The mockery in his eyes and his tone was open now. And never before had she wanted so desperately to throw off her careful, conventional personality, cast caution to the wind and just go with what life offered her. Being careful had led to her engagement to Gavin and look where that had landed her. She shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if she hadn’t seen sense…
What life offered her now was the chance to escape with this man, this Diablo. She should grab at it with both hands. But even as she opened her mouth to do just that Carlos had tossed his helmet towards her so that she only just caught it, managing to grab it before it hit the ground at her feet.
‘Here—will that suit, señorita?’
The exasperation in his voice was making her see this situation from his point of view, and with that came a strong sense of the absurd. What must he have thought when he had come speeding down the road and seen her—a vision in white silk and lace, in jewelled slippers that were rapidly approaching the consistency of damp tissue paper? She’d chosen those slippers so that she didn’t tower over Gavin, she recalled. There would be no such need with Carlos—he must be—what—five inches—more?—taller than her five feet eight.
‘But,’ Carlos continued, a hint of amusement lightening his tone, ‘there is no way that helmet is going to fit over that…’ He gestured towards the ornate hairstyle, the veil held in place by a delicate tiara.
‘I know—so please…’
Meeting his eyes was a big mistake. With that new warmth in them, it only threatened to set off her thudding pulse all over again. Her heart kicked so hard in her chest that she felt sure he must see it under the fine silk, the delicate lace. And the rush of heat along her veins meant that her throat had dried painfully and somehow she couldn’t swallow to relieve it.
‘Do—do you think that you could help? Can you unfasten this thing?’
She lifted a hand to tug at the securely pinned veil.
‘What am I—a lady’s maid?’ he muttered, but there was no harshness in his tone. And that disturbing gleam still burned in his eyes as he came closer.
‘Just pull them out—get rid of them. If you can rip my dress to pieces then surely you can deal with some hairpins.’
A sudden shocking thrill shot through her at the thought of Carlos really ripping her dress to pieces, not just tearing off the flared skirt, and she could feel hot colour flood her face in response.
‘Por supuesto… Let me see.’
She didn’t know if it was to hold her still or to soothe her, ease away the nervous mood that was making every muscle taut with impatience, but unexpectedly he lifted a hand to her face. Softly, almost delicately, he cupped her cheek, curving his hard palm over the soft skin as he angled her head to one side, turning it so that it caught the best of what dull grey light there was.
And that action seemed to freeze her where she stood. In a day of shocks, confusion and bewilderment, the effect of that light, gentle touch was the most mind-blowing of all. It was warm and soothing, easing the restless stinging in her nerves and making her feel as if she were melting from the inside out. She wanted to turn her face into his hand, rest her cheek more firmly against his palm and just let the feelings of tension seep away.
She expected that those big hands would fumble with the task before him. That at least he would tug at some of the pins, twisting them free. She knew that she would have done that herself, particularly if she was impatient to have the job done as she sensed that he was. He might have himself carefully under control but there was a tautness in the long powerful body next to hers that communicated the fight he was having to do so. She recognised it from the tension in her own body.
What was it he had said? That he had just taken off, leaving everything behind. Leaving what behind? And where? That accent didn’t belong here on the moors of the north of England. And the tanned olive skin, the polished jet hair marked him out as someone as alien to this landscape as if some sleek, powerful jaguar had suddenly stalked the mist soaked hills. Just the thought made her gasp in reaction.
‘Qué?’
Carlos had caught the tiny indrawn breath, pausing in this task, the deep green eyes going sharply to her face and locking with her widened grey ones.
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘Oh, no. No.’
‘Hurting’ was not the word for what was happening to her. She only knew that all the nerves in her stomach were tangling into tight, uncomfortable knots, and the stinging sense of tension might have ebbed away but only to be replaced by a new hot, tingling sensation, running like electricity over her skin. A yearning that was uncoiling deep inside and that made her want to reach out to this man. Be closer to him. She wanted more of that touch. More of him.
‘I want to get out of here.’
With you. She only dared let the words echo inside her head; too afraid, too unsure to actually let them out into the air. She didn’t know what she would be unleashing if she did.
‘So let’s do this…’
Carlos’s eyes locked with hers, lingering for a darkly revealing moment, before he bent his head again, turned his attention back to the task in hand. And it seemed that with each pin that was eased from her hair, tossed with the tiniest sound of metal hitting tarmac onto the road, something in her mood, her body, her whole life lightened and eased. She felt the knots untangling from her nerves, the tension leaving her muscles so that she could stand taller, straighter, easier. Something of the horror and the pain that had slashed at her soul seeped away, filling her with a new sense of anticipation and hope.
‘So, your wedding—just why did you run out on it? What did this guy do to you?’
She didn’t know if he was asking to distract her from the time it was taking to free her from the veil or because he really wanted to know but because she couldn’t see his face and, more importantly, he couldn’t see hers, she found it surprisingly easy to answer him.
‘Why did I turn round and get out of these as fast as I could, never looking back?’ she asked, trying to bring her chin up in defiance, adopt an I-couldn’t-care-less attitude that she felt might not be fully convincing.
‘You have to admit it’s not the usual way these things go. Normally by this time the bride and groom would be…’
‘Gazing into each other’s eyes as they made their loving vows? So are you feeling sorry for my poor, deserted groom, now that his wife-to-be has run out on him? Well, don’t—he’ll be more than happy having hot, passionate sex with my chief bridesmaid—that is if he hasn’t already exhausted himself shagging her on the bed we were supposed to have shared tonight.’
‘The bastard did that?’
A blazing sense of outrage was like a wildfire in Carlos’s voice and his hands tightened in her hair, twisting sharply so that she caught back a cry of pain. But in the same moment that she felt the small discomfort in her scalp, she also knew a sudden rush of relief mixed with a surprising bubble of unexpected delight. He cared enough to be angry at what Gavin had done. His outrage was like a balm to the wounds she’d carried with her from the Hall. Some of them at least.
‘I walked in on him—on them—while they were hard at it. I walked out again pretty damn fast,’ she added with brittle flippancy. ‘I don’t think they saw me—they were… totally absorbed. I managed to get out of the place without anyone seeing me and after that I just ran and never looked back.’
Until she had reached the road across the moor and, too tired and too cold and miserable to go any further in her stupid wedding finery, she had stopped on the verge and tried to hitch a ride.
She wasn’t going to tell him the rest. She couldn’t yet even bear to look at those other words for herself and take in just what Gavin