help thinking ' His dark dreamy eyes had a certain
glint of shrewdness so that Kirstie lowered her own gaze
rather than look at him. 'Had it happened before, Kirs-tie? I mean, have there been other times, apart from that time in the hall when your grandfather was missing?'
Because it was easier to think clearly if she wasn't in touch with him, Kirstie eased herself away and walked a Httle way along the narrow path. A pointless manoeuvre since Luis followed her closely. She was tempted to deny that there had been other occasions, but she had a feeling that he wouldn't believe her.
'A couple of times,' she admitted casually, as if it was easy to dismiss kisses that had seared her heart and soul with their fierceness, 'but I'm not silly enough to take them seriously, even if Senora Montanes does.'
'I see.' And he did, she thought, despite her attempt to make light of it, for he suddenly beat one fist into the palm of his hand and he was scowling in a way that quite spoiled hrs good looks. 'Damn Miguel,' he swore, 'why can't he leave you alone? What gives him the right to kiss you where and when he feels like it? I don't like it; you're my girl, not his, and he has no right!'
'I'm no one's,' Kirstie insisted firmly, but there was a slight flush in her cheeks and a gleam in her eyes that Luis took note of as he again took her face in his hands and gazed down at her.
'You're not in love with him?'
'In love with him?' Until that moment it hadn't even crossed her mind, but it occurred to her suddenly just how close she had come on one or two occasions to falling in love with Miguel. It was an alarming and a disturbing thought and she hastened to put it away from her, shifting her gaze to avoid Luis's dark, brooding eyes. 'I'm not in love with anyone,' she told him. 'No one at all.'
'Oh, surely a little with me, my pigeon, eh?'
'I could be, I suppose.' Pressing her face between his hands, Luis frowned over her reluctance to admit it, but Kirstie looked up at him again suddenly and she pursed her mouth reproachfully as she sought to bring the con-
versation back into safer channels. 'But obviously you're not wholehearted about being in love with me or you'd lend me Suli!'
Luis groaned as he ran both hands through his hair and shook his head slowly. 'I can't risk him throwing you as he did Rosa, please understand that, Kirstie! And I didn't come here to spend my time talking about my wretched horse!'
He attempted to draw her closer, but something he had said had caught her attention, and Kirstie held him off, looking up at him curiously. 'You said—^throw me Hke he did Rosa,' she reminded him. The last time we spoke about that you were prepared to believe I'd hit her and knocked her out; are you convinced now that Suli threw her?'
'I'm convinced!' Luis agreed impatiently, and attempted to pull her close again. 'I know now that's what happened. Kirstie!'
He pulled her close against him and kissed her much less gently than before, holding her so tightly that she could scarcely breathe, let alone move, and just briefly the significance of what he had said faded from her mind as she was carried along with his passion. From her mouth, his lips moved on to her half-closed eyelids, to her neck, and the soft pulsing spot at the base of her throat, until eventually the increasing ardour in his voice, muffled in the thickness of her hair, and his hands roused her to realisation, and she turned her head swiftly from side to side.
'No, Luis!'
In the soft confusion of her hair, his voice was ragged with emotion. 'I'll do anything for you, my love,' he vowed recklessly. 'If you want Suli I'll give him to you-^ he's yours!'
'Oh no, Luis!' Anxiously she pushed him away, looking up into his handsome and slightly flushed face with dark glowing eyes that were so disturbingly like Miguel's at the moment that she shivered. 'I don't want your horse; I couldn't,take him. Miguel would never forgive
either of us if you did anything as silly as that!'
*Miguel!' He pulled her breathtakingly tight into his arms again and spoke close to her ear in a thick hoarse voice. 'Miguel has too much to say about things, it seems to me! If you don't want to have Suh, you can at least ride him, my pigeon!' He eased her away for a moment and looked down into her slightly bemused eyes, smiling and defiant. *I shall be there to make sure nothing happens to you, so why not? Does that please you, hah?'
'Oh, Luis!'
On impulse she tiptoed and kissed him, and Luis pulled her close again to kiss her mouth with a hard urgency that took her breath away. *And you'll remember how I have indulged you, won't you?' he whispered.
Quite sure that he would remind her if she ever did forget, Kirstie nodded. 'Can we go this evening?' she ventured, and his immediate reaction was a frown that suggested he was already beginning to regret having been so impulsive.
'You won't waste any time, will you?' he asked, and was obviously considering it carefully. 'It won't be easy and I shall have to be careful about bringing out two horses together, in case Miguel sees me.' He thought about it for a moment, then nodded slowly. 'I'll bring Suli down here before Miguel gets back and then take Scheherazade afterwards, at the last minute. If he notices that Suli is gone he'll think either Rosa or I have taken him, and if I can get the mare out without him knowing, so much the better.'
'That sounds O.K.'
In fact Kirstie felt surprisingly badly about deceiving Miguel, but she wouldn't let Luis see it, and he looked down at her with bright speculative eyes for a moment, then kissed her mouth lightly and smiled. 'We can get the better of Miguel between us, my lovely, eh?' Kirstie nodded. 'I'll come for you about seven?'
'About seven,' she agreed, but there was a slightly reflective look in her eyes that he noticed and ques-
tioned. 'I was thinking about what you said earlier,' she told him. 'You said you knew now what had happened, about Rosa being thrown. What exactly did you mean, Luis?'
Luis shrugged, and it was clearly not the subject he had in mind to discuss, but Kirstie was looking at him in a way that suggested she was not interested in anything else at the moment. * Miguel got the truth out of her,' he said. 'He finally got her to admit that Suli bolted with her and she was knocked off her seat by a branch across the track. She admitted that you'd had nothing to do with it at all, that she hadn't even seen you.'
'Just as I said.'
It was odd how strangely humbled she felt suddenly. She had so readily accepted Luis's alternative suggestion that Miguel's only motive in persuading Rosa not to call in the guardia had been to prevent a family scandal. The fact that he had gone to the trouble of making her tell the full truth could only mean that he had done so with the specific purpose of clearing Kirstie of blame.
'Rosa didn't want to admit it,' Luis went on, and clearly he wasn't altogether happy about his brother's motive for exerting so much pressure, 'but Miguel worked on her like a latter-day inquisition.'
'I'm grateful to him,' said Kirstie, and felt a wonderful sense of satisfaction, even though Rosa Montaiies was likely to hate her even more because of it.
'It's cleared the air, I suppose,' Luis allowed grudgingly. 'Rosa would never have allowed anyone but Miguel to talk to her the way he did, but you know Miguel when he puts his mind to something, he never lets go.'
'I know,' Kirstie said softly, and wished suddenly that she had the nerve to tell Luis she would rather not ride his Suli after all.
It had seemed such a long day to Kirstie, and the fact that she had seen nothing of Miguel seemed to matter far more than it usually did. Now that she knew how
determinedly he had prised the truth out of Rosa it somehow made the prospect of her clandestine ride with Luis rather less enjoyable, and she wished she knew a way to tell Luis that she'd had second thoughts. It would give rise to endless speculation if she suggested it, and she couldn't face Luis's inevitable questions.
With one eye on the time, she was putting the finishing touches to the evening meal that would be ready for when she came back, and she could feel her grandfather watching her, making her uneasy. The kitchen and
the tiny salon were connected by an open archway and it was easy to carry on a conversation with someone in the next room, although so far her grandfather had said nothing of what was on his mind.
Lunchtime was the first time Luis had called at their home and Don Jose had been delighted to see him, although it was clear that he had expected to be given more of his time than the mere formality of an introduction and a polite request that he speak with Kirstie alone for a few moments. Kirstie had realised it, but not Luis, and she was half expecting the matter to be raised sooner or later.
'I hoped when Don Luis came here today that he came with a specific purpose in mind,' her grandfather observed, and Kirstie sighed inwardly because she knew exactly what specific purpose he was referring to.
'He came to talk to me, Abuelo, that's all.'
A raised brow made it plain that Don Jose suspected her of being evasive. 'From the short time I was able to see you in the garden,' he said, 'that young man came for considerably more than polite conversation, Kirstie. In view of the way he was behaving then I quite expected him to ask to talk to me he's a very—demonstrative young man. Has there been any mention of marriage between you yet?'
'None,' Kirstie replied promptly. 'I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed if you expect Luis to propose, Abuelo, he isn't ready to marry anyone yet, and I strongly suspect it won't be me he settles on when he is.'
Then he has no right to behave as I saw him behaving at lunchtime!' Don Jose declared firmly, and Kirstie left what she was doing and came through into the salon, smiling and shaking her head.
'Oh, that doesn't mean a thing to Luis; not to anyone these days, Abuelo.'
Don Jose looked distinctly shocked and it startled Kirstie to realise just how much her grandfather still lived in the world of his youth, yet she couldn't find it in her heart to blame him. 'No young woman should take her reputation so lightly,' he admonished, 'not even these days, my child. I'm quite certain that neither Senor Montanes nor Don-Miguel would countenance such behaviour in Don Luis if they knew of it.'
Kirstie's pulse was beating so much harder suddenly, * and she kept her eyes downcast, watching the fingertip that traced a pattern on the arm of her grandfather's chair. 'I can't answer for Senor Montanes,' she told him, 'but Don Miguel is fully aware of the way Luis behaves.'
'And he doesn't object?' Don Jose demanded. 'I find that very difficult to believe, Kirstie!'
Kirstie knew he had a very soft spot for the man who had, she was forced to recognise, done all he could to make her grandfather's loss as bearable as possible, and she hesitated to shed a different light on him. Yet it was because they were so friendly and Miguel had not men- | tioned his own occasional lapses in that direction that she wanted to correct his picture of him. Miguel had his good points, she had good reason to know that, but he was not the paragon of virtue that her grandfather saw him as; a view that in Kirstie's opinion made him appear less of a flesh and blood man than he really was.
'Don Miguel is in no position to object, Abuelo,' she told him quietly, 'because he's kissed me himself on more than one occasion. The last time was when Senora Montanes saw us together in the stable one day last week; she made such a fuss about it that I've been forbidden to visit the stables again or to ride Scheherazade,
until she's gone home.'
*My dear child!'
*So now you know why I haven't been riding for nearly a week,' Kirstie said, and her grandfather frowned at her curiously, not yet taking in the full significance of what she had said.
'Don Miguel has forbidden you?'
Kirstie shrugged. 'He and Seiior Montanes agreed it between them, I think. Rosa Montanes can be pretty nasty, in fact I know she once threatened to keep Margarita away from her grandfather if she couldn't get her own way.'
'A very unpleasant character,' Don Jose observed disapprovingly.
'Very, but as it happens I am going to get a ride if Luis can bring off the plan he has. He's finally agreed to risk Miguel's wrath and let me ride Suli.'
'Surely if you've been forbidden ' Don Jose began,
but she shook her head quickly.
'Suli doesn't belong to Miguel as the other two horses do, and he's worked it out that if he can bring Suli out and then sneak Scheherazade out for himself we shan't actually be breaking any bans. Except that Miguel has threatened Luis with all kinds of retribution if he lets me ride the gelding. Anyway, it's done now.'
She shrugged because she was less and less happy about the whole idea, although she would have to go through with it now. The way her grandfather was looking at her did nothing to make her feel any better either. 'You're proposing to go riding despite the ban on your doing so?' he asked, and Kirstie nodded.
'Providing there are no hitches, Luis should be here about seven for me, so he said.'
Don Jose was silent for a moment, then he got to his feet and he was drawn up to his full height as he looked at her so that Kirstie instinctively shrank from the wrath to come. Her grandfather could look every inch the proud hidalgo when he chose to, and his features were implacable, leaving his feelings in no doubt.
'Whether or not there was good reason for Senora Montaiies' jealousy I won't go into now,' he told her, 'but I know Don Miguel as a good and generous man. Your plan to deceive him, quite deliberately, is underhand and quite unworthy of you, Kirstie. Riding is a privilege granted to you by Don Miguel and it shows a sad lack of gratitude on your part when you set out to deceive him! When Don Luis comes you will '
'It's too late,' Kirstie told him, and her own regrets added weight to her grandfather's criticism. 'The gelding is already tethered just outside our patio wall, Abuelo, and Luis will here here in a few minutes.'
'Kirstie!'
'I know, I knowV She turned and looked at him and her eyes were suspiciously misty. 'I wish I could get out of it now, especially since Luis told me how—how Miguel forced Rosa to tell the truth about her accident, and cleared me of blame. But what can I do?'
Don Jose regarded her steadily for a moment, then he shook his head slowly. 'It seems Don Miguel has your welfare very much at heart,' he observed quietly. 'Which makes your deceiving him very much worse, my child, don't you agree?' Kirstie nodded miserably. 'Therefore when Don Luis arrives either you will tell him that you want no part of the deception or I shall tell him myself.'
Kirstie bit her lower Hp anxiously, for she knew how Luis was going to react whichever one of them told him the ride was off. 'I—I'll tell him,' she promised in a small husky voice. 'I don't know how I'll tell him because I've begged him and begged him for nearly a week to let me ride Suli, his gelding, against Miguel's strict instructions, and if I tell him I've changed my mind '
'Isn't it possible he'll be relieved?' her grandfather suggested quietly, and Kirstie had to admit to the possibility.
'Perhaps,' she allowed with an unhappy shrug.
Her grandfather was a stern and authoritative man, but he was also a loving one, and she was so obviously
contrite that he was moved to take her in his embrace and pat her shoulders consolingly. 'You're a foolish child,' he murmured, 'a pretty, foolish child, and I can only hope that you find a strong and loving husband to care for you. Now that I've learned more about young Don Luis I'm not nearly so certain he would make a desirable husband for you, he's far too irresponsible.'
Kirstie could not restrain a smile, and she kissed him fondly. 'I've known that all along,' she told him, 'but you were so keen on the idea, Abuelo.'
A brief nod acknowledged his error, but Don Jose looked thoughtful as he glanced at his wristwatch. 'As you won't be changing into riding clothes,' he said, 'change into another dress, Kirstie, that one is far too businesslike for having dinner. If Don Luis comes while you're changing I'll entertain him until you're ready; that is if you're certain you want to tell him yourself about your change of plan.'
'I'm certain,' Kirstie told him, and hugged him for a moment. 'Thank you, Abuelo.'
The little b
arraca was built all on one level and it had taken her a long time to get used to everything being so close together; in truth she still wasn't really used to it. Going into her bedroom simply meant walking from the tiny salon through another door leading from it, and she heard her grandfather heave a great sigh as she closed her bedroom door. He really had set great store by Luis as a husband, she thought, but it had never really been even a remote possibility; she liked Luis, she found him very attractive, but she didn't love him and that was the only reason she would marry any man, rich or poor.
She had washed and changed her dress and was brushing her hair when she heard a knock on the outer door. A hard, brief knock that for some strange reason set her pulse racing wildly, and had her staring at her bedroom door in a kind of dazed curiosity. It could be Luis, it should be Luis, and yet every instinct told her that it wasn't.
The buzz of voices followed as her grandfather admitted the caller, and the moment she heard the other man's voice, even muffled as it was by the thick wooden door, she knew she had been right What concerned her most was why Miguel was there instead of Luis, for she couldn't quite believe in the coincidence of them both calling at the same time, and she stood for several minutes with the hairbrush held tightly in one hand.
She couldn't hear what was being said, just the two voices talking together, and the frustration of not knowing was nerve-racking. The suspense ended when a light tap on her door preceded her grandfather's quiet but authoritative voice. *Kirstie, if you're dressed will you come out here, please?'
She didn't reply, but put down the hairbrush and opened the bedroom door. Only her grandfather was visible at first, but when he turned and walked back across the salon she saw Miguel standing by the window, so tall that he seemed to fill the little room with his presence.
The Black Invader Page 14