The black invader (22 page)

'I didn't doubt it either.'

There was a glimpse of warmth in his eyes that brought faint colour to her cheeks, and she hastily lowered her glance as he went on. 'I can't prevent you taking Rosa to court, even now, but if you do she'll make certain that Margarita doesn't see her grandfather again, at least until the girl is old enough to choose for herself. Would you want that?'

'No. No, of course I wouldn't. I won't take any action against her.'

'I thought not.' Again that warmth gleamed from the depth of his eyes and seemed to reach out to her. 'And now that's an end of the subject for the moment,' he

decided. 'You shouldn't be out of bed so long, and I think you should go back, hmm?'

It was only when she turned to speak to him that Kirstie reaUsed her grandfather was no longer with them, and she felt the colour rush into her face, for the move was so blatantly obvious that she felt ashamed of it. The lull she had felt while Miguel was talking to her was banished and in its place was embarrassment at her grandfather's determined matchmaking.

She got to her feet and she was shaking like a leaf, her face flaming and her eyes carefully evasive as she stood for a moment clinging to the back of the chair she had been sitting in. Miguel was on his feet at once, and reaching out his hands to help her. 'Youf grandfather seems to have left us,' he said, 'so you'd better let me help you.'

Quickly she snatched back out of reach. 'No, no, I can manage on my own, thank you!'

He let his hands drop, but he was frowning, she could sense it. 'Shall I call Don Jose?'

Kirstie laughed a Httle wildly and shook her head. 'After he's gone to the trouble of leaving us together?' she asked. 'Don't play into his hands, Miguel, I've no intention of doing so. It was bad enough when he was set on marrying me off to Luis, but now he's approached

you ' She turned quickly, almost too quickly, for

she had to cling tightly to the chair.

'You find the idea even more unpalatable,' Miguel suggested, and there was a certain roughness in his voice that touched her senses. 'I quite understand, Kirstie— you can't imagine a worse fate!'

Had she really made it sound like that? Kirstie wondered. She stood holding on to the chair and needed its support, for her legs felt incredibly weak and unsteady. 'I—I didn't want to sound—ungracious,' she tried to explain, 'but you know how I feel, Miguel'

'I only wish I did,' he told her quietly, and she turned again to make her way back to her room, and again he automatically reached out to help her. 'You're very

unsteady and you need support, let me help you.'

'No!'

Shaking her head insistently, Kirstie clasped the robe to her throat and began slowly to cross the room, discarding even the assistance of the various items of furniture that she had used when she first left her room. But she had taken only one or two steps when she felt her legs begin to give way and she made a small anxious sound as she groped around her for something to hold on to. A week in bed had sapped her strength even more than she had realised.

'Kirstie!'

A strong arm was slipped around her and pulled her close against him, supporting her firmly so that she instinctively let herself go and clung to him, while the touch of him fired her senses as it always did. Miguel simply held her for the moment, his long fingers curved into the softness of her breast and spread over the span of waist and hip. Then he drew her closer still and his voice came from the region of her left ear.

'Now will you let me help you?' he murmured into the muffling softness of her hair. 'Or am I supposed to stand and watch you fall at my feet before you see sense?'

There was little else she could do but concede, Kirstie realised, and she nodded. 'I don't think I can get there on my own,' she confessed huskily. 'I feel horribly limp and my legs are so unsteady.'

'After a week in bed, my dear child, of course they're unsteady.' The whispering softness of his voice calling her his dear child aroused such a chaos of emotions that she protested automatically against it.

'I'm not a five-year-old, Miguel, and I dislike being called a child, I've told you before!'

For a moment the arm about her tightened so hard she felt as if her breathing had been stopped, but then he eased it a little and turned her to face him, putting the other hand around her cheek and lifting her chin so that she looked at him. His eyes, when she looked up at

him in alarm suddenly, were deep and gleaming black as jet, and induced a shiver of anticipation that slid Hke ice along her spine.

'If you could decide which you are,' he murmured, his voice rough-edged, Td know where I stand! You're child and woman in turn and neither seems to know her own mind!'

*I know,' Kirstie whispered defiantly, and flinched when a sudden harsh laugh startled her.

Then you'd better tell me before I put you back into bed,' he told her, *it could make all the difference!'

'Miguel!'

He ignored her protest and lifted her into his arms, carrying her through into her room, and as he laid her down on the bed Kirstie fought an almost irresistible desire to prove to him that she was a woman and not a child; definitely not a child. Instead she let her arms slide from around his neck and lay back on the pillows with her eyes downcast.

He said nothing, but stood over her, looking down with that steady disturbing gaze that did wild things to her pulse. Then he leaned over suddenly and touched his lips to her brow, a light, lingering touch that caught her breath. She looked up at him, her blue eyes between their thick black lashes almost slumbrous and her lips slightly parted because it was difficult to draw breath with him hovering so close.

Her head was no longer bandaged, but a faint mark on the skin showed where the wound had been, and Miguel touched it with his fingertips, brushing back the silky black hair from her brow. Kirstie could feel the urgent pulse that fluttered under his fingers and her eyes half-closed as if of their own volition as she instinctively lifted her face to him.

He touched her lips with his mouth, lightly and then much more firmly, though still not with that fierce passion she had known in him before, and her body arched upward as his hands slid around behind her and raised her from the bed. He drew her up until she pressed

against the broad warmth of his chest and his hands were strong and irresistible as they held her.

She reached up her arms and clasped them around his neck, her fingers twined into the thick blackness of his hair. On those other occasions she had responded to his passion, revelling in its fierceness, and the lack of it on this occasion teased her senses so much that she sought a more fervent caress.

Instead, he released her mouth and held her for a moment, looking down into her face before lowering her back on to the bed. His hands slid slowly from behind her, light and caressing as they left the softness of her breast. 'We'll decide when you're better whether you're child or woman,' he said softly. 'For now you must rest.'

'Miguel '

He quickly smothered her protest with a kiss, then straightened up slowly. 'Rest,' he insisted, and because his eyes had the glowing blackness of jet when they looked down at her, Kirstie made no reply. She watched him walk across to the door with lazy, heavy-lidded eyes and there was a curious little smile on her mouth. Miguel turned in the doorway and looked back at her for a moment. 'And there'll be no more visits from Luis,' he declared firmly, giving her no time to object before he closed the door firmly behind him. Why Luis was not to be allowed to visit her again, she had no idea, but she was content at the moment to leave the decision to Miguel, and she closed her eyes, to rest as he said.

CHAPTER NINE

It was just as Miguel had decreed, there were no more visits from Luis, although Miguel came himself almost daily. He treated her kindly and gently, but he had never once attempted to kiss her again, or even to mildly flirt with her. In fact he seemed to have forgotten those few minutes alone with her in her bedroom, and now that she was well again his attitude was beginning to irritate her. Just as it once had for quite a different reason.

He spent quite a lot of time with her grandfather and seemingly they talked business, so that Kirstie guessed that the business deal she had long suspected was between them was about to mature, whatever it was. Her suspicion was confirmed one morning, just after Miguel left, and her grandfather showed her a folder containing documents of some kind. The look on his face was enough to suggest that things had gone well, for she had not seen him look so pleased with himself for a long time.

The first step,* he said in a voice so quiet she wondered if anyone else was supposed to hear, and she smiled at him curiously.

'What is it, Abuelo?'

Don Jose's eyes gleamed with pleasure and there was something very touching about the way he gazed at the folder in his hands, cradled as if it was something infinitely precious. Thanks to my good friend I now have shares in Casa de Rodriguez,' he said. 'I again own at least a small part of the Rodriguez estate, my dear child, and you cannot know what that means to me.'

'Oh, but I can!' Her eyes were misty as she looked at his face, and she blessed Miguel for bringing about something she had thought never to see again— a look of happiness in her grandfather's eyes. T know just how you feel,' she assured him, and hugged him tightly,

pressing a kiss on to his cheek. 'And I'm so happy for you, Abuelo.'

'It wouldn't have been possible without Don Miguel,' her grandfather told her. He was gazing at the folder again and it was clear that he still had to convince himself it had happened. 'I'm certain he let them go for less than they're worth, but even so I had to sell everything I had left to buy them. Even some things that should eventually have been yours, child, but I had to do it and—who knows—some day it might be possible to recover them.'

'Abuela's jewellery?' she asked, knowing how he had clung to them when everything else had to go, and he nodded.

*rm sorry, child. Your grandmother wished them to come to you when you were twenty-one, but '

'Don't worry!' How could she blame him when he was so elated at being able to reclaim even a tiny portion of his ancestral estate? 'When everything is sorted out, we'll get them back, as you say.' She thought for a moment, coping with a suspicion that lurked at the back of her mind and refused to be dismissed. *Abuelo, who bought them? Who took Abuela's jewels?'

There was a certain satisfaction, a kind of challenge in the old man'^ eyes that confirmed her suspicion even before he said anything. 'Don Miguel paid me a very good price for them, child, and while they're in his hands I feel they're not completely lost to us.'

'Miguel!'

Her grandfather was too elated to even notice her expression, and he closed the folder again with obvious satisfaction. 'Just think,' he said, 'we have a little of Casa de Rodriguez back in our hands, doesn't that make you happy, child?'

'Yes, of course it does, Abuelo.'

But there was one aspect of Casa de Rodriguez' future that had not been mentioned lately, and Kirstie wondered if he had taken it into consideration. It had caused her a great deal of anguish when she heard the plan to

turn the house into a paradore, and she couldn't believe her grandfather would have wanted to be part of that.

Then she realised he was looking at her curiously, and she smiled. 'Don't you regret acting so impulsively in giving up your job, Kirstie?' he asked, and she couldn't bring herself to deny it.

'Now that I'm better I'm beginning to miss going to work,' she admitted, 'but nothing's really changed. I still don't think I could face working with them all again after—well, after you and Miguel made me feel I'd been—bargained for.'

'What nonsense!' her grandfather declared. 'You weren't embarrassed when he came here while you were ill, nor did you seem to find Don Luis an embarrassment.'

Kirstie had very mixed feelings regarding that particular visit, and she shrugged uneasily. 'Has Miguel said anything about his uncle getting a replacement secretary?'

'Not to me,' her grandfather assured her. 'As far as I know the post is still vacant, but if you're really interested in finding out, my dear, why don't you either ask Don Miguel when he comes again, or walk up to the house and see Seiior Montanes? I'm quite certain he'd be pleased to see you.'

'I'm sure he would,' Kirstie agreed, far more tempted than she let him know. 'Senor Montanes is a very nice man, I like him.'

'Then go and see him. After all, you've never actually told him that you didn't intend going back, have you? You were hurt before you had the opportunity to let him know, so as far as that goes you're officially still working for him.'

It was such a temptation, but then when she took everything into consideration she didn't know what to do for certain. 'I suppose so,' she allowed, and Don Jose obviously sensed her weakening.

'Don't you owe it to him?' he insisted. 'It's only

common courtesy to give your employer notice, Kirstie.'

It was inevitable that she would go eventually, she guessed. There were too many things to tempt her back, not least the sheer pleasure of walking into Casa de Rodriguez again and the familiar surroundings. She could see Luis, and he was always good for her ego, sadly in need of encouragement after more than a week of Miguel's gentle aloofness. She liked Enrique and she had no doubt at all that he would be pleased to see her again, especially as she had agreed not to compHcate matters by taking his daughter-in-law to court.

'I could go,' she said, and Don Jose patted her hand approvingly.

'But don't overdo things at first, child.'

Putting her arms around him, she hugged him tight. 'I won't,' she promised. 'And I'm really thrilled about your shares, Abuelo.'

'It should put an added spring in your step,' her grandfather told her, and she smiled.

She saw no one until she came in off the patio, then she almost collided with Luis just leaving the house, and he stared at her for a moment as if he could not believe his eyes. 'Kirstie!' He glanced quickly over his shoulder into the house, then took her arm and drew her back into the garden, keeping a hold on her as if he expected her to run away again. 'I'd begun to think you were never coming back, and Miguel had laid down the law about me not coming to see you again.'