Damn, Nico thought, he liked her spirit, even if it was extremely inconvenient. Just before he’d kissed her—an impulse he should have resisted—he’d noticed that her eyes were a dark blue-green with intriguing gold speckles. They were shadowed now, and her full mouth, scratched by his grip, was set in a straight line, her lithe figure stiff and wary.
He repressed his intensely physical reaction. Nico had learned in a hard school not to trust anyone—not even a blonde goddess with an intriguing accent, tawny-gold hair and a body that promised sensual rapture.
‘You don’t,’ he told her without hesitation. ‘Tell me what you saw.’
For several moments more her eyes challenged him, and then she made a rapid gesture, instantly cut short. ‘Movement,’ she said steadily. ‘A slow sort of glide along the base of the church.’
Had she decided to trust him? It didn’t matter. ‘Any faces?’
When she hesitated again he knew she’d seen the man he was tracking. Some poor devil, he thought grimly, would pay for releasing the ray of light that had caught Paveli’s fleshy face.
But she said nothing. He scrutinised her guarded face, and made up his mind. If she was one of Paveli’s lookouts she had to be neutralised. If she wasn’t, she was in danger. Either way, she had to be removed. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to interrupt your holiday for a few days.’
Unable to hide a flash of alarm, she stiffened. ‘It’s all right,’ he assured her, his tone casual. ‘You’ll be living in a very comfortable house with pleasant people; you just won’t be able to leave it.’
‘In other words I’ll be a prisoner,’ she said evenly.
He had to admire her refusal to be daunted and her ability to face facts. ‘I’d rather you thought of yourself as a guest,’ he said with smooth cynicism, and waited for her response.
‘Guests can leave whenever they want to,’ she retorted. ‘What is this all about?’
‘If I told you I’d have to kill you.’
How many times had she heard that tossed at someone in jest? Leola looked at the dark, formidable face of the man who’d hauled her here, and felt the hair on the back of her neck lift. She suspected he meant it.
‘You will be perfectly safe,’ he said.
‘Somehow,’ she returned cuttingly, ‘I don’t find that very reassuring.’
‘If it’s any consolation, I won’t be there.’
She shrugged, although a swift pang of apprehension tightened her nerves. ‘It would certainly be more to my liking, but I’m not going anywhere with you.’
‘If I have to I’ll tie you hand and foot, gag you and blindfold you.’ Not a threat, not a warning, just a simple statement of fact not softened by his final words. ‘I don’t want to do that.’
Apprehension intensifying into something more than fear, Leola met implacable eyes, cold as polar seas. ‘What’s the alternative?’
‘You give me your word not to scream or make a fuss.’
‘You’d accept my word?’
His smile was humourless. ‘I’ll still have to gag and blindfold you, but we could dispense with the hog-tying.’
Anger helped drown out the terror. From between her teeth she ground out, ‘I refuse to help you kidnap me. What sort of fool do you think I am?’
‘One that’s entirely too mouthy,’ he said, and kissed her—not the gentle kiss of the previous time but a full-on plundering of her mouth as though he had every right to do it, as though they were passionate lovers separated for years and at last together again.
Fire leapt through her, replacing cold panic with an emotion just as primal, just as overriding—a heady, violent desire that sang like some siren’s potent, dangerous song.
With every bit of will she possessed Leola resisted the astonishing, rising tide of passion, until she felt a sharp prick in her neck.
Stomach contracting in wild terror, she forced open her eyes to stare at him.
‘You’re going to be all right,’ he said, his voice suddenly harsh. ‘Don’t be afraid.’
The meaningless words echoed in her mind as darkness rolled over her.
Nico held her until she went limp, then looked at the man who’d come in through the secret passage. The newcomer was lowering a hypodermic.
In the local dialect Nico said, ‘Does it always work so fast?’
‘She must be very susceptible.’
‘Thank you, my friend,’ Nico said grimly. ‘How the hell did you happen to have this drug on your person?’
‘I always carry it. I am, after all, a doctor. It’s just as quick as hitting someone over the head, and less noisy.’ His companion gave a laconic grin. ‘That one would have fought all the way. You must be losing your touch.’
‘She was afraid,’ Nico said absently, looking down at her white face. Even deeply unconscious, she was beautiful. Something hot and unguarded stirred inside him; it had been too long since he’d had a lover.
Controlling it, he went on, ‘Thank you for that—we can’t afford to either waste time on her or have her caught.’
‘Do you think she is in league with Paveli?’ The doctor said the name like a curse. ‘She could have been acting as a lookout.’
Nico frowned. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps she’s his woman. We know nothing about her.’
‘Her accent says she’s a New Zealander. It seems unlikely she has anything to do with him, but she saw Paveli in the square, and she wasn’t going to tell me.’
The newcomer stared at the woman, and, moved by some feeling he didn’t explore, Nico adjusted her limp body so that her face was hidden against his chest. ‘We have to get her out of here,’ he said brusquely, and lifted her.
Fragrant against him, she lay in his arms as though she belonged there. Grimly Nico controlled his swift, fierce response and headed for the opening to the secret passage.
‘And you, my Lord, are altogether too recognisable,’ the doctor said briskly from behind.
Nico’s arms tightened around the woman in his arms. ‘So we’ll make sure she’s safe until we can ask her a few more questions.’
* * *
Leola woke to a throbbing head and a dry mouth; when she tried to lift her eyelids that hurt her head even more. Without volition she groaned.
From somewhere close by a woman said in heavily accented English, ‘You feel bad now, but soon you will be better. Drink this.’
Leola sipped greedily, then sank back into sleep, tossing restlessly as a hard-eyed Viking prowled through her dreams.
When she woke again she lay very still, forcing her sluggish brain into action. Slowly, reluctantly, it disgorged memories—her decision to go for a walk at night, and a face revealed by a flare of light. She shivered, because something about that face filled her with repugnance.
The image was replaced by another face—hard, forcefully handsome, compelling.
Ice-grey eyes, she thought, the pictures jumbling in her brain. He’d kissed her and all hell had broken loose…
Had he hit her over the head? A tentative hand revealed no sore spot there.
Drugs, then…
Dimly she remembered a sharp pain in her neck while he was kissing her. Her captor hadn’t been waving a hypodermic around, so someone else must have come up