CHAPTERSIX
The woman, Florentia Nunez, pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped into the bedroom. She smiled to see Carly out of bed, sitting in the straight-backed chair beside it.
“You are feeling better, no?” She carried a tray steaming with coffee and hot rolled up tortillas, and her plump cheeks held a glow of warmth.
“Yes, I am. Much better. I was wondering… I’d like to get dressed. I was hoping someone might loan me something to wear.” It had been over a week since the don had left. The last two days Carly had prowled around the house, having regained much of her strength, but she had yet to go outside. She wasn’t certain they would let her.
“Si,of course, senorita.” The housekeeper’s nod jiggled several of her beefy chins. “I have already seen to the clothes. I will just go now and get them.” She set the tray down on the dresser and left the room, returning a few moments later with a long, gathered, bright yellow cotton skirt and an off-the-shoulder white peasant blouse. She set them down on the bed, along with a pair of flat leather sandals.
“I hope they will fit you. I borrowed them from Miranda Aguilar, then shortened the skirt a little and took in the waist. Pedro made the shoes.”
“You and Senor Sanchez… you have both been very kind.” She hadn’t expected it. She’d been sure she’d be treated badly. “Especially considering that I am Don Ramon’s prisoner.”
The rotund woman smiled. “You are Don Ramon’s special guest. That is what he has said.”
Special guest. That was almost funny. She wondered what the black-haired devil had in store for her when he returned. “I’d still like to thank you. You cared for me, perhaps even saved my life.”
“That is not completely true. Mostly it was the don. I tended your personal needs, but it was Don Ramon who had the Indian woman brought from the village. He was the one who—”
A knock at the door interrupted what she might have said next. Waddling toward the door, the heavy woman opened it and waved in two young boys carrying buckets of steaming hot water.
Carly surveyed the water and sighed. “Gracias,Senora Nunez. I have never seen a more welcome sight.”
“I am only just Florentia, as I have said. And a nice warm bath will do wonders.”
It did. She even washed her hair. She was sitting on the bed, trying to comb out the tangles when a second knock sounded at the door. She glanced up just as the don walked in.
Carly’s stomach knotted, but the Spaniard only smiled. It was a different sort of smile than she expected, the same sort he had worn the first time she had met him. An uneasy shiver slid through her.
“Senorita McConnell,” he said, “I see you are feeling much better.”
She looked at his handsome face and her insides twisted. She knew that face, how those handsome features could turn cold and hard, how those eyes could bore into you without an ounce of compassion. Her mind flashed with images of the night she’d been taken from Rancho del Robles, of her brutal journey through the mountains. She imagined what a man like thatmight do to her next, and a tendril of fear rippled through her. The don must have seen it for the smile slid from his face.
“I am sorry. I did not come here to frighten you. What happened before… it was a mistake. A very bad one. You will come to no harm here. I hope you believe that.”
Carly came up off the bed, angry at herself for allowing him to see her weakness, even more angry at him. “Why should I? Why should I believe anything a man like you has to say?”
“Because it is the truth.”
She remembered the cold nights she’d spent in the mountains, the ruthless way he had forced her to march through the hills. Fear niggled at her insides. Carly lifted her chin. “I don’t believe you. You’re vile—despicable—an outlaw and probably a murderer. Whatever your reasons for seeing to my care, they only have to do with your own selfish plans.”
His eyes remained fixed on her face. “If I were you, I would feel the same way. Perhaps in time, you will see that is not the way it is.”
Carly pondered that. She didn’t believe him, not for an instant. “If what you say is true, why the sudden change of heart? I’m still the woman I was. The woman you despise. The woman you hold responsible for the death of—”
“Do not say it, for it is not so.” The skin across his high cheekbones went taut. A subtle tension moved over his tall, solid frame. “I am the one at fault,” he said softly. “It is not usually my way to blame others for sins of my own making.”
There was something in his eyes, something she had seen there before, a bleakness shadowed by pain, but this time it was not overridden by anger. And it seemed to be directed inward, at himself, not at her.
Carly knew what it meant to lose a loved one. The heartbreak, the hollow place that would never again be filled. Her family was gone. Her sister, her father, her mother. It hurt just to think of it.It bothered her to imagine he might be feeling the same sort of pain, and a sweep of pity moved through her.
She ruthlessly forced it down. A man like the don didn’t deserve her pity. He wouldn’t even want it.
“Florentia says that I am your guest. If that is so, then I appreciate your generosity, Don Ramon, but I would prefer to end my stay. There is much that needs attending to back at Rancho del Robles, and I’m certain my uncle will be worried about me.”
A corner of his mouth curved up. “You have never impressed me as a fool,chica.Surely you must know that I cannot let you leave.”
Carly smiled grimly. “Then surelyyoumust know that I am not your guest. I am your prisoner. There is a great deal of difference.”
