked untidy, but instead looked entrancingly picturesque. So much so, in fact, that Shelley found herself having to blink to make sure she was not daydreaming.
The lines of vines ran straight and true right up to the wall which surrounded the house and gardens, and although it was impossible for her to hear such a sound from so far away, she could almost have sworn she heard the sound of water falling from fountains. In her mind’s eye already she could almost see the interlocking paved courtyards that were so much a feature of Moorish buildings; she could almost smell the pungent aroma of coffee and taste the sticky sweetness of the little cakes so beloved of these people of the south.
Indeed the scene below her was so familiar she could not believe she had never actually beheld it before. Telling herself she was being over-imaginative, she found her handbag and checked that her hair and makeup looked neat and fresh.
The face that stared back at her from the small mirror was reassuringly familiar, her expression faintly aloof and withdrawn, the cleverly tailored cut of her thick glossy hair making it fall in a smooth, controlled curve.
It was only natural that her heart should start to pound so suffocatingly fast as she re-started the car, but because she was so unused to these nervous tremors their effect on her was magnified, causing her to grip the steering wheel tightly.
A narrow road, dusty and uneven, led down to her destination. The white wall surrounding the buildings was higher than she had anticipated, throwing out a dark shadow. The two wooden doors that guarded the arched entrance stood open, and as she drove in underneath it Shelley heard, quite unmistakably, the sound of fountains. So she had been right about those at least!
Seen at closer quarters, the house was larger than she had thought: two-storied and very rambling. Somewhere inside the building a dog barked, but apart from that, no sound disturbed the hot silence of the afternoon.
She had, she realised, arrived at the time of siesta. Without the engine running, the interior of her small car was quickly becoming stifling. Opening the door, she gazed at the heavily studded arched doorway in front of her. In style it mirrored the one through which she had just driven, and she suspected that it must lead into one of the secret interior courtyards so beloved by people of Moorish descent.
Climbing stiffly out of the car, she was half-way towards the door when the clatter of a horse’s hoofs attracted her attention.
The sun was in her eyes as she turned to look at the horse and rider. She had a confused impression of a tall, dark-haired man seated astride an equally large and dark horse before the sharp glitter of the sun made her close her eyes and man and horse merged into the shadows.
Fumbling for her sunglasses, she put them on, and looked up at the rider.
‘Miss Howard, I presume.’
Whoever he was he spoke perfect English, even if his voice did hold a tinge of sarcastic contempt.
Never one to let a challenge slip by uncontested, Shelley raised her head and, using her coolest voice, agreed silkily, ‘Yes, I am she. And you, senhor…?’
‘Your stepbrother, Jaime y Felipe des Hilvares—but you must call me Jaime.’ As he spoke he swung down from his horse, and from round the side of the building a gnarled, bow-legged man came hurrying to take the reins from him and lead the animal away.
Her new stepbrother said something to the groom in Portuguese, the language making his voice far softer and more liquid than it had appeared when he spoke to her. The groom’s face split in a wide smile, his head nodding. ‘Sim, Excelentíssimo… sim…’
Against her will Shelley suffered a sharp sense of shock. She had known of course about her stepbrother’s title, but such a blatant acknowledgement of it was not something she had anticipated.
He looked arrogant, she thought, studying him covertly and trying to quell her sense of suddenly having stepped on to very unfamiliar and alien ground. There was nothing in her background or her present life to equate with this. Contrarily, she decided she was not going to let that put her at a disadvantage. If her stepbrother chose to be supercilious and contemptuous towards her because he possessed a title and she did not, well, he would soon learn that she was not so easily cowed.
‘It is rather hot out here, Jaime,’ she said, ‘and I have had a long drive…’
‘Indeed…and yet you look remarkably cool and fresh.’
He was looking at her assessingly, hard grey eyes studying her slender form in its covering of white top and jeans.
‘We are very honoured that you have at last chosen to visit us, and you do right to remind me that I am being less than courteous in keeping you standing here in our hot sun. Please follow me.’
Again his voice was tinged with sarcasm, his mouth hardening imperceptibly as he moved towards her, his whole manner towards her somehow suggesting that he was holding himself tightly in control, and that beneath that cool polite surface simmered a dislike he was only just holding in check.
But why should he dislike her?
He moved, the sunlight shining sharply across his face, revealing for the first time the high cheekbones and harshly carved features that were another legacy of the Moors’ occupation of the Algarve. His skin was tanned a warm gold, making her all too aware of her own pallor. Her skin was very pale and only coloured very slowly. She felt positively anaemic standing at the side of this dark-haired, golden-skinned man. She also felt almost frighteningly small and fragile. She had not expected him to be so tall, easily six foot with the broad shoulders and muscled body of an experienced rider. As he walked towards the door, Shelley saw that he moved with a coordinated litheness that was curiously pleasing to the eye.
‘I thought you wanted to go inside because you were too hot?’ He was watching her she saw, his expression politely aloof, but his mouth gave him away. It was curled in open, contemptuous dislike. The shock of that dislike drove away her embarrassment at being caught scrutinising him.
His aloofness she could have accepted, even approved of; after all, it was her own response to strangers and acquaintances. But his contempt! The contempt of her peers was something she had never had to deal with. On the contrary, she was aware that most people who knew her held her faintly in awe and accorded her their respect. In her work she had occasionally come across men who affected
