Love Captive (10 page)

Startled, momentarily frightened, Anne walked over to the door without opening it. "Carlos, what do you want? Why are you here?" Her pulse raced with both excitement and unreasonable fear.

"Open the door, please, Anne. I want to tell you something, that's all. I know how tired you are but it's quite important, really. If it weren't, I wouldn't be bothering you."

Anne unlocked the door and opened it. As she did so, she became acutely aware that she wore only a flimsy nightgown. Why hadn't she grabbed up a coat or robe to cover herself? Carlos's black eyes met her startled gaze, fastened on her figure, moving quickly, appraisingly, up and down her too exposed form.

"All right, Carlos, what is it?" Anne demanded rather tartly, embarrassed for herself and angry at Carlos for making it even worse. If he didn't stop looking at her that way, she would close the door in his face!

Carlos's eyes came up to meet hers again, sparkling with amusement. "Forgive me,
ma chère
, but I just wanted to tell you that I made arrangements with the landlady to rent the room down the hall here, which fortunately happens to be vacant. I also explained to her that you are expecting an extremely important long-distance call sometime today and asked her to wake you for the call even if it comes within the next few hours. I asked that she also wake me when the call comes, as I wish to be present when you speak to your brother."

By this time Carlos's face had hardened into a sober, almost stern expression, and the flirtatious sparkle had died completely out of his eyes. "And now I bid you good night, dear Anne," he ended in a coolly businesslike voice. He offered her a formal little bow before he walked away down the narrow hall.

As Anne watched him leave, she felt a sudden, sinking despair. Carlos had suggested a one-day truce in their personal war and that's all it had been, a temporary halt in hostilities, but now the war was on again. His face had showed it, as had his voice. Once again she was his enemy, as he was hers. Sighing, blinking back weary, discouraged tears, Anne closed the door and padded barefooted across her small room to the bed. She hoped she would get a few hours' sleep at least before Michael phoned and the cold war burst into a hot war again. It was a war she felt certain in her heart that she and her brother were bound to lose. How could it be otherwise, when commoners dared to challenge royalty?

Michael's call came a little after eleven that morning. Anne, wearing nightgown, robe, and slippers, stood in the narrow, drafty downstairs hall with the phone receiver plastered painfully against her ear. Their connection was bad and each tried to compensate by shouting. Carlos stood only a few feet away, leaning elegantly against the wall, his handsome face coldly impassive.

Michael began by announcing jubilantly that Anne could now fly home. "We're all set, sis," Michael shouted. "Dorrie's got her passport and we're booked for a flight this evening. We don't know how to thank you for helping us, but it's all over now and you're free to fly home. Dorrie says to— No, wait, she wants to speak to you herself."

"Anne." Dorrie's soft voice could barely be heard through all the static. "Thank you, dear Anne."

"I can hardly hear you," Anne shouted back, her head buzzing, whirling with fatigue. "Can
you
hear
me
? There's something important I've got to tell Michael."

Her brother came back on the line and Anne felt hot tears splash into her eyes as she told him of Carlos's plan. "If you don't return his sister to their home, he's going to the police, Michael. He's going to swear out a warrant for your arrest, on the charge of grand theft. He'll claim you stole, or helped Dorrie to steal, that jewelry she took and—"

"But I didn't!" Michael shouted. "That's a lie! I didn't even know Dorrie had taken the stuff until we'd crossed into Morocco. Besides that, no one stole that jewelry; it belongs to her. How dare Carlos accuse me of stealing it?"

Anne glanced down the hall to where Carlos stood, her tired, hurting eyes focusing on his haughty, impassive face, and she felt even more ready to crumple down into hopeless sobs. But she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry!

"Michael, I know all that," she shouted into the mouthpiece, "but Carlos says the police won't bother him over trivialities, that they'll issue the warrant now and worry about the details later. He says he's tired of chasing you himself and is ready to sit back and let the police find you for him. So—what do you want me to do? What shall I tell him?"

"The son of a—" Michael's angry voice faded away, then a moment later he spoke up more clearly again. "Well, tell him he wins. We'll cancel our flight home and return to Spain instead, unless you want us to fly to Paris and meet you there. If Carlos is agreeable to that, that's what we'll do. If he's right there, can you ask him? Will he hold off on going to the police if we agree to fly to Paris on the first flight we can get?"

"Hold on and I'll ask him." As Anne started to lower the receiver, however, she heard Dorrie's voice again, sounding frantic and tearful, so she lifted the receiver to press it against her ear once more.

"No, Anne," Dorrie begged, "don't tell my brother any such thing. We're flying to America, not back to Spain or Paris or anywhere else. Tell my brother that! Tell him he can make any threats he likes but he can't win. I won't let him win. I love Michael and he loves me and we're flying out tonight to the United States. Tell him that, Anne. Tell him there's no way in this world he can drag me back home!"

"But, Dorrie," Anne protested, blinking furiously against the tired tears swarming into her eyes.

For the next five minutes the three of them argued fruitlessly back and forth. Michael, obviously sobered by the thought of going to jail, was in favor of meeting Carlos in Paris at once, especially after he heard that Carlos intended to keep Anne with him until the jewelry and his sister were safely restored. Dorrie, however, was nearly hysterical at the thought of returning to her family and refused to be persuaded. Helplessly, Anne listened to first one and then the other, despairing of their ever coming to an agreement. Finally she could stand no more.

"I think you'd better talk directly to Carlos," Anne suggested to her brother, and glancing down at Carlos again she extended the phone receiver. With a slow, arrogant smile, Carlos walked up and took the receiver she held out.

"Yes, this is Carlos," he said very coldly and formally into the phone.

Her head now throbbing with pain, Anne leaned back against the wall, closed her eyes and pressed her hands against her brow. Carlos did not say anything for several moments. When next he spoke, it was in Spanish, so Anne concluded that Dorrie was again on the line. For several minutes Carlos carried on an animated conversation with his sister, then with a small, cold smile he hung up the phone and faced Anne.

"They are not of one mind, as you no doubt know, these impetuous lovers who so romantically adore each other, and then begin fighting and screaming at each other with the very first crisis they face. And this will lead to an enduring, happy marriage, of course!" Carlos's sneering smile broadened. "My sister claims to believe I am only uttering empty threats, but even she knows better than that. However, if you wish to accept her word for it and fly home today, that is your choice, of course."

Anne stared wearily into Carlos's arrogantly gleaming black eyes. "And—if I do—?"

"I shall go to the police, as I told you, without delay. Your brother seems upset by this prospect, but who is to say whether he will win out over my childish, willful, bad-tempered sister? However, I am a reasonably patient man and told her over the phone just now that I would give them one week to iron out their clash of wills and come to some resolution. If they ignore my warning and fly to the United States to get married, I shall of course go to the police and swear out a warrant at once. Or if they return to our home in Palencia, I will bid you a fond farewell and see that you are not further delayed in returning home yourself." Carlos paused, flashing out a coldly triumphant smile. "Does that clarify the situation for you,
ma chère
?"

"Yes," Anne murmured with a sigh of resignation. "How soon are we leaving Paris?"

Carlos's smile broadened into a friendlier one of affectionate concern. "Oh, not today, surely. We are both too tired. I suggest that you take it easy for the meantime, rest as much as you can, and then we will leave early tomorrow morning. I shall return to my hotel, shower, change, rest myself, and prepare for our departure. So I won't see you until around eight tomorrow morning unless—unless you'd care to have dinner with me tonight?" he ended on a softer, warmer note.

Anne's tired eyes flashed back at him. She felt an impulse to snap out that no, thank you, dinner with him was the very last thing she wanted, but as she opened her mouth to reply she couldn't ignore the sudden, excited racing of her pulse. "All right," she murmured, dismayed at herself, "that would be nice. I'd appreciate it."

"My pleasure," Carlos replied with a courtly little bow. "Seven o'clock, shall we say? I shall see you then." He swung around and walked away down the narrow hall.

He was extremely punctual that evening, rapping softly on her door at seven o'clock sharp. Anne, wearing a soft blue off-the-shoulder dress, greeted him with a nervous smile, pleased and flattered to see his black eyes light up.

"Ah, but how lovely you look!" As though half in mockery of himself, Carlos leaned over her hand to kiss it. As his head lifted again, he flashed her a boyish grin. "Just because we are mortal enemies, there is nothing to prevent us from liking and enjoying each other,
n'est-ce pas
?"

As Carlos broke into a soft laugh, Anne laughed too. "All right, if you say so," she agreed, her cheeks flushing a becoming pink.

They ate dinner at a noisy, crowded restaurant on the Boulevard du Montparnasse, which Carlos informed her had been a favorite haunt of her fellow American, Ernest Hemingway. After dinner they went for a leisurely drive, then Carlos parked so that they could again take a stroll along the banks of the Seine. The evening before it had been twilight as they walked along the riverbank; tonight it was fully dark. Couples were everywhere, walking, sitting, lying on the riverbank in feverish embrace. Carlos suggested after they'd walked for a time that they sit themselves. Anne rather self-consciously agreed. In spite of herself she felt a little shiver run down her spine, more from tension than the cold, but Carlos, noticing, was immediately solicitous. He slipped out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders, then, holding onto the lapels, drew her forward and kissed her.

"How charming you have looked all evening, with your pale, golden-brown hair and those blue, blue eyes," he murmured. "No wonder my sister has lost her head over your brother if he is as handsome as you are lovely." His hands holding her shoulders, he pulled her to him and kissed her again, a longer, more ardent kiss. After the kiss, he moved her so that she sat in front of him, resting back against his lean, hard frame while his arms loosely encircled her.

For some time they sat like this, neither speaking, then Carlos suddenly remarked in a low, bemused tone, "You know,
ma chère
, this may be impossible for you to believe, but sometimes I wish I too were an American." He interrupted himself with a soft laugh. "But maybe it is only that each of us at times entertains himself with the fantasy of being someone other than who he is. Possibly at times you have dreamed of being European, is that not so?"