The Overlord

by Susanna Firth

  CHAPTER THREE

  Time did not cool Verity's feelings. If anything it fanned the flames. She woke early next morning and lay, still half asleep, enjoying the sunlight streaming into her room and giving promise of another perfect January day. Then she groaned aloud as the realisation struck her. There was a large cloud on the horizon, in the shape of Ramón Vance.

  She did not think that she had ever disliked anyone quite as much as him. And, last night, she had made no secret of the fact. Not that he had cared. He had treated her like the spoiled brat that he obviously considered her. She did not mind about that; but what did matter was that her father had seemed to agree with him. She frowned at the thought. How dared the man make trouble between her and her father?

  She had got the meal under way, taking her time over the preparations in the hope that her father would arrive and give her the opportunity for a quick warning talk about their visitor before formal introductions were made. But eventually, realising that he had clearly been delayed, she was forced to abandon the idea and retreat to her room in one of the side wings of the house to make herself presentable for dinner.

  She took a quick bath in the antiquated bathroom that was one of four in the house, but the only one in reasonable working order, then surveyed her wardrobe for something suitable to wear. She pulled a face as she looked at the selection on offer. Usually she lived in jeans and T-shirts outdoors, ringing the changes in the evening with a few cotton dresses, most of which she had run up herself on her mother's ancient sewing-machine. There was not a thing that would come up to Ramón Vance's exacting standards.

  Her hand strayed towards her plainly-cut gingham school dress. Why not? After all, he had treated her like a child all day. She slipped it on, and, with an impish grin, set about braiding her hair. She looked about twelve, she thought, surveying the result with pleasure. Well, it would serve him right! He was used to women who made an effort to please him and dressed accordingly. Here was one at least who had no intention of doing any such thing and she didn't care a hoot about signalling the fact to him loud and clear.

  She looked at her watch. Six-thirty, and he had said that they would dine at seven. On the dot, if she knew anything about the man. Verity hoped that her father was not going to be held up. The prospect of dining alone with Ramón Vance was not a pleasant one. As she made her way back to the main part of the house she heard the sound of Mark Williams' voice and gave a quick sigh of relief. That was one danger averted.

  'Dad!' she called. 'You're back at last, thank goodness! The most awful thing has happened—' She broke off in horror as she realised that her father was talking, not, as she had supposed, to one of his men, but to Ramón Vance.

  Both men turned at the interruption and she skidded to a halt in front of them, the rest of her unwise speech hastily swallowed.

  'Verity!' Her father's look of surprised disapproval showed what he thought of her outburst. He cast a faintly apologetic look at the man by his side. 'I'm sorry, Mr Vance. My daughter tends to speak without thinking—'

  'I'd noticed already. A trait that the very young have, wouldn't you agree? Discretion comes with maturity.' Ramón Vance's dark eyes slid over her changed appearance with faint distaste.

  'You should have shown Mr Vance to the guest room, Verity,' Mark Williams reproached her. 'He'll want to freshen up before dinner, I expect. I know I certainly need to.' He looked down at his working clothes, dusty and smelling of horses, contrasting strongly with the immaculate appearance of the visitor. 'I'll leave you in Verity's capable hands, if you'll excuse me.' The brief glance he gave his daughter indicated that there would be trouble ahead if her treatment of their guest was less than gracious. 'She can be the perfect hostess when she tries.'

  'Except that you're not trying at the moment, are you?' Ramón Vance said softly as they were left alone. 'I suppose that,' he waved a contemptuous hand towards her dress, 'is supposed to provoke me, is it?'

  'And does it?' she asked him sweetly.

  'Not in the way you imagine,' he told her, his gaze roving over her figure, making her suddenly aware that last year's school clothes sat a little tightly on this year's more mature figure. The swell of her firm young breasts strained slightly at the buttons of the dress and the hem revealed a little more of her shapely legs than was fashionable, or, as she suddenly realised, indeed decent.

  'Don't look at me like that,' she said, absurdly self-conscious.

  'If you will walk round looking like an overgrown Shirley Temple, you must expect people to stare at you.' He gave a mocking laugh. 'I don't suppose I'm the only man to react that way.'

  'You're horrid,' she said childishly.

  'So I've been told, times without number.' He did not sound as if it bothered him. 'Now, what about doing as your father said like the dutiful child that you are and showing me to my room?'

  Verity stalked off in the direction from which she had just come. 'It's this way,' she said as rudely as she dared, stalking off in the direction from which she had just come and not deigning to look behind her to see if he was following or not.

  Verity had not realised how shabby the guest room was these days. It was so rarely used that no one had thought to bother slapping a coat of paint on the walls or replacing the faded curtains. The occasional representative from a company supplying cattle feed or chemical products stayed the night and school friends of her own had spent weekends there, but the rest of the time it was largely forgotten. She even skimped on its cleaning.

  Ramón Vance walked past her into the room. 'How charming! And so in keeping with the character of the rest of the house,' he commented dryly as he looked at the dust that lay thickly on top of a chest of drawers.

  'I don't have time to attend to everything,' she said defensively. 'It's a big house. When my father first lived here twenty years ago the estancia had a staff of forty. There were four men just to look after the gardens. Can you imagine it? And there was a housekeeper and maids to run the house. It was properly run then.'

  'Times change.' He tested the bed with one hand and the springs groaned protestingly.

  'And not for the better,' she told him. 'In the old days the owner cared what happened at the ranch even if he didn't actually live here. Now it's all handed over on a plate to someone like you.'

  'Are you saying that I don't care? I thought that was why I was here—to find out why the place isn't paying its way any longer.'

  'Money! Profits! That's all that people like you think about, isn't it? There are more important things in life,' she flared at him.

  'Not many,' he said calmly. 'What paid for your fancy schooling? What is it that clothes you, feeds you, gives you a chance in life? I think you'd be a little lost without it, for all your fine words.'

  'You wouldn't understand, of course,' Verity told him. 'It's no use talking to you.'

  'Perhaps not,' he agreed. 'I'm an insensitive brute, aren't I?'

  'You said it.'

  'But when you get to know me better—'

  'I've no desire to know you better, Mr Vance,' she retorted.

  He ignored her rudeness. 'You'll discover that I do have very strong feelings on some subjects. And let me tell you, if you persist in treating me like a bull to be baited, there's a distinct possibility that you'll get more than you bargained for.'

  She shot him a defiant look. 'I'm not afraid,' she said, but inwardly she felt a sudden frisson of pure terror. She was out of her depth with this man, however much she refused to acknowledge it. Bull-baiting—it was not a bad piece of description, except in what she knew of the sport, the odds were on the baiters, not the bull. This man was more than just a tough male animal, assured and confident of his own powers. He was crafty as well. Up till now he had been playing with her, she knew. If it came to a serious battle of wits, she had a strong suspicion that she would be on the losing side and she didn't like the idea.

  'I'm glad to hear it,' he told her pleasantly. 'It should make life round here quite interest
ing, even if you do capitulate in the end.'

  'Who's talking about capitulation?' she asked him pertly.

  'I am.'

  He could move quickly, she knew that. But, even so, he took her by surprise so completely that she had no time to react. One arm was around her before she knew what was happening and his hand had caught hers and was pinning them powerlessly behind her, while the other jerked her still closer to him.

  She trembled with a sudden strange excitement. There was something about this man that set her senses alight in a way that was new to her.

  'I warned you,' he said tautly. 'And you wouldn't listen to me, would you? You thought you knew better. Well, if reasoning with you doesn't work, let's see if this method brings any better results.'

  His mouth came down on hers with an insistence that she could not escape. And, after a few seconds of heart-stopping sensation, she was not sure that she even felt like trying to evade him. Her lips parted instinctively under his, her untutored senses began to respond to the skilled assault he was making on them. She must not surrender to him; that would be too humiliating. But she was not listening to any warnings now. It was too late for that, and she was being carried along by a tide of pleasure.

  Until he released her abruptly and stood back from her, leaving her half dizzy at the suddenness at his action. 'Perhaps that is the way to deal with you,' he said musingly. 'It shuts you up, at least. You haven't had much experience of men, have you, Verity?'

  At a sheltered convent school it was hardly likely that she would have done, but she didn't tell him that.

  Instead she shrugged. 'Did you expect me to respond with enthusiasm? I'm not one of your women. I don't even like you!'

  She did not like the smile that he gave her either. 'I didn't find you lacking in enthusiasm, just expertise.'

  'Oh, you—you—'

  'Yes?'

  She could not think of a word insulting enough to describe him. Her hand itched to make contact with his face, but she knew that if she tried anything of the kind he would take punitive action—and she had already had one taste of his mastery of her in that department. Instead she wiped her hand across her lips in a way that was intended to leave no doubt in his mind about how repellent she had found his kiss.

  'Just keep away from me, Mr Vance,' she warned as she backed cautiously towards the door.

  'You'd better make it Ramón,' he said carelessly. A devil danced in his eyes. 'As we're on kissing terms.'

  'That was the first and last kiss you'll get from me!'

  'A pity. With a little practice you could be quite something.'

  'So could you. You might start by trying to learn a few manners,' Verity flung at him. Then she took to her heels and fled to the safety of her own room, locking the door behind her as if she feared his pursuit. She need not have worried. The corridor outside her room remained silent and she was able to breathe again.

  Verity burned all over at the thought of that episode. How could he have acted like that? More important, how could she Was it really Verity Williams who had said those things, who had provoked a man to that pitch and who had enjoyed—yes, enjoyed what had followed? What was it about Ramón Vance that stirred her up like this?

  Her father had noticed it and had confronted her after the meal when she had withdrawn to the kitchen to make coffee. She intended to leave the two men to talk business while she washed up the dishes and then retired to her room.

  'What's the matter with you, Verity?' Mark Williams followed her out of the dining-room, shutting the door behind him so that their visitor could not hear the exchange.

  She feigned ignorance. 'Wasn't the meal all right? I did my best.'

  And she had, too. She had been determined to show the arrogant Mr Vance that there was one area in which she rated reasonably highly, even by his standards. Empanadas, small pasties containing a mixture of meat, raisins and olives, had been followed by arroz con pollo, one of her father's favourite dishes, consisting of rice, chicken, eggs and vegetables in a spicy, savoury sauce. She had offered cheese and biscuits for dessert. Neither she nor her father favoured the sweet, sticky pastries that were the usual fare on Argentinian tables. If their guest had the traditional sweet tooth of his countrymen, it was just too bad, she thought.

  'The food was excellent and you know it. I'm talking about the way you acted.'

  'What about it?' she asked, although she knew precisely what he meant.

  'Verity, I was ashamed of you. You hardly spoke to Mr Vance unless you had to, and even then you acted like a spoilt child. I don't know what he must be thinking of you!'

  She had a fair idea. After all, he had abused her in round enough terms before dinner. She felt herself go hot at the memory of that dialogue. 'Does it matter?' she said defiantly. 'Come on, Dad. He's no fool, I'll give him that. He knows that he's not welcome here.'

  'It's a difficult position to be in and I'm sure he accepts that. But you aren't helping. If you're behaving like this out of some sense of loyalty to me, forget it, love.'

  'I just don't like the man.'

  'You don't like him? Don't be stupid! You've hardly met him. How can you possibly tell whether you like the man or not? He seems pleasant enough to me.'

  Verity shrugged. She knew that she was not helping matters. 'I'm sorry, Dad, really I am. I can't help it. I suppose it's just instant antipathy. It happens sometimes.'

  'Well, it's not going to happen now,' her father said with unexpected firmness. 'Too much hangs on this man's say-so for us to be deliberately making an enemy of him.'

  'Don't ask me to play the hypocrite and act as if I liked him, she begged, 'I couldn't do it.'

  'I'm not expecting you to do anything of the sort. But I am telling you to treat him with the common courtesy that you'd give to any guest in the house.' Mark Williams sighed heavily. 'Don't make things any harder for me, Verity, please. He'll be here for a while, looking round at everything. It's not exactly going to be a bed of roses for me, you know, having to take him round with me all the time, having him watch me critically at every turn. If you're going to antagonise the man in the evenings, life isn't going to be very happy for any of us in the next few weeks.'

  'The next few weeks?' Verity echoed. 'He'll be here that long?'

  'Apparently.'

  She had groaned at the thought. How could she bear his presence in the house for a few days, let alone for an extended stay? But she had to try. 'I'll do my best, Dad,' she told him. 'But don't expect miracles, will you?'

  'That's my girl!' he smiled, and had returned to the dining-room looking considerably relieved.

  Their guest noticed her sudden efforts to be pleasant to him. Verity could tell from the gleam of faint amusement in the dark glance that slanted across at her all too frequently, although the bulk of his remarks were directed at her father. So he found it funny, seeing her forced to crawl to him, did he?

  After a quick cup of coffee she had. excused herself to wash the dishes, leaving the two men to talk business. Ramón Vance thanked her for the meal, complimenting her on her cooking, and she accepted the praise with a bright, false smile that she was sure hadn't deceived him for a moment. Hostilities were only postponed between them, something told her that.

  Verity sighed heavily as she pushed aside the covers and got out of bed. The very thought of Ramón Vance had spoilt the day for her already. And every day in the immediate future would be ruined for as long as he chose to stay at Vista Hermosa. But if her father could stick it, so could she, she resolved. She glanced at her watch and frowned. Here she was daydreaming and it was nearly half-past six! She would be late with breakfast if she didn't hurry. Her father was generally up at dawn and he would be getting impatient, although she doubted if their visitor would rise this early. In Buenos Aires they followed European customs and businessmen did not have to be in their offices until nine o'clock in the morning.

  He proved her wrong, of course. He would, she thought resentfully, as washed and dressed in
working gear of slacks and a cotton T-shirt, she made her way to the kitchen.

  'Buenos dias, seňorita,' he greeted her from the doorway as she was busying herself getting out plates from a cupboard. She jumped, and, only by clutching the crockery frantically to her, avoided disaster.

  She recovered and put the plates down on the table. 'Buenos dias,' she responded stiffly.

  He looked pointedly at his watch. 'Your father said that you were usually up before now. I was wondering if you'd Overslept.'

  'Were you going to come and shake me out of bed?' she asked him.

  'I was giving you another five minutes,' he said calmly. 'And then, who knows? Desperate diseases require desperate remedies.'

  'And are you desperate for my company, Mr Vance?'

  'No,' he said shortly. 'Just for breakfast. I've a hard day ahead of me.'

  'So I see. You've certainly dressed the part,' she told him scathingly. 'Are you proposing to show the gauchos a thing or two?'

  His business suit of the previous day had been discarded in favour of a casually-buttoned denim shirt, revealing the tanned column of his throat. Jeans of the same material hugged his hips and strong-muscled thighs and were belted with a stout leather strap, clasped with an ornate silver buckle. There was not much of the city-slicker about him this morning, she had to admit. He looked lean, tough and dangerous. But looks were not enough on the pampas. A man had to prove himself a man. Appearances counted for little or nothing: action was all. He was not going to rise to the bait. 'We'll see,' he said carelessly. 'After breakfast, if it's ever forthcoming.'

  Verity scowled at him and got on with her preparations. The sooner they ate, the sooner the obnoxious man would be out of the house and out of her presence. In record time she served up the usual meal of bife a caballo, steak topped with two fried eggs, with mountains of toast and coffee. She ate little herself, but the two men made a hearty breakfast. Her father at least would need the energy for the morning ahead. Coaxing frightened animals through the dipping troughs was hard, back-breaking work.