Gift For A Lion. Sara Craven

subsided, looking hot under the collar to add to his discomfort.

      The leader appeared to be feeling the heat too, for he was unfastening the jacket of his uniform and removing it, before handing it back to one of Joanna's escorts with a muttered instruction. The jeep was climbing steeply now and the mountain was looming over them. Joanna could see the white slash of a waterfall cascading down its side and she craned her neck for a better view. Perhaps when they reached the summit of this hill they were climbing, they would see the town and she would find out if the palazzo existed or not.

      The jeep breasted the hill and Joanna leaned forward eagerly, peeping round the driver's rather portly frame. But before she had more than a fleeting glimpse of clustering red roofs somewhere below them, and the vivid gleam of the sea again beyond, something dark and muffling was thrown over her head. She cried out hysterically, trying to fight herself away from the hot, smothering folds.

      From a long way off, the leader's voice said, ‘I regret, signorina, this necessity, but you are neither to see nor to be seen. Those are my orders. You will be more comfortable if you stop this useless struggle.'

      She slumped in the seat, limp and wretched, conscious only of trying to breathe through the thick folds. It was his uniform jacket, she thought, and hoped vindictively that the seawater would ruin it.

      She lost all count of time, all idea of distance as they drove. Every jolt seemed somehow worse now that she could not see, and she was flung about at every bend because she was unable to brace herself beforehand. She felt as helpless as a baby.

      The motion changed. Everything was suddenly much bumpier. A cobbled street? she wondered. The jeep swung sharply to the left and began to climb again. Then it halted abruptly and Joanna could hear men's voices talking. They were laughing again too. At her? In spite of the stifling heat of the jacket and her fear, she was suddenly searingly angry. How dared they treat her like this? When she discovered who was responsible, she would make them sorry they were born. ‘Or perhaps they will do the same to you,’ an insidious inner voice whispered, and anger gave way again to a shudder of fear.

      An order was shouted and they were moving forward again. More cobbles. An odd sound somewhere close at hand—water splashing. Could it be a fountain? The jeep stopped.

      ‘Please to alight, signorina.’ The request was as courteous as ever.

      It was good to be on her feet again, even if her legs did threaten to betray her if she took a step.

      ‘There are some steps to climb. Giuseppe will help you.'

      She put out her hand and felt the sun-warmed stone of a wide balustrade. She lifted her foot, feeling for the edge of the step, and began to climb with Giuseppe making encouraging noises behind her.

      ‘Only one more,’ said the leader's voice. ‘We have arrived, signorina. Soon you can be comfortable again.’ He laughed. ‘There is a reception committee waiting for you.'

      And then she heard it—the sound that lifted the hair on the back of her neck as it penetrated her blind, stifling helplessness. The long low, rumbling growl of a large animal.

      The sound seemed to fill her head, pressing down on her as the blackness dipped and swooped, and Joanna heard herself scream as, for the first time in her life, she fainted.