The black invader (13 page)

'I left Margarita with her; she came along just after I found her mother.'

She didn't mention the girl's opinion of what had happened at that point simply because she wasn't sure how to approach it, and Miguel was swearing as he marched through the gardens with long, urgent strides. 'Damn Luis for being missing when he's needed! Tio Enrique is resting and I don't want to disturb him if I can help it, so I'll have to—No, wait!' He stopped and looked down at Kirstie's anxious face. 'You can ring Dr Sandro and tell him where to find her, and I'll ride down there and see how Margarita is faring. If it's as bad as you say the poor child will be frantic—see to it for me, will you, Kirstie?'

He didn't wait to see whether she agreed or not, but turned and was gone almost before she realised it, leaving her feeling very small and uncertain, for she knew exactly what Margarita was going to tell him when he got there. Hurrying into the house, she made the necessary call for the doctor, but as she walked home along the familiar ride, she couldn't help pondering on the

fact that there was a certain irony in the situation. For however reluctant she might be, Rosa Montanes was going to be the one who cleared Kirstie of any suspicion her daughter might arouse.

It was because she told herself that any enquiry from her would be unwelcome by the person most concerned, that Kirstie had not made the effort of asking after Rosa Montanes during the rest of the weekend. She could do so when she returned to work on Monday morning. She didn't like to admit, even to herself, that it was because she lacked the nerve to walk up to the house and ask after the patient, not knowing what kind of a reception she would get.

As it happened she was a little later than usual arriving on Monday morning and rather out of breath as she went hurrying across the patio, so that she wasn't sure she wanted to see Miguel. He was leaving the house when she arrived, and he stopped when he saw her, waiting for her to join him.

Standing as he was under the garlands of bougainvil-lea that draped the overhanging balcony his face was in the shadows and it was difficult to judge what expression was in his eyes as they watched her. But there was a hard line about his mouth that she took heed of, making her heart beat a little more quickly. Only the certainty of her own innocence enabled her to smile faintly as she came up to him.

*Good morning, Don Miguel,' she said, and noted the way one brow arched, presumably because she had reverted to the formality of a title.

'Good morning, Seiiorita Rodriguez.'

They were both being very formally polite, but there was something in Miguel's manner that rang a warning bell in Kirstie's brain, and she tried to read something in those implacable features that would give her a clue as to how things were. 'I'm afraid I'm rather late '

'Are you? I'm sure my uncle won't complain about a few minutes.'

Kirstie hesitated. He seemed to have httle or nothing to say to her and yet he still remained, looking at her with that disturbingly intent gaze. *I—I should have asked after Seiiora Montanes,' she ventured. 'How is she?'

*As well as can be expected—isn't that the phrase?'

He spoke quietly, but something in his voice made her swallow hard, and there was an air about him that made her distinctly uneasy. The niggle of apprehension gnawed again at the back of her mind when she recalled Rosa Montaiies lying on the ground and her daughter hurling wild accusations at her. She couldn't really be dead, but if she hadn't come around yet

'She—She isn't still unconscious?' she asked, and the reply was so obviously important to her that Miguel's eyes narrowed slightly.

'She had recovered consciousness before the doctor arrived,' he said. 'In fact she was coming round when I got there, although she was still confused; and Margarita was babbling away about what had happened.' Kirstie made no attempt to disguise her relief, and again Miguel looked at her narrow-eyed. 'You sound very relieved.'

'I am,' she admitted readily. 'After the way Margarita

was talking, I thought you might have ' She shrugged

uneasily. 'Well, you might have believed her.'

'And is there any reason for me not to?' Miguel asked quietly.

Kirstie stared at him, stunned suddenly and unprepared for a turn of events she could not have foreseen. 'But she was making wild accusations about me having hit her mother with a stick I was carrying,' she said. 'I was sttmned at the time, and scared, I don't mind admitting it, but then I realised that the moment Seiiora Montaiies came round she would put her right. Surely—surely she told you what really happened, didn't she?'

'So she's assured us,' Miguel agreed, and Kirstie had seldom heard him sound so pedantic before. 'It more or less coincides with what Margarita told me.'

Staring at him in blank dismay, Kirstie knew that most of the colour had left her face and she felt oddly stiff and cold. 'But—she couldn't! How could she '

'According to Rosa you lost your temper and hit her with the stick you said you were holding; the one Margarita said you were still holding when she arrived on the scene.' His eyes held hers steadily and, although she found it hard to believe, the hard line of his mouth seemed to have softened a little. 'Would you like to tell me your version?'

Too stunned to take it in properly, Kirstie shook her head. 'It simply isn't possible! I could understand the girl making all those wild accusations, she was frightened and she jumped to the wrong conclusion, but how could—how could Seiiora Montaiies tell such lies? How could she ^

She couldn't go on, but looked at Miguel with eyes that were shocked and bewildered. 'Quite easily, if she wanted to make things uncomfortable for you,' he remarked, and she shook her head because she was convinced it was Rosa's version he believed. 'At the moment it's a case of your story against hers, and of course, Margarita's.'

'So of course you all believe them!' Her lip trembled and a haze of tears gave a shimmering blueness to her eyes as she looked up at him, not knowing why his doubt should trouble her more than any other. 'You believe I'm capable of deliberately attacking someone, maybe killing her, if her daughter is to be believed! You think I'm capable of that!'

'Did I say so?' He sUd a hand beneath her chin and raised her pale and anxious face, his dark eyes scanning her features narrowly. 'You judge as hastily as you accuse me of doing,' he told her. 'I know you're an emotional and quick-tempered little creature, and that you've reason enough to dislike Rosa, but to actually attack her?——'

If only he had firmly denied that he believed it, Kirstie would have been content, but his seeming doubt was

more than she could bear. It was the second time she had felt let down by him within a very short time, and she turned on him furiously when she recalled the first instance. Jerking her head aside to avoid his hand under her chin, she tossed back her hair.

*rm not really surprised; anyone who could think of turning Casa de Rodriguez into a paradore is capable of believing anything!' she told him bitterly, and swallowed the first choking tears before she could go on. 'And as Fm under suspicion as a possible murderess I'm sure you none of you want me working here, so I'd better go home!'

'Kirstie!'

There was a note in his voice that Kirstie found hard to ignore, but she refused to Hsten to any more. If he really beheved her guilty then it was more than hkely the rest of the family did too, and she walked away from him with her back stiff and tears rolling unchecked down her cheeks.

*And don't worry,' she called back in a choked Httle voice, 'I shan't run away—I'll be around when the guar-dia come for me! Where else would I go?'

She had never in her life felt so miserable or so ill-used as she did when she made her way through the garden towards the gate, and she brushed an impatient hand across her eyes when Miguel called after her. 'Kirstie, stop talking nonsense and come back!'

Kirstie ignored him, although her legs were so unsteady that she didn't know how she managed to walk so determinedly on. It was, she had to admit to herself, not entirely unexpected when the famihar heavy tread of booted feet came after her, and she automatically increased her pace.

Nevertheless Miguel caught up with her well before she got as far as the gate, and his fingers closed around her wrist, bringing her to a standstill, even though she struggled against him. 'Keep still!' he said sharply. 'Don't be such a little fool, Kirstie!'

'Let me go!'

A kind of panic was churning away in her stomach as she fought him, and she was breathing hard and noisily when he eventually put both his hands on her shoulders and swung her round to face him. They were both of them breathing much more rapidly than usual, and there was a curious sense of excitement about the situation that she did not understand at all.

'You're going to listen to what I have to say,' he insisted in an unfamiliarly husky voice. 'Don't behave as if you've been tried and condemned '

'I have according to you!'

'Nothing of the sort!' She tried once more to brush the tears from her eyes so that she could see him better, and she thought she had never seen him look more dark and menacing. Even so his voice was quiet and well controlled, with just that trace of huskiness, and it was in sharp contrast to the burning intensity she saw in his eyes. He must have felt her relax slightly after a moment or two, for he eased his grip a little and looked directly into her eyes. 'Are you going to listen?' he asked.

'I don't seem to have much option!'

'You haven't!' he retorted, then sighed after a moment or two and shook his head. Then his thumbs slid upward and moved with sensual slowness over the soft skin of her throat, and she shivered in spite of herself. 'I can promise you that nothing is likely to come of this. Tio Enrique doesn't find it as easy to argue with Rosa as forthrightly as I know he'd like to '

'Because she'd threaten to take Margarita away for good if he did,' Kirstie observed, and he narrowed his eyes sHghtly.

'Then you know how much he has to lose. I don't think you'll find him very much different from what he's always been, just a little more—wary. Don't make it any harder for him, Kirstie, please; go in as usual, he'll be grateful if you do. The sooner this is allowed to die down the better.'

It was what she had intended doing, but that was

before there was any question of Rosa Montanes not clearing her, and she hesitated. 'I—I don't know if I can,' she said, but Miguel wasn't content with that.

He squeezed his hard fingers into her shoulders and held her firm. 'Of course you can,' he insisted quietly. 'One thing you've never lacked is courage, and unless you want to give everyone the impression that you're afraid to face them, you must go in as usual, Kirstie, hmm?'

His logic was unarguable, and yet it wasn't going to be easy at all. 'I'll try, if you say so,' she told him with unexpected meekness, and Miguel's faint smile remarked on it.

'If I say so?'

'It makes some sense,' she admitted. 'After all, I haven't anything to hide for, I haven't done anything wrong whatever any of you think. I didn't touch Senora Montanes except to help her, so why should I feel guilty about it?'

'Good!' Once more his fingers pressed into her shoulders and he let his thumbs slide up to stroke the side of her neck with a light evocative touch that made her shiver. 'Now—there was another matter you mentioned that interests me. You said something about Casa de Rodriguez being turned into a paradorel Did Luis tell you about that?'

It wasn't a subject that Kirstie could discuss easily, and particularly not so soon after being told with shattering frankness that Rosa Montanes had blamed her for her injuries, and she looked at him reproachfully. 'Abuelo told me,' she said, and found it irresistible to add, 'and I told him I didn't need to ask whose idea it was.'

'You assumed it was me?' He didn't give her the opportunity to answer, but nodded grimly. 'Yes, of course, you would. Anything that happens that you don't agree with you automatically attribute to me, don't you, Kirstie?'

'Not without reason,' Kirstie insisted, though not

very happily. If only she had not been so impulsive and broken her promise to her grandfather not to voice her suspicion to Miguel. 'I can't believe your uncle would think up a scheme like that, and Luis— well, who could think of Luis ever turning a beautiful home Hke Casa de Rodriguez into a one-night stand for passing tourists?'

* Whereas you consider me capable of just about any dirty trick you can think of!' Miguel suggested harshly, and Kirstie stirred uneasily in his grasp. 'Isn't that it, Kirstie?'

Kirstie didn't reply at once. She didn't like the idea of him being responsible, she had to admit it, but in her mind there seemed no alternative. It would have been easier to blame him if only she didn't so easily recall his gentle concern when her grandfather was missing, and the thrill of being in his arms and of being kissed as she had never been kissed before. Now it made her much too unhappy.

*I—I don't know who else to blame,' she confessed in a very small voice, and he sighed deeply as he lifted her face and fixed that disturbingly intent gaze on her again.

'I'm sorry about that,' he said very softly. 'Very sorry indeed.'

Kirstie raised her eyes briefly, alarmed by the rapid and breathtaking beat of her heart. 'I hadn't meant to say anything to you,' she confessed. 'I promised Abuelo I wouldn't, because we owe you '

'You owe me nothing!' He cut her off with a harshness that she flinched from, and the blazing fierceness of his eyes made her catch her breath. Then he took his hands from her shoulders and ran one of them through his hair, turning back to her swiftly, as if something had just occurred to him. 'Have you mentioned this to Luis?' he asked, and she shook her head. 'Because you just can't believe he'd do such a thing, eh?'

'I don't believe he could.'

'And you hope to marry him, of course.'

Kirstie's colour flared, and she shook her head until her hair swung back and forth across her face. 'That was Abuelo's idea, not mine,' she told him. 'I told Luis about it, and he was furious.'