by Penny Jordan
Grimly Vidal turned away from the window to walk back into the house.
‘How long does it take to get to the castillo?’
Fliss’s question was delivered through firmly controlled lips as she stared straight ahead through the windscreen of an imposingly luxurious limousine. She was seated in the passenger seat whilst Vidal pulled away from the family townhouse and into the busy morning traffic.
‘About forty minutes—maybe fifty, depending on the traffic.’
Vidal’s response was equally terse, his attention outwardly focused on the road ahead of him. Although inwardly he was far more aware of Fliss’s presence in the car next to him than he liked to admit.
She was wearing a light-coloured summer dress, and as she had walked out to the car ahead of him he had seen how the sunlight striking through it revealed the long slender length of her legs and the curve of her breasts. Now, despite the leather smell of the car’s upholstery, he could still smell the fresh scent of Fliss’s skin—clean and yet subtly, erotically female—its delicacy causing within him an automatic need to move closer to her and so catch the scent properly.
Inside his head an image formed of Fliss’s body pressed close to his in paganly sensual offering. Cursing inwardly, Vidal fought to suppress his own body’s sexual reaction to that image, dropping his hand from the steering wheel and driving one-handed so that his arm could shield the physical evidence of his arousal from Fliss. He was thankful that she was staring ahead and not looking at him. The reality of seeing her now, as the woman she was and not the girl who had refused to leave his memory, should surely have diminished that desire—not increased it.
The silence between them was dangerous, Vidal acknowledged. It was allowing thoughts to flourish that he did not want to have. Better to silence them with mundane conversation than to give them free rein.
Keeping his voice neutral and distant, he told Fliss, ‘In addition to showing you your father’s house, I have some estate business to attend to before we return to Granada.’
Fliss nodded her head and then, unable to hold back the question, she asked him quickly, ‘Did … did my mother ever visit my father’s house?’
‘Alone, you mean? To spend time in private with your father?’
Fliss could hear what sounded like disapproval in Vidal’s voice. The same disapproval no doubt felt by his grandmother.
‘They were in love,’ she pointed out, immediately defensive of any criticism of her parents. ‘It would only be natural if my father—’
‘Had taken your mother to his house with the intention of bedding her, without any thought for her reputation?’ Vidal shook his head. ‘Felipe would never have done that. But then I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you should think of it, given your own behaviour and sexual history.’
Fliss sucked in her breath, her lungs cramping tensely before she exhaled, furious shaky. ‘You know nothing of the reality of either of those things.’
Vidal turned to look at her, disbelief hardening his expression. ‘Are you seriously expecting me to listen to this? I know what I saw.’
‘I was sixteen, and—’
‘And a leopard doesn’t change its spots.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ Fliss agreed furiously. ‘You’re the living proof of that.’
‘Meaning what, exactly?’ Vidal challenged.
‘Meaning that I knew then what you thought of me, and why you judged me the way you did, and I know you still feel the same way now,’ Fliss told him.
Vidal’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She had known how he had felt about her, despite all he had done to try and keep his feelings hidden from her—for her sake, not for his own? But of course she had, Vidal taunted himself. He had assessed her maturity and her readiness to know of his desire for her on her age, mistakenly believing her to be an innocent.
‘Well, in that case,’ he assured her curtly, ‘no matter what you know, let me assure you that I do not intend to allow those feelings to affect my duty and my responsibility to carry out my late uncle’s wishes with regard to your inheritance.’
‘Good,’ was the only response Fliss felt able to muster.
So it was true. She had been right. He had disliked her all those years ago and he still did now. She had already known that, so why did his confirmation of it make her feel so … so hurt and abandoned?
She had known how he felt about her when she came here. Or had she secretly been hoping for a miracle to happen? Had she been hoping for some kind of fairytale magic to wipe away the anguish she carried inside her? Leaving her free to … To what? To find a man with whom she could truly and completely be a woman, free to enjoy her sexuality without the stain of shame? Why did she need Vidal’s belief in her innocence to do that? She knew the truth, after all, and that should be enough. Should be. But it wasn’t, was it? There was something within her that could only be healed by. By what? By the touch of Vidal’s hand against that sore place in reparation and acceptance of her as she really was?
It was her father she had come here to seek—not Vidal’s acceptance of his misjudgement of her.
She had travelled a long way from the idealistic girl who had looked at Vidal and completely lost her heart. She knew that he was not the heroic figure she had created inside her head from her own adoration of him. He had shown her that himself when he had so misjudged her. There was no reason at all for her senses to be so aware of him now, for merely being here with him to make her ache with a dangerous resurgence of her teenage longing. But that was exactly what was happening.
Try as she might, she couldn’t resist turning her head to look at him, imprinting his image on her senses.
The open neck of the shirt he was wearing revealed the straight line of his collarbone and the golden sleekness of his throat. If she looked properly at him no doubt she would be able to see where beneath his shirt his body hair lay. She could remember the pattern of it from that time she had walked into the bathroom.
Stop it, Fliss exhorted herself desperately. The anxiety she was causing herself was raising tiny beads of sweat along her hairline, whilst her pulse and her heartbeat had started to thud nervously, as though in fear. She was afraid, she admitted. She was afraid of her own imagination and of the wilful power of the deep-rooted core of sensuality within her. It seemed to have grown out of nowhere, and previously she would have strenuously denied that she even possessed it.
Perhaps it was being here in her father’s country that was unleashing previously hidden aspects of her makeup and bringing to life unfamiliar passions. It was much easier to cling to that thought than to allow herself to fear that it was Vidal himself who was responsible for this unwanted and dangerous flowering of such a deeply sensual side of her nature. Just as he had been when she was sixteen.
Vidal checked his rearview mirror—not because he needed to do so, but because it would prevent him from glancing sideways at Fliss. Not that he needed to look at her to see her. Inside his head he had a perfectly visible image of her—although this image was one that, in defiance of his wishes, showed her eyes cloudy with arousal and her lips softly parted from his kiss. Such thoughts were not acceptable to him. And such desires …?
Grimly Vidal pressed his foot down on the car’s accelerator. They were free of the city now, and the powerful car leapt forward.
As a pre-teenager, curious about her father and his homeland, but knowing that her mother found it painful to talk about him, Fliss had spent many hours in bookshops and the library, studying maps, descriptions and photographs of Granada and the Lecrin Valley. Later at university she had gone online to learn more, but no amount of that kind of exploration could come anywhere near the reality of the countryside they were now in.
She knew, of course, that the Lecrin Valley formed part of the natural Parque de Sierra Nevada, and that after the expulsion of the Moors from the area it had been left virtually untouched for many centuries, so that the countryside was dotted with a wealth of Moorish mo
numents, flour mills, and ancient castles in addition to the whitewashed Pablo villages that had once been home to the Moor population.
Orchards of orange and lemon trees, heavy now in the summer with ripening fruit, surrounded these small villages, with their narrow main streets and their small dusty squares, and the smell of the citrus fruit permeated the air inside the car despite its air-conditioning. Not that Fliss minded. In fact she loved the sharp, sun-warmed smell, and knew that it would be something she would carry with her once she had returned home.
‘It must be so beautiful here in the spring, when the orchards are in blossom.’ The words were out before she could stop them and remind herself that she had vowed this morning to remain as aloof from Vidal as she could.
‘It is my mother’s favourite time of year. She always spends the spring on our estate. The almond blossom is her favourite,’ he responded, in a curt voice that showed Fliss how little he actually wanted to make any kind of contact with her at all, even though he had turned towards her as he spoke.
Pain flowered darkly inside her, like a bruise on wounded skin. Fliss’s breath caught in her throat, in denial of what she was feeling, trapped there by the thudding sensation in her heart that merely looking at him brought her.
And she was looking at him, she recognised. Just like all those years ago in the bathroom, she was physically unable to remove her gaze from him. Why did this have to happen to her? Why could this man bring to life feelings within her that no other man had ever touched? Was there some part of her that wanted to be humiliated?
The flush burning her skin grew even hotter. She mustn’t think about Vidal. She must think instead about her parents, and about the love they had shared. She had been created out of that love, and according to her mother that made her a very special child. A child of love. Was it any wonder, knowing that, that she had been so stricken with shock and horror by Rory’s behaviour that she had not been able to find the words to deny his lie about her? At sixteen she had naively believed that sexual intimacy should be a beautiful act of mutual love. She had had no desire whatsoever to experiment with sex, put off by what to her had seemed the coarse and vulgar attitude displayed by boys of her own age. Instead she had dreamed of a passionate, tender, adoring lover with whom she would share all the mysteries and delights of sexual intimacy.
And then Vidal had come to see her mother. The child she had heard so much about transformed into a hero who fitted her private template for what a man should be so perfectly that he had stolen her heart before she had even realised what was happening to her. Vidal—so handsome that just looking at him made her breath catch in her throat. Vidal—who carried about him such a powerful aura of male sensuality that even she at sixteen had been aware of it. Vidal—who knew her father. Was it any wonder that he had held so many of the keys that could unlock her emotional defences? Not that he had needed to unlock them. She had thrown down her barriers for him herself.
Shocked by her own vulnerability, Fliss tried determinedly to concentrate again on the countryside beyond the car window. They had turned off the main road now, and were travelling along a narrow road that was climbing between two outcrops of rock. Beyond them, she could see as the car crested the top of the incline, lay a lush, wide and fertile valley filled with orchards, and on the lower slopes of the ring of hills that enclosed it rows of vines.
‘The boundary to the estate begins here,’ Vidal told her, as they started to descend into the valley, still in that formal tone which told her how little he wanted her company and how much he wished she wasn’t here with him.
Well, she didn’t care. She wasn’t here because of him, after all. She was here because of her father. But much as she tried to take comfort from that knowledge, comfort eluded her, and her aching heart refused to be soothed.
‘You can’t see the castillo yet, but it is at the far end of the valley—built there so that it could command a strategic position.’
Fliss caught a glimpse of the silver ribbon of a river, wending its way below them on the valley floor. The valley was a small perfect paradise, she recognised, caught off-guard by the unexpected sharp pang of envy that touched her as she thought of how wonderful it must have been to grow up here, surrounded by so much natural beauty. In the distance she could see the high peaks of the Sierras, and she knew that beyond the Lecrin Valley lay a sub-tropical coastline of great beauty.
But the coast and what lay beyond this place were forgotten as the road twisted and turned and then, up ahead of them, she could see the castillo. She had not realised it would be so large, so imposing, and her breath caught on a betraying gasp of awe. Its architecture was a blend of a traditional Moorish style and something of the Renaissance, and sunlight shone on the narrow iron-grille-covered windows of its turreted corners.
This wasn’t a home, Fliss thought apprehensively. It was a fortress—a stronghold designed to reveal the might and the power of the man who held it and to warn others not to challenge that power.
They had to drive past formal gardens and an ornamental lake before reaching the front of the castillo, where Vidal brought the car to a halt.
An elderly manservant was waiting to greet them once they had stepped into the vast marble hallway, and a housekeeper who smiled far more warmly at her than Rosa was summoned to escort her to her room after Vidal announced that she might want an opportunity to ‘freshen up’ whilst he spoke with his estate manager.
‘Since it’s almost lunchtime, I suggest that we delay our visit to Felipe’s house until after we have eaten.’
Vidal might be using the word suggest, but what he really meant, and wanted her to know, was that he was giving her an order, Fliss thought angrily, forced to nod her head and accept his dictat, even though she wanted to insist that she see her father’s house immediately.
A couple of minutes later, following the housekeeper down a long, wide corridor on the second floor, Fliss reflected that both the vastness of the castillo and its architecture reminded her of a long-ago visit to Blenheim, the enormous palace given to the Duke of Marlborough by Queen Anne. Here at the castillo, the ceiling of the long gallery-style corridor was decorated with ornate plasterwork, and the crimson-papered walls were hung with huge gilt-framed portraits.
They had almost reached the end of the corridor when the housekeeper came to a halt and opened the double doors in front of her, indicating that Fliss was to precede her into the room beyond them.
If she had thought that her bedroom at the family townhouse in Granada was large and elegant, then she had obviously not realised what the words could actually mean, Fliss recognised. She put down the overnight bag she’d brought with her, lost for words in the middle of what had to be the most opulent bedroom she had ever seen.
Gilt swags and cherubs adorned the half-tester bed, whilst above it on the ceiling nymphs and shepherds rioted in discreet pastel-painted pastoral delight. Ornate gilt plasterwork decorated the cream-painted walls, framing insets of rich gold cherub-imprinted wallpaper, and matching silk curtains hung at the windows and fell from the bedhead.
All the furniture in the room was painted cream—feminine and delicate—as well as highly decorated with a good deal of gilt rococo work. On the bed was a gold coverlet made out of the same fabric as the curtains, its cherubs stitched and padded to stand out. Against one wall, between two sets of tall glass doors that led out onto narrow balconies, stood a desk with its own chair, and in the corner was a low table on which she could see a selection of glossy magazines. Fliss, who had a little knowledge of antiques, suspected that the cream-and-gold carpet was probably a priceless Savonnerie, made especially for the room.
‘Your bathroom and dressing room are through here,’ the housekeeper informed Fliss, indicating the recessed double doors on either side of the bed. ‘I shall send a maid up to escort you to lunch in ten minutes.’
Thanking her, Fliss waited until the door had closed behind her before investigating the bathroom and dressing room.
The bathroom was very traditional, with marble floors and walls and a huge roll-top bath alongside a modern shower enclosure. Every kind of product a visiting guest might require was laid out on the marble surround to the basin. A quantity of thick fluffy towels hung from a modern chrome heated towel rail, whilst an equally thick and fluffy white robe hung from a peg behind the door.
The dressing room was lined with mirror-fronted cupboards large enough to hold the entire wardrobes of several families, and even possessed a chaise-longue. So that the male partner of the woman sleeping in the bedroom could lounge there and watch as she paraded in expensive designer clothes for his pleasure and approval? Inside her head Fliss had a swift mental image of Vidal, dark-browed and dark-suited, leaning against the gold silk upholstery of the chaise, reaching out to touch her bare shoulder, his gaze fixed on her mouth, whilst she—
No. She must not allow such thoughts.
Quickly stepping back into the bedroom, Fliss went over to open doors to one of the balconies, intending to breath in some fresh air. But she came to a halt when she saw that the balcony looked down on an enclosed swimming-pool area large enough to have belonged to a five-star hotel. The intense brilliant blue of the sky was reflected in the still waters of the pool, and beyond the walled pool area she could see the orchards, stretching up into the foothills.
This valley was a small earthly paradise—a paradise complete with its own danger, its own Lucifer as far as she was concerned, in the shape of Vidal. And was she tempted by Vidal as Eve had been tempted by the serpent, in danger of risking all that mattered to her morally for the sake of the sensual caress of a man who represented everything she most despised?
CHAPTER SIX
SOMEONE was knocking on her bedroom door. Quickly removing her rolled-up Panama hat from her case and grabbing her handbag, Fliss went to open the door, somehow managing to disengage herself from her troublesome thoughts and produce a smile for the maid who was waiting outside it.