The black invader (2 page)

'Please don't do that!' she objected,^ but the long brown fingers remained firmly hooked into the bridle and held the mare close alongside, a situation that neither Kirstie nor her mount were happy with.

'I have something I wish to say to you,' he informed her, 'and since you seem determined not to let me have my say, senorita, I am obliged to use force to bring you into Hne.'

His arrogance was staggering and Kirstie's colour was high as she hung on tightly to the skittering mare, but there was very little she could do about moving out of his reach. 'I hope it's something important, senor,' she told him shortly. 'I'm not in the habit of being/(9rc^^ to listen to anyone, nor am I accustomed to being— brought into line!'

'It appears to me,' Miguel Montanes retorted equally sharply, 'that you're not in the habit of doing anything except exactly what you like, senorita, regardless of the feelings of others or how bad-mannered you appear! No wonder you embarrass your grandfather!'

Furious at being reprimanded like an ill-bred child, Kirstie snatched the bridle free and jabbed hard into the mare's flanks, so that the animal took off like the wind, leaving the stallion and his rider standing. Not for long, however, for the bigger animal took off suddenly and the chase was on; a chase that was none of her choosing, Kirstie told herself as she gave the mare her head.

Not for a moment did it occur to her that she had absolutely no excuse for behaving as she was, but the desire to outrun him was irresistible, and there was an undeniable thrill in the chase that stirred her blood unexpectedly. All too soon the stallion raced up alongside, and when she glanced from the corner of her eye the expression she saw on her pursuer's face sent a rippling shiver along her spine.

He made no attempt to stop her this time, but kept alongside, holding the stronger stallion to her pace and watching her with swift dark looks that promised there was no escape. The mare's ears were pricked and she knew herself to be outclassed if it came to a challenge, but she kept gamely on until Kirstie recognised the inevitability of it and eventually allowed the pace to slacken, finally coming to a halt.

Immediately Miguel Montaiies did the same, and with both animals breathing hard they stood for a moment, unspeaking. Then he dismounted and tethered his horse to a tree before coming round to the other side of the mare. He stood looking up at Kirstie for a second, then reached up and grasped her around the waist, hauling her bodily out of the saddle and setting her firmly down on her feet.

'Perhaps now I may have your attention, sefiorita' he said and, in case she might have it in mind to remount

and ride off, he took the reins from her and flung them over a branch.

Kirstie's heart was thudding wildly, for she had never seen him in this mood before. He was always autocratic, and he was tolerant to the point of being infuriating, but she had never experienced this curious air of menacing excitement before. It affected her in a way she did not understand, and at the same time made her quite certain that he would have his say, whatever it was, and whether or not she wanted to hear it.

Her hands were clasped together in front of her and she did not look up, even though she felt him watching her still. 'I hope after the effort you went to that this proves important, Seiior Montanes,' she told him in a sUghtly unsteady voice.

'Don Jose seemed to think it would be of some importance to you,' he said, and Kirstie looked up swiftly at the mention of her grandfather. 'He tells me that you're looking for work, senorita, is that right?'

Kirstie eyed him furiously. She hated having it put into such flat, down-to-earth terms, however true it was, and she couldn't bring herself to accept the idea of her grandfather discussing it with this man of all people. 'I didn't expect my grandfather to discuss my private affairs with a stranger,' she told him, her eyes brightly angry. 'I trusted him and he shouldn't have told you!'

'And you shouldn't speak of your grandfather in that tone!' Miguel Montanes told her sharply. 'What Don Jose discusses with me is his affair; you are his granddaughter and he has every right to talk about you if he wishes to. As it happens it came up in the normal course of conversation, and there was no indiscretion involved.' His eyes gleamed blackly at her and she had never seen those stern features look so menacing before. 'Mother of God, child, do you suspect everyone of wishing you harm?'

'Not everyone, no!'

His eyes narrowed as he looked down at her, and Kirstie fumed at his reference to her as 'child'. It was

that as much as anything that made her act as she did. Turning her back on him, she reached for the mare's rein, but before she could loose it a hand on her wrist swung her round again so forcefully that she almost lost her balance. The same hands steadied her against falling, and for a moment the heat of his palms burned through her thin shirt into her flesh, so that she caught her breath.

'Don't turn your back on me, my girl!' he ordered harshly. 'Why I'm concerning myself with you after the way you've behaved, heaven alone knows, but I promised Don Jose I'd have a word with you and you're going to Hsten to me even if I have to hold you forcibly while I talk!'

'You '

'Listen, damn you!' He shook her hard, glaring relentlessly into her flushed and angry face, but his words penetrated simply because of their sheer unexpectedness. 'You took secretarial training in your last two years at school, I understand?' Kirstie nodded automatically. 'Don Jose claims you were very good, and by coincidence my uncle is in need of a secretary. Whether or not the two needs can be satisfied at one stroke depends very much on you, Senorita Rodriguez. Your Spanish is almost faultless, and providing you come up to standard in other respects and can learn to control that childish resentment, I see no reason why you shouldn't be suitable.'

The look in her eyes betrayed how stunned she was, and Kirstie tried desperately to get things into perspective. 'But I don't know ' she began. ,

'You would be working at the Casa de Rodriguez,' he went on. 'I imagine that would be an added attraction.'

Surprise followed surprise and Kirstie stared at him. 'At the house?'

He nodded, but she was unaware of a certain look in his eyes that recognised the first sign of weakening. 'If you're interested and can stop behaving like a spoiled child, come and see my uncle this afternoon for an interview.'

'I—I don't think I've ever seen him.'

It had only just occurred to her that as members of the same family, he and his uncle could be expected to share some family characteristics, and Miguel Montaiies was not the kind of employer she had in mind when she spoke of taking a job. Evidently something of the sort had crossed his mind too, for a faint smile touched his mouth for just a moment.

*If you're concerned in case my uncle is anything like me, or I am like him,' he told her, 'you have no need to worry.' Kirstie hastily dropped her eyes, uneasy at being so accurately read. 'You really do dislike me, don't you, Senorita Rodriguez?'

Kirstie shifted her uneasy gaze about the landscape of trees and rice-fields and little white barracas, and wished he wouldn't watch her so intently. 'I don't see that you can blame me for that,' she said.

'But I do!'

The violence of his response startled her so that she turned her head involuntarily to look at him. He had a strong, almost harsh profile and he carried his head with the pride of a Moorish lord from whom, according to her grandfather, he was descended. Everything about him suggested power, and not least the hawkish features, tanned and weathered by the sun, and the almost black, thick-fringed eyes that watched her so steadily.

His proximity was oddly affecting, and it was the reason she apologised v/ithout really knowing why she did it, and in a strangely breathless voice. 'I'm sorry.'

When he raised a hand just briefly to run it through his hair, his arm brushed hers and sent unexpected shivers through her, and his anger seemed suddenly to have cooled with her apology. 'I'd like to believe that,' he said quietly. 'Shall I make an appointment for you to see my uncle this afternoon?' Kirstie nodded, taken aback to realise it was to be so soon. 'Will about three-thirty suit you?'

Again she nodded, bringing herself hastily back to earth when she realised that something a little more de-

finite was required of her. *Yes, that will be fine, thank you.' She moistened her lips anxiously. 'Shall I come to the house?'

'Naturally.' She gasped when a long finger sHd beneath her chin and raised her face so that he looked directly down into it. 'You won't mind too much?' he asked, and softness edged his voice and showed in his eyes, as if he knew exactly how she would feel going back.

'I'll mind,' she whispered, 'but I'll come.'

'Good!'

Again Kirstie turned to loose the mare's rein, but again she was prevented from achieving it by a hand on her arm. This time, however, it was a much less forceful touch and when she turned towards him she did so quite voluntarily, meeting his eyes for a moment, and then quickly lowering them to his mouth, although it was hardly less disturbing.

Her pulse was thudding rapidly and her legs felt strangely unsteady, yet she found it hard to attribute the way she felt entirely to the proximity of Miguel Montanes. There was no shred of doubt about his mas-cuHnity, but she had never before been quite so stunningly aware of it as now, when he stood close enough for their bodies to just lightly touch. It was an inescapable contact because the mare was pressed against her back, and one shattering to her self-control, but there was nothing she could do about it.

The mare shifted restlessly and nudged her still closer and his hands curved about her upper arms, holding her for a moment to the pulsing warmth of his body, while he looked down into her face with an intensity she found unnerving. 'I hope I haven't made a mistake by suggesting you have this job,' he said in a curiously rough voice, and Kirstie caught her breath when a long forefinger Hfted a wisp of hair from her neck briefly before letting it flutter back. 'You're very young and so determinedly—touchy I wonder if you'll do after all.'

'You can't change your mind now!' she objected.

anxious, now that there was a chance of losing it, to have the job with his uncle.

Miguel Montanes studied her for a moment longer, then shook his head, letting his hands drop to his sides. 'No, I can't,' he agreed, and reached to untether her horse. 'Are you ready to ride back?' he asked, and was waiting to help her mount, Kirstie realised, if she agreed.

'Not yet—thank you.'

Her response was instinctive and for a moment he regarded her steadily, then he shrugged his broad shoulders resignedly and turned to fetch his own horse. 'Of course,' he said, as if he understood her reluctance.

Kirstie watched him mount and when he eventually sat, tall and impressive in the saddle again, she realised for the first time that her attitude towards him, her wary suspicion, did not entirely stem from his having been the one to negotiate the purchase of Casa de Rodriguez. It was something about the man himself; an aura of menacing virility that was frankly disturbing.

Pulling the stallion round where he could look directly down into her face, he held her eyes for a moment. 'Don't be nervous of meeting my uncle, Senorita Rodriguez,' he told her, 'we're not alike.' Briefly she glimpsed that faintly cynical smile again as he turned away. 'You'll like him!'

He jabbed hard with his heels and applied the quirt to the stallion's rump, and the animal sprang forward eagerly, taking the way between the ranks of twisted olive trees at a speed that raised little spurts of dust in his wake. Miguel did not turn his head, but very briefly the quirt was raised in a gesture of farewell, and Kirstie watched him go with dark, thoughtful eyes.

There would Be advantages to working at Casa de Rodriguez, she could not deny it. For one thing it would entail no travelling getting to work, since it was literally on her doorstep, but there could be disadvantages too. If the uncle she was to work for proved to be more like him than Miguel Montaiies said, it wouldn't be easy

working for him, and then there was the question of whether his two brothers resembled him as well. Nor was she quite sure how she would feel about walking into her old home every day as a stranger with no voice in the running of it. Turning to remount her horse, she sighed as she swung upward. She could only hope that she wasn't getting into something that she couldn't cope with.

It was the first time that Kirstie had been required to earn her living, and the prospect of her first interview filled her with misgivings as the time approached. It had nothing to do with not being fully qualified, for she had passed all her tests at school with flying colours, but rather the fact that the man who was to interview her was a Mpntaiies; someone she was going to find it hard not to see as an interloper.

She thought her grandfather regarded her rather anxiously as she took a last look at herself, and she swung her black hair in a gesture that could have been interpreted as defiance. Jose Rodriguez was seventy years old and had spent the whole of his Hfe, until the past few months, surrounded by the ease and luxury that his birth and upbringing had accustomed him to. Only now did Kirstie begin to realise how much harder it was for him than for herself, and her decision to ease their financial situation by working, she reahsed, was a practical way of helping him.

He was a man of medium height whose carriage and posture gave the impression that he was much taller, and all the qualities of the old nobility were embodied in him. His hair was iron grey with scarcely any of its raven blackness still evident, and his eyes were dark and steady, showing only a trace of the sadness that had aged him several years in the past few months.

Turning from the mirror, Kirstie grasped his arms and kissed him on both cheeks. 'Don't worry, Abuelo,' she whispered, 'I'll behave very properly, so that you won't be ashamed of me. I promise.'

Don Jose smiled gently, his long fingers touching her cheek. 'I shall never be ashamed of you, child,' he promised. *And I'm certain Senor Montanes will give you the job; his nephew seemed confident that he would.'