The black invader (11 page)

hands, but she put out a hand and kept him at a distance. 'I think you ought to know that—my grandfather is anxious for me to marry and he—he thinks you'll make an ideal husband. More than that,' she went on hurriedly when she noticed his look of stunned surprise, 'Miguel seems to be of the same mind, he said once that

we'd make a handsome pair. I thought you ought to know.'

'Holy Mother of God!' Hot colour flooded into Luis's handsome features and the soulful eyes were no longer dreamy but snapping with anger. 'What right have they, or anyone else, to organise our lives for us? Holy Mother, I won't let them interfere in my affairs; I'll tell Miguel to mind his own business and you'd better do the same with your grandfather! / shall choose who and when I marry, and in my own time!' He took her hands again, and his grip was so fierce that she winced. 'Kirstie, is that why you shy away from me? Is it because you've been told I'm an ideal husband and you feel you might be acting as your grandfather wants instead of how you want? Is it, Kirstie?' She didn't answer, but slowly shook her head, and he bent and peered up into her face, his eyes dark and anxious and with only a trace of indignation left. 'Oh, my lovely Kirstie, don't Hsten to them. I won't pin you down with marriage proposals, please believe me, I won't do anything you don't want me to do.'

'I believe you,' Kirstie told him.

'But I am falling in love with you,' Luis insisted, and when she did not answer, he put a hand under her chin and raised her face, looking down at her flushed cheeks and evasive eyes. Then he bent his head and touched his mouth very lightly to hers. 'Do you believe that too?' he murmured.

Kirstie wasn't sure what to believe. She didn't fool herself that she was the first girl Luis had declared himself in love with, for he was the kind of good-looking and wealthy young man to whom love affairs were a way of life. Whether or not he was more serious about her than he had been before, she didn't stop to consider, but she was wary of allowing herself to get too serious about him.

She looked up, smiling a little uncertainly. 'I don't know,' she confessed. 'If you are in love with me, then in a way I wish you hadn't told me, Luis. After only a

couple of weeks I can't honestly say how I feel about you, except that I like you a lot, and I like being with you.*

Luis's expressive eyes gazed at her sadly for a moment, then he sighed. 'I'd hoped for something more than that,' he said. *But it's that damned scheme of your grandfather's and Miguel's '

'Not Miguel's,' Kirstie hastily corrected him. 'I think he just went along with what my grandfather said, I don't think he really wants it.'

'Well, just forget all that nonsense and act as if the idea had never been put into your head,' Luis advised. He slipped his hands around her waist and drew her close to him, and his eyes glowed darkly as he looked down at her. 'You don't hate me, do you, Kirstie?'

'No, of course I don't!'

Her denial was swift, and Luis cut it short when he touched her mouth with his. It was a long, slow and very ardent kiss and it set her pulse hammering much faster than normal, but she had already decided that Luis was experienced with women despite his youth. The only element of surprise was the fact that she was far less affected by it than she expected to be.

When he eventually released her, he looked down at her for a moment and his expression suggested that her response was rather less than he expected too. Putting a hand under her chin, he looked down at her, smiling but puzzled. 'You should be kissed more often,' he decided, and was obviously about to follow his own advice, when Kirstie shook her head.

'Luis, someone might see us out here.'

'So?' He arched an enquiring brow and for a moment looked disturbingly like Miguel. 'Kiss me again, my pigeon, and never mind who sees us or what they say.'

'Luis '

Next time he kissed her much more passionately so that Kirstie felt a little lightheaded, yet still the magic was missing. And it wasn't because she was worrying

about whether or not someone might see them from the house; it was because she remembered too well the way Miguel had kissed her last night. Luis could undeniably touch her emotions, but Miguel's fierce, hard mouth had driven everything else completely from her mind, and she found it infinitely disturbing to reahse it.

CHAPTER FIVE

KiRSTiE gazed at her grandfather in blank dismay, her eyes wide and unbelieving. There was a cold sensation in her stomach and for several minutes her brain simply refused to accept what he had just told her. *I—I just can't believe it,' she said, and sat down heavily in an armchair. 'They wouldn't—they couldn't, could they, Abuelo?'

Don Jose shrugged. He seemed as resigned to this latest turn of events as he had been to all the other changes in his life during the past few months. 'The house and the estate are theirs now, child,' he reminded her quietly, 'and they may do as they like with it. Although you should bear in mind that it's simply a suggestion at the moment, an idea put forward by one of the family, so I understand, but not yet definite by any means.'

'But it's monstrous!' Kirstie declared. Whether or not anything was definite, it was enough that the suggestion had been made. 'They promised, they promised that the house was in good hands, and Casa de Rodriguez has always been a private home; for over two hundred years it's been—it was the Rodriguez family home, and now this! A couple of rooms turned into offices I could accept, but not this!'

Her grandfather was looking at her and it was clear from the look in his eyes that he was in sympathy with everything she said—how could he be anything else? But he was so much better at facing the harder facts of reality than she was herself. 'Unfortunately, child,' he told her gently, 'it isn't always enough to want something to be a certain way, it is essential that one's finances keep pace with the outlay, and when that's no longer possible then things have to change, as I know very well.'

*Oh, Abuelo, I'm sorry!' Kirstie was close to tears as she looked at him, but indignation still burned behind the misty blueness of her eyes. 'But that can't be the case with the Montanes,' she insisted, *they have plenty of money and they don't need to do it! They have business interests all over the world and all of them thriving, they don't need any more! They bought Casa de Rodriguez as a home and somewhere to run the estate from, not to turn it into a paradoreV

'We really don't know what their original intention was,' Don Jose pointed out quietly, 'and they already own several hotels, you know.'

'Then they don't need to turn our home into one— they can't!'

'My dear, they can.' He reached and patted her head, but although outwardly he appeared resigned to the inevitable, inwardly Kirstie knew he was as appalled and shocked as she was herself, 'There's no use at all upsetting yourself over it,' Don Jose went on. 'If it happens we shall just have to accept it as we have everything else that's happened.'

'But I am upset,' Kirstie insisted, and her blue eyes were dark with anguish at the thought of her beloved Casa de Rodriguez being invaded by casual holiday-makers. 'And I have no doubt at all who's behind this— this money-grubbing scheme.' Don Jose was already shaking his head, instinct telling him where she was placing the blame. 'It's Miguel,' she stated firmly, 'it has to be. It has his mark all over it!'

'Kirstie '

'I'm right!' Kirstie interrupted him bitterly, and she got to her feet because she simply couldn't go on sitting there any longer, feeling as she did. 'Oh, I know you'll defend him, Abuelo, because you look on him as a friend and he comes to see you, but I don't think you really know him like I do! He can be so—so kind when it suits him, and yet he goes and does something like this; you can't trust him!' She shook her head so forcefully that a curtain of black hair swished agitatedly from side to

side. 'Oh, Vm going out before I explode! Thank heaven it's a weekend and I don't have to go up there and work with them!'

'Kirstie, please take care, child!'

Her grandfather's warning turned the knife in the wound because it reminded her of how dependent they were on the generosity of the Montaiies, and Miguel in particular, for what little they still had, and her sudden laughter was short and bitter. 'Don't worry, Abuelo, I won't tackle Miguel right now, I know what harm that could do! I'm just going for a walk, that's all.'

In fact she had gone no more than a couple of hundred yards before some of her tension disappeared and she felt much less emotional. She regretted upsetting her grandfather with her outburst and when she got back she would tell him how sorry she was, and make him a promise to say nothing to Miguel about it. A promise she would do her best to keep, however difficult it proved to be.

Only when she had thought about it for some time did she recognise the bitterness of disappointment as one of the reasons for her being so upset, and the realisation lurked uneasily in the back of her mind as she walked through the orange groves. Miguel Montaiies was a practical man and a forceful one, but this latest proposition concerning the future of Casa de Rodriguez was something she found Iiard to forgive him for. She felt that in some curious way he had let her down, and it was a disconcerting sensation she did not begin to understand, for he owed her neither loyalty nor explanation.

Since she had come to live permanently in Spain Kirstie wasn't an habitual walker, but at times like this it served to work off her anger, and eventually her thoughts drifted on to other things. Luis occupied a great deal of her free time and she was aware that it pleased her grandfather, though she chose to disregard his reason. What did make her rather uneasy was the way Miguel seemed to watch them whenever they were

together. Almost as if he was trying to determine just how far their relationship had progressed, and although she c6uldn't decide whether he approved or not, she found his interest oddly disturbing.

She was so preoccupied that she nearly tripped over a fallen branch lying in her path, and she bent and picked it up automatically, swinging it in one hand as she went on walking. Fortunately her encounters with Rosa Montanes had been brief and infrequent, but so unpleasant that Kirstie did her best to avoid them.

According to Luis his cousin made no secret of the fact that she did not approve of a young and very attractive secretary coming to the house every day, but so far nothing had been said about changing the situation. And she hoped Rosa Montaiies would never attempt to pressure him with that malignant threat of blackmail she had mentioned. Enrique loved his granddaughter.

When she reached the end of the orange grove Kirstie decided it was time to turn back. On foot one's view was much more restricted, but even so it was possible to see some distance in every direction, and it was the sight of something unexpected standing among the twisted grey olive trees across on the other side of the dividing track that caught her eye and made her hesitate, frowning curiously.

She recognised Luis's gelding, a huge and unmistakable brute, but it was the way he stood, riderless and agitated, that drew her attention for as far as she could see there was no other living creature in sight. Even where she stood she could hear the animal's whistling snort of anxiety, and it was that which decided her to go and investigate.

There seemed to be something curiously ominous about the situation that sent little trickles of ice slipping along her spine, and she gripped the broken branch she carried even more tightly as she crossed from one section to the other. Probably it was nothing more than that Luis had dismounted and was checking on something, leaving the gelding to its own devices for a few minutes,

but it was the animaFs behaviour that made her scalp prickle as she approached it, because it was noticeably anxious.

It shifted its feet restlessly, thudding them alternately on to the dusty earth, and its eyes rolled back as she came nearer, its neck arched and nostrils flared and quivering. Knowing its uncertain temper, Kirstie approached it cautiously, but it seemed almost willing to welcome her and she spoke to it softly and reassuringly, venturing to rub a hand over its sleek neck while she looked around for a sign of its absent rider.

'Suli, good boy.' The rein, she noticed, lay across the saddle and was not trailing as it would have been if the rider had simply dismounted and walked away for a few minutes, and again Kirstie shivered slightly. 'Why are you alone?' she whispered, and the animal pricked up its ears. 'Who was '

She stopped short and bit hard on her lower lip when she noticed something half concealed by low-growing branches a short distance back from where the gelding stood. It was a moment or two before she could bring herself to walk over there, and when she saw who it was that lay sprawled in the dust her heart gave a sudden jolt of alarm.

Rosa Montanes lay still and inert, and there was a large ugly bruise already discolouring the smooth olive skin of her forehead. She looked so horribly still that Kirstie hesitated to touch her for fear of what she might discover, but eventually a brief and very inexpert examination revealed a slow but steady pulse and a reassuring rise and fall under the thin cotton shirt.

Even so it was essential to get help quickly, and Kirstie wished she had fetched Scheherazade instead of walking. She felt so helpless, for nothing even remotely like this had happened to her before, but she realised that quick action was necessary and that she would have to leave Rosa Montanes where she was while she fetched help.

Shock made her movements slow and clumsy as she

Straightened up, and she stood for a second looking down at the woman who made no secret of her hatred for her. It was hard to beheve she had been thrown, for she had shown herself to be an excellent horsewoman, whatever her other shortcomings, and yet she lay there bruised and unconscious and looking alarmingly as if she had been hit over the head with something.

It was the unmistakable sound of another rider approaching that made Kirstie look up quickly, and it was quite automatic to offer up a prayer that the newcomer would be Miguel. But it wasn't Miguel, it was Rosa's young daughter, Margarita, mounted on Scheherazade, and the moment she saw her mother's still figure she reined in sharply, her eyes widening in horror, too stunned to move for the moment.