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‘I cannot tell you why you are in danger, but the reason is real. I had hoped that when I came I could let you go, but things did not go according to plan. If you don’t want to stay here out of sight, then I have a compromise to offer.’
‘What sort of compromise?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘One you’re not going to like, but it is as far as I’m prepared to go. Tomorrow we’ll fly back to London and you’ll move in with me. I want you to act as my—call it my latest interest—for at least a couple of weeks, possibly longer.’
‘What?’ Leola had been sure she couldn’t feel any more astonishment, but this—this outrageous suggestion deprived her of speech again. ‘Your latest interest? What the hell does that mean?’
‘As my mistress—my lover,’ he elaborated…
Robyn Donald has always lived in Northland in New Zealand, initially on her father’s stud dairy farm at Warkworth, then in the Bay of Islands, an area of great natural beauty, where she lives today with her husband and an ebullient and mostly Labrador dog. She resigned her teaching position when she found she enjoyed writing romances more, and now spends any time not writing, reading, gardening, travelling, and writing letters to keep up with her two adult children and her friends.
Recent titles by the same author:
HIS MAJESTY’S MISTRESS
VIRGIN BOUGHT AND PAID FOR
THE PRINCE’S CONVENIENT BRIDE
BY
ROBYN DONALD
CHAPTER ONE
SHIVERING a little in the night air, Leola Foster stared down into a square dominated on one side by a Romanesque church and on another by a tall stone watchtower. Jagged blocks of stone along the top of the cliff—all that remained of a ruined wall—reminded her that San Giusto, the southernmost city in the Sea Isles of Illyria, had once needed protection from pirates. Spring was only a few weeks old, and even this far south it wasn’t really warm enough to stand by the shuttered window in her pyjamas.
But she’d given up trying to get back to sleep. Images from the dream that had jerked her awake still lingered with a sour, humiliating aftertaste. She shivered again, wishing her unconscious would stop replaying the incident over and over again in a never-ending loop.
Call her naïve, she thought with a bitterness that startled her, but she’d never for a moment suspected that Durand had any interest in her; three months ago when she’d arrived in London from New Zealand, her employer’s partner—in both personal and business senses—had completely ignored her.
Leola smiled grimly, remembering how excited she’d been, how confident that this was another step up in her chosen career. After all, Tabitha Grantham was a world-famous brand, noted for the cool sophistication and perfect tailoring of the clothes she designed.
And Tabitha herself had contacted Leola after seeing her line at Auckland’s Fashion Week.
‘I like your edge,’ she’d said, interviewing her over cocktails in the opulent hotel suite she shared with Durand. ‘I think you’ll go far and I’d like to help you. You’ll learn plenty, but I have to warn you I don’t pay my interns much, and I’ll expect you to work like a galley slave.’
And work her hard she had. Not that Leola had objected. She’d found it exhilarating, bewildering, shocking and fascinating, and she’d soaked up every bit of information she could, every scrap of technique, every contact.
Pity it had all come to an abrupt, mortifying end when Jason Durand decided she’d do as his latest fling.
Unseeing, her gaze skimmed the dark spires of the cypresses along the ruined wall. Night had worked a transformation on the city. Bustling and noisy and charmingly Mediterranean during the day, San Giusto brooded silently under the Northern hemisphere stars. A violent homesickness gripped her; in New Zealand the stars were familiar and the breeze tangy with a wilder, more primal scent.
It was still there, she thought wistfully; she could return any time.
In fact, it looked as though she’d be back there pretty soon. If it hadn’t been for the godmother who’d given her this week in Illyria as a birthday present she’d be maxing out her credit card right now on airfares.
Her head came up proudly. No, she would not slink back with her tail between her legs—or not until she’d exhausted every option. She didn’t do defeat.
So she’d find new digs first. Without Tabitha’s subsidy she couldn’t afford the bedsit; she’d had to plead with the landlord to store her suitcases until she came back from this trip.
So digs first, a new job next.
Her lips tightened in a mixture of outrage and frustration. Dammit, she’d been fighting Durand off when Tabitha walked into the room three days ago, yet it had made no difference.
‘I’m sorry,’ Tabitha had said, her eyes steely, ‘but Durand is more important to me than you are. I don’t want to see you again.’
Of course Durand was a vital part of the business, but it had been Tabitha’s callous dismissal—as though Leola had been a Victorian housemaid found pilfering!—that had stung, enough for her to threaten Durand with the police or the press when he’d refused to pay out her final week’s wage.
That had got her the money, but she’d rather have had the internship.
Leola drew in a deep breath of air scented with pine and salt, figs and grape. She was not going to let betrayal or her fear for the future spoil her week in this lovely place, and if she couldn’t sleep she might as well work her restlessness off. A brisk walk should do it.
Ten minutes later she locked the door of her apartment behind her and strode towards the deep, mysterious shadows at the base of the ancient tower that marked the cliff walk.
It was a night from an ancient fable—serenely impersonal sky, the soft sigh of the sea on the rocks at the base of the cliff, a stillness so profound she almost expected to see a nymph flit from one of the trees to join her sisters in classical frolics with dolphins.
Yet halfway across the square the skin between Leola’s shoulder blades prickled, and she had to resist the urge to swing around and scan the darkened houses behind her.
Cravenly glad that she’d worn a dark top over her black jeans, she was relieved to reach the shade of the trees at the foot of the tower. Slowly, telling herself she was being stupid, she turned.
Her breath stopped in her throat. From the corner of her eye she spotted a stealthy movement at the base of the church. Someone—or something—was sliding along the ancient stone.
So what? It was probably just one of the local dogs coming home from a night on the tiles.
So why was adrenalin pumping through her, quickening her senses, ramping up her pulse so that all she could hear was the rapid, heavy thud of her own heartbeat?
Because her night-attuned eyes picked out people—a line of them, some stumbling, some walking fast, all noiseless. They seemed to emerge from a deeper darkness in the church wall—a door—and they were heading for the wall.
A flare of light shocked her into a gasp; she saw a man’s face—handsome, subtly cruel—before the light died.
And then she was grabbed from behind in one swift, brutal movement, an iron hand clamping across her mouth so that her scream had no chance to escape. Instinct drove her to a frenzy of struggling desperation, but she was dragged into the pitch blackness of some recess in the wall.
Think, she commanded herself, and tried to turn so she could knee her captor in the groin, an assault he blocked with ruthless efficiency. She forced herself to go limp, surreptitiously folding her fingers into a fist, but his arms crushed her against a lean, shockingly strong body, completely subduing her so that she could neither move nor signal.
All coherent thought lost to an unnerving panic, she tried biting at the remorseless hand over her mouth, but that didn’t work either. It tightened, cutting off her breath.
Panic kicked her ferociously in the stomach and she let herself sag. He eased the pressure a little, but she could feel the tension smoking off him.
A quiet scraping, then what sounded like a muffled curse in an unknown language—Illyrian?—came from the direction of the square. Every muscle painfully taut, Leola waited for some sign of inattention from the man who held her so fiercely against him; he was big, she realised, as well as hugely powerful, and he…
He smelt good.
In some wildly illogical way that clean male scent eased her fear a little.
Until she was hauled sideways, through what had to be a door in the wall. Barely audible, her captor said in English, ‘Don’t be frightened.’
How did he know she’d understand?
He didn’t let her go, and he didn’t take his hand away from her mouth. If anything, the fingers tightened a fraction. In warning? Forcing down a spasm of terror, Leola waited for him to lose concentration.
She couldn’t see what was happening, but a faint thud sounded as if he’d kicked the door shut behind them and the air became musty. Shivering, she realised they were inside the tower.
‘Just another few minutes,’ he said again, his words pitched for her ears only. ‘Walk.’
Instead Leola sagged, hoping he’d think she’d fainted and that she might get a chance to get away.
It didn’t work. Ruthlessly he propelled her in front of him.
‘Stairs,’ he said, still in that deep, oddly soft voice, half lifting, half dragging her upwards.
Once they reached the top would he throw her down the cliff into the sea below? Panic surged again, freezing her mind.
All she could think of doing was to pretend to find it hard going, stumbling, hesitating, until he said curtly, ‘It’s no use. And you’re safe enough.’ His voice was hard and cool and deep, the upper-class English accent very faintly underpinned by something much more exotic.
In spite of her fear she snorted in pure outrage, and he laughed, an oddly amused sound that made her wonder if she was indeed safe. ‘OK, we’re far enough away now for you not to be heard,’ he said, and those cruel fingers relaxed, fell away.
She screamed with every ounce of strength she possessed, only to have it cut off by his hand again.
‘Wildcat,’ he said, that infuriating note of—mockery?—underlying the single word.
Furiously, she opened her eyes to glare at him. He released her, and, unable to see for a few seconds, she swayed, blinking ferociously until she was finally able to focus on her captor, calmly barring the door behind them. He turned, and her breath locked in her throat.
In the dim light of one electric bulb he looked like something out of a mediaeval epic, a warrior with a warrior’s uncompromising ruthlessness. Darkly tanned, with the arrogant facial structure of some Nordic conqueror, he was smiling, but his eyes were hard, an almost translucent ice-grey. And although she was tall herself, Leola had to look a long way up into those piercing eyes.
A feverish shiver—of apprehension, or perhaps recognition—scudded the length of her spine. He was built like a Viking, and the aura of danger pulsing about him made her take a step backwards, although she kept her head high.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Why did you drag me up here?’
His gaze sharpening, he bent his black head and said brusquely, ‘I hurt you. I’m sorry.’
Leola felt it then, the sting of her cut lip, the taste of blood when she ran her tongue over it. ‘You’re sorry? So am I. What the hell do you think you’re up to?’
Long tanned fingers dipped into his pocket, producing a handkerchief. ‘Here,’ he ordered. ‘Wipe it.’
Automatically she took the cloth, still warm from his body, and patted her lip. The bloodstain was tiny; showing him, she said, ‘It’s nothing.’
Her eyes widened as he covered the stone floor between them in two steps to lift her chin in a strong hand, black brows drawing together as he surveyed her face.
‘It certainly won’t mar your beauty,’ he said, and when she flinched he laughed in his throat and bent, kissing the maltreated lip with a gentleness that was very much out of accord with his intimidating appearance.
‘What was that for?’ she asked inanely, wondering why her legs felt as though the bones had dissolved.
‘I kissed it better. Did your mother never do that for you?’
Her mother hadn’t been the affectionate sort—not to her children, anyway. In a brittle voice Leola said, ‘It only works if you love the person doing the kissing.’
‘I must remember that,’ he returned, the sardonic humour vanishing so that she met eyes that were coldly, implacably intent. ‘Now, what were you doing walking the square at three-fifteen in the morning?’
‘Possibly the same as you,’ she countered.
‘I hope not.’ He paused to lethal effect before prompting silkily, ‘Tell me.’
Leola masked an involuntary stab of fear with a shrug. ‘It’s no big deal. I couldn’t sleep. None of the books I brought were worth reading again and I didn’t fancy a hot drink, so I decided to go for a walk. What’s so unusual about that?’
‘Did you hear or see anything?’
‘Yes,’ she said smartly. ‘I was attacked by a total stranger and dragged into a tower.’
His humourless smile showed very white teeth. ‘This is important,’ he said, each word a warning.
‘Why?’ Her heart picked up speed as another surge of adrenalin activated her flight-or-fight response.
Fighting was useless; he’d already shown her a measure of his strength, nicely judged so as not to hurt her too badly. A swift shiver scudded down her spine at the memory of that oddly tender kiss.
Flight, then? Hastily she glanced around. The room he’d brought her to was made of stone, its only obvious exit the door they’d come through. He’d haul her away from that before she could lift the bar. Shadows hid the farthest wall, but her quick glance and the musty air told her there were no windows.
Flight seemed impossible too.
The cold pool beneath her ribs expanded. What had she unwittingly walked into? Strangely, instinct told her that this man wasn’t a direct threat to her safety, but one glance at his flint-hard face with its arrogant bone structure reminded her that sometimes instinct couldn’t be trusted.
‘Did you see any movement?’ he asked, quite gently, but something in his icy regard warned her not to lie.
Eyes troubled, she hesitated. ‘How do I know if you’re one of the good guys?’
Damn, Nico thought, he liked her spirit, even if it was extremely inconvenient. Just before he’d kissed her—an impulse he should have resisted—he’d noticed that her eyes were a dark blue-green with intriguing gold speckles. They were shadowed now, and her full mouth, scratched by his grip, was set in a straight line, her lithe figure stiff and wary.
He repressed his intensely physical reaction. Nico had learned in a hard school not to trust anyone—not even a blonde goddess with an intriguing accent, tawny-gold hair and a body that promised sensual rapture.
‘You don’t,’ he told her without hesitation. ‘Tell me what you saw.’
For several moments more her eyes challenged him, and then she made a rapid gesture, instantly cut short. ‘Movement,’ she said steadily. ‘A slow sort of glide along the base of the church.’
Had she decided to trust him? It didn’t matter. ‘Any faces?’
When she hesitated again he knew she’d seen the man he was tracking. Some poor devil, he thought grimly, would pay for releasing the ray of light that had caught Paveli’s fleshy face.
But she said nothing. He scrutinised her guarded face, and made up his mind. If she was one of Paveli’s lookouts she had to be neutralised. If she wasn’t, she was in danger. Either way, she had to be removed. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to interrupt your holiday for a few days.’
Unable to hide a flash of alarm, she stiffened. ‘It’s all right,’ he assured her, his tone casual. ‘You’ll be living in a very comfortable house with pleasant people; you just won’t be able to leave it.’
‘In other words I’ll be a prisoner,’ she said evenly.
He had to admire her refusal to be daunted and her ability to face facts. ‘I’d rather you thought of yourself as a guest,’ he said with smooth cynicism, and waited for her response.
‘Guests can leave whenever they want to,’ she retorted. ‘What is this all about?’
‘If I told you I’d have to kill you.’
How many times had she heard that tossed at someone in jest? Leola looked at the dark, formidable face of the man who’d hauled her here, and felt the hair on the back of her neck lift. She suspected he meant it.
‘You will be perfectly safe,’ he said.
‘Somehow,’ she returned cuttingly, ‘I don’t find that very reassuring.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I won’t be there.’
She shrugged, although a swift pang of apprehension tightened her nerves. ‘It would certainly be more to my liking, but I’m not going anywhere with you.’
‘If I have to I’ll tie you hand and foot, gag you and blindfold you.’ Not a threat, not a warning, just a simple statement of fact not softened by his final words. ‘I don’t want to do that.’
Apprehension intensifying into something more than fear, Leola met implacable eyes, cold as polar seas. ‘What’s the alternative?’
‘You give me your word not to scream or make a fuss.’
‘You’d accept my word?’
His smile was humourless. ‘I’ll still have to gag and blindfold you, but we could dispense with the hog-tying.’
Anger helped drown out the terror. From between her teeth she ground out, ‘I refuse to help you kidnap me. What sort of fool do you think I am?’
‘One that’s entirely too mouthy,’ he said, and kissed her—not the gentle kiss of the previous time but a full-on plundering of her mouth as though he had every right to do it, as though they were passionate lovers separated for years and at last together again.
Fire leapt through her, replacing cold panic with an emotion just as primal, just as overriding—a heady, violent desire that sang like some siren’s potent, dangerous song.
With every bit of will she possessed Leola resisted the astonishing, rising tide of passion, until she felt a sharp prick in her neck.
Stomach contracting in wild terror, she forced open her eyes to stare at him.
‘You’re going to be all right,’ he said, his voice suddenly harsh. ‘Don’t be afraid.’
The meaningless words echoed in her mind as darkness rolled over her.
Nico held her until she went limp, then looked at the man who’d come in through the secret passage. The newcomer was lowering a hypodermic.
In the local dialect Nico said, ‘Does it always work so fast?’
‘She must be very susceptible.’
‘Thank you, my friend,’ Nico said grimly. ‘How the hell did you happen to have this drug on your person?’
‘I always carry it. I am, after all, a doctor. It’s just as quick as hitting someone over the head, and less noisy.’ His companion gave a laconic grin. ‘That one would have fought all the way. You must be losing your touch.’
‘She was afraid,’ Nico said absently, looking down at her white face. Even deeply unconscious, she was beautiful. Something hot and unguarded stirred inside him; it had been too long since he’d had a lover.
Controlling it, he went on, ‘Thank you for that—we can’t afford to either waste time on her or have her caught.’
‘Do you think she is in league with Paveli?’ The doctor said the name like a curse. ‘She could have been acting as a lookout.’
Nico frowned. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps she’s his woman. We know nothing about her.’
‘Her accent says she’s a New Zealander. It seems unlikely she has anything to do with him, but she saw Paveli in the square, and she wasn’t going to tell me.’
The newcomer stared at the woman, and, moved by some feeling he didn’t explore, Nico adjusted her limp body so that her face was hidden against his chest. ‘We have to get her out of here,’ he said brusquely, and lifted her.
Fragrant against him, she lay in his arms as though she belonged there. Grimly Nico controlled his swift, fierce response and headed for the opening to the secret passage.
‘And you, my Lord, are altogether too recognisable,’ the doctor said briskly from behind.
Nico’s arms tightened around the woman in his arms. ‘So we’ll make sure she’s safe until we can ask her a few more questions.’
* * *
Leola woke to a throbbing head and a dry mouth; when she tried to lift her eyelids that hurt her head even more. Without volition she groaned.
From somewhere close by a woman said in heavily accented English, ‘You feel bad now, but soon you will be better. Drink this.’
Leola sipped greedily, then sank back into sleep, tossing restlessly as a hard-eyed Viking prowled through her dreams.
When she woke again she lay very still, forcing her sluggish brain into action. Slowly, reluctantly, it disgorged memories—her decision to go for a walk at night, and a face revealed by a flare of light. She shivered, because something about that face filled her with repugnance.
The image was replaced by another face—hard, forcefully handsome, compelling.
Ice-grey eyes, she thought, the pictures jumbling in her brain. He’d kissed her and all hell had broken loose…
Had he hit her over the head? A tentative hand revealed no sore spot there.
Drugs, then…
Dimly she remembered a sharp pain in her neck while he was kissing her. Her captor hadn’t been waving a hypodermic around, so someone else must have come up from behind.
Her captor’s kiss had been a cynical ploy to dazzle her into mindless submission.
Humiliatingly, it had worked. Shame ate into her; she’d known he was dangerous, yet she’d succumbed to his cynical caress like some raw teenager awash with hormones.
Never again, she vowed.
At least it didn’t seem as though he intended to kill her. On the other hand she might be a hostage or a bargaining tool. Or he might just fancy a playmate for a few nights before getting rid of her.
Feeling sick, she shifted uneasily, wondering if he’d already…
No, she felt entirely normal, just lax and sleepy. Surely she’d know if she’d been raped?
How? Although she’d had plenty of men friends, several of whom would have liked to become closer, she’d been too dedicated—too intensely focused on her dreams and her career—for relationships.
Too scared, too; long ago she’d decided that love and passion led to pain and humiliation. So, as one-night stands were definitely not her style, she was that rare thing in the modern world, a virgin.
But it hadn’t been fear she’d felt when the grey-eyed Viking had kissed her, and his kisses had wiped any thought of career and ambition from her mind. His kisses had made her feel uncontrolled and wanton and desirous.
No other man had ever done that.
Whatever she’d walked into last night in the square, she didn’t want a bar of it. She had to get away from here—wherever here was!
Feverish thoughts jostled through her brain, but in the end the only plan she could come up with was to pretend to be the idiot her captor no doubt thought her.
Feigning sleep, she tried to gather as many sensory impressions as she could. She was in a bed—a very comfortable one. Outside she could hear what seemed to be the soft lapping of water, but there was no smell of salt. Instead, an indescribable freshness filled the air, mingled with the now familiar scents of cypresses and something lighter and sweeter. Flowers?