‘Out, please,’ she said, suddenly longing for the warmth of the sun. ‘I should go and check on the boys first, though.’
‘They’re in good hands,’ he stated flatly. ‘How can they be expected to achieve the independence necessary to their future welfare if you’re constantly with them?’
‘They’re four years old,’ she returned, ‘not fourteen!’
‘But no longer infants at the breast.’ He watched the colour come up in her cheeks with derision in the line of his mouth. ‘You find the allusion distasteful?’
‘I find your whole attitude degrading,’ she parried with an effort.
‘That was not the intention. I have your welfare at heart too. You have a life of your own to live, Lauren. Not just as a mother but as a woman, with a woman’s needs.’
His voice had softened again in that disconcerting, heart-vibrating manner of his. She found herself transfixed by the dark eyes, stomach muscles contracting.
‘I don’t need you to tell me how I should live my life,’ she said huskily. ‘I’ll do as I think fit. Right now, I’d like to see how my sons are getting on.’
Rafael made no immediate answer, just continued to study her with that same narrowed intensity. When he did speak his tone was unexpectedly mild. ‘As you prefer.’
They found boys and nurse playing a form of quoits in a small grassed courtyard. Neither César nor Nicolás appeared to have missed her at all, Lauren was bound to acknowledge, and she tried without success to stifle the pang. Rafael was probably right in that too much of her life revolved around the twins. She had to learn to loosen up.
‘I think I’d like that coffee now,’ she said on a subdued note after watching the game for a few minutes. ‘They’re obviously doing fine.’
There was no element of ‘I told you so’ in the glance Rafael gave her. He wouldn’t, she thought, waste his time on such petty emotions. A man of strong opinions and even stronger will, but one whose basic integrity was in no doubt.
‘We’ll have it served here,’ he said, indicating a cast-iron bench seat set against the near wall. ‘Sit there in the sun while I go and arrange it.’
Lauren did so, watching him go back indoors again with a dawning suspicion that this was where he had intended bringing her in the first place. Nicolás broke away from his game to come over to where she sat, his eyes shining with health and high spirits.
‘We like it here, Mummy,’ he announced, speaking collectively as always. ‘Are you having a good time too?’
‘Of course,’ she assured him. ‘I’m having a lovely time!’
Hypocrite! she told herself as the child scampered back to join his brother. Only what else could she have said on the face of it? Perhaps if she tried a little harder to get along with Rafael, she would start to find some enjoyment in this holiday after all.
Wheeled out on a trolley, the coffee arrived before he returned. There was also a jug of orange juice for the children. Elena accepted the cup Lauren poured for her without demur, but smilingly declined to take the seat also proffered, sitting down instead on the grass with the boys some distance away.
In her simple cotton dress, with her black hair rippling down her back and her face free of make-up, she looked no more than sixteen. Her parents and brother, Rafael had said, were also in his employment. No doubt, Lauren reflected, jobs here at the castle carried a certain prestige.
‘I must apologise for leaving you so long,’ he said when he did return some minutes later. ‘There was a telephone call I had to make.’
‘If you have business to attend to, I’ll be perfectly all right on my own,’ she assured him.
‘The matter is taken care of,’ he returned easily. ‘We have yet to take a walk along the battlements. From there you can see everything there is to be seen.’
Including a long drop, she thought with an inward shudder. The sensible thing would be to admit to her acrophobia, of course, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. Only those who suffered the same symptoms could be relied upon to appreciate the fear.
With their juice finished, the children returned to their game. César in particular was proving to have a very good eye for distance, ringing the stake on several throws. Nicolás showed no concern over his brother’s superior performance. Jealousy was an emotion unknown between the two. Eventually, Lauren knew, they would become bored with the game and start seeking further challenge, but for the present they seemed content. Happy, certainly, to be left in Elena’s charge again.
Rafael took her up to the top of the keep via the same spiral staircase leading to her own room, bypassing both her floor and the next to emerge eventually on to a stone square not nearly large enough to afford Lauren any real sense of security. She felt the familiar tingling sensation in her ankles as she stood there gazing out through the battlements at the magnificent vista, the mounting terror at the very thought of moving away from the central block.
‘It’s possible to see Ronda itself from this side,’ said Rafael, crossing over. ‘Come, take a look.’
Somehow, she forced her legs to move, to carry her forward until she stood at his side before an embrasure that afforded a bare two feet of protection from the dizzying emptiness beyond. She was going to fall! she thought desperately. She could feel the trembling weakness spreading up through her knees, hear the buzzing in her ears.
She must have made some sound, for Rafael turned his head to look at her, taking in her white face and rigid jaw with instant comprehension. His arm came around her to draw her back from the parapet to the comparative safety of the central block again, holding her close until the trembling began to abate.
‘Why did you not tell me how you felt about heights?’ he grated in her ear. ‘Why did you allow me to bring you up here?’
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered shakily. ‘It was silly of me, I suppose.’
‘Foolish to the point of stupidity. There’s no shame in acknowledging such a frailty. A matter of balance, no more.’
Her balance, Lauren thought, was disrupted in more ways than the one at the moment. She was intensely aware of the hard muscularity of his body, of the warmth and security of the arms curving her back. Her face was on a level with his throat, bared by the open collar of his shirt. She knew a sudden and almost irresistible urge to put her lips to the smooth olive skin—to know the taste of him, the smell of him. Francisco had been dead only three months, but it was more than two years since he had touched her. Not that she had wanted him to make love to her, knowing by then how many other women there had been, but her body still craved the fulfilment denied it.
‘I’ll be all right now,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m not going to pass out, or anything.’
Rafael drew back his head to look into her face, eyes black as night and twice as impenetrable. ‘You feel capable of descending the steps?’
‘If you go first,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.’
Something sparked in his eyes for a fleeting moment as he looked at her, shortening her breath and causing her limbs to tremor anew, then he released her. ‘Keep close at my back until we reach the lower floor,’ he instructed. ‘Hands on my shoulders as we descend.’
The steps were steep and narrow at this point, the spiral tight. Lauren was sure she would never have made it down again on her own without tumbling head first. The broad shoulders felt steady as rocks beneath her hands. Reaching the floor below, she drew a breath of pure relief. From here, as from her own floor, the steps were both wider and shallower, with handrails to grasp. She could negotiate those without difficulty.
Rafael made