Sweet Torment

by Flora Kidd

  `Buenas noches, Sorrel,' he said. `I'm sorry I've kept you waiting, but you see I thought that Inez was playing a trick on me when I received the message that an Englishwoman with red hair was waiting to see me, so I didn't come at once.' He shrugged and smiled tolerantly. 'She has a mischievous sense of humour.'

  It was relief because Gabriela hadn't made a mistake which was making her legs suddenly shaky and causing her heart to leap about in the most alarming way, Sorrel decided. It couldn't be anything else. It couldn't be gladness to see him. It mustn't be.

  `I was just thinking of leaving,' she said coolly, holding herself stiffly and trying to return his gaze steadily, but her glance would keep straying to the sheen of his bare skin in the lamplight, to the froth of dark hairs on his chest. Strange how a casually worn waistcoat drew attention to his body rather than covered it and made her even more aware of his overpowering masculinity than if he had worn nothing.

  'I noticed you were looking at the pictures of the corrida,' he said, moving past her and going to sit on the corner of the desk much as the woman she assumed to be his wife had done. 'Do you like bullfighting?'

  `I ... I've never seen a fight,' she admitted honestly. 'Are all those photographs on the wall of you?'

  `Si. Mostly taken at my last professional fight.'

  Sorrel flicked a glance at the one where he was being tossed by the bull, shuddered again and turned her back on it, only to meet the mocking glint of grey eyes .which were watching her.

  `I don't think I realised before that the fight could be just as bad for the matador as for the bull,' she murmured. It's quite cruel and degrading.'

  'You think so? It is actually less degrading for the men than professional boxing or wrestling, and less cruel for the bulls than a steeplechase is for horses. Brave bulls are applauded here as much as brave men are.' He smiled. 'But you did not come here to argue about the corrida. Please sit down and be comfortable and let me pour you a drink.' He slid off the desk and went over to a cabinet which he unlocked and opened. 'Do you like guarapo? It is quite mild and pleasant and only slightly alcoholic.' He began to twist the top of a half full bottle and pour some of the pale liquor into two glasses.

  'Please, don't bother,' said Sorrel urgently. 'I must go.'

  'But not before you tell me why you are here,' he said, coming across to her and offering her one of the glasses. 'The muchacha Gabriela recognised me yesterday morning, didn't she?'

  'Yes.' Her hand closed round the glass and she wished he hadn't come to stand close to her again. There was an earthiness about him which was having the most devastating effect on her senses.

  'Too bad,' he said. 'So there was trouble?'

  She nodded and took a sip of the drink, hoping it wouldn't go to her head since she had had nothing substantial to eat since breakfast time.

  'Then put down your bag and come and sit over here and tell me about it,' he suggested softly. He took the bag from her hand, dropped it on the floor and guided her over to a love-seat, all curving mahogany and tapestried upholstery, which was set in the window alcove and, mesmerised by his surprising gentleness, she did not resist.

  'Now what happened?' he prompted.

  'I lost my job,' she said, shifting warily away from

  the vibrating warmth of him.

  He swore crudely in Spanish so that she turned a startled glance on him.

  'Bullfighter language,' he said with a grin, then frowned. 'What reason did he give?'

  `Senor Angel said I had lied to him and deliberately concealed your identity by saying you were called Domingo. He said he considered me untrustworthy and knew that I was involved in a conspiracy with his wife so he couldn't have me living in his home any more. Why didn't you tell me your real name? Why did you lie to me?'

  He stared at her for a moment, then turned away from her to lean forward with his arms resting on his knees.

  'It isn't easy to explain,' he said. 'As soon as I knew you were working for Ramon Angel I guessed there would be trouble for you if he found out you had spent the night with me. 'He paused, took a sip of his drink and then added in a voice edged with bitterness, 'My success as a matador has meant that most of my adult life has been lived in the full glare of publicity. I have only had to look at a woman and immediately it has been assumed that she is or will be my mistress.' He glanced over his shoulder to give her a frowning glance. 'You understand?'

  'I ... I think so.'

  'Then perhaps you'll understand also when I tell you I thought it in your best interests if I didn't tell you my real name so that you wouldn't mention it to your employer. I didn't lie. Domingo is one of my names, my second name.' He tossed down the rest of his drink and stared at the empty glass. 'My plan failed. I regret you lost your job as the result of having to spend the night with me.' He turned suddenly and leaned to-

  wards her, his arm along the back of the love-seat, his eyes smoky between the thick lashes, his mouth taking on a slant of tender mockery. 'When we parted yesterday I didn't think I would see you again so soon.'

  Danger signals zigzagged through her. He was too near, so near she could actually feel the warmth coming from his sun-tanned skin and smell the strange muskiness of it. She was torn between two desires; one was to reach out and touch him, feel beneath her fingertips the firmness of his body, lean forward and put her lips to the slant of his mouth, surrender to the subtle invitation she saw glimmering in his eyes; the other desire was to leap up and run from the room, run from, the house, go back to Medellin as fast as she could; back to ... what was it Monica had said? Back to safety and dullness.

  But she did neither. Avoiding his intent gaze, she looked down at the glass she was holding and said coolly,

  'I wouldn't have come if Monica hadn't insisted. She agreed with me that it was unfair I should lose my job and be blamed for something I hadn't done.' This wasn't entirely true, but it might have the effect of putting him in his place, by making him realise she hadn't come just to see him.

  `And I agree too,' he said, not moving away. 'I'd like to make amends ...!'

  'Oh, you can,' she said eagerly, interrupting him. 'You can do that by coming to Medellin with me to see Ramon Angel and tell him to his face that there was no arrangement between you and Monica to use me as a go-between.'

  Perdon? Excuse me, I'm afraid I don't understand what you're talking about.' At last he had moved away and her pulse was returning to normal.

  "It was Monica's idea that I should go skiing with the

  girls,' she explained. 'And now her husband believes that my meeting with you was deliberately planned. He believes she told me to find you and pass a message on to you and receive one from you for her.'

  'Message? What sort of message?' he demanded. His eyes had lost their warmth and were hard and cold like grey granite.

  'I've never been involved in anything like this before, so I'm afraid I wouldn't know,' she said sharply. She was feeling safe now, because he had stood up and gone over to the cabinet to pour himself another drink. 'But I do know that Ramon Angel believes that his wife or you, or both of you, are trying to revive the affair you were having before her accident.'

  'And she a cripple?' he drawled, cruelly jeering as he turned away from the cabinet, glass in hand.

  `She'll soon be able to walk,' she retorted. 'Since I've been supervising her exercises and giving her regular massage she's made a lot of progress.'

  'I see.' He gave her a narrowed sceptical glance, raised his glass and drank all the liquor in it. He set the glass down and stepped across to stand over her, his legs braced wide, his arms crossed over his chest. —And do you really believe that if I go to see Ramon Angel and say that I have no interest in reviving any affair I might have had with her you'll get your job back and she will win his trust back?' he asked.

  A little shaken by his obvious scepticism, Sorrel sat up as straight as she could and returned his ironic stare.

  'I wouldn't have come if I hadn't believed it was worth a tr
y. Will you do it, please? Will you come back to Medellin with me and tell Ramon Angel that he's wrong?'

  `No.' The hard curt negative sounded very final. 'I can't.'

  'But you said you'd like to make amends,' she argued.

  'Amends to you for losing your job, not to that insipid little bitch who got herself into the mess she's in by her own silly behaviour. Where are you going?'

  Infuriated by his jeers, she had jumped to her feet, set down her half-filled glass on the occasional table and grabbing her bag had plunged past him on her way out of the room, only to pull up short when she found he had moved faster than her and was standing in front of her with his arms outstretched, each hand resting on the wall of the archway to create a barrier.

  'I'm going back to Ibara,' she said, glaring at him. 'Why are you so angry with me?' he queried quietly. 'Because of your attitude to Monica. I suppose you

  did nothing and she did all the running.'

  'Esta vero—it is true. I have never run after a woman in my life.'

  'Meaning, I suppose, that the women have always run after you. Oh, how conceited you are!' she fumed.

  'Is it conceited, then, to speak the truth?' he countered. 'I didn't ask Monica Angel to ski at El Sombrero every time I went there. I didn't invite her to come here, to invade my privacy.'

  'You must have done something. It can't have been all one-sided.'

  'But it was. She is not the type of woman who would ever attract me, and if Ramon Angel had been doing his job as a husband properly she would not have been looking round for a lover.' His mouth lifted at the corner in a slight smile and his eyes softened. 'There are ways of keeping a woman contented and at home, most of them very pleasurable.'

  'Then why don't you use them on your own wife?' she flared at him.

  His arms dropped to his sides and he stared at her in amazement.

  'What wife?' he said. 'I do not have a wife.'

  'Oh, really, you're impossible! All right, so you don't have a wife because she has left you ...'

  'What in the name of God are you raving about now?' he exclaimed.

  'Your wife was here this afternoon. She let me in. She sent you the message that I was here. She's called Inez.'

  Folding his arms across his chest, he rocked back and forth on his sandalled feet and gazed down at her with narrowed eyes.

  `Ah, yes, Inez,' he drawled, his mouth twisting unpleasantly at one corner. 'She's pretty, isn't she? But she isn't my wife.'

  `Oh.' For a moment she felt very foolish. Then as she realised what Inez must have been to him she felt a flush stain her cheeks and the urge to be gone from that house as quickly as possible made her move forward again.

  'I should have known better than to come here,' she muttered, remembering Monica's warning as she stepped into the hallway, but he was there before her again, blocking the way.

  `Yet I am glad you came,' he said softly. 'And now that you're here I hope you'll stay.'

  'Stay?' She was so angry that she found speaking difficult and had to catch her breath. The nerve of the man, to suggest she should stay! 'You must be joking! I'm going back to Ibara to stay the night in the hotel there.'

  'And how will you get there?' he challenged.

  'I'll walk. Now if you'll just get out of my way ...' She tried to dodge round him, but each time he side-

  stepped to block the way. It was a game she couldn't win, because he was too quick. Frantic and frustrated, she lost her cool completely and shouted,

  'Oh, will you please stop treating me like one of your poor bulls and let me pass ! '

  'The comparison is a good one,' he mocked. 'For you are like a little bull, a red one with a temper, and you would like to gore me. Did you know we have a dance in Colombia called the chichimaya? In it the woman is the bull and tries to gore her partner. So try again, little red bull, and see what happens to you.'

  Goaded by his mockery, Sorrel lunged forward to pass him because he had stepped to one side and she could see the way clear to the front door. But she didn't get very far. An arm reached out and caught her round the waist. She was swung against his hard lean body and was held closely. Both of her arms were pinned to her sides by his and she could feel the roughness of the hair on his bare cheek against her cheek.

  'Let me go, let me go ! ' she cried, swinging her overnight bag against his legs in a puny effort to hurt him so that his hold would relax.

  'No.' he answered coolly. 'Now that you are here I'm going to keep you here to live with me.'

  'Live with you? You must be out of your mind ! ' she gasped, flinging back her head so she could look up at him. 'Oh, I can see now why Ramon Angel doesn't want his daughters associating with bullfighters,' she continued in a furious, breathless voice. 'You're not only immoral, you're crazy too. I don't want to live with you.'

  'You will after you've stayed here for a while,' he replied easily. 'At present you're so angry you don't know what you want.'

  'I'm not staying. You can't force me to,' she seethed,

  her independent spirit reacting violently against the idea of being constrained in any way.

  'I can. I can carry you to a room, lock you in it and starve you into submission,' he countered, and for a moment the inherent Spanish cruelty showed in the thinning of his lips and the steely glint of his eyes warning her to go more carefully.

  `Who do you think you are? Bluebeard?' she retorted, and felt her legs go shaky when he smiled suddenly in appreciation of her remark.

  `I've no wish to emulate that monster,' he murmured. 'I'd much rather use persuasion than force.' And bending his head so that his mouth hovered temptingly above hers, 'Stay with me, Sorrel. You'll be much more comfortable here than in that bug-ridden hotel in Ibara. Much safer too.'

  `Oh, I can see I'd be comfortable. You've certainly surrounded yourself with luxury. But safe?' She leaned away from him against the barrier of his arms and gave a little trill of laughter. 'With you? I doubt it. I doubt it very much.'

  `I've spent the day wondering how I could see you again and bring you here,' he mused as if she hadn't spoken. 'But you came of your own accord, so I'm not going to let you go now.' His hand slid up her back, under the silken curtain of her hair to curve about her neck. Inexorably he drew her towards him. She turned her face away from him, so he kissed the corner of her mouth, his lips moving lightly and provocatively until she gave in and her lips met his in a feather-light kiss which sent a shiver of ecstasy tingling down her spine. `Te quiero, Sorrel,' he whispered against her mouth. 'I want you, Sorrel.'

  'As a replacement for Inez?' she asked with mock sweetness, and felt as if she had scored a major point

  when he withdrew sharply. 'And didn't anyone ever tell you that you can't always have what you want?'

  'Si, many times when I was a child, but it had no effect. It made me more determined to have what I want or to search for ways to get it,' he replied coolly. 'But what is it you're saying about Inez?'

  'I'm saying I'm not like her,' she retorted, stepping away from him.

  'That's true,' he agreed softly. 'I wouldn't want you if you were.'

  'I mean I'm not the sort of woman who can be bought with expensive fancy clothing and fantastic jewellery,' she insisted.

  'I don't understand,' he said, making an expressive gesture with his hands and shrugging slightly. 'Explain, por favor.'

  'Oh, I don't suppose you do understand me any more than I understand you. We're poles apart in our attitudes to everything—and that's why I'm not staying to live with you. Buenas noches, senor.'

  She turned and walked quickly across the shining floor of the hallway towards the big oak door, her shoulders straight and her head held high. She fully expected him to follow her and didn't really know what she would do if he did. But he didn't. He didn't even call after her, and she was able to open the door and leave the house. Once outside she ran across the lamp-lit courtyard through the archway and into the lane which twisted down the hill towards the road to Ibara.


  CHAPTER FOUR

  HER overnight bag banged uncomfortably against her legs as she ran down the lane. The night was very dark. No lights twinkled from houses and no stars glittered in the moonless sky which was covered with clouds. And it was raining, a soft steady drizzle which soon soaked her head and seeped through her thin summer clothing.

  At last she had to stop and catch her breath. Apart from the pounding of her heart and the gasping of her breath she could hear only the pit-pat of raindrops on the leaves of the tall eucalyptus trees which edged the lane and the gurgle of water as it rushed along in ditches. It seemed that no one had followed her.

  I have never run after a woman in my life. Juan Renalda's remark rattled round her mind and her lips tightened. Conceited and domineering he was, spoiled by the adulation of hundreds of fans, and she should be glad he wasn't going to break his rule and run after her.

  Changing her bag over to her left hand, she set off again. No point in running any more if she wasn't being followed. If only it wasn't so dark and wet! If only she knew the lie of the land better. Stones on the rough surface of the lane turned under her feet, threatening to sprain her ankles. Water dripped down her neck chillingly even though the night was warm.

  How far to Ibara? About ten miles. And she had to choose the Colombian rainy season, as winter was known, to walk at night in open-toed sandals and without a waterproof. She must be as crazy as she had

  accused Juan Renalda of being.

  She should have listened to Monica, learned from the older woman's experience. Why had she come? Because she had believed in the sincerity of a man she had known as Domingo, had really believed he would help her to get her job back. Instead she had discovered he wanted to make amends only in a way which would benefit himself.

  She should have known better than to trust a man, she thought cynically, particularly one of his type, who had no morals and lived life according to his own laws.