She had dared, and had half feared that he would appear in some shining monster of a car at the gates of Satanita. When several days passed and she heard no more of him, she relaxed a little and concluded that he had taken the hint that water and fire didn't mix.
It was true that Bella's large house on its imposing hill, surrounded by several acres of beautifully natural gardens, had gates at its drive that were firmly closed to uninvited guests, but there was what could only be called a Judas entrance by way of the grounds themselves, for their boundary was a wooded area, so thickly populated by trees and birds that hardly anyone ever trespassed there.
A rough, pathway had been worn out by the coming and going of Dina on horseback, for the woods gradually descended to a lonely stretch of beach and sea-sculpted rocks. She regarded the place as very much her own, and in the saddle of Major she would gallop in the surf. The pair of them loved the exercise and the solitude; the awareness that they wouldn't be intruded upon.
Not for one moment did it occur to Dina that, someone else would use that rough pathway in the same way as herself, coming on horseback into the grounds of Satanita; riding along its avenues of trees and exotic shrubs, planted long ago by Bella's husband, until the clatter of hooves fell upon Dina's ears as she sat in the attractive little sala where she usually wrote letters and read the morning papers.
She glanced up from her newspaper and stared incredulously at the horse and rider beyond the long glass doors of the sala. Both were dark, well groomed and perfectly at ease. Those deep-set, alive and arresting eyes penetrated through the glass itself and they seemed to bathe Dina in a wave of confusion, shock ... and guilt.
Deliberately, mockingly, he raised his riding-stick in a salute. He wore a tailored hacking-jacket in dice-checks, a pair of equally well tailored khaki breeches, and kneeboots. He seemed to aim at emphasising that dark, devilish quality in himself, Dina thought, and she could feel a tremor in her legs as she rose from her chair and watched him dismount from the glossy-coated horse. She saw his dark hand stroke down the length of the animal's neck and he murmured some words, probably Italian, which the handsome creature would have
been trained to understand and obey. A sorcerer's incantation, Dina told herself, and she stood there dumbly and realised how subtle was this man who guessed he would be refused entrance at the gates and so found another way to get in.
Her way, damn his impudence!
That flash of anger brought her out of her trance and she made for the french doors and opened them out wide, with a tempered sweep of her hands. She stepped out on to the flagstones of the courtyard and her amber eyes were blazing.
'How dare you come here! What right have you? This is private property and I shall get Hudson and his dogs to chase you off our grounds!'
'I have a way with dogs,' he drawled, standing there and bending the flexible whip in his lean fingers. 'And I guess that was Hudson I saw as I cantered along here, a sandy-haired man with Scottish eyes. He seemed to take me for a—friend of yours.'
'You're no friend of mine! You're nothing but a darn trespasser! How did you know about that way through the woods? I'm the only person who ever goes there.'
'Cagliostro had many tricks up his sleeve, Dina.' His grey eyes swept up and down her slim figure in a sleeveless dress the colour of jacaranda. 'Yes, with the sun on your hair and skin you are even more attractive than seen under the artificial lights of a dance floor.'
There was something intensely personal about the remark, and Dina met it with a proud lift of her head. 'Don't you know when to take a hint, Mr Ventura? I should think when I didn't turn up at Nun's Cove you'd have guessed that I didn't wish
to see you again. I suppose the truth is that you couldn't be expected to act the gentleman!
'Indeed, that is very much the truth,' he agreed, and into his eyes came that glint that was both ironic and dangerous. 'But is it really all that lady-like to let a man come all the way from Las Palmas, with chilled champagne and a carton of the best caviare, and not even leave a note for him, under a rock, maybe, letting him know that the lady won't be joining him for lunch.'
'Did you really imagine that I would be there?'
'Yes, I did imagine something of the sort—did you get cold feet after your young man mentioned that he and I met eye to eye in the corridor outside the games room? He's a good-looking playboy, but possibly not as stupid as he appears.''You've got more damn nerve than a rattlesnake!' Dina exclaimed. 'I won't have Bay talked about in that sarcastic manner—who do you think you are?'
'It isn't a question of who I think I am, for I know the answer only too well. The problem is that you aren't sure of who I am, for you've never met my like before, have you, Dina? Did you really suppose that you could brush me off, and that I wouldn't hold to my threat of coming here to Satanita? It's a charming old property. Quite the castle for the Sleeping Beauty, with its own enchanted wood that might keep at bay anyone but a man intent on waking the princess from her trance. I've always felt that it would take a wily knave to break the spell rather than a boyish knight with his golden quiff across his brow.'
'Do you always talk in riddles?' she asked. 'I'm under no spell, and if I ever did need a gallant to
come to my aid, I'd choose someone I could trust. Bay did see you the other night and he wanted to know if you'd spoken to me. I had to lie to him, and I don't like.deceit.'
'Why do you feel you had to lie to him?' One of the dense black brows rose inquisitively. 'You could easily have said that some foreign waiter had accosted you-'
'Oh, stop it! I believe you're doing this because I called you a waiter.' Dina glanced round in a hunted way, for Bella would now be up and might appear at any moment, and it would be reasonable if she wanted to be introduced to this unexpected caller. Even in his tailored riding clothes he still looked utterly foreign, and the black moustache that curved down over his upper lip gave him an added air of diablerie. Bella would be far from pleased to make his acquaintance, especially when she learned that his only connection with the country club set was in the capacity of providing 'fodder and drink' for the members.
T do wish you'd go,' she said. 'My godmother won't like it if she finds out you came here uninvited. She keeps a strict eye on the coming and going of visitors, for there are valuable antiques in the house.'
'Really?' he drawled, and his eyes were infinitely mocking as they dwelt on Dina's tense face. 'I do assure you, Miss Caslyn, that I have no interest whatsoever in anything of antique value in your godmother's imposing house. In fact, I'm rather looking forward to meeting the lady.'
'You can't possibly do that! If you're hoping to crash your way into Pasadena society by way of meeting Bella, then you can think again. I can
assure you that restaurateurs are not on her visiting list.'
'I'm quite certain of that.' Not a fraction of his self-assurance had been dented by Dina's nulling remarks, and that glint of impudence was still there in his grey eyes. 'I can candidly say right this moment that the very last thing I want is to crash my way into the kind of society ruled over by formidable and snobbish old ladies whose main aim in life is to preserve the status quo of the middle classes, many of whom have grand houses and a secure income based on the mercenary dealings of ancestors outlawed from their homelands for various petty crimes, and packed off to colonial countries in bond to farmers and factory owners, whom they no doubt conned with such expertise that in no time at all they became the bosses. I quite admire their shrewdness and industry, but that doesn't make me feel subservient to your kind, Dina. I'd want no part of such a society if it were handed to me on a golden plate and fed to me from a jewelled spoon.'
'Then what are you doing here?' Dina wanted to know. 'If you despise my background so much, then what are you after?'
'Retribution,' he replied, and with the barest movement of his wrist he sent the lash of his whip curling around her waist. She gasped as she felt it biting into her and was compelled to move in his di
rection as he pulled on the whip. 'I come of a people, Dina, to whom the vendetta is as much of a driving force in the blood as the acquisition of wealth and privilege is in the bones of your breed.'
'You're doing this to me just because I didn't keep that rendezvous at Nun's Cove?' She spoke
indignantly and tried not to let the panic show that he had her firmly secured by his whip.
'The trick is to handle a woman or a horse without marking the skin,' he drawled, sensing her panic even as she fought not to show it. 'Why shouldn't I demand retribution for being let down?'
'Why, aren't you used to it?' She gave a scornful toss of her head. 'Do women usually obey your slightest demand and leap to do your bidding when you crack your whip? I suppose it must have come as a blow when I failed to show up. Did you fondly imagine that I would be there?'
'I was led to believe that young women who've been nurtured like hothouse blooms have courtesy among their virtues, but it would seem that I was mistaken.'
'So it counts as a crime if a woman dares to show you a little discourtesy? Really, Mr Ventura, you don't look that thin-skinned. In fact, I'd say you were one of the toughest men I'd ever met.'
'Even the toughest have their vulnerable moments. I was exceedingly piqued at having to lunch alone when I had expected company. I had to feed half the caviare to the fishes, and champagne lacks sparkle when there isn't a woman to share it, especially a haughty, honey-eyed little blonde. I warned you not to break that date, didn't I? I said I'd come to Satanita and you obviously thought that the guarded gates of the fortress would keep me out. A wily brigand never attacks from the front when from the rear he can take the fort without firing a shot.'
'I suppose that's how you've succeeded in business, you find out the weak place, the chink in the
armour, and you take your competitors and opponents by surprise. You're a dangerous man, aren't you, Mr Ventura?'
'I hope I am,' he drawled. 'Men without any danger in them must be as bland as apple pie without cloves; as a tiger without teeth. The unpredictable elements in life are surely more exciting than those we can predict? It's in the nature of the human animal, that need to feel the adrenalin pumping through the veins. Without that we'd be figures of wax and fixed attitudes.'
The annoying fact for Dina was that she found herself agreeing with what he said, but nothing short of torture would have made her admit it. He was a tiger, all right, and he had a set of strong white teeth that had clamped themselves in the scruff of life and given it a powerful shake.
Her eyes raced over his face and saw there the subtlety and strength that made him so different from young, smooth men like Bay who had not had to stalk their fortunes through the jungles of trade and commerce. The tiger analogy was very close to the skin of Raf Ventura; he moved with the lithe, noiseless gait of the jungle's most wily inmate; his reactions would be equally alert, his attack just as swift and deadly.
Dina felt a strong sense of antagonism towards him, and yet she couldn't have said that his looks, his voice, or his manner of dressing were repellent to her. He made her feel unsure of herself; he disproved the theory that men and women were only persons ... she was unbearably aware of being a female whom this particular male could have rendered senseless with an uppercut and carried off into the depths of the garden. His toughness of
body extended to his feelings, she was sure of that ... he was also a self-made man who didn't like being given the brush-off by a socialite, and Dina supposed' that she came under that heading as the goddaughter of one of Pasadena's wealthiest, most prominent women.
Yes, that was how he'd regard her, unaware that she could gaze down the years to a time of shadow, when she had been too young to understand why she came to live with Bella and why her father lived like a beachcomber ... until he suddenly disappeared and there were whispers about suicide ... or a shark off-shore.
With a sudden, unexpected jerk of the whip he brought her right against him. 'Cool as ice, aren't you?' he said. 'Sure of your place and the life you plan to live with your nice young man.'
'Why not?' she said, giving him a defiant look even as she felt the hammering of her heart, and a physical dominance never encountered in her life before. 'I shan't be marrying a tame man, even if you think he is. Bay was out in Vietnam—he hasn't gone through life without facing danger. While he was fighting you were probably serving pheasant flambe!'
'I was serving all right,' he drawled. 'I flew helicopters over the battle areas and I had to pick up those wounded beyond our own lines—oh yes, I saw quite a few cases of flaming carcase, Miss Caslyn.'
Dina caught her breath and realised that in terms of years he was not all that much older than Bay Bigelow, he only looked as if he had lived a decade more than Bay.
'Say you're sorry,' he ordered. 'Just because I
don't come out of the same smooth mould as your
boy-friends, that doesn't mean that I'm creaking with age. How old did you think I was?'
'I—I hadn't given it a moment's thought. Your age is nothing to me—why should it be?'
'Because spring and winter just don't mix. I'm thirty-six, to be exact; my birthday was on Wednesday and my party just wasn't what I'd hoped it would be.'
'Oh-' Dina flushed slightly, and wished he
didn't have such a knack for taking her by surprise. 'I'm sorry about that, but you might have guessed that I wouldn't be there. I don't play around behind my fiance's back—he's much too nice.'
'Nice?' Raf Ventura raised a black eyebrow. 'Is that all you're asking from life, for a nice boy to fit you into his schedule that's crowded with polo matches, golf tournaments, and tennis bouts? Are you so scared of a full relationship with a man that you actually welcome the idea of playing fourth fiddle in his orchestra of sporting activities? When do you suppose he'll have the time or the energy for you?'
'Oh—how dare you say such a thing!' Sheer blazing anger flashed through Dina and she raised a hand and struck at him, hating him, a stranger, for raking up what had lain at the root of her own pensive, almost lonely feeling the night this man had walked into her life. His facial bones felt hard under the impact of her hand, and she heard the slap and saw his lips twist into a mordaunt smile under the black edge of his moustache.
'Does the truth have to be nicely dressed before it's served up, Miss Caslyn, like everything else in your world? Don't you people like to know that the
turtles are stewed alive before the soup comes to your table; that certain cats and other creatures suffer the torments of the damned so you can hide your basic humanity in a cloud of scent and soft furs? Can you honestly say that you haven't longed at times to join the human race?'
'Shut up!' She shivered in the sunshine that came slanting through the trees and across his face, making his eyes seem like darkly burning steel. 'I didn't ask for this, to have my thoughts and feelings speared out of me—by you I What have I done to you?'
'Had the temerity to get under my skin, perhaps. I look at you, Dina, and realise how sweet vengeance might be.'
'Revenge is an evil thing,' she said, in a strained voice. 'We're supposed to turn the other cheek.'
'Then I'll turn it, Dina, and you can slap me a second time—only I warn you that you may bring out the devil in me.' He turned his head mockingly, and she ran her eyes wildly up and down that hard-boned profile, with deep lines incised in the dark skin. It was an incredibly Roman profile, as if stamped in weathered bronze ... one of those coins from old tombs, with a mysterious significance to it. When she didn't speak, he lowered his voice until it was softly grating against her ear.
It's traditional for the devil to call on Eve in her garden. Aren't you tempted ... with me you can speak the painful truth. You don't have to spare my sensitive feelings with a soft lie.'
'I—I thought you were threatening me, but now you speak of temptation.' Despite the fear, the edgy panic, the resentment of the way he had come here, riding through the grounds of Satanita like some
/> swarthy figure of Latin vengeance, Dina spoke bravely enough. It was a defiant kind of bravery, like that she displayed when out with the Pasadena hunting pack, with those blood-lusting hounds racing in for the kill. She hunted because Bella expected her protegee to do so, but no one knew how desperately Dina hated the savagery of it, and how much she was on the side of the vixen. She cheered inwardly when the vixen went to earth and evaded the hounds, even as she maintained a look of cool disinterest; a look which she tried to maintain in the face of Raf Ventura.
'The idea of tempting you, Dina, is far more intriguing than any threat could be. I wonder,' his eyes moved deliberately over her face, 'if you fully realise the impact that your cool air of chastity has on a man?'
'It would doubtless appeal to you, Mr Ventura, to want to drag my sort through the mud,' she retorted. 'Will that satisfy your urge for vengeance, to make me look cheap? Is that what you're hoping to do? Then I'll walk into the sea before you do it—you won't drag me down!'
'It isn't that easy to die, honey, and I speak from the experience of seeing men survive injuries like nothing you could ever imagine.'
'Walking into the sea is different,' she said, and the distant shadow of her father's disappearance was there in her eyes. '
'Maybe for someone who can't swim,' he said, and he was looking down at her with narrowed eyes, glittering under his lowered lids. 'I know you can because I saw you in the pool at my Sun Tower, but when people are lost in the sea there is usually a good reason, such as a killer shark in the
mood for an attack.'
'Oh God,' Dina gave a shudder, 'do you have to be so graphic?'
'Yes, if I'm going to prove to you that dying is as difficult as living, and often a lot more painful.' He looked downwards into the expanded pupils of her eyes, as if seeing there his own lean and rather merciless face. 'I watched you unobserved during that week you stayed at my hotel, cool-skinned, reserved, the perfect little lady reared by Bella Rhine-hart to make the perfect marriage with the son of a Senator. How very different our two lives have been, for I've worked my way up from dishwasher to food carrier, to laying the tables and then serving the clients. I have no regrets for the way I've worked and schemed, for in the end I achieved my goals—all but one.'
The Sun Tower Page 4