Flame Of Diablo

It was amazing how dark it had become so quickly, she thought as she made her way upstairs. Outside in the square lamps had been lit beside the stalls, and the sound of music drifted faintly on the evening air, the clear tones of a flauta predominating. The sky looked like velvet, and in the space around the band people had begun to dance. Rachel had stood and watched them for a few minutes, but she had found it suddenly disturbing to be alone and an alien in this crowd, where everyone seemed to be with someone else.

Also, her blonde hair and white skin were once again attracting attention, and she was reminded perforce of the warnings she had received at the hotel in Bogota about pickpockets who concentrated on unwary turistas.

She unlocked her bedroom door and went in, closing the door behind her.

She knew immediately that there was something wrong, and the hairs rose on the nape of her neck. There was someone else in the room—the stealth of a movement in the darkness, a faint smell of cigar smoke. Her hands tightened around the boots she carried. They weren’t much of a weapon against an intruder, but they were all she had, and if she screamed there was no guarantee that anyone would hear her.

She heard the movement again, and following it another sound—the creak of a bed-spring.

Dear God, was she the one at fault? Had she blundered by mistake in the dark passage into someone else’s room? If so, she could only hope they were asleep and she could leave before her mistake was discovered. She remembered Ramirez’ remarks about unescorted women. Would anyone believe she had made a genuine error?

Her hand reached behind her, fumbling for the door handle, and then a voice spoke mockingly out of the darkness, freezing her into the immobility of disbelief.

‘Are you going to stand there in the dark all night, querida?’

There was a click as the bedside lamp was switched on, and Rachel found herself staring at Vitas de Mendoza.

CHAPTER THREE (#u424e6a47-4cff-5582-bf95-eb3584db4d17)

HE was lying outstretched on her bed, very much at his ease, the half-smoked cigar she had smelt smouldering in the ash-tray beside him. Rachel demanded, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?’

He tutted. ‘Such language, chica! What happened to the cool lady I met downstairs?’

She flung the door open and held it wide. ‘Get out!’ ‘Your countrymen say, don’t they, that it’s a woman’s privilege to change her mind. But do you have to be quite so contrary? A little while ago you couldn’t wait to talk to me alone. Now that we are alone and I am prepared to talk, you want to be rid of me.’ A smile twisted the corner of his mouth. ‘Now that is hardly friendly.’

‘How did you get in here anyway?’ she demanded. ‘I locked my door.’

‘Ramirez has a pass-key—naturally.’

‘Oh, naturally,’ she echoed with elaborate sarcasm. ‘And naturally he saw nothing strange in loaning it to you so that you could get into one of his guests’ bedrooms.’

His grin widened. ‘Under the circumstances, chica, nothing strange at all.’

Rachel felt an angry flush rising in her face. Normally, she could hold her own in any interchange of repartee. She could flirt, and she could counter the more pointed sexual teasing that was sometimes levelled at her, but there was something about this man which seemed to paralyse her thought processes and allowed him to get under her guard.

Hot words trembled on her lips, but she bit them back. Not yet, she thought, because she had seen a way in which she could get her own back. If he thought he could treat her completely casually, then he was making a grave mistake. He probably thought she was so desperate to obtain his services as a guide that she would stand for anything. Well, he was going to find out just how wrong he was—but not yet. It might be fun to string him along for a little while—flatter his ego, build him up slowly for the big letdown when she calmly informed him that she wouldn’t go to the end of the street with him.

She said, ‘Perhaps I owe you an apology, Señor.’ And perhaps I don’t, she added silently. ‘It was just that I was—thrown by finding someone in my room. I know you said you’d talk to me later, but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite as—late.’ She spread out her hands and gave a slight laugh, and was pleased to see a look of faint surprise cross his dark features.

And this isn’t the only surprise you’re going to get, she assured him under her breath. Not by a long chalk!

‘That disturbs you?’ He reached for his cigar.

‘Why should it?’ she lied calmly. She fetched the chair from the dressing table and sat down at a safe distance from the bed.

He acknowledged her considered placing of the chair with a mocking inclination of his head.

‘Which answers my question,’ he murmured. ‘And yet, querida, you have nothing to fear. I told you downstairs that I was not for sale. Well, I don’t buy either—or take by force.’

‘How good of you to be so reassuring,’ she said sweetly.

‘I should not be too reassured.’ He sounded amused. ‘If I decided I wanted you, you would share this rather cramped bed with me.’

The smile was just right. Coolly amused, and more than a little sceptical. ‘You really think so?’

’si, querida,’ he said very softly, ‘I—really think so.’

Inwardly Rachel was blazing with temper at his calm assumption that she would tamely co-operate if he chose to seduce her, but she did not let her anger show. And she was angry too at the way he watched her, his gaze wandering between her mouth and the three opened buttons on her shirt. She had the strangest urge to fasten the buttons, cover herself up to the throat, but she controlled it. Such an action would be a blatant betrayal of her own awareness of him which she didn’t want to admit even to herself.

‘I was forgetting,’ she said guilelessly. ‘You have this “thing” about blondes, don’t you? Oh!’ Her hand came up to her mouth in well-simulated dismay. ‘I shouldn’t have said that …’

He stubbed the cigar out in the ash-tray. ‘Ramirez seems to have been busy,’ he commented. He sounded almost bored. As he probably was, she decided. The blonde Señora from the States was now just a memory, and a man like Vitas de Mendoza did not exist on his memories.

He stretched lazily, making her conscious of the lean, muscular length of his body beneath his close-fitting black clothes, then linked his arms loosely behind his head. The lamplight glinted on the silver medallion at his throat.