Satans Master

‘No fear, little lady.’ He bent down and swung her up into his arms. ‘You just may be an innocent holiday-maker, but then again you might be a reporter, and until I’ve made my mind up either way, where I go you go, and vice versa.’

‘Everywhere?’ Her arms clung around his neck of their own volition, even more aware of the magnetic attraction he held for her this close to him. He didn’t smell of body lotion or aftershave as Nicholas did, he smelt of good honest sweat, and an even more basic smell, a male smell that excited and aroused her. His eyes darkened as he looked at her, as if he were aware of the disturbed state of her emotions. Consequently her next words came out sharply, almost defensively. ‘I take it this cottage does have somewhere I can wash and—and change into my nightclothes?’

‘Oh yes,’ he smiled at her bad humour. ‘That’s why there’s only one bedroom. I had the other converted into a bathroom.’

‘How nice!’ She hoped her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. She could tell by the tightening of his beautifully shaped mouth that it wasn’t.

‘Be glad that I did,’ he rasped. ‘Otherwise you might find yourself sitting in an iron tub before the fire right now.’

Sabina gasped, and held her tongue, knowing that she was pushing him to the borderline of his temper.

He carried her up the narrow stairway, kicking open the wooden door directly opposite the top of the stairs, dropping her down on to the bed before turning to switch on the lamp next to the bed. Not that this small light made a lot of difference to the visibility in the room; her host appeared more menacing than ever.

She gave a startled gasp as something touched her hand, turning to see Satan curled up on her sleeping bag. She moved hurriedly away in case the cat struck out at her for the second time today. ‘I hope you’ll get him off there before I get back,’

‘Get back from where?’ he raised his eyebrows.

Sabina got her pyjamas out of her saddlebag. ‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ she informed him crossly. ‘And I don’t want to have to fight your cat for my part of the bed.’ Goodness knows it was going to be bad enough sleeping there without that!

‘Don’t worry,’ he taunted. ‘I’d rather have you share my bed any day—or night.’

She fled, her face bright red with embarrassment. This was terrible, stuck here in the middle of nowhere with a man she didn’t even know the name of, a man who feared reporters. No, feared was the wrong word, he despised them, hated them. But why? Why did he—–

‘Miss Smith?’ A loud knock sounded on the door behind her. ‘I want to use the bathroom, so unless you want to share that with me too, I should hurry up and get out of there.’

She had already noted that there was no lock on the door, so she quickly put on her pyjamas, glad that she had brought something serviceable rather than one of the glamorous nightgowns she usually wore at home. Her host was standing outside the door when she emerged, his amusement at her masculine attire obvious. Sabina put her head proudly in the air and walked past him.

Her sleeping bag lay on top of the bedclothes, the vicious Satan fortunately removed, so she crawled into its warm covering. A fire had been lit in the grate during her absence, and already the room was beginning to feel warmer. It would have been quite cosy if it wasn’t for the fact that she had to share the accommodation with that dangerous man—dangerous to her senses, that was.

She tensed as he came back into the room, silently pulling off the sweater to reveal his naked chest. His hands moved to the buckle of the belt to his cords, looking up to meet her mesmerised eyes as she watched him over the top of her sleeping bag.

‘I don’t mind providing you with a strip show,’ he drawled. ‘I’m certainly not ashamed to show my body, but if you’re as innocent as you pretend to be then you just might be embarrassed when I take my clothes off.’

Sabina gulped. ‘All of them?’

‘Isn’t that the usual practice when you go to bed?’

‘I—– Yes, but—– Yes.’ She hurriedly turned away. ‘But you’ll be putting pyjamas on, won’t you?’ She heard the cords drop on to the chair beside his sweater.

The bed gave beside her. ‘I never wear them.’ His voice was close to her ear.

‘Oh!’ She kept her head turned away, unsure of just how near he was. ‘Good—goodnight, Mr—er—goodnight.’

The light went out, only the fire glow to lighten the darkness now. ‘Goodnight, Sabina.’ He seemed to be settling down under the bedclothes. ‘Warm enough?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ and surprisingly she was.

‘That’s a shame.’ Once again he sounded amused at her expense. ‘I could have offered to keep you warm,’ he explained his humour.

‘That won’t be necessary.’ Her voice was stilted, her body taut.

‘I didn’t think so. And no nocturnal wanderings,’ he warned harshly. ‘Satan might not like it.’

‘He wouldn’t?’ she said nervously.

‘No. He’s lying in the doorway, as he does every night. And he won’t let anyone in or out of this room, unless it’s me.’

‘He sounds more like a guard dog than a cat,’ Sabina snapped moodily, her back firmly turned towards the man lying next to her.

‘I think that’s exactly what he was for Mrs McFee. She trained him to do that. Now he guards me as well as he did her.’

‘In that case, I won’t move.’

‘Oh, you can move,’ she could hear him smile, ‘as long as it’s in my direction.’

‘Goodnight!’ she said firmly.

His mocking laughter had her fists clenched at her sides, but she willed herself not to speak again. She just wanted to fall asleep, get this night over with as quickly as possible, and tomorrow get as far away from this man as she could.

Falling asleep wasn’t as easy as it should have been considering her exhaustion, although the deep even breathing of the man at her side soon told her that he had no trouble doing so. She slowly turned to face him, not used to sleeping lying on her right side. He was lying on his back, his arm flung across his eyes, his chest golden in the glow from the fire. He had said he wasn’t ashamed of his body, and that wasn’t surprising; his flesh was lean and muscular, although she felt sure he was at least in his mid-thirties, a time when most men were worrying about running to fat. This man had no worries in that direction.

‘Seen enough?’ he murmured suddenly, moving his arm from over his eyes to look at her.

Colour flooded into her cheeks, her eyes were wide with shame. ‘I—–’

‘Because I can always take off all the bedclothes if you haven’t,’ he taunted.

Oh, she was so embarrassed at being caught looking at him like this. ‘I—I—–’ The colour drained from her face as quickly as it had come into it, her eyes widening with sudden recognition. He had taken advantage of his time in the bathroom to shave the growth of beard from his face, revealing a deep cleft in the centre of his chin, the firmness of his jaw.

He sat up, bending over her. ‘What is it?’ he demanded sharply, those now familiar grey eyes narrowed. ‘Tell me what’s wrong,’ he ordered savagely.

‘I—’ she gulped, unable to believe she was really seeing this man. ‘You—you’re—–’

His shoulders stiffened, a harsh light in his eyes. ‘You know, don’t you? You know who I am!’

Yes, she knew. His name was Joel Brent. He was a superstar, a singer who ranked up at the top with the Sinatras and the Mathises of this world, legends in their own lifetime. He was a man who had crashed the car he was driving when his girlfriend, Nicole Dupont, had told him she was leaving him for another man. Rumour had it that both of them had been intended to die, Joel Brent’s intention being to kill Nicole if he couldn’t have her. Only they hadn’t both died, only Nicole Dupont had been killed, and Joel Brent had faced a barrage of publicity about whether the crash had been deliberate or merely the accident it appeared to be. Nicole Dupont had always said that Joel was a possessive man, that he would never let go what he thought was his. But as there had been no evidence to confirm that he had intentionally crashed, his name was finally cleared of all blame.

A few weeks later Joel Brent had disappeared, seemingly off the face of the earth. And now Sabina had run into him in a remote Scottish cottage, a man who might have been responsible for deliberately taking Nicole Dupont’s life!

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_411460ce-205e-5f24-8acb-9304138740a8)

SHE had been staring at him for the last few minutes, unable to believe the evidence of her own eyes. Joel Brent, a man who oozed sex-appeal, whose husky voice seduced every woman who listened to him sing, a man always in demand by the eager public, his sales in records reaching the millions, was lying here on this bed beside her.

She knew a little about him, knew that he was thirty-four, came from somewhere in Hampshire, that Nicole Dupont had been his girlfriend for six months before the accident that had killed her, and that he had no close family, although she doubted he was ever alone.

But he was alone here! Why had he come to such a place? Could it be guilt about Nicole Dupont that had prompted this need for solitude, or could it be that he found life so difficult without the woman he loved that he had chosen to cut himself off from all other humanity?

Sabina looked at the strength in his face, the bitterness, and knew that he felt guilty about nothing, and that strength would never allow him to give in to any weakness. ‘You didn’t do it,’ she said with certainty.