Dearest Demon Read online

  Ordinarily Destine was unafraid of what crept and crawled, having worked in hospitals too long for her nerves to be shaken by such things, but since last night her nerves had been on a knife edge and before she could stop herself she had let out a yell.

  Almost instantly the door was thrust open behind her and when she turned to look she found herself confronted by a tall figure with water-tousled hair, a bare brown chest, and the rest of him belted into tight black trousers. For an instant her gaze was fixed upon the disc of gold that gleamed against his coppery skin, the chain on which it hung buried in the tangle of dark hair that rose almost to his throat. The taut skin across his shoulders had that burnished look of a body not long from under a cold shower, and for some reason Destine's breath caught in her throat.

  She was a nurse, and a widow, but never before had she been made so aware of the animal vitality of a male body. She saw the muscles ripple under the taut skin as their owner stepped further into the bathroom.

  'What's the matter?' he demanded. 'Why did you cry out?'

  She remembered the spider and suddenly felt as foolish as a schoolgirl. She gestured towards the bottom of the bath, for there was nothing else she could do.

  His gaze followed the direction of her fingers, and she didn't dare to meet his eyes when they swivelled to her face. 'And that's why you screamed?' His tone of voice was utterly sardonic. 'I thought at least that a snake had crawled in.'

  'You would,' she rejoined. 'The thing took me by surprise, that's all. I'm not normally an hysterical fool, and you must admit that it's rather larger than the variety we have in England.'

  'Perhaps,' he drawled, and bending over the bath he lifted the spider in the palm of his hand and carried it to the win­dow. He tossed it out, and then turned to look steadily at Destine. She looked back at him and suppressed the shiver that ran through her as she saw the sun reflected on his face. It wasn't his scar alone that made her feel like screaming again—it was the look he had of Manolito de Obregon. Tall like he was, supple as fine steel, almost black-eyed; eyes in which the night could lose itself.

  'I understand that you have seen the Marquesa,' he said, and his voice had a sudden edge to it. 'She has asked you to stay, eh?'

  'Yes.' Destine had to look away from him, and instantly, in a single stride, he was across the bathroom and she gasped as he gripped her chin with his fingers and forced her face upwards, so that she had to look at him whether she liked it or not.

  'If you stay, Nurse Chard, each day you will see this face of mine. It makes you shudder, eh? Makes you want to turn away? Well, the choice is yours—I can drive you to the station right now and you need never see me again. Last night you begged me to do that.'

  'I know,' she said. 'I want to go and yet—yet I feel I should stay, for a while. It isn't only that I have a duty as a nurse, but—'

  'But you're curious about a family that seems to have a direct bearing on your own unhappiness. You want the answer to why your husband had to die, and you think you might find it here. Am I right?'

  'Perhaps.' She blinked her lashes in an attempt to avoid his eyes; never in her life had she seen eyes so impenetrably dark, so that to look into them was like losing herself. 'I don't know—it's all so mixed up, and if I run away I might hate myself for a coward.'

  'Instead you are going to stay and hate me?' There was a dry note in his voice, and his fingers gripped her chin a little tighter so that her gaze was fixed upon his face. 'Take a good look at me in the daylight, Nurse Chard. Last night you said a strange thing, that I was Manolito resurrected for you—it could almost be true, for when they carried him from that bullring at Seville his handsome face had been ripped open and had he lived—but he didn't. He paid his price, as we all must. Go away, Nurse! Go back to your England and try to forget—'

  'Forget!' She looked at him with blazing blue eyes. 'You could never have loved anyone, if you think it's so easy to forget—a smile, a way of talking together, a sense of belong­ing. What are you? A man of iron?'

  'Then stay!' He said it harshly and let go of her so abruptly that she felt unbalanced and fell back against the wall and knocked her shoulder. She winced, but his face remained implacable. 'There is a saying, señora, that if you choose to reside with dragons then you must prepare yourself to be burned. I shall see you later 'no doubt'.

  He strode to the door and with a brief inclination of his dark head was gone, leaving Destine to nurse her shoulder. All the hate that had accumulated in her heart in the past two years was now directed at him; it had had to find an outlet and now it found one. Her eyes burned with all that pent-up hatred… she was in no doubt that this cousin of Manolito de Obregon was the same arrogant type, going his own way without a care for anyone in his path. So sure of the strength of his own body… so certain that his heart could never be touched.

  Destine swung to the mirror that was attached to the bathroom wall and she stared for a long time at her own face. With a strange sense of detachment she saw again what Matt had seen when he was alive, the eyes that were a true blue without a hint of grey or green in them. The hair that was like silver-gilt, framing the good skin and the shapely features of her face.

  With that face, and that slim body, she would like to punish the arrogant cousin who was so alike to Manolito de Obregon. Such men thought themselves immune from feelings of love. They thought of it as an emotion for weak fools… how she would like to prove that arrogance could be brought to its knees by what it sneered at.

  Forget! He had said it as he might say any casual thing. Forget that Matt was killed on their wedding day, all his hopes and desires ended in a moment, even as the sun shone and a tiny bell of confetti fell from Destine's sleeve as she ran to rejoin him, clutching the handbag that for a fateful moment in time had taken her away from him.

  Destine's eyes reflected in the mirror were as hard as gems in that moment. She would like to teach Don Cicatrice what it felt like to love someone, and then lose them. She would like to take his heart, and break it.

  When she returned to her room after her bath she found that a tray of bacon and eggs, and a pot of tea, had been placed on the balcony table. The floor-length windows stood open and the sunlight was flooding in over the oriental patterns of the carpets. The bed had been straightened, and her suitcase stood on a stool waiting to be unpacked.

  Well, she couldn't spend today in the rumpled trouser-suit in which she had slept… again she glanced at the bed and wondered why it was that she couldn't remember leaving the cane chair last night to clamber on the bed. Was it possible that she had been put there? Had those hard coppery arms of Don Cicatrice lifted her and carried her to the bed while she was deeply asleep?

  He would find her weight no problem, and that he was as complex as hell she didn't doubt for one moment. It would never be the emotion of kindness that motivated any of his actions; if he had come to this room last night and seen her asleep in the chair he would merely have thought it the sensible thing to place her on the bed. God, how silently he must move, how adroit must be his movements if he could carry her from the chair to the bed and not disturb her. Had he, in his irony, thought that if he woke her she might be scared by his face?

  Destine unlocked her suitcase and began to search for fresh clothes. Yes, she had a choice, she could stay or she could leave. 'Will they expect me to wear a uniform?' she had asked her godmother. The Condesa had smiled and shaken her head. 'These people are not conventional,' she had replied. 'You will be surprised by them.'

  Surprised was hardly the appropriate word. Destine shook out a dark blue dress trimmed with white, of a material that didn't crease, and a few minutes later she was wearing it and had combed her hair into a smooth chignon that left the line of her temples, jaw and throat looking clear and uncluttered, and yet not severe.

  She ate her breakfast in the sunlight, and had just finished off with a tangerine when the young maid came to collect the tray. The girl had evidently been told that the English tata spoke g
ood Spanish, for she made no attempt to speak any English and told Destine in a swift flow of words that the Marquesa would like to see her if she was now quite ready, so that she could meet the Señora Cosima.

  Destine followed the girl, nerves braced for her first en­counter with the young woman who had no idea that her brother had caused as much havoc to Destine's life as the attack of polio had caused to hers. They went down the curving flight of stairs to the arcaded hall, where from the cool white cloisters a tall figure suddenly appeared in their path.

  'Go along to the kitchen, Pepita,' he said. 'I wish to have a few words with the nurse, and then I will take her to Tia Felicitas.'

  The girl cast a rather frightened look at him, Destine noticed, and then with a bob and a rush she was gone, and he gave a brief sardonic laugh. 'Each time we break in a new maid—these girls will marry as soon as they possibly can—she brings with her a dozen superstitions regarding myself. Did you know that when Lucifero fell from grace and was hurled from heaven, he struck his face and was henceforth marked? Well, it's one of the many colourful yarns that country people spin, and girls will be girls—will they not, Nurse Chard?'

  As he spoke he lounged against one of the tiled pillars that supported the arcade, and there was something more disturbing about him than Destine cared to admit to herself. He wore a white shirt that made his skin seem Arab-dark, and that look of indolent strength was more flagrant by daylight than it had been in the darkness. He wore the night like a mask, but now she saw him revealed as a man in his early thirties, with not a hint of sympathy or tenderness in that satanically marked face.

  'What do you want, señor?' she asked. 'I don't like to keep your aunt waiting.'

  'All I want is your assurance that you won't say things to upset Tia Felicitas. If you are going to stay here, then you promise me that you say nothing about your husband having died because of Manolito. It would be too cruel to a woman who has suffered—'

  'Don't you think I've suffered?' Destine asked quietly.

  'You are young,' he said, and his eyes were quite unrelent­ing as they took in her slender figure in—the dark blue dress piped with white around the collar, the piping extending down the front of the dress to the hem. 'And I'm sure you know that you are attractive, and your life can begin again. But the Marquesa must live on her memories, and grief has softened those and I don't want them made harsh for her. If you hurt that woman in any way—' He took a step towards Destine and automatically she backed away from him, seeing his lips curl as he took her retreat for the usual feminine reaction to his scar. 'I think you and I understands each other, don't we?'

  It was her turn to look him up and down, and she did so deliberately. 'You have judged me, señor, and now I will judge you. You have taken me for a widow on the lookout for a rich protector—am I supposed to mistake you for the muy rico hombre?'

  'It might be a mistake if you took me for the usual fool, likely to be dazzled by your hair and your blue eyes,' he drawled.

  'Why should I want to dazzle you?' she asked. 'I should imagine it would be like trying to strike a match against a piece of steel.'

  'So long as you know,' he said, a curl to his lips. 'I shouldn't wish you to dwell under the delusion that you can make blue eyes at me and imagine I shall take it for anything more than hate, or pity.'

  She stared at him, and felt a strange stab at the heart. 'I can't imagine any woman feeling pity for you, señor' she said. 'The idea is fantastic!'

  'Is it equally fantastic that any woman should love me?' he queried, and again he took a step in her direction, and this item, before she knew it, she was backed into an angle of one of the arcades, the curves at either side of her, and he in front of her, tall, mocking, careless of anyone's feelings towards him, whether it be hate or love.

  'Women aren't put off by scars,' she said, looking up at him with defiance in her vivid blue eyes. 'They're only skin deep—it's what is inside a man that matters. You exaggerate all reaction to your face—you use it as a weapon to keep people at bay. You don't like people, do you?'

  'Were you trained to nurse the mind as well as the body?' he asked drily. 'You presume to know a lot about me on such short acquaintance.'

  'You presume the same,' she rejoined.

  'Why?' His dark eyes ran over her hair and dwelt on the streak of sheer silver that ran through it. 'Is the needle still pricking because I said that your hair was dyed? For that I apologise, but after seeing so many peroxide blondes on the beaches of Spain I presumed that a real blonde would be as rare as the smile on the face of the Mona Lisa.'

  'It isn't only English women who like Spanish beaches, señor? she said stiffly.

  'Maybe not.' He shrugged his shoulders as if he had little time to spare for any of the European women who came to Spain for their summer tan. 'I really couldn't care less, except to say that many of them are an eyesore in their skimpy bathing suits over bulging bottoms and breasts. But that is beside the point—I must exact from you a promise that you will be discreet about the part my cousin played in your life. If I can't have that promise, then you must go, Nurse Chard.'

  'You speak as if you have the authority to drive me out,' she said. 'Surely this is the Marquesa's home?'

  'Yes, but I am in charge of the running of it.'

  'Head cook and bottle washer,' Destine couldn't help saying. 'The dueño who cracks the whip.'

  'Exactly,' he drawled. 'Again we understand each other. My aunt has enough to concern her without the worry of minor things, such as the employment of staff. As I told you last night, I was against an English nurse being hired, but it is true that Cosima has not shown much improvement in the hands of the nurses she has so far had. It is all in the mind, of course. She's unbearably unhappy and so it affects her physical condition. If you can do anything to help Cosima, then it will be a small miracle. You may try, Nurse Chard, if you make me that promise.'

  'Did you really imagine, señor, that I was going to dash into your aunt's presence, crying out that her son killed my husband?' Destine stood there against the white stone, defiant of him, and yet made strangely nervous of the lithe, ruthless strength of his body, and the cynical contempt he seemed to have for women who weren't Latin. She had heard of the way European women cheapened themselves with Spaniards, almost unaware that the dash of the Moor in these men made the crude flaunting of the body almost a sign that any woman who did it was little better than a woman who sold herself.

  Colour stung her cheeks… there was something about him, a hard pride and self-sufficiency that made her feel cheap for having thought that she could use her looks to make a fool of him. Her eyes skimmed that fearful scar that had been inflicted when he was a teenager.

  'A woman out for vengeance is as dangerous as a woman scorned,' he said. 'Last night you couldn't wait to leave the casa. This morning you decide to stay. It would hardly be unnatural that I wonder about your change of mind. What is on your mind, Nurse Chard? Some form of revenge against Manolito's family?'

  'No!' But she said it too sharply, too defiantly, and in­stantly his eyes had narrowed until they had a cruel, glittering look. His hand reached out and closed on her shoulder, and she felt the pressure of his fingers all the way through her.

  'No,' she said again. 'What a thing to suggest—I'm not like that!'

  'Aren't you?' He stared down into her eyes. 'You're a woman, and only a fool would ever presume to know all that goes on in a woman's mind. It twists and turns like a serpent in the garden itself, and it's been that way since Adam fell a victim to feminine wiles. Be careful, Nurse. I am on to you, and I wouldn't hesitate to break your white neck if you did anything to hurt the Marquesa. She has had her share of pain, and she means more to me than any lily-white creature like you—you're little more than a girl, and you have had no taste, yet, of real passion. You see, you flinch from the word! Everything is permissive where you come from—everything but the passion that springs from a total giving. You take from the moment you are born, but yo
u never give. Yours is an acquisitive society tinged with malice… so what is it that suddenly makes it bearable for you to stay here, señora?'

  She stared back at him and just couldn't find the words to explain with. Was he right… was it sheer malice that made her want to stay in this house with these people who had been Manolito de Obregon's closest relatives?

  'Well, Nurse?' His fingers slid deliberately around her slim neck, pressing against her skin so that she felt the hard tips of his hand, and the masculine warmth that seemed to penetrate to her blood. 'Has your tongue suddenly lost itself?'

  'Do you always know what motivates your actions?' she asked him. 'Are you that sure of yourself, señor?'

  'No.' He shook his head and his glinting eyes dwelt on her lips, only lightly coloured, curving against her pale skin. 'You lost your husband on your wedding day, eh?'

  'Yes—' She shuddered at the memory… at the touch of Manolito's cousin.

  'Then can you wonder that I ask if you bear malice to­wards us?' Still he spoke in that unpitying voice. 'It would not be surprising if you did.'

  'Perhaps you are afraid to let me stay,' she said.

  'Afraid—for myself?' He gave a scoffing smile and swept his eyes up and down her body. 'Do you plan to take on the role of Delilah? May I say that you are hardly built for it.'

  'I—I shouldn't want to seduce you,' she gasped, denying what had crossed her mind, and seeing in his eyes a cynical, masculine awareness that made her feel gauche, and at a dis­advantage. She tried to break free of him, and instantly, with a reflex that was animal in its swiftness, his other arm curled around her and he brought her painfully close to his hard warmth of body; the torso bare and brown under the white shirt, legs long and muscled in the black trousers that fitted close like a skin.