Flame of Diablo (7 page)

The man nearest to her said quite

jovially, 'Would I not do instead,

senorita? Dios,
Vitas, you have all the

luck— with the cards and with the

women!'

She looked past him to the man with the

eye-patch and saw his lips twist, as if

this was one piece of luck he would

have preferred to do without. He made

no attempt to alter his languid pose,

merely leaning back further in his chair

and staring at her with a frank, almost

sensual appraisal which she found

offensive in the extreme.

That hotel-keeper, she thought furiously,

must be off his head if he imagined she

was going to go off into the wide blue

yonder with a man who looked as if his

career had spanned the gamut of crimes

from armed robbery to rape!

Almost as if he could divine her

thoughts, he smiled, a lingering, insolent

smile displaying even, startlingly white

teeth, and she realised with a sickening

jolt that a man who could exude such a

potent sexual attraction, apparently at

will, would never need to resort to rape.

He stood up then, head and shoulders

taller than any other man in the room, as

she could see at a glance, lean and

graceful like the jaguars who stalked in

the undergrowth. A great silver buckle

ornamenting the belt which was slung

low on his hips, a silver medallion

nestling among the dark hairs on his

chest—they were the only touches of

colour about him—and she remembered

her joking resolution to come face to

face with the devil himself if need be,

and a little involuntary shiver ran

through her.

His smile widened and she realised he

had gauged her reaction and was amused

by it. She forced herself to stand her

ground as he approached unhurriedly

round the table and came to stand in

front of her.

'I am Vitas de Mendoza,
senorita.
What

do you want with me?'

She was sorely tempted to say it had all

been a mistake and beat a hasty retreat.

But at the same time, she knew this

would accomplish nothing except to

make her look a complete fool in front of

these men, and that was the last thing she

wanted. Her brain worked feverishly,

and words rose to her lips.

'I wish to buy your services,
senor.'

Which wasn't in the least what she'd

intended to say, and she saw the dark

brows lift mockingly in response.

He said lazily, 'You flatter me, of

course,
querida,
but I regret that I am not

for sale.'

One or two of his companions laughed,

but it was uneasy laughter. Rachel

noticed it almost without noticing it,

because her face was burning with swift

embarrassment at having been betrayed

into saying something so ambiguous.

'You don't understand.' In spite of her

confusion, she lifted her chin and looked

steadily at him. 'I need a guide— a

reliable

one.

You

have

been

recommended.' She was aware of it

again—that intangible sense of unease in

the room after she had spoken. She said,

'You are a guide, aren't you? The hotel-

keeper said...'

'You've been talking to Ramirez?' He

broke across her rather stumbling words.

'Well, he's right. I do know this region

better than most men, and my advice to

you is go back to Bogota and join one of

the organised tours. This is no place for

a woman.'

He turned away in dismissal.

'No, wait.' Almost before she knew what

she was doing, she put out a hand and

tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. He

stopped and looked down at her hand,

and there was a kind of hauteur in his

expression. Her fingers looked very

white and slender against the dark

material, the nails smoothly rounded and

painted with her usual pale pink polish.

She relinquished the silky material

hurriedly, the heat rising in her body as

if she had inadvertently touched his skin.

She thought, 'How dare he look like that!

He may have a more educated accent

than his friends, but he's only a guide,

after all. He's for hire. He has to work

for his living.'

Something of what she was thinking

showed in her tone as she said, 'Perhaps

we could discuss this in private. I'm able

to pay for your time, if that's what's

concerning you.'

'It is not.' His face was expressionless,

but she had the oddest feeling he was

secretly amused. 'You are a stubborn

lady,
querida,
and a reckless one, I

think. You should not offer to pay until

you know the price you might be asked.'

'This would obviously have to be part of

the discussion,' Rachel said. 'Please talk

to me about it at least.' She heard the

almost pleading note in her voice with a

sense of shock. That wasn't what she had

intended at all.

'You imagine your powers of persuasion

will be more effective when we are

alone?' he asked, and laughed as the

colour rose in her face.
'Muy bien,

chica,
we will talk if you think it will

make any difference, but later.'

'We should talk now. This is important,'

she said in a low voice.

'To you perhaps,' he drawled. 'But at the

moment, nothing is more important to me

than my game which you have

interrupted—and I have a winning hand.

I will talk to you later.'

His hand came up, and his lean fingers

stroked her cheek in the merest flick of a

caress.

Rachel heard herself gasp, as startled as

if he had struck her. Or kissed her.

She whirled round and out of the room,

slamming the door behind her for

emphasis, hearing the echo of laughter

follow her.

The reception desk was once more

deserted, but she heard a chink of

glasses coming from behind a half-

opened door to the right of the entrance

and went and looked round it. It was a

large room with tables and a bar, empty

now except for the man called Ramirez

who was polishing glasses behind the

bar. He looked surprised to see her and

she wondered waspishly if he'd known

exactly the sort of reception she was

going to get—had perhaps even been

listening at the door.

'Your bargain is made,
senorita
?' he

enquired, straight-faced.

'Not quite,' she said too sweetly. 'We're

going to talk later. I'm afraid that you're

going to have to let me have that room

after all.'

He gave her another long look. He was

probably wondering why she wasn't

scuttling back to Bogota, her tail

between her legs, she thought angrily.

'Senor de Mendoza said he would speak

with you later?' He sounded incredulous,

and she smiled kindly at him.

'Indeed he did, after we'd got one or two

points straightened out. He seemed to

have some strange ideas about why I

wished to hire him—and a very inflated

opinion of his own attractions,' she

added for good measure. But she knew

she was being unfair. Vitas de Mendoza

was not the sort of man to indulge in

illusions, and he could not have failed to

know by now that his dark, saturnine

good

looks

and

the

piratical

extravagance of that eye-patch would be

the realisation of a thousand women's

fantasies. She just happened to be the

thousand and first, that was all.

'He has reason,' Ramirez said calmly.

He chuckled reminiscently. 'There was

one woman—a
norteamericaria—
she

came here with her husband to see the

country. Later she returned alone, and

Vitas took her into the hills. They were

gone a long time.' He eyed Rachel. 'Her

hair was fair, like yours,
senorita,'
he

added blandly.

'I can assure you that is the only

resemblance,' she said coldly. 'Now can

I please see this room? I did not enjoy

the journey here, and I'm rather tired.'

He shrugged almost fatalistically.
'Si,

senorita.'

The room he showed her was not large,

but it was scrupulously clean, the

narrow bed gay with Indian blankets,

soft as fleece. They were selling similar

blankets on the market stalls in the

square below and Rachel promised

herself she would buy one. But that

would be later. All she wanted to do

now was lie down on that bed and try to

forget that foul bus journey. There was a

bathroom just down the corridor with a

small, rather reluctant shower, and she

stripped and washed the dust and some

of her aches away. It was bliss to come

back to her room and put on fresh

underwear from her small stock, and

lock the door and close the shutters, so

'that the noise from the square became a

muted and not intolerable hum, and then

stretch out on the bed.

Yet in spite of her bone-weariness,

sleep seemed oddly elusive. Strange

unconnected images kept coming into her

mind—trees by a river with the darkness

of a mountain rising behind them—a man

wearing black clothes riding a black

horse so that he seemed part of it like a

pagan centaur—and a fair-haired woman

who stood among the trees with her arms

outstretched, so that the man bent out of

the saddle and lifted her up into his

arms, her hair falling like a pale wound

across the darkness of his sleeve. Rachel

twisted uneasily, trying to banish the

image from her mind, but the horse came

on until it was close enough for her to

see the rider's face with a black patch

set rakishly over one eye. As she

watched, the blonde woman moved in

his arms, lifting her hands to clasp

around his neck, drawing him down to

her.

Rachel put out a hand to ward them off.

She didn't want to see this. She didn't

want to know, but her gesture seemed to

catch the rider's eye and he turned to

look at her, and so did the woman he

was holding, and Rachel saw that the

face that stared at her from beneath the

curtain of blonde hair was her own.

She cried out, and suddenly the images

had gone and she was sitting up on the

narrow bed in the now-shadowed room,

her clenched fist pressed against her

thudding heart. She could see herself in

the mirror across the room, the gleam of

her hair, and the smooth pallor of her

skin, interrupted only by the deeper

white of her flimsy lace bra and briefs.

She thought, 'So I was asleep after all.' It

was a comfort in a way to know that

what she had seen had been a nightmare

rather than a deliberate conjuration of

her imagination. And she was thankful

that she had woken when she did. She

picked up her gold wristwatch from the

side of the bed and studied it. To her

surprise, she had been asleep for over

two hours.

She slid off the bed, and put on the beige

linen trousers she had worn earlier, with

a shirt of chocolate brown silk under the

loose hip-length jacket. Her hair was

wrong, she thought, waving loosely on to

her

shoulders.

She

unearthed

a

tortoiseshell clip from her case and

swept

the

honey-coloured

waves

severely back from her face into a

French pleat, anchoring it with the clip.

It made her look older, she decided, and

more businesslike.

She swung her dark brown leather

shoulder bag over her arm, and went

downstairs. It was very quiet—too quiet,

she thought. She went to the room where

the card game had been in progress and

opened the door. It was deserted, and the

table had been cleared, the chairs put

back against the wall.

Rachel said furiously, 'Well, I'm