- ... amusing.' .".' 'I shan't find it so!' J^ 'Quien sabe?' he queried sofdy. ^ Rosalie flushed miserably. The man was crazy with jeal; ^ ousy and rage, and now he seemed to be finding her oiesir:4- able. He thought she was a foreign girl of no account with ; ; permissive morals, and to what lengths he might go to : satisfy his outrage, she shuddered to think. Neither heard the approaching car, but as it sounded its horn, Don Rafael acted with quick resource. Enclosing her waist with his other arm, he swung her round behind his ^ 'own vehicle, and bending over her, covered her face with ;- his. Rosalie felt his thin satirical lips close over her mouth, preventing any outcry while he held her crushed against his :.:@ chest. [ She heard a nasal American voice from the car say with |},' amusement : J:^ 'I'm all for free expression, but they might choose some1 where more private than the middle of the road!' A man's throaty chuckle answered it. 'Latin ardour, baby, they can't restrain themselves.' The car edged past Rafael's stationary vehicle and vanished in a swirl of dust. Though she knew perfectly well that the Conde's em35 brace had been merely to camouflage their real position, and prevent her from calling out for help, Rosalie was assailed by a host of conflicting sensations engendered by that close contact. Surprise, anger and dismay mingled with a tumult in her blood. Nor did he immediately release her when the car had passed. He continued to press her body into the hardness of his, enjoying his sense of mastery over her, and his lips became bruising. When at lengdi he raised his head, and his hold relaxed, and she saw the little triumphant smile twisting his lips, sheer fury submerged all other feelings'. Wrenching one arm free, she struck him across die face. '@ 'So,' he said softly, 'you have claws, hello, mia.' He smiled cynically. 'When a woman strikes a man's face it is j an invitation, is it not, an attempt to rouse his ardour ... or something else.' 'It wasn't!' she cried storrruly, struggling in bis grasp. 'I think you're horrible, a brute and a beast!' Futile words, but she was bewildered by her conflicting ; emotions, and outraged by his behaviour. 'Excellent!' Again he smiled, that thin, meaning smile, j which doused her fury in a trickle of fear. 'You are muy ; hermosa when you are enraged, but we could find pleasanter surroundings to continue the battle, unless you wish me to embrace you every time a car passes, and they will become more frequent as the day grows cooler.' 'This is preposterous!' she exclaimed desperately. 'And you are wasting your time, because I will never tell you my brother's whereabouts.' She felt him tense. 'So you do know where they are?' Realising that she had made a slip, she hastily amended: | 1 mean I wouldn't if I could.' ! 36 J'That I intend to prove. Will you please to get into my J, 'I won't!' I 'Must I use force?' gig; 'Senor, you wouldn't be so unchivalrous.' g' 'Women like you are undeserving of chivalry.' His mouth g|set grimly. 'I am in earnest, senorita. Do not imagine diat gittle bit of play-acting just now has softened me.' Kr.The hot sun upon her uncovered nape and head, the assault upon her emotions, began to affect Rosalie unpleas@antly. The landscape" wavered before her eyes, Don Rafael |seemed to be retreating. As her giddiness increased, she put ga hand to her eyes and swayed. Before she actually passed |but, she heard the Conde utter a muttered imprecation, and t:was aware that he picked her up in strong sinewy arms and ;;knew no more. p; When she recovered herself she found she was sitting in 0he front of the car which was speeding back up the road ^towards the castle. The familiar ochre walls enclosing the Kmain building undulated upwards over the slope of the hill, sand stretched along by the roadside, marking the limits of the Conde's domain. ^ She murmured distressfully: 'My bag, my passport!'' 'For when last she had seen them they had been lying in die 'road, and without such necessary appendages she would be [stranded. 'Everydiing of yours is in the back of the car,' her companion reassured her, 'including your case, sunglasses and head-scarf. Brute I may be, but I would not abandon your property.' He slowed down to take the right angle turn through an 3pen gap in the walls. The original gates had long since rusted into immobility on either side of it. Opposite to 37 them, the parador showed small figures seated in the garden, Ae one patch of green in a desolate landscape. Only a few gnarled olive trees grew beside the Castillo de las Aguilas. Rosalie looked towards them widi yearning eyes, but they were too far away to hail. As the car checked almost to a crawl to negotiate the narrow opening, Rosalie seized the door handle, with some idea of escaping before it was too late. Instantly he reached over and removed her groping fingers. 'I should not do that,' he warned her. 'In your present state you would not get far. I am sorry, I did not intend to expose you to sunstroke.' His lips parted in a sudden dazzling smile, die first genuine one she had seen from him, disclosing white even teeth. 'You are too valuable a hostage to put at risk.' He had stopped the car while he sought to restrain her, and then his patience exhausted, he snarled: 'Will you keep still, or must I knock you out?' A glance at his face decided her to desist. He looked quite capable of carrying out his threat. 'Okay, I submit to superior force,' she said weakly, and subsided into her seat, aware that her head was throbbing. The car started with a jerk, and approached the zig-zag rutted drive diat led up to the castle's massive front door, within which the man beside her was absolute master. Rosalie said in a trembling voice: 'If yours are an example of Spanish manners, I'm not impressed!' To her surprise her companion coloured, a dull red suffusing his olive complexion, and he muttered almost shamediy: 'The circumstances excuse my actions.' 'They don't, you know.' She was pleased that her thrust seemed to have gone home. 'You're behaving like a thug!' 38 Ee said savagely: 'Then what do you call your brother's iviour? He steals my novia and my gift to her to pay his nses, and you of course were to have your cut from the of the diamonds.' f} 'I never dreamed of such a thing!' she cried indignantly. I; 'Then if you are- genuinely innocent, why do you conjtfnue to cover up for diem?' p 'I keep telling you I had nothing to do with it.' | He stopped the car in front of the entrance and turned in |his seat to look at her. A faint puzzlement gathered about Ibis brows as he met her candid gaze. I 'It cannot be that I am mistaken about you,' he said more I to himself than to her, and shook his head. 'No, no, you are [the same as all the foreign girls who come here seeking for ^.an affair.' t 'A sweeping assertion. I came to work.' @ 'At die parador for a pittance? I can hardly credit diat ^that would be an inducement to a girl with your personal ^assets.' His eyes narrowed and glinted through half-closed flids. 'The hotel was your hunting ground, and you are ; feigning this fine show of reluctance.' Rosalie's eyes flashed ;
The willing hostage Page 3