Dark Ransom

‘I don’t think that concerns you.’

‘Then I have my answer.’

‘I don’t see why you needed to ask the question,’ Charlie said with a slight snap.

His brows lifted. ‘You are staying in my house,’ he pointed out with deceptive mildness. ‘Am I not, then, permitted a certain curiosity about you?’

‘As our acquaintance will be short, probably not.’

‘Sometimes when the storms are bad we are trapped here for weeks,’ he said softly, and laughed at her alarmed expression.

She said crossly, ‘My entire holiday has been spoiled, and you think it’s funny.’

‘I am not altogether amused.’ He drew on his cheroot. ‘As for the ruin of your vacation—well, I shall have to try and make that up to you in some way.’

‘Please don’t put yourself to any further trouble,’ Charlie said dispiritedly. She had more or less abandoned hope of seeing the Manoela or her luggage again, and thanked her stars that she’d been travelling light. When she got back to Mariasanta, she thought, she would catch any boat that offered to Manaus, and spend the rest of her holiday in the civilised confines of Rio.

‘So, in England, Carlotta, where do you live?’

‘In the south.’ She paused. ‘If you must call my by my first name, I’m generally known as Charlie.’

‘Charlie?’ he repeated. ‘But that is a man’s name.’

Charlie shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, that’s what they call me.’

‘And who are “they”?’

‘My family—friends—the people I work for. Well, not all of them,’ she amended with a slight sigh, remembering Mrs Hughes.

‘You live in a city?’

‘Heavens, no. In quite a small town—what we call a market town.’

‘And what is this work you do?’

The Inquisition is alive, well, and living in Brazil, she thought resignedly.

‘I look after people,’ she said shortly.

His brows lifted. ‘It must be very well paid—if you can afford a vacation such as this.’

‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime trip,’ she said. ‘From now on I’ll stick to the Greek Islands. I’ve never been abducted there.’

‘You still claim that is what happened.’ His smile annoyed her.

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ she returned with something of a snap.

‘Without a doubt.’ There was a trace of grimness in his tone. ‘So, where did you meet with Fay? In this market town of yours?’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘I met her here in Brazil—on the Manoela. She boarded at Manaus. I’d joined the boat at Belém.’

He examined his cheroot as if it fascinated him. ‘So, you had never met before, and you were just … travelling companions. Tell me, did you find a great deal to talk about together?’

‘Not really,’ Charlie said wryly. ‘We didn’t actually have a great deal in common.’

Fay certainly hadn’t been a woman’s woman, she thought, and he must know that. On the other hand, perhaps he just needed to talk about her.

She found herself saying awkwardly, ‘She was very beautiful. I—I hope you aren’t too disappointed …’ She hesitated, aware that she was getting into deep water.

He said silkily, ‘Are you asking if I was in love with her? The answer is no. Does that set your mind at rest?’

Why should it? Charlie wondered, discreetly smothering a yawn with her hand. His private life was none of her business. She’d just been trying to make conversation.

But now the events of the day, coupled with the meal she had eaten, were beginning to catch up with her, and she felt desperately sleepy.

She drank the rest of her coffee, and pushed back her chair. She said politely, ‘I’d like to go to my room now, if you don’t mind.’ She gave him a strained smile. ‘Boa noite.’

He flicked some ash from the end of his cheroot. ‘Até logo, Carlotta.’

She wasn’t familiar with the phrase, but presumed it meant ‘sleep well’.

She said, ‘I hope so very much,’ and forced another smile.

In the bedroom a lamp had been lit beside the bed, and the covers had been turned down. In addition to the mesh screens, shutters had been drawn across the windows.

Charlie thought sadly about her light cotton pyjamas on board the Manoela. She’d noticed there were no nightgowns among the froth of silk and lace lingerie that Riago da Santana had provided for his lover.

‘Surplus to requirements, I suppose,’ she muttered. But, whatever the world did, she just wasn’t used to sleeping in the nude. It was just another aggravating aspect of this whole miserable mess, she thought as she slid under the fine linen sheet, determinedly closing her eyes.

Yet she found sleep elusive. The rain seemed to have stopped, but the air was warm and still, as if threatening more storms, and this made her uneasy. She’d pushed away the elaborately embroidered coverlet, wrapping herself in the sheet alone.

‘Relax,’ she told herself impatiently. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

And, even as she accepted her own reassurance, the door opened and Riago da Santana sauntered into the room.

CHAPTER THREE

PARALYSED, CHARLIE WATCHED him approach and sit down on the edge of the bed. Riago da Santana was carrying, she noticed, the whisky bottle and two glasses.

He said, ‘I’ve brought you a nightcap, Carlotta. Isn’t that the English custom?’

‘Yes—I mean, I don’t know.’ Charlie tried to slide further under the sheet, without making it too obvious. She said, her voice croaking a little, ‘I don’t really want another drink—thank you, senhor.’

‘But you won’t object if I have one?’ He poured out some whisky, and drained the glass with one swift, practised movement of his wrist.

He was, she realised, far from drunk. But he wasn’t stone-cold sober either. And, drunk or sober, he spelled trouble that she didn’t feel equipped to deal with.

He put the bottle down on the chest beside the bed, and began to unbutton his shirt under her horrified gaze.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She hardly recognised her own voice.

‘Taking off my clothes.’ His eyes slid insolently the length of her sheet-veiled body. ‘Don’t you undress before you go to bed, carinha?’ The look, as well as the tone of his voice, told her that he knew the answer to that already. The damned sheet clung.

She made herself meet his glance firmly and directly. ‘Then I’d prefer you to continue undressing in your own room.’

‘This is my room.’

They were the words she’d been dreading, and her stomach lurched in panic. But she tried not to show it. ‘Then maybe you’d be good enough to call Rosita, and get her to make me up a bed somewhere else.’

‘No, querida, I shall not be “good enough”.’ He gave the words a jeering emphasis. ‘You are where you belong, as we both know, although it seems to please you to play the innocent.’ He shrugged off his shirt and tossed it to the floor. He grinned at her, and ran his fingers with calculating delicacy along the top hem of the sheet, just not touching her bare skin. ‘It has been an amusing game, in its way, but now I require a different kind of entertainment from you.’

She slapped the marauding hand away. ‘How dare you?’

Sighing, he began to unbuckle his belt. ‘A little modesty can be charming,’ he said. ‘But too much becomes tedious.’ He stripped off his trousers and threw them after the shirt. ‘You will find me generous, Carlotta,’ he added almost casually. ‘But don’t imagine a show of reluctance will force up the price I’m prepared to pay.’

For a moment Charlie thought she could hear thunder again, but it was only the beat of her own heart, harsh and erratic, filling her head, filling her mind, making it impossible for her to think coherently, to act …

But she had to—had to. She should make a run for it, she thought wildly, but the enveloping sheet was wound round her like the tendrils of some man-eating plant. And, if she could scramble free of it, where could she go, naked and barefoot? She was in the middle of a jungle, miles from any help she could count on.

Somehow, somehow she would have to reason with him.

She sounded young and very breathless. ‘Senhor—you’re making a terrible mistake. I don’t—I’m not …’ She gulped some of the hot, languid air and tried again. ‘I … just met Fay Preston on the boat. I agreed to deliver a letter, that’s all. I—I had no idea …’ Her voice faltered as she saw his cynical grin, because that wasn’t the exact truth, and she knew it.

He said silkily, ‘And you just … happened to ask for me at the hotel—and then you … happened to go with my men? A whole series of mistakes. Is that how it was?’

She nodded desperately. ‘Yes. Oh, how can I make you believe me?’

‘You cannot,’ he said succinctly. ‘And this pretence of yours wearies me.’ The dark eyes glittered dangerously down at her. ‘Especially when there are other … more pleasurable ways of achieving exhaustion, querida.’ His hands moved to his hips to strip off his remaining covering, and Charlie twisted on to her side, cursing the strangling sheet, closing her eyes almost convulsively. She felt the mattress dip as he came to lie beside her.

She said huskily, ‘If you touch me I’ll scream.’

‘And who is there to hear you—or to care?’ Impatience mingled with amusement in his voice. ‘I hope you have strong lungs, carinha, because I intend to touch every inch of you.’

‘Oh, God.’ Her voice cracked. ‘You don’t even want me …’

He laughed. ‘Ah, does that rankle with you, my little one? I regret if my reaction was less than tactful when we first met. I promise I am becoming more reconciled to your presence with every moment that passes.’

Strong, deft hands rid her of the encircling sheet and gathered her into his arms.

Charlie’s mind and body recoiled from the contact in shocked outrage. Her sole experience of men so far had been a few fumbling kisses at parties, generally from those who’d been unable to get to Sonia and were salving their disappointment. Charlie had put up with them politely, but there had never been any stir in her blood, no chemical reaction with any of them to cause her the slightest regret when they had walked away, as they inevitably had.

All she knew of sex was what she’d learned in school biology lessons. And now, in a few shattering moments, that safe, sheltered world had been destroyed. She was in bed with a man—a stranger, naked in his arms, the hard urgency of his flesh against hers spelling out an imperative message even her innocence could interpret.

Oh, God, this couldn’t be happening to her. It couldn’t …

Some still, cold voice in her head warned her not to fight him. He was infinitely stronger than she was, the muscles in his shoulders and arms like whipcord. If she struggled then he might respond with violence, and she would be damaged—emotionally, at least—forever.

Whereas if she … let him …

If she closed off her mind, her senses and her emotions—everything that went to make up the real Charlotte Graham—then nothing could really happen to her. She could stop thinking … stop feeling … retreat to some hidden place inside herself and wait until the storm was over.

It was just a meaningless physical act that was going to take place. It couldn’t touch her as a person at all.

He said softly, ‘How sweet you feel, querida. How smooth and cool, like water in a desert.’ His hand captured her chin, turning her face up to his, and he kissed her on the mouth, his lips warm and tinglingly sensuous.

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