The Dragon's Cave (7 page)

‘No. Those are the Llobera arms. My mother was the only child of her generation and the last of the
family.’

Megan felt unaccountably sad. ‘Aren’t there any of them left?’

‘I have my grandmother still alive, and an unmarried aunt. That’s all.’

‘But there are lots of Valloris?’

Carlos smiled. ‘More than enough,’ he agreed. ‘ At one time my father used to hang his own arms and my mother’s side by side in our house in Barcelona, but when he married again, Margot objected that her predecessor’s presence in the house was greater than her own, so my father took down my mother’s arms and put them away. I came across them by chance and brought them here. I am very proud to have them.’

Megan’s eyes filled with tears.
‘
Y
o
u must have been hurt,’ she said bluntly.

He shrugged, ‘Small boys are always imagining woes for themselves
!
’

‘Well, I think it was mean
!
’ Megan insisted.

He laughed at her. ‘Would you have allowed them to stay?’ he asked ironically.

She nodded her head defiantly. ‘Yes, I would
!
I’d have been proud of them!’

His mouth curled in disbelief. ‘I think not.’

‘
But I would
!
They wouldn’t only be a reminder
that my husband had been married before, they would have been a part of
you
!’
She stopped, a little shocked by what she had said. ‘I mean, you’d have been there anyway,’ she went on uncomfortably.

‘Another constant reminder
!
’

Megan’s eyes widened. ‘But one couldn’t be jealous of a small boy
!’
she exclaimed.

He looked at her closely. ‘Perhaps you would not be,’ he conceded, catching a tear on his forefinger as it brimmed over her eyelashes. ‘It is hard to know that the son and heir is already waiting to inherit when you have your own children to consider, though. Pepe has always had to come second to me, except in his mother’s affections.’

Megan backed away from him, ashamed that he should have seen her tears. ‘I would have tried to love you equally with my own children,’ she said obstinately.

‘Perhaps Margot
tried
too
!
’

‘I don’t see how she could have helped it I You can’t have been very old—’

‘Old enough to be difficult. I refused to speak a word of English to her for a long time. The Spanish are a proud people, and I have all the pride of my race. I am sure I was a thorn in her flesh, as I meant to be. Not at all the forsaken small boy that a woman could have loved
!’

‘
I
would have loved you
!’

‘
Would you?’ he asked very gently.

She nodded fiercely.
‘
You wouldn’t have got the better of me
!’
she declared. ‘I’d think pretty poorly of myself if I couldn’t win the affection of one small boy, Spanish or not
!’

Carlos looked amused. ‘I think you probably would have succeeded,’ he admitted. ‘It would have been a novel experience to have had a pretty girl crying over me
!’

‘
I’m
not
crying
!
’ she said crossly.

‘No?’
His eyes mocked her. ‘You’re very young, Megan.’

She glared at him. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘More than you think,’ he retorted. ‘If you were older you wouldn’t break your heart over a boy who doesn’t exist any more
!’

Megan bit her lip. ‘I think he does,’ she said in a whisper.

‘In me?’

She nodded briefly.
‘
What is the rest of the house like?’ she asked quickly.

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face the light, whether she would or no. ‘There is very little of the small boy left in me,’ he told her grimly. ‘I grew up a long time ago
!’

‘Oh?’ She forced herself to sound light and amused, but she felt neither.

‘
Do you doubt it?’

She licked her lips nervously. ‘No,’ she said.

His hands tightened on her shoulders, pulling her against him. She turned her head away, afraid that he meant to kiss her, and even more afraid of her own possible reaction.

‘I—I’d like to go to my room
!
’

‘
It is you who hasn’t grown up,’ he chided her impatiently.

She freed herself impatiently from his restraining hands. ‘I’m old enough to prefer to be taken seriously
!’
she informed him loftily. ‘More than old enough
!’

‘Seriously?’ he repeated.

‘
As a woman
!’
she added self-consciously. She couldn’t help feeling that she was destroying her own case by having to point it out to him.

‘Indeed?’

She saw the glint in his eyes and was afraid. This time there was no escaping the pressure of his hands. He held her tightly against him and kissed her hard
on the mouth, parting her lips beneath his.

She had expected to dislike it, but it wasn’t like that at all. It was the most exciting, the most marvellous experience of her whole life. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him closer still, wondering that any man should be able to stir her in this way. His hands moved down her back with an intimacy that alarmed even while it thrilled her. Then, as suddenly, she was free and he stood away from her, looking down at her as though she were a complete stranger to him.

‘
You see,’ he said, ‘you are too young to tell when a man is serious
!’

She threw back her head, her expression as proud as his.
‘
You flatter yourself,
senor.
I know you would never be serious with a nobody like myself
!
Nor would I ever be serious over anyone as arrogant and selfish as yourself
!’

‘I told you the boy in me is dead,’ he said coldly.

Her hands were shaking, so she put them behind her back to hide them from him.

‘He isn’t dead,
senor.
If he doesn’t live on in the man you are now, it’s because you deliberately destroyed him. I may be young, I may be
very
young, but I hope I never feel ashamed of what I was before—’

If she had hoped to anger, she had certainly succeeded. ‘That is enough, Megan,’ he snapped. ‘
Y
ou don’t know what you are talking about.’

She was silent. She thought resentfully that it was easy enough for him to intimidate her at every turn and wished desperately that, just once, she might have the pleasure of placing him at a disadvantage. She pushed her hair back behind her ears and sniffed.

‘Are you going to cry again?’ he asked in exasperated tones.

‘No.’

He stood quite still, waiting for her to recover her poise. ‘Do you wish me to apologise?’ he asked at last.

‘No,’ she said again.

‘
I think I should all the same,’ he went on, not without humour. ‘I fancy that no one has kissed you quite like that before—’

‘Then you fancy wrong
!’
she answered proudly. ‘I’ve been kissed
often
by heaps of people—’

‘That is not precisely what I meant,’ he interrupted dryly.

She cast him a startled glance, dismayed by the harshness of his expression and the unyielding look in his eyes.

‘Then what did you mean?’

‘I meant that you are very sweet and very innocent, no more than that—’

‘And
boring
?’

‘I didn’t say that
!
’ he replied, trying not to laugh.

‘Well, I think innocence is boring,’ she retorted unthinkingly.

‘Perhaps that is where men and women differ in their approach to each other,’ he suggested mildly.

She felt herself blushing.
‘
Then—then—’

‘Then what?’

‘You didn’t
dislike
kissing me?’

He smiled at her anxious expression. ‘No,’ he said,
‘
I didn’t dislike it.’

She breathed a sigh of relief. He seemed to be waiting for something, though, and she supposed that he was hoping to hear what she had thought of the kiss, just as she had wanted to know about his reaction.

‘I didn’t dislike it either,’ she said abruptly.

He reached for her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing her palm and curling her fingers inwards to hold the place he had touched.

‘You are very generous,’ he said.
‘
That was much more than I deserved.’

She almost ran to the doorway in her eagerness to escape from the challenge his very presence presented her with.

‘I don’t see why,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘You’re probably very practised. Pilar says you know lots of women
!’

‘P
ilar talks too much
!
’

‘I suppose you think she shouldn’t know about such things
!
’ Megan added provocatively.

‘Not necessarily. But, like you, I prefer not to be discussed behind my back
!’

She was immediately contrite. ‘We weren’t really,’ she assured him. ‘We were talking about your stepmother wanting to live in England. Pilar said that everyone expected you to marry very well and that they had expected the same of your father, only he fell in love with your stepmother and that was that
!’

‘They were very much in love,’ Carlos confirmed unexpectedly.

‘And you?’ Megan asked before she could stop herself.

‘Me? Will I marry well?’

‘
Will you marry for love?’

His dark eyes were enigmatic and very arrogant as he looked at her. ‘I hardly think that is any business of yours,’ he said tersely.

‘
No,’ she agreed, feeling snubbed.

‘The woman I have chosen to be my wife will be very much loved,’ he went on smoothly.
‘
She will be important because she will be my wife and the mother of my children. Does that answer you?’

Megan’s spirits sank and she knew a sudden envy of this unknown woman who was going to be Carlos’ wife.

‘I suppose she’s very lovely?’ she heard herself say.

‘
I think so,’ he answered calmly.
‘
One day you will be able to tell me what you think.’

‘
No
!’
she burst out passionately. ‘I don’t want to
!
’

His eyebrows rose enquiringly. Megan swallowed
desperately, but the lump in her throat obstinately refused to be dislodged.

‘Come,’ he said gen
tl
y,
‘
I will show you your room.
The rest of the house can wait for another time.’

He strode past her, opening and shutting doors with an unconcern that made her own nervousness of him seem all the more unnecessary. She was bitterly conscious of the way her heart thudded within her as she followed him meekly through the house and up the marble stairs to the bedrooms above.

‘
My stepmother’s room is here,’ he said as they gained the top of the stairs.
‘
Your room is opposite.’ He opened the door with a flourish, his eyes mocking her.
‘
You should feel quite safe in here
!’

Megan would have liked to have asked him where his room was, but she knew better than to give him such an opening. He wouldn’t spare her feelings, she thought, if he ever guessed how easily he stirred her emotions and how certain
little
things about him caught at her heartstrings, leaving her more vulnerable than she had ever been before in all her eighteen years.

She stepped into the room and stopped. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. An enormous four
-
poster bed took up the whole of the centre of the room, heavy curtains draped about it and gathered up together in a kind of knotted effect just below the ceiling, itself surmounted by what looked suspiciously like a coronet. Beneath the window was an oak chest, heavily carved and very ancient. On the other side of the bed was a marble-topped dresser, complete with a patterned china bowl and jug for washing purposes. It was the grandest and most awful room she had ever seen.

‘I’m to sleep here?’ she gasped.

Carlos eyed the bed meaningly.
‘
Will it disturb your dreams?’ he teased her.

‘Of course not,’ she denied hastily.

‘It’s more comfortable than it looks,’ he told her kindly.

‘Have you slept in it?’ she demanded, prodding the mattress nervously. It was big enough for four people
to sleep in, she thought. She had never seen such an enormous bed.

‘Often,’ Carlos said dryly.
‘This
was my room when I was a boy, in fact until quite recently when I moved into my father’s old room. Perhaps that’s why my stepmother chose it for you.’ He smiled at her aghast expression and, turning on his heel, shut the door with a snap behind him, leaving her alone with her chaotic thoughts.