The black invader (23 page)

'And you didn't want to cross him!' Kirstie suggested with a half-mocking smile.

'Not on his own territory,' Luis said solemnly. 'But never mind that now; how are you, my lovely?'

'I'm fine.'

'You didn't come to see me, I suppose? No, that's too much to hope for, so it must be Tio Enrique.'

He didn't even consider Miguel as a possibility, she noticed, and wondered why Luis never seemed to realise just how much his brother could affect her. 'I did come

to see Senor Montanes,' she agreed. 'I thought I ought to let him know that—well, that I haven't been able to come for the last couple of weeks or so.'

'Well, he knows that, you divine idiot,' Luis laughed. 'But I was under the impression that you'd given up the job, Kirstie. Rosa said something about it.'

Kirstie would so much rather not have talked about it to Luis, but she seemed not to have much option and she shrugged as casually as she could manage. 'I did think about it at one time.'

'I wish I knew what it was all about,' Luis complained, 'but all I get is odds and ends and I've never heard the full story of what happened. I did gather that Rosa was responsible for you being hurt, so I took it that she was being stupid about Miguel again. Was that it? Did you fight with her again?'

Obviously when Miguel had said the matter was being kept very quiet, he had included his brother in those excluded from the full facts, so Kirstie was very wary when she answered him. Shrugging again with seeming carelessness, she attempted to pass it off. 'Oh, it's all over and done with now, and I'd rather not go into it again,' she told him.

'So you did fight over Miguel!' There was a hard and very unromantic gleam in Luis's eyes, and she realised just how jealous he was of his older brother's undeniable sex-appeal. 'It's typical of Miguel not to take your situation into account when he wants to kiss you! If he wants a thing he just helps himself to it, even if it does happen to be my girl!'

It wasn't the kind of conversation she had foreseen when she decided to come, and Kirstie wished she had encountered almost anyone but Luis. He seemed set on talking about her encounter with Rosa, and its cause, and it was the last thing she wanted to talk about. 'No one helps himself to me,' she told him, 'and I'm not sure I like being referred to as a thing, Luis.'

'A figure of speech, that's all,' Luis insisted, and that sharp gleam was still there in his usually dreamy eyes.

'Whatever; I don't like him poaching on my territory, and I wish he'd stick to his own sort and leave my girl alone!'

Kirstie was feeling edgy and her decision to see Enrique and explain to him seemed less of a good idea every minute. Luis was making her irritable and his determined possessiveness grated on her nerves. 'I'm not someone you own either, Luis,' she told him. 'I didn't come with the property and the idea of droit du seigneur is long out of date! Neither you nor Miguel has any right to me!'

'Kirstie, darling!'

He was obviously puzzled, but Kirstie wasn't to be persuaded even by his practised sweet-talk, and she pushed away his hand. 'I have to go, Luis. I want to see your uncle and talk to him about—well, various things; that's what I came for.'

'Not to see me?' Luis asked, and added as he narrowed his eyes. 'Or Miguel?'

'I saw Miguel not half an hour since at the cottage,' she told him, 'and even you'll agree, I'm not likely to have followed him up here! I came to see Seiior Mon-tanes and it's time I went, or I may lose my nerve!'

'I'll see you again?'

It was rather more a demand than a plea, she realised, and as she wasn't very sure just what was going to happen, she shook her head rather vaguely. 'I—I don't know, Luis—maybe.'

'I see!'

He looked at her for a long moment and his dark eyes glittered with resentment for both her unwillingness to commit herself and her determined dismissal of him. Then he turned quickly and went stalking off along the path to the stable with his dark head held high and looking disturbingly like Miguel from the back. Kirstie didn't know whether she was thankful or sorry that he had decided to bring it to such an abrupt end, but she didn't call him back.

When she knocked on the door of the office a few

moments later her heart was beating anxiously hard, for she wasn't looking forward to the interview at all, even though she did not believe Enrique would be anything but kindly. It was because she felt sure he knew exactly why Rosa had hit out as she had, and she couldn't be sure what explanation Miguel had given him.

His smile when she walked in, however, banished most of her anxiety, and he did seem genuinely pleased to see her. *My dear senorita, I'm so glad to see you! Are you feeling better?'

She took the chair he assigned her to and smDed. 'Much better, Senor Montanes, thank you.'

He nodded, looking thoughtful for a moment and pulHng at his bottom lip. 'I'd like to thank you for the way you've behaved over this—this dreadful matter, Seiiorita Rodriguez. You had every right to demand vengeance in the law courts, but instead you allowed Rosa to go free so that I shouldn't suffer the loss of my granddaughter. Miguel was so sure you would see the reason of it, but—' he spread his hand in a touching gesture of doubt, 'I couldn't believe so young a woman could be so understanding. Thank you.'

'Please—it was something I couldn't have faced, you losing touch with Margarita. I know how you love her.'

He nodded and for a moment his expression was absent, then he leaned back in his chair and summoned his more usual smile. 'Well now, you've come to say that you'll stay on with Miguel, eh?'

Completely at a loss, Kirstie stared at him. Then she shook her head slowly and moistened her lips before she spoke. 'Stay on—with Miguel?'

Enrique looked at her for a moment, then clapped a hand to his forehead and moaned. 'Don't tell me—^he hasn't said anything to you about it? Forgive me, sefior-ita, I quite thought that with all the time Miguel has been spending at your home lately he would have told you about our future plans.'

'Actually I haven't said a lot to him,' Kirstie told him.

and was quite unconscious of having pouted when she said it. 'He mostly talks business to my grandfather; he's sold him some shares in Casa de Rodriguez, and I can't tell you how thrilled Abuelo is to know that he has even a tiny share of it back again.'

'Or how surprised / was that Miguel decided to let him have them! I can't quite understand why he hasn't asked you about this other matter, though, unless—' Enrique frowned and stroked his chin. 'He might perhaps think you were reluctant to work for him after your remarks when you first came to see me, Senorita Rodriguez.'

'Perhaps,' Kirstie agreed in a very small voice,

'Anyway,' Enrique went on, 'the situation is this, senorita; now that Casa de Rodriguez is paying its way, Miguel has decided that he can run it alone, so we're moving back to Valencia to our head office, and he will carry on here. I was under the impression that he was going to ask you to remain with him as his secretary, in fact I'm so certain he intends to that I have no hesitation in putting you in the picture/

'He hasn't said a word,' said Kirstie, and her eyes had a dark, thoughtful look for a moment. 'He hasn't really said very much to me at all in the past week or ten days.'

'Then I can only hope he won't blame me too much for anticipating him.' He regarded her for a moment or two, his hands steepled under his chin and a speculative look in his eyes. 'Will you stay on with him when he asks you to, my dear?'

Kirstie's thoughts were in chaos. She simply couldn't imagine not seeing Miguel every day, and presumably his visits to her grandfather would be less frequent now that their business was concluded. 'It—it depends,' she said, frowning unhappily. 'I couldn't bear to come here if he turned it into a paradore'

Enrique looked as if her knowledge surprised him, and he was shaking his head. 'You must have misunderstood whatever you heard about that,' he told her.

*The idea was never even seriously considered; Miguel wouldn't even consider such a thing.'

*Oh.' Kirstie wondered how many more surprises were in store for her, and she flushed with shame ^ when she recalled how angrily she had berated Miguel for being the instigator of the idea. *He—^he voted against it?'

'He simply didn't consider it, except as a joke,' Enrique assured her, and went on in a quiet, impressive voice. 'I think you're under something of a misapprehension here, my dear Senorita Rodriguez. Miguel is the senior partner in Montaiies and Company, he owns sixty per cent of the shares, and all of the Rodriguez investment. He bought out the rest of us very shortly after it got under way because he wanted to branch out on his own. Although now it seems he has let your grandfather in as an investor, albeit a minor one.'

Kirstie's head was spinning and she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as she tried to come to terms with so many fresh ideas, i—I had no idea. Why didn't he tell me I had it all wrong when I was so angry with him?' she complained. 'He should have told me I was wrong.'

'I think,' Enrique observed dryly, 'that he was rather hoping Luis would tell you himself, but I'm afraid his faith was misplaced in that instance.'

She shook her head, still finding it hard to believe. 'Luis?' He nodded, and Kirstie wondered bitterly if she had ever before been so successfully made a fool of.

'He wouldn't risk turning you against him, of course,' Enrique observed. 'I told Miguel he wouldn't. Luis should have been more honest with you and then you wouldn't have been so misled, my dear senorita. Alas,' he sighed deeply, 'there seem to have been so many misunderstandings, it's high time some of them were cleared up.'

Kirstie could only agree, but clearing up the thousand and one things that had gone amiss between her and

Miguel would be a marathon task, and she had to confess she hadn't any idea where to start. Looking across the desk at Enrique's kind and speculative expression, she spread her hands appealingly.

'Where can I find Miguel?' she asked, and his uncle smiled.

'Not far away,' he said. 'You'll soon find him.'

Without a clue where to start looking for him, Kirstie automatically made her way round to the stable, but she hadn't quite reached the archway in the wall when he appeared. When he saw her he hesitated for just a second, then came striding on, while Kirstie stood and waited, her legs horribly unsteady, and her heart hammering away like a drum-beat that half deafened her.

That Moorish-dark skin showed like matt bronze against a white shirt and his long legs made nothing of the distance between them as he came across the patio to her. Kirstie looked up at him, speaking quickly before she lost her nerve.

'I have to apologise to you for—so many things, Miguel, but I didn't know, and you didn't say anything, not even when I was angry, and you could have put me right, you could have '

His mouth stopped hers with infinite gentleness and he held her arms as he looked down into her flushed face and evasive eyes. 'Who have you been talking to?' he wanted to know, and she moistened her lips anxiously before she answered.

'To Senor Montanes.'

'And he thought I'd mentioned the business of you staying on as my secretary,' he guessed, and something in the way he said it made her look up quickly.

'He—he said you were going to ask me, but you

haven't and ' Her eyes searched his face anxiously

and the thud of her heart made it almost impossible to think clearly. 'Miguel, I didn't know you were against the idea of a par adore, you didn't tell me that it wasn't your idea, and Luis didn't tell me when I spoke to him about you.'

His hands moved lightly on her arms, stroking the soft skin and bringing an even more urgent beat to her pulse. 'I was rather hoping he'd tell you himself,' he said in the deep quiet voice that could wreak such havoc on her senses. *But you were so determined that I was the villain that you probably wouldn't have believed him anyway, would you, my pigeon?'

It was the very first time he had addressed an endearment to her, and she was trembling, she realised, as if she was about to break down. 'I would have believed you,' she said in a shivery small voice.

His dark eyes scanned her face for a moment. *Yes, I believe you would have,' he said.

He kissed her again, so lightly and gently that she longed to feel that fierce, hard pressure on her mouth again, and shivered at the recollection. 'I—I didn't know you were helping Abuelo to get back at least a small share of Casa de Rodriguez either,' she told him, and wondered how she resisted the temptation to lean towards him and make contact with the lean, passionate body that seemed to be taunting her with its nearness. 'I don't know how to thank you, Miguel, he's so—so happy about it.'

*rd like you to know that selling me your grandmother's jewels was not my idea,' he said with a touch of dryness. *So please don't blame me for it, I'd much rather not have taken them.'

'But Abuelo would never accept '

She hesitated to say charity, but Miguel was shaking his head, as if he knew perfectly well what she had in mind. 'It would have been a loan only,' he insisted. 'I like your grandfather and I was prepared to advance him the small part he has and wait for profits to pay for it, for there will be good profits from Casa de Rodriguez, Kirstie, without resorting to tourism. But your grandfather is a proud man, and I respect that. As for your grandmother's jewellery, you need have no fears about that, it will still be yours when the time comes.'

'You think we'll be able to redeem it so soon?' she

asked, and felt a curious trickling sensation along her spine when he smiled.

Take my word for it, little one,' he said softly. 'You shall have it when the time is right.'

Kirstie stirred in the infinitely gentle hold he had on her, wanting to respond as she always did, but inhibited by the constant reminder of her grandfather's matchmaking. Looking up at him, she shook her head despairingly. 'Oh, why did Abuelo have to have that silly idea of talking to you about—How can I feel at ease with you when you know what he has in mind?'