‘Well, my brother had the time of his life’, Nicky said fairly. ‘For myself, I could probably have done with a bit more structure.’
‘I sail a lot,’ observed Esteban, ‘and I love it. But I can’t imagine living on a boat permanently. What did you do for privacy?’
He leaned forward, as if he really needed to know. Under his intense regard, Nicky began to feel slightly light-headed.
‘Lived without it,’ she said breathlessly.
She felt oddly detached, almost as if she were in a trance. That it did not matter what they said—it was their eyes that were talking.
‘That can’t have been easy when you were growing up.’
She watched his mouth. It was a beautiful mouth, sculpted and strong. Here, you would say, was a deeply sensual man with his desires under rigid control. She wanted to touch his mouth. She wanted to see what would breach that iron control.
She tried to concentrate on the conversation. ‘Living on a boat, you tend to make your mistakes in public. Growing up was not easy. But it was fast.’
He reached round the candle and took her hand. Nicky gave a sweet, deep shiver. Esteban saw it. His eyes darkened.
And then the waiter came, bringing food. Unhurried, Esteban let her hand go and sat back, allowing the man to serve. But his eyes never left her face.
Nicky knew it. If Andrew Bolton or any other man had looked at her with such unrelenting scrutiny she would have run for cover. But in her trance-like state she gloried in it. She thought, I want him to look at me like that for ever.
They ate. They talked, though Nicky could hardly have said what it was about And all the time he looked at her as if they were alone.
Esteban seemed as if he wanted to tell her everything about himself. He talked about his work, his travels, his sailing; about his stepfather—with affection—and, with a brevity that revealed how painful it was, his real father. ‘Do you see him?’
‘Not much,’ he said curtly.
Nicky was so sensitised to Esteban this evening that she knew the matter could not be allowed to rest there.
‘Why not?’ she asked gently.
He looked into the candle flame. ‘The truth, if you must have it, is that Felipe has been trying to mend bridges ever since I was eighteen. I’m his only son and he takes that seriously. For a long time I would not see him at all. But then my mother died and the loyalties became less clear. So—we meet occasionally.’
‘And why does that hurt?’
But he made a sharp, dismissive gesture and the subject was closed.
It was a shock, after their mutual openness. Nicky’s calm confidence dimmed a little. She retreated, grew more polite, less spontaneous.
Esteban noted it ruefully. He called for the bill.
But in the car intimacy reasserted itself, silently. The stars were needle-bright behind the surging clouds. It made Nicky giddy to look at the sky. When the car came to that rise in the road, it looked as if they were going to drive off the cliff into the stars. She gasped and held on to her seat in pure instinct.
Esteban sent her a quick look.
He said abruptly, ‘Look, I’ll tell you why I avoid Felipe.’
Nicky waited. Esteban brought the car to a halt. She could sense him marshalling his words. Fluent and sophisticated though he was, he found this hard to say, she realised. They sat in silence for a moment under the wheeling stars.
Eventually he went on in a low voice, as if it was being torn out of him, ‘My mother was terrified of Felipe in the end. He was passionate about her but he did not trust her. He did not trust her because he was passionate about her.’
The intensity of it shook her. She did not know what to say.
‘Everything she did made him jealous. The whole thing was insane.’
Nicky swallowed. ‘So she ran away with your stepfather and everything ended happily. Why should you blame yourself?’
Esteban gave a short laugh. ‘You’re missing the point. I’m my father’s son.’
Nicky was bewildered. ‘So?’
‘They even call me the Latin Lover in chambers. They think it’s a joke, of course.’
She winced, remembering. ‘Señoritas fall over themselves for that Latin charm,’ Piers had said. And she had fallen all right, hadn’t she? She shut her eyes.
Esteban did not notice her withdrawal. He was deep in a blackness of his own. ‘Given the right circumstances, I could do what he did.’ His voice was raw with self-loathing.
Nicky’s eyes flew open. She could not have been more shocked if he had got out of the car and tipped her over the cliff into the sea.
‘What?’
He was looking directly ahead but she had an uncomfortable feeling that it was not the landscape he was looking at For a long moment he did not speak. Then he gave a deep sigh and put the car in gear again. It slipped along the narrow lane in near silence.
‘I’ve always known what I was capable of,’ he said at last sombrely.
She forgot her own bad memories in the need to defuse the nightmare for him. But how? In the end she chose scorn.
‘You mean you think you are some sort of clone of your father? P-lease.’
He smiled perfunctorily. ‘No, not that. But that if I let myself care deeply for someone—if I stopped watching myself—I could go wild. Lose all control.’
In spite of her determined common sense, Nicky shivered at his words. It was quite clear that Esteban Tremain believed them.
‘And have you ever? Lost it, I mean.’
He hesitated. She had a feeling there was something burning inside him that, even now, he could not bear to expose.
In the end it was almost inaudible. ‘Only once.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
HALLAM HALL was black and massive as the Jaguar’s powerful headlights raked the sky. Esteban brought the car to a halt outside the studded door and sat for a moment. Nicky looked at him uneasily.
‘What is it?’
‘Maybe nothing.’
But when he opened the Gothic door and reached for the light switch nothing happened. Nicky gave a small gasp. It felt like a scream. At once his arm came round her, steadying her.
‘It’s all right. I told you the power goes off sometimes.’
But they had been too close tonight and he could no longer deceive Nicky with a reassuring tone. She knew it was not all right.
Keeping his arm round her, Esteban felt along a shelf. There was a click. A powerful beam scanned the hallway. It was empty.
It seemed to her that some tension in Esteban relaxed. But all he said was, ‘I’ll give you a candle.’
He found one, already set up in an incongruous old tin holder. He lit it and gave it to her. The flame shook as Nicky took hold of it. She tried to control her shaking.
‘There you are. You can go to bed without breaking your neck now,’ he said lightly. ‘I’ll just take a look round.’
She lifted the candle to search his expression. ‘What is going on, Esteban?’
The candle had set all the shadows alive. They made Esteban’s face unreadable.
‘Don’t tell me it’s nothing,’ said Nicky strongly. ‘I mended those plugs, remember.’
‘And you should remember that I said I’d take care of you,’ he told her.
He looked down at her. In the crazy light», his face was a dramatic mask of planes and hollows. Nicky held her candle higher. Suddenly, his mouth was brilliantly illuminated. It was a long, curling mouth, devastating in its sensuality.
Nicky’s stomach turned over. At once he pointed the candle away from his face and picked her up. Nicky gave a small scream and clutched at him to save herself from falling. The candle flame flared wildly.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Taking care of you,’ he said.
He shouldered his way past various tables and chests to the foot of the tapestry-hung staircase. Nicky held the candle straight out ahead of them, in case one of the thousand draughts blew the waverin
g flame on to his skin or hers. It made the shadows dance.
‘You’re crazy,’ she said with conviction. ‘Put me down.’
‘Are you or are you not scared?’
At once Nicky fired up. ‘Don’t you start cross-examining me. Of course I’m scared. That doesn’t me I want you to carry mean to bed… ’
The moment the words were out of her mouth she wished she had said anything else. Esteban stopped at the foot of the staircase. He did not say anything. In the darkness Nicky felt her face heat. She could have screamed.
‘Damn. I didn’t mean…’
Esteban put her down. He did not let her go, though. She stood in the iron circle of his arms, effectively his prisoner.
‘You mean you do want me to carry you to bed?’
Nicky jumped. It sent the reflection of the candle flame leaping all round the walls. Esteban removed one arm from her waist and steadied the taper.
‘Nicky, are you scared of me?’ he said softly.
Nicky felt suddenly breathless.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Then scared of me forgetting myself and doing all the things you don’t want?’
Nicky did not know what she wanted. She stood very still, her thoughts whirling. In the restaurant she had wanted quite passionately to touch and be touched. She had even revelled in the way he looked at her, wanted more. Now—
Now constraint froze her muscles, as deadly as snake venom. She could not answer.
‘I know.’ Esteban touched her hair briefly, as if he could not help himself. Then he stood back, letting her go. ’Go to bed,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll be quite safe. I promise.’
He was not talking about people who sabotaged kitchens and they both knew it.
Nicky hugged her candle and ran up the stairs to her room. The pictured nymphs flared briefly into life as the candle raced past them. They seemed to mock her.
Nicky undressed but she did not go to bed. She blew out the candle and prowled her room in the moonlight. Her thoughts were in turmoil.
Even though she could not see it in the dark, she was conscious of the photograph on the chest It seemed to glare at her accusingly. She ought to tell Esteban that they had met before. Even if he did not remember that night, he had the right to know that she did. She must be giving him so many conflicting messages. He had asked her why. He had the right to an answer.
Face it, she thought. You keep saying that you want to get away as fast as you can. But you grab every excuse you can find to stay right here. There is something between you and Esteban Tremain. Maybe it’s unfinished business. Maybe it isn’t. Either way, you aren’t going to find out until you tell him.
Outside in the corridor there was a series of creaks, then a thud. Nicky stood still, ears straining. Without the central heating, the natural chill of the castle reasserted itself. She shivered, pulling her dressing gown tight round her. There was a loud crash, a series of thumps, angry voices…
She gasped, ‘Esteban,’ and rushed out into the corridor.
From the end of the passage came the sound of steady cursing. A strong torch beam flooded the carved ceiling. The torch itself had ended up against a Chinese urn. On the other side of the corridor a crouched figure held his elbow against his chest and swore fluently. Nicky ran forward.
‘What is it? What happened?’
Esteban picked himself up from the ruptured rug.
‘He got away,’ he said bitterly.
Nicky picked up the torch and gave it to him.
‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know.’ He sounded grim. ‘Not the person I expected, certainly.’
From outside they heard the sound of an engine firing like a rocket.
‘Motorbike’, diagnosed Esteban. ‘He must have left it out of sight.‘
Nicky shivered. ‘He must have been in the house when we got back. Are you going to call the police now?
‘I suppose I’ll have to’ He did not sound very enthusiastic about it.
She clutched his arm. ‘Don’t go after him yourself.’
He looked surprised. ‘It’s all right. I’ll just—’
Nicky was shaking. ‘Don’t.’
Esteban put a strong hand over hers. ‘Darling, it’s all right’ he said soothingly. ‘He’s gone. I couldn’t catch him even if I tried. I was just going to check the door is bolted and then reset the alarm.’
But Nicky would not let him go alone. She despised timid women and she did not exactly cling to his arm while he checked the doors. But she did not move far from his side, either. And when he went into the library to put in the call to a bored police constable she hovered so close that she bumped into his injured arm.
He gave a sharp exclamation and rubbed his elbow.
‘What? Oh, no, sorry, Greg. My house guest just reminded me I’ve got a few bruises.’
The police constable became a lot less bored. Nicky approved but Esteban laughed at him.
‘No, the man didn’t hit me. We fell over each other, that’s all. He’s probably got as many bruises as I have. I’m more worried about what might be missing. I haven’t found anything yet but we’ve got no power at the moment so I can’t be sure.’
The loss of power interested the constable even more. Sighing, Esteban agreed that the police could come over the following morning.
He put the phone down and stirred the blackened log that was all that remained of the earlier fire. The embers glowed red and he flung on another log. A small flame caught. He turned briefly to Nicky.
‘They want to see you too, I’m afraid. It looks like you’ll have to spend another day here.’ He kicked the log and added another two or three, not looking at her. ‘You must think you’re never going to get away from me.’
The fire was catching fast now. The flames crackled, leaping high in the old fireplace. Esteban stared at the flames broodingly.
‘No,’ she said in a strange voice.
Esteban looked at her quickly. ‘Are you all right?’
Nicky hesitated. No, of course she wasn’t all right. She had been terrified for him. Even now that he was safe her heart was beating so hard that it hurt
She said harshly, ‘I don’t want to spend the night alone.’
For a moment there was a blank silence. The burning wood fizzed and chattered but the man hardly seemed to be breathing. Nicky cleared her throat loudly.
‘I said—’
‘I heard what you said.’ His voice was rough. ‘Is it post-intruder panic or do you mean it?’
Her heart galloped. Did she? She found she was holding her breath.
Esteban said softly, ‘Nicky?’
She let out her breath with a great whoosh. It sounded like a sob.
He took her hands swiftly into his. She was shivering, not just with cold or reaction. When he touched her, she shivered harder.
‘I mean it,’ she whispered.
In the fight his shirt had ripped at the shoulder seam, so it fell from his waistband like a rag. Nicky saw his ribs rising and falling. The beam of the torch illuminated it like a spotlight He was breathing hard. His chest was warm. Nicky twisted one of her hands gently out of his grasp and brushed her fingertips against the naked skin. His breathing stopped.
‘Nicky,’ he said in a strangled voice.
And then, quite suddenly, she stopped shaking. She felt like his powerful car, suddenly finding the right gear after labouring horribly uphill. She felt calm and clear-headed. The only thing she needed to make her fly was Esteban.
She thought, in faint surprise, I want him. Only him. He is the only one I have ever wanted. Why didn’t I realise that?
She leaned forward and pressed her lips against the base of his throat.
Esteban was breathing again, carefully. ‘Is this sensible?’ he said, shaken.
His skin tasted of wine and wood smoke. Irresistible, thought Nicky, all her senses heightened. It made her lightheaded. She felt suddenly, gloriously irresponsible.
&nb
sp; ‘Who wants sensible?’ she murmured.
‘I thought you did,’ he said on a flicker of amusement, though his mouth twisted as if he was in pain. He did not touch her. ‘Didn’t we agree that we both needed to stay in control?’
‘So?’
He held her away from him. ‘God knows I want you. But, Nicky, what good can come from two control freaks making love?’ It sounded as if it hurt him to say it.
If you’re going to break the habit of a lifetime, go for gold, Nicky thought. There’s no point in going slightly out of character. Turn Miss Prim on her head.
Quite deliberately she moved her mouth down his ribcage, savouring each sensuous touch, each spasm of reaction which he could not disguise.
‘Broaden our horizons,’ she said brazenly.
She loosened the sash of her old dressing gown. The shirt that she wore under it gaped. Deliberately she undid the last couple of buttons and pushed it aside.
Esteban’s eyes flared. But he stood like a rock, his response under iron control.
Nicky took his hands and pulled gently. He resisted. She sank down on to the rug, urging him to join her. Esteban let her go but he did not follow her. He looked down at her broodingly.
‘Last night you couldn’t say you wanted me.’ His voice was almost unrecognisable.
‘I want you.’
Nicky lay back on the rug and stretched her arms behind her head. She did not care about her fire-lit nakedness. She lay there, eyes steady on his, offering herself without disguise.
Esteban knelt on one knee beside her. He caressed one lifting nipple as if he could not help himself. But he was watching her face.
‘I’m possessive,’ he said in a warning tone.
Nicky gave a little anticipatory shiver.
‘So go ahead and possess me.’
It was said teasingly. But they both knew it was deadly serious. His eyes darkened.
‘You don’t have to pretend.’
‘I want to make love with you,’ Nicky said quietly. ‘No pretending.’ She was saying it to more than this man tonight. She was saying it to all the arid years when she had ached for Steve and not acknowledged it.
He gave a great sigh and came down on to the rug beside her.
‘You’ll get cold.’
‘So warm me up.’ Her own voice was unrecognisable too. Like the laughing provocation of the remark. Like the confidence of it.
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