Hostage Of Passion

‘Should it do?’

Aquamarine eyes gathered a frown. He was still planted in front of the door, blocking the way. She wondered how many tons of dynamite it would take to shift him and then shuddered because he began to move towards her, long, lean legs narrowly clothed, slim hips barely moving at all. She thought, He walks like a matador, then swiftly told herself not to be so all-fired silly because she had never seen a matador in the whole of her twenty-eight years and for all she knew they might have to be transported in a wheelbarrow on account of wounds collected in painful places.

Then she heard herself gasp because, for one thing, it was utterly out of character for her to indulge in such juvenile flights of stupidity and, for another, he was looming over her now and for the first time in her adult life she had the strangest feeling that she wasn’t in control of the situation.

‘Then you would be wise to make it your business to find out because until I am satisfied my name and that of my sister will mean a very great deal to you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Was that her voice? That thready whisper? And ‘looming’ wasn’t the word. His proximity was swamping her, engulfing her in waves of confusion. Only because he was talking in riddles, she assured herself stoically. Why should his name mean anything to her—let alone his sister’s— Encarnación?

The tip of her neat nose was on a level with his top waistcoat button. She took a rapid step backwards but sharp contact with the top of her desk reminded her that she didn’t back down for anyone. She squared her shoulders and informed him sternly, ‘Come to the point, Señor Casals, if there is one. I’m already running late.’

His wide shoulders moved in an eloquent shrug. ‘All the more reason for you to tell me what I want to know. Tell me where your father is, and you’re free to go.’

Her hackles rose with painful immediacy. He was talking as if she were his prisoner, as if she had no choices. Unease prickled her spine but she resolutely ignored it and answered precisely, ‘You can’t have heard me. I have no idea where Piers is at the moment. I had a card from him at Christmas and that was the last I heard. It was postmarked Edinburgh, but that’s no help because he often makes a point of being in Scotland over Hogmanay.’

She didn’t add that he liked the company of a certain Scottish widow who stroked his massive ego, fed all his voracious appetites and sent him lovingly on his way to pastures new a happy man. Annie Kelp had been an artist’s model in her heyday, before her Junoesque figure had become richly rotund, and entertaining the great Piers Bouverie-Scott took her back to the wild bohemian days of her young womanhood.

‘He has no fixed abode?’ The Spaniard made it sound like a crime and Sarah was almost in sympathy with him. Unfortunately—or fortunately, as Piers would have had it—there were plenty of Annie Kelps scattered around the globe, women who were only too happy to offer succour to the supremely talented, wildly rumbustious artist.

Piers never let a mistress go; he collected them— to Sarah’s deep mortification—as other men might collect rare postage stamps and he loved the female sex far too much to let them go. Once they were hooked they were well and truly hooked. Sarah couldn’t understand it. Didn’t any of them know they were on a hiding to nothing, being used? Or didn’t they care? Was each and every one of them happy to be taken advantage of provided she had the opportunity to enjoy the exhilaration of his company every now and then?

She sighed, shaking her head in answer to his question, then gathered her thoughts.

‘Why do you want to find him?’ It couldn’t be money. Piers, for all his manifold faults, paid his bills. People fought to acquire his latest paintings. He could charge what he liked, and did. He probably had no idea how wealthy he was. His agent, Miles Hunter, handled all his financial affairs.

Nevertheless, Sarah knew instinctively that whatever it was this man wanted it wasn’t to shake her father by the hand, congratulate him on his genius, beg him to take a commission. And, even though her wayward parent had been a source of continual and often excruciating embarrassment for as long as she could clearly remember, she would never disclose his whereabouts—even if she knew them—to anyone who might harm him.

‘You are telling me you do not know, cannot make an educated guess?’ Cynical disbelief stared out of his eyes. ‘You cannot be unaware of your father’s reputation. It is legendary.’ His dignity at this moment was chilling and Sarah quickly averted her eyes.

She was certainly no stranger to her father’s reputation. But it was something she tried to forget. His crazy nomadic lifestyle, the months of hard work when nobody knew where he had hidden himself away, followed by wild parties, his affairs—endless affairs—and his explosive temperament earned far more comments in the tabloids than his creative genius.

But surely her father couldn’t have stolen this man’s wife or lover? She couldn’t imagine any female in her right mind preferring the older man, even if bombarded by the vital life force that seemed to trap most people who came into contact with him, over this undeniably spectacular specimen of Spanish manhood.

Realising she was fiddling with the office keys, tossing them from one hand to the other, she stopped herself at once. She never fidgeted, and certainly wasn’t about to start now.

‘Suppose you tell me,’ she uttered coldly. ‘I really don’t have time to play guessing games.’

He gave her a look that was sheer enmity and his voice was raw with disgust as he told her, ‘Your father seduced my sister. He has taken her away with him. Encarnación is barely eighteen years old. Her life was sheltered, protected, until that demonio spoiled her!’ His black eyes blazed, his passionate mouth pulled back against his dazzlingly white teeth. His fury filled the room.

Sarah groped for the chair and sat down quickly. If what he claimed was true, then he had every right to be angry. But surely he had to be mistaken? Piers had dozens of affairs, some of which had been going on for years, but never, as far as she knew, with young inexperienced girls. His tastes ran to the more mature type, women who would mother him, smother him with love, asking for little in return except the glow of his reflected glory, basking in it for a little while until he roamed away again.

‘Are you sure of your facts, Señor Casals?’ She did her best to keep her voice perfectly level and incisive and heard the edge of anxiety creep in with alarm. One of them had to stay calm, and by the sizzling fury that came her way it wasn’t going to be him.

He disdained to answer, extracting a folded sheet of paper from his breast pocket and slapping it down on the desk, glaring at her from hooded eyes as if daring her to argue.

Straightening her spine, she took the paper in cool white fingers. Its crumpled state told her it had been read and reread many times, but nothing more, although her father’s name leapt from the page.

She didn’t look at him. ‘I don’t read Spanish, señor, she said, and watched strongly lean olivetoned fingers snatch it back.

‘Por Dios!’ he growled, as if her lack had snapped what little patience he had. ‘It says, and I quote, “Do not try to find me. I have met someone who really cares about me. Where he is, I will go. His name is Piers Bouverie-Scott and that alone will tell you all you need to know.”’ He thrust the note back into his pocket, his skin tight with disgust. ‘As your father’s name is synonymous with wild orgies, reckless philandering and mistresses by the cartload, I am in no doubt as to what has happened to Encarnación. This note spells it out, if any further proof was needed.’ His sensual mouth thinned ominously. ‘When I find him, I will kill him!’

‘Don’t you think that’s rather extreme?’ Sarah said frigidly. She felt cold all over, through and through, but she recognised an uncontrolled temperament when she came up against it. She had had enough experience of handling Piers’ volatile, creative personality in the past to know that the cold voice of reason was the only weapon. ‘I’d like to help you,’ she went on firmly, not letting him know how sick and cold she felt inside. ‘But I truly don’t know where he is.’ She pulled the telephone towards her. ‘However, his agent might.’ Distasteful circumstances called for some sort of action.

‘Miles Hunter? Do you think I haven’t already contacted him—do you think I am loco?’ He sent her a look of such heated derision that the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She wriggled uncomfortably in her chair as he pushed his extravagantly handsome face close to hers, his throaty voice bubbling over with scorn as he uttered, ‘I don’t sit around waiting for things to happen, I make them happen, señorita. I have made it my business to track down anyone who might know where el diablo is—his agent, the owner of the gallery where he habitually shows his new work, the people who supply his materials, all to no avail. Like the devil, he has disappeared in a puff of purple smoke…

‘So finally I have come to you. You, the last slender hope. Few daughters would knowingly deliver a father into the hands of a man who was out for his blood. But one look at you, with your big icy eyes, gave me the hope that you were cold enough not to care! So by all means phone,’ He pushed the receiver into her hands. ‘Ask Hunter. He might tell you, where he wouldn’t tell a stranger. Do it!’ he ordered as she stared at him with shocked blue eyes.

Biting her lip, she dialled Miles Hunter’s number, her fingers disgracefully unsteady. It was generally understood that first impressions were often the truest. Did this big, vital man really believe she was icy, cold enough to betray her nearest relative because she didn’t have it in her to care?

It didn’t matter what he thought, she told herself as she waited for her call to be answered, drumming the fingers of her right hand on the top of the desk. Her decision to call the agent, to try, in a small way, to help the Spaniard, had been instinctive. She was sure there had been a mistake, a crossing of wires. Reprobate though he was, Piers wouldn’t set out to seduce an innocent young girl, and she could sympathise with Señor Casals’ concern, his need to locate his run-away sister.

But that letter had been damning… Her arched brows knotted then eased again as Miles Hunter answered, and after a few pleasantries she asked, as coolly as she could, ‘Do you know where I could contact Piers? I haven’t heard from him since Christmas. Four months is a long time, even for him.’ In her state of heightened awareness, she felt the Spaniard’s black eyes boring into the back of her head, monitoring every word she said, and instinctively held the receiver closer to her ear. If, by a stroke of good fortune, Miles knew and divulged her father’s whereabouts, she had no intention of allowing the looming, murderous brute to overhear it, get to him before she could.

‘You’re the second person to ask today,’ Miles confessed, and she could hear the grin in his voice as he told her, ‘This arrogant Spanish Don practically threatened me with the Inquisition. Obviously, I acted dumb. I don’t know what your dear daddy’s been up to this time—and don’t really want to—but from the prolonged silence I’d hazard a guess that he’s got his head down, working hard. In Spain, more than likely,’

‘Well, I’m so sorry to have bothered you,’ Sarah said, her voice coolly apologetic. ‘If he does get in touch, let me know, would you, please?’ Then she changed the subject, asking about his wife and family, allowing herself time to grab back her control.

She really should have made the connection herself. Encarnación was Spanish, her removal from her family home—wherever—obviously sudden. So it was highly unlikely that Piers would have met her in any other country but Spain. And therefore she knew exactly where to look!

When the spurt of elation had died down sufficiently she said her farewells and replaced the receiver, turning in her chair, her cool eyes fixed on a point beyond those intimidating shoulders, her voice clipped but not antagonistically so as she stated, ‘As you’ve probably gathered, Miles doesn’t have a clue either,’ and mentally crossed her fingers, hoping he hadn’t picked anything out from the agent’s conversation. Expecting a renewed outburst of ferocity, she risked a direct look, but he was leaning against the filing cabinet, his arms crossed over his chest, and, far from snapping, the black eyes were almost slumbrous, their expression hidden by lowered olivetoned lids and sweepingly thick, lustrous black lashes.

Then, almost lazily, he levered himself upright and, with an almost imperceptible shrug, gave her, ‘Then there is nothing left but to thank you for your time, señorita,’ and sketched a bow of such courteous gravity that she was left speechless, staring at the space he had occupied for several long seconds after he had walked out of the office.

Somehow, strangely, she felt incomplete, as if his going had left something dangling, unresolved, oddly regretted. Which was, of course, she rebuked herself, utter nonsense. She had fully expected him to continue to harass and harangue her, had psyched herself up to deal with it—only to watch him capitulate gracefully, accept that she could tell him nothing, do no more. Which left all that adrenalin with nowhere to go.

And prodded her into immediate action.

She hadn’t expected Francisco Garcia Casals to give up quite so easily. But as he had she took advantage of it thankfully, ignoring the irrational sense of disappointment. Checking that he had indeed left the premises, she sat at her desk, opened her personal directory and pulled the phone towards her.

Half an hour later she had booked her flight and cancelled her date with Nigel, who had, to her astonishment, turned quite nasty.

Their relationship of six months’ standing was purely platonic as yet, although she had wondered, in her off-moments, if it could progress to something more, and permanent, because he was sober enough, conscientious enough to be that rare animal—a male she could possibly be persuaded to entrust her future contentment to.

But now she was quite sure he wasn’t. If she ever allowed a man to become part of her life she certainly wouldn’t expect him to throw a tantrum because, as she had explained, something urgent had cropped up, making the cancellation of their plans unavoidable.

Registering that she felt no regret at all, she contacted Jenny and asked her to take over the office for two or three days, phoned a local taxi firm because she didn’t have time to waste on making her way home to her apartment—four rooms in a converted Victorian villa—by public transport, booked the same driver for the morning to take her to Gatwick and spent the evening packing and congratulating herself that by this time tomorrow she could well have cleared up the mystery of the missing Encarnación without ever having to clap eyes on the daunting Francisco Garcia Casals again.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ce15dded-a49f-5d31-afda-e9e9061d2eff)

SARAH, bouncing about in the back of the taxi, almost wished she’d given in to temptation and hired a car. The drive from the airport to Arcos de la Frontera was a long one and her ears were being assaulted by the raucous music coming from the radio, her nose by the aroma of cheap tobacco and a particularly violent brand of aftershave, and her eyes by the plethora of tawdry fluffy and glittery mascots bouncing around on lengths of coloured string.

But as she only intended to be in Spain for two days at the very most she had deemed the expense of hiring a car a luxury she could do without. No one could accuse her of being mean, but she had learned to be careful, not throwing her money around unnecessarily.

Awkwardly, she wriggled out of the severely styled dark grey blazer she had chosen to wear over paler grey linen trousers and a matching shirt Even in April the heat was astonishing. She had forgotten how fierce the sun could be in southern Spain and couldn’t wait to get back to the cool English spring she had left behind. It was far more suited to her temperament, she decided tiredly, feeling an annoying crop of perspiration spring out on her upper lip.

Closing her eyes on the vibrant landscape, the terrifyingly twisty road, she picked over the situation that faced her.

On the one hand she could find her father alone, working like a man possessed, never having heard of the absconding Encarnación, in which case she would stay overnight and leave first thing in the morning with a huge sigh of relief.