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Luiz spoke for her. ‘We have not set a date yet.’
Despite her physical frailty there was nothing weak about the glare that was directed at Luiz. ‘Does the girl not have a voice, Luiz? Let her speak,’ she quavered imperiously.
Nell lifted her chin. If Luiz was scared about what she might say, he ought to be. ‘I can speak.’ She flashed Luiz a look of distaste and thought, Let him sweat.
‘Tell me about yourself.’
It was a request, not an order, but Nell was starting to realise this was not a lady who did requests.
‘What would you like to know? I’m twenty-five, a library assistant.’
‘How did Luiz come to meet an English library assistant?’
‘Perhaps it was fated.’
Luiz gave an enigmatic smile and smoothed Nell’s hair back from her brow as though, she thought as she fought the impulse to pull away, he had performed the tender act a hundred times before. You had to admire the man’s acting ability, if not his morals.
The old lady returned her attention to Nell and almost caught her rolling her eyes. ‘You have family?’
‘I have a sister and a brother, both older and both married with children.’
‘You live alone?’
‘I live with my dad,’ she said without thinking. Then she remembered and muttered, ‘So stupid, I keep forgetting. I lived with Dad.’
‘Your father died?’
Luiz, noticing for the first time the violet smudges beneath her big eyes, felt an unidentifiable emotion break loose inside him as she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and scrubbed them like a child before responding to his grandmother’s question.
‘Eight weeks ago.’ Beside her she was conscious of Luiz stiffening.
‘Eight weeks,’ she repeated in a softer, almost surprised voice. Weeks that had been filled with practicalities; there had been no time for grieving.
Lots of practicalities, she mused, thinking of the pile of packing cases she had left when she had jumped on the first flight available. The removals people would be arriving in the morning and there would be no one to let them in.
And Clare, who was arriving to collect the more valuable pieces of furniture that she had claimed for her own home, was going to be annoyed. Nell was conscious that the idea of her sister’s anger and the removal people standing on the doorstep ought to bother her more, but it didn’t.
‘The house was only on the market a week when it sold.’ You are telling them this why, Nell? ‘It would have been too big for me anyway.’
Clare and Paul had both said it was fine by them if she stayed on for a while, but she knew they had both been pleased when she had put the property straight on the market. They would both find the money from the sale useful. And as they had said, she could find a nice little place of her own.
‘Your father, he had been ill for a long time, Nell?’ There was a gentler note than she had yet heard in the old lady’s voice.
Nell nodded tiredly and registered Luiz say something that sounded angry in Spanish. His grandmother responded, saying, ‘Can’t you see she needs to talk? The little one has been bottling up her emotions.’
‘He had a stroke. It left him partially paralyzed down his left side…’ Nell sketched an explanatory sweeping motion down her side. ‘He had some mobility problems so I didn’t go to university.’
If she had taken her university place and not stayed on the option would have been a nursing home or sheltered accommodation and Nell knew how much her dad loved his home. And with a few modifications to the house he had become reasonably independent, to the point that before his death he had been pushing for Nell to go to college as a mature student.
‘But he was doing really well. That’s why it was such a shock when he…’ Her voice trailed away as she swallowed past the lump in her throat. ‘It was pneumonia.’
Nell heard her voice crack and thought, Please, no, not now, not here. Her grief lay lodged like an icy block in her chest. When it melted she knew there would be a lot of moisture and a lot of pain—but not now.
Luiz, watching as she forced her stiff features into a composed smile, felt her grief as a physical pain in his chest.
‘I told him that it was my choice to stay at home. I wanted to be there with him. There was no need for him to feel guilty about university, but…’
Nell didn’t connect herself with the strangled whimper. The second sob she felt as it worked its way up from deep down inside her and escaped and then she couldn’t stop them.
As the tears began to flow she turned her head and found Luiz’s chest. A hand came up to hold her there and another wrapped around her ribs, hauling her up against him.
‘This was not a good idea,’ Luiz, his face set like stone, said to his grandmother as he cradled her shaking body. The sound of her sobs tore him up inside; he had never felt so impotent in his life, or more responsible.
He should, he told himself, have recognised her vulnerability, but he hadn’t and this was the result.
He rested his chin on the top of Nell’s head and rocked her in his arms. ‘It will be all right,’ he soothed.
‘The girl has a sense of duty. I like that.’
‘I think she’s had enough,’ he said abruptly, before he swept her casually into his arms and walked out of the room with her.
CHAPTER FIVE
NELL’S sobs went straight to an unprotected portion of Luiz’s heart. Each sob seemed to be dragged from deep inside her. It was painful to listen to, to feel as they racked her body.
While she wept Sabina floated silently into the room, took in the scene at a glance and, after nodding at him, left. When she returned a short time later she was carrying a tray laden with sandwiches and cake, a coffee pot and two cups.
Luiz, nodding as she left, would not have minded the addition of something more stimulating. It was not a need he felt when facing the collapse of a multimillion-dollar deal, but right now… He glanced down and winced. It seemed to him the tears would never stop. But gradually, over the next few minutes, to his relief they lessened until she gave a final deep, shuddering sigh and lifted her head from his shoulder, her damp cheek brushing his as she did so.
He made no attempt to stop her as she slid to the opposite end of the sofa.
Weak in the aftermath of the emotional excesses, Nell lifted her hand to push away the damp skein of hair that had flopped into her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered, not looking at him.
It bothered her that she had lost control, but for some reason it bothered her a lot more that she had lost control in front of this man of all people.
‘I’m fine now.’ Her level look dared him to contradict her.
‘Of course you are,’ he said, pushing a box of tissues supplied by the ever-alert Sabina her way.
‘About your father—’
Nell blew her nose. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said in a fierce little voice. ‘You’ve got what you want.’
Luiz, on whom her unfriendly attitude had not been wasted, angled a questioning brow. ‘I have?’
‘Well, your grandmother’s going to leave you her loot, isn’t she?’ She lifted her scornful red-rimmed eyes to his and added, ‘I suppose it beats working for a living.’
A look she couldn’t interpret crossed his face. It wasn’t guilt, but it should have been.
‘Perhaps we do not all have your strong moral integrity.’
The faint derision she heard in his voice brought an angry flush to Nell’s tear-stained face. ‘I’m not suggesting I’m perfect.’
Luiz looked at her, the red swollen eyes, the pink nose, and found himself thinking, Maybe not perfect, but awfully appealing. And not his type…even his grandmother had recognised this.
She sniffed and he experienced a sharp twinge of emotion. Refusing to recognise its source, he got abruptly to his feet and walked across to the table where the tea tray lay undisturbed.
‘Can I get something for you?’
‘You can get me Lucy, take me to her.’
He regarded her incredulously. ‘Now?’
‘Certainly now.’
He shook his head doubtfully. ‘You don’t look in any condition to go anywhere.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m terribly sorry I don’t reach your standard of airbrushed perfection, but we had a deal and I’ve done my bit, which, I have to tell you, has left a nasty taste in my mouth, so now it’s your turn. Do you actually even know where they are? If so just tell me. I’ll drive myself there—I have a car.’
The silence stretched. She was, he decided, more than capable of doing just that if he allowed her. The woman gave a new meaning to stubborn…or maybe, he conceded, she just had to keep going because if she stopped or slowed down she would feel. The grief would come crashing in. It was a coping mechanism that he recognised, he had used it after Rosa died. In his case it had taken the form of work and more work that had been viewed in some quarters as a lack of caring.
Not that Luiz had cared. Strange that back then he had been unconcerned what anyone thought, and now Nell’s assumption he was an avaricious scrounger felt like a slap in the face. It had been a warped sense of pride that had prevented him putting her right, warped because he had given her little reason to have a good opinion of him—a good opinion he still refused to accept he wanted.
‘The road, such as it is, is not good. Only a four-wheel drive or preferably a horse will get you there.’
‘I don’t ride a horse.’ But it was not difficult to see Luiz Santoro on one.
‘Then four-wheel drive it is.’
Nell gave a watery smile of relief. ‘You’ll take me?’
‘As you are clearly not fit to be let out alone—yes, I will.’
Nell let the inference she needed a keeper pass. She was just so relieved to actually be doing something and not standing around.
He glanced at the metallic banded watch on his wrist, screwed up his eyes as though making a mental calculation, and said, ‘I have some things to attend to, so we’ll say an hour’s time. In the meantime eat. I’ll send Sabina, who will show you where to go if you want to freshen up.’
His frowning scrutiny brought a self-conscious flush to Nell’s face. The last thing she wanted was to look in a mirror.
‘Who is Sabina?’ she began, but he had gone.
She did not have long to wait to find out as the Spanish woman appeared moments later carrying fresh coffee. Nell found her manner soothing as she explained in heavily accented but perfect English that she was the housekeeper.
A few sandwiches forced down, her caffeine levels topped up, her hair combed and her face washed, Nell felt a lot more like herself and able to cope…so long as she didn’t think of that kiss.
Luiz returned forty-five minutes later.
He had been to his grandmother’s sick room to explain he would be away for the rest of the day.
It was soon clear that his plan had gone even better than he had anticipated. His grandmother had been more animated than he had seen her in many weeks.
Listening to her talk about his English bride, and the grandchildren she looked forward to living long enough to see born, made him wonder if extricating himself from this fake betrothal should the need arise might not be as simple as he had predicted.
It was a problem of his own making and, ironically, one he sincerely hoped he would have to face. But though the future was still uncertain and he could not allow himself to hope, one thing was clear: Nell Frost had Doña Elena’s stamp of approval. Nell Frost, who was nowhere to be seen.
Luiz looked at the disturbed tray, and glanced around the room seeing no immediate signs of the blonde English girl. Noticing that the double doors that led into the library were wide open, he strolled through them and almost immediately found her, perched on the top steps of one of the ladders that gave access to the topmost shelves that lined the room.
Lost in a book, she did not notice his entrance and Luiz did not immediately make her aware of his presence. Instead he paused—she made an aesthetically pleasing picture, the sun filtering through the wooden shutters that covered the south-facing library windows revealing not only the golden highlights in her hair, but a great deal of the slender curves beneath the cotton dress that it rendered virtually transparent.
His response to the image was more earthy than aesthetic.
Irritated, he had to make a conscious effort to put his libido back in its box. There was a time and a place for such indulgences and this was neither… It seemed a good moment to remind himself that she was not even his type!
He liked tall, athletically built women and she barely reached his shoulder, he recalled as his glance slid down her slim bare legs.
His hooded lids came down. Not close to his type, he reminded himself.
‘A busman’s holiday?’
She jumped at the sound of his voice and slid the dusty tome balanced on her knee into the vacant space on the top shelf. She did it with the care such a rare treasure deserved, which gave her the time to gather the wits that had gone walkabout the moment she had heard his voice.
She cleared her throat and pitched her voice at a cool level, ignoring the shivery tremors in her stomach as she told him, ‘I was looking at your books.’ The book she had extracted had been the only one Nell felt able to touch without protective gloves and yet still would have been counted a gem in many collections.
Did he know, she wondered, just how many rare and precious books this room held?
‘Could you not have looked at them on ground level?’
Nell ignored the question. ‘Do you realise that there is no system here at all?’
His brows rose at the admonitory heat in her voice.
‘There are some incredibly rare books here.’
‘And it’s a great shame they belong to an unappreciative philistine?’
‘You said it.’
‘I believe my great-grandfather was something of a collector.’ Over the years he had suggested to his grandmother that the collection be catalogued, but she had considered the project a costly waste of money.
Nell’s indignation flared. That someone so uninformed should have access to such a treasure seemed sacrilege.
‘Well, he’ll be turning in his grave right now because the condition of some…’ She made a clicking noise of disapproval with her tongue and shook her head. ‘Actually it’s criminal. There are some incredibly rare—’
Luiz’s amused drawl cut across her animated protest. ‘I have rarely seen a woman display such passion for anything unless it is a designer handbag.’
Nell couldn’t let the sexist comment pass unchallenged. ‘Really, if the women you know only get excited by handbags it speaks volumes for your skill in bed, and,’ she added, thinking of her limited collection at home, ‘you probably know more about designer handbags than I do.’
Her satisfaction at delivering the cutting comeback lasted for the two seconds it took her brain to supply an image of tumbled sheets and entwined limbs, fair skin looking very pale against the dark.
It had been clearly a major error to introduce the subject of the bedroom when she was talking to this man. Nell squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the explicit mental images playing in her head.
‘I didn’t mean—’ To mentally undress you.
‘To issue a challenge?’
She opened her mouth to protest but before she could offer a hasty placatory reply he added, ‘Or cast a slur on my masculinity…’ There was something mingled with the sardonic amusement that sent a shivery surge of sensation along her nerve endings. In her eagerness to deny the suggestion Nell almost fell off her perch as she shook her head vigorously in horrified denial.
‘Be careful!’
His sharp warning echoed the voice in her own head, though the voice in her head was not so worried about falling off the ladder as the knot of excitement pulsing low in her belly!
Good God, Nell, get a grip, girl! This is what happens when you don’t have a life. You step outside your comfort zone and the first OK male you see makes your hormones go haywire.
Nell’s darting eyes connected for a split second with the dark gleaming gaze of the man below and a small sigh of alarm left her lips as adrenaline and desire surged through her. She drew back, her brows knitting in consternation as she shuffled her bottom back along the top step until she could feel the spines of the books dig into her back.
All right, better than OK.
She took a couple of calming deep breaths and injected a note of amusement into her voice as she leaned forward, her hair swinging like a bell around her face.
‘Truth told, I’m more interested in finding Lucy than exploring your male insecurities.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not that insecure.’
That was the problem, she thought.
‘Are you planning on coming down from there any time soon?’
In response to the question Nell gave a small shriek, drawn from her lips as her foot slipped. ‘Oops,’ she said as she grabbed at the rail to steady herself.
Below her she heard him growl something in husky Spanish that didn’t sound polite—not polite but very sexy. She made the rest of her descent more carefully until three steps from the ground a pair of big hands spanned her waist.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Set safely on the floor, she spun around pink-cheeked and indignant.
‘Preventing a potential accident.’
The cool explanation drew a derisive snort from Nell, or it would have if her choppy breathing had allowed anything but a faint sigh to emerge from her parted lips.
‘You shouldn’t climb ladders, Miss Frost, if you have no head for heights.’
Very conscious that his hands were still resting lightly on her waist, Nell lifted her chin and brushed a shiny skein of hair from her face.
To her intense relief Luiz’s hands fell away, but he was still standing close enough for her to feel the heat from his lean body.
‘Actually I have no problem with heights.’ Tall Spaniards with fallen angel faces were another matter.
She struggled to tear her eyes from the sternly sensual outline of his wide mobile mouth and cleared her throat as she recalled his kiss.
‘It’s these shoes.’ She glanced down at her sensible shoes and Luiz followed the direction of her gaze. ‘The soles have no grip.’
More of a grip than she had, she reflected with a small grimace of self-disgust. It was a struggle to keep focused and concentrate. Her mind kept drifting off on dangerous tangents.
And you’re not the sort of girl who has sexual fantasies, she reminded herself as she felt his steadying hand on her arm.
‘You have very small feet.’ Luiz’s glance lifted, the distracted expression she saw in his eyes vanishing as he scanned her face and added in an accusing manner, ‘Are you all right?’
She kept her eyes trained on the floor and lied through her teeth. ‘Fine.’ So the man was sexy—it wasn’t as if she had some sort of uncontrollable sex drive.
Luiz watched as a warm tide of colour rose up her slender neck until her face was aglow with colour. Moments earlier she had been deadly pale. ‘You don’t look fine.’
Her chin came up, though she continued to dodge his gaze, studying a point over his left shoulder.
‘I can’t help the way I look.’
And he, Luiz realised with a sense of shock, could not help liking the ways she looked—a lot. He had not wanted more than sex from a woman in a long time, to do so now with a woman he barely knew felt like a betrayal to Rosa’s memory. Not that there could be a comparison with his feelings now. Rosa had known him inside out and he her, they had grown up together and their bond had grown and blossomed.
‘Well, are you ready?’
Nell responded to the grouchy enquiry with a robust reminder that she was the one who had been waiting.
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